c. 2005 Religion News Service
Report: Prince Charles Will Ask Bush to Be More Tolerant of Islam
(RNS) A London newspaper has reported that Prince Charles will urge President Bush to be more tolerant of Islam when the two meet Wednesday (Nov. 2). But others are questioning the report.
The Prince of Wales “will try to persuade” Bush and Americans about “the merits of Islam because he thinks the United States has been too intolerant of the religion since Sept. 11,” said the article in the London-based Daily Telegraph.
The article, republished Monday (Oct. 31) in the Washington Times, has also appeared on numerous conservative Web logs, or blogs. But The Daily Telegraph cited no sources for its claim that the prince intends to broach the issue of religious tolerance when he meets with Bush for lunch and dinner.
A spokesman for the prince called the report “speculative,” according to the British-based newspaper The Scotsman.
Prince Charles has had a “long-term interest” in promoting good relations between Islam and the West, said John Voll, organizer of a two-hour Thursday conference at which the prince is expected to discuss faith and social responsibility with more than 30 American religious leaders, including Muslims.
Voll, the director of the Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding at Georgetown University, said, however, that he doubted the prince would critique U.S. policy during the visit.
“As a royal, he speaks about what he wants to speak about. (The two) may well discuss architecture,” said Voll, referring to another of the prince’s interests.
Walid Phares, a Middle East expert with the Washington-based Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, a conservative policy institute, said that a royal message urging presidential tolerance of Islam would be unnecessary.
In a recent speech on the “war on terror,” the president “made a clear distinction between a radical ideology and the religion of Islam,” said Phares.
Ibrahim Hooper, director of communications at the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said that if Prince Charles does bring up Islam with Bush, he hopes the prince will stress the importance of “utilizing the American Muslim community as a bridge to the Islamic world.”
_ Andrea Useem
Israel, Jewish Groups Praise Syria’s Cancellation of TV Series
JERUSALEM (RNS) Jewish organizations and Israeli government officials have welcomed a Jordanian government decision to discontinue broadcasts of a Syrian-made TV series they say is virulently anti-Semitic.
The government ordered a private Jordanian satellite TV station to discontinue broadcasts of “Al-Shatat” (“The Diaspora”), a 30-episode series, according to a statement released by the Embassy of Jordan in Washington. The action was taken, the embassy said, due to concerns that the series could inspire “hate.”
The Anti-Defamation League, which sent a letter to the Jordanian government Oct. 24 expressing its concerns about the program’s content, lauded the government’s action.
“We thank the Jordanian government for their quick response in working to forestall the broadcast of this incendiary series during the holy month of Ramadan, when it could have had a potential audience of millions,” said Abraham H. Foxman, ADL national director. “Once again, the Jordanian government has demonstrated its commitment to fighting hatred and incitement in the region.”
The series was produced by a Syrian company at the request of the Lebanon-based satellite network Al-Manar. The network is owned by Hezbollah, which the U.S. government categorizes as a terrorist organization.
The program, which purports to depict Zionist history, first aired on Al-Manar two years ago. It is based on “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” which promotes the idea of a global Jewish conspiracy to rule the world.
Mark Regev, a spokesman for Israel’s Foreign Ministry, thanked Jordan for its “decisive and expeditious” handling of the matter.
_ Michele Chabin
Sojourners Launches Letter-Writing Campaign to Investigate Iraq War
(RNS) Citing the indictment of senior White House official I. Lewis Libby, a Christian social justice group has launched a letter-writing campaign raising questions about the rationale for the Iraq war.
Sojourners, run by progressive evangelical activist Jim Wallis, is asking constituents via e-mail to send letters to Congress calling for an independent investigation “to determine if and how the Bush administration manipulated” intelligence to justify war in Iraq.
“Are the alleged actions of Libby isolated incidents of revenge,” the e-mail asks, “or are they the tip of the iceberg in a conspiracy to mislead the American people into war?”
The message was sent half an hour after the indictments were handed down Friday (Oct. 28).
Libby was indicted on five felony charges of perjury, obstruction of justice and making false statements to the FBI in a grand jury investigation into the leak of the identity of covert CIA officer Valerie Plame, whose husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, was critical of pre-war intelligence on Iraq.
“Today’s federal indictment against I. Lewis Libby and the continuing investigation of Karl Rove is a sad moment in our public life,” Wallis said Friday. “It opens a new chapter in the quest to understand why the Bush administration built a case for going to war based on deceit and manipulation.”
In its e-mail, Sojourners asserts that a March 2005 report, which found the intelligence community’s pre-war information faulty but not deceptive, was written by a commission appointed by Bush and is potentially biased.
Nearly 20,000 constituents had sent the e-mail letters to their congressmen as of midnight Sunday, according to a Sojourners spokesperson. The National Council of Churches, a left-leaning alliance of Protestant churches, said it supports Sojourners’ efforts to spur an independent investigation.
_ Nicole LaRosa
Pastor Electrocuted During Baptism
(RNS) A Baptist pastor was electrocuted after grabbing a microphone while submerged in the waters of a baptistry.
The Rev. Kyle Lake, 33, of University Baptist Church in Waco, Texas, died Sunday (Oct. 30). Microphones have long been used at the church due to the large size of the congregation, which regularly exceeds 600 worshippers on Sundays, according to Blair Browning, a spokesman for the church.
The baptismal candidate had not stepped into the waters and was not injured, Browning said.
Lake was taken by paramedics to a nearby hospital, where he died around 11:30 a.m., the church’s Web site said.
About 800 people gathered for the morning service. The church, co-founded by worship leader and songwriter David Crowder, serves a large congregation of Baylor University students. Attendance Sunday was greater than usual because of homecoming weekend at the university.
Browning, a longtime friend of Lake, said the community is in mourning.
“Not only did we lose our pastor but we’ve lost our friend,” a statement on the church’s Web site said. “We are confident that Kyle is in heaven today because of his trust in Jesus Christ as his Savior.”
Lake, who had served as a pastor at the church since 1997, is survived by a wife, daughter and twin sons, Browning said. Lake was the author of two books, “Understanding God’s Will” and “Understanding Prayer.”
About 1,000 people congregated at the church for a memorial service Sunday night, Browning said.
“I don’t know how, why, where or what’s going to happen,” Ben Dudley, University Baptist’s community pastor told the congregation, “but we will continue as a church in the community because that is what Kyle would have wanted.”
_ Jason Kane
Institute Warned School District Not to Adopt Intelligent Design
(RNS) The Discovery Institute, a leading proponent of intelligent design, says it warned a Pennsylvania school district now in court that it shouldn’t institute a policy on the controversial concept because it could be found “somehow unconstitutional.”
Mark Ryland, director of the Discovery Institute’s Washington office, said that he met with Dover Area School District representatives before the district implemented a curriculum change on intelligent design. He said that he “advised them not to institute the policy” but that they “didn’t listen to me,” according to a transcript of a forum he attended in Washington on Oct. 21.
Ryland’s appearance at the American Enterprise Institute event occurred the same day that Dover Superintendent Richard Nilsen testified in Harrisburg, Pa., at a landmark federal trial on the district’s policy. It requires that a four-paragraph statement on intelligent design be read to ninth-grade students at the start of a science unit on evolution.
With Nilsen on the stand, lawyers representing parents opposed to the policy unveiled an e-mail the superintendent received last August from the district’s lawyer, Stephen Russell. Russell said the district would have a difficult time winning a case because of the appearance that the policy “was initiated for religious reasons.”
So far, the plaintiffs’ legal fees exceed $1 million, said Witold Walczak, a lawyer for the state chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, which is helping to present the case against the district.
At the forum, called “Science Wars,” Ryland said he met with the Dover officials and with Richard Thompson, president of the Thomas More Law Center, a Christian firm that the district hired to defend it in the federal trial on the policy.
“From the start, we just disagreed that this was a good place, a good time and place to have this battle, which is risky, in the sense that there’s a potential for rulings that this is somehow unconstitutional,” Ryland said.
In his e-mail to Nilsen, Russell voiced similar reservations: “My concern for Dover is that in the last several years, there has been a lot of discussion, newsprint, etc., for putting religion back in the schools. In my mind, this would add weight to a lawsuit seeking to enjoin whatever the practice might be.”
The Dover trial in U.S. Middle District Court in Harrisburg is the first federal case concerning intelligent design in a public school science curriculum.
_ Bill Sulon
Practicing What He Preaches, Pastor Faces Fear and Jumps From Plane
NORTHAMPTON, Mass (RNS) Taking a leap of faith, the Rev. Thomas N. Rice overcame a lifelong fear of heights, jumping from a Cessna 206 cargo plane with only an instructor, a parachute and his trust in God by his side.
“Ooh, it was so much fun. I think I’m alive,” said Rice, patting his arms and legs Friday (Oct. 28) after planting his feet on solid ground.
A few friends, church members and his parents, Elisabeth J. and William N. Rice of Northampton, watched as Rice, 54, made the leap. He is a pastor at First Baptist Church of Agawam.
For Rice, the anticipation leading up to the dive may have been as harrowing. The jump was rescheduled four times due to rainy weather. At one point, Rice wondered if that was a sign from God.
Realizing the doubts were merely fears, Rice set the jump for Friday rather than risk another rainy weekend.
Although it was overcast still, the plane climbed to 9,500 feet and Rice and instructor David Strickland, owner of Airborne Adventures Skydiving School in Northampton, leaped from the six-seater plane.
“We actually went through two cloud layers,” said Strickland, who is also an ordained minister. “He was closer to God than ever before.”
The inspiration behind Rice’s jump came from church member Edwin L. Damon, 86, who prodded him after a sermon on why Christians should have faith in God despite their fears.
“Tom’s afraid to do this, yet he’s overcoming his fear. It’s a great lesson here,” Damon said. “Every time you do something to overcome a fear, you’re a stronger person for it.”
_ Bea O’Quinn Dewberry
Quote of the Day: U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops Executive John Carr
(RNS) “I think many of us, particularly those of us who are raising teenagers, feel like we’re in a battle for our kids’ hearts, minds and souls and sometimes we’re not winning. It occurred to me the other day, the only people who don’t have sex on network television are married people.”
_ John Carr, secretary of the Department of Social Development and World Peace of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, speaking at a forum of the Milton S. Eisenhower Foundation in Washington on Oct. 25.
MO/PH END RNS