Attenzione! The Vatican will issue an important doctrinal document on Friday “on some aspects of evangelisation.” Pope Benedict has a long track record of making sharp distinctions between Catholicism and other religions in his doctrinal declarations. Some of these have upset other Christians, others have angered Muslims and been challenged by Islamic scholars. This new text has been written by papal aides, not the pope himself, but it is expected to be a close reflection of his views. What Vatican observers are waiting to see is how clearly it states the Catholic view on converting others and how other religions react.

The document from the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith, which Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger headed for over two decades before becoming pope in 2005, comes at a time of growing Catholic difficulties with Anglicans, Protestants and evangelical and Pentecostal Christians. Its hesitant reaction to an invitation leading Muslim scholars for a theological dialogue has raised questions about its interest in inter-faith relations. And evangelisation is now a sensitive topic for Christian churches. The Vatican is working with the World Council of Churches, the World Evangelical Alliance and Pentecostal leaders on a code of conduct for missionary work .

The declaration is expected to say that conversion remains a goal of Catholic missionary efforts and that Catholic theologians must not water this down by arguing that other faiths can be paths to salvation. This recalls Dominus Iesus, a document issued in 2000 by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) that said the Catholic Church was the only true church of Jesus Christ and others were “gravely deficient.” In fact, the document should be a guide on how to put Dominus Iesus into practice. The CDF began this process with a clarification of the 2000 document last June — a clarification that caused dismay among leading Protestant theologians.

Doesn’t the Roman Catholic Church have the right to restate its traditional beliefs? Of course it does. But it also operates in a broader context than the Catholic world alone, a context where Vatican documents are read carefully by other faiths for indications of how the world’s largest church thinks and what it plans to do. In a globalised world, leading religions are involved in inter-faith and ecumenical dialogues to foster better understanding among peoples. These efforts have led to much improved contact and comprehension among religions in the past few decades. Pope John Paul preferred this kind of dialogue, such as the 1986 World Day of Prayer for Peace in Assisi, Italy, but Cardinal Ratzinger kept his distance.

In recent years, this ecumenical drive seems to have slowed. Many faiths seem to be putting a renewed emphasis on their own identity. Again, that’s their right, but it does sometimes rub other religions the wrong way. Pope Benedict has done that before in the past, for example with Dominus Iesus (which upset Anglicans and Protestants) or with his 2006 Regensburg speech (which upset Muslims). He has shown more interest in working with the Eastern Orthodox churches. Wolfgang Huber, the top Lutheran bishop in Germany, has been especially critical of Benedict’s approach, for example calling the restatement of Dominus Iesus “an affront” to Protestants.

The line-up for Friday’s news conference in Rome about the new document indicates it is meant mostly as an internal text. It will be presented by CDF Prefect Cardinal William Levada, Cardinal Ivan Dias, Prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelisation of Peoples, Cardinal Francis Arinze, Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship, and CDF Secretary Archbishop Angelo Amato.

Notably absent will be the two cardinals who head dicasteries — the Vatican equivalent of government ministries — that deal directly with other faiths. They are Jean-Louis Tauran, President of the Pontifical Council for Inter-religious Dialogue and Walter Kasper, President of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity. Kasper was openly critical of the CDF in a speech to cardinals in Rome last month, saying the powerful dicastery “aroused perplexity and created discontent” by issuing its document restating Dominus Iesus last summer.

A statement by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) last week stressed issues expected to be part of the CDF document as well. In that statement, the bishops criticised Father Peter Phan, a leading theologian teaching at Georgetown University in Washington, for creating “considerable confusion” about Christ, the Church and other faiths. They restated Church teaching that Jesus Christ Catholicism was the only true church, Jesus Christ was mankind’s only saviour and other religions were “a preparation for the Gospel.” (Read John Allen’s full analysis here)

How do readers who follow developments in ecumenical and inter-faith dialogue see the way relations between faiths are going under Pope Benedict? Is his emphasis on traditional Catholic positions making it easier or more difficult to promote understanding among religions?

Here’s a multiple-choice question about fatwas — in the information age, the Islamic practice of issuing fatwas has become…

1. enriched
2. chaotic
3. more open
4. less transparent
5. all of the above
6. none of the above

The number of fatwas, or religious edicts, has exploded in recent years as sheikhs, muftis and others use the Internet, satellite television, radio, telephone call-in services and the print media to globalise the practice. Once limited mostly to scholars in their cities or countries, Muslims can now put their questions to experts around the world — and often get quite different answers depending on where they ask.

One might think the decision of Saudi Arabia’s grand mufti to launch a fatwa Web site might help bring some order into this confusion. The Saudi government says it wants to challenge radical Islam on the Web, which is why Sheikh Abdel-Aziz al-Sheikh has ventured into cyberspace in the first place. But with so many sites now up and running, as Senior Correspondent Andrew Hammond reports from Riyadh, his site may turn out to be just one more pious portal.

The plethora of fatwa sites is not the only hurdle he faces. As Hammond writes, “the mufti isn’t everyone’s favourite, though. His edicts condemning Muslims who take up arms against the U.S.-allied Saudi government and advising the devout not to fight with al Qaeda in Iraq are seen by hardliners as blatant examples of fatwas-for-hire. Governments often elicit politically expedient fatwas from their favoured sheikhs.”

Modern technology has also put the spotlight on odd fatwas that are ignored or laughed at in the Muslim world. There was a Saudi fatwa against camel beauty contests last month, but it seems to have had no effect reining in this popular tribal custom. Another one in Egypt had an effect its author never imagined. Cairo’s al-Azhar Islamic University suspended a lecturer in May after he suggested that men and women office colleagues could use “symbolic breastfeeding” to get around a religious ban on being alone together.

With so many edicts about, Osama bin Laden has also issued what he calls fatwas, even though Islamic scholars would dispute his qualification to do so. These are usually quite political in spirit, but they get referred to in media reports as fatwas, as if they were somehow equivalent to a well-considered religious opinion issued by a competent sheikh.

Fatwas are clearly important for believing Muslims, otherwise there wouldn’t be such demand for them. But the confusion surrounding them makes it difficult to report on them. Is it worth writing about serious fatwas that might be ignored anyway? If we only report on the unusual ones, are we making fun of Islam? Please let us know what you think — and how you would answer the multiple-choice question above.

The Southern Baptists say it is a coincidence but at this politically charged time, some U.S. evangelicals might see it as a divinely inspired one.

On Wednesday the Baptist Press News -- the media arm of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) -- began a three-part series asking "Is Mormonism Christian?"

That of course was the day before Republican presidential contender Mitt Romney gave a speech aimed squarely at his party's evangelical base in which he said that his Mormon church would not pull the White House strings if he were elected.

"It just happened to coincide with the Romney speech. We are not speaking about Romney in particular," said Mike Ebert, spokesman for the SBC's North American Mission Board. He added that the series had been in the works since early November.

There is no reason to doubt the SBC's words but the timing is awkward to say the least for Romney, whose speech was viewed as a response to a surge in the polls in Iowa by former Arkansas governor and folksy Baptist preacher Mike Huckabee.

Much of the media coverage on the issue has focused on the fact that many evangelical Protestants view the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as aggressive recruiters as well as a heretical cult -- which Mormons vehemently deny.

The column begins with the SBC warnings from Sunday School about "that knock on the door" from Mormon missionaries: "Someday it will happen to you. You are about to sit down for a late breakfast on a Saturday morning... when there is a knock on your door," it begins.

Richard Land, the president of the SBC's Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, recently told Reuters in an interview that Southern Baptists were taught about Mormonism to "inoculate" them against the faith's missionaries. He also said that there were more former Southern Baptists who were now Mormon than any other faith.

"When Mormon missionaries visit you, they usually will ... seek to find common ground on many of the doctrines biblical Christians believe," the Baptist Press column says.

Still, Romney's faith and platform share much common ground with evangelical Protestants, including a strong emphasis on hard work and opposition to abortion and gay marriage. But in theology they part company and the success of Mormon missionaries for this fast growing faith raise the question whether he can make the hard sell to suspicious evangelicals.

-- Photo credit: Reuters/Jessica Rinaldi

Ayaan Hirsi Ali has an op-ed piece in the New York Times called “Islam’s Silent Moderates” today asking why moderate Muslims have not protested loudly against the “teddy bear case” in Khartoum and the Qatif rape case in Saudi Arabia. She makes some good points, especially asking why the Organisation of the Islamic Conference has not said anything. The OIC is quick to defend Islam and Muslim countries when the criticism comes from the outside, including from her.

Then she wrote:

For example, I would welcome some guidance from that famous Muslim theologian of moderation, Tariq Ramadan. But when there is true suffering, real cruelty in the name of Islam, we hear, first, denial from all these organizations that are so concerned about Islam’s image. We hear that violence is not in the Koran, that Islam means peace, that this is a hijacking by extremists and a smear campaign and so on. But the evidence mounts up.

“Why are the Muslims silent?” has been a mantra of many Western critics since at least the time of 9/11. It comes up fairly regularly after Islamist attacks or egregious cases of human rights violations in the Muslim world. It’s true that many Muslim leaders have avoided speaking out. But there have also been quite a few Muslim condemnations of terrorism that seem to have gone unnoticed. Something has been changing on this front and it has been evident these days. Hirsi Ali has either missed it or does not want to mention it.

Ramadan issued a clear statement over a week ago denouncing the Saudi rape verdict, the teddy bear verdict and the sacking of Pakistan’s supreme court justices. The secretary-general of the Muslim Council of Britain, Muhammad Abdul Bari, said the move to try Gillian Gibbons was “a disgraceful decision and defies common sense”. Two British Muslim peers flew out to Khartoum to negotiate her release.

This is not to say whether Ramadan or the Muslim Council of Britain are “moderate” or not (although the MCB made a “moderate” decision last week by voting to take part in the UK Holocaust Memorial Day commemoration after boycotting it for several years).

But these leading Muslims did speak out quite clearly and the Muslim peers defended a fellow British subject. On the other side, there was silence from the OIC and most of the Middle East.

So have some moderate Muslims, at least in western countries, been speaking up after all? Could the problem be that western critics of Islam haven’t been listening? Please give us your impressions.

——————

P.S. I noticed two days after posting this blog that Rod Liddle at The Spectator has made the same point about the way British Muslim leaders spoke out clearly in defence of Gibbons and against the Sudanese charges. His article starts on a very different track, arguing that Gibbons was released “far too soon.” She would surely disagree there. Anyway, Liddle then went on to say: “But — whisper it quietly — some considerable good may have come of the whole shebang. The most unequivocal and persistent protests about Ms Gibbons’s arrest, back home, came from Britain’s self-appointed guardians of Allah, the Muslim groups. Including the Muslim Council of Britain. Note the word ‘unequivocal’. They protested loud and strong and without those previously ubiquitous caveats always beginning with the conjunction ‘but …’. As in ‘We condemn this outrage entirely, but you have to understand that….’ This time there were no buts, just condemnation.”

The comments show quite a few readers don’t agree with Liddle, which makes it all the more interesting that he decided to highlight this aspect of the story so strongly.

Since the purported role of Islam in the recent French riots seems particularly important to some readers outside of France, the results of a new poll just published in the French Catholic weekly La Vie are quite interesting for this blog. The survey is about whether France is losing its national identity. This is a persistent question in a country worried that its international influence and the prestige of its culture and language are fading while globalisation, immigration and Islam are playing a larger role in French life. The survey was conducted on November 28-29, only days after the rioting in a Paris suburb that some readers say should be called “Muslim riots.”

The overall picture the poll gives is one of a country mostly concerned about basic economic and social issues. Its threshold for integration is high and its Catholic tradition colours its view of other religions, despite the widespread secularisation of daily life. There is a minority clearly concerned about Islam. But religion as a general concern ranks low, so it’s not clear whether the roughly 30 percent concerned about immigration and Islam’s compatibility with French values see Muslims as religious believers or a socioeconomic underclass. Most likely it’s both.

The CSA institute gave 1,000 French questions with a list of answers and asked them to mark as many responses as they thought were relevant. The figures indicate the percentage of respondents choosing the response.

What are the main fears concerning French society?

What are the most important things residents of France should do?

Which religions are compatible with French national identity?

What does immigration represent for France?

Khartoum correspondent Opheera McDoom looks back at the “teddy bear saga”

The “teddy bear saga” broke on a Monday with the news that Gillian Gibbons had been arrested by authorities. We’re used to stories of people being taken from their homes at night by armed security forces in Khartoum, so I was caught a little by surprise at the immense interest this case attracted. But as the story grew, the world’s press descended on Khartoum and the adrenalin of covering one of the world’s top stories kicked in.

The court case was an agonising and panicked rush in the morning as no one — not even Gibbons’ defence lawyers — was quite sure where the case was going to be heard. Unusually, she was in court the day after charges were pressed . The judge decided to keep going long into the night, and after the busy courthouse had emptied of its usual crowd, before reaching a verdict.

It was a chaotic scene. I bumped into many of my Sudanese journalist colleagues. I had assumed they were there to cover the case, but instead I found that many journalists from the independent press were there for another reason — they had court cases against them for libel or defamation. The editor of Sudan’s leading independent daily and his deputy — two colleagues I really respect in the profession — were being escorted through the courthouse. They were being released after nearly two weeks in jail for defaming the government. And then a dazed and confused Gibbons was led through a crowd of onlookers to the courtroom, escorted by police.

The judge decided on a closed court, usually reserved for military trials, and the police formed a locked line. Shouting loudly, they gradually pushed the crowd, including defence lawyers, journalists and British embassy officials, back away from the court room. After a screaming match, the head defence lawyer was allowed in and, a few hours later, the British consul too. But journalists were edged further and further away as the long day went on.

Gibbons could have been sentenced to 40 lashes, up to a year in prison or a fine if found guilty of insulting Islam. But on more than one occasion, I was asked in the courthouse by ordinary Sudanese “Is it over yet? What a silly case!” Clearly not all the population were flag and sword-waving fanatics calling for her death (an image most media used of up to 1,000 demonstrators the following day after Friday prayers). Considering that most Sudanese go to mosque on that day, I was surprised at how small the protest was.

Back in the courthouse, I heard a strange sound and saw what I thought were men cleaning or repairing the walls with a strange rod. Later on, when it happened again nearer to the line of police, I realised a man was being lashed after being found guilty of drinking alcohol. Facing the wall and fully clothed, he was smacked with a hard leather whip on the back of his thighs. Less than a metre away, the British consul sat trying to look the other way and pretending to play with his mobile phone as the whipping ended in a shouting match between police and the whippee.

Despite hours of pleading, authorities banned all filming and photography in or anywhere near the building. One cameraman tried to push his luck, and within five minutes, all those carrying cameras were arrested. I spent much of the afternoon trying to get photographers released and their cameras back in between filing updates on the trial.

Then a colleague next to me was arrested. When he asked why, the police said it was because they thought I had taken pictures with my camera. “Then why don’t you arrest her?” he asked. “We don’t speak English, how can we talk to her?” they replied. Trying to rescue him, they soon found out I spoke fluent Arabic.

Later on, as security pushed all the journalists downstairs, I was called upstairs by the guards. “Great, NOW I’m being arrested,” I thought, as I weaved past the guards. But instead, the officer who had been in charge of Gibbons where she was first held said: “We have all her things and we don’t want them — can we give them to you? It’s just a blanket.” A little taken aback, I reminded them I was just a journalist, but they insisted and took me outside to a pick-up with darkened windows. The random “khawajiyya” (foreigner) who spoke Arabic must know where to take the stuff, they thought. The officer then piled up five bags of blankets, duvets, pillows, food (lots of apples) and other things. Fast running out of hands to carry it, I brought my car over and loaded it up before passing the things on to Gibbons’ school.

What a surreal ending. “Does this mean she’s going to be freed?” I asked security. “She’s either going home or going to jail,” they replied. Poor Gillian, I thought. I had visited Omdurman Women’s prison in 2004, and it was no Hilton. Overcrowded, packed with sick women with sick babies who rely on family or Sudanese charities to bring them food, it was a miserable place. And I didn’t imagine it was like French cheese. It didn’t improve with time.

Gillian’s guilty sentence took many by surprise, as the prosecution’s case was so weak and the defence so strong. Her Sudanese Muslim teaching assistant, who was in the classroom with her when the teddy bear’s name of Mohammad was chosen, testified for the defence, as did parents of the pupils. It was an innocent error, they said. And they had seen nothing wrong with it at the time and still did not. The teddy was named after a student by the children. Gillian had done nothing wrong. But despite being found guilty, Gibbons’ sentence was light at just 15 days in jail and then deportation. Many Sudanese remember vividly Mahmoud Mohamed Taha, who was executed in the 1980s for his controversial views on Islam, which prompted the then newly-Islamic government to accuse him of apostasy.

While Khartoum may have thought it had satisfied all sides with the verdict, they underestimated the power of the British tabloid press, which had poured into Sudan over the past week. On the hunt for the teddy, which was confiscated as evidence, the journalists — who were used to the UK where they can take pictures or film anywhere and get easy access to information — found Sudan’s working environment strange.

So Gillian finally made it home safe and sound and is back with her family. While I was happy for her, I just wished the hundreds of Sudanese subjected to similar cases were half as lucky.

On the world religion scene, one interesting trend concerns the growing number of Christian missionaries seeking to convert people in developing countries. Many are evangelicals from the United States or South Korea, often trying to convert Muslims. We usually hear about them when their work creates tension or leads to a diplomatic incident. It’s rare to see a lengthy report on what a mission is actually doing and how it is received.

The Commercial Appeal daily in Memphis, Tennessee has just published a fascinating report on a mission to convert Hindus in India that is sponsored by a hometown Baptist church. Bellevue Baptist in Memphis spends $5.5 million each year for missionary work around the world. The Commercial Appeal’s Trevor Aaronson visited the National Training Institute for Village Evangelism in Hyderabad, which Bellevue supports, to see what it does on the ground. These missions can be controversial. In several Indian states, Hindu nationalists have protested against missionary work and passed laws banning conversion from one religion to another. World churches are working on a code of conduct to help spread their faith without antagonising other religions.

Aaronson’s article is a zoom-lens look at one mission, its problems, its links to its American donors and the reactions of the Hindu nationalists. He presents the mission warts and all, which has sparked off a lively debate on the paper’s Web site. As Daniel Pulliam over at GetReligion notes, this is “an impressive journalistic endeavor for a local newspaper … the activities of churches often go uncovered, particularly missionary work.”

Do you think Christian churches should seek converts like this? Can a code of conduct help avoid tensions with other faiths?

What a difference a day makes. A post here yesterday noted that British media had all but ignored today’s debate about Christianophobia in parliament and asked whether that term was an appropriate one to use. Well, today several newspapers have taken up the issue, with different angles.

Andrew Brown in the Guardian says “Civilisation is safe” and sees influences from across the Atlantic for the debate: “The American nationalist right - and now an obscure Tory MP - would have us believe that Christian traditions are under threat. I don’t think so.” He also says that a BBC story about the debate was the second most emailed story on the BBC’s website. His post sparked a long list of comments.

A question on the Daily Telegraph site “How should we tackle ‘Christianophobia’ ?” also sparked a lively discussion. The Daily Express ran the blaring headline: “SOON ALL BRITAIN’S CHRISTIAN TRADITIONS MAY BE KILLED OFF.” The Daily Mail spoke of “rising Christianophobia and busybodies who downgrade Christian traditions.”

The British Humanist Association asked how one could speak of Christianophobia when “a third of state funded schools are ‘faith’ schools, the vast majority of which are Anglican; we still have an established Church with 26 Church of England Bishops sitting as of right in the House of Lords;” and religious groups have privileged access to government funds.

None of them asked whether the term “Christianophobia” was an appropriate term…

from Madeline Chambers in Hanover, Germany

Chancellor Angela Merkel suffered a slightly bumpy landing at the annual conference of her Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party in Hanover this week when she jumped on a popular bandwagon by saying that mosques shouldn’t stand higher than churches in Germany.

Mosque-building is a sensitive subject in Germany. Her fellow conservatives in Bavaria have been saying for some time that minarets should not dwarf church steeples. Local residents are up in arms about plans to build several mosques across Germany – in Berlin, Munich and Cologne.

However, Merkel — a Lutheran pastor’s daughter who grew up in communist East Germany — seems to have got mixed up with her terminology for sacred architecture.

“We must take care that mosque cupolas are not built demonstratively higher than church steeples. Tolerance also means defending ones own values,” she told the party conference.

Surely she means minarets rather than cupolas? That’s what Germans have been getting worked up about for months (and their Swiss neighbours to the south, too). Christians in Cologne do not want the city’s skyline – now dominated by one of the world’s largest cathedrals — to be spoiled by two tall Ottoman minarets. Blueprints for the controversial Cologne mosque show the minarets are far higher than the cupola.

Even Merkel’s one-time rival Edmund Stoiber, former leader of the CDU’s Christian Social Union (CSU) sister party in traditionally Catholic Bavaria, knows the architectural distinction between a cupola and a minaret.

“Church spires, not minarets, should be what you see when you look out across the state,” he told his party in his last speech as its leader in September.

Germany’s roughly 3.2 million Muslims, over half of whom are Turkish, might well feel perturbed that Merkel is getting confused over her Islamic architectural terms. It doesn’t bode well for all that mutual understanding she propagates.

Parliament in Britain has scheduled a debate on Christianophobia for Wednesday and interest in it seems to be almost zero. It’s on the parliamentary agenda and the BBC has done a story on it. But the usual Google searches find no other articles about it and few blog entries (for example here, here, here or here).

OK, it’s not the hottest topic right now and there’s a much bigger religion story out there today — the return of “teddy row teacher” Gillian Gibbons from Sudan. But that’s not all.

Christianophobia doesn’t seem to be catching on as a useful term denoting a clear injustice to Christians. There was disagreement about it among Christians when the Vatican led a successful drive about three years ago to have it recognised as a social evil equivalent to the hatred of Jews or Muslims. The United Nations adopted the term and reports regularly on cases of Christianophobia, but these reports have little impact.

Human rights groups regularly document clear cases of persecution of Christians in countries such as Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, to mention only the most frequently cited offenders. Christians such as British MP Mark Pritchard, who initiatied the parliamentary debate, express concern about the way Christian traditions such as Nativity plays are being sidelined in western societies. This recalls the criticism of Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI that Europe is forgetting its Christian roots .

All this is happening, but is a word ending in “-phobia” the right way to describe it? A phobia is an irrational fear. Fear can certainly be one of several motivating factors in anti-Christian views. But aren’t we really talking about prejudice, discrimination and persecution here? Aren’t those who persecute Christians or try to keep Christianity out of the public sphere doing this out of their cold calculation of their own interests?

In Pakistan, for example, cases of blasphemy against Christians — charges that they cursed the name of the Prophet Mohammad or tore pages out of a Koran — are often brought by Muslims who have quite practical reasons to want to discriminate against them. Sometimes there are disputes over water rights or use of a parcel of land, for example. Sometimes it’s something personal, like a dispute with a Christian. Accusing the Christian of blasphemy gets him thrown into jail and out of the accuser’s hair. This is not a phobia, it is a calculated act of discrimination by a member of the majority against a member of a minority.

Speaking of Islam, is Islamophobia the best term to describe prejudice, discrimination and persecution when Muslims are the targets? It’s taken hold more successfully than Christianophobia, but I’m not sure it’s the best word to use. Any suggestions?