Giles Fraser asks what is to be learned from recent terrorist attacks in the UK: "Perhaps this: that the most dangerous people in the world are those who are absolutely convinced of their own moral virtue and innocence. It is not the scoundrel who is responsible for the darkest moral evil in the world, but the person who is assured of his or her own virtue."

He writes:

The man who tried to blow up the airport was reported to have emerged from the car, covered in flames. As the fire melted his flesh, he kept repeating the name of God, punching anyone who tried to put his fire out. Here was a man thoroughly convinced that he was doing the right thing. Make no mistake: it was faith that provided him with his moral alibi.

And:

This is why the people of faith need more epistemic humility, a great deal more self-awareness, a longer pause before answering the big questions of faith, a more open reflection upon our less flattering motivations. It might be difficult to find the confidence to develop self-critical vigilance when so many others want to disparage faith. But develop it more we must.

The Washington Post "On Faith" blog this week will focus on Islam. Editors Jon Meacham and Sally Quinn explain why:

Put bluntly and broadly, many people today wish to portray Islam as a peaceful faith with a violent few, arguing that “jihad” (literally, “struggle”) is a spiritual term encompassing the Muslim’s daily religious life and that it can only be used for armed struggles that are defensive. On the other end of the spectrum are those who believe Islam is a violent faith in which jihad is a perpetual militaristic element. The truth, it seems reasonable to say, lies somewhere in between. Believers of all kinds have killed in the name of their conception of God, or of the gods. Historically, some of the blood has been shed in what some traditions think of as “just wars,” some in unjustifiable atrocities, some in battles of conquest. And yet believers of all kinds have done great good in the name of their conception of God, or of the gods, in acts of mercy, charity and liberation.

How do we make sense of these contradictions and complexities in an age of enduring fear about terrorism? The question is essential, and is arguably the central one of our time, for if totalitarianism was the great problem of the 20th century, then, so far, religiously inspired violence is its 21st century successor.

All of which brings us to the project at hand. Over the next six days, On Faith will host “Muslims Speak Out,” a forum in which about twenty leading Muslim clerics and thinkers from around the world will engage in what we believe is an unprecedented online dialogue about the Islam and its intersection with politics and culture. We reached out to fifty such clerics and scholars; twenty agreed to participate. The list is geographically and theologically diverse.

The questions we will pose in the coming days touch on controversial and problematic issues. What would you tell suicide bombers who invoke Islam to justify their actions? What are the rights of women in Islam? Is it permissible for a Muslim to convert to another faith? Does Islam’s view of male-female equality differ from the Western view? Under what conditions does Islam sanction the use of violence? How can laws against apostasy be reconciled with the Qu’ranic injunction saying “there is no compulsion in religion”?

Read it all here.

In the same context, Karen Armstrong's op-ed, "An inability to tolerate Islam contradicts western values," is also worth a look:

In the past Islamic governments were as prone to intellectual coercion as any pre-modern rulers, but when Muslims were powerful and felt confident they were able to take criticism in their stride. But media and literary assaults have become more problematic at a time of extreme political vulnerability in the Islamic world, and to an alienated minority they seem inseparable from Abu Ghraib, Guantánamo Bay and the unfolding tragedy of Iraq.

On both sides, however, there are double standards and the kind of contradiction evident in Khomeini's violation of the essential principles of his mentor, Mulla Sadra. For Muslims to protest against the Danish cartoonists' depiction of the prophet as a terrorist, while carrying placards that threatened another 7/7 atrocity on London, represented a nihilistic failure of integrity.

But equally the cartoonists and their publishers, who seemed impervious to Muslim sensibilities, failed to live up to their own liberal values, since the principle of free speech implies respect for the opinions of others. Islamophobia should be as unacceptable as any other form of prejudice.

Ekklesia reports that, "the church-backed US National Religious Campaign Against Torture (NRCAT) is speaking out against a new executive order from President George W. Bush that broadly outlines the limits of how suspects may be questioned in the CIA's terror interrogation programme."

The order, which Bush signed in July 2007, bans torture, cruel and inhumane treatment, sexual abuse, acts intended to denigrate a religion or other degradation "beyond the bounds of human decency." It pledges that detainees will receive adequate food, water and medical care and be protected from extreme heat and cold.

It does not, however, say what techniques are permitted during harsh questioning of suspects.

That has become a matter of debate in the United States and elsewhere, including with NRCAT, a coalition of more than 125 religious organizations, which has called on the US government to forswear the use of torture without exception.

"At the same time the executive order says it prohibits torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment of detainees, it allows the CIA to continue to use undefined and undisclosed 'alternative interrogation techniques,' thereby calling into question whether the prohibition is real," said Linda Gustitus, president of NRCAT's board of directors, in a recent statement issued by the anti-torture group.

The statement said that as people of faith, "who value our common humanity and our religious responsibility to treat all people with decency and the due process protections of civilized law, that we urge" President Bush to:

* Immediately stop the use of interrogation techniques that are "cruel and inhuman."
* Disclose what alternative interrogation techniques are used. * Close all secret prisons.
* End the rendition of suspects to countries thought to use torture; and
* Provide the International Red Cross access to detainees held in US custody.

The statement also called on Congress to prohibit the use of any CIA funds for programmes or activities that fail to treat all persons detained with "decency and the protections of due process."

Read it all here

For membership and information on NRCAT click here

For more on Ekklesia click here.

Ethics Daily.com features commentary by Paul Rusesabagina, whose actions during the genocide inspired the film, Hotel Rwanda. His comments on that period of Rwandan history came at a convocation at Middle Tennessee State University. The silence of the churches during that time contriibuted not only to the killing but left Rwandans feelng abandoned by God.

Rwanda's genocide was in part a failure of the Christian church, a former hotel manager whose efforts to save the lives of more than 1,200 of his countrymen inspired the Academy Award-nominated movie "Hotel Rwanda," said in a Sunday interview.

Prior to 1994, Rwanda was described as the most Christianized country in Africa. Ninety percent of its citizens professed to be Christians. But that didn't stop tribal violence from breaking out that resulted in the wanton murder of 800,000 people in 100 days.

Like other foreigners, American missionaries were evacuated when the killing started, Paul Rusesabagina told EthicsDaily.com.

"The Rwandan genocide took place in a hidden way, without any eyewitnesses from the international community," Rusesabagina said. "When it comes to churches, all the churches kept quiet."

"Silence, as we all know, is complicity," he said.

Instead of opposing the violence, Rusesabagina said, churches were often complicit. People fled to churches for sanctuary, as they had in earlier conflicts. This time those same churches turned into death traps, as ministers either stood by or assisted in ethnic cleansing.

A Belgian court convicted two Benedictine nuns in 2001 of participating in the massacre of more than 7,600 people at the Sovu convent in Butare.

An Anglican bishop was indicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda for the crime of genocide, specifically "for killing or causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the Tutsi population with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a racial or ethnic group."

Accusations were also documented against clergy of the Free Methodist, Presbyterian, Baptist and Seventh-Day Adventist churches.

Read the whole article

Denis MacShane, member of the British House of Commons and former Europe Minister writes in the Washington Post of a new upsurge of anti-semitism in Europe:

Hatred of Jews has reached new heights in Europe and many points south and east of the old continent. Last year I chaired a blue-ribbon committee of British parliamentarians, including former ministers and a party leader, that examined the problem of anti-Semitism in Britain. None of us are Jewish or active in the unending debates on the Israeli-Palestinian question.

Our report showed a pattern of fear among a small number of British citizens -- there are around 300,000 Jews in Britain, of whom about a third are observant -- that is not acceptable in a modern democracy. Synagogues attacked. Jewish schoolboys jostled on public transportation. Rabbis punched and knifed. British Jews feeling compelled to raise millions to provide private security for their weddings and community events. On campuses, militant anti-Jewish students fueled by Islamist or far-left hate seeking to prevent Jewish students from expressing their opinions

He writes that criticism of Israel is not considered anti-semitic as some of the strongest critics are Jewish. The new anti-semitism is that which threatens democracy and free speech. He concludes:

Today there is still denial about the universal ideology of the new anti-Semitism. It has power and reach, and it enters into the soft underbelly of the Western mind-set that does not like Jews or what Israel does to defend its right to exist.

A counterattack is being organized. My own House of Commons has led the way with its report. The 47-nation Council of Europe, on which I sit as a British representative, has launched a lengthy inquiry into combating anti-Semitism in Europe. The European Union has produced a directive outlawing Internet hate speech originating within its jurisdiction.

We are at the beginning of a long intellectual and ideological struggle. It is not about Jews or Israel. It is about everything democrats have long fought for: the truth without fear, no matter one's religion or political beliefs. The new anti-Semitism threatens all of humanity. The Jew-haters must not pass.

Read it all here

The Federal Bureau of Prisons has directed the departments chaplains to purge their libraries of all religious books which are not on list approved developed by the Bureau. According to a New York Times report by Laurie Goodstein, the move is supposed to prevent inmates from getting relgiously-based terrorist ideas.

Traci Billingsley, a spokeswoman for the Bureau of Prisons, said the agency was acting in response to a 2004 report by the Office of the Inspector General in the Justice Department. The report recommended steps that prisons should take, in light of the Sept. 11 attacks, to avoid becoming recruiting grounds for militant Islamic and other religious groups. The bureau, an agency of the Justice Department, defended its effort, which it calls the Standardized Chapel Library Project, as a way of barring access to materials that could, in its words, “discriminate, disparage, advocate violence or radicalize.”

The list, which has reduced religious libraries to a list of 150 approved books and 150 multi-media for each of 20 religions or religious categories, does not ban liturgical texts, prayer books or scriptures.

The lists are broad, but reveal eccentricities and omissions. There are nine titles by C. S. Lewis, for example, and none from the theologians Reinhold Niebuhr, Karl Barth and Cardinal Avery Dulles, and the influential pastor Robert H. Schuller.

Chaplains already watch out for materials that promote violence or disparage groups or classes of people, so, they say, the effort is unnecessary. The department has not provided funds for Chaplains to purchase the approved materials. This means that many prison library have simply been cleared of materials.

This effort has managed to displease nearly everyone: evangelical Christian groups have found their materials banned as well as Jewish and Muslim groups. Already some prisoners have filed suit.

If bureaucrats are concerned about radical ideas that are infectious, they may want to have another look at those Gospels.

Read the rest here including a multi-media description of the banned materials.

NewsOK reports on the effect of the Oklahoma immigration reform law on church attendance.

When the Rev. Leonel Blanco looks out into the pews of his south Oklahoma City church on Sundays, he sees only half the number of his predominantly Hispanic congregation Attendance at Blanco's Santa Maria Virgen, called the fastest-growing church in the Episcopal Diocese of Oklahoma, has dwindled sharply — a 50 percent decrease that Blanco blames on the Oklahoma immigration reform law that goes into effect Thursday. "Four months ago, this church was very full, but now the people are nervous. They don't like going out,” Blanco, a native of Guatemala, said in Spanish through an interpreter.

Read about the situation and what the churches in Oklahoma are doing here

Ekklesia is reporting that Pakistani Christians are expressing concern about the public order situation in their country, and the security of minorities, following President Pervez Musharraf's widely criticised suspension of consitutional government and his declaration of a state of emergency over the weekend.

The General's move, which has embarrassed his Western allies and outraged democracy and human rights advocates, comes ahead of a Supreme Court decision on whether to overturn his recent election victory. The signs are that Musharraf, and his 20 per cent poll righting is likely now to slip to single figures.

"This move is not about law and order primarily, it is about Musharraf's desperate attempt to survive politically", a leading analyst, who asked to remain anonymous for safety reasons,told Ekklesia. The army loyal to General Musharraf has been arresting lawyers, opponents and civil society advocates in a widespread clampdown.

There are signs of public protest, but widespread fear. Churches now fear that the situation will be exploited by those who wish to carry out more attacks on the minority Christian community.

Read the rest here

Ethan Fishman in The American Scholar:

For much of its history, the United States has largely avoided the religious conflicts that have cost other nations countless lives. Our ability to escape such conflicts is grounded in the Constitution’s First Amendment, which requires government to maintain as neutral an attitude as possible toward religion. Fortunately for Americans, past presidents as a rule have sought to honor this neutrality. Today, however, the Bush administration, working with certain religious denominations, seeks to repudiate it.

Drawing on the thinking of Roger Williams, who was exiled from Puritan Massachusetts and founded the Rhode Island colony, he writes:

The Bush administration has ignored Roger Williams’s warning about the corrosive effects on both church and state of the lethal combination of national arrogance and religious self-righteousness. That contrasts with the reactions of Presidents Washington, Adams, Jefferson, and Madison at the turn of the 19th century when North African Muslim pirates were seizing American ships and capturing their crews. The pirates were fond of using quotes from the Koran to justify their criminal activities, and the United States responded in a variety of ways to protect its political and commercial interests in the Mediterranean: they sent in the Navy and the Marines, paid protection money, and ransomed the crews. But these presidents never considered their war against the Muslim pirates to be religiously motivated or to have any religious significance at all.

Since the attacks of September 2001, Bush has insisted on calling America’s reaction a war on terror, and his statements have contained religious imagery comparable to that used by Osama bin Laden. University of Chicago religion professor Bruce Lincoln observes in Holy Terrors: Thinking About Religion After September 11 that both Bush and bin Laden use language that refers to “a Manichean struggle, where Sons of Light confront Sons of Darkness, and all must enlist on one side or the other, without possibility of neutrality, hesitation or middle ground.” The implication of both leaders’ rhetoric is that God supports what may be called a war of “pious cruelty.”

Read it all.

Ekklesia reports that church leaders in Pakistan have joined the widespread strong condemnation of the recent assassination of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, who they saw as a voice for greater equality and freedom - including religious freedom.

In a statement issued yesterday, the president of the Pakistan Christian Congress (PCC), Mr Nazir S. Bhatti, recalled a meeting with Ms Bhutto - who held office twice, but was removed on both occasions following accusations of corruption which mired her attempst to be a political spokesperson for social justice.

Bhatti said Ms Bhutto had expressed concern about Pakistani Christians and vowed to “pull them into mainstream politics” in terms of rights and responsibilities for both minority and majority communities.

He also pointed out that Benazir Bhutto had a Catholic nun as a home teacher in Pakistan. She was also a friend of Anglican Bishop of Rochester Michael Nazir Ali, a former Bishop of Raiwind.

“Benazir Bhutto was a great leader, a symbol of moderate Islam and a challenge for the militants,” declared Mr Bhatti following her murder on Thursday 27 December 2007.

He added: “Pakistani Christians express [their] grief concerning the death of Benazir Bhutto and demand the immediate arrest of culprits and justice.”

Also:

Bishop Michael Nazir Ali told Times Online in the UK: "Benazir Bhutto has been a personal friend for many years. Her murder by extremists is a body blow for freedom and democracy in Pakistan. It raises serious questions about the government's ability to provide security for its citizens when even one as eminent as she can be killed in this way."

He continued: "I do hope the general elections can still be held and that the cause of democracy can survive this catastrophe."

The Bishop added: "My prayers are for her husband, children and family that they will be comforted at this time of grief. She will always be remembered for her commitment to Pakistan and her courage in public life."

Read: Ekklesia- Christians in Pakistan mourn the loss of Benazir Bhutto

Protestant and Roman Catholic churches in Pakistan condemned the assassination of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto and appeal for international help in eradicating terrorism in their country.

According to Ecumenical News International, the National Council of Churches in Pakistan issued a statement saying,
"We earnestly appeal to the national and global communities and specifically churches to pray for the welfare of the State of Pakistan which is passing through a very difficult period of its history and to encourage the nation to bear such a big loss."

The grouping of four Protestant churches strongly condemned "the brutal assassination" of Bhutto, who was killed on 27 December near Islamabad while campaigning for national elections. Voting has been postponed from 8 January to 18 February 2008 following the violence triggered by the assassination.

The council further urged the "global communities to help the Pakistani nation and its government machinery to eradicate the terrorism which is playing havoc with the lives of the innocent people and disturbing the peace of Pakistan and a great hurdle in the restoration of true democracy in Pakistan".

The National Commission for Justice and Peace, a human-rights body of the Roman Catholic Church, called Bhutto's death as "a national loss" and said the assassination "raised questions about the effectiveness of the so-called war against extremism".

"The re-occurrence of suicide bombing manifests the impunity available to terrorists to take lives of the innocent people," said the commission.

Calling for respect for "a soul who fought courageously to bring down hatred and division", the commission stated that "the tragedy should be properly investigated without delay and the culprits behind this should be brought to justice".

See Ecumenical News International: Pakistan churches urge international support after Bhutto's death

Also: Ekklesia carries the same release.

Hugo Slim, chief scholar at the Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue in Switzerland, has published,Killing Civilians: Method, Madness and Morality in War , a very timely book on the history of the treatment of civilians in wartime. The Economist offer this review:

THE idea of a limited war, in which certain groups of people should be protected, is not new. In the fourth century St Augustine was already advocating the doctrine of a “just war”, based on civilian protection, proportionality and restraint. The same principles were enshrined in the 1949 Geneva Conventions and in the mandates of the various international tribunals set up over the past 15 years. Yet the moral ideal of civilian protection remains very much a minority view.

As Hugo Slim explains in “Killing Civilians”, marking out a special category of people called “civilians” from the wider enemy group in war “is a distinction that is not, and never has been, either clear, meaningful or right” for many perpetrators of war—nor even for many civilians themselves. A former humanitarian field-worker, Mr Slim is now chief scholar at the Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue in Switzerland. In this book he begins by examining in great and gory detail the appalling ways in which civilians have suffered in wars down the ages—by rape, massacre, torture, mutilation, famine, disease, trauma and so on. He goes on to look at why unarmed, supposedly harmless civilians so often turn out to be the victims in war.

The reasons, he suggests, include a desire to exterminate an entire group of purportedly inferior beings (genocide); a lust for power and domination (Genghis Khan); a thirst for revenge (as in so many of today's African wars); necessity (claimed by Palestinian suicide-bombers in their “asymmetrical” war against Israel); or plunder (common in the past, but rarer today). Civilians may also be killed or wounded through calculated recklessness (as when Israeli bulldozers raze Palestinian homes) or the inevitable accidents that are associated with inaccurate weapons (“collateral damage”).

But who qualifies as a civilian? International law provides only a negative description: someone who is not a member of the armed forces, who does not carry a weapon, who does not take part in hostilities. This is clearly inadequate. An estimated 60% of the world's weapons-bearers are civilians (hunters, for example). On the other hand, many of those who do not carry arms (or wear uniforms) may be very much part of the war effort—ammunition workers, porters, victuallers and the like. And what of the ideologues whose hate-filled doctrines fuel the conflict, the newspaper editors who disseminate the propaganda or the taxpayers who pay for the war? Should they be afforded special protection when the unwilling teenage conscript is not?

As Mr Slim himself concedes, there are rarely totally innocent bystanders in wartime. Osama bin Laden deems all the citizens of any democracy that goes to war to be “non-innocent”—and therefore legitimate targets—because their political systems allow them to choose their leaders and thus to choose their wars. Although Mr Slim would not go that far, he agrees that it is a “fallacy” to suggest that all civilians are equally harmless in wartime. But, he argues (not totally convincingly), “it is a necessary fallacy if we are to try to limit the killing in war.”

Read it all here.

A gunman entered a Jewish yeshiva library in Gaza tonight and opened fire, killing at least eight and wounding several more. News reports are all over the place (some say two gunmen, and casualty counts vary), but according to the New York Times relating information from the Israeli police, a lone gunman was killed by a part-time student and some passing security guards.

The gunman, who has not yet been identified, was thought to be either a Palestinian or an Israeli Arab living inside Jerusalem. The dead were all thought to be between 20 and 30 years of age.

It was the deadliest attack on Israeli civilians in nearly two years and the first attack inside Jerusalem in four. It occurred at the start of the Hebrew month in which the Purim holiday occurs, and many of the witnesses at first thought the gunfire was firecrackers in celebration.

The story is breaking across all news outlets; world leaders are condemning the attack even has Hamas praises it, without taking responsibility for it.

New York Times story is here.

Ebo Patel is founder and executive director of the Interfaith Youth Core, a Chicago-based international nonprofit that promotes interfaith cooperation. He was recently a guest on a radio call-in show:

One caller said, “I was raised a Catholic and we were taught love and acceptance. You were raised a Muslim … and you were taught hatred which leads to violence.”

The producer said there were several other callers from different religious backgrounds with basically the same format question.

I answered each question pretty directly. I effectively said there are many moderate Muslim voices. You just heard one of them – mine – speak for about thirty minutes. Instead of continuing to ask that question, please tell your friends about me. I cited several other such voices.

I expanded on many of the points that I had made in the initial conversation with Marty Moss-Coane – that the dominant ethos of Islam tends towards compassion and pluralism, values that Islam shares with other traditions.

But I admit, there was a little voice inside my head that wanted to say to some of these callers, “Don’t you feel a little embarrassed revealing that level of ignorance and bigotry on Public Radio? Do you know nothing more about the religion of one-fifth of humankind for over 1000 years but the violent bits? Isn’t that a little like knowing nothing more about the United States Constitution than the clause which states black people only count as three-fifths of a human being”.

Read it all.

Savitri Hensman of Ekklesia, in her latest essay, discusses complicity by clergy in human rights violations and violence and asks how church communities can offer hope in the midst of human rights abuses by the governments where they are based.

When governments are responsible for human rights abuses, how members of faith communities respond may be influenced by various factors.

How highly do we prioritise the preservation of the current order and protection of existing patterns of wealth and privilege, which may benefit us individually and institutionally? In providing pastoral care to the privileged and powerful, are we able to remain detached from their outlook and encourage them to seek a higher good? Do we tend to adopt society’s values, dismissing as unimportant the hardship and injustice endured by the poor and marginalised, or are we bearers of good news even in bleak situations?

When conflict escalates, can we resist the ‘militarization of the mind’? How willing are we to be transformed by a God of love, to look with unflinching compassion on those who suffer and seek to identify and address the causes?

And how willing are we to risk losing what we have in order to gain what is incomparably better? Even when destruction and death seem to hold sway, can we trust in the new life which is to come and be heralds of hope?

Read it all here.

Savitri Hensman was born in Sri Lanka. She works in the voluntary sector in community care and equalities and is a respected and widely published writer on Christianity and social justice.

Giles Fraser writes at Ekklesia on the meaning of the cross in a modern setting:

Somewhere in the Middle East, Jesus Christ is strapped to a bench, his head wrapped in clingfilm. He furiously sucks against the plastic. A hole is pierced, but only so that a filthy rag can be stuffed back into his mouth. He is turned upside down and water slowly poured into the rag. The torturer whispers religious abuse. If you are God, save yourself you fucking idiot. Fighting to pull in oxygen through the increasingly saturated rag, his lungs start to fill up with water. Someone punches him in the stomach.

Perhaps this is how we ought to be re-telling the story of Christ's passion. For ever since the cross became a piece of jewellery, it has been drained of its power to sicken. Even before this the Romans had taken their hated instrument of torture and turned it into the logo of a new religion. Few makeovers can have been so historically significant. The very secular cross was transformed into a sort of club badge for Christians, something to be proud of.

The crucifixion turns this world on its head. For it is the story of a God who deliberately takes the place of the despised and rejected so as to expose the moral degeneracy of a society that purchases its own togetherness at the cost of innocent suffering. The new society he called forth - something he dubbed the kingdom of God - was to be a society without scapegoating, without the blood of the victim. The task of all Christians is to further this kingdom, "on earth as it is in heaven".

The New York Times reports that youth in Iraq are becoming disillusioned by religion in the wake all the violence:

After almost five years of war, many young people in Iraq, exhausted by constant firsthand exposure to the violence of religious extremism, say they have grown disillusioned with religious leaders and skeptical of the faith that they preach.

In two months of interviews with 40 young people in five Iraqi cities, a pattern of disenchantment emerged, in which young Iraqis, both poor and middle class, blamed clerics for the violence and the restrictions that have narrowed their lives.

“I hate Islam and all the clerics because they limit our freedom every day and their instruction became heavy over us,” said Sara, a high school student in Basra. “Most of the girls in my high school hate that Islamic people control the authority because they don’t deserve to be rulers.”

Atheer, a 19-year-old from a poor, heavily Shiite neighborhood in southern Baghdad, said: “The religion men are liars. Young people don’t believe them. Guys my age are not interested in religion anymore.”

The shift in Iraq runs counter to trends of rising religious practice among young people across much of the Middle East, where religion has replaced nationalism as a unifying ideology.

The Most Rev. Thabo Makgoba of Capetown, South Africa has released a statement on Zimbabwe pleading for help from the world for the people of that country.

Statement from the Anglican Archbishop of Cape Town, the Most Revd Thabo Makgoba

The plight of the people of Zimbabwe is heart-breaking. Already bruised, broken and crushed by oppression and economic hardship before the elections, they are now even more divided, despondent and, in many cases, hopeless than they were before. At a time of growing global hunger, their situation is particularly acute – four million Zimbabweans depend on food aid and NGOs are reporting that in some areas political violence is making it difficult to supply food.

After the March 29 elections we were told that if there had to be a second round of voting in the presidential election, it would be held within 21 days. That date has now passed, and every day that goes by without the release of presidential election results erodes yet further any remaining trust people may have in the electoral process.

From the church in Limpopo Province, we receive reports that the influx of Zimbabwean refugees is steadily growing. Within Zimbabwe, those who have benefitted from Zanu PF rule are locked in fear of what may happen to them; those who support the opposition live in fear of retribution for voting against the government.

It is distressing to South Africans that our rulers, whom we know to be compassionate people, currently appear to many beyond our borders as heartless and unmoved by the suffering of Zimbabweans. We recognise that the imperatives of acting as honest brokers in a mediation impose constraints on our leaders. However, our failure to communicate our reverence for the dignity of every individual threatens the success of our diplomacy just as surely as would the perception of bias. I appeal to President Thabo Mbeki urgently to seek creative ways of reaching out to our neighbours to reassure them that we care about them deeply.

As a church committed to fighting the arms trade in Africa and the world, we strenuously oppose the sale and transport of weapons to Zimbabwe. We commend the successful efforts of the Bishop of Natal, the Right Revd Rubin Phillip, and the Diakonia Council of Churches to prevent a consignment of weapons for Zimbabwe from being offloaded in Durban, and I intend consulting with my brother bishops in Namibia and Angola on ecumenical action to prevent the shipment from being transported through their countries.

On the basis that a heavily-armed Zimbabwe would threaten peace, security and stability in southern Africa, we call upon the Security Council of the United Nations to impose an arms embargo on its government. We appeal to the South African Government to support such an embargo. We will ask our sister churches in countries which are also members of the Security Council to urge their governments to do likewise.

The Most Revd Thabo Makgoba
Archbishop of Cape Town

April 22, 2008

All churches are asked to pray for Zimbabwe on April 27th, more here.

Bishop Rubin Philips and the arms shipment story is here.

More here - Archbishop talks to South African president and will take his concerns to Lambeth Conference this summer.

Gregg Zoroya of USA TODAY writes:

High-ranking Shiite and Sunni leaders are preparing to issue a religious decree condemning suicide bombings and other forms of violence, according to an Anglican minister who has led efforts to bring the two Muslim sects closer.

The draft decree, also called a fatwa, cites Quranic verses and says, "The prophet Mohammed prevents the spilling of blood, Muslim against Muslim, and thus suicide bombings are totally prohibited," the Rev. Canon Andrew White said during a dinner Monday with Pentagon officials. The draft calls on Iraqis "to reject and forsake all violence, forsake all killing and provocation," White said.

"What is new is that this will be a fatwa from Shiite and Sunni," White said in an interview. "It's not going to solve all of our problems, but it's the beginning of the process toward the reduction of violence."