c. 2007 Religion News Service

More than 90 Percent of Indians Believe in God, More Than Half Pray Daily

CHENNAI, India (RNS) More than 90 percent of Indians believe in God and more than half pray every day, according to a nationwide survey published in a leading Indian newspaper Thursday (January 25).

The study found that urban, educated Indians are just as religious _ if not more so _ than their rural, illiterate compatriots.

Conducted in January for the Hindustan Times and the CNN-IBN television channel by the Center for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS) the study included 7,670 randomly selected respondents in 970 villages and urban locations across India.

“The findings are bound to surprise you,” the Hindustan Times said.

The survey included Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs and Christians and measured religiosity through a series of questions on belief, temple attendance, prayer and participation in religious functions.

According to the survey, women are more religious than men, metropolitan women are far more religious than those from rural areas, and young Indians are less enthusiastic about religion.

“Sociologists tell us that the stress of urban living pushes people to search for anchors in their lives,” the Hindustan Times wrote. “Since they cannot go back to their villages, they recreate a community through religion. That explains the religiosity among those who live in big cities.”

_ Achal Narayanan

Religious Leaders Call on Rice to Jump-start Middle East Peace

WASHINGTON (RNS) A team of Jewish, Christian and Muslim leaders urged Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to increase U.S. involvement in the Israel-Palestine peace process at a meeting here Monday (Jan. 29).

Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, former archbishop of Washington, said U.S. leaders must actively promote peace in the Middle East, adding that Israelis and Palestinians should build public support and be held accountable for successes and setbacks.

“People are suffering on both sides of the divide,” said Rabbi Paul Menitoff, former executive vice-president of the Central Conference of American Rabbis, noting that a suicide bomber had killed three people and himself in Israel earlier that morning. “There have been too many lives lost over the years.”

Menitoff said the eventual borders of Israel and the Palestinian territories are already more or less apparent under the United Nations’ Road Map plan, which provides a two-state solution to the conflict. But he emphasized it is up to leaders in both regions and in the U.S. to help end needless violence.

The only thing “we don’t know is how many dead bodies there will be before” peace comes, he said.

Last month, 35 Jewish, Christian and Muslim leaders released a statement they called “Arab-Israeli-Palestinian Peace: From Crisis to Hope.” It highlighted peace as an essential component of all three religions.

In the statement, the religious officials asked that access to holy places be allowed for all people, and advocated a peaceful solution to the crisis in Lebanon with reconstruction aid for both Lebanon and Israel.

“We believe nothing will be solved without hope, without faith, without people willing to work together,” McCarrick said. “We are all children of Abraham.”

Others attending the meeting with Rice included Presiding Bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America Mark Hanson, Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church Katharine Jefferts Schori, former president of the Reconstructionist Rabbinical Association Rabbi Amy Small and National Director of the Islamic Society of North America Sayyid Muhammad Syeed.

_ Katherine Boyle

Progressive Episcopal Bastion in New Jersey Consecrates New Bishop

NEWARK (RNS) For decades, the bishops in the Episcopal Diocese of Newark, N.J., have argued steadily _ often noisily _ for liberal views on race, gay rights, feminism, war, poverty, even Christian theology.

But when Mark Beckwith became the diocese’s 10th bishop Sunday (Jan. 28), his agenda took on other church-related concerns: how to fill the diocese’s troubled parishes, reverse the trend of declining membership and decide which churches should close.

A third of the diocese’s 113 churches have struggled financially of late, the outgoing bishop, John Croneberger, has said. Total membership is down about 40 percent since 1972, to 30,000. Parish pledges to the diocese for 2007 are down 7 percent from last year, to $2.47 million. Even the diocesan newspaper is downsizing, to annual or biannual publication.

At least for one day Sunday, those issues took a back seat as Beckwith was consecrated during a ceremony at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center here. About 2,500 spectators and several of his peers, including Croneberger, former Newark Bishop John Shelby Spong and Katharine Jefferts Schori, the Episcopal Church’s first female presiding bishop, were in attendance.

In her sermon, Jefferts Schori, who led the ceremony, compared Beckwith to the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and St. John Chrysostom, a bishop of Constantinople in the fourth and fifth centuries who denounced the abuse of authority in the Church and the Roman Empire.

“Mark is here to do the same and encourage you to become more of what God created you to be,” Jefferts Schori said.

Beckwith, who has worked in New Jersey churches in Morristown and Hackensack but whose last job was in Worcester, Mass., won election in June, defeating several other candidates with local experience, plus an openly gay candidate from California.

After Sunday’s celebration, it will be back to business for Beckwith, who has served as acting bishop since Jan. 2.

In an interview earlier this month, Beckwith said he can’t promise any quick fixes for the problems the diocese faces.

“We need to figure out what would be the most effective way of responding to the situation that we’re in,” he said. “My main purpose is to build relationships and get to know people and to hear their stories and, on the basis of that, develop a vision for how we can be the people of God in this place.”

_ Jeff Diamant and Paola Loriggio

Quote of the Day: Former Male Prostitute Mike Jones of Denver

(RNS) “A couple of ladies cried when they were touching me. I was thanked for exposing the church, for helping Ted Haggard. A couple of them said they hoped I get God into my life. And they all said `God bless you,’ every one of them.”

_ Former male prostitute Mike Jones of Denver, whose allegations of a three-year sexual liaison with New Life Church founder Ted Haggard led to Haggard’s dismissal from his church and resignation as president of the National Association of Evangelicals. He was quoted by the Denver Post after he visited the Colorado Springs, Colo., church on Sunday (Jan. 28).

DSB/LF END RNS