TheScroogeReport

Kenji Nagai of APF was shot while trying to take photographs as police and military officials fired upon and then charged at protesters in Yangon’s city centre September 27, 2007. Kenji, 52, a Japanese photographer, later died. The video comes from YouTube. Although disturbing, it is not graphic in nature. This is Japanese TV news station video.

Herb Lusk, now a pastor in Philadelphia, was the first NFL player to pray in the end zone. ( Getty Images/Jeff Fusco)

You can choose to do the rumba after scoring a touchdown or you can kneel down for a quick prayer…that’s freedom of expression, no matter how hard the NFL tries to crackdown on end zone celebrations…they happen.

Herb Lusk chose to kneel down and pray…and 30 years of scoring moments later, sports has changed for better and worse.

This from The Washington Post:

After NFL’s First Prayer, Religion Touched Down

By ALAN GOLDENBACH

PHILADELPHIA — The play was 48 Toss, and 30 years later, Dick Vermeil remembers it as if he called it last Sunday. Herb Lusk took a pitch from Ron Jaworski, headed around left end and breezed unscathed 70 yards for a fourth-quarter touchdown. Four steps over the goal line at Giants Stadium, the Philadelphia Eagles’ running back rewrote the playbook. Alone in the end zone, with a crowd of 48,824 looking on, he celebrated with a gesture in what has since become a watershed moment in American sports.

With little ceremony and no advance warning, Lusk kept his eyes straight, dropped to his left knee and bowed his head in prayer. A few seconds later, he stood back up and returned to the sideline, his legacy sealed.

“Herb Lusk was the first NFL player to kneel in the end zone and pray,” said Steve Sabol, president of NFL Films, which has footage of more than 9,000 games played since 1894.

One quote:

Said Vince Papale, Lusk’s teammate, whose career was portrayed in the 2006 movie “Invincible”: “Religion was such a hot-button issue that no one wanted to touch it. . . . What I liked about it, it was a private, sensitive moment for him. It wasn’t like, ‘Hey, hey, look at me,’ like a lot of the celebrations have become these days. It wasn’t demonstrative.”

This is a great article with lots of NFL sports history. Be sure to take a look!

Read Full Story/The Washington Post

This from the The Christian Post:

Christian Leaders Back Myanmar Monks

By Ethan Cole

Christian leaders expressed solidarity for Myanmar’s pro-democracy monks who mobilized tens of thousands of citizens this week for their non-violent protests.

The head of the Anglican church in Myanmar, also known as Burma, said he is praying for the country as thousands take to the streets of the capital, Yangon, to demonstrate against the government.

“We pray for peace and the future of the country,” said Anglican archbishop Samuel San Si Htay, according to Ecumenical News International.

Meanwhile, the general secretary of the Thailand-based Christian Conference of Asia (CCA), Prawate Khid-arn, praised the positive role the monks played in helping people “to overcome the inhumane conditions to which they have been subjected for a long time.”

Myanmar is one of the poorest countries in Asia and has one of the world’s worst religious freedom records. The military regime, which has ruled the country on and off since 1988, is accused of sanctioning sexual violence against women of ethnic minorities as well as ordering crosses and churches destroyed.

Nearly half of the reported cases documented against women of the Chin ethnic minority were gang rapes, and at least a third were committed by officers, according to U.K.-based Christian Solidarity Worldwide.

“These horrors are being sanctioned by the state in Burma,” said Cheery Zahau, a spokesperson for the Women’s League of Chinland, in a released statement. “How can the civilized world accept this junta among their ranks? And how can countries like India and China be arming these rapists?”

The Chin population in Burma is about 90 percent Christian and is severely persecuted by Burma’s traditionally pro-Buddhist military regime.

Smaller protests led by Buddhist monks began since Aug. 19, but it was the massive 100,000-people demonstration on Monday that propelled Myanmar into the international spotlight. Monday’s protest was the biggest demonstration since a pro-democracy uprising in 1988.

“The open dissent and the bold marches of people across the cities is a clear sign that people are not willing to conform to the might of the military dictators,” said CCA’s Prawate in a letter to the Myanmar Council of Churches.

“The liberative spirituality of Buddhism and other religions is a positive non-violent counter force to transform the principalities, powers and demonic forces which have overtaken your country for decades,” he added.

The Rev. Hermen Shastri, general secretary of the Council of Churches in Malaysia, said he hopes the protests will lead to a “new era of democracy and peace” in Myanmar, according to ENI.

Myanmar’s entire population is composed of 89 percent Buddhist and about four percent Christians.