c. 2003 Religion News Service
Jews Celebrate Israeli Astronaut’s Shuttle Launch
(RNS) The first Israeli astronaut, on board the Space Shuttle Columbia, which was launched from Cape Canaveral, Fla., on Thursday (Jan. 16), was celebrated as a landmark by the many Jews and 300 Israelis in attendance.
Col. Ilan Ramon, an officer in the Israeli air force, had made news last summer when he asked a rabbi for help in determining how he could observe the Jewish Sabbath in space.
Rabbi Zvi Konikov, who leads the Hasidic Lubavitch community of the Space Coast, investigated the question of when Ramon should usher in Shabbat, which begins on Earth at sundown each Friday.
Dozens of rabbis weighed in, and Konikov concluded that Ramon should keep the time according to Cape Canaveral’s clock. The astronaut, who has said that he is not particularly religious, indicated his observance was a gesture of solidarity with the Jewish people.
Ramon and Konikov remained in contact, and just weeks before the launch of the 16-day mission _ which had been delayed since July _ Konikov sent Ramon a dollar bill with religious meaning.
The dollar was one of many that the late Lubavitcher Rebbe, Menachem Mendel Schneerson, gave to followers with the request the money go to charity. A tradition evolved where the Rebbe’s dollars were kept and substitute dollars were given to charity.
The Rebbe’s bills are thought to have protective powers.
“When you’re on your way to do a mitzvah (good deed), you can’t be harmed,” said Konikov, who sent Ramon the dollar upon the astronaut’s request.
At the launch itself, amid high security, a half-dozen Lubavitch rabbis led traditional prayers and a large crowd spontaneously burst into “Oseh Shalom Bimromav,” a song about peace.
“In light of the situation in Israel, I think (Ramon) represents a ray of hope,” said Konikov. “Seeing the shuttle go up in space and everyone’s work coming together, regardless of creed, it felt like being part of a mission,” he said, adding: “We all have a higher mission.”
_ Holly Lebowitz Rossi
Groups Vow to `Protect’ Religious Liberty
WASHINGTON (RNS) Standing in the shadow of the Jefferson Memorial, religious groups vowed Thursday (Jan. 16) to preserve the separation of church and state 217 years after Virginia adopted Thomas Jefferson’s landmark law on religious liberty.
Five religious groups, led by the Washington-based Interfaith Alliance, said they would resist bills that would mandate prayer in schools, allow political endorsements by churches and give federal dollars to religious charities.
Thursday marked the 12th anniversary of Religious Freedom Day, which was first marked by President George H.W. Bush in 1991. It is also the anniversary of Jefferson’s statute that said religion “must be left to the conviction and conscience of every man.”
“We have learned the clear lesson of history,” said J. Brent Walker, executive director of the Baptist Joint Committee. “What government funds it winds up controlling. What starts out as a friendly pat on the back by Uncle Sam can quickly turn into a hostile shove by Big Brother.”
Mark Pelavin, associate director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, said a proposed constitutional amendment to allow prayer in schools is “divisive, unnecessary and would, in fact, greatly reduce our most cherished religious liberty.”
On the other side of the Tidal Basin, the White House issued its own Religious Freedom Day proclamation. Bush applauded his administration’s fight to “ensure that faith-based organizations do not face discrimination simply because of their religious orientation.”
The religious groups said Bush’s “faith-based initiative” and other bills threaten to undermine religious freedom. Brenda Girton-Mitchell, Washington director for the National Council of Churches, said a bill that would allow political endorsements is “unnecessary, unwise and unwanted.” The bill failed in the House last year but has been reintroduced by Rep. Walter Jones, R-N.C.
The Rev. C. Welton Gaddy, executive director of the Interfaith Alliance, said “to lose religious freedom would be to throw away one of the cornerstones of our nation and to do irreparable harm both to religion in this nation and to the nation itself.”
_ Kevin Eckstrom
Human Rights Watch: War on Terror Being Used to Repress People
NEW YORK (RNS) Governments throughout the world are using the U.S.-led war on terror as a pretext for repression, including against religious groups, a New York-based human rights group said in its annual report chronicling international human rights violations.
The report by Human Rights Watch was notably critical of the Bush administration, saying the United States had set a tone that had made it possible for governments to act without regard to human rights standards.
“The United States is far from the world’s worst human rights abuser,” Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch, said in announcing the Jan. 14 release of the report, which chronicles violations in the year 2002. “But Washington has so much power today that when it flouts human rights standards, it damages the human rights cause worldwide.”
The report concluded that the security threat posed by terrorism “should not obscure the importance of human rights.”
“Military or police action can be seductive. It leaves the impression that the problem is being addressed firmly, head-on. Concern with human rights, by contrast, may seem peripheral,” the report said.
That view, Human Rights Watch concluded, was a profound mistake. “An anti-terrorism policy that ignores human rights is a gift to the terrorists. It reaffirms the violent instrumentalism that breeds terrorism as it undermines the public support needed to defeat terrorism.”
The United States was also faulted for failing to pressure friendly countries and allies, such as China and Pakistan, on their human rights performances.
China was among the nations singled out for “highly repressive policies” _ others included Burma, Iran, Iraq, Liberia and Vietnam _ with religious persecution high on a list of its human rights violations. Among the violations cited in China were ongoing persecution of both Protestant groups and Catholic clergy, as well as state-sanctioned repression against Muslims in the northwest province of Xinjiang.
Persecution of another type was common in Colombia, where, Human Rights Watch said, both leftist guerrillas and right-wing paramilitaries murdered Roman Catholic and Protestant church leaders calling for an end to a 40-year civil war. In the first 11 months of 2002, 12 Roman Catholic clerics, one nun and 18 Protestant pastors were killed _ an unprecedented number in recent Colombian history, the report said.
_ Chris Herlinger
Most Americans Oppose Cloning Aimed at Producing Human Being
(RNS) The vast majority of Americans believe that cloning designed specifically to cause the birth of a human being should be illegal in this country, a Gallup Poll shows.
The poll, taken in early January, found that 86 percent of U.S. adults are against that form of human cloning while 11 percent think it should be legal.
It was taken just after a company called Clonaid claimed to have cloned the first human baby. The claim has not been verified.
Younger Americans hold a more favorable view of the legality of a birth by human cloning, with 15 percent of 18- to 29-year-olds supporting it. In comparison, about half as many adults ages 65 and older _ 7 percent _ agree with that view.
Ten percent of Americans ages 30 to 49 and 11 percent of those ages 50 to 64 support that kind of human cloning.
Researchers found that women are less likely than men to say that cloning resulting in the birth of a human should be legal. Seven percent of women agreed with that idea, compared to 15 percent of men.
The poll results are based on telephone interviews of 1,000 adults ages 18 and older. Conducted Jan. 3-5, the poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.
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Following material suitable for graphic:
Percentage of Americans who say cloning resulting in the birth of a human should be legal:
Total: 11 percent
Gender:
Men: 15 percent
Women: 7 percent
Age:
18-29: 15 percent
30-49: 10 percent
50-64: 11 percent
65 plus: 7 percent
Source: The Gallup Organization
_ Adelle M. Banks
Jehovah’s Witnesses Sued by Four Women Charging Sex Abuse
(RNS) Four women have sued the Jehovah’s Witnesses, saying they were molested by a leader of the religious body in Nevada during a period beginning in the early 1970s.
In the suit filed Jan. 9 in Las Vegas, the women claim they were abused by Daniel Steven Fitzwater, a former Jehovah’s Witnesses congregation leader, from 1974 though the 1990s, the Associated Press reported.
Dawn Bradley, Amanda Cirone, Annette Reed and Donna Wilkes are seeking at least $30,000 from various entities of the religious body because they allege that church officials covered up the abuse.
“Outcries were made and they were not reported, and because they were not reported to law enforcement other children were molested afterward,” said Kim Norris, the attorney for the women now in their 20s and 30s.
Fitzwater was arrested in 1997 and charged with lewdness with children in a case unrelated to the women’s claims. He is eligible for parole in 2005 after being convicted of two counts of sexual lewdness in 1998.
Fitzwater could not be reached for comment and J.R. Brown, a national spokesman for the Jehovah’s Witnesses, declined to comment on the specific lawsuit.
“Our church policy protects children, not molesters,” Brown said. “Molesters are punished, generally the most severe way, which is disfellowship or public reproof.”
Irish Primate: Add Humanitarian Concerns to Just War Doctrine
LONDON (RNS) The addition of humanitarian considerations to the traditional criteria for a just war has been suggested by the Church of Ireland Archbishop of Armagh Robin Eames.
“No one can doubt that any modern conflict causes immense suffering to a civilian population,” he said in a letter to The Times published Thursday (Jan. 16). “Evidence abounds that it is impossible to guarantee all avoidance of death and injury to what Scripture terms `the poor’ in any such conflict.
“In the case of Iraq, no one can estimate with confidence the proportion of such suffering to the innocent. Irrespective of individual views on the rights and wrongs of any proposed military action, it can be argued that the time is opportune to re-examine the traditional principles of the just war.
“Surely there is justification, in the light of experience and the probable consequences of any forthcoming action, to accept an additional requirement to take account of the humanitarian considerations which will inevitably arise.”
Eames suggested adding to the traditional criteria a willingness and definite intention to match military action with humanitarian relief _ as the American-led coalition war in Afghanistan said it would do in that effort.
“Only then would the traditional principles stand current scrutiny _ whether from the Christian or other standpoint,” he added.
_ Robert Nowell
Quote of the Day: The Rev. Alvin O. Jackson, moderator of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)
(RNS) “He was my voice. He could articulate my feelings when I could scream and nobody would pay me any attention. Because who was I? Just another black boy from the Delta of Mississippi. Yet this black preacher from the red clay hills of Georgia could come to the center stage of life and declare my inner feelings and the whole world listened.”
_ The Rev. Alvin O. Jackson, moderator of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), preaching at an interfaith prayer service in honor of the late Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., hosted by Jackson’s National City Christian Church in Washington on Jan. 12.
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