World

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World watches as fights continue to see who controls iconic Hagia Sophia in Istanbul

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World watches as fights continue to see who controls iconic Hagia Sophia in Istanbul

Art historian Andrew Gould had studied many copies of the exquisite mosaic of Jesus found high in Istanbul's 6th Century Hagia Sophia cathedral.

But that didn't prepare the architect and sacred artist for what he felt when he stood under the icon, illumined by the soaring windows in the south gallery that overlooks the main floor, under the central dome that is 184 feet high and 102 feet in diameter.

The Deesis ("supplication") icon -- at least twice the size of life -- shows the Virgin Mary and St. John the Baptist with their heads bowed, framing an image of Christ Pantocrator ("enthroned"). The glass mosaic cubes were set at angles to create a shimmering effect across the gold background and the many-colored images, whether viewed in daylight or with lamps and candles.

Much of this icon was destroyed a century ago as workers probed to find priceless mosaics under layers of plaster and paint added through the centuries after 1453, when the Ottoman armies of Mehmed II conquered Constantinople.

Now, Turkish leaders want to convert Hagia Sophia -- a museum for decades -- back into a mosque.

"There is no more refined icon of Christ anywhere," said Gould, of the New World Byzantine Studios in Charleston, S.C. "Just in terms of information, we have copies we can study. … But visiting Hagia Sophia and seeing this icon under natural light, seeing it in the context of the sanctuary, was crucial to the development of my whole understanding of Orthodox art."

If the "Deesis" is covered again, along with other icons, "this is not something that can be replaced with photographs in art books," he said. "It would hurt artists and believers around the world in so many ways."

The current controversy is rooted in politics, more than lingering tensions between Muslim leaders and Turkey's tiny Christian minority, which has little power other than through ties to Greece, Europe and the United States.

Hagia Sophia became a museum in 1934, a symbol of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk's drive to build a modern, truly secular state. Now, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has sent many signals that he wants Turkey to return to Islamic principles.

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Fighting the coronavirus wars -- in churches and impoverished communities overseas

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Fighting the coronavirus wars -- in churches and impoverished communities overseas

While fighting the coronavirus, medical professionals have offered a strategy now seen everywhere in America, Europe and other First World cultures.

Here's the battle plan: Stock up on food and other essentials and then stay home. Wear masks when in public and practice safe social distancing. Everyone should wash their hands frequently for 20 seconds using soap and hot water. People with fevers or other symptoms should go into quarantine.

There's more. City and state lockdowns are essential to "flatten the curve" of new cases. Governments encourage waves of coronavirus tests. Hospitals collect ventilators to save critically ill patients. Mass transit is discouraged. Scientists rush to create a vaccine and develop new treatments, such as transfusions of antibody-rich blood serum from recovered COVID-19 patients.

Now, imagine selling those plans to the million-plus people jammed into the Kibera shantytown near Nairobi, Kenya -- Africa's largest urban slum.

“Our solutions are primarily for those who can afford it," said Dr. Mike Soderling, organizer of the Health for All Nations network for the Lausanne Committee for World Evangelization. "To whose advantage? … The big question: What are we going to do -- what can be done -- in the slums of Kibera?"

In America, news coverage of the crisis continues to be dominated by infection rates and death statistics, while politicos focus on the New York Stock Exchange and political polling about the 2020 elections. The lockdown-weary public celebrates any signs of normality witnessed in restaurants, big-box stores and sports stadiums.

Missionary doctors and activists active in Third World lands have a different point of view. Thus, 200 or more took part in a recent Lausanne webinar focusing on strategies for the COVID-19 battles they know will eventually reach the people they serve. Participants in this discussion kept asking painful questions, such as:

* How do slum-dwellers practice "universal hand-washing hygiene" without running water?

* Is it possible to practice respiratory hygiene in cultures in which masks are a stigma -- signs that individuals are carrying a life-threatening disease?

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Struggling to take sacraments to the people, while honoring social-distancing rules

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Struggling to take sacraments to the people, while honoring social-distancing rules

Priests in the Church of England have faced many challenges in recent decades -- from plummeting attendance numbers to fierce debates about marriage and sexuality.

Nevertheless, a coronavirus epistle from Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby and Archbishop of York John Sentamu was a shocker -- offering worship guidelines even stricter than those released by the government.

"Our church buildings must now be closed not only for public worship, but for private prayer as well and this includes the priest … offering prayer in church on their own," they wrote. "A notice explaining this should be put on the church door."

Thus, there was quiet defiance in Father Marcus Walker's voice as he stood alone near the altar of St. Bartholomew the Great -- London's oldest surviving church -- on the first Sunday after Easter and said, "I speak in the name of the Living God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen. And so we're back."

There was no response from his Facebook Live flock, but the priest stressed that he had been listening to his people. The bottom line: There had to be some way to proceed that stressed public safety, while addressing people's spiritual needs.

"Their voices have been loud, insistent and -- so far -- unanimous," he said, in his sermon. "I have received scores of letters and emails, calling on services to be restored here in their church: the church they have upheld and kept up, where they were married, where they buried a partner, saw a child christened, found God, were confirmed.

"This is their church and I am their pastor. I owe them my solidarity. As one said in her letter: 'We don't need you in solidarity at home, we need you in solidarity at the altar of our church.' "

With Easter in the rear-view mirror, members of ancient Christian flocks -- those built on liturgies and sacraments -- are waiting to see how their shepherds will walk a liturgical tightrope between church and state.

The bottom line: It's easier for megachurches to put their dramatic sermons and worship bands on home computer screens than for priests to digitize Holy Communion and rites of confession.

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Where is God in coronavirus crisis? Yes, that ancient question is part of this news story

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Where is God in coronavirus crisis? Yes, that ancient question is part of this news story

Queen Elizabeth II has seen more than her share of good and evil during her 68 years on the British throne.

Candles shining in the darkness just before Easter are familiar symbols of the presence of good, even in the hardest of times, said the 92-year-old queen, in a recent address about a single subject affecting her people -- the coronavirus crisis.

"Easter isn't cancelled. Indeed, we need Easter as much as ever," she said. "The discovery of the risen Christ on the first Easter Day gave his followers new hope and fresh purpose, and we can all take heart from this. We know that coronavirus will not overcome us. As dark as death can be -- particularly for those suffering with grief -- light and life are greater."

An ancient question loomed over the queen's remarks: Where is God during this global pandemic that threatens the lives and futures of millions of people?

Theologians have a name -- "theodicy" -- for this puzzle. One website defines this term as "a branch of theology ... that attempts to reconcile the existence of evil in the world with the assumption of a benevolent God."

In his book "God in the Dock," the Christian apologist C.S. Lewis of Oxford University argued that "modern man" now assumes, when evil occurs, that God is on trial. This process "may even end in God's acquittal," he noted. "But the important thing is that Man is on the Bench and God is in the Dock."

This tension can be seen during news coverage of tragedies, wars, disasters and pandemics. Ordinary people involved in these stories often address "theodicy" questions, whether journalists realize it or not. This is a pattern I have observed many times -- since this past week marked my 32nd anniversary writing this national "On Religion" column.

The late Peter Jennings of ABC World News Tonight noted that, whenever news teams cover disasters, reporters often ask questions that sound like this: "How did you get through this terrible experience?" Survivors frequently reply: "I don't know. I just prayed. Without God's help, I don't think I could have made it."

What happens next, Jennings once told me, illustrates the gap that separates many journalists and most Americans. There will be an awkward silence, he said, and then the reporter will say something like: "That's nice. But what REALLY got you through this?"

Here we go again.

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The darkness returns -- Rabbi Lord Sacks on new wave of anti-Semitism in Europe and USA

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The darkness returns -- Rabbi Lord Sacks on new wave of anti-Semitism in Europe and USA

Andrew Neil of BBC kept asking Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn the same question -- over and over.

"Eighty percent of Jews think that you're anti-Semitic," he stressed. "Wouldn't you like to take this opportunity tonight to apologize to the British Jewish community for what's happened?"

Corbyn would not yield: "What I'll say is this -- I am determined that our society will be safe for people of all faiths."

The Daily Express called this late-2019 clash a "horror show." This BBC interview, with surging fears of public anti-Semitism, lingered in headlines as Brits went to the polls. Corbyn's party suffered its worst defeat in nearly a century.

Meanwhile, in America, a wave of anti-Semitic attacks left Jews wondering if it was safe to wear yarmulkes and symbols of their faith while walking the sidewalks of New York City. In suburban Monsey, a machete-waving attacker stabbed five people at a Hasidic rabbi's Hanukkah party. Finally, thousands of New Yorkers marched to show solidarity with the Jewish community.

The NYPD estimates that anti-Semitic crimes rose 26% last year. Anti-Semitic hate crimes in New York, Los Angeles and Chicago are expected to hit an 18-year high, according to research at California State University, San Bernardino. 

No one who watches the news can doubt that "the darkness has returned. It has returned likewise to virtually every country in Europe," argued Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks, who led the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth from 1991-2013. He was knighted by Queen Elizabeth in 2005 and entered the House of Lords.

"That this should have happened within living memory of the Holocaust, after the most systematic attempt ever made … to find a cure for the virus of the world's longest hate -- more than half a century of Holocaust education and anti-racist legislation -- is almost unbelievable. It is particularly traumatic that this has happened in the United States, the country where Jews felt more at home than anywhere else in the Diaspora."

Why now?

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Heated Vatican debates about Pachamama rites lingered and lingered ...

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Heated Vatican debates about Pachamama rites lingered and lingered ...

The scene during the Vatican's Christmas concert was simple and even childlike, as a young woman from Latin America instructed participants -- including smiling cardinals -- to fold their arms over their chests.

But this was a religious ritual, not a 1990s Macarena flashback.

"You will feel a strong vibration," she said, according to translations of the online video. "That is the heart -- your heart, but also the heart of Mother Earth. And on the other side, where you feel the silence, there is the spirit -- the spirit that allows you to understand the message of the Mother.

"For us indigenous peoples … Mother Earth, Hitchauaya, is everything. It is that Mother who provides food. She is the one who gives us the sacred water. She is the one who gives us medicinal plants and power and reminds us of our origin, the origin of our creation."

The name "Hitchauaya" was new, but battles over "Pachamama" rites had already emerged as one of the strangest Vatican news stories of late 2019. For weeks, progressives and conservatives argued about the relevancy of the first of the Ten Commandments: "You shall have no other gods before me."

Three events in Rome fueled the Earth Mother wars. For some Catholics, they became linked, theologically, to an early 2019 meeting in Abu Dhabi when Pope Francis signed an interfaith document that included this: "The pluralism and the diversity of religions, color, sex, race and language are willed by God in His wisdom."

First, early in the fall Synod of Bishops for the Pan-Amazon region, there were rites that included wooden statues of a pregnant Amazonian woman. Some journalists reported that they represented "Our Lady of the Amazon" or were symbols of new life. Outraged Catholics then stole the statues and tossed them in the Tiber River.

Speaking as "bishop of this diocese," Pope Francis apologized and sought "forgiveness from those who have been offended by this gesture." He said the images were displayed "without idolatrous intentions."

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Lottie Moon's Christmas legacy: Hope and pain in the suffering church in China

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Lottie Moon's Christmas legacy: Hope and pain in the suffering church in China

The news reports shocked Christians worldwide, as Chinese police units demolished the giant Golden Lampstand Church in Shanxi Province early in 2018.

It was just the beginning, as state officials continued to level sanctuaries, destroy crosses, topple steeples and harass clergy. After another megachurch was destroyed last summer in Funan, in the Anhui region, authorities arrested two pastors for "gathering a crowd to disturb Social order."

But there was a different kind of news this fall, as the State Council of the People's Republic of China designated the Wulin Shenghui Church of Penglai, in Shandong province, as a historical site. For millions of Baptists this sanctuary is famous as the church home of the missionary Lottie Moon, who died on Christmas Eve in 1912.

"There's no way to know why China choose to do this," said Keith Harper, a Baptist Studies professor at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, N.C. He edited the book "Send the Light: Lottie Moon's Letters and Other Writings."

"Maybe we can be hopeful. Maybe the Chinese government sees this as some kind of positive gesture. That's what I pray for," he added. "Only time will tell why this happened and what it says about the church in China. … I do know this -- Baptists will care because this is connected to Lottie Moon."

Baptist historian Justice C. Anderson put it best when he wrote: "If they had a Pope, Southern Baptists would surely insist that he beatify Charlotte Digges Moon."

Lottie Moon died at the age of 72 on board a ship in the harbor of Kobe, Japan. She was trying to return to America for treatment of a variety of ailments, some linked to a near-starvation diet during famines in remote northern China.

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Wars down under: Sacking of rugby star ignites debates on religion, free speech, sex and race

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Wars down under: Sacking of rugby star ignites debates on religion, free speech, sex and race

Rugby fans in Australia were getting used to superstar Israel Folau talking about his evangelical faith.

Then he posted a warning from St. Paul, from his Epistle to the Galatians: "Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God."

For Rugby Australia officials, the problem was that Folau jammed that into Instagram lingo: "WARNING. Drunks, Homosexuals, Adulterers, Liars, Fornicators, Thieves, Atheists, Idolaters. HELL AWAITS YOU! Repent!" Folau added: "Jesus Christ loves you and is giving you time to turn away from your sin and come to him."

A Code of Conduct Tribunal in May determined that Folau had violated this Rugby Union Players Association rule: "Treat everyone equally, fairly and with dignity regardless of gender or gender identity, sexual orientation, ethnicity, cultural or religious background, age or disability. Any form of bullying, harassment or discrimination has no place in Rugby."

Folau was sacked, ending his new 4-year contract worth $4 million (Australian) dollars. This was not what fans wanted to hear with the Rugby World Cup looming in September.

The result was an Aussie firestorm about rugby, religious freedom, race, sexuality and free speech -- in roughly that order.

Former Wallabies coach Alan Jones took this shot, in the press, at Rugby Australia leaders: "They've destroyed his employment and internationally destroyed his name for quoting a passage from the bible for God's sake."

Rugby Australia Chief Executive Officer Raelene Castle released this statement: "I've communicated directly with the players to make it clear that Rugby Australia fully supports their right to their own beliefs and nothing that has happened changes that. But when we are talking about inclusiveness in our game, we're talking about respecting differences as well. When we say rugby is a game for all, we mean it."

But there's the rub, according to many Australians. By firing Folau for alleged hate speech, rugby's principalities and powers may have attacked his "religious background," as well as his Polynesian heritage.