c. 2008 Religion News Service
Jews denounce Muslim rumors aimed at Obama
WASHINGTON (RNS) Several Jewish leaders have come to the defense of presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama against rumors that he secretly espouses radical Muslim beliefs.
In a joint letter, leaders of nine Jewish groups including the Simon Wiesenthal Center and the American Jewish Congress characterized the e-mail rumor campaign as hateful and intended to “manipulate (Jews) into supporting or opposing candidates.”
Since 2006, rumors have circulated that Obama, D-Ill., was educated in a radical Muslim school in Indonesia, took his congressional oath of office on the Quran, or is involved in Wahhabism, a conservative sect of Islam popular in Saudi Arabia. In December, the Hillary Clinton campaign called for resignations from any Clinton volunteers who may have forwarded such e-mails.
Obama says he was not religious as a child, and was baptized at the Trinity United Church in Chicago in 1988, eight years before he was elected to the Illinois State Senate.
At Tuesday’s Democratic presidential candidate’s debate in Las Vegas, Obama reiterated his religious stance. “I am a Christian. I have been sworn in with a Bible,” he said. “I pledge allegiance and lead the Pledge of Allegiance sometimes in the United States Senate, when I’m presiding.”
The Jewish leaders released their letter Tuesday, just as Obama was tring to distance himself from the Rev. Louis Farrakhan, longtime leader of the Nation of Islam. A magazine published by Obama’s church granted Farrakhan an award last year because he “truly epitomized greatness.” Obama won the award this year.
Obama said he did not agree with giving the award to Farrakhan, whom many consider anti-Semitic.
_ Matthew Streib
Next president of Evangelical Covenant Church nominated
(RNS) An evangelism expert for the Evangelical Covenant Church has been nominated as the next president of the Chicago-based denomination.
Gary Walter, 53, the executive minister of the church’s Department of Church Growth and Evangelism, will be considered for election during the denomination’s annual meeting June 24-26 in Green Lake, Wis.
President Glenn Palmberg announced last year that he would retire by the fall of 2008. A nominating committee began the work to replace him in October.
“There was a unanimous affirmation of his call as the nominee,” said Brian Madvig, committee chair, in announcing Walter’s nomination, according to a church news release. “The committee did difficult and hard work _ it was a rigorous process. Ultimately, we felt God’s leading in all of this.”
Before being elected as executive minister in 1999, Walter directed church planting, or the starting of new churches. He also has pastored churches in Bellevue, Wash., and San Diego.
About 166,000 people attend the denomination’s approximately 800 local churches on an average Sunday.
_ Adelle M. Banks
Dow Jones unveils `dharma index’
(RNS) Financial news powerhouse Dow Jones & Company has launched new “dharma indexes” to track the stocks of companies that observe the values of dharma-based religions such as Hinduism and Buddhism.
The Dow Jones Dharma Indexes are the first to measure dharma-compliant stocks and now track more than 3,400 companies globally, including about 1,000 in the U.S., according to the company. In addition to the global index, Dow Jones has created dharma indexes for the U.S., Britain, Japan and India.
Dharma Investments, a private faith-based Indian firm, partnered with Dow Jones to create the indexes.
“The principle of dharma contains precepts relevant to good conduct, but also the implicit requirement of mindfulness about the sources of wealth _ and therefore responsible investing,” said Dharma Investment CEO Nitesh Gor.
Advisory committees of religious leaders and scholars will screen and monitor companies’ environmental policies, corporate governance, labor relations and human rights, among other criteria. Companies from business sectors deemed un-dharmic, such as weapons manufacturers, pharmaceuticals, casinos and alcohol, are barred from the index.
Bhakti Charu Swami of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness said, “If one only considers the profit motive of an investment without recognizing how that profit was generated, one may unknowingly commit sinful activity. Every link in the entire chain of events is liable for the results.”
Dow Jones says it pioneered faith-based indexes in 1999 with the Islamic Market Indexes, which monitor companies’ compliance with shariah law. The company has no plans for a Christian index, said Dow Jones spokeswoman Naomi Kim.
Interest in socially responsible investing has exploded in recent years, and now encompasses about 10 percent of the $24 trillion investment marketplace, according to the Washington-based Social Investment Forum.
_ Daniel Burke
Study finds abortion at lowest rate since 1974
WASHINGTON (RNS) Abortion rates have reached their lowest since 1974, according to a new study of U.S. abortion clinics released by the Guttmacher Institute.
The study found that both abortion rates and the total number of abortions have declined, though one in five pregnancies ends in abortion.
In 2005, the abortion rate declined to 19.4 abortions per 1,000 women aged 15-44, according to the study, after peaking in 1981 at a rate of 29.3 per 1,000 women.
The total number of abortions dipped to 1.2 million in 2005, from its all-time high of 1.6 million in 1990.
The Guttmacher Institute is an independent research firm that specializes in sexuality and reproductive health. It was formerly a division of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America.
The study cited a possible explanation for the decrease in abortions: early nonsurgical abortion medications, such as the French pill RU-486, that are more readily available and used than ever before. Fifty-seven percent of abortion providers now offer medication abortion services; only 33 percent did in early 2001. Medication abortions accounted for 13 percent of all abortions in 2005.
“Currently, more than six in 10 abortions occur within the first eight weeks of pregnancy, and almost three in 10 take place at six weeks or earlier,” said Rachel Jones, lead researcher, in a news release. “Medication abortion, which provides women with an additional option early in pregnancy, clearly reinforces this very positive trend.”
Anti-abortion groups, however, found little to cheer about.
“It is no less tragic, each life is precious,” said Randall K. O’Bannon, director of education and research for the National Right to Life Committee. “If we are down to 1.2 million abortions, that’s still 1.2 babies being killed.”
O’Bannon added that women are only trading one set of risks in for another when they opt for early medication abortion over surgery.
_ Greg Trotter
Pastor challenges IRS rules on pulpit politicking
(RNS) A Wisconsin pastor has challenged the Internal Revenue Service by writing an open letter that criticizes rules against ministers getting too political in their pulpits.
In a full-page advertisement published in The Wall Street Journal on Wednesday (Jan. 16), Pastor Kenneth Taylor of Calvary Assembly of God in Algoma, Wis., dared the IRS to investigate a November 2006 sermon he preached about faith and elections.
“The clergy of every church, synagogue, temple and other religious group in the country should be able to preach freely, without the IRS looking over their shoulders and parsing every word,” said Taylor.
“That kind of government intrusion into religious assemblies is what dictatorships do, not democracies.”
Taylor is being defended by The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, which paid for the ad and believes the IRS has interpreted the law too broadly and is intimidating faith leaders.
“Churches and other houses of worship have always been unique places where Americans discuss how their deepest beliefs intersect with their daily lives,” said Kevin “Seamus” Hasson, founder and president of the Washington-based law firm. “The IRS should not be allowed to stop that conversation by threatening to strip a church’s tax exemption.”
Taylor cited the IRS’ recent investigation of All Saints Episcopal Church in Pasadena, Calif., saying the agency “all but admitted” it couldn’t enforce rules against it. Last year, the IRS informed the Pasadena church that its tax-exempt status would remain intact despite an anti-war sermon officials said “constituted prohibited political campaign intervention.”
Americans United for Separation of Church and State said the ad contains “grossly inaccurate” information about partisan politicking in churches.
“Churches are perfectly free to talk about issues,” said the Rev. Barry W. Lynn, executive director of the Washington-based watchdog group.
“But they are not free to abuse their tax exemptions and endorse political candidates. This ad could mislead clergy into deep tax trouble.”
_ Adelle M. Banks
Catholic Charities study links poverty, racism
WASHINGTON (RNS) As the U.S. marked Martin Luther King Day, Catholic Charities USA is issuing a call to sever the ties between poverty and racism.
A new study, “Poverty and Racism: Overlapping Threats to the Common Good,” is part of Catholic Charities’ campaign to cut the U.S. poverty rate in half by 2020. It is to be officially released by the Rev. Larry Snyder, the group’s president, during a Mass Monday (Jan. 21) at Blessed Sacrament Cathedral in Detroit.
“We are convinced that without a conscious and proactive struggle against racism, our efforts to reduce the plague of poverty will be in vain,” the study says.
For example, the study cites evidence that the poverty rate for African Americans in the U.S. is 24 percent _ three times the rate for whites. Latinos and Native Americans also suffer from poverty rates above 20 percent, according to the study.
On average, white families are 10 times richer than minority families, the study says. And while white families’ wealth grew 20 percent between 1998 and 2001, the net worth of African American households decreased during that period.
At the same time, “the ghosts of our legacy of racial inequality continue to haunt us,” the study says, citing racial violence as well as discrimination in housing and health care.
The Virginia-based charity network, which includes more than 1,700 local agencies and institutions nationwide, is also urging Congress and the White House to enact reforms to the criminal justice system, to improve public schools and housing laws, and to fix the nation’s immigration laws.
“We ask others to join us in our effort to fight racism and cut poverty in half so that together, we can make our country whole,” said Snyder.
_ Daniel Burke
Grassley to write to ministries not cooperating with him
WASHINGTON (RNS) Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, is planning to send additional letters to the evangelical ministries that have not fully responded to his inquiry into their finances.
Grassley, who is the top-ranking Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, has asked six prominent ministries for financial details to determine if they are following rules about tax-exempt organizations.
“Sen. Grassley is preparing follow-up letters to send to the ministries that have raised concerns or not responded to his inquiries so far,” said Jill Gerber, press secretary for Grassley’s committee.
“It’s been extremely rare for tax-exempt groups to decline to cooperate with his requests for information.”
His office reported earlier this month that it has received materials from just two of the six ministries: Joyce Meyer Ministries in Fenton, Mo., and Kenneth Copeland Ministries in Newark, Texas.
Creflo Dollar Ministries in College Park, Ga., and Bishop Eddie Long’s New Birth Missionary Baptist Church in Lithonia, Ga., have refused to submit financial records, which Grassley first requested last November.
Without Walls International Church in Tampa, Fla., has sought additional time to respond. And Benny Hinn Ministries in Grapevine, Texas, exchanged messages with the office in December but had not been in further contact.
Rusty Leonard, the CEO of MinistryWatch.com, dismissed criticism that Grassley’s inquiry could lead to additional government regulation of ministries as “absolutely spurious” and urged cooperation.
“Openness, transparency, and complete financial disclosure are the only right answers,” he said.
_ Adelle M. Banks
Mosque agrees to allow training dog
LONDON (RNS) Because it salivates less than usual for canines, a retriever that is being trained for a blind Muslim will become the first dog in Britain to be permitted inside a mosque.
The dog is undergoing training as a guide for 17-year-old Mahomed Khatri. The hope is that the dog will enable Khatri to attend worship more regularly at the Al Falah mosque in the English Midlands city of Leicester.
Dogs are considered in the Islamic faith to be unclean, especially their saliva, and few Muslims in Britain are known to keep them as pets.
But according to the Sunday Times newspaper in London, the mosque gave the go-ahead for Khatri to have the retriever after consulting with imams and scholars at the Muslim Council of Britain.
The retriever, a breed described as less inclined than most dogs to flick spittle, is being trained by the Guide Dogs for the Blind Association to curb its instincts to leap up and lick people.
At the Al Falah mosque, the dog will wait in a purpose-built kennel outside the prayer hall while its young owner is worshipping.
Khatri said he was eager to get his new pet, expected in the next few weeks, because “having a guide dog will give me complete independence to go anywhere.”
_ Al Webb
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 Week: Author and Mercer University professor David P. Gushee
(RNS) “If there are people who reject God or the church, Christianity or religiously inspired moral values, because of what conservative evangelical political activists do, this is disastrous from a Christian point of view.”
_ David P. Gushee, a Christian ethics professor at Mercer University and author of “The Future of Faith in American Politics,” writing in an op-ed for USA Today.
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