The following seems to be a community in dire need of interfaith interaction and committed dialogue on points of difference and commonality. (h/t: Charles “Daud” Meekings.)

Monash Mosque: Church warns of ‘assassination and bombing’ if renovation approved

by Vince Chadwick (Monash Weekly)

ANTI-Islamic sentiment has flared in Melbourne’s eastern suburbs, with the planned renovation of a mosque near Monash University prompting a senior member of the local Uniting Church to claim mosques may provide a training ground for religious fanatics.

The Monash mosque is in a house owned by the university and used by about 1000 people, mostly staff and students, each week for prayers. However, the president of the Islamic Association of Monash Mosque, Mohamed Mohideen, said the house was too small to host the growing congregation, including international students and nearby residents.

The chairman of the Monash Uniting Church congregation, Richard Farrell, wrote to the Monash City Council at the end of October on church letterhead, opposing the planned development ”on behalf of the Monash Uniting Church Congregation”.

Mr Farrell wrote that the expansion would disturb residents with the call to prayer, and impinge on their privacy, and that the streets would become congested, particularly during Friday prayers.

He wrote that ”in effect a mosque is a training ground for religious moderates at one end of the scale and religious fanatics at the other end.

”Such opinions in extreme cases can promote ‘jihad’ and the destruction of the ‘infidel’ right up to teaching about the assassination and bombing of Christian and other establishments.”

Mr Mohideen, a microbiology lecturer and deputy chairman of the Monash Interfaith Gathering, said the Muslim community was saddened by the objections. ”For Muslims, prayers are important and we need a place to pray. The university has been kind enough to provide us with a premises for 20 years, and now it is time to look at redeveloping that to make sure it is more comfortable.”

The general secretary of the Uniting Church’s Victoria-Tasmania Synod, the Reverend Dr Mark Lawrence, said Mr Farrell’s comments were ”extremely unfortunate” and did not speak for the overall church.

He said the suggestion the facility could be ”a training ground for … religious fanatics” went against the church’s strong desire to interact with all faiths in a respectful manner.

The Uniting Church minister of the Monash Congregation, the Reverend Hoon You, said the church committee had discussed the mosque renovation last year and decided any objections would be sent to the council in an individual capacity. ”We didn’t want to make this a religion-against-religion situation,” he said. ”Our church has English classes and other community activities that welcome Muslims, too.”

But Mr You said the use of mosques to train religious fanatics was still continuing in Europe, and this had triggered concern among some members of his congregation.

Read the rest…

No, this pic was not created by one of those church sign generator sites. I wish it was.

Churches are allowed to engage in political activity but that does not mean they can support or oppose a candidate, which this sign clearly does.  Let’s see how the IRS will respond.

Texas church urges Americans to ‘Vote for the Mormon, not the Muslim’

The Church in the Valley marquee reads, “VOTE FOR THE MORMON, NOT THE MUSLIM! THE CAPITALIST, NOT THE COMMUNIST!”

The sign was an obvious reference to President Barack Obama, who conservatives say is a secret Muslim even though he says he is a Christian and attends church with his family. He said in an August interview with a religious magazine that it’s not his job to convince people he’s Christian. Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney is a Mormon.

Pastor Ray Miller declined an interview with ABC affiliate KVUE but told the station the sign was his idea because he feels strongly about the election. He said this is not the first bold statement he has made on the marquee, which changes every week.

Since all churches and houses of worship are tax-exempt under federate law, they’re barred from participating in political campaign activity.

“They are permitted under the tax laws to engage in other political activities (e.g., distribute voter guides and invite candidates to speak at church functions) so long as such activity does not support or oppose a candidate,” a 2008 report on the subject reads.

As of 2002, however, the Internal Revenue Service reported that only two churches have ever lost non-profit status over campaign involvement.

ABC News, 20 October 2012

We need more initiatives like this, the best way to build understanding between various faiths. I hope other faiths get involved as well:

Faith Matters: Church, mosque plan to build park together

by David Waters (The Commercial Appeal)

The park they are planning to build together is just a concept now. An artist’s rendering of a wish list. Hope on paper.

But both Cordova congregations have started before with less.

Heartsong Church began in the late 1990s as 20 folks worshipping in another Methodist church’s chapel. Now its 800 members fill a 27-acre campus in Cordova.

Memphis Islamic Center began with some area Muslims meeting to pray in a nearby Baptist church. Now, it’s a mosque and community center on 31 acres, serving the spiritual needs of hundreds of area Muslims.

“It’s not the big things that change America, it’s the simple things,” said Dr. Bashar Shala, a local physician and MIC’s chairman.

Neither Shala nor Rev. Steve Stone, Heartsong’s pastor, expect something as simple as a park to change the world.

“We do hope it will make the world a little safer and a little more joyful,” said Stone, who has joined with Shala and others from Heartsong and MIC to form the Memphis Friendship Foundation.

The foundation’s first project is a park they hope will become a monument to friendship between a church and a mosque.

This friendship began just before Ramadan two years ago.

Stone and Heartsong welcomed Shala and MIC to their Cordova neighborhood with a big sign and an invitation to use the church’s facilities while the mosque was under construction.

The Muslims across the street were hoping to gather for a few evening prayers in Heartsong’s little theater. Instead, Stone and his fellow church members ushered their Islamic neighbors into the 4,000-square-foot sanctuary.

Every evening during Ramadan, nearly 200 area Muslims observed their holiest month of the year under a giant cross.

To thank their neighbors, folks from MIC cooked and served breakfast for Heartsong’s members on Sunday mornings.

“It’s a simple thing we have done, but God has used it in a big way,” Stone said. “We were just being nice to each other.”

In a world in which Christians and Muslims often find themselves engaged in violent conflict, armed and otherwise, Christians and Muslims being nice to each other can be big news.

In the weeks and months following a story about the relationship in The Commercial Appeal, Stone and Shala fielded calls and hosted visits from media in Europe, Asia and the Middle East, not to mention from all over America.

The story of adjacent property owners who became neighbors and then friends contrasted sharply with other stories of the time.

A Florida preacher who was threatening to burn copies of the Quran. Churchgoers in Middle Tennessee who were trying to block construction of a mosque. Growing outrage over a proposal to build a mosque near ground zero in New York City.

“Frankly, we were shocked that such simple, friendly gestures would become world news,” Shala said. “I guess people were hungry for something like this.”

Stone and Shala still get calls, letters and e-mails about their neighborliness. A Turkish TV crew came by a few weeks ago to film part of a report on “Islam in the land of Uncle Sam.”

The church-mosque friendship is having an impact locally as well. City parks’ officials have met with foundation leaders to make sure they have what they need to proceed.

“This park will be a physical example of the One Memphis that Mayor Wharton always talks about,” said Nika Jackson, manager of the Office of Community Affairs for the city’s Division of Parks and Neighborhoods.

“It will be a symbol of the growing diversity of Memphis, which should be celebrated.”

The foundation estimates that Friendship Park would cost about $5 million and take a year or two to build. So far, the foundation has raised about $100,000. Their next step is to develop more detailed plans and time lines they hope will interest corporate and nonprofit sponsors.

“At first, we were thinking about some swing sets and a couple of grills, something both congregations could use together,” Shala said.

“Then we started to dream big.”

The dream has Friendship Park sitting on 9 acres that span land adjacent to Heartsong and MIC. About half of the property is on the northern, church side of Humphrey Road, the other half on the southern, mosque side of Humphrey.

The two sides would be linked by a tunnel under Humphrey Road and an archway over it.

There will be plenty of room for recreational activities, including a ropes course, obstacle course, rock-climbing wall, putting greens, children’s pools and play areas, a walking path and exercise stations.

There will be spaces for quiet meditation — a labyrinth, a water garden and a waterfall.

There also will places for the entire community to gather — a pavilion, amphitheater, bandstand, kiosk, an international market area, and a “Friendship Center” for community exhibits, forums, etc.

“Most prejudice is a result of fear and ignorance of the other,” Shala said. “You can give all the lectures and sermons in the world about that, but if we don’t have personal interaction and don’t get to know each other, we’ll never break down those barriers.”

The church and the mosque continue to work together. They hosted community picnics, blood drives and efforts to clothe and feed the homeless.

Sunday evening, Stone, Shala and others will participate in the sixth annual Ramadan Interfaith Dinner, hosted by Memphis Interfaith.

Someday, they hope to host the dinner at the park they are building together.

“We may not change the world,” Stone said, “but our faiths call us to provide some hope.”

Hope in a park.

Read the rest…

What if they were Muslim?

Jerusalem Church Vandalised with Graffiti Inciting Hatred Against Christians

(IMEMC)

Racist graffiti has been sprayed on a church in Jerusalem on Monday in the third such incident in the past month in the city.

The graffiti included “Death to Christians” and the phrase “price tag” was found on the walls of the Baptist Narkis Street Congregation according to reports from Ma’an News Agency.

Furthermore residents of the area found their car tyres slashed.

This attack follows a similar such incidents, occurring on the same day in early February, where the bilingual school Hand In Hand and the Monastery of the Cross where vandalised, also promoting violence against Christians.

Attacks under this monicker of price tag refer to actions by Israel’s settler population who respond to moves by the State of Israel against illegal outposts in the occupied West Bank.

Despite the dismantling of outposts that Israel deems illegal being carried out by the state, price tag attacks are almost universally against Palestinians, including numerous acts of arson against mosques in the West Bank.

Under the 4th Geneva Conventions, which Israel is a signatory, all construction of civilian property and the transfer of a civilian population by an occupying power is illegal, as is the displacement of the local population. Despite this, Israel distinguishes between it’s settlement activity, with the majority of settlements gaining construction approval by the state, who also provide funding for construction and subsidised loans for Israelis moving to settlements.

In addition to pre-approved settlement construction, many outposts that are constructed in violation of Israeli national law are given retroactive planning permission.

I hope the holiday spirit can be with people all year long.

Church Group Steps in to Save Muslim Food Pantries

Lisa Colagrossi

NEW YORK (WABC) – A pair of Bronx food pantries in jeopardy of closing have gotten a reprieve in the form of a large donation.

The Muslim Women’s Institute for Research and Development has been operating food pantries in Highbridge and Parkchester since 1997, but without $50,000, the organization would have had to shutter the pantries at the end of the month.

But Monday evening, executive director Nurah Ama’tulla received a check for $100,000. She says she is grateful and relieved that thousands of families in the Bronx won’t have to go elsewhere for assistance.

The lifeline came from the Collegiate Church Corporation.

“We will cover the hurdle of the $50,000, and we’re covered through operations of March 31, 2012,” Ama’tulla said. “The first quarter.”

The cash infusion comes just at the right time. The Collegiate Church Corporation issued a statement, saying: “The MWIRD has faithfully its constituency for more than a decade. As the only halal food pantry in the city, their services are vital. The Collegiate Church is honored to extend them a substantial grant so that their food pantry can remain open.”

The pantries feed 2,500 people per week. In addition to paying for heat and other utilities, the organization’s four employees will get paid for the first time since Memorial Day.

Muslims and Christians coming together in face of devastation.

Church and Mosque Join Forces to Feed Flood Victims

ROTTERDAM JUNCTION – There’s been so much hardship and heartache since Tropical Storm Irene.

One silver lining though, the devastation has brought people together in a heart-warming way.

We’ve seen signs of this every day since the storm. On Saturday, members of a church and a mosque joined forces to feed people cleaning up in Schenectady County.

A little over a month after Tropical Storm Irene wreaked havoc in the Capital Region, residents affected by massive flooding continue to pick up the pieces of their lives and rebuild.

The waters have receded in Rotterdam Junction, but help from the community has not dried up.

“The community has been about the best thing going. Everybody has pitched in,” says Jan Hunter, a flood victim.

Hunter has a crew working on her home that was flooded on route 5S. Noon time Saturday and lunch was delivered to her doorstep for everyone.

“They brought in lunch today, which has been wonderful.” says Hunter.

The delivery came from a group of volunteers, donating their time, trying to make sure those who were affected by flooding, don’t have to worry about putting food on the table.

“We have people in need. Some of us who were fortunate we didn’t lose anything, we’re coming together to help those who have,” says Joann canary.

Canary started what she called the “Sandwich Brigade” a week ago, delivering fresh sandwiches to homeowners. This weekend, she and her church joined forces with the Bait Ul Noor Mosque in Rotterdam Junction to feed even more people.

“How could you look at a neighbor struggling and not want to jump in and help. We’re part of this community and we consider it a great honor that we’re able to do something today,” says Tahira Khan.

Khan brought a mixture of Indian food and sandwiches from Subway. The volunteers then filled up four cars with the goodies — driving to four different spots in Rotterdam Junction to hand them out.

“It’s tough times around here. I want to see them all get back,” says Canary.

As you can tell, it’s all turning personal to the volunteers. While they haven’t been affected, they all know someone who have or have become friends with the victims.

Exposing religious fundamentalism in the US

by Paul Rosenberg

With Representative Michele Bachmann’s victory in the Ames, Iowa straw poll, and Texas Governor Rick Perry’s triumphal entrance into the GOP presidential primary, there’s been a sudden spike of attention drawn to the extremist religious beliefs both candidates have been associated with – up to and including their belief in Christian dominionism. (In the Texas Observer, the New Yorker, and the Daily Beast, for example.) The responses of denial from both the religious right itself and from the centrist Beltway press have been so incongruous as to be laughable – if only the subject matter weren’t so deadly serious. Those responses need to be answered, but more importantly, we need to have the serious discussion they want to prevent.

For example, in an August 18 post, originally entitled, “Beware False Prophets who Fear Evangelicals”, Washington Post religion blogger Lisa Miller cited the three stories I just mentioned, and admitted, “The stories raise real concerns about the world views of two prospective Republican nominees”, then immediately reversed direction: “But their echo-chamber effect reignites old anxieties among liberals about evangelical Christians. Some on the left seem suspicious that a firm belief in Jesus equals a desire to take over the world.” Of course, she cited no examples to bolster this narrative-flipping claim. More importantly, she wrote not one more word about the real concerns she had just admitted.

Dominionism is not a myth

“What In Heaven’s Name Is A Dominionist?” Pat Robertson asked on his 700 Club TV show, one of several religious right figures to recently pretend there was nothing to the notion. Funny he should ask. In a 1984 speech in Dallas, Texas, he said:

Furthermore, C Peter Wagner, the intellectual godfather of the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR), actually wrote a book called Dominion! in 2008. Chapter Three was entitled “Dominion Theology”. When pressed, Peter likes to pretend that his ideas are just garden-variety Christianity, based on Genesis 1:26, in which, before the fall, God gives Adam and Eve dominion over the natural world - a far cry from dominion over other people, who did not even exist at the time, as evangelical critics of this dominionist argument have repeatedly pointed out.

Dominionism is not new 

Dominionist ideas have circulated throughout the religious right for decades prior to Robertson’s 1984 speech. A primary source was the small but influential sect known as Christian Reconstructionism, founded by R J Rushdoony in the 1960s, which advocates replacing American law with Old Testament codes. Centrists like Miller make the mistake of thinking that the small size of Rushdoony’s core of true believers is the full extent of his influence. But this is utterly mistaken. As Michelle Goldberg wrote in Daily Beast, “Rushdoony pioneered the Christian homeschooling movement, as well as the revisionist history, ubiquitous on the religious right, that paints the US as a Christian nation founded on biblical principles. He consistently defended Southern slavery and contrasted it with the greater evils of socialism.”

A second source traces back to the roots of the Latter Rain movement of the late 1940s, long rejected by orthodox evangelicals because they contradicted scripture and denied primary agency to God – which is why they insist that Christians must actively establish church dominance over all of society, because God can’t do it alone.

The Latter Rain was denounced by the Assemblies of God – the largest American Pentecostal church – in 1949, not solely for dominionist ideology, but for a variety of related beliefs and practices. When similar teachings and practices re-emerged in the guise of the New Apostolic Reformation 50 years later, the Assemblies of God denounced them again in 2000.

This time, however, many Assemblies of God congregations have increasingly accepted the NAR influence. Sarah Palin’s long-time church in Wasilla is one such congregation. The most clear-cut example of NAR dominionism is the so-called “Seven Mountains Mandate”, which holds that dominionist Christians should control the whole world by infiltrating and dominating the “Seven Mountains” of culture: (1) Business; (2) Government; (3) Media; (4) Arts and Entertainment; (5) Education; (6) Family; and (7) Religion.

Dominionism is not a left-wing fantasy 

A number of authors made charges similar to or derived from Joe Carter, web editor of First Things, who wrote: “The term ["dominionism"] was coined in the 1980s by [sociologist Sara] Diamond and is never used outside liberal blogs and websites. No reputable scholars use the term for it is a meaningless neologism that Diamond concocted for her dissertation.”

However, at the same time Diamond was working on her dissertation – published as the book Spiritual Warfare in 1989 – evangelical writer/researcher Albert James Dager was taking similarly critical aim, though from a different direction. In 1986 and ’87, he published a multi-issue essay “Kingdom Theology” in the publication Media Spotlight. In that text he also used the terms “Kingdom Now” or “Dominion” Theology. In 1990, Dager, too, published a book, Vengeance Is Ours: The Church in Dominion.

While his main focus was doctrinal error and non-Christian practices and influences, Dager’s work traced dominionism back to the 1940s and even earlier. Many more have followed in his footsteps since then. If you Google the words “dominionism” and “heresy”, you’ll get more than half a million hits. It should be obvious to anyone that conventional conservative Christians have big problems with dominionism – if only the United States’ establishment media could figure out how to use Google.

Dominionism is not an imprecise catch-all term

Despite lingering definitional differences that are common with relatively new terminology, those who study dominionism and related phenomenon in a political framework have an increasingly common and precise terminology that most writers and researchers share. Researcher Chip Berlet of Political Research Associates provided a very useful guide, “The Christian Right, Dominionism, and Theocracy”, which addresses issues of terminology from several different perspectives – for example, between “generic dominionism” and specific dominion theologies.

Berlet also draws a distinction between “hard” and “soft” dominionists. “Soft Dominionists are Christian nationalists,” he writes. “They believe that Biblically-defined immorality and sin breed chaos and anarchy. They fear that America’s greatness as God’s chosen land has been undermined by liberal secular humanists, feminists, and homosexuals … Their vision has elements of theocracy, but they stop short of calling for supplanting the Constitution and Bill of Rights.” Hard Dominionists add something more to the mix: “They want the United States to be a Christian theocracy. For them the Constitution and Bill of Rights are merely addendums to Old Testament Biblical law.”

Rushdoony’s Christian Reconstructionists clearly fall into the hard dominionist camp. But the NAR seems to straddle the soft/hard division. On the one hand, they clearly do claim that conservative Christians are ordained to run the world, not just US society. Thus, the Seven Mountains Mandate. On the other hand, Wagner and others have argued that the Seven Mountains is compatible with democracy. The state of Hawaii shows how: Early in the 2010 election cycle, both the Republican and the Democratic frontrunners for governor were associated with the NAR. That changed when long-time Congressman Neil Abercrombie joined the race on the Democratic side, and eventually won the race handily. But for a while, the NAR came tantalisingly close to realising their dream, at least in one state – not just to win power, but to occupy all the possible paths to power.

What’s more, in a recent article at Talk2Action, Rachel Tabachnick draws attention to another hedge on Wagner’s part, quoting from Dominion! In a section entitled “Majority Rules”: “If a majority feels that heterosexual marriage is the best choice for a happy and prosperous society, those in the minority should agree to conform – not because they live in a theocracy, but because they live in a democracy. The most basic principle of democracy is that the majority, not the minority, rules and sets the ultimate norms for society.”

This, of course, is utterly false in a liberal democracy, such as the United States. Liberal democracies combine majority rule as a general governing principle with a framework of rights protecting individuals in political minorities from persecution, political repression, and the like. The fact that Wagner so utterly misunderstands the foundations of American democracy shows just how dangerous such “soft” dominionism can be. This same lesson can be drawn from Uganda as well, where several different strains of dominionist theology have combined to bring that nation to the verge of passing a law that will make homosexuality punishable by death. Such is the nature of illiberal dominionist “democracy”.

Europe’s bloody theocratic wars

This brings us, finally, to the serious discussions that dominionists and their enablers, like Miller, are trying to prevent. The first of those is about the very nature of American democracy. For nearly 200 years, Europe was torn apart by a series of religious wars and their bloody aftermath – the major reason that the United States was founded as a secular republic. We’re potentially on the verge of forgetting all that history and suffering through it again, just as we’re now suffering through forgetting the lessons of the Great Depression. Those centuries of war began with the German Peasants’ War of 1524-26, in which more than 100,000 died; continued through the 1648 Treaty of Westphalia, which ended the Thirty Years War on the European continent; and lasted until the end of the War of the Spanish Succession (1701–1714). This was the bloody European history of religious intolerance and strife that many, if not most, American colonialists were fleeing from when they came to the New World.

It was also this bloody history that gave rise to the development of classical liberalism, affirming the individual right to religious liberty and replacing the top-down theocratic justification of the state with Locke’s concept of the bottom-up social contract, based on the consent of the governed. The ideas that Locke perfected took generations to develop. Religious tolerance, for example, began as simply a matter of pragmatism: unless people stopped killing each other for differing religious beliefs, war in Europe would never end.

But gradually, the idea took hold that tolerance was a positive good, and key to this new perspective was the recognition that torturing someone to change their beliefs could not produce the desired result of a genuine heartfelt conversion. Thus, the moral rejection of torture – another feature of classical liberalism – had its roots in the evolution of the idea of religious liberty. The idea of utterly forgetting the prolonged bloody history that the United States was born out of is no laughing matter.

The same could be said of the myth that the United States was founded as a Christian nation, with laws based on the Bible. Of course most Americans were Christians at the time, but the leading intellects were decidedly less so, much more influenced by Enlightenment thought. There were many, such as Jefferson, who were better described as Deists, who believed that God had created a rational universe, but did not intervene supernaturally thereafter. They deliberately used terms like “the Creator” and “Nature’s God” to affirm their distinctive, non-Christian view.

Moreover, God was not mentioned at all in the Constitution, and religion was only mentioned to exclude its influence, stating that no religious test should be required for office. Finally, US law was based on British common law, not the Bible. The Supreme Court itself is a common law court, following common law precedents and practices. And British common law traces back to Roman law, which first came to England centuries before Rome adopted the Christian religion.

Of course the intolerant religious right wants us to forget this. How else could they ever gain power, except through massive forgetting of who and what the United States really is? Not to mention who and what they are: the most fundamental enemies of the United States, who would, if they could, return us to the centuries of blood before the US was born, the nightmare out of which the United States awakened.

Theocratic thinking threatens the US today

There are very immediate consequences that flow from the theocratic mindset. You’ll note, for example, that the “Seven Mountains” of culture do not include science. That’s not because dominionists intend to leave science alone, but rather because they see no need to dominate what they can simply cut off, ignore and deny. If science tells them that homosexuality is an inborn trait, why fight that in the realm of science when politics, the media, religion and education offer much, much better places to fight? After all, who says that education has to be based on facts? The same holds true for evolution and global warming as well, not to mention the workings of the economy.

One rightwing denier of dominionist influence, Washington Post columnist Michael Gerson, even framed his attack as “An unholy war on the Tea Party, while another denier complained that instead of describing the Tea Party as a movement united around concern about big government, many journalists seem to be trying to redefine the colour red by overlaying religious intent and purpose on the movement.

Yet the dominionist connection to the Tea Party goes far beyond just the two candidacies of Michele Bachmann and Rick Perry. Ron Paul, whose extreme anti-government positions helped to fuel the emergence of the Tea Party, has much deeper dominionist connections than either of the two new darlings. During his first term in Congress, one of his aides was Gary North, Rushdoony’s son-in-law, and a leading Reconstructionist in his own right, who has written extensively on so-called “Biblical Capitalism”, an ideology profoundly at odds with traditional Biblical-based teachings on economic justice.

While libertarians once traced their descent from John Locke, and more recently from the deeply anti-Christian Ayn Rand, Reconstructionism represents an increasingly important foundation for their views. A recently released sociology study, “Cultures of the Tea Party”, found that Tea Party supporters are characterised by four dispositions: “authoritarianism, ontological insecurity, libertarianism, and nativism”. Since traditional libertarianism was purportedly the opposite of authoritarianism, this highlights how radically libertarianism has changed – a conclusion that’s echoed by the 2011 Pew Reaserch Political Typology Poll, which found that religious and economic conservatives had completely merged into one single group since 2006 and all previous polling.

What this means in the long run is far from clear. But it strongly suggests a solidfying outlook with deep Reconstructionist sympathies that actually looks at government failure to deal with major issues, such as restoring the economy, as a positive good. If faith in American institutions collapses entirely, then who wouldn’t give Biblical law a shot? The more loudly such people proclaim themselves patriots, the more loudly they cheer for US collapse. It’s not just Obama they want to fail. It’s the very idea of America.

Paul Rosenberg is the Senior Editor of Random Lengths News, a bi-weekly alternative community newsletter.

You can follow Paul on twitter @PaulHRosenberg

(via. Islamophobia-Today)

Churches across America read from the Quran

by Tad Stahnke

Washington, DC – Although negative stories of Islamophobia in the United States abound in news media, most Americans respect religious diversity. That’s why on Sunday, June 26, thousands of people across America joined together at dozens of churches and other houses of worship across the country. Congregants united to do far more than read Christian scriptures; from Alabama to Alaska, from California to New York, worshippers also heard the words of Jewish and Muslim sacred texts as rabbis and imams joined pastors in leading an event called Faith Shared.

A joint project of Human Rights First and the Interfaith Alliance, Faith Shared brought Americans together to counter the anti-Muslim bigotry and negative stereotypes that have erupted throughout the country in the past few years and led to misconceptions, distrust and, in some cases, even violence.

If I were living in a Muslim-majority country, I might think the United States is filled with people burning the Quran, demonizing Islamic beliefs and tarring all Muslims as supporters of radicalism and terrorism. To the casual observer, the anti-Islam fervor of late would seem to bear that out, but the truth is far more complicated.

It is true that in recent years the United States has seen a disturbing trend of anti-Muslim violence, discrimination and rhetoric, as well as a general lack of understanding about Islam. We’ve seen Quran burnings, individuals attacked only because they are Muslim, a pipe bomb explosion at an Islamic community center in Florida and a surge in reported cases of discrimination against Muslims in workplaces and schools throughout the country.

But those incidents – all of which have grabbed headlines – don’t represent the views of so many Americans who respect religious freedom and the diversity of faiths that freedom brings. In fact, a recent poll by the Public Religion Research Institute found that more than 60 percent of Americans believe that Muslims are an important part of the American religious community, with strong agreement across political and religious lines. The Southern Poverty Law Center recently released a report showing that much of the hatred directed toward Muslims has been stirred up by a small but influential group of activists and media.

Discussions about the role of Islam and Muslims in American life have all too often degenerated into stereotypes and hatred. If not challenged, these can undermine respect for the religious freedom of all Americans and weaken our resilience as a nation.

And the concerns go beyond our country. What happens in the United States with respect to the treatment of Muslims, rightly or wrongly, has a huge impact overseas on the perception of the country in general, and on U.S. efforts to promote human rights abroad.

It’s imperative for the international community to support efforts to create responsive governments – those that give equal rights to members of all minorities, protect religious freedoms and allow for the freedoms of expression and assembly. The United States can and should play a key role in supporting those efforts.

For that reason, it’s vital to recognize that what happens in the United States – how Americans protect human rights and religious freedoms and how they deal with security issues in relation to the Muslim community – influences how the international community perceives the American people’s commitment to promoting democracy. A message of respect among religious groups in the United States, one that says anti-Muslim fervor is only a small part of the American story, will strengthen that commitment in the eyes of many.

As we continue in this effort, my colleagues and I are not naive about the challenges that can divide America along religious lines. Muslims are not alone among Americans in terms of bearing the brunt of stereotypes and hatred. Indeed, with the Faith Shared services, we sent and will continue to send a clear message: Despite the challenges, the way forward must begin with respect.

We cannot solve these problems in a day but on June 26, Americans across the country showed that we respect religious differences and reject the demonization of any religion. Americans are a nation not of the few who burn Qurans and incite hatred, but of the many who fully embrace religious freedom, tolerance and pluralism.

* Tad Stahnke is the Director of Policy and Programs at Human Rights First. This originally published by the Common Ground News Service, or CGNews.

(hat tip: Eric Allen Bell)

Soldiers Forced to See Chaplain After Failing Army’s Spiritual Fitness Test

(TalkToAction)

by Chris Rodda

After failing a recently implemented mandatory Army-wide “Spiritual Fitness” test, soldiers are given the following message on their computer screens:

“Spiritual fitness is an area of possible difficulty for you. You may lack a sense of meaning and purpose in your life. At times, it is hard for you to make sense of what is happening to you and others around you. You may not feel connected to something larger than yourself. You may question your beliefs, principles, and values. Nevertheless, who you are and what you do matter. There are things to do to provide more meaning and purpose in your life. Improving your spiritual fitness should be an important goal. Change is possible, and the relevant self-development training modules will be helpful. If you need further help, please do not hesitate to seek out help from the people you care about and trust — strong people always do. Be patient in your development as it will take time to improve in this area. Still, persistence is key and you will improve here if you make this area a priority.”

This mandatory online test, called the Global Assessment Tool (GAT), is part of the Army’s Comprehensive Soldier Fitness (CSF) program, a program that puts spiritual fitness on par with physical and mental fitness.

Upon flunking the “Spiritual Fitness” section of the GAT, and receiving the above message telling them that “Change is possible” and that “you will improve here if you make this area a priority,” the spiritually deficient soldiers are directed to training modules to correct this problem with their “fitness.”

Nothing at this point in the CSF program tells the soldiers that the online training modules that follow the GAT test are not mandatory, so the soldiers naturally assume that the training modules they’re immediately directed to upon failing the test are also mandatory.

Ever since complaints about the GAT, which can only be described as an unconstitutional “religious test,” began to surface a few weeks ago, the Army has been bending over backward insisting that that spirituality doesn’t mean religion; that nothing in the CSF’s “Spiritual Fitness” training is mandatory; and that no soldier is being forced to do anything whatsoever if they flunk the test. But these claims from the Army are far from what the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) is hearing from soldiers who have failed the Spiritual Fitness section of the test.

Just read the following account from one soldier about what happened to the GAT-identified spiritually unfit solders in his unit.

Subject: I Am A “Spiritual Fitness Failure” ……Before I tell you, Mr. Weinstein and the MRFF of my total outrage at the U.S. Army for grading me as a “Spiritual Fitness failure”, I will tell you a few things about myself. My name is (name withheld) and I am an enlisted soldier with the rank of (rank withheld) in the United States Army stationed at Ft. (military installation withheld). I am in my early-to-mid twenties. I have been deployed downrange into Iraq and Afghanistan 6 times. I will deploy again for my 7th time very soon; to Afghanistan and more combat. All of my deployments have been very heavy combat assignments. I have been wounded 4 times including traumatic brain injury. I have earned the Combat Action Badge, the Bronze Star and multiple Purple Hearts. I have fought in hand-to hand- combat and killed and wounded more than a few “enemy combatants.” M religion? I was born a Methodist and guess I still am one. I’m not very religious but consider myself to be a Christian. I don’t go to chapel services that often although I go every now and then. I can’t stand the chaplains as most of them are trying to always get me and my friends to “commit to Christ” and be far more religious as well as they try to get more and more soldiers to get more and more soldiers to be the same type of “committed Christian”. I cannot count the number of times that these chaplains and my own chain of command has described this war we fight as a religious one against the Muslims and their “false, evil and violent” religion. I am a Christian and therefore neither an agnostic nor an atheist though many of my fellow soldiers are such. Now to the point. I, and everyone else who is enlisted in my company, was ORDERED by my Battalion Commander to take the GAT’s Spiritual Fitness Test not very long ago. Let me make this CLEAR, we were all ORDERD to take it. After we did, our unit’s First Sgt. individually asked us all how we did on the test. There was NO “anonymity” at all. None of us were ever told that we did NOT have to take this Spiritual Fitness Test nor that we did NOT have to tell our FIrst Sgt. what our results were. A bunch of us “failed” the SFT and when we told that to our First Sgt., per his disclosure order, he further ordered us to make immediate appointments with the chaplains so that we would not “kill ourselves on his watch”. None of us wanted to do it but we were scared. None of us wanted to get in the shits with our First Sgt. who can and will make life miserable for anyone who might have said no to him. They keep saying that this is all to stop us soldiers from killing ourselves but THIS degrading SFT “failure” only makes it worse. Two of my battle buddies who I KNOW are thinking of ending it all were a million times worse off after failing this SFT and being called a “spiritual failure” and then ordered to go see the chaplains. I felt like a total coward for not standing up to my First Sgt. but I did what he told me to do. I was scared to tell him no. So I went to see the chaplain. When this chaplain told me that I failed the SFT because it was “Jesus’ way of personally knocking on my door as an invitation for me to come to Him as a born again ‘REAL’ Christian” so that I could be saved and not burn forever in Hell for rejecting him, I thought of 3 things. First, I thought of the fact that I was already born a Christian and did not need to be born again. Second, I thought of my battle buddy (name and rank withheld) who took a bullet for me in his face during the Battle of (name of Iraqi battle withheld) and that he was the same kind of Christian as me and this chaplain is telling me that my battle buddy (name and rank withheld) is burning in hell for all time. Third, I thought how I wanted to blow that fucking chaplain’s head right off. Thank you, Mr. Weinstein and MRFF for listening and standing up. A bunch of us saw you on MSNBC. We also read about the enlisted guy at Ft. Bragg. Please tell Sgt. Griffith at Fort Bragg that he speaks for many of us who can’t handle the consequences if we spoke out. We have all read the letter you sent to tell the Army to stop this Spiritual Fitness Test. It cheered us up alot because that making us take that test is WRONG and using it to send us to the chaplains against our will is also WRONG. Please tell your lawyers at that big law firm company not to forget about those of us who want to speak up and thank them all but cannot. (Name, rank, combat MOS, military unit, military installation withheld)

Pamela Geller is called out by Keith Olbermann for fanning the flames of Muslim hatred, to an extent where it has now reached people protesting “Mooslim looking” Churches.