July—August, 2010 (Vol. 25, No. 9-10)

Conservative and Reform Jews in the U.S. have expressed concerns about a conversion bill recently discussed in the Israeli Knesset that could erode the legitimacy of conversions performed by them.

Fearing that the bill could create a rift in the Jewish world and affect political support for Israel among North American Jews, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that he opposed it in its current form (Associated Press, July 18). The bill will now be frozen for six months, in the hope that it can be redrafted in a form more acceptable to non-Orthodox Jews (Jewish Telegraphic Agency, July 23). It is not the first time that issues related to the dominance of Orthodox Judaism in Israeli religious life have led to tensions with American Judaism, where 85 percent of the Jews are not affiliated with Orthodox Judaism.

Ironically, the bill was meant to make conversions easier, in consideration of the huge number of Israelis of Russian extraction who immigrated since the 1990s and are not Jews according to Jewish law (which states that one is Jewish by virtue of having a Jewish mother). District and municipal rabbis in Israel would have greater authority to perform conversions of Israelis, regardless of the place of residence of the convert, while this is currently a complicated matter with special conversion courts and curricular requirements (classes, exams, pledges to be religiously observant), writes Uriel Heilman in a Jewish Telegraphic Agency report (April 28).

But the bill also consolidates the control of the Orthodox Chief Rabbinate and does not guarantee that conversions performed overseas, especially by non-Orthodox Jews, would be recognized: this might put into question the eligibility of some under the Law of Return. The fact that the Rabbinate retroactively annulled thousands of conversions performed by religious Zionist rabbis two years ago brings no comfort to opponents of the bill, notes Yehuadah Mirsky (Jewish Ideas Daily, July 26).

Non-Orthodox Jewish movements in the U.S. feel that the legislation would revive the debate over who is a Jew and undermine progresses made through the Israeli Supreme Court on the legitimacy of nonOrthodox groups, whose converts are considered to be Jewish under the Law of Return (Jewish Telegraphic Agency, April 30). The Reform movement in the UK has also warned its members that the bill could lead to “losing recognition in Israel of Reform and other non-Orthodox conversions for ever” (Jewish Chronicle, July 22).

Whatever the fate of the bill, discussions on the role of Orthodox Judaism in Israel and the status of non-Orthodox Jewish movements will continue. Rabbi Eric Yoffie, president of the Union for Reform Judaism, expressed his wish to see the religious monopoly in Israel “overthrown for a free market society,” but admitted that this would not happen in the shorter term, reports Jordana Horn in the Jerusalem Post (July 22).

In several parts of the Muslim world authorities have been tempted to promote Sufism, the mystical Islamic movement, as a way of counteracting Islamist ideologies.

This strategy is also in play in Dagestan, in the Russian part of the Caucasus, although not everyone—including Sufis themselves—is enthusiastic about giving a religious monopoly over to one strand of Sufism, reports Geraldine Fagan of the Forum 18 news service (May 25). The state may now have come to realize that attempting to control Muslim life is futile in the long term and it might consider relaxing the policy, Fagan writes in a second article (June 3).

Before the Soviets came to power, Dagestan was known as a strongly religious area. Religious revival had already started in the 1970s, before the end of communism. Sufism is prevalent, but Salafism, stressing a return to the purity of original Muslim teachings, opposes some of the former’s practices and has gained some ground (probably less than 10 percent of Dagestan’s population). Sufis themselves are not united: a number of sheikhs appeared at the end of the Soviet period, and the legitimacy of some is contested by others.

Salafism tends to be viewed with suspicion by state authorities—not without reason, since radical Muslims were engaged in armed insurrection in the late 1990s. “Wahhabism” was officially outlawed in 1999. Sufis resolutely opposing Salafism have been granted control of Dagestan’s Spiritual Directorate (founded in 1998). According to Forum 18, it is not an absolute domination, but it has reduced public space for other Muslims, not all of them militants. Only a minority of Sufi sheikhs recognize the directorate. The directorate exercises control over religious publishing and education, including material sent from abroad, although control is not always strictly enforced.

While other Sufi sheikhs can find ways to cooperate with the Spiritual Directorate despite reservations on some issues, this is impossible for Salafis, who strongly disagree with Sufi practices. Recent developments seem to indicate that authorities have come to understand that criminalizing Muslims other than those associated with the directorate can be counter-productive—insurgent activities have only increased in recent times. Repression is apparently becoming more targeted against people actually involved in militant activities.

A distinction between moderate and radical Salafis might help to counter radicalization more effectively. Dagestan’s religion law allows only one umbrella organization per confession. In Dagestan, as in some other former communist states, religious diversity is perceived as a challenge with political consequences for national cohesion and security. Time will still be needed to adjust to the facts of contemporary pluralism, but security concerns add to the complexity of the task.

(Forum 18, http://www.forum18.org. For some background information, see also Mikhail Roshchin, “Sufism and Fundamentalism in Dagestan and Chechenya,” Cahiers d’études sur la Méditerranée orientale et le monde turco-iranien, July–Dec. 2004; http://www.ceri-sciencespo.com/publ ica/cemoti/textes38/roshchin.pdf)

On July 13, the Hong Kong-based Asian Human Rights Commission warned that two Christian men from Pakistan’s Punjab province, Rashid and Sajid Emmanuel, were in danger after their arrest on frivolous charges of blaspheming the Prophet Muhammad.

Five days later, suspected Islamist extremists shot them dead outside a courthouse, reports the U.S.-based Compass Direct News (July 19). Reports of murder, rape, arson, abduction and forced conversion of Christians are routine in Pakistan, an Islamic republic. According to Pakistan’s Centre for Legal Aid, Assistance and Settlement (CLAAS), Christian persecution increased after the U.S. military’s Operation Enduring Freedom in neighboring Afghanistan in the wake of 9/11, even though Pakistan is an ally of the U.S. in its “global war on terror.”

Last year, at least nine Christians were killed and over 45 houses were burned in a Christian hamlet in Korian village near Gojra town in central Punjab on July 31. The attackers, masked and carrying sophisticated guns, were supposedly from an Islamist militant outfit known as the Sipah-e-Sahaba, linked to the Afghan Taliban. Its offshoot, the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, is believed to be al-Qaeda’s front in Pakistan. The 2010 annual report of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom also noted that thousands of religious schools reportedly continue to provide ideological training and motivation to those who take part in violence targeting religious minorities.

Human rights groups see Pakistan’s blasphemy law as the main instrument of persecution—not only of Christians, but also Shi’a Muslims, Ahmadis and Hindus. Of the total population of 170 million, around three million are Christians, mainly concentrated in Islamabad, the Capital Territory, and Punjab and Sindh provinces. Over 96 percent of Pakistanis are Muslim—more than 80 percent of them Sunni, mostly Barelvis and Deobandis.

The blasphemy law, Section 295 and 298 of the Pakistan Penal Code, carries a death penalty. None has ever been executed under it, but about 10 accused have been murdered before the completion of their trials, according to the BBC. Islamist extremists believe that killing a blasphemous person earns a heavenly reward. An extreme Islamist killed a judge of the Lahore High Court, Justice Arif Iqbal Bhatii, in 1997 for acquitting three Christians in a blasphemy case two years earlier.

In May 1998, a Catholic bishop, John Joseph, shot himself outside a courthouse to protest the blasphemy law. However, CLAAS notes that allegations of blasphemy often “stem from the Muslim accuser’s desire to take revenge” and to “settle petty, personal disputes.” There is no law to punish a false accuser or a false witness of blasphemy. And Islamist extremists are ready to back blasphemy cases. The prevalent political turmoil, corruption and resultant impunity in Pakistan make extra-judicial “punishment” easier.

Pakistan’s politics is in crisis. It is often debated who is in control— right-leaning military and the intelligence agency ISI or the more progressive government led by President Asif Ali Zardari, a Shi’a Muslim in a Sunni majority country. The apparent agenda of the former is to create or allow unrest in the country as the only means to remain relevant, for their predominance is under threat ever since military rule ended. Regrettably, the unprecedented growth of extremism, reflected in routine bomb explosions and the gunning down of minorities, suggests that they are far stronger than the government.

This is why Zardari’s party, the Pakistan People’s Party, has not been able to revoke the blasphemy law, as it had vowed to do in its election manifesto. Unless and until the tables turn, peace may remain a distant dream.

— By Vishal Arora, a New Delhi-based journalist

Afghanistan is an Islamic country, predominantly Sunni (with a 15 percent minority of Shi’a), of 30 million people, but against all odds, some 2,000 Hindus and Sikhs have survived in the country, reports German scholar Manfred Hutter (Bonn University) in an article in Zeitschrift für Religionswissenschaft (dated 2009/2, but actually published this summer).

These two religions have a long history behind them, but their future in Afghanistan looks uncertain. While there had been a strong Hindu (and Buddhist) presence in Afghanistan in the first millennium, the advance of Islam had erased it entirely. A permanent Hindu presence started again in the 18th century, not without a number of restrictions. After 1945, these were removed and both Hindus and Sikhs could prosper with their own community networks and places of worship, as well as having regular contacts with India. In the early 1990s, at the end of the civil war that had started with the Soviet intervention, there were some 50,000 Hindus and Sikhs in Afghanistan, mostly in cities.

A peculiarity of Afghan Hinduism is veneration of the founder of Sikhism, Guru Nanak, considered as a Hindu saint, thus encouraging Sikhs to visit Hindu temples on occasion. There were already some signs of hostility against Hindus and Sikhs in, for instance, the attack by mujahideen against the Sikh temple of Jalalabad in 1989 (57 people killed). When the mujahideen came to power in 1992, the situation started to worsen for religious minorities. Echoes of Hindu activism in India (e.g. the destruction of Babri mosque in Ayodhya in 1992) reinforced such tendencies and were used to legitimize anti-Hindu actions by Islamic militants.

When the Taliban came to power in 1996, persecution became even fiercer and increasing numbers of Hindus and Sikhs saw no other way but exile. When the Taliban were ousted from power in 2001, no more than 1,000 Hindus were left in the country. Some returned in the following years. However, the fall of the Taliban has not meant a return to the pre1992 situation. The 2004 Constitution states that “no law can be contrary to the beliefs and provisions of the sacred religion of Islam” and that “followers of other religions are free to exercise their faith and perform their religious rites within the limits of the provisions of law.”

Hindus and Sikhs experience various restrictions, for instance in the exercise of their funeral rituals. Conversions to Islam are encouraged, while there are difficulties in educational and professional areas. Not being able to enjoy the same rights as Muslim citizens, Hindus and Sikhs who had fled from Afghanistan feel reluctant to return, despite important Indian investments (and strategic interests) in the country, and tend to settle permanently in India or in the West: today there are six Afghan-Hindu temples in Germany.

(Zeitschrift für Religionswissenschaft, diagonal-Verlag, Alte Kasseler Strasse 43, 35039 Marburg, Germany; http://www.diagonalverlag.de)

Malta, known as a stronghold of Roman Catholicism in secular Europe, is undergoing secular challenges, mainly resulting from its membership of the European Union and because of the tarnished public image of the church due to clergy sex abuse scandals.

The Catholic World Report (June) notes that Malta is still a strongly Catholic country both officially and in practice. It is among the few countries in Europe to prohibit abortion and divorce. The Maltese church has a ratio of seminarians to Catholics higher than any in Europe (five times higher than in Ireland, for example). Although parishes still often serve as social centers in Malta, Mass attendance has seen a recent decline—from 82 percent in 1967 to 51 percent in 2005; even the more devout island of Gozo has showed a drop in such attendance from 97 percent in 1982 to 82 percent in 2005.

The significant number of alleged sex abuse cases that have been reported in the country may further undermine the trust of the Maltese in their church, according to one priest. The lay associations that have been important in turning out religious vocations, such as the Society of Christian Doctrine and the charismatic movement, are also showing signs of weakening, says Roderick Pace of the University of Malta.

On an official basis, support for the ban on divorce is likewise losing its hold, with Pace estimating public opinion split 50/50 on the issue. That issues ranging from divorce and cohabitation to same-sex marriage are going concerns and are being addressed by both of the island’s political parties suggests to some the secularizing influence of other nations—Malta joined the European Union in 2004. It is in this context that Pope Benedict visited the nation last April and made a point of imploring the Maltese people to resist the tide of secularism and remain faithful to the church.

(The Catholic World Report, P.O. Box 2512, Alexandria, VA 22301)

After a period of engagement, Eastern Orthodox and evangelical Christians have hardened their attitudes toward each other, resulting in a curtailment of dialogue between the two groups.

The evangelical missions journal Transformation (July) notes that the dialogue and cooperation that emerged in the 1990s and early 2000s between Eastern Orthodox and evangelicals was mainly over recognition of a common conservatism in doctrine and an attempt to resolve conflicts over the latter’s evangelizing in former communist areas. For several years the World Council of Churches facilitated many of these talks. The Baptists, one of the most populous Protestant denominations in the former Soviet Union, also engaged in conferences and dialogue with Eastern Orthodox through the International Baptist Theological Seminary in Prague (although neither communion has engaged in official dialogue).

But in recent years, “those advocating any kind of engagement are liable to come under attack from their co-religionists as well as those from the other side of the fence,” writes Tim Grass. Romania was considered a promising place for evangelical–Orthodox relations, given the country’s history of religious pluralism. Several studies of Orthodoxy were conducted by Romanian evangelical scholars with the appreciation of the Orthodox.

But in the last five years, interest in following up this emerging dialogue has receded, especially on the Orthodox side. England and the U.S. remain the few places where Orthodox–evangelical initiatives have formed, mainly because Evangelicals have higher visibility in the field of theological studies and the lack of conflict over perceptions of one group poaching on the other’s religious territory. Grass concludes that any dialogue in the future will most likely be unofficial—mainly because of evangelicals’ lack of structure and hierarchy—and engaged in projects of joint concern, such as dealing with the importance of preaching for the Orthodox and renewed appreciation of the patristic heritage for evangelicals.

(Transformation, Oxford Centre for Mission Studies, St. Phillip and St. James Church, Oxford OX2 6HR, UK)

The Catholic charismatic movement in Haiti, one of the fastest growing and largest in the world, is helping the church rebound from losses to Protestant groups and is poised to be a major social force in the country, writes Terry Rey in an article in Pneuma, a biannual journal on Pentecostalism (issue 32, 2010).

In an in-depth ethnographic study of Haiti’s charismatic movement (which was written before the earthquake, although Rey adds in a footnote that some of the renewal’s leading parishes, such as Sacred Heart Church, were destroyed in the disaster), Rey finds that the growth of the charismatic movement has dramatically slowed the growth of Haitians joining Protestant, ofte Pentecostal, churches. This is because Catholic churches and priests influenced by the renewal have, like the Pentecostals, sought to provide Haitians with supernatural “protection” from Voodoo and other ancestor-based religions, mainly through veneration of the Virgin Mary and Michael the Archangel.

In fact, the Pentecostal and Catholic charismatic growth in Haiti has been significant in halting—and probably even reversing—the growth of Voodoo in recent years, Rey writes. Yet the growth of the charismatic renewal has been criticized by some Haitian Catholic leaders and theologians as rolling back the influence of the liberation theology-inspired movement known as Tilegliz. As with other liberation theology movements in Latin America, the Tilegliz movement created “base communities” to empower lay activism against authoritarian government, such as the Duvalier regime of the 1980s.

Rey writes that by the 1990s, the movement had failed to sustain much support from the masses, who became as disenchanted with calls for revolution as they were with promises of democracy as the country moved toward a state of disintegration. He concludes by noting that the Catholic charismatics have clearly eschewed the confrontational politics of Tilegliz, but these Catholics and their co-religionists in other parts of the world have been called “Progressive Pentecostals” as they “seem now to be rekindling an interest in humanitarianism, if not yet political reform.”

The dissent and divisions that have resulted in American Lutheranism following the 2009 decision to support the ordination of gays and lesbians in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) has followed a distinctly “post-denominational,” decentralized pattern.

Network News (May/ June), the newsletter of the conservative Lutheran renewal group Word Alone, notes that even before last summer, various organizations and initiatives emerged to represent either more orthodox Lutherans remaining in or those leaving the ELCA, such as Lutheran Congregations in Mission for Christ, Sola Publishing, the Institute for Lutheran Theology and Lutheran CORE. What has happened since the ELCA decision is that these and newer groups have been networking to create a situation where those congregations remaining in the denomination (for now) are sharing the same resources and connections as those that have left (over 300 congregations), even as the former’s ties to the official bureaucracy and hierarchy weaken.

This can be seen clearly in the development of Lutheran CORE, which was formed as a denominational renewal/reform group about a year before the ELCA decision. By last fall, Lutheran CORE had proposed a “reconfiguration” of American Lutheranism and planned to establish a new denomination, to be called the North American Lutheran Church, by August of 2010.

At the same time, Lutheran CORE seeks to provide programs and resources for congregations, individual members and clergy who are remaining in the ELCA. Ryan Schwartz, a leader of Lutheran CORE, remarks that “We are trying to do something that has proven difficult in other Reformation traditions: maintain tangible unity and organic relationships between those who leave and those who stay. But we see no other path.”

(Network News, 2299 Palmer Drive, Suite 220, New Brighton, MN 551122202)

01: The rift between mainline Presbyterians and the American Jewish community over the former’s critical position on Israel’s policy on the Palestinian issue was mended to some degree during the denomination’s General Assembly in early July.

Since 2004, the position of the Presbyterian Church (USA) on Israel, calling for divestment from multinational companies operating in the nation, has been a source of conflict between the denomination and the Jewish community. Although “divestment” was changed to a strategy of “corporate engagement” at the 2006 assembly, two years later the church issued a report on the Israeli–Palestinian conflict that was highly critical of Israel.

Leading up to the 2010 assembly, Jewish groups and leaders were active in starting talks and consultations with church leaders and laity, building relationships across the lines of faith. The input was effective enough to convince the Presbyterian delegates to amend the report to state the right of Israel to exist and replace language that had called for Israel to end its blockade of Gaza with milder language recommending that the country allow humanitarian aid and commercial goods into Gaza.

02: With the election of Rev. Matthew Harrison as president of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod (LCMS) at the denomination’s convention in Houston, American Lutheranism is likely entering a period of significant polarization.

In a rare victory over the incumbent Rev. Gerald Kieschnick, Harrison was the favored candidate of “confessionalists” who seek to revive adherence to the Lutheran confessional documents and maintain strict orthodoxy, drawing a clear distinction from the liberal Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA). Kieschnick had a more moderate approach that allowed for borrowing from evangelicals, such as church growth methods.

The convention plans to conduct a study of the ELCA’s decision, taken last summer, to allow the ordination of gays and lesbians. While the July 26 Huffington Post headline “Tea Party Insurgence Ripples through Missouri Synod Election” may be over the top, already conservatives are agitating against “liberal” currents in the denomination, such as toleration of women in leadership positions and intercommunion with those outside the LCMS.

American Jews are reviving an emphasis on moral discipline and the cultivation of virtues that was prominent in the 19th century, writes Geoffrey Claussen in the Hedgehog Review (summer).

What was called the “Musar (moral discipline) movement” among Orthodox Jews in 19th century Lithuania is being revamped and expanded beyond its Orthodox base to include Jews who keep journals, commit to good deeds and daily prayer, and pledge to limit their consumption. The original movement began as a response to the stress on Jewish scholarship and the neglecting of practical virtues and morality in Jewish culture.

Although Musar never became a mass movement among the Jews, its influence persisted and it eventually found a home among Conservative and Reform Jews in recent years, Claussen writes. Particularly prominent as leaders in the contemporary movement are Rabbi Ira Stone, who runs Musar Leadership, which guides leaders and groups in these teachings, and Alan Morinis, a former film producer and anthropologist of religion, who runs the Vancouver-based Musar Institute.

A book such as Morinis’s Everyday Holiness seeks to make the disciplines of study, meditation, journaling, visualization and chanting accessible to a popular audience. These practices and teachings seem similar to the mysticism of the Jewish renewal movement, but Claussen notes that the Musar movement tends to stress reason and the deliberate development of moral character rather than esoteric experiences. In fact, the growth of this movement may even be a reaction to the mystical and emotion-based tendencies of the Jewish renewal and neo-Hasidism.

The socially activist cast of American Judaism, as well as the general American stress on personal autonomy and happiness, may conflict with the rigorous task of developing personal moral virtues as found in Musar. But Musar’s strong point is that it allows the many disaffiliated American Jews to engage in traditional practices outside of traditional communal structures and to tailor them to their own needs.

(Hedgehog Review, P.O. Box 400816, Charlottesville, VA 22301)