c. 1997 Religion News Service

Kuwaiti man reportedly renounces conversion to Christianity

(RNS) A Kuwaiti man who became the focus of international Christian concern after a Muslim religious court declared him an apostate for converting to Christianity has reportedly reverted to being a Muslim.

Al-Rai al-Aam, a newspaper in Kuwait, quoted Robert Hussein on Friday (Jan. 31) as telling a Muslim cleric that he had renounced his conversion to Christianity and was once again a practicing Muslim.

Reuter news agency said the Kuwaiti newspaper quoted Hussein as saying:”I clear myself from any religion that contradicts with Islam.” George Joseph Gatis, an attorney at the Rutherford Institute, a U.S.-based Christian legal defense organization that has been assisting Hussein, told Religion News Service that he could not confirm the Kuwaiti newspaper report.”If it’s true, though, then those who wanted to use Mr. Hussein to put a face on the discrimination that Christians face in Muslim nations have lost their face,”said Gatis.

Hussein fled Kuwait last year fearing for his life after a Shiite Muslim court found him guilty of apostasy for converting to Christianity. He made his conversion public in December 1995 during a custody battle with his ex-wife, who Hussein claimed prevented him from seeing his two children because he had become a Christian.

Under Islamic law, adopting another religion is a crime punishable by death and public conversions out of Islam are rare in Arab nations. Hussein’s court case was the first of its kind in Kuwait.

Various American Christian groups took up Hussein’s case, including the Southern Baptist Foreign Mission Board. Forty-eight members of Congress also wrote to Kuwaiti Crown Prince Shaikh Saad al-Sabah on Hussein’s behalf.

Hussein apparently returned to Kuwait last August after marrying an American Christian missionary, Gatis said.

Reuter said the Kuwaiti newspaper also reported that his wife now wants to convert to Islam.

Civil rights pioneer Joseph Lowery to leave SCLC

(RNS) The Rev. Joseph Lowery, who for 20 years has led the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), has announced his retirement.

Lowery, 74, a United Methodist from Huntsville, Ala., said he will step down in July. A new SCLC president _ who is still to be named _ will be sworn in at the Atlanta-based civil rights organization’s national meeting set for that same month.

Working with the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and the Rev. Ralph Abernathy, Lowery helped found the SCLC in 1957 and make it one of the civil rights’ movement’s leading organizations.

Lowery said he plans to remain active writing books and lecturing.”I’m not leaving the scene. I’m only leaving the day-to-day activities,”Lowery was quoted by the Associated Press.

Raleigh Trammell, vice chairman of the SCLC board, credited Lowery for doing more to keep”the legacy of King alive than anyone else we could have called on.”

N.J. judge appoints attorney to defend fetus in abortion row

(RNS) A pregnant New Jersey woman jailed on drug charges is scheduled to be let out of prison to have an abortion as an attorney appointed by a judge to represent the fetus is seeking to prevent the procedure.

The 33-year-old woman, Sonya Jackson, is reportedly between 4 1/2 and 5 1/2 months pregnant. As of Friday (Jan. 31), her abortion has been scheduled for sometime next week.

While a nurse who examined Jackson placed the fetus’ age at about 4 1/2 months, Judge Leonard Arnold said in court Wednesday that the fetus is 5 1/2 months. Arnold did not question Jackson’s right to an abortion, but because of the fetus’ potential to survive outside the womb he said it is entitled to legal representation.

Attorney Richard Collier, president of the Morristown Legal Center for the Defense of Life, appointed by Arnold to defend the fetus, said he would file an appeal in an attempt to block the abortion.”That is infanticide, not abortion,”Collier told the Associated Press.

David Rocah, an American Civil Liberties Union attorney, said Arnold erred by appointing a lawyer to represent the fetus.”New Jersey courts have held over and over that a fetus is not a person,”he said.

Rocah said he would also file an appeal protesting the appointment of an attorney for the fetus and an anti-abortion activist at that.

Following the procedure, Jackson is scheduled to return to jail.

Japanese cult ruled no longer an imminent threat

(RNS) An independent panel in Japan has rejected a government request to ban the cult whose members have been found guilty of Tokyo subway nerve gas attacks and other violent crimes.

The panel of businessmen and other private citizens said that what remains of the Aum Shinri Kyo cult poses a potential, but not an imminent, threat. The panel also ruled Friday (Jan. 31) that the cult _ most of whose members have been jailed _ should be kept under continued surveillance.

Several hundred individuals are said to still be connected with Aum Shinri Kyo even though the cult has declared bankruptcy and most of its assets have been seized.

Cult leader Skoko Asahara has been jailed and is currently on trial. He has been charged with masterminding the 1995 subway gas attack that killed 12 and sickened hundreds of others. He also faces 20 other charges, including murder, kidnapping and illegal drug production. Asahara could face the death penalty.

Quote of the Day: University of Notre Dame professor David B. Burrell

(RNS) Writing in the current issue of Commonweal, an independent Catholic biweekly magazine, the Rev. David B. Burrell, a University of Notre Dame professor of arts and letters, noted the difficulty that Muslims in the United States face in maintaining their faith. Citing their success and the failure of Christians to do the same, he wrote:”A Christianity that no longer enjoys hegemony in the West, that is in search of new ways to witness to the community it claims to be, may take heart from an Islam transplanting itself in a society where it is clearly an outsider.”The challenge of the new century to all religious groups is not only to learn to live together, as we so cavalierly put it, but to learn from each other how to do so in the face of a corrosive ethos that bears little respect for human life and destiny while ostensibly celebrating the individual. That may be one of the critical insights we can take home from Islam.”

MJP END RNS