'Right is Wrong' Says Left, China, Racism & SYATP
- Religious Left says the Religious Right is Wrong
- Activists Accuse China of Cracking Down on Underground Churches
- New Churchwide Task Force Confronts Racism
- See You at the Pole 2002 Public Service Announcements Now Available
Religious Left says the Religious Right is Wrong
According to the Dallas Morning News, more than 500 people gathered in Texas for a one-day conference on "Fundamentalism's Threat to Democracy" that was more akin to a "revival meeting for the Religious Left." Sponsored by the Texas Freedom Network, the conference drew Jewish, Christian and Muslim scholars who talked about how conservative movements they call "fundamentalist" have impacted each faith. Organizers said they wanted to "offer answers to attacks from groups they characterized as the Religious Right."
The Texas Freedom Network formed in 1995 to fight back against what members call a "growing social and political influence of religious political extremists," said the Dallas Morning News. Planning for the event began soon after Sept. 11.
The conference kicked off with a sermon from Rev. James Forbes, senior minister of The Riverside Church in New York City, an "interdenominational, interracial and international" congregation. According to Forbes, "the challenge is to come up with a way to do interfaith work without denying the particular claims of each faith. I'm a Bible-believing Christian," he said. "This is calling me out of my cozy comfort zone."
Dr. Ali Asani, professor of the practice of Indo-Muslim languages and culture at Harvard University, said Muslim fundamentalism is a recent development. "Oil money has made a specific strain of Islam - one that asserts an absolute superiority of the Quran and a particular interpretation of the text - much more influential that it would otherwise be," he said.
Activists Accuse China of Cracking Down on Underground Churches
A group of Chinese religious activists said Friday that close to 70 Christians have disappeared or been secretly arrested in China in recent months, according to AP. The Christians participate in underground or house churches that operate outside the communist government's control, said the New York-based Committee for Investigation on Persecution of Religion in China. Some scholars have estimated that the number of house church members could be as high as 60 million. China's "official" Christian churches have about 15 million members.
According to AP, the crackdown could be related to the Communist Party's national congress, a major meeting of China's leaders that takes place about once every five years. "Authorities usually arrest political and religious activists and others who might embarrass the Communist Party during such high-profile events. The government has yet to announce the date for the congress, expected to be held in the fall," said AP.
New Churchwide Task Force Confronts Racism
From UMNS -- A new United Methodist task force is pulling together people from throughout the denomination's agencies to study ways to combat racism in the church, and to enable healing and reconciliation around the issue. When the church formally apologized in 2000 for racism, many of its own African-American members complained about having been overlooked in the process - that the apology was directed more to members of the three predominantly black Methodist denominations. Some said the church should have apologized to its own African-American members first.
A "deeper, more internal step" was necessary, says the Rev. Gilbert Caldwell of Denver. In response, the Interagency Task Force on Racism has been formed to address racism issues in the church in a more coordinated way. Representatives from all of the church's general agencies and possibly other organizations are expected to participate in the group, administered by the United Methodist General Council on Ministries in Dayton, Ohio. The task force wants to go beyond black-white issues, to look at the whole impact of racism and racial and cultural sensitivity, says Nelda Barrett Murraine, a staff executive with the General Council on Ministries. The group met for the first time in July in Dallas.
"Our racial legacy in terms of people of African descent has shaped our church in many ways, and we, of course, need to understand that," Caldwell says. Key parts of that legacy have included the formation of "breakaway" denominations - the African Methodist Episcopal, African Methodist Episcopal Zion and Christian Methodist Episcopal churches - and the creation in 1939 of the racially segregated Central Jurisdiction, abolished with the 1968 merger of the Methodist and Evangelical United Brethren churches.
See You at the Pole 2002 Public Service Announcements Now Available
Students throughout the U.S. will join together around their school flagpoles on Wednesday, Sept. 18 for the 13th annual See You at the Pole (SYATP). "Oh, that you would burst from the heavens and come down" is the 2002 See You at the Pole theme, quoting from Isaiah 64:1-2. See You at the Pole is a student-initiated and student-led movement that started in the Ft. Worth suburb of Burleson, Texas, in 1990. During the past 12 years, millions of young people have joined hands to pray for their schools as part of the event, asking God to bring moral and spiritual awakening to their campuses and their countries.
In 2001, barely a week after the terrorist attacks on America of September 11, more than 3 million young people met for SYATP in all 50 states of the United States. There were also reports from countries on six continents, including Australia, Canada, Cayman Islands, China, Finland, Ghana, Hungary, Ireland, Japan, Kenya, S. Korea, Mexico, Netherlands, Nigeria, Philippines, Puerto Rico, S. Africa, Swaziland, Taiwan, Thailand, and the United Kingdom.
The Public Service CD includes 15 spots of varying lengths from Christian artists such as Rebecca St. James, Newsboys, Jaci Velasquez, Out of Eden and Skillet. The CD also includes PSAs from Christian communicators Chuck Swindoll, Josh McDowell, and Dawson McAllister. For more information, e-mail Robertnsdm@aol.com
Originally published August 27, 2002.
