The Rev. Robert Certain, a priest in the Episcopal Diocese of San Diego, is among seven nominees for bishop of Southern Ohio. The election is scheduled for today.
Ordained in 1976, Certain is rector of St. Margaret's Episcopal Church in Palm Desert, where the congregation includes former President Gerald Ford and his wife, Betty Ford.
During pre-election forums held in that diocese, Certain spoke of acceptance and inclusion, according to a summary of the forums. Addressing the current schism in the national church, he urged dissenting Episcoplians “to refrain from shifting alliances and to refrain from violating diocesan boundaries.”
The Diocese of Southern Ohio has approximately 25,000 members and includes the cities of Cincinnati, Columbus and Dayton.
Union-Tribune
Minnesotan is first Muslim in Congress
MINNEAPOLIS – Keith Ellison, the first Muslim ever elected to Congress, sees it this way: Osama bin Laden no more represents Ellison's religion than Timothy McVeigh represented Christianity.
Ellison, a 43-year-old Democrat, won election to the House Tuesday and will represent all of Minneapolis and several close suburbs. Ellison is also the first black congressman from Minnesota.
He ran on a call for an immediate withdrawal from Iraq, universal health care, a higher minimum wage and a more progressive tax code.
Ellison, who converted from Catholicism to Islam as a college student, acknowledged that his new prominence may bring a responsibility to speak for peaceful Muslims.
“Killing innocents is un-Islamic. Suicide is un-Islamic. Committing suicide to kill innocents is extremely un-Islamic,” he said. “These people you read about, these Osama bin Ladens, they don't represent Islam any more than Timothy McVeigh represents Christianity.”
Associated Press
'Jesus Camp' shut over reaction to film
The summer camp featured in the documentary “Jesus Camp” will shut down for at least several years because of negative reaction sparked by the film, according to the camp's director.
“Right now, we're just not a safe ministry,” Becky Fischer, the fiery Pentecostal pastor featured in “Jesus Camp,” said Tuesday.
The documentary, which hit select U.S. theaters during the summer, portrays Fischer, 55, as drill instructor to a bevy of young evangelical children steeling themselves for spiritual and political warfare.
But Fischer has drawn fire from some corners for “brainwashing” the children. After vandals damaged the campground last month and critics besieged Fischer with negative e-mails, phone calls and letters, the pastor said she's shutting down the camp for at least several years.
Fischer lives in Bismarck, N.D., and is chief pastor at The Fire Center, a church devoted to children's ministry there. She has run the weeklong “Kids on Fire” summer camp, which is featured in the film, since 2002, with 75 to 100 children attending each year.
– Religion News Service
Contributions down to Muslim charity
DEARBORN, Mich. – By the end of Ramadan last year, Najah Bazzy remembers having more than $10,000 in cash to distribute to the needy, plus a vast auditorium ringed with tables groaning with enough free food for 400 poor families to celebrate the holiday.
This year, she formalized the good works she has been doing unofficially for a decade among Muslims in the Dearborn area by establishing a charity, Zaman International. But as the holiday arrived this year, charitable contributions plummeted. Bazzy said cash donations amounted to less than $4,000, and she had to use some of the money to purchase food – instead of counting on contributions – to feed needy families.
There are similar stories in Muslim communities across the country. Triggered by the pervasive fear that donations of any manner to an Islamic charity could bring unwanted attention from federal agents looking into potential ties to terrorism, many people within Muslim American communities have become reluctant to donate to Islamic causes, including charities.
The Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence at the Treasury Department has shuttered five major Muslim charities in the United States since 2001, seizing millions of dollars in assets, yet not a single officer or organization has been convicted of anything connected to terrorism. Muslim charities operating overseas have been directly linked to terrorist operations, but if such evidence exists in the United States, it has remained secret.
– The New York Times
