Show ftrmpr Kosovo crisis causes faiths to collide : u Fighting for religious identity is nothing new in the Balkans L xrgens Times WASHINGTON - In America's di- verse culture the notion of a civil war charged with religious conflict is hard to CM'P- - But religious identitv is present con-s-apt- ly in the antagonisms that have the Balkans for centuries - setting rtighbor against neighbor Muslims Orthodox Christians and Ortho trag-rient- dox Christians against Western Christians who are represented at least symbolically in the current conflict by NAT O More than anywhere else in Europe religion and nationality merge m the Balkans making it possible to create potent propaganda and a unique mytho-histor- y that can be used to inspire hatred Yugoslavia sits on an invisible fault line between the Islamic Middle Last and the eastern and western branches of Christianity Over centuries each faith has sought hegemony over the religious identity of the region "In the Balkans religious identification became part of national identity as expressed through language and the communication of the national myth" said Peter Black a senior historian at the United States Holocaust Museum "Thus being Orthodox is part of being Serbian Americans don’t have a single religion - being Catholic or Orthodox or Muslim isn't part of our American identity" Depending on which experts you talk to you will hear about two conflicts now in the Balkans In one view the Kosovo war has historical and mythological roots m the long conflict between Ottoman Turks and southern Slavs who are Ortho- dox Christians The other war is being fought in the air by the N A TO troops who by bombing the Serbs on the Orthodox Easter - just as the Nazis did in 1941 - have played into a view held by some Serbs that NATO is a force of western Christianity attempting to crush the Eastern Orthodox underdog "It really comes down to a war between Eastern and Western Christianity” said See KOSOVO 9A Minister looks to a healing e Scnpps Howard News Service A - few years after Roe vs Wade one of America's most passionate preachers publicly attacked the impact of legalized abortion on the powerless His National Right to Life News article ended with these words: “W hat happens to the mind of a person and the moral fabric of a nation that accepts the aborting of the life of a baby xx ithout a pang of conscience? What kind of person and what kind of society will we have 20 years hence if life can be taken so casually?” The Rev Jesse Jackson used to ask those kinds of questions before he bonded w ith the Democratic establishment Now two former Moral Majority leaders are bluntly asking ministers on the Religious Right it they will be able to avoid yielding to similar pressures to con ' s administrators staf guards and other corrections employees at prisons and jails in Moberly Fulton L' St Louis and Je'ferson City Islamic Center director Mohammed Eldeib told the group that the key to eliminating stereotypical attitudes is to understand the basics the foundations and the principles of the religions And he said it is important for those who deal with Muslim pnsoners to know their customs so they can help them meet religious tenets Muslims for example are required to pray five times a day and with a congregation on Friday their holy day Eldeib said corrections officers who are sympathetic to converts will reap benefits in the inmates behavior They will see a transformation he said because the inmate becomes more open minded more l‘ r s r understanding Weekly ends ‘pray jf and publish’ ads CINCINNATI and Kathryn Steffensen (above) of Salt Lake City are heading up a family fellowship for parents with gay and lesbian children Another group Family Fellowship is a support group for LDS families with gay members SUPPOKT GROUPS: Ron Being supportive of differences in people Some LDS Church members form groups for gays families with By GEOFFREY FATTAH Standard Examiner Davis Bureau PROVO - “It’s early Sunday morning I can't sleep I'm in tears again for the third or fourth time since yesterday afternoon - some of the most painful confused tears I’ve ever cried” Gary and Millie Watts’ son wrote in his diary one day after being excommunicated from the LDS Church for disclosing to his bishop in Japan that he was gay “I'm alone I feel so alone I thought of suicide again for the first time in a long time My sister’s line is busy my parents are meanwhile I'm in Hawaii alone m Kyoto Japan So far way from home” As parents and devoted members of the LDS Church Gary and Millie Watts were shocked and saddened and felt they were being forced to choose between their gay son and their church The Provo doctor and his ld pen to this good kid?” said Millie Watts As parents of six kids two of I amily Fellowship support which are gay the couple initialgroup for Mormon parents of ly thought it was parenting “I think that any parent that gay and lesbian children has a gay child has a dilemma As Mormons the Watts famibecause there is a certain stigma ly sees no contradiction in supabout it” said Gary Watts porting homosexuals while emBut the couple came to the bracing their religion Their son Craig was 23 when conclusion that Craig did not he told them he was gay Like have a choice most parents they were shockGary and Millie admit they were worried that their son ed Craig Gary Watts said was would have a difficult life “There’s so many people that the model student and son: morally upstanding even student we have talked to that have conbody president of his high templated suicide” Millie Watts said adding that sometimes it's school Craig had just come back because families have rejected from his mission and there were their children In 1993 the I amily fellowplans to marry his girlfriend but Craig told his parents that he ship was formed by a group of Mormon parents with gay chilcould not in good conscience dren marry a woman I ounded by two retired edu“It stunned us” Gary Watts said “the first thing I said was cators the group initially began ‘are you kidding?’ then I realized as a support group for parents to that he was dead serious” simply talk about the subject not to necessarily embrace it “We knew he was a good perRon and Kathryn StcITcnsen son then golly how could this person be gay? All of a sudden too were shocked when their son I ric came to them you think how could this hap wife decided to keep both The couple is one of some 1300 parents who make up The and told them he was gay “Up until that point we were kind of the perfect family" Kathryn Steffensen said The family's roots dive deep into the L DS faith and because they have lived mainly m Mormon areas the StelTensens said they never had to understand diversity “I honestly believed that I was the only Mormon mother with a gay child” Kathryn StcITcnsen said But after starting the I amily Fellowship they soon discovered hundreds of families caught in the same situation The group holds monthly meetings and sponsors the annual Intermountain Conference on Human Sexuality at the University of Utah Gary W'atts recounts one Idaho father who shared regret for disowning his gay son “Hie man was like Tins was a solid man When his son told him he was gay he kicked him out of the house 1 hey didn't see each other for 10 years until his son contracted AIDS and came home because See FELLOWSHIP 8A Book urges religious right to change one’s course By TERRY MATTINGLY te The latest enrollees were 24 TAMPA i Mo - T"ere ays teen a let cf bom aga n Cons' a'is in nat on s pr sers No inma'es are convert ng to more d ve'se fa tbs including Isam wbicn adherents say is the world s fastest growing reig on So those ho work with pnsoners in M ssouri are COLUVBA bae a jail Associated Press Fla - The Rev ' Henry Lyons says he'll go on preaching though now he'll do it behind bars But as the church leader who prosecutors say traded the Good Book for a bank book serves a - sentence for theft and racketeer- ing the National Baptist Convention USA that he once headed struggles to find a new beginning "We need to work on healing our hurts and unify ourselves” said the Rev Harry Blake a Shreveport La pastor who wants to succeed Lyons as president of the nation's largest black denomination For Blake who is one of eight candidates the challenge is to move forward without looking back “I'm not campaigning against ' Henry Lyons I'm campaigning for Harry Blake I’m campaigning on a message of hope” said Blake “With hope you forget the past” On Feb 27 Lyons was convicted in state court of racketeering and grand theft for fleecing $4 million from companies trying to tap into the lucrative convention membership and for pocketing thousands of dollars entrusted to him for rebuilding burned churches in the South Two weeks later Lyons went into federal court and admitted fraud and tax evasion “My life now starts a new chapter” he said after resigning to begin serving a prison sentence at the Marion Correctional Institution m Ocala Lawrence Mamiya a professor of religion and African studies at Vassar College said many were disillusioned by Lyons’ criminal personal and adulterous misdeeds which he denied right up to the time of his conviction “This is a shock” said Mamiya an authority on black Protestants ” The convention will be divided for a while but a kind of regional division” At its annual meeting in September Mamiya expects moves to unify the convention and overcome the taint For a candidate to become Lyons’ successor Mamiya said he See BAPTIST9A Prisons embrace Islamic faith amending an Islamic Center to learn what it means to be a follower of Is'am Baptist leader behind bars but vows to continue to preach T-- RELIGION UPDATE form after an unholy union with the Republicans “Power is the ultimate aphrodisiac” argues columnist Cal Thomas who writes for the Los Angeles Times Syndicate "When a preacher or any other person who claims to speak for God and who already holds sway over sometimes large numbers of people is seduced by power he can become destructive not only to himself and to those he is charged to lead but to the cause and the objectives of the One he is supposed to be serving” In their book “Blinded By Might: Can the Religious Right Save America?" Thomas and the Rev Ld Dobson of Calvary Church in Grand Rapids Mich stress that they have not abandoned any of the moral and religious convictions that once landed them jobs as top aides to the Rev Jerry I alwell m I ynchburg a Both say that moral conscr-vativmust continue to be heard m both political parties in mass es media in education and in a wide range of organizations that try to debates afiect public-polic- y Nevertheless both are convinced it's time for those who lead religious ministries and institutions to get out of politics and back to changing hearts minds and souls It is time they insist for shepherds to focus on their flocks God needs people who are called to work in politics said Dobson during a visit to Washington D C to hook up with Thomas for a “60 Minutes” interview God needs spiritual leaders to help people through their churches and parachurch ministries The danger zone he said is when ministers start devoting their time gifts and resources to trying to vote in the Kingdom of God “Churches were created for ministry and it's wrong to try to use them for other goals" said Dobson w hose evangelical church is active in 6000-memh- many morally conservative social causes but shuns political eflorts It's easy to understand the temptation he said because he felt it himself during the years when he often stood in for I at political forums and on news shows “There is an illusion of access and influence and power when you are talking about the great issues of politics” said Dobson “It makes you feel important But what you are doing is to mg to find a short cut to changing the culture It won't work” Church history could be repeating itself A few decades ago many mainline Protestant church leaders became obsessed w ith progressive social causes during the era when the parents of the 1950s and '60s were struggling to raise the baby boomers Mainline ministers briefly basked m the spotlight while their scores o( their people spiritual questions elsewhere Tohite day President Clinton's ttk House haunts many conservative pastors the way Vietnam haunted clergy on the left Meanwhile the baby boomers need help raising another massive generation The bottom line: Is the goal of the Religious Right to be as assimilated into the Republican Party as the National Council of Churches has been into the Democratic Party? “One reason the National Council and World Council of Churches no longer have the moral power and authority they once enjoyed is that they married government to God” according to Thomas “In the process tneir moral power evaporated and they became as the Religious Right has become just another special-interegroup to be appeased by politicians” Terry Manmyh Ah x tmatt net) tetu at Mill lean Calhvf in Ten-li- e h rites a eU column Jor the S nppe Honan! Vex i Vr-- - The Catholic Telegraph the official newspaper of the Cincinnati archdiocese has ended its long standing practice of printing “thank you" ads to saints The weekly newspaper in its 168th year said the ads which cost S30 apiece were dropped as of April 1 because they appear to make promises that cannot be guaranteed The so called “pray and publish" ads typically give thanks to a particular saint for answering a prayer The prayer is published in the ad and others are encouraged to use it But after the prayer is said the ad maintains it must be published for it s ‘ J H to work Telegraph Editor Tricia Hempel said she decided the ads resemble chain letters “Our mission is to educate to inform to encourage dialogue and to evangelize" Hempel said “I looked at these ads and could not see that they fit in with our mission in any way shape or form” dog named Mohammed? A Egypt - Lebanese Karam returned to Najwa singer Egypt when officials lifted a ban imposed in the belief that she named her dog after Islam's CAIRO i Prophet Mohammed Muslims consider dogs unclean and to insult Prophet Mohammed is blasphemous Egyptian security officials barred Karam from entering Egypt in early April saying she insulted the founder of Islam and criticized Egypt The ban was canceled after she wrote to the information minister asking him to reconsider A magazine had claimed Karam a Christian had named her dog after the founder of Islam She denied the accusation saying the “enemies of success and religion" were behind it Still the claim prompted many radio and TV stations to ban her songs - Standard Examiner staff and wire services ft st lu-- s Eye on Religion Web Forum lrttWnrtntiirtiratt UiC I |