NEWARK, New Jersey - A deportation hearing for a popular Muslim leader resumed Monday with both sides focusing on a disputed arrest in Israel that is at the heart of the case.

Mohammad Qatanani, 44, is being denied U.S. residency based on allegations that he failed to disclose the 1993 arrest and conviction in Israel on his green card application.

Qatanani, a Palestinian with Jordanian citizenship, has been the Imam at the Islamic Center of Passaic County in Paterson , New Jersey since 1996, the year he came to the United States on a work visa. He applied for permanent residency in 1999.

The U.S. government is now seeking to deport him, arguing that he never disclosed the arrest in on his application - a disclosure that could disqualify him from getting a green card.

Israeli military authorities say Qatanani admitted to being a member of Hamas during interrogation in 1993 in Israel. Both the U.S. and Israel consider Hamas to be a terror group.

An Israeli military court sentenced Qatanani to three months in prison and a 12-month suspended sentence, and also fined him, according to the Israel army.

During the third day of testimony Monday, defense witnesses and lawyers for Qatanani continued to dispute he was ever arrested and countered claims he was associated with Hamas.

They said Qatanani had been detained - not arrested - while traveling to his native West Bank in 1993. They said he was unaware of any conviction.

They continued to challenge the authenticity of documents that immigration authorities say came from Israel.

Witnesses for Qatanani also testified Monday that detention of Palestinians traveling through Israel in the early 1990's were routine.

On Monday, Lisa Hajjar, a professor at the University of California was called by the defense as an expert witness on Israeli military courts.

Hajjar testified that the detention and interrogation of Palestinians - including the use of techniques later outlawed as torture - was routinely conducted by Israeli authorities in the early 1990s.

When asked by a U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement lawyer to look at documents provided by Israel in Qatanani's case, Hajjar said they did not appear to her to indicate he had been convicted.

"There is no document that actually names him," she said. "There's an indictment, but an indictment is not a conviction."

Although the details of the Israeli incident are disputed, both sides have testified that U.S. immigration officials were unaware of them until Qatanani brought them to their attention in 2005. That is the year he asked for a special meeting with immigration to find out why there was a six year delay in his green card application.

When the judge called for a lunch break, Qatanani - surrounded by at least 40 supporters - lead daily prayers in the middle of the courthouse cafeteria.

Outside the courthouse, Qatanani supporters waved American flags at passers-by.

It was the third day of testimony. The judge heard from a range of Qatanani supporters Friday that included high ranking New Jersey law enforcement officials and religious leaders from several faiths who said Qatanani had reached out and worked with them.

Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

VATICAN CITY, May 10, 2008 (UPI via COMTEX) -- The Roman Catholic Church, reflecting the love of Latin by Pope Benedict XVI, has opened a Web site at the Vatican written in the church's ancient language.

The Vatican's official Web site began featuring a new Latin section called Sancta Sedes (or Holy See) this week, giving the church its first Latin language online presence, the BBC reported. The Latin page takes its place alongside existing Vatican Web pages in English, French, German, Italian, Spanish and Portuguese.

For most of its long history, all Catholic Church documents were written in Latin, and all masses performed in the language. In the 1960s, however, the Church liberalized its rules and allowed mass to be performed in English and other local languages.

Pope Benedict, however, has begun a push to reinstate Latin's place in the church, the BBC reported.

Along with the new Web site, he has encouraged the use of Latin and has lifted restrictions on celebrating the Latin Tridentine mass.

URL: www.upi.com

Copyright 2008 by United Press International

c. 2008 Religion News Service

LYNCHBURG, Va. -- Nearly a year after his father's death, the Rev. Jonathan Falwell walks up and down the stage of Thomas Road Baptist Church with a series of briefcases behind him like the set for NBC's "Deal or No Deal." There's no pulpit in sight; Falwell prefers visuals to reach his growing flock.

The night before, his older brother, Jerry Falwell Jr., president of nearby Liberty University, hosted a picnic and fireworks for graduating seniors at his farm 30 miles from campus.

Nearly a year after their larger-than-life father died at age 73, the brothers Falwell have each inherited one of his dual roles of pastor and educator -- and each is doing it from the perspective of the next generation.

"Literally, it's like God split him right down the middle and gave certain parts of his skills and abilities to Jerry and others to me," said Jonathan, 41, who assumed his father's pulpit at Thomas Road Baptist Church a month after his father's death May 15, 2007.

Both sons lead ministries that have grown in the last year.

Attendance at Thomas Road has increased, and enrollment is higher at the evangelical school. They give credit to God and their late father for the positive growth, but they also acknowledge the challenges of following his five decades of ministry.

The toughest part, both agree, was simply stepping into their dad's roles in the midst of their grief. Preaching that first Sunday after his father's death was difficult, Jonathan said.

"I served with Dad for 14 years on staff but there's just this huge, exponential jump from an associate pastor to the senior pastor of a church this size," said the energetic, red-haired younger son.

"And Dad, honestly with what he did, he made it look easy and unfortunately, he never told us that it wasn't."

Jerry Jr., the dark-haired, 45-year-old son, expressed similar sentiments after working behind the scenes for two decades at the school his father founded in 1971.

"To suddenly lose Dad and then become the CEO of the largest private university in Virginia was traumatic to say the least," he said. "I was immediately thrust into a position where the rabbit had to climb the tree."

Jonathan said he sought out Houston megachurch pastor Joel Osteen, who was also thrust into a leadership role after he lost his pastor-father. Osteen and others gave him the same advice, which he continues to pass onto his congregation: "When we get to the end of our talents, that's when God takes over."

The back wall at Thomas Road carries a similar message: "Not I, but Christ."

Observers of the ministry have commended the sons for their ability to carry on while admitting the sense of loss they still have with their father's absence.

"Dr. Falwell's shoes are very big to fill, and Jonathan and Jerry Jr. are doing a great job to do that," said Alex Huddleston, a sophomore at Liberty University who attends Thomas Road. "They've made a lot of good improvements for this year, just renovating the campus, and Jonathan is growing the church."

The numbers bear out the sons' successes.

About 12,000 worshippers attend Sunday services at Thomas Road's main sanctuary each week, an increase of about 2,000 from a year ago. If satellite locations are included, the numbers total 17,000.

At Liberty, on-campus enrollment increased from 9,600 in the 2006-07 school year to 10,400 this academic year. Fall enrollment, which has been capped for the first time, is projected at 11,300. Liberty's online distance learning program has reached 27,000 students, exceeding the elder Falwell's goal of 25,000. Revenues grew from $147 million in 2006 to $232 million in 2007.

Jonathan said he initially felt guilty about the church's growth.

"Why is God pouring out all these blessings now?" he wondered. But he said the congregation realized they no longer could rely on his father to carry out its evangelistic mission.

"I told them this: You better not leave it up to me because I don't have the gifts my dad had," Jonathan said. "I think our people have risen to the occasion and decided, you know what? Yeah, we want to reach the world but it's going to take all of us to do it."

Jerry Jr., the businessman in the family who speaks with a gentle Virginia drawl, attributes the growth to the ability of each son to have full-time leadership of one of the two ministries.

"I don't see how Dad did it all," said the older son, who had to quickly trade in "khakis and Crocs" for business suits for his new public appearances.

Scott Thumma, a megachurch scholar and sociologist of religion at Hartford Seminary, said both men -- after apprenticing under their father -- are maintaining some traditions while infusing both ministries with a sense of "youthfulness."

"They had a solid reputation, both the church and the school, for a long time," Thumma said, "but Jerry was getting older and had appealed to a different time and different people."

Church members and ministry insiders alike express some surprise at how well the congregation is thriving.

Friends of the Falwells and of the ministry would have predicted that the university will do just fine, the church may struggle some, because the church's identity ... was so wrapped up in the identity of Jerry Falwell," said Mark DeMoss, a trustee of the university and longtime Falwell family friend.

"I don't know a single person that is not surprised by the developments at that church."

James J.H. Price, religious studies professor at nearby Lynchburg College, said Jonathan's "trendy" approach to Scripture is a contrast from his dad.

"I'm struck that he doesn't try to imitate his father," said Price, who's seen televised broadcasts of the recent sermons in which the younger Falwell has built a house and featured a Lamborghini onstage. "It's not just a Jerry Falwell clone."

Price, who co-authored "Jerry Falwell: An Unauthorized Profile," predicts that Jonathan will have a harder time in the days ahead at Thomas Road than Jerry Jr. over at the university.

"That's easier to keep running efficiently," he said of the school. "Jonathan's on stage every Sunday."

Neither son seems worried about the future. Both have sketched out big plans for the years ahead, with Jonathan hoping to start 500 churches nationally and send 500 missionaries in the next five years.

Jerry Jr. has plans for a new campus bookstore, a student activity center and athletic fields.

Even as they move ahead, the memories of their father are not far away.

The family will mark the anniversary of the elder Falwell's death privately, at his grave on campus that's marked with a cross and an eternal flame and overlooking the Blue Ridge Mountains.

Indeed, their father's presence is still felt in the empire he built in Lynchburg. During the morning service at Thomas Road, Jonathan announced that a 12-minute sermon recorded in the months before his father's death would be broadcast at an upcoming service.

The sermon title? "Three Truths for the Next Generation."

"Friends, we are the next generation," Jonathan told his congregation. "Dad will be preaching to us next Sunday night so we want you to be here for that."

Copyright 2008 Religion News Service. All rights reserved. No part of this transmission may be distributed or reproduced without written permission.

BAD AROLSEN, Germany - A mother and child separated. A father's war wound. An uncle's name on a list.

The unrelated and disparate items are among the discoveries made by 40 Jewish genealogists who spent the past week plumbing a trove of Nazi documents made public after 60 years.

For genealogists of Jewish families, the Holocaust is both a tragedy and a black hole, because so many of the 6 million Jewish victims disappeared without a trace. For years, researchers hoping to fill the gaps have longed to dive into the more than 50 million documents held in this German spa town and entrusted to the International Tracing Service, or ITS.

"The Nazis took away our names and gave us numbers. Our role is to take away the numbers and give back the names," Gary Mokotoff, a genealogist who helped organize the group from Israel, the U.S., Britain and Australia, said Thursday. "There is a wealth of information here."

For decades after World War II, the files were used only to help find missing persons or document atrocities to support compensation claims. But in November, the last of the 11 countries that govern the archive under the auspices of the International Committee of the Red Cross cleared the way for public access.

Since then, interest has skyrocketed. Erich Oetiker, deputy director of the archive, said while the staff of 400 continue to process some 1,000 tracing requests per day, there are now also near daily visits from historians or individuals eager to trace a lost person's fate or view an original document.

American genealogist Sallyann Sack suspected for years that the collection held answers to questions about her family.

In the 1980s, she put in a request trying to trace the birth parents of her adopted cousin, who had survived Buchenwald as a 9-year-old boy, then been brought by her aunt and uncle to the United States. A form letter came back saying the search had turned up nothing.

But digging deeper during her time here, Sack was able to cross-reference the birth mother's second given name and access records of search requests made to the ITS since it opened in 1955 - often detailed letters by individuals who reveal nuggets of family history while seeking a missing loved one.

"I found here that his mother, who was separated from him when he was less than five years old, also had survived," she said. "She came to the U.S. in the same year that he did, in 1949." The mother, if alive, would be 93 and Sack presumes she is dead. The cousin is in his 70s and still alive, but Sack asked not to identify him.

"They never found each other," Sack said of her cousin and his mother, her voice breaking. "If these records had been opened earlier, they might have found each other. I could have found those documents 20 years ago, when she was still alive."

Oetiker says the archive is in constant contact with the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington D.C., as well as Israel's Yad Vashem - both of which hold digitized copies of part of the collection - along with the Polish Institute for National Remembrance.

The Washington museum has drawn up a list of more than 150 German words with English translations to help researchers read the documents: Arbeitslager (slave labor camp)... deportiert (deported)... mosaisch (Jewish)... auf der Flucht erschossen (shot while trying to escape).

Next month, a conference of historians is to meet here to map out the archive's unexplored contents and help determine how best to use the information.

Yet for some, who have struggled to piece together a seamless family picture, even the smallest discoveries can be moving. Tom Weiss of Newton, Mass., found his uncle's name on a yellowing Gestapo list of Jews arrested in France.

"When you see his name on these original lists it has an emotional impact," he said. "It sent chills down my back."

Opening to the public has brought about several key changes - digitization, bright new research rooms, ITS staff eager to share their intimate knowledge of the documents with those seeking and often making a human connection through a find.

Esther Mandelayl, an American who immigrated to Israel two years ago, came to research the fate of Jews from Lublin, Poland. Instead she made an unexpected personal discovery.

Her parents survived the war, but her late father never talked about what happened to him or why he had a long scar down his neck.

But her unusual family name came up on an index card from a displaced persons camp in Italy. It contained detailed information about her father. "It listed every place he had been," she said - from Russia, to Tashkent, to surviving a shot to his neck by the Nazis by falling into a cellar and being left for dead.

She said she could barely believe it: "I have every answer to all my questions about my father's story - the scar, everything."

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On the Net:

Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

BEIJING - The son of American evangelist Billy Graham said Friday he is opposed to missionary work at this summer's Beijing Olympic Games.

Franklin Graham, also an evangelist, was speaking to reporters Friday during a visit to Beijing for meetings with the Communist Party-controlled Protestant church movement.

He said he wanted to encourage authorities to resolve conflicts with the church, but would not criticize policies that critics say limit the church's independence and religious rights.

While some Christian groups have said they plan to proselytize during the August games, Graham said he was against that because Chinese law does not permit such actions.

"I would not support any illegal activity at all," Graham said.

While the Protestant church has grown rapidly in China in recent years, the party maintains strict control over the official church, seminaries and individual congregations. Christians who meet in independent, unauthorized congregations - often private homes - are frequently subject to harassment and arrest.

In the most recent such report, police raided a gathering of about 40 members of the Chengdu Qiuyu Blessings Church at a resort near the southwestern city of Chengdu on May 2, New York-based Human Rights Watch reported.

Officers joined by officials of the local religious affairs bureau told the participants they were "suspected of being involved in illegal religious practices," the group said. Members were detained for hours and photographed, and Bibles, hymnals and Bible study materials were confiscated.

Separately, three leaders of unauthorized churches in the eastern province of Shandong were detained during a Bible study group on Thursday morning, the Texas-based monitoring group, China Aid Association reported.

Among them, one pastor from Taiwan was expelled and banned from returning to China for five years as part of China's ban on missionary work of all types.

Graham, whose mother was born in China where her father worked as a physician, said he had seen improvements in religious freedoms in the 20 years since he had been coming to the country, but said Christians in China must obey the law as they work with authorities to "resolve these areas of misunderstanding or where there is tension."

"I think the government of China is recognizing that more and more and are seeing the value of a personal faith that people can have and so I'm here to encourage that," Graham said.

"I'm not here to condemn, I'm here to work with them and help to build better bridges of understanding between Christians and government," he said.

On Sunday, Graham was due to address congregants at the 6,000-seat Chong-Yi Church - China's largest.

Graham said he sympathized with the victims of deadly rioting in Tibet last month and said he was encouraged by new talks between Beijing and Tibet's exiled Buddhist leader, the Dalai Lama.

"Dialogue is always the best approach," Graham said.

Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

c. 2008 Religion News Service

(UNDATED) After a natural disaster strikes in the United States, the question almost immediately arises: Where was God? Or, did God allow this to happen?

Half a world away, as Myanmar digs out from a devastating cyclone that experts say could claim 100,000 lives or more, the question -- and answer -- are quite different.

About 80 percent of Myanmar's estimated 52 million people are Buddhist, and many there rely on the principle of karma to explain the storm, scholars say.

Specifically, many Myanmar people believe Cyclone Nargis is a karmic consequence of military rulers' brutal crackdown on Buddhist monks last fall, said Ingrid Jordt, an anthropology professor at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee who was once a Buddhist nun in Myanmar and maintains ties there.

"The immediate explanation was: This is retribution for killing monks," Jordt said. "In any cataclysm, human beings seek to make sense of something that completely destroys the continuity of life. It's an attempt to bring the world back into harmony."

The word "karma" is often misunderstood by Westerners as one's inescapable destiny, scholars say. In Sanskrit, the word means "action" and refers to the act that creates one's fate, not fate itself. For Buddhists, particularly those in Southeast Asia, karma regulates morality as firmly as Newton's law rules motion: to every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.

Karma extends to other Buddhist traditions as well. The Dalai Lama has reportedly said that Tibet's loss of sovereignty in the 1950s can be at least partially attributed to his country's feudal past. A spokesman for the exiled spiritual leader could not be reached Thursday (May 8) to clarify his comments.

Hindus also believe in karma. Gandhi claimed that a 1934 earthquake was punishment for India's harsh treatment of its perpetually lower-class "untouchables," Indian author Arvind Sharma has written.

A distant echo of such ideas can perhaps be heard in Christian leaders who tied the 9/11 attacks and Hurricane Katrina to sexual immorality in New York City and New Orleans.

American Zen Buddhist and author Brad Warner said blaming Myanmar's cyclone on bad karma hues uncomfortably close to those ideas.

"To me it sounds like we're just substituting karma for God," he said.

And with so many innocent victims, karma seems a harsh and indiscriminate explanation, Warner said.

But in Myanmar, weather is tied to rulers' behavior, Jordt said.

Forecasts in the country's state-run papers almost always read, "The weather is fair throughout the land." It's a way of saying everything is OK karmawise, Jordt said.

But last fall the military junta imprisoned or killed dozens of Buddhist monks who took to the streets to protest rapid inflation. Monks are revered in Myanmar and violence against them is thought to buy one a ticket to hell.

After that, Jordt said, "people knew something was going to happen."

Copyright 2008 Religion News Service. All rights reserved. No part of this transmission may be distributed or reproduced without written permission.

Dharmsala, India - The Dalai Lama's envoys and Chinese officials disagreed more than they agreed at weekend talks on how to move beyond the unrest in Tibet, one of the Tibetan spiritual leader's representatives said Thursday.

Both sides made "concrete proposals" that could be part of a future agenda for discussions on Tibet, said Lodi Gyari, a special envoy for the Dalai Lama.

But divisions remained between the two sides.

"We disagreed more than we agreed," Gyari said. "Our counterparts again made baseless allegations against the Dalai Lama for derailing and sabotaging the Beijing Olympics. But we made it very clear that the Dalai Lama supported the Olympics from day one."

Beijing has repeatedly accused the Dalai Lama and his supporters of fomenting recent anti-government protests in Tibet - an allegation the spiritual leader denies.

On Thursday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang again called on the Dalai Lama to "stop separatist activities."

"The Central Government's attitude is serious, honest and sincere," Qin said. "We hope the Dalai side will also exert sincerity with concrete actions, to truly stop separatist activities, stop plotting and provoking violent actions, and stop disrupting the Beijing Olympics so as to create the condition for further contacts."

The March demonstrations turned violent and sparked a security crackdown. The Chinese response spurred demonstrations that disrupted the Olympic torch's worldwide relay during several international stops.

Gyari did not give specifics about the proposals both sides made at the talks. But he said the Tibetan side called for the release of people detained following the March unrest and for authorities to allow visitors, including journalists, into Tibet. The Himalayan region has been largely sealed since the recent violence broke out.

The Tibetan side also pressed Chinese officials for an end to Beijing's "patriotic re-education" campaign in the region, which forces monks to denounce the Dalai Lama.

But it was far from clear that the Chinese were ready to listen, Gyrai said.

"The Chinese did not give any assurances. They strongly defended their views," he told reporters in Dharmsala, the seat of the Tibetan governmen-in-exile.

Representatives of the Tibetan exile government met with Chinese officials over the weekend for the first time since 2007. The talks were prompted by the resurgence of violence in Tibet, which China has governed since the 1950s.

The March unrest marked the most widespread and sustained action against Beijing's rule in decades, focusing attention on accusations that China's policies in the region are eroding its traditional Buddhist culture and mainly benefit Chinese who moved there since its 1951 occupation by Communist troops.

China says 22 people died in violence in Tibet's capital of Lhasa, while overseas Tibet supporters say many times that number have been killed in protests and the ensuing security crackdown across Tibetan regions of western China.

"We made it clear that the events in Tibet are the inescapable consequences of wrong policies of the authorities toward the Tibetans," Gyari said in a statement released ahead of the news conference. "The recent crisis in Tibet is a clear symptom of deeply felt grievances and resentment of the Tibetans."

The talks were considered informal, and Gyari said the two sides were now trying to finalize dates for formal discussions.

Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

After Pope Benedict XVI's first papal visit to the U.S. last month, about 60 percent of Americans now report favorable views of the pontiff, a modest bump from pre-trip opinions, according to new polls.

Before his April 15-20 visit to Washington, D.C. and New York, the German-born pope was largely unknown in the U.S. three years after his election.

In March, more than 80 percent of Americans had said they heard little or nothing about him, according to a survey conducted by the Pew Research Center for People & the Press and the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life.

After Benedict met with President Bush, celebrated public Masses before huge crowds and repeatedly spoke of the pain and shame caused by his church's sexual abuse scandal, his "approval ratings" increased.

Sixty-one percent of Americans now say they hold a favorable or very favorable view of the pope, up from 52 percent before the trip. More than half of Americans now say the pope does an excellent or good job of promoting relations with other faiths, up from 39 percent in March.

Almost 40 percent say Benedict did an excellent or good job of addressing the sex abuse scandal, but there are no pre-visit comparison numbers. Forty-eight percent say the pope did a fair or poor job of addressing the scandal.

Roughly 40 percent of Americans said the most meaningful part of Benedict's visit for them was his meeting with survivors of clergy sexual abuse, according to a separate poll conducted by Marist College in Poughkeepsie, N.Y.

Following that, 14 percent picked the pope's visit to the site of the 9/11 attacks in New York City as most meaningful, according to the poll, which was commissioned by the Knights of Columbus.

The margin of error on the Pew poll was plus or minus 3.5 percentage points. For the Marist poll, the margin of error was 3.1 percentage points.

Copyright 2008 Religion News Service. All rights reserved. No part of this transmission may be distributed or reproduced without written permission.

Washington -- Evangelical Christians should be defined by their theology -- and not their politics -- to avoid becoming "useful idiots" of a political party, a group of leaders said Wednesday (May 7) in a new statement.

The document, "An Evangelical Manifesto," reflects the frustration of some within a movement that claims about one in four Americans over how they are perceived by others and who can speak for them.

The 19-page document declares that evangelicals err when they try to politicize faith and use Christian beliefs for political purposes.

"That way faith loses its independence, the church becomes `the regime at prayer,' Christians become `useful idiots' for one political party or another, and the Christian faith becomes an ideology in its purest form," the document reads.

The statement, however, resisted calls to privatize or personalize the faith, saying their is an important place for evangelical voices in the public square.

"Called to an allegiance higher than party, ideology and nationality, we Evangelicals see it our duty to engage with politics, but our equal duty never to be completely equated with any party, partisan ideology, economic system, or nationality," the document says.

The manifesto, which at times upbraids evangelicals for contributing to their own image problems, comes about six months after a poll showed that many young people grade Christianity as being judgmental and hypocritical. Drafters of the new document said they knew other evangelicals who were "ashamed" or "reluctant" to describe themselves as evangelical.

A nine-member steering committee spent three years working on the manifesto. The document's initial 75 signatories are evangelical leaders from major coalitions, educational institutions and denominations. They include National Association of Evangelicals President Leith Anderson, best-selling author and megachurch pastor Max Lucado and the Rev. Jack Hayford, president of the International Church of the Foursquare Gospel.

Critics claim some key names -- including conservative evangelical leaders such as Focus on the Family founder James Dobson and Southern Baptist public policy executive Richard Land -- are missing from the statement.

"The select group drafting the manifesto apparently excludes traditional conservative, pro-life and pro-family evangelical voices," said Janice Shaw Crouse of Concerned Women for America, who also questioned the timing of the document's release at the end of the primary election season.

The Rev. John Huffman, pastor of St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church in Newport Beach, Calif., said the statement's steering committee had conversations with Dobson, though his board recommended he not sign it.

Dobson spokesman Gary Schneeberger confirmed this and said the board's reasoning was a private matter.

"Our umbrella is large," said Huffman. "Not all will sign it but we do feel we do need to bring our particular perspective."

Land, the president of the Southern Baptist Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, said Wednesday he had not seen the statement before it was released.

"People have a right to invite who they want to to their party," Land said, but he added that the question about religious involvement in politics is a "false dichotomy."

"It's not an either/or," he said. "It's both."

David Neff, editor-in-chief of Christianity Today magazine and a member of the steering committee, said the media's equating "value voters" with evangelicals have contributed to the confusion about who evangelicals are.

"If there's an election that this is about, it's the election of 2000, not the election of 2008," said Neff.

The document is intended to explain evangelicals to those outside their fold, as well as to challenge evangelicals to better represent their faith.

" ... We are troubled by the fact that the confusions and corruptions surrounding the term `Evangelical' have grown so deep that the character of what it means has been obscured and its importance lost," the manifesto reads. "Many people outside the movement now doubt that `Evangelical' is ever positive, and many inside now wonder whether the term any longer serves a useful purpose."

The statement calls for a reaffirmation of evangelical identity -- including the importance of sharing the belief that Jesus is the only Savior of mankind. It expresses concern that "a generation of culture warring" has created a backlash against religion in public life.

It also called for an openness to work with people of good will, including those of other faiths or no faith. The document also calls for reform of behavior within evangelical ranks.

"All too often we have set out high, clear statements of the authority of the Bible," it reads, "but flouted them with lives and lifestyles that are shaped more by our own sinful preferences and by modern fashions and convenience."

Others among the 75 initial signatories are Nueva Esperanza USA President Luis Cortes; Wheaton College President Duane Litfin; Samuel Rodriguez, president of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference; Jim Wallis, founder and editor of Sojourners magazine; and Frank Wright, president of the National Religious Broadcasters.

Copyright 2008 Religion News Service. All rights reserved. No part of this transmission may be distributed or reproduced without written permission.

YANGON, Myanmar - International aid began to trickle into Myanmar on Tuesday, but the stricken Irrawaddy delta, the nation's rice bowl where 22,000 people perished and twice as many are missing, remained cut off from the world.

In the former capital of Yangon, soldiers from the repressive military regime were out on the streets in large numbers for the first time since Cyclone Nargis hit over the weekend, helping to clear away rubble. Buddhist monks and Catholic nuns wielded axes and long knives to remove ancient, fallen trees that were once the city's pride.

However, coastal areas of the delta worst hit by the high winds and tidal surges were out of reach for aid workers, isolated by flooding and road damage.

Electricity remained cut for nearly all 6.5 million residents of Yangon, while water supply was restored in only a few areas. Some residents waited in lines for nine hours or more to buy gasoline to fuel generators and their cars. At one gas station in the Yangon suburb of Sanchaung, fistfights broke out, with weary residents hitting each other with sticks after someone tried to cut in line.

The U.N.'s World Food Program said international aid began to flow, with 800 tons of food getting through to the first of nearly 1 million people left homeless by the cyclone.

Concerns mounted over the lack of food, water and shelter in the delta region and adjacent Yangon, where nearly a quarter of Myanmar's 57 million people live, as well as the spread of disease in a country with one of the world's worst health systems.

"Our biggest fear is that the aftermath could be more lethal than the storm itself," said Caryl Stern, who heads the U.N. Children's Fund in the United States.

After days of little military presence in the streets, soldiers were out Tuesday clearing massive felled trees with power saws and axes and using their bare hands to lift debris into trucks.

State television played up the effort, showing images of a government truck distributing water, though residents said they hadn't seen any water trucks around the city. There were no images of the hundreds of monks helping the recovery effort.

The broadcaster in its news program Wednesday quoted Yangon official Gen. Tha Aye as saying the situation was "returning to normal." He was shown visiting a Yangon-area village where residents were cutting apart downed trees and brush to clear the roads.

The streets of Yangon were filled Tuesday with residents carrying buckets to bring water from monasteries or buy it from households with generators that could pump it from wells. The main plant of Dagon Ice Factory, a drinking water brand, turned people away, posting signs saying "no more."

While residents of Yangon struggled to clear away the rubble, the Irrawaddy delta was cut off.

Images on state television Tuesday showed mangled trees and electricity poles sprawled across roads as well as roofless houses ringed by water in the delta, a lacework of paddy fields and canals where the nation's rice crop is grown.

Based on a satellite map made available by the United Nations, the storm's damage was concentrated over about a 11,600-square-mile area along the Andaman Sea and Gulf of Martaban coastlines - less than 5 percent of the country, but home to nearly a quarter of the country's population.

A C-130 military transport plane carrying government aid from neighboring Thailand flew into Yangon, where an Associated Press reporter watched it unload rice, canned fish, water and dried noodles. The goods- the first overseas aid to arrive in the stricken nation - were transferred to a helicopter, which Myanmar military officers said would ferry them to the most stricken areas.

The White House said Tuesday the U.S. would send more than $3 million to help cyclone victims, following an initial emergency contribution of $250,000.

President Bush called on the junta to allow the United States to send in a disaster assessment team, which he said would allow for quicker and larger aid infusions.

"The United States has made an initial aid contribution but we want to do a lot more," Bush said. "We're prepared to move U.S. Navy assets to help find those who have lost their lives, to help find the missing, to help stabilize the situation. But in order to do so, the military junta must allow our disaster assessment teams into the country."

Bryan Whitman, a Pentagon spokesman, said the Navy has three ships in the Gulf of Thailand - the USS Essex, the USS Juneau and the USS Harper's Ferry - preparing to participate in an annual exercise with Thailand's naval forces.

Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell said two aircraft carriers - the USS Kitty Hawk and the USS Nimitz - as well as the USS Blue Ridge, are also within reach of Myanmar. The Essex, an amphibious assault ship, has 23 helicopters aboard, including 19 that are capable of lifting cargo from ship to shore, as well as 1,800 Marines.

The Myanmar military, which regularly accuses the United States of trying to subvert the regime, is unlikely to allow a U.S. military presence in its territory.

But reflecting the seriousness of the crisis, the government has appealed for foreign aid and also announced Tuesday that it is delaying a crucial constitutional referendum in the hardest-hit areas.

Australia announced Wednesday that it will give $3 million in aid to Myanmar.

State radio said Saturday's vote on a military-backed draft constitution would be delayed until May 24 in 40 of 45 townships in the Yangon area and seven in the wider delta.

Pro-democracy advocates, including the political party of detained Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, have denounced the constitution as a tool to perpetuate the military's grip on power.

Inadequate warnings about the approaching storm and the ineffectiveness of the government in its aftermath could sway angry voters to reject the charter.

State radio said most of the 22,464 dead, as well as the 41,000 missing, were in the densely populated Irriwaddy delta, home to 6 million people. It said 671 were killed in the Yangon area. Brig. Gen. Kyaw San, the information minister, said most fatalities were caused by tidal waves.

The death toll is the highest from a natural disaster in southeast Asia since the tsunami of December 2004 killed 229,866 people in Indonesia, Thailand and other parts of southeast and south Asia.

With 61 dead, Myanmar was largely spared the devastating impact of the tsunami, which killed 130,000 people in Indonesia and 35,000 in Sri Lanka. In its wake, an extensive warning system was established in much of the Pacific region, but Myanmar did not participate. Disaster experts cited lack of funding and said the country planned to rely on regional systems.

As the cyclone came bearing down on Myanmar late Friday, television broadcasts warned of 120-mph winds and 12-foot storm surges. But electricity is so spotty in Myanmar that few households, especially in the poor rural areas that were worst hit, were aware of the warnings.

The U.N. World Food Program offered a grim assessment of the destruction: up to 1 million people homeless, some villages almost totally destroyed and vast rice-growing areas wiped out.

Rice futures rose Tuesday in response to the news that vast swaths of Myanmar's rice-growing areas had been wiped out. Myanmar grows 11 million tons of rice per year but exports only a small fraction, representing about 1.7 percent of world trade, according to USDA figures.

It had been forecast to export about 400,000 tons this year, and concerns that Myanmar may not meet that target helped push U.S. rice futures 10 cents higher to settle at $21.15 per 100 pounds Tuesday on the Chicago Board of Trade.

The military government said it was trying to move in aid and some foreign agencies managed to send assessment teams, including five from UNICEF.

Richard Horsey, Bangkok-based spokesman for the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Aid, noted the closest airport to the Irriwaddy delta is in Yangon.

"The biggest problem will be to reach the affected areas. There will be a huge logistical problem," he said, adding that "for remote areas, assessment teams ... will need to go by helicopters and boats."

The delta is criss-crossed with waterways, but Horsey said they are not easily accessible, even during normal times.

"The big concern is waterborne diseases. So that's why it's crucial to get safe water in. Then mosquito nets, cooking kits and clothing in the next few days," he said. "Food is not an emergency priority. Water and shelter are."

Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Benedict called it a "truly unique event" and offered a "thank you" in Chinese at the end of the hour-long concert.

He praised music as a bridge between cultures and peoples and expressed greetings "to all the people of China as they prepare for the Olympic Games." The pontiff said he wanted to reach out "to your entire people" and that he had a "special thought" for Chinese Catholics loyal to the papacy.

Benedict, a classical music lover, sat in an embroidered ivory velvet chair and listened intently to Mozart's "Requiem." He applauded at the end.

"This is a glorious moment that will be cherished long in our memories," conductor Yu Long said in brief remarks to the pope and guests before the concert began. "I hope tonight's performance will help spread a message of peace and love."

Ties between the Vatican and China's communist government have been strained for decades.

"Music is beyond any religion, culture, language, and I would say music is the language of God because language is understanding each other," the conductor told The Associated Press in an interview before the evening concert in the Paul VI auditorium.

He said he wanted to send a message to the Chinese people about the value of understanding Western culture - and added: "especially I hope the whole world can also understand us."

Yu led the 75-member orchestra in the "Requiem" and a Chinese folk song, "Jasmine Flower."

The orchestra was accompanied by the 70-member Shanghai Opera House chorus.

"I am especially honored to perform at the Vatican and for the pope," he said, calling it a "double honor" because Benedict is a Mozart expert.

Benedict has made the improvement of relations with Beijing a priority of his papacy.

China's officially atheist Communist Party cut ties with the Vatican in 1951 and the two sides have not restored formal ties.

Beijing objects to the Vatican's tradition of having the pope name his own bishops, calling it interference in China.

China appoints bishops for the state-sanctioned Catholic church. Still, many of the country's estimated 12 million Catholics worship in congregations outside the state-approved church.

It wasn't clear if the event would move the Vatican and China toward reconciliation, but the Vatican's No. official, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, was quoted by Italian news agencies as saying Wednesday that the concert was a sign of hope for improvement.

Although they have no diplomatic ties, China's ambassador to Italy attended the concert.

It is not the first time that classical music has served a diplomatic purpose. In February, the New York Philharmonic played in North Korea.

The Chinese orchestra played for the Italian Senate in 2004 but did not stop at the Vatican then. Still, Yu called that performance a first step toward performing for the Vatican.

"I'm not in politics but everybody feels that music can bring peace and love to peoples," he said, speaking in English at a hotel near Rome.

Yu, who studied in Berlin, said earlier that he planned to greet Benedict in the pontiff's native German.

Before the concert, violinist Chan Zhao said she was "very honored, very moved and a little bit nervous."

The orchestra will also perform in Venice, Italy, and Vienna, Austria.

Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

c. 2008 Religion News Service

JERUSALEM -- When Israel celebrates its 60th anniversary starting Wednesday (May 7) night, the event will touch people of different faiths in very different ways.

Jews and Christian Zionists around the world will mark the milestone with celebratory prayer services in synagogues and churches -- just one day after mourning the 22,000 Israeli soldiers who have died in service of their country.

Many Muslims -- as well as some Christians and Jews -- who are critical of Israel's policies have organized events marking the "Nakba," or "catastrophe," the term Arabs use to describe the establishment of Israel. Members of other Israeli Arab minorities such as Druze and Bedouins, who are loyal to the state and serve in its armed forces, may attend their Jewish friends' barbeques, all the while quietly remembering their families' wartime experiences.

Such a dissonance is natural, said Rabbi David Rosen, director of the American Jewish Committee's department for Interreligious Affairs, because Israel's creation was the realization of a dream for some, and the end of a dream for others.

In Judaism, Rosen explains, "people, faith and land are inextricably intertwined." Throughout 2,000 years of exile, "the Jewish people maintained fidelity to the land of Israel, and for the majority of Jews and many Christians, a Jewish state was and remains a prophetic fulfillment."

For them, Israel's existence "testifies to God's faithfulness to his promise." Arabs and Muslims, meanwhile, almost universally view Israel's establishment "entirely through the perspective of Palestinians who were tragically displaced during the conflict surrounding the establishment of the state."

Bishop Munib Younan, who heads the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan and the Holy Land, said that while Israel's creation provided a permanent safe haven for Jews, the ensuing war caused irreparable damage to Palestinian society.

When the United Nations voted in 1947 to divide Palestine into two separate Arab and Jewish states (Israeli independence followed in May 1948), the region's Arabs rejected the plan. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinian Christians and Muslims either fled or were forced out of their homes while Israel fought off invading Arab armies.

Simultaneously, hundreds of thousands of Jewish refugees flooded into the fledgling state, either because they had survived the Holocaust or because they had been forced out of their homes in Arab countries.

Israel's 60th anniversary is particularly emotional, Younan said, because it evokes this refugee experience in both Arabs and Jews. It is time "for the Palestinians to understand the deep trauma of the Holocaust in the heart of the Jewish people, and time for Israeli Jews to understand the deep trauma of the occupation in the heart of the Palestinians."

Younan, a refugee whose family once lived in Beersheva, in what is now southern Israel, would like this anniversary year "to be a time of truth and justice for both Palestinians and Israelis. Israelis read history through their own eyes, and we (Palestinians) have our own perspective." For Younan, justice will mean the end of what he calls "Israel's occupation" and the establishment of two states "co-existing, side-by-side in peace."

Until that day comes, Younan wants Israel to allow free movement between the Palestinian territories and holy sites in Israel, halting the army's "sometimes humiliating" treatment of clergy and parishioners.

"When people are imprisoned in an area, it creates extremism," Younan asserted. "When all Christians and Muslims can go to their holy sites and pray there, it will create the atmosphere for reconciliation."

An Israeli government spokesperson said Israel "does everything possible to permit access to holy places, but that the safety of its citizens must be its first consideration."

If 60 years of bloodshed have taught the region's people anything, Younan said, it is that "we have to learn how we can share this country.

We can no longer enter the vicious cycle of blame."

Sheikh Abdulaziz Bukhari of the Nakshabandia Sufi order of Islam, who heads the Uzbek Cultural Center in Jerusalem, agrees that mutual forgiveness is only way to achieve peace.

"Our creator must have a reason why he brought us together. I don't think he brought us together in this holy land to kill each other," he said. "He brought us together to learn more about him through forgiving and respecting each other for the sake of our longing for the love of God."

Bukhari, who was born the same year Israel was established, said the 60th anniversary "is like two sides of the same coin."

"On the one hand, I am happy that after the Nazis killed 6 million innocent Jewish children, women and men, my home country where my family has lived since ... 1616 provided shelter and asylum for a nation of wonderful people without a land. Islam, the religion of peace, has always protected the rights of the persecuted ones."

Yet at the same time, Bukhari said he is "saddened" that "many of my fellow community members feel they are suffering under occupation and find they are not equally treated by law and justice, and that their lives are of less importance than that of a Jew."

Without downplaying Palestinian suffering, Michael Oren, an Israeli Jewish historian and senior fellow at the Jerusalem-based Shalem Center, insists that "the Palestinian catastrophe was almost entirely self-inflicted. Sixty years ago the Palestinians were offered an independent state and they rejected it with violence."

What the world needs to recognize, Oren said, "is that Israel has a right to exist. The Jewish people are a nation and every nation has a right to live out its national destiny. Israel is the only country in the world where Jews as Jews can and must take responsibility for their successes and their failure and live in authentic Hebrew culture."

Sixty years after its tumultuous birth, "Israel remains the greatest privilege and greatest challenge to confront the Jewish people in 2,000 years."

"Quite simply," he said, "it's the greatest story of modern times."

Copyright 2008 Religion News Service. All rights reserved. No part of this transmission may be distributed or reproduced without written permission.

Modin, Israel - Israel's Reform Jews have dedicated the first non-Orthodox synagogue to receive state funding, after a long court battle that highlighted the rift among the country's different streams of Judaism.

The Reform Yozma congregation dedicated the synagogue on Monday after fighting for the better part of a decade for state funding equivalent to what Orthodox congregations receive. After arguing their case twice before Israel's Supreme Court, they got what they wanted: a prefabricated, two-room building worth about $200,000 on a plot of government land in the center of Modiin, a new town between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.

"This is a substantial step in recognizing different streams of Judaism in the state of Israel," said Rabbi Kinneret Shiryon, who leads the 240-family congregation.

The Israeli government has long funded Orthodox synagogues, even paying rabbis' salaries.

The Orthodox establishment dominates Jewish life in Israel and hotly opposes recognition or assistance to the more liberal streams - Reform and Conservative Judaism.

Compared with the United States, where more than a third of Jewish adults consider themselves Reform, Israel's 25 Reform congregations are struggling for recognition.

Religion in Israel "has traditionally been an either-or proposition," said Rabbi Uri Regev, president of the World Union for Progressive Judaism. Most Israelis consider themselves religious or secular and don't accept the liberal streams.

Groups like Regev's want to change that. "There's more than one way to be Jewish," he said.

But some reject the move away from Orthodox practice, including allowing women and homosexuals to become rabbis. Avraham Ravitz, a lawmaker in the ultra-Orthodox United Torah Judaism party, said liberal Jews are trying to force Israel to recognize a movement that many do not consider true Judaism.

"As a democrat I would say everyone has his right to whatever they wish," Ravitz said. "But on the other side I don't think people should peel away what is holy to me."

The power of religious political parties in the Israeli government may be one factor keeping funds and recognition away from Reform and Conservative synagogues, Shiryon said. She said many Israelis believe Orthodox Jews are the only ones who "keep the coals of Jewish identity burning."

Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Vatican City -- Seeking to stop Mormons from posthumously baptizing Catholic ancestors, the Vatican has instructed bishops around the world not to share parish registers with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

The Vatican's Congregation for the Clergy issued the directive in a letter to national bishops' conferences in early April, according to Catholic News Service. The letter referred to "grave reservations" expressed by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Catholic Church's highest doctrinal body.

The Rev. James Massa, an official of the U.S. bishops' conference, told CNS that the Vatican had acted to prevent the use of church records for the "proxy baptisms" of deceased Catholics by Mormons, which the letter calls a "detrimental practice."

Latter-day Saints, commonly known as Mormons, believe that by performing such baptisms they can offer their ancestors the chance to become Mormons after death.

Massa acknowledged that the Vatican's action might complicate dialogue between the Catholics and Mormons, but said the "purpose of interreligious dialogue is not only to identify agreements, but also to identify differences."

Relations between the two churches took a step forward in April, during Pope Benedict XVI's visit to the U.S., when Mormon representatives took part for the first time in a prayer service led by a pope.

An LDS church spokesman declined to comment on the Vatican's letter, saying that church officials had not yet seen the document.

Copyright 2008 Religion News Service. All rights reserved. No part of this transmission may be distributed or reproduced without written permission.

Debates on homosexuality and church structure may have captured the bulk of attention, but that's not all United Methodists did at their General Conference in Fort Worth, Texas.

They also heard addresses from the famous (President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf of Liberia) and a father of the famous (Bill Gates Sr.).

By the time the two-week conference wrapped up on Friday (May 2) Methodists, including almost 1,000 lay and ordained delegates, had sifted through more than 1,500 proposed resolutions.

Debate and "holy conferencing" lasted long into the night, leaving many a delegate bleary-eyed.

When all was said and done, the 11.5 million-member church largely upheld its status quo on sexuality issues. It will continue to declare homosexual practice "incompatible with Christian teaching," ban gay clergy from Methodist pulpits, and bar ministers from celebrating liturgical rites for same-sex unions.

However, delegates did agree to condemn homophobia, and to allow a church agency to develop materials to assist local churches on the issue.

Methodists did not take action to remove transgender pastors from ministry, meaning the Rev. Drew Phoenix, who transitioned from female to male about two years ago, may continue as pastor of his Baltimore congregation.

Among other actions taken by Methodists at the General Conference:

-- Voted down petitions seeking selective divestment of church funds from companies that profit from products or services that "cause harm to Israelis and Palestinians, or support "Israeli occupation of Palestinian land."

-- Continued the church's 35-year membership in the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice.

-- Elected the Rev. Susan Henry-Crowe as the first female president of the Judicial Council, the church's supreme court; four others were elected to join her on the nine-member court.

-- Refined the church's mission statement to read: "The mission of the church is to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world."

-- Planned to reduce the number of bishops in four of the church's five geographic jurisdictions in the U.S. by 2012.

-- Approved the creation of a hymnal revision committee, which will report back in 2012, and a new "companion litany," for the church's social creed.

-- Opened the door for dramatic changes to how the church governs itself, allowing more input from African and Asian jurisdictions, which are rapidly growing.

-- Approved full communion with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, allowing the nation's two largest mainline Protestant churches to support each other's ministries and possibly share clergy.

-- Raised the mandatory retirement age for bishops from 68 to 70 years old.

-- Formally received the Cote d'Ivoire delegation as full members.

-- Approved a $462 million budget for the next four years.

Copyright 2008 Religion News Service. All rights reserved. No part of this transmission may be distributed or reproduced without written permission.