Wednesday 28 February 2018

Suspension of plan to impose taxes on properties owned by Christian Churches in Jerusalem

In this Sunday, Feb. 25, 2018 file photo, visitors pray outside the closed doors of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, traditionally believed by many Christians to be the site of the crucifixion and burial of Jesus Christ, in Jerusalem. Leaders of the two largest Christian sects in Jerusalem on Monday said the Church of the Holy Sepulchre will remain closed indefinitely to protest an Israeli attempt to tax their properties in the holy city, shuttering one of Jerusalem's most venerable and popular holy sites. (Credit: Mahmoud Illean/AP.)
----------------

JERUSALEM - Jerusalem’s mayor on Tuesday suspended a plan to impose taxes on properties owned by Christian churches, backing away from a move that had enraged religious leaders and led to the closure of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.
In a statement, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said a professional team was being established to negotiate with church officials to “formulate a solution.”
“As a result, the Jerusalem Municipality is suspending the collection actions it has taken in recent weeks,” it said.
There was no immediate reaction from church leaders, and it was unclear whether the Church of the Holy Sepulchre would reopen.
Roman Catholic, Greek Orthodox and leaders of other Christian denominations closed the famed church on Sunday to protest an order by Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat to begin taxing their properties.
The church is revered as the site where Jesus was crucified and resurrected, and the decision closed one of Jerusalem’s most visited holy sites just ahead of the busy Easter season.
Barkat said his decision affected only commercial properties, such as hotels, restaurants and offices, and not houses of worship. He said other cities followed similar practices worldwide.
“As the mayor of the city of Jerusalem, my goal and role is to make sure people pay their taxes,” he said in an interview earlier Tuesday. “We have no negative or bad intentions here.”
The churches accused Barkat of acting in bad faith and undermining a longstanding status quo. They say their non-church properties still serve religious purposes by providing services to pilgrims and local flocks.
In Tuesday’s announcement, Netanyahu said Cabinet Minister Tzachi Hanegbi would head the new negotiating committee, which will include representatives from the city, and the finance, foreign and interior ministries.
“The team will negotiate with the representatives of the churches to resolve the issue,” it said.

Monday 26 February 2018

From Malcolm Guite: A Sonnet for George Herbert

New post on Malcolm Guite

A Sonnet for George Herbert

by malcolmguite
Gentle exemplar, help us in our trials

On February 27th the Church of England keeps the feast and celebrates the memory of George Herbert, the gentle poet priest whose book the Temple, published posthumously in 1633 by his friend Nicholas Ferrar has done so much to help and inspire Christians ever since. In an earlier blog post I gave a talk on George Herbert and the Insights of Prayer, today, on the eve of his Feast Day, I offer this sonnet, part of a sequence called 'Clouds of Witness" in my poetry book The Singing Bowl. The sequence is a celebration of the saints, intended to complement my sequence Sounding the Seasons.
You can get this book in the UK by ordering it from your local bookshop, or via Amazon, and I am very happy to say that both books are now available in North America from Steve Bell who has a good supply in stock. His page for my books is HERE
As always you can hear me read the sonnet by clicking on the title or the 'play' button.
1234166-george-herbert.mp3
George Herbert
Gentle exemplar, help us in our trials,
With all that passed between you and your Lord,
That intimate exchange of frowns and smiles
Which chronicled your love-match with the Word.
Your manuscript, entrusted to a friend,
Has been entrusted now to every soul,
We make a new beginning in your end
And find your broken heart has made us whole.
Time has transplanted you, and you take root,
Past changing in the paradise of Love,
Help me to trace your temple, tune your lute,
And listen for an echo from above,
Open the window, let me hear you sing,
And see the Word with you in everything.
malcolmguite | February 26, 2018 at 9:56 am | Tags: canterbury presschristianityGeorge HerbertliteratureSonnetsSteve Bell | Categories: christianitypolitics | URL: https://wp.me/pj0Sl-1iy

Ballarat Interfaith Network - first meeting for 2018. Please join in.

Live in or near Ballarat and have an interest in or are curious about matters of an interfaith nature.

Feel free to attend the first meeting for 20118
of the
BALLARAT INTERFAITH NETWORK


Peacebuilding Role of Religious Civil Society Initiatives in the Korean Peninsula

The Victorian Regional Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) has joint Clerks each with a distinguished record of involvement in peace issues.  Each week on a Monday morning, Dale Hess - one of the Clerks - sends out an email relating to peace issues and events. The material below comes from Dale. The other Clerk is Lorel Thomas.






From the Post Science Digest




The Peacebuilding Role of Religious Civil Society Initiatives in the Korean Peninsula

This article examines whether civil society has played a role in peacebuilding efforts beyond traditional government-driven peace negotiations in the Korean Peninsula. Despite the government-imposed restrictions on cross-border movement and communication between North and South Korean groups and individuals, civil society efforts to build sustainable peace exist. More specifically, the author examines how a religious civil society organization, the ecumenical National Council of Churches in Korea (NCCK), has navigated the Peace and Unification Movement.

To begin, the author notes the importance of peacebuilding as opposed to peacekeeping. The former aims to transform conflict toward more sustainable, peaceful relationships, whereas the latter aims to prevent or contain physical violence and thereby potentially impedes interaction and defers addressing root causes of conflict. Civil society actors are uniquely situated, in that they can coordinate and foster vertical and horizontal relationships for sustainable peacebuilding. In other words, civil society leaders have access to (political) top-level leadership as well as to their grassroots constituents (vertical capacity), and they can use their professional or religious associations to cut across the lines of conflict (horizontal capacity).

The author conducted in-depth interviews with South Korean civil society leaders and former staff members of international organizations to describe their roles in the Peace and Unification Movement of NCCK in the 1980s and 1990s. Former South Korean government officials, who were leaders in negotiations with North Korea during the same time periods, were asked to reflect on the role civil society played in the peace process.

After the 1953 Armistice Agreement—the Korean War never officially ended—both North and South Korea justified dictatorial rule, initiated an arms race, and strengthened their respective militaries. Even though South Korea’s authoritarian regime ended in the late 1980s, the overall context of negotiations and peace talks by the governments was used to strengthen domestic political power in both countries. In South Korea that meant that civil society leaders needed to create a space where they would not be portrayed as “communist sympathizers” by opposing the government’s hard line and that they needed to shift away from government-driven peace processes that strengthened the respective regimes. In this context, the NCCK asked that the World Council of Churches (WCC) act as a mediator between North and South Korean Christians. The WCC asked both governments for cooperation for a meeting between members from both sides. The result was a Christian-themed conference­—not a conference officially about peace and unification—in 1988, leading to the activation of a peace and unification discourse and a church declaration on national unification and peace. This was the time when the official South Korean position changed toward new engagement with North Korea, which ultimately led to high-level talks between North and South Korea and the 1991 Basic Agreement. In this agreement the governments pledged reconciliation, non-aggression, exchanges, and cooperation.

Civil society leaders interviewed for this study considered the NCCK movement to have made a significant contribution to the progress of the peace process in the 1990s. They stressed their role in creating public opinion allowing the government to justify its engagement in productive peace talks. In sum, civil society leaders saw themselves in between the government and public opinion. Former government interviewees recognized some impact of civil society on the peace process but considered the changing international context—more specifically the end of the Cold War—more important. As concluded by another researcher cited in this study, the changes in the international environment drove how the policies were conceptualized, whereas public opinion drove the implementation strategy.

The author also found that the NCCK built horizontal relationships with counterparts in North Korea and, at the same time, engaged with high-level South Korean intelligence officials to secure permissions for their initial gathering. In doing so, they leveraged what peace researcher and practitioner Lederach calls their “middle-level leadership.” The religious leaders were not directly dependent on or affiliated with the top-level power-holders. They were respected by and connected to the grassroots level and had direct access to the upper levels of political hierarchy.

The author concludes that the role of civil society in peacebuilding in the 1980s and 1990s can contribute toward reviving the current peace process. First, the previously established horizontal relationships with North Korean counterparts can be re-activated. Second, the same creativity and flexibility used by civil society groups prior to the 1991 Basic Agreement can be used to assist governments in reducing tensions. And, finally, while hardline policy-makers dominate the agenda, government interviewees did confirm that the vertical relationship with civil society had an impact—albeit limited—on government negotiations.
Contemporary Relevance:

This article shows how dangerous negative peace—the mere absence of violence—can be in a volatile conflict such as the one on the Korean Peninsula. The 1953 Armistice Agreement left the root causes unresolved, leading to a conflict where currently the U.S.—a steadfast supporter of South Korea—and North Korea are escalating tensions and threats than can lead to a disastrous nuclear war. The prevention of violence should be the top priority, but one must not confuse this “negative peace” with the development of a clear peacebuilding approach.

In situations like these, when the leadership on different sides of a conflict is moving countries closer to war than toward peace, examining and understanding all viable options is of utmost importance. Religious civil society actors, as explored in this study, and others have a unique opening to change the existing trajectory by using their role outside of the political realm. However minuscule, flawed, and imperfect civil society approaches may seem, they must not be seen as isolated initiatives but as part of systemic approaches aimed at transforming a conflict context constructively. Moreover, they need to be seen in direct comparison to the military options and the known human, social, and economic costs of violence.

As this study has shown, the conflict context for civil society peacebuilding initiatives is a major factor determining the likelihood of success. Limited space to openly advance unification efforts was used creatively by the NCCK by adopting a religious frame. Current tensions and political impasse between the U.S. and North Korea, primarily driven by extremely hostile rhetoric coming from both leaders, show that civil society engagement is not only an option but a necessity to prevent a potentially catastrophic war. What was not discussed in this research—but something that applies across all civil society peacebuilding efforts—is their unique ability to humanize “the other” in situations where “otherness” and fear of “the other” are major drivers of conflict and war rhetoric.
Talking Points:

    Religious civil society leaders contributed to the Korean peace process in the 1990s.
    Civil society leaders have access to top-level (political) leadership as well as their grassroots constituents (vertical capacity).
    Civil society can use professional or religious associations to cut across the lines of conflict (horizontal capacity).
    Religious civil society actors can re-frame issues outside of the common conflict narrative.

Practical Implications:

The practical implications of this research are multifold. In international conflicts the focus is usually on “Track One” diplomacy, the official negotiations between high government officials or military leaders. By examining who civil society actors are, we can broaden our understanding of diplomacy to include those efforts that take place at multiple levels and thereby address the conflict more comprehensively. The so-called “multi-track diplomacy” framework includes official and unofficial conflict resolution efforts, citizen and scientific exchanges, international business negotiations, international cultural and athletic activities, and other international contacts and cooperative efforts. The nine specific tracks, which produce a synergy in peacebuilding, are: public opinion and communication; government; professional conflict resolution; business; private citizens; activism; religion; funding; and research, training, and education.

We need to identify and encourage civil society organizations that have the capacity to build vertical and horizontal relationships for sustainable peacebuilding. This study has shown how religious actors used their beliefs about how we should behave toward each other in the context of Korean peace and unification efforts. As the author notes, this is an already existing opening for the present-day situation. When considering the multi-track diplomacy framework, we can identify civil society organizations like Rotary International, whose commitment to peace, goodwill, and understanding is in their institutional DNA. Many Rotarians worldwide are dedicated to peace and have the capacity for horizontal and vertical engagement as discussed in this research. Civil society service organizations like Rotary International and its individual members can cooperate with professional peacebuilding organizations, such as the ones found in the Alliance for Peacebuilding, to achieve synergy.

Lastly, civil society expert Thania Paffenholz outlines some functions for civil society actors in peacebuilding. These are: protection; monitoring; advocacy and public communication; in-group socialization; social cohesion; intermediation and facilitation; and service delivery.

Continued Reading:

    Civil Society & Peacebuilding: A Critical Assessment By Thania Paffenholz. Boulder: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2010.
    Engaging Rotarians in Global Violence Prevention Lecture by Joseph Bock. Portland, 2014  (Video:https://youtu.be/baF1bAMsRfc )
    Civil Society Engagement in the ‘New Deal’ By Rachel Fairhurst and Kristen Wall. Peace Policy, 2014:https://peacepolicy.nd.edu/2014/03/24/civil-society-engagement-in-the-new-deal/
    Korean Women Take on Trump By Christine Ahn. Foreign Policy in Focus, 2017: http://fpif.org/korean-women-take-trump 

Citation:

Kim, D. J. (2017). Building relationships across the boundaries: the peacebuilding role of civil society in the Korean Peninsula. International Peacekeeping, 24(4), 515–537.


The Not-So Holy Comedy Debate : Arranged marriage is better than dating




The Third Jewish - Muslim Comedy Debate is being held at 7:00pm on Mon 19 March in Swanston Hall.  The very cheeky Father Bob as Moderator again and we have a great, very funny panel, featuring Michael ShafarJustine SlessJacob SacherRana HussainLouise Baring and Hamsa Farah

The topic is ‘Arranged marriage is better than dating!’ – It will be a very funny night!!

Yes, Jews and Muslims can get together and have fun!  In fact, a lot of fun!


Please find the flyer with details attached.

Special thanks to the State Government and Melbourne City Council for their support.

Best regards,

David Marlow

Executive Director I Jewish Community Council of Victoria
80 Years as the Voice of Victorian Jewry
p. 03-9272 5579 I f. 03-9272 5560 I m. 0407 389 919
e. david@jccv.org.au I www.jccv.org.au I @davidhmarlow
You can follow us on: Description: Description: Description: Description: C:\Documents and Settings\vernon\Application Data\Microsoft\Signatures\JewishCare (mobile) (Claire Vernon)-Image02.jpg  

Appeal

Saturday 24 February 2018

Steve Hayes and Billy Graham in black and white

From The Editor of this blog:

Steve Hayes is my oldest internet friend going back to when we only had email to communicate. Steve lives in South Africa and is a cleric in the Serbian Orthodox Church. I highly commend his blog. Steve is a fount of wisdom.

New post on Khanya

Billy Graham in black and white

by Steve
The death of Billy Graham was followed by a flood of posts on social media, some praising him to the heavens as more honourable than the cherubim and more glorious beyond compare than the seraphim, and others damning him as a would be war criminal who urged US President Richard Nixon to kill a million people in Vietnam.
I thought I would steer clear of all the hype, and not read any of it, pro or con, until a few internet friends posted things that I thought worth paying attention to.
First was Jim Forest of the Orthodox Peace Fellowship, who met Billy Graham in 1988 when he visited the USSR at the invitation of the Russian Orthodox Church, on the occasion of the celebration of a millennium of Christianity in Russia:
At the airport waiting for our flight to Kiev, I asked Graham what had led him to undertake his first trip to the USSR in 1982 despite advice from Vice President Bush not to go. "I had been briefed at the Pentagon about what would happen if there was a nuclear war," he replied. "I had been to Auschwitz and seen how limitless is our capacity for evil. And I was thinking about Paul saying in his first letter to the Corinthians that he was called to be all things to all people. I realized I had closed myself to the people in the Soviet Union. So I felt I had to say yes to the invitation I received from the Russian Orthodox Church inviting me to take part in a peace conference they were preparing in Moscow."
Speaking in Kiev, he gave a vintage Graham sermon: "My grandfather never dreamed of the changes that have happened in our world -- space travel, color television, travel from continent to continent in a few hours by jet airplane. But some things never change. Interest in religion never changes. The nature of God never changes." He spoke about God's love for each person, a love we cannot damage by our sins. Graham recalled a Moscow lady who told him, "I am a great sinner." He responded, "I too am a great sinner, but we have a great savior." He recalled Prince Vladimir and his conversion. "He turned away from idols and destroyed them, opening a new path in life not only for himself but for millions of others right down to our own time. God never changes, but you and I must change just as Prince Vladimir changed a thousand years ago." He ended his sermon saying, "In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit."  (see Jim Forest's book Religion in the new Russia).
The second was Irving Hexham who posted a link on Facebook to a sermon preached by Billy Graham in South Africa in 1973, in which he said that Jesus was not white.
I was there. I heard it.
I also heard John Gatu of Kenya, who preached immediately before him, who in my opinion preached much better.
I said as much in response to Irving's Facebook post, but that is not the full story. Facebook lends itself to the visual equivalent of sound bites -- one-liners that never tell the full story. That is why I prefer mailing lists and possibly blogs for discussing such things.
And there was a story behind that sermon that deserves to be told again.
The rally at which Billy Graham was the main speaker was the culmination of a 10-day conference, the South African Congress on Mission and Evangelism.
The conference was organised by the South African Council of Churches and African Enterprise, an evangelistic (and Evangelical) organisation.
The organisers wanted to make the conference as widely representative of South African Christianity as possible, and, in particular, to bring "Evangelicals" and "Ecumenicals" together (they weren't too bothered, at that stage, about the Roman Catholics and the Orthodox, whose presence would probably be even more scary to Evangelicals than the Ecumenicals).

SA Congress on Mission and Evangelism Rally at Kings Park stadium, Durban, at which Billy Graham preached. 17 March 1973.

And if anything was going to bring the Evangelicals in, it was Billy Graham, who was a hero to most of them. So he was there as bait. The Evangelicals would come to hear Billy Graham, they wouldn't come to hear John Gatu, no matter how well he preached.
And the bait worked.

Billy Graham Rally at Kings Park, 17 March 1973

Many Evangelicals remained suspicious, and shied away from the Ecumenicals, whom they regarded as "political" (if anyone deserves that epithet today, it's Evangelicals, especially American ones) and too
focused on the "social gospel".
But many overcame their suspicions and joined in.
I heard Billy Graham preach on one other occasion, at Earls Court in London in 1966. On that occasion I and those with me handed out pamphlets critical of some of Billy Graham's comments on the Vietnam War. The pamphlets were produced by the Christian Committee of 100, of which I had become a hanger-on.

Billy Graham rally at Kings Park, Durban

I had been told by several Anglican clergy that they did not approve of Billy Graham, because they did not like "emotionalism". The way they described it, it sounded as though he had an almost hypnotic effect on the crowd, getting them all worked up.  But I was disappointed.
I was less than impressed with his preaching on that occasion. Far from being emotional, it was rather dull and boring, and there was no appeal to the emotions at all. But on both occasions it clearly worked for some people, who went forward to commit their lives to Jesus Christ as Saviour.
For some of them it may have been a recommitment. I've seen many people respond to such "altar calls" again and again. An Anglican monk once told me that he did at a Billy Graham crusade. As he got up to go forward, the ushers stopped him, and said "Not you."
"Why not?" he asked
"It's for those who have committed their lives to Christ."
"But I have."
"No, it's for those who have committed their lives to Christ today."
"But I do, every day."
So the Evangelical ritual of the "altar call" is not necessarily well understood outside Evangelical circles, but Billy Graham's preaching nevertheless influenced a lot of people and, I believe, brought many closer to Christ. He was certainly the best-known itinerant evangelist of the 20th century.
So what Billy Graham said in South Africa that day may have helped some white Evangelicals to see that racism wasn't OK for Christians, and thus he may have planted some seeds that germinated and helped in some way to end apartheid 20 years later.
But at the time it was a huge disappointment. It could have done with a bit of "emotionalism". There were 50000 Christians there, of all races (the government had demanded that they be segregated, but they weren't, people sat anywhere they liked). They were expecting something to happen, but it didn't. John Gatu preached a far more stirring sermon, and perhaps he should have spoken last, and sent out the crowd as manic street preachers, and they probably would have done it.
Billy Graham started off well -- saying that though we all come from different cultures and ethnic backgrounds, we are all one in Christ, and waved his arm round the packed stadium and said "This is the church".
And then he proceeded to preach a sermon full of bad cliches and mediocre pulpit jokes. If he had taken up the consciousness of unity that was beginning to emerge, and expounded on it, something might have happened. It was ready to happen. Fifty thousand black and white Christians gathered together, of all
races, all classes, sitting together. There might have been a mighty outpouring of the Holy Spirit. We could have prayed and sang and exchanged the kiss of peace, and it would have been great, but
it fell flat. About a fifth of them came forward for the appeal at the end. For the rest of us, there was nothing more. We could leave, so leave we did. A great anticlimax.
The third piece is from Brenton Dickieson, who writes in his blog about Billy Graham, C.S. Lewis, and Me | A Pilgrim in Narnia. I think he comes closer to giving a balanced assessment of Billy Graham than many when he writes:
Graham leveraged early superstardom to do very specific things that shaped American Christianity for the next three generations. In particular, Graham’s insistent and consistent ecumenism, his global interest, and his unapologetic views of racial integration—even going so far as to bail Martin Luther King, Jr. out of jail—are imprinted upon post-WWII American Christianity. In particular, it was Billy Graham who shaped what is now known as evangelicalism, distinct from and overlapping with both fundamentalism and mainstream liberalism. With all the things we may quibble about, for millions of people around the world, Graham made faith personal.
Brenton Dickieson is a student of C.S. Lewis, who, like Billy Graham, influenced many Christians, not through his preaching, but through his writing. In his blog he describes how Lewis met Billy Graham, and their impressions of each other. It really is worth a read.
Steve | 23 February 2018 at 8:10 pm | Tags: Billy Grahamevangelicalismevangelicalsevangelismevangelists | Categories: Christianitypeoplereligion | URL: https://wp.me/p3gtp-2KT

Australia stopped the gun massacres

Democratic Socialists
It's really not that difficult when you care about lives.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Firearms_Agreement

QUAKER (RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS) CONCERN FOR LAND REFORM




Quaker concern for land reform

 22 Feb 2018 | by Rebecca Hardy



Friends concerned with housing equality 
have been urged to join a campaign to start a Land Value Tax
Friends concerned with housing equality have been urged to join a campaign to start a Land Value Tax (LVT). Jocelyn Gaskell, from Yealand Meeting, hopes to start a campaign within British Quakerism.
LVT is a method of raising public revenue by means of an annual charge on the rental value of land. She told the Friend that her motivation came out of a longstanding concern for peace and justice: ‘I have been in housing need in the past myself and am aware that this problem has been building for years. I’m horrified and saddened by the homelessness we have now. We need a radical way to tackle it.’
Jocelyn Gaskell explained that the idea of LVT is that people and businesses pay a contribution for the benefit of investment in that land. She said: ‘Canary Wharf went hugely up in value when the Jubilee Line was extended. Private landlords benefitted from public money going into infrastructure.’
She believes that LVT would make the system fairer.
Jocelyn Gaskell developed her interest in LVT in November 2017 at Quaker Peace & Social Witness (QPSW)’s new economy training weekend in Manchester. She was prompted to act and has now written an in-depth briefing, with a blog on the Quakers in Britain website. She is urging other Friends to join her and has had a positive response.

On Twitter
at 
Earth and Economy