c. 2007 Religion News Service

EU Leaders Meet with Christian, Jewish, Muslims Leaders

BRUSSELS, Belgium (RNS) Top leaders of the European Union met Tuesday (May 15) with Christian, Muslim and Jewish leaders to urge interfaith dialogue and find ways to protect “human dignity.”

The meeting was the first to bring together the presidents of the three European Union institutions _ the Parliament, the Council and the Commission. It was the third organized by Jose Manuel Barroso, president of the EU Commission.

The government and religious leaders agreed that protecting human dignity touches the “core of our values.”

“Despite all our differences, we have a common basis: Human dignity, which we must defend,” said Hans-Gert Pottering, president of the EU Parliament.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who currently holds the presidency of the EU Council, said both sides tackled concrete themes like development, integration, immigration and conflict resolution _ especially in the Middle East.

“I guarantee that we will undertake all efforts that are politically possible for ensuring freedom of religion, and, above all, to create peace,” she said.

Merkel also mentioned the importance of the Berlin Declaration, signed March 25 to mark the 50th anniversary of The Rome Treaty, which sparked the creation of the EU. The Berlin Declaration was criticized by Pope Benedict XVI for not mentioning Christianity.

“My personal view is clear: I would like to have a reference. But as the president of the Council, I can say there is little chance for it to be included,” she said. “There is already a reference to churches in the draft Constitutional Treaty, which is important. But unfortunately I can’t guarantee anything else.”

_ Asma Hanif

Canadian Evangelicals Say Falwell Didn’t Speak for Them

VANCOUVER, British Columbia (RNS) Some Canadian evangelicals admired the late Rev. Jerry Falwell, but most considered him an embarrassment, specialists in politics and religion say.

Falwell, who died Tuesday (May 15) in Virginia at age 73, was more politically extreme than the vast majority of Canadian evangelicals, who make up about 10 percent of the population, said three Canadian scholars, two of whom are evangelical.

Falwell’s uncompromising defense of conservative values had the most influence on Canadian evangelical groups such as Real Women, the Canada Family Action Coalition, Focus on the Family and the Defend Marriage Coalition, said Bruce Foster, head of the social policy department at Mount Royal College in Calgary.

But Foster said Falwell’s determination to equate God with hyper-patriotism didn’t fly well among Christians in Canada or other industrialized countries, where he said most evangelicals tend to support the separation of religion and state.

Falwell basically dismissed Canada as “Cuba of the north,” Foster said, charging its citizens with being pro-communist and soft on homosexuality, abortion and other sex-related issues.

In 1982, Falwell criticized former Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, comparing him with the power-hungry socialists of the former Soviet Union and Cuba.

In 1999, his newspaper attacked Vancouver singer Sarah McLachlan for naming the Lilith Fair women’s music festival after a “demon” from Jewish myth.

“Jerry Falwell is tremendously important. He is the father of the religious right,” says Prof. John Stackhouse, professor of theology and culture at Vancouver’s evangelical Regent College.

However, Stackhouse said Canada’s largely moderate evangelicals have struggled to counter the harsh image Falwell created of evangelicals as being virulently anti-gay, anti-abortion, anti-stem-cell research and pro-capital punishment.

“Falwell is looked at askance by most Canadian evangelicals,” Stackhouse said.

Stackhouse argues that members of the Canadian media and some political parties have unfairly smeared Canadian evangelicals by acting as if they are all the same as Falwell, whom he described as a militant, separatist fundamentalist.

“Falwell was a bogeyman of political and social liberals,” Stackhouse said, adding that Falwell received more media attention in Canada than he deserved, in large part because Canada’s conservative Protestants have never been able to create their own “evangelical celebrities.”

At Trinity Western University, a noted evangelical school in Langley, British Columbia, religious historian Bob Burkinshaw said he was at a meeting Tuesday when the news arrived that Falwell had died.

“There was a bit of a shrug and raised eyebrows and the meeting carried on. Nobody even said a word,” Burkinshaw said.

“That wouldn’t have been the case if Billy Graham had died,” he said. “Most Canadian evangelicals have very mixed feelings about Jerry Falwell.”

_ Douglas Todd

Imam, Catholic Lawyer Added to Religious Freedom Panel

WASHINGTON (RNS) A Muslim imam, a Catholic lawyer and a retiring evangelical college president were nominated Monday (May 14) to a federal commission charged with monitoring religious freedom around the world.

Outgoing Northwest College President Don H. Argue was named to the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom along with Imam Talal Y. Eid of Boston and Leonard Leo of Washington.

Michael Cromartie, an evangelical expert at the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington and the panel’s current vice chair, was reappointed for an additional one-year term.

The commission investigates countries accused of suppressing religious expression and issues policy recommendations to the president, the State Department and Congress.

Earlier this month the panel released its 2007 annual report, urging Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to declare 11 nations “Countries of Particular Concern” for their violations of religious human rights. Among the 11 were Iran, North Korea, China and Saudi Arabia.

The commission also publishes a “Watch List” of countries with lesser, but still serious, religious-freedom violations. This year Iraq was added to the Watch List for the first time since the 2003 U.S. invasion.

Commissioners are selected on a bipartisan basis by the White House and congressional leaders.

Argue, who was nominated by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., is the outgoing president of Northwest University in Kirkland, Wash., and a former president of the National Association of Evangelicals.

The other three nominees, including Cromartie, were selected by President Bush. Leo is executive vice president of The Federalist Society and advisor on Catholic outreach at the White House. Eid is director of religious affairs for the Islamic Institute in Boston.

_ Charles O’Toole

Quote of the Day: Chief Rabbi Shmuel Kot of Estonia

(RNS) “Just like people need an apartment to live in, they also need an apartment for their soul. My wish is that every single Jewish person in the country will feel this is their home.”

Chief Rabbi Shmuel Kot, commenting before the May 16 opening of the first synagogue in Estonia since its small Jewish community was wiped out during the Holocaust. He was quoted by Reuters.

KRE/LF END RNS

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