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.
Guestview: Why “militant Islam” is a dangerous myth
The following is a guest contribution. Reuters is not responsible for the content and the views expressed are the authors’ alone. Dalia Mogahed is Executive Director of the Gallup Center for Muslim Studies.
By Dalia Mogahed
Right-wing pundits in the U.S. and Europe sometimes argue that it is misguided to avoid religious language when describing terrorists. They point out that members of Al-Qaeda and its affiliates call themselves “jihadists”, a derivative of the Arabic noun “jihad” meaning a struggle for God. They explain that it is therefore accurate and fair to refer to Al-Qaeda and its affiliates by the same term.
These same commentators also assert that political correctness in labelling the enemy is the last thing Western societies should be worried about. In fact, they say, focusing too much on not offending others may even weaken Americans’ and Europeans’ will to defeat those who wish them harm.
Yet Gallup research paints a very different picture; an ambitious new study suggests that casting tensions between Muslims and the West in religious terms may actually weaken the ability of America and Europe to fight religiously-branded extremists. This report, which inaugurates Gallup’s Abu Dhabi Center, is entitled “Measuring Muslim-West Relations: Assessing the “New Beginning,” and presents the results of more than 100,000 interviews with citizens in 55 countries. A key finding is that those who see the conflict as primarily due to religious differences are more likely to see a clash as inevitable.
To better understand this finding it is useful to examine the message of Al Qaeda affiliated violent extremists. The religious authenticity of the terrorists group, as well as the inevitability of conflict between Muslims and the West, are cornerstones of Al Qaeda’s narrative. Violent extremists who wave a religious banner do so to legitimise their movement and bolster its claims to moral superiority. Therefore, when pundits cast these violent activists as religiously motivated, they only reinforce the terrorist appeal to religion.
Moreover, if these tensions are indeed unavoidable, the extremists’ narrative continues, then dialogue is useless and force is necessary. Once a clash is the only option, the extremists claim that for their own survival people must support those fighting on their behalf Western thought-leaders would therefore do well to refute, not reinforce, the idea of inevitable religious war.
i’ve been told that islam is a political system in and of it’s self. you speak of mutual respect, yet muslims do not respect freedom of speach or religion. your own survey said that 90% of egyptians were in favor of freedom of religion yet 84% thought that a muslim converting should be put to death. how is that freedom of religion? also you say terror is politically motivated. i agree but there is also islamicly motivated terror. did you see some ahmadis were beaten to death in indonesia? a 14 year girl was lashed to death in pakistan due to local interpretation of sharia. how is it’s politically motivated to kill theo van gogh? why did the ayatollah put a bounty on rusdie’s head when he was already in charge in iran. i think your focus on 9/11 is misplaced, the scary thing about islam is islam its self, [8.12] When your Lord revealed to the angels: I am with you, therefore make firm those who believe. I will cast terror into the hearts of those who disbelieve. Therefore strike off their heads and strike off every fingertip of them.
[8.13] This is because they acted adversely to Allah and His Apostle; and whoever acts adversely to Allah and His Apostle– then surely Allah is severe in requiting (evil). as an agnostic, you all are more scary then the christians, i agree with ghandi when he said, “i like your christ, i don’t like your christians they are so unchrist like”. but i don’t see christian going around killing people for blasphamy. i don’t understand why i can’t see my comments. could someone email me if they see this… mmalzahn@ymail.com
Egypt’s Islamists well placed for any post-Mubarak phase
The Muslim Brotherhood, one of the Arab world’s oldest Islamist movements and Egypt’s largest opposition group, is well placed to play a prominent role as President Hosni Mubarak’s rule teeters on the brink of collapse.
The movement is active in the protest movement massing in Cairo, Alexandria and other cities on Tuesday in an attempt to persuade Mubarak that after 30 years it is time to go.
But decades of severe repression have taught the Brotherhood to move cautiously, and the movement is anxious to preserve the impression that the protesters are part of a broad-based movement of which the Islamists are just one part.
Ironically, if the Brotherhood does emerge with unprecedented power, some of the credit will be Mubarak’s. Like many other Arab autocrats friendly with the United States and Europe, Mubarak has deliberately given the Islamist movement space, though on a tight leash, so that he could pose as the only plausible bastion against an Islamist government.
Although the government calls the Brotherhood a banned organization, it has let the movement open offices, make statements and field candidates in parliamentary elections.
The U.S. and European governments fell into the trap set by Mubarak and have refused to make contact directly with the Brotherhood, for fear of angering the Egyptian government.
Imam Khomeini (RA): the people of Egypt will be rebellion.
U.S. churches could benefit from new community radio law
A tiny nonprofit organization operating a national campaign from the basement of Calvary United Methodist Church in Philadelphia for 12 years to get more non-commercial radio stations approved may soon see its dream come true.
On January 4, the nonprofit Prometheus and other groups seeking to diversify media ownership, scored a victory when President Barack Obama signed into law the Local Community Radio Act. It directs the Federal Communications Commission, which regulates the national airwaves, to allow more low-power stations access to the FM radio dial.
Once implemented, the law is expected to result in as many 2,000 new stations, beginning in about 2013. That would more than double the approximately 800 low-power stations currently in operation, compared with around 13,000 commercial stations nationwide. “It makes a lot more room on a medium (FM radio) that a lot of people still use,” said Prometheus founder Pete Tridish.
An increase in community stations could mean more coverage of local issues such as school board meetings, high school football games, health, education, local music, and literacy campaigns. Since about half the existing low-power FM stations are owned by churches, some of the new material is also likely to be religious.
Read the full story by Jon Hurdle here.
Is free Iraq becoming a more Islamic state?
A group of men recently ordered Siham al-Zubaidi to close down her Baghdad hair salon for two months for Shi’ite religious festivities. She had no idea who they were but complied because she feared for her life.
“Can you just tell me who will pay the rent of my shop for these two months? What shall I do to support my family? What is the relation between hair dressing and religious events?” Zubaidi, 40, asked furiously. “This is a new dictatorship. They want Iraq to be an Islamic state. But this is not right. Iraq includes a variety of religious factions … These are alien ideas, not Iraqi.”
Recent efforts by authorities, clergy and unknown bands of neighbourhood enforcers to police morals by shutting nightclubs, bars and other establishments has heightened concerns among academics and intellectuals that Iraq, now emerging from war, is displaying the tendencies of a hard-line Islamic state.
Baghdad’s local government this month re-activated a federal order from last year to close down the capital’s nightclubs and liquor shops due to concern the venues were undermining morals. The crackdown followed similar actions in some Shi’ite-majority provinces in the south.
“What is going on are normal consequences when religious parties take over power. They start with such practices, and end the way the Taliban in Afghanistan ended, or other parties in Iran,” Baghdad political analyst Hazim al-Nuaimi said.
In September, local authorities in Babil province prevented an arts festival that has been held yearly since before 2003. Security forces told organizers a day after the festival started to end it because it included dance shows. In the southern city of Basra, the government shut down a foreign circus a few days after it opened last month. Basra authorities said the government department of Shi’ite endowments held that the land on which the circus was set up could not be used in a way that violated Islamic Sharia law.
The new measures sparked protests by some Iraqis who said the government is trying to kill freedom more than seven years after the U.S.-led invasion that ousted Sunni dictator Saddam Hussein and paved the way for majority Shi’ites to take power.
India Congress scion Rahul Gandhi says radical Hindus a threat
Rahul Gandhi, seen as an India prime minister in waiting, told the U.S. ambassador radical Hindu groups could posed a bigger threat to the country than the Islamists who attacked Mumbai in 2008, a leaked cable showed. The comments made to Timothy Roemer last year were immediately criticised by the main opposition Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), adding to political sparring that has deadlocked parliament and pushed policymaking into limbo.
Gandhi’s comments, made in response to a question from Roemers on the Pakistani-based Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) militant group, referred to religious tension created by more extreme BJP leaders, according to the cable dated August 3, 2009. It was released by WikiLeaks and published on Friday by Britain’s Guardian newspaper.
Gandhi said there was evidence of some support for the LeT among Indian Muslims, the ambassador wrote, according to the cable. “However, Gandhi warned, the bigger threat may be the growth of radicalised Hindu groups, which create religious tensions and political confrontations with the Muslim community,” Roemer wrote. The ambassador added a comment that “Gandhi was referring to the tensions created by some of the more polarizing figures in the BJP such as Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi.”
Gandhi, son of Congress chief Sonia Gandhi, has sparked the BJP’s ire before. He once compared the opposition party’s parent organisation to the banned Students Islamic Movement of India. On Friday, the BJP said Gandhi’s comments were adding grist to propaganda from Islamist militants and Pakistan.
India has a history of communal tensions between majority Hindus and minority Muslims, and critics say several political parties play on insecurities amongst Muslims to win votes. Radical Hindu groups, some with ties to the BJP or the BJP’s more extreme sister organisations, have been linked to bomb attacks against Muslim targets.
Most U.S. Protestant pastors doubt Beck, Obama are Christians-poll
What do conservative TV and radio personality Glenn Beck and U.S. President Barack Obama have in common? Most U.S. Protestant pastors doubt their Christian credentials.
These are among the findings of a survey released this week by LifeWay Research, the number-crunching arm of the Southern Baptist Convention, which sometimes does interesting pastor polls.
The poll in question, of 1,000 U.S. Protestant pastors, asked: “Which, if any, of the following people do you believe are Christians?” It then gave a list of five prominent personalties: TV diva Oprah Winfrey, former U.S. President George W. Bush, Beck, Obama and former Alaska governor and conservative sweetheart Sarah Palin.
Only 27 percent of the respondents said they believed Beck, who is a Mormon, was a Christian and only 41 percent — well less than half — answered in the affirmative regarding Obama. Bush scored the highest at 75 percent and Palin was second at 66 percent. Oprah came in rock bottom at 19 percent. The national telephone survey took place Oct. 7-14.
It all raises some interesting questions and may raise a few eyebrows.
Let’s start with Beck, who often speaks the political and even spiritual language of conservative evangelical Christians– and counts many as his fans – but cannot score theological points with them because of his Mormon faith. Many evangelicals regard The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as an oddball cult and the survey’s results show it may be as much a political liability for Beck the activist as it is for Mitt Romney the candidate, the former and perhaps future Republican presidential contender.
In a similar poll by PEW, it was revealed that conservative Christians had the least knowledge of the Bible & their own religious denomination. For an accurate evaluation of any person; “it says in the Bible”, is a nonstarter. It means nothing. No religious affiliation is a guarantee of good content of ones character. The same holds true for Muslims, who must depend on dubious clerics to tell them what it says in the Qoran, as most do not understand Arabic, & simply mouth the sounds. I can relate to that, in a sense; having grown up Catholic & an altar boy during the final years of the universal use of Latin for the Mass.At the age of 10 or so;I could mouth pages of Latin, & hadn’t a clue what I was saying.But, more to the point; it shouldn’t matter what religion, if any, the president follows. Perhaps this should be kept confidential, & successful candidates should have to abstain from church attendance while in office.
U.S. atheists and Catholics in holiday billboard fight
U.S. Catholics and atheists are doing battle over the holiday season with dueling billboards on opposite sides of the Hudson River separating New York and New Jersey.
The American Atheists organization fired the opening shot the Monday before Thanksgiving with its billboard on Route 495 in North Bergen, New Jersey. It tells drivers: “You Know It’s a MYTH,” a slogan set against a traditional nativity scene with three wise men and two figures in a manger.
The Catholic League fired back with its own billboard on the Manhattan side of the Lincoln Tunnel saying: “You Know it’s Real. This Season, Celebrate Jesus,” set against a picture of the infant Christ with his parents, Mary and Joseph. The league, a Catholic civil rights organization, said it responded to the atheists’ billboard because it wanted to counteract what it sees as a negative view of Christmas.
David Silverman, president of American Atheists, said its billboard, costing $20,000 for about a month between Thanksgiving and Christmas, is the organization’s first to directly challenge what it believes are many atheists who go to church at Christmas but don’t believe in God. Jeff Field, a spokesman for the League, said its billboard is designed to counteract any doubts raised by its opponent on the other side of the Hudson.
That is so sad. “Can we all get along?” If you can’t say Merry Christmas, then just make it Merry Solstice and have a hot toddy. Geez…
Scathing U.S. view of French unrest and Muslim integration in WikiLeaks
The U.S. embassy in Paris turns out to be one of the sharpest critics of France’s track record in integrating its Muslim minority. Thanks to WikiLeaks, we now have its unvarnished view of the 2005 unrest in the poor suburbs of Paris and other large cities. It is a scathing indictment that goes beyond even what many of the government’s domestic critics at the time were saying. It may also go beyond most if not all of the criticisms of domestic policy found in cables from other European capitals (has anyone found anything more devastating elsewhere?). Here is our overall news report on the cables. Some excerpts from the key cables are copied below.
For FaithWorld, it’s especially interesting to see what the embassy says about “what the violence is not”. Back in those days, some American media were throwing around terms like “Paris intifada” and “Muslim riots” as if Huntington’s “clash of civilisations” had reached the outlying stations of the Paris Metro network. The cables are clearly written to refute that view. Yes, many of the rioters came from a Muslim background, but this was a socio-economic protest by a growing underclass, as we have argued in earlier posts such as “Smoke without fire – there was no ‘Paris intifada’ in 2005″ and “Why we don’t call them ‘Muslim riots’ in Paris suburbs.”
If religion had to be brought into the issue, it would have to be mentioned as an underlying cultural background on both sides — something that French politicians and editorialists didn’t do and don’t like. But this cable did do that in one of its most striking quotes — “The real problem is the failure of white and Christian France to view their darker, Muslim compatriots as real citizens.” As Le Monde put it: “The Americans’ logic has never been explained in such transparent fashion.”
It’s interesting to see how the embassy links the social exclusion of the Muslim minority now with possible radicalisation of some Muslims in the future. The first of our three excerpts examines the security issue in August 2005, months before the banlieues (suburbs) erupted in protest.The second and third analyse the protests themselves.
Italics are our own, to highlight the main points in these excerpts:
PUTTING OUT BRUSHFIRES: FRANCE AND ISLAMIC EXTREMISM — August 17, 2005
As Americans well know, true integration is a difficult endeavor.
Russian Orthodox Church’s Kirill on ecumenism, via Wikileaks
Some interesting comments on Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill, back in April 2008 when he was still Metropolitan Kirill, in a cable from the U.S. embassy in Moscow published by Wikileaks:
¶8. (C) Kirill seemed to be in good health was preoccupied as always with the, in his view, excessive emphasis on the individual in the West, and stressed the need to harmonize traditional human rights concerns with “morality and ethics.” Economic progress had been a two-edged sword for Russia, Kirill thought. With prosperity, Russians had “lost something” and Kirill, who is Metropolitan of Smolensk and Kaliningrad, pointed to less prosperous Smolensk as “better preserved” than Moscow or St. Petersburg.
¶9. (C) Kirill spoke highly of a UN-sponsored effort to bridge the gap between East and West by seeking an alliance of civilizations. Kirill was attempting to interest the UN in his efforts to sponsor ecumenical dialogue especially, he said, in the Middle East. As he has in past conversations, Kirill contrasted Roman Catholic Pope Benedict favourably with his predecessor John Paul II, and again held out the prospect of significant improvement in Russian Orthodox – Roman Catholic relations. Also on the ecumenical front, Kirill reported to the Ambassador efforts, via the Russian Orthodox Church of America and the National Council of Churches, to reach out to Protestant denominations in the U.S.
Although the three great monotheist faiths of the world — that is, Jews, Christians, and Muslims — seem to clash and grate against each other, there is an oasis of peace and agreement and sanctuary among them that can be found in the immortal account of the Prophet Elijah. All three of these enormous religions believe in and respect and honor the prophet Elijah. A new motion picture has just been made (fresh out of Hollywood) of the life of Elijah. This wonderful movie is called “Blast and Whisper”. Check it out on YouTube at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yrJ0-4UN7 uQ
Check it out on Facebook at:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/BLAST-AND- WHISPER/322296232152?v=info
Check out the press release at:
http://www.wdcmedia.com/newsArticle.php? ID=4174
Check it out on IMDb at:
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm2492800/
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Resident FaithWorld Expert
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This article has been posted on Religious Freedom USA. To learn more visit: http://www.religiousfreedomusa.org