"But Christians worship a different god," exclaimed a Broken Arrow middle school student during a discussion of Islam recently. The student wasn’t alone. Well-known religious leaders have spoken of Islam in a way indicating ignorance of this great faith. To explore the relationship of the Abrahamic religions--Judaism, Christianity and Islam—and hopefully raise the religious IQ of our community, the Tulsa Interfaith Alliance will host a forum September 16^th, Tuesday at 7:30 p.m. at the Peace Academy, 4620 South Irvington (one block west of Sheridan on 46^th Street).

Speakers will be Rabbi Stanely Howard Schwartz, chaplain (Maj.) U.S. Army, retired; Nuredin Giayash, Principal of the Peace Academy; Father Bernie Jewett, pastor of St. Bernard’s Roman Catholic Church; Dr. Don Pittman, Academic Dean, Phillips Theological Seminary; and a still unconfirmed teacher from Rhema Bible Institute.

So how many gods are there? Join us on the 16^th. There will be time for your questions and good discussion.

WHY I JOINED THE INTERFAITH ALLIANCE

Bob Wineburg

Having studied the complex concerns surrounding religiously related social services since 1983, I was stunned while reading Rallying the Armies of Compassion, the 2001 White House document that launched President Bush's "Faith-Based Initiative." To call this new venture a faith-based initiative is pretty bold.

The year before this initiative was launched, Catholic Charities, Lutheran Social Services, and the Salvation Army, received over four billion dollars in government money to provide a range of services from assisting pregnant teens to helping people via hospice services. Are Catholics, Lutherans, and Salvationists faithless? And such "outsourcing" is not new; indeed, it has existed since the beginning of our nation. After the Revolutionary War, the government paid The Philadelphia Bettering House, a Quaker hospital, to provide care for wounded soldiers. Today's outsourcing exploded during the Reagan Revolution.

So why is there a second Faith-Based Initiative? The answer is in a braided, yet discernable set of motives and activities that underscore the President's efforts: religious, social engineering, and votes, namely, black votes.

Religious. The architects on the religious side of this initiative are mainly conservative and Evangelical Christians. To them, the Catholics, Lutherans, and Salvationists simply lost their souls and had become indistinguishable from the government. Giving new life to "real" faith-based social services had to start with a language that distinguished their approach to social service from the Catholics, Lutherans, Salvationists, and government. Government money in the new scheme had to be transferred to churches and faith-based organizations that provide "relational social services." They center on one's personal relationship to Jesus.

Since many of the "fallen" are in our inner cites, as are many small evangelical churches to which the money is being directed, the strategy has been to get money to those churches and allow God to do the rest. While this provocative stance has been shrouded, the Catholics, Lutherans, Salvationists, church/state separationists, and others have seen through the veil and created enough waves to hinder smooth sailing.

Social Engineering. The second motivation is the elimination of the welfare state. The people behind this part of the Faith-Based Initiative aren't necessarily true believers in faith-based social services. They believe that government should provide little or no help to people directly. To them, government robs taxpayers of their liberty by prohibiting them from choosing whom to assist, when to do it, and how much to pay. In their opinion, aid should be provided almost exclusively by voluntary organizations. The social engineers' view is best characterized this way: There would be no need for government if the 330,000 congregations in this country were added to the 600,000 voluntary nonprofit organizations already providing social services.

Several big problems collide with their view: congregations are places of worship not social service outreach centers. The average size of these congregations is less than 200 families and their budgets average $100,000. State and federal statutes underscore much of government's service. This means that services must meet compliance standards. The social engineers failed to understand the amount of money and effort needed to build the capacity of these little organizations into agencies that can comply with the law. When houses of worship have to comply with government how voluntary are they? To date they have not gotten the "buy in" that they envisioned. The social engineers fired before they aimed.

The Black Vote. The third activity beneath the surface of this initiative is simple politics. The President received about nine percent of the black vote in 2000. By creating an initiative that sends money directly to small black churches, there is the chance to increase the base of support among this traditionally Democratic bloc of voters. So the political architects are buying votes but doing it through the church. The main problem: It is the same government bureaucracy giving the money away that has hair-splitting, tedious applications and unnecessary intrusions. So, only the big guys with the experience and will to survive the granting process are playing not the thousands of little churches the politicos had envisioned.

My mother always said: (1) Tell the truth. (2) If you are going to do something, do it right. (3) Don't use people, you will lose people. My mother would be quick to chide the President and the architects of his faith-based plan: "Clean this mess up right now before someone slips and falls! And next time …!"

Bob Wineburg is the Jefferson Pilot Excellence Professor of Social Work at the University of North Carolina, Greensboro. He is the author of A Limited Partnership: The Politics of Religion,Welfare, and Social Service. He and his coauthor, a Black Baptist Minister, are currently working on The Faith Based Inititiatve in Black and White: A Policy Analysis From Inside the Black Church.

Sightings comes from the Martin Marty Center at the University of Chicago Divinity School.

INTERFAITH CALENDAR

Commemoration of September 11^th, an interfaith service sponsored by the Tulsa Peace Fellowship, All Souls Unitarian Church, 2952 S. Peoria, Thursday, September 11^th at 7 p.m.

Today’s Inmates, Tomorrow’s Neighbor, a reintegration conference, sponsored by the Tulsa County Community Corrections office, September 18-19, Tulsa Community College, Northeast Campus, 3727 E. Apache. For information contact Lovie Davidson Byrd 581-2246 or the Rev. Sharyn Cosby Willis 951-2010.

NCCJ Teen Trialogue for area students, grades 9-12, will be held on Wednesday evenings, September 17^th at St. Paul’s United Methodist Church, October 1^st at Trinity Episcopal Church, and October 8^th at the Peace Academy (Islamic Society of Tulsa). The sessions from 6:30 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. will explore faith issues from the perspective Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

Alert from the Community Action Project (CAP): Oklahoma’s working poor have been made more vulnerable by the legislature’s recently-passed new payday lending bill. Exorbitant fees, the short term minimum term (13 days), and the fact that the lender holds the borrower’s check make these loans more costly and more dangerous than the small loans previously authorized under state law. Brochures explaining the new law and other information may be obtained from CAP. Also call them if you wish to support reforming the payday lending law. Call David Blatt, 717 S. Houston, suite 200, Tulsa 74127, 918-382-3228.

SEVEN SUGGESTIONS AND THREE COMMANDMENTS
Lawrence Webb

In the wake of the Situation Ethics debate sparked by Joseph Fletcher in the late 1960s, the defensive cry often heard regarding the Decalogue was "They’re not the Ten Suggestions; they’re the Ten Commandments." Absolutism versus relativism (or Fletcher’s proposed middle ground) in moral choice was, and is, a proper debate within the household of faith, but how does it translate in the broader society?

For Alabama’s Chief Justice Roy Moore the religious aspects of the debate require no translation (or debate for that matter) in the public square, and he apparently does not view these Jewish and Christian teachings as optional for any Alabaman. His ongoing refusal to remove a 5,280-pound monument of the Commandments from the lobby of the State Supreme Court boldly proclaims his position.

Justice Moore "believes that America’s laws get their authority from the Bible, and has even compared himself to Moses and Daniel" (New York Times, August 21). Facing fines imposed by a federal judge and imminent suspension at the hands of his eight associate justices, Justice Moore says, "This is not about a monument. It’s not about religion, or politics. It’s about the acknowledgment of God."

Justice Moore for many years has posted a copy of the Protestant version of the Commandments in his courtroom, and the United States Supreme Court let this stand. Later, as chief justice, he commissioned a four-foot tall monument of the Decalogue and had it slipped into the courthouse under the cover of darkness without asking or informing his fellow justices. When Judge Myron H. Thompson of Federal District Court ruled the display an endorsement of religion, Justice Moore appealed all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. This time, the high court refused to hear the appeal.

A traditional division places the Commandments on two separate tablets: the first four on one tablet, presenting a believer’s duty to God; the last six on a second tablet, listing duty to one’s fellow humans. A nation which respects religious freedom cannot demand loyalty to this one God and respect for his name. So the first three Commandments can only be viewed as suggestions for people other than Jews and Christians. However, Blue Laws in many states continue varying degrees of enforcement of the Christian day of rest and worship on believers and nonbelievers alike. So, in many instances, this is treated as a commandment. From the second tablet, the prohibitions against murder and theft clearly fall under the legal system as commandments, not mere suggestions. But what about the other four?

Honoring one’s parents is highly desirable, but unless a son or daughter physically harms or otherwise abuses a parent, this is more suggestion than commandment. Likewise, falsehoods are hardly crimes against the state unless they are told in order to cover up genuine lawbreaking. Coveting is an internal act which comes to light only if it leads to tangible misdeeds. In the attempt to preserve the sanctity of marriage, many states have largely unenforceable and highly discriminatory laws against adultery and other marital transgressions.

A Boston Globe editorial quoted a supporter of Justice Moore as saying, "Even if they should remove this monument -- and I hope to God they won’t -- they’ll never be able to remove it from our hearts." The editorial writer then commented: "Well, precisely. Religious liberty, a bedrock principle upon which the nation was founded, is an individual right, to be practiced and held in the heart as each person sees fit. It is not for the state to pressure any American to observe a particular set of religious principles." And religious people agree. Not all Jews and Christians believe people of other religions or no religion should be confronted with the Commandments in courthouses or school rooms, with the expectation that they, too, should acknowledge the God of the Jewish and Christian faiths.

With murder, theft, and sabbath-breaking as the only Commandments under widespread surveillance by law enforcement officers, might we then conclude -- contrary to Justice Moore’s insistence -- that for the general populace, we have Seven Suggestions and Three Commandments?

Lawrence Webb is a Baptist minister and an emeritus journalism professor at Anderson College, Anderson, South Carolina.

Sightings comes from the Martin Marty Center at the University of Chicago Divinity School.

Below are three excellent sites for political research/activism.

http://www.capitoladvantage.com

This is another great site to use if you want to contact your legislators in Washington. Just enter your zip code; and information on your representative and senators will come up. You can just click to e-mail them. There is also a record of how they voted on recent bills. You can also search for bills by issue. This is a really good tool for doing research on candidates and legislation.

http://www.projectvotesmart.com

This is another wonderful site for doing research on candidates, current reps, and legislation.

http://www.usscplus.com/index.htm

This site is an excellent resource for those who want to read the written decisions handed down by the U.S. Supreme Court since 1885, over 20,000 opinions. It costs $39.00 a year to subscribe, but current opinions are free, including the two affirmative action cases and the Texas sodomy case. The Texas decision is 52 pages long, (Majority Opinion 30, Scalia's dissent 22).

IF YOU HAVE THE NUMBER OF A BILL, you can easily find what's involved in a bill through the web. Go to

http://thomas.loc.gov/

The home page has a space for typing in the number (prefaced by an "S" or "HR"). Then click on the "search" button to bring the entire bill up for you to scroll through.