Blogging from Baghdad: “I always love passing by the churches. It gives me a momentary sense that everything must be right in the world to see them standing lovely and bright under the Baghdad sun, not far from the local mosque. Their elegant simplicity is such a contrast with the intricate designs of our mosques.” Thus writes “River,” a young Muslim Iraqi woman heartbroken by the church bombings — and the mosque bombings, the cemetery bombings, the school bombings, the factory bombings, the house bombings… Read more.

Pray for the persecuted comedian: “We had several conversations in which he complained about the liberal media, and he believes very strongly that there’s an anti-religious bias in this country, and particularly an anti-Christian bias…He kept complaining that he wasn’t being put on the ‘Tonight Show’ or the Letterman show because of these biases, and I said, ‘Well, up until about a couple of years ago, you didn’t mention that you were a Christian or a conservative.’ And, in fact, now that he’s mentioned it, there’s been a newspaper piece about him, he’s gotten radio shows, he’s being profiled in The New Yorker, he’s actually gotten much more attention from the mainstream media.” Adam Green and Matt Dellinger discuss Christian comedian Brad Stine in The New Yorker.

Some South Carolina local gov leaders are defying the recent ruling of the Fourth US Circuit Court of Appeals by continuing to pray to a specific god — that’d be Jesus — at government meetings. One county councilman, Tim Scott, described the ruling as part of a “continuing attack on Christianity,” according to a report by an SC NBC affiliate. Local TV turns in a predictable, he said/she said story, leading us to wonder: How can journalists break the pressthink on unreconstructed prayer warriors? Read more.

Israel’s Interior Ministry is investigating the appearance of a new question on the entry forms tourists must fill out before entering the country. Hilary Leila Krieger of The Jerusalem Post reports that the new question, which asks tourists to identify their religion, has only been noticed in the past few weeks. The addition coincides with the appointment of a new head of Population Registry, Sasi Katzir, and both the registry and ministry are trying to find out who created and distributed the new questionnaires.

Christian organizations in Indonesia plan to file a class action lawsuit against the country’s government for maintaining a 1969 decree that they say unfairly regulates the construction of places of worship. The decree, which in part requires a religious community to seek approval from the local administration before building, has allegedly been misused to prevent Christians from building churches in Indonesia, the world’s largest Muslim country. One man, reports Sari P. Setiogi in The Jakarta Post, said he had been waiting for more than 10 years to build a church in Bandung.