c. 2005 Religion News Service
Southern Baptist Pastor Apologizes for Anti-Muslim Sign
(RNS) A Southern Baptist pastor apologized for posting an anti-Muslim sign at his church in North Carolina, following criticism by leaders in the Muslim-American community.
Creighton Lovelace said he regretted posting a message that read, “The Koran needs to be flushed,” according to a Wednesday (May 25) report by Baptist Press, the news service of the Southern Baptist Convention, which quoted a written statement made by Lovelace.
Lovelace, pastor of Danieltown Baptist Church in Forest City, N.C., said he was unaware that the Quran was so highly valued and “that devoted Muslims view it more highly than many in the U.S. view the Bible.”
Lovelace said he now realized how “offensive” his actions were. He decided to remove the sign after praying about it.
“I apologize for posting that message and deeply regret that it has offended so many in the Muslim community,” he said.
Lovelace said that his intentions in posting the sign were merely to affirm the Bible.
“It was certainly not my intent to insult any people of faith, but instead to remind the people in this community of the pre-eminence of God’s word.”
Morris H. Chapman, president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Executive Committee, disavowed Lovelace’s action in a statement Tuesday.
“Southern Baptists wish to relate to our Muslim neighbors in a respectful manner that allows mutual sharing of our beliefs,” he said.
The Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations condemned the sign and expressed a desire for discussion between Muslims and other religious leaders in communities throughout the country.
CAIR Executive Director Nihad Awad acknowledged Lovelace’s apology.
“We thank Pastor Lovelace for his apology and hope this incident will serve to improve relations between Christians and Muslims in North Carolina and throughout America,” Awad said in a statement.
_ Heather Horiuchi
Knights of Columbus Gives $1 Million to Help Catholics in Military
(RNS) Concerned that there are not enough Catholic chaplains in the armed forces, the Knights of Columbus will spend $1 million on “do-it-yourself” materials to meet the spiritual needs of Catholic military men and women.
The “Catholics Seeking Christ” programs are designed to augment the work of Catholic chaplains, to “do more than just say a Mass now and then for troops out in the field,” Knights spokesman Pat Korten said.
The Knights, the world’s largest Catholic fraternal organization, is also committing $4 million to help purchase and renovate a new headquarters in Washington for the church’s Military Archdiocese.
Currently, Catholics make up 28 percent of active-duty military personnel but only 8 percent of military chaplains, the Knights said. The program will help fund “bottom-up” materials, such as DVDs, CD-ROMs and Web sites.
“Kind of a do-it-yourself (education program) for Catholic soldiers far from home for the kind of support, information and encouragement they’d ordinarily get from a Catholic chaplain but can’t because of the shortage,” Korten said.
Knights officials also hope the program will encourage more Catholics in the military to consider entering the priesthood and returning as Catholic chaplains.
In 2002, a U.S. bishops’ committee charged with recruiting new priests quietly identified the military as “possessing the largest pool of potential candidates to the priesthood.”
According to the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown University, only 4 percent of diocesan priests and 3 percent of religious order priests ordained in 2002 came from a military background.
The Knights recently printed a spiral-bound “Catholic Handbook” of prayers and religious instruction that can fit in the pockets of combat uniforms. After an initial run of 100,000, the Knights ordered an additional 200,000 copies to be distributed.
_ Kevin Eckstrom
ACLU: Reports of Religious Abuse Rampant at Guantanamo Bay Prison
(RNS) Prisoners being held by the United States in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, have reported physical and religious abuse, including mistreatment of the Quran, according to documents released by the FBI and obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).
A series of previously unreleased documents, obtained by the ACLU under the Freedom of Information Act, reveals that detainees reported a panoply of abuses in 2002, some of which are similar to the allegations of desecration of the Quran that Newsweek magazine recently reported and later retracted.
The FBI emphasized in the reports that prisoner claims have not been independently verified. The FBI said some prisoners had heard only rumors of abuse. One prisoner, the FBI noted, “considers it his duty as a Muslim to believe the rumor until it is proven untrue.”
In April 2002, one document shows, detainees reported that a guard “kicked the Quran,” an action that resulted in prisoners refusing to talk in retaliation.
Other incidents that detainees reported in interviews include a guard dropping a Quran on the floor, guards dancing around detainees while they were completing their five daily prayers, a guard removing a detainee’s prayer cap and throwing it in the garbage and, in an Aug. 1, 2002 interview, a report that guards at Guantanamo Bay “flushed a Quran in the toilet.”
On Thursday (May 26), Pentagon officials said the prisoner who reported the story of the holy book going in a toilet had recanted, according to the Associated Press. Lawrence Di Rita, a Pentagon spokesman, told reporters that “the detainee himself within the last two weeks said that didn’t happen.”
The ACLU said the FBI reports show the Bush administration needs to take action.
“If we are to truly repair America’s standing in the world, the Bush administration must hold accountable high-ranking officials who allow the continuing abuse and torture of detainees,” said Anthony D. Romero, executive director of the ACLU, which released the documents Wednesday (May 25).
Also on Wednesday, the humanitarian organization Amnesty International called the prison at Guantanamo “the gulag of our time” and urged the United States to shut down the prison.
Scott McClellan, a White House spokesman, called Amnesty’s accusations “ridiculous and unsupported by the facts,” adding that allegations of prisoner abuse are investigated, with violators held accountable.
_ Holly Lebowitz Rossi
Human Rights Watch: Cycle of Religious Violence Persists in Nigeria
(RNS) The Nigerian government has failed to prosecute those responsible for a cycle of violence between Muslims and Christians that resulted in the deaths of 900 people in north and central Nigeria in 2004, Human Rights Watch says in a new report.
“The Nigerian government bears a heavy responsibility for the massive loss of life in these eruptions of violence fueled by religion,” said Peter Takirambudde in a Wednesday (May 25) statement accompanying the 175-page report. Takirambudde is director of Human Rights Watch’s Africa division.
“The security forces were absent while hundreds of people were being massacred in Yelwa,” he said. “Instead of protecting those at risk and trying to arrest the perpetrators, police and soldiers shot people on sight in Kano.”
Tensions in the central region of Nigeria, which lies between the mainly Muslim north and the largely Christian south, are long-standing and have often led to violent and deadly clashes.
According to the report on the 2004 violence, on Feb. 24, armed Muslims killed more than 75 Christians in the town of Yelwa in Plateau State, at least 48 of them inside a church compound.
Then, on May 2 and 3, hundreds of well-armed Christians surrounded the town from different directions and killed some 700 Muslims. They also abducted scores of women, some of whom were raped.
A week later, on May 11 and 12, Muslims in the northern city of Kano turned against Christians in the city, killing more than 200. And, according to Human Rights Watch, police and soldiers deployed to restore order carried out dozens of extrajudicial killings themselves.
The attacks were well-organized, and the victims were targeted on the basis of their religion, Human Rights Watch said.
“Both Muslims and Christians have realized that religion is an extremely effective way of mobilizing large numbers of people,” Takirambudde said. “Local leaders on both sides have cynically manipulated religion with disastrous consequences.”
The fighting first erupted in 2001, when religious riots in the state capital of Jos killed some 1,000 people. Smaller incidents continued throughout 2002 and 2003.
_ David E. Anderson
In France, Religious Groups Disagree Over European Constitution
PARIS (RNS) A Sunday (May 29) French vote on the European constitution has become a subject of intense disagreement among the country’s religious groups.
A statement by the Council of Christian Churches in France _ representing Protestant, Catholic and Orthodox churches _ offered strong backing for the constitution, suggesting it would help Europe promote peace, justice and human rights, among other virtues. Some found that support surprising because the new charter makes no mention of Europe’s Christian heritage in its preamble.
The Federation of Protestant Churches in France received an unprecedented flood of e-mails on the subject.
“Obviously the Council of Christian Churches hasn’t told people how to vote,” said Myriam Delarbre, the Federation spokeswoman in trying to explain the statement. “But some people found our vision of Europe was so positive that it seemed we were pushing people to vote `yes.”
Polls show the French will likely vote “no” in the Sunday referendum on the European constitution. Much is at stake. The charter must be ratified by parliamentary vote or by referendum by all 25 EU members to go into effect. A single rejection could scuttle the treaty.
Muslims are also divided over the charter.
Dalil Boubakeur, the moderate head of the Paris Mosque, endorses the document, as does the Union of Islamic Organizations of France _ for reasons that include offering a European alternative to American might.
But Swiss Muslim leader Tariq Ramadan _ a popular figure among French Muslims _ has sided with the “no” vote, arguing the constitution panders to mighty multinational companies.
France’s Representative Jewish Council, or CRIF, has avoided controversy by taking no position at all.
“Each French Jewish citizen must take a position in tune with his or her own convictions,” said CRIF spokeswoman Edith Lenczner.
_ Elizabeth Bryant
Suspects in India Released After Accusations They Murdered Missionary
(RNS) Seven people accused in the 1999 murder of a missionary in India were released from jail Tuesday (May 24), upsetting the country’s Christian community.
On May 19, a court ruled there was insubstantial evidence to prosecute most of those accused of killing Graham Staines, an Australian who was burned to death along with his two sons. The court also commuted a death sentence against the main accused, Dara Singh, to life imprisonment.
The verdict, issued by the High Court in the state of Orissa, was seen as a blow to India’s Christians, who make up 2.4 percent of the country’s population.
“We don’t see any logic in the judgment,” said Pran Paricha to Christianity Today. Paricha is Orissa chapter president of the All India Christian Council (AICC).
“If it is not these people who killed Staines, then the question is who killed them? Who is guilty? And why is justice not being done? It’s a threatening development for the Christian minority.”
Staines and his two sons, Philip and Timothy, were asleep in their station wagon when it was set ablaze by a mob in a village in Orissa. Singh was the alleged ringleader of the mob.
A missionary originally from Australia who had worked with lepers for decades, Staines had been conducting annual camps in religious and social discourse. The camps, like other activities conducted by Christian evangelicals, have come under attack from Hindu groups, who contend that poor Hindus are easy prey for conversions.
The issue of conversions has taken on greater urgency in recent years, with some Hindu organizations re-converting people to Hinduism. It is in this environment that Christian groups say their members are being attacked with greater frequency.
According to the public prosecutor in the Staines murder case, few people were willing to come forward to testify against the accused, resulting in a “thinned” case.
India’s Central Bureau of Investigation, which originally brought the case against Singh and the others, is considering whether to pursue the matter to the Supreme Court.
_ Arun Venugopal
Quote of the Day: Navy Chaplain (Lt.) John Anderson in Iraq
(RNS) “One of my jobs is to keep men from enjoying war and killing too much. … If we can bring justice to people who deserve punishment, and limit the damage in bringing freedom, I have no conflict whatsoever. If I can teach people to be moral warriors, then I’ve done my job.”
_ Navy Chaplain (Lt.) John Anderson, 36, of Brooklyn Park, Minn., who ministers to members of the Navy and Marines in Iraq. He was quoted by USA Today.
MO/PH END RNS
