Zoroastrians and Conversion

Zoroastrians, Divided Over Conversion, Face a Shrinking Future

RNS' Rana Rosen looks at the future of Zoroastrianism, a faith that forbids converts, and whose numbers are dwindling, in this week's full-text article, linked above.

Quote:

Now, the still-raging conversion disagreement -- mostly between Zoroastrian immigrants in North America and hard-line conservatives in India who have preserved the community there for more than 1,000 years -- has prompted a new soul-searching question: Are they are a religion open to all or an insular ethnic line with common ancestors?

The fate of the world's dwindling Zoroastrian community may depend on the answer. And each camp -- the "orthodoxy" and the "reformists," as they are called -- resents the question.

Move Over, Oprah

Muslim Magazines Discover an Untapped Market


RNS' Omar Sacirbey profiles the emerging market for Muslim-focused consumer magazines in the US, in this week's full-text RNS article, linked above.

Quote:

Muslim Girl, with circulation approaching 50,000, is the latest of several new magazines catering to Muslim Americans. Although they reach for distinct demographics -- teenagers, professionals, mothers and even secular Muslims -- they share a common motivation: to define themselves at a time when many feel Muslims have surrendered that responsibility to a Western media that often gets them wrong.

Episcopalians reject foreign oversight; 10 minutes with Mustafa Ceric; Passover menu options; New home for a synagogue; Sanhedrin High Court's revival

Wednesday's RNS report includes a news story by Daniel Burke about Episcopal bishops rejecting a plan for foreign oversight: Episcopal Bishops late Tuesday (March 20) flatly rejected a plan to give foreign Anglicans a place in governing the Episcopal Church, saying it would be "injurious" to the church. Meeting at their annual spring retreat in Navasota, Texas, the Episcopal House of Bishops staunchly defended their turf, fending off overseas conservatives' plan to gain a toehold in the U.S. Though each of the 38 regional churches in the Anglican Communion are autonomous, foreign primates have stepped into the Episcopal Church, the communion's U.S. branch, to help fellow conservatives in recent years. The Episcopal bishops' rejection may lead to greater fissures among the world's 77 million Anglicans, who are fracturing over homosexuality and the Bible.

Omar Sacirbey spent 10 Minutes With ... Mustafa Ceric: Omar Sacirbey talks with Mustafa Ceric, the grand mufti of Bosnia and Herzegovina, about his struggle to promote moderate Islam and how he engineered reconciliation in his war-torn country.

We're also running a Passover package of three stories today. In the first, by Nicole Neroulias, Jews mull modern menu options for Passover: Every time her birthday falls during Passover, Melissa Hantman of Rochester, N.Y., stifles a sigh and looks for a palatable but permissible dessert to offer party guests. Her spiritual stomachaches have given way to philosophical headaches lately, as the 27-year-old Reform Jew ponders whether the growing range of kosher-for-Passover delights somehow defeats the purpose of the weeklong holiday. Jews traditionally observe Passover, which begins April 2 this year, by adhering to strict dietary laws. For thousands of years, the holiday's dietary staple, matzo, was a simple cracker created by baking a flour-and-water mixture for 18 minutes. But with kosher food producers now offering flavored varieties and seeking mainstream markets, consumers like Hantman are beginning to wonder: What happens when the biblical "bread of affliction" becomes a tasty treat?

A synagogue gets a lesson in wandering toward a permanent home, writes G. Jeffrey MacDonald: For the past 26 years, members of the tiny Temple Shalom synagogue in Fayetteville, Ark., have celebrated the Lord's Passover without a building to call their own. But that's about to change, thanks to an uncommon act of charity that stands to infuse their holiday with new significance and, members hope, be a catalyst for conflict resolution far beyond Arkansas. Temple Shalom has accepted a pledge from a local developer to donate his time and erect a 6,600-square-foot facility without taking any profit. What makes the pledge even more unusual is that it comes from a Muslim Palestinian who grew up seeing Jews as the people who divided his family, bombed his West Bank village and forced him to flee into nearby mountains for safety.

Deborah Pardo-Kaplan reports on a revival of the Sanhedrin High Court for Passover: In a donated apartment concealed among the narrow streets of the Nahlaot suburb of Jerusalem, 13 Orthodox Jewish men meet every Tuesday to discuss and decide on matters of Jewish law. They are the management team of a larger developing Sanhedrin, or religious court, in Israel. With their most recent plan to sacrifice sheep on the Temple Mount on the day before or one month after Passover, they hope to thrust their ideals forward. The Passover sacrifice is the latest of more than 40 legal decisions made by this modern Sanhedrin. In antiquity, the Sanhedrin determined Jewish practice. It now rules on political and religious issues and ultimately sees itself as the alternative to the secular Supreme Court of Israel.

Ouch! The Precept of Non-Harm

Showing how seriously they take the Buddhist precept of non-harm (don't kill, maim, or otherwise do violence to any sentient beings) monks in Malaysia are trying to deal peacefully with an infestation of fire ants. One visitor was bitten so badly he had to receive hospital treatment. They've tried vacuuming the ants, to no avail. Wonder what's next on their list?

WWJD? NAE Stands Firm

Evangelicals Affirm Stance on Environment, Oppose Torture

RNS' Adelle M. Banks reports that the National Association of Evangelicals has supported a staffer that some thought to be "too environmentally friendly" and endorsed a statement condemning torture, in this week's full-text article, linked above.

But James Dobson won't be happy.

Quotes:

Focus on the Family Chairman James Dobson and two dozen other evangelical leaders had asked the board to consider ousting the Rev. Richard Cizik, the NAE's vice president for governmental affairs, because of his "relentless campaign" against global warming.

and

In a March 1 letter to NAE Board Chairman L. Roy Taylor, Dobson and other signatories had expressed concern that Cizik and others were moving the emphasis of evangelicals from the "great moral issues of our time," including abortion and homosexuality.

Evangelization Campaign

Quote of the Day: Lutheran Presiding Bishop Mark Hanson

"I suppose one of my greatest frustrations in six years as presiding bishop is, it just feels like we haven't been able to turn around what I think is a deep ambivalence and resistance in this church to being what we claim in our name, and that's evangelical."

-- Evangelical Lutheran Church of America Presiding Bishop Mark Hanson, announcing a campaign to distribute $10,000 to each of the denomination's 65 synods to use for evangelization. He was quoted by the ELCA News Service.

Evangelicals on the environment; Pope on church's social teachings; Fair trade

Evangelicals are affirming their stance on the environment, writes Adelle M. Banks in Tuesday's RNS report: Leaders of the National Association of Evangelicals have affirmed their stance on caring about the environment -- indirectly rebuffing complaints that a staffer was too environmentally friendly -- and endorsed a statement condemning torture. Focus on the Family Chairman James Dobson and two dozen other evangelical leaders had asked the board to consider ousting the Rev. Richard Cizik, the association's vice president for governmental affairs, because of his "relentless campaign" against global warming. But NAE interim President Leith Anderson said no formal action was taken on the request by Dobson and the others. Instead, board members reaffirmed their document supporting "an evangelical call to public engagement," which embraces care for the creation.

The pope says church social teaching is `not negotiable', reports Francis X. Rocca: Pope Benedict XVI on Tuesday (March 13) reaffirmed church teachings on divorce and priestly celibacy and said Catholic politicians have a duty to follow church doctrine on abortion, euthanasia and same-sex marriage. In a follow-up letter based on last year's Synod of Bishops meeting, Benedict said lawmakers are bound to "introduce and support laws inspired by values grounded in human nature," including "respect for human life, its defense from conception to natural death, (and) the family built upon marriage between a man and a woman." Those values, the pope said, are "not negotiable."

Joanna Corman looks at a coffee company in Sacramento that takes fair trade one step further: For the 15 years he spent working for a company that negotiated the lowest possible prices for coffee beans, Tom Angus was able to remain "mentally disconnected" from the poverty he saw in the eyes of South American coffee growers. Yet when his pastor would talk about living out one's faith, something would nag at him. By 2003, Angus could no longer ignore that nagging feeling and quit his job. In May 2004, with his friend and fellow parishioner Betty "Jinxi" Allen, the pair started Beneficio Coffee. Most Fair Trade companies buy coffee from coffee growers' cooperatives for $1.26 a pound; Beneficio pays $1.39, plus a separate wage for coffee processors. After deducting its expenses, Beneficio channels 20 percent of its proceeds back to the farming communities, and sends an additional 10 percent to a charity of the buyer's choice.

Katherine Boyle notes that fair trade sales are taking off: As Fair Trade sales skyrocket across the nation, programs reaching out to the faithful have sold more coffee, handicrafts and chocolate from Third World countries than ever before. "Fair trade gives people of faith the option of an ethical consumer choice," said Kattie Sommerfeld, the fair trade projects coordinator at Lutheran World Relief, whose handicraft sales have doubled over the past year. Internationally established Fair Trade minimum prices are set by the Fairtrade Labelling Organizations. Prices are based on the cost of production, a sustainable income for the farmer and "living wages" for workers, and include a 5 percent per-pound premium that goes to a farming cooperative for investment in social projects and infrastructure improvements in the country of origin.

Comedian Jokes About Christian Doctor

Quote of the Day: Comedian Stephen Colbert of "The Colbert Report"

"This latest case is a real breakthrough. It's not Christian medical professionals refusing to provide treatment they don't approve of. It's Christian medical professionals refusing to provide treatment to people they don't approve of."

-- Comedian Stephen Colbert of "The Colbert Report" on a California doctor who refuses to treat patients who don't adhere to his Christian values.

DallasNews Religion: Mohler suggests fetus intervention to stop homosexuality

Adelle Banks' story about Al Mohler's suggestion that gay fetuses should be turned straight has attracted quite a bit of chatter over at the Dallas Morning News blog ...

If you're joining the conversation a little late, Mohler, the president of the Southern Baptists' flagship seminary in Louisville, Ky., floated the idea that if a method was developed to turn gay babies straight, Christian parents should use it "unapologetically":

8. If a biological basis is found, and if a prenatal test is then
developed, and if a successful treatment to reverse the sexual orientation to
heterosexual is ever developed, we would support its use as we should
unapologetically support the use of any appropriate means to avoid sexual
temptation and the inevitable effects of sin.

9. We must stop confusing the issues of moral responsibility and moral
choice. We are all responsible for our sexual orientation, but that does not
mean that we freely and consciously choose that orientation. We sin against
homosexuals by insisting that sexual temptation and attraction are predominately
chosen. We do not always (or even generally) choose our temptations.
Nevertheless, we are absolutely responsible for what we do with sinful
temptations, whatever our so-called sexual orientation.

The suggestion is astounding on several levels -- one, Mohler seems to now think that being gay is based on genes, which is completely different from what most evangelicals have said in the past. Two, it would suggest that if a baby is born gay, then God must have made him or her that way, which raises all sorts of questions of whether parents should try to "change" something created by God.

Perhaps most importantly, it raises the question of which genetic traits are worth changing -- skin color, temperment, you name it ...

Zagano Dukes It Out with O'Reilly

Our intrepid new columnist, Phyllis Zagano, raised the hackles of Fox pundit Bill O'Reilly with a column that faulted O'Reilly for stooping to the same level of gutter-talk that he found so objectionable in John Edwards' ill-fated bloggers.

Here's a sample:

O'REILLY: When people -- religious people see their religion attacked,they're going to get angry. And some of them are going to overreact andthreaten these women, and they did. But I get threats every day that.That doesn't justify it. I'm not pointing to bad behavior to justify it.

But you said that it was a low blow. I didn't do anything that was low. I reported accurately. And that I was nasty, I wasn't nasty. I wasn't atall. We gave these women time to come to sit where you are, to explain themselves. They wouldn't.

We went over backwards for Edwards. And he basically -- and then you objected to the fact -- this is interesting. I said on this broadcast that the Edwards people gave us the middle digit. Right? And you objected to that.

ZAGANO: I do.

O'REILLY: That's exactly what they gave us, madam.

ZAGANO: Well, that may be true, but it's not necessary for you to talk like that.

O'REILLY: I can't tell the truth about how they behaved?

ZAGANO: Why do you have to use vulgarities?

O'REILLY: Middle digit is a vulgarity? I thought that was pretty cleanedup.

ZAGANO: Well, it is for your age. That's what I said, you're choosingthe vulgarity of your age group.

The column that got him so upset is here. Zagano held her own O'Reilly's show, and O'Reilly reponds here.

People of Action

Quote of the Day: Eastern Mennonite University President Loren Swartzendruber

"We're a people who don't always talk a lot about our faith. But we do put it into action."

-- Eastern Mennonite University President Loren Swartzendruber, in response to the Mennonite churches who offered their homes and prayers to mourning families at Bluffton University after a bus crashed carrying Bluffton baseball players to a game against Eastern Mennonite University, killing six people. He was quoted by the Associated Press.

It's Been 17 years Since My Last Confession...

Church Tries to Lure Catholics Back to the Confessional

RNS' Daniel Burke writes on Washington Archibishop Donald Wuerl's efforts to bring Catholics back to the confessional during Lent, in this week's full-text article, linked above.

Quote:

...in his first major enterprise in the nation's capital, the archbishop unleashed a media blitz on Ash Wednesday -- papering the archdiocese with 100,000 brochures, placing ads on the radio and in public transportation hubs, and erecting a billboard with the message "The Light Is On For You" along a major Washington-area highway. Yesterday's fire and brimstone are this year's marketing campaign.

Wuerl said his plan was hatched after talking to penitents who had confessed after many years away from the sacrament. In priestly parlance, this is called catching the "big fish." As in, "I landed a 17-year fish...."

Bono Speaks Out About the AIDS Emergency

Quote of the Day: U2 Singer Bono

(RNS) "To those in the church who still sit in judgment on the AIDS emergency, let me climb into the pulpit for just one moment because whatever thoughts we have about God, who he is or even if God exists, most will agree that God has a special place for the poor."

-- U2 lead singer and AIDS activist Bono, speaking after receiving the NAACP Image Awards Chairman's Award on March 2.

Um, is Buddhist Sect a Cult? Gary Thinks So

Someone named "Old Gary," who describes himself as a "product of fast women, slow horses, and warm beer," thinks Soka Gakkai -- profiled in a recent RNS story by Dan Burke -- is a cult.

Or at least that's what "cult expert" Rick Ross says in his post that Gary linked to. Ross say Soka Gakkai is akin to Scientology, with its celebrity adherents like Orlando Bloom and Tina Turner, and calls it a "totalitarian organization" with a get-rich scheme that attracts followers.

Ross quotes Billy Graham on "cults":

"One characteristic of many cults is that they are led by a strong leader
who demands total and absolute obedience from his followers,” Graham said. Rep.
Johnson’s constituents might just want to consider what “obedience” SGI and
Ikeda may expect from the newly elected congressman."

Evangelical Dissent

Bruce Tomaso over at the Dallas Morning News has posted our story by Adelle Banks about efforts by some leading evangelicals to oust the green-minded vice president of the National Association of Evangelicals, Rich Cizik.

It's worth noting, as Adelle points out, that none of the people who want Cizik out of the NAE actually belong to the NAE.

L'Chaim!

Bruce Tomaso over at the Dallas Morning News has our story out of Jerusalem about Orthodox Jews confronting the problem of alcohol abuse surrounding Purim. One American teenager in rehab in Jerusalem put it this way:

“I realize now that Purim is a holy day, and while it’s OK for a person to drink to be happy, everything needs to be done in moderation.”

Founder of Splashgear

Quote of the Day: Shereen Sabet of Muslim swimwear store

"Nothing in the Quran says women and men can't swim or scuba dive together. It's just a question of finding a solution."

-- Shereen Sabet, a Muslim microbiologist at California State University who founded Splashgear, an online swimwear store for Muslim women.

Black Muslims and the Struggle for Authenticity

Second-Generation Black Muslims Face New Challenges

RNS's Omar Sacirbey looks at the post-Nation of Islam generation of African Americans in this week's full-text article, linked above.


Quote:

Now in their 20s, 30s and 40s, this new generation, born into the faith, confronts new challenges, starting with the perception that all black Muslims are converts, members of the Nation of Islam or somehow not quite "authentic."