c. 1996 Religion News Service

African-American Muslim leader backs Clinton’s re-election

(RNS)-Imam W. Deen Mohammed, leader of the largest African-American Muslim organization in the United States, has indicated he favors Bill Clinton over Bob Dole in this year’s presidential campaign.

The Muslim leader voiced his support for President Clinton at a recent news conference in Malaysia, according to his spokesman, Imam E. Abdulmalik Mohammed. W. Deen Mohammed was in Malaysia in late April to meet with Muslim officials there.

In 1992, W. Deen Mohammed backed former President George Bush.”Imam Mohammed said he felt President Clinton was the best man for the country now,”Abdulmalik Mohammed told Religion News Service.

W. Deen Mohammed’s comments at the news conference came in response to a reporter’s question. He was expressing his personal preference in the presidential race and not formally endorsing Clinton.

Abdulmalik Mohammed said W. Deen Mohammed would tell his followers about his presidential choice, but would not direct them to vote for Clinton, the presumed Democratic nominee against the Republican Dole.”But most persons in our association who are aware (of the choice) will vote for the candidate named,”Abdulmalik Mohammed said.

The Ministry of W. Deen Mohammed-a loose-knit grouping of associated mosques and religious schools-claims more than 2 million followers, out of a total American Muslim population of 3 to 6 million.

W. Deen Mohammed is the son of Nation of Islam pioneer Elijah Muhammad. Since assuming leadership of the organization after his father died in 1975, W. Deen Mohammed has steered his followers toward the Muslim and political mainstreams.

The current Nation of Islam, led by Louis Farrakhan, is made up of African- Americans who reject W. Deen Mohammed’s leadership. Farrakhan’s Nation of Islam is estimated to have 10,000 to 20,000 members, but does not comment on membership.

W. Deen Mohammed supported Clinton because he considered Republican plans for slashing welfare and rolling back affirmative to be too harsh, the spokesman said.”Clinton also supports reforming affirmative action and welfare, but is more moderate. The imam tends to favor moderate positions,”Abdulmalik Mohammed said.

Like most Muslims, W. Deen Mohammed is a social conservative who strongly opposes abortion, while Clinton backs the continued legalization of abortion. But Abdulmalik Mohammed said abortion was not an important enough issue to keep W. Deen Mohammed from supporting the president.”They do not have to agree on everything,”Abdulmalik Mohammed said.

Clinton invited Muslims to the White House in February to celebrate the Islamic holiday Eid al-Fitr. It marked the first time any American president has taken such note of a Muslim holiday. Abdulmalik Mohammed said the gesture was another reason W. Deen Mohammed favors Clinton.

Neither the Clinton nor Dole campaigns offered immediate comment.

Update: Jews for Jesus picks David Brickner as new leader

(RNS)-David Brickner has been named executive director of Jews for Jesus, replacing the retiring Moishe Rosen as head of the international evangelical Christian missionary organization.

Brickner, 37, was nominated for the post on Wednesday (May 8) by the San Francisco-based organization’s leadership council. The Jews for Jesus board of directors approved the nomination on Thursday.

The 64-year-old Rosen-who founded Jews for Jesus in 1970-formally announced he was relinquishing the organization’s top post May 3. A Jews for Jesus announcement Friday said no timetable for the transition had yet been set.

The announcement identified Brickner-a minister ordained by the theologically conservative Baptist General Conference-as a”fifth-generation believer in Jesus”on his father’s side. His mother was identified as a”fourth-generation Jewish believer.” Mainstream Judaism would consider Brickner and his family fully Christian.”He’s simply not Jewish,”said Mark Power, national director of Jews for Judaism, a Baltimore-based organization that seeks to counter Jews for Jesus’ claims that a person can remain Jewish and still believe Jesus was the Messiah-heresy to mainstream Jews.”The object is to appear as Jewish as possible for the purposes of proselytizing Jews,”said Powers.

Brickner was unavailable for comment Friday. However, Rosen said in an interview that Brickner”self-identified”as a Jew and a Christian.”A person can label themselves anyway they want, whether or not others identify them that way,”Rosen said.

White Alabama state senator says blacks were better off as slaves

(RNS)-A white Alabama state senator has written a speech arguing that slavery is justified by the Bible and that blacks were better off when they were slaves.”People who are bitter and hateful about slavery are obviously bitter and hateful against God and his word because they reject what God says and embrace what mere humans say concerning slavery,”wrote Charles Davidson, 61, a Republican from Jasper, Ala.

Davidson, who is running for Congress, wrote the speech for a Senate debate Tuesday (May 7) on his proposal to fly the Confederate battle flag over the Capitol in Montgomery, the Associated Press reported. The measure was tabled before he had a chance to speak, but he passed out copies later.”It’s sad to think we have anyone who has that type of thinking in 1996,”said state Rep. Laura Hall, chairwoman of the Legislative Black Caucus.”That may be appropriate in the 1930s and 1940s, but not in 1996.” Davidson referred to Leviticus 25:44-“You may acquire male and female slaves from the pagan nations that are around you”-and quoted 1 Timothy 6:1 as saying slaves should”regard their own masters as worthy of all honor.””The incidence of abuse, rape, broken homes and murder are 100 times greater, today, in the housing projects than they were on the slave plantations in the old South,”he wrote.”The truth is that nowhere on the face of the earth, in all of time, were servants better treated or better loved than they were in the Old South by white, black, Hispanic and Indian slave owners.” Davidson, a restaurateur, was elected in 1994 to the state Senate. He is running for the Republican nomination for a U.S. House seat, which will be determined in a June 4 primary.

Catholic confession must be `specific and numerically complete,’ pope says

(RNS)-Roman Catholics who make confession to a priest should give a”specific and numerically complete”list of their sins, Pope John Paul II has declared.

At a recent meeting with seminarians and newly ordained priests, the pontiff said a significant number of Catholics attending confession”do not make a complete list of mortal sins in the way called for by the Council of Trent,”the 16th-century church council that met to define Catholic teaching at the time of the Reformation.

The pope told the clergy that there seems to be an increasingly popular notion that Catholics can make an”arbitrary and reductive interpretation”of what was personally permissible for them, according to Ecumenical News International, a news service sponsored by the World Council of Churches.

When the”priest-confessor”asks questions”with a view to necessary completeness,”some Catholics act as if they have suffered”an undue intrusion into the sanctuary of their conscience,”the pope said.”I hope and pray that these faithful, who are not very enlightened, would become convinced that the norm which requires a specific and numerical completeness-insofar as their honestly examined memory allows them to know-is not an arbitrarily imposed burden, but a means of liberation and serenity,”he said.

Mothers, children have increasing need for rescue mission services

(RNS)-The International Union of Gospel Missions has issued a report that shows a marked increase in the numbers of mothers and children who rely on its shelters and other services.

A 1995 study released Thursday (May 9) found that rescue missions nationwide provided more than 1,277,580 nights of lodging to children, an increase of 10 percent over 1994. They provided more than 3,000 children daily with day care, after-school care and tutoring, an increase of slightly more than 50 percent over the previous year.”These numbers reflect an alarming increase in the number of children whose parents cannot adequately provide for them,”said the Rev. Stephen E. Burger, executive director of the International Union of Gospel Missions, based in Kansas City, Mo.”And the vast majority of these children are being raised by single mothers.” The demand for services has expanded beyond food and shelter to day care and education, he said.

The organization’s survey also found that during 1995 its 250 member rescue missions provided: 28 million meals, an increase of about 1 million over 1994; 10 million nights’ lodging, an increase of about 1 million; and 24 million pieces of clothing, an increase of about 11 million.”It’s not very pleasant news for Mother’s Day, but it is reality,”Burger said.

The rescue missions affiliated with Burger’s organization, which was founded in 1913, provide emergency food, shelter, youth and family services, jail ministries and rehabilitation programs for addicted persons, plus other programs to help the mentally ill and the poor.

Nine Orthodox Jews arrested in fracas in racially torn Crown Heights

(RNS)-Nine Orthodox Jews were arrested in a fracas that erupted after two Orthodox Jewish security guards were charged with assaulting a black man in the racially torn Brooklyn, N.Y., neighborhood of Crown Heights.

The guards allegedly hit the man with their walkie-talkies because they believed his 8-year-old nephew had stolen a bicycle, police said, according to the Associated Press.

The guards’ arrests sparked a street melee Thursday (May 9) in Crown Heights, a neighborhood where relations between blacks and ultra-Orthodox Jews have been strained for a long time.

Crown Heights was the scene of three nights of summer violence in 1991 after a 7-year-old black child was accidentally killed by a car traveling in an Orthodox Jewish motorcade. A Jewish man was stabbed to death in the ensuing violence.

On Thursday night, as many as 200 angry Orthodox Jews filled the streets and marched to the local police station where some shouted”Jewish blood is not cheap,”police said.

Seven people were charged with disorderly conduct and two others with rioting, police spokesman Jerry Varson said.

Quote of the Day: Franklin Graham, son of Billy Graham and first vice chairman of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association

(RNS)-Franklin Graham, quoted in a May 13 cover story in Time magazine, spoke about the gospel’s message of love to a disintegrating society:”As our society falls apart, as crime increases, when, as the Bible says, the love of most grows cold, people want to know, Does God care? Am I just here on earth to breathe so many cubic meters of oxygen and eat so many cows and pounds of potatoes in my lifetime and then die, and that’s it? Is there some kind of plan that has been ordained before time for me? They want to know. The gospel message is the message of love.”

LJB END RNS