February 2023 Interfaith News Roundup
by Paul Chaffee
The Interfaith News Roundup is a monthly publication of The Interfaith Observer. Paragraph by paragraph the Roundup summarizes major religion/interfaith stories that are underreported. Each paragraph is linked to the full story it introduces.
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Rev. Sally Azar – Photo: Jewish News Syndicate
Women Finally Welcome
Most religious traditions historically have been reluctant about admitting women and sharing the institutional privileges conferred by ordination. Now Sally Azar, a Lutheran Palestinian living in Jerusalem, is the first woman to be ordained into Christian ministry in that Holy City. Hundreds of friends and well-wishers attended the ceremony, which was briefly noted by media around the world. (Sad to say, last month dozens of gravestones in a Christian cemetery in Jerusalem were vandalized. We can hope it wasn’t a response to Rev. Azar’s ordination.)
In Bhutan, a tiny nation in the Himalayas, His Holiness Je Khenpo, the senior Buddhist authority in Bhutan, ordained a group of 144 bhikshunis, or female monks. The ceremony was conducted at the Ramthangkha monastery where a Tibetan lineage of Buddhism is practiced.
Devanshi Sanghvi is an eight-year-old heiress to a large international diamond enterprise. She has given up that heritage to be ordained as a Jain nun. Devanshi joins a strict order where one renounces the pleasures of the world. Jainism is an ancient tradition which promotes a high form of nonviolence called ahimsa, a concept endorsed and promoted by Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr.
Church & State
Church and State relationships over the centuries are usually complex and often troubled. In small contexts and large they still are. Two interesting, mostly unnoticed examples point to some of the difficulties.
Nepal Annapurna – Gandrung – Photo: Jeanne Menjoulet, Flickr
Christian missionaries, mainly from South Korea, have built 70 churches in Nepal over the past 20 years, supported by 300 Korean missionary families. Now the Christians are targeting the birthplace of the Buddha. (They might wish to pay attention to what is happening in India where the work of Christian missionaries has brought down the wrath of the Indian government.) In Nepal, an anti-conversion law was passed in 2018 subjecting those convicted with five years in jail. But the law has been ignored by both missionaries and the government.
In Salem, Massachusetts, a more complex struggle is going on between the Satanic Temple and various state agencies, laws, and right-wing politicians. Adam Gabbatt’s survey of Satanism in The Guardian reports “They have protested against a homophobic church and opposed prayer in classrooms. Now this minority religion is defending the right to abortion.” Satanic Temple members do not take Satan to be a literal demonic divinity but rather an embodiment of the struggle against authoritarianism. The Temple is classified as a church by the Internal Revenue Service.
The Dark Side of Religion
Baptist News Global offers a first review of Religicide: Confronting the Roots of Anti-Religious Violence by Georgette Bennett and Jerry White, the newly appointed executive director of United Religions Initiative. Religious conflict and oppression are nothing new – but Bennett and White take the discussion a step further, unpacking the nightmare of whole religions being threatened with extinction and what we can do about it.
Obviously the gifts of digital culture are manifest, but the benefits come with equivalent capabilities for deceit, deception, and fraud. Religion Dispatches’ article “We Declare You Restored: How Christian ‘Forgiveness’ is Deployed to Enable Abuse and Corruption” by Greg Carey, exposes this danger when religion is involved. Forgiveness is a deep value for most religious, spiritual communities. Seeing it weaponized is tragic.
The emergence of Christian nationalism has meant considerable splintering in right-wing religion. Charismatic Christian sects are battling each other. Frequently it is over which ‘dominionist’ notions should be taking over the country in the name of their particular doctrines and policies. One powerful player in the struggle is the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR). Its influence is growing, as is its defense of violence to achieve its goals.
The NAR agenda ranges “from the relentless attacks on transgender youth … to the steady drumbeat of election fraud claims, to accusations that Dr. Fauci engineered Covid-19 in a Chinese lab to help a demonic cabal in Davos to impose a one-world government over freedom-loving Americans like themselves.” Right wing religious activities can be found around the country, but Montana is proving itself to be the most successful in bringing the Christian right into government.
Raqib Hameed Naik – Photo: raqibnaik.com
Past issues of the Roundup have marked the sad increase in India’s hate crimes and the emergence of Hindutva, a movement seeking to make the nation an assertively Hindu nation, rather than a democratic, interfaith bulwark in the family of nations. In a challenge to Hindutva comes HindutvaWatch.org, a remarkably courageous website committed to document hate crimes in India. Founded by Raqib Hameed Naik, a young Muslim who writes and edits the Watch despite multiple threats to his life. He is situated anonymously somewhere in the US.
Hindutva, growing throughout India since Prime Minister Modi‘s Bharatiya Janata Party came to power in 2014, now has found echoes in America’s Indian diaspora, including disturbing signs of growing anti-Muslim sentiment. Much of the fallout has occurred on American campuses, where life has been politicized for many Hindu students.
In the midst of all this political/religious conflict, it’s worth remembering Hinduism’s ability to generate an unparalleled institutional diversity. “Visa temples” have emerged in India wherever there are U.S. consulates. These temples offer prayer and blessings for those seeking visas and the means to travel, usually to the US.
Interfaith Solutions
Photo: The Sun Daily
Right-wing religious nationalism, in spite of the above, is hardly the only source of compelling religious stories today, and many of them are encouraging. Interfaith activities around the world, though they garner scant coverage, continue to make strides. For instance, “300 Malaysians representing some 100 ethnic and religious groups came together at the dinner organised by the Christians for Peace and Harmony in Malaysia (CPHM) movement to promote friendship, peace and harmony among all races and religious groups.”
Police in NYC are taking an interfaith approach to hundreds of hate crimes they confront, aimed largely at religious minorities. A national exemplar, the NYPD and New York’s religious communities have a long record of building strong relationships with each other dedicated to violence reduction and healthy communities.
In Arizona an interfaith coalition is supporting the Apache claim to seven miles of sacred land. “Christian, Muslim, Sikh and Indigenous groups filed amicus briefs on Jan. 9 urging the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to protect the site that the Apache people deem sacred.” The coalition joined the Apaches to oppose Resolution Copper, a copper mining conglomerate in Phoenix, over the fate of 6,000 acres.
Heads Up!
Men displaced from Shangil Tobaya, fleeing heavy fighting in Shangil Tobay – Photo: United Nations Photo, C.c. 2.0 BY-NC-ND
The number of displaced people in the world rose to a new high of 89.4 million in 2020. Displaced people are those forced to leave their homes due to conflict, violence or disasters. They include refugees, asylum seekers, and people internally displaced within their country of birth. Overall, the number of displaced persons rose from 84.8 million in 2019 to 89.4 million in 2020, according to the UN’s World Migration Report 2022. Overall, about 1.1% of the world’s population are displaced people.
Brain-computer interfaces are on the horizon and raise huge ethical and political questions. For instance, the military is seeking high-tech tools for giving soldiers the capacity to control weapons with their thoughts, while turning off their fear. And we thought the past hundred years were complicated!
Header Photo: Bhutan mountains – Photo: Wikimedia
