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Interfaith Alliance Downplays Fears of Climate Change
A coalition of evangelical religious leaders has launched an education campaign to try to persuade pastors and churchgoers that dire predictions about global warming are overblown.
The Interfaith Stewardship Alliance, supported by Focus on the Family founder James Dobson and others, announced Wednesday that its Cornwall Network of Churches campaign will provide information that can be distributed to parishioners or used to influence sermons.
It's the latest salvo in an escalating political battle among evangelicals over the environment and global warming.
In February, a moderate evangelical group, the Evangelical Climate Initiative, was launched. It advocates personal, religious and commercial action to combat global warming, which it says could result in the deaths of millions of people. The Dobson-backed Interfaith Stewardship Alliance bases its beliefs on the 2000 Cornwall Declaration on Environmental Stewardship. The document, signed by more than 1,500 people -- including clergy, theologians, scientists and economists -- states that concerns about global warming, overpopulation and rampant species loss are unfounded.
-- Religion News Service
Malaysian High Court Takes Up Conversion Case
Malaysia's highest court has agreed to decide whether the country's Islamic court has the exclusive right to deal with Muslims who renounce their faith.
The Federal Court intervention is a rare step into the highly sensitive area of conversions and a test of religious freedom in the majority-Muslim country.
The Federal Court's April 13 announcement came in the case of Lina Joy, who converted from Islam to Christianity in 1998. She applied to the National Registration Department to change her Muslim name, Azlina Jailani, on her government identity card, which also identifies the cardholder's religion. The agency agreed to change her name but would not remove "Islam" as the religion, saying it needed permission from a Shariah court, which handles Islamic issues.
Muslims, who make up 60 percent of Malaysia's population of 26 million, are governed by Shariah courts on civil and family matters. Chinese and Indian minorities come under civil court.
But there are no clear jurisdiction guidelines about which court should handle a case such as Joy's.
