Thousands pray for US at 'America for Jesus' rally

Thousands pray for US at 'America for Jesus' rally — Thousands of conservative Christians gathered Saturday on Independence Mall in Philadelphia to pray for the future of the United States in the weeks before the presidential election.

Religious broadcaster Pat Robertson and Family Research Council president Tony Perkins topped a full day of speakers at "The America for Jesus 2012" prayer rally.

Robertson, a former Republican candidate for president, called the election important, but didn't mention either major political party or candidate by name.

"I don't care what the ACLU says or any atheists say. This nation belongs to Jesus, and we're here today to reclaim his sovereignty," said Robertson, 82, who founded the Christian Coalition and Christian Broadcasting Network, and ran for president in 1988.

 

Associated Press/ Joseph Kaczmarek - Dharma Bohall, 13, extends her arms in prayer during the America for Jesus prayer rally, Friday Sept. 28, 2012, on Independence Mall in Philadelphia. Christian conservatives who blame “moral depravity” for everything from the recession to terrorism are converging on Philadelphia for a rally they hope will spark a religious revival as Election Day nears. (AP Photo/ Joseph Kaczmarek)

Organizers plan another prayer rally Oct. 20 in Washington, D.C., two weeks before President Barack Obama faces Republican Mitt Romney in the presidential election.

Perkins asked the crowd to pray for elected officials including Obama.

"We pray that his eyes will be open to the truth," Perkins said.

A number of event organizers, though, have been vocal critics of the Democratic president.

Steve Strang, the influential Pentecostal publisher of Charisma magazine, which was distributed at the rally, recently wrote in a blog post that America is under threat from a "radical homosexual agenda." He also said Obama "seems to be moving toward some form of European socialism."

And speaker Cindy Jacobs has blamed a mysterious Arkansas bird-kill last year on Obama's repeal of the policy known as "don't ask, don't tell," which allows gays and lesbians to serve openly in the military.

Speakers throughout the day condemned abortion, gay marriage and population control as practiced by Planned Parenthood. Christian rock music filled the historic mall as speakers challenged the crowd to overcome the seven deadly sins: pride, greed, lust, envy, gluttony, wrath and slothfulness.

The rally was held outside of Independence Hall, where the Declaration of Independence was signed. Pennsylvania is also where evangelist George Whitefield preached during the first Great Awakening, the 18th-century religious revival that spread through the American colonies. ( Associated Press )

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Is the Gospel of Jesus' Wife a Forgery?

Is the Gospel of Jesus' Wife a Forgery? — A scrap of papyrus from the early Christian era that refers to Jesus having a wife has met with extreme skepticism since its unveiling 11 days ago. Many scholars have declared the so-called "Gospel of Jesus' Wife" a modern forgery — one that probably postdates Dan Brown's 2003 novel, "The Da Vinci Code." Others say that conclusion is too hasty.

What are the experts' arguments for and against its authenticity? And will the world ever know for sure whether this dogma-defying artifact is real?

The torn, business card-size fragment found instant fame when Harvard historian Karen King announced its discovery last Tuesday (Sept. 18), because it bears the startling line: "Jesus said to them, 'My wife …'" The manuscript is written in Coptic, the language of early Christians living in Egypt. Although the beginning and end of each line of the manuscript are missing, it could be interpreted as a record of a conversation between Jesus and his disciples, in which the disciples tell Jesus: "Mary [Magdalene] is not worthy of it," and Jesus responds that his wife — presumably Mary — "will be able to be his disciple."

 

A newly discovered scrap of 4th-century papyrus written in ancient Egyptian Coptic containing four words that provide the first tangible evidence that within centuries of his death, some followers of Jesus believed him to have been married.

King has tentatively dated the artifact to the fourth century, and thinks it may be a copy of a gospel (an account of Jesus' life) written in Greece in the second century, when there was controversy among Christians over the discipleship of Mary Magdalene. If authentic, the gospel suggests some early Christians believed Jesus and Mary were married.

A sloppy fake

However, scholars have identified several peculiarities that have led many to believe the manuscript is a forgery. They say the text was written sometime in the last 50 years, and probably the last decade, upon a blank piece of ancient papyrus that the forger could easily have picked up on the antiquities market.

First, the writing is sloppy. Compared with authentic Coptic papyri, in which letters are written with varying thickness and subtle curves and details, the letters in the Gospel of Jesus' Wife are formed by rigid, straight strokes of equal thickness. In a YouTube video posted Friday (Sept. 28), Christian Askeland, a Coptic scholar based in Germany, explained that the letters look unnatural, as if written by someone with a very limited knowledge of the language.

If a forgery, it's clearly not the work of a professional, but Askeland doesn't think it was written by a fourth-century amateur, either. "He's obviously not writing in a really formal kind of way, but he's not doing the kind of idiosyncrasies you see in a typical informal hand or in a semi-literary text or something like that," he said.

Second, several experts have pointed out that the scribe does not seem to have used either of the writing instruments common to the time period: a stylus (Roman metal pen) or a calamus (Egyptian reed pen). The blotchiness of the letters and what look like brushstrokes in one place suggest the author instead used a paintbrush — an unorthodox writing tool in ancient Egypt. (Other experts have countered that the pen may simply have been dull.)

Third, the textual content raises questions. Despite much of the manuscript being cut off, its meaning is "too easy" to decipher, Askeland said. "If you look at which parts of the manuscript have the subject and the verb staring right at us, it's most of the manuscript." The center-alignment of all the key phrases seems atypical.

Askeland concludes, "It is very probable that it's a fake."

Also regarding the textual content of the piece, the New Testament historian Francis Watson of the University of Durham points out that all the snippets in the text except for "my wife" also appear in the Gospel of Thomas, an authentic Coptic gospel that was discovered in Egypt in 1945; the snippets from Thomas have simply been rearranged to create a new meaning. Watson considers it unlikely that an ancient scribe would have borrowed each of his phrases from a contemporary work. "It's much easier to see how a modern compiler with limited ability in Coptic might gratefully avail him- or herself of material extracted from existing Coptic texts," Watson wrote in an article published on his website.

A translation of the Gospel of Thomas was published in 1956. Watson thinks the Gospel of Jesus' Wife must have been forged sometime since then. "I have a suspicion it's post-2003 as well. That was the year the "Da Vinci Code" was published, and this could have provided the inspiration," he wrote. (In Dan Brown's novel, Jesus is married to Mary Magdalene.)

Answers written in ink

Not everyone is ready to trash the scrap of papyrus. "While these are interesting arguments, I certainly don't think they're conclusive," Paul Dilley, a scholar of early Christianity at the University of Iowa working on non-canonical literature and Coptic, told Life's Little Mysteries.

For one thing, the scribe who wrote the Gospel of Jesus' Wife could simply have had bad penmanship. To the argument that the phrases in the gospel are cut-and-pasted from the Gospel of Thomas, Michael Peppard, assistant professor of theology at Fordham University, rejoins that most of the phrases were in common usage, and so their appearance in both texts is just a small but unsurprising coincidence.

Furthermore, "there is one word that does not match its use in the Gospel of Thomas or its first entry in Coptic dictionaries, and it's the crucial word under discussion: 'wife' (hime)," Peppard writes on his blog. "The most common version of this word is s-hime (with an aspirated 'h')," he writes.

It would be odd for a modern forger to choose a less common version of the "headline-grabbing" word.

And Peppard said it would also be odd for a modern forger to manage to fade and fray the papyrus fragment authentically enough to convince Roger Bagnall, director of the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World at New York University and one of the world's most respected papyrologists. Bagnall says the absorption of the ink by the papyrus, especially in faded and damaged areas, stands up to scrutiny. "It's hard to construct a scenario that is at all plausible in which somebody fakes something like this," he told the New York Times. "The world is not really crawling with crooked papyrologists."

With compelling arguments on both sides, the marital status of Jesus — or, at least, early opinions on the subject — may come down to chemistry. The chemical composition of the manuscript's ink will be tested at Harvard in mid-October.

"I think that the results of an ink test would be conclusive," Dilley wrote in an email. "A carbon dating of the papyrus would not be conclusive, because if it is a modern forgery, the forger could have obtained an ancient papyrus fragment relatively easily, and then written over it. It would be far more difficult to reproduce ancient ink accurately."

An authentic Coptic manuscript would most likely be written in carbon-gum ink, made from carbon soot and gum arabic (made from the sap of acacia trees). But even if the tests reveal the right kind of ink of the right age, naysayers have argued that a clever forger could have bought an ancient scrap of papyrus, burned part of it to produce carbon soot, used the soot to make ink, then used the ink to write the phony gospel on the remaining fragment. ( LiveScience.com )

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Jesus had a wife, newly discovered gospel suggests

Jesus had a wife, newly discovered gospel suggests - A Harvard historian has identified a faded, fourth-century scrap of papyrus she calls "The Gospel of Jesus's Wife." One line of the torn fragment of text purportedly reads: "Jesus said to them, 'My wife …'" The following line states, "she will be able to be my disciple." 

The finding was announced to the public today (Sept. 18) by Karen King, a historian of early Christianity, author of several books about new Gospel discoveries and the Hollis professor of divinity at Harvard Divinity School. King first examined the privately owned fragment in 2011, and has since been studying it with the help of a small group of scholars.

 

According to the New York Times, King and her collaborators have concluded that the business card-size fragment is not a forgery, and she is presenting the discovery today at a meeting of International Congress of Coptic Studies in Rome.

The fragment, written in Coptic, the language of a group of early Christians in Egypt, has an unknown provenance, and its owner has opted to remain anonymous. Questions about the fragment abound, but scholars say it will nonetheless reignite several old debates: Was Jesus married? If so, was Mary Magdalene his wife? And did he have a female disciple?

Scholars say these controversies date to the early centuries of Christianity, but they remain relevant today. In the Roman Catholic Church, for example, women and married men are barred from priesthood because of the model thought to have been set by Jesus.

King has cautioned that the new discovery should not be taken as proof that Jesus was actually married. The text appears to have been written centuries after he lived, and all other early Christian literature is silent on the question of his marital status.

But the scrap of papyrus — the first known statement from antiquity that refers to Jesus speaking of a wife — provides evidence that there was an active discussion among early Christians about whether Jesus was celibate or married, and which path his followers should choose, King told the Times.

"This fragment suggests that some early Christians had a tradition that Jesus was married," King said. "There was, we already know, a controversy in the second century over whether Jesus was married, caught up with a debate about whether Christians should marry and have sex."

The significance of this fragment was known by scholars previously, and then forgotten. When its current owner acquired it in a batch of papyri in 1997 from its previous owner, a German, it came with a handwritten note. The note cited a now-deceased professor of Egyptology in Berlin as having called the fragment "the sole example" of a text in which Jesus claims a wife.

According to the Times, papyrologists and Coptic linguists who have studied the artifact thus far say they are convinced by its genuineness by the fading of the ink on the papyrus fibers and the traces of ink adhered to the bent fibers at the edges. The Coptic grammar, handwriting and ideas represented in the text would also have been nearly impossible to forge.

"It's hard to construct a scenario that is at all plausible in which somebody fakes something like this. The world is not really crawling with crooked papyrologists," Roger Bagnall, director of the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World, at New York University, told the New York Times.

Certain lines of the text resemble snippets from the Gospels of Thomas and Mary, both believed to have been written in the late second century and later translated into Coptic. King surmises that this fragment is also copied from a second-century Greek text.

Further study will be needed to work out the details, but the meaning of the words "my wife" is beyond question, King said. The text beyond "Jesus said to them, 'My wife …'" is cut off. ( LiveScience.com )

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Masterpiece of Jesus is destroyed after old lady's attempt to restore damage is a less-than-divine intervention

Masterpiece of Jesus is destroyed after old lady's attempt to restore damage is a less-than-divine intervention - Woman in her 80s attempted to restore the damaged 19th century religious artwork by herself - Her botched effort has infuriated locals and art experts in Zaragoza, Spain - The fresco was set to be repaired by professionals thanks to a donation from the artist's granddaughter

A well-meaning octogenarian has stunned art experts after taking it upon herself to restore a treasured century-old fresco - with distinctly amateurish results.

Elias Garcia Martinez's depiction of Jesus has held pride of place in a Spanish church for more than 120 years.

But over the past 18 months moisture in the church caused the fresco to deteriorate - prompting a local woman in her 80s to whip out her paintbrush and try and fix it herself.

Original: Elias Garcia Martinez's 'Ecce Homo', which has been admired by worshippers at the Sanctuary of Mercy Church in Zaragoza, Spain, for more than 120 years

Damaged: Moisture in the church caused the surface of the fresco, which has huge sentimental value, to deteriorate

'Restored': The image bears more resemblance to a character from Planet of the Apes than to Jesus after a woman in her 80's 'repaired' it without permission

The elderly woman did not consult the Sanctuary of Mercy Church in Zaragoza before she set about transforming the once beautiful depiction of Christ into something that now resembles a character from Planet of the Apes.

The church is always open to the public and the woman had completed her botched restoration job before anyone noticed what she was doing.

To make matters worse, Spain's Centro de Estudios Borjanos, which works to preserve artwork, had received a donation from Elias Garcia Martinez's granddaughter which they had planned to spend on restoring the damaged fresco.

A spokesman for the centre said: 'The value of the original work was not very high, but it was more of a sentimental value.

'It was by Elias Garcia Martinez, who is the father of two well-known artists. The lady, who is in her 80s, acted without authorisation from anyone.

'The church is always open because many people visit and although there is a guard, no one realised what the old woman was doing until she had finished.'

The fresco will be assessed by a team of professionals on Monday to see if it can be saved. ( dailymail.co.uk )

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Russian Orthodox church forgives Pussy Riot

Russian Orthodox church forgives Pussy Riot — Two top clerics in the Russian Orthodox Church said Saturday that it has forgiven the members of feminist punk band Pussy Riot who were convicted of hooliganism and sent to prison for briefly taking over a cathedral in a raucous prayer for deliverance from Vladimir Putin.

Tikhon Shevkunov, who heads Moscow's Sretensky Monastery and is widely believed to be the Russian president's spiritual counselor, said on state television Saturday that his church forgave the singers right after their "punk prayer" in the Christ the Savior Cathedral in Moscow in February.

"The church has been sometimes accused of not forgiving them," the bearded and bespectacled cleric said. "We did forgive them from the very start. But such actions should be cut short by society and authorities."

Archpriest Maxim Kozlov agreed, but he also said on state TV that his church hopes the young women and their supporters change their ways.

"We are simply praying and hoping that these young women and all these people shouting in front of the court building, committing sacrilegious acts not only in Russia but in other countries, realize that their acts are awful," he said. "And despite this the church is asking for mercy within the limits of law."

Both clerics supported the court's decision to prosecute Pussy Riot, despite an international outcry that called it unfair. Governments, including those in the United States, Britain, France and Germany, denounced the sentences as disproportionate.

The Pussy Riot case has underlined the vast influence of the Russian Orthodox Church. Although church and state are formally separate, the church identifies itself as the heart of Russian national identity and critics say its strength effectively makes it a quasi-state entity. Some Orthodox groups and many believers had urged strong punishment for an action they consider blasphemous.

The head of the church, Patriarch Kirill, has made no secret of his strong support for Putin, praising his leadership as "God's miracle," and he describing the punk performance as part of an assault by "enemy forces" on the church.

The Orthodox Church said in a statement after Friday's verdict that the band's stunt was a "sacrilege" and a "reflection of rude animosity toward millions of people and their feelings." It also asked the authorities to "show clemency toward the convicted in the hope that they will refrain from new sacrilegious actions." ( Associated Press )

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Religious Diversity in the Bible

Religious Diversity in the Bible - The more seriously one takes the Bible, the more seriously one should be willing to wrestle with its internal complexities.

The Bible is a remarkable collection of countless people's perspectives from a broad range of locations over the course of centuries. In this amazing assortment of texts, we see all of these different people -- individuals and groups -- reflecting on who they are, who their God is and how they see the relationships between themselves, their God, their land, their neighbors and more.

This is not a matter of liberal vs. conservative interpretation of the Bible. Anyone who wants to read the Bible with care -- Jewish, Protestant or Catholic, liberal or conservative, academically inclined or less so -- should honestly engage the variety of voices the Bible contains. Liberal and conservative readers can interpret texts wisely, reasonably, and still differently from one another, but one approach that is not intellectually supportable is the attempt to harmonize the Bible's many voices all into one.

I am prompted to write this after observing a pattern in some of the responses to my recent piece, "Biblical Standards for Marriage," in which I addressed the range of models for marriage within the Bible. Many comments simply insisted, "The Bible says marriage is between one man and one woman," rather than actually engaging with the texts that portray marriage otherwise (even if disagreeing with my conclusions). Although it may be human nature to (subconsciously) explain away the views that do not conform to one's own and to highlight the views that do, the thoughtful reader must be willing to deal with the Bible's internal diversity.

Many educated readers are familiar with the famously different versions of some stories, such as the two consecutive creation stories, or the two interwoven flood stories (does the first man come at the beginning of creation or at the end? Is there one pair of each kind of animal on the ark or seven?). These are not the types of differences I am concerned with here. What I would like to emphasize is the presence of diverse perspectives in the Bible, actually diverging viewpoints, on the same issues.

The spectrum of voices in the Bible is astonishing. Writers of biblical texts reflect northern and southern perspectives (Israelite and Judahite); urban and rural; rich and poor; they are priests and poets, shepherds and elite literate professionals in royal scribal circles; people living in Jerusalem and Babylon and Persia and more. It should therefore not surprise us that some of these people differ in how they see the world.

The prophets Isaiah of Jerusalem and Micah of Moresheth, for instance, differed greatly in their views of the same situation at the same time. Both prophets lived in the south, but in different worlds. Isaiah was an urbanite, living in Jerusalem and connected to the royal court (he knew King Hezekiah). Micah lived out in a rural part of southern Judah, and his prophecy included harsh criticism of the arrogance of Jerusalem. Facing the threat of Assyrian conquest, the two prophets disagreed about the fate of the city. The Jerusalemite Isaiah saw the city as inviolable. According to his prophecy, God established Jerusalem, and even when judged by God and brutally attacked by Assyria, it would stand firm because God was in its midst. The rural prophet Micah, on the other hand, prophesied the destruction of Jerusalem, and vehemently criticized the prophets who said that Jerusalem would stand firm because God was in its midst (Micah 3:10-11). In these two figures, one a Jerusalemite and sure of the city's permanence, and the other rural and critical of prophetic arrogance about Jerusalem, we see two prophets whose divergent viewpoints reflected their personal experiences.

Later, after the destruction of the Jerusalem temple and the exile to Babylon, we have another opportunity to see two quite different prophetic viewpoints. In the oracles of Isaiah 40-55, religious renewal after the exile is said to come through the people's faith and hope. Ezekiel, however, who was both a prophet and a Zadokite, of the family of priests, believed that it should take the form of the rebuilding of the temple and reestablishment of traditional priestly religion. If some religious groups today highlight the oracles of Isaiah 40-55 over the temple-centered oracles of Ezekiel, this is purely a matter of which texts jibe with such readers' own values. The divergent prophetic viewpoints are equally present in the Bible.

Prophets also differed radically on the question of who would be vindicated and who would be condemned. This comes through vividly in the texts prophesying the "Day of the Lord," which in the Bible refers to a single specific time of judgment (not just any old day when God might judge the enemy of the hour). It is clear in every "Day of the Lord" text that on that decisive day God will destroy the wicked, and some of these texts also say that the righteous will escape judgment. The major difference between the various "Day of the Lord" texts -- stunningly -- is who's who. Many prophets assumed that the "Day of the Lord" would be one of judgment against Israel's enemies. In Isaiah 13, the Day of the Lord will be one of judgment against Babylon; in Ezekiel 30, Joel 3, Zechariah 14 and Obadiah it will be a dark day for all of the nations; and in the end of Joel 2 and the end of Zephaniah 1, the Day is against all the inhabitants of the earth. However, in Isaiah 2, Joel 1-2, Amos 5, Zephaniah 1 and Malachi 4, the Day of the Lord will actually befall Israel itself! Amos 5:18 demonstrates the range of opinion in this prophet's time regarding the Day of the Lord. Amos asks the people why they want the Day of the Lord to come, and sees that their desire for the Day reflects their belief that it would be one of judgment against other nations, which is the very idea we saw expressed by other biblical prophets above. Amos disagrees, however, and warns that the Day will befall them: "Alas," he says, "it will be darkness and not light."

Sometimes prophets' religious differences created political differences as well. Israel was frequently under the threat of foreign domination, and so the question of how to respond was a bit of a hot-button issue. Isaiah was fervently opposed to the very idea of making alliances with other nations, not only in the specific political conflict he faced, but as a fundamental principle, because he equated it with reliance upon human strength instead of upon God. His prophecies were sweeping: he found the notion of a treaty with Egypt inherently misguided, not because it was Egypt in particular, but on principle, "because the Egyptians are human, and not God!" (Isaiah 31:3). Jeremiah, on the other hand, vehemently advocated capitulating to the enemy. He urged his people to serve the king of Babylon and the Babylonians in order to survive. Moreover, Jeremiah repeated many times to ignore the prophets who said not to capitulate, because they prophesied falsely (Jeremiah 27). (We can also see a range of viewpoints within some texts, but this only complicates the matter, and cannot responsibly be used as a rationale for ignoring the primary messages of each text.)

Some readers will find the acknowledgement of a multiplicity of voices in the Bible objectionable. But these are texts written by human beings with human viewpoints. Attributing perfection to them is idolatry, and God-as-ventriloquist is bad theology. So given that the writers were human, wouldn't we expect a better reflection of reality to come from the collection of a spectrum of voices than from any one person purporting to speak for everyone? And if a person believes God to be behind the process of these many texts being written and preserved and recopied and collected and becoming "The Bible," it should, for such a person, be that much more important to explore the relationship between the writers' perspectives.

Religious diversity is an inherent part of the biblical tradition. The Bible has significant internal variation, and there are different thoughtful ways to deal with that, but ignoring it is not one of them. My own take on this is that the rich complexity of the spectrum of voices is the very thing that gives the Bible its remarkable texture and depth, and that if the Bible is used as a "model" for anything, perhaps it could be used as a model for honest engagement with such a variety of viewpoints. But that's just me, and I'd expect another voice to say something different. ( huffingtonpost.com )

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Egypt's Christian leader lashes out at government

Egypt's Christian leader lashes out at government — The acting leader of Egypt's Coptic Church on Saturday criticized the new government sworn in by Islamist President Mohammed Morsi for what he said was an "unfair" representation of Christians that ignores their rights as citizens.

The comments by Archbishop Pachomius, who represents the majority of the country's Christians — some 10 percent of a population of 82 million — were published Saturday in the independent daily Al-Shorouk.

They follow pledges from Morsi to reach out to Copts and women in forming a new government and presidential team, in order to reassure them it will not be dominated by Islamists. The new Cabinet sworn in Thursday had five members of Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood and two other Islamists but only two women, including the Coptic minister in charge of the scientific research portfolio.

Pachomius told Al-Shorouk the Cabinet was unfair because it underrepresented Christians. "It is unfair to Copts," he said. "We had expected an increase of Copts' representation in the new government, especially after increasing the number of portfolios to 35."

In the outgoing government, Copts held two posts in a 30-member Cabinet. It was a rate that was kept in most previous governments, with Coptic ministers holding small portfolios or ones dealing with non-strategic issues.

But the archbishop said that with the increase in posts, the community had expected no less than four Coptic ministers in the new government.

In remarks to another daily, Tahrir, Pachomius described the scientific research post as only "half a ministry," telling the paper: "We reject the new Cabinet."

Morsi's new Cabinet has come under criticism from many, including women and youth groups, who felt underrepresented and saw the new team as lacking a significant break with the past.

The ultraconservative Salafi groups, who backed Morsi's bid for the presidency and who had won around 25 percent of the seats in the now-dissolved parliament, also complained they were not consulted and declined to take part in the government after they were offered only one ministerial post.

The concerns of the Coptic minority have risen with the rise of Islamists to power because they fear their rights may be curtailed and that they could become targets of extremist Muslim attacks.

Local groups as well as the United States had urged Morsi to send reassuring messages and form a broad coalition government.

Just as Morsi took office, sectarian violence erupted in a village near Cairo, forcing the whole community of Christians in the village to flee. An argument between the local laundry worker, a Christian, with a Muslim client over a burnt shirt set off days of tension and a violent confrontation that left one Muslim dead.

Many Muslims in the village of Dahshour, 50 kilometers (30 miles) south of Cairo, went on a subsequent revenge rampage, driving the Christians out.

"There is clear persecution of Copts as of late," Pachomius told Al-Shorouk. He was lamenting the eviction of nearly 100 families from Dahshour, where their properties were damaged and authorities held no one to account.

Morsi had appealed to the Christians to return to their village, saying justice would be meted out against the perpetrators of violence. But he dismissed the violence in Dahshour as an "individual" act that does not amount to sectarian violence.

"This was an individual incident and its origin is not about Muslim and Christian, and it happens every day. It was blown out of proportion," he said Friday. Morsi's spokesman denied Saturday there was forced eviction of Christians. ( Associated Press )

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Riot leaves an Egyptian village without Christians

Riot leaves an Egyptian village without Christians — When the angry mob was rampaging through town, storming her home and those of other Christians, the 70-year-old woman hid in her cow pen, pushing a rock against the door. There she cowered for hours, at one point passing out from tear gas being fired by police that seeped in.

When Sameeha Wehba emerged just before dawn, she found she was the only Christian left in this small Egyptian village just south of Cairo.

An Egyptian policeman walks at a damaged Christian owned soft drinks factory at Dahshour village, about 40 kilometers (25 miles) south of Cairo, Thursday, Aug. 2, 2012, a day after a sectarian violence erupted in a village near Cairo following the death of a Muslim man, prompting most the local Christians to flee, church and security officials said. (AP Photo/Amr Nabil)

Dahshour's entire Christian community — as many as 100 families some estimate — fled to nearby towns in the violence earlier this week. The flock's priest, cloaked in a white sheet to hide him, was taken out in a police van. At least 16 homes and properties of Christians were pillaged and some torched and a church damaged.

The violence was ultimately rooted in a dispute over a badly ironed shirt that escalated into a fight in which a Christian burned a Muslim to death, in turn sparking the rampage by angry Muslims.

"It was a devil's moment," Wehba said Thursday at the home of her Muslim neighbors, who have taken her in. "Whoever caused this was the devil's son."

The unprecedented exodus underscores how sectarian divisions that festered under decades of Hosni Mubarak's rule are taking a turn to the worse, complicated by the problems of post-revolution Egypt, a country where 10 percent of the population are Christian.

Police forces have been weakened and often don't carry out their duties. Islamists have been emboldened, with rhetoric fanning hatreds. In an atmosphere of lawlessness, Muslims and Christians alike feel freer in unleashing prejudices that in the past were kept barely under the surface.

Most notably in Dahshour, police did nothing as tensions spiraled following the burning of the Muslim man late last month.

While the man clung to life for several days, Muslim residents openly threatened to retaliate against all Christians. When the Muslim died Tuesday, the only solution from police was to encourage or assist in removing the Christian population before the violence erupted that night, Christians say. During the rampage, security forces acted to stop the crowd from storming the church, firing tear gas.

"What is grave this time is that violence was not only expected but preventable, and security forces failed to prevent it even though they had prior knowledge," said Hossam Bahgat, head of the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, which monitors sectarian violence.

In the past, incidents of sectarian violence in Egyptian towns often took a routine course. A local spat between a Muslim and Christian would escalate, and if a death occurred, violence would be sparked. Police would often see a bit of unrest as a way to let off steam but then negotiate a compromise solution over the death. Officials would deny any sectarian nature to the conflict.

In recent years, there have been cases where a whole Christian family was ordered by authorities to leave their hometown to prevent retaliation. At the same time, Christians have become more ready to use violence as a preventive measure when they fear they will be attacked, Bahgat said.

But uniquely in Dahshour, angry Muslims treated the entire Christian community as the family of the accused killer and subject to retaliation.

"Collective retribution is the most dangerous and most likely (form of violence) to spread over time ... beyond the site of violence," Bahgat said.

Egypt's new president, Mohammed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood, didn't comment on the violence for several days. On Friday, he appealed to Dahshour's Christians to return home, promising justice against perpetrators of the violence. But, echoing the line that Mubarak's government always took for Muslim-Christian violence, he denied the incident was sectarian.

"This was an individual incident and its origin is not about Muslims and Christians, and it happens every day. It was blown out of proportion," he said. Morsi's spokesman denied the eviction was forced.

The village of 15,000 is tucked between several of Egypt's most stunning ancient pyramids and surrounded by picturesque palm groves. Security trucks are now deployed on its winding, unpaved narrow roads to guard the church and empty Christian properties.

Many in the village say the Christians should not be allowed to return until the Christian laundry worker who set fire to the Muslim is killed. Some residents take an even harder line and say they shouldn't be let back at all.

The sentiments were on display even in the neighboring Muslim family that took in Wehba to protect her in case of further reprisals.

Um Mohammed, the 65-year old matron of the household whose son was a friend of the slain man, says Christians can come back, but only if justice is served against the killer. "He burned my heart. He must also be burned. It is retribution," she said.

"No Christian will return to this village again!" someone shouted from behind Umm Mohammed. It came from a little girl wearing a strict version of the Islamic headscarf, covering her head and much of her torso. The girl — apparently the child of a neighbor — was quickly shushed and hustled out of the room by the family.

"We didn't kick them out for nothing," said Ali el-Gizawy, a 47-year old government employee. "They betrayed our trust, and they will not be allowed to return."

The Christians feel a mix of frustration at the incompetence of authorities, a sense of injustice and a fear their fate may be irreversible.

Kirollos Shehata, a 22-year old Coptic Christian resident, said he hadn't wanted to leave but finally did as his Muslim neighbors and his own departing family members urged him to go with the others to avoid more violence.

"Now I can't imagine going back," he said. For him, it's not fear of violence but a sense that the Christians humiliated themselves by leaving. "How would we look to the rest of the community and how will people treat us?" He spoke on condition his current location is not revealed.

The dispute began when the laundry man, Sameh, burned the shirt of his Muslim client, setting off an argument first with the client's wife and then with the client himself, according to several residents. The argument turned violent. On July 26, an angry crowd gathered outside Sameh's home, and he and his family lobbed firebombs down on them from his roof.

One man in the crowd, 27-year-old Moez Mohammed, was set aflame and was hospitalized with severe burns.

The next two days, Mohammed's brothers and friends went down the village's main Christian street, waving firebombs and threatening violence, Shehata said. When one Christian countered that the whole community was not to blame, a fight broke out, until it was broken up by neighbors.

"They said if you don't leave the village, you will all die," Shehata recalled. Aside from the anger over the young man's death, there was economic jealousy because local Christians are seen as better off, he said. Moreover, some Islamists used the occasion to ignite deep-seated biases against Christians and their local priest and settle scores.

Among the Muslims, stories of Mohammed's death circulated and grew more gruesome in the retelling.

"His eyes were on fire," said a young boy in the house where Wehba was a guest. "He ran like a ball of fire," said the boy's grandmother. Another described his skin melting. Some said Mohammed had tried to break up the fight between Sameh and his client over the shirt; other said saved a little girl from the fire before he caught flame himself.

Meanwhile, Christian families began sending women and children out of the village, Shehata said.

When Mohammed died on Tuesday, those still there left and police escorted the priest out. After Mohammed's burial in the evening, hundreds of Muslims began attacking the homes Christians left behind and tried to storm the church, located inside the priest's house.

Wehba, the elderly woman who lives alone in her family home, was forgotten in the confusion.

"She is like one of us," said Umm Mohammed, her host, adding that she sleeps next to Wehba to reassure her. "She has no one. And she has nothing to do with it." ( Associated Press )

READ MORE - Riot leaves an Egyptian village without Christians