c. 1996 Religion News Service
(Following is a collection of international religion stories compiled by RNS staff, wire and denominational reports.)
Muslims prepare for Ramadan
(RNS)-The more than 800 million Muslims around the world are preparing for the start of the holy month of Ramadan, which begins with the sighting of the next new moon, which should appear Jan. 21.
Ramadan is the ninth month of the Islamic calendar, the time tradition says Allah (God) began to reveal the Koran-the Muslim scripture-to the Prophet Muhammad in the seventh century. Observant Muslims mark the month by fasting and abstaining from sex and other sensual pleasures-such as listening to music-during daylight hours.
The Ramadan fast is one of Islam’s Five Pillars, the fundamental tenets of the faith. The others are a declaration of faith in the oneness of God and that Muhammad was his prophet, prayer five times daily, giving charity, and making a pilgrimage to Mecca.
Ramadan fasting is intended to teach discipline, self-restraint and generosity, noted Ibrahim Hooper, a spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a Muslim public policy group based in Washington.
Ramadan-which lasts 29 or 30 days, depending upon the sighting of the new moon that signals the start of a new month-is a period of self-reflection and religious study. But it also is a month of late-night socializing and family gatherings.
In many Muslim countries, cafes and restaurants are packed from sundown until dawn, and daily business activities slow to a crawl.
In the United States, Ramadan is a time when many of the nation’s 3 million to 5 million Muslims exchange greeting cards and visit mosques that they might rarely enter the rest of the year.
Ramadan ends with the Eid al-Fitr, the Festival of the Fast-Breaking, which lasts three days and is marked by communal prayers and meals.
Benin declares voodoo an officially recognized religion
(RNS)-The West African nation of Benin has declared voodoo an officially accepted religion.
President Nicephoro Soglo’s government said Tuesday (Jan. 9) the formal recognition aimed to”correct an injustice,”according to the Associated Press.
The government declared Jan. 10 a national paid holiday to celebrate voodoo and Benin’s other traditional faiths, saying they deserved the same recognition as Christian and Muslim events.
About 60 percent of Benin residents follow voodoo, which originated in the region about 400 years ago. The Marxist regime that came to power in 1972 discouraged the practice. Its followers worship spirits in search of guidance in their lives.
During a ceremony in Cotonou, the national voodoo bureau’s Sossa Guedehoungue led prayers and offered gifts to the gods to ensure peace and prosperity.
Hell: it may not be fire and brimstone, but it’s there
(RNS)-Hell exists.
So says the doctrine commission of the Church of England.
But popular conceptions of final damnation are off the mark, according to a commission report,”The Mystery of Salvation,”issued Thursday (Jan 11).”In the past the imagery of hell-fire and eternal torment and punishment, often sadistically expressed, has been used to frighten men and women into believing,”the report said.”Christians have professed appalling theologies which made God into a sadistic monster and left searing psychological scars on many.” The report said such views have led to a decline among Christians in a belief in eternal punishment because”the picture of a God who consigned millions to eternal torment was far removed from the revelation of God’s love in Christ.” Nevertheless, the report said, there is a hell.”The possibility remains for each human being of a final rejection of God,”and thus of a rejection of eternal life, the report said.”Hell is not eternal torment, but it is the final and irrevocable choosing of that which is opposed to God so completely and so absolutely that the only end is total non-being,”the report said.
It said,”Annihilation might be a truer picture of damnation than any of the traditional images of the hell of eternal torment.”
Serbian Orthodox official holds Mass for first time since war began
(RNS)-Metropolitan Nikolai, head of the Serbian Orthodox Church in Bosnia, conducted a service in government-held Sarajevo, the first senior leader of the church to do so since the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina began.
Metropolitan Nikolai celebrated Mass Monday (Jan. 8) for more than 100 Sarajevo Serbs to observe Orthodox Christmas, the Associated Press reported.
The service at Sarajevo’s oldest Orthodox church also included Monsignor Vinko Puljic, the Roman Catholic cardinal; Carl Bildt, top civilian administrator of the Bosnian peace agreement; and Mirko Pejanovic, a Serb member of the Bosnian presidency.
During the service, Metropolitan Nikolai blessed”Serb, Croat and Muslim people who have always lived in harmony here in Sarajevo.” After the Mass, the cleric met with Bosnian Prime Minister Haris Silajdzic, under heavy guard by French peace-keeping troops.”We have good relations with your church here in Sarajevo and through it with its believers,”Silajdzic said.”The fact that this church still stands here, untouched, says a lot about us (government) and about Bosnian Muslims. We have remained loyal to what we always believed Bosnia was.” Hundreds of mosques were blown up by Bosnian Serbs in the territory they control. In addition, many Muslim cemeteries were destroyed and replaced with parking lots.
With the exception of one Orthodox church in Tarcin, near Sarajevo, government forces destroyed no Orthodox monument or Serb graveyards.
French government urged to establish watchdog group on cults
(RNS)-Prompted by recent tragedies in the United States and Japan, a Parisian parliamentary commission has asked the French government to start a watchdog group on cults, Reuters reported.”We in France do not feel threatened by a tragedy such as occurred in Waco, Texas, or an attack like that perpetrated by the Aum sect in the Tokyo subway last spring,”the commission said in a report Wednesday (Jan. 10).”But the seeds of such tragedies exist on our territory, and prevention is necessary.” More than 70 members of the Branch Davidian sect were killed in a 1993 fire at a compound in Waco after a 51-day standoff with the U.S. government. Members of the doomsday cult Aum Shinri Kyo (Aum Supreme Truth sect) were charged with orchestrating nerve gas attacks on Tokyo’s subways that killed 11 and injured 5,000 in 1995.
After studying violence inspired by cults, including mass murder-suicides in Switzerland, France and Canada involving the Swiss cult Order of the Solar Temple, the committee decided such groups could grow quickly in France.
The commission-in an attempt to define the cults that need watching-listed some warning signs: exorbitant financial demands and mental pressure on believers; involvement of infants; physical harm to cult members; and preventing members from communicating with friends and families.
It is estimated that 173 cult groups and an additional 800 smaller affiliated entities currently operate in France, with a total membership of about 160,000 people.
Thousands march on behalf of controversial Brazilian religious group
(RNS)-Thousands of demonstrators took to the streets of five Brazilian cities Jan 6. on behalf of the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God, a controversial religious group that is the target of a government probe into its finances.”We are here to clamor for justice and not to promote the conflict,”Bishop Paulo Roberto Guimares told a rally of the marchers in Sao Paulo, according to ALC, the news agency of the Latin American Council of Churches.
ALC quoted Brazilian newspaper and television estimates that 100,000 people took part in the Sao Paulo demonstration. Similar but smaller marches took place in Rio de Janeiro, Curitaba, Brasilia and Florianpolis.
Last week, Brazil’s tax agency asked a court to freeze the assets of the Rev. Edir Macedo, leader of the denomination, and said it believed Macedo owes $5 million in back taxes and penalties.
The Brazilian attorney general’s office also said it was investigating accusations that Macedo and other church leaders swindled followers.
END RNS
