OVO

Stephen Wright & Tom Kelly: Priest gets a visit from ‘hate crime’ police for expressing his views on Muslim veil affair.

A priest has been interviewed by police on suspicion of inciting racial hatred for expressing his Christian views in his parish newsletter. Father John Hayes, 71, was quizzed for more than an hour after commenting on the case of a Muslim girl who went to court over her wish to wear a full veil in class. [...] After hearing an interview with the girl, Mr Hayes suggested in his internet bulletin to his parishioners that it was never possible to convince anyone by argument in matters of religion. “My point was that you have to demonstrate what it means to be Christian through your actions,” he said. “Apparently someone in my congregation was unhappy with my comments and, after waiting a year, went to the police to say he had been ‘disturbed’ by it.” [The police] were very polite and cordial, but I did say to them that surely they had better things to be doing with their time. We had a long, civilised discussion and I didn’t give an inch. They seemed satisfied and when they eventually left the sergeant told me ‘that’s the end of the matter’. I felt the whole thing was a bit of a storm in a teacup.”

Assyrian International News Agency: Christian Couple Flogged for Attending ‘Secret Sermon’ in Iran.

A Christian couple were flogged in Iran for participating in an “underground Church”, an Iranian Christian group said in a report on its website earlier this week. The unnamed couple were arrested on September 21, 2005, the report said, adding that a Revolutionary Court reviewed their case in July 2007. [...] The court ruled that both the man and the woman were Mortad, a description of someone who has committed apostasy by leaving Islam.

Articles continue at links. Photographs of flogged humans might not be safe for work. Here are some examples of interfaith and interculture dialog. In some places, disagreements are resolved by discussion. In other places, disagreements are resolved by flogging. I am in favor of neither ‘hate crime’ legislation nor corporal punishment, neither Christianity nor Islam. But if we are currently stuck with one or the other, I’ll take a foolish discussion in Christianity over corporal punishment in Islam. The reason Christianity is more moral than Islam is that Christianity has incorporated more secular ideas. All religions used to be like Islam is today. – Trevor Blake