c. 2006 Religion News Service
Pennsylvania Political Group’s Church Work Stirs Complaints
HARRISBURG, Pa. (RNS) A conservative advocacy group is hiring 10 full-time organizers to rally churches across Pennsylvania to get out the vote for the November election. “Evangelical or Catholic background is helpful,” said an online job posting.
The group, Let Freedom Ring, was founded by former Chester County Commissioner Colin Hanna. As part of a coalition called the Pennsylvania Pastors Network, Let Freedom Ring kicked off a statewide series of get-out-the-vote training sessions for pastors this month in Valley Forge, with Sen. Rick Santorum appearing in a video.
Santorum, a prominent conservative Republican, faces a battle for re-election in one of the nation’s key political races this year.
But the Rev. Barry Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, said Hanna’s group is conducting “an under-the-radar campaign to re-elect Santorum” and could get churches in trouble with the Internal Revenue Service.
The same theme was sounded in a complaint filed with the IRS by the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. Hanna dismissed CREW as a “liberal front group” and its complaint as “groundless.”
Gary Marx, project director with Let Freedom Ring, said the focus will be “nonpartisan voter drives,” well within the law. “We’re really trying to send a clarion call to citizenship.”
Churchgoing voters care about “those issues the biblical principles clearly speak to,” Marx said. He cited abortion and same-sex marriage.
Santorum and his leading Democratic opponent, state Treasurer Robert Casey Jr., oppose abortion. Both also oppose same-sex marriage, though Casey favors civil unions.
Santorum was the only candidate to appear live or by video on March 6 at the Valley Forge training session, sponsored by a coalition that includes Let Freedom Ring, the Pennsylvania Family Institute, the Urban Family Council and the Pennsylvania Pro-Life Federation.
Marx said Santorum “spoke as a public servant, not as a candidate. … There was no discussion of any campaign or voting for anybody.” It was “very natural” for pastors to hear from “someone who has spoken very openly about the intersection of faith and politics,” Marx said.
_ Mary Warner
N.J. Temple Grieves for Six of Its Own Killed in Chile Accident
MONROE, N.J. (RNS) The Jewish Congregation of Concordia is an unusual synagogue, catering almost exclusively to senior citizens.
The 1,800-member temple has more than its share of globe-trekkers, retirees who disappear for months each year for warmer climates or spins abroad, said Eli Perlman, the shul’s cantor and spiritual leader.
Of the 12 Americans who died Wednesday (March 22) in a bus crash in Chile, six were temple members taking a South American vacation. Two survivors, who were injured, also are members.
“These people travel all over the world together … They love to travel. They do things. They go,” said Perlman, who’s worked at the temple about a decade. “And the fact they are retired gives them the chance to see the world. They don’t go alone, they go as friends.
“At this stage in their lives, they’ve kind of paid their dues already. They’ve worked their whole lives, played by the rules, had their children, were married.”
When tragedies hit, the members come together for each other, Perlman said. Nearly five years ago, when six children of congregants died in the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, people mourned for them even if they didn’t know the families.
This week they were mourning again.
“We’re all very, very upset about this,” said Evelyn Goldstein, the temple’s president. “Whether we knew the people or not, it’s upsetting.”
All the victims were in their 60s and 70s.
“They were close friends,” Perlman said. “They were dedicated to each other. They went together as friends, and then this happens. It’s the worst kind of tragedy.”
The storefront synagogue, located in a suburban strip mall across the parking lot from a Stop & Shop supermarket, was built in the early 1980s to serve a handful of Jews in the Concordia retirement community.
Planted in a growing area, it now serves nearly 2,000 people _ many of them Holocaust survivors _ in seven retirement communities.
The deaths strike the temple at a time of year when most members are just returning from winters down South. Typical Shabbat services in winter attract 75 to 100 people to the temple, as opposed to Shabbat services the rest of the year, which can draw close to 300, Perlman said.
Perlman said the temple plans to take time Saturday to remember its six deceased _ Robert Rubin, Barbara Rubin, Arthur Kovar, Frieda Kovar, Carole Ruchelman and Marian Diamond _ and the two survivors.
“We will do a special prayer for them,” he said. “We will open the arc, bring out the Torah, and make sure God remembers them. You just hope and pray that the families get through this.”
_ Jeff Diamant and Sue Epstein
U.N. Official Expresses Concern About Treatment of Iranian Bahais
(RNS) A United Nations official has expressed serious concern about the treatment of Iranian Bahais after a confidential military letter was sent to police officials directing them to monitor Bahais in the Islamic republic.
Asma Jahangir, the Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion or Belief of the U.N.’s Commission on Human Rights, issued the statement Monday (March 20). The letter from a top military leader in Iran instructs military and police forces to “collect any and all information about members of the Bahai faith,” the U.N. said. The letter was dated Oct. 29, 2005.
“The special rapporteur is apprehensive about the initiative to monitor the activities of individuals merely because they adhere to a religion that differs from the state religion,” the statement from the U.N. reads.
“She also expresses concern that the information gained as a result of such monitoring will be used as a basis for the increased persecution of, and discrimination against, members of the Bahai faith, in violation of international standards.”
An estimated 300,000 Bahais live in Iran, which makes them the country’s largest minority religion. Jahangir has “long been concerned by the systemic discrimination against members of the Bahai community,” who have not been given the right to practice their faith.
Bani Dugal, principal representative of the Bahai International Community to the United Nations, said she appreciated Jahangir’s statement and shared the special rapporteur’s concerns.
Bahais have faced discrimination in Iran since the religion began in that country in the mid-19th century. Between 1978 and 1998, more than 200 Bahais were killed, most by execution, and thousands of others were sent to prison, reports the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahais in the United States.
“We make an urgent plea to all nations and peoples on behalf of our Iranian co-religionists that they not allow a peace-loving, law-abiding people to face the extremes to which blind hate can lead,” Dugal said in her statement. “The ghastly deeds that grew out of similar circumstances in the past should not now be allowed to happen. Not again.”
_ Adelle M. Banks
Seventh-day Adventist Conscientious Objector Dies at Age 87
(RNS) The Seventh-day Adventist man and World War II veteran who won a Congressional Medal of Honor for saving dozens of soldiers while unarmed has died at the age of 87.
Desmond T. Doss Sr. died Thursday (March 23) in his residence in Piedmont, Ala., the Adventist News Network reported.
Doss served as a U.S. Army medic, and following his Seventh-day Adventist beliefs, he refused to carry a gun or work on Saturday, his denomination’s Sabbath.
But he earned his medal by keeping one of those rules and forgoing the other. On May 5, 1945, which was his Sabbath, the unarmed Doss rescued 75 wounded soldiers in Okinawa, Japan.
“Pfc. Doss refused to seek cover and remained in the fire-swept area with the many stricken, carrying them one by one to the edge of the escarpment and there lowering them on a rope-supported litter down the face of a cliff to friendly hands,” the citation for his medal of honor reads.
He is believed to be the only person to receive the medal for noncombat activities in World War II.
Doss had said his faith convictions did not earn him popularity in U.S. bootcamps but views about him changed after his rescue efforts.
“There’s no better honor than to have somebody say to you, `I owe you my life,”’ Doss told Religion News Service in a 2004 interview when he visited the National World War II Memorial in Washington.
Doss’ wife, Frances, said he didn’t like being called a conscientious objector and preferred to be described as a “noncombatant.”
Doss credited knot-tying skills he learned in the Pathfinders, an Adventist youth group, with helping him achieve the rescue, Adventist News Network said.
“Desmond is considered to be a role model _ especially to many of our members in the Seventh-day Adventist Church,” said Pastor Don Schneider, president of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in North America, in a statement. “His decision to not bear arms in the most dangerous of times was a courageous and heroic decision that has in turn affected many lives.”
Doss’ story was the subject of a 2004 feature-length documentary, “The Conscientious Objector,” and is scheduled to be the focus of a theatrical movie.
_ Adelle M. Banks
Quote of the Day: Afghan Christian Convert Abdul Rahman
(RNS) “They want to sentence me to death and I accept it, but I am not a deserter and not an infidel. I am a Christian, which means I believe in the Trinity.”
_ Abdul Rahman, a 41-year-old Afghan who faces a potential death penalty for converting from Islam to Christianity. He was speaking in court and was quoted by the BBC.
KRE/PH END RNS
Editors: To obtain a file photo of Doss to accompany the last item, go to the RNS Web site at https://religionnews.com. On the lower right, click on “photos,” then search by subject or slug (RNS-ADVENTIST-VETERAN).
