c. 2008 Religion News Service

American raises funds for Baghdad church

MOBILE, Ala. (RNS) Cmdr. Scott Rye doesn’t claim to be a saint.

Raising funds for a Baghdad church surrounded by razor wire just seemed like the right thing to do.

A partner and executive vice president of a Mobile advertising and public relations firm, Rye works as the day chief at the Media Operations Center at the U.S. Embassy compound in Baghdad.

The erstwhile parishioner of Mobile’s Trinity Episcopal Church is seeking to make a difference in Iraqis’ lives personally as well as professionally.

Not long after arriving in Baghdad last September, Rye said he began attending Sunday worship services at the Embassy chapel. There he met the Rev. Canon Andrew White, who leads the approximately 20 congregants at the Embassy as well as Saturday services at Iraq’s only Anglican church, St. George’s Church.

“The church was forcibly shut down for 10 years under Saddam Hussein’s regime,” Rye wrote in an e-mail. “Some time after the war started, the church was hit and badly damaged by rocket fire. Of the 1,300 or so parishioners, only half a dozen are men _ the rest were killed or kidnapped in the sectarian violence that swept through Iraq.”

Rye doesn’t attend St. George’s, since that would require a personal security detail and “would draw the wrong kind of attention to the church.”

Still, he wanted to help. Rye began asking friends if they might consider the cause. In his letter, he noted the congregation has monthly expenses ranging from $8,000 to $10,000, and asked that recipients “make a one-time donation to assist our Iraqi brothers and sisters in Christ.”

“My initial intent was just to ask a few Episcopalian friends at different churches to help out, Episcopalians helping fellow members of the Anglican Communion, but the interest seems to have spread beyond the boundaries of the Anglican Communion,” he said.

Thus far, Rye reports, his efforts have netted $1,375, as well as the interest of an Episcopal parish in Boston.

“No matter one’s politics or personal views of the war, if people want to make a personal gesture to help Iraqis, this is one way to do so,” Rye e-mailed.

The Rev. Jim Flowers, rector of All Saints Episcopal Church in Mobile, said it was an “easy decision” to donate $1,000 from his church to the Baghdad parish. “The community goes beyond our borders,” he said.

For his part, Rye writes that he sees “getting involved with St. George’s as a personal way to make a difference in the lives of some Iraqis. And if I can come home and be able to say that I helped make even a small difference in the lives of a few people, then I’m good with that.”

_ Kristen Campbell

Supreme Court rules against Muslim inmate

(RNS) An inmate claiming widespread harassment of Muslims in U.S. prisons cannot sue prison guards who he says took his Qurans and prayer rug, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Tuesday (Jan. 22).

Abdus-Shahid M.S. Ali, a convicted murderer serving a sentence of 20 years to life, said the alleged confiscation of his religious items is part of a campaign waged against Muslim inmates since the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

In a 5-4 ruling, the Supreme Court said the Federal Tort Claims Act blocks suits regarding property detained by law enforcement officers, including prison guards.

Justice Clarence Thomas, writing for the majority, said the law applies to to all law enforcement officers.

Justice Anthony Kennedy dissented, saying, “The seizure of property by an officer raises serious concerns for the liberty of our people.”

Ali said his books and prayer rug have been missing since he was moved from a federal prison in Atlanta to one in Kentucky in 2003.

Because he “practiced his faith to the fullest,” his religious property has been repeatedly destroyed or confiscated, Ali charged.

Muslim inmates must bear “very hard times and bad treatment,” including confiscation of their religious items in prison, Ali said.

_ Daniel Burke

Former CIA official says Islam not source of Middle East conflicts

VANCOUVER, British Columbia (RNS) Angry, violent reformers and terrorists would have arisen out of the Middle East whether Islam had been born or not, says a former top CIA official.

“A world without Islam would still see most of the enduring bloody rivalries whose wars and tribulations dominate the geopolitical landscape,” Graham Fuller, the CIA’s former head of long-term strategic planning, writes in the cover story of this month’s issue of the magazine Foreign Policy.

Fuller, 69, who lives in semi-retirement north of Vancouver, says in the article that a terrorist attack on the U.S. like that launched on Sept. 11, 2001, would likely have occurred even if the Muslim religion had never existed.

“If not 9/11, some similar event like it was destined to come,” Fuller, an adjunct professor at Simon Fraser University, argues in his opinion piece, titled “A World Without Islam.”

Islam provides a convenient scapegoat for those trying to explain the origins of terrorism, he says.

“It’s much easier than exploring the impact of the massive global footprint of the world’s sole superpower,” says Fuller, who spent most of his career with the CIA in Muslim countries, advising top U.S. government officials.

“In the bluntest of terms, would there have been a 9/11 without Islam? … It’s important to remember how easily religion can be invoked when other long-standing grievances are to blame. Sept. 11, 2001, was not the beginning of history.”

It’s too comfortable for Western observers to ignore a long history of Western colonialism in the Middle East while blindly identifying Islam as the key source of global tension, he says.

If Muhammad had never founded Islam in seventh-century Arabia, Fuller writes, the Middle East would likely have become dominated by Eastern Orthodox Christianity, which has had a history of violent conflict with the West and the Roman Catholic church, including during the Crusades.

“Today, the U.S. occupation of Iraq would be no more welcome to Iraqis if they were Christian. The United States did not overthrow Saddam Hussein, an intensely nationalist and secular leader, because he was Muslim … . Nowhere do people welcome foreign occupation and the killing of their citizens at the hands of foreign troops.”

He notes that the “principal horrors” of the 20th century “came almost exclusively from strictly secular regimes: Leopold II of Belgium in the Congo, Hitler, Mussolini, Lenin and Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot. It was Europeans who visited their `world wars’ twice upon the rest of the world _ two devastating global conflicts with no remote parallels in Islamic history.”

_ Douglas Todd

Quote of the Day: Jesuit Klaus Dietz

(RNS) “Religious experience in Sweden is such a private thing. In Germany, after drinking a while, people will speak about their sexual experiences; in Sweden they’ll talk about their religion. … It’s their most private thing, the most taboo.”

_ The Rev. Klaus Dietz, a Jesuit who works in Sweden with the country’s 150,000 Catholics. He was quoted by America magazine.

KRE/RB END RNS