Complexities of current Jewish-Christian dialogue highlighted; US faith leaders pray for civility in public political debate; Primate of Kenya hits out at Church of England lifting of gay bishop ban; Petition asks White House to officially recognize Catholic Church as a ‘hate group’; Syria death toll could be more than 60,000, says UN
Complexities of current Jewish-Christian dialogue highlighted
Core religious issues of Jewish-Christian relations intertwine with complex current political realities, says Dr Clare Amos, programme coordinator for inter-religious dialogue and cooperation at the World Council of Churches (WCC).070-411
The just-published issue of Current Dialogue, 53, edited by Amos, explores the ramifications of Jewish-Christian dialogue for Christian self-understanding.
The issue has been developed from papers offered in June 2010 in Istanbul, at a consultation organised by Amos’s predecessor, the Rev Dr Shanta Premawardhana, who now serves as president of the Seminary Consortium for Urban Pastoral Education in Chicago, United States.
The meeting itself, its introduction recounts, “brought together Protestant and Catholic theologians from Germany, other parts of Europe, and the USA who work intensively on Jewish Christian dialogue concerns, to engage in conversation with Middle Eastern and Orthodox theologians. In a significant and unusual development, there were also three Jewish observers present.”
It was also apparent during the course of the gathering that theological reflection by Christians in this field cannot be entirely separated from political pressures and concerns relating to the Middle East, said Dr Amos, and the publication reflects that reality.
Moreover, says Clare Amos, “there is the fundamental question of the relationship between Christianity and Judaism – what can briefly be summed up as the question of ‘supersessionism’ or ‘replacement theology.’ It was obvious at our meeting that the Christian world does not yet speak with one voice on this issue.”
Along with Amos and Premawardhana, feature contributors include Philip A. Cunningham, Bernd Schröder, Robert O. Smith, Demetrios E. Tonias, and Jesper Svartvik, as well as a host of specific denominational and regional perspectives.
* The issue is available online at www.oikoumene.org/current-dialogue.
US faith leaders pray for civility in public political debate
At a time when high-octane political wrangling continues apace, a diverse coalition of religious leaders is asking Americans to pray for civility.
“Through daily prayer, we are calling on the ’better angels of our nature’ needed to sustain our nation and solve problems,” said the Rev Peg Chemberlin, immediate past president of the National Council of Churches USA and one of the faith leaders taking part in “18 Days of Prayer for the Nation.”
Prayers began on 3 January 2012, the first day of the new Congress, and will end on 21 January, the day of President Obama’s second inauguration.
Faith leaders from left, right and centre have signed on, including Episcopal Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, Richard Land of the Southern Baptists’ Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission and Richard Cizik, president of the New Evangelical Partnership for the Common Good.
The Faith & Politics Institute, a nonpartisan group that nurtures the spiritual life of members of Congress and their staffs, and presses political foes toward civil debate, organised the days of prayer and an online “commitment to prayer” page to document participation.
It lists 27 clergy and others on day one, including Eboo Patel, a Muslim American who founded the Chicago-based Interfaith Youth Core, and Rabbi Steve Gutow, president and CEO of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs.
Lisa Sharon Harper, director of mobilising for the progressive Christian group Sojourners, left her prayer on the page, which reads in part: “Dear God, please move in the hearts of our legislators. Ignite in them a deep desire for the common good. Give them courage to lead and not merely follow the direction of the pundits and polls.”
Though various faith groups often separately encourage prayers for the country, such as the evangelical National Day of Prayer Task Force, it is rarer for so broad a group to organise a sustained national period of prayer.
The idea grew out of the institute’s 2012 “Better Angels Summit” of clergy from across the ideological spectrum. “Prayer partnerships” were forged at the summit, and one between Chemberlin, of the Moravian Church in America and Pierre Bynum of the conservative Family Research Council became the impetus for this month’s national call to prayer.
Those behind the initiative say they hope Americans, no matter their faith, pray for a climate where political leaders, among other virtues, “are quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry,” and “avoid attacking the character of others or falsely impugning their motives.”
Primate of Kenya hits out at Church of England lifting of gay bishop ban
by Jerome Taylor, Independent – The leader of a global group of traditional Anglicans has condemned the Church of England for “compromising with the secular preoccupations of the West” in an attack that significantly ratchets up the latest fallout between liberals and conservative over the thorny issue of homosexuality. Archbishop Eliud Wabukala, the Primate of Kenya and the leader of the influential Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans, made the comments in a statement reacting to the recent decision by the Church of England to lift the ban on gay but celibate men becoming bishops.
The Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans represents conservative congregations in North America, Europe, Africa, Asia and Australia who are vehemently opposed to same sex unions and gay clerics. They formed four years ago and threatened to break away from the global Anglican Communion if openly gay men continued to be welcomed as clerics in more liberal dioceses such as the United States and Britain.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/senior-anglican-condemns-gay-bishops-as-a-compromise-too-far-8440005.html
Petition asks White House to officially recognize Catholic Church as a ‘hate group’
By Peter Sprigg, LifeSite News – Homosexual activists have mounted a petition drive—right on the White House website—urging the Obama administration to “officially recognize the Roman Catholic Church as a hate group” for its position on homosexuality.
The Obama Administration has promised a formal response to any petitions on the site which obtain at least 25,000 signatures in thirty days.
The anti-Catholic petition says:
In his annual Christmas address to the College of Cardinals, Pope Benedict XVI, the global leader of the Roman Catholic Church, demeaned and belittled homosexual people around the world. Using hateful language and discriminatory remarks, the Pope painted a portrait in which gay people are second-class global citizens. Pope Benedict said that gay people starting families are threatening to society, and that gay parents objectify and take away the dignity of children. The Pope also implied that gay families are sub-human, as they are not dignified in the eyes of God.
Upon these remarks, the Roman Catholic Church fits the definition of a hate group as defined by both the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Anti-Defamation League.
This particular petition may be somewhat of an embarrassment to the leading homosexual activist groups. Ten days into its thirty-day petition period, it had obtained only 1,713 signatures.
However, the fact that such a petition was even mounted in the first place—and then allowed to remain on the White House website—illustrates the slippery slope of applying the defamatory label of “hate” to those who disapprove of homosexual conduct and resist the pro-homosexual political agenda.
Syria death toll could be more than 60,000, says UN human rights office
Data analysis suggests that the death toll in the ongoing conflict in Syria has surpassed 60,000, the United Nations human rights office said last week..
Preliminary analysis carried out by data specialists on behalf of the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) has led to the compilation of a list of 59,648 individuals reported killed in Syria between 15 March 2011 and 30 November 2012.
“Given there has been no let-up in the conflict since the end of November, we can assume that more than 60,000 people have been killed by the beginning of 2013,” said High Commissioner Navi Pillay said.
“The number of casualties is much higher than we expected, and is truly shocking,” she added.
According to a news release issued by OHCHR, the preliminary analysis, which took five months to complete, was conducted using a combined list of 147,349 reported killings, fully identified by the first and last name of the victims, as well as the date and location of the deaths.
Any reported killing that did not include at least these four elements was excluded from the list, which was compiled using datasets from seven different sources, including the Syrian Government.
The analysts noted that 60,000 is likely to be an underestimate of the actual number of deaths, given that reports containing insufficient information were excluded from the list, and that a significant number of killings may not have been documented at all by any of the seven sources.070-336