In Monday’s RNS report Omar Sacirbey writes about Muslim-on-Muslim violence, in which extremists are targeting moderate Muslims: Muslim-on-Muslim violence has existed since Islam’s Prophet Muhammad died in 632. But now, some observers say, Islamic extremists are expanding their campaign of violence from non-Muslim targets to include moderate Muslims whom they view as obstacles to the establishment of Islamic rule. At the same time, extremists are also expanding the criteria by which one can be considered an apostate, blasphemer or heretic, and thus fair game for punishment or death. The violence has sparked debate across the Muslim world over who has the authority to judge someone an apostate, and pushed extremist groups to come up with new justifications to spill the blood of fellow Muslims.
Mormon senator Gordon Smith has published a book about the life lessons he learned from his son’s suicide, reports Don Colburn: Garrett Lee Smith, the son of Sen. Gordon and Sharon Smith, R-Ore., killed himself in his college apartment in Utah on Sept. 8, 2003. It was the day before his 22nd birthday. In “Remembering Garrett: One Family’s Battle With a Child’s Depression,” Gordon Smith, a Mormon church leader, describes how he responded when he heard the news. Smith blamed himself for what he calls “a perdition of my own making.” He staggered upstairs to his son’s room, fell on the bed, “clutched his old teddy bears to me and spent a night in hell, crying out to him, screaming at myself, pleading with God for understanding, for forgiveness, for mercy, for the strength to go on.” Smith sees the book as a road map for families-no matter what their faith background-who have lost someone to suicide. It includes a list of places where families dealing with depression or suicide can find help.
