c. 2004 Religion News Service
Muslim Political Action Committee Gives Kerry `Qualified Endorsement’
(RNS) A political action committee representing major U.S. Muslim advocacy groups has given a “qualified endorsement” to Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry.
The American Muslim Taskforce-Political Action Committee (AMT-PAC), which is affiliated with an umbrella organization representing the American Muslim Alliance, Council on American-Islamic Relations, Islamic Society of North America and other groups, made its long-awaited announcement at a press conference Thursday (Oct. 21).
Earlier, the group had reportedly been leaning toward making no endorsement in the hotly contested election, but AMT-PAC chairman Agha Saeed called those reports “fallacious” and “rumors.”
After much internal debate and discussion, the group announced a “qualified endorsement” of Kerry’s campaign, but also said that it is urging Muslims to make a “protest vote,” in which they vote not necessarily in favor of Kerry, but against President George W. Bush.
Leaders say that civil liberties for Muslim Americans have been threatened during the current administration, and that this is a large reason for the endorsement.
“We believe that there has been such bias in the treatment of Muslim and Arab communities in this country,” Saeed told Religion News Service.
Saeed said that third-party candidate Ralph Nader has the admiration of many in the Muslim community for his stance on civil liberties, though he has not won their endorsement.
“He is a real ally in the struggle for civil liberties and civil rights,” said Saeed.
But “voting for him would put our community outside the mainstream, and we do not want to do that,” he said.
In 2000, a political action committee with a different name but including many of the same leaders as the AMT-PAC endorsed Bush, largely because of comments he made against racial profiling.
_Holly Lebowitz Rossi
Father of Beheaded Businessman Buoyed by Letters From Muslims
WASHINGTON (RNS) The father of Nicholas Berg, a 26-year-old businessman beheaded in Iraq by Islamic militants, said Wednesday (Oct. 20) that letters of condolence and apology from Muslims have helped him grieve his loss.
“The letters said that what happened to my son was a misrepresentation of Islam,” Michael Berg said, adding that he believes that is the case. Terror suspect Musab al-Zarqawi has claimed responsibility for the beheading.
Michael Berg made the comment at a Washington news conference publicizing the Iraq Photo Project, which sends photos to Iraq of ordinary Americans holding handwritten signs apologizing for the United States’ invasion and occupation. Many signs are in Arabic and some offer prayers for peace.
Berg, who lives in West Chester, Pa., has joined that effort. His son was beheaded in May shortly after revelations of American abuse of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.
Berg added that just as the murder of his son is not an accurate reflection of Islam, the prison scandal does not represent Christianity in the United States.
“My son Nick will never come home,” he said. “And 20,000 Iraqis will never go home.”
At the news conference, Michael Berg wore anti-war buttons around his neck and carried a sign that read, “I am sorry and ashamed for the tremendous loss my government has caused the Iraqi people.”
Michael Berg’s photograph is one of more than 400 Americans that are compiled in a CD the Fellowship of Reconciliation is distributing to Al-Jazeera and other news media in Iraq.
Berg said his photo project is a way to “restore to the Iraqi people their belief in the goodness of people.”
The Fellowship of Reconciliation, based in Nyack, N.Y., was formed in 1914 at the outbreak of World War I when a German Lutheran and an English Quaker decided to work together for peace.
The Christian organization evolved into an interfaith fellowship of Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists and other faiths that work for peace, disarmament, and racial and economic justice.
The Fellowship of Reconciliation is not a newcomer to Iraq. Its photo project is part of an Iraq Program that began during the Gulf War in 1990, when the organization sent medicine and water purifiers to the Iraqi people.
_ Wangui Njuguna
`Jesus’ Film Available on Internet in Hundreds of Languages
(RNS) Twenty-five years after its theatrical release, the film “Jesus” has made its Internet debut. It can be viewed in more than 300 languages at http://www.JesusFilm.org.
The two-hour film is a biblical account of the life of Christ. It was produced by Campus Crusade for Christ and was released in theaters in 1979.
“To our knowledge, a film has never been freely available on the Internet in so many different languages,” said Jim Green, executive director of The JESUS Film Project, which oversees the film.
The JESUS Film Project is part of Campus Crusade for Christ, one of the largest Christian ministries in the world. The film is also available on VHS and DVD.
_ Wangui Njuguna
Presbyterians Say Comments In Hezbollah Meeting Were `Reprehensible’
(RNS) Top officials of the Presbyterian Church (USA) now say comments made by members of a church delegation meeting with Hezbollah leaders were “reprehensible” and the controversial visit was “misguided at best.”
Church leaders, reeling from stinging criticism by Jewish groups, said they did not authorize Sunday’s (Oct. 17) visit to a Southern Lebanon refugee camp controlled by Hezbollah, listed as a terrorist organization by the U.S. State Department.
During the visit, Ronald Stone, a retired professor at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, told Hezbollah officials that, “relations and conversations with Islamic leaders are a lot easier than dealings and dialogue with Jewish leaders.”
“As a church, and as individuals, we know at the core of our souls that terrorism, especially terrorism against civilians, is one clear source of the lack of peace in the Middle East,” said the Thursday (Oct. 21) letter to top Jewish leaders.
Leaders of the Union for Reform Judaism and the Anti-Defamation League called the visit “appalling” and “outrageous,” especially after the Presbyterians’ vote last summer to study financial divestment in companies operating in Israel.
The letter from Stated Clerk Clifton Kirkpatrick, Moderator Rick Ufford-Chase and General Assembly Council Director John Detterick was addressed to Jewish members of a Sept. 28 summit in New York City. At that meeting, church officials did not yield on the divestment controversy, but promised greater dialogue.
The church leaders said once they heard of the visit, they tried to “drop this visit from their plans,” and now consider the visit “misguided at best.”
“We in no way condone the terrorism of groups such as Hezbollah, or of individuals or other actors in the region,” the church leaders said. “Terrorism in all its forms is morally abhorrent and completely inexcusable in our eyes.”
The visit, by members of the church’s Advisory Committee on Social Witness Policy, received special funding to allow the panel to conduct its first-ever meeting in the Middle East to assess the situation on the ground.
In an initial response on Wednesday, the three leaders would only say that the visit and members’ statements “do not reflect the official position” of the church on Middle East.
Mark Pelavin, associate director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, said the letter was a “welcomed response” and was pleased to see the Presbyterians finally disassociate themselves from a terrorist group.
“I think the statement clearly reflects that they understand our concerns,” he said. “Are there still plenty of tensions and issues? Of course. Was this an ugly and stupid chapter? Yes. Did the letter address our concerns? Yes.”
_ Kevin Eckstrom
Jews, Mainline Churches, Gather to Forge Shared Agenda
WASHINGTON (RNS) Participants at a 24-hour summit of mainline Protestant and Jewish leaders said tensions between the two groups over Israeli policy did not derail talks but added to a sense of urgency to reach common ground.
David Elcott, the U.S. director of interreligious affairs for the American Jewish Committee, brought together 18 mainline and Jewish leaders to discuss ways the two faiths could work for peace in the Middle East and on a shared domestic policy agenda at home.
The meeting, which ended Thursday (Oct. 21), came as Jewish groups heavily criticized Presbyterians for proposed financial divestment in Israel and a church delegation that met with Hezbollah leaders during a visit to Lebanon.
Elcott said the strained tensions over Israel did not dampen the meeting, but rather spurred both sides to work harder to “engage each other” and see the volatile Middle East through each other’s eyes.
“No one sought to limit this to a feel-good gathering,” Elcott said after the meeting. “We understood the gravity of why we were gathering and the importance of this moment in the face of religious violence around the world.”
While both sides have worked closely on progressive social causes at home, the Israeli treatment of Palestinians _ and the American churches’ response _ have strained relations in recent years. Elcott said both sides share a commitment to a secure Israel and an independent Palestinian state.
“The world does not need another statement, it needs action,” he said. “So our discussion was in the arena of what actions we can take to move this agenda forward.”
Bishop Christopher Epting, the ecumenical director for the Episcopal Church, said getting both sides to talk to each other is sometimes the biggest challenge. The Washington meeting was a follow-up session to an earlier meeting last spring.
“Recognizing there has been a strain in these relations over the last few years, that’s why we’re meeting, trying to heal that breach,” he said.
Jewish participants included leaders of the American Jewish Committee, Anti-Defamation League, the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, and Reform and Conservative leaders. Churches represented included the Episcopal Church, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, United Methodist Church, Presbyterian Church (USA), Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), the United Church of Christ and the National Council of Churches.
_ Kevin Eckstrom
Christian Theologians Critique `National Theology of War’
WASHINGTON (RNS) A coalition of more than 200 Christian theologians and ethicists voiced concern Friday (Oct. 22) over what they called an emerging “national theology of war,” saying the war on terrorism doesn’t take precedence “over ethical and legal norms.”
“A climate in which violence is too easily accepted, and the roles of God, church and nation too easily confused, calls for a new confession of Christ,” said Jim Wallis, the editor of Sojourners magazine, in a statement. “No nation-state may usurp the place of God.”
Lead by the progressive Christian faith and social policy organization Sojourners, theologians from a range of progressive and conservative religious institutions signed a confession in which they “reject the false teaching that a war on terrorism takes precedence over ethical and legal norms.”
“Our allegiance to Christ takes priority over national identity. Whenever Christianity compromises with empire, the gospel of Christ is discredited,” the confession reads.
Speaking to reporters on a conference call, Wallis was asked if the confession is meant as a critique of President Bush and the war in Iraq and an endorsement of Democrat Sen. John F. Kerry in the presidential election. Wallis said it was not an endorsement, but that the confession is important because of the upcoming election.
“These issues are relevant now because political choices are being made,” Wallis said.
Theologians from Duke Divinity School, Fuller Theological Seminary, Calvin College, and Hope College are among the signatories of the confession, according to Wallis.
The confession follows a national newspaper advertising campaign by Sojourners that displayed a large headline reading “God is not a Republican. Or a Democrat.”
_ Itir Yakar
Jewish Leaders Ask for Prayer for Sharon’s Safety
JERUSALEM (RNS) Leaders of the Conservative movement in the U.S. and Israel have called on Conservative Jews around the world to say a special prayer for the well-being of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon during Shabbat services Saturday (Oct. 23).
The leadership of the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism and the Masorti Movement in Israel issued their joint statement Wednesday, in response to reports that Sharon is receiving death threats from Jewish extremists.
Several prominent Israeli rabbis, including the heads of some religious seminaries where soldiers combine Torah study with their mandatory military service, have ordered their students and other adherents not to take part in the dismantling of Jewish settlements in Gaza. Sharon’s plan to evacuate all settlers from Gaza next summer has met with great resistance _ until now peaceful _ from the settlers and their supporters.
Fearful that such rabbinical decrees could weaken the Israeli army and even cause a civil war in Israel, several other Israeli rabbis said this week that soldiers must obey orders, even if it means the evacuation of settlements.
The movement’s statement “challenges the call of ultra-Orthodox rabbis to institute “death rituals,” intended to bring an end to the life of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon” and calls upon “every Jew in Conservative/Masorti synagogues throughout the world to offer a special prayer for the health and well-being of the Israeli leader.”
The statement notes that Israel’s late Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, who in the mid-1990s relinquished territory to the Palestinians in return for a promise of peace under the Oslo Accords, was assassinated by a Jewish extremist nine years ago next week.
Rabbi James Lebeau, director of the United Synagogue Fuchsberg Jerusalem Center, said that the leadership felt compelled to issue the call for prayer “after we heard statements about threats to Sharon. We felt that as an organization we had to react. If rabbis don’t set the moral tone in the country, if they don’t respond to this type of heresy, they are not true religious leaders.”
_ Michele Chabin
Former Washington Cardinal James Hickey Dies at 84
WASHINGTON (RNS) Cardinal James Hickey, the soft-spoken former archbishop of Washington and one of only 14 U.S. cardinals, died Sunday (Oct. 24) after a lengthy illness. He was 84.
Hickey was named to the prominent archdiocese by Pope John Paul II in 1980 and made a cardinal in 1988. He retired in 2000 as a non-voting member of the College of Cardinals and the nation’s second-eldest cardinal. He never had the opportunity to vote for a new pope in a conclave.
“The death of Cardinal Hickey is poignant for the church of Washington and a personal loss for me,” said Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, who succeeded Hickey and was at his bedside when he died. “Although he carried a heavy cross of illness during the past few years, his courage and faith continued to be a great inspiration to us all.”
Hickey shied away from the limelight of his post and carried a special devotion to the poor. Under his watch, Catholic Charities of Washington became the region’s largest provider of social services, and he also launched a nonprofit agency to provide housing to the elderly.
“We serve the homeless not because they are Catholic, but because we are Catholic,” he once said. “If we don’t care for the sick, educate the young, care for the homeless, then we cannot call ourselves the church of Christ.”
President Bush, in a statement, praised Hickey as “an inspirational leader who brought comfort to the sick and help and hope to those in need. He was a caring and compassionate man.”
James Aloysius Hickey was born in 1920 in Midland, Mich., and entered the seminary at age 13. He was ordained in 1946 and went on to earn two doctorates from prestigious seminaries in Rome. In 1967, he was named auxiliary bishop of Saginaw, Mich., and then served as rector of the Pontifical North American College in Rome from 1969 to 1974.
In 1974, Hickey was named bishop of Cleveland. Just prior to his transfer to Washington in 1980, Hickey attended the funeral of assassinated Archbishop Oscar Romero of El Salvador, and later became an outspoken critic of that country after two U.S. missionaries he commissioned were killed there.
During a gala 80th birthday party for Hickey in 2000, Bishop William Lori of Bridgeport, Conn., who served as an auxiliary bishop under Hickey, said Hickey’s quiet nature belied his influence in the U.S. church.
“Cardinal Hickey is a man who, in a very quiet, persistent and most of the times behind-the-scenes way, has worked to build the church,” he told Religion News Service at the gala. “He was a quiet force in the church, certainly, but a very real one.”
Hickey’s funeral will be celebrated by McCarrick on Saturday (Oct. 30) at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington. He will be buried in the archbishops’ crypt at St. Matthew’s Cathedral, also in Washington.
_ Kevin Eckstrom
Salvation Army Regains Top Position on List of Successful Charities
(RNS) The Salvation Army has returned to the top of the Chronicle of Philanthropy’s list of the nation’s 400 most successful fund-raising organizations, the newspaper reported.
The Christian charity dropped to the second position in the newspaper’s annual “Philanthropy 400” last year when it previously had always held the No. 1 slot.
Contributions to the nation’s top fund-raising groups increased by 2.3 percent in 2003. That increase was viewed as a sign of recovery from 2002, when organizations on the annual list saw a drop in contributions of 1.2 percent.
The other top 10 charities are as follows: 2. American Cancer Society. 3. Gifts in Kind International. 4. YMCA. 5. Lutheran Services in America. 6. AmeriCares Foundation. 7. Fidelity Charitable Gift Fund. 8. American National Red Cross. 9. Feed the Children. 10. Harvard University.
Of the 17 organizations that were labeled as “religious groups,” 10 were in the top 200: 23. Campus Crusade for Christ International. 46. Wesleyan Church. 98. Christian Broadcasting Network. 104. Trinity Christian Center of Santa Ana (Trinity Broadcasting Network). 108. Young Life. 116. Focus on the Family. 120. Wycliffe Bible Translators. 132. National Christian Foundation. 170. Billy Graham Evangelistic Association. 180. The Navigators.
_ Adelle M. Banks
Quote of the Day: United Methodist Bishop Kenneth Carder
(RNS) “A Christian who assumes the role of God’s press secretary announcing God’s endorsement of a particular candidate should be considered an imposter. Claiming such unmistakable certainty about God’s thinking reflects a dangerous humility deficit that results in godless actions in the name of God. That is the worst kind of profanity.”
_ Retired United Methodist Bishop Kenneth Carder, in a commentary distributed by United Methodist News Service. Carder is the former bishop of Mississippi and Nashville, Tenn., and now teaches at Duke University Divinity School.
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