Religious News From Around the Web July 6, 2020

Hagia Sophia Returns to a Mosque? Chinese Communists Destroy Buddhist Temple and Christian Crosses, SCOTUS Changes the Playing Field, Nelson Mandela: Difference between Tolerance and Retaliation, What does the Dalai Lama Want for his 85th Birthday?

Hagia Sophia a Mosque?
Hagia Sophia, built in 537 AD, has been both a Greek Orthodox church and an Ottoman Empire mosque as Istanbul/Constantinople has changed hands through history. Today the building is a museum, but Turkey’s rulers have plans to change it back to a mosque which has caused controversy. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Wednesday urged Turkey to let Hagia Sophia – also known as the Blue Mosque – remain a museum.

Chinese Communist Government Waits 2,000 Years to Apply Building Codes
The Shengquan Buddhist Temple in China was built sometime between 202 BC and 8 AD, and was renovated in 2016 with the government’s approval. Now, however, the government has charged that the temple was an “illegal construction” and on April 20, knocked it down. The atheist Chinese Communist government has been destroying religious statues and religious buildings for years now, and this is but the latest example. And the government has also cut down 500 crosses from Christian churches and imprisoned some 1 million Uighur Muslims and Christians in Xinjiang, according to Bitter Winter.

SCOTUS Decisions Changes the Playing Field
The U. S. Supreme Court has changed the religious liberty landscape with rulings on Obergefell, Bostock, and Espinoza So far the Court has come down on both sides of the religious liberty issue, with more to come.

Ruling Strikes Down New York Worship Rules
A federal judge ruled that officials in New York City and state could not permit businesses to operate at 50 percent of capacity while restricting outdoor religious gatherings or indoor worship gatherings to 25 percent of capacity.

Nelson Mandela: The Difference Between Tolerance and Retaliation
What happened one day when Nelson Mandela – then the President of South Africa – met one of his former prison guards who had gone to great lengths to humiliate and torture him?

What does the Dalai Lama want for his Birthday?
The Dalai Lama was 85 years old on July 6, and here he tells what he would like for his birthday. It’s not a birthday cake…