U.S. Episcopal Church approves blessing of same-sex unions
The U.S. Episcopal Church has approved a liturgy for clergy to use in blessing same-sex unions, including gay marriages in states where they are legal, becoming the largest U.S. religious denomination to approve such a ritual.
Delegates to its triennial convention voted 171-50 on Tuesday to approve the liturgy, titled “the Witnessing and Blessing of a Lifelong Covenant.” Episcopal bishops had voted overwhelmingly on Monday in favor of the text.
The U.S. Episcopal Church, part of the worldwide Anglican Communion, is the 14th largest U.S. religious denomination, with about 2 million members, according to the National Council of Churches.
The proposed blessing will be introduced in early December and will be evaluated over the next three years, according to a church spokeswoman, Nancy Davidge.
The resolution does not mention the word “marriage” and it does not alter the church’s standard liturgy for a marriage between a man and a woman, but offers an alternative liturgy for blessing same-sex couples.
The measure also gives bishops of the church discretion in the use of the liturgy and says no one should be punished for choosing not to use it.
Read the full story by Susan Guyett here. . Follow all posts on Twitter @ RTRFaithWorld
Interfaith report: Poverty and injustice drive Nigeria’s sectarian violence
Poverty, inequality and injustice are threatening to trigger a broad sectarian conflict in Nigeria, an international Christian-Muslim task force said on Wednesday.
Clashes between Nigerian Christians and Muslims have already killed hundreds of people this year alone. But although the violence is the worst between members of the two faiths since the Bosnian war of 1992-1995, the root causes go far beyond religion, the group’s report said.
Corruption, mismanagement, land disputes and the lack of aid for victims or punishment for troublemakers have all fuelled tensions, especially in Nigeria’s “Middle Belt”, where the mostly Muslim north meets the largely Christian south, it said.
Attacks by radical Islamist groups such as Boko Haram that exploit these secular issues and revenge killings by Christian and Muslim gangs have reinforced the religious aspect of the violence.
“There is a possibility that the current tension and conflict might become subsumed by its religious dimension (especially along geographical ‘religious fault-lines’),” the report said, warning that blaming only religion for the strife would make that incomplete view “a self-fulfilling prediction”.
The 12-member joint delegation was led by World Council of Churches (WCC) General Secretary Olav Fyske Tveit of Norway and Jordanian Prince Ghazi bin Muhammad, chairman of the board of the Royal Aal al-Bayt Institute for Islamic Thought.
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Europe’s Muslims edge towards synchronizing dates for Ramadan and Eid
When the Muslim holy month of Ramadan arrives next week, fasting will definitely begin on Friday in Germany, probably the same day in neighboring France and maybe on Saturday across the Channel in Britain.
Even in the same country, some Muslims might begin and end the fast before or after others because they follow different rules or disagree on whether they have spotted the new crescent moon, the official start of the month in Islam’s lunar calendar.
This especially causes problems where Muslim minorities live in societies with many holidays based on the Christian calendar that cannot easily accommodate holy days or months whose exact date is determined at short notice.
Frustrated by this confusion, Muslim leaders across Europe are increasingly turning to modern astronomy to help solve the problem. But theological differences, ethnic divisions and the sheer weight of tradition are still holding up progress.
“In the modern world, especially in the West, people can’t decide on the fly to start or end the holy month at 10 p.m. the night before,” said Nidhal Guessoum, an Algerian-born astrophysicist who has long argued for a scientific solution.
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Kenyan Christians pray targetted attacks by militant Islamists end
Kenyan Christians fear they are being targetted by militant Islamists, perhaps to avenge the country’s military incursion inside Somalia, but vowed on Sunday to respond through prayers, not violence.
In the port city of Mombasa security guards body-searched worshippers, while in the eastern town of Garissa, where attacks on two churches last week killed 17 people, military police patrolled the streets and Muslims came out in a show of solidarity.
Both Christian and Muslim leaders have urged calm this week, keen to prevent the grenade and gun attacks in Garissa last Sunday driving a wedge between the two largest religious communities and triggering violence.
“Why would they attack a church on a Sunday? Remember the recent one in a Nairobi church and several others…all on Christians. Are you telling me that is a coincidence? No way,” said Margaret Wakio, 28, clutching a bible and hymn book as she entered church in Mombasa.
“This is intentionally targetting us. We will fight back, but through prayers not weapons,” she said.
Mombasa, Garissa and towns along the border with Somalia, all predominantly Muslim areas, have been subjected to a wave of violence since Kenya sent troops into its war-ruined neighbour to help crush al Qaeda-linked rebels.
Muslims and Christians alike have been killed.
Praying the faithful under siege, for calm, comfort, safety, and God’s justice to prevail. God is with the persecuted, and will bring them through. Grant us all love, wisdom, patience, and perseverance. Pray for an end to violence in the name of faith, in the name of politics, in the name of greed, for all people.
Church of England delays vote on allowing women bishops until November
The Church of England delayed a vote on allowing women bishops on Monday after reformers rejected a last-minute concession to conservatives keen to keep the posts reserved for men only.
The Church’s General Synod voted to send back to their current bishops for further consideration an amendment allowing dissenting parishes to choose their male bishop as their leader if a woman is named to head their diocese.
That put off a final vote on the draft legislation, which most Church of England dioceses have already approved, until the Church’s next synod, or parliament, in November.
Along with the question of same-sex marriages, the consecration of women as bishops is among the most divisive issues facing the world’s 77 million Anglicans.
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Netanyahu moves to end military exemptions for Haredi Jews
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gave the go-ahead on Sunday to reforms that would end the exemption of ultra-Orthodox Jewish men from compulsory military service, in an about-face hours after 20,000 Israelis marched for change.
Military service is a highly emotive issue for Israelis, most of whom start a two or three-year service at the age of 18. Many are also called up for reserve duty. Ultra-Orthodox Jewish men are exempt to allow them to pursue religious studies.
“Everyone must bear the burden. We will provide positive incentives to those who serve and negative incentives to draft dodgers,” Netanyahu told a meeting of lawmakers from his right-wing Likud party.
At his urging, the Likud legislators ratified the recommendations of a government-appointed panel formulating a new military conscription law that would cancel exemptions for most Jewish seminary students.
The issue has put huge strain on Netanyahu’s ruling coalition. Only last Monday and under pressure from religious leaders, the prime minister dismissed the panel, headed by Yohanan Plesner, a member of the centrist Kadima party that is the biggest partner in the coalition.
The committee went ahead and issued its report two days later, in defiance of Netanyahu and with the support of Kadima leader and Vice Premier Shaul Mofaz, who issued veiled threats to quit the government only two months after joining it.
About 20,000 people marched in Tel Aviv on Saturday night calling for an “equal sharing of the national burden” and demanding Netanyahu change course and back the committee’s proposals.
Ultra-Orthodox feel they’re in a dialogue of the deaf with secular Israel
Zalman Deren spends his days studying the Torah in a small synagogue near the Western Wall in Jerusalem. He’s young and able-bodied, with a wife and three children to feed, but has no job because that would distract him from his vocation.
A short walk away, at Israel’s largest Torah school, Mir Yeshiva, noise levels in the spacious study halls reach a low roar as hundreds of men of all ages decipher and debate the holy texts for hours. Most of them are also married with children and do not earn a living.
Israel has an estimated 60,000 full-time scripture scholars like this, who live in poverty and study to follow what they say is their faith’s highest calling. In return, Israel pays them modest stipends and exempts them from compulsory military service for all Jewish citizens.
This 64-year-old pact between the state and the ultra-Orthodox is headed for a major overhaul, however.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu agreed at the weekend to reforms capping the number of students around 1,500 by 2016 and penalizing draft dodgers.
Full details of the plans, which should come into force by August 1, still have to be agreed within Netanyahu’s broad coalition. But any tightening of the rules will have wide support in Israeli society.
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U.S. Presbyterian Church rejects gay marriage proposal
The U.S. Presbyterian Church on Friday narrowly rejected a proposal by same-sex marriage proponents for a constitutional change that would redefine marriage as a union between “two people,” rather than between a woman and a man.
The 338-308 vote followed nearly four hours of heated debate at the Church’s General Assembly in Pittsburgh, a biennial gathering to review policy.
The Church, with around 2 million members, currently allows ministers to bless gay unions but prohibits them from solemnizing homosexual civil marriages.
Opponents of the change argued the move would alienate the Church from Presbyterian churches in other countries, while backers said it should be a leader in advocating for the acceptance of same-sex marriage.
Michael Wilson, of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, told the General Assembly the proposal threatened to “tear the Church apart.”
But Piper Madison, from North Alabama Presbytery, said “the Church doesn’t ask us to do what others approve of, it asks us to do what is right.”
Read the full story by Matt Stroud here. . Follow all posts on Twitter @ RTRFaithWorld
Why is it that none of these christian “religions” ever hold a meeting to reject divorce????
from Pakistan: Now or Never?:
Pakistan: The politicisation of death
So many deaths in Pakistan; so many to outrage or upset us. How do we choose whose death to notice? The civilian killed by a drone strike? The Shia Hazara gunned down in Balochistan? The Ahmadi father knifed to death in his home? The beheaded Pakistani soldier? The mother who died in a suicide bombing? The murdered journalist? The child swept away by floods? The acid attack victim?
And let's be clear - we do choose. The domestic and international media decide whose deaths to highlight. We put their stories out on Twitter. Politicians speak about their case. Since there are too many deaths for us to condemn them all, we notice only some. I have been thinking about this, the politicisation of death, after two stories appeared in the last few days about two very different people killed in Pakistan.
One was about a man beaten to death by a mob in Punjab after being accused of blasphemy. According to newspaper reports, he was dragged out of a police station and after he had been beaten (the accounts vary here about whether he was dead at this point), the mob poured petrol over him and burned him. Nobody even knew his name.
The other was about a young woman, Farida Afridi, from Khyber Agency in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), who was working on a project to improve the education and empowerment of women in the region. She was attacked by men on motorcycles shortly after she left her home, shot and killed. She was 25.
The first story made the international media; it reached the top headlines in the English-language domestic media; Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari demanded an inquiry. The second struggled to make it into the mainstream.
Now it is invidious to compare one death to another. Both people were innocent. Neither deserved to die. Their murders must be condemned. Yet since we have made a choice and given more attention to one over the other, we do have to explain why.
After all, we spend enough time fitting death into political categories. Some politicians choose to stress civilian deaths from US drone strikes over those killed by Taliban suicide bombings in order to win political gains from populist anti-Americanism. For others, the use and abuse of the blasphemy laws, or the killings of minority sects, is about political or personal power.
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Resist evil and tyranny so that human Freedom can survive and live longer. Think positive and be good to others for your sake. India will certainly face the music for its torture agaist Kashmiris.
Rex Minor
Factbox-Some facts about Israel’s ultra-Orthodox Jews
Exemptions from military service and state subsidies for ultra-Orthodox Jews have become a divisive political issue in Israel, where the government must decide a new law by August to ensure more of them serve in the army.
The ultra-Orthodox, or Haredim (Hebrew for “those who tremble (before God)”), have gone from being a tiny minority in Israel’s mostly secular society to its fastest-growing sector, now about 10 percent of the 7.8 million population.
Here are some facts about the ultra-Orthodox:
MAIN GROUPS: The ultra-Orthodox, the most conservative of all streams of Judaism, are a diverse movement made up mainly of three overall groups:
- Lithuanians or Litvaks are Ashkenazi (eastern European) Jews from what is now Lithuania, Belarus, Ukraine and parts of Poland. Deeply traditional, their intellectual approach focuses on deep study of the Torah and their yeshivas (schools for Torah study) are widely respected.
- Hasidim are Ashkenazi Jews from Poland, Hungary, Romania, Ukraine and Russia. Their spiritual and mystical Judaism emerged in the 18th century in reaction to traditional schools such as the Lithuanian and modernising trends developing in Europe. They are organised into dynasties headed by a charismatic leader known as their “Rebbe” (master). The largest ones are Belz, Chabad Lubavitch, Ger, Satmar and Vizhnitz.
- Sephardic Haredim are Jews of Sephardic and Mizrahi descent, tracing their roots back to communities in Spain, North Africa and the Middle East. They have developed distinctive rites, but many now tend to prefer Lithuanian yeshivas and even dress like the Haredim from eastern Europe.
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Resident FaithWorld Expert
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it’s very Disgusting, i hope it will not happen in my country.