c. 2005 Religion News Service

WCC Appeals to Libya to Spare Lives of Six Health Workers

(RNS) The World Council of Churches has appealed to Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi to spare the lives of six medical workers after a court found them guilty of deliberately infecting some 400 children with HIV. Forty children died.

The health workers _ a Palestinian doctor and five Bulgarian nurses _ have insisted on their innocence and said they were tortured by police.

“We are deeply disturbed at the sentencing to death of six health workers … by the court in Libya,” the Rev. Samuel Kobia, WCC general secretary, said in a Tuesday (May 24) letter to Gadhafi.

“The World Council of Churches is opposed to capital punishment,” Kobia said. “It believes that all human beings created in God’s image have inherent dignity and are of infinite worth and the taking of human life is against the will of God.”

The health workers had been detained for more than five years when they were found guilty and sentenced to death in May 2004.

The six worked at a children’s hospital in Benghazi where the outbreak occurred.

Ecumenical News International, the Geneva-based religious news agency, said Bulgarian President Georgi Parvanov will visit Libya later this month in an effort to save the lives of the nurses from his country.

Libya’s supreme court is due to rule on an appeal by the six on Tuesday (May 31).

Kobia’s letter noted that the WCC opposes capital punishment as operating against “the Christian principles of compassion and love dear to all religions.”

_ David E. Anderson

American Family Association Ends Its Boycott of Disney

(RNS) The American Family Association has announced the end of its boycott of the Walt Disney Co. after nine years.

“We feel we have made our point,” said Tim Wildmon, president of the Tupelo, Miss.-based conservative Christian organization, in a statement. “Boycotts have been a last resort for us at AFA, and the Disney boycott was started to address issues of concern to us _ especially the promotion of the homosexual agenda in the culture and media. Disney has become one of the less egregious perpetrators of the homosexual agenda, so we have decided to focus our resources on more pivotal issues related to the same concerns we had with Disney.”

The Southern Baptist Convention, which officially began its boycott of the company in 1997, has not taken similar action.

Recent events led Wildmon’s organization to feel that Disney has moved toward “more family-friendly” kinds of entertainment. He cited Disney CEO Michael Eisner’s pending departure in September and Disney’s separation from Miramax, which produced movies that offended some Christians.

Wildmon also noted the company’s co-production of the Christian classic “The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe” as a positive sign.

“In the past Disney’s corporate policy has kept them from targeting a religious audience, and their efforts to connect with Christians through `The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe’ is encouraging,” Wildmon said. “Though we are glad to see some positive changes, we will continue to carefully monitor Disney as we have done in the past.”

Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, said in an interview that he did not know how Southern Baptists will react to the step taken by the association.

“I will never try to predict what a Southern Baptist Convention is going to do,” he said. “They could very well at this convention declare victory and move on.”

Their annual gathering is in June in Nashville, Tenn.

In 1997, Southern Baptists overwhelmingly passed a resolution urging their fellow members to boycott Disney because they believed it promoted “immoral ideologies.”

“This is not an attempt to bring the Disney Company down, but to bring Southern Baptists up to the moral standard of God,” the resolution read.

A spokesperson for the Walt Disney Company could not be reached immediately for comment.

_ Adelle M. Banks

British Police May Require Religious Information From Suspects

(RNS) British police are considering whether to have officers ask the religion of individuals they stop to search.

The idea is a response to concerns that Muslims are being unfairly targeted for police stop-and-searches in the wake of Sept. 11.

Some argue that the added information would help the police determine if officers are being even-handed in deciding who to stop for terrorism-related searches. British police officers already record the ethnicity of individuals they stop and some community groups have requested that police start asking religious affiliation as well.

Some Muslim and Sikh groups would like police to gather the information, while Christian and Jewish groups generally oppose it, according to a May 19 report delivered by Metropolitan Police Commissioner Ian Blair to the Metropolitan Police Authority, which provides oversight and support to London Metropolitan police.

The report said a police panel is consulting with community groups before making a recommendation on religious information. Ultimately, any change to stop-and-search procedures would come at the national level _ from Britain’s Home Office, said Jackie Jones of the MPA press bureau.

Not all members of the Muslim community are advocating change. Iqbal Sacranie of the Muslim Council of Britain said the measure could work against Muslims who are stopped.

“The last thing we want is when an officer questions somebody as to their faith, that that should be an indicator of what action the officer should take,” he told The Evening Standard newspaper.

The newspaper reported that a Police Federation spokesman worried about the added burden to officers already taxed by paperwork. He also said asking people to disclose their religion could inflame encounters.

_ Jacqueline Conciatore

Southern Baptist Leader Disapproves of Anti-Muslim Church Sign

(RNS) A key leader of the Southern Baptist Convention expressed disapproval Tuesday (May 24) of a North Carolina pastor who posted a sign at his church reading “The Koran Needs to Be Flushed.”

Morris H. Chapman, the president and CEO of the Southern Baptist Convention’s executive committee, released a public statement disavowing the actions of the Rev. Creighton Lovelace, pastor of Danieltown Baptist Church in Rutherford, N.C. The church is affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention.

“Of course the Quran does not support the beliefs of Southern Baptists, but we recognize and respect the rights of Muslims to believe as they choose,” said Chapman.

“Furthermore, Southern Baptists wish to relate to our Muslim neighbors in a respectful manner that allows mutual sharing of our beliefs,” he said.

Last week, Lovelace posted the sign on a signboard in front of the church as the week’s message to passersby. The wording refers to a recent Newsweek article, later proved false, that alleged that interrogators at Guantanamo Bay prison had flushed the Muslim holy book down the toilet.

In response to the sign, the Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) called on religious leaders across the spectrum to repudiate its message and enter into dialogue with local Muslims.

CAIR welcomes the response from Chapman, said national communications director Ibrahim Hooper, and urges Americans of all faiths to read the Quran for themselves before agreeing with what Hooper called “a bigoted message.” CAIR recently launched a project to provide free copies of the Quran to any American who requests one.

“It really is time that the word goes out in churches across America that this kind of bigotry is harmful to all Americans,” said Hooper.

“It’s not something people of faith should be doing.”

_ Holly Lebowitz Rossi

Religious Groups Speak Out on Bills to Increase Stem Cell Research

WASHINGTON (RNS) Religious leaders are giving mixed reviews of the Tuesday (May 24) passage of two stem cell research bills in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Catholics praised the passage of a bill to increase research on stem cells taken from umbilical cord blood. They see it as an alternative to a more controversial bill, which President Bush has promised to veto, that would increase research on embryonic stem cells, which Catholics see as human life.

“The good news is that the House of Representatives voted nearly unanimously to encourage the broader use of cord blood stem cells in research and treatment, an ethical and exceptionally promising field,” said Richard M. Doerflinger of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. “The bill to promote killing of human embryos for their stem cells will not become law.”

Knights of Columbus Supreme Knight Carl A. Anderson condemned that bill.

“Unfortunately many members of both parties do not appreciate the grave moral issues that are at stake,” said Anderson, speaking for the Roman Catholic organization of 1.7 million members.

The Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America saw the legislation in a different light. The nation’s largest Orthodox Jewish umbrella organization does not give an embryo outside the womb the full status of personhood and credited both bills as efforts to save human life and ease pain.

“By narrowly tailoring those cells upon which such research may be conducted, the Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act serves to value and venerate the sanctity of life and our responsibilities to our fellow man and woman,” the union said in a statement.

_ Shawna Gamache

Quote of the Day: The Rev. Blaine Bartel of Tulsa, Okla.

(RNS) “We want to make our halls like Barnes & Noble _ feel at home, get here early, stay late.”

_ The Rev. Blaine Bartel, associate pastor of Church on the Move in Tulsa, Okla., in an interview with The Washington Post about plans to renovate his 12,000-member church building, which will have a lobby that includes a cafe.

MO/PH END RNS