c. 2008 Religion News Service

Obama’s Muslim outreach director quits after two weeks

WASHINGTON (RNS) Mazen Asbahi, the Chicago lawyer who recently was appointed as the Muslim outreach director for Sen. Barack Obama’s presidential campaign, has resigned less than two weeks after taking the job.

“Mr. Asbahi has informed the campaign that he no longer wishes to serve in his volunteer position, and we are in the process of searching for a new national Arab American and Muslim American outreach coordinator,” said campaign spokesman Ben LaBolt.

Asbahi told the campaign in an e-mail message Monday (Aug. 4) that questions about his brief affiliation with an Islamic investment fund caused him to resign.

“Since concerns have been raised about that brief time, I am stepping down from the volunteer role I recently agreed to take on with the Obama campaign … in order to avoid distracting from Barack Obama’s message of change,” Asbahi told the campaign.

Asbahi, who was appointed July 26, said he agreed to serve on the board of the Dow Jones Islamic Index Fund in 2000 but resigned within weeks when he learned of allegations against another board member.

The Wall Street Journal reported that at that time the board included Jamal Said, an Illinois imam whose mosque was controlled by fundamentalists. The newspaper also said Said was named by the Justice Department as an unindicted co-conspirator last year in a racketeering trial of alleged Hamas fund-raisers that ended in a mistrial.

_ Adelle M. Banks

Bail set for evangelist accused of wife’s murder

MOBILE, Ala. (RNS) A judge on Tuesday (Aug. 5) set bail at nearly $800,000 for an itinerant preacher who’s accused of killing his wife and stuffing her body in a freezer.

At the same time, coroners conducted an autopsy on the body of Arletha Hopkins, which had taken a week to thaw following four years in a small family freezer.

Assistant District Attorney Steve Giardini said a cause of death for the woman, a 36-year-old mother of eight, was expected soon.

Police believe Anthony Jujuan Hopkins, 37, killed his wife after she caught him having sex with one of her daughters, then stuffed the body into a freezer at the home they shared with all eight of their children.

Outside court on Tuesday, District Attorney John Tyson Jr. said investigators searching the home discovered a generator they believe was used to keep Arletha Hopkins’ body frozen during power outages.

After the body was discovered in the freezer, Hopkins was charged with murder and four sex-related offenses _ rape, sodomy, sex abuse and incest.

On Tuesday, Presiding District Judge Charles McKnight ordered a bail of $750,000 for the murder charge and $10,000 each for the other counts, for a total of $790,000.

Through his attorney, Jeff Deen, Hopkins pleaded not guilty to all charges.

A victim’s advocate representative with the district attorney’s office said the couple’s children remain in the custody of the state Department of Human Resources. An older teenager is with a neighbor, according to Giardini.

It was still not clear Tuesday whether the younger children were aware of what happened to their mother _ or of where her body had been for the last four years.

_ Gary McElroy and Jillian Kramer

Nuns, priests issue call to protect environment

(RNS) Echoing recent calls from the Vatican to combat climate change, twin umbrella groups of U.S. Catholic priests and nuns urged members to take action against global warming.

At a joint assembly in Denver, the Conference of Major Superiors of Men and the Leadership Conference of Women Religious unanimously approved a resolution calling on members to protect the environment.

“That the Earth’s climate is warming is no longer a matter of serious scientific controversy,” the resolution stated. “This increase in temperature will likely have widespread consequences, from mass extinctions to devastating impacts on the lives and livelihoods of the poorest and most vulnerable human beings.“

The resolution outlined ways in which Catholics can take action, including pressuring politicians for new legislation, and purchasing incandescent light bulbs, locally grown produce, and hybrid cars.

“Many of our individual congregations have been working in different ways to address climate change over the past several years, but this resolution gives us an opportunity to corporately address that,” said Sister Marie Lucey, associate director for social mission for the LCWR.

The two organizations represent over 86,000 Catholic priests, nuns and religious brothers in the United States. Joint assemblies take place every three to four years, and meet concurrently with the groups’ annual conferences.

At last month’s World Youth Day festival in Sydney, Australia, Pope Benedict XVI reiterated earlier calls for Catholics to embrace the green movement, calling global warming a matter of “grave importance.”

“Perhaps reluctantly we come to acknowledge that there are also scars which mark the surface of our Earth: erosion, deforestation, the squandering of the world’s mineral and ocean resources in order to fuel an insatiable consumption,” the pope said.

Some high-ranking Catholic leaders remain skeptical of the science behind global warming, however. In January, Australian Cardinal George Pell derided what he called the “green fundamentalist faith” in an interview with Catholic World Report.

_ Tim Murphy

Quote of the Day: Southern Baptist Convention President Johnny Hunt

(RNS) “If this denomination doesn’t get desperate for God’s Son and a movement of the Holy Ghost of God in our denomination again, we’re in trouble. … Attendance at the recent (Southern Baptist) convention in Indianapolis dropped 20 percent. You can’t do that very often and not be in serious trouble.”

_ Southern Baptist Convention President Johnny Hunt, who was elected in June, speaking at the annual summer leadership meeting of the denomination’s North American Mission Board in Atlanta in late July.

KRE DS END RNS