TODAY IN GOD:
RELIGION NEWS BITES FOR YOUR SNACKING PLEASURE
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Billy Graham in fair condition after recurrence of bleeding

ASHEVILLE, N.C. – Evangelist Billy Graham remained in fair condition Tuesday, a day after experiencing a second episode of intestinal bleeding at a hospital near his home in the mountains of western North Carolina, a hospital spokeswoman said.

Graham, 88, had “an uneventful, good night” after the Monday morning episode, and his condition was unchanged Tuesday morning, said Merrell Gregory, a spokeswoman for Mission Health & Hospitals in Asheville.

Graham has been hospitalized since experiencing an initial bout of intestinal bleeding on Saturday. No date has been set for his release.

Graham, who suffers from a variety of ailments including Parkinson’s disease and age-related macular degeneration, has been largely confined to his western North Carolina home in recent years. His wife, Ruth Bell Graham, died in June following a lengthy illness.
SOURCE: AP VIA DALLAS MORNING NEWS

‘Muslim Live 8’ show for Darfur
A Live 8-style concert to help tackle the humanitarian crisis in Darfur will be put on by British Muslims.

Organisers said that they hoped the event at Wembley Arena in London on 21 October would be a sell-out.

They added that it was “shameful” that Muslims were not as concerned about the conflict in Sudan as they were by bloodshed elsewhere, such as Iraq.

More than 2 million people have been left homeless in Darfur since fighting broke out in 2003 when rebels took up arms.

Jehangir Malik, the UK national fundraising manager of Islamic Relief, said the concert would celebrate Eid at the end of Ramadan.

He added: “We are going for our own equivalent of Live 8.

“It will be people trying to raise funds and raise the profile. We should hopefully see a sell-out and it will be a milestone.”
FOR THE FULL STORY (BBC NEWS) CLICK HERE

Sri Lankan Monk Slammed for Mercedes
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka _ The tale of the Buddhist monk and his shiny, new Mercedes-Benz has fueled a bizarre national drama that has angered Sri Lankans and tainted a group of revered religious leaders with corruption.

The monk _ leader of a hawkish Buddhist party in the governing coalition _ insists the scandal is a fiction created by political rivals to smear him with accusations he illegally sold the car at a huge profit.

Shrugging off the monk’s renunciation of material goods, his comrades have insisted the silver, E-class Mercedes remained his _ even as his bitter political enemy was seen driving it around town.

“They (the monks’ party) came into politics promising to set new standards for the political mainstream, but see what they are doing today. This is unacceptable,” opposition lawmaker Gayantha Karunathilake said Monday.
FOR THE FULL STORY (AP VIA WASHINGTON POST.COM) CLICK HERE

Murdered biker was a devout Christian
The Hell’s Angel biker shot dead on the M40 last Sunday had been a Christian who used to hold Bible classes and prayer meetings and dreamt of being a missionary.

As his girlfriend, Rebecca Smith, 25, spoke of the void left in her life by his murder, it emerged that he had been a born-again Christian when he lived in Canada. Gerry Tobin, 35, was killed with a shot to the back of the head as he drove his Harley-Davidson in Warwickshire. It remains unclear whether he was killed after angering someone from a rival gang or was targeted because he was wearing the Hell’s Angels insignia.

Born in Britain, he moved to Canada with his family at a young age and married a school sweetheart who shared his religious convictions. Mr Tobin and his wife, Kara, would raise eyebrows as they drove to church in Calgary on a Harley-Davidson.

“He was definitely unashamed of his faith in Jesus,” said Chris Stevenson, a missionary who attended the same church. Mr Tobin had been brought up in Alberta and moved to Calgary after marrying Kara. There the couple were known as born-again Christians.

Tim Pogue, who worked with Mr Tobin in a carpet-cleaning business in the town, said: “He was as close to the Bible as anyone I’ve ever known.”
FOR THE FULL STORY (TIMES UK ONLINE) CLICK HERE

British Civics Class Asks, What Would Muhammad Do?
BRADFORD, England — At the Jamia Mosque on Victor Street in this racially and religiously tense town, Idris Watts, a teacher and convert to Islam, tackled a seemingly mundane subject with a dozen teenage boys: why it is better to have a job than to be unemployed.

“The prophet said you should learn a trade,” Mr. Watts told the students arrayed in a semicircle before him. “What do you think he means by that?”

“If you get a trade it’s good because then you can pass it on,” said Safraan Mahmood, 15.

“You feel better when you’re standing on your own feet,” offered Ossama Hussain, 14.

The back and forth represented something new in Britain’s mosques: a government-financed effort to teach basic citizenship issues in a special curriculum intended to reach students who might be vulnerable to Islamic extremism.

In the long haul, the British government hopes that such civics classes, which use the Koran to answer questions about daily life, will replace the often tedious and sometimes hard-core religious lessons taught in many mosques across the land. Often, these lessons emphasize rote learning of the Koran and are taught by imams who were born in Pakistan and speak little English and have little contact with British society.

Written by a Bradford teacher, Sajid Hussain, 34, who holds a degree from Oxford, the new curriculum is being taught in some religious classes here in a city that is increasingly segregated between South Asians and whites. The pilot effort in Bradford has the backing and the financing from the Labor government as part of a hearts-and-minds campaign that it hopes will eventually spread to other cities and help better integrate the country’s mainstream Muslims into British culture. Approximately two million Muslims, mostly of Pakistani and Bangladeshi origin, live in Britain.
FOR THE FULL STORY (NYT) CLICK HERE

Papua New Guinea apologises for eating Fiji missionaries
PORT MORESBY, PAPUA NEW GUINE – The descendants of cannibals who killed and ate four Fijian missionaries in 1878 have apologised for their forefathers’ actions, the Australian Associated Press reported Thursday.

Fiji’s High Commissioner to Papua New Guinea, Ratu Isoa Tikoca, accepted the apologies at a reconciliation ceremony attended by thousands of people near Rabaul in East New Britain province on Wednesday.

“We at this juncture are deeply touched and wish you the greatest joy of forgiveness as we finally end this record disagreement,” Tikoca said.

PNG’s Governor-General Paulias Matane told the crowd he appreciated the work of the early Fijian missionaries in spreading Christianity, AAP said.

The ceremony marked 132 years since Methodist ministers and teachers from Fiji arrived in the New Guinea islands region in 1875 headed by Englishman George Brown.

In April 1878, a Fijian minister and three teachers were killed and eaten by Tolai tribespeople on the Gazelle Peninsula.
FOR THE FULL STORY (AGENCE FRANCE PRESSE VIA YAHOO NEWS) CLICK HERE