China’s New Adoption Policy Leaves Children in the Balance
On September 4, the US state department informed adoption service providers and waiting families that the People’s Republic of China (PRC), would “no longer carry out foreign adoption work,” except in a few narrow cases. Several hundred American families have been matched with children in China. Many families were scheduled to bring their children home Read more…
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Died: Andar Ismail, Prolific Writer Who Made Theology Simple
Andar Ismail, a prolific Christian writer who distilled theological truths into short stories accessible to ordinary Indonesians, died of congestive heart failure on August 25. He was 84. From 1981 to 2022, the pastor and seminary professor wrote 33 books, each containing 33 short stories, for his Selamatseries. Ismail described his literary style as gado-gado Read more…
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China Ends International Adoptions, Leaving Hundreds of Cases in Limbo
The Chinese government has officially ended its international adoption program, foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning announced Thursday, ending hopes for hundreds of US families who were matched with children before the COVID-19 pandemic but had adoptions put on hold in 2020. Karla Thrasher, senior director of international adoptions at Lifeline Children’s Services based in Birmingham, Read more…
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Bangladeshi Christians and Hindus Advocate for a Secular Country
Amid a spike in violence against religious minorities in Bangladesh, a national council of Buddhists, Hindus and Christians is renewing a campaign for the Muslim-majority South Asian nation to remove Islam as the state religion. In mid-July, student-led protests demanding reform of the country’s job quota system turned violent, culminating in the collapse of former Read more…
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German Pastor to Pay for Anti-LGBTQ Statements
Nearly five years after a German pastor sparked controversy with comments about homosexuality, the legal dispute appears to be over with a settlement of 5,000 euros (about $5,550 USD). Olaf Latzel, pastor of a conservative congregation in the state-privileged Protestant Church, called homosexuality “degenerative” and “demonic.” He condemned what he called the “hobbylobby” and slammed Read more…
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Rwanda Explains Why It Closed Thousands of Churches. Again.
Rwanda has shut down almost 10,000 places of worship in the past two months, and now its president has proposed making churches pay taxes on their income. The country’s crackdown on houses of worship comes as part of an ongoing push to protect Rwandans from church corruption and fraud and to ensure that their buildings Read more…
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