The Ethiopian Church Journal Blog

By Mitiku Adisu The media seem to enjoy bashing anything Christian. They could not get enough of the news of Terry Jones wanting to burn the Qur'an. This, of course, is a proven strategy to sell ads and papers. That’s what’s happening in the latest big event. Reporters knew too well what kind of pastor Terry Jones was. But it didn’t matter a bit. They could have ignored Terry Jones and thus made his crusade irrelevant. We only wish the media would be impartial and show similar zeal when Bibles are burned here or abroad. For now the media is caught between defending Terry Jones’ First Amendment rights and pleasing Muslim cause. Even atheists are now against burning the Qur'an! In the North West part of the U.S. there was or is a plan to buy the Qur'an for every one that Terry Jones burned. In Minnesota they will be reading the Qur'an in church; these are “professed” Christians. Reading of the Quran would probably be more appropriate in a comparative religion class

    By awesome deeds you answer us with righteousness, O God of our salvation, the hope of all the ends of the earth and of the farthest seas; the one who by his strength established the mountains, being girded with might; who stills the roaring of the seas, the roaring of their waves, the tumult of the peoples, so that those who dwell at the ends of the earth are in awe at your signs. You make the going out of the morning and the evening to shout for joy. You visit the earth and water it; you greatly enrich it; the river of God is full of water; you provide their grain, for so you have prepared it. You water its furrows abundantly, settling its ridges, softening it with showers, and blessing its growth. You crown the year with your bounty; your wagon tracks overflow with abundance. The pastures of the wilderness overflow, the hills gird themselves with joy, the meadows clothe themselves with flocks, the valleys deck themselves with gr

The Sickle & the Cross By Mitiku Adisu   To Ethiopian ears the name Filippovich will sound familiar. Did not the Spirit of the Christ prompt Philip (Filippos ፊሊጶስ) the Evangelist to "Go south to the road—the desert road—that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza" and once there, to approach the chariot of the Ethiopian dignitary on his way back from worshipping in Jerusalem? And did not Philip then explain that the reference in ኢሳይያስ Esaias [53] to One “led like a sheep to the slaughter” was in fact the same Jesus who hung on a cross outside the gates of Jerusalem for our salvation? (Has the Ethiopian been to Jerusalem and back for nothing then?) Finally understanding the meaning of what he was reading did not His Excellency profess his faith in Jesus and request water baptism there and then? And because of all this did he not go “on his way rejoicing?” How come Filippos of old now has a different sounding name? Well, it is because Filippovich is Russian and is none