c. 2007 Religion News Service
Watchdog Panel Urges Monitoring Iraq on Religious Freedom
WASHINGTON (RNS) For the first time since the fall of Saddam Hussein, ongoing sectarian violence has earned Iraq a place among the world’s worst violators of religious freedoms, a federal watchdog panel said on May 2.
Iraq was included with seven other countries, including Afghanistan, on a Watch List published in the 2007 report of the U.S. Commission for International Religious Freedom. The list names countries that “require close monitoring” because their governments commit or tolerate religious persecution.
“Despite ongoing efforts to stabilize the country … successive Iraqi governments have not curbed the growing scope and severity of human rights abuses,” the report read.
Since the 2003 U.S. invasion, violence between the country’s Sunni and Shiite Muslims and between Muslims and non-Muslims has become a daily occurrence. The Shiite-dominated government has recently been accused of collaboration with death squads targeting Sunnis.
The watch list is the commission’s second, lesser tier of religious rights abusers. The worst are recommended for designation as “Countries of Particular Concern” to the State Department, status carrying the possibility of sanctions or other punitive action by the U.S. government. Eleven countries received that recommendation in Wednesday’s report.
A footnote in the report said three of the commission’s nine voting members felt Iraq should have received the more severe designation this year. Those three members were all appointed to the commission by Democrats; five of the remaining six were Republican appointees.
The 2007 report suggests the commission “may designate Iraq as a (Country of Particular Concern) next year if improvements are not made by the Iraqi government.”
But Commissioner Nina Shea, one of the Republican appointees, said the commission could change Iraq’s designation sooner. “We’re not going to be sitting on our hands about Iraq over the next year,” she said at a news conference.
Afghanistan under the Taliban and Iraq under Hussein were both listed as Countries of Particular Concern by the State Department before the U.S. invasions in 2001 and 2003, respectively.
The State Department’s current list of Countries of Particular Concern includes Burma, China, Eritrea, Iran, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Sudan and Uzbekistan.
The countries recommended by the panel as Countries of Particular Concern this year include Burma, China, Eritrea, Iran, North Korea, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Vietnam.
The panel’s Watch List includes Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Belarus, Cuba, Egypt, Indonesia, Iraq and Nigeria.
_ Charles O’Toole
Canadian Bishops Say No to Gay Marriage _ for the Moment
TORONTO (RNS) Canada’s Anglican bishops have essentially rejected the blessing of same-sex marriages but acknowledge there will be further votes on the issue when the church’s governing body meets next month.
The bishops issued an unexpected pastoral statement Tuesday (May 1) on the church’s Web site. The statement is based on a draft proposal they discussed in Niagara Falls, Ontario, last month at a meeting attended by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams.
Not all bishops “can conceive of condoning or blessing same-sex unions,” the statement said. The “doctrine and discipline of our church does not clearly permit further action.”
The statement will be sent to delegates of the church’s General Synod, which meets in Winnipeg June 19-25.
“Where we are today _ not in June, but as of today _ our doctrine and discipline does not allow the blessing of same-sex unions,” Archdeacon Paul Feheley told Canadian Press. “So we’re acknowledging that’s where we are, understanding that that could change in June.”
Of the 41 active bishops in Canada, Feheley said a “substantial majority” voted for the statement. Only one Canadian diocese, New Westminister near Vancouver, continues to bless same-sex unions, he added, even though Canada allows civil marriage for same-sex couples.
The missive says it is “a Gospel imperative to pray with the whole people of God, no matter their circumstance,” and offers examples of “possible pastoral responses” to same-sex couples. For instance, a parish, with its bishop’s knowledge and permission, could pray with a civilly married same-sex couple and celebrate the Eucharist with them.
The bishops also say that no child should be denied baptism solely on the basis of the sexual orientation or marital status of the parents, and that no baptized Christian will be denied Communion or Confirmation for being in “a committed homosexual relationship or because of their marital status.”
Conservative bishops in the worldwide Anglican Communion have expressed concern over steps taken by Canadian Anglicans and U.S. Episcopalians to bless same-sex unions. The U.S. church is facing a Sept. 30 deadline to promise to stop blessing same-sex unions or face unspecified “consequences.”
_ Ron Csillag
Black Church Scholar Robert M. Franklin To Lead Morehouse College
(RNS) Black church scholar Robert M. Franklin has been named president of Morehouse College in Atlanta.
Franklin, 53, professor of social ethics at Emory University’s Candler School of Theology in Atlanta, will begin his new position on July 2, succeeding current president Walter E. Massey, who is retiring.
Franklin served as president of the Interdenominational Theological Center, a consortium of African-American theological schools in Atlanta, from 1997 to 2002. Morehouse is a historically black college for men whose alumni include the late Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and Franklin himself.
“In selecting Dr. Franklin, great consideration was given to the strength of his moral and spiritual character, his experience as an educational and administrative leader, and his ability to attract funds and friends to the college,” said Willie J. Davis, chairman of Morehouse’s board of trustees, in a statement released Monday (April 30).
Franklin recently authored the book, “Crisis in the Village: Restoring Hope in African American Communities,” which called on black churches, colleges and families to combat gaps in education, health and income between blacks and whites.
“At a time of social crisis in African-American communities and throughout the nation, the educational mission of Morehouse is more urgent than ever before,” Franklin said in a statement.
_ Adelle M. Banks
Alabama Church Arsonists Plead Guilty to More Fires
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. _ Two church arsonists pleaded guilty on May 2 to burning churches in two Alabama counties and will serve two-year sentences in state prison, running concurrently with a previous two-year sentence that was handed down last month.
The men, Matthew Cloyd and Benjamin Moseley, pleaded guilty to setting fires in Sumter and Green counties last year. The two-year sentences will begin after they complete separate eight-year federal prison sentences.
Cloyd, Moseley and another man, Russell DeBusk, earlier admitted in federal and state court to burning four churches in Bibb County. Cloyd and Moseley, however, set five additional fires in Sumter, Green and Pickens counties as a decoy.
In all, seven rural churches were destroyed and two more were damaged in the arson spree.
On Wednesday, they entered guilty pleas to the fires in Sumter and Green counties before Circuit Judge Eddie Hardaway.
Last month, the three men entered guilty pleas for the fires in Bibb County and were sentenced to serve two years of a 15-year sentence in state prison.
_ Val Walton
School OKs Long Hair After Boy Cites Faith
MONTGOMERY, Ala. (RNS) A high school student who was sent home for having long hair was allowed back into school Wednesday (May 2) wearing a headdress after telling school officials he was a Sikh.
The Sikh religion requires that followers do not cut their hair and requires that they wear a distinctive head covering much like a turban.
Cullman School Superintendent Hank Allen said the student, Tommy DeForest, was sent home from Good Hope High School because the length of his hair violated the school’s dress code.
Allen said he was surprised when DeForest later professed to be a Sikh and said his long hair was part of his religion.
“We didn’t have any idea he would return a Sikh,” Allen said.
DeForest could not be reached immediately for comment.
Officials with the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty sent Allen a letter saying the school system was violating DeForest’s constitutional rights.
“The school literally forced Tommy to choose between his education and his faith,” Derek Gaubatz, director of litigation for the Becket Fund, said in a statement issued Wednesday.
_ Kim Chandler
Hotel Developer Says Al Gore Didn’t Displace the Bible
(RNS) Reports that Al Gore has replaced God _ at least in one California hotel _ have been greatly exaggerated, the hotel’s developer said Thursday (May 3).
The Gaia Napa Valley Hotel and Spa, located 35 miles north of San Francisco, made headlines after an April 27 Bloomberg News story mentioned that each of the hotel rooms contained a copy of Gore’s environmental book, “An Inconvenient Truth” _ but no Gideon Bible.
Rush Limbaugh jumped on the story in his radio show, saying,“(Environmentalism) is a religion, I’m telling you! They’re taking the Bible out of there, and they say it’s a hip and trendy thing to do.”
Not quite, said developer Wen-I Chang.
Chang, 62, said in a telephone interview that Gaia had not “replaced” the Bible with Gore’s book, as has been claimed by some media outlets.
Instead, he said, the hotel staff overlooked providing Bibles in their haste to prepare for the official grand opening March 30.
“I apologize to Christians” who may have been offended, Chang said. “We made an oversight.”
Chang, a Taiwanese immigrant and a Buddhist, said that as soon as the issue came to his attention this week, he instructed his staff to put Bibles in the hotel’s nightstands. Copies of Buddhist scripture also will go in the drawers within the month.
The Gore book went in the rooms because it matched the hotel’s image as “the first eco-friendly hotel in the Golden State.”
“We focus on green, and (Gore’s) message is so powerful,” Chang said.
Gaia was built using sustainable wood and recycled materials. Water, energy use and emissions are kept to a minimum. Chang said he hopes Gaia will earn the U.S. Green Building Council’s “gold” rating for most environmentally friendly design.
A spokesman for Gideons International, which distributes most Bibles found in hotel rooms, declined to comment.
_ Charles O’Toole
Magazine Names Young Muslim `Visionaries’
(RNS) A novelist, a doctor and an imam are among “10 Young Visionaries” highlighted in the May issue of Islamica magazine, a bimonthly glossy that covers Muslim current affairs and culture.
Islamica’s editors spent more than a year scouring the North American Muslim community for potential profile candidates, but decided on this group of seven men and three women because of their innovative and successful civic engagement, said Firas Ahmad, deputy editor in the magazine’s Cambridge, Mass., office.
“We wanted to offer examples of what Muslim Americans were doing to make America a better place,” Ahmad said.
One of those profiled is Manal Omar, who grew up South Carolina. She braved the dangers of Baghdad to set up an office of Women for Women International, an aid group, and today is Middle East Manager for Oxfam-Great Britain, one of the biggest nongovernmental organizations in the world.
Other portraits include physician Mansur Khan, who in 1997 helped establish the University Muslim Medical Association, a clinic in south central Los Angeles that serves some of the city’s poorest residents, and entrepreneur Omar Amanat, who established a $100 million film fund to help lesser-known filmmakers.
Ahmad said editors sought to find “up-and-comers” who were not nationally known, but had strong support from local Muslim communities.
Ahmad added that he hopes the people profiled will be seen as more legitimately representing Muslims than extremists like Osama bin Laden or Muslims-turned-Islam critics like Ayaan Hirsi Ali.
“We’re saying, these are the people we want to be represented by,” Ahmad said. “Legitimacy comes from the community, it can’t be ascribed onto the community.”
There is at least one Shiite in the group, which also includes a TV director, a lawyer and a social worker. Ethnically, there are six South Asians, two Arabs and two African Americans.
_ Omar Sacirbey
German Court Clears Way for Visit by Sun Myung Moon
BERLIN (RNS) A German court has ruled that the country’s constitution does not allow it to block visits from the Rev. Sun Myung Moon, the head of the Unification Church.
Germany’s culture and legal system are designed to officially recognize only a few religions _ such as Catholicism or Judaism, for example. Other faiths, such as Scientology or Moon’s church, are allowed to operate, but do not receive official status.
Additionally, because of its Nazi history, the German government tends to be suspicious of groups it labels as cults. That outlook led the German government to ban Moon from an attempted visit to his followers in 1995. At the time, the administration argued that Moon’s church _ which practices mass weddings and preaches that Moon was asked by God to complete Jesus’ work on Earth _ stood against the ideals of the German constitution.
The government’s attempt to block Moon’s visit continued for more than a decade until last fall, when the German Constitutional Court ruled that blocking Moon from visiting violates Germany’s freedom of religion laws.
Based on that ruling, the High Administrative Court of Koblenz ruled Friday (May 4) that Germany could no longer block Moon from visiting, according to the Sueddeutsche Zeitung (Southern German Newspaper).
The ruling reflects a general softening of bans _ if not public sympathies _ toward religions seen as “fringe” in Germany. Berlin, for example, recently was required to grant official recognition to Jehovah’s Witnesses.
_ Niels Sorrells
Nigerian Archbishop Calls U.S. Response `Insulting and Condescending’
(RNS) Nigerian Archbishop Peter Akinola, who defied the top bishops of the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion by installing his own bishop on U.S. soil Saturday (May 5), said “insulting and condescending” American bishops were to blame for the controversy.
“We have developed numerous proposals, established various task forces and yet the division has only deepened,” Akinola said in an open letter to the head of the Anglican Communion, Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams.
“The decisions, actions, defiance and continuing intransigence of the Episcopal Church are at the heart of our crisis.”
Akinola heads the 17 million-member Anglican Church of Nigeria, reportedly the Anglican Communion’s second-largest church _ after the Church of England _ and has been an outspoken leader among conservatives.
On Saturday in Woodbridge, Va., he installed the Rev. Martyn Minns as missionary bishop of the Convocation of Anglicans in North America. CANA has about 30 congregations of Nigerian immigrants and American conservatives who’ve left the Episcopal Church.
In public letters, Williams and Episcopal Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori urged Akinola not to install Minns.
Jefferts Schori said the installation would hamper reconciliation efforts between liberals and conservatives in the Anglican Communion and urged Akinola to respect the tradition of not interfering in another bishop’s geographical territory.
Akinola answered his critics Sunday in his letter to Williams.
“In the middle of all this the Lord’s name has been dishonored,” said Akinola. “If we fail to act, many will be lost to the church and thousands of souls will be imperiled.”
Moreover, Episcopal bishops’ rejection in March of requests from oversees Anglicans to change the Episcopal Church to accommodate conservatives was “both insulting and condescending and makes very clear they have no intention of listening to the voice of the rest of the communion,” Akinola said.
_ Daniel Burke
Israeli Archaeologists Discover Herod’s Tomb
JERUSALEM (RNS) Israeli archaeologists believe they have discovered the tomb of King Herod, the excavation’s chief archaeologist announced Tuesday (May 8).
Professor Ehud Netzer from the Institute of Archaeology at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem said his team had discovered the tomb three weeks ago during ongoing excavations at Herodium, a once-magnificent palace located nine miles south of Jerusalem, in what is now the West Bank.
Herod, who was appointed by the Romans, ruled Judea from 37 to 4 B.C. During his reign he undertook numerous monumental building projects, including the fortress at Masada and the reinforcement and expansion of the Second Jewish Temple in Jerusalem.
The New Testament says Jesus was born during Herod’s reign and that Joseph and Mary fled to Egypt because the king planned to kill the infant Jesus.
Archaeologists have long based their belief that Herod was buried at Herodium on the account of the historian Josephus Flavius, who described the king’s lavish funeral although not the tomb itself.
Pointing to intricately carved remains from the excavation, Netzer said his team had discovered a grave, fragments from a sarcophagus and a mausoleum on Mount Herodium’s northeastern slope.
“It was clear that someone had intentionally shattered the sarcophagus,” soon after Herod’s death, Netzer said, referring to Herod’s many enemies.
Netzer said his team is certain the grave they discovered is Herod’s despite the fact that neither human bones nor an inscription has yet been found at the site.
“It was the quality of the things that were uncovered that led us to understand that this was the grave of a king,” Netzer said of the finely detailed remains of the sarcophagus, which was decorated with rosettes; the beautifully decorated urns for storing ashes; and the well-built podium of the mausoleum.
_ Michele Chabin
Southern Baptists Consider Round 3 on Public Schools Issue
(RNS) A resolution calling on Southern Baptist churches to “create more Christian alternatives to the public schools” has been drafted and submitted for the Southern Baptist Convention’s annual convention June 12-13 in San Antonio.
Bruce Shortt, a Houston attorney, and Voddie Baucham, a Houston pastor, authored the resolution. The two men have authored an education resolution every year since the 2004 convention.
The 2005 resolution received a great deal of attention because it called on Southern Baptist parents to investigate their school districts for homosexual clubs or curriculum that was pro-homosexual. Delegates to the 2006 convention never voted on the education resolution because it died in committee.
Shortt said it “will be hard for this resolution to make it out of committee. The committee system was added several years ago so the guys (at denominational headquarters) in Nashville can control everything.”
Southern Baptists first approved resolutions supporting home-schooling in 1997 and 1999. Since that time, SBC leaders have been encouraging parents to take a greater interest in their children’s education.
Al Mohler, the president of Southern Baptist Seminary, called on fellow Baptists to develop an “exit strategy” from public schools in 2005. Last year in an interview with Agape Press, SBC President Frank Page encouraged affiliated churches to start more Christian schools while making sure that provision is made for people who can’t afford tuition.
Shortt sees that as evidence that momentum is building to remove Baptist students from public schools.
“We’ve had the wrong model of education all along,” Shortt said. “An aggressively anti-Christian institution will produce an anti-Christian worldview.”
_ Greg Horton
Quote of the Week: Pastor Dwight McKissic of Arlington, Texas
(RNS) “God just showed up in my prayer closet. I’ve asked the Lord to explain what I am saying, but as of yet I cannot understand it.”
_ Pastor Dwight McKissic, discussing his private prayer language, or speaking in tongues, at the Baptist Conference on the Holy Spirit held recently at his Southern Baptist church in Arlington, Texas.
KRE/LF END RNS
