c. 2008 Religion News Service
McCain, Obama urged to make poverty a priority
(RNS) Nine faith leaders have banded together to urge Sens. Barack Obama and John McCain to present a 10-year plan to combat poverty when speaking at their national nominating conventions.
The interfaith coalition _ led by Rabbi Steve Gutow, executive director of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, and the Rev. Larry Snyder, president of Catholic Charities USA _ sent letters to the two candidates asking that they address poverty in a prime-time speech and propose a strategy to help the 37 million Americans who live below the poverty line.
“As people of faith, we believe it is immoral to ignore our nation’s most vulnerable populations. As Americans, we believe enduring poverty undermines our country’s economic strength and prosperity,” the letter states. “But our efforts to sustain our brothers and sisters living in poverty must be complemented with a serious plan from our political leaders to reduce the number of needy.”
In addition to Gutow and Snyder, the statement was signed by the Rev. David Beckmann, president, Bread for the World; the Rev. Richard Cizik, vice president for government affairs, National Association of Evangelicals; the Rev. Michael Kinnamon, general secretary, National Council of Churches; Dr. Eboo Patel, executive director, Interfaith Youth Core; Rabbi David Saperstein, director and counsel, Religious Action Center for Reform Judaism; Sayyid M. Syeed, secretary general, Islamic Society of North America; and the Rev. Jim Wallis, chief executive officer, Sojourners.
The letter is part of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs’ new national anti-poverty initiative, “There Shall Be No Needy Among You.” The campaign urges local, state and national lawmakers to advance anti-poverty legislation and programs, including shelters, work and educational opportunities.
“JCPA is trying to get the faith community involved to engage politicians to address poverty in this country,” said Adam Muhlendorf, JCPA spokesman. “We want to have the candidates ensure that at the convention, the issue is addressed.”
Neither the McCain nor Obama campaign has responded yet, he said.
_ Nicole Neroulias
Bush asked to press China on religious freedom
WASHINGTON (RNS) A federal religious freedom watchdog panel has asked President Bush to use his trip to the Beijing Olympics next month to speak publicly against abuses of religious freedom and human rights in China.
The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, joined by the Congressional Human Rights Caucus, also voiced support for a resolution pending in Congress that urges China to end all human rights violations.
“We were in the White House and I told Bush that he had made a horrible mistake to go to the Beijing Olympics,” said Wei Jingsheng, one of five Chinese freedom activists who met with Bush on July 29.
“I do know that the Bush administration did try to push for human rights. Unfortunately, such an effort did not make much progress. Not only is there no improvement, as a matter of fact, human rights have gone backwards.”
In addition to a televised speech, the joint appeal asks Bush to urge the Chinese government to end religious oppression, to release detained religious leaders and groups, and to urge China to use its “considerable leverage” with Sudan to end the genocide in Darfur.
“Hopes that the Olympic Games would dramatically improve human rights conditions in China have not been realized,” said Felice D. Gaer, the commission’s chairwoman. “Instead, the situation has grown increasingly dire, particularly for many of China’s religious adherents.”
Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., an outspoken opponent of China’s human rights record, said granting the 2008 Olympics to China was a “terrible mistake.”
“When you see all the choreography smiling faces in opening ceremonies, know that they are the lucky ones,” he said.
_ Ashly McGlone
Methodists elect first woman bishop in Africa
(RNS) The Rev. Joaquina Filipe Nhanala is a woman of firsts in Africa _ she’s the only female United Methodist pastor in Mozambique with a master’s degree in theology, and now she is the first female United Methodist bishop in all of Africa.
Her election, during the denomination’s Africa Central Conference held July 22-24 at Africa University in Zimbabwe, is effective in September.
In addition to pastoring a large church in Matola, a suburb of the capitol Maputo, Nhanala also coordinates local women’s projects, leads the World Relief HIV/AIDS education program for southern African provinces and also participates in the Mozambique Initiative, a partnership of churches in Missouri with churches in Mozambique.
“We have had a long relationship with Rev. Joaquina Nhanala,” said Carol Kreamer, coordinator of the Mozambique Initiative. “Bishop Nhanala is capable, bright and dedicated and we look forward to collaborating in mission and ministry together.”
Nhanala is succeeding retiring Bishop Joao Somane Machado, who has seen the Mozambique United Methodist Church triple in size in the last 13 years, according to United Methodist News Service. There are reportedly more than 125,000 members some 170 churches across Mozambique.
As bishop, Nhanala will also oversee 29 schools, a theological school, agricultural programs, a hospital, two clinics, a seminary and four Bible schools.
_ Ashly McGlone
UpDATE: Inmate reaches accord with prison over eagle feathers
(RNS) An American Indian inmate in Wyoming has reached an agreement with prison officials to allow him and other inmates access to bald eagle feathers for use in sacred ceremonies.
Stephen Pevar, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union who represented inmate Andrew John Yellowbear, called the decision a “great victory for religious freedom.”
Yellowbear, a North Arapaho tribesman, is serving a life sentence at the Wyoming State Penitentiary. Even after Yellowbear was granted a federal permit to keep 10 feathers for daily prayer, prison officials confiscated the only one he had.
The possession of bald eagle feathers is barred by federal law, with an exception made for American Indian tribes that use them for religious practices.
“It’s the means of communicating with the creator,” Arapaho elder Alonzo Moss Sr. said when the ACLU decided to try the case in mid-July. “It’s hard to explain in English. The only thing I can tell you is that it’s no different from the white man using his cross or his rosary.”
An agreement between Wyoming prison officials and the ACLU was filed as a court order Tuesday (July 29) by a judge at the U.S. District Court for the District of Wyoming.
All prison officials in Wyoming must now allow American Indian prisoners up to four single feathers and a feather fan for group prayer.
Yellowbear filed his suit in January and “met with a lot of resistance,” Pevar said, but within two weeks of connecting with the ACLU, a compromise was reached. The order affects only prisoners in Wyoming.
The case hinged on the 2000 Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act, which says officials can bar an inmate’s religious practice only if it poses a threat.
_ Mallika Rao
Vatican giving `serious’ thought to union with small Anglican group
(RNS) A top Vatican official said he is giving “serious attention” to a small group of traditionalist Anglicans who are in talks with Rome about a possible reunification with the Catholic Church.
Cardinal William Levada, prefect of the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, told members of the Australia-based Traditional Anglican Communion that their request is under consideration.
“As Your Grace is undoubtedly aware, the situation within the Anglican Communion in general has become markedly more complex,” Levada wrote to Archbishop John Hepworth on July 5, in a letter that was released July 25.
According to Levada’s letter, Hepworth visited Levada’s offices last October. Levada said his staff is reviewing Hepworth’s proposal for “corporate unity” with “serious attention.”
Hepworth’s group, with a reported 400,000 members worldwide, is not a part of the official Anglican Communion headed by the archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams.
It also does not include any of the major conservative Anglican groups, such as the Pittsburgh-based Anglican Communion Network. The Australian group counts as its U.S. member the Anglican Church in America, which split from the Episcopal Church in the late 1970s.
Yet Levada’s letter comes at a crucial time for the worldwide Communion as more than 600 bishops wrapped up their once-a-decade Lambeth Conference in Canterbury, England, amid speculation that conservative Anglicans might try to move en masse to reunite with Rome.
Cardinal Walter Kasper, who heads the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, warned Anglican bishops on July 30 that moves to allow women bishops and increasing acceptance of homosexuality threaten to hamper “full visible communion” between Canterbury and Rome.
It’s unclear whether the Vatican would be willing to carve out an Anglican enclave within Catholicism on the model of the Eastern Rite Catholic Churches, which maintain separate hierarchies and distinct practices, including married priests.
_ Kevin Eckstrom
Pope lets Paraguay’s president-elect step down as bishop
VATICAN CITY (RNS) Pope Benedict XVI has taken the rare step of allowing Paraguay’s president-elect, former Bishop Fernando Lugo, to step down as a bishop before he assumes office Aug. 15.
Lugo, who won April’s elections, resigned as a bishop in 2006 when he decided to run for president, saying he felt unable to help the poor as a clergyman.
The Vatican had previously refused to recognize the 57-year-old’s resignation, arguing that he was still a bishop since his ordination was a lifelong sacrament, and demanded that he cease all political activities.
But the decision by the pope to grant the former “bishop of the poor” an unprecedented waiver enables him to revert to being a layman.
“This is the first case within the church in which a bishop receives a dispensation,” Orlando Antonini, the papal nuncio to Paraguay, was quoted as saying by Reuters.
“Yes, there have been many other priests the pope has left in the status of layman, but never a member of the hierarchy until today.”
Without the special dispensation, Lugo risked excommunication since papal rules forbid priests holding political office.
“It’s a great pain for the church to lose a bishop, a priest whom we tried to dissuade from the political option up to the last day of his election campaign,” Antonini said. “But the Holy Father recognized that he was elected by the majority of the people to lead Paraguay for the next five years.”
Lugo began his political career in 2004 while he was bishop of San Pedro, amid widespread uprisings by peasant groups protesting against unequal land distribution and the encroachment of industrial farming.
He soon quit as bishop of the rural area, but maintained his bishop status for two more years.
“I’d like to sincerely thank his holiness Pope Benedict for a decision that hasn’t been easy for the Vatican,” the Associated Press quoted Lugo as telling reporters. “They reconsidered my request (for a dispensation) for the good of the country.”
As a layman, Lugo is now free to marry under civil law. But he has shown no inclination of wanting to do so. His sister, Mercedes, is to serve as first lady.
_ Paul Virgo
Faith groups push minimum wage hike to $10
WASHINGTON (RNS) A nonpartisan coalition of more than 90 faith, community, labor and business organizations has launched an ambitious “$10 in 2010” campaign to raise the federal minimum wage within two years.
The Let Justice Roll Living Wage Campaign announced the “$10 in 2010” crusade with support from various denominations, including American Baptist Churches USA, the Episcopal Church, Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, Muslim American Society Freedom Foundation, Presbyterian Church (USA) and the Christian social justice group Sojourners.
The launch of the new “livable wage” campaign came as the federal minimum wage rose 60 cents to $6.55 on July 24, part of the Fair Minimum Wage Act of 2007. The hourly minimum will increase again in 2009 to $7.25 per hour.
“As people of faith, we believe there is no better way to urgently address the poverty that afflicts so many low-wage working people and their families than by raising the minimum wage,” said the Rev. Dr. Paul Sherry, founding national coordinator of Let Justice Roll.
The two-day event, “Living Wage Days,” is set to kick off Jan. 10, 2009, featuring worship services and community events across the country.
Opponents argue that an increased minimum wage will lead to more unemployment and layoffs, especially among young and unskilled workers. They also argue businesses will shift excess worker salary costs to consumers.
_ Ashly McGlone
Christian, Muslim leaders report progress at Yale talks
NEW HAVEN, Conn. (RNS) Following up on a public exchange of letters last year about the need for Christian and Muslim understanding, leaders and scholars representing both faiths have begun the task of trying to make their calls more “concrete.”
One of the “practical outcomes” of a four-day (July 28-31) meeting at Yale University was to call for Christian and Muslim clerics to speak publicly during a designated week each year in praise of the other’s tradition.
Asked at the conclusion of the meeting how this might be implemented, Ibrahim Kalin, the director of the Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research in Ankara, Turkey, suggested the idea could be taken to the United Nations.
Such a proposal might strike outsiders as limited, but theologians and religious leaders here said it represents a small but necessary step toward reducing tensions in a post-9/11 world.
“I see a dark and dangerous storm of Christian-Muslim tensions menacing the world in which we all live,” Miroslav Volf, the founder and director of Yale’s Center for Faith & Culture, said on Tuesday (July 29). “Not since the Crusades have relations between these two faiths, which comprise more than half of humanity, been lower than they are today.”
However, Volf and others said the dialogue that started last fall with a letter from Islamic leaders, entitled “A Common Word Between Us,” and its response from hundreds of Christian leaders, represents a promising turning point and start of fledgling dialogue.
“Religious leaders don’t make policy, but they do have influence,” Kalin said.
The meeting at Yale and subsequent meetings planned through 2009 at Cambridge University, the Vatican, Georgetown University and in Jordan are now part of a process with the “Common Word” imprimatur.
Volf and others acknowledged that such dialogue can be challenging, and told reporters that “exchanges have been characterized by frankness and honesty” _ code words usually used in the diplomatic world to describe difficult talks. “We didn’t come to blows,” he said.
But such honesty is needed, he said, in trying to settle the question of “How do we make the `common word’ part of the common good?”
_ Chris Herlinger
N.J. court says faith is no laughing matter
NEWARK, N.J. (RNS) Making jokes and comments about a person’s religion can create a “humiliating and painful environment” and be a form of on-the-job discrimination, New Jersey’s highest court ruled Thursday (July 31).
The New Jersey Supreme Court said remarks about someone’s faith _ even as a form of ribbing or “breaking of chops” _ cannot be tolerated in the workplace.
Clarifying anti-discrimination laws, the court declared that a person claiming religious-based harassment does not face a higher legal hurdle than people who claim they were discriminated against because of their sex or race.
“It is necessary that our courts recognize that the religion-based harassing conduct that took place … in this `workplace culture’ is as offensive as other forms of discriminatory, harassing conduct outlawed in this state,” Justice Jaynee LaVecchia wrote for a unanimous court.
The ruling holds the borough of Haddonfield in Camden County accountable for discrimination claims made by a Jewish police officer whose co-workers made crass comments _ claimed to be poor attempts at humor _ about his ethnicity and pasted stickers of the flags of Israel and Germany on his locker.
The decision is an important victory for all workers enforcing the principle of equality, said Jon Green, who represented the state chapter of the National Employment Lawyers Association.
Attorney Clifford Van Syoc, who represented the officer, said, “There is no reason to make fun of people’s religion or race or anything.”
Added Etzion Neuer, regional director of the Anti-Defamation League of New Jersey, “It sends a clear and unequivocal message that anti-Semitism has to be treated with the same degree of severity as racial harassment.”
The attorney representing Haddonfield warned the decision would have a chilling effect. “The court has raised the bar on the hostile work environment _ now you can’t even joke in the workplace,” Mario Iavicoli said.
_ Kate Coscarelli
Obama campaign appoints Muslim affairs coordinator
WASHINGTON (RNS) Sen. Barack Obama’s presidential campaign has appointed a Chicago lawyer as its national coordinator for Muslim affairs.
Mazen Asbahi represents Muslim and Arab American businesses in his corporate law practice, reported Politico.com.
A community blog on the Obama campaign’s Web site announced July 25 that Asbahi will serve as national coordinator of Arab American affairs and be based at the campaign’s Chicago headquarters.
The move was welcomed by the Muslim Public Affairs Council. “The inclusion of a Muslim American voice in the presidential campaign reinforces the principle of pluralism in the electoral process,” the council said, urging Sen. John McCain to take similar steps.
In the Obama campaign announcement of Asbahi’s new assignment, blogger Amanda Scott wrote: “The Obama campaign is working hard to connect with Americans of every faith and ethnicity in an unprecedented grass-roots movement to build an America rooted in compassion and a government that, in the senator’s words, `reconciles the beliefs of each with the good of all.”’
Representatives of Obama’s campaign did not immediately respond to requests for further comment.
_ Adelle M. Banks
`Knights Templar’ file suit against pope
VATICAN CITY (RNS) A Spanish group claiming to be the heirs of the Knights Templar have filed a law suit against Pope Benedict XVI, seeking the “rehabilitation” of the once-powerful Catholic religious order that was disbanded 700 years ago.
The Association of the Sovereign Order of the Temple of Christ also demands recognition _ though not restitution _ of $156 billon in assets that it claims the original Templars lost upon their dissolution.
The Knights Templar, officially known as the Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon, were founded in the early 12th century to protect Christian pilgrims traveling to the Holy Land. But their growing military and economic power inspired envy, suspicion and accusations of heresy. Pope Clement V, under pressure from King Philip IV of France, disbanded the order in 1312.
The Templars’ glorious and tragic history has figured prominently in legend and popular culture, including Dan Brown’s “The Da Vinci Code.”
Last year, the Vatican published a document only recently discovered in its archives showing that Clement had actually absolved the order of heresy before dissolving it for political reasons.
According to statements appearing on the plaintiffs’ Web site, the current law suit was originally submitted to a Madrid court last December, and dismissed two months later. The group says it has appealed the dismissal, and expects a decision in October.
A report by the EFE news agency said the first judge dismissed the case on the grounds that the court lacked jurisdiction, since events so far in the past are “properly the subject of historians.”
_ Francis X. Rocca
Young scholar tapped for Riverside Church pulpit
NEW YORK (RNS) A New Testament scholar at Vanderbilt University Divinity School has been nominated to become senior minister of New York’s Riverside Church, one of the nation’s most prestigious and visible pulpits.
The Rev. Brad R. Braxton has been selected by a church search committee to succeed the Rev. James A. Forbes, who served at Riverside 18 years until his retirement last year.
Braxton’s selection was announced during the regular Sunday (Aug. 3) service of the multi-racial, interdenominational church near Columbia University on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. The congregation will vote on the nomination Sept. 14.
Braxton told The New York Times he hoped to continue what he called the dual legacies of “congregational care internally, and bold, courageous, prophetic action externally, for which the Riverside Church has been known now for so many years.”
If his nomination is approved, as expected, Braxton will join the ranks of a select group of preachers _ included Harry Emerson Fosdick and William Sloane Coffin _ who have championed social justice causes from the pulpit of the 78-year-old church founded by John D. Rockefeller Jr. Braxton would also be, after Forbes, the second African-American to hold the senior minister’s position.
At 39, Braxton would bring a youthful profile to the post; Forbes was 71 when he retired. Braxton’s appointment would also mark another turn to relative youth for an established liberal Protestant institution in New York City: Earlier this year, the 48-year-old Serene Jones, a Yale University scholar, was selected to succeed the Rev. Dr. Joseph Hough, 74, as president of Union Theological Seminary, across the street from Riverside.
Braxton currently serves as associate professor of homiletics and New Testament at Vanderbilt in Nashville, and previously taught at Wake Forest University Divinity School in Winston-Salem, N.C. He is the author of three books focusing on Pauline studies and interpretation.
Braxton is a graduate of the University of Virginia; holds a master’s degree from Oxford, where he was a Rhodes scholar; and received his doctorate in New Testament studies from Emory University.
He served as senior pastor of the Douglas Memorial Community Church, a 600-member interdenominational congregation in Baltimore, and preached at Westminster Abbey in London during 2007 bicentennial commemorations of the end of the British slave trade.
Sixty-five candidates were reportedly interviewed for the senior minister’s position at Riverside, which is affiliated with both the American Baptist Churches and the United Church of Christ.
_ Chris Herlinger
Unitarians rededicate church where gunman killed two
(RNS) Unitarian Univeralists in Knoxville, Tenn., reopened their doors on Sunday (Aug. 3), just one week after a gunman opened fire during a production of a church musical and left two people dead.
“This sanctuary, which has been defiled by violence, we rededicate to peace. This holy place, which has been desecrated by an act of hatred, we reconsecrate for love,” the Rev. Chris Buice told an overflow crowd at Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church.
Joined by two former ministers, Buice praised the congregation’s commitment to progressive social justice in the face of violence.
“(The gunman) came into this space with a desire to do an act of hatred. But he has unleashed unspeakable acts of love,” Buice said.
According to Knoxville police, Jim D. Adkisson, 58, opened fire during a July 27 performance of the musical, “Annie,” killing two and wounding seven. In a letter found in Adkisson’s car, the shooter blamed the church’s liberal teachings for his current unemployment.
Adkisson had no formal ties to the church, although The Associated Press reported that his ex-wife had been a former member.
“Last Sunday, a man walked into this sanctuary with the intention of inflicting terror. And he inspired quick and decisive acts of courage,” Buice said. “Reports tell us that he thought that liberals were soft on terror. He had a rude discovery.”
The FBI and Knoxville Police Department are currently investigating to determine whether Adkisson, who is currently in police custody, can be charged with hate crimes. The attack is the first of its kind on a Unitarian church.
“You could have returned the hatred that was directed at your community,” wrote the Rev. William Sinkford, president of the Boston-based Unitarian Universalist Association, in a letter to the congregation. “But instead you greeted hatred with love, and you created meaning from an unspeakably destructive act.”
_ Tim Murphy
Baha’i gardens named world heritage site in Israel
(RNS) The latest site in Israel to win designation from UNESCO as a World Heritage Site is Haifa’s Baha’i Gardens, a place sacred to what may be the least-known religion in the conflict-torn Holy Land.
The gardens, which climb from the base of Mount Carmel to its summit, include the Shrine of the Bab, a prominent Haifa landmark and a visual symbol of the Baha’i faith’s emphasis on worldwide religious unity.
The domed shrine, completed in 1953, contains the tomb of Siyyard Ali Muhammed, a Persian who was the chief precursor of the Baha’i religion. He was executed for heresy in 1850 by Muslim authorities. His remains were brought to Haifa in 1909 and remained hidden for years before the permanent memorial was built.
The Baha’i faith was an outgrowth of Muslim culture in much the same way that Christianity arose from Jewish traditions. Baha’is believe there is one God, and great world prophets including Moses, Jesus, Buddha and Muhammad are heavenly teachers with the same basic message.
Baha’u’llah, the latest of these messengers, was born in Iran in 1817 and laid the foundations for the modern Baha’i faith before his death in 1892. He taught the oneness of God, the oneness of the human family, and the oneness of religion _ views that led to his imprisonment and exile from his native Iran. Today the Baha’i faith has spread worldwide and counts about 6 million adherents in 200 countries.
In the late 1980s, followers marshalled the resources to complete the Baha’i “World Centre” in Haifa _ work that literally included moving and reshaping a mountain. The 19 meticulously landscaped terraces rising up Mount Carmel were officially opened in May of 2001.
The Baha’i Gardens already are the sixth or seventh most visited spot in Israel. They join eight other Israeli sites on the UNESCO list, including the oldest portions of Jerusalem and Acre and the tels of Beersheba and Hazor.
_ Valerie Sudol
Man who stormed popemobile sentenced to probation
VATICAN CITY (RNS) A German court has ordered four years’ probation, psychotherapy and medication for a 28-year-old man who last year jumped a barricade and briefly touched a vehicle carrying Pope Benedict XVI.
The German man, whose identity was not released, was also ordered “categorically” to abstain from alcohol and drug consumption _ monitored and verified by urine tests, The Associated Press reported.
In June 2007, the man was one of an estimated 40,000 people gathered for a papal audience in St. Peter’s Square.
As Benedict rode past him in the open-topped white vehicle known as the “popemobile,” the man jumped a wooden barrier holding back spectators and tried to mount the car. He managed to touch the popemobile briefly before bodyguards wrestled him to the ground.
At the time, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, director of the Vatican press office, referred to the man’s “clear signs of mental imbalance” and said that the case was “to be considered closed.”
Yet the incident revived concerns about security measures taken to protect the pope in the years since Mehmet Ali Agca shot and gravely wounded John Paul II in St. Peter’s Square on May 13, 1981.
The open-topped SUV used for such papal appearances is one of three vehicles interchangeably known as the “popemobile.”
Outside Vatican territory, the pope normally rides in one of two Mercedes-Benz ML430 off-road vehicles, which are fitted with raised tops made of bullet-proof plastic.
_ Francis X. Rocca
Quote of the Week: Geoff Tunnicliffe of the World Evangelical Alliance
(RNS) “Just as we promise to seek to move beyond the stereotyping of Muslims found in the media, can I ask you, my Muslim friends, to get to know us beyond what is reported in the newspapers and television programs?”
_ The Rev. Geoff Tunnicliffe, international director of the World Evangelical Alliance, speaking about the meeting of Muslim and Christian scholars that ended at Yale Divinity School on Thursday (July 31). He was quoted by Reuters.
KRE/RB END RNS
