c. 2007 Religion News Service
Bush Calls America `Nation of Prayer’ at National Prayer Breakfast
WASHINGTON _ Calling the United States a “nation of prayer,” President Bush joined religious leaders and politicians at the annual National Prayer Breakfast on Thursday (Feb. 1).
“Many in our country know the power of prayer,” he said. “Prayer changes hearts. Prayer changes lives. And prayer makes us a more compassionate and giving people.”
More than 3,500 guests munched on granola and coffee cake during the gathering that brings high-powered political figures from Washington and abroad together with religious leaders for Scripture and speeches.
Rep. Emanuel Cleaver II, D-Mo., served as co-chairman of the event. He described the 55th annual breakfast as an opportunity for “sowing the seeds of civility in this city, in our country and in the world.”
Dr. Francis Collins, the director of the National Human Genome Research Institute, was the keynote speaker and contemporary Christian artist Nicole C. Mullen sang. Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, read from Philippians and Rep. Allyson Schwartz, D-Pa., read from the Talmud.
The breakfast is funded by the Fellowship Foundation, a low-profile group that promotes Christian evangelism.
While most at the gathering are generally known for either their political or their religious titles, Cleaver claimed both.
“My weekend job is pastoring a church of over 2,000 people back home,” he said of St. James United Methodist Church in Kansas City. “When I finish a really good speech on the House floor, I have to stop myself before I pass the plate.”
_ Adelle M. Banks
Jehovah’s Witnesses Battle Blood Transfusions in Canadian Hospital
TORONTO (RNS) A clash between religious beliefs and the government’s responsibility to protect children is playing out in a Vancouver hospital, where government officials have seized the babies of a Jehovah’s Witness couple in order to give them blood transfusions.
The drama began Jan. 7, when six premature babies were born to parents who are devout Jehovah’s Witnesses. Two of the six babies have since died.
Doctors warned that the remaining babies would likely need life-saving blood transfusions, a procedure that is forbidden for Witnesses.
Social workers from the British Columbia government seized three of the remaining four babies last weekend, just long enough to give two of them blood transfusions, over their parents’ objections.
On Tuesday (Jan. 30), a lawyer for the parents appeared in court ready to appeal the government’s decision to seize the children, only to find that officials had already returned the children to the parents’ care.
The three seized babies remain in the neonatal ward at Women’s and Children’s Hospital. All four remaining babies are in stable condition.
The parents, who have not been identified, have filed a court action requesting a hearing before the Supreme Court of British Columbia to challenge the province’s conduct. A hearing is set for Feb. 23.
“The family appealed what the government did and has brought an application for judicial review, saying that the government violated what the Supreme Court of Canada said 10 years ago,” the parents’ lawyer, Shane Brady, told Canadian Press.
Canada’s Supreme Court ruled in 1995 that a child’s right to essential medical care trumps a parent’s right to religious expression. But the ruling also gave parents the right to present evidence at a hearing in such matters.
In an affidavit filed by the father, the parents quote Scriptures that Jehovah’s Witnesses say forbid them from having blood transfusions.
“What the government did is wrong,” Brady said. “The father described it to me like this _ it’s a hit and run.”
The parents have said they would not oppose “alternative medical treatments” for their children.
“Our obligation to protect children is paramount,” said British Columbia’s Children and Families Minister Tom Christensen, who said he could not discuss details of this case.
_ Ron Csillag
Farrakhan Released From Hospital, Prepares for Last Major Speech
(RNS) Louis Farrakhan, the leader of the Nation of Islam, walked out of a Washington hospital on Sunday (Jan. 28) after spending five weeks recovering from prostate surgery, according to The Final Call, the Black Muslim organization’s newspaper.
Farrakhan, who will be 74 on May 11, is now focused on attending the Nation of Islam’s annual Saviour’s Day Convention Feb. 22-25 in Detroit, where, according to a story on http://www.finalcall.com, “Min. Farrakhan will deliver what could be his last major public address.”
“His earthly work is not over,” said Ishmael Muhammad, national assistant minister to Farrakhan, according to The Final Call. “But in terms of this phase of his assignment, he doesn’t see himself coming before the public on such a major stage as we are preparing in Detroit.”
Farrakhan has titled his speech “One Nation Under God: The Confusion, the Guidance, the Warning,” and will deliver it on the final day of the convention. Normally held in sports arenas and convention centers in past years, Saviour’s Day will this year be held at Ford Field, downtown Detroit’s 65,000-seat football stadium.
Saviour’s Day commemorates the birth of Fard Muhammad, who founded the Nation of Islam in Detroit in 1934. He preached that blacks were a superior race but had been oppressed by whites, who were irredeemably evil. Farrakhan joined the Nation in the 1950s, quickly rising to become one of its leading figures.
But shortly after Warith D. Muhammad succeeded his father, Elijah Muhammed, in 1975 as the group’s leader and rejected its black separatist foundations in favor of mainstream Islam, Farrakhan left the group and started a new Nation of Islam that espoused the black nationalism of its predecessor.
Since then, Farrakhan has been frequently criticized for what critics say are anti-Semitic remarks, but has also won praise for his work with African-Americans.
The Nation of Islam headquarters referred calls to The Final Call. Calls there were not returned.
Farrakhan was hospitalized Jan. 5 to undergo a 12-hour abdominal operation meant to help correct damage caused by a radiation seed procedure he has to treat his prostate cancer, The Final Call reported.
_ Omar Sacirbey
Prison Spiritual Adviser Agrees to Testify Against Terror Suspects
BERLIN (RNS) A Catholic lay minister will testify against three alleged terrorists after he was threatened with jail time for refusing to divulge details about his contacts with the men in his role as a prison spiritual adviser.
The trio are charged with aiding the al-Qaida terror network by engineering insurance scams, with profits intended to fund terrorist operations, according to the Sueddeutsche Zeitung (Southern German Newspaper). They were arrested in January 2005.
One of the inmates told authorities he had asked the minister for multiple favors. When additional scam letters were mailed after the initial arrests, authorities began to suspect that the minister had mailed the letters and helped the inmates pick potential scam victims on the Internet.
Although the man received a dispensation from the church to testify, he maintained that, as a spiritual adviser, he was not required or allowed to testify.
The case eventually went to the German Constitutional Court, the nation’s highest. Its decision, released Monday (Jan. 29), ruled that spiritual advisers are exempt only from testifying about spiritual affairs, not favors they might have performed for an inmate.
In a side note, the court ruled that lay ministers can claim religious exemptions from testifying in appropriate cases. Authorities had questioned whether the minister could even qualify for an exemption, since he is not an ordained priest.
If the minister continued to refuse to testify, he could have faced six months in jail. As it is, he has to pay a $975 fine.
_ Niels Sorrells
Quote of the Day: Internal Revenue Service spokeswoman Nancy Mathis
(RNS) “It’s not like we’re sitting in the pews. It’s the honor system plus some third-party oversight.”
_ Internal Revenue Service spokeswoman Nancy Mathis, speaking about how her agency doesn’t launch investigations into churches violating IRS rules about politicking unless it receives a complaint. She was quoted by USA Today.
KRE/PH END RNS