c. 2006 Religion News Service
Bush Aide Tells Vatican Officials of Foes’ `Ruthless Secularization’
ROME (RNS) Enforcing a strict separation between church and state curtails religious freedom and deprives state-funded social programs of a “spiritual dimension,” a top aide to President Bush told an audience of Vatican officials.
Jim Towey, who heads Bush’s program to provide federal funding to “faith-based” social services, made his comments Tuesday (Jan. 17) at a conference commemorating the 40th anniversary of “Dignitas Humanae,” the ground-breaking 1965 Vatican document that recognized the rights of individuals to freedom of religion and the validity of separation between church and state.
Towey decried the “ruthless secularization” of public life by Bush opponents who he said have falsely cast the president as a `chaplain-in-chief.”
“I think we can agree to disagree with those who wish to banish religious voices from the public square,” Towey said.
Critics of the Bush administration have accused the president of improperly trying to increase federal funding for poverty fighting religious organizations and lowering the wall of separation between church and state.
A Catholic lawyer who served as counsel to Mother Teresa for 12 years, Towey said federally funded social programs required a “spiritual dimension” to effectively serve recipients such as drug addicts.
“The struggle of these individuals was not just a social problem but at its core a spiritual problem,” Towey said.
Towey was joined in Rome by Cardinal Theodore E. McCarrick of Washington, who criticized gay marriage initiatives and other federal regulations, such as abortion rights laws requiring Catholic hospitals to perform abortions, as “a really subtle attack on everything we stand for.”
_ Stacy Meichtry
Evangelical Leaders Cold About Global Warming Position
(RNS) Some prominent evangelical leaders have signed an open letter to the National Association of Evangelicals, asking it not to take an official position on global warming.
“Global warming is not a consensus issue, and our love for the Creator and respect for his creation does not require us to take a position,” reads the letter signed by Prison Fellowship founder Chuck Colson, Focus on the Family founder James Dobson and 20 others.
The letter was circulated by the Interfaith Stewardship Alliance, a new Washington-based coalition that in November issued a report that challenged the idea that there is a scientific consensus on climate change.
“We are evangelicals and we care about God’s creation,” the letter reads. “However, we believe that there should be room for Bible-believing evangelicals to disagree about the cause, severity and solutions to the global warming issue.”
The Rev. Richard Cizik, vice president for government affairs of the National Association of Evangelicals, said the NAE is not planning to take a position on the issue.
“The NAE was never going to adopt a policy on climate change,” he said. “Like on a lot of issues, evangelical leaders are across the board on this subject and have a variety of views.”
Other signatories on the open letter, which was released Jan. 6, included Richard Land of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission; the Rev. Louis Sheldon of the Traditional Values Coalition; and the Rev. D. James Kennedy of Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. The signatories signed as individuals, not as representatives of their churches or organizations.
_ Adelle M. Banks
Editors: To obtain a photo of Mayor Ray Nagin, go to the RNS Web site at https://religionnews.com. On the lower right, click on “photos,” then search by subject or slug.
New Orleans Mayor Apologizes for Calling Hurricane God’s Will
NEW ORLEANS (RNS) Faced with howls of protest, Mayor Ray Nagin apologized Tuesday (Jan. 17) for claiming that a vengeful God smote New Orleans with Hurricane Katrina because of heavenly disapproval of America’s involvement in Iraq and of rampant violence within urban black communities.
Nagin also offered a less sweeping apology for his remarks about the city’s future demographics in the aftermath of the storm and subsequent catastrophic flood. His comments came in a speech, delivered on Martin Luther King Day with City Hall as a backdrop, in which the mayor said God intended New Orleans to rise again as a “chocolate city,” which he defined as a “black-majority city.”
Nagin said he was in error on his claim that Katrina’s devastation was a result of God’s will.
“I sincerely apologize for that and if there was anything I could take back, that would be it,” Nagin said. “I think it was inappropriate.”
Nagin acknowledged consulting with religious leaders since Katrina, and in his myriad public appearances he has commented eloquently on the important role faith must play if New Orleans is to endure. He said he regrets delivering a different message on Monday.
“That whole God thing, I don’t know how that got mixed up in there,” Nagin said.
Part of what propelled Nagin’s remarks around the country was the mixture of race and controversial theology _ notably the observation that God chose to punish several states with hurricanes as a way to express anger at the United States.
Nagin is not the first to make such an observation: In the months after the storm, sources as diverse as Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, an ultra-Orthodox Israeli rabbi and an East Texas fundamentalist preacher all have publicly offered the same explanation. They have said God sent Katrina to convey his displeasure at, respectively, American aggression in Iraq, Bush’s support for dismantling West Bank settlements in Israel and the alleged sexual sins of New Orleans.
But Katrina as the so-called “fist of God,” as the explanation is sometimes called, “would not be the theology of the vast cross-section of mainline Christian theology,” said Robert Parham, director of the liberal Baptist Center for Ethics.
_ James Varney and Bruce Nolan
Israel Reconsidering Decision to Exclude Robertson From Park Project
JERUSALEM (RNS) The Israeli government says it is reconsidering its working relationship with Pat Robertson after the TV evangelist apologized for linking Israeli Prime Minister Ariel’s recent stroke to his handover of Gaza to the Palestinians.
“We are still considering the matter. No decision has been made,” Jonathan Pulik, a Tourism Ministry spokesman, said in an interview.
Israelis were deeply offended by remarks Robertson made during a Jan. 5 broadcast of his show “The 700 Club,” when he suggested that Sharon’s crippling Jan. 4 stroke had been divine retribution for relinquishing the Gaza Strip and northern West Bank to the Palestinian Authority in August. The Israeli government said it was terminating Robertson’s involvement in a Christian theme park in Israel.
Following the remarks, which were condemned by Israelis, other evangelical Christian leaders and even President Bush, Robertson sent a letter to Sharon’s family asking forgiveness.
Pulik said that the Tourism Ministry is still mulling whether to permit Robertson to rejoin the inner circle of evangelical leaders who several months ago committed to raising the $50 million to establish a Christian heritage center and park in the Galilee. The Israeli government has promised to provide 35 acreas of pristine land.
“The matter is still under consideration,” Pulik said.
_ Michele Chabin
Ohio Minister Criticizes `Unholy Alliance’ Questioning Political Activity
HARTVILLE, Ohio (RNS) A prominent evangelical minister has fired back at critics who charge him and others with mixing religion and politics, saying they are guilty of the same sin _ if sin it is.
Accused recently by a group of moderate clergy of using his pulpit to benefit Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell, the Rev. Russell Johnson described them as part of an “unholy alliance” and “secular jihad” against expressions of faith.
Thirty-one clergy members on Sunday (Jan. 15) asked the Internal Revenue Service to investigate the tax-free status of Johnson’s Fairfield Christian Church and affiliated organization, Ohio Restoration Project, which is trying to rally pastors to take an active role in this year’s statewide races.
The Rev. Rod Parsley of World Harvest Church also was accused of illegal political activities. Both churches are in the Columbus area.
During a Tuesday (Jan. 17) lunch meeting of Restoration Project adherents in Hartville, Johnson poked fun at his critics for ignoring two left-leaning clergymen: the Rev. Jesse Jackson and the Rev. Al Sharpton.
“I’ll feel a little better when I understand they file a grievance against Rev. Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton,” he told the group.
Blackwell, who was the featured speaker at the luncheon, was honored for his support of last year’s successful drive for a statewide ban on gay marriage. He defended Johnson and Parsley and denied that he has received special treatment from the churches.
_ Mark Naymik
Quote of the Day: Former Praise the Lord (PTL) Leader Jim Bakker
(RNS) “Most of you are so young you don’t know who I am, and that’s good.”
_ Former Praise the Lord (PTL) Leader Jim Bakker speaking at MorningStar Fellowship Church in Fort Mill, S.C., a congregation that is located on the site where his ministry was headquartered before he was embroiled in a sex and money scandal in the late 1980s that resulted in prison time. He was quoted by The Herald in Rock Hill, S.C.
MO/JL END RNS
