Christians count down to Christmas

Waiting for the wonder — Utah’s and world’s Christians count down to Christmas

Advent » Christians in Utah and around the world count down to Christmas.

By Peggy Fletcher Stack

| The Salt Lake Tribune

First Published Nov 29 2012 12:57 pm • Updated 6 hours ago

In a world before iPhones, digital alarms and day planners, Christians sought a way to measure their waiting.

How many days until the Savior’s birthday? How many cold nights before the celebration? How long until light pierced the dark and rapturous music filled the air?

Thus, those medieval believers devised ways to mark the time before Christ-Mass with candles, prayers, fasting, blocks and wreaths. Such traditions have persisted to this day among many traditional Catholic and Protestant churches across the globe. They celebrate it as the season of Advent, which means "coming," to commemorate the anticipation of Christ’s birth.

Now even nontraditional believers embrace the idea of daily reminders.

Beyond Bible passages and Nativity figures, eager children can count down the days with Legos and Playmobil, chocolates and gummy bears, Disney and Barbie, Peanuts and princesses, snowmen and soldiers. They do so with calendars made of paper and cardboard and wood and fabric — often felt — that feature little windows that open, close or slide.

For most Americans "waiting means annoyance," Utah’s Catholic Bishop John Wester told his flock this week. "We don’t like to wait — we want to do, we want to be on the move. We sometimes fail to appreciate that Advent really is a gift that helps us open our hearts to that which we are expecting. This is unfortunate, because by rushing through to Christmas we miss many valuable experiences."

Advent, Wester said, "is a precious period for us to ponder and prepare."

It’s all about the anticipation of wonder, said the Rev. Tom Abbott, pastor at Cottonwood Presbyterian Church.

"Our culture is so focused on the immediate," said Abbott, who is spending his first Christmas in Utah since becoming Cottonwood’s pastor in September. "It is great to have a season where we think about waiting and preparing. Things of value take time. They don’t necessarily happen in the moment."

What Christians await, he said, "is the gift of salvation and what that means for us."

On each of the four Sundays until Christmas, leaders at Abbott’s church — like many others across Utah and the nation — light one candle in their evergreen wreath, which symbolizes everlasting life. Three of the candles are purple, representing aspects of Christ’s royal lineage — hope, peace and love.

On the third Sunday of Advent, he explained, the candle is pink, suggesting joy at the upcoming birth.

Finally, during the Christmas Eve service, a white candle, symbolizing Christ himself, is placed in the center of the wreath.

In her Advent sermon, Episcopal Church Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts focused on the waiting women of Christian history.

There was Jesus’ mother, Mary, who anticipated "the birth of the Promised One in her part of the world, a child born for the whole world," Jefferts said in a videotaped message at the Chapel of the Good Shepherd on the grounds of General Theological Seminary in New York City.

Then there was John the Baptist’s mother, Elizabeth, who was "promised a child in her old age," the presiding bishop said. "These are both very unexpected births they are awaiting."

Finally, Jefferts said, there was Elizabeth of Hungary, a 13th-century saint "who was betrothed as a child herself, married at 14, a mother of three by the time her husband died when she was 20."

This saint "spent her life giving it away, giving it away both physically through her means and through her presence and her healing," Jefferts said. "She was an icon of generosity."

So what are Christians waiting for this year?

"Is it an opportunity to meet the surprising around you? Is it an opportunity to reflect on what is most needed in your heart and in the world around you? How are you going to wait for that gift? Are you going to wait actively? Engaged?" Jefferts asked. "Honing your desire? Stoking the passion within you for that dream? Are you going to wait for a dream that will bless the whole world?"

Rosemary Baron, a lifelong Catholic and hospital chaplain in Salt Lake City, celebrates Advent in the simple ways she learned as a child.

"We use the same Advent wreath that our son — who is now 32 — made when he was 5 years old," Baron wrote in an email. "It is braided and made from salt dough. We insert new candles each year and say Advent prayers and read a reflection by candlelight each evening after dinner."

Baron and her husband have followed this pattern during the nearly 40 years of their marriage and, before that, with her parents and siblings.

It is nothing new or extraordinary, she said, just "a spiritual preparation for Christmas."

Fearful Pakistani Christians make home in forest

Having fled their homes in the latest spasm of Pakistani religious strife, a few hundred Christians have camped in a forest in the Pakistani capital, cut down trees and are using the branches to build a church. Their ordeal began when a Christian girl in their poor Islamabad neighborhood was accused by a neighbor of burning pages of the Quran — a blasphemy by Pakistani law that can mean life in prison.

A week after the girl's arrest, much remains in question: her age — 11 to 16 in conflicting reports; mental condition —  Down syndrome has been mentioned; and what exactly she was burning — there's little evidence that Quran pages were involved.

But as word spread, hundreds of people gathered outside her house demanding action, and on Aug. 20 police arrested the girl pending an investigation. (The Associated Press is withholding her name because it does not generally identify underage suspects.)

Most Christians in the neighborhood fled — some 600 families according to one interfaith group. Some said their landlords evicted them. A few have returned.

One of those who moved into the forest on Sunday was Sumera Zahid, who was busy feeding her three children and her parents.

"We used to come here to collect wood for fuel so we find it a suitable place for shelter," she said. "Here it is not anybody's home, nobody's land. Let us live here in safety."

On Monday their pastor, Arif Masih, spoke to them by the frame of branches they were lashing together for their church.

"We are thankful to the Lord for this land although here is no water and food, but rest assured the Lord will create water fountains and provide all fruits here for you if you remain patient and suffer these hardships, thanking the Lord," he said.

Blasphemy is an extremely sensitive issue in this 95-percent Muslim nation of 190 million people, and cases often grab huge attention here and abroad.

Crowds have been known to beat or kill suspected blasphemers. Last year two prominent politicians who criticized the blasphemy law were murdered, one by his own bodyguard who then attracted adoring mobs. In July, thousands of people dragged a Pakistani man accused of desecrating the Quran from a police station, beat him to death and set his body alight.

So volatile is the issue that public figures appear loath to speak out on the latest episode. The government has made little substantive comment, and no police protection was evident at the forest encampment.

On Monday the All Pakistan Ulema Council, an umbrella organization of Muslim clerics, held a news conference together with the Pakistan Interfaith League, the group that reports 600 families have fled and is campaigning to return them to their homes.

The two groups called for an investigation into whether the girl was wrongly accused and what role religious extremism played. League chairman Sajid Ishaq demanded government compensation for the displaced Christians, as well as protection.

Critics say the blasphemy laws are often used in vendettas and score-settling. Sensitivities are also heightened by Western reactions to such incidents, such as the U.S. State Department statement calling the latest case "deeply disturbing."

At the news conference, the head of the clerics' council, Maulana Tahir-ul-Ashrafi, told the outside world not to interfere, saying Pakistan would provide justice for the girl and her community.

Meanwhile, Nooran Bashir, who had fled a few hours after the girl's arrest, was back in her home Monday.

"I don't know whether she burned pages of some holy book or not, but we all had to abruptly leave our homes to save our lives," she said. She said one of her sons came back with her, but her other children were too frightened and she sent them to relatives.

She said Muslims asked the Christians not to worship in their church, and if they did, to refrain from singing.

But others were not ready to return. About 200 Christians, mostly men, protested in front of the city administration offices Monday, demanding permission to stay in the clearing. About another 100 people, mostly women and children, were back at the clearing.

"We don't have a big list of demands," said one Christian resident, Salim Masih. "We have cleared this place with our hands, and we have laid the first foundation of a small church here. Although this is a mere skeleton made of tree branches, this is the holy home of God. This should be respected."

Iman Sheikh: Pakistan’s anti-Christian witch hunt

Rifta Masih is an 11-year-old Christian girl who lives near Islamabad, Pakistan. She reportedly suffers from Down’s Syndrome. Like many of the other Christians in her area — who comprise about 10% of the local population — the members of her family work menial jobs, and live in tiny properties rented from Muslim landlords.

On Thursday evening, Rifta was seen leaving the one-room dwelling she lives in with her sister and parents, carrying an earthenware dish filled with ash. Or, it may have been some refuse in a small shopping bag. Although Hammad Malik, a 23-year-old witness, is unclear on exactly what the girl was transporting, he is quite certain that the burnt remains had Arabic writing on them.

Rifta, he alleges, was burning pages from a Koran inside her house, and then trying to find a place to dispose of the remains. Although he did not see her do this, that did not stop him from assembling an angry group of men and reporting the incident to the local police, with the demand that the girl be apprehended in accordance with the country’s Blasphemy Law. The authorities at first did not act, but then moved swiftly to get the girl into custody when a mob of over 500 people gathered at the Masih home’s doorstep. Fearing for her safety, the authorities put her into a cell for a two-week detention.

Welcome to Pakistan: A nightmare society beyond pity or parody, where handicapped 11-year-old girls must be locked up to ensure their own safety.

According to the Blasphemy Law, anyone found guilty of insulting the Prophet Muhammad or the Koran can be sentenced to death. With blind religious extremism on the upswing, there is no shortage of Hammad Malik types — self-appointed religious vigilantes on the lookout for any transgression, real or imagined.

The law has been enforced in regard to even the most dubious reports of “blasphemy,” and has led to the murder of two prominent politicians. In January 2011, Punjab Governor Salman Taseer was shot by his own bodyguard after he expressed sympathy for Asia Noreen, a Christian woman sentenced to death for blasphemy. Scarcely two months later, Shahbaz Bhatti, Pakistan’s first Federal Minister for Minorities Affairs and the only Christian in Pakistan’s Cabinet, was leaving his mother’s home in Islamabad when his car was sprayed with bullets. (The Pakistani Taliban has claimed responsibility for the killing.)

The aforementioned Noreen, better known in the media as “Asia Bibi,” was a farmhand who fetched water for her coworkers. When some Muslims refused to drink the water on account of it being contaminated by an “unclean” Christian, heated work-site arguments allegedly ensued. Later, a cleric received complaints that Noreen made derogatory comments about the Prophet Muhammad. A mob arrived at her house, attacking her and her family before she was rescued by the police. This was in June 2009. She is still in jail.

The Blasphemy Law can be manipulated by cynical plaintiffs, as a tool to take personal retribution. In the case of Asia Bibi, there had been a pre-existing feud between Noreen and a Muslim neighbour over property damage. In Rifta’s case, relations between the Muslim and Christian communities had been tense for months after complaints were made about the noise coming from churches in the area during religious services.

In Pakistan, Christians traditionally have worked as cleaners and sweepers; many Muslims still consider them “unclean.” About 900 Christians living on the outskirts of Islamabad have been ordered to leave the neighbourhood and the homes they have inhabited for two decades. On Sunday, houses on the backstreets of Mehrabadi, an area 20 minutes drive from Islamabad’s western embassies and government ministries, were locked up and abandoned, their frightened occupants having relocated to already overcrowded Christian slums in and around the capital.

Pakistan is a country with many problems — from corruption to terrorism to regional secession movements. But none captures the primitive, bigoted spirit of the nation’s religious extremists more perfectly than the witch hunt for “blasphemers” that has been used to persecute the country’s tiny, beleaguered Christian community. If an 11-year-old handicapped girl is considered fair game for the fanatics, what chance does anyone else have?

David Cameron: I will change the law to allow crosses at work

During exchanges at Prime Minister's Question Time, Mr Cameron was asked about the case of Nadia Eweida, who has appealed to the European Court of Human Rights after being barred by British Airways from wearing a crucifix while working at Heathrow Airport.

David Davis, the former shadow home secretary, described the airline's refusal to allow Miss Eweida to wear her cross as a "disgraceful piece of political correctness" and asked the Prime Minister why the Government was opposing her appeal.

He told the Commons that Miss Eweida was appearing before the European Court in September to complain that there were no protections under United Kingdom law for workers who wore religious symbols.

Saying she wore the crucifix "as a mark of her Christianity," Mr Davis went on: "The behaviour of British Airways in this was a disgraceful piece of political correctness, so I was surprised to see the Government is resisting Miss Eweida's appeal.

"I cannot believe the Government is supporting the suppression of religious freedom in the workplace, so what are we going to do in this case?"

In response, Mr Cameron said he that he was fully supportive of employees' right to wear religious symbols at work, adding: "I think it is an absolutely vital freedom."

He went on: "What we will do is that if it turns out that the law has the intention [of banning the display of religious symbols in the workplace], as has come out in this case, then we will change the law and make clear that people can wear religious symbols at work."

The Prime Minister joked that while he did not always side with Mr Davis – his rival for the 2005 Tory leadership contest – he "wholeheartedly agreed" with him over the BA case.

Miss Eweida, 59, a Pentecostal Christian from Twickenham, south-west London, was sent home from her job at Heathrow in 2006 when she refused to remove her crucifix or accept a non-uniformed job.

She lost an industrial tribunal, which ruled that she had not suffered religious discrimination. Mrs Eweida had argued that the airline was discriminating against her as a Christian because Sikh employees were permitted to wear turbans and Muslims could work in hijab head coverings.

But BA said that the wearing of a cross was not a "requirement" of her faith, unlike the turban and hijab. BA has since changed its policy to allow the wearing of crosses and other religious symbols.

Miss Eweida's has been joined in her legal battle by Shirley Chaplin, a nurse from from Exeter, who was told by her employer, The Royal Devon and Exeter Foundation NHS Trust, to remove a necklace on which she had hung a cross.

It is the first time that Mr Cameron has explicitly promised to change the law in the event that the two women lose their case.

Vince Cable, the Business Secretary who is Miss Eweida's constituency MP, welcomed the Prime Minister's words. He had previously written to Theresa May, the Home Secretary, asking for a change in the law and was told this was impossible.

He said: "As her local MP, I've supported Nadia's right to wear a cross throughout her campaign. I wrote to the Home Secretary eighteen months ago urging her change the law.

"So I am delighted by the Prime Minister's announcement today that the law will be changed to allow people of all religious faiths to be able to wear symbols of their religion."

Mr Cameron's announcement means that Christians and other people of faith will be given formal legal protection to wear religious symbols at work regardless of the outcome of the European Court case.

If Miss Eweida and Mrs Chaplin are successful, then no changes to the law will be necessary because the case will form a legal precedent.

The loss of the case would mean that the Government would be expected to bring forth legislation providing protection for religious workers as soon as the parliamentary timetable allowed.

After NATO meeting, Turkey warns Syria on border

Buoyed by support from his country's NATO allies, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan warned Syrian forces Tuesday to stay clear of their troubled border or face a Turkish military response to any perceived threat, following the disputed downing of a Turkish warplane.

The Turkish leader's bellicose tone came as ambassadors from the NATO alliance, seeking to avoid a wider conflict, held emergency talks in Brussels at Turkey's behest. After the meeting, the NATO secretary-general, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, said the alliance considered Syria's actions in shooting down a Turkish warplane Friday "unacceptable."

In a unanimous statement, the NATO allies called the episode "another example of the Syrian authorities' disregard for international norms, peace and security, and human life."

Turkey is a member of the alliance.

"I would certainly expect that such an incident won't happen again," Rasmussen said at a news conference at NATO headquarters in Brussels. In Ankara, Erdogan said Turkey had revised its military rules of engagement toward Syria.

"Every military element that approaches the Turkish border from Syria in a manner that constitutes a security risk or danger would be considered as a threat and would be treated as a military target," he said to lawmakers in a speech attended by Arab diplomats.

In calling for the meeting in Brussels, Turkey said it was invoking Article 4 of the NATO treaty, which provides for consultations by the allies when one of them is threatened.

Iraq still operating secret torture site

A clandestine jail and alleged torture site under the control of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki continues to operate more than a year after the government ordered it shut down, Human Rights Watch claims in a report being released Tuesday.

Massive roundups of suspected loyalists of late leader Saddam Hussein and the Baath Party were conducted in October and November, when government security agents went door to door in Baghdad, the capital, with lists of those targeted for secret detention, the rights group reported. Another sweep of suspected government opponents occurred in March, ahead of an Arab summit, it said.

“Iraqi security forces are grabbing people outside of the law, without trial or known charges, and hiding them away in incommunicado sites,” said Joe Stork, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “The Iraqi government should immediately reveal the names and locations of all detainees, promptly free those not charged with crimes, and bring those facing charges before an independent judicial authority.”

The group also called for the Iraqi government to appoint an independent commission to investigate "continuing allegations of torture" and disappearances.

The continued operation of the Camp Honor detention site was disclosed by Los Angeles Times staff writer Ned Parker in July, four months after Maliki's government said the facility had been closed at the urging of Iraqi lawmakers and human rights advocates.

In March 2011, Iraqi legislators toured the prison in the Baghdad government enclave known as the Green Zone after they learned that the International Committee of the Red Cross sent a letter to Maliki's government expressing concern over reports it had received about secret detention and torture at Camp Honor. The Justice Ministry ordered it closed after the lawmakers' visit.

Two Justice Ministry officials told Human Rights Watch that dozens of prisoners have been taken to the clandestine detention site as recently as last month and have yet to be transferred to official custody, as required by Iraqi law, according to the rights group.

Human Rights Watch based its report on information conveyed in interviews over the last six months with 35 former prisoners, family members, lawyers, legislators and Iraqi government officials, all of whom spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retribution, Stork said.

A spokesman for the Iraqi Embassy in Washington, Raifet Ahmad, relayed a request from The Times for government confirmation or denial of the Human Rights Watch allegations but did not provide a reply from Baghdad authorities.

China denies South China Sea war preparations

China has denied it is increasing combat readiness in response to a tense territorial row with the Philippines in the South China

Sea which has dragged on for more than a month.

The stand-off erupted last month after Philippine authorities detected Chinese ships fishing near the Scarborough Shoal.

They tried to arrest the crew, but were blocked by Chinese surveillance vessels deployed to the tiny rocky outcrop in the South China Sea about 230 kilometres (140 miles) from the Philippines' main island of Luzon.

The two nations have stationed non-military vessels at the shoal since April 8 in an effort to assert their sovereignty over the area.

But China's defence ministry denied military units were getting ready for war, despite warnings in state media that China is prepared to fight to end the stand-off.

“Reports that the Guangzhou military region, the South China Sea fleet and other units have entered a state of war preparedness are untrue,” the ministry said in a brief statement on its website late Friday.

The Guangzhou military region in southern China has responsibility for the area.

It gave no source for the reports, but rumours on Chinese microblogs say China has ordered some military units up to level two of its four-level scale of war preparedness, one notch from the top which indicates full readiness.

China claims virtually all of the South China Sea, which is believed to sit atop huge oil and gas reserves, as its historical territory, even waters close to the coasts of other Asian countries.

The Philippines says the shoal is part of its territory because it falls within its exclusive economic zone.

On Friday, around 300 protestors demonstrated outside the Chinese embassy in the Philippines to denounce “bullying” by Beijing.

Chinese citizens responded by holding far smaller protests outside the Philippine embassy in Beijing on Friday and Saturday, but police have not allowed sustained demonstrations.

China worries protests could spark wider social unrest.

On Saturday, police hustled away a group of five people attempting to unfurl a banner outside the embassy, who were put in a van and then driven away, an AFP photographer witnessed.

One briefly held up a sign reading: “Philippine servants, get away from Huangyan Island” using the Chinese name for the Scarborough Shoal.

A Chinese state-backed newspaper on Saturday accused the Philippines of whipping up nationalism, but it added military conflict in the South China Sea was possible.

“Nationalism seems to echo just as strongly wherever you go around the South China Sea. The Philippines is showing prominent such behaviour,” the Global Times said in an editorial.

“It remains possible that military conflicts will ensue in the South China Sea, and when that happens China will certainly take firm action,” it added.

Taiwan, Brunei, Vietnam and Malaysia also claim parts of the sea. The rival claims have for decades made the waters one of Asia's potential military flashpoints.

The official Xinhua news agency late Friday urged the Philippines to negotiate a diplomatic solution to the dispute.

“The Philippine government is urged to use its vision and wisdom to handle the... dispute by peaceful diplomatic means to prevent harming bilateral relations in the long run,” it said.

Chinese authorities have ordered tour operators to suspend trips to the Philippines, and a Philippine official said Saturday that Chinese customs had impounded fruit imported from the Philippines, alleging pests, amid the dispute.