Hearing over Tennessee mosque puts Islam on trial

MURFREESBORO, Tenn. -- Islam is suddenly on trial in a booming Nashville suburb, where opponents of a new mosque have spent six days in court trying to link it to what they claim is a conspiracy to take over America by imposing restrictive religious rule.

The hearing is supposed to be about whether Rutherford County officials violated Tennessee's open meetings law when they approved the mosque's site plan. Instead, plaintiff's attorney Joe Brandon Jr. has used it as a forum to question whether the world's second-biggest faith even qualifies as a religion, and to push a theory that American Muslims want to replace the Constitution with extremist Islamic law.

"Do you want to know about a direct connection between the Islamic Center and Shariah law, a.k.a. terrorism?" Brandon asked one witness in a typical line of questioning.

Brandon has repeatedly conflated a moderate version of Shariah with its most extreme manifestations, suggesting that all Muslims must adhere to those interpretations.

At one point, he asked whether Rutherford County Commissioner Gary Farley supported hanging a whip in his house as a warning to his wife and then beating her with it, something Brandon claimed was part of "Shariah religion."

The commissioner protested that he would never beat his wife.

County attorney Jim Cope objected to the question, saying, "This is a circus." The rhetoric has conjured up comparisons to another culture clash that played out in a Tennessee courtroom a hundred miles and nearly a century away from Murfreesboro, a college city of 100,000 that is among the fastest-growing communities in the country. In 1925, the world watched as evolution came under attack at the Scopes monkey trial in Dayton, Tenn.

Chancellor Robert Corlew has consistently given the plaintiffs leeway to present testimony by nonexperts and documents that they cannot prove are legitimate, saying he reserves the right to strike things from the record later.

Corlew, who holds an elected office, has given little explanation for why he has allowed the testimony to stray so far afield.

Since it is not a jury trial, the judge can ultimately disregard anything he deems irrelevant. Several attorneys suggested he may want the plaintiffs, three residents who object to how the mosque came about, to feel they were able to have their say.

That could explain why Corlew has allowed Brandon to repeatedly question witnesses about whether Islam is a legitimate religion - even after the Department of Justicestepped in with a brief stating that it was.

When Farley, the commissioner, told Brandon the federal government defined Islam as a religion, Brandon responded, "Are you one of those people who believes everything the government says? Are you aware the government once said it was OK to own slaves?"

Other faiths have risen to the defense of the Islamic Center of Murfreesboro. The newly formed Interfaith Coalition on Mosques, which is composed of prominent Catholics, Jews, Muslims, and Southern Baptists and other Protestants, has filed a brief in the case.

It's good for the mosque's opponents to get their day in court - testimony is to resume Friday - said the Rev. Joel Hunter, an evanglical megachurch pastor and coalition member.

But it's "really out there" to question whether Islam is a religion, said Hunter, who leads a Longwood, Fla., congregation called Northland, A Church Distributed.

Seeking to prove that the mosque has terrorist leanings, witnesses have pointed out that board member Mosaad Rowash previously had pro-Hamas postings on his MySpace page, something the mosque's leaders have not denied. The U.S. government considers Hamas, a Palestinian Islamic political party with an armed wing that has attacked Israel, a terrorist organization.

The political views of Rowash - who hasn't been called to testify and hasn't commented publicly - and other board members are "totally irrelevant," said Deborah Lauter, the director of civil rights for the Jewish Anti-Defamation League, which sponsors the interfaith coalition.

If all of the members of the Islamic Center of Murfreesboro were public cheerleaders for Hamas, it would still be illegal to discriminate against them because the First Amendment protects freedom of worship, she said.

Even the group that provided the information on Rowash, the Washington-based Investigative Project on Terrorism, doesn't claim that the MySpace postings prove anything about the Islamic Center of Murfreesboro or its members.

Managing director Ray Locker said the Washington group provided the information about Rowash to a Tennessee resident who sent an inquiry about the mosque. He said how such information is used is beyond his group's control.

"We don't consider all Muslims to be terrorists," he said. "The vast majority of American Muslims just want to worship freely, just like members of other religions."

That wasn't the message of witness Frank Gaffney, the president and founder of the Washington-based Center for Security Policy and a former deputy assistant secretary of defense in the Reagan administration.

While acknowledging he was not an expert on Shariah law, Gaffney testified that Shariah, and by extension the new mosque, poses a threat to America.

Shariah isn't really law, at least not law as a universally recognized, codified body of rules and rights, the way Americans have come to know it. Shariah is a set of core principles that most Muslims recognize as well as a series of rulings from religious scholars.

It's some of those rulings, such as stoning a woman to death for committing adultery, that many non-Muslim Americans find reprehensible. But many Muslims, in America and around the world, are equally horrified by them, said Mohammad Fadel, an assistant professor of law at the University of Toronto Faculty of Law and an expert on Islamic law.

The mosque project has had problems outside court as well. A sign at the construction site was spray-painted with the words "Not Welcome" and torn in half, and federal investigators have offered a $20,000 reward for information leading to an arrest in what they say was the arson of a dump truck on the grounds.

Hunter, the Florida pastor, said he studied American history in college and knows that what is happening to Muslims today has happened to other groups in the past.

"Every minority - and Islam is very much a minority in this country right now - has had to struggle for equal rights," he said. "Islam is facing that now and we will not rest until they have equal rights with other religions."

FIND THIS ARTICLE AT: http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2010/11/11/general-us-rel-islam-on-trial_8098629.html?boxes=Homepagebusinessnews

Obama: 'I'm a Christian by choice'

President Barack Obama was forced to open up about his Christian faith on Tuesday when an woman asked him why he was a Christian.

"I'm a Christian by choice," he responded.

It was a "hot topic question," the woman said during an informal conversation on the economy. Obama was meeting with families in the front garden of the home of Andy and Etta Cavalier in Albuquerque, New Mexico, when the question was posed.

Providing a brief account of how he grew up, Obama said his family members "weren't folks who went to church every week."

"My mother was one of the most spiritual people I knew, but she didn't raise me in the church," he said.

Obama became a Christian later in life.

What drew him to Christianity were "the precepts of Jesus Christ" which spoke to him in terms of the kind of life he wanted to lead, he explained.

These precepts included "being my brothers' and sisters' keeper; treating others as they would treat me."

He continued, "I think also understanding that ... Jesus Christ dying for my sins spoke to the humility that we all have to have as human beings – that we're sinful and we're flawed and we make mistakes; we achieve salvation through the grace of God."

In terms of how he's living out his Christian faith, he said he strives and prays to "see God in other people" and "help them find their own grace."

"I think my public service is part of that effort to express my Christian faith," he said.

Only about a third of Americans believe the president is a Christian, a Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life revealed last month. Last year, nearly half held that perception. Meanwhile, some 18 per cent say Obama is a Muslim and the rest do not know his religion.

Following the release of the poll, the White House and several pastors who advise Obama defended the president's faith and assured the public that he is committed to Christ. Florida pastor Joel C Hunter recommended that the White House be more public about what Obama does to be an active Christian.

A few weeks later, Obama and his family made a rare appearance at church for Sunday worship. They attended St John's Church near the White House.

After responding to the question about his faith on Tuesday, Obama added that as the president of the United States, he also believes that "part of the bedrock strength of this country is that it embraces people of many faiths and of no faith."

"Their own path to grace is one that we have to revere and respect as much as our own and that's part of what makes this country what it is," he highlighted.

"We were founded on freedom ... the freedom of religion. That's how this country got started. That's why people came here. We have to constantly, I think, reaffirm that tradition even when it sometimes makes us uncomfortable."

Briefly addressing another "hot topic question" asked by the same woman, Obama reiterated his stance on abortion.

Abortion should be "safe, legal and rare", he said.

The decision should be made by the families and the women involved and not the government, he said.

Regarding late-term abortions, he noted that there are "a whole host of laws on the books" in which the interests shift after a certain period so that there are some restrictions, and "appropriately so."

FIND THIS ARTICLE AT: http://www.christiantoday.com/article/obama.im.a.christian.by.choice/26813.htm

Intersection: Muslim-Christian Relations After Gainesville Koran-Burning Threat

Check this out on Chirbit

Host Mark Simpson speaks with Central Florida Imam Muhammad Musri, who was at the center of negotiations with the Gainesville pastor who planned to burn copies of the Koran on last weekend's anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. He's joined by Dr. Joel Hunter for a discussion of religious fundamentalism. The two men share their surprising views on how this event will affect Christian-Muslim relations.

Christian Voters Losing Faith in Obama

President Barack Obama has long sought to open a dialogue between his administration and evangelical religious leaders, and he has even found common ground on some issues with conservative groups like the Southern Baptist Convention and the National Association of Evangelicals.

But even though Obama may have won over some religious leaders, he’s losing the battle to win over their congregants.

Though several moderate to conservative evangelical pastors support the president, polls show that a significant percentage of conservative Christians remain skeptical about Obama’s sincerity when it comes to the values that he says they share, and many say they doubt his faith.

Joel Hunter, one of Obama’s religious advisers, who has served on the President’s Advisory Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, blames a coordinated campaign to spread disinformation about the president, undermining his efforts at outreach to evangelicals. That, he said, leads to suspicions among average conservative churchgoers who suspect Obama is trying “to enlist good people for their sinister causes.”

For every instance of religious moderate leaders supporting Obama on certain issues, “there is this other equal and opposite reaction [from the congregation] that says, ‘Well, it’s all a trick,’” said Hunter, the pastor of Northland, A Church Distributed in Longwood, Fla., and author of “A New Kind of Conservative.”

The growing doubt among evangelical voters comes despite the president’s record of relatively moderate faith positions, such as his decision to invite Pastor Rick Warren of Saddleback Church in California to speak at his inauguration. During the campaign, some conservatives believed Obama was downplaying his party’s long-standing position on abortion rights in favor of more emphasis on reducing abortions.

And his opposition to gay marriage in favor of civil unions drew in moderate and some conservative evangelicals, although Obama insisted that it’s a matter of religious principle, not conventional political wisdom.

Joshua DuBois, the director of the White House Office of Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnership, said the White House has made a “historic” effort to reach voters of faith, and Obama “is proud of his continued and strong support from people of faith at the leadership level and in grass roots.” DuBois insisted that the president “will continue to work with religious communities to move our nation forward."

During the 2008 presidential election, voting patterns show Obama won modest but significant swaths of religious voters, winning a higher percentage of Protestant, Catholic and Jewish voters than John Kerry did in 2004.

But according to a recent Pew Research poll, more white evangelicals erroneously believe that Obama is Muslim than those who believe he is Christian, and 42 percent say they don’t know what religion he practices at all.

“Every day I read a poll [about Obama’s religion] I think it’s odd,” said Leith Anderson, president of the National Association of Evangelicals. “I read all these polls and my mind always flashes back to Jay Leno and ‘Jaywalking,’” referring to the comedian’s routine that pokes fun at Americans’ ignorance of seemingly basic facts.

Groups like the National Association of Evangelicals, who represents some 30 million members and dozens of Christian denominations across the country, have found room to agree with the president on issues like gay marriage and immigration reform — an issue Obama has pledged to tackle during his term.

“I’m not aware of an issue of significant public policy that has so united the evangelical community as immigration reform,” said Rich Nathan, pastor of Vineyard Church of Columbus, Ohio. But Nathan said that support for action on immigration has not filtered down to lay members of evangelical communities, due to “a relative absence of communication — most laypeople have never heard a sermon or teaching on immigration from the pulpit,” Nathan said.

At the same time, some evangelical Christian voters are sticking close to more traditional, conservative political roots. Last month, tens of thousands of Christians rallied on the National Mall, in response to Fox news host Glenn Beck’s call for a return to America’s religious values.

Some religious observers say that Obama must address the potent combination of faith and fear that has only increased since he took office. And he can do that by returning to the rhetoric of hope that he used during the presidential campaign.

“And a whole lot of little things can happen right, but it doesn’t remove the fear,” Hunter said. “You’ve got to address the fear if you’re going to create unity and create a movement.”

FIND THIS ARTICLE AT: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0910/42028.html

Memorial Service Held for Ava Hunter

LONGWOOD, Fla. -- Family and friends gathered at Northland Church on Thursday to remember Ava Hunter.

Hunter, 5, lost her battle with brain cancer over the weekend. She was the granddaughter of Dr. Joel Hunter, the church's senior pastor, and the daughter of Hunter's oldest son, Josh Hunter.

Ava was diagnosed in late June with a rare form of brain cancer, glioblastoma multiforme. She underwent several surgeries and hospitalizations.

Her doctors said the type of cancer she had doesn't respond well to chemotherapy or radiation.

It's estimated thousands of people all over the world had been following a blog written by Josh Hunter that chronicled Ava's progress, as well as his experiences and struggles as the parent of a terminally ill child.

Joel Hunter leads a congregation of 12,000 at Northland and serves on an advisory council to President Barack Obama.

Click to watch Ava's memorial service

National Church Leaders Condemn Misrepresentations of President Obama’s Christian Faith

Washington, DC (August 25, 2010)—Over 70 prominent Christian leaders and denominational heads from across the ideological spectrum joined together today to call for a stop to the misrepresentation of President Obama’s Christian faith. In an open letter, these Christian leaders called on the media, public officials, and their fellow Christians to stand with them in opposing those who continue to insinuate that the President is a Muslim, not a Christian. The full text of the letter and a list of signatories is below.

As Christian leaders— whose primary responsibility is sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ with our congregations, our communities, and our world— we are deeply troubled by the recent questioning of President Obama’s faith. We understand that these are contentious times, but the personal faith of our leaders should not be up for public debate.

President Obama has been unwavering in confessing Christ as Lord and has spoken often about the importance of his Christian faith. Many of the signees on this letter have prayed and worshipped with this President. We believe that questioning, and especially misrepresenting, the faith of a confessing believer goes too far.

This is not a political issue. The signers of this letter come from different political and ideological backgrounds, but we are unified in our belief in Jesus Christ. As Christian pastors and leaders, we believe that fellow Christians need to be an encouragement to those who call Christ their savior, not question the veracity of their faith.

Therefore, we urge public officials, faith leaders, and the media to offer no further support or airtime to those who misrepresent and call into question the President’s Christian faith. And we join with the President in praying that God will continue to bless the United States of America.

Signed,

Click here to read the full list of signers: http://www.eleisongroup.com/content/faith-not-political-issue

Obama keeping public expressions of religion to a minimum

By Michael D. Shear

Washington Post Staff Writer

Friday, August 20, 2010; A02

As he flew aboard Air Force One to Chicago on his 49th birthday earlier this month, President Obama dialed three Christian pastors to pray with him.

On an airborne conference call, he kidded with the religious leaders about being abandoned by his wife and daughters, who were away on vacation and at camp. As he celebrated his birthday, he was in a reflective mood. He told them he wanted to pray about the year that had passed, what's really important in life and the challenges ahead.

"That was simply something that he wanted to do at his initiative because it was important to him," said Joel Hunter, an evangelical pastor who was on the call and who is part of a small circle of spiritual advisers who frequently talk to Obama by phone.

The prayer session, which was not publicized and which neither the White House nor the ministers sought to bring to light, reflects Obama's decision to keep his public expressions of religious faith to a minimum. Hunter said the president often reaches out to pastors for private spiritual conversation.

Hunter, who is the pastor of Northland Church in Orlando, also advised Obama's predecessor. George W. Bush routinely invoked his own Christian faith in public. Hunter said that Obama's reluctance to do so may help explain the results of a Pew Research Center poll released this week that revealed a sizable increase in the number of people who falsely think that Obama is a Muslim.

Since October 2008, the percentage of Americans who say the president is a Muslim has risen from 12 percent to 18 percent. The percentage of people who think he is a Christian has fallen from 51 percent to 34 percent. The polling data indicated that those who identified themselves as conservative Republicans were most likely to say that he is a Muslim.

"That's the downside of not wanting to expose what is personal to the political arena," Hunter said in an interview. It "leaves all kinds of room for speculation and conspiracy and people who are just not informed."

"You know what happens with a vacuum?" he said."It gets filled."

As the story churned on the Internet and made the rounds of cable news talk shows Thursday, deputy press secretary Bill Burton was left to insist to reporters that the president is indeed a Christian.

"He has spoken about his faith extensively in the past. You can bet that he'll talk about his faith again," Burton said.

Obama's predecessors needed to make no such assurances. Bush made frequent references to his faith. In a Republican debate with John McCain in 2000, Bush was asked what "political philosopher or thinker" he identified with most. He answered: "Christ, because he changed my heart."

Bill Clinton attended church regularly at the Foundry United Methodist Church, a few blocks from the White House.

When the Obamas moved to Washington, the president said he hoped to find a church to attend. But in an interview this spring, he said he would not join a church in the Washington area. Instead, he said, he would pray privately, read spiritual devotionals on his BlackBerry in the morning and occasionally attend services with his family at the private Camp David chapel.

"What we've decided for now is not to join a single church, and the reason is because Michelle and I have realized we are very disruptive to services," Obama told NBC's Matt Lauer in March.

Joshua DuBois, the president's chief faith adviser in the White House, said Obama and his family have gone to services at several churches.

The president attended the National Prayer Breakfast this year and last, and has given several speeches in which he talked about his faith. At an Easter breakfast this year, Obama talked about his belief in Jesus's resurrection.

"We are awed by the grace he showed even to those who would have killed him," the president told the crowd of Christian leaders. "We are thankful for the sacrifice he gave for the sins of humanity. And we glory in the promise of redemption in the resurrection."

But outside of those formal events, Obama tends to reserve religious expression for private moments.

Hunter recalled one such moment this year, when the president called to ask about Hunter's sick granddaughter. "He said he and Michelle were praying for us," Hunter said. " 'Remember, the Lord is with you on this,' he said. Those things never get publicized."

Dubois said the president does not intend to suddenly practice his faith in public in an effort to counter misperceptions.

"The president's spiritual life, his Christian walk, is something that is important to him not for communications reasons or political reasons," DuBois said. "We're not going to shift course in any way on the basis of a short-term event."

Hunter said the White House is wise to avoid being dragged into an artificial religiosity that would not suit the president.

"The worst thing you can do is overreact to this and get all religious publicly," he said.

But he added that the president should think about ways in which he can appropriately convey the depth of his faith to the portion of the public that wants to hear it.

"He needs to, in the course of normal conversation, and when it's relevant to the conversation, be a little more transparent about his very active engagement in his own spiritual formation," Hunter said. "You don't publicize them artificially. But he can be more transparent about what really is his spiritual life."

FIND THIS ARTICLE AT: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/08/19/AR2010081906659.html?hpid=topnews&sid=ST2010081906991

Pastor Hunter on CNN American Morning: The Faith of President Obama

Dr. Joel C. Hunter, senior pastor of Northland Church, and a spiritual advisor to President Obama, joins author and political historian Stephen Mansfield on CNN American Morning—to debunk the myth that the President is a Muslim.

Pastor Joel Hunter on Anderson Cooper 360: "President Obama Is Not a Muslim""

Pastor Hunter Talks to CNN About President Obama Religion Survey

A substantial and growing chunk of the country believes that President Obama, a self-described Christian, is Muslim, while only about a third of Americans are able to correctly identify his religion, according to a survey released Thursday.

Nearly one in five Americans believe Obama is a Muslim, up from around one in 10 Americans who said he was Muslim last year, according to the survey, conducted by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life.

While most of those who think Obama is Muslim are Republicans, the number of independents who believe he is Muslim has expanded significantly, from 10 percent last year to 18 percent now.

The number of Americans who express uncertainly about the president's religion, meanwhile, is much larger and has also grown, including among Obama's political base. For instance, fewer than half of Democrats and African-Americans now say that Obama is Christian.

In March 2009, 36 percent of African-Americans said they didn't know what religion Obama practices. Now, 46 percent of African-Americans say they don't know.

"You would think the longer the person is in the White House, the more the 'don't knows' would decline," said Alan Cooperman, the Pew Forum's associate director for research. "But the 'don't knows' are higher now than when he came to office."

The survey was conducted in late July and early August.

Though Obama advertised his Christianity on the campaign trail and early in his administration - including distributing pamphlets about his religion during the 2008 presidential race and inviting the Rev. Rick Warren to his inauguration - he has been less public about his faith since then.

Despite intense media speculation about which Washington church Obama would join, for example, the White House has yet to announce that he has joined any.

"We had eight years of George W. Bush, who was very public about religious debates and high profile about religious practice and that's followed by Barack Obama, who is much lower profile about religious beliefs and practices," Cooperman said.

"It could be that in the relative vacuum of information coming out of the White House about his personal religious beliefs, others step in to feel the breach," Cooperman said. "It allows others who say that 'Oh, he's really this or that' to gain some currency."

Joshua DuBois, executive director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, said Wednesday night that Obama has "expanded in a historic way the engagement of persons of faith by this administration."

The president has given six speeches on faith issues, DuBois said, and has launched the first-ever White House advisory council for the faith-based office, composed largely of religious leaders.

"A lot of these facts are not necessarily what the public and the media are focused on everyday, which is not surprising given the issues we're facing as a country: reforming health care, bringing the troops home from Iraq and the economic recovery," DuBois said in an interview.

False rumors that Obama is Muslim have dogged him since he declared his candidacy for president in 2007. Pew conducted its survey before the president's comments last week about the right of Muslims to proceed with a controversial proposal for an Islamic center and mosque near ground zero.

The Rev. Joel Hunter, a Florida evangelical who is in frequent touch with Obama, says their relationship belies the findings of the new survey.

"He is very definitely a Christian, but a lot of the things he does to work on spiritual formation are simply not public," Hunter said.

Hunter said that he is in weekly contact with the president about his spiritual life, including writing devotionals for Obama and praying with him via telephone. Hunter said he received a call from Air Force One on the president's 49th birthday earlier this month.

"Several of us (Christian pastors) prayed with him over the phone," Hunter said. "We talked about his life and what he wanted us to pray for and it was at his initiative."

Earlier, when the president learned Hunter's grandchild had been stricken with cancer, the Florida preacher said he received a call from the White House.

"He called and told me that he and Michelle were praying for us," Hunter said, referring to the first lady. "I explained that this was an aggressive form of cancer and he pastored me, saying the Lord would be with us through this and that we should trust in God. It was a real reversal of roles."

But Hunter said the administration may want to reconsider its messaging on religion in light of the Pew poll.

"It may be time for them (the White House) to be a little more public about what the president does to be an active Christian," he said.