c. 2008 Religion News Service

Pearson’s `gospel of inclusion’ finds new home in Unitarian church

(RNS) Bishop Carlton Pearson, who has been publicly criticized for teaching that all people will go to heaven, has folded his Oklahoma church into a Unitarian Universalist congregation.

Pearson’s New Dimensions Worship Center began meeting at the All Souls Unitarian Church in Tulsa, Okla., in June, and held its last service there on Sept. 7, the Tulsa World reported.

Pearson said he and his family would make All Souls their home church, and he encouraged New Dimensions members to worship there as well.

After leading what once was a prominent charismatic church, Pearson said he chose All Souls because of its inclusive atmosphere, accepting gays, blacks, and people of all religious beliefs or none.

“I wanted a place where my people could find safe harbor,” he told the Tulsa newspaper. “They’re already outcasts in the evangelical charismatic community.”

Senior Minister Marlin Lavanhar of All Souls said the addition of several hundred people with a black Pentecostal worship style has enlivened his mostly white congregation.

“The `amens’ and the `right ons’ pull something out of you when you preach,” Lavanhar told the Tulsa World. “There’s a lot of laughter and tears. We’ve never been so free in worship.”

Within the last decade, Pearson lost the bulk of his congregation after embracing a universalist theology. He was denounced by the Joint College of African-American Pentecostal Bishops and his church’s buses were not allowed access to his alma mater, Oral Roberts University.

_ Adelle M. Banks

Don’t overlook the poor in Wall Street bailout, clerics say

NEW YORK (RNS) Religious leaders are warning that the global financial crisis threatens progress made against poverty and world hunger, and urged political leaders not to ignore the poor while debating how to solve the current international financial panic.

“It’s a teachable moment to move the agenda of hunger and inequality in the world,” said Lorraine Dickerson, an anti-hunger advocate with the African Methodist Episcopal Church. “It’s a moral imperative.”

Dickerson was one of some 75 religious leaders and representatives who attended a Wednesday (Sept. 24) interfaith consultation on global hunger. The summit parallels a meeting at the United Nations to evaluate progress on a set of development goals adopted by the U.N. in 2000.

While the religious leaders maintained a sense of hope about progress that has been made in fighting poverty, they also expressed frustration about what they saw as a disproportionate amount of money being proposed to bail out U.S. financial institutions.

“The U.S. government can come up with $700 billion for the financial system, but religious communities have been working for decades to stop hunger and poverty for pennies,” said Rev. David Beckmann, the president of the Washington-based anti-hunger group Bread for the World.

World Bank figures indicate that the number of poor people in the world has dropped from 1.9 billion in 1981 to 1.4 billion in 2005. That is proof that one of the key U.N. Millennium Development Goals _ halving extreme poverty from 1990 levels by the year 2015 _ is a possibility, he said.

However, Beckmann added that that success is “now being undercut by higher prices, particularly of food and oil.”

The religious leaders said they must now pressure governments and remind their own religious constituents of the moral imperative to keep fighting poverty amid the worsening global economy.

“Religious leaders don’t have much political power, but we do have moral influence,” said Sister J. Lora Dambroski, the president of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious.

_ Chris Herlinger

Faith leaders urge Red Cross access to detainees

WASHINGTON (RNS) Top leaders from a number of faiths have asked Congress to allow the International Committee of the Red Cross access to all U.S.-held detainees, including those held at secret overseas prisons.

A letter signed by 25 senior faith leaders calls on Congress to support legislation that gives the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) the right to use information from the Central Intelligence Agency to access the U.S.-held detainees.

“The ICRC has a mandate to visit detention facilities around the world to ensure that prisoners of war and other detainees are treated humanely as required by international law,” they said.

While the United States has supported ICRC access and opposed holding detainees incommunicado, the letter claims that the U.S. has engaged in the practice of secret detentions over the past seven years.

“It is of the utmost importance that our country immediately implements all measures needed to guarantee the humane treatment of all detainees,” they said.

Providing the ICRC with access to the U.S.-held detainees would end secret detentions, giving the United States greater credibility to advocate humane treatment of American detainees, they said. They also believe it will restore U.S. integrity on the issue of torture.

“Torture and inhumane treatment are unequivocally antithetical to all of our faiths,” they said. “We all believe in the inherent worth and dignity of all human life.”

The lettter was signed by Bishop Thomas G. Wenski of Orlando, Fla, representing the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops; the Rev. Michael Kinnamon of the National Council of Churches; Rabbi Steve Gutow of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs; and Ingrid Mattson of the Islamic Society of North America.

_ Ashley Gipson

Muslims allow guide dogs in British mosques

LONDON (RNS) British Muslim authorities have issued a fatwa, or religious edict, that allows guide dogs to enter mosques, even though Islam traditionally teaches that dogs are unclean animals.

The ruling by the Islamic Sharia Council stipulates, however, that dogs are not allowed into the prayer room and should be left in a foyer or ante-room.

The ruling arose from a request by Mohammed Abraar Khatri, an 18-year-old blind student from Leicester. The Guide Dogs for the Blind Association and the Muslim Council of Britain worked together to find a solution.

At the Bilal Jamia mosque where Khatri worships, a special rest area has been set up in the entrance to accommodate his guide dog, Vargo, while he is praying.

“I believe that in all new mosques such facilities for disabled people will be an essential part of their design,” said Mohammad Shahid Raza, director of the Imams and Mosques Council UK.

_ Robert Nowell

Quote of the Day: Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright

(RNS) “Few challenges matter more than reducing distrust and misunderstanding between the United States and people living in Muslim majority states.”

_ Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, who is part of a diverse coalition of 34 former U.S. officials and civic leaders calling for the next U.S. president to foster better relations with Muslims abroad. She was quoted by the Associated Press.

KRE/LF END RNS