c. 2005 Religion News Service

Conservatives Blast `Arrogant’ Court at Justice Sunday II

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (RNS) Conservative religious and political leaders on Sunday (Aug. 14) dismissed charges that they are trying to legislate their religious beliefs, arguing instead God commands them to speak out against a Supreme Court that they say is at odds with most Americans’ morals.

House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, joined Focus on the Family founder James Dobson and others at Two Rivers Baptist Church to affirm their support for Supreme Court nominee John Roberts at “Justice Sunday II.”

Sunday’s event _ the first “Justice Sunday” was held in Louisville last April _ drew more than 2,000 people and was broadcast across the country to churches and on TV, the radio and the Internet. Organizers at the Family Research Council said the broadcast reached 79 million households in all 50 states.

Speakers also included former Georgia Sen. Zell Miller; Chuck Colson of Prison Fellowship Ministries; Bill Donohue of the New York-based Catholic League; and Ted Haggard of the National Association of Evangelicals.

From a pulpit in front of a cross flanked by two American flags, speakers lamented Supreme Court decisions such as June’s split ruling on government displays of the Ten Commandments.

Dobson, appearing via video, delivered a scathing depiction of a court system that he said is “unaccountable, unelected and often arrogant.” He said Supreme Court rulings are more influenced by Western European ideas of secularism than by American moral values.

“The American court system is tearing at the very fabric of our nation,” he said.

Justice Sunday II came weeks before the Sept. 6 start of confirmation hearings for Roberts’ seat on the court. Speakers at Justice Sunday II, warning that more change could come as the court takes up issues such as abortion and gay marriage, urged churchgoers to rally friends and fellow parishioners, lobby elected leaders and pray.

Critics, from the National Council of Churches and Interfaith Alliance, denounced the event for blurring the separation of church and state. Organized protests were held Sunday, with some two dozen protesters lined up outside the church with signs denouncing “Hypocrisy Sunday.”

_ Amy Green

Catholic Leader Agrees to Call for Greater Unity with Lutherans

ORLANDO, Fla. (RNS) A leading Roman Catholic bishop said Friday (Aug. 12) that he will take up a Lutheran call for greater unity, as well as an idea for a global summit on how Christian churches can combat fundamentalism.

Bishop Stephen Blaire of Stockton, Calif., told delegates at the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America’s national assembly that it was “very painful” not to be able to share Communion with Lutherans during a worship service here.

“Not only is Communion in our Catholic theology a sign of achieving full communion, but it is also a means of arriving at communion, and we need to explore that,” said Blaire, who chairs the ecumenical affairs committee of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

In 2017, Lutherans will mark the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation that severed ties with Rome. Blaire said a call from ELCA Presiding Bishop Mark Hanson for a joint Lutheran-Catholic statement on the Eucharist to mark the anniversary is “very worthy of consideration.”

Currently, Catholics do not allow Protestants to partake of the sacrament because of differing theologies. However, the two sides have made progress on other issues, such as a joint 1999 statement on the nature of salvation.

Blaire said he would also take up Hanson’s recent call for Anglicans, Orthodox, Lutherans and Catholics to combat fundamentalism that Hanson said had prompted an “identity crisis” in the world’s churches.

“(This) is crucial for the mission of the church and certainly should be at the top of our ecumenical endeavors,” Blaire told delegates, to a round of applause.

The ELCA delegates also heard from the Rev. Gerald Kieschnick, president of the more conservative Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod. Relations between the two churches have been frosty, but have shown signs of warming in recent years.

“We humbly and respectfully pray that we will be able to come to harmonious conclusions regarding the authority and interpretation of the Word of God, so that the distance between us will not be widened, but will be bridged,” Kieschnick said.

_ Kevin Eckstrom

NCC Head Meets With Slain G.I.s’ Mothers Holding Vigil Outside Bush Ranch

(RNS) The head of the National Council of Churches spent Friday (Aug. 12) protesting alongside the mothers of two slain U.S. soldiers outside President Bush’s ranch in Crawford, Texas.

The Rev. Bob Edgar, general secretary of the NCC and an outspoken critic of the war in Iraq, spent the day with Cindy Sheehan and Celeste Zappala, two mothers who are waiting outside Bush’s ranch, hoping for a meeting with the president.

“The president, even if he disagrees with their position, should listen to these mothers at least as carefully as he listens to (Secretary of State) Condoleezza Rice and (Defense Secretary) Donald Rumsfeld,” Edgar said in an interview.

Sheehan and Zappala are founding members of Gold Star Families for Peace, a group for families of soldiers killed in Iraq who oppose the war. The White House has dispatched administration officials to meet with the mothers, but Bush so far has declined a meeting.

Sheehan’s son Casey, 24, was killed in Sadr City, Iraq, on April 4, 2004. Zappala’s son, Sherwood Baker, 30, was killed three weeks later.

Edgar prayed and sang hymns with Sheehan and Zappala under a hot Texas sun. Edgar, Zappala and Bush are all members of the United Methodist Church; Sheehan is Catholic. Retired Methodist Bishop Joe Wilson also attended and called the half-hour service “like a love feast.”

Edgar, a former Democratic congressman from Pennsylvania, also tried unsuccessfully to meet with Bush in 2003 before U.S. forces invaded Iraq. Edgar has called the war unjust and a mistake.

“Whether you’re for or against the war, the sacrifice _ the ultimate sacrifice _ of these military personnel has to be respected,” Edgar said.

_ Kevin Eckstrom

Salman Rushdie Calls for `Muslim Reformation’

LONDON (RNS) Salman Rushdie, the Muslim novelist whose 1988 book, “The Satanic Verses,” prompted Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini to call for his death, has urged for a Muslim Reformation that would expose the Quran and Islam to scholarly analysis.

In an article in The Times of London (Aug 11), Rushdie said the “closed communities of some traditional Western Muslims” foster terrorism among alienated young men _ as exemplified in the July 7 London bombings.

“What is needed is a move beyond tradition,” he wrote, “nothing less than a reform movement to bring the core concepts of Islam into the modern age, a Muslim Reformation to combat not only the jihadi ideologues but also the dusty, stifling seminaries of the traditionalists, throwing open the windows of the closed communities to let in much needed fresh air.”

Rushdie said a reform movement would require a new educational impetus, with new scholarship that replaces the literalism and narrow dogmatism that plague present day Muslim thinking.

What’s more, Rushdie said it is time for the dawn of Islam to be viewed “as an event inside history, not supernaturally above it.” Viewing the Quran _ the Muslim holy book _ as soley the “infallible, uncreated word of God” makes scholarly analysis “all but impossible,” he said.

“If, however, the Koran were seen as a historical document, then it would be legitimate to re-interpret it to suit the new conditions of successive new ages,” he said.

“Laws made in the seventh century could finally give way to the needs of the twenty-first. The Islamic Reformation has to begin here, with an acceptance that all ideas, even sacred ones, must adapt to altered realities.”

_ Robert Nowell

Quote of the Day: U2 Lead Singer Bono

(RNS) “It’s a mind-blowing concept that the God who created the universe might be looking for company, a real relationship with people, but the thing that keeps me on my knees is the difference between grace and karma. … Love interrupts, if you like, the consequences of your actions, which in my case is very good news indeed, because I’ve done a lot of stupid stuff.”

_ Bono, lead singer of the rock group U2, in an interview with author Michka Assayas in a new book, “Bono: In Conversation with Michka Assayas.” He was quoted by World magazine.

KRE/JL END RNS