Category: Ecumenism

Mega-Christian Leaders Rushing Into Dallas on Holy Spirit Prayer Assignment

flickr-dallas-skylineMany of America’s top Christian leaders, representing a variety of races, ages and denominations, will convene in the Dallas area Sept. 21 for The Gathering, a national solemn assembly to pray for forgiveness, wisdom and provision for our country.

The Gathering will be held at Gateway Church in Southlake, Texas, with an afternoon session for leaders beginning at noon CT. The national prayer event open to the public will begin at 7 p.m. Both events will be simulcast around the country.

Dr. Tony Evans, chief organizer of The Gathering, said the Bible calls for a solemn assembly with fasting and prayer when God’s people have grown away from Him and want to renew their relationship. Continue reading…

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Gift from WNC Methodists presented to Pope Francis

ed72f3a1-c5c2-48db-870e-d6990aea1fd5-medium36x25_astamey3WLOS — HAYWOOD COUNTY, N.C. — A little bit of Western North Carolina is presented to the Pope.

Lake Junaluska World Methodist Museum wanted to present Pope Francis with a small sculpture of Methodist church founder John Wesley, seeing parallels between them.

“The Pope goes into the communities,” museum director Jackie Bolden said. “He goes into the slums, and when he travels, he goes where the people are.”  Continue reading…

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Did Pope Francis Really Take Another Step Toward a One World Religion?

reuters-pope-sheikh-2Despite Pope Francis’ literal embracing of a top Islamic cleric and declaration that their “Meeting is the message,” his top aid said Christians must apply Matthew 28 to everyone, including Muslims.

“We have a mission to convert all non-Christian religions’ people [except] Judaism,” Cardinal Kurt Koch said. “And what is very important for us is that we can make mission only with a credible witness and without any proselytism.”   Continue reading…

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World ecumenical and evangelical leaders meet to explore areas of future cooperation

olav-fykse-tveit-bishop-efraim-tenderoThe leadership of the World Evangelical Alliance and the World Council of Churches have met in the Ecumenical Institute at Bossey, Switzerland to explore and discuss possible areas of future cooperation.

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Pope in historic talks with Grand Imam of Al-Azh

e2eaf55139b14d6f9d459741b54dc7dd_18“Pope Francis has met the grand imam of Cairo’s Al-Azhar Mosque at the Vatican in a historic encounter that was sealed with a hugely symbolic hug and exchange of kisses. The first Vatican meeting on Monday between the leader of the world’s Catholics and the highest authority in Sunni Islam marks the culmination of a significant improvement in relations between the two faiths since Francis took office in 2013. …Ties were badly soured when the now-retired Benedict made a September 2006 speech in which he was perceived to have linked Islam to violence, sparking deadly protests in several countries and reprisal attacks on Christians.”

One has to realize the craftiness of the beast to really appreciate what’s going on here. Benedict, as evil as he was as pope, was not the catalyst that brought the Muslims to anger that caused them to start killing Christians en masse. If it was, the killings would have begun at his remarks in 2006 wherein he said the (so called) prophet Muhammad’s teachings were “evil and inhuman.”  Continue reading…

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Reformation celebrations will be ecumenical and international, says German Protestant leader

image_previewThe 500th anniversary of the Reformation in 2017 should be a profoundly ecumenical, as well as European and international celebration, according to Bishop Heinrich Bedford-Strohm, chair of the Council of the Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD).

“With this clear distinction from all other commemorations of past centuries, we are sending a signal of reconciliation and a new beginning,” Bedford-Strohm said at a 9 May press conference in Berlin announcing events leading up to the anniversary on 31 October 2017.

The commemoration marks the day in 1517 on which Martin Luther is said to have posted his 95 theses denouncing church abuses on the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg.  Continue reading…

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Pope Francis Praises London’s New Muslim Mayor

pope-francis-meets-migrants-lesbos2Pope Francis says that London’s election of the first Muslim mayor of a Western capital is an example of how migrants can be integrated in Europe.

Voters in the English capital elected Sadiq Khan, the son of a Pakistani bus driver, on May 6 after a campaign in which the Conservative candidate, Zac Goldsmith, was criticized for focusing on Labour candidate Khan’s religion.

In an interview with French Catholic newspaper La Croix published on Tuesday, the leader of the Catholic Church said that Khan’s election provided an encouraging sign as other parts of Europe put up borders to migrants coming from the Middle East and Africa. Francis, 79, cited the orchestrators of the Brussels attacks—in which suicide bombings at an airport and metro station killed 36 people in March—as an example of the consequences of not integrating migrants. Many of the perpetrators of both the Brussels attacks and Paris attacks that killed 130 people in November 2015 grew up in the Molenbeek district of the Belgian capital, seen as a haven for extremists.  Continue reading…

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Generate new models of economic progress, Pope urges business leaders

pope_francis_centesimus_annus_pro_pontifice_foundation_may_13_2016_credit_lor_cnaVatican City, May 14, 2016 / 06:04 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Economic worldviews based only on material well-being cannot contribute to dignified labor and new models of economic progress are needed, Pope Francis told a gathering of business experts on Friday.

“An economic vision geared to profit and material well-being alone is – as experience is daily showing us – incapable of contributing in a positive way to a globalization that favours the integral development of the world’s peoples, a just distribution of the earth’s resources, the guarantee of dignified labour and the encouragement of private initiative and local enterprise,” Pope Francis said May 13 to the members of the Centesimus Annus pro Pontifice Foundation.  Source

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The eight things Catholics and Muslims agree on

qoran_bible_400x254The document is the result of the fourth Catholic-Muslim colloquium on interreligious dialogue

Senior leaders from the Catholic Church and the Muslim community have issued an eight-point joint statement reflecting their shared beliefs.

The document, which is the result of the fourth Catholic-Muslim colloquium on interreligious dialogue, includes a call for basic human rights to be protected by law, a pledge of solidarity with all those in need, a rejection of all forms of proselytism and a focus on the right of young people to an education that is “respectful of diversity”, reports Vatican Radio.

The communiqué came at the conclusion of a two-day meeting at the Vatican entitled ‘Shared values in social and political life: Christian and Muslim perspectives’. Delegates from a dozen different countries came together, organised by the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue and Jordan’s Royal Institute for Inter-Faith Studies. They were joined by Pope Francis on the concluding day.  Source

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Interfaith Leaders Gather To Promote Peace In The Heart Of The Christian South

572cfc951300001a01380d99Renowned spiritual leaders and activists will convene in Louisville, Kentucky for the 21st annual Festival of Faiths later this month to address strategies for peace in an increasingly violent world.

The interfaith gathering, which is put on every year by the Louisville-based Center for Interfaith Relations, will host figures like Karen Armstrong, Pico Iyer, Vandana Shiva, Linda Sarsour and Jim Wallis for a long weekend of events centered on the theme “Sacred Wisdom: Pathways to Nonviolence.”  Source

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