The Cornwall Alliance, a prominent group of religious thinkers in the US, explains why it urges followers to 'resist the Green Dragon'

Watching from afar how the environmental debate plays out in the US can be perplexing for many onlookers. Arguably, nowhere is the so-called "culture war" between left and right so heavily fought.

What is often not fully absorbed by onlookers, though, is the underlying role that religious doctrine – or "pulpit power" - plays in the environmental debate in the US. On the one hand, you have the "Creation Care" movement which is prevalent in some quarters of the Christian Church. On the other, particularly among evangelicals, you often see a vitriolic reaction aimed towards environmentalism.

Just last month, a survey of 1,000 Protestant pastors found that 41% strongly disagreed with the statement: "I believe global warming is real and manmade." The survey also found that 52% of the pastors address the issue of the environment with their churches once a year or less, with evangelical pastors speaking less often on the environment than mainline pastors.

When, in 2007, I interviewed the Bishop of London in the midst of his "fast" from flying, I asked him about this issue. He was scornful of evangelicals who "justify and sanctify irresponsible, anti-social behaviour" though a very literal interpretation of the Old Testament's "mythological language".

Much of this debate seems to centre on the interpretation of one of the most contentious verses in the Bible – the so-called Dominion Mandate, or Genesis 1:28:

And God blessed them [Adam and Eve], and God said unto them, be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the Earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the Earth.

An organisation in the US called the Cornwall Alliance has intentionally and prominently positioned itself at the very heart of this debate. It describes itself as "a coalition of clergy, theologians, religious leaders, scientists, academics, and policy experts committed to bringing a balanced Biblical view of stewardship to the critical issues of environment and development". Its board of advisors features many religious leaders and thinkers, but includes scientists such as the climate sceptic Dr Roy Spencer. Dr. E. Calvin Beisner, its spokesman, is a prominent media figure in the US, appearing on shows such as Fox News' Glenn Beck, where he dispenses his harsh criticism of environmentalism.

To better understand this mindset, I recently approached Beisner with an interview request. He agreed, but said that he wanted me to first read the Cornwall Alliance's latest book called Resisting the Green Dragon: Dominion not Death. Written by James Wanliss, who describes himself as a "Christian physicist", the book is built on the premise that "without doubt one of the greatest threats to society and the church today is the multifaceted environmentalist movement". It's hard to summarise any book in a few sentences, but here are a few snippets to give a flavour of the book's tone:

The Litany of the Green Dragon provides some certainty for people without God, who drift steadily from their rational moorings, and for whom there is an increasing sense of separation anxiety...

We humans are special creatures, in a class of our own, quite separate from, and superior to, trees and animals...

The Green Dragon must die…[There] is no excuse to become befuddled by the noxious Green odors and doctrines emanating from the foul beast...

This slimy jade road…is paved with all kinds of perverted and destructive behaviours, leads to death itself, and finally, to the pains of hell forever…No Hollywood celebrity bunnies draped over its foul form can deny its native evil...

It is no coincidence the rise of environmentalism as a significant political entity tracks the rising political clout of modern feminism...

Savage wolves have come to be among the church…No one can serve two masters...

The first few chapters in the Book of Genesis are an infinite mine to plumb for riches. All the world has no wisdom that is greater...

So-called "natural" or wilderness areas are not hospitable to man, and God does not consider this a good or natural state...

The fruits of the Green Dragon are not good, but evil…Humans are urged to surrender as many liberites as judged fit to save the world, which is pretty much all liberty that makes life worth living...

Christians must resist Green overtures to recast true religion, nor allow themselves to be prey for teachers of pagan heresies...

So having read the book – and watched some of the lectures on the accompanying DVD set – I began by asking Beisner why the Cornwall Alliance chooses to attack environmentalism with the kind of harsh, strong language – "foul beasts", "native evil" etc - expressed in the book:

We look at the environmental movement as a whole and particularly at the kinds of positions espoused by the top leadership of the largest environmental NGOs around the world. What I would say is that those definitely tend to be un-Christian in their world view – either secular and atheistic on the one hand, or spiritual, but not Christianly spiritual, and pantheistic on the other hand. There is a clear rejection of Biblical teaching that humanity should have dominion. And sin tends to get defined by environmentalism as our use, or abuse, of the Earth far more than in terms of our violation of the revealed laws of God in, say, the Ten Commandments. The solution to human problems tends to be "don't touch this, don't handle that", which is precisely the kind of thing that the Apostle Paul warned, rather than pointing to the gospel of redemption through the atoning death of Christ of the Cross. Environmentalism, as a movement, is an alternative world view and a substitute for Christianity.
My principal concern about environmentalism is a religious, logical, ethical concern. My secondary concern is that its science and economics are often flawed in ways that would point us towards policies that are especially destructive and harmful to the world's poor and, secondarily, everyone else.

I then asked Beisner why, in his view, the Dominion Mandate appears to take precedence over all else:

There are two reasons. One positive and the other negative and apologetic. The positive reason is simply the placement of that sentence in the overall text of scripture. Genesis 1:28 comes at the climax of the first chapter where we read of God creating the Heaven and the Earth, light and darkness, sea creatures, land creatures, and, finally, humanity made in His own image. And then He gives humanity this mission, this stipulation, as to its purpose on Earth. Its placement there makes it, hermeneutically, a very important verse for our understanding of the role of Mankind from the beginning of scripture. And you see that point being picked up again and again at various points in scripture.
But I also mentioned a negative reason. Lynn White's 1967 article, The Historical Roots of Our Ecological Crisis, is probably one of the half dozen most important articles for laying the foundations of the modern environmental movement. It has been cited thousands of times. The thesis of the article is, because of Genesis 1:28 claiming that God instructed Man to subdue and rule the Earth, Judeo-Christian religion, and, in fact, all Abrahamic religion, has promoted an exploitative, no-responsible attitude of humanity towards the Earth and its resources; that we can use it any way we please without regard to the harm to fellow Man and other living creatures. White argued in that article that we would deliver the Earth from ravaging exploitation only by means of a thorough repudiation of that heritage. That has made dominion a major issue in environmental theorising.
What I find ironic is that White didn't present any proof that any Christian or Jewish scholar ever interpreted it in that way. So part of the task of Biblical theologians applying scriptural teaching to environmental stewardship issues is to correct White's misrepresentation of the Christian Church and the verse, and to point out that coming as it does, where it does, in Genesis, we need to learn from God's own example what dominion and rule entails. Man's dominion over the Earth should reflect God's dominion over the Earth so as to glorify God and to give benefit to our fellow human beings and, indeed, all the rest of life on Earth. As God went through creation week, He created abundance, beauty and flourishing life. That's the kind of thing humanity ought to be doing.

Throughout the book, the concept of "growth" is always spoken of in positive terms. I asked Beisner whether everything can just "keep growing", say, human population, without any form of restriction?

That straight away is terribly anachronistic as population shrinkage is going to be the next big challenge and begin around 2050. In and of itself, the total size of population is irrelevant ethically. You are certainly going to face challenges from either a growing or shrinking population. Where environmentalists start off as fundamentally mistaken is their vision of human beings. They see human beings as, primarily, consumers and polluters. Whereas the Bible teaches that humans, who are made in God's image, are producers and stewards. Obviously, it's not automatic. There needs to be education and moral commitment, and those things are furthered in my understanding through people being reconciled to God through the atoning work of Christ on the Cross and their faith in Him. As the late Julian Simon used to put it: "Every mouth that is born into this world is accompanied by two hands and, far more importantly, a mind." Those two hands and a mind are capable of producing far more than that mouth can consume. That's why, over the past several hundred years, each generation has also been wealthier on a per capita basis. We produce more wealth than we can consume. And that's a good thing.

I put it to Beisner that the book uses disparaging, negative terms when speaking of socialism, Obama, Democrats etc. Only Adam has more citations in the book's index than Al Gore, who has more than Satan. I asked him whether he aligns himself more along Republican lines, either politically or ideologically:

I'm pretty disgusted with all political parties. They're all gutless, pandering to people's desires to have the state meet their needs rather than through their own efforts. That would apply equally to big businesses rent-seeking and lobbying, trying to get governments to give them a competitive advantage over competitors, as it would to those people who want government handouts of, say, housing or food support. From my Christian understanding – and I understand that I have brothers and sisters of Christ who don't share my views – God ordained the state, which by its nature is a monopoly of legalised force, to enforce justice. And justice means rendering impartially to everyone his due, according to the righteous standard of God's moral law. He did not ordain the state to dispense grace. That's the role of the Church. When the state starts trying to dispense grace it necessarily transgresses the bounds of justice and winds up doing more harm than good. This is the very beginnings of my theological foundation of my reasoning in support of a much more free-market approach to economics, as opposed to a governmentally managed, centrally planned, neurotically arranged market.

We concluded the interview by talking about the Cornwall Alliance's source of funding and support. It is often accused of being a front group for fossil-fuel interests. A report by The Wonk Room examined these claims more closely last year. It noted that the Cornwall Alliance has close personal connections to a right-leaning "public policy organisation" called Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT), which has received funding from oil companies in the past. (Beisner is on CFACT's board of advisors.) CFACT is probably best known now for promoting and funding the climate sceptic Marc Morano and his noisy website ClimateDepot (of which I have written about before). In one of Beisner's lectures on the DVD set, Morano can be seen listening attentively in the audience. So I asked Beisner to put it on the record, once and for all, how the Cornwall Alliance is funded:

We're supported primarily by individual donations. Some of those come via a cheque made out directly to us. Here in the US, for a variety of different reasons, you can make a donation to one charitable foundation via another foundation and the receiving foundation does not know who you are. Sometimes it's just as simple as, 'Hey, Jesus, said don't let the left hand know what the right it doing.' Some people don't want credit, or anyone trumpeting their name. Or they might want to avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest. But we make sure that I, as the spokesman, don't know where these types of donations come from. For that reason, I don't have to feel beholden to any donors.
The largest cheque we've ever had from an identifiable person is, I think, $5,000. There have been no corporate donations and certainly no oil money. [Laughs.] I wish. But, frankly, if an oil corporation was to offer us money I would turn it down because it would automatically compromise our ability to have public integrity. We are championing causes simply because we believe they are true. We're actually in the process of working out a statement for our website that says all this. But, frankly, we're very small. I'm the only full time person. [The latest accounts of the James Partnership, the Cornwall Alliance's parent organisation, can be viewed here as a PDF.] Probably the most important support we get is from the generosity of our chairman Chris Rogers who provides so much staff and equipment for which he doesn't charge. He's a very dedicated Christian man who gives sacrificially of himself. David Rothbard [CFACT's president] and I became friends in the early 1990s with a mutual interest in these issues. And, essentially, we think very similarly and we help each other out with information and recommend each other to others. CFACT is not a financial donor, though.

A three-week Indian cultural festival will commence in Israel later this month to commemorate two decades of the establishment of diplomatic ties between the Republic of India and the State of Israel. It will be an occasion where the melange of Indian food, dance, and Bollywood will no doubt be celebrated with paeans being sung celebrating the democratic values in the two countries. Of course, it has not always been this way – India and Israel were on opposite sides of the Cold War, with the former being a staunch supporter of the Palestinian cause routinely castigating the Jewish state for its “occupation” of Palestine, even as Yasser Arafat was routinely received in New Delhi with a red carpet by his “sister” Indira Gandhi.

The end of the Cold War also ended the ideological moorings that had plagued India’s vision of world affairs, and in 1992 India’s Congress-led government headed by Prime Minister Narasimha Rao sought to establish full diplomatic relations with the Jewish State. In doing so, he reversed a four decade-old policy, ushering India into a full-blown embrace of Israel reminiscent of Richard Nixon’s grand opening to China in 1972, laced in Kissingerian realism. After all, decades of support for the Palestinian cause had not transformed into any visible Arab support for India on Kashmir and the Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC) summits had become little more than an annual India-bashing exercise. Furthermore, the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan had freed up the battle-hardened mujahedeen to take their fights to other lands, and a massively rigged election in Indian-administered Kashmir in 1987 made it ready fodder for waging an insurgency against Indian rule. The demise of the Soviet Union meant that New Delhi had to scout the international horizon for new partners even as it did its best to navigate the choppy waters of international diplomacy. Israel provided a clean slate for such a new beginning to be made, and every Indian government since 1992, irrespective of its political colour, has engaged Israel and transformed the relationship into a truly strategic one.

A flurry of diplomatic visits between India and Israel in the last decade has brought a highly secretive relationship out of the closet and has become a cornerstone of each other’s security policy. In September 2003, Ariel Sharon became the first Israeli Prime Minister to visit India – a visit that raised hackles in Pakistan and much of the Arab world pointing towards New Delhi’s changed paradigm vis-à-vis the Middle East, and indeed underlining a muscular strategic orientation intended for both international and domestic audiences.

In 2008, Israel surpassed Russia to become India’s leading arms supplier providing New Delhi with everything from hi-tech radar and surveillance systems, nigh-vision equipment and anti-ballistic missile shields, with defence cooperation gradually moving from a seller-buyer relationship towards joint production of military equipment. The same year, an Indian rocket helped launch an Israeli spy satellite and discussions have been underway between the two countries since 2007 for a free trade agreement to boost non-military trade from the current US$ 4.2 billion to US$ 12 billion in the next four years. A record 40,000 Israelis visited India last year, mostly after completing their mandatory military service, while the corresponding figure for Indians travelling to Israel was over 20,000, laying a key foundation for people-to-people understanding.

However, a large number of critics both in India and abroad see this as not just a security partnership but as a relationship that has strong religious and ideological roots.  For critics argue that this is a nexus of political expediency between Jewish Israel and Hindu-majority India against Muslims. Repeated pronouncements about fighting “forces of terrorism together with religious fundamentalism” are seen as a euphemism for fighting Islamists. The fact that ties between the two nations flourished during the tenure of the Hindu-nationalist centre-right wing Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) Government fuels this perception. This perception was strengthened in 2003 when India’s then National Security Advisor, Brajesh Mishra while addressing a gathering of the American Jewish Community in Washington called for a trilateral alliance between the United States, India and Israel to “jointly face the same ugly face of modern-day terrorism” while contending that “such an alliance would have the political will and moral authority to take bold decisions in extreme cases of terrorist provocation.” Coming as it did barely a year after the September 11 attacks, the proposed alliance acquired ideological trappings fuelling fears of a Huntingtonian clash of civilisations.

However, it is imperative to cast the India-Israel narrative in a wider net, both for long-term sustenance of the relationship and for the promise that it may hold. Sure enough, India-Israel ties took off during the BJP regime whose leaders sought to inject an ideological colour that washed well with the regime’s domestic constituencies of hard-line Hindus, but the fact is that every government since 1992 has looked to strengthening and broadening the entire gamut of the India-Israeli relationship, and this includes three Congress governments as well as the short-lived Third Front government in the mid-1990s. This has been part of a concerted effort as part of a broader strategic doctrine to engage Israel and in doing so infuse a much-needed degree of balance to India’s Middle East policy. Indeed, as New Delhi assumes a non-permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council and campaigns for permanent membership in the Council, its behaviour would be adjudicated by the international community in terms of India’s ability to emerge as an effective and credible international interlocutor on a host of global issues including the contentious Arab-Israeli conflict. This would have to translate as an excellent working relationship with Israel as well as a host of Arab states and New Delhi has been extremely adept at walking the diplomatic tightrope having hosted leaders of Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt, Iran, United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Syria amongst others in the last five years. With great power comes great responsibility and India, if it chose to enter the Middle East’s diplomatic minefield, has all the credentials and evokes the trust to emerge as a key interlocutor.

For Israel, India represents a country that has both the world’s second largest Muslim population and also a nation that has never had a history of anti-Semitism despite being home to a small, yet significant Jewish population with the first set of Jews arriving in South India 2500 years ago. For a country witnessing the strengthening of right-wing conservative forces, courting India enables Israel to ward off criticism of being a nation antithetical to Muslims besides presenting a genuine opportunity for peace and reconciliation between the two great Abrahamic faiths and to its credit, Tel Aviv understands this. In a historic first, the Israeli ambassador to India, Mark Sofer visited one of the most renowned Sufi shrines in South Asia, at Ajmer Sharif, in September 2010 on the occasion of roza iftar and said, “Israel respects Islam and loves Muslims. We are sons and daughters of Abraham. Islam, Judaism and Christianity are the offshoots of the same faith and that makes us cousins.” Only three years before, in August 2007, a delegation of Muslim leaders headed by Maulana Jamil Ilyasi, president of the All India Organisation of Imams and Mosques which represents about 500,000 imams, headed the Indian delegation for a ‘dialogue of democracies’ designed to foster understanding between the two peoples, highlighting the diversity in the Muslim community and offering a reminder that the majority of Muslims live outside the Arab world and benefit from democracy. Crucially, the trip was aimed at refuting the link between religion and state in the Arab-Israeli conflict, suggesting that democratic states can overcome antagonism over longstanding religious differences. Debunked throughout the trip was the notion that Israel was the mortal enemy of the world’s global community of Muslims or the ummah.

India’s courtship of Israel cannot be the preserve of one national party with a particular religious appeal for it goes against the very tenets of pluralism that forms the cornerstone of the very ‘idea of India.’ To arrest the perception of the India-Israel relationship being an ostensible marriage of theocratic elements in the two states, the current centre-left Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government must wrest back the initiative, and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh should embark on a historic visit to the State of Israel to put a pan-Indian secular seal on Delhi’s Tel Aviv policy by becoming the first ever Indian Prime Minister to visit Israel. More importantly, it would be an affirmation of India’s success at managing religious diversity against incredible odds, in the process strengthening secular elements within Israel’s polity, which in recent months has displayed a worrying inclination for hard-line religious conservatism. For the broader Middle East narrative, a visit by an Indian Prime Minister to Israel (and the Palestinian Territories) would send the unambiguous message of New Delhi’s intention to shoulder responsibilities beyond its immediate security periphery while casting the Arab-Israeli conflict as one that is less of a religious conflict and more of a geopolitical one. Doing so would surely send a boost to peaceniks across the region – India owes it to the international community and to its own history.

The discrimination against women on a global basis is very often attributable to the declaration by religious leaders in Christianity, Islam, and other religions that women are inferior in the eyes of God,” former President Jimmy Carter said last week. Many traditions teach that while both men and women are equal in value, God has ordained specific roles for men and women. Those distinct duties often keep women out of leadership positions in their religious communities. What is religion’s role in gender discrimination?

Above is this week's question posed to the Washington Post 'On Faith' panel.

“Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.”

Here, in Ephesians 5, attributed to St Paul, we have in a nutshell the church’s attitude to the respective positions of man and woman. The man’s role is to be the head, the woman’s to submit to him. The meaning is crystal clear, unmistakable; and yet, despite the fundamentalists who firmly believe such Iron Age prejudices still apply today, there are many liberal Christians who have the decency to cringe at the primitiveness of such instructions and who therefore bend over backwards to pretend they’re not as bad as they quite patently are. “Ah yes,” they say, “but Paul goes on to say that husbands must love their wives. And not just love them, but love them as they love themselves. So clearly this is a reciprocal arrangement, equal in value, imposing constraints of equal weight on both man and wife. All is well with the world and we can continue to pretend that Christianity is the friend of women.” But no. All is not well with the world, and only the deluded or the disingenuous could claim to see equality where there is only subservience.

It is interesting to note the context in which this infamous passage occurs: immediately following the commandment to women to submit to their husbands we find the commandment to children to obey their parents, and to slaves to obey their owners. No amount of instruction to the husbands, parents and owners in question not to ruthlessly exploit their positions of power can alter the fact that women are classed with children and slaves when it comes to their social standing, freedom and self-determination and, like them, are called on to embrace their inferior status with cheerfulness and enthusiasm. In this same sequence of instructions slave-owners are exhorted not to threaten their slaves. Does this make slavery acceptable? Of course not. Only religion could attempt to present such a loathsome idea as though it were not a blot on the dignity of humankind, and the requirement for women always to submit to their menfolk is no less repugnant.

The truth is that the Abrahamic religions fear women and therefore go to extraordinary and sometimes brutal lengths to control them, constrain them, and repress them in every way. Show me a non-religious society that feels so threatened by the thought of female sexuality that it will slice off the clitoris of a young girl to ensure she can never experience sexual pleasure. Show me a non-religious society that feels the need to cloak women from head to toe and force them to experience the outside world through a slit of a few square inches. All three Abrahamic religions share the myth of Adam and Eve, the myth that it was through woman that evil was let loose in the world. They share the heritage of Leviticus, which declared a menstruating woman unclean, to be set aside, untouched, a revulsion that remains even today among some orthodox Jews, who will refuse to shake a woman’s hand for fear she may be menstruating. What kind of lunacy is this? It is the lunacy of a Bronze Age mindset fossilized by the reactionary forces of religion.

And perish the thought that these religions – in their alleged equal valuing of women – should permit them actually to control their own bodies! Women exist for the purposes of reproduction! So let them reproduce! Let them reproduce, whether they wish it or not. Woe unto the woman who dares to engage in sex without being willing to conceive as a result! Woe unto the woman who uses contraception to control her fertility and manage the size of her family! And a hundred times woe unto the woman who actually dares to terminate a pregnancy she does not want! The question of abortion illustrates perfectly the role of women so far as the church is concerned. A woman’s reproductive organs are not her own, and she may not be permitted to decide what happens to them. The Catholic Church would forbid abortion, even when the mother’s life is at risk if she continues with the pregnancy. It would forbid it, even if she has been raped and is carrying the child of her violator. How much clearer could it be that the woman has value only as the carrier of a man’s child and has in herself no intrinsic worth whatsoever?

In the eyes of the Abrahamic religions, the archetypal woman is Eve: disobedient, unreliable, easily led astray, and a seductive temptress of man – man being more noble, yet easy prey to the wiles and seductions of his weaker mate. Woman is the source of danger, the one who corrupts him, the conduit for all that is evil in the world. She is dangerous … yet irresistible; and this very irresistibility makes her more dangerous still. But you will notice that the dangers of sexual temptation are not to be faced equally by men and women: no, religion demands that it is the woman who bears the burden. Solomon, we are told, had 700 wives and 300 concubines, and David had a more modest yet still energy-sapping five wives and 10 concubines, yet neither of these has become a by-word for male insatiability. Jezebel, on the other hand, has become synonymous with sexual excess, despite this not being among the vices attributed to her in the bible story. Fundamentalist Islam, far from requiring its male followers to control their lusts and take responsibility for them, conceals its women in hideous, sexless sacks, depriving them of their beauty and their individuality, literally even their ability to breathe freely – and still permits polygamy, though only for men, of course. And have you ever stopped to wonder what became of the male lover of the woman taken in adultery in the Gospel of John? Why wasn’t he threatened with execution by stoning and hauled before Jesus?

The New Testament is woefully short of significant female characters, and a brief look at those who do make it to the hall of fame will suffice to tell us exactly how they were perceived. On the one hand we have Mary Magdalene – the prostitute. And on the other we have Mary the mother of Jesus – the virgin. To paraphrase the late Dorothy Parker, the New Testament’s view of women runs the full gamut from A to B. Prostitute or virgin: take your pick, ladies. The woman who engages in sex with multiple men is held up as the epitome of fallenness, brokenness, wickedness; as one so corrupt that Jesus’s willingness to forgive her is seen as bordering on the miraculous. And at the same time we are offered as our ideal, our aspiration, our role-model – the eternal virgin: sexless, locked forever in a childlike state; devoid of sexual passion or sensuality; obedient, self-sacrificing, selfless: a woman, in other words, from whom all that would make her fully human, let alone fully woman, has been stripped. Here, finally, is the woman that religion need not fear. This is the highest ideal to which a Christian woman may aspire: a cardboard cut-out of womanhood, a mere handmaid, silent, submissive, a vessel for the production of babies, passively and gratefully accepting her fate.

Religion is one lie after another: the lie of original sin, the lie of eternal life, the lie of hell, the lie of answered prayer, the lie that life can have no meaning without religion, the lie that religion is the source of morality, the lie of creationism, the lie of a spy-in-the-sky who hears your every word and reads your every thought. And to this list we must add the lie that it views men and women as equal. It has got away for so long with the kind of lunatic word-games that allow death-by-torture to be presented as an act of love, and eternal torment in the flames of hell to be seen as a necessary act of justice, that we should perhaps not be surprised that it has also managed to dupe its followers into seeing the systematic suppression and silencing of women as an act of liberation and equality. Nevertheless, it is a lie, like all the others: a cynical and wicked lie. It is time women everywhere woke up to it.

Original article here, under the title 'Religion lies about women'.

It's Christmas Eve and I am moved to talk about religion and violence, particularly since the New York Times' most prominent Christmas story is about furious family battles over the pressing question of white lights or colored on the Christmas tree.

My conflict resolver's stream of consciousness moves from family strife to violence for reasons both global and personal.  Like many conflict resolvers, I am a wounded healer, raised in a family where violence alternated in alarming rapidity with the denial and suppression of conflict.  This created in the children of that family a desire for peace coupled with a suspicious nature prone to strike before asking questions.

It is we ~ those raised in the cauldron of violence ~ who seek peace and proclaim it while at the same time attempting to corral a pugnacious first response to threat.

That's the personal. I mention it not simply because I lack a religious confessor to urge me toward true acts of contrition, but also because the personal is inextricably interlinked the political, particularly when it comes to religion. 

Religious Peace and Violence

How and why do we translate our personal weakness for the cutting remark or barroom brawl into religious and political dogma?  The "how" is often simply reflexive.  The author of The Brain Rules tells us that these are the questions we ask when we see a stranger.

Can I eat it?

Will it eat me?

Can I mate with it?

Will it mate with me?

The "how" is also the "why" with the added apprehension that religious beliefs are based on faith and too often require the faithful to convert the unconverted by means intellectually persuasive or violently coercive.  

Thus the human condition.

The Peace Part

Someone schooled in Buddhism once told me that "the world being dual, the best we can do is lean toward the light."

Many people schooled in Christianity have told me in and out of religious congregations that the profound fallibility that burdens all of us is precisely what makes us human.  It is only our willingness to accept forgiveness that takes us into the neighborhood of God.  Incapable of perfection, we are saved by grace.  Once saved, we are moved to express that which God has expressed in us and we become agents of forgiveness and reconciliation ourselves.  We will never, however, stop "sinning."  The grace given is compassion for our fallibility, not the perfection of our "fallen" nature.

My Jewish friends refer me to Tikkun Olam - the principle of the world as both spiritually and materially broken ~ and in need of repair.  They also tell me about the 36 righteous people whose role in life is to justify the purpose of humankind in the eyes of God.

My evolutionist friends tell me that we share with the forebears from whom we separated fifty million years ago a compelling emotional response to injustice.  We also share with these distant relatives the same cognitive biases that make us respond irrationally to giving and getting.  TED video on this topic below.  

My Muslim friends acknowledge the violence in their sacred text which is not significantly different from that in the sacred Jewish and Christian tomes.  These teachings, all in the Abrahamic tradition, can be read leaning toward the light or toward the darkness.  Muslim organizations for peace are prevalent and powerful.

As a nearly fully secularized humanist raised with the values of mainstream mid-twentieth century Protestantism and dipped in evangelical Christianity in high school, I commit my spirit to the grace of a god I am too limited to understand, too skeptical to believe in without great struggle, and too fallible to kick the gift-horse of grace in the teeth.

A list of my favorite books on religion and/or violence/peace are my Christmas present to my readers.

The Ambivalence of the Sacred by Scott Appleby, a great use for the Amazon gift cards you're getting for your Kindle this holiday season.

Conflict Revolution ~ Mediating Evil, War, Injustice and Terrorism by Ken Cloke.

Bargaining with the Devil ~ When to Negotiate, When to Fight by Robert Mnookin.

More than two weeks after Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert's Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear, there is still debate over the comedians’ decision to bring Cat Stevens/Yusuf onto the same stage that was later graced by the likes of R2D2 and a giant evil Stephen Colbert marionette.

Politico's Ben Smith referred to Yusuf's inclusion as "a dissonant note"; Associated Content's Mark Whittington struck a clanger of his own, alleging Yusuf "wants to kill people out of religious frenzy."

Much of the criticisms of Yusuf’s presence at the Rally have been rooted in statements the singer made about Salman Rushdie (who read last night at Sixth and I Historic Synagogue), his controversial novel The Satanic Verses, and the fatwa issued by Ayatollah Sayyed Ruhollah Moosavi Khomeini calling for Rushdie's death for what he saw as blasphemy against the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH).

On his website, Yusuf says his statements regarding Rushdie and the fatwa were taken out of context. He says his remarks had more to do with actual Islamic statements on acts of blasphemy (which he points out are in line with those of the other two Abrahamic faiths) as a larger concept and less to do with Salman Rushdie himself. (Yusuf did not respond to TBD's request for comment.)

The statements Yusuf is talking about come from when he was on a panel for a BBC television program called Hypotheticals.

The episode “A Satanic Scenario” aired during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan in 1989. When asked how he would react to seeing Salman Rushdie at a halal restaurant, Yusuf responded “depends on my mood that evening. I may concentrate more on my meal.” Asked if Rushdie deserves to die, Yusuf responded “yes” twice without further clarification. Yusuf was then asked if he has a duty to be Rushdie’s executioner, to which he replied, “No, not necessarily, unless we were in an Islamic state and I was ordered by the judge or authority to carry out such an act.” Though the order of questioning on the original program is not entirely clear, Yusuf does say that he would have phoned the Ayatollah Khomieni and told him exactly where Rushdie was. On whether he would attend a demonstration where the effigy of Rushdie was burned and clubbed, Yusuf said he “would have hoped it would be the real thing,” but that if it was just an effigy “I don’t think I’d be that moved to go there.”

Addressing this specific instance online, Yusuf says “these comments were part of a well-known British national trait; a touch of dry humor on my part… they are full of occasionally grotesque and sardonic jokes if you want them!” He then goes on to say that “the final edit of the program was made to look extremely serious; hardly any laughs were left in and much common sense was savagely cut out.” Thus, according to Yusuf and “Most of the Muslim participants in the program” who “wrote in and complained about the narrow and selective use of their comments, surreptitiously selected out of the 3-hour long recording of the debate,” the editing of the program left the “balanced arguments” on the cutting room floor while “the most sensational quotes, [were] preserved.”

One person who simply does not buy Yusuf's explanations, no matter how elaborate they may be, is Juan Cole, a blogger and professor of history at the University of Michigan. To Cole, Yusuf's explanations and accusations of misinterpreted statements amount to "weasel words" and an attempt at "explaining away" a controversial position that Cole sees as "a foretaste of al-Qaeda’s own death warrant served on a lot of other innocent people." Cole believes the milieu embodied by statements calling for "the execution of Salman Rushdie" just 10 years after Yusuf's initial conversion highlighted "how sick some forms of Muslim activism had become" at the time.

As a scholar at Cambridge University in the early 1990s, Akbar Ahmed, Ibn Khaldun chair of Islamic Studies at American University, elaborates on the milieu Cole referred to,which he experienced firsthand. "The Muslim community was very agitated,” he says of that time. “They had created a red line in the sand. All Muslims were expected to side with the fatwa and against Rushdie. Therefore suggesting implicitly or explicitly that Khomieni’s fatwa should be implemented.” Ahmed sees how this attitude could have led Yusuf to feel as if he "had to show how loyal he was” by condemning Rushdie.

Ahmed had two encounters with Rushdie in the 1990s. In 1991 Ahmed interviewed Rushdie for the Guardian. He was the the first Muslim academic to do so after the fatwa. A few years later Rushdie turned out to be a surprise a  guest on a BBC radio program on which Ahmed was also appearing. After that, Ahmed says, Muslims in Cambridge began to vocalize their disapproval of the unexpected encounter: “‘You should have killed him,’ they said. I responded first by stating that I don’t believe in the fatwa.” Ahmed turned to sarcasm. “I said, ‘even if I believed in it, it would have been very difficult because there were a lot of mics on the table.’ These Muslims actually told me ‘you should have jumped over the mics and killed him.’”

Perhaps the most telling and powerful explanation for Yusuf's statements about Rushdie comes from his answers about why he no longer dons 'Muslim robes' (whatever that means). Yusuf describes the way he dressed early on in his conversion as "a radical and over zealous reaction to the spiritual happiness that I’d felt in Islam." In another post, he writes, "Early on, I needed to secure my identity as a Muslim and felt I needed to ‘look’ like others in the Mosque."

That statement about a need for some kind of outward manifestation of his newfound faith actually says a lot about the inward struggles that Yusuf, like all converts to any religion, continues to face in trying to reconstruct an identity in line with his new faith.

In fact, Yusuf says that much of the uproar has been "due to my naivety," and a need to address "a loaded question" full of socio-political underpinnings as simply a question of religious fact only a decade into his religious conversion. Could it be that in his eagerness to look the part, Yusuf felt he also needed to sound the part of what he believed a Muslim to be?

In his book Understanding Religious Conversion, Lewis R. Rambo, a  professor of pastoral psychology at San Francisco Theological Seminary, writes of "conversion as a dynamic, multifaceted process of transformation. A process that for some, is abrupt and radical; for others, it is gradual and very subtle in its effects upon a person's life." 

For Melody Fox Ahmed, director of programs and operations at the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, & World Affairs, Stevens’ conversion is “an example of the type who sees conversion as a radical change, whereas others slowly transform chosen aspects of their identity and practices.”

To Akbar Ahmed, Stevens’ guitar can be seen as an embodiment of this process of transformation. “The very fact that he once rejected the guitar and picked it up again in itself is a re-assessment of his early life as a Muslim,” says Ahmed. “It’s quite clear that [Stevens] is coming to a different kind of understanding of Islam.”

Writing about the rally controversy in the Daily 49er, the student publication of California State University Long Beach, Hanif Zarrabi says, "For all of the heartache that the 1989 comment caused, Yusuf 's actions since then should outweigh his words." That feeling is echoed by Ahmed, who says that if Yusuf was “invited by two of the most renowned and famous media celebrities in America who have shone the light of intelligence and wisdom on a somewhat bleak landscape” he should have taken “the chance to be there as part of a movement aimed at the young generation” without question. (He's been on Colbert's show before.)

Fox Ahmed says she was surprised to see that Yusuf has a question and answer section on his website addressing questions like “Did he have an arranged marriage and will he talk to unveiled women?" For Fox Ahmed, Yusuf was under no obligation to address such questions on his site, but his willingness to do so is “an open approach to engaging a curious- and suspicious - community. I don't think he needs to say anything now. He seems to prefer to let his actions (charitable work) and music speak more than words - you don't see him on the nightly talk show rounds stirring up more controversy.”

Fox Ahmed says that for her, Yusuf’s appearance was the high point of the rally. “When the opening chords to ‘Peace Train’ sounded, I think the whole Mall got chills,” she says. “I personally was not thinking about any of the controversies surrounding Yusuf/Cat when he was playing. I was sorry when Ozzy interrupted him!”

Akbar Ahmed sees the criticism of Yusuf’s presence at the rally based upon a 20-year-old controversy as yet another example of “controversies being dug up and taken out of context to be aired simply because of a rather poisonous environment around Islam.” After all Ahmed says, were it not for a feeling of Islamophobia “who would be interested? There were thousands and thousands of Muslims who were thinking like Yusuf Islam” in the early 1990s.

Unlike many of them, though, Yusuf's fame hasn't allowed him to work his way through the stages of conversion and reconstruct his identity quietly.

As the harsh spotlight washes out all of the gray, all the dynamism and nuance in Stevens' own personal process of transformation has been lost. Rather than accepting that for Stevens, like all of us, his identity has been a complex and fluid matter, it has instead been reduced down to mere sound bites. It’s an unfortunate oversimplification for a man whose life experiences could serve as a case study for understanding the complexities of conversion and reconciling one’s identity with that newfound faith.

In the end, Jon Stewart’s own much-quoted statement from his speech at the Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear may help put this 20-year-old re-ignited controversy into perspective “If we amplify everything, we hear nothing.” While some commentators have argued over some 20-year-old quotes, they missed the message of what Cat Stevens was saying in the lyrics of “Peace Train,” a song he wrote almost a decade before his conversion and performed as a Yusuf Islam, the Muslim convert with the United States Capitol in the background.

I'm just curious,i have Persian Bahai friends who agree that Bahà'ism is an Abrahamic religion and some Catholic and Muslim friends who agree.Whereas some Orthodox Christians disagree.Just to show some resemblances between Bahà'ism,Islam,Judaîsm and Christianism heres an URL:
http://funadvice.com/r/3kvl0r8rae
Please give me your opinions,i'm doing it for a school project.

A reader, who apparently did some work for Iran some years ago, now regularly gets missives from the Iranian embassy, and he forwarded this one to me. It's about Iran's official response to the proposed Koran burning in Florida.

I've checked out the email headers and can verify that at least it came from the purported source and there is an Iranian embassy at that address, but I can't vouch for the full legitimacy of the email.

Subject: Supreme Leader's Message

Dear Sir/Madam

Please find attached the text of the message of the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran on the desecration of the Holy Quran in the United States.

Regards

In the Name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful

"It is we who sent down the Koran, and we watch over it," says God

the Mighty, the Wise [Holy Quran, 15:9]

Great Iranian nation, great Islamic Ummah!

The insane, revolting insult to the Holy Quran in America, an incident occurring under the security provided by the US police, is a major tragic event that cannot be considered merely as the foolish act of a few worthless mercenaries. This is a preplanned act by those who since years ago have put Islamophobic and anti-Muslim policies on their agenda and have tried to combat Islam and the Quran in numerous ways resorting to a myriad of propaganda means and campaigns. This is another link in a chain of shameless measures launched with the blasphemy of Salman Rushdi, the apostate, followed by the insult of the base Danish caricaturist, tens of anti-Islamic movies produced in Hollywood and now crowned by this disgusting show. Who and what is behind such evil acts?

Looking into this trend of evil, as manifested in recent years in atrocious operations in Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine, Lebanon and Pakistan, leaves no doubt that it is designed and masterminded by heads of world imperialism and Zionist think tanks which have the highest degree of influence in the government, the military and security agencies of the United States as well as Britain and some other European countries. These are those at whom the finger of suspicion of independent truth-finding groups and individuals is pointed in the case of the attack on the Twin Towers on September the 11th. The then-president of the US, a criminal, was provided with the pretext to invade Iraq and Afghanistan; he declared a Crusade and, reportedly, has said yesterday that with the Church entering the stage the Crusade has truly begun.

What is aimed at through the recent repulsive incident is, on the one hand, to take the confrontation with Islam and Muslims to the populace in the Christian community, to give it a religious coloring and entrenching it with religious zeal and sentiment by involving the church and, on the other, to divert the attention of the Muslim nations, enraged and hurt by this hideous effrontery, away from the issues and developments in the Muslim world and the Middle East.

This vengeful act is not the beginning of a trend but another stage in the long history of antagonizing Islam headed by Zionism and the US government. Now all the heads of world hegemony and impiety are ranked against Islam. Islam is the religion of human liberation and spirituality, and the Quran is the book of compassion, wisdom and justice. It is incumbent upon all free-spirited people of the world and all the followers of the Abrahamic religions to side with the Muslims in countering these heinous anti-Islamic policies and acts. Empty, deceitful words cannot exonerate the heads of the American government from the charge of involvement in this ugly phenomenon. For years those things held sacred by millions of oppressed Muslims in Afghanistan and Pakistan, in Iraq, in Lebanon and Palestine have been desecrated, all their rights and their dignity trampled on. Hundreds of thousands killed, tens of thousands of men and women captured and tortured, thousands of children and women kidnapped, and millions injured and made homeless - all victimized for what? And with these wrongs, why does the Western media represent Muslims as violence incarnate and Islam, and the Quran, as a menace to humanity? How can one believe that this vast conspiracy could be made possible without the support and involvement of the Zionist circles in the US government?! O Muslim brethren and sisters in Iran and all over the world! It is necessary to draw the attention of all to the following points: First, this incident and similar ones show that what is now being targeted by the global hegemony and world Imperialism are the very foundations of the dear Islam, and the Holy Quran. The manifest enmity of the arrogant world powers towards the Islamic Republic of Iran is because of the manifest resistance of Iran against them; the claim of these powers in not being the enemies of other Muslims, and of Islam, is a big lie, a satanic deception. They are the enemies of Islam, whoever believes in it, and whatever signifies it.

Second, these spiteful acts against Islam and Muslims stem from the fact that since a few decades ago the light of Islam has been shining brighter than ever, its grip on the hearts and souls in the Muslim world and even in the West has been stronger than ever before. It stems from the fact that the Islamic Ummah is now more awake than ever and is determined to free itself of the shackles of two centuries of colonialism and interference. The incident of insulting the Quran and the Great Prophet of Islam despite all its bitterness bears great tidings. The bright sun of the Quran will shine brighter than ever.

Third, we should all know that this incident has nothing to do with Christianity and the Church; we should not regard the puppet-like acts of a few idiotic and mercenary priests as those of Christians and church men. We Muslims will never commit similar acts against what are held sacred in other religions. Conflict between Muslims and Christians, on a popular scale, is what our enemies and the stagers of this insane show are after. What the Quran teaches us is diametrically opposed to this. Fourth, today the protests of all Muslims are directed at the US government and American politicians. If they are honest in their claim of not being involved in this, they must duly punish the main planners and operators of this heinous crime who have hurt the feelings of one and a half billion Muslims the world over.

And peace is on him who follows piety.

Sayyed Ali Khamenei

September 13, 2010

I found two things very funny.

They say they'll never commit similar acts, i.e., desecrate holy books, as if that makes them better people. But instead, they issue fatwahs demanding the death of people like Salman Rushdie, and riot with signs advocating violent acts against other people! I'm not exactly dazzled by their standards of morality. I'd piss on a thousand holy books before I even consider advocating beheading someone.

That last line slays me. One and half billion people are "upset"! It sounds to me like one and a half billion children need to get a life.

A dispute with BBC TV's religious slot, Sunday Morning Live: would I join a debate on the pope? As president of the British Humanist Association, I was glad to – but there was a problem. Discussion was divided into a first debate on whether Catholicism was over-obsessed with sex, but I was to join a second: is the Catholic church a force for good? How could you answer that without saying that sex lies at the poisoned heart of all that is wrong with just about every major faith?

Repression of sex, banning contraception, gays, abortion, stem-cell research and IVF treatment cause untold misery. Not to the "liberal" Catholics who proclaim for reform and use contraception themselves – as Cherie Blair so distastefully revealed – yet support a church whose denial of it damages and kills poor mothers with no choice. As Ben Goldacre pointed out in this paper on Saturday, while this pope claims condoms "aggravate the problem" of HIV/Aids, two million die a year. Ann Widdecombe's riposte that the Catholic church runs more Aids clinics than any single nation was like suggesting the Spanish Inquisition ran the best rehab clinics for torture victims.

Women's bodies are the common battleground, symbols of all religions' authority and identity. Cover them up with veil or burka, keep them from the altar, shave their heads, give them ritual baths, church them, make them walk a step behind, subject them to men's authority, keep priests celibately free of women, unclean and unworthy. Eve is the cause of all temptation in Abrahamic faiths. Only by suppressing women can priests and imams hold down the power of sex, the flesh and the devil. The Church of England is on the point of schism over gay priests, women bishops and African homophobia. The secular world looks on in utter perplexity.

Read on

Why invite the pope on a state visit – at a cost of millions in a time of cutbacks – when the vast majority are secular?

A dispute with BBC TV's religious slot, Sunday Morning Live: would I join a debate on the pope? As president of the British Humanist Association, I was glad to – but there was a problem. Discussion was divided into a first debate on whether Catholicism was over-obsessed with sex, but I was to join a second: is the Catholic church a force for good? How could you answer that without saying that sex lies at the poisoned heart of all that is wrong with just about every major faith?

Repression of sex, banning contraception, gays, abortion, stem-cell research and IVF treatment cause untold misery. Not to the "liberal" Catholics who proclaim for reform and use contraception themselves – as Cherie Blair so distastefully revealed – yet support a church whose denial of it damages and kills poor mothers with no choice. As Ben Goldacre pointed out in this paper on Saturday, while this pope claims condoms "aggravate the problem" of HIV/Aids, two million die a year. Ann Widdecombe's riposte that the Catholic church runs more Aids clinics than any single nation was like suggesting the Spanish Inquisition ran the best rehab clinics for torture victims.

Women's bodies are the common battleground, symbols of all religions' authority and identity. Cover them up with veil or burka, keep them from the altar, shave their heads, give them ritual baths, church them, make them walk a step behind, subject them to men's authority, keep priests celibately free of women, unclean and unworthy. Eve is the cause of all temptation in Abrahamic faiths. Only by suppressing women can priests and imams hold down the power of sex, the flesh and the devil. The Church of England is on the point of schism over gay priests, women bishops and African homophobia. The secular world looks on in utter perplexity.

Trying to deny the primal life force has led to centuries of persecution, suffering, secrecy and breathtaking hypocrisy. Wherever male cultural leaders hold absolute and unscrutinised power, women and children will be abused. In western secular life this has at last been recognised: in schools, prisons, care homes and within families, wherever the powerless are unseen and unheard, horrors will happen without checks and transparency. Abusers gravitate towards closed organisations, and absolute power turns people into abusers. But the Vatican still talks of a few bad apples requiring internal discipline, the pope refusing to hand rapists over to secular law. Imams, gurus, priests, all hold sway over the vulnerable. As secretive madrasas and new religious "free" schools multiply while officials nervously respect their cultural independence, expect more abuse as bad as the Belgian Catholic cases now emerging.

The other dominion the religions control is death. Were it not for the faiths with their grip on hospices and palliative care, the law on assisted dying would be reformed. Religious dominance in parliament scuppered the last bill that tried to give the dying the right to depart when they can suffer no more. A survey in the Journal of Medical Ethics found religious doctors far less likely to keep the dying deeply sedated if that risked hastening death, forcing people to linger in the agonising antechambers of death. Add up the millions of hours of human suffering the faiths inflict by their denial of choice over sex and death, and it far outweighs their Mother Teresa work.

The pontiff arrives after heavy lobbying by Gordon Brown, who was desperate to please Catholic voters. Instead the visit has subjected Pope Benedict's conservatism to intensely unfavourable scrutiny. On Friday he meets the Archbishop of Canterbury, who ought to send him off with a flea in his ear for trying to seduce over to Rome Church of England clergy opposed to women bishops. His beatification of Cardinal Newman for converting to Catholicism is an affront, along with his claim that Britain's Equalities Act "violates natural law" for banning discrimination against women and gays.

In a week when, on the wilder fringes, a Florida pastor's threat to burn 200 copies of the Qur'an risked igniting holy war among equally extreme battalions of Islamist fundamentalists, while hate-filled Christians try to stop the building of a Muslim centre in a New York that is remembering the jihadist attack victims, nobody needs reminding of the incendiary dangers of religion. But just when democracies should determinedly separate religion from state, the British state appeases, most alarmingly in new segregated schools. Why invite the pope on a "state" visit costing millions in a time of cutbacks? At most 12% of the population regularly practises any faith in the secular UK.

Where once secularism and humanism were relics of a bygone religious age, its voice is important again. But pointing out the blindingly obvious need to keep faiths in their private sphere has united religious gunfire against secularists. All atheists now tend to be called "militant", yet we seek to silence none, to burn no books, to stop no masses or Friday prayers, impose no laws, asking only free choice over sex and death. Religion deserves its say, but only proportional to its numbers. No privileges, no special protection against feeling offended.

The director of pastoral affairs in the Westminster diocese, Edmund Adamus, says Britain has become a "selfish hedonistic wasteland" of sex and secularism. He echoes the supreme arrogance of all the religious who claim there is no morality without God. Nonsense, but unlike the religious the godless claim no moral superiority. Wise humanists know that good and bad are pretty evenly distributed. Humanity has an innate moral sense, without threats of divine wrath and reward. Good and bad works are done by both the secular and the religious. But wherever the institutions of religion wield real power, they prove a force for cruelty and hypocrisy.

Atheists are good haters, they claim, but feeble compared with the religious sects. Atheists have dried-up souls, without spiritual or visionary transcendentalism. To which we say: the human imagination is all we need to hold in awe. Live in optimism without fear of judgment and death. There is enough purpose and meaning in life, love and leaving a good legacy. Oppose the danger of religious zealotry with the liberating belief that life on earth is precious because this here and now is all there is, and our destiny is in our own hands.

Avram Grant's Yom Kippur habits; Rosh Hashanah via TV or internet; Glenn Beck goes Mormon; secular extremism

Much excitement among the Abrahamic faiths, which are looking forward to a triple whammy of celebration. Muslims have Eid, Jews have Rosh Hashanah and Catholics have the papal visit. Yom Tov to our Jewish readers!

✤ We kick off with a story about Avram Grant, who is raising eyebrows because he may observe Yom Kippur, the most widely adhered to festival in the Jewish calendar. The Daily Star says Grant faces having to choose between "sitting in the dug-out for the club's vital clash with Stoke" or observing the Jewish holy day. Has anyone asked him what his plans are? No? Oh well. "The Hammers boss is a devout follower of the religion and would be required to observe a strict 25-hour fast from working, eating and even drinking water." The 55-year-old has watched his new side lose all three of its league games. Caught between a rock and a hard place? At least with the Day of Atonement, he gets to square himself with the ultimate Manchester United fan (thanks to Josh Howie).

✤ Sticking with the high holy days, Shalomlife reports that that you can enjoy Rosh Hashanah from your living room if you don't live near or are just too lazy to get to a synagogue. According to Shalom TV it is the first time that high holy day services will be available on national cable television. Rabbi Mark Golub says his services have a broad appeal "to those who rarely attend a synagogue as well as to those who are traditional in their approach and appreciate that the key elements of the High Holiday service are included". Among other things, his services occasionally feature him playing the accordion. "Many Jews can't get to a synagogue anyway," he adds, referring to those in poor health or who live in more isolated areas. "I am not suggesting that television ever replace a real service. That's just silly."

✤ Not to be outdone a Cincinnati congregation is offering live streaming of services to any Jew with an internet connection. The Jerusalem Post says that this innovation will allow you to fit a shul in your pocket through your Blackberry, iPhone or Droid. But there are efforts to promote an "offline" Yom Kippur where you give up your devices in addition to food and drink.

✤ Whoah! Glenn Beck is a Mormon? You didn't misread that, or maybe you did. Beck's affiliation with the religious movement has led to some soul-searching from inside that community about whether it's a good thing to have him as a card-carrying member. I can answer that for you. Really easily. The sometimes good but mostly sappy On Faith carries a piece from the head of public affairs at the Church of Jesus Christ Latter Day Saints. Michael Otterson writes that partisan neutrality extends to everyone, even those with a "huge megaphone" such as Beck. What gets his goat is the stereotypes surrounding Mormons: "If the only Mormons you've ever met are two young men on your door step wearing suits, ties and white shirts, that may be understandable. But there are six million Latter-day Saints now in the United States (about the same number as Jews), and another eight million worldwide, and they represent a growing cross section of ethnicity, demographics, cultural experiences, professions and attitudes. They are not obliged to think and act in lockstep." Yes, because it must be really annoying to get tarred with the same brush as your co-religionists. He's saying not all Mormons look the same or think the same and that people should broaden their minds. Pass this memo to Beck someone?

✤ We're staying stateside for this gem from the FoxForum. Steven Crowder says secular extremism is as common, but is as barely discussed as religious extremism. He cites the case of James Lee – who took hostages at the Discovery Channel as an example. Crowder writes: "James Lee had put the Planet Earth on such a pedestal, so far beyond the importance of his fellow human beings that he was willing to harm other people, and ultimately himself for its cause. If that's not extremism, then I don't know what is."

Next week – a papal special.

Ten Reasons Not to Burn the Qur'an in response to Dove World Outreach Center's plan to burn copies of the Qur'an on the 9th anniversary of 9/11. We hope our Ten Reasons will help bring about greater awareness, understanding and healing on this sad anniversary.

Ten Reasons Not to Burn the Qur'an

ONE
Dove World Outreach Center: The Koran* teaches that Jesus Christ, the Crucified, Risen Son of God, King of Kings and Lord of Lords was NOT the Son of God, nor was he crucified (a well documented historical fact that ONLY Islam denies). This teaching removes the possibility of salvation and eternal life in heaven for all Islam's believers. They face eternal damnation in hell if they do not repent.

* Islam is not a new religion, but traces its roots to Abrahamic monotheism, which teaches that God is one. God is one means that God has no parents, spouse, son or daughter. Therefore, God is considered indivisible and incomparable in any way, shape or form to any other living creature.

* This idea can also be found in the Hebrew Scriptures in the form of the first of the Ten Commandments and elsewhere in the Bible.

* The belief that Jesus was not crucified also predates Islam. For example, the Docetans were among Jesus' early followers, who also claimed he was never crucified and that another was crucified in his stead.

* The Qur'an also teaches that Jesus, peace be upon him, is a prophet and a messenger of God, equal to Mohammad himself.

TWO
Dove World Outreach Center: The Koran does not have an eternal origin. It is not recorded in heaven. The Almighty God, Creator of the World, is NOT its source. It is not holy. Its writings are human in origin, a concoction of old and new teachings. This has been stated and restated for centuries by scholars since Islam's beginnings, both Moslem and non-Moslem.

* The Qur'an is considered to be God's word, delivered to Mohammad via Gabriel, and recited by Mohammad to his followers. Scholars tend to diverge greatly in their opinions on this subject.

* The Qur'an is among one of the only holy books that attests that the Bible is of divine origin, and the first to ever do so. That is a second good reason not to burn the Qur'an.

THREE
Dove World Outreach Center: The Koran's teaching includes Arabian idolatry, paganism, rites and rituals. These are demonic, an ongoing satanic stronghold under which Moslems and the world suffer.

* The Qur'an is unequivocally against idolatry and satanic worship. Anyone who makes these claims cannot possibly have read and understood the Qur'an and should at least thoroughly read what he/she is attempting to disparage.

FOUR
Dove World Outreach Center: The earliest writings that are known to exist about the Prophet Mohammad were recorded 120 years after his death. All of the Islamic writings are contradictory and inconsistent. Maybe Mohammad never existed. We have no conclusive account about what he said or did. Yet Moslems follow the destructive teachings of Islam without question.

* The Qur'an is an independent text and is very different from the Hadith, histories and biographical literature which should not be confused with the former.

* The Qur'an is one of few prophetic books that have been so well preserved and that give an accurate rendition of the prophet's communication. It is thereby one of the world's greatest treasures. That is a fourth good reason not to burn the Qur'an.

FIVE
Dove World Outreach Center: Mohammad's life and message cannot be respected. The first Meccan period of his leadership seems to have been religiously motivated and a search for the truth. But in the second Medina period he was "corrupted by power and worldly ambitions." This led to political assassinations and massacres which continue to be carried out on a regular basis by his followers today.

* Mohammad lifestyle was exemplary and he lived very simply, preferring to give his money to the poor. Few can match his kindness towards his enemies. For example, when he and his followers conquered Mecca, he did so peacefully and did not punish its pagan inhabitants, even though they had tortured and oppressed them. There is no evidence that he ever ordered a political assassination or a massacre.

* The Qur'an teaches forgiveness of Jews, Christians and people of other religions, even when they harm Muslims.

SIX
Dove World Outreach Center: Islamic Law is totalitarian in nature. There is no separation of church and state. It is irrational. It is supposedly immutable and cannot be changed. It must be accepted without criticism.

* Islamic law is a pre-modern system of law and changes all the time. It should not be confused with the Qur'an, which is unchanging, even though its interpretation can vary.

* The Qur'an is the one scripture that teaches not to take up rabbis, priests and other clergy and give them the authority to delineate religious law. Following the Qur'an, all human beings equal before God.

SEVEN
Dove World Outreach Center: Islam is not compatible with democracy and human rights. The notion of a moral individual capable of making decisions and taking responsibility for them does not exist in Islam. The attitude towards women in Islam as inferior possessions of men has led to countless cases of mistreatment and abuse for which Moslem men receive little or no punishment, and in many cases are encouraged to commit such acts, and are even praised for them.

* The Qur'an does not delineate a particular political system for Muslim to follow.

* The Qur'an is known for giving rights to minorities and other vulnerable peoples. For example, it has given women the right to life, independent ownership of property, wages, divorce, marriage, inheritance, maintenance, good treatment, etc.

EIGHT
Dove World Outreach Center: A Muslim does not have the right to change his religion. Apostasy is punishable by death.

* A Muslim has a God-given right to change his/her religion, if they should so choose-the Qur'an clearly states "Let there be no compulsion in religion" (2:256).

NINE
Dove World Outreach Center: Deep in the Islamic teaching and culture is the irrational fear and loathing of the West.

* The Qur'an does not endorse hatred of anyone and does not privilege any human being over another on the basis of race, origins or country. "O Humankind, we have created you from a male and a female and have made you into peoples and tribes so that you may know one another." (49:13).

TEN
Dove World Outreach Center: Islam is a weapon of Arab imperialism and Islamic colonialism. Wherever Islam has or gains political power, Christians, Jews and all non-Moslems receive persecution, discrimination, are forced to convert.

* These claims are not supported by historical fact--if non-Muslims were forced to convert, there would be no Christian and Jewish minorities in Muslim-majority countries today.

* As for "Arab imperialism", Mohammad's last sermon states: "An Arab has no superiority over a non-Arab nor a non-Arab has any superiority over an Arab; also a white has no superiority over black nor a black has any superiority over white except by piety and good action."

* Islam literally means "peace-making"--it is the causative Form IV of the root "salam," which means wholeness, peace, well-being and safety.

* Muslims have never embarked on a campaign to burn the Bible in any of its forms. It is the Qur'an insists on freedom of worship-"Let there be no compulsion in religion."

* The correct reference is "Qur'an", not "Koran"

http://www.codepink.org/article.php?id=5545

http://barenakedislam.files.wordpress.com/2010/08/book-burning.jpg?w=460&h=3...

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Chances are that by now you've heard about the Aug. 19, 2010, Pew poll that found that nearly one fifth of Americans (mistakenly) believe that President Obama is a Muslim. Perhaps you think that a terrifying outlier; or perhaps you're a believer, and then you are in good company. Either way, you're wrong: in fact, remarkably high numbers of Americans believe the most unusual things. Although the portion of poll respondents who believe Obama is a Muslim has risen recently, some of these oddball opinions contain more consistent numbers of believers. Here's a sampling of the nuttiest.

EVOLUTION vs CREATIONISM

To mark the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin's birth, Gallup thought it might be a good idea to poll Americans on their beliefs of the British naturalist's theory. But the results must have had Darwin spinning in his grave, since only 39 percent of Americans believed in the theory. The good news: only a quarter said they didn't believe it; the remaining portion either didn't have an opinion or didn't answer. (Also, only 55 percent correctly linked Darwin's name with the theory.) However, it appears that views may, um, evolve: younger people believe in evolution at far higher rates than older ones.

WITCHCRAFT

It seems obvious that it's not a good idea to put too much stock in withcraft. But it turns out that 21 percent of Americans believe there are real sorcerors, conjurers, and warlocks out there. And that's just one of the several paranormal beliefs common among Americans, according to Gallup: 41 percent believe in ESP, 32 percent in ghosts, and a quarter in astrology. In fairness, the numbers in this poll are a little old—they date back to 2005. But then again, if people haven't changed their mind since the Enlightenment, it's not clear another half decade would make much difference.

DEATH PANELS

From Facebook to faith: that's how a spurious rumor became part of the national dialogue. On Facebook, Sarah Palin wrote in August 2009 that Obama would institute a "death panel" as part of health-care reform. Soon pundits and politicians were demagoguing the issue into common currency. Even in August 2010, one year after the initial burst and five months after health reform was signed into law, the belief lingers. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, four in 10 Americans mistakenly believe the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act creates a panel that makes decisions about end-of-life care.

SADDAM'S WMDs AND 9/11 INVOLVEMENT

Even years after claims that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction or had links to the September 11 attacks had been debunked, not all Americans were convinced. In a June 2007 NEWSWEEK poll, four years after the invasion of Iraq, 41 percent believed Saddam was involved in 9/11—even though President Bush had said otherwise as early as September 2003. Wild views on 9/11 are in fact still rampant. In September 2009, Public Policy Polling found that a quarter of Democrats suspected Bush had something to do with the attacks. Meanwhile, many Americans also remain convinced that Saddam had WMDs, even though inspectors haven't found any in the seven years since the invasion. Still, as of 2006, half of Americans believed that, according to Harris. Who knows where they got that idea?

HELIOCENTRISM

Didn't we clear this one up in the 16th century? Copernicus be damned, 20 percent of Americans were still sure in 1999 that the sun revolved around the Earth. Gallup, the pollster that conducted the study, gamely tried to dress it up by celebrating the fact that "four out of five Americans know Earth revolves around the sun," but we're not buying.

HISTORY OF RELIGION

If mutual understanding is the key to tolerance, we're in trouble. According to NEWSWEEK's 2007 What You Need to Know poll, barely half of Americans were correctly able to state that Judaism was older than both Christianity and Islam. Another 41 percent weren't sure; in case you're in that group, here goes: Judaism is the oldest of the Abrahamic faiths, followed by Christianity—which reveres the Jewish prophets (including Moses, above)—and then Islam, which reveres the Jewish prophets and also hails Jesus as a prophet.

Supreme Court vs. Seven Dwarfs

It's hard to imagine what inspired the pollsters at Zogby to ask the question, but the answer is striking: in a 2006 poll, more than three quarters of Americans could name at least two of the seven dwarfs, while not quite a quarter could name two members of the Supreme Court. NEWSWEEK's response is a split decision, if you will: on the one hand, Disney is as much a symbol of America as the high court, and those dwarfs are adorable. On the other hand, it should be easy to name only two out of a pool of nine options. Objection sustained!

WORLD GEOGRAPHY

Lost? Don't ask an American. Sixty-three percent of young Americans can't find Iraq on a map, despite the ongoing U.S involvement there. Nine out of 10 can't find Afghanistan—even if you give them the advantage of a map limited to Asia. And more than a third of Americans of any age can't identify the continent that's home to the Amazon River (above), the world's largest.

Three Stooges vs. Three Branches

What a bunch of knuckleheads: according to Zogby, the majority of Americans—three in four—can correctly identify Larry, Curly, and Moe as the Three Stooges. Only two out of five respondents, however, can correctly identify the executive, legislative, and judicial branches as the three wings of government.

FREEDOM OF RELIGION

Who needs constitutional constructionism? Not one in three Americans, apparently: that's the proportion that said in a 2008 First Amendment Center poll that the constitutional right to freedom of religion was never meant to apply to groups most folks think are extreme or fringe—a 10 percent increase from 2000. In 2007, two out of five Americans told the FAC that teachers should be allowed to lead prayers in public schools. You can see several years of the reports here.

PRESIDENT OBAMA'S RELIGION

Opponents of President Obama have been spreading false rumors about his religion for quite some time. Recently, however, it seems that the number of Americans who believe these untruths is on the rise. Among respondents to a Pew poll, 18 percent believed Obama was a Muslim, up from 11 percent in March 2009. A Time magazine poll last week found similar results: 24 percent believed he was a Muslim, while only 47 percent correctly identified him as a Christian. There's some evidence that the best indicator of belief that Obama is a Muslim is opposing him politically, casting doubt on the accuracy of the results. Then again, it wouldn't be the craziest thing Americans believe, would it?

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Unlike the hysteria of the conservative movement, this thread joins the United States Constitution in expressing its support for the free exercise of religion.

• Ron Johnson, the Tea Party Republican challenging Senator Feingold in Wisconsin, blames climate change on sunspots. Yep. Sunspots.
• Netroots Nation 2011 starts June 16, 2011 in Minneapolis--and registration is already open! You don't want to be that eager Kossack looking to sign up at the last minute wondering if anyone has a registration to sell.
• And speaking of Netroots Nation: if you're out west, save the date of November 6. Netroots California is coming to San Francisco!
• For all you video game players out there: The first two chapters in the legendary Bioshock shooter series were biting social commentaries on the philosophies of Ayn Rand and Karl Marx, respectively. The third will take on a different political philosophy: American exceptionalism. Can't wait.
• This was diaried recently by Zain, but it deserves more emphasis. As the manufactured controversy surrounding the Cordoba House continues to rage, special attention should be paid to the words spoken by Imam Rauf, the cleric leading the effort, at the memorial service for Daniel Pearl, the journalist brutally murdered in Pakistan by terrorist Islamists:

  We are here to assert the Islamic conviction of the moral equivalency of our Abrahamic faiths. If to be a Jew means to say with all one's heart, mind and soul Shma` Yisrael, Adonai Elohenu Adonai Ahad; hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One, not only today I am a Jew, I have always been one, Mr. Pearl.

  If to be a Christian is to love the Lord our God with all of my heart, mind and soul, and to love for my fellow human being what I love for myself, then not only am I a Christian, but I have always been one Mr. Pearl.

  And I am here to inform you, with the full authority of the Quranic texts and the practice of the Prophet Muhammad, that to say La ilaha illallah Muhammadun rasulullah is no different.

  It expresses the same theological and ethical principles and values.

  As Jeffrey Goldberg points out, these aren't just nice, appeasing words to say. They could carry some consequences:

  There are those who would argue that these represent mere words, chosen carefully to appease a potentially suspicious audience. I would argue something different: That any Muslim imam who stands before a Jewish congregation and says, "I am a Jew," is placing his life in danger. Remember, Islamists hate the people they consider apostates even more than they hate Christians and Jews. In other words, the man many commentators on the right assert is a terrorist-sympathizer placed himself in mortal peril in order to identify himself with Christians and Jews, and specifically with the most famous Jewish victim of Islamism.

  And yet: instead of eagerly promoting this cleric--and promoting our national security in the process--the right wing has chosen to attack him and cast aspersions on all Muslim Americans in the process--all in the hopes of short-term political gain. Hmmm...where have we seen this before?

• Republican Meg Whitman, the billionaire CEO who is attempting to buy the Governorship of California and has already spent at least $113 million of her own money just to be at a dead heat in the polls with Democrat Jerry Brown, says that her administration would defend Proposition 8 in the appeals and Supreme Court process. Just one more reason she should never see the inside of the Governor's mansion.

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Answers from Mr. Verhagen, Minister of Foreign Affairs, to questions of members Wilders and Fritsma (PVV) on ‘the co-financing by the Netherlands of a mosque on Ground Zero’.

Question 1: Is it true that Dutch taxpayers’ money is used for the support of the American Society for Muslim Advancement (ASMA), the organization Imam Faisal Abdul Rauf, who wants to build a mosque on Ground Zero?

Answer: No, the American Society for Muslim Advancement (ASMA) is not involved in the construction of a mosque at Ground Zero in the United States. For that reason, therefore, there is thus no Dutch tax money used.

However, the American Society for Muslim Advancement does receive subsidy from the Dutch MDG3 Fund to implement the program of the Women’s Islamic Initiative in Spirituality and Equity (WISE) Compact program. […]

Abdul-Rauf founded the American Society for Muslim Advancement (ASMA) in 1997, which has been run by his wife, Daisy KHAN since 2005. According to a review of financial statements, ASMA is the fiscal agent for the Cordoba Initiative. The Cordoba Initiative and the American Society for Muslim Advancement share the same infrastructure, space, and other operational assets, making them virtually one in the same, except on paper.

Women’s Empowerment (WISE): Coming Soon: The Women’s Islamic Initiative wisemuslimwomen.org in Spirituality and Equality (WISE) Portal is Currently in development. Following the feedback Received at the WISE conference in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, we are working hard to complete the portal and launch AIM to consistently Ramadan.

2003 June: Córdoba Bread Fest: The Children of Abraham Break Bread Together. Organized by Daisy Khan and the ASMA Society, the Cordoba Bread Fest convened over three hundred Christians, Jews and Muslims to break bread, dine together and share stories about the historic role of bread in the different Abrahamic religions and cultures.

WISE has as its aim the self-determination and full participation of Muslim women in their communities. To achieve this goal, activities focus on among other things the reform of existing legislation, the design of new legislation, and training for women, activities that are oriented towards increased equality between women and men.

It is my dream that 2009 will be a watershed year for Muslim women’s activism and organizing. To achieve this goal, WISE will offer lectures, panel discussions, and training sessions on effectively promoting women’s human rights within an Islamic legal framework [=sharia] at its 2009 conference. With these initiatives, WISE will continue to create a space where Muslim women from every field, branch of Islam, and region of the world can dialogue, debate, and collaborate.

They do this primarily in Afghanistan, Egypt and Pakistan.

Many countries are Islamic, but some may be more Islamic than others. Now moves are afoot to rate nations according to how closely they adhere to the principles of Islam.

Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, founder and President of Cordoba Initiative briefed a select group of scholars and IIIT [International Institute of Islamic Thought] staff ^[3] on Friday, December 19, 2008 on the Shari’ah Index Project, a pioneering effort which aims at developing an index based on Maqasid al Shari’ah for the purpose of measuring the performance of Muslim countries in relation to the implementation of Shari’ah.

My message to the Christian community in Malaysia is that using the word Allah to mean the Christian God may be theologically and legally correct, but in the context of Malaysia, it is socially provocative. If you want to have influence with people in Malaysia, you must find a way to convey your message without provoking this kind of response.

If you want to reach the Malays, then use the Malay word for God, which is Tuhan.

For Muslims, respect for the Prophet Muhammad is much more sacred than respect for elders. In fact, Muslims would not insult Jesus or Moses because they were prophets of God and demand respect. The same is true on the issue of the burqa, which covers the entire body and face, leaving just a slit for the eyes. In the Western world now, the right to wear almost anything has become a symbol of freedom. It is an expression of women’s equality. In the Muslim world, men and women dress so they are not provocative to one another.

But if the Pahang Syariah court insists on establishing a penalty for the mere consumption of alcohol, why not replace the current law — a maximum penalty of a RM5,000 fine and six lashes of the rotan — with spending RM5,000 on feeding the poor and fasting for six days? Wouldn’t that be more in keeping with the letter and spirit of the Quran and the Prophetic Sunnah?

It is about programs to prevent genital mutilation, counteracting violence against women, and organizing training of women (including media, leadership).

[…] the Muslim leaders of Tomorrow also includes radicals like Yasir Qadhi — a favorite speaker at conferences of the Muslim Brotherhood’s Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), and Dhaba “Debbie” Almontasser, who works closely with Hamas’ U.S. arm — the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), itself an unindicted co-conspirator in terror financing.

ASMA promotes jihad through da’wa and the Islamisation of the West by grooming “Muslim Leaders of Tomorrow” (MLT). At the Saudi backed 2006 MLT conference in Denmark “moderate” Islamists discussions of how to increase Muslim political and social influence was euphemistically termed “bridge building”.

The duration of the project is from 13 October 2008 to June 30, 2011.

Question 2: If yes, do you acknowledge that it is absurd to build a mosque right at Ground Zero and that this is also an insult to (the families of) the victims of 9-11? If not, why not?

Answer: See question 1

Question 3: If so, are you, given the offensive plan to build said mosque, willing to immediately withdraw the subsidy to ASMA? If not, why not?

Answer: No. Because there is no question of support for the construction of a mosque.

The withdrawal of the subsidy to ASMA, which focuses on promoting equal rights for women in countries such as among others Afghanistan, Pakistan and Egypt, is therefore not being considered.

In February, Obama named a Chicago Muslim, Eboo Patel, to his Advisory Council on Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships. Patel is the founder and executive director of Chicago-based Interfaith Youth Core, which says it promotes pluralism by teaming people of different faiths on service projects. Patel is listed as one of 15 “Muslim Leaders of Tomorrow” (MLT) on the website for the American Society for the Advancement of Muslims, or ASAM (ASMA), which is led by Rauf. In Patel’s 2007 book, “Saving Each Other, Saving Ourselves,” he recounts discussing with Rauf the future of Islam in the U.S. Rauf “understood the vision immediately and suggested that I visit him and his wife, Daisy Khan, at their home the following evening,” Patel recalled. Khan founded the ASAM with her husband and has aided him in his plans for the mosque near Ground Zero. “The living room of their apartment on the Upper West Side was set up like a mosque, with prayer rugs stretched from wall to wall,” wrote Patel in his book.

Such, then, is the dual significance of the Cordoba Initiative: What appears to many Americans as a gesture of peace and interfaith dialogue, is to Muslims allusive of Islamist conquest and consolidation; mosques, which Americans assume are Muslim counterparts to Christian churches — that is, places where altruistic Muslims congregate and pray for world peace and harmony — are symbols of domination and centers of radicalization; the numbers of the opening date, 9/11/11, appear to Americans as commemorative of a new beginning, whereas the Koranic significance of those numbers is suicidal jihad. Of course, the two faces of the Cordoba House should not be surprising considering that the man behind the initiative, Feisal Abdul Rauf, also has two faces.