c. 1997 Religion News Service

WASHINGTON _ Muslim criticism prompted conservative Christian members of the State Department’s panel on religious freedom to insist Wednesday (July 2) they were not solely concerned about Christians while attempting to get the United States to oppose religious persecution around the world.

The criticism first surfaced in a report by Roman Catholic Archbishop Theodore E. McCarrick of Newark, N.J., who said Muslim members of his subcommittee on religious reconciliation feared Islamic nations had become a special target of the panel because of a desire by Christians to force them to accept greater Christian evangelization.

Before long, Muslim concerns dominated the discussion of the Secretary of State’s Advisory Committee on Religious Freedom Abroad, which met at the State Department. That prompted several conservative Christian panel members and invited presenters to insist their concern was for all victims of religious persecution or discrimination.”If some of us communicated that its only Christians and only evangelicals (that we care about) it’s because of the constituencies we represent,”said Don Argue, president of the National Association of Evangelicals.”Please forgive us if we came across that way,”added Argue, whose organization represents 48 denominations and a number of parachurch ministries, independent churches and educational institutions.

Nina Shea, one of Washington’s leading activists on behalf of persecuted Christians, said she had focused on Christians because”the facts have not been out there”about the persecution of Christians.

Shea, a Catholic who directs Freedom House’s Puebla Program on Religious Freedom, agreed U.S. initiatives to stem religious persecution”must be universal.” The 20-member State Department panel was established by the White House last year at the prompting of conservative Christians who maintain that Christians are among the most persecuted people in the world.

Paul Marshall, academic dean of the Institute for Christian Studies in Toronto, told the panel Wednesday that 200 million Christians in 64 nations today face life-threatening persecution or less severe discrimination.

The panel includes Muslims, Jews and Baha’is in addition to Christians, and its mandate is to make recommendations about how the United States can use its foreign policy to stem religious persecution directed against all faiths.

Despite that, Muslim panel members say Islamic nations such as Sudan, Pakistan, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Egypt are being singled out for criticism. At the same time, they say, problems faced by Muslims in such non-Muslim nations as China, Burma, the Philippines and Israel are downplayed or ignored.

Muslim government persecution of dissident Muslims is also given short shrift by U.S. officials, they add.

Addressing the panel, Khaled Abou El Fadl, an assistant professor of Middle Eastern languages and cultures at the University of Texas, said State Department reports tend to”dismiss”persecution of religious Muslims by labeling them”militants”or politically motivated.

In an interview, the Rev. Joan Brown Campbell, a panel member, said Wednesday’s exchange underscored the importance of interfaith dialogue.

Campbell, general secretary of the National Council of Churches, which represents 33 mostly mainline Protestant and Orthodox denominations, said the responses of conservative Christians to Muslim concerns”shows we’re learning from one another.”

MJP END RIFKIN