c. 2007 Religion News Service
Religious Leaders Defend Obama Against Madrassa Allegations
WASHINGTON (RNS) A host of religious leaders have condemned “the bitter, destructive politics” that they say resulted in a political smear campaign against presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill.
Several Web sites and a Fox News program reported that Obama was hiding the fact that he was educated in a madrassa, or a fundamentalist Islamic school, during his childhood in Indonesia.
Obama, who denied the allegations, has acknowledged attending a school that enrolled mostly Muslims for two years, as well as a Catholic school for another two while living in Indonesia.
A number of clerics signed an open letter that sharply criticized the smear tactics.
“We have had enough of the slash and burn politics calculated to divide us as children of God,” the letter read. “Certain moral standards should infuse our national dialogue, and the recent attacks on Sen. Obama violate values at the heart of this dialogue.”
The Rev. Bob Edgar, general secretary of the National Council of Churches and a former Democratic congressman, signed the letter and lambasted the allegations against Obama.
“We must not let fear, fundamentalism and Fox News set our nation’s agenda,” Edgar said in a statement. “It appears Fox News is using a political candidate to further foment a fear of fundamentalism in hopes of dividing Americans and pitting people of faith against one another. Faithful Americans must stand up and say no to such sinful behavior.”
Prominent religious officials signing the letter included Rabbi Jonah Dov Pesner, of the Union for Reform Judaism; Imam Mahdi Bray, the executive director of the Muslim American Society; and the Rev. Stephen J. Thurston, president of the National Baptist Convention.
CNN sent senior correspondent John Vause to Jakarta, Indonesia, to investigate the questions about Obama’s educational background. Vause, who has visited madrassas in Pakistan accused of training terrorists, reported he found no signs of radicalism at the Basuki school, which Obama attended from 1969 to 1971.
Additionally, the headmaster of the school told Vause that Basuki is “a public school” that doesn’t “focus on religion,” adding that although respect for religion is advocated, the school does not give preferential treatment to any one faith.
_ Katherine Boyle
British Churches Seek Exemption on Gay Adoption Rules
LONDON (RNS) The Church of England has joined the Roman Catholic Church in attacking the government’s new gay rights bill that Catholic leaders say could put their adoption agencies in England, Wales and Scotland out of business.
The government’s new Equality Act, due to take effect in April, outlaws discrimination in the provision of goods, facilities and services on the basis of sexual orientation.
But Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, head of the Catholic Church in England and Wales, said unless the church gets an exemption from the new regulations, and is allowed to turn away same-sex couples seeking to adopt, the church would be forced to close its adoption agencies rather than breach its fundamental teachings on the issue.
Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams and Archbishop of York John Sentamu, the top two leaders in the Church of England, backed the cardinal’s stance Tuesday (Jan. 23), insisting in a joint letter to Prime Minister Tony Blair that “the rights of conscience cannot be made subject to legislation, however well meaning.”
Their actions reflect a new cooperative spirit between Anglicans and Catholics on a range of social and moral issues that began after Williams and the cardinal both met Pope Benedict XVI in Rome last year.
Sentamu also discussed the new sexual orientation rules in a BBC radio interview, saying that “when you over-legislate and intervene too much in people’s private lives, I think in the long run you end up with a statute being used to cure all ills, which it cannot.
“And I think the danger is therefore to spin a legal spider’s web from which actually nobody can escape,” he said.
News reports said Blair would support some sort of compromise. Blair’s office in London told journalists he was “actively engaged” in trying to work out a solution “that respects the sensitivities of both sides.”
_ Al Webb
National Baptists Meet, Eye More Aid for New Orleans Churches
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (RNS) The nation’s largest historic black denomination, the National Baptist Convention (USA), opened a meeting here Tuesday (Jan. 23) to discuss plans to help revitalize churches devastated by Hurricane Katrina.
“They haven’t returned to full strength,” said the Rev. William J. Shaw, president of the 7.5 million-member denomination and pastor of a church in Philadelphia. “We have to determine whether that’s even possible. We’re looking at what Katrina has done and what will still be needed.”
Since Katrina hit in 2005, churches and their members have struggled to re-establish, said the Rev. Calvin Woods Jr., pastor of Greater Liberty Baptist Church in New Orleans.
“They’re coming back slowly,” said Woods, whose congregation began worshipping in a New Orleans church again in March 2006, then moved back into its renovated sanctuary in November. “A lot of them need assistance. Each week we’re building back up. The community is glad to have us back. It’s a challenge for all of us.”
Woods said his church formerly had 900 members; now it has 125 and many of them don’t have their homes back. “We’re seeking to revitalize houses, get them moved out of trailers,” he said.
“We’re trying rebuild Iraq, and we haven’t even rebuilt after Katrina,” said the Rev. David W. Craig, pastor of the 1,500-member Mt. Pilgrim Baptist Church in Fairfield, Ala. “There’s still a lot of work to be done.”
_ Greg Garrison
Shakespeare’s Church Crumbling and Seeking $6 Million for Repairs
LONDON (RNS) The tiny church in England where William Shakespeare was baptized and buried is falling apart, and fans of the Bard are being asked to help raise more than $6 million to repair the ravages of eight centuries.
Above the burial spot inscribed simply “Will Shakspeare, Gent,” the spire of Holy Trinity Church is cracked, its windows are broken, its bricks are eroding and it’s leaking rain in the historic Midlands town of Stratford-upon-Avon.
“It’s absolutely desperate,” Josephine Walker of the Friends of Shakespeare’s Church told the Associated Press. “It’s raining, and as we speak, rain is pouring in through the clerestory windows.”
Dry rot and generations of beetle infestations have added to the 800-year-old church’s woes. Church officials estimate it will take $6.3 million to repair all the damage _ and at least $400,000 of that is needed urgently for work on the spire alone.
Shakespeare was baptized at Holy Trinity as “Gulielimus, filius Johannes Shakspeare” (William, son of John Shakespeare) on April 26, 1564. After a career of writing and staging his plays in London, he retired to Stratford in 1611 and was buried in the church’s chancel on April 25, 1616, two days after his death.
Buried alongside the Bard is his wife, Anne Hathaway.
During his lifetime, Shakespeare paid to help keep the chancel in good working order. But that source of funding died with him; within only a few years Holy Trinity _ already three centuries old _ once again began to deteriorate.
Donations have kept the old church in some sort of repair in recent times, but Holy Trinity’s officials said a drop in tourism following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks had sharply cut back contributions to the church’s welfare. British government statistics showed the number of tourists from the United States alone fell by 13 percent from 2000 to 2005.
Shakespeare’s church isn’t the only one in trouble in Britain. The $6.3 million needed for repairs to Holy Trinity is only part of a whopping $680 million in restoration work that the Church of England says is needed for its crumbling houses of worship.
_ Al Webb
Quote of the Day: Former Gospel Music Instructor L. Stanley Davis
(RNS) “Musicians are going to the highest bidder because they can. The years when we celebrated ministers of music who served for 35 or 40 years are gone. For many, it was a commitment. It was a way of life. But for musicians 40 or younger, it’s employment.”
_ L. Stanley Davis, former instructor in gospel music at DePaul and Northwestern universities in the Chicago area and a board member of the Stellar Gospel Music Awards. He was quoted by The New York Times in a story about the challenges of retaining and recruiting musicians for black churches.
KRE/PH END RNS
Editors: Shakspeare in final item is CQ.
