c. 2003 Religion News Service
Top Military Official’s `Christian Nation’ Comments Spark Reaction
(RNS) Some religious leaders have called for the reassignment or punishment of a top military official after media reports said he made comments to church audiences about the war on terrorism being a religious battle.
NBC’s “Nightly News With Tom Brokaw” reported Wednesday (Oct. 15) that Lt. Gen. William “Jerry” Boykin told a church group in June that the reason terrorists are trying to destroy the United States is “because we’re a Christian nation.”
In another church setting in January, he said of a Muslim fighter in Somalia who had said Americans would never get him because of Allah, his God: “Well, you know what I knew, that my God was bigger than his. I knew that my God was a real God, and his was an idol.”
Boykin, promoted this summer to deputy undersecretary of defense, is responsible for helping the military track down deposed Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden.
He told NBC that he plans to cut back on such speeches in the future because “I don’t want … to be misconstrued. I don’t want to come across as a right-wing radical.”
Religious leaders reacted with a variety of suggestions for how Boykin should be handled in light of the reported remarks.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations said Boykin should be reassigned.
“Putting a man with such extremist views in a critical policy-making position sends entirely the wrong message to a Muslim world that is already skeptical about America’s motives and intentions,” said Nihad Awad, executive director of the council, in a statement.
The Rev. Barry Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, said Boykin should be fired and called his beliefs “totally unacceptable” for someone in his position.
The Rev. Welton Gaddy, president of the Interfaith Alliance, said Boykin should be reprimanded.
“The Interfaith Alliance affirms the right of all Americans to speak publicly about their religious beliefs, but also believes it is offensive and audacious to critique or define another’s deity or tradition, especially when their leadership role calls for working with people of different faiths,” he said.
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld told reporters at a briefing Thursday that he had not seen the videos aired by NBC but Boykin is “an officer that has an outstanding record in the United States armed forces.”
He said he understands Boykin spoke “in his private capacity as a person” but President Bush has declared that “the war on terrorism is not a war against a religion.”
Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, added: “There is a very wide gray area of what the rules permit. … At first blush, it doesn’t look like any rules were broken.”
_ Adelle M. Banks
Top Anglican Leader Says Gay Bishop Should Not Be Installed
(RNS) One day after an emergency summit of Anglican leaders in London, the archbishop of Canterbury said an openly gay bishop-elect in the United States should not be installed next month.
The Most Rev. Rowan Williams, leader of the Anglican Communion, told the BBC on Friday (Oct. 17) that the Rev. V. Gene Robinson should not be installed Nov. 2 because “I believe on a major issue of this kind the church has to make a decision together.”
The two-day meeting of Anglican leaders, or primates, concluded Thursday with a warning that Robinson’s installation threatens to “tear the fabric of our Communion at its deepest level.”
Robinson said he plans to proceed with the installation, and the top leader of the U.S. church, Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold, plans to attend.
There are no formal provisions that would allow Robinson to withdraw, since his election was confirmed by the national church in August. Asked if he would call on Robinson to step aside, Griswold told reporters, “I might do many things.”
Meanwhile, the Anglican bishop of Vancouver, Bishop Michael Ingham, whose diocese was rebuked for formally allowing the blessing of same-sex unions, said he was gratified by the primates’ statement.
“Pressures from certain parts of the Communion to have dioceses such as ours … expelled from the Communion have been firmly rejected by the primates,” said Ingham, who added that “our concern has not been to cause pain, but to end discrimination and prejudice” against gays and lesbians.
Leading conservative primates, who oppose Robinson’s installation and have threatened to break ties with the U.S. church, said they were glad the union of the global church has been preserved.
“We urge continued prayer that the whole Anglican Communion may continue by God’s power to witness to the transforming love of Jesus for all people,” said a joint statement by Archbishop Peter Akinola of Nigeria, Archbishop Yong Ping Chung of Southeast Asia and Emmanuel Kolini of Rwanda.
_ Kevin Eckstrom
Israeli Official Criticizes Muslim Leader’s Anti-Jewish Comments
JERUSALEM (RNS) Natan Sharansky, Israel’s minister for Jerusalem and diaspora affairs, Friday denounced “the outrageous anti-Semitic remarks” made by Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad at the start of the Organization of the Islamic Conference summit meeting in Putrajaya, Malaysia.
“This is the first time since World War II that anti-Semitism in its most primitive and vulgar form constitutes the official agenda of a respected international political forum which, in this instance, is composed of nearly one-third of the world,” Sharansky said.
Sharansky, a famed Soviet Jewish refusenik who has since emigrated to Israel and entered politics, said such anti-Semitic statements were “made possible only because of the indifference and lack of concern demonstrated by the Western world when confronted by blatant anti-Semitism. We all know how these things begin _ always with Jews _ but history has taught us again and again that it never ends with the Jews.”
In his opening address to the summit meeting Thursday, Mahathir called on the world’s 1.3 billion Muslims “to unite against a few million Jews who rule the world by controlling the world’s major powers.” Mahathir charged that Jews had “invented socialism, communism, human rights and democracy so that persecuting them would appear to be wrong, so that they can enjoy equal rights with others.”
Mahathir suggested that Muslims employ “new tactics to fight the enemy,” including the nonviolent leveraging of the political, economic and demographic forces at the disposal of Muslim nations to “defeat Israel.”
On Friday, Malaysian Foreign Minister Syed Hamid Albar apologized for “any misunderstanding” about his prime minister’s remarks, the AP reported and Mahathir declined to comment on the flap.
_ Michele Chabin
Top Episcopal Bishop Won’t Attend Installation Rite After Flap
(RNS) The top bishop of the Episcopal Church will not attend the installation rite of a Florida bishop after his planned presence at the ceremony prompted sharp rebukes from Catholic leaders and the outgoing Episcopal bishop of Jacksonville.
Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold was scheduled to preside at the Nov. 1 installation service of the Rev. Samuel Johnson Howard as the new bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Florida.
When Catholic officials read Griswold’s public comments in support of homosexuality, they rescinded an invitation to allow the diocese to hold the installation rite at a large Catholic parish.
In an Oct. 14 letter to the outgoing bishop, Stephen Jecko, Griswold said he would not attend and would send Bishop Charles Jenkins of New Orleans in his stead.
Jenkins and Jecko both voted against the approval of the church’s first openly gay bishop, V. Gene Robinson of New Hampshire, at the church’s General Convention meeting in August. Griswold voted to approve Robinson.
“It is my hope that I might visit the Diocese of Florida at some future time when there is less rancor,” Griswold said in his letter.
Jecko issued a blistering letter to Griswold on Oct. 9 in which he postponed the consecration service and accused Griswold of “abusing” his office.
“Your attempts to posture a reconciling public image in the church are absurd when, in truth, your abuse of the office has already abandoned any pretense of objectivity and mutual concern,” Jecko said.
The ceremony will now be held at the smaller St. John’s Episcopal Cathedral in downtown Jacksonville, per Howard’s request, despite some logistical problems with a nearby Florida-Georgia football game.
_ Kevin Eckstrom
National Jewish Book Award Recipients Announced
(RNS) The National Jewish Book Award winners were announced Wednesday (Oct. 15). The top honor went to a book about the 1967 war in Israel and the ramifications that event had on modern Middle Eastern history.
Since 1948, the National Jewish Book Award has represented “the Pulitzer Prize” of the Jewish book world. The prizes are awarded by the Jewish Book Council, and the winners were listed on the Web magazine JBooks.com.
This year’s winner for the Everett Family Jewish Book of the Year Award went to “Six Days of War: June 1967 and the Making of the Modern Middle East” (Oxford University Press) by Michael B. Oren.
The book attempts to contextualize the modern struggle in the Middle East within the history of the so-called “Six Day War” in Israel in 1967.
The awards were also given in other categories, including anthology, fiction, children’s and young adults’ literature and contemporary Jewish life and practice. There is also a prize for the best first-time author.
The winning books covered many topics, from the fiction title “The Russian Debutante’s Handbook” by Gary Shteyngart to the children’s book “Jewish Holidays All Year Round: A Family Treasury” by Irene Cooper.
The much-discussed “A Jew in America: My Life and a People’s Struggle for Identity” by Arthur Hertzberg was awarded the prize for modern Jewish thought and experience.
Also, a “special recognition” award was given to Karen Levine for her book “Hana’s Suitcase” (Albert Whitman & Company), a young adult title that explores the discovery of a Holocaust victim’s suitcase by a Japanese museum director.
The awards will be presented at a dinner in December at the Center for Jewish History in New York.
_ Holly Lebowitz Rossi
Gospel Artist Deitrick Haddon Leads in Stellar Award Nominations
(RNS) Gospel artist Deitrick Haddon has been nominated for eight Stellar Gospel Music Awards.
Nominations for the awards, which will be presented Jan. 10 in Houston, were announced Tuesday (Oct. 14).
Haddon was nominated in such categories as song, artist, male vocalist and CD of the year.
Not far behind Haddon in number of nominations was singer Vickie Winans, with six. John P. Kee and the New Life Community Choir, Mary Mary and Byron Cage each received five nominations.
Nominees in the song of the year category are: “Sinner’s Prayer” by Haddon; “Shake Yourself Loose” by Antun Foster, Bernard Haley, Vickie Winans and Kaija Hayes; “In the Morning” by Warryn Campbell, Joy Campbell, Tina Atkins Campbell and Erica Atkins Campbell; and “The Presence of the Lord Is Here” by Kurt Carr.
The 19th Annual Stellar Gospel Music Awards Show will be co-hosted by gospel artists Yolanda Adams, Donnie McClurkin and Kirk Franklin.
It will air as a syndicated television special from Jan. 26 through Feb. 22.
_ Adelle M. Banks
Quote of the Day: Charlotte Observer Religion Writer Ken Garfield
(RNS) “There is something kind and good about a culture that encourages believers to go door to door in search of converts. And there is something daft yet noble about the handful of believers who figure it’s a great day when they can get just one person to really hear what they are saying about God.”
_ Ken Garfield, religion writer for The Charlotte Observer, writing in an “On Faith” column in his newspaper.
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