The Rev. Chuck Currie

Democrats Convene Group to Develop `Faith Agenda'

Religion News Service is reporting that House Democrats have put together a committee to develop a "faith agenda."  "The working group of 15 to 25 members would help Democrats cast issues through a faith lens in a way that would help them speak to faith-minded voters," reported the RNS story (using Roll Call as a source for their coverage).

Taco Bell Truth Tour Feb. 28-March 14, 2005, to Demand 'Fair Food,' Justice for Farmworkers

Message from the National Council of Churches USA

People of faith are serious about “fair food” and ending exploitation of farmworkers. That’s the message that faith-based supporters of the consumer boycott of Taco Bell plan to deliver to Taco Bell’s parent company, Yum Brands, at a mass rally March 12 at Yum headquarters in Louisville, Ky. The NCC and several of its member churches (denominations) join with a broad range of organizations in urging people of faith and conscience from around the nation to join this peaceful rally organized by the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, whose members pick tomatoes that go into Taco Bell products. The rally will culminate the February 28-March 14 Taco Bell Truth Tour, which will take farmworkers from Immokalee, Fla., through the South and West to Louisville for a "Week of Action" and the mass rally. Read more/join us.

Related Post:  No More Late Night Taco Bell

Related Post: Statement by Former President Jimmy Carter On Taco Bell Talks

Iraq Elections: What Next?

This post has been updated

The Center for American Progress is offering some first thoughts on the elections held yesterday in Iraq. There is no reason, in my opinion, to think anything will change now in Iraq or that US troops will be coming home any sooner. Despite the courage of those who voted the situation remains a huge mess.  It is certainly a hopeful sign, however, that despite all the problems more people turned out to vote than expected.  From CAP's Talking Points:

January 31, 2005

Yesterday's vote in Iraq was an historic and hopeful advancement for democracy in the country. While it is too soon to offer a complete assessment of the elections, the higher than expected turnout bodes well for the legitimacy of the new government that will emerge in the coming days. However, the Bush administration -- which did not want this election to begin with -- must not simply claim victory. Tough hurdles remain.

Security problems remain. Efforts to train Iraqi security forces to assume responsibility for securing the country have been slow and plagued by desertion and equipment shortages. Although the administration continues to claim that 120,000 Iraqis have been trained, the real number is more like 14,000, with only one-third of them battle-ready. Yesterday's vote was marked by dozens of attacks throughout the country – authorities report that at least 44 persons were killed.

Sunnis must be represented. As anticipated, a majority Shiite government is expected to emerge. Sunnis largely stayed away from the polls in response to calls for a boycott and insecure polling sites. Over the next twelve months, the new assembly will form a government, draft a new constitution, and prepare for a second vote in December. If not managed carefully, the country could easily slip into civil war.

"Elections don't fix economies." Significant reconstruction hurdles remain. Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies warns: "We do not see coming out of this any of the elements of economic stability… that underpin the election." Less than one-fifth of the $18 billion dollars in aid that the United States pledged two years ago has been disbursed in the country, which is plagued by high unemployment and low levels of development. Unless the new government can deliver on improving Iraqis' everyday lives, the post-election honeymoon will be short-lived.

Update:  Christian peacemakers question conduct of Iraq elections.  Full story

Update:  Rev. David Fischler, pastor of First Moravian Church of Greensboro, North Carolina, writes the blog Ecumenical Insanity.  He has a post up on his site complaining that progressive Christian bloggers still aren't supporting the war.  Does one election make all the deaths worth it?  Not in my mind.  Moravian leaders have issued some good statements on Iraq - one of which you can find here. 

The Heart of Christianity: A Marcus Borg Discussion Group | Progressive Pilgrim Cafe

The folks at the Progressive Pilgrim Cafe are starting an on-line book group discussing Marcus (I'm from Oregon) Borg's The Heart of Christianity. If I didn't have classes with tons of reading then I'd be all over this. Great idea. Check it out:

Link: The Heart of Christianity: A Marcus Borg Discussion Group | Progressive Pilgrim Cafe.

"One More 'Moral Value': Fighting Poverty"

The New York Times ran a good article today on the emerging consensus between "liberal" and "conservative" Christians on the need to address poverty as a defining moral issue.  The themes in the story are similar to the some of the illustrations I used in my sermon this morning.  Take a look.

Micah 6:1-8: A Sermon For Jubilee Sunday

Below is the sermon that I delivered this morning at St. John United Church of Christ:

Micah 6:1-8

Hear what the LORD says: Rise, plead your case before the mountains, and let the hills hear your voice. Hear, you mountains, the controversy of the LORD, and you enduring foundations of the earth; for the LORD has a controversy with his people, and he will contend with Israel.

“O my people, what have I done to you? In what have I wearied you? Answer me! For I brought you up from the land of Egypt, and redeemed you from the house of slavery; and I sent before you Moses, Aaron, and Miriam.

O my people, remember now what King Balak of Moab devised, what Balaam son of Beor answered him, and what happened from Shittim to Gilgal, that you may know the saving acts of the LORD.” “With what shall I come before the LORD, and bow myself before God on high? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old?

Will the LORD be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousands of rivers of oil? Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?” He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?

Micah is simply my favorite of the Old Testament books. It contains an incredible charge from God to God’s people:

He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God? - Micah 6:8 (NRSV)

This passage is perhaps the best known in Micah and for good reason. Many consider it one of the most important statements that God makes about what the mission of humanity is.

“The notion is a dynamic one; justice is something that one does,” wrote James Limburg, a scholar on Micah.

In Micah we read of a prophet who attacks the powerful for economic policies that benefit the wealthy at the expense of everyone else (Micah 2:1-7) and the false prophets who support injustice (Micah 2:6-8). In the end, Micah calls us back to what the he considers the roots of salvation: justice, kindness, and a humble attitude before God. Jesus knew the teaching of the prophets of the Old Testament and considered his ministry to be in line with theirs. “Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill (Matt 5:17),” Jesus said.

In one of his books, Oregon State University religion professor Marcus Borg writes about how his undergraduate students understood the definition of justice. When he asked what justice meant many of them talked about notions of “criminal justice” or “procedural justice.” Biblical justice, he argues, is something different. He writes:

A third meaning of justice is “social justice.” More comprehensive than criminal justice and procedural justice, social justice is concerned with the structures of society and their results. Because it is results-oriented, it discerns whether the structures of society – in other words, the social system as a whole – are just in their effects. Do they produce a large impoverished class or result in a more equitable distribution of resources? Do they benefit some at the expense of many or serve all equally? Do they produce conflict or peace? Do they destroy or nourish a future?

Micah is clearly talking about social justice. Like other 8th and 7th century prophets he was concerned that Israel had turned away from God in ways that fundamentally broke the covenant between God and God’s people. Israel had become a place where the poor suffered needlessly and the powerful put the pursuit of material things ahead of their loyalty to God. The only way for the people to repair that breach was to work for justice – for a restoration of society. It was a common theme among the prophets of the Hebrew Bible that societies not based on fundamental justice would fail. The reason: social injustice is a human concept that goes against God’s will and societies not built on God’s justice will collapse under the weight of their own misdeeds. There are parallels to Micah’s time and our own contemporary society.

Today is being observed as Jubilee Sunday in congregations across the globe. Many of the planet’s so called “third-world” nations owe huge debts to Western countries. Those debts require that governments pay interest on money borrowed instead of investing in health care, schools, and basic infrastructure. Much of the money loaned by Western nations was handed over to dictators and oppressive governments which the West backed politically for various reasons. Few of those governments are still in place but the people living in those nations are forced to pay so much in interest that their countries cannot afford basic human services.

Finance ministers from the world’s seven richest countries will met in early February to discuss debt reduction. Religious groups are joining anti-poverty advocates to ask the governments to simply cancel all the debt. The United States and other western nations can easily afford to absorb the loss. Most of the loans have already been repaid several times over. The interest payments are literally keeping food and health care out of reach for millions and the issue has taken on new urgency for tsunami ravaged nations that are being forced to pay interests payments while at the same time trying to pay for relief efforts. Jubilee is a Biblical practice in which debts are forgiven so that poverty does not trap one generation after the next. The concept is explained this way by the Jubilee USA group:

Early Israel prevented the accumulation of wealth in that everything was shared and ultimately "owned" by God. However, between the 10th and 8th centuries BCE (BC), another economic model was introduced, whereby distribution was not equal, and God's ownership not respected. Some Israelites were forced into debt in order to keep from starving, and, because of high interest rates, slavery resulted. This situation can be paralleled to the astronomical rises in interest rates on international loans in the early 1980s. Countries today have been forced to use state industries and national forests to pay off their loans, distribution of resources is not equal and God's ownership again is not respected. International debt has become a contemporary form of slavery.

The issue of international debt illustrates for us in a very real way how Micah’s teachings – and really the teaching of the entire Bible – come alive for us in relevant and meaningful ways. Can you imagine how different the world would be if our economic, social, and political institutions were based on these Biblical teachings?

We’ve been together now for five months and there is a confession I should make: I’m what you would call a liberal. My liberalism is not, however, defined in political terms alone. My faith in God’s teachings determines how I see the world. Isn’t this true for most of us? When we all hear about human suffering and injustice don’t we turn to our Bibles for guidance? Some of us read those teachings and come out liberal and some of us read those teachings and come out conservative. We can interpret Biblical teachings and come to different conclusions and still remain faithful Christians as long as we honestly try and discern God’s will in the teachings and not our own desires.

There is a remarkable consensus emerging, however, among Christians on issues of economic justice. Just recently “seventy-six leaders of evangelical colleges, seminaries, denominations and ministries petitioned (President) Bush about health insurance and the 'unacceptably high' rates of U.S. hunger and poverty. The group further lamented that the United States 'ranks absolutely last' among developed nations in 'governmental assistance to overcome global poverty,' echoing a U.N. official’s controversial comment about 'stingy' nations in the wealthy West,” according to The Associated Press. Most of these evangelical leaders (many of which voted for the president’s reelection) would find fault with the more progressive theology found in the United Church of Christ, but despite those differences conservatives and liberals – and all those in-between – who read Micah with integrity come to similar conclusions on how we are to do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with God.

We can illustrate our commitment to God’s justice in more than one way. Advocating on important issues such as debt relief is one example of acting for justice. Another example would be how we live out our family lives. Do we give our children the support they need to thrive? Do we show the respect to our family members that each child of God deserves? Do we welcome people into this faith community without preconditions as Jesus called us to do? These are all justice issues as well.

Christianity is not a Sunday only experience. We all know this but it is worth repeating. Christians are called to set aside our own narrow self interest in favor of God’s Kingdom. Frankly, we have a radical faith that often stands in tension with culture. When we put our own culture ahead of God’s Kingdom, as was done in Micah’s time, it clearly frustrates God. God intends for us to be more than we often are. Yet God doesn’t give up on us. God sends prophets to bring us back into relationship with God. Let us recommit ourselves to hearing the words of Micah anew so that our lives and worldly purposes are more in line with the Kingdom God calls us to help build.

In Defense Of Barbara Boxer

US Senator Barbara Boxer was fantastic during the confirmation hearings for Condoleezza Rice.  She wasn't able to turn the tide but she forced another debate over the failed US policy in Iraq.  Margaret Carlson reports in The LA Times that the reviews of Boxer's performance haven't been as glowing as I would have imagined.  "For her trouble, Boxer was blasted — even by those who agreed with her — not so much on substance but on style. Sen. Robert Byrd gets called "irascible." Why can't women get called irascible? It's so much nicer than the other words we get called," writes Carlson.  The people of California did America a favor by re-electing her to another six-year term in the Senate this past November.  I hope she keeps speaking out for reasonable policies in Iraq.  This week she was one of the few Senators with the courage to do so.

UCC's 'Still Speaking Initiative' launches urgent $1.5 million drive to fund its next advertising buy

The United Church of Christ is working to raise $1.5 million for another round of television ads to be aired during Lent.  Over the Advent / Christmas season the UCC's God Is Still Speaking advertising campaign drew international attention after CBS and NBC banned the church's message of inclusive Christian love.  The campaign did a lot more than increase the visibility of the UCC - it lifted up a message that all people are welcome at God's table.  Support the campaign and help make sure that important message continues to spread.  J. Bennett Guess with United Church News offers information on how you can donate:

CLEVELAND -- United Church of Christ leaders today (Jan. 28) announced a three-week fundraising blitz to raise $1.5 million from its members and supporters to fund a Lenten television advertising buy in March.

The decision was made by the UCC's Stillspeaking Initiative Task Group - the nationally-representative, decision-making body that is leading the denomination's five-year identity campaign - at its Jan. 27 meeting in Cleveland.

"What we've heard from Conference Ministers and others is that UCC members are eager for the ads to continue," says Don Hill, a task group member and leader of the UCC's financial development ministry, "and they're ready for us to say to them specifically what they can do to make that happen."

In order to purchase the ad time on network and cable television in March, Hill says, the UCC must raise at least $1.5 million by Monday, Feb. 21, the date an ad buy must be completed in time for a Lenten/pre-Easter viewing. The strategy, Hill explains, is to find 3,000 entities - individuals, churches, youth groups, organizations - who will pledge to buy $500 "shares" in support of the ad campaign.

However, Hill insists, the initiative needs contributors at any and all levels.

The campaign, primarily, is being coordinated online at <ucc.org>, where contributions can be made or pledged. A tally of donors and contributions also will be updated daily.

"The important thing for us to keep in mind is that if we, as a church, will come together and pool our resources, we can make this happen," Hill says, noting that already twelve "shares" totaling $6,000 have been pledged by task group members in attendance.

The fundraising effort is "ambitious," concedes the Rev. Robert Chase of the UCC's proclamation, identity and communication ministry, "but it's also a faithful response to what happened in December."

"During the campaign's national launch [in December], the UCC's televised message about Jesus' extravagant welcome struck a chord that continues to resonate with significant numbers of people," Chase says. "Never before has the UCC been so poised to welcome newcomers, to receive those who once thought that the church would not graciously welcome them. We must take advantage of this opportunity."

Hill says the fundraising blitz "is not just about paying for the ads, but also a way for people to express support for the Stillspeaking Initiative," which was formed to enhance the UCC's denominational identity and national profile as it approaches its 50th anniversary in 2007.

The UCC was formed by the union of the Congregational Christian Churches and the Evangelical and Reformed Church in 1957, with many of its congregations being among the nation's oldest. The 1.3-million-member denomination has its national offices in Cleveland.

Learn more - or contribute - at  www.ucc.org/pledge.

Update: Anti-Choice Group Reports On Seminary Protest

Last week a small group of protesters from Operation Save America marched on the campus of Eden Theological Seminary. You can read my post about the protest here. They now have their version of events posted on their web site. This group is about as extremist as they get and their advocacy borders on the promotion of violence. Here are a few excerpts from their site:

If you wanted to see the gates of hell manifest...here they are. The theological students have no standard of the Bible. The wolves dress like pastors. They're dangerous and they're populating the church of our day. You have to deal with wolves ferociously. According to Timothy, an Eden student, everything is complicated. It has to be complicated if you want it to be covered up with lies.

It's obvious to little children that this is evil. Yet to some it's always “more complicated." Jesus said, "I praise You, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because You have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children. Yes, Father, for this was Your good pleasure." Matthew 11:25-26. If you don't become like a child you won't understand. The devil has to complicate everything to cover up the truth and to make a "no" a "yes." The devil confuses and complicates. Homosexuality- they say it's complicated; these brilliant theologs of the University of Sodom called to lead straight to hell. It's complicated to get someone to go to hell. It's complicated to cover up with lies.

The President, David M. Greenhaw, came out & kicked us off the campus because it had been reported that someone walked in and disrupted their classes.

We took the truth to the streets. It was the worst of times, but it was the best of times. We hit the streets when they kicked us off the campus. Sodom Theological Seminary was the best kept secret in Webster Groves . It was exposed. Theology became biography in the streets. A lot of people drove by. Reporters stopped for interviews. We got thumbs up of support by passing drivers. The banners outside this institution read: Eden, called to lead..straight to hell! We proclaimed.

How do you reason or dialogue with people who have views like these? It would be easy to demonize all anti-abortion advocates as unthinking and dangerous. The folks involved with Operation Save America certainly fit that bill. But the truth is, as always, more complicated.

As a pro-choice Christian, I recognize there are people of good faith and with well intentioned motives who strongly disagree with me. No one (despite the rhetoric of the extremists) wants abortions to occur. It should be safe, legal, and rare. It is when we demonize all those who disagree with us that we fail in our obligation to love each other. Then dialogue becomes impossible.

Pro-choice and pro-life supporters need to be in a dialogue to discuss ways to prevent unwanted pregnancies, increase adoption, and to support the needs of children the world over born into hunger, poverty and despair.

Don’t let the actions of the people with Operation Save America end the conversation before it begins.

National Council of Churches Offers Mideast Blog Chronicling Peace Mission

The National Council of Churches USA has a delegation in the Middle East meeting with religious and political leaders to press the cause of peace.  The Rev. Dr. Michael Kinnamon, Allen and Dottie Miller Professor of Mission and Peace at Eden Theological Seminary, is among the group.  Dr. Kinnamon is also the chair of NCC's Justice and Advocacy Commission.  NCC has set-up a new blog where you can read reports and see photos from the trip.  Click here to read it.

Antioch Community Church: Giving Christians a Bad Name

A Texas church is involved with the unethical practice of proselytizing in the tsunami ravaged areas of Sri Lanka. Members of Antioch Community Church have been exploiting the trauma faced by survivors of the devastation by trying to convert Buddhists and others while offering humanitarian aid. Their web site has declared Sri Lanka “ripe for Jesus” and called the tsunami “an opportunity.”

"(Sri Lanka) has been closed for five years and the missionaries in Indonesia consider it the most militant and difficult place for ministry. The door is wide open and the people are hungry,” read one posting on their site that was reported on by The New York Times.

According to the article: “Older Christian aid groups like Catholic Relief Services, Lutheran World Relief and others with religious affiliations say that they do not proselytize and that they abide by Red Cross guidelines that humanitarian aid not be used to further political or religious purposes. Ken Hackett, president of Catholic Relief Services, said that over the last 20 years there has been an increase in smaller Christian evangelical groups providing humanitarian aid in the wake of disaster.”

The people of Antioch Community Church appear to be engaged in some of the most exploitive behavior possible for Christians. Antioch’s missionaries concealed their identities, according to the Times, as church workers and pretended to be part of a non-governmental organization when they arrived in Sri Lanka and offered to assist in the recovery. Their actions are giving Christians a bad name, hurting interfaith relations, and making relief efforts more difficult.

Kennedy: Bring Troops Home

US Senator Edward Kennedy has done something that no other American political leader has done since the invasion of Iraq: offer a blueprint for withdrawing American forces.  From his speech today:

We have the finest military in the world. But we cannot rely primarily on military action to end politically inspired violence. We can’t defeat the insurgents militarily if we don’t effectively address the political context in which the insurgency flourishes. Our military and the insurgents are fighting for the same thing – the hearts and minds of the people – and that is a battle we are not winning.

The beginning of wisdom in this crisis is to define honest and realistic goals.

First, the goal of our military presence should be to allow the creation of a legitimate, functioning Iraqi government, not to dictate it.

Creating a full-fledged democracy won’t happen overnight. We can and must make progress, but it may take many years for the Iraqis to finish the job. We have to adjust our time horizon. The process cannot begin in earnest until Iraqis have full ownership of that transition. Our continued, overwhelming presence only delays that process.

If we want Iraq to develop a stable, democratic government, America must assist -- not control -- the newly established government.

Unless Iraqis have a genuine sense that their leaders are not our puppets, the election cannot be the turning point the Administration hopes.

To enhance its legitimacy in the eyes of the Iraqi people, the new Iraqi Government should begin to disengage politically from America, and we from them.

The reality is that the Bush Administration is continuing to pull the strings in Iraq, and the Iraqi people know it. We picked the date for the transfer of sovereignty. We supported former CIA operative Iyad Allawi to lead the Interim Government. We wrote the administrative law and the interim constitution that now governs Iraq. We set the date for the election, and President Bush insisted that it take place, even when many Iraqis sought delay.

It is time to recognize that there is only one choice. America must give Iraq back to the Iraqi people.

Click here to read the full speech.

Senator Kennedy’s speech will force a new debate in the United States over the appropriate role of the use of our forces in Iraq. How long does the Bush administration plan for our soldiers to stay? What is our exit strategy? The truth is that the president has no plan. Senator Kennedy has offered one. Let the debate begin and bring the troops home.

Related Post: Confessing Christ In A World of Violence

Elie Wiesel: Bearing Witness, 60 Years On

This week marks the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Nazi death camps.  Elie Wiesel spoke before the United Nations to commemorate the event and to challenge the world not to forget.  Click here to read his remarks.

Drop The Debt

Many of the planet’s so called “third-world” nations owe huge debts to Western countries. Those debts require that governments pay interest on money borrowed instead of investing in health care, schools, and basic infrastructure. Much of the money loaned by Western nations was handed over to dictators and oppressive governments which the West backed politically for various reasons. Few of those governments are still in place but the people living in those nations are forced to pay so much in interest that their countries cannot afford basic human services.

Finance ministers from the world’s seven richest countries will met in early February to discuss debt reduction. Religious groups are joining anti-poverty advocates to ask the governments to simply cancel all the debt. The United States and other western nations can easily afford to absorb the loss. Frankly, the only countries that ever benefited from these loans were the Western nations that granted them. Most of the loans have already been repaid several times over. The interest payments are literally keeping food and health care out of reach for millions.

Jubilee USA Network has information on their site about an e-petition asking for debt relief and quick links to write members of Congress. Their site is filled with great information on the impact global debt has on people living in poverty across the globe.  Check it out and write a letter.

Related Link:  Church World Service Jubilee Debt Relief

And you shall hallow the fiftieth year and you shall proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you: you shall return, every one of you, to your property and every one of you to your family.

- Leviticus 25:10 (NRSV)

Liberation Bush-Style

I thought we liberated Iraq?

Report: Torture Continues at Hands of New Government

Is this what Americans are dying for?

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"Chuck Currie: Would you hire this guy as your minister?"

This weekend I posted a clip from FOX News in which one of the anchors comes unglued when a guest questioned the cost of the inaugural in light of the on-going war in Iraq and the great human suffering in Southeast Asia.  The FOX anchor looked surprised and then offended that anyone would question the President.  Folks over at the conservative Free Republic web site were incensed that I posted the clip and started a discussion thread called "Chuck Currie: Would you hire this guy as your minister?"  "This guy is tailor-made to be the presiding minister at some leftwing University," wrote one participate.  Another responded: "Hey Chuck You SUCK! I didn't even read his page. He is some sort of minister? What an ass."  "Chuck Currie is everything that is wrong with liberal seminaries today - they are motivated by politics, not by faith. I hope any prospective church does a Google search on this guy before hiring him," said one person very concerned about my possible future ordination.  Now I have this funny image in my head of church pastoral search committees turning to Google to find their candidates.  These types of Internet forums (where people can post anonymously) allow people to make some pretty off the wall and irresponsible comments.  No one can hold them responsible for what they say.  For example: "And I bet he thinks he's the re-incarnation of Jesus Christ. May be the re-incarnation of Judas Iscariot would be more appropos," claimed one.  Would these same people come up to me during a church coffee and make the same remarks?  Civil discourse can only happen when people talk without hiding their identities and do so with a measure of respect.  All of us have been guilty of name calling from time to time.  But it is possible to disagree with someone without resorting to personal attacks and the like.  Democracy thrives on debate but the debate needs to be civil to be effective. 

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Send The Media A Message About James Dobson's Unchristian Remarks

James Dobson is furious that the media jumped on his remarks concerning SpongeBob SquarePants’ supposed sexual orientation. Dobson claims he never told anyone the cartoon character was gay. Focus on the Family released a statement today that read in part:

What Dobson did say, in a speech last week in Washington during an event sponsored by the Family Research Council, was that SpongeBob is one of 100 popular animated characters that may have been co-opted by an innocuous-sounding group to promote acceptance of homosexuality to children. The group, the We Are Family Foundation, has produced a video slated for distribution to 61,000 public and private elementary schools; it features SpongeBob, Big Bird, Barney and others singing the old disco hit "We Are Family" and spreading a message of "diversity and unity."

And therein lies the rub — albeit well-concealed.

While words like "diversity" and "unity" sound harmless — even noble — enough, the reality is they are often used by gay activists as cover for teaching children that homosexuality is the moral and biological equivalent to heterosexuality. And there is ample evidence that the We Are Family Foundation shares — and promotes — that view.

"Unfortunately," Dobson explained, "the We Are Family foundation has very strong homosexual advocacy roots and biases."

For example, a tolerance pledge, which the foundation says it is "pleased to provide" on its Web site, reads in part: "I pledge to have respect for people whose abilities, beliefs, culture, race, sexual identity or other characteristics are different from my own."

Jesus taught tolerance (see Matthew 22:36-40). How can any Christian declare that teaching tolerance to school children is wrong? It boggles my mind.

Dobson is asking that his supporters write the media in support of his remarks. Focus on the Family has even set-up a website where you can “send one e-mail message to five of the reporters/anchors whose stories included the most baseless attacks on Dr. Dobson.”

I used the service and sent out my own letter.

Thank you for holding James Dobson accountable for his bigoted remarks about gays and lesbians. Teaching tolerance is a fundamental part of the Christian faith to which I adhere. Dobson teaches fear and hate and puts a partisan political message ahead of Jesus’ teaching. I urge you to invite progressive Christians on your programs to refute his distortions of Christianity.

Click here to send your own message of tolerance to the media.

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Christian Aid Group Hands Out Muslim Prayer Kits

There has been a lot of discussion and concern over how some Christian aid groups have been using the tsunami crisis as an opportunity for proselytizing. Most aids groups avoid that type of reprehensible behavior. But one aid organization has provided us with a extraordinary model for living out the Gospel that is both respectful of religious pluralism and sure to show Muslims how deep the Christian faith is. Ekklesia reports:

A Christian aid agency has distributed ‘prayer kits’ to Muslims living in camps in Aceh.

Friday was the festival of Eid in which Muslims celebrate their faith and remember the story of Ibrahim (Abraham in the Christian tradition) and his son Ishmael.

It is a day of family celebration and prayer which the international Catholic charity, Caritas, marked by carrying out a distribution of "religious kits".

The kits contain a prayer mat used by Muslims as part of the requirement of Islam to pray five times a day in a clean area free from dust and insects, a sarong which is traditionally worn by men to attend the mosque and a "mukena" or female Moslem outfit that cover their heads and bodies when they pray.

The 2500 kits have been distributed in the Meulaboh area of Aceh to people living in camps. The kits arrived in time for people to use their contents for the Eid festival.

The Caritas team leader Pat Johns said "We talked to our local staff and the community leaders in the area to ask them what they needed. Many people in Meulaboh and the surrounding area lost everything and the loss of items that are important for their Muslim faith was particularly distressing. "

As a faith based organisation, we recognise the importance of faith to many people, so as a mark of respect for the festival of Eid, Caritas decided to distribute what we are calling 'religious kits'."

Full story

Caritas has shown great integrity in these actions. Instead of treating the victims of the tsunami as a “mission field” to be conquered they are treating people the same way those of us in the West would want to be treated during a crisis: with dignity.

Related Post:  US Christian Group Takes Muslim Orphans To Raise As Christians

Related Post:  Rescue or Revival?

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Letter from Religious Leaders to US Congress

January 25, 2005

We are leaders of America's religious community and citizens of this great country. Our faith traditions teach us that every person is created in God's image and that we are all part of God's family. We are called by God to care for each other, both individually and as a nation.

Because of these core beliefs, we feel called to speak out on the federal budget, which will be released on February 7th. Despite its complexity, the budget is essentially a moral document--the specific expression of the values of the nation.

As people of faith and responsible citizens, we must examine the budget closely to determine whether its provisions are fair and just. We must ask specific questions to discover whether the budget of President Bush promotes the common good.

1. Does the budget provide those in need with the assistance necessary to build self-reliant, purposeful lives?

2. Does the budget provide adequately for all of God's children, including the poor and sick, the old and very young?

3. Does the budget strengthen the foundations of our country in order to make us safer and more secure?

4. Does the budget protect God's creation, the environment?

5. Does the budget spread its burdens and rewards fairly, or are some groups given special unearned privilege, while others are excluded from America's bounty and opportunity?

6. Does the budget promote justice and equality by providing for basic human needs in health care, education, housing and other areas?

When the budget is released, we will assess its provisions concerning health care, education, housing, the environment, foreign policy, national security and other issues. If the budget falls short in these areas, we will work to transform it into a document that reflects America's best moral values and who we are as children of God.

We invite you and the American people to join us in this important work.

Signed:

* Rabbi Rebecca Alpert, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA

* Rev. Steven C. Baines, Senior Organizer for Religious Affairs, People for the American Way/PFAW Foundation, Washington, DC

* Rev. Chloe Breyer, St. Mary's Manhattanville, West Harlem, NY

* Dr. Rita Nakashima Brock, Director, Faith Voices for the Common Good Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), Oakland, CA

* Rev. Jim Burklo, author of "Open Christianity," Presbyterian minister in Sausalito, CA

* Simone Campbell, SSS, National Coordinator, NETWORK: A National Catholic Social Justice Lobby, Washington, DC

* Rev. Theopholus Caviness, Board Member, African-American Ministers Leadership Council, and Pastor, Greater Abyssinian Baptist Church, Cleveland, OH

* Charlie Clements, CEO and President, Unitarian Universalist Service Committee, Cambridge, MA

* Rev. Ann Marie Coleman, Co-Senior Minister, University Church---A Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) and United Church of Christ Congregation, Chicago, IL

* Rev. Daryl Coleman, Board Member, African-American Ministers Leadership Council, and Pastor, AME Zion Church, Jackson, TN

* Dr. David R. Currie, Mainstream Baptist Network

* Dan Daley, Co-Director, Call to Action USA

* Rev. John E. Denaro, Episcopal Migration Ministries

* Bob Edgar, General Secretary, National Council of Churches, New York, NY

* Rev. Janet Ellinger, United Methodist Pastor, River Falls, WI

* Rev. Dr. James L Evans, Auburn First Baptist Church, Auburn, AL

* Rev. Dr. James A. Forbes, Jr.,  Senior Minister, The Riverside Church, New York, NY

* Rev. Paul B. Feuerstein, President/CEO, Barrier Free Living Inc.

* Rev. Dr. C. Welton Gaddy, President, The Interfaith Alliance, Washington, DC

* Rev. Debra W. Haffner, Religious Institute on Sexual Morality, Justice and Healing, Norwalk, CT

* Rev. Dr. Derrick Harkins, Pastor, Nineteenth Street Baptist Church, Washington, DC

* Joseph C. Hough, Jr., President and Professor of Ethics, Union Theological Seminary, New York, NY

* James E. Hug, S.J., President, Center of Concern

* Dr. Mary E. Hunt, Co-director, WATER: Women's Alliance for Theology, Ethics and Ritual, Silver Spring, MD

*Rev. Betty Hudson, Rector, Grace Episcopal Church, Hastings-on-Hudson, New York

* Vince Isner, Faithful America, New York, NY

* Rev. Elenora Giddings Ivory, Director, Washington office, Presbyterian Church (USA)

* Rabbi Steven B. Jacobs, Temple Kol Tikvah, Los Angeles, CA

* Patricia de Jong, Senior Minister, First Congregational Church of Berkeley

* Rob Keithan, Director, Washington office, Unitarian Universalist Association, Washington, DC

* Dr. Catherine Keller, Professor of Theology, Drew University, The Theological School, Madison, NJ

* Pam Kelly, Facilitator of the New Hampshire Faithful Democracy Network

* Dr. Nazir Khaja, Islamic Information Services, Los Angeles, CA

* Jung Ha Kim, Georgia State University, Atlanta, GA

* Frances Kissling, President, Catholics for a Free Choice, Washington, DC

* Rev. Peter Laarman, Executive Director, Progressive Christians Uniting, Pomona, CA

* Jackie Ladd, Unitarian Universalist Service Committee, Cambridge, MA

* Rabbi  Michael Lerner, Editor of Tikkun Magazine and Rabbi of Beyt Tikkun Synagogue, San Francisco, CA

* Tat-siong Benny Liew, Chicago Theological Seminary

* Marie Lucey, OSF, Associate Director for Social Mission, Leadership Conference of Women Religious, Silver Spring, MD

* Rabbi Jane Marder, Beth Am Congregation, Los Altos Hills, CA

* Rev. Timothy McDonald, Founder, African American Ministers Leadership Council and Pastor of First Iconium Baptist Church, Atlanta, GA

* Rabbi Paul Menitoff, Executive Vice President, Central Conference of American Rabbis, New York, NY

* Robert Parham, Executive Director, Baptist Center for Ethics, Nashville, Tennessee

* Rev. Dr. Andrew Sung Park, Professor, United Theological Seminary, Dayton, OH

* Rev. Dr. Rebecca Parker, President, Starr King School for the Ministry, Berkeley, CA

* Rev. Clarence Pemberton,  Board Member, African-American Ministers Leadership Council, and Pastor, New Hope Baptist Church, Philadelphia, PA

* Rev. Brenda Bartella Peterson,  Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), Washington, DC

* Sister Catherine Pinkerton, Network: A National Catholic Social Justice Lobby

* Rev. Lois M. Powell, Minister and Team Leader of Human Rights, Justice for Women and Transformation Ministry Team Justice and Witness  Ministries, United Church of Christ, Cleveland, OH

* Rev. Dr. Bruce Prescott, Executive Director, Mainstream Oklahoma Baptists

* Rev. George F. Regas, Founder, Interfaith Communities United for Justice and Peace, L.A.

* Rev. Meg Riley, Director, Advocacy and Witness, Unitarian Universalist Association, Washington, DC

* David Robinson, Executive Director, Pax Christi USA, Erie, PA

* Charlie Rooney, Catholics for the Common Good, Detroit, MI

* Rev. Dr. Jose D. Rodriguez, Director, Th.M./Ph.D. Programs of Study, Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago, Chicago, IL

* Rev. Alexia Salvatierra, Executive Director, Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice, Los Angeles, CA

* Rev. Kenneth Samuel, Board Member, African-American Ministers Leadership Council, and Pastor, Victory Church, Atlanta, GA

* Rabbi David Saperstein, Director and Counsel for the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, Washington, DC

* Rev. Dr. Marilyn Sewell, Senior Minister, First Unitarian Church, Portland , OR

* Rev. Paul H. Sherry, Coordinator, Mobilization  to Overcome Poverty, National Council of Churches, Cleveland, OH

* Rev. Bill Sinkford, President, Unitarian Universalist Association, Washington, DC

* Rev. Dr. A. Knighton Stanley, Senior Minister, Peoples Congregational United Church of Christ, Washington, DC

* Rev. Lynn Thomas Strauss, Minister, River Road Unitarian Church, Bethesda, MD

* Rev. Leonard Charles Stovall, Board Member, African-American Ministers Leadership Council, and Pastor, Camp Wisdom United Methodist Church, Dallas, TX

* Rev. Dr. Susan Brooks Thistlethwaite, President, Chicago Theological Seminary

* Rev. Romal Tune, Assistant Pastor, Nineteenth St. Baptist Church and Director for African-American Ministers Programs, People for the American Way, Washington, DC

* Jim Wallis, Editor, Sojourners, Washington, DC

* Rev. Jeremy M. Warnick, Vicar Christ Episcopal Church, New Bern, North Carolina

* Rabbi Arthur Waskow, The Shalom Center, Philadelphia, PA

* Rev. Dr.  Daphne Wiggins, Board Member, African-American Ministers Leadership Council, and Assistant Pastor, Union Baptist Church, Durham, NC

* Rev. Reginald Williams, Board Member, African-American Ministers Leadership Council, and Assistant Pastor, Trinity United Church of Christ, Chicago, IL

* Rev. Dr. Roland Womack, Board Member, African-American Ministers Leadership Council, and Pastor, Progressive Baptist Church, Milwaukee, WI

* Rabbi Eric Yoffie, President, Union for Reform Judaism, New York, NY

Christian Groups Focus National Advocacy On A More Complete Vision of Moral Values; Registration Opens For 2005 Ecumenical Advocacy Days March 11-14

Press release from the National Council of Churches USA

Washington, D.C., January 24, 2005 -- With a new presidential term, a new Congress and a renewed interest in how faith and politics intersect, hundreds of Christians are planning to descend on Capitol Hill for the third annual Ecumenical Advocacy Days for Global Peace with Justice, March 11-14.

Participants will gather to assert to their representatives that it is time for a new vision of U.S. policy that includes a much more complete understanding of moral values. During the last presidential election, media attention was focused on moral issues related to abortion and same-sex marriage. This gathering affirms that moral values include building a just global community that nurtures peace, alleviates poverty, and protects the integrity of God's creation.

"At this crossroad in our nation's history, it is critical that we speak out as people of faith against those things that we believe are immoral and sinful. We believe that the Bible clearly mandates that we act as peacemakers, uplift those who live in poverty and take care of God's creation," said the Rev. Dr. Bob Edgar, General Secretary of the National Council of Churches USA. "We will be calling on lawmakers to enact foreign and domestic policies that reflect these moral imperatives."

The 2005 Ecumenical Advocacy Days will highlight the urgency of pursuing sensible and peaceful solutions to conflicts as well as the need for aid, debt and trade policies that benefit impoverished people worldwide. Bishop Vashti McKenzie, presiding bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal Church and the first woman to be elected to the bishop's council, and Elder Rick Ufford-Chase, moderator of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), are among the speakers who will address the cadre of Christian leaders and laypersons who are expected to participate in this event.

Also addressing the participants will be Dr. Maryann Cusimano Love, a professor at Catholic University of America and a U.S. foreign policy and international affairs expert; and Baldemar Velasquez, the founder/president of the Farm Labor Organizing Committee, which recently settled a labor dispute with Mt. Olive Pickle Company following more than five years of public action.

This year's theme, "Make All Things New," is based on God's promise, as recorded in the Bible, "See, I am making all things new" (Revelation 21:5) -- and is developed in eight learning tracks.

Participants will attend workshops that examine U.S. policy, and options for renewal, regarding Africa, the Middle East, Asia, Latin America, global economic justice, global security, eco-justice and U.S. domestic issues. In 2004, more than 600 advocates representing a wide range of churches and organizations worldwide gathered for Ecumenical Advocacy Days. Because of local, national and global crises, organizers are expecting an even stronger turnout this year.

More than 30 faith-based groups (see list below) are sponsoring or supporting this year's Ecumenical Advocacy Days, which will provide church leaders, laypersons and others interested in advocacy with a mix of worship, music, prayer, issue briefings, plenary speakers and advocacy training workshops, capped with visits to U.S. Senators and Representatives or their key staff.

Pastors, ministers, seminary students, laypersons and others in the faith community are invited to register for this exciting opportunity to connect with peers, rededicate their efforts, and hone their advocacy skills. For more information and to register, go to www.advocacydays.org, or email info@advocacydays.org or call (202) 544-2350.

-end-

2005 Ecumenical Advocacy Days Sponsors and Supporters:

Africa Faith and Justice Network
American Friends Service Committee
Catholic Conference of Major Superiors of Men's Institutes
Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)
Church of the Brethren Witness/Washington Office
Church World Service
Churches' Center for Theology and Public Policy
Churches for Middle East Peace
Episcopal Church USA
Evangelical Lutheran Church in America
Franciscan Friars-Holy Name Province
Franciscan Friars, OFM Justice, Peace and Integrity of Creation ESC-Council
Interfaith Committee for Nuclear Disarmament
Interfaith Working Group on Trade and Investment
Jubilee USA Network
Latin America Working Group
Lutheran World Relief
Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns
Mennonite Central Committee/Washington Office
Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate Justice and Peace/Integrity of Creation Office
National Council of Churches USA
NETWORK: A National Catholic Social Justice Lobby
Oikocredit USA
Peaceful Ends through Peaceful Means
Presbyterian Church (USA)
Reformed Church in America
Sisters of Mercy of the Americas
Stand With Africa
United Church of Christ
United Methodist Church, General Board of Church and Society
United Methodist Church, General Board of Global Ministries, Women's Division
Washington Office on Africa
Witness for Peace

The Twins At 6 Months

Several people have asked if our babies have returned to good health since getting sick over Christmas.  Frances and Katherine are doing great.  There are a lot of children, however, that don't have basic health care or even enough food in our country.  Visit the Children's Defense Fund to learn more about how you can help children in America. 

United Church of Christ Blogs

I'm looking for members of the United Church of Christ who blog.  Several UCC-related sites are known to me but I'd like to develop a more comprehensive list.  My hope is that the list could be presented to the folks at Cleveland with a request that they link to UCC-related blogs.  So if you have a blog or know someome who does please leave information about it in the comments sections.  Assume that I know nothing about blogs.  If we rely on my memory to draft a complete list of blogs for this progect we'll miss a lot.  Thanks for the support.

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SpongeBob receives 'unequivocal welcome' from United Church of Christ

By J. Bennett Guess
United Church News

Jan.24, 2005

CLEVELAND -- Joining the animated fray, the United Church of Christ today (Jan. 24) said that Jesus' message of extravagant welcome extends to all, including SpongeBob Squarepants - the cartoon character that has come under fire for allegedly holding hands with a starfish.

"Absolutely, the UCC extends an unequivocal welcome to SpongeBob," the Rev. John H. Thomas, the UCC's general minister and president, said, only partly in jest. "Jesus didn't turn people away. Neither do we."

For that matter, Thomas explained, the 1.3-million-member church, if given the opportunity, would warmly receive Barney, Big Bird, Tinky-Winky, Clifford the Big Red Dog or, for that matter, any who have experienced the Christian message as a harsh word of judgment rather than Jesus' offering of grace.

The UCC's welcome comes in the wake of laughable accusations by James C. Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family, that the popular SpongeBob and other well-known cartoon characters are crossing "a moral line" by stressing tolerance in a national We Are Family Foundation-sponsored video that will be distributed to U.S. schools on March 11, 2005.

Later, an assistant to Dobson called SpongeBob's participation in the video "insidious."

Thomas said, on the contrary, it is Dobson who is crossing the moral line for sending the mistaken message that Christians do not value tolerance and diversity as important religious values.

"While Dobson's silly accusation makes headlines, it's also one more concrete example of how religion is misused over and over to promote intolerance over inclusion," Thomas said. "This is why we believe it is so important that the UCC speak the Gospel in an accent not often heard in our culture, because far too many experience the cross only as judgment, never as embrace."

Dobson, despite his often-outrageous viewpoints, is arguably one of the most oft-heard religious voices in popular culture today. Through his Focus on the Family media empire, Dobson produces daily commentaries that appear widely on television and radio stations across the United States, often times as "public service announcements."

Meanwhile, the UCC's recently released 30-second paid television commercial - produced to underscore the denomination's belief that Jesus didn't turn anyone away - has been rejected by two major television networks for being "too controversial."

"Resistance to our message is formidable," Thomas says, "because we're cutting against the prevailing grain of a society that is afraid of the stranger, suspicious of difference and easily seduced by narrowly defined theological boundaries."

The 1.3-million-member United Church of Christ, with national offices in Cleveland, has almost 6,000 local churches in the United States and Puerto Rico. It was formed by the 1957 union of the Congregational Christian Churches and the Evangelical and Reformed Church.

For more information on the "We Are Family" children's video, visit www.wearefamilyfoundation.org.

Related Post: Spongebob is Queer; Bush and Powell Outed

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"The Salvador Option" is Not an Option!

Action Alert from Sojourners

Newsweek recently reported that the Pentagon is considering a new plan for Iraq, known as "The Salvador Option," modeled on U.S. support of paramilitary "death squads" in Central America in the 1980s. In El Salvador and Guatemala alone such groups assassinated or "disappeared" well over 150,000 civilians.

The invasion of Iraq was sold to the American public as a necessary means to stop terrorism and to promote democracy. Two years later, the United States is on the verge of initiating death squads. Urge your elected officials to oppose "The Salvador Option." 

Click here to send your Congressional representatives a message.

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Darfur Genocide Continues

The world has understandably stopped to grieve as over 150,000 have been lost in Southeast Asia. But there are other areas of the world that need urgent attention.  Darfur is one of the most critical.  “The Sudanese Government, using Arab "Janjaweed" militias, its air force, and organized starvation, is deliberately and systematically killing the black Sudanese of Darfur,” according to darfurgenocide.org. Over 300,000 lives may have been lost over the last year – twice as many as were killed by the tidal waves. The terror continues today.  The New York Times reports:

LABADO, Sudan, Jan. 22 - The sounds of terror arrived with agonizing certainty - the whisper of camel hoofs on desert sand, the clap of gunfire, the crackle of a thatched roof set aflame.

Aisha Abdullah gathered her five children on Thursday, buried her most valuable possessions - some metal bowls, a cooking pot, a few tin cups - and ran as fast as she could.

"They have destroyed everything," she said as she returned Friday to her village, Kadanaro, in southern Darfur, to survey the destruction. Her family's compound had been reduced to tidy circles of smoldering gray and black ash by marauding Arab militiamen, she said.

Even as Sudan celebrates the recent end of the 20-year conflict between the country's Muslim north and the mostly Christian south, promising peace throughout this troubled country, the ethnic violence that has devastated villages in the western region of Darfur continues unchecked while the world's eyes are elsewhere.

Human Rights Watch has just issued a new report on the killing that calls for international prosecutions to help deter further violence. The international community has largely ignored the crisis.

(New York, January 24, 2005) — International prosecutions are needed to deter ongoing atrocities in Darfur, Human Rights Watch said today in a report documenting crimes the Sudanese government and its allied militias have committed with complete impunity.

On Tuesday, the U.N. international commission of inquiry on Darfur is expected to report its findings to the U.N. Secretary-General. In September, Resolution 1564 mandated the commission to investigate violations of international humanitarian law and human rights in Darfur, to determine whether genocide has occurred, and to identify perpetrators with a view to holding them accountable.

“Regardless of whether there has been genocide, the scale and severity of the ongoing atrocities in Darfur demand an urgent international response,” said Peter Takirambudde, Africa Director at Human Rights Watch. “Given Sudan’s continuing failure to prosecute the perpetrators, the Security Council needs to refer the situation of Darfur to the International Criminal Court.”

The 22-page report, “Targeting the Fur: Mass Killings in Darfur,” documents in detail how the Sudanese government and its allied Janjaweed militias have committed crimes against humanity and war crimes in Darfur with impunity. These crimes include the round-up, detention and execution in March of more than 200 Fur farmers and community leaders in West Darfur’s Wadi Saleh and Mukjar provinces.

The Save Darfur Coalition has resources on their site offering different ways for  churches and individuals to become involved in the fight to save the people of Darfur. Click here to learn how you can act.  One easy way: wear a green wristband to help draw the attention of your friends, neighbors, church members, colleagues, and loved ones to the crisis.  Most have no idea any of this is happening.

Related Post:  Is Ok Okay They're Dying Just Because They're Black People?

Related Post:  World Council of Churches Executive Committee Calls for International Peace Keeping Force and Investigation of War Crimes in Darfur.

ACT and other organizations size up enormity of disaster and gear up for massive response

Message from Action By Churches Together

By Orla Clinton, Church of Sweden/ACT International

Aceh, Indonesia, January 21, 2005—Over the past few weeks, it has become almost a regular occurrence – the count of the number of people who are dead in Indonesia being raised again to tragically higher and higher levels. The death toll for the country’s hard-hit Aceh province climbed to 115,000 after 5,000 more bodies were found along the west coast on Sunday, and this week the Indonesian government changed the status of tens of thousands of missing people to dead. And still, thousands of bodies have yet to be retrieved from under rubble and in remote and inaccessible areas. More than 28,000 of Meulaboh’s 97,000 residents are believed to have died when the floods decimated the city.

The scale of the disaster on all sectors is just beginning to hit home, with whole communities physically and psychologically damaged, livelihoods lost and local capacity diminished through death. Thousands of doctors, nurses, teachers and police officers were lost in the disaster, which wiped out entire areas.

The unimaginable damage, particularly in the areas of Banda Aceh and Meulaboh, two large coastal cities, has created enormous needs. Currently the relief effort is focusing on all basic services and life-saving interventions such as food, water and sanitation, health care and emergency-relief supplies. Yet, three weeks on, some communities on the west coast have still not been reached. The fate of thousands more is still unknown, and survivors in remote areas still face the potential risk of hunger and disease. The government is planning to relocate the displaced to alternative sites over the coming weeks.

With two coordinators in place in Jakarta and Medan, the work of Action by Churches Together (ACT) International is gathering pace to respond more effectively and coherently to the disaster in Aceh.

The response of ACT, a global alliance of churches and related agencies, is carried out by its members in Indonesia - Church World Service (CWS), YAKKUM Emergency Unit (YEU) and Yayasan Tanggul Bancana (YTB). Each in turn cooperates with well-established local church and secular organizations in Banda Aceh, on the west coast including the island of Nias, and on the east coast in Lhokseumawe, North Aceh.

“We have been assessing the scale of the problems and the capacity of our local partners to carry out the work,” says Jakarta-based ACT coordinator Sjoerd van Schooneveld. He says task forces on information have been established which should streamline the work of all partners. On top of this, ACT is reinforcing its quality control to strengthen its appeal with more updated assessments of the situation on the ground.

On January 7, the Geneva-based ACT Coordinating Office issued a US$41.8 million appeal for tsunami relief and rehabilitation activities in the Indian Ocean region. One of the largest appeals in its 10-year history, it includes $11.7 million worth of activities in Indonesia alone.

van Schooneveld says it is vital that partners on the ground have a high level of collaboration. Each partner’s plans are currently being revised as the long-term needs become clearer. At the end of the month, all partners will meet to finalize the revision of the Indonesia appeal and the role of partners.

“But a lot more work needs to be done on coordination, quality control, finances and accountability. We want to set the same standards for all in the field,” says Van Schooneveld, who admits the work ahead is quite challenging.

One challenge is incorporating the additional activities of other ACT members on the ground. They will be encouraged to work with the local ACT implementing members and help strengthen their capacity.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has begun rapid health assessments along the west coast in conjunction with the Indonesian government, other U.N. agencies and the U.S. military. WHO says it is vital and urgent to obtain and confirm information on the health status of people affected by the tsunami. There is good information from Banda Aceh and the surrounding area, but elsewhere information is limited or unavailable. A major constraint is a combination of access and security. “Roads are impassable, bridges are broken, and reaching the affected people is extremely difficult,” reports WHO, which says access by air travel is the most effective solution.

Meanwhile, UNICEF continues to vaccinate against measles in all affected areas, but the campaign is not happening as quickly as expected because the local infrastructure has collapsed. More than 50 health centers were damaged, and from the provincial health services only 118 staff out of a total of 418 have reported for work. It is estimated that 40 percent of provincial health staff were lost.

As of January 15, seven cases of measles were reported as well as some cases of dysentery. Dr. Budi Subianto of UNICEF says that what they are noticing is a lower percentage of children under the age of five with these illnesses. The normal level for this group is between 12 and 14 percent but is now around 3 percent among the displaced. This indicates the loss of life in the under-five population is great.

Tetanus is also posing a risk, with almost 70 cases reported by Medicines Sans Frontieres (MSF). Many people are exposing themselves through collecting and handling corpses without any gloves or boots on. MSF has started warning communities about the risks they face and are also distributing boots and gloves.

With roads, bridges and ports destroyed, Aceh will require a long-term commitment to rehabilitation and reconstruction that is now estimated will cost US$4 billion. 

Catholic University Stirs Free Speech Debate

Catholic University in Washington, DC has a policy of not allowing speakers on campus who "have espoused positions contrary to Vatican teachings," according to The Washington Post.  The policy was used last year to bar actor-director Stanley Tucci from appearing at a film festival held on the campus.  Tucci supports abortion rights.  Students Democrats are now trying to use the policy to bar death penalty supporter and known adulterer Newt Gingrich from speaking on campus.  "If the university has a policy for what speakers need to represent in regards to church doctrine, they shouldn't pick and choose which teachings apply to which speakers," (Frank) Lankey said. "We're not trying to lambaste or protest Mr. Gingrich as a politician or an individual," he said. "We're trying to show that the speaker policy is very poorly applied."

Campus officials have said the rules don't apply to Gingrich because "he's not a public advocate for adultery. That's the distinction."  A little more bizarre than that statement is the claim from university spokesperson Victor Nakas that "there's nothing that says that capital punishment is necessarily forbidden" in Roman Catholic social teachings.  Someone should alert the Pope. The Vatican states:

The Holy See has consistently sought the abolition of the death penalty and his Holiness Pope John Paul II has personally and indiscriminately appealed on numerous occasions in order that such sentences should be commuted to a lesser punishment, which may offer time and incentive for the reform of the guilty, hope to the innocent and safeguard the well-being of civil society itself and of those individuals who through no choice of theirs have become deeply involved in the fate of those condemmed to death.

The Pope had most earnestly hoped and prayed that a worldwide moratorium might have been among the spiritual and moral benefits of the Great Jubilee which he proclaimed for the Year Two Thousand, so that dawn of the Third Millennium would have been remembered forever as the pivotal moment in history when the community of nations finally recognised that it now possesses the means to defend itself without recourse to punishments which are "cruel and unnecessary". This hope remains strong but it is unfulfilled, and yet there is encouragement in the growing awareness that "it is time to abolish the death penalty".

It is surely more necessary than ever that the inalienable dignity of human life be universally respected and recognised for its immeasurable value. The Holy See has engaged itself in the pursuit of the abolition of capital punishment and an integral part of the defence of human life at every stage of its development and does so in defiance of any assertion of a culture of death.

The policy of barring speakings who might disagree with church teaching is simply ill-considered.  How do students learn without hearing all sides of a debate?  Gingrich should be allowed on campus.  His appearance could be followed by a discussion on the value of freedom of speech in both democratic and religious institutions.

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"Christian Conservatives Embrace Inauguration"

Christian conservatives danced and dined at the inaugural this week (when were evangelicals given the right to dance?). They even managed to get together for a prayer service at St. John's Episcopal Church. The big names were there and The New York Times reports that Bush was:

…putting his own stamp on the event by selecting that church's pastor, the Rev. Luis Leon, to deliver the invocation at the inaugural ceremony. And he has the Rev. Kirbyjon Caldwell, an African-American pastor of a United Methodist church in Houston who is known for Pentecostal customs like speaking in tongues, delivering the benediction. He will be serenaded during the event by a rendition of "Let the Eagle Soar," a composition by the amateur songwriter and Attorney General John Ashcroft, that praises, "only God, no other kings." He will also hear performances by the opera singer Denyce Graves, who became famous for her renditions of "The Lord's Prayer" and "America the Beautiful," and by Wintley Phipps, a well-known gospel singer. On Friday, Mr. Bush is expected to attend a service at the National Cathedral.

After a long campaign this crew was ready to get down and dirty on the dance floor.

"Maybe there is more celebratory privately sponsored activity this week in Washington than in previous years," said Gary Bauer, a former conservative Christian presidential candidate and a founder of American Values. "But I think that is in part due to an ongoing sense in the conservative Christian world that they are under attack," he said. "What is getting more pronounced every four years is the prevailing secularism among cultural and other elites.

Bauer didn’t bring cult leader Sun Myung Moon, his longtime companion, to the celebration.

Chalk-drawing pro-life Catholics, however, were there to keep the mood light and festive:

The Rev. Patrick Mahoney, director of the Washington-based Christian Defense Coalition, said his group planned to celebrate in part by demonstrating alongside the inaugural parade, where the group will attempt to draw chalk bodies on Pennsylvania Avenue to remind the president of aborted fetuses.

Note to death penalty supporters: The chair and injections are just way too painless a form of state-sponsored killing. Just force people to listen that John Ashcroft song one more time. Millions of Americans – guilty or not (not that guilt matters in death penalty cases) would just keel over. Problem solved.  You might even be able to get Alberto Gonzales to declare the song a legal form of torture.

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When FOX News Anchors Go Wild

This is the clip everyone is talking about from the inauguration.  A guest questions the cost of the festivities during a time of war and one of FOX News' "fair and balanced" reporters comes unglued.  Enjoy.   

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Operation Save America Protests at Eden Theological Seminary

The anniversary of Roe vs Wade is this week.  Protesters are marking the occasion by marching outside the "very gates of hell."  That apparently includes Eden Theological Seminary.  A small of group from Operation Save America showed up during our morning classes to protest the pro-choice position of the United Church of Christ and the involvement of some of our students with the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice.  I asked the protesters if they felt there were areas of common ground (like the desire to limit the number of abortions and to promote adoption) on which we could work together.  The answer was a resounding no.  The Eden community treated the protesters with respect.  Some students offered to talk with them and hear their concerns.  Not all Eden students are pro-choice.  Unfortunately, no one from Operation Save America was interested in showing the same level of respect and to engage in genuine dialog.  Keeping America pro-choice isn't going to be easy during a second Bush term.  But we have the people on our side and a just cause.

Related Post:  Can Christians Be Pro-Choice?  Yes.   

Related Post:  The Religious Right Gets Ready To Rumble

Related Post:  In Debate Bush Says He Wants "Culture of Life" But Abortions Are Increasing Under His Leadership

Related Link:  What does my religion say about choice?

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Letter to Bush Says Israeli-Palestinian Conflict Threatens U.S.

Press release from the National Council of Churches USA

January 21, 2005, Washington, D.C. -- In a full-page ad in today’s national edition of The New York Times, leaders of Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Protestant and Evangelical churches and institutions urge President Bush to have the courage to seize the opportunity and bring his leadership to ending the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The 57 signers, including National Council of Churches USA General Secretary Robert Edgar (leading an official NCC delegation to the Middle East Jan. 21-Feb. 4 - click here for that story) and top leadership of a dozen NCC member churches (denominations), begin with their concern for the security and freedom of Israelis and Palestinians. Then they add an appeal to the security and reputation of the United States itself.

“The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has become a threat to the people of the United States,” they write in their open letter to the newly inaugurated President. “Every day the conflict continues, hatred of the United States government is fueled. With each news report of Palestinian suffering … popular support in Arab and Muslim countries for terrorism grows and the threat of attacks directed at the United States increases. The continuing conflict has also resulted in suffering and loss of life among Israeli citizens. We want Israelis, too, to live without fear or threat in their own country.”

They continue, “A hallmark of your campaign was the commitment to defeat terror and make our country more secure. We believe that the promise of peace in Jerusalem is the best defense against terrorism. We encourage you to maintain the faith, the courage and the resolve to work with other world leaders toward negotiations that guarantee two viable states, Israel and Palestine, living side-by-side and sharing Jerusalem as their capital.”

They conclude: “We believe that the promise of peace in Jerusalem is the best defense against terrorism.”

The letters’ signers represent a broad spectrum of Christians in the United States. Among the signers are the Rev. Dr. Robert W. Edgar, General Secretary of the National Council of Churches USA, and these top leaders of NCC member churches: Presiding Bishop Mark S. Hanson of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America; Metropolitan Philip Saliba of the Antiochian Orthodox Archdiocese; the Rev. Wesley Granberg-Michaelson, General Secretary, Reformed Church in America; the Most Rev. Frank T. Griswold, Presiding Bishop, The Episcopal Church in America; the Rev. Dr. Stan Hastey, Alliance of Baptists; the Rev. Wm. Chris Hobgood, General Minister and President, Christian Church (Disciples of Christ).

Also, Mor Cyril Aphrem Karim, Archbishop, Archdiocese of the Syrian Orthodox Church; the Rev. Dr. Clifton Kirkpatrick, Stated Clerk, Presbyterian Church (USA); the Rev. Michael E. Livingston, Executive Director, International Council of Community Churches; A. Roy Medley, General Secretary, American Baptist Churches (U.S.A.); Dr. Robert E. Sawyer, Moravian Church Southern Province; the Rev. John H. Thomas, General Minister and President, United Church of Christ.

They join the Rev. John L. McCullough, Executive Director and CEO of the international humanitarian agency Church World Service, through which the NCC’s 36 member churches serve; other leaders in NCC-member churches, and a host of Evangelical and Roman Catholic leaders.

Former U.S. Ambassador for International Religious Freedom, Robert Seiple, a leader in the evangelical community, said the message of the letter and those who signed it is clear: “Peacemaking is difficult, the ultimate challenge. But it is here where we find out how good we really are. Do we have the courage and the commitment worthy of good people? In the end, this will determine how relevant we will be."

One of the Catholic signers, Sr. Christine Vladimiroff, OSB, President of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious said, “The ancient, unfulfilled vision of justice for all is now within our reach. It is time for us - citizens and elected officials - to disarm our hearts, speak a word of hope and bring the blessing of peace to the people in the holy land. ‘Let us, then, make it our aim to work for peace and to strengthen one another.’” (Romans 14:19)

Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold of the Episcopal Church had this comment: “Having recommitted himself to a two-state solution with Israel and Palestine living side by side in peace, President Bush has a unique opportunity to make that vision real - to, as we urged, ‘follow the examples of the great prophets Isaiah and Jeremiah, who declared that God calls all nations and all people to do justice to one another.’”

Click here for the full text of the letter.

Family Resources For Progressive Christians

Don Browning, Jim Wallis and others are challenging mainline churches to do a better job of addressing family issues in modern society. People from across the religious and political spectrum can agree that families (especially those raising children) are under enormous pressures and have few resources at their disposal to succeed. Progressive Christians need to define how we address family issues on our own terms and be more inclusive of family diversity than our brothers and sisters in the Religious Right. Modern families come in all forms and any attempt to address family issues needs to take this reality seriously. The United Church of Christ offers this one understanding of family that recognizes the changes occurring in family life dynamics:

There are many examples of family forms in the scriptures. Mary, Martha, and Lazarus were three adult siblings living together as family, and Jesus spent quality time with them. The mother of Jesus functioned as a single parent after Joseph's death. From the cross, Jesus formed a new family by saying: "Woman, here is your son, " and telling his beloved disciples, "Here is your Mother."

There is not just one family structure that is lifted up in the Scriptures as being chosen by God. The definition of family needs to be expanded to include the current diversity in family structures. people who choose to live and love together as family. All types of families need to be empowered and resourced by society—including the church and government.

The United Church of Christ, as early as 1977, encouraged the Church to address the issues of family life from the biblical-theological perspective of covenantal relationships. It has called upon all settings of the church to initiate changes in social, governmental and economic conditions which are destructive to family and community life.

Progressive churches have not done the best job of developing family resources. But there are some and churches looking for resources to help them design programs, offer study groups, or to assist in worship should consider these materials:

For the Good of All Families

http://www.ncccusa.org/pdfs/goodofallfamilies.pdf

This study guide was produced by the Justice for Women’s Working Group of the National Council of Churches USA and addresses how churches and public policy efforts can support family life in America. This resources also has a wealth of information on other groups reaching out to families (including resources for gays and lesbians families an single people).

Religion, Culture, and Family Project

http://divinity.uchicago.edu/family/lilly.htm

The Religion, Culture and Family Project was funded by the Lilly Endowment. “The Religion, Culture, and Family Project claims that religious traditions have valuable theological, ethical, and institutional resources to help revitalize North American family culture and families. It brings together over a hundred leading Protestant, Catholic, Jewish, and other religious scholars of both liberal and conservative convictions to produce a major series of books on religion and the family together with conferences, articles, and media projects,” states the introduction to the project.

Public policy debates about family tend to center around narrowing the definition of family to a two-parent heterosexual model (think Defense of Marriage Act). That model is obviously the norm and there are public policy initiatives that could clearly support these families. Narrowing the definition of family, however, both ignores the realities of modern life and is clearly an attempt to limit the full participation of gays, lesbians, divorced people, and even single adults in religious and civil life. Progressive religious people need to proactively understand that family issues are justice issues that warrant our time and concern.

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SpongeBob Is Queer; Bush and Powell Outed

My kids are young enough that I really don't know who SpongeBob SquarePants is.  But apparently he is gay.  "Christian" groups outed him over the past week.  Their evidence:  he holds hands with other men and enjoys disco.  If holding hands with other men and bad taste in music is all the evidence we need for determining who is and isn't gay there are a couple of people I'd like to out.  George W. Bush is perhaps the most gay man in America.  Do you remember how he likes to hold hands with that one Saudi prince?  I bet they know what the meaning of "is" is.  And what about Colin Powell?  No man has ever been gayer.  Do you remember when he took to the stage as one of the Village People (America's biggest gay band ever)?  The guy is a fruitcake.  I think we all know where this is leading.  Bush   kicked Powell out of the cabinet over some lovers spat concerning the prince.  It all makes sense.  That is why Powell is leaving and why Bush appointed an openly lesbian woman to take his place (what single woman with a PhD isn't a lesbian?).  This way the president won't have to compete for lovers with his secretary of state.  I never could have figured this out unless these "Christian" groups hadn't explained how to tell a gay cartoon character apart from a straight one.  Gay cartoon characters are simply the biggest threat America faces today.   

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Jim Wallis' God’s Politics: Why the Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn’t Get It

Pollsters and pundits were quick to declare that voters choose candidates in the 2004 elections based on their “moral values.” What were the moral values voters supposedly considered in the voting booth? Abortion and gay marriage were, if you believe the conventional wisdom, the only moral issues that mattered (and the only moral way to vote was for anti-choice and anti-gay candidates). What happened to moral issues like providing support for children and poverty alleviation? Republicans have co-opted the image of God for political purposes and the political left has let them. Neither party, however, has talked about religious faith in a broader and more progressive way. “The privatizing of faith has weakened its impact on critical public issues and opened the door for a right-wing ‘Christian politics,’ which both narrows and distorts a biblical agenda”, writes Jim Wallis in his newly released book God’s Politics: Why the Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn’t Get it. Wallis says the aim of his book is to “show how God is personal, but never private, and how the witness of the biblical prophets and Jesus must be recovered for these times and courageously applied to a whole range of moral and political issues. If we make ‘prophetic faith’ a public issue as it has been before at critical times in history, we might literally change the political wind on matters of great importance.” Wallis’ writings in this new book about partisan politics and the war in Iraq have been well chronicled. Less has been said about what Wallis included about how family issues impact political affairs.

Wallis is concerned that political liberals do not take seriously the justifiable concerns of parents. “The legitimacy of the family values debate has been demonstrated in the clear links that have been made between the problem of family breakdown and the social ills of youth delinquency and crime, drug use, teenage pregnancy, welfare dependence, and the alarming disintegration of civic community, especially (but not exclusively) in poor neighborhoods,” he writes. Why don’t Democrats address these issues and instead simply leave them to conservatives to exploit? Why is it that conservative evangelical churches are seen as more family friendly? Wallis notes that “57 percent of married voters supported President Bush, while 42 percent voted for Senator Kerry. Conversely, 58 percent of unmarried voters supported Kerry and 40 percent voted for Bush.” He then quotes from researcher Anna Greenberg who says, “It would be easy for Democrats to dismiss this Republican ‘morality’ advantage as an artifact of the influence of fringe religious voters. But it is evident in a broad swath of voters. And a large portion of these voters are married. But does this mean that married Americans are hijacked by the Christian Right? Hardly. A more likely story is that when people get married and have children, their new experiences alter their political concerns.”

Do single people – who make up a large share of the Democratic voter base – really see moral values differently than married couples with children? Wallis mentions one survey that showed that only 16 percent of single men considered sex and violence on television to be a “very serious problem, compared with 47 percent of married men. By comparison, 42 percent of single women and 56 percent of married women” considered the issue to be very serious. Many of us can still remember when Tipper Gore and other Democrats raised the issue of sex and violence in music and on television in the 1980s and were attacked by liberals as advocates of censorship. “Such findings indicate that the answer to the ‘family values’ crisis may not be a return to traditional roles for men and women and combating gay marriage, as the Right suggests, but rather in supporting the critical task of parenting – culturally, morally, and economically. Here again, both the Right and the Left are failing us. The Republican definition of family values, which properly stresses moral laxness but ignores the growing economic pressures on all families, simply doesn’t go deep enough. Similarly, the Democrats are right when they focus on economic security for working families but wrong when they are reluctant to make moral judgments about the cultural trends and values that are undermining family life.” We can assume that political groups on the right (like Focus on the Family with their anti-gay agenda) and political groups on the left (like those opposed to anything that might censor the individual right to express views – no matter how distasteful) would oppose any coalition of religious people concerned about both family values and economic justice. Yet Wallis makes a convincing argument that both are important. Could such a coalition be formed?

Wallis has already provided evidence that “conservative” and "liberals” can join sides to work on justice issues. He formed the group Call to Renewal to combat poverty in America. Religious leaders who have no common ground on gay marriage, for example, have agreed in that forum to put aside their differences so that they can work on areas on which they have agreement (like expanding the earned income tax credit). “Nearly half of all marriages end in divorce, 1.5 million women a year are assaulted by their current or former husbands or boyfriends, one in three children are born outside of marriage (even in poor communities), and so on. Family ties and relationships are growing weaker at an alarming pace, with disastrous consequences – especially for children,” writes Wallis. “And the consequences are also clear for poverty; delinquency and crime, sexual promiscuity; education and employment; physical; emotional, and mental health; spiritual well-being; and social pathologies transmit themselves intergenerationally.” Wallis appropriately notes that the Right has trued to blame gays for the breakdown on families. “That breakdown is causing a great social crisis that affects us all, but it is hardly the fault of gays and lesbians.”

It is often said that when liberals talk about diversity they only mean inviting to the table people who while different than them (in terms of skin color, for example) still expect that everyone will basically share the same world view. Honestly addressing issues like the breakdown of families or poverty will require that those of us who consider ourselves to be progressive to be more inviting of differences. Most conservatives and progressives share issues of common concern around the family and could be more proactive in developing social policies if we were willing to sometimes set aside for the moment other important issues. The same effort required of progressives will be required by evangelicals. Conservatives serious about lowering the rate of abortions (something most people would like to do) need to find constructive ways to talk with pro-choice supports who disagree with them but might support new efforts to promote adoption. Sometimes we have to find those places where we share concerns and find ways to work in unison. Wallis’ book offers good examples and models for how we might accomplish that. The alternative is to keep doing business as usual. All that option has accomplished is to further polarize us as a nation. Finding those areas of common ground could be a great gift from the Christian family of believers to the entire nation.

Related Post:  Jim Wallis Visits Eden Theological Seminary

Related Link:  Watch Jim Wallis on the 1/20 episode of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.  Click here for the video.

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NCC Delegation to Middle East Urges: Make Peace a Reality

Press release from the National Council of Churches USA

January 19, 2005, NEW YORK CITY - The question “How can we make the current opportunity for peace a reality?” will be central to the mission of a National Council of Churches USA official delegation to the Middle East Jan. 21-Feb. 4.

The 11-member group, led by the NCC’s President, Christian Methodist Episcopal Bishop Thomas L. Hoyt, Jr., and NCC General Secretary Robert W. Edgar, will press their conviction that governments and people of faith must seize the opportunity presented by recent developments - for example, election of new Palestinian leadership and Israeli government movement on the settlement issue - to get the Middle East peace process back on track.

“We will ask the question, ‘Is this the opportunity for peace?,’ state our conviction that it is, and explore ways communities of faith can help,’” Dr. Edgar said.

Added Dr. Antonios Kireopoulos, NCC Associate General Secretary for International Affairs, “During and following the delegation visit, we will be exerting our moral pressure for peace.”

The delegation leaves the United States on Jan. 21 for Beirut, Lebanon (Jan. 22-24), Cairo, Egypt (Jan. 24-27) and Israel/Palestine (Jan. 27-Feb. 4). Along their way, they will meet with the Middle East Council of Churches and senior Christian, Jewish and Muslim religious leaders and with grassroots and interfaith organizations working for peace.

Meetings have been confirmed with senior members of the Israeli government and have been requested with officials in the Palestinian Authority.

Along with peacemaking, the group’s other top concern is the situation of Christians in the Holy Land, and the ongoing exodus of Christians from the region. “Many in the United States aren’t aware that there are indigenous Christians in the Holy Land, from all Christian traditions, including Orthodox, Catholics, Lutherans, Anglicans and others,” Dr. Kireopoulos said.

“During these increasingly difficult days, and even as we express our hope in the new opportunity that exists for peace,” Dr. Edgar said, “our visit will be important because it demonstrates our solidarity with our brothers and sisters who live in the Holy Land.”

Members of the 2005 delegation are:

* His Grace Bishop Vicken Aykazian, Diocesan Legate and Ecumenical Officer, Diocese of the Armenian Church of America, Washington, D.C., and NCC Secretary.

* Dr. Sylvia Campbell, Adjunct Professor, George Washington University, Washington, D.C.; a speech-language pathologist in private practice, and a member of the Alliance of Baptists. She serves on the NCC Justice and Advocacy Commission.

* The Rev. Dr. Thelma Chambers-Young, an NCC Vice President; Director of Christian Education, Holy Temple Baptist Church, Progressive National Baptist Convention, Inc., Oklahoma City, Okla; Former President of the PNBC Women’s Department.

* The Rev. Seung Koo Choi, General Secretary, Korean Presbyterian Church in America, Anaheim, Calif., a member of the NCC Governing Board.

* The Rev. Dr. Robert W. Edgar, General Secretary, National Council of Churches USA, New York City, an ordained elder in the United Methodist Church.

* The Rt. Rev. (Bishop) C. Christopher Epting, Ecumenical Officer, The Episcopal Church, New York City, a member of the NCC Governing Board.

* Ms Ann Hafften, Weatherford, Texas, Coordinator for Middle East Networking Division for Global Mission, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.

* The Rev. Dr. Thomas L. Hoyt, Jr., President, National Council of Churches USA, and Bishop, Louisiana and Mississippi, Christian Methodist Episcopal Church, Shreveport, La.

* The Rev. Dr. Michael Kinnamon, Professor of Mission, Peace and Ecumenical Studies, Eden Seminary, St. Louis, Mo., an ordained minister in the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), and Chair of the NCC Justice and Advocacy Commission.

* Dr. Antonios Kireopoulos, NCC Associate General Secretary for International Affairs and Peace, New York City, a member of the Greek Orthodox Church.

* Mr. James Winkler, General Secretary, General Board of Church and Society, United Methodist Church, Washington, D.C.

Church World Service Emergency Response Update

Update from Church World Service

TSUNAMI RECOVERY / INDONESIA

Jan. 19, 2005

SITUATION: An update of Church World Service tsunami response in Indonesia.

++ CWS staff is transporting water treatment and purification equipment overland from Medan to Meulaboh, in Aceh province. Access to the west coast continues to gradually improve, despite poor road conditions and rudimentary air facilities, reports CWS Indonesia staff.

++ On Monday (Jan. 17), a team of humanitarian workers that included CWS Indonesia staff visited Meulaboh to assess potential areas for water installation assistance and other needs.

++ A CWS medical team is currently focusing efforts on areas in the Montasik sub-district of Aceh province. Most common symptoms are dermatology infections and allergies, acute respiratory infections (ARI), and hypertension, as well as rheumatic arthritis.

++ CWS, working with its local partner Mamamia, has conducted emergency aid distribution in Tanjung Selamat and Lhok Nga this week.

Contributions to support CWS Tsunami Recovery efforts may be sent to your denomination or directly to:

Church World Service
Tsunami Recovery (Acct. #6970)
P.O. Box 968
Elkhart, IN 46515

Contributions may also be made by credit card by calling: (800) 297-1516, ext. 222, or online at www.churchworldservice.org.

For further information about disasters to which Church World Service is responding please visit www.churchworldservice.org or call the CWS Hotline, (800) 297-1516. 

Howard Dean for Democratic National Committee Chair

If I was involved with partisan political party politics (something I really haven't done since just after highschool) and was looking for a new leader of the Democratic National Committee it would be Howard Dean. Dean is the progressive voice the democrats need right now to organize the grassroots of the party in preparation for the 2006 midterm elections. He was my first choice during the presidential primaries. His judgment on both foreign and domestic affairs proved to be more astute than either George W. Bush or John Kerry. America would be in a better place if he were president today. No one has the ability to raise money and energize the party the way Dean does. He’ll make sure the Democratic Party takes the progressive approach on the important issues. If this NRA-backed former New England governor can get me on his side he can reach out to just about anyone.

Link: Blog for America.

The 55th Presidential Inauguration

Thursday is presidential inauguration day.

At least we’re reasonably certain the winner of the popular vote will be the man actually sworn in this time.  It feels a little better to know that the president received the majority of votes (even if the majority of citizens still question his policies).

The event will be classic Bush.  National security concerns are being put on the backburner so that the inaugural parties can go on.  “D.C. officials said yesterday that the Bush administration is refusing to reimburse the District for most of the costs associated with next week's inauguration, breaking with precedent and forcing the city to divert $11.9 million from homeland security projects,” reported The Washington Post last week.  “Federal officials have told the District that it should cover the expenses by using some of the $240 million in federal homeland security grants it has received in the past three years -- money awarded to the city because it is among the places at highest risk of a terrorist attack.”  Who needs to protect the District anyway.

Tomorrow will be a great day.  Everyone will be safe.  We have nothing to be concerned about anywhere in America tomorrow.  Except maybe Boston. 

I attended the 1993 Clinton-Gore inaugural (they reimbursed DC for the costs with privately raised funds).  Of course, there was plenty of pageantry and some gross examples of excess.  But at the same time the inaugural committee hosted dinners for homeless District residents and there was even an inaugural ball for people living on the streets.  Regular Americans (teachers, firefighters, social workers, nurses, etc.) were included in all the festivities.  It was a different time.   

Walter Rauschenbusch and The Social Gospel

By the turn of the last century a new theology emerged within the United States called the social gospel. Walter Rauschenbusch, the son of German immigrants and a Baptist, was the major proponent of this new theology. The social gospel sought to address issues of sin and salvation within the context of the Industrial Revolution and the great poverty it spawned in urban centers. The social gospel asked Christians and their churches to become advocates for the “least of these” in a society that had abandoned the poor. Rauschenbusch’s theology was optimistic. He saw human progress as an event always moving forward with the great potential for improvement of the human condition. The social gospel became the dominant theology within American churches until the optimism it expressed collapsed under the weight of two world wars and a growing sense among Christians that human progress was not always a forward event. Despite its shortcoming the Social Gospel remains one of the most important theological movements of the modern era and even today continues to impact the work of mainline Christian churches. There is much that we can learn from this theology and incorporate into the lives of our modern churches.

- Introduction to Walter Rauschenbusch and the Social Gospel

Over the course of last fall and early this winter, I studied Rauschenbusch’s works and wrote a modest paper introducing some of the important concepts behind his theology and the criticisms of it. I’m making the paper available to those who might want a short introduction to a part of American church history that is often overlooked. There are some excellent resources referenced in the footnotes for those interested in learning more.

Click here to download Walter Rauschenbusch and the Social Gospel.

Spanish Catholics Endorse Condom Use To Fight AIDS

This post has been updated

In the political world they’d call this a flip-flop. In religious terms, I’d say that Catholics in Spain are motivated by new revelations from God.

MADRID, Spain (AP) -- In a substantial shift from traditional policy, the Catholic Church in Spain has said it supports the use of condoms to prevent the spread of AIDS.

"Condoms have a place in the global prevention of AIDS," Juan Antonio Martinez Camino, spokesman for the Spanish Bishops Conference, told reporters after a meeting Tuesday with Health Minister Elena Salgado to discuss ways of fighting the disease.

Full story

How will the Vatican react to this challenge to doctrine? Don’t look for the Pope to change his stance. But it isn’t unreasonable to believe that more and more Catholic leaders will break with the Vatican over the fight against AIDS and other health issues. After all, we all want a culture of life and AIDS is the ultimate culture of death.

Related Post: World AIDS Day 2004 Prayer

Update:  American Catholics do not follow church teaching on condom use.  That's a good thing.  One group of Catholics has even set-up a web site, Condoms4Life.org, to offer other Catholics information on why condom use is important.  Their ultimate aim: to stop Catholics bishops the world over from preaching against condom use.  Pray for their success.

Update:  It looks like Rome is trying to reign in those radical Spaniards. Spain’s Catholic Bishops are back tracking on a statement made yesterday in which they stated their support for condom use in the fight against AIDS.  One step forward - and several hundred back.  For those counting:  4.9 million people contracted AIDS in 2004 (over 600,000 of those were children).  Women are at a growing risk for the disease.  Click here to read the report from Human Rights Watch on how Rome's policies are allowing men, women and babies to die.

Human Rights Watch World Report 2005

Human Rights Watch has their 2005 World Report available online. The report details human rights abuses the world over. Special attention is paid to the crisis in Darfur and the abuses committed by US forces in Abu Ghraib:

Among the myriad human rights challenges of 2004, two pose fundamental threats to human rights: the ethnic cleansing in Darfur and the torture of detainees at Abu Ghraib. No one would equate the two, yet each, in its own way, has had an insidious effect. One involves indifference in the face of the worst imaginable atrocities, the other is emblematic of a powerful government flouting a most basic prohibition. One presents a crisis that threatens many lives, the other a case of exceptionalism that threatens the most fundamental rules. The vitality of the global defense of human rights depends on a firm response to each—on stopping the Sudanese government’s slaughter in Darfur and on changing the policy decisions behind the U.S. government’s torture and mistreatment of detainees.

Deeply concerning to people of faith must be the section of the report that declares that religions across the globe are increasingly standing in opposition to human rights:

Is there a schism between the human rights movement and religious communities? Essential disagreements appear increasingly to pit secular human rights activists against individuals and groups acting from religious motives. The list of contentious issues is growing: on issues such as reproductive rights, gay marriage, the fight against HIV/AIDS, and blasphemy laws, human rights activists and religious groups often find themselves on opposing sides. As illustrated by the Muslim headscarf debate in France and Turkey, controversies linked to religion also have confused many in the human rights movement and even led some activists to express strong reservations about certain public expressions of religious conscience.

The report does acknowledge that many religious groups are defenders of human rights. But the problems are there and need to be recognized.  My hope is that HRW will work with leaders in different religious communities to better educate people of faith about the concerns raised in the report.

Human Rights Watch is a rare bird. They are beholden to nothing besides the cause of justice.  I'll note that Alice Smith, my mother-in-law, is active with HRW's work in San Francisco.

Global Warming In Our Backyard

Earlier this week it was 75 degrees here in Webster Groves, MO. We took the kids and the dogs out to the Eden campus to play fetch. Later that night we received several inches of rain with some pretty big thunderstorms. The next morning it was snowing and the high temperature - which had been 75 the day before - never reached 30. Missouri isn't the only place getting odd weather this winter. What is the reason? Global warming might be part of it. The National Council of Churches USA Eco-Justice Program reports that "scientists tell us 'global warming is real; the science is sound; and the effects are likely to be severe.' We add 'this is a religious issue!'  We are called to care for all of God's children, especially the most vulnerable, and to protect and restore God's creation. Climate change is a threat to all people and all of creation."  Check out their resource Cry of Creation: an Interfaith Study Guide on Global Warming and see how your congregation can become involved with this issue.  In the meantime, stay warm.  Or cool.  Who knows what tomorrow will bring.

Martin Luther King, Jr. Day 2005

The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was a prophet sent from God to remind us that to live authentically we must put the “least of these" first. It is right and honorable that our nation notes his accomplishments with parades, concerts, speeches, and memorials. There is hope in a country that honors such a messenger the way we do. The highest honor we could accord him, however, would be to continue acting on the issues he preached about.

Dr. King opposed the Vietnam War. You can guess with a measure of certainty what he would have thought about the conflict in Iraq. He saw war as contrary to the will of God. The words that he spoke at Riverside Church in New York in 1967 still speak to us today:

A true revolution of values will lay hand on the world order and say of war, “This way of settling differences is not just.” This business of burning humans with napalm, of filling our nation’s homes with orphans and with widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into the veins of peoples normally humane, of sending men home from dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically deranged, cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice and love. A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.

We know about Dr. King largely because of his leadership in the civil rights movement. It is ironic and dishonest to slander his name today by associating his dream of a colorblind society with opposition to affirmative action. Racism and gender inequality still exist in America. Affirmative action is needed to help break down barriers in the workplace and in our institutions of higher learning.

Poverty was a central concern of Dr. King’s. “I have the audacity to believe that peoples everywhere can have three meals a day for their bodies, education and culture for their minds, and dignity, equality and freedom for their spirits,” he said when accepting the Noble Peace Prize. “I believe that what self-centered men have torn down, men other-centered can build up. I still believe that one day mankind will bow before the altars of God and be crowned triumphant over war and bloodshed, and nonviolent redemptive goodwill will proclaim the rule of the land.”

His message was always hopeful and the need for reconciliation among God’s people was at the core of everything he spoke. Yet for some it was not a comforting message. Dr. King challenged the power structures of western civilization with his calls for peace and justice. He reminded us that Christian faith is not a status-quo philosophy. The essential message of the Gospels is radical. “This faith can give us courage to face the uncertainties of the future,” he said. “It will give our tired feet new strength as we continue our forward stride toward the city of freedom. When our days become dreary with low-hovering clouds and our nights become darker than a thousand midnights, we will know that we are living in the creative turmoil of a genuine civilization struggling to be born.”

If we really want to honor Dr. King we need to keep finding ways to work within our own time and context to promote the issues and causes that he did. Dr. King reminded us to do what Jesus called us to do. Work for peace and justice.

The Bush Agenda

Death Squads.

War With Iran (Yep, Iran - not to be confused with Iraq)

More of the same.

The Koufax Awards: Most Deserving of Wider Recognition

This blog has been nominated for one of The Koufax Awards under the category of Most Deserving of Wider Recognition.  You can vote for this site or any of the others nominated by clicking here and leaving a comment.  "The Koufax Awards are named for Sandy Koufax, one of the greatest left handed pitchers of all time. They are intended to honor the best of the left of blogtopia," according to the folks at Wampum.  Check it out.

Church World Service Assists Sri Lankan Tsunami Survivors

Statement from Church World Service

Betticaloa, SRI LANKA – A team from Church World Service Pakistan/Afghanistan provided supplies and assessed continuing needs in Betticaloa last week, meeting with tsunami survivors in the camps, camp managers, and church leaders.

Kalkuda is 200 meters away from the sea, and a putrid smell continues to fill the air. Houses and other structures 500 meters from the shore -– whether of concrete, wood, or steel -- were completely swept away by waves, while most of the trees remained intact. The military has cautioned that waves took shells and landmines, so much of the damaged area is inaccessible. Books, briefcases, utensils, and doors litter the ground. A local priest commented, "I am tired of burying dead bodies now."

In a nearby village, another pastor, Jebarani Peter of Valaichachenai Methodist Church, told how 1,000 people took refuge in her church compound while the injured and dead arrived at the nearby hospital.

"The first two days we even couldn’t count the people as we ourselves were running here and there for arrangements," Rev. Peter explained. "Sinhalese, Muslims, and Buddhists distributed relief material in the church. In our compound I know 14 people who lost their families. In one family only two girls managed to escape; one of 11 years old and the other 8 years old. Another girl was rescued from the sea with the help of a helicopter."

Recalling those early days, Peter noted, "When we stared distributing food items people cried and said they didn’t need any thing. 'We lost our loved ones and what is the use of such things now.' It was like a funeral house." She said that people now have enough clothing, but shelter is a dire need. Concluding the conversation she commented, "Every day we have different experiences and have different stories of misery."

In a nearby Pentecostal Church Camp accommodating the affected from Kalakoda, Church World Service shelters were distributed. A team of physicians was busy checking patients. The person in charge of the camp said there were 1,263 people in the camp and 435 families. There were toilets, and drinking water is available from a tube well.

The CWS team met with several survivors. Seliah Kandasamy is a carpenter by profession. His family members survived, yet he lost his house and tools. He worries where the family will live and how he will feed his family of six. He received food and clothing material from the camp.

Unlike Seliah Kandasamy, Chadrakala doesn’t want to go back. A young woman in her early twenties, she was making tea on that Sunday morning for her one-and-a-half-year-old child. The baby lost his life, and she was taken into one direction by the water while her husband went in another. Her baby’s body was buried with two children of her cousin. "I am scared of sea and I don’t want to go back. My husband also wants to stay away from the sea. We need a respectable livelihood and a shelter to start our life again."

Thavanthiran is a fisherman of only 17. At the time the tsunami struck, he was on his boat when people mentioned that sea was getting rough. Later he found out that seven members of his family died, including his parents, three young sisters, and two brothers. Their house was completely demolished. Still in shock, he can’t even cry anymore.

When the tsunami struck, Yohanathan was in Colombo as a daily wager. His wife, father, sister, and a child are dead. Twenty-nine years old, with a surviving son, he has to start his life from scratch.

Issues for Survivors

Even at this early stage, there are issues in the camps. There are reports of the sexual abuse of women and attempts of child trafficking. Disposal of dead bodies and the capacity of hospital mortuaries to deal with dead bodies is an ongoing problem. Women, who run much of the economy of the country, now have to concentrate more on house reconstruction and provide relief to traumatized families. The presence of U.S. marines and other foreign army personnel is worrisome for the population. The U.S. dollars coming in may benefit the wealthier segments of society, and the utilization of money needs to be monitored.

The CWS staff noticed some positive results in the midst of so many troubles and tragedies.

At the moment, military and political considerations are overshadowed by compassion and a sense of kinship and common purpose throughout all ethnic communities. Interfaith harmony is observed between Muslims, Christians, Hindus, and Buddhists. There are stories of Buddhists and Christian leaders traveling from all the way South to East carrying relief materials for Muslims, or the followers of all the four religions saying last rites for their loved ones together. 

Credo

This past week I took my second level oral exams. In these exams we are asked to consider how our own theology has developed through our seminary experiences. A similar process is undertaken in the required Biblical theology course. In that class we are asked to write a Credo. Here is mine:

There are certain beliefs that shape the core of my understandings about God and the relationship that God and humanity share.

• God is the creator who calls us to “do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God (Micah 6:8 NRSV).”

• In the life of Jesus the people of God experienced “what authentic human beings can and should be.” (1)

• Scripture is a “human response to God” (2) that contains the stories of how humanity understood some of our earliest encounters with the divine.

• Encounters with God continue (God is Still Speaking).

• ‘Rigid formulation of doctrine or attachment to creeds or structures” (3) limits us as we attempt to discern God’s will.

God created humanity to be in constant relationship with God. That relationship includes responsibilities (mission) on the part of humanity. We are given “dominion” over earthy creation (Gen 1:26) and dominion requires that we be responsible stewards. God hears our suffering (Ex 2:24) and seeks to “deliver us” (Ex 3:8) in times of trouble. Deliverance is done in relationship with the appointment of guides and prophets who seek throughout history to remind humanity of our responsibilities to God. Sin is when we intentionally move away from God and ignore our responsibilities. Sins can be committed by both individuals and by institutions (kingdoms, nations, churches, corporations). God offers humanity continued grace throughout history as we continue to turn away from the mission set out for us. When we sin God seems anxious to give guidance that brings us back into right relationship with God.

Jesus was born the son of God (Luke 1:26) and during a public ministry he taught the Word of God (Matthew 5). The Word of God has always been a message of liberation for the “least of these” (Matthew 25:40) and a threat to those who stand in radical opposition to these teachings. Jesus was killed by the Romans for preaching a message that threatened their understanding of power. Jesus’ followers experienced the risen Christ after his crucifixion (John 20:29). The resurrected Jesus is still experienced today in our worship. Jesus was the human incarnation of God. No human authority can kill the essence of God.

The Holy Spirit is that part of God that called the church into being on Pentecost (Acts 2:1-11). It is what “guides and brings about the creative and redemptive work of God in the world.” (4) We often have trouble with this aspect of God because it is difficult to conceptualize God as something other than a “father figure” or as God incarnate in Jesus. Using human imagery we can understand the Holy Spirit as “God’s own breath.” (5) When we absorb that breath we are nourished by the spirit of God and reminded of our calling.

My denomination, the United Church of Christ, celebrates two sacraments: baptism and communion. Baptism can fairly be administered to infants or adults but in my estimation it is best done when an individual commitment to live faithfully as a disciple can be made. Communion is a reminder of the living Christ and of the sacrifice made for us by God. Jesus preached a message of radical inclusion. The communion table is symbolic of that inclusion and no one who professes Christ should be denied a seat at that table. All are welcome. “No matter where we are on life’s journey, notwithstanding race, gender, sexual orientation, class or creed, we all belong to God and to one worldwide community of faith.” (6)

Scripture is the most important source of revelation for me of God’s word. The simple fact that we still appeal to it has meaning to me in that the words contained in the Bible have spoken to generations across great distances of time and culture and still had profound meaning. How could I alone dismiss an encounter so profound? But John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, took into account Scripture, tradition, reason and experience when trying to discern God’s will. Wesley’s model is one that is faithful and still relevant in this time. Scripture alone can not determine our relationship with God. Our encounters will God are continuing.

Understanding that, can we ever declare that one understanding of God is superior to another? Shirley C. Guthrie writes that, “In the Reformed tradition, confessions have a temporary, provisional, relative authority (and are therefore subject to revision and correction) because all confessions are the work of limited, fallible, sinful human beings.” (7) We write within our own context and time and there is simply no way to say more than these understandings of God are true for the moment and hopefully successive generations of humanity will continue to experience God and discern those understandings in new ways that deepen our relationship with God.

In a short statement like this plenty is left out.  People writing into this blog are always asking, however, what it is that I believe.  Here are a few of the answers. 

Notes:

[1] Stephen Patterson, The God of Jesus (Harrisburg: Trinity International Press, 1998) p. 53.

[2] Marcus Borg, Reading the Bible Again for the First Time (San Francisco: HaperSanFrancisco, 2001), p. 21.

[3] United Church of Christ, “What we believe”, available from; http://www.stillspeaking.com/about/beliefs.htm; Internet; accessed December 2004.   

[4] Ibid.

[5] Barbara brown Taylor, Home By Another Way (Cambridge: Cowley Publications, 1999), p. 143.

[6] UCC, “What we believe”, http://www.stillspeaking.com/about/beliefs.htm.

[7] Shirley C Guthrie, Always Being Reformed (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1996), p. 22.

Good News For Science And Public Schools

Atlanta, Jan. 13 - A federal judge Thursday ordered a suburban Atlanta school system to remove stickers from its high school biology textbooks that call evolution "a theory, not a fact," saying the disclaimers are an unconstitutional endorsement of religion.

"By denigrating evolution, the school board appears to be endorsing the well-known prevailing alternative theory, creationism or variations thereof, even though the sticker does not specifically reference any alternative theories," U.S. District Judge Clarence Cooper said.

Full story

Thank you, Judge Cooper.

It is amazing to think that in 2005 we are still arguing over the validity of evolution and even the appropriateness of teaching real science in the classroom.

The Rev. Barry W. Lynn, a United Church of Christ minister and head of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, issued the following statement in favor of the ruling:

This is a great decision with national significance. These textbook disclaimers are part of a national campaign to undercut the teaching of evolution in public schools in accordance with fundamentalist Christian beliefs. Today' court decision will throw a major roadblock in the path of that crusade. Public schools may not be used to advance religious dogma, and the court has rightly upheld that principle.

You can read the decision here.

Related Post: "Intelligent Design Theory"

Quaker Group Writes President Bush

The clerk of the American Friends Services Committee, a Quaker organization, recently wrote the president with their concerns over the war in Iraq and several other important issues.  Below is the text.

Dear President Bush,

You know you preside over a nation deeply divided, and the deepest divisions, the deepest distrusts, occur in questions with the most compelling moral resonance. We are divided on questions of war and peace, of social and economic justice, of how to combat terror and protect citizens' constitutional rights. We are conflicted by the profound contradictions of widening poverty in a land of plenty, opportunities for a better life foreclosed by the country's military expenditures. Parents fear their children will never have as good a life as they did. Children worry that aging parents will end their lives impoverished by health costs. All those and many more difficult and complex problems are exacerbated by the spirit of fear, suspicion and hatred which dominated the recent election. Whether they voted for you or for your opponent, many voted against someone they hated.

That is a terrible and terrifying situation. It will not be addressed by calls for healing but only by steady, prolonged, dependable acts of healing and reconciliation. All of us need to discover what acts of healing we are called to perform, but you and your government, because you hold such overwhelming power, are under a correspondingly greater burden to initiate and enact reconciliation. The strong can not expect the weak to placate them and call it healing. If they do not believe they will be heard deeply, the weak and out of power feel they have only stubborn resistance to sustain integrity.

Before the war in Iraq began, I wrote you on behalf of the American Friends Service Committee. The letter went unacknowledged. Many church leaders from large denominations, including bishops from your own Methodist communion, asked to meet with you and were refused. Undoubtedly they, and we, would have said things disagreeable to you, but a door could also have been opened for further communication, perhaps thus discovering some common ground on which antagonists can build shared work.

Instead, the loyal opposition can only publish open letters in the press or demonstrate in the streets. You go over our heads; we try to go over yours. Your supporters and your opponents consolidate their positions by invoking a new civil or culture war. The battle lines become so sharply drawn that there is little space for quiet diplomacy. Increasingly, that space between the battle lines will become an intellectual and spiritual “free-fire zone”, “no man's land”.

Those figures of speech are glib and cheap but they so infect our discourse that they lead to literal acts of violence and killing. We take you at your word that you want to be a uniter. We do not believe that you want to preside over spiritual and political wars which tear at the fabric of civil society. We urge you to act on your best impulses, to let us, your vehement critics, participate with you in quiet, reflective talks. Such conversations would not be easy. It takes time to transform simultaneous monologues into dialogue. Those of us critical of your actions, at odds with your philosophy, will not find it easy, either, to listen well.

We hold our beliefs passionately, and our inability to connect with you or leaders in your government has stiffened our resolve. When we believe we have been demonized, we do not fully resist demonizing you and your followers. The first Quakers, 350 years ago, gave us a vocabulary and a history of experience to describe the kind of engagement we believe is needed now. They taught us that every human being came into the world endowed with a measure of light, an inward witness. That witness is from God. Listening to it can lead us out of error and into right action. Appealing to the inward witness in others can help them find their right decision, and their witness can also correct and instruct ours.

We ask you to reflect on ways you can open yourself and invite others, supporters and opponents, to open themselves to the Light, the Inward Teacher, the Witness in the soul, so we may learn from and teach each other, how God would have us live.

You have spoken often of how sustained you feel knowing millions of people pray for you. Please believe you have the prayers of many who disagree with you at the most fundamental level. We hold you in God's Light, as we hope to be held in that Light. We pray for healing and true reconciliation, the reconciliation which can let peace flow like a river and justice pour out like mighty waters.

In Friendship,

Paul A. Lacey
Clerk of the Board of Directors
American Friends Service Committee 

E-Mail From Chennai

Earlier this week, I received an e-mail from a friend of mine living in Chennai, India. Below are parts of what he wrote. I thought people reading this site might gain something from hearing a firsthand account of life after the Tsunami. To protect his privacy I have left his name and some personal parts of the correspondence out of this post. Looking to make a donation? Visit Church World Service to learn how you can help out.

Thank you very much for your concern and prayers for me and for our country during the time of this catastrophe. By His grace we are safe from this Tsunami.

At the time of this disaster I was at home with parents enjoying my Christmas with my wife. We were in celebrating a Lepers Christmas and were giving them a Christmas dinner to them. At that moment we were told a great earth quake has come in the sea. We live 40 kms away from the sea coast in Andhra Pradesh state. We and our town are safe but most of the families lost their livelihood and have become orphans. Our Christmas joy did not last for a long time.

Immediately we attended the relief work in my state. My father and mother are involved in the relief work at the moment. Since we have college I need(ed) to come back to Chennai to attend my work in (seminary).

But the trauma of the people is so much worrying us. The epidemic diseases have started to spread and the aftermath of Tsunami is so horrific. My parents are involved in distributing clothes, medicines, and even providing fishing nets and boats to the fishermen, and the cooking vessels to the women.

The church is playing a mighty role and is very much involved in the relief work, and is witnessing the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Thank you for coming forward to render (your) help at this moment. Primarily we need (your) prayers support. Kindly ask your church and the seminary to join in praying for the victims here.