Associated Baptist Press
December 30, 2008 · (08-128)
David Wilkinson, Executive Director
Robert Marus, Acting Managing Editor/Washington Bureau Chief
Bob Allen, Senior Writer
In this issue
Opinion: Let us be the voice of the voiceless in the Congo (329 words)
Rick Warren accuses critics of 'Christophobia' (902 words)
Pentagon tightens policy on distributing religious literature to recruits (473 words)
Correction
Opinion: Let us be the voice of the voiceless in the Congo
By Maurice Mondengo
Throughout the last few months conflict centered in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo has continued to escalate with profound effects.
Since August an estimated 250,000 civilians have been forced to flee their homes .
Many have been driven into refugee camps. Many more are hiding in the forest and in the mountains. The villages are empty. The basic minimum conditions for life and sustenance are missing. It is hard and risky to reach the places where the people are hiding. Even where there is food, there is no money to buy it.
Those who have guns have their say. Those who do not have guns have lost their voice.
On the other hand, there is a great deal of goodwill from the churches which are bringing love, hope and food to the different displacement camps in the east of the DRC. The Baptist World Alliance has contributed a grant used to provide aid to displaced persons in the Kivu region, and Baptist missionaries have been working in the battlefield with some local pastors.
All the same, the people in the east of the DRC need more than food. They need change. They need a stop to this off-and-on remote-controlled war that since 1996 has left more than 5 million dead, a war that has multiplied the number of widows and orphans.
Enough is enough.
Though we cannot all travel to the DRC, each one of us can do something wherever we are at. We can all share news of the Congo and influence those who have a say in the world.
Let us work for lasting peace without keeping quiet in the face of injustice, oppression and every kind of violence. Justice and peace must walk together, and we as the Church should be at the forefront of announcing this full Gospel of justice and peace to our world.
Let us be the voice of the voiceless in the Congo.
Let peace start with us... please.
Maurice Mondengo is a Baptist pastor and junior lecturer in theology at Protestant University of the Congo. This column appeared originally on the Baptist World Alliance Emerging Leader Network blog.
Rick Warren accuses critics of 'Christophobia'
By Bob Allen
LAKE FOREST, Calif. (ABP) -- Pastor Rick Warren termed criticism of his selection to pray the invocation at President-elect Barack Obama's Jan. 20 inauguration "hate speech" and "Christophobia" in a video message on the Saddleback Church website.
"A lot of you have written to me this week and said, 'Rick, how are you going to respond to all these, you know, these false accusations and attacks, outright lies and hateful slander, and really a lot of hate speech?'" Warren said in a 22-minute message to church members. "It's what I would call Christophobia -- people who are afraid of any Christian."
The Purpose Driven Life author denied reports that he equated gay partnerships with incest and pedophilia, but said he understands how some people would think that based on comments he made in a Beliefnet interview. Warren said his main point was that he opposes changing the definition of marriage. He said he believes that homosexuality is "contrary to God's word," but also that "no American should ever be discriminated against because of their beliefs, period."
"Some people feel today that if you disagree with them, then that's hate speech," Warren said. "If you disagree with them, you either hate them or you're afraid of them. I'm neither afraid of gays nor do I hate gays. In fact I love them, but I do disagree with some of their beliefs."
Warren said the media "is totally missing the story" by focusing just on homosexuality.
"You know the fact that an evangelical pastor believes in keeping the historic definition of marriage, that's not news," Warren said. "I mean that's not been news for hundreds of years. It's a non-story, nothing new. And the fact that the gay community would disagree with me, that's not news either.
"What's the real story? The real story is that a couple of different American leaders have chosen to model civility for the rest of the nation, and that Barack Obama and Rick Warren have decided to try to create a new politic that says we can disagree without being disagreeable. We can walk hand-in-hand without seeing eye-to-eye. We can have unity in our nation without uniformity. And we can have collaboration for the best of America."
Warren said the history of the invitation dates back three years, when he took a risk by inviting Obama to speak at a conference on HIV/AIDS at Saddleback Church.
"Now, when that happened, I was criticized incessantly from the right, and in fact it's never stopped," he said. "They've just criticized me and criticized me for inviting -- as if having him here said that I agreed with everything that he agreed with."
"That is still going on," Warren said. "In fact one conservative writer who hates me for agreeing to pray for the invocation wrote me just recently, he said, 'You know, Rick, if you pray at the inauguration, you are sticking a fork in the head of every aborted baby.' Now, come on. I am doing this because I love America, and it's a historic opportunity, and it's an honor to be part of any inauguration of any president, and I love our country."
Warren said Obama also took a big risk, by selecting him to pray the invocation despite knowing "he'd take flak from people who would disagree with me."
"But you know what, we're both willing to be criticized in order to try to bring America in to a new day of civil discourse and to create a new model that says you don't have to agree only with your side on everything," Warren said. "You can reach out in the middle and try to figure out to have a way that we can make America a better place -- without having to agree on everything.
"You see, that's the story that the media is missing. It's the story of risk-taking, not that people on both sides of the opposite poles are angry at me or angry at President-elect Obama; that we're friends and that we admire each other even though we disagree on some things. It's the missing element of civility."
"I was a friend of Barack Obama's long before he decided to run for office," Warren said. "I talked to him about running for office before he even ran. And he has been a friend. As I said, I don't agree with everything he espouses. Neither did I agree with everything John McCain espoused."
Warren said he's learned several things about the media in the last few years. One "is the media never gets it 100 percent correct" and another is "the media lives for conflict."
"What I've learned is if there is no conflict, then somebody is going to create it," he said. "Now the media loves to create conflict. The problem with that is it's creating a more and more polarized nation, and that polarization is causing people to be ruder and ruder and more and more inflamed."
Warren blamed that on two groups -- media programs "where the goal is to simply get people to yell at each other" and "bloggers who really need to get a life."
"A lot of people think that because they can sit in the quietness of their own home and hide behind a screen, they can hurl all kinds of bombs at people and get away with it," Warren said. "Well no, they're just being rude."
Bob Allen is senior writer for Associated Baptist Press.
Pentagon tightens policy on distributing religious literature to recruits
By Bob Allen
WASHINGTON (ABP) -- The Pentagon recently reversed its policy of granting religious groups like the Gideons International preferential access to provide literature to new recruits.
A new regulation distributed in November says non-federal entities can continue to receive permission to place secular or religious literature at 65 Military Entrance Processing Stations around the country, but faith-based and secular organizations must be treated alike.
The policy change followed an investigation by the American Civil Liberties Union into a complaint by a recruit in Louisville, Ky., about being approached by a representative of the Gideons, a 100-year-old organization best known for placing Bibles in hotel rooms.
The ACLU said it found evangelizing activities at up to 10 other processing centers, such as handing out religious tracts during their processing as if it were part of official military procedure and distributing New Testaments with khaki covers that suggested it was a military publication.
The new rule recognizes the importance of accommodating the religious beliefs of military personnel but says the government must avoid any appearance of establishing religion.
Literature at processing centers must not "create the reasonable impression that the government is sponsoring, endorsing or inhibiting religion generally, or favoring or disfavoring a particular religion."
"Under no circumstances" is a member of any non-federal entity "permitted to proselytize, preach, or provide spiritual counseling to, or otherwise communicate information of a religious nature" to applicants or federal personnel while on an MEPS site.
The centers run by the United States Military Entrance Processing Command are the last stop for armed forces recruits on their way to basic training. They receive a battery of tests and examinations, including a physical, to ensure they are fit to serve. If they are found to be qualified, they sign their entrance contract and swear an entrance oath.
The ACLU hailed the policy change. "We applaud the Military Entrance Processing Command for recognizing that the religious freedom of all individuals joining the armed forces must be protected, including those who do not subscribe to the beliefs of the Gideons," said Jeremy Gunn, director of the ACLU Program on Freedom of Religion and Belief. "The new rule strikes the right constitutional balance by preserving religious liberty without showing governmental favoritism for one religion or belief over another."
The Gideon ministry placed Bibles only in hotels and motels between 1908 and 1940, until a member had the idea of creating a pocket-size New Testament, adding Proverbs and Psalms, and handing it out to members of the military. A test run of 10,000 New Testaments arrived in Hawaii in April 1941, a few months before the attack on Pearl Harbor.
Since then the Gideons has given away more than 45 million copies of the Bible to military personnel. Working through chaplains, the ministry offers a free New Testament to any service member who wants one.
Bob Allen is senior writer for Associated Baptist Press.
Correction: Please replace the sixth paragraph in the Dec. 23 story "Controversy over inaugural prayer is nothing new" with the following:
Invoking God's blessing has been a part of the presidential inauguration ceremony since 1789, when George Washington took the oath of office and then proceeded to St. Paul's Chapel, where the Senate chaplain read from the Book of Common Prayer.
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