The Rev. Jason Poling is Pastor of New Hope Community Church in Pikesville.

The good citizens of San Francisco have managed to tear themselves away from a crippling state budget crisis long enough to place a ballot measure outlawing circumcision. Being represented by Nancy Pelosi would unbalance me, too, so I don't want to be too judgmental.

Nah, I do.

What is at stake here is nothing less than the choice between the French and American visions of the social good. Liberté or liberty, sometimes the choice is clear. In San Francisco it couldn't be any clearer.

Our revolutions took place within a stone's throw of one another, chronologically. But while the French sought to institute a creedal secularism, we set out a constitutional vision of church protected from state, and vice versa. Our experiment was a lot less bloody, and a lot more successful.

Fast forward to today and in France Muslim girls are prohibited from covering their heads in school. This approach reflects an understanding of secularism as a militant opposition to religion, a strict requirement of conformity to prescribed standards however much said conformity might violate the consciences of citizens.

When our founding fathers pointed us toward a novus ordo seclorum, they had in mind a worldliness that allowed a variety of religious movements to express themselves in virtually any way that wouldn't impinge upon others. So while we don't allow the recreational use of peyote our society allows it as an expression of Native American religious observance. We'll make you take off the veil for your driver's license picture, but we'll let you wear it in class. And we'll allow you to raise your children according to the dictates of your religion, unless doing so presents an imminent threat to the child's physical health.

How is this definition adjudicated? With care, and with great respect -- at least in this country -- for the deeply held religious convictions of the people involved. If there's no overwhelming medical reason to oppose a practice, we're going to defer to the scruples of our fellow citizens. We do so in part because we would want them to do the same to us; we do so in part because most of us have a hard enough time making difficult decisions for ourselves, let alone for others. But mostly we do so because to be American is to be free to exercise, or not, our religious beliefs, and to have that free exercise protected against the prejudices of our neighbors.

Continue reading "Poling: Plus ça change ..." »

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The National Association of Evangelicals is joining Jews and Muslims in opposition to the proposed ban on circumcision of male children in San Francisco.

“Jews, Muslims, and Christians all trace our spiritual heritage back to Abraham. Biblical circumcision begins with Abraham,” Leith Anderson, president of the Christian organization, said Thursday in a statement. “No American government should restrict this historic tradition. Essential religious liberties are at stake.”

Opponents of circumcision have gathered enough signatures to get the ban on San Francisco's city ballot in November. The measure would make circumcision of a male under 18 a misdemeanor punishable by a fine of up to $1,000.

The National Association of Evangelicals says the ban would violate the First Amendment guarantee of the freedom to exercise one’s religious beliefs. The organization says its guiding policy document affirms the principles of religious freedom and liberty of conscience, which it describes as both historically and logically at the foundation of the American experiment.

“While evangelical denominations traditionally neither require nor forbid circumcision, we join Jews and Muslims in opposing this ban and standing together for religious freedom,” Anderson said.

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Associated Press correspondent Selcan Hacaoglu reports:

Turkey has launched a project to conserve an ancient Armenian cathedral and church in what is seen as a gesture of reconciliation toward its neighbor.

Turkey and Armenia have been locked in a bitter dispute for decades over the mass killings of Armenians in Turkey in the last years of the Ottoman Empire. Efforts to normalize relations have been dealt a setback by the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh. Azerbaijan is a close Muslim ally of Turkey.

Turkey, however, says it is committed to improving ties with Armenia, and has already restored the 10th century Akdamar church, perched on a rocky island in Lake Van in eastern Turkey. It has also allowed once-yearly worship at the site as a gesture to Armenia and its own ethnic Armenian minority.

Culture Minister Ertugrul Gunay said Tuesday the new project was being launched in partnership with the World Monuments Fund to conserve the remains of the cathedral and the Church of the Holy Savior in Ani, 25 miles (40 kilometers) from the eastern Turkish city of Kars.

According to the New York-based World Monuments Fund, Ani — "one of the world's great cities in the 10th century" — was once the site of hundreds of religious buildings, palaces, fortifications, and other structures. Today it stands abandoned, and the remnants of its celebrated buildings are in a precarious state.

The site, in an earthquake-prone area, has been listed on the World Monuments Watch since 1996.

"Ani, which is of global significance, presents particularly complicated challenges," Gunay said. "We hope that giving new life to the remains of once-splendid buildings, such as the Ani Cathedral and church, will bring new economic opportunities to the region."

Continue reading "In gesture, Turkey conserving Armenian churches" »

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Associated Press correspondent Victor L. Simpson reports:

A visit to Rome's main synagogue. Diplomatic relations with Israel. A handwritten plea asking forgiveness for Christian persecution left at Judaism's holiest site in Jerusalem.

With his landmark actions, Pope John Paul II strove throughout his 27-year papacy to overcome the tortured two-millennia history of Catholic-Jewish relations.

In a sign of appreciation for those efforts, some in the crowd at his beatification Sunday in St. Peters's Square will be Jews, including an Israeli Cabinet minister who lost most of his family in the Holocaust but was hidden by a Belgium family who raised him as a Christian.

"We have a high respect, a unique respect for John Paul," Yossi Peled, a retired Israeli general, said Friday. "He is not just another pope for us."

The preparations for the beatification — the last formal step before possible sainthood — got under way in an official capacity Friday morning when John Paul's tomb was opened and his sealed casket removed for public viewing starting Sunday in St. Peter's Basilica.

The simple white marble tombstone that had marked John Paul's resting place in the grottoes underneath the basilica will be sent to a new church dedicated to him in Krakow, the Vatican said.

Eighty-seven official delegations have confirmed their presence at the ceremony, including 16 heads of state, six heads of government and members of five royal houses, Vatican spokesman the Rev. Federico Lombardi said.

Peled, a minister in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office, said the participation of an Israeli Cabinet member at what is a religious event — the U.S. delegation is limited to its ambassador to the Holy See and two former envoys — is a sign of the importance given to John Paul's accomplishments.

Continue reading "On eve of beatification, Jews praise John Paul II" »

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In other Obama religious holiday news, the president extended best wishes to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu before the start of Passover, the White House reports.

The weeklong holiday, which marks the biblical story of the Israelites' exodus from Egypt, began Monday night with a traditional seder meal.

Obama hosted a seder at the White House for the third straight year, the Associated Press reported.

White House spokesman Jay Carney said Netanyahu expressed appreciation during their telephone conversation Monday for U.S. funding for a military weapons system that has intercepted several rockets aimed at Israeli communities, the AP rpeorted.

The leaders also discussed cooperation on counterterrorism, the Middle East peace process and violence in the Gaza Strip, Carney said.

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President Barack Obama hosted faith leaders and others Tuesday morning at the second annual White House Easter prayer breakfast. His remarks, as released by the White House:

"Well, it is absolutely wonderful to be here with all of you today. I see so many good friends all around the room.

"Before I begin, I want to acknowledge one particular member of my administration who I’m extraordinarily proud of and does not get much credit, and that is USAID Administrator, Dr. Raj Shah, who is doing great work with faith leaders. (Applause.) Where’s Raj? Where is he? There he is right there. Raj is doing great work with faith leaders on our Feed the Future global hunger program, as well as on a host of other issues. We could not be prouder of the work that he’s doing. I also want to acknowledge Congressman Mike McIntyre and his wife, Dee. (Applause.) Mike -- as some of you know, obviously, North Carolina was ravaged by storms this past weekend, and our thoughts and prayers are with all the families who have been affected down there. I know that Mike will be helping those communities rebuild after the devastation.

"To all the faith leaders and the distinguished guests that are here today, welcome to our second annual -- I’m going to make it annual, why not? (Laughter and applause.) Our second Easter Prayer Breakfast. The Easter Egg Roll, that’s well established. (Laughter.) The Prayer Breakfast we started last year, in part because it gave me a good excuse to bring together people who have been such extraordinary influences in my life and such great friends. And it gives me a chance to meet and make some new friends here in the White House.

"I wanted to host this breakfast for a simple reason -– because as busy as we are, as many tasks as pile up, during this season, we are reminded that there’s something about the resurrection -- something about the resurrection of our savior, Jesus Christ, that puts everything else in perspective.

"We all live in the hustle and bustle of our work. And everybody in this room has weighty responsibilities, from leading churches and denominations, to helping to administer important government programs, to shaping our culture in various ways. And I admit that my plate has been full as well. (Laughter.) The inbox keeps on accumulating. (Laughter.)

"But then comes Holy Week. The triumph of Palm Sunday. The humility of Jesus washing the disciples’ feet. His slow march up that hill, and the pain and the scorn and the shame of the cross.

Continue reading "Obama: 'There's something about the resurrection'" »

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Associated Press correspondent Kathy Matheson reports:

One of the hottest college campuses in the U.S. for Jewish students is also one of the unlikeliest: a small Lutheran school erected around a soaring stone chapel with a cross on top.

In what is being called a testament to word of mouth in the Jewish community, approximately 34 percent of Muhlenberg College's 2,200 students are Jewish. And the biggest gains have come in the past five years or so.

Perhaps equally noteworthy is how Muhlenberg has responded: offering a kosher menu at the student union, creating a partnership with the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York, and expanding its Hillel House, a social hub for Jews.

"What makes us stand out is that we actually enjoy our diversity," said Randy Helm, the college's president, an Episcopalian. "Our close-knit community has embraced differences rather than pulling into its shell or fracturing along religious, ethnic or other lines."

Many major universities — including some of the country's most highly selective schools — have large proportions of Jewish students, far bigger than the 2 percent of the U.S. population that is Jewish. But how, one might ask, did this come to pass at Muhlenberg, a liberal arts school little known outside Pennsylvania?

Muhlenberg graduate Ben David, now a rabbi on New York's Long Island, said it is a question worthy of Malcolm Gladwell's best-selling book "The Tipping Point," which analyzes how trends develop.

"Jews are like nothing else in terms of word of mouth," said Patti Mittleman, director of Muhlenberg's Hillel House. "There are so many Jews at Muhlenberg who are having a positive experience at Muhlenberg. That gets talked about in the synagogue and in youth group and in summer camp and in all of those ways that Jews meet each other and talk to each other."

Continue reading "Lutheran college hot among Jewish students" »

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Associated Press correspondent Molly Davis reports:

Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, who is scheduled to speak Friday at an annual conference of Mississippi civil rights veterans, is drawing criticism for his past comments about Jews and Roman Catholics — both instrumental groups in the struggle for equality in the 1960s.

Farrakhan leads the Chicago-based Nation of Islam, which published two books last year on what Farrakhan calls the "anti-black behavior" of Jews.

A group of scholars and leaders of local businesses, churches and synagogues signed a statement Tuesday criticizing Farrakhan's past statements on Roman Catholicism, Judaism and homosexuality.

Jewish support was critical to the civil rights movement. Jewish leaders helped found the NAACP and many of the white college students who joined black marchers for civil rights protests were Jewish.

"Minister Farrakhan has spoken out against Catholics for 'subjecting black people to a white-kind of theology,' Jews for having a 'dirty/gutter religion,' and homosexuals, who he recently referred to as 'swine,' according to the letter.

A spokesman for the Nation of Islam wasn't immediately available for comment. Owen Brooks, director of the Veterans of the Civil Rights Movement, didn't respond to requests for comment.

Farrakhan is scheduled to speak at the conference on Friday night at Jackson State University. The conference focuses on education and activism, but will include a discussion titled "Islamophobia and Religious Intolerance."

Continue reading "Interfaith group blasts Farrakhan speech" »

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Associated Press correspondent Nicole Winfield reports:

Pope Benedict XVI has made a sweeping exoneration of the Jewish people for the death of Jesus Christ, tackling one of the most controversial issues in Christianity in a new book.

In "Jesus of Nazareth-Part II" excerpts released Wednesday, Benedict explains biblically and theologically why there is no basis in Scripture for the argument that the Jewish people as a whole were responsible for Jesus' death.

Interpretations to the contrary have been used for centuries to justify the persecution of Jews.

While the Catholic Church has for five decades taught that Jews weren't collectively responsible, Jewish scholars said Wednesday the argument laid out by the German-born pontiff, who has had his share of mishaps with Jews, was a landmark statement from a pope that would help fight anti-Semitism today.

"Holocaust survivors know only too well how the centuries-long charge of 'Christ killer' against the Jews created a poisonous climate of hate that was the foundation of anti-Semitic persecution whose ultimate expression was realized in the Holocaust," said Elan Steinberg of the American Gathering of Holocaust Survivors and their Descendants.

The pope's book, he said, not only confirms church teaching refuting the deicide charge "but seals it for a new generation of Catholics."

Continue reading "Pope: Jews as whole not responsible for Jesus' death" »

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Associated Press writer Julie Pace reports:

President Barack Obama said Thursday that his faith has deepened during his two years in the White House, and he urged lawmakers to rely on their own faith to build a spirit of civility in Washington following the shooting of a congresswoman.

Speaking at the annual National Prayer Breakfast in Washington, Obama said that at a time of bitter partisanship, lawmakers must find a way to be open to the ideas of others, while staying true to their core principles.

"I pray that God will show me and all of us the limits of our understanding and open our ears and our hearts to our brothers and sisters with different points of view, that such reminders of our shared hopes and our shared dreams and our shared limitations as children of God will reveal a way forward that we can travel together," he said.

Obama's remarks Thursday built on his calls for civility in the days after last month's shooting rampage in Arizona, which left six dead. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords was shot in the head, and is recovering at a rehab center in Houston.

Giffords's husband, Mark Kelly, attended Thursday's breakfast and delivered the closing prayer.

"We are with them for the long haul, and God is with them for the long haul," Obama said of Giffords and Kelly.

Continue reading "Obama speaks of faith at prayer breakfast" »

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A leader of the Southern Baptist Convention has withdrawn from a coalition that supports the rights of Muslims to build mosques in their communities.

Richard Land, the head of the SBC's Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, said he heard from many Southern Baptists who felt the work of the Interfaith Coalition on Mosques crossed the line from defending religious freedom to promoting Islam.

"I don't agree with that perception but it's widespread and I have to respect it," he told The Associated Press.

The Coalition was formed last year as an initiative of the Anti-Defamation League, a Jewish group that fights discrimination. Its first action was to file a friend of the court brief opposing a lawsuit that sought to stop a planned mosque in Murfreesboro, about 30 miles southeast of Nashville.

"My constituents, many felt, 'Yes. We certainly believe in religious freedom. People ought to have a place of worship. But it's a bridge too far not only to advocate for that, but to file suit,'" he said.

Saud Anwar is the founder and co-chair of the American Muslim Peace Initiative and a member of the coalition. He said he was saddened and disappointed by Land's action, which he believes undermines Land's professions of support for religious liberty for all.

"The Southern Baptist community is one of the finest examples of faith in action that I know of," Anwar said. "You are setting an example by your action."

Continue reading "Southern Baptist leader leaves mosque coalition" »

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Categories: Christianity, Interfaith, Islam, People, Politics
        

Associated Press correspondent Maggie Michael reports:

CAIRO – In the weeks before the New Year's Day suicide bombing of an Egyptian church, al-Qaida-linked websites carried a how-to manual on "destroying the cross," complete with videos on how to build a bomb and the locations of churches to target — including the one that was attacked.

They may have found a receptive audience in Alexandria, where increasingly radicalized Islamic hard-liners have been holding weekly anti-Christian demonstrations, filled with venomous slogans against the minority community.

The blast, which struck Saturday as worshippers were leaving midnight Mass at the Mediterranean city's Saints Church, killed 21 people.

President Hosni Mubarak has accused foreign groups of being behind the attack, which has sparked a wave of angry protests by Christians in Egypt.

But on the ground, investigators are searching in a different direction — scrutinizing homegrown hard-liners, known as Salafis, and the possibility they were inspired by al-Qaida.

Continue reading "Anti-Christian drumbeat grew before Egypt attack" »

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The Rev. Jason Poling is pastor of New Hope Community Church in Pikesville. He is traveling in Israel with the Maryland Clergy Initiative, sponsored by the Baltimore Jewish Council and the Institute for Christian & Jewish Studies.

JERUSALEM – I don’t know what I was expecting, but somehow it wasn’t what I expected.

Earlier this week I walked on the Temple Mount, the site where the first and second Temples stood. Today it houses the Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock. For all the controversy that surrounds it, the Temple Mount is a very peaceful place – it’s a broad plaza populated by tourists, most of them apparently on organized tours.

For years I’ve studied various biblical passages about the events that took place on this site; I’ve looked at pictures and satellite images and helicopter flyovers to try to get something useful in my mind’s eye. It looked from a distance about how I thought it would, but the feeling of walking on it was the feeling of walking on an alien world. That’s not all too unusual, as that’s what walking through the rest of Jerusalem felt like too. But whatever connection I may have with the place spiritually, theologically … I don’t know that any connection was an experiential reality for me.

Some of this disconnect may come from the fact that I know enough about the history of the place to know that there is virtually no place one can stand that is as it was in the first century. Jerusalem has changed hands a number of times since then, and as we walked through the tunnels next to the Western Wall of the Temple Mount we learned about the ways successive administrations carried out massive building projects that would be impressive today but are stunning in scope for a pre-industrial age. The result of these building projects, though, is that streets in the neighborhood aren’t at the same levels they were two thousand years ago. So in a couple of days when we walk the Via Dolorosa, the path of Jesus’ journey carrying his cross, we will not be walking the same stones he walked.

Continue reading "Poling: A mountaintop experience…maybe" »

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The Rev. Jason Poling is Pastor of New Hope Community Church in Pikesville.

This week I have the privilege of joining two dozen of my colleagues on an interfaith clergy trip to Israel. Rabbis, ministers, scholars, priests and a bishop ... we have the makings of unlimited jokes as well as deep theological intercourse.

This trip, called the Maryland Clergy Initiative, is being co-sponsored by the Baltimore Jewish Council and the Institute for Christian & Jewish Studies. In addition to visiting major sites in Jerusalem and Galilee, we will meet with several of the leading voices on both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

I look forward to posting to In Good Faith as often as our schedule and wireless connections allow. My colleagues will also be contributing on the MCI trip blog.

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The Associated Press reports.

Pope Benedict XVI has told Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of the discrimination and violence Catholics suffer in the Mideast and said he hopes relations between the local churches and authorities can improve.

The Vatican released the text of a letter Benedict wrote Ahmadinejad after receiving a letter from the Iranian leader last month. Ahmadinejad had thanked the pontiff for opposing a Florida pastor's threat to burn the Quran on the Sept. 11 anniversary.

In his letter, dated Nov. 3 but released only Thursday, Benedict noted that a recent meeting of Mideast bishops had decried the discrimination many Catholics face in the region. He said he hoped a bilateral commission would help address the legal status of the Catholic Church in Iran.

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Associated Press writer Dylan Lovan reports:

A Southern Baptist leader who is calling for Christians to avoid yoga and its spiritual attachments is getting plenty of pushback from enthusiasts who defend the ancient practice.

Southern Baptist Seminary President Albert Mohler says the stretching and meditative discipline derived from Eastern religions is not a Christian pathway to God.

Mohler said he objects to "the idea that the body is a vehicle for reaching consciousness with the divine."

"That's just not Christianity," Mohler told The Associated Press.

Mohler said feedback has come through e-mail and comments on blogs and other websites since he wrote an essay to address questions about yoga he has heard for years.

"I'm really surprised by the depth of the commitment to yoga found on the part of many who identify as Christians," Mohler said.

Continue reading "Southern Baptist leader: Yoga not Christian" »

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Six rabbis from West Bank settlements have taken a step to defuse tension over the burning of a West Bank mosque, apparently by extremist settlers — they presented 20 new Quran books to replace those damaged in the blaze, the Associated Press reports.

During their visit to the mosque in the village of Beit Fajjar, Palestinian residents held charred pages of the burned Quran books.

Israeli politicians rushed to condemn the attack. It came as Israeli and Palestinian negotiators try to salvage peace talks by working out a deal over Israeli settlement construction in the West Bank.

Rabbi Menachem Froman, who led Tuesday's reconciliatory visit, said those who committed the attack "oppose peace."

The attackers left Hebrew slogans on the mosque walls. Israeli police are investigating.

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The Associated Press reports:

Officials in a rural upstate New York town are trying to force a group of Muslims to dig up two bodies in their cemetery, saying the burials were illegal.

But the Sufi group, which has documents that appear to support the cemetery's legality, says the town board's actions were motivated by a wave of anti-Islamic sentiment fueled by the uproar over a planned mosque near ground zero.

Hans Hass of the Osmanli Naksibendi Hakkani community, 130 miles northwest of New York City, said last week that the Sufi community learned only recently about the Sidney Town Board's vote in August to pursue legal action to shut down the community's cemetery.

"They knew we had the cemetery," Hass said. "I filed burial permits with the town. It wasn't an issue until the ground zero mosque came up."

Town Supervisor Bob McCarthy said the cemetery is illegal and bigotry had nothing to do with the board decision. He said no legal action has been taken yet and referred questions about the potential action to town attorney Joseph Ermeti, who didn't return a call seeking comment.

"These people just came up and buried bodies on the land," McCarthy said. "You have to have permits. They didn't have them. You can't just bury Grandma in the backyard under the picnic table."

Continue reading "Muslims say bigotry behind cemetery order" »

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Karen Matthews of the Associated Press reports:

Leaders of prominent U.S. Muslim groups called Monday for a national week of interfaith dialogue to combat religious intolerance and said they support the right to build a controversial Islamic center near ground zero.

"We stand for the constitutional right of Muslims, and Americans of all faiths, to build houses of worship anywhere in our nation as allowed by local laws and regulations," the Muslim leaders said in a statement delivered at the site of the proposed Islamic center and mosque, to be called Park51.

They called for a "week of dialogue" on the weekend of Oct. 22-24, during which Muslims would conduct open houses at their places of worship to help ease tensions.

"We ask Muslims to open mosques nationwide to welcome people, to let them understand the Islamic faith and what American Muslim community is," said Nihad Awad, national executive director of the Council on Islamic-American Relations. "We also urge Muslims to visit places of worship in other faith communities."

Continue reading "Muslims back mosque, call for dialogue" »

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Nicole Winfield of the Associated Press reports:

The Vatican declared Pope Benedict XVI's four-day visit to Britain a "great success" Sunday, saying the pontiff was able to reach out to a nation wary of his message and angry at his church's sex abuse scandal.

On his final day, Benedict praised British heroics against the Nazis to mark the 70th anniversary of the Battle of Britain and moved an Englishman a step closer to possible sainthood.

Vatican spokesman the Rev. Federico Lombardi said the important thing wasn't so much the turnout — crowds were much smaller than when Pope John Paul II visited in 1982 — but that Benedict's warning about the dangers of an increasingly secularized society had been received "with profound interest" from Britons as a whole.

Indeed, the British media coverage was remarkable in the seriousness with which newspapers and television took Benedict's message, and TV stations ran virtually all of the pope's speeches, Masses and other events live.

"Everyone is agreed about the great success, not so much from the point of view of the numbers, but ... by the fact that the message of the pope was received with respect and joy by the faithful," Lombardi told reporters.

Prime Minister David Cameron, in his farewell speech before Benedict's departure ceremony, said the pope had "challenged the whole country to sit up and think, and that can only be a good thing."

Continue reading "Vatican: Pope's UK visit a 'great success'" »

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Pope Benedict XVI will break his own rule this weekend when he beatifies Cardinal John Henry Newman, the renowned 19th Century Anglican convert who greatly influenced the Roman Catholic Church, the Associated Press reports.

Newman remains a complicated figure within the Anglican church he abandoned, and the pope's glorification of him during a state visit to Britain could unleash new tensions between churches already divided over issues like the ordination of women and gay bishops, AP correspondent Nicole Winfield writes.

Benedict will move Newman a step closer to possible sainthood when he presides over his beatification on Sunday, the main reason for his four-day trip. It's the first time Benedict will celebrate a beatification; under his own rules popes don't beatify, only canonize.

For the German-born, by-the-book professor, such an exception to his own rule is significant. It's a calculated gesture that underscores Benedict's view that Newman is a crucial model for all Christians at a time when Christianity is on the wane in an increasingly secularized Europe.

"His personality and teachings could be a source of inspiration for ecumenism in our times from which all of us can draw," Benedict said on the eve of his trip. "It is my hope and prayer that more and more people will benefit from his gentle wisdom and be inspired by his example of integrity and holiness of life."

For many Anglicans, the sight of the pope traveling to Britain with the express aim of beatifying a figure who turned his back on their church will be a bitter one.

And Benedict has a history of causing offense while on foreign trips — notably outraging Muslims in a speech in Germany by appearing to suggest the prophet Muhammad spread a message of violence, or suggesting while traveling to Africa that condoms hindered the fight against AIDS.

Continue reading "Pope risks controversy in beatifying convert" »

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The Rev. Jason Poling is Pastor of New Hope Community Church in Pikesville.

It’s been a tough year to be an evangelical pastor with a small congregation. The two best-known examples are Fred Phelps of Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kansas, and Terry Jones of Dove World Outreach Center in Gainesville, Florida. The former is best known for protesting military funerals and running www.godhatesfags.com. The latter is known for a plan to burn copies of the Qur’an on Saturday to commemorate the 9/11 attacks.

Well down the list would be me. Like Westboro and Dove, New Hope is small and independent of a denomination. One difference would be that the only thing we burn is cigars when our guys get together to play poker.

There are plenty of other differences as well. But every time I turn on the news and hear about a small evangelical church that’s planning to burn copies of the Qur’an I realize that there just isn’t room for the reporters to describe it as “fringe,” or “cult-like” (see their “Discipleship Manual” at The Smoking Gun), or “nutty.” No, they have to call them something, so “small evangelical church” it is.

I’m getting a taste of what it’s like for many of my Muslim colleagues.

A couple of years back I asked a local Imam what he thought about the blasphemy laws in many majority-Muslim countries that prescribe the death penalty for those converting from Islam to another religion. He told me he thought it was outrageous. I referenced the passages in the Qur’an used to justify the practice, and asked why other imams would endorse it on that basis. “Because they’re idiots,” he said.

Continue reading "Jason Poling: I'm with stupid" »

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An anti-Islamic preacher backed off and then threatened to reconsider burning the Quran on the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, angrily accusing a Muslim leader of lying to him Thursday with a promise to move an Islamic center and mosque away from New York's ground zero, the Associated Press reports. The imam planning the center denied there was ever such a deal.

The Rev. Terry Jones generated an international firestorm with his plan to burn the Quran on Saturday, the ninth anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, and he has been under intense pressure to give it up. President Barack Obama urged him to listen to "those better angels" and give up his "stunt," saying it would endanger U.S. troops and give Islamic terrorists a recruiting tool. Defense Secretary Robert Gates took the extraordinary step of calling Jones personally.

Standing outside his 50-member Pentecostal church, the Dove Outreach Center, alongside Imam Muhammad Musri, the president of the Islamic Society of Central Florida, Jones said he relented when Musri assured him that the New York mosque will be moved.

Musri, however, said after the news conference that the agreement was only for him and Jones to travel to New York and meet Saturday with the imam overseeing plans to build a mosque near ground zero.

Hours later, Jones said Musri "clearly, clearly lied to us."

"Given what we are now hearing, we are forced to rethink our decision," Jones said. "So as of right now, we are not canceling the event, but we are suspending it."

Jones did not say whether the Quran burning could still be held Saturday, but he said he expected Musri to keep his word and expected "the imam in New York to back up one of his own men."

Continue reading "Preacher cancels Quran burning, then reconsiders" »

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Hundreds of angry Afghans burned a U.S. flag and chanted "Death to the Christians" on Thursday to protest plans by a small American church to torch copies of the Muslim holy book on the anniversary of the Sept. 11 terror attacks, the Associated Press reports.

Religious and political leaders across the Muslim world, as well as several U.S. officials, have asked the church to call off the plan, warning it would lead to violence against Americans. Iraq, worried that it will unleash a backlash against all Christians, has beefed up security near churches.

The Rev. Terry Jones, of the Dove Outreach Center in Gainesville, Florida, has vowed to go ahead with the bonfire on Saturday, even though he has been denied the required permit.

Local officials in Mahmud Raqi, the capital of Afghanistan's Kapisa province, estimated that up to 4,000 people took part in Thursday's demonstration. But NATO spokesman James Judge said the protesters numbered between 500 to 700.

"The Afghan national police prevented the protest from overwhelming an Afghan military outpost," and dispersed the demonstration, he told The Associated Press.

A cleric in Afghanistan's largely peaceful Balkh province also warned Thursday that, if the burning goes ahead, a protest will be held in the provincial capital Mazar-i-Sharif next Monday. Protesters could hurl stones at NATO-led troops stationed in the city — one of the country's main centers of the Islamic teaching.

In the central Pakistani city of Multan, about 200 people marched and burned a U.S. flag.

"If Quran is burned it would be beginning of destruction of America," read one English-language banner held up by the protesters, who chanted "Down with America!"

Continue reading "Afghans burn U.S. flag to protest Quran burning" »

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 12:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)
        

President Barack Obama is exhorting a Florida minister to "listen to those better angels" and call off his plan to engage in a Quran-burning protest this weekend, the Associated Press reports.

Obama told ABC's "Good Morning America" in an interview aired Thursday that he hopes the Rev. Terry Jones of Florida listens to the pleas of people who have asked him to call off the plan. The president called it a "stunt."

"If he's listening, I hope he understands that what he's proposing to do is completely contrary to our values as Americans," Obama said. "That this country has been built on the notion of freedom and religious tolerance."

"And as a very practical matter, I just want him to understand that this stunt that he is talking about pulling could greatly endanger our young men and women who are in uniform," the president added.

Said Obama: "Look, this is a recruitment bonanza for Al Qaida. You could have serious violence in places like Pakistan and Afghanistan." The president also said Jones' plan, if carried out, could serve as an incentive for terrorist-minded individuals "to blow themselves up" to kill others.

"I hope he listens to those better angels and understands that this is a destructive act that he's engaging in," the president said of Jones.

Continue reading "Obama urges pastor to drop Quran-burning plan" »

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 12:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski is calling plans by a Florida pastor to burn copies of the Muslim holy book on Saturday "disgraceful and un-American."

“The anniversary of the devastating terrorist attacks of 9/11 should not be marked with an act of hatred," the Maryland Democrat said in a statement. "Book burning is the action of fanatics and fascists. The Quran should be treated with the same respect given to the Bible and the Torah."

Terry Jones, pastor of the nondenominational Dove Outreach Center in Gainesville, Fla., says the church will proceed with "International Burn-a-Quran Day" despite condemnations by the top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the White House.

Gen. David Petraeus warned in an e-mail to The Associated Press that "images of the burning of a Quran would undoubtedly be used by extremists in Afghanistan — and around the world — to inflame public opinion and incite violence."

Petraeus spoke with Afghan President Hamid Karzai about the matter Wednesday, the AP reports.

"They both agreed that burning of a Quran would undermine our effort in Afghanistan, jeopardize the safety of coalition troopers and civilians," spokesman Col. Erik Gunhus said, and would "create problems for our Afghan partners ... as it likely would be Afghan police and soldiers who would have to deal with any large demonstrations."

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Defense Secretary Robert Gates urged Jones to cancel the event, the AP reports.

Continue reading "Mikulski: Burning Quran 'disgraceful,' 'un-American'" »

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A Muslim stonemason who spent nearly four decades helping to restore a Roman Catholic cathedral in France has been immortalized as a winged gargoyle peering out from its facade — with the inscription "God is great" written in French and Arabic.

It was conceived as a symbol of inter-religious friendship that reflects the city of Lyon's links to its large Muslim population, the Associated Press reports. But a widely publicized outcry from a small extreme-right group has forced the Archdiocese of Lyon into damage control.

"This has nothing to do with religion. It's a sculptor who wants to pay homage to a construction site chief," said the Rev. Michel Cacaud, rector of the cathedral. "That's all."

In France, where Islam is the country's second religion, the government has worked to integrate Muslims into French culture, while at the same time confronting cases of Islamophobia, from the desecration of Muslim graves to attacks on mosques.

Ahmed Benzizine, who was born in Algeria, a former French colony, sees the gargoyle in his image as "a message of peace and tolerance."

"When I started to work in churches ... exactly 37 years ago, it was considered a sin that a Muslim enter a place of worship other than a mosque," he said.

He has worked off and on since 1973 at St. Jean Cathedral, which dominates the old city of Lyon and has been honored as a UNESCO World Heritage site.

Benzizine is tickled to see his likeness on the facade of the cathedral, which dates to the 12th to 14th centuries and combines both Gothic and Roman architecture.

"It looks like me except for the ears," the 59-year-old told The Associated Press. "They're pointed like the devil. But the sculptor told me that angels have pointed ears, too."

Continue reading "Catholic church honors Muslim worker" »

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A Christian minister said Tuesday that he will go ahead with plans to burn copies of the Quran to protest the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks despite warnings from the top U.S. general in Afghanistan and the White House that doing so would endanger U.S. troops, the Associated Press reports.

Pastor Terry Jones of the Dove World Outreach Center said he understands the government's concerns, but plans to go forward with the burning this Saturday, the ninth anniversary of the attacks.

He left the door open to change his mind, however, saying that he is still praying about his decision.

Gen. David Petraeus warned Tuesday in an e-mail to The Associated Press that "images of the burning of a Quran would undoubtedly be used by extremists in Afghanistan — and around the world — to inflame public opinion and incite violence."

State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley echoed that later in the day, calling the plan to burn copies of the Quran "un-American" and saying it does not represent the views of most people in the U.S.

"While it may well be within someone's rights to take this action, we hope cooler heads will prevail," Crowley said. He said burning copies of the Quran would be "inconsistent with the values of religious tolerance and religious freedom," and potentially puts the lives of U.S. soldiers and diplomats at risk.

Jones told the AP in a phone interview that he is also concerned but wonders how many times the U.S. can back down.

Continue reading "Pastor plans to burn Quran despite military warning" »

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The University of California, Irvine has upheld its decision to suspend a campus Muslim group after some of its members disrupted a speech by the Israeli ambassador at a campus event, the Associated Press reports.

However, the university said last week it would lift the suspension of the Muslim Student Union on Dec. 31 instead of enforcing it for a full year.

In addition, the group will be on probation for two years instead of one, and members must complete 100 hours of community service.

Eleven students were arrested in February for disrupting Michael Oren's speech.

Hadeer Soliman, the group's interim vice president, says the punishment will affect hundreds of Muslims who regularly attend prayer meetings and socialize together.

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 5:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

The Mormon church says it has changed its genealogical database to better prevent the names of Jews killed in Nazi concentration camps from being submitted for posthumous baptism by proxy, the Associated Press reports.

In a joint statement issued Wednesday, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and a coalition of Jewish leaders said a new computer system and policy changes related to the practice should resolve a yearslong disagreement over the baptisms.

Mormons believe posthumous baptism by proxy provides an opportunity for deceased persons to receive the Gospel in the afterlife. Baptisms are performed in Mormon temples with members immersing themselves in a baptismal pool as proxies for others. The names used in the ceremonies are drawn from a church-run genealogical database.

Faithful Mormons use the practice primarily to have their ancestors baptized into the 180-year-old church and believe the ceremonies reunite families in the afterlife.

But the practice also includes proxy rites for others around the world from all faith traditions. The church also believes departed souls can accept or reject the baptismal rites in the afterlife and contends the offerings are not intended to offend anyone.

Jews are offended by the idea that Mormons are trying to alter the religion of Holocaust victims, who were murdered because of their religion.

Continue reading "Mormons, Jews tackle proxy baptisms" »

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 12:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (50)
        

It is "unethical, insensitive and inhumane" to oppose the planned mosque near ground zero, more than 50 leading Muslim organizations said Wednesday as they cast the intense debate as a symptom of religious intolerance in America, the Associated Press reports.

The imam behind the project, meanwhile, was preparing to return to the U.S. after a taxpayer-funded good will tour to the Mideast, where he said the debate is about much more than "a piece of real estate." Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf sidestepped questions about whether he would consider moving the $100 million mosque and Islamic community center farther from where Islamic terrorists flew two planes into the World Trade Center. Instead, he stressed the need to embrace religious and political freedoms in the United States.

Leaders of the Majlis Ash-Shura of Metropolitan New York, an Islamic leadership council that represents a broad spectrum of Muslims in the city, gathered on the steps of City Hall to issue a statement calling for a stop to religious intolerance and affirming the right of the center's developers to build two blocks north of the site of the 2001 terrorist attacks.

"We support the right of our Muslim brothers who wish to build that center there," said Imam Al Amin Abdul Latif, president of the Majlis Ash-Shura. "However, the bigger issue and the broader issue is the issue of ethnic and religious hatred being spread by groups trying to stop the building of mosques and Islamic institutions across the country."

This is the first time that the council as a body has spoken out on the weeks-old debate over the proposed center.

Continue reading "N.Y. Muslims decry hostile atmosphere" »

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The proposed mosque near ground zero drew hundreds of fever-pitch demonstrators Sunday, with opponents carrying signs associating Islam with blood, supporters shouting, "Say no to racist fear!" and American flags waving on both sides, the Associated Press reports.

Police separated the two groups but there were some nose-to-nose confrontations, including a man and a woman screaming at each other across a barricade under a steady rain.

Opponents of the plan to build a $100 million, 13-story Islamic center and mosque two blocks from the World Trade Center site appeared to outnumber supporters. Bruce Springsteen's "Born in the USA" blared over loudspeakers as mosque opponents chanted, "No mosque, no way!"

Signs hoisted by hundreds of protesters standing behind police barricades read "SHARIA" — using dripping, blood-red letters to describe Islam's Shariah law. Around the corner, NYPD officers guarded a cordoned-off stretch of Park Place occupied by the old building that is to become the Islamic center.

Steve Ayling, a 40-year-old Brooklyn plumber who took his "SHARIA" sign to a dry spot by an office building, said the people behind the mosque project are "the same people who took down the twin towers."

Continue reading "N.Y. mosque demonstration grows heated" »

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The imam leading plans for an Islamic center near the Manhattan site of the Sept. 11 attacks said Friday he hopes to draw attention during his trip in the Middle East to the common challenges to battle radical religious beliefs, the Associated Press reports.

Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, who is on the first leg of a 15-day Mideast tour funded by the U.S. State Department, refused to discuss the political firestorm over the plans for an Islamic cultural center about two blocks from the World Trade Center towers. Foes of the project say it is insensitive and disrespectful to the victims of 9/11 and their families. The debate has become politicized ahead of November's midterm congressional elections.

Instead, Rauf preferred to focus on shared concerns. Speaking after leading Friday prayers at a neighborhood mosque outside Bahrain's capital Manama, he said radical religious views pose a security threat in both the West and the Muslim world.

"This issue of extremism is something that has been a national security issue — not only for the United States but also for many countries and nations in the Muslim world," Rauf said. "This is why this particular trip has a great importance because all countries in the Muslim world — as well as the Western world — are facing this ... major security challenge."

The imam also said he has been working on a way to "Americanize Islam." While he did not elaborate on what an American version of Islam might look like, he did note that different interpretations of the faith have emerged over the religion's nearly 1,400-year existence.

"The same principles and rituals were everywhere, but what happened in different regions was there were different interpretations," he said. "So we recognize that our heritage allows for re-expressing the internal principles of our religion in different cultural times and places."

Continue reading "N.Y. mosque imam: Extremism is global threat" »

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 11:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (6)
        

American Muslims who support the proposed mosque and Islamic center near ground zero are facing skeptics within their own faith — those who argue that the project is insensitive to Sept. 11 victims and needlessly provocative at a time when Muslims are pressing for wider acceptance in the U.S., the Associated Press reports.

"For most Americans, 9/11 remains as an open wound, and anything associated with Islam, even for Americans who want to understand Islam — to have an Islamic center with so much publicity is like rubbing salt in open wounds," said Akbar Ahmed, professor of Islamic studies at American University, a former Pakistani ambassador to Britain and author of "Journey Into America, The Challenge of Islam." He said the space should include a synagogue and a church so it will truly be interfaith.

Abdul Cader Asmal, past president of the Islamic Council of New England, an umbrella group for more than 15 Islamic centers, said some opponents of the $100 million, 13-story project are indeed anti-Muslim. But he said many Americans have genuine, understandable questions about Islam and extremism.

In light of those fears, and the opposition of many relatives of 9/11 victims, Asmal said organizers should dramatically scale back the project to just a simple mosque, despite their legal right to construct what they want.

"Winning in the court of law is not going to help improve the image of Muslims nationwide," said Asmal, a Massachusetts physician. "You have to win the hearts and minds of the ordinary American people."

Continue reading "Some Muslims question mosque proposal" »

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American Muslim leaders who recently returned from visiting Dauchau and Auschwitz have released a statement condemning Holocaust denial and anti-Semitism, the Associated Press reports.

The trip earlier this month was led by Rabbi Jack Bemporad of the Center for Interreligious Understanding in New Jersey, and co-sponsored by the Konrad Adenauer Foundation of Germany.

The Muslim leaders said that denying or justifying the Holocaust violates Islamic ethics.

"We condemn anti-Semitism in any form," the leaders wrote. "No creation of Almighty God should face discrimination based on his or her faith or religious conviction."

The leaders pledged to fight prejudice against Jews, Muslims and all people based on their religion, race or ethnicity.

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 11:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

Weighing his words carefully on a fiery political issue, President Barack Obama said Saturday that Muslims have the right to build a mosque near New York's Ground Zero, but he did not say whether he believes it is a good idea to do so, the Associated Press reports.

Obama commented during a trip to Florida, where he expanded on a Friday night White House speech asserting that Muslims have the same right to freedom of religion as everyone else in America.

The president's statements thrust him squarely into a debate that he had skirted for weeks and could put Democrats on the spot three months before midterm elections where they already were nervous about holding control of the House and maybe even the Senate. Until Friday, the White House had asserted that it did not want to get involved in local decision-making.

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, an independent who has been a strong supporter of the mosque, welcomed Obama's White House speech as a "clarion defense of the freedom of religion."

Gov. Charlie Crist, R-Fla., who was among those who met with Obama on Saturday, lauded the president's position.

"I think he's right — I mean you know we're a country that in my view stands for freedom of religion and respect for others," Christ said after the Florida meeting with Obama and other officials. "I know there are sensitivities and I understand them. This is a place where you're supposed to be able to practice your religion without the government telling you you can't."

Others were quick to pounce.

Continue reading "Obama supports right to build mosque" »

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 5:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (6)
        

President Barack Obama on Friday forcefully endorsed allowing a mosque near ground zero, saying the country's founding principles demanded no less, the Associated Press reports.

"As a citizen, and as president, I believe that Muslims have the same right to practice their religion as everyone else in this country," Obama said, weighing in for the first time on a controversy that has riven New York City and the nation.

"That includes the right to build a place of worship and a community center on private property in lower Manhattan, in accordance with local laws and ordinances," he said. "This is America, and our commitment to religious freedom must be unshakable."

Obama made the comments at an annual dinner in the White House State Dining Room celebrating the Islamic holy month of Ramadan.

The White House had not previously taken a stand on the mosque, which would be part of a $100 million Islamic center two blocks from where nearly 3,000 people perished when hijacked jetliners slammed into the World Trade Center towers on Sept. 11, 2001. Press secretary Robert Gibbs had insisted it was a local matter.

It was already much more than that, sparking debate around the country as top Republicans including Sarah Palin and Newt Gingrich announced their opposition. So did the Anti-Defamation League, a Jewish civil rights group.

Obama elevated it to a presidential issue Friday without equivocation.

Continue reading "Obama backs mosque near Ground Zero" »

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The Simon Wiesenthal Center criticized Israeli President Shimon Peres on Friday for thanking Romania for saving Jews, saying he should have condemned the Romanian state for the tens of thousands of Jews who were killed there during World War II, the Associated Press reports.

On Thursday, Peres publicly thanked Romania for helping 400,000 Romanian Jews emigrate to Israel during the communist regime that ended in 1989. Peres did that while making the first visit to Romania by an Israeli head of state since 1948 when Israel was formed.

Peres was speaking at a news conference with Romanian President Traian Basescu, who said that Romania would be a loyal partner of Israel and NATO, if there was a conflict with Iran. During that event, Peres did not mention Romania's role in the Holocaust.

In 2004, a historical commission set up to study the Holocaust in Romania found the country was responsible for the deaths of 280,000 Jews and 11,000 Roma during the Second World War under the regime of pro-Nazi Marshal Ion Antonescu.

On Friday, Efraim Zuroff, the Israel director of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, issued a statement essentially saying Peres should have mentioned this.

"His failure to condemn the horrific crimes of the Antonescu regime against the Jewish people are likely to have very dire consequences, especially in Romania and elsewhere in Eastern Europe, where there is a growing tendency in post-Communist societies to deny or minimize the highly significant role played by local Nazi collaborators in the annihilation of the Jews," said Zuroff, who also is a Holocaust historian.

Continue reading "Jewish center criticizes Israeli president's comment" »

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The first sign of danger was the crackle of gunfire over their heads. Ten gunmen, their faces covered, rushed toward terrified humanitarian workers and began shouting "Satellite! Satellite!" — a demand to surrender their phones.

Moments later, 10 of them lay dead, including two women hiding in the back seat of a car the attackers hit with a grenade, according to an Afghan official familiar with the account the sole survivor gave police.

It is the first detailed narrative of the slaying of six Americans, two Afghans, one German and a Briton on Aug. 5 in remote northern Afghanistan, the Associated Press reports. They were ambushed and shot Aug. 5 after journeying about 100 miles — much of it on foot and horseback — through the Hindu Kush mountains, giving eye and other medical care to impoverished villagers.

Afghan and U.S. investigators spent at least four hours this week questioning the survivor, a 24-year-old father of three named Safiullah. He was employed as a driver for International Assistance Mission, a nonprofit Christian organization that has worked in Afghanistan since 1966.

Safiullah, who like many Afghans uses only one name, told investigators that the killings occurred around 7:30 a.m. or 8:30 a.m., according to the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to disclose details of the ongoing investigation.

Continue reading "AP Exclusive: The aid workers' last minutes" »

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New York Gov. David Paterson offered state help Tuesday if the developers of a mosque near the site of the Sept. 11 attacks agree to move the project farther from the site, the Associated Press reports.

Paterson, a Democrat, said that he doesn't oppose the project as planned but indicated that he understands where opponents are coming from. He said he was willing to intervene to seek other suitable state property if the developers agreed.

"I think it's rather clear that building a center there meets all the requirements, but it does seem to ignite an immense amount of anxiety among the citizens of New York and people everywhere, and I think not without cause," Paterson said in a news conference in Manhattan.

"I am very sensitive to the desire of those who are adamant against it to see something else worked out," Paterson said.

The developers declined to comment. Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who last week made an impassioned defense of the project planned for lower Manhattan, declined to comment through a spokesman.

Continue reading "Governor offers help moving Ground Zero mosque" »

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Muslims trying to build houses of worship in the nation's heartland, far from the heated fight in New York over plans for a mosque near ground zero, are running into opponents even more hostile and aggressive, the Associated Press reports.

Foes of proposed mosques have deployed dogs to intimidate Muslims holding prayer services and spray painted "Not Welcome" on a construction sign, then later ripped it apart.

The 13-story, $100 million Islamic center that could soon rise two blocks from the site of the Sept. 11 attacks would dwarf the proposals elsewhere, yet the smaller projects in local communities are stoking a sharper kind of fear and anger than has showed up in New York.

In the Nashville suburb of Murfreesboro, opponents of a new Islamic center say they believe the mosque will be more than a place of prayer. They are afraid the 15-acre site that was once farmland will be turned into a terrorist training ground for Muslim militants bent on overthrowing the U.S. government.

"They are not a religion. They are a political, militaristic group," said Bob Shelton, a 76-year-old retiree who lives in the area.

Shelton was among several hundred demonstrators recently who wore "Vote for Jesus" T-shirts and carried signs that said: "No Sharia law for USA!," referring to the Islamic code of law. Others took their opposition further, spray painting the sign announcing the "Future site of the Islamic Center of Murfreesboro" and tearing it up.

Continue reading "Far from Ground Zero, U.S. mosques face opposition" »

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Writer, public health professional and attorney J. Samia Mair of Baltimore is the author of the children’s books Amira’s Totally Chocolate World and The Perfect Gift.

According to the Council on American-Islamic Relations, several mosques in the United States have been targeted either by anti-Muslim protests or by hate crimes. Some speculate that it is due to the controversy over the proposed building of the Cordoba House, a few blocks from Ground Zero. For example, a children’s playground was torched at a Texas mosque and the parking lot had obscene graffiti, defiling the name of God.

There also have been protests against a Kentucky mosque and California mosque. A Florida mosque was recently bombed, which officials described as terrorism.

On Friday, angry protesters from the group Operation Save America accosted worshipers at the Bridgeport Islamic Society in Connecticut. Among them was a 13-year-old who held up a sign stating “Islam is a Lie.” One protestor shouted “murderers” as he apparently shoved a placard at a group of young Muslim children.

The Anti-Defamation League calls itself “America’s prime resource for information on and responses to bigotry.”

According to its website, “The immediate object of the League is to stop, by appeals to reason and conscience and, if necessary, by appeals to law, the defamation of the Jewish people. Its ultimate purpose is to secure justice and fair treatment to all citizens alike and to put an end forever to unjust and unfair discrimination against and ridicule of any sect or body of citizens" (emphasis added).

To meet these ends, ADL states that it:

• probes the roots of hatred
• fosters interfaith/intergroup relations
• mobilizes communities to stand up against bigotry

Where is the ADL in fulfilling its stated mission to combat bigotry in this case? The answer should surprise you. In a recent statement, ADL took the unbelievable stand that although legal, it is wrong to build the Cordoba House near Ground Zero.

Continue reading "Guest Post: Ground Zero bigotry: The ripple effect" »

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 5:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (43)
        

A group of Jewish activists and community leaders voiced their support for a planned mosque near ground zero and said opponents, including the nation's leading Jewish civil rights group, are perpetuating misunderstandings about Islam, the Associated Press reports.

Rabbi Arthur Waskow, of the Philadelphia-based Shalom Center, joined about 30 other religious leaders and Jewish activists Thursday at the spot where the Cordoba Initiative hopes to build an Islamic center that will include a mosque, an athletic center, a culinary school and art studios. Waskow says the mosque will help people learn more about Islam.

"Whenever there has been bloodshed allegedly in the name of one tradition or another, it's necessary to say, 'That's not what that tradition is about,'" Waskow, 76, said. "The Cordoba Initiative will keep saying that is not what Islam is about."

The mosque and community center would be located two blocks from the site of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. SoHo Properties, a partner in the effort, purchased the property for nearly $5 million. Early plans call for a 13-story, $100 million Islamic center, of which the mosque would be a part.

Big-name Republicans including former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich have criticized the plan, saying it is provocative for a mosque to be built so close to a spot where Islamic terrorists killed thousands. Former Rep. Rick Lazio, a Republican running for governor of New York, has questioned where funding for the project is coming from.

The Anti-Defamation League, a Jewish civil rights group known for advocating religious freedom, also opposes the project.

"This is not a question of rights, but a question of what is right," the ADL said in a statement. "In our judgment, building an Islamic center in the shadow of the World Trade Center will cause some victims more pain — unnecessarily — and that is not right."

Continue reading "Jewish activists support Ground Zero mosque" »

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The debate over a planned Islamic community center and mosque near ground zero became a court fight Wednesday, as a conservative advocacy group sued to try to stop a project that has become a fulcrum for balancing religious freedom and the legacy of the Sept. 11 attacks, the Associated Press reports.

The American Center for Law and Justice, founded by the Rev. Pat Robertson, filed suit Wednesday to challenge a city panel's decision to let developers tear down a building to make way for the mosque two blocks from ground zero.

The city Landmarks Preservation Commission moved too fast in making a decision, underappreciated the building's historic value and "allowed the intended use of the building and political considerations to taint the deliberative process," lawyer Brett Joshpe wrote in papers filed in a Manhattan state court. The Washington, D.C.-based group represents a firefighter who responded to and survived the terrorist attack at the World Trade Center.

City attorneys are confident the landmarks group adhered to legal standards and procedures, Law Department spokeswoman Kate O'Brien Ahlers said. A spokesman for the planned Islamic center, Oz Sultan, declined to comment on the lawsuit but said organizers were continuing to work toward choosing an architect.

The mosque has become a national political flashpoint, pitting several influential Republicans and the nation's most prominent Jewish civil rights group against New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and others. In one of the latest signs of the issue's political reach beyond Manhattan, Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick expressed support Wednesday for the proposed mosque.

Continue reading "Opponents sue to stop Ground Zero mosque" »

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Over at the Huffington Post, New York media and fashion mogul Russell Simmons writes that the debate over construction of a mosque near Ground Zero is "digging a hole in the soul of America."

Simmons, the activist cofounder of the Def Jam record label and the Phat Farm fashion line, writes of being able to see the hole that remains at Ground Zero from his apartment in Lower Manhattan, and of greeting the firefighters at his neighborhood station, who lost nearly all of their comrades on Sept. 11, 2001.

This is my neighborhood, my backyard. And in my backyard, I have no tolerance for a new fear-mongering, hateful rhetoric that has sprung up over the proposed $100 million Islamic cultural center that they plan on building blocks away from Ground Zero.

It is not insensitive to put a cultural center of any sort, that has a place of worship, anywhere in our city. This is what makes our country and our city great. As a nation that was founded by men and women who were being persecuted for their particular faith, we should know that the best path to finding freedom is finding freedom for others. We were formed as a pluralistic society and this means we welcome all religions. Islam did not attack the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, sick and twisted men did, who not only hijacked four airplanes but also hijacked a religion. Let us not stereotype the over one billion Muslims around the world because of the evil acts of a few. A decision like this one, to support or not support the construction of this center, defines who we are as a nation. It's at the essence of our values, our freedom of expression, freedom of religion and religious tolerance.

As the Chairman of The Foundation Of Ethnic Understanding, my partner Rabbi Marc Schneier (also the Vice President, World Jewish Congress; Chairman, World Jewish Congress United States) and I have worked tirelessly to promote dialogue among different ethnic groups all over the world, particularly Jews and Muslims. We have witnessed the power of the fostering of this dialogue. We know that we must fight Antisemitism and Islamaphobia together and at the same time. We welcome and support this cultural center, as it will continue constructive conversations around a moderate approach to co-existence between all people, regardless of religious preference. In fact, we strongly feel that this center will bridge the divide that many of our nation's citizens have with the Islamic faith.

Continue reading "Simmons: Ground Zero mosque 'not insensitive'" »

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A New York City panel cleared the way Tuesday for the construction near ground zero of a mosque that has caused a political uproar over religious freedom and Sept. 11 even as opponents vowed to press their case in court, the Associated Press reports.

The Landmarks Preservation Commission voted unanimously to deny landmark status to a building two blocks from the World Trade Center site that developers want to tear down and convert into an Islamic community center and mosque. The panel said the 152-year-old lower Manhattan building isn't distinctive enough to be considered a landmark.

The decision drew praise from Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who stepped before cameras on Governor's Island with the Statue of Liberty as a backdrop shortly after the panel voted and called the mosque project a key test of Americans' commitment to religious freedom.

"The World Trade Center site will forever hold a special place in our city, in our hearts," said Bloomberg, a Republican turned independent. "But we would be untrue to the best part of ourselves, and who we are as New Yorkers and Americans, if we said no to a mosque in lower Manhattan."

The vote was a setback for opponents of the mosque, who say it disrespects the memory of those killed at the hands of Islamic terrorists on Sept. 11, 2001. Jeers and shouts of "Shame on you" could be heard after the panel's vote.

The American Center for Law and Justice, a conservative advocacy group founded by the Rev. Pat Robertson, announced it would challenge the panel's decision in state court Wednesday.

Continue reading "NYC panel denies Ground Zero mosque opponents" »

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Prison officials may ban employees from wearing religious headscarves out of concerns they pose a safety risk, a U.S. appeals court in Philadelphia ruled Monday in a split 2-1 decision.

The majority said that prison officials have legitimate concerns the headscarves can hide drugs or other contraband, or be used by an inmate to strangle someone, the Associated Press reports.

The ruling dismisses a lawsuit filed by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission on behalf of three Muslim women employed at the Delaware County Prison in suburban Thornton. The EEOC had said they were being forced to compromise their religious beliefs to keep their jobs.

The suit was filed against the Geo Group, a Boca Raton, Fla.-based contractor that formerly operated the facility.

After the prison implemented a ban on hats and headscarves in 2005, nurse Carmen Sharpe-Allen was fired for refusing to remove her headscarf, or khimar, at work. Intake clerk Marquita King and correctional officer Rashemma Moss, after some deliberation, agreed to remove their headscarves on the job.

Continue reading "Court: Prison may ban Muslim headscarf" »

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A special coin issued by Romania's central bank to commemorate a prime minister and religious leader who stripped Jews of their citizenship before World War II has drawn protests from Romanian Jews as well as a director at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, the Associated Press reports.

Radu Ioanid, who runs the museum's international archives, said he was "shocked" by the bank's decision to mint the coin depicting late Patriarch Miron Cristea, who led the Romanian Orthodox Church from 1925 to 1939 and was prime minister from 1938 to 1939.

The patriarch was responsible for revising the citizenship law, stripping about 225,000 Jews — or 37 percent of the Jewish population — of their Romanian citizenship, Ioanid said.

"I can't understand how the patriarch managed to pass through the filter," said Robert Schwartz, representative for Romanian Jews in the city of Cluj. "It is known there are black stains connected to his attitude towards the Jews." Schwartz said there were other Romanians, such as the patriarch's contemporary Queen Maria, who had done much for Jews and should have been honored.

Continue reading "Holocaust museum to Romania: Scrap 'racist' coin" »

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The nation's leading Jewish civil rights group has come out against the planned mosque and Islamic community center near ground zero, saying more information is needed about funding for the project and the location is "counterproductive to the healing process," the Associated Press reports.

The Anti-Defamation League said it rejects any opposition to the center based on bigotry and acknowledged that the group behind the plan, the Cordoba Initiative, has the legal right to build at the site. But the ADL said "some legitimate questions have been raised" about funding and possible ties with "groups whose ideologies stand in contradiction to our shared values."

"Ultimately this is not a question of rights, but a question of what is right," the ADL said in a statement. "In our judgment, building an Islamic center in the shadow of the World Trade Center will cause some victims more pain — unnecessarily — and that is not right."

The director of the Cordoba Initiative, Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, was in Malaysia, where the group has offices, on Friday and could not be reached. His wife, Daisy Khan, who is a partner in the project, said the center will be a space for moderate Muslim voices. She noted Cordoba had previously worked with the ADL to fight prejudice against Jews and Muslims.

"We believe it will be a place where the counter-momentum against extremism will begin," Khan said Friday. "We are committed to peace."

Continue reading "Jewish rights group opposes Ground Zero mosque" »

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A draft constitution that Kenya votes on next week guarantees women the same rights as men — unless a judge in a Muslim family court decrees otherwise, the Associated Press reports.

Critics, including some American evangelicals, complain that the document carves out too many exceptions for the country's Muslim minority and could create tensions between Muslims and Christians.

Creating a new constitution was a key part of a power-sharing deal that ended weeks of bloody riots 2 1/2 years ago. More than 1,000 people were killed in the violence after a disputed presidential election.

But the inclusion of the publicly funded Muslim courts has galvanized opposition among some Christians ahead of next Wednesday's vote. A clause in the bill — which polls show is likely to pass — grants equality to women, as long as it doesn't interfere with the application of Muslim law.

"All Kenyans should have the same rights regardless of ethnicity, religion or gender," said Oliver Kisaka, the deputy general secretary of the National Council of Churches in Kenya. "This is the unfair creation of a system within a system. And why should taxpayers pay for a judicial system that doesn't include them?"

Muslim leaders call that kind of attitude scare mongering, and point out that Kenya's Islamic courts predate the country's independence from Britain, when they were formally brought under the Ministry of Justice. Muslims make up about 10 percent of Kenya's 40 million people.

Continue reading "Constitution would accommodate Muslim courts" »

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 11:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
        

A Malaysian court fined 12 Muslims on Tuesday and sentenced one of them to a week in prison for illegally protesting the construction of a Hindu temple and parading a severed cow's head, the Associated Press reports.

The protest last August stoked tensions among Malaysia's three main ethnic groups — the Malay Muslim majority and Chinese and Indian minorities, most of them Buddhists, Christians or Hindus who have complained that their religious rights are often sidelined in favor of Islam.

The 12 men were among scores of Muslims who marched with a bloodied cow's head from a mosque to the central Selangor state chief minister's office to denounce the state government's plan to build a Hindu temple in their largely Muslim neighborhood.

The cow is the most sacred animal in Hinduism.

All 12 pleaded guilty in a Selangor district court to a charge of illegal assembly and were fined US$320 each, said defense lawyer Afifuddin Hafifi. They faced up to a year in prison and a fine for the charge.

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Republican gubernatorial candidate Ron Ramsey is being criticized by a national Muslim rights group for positing that Islam may be more of a cult than a religion, the Associated Press reports.

At an event in Chattanooga earlier this month, Ramsey said: "You could even argue whether that being a Muslim is actually a religion, or is it a nationality, way of life, cult or whatever you want to call it?"

Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for the Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations, said Ramsey's comments are a sign of "a disturbing trend in our nation in which it is suggested that American Muslims should have fewer or more restricted constitutional rights than citizens of other faiths."

Ramsey responded with a statement saying he's concerned that "far too much of Islam has come to resemble a violent political philosophy more than peace-loving religion."

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 12:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (9)
        

Shaukat Malik is a certified public accountant who lives in Potomac. He is also an entrepreneur and a business and political strategist.

Extremist Islam has done so much damage to the Muslim image that during the 2008 U.S. presidential election opponents of Barack Hussain Obama tried to scare voters by declaring that he was a Muslim and supported terrorists.

President Obama’s being labeled as a Muslim for political advantage is a wakeup call for Muslims everywhere, as it clearly confirms the pariah status of the 1.2 billion people who were born in a Muslim home.

As a religion of submission and acceptance of other religions that gave refuge to the Jewish people running from persecution in Europe to Iran, Egypt, Turkey, Morocco and Tunisia, today, unfortunately, it has been hijacked by the oil rich theocracies of Iran and the Middle East.

The great Rabbi Maimonides -- also known as Rambam – became leader of the Jewish community in Egypt in 1183 and was subsequently appointed physician to King Saladin’s vizier. He lived all his life in an Islamic society and died in Egypt. Harmonious co-existence between Muslims and Jews in 1183 confirms the existence of an Islam that was inclusive and welcoming to all, much like the United States of today. There is no reason why we cannot have Muslim states that are inclusive and welcoming to all.

The question we must ask is this. Let us imagine for a moment that Barak Hussein Obama is indeed a Muslim. Would this suddenly take away his intellect and his loyalty to the United States and transform him into an Osama bin Laden-like terrorist living in the White House?

No religion teaches you to harm another human being. The aim of all of the great faiths is to promote a just and fair society. We cannot say that Moses and Jesus were wrong and Prophet Mohammad is right. They were all God’s messengers who brought his message and wanted to spread peace, love and understanding.

Continue reading "Guest post: The image of Islam, under siege" »

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Dozens of opponents and some supporters of a mosque planned near ground zero attended a raucous hearing Tuesday about whether the building where the Muslim place of worship would be created warrants designation as a city landmark and should be protected from development, the Associated Press reports.

Republican gubernatorial candidate Rick Lazio, who has sought an investigation into the funding of the mosque, was among the witnesses who testified in support of giving the building landmark status, which could complicate plans by Muslim groups to develop a community center and mosque there.

After noting the lower Manhattan building's history and architectural significance, Lazio said it also warranted landmark designation because on Sept. 11, 2001, it was struck by airplane debris from the terror attacks against the nearby World Trade Center. That connection to the attacks, he said, made it "a place of deep historical significance and a reminder of just what happened on New York's darkest day."

Lazio has called on state Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, his Democratic opponent in the governor's race, to investigate the funding of the project. On Tuesday, he repeated that request and said the pace of the landmark designation process should be slowed to allow time to thoroughly investigate the matter.

Nearly 100 people attended the hearing at a college campus on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. Fifty-six people testified at the hearing, which turned contentious at times, with some speakers drowned out by shouts from the audience and with one man escorted out by campus security.

"To deprive this building of landmark status is to allow for a citadel of Islamic supremacy to be erected in its place," said Andrea Quinn, a freelance audio technician from Queens who said she had worked with people at the World Trade Center.

But Rafiq Kathwari, who described himself as a moderate Muslim, said the landmark discussion had been hijacked.

"This has been made by a very vocal minority into an issue of bigotry," said Kathwari, as he held up his U.S. passport and was nearly drowned out by shouts from the crowd. "I'm standing in a hall in which I feel ashamed to be an American."

Continue reading "Ground Zero mosque foes seek landmark status" »

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Shaukat Malik is a Muslim-American Certified Public Accountant from Potomac. A native of Pakistan, he arrived in the United States in 1980.

Muslims must accept the existence of other religions as God’s will.

God decides our religion at birth, and judges us based on how we followed our assigned faith. Generally, a child follows the religion of his parents; conversions are rare.

Abraham, Moses and Jesus were all good men and brought good messages of peace. We cannot reject their faith or message outright. The Quran confirms the messages in the Old and New Testaments. All of God's children are entitled to worship whatever faith God has chosen for them. There are many divisions between Muslims, yet they all pray to the same God. We should leave it to God to decide who is right and who is wrong.

Here is a verse from the Quran confirming the existence of other religions acceptable to God that have not been revealed to us. This would cover Hindus and Buddhists and the rest of humanity.

040.078
YUSUFALI: We did aforetime send messengers before thee: of them there are some whose story we have related to thee, and some whose story we have not related to thee. It was not [possible] for any messenger to bring a sign except by the leave of Allah: but when the Command of Allah issued, the matter was decided in truth and justice, and there perished, there and then those who stood on Falsehoods.

PICKTHAL: Verily We sent messengers before thee, among them those of whom We have told thee, and some of whom We have not told thee; and it was not given to any messenger that he should bring a portent save by Allah's leave, but when Allah's commandment cometh (the cause) is judged aright, and the followers of vanity will then be lost.

SHAKIR: And certainly We sent messengers before you: there are some of them that We have mentioned to you and there are others whom We have not mentioned to you, and it was not meet for a messenger that he should bring a sign except with Allah's permission, but when the command of Allah came, judgment was given with truth, and those who treated (it] as a lie were lost.

This verse confirms other messengers and the validity of their messages. Muslims are only 25 percent of planet Earth's population and should worry only about their own conduct and dealings with fellow human beings. Muslims cannot force conversion on the remaining 75 percent of the world, as they are non-muslims by God’s will and design.

Continue reading "Guest post: Other religions are God's will" »

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France's justice minister went before parliament Tuesday to defend a hotly debated bill that would ban burqa-style Islamic veils in public, arguing that hiding your face from your neighbors is a violation of French values, the Associated Press reports.

Michele Alliot-Marie's speech at the National Assembly marked the start of parliamentary debate on the bill. It is widely expected to become law, despite the concerns of many French Muslims, who fear it will stigmatize them. Many law scholars also argue it would violate the constitution.

The government has used various strategies to sell the proposal, casting it at times as a way to promote equality between the sexes, to protect oppressed women or to ensure security in public places.

Alliot-Marie argued that it has nothing to do with religion or security — she argued simply that life in the French Republic "is carried out with a bare face."

"It is a question of dignity, equality and transparency," she said in a speech that made scant mention of Muslim veils. Officials have taken pains to craft language that does not single out Muslims: While the proposed legislation is colloquially referred to as the "anti-burqa law," it is officially called "the bill to forbid covering one's face in public."

Ordinary Muslim headscarves are common in France, but face-covering veils are a rarity — the Interior Ministry says only 1,900 women in France wear them.

Yet the planned law would be a turning point for Islam in a country with a Muslim population of at least 5 million people, the largest in western Europe.

Continue reading "French parliament debates ban on burqa-style veils" »

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An emotional debate over crucifixes in classrooms is opening a new crack in European unity, the Associated Press reports.

It all started in a small town in northern Italy, where Finnish-born Soile Lautsi was so shocked by the sight of crosses above the blackboard in her children's public school classroom that she called a lawyer to see if she could get them removed.

Her case went all the way to Europe's highest court — and her victory has set up a major confrontation between traditional Catholic and Orthodox countries and nations in the north that observe a strict separation between church and state. Italy and more than a dozen other countries are fighting the European Court of Human Rights ruling, contending the crucifix is a symbol of the continent's historic and cultural roots.

"This is a great battle for the freedom and identity of our Christian values," said Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini.

The court case underlines how religious symbols are becoming a contentious issue in an increasingly multiethnic Europe.

French legislators begin debate next week on a draft law, vigorously championed by President Nicolas Sakorzy, that would forbid women from wearing face-covering Islamic veils anywhere in public.

Continue reading "Crucifixes in classrooms testing European unity" »

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The pope has named a Swiss bishop with experience dealing with Orthodox and Lutheran churches to head the Vatican office responsible for relations with other Christians and Jews, the Associated Press reports.

Archbishop Kurt Koch replaces Cardinal Walter Kasper as head of the Pontifical Council for Christian Unity. Kasper, 77, is retiring.

Koch, 60, has been Basel's bishop for nearly 15 years, and has served as a member of the pontifical council since 2002. In a statement Thursday, he said a "credible and sincere" ecumenical dialogue had long been close to his heart.

Kasper had headed the office since 2001, and was often put in the position of defusing Vatican standoffs with Jews such as when the pope lifted the excommunication of a Holocaust-denying bishop.

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The following was written by J. Samia Mair, Sister Eileen Eppig, and Ted Chaskelson on behalf of the Muslim-Christian-Jewish Dialogue Group of Baltimore.

In the fall of 2007, Muslims and Christians from the Baltimore area established an interfaith group to learn more about each other’s religion and to promote understanding and peace on a wider scale. Later realizing that the discussion would benefit tremendously with the addition of the Jewish perspective, members of the Jewish community were invited to join.

Our participation in this dialogue has resulted in increasing appreciation of one another and our respective religious traditions; in praying for and otherwise supporting one another, and in raising our awareness of events that we might not have otherwise noticed.

Sadly, it is senseless killings that are the events that come -- more and more -- to the notice of the entire world. All three of our member religions are aware that a responsibility rests on all of them. None can say that such killings are problems for other religions, but not for us. The burden of responsibility rests on Jews, Christians and Muslims, to do what we can to end such killings. For this reason we have submitted a Jewish, Christian and Muslim perspective showing that all three religions call for an end to this violence.

Continue reading "Guest post: Interfaith perspectives on violence" »

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For every hurricane, earthquake or flood, there is help: food, bottled water, crews of volunteers nailing shingles to brand new roofs.

What even grateful recipients of that aid might not realize, the Associated Press reports, is that much of it comes from an unlikely hodgepodge of religious groups who put aside their doctrinal differences and coordinate their efforts as soon as the wind starts blowing.

Southern Baptists cook meals from Texas to Massachusetts. Seventh-day Adventists dispense aid from makeshift warehouses that can be running within eight hours. Mennonites haul away debris, Buddhists provide financial aid and chaplains with the Billy Graham Rapid Response Team counsel the traumatized and grieving.

This "juice and cookies fellowship," as one organizer calls it, is mostly invisible to the public, but it provides interfaith infrastructure for disaster response around the country that state and federal officials could scarcely live without.

"Think of us as the United Nations of disaster relief," said Diana Rothe-Smith, executive director of National Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster, the main umbrella group for coordinating emergency response from private agencies.

Continue reading "The 'United Nations of disaster relief'" »

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Muslims around the globe remain uneasy about the U.S. and are increasingly disenchanted with President Barack Obama, according to a poll that suggests his drive to improve relations with the Muslim world has had little impact, the Associated Press reports.

Even so, the U.S. image is holding strong in many other countries and continues to be far better than it was during much of George W. Bush's presidency, according to the survey.

There is one glaring exception: Mexico, where 62 percent expressed favorable views of the U.S. just days before an Arizona law cracking down on illegal immigrants was signed in April, but only 44 percent did so afterward.

The findings by the Pew Global Attitudes Project, conducted in April and May in the United States and 21 other countries by the nonpartisan Pew Research Center, come amid a global economic downturn and U.S. wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. The poll has been measuring the views of people around the world since 2002.

Among the seven countries surveyed with substantial Muslim populations, the U.S. was seen favorably by just 17 percent in Egypt, Turkey and Pakistan and 21 percent in Jordan. The U.S.'s positive rating was 52 percent in Lebanon, 59 percent in Indonesia and 81 percent in Nigeria, where Muslims comprise about half the population.

None of those figures was an improvement from last year. There were slight dips in Jordan and in Indonesia, where Obama spent several years growing up. Egypt saw a 10-point drop, even though Obama gave a widely promoted June 2009 speech in Cairo aimed at reaching out to the Muslim world.

Continue reading "Global poll: Muslims leery of U.S., Obama" »

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Israel will significantly ease its bruising land blockade of the Gaza Strip on Wednesday, officials said, in an effort to blunt the widespread international criticism that has followed a deadly Israeli commando raid on a blockade-busting flotilla.

Senior Cabinet ministers were meeting to limit restrictions on what gets into Gaza — materials Israel says militants could use in their battle against the Jewish state — to a short list of goods, some of them desperately needed by Gaza civilians, the Associated Press reports.

But the Israeli naval blockade that was at the root of the deadly raid that prompted the international outcry will remain intact.

It also wasn't clear whether key raw materials for industry would be permitted to enter again and whether Israel would end its ban on Gazan exports.

The three-year-old embargo has shuttered hundreds of Gazan factories, put tens of thousands of people out of work and brought the territory's fragile economy to a standstill. Travel restrictions that confine most of Gaza's 1.5 million people to the territory are also likely to remain in effect.

Israel, with Egypt's cooperation, has blockaded the Palestinian territory by land and sea ever since Hamas militants, with a violent anti-Israel agenda, seized control of Gaza in 2007.

Continue reading "Israel to vote on easing Gaza blockade" »

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French police are banning a street party whose organizers planned to serve alcohol and pork-based sausage in a heavily Muslim Paris neighborhood, the Associated Press reports.

Police said Tuesday that the party, called "Sausage and booze," was banned because it could have been viewed as a provocation in the Goutte-d'Or neighborhood of northern Paris, where Muslims pray on the streets on Fridays because there are not enough mosques. Alcohol and pork are banned in Islam.

Organizers said they were organizing Friday's party to protest Islam's encroachment on traditional French values in the neighborhood. The party was backed by several extreme-right associations. Muslim groups had announced a counterparty serving halal food.

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 11:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (10)
        

Shaukat Malik is a Muslim-American Certified Public Accountant from Potomac. A native of Pakistan, he arrived in the United States in 1980.

The flotilla incident is an unfortunate accident born out of Israel’s need to maintain its naval blockade of Gaza and the activists' objective of breaking Israel’s blockade. Instead of abseiling from helicopters onto the lead ship, which resulted in the loss of innocent lives, Israeli patrol boats could have escorted the flotilla to port.

Hamas’s non-recognition of Israel and demanding the return of Palestinians to a pre-1967 Jerusalem is undiluted rhetoric and must be treated as such. Declaring Hamas as terrorists, naval blockades and tit-for-tat bombings have not yielded any positive results. They have effectively derailed the peace process. Gaza has essentially become an internment camp.
Blockades leave unhappy memories. We should not forget the British blockade of Palestine in 1945 that forced flotillas carrying Jewish immigrants from Europe to turn back.

We must remember that Hamas won the 2006 elections in Palestine. Hamas won 76 of the 132 parliamentary seats, giving the party the right to form the next cabinet under the Palestinian Authority's president, Mahmoud Abbas, the leader of Fatah. A reason for their victory was the corruption of the Fatah government.

In today’s unsettled world, beset by recession and America’s economy destroyed by Wall Street robbers and the BP oil spill, it is extremely important for Israel to take the lead in peace efforts. A peaceful Middle East is extremely important for winning America’s war on terror. Terrorist recruiters are celebrating the flotilla incident.

Continue reading "Guest post: An opportunity for peace" »

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Afghans have burned an effigy of Pope Benedict XVI out of anger over claims charities preached Christianity in the Muslim country, the Associated Press reports.

U.S.-based Church World Service and Norwegian Church Aid deny spreading Christianity. The government suspended them last week while investigating allegations in an Afghan television report.

More than 1,000 people marched Tuesday in the northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif, demanding organizations that proselytized in Afghanistan be banned.

The crowd roared approval as protesters doused the effigy of the pope in kerosene and lit it.

They shouted: "Death to America! Long Live Islam!"

Aid workers say the allegations increase the threat to staff already at risk for insurgent attack.

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 2:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
        

A coalition of religious and conservative leaders is trying to stop a proposed Comedy Central cartoon that puts Jesus Christ in a modern-day context — before it even gets started, the Associated Press reports.

The newly formed Citizens Against Religious Bigotry said Thursday that it believes the "JC" series would be offensive. They accuse Comedy Central of a double standard in mocking Christian figures and beliefs while recently refusing to let "South Park" depict the Prophet Muhammad for fear of offending Muslims.

"You don't have to be a Christian to be offended by this," said Brent Bozell, head of the watchdog Media Research Center.

Comedy Central said last month that "JC" is one of two dozen series it has in development. The concept is to depict Christ as a "regular guy" who moves to New York to "escape his father's enormous shadow."

Network spokesman Tony Fox noted that "JC" is nothing more than an idea now, without even a completed script. In television, only a minority of projects in development ever make it on the air.

Fox said the groups should save their energy for when a decision is made about whether the series will ever be completed.

Continue reading "Conservatives trying to stop Comedy Central series" »

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Although this year's homicide totals continue to be on a slower pace a year ago, Earl El-Amin said he and his faith-based brethren have grown tired of the violence, Baltimore Sun colleague Brent Jones reports.

"We're called to be keepers of peace," said El-Amin, of the Muslim's Community Central of Baltimore and a member of Baltimore's Interfaith Coalition. "That is essentially our mission. When you study history, all the great sages that came, they came to establish peace in environments that were out of sync."

El-Amin and about 50 other religious leaders, along with representatives from the city state's attorney office, announced an anti-violence initiative Thursday that will use money collected from religious services to fund activities for children.

Organizers of the program, called "Fifth Sunday: Violence to Virtue," are asking the more than 1,200 churches, mosques and synagogues in Baltimore to take up an offering every fifth weekend and donate the money to a local nonprofit, which in turn would disburse the funds to individuals or organizations that work with kids.

It is the first major program under the newly organized Baltimore Interfaith Coalition, which formed last spring after several religious leaders met with police Commissioner Frederick H. Bealefeld III, who called upon the faith-based community to help curb violence.

"We've challenged ourselves to break down barriers among ourselves and work for the greater good of the people in Baltimore," said BIC co-chairman Bishop Douglas I. Miles, pastor of Koinonia Baptist Church in Northeast Baltimore. "This is a means of funding small operations that may not have [nonprofit] status but are doing great things in our community — like people who work with marching bands, people who do mentoring on the weekends — something so they have means of getting funding to help advance their work."

Read the rest of the story at baltimoresun.com.

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Religious leaders gathered Wednesday morning to ask the Baltimore City Council to support a controversial package of taxes proposed by Mayor Stephanie C. Rawlings-Blake to help plug a $121 million budget gap, Baltimore Sun colleague Julie Scharper reports.

Her story continues:

The brief news conference organized by the BUILD interfaith coalition marked the first public event supporting Rawlings-Blake's tax package, which has drawn fierce opposition from retailers, beverage distributors, hotel owners and a host of business groups.

"Nobody likes an increase in taxes and fees, but it's a necessity given the economic climate," said Bishop Douglas Miles, co-chair of BUILD. "What's the alternative?"

BUILD members have championed the city's recreation centers, which would have been decimated by a doomsday spending plan that closed the budget shortfall through cutting services.

Rawlings-Blake, who spoke briefly at the news conference, has pledged to keep all the rec centers open through the summer if the council approves her revenue-generating measures, including a bed tax on nonprofit hospitals and universities; a 4-cent tax on bottled beverages; and hikes to energy, telecommunications and income tax rates.

Read the rest of the story at baltimoresun.com.

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Evangelist Franklin Graham prayed on a sidewalk outside the Pentagon Thursday after his invitation to a prayer service inside was withdrawn because of comments that insulted Muslims, the Associated Press reports.

"It looks like Islam has gotten a pass," he told reporters. "They are able to have their services, but just because I disagree ... I'm excluded."

In 2001, Graham, the son of famed evangelist Billy Graham, described Islam as evil. More recently, he said he finds Islam offensive and wants Muslims to know that Jesus Christ died for their sins. The Pentagon's chaplain office called those comments inappropriate and, at the request of the Army, withdrew Graham's invitation to attend a multi-denominational "National Day of Prayer" service that was held in the Defense Department auditorium.

He came anyway, arriving in the Pentagon parking lot just before 8 a.m. EDT — his party of a half dozen people forming a circle on the sidewalk and praying.

They stood there for about five minutes, heads bowed, as people arriving for work passed by — a man with a briefcase, one on a bike, a woman carrying breakfast pastry in a bag and another man carrying a skateboard.

Then the group walked to the Pentagon's Sept. 11 memorial roughly a couple of hundred feet away, where media had gathered because it's one of the few places were cameras are allowed on the Pentagon property. There, Graham held a news conference that lasted nearly twice as long as the prayer.

Asked why he had come, Graham said it was to pray for the men and women serving at the warfront, including his son, who he said had already been wounded in Iraq and now serves in Afghanistan.

He said he doesn't believe "all religions are equal" and that there is only "one way to God" — and that is through Jesus.

Continue reading "Disinvited Graham prays outside Pentagon" »

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A federal judge in Wisconsin ruled last month that the law that directs the president to proclaim a National Day of Prayer in unconstitutional, and for the second year, President Barack Obama has declined to host an event marking the day, as President George W. Bush and others did.

Still, U.S. District Judge Barbara Crabb stayed her ruling, pending appeals, including one by the Obama administration. And last week, the president issued a proclamation marking the day:

THE WHITE HOUSE

NATIONAL DAY OF PRAYER, 2010

BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

A PROCLAMATION

Throughout our history, whether in times of great joy and thanksgiving, or in times of great challenge and uncertainty, Americans have turned to prayer. In prayer, we have expressed gratitude and humility, sought guidance and forgiveness, and received inspiration and assistance, both in good times and in bad.

On this day, let us give thanks for the many blessings God has bestowed upon our Nation. Let us rejoice for the blessing of freedom both to believe and to live our beliefs, and for the many other freedoms and opportunities that bring us together as one Nation. Let us ask for wisdom, compassion, and discernment of justice as we address the great challenges of our time.

We are blessed to live in a Nation that counts freedom of conscience and free exercise of religion among its most fundamental principles, thereby ensuring that all people of goodwill may hold and practice their beliefs according to the dictates of their consciences. Prayer has been a sustaining way for many Americans of diverse faiths to express their most cherished beliefs, and thus we have long deemed it fitting and proper to publicly recognize the importance of prayer on this day across the Nation.

Let us remember in our thoughts and prayers those suffering from natural disasters in Haiti, Chile, and elsewhere, and the people from those countries and from around the world who have worked tirelessly and selflessly to render aid. Let us pray for the families of the West Virginia miners, and the people of Poland who so recently and unexpectedly lost many of their beloved leaders. Let us pray for the safety and success of those who have left home to serve in our Armed Forces, putting their lives at risk in order to make the world a safer place. As we remember them, let us not forget their families and the substantial sacrifices that they make every day. Let us remember the unsung heroes who struggle to build their communities, raise their families, and help their neighbors, for they are the wellspring of our greatness. Finally, let us remember in our thoughts and prayers those people everywhere who join us in the aspiration for a world that is just, peaceful, free, and respectful of the dignity of every human being.

NOW, THEREFORE, I, BARACK OBAMA, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and laws of the United States of America, do hereby proclaim May 6, 2010, as a National Day of Prayer. I call upon the citizens of our Nation to pray, or otherwise give thanks, in accordance with their own faiths and consciences, for our many freedoms and blessings, and I invite all people of faith to join me in asking for God’s continued guidance, grace, and protection as we meet the challenges before us.

Today

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this thirtieth day of April, in the year of our Lord two thousand ten, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and thirty-fourth.

BARACK OBAMA

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Comedy Central's "South Park" included a representation of the Prophet Muhammad as a character this week despite a radical Muslim group's warning that its producers could be killed, the Associated Press reports.

Muhammad appeared on Wednesday night's episode of the cartoon with his face obscured by a black box, since Muslims consider a physical representation of their prophet to be blasphemous. Last week, the character was briefly disguised in a bear costume. When that same costume was removed this week, Santa Claus appeared.

The bear costume had angered the New York-based group Revolution Muslim, which posted a message on its website saying that producers Trey Parker and Matt Stone had insulted their prophet.

The message included a gruesome picture of Theo Van Gogh, a Dutch filmmaker murdered by a Muslim extremist in 2004 after making a movie about a woman who rejected Muhammad's teachings. The message said the "South Park" producers would "probably wind up like Theo Van Gogh" for airing the show.

The posting included Comedy Central's New York address, as well as the address for Parker and Stone's California production studio.

Continue reading "South Park episode airs despite Islamist warning" »

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The Army is considering whether to rescind an invitation to evangelist Franklin Graham to appear at the Pentagon amid complaints about his description of Islam as evil, the Associated Press reports.

Graham, the son of famed evangelist Billy Graham, was to appear at the Pentagon on May 6 — the National Day of Prayer.

He said he will be a guest of the Pentagon and would speak only if he's still invited.

Army Col. Tom Collins said withdrawing the invitation "is on the table," but no decision has been made. He said Army brass will have the ultimate decision on whether to pull the invite.

The Military Religious Freedom Foundation raised the objection to the appearance, citing Graham's past remarks about Islam.

Mikey Weinstein, president of the foundation, said the invitation offended Muslim employees at the Pentagon. He said it would endanger American troops by stirring up Muslim extremists.

Continue reading "Army considering rescinding Graham invitation" »

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French President Nicolas Sarkozy has ordered legislation that would ban women from wearing Islamic veils that fully cover the face and body in public places, the government said Wednesday, the Associated Press reports.

It is Sarkozy's first political action toward an outright ban, though he has repeatedly said such outfits oppress women and are not welcome in France, home to a firmly secular government.

Government spokesman Luc Chatel said after a Cabinet meeting Wednesday that the president decided the government should submit a bill to parliament in May on an overall ban on such veils "in all public places."

That ups the stakes in Sarkozy's push against veils such as the burqa and niqab and chador. Some in his own party have bristled at a full-out ban, and France's highest administrative body has questioned whether it would be constitutional.

Sarkozy insisted that "everything should be done so that no one feels stigmatized," according to Chatel. Sarkozy said the veils "do not pose a problem in a religious sense, but threaten the dignity of women."

Continue reading "Sarkozy to submit bill banning face veils" »

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A watchdog group objected Tuesday to an evangelist's invitation to speak at the Pentagon next month, saying his past description of Islam as "evil" offended Muslims who work for the Department of Defense and the appearance should be canceled, the Associated Press reports.

Mikey Weinstein, president of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, said inviting evangelist Franklin Graham to speak May 6, the National Day of Prayer, "would be like bringing someone in on national prayer day madly denigrating Christianity" or other religious groups.

It would also endanger American troops by stirring up Muslim extremists, Weinstein said.

Graham is the son of famed evangelist Billy Graham and president and CEO of both Samaritan's Purse, a Christian international relief organization in Boone, N.C., and the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, in Charlotte, N.C.

He said through a spokesman that he will be a guest of the Pentagon and will speak only if he's still invited. A military spokeswoman said she was locating officials to respond to the criticism.

After the 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States, Graham said Islam "is a very evil and wicked religion." In a later op-ed piece in The Wall Street Journal, Graham wrote that he did not believe Muslims were evil because of their faith, but "as a minister .... I believe it is my responsibility to speak out against the terrible deeds that are committed as a result of Islamic teaching."

Graham hasn't changed his views on Islam, said his spokesman, Mark DeMoss.

DeMoss quoted Graham as saying, "As the father of a son serving in his fourth combat tour, I'd be glad to know someone was leading a prayer service at the National Day of Prayer, or any other day."

Continue reading "Objection to Graham appearance at Pentagon" »

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Israel must recognize that the world will not put up with decades more of Israeli rule over the Palestinian people, the country's defense minister said in unusually frank remarks Monday, the Associated Press reports.

Ehud Barak's comments came against the backdrop of severe friction between the U.S. and Israel's hawkish government over an impasse in peacemaking.

Last week, President Barack Obama issued a surprisingly pessimistic assessment of peacemaking prospects, saying the U.S. couldn't force its will on Israelis and Palestinians if they weren't interested in making the compromises necessary to end their decades-old conflict.

Barak spoke to Israel Radio on the occasion of Israel's Memorial Day, dedicated to the nearly 23,000 fallen soldiers and civilian victims of terror attacks. The day is observed with a two-minute nationwide siren when people stand at attention, traffic is halted and everyday activities come briefly to a standstill.

At sundown Monday, the somber Memorial Day switched into Israel's 62nd Independence Day celebrations. At Mount Herzl, Israel's national cemetery, thousands watched an elaborate program of songs and folk dance while fireworks popped overhead.

Both dates are traditionally a time for introspection. This year, Israelis are dwelling on issues such as the country's growing isolation over its policies toward the Palestinians, the growing rift with the U.S. and the failure to relaunch peace talks.

Continue reading "Israeli Defense Minister: Occupation must end" »

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Shaukat Malik is a Muslim-American Certified Public Accountant from Potomac. He left his native Pakistan in 1972 and has been living in the United States since 1980.

People of all faiths have fought each other in the past but that does not mean that animosity must survive in perpetuity. This is madness. Christians of the inquisition era victimized Jews and Muslims in Europe, but that has not stopped Jews and Christians from building bridges of understanding and sharing common values that promote the well being of everyone.

The whole world knows about the Palestinian problem, yet that has not stopped some Muslim countries from dealing and having diplomatic relations with Israel. This engagement and recognition has yielded peace dividends and allowed these states to focus on economic development and the well-being of their peoples.

Why has Turkey recognized Israel? The answer is not that complicated. Proud Turkey boasts the second largest army in NATO. It analyzed its own self-interest in joining the European Common Market and determined that recognizing Israel would help Turkish interests. Turkish people as Muslims are equally concerned about the plight of Palestinians, but this concern has not stopped Turkey from doing what is best for Turkey.

In its efforts to meet constitutional and legal requirements for membership in the European Union, the Islamic party in Turkey long viewed with suspicion by Turkey’s guardians of secularism – namely, the Turkish army – has emerged as a champion of democracy and reform. They have succeeded in presenting a brand of secular Islam that allows for separation of church and state with complete freedom of religion. This action does not mean that Turkey has lost its cultural identity or abolished Islam; on the contrary, it has given more freedoms to Turkish citizens to practice their cherished faiths.

This transformation has weakened the hands of autocratic forces led by adventurous generals who have toppled elected governments in the past. Turkey’s success can be used as a benchmark for all Muslim countries in different phases of democratization.

Like Turkey, Pakistan has a history of military intervention by adventurous generals who have in the past exploited a weak judiciary and an undereducated elected assembly to seize power. Through this process, Pakistan has been denied the economic and political success enjoyed by its neighbor and birth twin, India.

Why have many Muslim countries not recognized Israel?

Continue reading "Guest post: Children of Abraham" »

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Archbishop Edwin F. O'Brien has apologized for the comments of the Vatican priest who likened criticism of Pope Benedict XVI and the Catholic Church in the sexual abuse scandal with anti-Semitism and "collective violence" against Jews.

O'Brien, spiritual leader of the area's half million Catholics, called the remarks of the Rev. Raniero Cantalamessa during the Good Friday Mass at St. Peter's Basilica "reprehensible and unfortunate," and apologized to "our friends in the Jewish community, to victims of clergy sexual abuse, and to anyone offended by Father Cantalamessa's personal views."

O'Brien's statement, in full:

Father Cantalamessa’s words on Good Friday, somehow linking the Catholic Church's sexual abuse scandal with anti-Semitism, were unfortunate and reprehensible. They pose harm to Catholic-Jewish relations in Baltimore and around the world and I personally denounce them. Rightly upset and embarrassed as we are by the scandal we are enduring as Catholics, as frustrated as we are by the sometimes unfair coverage in certain elements of the press, nothing justifies this insensitive, harmful and regrettable comparison. On behalf of the Catholic Church in Baltimore, I offer apologies to our friends in the Jewish community, to victims of clergy sexual abuse, and to anyone offended by Father Cantalamessa’s personal views.

Cantalamessa, personal preacher to Benedict, said he was inspired by a letter from an unidentified Jewish friend who was upset by the "attacks" against Benedict.

Cantalamessa said Jews "know from experience what it means to be victims of collective violence and also because of this they are quick to recognize the recurring symptoms."

Quoting from the letter, Cantalamessa said his Jewish friend was following "with indignation the violent and concentric attacks against the church, the pope and all the faithful of the whole world."

"The use of stereotypes, the passing from personal responsibility and guilt to a collective guilt remind me of the more shameful aspects of anti-Semitism," he said, quoting from the letter.

Note: O'Brien issued the statement on Saturday; we were alerted to it by a story in The Baltimore Jewish Times.

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It was the Catholic calendar's holiest moment -- the Mass celebrating the resurrection of Christ. But with Pope Benedict XVI accused of failing to protect children from abusive priests, the Associated Press reports, Easter Sunday also was a high-profile opportunity to play defense.

"Holy Father, on your side are the people of God," Cardinal Angelo Sodano told the pontiff, whom victims of clergy sexual abuse accuse of helping to shape and perpetuate a climate of cover-up. Sodano, dean of the College of Cardinals, dismissed those claims as "petty gossip."

The ringing tribute at the start of a Mass attended by tens of thousands in St. Peter's Square marked an unusual departure from the Vatican's Easter rituals, infusing the tradition-steeped religious ceremony with an air of a papal pep rally.

Dressed in gold robes and shielded from a cool drizzle by a canopy, Benedict looked weary during much of the Mass, the highlight of a heavy Holy Week schedule. But as he listened intently to Sodano's paean, a smile broke across the pope's face, and when the cardinal finished speaking, Benedict rose from his chair in front of the altar to embrace him.

The pontiff hasn't responded to accusations that he did too little to protect children from pedophile priests, even as sex abuse scandals threaten to overshadow his papacy.

Sodano's praise for Benedict as well as the church's 400,000 priests worldwide cranked up a vigorous campaign by the Holy See to counter what it calls a "vile" smear operation orchestrated by anti-Vatican media aimed at weakening the papacy and its moral authority.

Sodano said the faithful came to "rally close around you, successor to (St.) Peter, bishop of Rome, the unfailing rock of the holy church" amid the joy of Easter.

"We are deeply grateful to you for the strength of spirit and apostolic courage with which you announce the Gospel," said Sodano, who sought to assure Benedict that the scandals were not costing him credibility among his flock.

"Holy Father, on your side are the people of God, who do not allow themselves to be influenced by the petty gossip of the moment, by the trials which sometimes buffet the community of believers," Sodano said.

Continue reading "On Easter, a 'papal pep rally'" »

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The Associated Press has moved an evocative Good Friday dispatch from Jerusalem:

The cobblestone alleyways of Jerusalem's Old City became moving forests of wooden crosses as Christian pilgrims and clergymen commemorated the day of Jesus' crucifixion, Good Friday.

Black-robed nuns filed past metal barriers erected by police as dozens of tourists in matching red baseball hats held up digital cameras. Some pilgrims carried elaborately carved crucifixes, while others had crude crosses made of two planks held together with tape.

Good Friday rituals center on the ancient Church of the Holy Sepulcher, where Christian tradition says Jesus was crucified and buried before his resurrection on Easter Sunday.

While Catholics and Orthodox Christians follow different calendars, this year their Easters coincide and the churches are commemorating Good Friday together.

Watching as hundreds pressed through the narrow Jerusalem street called the Via Dolorosa — the "Way of Suffering," tracing Jesus' final steps — was Katy Fitzpatrick, 24, of Spokane, Washington. She said the event was both "exciting" and "a little overwhelming."

"It's a little intimidating, and the riot gear is a little intimidating too," she said of the heavy presence of green-clad Israeli police deployed to keep the peace.

Continue reading "Christians converge on Jerusalem for Good Friday" »

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President Barack Obama plans to mark the start of Passover with a private Seder in the executive mansion, the Associated Press reports.

Obama and first lady Michelle Obama invited friends and White House aides to mark the Jewish holiday with a meal on Monday. The Obama aides started the tradition during 2008's primary campaign in Pennsylvania; Obama made a surprise stop to meet with staffers who were sharing an impromptu meal in a hotel basement.

The event continued last year at the White House with a small group of aides and advisers.

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 1:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (36)
Categories: Christianity, Faith Practices, Holidays, Interfaith, Judaism, People, Politics
        

Lawmakers in Florida have voted to advance legislation to allow organized prayer at school-sponsored events. Josh Hafenbrack, a statehouse reporter for Baltimore Sun sister paper the Sun-Sentinel, has the story:

Students could lead prayers at school functions such as football games and the senior prom, under a controversial bill advanced by a Florida House committee Wednesday.

Despite objections from Democrats and civil liberties groups who called the effort "patently unconstitutional," the House PreK-12 Education Committee approved the prayer bill (HB11) on a largely party line, 10-3 vote.

Students would be allowed to initiate and lead prayers at assemblies and extracurricular events. The bill bans teachers, administrators and school boards from "discouraging or inhibiting the delivery of an inspirational message," which includes a "prayer or invocation."

Opponents said the prayer-in-school bill would subject students from minority religions, such as Jewish and Muslim students, to majority Christian views.

"When we start breaking down the First Amendment, it is the breaking of our fabric," said Rep. Kevin Rader, D-Delray Beach. Rader, who is Jewish, recalled sitting uncomfortably during team prayers while he was a high school student-athlete. "I remember it like it was yesterday."

Supporters, however, cast the bill as a free-speech issue for students who want to pray at school functions.

"That's the reason we have to have this bill – to protect people's First Amendment rights," said Rep. Greg Evers, R-Baker. "This is not necessarily a prayer bill. It's a rights bill."

Continue reading "Florida lawmakers advance school prayer bill" »

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Egypt canceled the inauguration of a restored synagogue on Sunday citing objections to Israel's treatment of Muslims in the occupied territories as well as alleged excesses during an earlier ceremony, the Associated Press reports.

Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities spent seven months restoring the ruined Ben Maimon synagogue in Cairo's ancient Jewish quarter and had been set to unveil it to the press Sunday, a week after its rededication in a private ceremony, according to the AP.

Council head Zahi Hawass called off Sunday's event following criticism in the press of the synagogue's rededication ceremony, which was attended by Israeli diplomats as well the American ambassador. The cancellation was largely symbolic as the restoration is complete and the synagogue has been reopened.

"This cancellation comes after what happened during the inauguration by the Jewish community who engaged in activities considered provocative to the feelings of hundreds of millions of Muslims around world, including dancing and drinking alcohol," Hawass said in the statement.

He added that "Muslim sanctuaries in occupied Palestine are subject to aggression by the occupation authorities," citing in particular Israeli security actions on the Temple Mount, known as the Aqsa compound to Muslims, in Jerusalem.

Officials with Cairo's Jewish community had no comment about Hawass' statement.

The March 7 dedication ceremony at the synagogue, named after the 12th century rabbi and intellectual Maimonides, was closed to media and included half a dozen Egyptian Jewish families that long ago fled the country. No Egyptian officials attended the ceremony.

A group of about 11 Hassidic Chabad-Lubavitch rabbis also came to Cairo from the United States and Israel and sang at the event. Attendees also said toasts were made.

Egypt's Jewish community, which dates back millennia and at its peak in the 1940s numbered around 80,000, is down to several dozen, almost all of them elderly. The rest were driven out decades ago by mob violence and persecution tied in large part to the Arab-Israeli conflict.

Continue reading "Egypt cancels Cairo synagogue unveiling" »

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In Nigeria, Associated Press writer Jon Gambrell reports on the weekend slaughter of hundreds of Christians in Nigeria, apparently in reprisal for the killing of hundreds of Muslims in January.

His report opens:

The killers showed no mercy: They didn't spare women and children, or even a 4-day-old baby, from their machetes. On Monday, Nigerian women wailed in the streets as a dump truck carried dozens of bodies past burned-out homes toward a mass grave.

Rubber-gloved workers pulled ever-smaller bodies from the dump truck and tossed them into the mass grave. A crowd began singing a hymn with the refrain, "Jesus said I am the way to heaven." As the grave filled, the grieving crowd sang: "Jesus, show me the way."

At least 200 people, most of them Christians, were slaughtered on Sunday, according to residents, aid groups and journalists. The local government gave a figure more than twice that amount, but offered no casualty list or other information to substantiate it.

An Associated Press reporter counted 61 corpses, 32 of them children, being buried in the mass grave in the village of Dogo Nahawa on Monday. Other victims would be buried elsewhere. At a local morgue the bodies of children, including a diaper-clad toddler, were tangled together. One appeared to have been scalped. Others had severed hands and feet.

The horrific violence comes after sectarian killings in this region in January left more than 300 dead, most of them Muslim. Some victims were shoved into sewer pits and communal wells.

Continue reading "Hundreds slaughtered in Nigerian religious violence" »

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Associated Press religion writer Rachel Zoll has a story about the faith elements of the upcoming wedding and marriage of Chelsea Clinton and Marc Mezvinsky.

Clinton has a Christian background; Mezvinsky is Jewish. Zoll writes about the interfaith issues ahead, beginning with the wedding:

The bride and groom have a range of choices, including conversion or a melding their two traditions into one ceremony.

The talk has been strongest in the Jewish community. There has been more rejoicing than lamenting about this interfaith union that brings a former first daughter a step closer to the fold.

Still, they wonder: Has Chelsea been searching for a rabbi along with her gown?

"If they had a Jewish wedding officiated by a rabbi, I think that would be something really positive," said Ed Case, president of InterfaithFamily.com, which supports Jewish outreach to interfaith couples. "It's so important for the Jewish community to have interfaith couples engaging in Jewish life."

Chelsea Clinton grew up attending Methodist church with her mother. Bill Clinton has been close to his pastor in Arkansas, but the Southern Baptist Convention rebuked him years ago over his support for gay relationships and abortion rights.

Last year, Chelsea, a graduate student at Columbia University's School of Public Health, was seen attending Yom Kippur services with Marc at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York, the flagship for Conservative Judaism, according to news reports.

Continue reading "A Jewish wedding for Chelsea Clinton?" »

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Malaysia won't prosecute two Muslims who pretended to be Roman Catholics and took Communion, a decision a church leader said Thursday undermines peace at a time of rising tensions between Muslims and the country's religious minorities, the Associated Press reports.

"The lack of action would appear to legitimize" the behavior of the two men, Archbishop Murphy Pakiam of Kuala Lumpur told the AP.

More details from the AP:

In a letter dated Feb. 12, Malaysian police informed the church that, following instructions from the attorney-general's office, "no further action" would be taken against two men who were investigated after they pretended to be Christians and took Communion at a church service to research a magazine article.

The monthly Malay-language Al-Islam magazine indicated the men spat out the Communion wafers because they took a photograph of it partially bitten. Catholics believe the Communion wafer is transformed into the body of Christ by the priest during the Mass.

The crime of causing religious disharmony carries a prison term of up to five years in Malaysia. The government stance in this case is likely to draw comparisons with its strong defense of Islam, the faith of the majority of Malaysia's 28 million people.

Most prominently, it has vigorously defended a ban on non-Muslim use of the word Allah. Court rulings in inter-religious disputes generally favor Muslims, and government leaders have on occasion publicly brandished daggers, vowing to defend Islam with their blood.

Attorney General Abdul Gani Patail said in a statement that he decided not to prosecute the two men because "they did not intend to offend anyone. It was an act of sheer ignorance."

He added that he had made the same decision in "previous cases where the circumstances were quite similar involving other religions."

Read the Associated Press story.

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At looks as if reconiliation might be possible after all between a Muslim couple in Ohio and the teenaged daughter who said she feared for her life after converting to Christianity.

Associated Press reporter Andrew Welsh-Huggins writes that a judge chided the divided family for filing legal motions instead of talking to one another, and then pushed a reconciliation plan back on track Tuesday:

Both the girl, Rifqa Bary, and her parents agreed to follow a counseling plan drawn up by the Franklin County child welfare agency last year to try to resolve the family's conflict.

The plan requires the girl and her parents, Mohamed and Aysha Bary, to work with individual counselors and to try to attend joint counseling.

Tuesday's deal patched up a short-lived January agreement that fell apart when the parents said their daughter was being allowed to contact Christian pastors who allegedly helped her run away to Florida in July. The couple believe that contact was hurting their chance for reconciliation.

The arrangement left open the possibility of such contact, but added a new requirement: The child welfare agency was to gather information on any pending criminal charges against the ministers and pass that on to the family's counselors.

Read the Associated Press story.

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Bash Pharoan brings his campaign for recognition of Muslim holidays in the Baltimore County Public Schools to a meeting Monday of the school board’s calendar committee.

The president of the Baltimore chapter of the Arab American Anti-Discrimination Committee issued an action alert over the weekend inviting supporters to the meeting:

The road towards recognition in a democracy is paved with hard work, persistence and community support. This is the 7th consecutive year that ADC Baltimore appeals the BCPS board of education for inclusion of the two Islamic holidays as school closing days, equal to the Jewish holidays. The school system closes on the Jewish holidays for religious reason and not a secular one. The calendar committee this year is the first stop in the making of school calendar. The committee members are educators and school supporters. They are members of the community and do respond to citizens requests. The school system needs to know that discrimination based on religious belief or national origin is wrong and is illegal. Your appearance Monday evening in support of granting the Islamic holidays as school closure days will be vital in the process of recognition.

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A Chicago man who was ordered by a judge not to take his three-year-old daughter to church now faces jail after he invited reporters to accompany them to a Catholic Mass, WBBM-TV in Chicago reports.

The faith of Ela Reyes has become a battleground for her estranged parents, Joseph and Rebecca.

Rebecca Reyes says Joseph agreed to raise their daughter in the Jewish faith before they separated. After the split, Joseph Reyes had Ela baptized in a Catholic church and sent a photograph to Rebecca.

Rebecca Reyes turned to the Cook County Circuit Court, where a judge issued a restraining order barring Joseph Reyes from taking the girl to non-Jewish religious services.

Joseph Reyes says he never agreed to raise Ela Jewish. He told WBBM-TV reporter Mike Puccinelli that he did not violate the order when he took her to Mass at Chicago’s Holy Name Cathedral in January.

"I think that Christianity and moreover Catholicism in particular is a radicalized form of Judaism and there are theologists that would agree with me on that point," he said.

Reyes was charged Tuesday with criminal contempt.

"It doesn't feel good that's for certain,” he said, according to WBBM-TV. “I'm really doing nothing more than being the best dad I can to my daughter. And that somehow it resulted in criminal charges is demoralizing and a bit insulting."

Rebecca Reyes was not in court. Her lawyer spoke for her.

"Our client has confidence in the judicial system and she wants to try her case in court and not in the media,” Laura Ashmore said, according to WBBM-TV.

Read the story at cbs2chicago.com.

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The Vatican plans to make some of its World War II archives available on the Internet soon to calm down the controversy over Pope Pius XII's actions during the Holocaust, the Associated Press reports.

The Vatican's newspaper said the plan would "render service to the historic truth," and officials told AP writer Victor Simpson Tuesday that the material would be accessible soon.

The move comes amid Jewish anger at the recent decision of Pope Benedict XVI to move Pius closer to sainthood. The church says the wartime pope helped to save Jews and others during the Holocaust, but some Jews and others say he should have done more.

The Vatican's daily newspaper L'Osservatore Romano said Gary Krup, an American who heads the Pave the Way Foundation, which seeks to strengthen Catholic-Jewish relations, was behind the online initiative. It quoted him as saying that the Pius XII papacy "has become a source of friction."

During a visit to Rome's main synagogue last month, the AP reports, Benedict said the Vatican "itself provided assistance, often in a hidden and discreet way" to Jews during the war. Benedict said Catholics acted courageously to save Jews during World War II.

Read the Associated Press story.

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The Air Force Academy, the subject in recent years of complaints of religious proselytizing by Evangelical Christians, is planning to add a worship area for Wiccans, Druids and followers of other Earth-centered religions.

With plans for a dedication in March, the hilltop circle is to be the latest addition to a collection of worship areas that includes Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Muslim and Buddhist sacred spaces, according to an academy release.

Tech. Sgt. Brandon Longcrier, NCO in charge of the Academy's Astronautics laboratories, worked with the academy chapel to create the official worship area for both cadets and other servicemembers in the Colorado Springs area, according to the release.

"Feel free to check the site out, but treat it as you would any other religious structure," said Longcrier, who became a Pagan shortly after arriving at the academy. He says academy chaplains have backed the effort.

"There really haven't been any obstacles for the new circle," he said. "The chaplain's office has been 100-percent supportive."

"Every servicemember is charged with defending freedom for all Americans, and that includes freedom to practice our religion of choice or, for that matter, not to practice any faith at all," said Lt. Col. William Ziegler, Cadet Wing chaplain. "Being in the military isn't just a job -- it's a calling. We all take an oath to support and defend the Constitution, and that means we've all sworn to protect one another's religious liberties. We all put on our uniforms the same way; we're all Airmen first."

Longcrier says the climate at the academy for practitioners of Earth-centered religions “has improved dramatically” since his arrival.

"When I first arrived here, Earth-centered cadets didn't have anywhere to call home," he said. "Now, they meet every Monday night, they get to go on retreats, and they have a stone circle. ... We have representation on the Cadet Interfaith Council, and I even meet with the Chaplains at Peterson Air Force Base once a year to discuss religious climate."

Continue reading "AF Academy embraces Wiccans, Pagans, Druids" »

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A Jewish cemetery in eastern France was desecrated Wednesday, with at least 18 gravestones marked with swastikas and overturned, the Associated Press reports.

The desecration in a Strasbourg cemetery came on the 65th anniversary of the liberation of the detah camp at Auschwitz, now observed internationally as Holocaust Remembrance Day.

France's main Jewish organization, CRIF, said at least 18 tombstones at the Cronenbourg cemetery were found Wednesday marked with swastikas and 13 of them were overturned. The CRIF's Marc Knobel said the inscription "juden raus" (Jews out) was found on one tomb.

A statement from the office of President Nicolas Sarkozy said he "firmly condemns this unbearable act, the expression of odious racism." It asked that those responsible be quickly identified and their acts "treated with the severity called for."

France is home to western Europe's largest Jewish and Muslim populations, and there are occasional atta