c. 2006 Religion News Service

Faiths Urged to Rally for Darfur This Weekend

WASHINGTON (RNS) Religious organizations of all creeds are joining forces this weekend (Dec. 9-10) to pray for an end to the violence in Sudan’s Darfur region and demand action by the U.S. government.

Organized by the Washington-based Save Darfur Coalition, the “National Weekend of Prayer for Darfur” encourages faith organizations to dedicate a sermon, encourage prayer and educate their members about Darfur.

Dozens of the nation’s leading faith communities have signed on, adding their names to a full-page advertisement that ran Tuesday (Dec. 5) in USA Today. Participants include the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, the National Association of Evangelicals, the American Jewish Committee, the Union for Reform Judaism and the Islamic Society of North America.

The hope for the movement is to “drive people out of the pews and into the streets,” said Rabbi Steve Gutow, executive director of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, in a press conference Tuesday.

Violence has raged in the vast Darfur region of Sudan for more than three years as government-backed Arab militias have repeatedly attacked non-Arab tribes seeking greater rights and autonomy. At least 2.5 million people have been displaced and 200,000 killed in a conflict the Bush administration calls genocide.

The faith leaders said it is time for Washington and the United Nation to act on that rhetoric by more forcefully demanding the implementation of a U.N. peacekeeping force _ a force the Sudanese government has adamantly rejected thus far.

The Rev. Bob Edgar, general secretary of the National Council of Churches, said Americans currently know too little about the conflict to demand concerted action.

“If they knew more, if they had all of the facts, they would rise up urgently to stop the genocide,” Edgar said.

Sheikh Fadhel Al-Sahlani, spiritual leader of the Imam Al-Khoei Foundation in Queens, N.Y., said Muslims must rise above the persecution they have faced in a post-Sept. 11 world to speak out against acts of violence.

“We have a great loss that Muslims have been killed by Muslims and the greater loss that they use the religion as a reason for that while the religion is so far from such action,” he said.

Gutow compared the current violence to the Holocaust, and asked Jewish communities nationwide to respond with that sense of urgency this weekend.

“We’re all opening our hearts and our lips to try and bring God into this help and this work. We join the world in asking God to walk with us.”

_ Jason Kane

Presbyterian, Jewish Leaders Find Common Ground After Divestment

(RNS) Presbyterian and Jewish leaders have promised to work toward a “renewed engagement” after the church last summer revised its policy on divesting from companies involved in Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands.

Meeting at Prebyterian Church (USA) headquarters in Louisville, Ky., on Nov. 29, the faith leaders said they “discussed frankly and openly our different perceptions of the situation in the (Middle East) and found some ways to begin working together in this area that has most divided us in the past.”

The joint-statement produced by the meeting was signed by the Rev. Clifton Kirkpatrick, the denomination’s stated clerk, as well as top officials from three branches of Judaism: Conservative, Reconstructionist and Reform.

At their General Assembly in 2004, Presbyterians approved a plan to pull some investments in companies thought to be in involved in the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory.

Under fire from Jewish and conservative Christian leaders, the General Assembly modified its policy in 2006, replacing divestment with a pledge to use investments toward “peaceful pursuits.”

“Together, we affirm that peace for Israel and the Palestinians should be built on the foundations of security, justice and the establishment of two viable states,” the Dec. 4 joint statement said.

“Our specific approaches to peace differ, but we believe that we can, and must, be strong advocates together _ and together with other Christian and Muslim colleagues _ for a renewed peace process,” the statement said.

In addition to Kirkpatrick, the statement was signed by Rabbi Jerome Epstein, executive vice president of the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism; Carl Sheingold, executive vice president of the Jewish Reconstructionist Federation; and Rabbi Eric Yoffie, president of the Union for Reform Judaism.

_ Daniel Burke

(Editors: Petter in 9th graf is CQ)

Church of Norway Ends Status as State Church

(RNS) In a radical revision of its relationship with the Norwegian government, the (Lutheran) Church of Norway has voted to abolish the nation’s current system under which it was the nation’s official church.

The mid-November vote at the church’s General Synod meeting in Oyer, Norway, aims to bring to an end the state-church system that has been in place since 1537, when the then-united Denmark-Norway endorsed the Lutheran Reformation. The proposal still must be affirmed and implemented by the government, and likely will not take effect until 2013.

Olaf Haraldson, a Viking warrior king, brought Christianity to central Norway in the 11th century after converting during a raiding tour of England and imposed it on his local followers.

At the Oyer meeting, delegates voted 63-19 that the Church of Norway should no longer be referred to as a state church in the country’s 1814 constitution. Rather, they said, the church should be founded on a separate act of parliament.

The Norwegian constitution also says the nation’s values are based on those of the Lutheran Church, and stipulates that half of government ministers must be Church of Norway members.

In addition, the church meeting said the General Synod _ not the king of Norway and the government _ should exercise authority over church matters.

The vote by the synod follows a report issued in January by a government-appointed commission that recommended the changes to reflect Norway’s evolution to a modern, multi-faith society.

“This would mean the biggest changes in the church for 400 years,” Trond Giske, the government’s church minister, told Reuters in January when the commission report was released.

Jens Petter Johnsen, director of the Church of Norway’s national council, called the synod’s mid-November vote “historic.”

“What matters is the relation between church and people, not between church and state,” he said. “We will do our utmost to strengthen the service of the church in and with our people.”

The Church of Norway has about 3.9 million members, representing some 85 percent of the Norwegian population. If the changes are implemented, Norway will follow neighboring Sweden, which separated church and state in 2000.

_ David E. Anderson

Quote of the Day: Former Nun Mary Dispenza

(RNS) “Everything that I knew, all my identity, was wrapped up in the church in one way or another. I was just lost. I felt we both lost: the church lost me and I lost the church. And we both had invested a lot in each other for all those years.”

_ Mary Dispenza, 67, a former nun who expects to receive $1.33 million of the $60 million settlement by the Archdiocese of Los Angeles in a class action suit involving clergy sex abuse. Quoted by the Associated Press, Dispenza said she is haunted by the memory of being molested by a pedophile priest as a young girl.

KRE/JL END RNS