c. 2004 Religion News Service
Church Group Lobbies for Legal Medical Marijuana
WASHINGTON (RNS) The fight for compassionate medical marijuana policy is getting a boost from religious organizations ranging from the Episcopal Church to the Union for Reform Judaism.
Even though some of these groups have been supporters of legislative change for years, one Washington-area advocacy group is worried that lawmakers forget this broad religious support when it is time to cast their votes.
“Politicians who say they oppose medical uses of marijuana say they’re doing it because of morality,” said Charles Thomas, executive director of the Interfaith Drug Policy Initiative. “But what I want to know is, where did they get their ideas about morality?”
Thomas’ group sent letters to members of Congress on Wednesday (June 16) as part of a new campaign urging lawmakers to support an upcoming amendment that would protect a state’s right to decide if it will allow the use of medical marijuana.
The Hinchey-Rohrabacher amendment was first proposed in the House of Representatives last summer, but it lost by a 2-1 margin. Ten states currently allow sick people to smoke marijuana, but even in these states, citizens could be subject to federal prosecution for using the drug.
The letters target representatives who belong to denominations that have either supported allowing states to make their own policies or advocated broader legalization of the drug for medical use. Supporters include the United Church of Christ, the United Methodist Church, the Progressive National Baptist Convention, the National Council of Churches, the Evangelical Lutheran Church and the Unitarian Universalist Association.
They join a growing list of supporters of legalized medical marijuana, including Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau and TV talk-show host Montel Williams, who announced their support earlier this week.
“Medical marijuana is an issue of mercy,” Thomas said. “Patients who follow their doctors’ orders shouldn’t have to worry about being arrested or prosecuted. We, along with religious groups, are standing up for these vulnerable people.”
_ Juliana Finucane
RCA Calls `Christian Zionism’ an Obstacle in Mideast
(RNS) A popular reading of Scripture embraced by evangelical giants Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson, and played out in the top-selling “Left Behind” books, was declared a “distortion of the biblical message” by leaders of the Reformed Church in America.
The RCA’s annual General Synod, which met in Wheaton, Ill., adopted a resolution June 8 that calls Christian Zionism _ the belief that Israel must control the Holy Land before Christ returns to Earth _ an obstacle to Middle East peace.
“When it’s assumed that Israel has a divine right to the land, then they can’t be criticized,” said Jim Brownson, academic dean and professor of New Testament studies at Western Theological Seminary in Holland, Mich.
“There has to be compromise, understanding and cooperation. (Christian Zionism) is a trump card that undermines that process.”
Some delegates voiced concern about alienating supporters of Christian Zionism, which influences the popular “Left Behind” book series. But Brownson said it is important for the church to speak against a harmful understanding of the Bible.
“People are dying as a result of what we believe is a false interpretation of Scripture,” he said. The synod also directed RCA staff to keep working with the Middle East Council of Churches and other ecumenical groups on the issue of Christian Zionism.
An RCA report stated that Jesus was silent on the question of a restored Israeli nation-state, but that “he was not, however, mum about his desire to proclaim the good news and to see justice and mercy extended in human community.”
Based on that position, delegates discussed how a new creed might be applied to the conflict in Israel.
The RCA is exploring endorsement of the Belhar Confession, which arose in the 1980s out of the apartheid struggle in South Africa, as its first new creed since the 16th century. The paraphrase of gospel texts emphasizes reconciliation and unity.
“A central theme in the work of Christ is marked by the process of reconciliation between divided peoples,” Brownson said. The Belhar Confession would commit the RCA to “overcoming violence, hostility and division” wherever it occurs. “The promise of Abraham is a promise of reconciliation, of hope, of blessing for the world.”
_ Matt Vandebunte
Moscow Court Bans Jehovah’s Witnesses in City
(RNS) A Moscow court has ruled that Jehovah’s Witnesses encourage an “alienation from traditional religions” and has forbidden the group from worshipping in the city.
The verdict, which upheld a lower court decision, was first reported by the Associated Press on Wednesday (June 16).
According to Russian law, the courts are permitted to ban religious groups that they deem a threat to society, by inciting either hatred or intolerance.
Registration is required of all religions in Russia _ without it a congregation cannot rent space for its services, hold bank accounts, or distribute information about its faith.
A 1997 law avows respect for the “traditional religions” _ Buddhism, Islam and Judaism _ and names Orthodox Christianity as the country’s predominant religion.
The Jehovah’s Witnesses are registered nationally and in nearly 400 other cities in Russia, the New York Times reported. But some of the group’s leaders are alarmed about the prospect of Moscow’s ruling spreading to other cities.
“Religious freedom has just turned back to where it was in Soviet times,” John Burns, the group’s Canadian lawyer, told the AP.
Moscow prosecutors argued that certain practices of the Jehovah’s Witnesses, such as the prohibition against blood transfusions, endangers adherents’ health.
Defense lawyers said that the court was penalizing the group for not celebrating Russian national holidays and refusing to serve in the army.
Despite the ruling, some Jehovah’s Witnesses were defiant. Svetlana Genelova told the AP that the court’s ruling will not stop the group from practicing its faith.
“Nobody can forbid us to read and live by the Bible,” she said.
_ Daniel Burke
Panel Urges Religious Freedom as Top Priority in Iraq, Saudi Arabia
WASHINGTON (RNS) A federal advisory panel on international religious freedom urged Secretary of State Colin Powell to make religious freedom in Iraq a top priority for the new U.S. embassy in Baghdad.
The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, in its annual meeting with Powell on Wednesday (June 16), asked that a “high-level official” be appointed to ensure “freedom of thought, conscience, and religious belief and practice” in Iraq.
“The deplorable Abu Ghraib prison incidents highlight the necessity for the United States to ensure that human rights are protected both in U.S. actions in Iraq and in the permanent constitution,” said Michael Young, chairman of the 10-member panel.
In addition, the commission urged Powell to designate Saudi Arabia a “country of particular concern” for its “systematic, ongoing and egregious violations of the right to freedom of thought, conscience, religion and belief.”
Joanne Moore, a spokeswoman for the State Department, said the department is “examining the commission’s recommendations closely before making the department’s determination.”
The independent panel was created by the International Religious Freedom Act in 1998 to advise Congress, the White House and the State Department on global religious freedom issues.
On Tuesday (June 15), the New York-based Council on Foreign Relations issued a report on Saudi-funded terrorism and cited the commission’s 2003 report that showed the kingdom continues to export an extremist strain of Islam known as Wahhabism.
“It fosters virulence and intolerance directed against the United States, Christians, Jews and even other Muslims,” the CFR report said.
On Thursday, Sens. Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., introduced a nonbinding resolution urging Powell to name Saudi Arabia as a “country of particular concern.”
Last year, Powell named China, North Korea, Burma, Iran, Iraq and Sudan as countries of particular concern; Iraq was later removed. On Wednesday, the panel reiterated its earlier recommendations that Turkmenistan, Vietnam and Eritrea be added to the list. The panel is divided on whether India also belongs on that list.
“The integrity and utility of IRFA is being undermined by the failure to name abusive countries as countries of particular concern,” Young said.
_ Kevin Eckstrom
Christian Reformed Church Approves New Editor for Magazine
GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (RNS) Despite rankling readers with a controversial editorial on gay civil unions, the Rev. Robert De Moor on Tuesday (June 15) was named editor of the Christian Reformed Church’s national magazine.
De Moor received the unanimous blessing of the church’s synod to take over as editor of The Banner, the magazine for the Grand Rapids-based church.
The delegates’ swift approval came a month after De Moor, as interim editor, set off a deluge of protest by suggesting gay couples should be legally recognized as domestic partners while preserving traditional marriage.
However, the issue barely raised a ripple as delegates interviewed the Netherlands native for an hour, then approved him in less than five minutes.
De Moor expressed relief that a spirit of “openness” prevailed.
“There’s a lot of unity, a lot of love and a lot of commitment to God together,” said De Moor, 53, who led The Banner part time since last fall. “I’d like The Banner to be part of that.”
But De Moor takes on a troubled magazine whose readership dwindled to 21,000 subscribers from more than 50,000 in the 1980s. In a separate action, delegates voted to send The Banner to every CRC household, with costs supported by existing church assessments and advertising.
Officials hope the change will attract more and younger readers to The Banner _ whose average subscriber is age 65 _ and strengthen denominational ties.
“I hope The Banner truly becomes a town square where people can talk and share their differences,” said Gary Mulder, executive director of CRC Publications. “The result will be a more unified denomination that has identity.”
_ Charles Honey
World Jewish Congress Issues Plea for Tajik Synagogue
JERUSALEM (RNS) A century-old synagogue in the Central Asian republic of Tajikistan will soon be razed unless the Tajik government heeds international pressure to halt the destruction of that country’s only Jewish house of worship.
According to a statement issued Monday (June 14) by the World Jewish Congress, the government of Tajikistan plans to destroy the synagogue in order to develop a complex to be known as the “Palace of Nations.”
The complex is slated to be built in the capital city of Dushanbe, on the site of the traditional Jewish neighborhood, according to the WJC.
On Monday, the WJC sent a letter to UNESCO asking it to intervene with the government of Tajikistan. In the letter, WJC official Bobby Brown noted that Tajikistan is a signatory to the United Nations Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage.
As such, the letter said, Tajikistan has “recognized that the duty of ensuring the identification, protection (and) conservation” of historic and religious sites “belongs primarily to the state.”
Only 500 Jews remain in Tajikistan. “Most of them are elderly and impoverished and have no other place of prayer and social and cultural activity,” the WJC said.
_ Michele Chabin
Quote of the Day: Greek Orthodox Archbishop Demetrios
(RNS) “Within this area, which experienced the horror of total catastrophe, which was the ultimate in human ugliness, you have this type of place which is not a house, not a business, not a museum, not a symphony hall. It’s a religious place, which opens the realm of holiness _ this total other, the transcendent.”
_ Archbishop Demetrios, head of the Greek Orthodox Church in the United States, commenting about plans to rebuild St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church, which was destroyed by falling rubble from the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001. He was quoted by The New York Times.
DEA/PH END RNS
