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Gospel Singer Doug Oldham Dead at Age 79

(RNS) Doug Oldham, a prolific gospel singer and ministry partner of the late Rev. Jerry Falwell, died July 21 at the age of 79.

Oldham, who was a soloist at Falwell's Thomas Road Baptist Church and helped the evangelist raise money to start Liberty University in Lynchburg, Va., died at a Virginia hospital while awaiting back surgery.

"My father and Doug Oldham were an evangelistic team who brought the gospel to nearly every home in America every Sunday morning on the `Old Time Gospel Hour,"' said Liberty University Chancellor Jerry Falwell, Jr. in a statement.

"The names Jerry Falwell and Doug Oldham were synonymous as Billy Graham and George Beverly Shea. ... His passing represents the end of an era at Thomas Road Baptist Church and Liberty University."

Oldham recorded more than 60 albums and sang on Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker's Praise the Lord (PTL) ministry's television show. He was the first to perform "He Touched Me," a song written by colleague Bill Gaither.

"Doug's resonant voice and vibrant spirit moved people at a very personal level," Gaither recalled in a tribute on his Web site, Gaither.com. "He possessed that rare balance between polished professionalism and authenticity."

Oldham, a Dove Award-winning artist, was inducted in the Gospel Music Association's Gospel Music Hall of Fame in 2006.

-- Adelle M. Banks

Copyright 2010 Religion News Service. All rights reserved. No part of this transmission may be distributed or reproduced without written permission.

WASHINGTON (RNS) Top Senate Democrats said Wednesday (July 28) that Democrats need the help of religious groups in overcoming Republican opposition to key pieces of legislation.

In a media roundtable hosted by Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., chairwoman of the Democrats' Steering and Outreach Committee, senators said the majority of "the faith community" is fully on board with Democratic policies on immigration, health care and clean energy.

Senate Democrats said the progress they've made on economic recovery and job growth is due to the continued support of faith communities.
Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, cited a common thread of "economic and social justice" between Democratic lawmakers and religious groups.

"We would not have passed (any of the bills) ... without the strong voice and commitment from the faith community to keep us on track,"
Stabenow said.

But as the Democratic majority faces stiff resistance from the GOP on other legislation -- "a battle on every bill we have put forward,"
Stabenow said -- religious groups need to play a larger role in supporting those bills.

Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., highlighted the "strength in numbers"
that faith communities have, and urged them to continue "pushing back"
against Republican opposition.

"When we were saying we don't have any Republican support, did they (faith groups) go to rally?" Klobuchar asked. "That's what I think that the religious groups have to (do)."

Senators conceded, however, that there is a limit in how far faith leaders can go in their advocacy without alienating some of their own flocks.

"I think this is a question of comfort level," Stabenow said. "Some in the faith community ... will feel comfortable in a bipartisan arena and others won't."

Many religious groups do not feel that they have to "deal with that stuff," because they are not political organizations, Klobuchar added.

"I'm not being critical, I'm just being honest," she said.

-- Alfredo Garcia

Copyright 2010 Religion News Service. All rights reserved. No part of this transmission may be distributed or reproduced without written permission.

WASHINGTON (RNS) Muslim American groups and the American Civil Liberties Union are demanding the FBI turn over records relating to agency guidelines they say permit the FBI to collect and use racial and ethnic data.

The groups allege that the Domestic Intelligence and Operations Guide, an FBI policy manual published in 2008, gives FBI agents the authority to map and investigate communities based on ethnic behaviors and lifestyles, cultural traditions, and "ethnic-oriented" businesses, even when there is no evidence of criminal activity.

While the guidelines don't mention Muslims specifically, opponents say they are used almost exclusively against Islamic followers. Critics say such policies are not only unconstitutional, but ineffective, and often counter-productive.

"It drives a wedge between the police and the communities they are sworn to serve," said Michael German, an ACLU lawyer and former FBI agent. "The FBI should be focusing its efforts on people it has a factual basis for suspecting of wrongdoing, not targeting communities with race-based investigations."

Rather than profiling, the FBI would be better off establishing cooperative and open relationships with Muslims, since they are in the best position to detect radicals, critics say.

Farhana Khera, executive director of Muslim Advocates, a San Francisco-based civil liberties group, agreed.

"Law enforcement has an important job to protect us and should do so by focusing on legitimate leads and credible intelligence of actual criminal activity and threats," said Khera.

On Wednesday (July 28), FBI Director Robert Mueller told the Senate Judiciary Committee the current guidelines are "effective," adding that membership in a particular religious or ethnic group was not "in and of itself" enough to justify FBI surveillance.

"There are segments in the Muslim community who do not necessarily want the relationship (with the FBI) to work out, but ever since Sept.
12, 2001, we've reached out to the Muslim community, and if you talk to leaders in that community, you will find that relationships are very good," Mueller said.

-- Omar Sacirbey and Alfredo Garcia

Copyright 2010 Religion News Service. All rights reserved. No part of this transmission may be distributed or reproduced without written permission.

TRENTON, N.J. (RNS) Supporters of gay marriage said they would press on with their fight despite the New Jersey Supreme Court's decision not to hear a case in which six same-sex couples asked for the right to marry.

"We ... will never give up -- not until our dying breath," said Steven Goldstein, chairman of Garden State Equality, the state's largest gay rights organization.

Goldstein said Monday's (July 26) announcement by the state's highest court maintains the unequal legal status of same-sex couples.

"Same-sex couples will continue to be denied the consistent right to visit one another in the hospital, to make medical decisions for one another and to receive equal health benefits from employers, all because of the deprivation of the equality and dignity that uniquely comes with the word marriage," Goldstein said in a statement.

Though the court said it won't consider the case now, it left open the possibility it could hear it in the future. The justices said the case needs to be filed anew in Superior Court -- where it originated eight years ago -- and wind its way back up.

"This matter cannot be decided without the development of an appropriate trial-like record," the court said.

The seven-member court currently has one vacancy, and the remaining six justices were split down the middle, one vote short of the four votes needed to grant a motion.

In 2006, the Supreme Court ruled same-sex couples were due the full rights and benefits of heterosexual married couples, but left it up to the Legislature to provide those rights, leading to the 2006 civil-union law.

Armed with a legislative commission report saying civil unions had failed to achieve equal status for gay couples, same-sex marriage advocates pushed for full marriage rights. But after the state Senate rejected the gay marriage bill, the case made its way back to the state's highest court.

Hayley Gorenberg, an attorney for Lambda Legal, a gay rights advocacy group, said her clients are ready to restart the legal battle, but the delay means more than just extra paperwork.

"Every day, people are being denied their rights in medical situations, in school situations, at work," she said.

John Tomicki, president of the New Jersey Coalition to Preserve and Protect Marriage, said he wants voters to decide if marriage should be defined as a union between one man and one woman.

"I have no doubt the plaintiffs and Garden State Equality will continue their march on the courts because they do not have natural law and the public's interests on their side," he said.

-- Matt Friedman / The Star-Ledger

Copyright 2010 Religion News Service. All rights reserved. No part of this transmission may be distributed or reproduced without written permission.

WASHINGTON (RNS): A Jewish group that tracks anti-Semitism has published its annual report of more than 1,200 incidents of assaults, vandalism and harassment against Jews in 2009, saying the level of incidents remained "sustained and troubling."

"America is not immune to anti-Semitism, and 2009 was no different in this regard than in any other year," said Abraham H. Foxman, national director of the New York-based Anti-Defamation League, in a news release.

In total, ADL reported 29 incidents of physical assaults on Jewish individuals, 760 cases of anti-Semitic harassments and threats, and 422 reports of anti-Semitic vandalism in 2009.

This number of cases comes to about three incidents per day, said Deborah Lauter, the ADL's director of civil rights, in an interview.

"Generally, these things are very underreported," she said.

Most of the cases took place in states with large Jewish populations. The top four states included California (23 percent of total cases), New York (17 percent), New Jersey (10 percent), and Florida (7 percent).

The 2009 audit employed new methodology and evaluation criteria, the first makeover ADL has made in the more than three decades of reporting on the topic.

When analyzed using the old criteria, Lauter said that the 2009 numbers represent an approximate 10 percent increase in incidents from 2008.

Overall, however, there has been no general trend to the data. "It goes up and down year to year," she said.

Part of the new method includes a more conservative approach to categorizing incidents. The swastika, for instance, "is no longer exclusively used as a hate symbol against Jews," the ADL report said, so it is included only if accompanied with clearly anti-Jewish markings.

Also omitted from the report were the more than 2,000 anti-Semitic faxes sent to Jewish centers nationwide by the Kansas-based Westboro Baptist Church.

"These faxes caused great distress among recipients and, had they been counted, the 2009 Audit's harassment totals would have significantly increased," the ADL report said.

The report also doesn't contain statistics on anti-Semitism in cyberspace. Although Lauter said there has been "an explosion" of anti-Semitic sites, postings and comments, ADL is "not yet capable of quantifying the amount."

"We try to keep track of them, but it's just a huge number of people reporting it."

-- Alfredo Garcia

Copyright 2010 Religion News Service. All rights reserved. No part of this transmission may be distributed or reproduced without written permission.

(RNS) Anglican leaders meeting in London have rejected a move to "separate" the Episcopal Church from the wider Anglican Communion, a proposal that officials called premature and "unhelpful."

The proposal was offered Saturday (July 24) by Dato Stanley Isaacs, a member of the Anglican Communion's Standing Committee from the Province of South East Asia, according to a statement issued Monday.

The Episcopal Church has come under fire from sister Anglican churches for its decision to consecrate an openly gay bishop in New Hampshire in 2003, as well as a lesbian assistant bishop in Los Angeles earlier this year.

In June, the U.S. church was removed from Anglican panels that host ecumenical dialogue with other Christians, as well as a committee that determines doctrine and authority.

But the 13 members of the Standing Committee -- who are elected from the 44 member churches of the 77 million-member Anglican Communion -- said formally exiling the U.S. church was not the proper response.

"Committee members acknowledged the anxieties felt in parts of the Communion about sexuality issues," the statement said. "Nevertheless, the overwhelming opinion was that separation would inhibit dialogue on this and other issues ... and would therefore be unhelpful."

The U.S. church has two representatives on the Standing Committee:
Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori and Bishop Ian Douglas of Connecticut.

At the Standing Committee's last meeting, just days after the Diocese of Los Angeles elected its lesbian bishop, the panel called for "gracious restraint" on actions that would test the fragile unity of the communion.

When that statement failed to make any difference, Egyptian Bishop Mouneer Anis resigned from the panel, saying it had "no desire ... to sort out the problems which face the Anglican Communion and which are tearing its fabric apart."

-- Kevin Eckstrom

Copyright 2010 Religion News Service. All rights reserved. No part of this transmission may be distributed or reproduced without written permission.

Associated Press - July 24, 2010

VATICAN CITY - The pope has granted broad powers to the archbishop he selected to overhaul the Legionaries of Christ following revelations that the order's founder led a double life.

A decree approved by Pope Benedict XVI and published Saturday on the Legionaries' website said Archbishop Velasio De Paolis can override the Legionaries' own constitutions as he goes about reforming the order and purging it of its institutional abuses.

The conservative order once hailed by the Vatican for its orthodoxy and ability to recruit priests fell into disarray starting last year as it admitted that its founder, the Rev. Marciel Maciel, sexually abused seminarians and fathered at least three children.

In a May 1 statement, the Vatican said Maciel had built a system of power built on obedience and deceit that allowed his criminal and immoral misdeeds to go unchecked for decades. It said the Legionaries needed to be profoundly purified to survive, with the order's essential spirit redefined, its founding constitutions revised and the systemic abuse of authority corrected.

In the decree dated July 9, the Vatican said De Paolis would have broad powers of governance to carry out those tasks: He will oversee the commission revising the constitutions. He will have authority to decide who becomes a Legionary priest and where current priests are based. He will approve decisions about Legionary schools and seminaries, all extraordinary administrative matters, and transfers of the order's assets.

The order's current leadership - accused by critics of having covered up for Maciel's misdeeds - remains in place "unless it becomes necessary to provide otherwise," the decree said.

Questions about the fate of the current leadership and control of the Legions' finances have swirled since the Vatican announced it was taking over the order. News reports have estimated the Legion has assets totaling (EURO)25 billion ($33 billion) in a holding company headed by the order's current No. 2.

Appeals against De Paolis' actions go to the pope himself, the decree stated.

Maciel founded the Legion in his native Mexico in 1941. The Legionaries now claim a membership of more than 800 priests and 2,500 seminarians in 22 countries, along with 70,000 members in its lay movement, Regnum Christi. The order runs schools, charities, Catholic news outlets, seminaries for young boys, and universities in Mexico, Italy, Spain and elsewhere.

In a letter to the Legionaries also posted Saturday on the order's website, De Paolis said the abuses and errors of the order were of such magnitude that they could have "threatened to its roots the congregation itself" had Rome not intervened.

He urged its members not to be discouraged by the past but to rejoice in the present and not question their vocations - an apparent reference to the defections of Legionary priests in recent months.

"A vocation is of too great import to decide it in a moment of turmoil," De Paolis said. "One must first recover serenity of mind and soul. ... Let us be patient."

Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

By NICOLE NEROULIAS
c. 2010 Religion News Service

NEW YORK (RNS) Barely visible among the high-rise apartment buildings and cocktail lounges, a battered steel door in Manhattan's trendy Tribeca neighborhood leads to a basement jammed with barefoot men praying on their lunch break.

The makeshift mosque is a far cry from the 13-story proposed Cordoba House, the so-called planned "Ground Zero mosque" that's two blocks closer to the busy construction site where the twin towers of the World Trade Center once stood.

And the leaders of Masjid Manhattan want to keep it that way.

"We are not involved with that other group," said Imam Mustafa Elazabawy, raising his voice just loud enough to be heard above the din of an air conditioner unit, but not to disturb the Arabic recitations.

"We have been here for 30 years, in this neighborhood. Many Muslims also died over there, on 9/11."

Ever since Masjid Manhattan lost its lease on nearby Warren Street in 2008, members have struggled to find a more suitable space for daily prayers. They've also tried to keep a low profile, clearly nervous about prompting the kind of outcry that has plagued the planned Cordoba House project.

Nevermind that Cordoba House is neither a mosque nor really at Ground Zero. Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, chairman of the Cordoba Initiative, insists the facility will serve as a YMCA-type community center for interfaith bridge-building. The $100 million complex, replacing an abandoned Burlington Coat Factory warehouse, would have a prayer room, but also a swimming pool, basketball court, childcare services, art exhibitions and a food court serving halal dishes from around the world.

But opponents, including retired New York City firefighter Tim Brown, say a highly visible Muslim organization with international benefactors has no place in the neighborhood, especially not in a building damaged by the attacks.

"We're saying no to the group and no to the location. A mosque in the U.S. that's using foreign money from countries with Shariah law is unacceptable, especially in this neighborhood," Brown said. "The other group (Masjid Manhattan) lost their lease, and they just want to replace what they already had. That's a lot more understandable."


Brown, who wears a metal bangle on his right wrist engraved with the names of two of the nearly 100 friends he lost on 9/11, demurs when asked how far would be considered a more appropriate buffer zone from Ground Zero. Five more blocks away? 15?

"You can't put a rule on that," he said. "It's about being sensitive to the families."

Brown has enlisted the services of the American Center for Law and Justice, a conservative law firm founded by Pat Robertson and better known for championing the rights of Christians to build and worship freely. The ACLJ, representing Brown and more than 20,000 people who have signed an online petition for the Committee to Stop the Ground Zero Mosque, has been lobbying the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission to give 45-47 Park Place landmark status -- adding a major hurdle to construction there -- because part of one of the hijacked planes had fallen through its roof.

Brown concedes he's doubtful the site will get land marked, but says the point is to keep raising awareness of the Cordoba House plans and pressure Rauf to fully disclose the project's funding sources.

"The decision has already been made. But we're going to stay on him, and keep exposing his radical ties," Brown said, adding that he and the ACLJ will challenge a landmark status rejection. "The bridge Imam Rauf wants to build is a bridge to Islam, and it's a one-way street."

Publicly, Rauf has expressed confidence that Cordoba House will move forward, noting the quiet but steadfast support from local residents and city officials, including Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

"The government should never, never be in the business of telling people how they should pray or where they can pray," Bloomberg told reporters in late July, responding to Sarah Palin and other vocal Republican and Tea Party critics of the project.

Interfaith advocates and religion experts, including Boston University professor Stephen Prothero, author of "God Is Not One," have chimed in, objecting to the emerging arguments: that Cordoba House should not be built near Ground Zero because it will serve as a symbol of Muslim conquest of lower Manhattan, and because Saudi Arabia doesn't allow the construction of churches.

"Since when has Saudi Arabia been the model for American civil liberties?" Prothero asked, in his CNN blog, wondering whether all mosques and other non-Christian houses of worship should therefore be banned, as well. "One of America's core values, inscribed into the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights, is freedom of religion."

But less than 10 years after the attacks, with Ground Zero still under heavy construction and Americans still facing grave threats from Muslim extremists abroad and at home, the wound is far too raw to be talking about tolerance, Brown contends.

"Now is not the right time," he said. "They're telling us that we're against religious freedom? That's backwards. Our friends and families were murdered by these terrorists, who were against religious freedom."

For its part, Masjid Manhattan, crammed into the Warren Street basement, continues to distance itself from the Cordoba House proposal on its website and in conversations. Elazabawy says they would not be interested in moving to the facility, which won't be ready until 2012 at the earliest.

Nodding towards the diverse array of men sitting on the dingy floor-- in business suits, track suits and traditional African or Middle Eastern clothing -- Elazabawy said his mosque desperately wants more room, but not at the cost of a multi-million dollar facility and at the expense of community relations.

"We need space, because our community is growing," he said. "But we are not with that group. They are just investors, for real estate."

Copyright 2010 Religion News Service. All rights reserved. No part of this transmission may be distributed or reproduced without written permission.

By Sabrina Eaton of The Plain Dealer and Kevin Eckstrom -- (RNS) -- A Catholic group that backed the health care reform bill will spend $500,000 on ads and organizers for at least four congressional Democrats who are under fire from anti-abortion groups for their support of the bill.

Washington-based Catholics United isn't backing any Republican members of Congress because none supported the health care reform bill, according to spokesman James Salt.

Salt said Ohio Reps. John Boccieri and Steve Driehaus, Virginia's Tom Perriello and Pennsylvania's Kathy Dahlkemper are facing a "coordinated misinformation campaign from a host of self-proclaimed pro-life groups intended to perpetuate the misconception that the health care reform bill passed earlier this year allowed for federal funding of elective abortion."

The group's organizers and volunteers will monitor religious right activities in the targeted districts to counter inaccurate attacks. Earlier this year, it placed television ads on Driehaus' and Boccieri's behalf. Salt said it plans to do so again.

Catholics United said its effort is a direct response to ads being placed by organizations such as the Susan B. Anthony List, Family Research Council, National Right to Life Committee, as well as national Republican groups.

Separately, the group Democrats for Life of America is launching a website, www.wholelifeheroes.com, to support 16 Democrats who supported the bill. Officials said the group's new Political Action Committee also hopes to lend financial support.

"These Democrats stood up for pro-life principles during the healthcare debate and delivered needed reforms that protect life at all stages," said the group's executive director, Kristen Day. "Now we are standing up for these Whole Life Heroes as they come under false, politically motivated attacks for defending their values."

Copyright 2010 Religion News Service. All rights reserved. No part of this transmission may be distributed or reproduced without written permission.

By Ron Csillag -- TORONTO (RNS) -- The Anglican Church in Canada is dealing with fallout following a published report that a priest gave Communion to a dog.

One congregant has quit St. Peter's Anglican Church in downtown Toronto in protest over the June 27 incident, in which interim priest Rev. Marguerite Rea gave Communion to a man and his dog.

The Toronto Star reports that according to those in attendance, it was a spontaneous gesture intended to make both the dog and its owner -- a first-timer at the church -- feel welcome.

Peggy Needham, a lay official who was sitting near the altar, said that when it was when it was time for Communion, the man went up to receive the bread and the wine, with the dog.

"I am sure for (Rea) that was a surprise, like it was for all of us," Needham told the Star. "But nobody felt like it was a big deal, because it wasn't a big deal."

Needham added that she doesn't recall the man asking for the sacrament for his dog. Instead, she said the priest leaned over and placed the wafer on the canine's wagging tongue. No wine was offered to the dog.

The congregant who quit the church has also filed a complaint with the Anglican Diocese of Toronto, saying the sacred ritual had been desecrated.

Bishop Patrick Yu said he wrote to the parishioner that "it is not the policy of the Anglican Church to give Communion to animals. I can see why people would be offended. It is a strange and shocking thing, and I have never heard of it happening before.

"I think the reverend was overcome by what I consider a misguided gesture of welcoming."

Yu told the Star that Rea felt "embarrassed" by her action, but that the matter "is closed ... we are after all, in the forgiveness and repair business."

Copyright 2010 Religion News Service. All rights reserved. No part of this transmission may be distributed or reproduced without written permission.

By Alfredo Garcia -- Religion News Service WASHINGTON (RNS) When conservative broadcaster Glenn Beck warned churchgoers to "run as fast as you can" if their pastors preach about "social justice," was he also encouraging them to run from the Bible?

That's what some progressive Christian leaders are arguing as battle lines are drawn for the 2010 mid-term elections. They say Beck and his Tea Party followers are, in a word, unbiblical.

Not so fast, say Tea Party activists, who claim biblical grounds for a libertarian-minded Jesus. He didn't like tax-based welfare programs, they say, and encouraged his followers to donate from the heart.

The insurgent Tea Party movement threatens to usurp the political prominence of religious conservatives, whose focus on hot-button social issues has been overshadowed by the Tea Party's fight against big government.

"I think that the general ideology of the Tea party is not a Christian one," said David Gushee, professor of Christian ethics at Mercer University and co-founder of the New Evangelical Partnership for the Common Good, a faith-based nonprofit.

"This kind of small government libertarianism, small taxes, leave-me-alone-to-live-my-life ideology has more in common with Ayn Rand than it does with the Bible."

Gushee described the Tea Party as "an uneasy marriage between the libertarian conservative strand and the Christian right strand" of American politics. In this "uneasy alliance," however, he said the Christian side has taken a backseat to the movement's libertarian impulses.

According to a recent Bloomberg poll, 44 percent of Tea Party activists are self-identified "born-again" Christians, a group that generally takes close to heart Jesus' instructions to feed the hungry and clothe the naked.

Tea Party activists say the question is not whether to follow Jesus'
words, but how.

Lloyd Marcus of Deltona, Fla., a spokesman for the Tea Party Express, is a born-again, nondenominational Christian who says flatly that "Jesus was not for socialism."

"Yes, the Bible advocates giving, but out of the goodness of our own hearts, not out of government confiscation of wealth or re-distribution of wealth," he said.

Joseph Farah, founder and CEO of the website WorldNetDaily and author of the new "Tea Party Manifesto," agreed.

"When Jesus talks about clothing the naked, feeding the hungry, he's talking to us as individuals," Farah said. The Bible does not "suggest that government is the institution that he designed to help the poor."

Government social welfare programs are akin to "coercively taking money from people and redistributing to other people, which, at the end of the day, is legalized stealing," he said. "And the Bible is pretty firm on stealing."

But the Bible, and particularly the Hebrew prophets, are also firm on need to protect the vulnerable, which sometimes requires government action, said Simon Greer, president and CEO of the Jewish Funds for Justice, which helped fuel the progressive backlash against Beck.

Greer said his New York-based group is founded on "the fundamental religious call to care for others," which in turn is based "on the belief that we're all made in the image of the divine."

"The only sensible conclusion is that we need mechanisms like effective government ... to solve the pressing problems that our country faces," he said.

The Rev. Jim Wallis, founder of the Washington-based social justice group Sojourners, is even blunter in his assessment of the Tea Party's approach to giving.

"The libertarian enshrinement of individual choice is not the pre-eminent Christian virtue," he wrote on his blog, God's Politics. "Emphasizing individual rights at the expense of others violates the common good, a central Christian teaching and tradition."

Gushee frames his vision of government as "the community acting collectively," with religious groups playing a key role. Religious groups have been active supporters of government programs to fight disease, poverty and HIV/AIDS in the developing world -- programs that would not exist without the wherewithal of the federal government.

For his part, Farah says he puts his faith in the generosity of the American people and supports church-based welfare over government-run programs. The data, however, tell a different story.

According to Illinois-based Empty Tomb, Inc., which tracks charitable giving, American church-goers gave only about 2.5 percent of disposable income to churches in 2007; of that, only about 0.37 percent -- roughly $100 per member -- went to charities beyond the church. Those figures are down by about half since 1968.

Michael Lindsay, a sociologist at Rice University and author of "Faith in the Halls of Power," doesn't have much hope for individual charity.

"I would like to think that Christians are generous," he said in an interview, "but sadly the truth of the matter is that their rhetoric is much stronger than their action."

Copyright 2010 Religion News Service. All rights reserved. No part of this transmission may be distributed or reproduced without written permission.

LAKE FOREST, Calif. - Pastor Rick Warren was briefly hospitalized due to an eye injury that he suffered while gardening at home.
Warren's spokesman Larry Ross said the sap of a firestick plant got into Warren's eyes when he wiped his brow while gardening. The sap can cause temporary blindness, although Ross said Warren can see.
The 56-year-old pastor was treated overnight and released Tuesday from Mission Hospital in Mission Viejo. On Thursday, he sent a message to his Twitter followers asking for their prayers.
"My eyes were severely burned," Warren wrote. "Excruciating pain."
He is expected to make a full recovery.
Warren is the author of the multimillion-selling book "Purpose Driven Life," and founder of Saddleback Church in Lake Forest in Orange County.

By JOANNA CORMAN
c. 2010 Religion News Service

SACRAMENTO Calif. (RNS) When Connie Johnstone saw relatives of Muslim patients praying in a hospital parking lot, or laying out a plastic bag to create a clean spot on the lobby floor, her visions of a meditation room suddenly got a lot broader.

"I took note of that and said, `Hey, we need to have a place" for them to pray, said Johnstone, the former manager of spiritual care at Kaiser Permanente facilities in Sacramento and suburban Roseville, who now holds a similar position in San Jose.

Johnstone wanted to create a space "that calls up beauty, something that is quiet to still the spirit" for patients, visitors and staff. She also wanted to accommodate the region's diverse religious and cultural rituals.

Johnstone created three meditation rooms, the first of which opened this month (July) in Sacramento. The other two, in Roseville 30 miles to the northeast, are expected to open later this year.

The rooms will look similar: Each will have stained glass windows depicting nature scenes, movable chairs, kneelers for Catholic worshippers, space for Muslim prayer rugs and literature from a variety of faiths.

While Johnstone chose a nature theme, a colleague at a separate Kaiser facility across town chose symbols from nearly a dozen major religious traditions in the Interfaith Meditation Chapel of Hope that's under construction.

The shift to meditation rooms mirrors a growing trend among hospitals nationwide as health care centers try to make room for people from a wide variety of faiths, as well as those who have no faith or are "spiritual but not religious."

In a stressful environment, hospital chapels, meditation rooms or prayer rooms offer employees, patients and visitors quiet refuge for individual prayer, meditation or communal worship.

Throughout the 19th century, many U.S. hospitals were built by religious groups, particularly Catholic nuns. As a result, their chapels typically resembled Protestant or Catholic churches or Jewish synagogues.

Today, hospital chapels vary widely. Some still reflect their founders' religious roots. Others have been renovated to accommodate multiple religions, or their religious symbols have been removed so the rooms resemble waiting rooms or art galleries.

"There was a diversity for a long time that was Christian diversity," said the Rev. George Handzo, vice president of pastoral care leadership and practice at HealthCare Chaplaincy, based in New York City.

Staff and patient populations at many U.S. hospitals are much more diverse than they once were, and hospitals know it makes good business sense to accommodate them, Handzo said. "They don't want to lose those people to the place down the street."

Some hospitals have Jewish family rooms or Shabbos rooms, which can be stocked with couches, prayer books, kosher food and kitchen appliances. Located in hospitals or nearby apartments, they are typically paid for by the local Jewish community.

Some prayer rooms are outfitted for Muslim worship. Five years ago, Boston's renowned Massachusetts General Hospital installed a mihrab, or ornately tiled archway, in a prayer room to help Muslims orient themselves toward Mecca during prayer.

Washington, D.C.'s Georgetown University Hospital added Muslim prayer rugs at the back wall of its Catholic chapel, and later removed the Stations of the Cross facing Mecca, said the Rev. Brian Conley, the Jesuit hospital's director of mission and pastoral care.

Wendy Cadge, associate professor of sociology at Brandeis University near Boston, includes a chapter on hospital chapels in her forthcoming book, "Paging God: Religion in the Halls of Medicine."

She's visited about 30 chapels nationwide, and she said it's increasingly common to find renovated chapels that include images of nature instead of religious symbols to make them welcoming to a broad range of people.

"The question to ask -- which I don't think anybody really knows the answer to -- is whether these renovations make the space more welcoming and therefore used by a range of people, or whether they make the space sort of unfamiliar to a lot of people so nobody knows quite what they're for and as a result they don't get used," Cadge said.

An openness to spirituality reflects two larger changes in health care, experts said. Hospitals are embracing religion because of an increased awareness of a mind-body-spirit connection, and also increased spiritual diversity.

Beyond chapel design, hospitals offer kosher meals for Jews and halal meals for Muslims; vegetarian options for Hindus or Buddhists; and food for Muslim employees to break the Ramadan fast.

Baltimore's Johns Hopkins Hospital, which has a Christian-style chapel and an interfaith meditation room, is planning to open a nondenominational chapel with a nature motif. A vertical rod in the floor will allow clergy to attach various religious emblems.

While Johns Hopkins is most focused on patients' physical care, administrators also want to respect their religious, spiritual and cultural needs, said the Rev. Uwe Scharf, who directs the hospital's pastoral care department.

"People will only come to the hospitals where they feel that their whole person is acknowledged and welcome, and that their heritage is actually celebrated," he said.

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Associated Press - July 20, 2010

MADRID - Spain's Parliament on Tuesday rejected a proposal to ban women from wearing in public places Islamic veils that reveal only the eyes.

However, the Socialist government has said it favors including a ban on people wearing burqas in government buildings in an upcoming bill on religious issues to be debated after parliament's summer vacation break.

Following a lower chamber debate, 183 lawmakers opposed the ban, 162 voted for it and two abstained.

The nonbinding proposal had been put forward by the leading opposition Popular Party, which portrayed it as a measure in support of women's rights. The ruling Socialist Party opposed the ban.

"It is very difficult to understand how it is that our troops are defending liberty in Afghanistan and the government doesn't have the courage to do so here, in Spain," said opposition spokeswoman Soraya Saenz de Santamaria in Parliament.

The opposition's proposal followed discussions in several other European countries on possibly banning face veils that show only a woman's eyes, or their eyes through a knitted mesh.

Nations like France, Belgium and Switzerland have struggled to balance their national identities with growing Muslim populations with cultural practices that clash with their own.

In Spain, the PP had put forward the proposal "in defense of the dignity and equality of all women" and to prevent Muslim women from being forced into wearing unwanted garments such as veils by their husbands.

Some analysts had interpreted the proposal as an opposition ploy to build their party's strength amid the economic turmoil and dismal growth prospects that have dogged the government of Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero.

None of the opposition spokesmen consulted had been able to cite a place in Spain where women routinely wear face-covering veils.

However, a handful of Spanish towns and cities have banned the wearing of burqas and niqabs in municipal buildings, including in the country's second-largest city of Barcelona in June.

Of Spain's 47 million inhabitants, about 1 million are Muslims, most of whom have arrived in recent decades mainly looking for employment from northwest Africa, where the burqa is not common.

"This has been used politically in a search for electoral support," said Mansur Escudero, president of the Islamic Commission of Spain. He said he last saw a woman wearing a burqa in Spain 10 years ago in the southern city of Marbella, where Saudi Arabia's royal family and other wealthy Arab clans own large homes and estates.

Escudero said the woman could have been a tourist. The only woman he knew who regularly wore a burqa had lived in the southern city of Cordoba and died about a decade ago.

The issue nevertheless remains an emotional touchstone, and Justice Minister Francisco Caamano said that such garments were "hardly compatible with human dignity."

Caamano said in June the government would begin debating a ban on women wearing burqas in government buildings which would include courts, ministries and employment offices as part of the religious issues bill.

But the government opposes legislating a ban in public spaces, as that could force women who wear such clothing to make difficult choices: Go out in public and break the law, or stay home all the time.

"We want to avoid putting women who live in this kind of situation in a dual jail," said Eduardo Madina, secretary general for the ruling Socialist Party in the lower house of parliament.

---

Associated Press Writers Ciaran Giles and Jorge Sainz contributed from Madrid.

Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

CLEVELAND (RNS) A Catholic bishop, acting on what he believes to be good for his entire diocese, can close any parish, even if the parish is financially stable and has vibrant membership, the Vatican's highest court has ruled.

The decision does not bode well for a string of Cleveland churches that have already been closed by Bishop Richard Lennon, but have appeals pending in a Vatican court.

"This is very significant," said Peter Borre, a Catholic activist in Boston who represents 10 churches in that city in their appeals to Rome.
"The message is: `No parish is safe."'

Robert Tayek, a spokesman for the Cleveland Diocese, declined to comment, saying church officials had not seen the Vatican ruling.

The ruling, made public late last week when it was translated from the original Latin, came on the heels of the Vatican denying the appeals of all 10 Boston churches, which began that process six years ago.

Meanwhile, at least five Cleveland area parishes that closed this year received letters from a Vatican judicial panel saying it needed more time to consider their appeals and extended the hearing deadlines to Nov. 30.

Even with the denial of the appeals in Boston, some here are keeping their fingers crossed.

"I hope the Vatican seriously starts to question what these bishops are doing," said Patricia Schulte-Singleton, head of a group called Endangered Catholics, which has been battling the local closings.

"Otherwise, it's going to get out of control and people will start walking away from the Catholic Church."

Lennon, who closed churches in Boston as an auxiliary bishop before coming to Cleveland four years ago, recently completed a downsizing of the eight-county diocese by closing 50 churches, mostly in inner-city neighborhoods.

He has said the closings were necessary because of shrinking congregations, decreases in collection basket cash and a shortage of priests.

Borre, an expert on church law and an adviser to some Cleveland churches fighting the closings, said the diocese cannot sell the church properties and distribute their assets while they are under appeal.

Borre, who had already battled Lennon in Boston, acknowledged that the Vatican's ruling dealt a major blow to his effort to keep churches open, but he vowed to keep fighting.

"We'll challenge Lennon every step of the way," he said. "If you want to call it economic warfare, you're close."

-- Michael O'Malley / The Plain Dealer

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