c. 2003 Religion News Service
WCC Calls for U.N. Control in Iraq, Church Aid for Liberia
(RNS) The World Council of Churches on Monday (Sept. 1) called for the “immediate and orderly” withdrawal of coalition forces from Iraq and the transfer of power to the United Nations.
The WCC’s Central Committee, ending its eight-day meeting in Geneva on Tuesday, also urged churches to provide humanitarian aid to alleviate the “horrific conditions and untold human sufferings” in Liberia.
In a five-page statement on Iraq, the WCC called the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq “immoral, ill-advised and in breach of the principles of the (United Nations) Charter.”
The WCC said it remains concerned about the “long-term political, social, cultural and religious consequences of this war and the continued occupation, especially the negative impact on Christian-Muslim relations.”
The U.S. occupation of Iraq will exacerbate the “intense hatred towards the Western world, strengthening extremist ideologies (and) breeding further global insecurity and increased emigration of Christians from the Middle East,” the WCC said.
The Geneva-based body of 342 Protestant and Orthodox churches called on American and British forces to pay “full reparations” to the Iraqi people for the war’s damages and urged “unimpeded access” for humanitarian groups.
In a separate statement on the crisis in Liberia, the WCC on Tuesday expressed its support for Christian leaders in the war-torn country and urged humanitarian groups _ “particularly those in the United States, because of its historical links with Liberia” _ to help build a “just and durable peace.”
_ Kevin Eckstrom
W. Deen Mohammed Resigns as Leader of American Society of Muslims
(RNS) Imam W. Deen Mohammed, a spiritual leader of African-American Muslims for three decades, announced Sunday (Aug. 31) his resignation as leader of the American Society of Muslims.
Mohammed spoke of his plans in a keynote address at the society’s annual convention in Chicago.
“I’m getting ready … to do more, to be more productive and to contribute to the good life of the believers,” Mohammed said, according to the Associated Press.
He plans to continue to advise and represent African-American Muslims and direct his ministry, The Mosque Cares, but will no longer lead the society, which is the main organization representing his movement.
Mohammed, who will turn 70 in October, privately informed his movement’s imams, or prayer leaders, on Saturday that he would resign.
“I don’t know about you, but when I told the imams about my resignation yesterday, a big burden went off my back,” he joked with the crowd on Sunday.
His national representative, Imam Earl Abdulmalik Mohammed, insisted that while he may be cutting back in some ways, W. Deen Mohammed would continue to be the spiritual leader of the movement.
“No force of nature, no spirit, no influence, no person, no group can ever separate me from Imam W. Deen Mohammed,” he said.
W. Deen Mohammed is the son of Elijah Muhammad, who led the Nation of Islam until he died in 1975. The Nation, which has been a race-based movement, had taught that its founder, Wallace D. Fard, had divine status and that Elijah Muhammad was a prophet _ ideas heretical in mainstream Islam. W. Deen Mohammed gradually moved people in the movement toward orthodox Islam after taking over the Nation of Islam upon his father’s death and later founded the organization that became the American Society of Muslims. Louis Farrakhan became the leader of the old Nation of Islam in 1978.
“His greatness came from the fact that he brought African-American Muslims into a deeper understanding of mainstream Islam,” said Salam Al-Marayati, executive director of the Muslim Public Affairs Council, of Mohammed. Al-Marayati’s Los Angeles-based advocacy group was founded by immigrant Muslims.
On the same weekend of transition for Mohammed’s organization, the Islamic Society of North America held its annual meeting in Chicago.
Leaders of that group announced plans to register 1 million Muslim voters and said they would make civil rights a top priority in any endorsement of a presidential candidate.
Judge: Alabama Has Met Ten Commandments Court Order
MONTGOMERY, Ala. _ Alabama is in compliance with a federal court order to remove the Ten Commandments from the state judicial building’s rotunda and is out of the shadow of contempt, a federal judge said Friday (Aug. 29).
Attorney General Bill Pryor and plaintiffs in the lawsuit that challenged the display informed U.S. District Judge Myron Thompson of the monument’s removal during a conference call Friday morning.
“We withdrew our motion for contempt,” said Richard Cohen, an attorney with the Southern Poverty Law Center. Cohen is one of the lawyers who sued to challenge the display placed by Chief Justice Roy Moore.
“I think it’s a great day for the principles of religious freedom and the rule of law,” Cohen said.
The 21/2-ton monument that once stood in middle of the building’s rotunda now resides in a locked storage room. Moore said he intends to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Gov. Bob Riley, a Republican who supported Moore’s display of the monument but not his defiance of the order, is hopeful about the appeal to the high court.
“We’re one step away from a definitive ruling from the Supreme Court, and I hope and pray they don’t punt,” Riley said. “I will do everything in my power to assist the judge in the briefs to the Supreme Court to see it is placed right back where it came from.”
Cohen said protesters, who have bemoaned an erosion of religious rights, have twisted what the lawsuit tried to do. The lawsuit was about protecting religious freedom, he said.
“The case was never an attack on religion. Justice Moore wanted to promote one religion to the exclusion of others,” he said.
_ Kim Chandler and David White
1963 Church Bombing Conviction Upheld
MONTGOMERY, Ala. _ The Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals has upheld the 2001 murder convictions of former Klansman Thomas E. Blanton Jr. in the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church bombing that killed four girls in 1963.
The five-member court upheld the convictions Friday (Aug. 29) without dissent. Blanton’s appeal had focused on evidence, race and pretrial publicity.
Blanton’s defense attorney argued in May that his client was denied a fair trial because of the government’s use of a tape secretly recorded in the defendant’s kitchen.
The appellate court rejected that argument because the recording was made through an adjoining wall and the microphone did not enter Blanton’s kitchen. A pre-existing hole in the wall might have helped the agent record the conversation, but the agent didn’t create it or place the microphone there, the court said.
“He placed the microphone against the wall rather than inserting it through the hole into the appellant’s kitchen,” Judge Pamela Baschab wrote in the majority opinion.
Blanton’s attorney, John Robbins, said he wasn’t surprised by the denial and will ask for a rehearing. After that, he’ll go to the state Supreme Court.
“We didn’t expect any relief at the court of criminal appeals. If there was a way to bypass that court, we would have,” Robbins said. “If we are going to get the relief, it’s going to come at the Supreme Court level.”
Four black girls primping for a Sunday morning youth program were in a basement ladies’ lounge when a bomb exploded at the church Sept. 15, 1963. The blast killed Denise McNair, 11, and 14-year-olds Carole Robertson, Addie Mae Collins and Cynthia Wesley.
Blanton’s co-defendant, Bobby Frank Cherry, was convicted last year. A third defendant, Robert Chambliss, was convicted for the bombing in 1977 and died in prison. Blanton and Cherry are serving life sentences in the case.
_ Kim Chandler and Chanda Temple
Pope Urges Dialogue With Islam
VATICAN CITY (RNS) Pope John Paul II, speaking one day after a truck bomb killed some 100 people outside a holy Shiite shrine in Iraq, underlined the importance of dialogue between Christians and Muslims and urged all religions to join in denouncing terrorism.
The Roman Catholic pontiff addressed Egypt’s Roman Catholic bishops, who were in Rome on the visit required of prelates every five years. The Vatican on Sunday (Aug. 31) issued the text of the talk that the pope gave at an audience Saturday in his summer residence at Castelgandolfo south of Rome.
“Dialogue with Islam is particularly important in your country where this religion is that of the majority of inhabitants,” he said, “but it also assumes an exemplary character for the dialogue between the great religions of the world.”
The pope did not make a specific reference to the attack on Shiites’ holiest shrine at Najaf, which claimed the lives of Ayatollah Muhammad Bakr al-Hakim, a Shiite leader who had been cooperating with U.S. forces in Iraq, and crowds of worshippers attending Friday prayers.
But he said that dialogue is “particularly required after the tragic events tied to terrorism, which have marked the start of the third millennium and which public opinion is tempted to impute to causes of religious origin.”
“I want to recall how essential it is that the religions of the world unite their efforts to denounce terrorism and to work together in the service of justice, peace and brotherhood among men,” he said.
John Paul’s words echoed the pledge to reject violence, war and terrorism that he and representatives of the world’s religions made on a peace pilgrimage to the Italian hill town of Assisi on Jan. 24, 2002, following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
_ Peggy Polk
Quote of the Day: The Rev. Samuel Kobia, general secretary-elect of the World Council of Churches
(RNS) “The 20th century was dominated by the politics of ideology. It is likely that the 21st will be dominated by the politics of identity. Many people define their identity in a religious way. If we are to overcome violence and create peace and justice, we need a multifaith approach.”
_ The Rev. Samuel Kobia, general secretary-elect of the World Council of Churches, speaking about the need for interreligious dialogue in his first press conference in his new role.
KRE END RNS
