This translation is not completely accurate as it was automatically generated by a computer.
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A UMNS Report
By Heather Hahn*
2:00 P.M. EST Aug. 19, 2010
Students peer out through windows covered with anti-Muslim graffiti
while neighbors of various faiths gather to help clean up the vandalism
at the Al-Farooq Mosque in Nashville, Tenn. A UMNS photo by Mike DuBose.
View in Photo Gallery
Each year, on the anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the
Rev. Myrna Bethke has visited the World Trade Center site to remember
her brother who perished in the towers that day.
The United Methodist pastor does not blame Islam for those attacks or
her family’s loss. She associates the faith with the Muslims she has
joined for interfaith Thanksgiving services and the mosque that welcomes
visits from her confirmation students.
“This, to me, is Islam,” she said, “not the people who got together and
decided to hijack the religion as they hijacked the planes.”
Bethke, pastor of Red Bank United Methodist Church in New Jersey, also
supports the Islamic cultural center planned near ground zero. She is a
member of “September Eleventh Families for Peaceful Tomorrows,” a group
of the bereaved that announced its support for the project in May.
However, others who lost loved ones that day vehemently oppose the
proposal, and the issue has become a source of political debate on cable
news and the campaign trail.
The controversy has not been limited to the proposed center in lower
Manhattan. In recent months, confrontations have broken out over the
construction or expansion of mosques across the United States — far from
New York’s hallowed ground. These include protests in Murfreesboro,
Tenn.; Sheboygan, Wis.; and Temecula, Calif.
Called to be neighbors
The United Methodist Book of Resolutions calls for “better relationships
between Christians and Muslims on the basis of informed understanding,
critical appreciation and balanced perspective of one another’s basic
beliefs.”
Rifaat Bedawi (left) and Imam Abdulrahman Yusuf prepare to help
volunteers paint over anti-Muslim graffiti at the Al-Farooq Mosque. A
UMNS photo by Mike DuBose.
View in Photo Gallery
Another resolution calls for United Methodists to denounce
discrimination against Muslims and “counter stereotypical and bigoted
statements made against Muslims and Islam, Arabs and Arabic culture.”
When it comes to the issue of allowing Muslims to build mosques,
supporting their right to worship is not just in line with the First
Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, said the Rev. Stephen J. Sidorak
Jr., the top executive at the United Methodist Commission on Christian
Unity and Interreligious Concerns. It’s also part of Jesus’ command to
love our neighbor, which as the parable of the Good Samaritan shows, can
include those of different religions.
“If we want to repair the breach that opened up between some Christians
and some Muslims on Sept. 11, 2001, if we want to redeem the tragic
events of that day, we must — as Isaiah said — come now and reason
together,” Sidorak said. “That’s clearly the foundation of any
interreligious work.”
Welcoming local mosques also may help national security. A two-year Duke
University study on American Muslims and terrorism concluded that
mosques might actually be a deterrent to the spread of militant Islam.
“Our findings are that healthy, robust Muslim communities can be a
bulwark against radicalization,” said David Schanzer, an associate
professor at Duke and one of the study’s authors. “We don’t know exactly
why individuals radicalize. But most terrorism studies show that
individuals who go down that path feel alienated. They don’t feel that
they fit into (the) wider society in which they live.”
A strong Muslim community that is part of the mainstream can offer young
Muslims the support they need without them turning to radical clerics
online, he said.
Competing moral claims
The proposed Islamic cultural center in Lower Manhattan won the
unanimous approval of New York City zoning authorities. Plans call for
the building to contain a fitness center, swimming pool, space for art
exhibitions and an auditorium for public programs as well as a place for
Muslim prayer. Organizers say their goal is to promote tolerance and
community cohesion.
However, the ethical case for locating an Islamic center near ground zero is more complex.
Some critics have likened the debate surrounding the Islamic cultural
center in Lower Manhattan to the acrimony that followed when Carmelite
nuns moved into a convent near the Auschwitz death camp in Poland. After
a public outcry, Pope John Paul II ordered the nuns to move in 1993.
A cross made from remnants of the World Trade Center stands inside the site. Photo courtesy of chathamshooter.
Taking a similar stand, some argue that it is insensitive to those who
lost loved ones for Islamic center organizers to build near the World
Trade Center site.
“When I look over there and see a mosque, it’s going to hurt,” C. Lee
Hanson, whose son, Peter, was killed in the attacks, said at a New York
City public hearing, The New York Times reported. “Build it someplace
else.”
Bethke sympathized with those who oppose the Lower Manhattan center.
“You want to be sensitive to people’s feelings,” she said, “but at the
same time remember that we do have religious freedom in this country.”
The Rev. Stephen Bauman, senior minister of Christ United Methodist
Church in Manhattan, has worked with Imam Feisel Abdul Rauf, the
religious leader who is spearheading the project. The pastor has no
doubt the center is exactly what Rauf and others purport it to be.
“I think the church ought to be about supporting it,” Bauman said. “It
ought to be expressing a voice of compassion and hospitality.”
Long road ahead
Addressing the mosque disputes and other issues in United
Methodist-Muslim relations is going to take more than a press release of
solidarity or conference resolution, interfaith advocates said.
Bethke and other United Methodist leaders urge fellow Christians to
learn more about Islam and get to know their Muslim neighbors. When you
know someone well, she said, you won’t judge that person by the worst
acts committed in his religion’s name.
The Rev. Omar Al-Rikabi has been watching the angry responses to mosques
around the country with increasing concern. Al-Rikabi, the United
Methodist campus minister at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville,
is the son of a Muslim father from Iraq and a United Methodist mother
from Texas.
“As pastors and laity we need to do the long, difficult work of
countering the false fear, incorrect history and bad theology that is
out there,” he said. “It is seeping into too many of our churches,
sermons and small group studies. We need to begin by looking at the
start of the story: Genesis One: God created humanity in his image.
…Every human is of sacred worth and loved through the work of Christ on
the cross.”
*Hahn is a United Methodist News Service multimedia reporter.
News contact: Heather Hahn, Nashville, Tenn., (615) 742-5470 or newsdesk@umcom.org.
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