c. 2006 Religion News Service

Muslim Leaders Ask Pope for Direct Apology

(RNS) Representatives of 57 Islamic states expressed concern on Tuesday (Sept. 26) that recent remarks by Pope Benedict XVI reveal a “lack of correct information about the Holy Quran, the Prophet (Muhammad) and the Islamic faith.”

The Organization of the Islamic Conference asked the pope to apologize as part of a statement drafted during a meeting held on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly.

In the statement, the OIC said it fears the pope has produced “a situation of tension between the Muslim world and the Vatican.”

The OIC said it “regrets the other derogatory fallacies defaming Islam” in the pope’s controversial Sept. 12 lecture in Germany and believes the speech was part of a “smear campaign.”

The statement came on the heels of the pope’s Monday (Sept. 25) address to ambassadors from 22 Muslim countries at the Vatican. During the short speech, the pope said he “respected Muslims” and stressed the importance of interfaith dialogue.

It was the latest in a series of attempts by the pope to soothe tensions without apologizing directly for the speech in Germany, in which he angered Muslims by citing a Byzantine emperor who called Muhammad’s teachings “evil and inhuman” and spread “by the sword.”

Benedict has said he regretted the “reaction” provoked by his speech but has not apologized for the words themselves.

_ Keith Roshangar

House Passes Bill to Limit Awards in Church-State Cases

WASHINGTON (RNS) Passage of a House bill that would limit financial rewards in church-state legal battles has been met with cheers and jeers as the controversial measure heads to the Senate.

The Public Expression of Religion Act, passed in a 244-173 vote on Tuesday (Sept. 26), would prohibit plaintiffs in church-state cases from recouping lawyer fees for challenging public expressions of faith.

Concerned Women for America, a conservative activist group, applauded the bill’s passage.

“If this bill is voted on by the Senate and signed into law, citizens will have the confidence to pursue lawsuits in cases where their religious liberties have been violated,” said Lanier Swann, CWA’s director of government relations.

Swann cited several cases where the ACLU and others have gone to court over church-state separation issues, including attempts to block displays of the Ten Commandments, denying the Boy Scouts meeting space on public property and the attempts to strike the words “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance.

Other organizations, however, criticized the House’s approval.

“This bill is an underhanded attempt to strip Americans of the protections guaranteed by the Constitution,” People For the American Way President Ralph G. Neas said. “It’s another example of Congress undermining the system of checks and balances laid out by our nation’s founders.”

Eliminating the threat of crippling financial judgments will encourage citizens to “stand up to those who would chisel religious symbols from our public buildings and wipe our religious heritage from the public square,” said Matthew D. Staver, founder and chairman of Liberty Counsel.

However, Mark J. Pelavin, associate director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, is more concerned that this could start a “full-scale assault on fundamental freedoms.”

“Removing certain constitutional rights from the full protection of the law is a slippery slope threatening the protection of all rights,” Pelavin said.

_ Chansin Bird

Tutu Says He Was `Ashamed’ to Be an Anglican

(RNS) Anglican icon and Nobel laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu says in a new book that his church’s rejection of gay priests in 1998 made him “ashamed to be an Anglican.”

That comment, as well as others critical of the worldwide Anglican Communion’s bickering over the role of gays and lesbians in the church, are related in a new biography of the South African prelate, called “Rabble-Rouser For Peace,” written by his former press secretary, John Allen. The biography is scheduled to be released close to Tutu’s 75th birthday in early October.

In the book, Tutu is candid about his gradual acknowledgment “that sexual orientation, like race or gender, was a given,” Allen writes.

Because he had retired as archbishop of Cape Town in 1996, Tutu held his tongue publicly after Anglican prelates rejected “homosexual practice” as “incompatible with Scripture,” in 1998. However, in a letter to the spiritual head of Anglicanism, former Archbishop of Canterbury George Carey, Tutu wrote “I am ashamed to be an Anglican,” according to Allen.

Moreover, the uproar created by the 2003 election of openly gay Bishop V. Gene Robinson in New Hampshire filled Tutu with “sadness,” Allen writes. That controversy now threatens to tear apart the Anglican Communion, which consists of 38 individual geographic provinces.

“He found it little short of outrageous that church leaders should be obsessed with issues of sexuality in the face of the challenges of AIDS and global poverty,” Allen writes.

Tutu also thinks that current archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, “was too accommodating of conservatives who demanded that the churches of the United States and Canada should recant their tolerance for gays and lesbians,” or be kicked out of the Anglican Communion, according to Allen.

Tutu tells Allen that conservatives “ have the freedom to leave,” if they don’t like the inclusiveness of the Anglican Communion.

Tutu, who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his campaign to overcome apartheid in his native South Africa, has become one of the world’s most famous Anglicans. Though retired, Tutu continues to lecture and speak throughout the world.

_ Daniel Burke

Christian Vocal Group 4Him Says Farewell

MOBILE, Ala. (RNS) Talent, fervor, a clear message, a warm reception from an appreciative hometown crowd _ on Saturday (Sept. 23), Christian artists 4Him looked like a band with a long, successful career in front of it.

Except that this was the group’s farewell show, a celebration of 16 very successful years the vocal group has behind it.

The four members of 4Him _ Mark Harris, Andy Chrisman, Kirk Sullivan and Marty Magehee _ debuted in January 1990. Their first single hit No. 1 on contemporary Christian music charts, a feat the group would repeat more than 20 times. The group scored multiple Dove Awards and a Grammy nomination, and Harris has estimated that the act has sold about 3 million albums overall.

Saturday’s farwell show was held in Mobile, a nod to the area that was home to the band early in its career. Two members still live nearby.

Chrisman began by asking the audience to dedicate the show to Jesus. “There’s no way the four of us would have stayed together for 16 years for anything else,” he said.

Harris sounded the call once again for World Vision, a charitable organization that 4Him has long promoted. A World Vision representative said because of 4Him, some 7,000 Third-world children had been sponsored. A concert promotion company presented a $4,444.44 donation in the group’s name.

As for the future, two members have released solo albums; the other two have projects in the works. Magehee addressed the group members’ decision, after 16 years, to move on.

“It’s amazing after all these years how God has called us in all these different directions, when he called us in one direction for so long,” he said.

“We’re excited,” Magehee said. “It’s always a step of faith to step out into nothing.”

_ Lawrence Specker

Quote of the Day: Former House Majority Leader Dick Armey, R-Texas

“Where in the hell did this Terri Schiavo thing come from? … That was pure, blatant pandering to (Focus on the Family founder) James Dobson. That’s all that was. It was silly, stupid and irresponsible. Nobody serious about the Constitution would do that.”

_ Former House Majority Leader Dick Armey, R-Texas, about Congress passing a bill in 2005 to keep Terri Schiavo, a brain-damaged Florida woman, alive, against the wishes of her husband.

KRE/JL END RNS