Islam

Pastors in Detroit are trying to calm Muslim communities that are cautiously upping security at Islamic mosques and schools on Friday as the 24-hour prayer event TheCall kicks off. The group of clergy are proclaiming messages of brotherly love for Muslims and renewal for the Motor City.

“We LOVE MUSLIMS!! But I know someone who loves them even more than we do! Jesus,” Jubilee City Church Pastor Marcellis Smith tweeted Friday morning. He followed up two hours later simply proclaiming, “We love Muslims!!”

The emphasis on love comes after the Michigan chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations held a Wednesday press conference warning Muslims about TheCall. more >>

Carl Medearis is a writer equally at home in East and West. Currently residing in Denver, Colo., he also spent 12 years in Beirut, Lebanon. These experiences have made the scribe a specialist on Christian-Muslim relations and a rare voice linking Americans with the Arab world.

Medearis' work on both sides of the Atlantic produced 2008's Muslims, Christians, and Jesus: Gaining Understanding and Building Relationships. It quickly gained popularity as an important guide for interfaith interaction, and has since been turned into a video seminar series for churches and missionaries that was released in September.

In an interview with The Christian Post, Medearis maintains that peace between Christians and Muslims remains vital as the number following each faith closes. With 9/11's legacy still looming large a decade later, he argues that Christians and Muslims must cooperate to keep the world safe. more >>

A church in Tennessee plans to be the site of an anti-Sharia conference next week after organizers were forced by a Nashville hotel to cancel the group’s first-ever national event.

Pastor Maury Davis of Cornerstone Church in Madison told The Christian Post that he allowed the Sharia Awareness Action Network to rent the church for the event because the group will provide an educational experience and not simply an opportunity for “hate speech” as some have claimed.

Hutton Hotel backed out of its $8,000 contract to accommodate the event scheduled for Nov. 11, citing potential security issues and a risk to its employees. more >>

Palestinians eager for self-empowerment and a state of their own are achieving mixed results on securing greater international support for their independence during recent interactions with the U.N.

The potential country achieved a major leap forward in global prominence by gaining admittance to UNESCO, the U.N.'s cultural agency, after 107 out of 173 U.N. members voted in favor of the status upgrade, according to The Associated Press.

By contrast, a proposed Nov. 11 bid by Palestinians to take a place amid U.N. members is in serious jeopardy after one of the organization's Security Council nations, Bosnia-Herzegovina, decided to abstain from voting on the proposal. The move leaves Palestine with eight confirmed votes, just short of the nine needed to sway the 15 nation board. more >>

The U.S. Government has a new weapon to fight terrorism: "Sesame Street."

According to The Associated Press, the U.S. is spending $20 million on a Pakistani version of "Sesame Street" that it hopes will fight Islamic radicalism by increasing tolerance.

"One of the key goals of the show in Pakistan is to increase tolerance toward groups like women and ethnic minorities," said Larry Dolan, who was the head education officer for the U.S. Agency for International Development in Pakistan until very recently. more >>

Anti-Sharia groups said their right to free speech is being compromised after a Tennessee Hotel canceled their conference, where they planned to discuss possible measures to protect the U.S. Constitution against Islamic laws.

The Sharia Awareness Action Network is "following a dual track of legal action and seeking a new venue" for its first national conference on Sharia, titled "The Constitution or Sharia: Preserving Freedom Conference," according to the group’s website. The conference's host, Hutton Hotel, reneged on its $8,000 contract to accommodate the event scheduled for Nov. 11, citing a potential risk to their employees.

SAAN Chairman William J. Murray believes the change of heart infringes on the group's right to express their sincerely-held beliefs. more >>