c. 2006 Religion News Service
Study Suggests Support for Shariah Based on Aid to the Poor
(RNS) A recent study by two Indiana academics suggests that Shariah law, the Islamic legal code often associated with strict rules, oppression of women and harsh punishments, has a softer side when it comes to the poor.
Based on data from national surveys in predominantly Islamic countries, the authors found that people linked the establishment of Shariah law with economic reforms such as increasing government responsibility for the poor and reducing income inequality.
The polls were conducted in Algeria, Bangladesh, Egypt, Indonesia, Jordan, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia between 2000 and 2003 by the University of Michigan as part of a “World Values Survey.”
“The orthodox tend to feel that everyone in the community should be subject to what they see as eternal divine laws on the position of women, sexuality and the family. But they also tend to believe that the community and society should look out for its members’ economic well-being,” said co-author Nancy J. Davis, chair of DePauw University’s Department of Sociology and Anthropology, in a statement.
Davis published the findings with co-author Robert V. Robinson, chair of the Indiana University Department of Sociology, in the most recent issue of the American Sociological Review.
The authors also found that 88 percent of Saudi respondents viewed establishing Islamic law as “important” or “very important,” as did 82 percent of Egyptians, 80 percent of Jordanians, 72 percent of Algerians, 62 percent of Pakistanis, 53 percent of Indonesians and 45 percent of Bangladeshis.
Radical Islamist groups favoring Shariah law, Davis and Robinson found, have won supporters in Egypt, Indonesia, the Palestinian Territories and other Muslim-majority countries by succeeding where often corrupt and incompetent governments have failed in creating social welfare networks that include clinics, hospitals, day care centers and unemployment agencies.
Alia Hogben, executive director of the Canadian Council of Muslim Women, cautioned that Shariah law-which she prefers to call Muslim law-is intensely debated in the Muslim world, with some scholars challenging the notion that the laws are divine.
“Muslim laws are based on the Quran and Hadith (sayings of the Prophet Muhammad), but they’re interpreted by men,” said Hogben, who helped lead a successful effort last year to prevent Shariah and other religious laws from being incorporated into Ontario’s family laws.
Egalitarianism, she added, is important to Muslims less because of Shariah and more because charity is one of Islam’s “five pillars.” “If anybody is trying to be a good Muslim, they have to give charity,” she said.
“Egalitarianism is an intrinsic part of being Muslim, regardless of Muslim law.”
-Omar Sacirbey
Arkansas Pastor to Be Nominated as Southern Baptist President
(RNS) An Arkansas megachurch pastor will be nominated for president of the Southern Baptist Convention by a Georgia pastor who originally was expected to run for the position.
Ronnie Floyd, pastor of First Baptist Church in Springdale, Ark., will be nominated by Johnny Hunt, a Woodstock, Ga., pastor, Hunt announced in a statement Sunday (May 7).
“I believe Dr. Floyd is a man matched for our times in this season of the Southern Baptist Convention,” Hunt said in his statement, noting Floyd’s past service as chairman of the Executive Committee of the nation’s largest Protestant denomination.
Floyd pastors a church with more than 16,000 members that expanded with a second location in 2001.
Hunt said he had been asked to run but thought Floyd should run instead. The election will be held during the annual meeting of Southern Baptists June 13-14 in Greensboro, N.C.
“Due to not getting the real peace I needed in my heart to do this, I called Ronnie one month ago and shared this with him,” Hunt said in his statement. “When I called him to share this conviction about myself, I shared with an equal conviction that I believed he was the man God had raised up for such a time as this to lead Southern Baptists.”
Floyd confirmed his agreement on the planned nomination, which he called a “megabomb,” in his blog (http://www.betweensundays.com) on Tuesday.
“The SBC possibility emerges as perhaps another way to help our church fulfill its mission through their pastor serving this denomination as a volunteer for the next year and possibly two as its president,” he wrote.
Floyd was criticized in 2004 by Americans United for Separation of Church and State for a July 4 speech in which the watchdog group said he praised President Bush and criticized Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry. Floyd denied that he had used his pulpit to help re-elect Bush.
The Arkansas pastor is featured on his “Winners” television broadcast and is the author of “Finding the Favor of God” and “The Gay Agenda: It’s Dividing the Family, the Church and a Nation.”
Bobby Welch, the current president of the 16.2 million-member denomination, is limited to two consecutive one-year terms.
-Adelle M. Banks
Israeli Rabbis Say They Won’t Recognize U.S. Conversions
JERUSALEM (RNS) Israel’s Chief Rabbinate, the nation’s highest Jewish religious authority, is no longer automatically accepting conversions performed by Orthodox rabbis in the U.S. and elsewhere in the Diaspora, the New York Jewish Week reported May 5.
In contrast to past practice, the Rabbinate is now requiring converts from abroad who wish to marry in Israel to appear before an Israeli rabbinical court to prove their Jewishness, unless the name of the rabbi who converted them appears on an internal Rabbinate list.
Every year, dozens of Jews converted overseas opt to marry in Israel. Some reside abroad while others are immigrants.
The converts in question had received written authorization of their conversion to Judaism from the Beit Din of America (BDA), the leading U.S. rabbinical court, or other influential Orthodox rabbinical courts.
Up until a year ago, the Rabbinate routinely accepted the BDA’s authorization and permitted the converts to marry in Israel. Then, without warning, the Rabbinate decided to automatically recognize only those 40 to 50 rabbis whose names appear on an internal list. Others wishing to be included on the list must undergo an exam and be recognized experts in the field of conversion.
The Israeli rabbis denied a formal change in policy, but added that they had recently established a committee to examine the credentials of Diaspora rabbis.
Rabbi Tzvi Hersh Weinreb, executive director of the Orthodox Union, told the newspaper he was surprised at the news, which he felt indicated either an error by the Chief Rabbinate or a major and disturbing shift in policy.
Rabbi Seth Farber, the director of ITIM, an organization in Israel that has helped about a dozen of the converts navigate the Rabbinate’s bureaucracy, said that body “is marginalizing the American Modern Orthodox rabbinate.”
“By not recognizing the legitimacy of conversions approved by the Beth Din of America, they’re intimating that the Beth Din of America has no legitimacy whatsoever,” Farber said. “It’s a slap in the face to American converts and American Orthodox rabbis.”
Rabbi Yigal Krispel, a key Rabbinate official, said the Rabbinate respects Diaspora Jewry, but that it needed to “ensure the highest standards” of conversion.
-Michele Chabin
Indian Cardinal Urges Prayers for `Da Vinci Code’ Filmmakers
CHENNAI, India (RNS) A leading Indian Catholic prelate, in a veiled reference to “The Da Vinci Code,” has deplored recent films that supposedly offend Christian beliefs and asked his followers to “earnestly implore” divine forgiveness for the filmmakers.
Cardinal Ivan Dias, archbishop of Mumbai, said in an April 30 article that in recent times large- and small-screen films on Christianity have been produced which “distort history and are extremely offensive to Christian principles and practices.”
Christians “strongly deplore the tendentious nature of these films, which sadly reveal the morose mind-set of those responsible for their production,” Dias added.
The cardinal’s article did not name any films or moviemakers by name, but his criticism is evidently directed against Ron Howard’s film adaptation of Dan Brown’s hit novel “The Da Vinci Code,” which premieres in the U.S. and India on May 19.
The film is based on the premise that Jesus and Mary Magdalene were married and had children, and that church officials-with the help of the Opus Dei organization-had attempted to hide that history from believers.
Top Vatican officials have condemned the film, and Dias-who was considered a contender to be elected pope last year-said the unnamed films “gratuitously fabricate tales about the life of Jesus Christ or treat with ridicule those who are laudably giving selfless service to God and humanity.”
Dias said it was “amazing” that there are people who, “with devilish glee, take pride in blaspheming against the sacred person of Christ Jesus, or in smearing the good reputation of persons consecrated in God’s service.”
-Achal Narayanan
Quote of the Day: San Diego Pastor Chris Clark
(RNS) “As a pastor, every time I look up there, I see a message of the greatest sacrifice in all of history and it is being used as an honor to those that have sacrificed their lives in wars to defend our country. What better way to honor them than with a reminder of the greatest sacrifice ever offered in human history?”
-Chris Clark, pastor of East Clairemont Southern Baptist Church and a member of the group San Diegans for the Mount Soledad National War Memorial, who criticized a May 3 ruling that a 29-foot-high cross needs to be removed from city grounds within 90 days. He was quoted by Baptist Press.
KRE/PH END RNS
