World Congress of Families IX Announces New Additional Participants

Religious leader, international choir are among the experts and advocates coming to S.L.C.

Contact: Benjamin May, 202-413-0119, bmay@policyimpact.com; www.wcf9.org  

SALT LAKE CITY, July 21, 2015 /Christian Newswire/ — The World Congress of Families (WCF) has announced four additional participants who will speak, influence, and entertain at the ninth World Congress of Families to be held Oct. 27-30, 2015, in Salt Lake City.

“To keep the momentum going, it is with great pleasure that we announce the next group of special guests who will be in attendance at the World Congress of Families IX,” said Janice Shaw Crouse, executive director of WCF IX. “We hope that families from all over the world, in this critical moment of history, will come and enjoy the remarkable, fun-filled weekend and stand with other pro-family advocates.”

The previous slate of speakers and participants can be viewed on WCF IX’s official website, www.wcf9.org. WCF will be announcing four participants each week throughout the summer.

The names released this week are the following:

• International Children’s Choir is world renowned for singing in many languages and performing in authentic, colorful costumes from around the world. The choir was founded by Dr. Kathy Sorensen, who believes music warms hearts and unites people, and that multicultural music allows us to share another person’s culture and thereby, a part of his or her soul. The International Children’s Choir has performed all over the world and was invited to represent the American Continent in the Opening Ceremonies of the World Choir Olympics in Xiamen China, and received multiple medals during the competition involving over 20,000 participants.
   
• John-Henry Westen is the co-founder and editor-in-chief of LifeSiteNews.com, a non-profit Internet service dedicated to issues of culture, life, and family. Westen has spoken at conferences and retreats, and appeared on radio and television throughout North America, Europe and Asia. Westen serves on the executive of the Canadian National March for Life Committee, and the annual National Pro-Life Youth Conference. 
   
• Bradford Wilcox, Ph.D., is the Director of the National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia, a nonpartisan, nonsectarian, and interdisciplinary initiative that analyzes the social and cultural forces shaping contemporary marriage. The Project provides research and analysis on the health of marriage in America and identifies strategies to increase marital quality and stability. Dr. Wilcox’s research has been featured in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic, Slate, National Review Online, NPR, NBC’s The Today Show, and many other media outlets. 
   
• James Kushiner is the Executive Director of The Fellowship of St. James, which serves to encourage Christian unity and Fidelity to the historic doctrines and moral teachings of the Christian faith. Kushiner is the Executive Editor of Touchstone: A Journal of Mere Christianity magazine and Salvo, a quarterly for young adults seeking intelligent responses to the secular atheism and materialism dominating schools, media, and society. He has spoken at the World Congress of Families in Amsterdam in 2009 on “Prodigal Research: Religious Faith as it Relates to Family Life, Democracy, and Social Development.

The World Congress of Families (WCF) is the largest gathering of pro-family advocates in the world. WCF IX will seek to provide sound scholarship and effective strategies, and it will mobilize intellectual and advocacy resources to affirm and defend the natural family.

For more information, please visit WCF9.org or follow WCF on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

To download a PDF version of this press release, please click here.

Christian Newswire: Same-Sex Debate
World Congress of Families IX Announces New Additional Participants

World Congress of Families Answers Attacks and Misinformation in New Report

Contact: Benjamin May, World Congress of Families, 202-413-0119, bmay@policyimpact.com; www.wcf9.org

ROCKFORD, Ill., July 14, 2015 /Christian Newswire/ — The World Congress of Families (WCF) today released “A Call for Civil Dialogue and Constructive Engagement,” a twenty-eight page report that corrects, in detail, a barrage of negative and unwarranted attacks on the WCF initiated primarily by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) and the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), particularly after the announcement of WCF’s first-ever congress in the United States in Salt Lake City, October 27-30, 2015.

The report addresses more than 25 inaccuracies, the most vicious of which is the labeling of WCF as a “hate group,” and one that supports violence against the LGBT community. Interestingly, the SPLC cites WCF’s supposed involvement in an anti-gay initiative proposed in Uganda, as its reasoning for the false designation, although WCF has not maintained any relationship with the African country and had no role in any aspect of that initiative.
 
“WCF would never advocate violence or hatred toward any group of people,” said Janice Shaw Crouse, a member of the Board of Directors of WCF and Executive Director of the World Congress on Families IX. “Facts do matter and it is unfortunate that any organization would attempt to tarnish the reputation of WCF to further an agenda, rather than engage in thoughtful and honest public debate and recognize the work that WCF performs on behalf of children and families throughout the world. “
 
The report also exposes efforts by HRC to associate with the WCF the statements of individuals and organizations that did not speak for nor were sanctioned by the WCF.  Further, the report addresses a number of false claims that WCF supported violence in Russia against gays, a falsehood extrapolated from WCF’s support for programs that protect children and all human life (from conception to natural death) from destructive activities including abortion, pornography, and sex-trafficking.
 
“The World Congress has always sought to gather thoughtful scholars, influential policymakers, noted religious leaders and advocates around the world who are focused on strengthening the natural family as the best means of raising society’s next generation,” says Allan Carlson, WCF’s International Secretary. “Anchored from the beginning in language from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, we affirm today our belief in the value of every human life.  We continue our call for robust scholarship and civil debate on the issues, and respectful treatment for people everywhere.”
 
“Our hope is that this report will end the attacks and misinformation and allow us to move forward by engaging in thoughtful, constructive, and civil discussion on issues vital to the lives of children and families everywhere,” said Crouse.

The World Congress of Families (WCF) is the largest gathering of pro-family advocates in the world. WCF IX will seek to provide sound scholarship and effective strategies, and it will mobilize intellectual and advocacy resources to affirm and defend the natural family as the fundamental and only sustainable unit of a free society.

For more information and a copy of the report, please visit WCF9.org and follow WCF on Facebook or Twitter.

Christian Newswire: Same-Sex Debate
World Congress of Families Answers Attacks and Misinformation in New Report

Families Plead to Washington Tehran for Release of Americans

WASHINGTON – The families of four Americans detained or missing in Iran appealed to officials in the United States and Tehran on Tuesday to get their loved ones back to the United States, as another deadline in nuclear negotiations between the two countries nears.

During a Congressional hearing, Nagameh Abedini told members of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs that her husband Saeed, a Christian convert, has been threatened with death if he does not denounce his religion in the largely Shi’ite Muslim country. Paired with solitary confinement, she worries about his mental health the longer he is imprisoned.

“My biggest worry as a wife and mother is the condition I will have to deal with when he comes home,” Abedini said.

After two hours of testimony, the committee passed a resolution calling for the release of the three Americans confirmed to be in Iranian custody. Lawmakers also repeated requests for Iran to provide information on U.S. citizens who have disappeared in the country.

The son of Robert Levinson, a former U.S. federal agent who was working in Iran when he was kidnapped in Iran in 2007, pleaded Tuesday for any information on his father, whose whereabouts remain unknown.

“We are just desperate for anything, any kind of answers, any acknowledgement that he’s there,” the younger Levinson said. “Anything that will provide us – that will give us hope.”

In a Republican-led Congress, lawmakers have demanded a greater say in the ongoing negotiations between Washington, Tehran, and several other governments over Iran’s nuclear program, set to conclude at the end of June. Echoing the views of other representatives attending the hearing, Arizona Republican Rep. Matt Salmon wants the freedom of the captive Americans to be a contingency of any agreement.

“Any deal with Iran is dead on arrival that does not include the release of these prisoners,” Salmon told the committee.

Also testifying Tuesday were Ali Rezaian, brother of Washington Post journalist Jason Rezaian, and Sarah Hekmati, whose brother Amir has been held since 2011 while visiting family in Iran.

Christian News latest RSS headlines – Big News Network.com
Families Plead to Washington Tehran for Release of Americans