Only in India: Cell Phone Brides

KOLKATA, India - An Indian Muslim couple exchanged wedding vows by telephone after the groom, who lives abroad, said he did not have money to return home to get married, a cleric said on Friday.

Muslim clerics married Irin Biswas, 18, to Safikul Islam, who is employed as a labour supervisor in Kuwait.

The entire village in Murshidabad, West Bengal, watched as the clerics put a mobile phone on speaker mode, enabling them to hear the wedding vows. "

They said qubul (I do) thrice and the marriage was complete," Maulana Alamgir, a cleric who solemnised the marriage said by telephone. He said modern ceremony was not against Islamic laws.

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Religious Battles and Illegal Conversions in India

Christians in Northern India threatened with fines and imprisonment for converting local Hindus. Governor of Rajasthan vows to fight punitive religious legislation.

As reported by Religious Intelligence

By: George Conger.

THE CHURCH of North India has welcomed assurances from the governor of Rajasthan that he would block an anti-conversion bill passed by the state legislature.

Speaking at All Saints Cathedral in Ajmer, Gov Shailendra Kumar Singh said India’s secular government respected “all religions equally.” Last month the Hindu nationalist BJP party, which controls the Rajasthan state assembly, passed a bill over the protests of the opposition Congress Party prohibiting conversions to Christianity by “use of force, allurement or fraudulent means.”

Those found guilty of procuring “fraudulent” conversions would be jailed for up to five years and face a fine of £600.

"Some religious and other institutions, bodies and individuals are found to the involved in unlawful conversion from one religion to another by allurement or by fraudulent means or forcibly which at times has caused annoyance in the community belonging to the other religion," stated the bill. "In order to curb such illegal activities and to maintain harmony amongst persons of various religions, it has been considered expedient to enact a special law for the purpose."

However social harmony between faiths “could be brought only through our good behavior and not by bills and legislation,” Gov. Singh told the Easter congregation.

Drawing from the Bhagavad Gita, Gov Singh noted that the Hindu god Krishna had told Prince Arjuna that all are equal in society, and that one’s true “dharma,” or right way of living, is to fulfill one’s responsibilities.The free practice of one’s faith “brings mutual confidence,” he noted, and would “create an atmosphere of love and brotherhood.”

The Bishop in Rajasthan, the Rt Rev Collin Theodore said the Governor’s words “came as a reassurance” as Christian leaders in the northwestern Indian state fear the new law would be used to persecute missionaries.

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United Nations Warns of New Food Crisis

Conservative Leader says that Food Security should rank alongside Energy Policy and National Security.

THE UN World Food Programme (WFP) is to hold an emergency meeting in Rome today, as rising food prices across the world threaten to create a new constituency of millions of city-dwellers who are unable to afford basic foodstuffs.

The Organization for Economic and Co-operative Development (OECD) has warned that food prices could rise by between one fifth and one half over the next ten years.

The sudden leap in the worldwide price of grain and other basic foodstuffs could mean that millions of hitherto relatively affluent people in cities would not be able to afford food, Greg Barrow, a London-based spokesman for the WFP, said on Tuesday.

He said the key factors behind the price-shift were:

• demand for meat from India and China, as their economies grow. Feeding livestock diverts grain stocks from markets;
• high oil prices, which have pushed up the costs of oil-based fertilizers and the cost of transport;
• arable land that has been switched to bio-fuel production, and so is lost for food supplies;
• weather extremes caused by global warming, which have damaged farming in the developed countries that supplied the global market.

Read the rest of Bill Bowder’s article here…

Terrorism is un-Islamic say Muslim scholars in India

The Darul-Uloom Deoband in India, considered the most influential school for Islamic law in Asia, on Monday denounced terrorism as being against the teachings of Islam and said it was likely to impose a fatwa against it during a conference of clerics from India and abroad, media reports said. The head of the powerful seminary, Maulana Marghoobur Rahman, said terrorism was completely wrong and thoughtless, and contradicted Islam's concept of peace, the NDTV network reported, quoting from his address to 10,000 clerics from religious schools - known as madrassas - and foreign delegates.

Speaking at the institution, some 150 kilometers north of New Delhi, Rahman also criticized the Indian government, saying that policing of madrassas and students was unjustified and went against the secular character of the country. Meanwhile, scholars said the conference was likely to decide on a fatwa against terrorism and adopt a declaration denouncing terrorism.

Read the rest of the report here…

U.S Episcopal Bishop Apologizes to Hindus worldwide

“There are far too many Christians in the world,” Episcopal priest declares.

The Bishop of the Episcopal diocese of Los Angeles has issued an apology to Hindus worldwide for what he called "centuries-old acts of religious discrimination by Christians, including attempts to convert them" reports India Abroad. The apology was given in a statement read to over 100 Hindu spiritual leaders at a mass from Right Reverend J John Bruno.

The ceremony started with a Hindu priestess blowing a conch shell three times and included sacred chants.

This meeting was the result of a dialogue, started three years ago, between Hindu leaders and Rev. Karen MacQueen, who was deeply influenced by Hindu Vedanta philosophy and opposes cultivating conversions. "There are enough Christians in the world," she said. "What we need to see is more Christians leading an exemplary life and truly loving their fellow man."

However the apology has triggered considerable debate among pastors across the US.

Article source: India Abroad

Erin Church Devotions: Thankfulness

How an email from a missionary in South India has given me a greater appreciation of the Lord's servants throughout the world.

Audio version here

2 Corinthians 4:15 All this is for your benefit, so that the grace that is reaching more and more people may cause thanksgiving to overflow to the glory of God.

I received an email the other day from a Christian in India, who reads our devotionals. Both Tharian Matthew and his wife are working hard teaching Christ’s message in his own community. He writes:

I attended the Scots Kirk in Chennai, India as a kid and was also married in the same church 24 years ago.I live in Tiruchy, in South India with my wife and daughter and edit an English Christian monthly, "Vision of the Christ." My wife and I preach, conduct prayer cells, women’s fellowship and intercessory prayers on different days of the week. We attend the Revival Christian worship centre pastored by Rev. Dr. K. Jacob on Sundays.God bless you and the work you are doing.

It’s amazing how God connects Christ’s Church throughout the world. We are thousands of miles apart, but we are involved in the same work: - that of bringing Christ’s message to the people in our communities. I pray that God blesses Tharian and his family in the ministry and mission that they have accepted for Christ.

Tomorrow, we all celebrate Thanksgiving. As we gather around the table, thanking God for our families and friends, perhaps we should also be thankful for Jesus in our lives, and for all the ministers and missionaries who go out into the world to spread the Gospel, teach God’s people, and praise His Holy Name.

Prayer: Lord Jesus, we are truly thankful for Your grace that has touched our hearts and transformed our lives. We thank You for the people that You placed in our lives, who were the messengers of Your Word that caused us to accept You in our hearts. Be with Tharian and his wife, their church and community. Bless the work that they do and help us, like them, to bring others to church this Sunday. Make us all ministers and missionaries of Your Gospel. In Your Holy Name, we pray. Amen.

Weekend Screensaver - The Martyrdom of Thomas

Stained glass mosaic design of the martyrdom of St. Thomas. He was killed by being pierced with arrows whilst he was kneeling in prayer.