c. 2003 Religion News Service
U.S., European Church Leaders Meet to Oppose War With Iraq
(RNS) European and American church leaders convened in Berlin on Wednesday (Feb. 5) to announce their joint opposition to an “immoral” U.S.-led war against Iraq.
The Berlin summit, convened by the Rev. Konrad Raiser, general secretary of the World Council of Churches, came just hours before Secretary of State Colin Powell made the case for war to the United Nations Security Council.
The church officials were also scheduled to meet with German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, who has strongly resisted any American attacks on Iraq.
The American delegation to the Berlin meeting included the Rev. Bob Edgar, general secretary of the National Council of Churches; Jim Winkler, head of the social policy agency of the United Methodist Church; and the Rev. Rebecca Larson, director of social policy for the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.
“We deplore the fact that the most powerful nations of this world regard war as an acceptable instrument of foreign policy,” said a joint statement issued by the churches, representing more than 10 countries.
The churches, mostly Protestant and Orthodox, said “our love of neighbor” and a “spiritual obligation” compelled them to oppose war with Iraq, which they said would result in “unacceptable humanitarian consequences.”
The summit also included delegates from the Middle East Council of Churches. A war with Iraq, the leaders said, and “fueling the fires of violence that are already consuming the region, will only exacerbate intense hatred, strengthening extremist ideologies and breeding further global instability and insecurity.”
The communique called for the continuation of U.N. weapons inspections and called on Iraqi President Saddam Hussein to destroy all weapons of mass destruction. “The people in Iraq must be given hope that there are alternatives to both dictatorship and war,” the statement said.
In the United States, Edgar has stepped up his anti-war campaign by helping to form the “Win Without War” coalition with other liberal groups that recently aired television ads with a Methodist bishop _ from President Bush’s own denomination _ publicly opposing the war.
_ Kevin Eckstrom
Study: Half of U.S. Adults, Teens Read a Christian Book in Past Year
(RNS) Close to half of American adults and teenagers say they have read at least one Christian book in the last year, Barna Research Group reports.
Forty-nine percent of adults and 51 percent of teens said they had read Christian books other than the Bible in the last 12 months.
Similar percentages of book purchasers said they had spent money for that kind of reading. Fifty percent of adult book buyers and 44 percent of teen purchasers said they had bought at least one Christian book title in the last year.
The look at book purchases found that Protestant senior pastors are big book buyers in general. Almost all surveyed _ 98 percent _ said they had bought at least one book in the past year. One of every five pastors surveyed _ 19 percent _ purchased 50 or more titles in that time period. About three-quarters of the book purchases by pastors are related to ministry or other topics linked to their role as church leaders.
George Barna, president of the Ventura, Calif.-based research firm, said a pastor’s commitment to reading is shoehorned into an already busy schedule.
“The typical pastor juggles more than a dozen different significant job responsibilities during an average work week that easily exceeds 50 hours,” he said in a statement. “That means reading is truly a labor of love for many pastors, given the prolific demands on their time.”
In other findings, researchers learned that many people outside the Christian faith said they had read at least one Christian book in the last year, including 17 percent of atheistic and agnostic adults and 46 percent of adults associated with a faith other than Christianity.
The research was based on three nationwide telephone surveys, including those of 1,005 adults, 604 teenagers and 602 Protestant pastors. The margin of error is plus or minus 3 percentage points for the adult survey and plus or minus 4 percentage points for the other two surveys. The examination of book-buying was partially commissioned by Regal Books, the book imprint of Gospel Light, a Christian publisher of books and Sunday school materials.
_ Adelle M. Banks
Congressmen Oppose New FBI Mosque-Counting Policy
(RNS) In a letter to Attorney General John Ashcroft, three members of Congress have expressed their disapproval of a new FBI policy that entails counting mosques and Muslims as a way of tracking terrorism.
Reps. John Conyers Jr., D-Mich., and Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., along with Sen. Russell D. Feingold, D-Wis., sent the letter in late January, calling the policy “just the latest episode in what seems to be an unconstitutional abuse of power.”
The legislators wrote that they stand behind the FBI’s efforts to discover “sleeper cells” of terrorist activity, but are disturbed by the profiling of all Muslims.
“We cannot sanction the targeting of Muslim populations and mosques, or any other community group or institution, to gather intelligence without any suspicion or cause that a specific individual or group of individuals, or a particular mosque or religious organization, is engaging in terrorist activities,” they wrote.
The American Muslim Council sent a letter to the lawmakers Monday (Feb. 3), lauding their effort to combat a policy they say will “polarize relations between the Muslim community and the Justice Department.”
In early January, the FBI said its 56 field offices were to develop profiles of their areas by filling out a demographic questionnaire that, under a section labeled “vulnerability,” asks for the number of mosques in the area.
A number of Muslim groups, including the Council on American-Islamic Relations and the AMC, have opposed the policy, and urged Muslims to organize around the issue.
_ Holly Lebowitz Rossi
Radical Muslim Cleric Banned From Preaching in London Mosque
LONDON (RNS) A controversial Muslim cleric has been banned from preaching in one of the largest mosques in London on grounds that he has turned it into a base for radical Islamic fundamentalism.
Britain’s Charity Commission ordered Abu Hamza removed as imam at the mosque at Finsbury Park, saying he had abused his position by delivering inflammatory sermons criticizing the United States and Israel.
A 150-strong force of anti-terrorist police armed with battering rams and ladders raided the mosque last month and arrested seven suspects. But although authorities have had Abu Hamza under investigation, he was not among those apprehended.
The Finsbury Park mosque is a registered charity and falls under control of the Charity Commission.
The cleric was adamant that he would defy any attempts by the police or commission authorities to silence him. “The Charity Commission can hijack the mosque, the place of the message,” Abu Hamza told reporters, “but they can’t hijack the messenger.”
The outspoken Muslim, who lost an eye and both hands in an explosion while fighting against Russian troops in Afghanistan, called the commission’s action against him “another example of the oppression against Islam.”
The Charity Commission said in a statement that Abu Hamza had used his status within the mosque to make “inappropriate” political statements. The trustees said they have closed the building for up to three months to allow it to be cleansed “spiritually and physically.”
Abu Hamza still preaches outside the mosque, to audiences that number in the scores and occasionally more than 100. He told them that the commission “has banned me because of my harsh criticisms against America and Israel.”
But, he insisted, “there are other people making political statements in churches and synagogues.”
Police said Abu Hamza for several years has headed an organization known as the Supporters of Shariah from Finsbury Park, and that they believed he had ties with accused terrorist leader Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaida network, which has been blamed for the hijacked airliner attacks on New York City and Washington on Sept. 11, 2001.
A onetime worshipper at the Finsbury Park mosque was Richard Reid, the so-called “shoe bomber” who tried to blow up an American airliner with explosives concealed in his shoe.
_ Al Webb
National Religious Broadcasters to Install New President
(RNS) The new president of the National Religious Broadcasters will be installed during the organization’s meeting Feb. 7-11 in Nashville, Tenn.
Frank Wright, the former founding executive director of the Washington-based D. James Kennedy Center for Christian Statesmanship, officially began his duties as president Monday (Feb. 3).
“The Executive Committee enthusiastically and unanimously selected Dr. Wright after a one-year national search process,” said NRB Chairman and CEO Glenn Plummer in a statement. “We expect him to fit excellently as NRB’s new president. We really believe he’s God’s man for our association.”
Wright’s selection follows the brief tenure of Wayne Pederson, who became president of the organization in October 2001 but resigned just before a scheduled installation a year ago. Pederson’s remarks to a newspaper about his concerns “that evangelicals are identified politically more than theologically” prompted controversy.
In a statement, Wright said: “The heritage of NRB is one of commitment to the person and purposes of Jesus Christ. … Our members are committed to using every broadcast medium available to proclaim the gospel of Christ and to bring the mind of Christ to the culture.”
_ Adelle M. Banks
Quote of the Day: New York Episcopal leader Lucinda Mosher
(RNS) “Christianity teaches unconditional love, and what love could be more unconditional than to build a house of worship for a community other than your own?”
_ Lucinda Mosher, chairwoman of the Episcopal-Muslim Relations Committee for the Episcopal Diocese of New York, speaking about a recent diocesan campaign to rebuild a mosque in Afghanistan damaged during U.S.-led military strikes. She was quoted by The New York Times.
DEA END RNS
