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
American Family Association Ends Its Boycott of Disney
(RNS) The American Family Association has announced the end of its boycott of the Walt Disney Co. after nine years.
“We feel we have made our point,” said Tim Wildmon, president of the Tupelo, Miss.-based conservative Christian organization, in a statement. “Boycotts have been a last resort for us at AFA, and the Disney boycott was started to address issues of concern to us _ especially the promotion of the homosexual agenda in the culture and media. Disney has become one of the less egregious perpetrators of the homosexual agenda, so we have decided to focus our resources on more pivotal issues related to the same concerns we had with Disney.”
The Southern Baptist Convention, which officially began its boycott of the company in 1997, has not taken similar action.
Recent events led Wildmon’s organization to feel that Disney has moved toward “more family-friendly” kinds of entertainment. He cited Disney CEO Michael Eisner’s pending departure in September and Disney’s separation from Miramax, which produced movies that offended some Christians.
Wildmon also noted the company’s co-production of the Christian classic “The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe” as a positive sign.
“In the past Disney’s corporate policy has kept them from targeting a religious audience, and their efforts to connect with Christians through `The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe’ is encouraging,” Wildmon said. “Though we are glad to see some positive changes, we will continue to carefully monitor Disney as we have done in the past.”
Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, said in an interview that he did not know how Southern Baptists will react to the step taken by the association.
“I will never try to predict what a Southern Baptist Convention is going to do,” he said. “They could very well at this convention declare victory and move on.”
Their annual gathering is in June in Nashville, Tenn.
In 1997, Southern Baptists overwhelmingly passed a resolution urging their fellow members to boycott Disney because they believed it promoted “immoral ideologies.”
“This is not an attempt to bring the Disney Company down, but to bring Southern Baptists up to the moral standard of God,” the resolution read.
A spokesperson for the Walt Disney Company could not be reached immediately for comment.
_ Adelle M. Banks
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
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
Former Church Official Says Vatican Owes Victims an Apology
(RNS) The former director of the Catholic bishops’ sexual abuse prevention office said the Vatican owes victims a high-level apology, and urged the church to consider allowing priests to marry to meet a “deep, normal need” for intimacy.
Kathleen McChesney, who left in February as director of the bishops’ Office of Child and Youth Protection, said victims and their families need an “overdue” apology from the Vatican, including from Pope Benedict XVI.
“The repeated, generic expressions of sorrow made by bishops have been well received, but acts and words of compassion and understanding from the Holy See itself are greatly needed,” McChesney wrote in the May 30 edition of America magazine, a Jesuit weekly.
McChesney said the new pope should be well-acquainted with the abuse scandal since he was the prefect of the Vatican office with jurisdiction over all abuse cases prior to his election as pope. Yet she said “complacency” remains a risk.
She said the scandal is not over, noting that more than 1,000 allegations of abuse were filed in 2004 alone. What’s more, the lingering pain and damage continue for many victims of abuse, she said.
“The ravaging of their souls may have altered or destroyed their relationship with God,” she wrote. “There are victims and their families who long to be reinvited and reunited with the church and their faith.”
McChesney said mandatory celibacy for clergy may be a factor in encouraging deviant behavior, depriving priests of “a deep, normal need for adult intimate relationships.”
“Serious thought should therefore be given to optional life modes, i.e., marriage,” she said. “Psychosexual maturity and self-knowledge are essential.”
McChesney, a former No. 3 official at the FBI, is now vice president for Crisis Management and Threat Assessment at the Walt Disney Co. in Burbank, Calif.
_ Kevin Eckstrom
Quebec Says No to Islamic Tribunals for Muslims
QUEBEC CITY (RNS) The Canadian province of Quebec has denied its growing Muslim population the right to use Islamic legal tribunals to settle private disputes.
In a rare unanimous vote Thursday (May 26), Quebec’s National Assembly passed a motion rejecting the use of Islamic sharia law in the province’s legal system. The move was seen as a pre-emptive strike to stop a growing movement among some Muslims to have religion play a role in family law and private disputes.
“Today the National Assembly speaks with one voice to say `No’ to the implementation of Islamic tribunals in Quebec and in Canada,” said Fatima Houda-Pepin, a Liberal member of the legislature and a Muslim. “Demanding the implementation of the sharia in Canada is tantamount to a takeover attempt aimed at undermining our democracy, our system of justice.”
The debate over sharia surfaced in Canada two years ago when a Muslim group in Ontario proposed binding arbitration of family disputes according to Islamic law.
Last December, neighboring Ontario, which already has a religious-based arbitration system for Jews and Ismaili Muslims, issued recommendations that the province should continue to allow disputes to be arbitrated using religious law, provided certain “safeguards” are observed.
The Ontario report said faith-based tribunals must conform to Canadian law and human rights codes. The tribunals, which include the Jewish Beth Din, are permitted under Ontario’s Arbitration Act, which allows parties who wish to avoid the courts by choosing private arbitration to resolve family law and inheritance issues.
Muslim leaders in Montreal were shocked by the Quebec decision.
“It is total bigotry or total ignorance of what Islam is,” said Salam El Menyawi, president of the Muslim Council of Montreal. “Muslims are being excluded from rights other religions have. And this exclusion is very dangerous because that is exactly what Hitler did to Jews.”
But Toronto-based Homa Arjomand, who is leading the Canadian campaign against sharia tribunals, called the decision “great news, a great achievement.”
“We have received congratulations from around the world,” Arjomand told RNS, adding that she is now hoping to pressure Ontario to remove divorce, child custody and other family matters from the purview of sharia-based panels in the province, should they be approved for all Muslims.
_ Ron Csillag
Pentagon Says Quran Was Not Purposefully Mishandled
(RNS) The commander of a U.S. military prison in Cuba said Thursday (May 26) that the Quran _ the Islamic holy book _ has not been purposefully mishandled by interrogators at the facility.
Speaking at a Pentagon news briefing, Brig. Gen. Jay Hood, commander of the Joint Task Force at Guantanamo Bay, said allegations of persistent defilement and desecration of the Quran were found to be mostly incidents of accidental contact with the Quran by interrogators and guards.
The investigation identified 13 “incidents of alleged mishandling of the Quran by Joint Task Force personnel,” Hood said.
Of those, only five “could be broadly defined as mishandling of a Quran,” Hood said. Six additional episodes were “accidental incidents involving guards, that the guard either accidentally touched a Quran, touched it within the scope of his duties or did not actually touch the Quran at all,” he said.
Those six incidents are considered “resolved,” Hood said. Hood would not disclose the exact circumstances of the incidents in question while the investigation is ongoing.
Hood spoke at the midpoint of an ongoing investigation that covers approximately 31,000 documents regarding activities from 2002 to the present. Under normal Pentagon procedure, a preliminary report is unusual, Hood said, but the incendiary nature of these allegations made comment necessary.
Hood announced that there is “no credible evidence that a member of the Joint Task Force at Guantanamo Bay ever flushed a Quran down the toilet.” Earlier, an FBI document obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union had alleged such an incident in August 2002. On Thursday, the detainee who had made that allegation recanted his statement.
Hood said written procedures for handling the Quran were distributed to Guantanamo Bay personnel in January 2003, and that those procedures have been followed with few exceptions.
Twice, Hood said, guards or interrogators have been punished for violating the protocol, though he declined to discuss the specific violation or the punishment.
In Islam, the world’s second-largest religion, it is not permitted to touch a Quran without first ritually washing one’s hands. Further, a Quran is not permitted to touch the floor, be placed under other books or objects, or otherwise be treated casually.
_ Holly Lebowitz Rossi
Interim Greek Orthodox Patriarch Appointed in Holy Land
JERUSALEM (RNS) The religious leadership of the Greek Orthodox church in the Holy Land decided Monday (May 30) to appoint an interim patriarch to replace the embattled Irineos I, whom the leaders no longer recognize as the head of the local church.
Meeting in the Old City of Jerusalem, the members of the Holy Synod in Jerusalem appointed Archbishop Cornelios, who currently heads the church’s ecclesiastical court, to temporarily assume the role of patriarch.
Cornelios served in this capacity once before, prior to Irineos’ appointment in 2001.
Irineos has been under increasing pressure to resign due to allegations that he recently leased some of the church’s vast property holdings to Jewish investors, a move that incensed the mostly Arab local church.
On May 24, the world’s Orthodox leaders unanimously withdrew their recognition of Irineos during a rare “pan-Orthodox synod” involving the 12 main Orthodox churches. They did not, however, have the formal authority to force him to resign.
The patriarch has so far refused to step down, asserting that one of his aides carried out the transactions without his knowledge.
Although the scandal and ensuing censure by Greek Orthodox officials is severely hampering Irineos’ ability to lead the church, according to a long-standing agreement only the governments that rule over the Holy Land have the final authority to dismiss a patriarch.
Jordan has officially withdrawn its recognition of Irineos. While Palestinian officials have threatened to do so, asserting that land deals with Jews undermine Palestinian claims to East Jerusalem _ which they claim as their future capital _ media reports have indicated that the Palestinian leadership is ready to mend fences with Irineos if the deals are canceled.
Israel’s Foreign Ministry, which has so far sat on the fence, announced Tuesday (May 31) that the Israeli government will immediately set up a team “to consider the overall circumstances and recommend what steps should be taken.”
_ Michele Chabin
Jews, Mainline Churches to Make Joint Trip to Israel
(RNS) Jewish groups and mainline Protestant churches who have experienced tense relations over church policy toward Israel said they will travel to the Middle East in September to see the region “through each other’s eyes.”
The Sept. 18-23 trip is a breakthrough of sorts for the five mainline groups and seven Jewish groups whose longtime alliance has been strained over some churches’ decisions to consider divesting from companies that operate in Israel to protest the plight of Palestinians.
The Presbyterian Church (USA) has led the divestment issue, and the United Church of Christ will consider it this summer. The Episcopal Church has sent a delegation to the region to make recommendations on investments.
Jewish groups accuse the churches of unfairly targeting Israel without applying equal pressure on Palestinians, and blasted Presbyterians for meeting with Hezbollah, a reputed terrorist group, during a recent trip to Lebanon.
The agreement, brokered by the American Jewish Committee and the National Council of Churches, will put each faith “in the other’s hands” for two days each.
“We Jews and Christians who have been in dialogue since May 2004 agree that it is time to travel together to the region in order to see the situation as much as possible through each other’s eyes,” said the Rev. Jay Rock, the Presbyterians’ interfaith director.
In an April 22 letter to Jewish groups that helped spark the trip, Rock told Jewish groups that relations on both sides have suffered from “inexact and emotionally loaded language” over the church’s actions and the Jewish response to them.
Other mainline members of the trip include the United Methodist Church and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. Jewish members also include the American Jewish Congress, the Anti-Defamation League, the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, the Orthodox Union, the Union for Reform Judaism and the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism.
_ Kevin Eckstrom
Quote of the Week: Air Force Policy Statement
(RNS) “Senior leaders, commanders and supervisors at every level must be particularly sensitive to the fact that subordinates can consider your public expressions of belief systems coercive. Using your place at the podium as a platform for your personal beliefs can be perceived as misuse of office.”
_ A new Air Force policy statement, issued after allegations of harassment of Jews and other faiths at the Air Force Academy, on treatment of religion. The statement was obtained and quoted by the Associated Press.
MO/PH END RNS
