NCC joins interfaith summit to deplore anti-Islam acts

["Philip Jenks" <pjenks@ncccusa.org>]

NCC's Kinnamon joins with interfaith summit

to address fear and intolerance toward Muslims

See a stream of the September 7 press conference on C-Span at 
http://www.c- spanvideo.org/program/295331-1

See also: www.ncccusa.org/news/100907interfaithpressconference.html

Washington, September 7, 2010 -- A high ranking group of U.S. 
interfaith le aders, including the general secretary of the National 
Council of Churches,  assembled here today to condemn plans in 
Florida to burn the Holy Qu'ran o n Saturday, and to decry incidents 
of violence committed against innocent M uslims.

The leaders noted the "anti-Muslim frenzy" that has existed in the 
U.S. sin ce plans were announced to build an Islamic Community Center 
at the Park 51  site in Manhattan two blocks from the site of the 
terror attacks of Septem ber 11, 2001.

But the uproar over the Park 51 community center is only one aspect 
of the  overall problem of anti-Islamic attitudes and actions across 
the country, t he leaders said.

In a press conference at the National Press Club, Dr. Ingrid Mattson, 
presi dent of the Islamic Society of America (ISNA), said Muslims in 
America repo rt the highest degree of anxiety they have felt since 
September 11, 2001.

"For nine years, we have been trying to get the message out that we 
reject  the extremist views" of a few Muslims, "their justification 
for violence, t heir justification for militancy. It has been 
difficult to get this message  out because then actions of the 
extremists are more dramatic."
"The majority of Muslims we know as law-abiding, ethical, good 
people," Mat tson said.

Rabbi David Saperstein, executive director of the Union for Reform 
Judaism,  said religious leaders had no choice but to gather together 
in response to  anti-Muslim rhetoric.

Jews, Saperstein said, "have been the quintessential victims of 
religious p ersecution and discrimination throughout history. We know 
what it was like  when people have attacked us verbally and attacked 
us physically and others  have remained silent. It cannot happen in 
America in 2010 without a respon se from the religious community."

The Rev. Richard Cizik, president of the New Evangelical Partnership 
for th e Common Good, bluntly told Christians who were expressing 
anti-Muslim view s or threatening to burn the Qu'ran, "you bring 
dishonor to the name of Jes us Christ."

The Rev. A. Roy Medley, general secretary of American Baptist 
Churches USA,  said, "Some of the most offensive statements about 
Islam, unfortunately, h ave been from the Baptist community."

Yet Baptists "were born of persecution, in England, in the 
Commonwealth of  Massachusetts," and Roger Williams founded Rhode 
Island as the first geo-po litical entity based on religious unity, 
Medley said. "That is why religiou s liberty is very dear to us."

The Rev. Michael Kinnamon, general secretary of the National Council 
of Chu rches, said, "we denounce anti-Muslim bigotry. We identify 
ourselves with r eligious tolerance."

"We are made richer and deeper in our Christian community by our 
relationsh ip with Muslim and Jewish colleagues," Kinnamon said.

The participants in today's summit talked about next steps, Kinnamon 
said,  including "calling on our networks, our constituencies, to 
replicate this k ind of meeting in local communities. At the National 
Council of Churches we  have spoken out as strongly as we can. We've 
also called upon state counci ls to say no to this kind of bigotry. 
It is important for us as a Christian  community to say an 
unequivocal no."

Kinnamon also said there are minority Christian communities around 
the worl d who live in Muslim countries who feel threatened because 
extremists use w hat is happening in this country (anti-Muslim 
rhetoric and actions) as a pr etext to violence."

A statement released by the leaders said they are "profoundly 
distressed an d deeply saddened by the incidents of violence 
committed against innocent M uslims in our community, and by the 
desecration of Islamic houses of worshi p. We stand by the principle 
that to attack any religion in the United Stat es is to do violence 
to the religious freedom of all Americans.

"The threatened burning of copies of the Holy Qur'an this Saturday 
... is a  particularly egregious offense that demands the strongest 
possible condemn ation by all who value civility in public life and 
seek to honor the sacred  memory of those who lost their lives on 
September 11. As religious leaders , we are appalled by such 
disrespect for a sacred text that for centuries h as shaped many of 
the great cultures of our world, and that continues to gi ve 
spiritual comfort to more than a billion Muslims today."

The meeting, organized by the Islamic Society of North America 
(ISNA), was  called to raise a shared religious voice that has been 
largely missing in t he debate until now. The joint declaration of 
participants underscored the  moral responsibility of clergy to 
communicate the need for solidarity and c ompassion and to lay out a 
plan of action for interfaith collaboration goin g forward. 

Since its founding in 1950, the National Council of the Churches of 
Christ  in the USA has been the leading force for ecumenical 
cooperation among Chri stians in the United States. The NCC's member 
faith groups -- from a wide s pectrum of Protestant, Anglican, 
Orthodox, Evangelical, historic African Am erican and Living Peace 
churches -- include 45 million persons in more than  100,000 local 
congregations in communities across the nation.

NCC News contact:  Philip E. Jenks, 212-870-2228 (office), 
646-853-4212 ( cell), pjenks@ncccusa.org