c. 2005 Religion News Service
Air Force Assigns Task Force to Assess Religious Climate at Academy
(RNS) The Air Force has asked a new task force to report to it by May 23 about the religious climate at the U.S. Air Force Academy after a church-state watchdog group released a detailed report of allegations of religious bias.
Acting Secretary of the Air Force Michael L. Dominguez called for the investigation, the Air Force announced Tuesday (May 3).
The military service has begun a new training program for all cadets, faculty and staff at the academy called “Respecting the Spiritual Values of All People.”
“However, lingering allegations from sources such as Americans United for Separation of Church and State are being taken very seriously by the Air Force,” the military service said in a statement. “This newly appointed task force will assess the religious climate and adequacy of Air Force efforts to address the issue at the (U.S. Air Force Academy).”
Americans United, a Washington-based group, sent a 14-page report to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and other military officials April 28 and asked them to quickly address allegations. They included charges that academy instructors who described themselves as born-again Christians proselytized in classrooms and a chaplain at the school urged cadets to proselytize fellow cadets who did not attend a Protestant worship service.
“We have concluded that both the specific violations and the promotion of a culture of official religious intolerance are pervasive, systemic, and evident at the very highest levels of the academy’s command structure,” the report stated.
Air Force officials have asked the task force to assess how effectively the academy addresses complaints about religious intolerance and determine how academy practices “enhance or detract from a climate that respects both the `free exercise of religion’ and the `establishment’ clauses of the First Amendment.”
_ Adelle M. Banks
Methodist Bishops Hope for Better Ties After Meeting With Bush
WASHINGTON (RNS) United Methodist bishops said “some doors have been opened” with the White House after five bishops met and prayed with President Bush on Tuesday (May 3).
Bush, a Methodist, had rebuffed requests to meet with the bishops in 2003 in the weeks leading up to the start of war in Iraq after the church leaders expressed opposition to the war.
Bishop Peter Weaver of Boston, president of the church’s Conference of Bishops, said Bush was “very cordial, very friendly” during the brief meeting and even said, “I’m proud to be a Methodist.”
“We believe … that some doors have been opened,” Weaver said, according to United Methodist News Service. The bishops are holding their semiannual meeting outside Washington in Arlington, Va.
Those meeting with Bush presented him with a Bible signed by the church’s bishops, and also talked about efforts to combat global AIDS, the situation in Iraq and peace in Sudan, Weaver said.
“We were very appreciative and hopeful in terms of continuing to develop a relationship with the White House,” said Bishop John Schol of Baltimore-Washington, who has tried to improve relations.
The meeting was part of a larger gathering of officials from the Presbyterian, Episcopal, American Baptist, Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) and United Church of Christ.
Other bishops in the meeting were Janice Huie of Houston, Ernest Lyght of West Virginia and Charlene Kammerer of Richmond, Va.
_ Kevin Eckstrom
United Church of Christ Accuses ABC of Double Standard on Religious Ads
(RNS) The United Church of Christ accused the ABC television network of having a double standard for its advertisers after it accepted an ad from the conservative Christian group Focus on the Family but rejected one from the church.
The Rev. Robert Chase, head of the UCC’s communication office, accused ABC of bowing to the “narrow agenda of the religious right” by accepting an ad from Focus that ran during Monday’s showing of “Supernanny.”
The ad directed viewers to the group’s Web site, where they could access the group’s extensive list of conservative-minded parenting resources and publications.
“Here’s yet another illustration of how a particular narrow agenda makes up the rules as they go along, while another religious viewpoint cannot even purchase time on the people’s airwaves to proclaim an all-inclusive message,” Chase said.
Twice in the last five months, ABC, NBC and CBS refused to broadcast ads that are part of the UCC’s national campaign. NBC and CBS said the ads were “too controversial” because they featured a gay couple, and ABC said it had a policy against religious advertising.
Chase said “network elites” were accommodating the “narrow agenda of the religious right” while rejecting what he called the UCC’s message of inclusion.
Susan Sewell, an ABC spokeswoman, declined to discuss the specifics of the ad but said, “The network doesn’t take advertising from religious groups. It’s a long-standing policy.”
_ Kevin Eckstrom
Religious Leaders Denounce Robertson Comments, Ads to Follow
WASHINGTON (RNS) Religious leaders, left-leaning political activists and victims of the Sept. 11 attacks in New York joined Wednesday (May 4) to denounce recent comments Pat Robertson made about the escalating battle over the federal judiciary.
MoveOnPAC, a progressive group that provides financial backing to congressional candidates, said it’s launching a TV ad campaign repudiating the religious broadcaster’s Sunday (May 1) comments on ABC’s “This Week.”
Robertson, who had a brief 1988 GOP presidential bid, told “This Week” host George Stephanopoulos that federal jurists were a more serious threat to America than “a few bearded terrorists who fly into buildings” and that Muslims were unfit to hold federal judgeships.
“And they have said in the Quran there’s a war against all infidels,” Robertson said. “Do you want somebody like that sitting as a judge? I wouldn’t.”
In a telephone news conference, the Rev. Jim Wallis, evangelical editor of Sojourners magazine and the author of “God’s Politics: Why the Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn’t Get It,” said Robertson’s remarks were “irresponsible, extreme and hurtful.”
He added that Robertson’s claims that “all Muslims want to kill us” were particularly destructive to the healing process happening in the Islamic community.
Leading Islamic civil rights groups agreed.
“Not only is it hurtful, but it is actually inaccurate that all Islam is a monolithic entity,” said Arsalan Iftikhar, the national legal director of the Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations, also participating in the news conference. “There are over a billion Muslims on Earth.”
Iftikhar said the American Muslim community is trying to build bridges of tolerance between the United States and the Muslim world.
“Inflammatory statements only go towards burning the bridges, not building them,” Iftikhar said.
Adele Welty, who lost her son Timothy, a firefighter in New York City, on Sept. 11, said she was especially wounded by Robertson’s statements.
“I’m disturbed by the fact that a religious man chose to marginalize the tragedy of September 11 for the purpose of shock value,” Welty said.
The televison ad, which is premiering Thursday, targets Robertson, the House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, and Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn. It will run in Washington, Tennessee and Texas. The organization charges that the GOP leaders pander to the religious right.
The group wants the ad to alert the public to “the culture of intimidation and threats from the extreme religious right against the American judiciary,” said Ben Brandzel, advocacy director of MoveOnPAC.
A Robertson spokesman said the Christian Broadcasting Network founder, based in Virginia Beach, Va., had nothing more to add about his on-the-air comments or the uproar they have caused.
She referred, however, to a letter Robertson wrote to Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., in which he refused to apologize.
“I owe no one any apology for my point of view, because in these matters I believe that history will bear me out,” said the letter, which was posted on CBN’s Web site.
_ Helena Andrews
Survey: Americans Lag Behind Europe in Holocaust Knowledge
(RNS) Americans strongly support remembrance of and education about the atrocities of the Holocaust but tend to lack factual knowledge, a new survey reports.
The American Jewish Committee (AJC) released “Thinking About the Holocaust 60 Years Later” Wednesday (May 4) at its annual meeting in Washington. The survey, which was conducted during March and April by the Paris-based polling firm TNS Sofres, interviewed people from America and six European countries about their knowledge of the Holocaust and their attitudes toward Jews and Israel.
The margin of error for each country was plus or minus 3 percentage points.
In America, 80 percent of the 1,005 people interviewed said they supported remembrance initiatives about the Holocaust. But only 44 percent correctly identified Auschwitz, Dachau and Treblinka as concentration camps.
“The good news is that significant majorities in the U.S. and Europe believe in keeping the memory of the Holocaust strong, including through mandatory school programs,” said David A. Harris, executive director of the AJC.
“Unfortunately,” he continued, “basic knowledge does not match that commitment, especially in the United States.”
Among the Europeans surveyed, 91 percent of Swedes, 88 percent of Austrians, 79 percent of Poles, 78 percent of French, 77 percent of Germans and 53 percent of British correctly identified the names of the death camps.
In addition to supporting further Holocaust education, those surveyed said they felt that the Holocaust necessitates the State of Israel.
Majorities in all of the countries agreed with the statement “The Nazi extermination of the Jews makes clear the need for the State of Israel as a place of refuge for Jews in times of persecution.”
The country that agreed most strongly with that statement was Poland, with 70 percent agreeing. Britain and France, while still a majority, showed the lowest support with 53 percent. Fifty-eight percent of Americans agreed.
_ Holly Lebowitz Rossi
Quote of the Day: Reform Judaism Rabbi Marla Feldman
(RNS) “There has been a great deal of talk lately about the role of religion in politics. Yet, if the religious voice were truly a factor, then 45 million Americans _ and 8 million children _ would not be uninsured.”
_ Rabbi Marla Feldman, director of the Joint Commission on Social Action of Reform Judaism and the Central Conference of American Rabbis, on why she is supporting Cover the Uninsured Week, May 1-8. She was quoted in a statement on the event.
MO/PH END RNS
