c. 2008 Religion News Service
Episcopal head says U.S. church is held to “double standard”
(RNS) Episcopal Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori says other members of the Anglican Communion hold a “double standard” against the U.S. church for having an openly gay bishop and blessing same-sex unions.
Other provinces in the 77 million-member communion have gay bishops and blessing ceremonies, Jefferts Schori told BBC Radio in an interview broadcast Tuesday (Jan. 1), but are not as open about it.
“There is certainly a double standard,” she said.
The election of V. Gene Robinson as bishop of New Hampshire in 2003 prompted deep divisions among the family of Anglican churches over sexuality and the Bible. The Episcopal Church is the U.S. branch of the communion.
But Jefferts Schori said Robinson “is certainly not alone in being a gay bishop; he’s certainly not alone in being a gay partnered bishop. He is alone in being the only gay partnered bishop who’s open about that status.”
Jefferts Schori also said other Anglican provinces hold same-sex blessing ceremonies.
“Those services are happening in various places, including the Church of England, where my understanding is that there are far more of them happening than there are in the Episcopal Church,” Jefferts Schori said.
_ Daniel Burke
`In God We Trust’ will move from edge of new coins
WASHINGTON (RNS) The national motto “In God We Trust” will move from the edge of new dollar coins honoring U.S. presidents to the front or back of the currency.
A provision in the $555 billion domestic spending bill for 2008, which President Bush signed into law on Dec. 26, calls for the change to take place “as soon as is practicable.” Greg Hernandez, a spokesman for the U.S. Mint, said the change will occur in 2009.
The Mint began producing presidential one-dollar coins in 2007, honoring George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, the first four presidents. The words “In God We Trust” were placed along the edge of the coins, as instructed by Congress, Hernandez said.
“It wasn’t the Mint’s decision to move the motto (to the edge); it was according to law,” he said.
But critics complained about the placement and thought the words belonged on the front or back of the coins instead.
“There have been people who either have e-mailed their comments to our Web site, called us or contacted their representatives,” Hernandez said.
The dies have already been produced for the 2008 coins _ which will feature James Monroe, John Quincy Adams, Andrew Jackson and Martin Van Buren _ so those will still have the motto along the edge.
But come 2009 _ when William Henry Harrison, John Tyler, James K. Polk and Zachary Taylor will be honored _ the motto will be moved.
“We have to then redesign either the heads or the tails in order to comply with that,” Hernandez said of the new law.
Family Research Council President Tony Perkins said he was pleased with the change, saying that his group had been concerned that “moving `In God We Trust’ off the face of our coins was just one step toward removing it altogether.”
The motto first appeared on U.S. coins in 1864. “In God We Trust” was included on the back of dollar bills in 1957, a year after Congress declared those words as the country’s motto.
_ Adelle M. Banks
Conservative Anglicans plan global summit
(RNS) Conservative Anglican leaders from across the globe have announced plans to gather in Jerusalem in June, one month before more than 800 Anglican bishops are scheduled to convene for a once-a-decade conference in England.
The conservatives’ event, called the “Global Anglican Future Conference,” is planned by bishops disturbed by the increasing acceptance of homosexuality in the Western branches of the Anglican Communion.
Planned for June 15-22, the meeting will gather “Anglicans from both the evangelical and Anglo-Catholic wings of the church,” the group said in a statement.
Conservative archbishops from Africa and the “Global South” have criticized the communion’s spiritual leader, Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, over his guest list for Lambeth Conference, a huge summit of Anglicans held every 10 years in England.
Williams did not invite openly gay Bishop V. Gene Robinson of New Hampshire, whose 2003 election kicked off the current controversy, but neither did he welcome U.S. missionary bishops consecrated by conservative Africans.
Chris Sugden, a spokesman for the conservatives, said, “This conference is not a direct challenge to the Lambeth Conference,” but it “will provide opportunities for fellowship and care for those who have decided not to attend Lambeth.”
Anglican Bishop Suheil Dawani of Jerusalem said he wasn’t happy about the planned gathering.
“I am deeply troubled that the meeting, of which we had no prior knowledge, will import inter-Anglican conflict into our diocese, which seeks to be a place of welcome for all Anglicans.”
_ Daniel Burke
Hindus evicted from N.H. monastery
(RNS) A New Hampshire sheriff removed a group of Hindu divinity students, priests and children from what had been their monastery in Epping, N.H., on Friday (Jan. 4), according to one of their lawyers.
The eviction followed a foreclosure sale on the 100-acre property. But the former residents are now embracing a new vow: to recover their facility, known as Saraswati Mandiram, in court.
“Saraswati Mandiram is a tranquil, spiritual retreat that we have nurtured with love and dedication,” said head priest Pandit Ramsamooj in a prepared statement. “Now all of that stands to be destroyed because of predatory and illegal lending practices.”
The New Hampshire Supreme Court is expected to hear the case of the only Hindu institution in northern New England versus G&G LLC, a Virginia-based lender.
G&G contends the monastery defaulted on a loan, and lost the property in a foreclosure sale to the lender’s sister entity, G&G Epping LLC.
According to a December brief filed by Saraswati Mandiram attorney Joshua Gordon, the monastery received approval from G&G LLC in 2003 to borrow up to $2.4 million for improvements. Though the monastery needed only $1.2 million at the time, it later tapped its credit line with G&G to make payments after a damaging 2004 fire, according to the brief.
G&G soon thereafter charged the monastery with default and moved to foreclose.
“It’s easy to allege fraud,” said Chris Hilson, an attorney for G&G. “But the former borrowers haven’t made any payment on the loan since October or November of 2005.”
The Maryland-based Hindu American Foundation joined the monastery’s legal team in December. The group said the monastery “plays a central role in the practice or preservation of Hinduism” in the tri-state region of New Hampshire, Vermont and Maine as well as neighboring Massachusetts.
“Especially in light of the problems in the mortgage industry today, alleged fraudulent lending practices imposed on a house of worship is compelling,” said Suhag Shukla, the Foundation’s legal counsel, in a prepared statement. “We hope sincerely that the court will take into account the severe repercussions that the loss of the only Hindu institution in the tri-state area would have on thousands of Hindus residing in the area.”
_ G. Jeffrey MacDonald
Orthodox Jews rally against plan to divide Jerusalem
JERUSALEM (RNS) Orthodox Jewish groups in Israel and the U.S. are intensifying their efforts to prevent the re-division of Jerusalem ahead of President Bush’s upcoming nine-day visit to the Middle East.
The groups’ campaign, launched just prior to November’s Middle East peace summit in Annapolis, Md., is taking on new urgency because they fear Bush will pressure Israel for immediate concessions.
At Annapolis, Bush asked Israel for assurances that it was prepared to relinquish most of the territory it captured during the 1967 Middle East War. Prior to the war, the eastern half of Jerusalem was ruled by Jordan, which prohibited Jews from visiting their holy places.
The Palestinians foresee a capital in East Jerusalem, which contains the Western Wall, the Temple Mount, the Dome of the Rock and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, among numerous other holy sites.
“We cannot remain silent after the publication of the decrees of a tired prime minister and his shameful surrender to every American and/or Arab state,” the Judea, Samaria (West Bank), and Gaza Council of Rabbis said in a Thursday (Jan. 3) prepared statement.
The group is planning a protest at the entrance of Har Homa, a rapidly expanding Jewish neighborhood in East Jerusalem, on the day Bush arrives.
On Wednesday, the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America urged Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert “to serve the cause of the Jewish people in Israel and throughout the world, past _ present _ and future generations.”
Even so, the Union and other American organizations denounced what they called incendiary remarks by Rabbi Shalom Dov Wolpe, a Chabad rabbi and right-wing political activist, who called Olmert a “terrible traitor who gives these (Palestinian) Nazis weapons, who gives money, who frees their murderous terrorists.”
Not all Jewish groups are against territorial compromise, however.
“The Jewish community in the U.S. cannot at this moment make things difficult for Israel, and it mustn’t tell the Israeli government not to compromise on the issue of Jerusalem,” Rabbi Eric Yoffie, president of the Union for Reform Judaism, told the Israeli Haaretz newspaper on Dec. 22.
_ Michele Chabin
Cardinal urges prayer as `atonement’ for clergy abuse
VATICAN CITY (RNS) A senior Vatican official is recommending adoration of the Eucharist as way to atone for sex abuse by Roman Catholic priests.
Cardinal Claudio Hummes, who as head of the Congregation for the Clergy oversees some 400,000 priests around the world, said the Vatican was encouraging adoration of the Eucharist by clergy, religious and laity.
The practice would serve to offer “atonement for the faults of priests and in particular for the victims of the grave situations of moral and sexual conduct by a very small part of the clergy,” Hummes said.
“We ask all to adore the Eucharist in order to make amends before God for the evil that has been done and to restore the dignity of the victims.”
The Brazilian cardinal made his remarks in an interview with the Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano.
Hummes wrote to bishops last month announcing a campaign to promote “perpetual Eucharistic adoration for the reparation of faults and sanctification of priests,” but his letter did not specifically mention sex abuse.
The Vatican’s campaign proposes that parish churches set aside “specific places for continuous Eucharistic adoration,” a traditional form of Catholic devotion that has become less frequent in recent years, and whose revival has been encouraged by Pope Benedict XVI.
In the United States, where more than 13,000 persons have accused more than 5,400 priests of sex abuse in a scandal that has cost the Catholic church more than $2.3 billion, an advocate for abuse victims reacted coolly to the cardinal’s statement.
“Prayer is good but action is better,” said David Clohessy, national director of the Survivors’ Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP). “Symbolism doesn’t protect children.”
_ Francis X. Rocca
Bishop under fire for Muslim `no-go’ area comments
LONDON (RNS) One of Britain’s top Anglican bishops has infuriated Muslim leaders by claiming that Islamic extremism has turned parts of the nation into “no-go” areas for non-Muslims.
Writing in London’s Sunday Telegraph newspaper (Jan. 6), the Pakistani-born bishop of Rochester, Michael Nazir-Ali, also warned of growing efforts to “impose an Islamic character” in some communities, including broadcasting the five-times-a-day call to prayer from mosques.
Islamic leaders have reacted angrily, including Ibrahim Mogra, of the Muslim Council of Britain’s inter-faith relations committee, who denounced the bishop’s remarks as “simple scaremongering.”
Nazir-Ali warned of what he described as “a worldwide resurgence of the ideology of Islamic extremism,” saying “one of the results of this has been to further alienate the young from the nation … and also to turn already separate communities into `no-go’ areas where adherence to this ideology has become a mark of acceptability.”
The bishop also attacked what he saw as the British government’s weak response to the problems of immigration of “people of other faiths to these shores.” He blamed the “novel philosophy of multiculturalism” for the deepening divides in society.
Mogra told journalists that “it’s irresponsible for a man of (the bishop’s) position to make these comments.”
The bishop “should accept that Britain is a multicultural society in which we are free to follow our religion at the same time as being extremely proud to be British,” Mogra said. He insisted that Muslims “wouldn’t allow `no-go’ areas to happen.”
The Muslim Council of Britain said the use of loudspeakers on mosques to spread the call to prayer _ which has triggered its own fury in the university city of Oxford _ is no different from the ringing of church bells in the Christian call to worship.
_ Al Webb
Baba Virsa Singh ji dies at 73
SYRACUSE, N.Y. (RNS) A religious community in upstate New York is mourning the death of its founder, Baba Virsa Singh ji, who died Dec. 24 at his home in New Delhi. He was 73.
Known to his followers as Babaji, he was the leader and founder of the Gobind Sadan spiritual farm movement in India and Palermo, N.Y.
Shortly after the terrorist attacks in 2001, four teens misread the Gobind Sadan sign as “Go Bin Laden” and burned the Palermo temple.
Immediately after the fire, Babaji told temple members not to be vengeful. “He said we should forgive them, and we did,” said Gurbachan Singh, chairman of the Gobind Sadan temple.
Babaji started the New York farm during a visit to Central New York in 1986. “It is a special place. He selected it after a vision,” said Singh.
A memorial service will be held at the Palermo farm Saturday (Jan. 12).
“To him, this was a very special place,” said Singh, who met Babaji 30 years ago and lived with and studied under him for several months. Babaji last visited the Palermo farm in 1999.
“He was very spiritual. He always talked about religion and spirituality. He loved God and respected all religions,” Singh said.
Gobind Sadan, or “God’s House Without Walls,” is an interfaith, farm-based community that welcomes people of all religions. Gobind Sadan farms are staffed by volunteers and their profits are used to help the poor and those in need of help.
Rooted in Sikh teachings, the movement includes people from all faiths and those with no faith, who come to celebrate the major holidays of world religions, including Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism and Islam.
Sikhism has 25 million followers worldwide, including 200,000 in the United States.
Babaji taught the universal messages of all religious prophets, Singh said. “Religion is meant to be practical, not theoretical,” Babaji said in his teachings.
No one will succeed Babaji as leader of the Gobind Sadan movement, Singh said.
_ John Doherty
Scientists call evolution and faith compatible, but separate
(RNS) A top panel of U.S. scientists has published a new book asserting that belief in the theory of evolution and religious faith “can be fully compatible,” and that creationism has no place in science classes.
The 88-page “Science, Evolution, and Creationism,” produced by the National Academy of Sciences and the Institute of Medicine, is an updated version of two previous books supporting evolution scholarship.
The 2008 version is different, according to the 15-person committee that designed it, because it is aimed at clergy and school board members and discusses the role of faith in human knowledge.
“Science and religion address separate aspects of human experience,” the book says. “Many scientists have written eloquently about how their scientific studies of biological evolution have enhanced rather than lessened their religious faith. And many religious people and denominations accept scientific evidence for evolution.”
Many Americans, however, don’t accept that evidence, including Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee.
University of Michigan professor Gilbert Omenn, one of the book’s authors, said he would “worry that a president who didn’t believe in evolution arguments” would also, for instance, disregard evidence that smoking cigarettes is unhealthy. “This is a way of leading our country to ruin,” Omenn told reporters.
Believers in intelligent design, or its evolutionary predecessor, creationism, assert that the world’s complex forms of life are inexplicable without reference to a divine author.
But evidence for evolution and natural selection abound, from DNA research to fossil records, the scientists say in the new book. “Scientists no longer question the basic facts of evolution as a process,” the book reads.
“Teaching non-scientific (such as creationism) in science class will only confuse students about the processes, nature, and the limits of science,” according to the book.
_ Daniel Burke
Report says German Muslims must be better integrated
COLOGNE, Germany (RNS) Muslims in Germany could become a potential recruitment pool for Islamic terrorists if they are not better integrated into society, according to a recent report by the country’s Ministry of the Interior.
The report, based on a survey of 1,750 Muslims by the Institute of Criminology at the University of Hamburg, looks at a host of issues surrounding the 3.3 million Muslims who live in Germany.
The survey found that almost 39 percent of German Muslims believe violence is justified if their religion is threatened by the “Western world.” About 44 percent of the respondents also said they would enter eternal paradise if they were to die defending Islam.
The findings reveal a “serious potential for Islamic radicalization” in Germany, Interior Minister Wolfgang Schauble told the Frankfurter Rundschau newspaper.
Despite those concerns, the survey also showed that more than 90 percent of German Muslims said they would not resort to violence against non-Muslims. And 80 percent reject the idea of suicide bombings, with 8.7 percent calling such attacks cowardly and hurtful to Islam.
The report also examines Muslim attitudes toward democracy and perceived discrimination. It found that 57 percent said they have rarely or never been guests in a home of a non-Muslim German family; 38 percent said they either never speak German or only rarely speak it with their friends.
“Third-generation young Muslims living in Germany are considered foreigners,” Werner Schiffauer, a professor of anthropology at the European University Viadrina, in Frankurt-Oder, told Frankfurter Rundschau. “They feel like Germans, but they are still marginalized.”
_ Ian Wilhelm
Quote of the Week: Bill Garcia of Manalapan, N.J.
(RNS) “I liked that he had religious values that matched mine … and when I started telling people about him, it was like converting someone or sharing the gospel with them.”
_ Bill Garcia, a self-described “Huckabeezer” and supporter of presidential candidate Mike Huckabee, on his efforts to start a group of Christian Huckabee supporters near his home in Manalapan, N.J. Garcia was quoted by The New York Times.
KRE END RNS
