Resources
Session Three: May 14, 2008
Struggling with Religious Diversity: Rekindling Respect
Following is a list of religious articles from various sources that have recently been in the news. These articles are examples of how religious diversity transcends all societies and sub-cultures, becoming an important point of controversy and discussion in our everyday lives.
China Orders Tibetans 'Reeducated' about Dalai Lama
(China), April 8, 2008 The Los Angeles Times
In an effort to quell unrest, Communist Party officials are ordering Tibetans back to school.
Buddhist monks, civil servants and public school students have been instructed to attend special classes in the virtues of Chinese rule and the evils of their exiled leader, the Dalai Lama. In these classes, the Tibetans read and recite from texts that denounce the Dalai Lama as a "political reactionary" and a "betrayer of the motherland."
Ten Commandments Back in Court
(Utah, Nation-wide) Apr 8, 2008 The Los Angeles Times
When the Supreme Court ruled 46 years ago that official prayers in public schools violated the 1st Amendment, it infuriated those who claimed that public institutions should reflect the fact that this is "one nation, under God" -- the God of the Jewish and Christian Scriptures, that is.
In recent years, however, supporters of religion in the "public square" often have taken a different tack, arguing not that this is a Christian (or Judeo-Christian) nation but that individual believers have a free-speech right to express their religious views on government property. For example, the American Center for Law and Justice, a public-interest law firm founded by religious broadcaster Pat Robertson, is "dedicated to the ideal that religious freedom and freedom of speech are inalienable, God-given rights."
What government may not do, the high court said as long ago as 1947, is "set up a church [or] pass laws which aid one religion, aid all religions, or prefer one religion over another." Given that precedent, the state of Texas argued a few years ago that a Ten Commandments monument on the grounds of the state Capitol didn't violate the 1st Amendment because it was part of a "museum-like setting" that featured other messages. Besides, the "driving purpose" of the display was to symbolize secular law. By a 5-4 vote, the court upheld the display.
Buddha's Birthday 'For All Cultures'
(New Zealand) Apr 7, 2008, Times
BUDDHA'S birthday celebrations at the Fo Guang Shan Buddhist temple in Botany on Sunday will be a day for all cultures and religions to come together, the organisers say.
"It's to foster a better understanding of other cultures and religious groups," says temple manager Rev Man Wang.
"Buddhism accepts diversity and teaches people to work for the happiness of all people regardless of their faith, race and background."
This is the third year the festival has been held there and thousands of families from all walks of life have attended the events.
Woman Who Grabbed Turban is Not Charged With Hate Crime
(New Jersey) Apr 4, 2008, SikhNet
The Sikh Coalition is dismayed by the Hudson County prosecutor's decision not to charge a January assault on Hansdip Singh as a bias crime. The Coalition learned yesterday that the prosecutor's office instead is charging Carrie Covello, who attempted to remove Mr. Singh's turban in public, with harassment, a non-bias-related charge.
The assault occurred on January 29, 2008. Hansdip Singh, a Sikh New Jersey resident, was standing in the Madison Grill in Hoboken when a woman behind him grabbed his turban and attempted to pry it from his head. She had almost succeeded by the time Mr. Singh turned around to confront her. When he did so, the woman remarked that she had a problem with "that stuff" on his head, and told him to "take it off."
The Sikh Coalition is deeply troubled by the Hudson County Prosecutor's suggestion that telling a Sikh to remove his turban and physically attempting to do so is not intimidating enough to rise to the level of a bias crime.
Leaders Urge Obama to Make Religion Speech
(Nation-wide), Apr 3, 2008, Religion News Service/The Pew Forum
The first Muslim elected to Congress on Thursday (April 3) urged Sen. Barack Obama to show "transcendant leadership" by tackling issues of religion -- including allegations that Obama is a Muslim -- in the same way he addressed racial divisions.
"Religious pluralism is under threat," Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minn., said at a forum on Capitol Hill. "A candidate who could pull off a speech (on religion) that would allow us to be who we are, and at the same time tolerate others and be proud of the religious diversity of this country would be a great service."
According to a Pew Research Center poll published last month, one in 10 Americans believe Obama is a Muslim, despite denials from Obama and his campaign and his well-publicized membership at a Chicago megachurch.
The Rev. Jim Wallis, a progressive evangelical leader, praised Obama's handling of his former pastor's controversial statements in his March 18 speech on race, and called on the senator to "do the equivalent" on relations with Islam.
Nepal Election Violence Grows, UN Says; Mosque Blast Kills Two
(Nepal), Mar 31, 2008, Bloomberg
Violence in Nepal before next week's general election is intensifying, the United Nations said, as a bomb attack on a mosque in the east killed two people.
Parties must ''act immediately to end the cycle of violence and retaliation,'' the UN Mission in Nepal said in a report on the election campaign. The government must bring to justice the perpetrators of the March 29 mosque attack in Biratnagar, a city about 200 kilometers (125 miles) southeast of the capital, Kathmandu, the UN said.
Muslims should show restraint and maintain communal harmony, Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala said. ''This kind of violent incident will have no effect on the election,'' he said at his home in Biratnagar yesterday, according to Nepalnews.com.
Nepal's general election, scheduled for April 10, is the first nationwide ballot since a November 2006 peace accord ended a decade-long insurgency in the Himalayan kingdom by communist rebels fighting for a republic. Voters will elect an assembly to draw up a new constitution and decide at its first meeting whether to scrap the monarchy after almost 240 years.
Muslims More Numerous Than Catholics
(Vatican City), Mar 30, 2008, ABC News/AP
Islam has surpassed Roman Catholicism as the world's largest religion, the Vatican newspaper said Sunday.
"For the first time in history, we are no longer at the top: Muslims have overtaken us," Monsignor Vittorio Formenti said in an interview with the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano. Formenti compiles the Vatican's yearbook.
He said that Catholics accounted for 17.4 percent of the world population — a stable percentage — while Muslims were at 19.2 percent.
Praying Passenger Removed from Flight
(New York), Mar 17, 2008, MSNBC.com
An Orthodox Jewish man who left his seat to pray in the back of a plane before it took off, ignored flight attendants' orders to return to his seat and was consequently removed by an airport security gaurd.
While the flight attendents were urging him to take his seat, two of his friends tld them that the man couldn't stop until his prayers were over, in about two minutes.
When the man finally stopped prayig, he stated that we was not trying to be rude but was simply unable to interrupt his religious ritual. The attendants summoned a guard to remove him and he was put on another flight Thursday morning.
Robin Urbanski, spokeswoman for United Airlines, said that flights cannot depart if all passengers are not in their seats and it is important that all passengers listen to the intstructions of the flight crew.
Faith Groups 'Contribute £100m'
(United Kingdom), Mar 11, 2008, BBC News
Religious and faith organisations contribute more than £100m in economic benefits to Wales, a report says. But the groups have little in return, with barely a quarter of faith communities getting public funding, the research found. According to the study, around 40,000 unpaid volunteers do 80,000 hours of community work a week and it discovered faith communities maintain more than 1,600 listed buildings with 2.5m visitors annually.
Hindu Prayer Opens State Legislatures for the First Time
(Arizona), Mar 28, 2008, Asian Week
Rajan Zed first sprinkled holy water from the Ganges River in India (Ganga jal) on the podium, a tradition in Hindu worship ceremony, before chanting "Om," which in Hinduism is used to introduce and conclude religious work. This marked the first recitation of the Hindu prayer to open a state Senate session in the history of the Arizona state Senate and House of Representatives in Phoenix on March 24.
Poll: 1 in 10 Get Obama's Religion Wrong
(Nation-wide), Mar 27, 2008, Yahoo! News/AP
One in 10 voters believes Barack Obama is Muslim, a mistaken impression that lingers across party lines, a poll showed Wednesday.
Fourteen percent of Republicans, 10 percent of Democrats and 8 percent of independents mistakenly think he is Muslim, according to a survey by the nonpartisan Pew Research Center. Just over half of each group correctly identified him as Christian, while about a third said they don't know his religion.
At Harvard, Students' Muslim Traditions Are a Topic of Debate (Massachusetts), Mar 21, 2008, The New York Times Two issues of Muslim practice — whether the call to prayer should ring out across Harvard Yard and whether the university should grant women separate gym hours — have unleashed small waves of controversy over how Harvard practices tolerance.
Heated discussions have erupted on dormitory chat rooms, students said, while various opinion articles in the student newspaper, The Harvard Crimson, have denounced both practices.
Texas Board of Education Approves Elective Bible Course for High Schools
(Texas), Mar 28, 2008, The Dallas Morning News
Broad guidelines for a Bible course in Texas high schools were approved by the State Board of Education on Friday, but board members delayed action on specific curriculum requirements until the attorney general has ruled whether all school districts must offer the course.
Board members approved a rule establishing the elective course on a 13-2 vote. The course is supposed to be available in high schools by the fall of 2009.
Critics said the failure to approve specific content standards for the course could lead to some teachers promoting their own religious views or cause other constitutional problems that result in lawsuits against school districts.
Religion an Unanticipated Visitor to China for Olympic Games
(China, International), Feb 25, 2007, The Press-Enterprise
When Cardinal Roger Mahony of Los Angeles visited Beijing last year, he posed a question that stumped his Chinese hosts: Have you considered the religious practices of athletes, officials and visitors attending the 2008 Olympic Games?
The answer was "No," Zhong Jianhua, China's consul general in Los Angeles, said in an interview and a speech to the World Affairs Council of Inland Southern California in Riverside this month.
Now, the People's Republic of China -- a nation the U.S. State Department has listed as a "country of particular concern" since
1999 because of religious persecution -- is preparing for more than 500,000 foreign visitors, among them practitioners of the world's major religions.
Since Mahony's visit, Olympic organizers have developed plans to provide for a variety of religions, from Hinduism, Buddhism and Christianity to Sunni and Shia Islam, Zhong said. The religious diversity of the Games' participants will challenge a communist government that regulates churches, the Internet and the ability to assemble in public, some religious-freedom advocates said.
Every Olympic Games includes a multifaith center in the Olympic Village for athletes and team officials, Giselle Davies, a spokeswoman for the International Olympic Committee, said in an e-mail.
Playing with Fire: Mixing Politics and Religion Can Be a Dangerous Game
(Nation-wide), Mar 1, 2008, Conscience
Less than two months before Iowans would go to their caucuses, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops issued a "faithful citizenship statement" urging Catholics to "use the values of their faith to shape their political choice." While the statement didn't tell Catholics which candidates to vote for (or against), it reminded them of the "necessity" to oppose abortion and euthanasia and the obligation to promote the common good.
Sources:
The Pluralism Project. http://www.pluralism.org/index.php © 1997-2008, MSNBC.com. "Praying passenger removed from flight." Accessed online April 18, 2008, http://www.msnbc.msn.com, http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.sainttimothylutheran.org, http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.aliciapatterson.org, http://www.takegreatpictures.com/content/images/vincentlaforet_20.jpg
Session Six: Thu, Nov 13, 2008
Confronting Global Diversity: Imagining a Wide Circle of Inclusion
Patricia Digh
David Robinson