Word: convertibles
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Thailand. The dreadful fellow travelers, the machine-tooled John Grisham novel on the predictable beach--Houellebecq expertly takes the measure of modern enjoyments. But Michel also meets Valerie, then moves in with her in Paris. When she accepts an executive job with a hotel chain, he persuades her to convert some of its Third World hotels to sex resorts...
Only to find it closing. Of the three Abrahamic faiths, Islam is the most ferociously opposed to the straying of its flock. Shari'a law calls for the death penalty for those who convert to other religions, and although the penalty is not binding in most Muslim-majority states, persecution is common. This alone would not retard missions work. Most evangelists accept it as a cost of sharing faith. What did slow their efforts was a more prosaic measure: the gradual elimination by most Muslim countries of professional "religious worker" visas. Established organizations built around salaried missionary lifers found themselves...
Missionaries also face charges of neglectful carelessness regarding reprisals they sometimes bring down on pre-existing Christian churches and nonevangelistic aid groups. Says Lamin Sanneh, a Muslim convert to Catholicism who teaches the history of world Christianity at Yale: "They come in, don't report to the local churches, stir up a hornet's nest and then quit town when the going gets tough. Why start a controversy if you're not there to face the brunt of it?" Seiple notes that after Curry's and Mercer's arrest in Afghanistan, "all of the other Christian organizations were expelled until...
They are not alone in this. Many Christian groups active in these countries, including some in Iraq, avoid trying to convert the people around them. The practice is clearly out of bounds for those that form partnerships with local Muslim groups or with the Red Crescent (the Islamic version of the Red Cross). Others simply feel that any good done by outright evangelizing is outweighed by the violence it could provoke or the possibility that needy Muslims might be discouraged from accepting aid. Donna Derr, an associate director at Church World Service, a joint ministry of 36 Protestant, Orthodox...
...union. He is said to have told interrogators his mission was to scout tourist targets for an attack similar to the Bali bombing last October, which killed 202 people. The next day, at the same airport, officials arrested German Christian Ganczarski, 36, a Mehdi associate and convert to militant Islam. German police said they have traced numbers found in Ganczarski's address book to radicals tied to the 9/11 attacks. And in Belgium, Chechen Suicide Attack Russia At least 20 people died and a dozen more were wounded when yet another female suicide bomber blew up a bus carrying...