Hillary Clinton defends religious liberty -- abroad

The U.S. State Department wasn't surprised last October when Egyptian security forces smashed into flocks of demonstrators outside the state Radio and Television Building, killing 25 and injuring hundreds. After all, the rally was called to protest the government's failure to stop the burning of Coptic Orthodox churches or to arrest and convict leaders of the mobs. Sure enough, waves of thugs attacked the Copts, starting riots that drew deadly police vehicles.

Once again, it didn't shock State Department insiders that no one was held accountable. Coptic Christians and other religious minorities continue to live in fear.

Similar tragedies have been sadly predictable in the past, but that must change if true democracy is going to come to Egypt and other lands struggling to escape centuries of strife, said Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, in remarks marking the recent release of the 2011 International Religious Freedom Report.

"Egyptians are building a brand new democracy," said Clinton, describing her recent visit there. "As I told the Christians with whom I met, the United States does not take the side of one political party over another. What we do is stand firmly on the side of principles. Yes, we do support democracy -- real democracy, where every citizen has the right to live, work and worship how they choose. ...

"We are prepared to work with the leaders that the Egyptian people choose. But our engagement with those leaders will be based on their commitment to universal human rights and universal democratic principles."

The "sobering" reality, she stressed, is that religious freedom is "sliding backwards" worldwide, with more than a billion people living under regimes that deny them freedom of speech, association and liberty on matters of faith. The State Department once again released its familiar list of notorious "countries of particular concern" -- Burma, China, Eritrea, Iran, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Sudan and Uzbekistan.

This latest report is packed with telling details that are hard to ignore, said Thomas Farr, director of Georgetown University's Project on Religious Freedom. He served as the first director of the State Department office on international religious freedom.

The problem is that America's ambassador at large for international religious freedom has "little authority, few resources and a bureaucracy that is -- notwithstanding the secretary's fine words -- largely indifferent" to the global state of religious freedom, noted Farr, in remarks posted at National Review Online. "It doesn't take a rocket scientist to realize that this issue is not a priority for this administration, except perhaps for the speechwriters (who are doing an outstanding job)."

In her speech, Clinton did address a few hot topics that have previously been out of bounds, such as blasphemy laws. It's time for Americans to realize, she said, that matters of faith and conscience are often life-and-death concerns -- literally.

"Certain religions are banned completely, and a believer can be sentenced to death," she said. "Strict laws ban blasphemy and defamation of religion. And when your words are interpreted as violations of those laws, you can be sentenced to death. Violence toward religious minorities often goes unpunished by authorities who look the other way.

"So the message is clear: If your beliefs don't have government approval, beware."

When Americans defend religious freedom they are not simply defending values found in this land's laws and creeds. They are also defending a key central tenet of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Thus, Clinton quoted Article 18: "Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion. This right includes freedom to change his religion or belief and freedom either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance."

It's impossible to read those words, she said, without realizing that "religious freedom is not just about religion." It's about unbelievers, heretics, apostates and converts being able to live, think and gather in safety without the "state looking over their shoulder." Without freedom of conscience, said Clinton, democracy is not safe.

"You can't debate someone who believes that anyone who disagrees with him by definition disagrees with God," she said. "So let me simply say this: People can believe that they and only those like them possess the one and only truth. That's their right, though they do not have the right to harm those they think harbor incorrect views."

Don't ask, don't tell the chaplains

The setting: The office of a priest who serves as a military chaplain. The time: This hypothetical encounter occurs soon after the repeal of the "don't ask, don't tell" policy that forbids gays, lesbians and bisexuals to openly serve in America's armed forces.

The scene: An officer requests counseling about tensions with her same-sex partner as they prepare for marriage. The priest says this would be inappropriate, since his church teaches that sex outside of marriage is sin and that the sacrament of marriage is reserved for unions of a man and a woman.

The priest offers to refer her to a chaplain at another base who represents a church that performs same-sex rites. The officer accepts, but is less than pleased at the inconvenience.

What happens next? That question is driving the tense church-state debates that continue behind the scenes of the political drama that surrounds "don't ask, don't tell."

"If the government normalizes homosexual behavior in the armed forces, many (if not most) chaplains will confront a profoundly difficult moral choice: whether they are to obey God or to obey men," stated a September letter from 60-plus retired chaplains to President Barack Obama and Defense Secretary Robert Gates.

The repeal of "don't ask, don't tell," they argued, will cripple the ability of many chaplains to provide counseling. "Service members seeking guidance regarding homosexual relationships will place chaplains in an untenable position. If chaplains answer such questions according to the tenets of their faith, stating that homosexual relationships are sinful and harmful, then they run the risk of career-ending accusations of insubordination and discrimination. And if chaplains simply decline to provide counseling at all on that issue, they may still face discipline for discrimination."

These complaints are "somewhat disingenuous," according to the Rev. John F. Gundlach, a retired Navy chaplain from the United Church of Christ, the progressive Protestant denomination into which Obama was baptized.

"These chaplains ... will continue to have the same rights they've always had to preach, teach, counsel, marry and conduct religious matters according to the tenets of their faith. They will also continue to have the responsibility to refer servicemembers to other chaplains when their own theology or conscience will not allow them to perform the services to which a servicemember is entitled," stressed Gundlach, writing in Stars and Stripes. "Any chaplain who can't fulfill this expectation should find somewhere else to do ministry."

The urgency of these debates will only increase after this week's Pentagon statement instructing its recruiters to accept openly gay applicants, a shift driven by a federal court decision barring the military from expelling openly gay soldiers.

Military chaplains are already being asked to serve as doctrinal Swiss Army knifes, performing rites and prayers for personnel from a variety of flocks when the need arises. This kind of pluralism is easy for chaplains from some traditions, but not others.

Meanwhile, it's hard for chaplains to refer troubled soldiers to clergy in foxholes 30 miles away. It's impossible to have a variety of chaplains -- Southern Baptists and Wiccans, Catholic priests and rabbis -- serving on every base, let alone in submarines.

There is no easy way out of this church-state maze.

If "don't ask, don't tell" is repealed, "no restrictions or limitations on the teaching of Catholic morality can be accepted," noted Archbishop Timothy Broglio of the Archdiocese for Military Services. While Catholic chaplains must always show compassion, they "can never condone -- even silently -- homosexual behavior."

A letter from Metropolitan Jonah of the Orthodox Church in America to the chaplains board was even more blunt: "If our chaplains were in any way ... prohibited from denouncing such behavior as sinful and self-destructive, it would create an impediment to their service in the military. If such an attitude were regarded as 'prejudice' or the denunciation of homosexuality as 'hate language,' or the like, we would be forced to pull out our chaplains from military service."

So be it, said Gundlach. While these chaplains "worry about being discriminated against, they openly discriminate against some of the very people they are pledged to serve and serve with. If the hate speech currently uttered by some conservative chaplains and their denominations is any indication of how they will respond in the future, we can expect this discrimination to continue."

These chaplains need to resign, he said. The armed services "will be the better for it."

Quest for the common Easter

Motorists across America saw a strange sight this past Sunday morning if they stopped at a traffic signal near an Eastern Orthodox sanctuary and then, shortly thereafter, passed a Catholic parish. What they saw was worshippers singing hymns and waving palm fronds as they marched in Palm Sunday processions at these churches. Similar sights will be common during Holy Week rites this week and then on Easter Sunday.

There is nothing unusual about various churches celebrating these holy days in their own ways. What is rare is for the churches of the East and West to be celebrating Easter ("Pascha" in the East) on the same day. This will happen again next year, as well as in 2014 and 2017.

This remains one of the most painful symbols of division in global Christianity. While Easter is the most important day on the Christian calendar, millions of Christians celebrate this feast on different days because they have -- for centuries -- used different calendars. The Orthodox follow the ancient Julian calendar when observing Pascha, while others use the Gregorian calendar introduced in 1582, during the reign of Pope Gregory XIII.

"It was a calendar issue then and it's a calendar issue now," said Antonios Kireopoulos, an Orthodox theologian who is a leader in interfaith relations work at the National Council of Churches of Christ. "This is about calendars, but it's much more than that."

This clash between liturgical calendars in the East and West, he said, also affects how churches pursue their missions. "We are talking about the central event of our faith, yet we remain so divided about it. ... That has to raise questions for those outside the faith. If the resurrection is so important, why can't we find a way to celebrate this together?"

Seizing the temporary unity represented by the shared Easter dates this year and next, Kireopoulos and National Council of Churches General Secretary Michael Kinnamon recently renewed an earlier call that challenged leaders on both sides to pursue a permanent solution to this clash of the calendars.

Their letter restates three recommendations from the 1997 Aleppo Conference, which was hosted by the Syrian Orthodox Church of Antioch. That gathering called for Christians worldwide to:

* Honor the first ecumenical council of Nicea by celebrating Easter on the first Sunday following the first full moon after the spring equinox, which would maintain the biblical ties between the Jewish Passover, Holy Week and Easter.

* Agree to calculate astronomical data by using the best available scientific methods, which was a principle established in Nicea to settle an early controversy about the date of Easter.

* Use the meridian line for Jerusalem as the reference point for all calculations, once again honoring the biblical narratives about the death and resurrection of Jesus.

The problem, of course, is that making a change of this magnitude would require a broad spectrum of Christian leaders -- including the pope and numerous Orthodox patriarchs -- to agree on something that stirs deep emotions among the faithful. Orthodox leaders continue to wrestle with splits linked to a 1923 decision to celebrate Christmas according to the Gregorian calendar.

The final Aleppo document recognized that it would be especially hard for Eastern believers to change their traditions.

"In some countries in the Middle East and Eastern Europe, where the Christian churches have lived with the challenge of other religions or materialistic ideologies, loyalty to the 'old calendar' has been a symbol of the churches' desire to maintain their integrity and their freedom from the hostile forces of this world," it said. "Clearly in such situations implementation of any change in the calculation of Easter/Pascha will have to proceed carefully and with great pastoral sensitivity."

Orthodox leaders know that the Easter gap will keep getting wider -- with Pascha creeping into the summer in about a century.

But change is hard. As old joke says, "How many Orthodox Christians does it take to change a light bulb?" The answer: "Change? What is this 'change'?"

"This is not a matter of one side finally giving in and the other winning," stressed Kireopoulos. "This is a matter of finding a way to proclaim -- together -- what we all believe about the resurrection of Jesus Christ. ... What we hope is that, once again, we can follow the principles of Nicea and find a way to move forward."

Edgy Orthodoxy 4 Seekers

One of the Rev. Dwight Moody's favorite perks as dean of the Georgetown College chapel is that he is free to spend most Sundays exploring other churches in Lexington, Ky.

That's how the Baptist preacher ended up in St. Andrew Antiochian Orthodox Church in a cloud of incense, trying to figure out what the worshippers were chanting, why they rarely sat down and when the 9 o'clock service was going to end so that the 10 o'clock service could begin.

Everything was a mystery.

"When the main service ended they just kept going and had two more. ...I couldn't figure out what was going on," said Moody. "It was the most in-your-face, retrograde old stuff you could imagine. What fascinated me was that this was the TOTAL antithesis of everything that is happening in the contemporary church."

But he looked around and realized he wasn't the only visitor in the multi-ethnic crowd. Afterwards, a cluster of ex-Methodists helped him get oriented. Moody had toured Orthodox churches in Jerusalem and elsewhere, but had never actually attended a service.

It was while he was driving home that he had a crazy idea.

During his Sunday adventures, Moody has seen his share of megachurches offering "seeker-friendly services" for media-soaked Americans. These are the ones with shiny auditoriums that seat 5,000 or so people, complete with rock-concert quality sound and lights. Many have been shaped by the work of consulting firms that specialize in church design and marketing.

Moody thought to himself: How would a church-growth professional critique the smells, bells and sacraments he had just witnessed?

Before long, he had written a satirical "Survival Guide" for an imaginary "St. Pachomius Byzantine Orthodox Church."

The church's name, for example, was simply not acceptable today.

Moody's imaginary consultant was blunt: "Nobody -- and I mean NOBODY -- understands any part of your name. (I actually commissioned a survey.) Most assumed you were Jewish, others thought of a travel agency and one was sure 'Byzantine' was a link to al-Qaeda.

"My recommendation: Be bold! Embrace the third millennium! Take a new name, one derived from the old but in a clever sort of way. Our people suggest you utilize the word BOX: how about 'p-BOX'? Edgy, isn't it, but evocative and mysterious, as well. Remember how United States Steel Corporation became USXX? Brilliant: strong but subtle, distinctive and vague."

The sanctuary would need a makeover, starting with the exit of all those "painted panels of old people." Besides, the icons were taking up space that would be needed for large video screens for movie clips and pop-rock hymnody. The firm suggested replacing the incense with "some very nice potpourri planters in a selection of scents: Miracle Moonlight, Oceans of Peace and Farm Fresh Faith."

The a cappella quartet of overweight male chanters would have to go, as well.

"Modern, younger people -- those you must seek to appease, I mean, attract -- are drawn toward drum sets and speakers," he added. "Make them very visible, even if you actually utilize sound tracks (sample enclosed)."

And Holy Communion? Adding a Starbucks would be a better idea. If the church insisted on serving bread and wine at the altar, "research indicates that videos shown during the lag time are well received."

The article was published in several Kentucky newspapers and then in the Christian Century, a mainline weekly. Moody was relieved to learn that Orthodox readers had gotten the joke and were rolling in the aisles. Well, some were rolling in the aisles. Many Orthodox Christians would not have aisles in which to roll, since their sanctuaries are traditionally built without the modern amenities called pews.

Then members of other churches began to respond. Moody hit a nerve with his backhanded tribute to a flock that was clinging to 2000 years worth of roots.

"You see, I was not making fun of the Orthodox," he said. "I was making fun of the whole contemporary church scene. ... There are people in all kinds of traditional churches who are being told, 'If you don't change, you're going to die. If you don't buy into the latest fads, you're history.' Ministers are under incredible pressure to strip away anything that's connected to the past. Well, some people have had enough."