Interfaith movement struggles to adapt to changing religious landscape

Michelle Boorstein ("The Washington Post," August 16, 2013)

The Interfaith Conference of Metropolitan Washington is known as one of the country’s early multi-faith groups, and its executive director’s nickname is the “dean of American interfaith.” Yet as it approaches its 35th anniversary in November, the group is fighting for survival, down to two full-time staff members and facing more than $100,000 in debt.

The conference, which has a major fundraiser planned this fall and aims to restructure the organization and sharpen its mission, is hardly alone. Some of the oldest and best-known names in interfaith, including the National Council of Churches and the Chicago-based Council for a Parliament of the World Religions, have slashed staff as their revenue shriveled.

The Interfaith Conference is struggling, experts and some group leaders say, in part because it relies too much on clergy and religious denominations for participation and money at a time when many traditional faith groups are losing members and status as more Americans drop or switch spiritual affiliations and are less committed.

But in some ways, the challenges now faced by traditional interfaith organizations can be seen as a good thing, some interfaith experts and participants say.

Since the Interfaith Conference was founded in 1978, religious minorities have grown significantly in size and stature, and Americans now interact more easily with people of other faiths in their schools, offices, neighborhoods and even immediate families.

In other words, more than doing interfaith, many Americans are living interfaith. This culture change has given rise to a burgeoning number of smaller, activist interfaith groups, some of which are only very loosely identified with faith traditions, if at all.

“The old model was institutional bigwigs talking carefully to one another about theology. The understanding of what ‘multi-faith’ is and how to organize around it has broadened tremendously,” said David Roozen, director of the Hartford Institute for Religion Research, who has focused on interfaith research. “The dominant American attitude toward other faith traditions is indifference. . . . It can be a challenge for interfaith” institutions.

Activist groups

Younger interfaith types today are more interested in activism and often focus on particular policy issues. For example, some of the newer, small groups in Washington are Interfaith Youth for Climate Justice and Shoulder to Shoulder: Standing with American Muslims.

When these new, more activist groups are taken into account, the interfaith movement as a whole appears to be thriving. The Rev. Bud Heckman, who has been a leader of several key interfaith groups, said his research shows there are twice as many interfaith groups nationally as there were a decade ago. A recent Hartford Institute survey showed congregations are twice as likely to engage in interfaith worship today as they were 10 years ago.

“There’s a generational thing here. A lot of people are quite happy to be eclectic and take their insights from various sources. The interfaith councils we have now [the more traditional ones] solidify: ‘I’m no longer Heidi, I’m Heidi the Christian.’ I don’t think youth are interested in those boxes,” said Heidi Hadsell, who is president of Hartford Seminary and has led several international interfaith organizations.

There’s less need for the kind of dialogue that has formed the basis of many traditional interfaith institutions, and it can be more challenging for traditional groups to organize action given the often divergent belief systems and goals of their members.

“It’s tricky; we have to ride it out to get to the other side to know what the next generation will do with this,” said Jack Gordon, a 30-year-old regional Bahai representative on the Interfaith Conference’s executive committee.

So far, the transition has been chaotic.

In a March essay titled “Why the ‘interfaith movement’ must rebrand,” Heckman wrote that there is confusion — and, thus, trouble organizing efforts — because people have different goals. Some want to focus on clarifying and honoring the distinctions between religions, while others are “multi-spiritual” and just want to find like-minded seekers. Still others are aimed at some secular public policy change.

“Some people working squarely within the movement actually even giggle a bit when I try to even use the term ‘interfaith movement,’ ” he wrote, because the term implies a common purpose.

But Heckman sees reasons for optimism. For one, some of the newer, highly focused interfaith groups are more easily able to attract funding. These include the 24-chapter Interfaith Alliance, which was founded in 1994 to focus on church-state boundaries, and the Interfaith Youth Core, which has a staff of 25 and works on dozens of college campuses.

A focus on dialogue

Interfaith Conference leaders say they believe there is still a need for the group’s unique strength — it connects local leaders from 11 different faiths, including Mormons, Catholics, Buddhists, Jews and Muslims.

In its very earliest years, the conference was an engine for social justice efforts. It founded the Capital Area Food Bank and helped establish a local branch of the Women, Infants and Children program for at-risk pregnant women and children.

“That was amazing, it was such a time,” said the Rev. Clark Lobenstine, the Presbyterian minister who has been the conference’s sole executive director. Part of the group’s transition is looking for a new leader when Lobenstine retires next year.

As the group has grown more religiously diverse, Lobenstine said, it has focused more on dialogue and less on action. It’s harder to rally 11 faith leaders around any given topic. Some group leaders said there was a recent struggle over whether to take up the issue of gun control because members disagreed on the topic.

The conference is best known lately for two key publications: one used in area schools that talks about various faiths’ beliefs, and one that serves as a directory that faith-based groups can use to find shelters, food and clothing for needy congregants.

“It’s one thing to have an interpersonal relationship with someone of a different background,” Gordon said. “But on a community-wide level, how do you build coalitions together? How do you advocate for one another in times of crisis? In a systematic way? We’re building on the great advances the previous generation made.”

Controversial new 'religion that embraces all religions'

The Blaze ("Billy Hallowell," July 15, 2013)

If you’re a part of a specific denomination or religious sect, Living Interfaith Church of Lynnwood is probably unlike anything you’ve seen before. The house of worship, based in Lynnwood, Washington, is run by the Rev. Steven Greenebaum, 65, and, as per its name, the church offers an “interfaith” experience.

So, what, exactly, does that mean?

Rather than focusing solely upon Jesus, Muhammad or other central religious figures that are specific to certain faiths, the Living Interfaith Church focuses upon a more interconnected sentiment — one that brings together people of any and all theological views.

Not simply mixture of people who come together to worship and celebrate their own heritage and religious culture, the house of worship claims that its interfaith nature is an actual “faith” in its own regard.

Here’s how the church defines its theology (emphasis added):

Interfaith is a faith that embraces the teachings of all spiritual paths that lead us to seek a life of compassionate action. Interfaith, as a faith, does not seek to discover which religion or spiritual path is “right.” Rather, it recognizes that we are all brothers and sisters, and that at different times and different places we have encountered the sacred differently.

Interfaith celebrates our differing spiritual paths, recognizing it is our actions in this world that count; that we are called to engage the world, and to do so with compassion and with love.

In the past, “interfaith” has usually meant people of good will from differing spiritual paths getting together briefly for a project and then simply going home. That was worthwhile and hugely important. But today the world needs more. Interfaith, as a spiritual practice, can serve as a model for how we deal with each other.

Confused? Allow us to try and unpack the church’s goals. Recently, The New York Times attended the house of worship and spoke with Greenebaum about his motivations. According to the newspaper, Living Interfaith Church is in its third year of existence.

The faith leader, who wears clergy garb that has symbols of nearly one dozen religions on it, spent decades looking to find a “religion that embraces all religions.” When he didn’t find one, Greenebaum decided to create it.

During the service that the Times visited, there was a Koran, a Hebrew Bible, two volumes of the Humanist Manifesto and the “Black Elk Speaks” (a Sioux book), among other elements. The liturgy included sayings and invocations from various religions as well. It included a poem from Rumi, a Sufi mystic, an early-Christian greeting, an African American spiritual and a rabbinical song.

The Times continues, noting just how diverse these services generally are:

In other weeks, the service has drawn from Bahai, Shinto, Sikh, Hindu and Wiccan traditions, and from various humanist sources.

If the Living Interfaith Church could appear hippie-dippy, as if scented with sage and patchouli, that impression proved deceptive. Mr. Greenebaum’s goals were serious, and they exemplified a movement in American religion toward dissolving denominational lines.

Anyone who believes that his or her faith is the only way to God, well, this church probably isn’t for you.

Considering the house of worship’s views, one cannot help but wonder about Greenebaum’s own theological background. It turns out, he has been a faith leader for quite some time.

From 2007 until 2010, he served as associate minister at Interfaith Community Church in Seattle and he was the director of music at Evergreen Unitaian Universalist Fellowship in Marysville, Washington, for a decade. He also wrote a book in 2012 entitled, “The Interfaith Alternative.”

The reverend’s primary goal, it seems, is to knock down the barriers that often divide. Many times, people hunker down in their religions, believe that they have it right and are, thus, divided from others with whom they disagree. After the 9/11 attacks, Greenebaum realized that, in his view, it is essential for people of different theological views to pray together.

“My faith is Interfaith. My spiritual path is Judaism. My tribe is Humanity,” proclaims the faith leader on his church’s website.

While he grew up as a Reform Jew in Los Angeles, Greenebaum’s current interfaith religious views certainly seem to separate him from that upbringing. But he doesn’t claim to have left the faith. Rather than believing that God spoke only to Moses, he holds that the Almighty also addressed others and that faith views outside of his own are not insignificant.

Worshipping separately, he says, is only natural.

“Now, I’m not here to try to convince anyone that there is no such thing as right or wrong,” the preacher said during a recent sermon. “But I am here to say that there is no ‘them.’ And there is no ‘us’ who are somehow superior to them.”

Currently, 30 people worship at Living Interfaith Church. For more information about the experimental church, visit its website.

Holy Clones: Cloning --sacred or sacrilege?

By Dan Kapelovitz ("MEAN Magazine," March 1, 2001)

Extracted from http://wwrn.org/articles/14749/?&section=raelians

Ever since February 1997 when embryologist Ian Wilmut and his colleagues at the Roslin Institute in Scotland announced that they had created a lamb named Dolly, the first mammal cloned from an adult cell, theologians around the world debated the religious implications of cloning--especially human cloning.

As early as 1987, the Vatican argued for the banning of all human cloning. Religious arguments against cloning range from the belief that cloning humans is akin to playing God, to the concern that human clones would have no souls. Others oppose the separation of procreation from the human sex act, while some of the more liberal religions argue that cloning should not only be allowed, but may be even mandated by God if it can save lives.

President Clinton had the National Bioethics Advisory Commission (NBAC) investigate cloning. Unconcerned with the separation of Church and State, Clinton devoted an entire day of the NBAC hearings listening to various religious leaders. The Commission concluded that there should be a moratorium on federal funding of human cloning.

But what do some of the lesser known religious movements, who weren't allowed to testify before the Bioethics Commission, think about cloning? For some religions, cloning is a significant part of their theology. They view cloning as a means to achieve eternal life. Other groups have received direct messages from Jesus telling them that cloning is wrong. There are even those who want to clone Jesus Christ back into existence.

One such group is the Second Coming Project. "Our intention is to clone Jesus by taking an incorrupt cell from one of the many Holy Relics of Jesus' blood and body that are preserved in churches throughout the world, extracting its DNA, and inserting into an unfertilized human egg," reads the group's web site (clonejesus.com). "The fertilized egg, now the zygote of Jesus Christ, will be implanted into the womb of a young virginal woman, who will then bring the baby Jesus to term in a second Virgin Birth."

"Christians will wait around FOREVER for Jesus to return unless we take matter into our own hands and bring him back ourselves!" declares their web site.

The group even uses the Bible to justify cloning. They contend that when Jesus at the Last Supper asks his disciples to eat his flesh and drink his blood, he is alerting them and future generations to preserve his body for cloning.

Most scientist believe it would be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to clone Jesus (assuming, of course, that Jesus even existed). Although the Second Coming Project claims Holy Relics exist of Jesus' body including his blood, his hair, and his foreskin, many believe that all of the relics are fake. Even if there were a relic containing Jesus' DNA, and a church was willing to give this DNA to the Second Coming Project, scientists believe the technology does not yet exist to clone from cells that are almost 2000 years old. Not all scientists agree. Presently, scientists are looking for preserved Mammoths in Siberia, hoping to insert the Mammoth DNA into a female elephant. As technology rapidly improves, so do mankind's chances of cloning Jesus.

Others worry that if someone could clone Jesus, then someone could clone Hitler. But most experts agree that a clone would not be exactly the same as the original person. In fact, the two would have less in common than even identical twins who were separated at birth. Not only would they have different experiences beginning from the womb, they would also grow up in different periods of time. Gnostics believe that Jesus already had a twin brother named Thomas, and if he wasn't the Messiah, than neither would a cloned Jesus.

Many Christians worry that a cloned Jesus not only wouldn't be the Messiah, but would in fact be a demonic being, perhaps even the anti-Christ. They believe the Second Coming Project may be involved in a Satanic plot to create such a being. As proof, they note that their web site, clonejesus.com, was registered by Feral House, the publisher of books written by Anton LaVey, creator of the Church of Satan.

"We did set up the web site because it's an article in Apocalypse Culture II, and I have it there to promote the book," admits Adam Parfrey, founder of Feral House, who contends that, other than including the article in his book, he has nothing to do with the cloning of Jesus.

This hasn't stopped hundreds of angry Christians from sending Parfrey hateful e-mail. "The e-mails say either they're gonna kill me, or God's gonna kill me. They want to prevent some weird Satanic entity from being created that's known as Jesus because humans cannot create it, it has to happen on its own."

Because of the many death threats he has received, Kristan Lawson, the mastermind behind the Second Coming Project, refuses to talk to the media.

Raël, leader of the Raëlian Religion, says Jesus has already been cloned. He was cloned by extraterrestrials who had preserved one of Jesus' cells prior to his crucifixion. "That's how he was dead and alive again a few days later," says Raël. "He was the first in history to be cloned, in fact."

In 1975, Raël hung out with Jesus who now lives on the Planet of the Eternals along with 38 other prophets including Moses, Ezekiel, Buddha, Mohammed, and Joseph Smith (Raël is the last of the 40 prophets).

The Raëlians, who claim 55,000 members in 84 countries, believe that humans were created by extra-terrestrial scientists referred to in the Bible as the Elohim. The Elohim have perfected cloning and many live eternally on the Planet of the Eternals with the earthling prophets. "There are two planets," explains Raël, who is the half-brother of Jesus. "One is the Elohim Planet where they procreate exactly like us, and the planet where I went to was the Planet of the Eternals where they have eternal life."

The Elohim who live on the Planet of the Eternals are forbidden to have children. "If you have eternal life and children at the same time, then you have over-population," explains Raël.

To become Raëlian, one undergoes a transmission ritual in which a Raëlian Guide places a hand on the convert's forehead transmitting his or her genetic code to the Elohim. The Elohim can then clone Raëlians, at a later date, enabling them to live forever on the Planet of Eternals.

When a Raëlian dies, he donates his body to science and medicine except for a square centimeter of the frontal bone which corresponds to the third eye. Here is where the DNA is most concentrated. Raël keeps these skull chunks in a safety box. "It can be used by human beings for cloning," says Raël. "It is not for the Elohim."

"Cloning is the key to eternal life," says Raël, who has written a new book, entitled Yes to Human Cloning. "I was the first to talk about it 27 years ago. This is just the first step. Right now cloning is just like having a twin brother or a twin sister. The next step is a new technique called Accelerated Growth Process where you can directly clone an adult copy of yourself. The third step is when you can upload or download your memory, your personality in the brain of the adult clone who is like a blank tape. When you reach this level you can have eternal life in another body, that is what is exciting, I think a baby is not very exciting."

"It is coming very soon," predicts Raël. "We are not talking about next century, it will be available between 10 and 20 years. If are less than 50 years old, you can expect to never die, and that's wonderful. You are very lucky, you will have eternal life."

What does Raël think about those who are morally opposed to cloning? "The Catholic Church is against everything," says Raël. "Against divorce, against contraception, against sexual freedom, against cloning. At the beginning they were against electricity and even more funny, the first people to use the fork were excommunicated. That's the Catholic Church, they condemned Galileo and everyone who said the Earth was not the center, and they are still the same.

"If you read the articles they wrote at the time of the first test tube baby, everyone was against it like they are against cloning now, saying it is like Frankenstein. Then they saw on TV a beautiful baby girl. It will be the same with cloning: after ten years, people will wonder why they were against it."

Three years ago, hoping to present a new scientific breakthrough baby girl to television audiences, Raël started the world's first cloning company, Clonaid®. A wealthy American couple, whose 10-month-old child died due to hospital error has hired Clonaid® to clone their dead daughter. Clonaid®, which is now run by Dr. Brigitte Boisselier, should produce the clone in one or two years, according to Raël.

Because there is much trial and error in the cloning process, 50 Raëlian women are lined up to act as the surrogate mothers.

On its web site, Clonaid® offers these reasons for cloning (they charge $200,000): "If you are a sterile couple with no more hopes to get the child you have dreamed of. If you are a homosexual couple deeply wanting to have a child carrying your own genes. If you want to be cloned, whatever your reasons may be, then Clonaid® has the right program for you."

They also offer Clonapet®: "The cloning of pets to wealthy individuals who wish to see their lost pet be brought back to life. This service will also be offered to the owners of racing horses, a very promising market given the outrageous prices paid for champions."

The only service that they presently offer is Insuraclone®; for $50,000, Clonaid® will preserve a client's cells in case the client ever needs to be cloned. "A Clonaid® representative will come to your place or the place of your choice to get cell samples of yourself and/or your beloved ones. This sample will then be placed in a safe and confidential place, under cryogenic temperature and will remain there until you decide to use them."

Another religion whose members view cloning as the key to eternal life is Summum. "We presently are the only people in the world that offer mummification," says Corky Ra, founder of Utah-based Summum which claims 100,000 members worldwide. "At the same time we preserve the genetics in the animals and humans that can be cloned at a later date. Most of our clients usually have a large living trust. Some spell out if they want to be cloned in the future. Some of them write out that they want to wait until there's a possibility for memory regeneration and also when it's possible to have some of their defects taken away when they are cloned."

Summum charges a minimum of $65,000 for their mummification services and recently built a mausoleum for a New York woman and her cats costing 11 million dollars. (Summum charges around $6000 to mummify a cat and as low as $1000 for a parakeet.)

The mummification process takes 77 days, during which they perform a transference ritual which guides the soul to a new life and destination. The Summum's transference rite is a cross between the Egyptian Book of the Dead and the Tibetan Book of the Dead. (They will tailor the ritual to fit any religion if desired.)

"By combining the sciences of Transference and cloning, it becomes possible to direct the soul into a body specifically cloned for the reincarnation of this being," reads the Summum web site (summum.org). "It will be possible for individuals to incarnate into a body of their choosing. This is really nothing new. It was done once before as ancient hieroglyphs will attest. It will happen once again."

Ra believes that there are already human clones. "They aren't doing a lot of publicity on this until they [the clones] get a little older. The technology is already there. There's no reason why not to do it. We're not doing any cloning right now, but we've had a lot of people willing to do our cloning for us contact us."

Like Raël, Ra believes people will one day accept human cloning. "They were against cars when they came out," says Ra. "When they first started doing transplants, there was an uproar against heart and liver transplants, and they're doing those now. It just takes time for people's consciousness to catch on."

Ra believes that Jesus was a clone. "Christianity tells that they took a seed from the father and immaculately put it in the womb of Mary called the Virgin Birth and a child was born. That's what is called a clone." Their web site quotes Jesus as saying, "I am the Father, and I am the Son, and We are One" as proof that Jesus was indeed a clone.

Like the Summum, Unarius believes that human cloning existed thousands of years ago. But unlike the Summum, the Unarius are ardently opposed to human cloning. This El Cajon UFO cult believes that ancient cloning had dire consequences.

"This has all happened before in Atlantis and Lemuria," explains David Reynolds, Unarius instructor and webmaster. "That's why the authors of the Unarius text already had known what the deal is. For example, in Atlantis they developed clones for war. These clones were programmed to be super warriors." Reynolds believes that clones are easily programmable because they don't have a soul.

"The Space Brothers, through the Unarius text, have warned us that if we ever allow human cloning, then we will see some kind of negative effect in our future. Does that mean more birth defects, more mutants? I don't know."

Reynolds compares human cloning to nuclear power, saying that both adversely effect human evolution.

"When scientists get involved with cloning they are causing some serious karmic situations in the energy body," says Reynolds who, like Ra, thinks modern-day scientists may already have cloned humans. "They don't know anything about the energy body, so they are struggling blind with ignorance, not knowing they're going to damage the individual."

According to Reynolds the original person would suffer greatly if they were duplicated. "Their mentality, their IQ would eventually be depleted, similar to organ donation where you have two psychic bodies intertwining. Now you have the original person who now is going to be responsible for what the clone does. So if the clone goes out and murders a bunch of people because a bunch of sick people program it to, then don't you think that the original person has more karma to deal with?"

Although agreeing with Unarius about clones being soulless, Billy Phillips of the Kabbalah Center, who practices a form of mystical Judaism, is not concerned about the karma of the cloned individual. "Kabbalah doesn't care about the ethics or morals, doesn't get involved in that," says Phillips. "Kabbalah cares about the connection to the universal energy that connects all reality."

Phillips agrees hat cloning was done long ago. "The Zohar and the Talmud spoke about instances where the kabbalists actually created a Golem using the primordial DNA of the cosmos," says Phillips. "According to Kabbalah, when these Golems were created 2000 years ago, the problem with them was that they were soulless, they didn't have the spark of divinity, the soul. Only man has that."

"Many Kabbalists used the Book of Formation [written by Abraham] to clone and create a calf or a Golem," explains Phillips. "But it's not like anybody off the street could pick up that book and start cloning. You need a high spiritual level. There are built in protections. Tremendous meditative techniques are involved that are almost impossible to achieve."

Phillips sees modern-day cloning as a sign to show people the possibilities. "Cloning is happening today for the same reason why there were more technological advances in the 20th century than in all other centuries combined. It has taken place to help us raise our consciousness to realize that is within the power of a human being to regenerate his body. We re-grow our nails. We re-grow our hair. You should therefore re-grow a kidney. You should re-grow a healthy heart. As we grow spiritually, these blocks are removed which will pave the way for concepts as radical as immortality and regeneration of the human body. But physical cloning will not be the solution; it will have to be within the mind of man."

The Family, formerly known as the Children of God, is a communal Christian group who believe that any of God's creations, including clones, would have a soul. Even so, they are anti-cloning.

"We just believe that it is intruding on God's creation, and man should leave God's creation as it is," says Lonnie Davis, who does public relations for the Family. "In other words, God created man and woman in his own image, and the way he created them is perfect, and the method that he gave them to reproduce is also perfect."

Within all of the controversy surrounding Jesus and cloning--should we clone him, was he a clone, has he already been cloned--The Family (who regularly receives messages from the Messiah) claims to have obtained the last word from Christ himself:

"In this discovery, like so many others, I test and try the hearts of men. I see and know those who would use such things to help and to heal, and I know those who would use these things to hurt and to harm. I also know those whose interest is financial, and who care not whether a thing helps or heals so long as it is profitable. I the Lord see every thought and intent of the heart and mind, and I reward men accordingly. All reap what they sow. Those who do good reap reward, and those who do ill reap judgment. Let those who would meddle with life to harm life or to make merchandise of My creation beware, for they reap to themselves great judgment."

[Here are other quotes from religions on what they say about cloning that were put in a side bar after the article:]

Mormon statement:

"The First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have declared that 'God has commanded that the sacred powers of procreation are to be employed only between man and woman, lawfully wedded as husband and wife. We declare the means by which mortal life is created to be divinely appointed.'"

Hare Krishna:

Rabindranatha, head priest of Los Angeles center Krishna: "In our society when a family wants to have children they pray to god to get the blessing of a nice child and raise a god-conscious person like that. If you do something outside of that, who knows what you're gonna get. People have a hard enough time raising children as it is. It will create confusion if someone asks you who's your father, who's your mother. Society is already mixed up as it is, it will just cause more problems."

"There are spirit souls everyplace. The example is given of the earth worm, you got an earthworm and you cut it in two, you immediately have two insects, so what happens is another spirit soul takes advantage of that body at that time and goes in the other part of the worm. Spirit souls are everywhere even in the air there are so many microbes, and according to somebody's karma, they could take place as a clone."

"It's not a matter of are we playing god. Are we creating life? No. Life is everyplace"

Islam Center of Beverly Hills:

Dr. Mirahmadi, the president of the Islam Center:

"The souls are all in a garden or something, and when the body formed at 6 weeks then god would call the soul up, 'Mr. X, your body is ready, go down,' and then he goes down and comes to that body."

"Cross gender in Islam is forbidden, if you take the sperm and ovum from two different people you can't do that unless they are married, so cloning is forbidden for humans. The lineage is the most important thing, everyone should know his or her lineage and that's why adoption is forbidden. If you adopt someone you have to adopt them with their name preserved. also sperm banks are forbidden."

Although human cloning is forbidden by Islam if done by humans, Allah will clone humans at the Day of Judgment. "Taking it one step further, they say on the Day of Judgment, how could a person be reproduced? 1400 years ago, 2000 years ago this was impossible to imagine, but now it is very easy to imagine that soul and life when they leave they have the DNA information so they can duplicate you anytime."

Scientology:

"The Church of Scientology is apolitical and would not have an official position on human cloning as a general proposition. However, depending on the uses to which it could be put, it could give rise to some serious potential human rights violations. The Church would oppose the human rights violations without taking a formal position on the technology itself."

"Scientologists believe that people are spiritual beings who inhabit their bodies.Any of these technologies can be used in a positive manner. Afterall, the person is not his body, so it really matters very little how the body was made."

"But these technologies can be abused to create human rights abuses which we would oppose: slave societies, people who are "superior races" because they have been modified genetically, "people" who are grown just for their body parts and who are otherwise kept chained up, "slave" mothers who are kept captive and pregnant with other people's children. Things like that. We would oppose human rights abuses like that very energetically."

Baha'i: statement:

"Nothing specific has been found in the bahai writings on genetic engineering, this subject is quite complex, and an informed opinion can be offered only when the scientific understanding is much further advanced than at present and the social implications are clearer with the emergence of adequate understanding, there will also me opportune to deal with the ethical issues involved" spokeswoman: "So our international governing body in the future may make a decision about human cloning but at this time there is none."

The United Christ Church (Rev. Ike):spokesperson: "we really don't like to get involved in that kind of thing as far as what's right and what's wrong. We view things a lot differently than most churches. We're into prosperity, everything's good, money, everything was put on this earth for all to enjoy."

Jehovah's Witnesses:

[from an aritlce they sent me]: "Since God is the Designer and Creator of life, it is fitting to consider what he has in mind respecting the quest for perfection. The Bible book of Genesis says that after creating life on earth, "God saw everything he had made and, look! it was very good." (Genesis 1:13) The first human couple were genetically perfect. It was because they rebelled against God that they brought imperfection and death upon themselves and their offspring--Genesis 3:6, 16-19; Romans 5:12

"Jehovah God wants to see an end to sickness, suffering, and death. Long ago, he made provision to rescue humanity from these problems. The Bible book of Revelation foretells a time when God will intervene in human affairs. Of that time, we read: "[God] will wipe out every tear from their eyes, and death will be no more, neither will mourning nor outcry nor pain be anymore. The former things have passed away." These sweeping changes will not come as a result of the scientific breakthroughs of humans, many of whom do not even admit the existence of God, much less praise him. No, the passage continues: "The One [Jehovah God] seated on the throne said: "Look! I am making all things new."'—Revelation 21:4,5"

Iran bans 'underground university,' brands it 'extremist cult'

By Tim Hume ("CNN," November 10, 2011)

Extracted from http://wwrn.org/articles/36516/?&section=bahai

London, England - Today, Keivan Mohammad Hassan lives a peaceful life with his family as a civil engineer in Sacramento, California. But things could easily be very different.

Hassan believes that had he not fled his homeland as a refugee, he would likely number among the Iranian Baha'is facing years behind bars simply for working to provide younger members of their community a tertiary education.

"If myself and my wife were there, we would be imprisoned," he said.

Hassan, 31, is a member of the Baha'i Faith, Iran's largest religious minority with an estimated 300,000 members. Considered by the ruling clergy to be apostates, Baha'is have been persecuted in Iran since the faith arose there in the mid-19th century.

Its members are systematically denied access to higher education in the Islamic republic today, says Amnesty International.

Read: For Bah'ai educators, a lesson in power from Iran

"People apply for university and their applications are turned down, even though they have strong results from secondary school," said Elise Auerbach, Iran specialist for Amnesty International USA.

"They can't get credentials, so they're barred from pursuing all sorts of professions. They can't be doctors, lawyers, university professors or scientists."

In response, Baha'is have improvised a decentralized, semi-underground college known as the Baha'i Institute for Higher Education (BIHE).

Since 1987, BIHE has run classes in the living rooms and kitchens of Baha'i homes, on the sweat of volunteer Baha'i professors, many of whom lost their jobs in Iranian universities over their religious beliefs.

According to David Hoffman, founder of a campaign to support Iran's Baha'is in their quest for higher education, the college has produced about 2,000 graduates, one-in-ten of whom have gone on to postgraduate study abroad at one of 60 universities outside Iran recognizing BIHE coursework.

"It's a creative solution to a real dilemma," said Hoffman. "These are very resilient people."

In May, more than 30 Baha'i homes across Iran were raided as part of a crackdown on BIHE. The institution was subsequently declared illegal, according to human rights groups, and seven professors and administrators were last month sentenced to four and five years each, for being involved in an illegal group intending to commit crimes against national security.

Among them was Hassan's academic adviser throughout his five years at BIHE, Mahmoud Badavam.

"It's unbelievable," said Hassan. "These are regular people, they're not anti-government. When the government blocks their education, they just find another way. Now they're arresting them because they found alternatives to the rights they were denied."

The global campaign against Iran's persecution of Baha'is in education is gathering momentum, with the screening of Education Under Fire, a documentary film on the issue at a number of U.S. universities this month.

Nobel Peace Prize laureates Archbishop Desmond Tutu and East Timor president Jose Ramos-Horta have signed an open letter calling on Iran to unconditionally drop the charges against the Baha'i educators.

"[I]t is particularly shocking when despots and dictators in the 21st century attempt to subjugate their own populations by attempting to deny education," it reads.

The letter also calls on academics around the world to register their disapproval with their Iranian peers, and consider recognizing BIHE coursework or offering scholarships.

Read: Baha'is accuse Iran of stoking hatred in media

Iran's persecution of Baha'is is not limited to the educational sector, according to human rights groups. Seven Baha'i religious leaders are currently imprisoned for crimes including "espionage for Israel," "insulting religious sanctities" and "propaganda against the system," according to Amnesty International.

The organization considers the Baha'i leaders to be prisoners of conscience, and says their convictions are politically motivated. It says Baha'is are not permitted to meet, hold religious ceremonies or practice their religion with other believers within Iran.

Nor are Baha'is the only group excluded from higher education in Iran. Human rights activists, supporters of women's rights, members of the political opposition and student journalists have also been deliberately denied access to education, according to a recent report by the non-governmental organization International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran.

Alireza Miryusefi, spokesman for Iran's mission to the United Nations, said that while the Baha'i Faith was not recognized as an official religion in Iran, its adherents had full civil rights. "Contrary to allegations made by supporters of the cult abroad, they have had equal access to universities and every year tens of them are graduated from Iranian universities," he said.

Miryusefi said raids on BIHE had been conducted because those involved in the institution had "systematically controlled activities of cult members, and ... interfered in their private, social and economic lives." He said the organization also had the goal of "entrapping" non-Baha'is, with the ultimate objective of creating "an extremist cult movement."

He said those arrested in the raids had been given a fair trial, and had exercised their right of appeal.

Hoffman, the Education Under Fire campaign's founder, said the fact that BIHE produced "brilliant students" seemed to be viewed by the Iranian government as an affront.

Former BIHE student Pedram Roushan recently completed a PhD in physics at Princeton University, and is now a post-doctoral researcher at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

He left Iran in 2000 after completing a five-year civil engineering course at BIHE.

"By the time I was a teenager, I understood that as a Baha'i I was going to be banned from going to any college or university in the country," he said. "The price of being a Baha'i was very high in those days."

Two years after Roushan began his studies, Hassan enrolled in the same course. His university enrollment applications had been rejected, despite his strong grades in high school.

The university applications required him to state his religion, but only gave four options, none of which were the Baha'i Faith. With no declared religion, his applications were considered incomplete.

After graduating, Hassan struck further challenges. He was paid a lower salary because he lacked a recognized qualification, and was removed from several projects when clients objected to a Baha'i's involvement.

When his wife, who had trained for six years as a pharmacist, encountered similar issues, they decided to leave for Turkey, and were granted asylum in the U.S. in 2006. "We couldn't put up with it any more," he said.

Before he left, Hassan had fulfilled the obligation expected of BIHE graduates, repaying the institution by voluntarily teaching a first-year physics class.

"You don't just finish BIHE and go, you stay and help future generations," he said.

He finds it astonishing that he could be arrested, like so many others in his community, for the "crime" of bringing education to young Baha'is. "My former classmates face being arrested every day -- over education," he said.

Ask the Religion Experts: How do you tell what parts of your religion should be taken literally and which parts are metaphorical?

By ("The Ottawa Citizen," April 15, 2012)

Extracted from http://wwrn.org/articles/37126/?&section=bahai

Ottawa, Canada - JACK MCLEAN is a Bahá’í scholar, teacher, essayist and poet published in the fields of spirituality, Bahá’í theology and poetry.

We may distinguish the literal from the metaphorical by first identifying three applicable areas from the Bahá’í Faith: (1) Bahá’í history; (2) ritual laws; (3) the sacred writings and teachings. First, since its inception on May 23, 1844, in Shiraz, Iran, with the prophetic declaration of the Báb (1819-1850), the forerunner of Bahá’u’lláh, the Prophet-Founder (1817-1892), Bahá’ís are fortunate that this youngest of the world’s religions has been born into the full light of history. Massive historical records, including photographs, eyewitness accounts, newspaper reports and government documents have recorded the birth and development of the Bahá’í Faith. Here we are not dealing with the metaphorical, but with the story of what really happened. Second, although relatively few ritual laws exist in the Bahá’í Faith, we should not interpret these laws metaphorically but literally. When Bahá’u’lláh prescribes ablutions with one of the obligatory prayers, he does not mean that water should be reduced to just a symbol signifying purity. He means that you should wash your hands before praying. Third, regarding the sacred writings and their teachings, whether in their ethical, spiritual, or theological dimensions, these teachings should be taken in their plain sense. Of course, all sacred scripture has a large metaphorical dimension. Whenever poetic symbolism is present, we should attempt to discover the inner meaning underlying such symbols. Mystical writings present special challenges. Some passages in the Bahá’í writings may be literal and metaphorical at the same time. For example, here is the cornerstone of all Bahá’í teaching, the oneness of humanity: “The utterance of God is a lamp, whose light is these words: Ye are the fruits of one tree, and the leaves of one branch … S o powerful is the light of unity that it can illuminate the whole earth” (Bahá’u’lláh, Gleanings, p. 288). Aside from the spiritual and existential truths of Bahá’u’lláh’s statement, anthropology, biology, and even medicine all demonstrate the unity underlying the various races despite their cultural differences. But he expresses poetically the literal truth that humanity is one race through the metaphor of the tree, its leaves and branches. If we reflect upon this symbolism, further evidences of the truth of his statement will come to mind.

Rabbi REUVEN BULKA is head of Congregation Machzikei Hadas in Ottawa and host of Sunday night with Rabbi Bulka on 580 CFRA.

Let’s tackle this question by way of illustration. One of the more well known components of Biblical justice is the well known rule of compensation “An eye for an eye ...” (Exodus 21:24).Taken literally, this means that if someone pokes out another person’s eye, then the court will order the perpetrator’s eye to be poked out. The Biblical verse extends this form of justice not just for an eye. A tooth, a hand, a foot, a burn, a wound, a bruise — all come under the same judicial punitive umbrella.But taken literally, it makes no sense. How do you assure that the burn, the wound, the bruise, is exactly the same for the felon as for the victim? [Note] Or that the hand is cut off at the exact same place, or the foot? And that the victim’s foot or hand is the same size as that of the victimizer? What about a tooth? Knocking out the tooth of someone who has only one tooth to start, and then in retaliation knocking out one tooth from someone who has an entire set of teeth does not seem fair at all.The Talmud is even more graphic. Suppose the victim had sight in only one eye, and now is rendered blind through losing the remaining eye. In punishing the attacker by poking out one eye, we have not rendered that person blind. [Note] Or consider a case in which the attacker has only one eye, and knocks out the eye of someone who has two eyes. The victim still has the sight in one eye, but in punishing literally, the offender will be rendered blind. All this by way of proving that the literal understanding makes no sense, and could not have ever meant what is suggested. That being the case, why does the Bible use what is apparently misleading terminology? For no other reason than to convey that this is the punishment that is deserved, even if it is not the punishment that is administered.In the end, We understand the Bible to mean that the punishment is financial restitution. That is simply because the literal interpretation makes no sense, and would be the very antithesis of authentic Biblical values.Use this principle as your guide to what is literal and what is metaphor.

Rev. RICK REED is senior pastor at the Metropolitan Bible Church in Ottawa.

Let me respond by asking you a question: “How do you know which parts of the newspaper are to be taken literally and which parts are metaphorical?” Let’s say you read a piece in the sports section that says one of the Blue Jays’ starting pitchers was “missing the plate by a mile.” Next you read an article in the business section that reports that, according to the Canadian Fuel Consumption Guide, a certain new hybrid vehicle averages “60 miles to the gallon.” Should you take those statements literally or metaphorically?The answer comes from knowing a variety of factors. We intuitively consider things like idioms (“missed it by a mile”), cultural expectations (news reports are supposed to be accurate), and genres of writing (an editorial differs from a news report). There are similarities when reading the Bible. When Christians read the Bible we consider the contextual and cultural clues given in a specific passage. When Jesus says, “I am the bread of life” (John 6:48), we understand that He’s using a metaphor to speak of spiritual nourishment. But when the Bible says Jesus ate fish with His disciples after His resurrection (Luke 24:43), the context indicates that we are to take this literally; Jesus’ resurrection was a physical resurrection and not just a spiritual one. When Jesus promises that all who trust in Him will experience resurrection (John 11:25), we are to understand this literally as well.As Christians, we are to base our beliefs on what the Bible teaches. So it is vitally important that we understand the Bible accurately. As a general rule, it’s wise to read the Bible with a literal interpretation unless contextual and cultural clues indicate otherwise. The Bible is not a newspaper, but it certainly does contain good news.

RADHIKA SEKAR holds a PhD in religious studies and taught Hinduism courses at Carleton and University of Ottawa. An aspiring Vedantin, she is a devotee of the Sri Ramakrishna Mission.Hindu scriptures have always been more concerned with the metaphysical than the material aspects of their times. The ultimate goal of life is moksha (freedom), which is achieved only through intuitive knowledge. Thus the emphasis has always been on spiritual discourse rather than literal facts.The Vedas, the most ancient texts of the Hindus (1500-1000 BCE) are a compilation of the revelations and spiritual insights of various sages. Thus they are called sruti (revealed). Metaphysical in nature, they reflect on the origins of the cosmos, the proclivities and workings of the human mind and the path to bliss. The second group of texts, called smriti (remembered or heard), represent faith, traditions and cultures of the Hindu civilization. They comprise the legends and folklore of the two great epics, (Itihasa), myths (Puranas) and a vast body of texts called the Dharmashastras — the socio-legal codes of caste Hindus that now form the basis of Hindu Civil Law. While Vaishnavism tends to take the scriptures more literally, sects like the Smartas and Vedantins encourage the philosophical interpretation. Composed by mystic poets, they are predictably highly metaphorical; the Kathopanishad describes the human psyche in terms of a chariot pulled by five horses, the Taittereya describes “five sheaths” that cover the soul, the Bhagavatham speaks of the “city of nine gates,” and psychic power is described as a serpent coiled at the base of the spine. Even the great battle in the epic Mahabharata is seen as an allegory of the inner struggle. Swami Vivekananda pointed out that Hinduism does not compel belief — the emphasis is in realizing, not believing. The interpretation of scripture therefore will vary and change according to the spiritual development of the interpreter.

Rev. GEOFFREY KERSLAKE is a priest of the Roman Catholic archdiocese of Ottawa.

The Catholic Church teaches that we have two reliable sources for the truths of our Christian faith: Sacred Scripture (the Bible) and Tradition (the continuous teaching of the Church handed down by Jesus Christ to the Apostles and their successors). In order to understand our faith, we need both of these sources working together. The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches: “Sacred Tradition and Sacred Scripture, then, are bound closely together, and communicate one with the other. For both of them, flowing out from the same divine wellspring, come together in some fashion to form one thing, and move toward the same goal.” Each of them makes present and fruitful in the Church the mystery of Christ, who promised to remain with his own “always, to the close of the age.” (CCC n. 80) The teaching authority of the Catholic Church, exercised by the Pope with bishops in communion with him, is called the Magisterium. It allows us to authentically preserve and pass on the truths from Scripture and Tradition entrusted to the Church. Faith and reason thus work together in the believer to teach us the truths of our Catholic Christian faith. There is a popular misconception that faith and reason are opposed to each other, whereas really they are both valid ways of knowing that need each other in order to function well. Blessed Pope John Paul wrote in his encyclical Faith and Reason: “the Church remains profoundly convinced that faith and reason ‘mutually support each other’; each influences the other, as they offer to each other a purifying critique and a stimulus to pursue the search for deeper understanding.” (Fides et Ratio, n. 100) With the trustworthy help of the Church, we are able to understand, appreciate and communicate the truths of the faith.

KEVIN SMITH is on the board of directors for the centre for Inquiry, Canada’s premier venue for humanists, skeptics and freethinkers.

In my youth I attended the United Church, and even though I never bought their goods I continue to have a respect for that liberal institution. As such, I remain, arguably, a cultural Christian and my response is based on that faith. There was a time when religion was taken as the literal truth, of possessing morals and ethics that one must follow if you wanted to live in eternal bliss with your creator. Fear of punishment by death allowed these beliefs to remain relatively unchecked for centuries.

The Enlightenment ushered in human rights, democracy and scientific advances. Where the faithful used to literally believe eating a fruit caused the fall of humanity, this genesis created a generation of cherry pickers, who dissected the literal parts of the Bible from the metaphorical. Some parts of their Holy Book have been sentenced to silence. The majority of religious followers squirm when Leviticus is discussed, acknowledging its tenets would be illegal in modern democracies.These moderate Christians realize their religion is no longer an accurate account of the world but their need to believe forces them to re-interpret it. I have more respect for the literalists. At least they have the courage of their convictions to live and die by the ancient rules set forth by God. These devout followers of Christ are most certainly guaranteed their rightful place in Heaven, although their unquestioning faith does present problems in this life. Despite what is written in the Bible, in democratic countries, women, and increasingly homosexuals, have gained equality and slavery is no longer tolerated. This begs two questions: is the Bible, taken literally, or re-interpreted metaphorically, a relevant moral guide today? Why is any of it accepted as true if it needs to be adjusted to conform to secular values?

Rev. RAY INNEN PARCHELO is a novice Tendai priest and founder of the Red Maple Sangha, the first lay Buddhist community in Eastern Ontario.

Religion, as used here, suggests historical information, texts, activities and teachings. Buddhists don’t take every detail as either literally true or simple metaphor. Within the Buddhist tradition, many details are taken as historical. Our founder, Shakyamuni, was an actual Indian prince (550 BCE). Researchers have tracked down his modern relatives, the Shakya clan. Biographical locations are identifiable and still accessible. Buddhist spiritual giants such as Milarepa, Shinran, Saicho and Kobo-daishi have well-documented lives. However, like other ancient lives, these are subject to debate, study and revision. This is not to say that every single detail of Shakyamuni’s life is taken as fact. The fantastic drama of his birth, for example, is not assumed to be history, any more than details in the life-stories of Alexander the Great, George Washington or Confucius. We must acknowledge a much different East Asian orientation to history, as compared to modern Europe. Life-stories were seen as teaching devices, not factuality.Further, this either/or frame is incomplete. Two levels of meaning should be added — ritual and myth, since they are neither just history nor just metaphor. Some define myth as archaic, embarrassing pre-science. This misses the point of why humans, even today, cultivate mythology. Mythology is more than simple metaphor. It is the construction of an alternative history for inspirational and educational value. Myth is not history, nor is it meant to be. Myth is complex and universal human storytelling, which may intersect factual history, but its purpose has little to do with establishing scientific certainty. We Buddhists have our mythologies, and these provide invaluable shared stories, which inform and inspire our practices.Finally, details of religious practice, including historical data, can have important ritual meaning. Again, some dismiss ritual as primitive and disposable, however, it too is a universal human activity that has an irreplaceable role in our lives. A prime example might be any number of Buddhist pilgrimages that are based on verifiable historical events, but whose greatest value is in connecting the pilgrim with the original path-walker in a space that transcends historical time.

One Day Is a Crime, 10,000 an Atrocity

By Kishan Manocha ("The Wall Street Journal," April 1, 2012)

Extracted from http://wwrn.org/articles/37082/?&section=bahai

Iran - Sunday marked the 10,000th cumulative day that seven former Bahai leaders in Iran have been incarcerated. Each of those days has been a crime filled with the privations of Iran's most notorious prisons—filth, degradation, denial of medical treatment and spaces so cramped that even lying down becomes a forgotten luxury. Each of those days has been a crime of separation—innocent men and women kept from their families. Jamaloddin Khanjani, who has been locked up for his beliefs at least three times before, was forbidden to attend the funeral of his wife. Each of those 10,000 days has seen Iran's largest religious minority, numbering over 300,000, unjustly deprived of its national leadership.

Why are they behind bars? The Iranian authorities have shed their early bluster—ludicrous charges such as "spreading corruption on earth"—and now imprison Bahai leaders solely for tending to the needs of their community. Being Bahai is their only crime. No pretense is now offered. The government openly expresses hatred for the Bahais and, for theological reasons alone, is striving to render the entire community's existence unviable.

Iran's egregious treatment of the Bahais is emblematic of an escalating human-rights crisis that afflicts every segment of Iranian society. Reports from many sources, including U.N. special rapporteurs, Amnesty International and the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, are united in their condemnation of Iran's record. The world has an urgent duty to protect an afflicted population.

The imprisonment of Bahai leaders is but the tip of a multifaceted campaign against Iran's Bahais. Arrests have increased dramatically since 2005, when the military and security agencies were instructed to monitor the community. In 2004 just four Bahais were imprisoned. But over 540 Bahais have since been arrested, of whom 112 are now in jail. In recent weeks, more than 20 Bahais were arrested in Shiraz alone, including an eight-month old baby and her parents.

Meanwhile, economic pressure on the Bahais is being systematically intensified. Business licenses are arbitrarily revoked or denied with growing frequency. Shops are sealed, shut down and sometimes firebombed. Bail costs are crushingly high, forcing innocent families to surrender homes and livelihoods. Access to higher education is denied as a matter of state policy, and even the Bahai Institute for Higher Education—an informal initiative to educate young Iranian Bahais in the arts and sciences—has been declared illegal. For good measure, a number of the Institute's educators were each sentenced to four or five years imprisonment after trials utterly devoid of due process or reason.

These attacks are not random. They are consonant with a 1991 memorandum of the Supreme Revolutionary Cultural Council that explicitly calls to block the progress and development of the Bahai community. Religious persecution cannot be more blatant.

The government also backs a media campaign to dehumanize and vilify the Bahais. They are depicted as armed opponents of the regime, as agents of Israel and the West, as the promoters of obscene immorality and as the controllers of foreign media such as the BBC. Sometimes they are simply portrayed as ghouls. Such actions cannot be regarded as anything other than an attempt to foment distrust and hatred among the wider population. History shows that this can presage wider attacks and violence.

Little wonder, then, that Canadian Sen. Roméo Dallaire, an expert in genocide, recently warned that "we are witnessing a slow-motion rehearsal for genocide . . . in a country where the targeted population is obvious." Finding a way to safeguard the Bahais' future security should be of paramount concern for all who desire to uphold values of tolerance, justice and freedom of religious belief.

Ten thousand days represent a milestone in an unfolding atrocity, one that is becoming ever more sinister and stifles the progress of Iran. In recent Iranian New Year messages, Western leaders impressed upon the Iranian government the need to uphold the basic rights of its citizens. Let calls from all quarters add that the government must halt its attempt to systematically destroy an entire religious community.