c. 2003 Religion News Service

Bush Reaffirms Reliance on Faith in Magazine Interview

WASHINGTON (RNS) President Bush reaffirmed his reliance on his faith in an interview with Ladies’ Home Journal and attributed his concern about AIDS policy to his reading of the Bible.

“Just living this life _ when you realize that there is an Almighty God on whom you can rely _ it provides a great comfort,” the president told former White House speechwriter Peggy Noonan in a Q-and-A interview for the magazine’s October issue.

“That’s why I read every morning, the Bible and Scriptures and Charles Stanley devotionals. It matters a lot to me personally.”

Stanley is senior pastor of First Baptist Church of Atlanta and a former president of the Southern Baptist Convention.

Bush told Noonan that he thinks those who are not particularly religious should not fear those who are.

“The Bible talks about love and compassion and to whom much has been given, much is required,” he said. “That’s really a lot behind my passion on AIDS policy, for example.”

The president went on to declare his belief in a pluralistic society.

“I believe people can choose whatever religion they choose,” he said. “It’s not my job _ nor the government’s _ to dictate religion. On the other hand, I would hope it would give people great comfort to know there’s a religious person holding the office.”

Bush also said he thinks there probably have been and probably will be presidents who do not share his viewpoint on faith.

“From my perspective, however, I know that belief in God and prayer, and prayers of people on our behalf, makes a huge difference,” he said.

The October issue of Ladies’ Home Journal, which features the interview with Bush and first lady Laura Bush, will be on newsstands by the beginning of September.

_ Adelle M. Banks

Update: Christian, Jewish Visits to Temple Mount Resume

JERUSALEM (RNS) For only the second time in three years, the Temple Mount, revered by Jews, Muslims and Christians, is open to visits by non-Muslims.

Since Wednesday (Aug. 20), hundreds of Jews and Christians have visited and prayed on the Mount, which Muslims call Haram al-Sharif. At the moment, non-Muslims may visit between 9 and 11 a.m. Sunday through Thursday, but not on Friday, the Muslim sabbath.

Once the home of the First and Second biblical Temples, the Temple Mount stands above the Western Wall and contains the Holy of Holies, Judaism’s most sacred site. It is also the site of the Al Aqsa Mosque, the third holiest place in Islam.

The Wakf, the Muslim religious body that controls the mount, closed the site’s gates to non-Muslims in the fall of 2000 after Ariel Sharon, then the head of Israel’s opposition Likud Party and now prime minister, visited the shrine to underscore Jewish rights to it.

Sharon’s provocative visit sparked the current intifada.

The renewed access to non-Muslims is the result of months of behind-the- scenes negotiations between officials from the Wakf and Israel, as well as input from Palestinian and Jordanian sources.

In May, with little fanfare, Israel and the Wakf quietly began admitting non-Muslims to the mount, a fact that did not arouse wide-scale demonstrations. Three weeks ago, the Israeli government stopped the visits, citing unspecified security concerns. With the tacit agreement of the Wakf, Israel reinstated access Wednesday.

Historically, non-Muslims have been able to visit the mount on-and-off since the 1920s. However, Jordan prohibited Jews from reaching the mount and other eastern Jerusalem holy sites during its reign over that part of the city from 1948 to 1967.

While many Jews hailed the latest development, saying that Jewish worshippers must never again be denied access to its holiest shrine, some from the most Orthodox stream said Jews should not visit the mount out of fear that they might inadvertently tread on ground considered too sacred to touch.

Jerusalem Mayor Uri Lupoliansky, an ultra-Orthodox Jew, told the daily newspaper Ha’aretz he feared a Muslim backlash and even more bloodshed. He made his remarks the day after a Palestinian bomber blew up a commuter bus full of Jewish worshippers returning from prayers at the Western Wall.

The Rev. Ruediger Scholz, pastor of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of the Ascension, a German-speaking congregation on the Mount of Olives, voiced similar concerns to RNS.

“We need to see the political implications, and whether they outweigh opening the site,” Scholz said. “If the situation worsens, then it wasn’t worth it.”

_ Michele Chabin

Saudi Muslim Clerics Condemn Terror Attacks by Islamic Extremists

(RNS) Leading Muslim clerics in Saudi Arabia have issued a fatwa, or religious ruling, calling terror attacks by Islamic extremists “serious criminal acts,” the BBC reported.

“Theses acts have nothing to do with jihad for the sake of God,” the Council of Senior Clerics said, the BBC reported. “We must rally around the leadership of this country and its scholars, especially in this time of dissent.”

The council, which is headed by Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdul-Azez al-Sheikh, the kingdom’s highest religious authority, said it supported the Saudi authorities in their fight against militant extremists carrying out bombings and murders in the country.

Saudi Arabia, home to 15 of the 19 Sept. 11, 2001 hijackers, has been cracking down on militants since May, when triple suicide attacks targeting Westerners in Riyadh killed 35 people, including nine attackers.

Saudi security forces have arrested about 200 militants and killed 12 since the attacks, which Saudi and U.S. officials say were carried out by Saudi-born Osama bin Ladin’s al-Qaida network.

Previously, the Saudi government faced criticism from U.S. politicians that it was not doing enough to fight terrorism.

Senior clerics on the council said those who committed violence under the guise of holy war were “ignorant and misguided,” adding that those who supported or sheltered the militants were also guilty of “great sin.”

Study of India’s Christian Minority Planned

(RNS) A government-backed commission in India is planning to conduct the first detailed study of the country’s Christian minority.

Christians account for 2.3 percent of India’s 1 billion people. More than 80 percent of India’s population is Hindu, while 13 percent is Muslim. Jains, Buddhists and Parsees are among the country’s other religious minorities.

“So far, there has been no proper study or documentation about the Christian community,” said V.V. Augustine, the Christian representative on the National Commission for Minorities, which is planning the survey, according to Ecumenical News International, the Geneva-based religious news agency. “Nobody knows the percentage of Christians in government service, police or armed forces.”

The commission hopes that the study will help remove “prejudices and misunderstandings” about the Christian minority and highlight their contributions to the nation, Augustine told a meeting of more than a hundred Christians in New Delhi on Aug. 12.

But some Christian leaders worry the study will ignore the difficulties Christians face in India, where religious minorities have experienced a resurgence of attacks, including a recent assault of a Capuchin priest in Bangalore.

Some also worry the government-supported commission may act as an advocate for the ruling Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party rather than pressing the government to address minority concerns.

The BJP has been accused of limiting Christians’ religious rights through such legislation as the Anti-Conversion Law, a law designed to limit Christian evangelical activity.

Charges that the commission has acted as a mouthpiece for the BJP resulted in the removal of the former Christian representative on the commission, John Joseph, when he remarked that attacks on Christians were only “isolated incidents.”

Augustine, who was recently appointed to the commission by the BJP-led government, said he plans to use his position to help the Christian community.

_ Alexandra Alter

New Publisher of The Christian Science Monitor Elected

(RNS) The Christian Science Board of Directors has elected M. Victor Westberg of Los Altos, Calif., to be the new publisher of The Christian Science Monitor.

Westberg succeeds John L. Selover, who died Aug. 1, as a member of the five-person board and as manager of The Christian Science Publishing Society, which publishes the daily newspaper.

“John expanded the Monitor’s reach, increased its visibility and established a new standard of excellence,” said Virginia Harris, chairman of the board, in a statement announcing the transition. “These are big shoes to fill, and Vic has the experience, dedication and spiritual strength to fill them.”

Westberg, a U.S. Navy veteran and former toy distributor, has served numerous roles in the First Church of Christ, Scientist. He has been a full-time Christian Science practitioner, using the teachings of his religion to seek the healing of individuals through prayer. He also has been manager of the Committees on Publications, overseeing public relations and other operations of the religious body throughout the world, and assistant manager of the Christian Science Publishing Society.

In his new role as manager of the society, Westberg also will oversee the publication of Christian Science religious magazines.

_ Adelle M. Banks

Quote of the Day: Former White House Press Secretary Mike McCurry

(RNS) “Partisan politics _ Democrats and Republicans and who’s up and who’s down _ I kind of agree that that’s not the primary place that the church needs to locate its work. But in the business of impacting a community and dealing with those who are dispossessed and doing a lot of things that are inherently political, that’s right there at the core of what we’re called to do in the gospel.”

_ Former White House press secretary Mike McCurry, a member of St. Paul’s United Methodist Church in Kensington, Md. He was quoted by the UMConnection, the newspaper of the Baltimore-Washington Conference of the United Methodist Church.

DEA END RNS