c. 2006 Religion News Service

Muslim Scholars Challenge Pope Over Islam Remarks

VATICAN CITY (RNS) A group of Muslim scholars and leaders issued an open letter to Pope Benedict XVI on Monday (Oct. 16), challenging remarks the pontiff made on Islam that enraged the Muslim world.

The letter offered a point-by-point rebuttal of an address Benedict made at the University of Regensburg in Germany in September, in which he quoted a medieval Christian emperor describing the teachings of the Muslim Prophet Muhammad as “evil and inhuman” and “spread by the sword.”

Amid violence that ensued after the address, the pope has sought to distance himself from the remark and offered a measured apology. However, he has stopped short of retracting his comments as many Muslim leaders have demanded. He has insisted that his address was intended as a critique of religiously motivated violence and of the Western world’s tendency to divide God from scientific reason.

The letter accused Benedict of implying that Islam lacked reason by framing the religion as a “counterpoint” to his remarks.

“While we applaud your efforts to oppose the dominance of positivism and materialism in human life, we must point out some of the errors in the way you mentioned Islam as a counterpoint to reason,” the letter said.

Top religious authorities signed the letter, including Shaykh Ali Jumu’ah, the grand mufti of Egypt, and the Ayatollah Muhammad Ali Taskhiri of Iran. The letter also carried the signatures of prominent Muslim scholars in the United States and the United Kingdom.

The letter rejected Benedict’s definition of the Islamic term “jihad” as “holy war,” asserting that holy war “is a term that does not exist in Islamic languages.”

“Jihad, it must be emphasized, means struggle, and specifically struggle in the way of God,” the letter stated. It also quoted a passage from the Gospel of Matthew in which Jesus upends the tables of money changers in the Temple, stating, “I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.” The letter also disputed that Islam approved of forced conversion _ a claim made by the medieval text that Benedict quoted _ and questioned whether the source material for the pontiff’s address was authoritative.

“It seems to us that a great part of the object of interreligious dialogue is to listen to and consider the actual voices of those we are dialoguing with, and not merely those of our own persuasion,” the letter said.

_ Stacy Meichtry

Secularists Offer Prize for Highest-Ranking Nonbeliever

(RNS) The Secular Coalition for America is offering a $1,000 reward to anyone who can identify the highest-ranking, elected nonbeliever currently serving in the U.S. government.

“We’re here to show that nontheists are good citizens and good patriots,” said Lori Lipman Brown, director of the group, in a statement.

The group believes that though the Constitution prohibits a “religious test” for holding public office, atheists, humanists, freethinkers and other nontheists are “invisible in the electoral arena.”

“Ask most people if they would vote for an atheist and the immediate response would be a firm `No!,’ and they would not consider their response to be bigoted,” Brown said in a statement. “Anyone would think it’s bigoted if we said we wouldn’t vote for somebody simply because he or she is a Christian, Muslim or Jew, but very proudly they’ll say, `I would never vote for an atheist.”’

Entries must be received by Dec. 31. Entries must contain the name of the elected official, the office held, and the contestant’s name, address and contact information. A letter will be requested from the public official acknowledging that he or she is a nonbeliever.

The rules and entry form for the “Find an Atheist, Humanist, Freethinker Elected Official” contest can be found at http://www.secular.org/contest. The winner will be announced in January.

_ Chansin Bird

ADL Worried About Anti-Semitism in New `Borat’ Movie

(RNS) The Anti-Defamation League is worried about Americans’ ability to appreciate satire, saying comedian Sacha Baron Cohen’s new film about a fictional Kazakhstani journalist could lead to an increase in anti-Semitism.

The New York-based ADL said Cohen’s film, “Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan,” may be too sophisticated for the average moviegoer.

“We are concerned … that the audience may not always be sophisticated enough to get the joke, and that some may even find it reinforcing their bigotry,” the release said.

The movie follows the fictional, backwardly Kazakhstani journalist “Borat” as he travels to the U.S. on assignment.

While the ADL said it understood that there is “absolutely no intent on the part of the filmmakers to offend,” the group hopes that those who choose to see the film understand the aim is to “unmask the absurd and irrational side of anti-Semitism and other phobias born of ignorance and fear.”

Repeated attempts to reach the 20th Century Fox Film Corp. for comment were unsuccessful.

The media blog Wonkette.com issued a tongue-in-cheek response to the ADL statement.

“The Anti-Defamation League has a long, proud history of fighting anti-Semitism, bigotry and racism,” the Wonkette post said. “But the challenges facing the United States today _ primarily, the almost total retardation of the population _ has forced the ADL to switch gears. Its new mission? Explaining comedy to Americans.”

_ Keith Roshangar

Quote of the Day: Evangelical Lutheran Presiding Bishop Mark Hanson

(RNS) “I was sitting in a library waiting to use a computer, between a Jewish man and a Muslim woman. … He had on a yarmulke and she was wearing a head scarf, a hijab. And I thought: How would they know that I’m a Christian? That’s when I decided that we Christians have to get ourselves some headgear.”

_ The Rev. Mark Hanson, presiding bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, during a sermon at Lutheran Church of the Redeemer in McLean, Va.

KRE/PH END RNS