In actuality I deserve none of the thanks here. It started with a kind note from one good man to another:

From: Nathan Wilson <Nathan@fccshelby.org>
To: Michael Saahir <saahir@sbcglobal.net>
Sent: Thu, August 18, 2011 1:24:13 PM
Subject: Please tell me what you think

Michael,

That article (see here and here) next was forwarded to me and others by Imam Mikal Saahir, my good friend and fellow student of Imam W. Deen Mohammed, with the note:

May the Peace that only G_d (Allah) can give be with you!  From Michael “Mikal” Saahir 

I in turn forwarded all that to my interfaith e-list. Soon, appreciation for Rev. Wilson began pouring in, as folks copied me their messages to him. I decided to archive some here, unedited (see below). But first, this addendum from Imam Saahir:

Here are the comments that reached me:

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I am so inspired by your article and more so by your courage to break the traditional interest-based boundaries that separate the human race. This Ramadan you and your family is in my prayers. Thank you for being unbiased and openminded. — Afifa

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DEAR REV NATHAN. MAY OUR LORD CREATOR OR THE HUMAN FAMILY KEEP BLESSING AND REWARD YOU FOR YOUR GOOD WORK. AS SALAAM ALAIKUM — ABDUL KARIM ALI

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Excellent!   We need this sort of interactive communication to make this a better world.   Best wishes for continued success in all your efforts. —  Hope P. Cramer

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Thanks for sharing.  The info is enlightening. — Rose Ann

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Thank you Rev. Wilson for the enlightening article, that CB Hanif forwarded to me, about Ramadan and the true Muslim’s love of peace, which is really another word for Islam. It is so much more effective coming from a Christian, and a priest at that. The use of your personal experience with the Muslim hiker, told simply but elegantly, made your comment worth its weight in gold. We need more like you to spread the message of peace. It is only through understanding responses like yours that we can overcome the hatred of those misguided 9/11 zealots and their counterparts in our own American society. My sincere thanks and congratulations. My God bless you. It is fpeople like you — Jews, Christians and Sabians — people who have “faith and do good deeds” that the Quran says “have nothing to fear in the hereafter.” — Gholam 

And last, my thanks to our Maker for Rev. Wilson, and for all of you.

— C.B. Hanif 

— My latest InterFaith21 spotlight in The Coastal Star.

Henrietta Smith reads the Litany of Commemoration at the 50th anniversary commemoration of the first communion of the Church of the Palms in Delray Beach on Nov. 14. Oher officers of the Women's Fellowship pictured are: Margot Beck (left), Marlene Hambleton, Polly Champ and Edie Kutz. (photo provided)

January 2011

It’s hard to imagine more welcoming folks than at the Church of the Palms, the North Swinton Avenue congregation celebrating its 50th year in Delray Beach.

“When we say everyone is welcome, we mean everyone,” said Henrietta Smith, a longtime church member and a past president of its Women’s Fellowship. “If you can come with no shoes on, come on in. If we can find some shoes, we’ll give them to you.”

The Church of the Palms was commissioned in January 1961 by the state conference that preceded the United Church of Christ.

Even then the fellowship was helping to lead the way. “These women were meeting together before that time,” Smith said.

In fact, the Women’s Fellowship hosted its first communion two months earlier, in November 1960.
“They were meeting in the Delray Beach Playhouse, quietly doing their missions from there from day one,” Smith said.

This November, the women again served communion. And then refreshments during the reception following the worship service. They also commemorated during their annual Christmas luncheon that first communion service.

But that barely hints at the local and international service work Smith recounted.

“The whole church is missionary oriented,” she said, “and the Women’s Fellowship does quite a bit in that area” — whether building a fresh water source for young people in Brazil, a church and school in Haiti or similar humanitarian projects in Kenya and elsewhere.

“Each place we have gone,” she said, “we have carried for the children a handmade Comfort Doll. We have given away more than 400 handmade dolls to comfort children who have little to play with that they can call their own.”

The acclaimed Comfort Dolls, representing every culture, also have warmed hearts at the Community Child Care Center and the pediatric ward of Bethesda Memorial Hospital. In yet another ministry, the women make and give prayer shawls to those in need of special support.

“If somebody is ill, somebody’s depressed, somebody’s on medical care, we give them so they can wrap themselves as if wrapped in God’s love,” she said. “These are not things that we sell. These are gifts that we give through God’s help.”

There’s also the gift of music, fine music and talented musical directors over the years, she said. “So it’s missions, music and, I guess, money, because we raise by doing some of these things.”

Smith — “one of the oldest members left around now” — said, “People came from New England and from Ohio and places like that and said we need a congregational church in this area. And that’s how it really got started.”

She arrived from New York in the 1950s with her husband, a retired judge and native Floridian who went to Brooklyn Law School, because as an African-American he was not allowed to go to Stetson University.

“When I came down to Florida, I spent quite a bit of time trying to find a home church that gave me what I had left” as a member of a Congregational church in New York, Smith said. “I was the first African-American member of the Church of the Palms. My children grew up in that church.”

The Rev. Elizabeth Hill, recently retired from a part-time ministry to older adults at the church, described its “rather dramatic transformation from a ‘country club’ church of primarily retired people, mostly Caucasian, almost no kids, to its present configuration an open, multicultural, diverse congregation open to all people of faith: ‘Wherever you are on the journey you are welcome here.’ We have lots of kids, people of varying cultural and nationality backgrounds, and a very different look and feel than 10 years ago,” the Rev. Hill said.

“The church has evolved to be a very strongly diverse congregation,” said the Rev. Roger Richardson, their pastor.

He recalled that a couple of years ago, “We had the call to worship, on Pentecost Sunday, in German, Creole, Spanish, Romanian and, of course, English. We have a Creole service on Sunday morning along with the English service, and on Saturday night we have a service that embraces Portuguese, Spanish, Creole and English.

“I believe over the years the Church of the Palms has not had as open and welcoming of a reputation as they have now forged,” Richardson said.

“It is extremely welcoming and open. They call it, ‘An extravagant and gracious welcoming to anyone, no matter where they are in life’s journey.’ So that’s kind of become the new motto for our church. We’re just happy to have folks who want to walk with us in faith.”

— C.B. Hanif

“With reference to a saying of the Holy Prophet, your Imam calls attention to the fact that Muslims are to contribute to the wholesomeness of Christian religious holiday festivals. An indication of the Muslim role in promoting respect for wholesome and sacred celebrations is found in the teaching of Prophet Muhammed, which prohibits arbitrary fasting during the holidays of people of the Book. The purpose serves to preserve and to promote solemn respect for G-d and for the sacred devotion of all people.”

My thoughts in that spirit, in my latest Florida Weekly commentary:

“We need no labels to reflect on traditions, values at Christmas“

The column’s here. See the entire digital edition here. Or keep reading:

Amid all the joys of Christmas, most folks find time for reflection, if only for a moment, seeking meaning in the holiday season. So, dare I wade into the social and political swamp of (yikes!) “meaning” in this winter holiday season?

You betcha. Because despite rampant commercialism, Christmas is a spiritual commemoration of the miracle birth of Christ Jesus, peace be upon him, and of that great teacher’s way of bringing the light into the world.

Of course, a lot of folks these days are scared of spiritual. That’s largely due to the tumult throughout history and throughout the world in the name of spiritual.

Yet the horrors that have been done in Jesus’ name — and those of many other great lights throughout the ages — hardly are representative of them. It’s worth noting that the Bible-totin’, cross-burning Ku Klux Klan and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. both claimed guidance from the same holy book.

One result today is that people increasingly aren’t inclined to consider themselves aligned with any particular religious label. More and more, it seems, people are spiritual independents, so to speak. Not affiliated with any particular… er, party.

And that’s fine. It’s way past time for quibbling over how good people conceptualize their spirituality.

In fact, we’d all be better off if the world could grasp the simple concept that there should be no compulsion in matters of religion.

I’m finding that more and more people, some more actively than others, are trying to learn what other folks are spiritually about — or not — and honor that.

Given the occasion, I keep thinking back to what I wrote a few years ago in a column titled, “This Muslim Honors Christmas.”

“I hardly claim to speak for all Muslims, who are as diverse as humanity. But count me among those for whom this day highlights the spirit of love and humility that Jesus taught and lived, and of whom God says in the Quran (57:27): ‘We gave Jesus the Gospel and put compassion and mercy into the hearts of his followers.’ ”

I mentioned that for decades it has been my practice to bestow ribbon-bedecked bottles of Martinelli apple cider upon friends, a token of both the season’s joy and sober reflection.

I cited, though not by name, my dear now departed friend Stebbins Jefferson’s query: “I thought you didn’t celebrate Christmas.”

I don’t, was my reply, but I honor it because she — and so many others whom God has made the repositories of so much grace and good in America and the world — do.

A lot has changed since then, of course — and little has.

Roberta Popara, associate director of Our Lady of Florida Spiritual Center in North Palm Beach, said that being in Iraq for Christmas in 2003 “gave me an opportunity to see how a Christian minority and another culture celebrate one of the most important feast days second only to Easter.”

Most countries don’t observe the cultural Christmas that Americans do, said the Dominican Sister. “Rather the religious significance takes precedent. Even so, in homes and shops there are modest displays for this holiday. Even some Muslim shopkeepers display Christmas lights and images of Baba Noel, as Arabic speakers call our Santa Claus. Special foods such as kibbi and pasha become usual fare for the holidays. There is some gift giving but again, very simple. The Christian community gathers for plays and pageants as well as prayerful observance of the holy season.”

“Even so,” she said, “since the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq and the rise of counter insurgency, holy seasons such as Christmas bring their own fear upon this minority community as certain groups, claiming they are doing God’s will, bring terror and death by targeting Christian churches and gatherings.

“This needs to be understood in balance with the continued experiences of terror for the ordinary Iraqi citizen regardless of religious identity.”

Methinks Muslims and others should be more aware of an episode in the early history of the Muslim community.

Severely persecuted in Mecca, some left to Ethiopia, whose Christian Negus sheltered them. The Meccans pursued, seeking their forced return. The Muslims appealed to the king that they once had been steeped in ignorance, worshiping idols and committing abominations, but had turned to worship only the creator. They recited the opening verses of the Quran’s chapter 19, named for Jesus’ mother Mary, at which the ruler wept.

The Meccans then claimed that Muslims disrespect Jesus, to which the reply came that the prophet taught that Jesus was a creature of God and his prophet, as well as his spirit and his word, which was cast unto the Blessed Virgin Mary. Upon which the king said he would never give up the Muslims to their persecutors.

There’s been way too much suffering among religious folk since. Witness “An Advent Evening of Commemoration and Reflection” for the four U.S. churchwomen martyred in El Salvador on Dec. 2, 1980.

The Dec. 14 advent program, hosted by Pax Christi Palm Beach at St. Ann Church in West Palm Beach, remembered Sisters Maura Clarke, Ita Ford, Dorothy Kazel and lay missioner Jean Donovan.

They had accepted dire risk in choosing to remain and serve as a shield for El Salvador’s persecuted poor. What else would his sincere followers do, than what Jesus would do?

Hearing their stories, my sense is the sisters would have appreciated a moment of levity from several Sundays ago, courtesy of the Rev. Carol Yorke of the First Unitarian Universalist Congregation of the Palm Beaches.

“So, you do know what would have happened if it had been three wise women instead of men, don’t you? They would have asked for directions. Arrived on time. Helped deliver the baby. Cleaned the stable. Made a casserole. And brought disposable diapers as gifts.

Rev. Yorke went on to remind that, “Horror and tragedy do not mean the end of meaning, unless we choose to view it that way.”

Instead, she said, “We can choose gratitude.”

There’s room to remember that meaning of this day and season.

Christmas, as someone once said, is what you make of a reflection of your values, desires, affections and traditions.

With spiritual label or not.

— C.B. Hanif

On the courtyard of Temple Israel following “An Interfaith Thanksgiving Service Celebrating Our Diversity.”

Before sharing more scenes from some wonderful recent activities — among them the Thanksgiving interfaith gathering at Temple Israel in West Palm Beach, and at the Friends (Quaker) Meeting House in Lake Worth — I  should mention the next installment in our monthly interfaith DVD & Discussion series. Coming up this Sunday, Dec. 19, it’s “Different Books, Common Word: Baptists and Muslims.” This notable documentary by EthicsDaily.com posits:

From Boston to the Bible Belt and from Beaumont to the nation’s beltway, Baptists and Muslims are changing history with the way they change each other. Tired of being defined by extremists, some Baptists and Muslims in the United States have sought and found common ground: the common word in both traditions to love God and love neighbor. The courageous Baptists and Muslims in “Different Books, Common Word” will surprise you.

Robert Parham, executive editor of EthicsDaily.com and the documentary’s co-producer/director, says: “The Bible calls us to love our neighbors, not as a means of conversion, but because it’s the right thing to do.” That’s the Quranic view too — as in myriad other traditions.

All are welcome to join our warm company of spiritually and ethnically diverse friends, 2-4 p.m. at the United Methodist Church of the Palm Beaches, 900 Brandywine Road, West Palm Beach 33409.

As always, these “Models for Interfaith Dialogue and Unity” gatherings are organized by New Africa of the Palm Beaches, with support of local clergy and lay friends. The programs provide opportunities to transcend religious, ethnic and cultural divisions by learning from and about each other, while developing exemplary models for human interaction and cooperation. There’s no fee; donations to support this effort are welcome. More info: 561-309-5476.

With our dear Mercedes Mont of the Focolare, the worldwide Christian movement, than whom I know no better followers of Christ Jesus, upon whom be Peace.

Aneesha and Mercedes, caring, sharing, not wanting to leave.

More scenes:

Rabbi Richard Chapin, our humble host, welcoming all to "An Interfaith Thanksgiving Service Celebrating Our Diversity," Nov. 23 at Temple Israel in West Palm Beach.

It was a joy to meet Pastor Acosta.

Cantor Paul Offenkrantz and the Temple Israel musicians were spirit-moving.

Cantor Offenkrantz

My dear friend Deacon Dennis Demes, of the Diocese of Palm Beach, touched my heart with his comments.

The Children's Choir of Church Jesus Redentor de Vida was awesome.

In my Thanksgiving remarks...

...I shared the advice embraced by Luqman the Wise: "And whoever is thankful, is so to the profit of his own soul. And any who is ungrateful should know that G-d is Self-Sufficient, free of all wants, worthy of all praise" (Quran 31.12).

Our guest speaker Melanie Nezer, senior director, U.S. Programs and Advocacy, Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society.

Delightedly reconnecting with Charles Damsel, one of my longtime readers.

Whether with longtime friends or new...

... it truly was "An Interfaith Thanksgiving Service Celebrating Our Diversity."

Meanwhile, during the Lake Worth Interfaith Network's "6th Annual Thanksgiving Service of Gratitude"...

...at the The Friends (Quaker) Meeting Nov. 25...

Deacon Patricia Masterman of St. Andrew's Episcopal Church, who pulled us all together this year...

... offered a Native American Prayer replete with drum.

I reprised many of my Thanksgiving comments from Temple Israel.

Nirmi & Vinod Sandanasamy shared a Tamil Indian Prayer.

Our friend Cynthia Friend of the Palm Beach Dharma Center, who shared a Buddhist prayer.

After, some of us paused for a photo (L-R): Rabbi Jenny Skylark, Noam Brown, Hanif, Pat Masterman, Javier del Sol, Rev. Taylor Stevens.

Later, enjoying Thanksgiving time with Melton Mustafa...

...and family and friends — and his video camera.

A few days later, checking in at the Palm Beach County Convention Center Dec. 2 ...

...to join in honoring my friend, master photographer Bevins Bennett, and others....

...as host committee members celebrated the Black Chamber of Commerce of Palm Beach County's annual Ascension Awards. (L-R): Keely Taylor, Verdenia Baker, Bevins Bennett, Thais Sullivan, Aneesha Hanif.

— C.B. Hanif

Tremendous gratitude to the local Pax Christi group for hosting me as speaker during their monthly meeting Nov. 10.

In prepared comments I spoke about the the Hajj, the pilgrimage to the holy city Mecca that I was blessed to make in 2001. This year’s Hajj is due to begin on Monday, so I was expanding on my previous day’s talk during our monthly meeting of the Interfaith Clergy Committee of the Jewish Community Relations Council.

For Pax Christi I also brought along copies of my various translations of the Quran. Members were able to study them as we perused some of the verses, and I addressed some common questions of folks who may have few or no relationships with Muslims or little working knowledge of Islam.

I also shared how the Quran sounds to many of us in our Muslim American community, through a CD featuring the sonorous Arabic recitation by Imam Rasul Madyun, one or our outstanding young imams who we unexpectedly lost to Crohn’s disease. Along with English translation, the verses (Quran 17:23-25) prescribed kindness to parents.

Thanks again to David Pena and Pax Christi for letting me visit with longtime friends, such as Beth Cioffoletti and Tom Burroughs, and make new ones.

As usual I learned a lot — this time about this Catholic peace movement whose sentiments I overwhelmingly share.

More scenes:

— C.B. Hanif

Deborah Lee Prescott is a Christian, who teaches at Palm Beach Atlantic University, a Christian college, but whose passion is to study the memoirs and autobiographies of
Jewish victims of the Holocaust.

Deborah Lee Prescott with her new book, "Imagery from Genesis in Holocaust Memoirs."

From The Diary of Anne Frank to Elie Wiesel’s Night, many people are familiar with such books.

But Prescott, in her new book, Imagery from Genesis in Holocaust Memoirs, surveys more than 50 different autobiographical accounts, from different parts of Europe, written by Jews who observed various degrees of religious practice — devout, orthodox, or with
nominal or no connection to their Jewish heritage — all of whom were persecuted for being Jews.

Prescott said she noted a fascinating pattern of biblical images among the writers’ experiences in the context of the modern day Jewish Holocaust and Nazi persecution.

She’ll be talking about it all during a Nov. 13 reception at the Cenacle Sisters Retreat, 1400 S. Dixie Highway in Lantana.

For example, she said “Paradise Lost, Innocence Lost,” her first chapter, “contextualizes people being taken away from their homes, people being forced to leave their communities, even forced to leave their nations, through an allusion to Adam and Eve, the Fall, being kicked out of the garden of Eden.

“It also deals with images of nakedness: People talked about losing their clothes when they come into the concentration camp system. So that’s all tied up with images of some of the very first stories in Genesis.”

Another chapter, titled “God’s Ark and Hitler’s Cattle Car,” draws on a reference from an autobiographer “who talked about being in a cattle car, being transported to the concentration camp.” It illustrates one of the paradoxical inversions she found, in this case an inverted Noah’s ark: “People on the ark were being preserved, they were being saved, while the Nazis gathered people to kill them.”

Regarding her “The Babel of Extermination” chapter, Prescott said the Tower of Babel image “is the most common image I’ve seen in Holocaust autobiographies.” She described “the confusion, with every language under the sun being contained within these concentration camps, and the stress that it causes, the division.” There I heard echoes of the African Holocaust — in which language divisions were used to separate human beings in captivity before and during a brutal trans-Atlantic passage, and to further divide them in chattel slavery.

A chapter on “The Perversity of Silence” examines the image of Abraham asked to sacrifice his son. In a context drawn primarily from Elie Wiesel, she talks of “how fathers had to leave their sons to the concentration camps, and metaphorically, also mothers had to leave their daughters.”

“Fratricide,” the last chapter, considers several autobiographers, “mainly a Dutch man who is looking at the Cain and Abel story,” she said. “And the Holocaust shows us that even though it’s Nazis killing Jews — among many other people that they persecuted, but single-mindedly the Jews — ultimately this is brother killing brother.”

Prescott recently toured major concentration camps in Poland with a group from the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington. “I look at the Holocaust and I see what hate can do,” she said. “So I think the only way we can trample out this hate is to communicate and talk to one another.”

I agree with her that folks might be surprised by how much the insights in these autobiographies can teach us. For me, a “graduate” of Tom O’Brien’s Hebrew Books and New Testament classes over at Bethesda by the Sea, Prescott’s scholarship is another great contribution.

***

Deborah Lee Prescott will discuss her new book, Imagery from Genesis in Holocaust Memoirs, during a Nov. 13 reception, 7 to 9 p.m.
at the Cenacle, 1400 S. Dixie Highway.

No admission is charged, space is limited. Call the Cenacle Sisters, 561-249-1621, or e-mail srplane@juno.com.

— C.B. Hanif

I was invited as one of the speakers for Saturday’s impromptu rally, primarily of  Palm Beach Atlantic University students, whose message was that those extremists and haters who claim to be speaking for our Muslim, Christian, Jewish and other faiths are full of it.

A certain Gainesville pastor was on the hot seat. Other folks I won’t mention were mentioned. But the point of these students from the self-styled “Florida’s Top Christian College” was clear. To paraphrase Keelan O’Carroll:

No more will we sit by and let people hijack what we believe, and say hurtful things, and do hurtful actions, in the name of Christianity. No more to using the name of Jesus to further their own political agendas. Jesus tells us not to repay evil with evil, but says to repay evil with good.

To which I’ll add from a Muslim perspective: Nothing can come from good but good. In fact, I experienced nothing but good from key organizers (and sister and brother) Shaunessy and Josh McNeely, of Global Refuge International.

Among the aims of the downtown West Palm Beach rally were to show solidarity among Islam, Christianity and other faiths in rejecting the Gainesville pastor’s Quran burning plan; to provide a chance for local churches to take a stand against Islamophobia and extend hands in unity to our Muslim brothers and sisters in the community; to bring awareness of the extent of suffering among people all over the world, and of how to support the relief work; and particularly to encourage folks to do much more  to help the people of Pakistan in their disastrous emergency. Donations were collected for Pakistan Flood Relief.

Other speakers included Dr. Gerald Wright of PBAU, and Gholam Rahman, my fellow member of the  Muslim Community of Palm Beach County.

In my comments, I noted President Barack Obama’s Friday news conference statement:

I’ve got Muslims who are fighting in Afghanistan. In the uniform of the United States armed forces. They’re out there putting their lives on the line for us. And we’ve got to make sure that we are crystal clear for our sakes and their sakes — they are Americans. And we honor their service.

It happens that I have just returned from observing the recognition given dozens of pioneering Muslim American veterans, also African-Americans, some of whom were forced to take terrible risks to prove their valor, intelligence and humanity, only to have it all disregarded when they returned to the States.

But they ain’t mad, cuz that was then, and this is now. And like them, and our president, I’m expecting good from our fellow American people.

These students were the latest confirmation that, no, we’re not going back to those days of government-sanctioned bigotry. I hope we hear a lot more from them. As I remarked to a lady who I later learned was the McNeelys’ mom, Elaine: With kids like these, our nation, and world, are gonna be alright.

The beautiful day, the smiles, the beautiful hearts and minds were just the latest sign that, regardless of whether we live to see the Master Plan brought to fruition in this world, the Promise of the Maker of all humanity — indeed all of creation — is true.

More scenes:

— C.B. Hanif

Lost in the furor over the proposed Islamic cultural center near Ground Zero is a simple fact: The opposition to the center is the strongest argument in favor of it going right where it is planned. By most accounts, much of the opposition is based on an inaccurate conflation of Islam with terrorism, stemming from ignorance about the Muslim religion, culture and people. While troubling, this is hardly surprising in a nation in which a significant minority of Americans believe that our Christian president is Muslim (and so what if he were?).

Jones, a public affairs and government relations strategist, and former executive director of the National Urban League Policy Institute from 2005 to 2010, is refreshingly clear:

Exiling the center to another part of Manhattan will expand and deepen the gulf between the Islamic community and its neighbors. The best way to bridge this gap is to help people understand that their trepidation is based not in reality but born of a myth that has been cruelly exploited. The Islamic cultural center can help span this chasm.

Of course, it’s not fair to expect a minority community to educate the majority, especially when the majority is so hostile to it. Sadly, minorities have long shouldered the burden of proving to the majority that they pose no threat, that they are not inferior and that they, too, deserve everything the majority takes for granted as its due — while patiently enduring misunderstanding and even abuse. They do all this in the face of demands that they are going too fast, pushing too hard and making life too uncomfortable for others.

That was the case in 1963 when white ministers in Birmingham, Ala., accused Martin Luther King Jr. of exacerbating racial tensions by leading protests against the city’s segregation laws. They called his actions “unwise and untimely.” Dr. King responded with his “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” in which he wrote: “Frankly, I have yet to engage in a direct-action campaign that was ‘well timed’ in the view of those who have not suffered unduly from the disease of segregation. For years now I have heard the word ‘Wait!’ It rings in the ear of every Negro with piercing familiarity. This ‘Wait’ has almost always meant ‘Never.’ “

Perhaps because I am a longtime professional news journalist, including the world’s longest serving news ombudsman, I have long seen this as a sad media story, as indicated by recent posts. But we should note that some news organizations, having been swiftboated again by the far-right, are trying to catch up. Also from WaPost:

Mosque debate: New Yorkers take dim view of rabble-rousing outsiders

The story even has this from Republican Rep. Peter King:

“When people say it’s a battle between cultures or it’s about the violence in the Koran, I never buy any of that. You can find as much of that in the Old Testament and the New Testament; for me that is not the issue at all.”

Also Democratic Rep. Jerrold Nadler:

“It’s only a slap in the face if you think that the people in the congregation are responsible for al-Qaeda,” Nadler said as he sat in his office, where outdated posters, some featuring the Twin Towers, hung on the wall.

A staunch defender of Israel, Nadler said that it is logical that he is fighting for the rights of a Muslim congregation that he said he might very well vehemently disagree with. “Jews, of all people, should know that we have to support religious liberty,” he said. “Because if you can block a mosque, you can block a synagogue…

“I tend to think that Sarah Palin probably doesn’t [understand the Constitution],” Nadler said. “I think that Newt Gingrich is a very bright man; he probably understands it, at least intellectually. But he doesn’t agree with it or care about it enough to avoid trashing the Constitution for political advantage.”

With regard to the Cordoba Initiative’s Manhattan community center: Aside from the fact that, as someone noted, we Americans do not want government (much less Palin or Gingrich) dictating whether we can build houses of worship that are properly zoned, the New Yorker’s Hendrik Hertzberg underscored some essential but sadly overlooked elements:

Ah, the “Ground Zero mosque.” Well, for a start, it won’t be at Ground Zero. It’ll be on Park Place, two blocks north of the World Trade Center site (from which it will not be visible), in a neighborhood ajumble with restaurants, shops (electronics, porn, you name it), churches, office cubes, and the rest of the New York mishmash. Park51, as it is to be called, will have a large Islamic “prayer room,” which presumably qualifies as a mosque. But the rest of the building will be devoted to classrooms, an auditorium, galleries, a restaurant, a memorial to the victims of September 11, 2001, and a swimming pool and gym. Its sponsors envision something like the 92nd Street Y—a Y.M.I.A., you might say, open to all, including persons of the C. and H. persuasions.

Or as reported by Ericka Werner:

The group behind the $100 million project, the Cordoba Initiative, describes it as a Muslim-themed community center. Early plans call not only for prayer space but for a swimming pool, culinary school, art studios and other features. Developers envision it as a hub for interfaith interaction, as well as a place for Muslims to bridge some of their faith’s own schisms.

Opponents, including some Sept. 11 victims’ relatives, see the prospect of a mosque so near the destroyed trade center as an insult to the memory of those killed by Islamic terrorists in the 2001 attacks. Some of the Sept. 11 victims’ relatives, however, are in favor.

I suspect that one reason for the opposition from some folks still fighting the Crusades is that the center’s healing & reconciliation premise — indeed its very name — undermines the culture warriors by invoking the spirit of the 800-year period in Cordoba, Spain during which Jews, Christians and Muslims enjoyed unparalleled understanding and cooperation, and thrived together in a way the three Abrahamic faiths have not enjoyed since.

Michael Rowe may have said it best, in his “Thoughts on the ‘Ground Zero Mosque’ and the Better Angels of Our Nature“:

The ugliest part of fear mongering is that the “they” and “them” being referred to are other Americans.

Last, for those who didn’t see, here’s Keith Olbermann. Also, Jon Stewart, nailing it all down better than any news organization yet, here, here and here.

— C.B. Hanif

Islam, by defintion, rejects terrorism

By C.B. Hanif

The Palm Beach Post

October 15, 2006

As one who grew up rooting for Tarzan and Cheetah to whip up on my Afro-wigged cousins portraying Hollywood’s idea of Africans, I can understand how people buy into social myths of one sort or another. And having been as clueless as most folks regarding religious traditions beyond the ones with which we grew up, I am not surprised to hear certain perceptions some folks have of Muslims.

But it is curious to observe otherwise rational people defining Islam by those who behave opposite of what the faith prescribes. To confuse the lunatic fringe with Islam’s mainstream is where much of the discourse on significant current events gets off track.

So as a Muslim heading down the home stretch of our month of rededication and dawn-to-dusk fasting called Ramadan, it is heartening that despite the barrage of guilt by association of Muslims as terrorists, many people know better.

Newsweek reports (http://www.msnbc.msn.com) that thousands of members of the Roman Catholic peace group Pax Christi USA are fasting for Ramadan. And that especially since 9/11, “non-Muslims have fasted to express political solidarity with Muslims, to increase awareness of global hunger, as a spiritual discipline, or to strengthen interfaith friendship.”

Rather than campaigning for folks to change their religion, that sounds like encouraging more who claim one to live their religion.

It also suggests fewer folks are buying when a Tom, Dick or Hanif claims the cultural practices or politics of his native Egypt, Sudan or Brooklyn represent Islam. And that more people are correctly associating Muslims with the authentic sources of the faith: the Quran and true example of Mohammed the prophet.

Another take on fasting friends came in the letter my close friends in the Focolare lay Catholic community (www.focolare.org) just shared from their Center for Interreligious Dialogue in Rome. It announced that members of the movement, along with fellow Christians and folks of other religions and convictions who would like to do so, will “be united with you in a day of prayer and fasting for peace,” as proposed by other organizations, on Oct. 20, the last Friday of Ramadan.

The letter also conveyed the hopes of Focolare leader Chiara Lubich that, “as our spirituality suggests, every obstacle may become a springboard toward a much deeper brotherhood among us.”

The statement exemplifies how when I’m among members of that worldwide, multiethnic, multi-religious family that lives like the first Christians, I hear the articulation of my own spirituality as a Muslim coming back at me in different language. So much so that I realized days after a recent Focolare meeting in Hialeah that Pope Benedict XVI’s comments on Islam had not even come up.

I’m with the Muslims who join the pope in calling for an end to all religiously motivated violence and persecution in some so-called Muslim societies.

One interesting analysis, however, comes from journalist, peace activist, former member of the Israeli Knesset and self-described atheist Uri Avnery. On “Mohammed’s Sword” (http://world.mediamonitors.net/content/ view/full/35746), he wrote that:

“The story about ‘spreading the faith by the sword’ is an evil legend, one of the myths that grew up in Europe during the great wars against the Muslims — the reconquista of Spain by the Christians, the Crusades and the repulsion of the Turks, who almost conquered Vienna. I suspect that the German pope, too, honestly believes in these fables. That means that the leader of the Catholic world, who is a Christian theologian in his own right, did not make the effort to study the history of other religions.”

But those are points for dialogue among our responsible religious leaders. Down on our level, familiarity is breeding knowledge, respect and love. The talk is of family, cultivating the human spirit, building our communities and maybe a bit of World Cup soccer. Through the fog of old assumptions comes clarity and even agreement on what we believe. Such as that there should be no compulsion in matters of faith, as the Quran prescribes.

When others take such verses out of their historical context, I am reminded that both the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the Ku Klux Klan taught from the Bible. And Mohammed of Arabia wasn’t the first prophet contradicted by alleged followers of the principles he taught. Moses stepped away for a talk with God and his followers, despite all the miracles they had seen, began worshipping a golden calf.

Anyone seen all-American icon Muhammad Ali rioting over the pope’s comments? With his annual appearance at our Muslim Convention, which took place last month in Chicago, the increasingly frail former heavyweight champ makes clear that he’s standing with Imam W. Deen Mohammed, the son of his former teacher the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, and sincere people of other faiths who are advancing these sentiments among Muslims and humanity.

This year, our scintillating banquet speaker, the Rev. Dr. Annie O. Oliver of Milwaukee, said well what applies to Muslims and anyone who claims a particular faith or philosophy: “If I was accused of being a Christian, would there be enough evidence to convict me?”

C.B. Hanif is an editorial writer for The Palm Beach Post.

Copyright (c) 2006 Palm Beach Newspapers, Inc.

This month’s Coastal Star, First Presbyterian Church of Delray Beach’s Rev. Aaron Janklow and the popular TnT — or Twenties ’n’ Thirties — young professionals group he leads:

Young minister succeeding on his mission

And this month’s Look Inside our Places of Worship, the amazing story of the congregation whose serene, picturesque sanctuary once was a Boca Raton Air Force Base chapel:

First Church of Christ, Scientist