This page lists reports and commentary from all of January 2005

For items archived from December, 2004, click here.

Many friends have urged us to link to Bill Moyers' remarks upon receiving the Global Environmental Citizen Award from the Center for Health and the Global Environment at Harvard Medical School. Arguing that evangelical Christians and their views now dominate the political scene in Washington, he warns that their expectations of the impending apocalypse (as expressed most widely in Timothy LaHaye's "Left Behind" series) lead to their passionate support of Israel as the best way to bring on the return of Christ. And these views also lead to a careless attitude toward the environment - since God will take care of it all anyway.

Immokalee Farmworkers and their allies will gather at Yum Brands headquarters in Louisville, KY, on March 12^th, to repeat their demands for fair, more human treatment of agricultural workers by the fast-food industry. This rally, with actor and activist Martin Sheen -- star of TV's "The West Wing" - joining the rally.

The rally will climax the Taco Bell Truth Tour, which begins on Feb. 28 and ends on March 14.

Check out the latest update from the PCUSA Taco Bell Boycott.
Visit their own web page: http://www.pcusa.org/boycott/

After a heavy dose of "moral values" during the Inauguration festivities, a number of religious leaders, including some evangelicals, have been using the opportunity to insist that other issues, especially poverty, are both political and moral concerns.

The people cited by John Leland in a New York Times article include Robert Edgar, general secretary of the National Council of Churches; David J. Frenchak, president of the Seminary Consortium for Urban Pastoral Education; Jim Wallis of Sojourners magazine and Call to Renewal; and Glen E. Stassen, professor of Christian ethics at Fuller Theological Seminary.

The article also focuses on a nine-day course called the Poverty Immersion Experience, at Union Theological Seminary in New York City. Amy Gopp and other students have developed the course to provide a practical grounding for the moral values discussion. The course included a visit with a group of formerly homeless people in northeast Philadelphia who had organized to protest their condition.

The Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions - ICAHD - has endorsed the action of the 2004 General Assembly, calling for selective divestment from companies profiting from Israel's occupation of Palestinian territory.

There's a brief report on the ICAHD statement on their website, as well as the full text.

[The reference to the Presbyterian action is near the bottom of a fairly long page.]

A visitor adds her thoughts to our earlier postings on President Bush's inaugural address, and the many religious references it contained.

Regarding President Bush's references to religion, speech writer Michael Gerson makes apt comments on the 5th category - references to providence. He writes, "The important theological principle here, I believe, is to avoid identifying the purposes of an individual or a nation with the purposes of God. That seems presumption to me, and we've done our best to avoid the temptation."

It seems presumption to me, too, and I don't think it's been avoided nearly enough.

Blatant examples come to mind:

(1) Saying that America is the light that "shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it." This is what the Bible says about Christ or about the Word of God.

(2) Talk about America fighting evil, and all the nations of the world having to decide whether they're with us or against us. This is imagery that says God is on our side. We should not be surprised that some world observers regard us as being in a religious war.

(3) Suggesting that his presidency may be a divine appointment for a time such as this. President Bush undoubtedly feels this is true, but it's not an appropriate thing for him to state. He is the elected leader of a diverse nation. Let other people say it of him, if they wish. I find it an embarrassment for him to say it about himself.

In a list compiled by the Government Accountability Office of 25 federal government programs that are at high risk for fraud, waste, abuse and mismanagement, number that are directly related to the Department of Defense: 14

Ratio of the number of times the word "accountability" appears on the federal Department of Education's Web site to the number of times it appears on the Department of Defense's Web site: 444 to 1

Maybe you have to live in Minnesota to appreciate a Minnesotan's quasi-cultural analysis of the recent ELCA committee report on gay ordination and marriage. This is not the last word in theological analysis, but it's fun - and not entirely without truth.

He sums up the report in best Minnesota-nice fashion: "Nothing has changed essentially, we don't approve, though in a sense we do but probably not, but if you go ahead and do it, don't feel bad about it, we understand."

Presbyterian News Service has provided three reports from the meeting of the Presbyterian Health, Education and Welfare Association.

Pennsylvania pastor, Detroit elder take PHEWA honors

A pastor adept at keeping churches alive while steel towns die in the Monongahela River valley near Pittsburgh (The Rev. Bill Thomas), and Daniel Stoepker, a Detroit elder who continues to fight for better HIV/AIDS care, treatment and research despite the ravages of the disease in his own body were honored Jan. 15 by the Presbyterian Health, Education and Welfare Association (PHEWA) with its two top awards.

Domestic violence simulation reveals problems victims face

Presbyterians Against Domestic Violence Network (PADVN) put on a simulation game, "In Her Shoes," in which women participants got a taste of the world of battered women -- victims of domestic violence -- and the bewildering maze they must navigate to access the resources they need in order to survive.

Unconventional art works attract attention

As special art display featured works of art created by members of VSA arts of New Mexico, a Tucson group dedicated to providing creative learning and employment opportunities for people with disabilities or limited access to the arts.

On Monday, January 24 fourteen people - including two high school students - began federal trials for their acts of nonviolent civil disobedience calling for closure of the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (formerly SOA). The fourteen were among the more than 16,000 people who gathered on November 20-21 at Fort Benning to say no to the repression that WHINSEC represents.

The mass slaughter of Germany's Jews, 1.5.million at Auschwitz alone, was not incidental to Hitler's war aims, but their purest expression. This has long been an accepted historical truth, except in the strange world of the United Nations. This hole in history gave extra significance to a special General Assembly session Monday in which Secretary-General Kofi Annan broke with decades of disgraceful U.N. silence, enforced by anti-Semitic Arab states, about the murder of the Jews: "The United Nations must never forget that it was created as a response to the evil of Nazism, or that the horror of the Holocaust helped to shape its mission." Those words are true and overdue.

With its combination of sexuality and spirituality, romance and religion, Valentine's Day reveals a problem with Christian teaching as well as holding promise for its renewal. The Rev. Charles Henderson, Presbyterian minister and "Your Guide to Christianity" on about.com, looks at the holiday, its history and contemporary implications for Christianity in particular and American culture generally.

He concludes his brief essay:

A saint who went to his death defending young lovers against the abusive and arbitrary power of the state, may be be precisely what the church needs to dramatize its positive position with respect to human sexuality. But even more important, this secular festival of love may be an opportunity for individual Christians to see that God desires nothing more for each of us than that we find in loving relationships with each other, something of that love which is of God.

January 27 marks the 60^th anniversary of the liberation by Soviet troops of the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp which, with its gas ovens and crematoria, came to epitomize more than any other the horrors and efficiency of the Nazi death machine.

Kofi Annan honors the victims, the survivors, and those who tried to help - and reminds the nations that massive horrors against humanity continue

Kofi Annan, Secretary General of the United Nations, addressed a Special Session of the General Assembly on Jan. 24, remembering the terrible deeds of the Holocaust, honoring the victims and those few who tried to help them. He also recalled that other groups were subjected to similar treatment by the Nazis, and that the world, to its shame, still allows similar things to happen - in Cambodia, in Rwanda, in the former Yugoslavia, and now in Darfur, Sudan.

Also ...

Survivor Elie Wiesel looks back at the Auschwitz death factory 60 years later.

'This Cannot Be True' ... but It Was

Elie Wiesel, Nobel Peace laureate and a Holocaust survivor and author of 40 books, writes a Commentary essay in the Los Angeles Times. He notes that today "the world has grown used to seeing pictures and hearing stories of huge, frightening, nature-made or man-made catastrophes from places like Bosnia, Rwanda and South Asia. But Auschwitz remains a case apart. It is unique."

His closing lines:

One cannot conceive of Auschwitz with God or without God. Ever since, all certainties need to be reexamined, all theories reevaluated.

All we know is that Auschwitz did not descend ready-made from heaven. Human beings imagined it, built it, served it, used it against other human beings. When all is said and done, it represents a grave theological challenge to Christianity, an immoral abdication on the part of humankind.

Were the torturers still human beings? Was it human then to be inhuman?

Today, when I think of the guilty, I sense despair. But when I think of the survivors, I strangely discover a compelling promise of hope.

Beliefnet provides an annotated guide to the president's inaugural speech, with brief notes clarifying the many religious references in the speech.

Researchers at Yale and Columbia Universities announced the results of their second "index of environmental sustainability," produced in collaboration with the World Economic Forum. Finland, Norway and Uruguay held the top three spots in the ranking, while the United States ranked 45th of the 146 countries studied, behind such countries as Japan, Botswana and the tiny Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan, and most of Western Europe. The lowest-ranking country was North Korea, with Haiti, Taiwan, Iraq and Kuwait ranking near the bottom.

Studies show that responsible companies perform better financially ... so socially responsible investing pays off

A conference, Examining the Real Agenda of the Religious Far Right on April 29-30 in New York, is an opportunity to hear a remarkable and impressive group of experts on the Religious Right.

"Most of us get information and analysis about the Christian Right from a rather narrow band of information and perspective. This conference offers an engaging mix of journalists, academics, and independent thinkers who I think will broaden and deepen our knowledge and understanding of the Christian Right."

Manley Olson has written words to be sung to the tune 'Finlandia.' 

A Washington Post comment on the address is headlined:

"Bush's Words On Liberty Don't Mesh With Policies: U.S. Maintains Close Ties With Repressive Nations"

The article states:

President Bush's soaring rhetoric yesterday that the United States will promote the growth of democratic movements and institutions worldwide is at odds with the administration's increasingly close relations with repressive governments in every corner of the world. Some of the administration's allies in the war against terrorism -- including Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Uzbekistan -- are ranked by the State Department as among the worst human rights abusers. The president has proudly proclaimed his friendship with Russian President Vladimir Putin while remaining largely silent about Putin's dismantling of democratic institutions in the past four years. The administration, eager to enlist China as an ally in the effort to restrain North Korea's nuclear ambitions, has played down human rights concerns there, as well...

Meanwhile the Presbyterian Church has consistently expressed concern over violations of human rights by a number of these and other governments - many of which engage in violations of religious freedom for Christians and others. The "Human Rights Update" received by the 2004 General Assembly details these concerns.

The Los Angeles Times sums up Bush's address in the headline, "President Pledges to End 'Tyranny in Our World'."

At New York's Kennedy airport today, an individual later discovered to be a public school teacher was arrested trying to board a flight while in possession of a ruler, a protractor, a set square, a slide rule, and a calculator.

At a morning press conference, Attorney General John Ashcroft said he believes the man is a member of the notorious al-gebra movement. He is being charged by the FBI with carrying weapons of math instruction.

Al-gebra is a fearsome cult," Ashcroft said. "They desire average solutions by means and extremes, and sometimes go off on tangents in a search of absolute value.

They use secret code names like 'x' and 'y' and refer to themselves as 'unknowns', but we have determined they belong to a common denominator of the axis of medieval with coordinates in every country. As the Greek philosopher Isosceles used to say, 'There are 3 sides to every triangle'."

Church leaders, including Kirkpatrick, urge peace initiative

'Souper Bowl' hopes to score $5 million

Traditional anti-hunger event adds tsunami relief this year

SpongeBob SquarePants may be gay

The New York Times reports that Dr. James C. Dobson, the founder of Focus on the Family, has warned conservatives at a black-tie inauguration celebration dinner in Washington that SpongeBob has appeared in a "pro-homosexual video."

Will the Bush Administration's actions move Aceh towards peace or a continued descent into destruction?

Every year we gaze enviously at the lists of the richest people in world. Wondering what it would be like to have that sort of cash. But where would you sit on one of those lists? Here's your chance to find out.

A couple little notes:

Since the figures reflect per capita income, you may want to divide your household income by the number of members of your household. (Otherwise you may think you're richer than you are - which is probably rich enough.)

In case you're wondering ... the group that produces this provocative little item bases its calculations on data from the World Bank Development Research Group.

Since this site comes from a British group, we assume they won't report you to the IRS.

WEEK OF PRAYER FOR CHRISTIAN UNITY:
Link to Resources for This Annual Observance, January 18-25, 2005

The tsunami disaster in South Asia has given new urgency to questions of foreign aid, both governmental and non-governmental, both for disaster relief and for long-term development.

First, know what we give and how we give it

A recent editorial article in the Minneapolis Star Tribune compares the rates of giving per day, per person for 14 of the world's wealthiest nations.

Norway ranks first, with $1.02 per person being given in government aid, and another $.24 in private giving. The United States comes in 13^th of the 14, giving $.13 in government funds and another $.05 per person in private contributions.

Click here for the article.

NOTE: The print version of this article includes a graphic depiction of the rates of giving per day, per person in each of the 14 nations. If you're really interested in seeing that, click here.  The reproduction isn't perfect, but it may give you some idea of the list and the comparison.

UN study says world poverty can be halved by 2015

The Independent (U.K.) gathers a number of very good articles on questions of foreign aid and development, highlighting a report by the United Nations Millennium Project which which suggests that, if it chose to, the West could reduce world poverty by half by 2015, and thus prevent millions of unnecessary and premature deaths.

At the 46th annual meeting of the Society of Christian Ethics, many members proposed what they say is a powerful third alternative to absolute pacifism or the "just war" theory: the application of "just peacemaking theory" as a method of defusing current conflicts and preventing future wars.

John Sinclair, now in his eighty-first year, reflects on the Covenant Network conference held last November in Chicago, and put the conference, and the issues of sexuality and ordination and theology, in a long-term perspective.

Blue Gold:  The Fight to Stop the Corporate Theft of the World's Water

Alfred Davies reviews a book that outlines that crisis building as private corporations gain ownership and distribution rights over more and more of the world's water.

For more information on water rights issues:

The Water Rights Project of the Polaris Institute (a Canadian organization) carries on critical research and analysis on the world's largest water corporations

We have offered more than a few reports and comments reflecting a critical view of the American "war on terror."  We are happy now to present a more extended, and explicitly theological, critique of the war.  Dr. Peter C. Hodgson, an emeritus professor of theology in the Divinity School of Vanderbilt University, presented this as the Armstrong Lectures at Kalamazoo College, Kalamazoo, Michigan, October 21-22, 2004.   

An outline of the essay:

January 17 marks the observance of the birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr.  For your own reflection, or for use in worship or discussion, here are some good resources.

A litany

The Rev. Vicki Moss, chaplain at Davis & Elkins College in West Virginia, has prepared a litany using words from King's "I Have a Dream" speech, with responses reflecting current realities.

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The Presbyterian Peacemaking Program offers a number of worship resources to celebrate this day and to rededicate ourselves to living into God's vision of life together as articulated by Dr. King.

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The Institute for Peace and Justice provides good material, recommended by the Rev. Bruce Gillette.

Thirty-five Christian, Jewish and Muslim leaders have appealed to President George Bush to resume peace negotiations between Palestinians and Israelis.

The National Interreligious Leadership Initiative for Peace (NILIP) in the Middle East is a collaboration of the U.S. leadership of the three Abrahamic faiths -- Christians, Jews and Muslims -- and is a first in this arena.

The national leaders and heads of 28 organizations are also mobilizing local religious communities in U.S. cities to back this appeal to the president and to request support for it by their senators and representatives to Congress.

Lutherans Recommend Tolerance on Gay Policy

So reads the headline on the New York Times story of the ELCA task force report on ordination and same-sex holy unions.

The Rev. Margaret G. Payne, bishop of the church's New England Synod and chairwoman of the task force, is quoted as saying "I think this is about letting people be responsible to human conscience, rather than a capricious decision to let people do what they want to do."

ELCA Task Force on sexuality recommends "local option"

The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) appointed a task force in 2001 to deal with issues of the church and homosexuality, specifically on the blessing of same-sex unions and the ordination of non-celibate gay pastors. The group held its first meeting in May 2002, and has developed two studies entitled "Journey Together Faithfully."

Today the group has released its findings, which will be presented to the ELCA Churchwide Assembly in August for action.

Briefly, the group recommends that "congregations, synods, candidacy committees, and bishops [be entrusted] to discern the Holy Spirit’s gifts for ministry among the baptized and make judgments appropriate to each situation" in matters of ordination.  It also recommends that the blessing of same-sex unions (but not marriages) be permitted.

Three articles posted by The International Relations Center offer three differing analyses of America's response to the disaster in South Asia.

It's not how much we give, but why we give it

Tom Barry, policy director of the International Relations Center, says the amount of aid being promised by the US is not the main issue. Rather, we need to pay attention to the fact that international aid is now being managed with one goal in mind: America's strategic interests in the "war on terrorism."

The real issue is long-term development needs

David Bryden, Communications Director of Global AIDS Alliance, says too much attention is being focused on how much the US is giving in comparison to other nations. The real issue, though, in whether enough aid will be given to deal with the massive, long-term problems. It will be enough "only if the U.S. provides its fair share of what's required to tackle the problem, addressing not only the tsunami emergency but longer-term development challenges, including the lack of access to healthcare. Once the U.S. uses its clout to get all donor nations to do their fair share, it will be able to claim leadership in global assistance."

Public health will be a major concern

Julie Ajinkya, Student Outreach Coordinator for Foreign Policy In Focus, outlines the dimensions of the huge public health crisis that is likely to emerge from the disaster. "Poor infrastructure in this impoverished region and the policies of international financial institutions, such as the World Bank, have ensured that this natural disaster will turn into a public health nightmare."

Dear friends,

I am indeed very upset by the firings. I think we should request an independent inquiry, and use the questions Gordon puts forth as basic talking points. I was a Missionary Advisory Delegate at General Assembly and served on the Peacemaking Committee.

I am worried, concerned and downright puzzled by the firings. I have made my voice known to the appropriate persons at General Assembly. I hope that the divestment process continues as mandated by our General Assembly. I also hope that our staff persons are upheld as the crisis generated by our decision to divest causes pressure from interest groups inside and outside our Church.

Rev. Donna Laubach Moros D.Min.

Mission Co-worker at the Seminario Evangélico Unido de Teología
Madrid, Spain

Sponsored by the Interfaith Community for Palestinian Rights, Friends of Sabeel-North America, and Pax Christi USA, the gathering is slated for Feb. 11 and 12, 2005, at Austin Theological Seminary in Austin, Texas.

Leaders will include The Rev. Naim Ateek, Director, Sabeel Ecumenical Center, Jerusalem; The Rev. Dr. Donald Wagner, Director, Center for Middle East Studies, North Park University; and leaders of the Presbyterian, Episcopalian, Methodist, and Lutheran Churches, and Pax Christi USA.

The focus of the conference will be on the work of the churches for a just peace in Israel-Palestine.

If a new theology of Liberal activism is to develop Liberals in the Mainstream Denominations will have to consider an approach that is not distracted by the internecine struggles over issues upon which Evangelicals have declared that the battle for the heart and soul of the churches is to be waged, namely the issues of gay marriage and anti-abortion. In the mainstream denominations these are the focal issues upon which Evangelicals seek to assume power and disenfranchise or banish Liberals. Alternatively they wish to withdraw from the Mainstream Church community if power and control cannot be achieved. Perhaps a new Liberal theology and focus can be attained only when a division takes place as was the case over the issue of slavery before the American Civil War. Perhaps it is time that WE leave.

Shalom,
Stan Colenso

Bruce Gillette sends this commentary on the coming inauguration   [1-11-05]

The two faces of America

Progressives have often criticized the Bush administration for dividing the world in two: good and evil, us and them, our friends and the terrorists. But since the presidential election, some progressives seem to think it's just that kind of sharp - yes, dualistic - thinking that's needed if the progressive vision is to gain any credibility in American politics.

Robyn Blumner, writing in the St. Petersburgh Times, takes that approach, suggesting that the real dualism lies in America itself: "America as Jekyll and Hyde. We have our truly altruistic, highly principled and virtuous side, and then there is the side of self-dealing, malevolence and hypocrisy."

So what do you think? Is this kind of good-vs.-evil thinking helpful in today's political setting, or do progressives need a different way of understanding the situation?

Just send a note, and we'll share it here.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Other, Man-made Tsunami

The aid being promised to the nations devastated by the Indian Ocean tsunami is put in perspective by John Pilger, who compares it to the huge expenditures by the Bush and Blair governments to wreak untold damage and loss of life in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere. He also traces the links between British and Australian aid and the repressive policies and activities of the Indonesian military in Aceh.

Summing up his charges, he writes:

This other tsunami is worldwide, causing 24,000 deaths every day from poverty and debt and division that are the products of a supercult called neo-liberalism. This was acknowledged by the United Nations in 1991 when it called a conference in Paris of the richest states with the aim of implementing a "programme of action" to rescue the world's poorest nations. A decade later, virtually every commitment made by western governments had been broken, making the waffle of the British Chancellor (Treasurer) Gordon Brown about the Group of Eight "sharing Britain's dream" in ending poverty as just that: waffle.

But on the bright side, he adds:

The current outpouring of help for the tsunami victims among ordinary people in the west is a spectacular reclaiming of the politics of community, morality and internationalism denied them by governments and corporate propaganda.

Dead on. Who's working on the theology?

Ron McCreary

Ron.McCreary@Comcast.net
Garden City UMC, Jacksonville, FL USA
http://www.gbgm-umc.org/gardencityumc
"God holds a very wide net."

How do you reconcile your blatantly overt homosexual and Communist leanings with Christianity?

Douglas Ottati looks at the American culture after the presidential election, pondering the insecurity in which we live. He examines some of the temptations presented by that insecurity, including the corruptions of nation and family - while affirming at the same time their very real value. The challenge for progressive Christians today, he concludes, is to develop a deeper theology of culture from which we can both critique and affirm the major institutions of our society.

Also, don't miss these deadlines:

You'll find all of these items at www.councilofchurches.org

Press release from National Capital Presbytery, January 6, 2004

The Nonviolent Peaceforce is a voluntary organization based in St. Paul, Minnesota, and in Brussels, Belgium. Started a few years, they aim to train teams of people to work in areas of conflict, building on Ghandi's principles of nonviolence to bring peace between warring groups.

Their first team was sent to Sri Lanka over a year ago to help bring peace between the majority Sinhalese population and a rebel Tamil group. Here's a report of how this group is affected by the