Babies: Fearfully and wonderfully made!

SOPHIA tops the list of names for American baby girls for the second year in a row, while King and Messiah are becoming increasingly popular names for boys, the U.S. Social Security Administration said on Thursday.

Jacob has become a standby for boys’ names, topping that category for the 14th straight year. Liam and Elizabeth broke into the Top 10 at No. 6 and No. 10 respectively, the SSA said in a statement.

But rising on the list are a couple of less traditional, but more attention-grabbing names. Messiah was the fourth fastest-growing name for boys, rising to 387th in 2012 from the 633th spot in 2011, according to the federal agency.

King became the seventh fastest-growing boy’s name, reaching the 256th most popular spot in 2012, compared with 389th the year before, the agency said.

“Bold names for boys are very hot right now,” said Laura Wattenberg, creator of the website BabyNameWizard.com.

“So for people who are appalled by the idea, most of us are not appalled by names like Emmanuel, which is very common today, and it wasn’t that long ago that the name Emmanuel was shocking to a lot of people,” she said.

That is partly because a passage in the Bible’s book of Matthew links the ancient Israelite name to Jesus Christ, which Wattenberg said was seen in the past as too jarring an allusion for a baby name.

The name Major ranked as the fastest-growing boy’s name on the SSA list, jumping to 483rd most popular in 2012 from 988th in 2011.

“I have no doubt Major’s rising popularity as a boy’s name is in tribute to the brave members of the U.S. military, and maybe we’ll see more boys named General in the future,” Carolyn Colvin, acting commissioner of the SSA, said in a statement.

For girls, the fastest-growing name was Cataleya, Wattenberg said. It jumped to 479th in 2012 from 1,680 the previous year, she said, adding that could be attributed to actress Zoe Saldana playing an alluring assassin with that name in the 2011 film Colombiana. Reuters

The high support for the desperate tactic in those war-torn regions was nearly matched in Egypt and Bangladesh, where 29 per cent and 26 per cent of respondents agreed with its use respectively.

However, the worldwide poll of Muslims by the Washington-based Pew Forum found that in most countries three-quarters or more rejected suicide bombing and other forms of violence.

And in most most countries surveyed, Muslims were more worried about Islamist militancy than any other form of religious violence.

The report, which is based on surveys in 39 countries with large Muslim populations, also found that large majorities want the Islamic shariah code integrated with the official law of their countries.

However, there was widespread disagreement as to what sharia includes, and who should be subject to it, said the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life.

Three-quarters of respondents said abortion is morally wrong and 80 percent or more rejected homosexuality and sex outside of marriage.

Over three-quarters of Muslims in the Middle East and North Africa, South Asia and Southeast Asia want sharia courts to decide family law issues such as divorce and property disputes.

Views on punishments such as chopping off thieves’ hands or decreeing death for apostates is more evenly divided in much of the Islamic world, although more than three-quarters of Muslims in South Asia say they are justified.

Those punishments have helped make sharia controversial in some non-Islamic countries, where some fear radical Muslims want to impose it on Western societies.

The survey shows, however, that Muslim societies are far from monolithic in their views.

‘Muslims are not equally comfortable with all aspects of sharia,’ the study said. ‘Most do not believe it should be applied to non-Muslims.’
British Muslim activist Anjem Choudary: Some in the West fear that Muslims want to enforce sharia law in non-Islamic societies

British Muslim activist Anjem Choudary: Some in the West fear that Muslims want to enforce sharia law in non-Islamic societies

Unlike codified Western law, sharia is a loosely defined set of moral and legal guidelines based on the Koran, the sayings of Prophet Mohammad (hadith) and Muslim traditions.

Its rules and advice cover everything from prayers to personal hygiene.

Princeton University political scientist Amaney Jamal, was special adviser for the project, said Muslims in poor and repressive societies tended to identify sharia with basic Islamic values such as equality and social justice.

‘In those societies, you tend to see significant support for sharia,’ she said. By contrast, Muslims who have lived under ‘narrow if not rigid’ Islamic systems were less supportive of sharia as the official law.

More than four-fifths of the 38,000 Muslims interviewed in 39 countries said non-Muslims in their countries could practice their faith freely and that this was good.

This view was strongest in South Asia, where 97 per cent of Bangladeshis and 96 per cent of Pakistanis agreed, while the lowest Middle Eastern result was 77 per cent in Egypt.

The survey polled only Muslims and not minorities. In several Muslim countries, Christian minorities say they cannot practice their faith freely and are subject to discrimination and physical attacks.

The survey produced mixed results on questions relating to the relationship between politics and Islam. Democracy wins slight majorities in key Middle Eastern states – 54 per cent in Iraq, 55 per cent in Egypt – but falls to 29 per cent in Pakistan.

By contrast, it stands at 81 per cent in Lebanon, 75 per cent in Tunisia and 70 per cent in Bangladesh.

Views on whether women should decide themselves if they should wear a headscarf vary greatly, from 89 per cent in Tunisia and 79 per cent in Indonesia saying yes and 45 per cent in Iraq and 30 per cent in Afghanistan saying no.

Majorities from 74 per cent in Lebanon to 96 per cent in Malaysia said wives should always obey their husbands.

Only a minority saw Sunni-Shi’ite tensions as a very big problem, ranging from 38 per cent in Lebanon and 34 per cent in Pakistan to 23 per cent in Iraq and 14 per cent in Turkey.

Conflict with other religions loomed larger, with 68 per cent in Lebanon saying it was a big problem, 65 per cent in Tunisia, 60 per cent in Nigeria and 57 per cent in Pakistan.

A section of the survey on U.S. Muslims noted they ‘sometimes more closely resemble other Americans than they do Muslims around the world’.

Only about half say their closest friends are Muslim, compared to 95 per cent of Muslims globally.

Muslims of the Americas, a group founded in the 1980s by elusive Pakistani Sheikh Mubarak Ali Gilani, is suing the Christian Action Network for defamation and libel following CAN’s recent publication of the book “Twilight in America: The Untold Story of Islamist Terrorist Training Camps Inside America.” Co-authored by CAN founder Martin Mawyer and Patti Pierucci, the book accuses MOA of “acting as a front for the radical Islamist group Jamaat al-Fuqra.”

In the suit, filed this year in federal court in Albany, N.Y., the Muslim group accuses Mawyer, Pierucci and CAN of “malicious, repetitious and continuous pronouncements and publication of defamatory statements against plaintiff.”

“We’re calling their bluff,” said Mawyer. “I would have thought this would have been dropped a while ago, but I guess they feel they have to defend themselves to their own members.”

Many of the book’s allegations are based on the claims of a former NYPD undercover informant who spent eight years posing as a member of the Muslim group, which has secretive bases in rural areas around the country, including Hancock, N.Y., and York County, S.C.

The book alleges organized criminal activity on the part of MOA and claims profits from “street crimes, drugs, brothels, unemployment fraud and other offenses” have been funneled to Jamaat al-Fuqra. Part of the money has been used to establish a series of Jihadi training camps on American soil, according to the book.

Both Muslims of the Americas — made up primarily of African-American converts to Islam — and the Pakistan-based Jamaat al-Fuqra, are guided by Sheikh Mubarik Ali Gilani, a highly controversial cleric who lived in the U.S. during the 1980s and who was the subject of an investigation by the late Wall Street Journal journalist Daniel Pearl.

In 2002, Pearl was in Pakistan on his way to a pre-arranged interview with Gilani when he was kidnapped by Al Qaeda and eventually beheaded in a brutal case that shocked the world. Gilani was questioned in relation to the investigation but released without being charged.

“Twilight in America” highlights some 17 purported terrorist training camps inside the U.S. Mawyer said he learned of the camps from NYPD informant Ali Aziz, who said one of the camps – often attended by 100 or more followers — was only 30 miles away from the CAN office in Forest, Va.

Aziz allegedly passed on vital information to authorities about MOA’s plans, its activities across the U.S., and the powerful presence of Gilani.

“If Gilani told everyone, ‘Set yourselves on fire,’ everybody would burn themselves,” Aziz told www.christianaction.org. “This has been going on for 30 years. And people praise him. They give him money. They kiss his feet. It’s crazy.”

Despite the evidence presented in the book, neither MOA nor Jamaat al-Fuqra is currently designated by the U.S. as a terrorist organization.

“The chapters on the former undercover agent really put them over the edge, as their members knew who Ali Aziz was,” Mawyer told FoxNews.com. “It then became very difficult for the leadership to continue to convince the women and children on the compounds that they weren’t associated with terrorists. They had to sue us to protect the wealth that they derive from the thousands of members they have in the U.S. I fully expect us to win this lawsuit.”

Mawyer and Pierucci say in the book that MOA has been linked to 10 unsolved assassinations and 17 bombings since the 1980s, including the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.

Gilani, who describes himself as “Vice Chancellor of the International Qur’anic Open University, Imam of the Muslims of the Americas and a direct Descendant of the Holy Last Messenger [the Prophet Muhammed],” has previously been accused of inspiring so-called “Shoe Bomber” Richard Reid and John Allen Mohammed, the Beltway sniper attacker who, with a young accomplice, killed 10 people during a brief reign of terror in October 2002.

Mawyer said if the civil suit goes to trial, he will move to bring Gilani to the U.S. and put him on the stand. For an organization that so jealously guards its privacy, that may be enough to drop the suit.

“I think they hoped that we would not have the money to fight it and it would serve the purpose of telling their own members, ‘See, we took care of that Martin Mawyer fellow,’” Mawyer said. “They say we have declared war on Islam, but I can tell you that is definitely not the case. This group is against Christians, Hindus, Hari Krishna, Jews, and any Imams who do not preach their strict view of Islam.”

MOA officials could not be reached, and the group’s attorney, Tahirah Clark, did not return calls. But in a January statement on The Islamic Post website, the group’s official mouthpiece, Gilani denied claims he is a radical. He said he has weeded out militant Muslims who had infiltrated his inner circle, including a man he said was a hitman for the Muslim Brotherhood.

Mawyer and the CAN have no intention of backing out of the legal fight with Muslims of the Americas, a group described by the Anti-Defamation League as “virulently anti-Semitic Holocaust deniers.”

“People’s concerns about home-grown terrorism have obviously been raised by the recent events in Boston,” said Mawyer. “They should know that this is the group that has led the way in the U.S. for 30 years.” Fox News

The panel, organized by the World Evangelical Alliance, wrote in one of its suggestions that it recognized “that there is significant potential for misunderstanding of the words for ‘father’ and ‘son’ when applied to God, and that in languages shaped by Islamic cultures, the potential is especially acute and the misunderstandings likely to prove especially harmful to the reader’s comprehension of the gospel.”

The panel recommended that translators consider the addition of qualifying words and/or phrases (explanatory adjectives, relative clauses, prepositional phrases, or similar modifiers) to the directly-translated words for “father” and “son,” in order to avoid misunderstanding.

“For example, as the biblical context allows, the word for ‘father’ might be rendered with the equivalent of ‘heavenly Father’ when referring to God, and the word for ‘son’ might be rendered with the equivalent of ‘divine Son,’ ‘eternal Son,’ or ‘heavenly Son’ when referring to Jesus,” the panel suggested.

The panel also recommended that translators use paratextual material “to clarify and avoid misunderstanding in these cases.”

Wycliffe came under heavy criticism more than a year ago when Biblical Missiology created an online petition alleging that the translation group had eliminated familial terms describing God and Jesus in certain Arabic and Bengali translations of the Bible so as not to offend Muslim readers. Biblical Missiology, a network of missionaries, linguists, theologians and global pastors, demanded that Wycliffe stop replacing phrases such as “Son of God” with “Messiah of God” or “God the Father” with “guardian.”

Wycliffe Global Alliance and SIL International approached the World Evangelical Alliance (WEA) in March 2012 to independently review their best practice in the translation of “God the Father” and the “Son of God.” The WEA formed an independent panel that concluded its work and issued its report with recommendations for Wycliffe and SIL at the end of last week.

“We’re grateful for the recommendations,” Wycliffe USA Chief Operations Officer Russ Hersman told The Christian Post. “They provide us with a very positive way forward. We’re looking forward to implementing the ten recommendations. We see the panel as having clarified the boundaries and given us clear expectations within those boundaries.”

Hersman said that the panel’s most important recommendations included guidelines for terms needing clarification. If there is even more clarification needed then it was suggested that tools such as footnotes and endnotes should be added.

“These terms are difficult to understand as key terms in the scripture for anybody, but for new hearers even more so,” he said. “So rather than try to load everything into the text they’ve given us guidelines on clearly what belongs in the text and what belongs in the notes.”

He added that “the idea of including external auditors and scholars and those sorts of people is a good thing.”
“We will continue to work on accurate translations so that people will have access to the work of God,” he said.

The ten recommendations from the panel are below:

1. The WEA Panel (hereafter referred to as “Panel”) recommends that when the words for “father” and “son” refer to God the Father and to the Son of God, these words always be translated with the most directly equivalent familial words within the given linguistic and cultural context of the recipients. In the case of languages that have multiple words for “father” and “son,” translators should choose the most suitable words in light of the semantics of the target language. (This recommendation pertains to the SIL Best Practices statement 0.6, 1.5.1, 1.5.2, 3.2.)

2. The Panel recognizes that there is significant potential for misunderstanding of the words for “father” and “son” when applied to God, and that in languages shaped by Islamic cultures, the potential is especially acute and the misunderstandings likely to prove especially harmful to the reader’s comprehension of the gospel. Therefore, in case of difficulties, the Panel recommends that translators consider the addition of qualifying words and/or phrases (explanatory adjectives, relative clauses, prepositional phrases, or similar modifiers) to the directly-translated words for “father” and “son,” in order to avoid misunderstanding. For example, as the biblical context allows, the word for “father” might be rendered with the equivalent of “heavenly Father” when referring to God, and the word for “son” might be rendered with the equivalent of “divine Son,” “eternal Son,” or “heavenly Son” when referring to Jesus. The Panel also encourages translators to use paratextual material to clarify and avoid misunderstanding in these cases. (This recommendation pertains to the SIL Best Practices statement 1.5.4, 3.2.)

3. The Panel recognizes that the phrase for “Son of God” has varied nuances in its different New Testament contexts, especially in light of the Old Testament background to those contexts. In the case of most languages, the biblical context should enable the reader to discern the nuances of the phrase for “Son of God,” and translators need not make adjustments to the translated text, although they may want to indicate nuances of meaning in paratextual material. But, when and if necessary, the Panel recommends that translators convey nuances of meaning from the biblical context in the translation through the addition of qualifying words and/or phrases (explanatory adjectives, relative clauses, or prepositional phrases). For example, the phrase for “Son of God” in a context of Messianic kingship might be rendered with the equivalent of “anointed Son of God” or “royal Son of God.” (This recommendation pertains to the SIL Best Practices statement 0.4, 0.7, 1.1, 1.5.4, 3.2.)

4. The panel recognizes that some of the disagreement over the translation of the word for “father” and the phrase for “Son of God” has resulted from overloading the translation by attempting to address too many possible meanings and misunderstandings. The panel recommends that in addition to translating Scripture, translators consider additional ways of communicating the message of Jesus to Muslim audiences. These can include such literary genres as tafsir (commentary), qusas al-anbiya (stories of the prophets), and sirah (life stories). But these should not be considered or presented as biblical translations unless they abide by the first three recommendations. (This recommendation pertains to the SIL Best Practices statement 0.7, 1.1, 1.5.1, 1.5.4, 4.1.1, 4.2.1-4.)

5. The Panel recommends that Wycliffe/SIL incorporate into the Best Practices statement guidelines related to ensuring that translators determine what context should serve as the controlling principle for the translation of divine familial terms, including:
a. Local testing of peoples’ reactions to a translation, seeing to it that local expertise — exegetical, linguistic and historical — are at the outset part of the team in designing the feedback mechanism for testing reactions of the targeted group to translation of divine familial terms. (This recommendation pertains to the SIL Best Practices statement 0.4, 0.7, 1.1, 1.5.1, 1.6, 2.1.)
b. Enabling translation teams to account not only for the particular audience for whom the translation is being prepared, but also how to consider the impact on local groups with secondary exposure to the translation (overhearers such as existing local churches, close language groups, and so on). (This recommendation pertains to the Wycliffe/SIL Best Practices statement 0.4, 0.7, 1.1, 1.5.1, 1.6, 2.1.)

6. The Panel recommends that SIL incorporate into the Best Practices statement guidelines for the translation team on differentiating the translation of divine familial passages when the primary audience of the Bible translation is local believers versus when the primary audience is local unbelievers (including how to determine when this is necessary and how to accomplish it when it is deemed necessary). (This recommendation pertains to the SIL Best Practices statement 0.7.)

7. The Panel recommends that SIL incorporate into the Best Practices statement guidelines on a process by which likely divine familial language controversies are to be handled and personnel held accountable for those translations where Wycliffe and/or SIL has a major stake. Especially for translations over which controversy is likely to ensue, the guidelines should:
a. Give the translation team a process to determine when Wycliffe and/or SIL might institute some type of “familial language audit group” (or other appropriate title) utilizing both internal (local believers/informed culture bearers who may or may not be Christians) and external (translation experts) resources. (This recommendation pertains to the SIL Best Practices statement 2.1.)
b. Address such things as the composition, task/limitations, and process of the “familial language audit group”:
i. Composition: The Panel recommends that whenever possible the group should include local believers from a variety of perspectives and disciplines and also local experts who may not be believers but know the cultural and linguistic nuances of their mother tongue. (This recommendation pertains to the SIL Best Practices statement 1.6, 2.1.)
ii. Task/limitations: For example, the “familial language audit group” would focus their audit on the controversial familial language passages of the translation.
iii. Process: This would include how such audit groups might be constituted, how they determine their decisions, how they communicate the decision, Wycliffe and SIL policies on the public/confidential nature of any audit reports that are generated, and so on.

8. The Panel recommends that SIL incorporate into the Best Practices statement guidelines related to “ownership” of the translation. The Panel recognizes that each project is different and needs to be evaluated independently. Therefore the Panel recommends that Wycliffe and SIL add guidelines in these areas:
a. Negotiating the interests and demands of a) the end-users, b) believers in local contexts, c) scholarly and other relevant hermeneutical communities (including existing local church resources), d) patron donors behind the translation. (This recommendation pertains to the SIL Best Practices statement 0.4.)
b. The role(s) that foreign translators, missionaries and experts take in the process and choices made in translating familial language in the project.
c. Handling situations in which different groups in a single locality have different opinions on the familial language translation choices and determining the local hermeneutical community that best represents the target audience. (This recommendation pertains to the SIL Best Practices statement 0.7, 1.1, 1.6.)
d. Guide translation teams on handling questions concerning the relationship between foreign funding of translations and resulting demands on translation decisions and practices.
e. Establishing procedures that will ensure that the research on reception of the familial language translation actually reflects local understandings and asks the kinds of questions that will not skew the data towards researcher or patron community bias. (This recommendation pertains to the SIL Best Practices statement 0.4, 0.7, 1.1, 1.6.)

9. The Panel recommends that Wycliffe and SIL consider how to better publicly disclose translation decisions and considerations, including appropriate means of publicizing:
a. What Wycliffe and/or SIL has done regarding those translations for which Wycliffe and/or SIL was responsible but which have not followed the Best Practices and the Panel’s recommendations. (This recommendation pertains to the SIL Best Practices statement 6.1.)
b. How Wycliffe/SIL will monitor compliance with the Best Practices statement and the Panel’s recommendations. (This recommendation pertains to the Wycliffe/SIL Best Practices statement 6.1.)

10. The Panel recommends that Wycliffe and SIL work with an external group or agency (such as WEA) to establish policies and procedures of accountability related to the Best Practices statement and the Panel’s recommendations including review by an external group or agency. (This recommendation pertains to the SIL Best Practices statement 6.1.) The Christian Post

Overseen by the Barna Group, the results, released Tuesday, showed that 23 percent of evangelical respondents exhibited both Christ-like actions and attitudes. The 23 percent number puts evangelicals above the other categories, which included “Practicing Protestant” (16 percent), “All Christians” (14 percent), “Practicing Catholic” (14 percent), “Non Evangelical Born Again Christians” (13 percent), and “Notional” (13 percent).

The findings were derived from 1,008 telephone interviews of which 718 respondents self-identified as Christian from Nov. 11 until Nov. 18, 2012. Respondents who identified themselves as Christian were asked 20 questions, ten of which compared their responses to Jesus’ actions and attitudes and ten of which compared their responses to the Pharisees of the New Testament.

David Kinnaman, president of Barna Group, said in a statement that the purpose of the survey was “to create some new discussion about the intangible aspects of following and representing Jesus.”

“Obviously, survey research, by itself, cannot fully measure someone’s ‘Christ-likeness’ or ‘Pharisee-likeness’,” said Kinnaman. “But the study is meant to identify baseline qualities of Jesus, like empathy, love, and a desire to share faith with others – or the resistance to such ideals in the form of self-focused hypocrisy.”

Other findings included practicing Catholics being most likely to have Christ-like attitudes but Pharisaical actions and non-born again or “Notional” Christians being the most Pharisaical in both attitudes and actions.

While according to the survey evangelical Christians were the most Christ-like in attitudes and actions among surveyed groups, the findings also found that 38 percent of evangelicals were Pharisaical in actions and attitudes.

In general, 51 percent of all Christians who responded to the survey’s questions were Pharisaical in actions and attitudes, with an additional 35 percent showcasing either Christ-like actions but Pharisaical attitudes or Christ-like attitudes but Pharisaical actions.

“Many Christians are more concerned with what they call unrighteousness than they are with self-righteousness. It’s a lot easier to point fingers at how the culture is immoral than it is to confront Christians in their comfortable spiritual patterns,” said Kinnaman.

“Perhaps pastors and teachers might take another look at how and what they communicate. Do people somehow get the message that the ‘right action’ is more important than the ‘right attitude’? Do church leaders have a tendency to focus more on tangible results, like actions, because those are easier to see and measure than attitudes?” CP

Lu Liping is one of China’s most famous actresses. She and her husband, who is also a Christian, are  very open and public about their faith. Their blogs and microblogs have tens of thousands of followers.

This article in the Christian Times is about a Weibo post that Ms. Lu wrote with advice for Christian couples.

CHINESE children have traditionally been taught that married couples should never argue. For most couples today, however, going an entire lifetime without arguing is simply impossible.

Married couples often argue over trivial matters. The devil likes to take advantage of these situations, prompting those involved to be reckless and thoughtless in their speech. As a result, arguing becomes like a dull knife, their unfiltered words causing harm to both parties involved.

According to a lifestyle survey, couples argue over matters as small as “Why was dinner so salty tonight?” or “I just cleaned that floor! Why did you go and make it dirty again?” They also argue about great matters such as “Who should control the household finances?” and “Which university should our child attend?” Everyday problems such as these can result in an endless string of disagreements.

In actuality, there are many kinds of arguments. Some are forgotten as soon as they’re over while others can result in the breakup of a relationship. The difference between the two lies in whether or not couples know how to argue. This is a pre-request course for every couple today.

The fairy-tale marriage of well-known Christian actors Lü Liping and Sun Haiying is an example of what many young Christians hope for in their own marriages.

Recently, Lü posted on her Weibo account, “A must-read for Christian couples: What ten things shouldn’t you do when you argue? Here are the ‘10 Commandments’ for Christian couples when arguing:

1. Don’t argue in public;

2. Don’t argue in front of your children;

3. Don’t argue when your partner is angry;

4. Don’t bring up past arguments;

5. Don’t involve your spouse’s parents or other family members;

6. Don’t treat isolated situations like the norm;

7. Don’t talk about things that can’t be changed;

8. Don’t raise your voice;

9. Don’t strike your spouse;

10. Don’t ever bring up the possibility of divorce.”

These ‘10 commandments’ seem to be a much-needed lesson for this generation of couples, since they were shared on Weibo over 800 times. From the comments that were generated, it’s clear that both Christian and non-Christian Weibo users benefited from Lü’s post. One non-Christian exclaimed, “All couples should refer to this!” while others added,  “I agree! I think it doesn’t matter what religion you are, spouses don’t need to argue. Reconciling peacefully is much better!” and,  “I’m not a Christian, but I need to do this in my own life. This is a good compass for couples.” Still another online user mentioned that disagreeing is an art form of its own: “Arguing well takes skill—only then can it benefit both sides. The more you get things off your chest, the better you feel.”

Some Christian Weibo users also agreed that they needed to repent of sin in this area of their lives. They hadn’t heard this kind of advice before, and claimed they’d inadvertently caused harm to their spouses and children while arguing. Chinese Church Voices

A lawyer for a convent in a Palestinian Christian town near Bethlehem says she will appeal an Israeli court ruling allowing construction of a segment of Israel’s separation barrier through properties owned by the Vatican and Palestinian residents.

Lawyer Manal Hazzan Abu Sinni said Monday the barrier’s route will separate the Beit Jala convent from a monastery, leaving the convent’s land on Israel’s side of the barrier.

The district court ruling last week dismissed alternative routes for the barrier, citing security concerns. The decision comes after a seven-year court battle by area Palestinians.

Israel has been erecting the barrier in the West Bank since 2002 to keep out Palestinian attackers. Palestinians say the barrier is a land grab because much of it is built on West Bank territory. AP

A pastor imprisoned for his faith is released from an Iraqi jail after 21 months. CBN News has learned new information about what led to the release of Pastor Jamal. He’s free now, thanks in part to a bold step taken by a U.S. Ministry and a U.S. Lawmaker.

Terry Law, founder and president of World Compassion Terry Law Ministries of Tulsa, Ok., spoke to CBN News about how he and a U.S. senator, with God’s help, gained this pastor’s freedom.

Law said Pastor Jamal had received treatment for a brain tumor before his imprisonment, but he continued to suffer headaches in prison. That led Law to make a personal visit to northern Iraq with a letter from U.S. Senator James Inhofe, R-Okla., asking for Jamal’s release. The senator had sent it prior to Law’s trip but Iraqi official never saw it.

“When the government leaders actually saw the letter it had great impact…When we appealed for him, we did not do it on guilty or innocent, we did it purely on the basis that the man was probably going to die and on a humanitarian basis we pleaded with authorities there to turn him loose,” explained Law.

Law saw God’s hand in the situation to win Pastor Jamal’s release from the Iraqi prison.

“I had never done this before. I had never appealed for a man’s life and when I walked into this palatial building to meet with Minister of Interior Karim Sanjari. I had been praying. I wanted God’s wisdom,” Law continued.

“I felt we were offering the Kurdish government an opportunity to be shown around the world as a place of openness for the Gospel. When Karim Sanjari said I know of several hundred Muslims who have proselytized to Christianity, I couldn’t believe my ears. It was shocking and he said we are going to demand freedom of religion here in the future and again repeated that we are the American success story in Kurdistan,” he said.

Law also told CBN News he recently learned God has healed pastor Jamal.

“I found out a day and a half ago that in the European city where we took Jamal… they have given him an MRI, they have examined him from every direction and the incredible report is that he does not have a brain tumor…So, Jamal is not a sick man, he is a well man who has an open door to do what the Lord has for him in the future. It’s an unbelievable story.”

“I am honored to be named to TIME’s 100. It’s a great privilege to be a voice not only for the Latino Christian community, but also for the poor and voiceless in our society,” said De Jesus in a public statement. “The Hispanic community in the U.S. is over 51 million strong. We’re people God has chosen to govern and to lead communities and cities with conviction, unapologetically. There are many great leaders in this community, and I am truly humbled by this recognition.”

De Jesus’s Chicago, Ill., megachurch is home to 5,000 members locally, and a total of 14,000 globally through New Life Covenant Ministries’ church plants and various outreach programs.

The Assemblies of God pastor is also vice president of social justice for the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference and director of its Illinois chapter. The NHCLC is a grassroots coalition of more than 40,000 churches representing nearly 16 million Hispanic born-again Christians in the U.S.

De Jesus is described in the Time “100 Most Influential People” feature by Pastor Warren, previously named to the list in 2009, as embodying “the true definition of what Christ said the church should be.”

“As the senior pastor of New Life Covenant Ministries, one of the fastest-growing churches in Chicago as well as one of the largest Assemblies of God congregations in the nation, Pastor Choco encourages others to go out into the community not just with words but with his own actions. Under his leadership, New Life is reaching out to the outcasts and forgotten in our society – the homeless, women suffering with addiction and prostitution, and young people in gangs,” writes Warren, adding that he expects De Jesus to “continue to be a strong, ardent voice on the direction of our country.”

The Pentecostal minister is one of three religious leaders chosen for Time’s “100 Most Influential People,” a list in its 10th year and previously described by Time’s managing editor as comprised of individuals “who are using their ideas, their visions, their actions to transform the world and have an effect on a multitude of people.”

The other two faith leaders included in Time’s list are Pope Francis I of the Roman Catholic Church and Fethullah Gulen, a Turkish author and educator and Islamic scholar.

Both De Jesus and NHCLC President the Rev. Samuel Rodriguez were interviewed for Time magazine’s April 15 cover story on the Latino Reformation highlighting the influence of America’s growing Hispanic evangelical Christian population.

De Jesus, 48, began serving as senior pastor of New Life Covenant Ministries in July 2000, after serving the church in various other capacities. Under his leadership, the Chicago megachurch developed several programs to minister to surrounding communities, such as a homeless shelter, an after school program and an intensive discipleship program for college-age students.

“When you live in the inner city, it shapes you because you see the injustice and you can’t just preach on Sunday and then ignore it like it doesn’t happen. You have no other choice but to jump in the middle of that fight and speak for people,” De Jesus recently told CharismaNews.com.

“I’m really humbled to represent the Christian Latino community. I now bear a responsibility for that image and what it represents for millions of Hispanics around our nation and the world, that they would see that and feel proud. I’m humbled by it, but I also understand that with revelation comes responsibility.” Christian Post

During the sermon series featuring the pastors, they are scheduled to answer the question, “What Does it Mean to Follow Jesus?” Chan, an author and popular speaker at Christian conferences, is planned for next weekend at Saddleback.

Prior to his weekend sermons at the church, Laurie told The Christian Post he wanted to give a message of hope amid grief. The Harvest Crusades founder, who said the untimely loss of his son nearly five years ago gave him a “new ministry,” spoke at Saddleback just a little more than two weeks since the suicide death of Warren’s 27-year-old son, Matthew. Christopher Laurie died, at age 33, in an automobile accident in 2008.

“I didn’t come here so much as a preacher, but I guess I am that,” Laurie said Sunday morning during one of the four worship services that he delivered the message. “I come as a fellow father who is mourning to help another father who is mourning, another family (also mourning).

“The Bible tells us that we should weep with those that weep and when we heard the tragic news about Matthew our hearts went out to you,” he said. “I want you to know that Harvest, the church that I pastor for 40 years, has been praying for all of you here at Saddleback. We are different congregations, but we are all one family. We are the family of God – praying for one for another, holding up one another.”

Laurie said that he called Warren when he first heard the news about the death of his son, Matthew. Warren had been waiting for his call.

Laurie explained, “That’s because I too have lost a son. I shared some thoughts with Rick and we had prayer together. I believe that Rick and Kay will see their son, Matthew, again in heaven because Matthew put his faith in Christ. He had his struggles. We all know about that, but as Pastor Rick has said himself, heaven is not for perfect people it is for forgiven people. Isn’t that good news? Because I’m not perfect, are you?”

He added, “To lose a child is one of the hardest things that can happen to a person. On July 24, 2008 my son left this earth and went into the presence of God. It was the hardest day of my life. It really is a fate worse than death. Any parent would gladly trade places with their child and go and die.”

In addition to speaking about the hope people who have lost loved ones can find in Jesus, Laurie talked about the current spiritual condition of the U.S. He is scheduled to speak in Washington D.C. during the National Day of Prayer on May 2.

“We have so much chaos in our country right now. There’s this recent terrorist attack in Boston – two young men effectively brought one of the great American cities to a standstill. And then we have threats,” he explained. “Iran developing a nuclear weapon and threatening to use it against the United States, North Korea threatening to use nuclear weapons against the United States,” he paused briefly and said, “Gangnam Style,” to which he received much laughter.

“So, here’s the thing, are we going to put our hope in our politicians? [Or] are we going to put our hope into acknowledging the only place where we can legitimately place our hope and that is in God? Like never before, America needs to turn back to God,” Laurie said.

He said his message on the National Day of Prayer will be very simple.

“America needs to turn back to God and we need to pray for God’s blessing on our nation. The church needs revival and the world needs evangelism,” Laurie preached. “As we pray for our nation we can pray for those in power and we should, but let’s start by praying for ourselves.”

Both Saddleback Church and Harvest Church have their weekend and Sunday services webcast live. Worship service and Bible studies are also available in the archive section of the churches’ websites. Christian Post