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Jesus Was And Is A Vegetarian
JESUS WAS AND IS A VEGETARIAN
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http://www.jesusveg.com http://groups.msn.com/christianveg
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Thursday, April 24,12:05 PMPM ET
Vegetarian Jesus billboard causes Florida stir
PENSACOLA, Florida (AP) — Christian and Jewish clergy say a billboard promoting vegetarianism by claiming "Jesus was the prince of peas" is sacrilegious, not to mention historically inaccurate.
The billboard, which shows Jesus with an orange slice in place of a halo, was displayed by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals to coincide with Easter and Passover, the Pensacola News Journal reported.
The Rev. Paul H. Welch of the First Pentecostal Church, said "they are dishonoring the Lord." And Rabbi David Ostrich, himself a vegetarian, said the historical claim was false because Jesus was a meat eater and would have had a lamb meal at Passover like other Jews of his time.
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SIOUX FALLS, S.D. - Roman Catholic Bishop Robert Carlson said he "would never break off dialogue or a pastoral relationship with anyone," after an article implied a breach had developed between the prelate and Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle over abortion.
The bishop responded to a report in the conservative Weekly Standard magazine that the Sioux Falls Diocese wrote Daschle, requesting that the Democratic senator omit references to his Catholic faith from his congressional biography and campaign documents.
Daschle issued this statement: "I have had the benefit of Bishop Carlson's guidance on many public and private issues, and that relationship will continue."
"I have been a Catholic all my life and I will remain one," he said.
Asked about a letter from the diocese, a Daschle spokesman said the senator's statement speaks for itself, and church officials did not say whether such a letter was sent.
Carlson said he and Daschle have had several discussions about abortion, and that he encouraged Daschle to reconsider his support for abortion rights. But, the bishop said, "I do not believe it is appropriate for me to discuss my pastoral relationship with the senator or anyone else."
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Baptist missionary's siblings don't want man executed in Yemen killings
MILWAUKEE (AP) — The siblings of an American missionary slain in Yemen Dec. 30 don't want the accused killer executed, though the prosecutor is seeking the death penalty.
"We're not going to lie awake at night waiting for vengeance and waiting for his death," Jerome Gariety Jr. said of himself and his two surviving sisters in a Sunday interview with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
"I certainly don't want to see his death, but I do want him incarcerated for the rest of his life so he can't injure anyone else."
Gariety commented after a court appearance in Yemen by Abed Abdul Razak Kamel, who is charged with killing Kathleen Gariety and colleagues William Koehn and Martha Myers at a Southern Baptist missionary hospital in Jibla, Yemen.
Kamel testified Sunday that he killed the three "out of religious duty" and for revenge against "those who converted Muslims from their religion and made them unbelievers."
According to one widely accepted Muslim tradition, the Prophet Muhammad decreed death, not for missionaries as such but for any Muslim who converts to another religion.
Jerome Gariety said the Baptist medical workers "were out there helping people. They weren't there to push their faith on them."
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Malaysian churches dismayed by ban on Bible
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) — Malaysian church leaders and lawyers have urged the government to lift a ban on a Bible in the Iban language.
The Malaysian Council of Churches, representing most Christian denominations in this nation, requested a meeting with the regime over the ban.
The Bible is widely used by churches in Malaysia's Sarawak state on Borneo island, where the Iban people are one of the largest indigenous groups.
The Home Ministry announced that this Bible was among 35 books banned effective immediately because they were considered detrimental to public peace. No details were given.
The Bar Council of Malaysia, a group of 10,000 lawyers, said "the ban strikes at the heart of our way of life as Malaysians."
Nearly 60 percent of Malaysia's people are Malay Muslims but there are large Buddhist, Christian and Hindu minorities.
Freedom of religion is guaranteed in the constitution, though it is illegal to try to convert Muslims to other religions.
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Catholic group protests New Jersey college drama
LAWRENCE, N.J. (AP) — Despite a protest statement from a Roman Catholic group, a controversial play opened on Good Friday at Rider University without disruption.
The New York-based Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights asked Rider President Bart Luedeke to "distance the university from (the play's) anti-Catholic message."
League members had not seen the drama, "The Children of Fatima," written by Michael Friel, a Rider adjunct professor. They based the criticism on remarks by a friend of the playwright.
The drama follows a young Irish boy growing up in Philadelphia around 1960 whose mother tries unsuccessfully to pressure him into the priesthood.
"I wasn't writing a play about Catholicism," Friel, 53, told The Times of Trenton. "This is a coming-of-age play that just happens to take place in a working class Catholic neighborhood."
Luedeke said he was sorry some found the play offensive but Rider is "firmly committed to the richness of human diversity and rejects racial, ethnic or religious discrimination in any form."
The president made similar comments about a previous Rider appearance by Amiri Baraka, New Jersey's poet laureate. His poem "Somebody Blew Up America" was labeled anti-Semitic because it implied Israelis had advance knowledge of the Sept. 11 attacks.
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Southern Baptist convention posts a 1.2 percent membership gain
NASHVILLE (AP) — The Southern Baptist Convention, America's largest Protestant body, grew again last year.
The Southern Baptists reported Tuesday that membership reached 16,247,736 in 2002, a handsome gain of 194,816 people, or 1.2 percent over the previous year.
The conservative denomination also reported increases in local congregations (42,775) and missions (5,439). However, there were slight declines in annual baptisms (394,893) and Sunday School enrollment (8,174,493).
Total financial receipts increased by 6.4 percent, to $9.5 billion.
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http://www.bpnews.net
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Istanbul patriarchate elects Greek Orthodox bishop for New Jersey
NEW YORK (AP) — The bishops of the Ecumenical Patriarchate in Istanbul, Turkey, have unanimously elected Archimandrite Evangelos Kourounis to be the Greek Orthodox metropolitan for New Jersey, ending a vacancy of nearly three years.
The Greek archdiocese in New York said Kourounis was the first choice among three names submitted to Istanbul by the U.S. bishops.
Kourounis, 42, was ordained a priest in 1989. He has been dean of the Cathedral of St. Demetrios in the Queens borough of New York City the past two years.
Before that he served as chancellor of the New Jersey Diocese, which also covers parishes in Delaware, Maryland, Pennsylvania and Virginia.
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http://www.goarch.org
