Grief in Ft. Hood Stltoday.com

Once again we are left with this question “Why”  in the face of the tragedy in Ft. Hood Texas.

No matter what led to this heinous act;  psychosis, extreme anger or ideological differences, there is no justification for taking innocent lives.  The fact that the perpetrator was a physician and a psychiatrist makes this even more incomprehensible; but I think we never know what goes through these murderers’ minds. How they justify their acts, is only understandable to them.  Our military personnel were killed in their own home by one of their own.

The fact that the perpetrator is a Muslim should not be a reflection on Islam. Islam does not condone these crimes. There are more than 4,000 Muslims in the military serving our country with pride. The Muslim community of Greater St. Louis and all the national Muslim organizations have condemned this horrific act.

I do not want to speculate about the killer’s…

We have just passed All Souls Day and All Saints Day on the traditional Christian calendar,  days which emphasize our belief that we are bound together in the communion of saints.  Given this belief, it is fitting that those two days of remembrance should be followed so closely by the International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church, November 8.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton continues to speak out against the proposed U.N. resolution on religious defamation believing it would limit freedom of speech.  Meanwhile, many advocates of religious liberty have expressed concerns that the Obama administration has not sent strong enough signals on its commitment to religious freedom, particularly to countries like China which have a history of human rights abuses.   But while the debates continue and advocacy groups seek policy solutions, the persecution of people of faith continues, in dozens of countries including India, North Korea and Iran.

The International Day of…

Jaroslav Pelikan

This morning, American Public Media’s “Speaking of Faith” replayed an interview with the late, great Jaroslav Pelikan on creeds and how they function within religious belief. Excellent stuff. One of Pelikan’s last big projects before his death resulted in the book Credo.

Pelikan once came up with one of the all-time great quotes on this subject: “Tradition is the living faith of the dead. Traditionalism is the dead faith of the living.”

Two things strike me about creeds. One, they contain a sparkling minimalism. When you think of all the volumes of Christian theology written over the centuries, the Christian creeds are exceptionally short summaries of belief. That minimalism is even more true of the Jewish shema or Islam’s shahadah.

Two, their spoken power has a poetic resonance. When I listen and speak the Apostles Creed, I hear a unique poetic rhythm at work. Creeds are meant to be sung.

…

The Supreme Court case about the cross in a remote part of the Mojave National Preserve is itself a monument–a monument to changing times.

The cross placed in the Mojave National Monument in 1934. Photo by the Associated Press.

The simple white cross was erected in 1934 by the Veterans of Foreign Wars, Death Valley Post 2884. A plaque accompanying the cross dedicates it to the memory of the dead of all wars. It is similar in design to the crosses we’ve all seen in photographs of the cemetery fields in France.

Fellow blogger Leigh Hunt Greenhaw has said she’ll approach the legal issues inherent in whether the cross’s placement violates the First Amendment’s requirements for the separation of church and state. (the “establishment clause”). There are other issues as well, which are covered in the story published in the Post-Dispatch last week. My own opinions are based not on the fine points…

David Horowitz, from the blog http://lesterhhunt.blogspot.com/2008/05/david-horowitz-not-consistent-friend-of.html

In this STLToday article we learn that St. Louis University disinvited David Horowitz from speaking at a campus event entitled “Islamo-Fascism Awareness and Civil Rights” because “the school was concerned that the event could be viewed as ‘attacking another faith and seeking to cause derision on campus.’” Here we seem to have the classic conundrum of a university in a free society, how to balance the rights to free speech and the free exchange of ideas with the need to stand against the spread of hatred, bigotry, and one-sided distortions of truth. Did SLU balance these needs or was the university’s decision “outrageous” as Horowitz charges?

I don’t know, and I don’t think the article in STLToday gives us enough information to decide, and I think we should hear more about this. Extremist rhetoric shuts down the exchange of ideas, preferring to convince its listener by stirring primal fear…

A couple of days earlier, I was on my laptop, when I saw a YouTube window, which read “YouTube-Amazing Convert Story”. Upon reading this … I became a bit curious, I turned on the video, and listened to it half heartedly (it’s about 15 min long) as I did my homework and checking my mail.

As I was listening to this, the guy was describing how he was at a point in his life where he was confused and was looking for answers. It was a hard time in his life and he needed to believe in something. He went from religion to religion in search for something to fill the emptiness inside him.

When he asked the religious leaders of some given religions, questions, they would give him an answer but it was like it was their own opinion. After a while he finally stumbled across Islam and when he asked…

Jakarta, Indonesia (Adek Berry/AFP/Getty Images)

Ramadan, the month of fasting, is a time of great joy throughout the Muslim world. At the end I have put some pictures of scenes from around the globe. The pictures are from a collection on the Boston Globe website.

Krista Tippett also did a very nice program this Sunday on her wonderful NPR radioshow called Speaking of Faith, where each week some faith group is highlighted. In this Sunday’s program, titled Revealing Ramadan, a number of Muslims from all over USA (and some from elsewhere) shared their stories. The stories were about Ramadan and also about their journey to Islam or, for some, back to Islam.

Alee Ramadhan Sr. 65 years ago speakingoffaith.publicradio.org

There are stories of also sharing their experience with non-Muslims. Steven Longden in Manchester UK talks about his journey to becoming a Muslim and then later discovering that his great, great, great grandfather converted…

www.thepeoplesvoice.org

War is always a source of misery for many that stand in its path but sometimes one cannot avoid a war.  After 9/11 it was clear we must address the source of this attack on US soil.  And the source of the attack on 9/11 and was in Afghanistan.  When the US launched its forces to attack positions of Al Qaeda in Afghanistan, shortly after 9/11/2001, there was almost unanimous support worldwide. The Taliban had provided a safe haven for Al Qaeda and its leader Osama bin Laden. And they were a danger not just to us.  Unfortunately from the beginning the war in Afghanistan was not done properly.  We never committed even 1/5th the number of troops to Afghanistan compared to those sent to Iraq. If we had put in place the resources that later were committed for Iraq we would have gotten rid of Al Qaeda and Osama…

Pakistani Muslims buy dates for the coming Islamic month of Ramadan, Friday, Aug. 21, 2009 in Karachi, Pakistan (AP Photo/Fareed Khan)

Zafar Nomani, professor emeritus of human nutrition and foods at West Virginia University, has written a fascinating piece on the Washington Post’s “On Faith” blog about the health aspects of fasting, just in time for the beginning of Ramadan.

Beginning today or tomorrow (depending on which authority one abides by) Muslims will fast from dawn to sunset each day. Fasting, or sawm, is one of the five pillars of Islam. Each evening during Ramadan Muslims, will break their 13- to 14-hour fast with a frequently festive communal meal called the iftar. The end of Ramadan is celebrated with a feast called Eid al-Fitr.

Nomani says fasting “can be healthy for people of all faiths from Christians to Jews, Hindus, Buddhists and others who fast as a part of their spiritual practice. But it’s…

calvarybaptistraleigh.com

Muslims and Christians can argue with each other forcefully as to who considers God more loving. Each will argue that their faith has a more loving image of God. Yet we can find plenty of examples, among both, of people who say they believe that God is a loving God, yet their own words and deeds show that none of this love is being reflected in them. If we believe God to be loving then why can God not love others? Why do we feel compelled to be the ‘enforcer’ of what ‘we’ consider to be God’s commands? Will God only love us if we make sure others are obeying God’s commands? Will God only love us if we are obedient to God’s commands?

One Ummah shiatv.net

One tension, I guess, is the balance between being an individual and being part of the community. If we are part of a community, be…

www.pastemagazine.com

Everyday we are faced with decisions that require us to make ethical choices. And there are times when we as a community or as a nation make decisions that involve ethical choices. Going to war is certainly a very big moral/ethical choice and our faith is dictating our choice.  Now, we can make mistakes but to not learn from our mistakes only means we are likely to repeat the mistake.

War is very destructive and there is loss of life and memory of it haunts the soldiers who fight in it. This is especially true where the war is not between two armies but in a urban setting with potential of harm and casualties to civilians, something that is true of all modern wars. We asked hundreds of thousands of our men and women to go fight this war Iraq. Most of them are simple honest ordinary citizens who found themselves…

AP file photo A Christian boy looks on as he sits at the back of his family car after leaving Mosul, Iraq

Until our invasion of Iraq, the 1.4 million large Christian population in Iraq (7% of the population) was one of the oldest, large, healthy minority population anywhere in the world. It was/is one of the oldest Christian populations anywhere in the world. They enjoyed a above average economic life. Today they are seriously facing possible extinction, primarily through exodus. 

Many westerners believe that Muslims and Islam are an intolerant society. And some are quick to point to this sad situation of Iraqi Christians today as proof of their assertion. How little do we contemplate things right in front of our noses! If indeed Muslims are extremely intolerant, how is it that these Iraqi Christians lived for over 1000 years among them? One may also consider that we cannot point to a…

Every major faith tradition encourages those who have the means to help those who do not. So the question that keeps coming up is the following: Is it a moral issue that in the richest nation in the history of mankind more than 1 out of 8 people have no health coverage? That is the question that single payer addresses. Simply put health coverage for everyone. It is similar to what is the situation in countries with the best health coverage, who are spending much less than us on their per person health coverage. So, if done properly, single payer should not cost more than what we are collectively paying but less.These are social decisions but they are also moral ones. Single payer has strong support among physicians as well as in the population at large. The sad part is that it isn’t even on the table in the current health…

http://img113.imageshack.us

Our faiths teach us that The Creator loves creation unconditionally. But what does this Love of God for Creation mean? Many people compare it to (or understand it in terms of) human love. This comparison of Divine Love and human love seems to be erroneous because human love seems to mostly be conditional. We love someone because of the circumstances or their response to us and if matters change so does our love (as the high divorce rate attests to).

In Islam when considering The Creator the qualities of Love and Mercy are used interchangeably. And the idea is that Allah Loves us beyond our imagination. I was reminded of this when again watching a beautiful little video titled ‘A Land Called Paradise’ .  There is a young man in it who puts up two placards about himself. The first one reads ‘I am a total idiot’ and the second one reads…

Abraham Lincoln media.photobucket.com

There is a saying attributed to Prophet Muhammad (I am paraphrasing a bit). Prophet Muhammad once said “Support your brother when he is right and support your brother when he is wrong”. His companions were puzzled (knowing that the Prophet always supported truth only) and one asked “what do you mean support your brother when he is wrong”.  Prophet Muhammad replied “Support your brother when he is wrong by correcting him”. Lets face it, hardly anybody likes being corrected. But to correct someone in a nice and gentle manner, where the person sees it as an act of a well-wisher, is a true act of friendship. To correct one’s nation (or work to correct it when needed) is also a true act of patriotism. Why should we support our nation right or wrong? Why not make sure our nation is always right? Which is a better act of patriotism,…

My husband has been known to say that life on a church staff feels like it has all the makings of a great TV reality show.  I usually take that kind of comment as evidence that my husband has a good sense of humor.  Some people, though, have come up with an even zanier idea and turned it into an actual program.

According to an article in the Reuters news service that is winging its way around the blogosphere this week, the Turkish television station Kanal T is preparing “to launch a gameshow where spiritual guides from the four faiths [Islam, Christianity, Judaism, and Buddhism] will seek to convert a group of non-believers.”  The article mentions that there has been considerable resistance to this idea:

But religious authorities in Muslim but secular Turkey are not amused by the twist on the popular reality game show format and the Religious Affairs Directorate is refusing…

Young women at Imam Academy Morocco

Someone once said “For God’s sake if you have something to say begin at the end”. Well that is what the title does but now I need to backfill why this is a solution to improving present day Muslim society. When asked about women rights Muslim’s proudly point to the emancipation of women under Islam. In 700 AD the Islamic system of government, as mandated by the Qur’an, gave women rights unheard of in other societies for 800 years or more. Women had property rights and rights of inheritance and they had freedoms not known before (and some not known today). Some women took it upon themselves to travel alone over vast distances to visit Makkah (something no woman would consider today). Many women took the opportunity to become scholars and women were heavily represented among early Muslim scholars. So that is great but what…

Bountiful harvest www.partnerone.biz

OK admittedly the title is a bit tongue in cheek. But we should ask the question: Why did the Creator create Sin? (this is a bit of a diversion but I prefer the attribute Creator instead of the word God, (although in some cases language dictates using God) in that it is a bit more gender neutral. The word Allah would be even more preferable (if it did not connotate so many misunderstanding in so many people) because it is not only gender neutral but plurality neutral, i.e., there is no Allahs form of this word. The ‘Al’ is the ‘The’ in Arabic :) (four the’s in a row eh). ‘La’ in Arabic means ‘no’ but I haven’t been able to find what ‘lah’ would mean although it has to be close to ‘la’. Etymology suggests the meaning ‘The Undefinable’ for ‘Al Lah’ which does capture the deepest sense…

Being an American makes you the most popular kid in the village.

Rick Steve’s programs on travel in Europe have been enjoyable to watch. He is soft spoken and can show his enthusiasm without getting too worked up. When I heard about him making a program about Iran, I did not know what to expect. The PBS documentary he made was exceptional. He also kept a daily diary of his time in Iran and his entries there about talking and listening to people there are an eye opener. Here are some excerpts:

The Islamic Revolution is a “revolution of values.” People here tell me they support it because they want to raise their children without cheap sex, disrespectful clothing, drug abuse and materialism, believing it erodes character and threatens their traditional values. To conservative Iranians, America stands for all of the above. The people I’ve met here don’t want their culture to be…

Mousavi Supporter www.huffingtonpost.com/

If one remembers the results by county of the 2004 elections it was a swath of red with small pockets of blue, even though the popular vote was much closer. It was a clear demarcation of rural (generally poorer and less educated) versus urban (and generally more educated). There is a very similar line in the Iran elections. The religious lines are similarly drawn with the conservative (more rural) clearly supporting incumbent Mr. Ahmedinijad and the liberal supporting Mr. Mousavi.

It is the religious aspect that is of interest. One may also recall that former President Bush was

Ahmedinijad Supporters photos.upi.com/

intensely unpopular outside USA in 2004. Mr. Ahmedinijad is also very unpopular outside Iran. The two candidates also resemble in personality. Both have simple very conservative philosophies (albeit very different ones) and are seen by their supporters as having strong religious values and strong national security values, even if…