c. 2007 Religion News Service
Conservative Christian Groups Protest Hindu Prayers in Senate
WASHINGTON (RNS) Conservative Christian groups protested the first appearance of a guest Hindu chaplain on the Senate floor Thursday (July 12).
When Rajan Zed, public relations officer of the Indian Association of Northern Nevada, stepped to the Senate rostrum to pray, protesters began shouting from inside the chamber before he could begin.
“Lord Jesus, forgive us, Father, for allowing the prayer of the wicked which is an abomination in your sight,” shouted one protester before the U.S. Capitol Police removed three people.
Sgt. Kimberly Schneider, a representative for the Capitol Police, said a man and two women from Davidson, N.C., were charged with a misdemeanor count of unlawful conduct for disrupting Congress.
Zed went on to pray: “We meditate on the transcendental glory of the Deity Supreme who is inside the heart of the Earth, inside the life of the sky and inside the soul of the heaven.”
The Tupelo, Miss.-based American Family Association had urged its supporters to contact their senators to object to Zed’s invitation to pray.
“I seriously doubt that Americans want to change the motto, `In God We trust,’ which Congress officially adopted in 1955, to `In gods we Trust,” Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, said Thursday.
The Hindu American Foundation cheered the inclusion of Zed’s prayer and said it was “disappointed that a few miscreants misinformed about the Hindu faith” had disrupted the occasion.
“Our foundation joins all Hindu Americans in congratulating the U.S. Senate for demonstrating its commitment to the American ideal of pluralism, and for respecting the religious diversity of our great country,” said Ishani Chowdhury, executive director of the Kensington, Md.-based foundation.
Pastor Rod Parsley, president of the Columbus, Ohio-based Center for Moral Clarity, said in an interview that Zed’s appearance reflects American diversity, and said he had no objections.
“My opinion would be that America is the marketplace of ideas and that we should open our doors and our hearts to those of differing religious persuasions than ours, and in a free and open society allow points of views to be heard as loudly and clearly as they can be made,” he said.
_ Adelle M. Banks
New British Prime Minister Kills Casino Plans
LONDON (RNS) British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, the son of a Church of Scotland minister, has axed plans to build a Las Vegas-style super-casino in a deprived area of one of the nation’s biggest cities.
The controversial betting palace was given the go-ahead by Brown’s predecessor, Tony Blair, to try to regenerate the rundown eastern sector of the industrial city of Manchester.
But Brown, who is sensitive to the argument that such casinos might stimulate further crime, addiction and deprivation among the poor, tore up the Manchester plan in Parliament on Tuesday (July 10).
In a surprise move, he suggested to his fellow political leaders that they spend the parliamentary summer recess in “reflection” over whether there “may be a better way of meeting their (deprived areas) economic and social needs than the creation of super-casinos.”
The prime minister previously has acknowledged the “Protestant ethic” instilled in him by the influence of his father, John Ebenezer Brown, whose help and advice had become his “moral compass in life.”
“As a minister’s son,” the prime minister said recently, “you see every problem coming to your doorstep. You become aware of a whole range of distress and social problems.”
“You see life as the son of a church minister, you see the bereaved, the poor and the needy come through your father’s door,” Brown said in a television interview.
In what was seen as a tribute to that deeply felt paternal influence, the prime minister took along a collection of John Ebenezer Brown’s sermons and presented them to Pope Benedict XVI on a visit earlier this year to the Vatican.
Church of England leaders hailed Brown’s killing off of the Manchester casino. “There are better engines of social and economic regeneration than super-casinos _ ones that don’t risk long-term material and spiritual deprivation,” the Rt. Rev. George Cassidy, bishop of Southwell and Nottingham, told the House of Lords.
The Salvation Army said in a statement that “better ways need to be found to regenerate areas other than introducing hard forms of gambling.”
_ Al Webb
Oregon Court Says Mormons Can’t Hide Financial Worth
PORTLAND, Ore. (RNS) Oregon’s top court has rejected the Mormon church’s bid to shield detailed financial information about its net worth _ a closely held secret for nearly half a century.
But the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints did not immediately release the financial information to lawyers for a Portland-area man who claims he was molested by a church “home teacher” in the late 1980s.
“The church is considering its position,” said Stephen F. English, the LDS church’s lead Portland attorney. “The church respects the rule of law but has profound constitutional concerns based on its constitutional right to protect the free expression of its religion.”
English said he would renew the church’s legal arguments in a hearing Tuesday (July 17) in Multnomah County Circuit Court.
Kelly W.G. Clark, a Portland attorney whose client is suing the LDS church, said a jury should have the financial information before considering his request for $45 million in punitive damages.
“A jury needs to know the entire financial context to know whether a punitive award is too much or sufficient or not enough,” Clark said.
A trial is scheduled for Aug. 6.
The LDS church sought emergency relief from a trial court order to turn over the financial information, but the Oregon Supreme Court rejected the appeal late Monday.
The pre-trial decision was reached on narrow pre-trial grounds and doesn’t mean the court would not ultimately agree with the church’s position that the Constitution protects its right to keep financial information private.
While the LDS church has not released financial information since 1959, a book claims it is among the most affluent churches in the world. “Mormon America: The Power and the Promise” estimated the church’s net worth at between $25 billion to $30 billion in the late 1990s.
Richard N. Ostling, a former Time Magazine religion writer and co-author of the book, said the church had about $6 billion on Wall Street and in church-controlled businesses and cash. It owned $5 billion in real estate.
“The land owned by the church is roughly comparable to the state of Delaware,” Ostling said.
LDS church officials said his estimates were exaggerated but did not offer their own numbers, Ostling said. “The full financial facts are probably known to only 15 or 20 men in Salt Lake City,” he said.
_ Ashbel S. Green
Study Links Religious Freedom, Economic Well-being
WASHINGTON (RNS) Religious freedom goes hand-in-hand with economic well-being and freedom of the press _ but not necessarily with a secular or religiously oriented government.
Those are the some findings of a global survey conducted by the Center for Religious Freedom at the Hudson Institute, a conservative-leaning think tank in Washington, D.C.
Researchers concluded that the biggest threat to religious freedom was radical Islam. Most of the nations listed as “least religiously free” were states with Muslim extremism, while those with the most religious freedom had Christian roots, according to the report.
But researchers registered no significant correlation between church-state issues and religious freedom. That means that countries with state religions and those with secular governments are equally likely to be religiously oppressive.
The study also uncovered a strong link between religious freedom and economic freedom.
“Now we have proof that closed religious systems foul economic development and actually stunt economic growth,” said Paul Marshall, a senior fellow of the Center for Religious Freedom, at a panel discussing the results. “Closed economic systems are unkind or worse to religious segments and practices. You need both to sustain human flourishing.“
The countries that scored one on the seven-tier Religious Freedom Index, indicating the greatest religious liberty, were the United States, Ireland, Estonia and Hungary.
Countries rated seven, indicating the most religious restriction, were Iran, North Korea, Saudi Arabia and Sudan. As a result of events over the past year, Iraq also sunk to the lowest rank of religious freedom.
Ratings were based on each country’s history of government regulation and financial favoritism toward religions. They also took into account a social regulation index, which measured cultural acceptance toward conversion, proselytizing, and outside religions.
The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) also tracks religious liberties abroad, but the Hudson Institute’s survey expands on that by numerically ranking countries on their religious freedom.
Although the report indicates Islamic extremism is a threat to religious freedom, some Muslim countries such as Mali and Senegal rank high on the index.
“If a government wants to declare that Islam is the official religion of that country … that’s their choice,” said Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptists’ Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, and a member of USCIRF. “But we do have a right to say that there is a universal freedom, a universal right … to change one’s faith and practice one’s faith.”
_ Michelle C. Rindels
Quote of the Day: Archbishop Edwin O’Brien
(RNS) “He said, `Do you accept?’ I said, `Well, yes.’ That’s one thing you learn from the military. You accept orders.”
_ Archbishop Edwin O’Brien, recalling a conversation with a representative of the Papal Nuncio’s office, in which he was told he would become the new archbishop of Baltimore. Previously, O’Brien had been in charge of the church’s Military Archdiocese. He was quoted by The Washington Times.
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