c. 1999 Religion News Service

Update: New Indonesian Christian-Muslim strife leaves hundreds dead

(RNS) More than 300 people have died in clashes this week between Indonesian Christians and Muslims

In North Maluku province, some 250 people have been killed in violence that began Sunday (Dec. 26), a military spokesman said. The fighting on the island of Halmahera began when a mob of 400 Christians attacked a Muslim village, according to Lt. Col. Iwa Budiman, a local military spokesman.

In the adjoining province of Maluku, 68 people have died in similar sectarian clashes since Sunday, according to local news reports. Fighting there abated Thursday, although tensions remained high in Ambon, the Maluku provincial capital.

The death toll is the highest in a year of often savage fighting between Christians and Muslims in the two provinces, which were known as the Spice Islands under Dutch colonial rule, the Associated Press reported.

The Spice Islands, located in the eastern part of the Indonesian archipelago, were once held up as a national model of interfaith relations. However, tensions date back to 1950 when the Christians _ many with ties to the Dutch colonial administration _ battled Indonesian troops in a bid to secede from the predominantly Muslim nation.

More recently, animosity between the two groups was stoked by an influx of Muslim migrants from other parts of the country, upsetting the numerical balance between the communities. The newcomers have come to dominate retail trading, siphoning off business from Christians.

On Thursday (Dec. 30), Christians in Maluku urged the international community to intervene to prevent a full-scale religious war. “The United Nations must intervene to separate and protect the two communities and ensure peace,” said Chris Sahetopy, a Christian member of the provincial assembly.

Some 800 lives had been lost in the Christian-Muslim fighting prior to this week’s added toll, the Jakarta government said. Unofficial estimates put the number at 1,500.

Indonesian commanders in the two provinces have urged that martial law be imposed in the region, located 1,500 miles east of Jakarta. But President Abdurrahman Wahid rejected calling a state of emergency.

Wahid, who visited Ambon on Dec. 12, also has ruled out foreign intervention, saying the conflict is an internal affair.

Chinese court reportedly tries Falun Gong couple in secret

(RNS) A couple arrested in the crackdown on the Falun Gong spiritual movement has reportedly been tried in secret in the central Chinese city of Wuhan, a rights group said.

Wang Hansheng and his wife, Xu Xianglan, were charged with organizing and using a cult to undermine the law in their four-hour, Dec. 23 trial, according to the Hong Kong-based Information Center of Human Rights and Democratic Movement in China.

The center said Thursday (Dec. 30) that no verdict had as yet been made public. The center also said the court found no evidence to support accusations in state news media that Falun Gong founder Li Hongzhi shared huge profits made by the couple’s sales of movement books and photos.

However, the center provided no information to back its claim about the court. A person who answered the telephone at the court abruptly hung up when asked about the case by the Associated Press.

Meanwhile, more members of the group were detained Thursday in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square, where Falun Gong followers have been holding small, quiet protests that are quickly stopped by police on an almost daily basis. Officers led away three men who held up their arms in a meditation pose used by the group. A separate group of three women was also taken away.

The government banned the popular spiritual movement in July, calling it a threat to communist control. Four Falun Gong organizers were tried on Sunday in Beijing and sentenced to prison terms of seven to 18 years.

Falun Gong leaders say their movement, which claims tens of millions of followers in China, is concerned with healthy and moral living, not political power. Falun Gong combines elements of Buddhism and Taoism with”qigong,”a traditional Chinese system of physical movements and meditation.

In Singapore, eight Falun Gong members delivered letters to the Chinese Embassy on Thursday, expressing concern over recent arrests of members in China.

“We hope the Chinese government can have peaceful talks with us to solve the Falun Gong situation, and stop the unfair arrests of Chinese practitioners,” said Xiao Gao, one of the petitioners.

The letter concerned three students from China who practiced Falun Gong and had been studying electronics at Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University, Xiao said. Falun Gong says the three were arrested while visiting Beijing during a November vacation.

Anglican bishops promise to press for discipline of liberals

(RNS) A group of conservative Anglican primates say they intend to press leaders of the worldwide Anglican Communion to intervene in dioceses where”liberal”actions rejecting”Anglican orthodoxy”on such issues as ordination of gays and same-sex marriage primates.

The primates, bishops who head national churches or regions, met in Kampala, Uganda, in mid-November and adopted a resolution promising to”carefully document”situations”caused by the misuse of provincial autonomy and innovations exceeding the limits of our Anglican diversity,”the Episcopal News Service reported.

The primates, from Rwanda, Uganda, Congo, Burundi, Southeast Asia, Tanzania and the Southern Cone of America, are especially unhappy with problems they feel have been caused by liberal church leaders’ pro-gay stances in the United States, Canada and Scotland.

They said they would press the communion’s Primates Meeting _ a gathering of all the church’s top episcopal leaders _ to adopt measures to”ensure a return to historic standards for ordination, moral and marriage disciplines where in our our communion these have been notoriously breached.” That includes, they said,”emergency”intervention by top church officials in liberal provinces, or regions, dioceses that flout, in the name of permissible diversity, church stances barring the ordination of gays and opposing same-sex marriages.

The Primates Meeting is scheduled for March in Lisbon, Portugal.

British church leaders issue millennium statement

(RNS) Some two-and-a-half million households in the United Kingdom _ about one in eight of the country’s 20 million households _ have each been given a”millennium candle”by their local churches.

The churches want people to light the candles at five minutes to midnight on New Year’s Eve and join in reciting the millennium resolution drawn up by the churches:”Let there be respect for the earth, peace for its people, love in our lives, delight in the good, forgiveness for past wrongs, and from now on a new start.” This”millennium moment”is to be broadcast on television by both BBC channels, ITV, and Sky Television. The millennium resolution will also form part of the ceremonies in the Millennium Dome at Greenwich attended by Queen Elizabeth, Archbishop of Canterbury George Carey, and Prime Minister Tony Blair.

When the candle scheme was launched in October 1998 it was hoped that through local churches every household in the country would receive a candle.

Meanwhile, leaders of the English churches, including Carey, and Roman Catholic Archbishop Michael Bowen of Southwark, have issued a millennium statement acknowledging the churches’ past failings.”We rejoice in 2,000 years of Christian witness, service, and faithfulness. We also acknowledge that we have often fallen short of the example given us by the Prince of Peace in our treatment of others,”they said.

But entering another millennium is”an excellent moment”for reflection and re-evaluation.”The new year and new century provide the chance to start again: to make a new start with God, a new start with each other, and a new start for the world’s poor. Here is a God-given opportunity to step out into the future with greater openness to God’s love, a larger generosity towards one another, and a fuller commitment to use the earth’s resources more fairly and responsibly.”

Illinois pastor named to head World Parliament of Religions

(RNS) The Rev. Robert V. Thompson, pastor and senior minister at the Lake Street Church in Evanston, Ill., has become the new chair of the Council for a Parliament of World Religions, the interreligious organization that promotes interfaith tolerance and understanding.

The council, formed in the late 1980s to celebrate the first Parliament of World Religions held in Chicago in 1893, has become an ongoing institution. It met early in December in Cape Town, South Africa and plans periodic future gatherings of the world’s spiritual leaders to discuss ethical and moral issues.”The fact that CPWR has been able to organize two major parliaments in two very different parts of the world demonstrates its viability,”Thompson said in a Dec. 27 statement, referring to the Cape Town meeting and the centennial meeting of the first parliament held in Chicago in 1993.

Quote of the day: Israeli President Ezer Weizman

(RNS)”The New Year marks the end of a century which has witnessed great social and technological progress, as well as great human suffering. It is my sincere hope that during the next century mankind will benefit from the realization of humanity’s great scientific and social potential and that the peoples of the world will draw closer together. Past prejudices and old hatreds need to be discarded and replaced by tolerance and understanding, thereby ushering in a new era of peace and prosperity.” _ Israeli President Weizman in a New Year’s message to the Christian world.

DEA END RNS