Demonstrations inspired by a video denigrating the Prophet Muhammad continued into a fourth day in Cairo as authorities braced for possible protests after Friday noon prayers.
Turns out, the man who translated the crude anti-Muslim film into Arabic, sent it to Egyptian journalists, promoted it on his website and posted it on social media was an obscure Egyptian-born Coptic Christian named Morris Sadek.
And now more is emerging from The Los Angeles Times, which identified the names of the film collaborators: Joseph Nassralla Abdelmasih, the president of the Duarte-based charity Media for Christ, and Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, a convicted felon from Cerritos.
Others in L.A. knew about the film. Video has surfaced from a city council meeting in June where a man appeared to alert city leaders about the anti-Islam film.
Now Copts fear a “terrible reaction.”
They’re not the only ones upset.
Abraham Foxman, director of the Anti-Defamation League said he was deeply troubled that the film was falsely and widely depicted as a project of an American- Israeli and that the $5 million for the film was raised by 100 Jews.
But the corrections haven’t made it to Iran where “Supreme Leader” Ayatollah Ali Khamenei blamed the anti-Islam movie on Zionists.
Meanwhile, technical difficulties prevented Florida pastor “burn-the-Quran” Terry Jones from posting the video. He told reporters his organization’s website was hacked.
Bruce Lawrence, in an insightful piece on the Middle East protests, says this century belongs neither to the USA nor to China, neither to imperialists nor terrorists, but to the CyberKingdom and to those who grasp the endless good and evil wrought by the Information Age.
In other news, Pope Benedict arrived in Lebanon today.
John Allen at National Catholic Reporter asks whether Pope Benedict XVI’s trip will inflame extremist Islamic sentiment even further.
In another post, Allen reminds readers that Lebanon recognizes eighteen different religious groups, among them seven separate Catholic churches.
The job of blowing the shofar on Rosh Hashanah has usually fallen to a rabbi or other man of high moral standing and significant lung capacity. Lately, Reform and Conservative Jewish women want in on the act.
Muslims in Joplin, Mo. have endured a double whammy: first a tornado that wrecked homes, then the torching of their mosque.
Mormon leaders say the church is not attempting to sway members to support Mitt Romney’s presidential bid
Only 19 percent of churchgoers personally read the Bible every day, according to new research from Ed Stetzer.
President Barack Obama this week nominated Robert S. Beecroft, a Brigham Young University graduate who served a two-year LDS Church mission to Argentina, as the new U.S. ambassador to Iraq.
The Rev. Howard R. Moody, longtime minister of the historic Judson Memorial Church in New York City, has died.
Finally a note of levity — it’s Friday, after all — a free event, organized by the University of Utah student group SHIFT (Secular Humanism, Inquiry and Freethought), will feature three speakers who will explore various aspects of sexuality as it intersects with religion, atheism and other beliefs. The event is dubbed “Sextravaganza.”
