Israel’s army chief under fire about God reference in memorial rites
The Israeli military is embroiled in a public battle over whether God ought to be mentioned at memorial rites for fallen soldiers. The ferocity of the debate, going to the heart of Israel’s secular and religious Jewish divide, prompted the intervention on Monday of a parliamentary panel that urged Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s fractious cabinet to decide the issue.
The controversy is over whether Yizkor, the Hebrew prayer of remembrance, should begin at military ceremonies with the words “May God remember” or “May the people of Israel remember”. Military policy calls for the version mentioning God to be used, but enforcement has been patchy in an apparent nod to the sentiments of the Jewish state’s secular majority.
Media reports that Israel’s new armed forces chief, Lieutenant-General Benny Ganz, had sided with chaplains who insisted on using the “May God remember” phrase have drawn complaints the military is becoming too Orthodox.
“The people’s army is little by little becoming an army of God,” left-wing legislator Ilan Gilon said.
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Harrisburg, Pennsylvania turns to God for fiscal relief
Pennsylvania’s debt-ridden capital of Harrisburg has tried every form of fiscal belt-tightening, from layoffs to furloughs to filing for bankruptcy. Now, it is turning to God.
Mayor Linda Thompson said on Friday she will join religious leaders in three days of fasting and prayer to encourage “a cooperative spirit among government leaders, the business community and citizens.”
“I am open about my faith and will be participating in the voluntary prayer and fast,” Thompson said in a statement. The city is now weighing a financial rescue plan presented by the state.
The fast and prayers, which will be facilitated by about a dozen Christian, Jewish, and Muslim religious leaders, will begin at midnight on June 21 and end on June 24.
On Monday, a team of state-appointed advisors recommended the city sell a deeply indebted incinerator at the root of its fiscal problems, renegotiate its labor agreements, cut jobs, sell other assets and assume $26 million in new borrowing.
The city council has until July 23 to adopt the plan.
Egyptian Salafists honor bin Laden with death prayer
Hundreds of Islamist Salafists defied security forces and held special prayers Friday for al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, killed in a U.S. raid in Pakistan this week. Some Islamists regard Saudi-born bin Laden, who was inspired by Egyptian militants, as a martyr.
“We will pray, we will pray,” some 200 men chanted as police tried to stop the special prayers at the Salafist-run al-Nour Mosque in the Abbasiyah quarter of Cairo after regular Friday noon prayers. Salafists call for a fundamentalist version of Islam based on that practiced by its earliest followers.
Police stood by as the worshippers held the funeral “prayer for the absent,” which is performed for people whose bodies are not present at the mosque.
Analysts said the small number of attendees reflected how little support Islamist militants enjoy among Egyptians. Some of the worshippers marched toward the heavily guarded U.S. embassy in central Cairo, marched around Tahrir (Liberation) Square, scene of mass demonstrations that toppled President Hosni Mubarak in February, and then dispersed.
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U.S. military chaplains air issues
Chaplains representing every branch of the U.S. military and many faiths gathered on Wednesday to discuss everything from counseling stressed-out soldiers to a recent lawsuit charging the military neglects a sexually abusive culture.
“Yes, there is sexual abuse. They said it is not attributable to the culture fostered by the Department of Defense, it is attributable to the culture of our society,” said the Rev. Dr. C. Welton Gaddy, president of the Interfaith Alliance, who helped lead the discussion held in the House of Representatives’ Cannon Office Building.
In a federal lawsuit, outlined in the New York Times, 17 current or former service members portrayed the military as allowing a sexually charged culture that fails to prevent or punish incidents of rape and sexual abuse. The chaplains’ view echoed that of a Defense Department spokesman that sexual assault is a wider societal problem, but was a priority of the military.
The repeated deployments of U.S. soldiers to Afghanistan and Iraq over the past decade has taken a toll on psyches, making it difficult for the roughly 2,000 U.S. Army chaplains and hundreds more in other branches, Gaddy said.
“They said of the repeated deployments, ‘Yes, that is very worrisome concern and it something that is not going to end any time soon’,” he said.
“There are a lot of people who are not clinically diagnosed (with post-traumatic stress disorder) who have severe issues related to that and the chaplains try to handle it in their regular counseling procedures,” he said.
Among the participants in the discussion were a rabbi who is a captain in the Army Reserves, a Methodist, a Muslim and a Baptist. If the chaplains themselves become stressed by their duties, Gaddy said they did not air it.
This article has been posted on Religious Freedom USA. To learn more visit: http://www.religiousfreedomusa.org
Church of England to wash some Bible imagery from baptism rite
The Church of England has voted to use more accessible language during baptisms to help it connect better with congregations, especially non church-goers. Members attending the Church’s General Synod, or parliament, in London, agreed that the Liturgical Commission should provide supplementary material to help prevent the eyes of worshippers “glazing over” during important parts of the service.
The Reverend Tim Stratford, from Liverpool, said on Wednesday his motion was “not a request for christenings without Christianity.” Quite the opposite. “I am not asking for the language of Steven Gerrard,” he said, referring to the Liverpool and England soccer star. “Just references that could be understood by the majority.”
Parts of the service were difficult to use “without seeming inappropriately schoolmaster-like”, he said. Stratford said he did not disagree with the words currently being used, such as “I turn to Christ, I repent of my sins, and I renounce evil.”
“But it sounds to many as if the church wants an entirely religious response — removed from our behaviour, actions and conversations”. Instead, he wanted words that showed Christ’s neighbourly love. “Not inquisitorial, but aspirational.”
Those speaking against said there was enough flexibility already and it was unwise to add alternatives. Other synod members suggested that if the children who were being baptised understood the service better, they and their parents may be more keen to attend church in future. It was not a call for words to be watered down, but for simpler, more powerful language to be used.
The change should also be seen as part of a cultural shift, said Patricia Hawkins, of Lichfield. “They have heard about Jordan but it does not mean a river,” she added. “But they understand about needing somebody who can stand beside them in their despair, which is what Christ does in his baptism.”
In the motion, Stratford said many people today did not have enough background in the Bible to understand the images used in the current baptism services. This was “not a plea for a prayer in Scouse, but for a prayer that the majority of non-theologically-versed Britons would understand.” He gave the following as an example of what he called “problematic sentences”:
A week after riots, Thai capital prays for peace
Thousands of Thais prayed for peace and unity in Bangkok on Wednesday, a week after a deadly military crackdown on protesters sparked a terrifying night of arson and riots that levelled buildings and killed 54 people.
But analysts say without major reforms to a political system that protesters claim favours an “establishment elite” over the rural masses, such prayers and forgiveness will not end a polarising crisis costing the economy billions of dollars.
Hundreds of saffron-robed Buddhist monks received food from well wishers along a shopping mall occupied by anti-government protesters for six weeks until they were dispersed by troops and armoured vehicles last week.
Next to them were Christian, Muslim and Sikh leaders, who also conducted prayers to bless the riot-torn city of 15 million people as predominantly Buddhist Thailand grapples with widening social and political rifts that have spiralled dangerously into the open in the past five years.
“It is very important for all of us in Bangkok to forgive and move ahead,” said Bangkok Governor Sukhumbhand Paribatra, who hosted the “Restore the City With Religious Ceremony” event.
from Tales from the Trail:
Obama sits down with Rev. Billy Graham
President Barack Obama had his first face-to-face talks on Sunday with one of America's top spiritual leaders, the Reverend Billy Graham.
Graham, 91, who is ailing with Parkinson's disease, has prayed with U.S. presidents over the course of the past 50 years or so.
Obama visited his Montreat log cabin home at the end of a weekend trip to western North Carolina.
"Rev. Graham has obviously been an important spiritual leader for past presidents and for the American people for decades," White House spokesman Bill Burton said.
He called Graham "a real treasure for our country and the president appreciates the opportunity to visit him at his home and speak with him."
He said he assumed Obama and Graham would pray together.
The U.S. Army last week withdrew an invitation to Graham's son Franklin Graham to speak at a Pentagon prayer service next month following an outcry over his references to Islam as a violent religion. The invitation had been extended by the private, Colorado-based National Day of Prayer Task Force.
Venezuelans turn to God over power crisis
Power-rationing has failed. The rains have still not come. So Venezuelan electricity workers are seeking divine help to solve the nation’s power crisis.
State oil company Edelca has summoned all its workers to an hourlong prayer meeting scheduled for Friday and titled: “Clamor to God for the National Electricity Sector.”
“Let us support this summons with our presence, united in our commitment to lift up our great company,” Edelca President Igor Gavidia Leon wrote in a note to staff, under a quote from the Bible saying God will hear the prayers of humble people.
Read the whole report here.
IAEA’s ElBaradei bows out with prayer of St. Francis
Mohamed ElBaradei, a Muslim from Egypt, has finished his 12-year term as director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) quoting one of Christianity’s most popular prayers. In a short meeting at IAEA headquarters in Vienna on Friday, the 2005 Nobel Peace Prize laureate said that “the moment of departure is an opportunity to reflect upon a journey of joy, challenges, pleasure and fulfilment.” At the end of his career at the IAEA, which began in 1984 as a legal adviser, the world was “finally returning to its senses. People are speaking of a world free of nuclear weapons, of one human family and of a world that lifts people out of poverty.”
He ended his final remarks to the Board of Governors by reading out a short version of the Prayer of St. Francis of Assisi:
Lord make me an instrument of your peace: Where there is hatred let me sow love Where there is error let me sow truth Where there is discord let me sow unity Where there is despair let me sow hope For it is in giving that we receive.
The Italian saint has clearly been on ElBaradei’s mind in his final days as head of the IAEA. On Nov. 17, he visited Assisi, birthplace and burial place of St. Francis, and called him “a man whose life of self-sacrifice and dedication to serving the poor remains a powerful inspiration for people of all faiths eight centuries after his death” .
Three days later, delivering the 2009 Willy Brandt lecture at Berlin’s Humboldt University, he ended his address by saying: “This week, I was invited to speak at the Sacred Convent of St. Francis of Assisi. I was absolutely gripped by one of St. Francis´s prayers, in which he says: ‘Lord, make me a channel of your peace.’ I pray that every one of us will be a channel for peace.”
It’s nice to hear someone say this prayer. We have so much to learn from each other’s religion. Indeed if we ignore the external layers of religion, we will see they are all pathway to God.
Should Berlin let Muslim pupils pray at school?
A ruling by a Berlin court allowing a 16-year-old Muslim pupil to pray towards Mecca in a separate room at school has raised questions about the extent of religious freedom in Germany. Some media, including the Sueddeutsche Zeitung, describe the ruling as a landmark case, saying it is the first time a German court has considered whether the right to practise religious beliefs should extend to schools.
The case arose in 2007 when the head of a school in Berlin, which has a strong secular tradition, forbid a boy and his friends from kneeling on their jackets to pray where they could be seen by other pupils.
The school argued it was religiously “neutral” but the boy, whose mother is Turkish and father is a German who converted to Islam, decided to go to court.
And they won.
Judge Uwe Wegener of Berlin’s Administrative Court wrote: “The plaintiff credibly showed he feels a religious obligation to pray according to Islamic custom five times a day at specific times.”
In the ruling, which makes clear the boy must pray outside lesson times to avoid disruption, the court also said Germany’s constitution guaranteed an individual the right to manifest one’s belief — which includes praying.
The case raises some interesting questions, including to what extent a Muslim can be flexible in delaying prayers and whether an institution like a school should have to put aside rooms for worship.
I totally agree with Carol. Please watch “Islam-What the West Needs to Know“ its on youtube. Its really really scary. P.S. and please do not be afraid of being called a nazi, you are not and i am either.
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