Author Archives: Fred Yi

Zen Convert

Posted on by

BOB ABERNETHY, anchor: Every year in New York’s Central Park, the Buddhist magazine TRICYCLE sponsors a demonstration of Buddhist practices called “Change Your Mind Day.” That refers not to conversion but to exploring ways to become more mindful, more fully aware, and to meditate. We talked with Jane Smith, an architect, about the kind of Buddhism she practices — Zen.

JANE SMITH: I grew up in the Roman Catholic tradition and loved it. But then, when I came to New York, I thought, I’ve got to figure out a way to be able to handle these stresses that I’m taking on. And so I started thinking, what can I do in order to release the tension and yet still be able to embrace the joy of doing what I really love to do, which is the architecture and the creative skills and the challenge of being in an intense workplace and taking on New York? So I really went on a quest.

The Zen practice and the Buddhist tradition [are] based on nature and space and simplicity. It really was life-changing, mind-changing for me. One of the big differences for me between the two traditions is the idea of how we’re born. In the Western tradition, there is the idea of original sin. The Eastern tradition comes from the point of view that we’re born perfect, and every moment is really complete and perfect.

Now my practice is part of my day-to-day life. I get up very early in the morning, and I sit for a half an hour with my legs crossed.


Jane Smith

When you do meditation practice, there’s a lot of pain. You’re sitting there cross-legged, which is not a Western way of sitting. You look at the pain in the knee, and you witness: “That’s pain in my knee.” It’s really amazing that, as you look at it in this kind of nonjudgmental, not clenching around it, freaking out [way], it starts releasing.

And that’s the same thing with our thought. Things come up — the stresses that are coming up through the day. But as something comes up, the practice is to allow it to be there, like the clouds that move overhead. The clouds come and you see them and then they pass away. And so if an anxiety comes up, I look at it, and by looking at it, it really — it diffuses and moves on. And then I have a moment of — and maybe it’s a small moment — of just peace and relaxation. But it clears my head. It makes me realize again what’s important to me in life: being aware of every sound and everything that’s going on around you. And as you do that, you let go of the difference between yourself and the other things out there. You become the sounds on the street. But, again, it doesn’t last, because we’re in our human nature. And our human nature is to keep pushing ourselves down, being really tough on ourselves. And I’m, you know, boy, I’m big on that one.

How do you not be a bystander in your life but … be an active participant in your life? What I get from Zen Buddhism is the ability to live this life, this moment, now. To really appreciate everything as it happens in front of me and to be able to have the tools to embrace it. That’s it; that’s it for me.

BELIEF & PRACTICE . Kosher Certification

Posted on by

BOB ABERNETHY, anchor: In Israel, there is a new flap about what’s kosher — in this case, whether hummus, the popular chickpea spread, conforms to Jewish law as set forth in the Torah if the sesame seeds that are an ingredient have been shelled and roasted by non-Jews. An influential former chief rabbi says no. Other religious officials disagree.

In most cases, as in this country, the question is not who is preparing kosher food, but how it’s done, and that’s the subject for this week’s Belief and Practice. Kosher products in the U.S. are increasingly popular, which means busy days for the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations, the Orthodox Union in New York, the largest group inspecting and certifying kosher food preparation.

Every two years, rabbis and rabbinical students from around the world assemble in New York for a series of lectures on kosher food inspection.

UNIDENTIFIED RABBI: But you must wear waterproof gloves so you don’t burn yourself.

ABERNETHY: It’s called “Ask OU,” for Orthodox Union. For some, it’s a supplement to their formal education. For others, it’s one part of training in becoming a “mashgiach,” the one who makes sure that kosher slaughterhouses, packing plants, factories, and hotel and restaurant kitchens are really kosher.

Rabbi YOSEF GROSSMAN (Director, “Ask OU,” Orthodox Union): So we feel that this opens their eyes, you know; it gives them an overview of what kosher’s all about.

ABERNETHY: “Ask OU” was begun in 1996 and has grown along with the kosher food industry and the greater need for enforcers of kosher standards.

UNIDENTIFIED RABBI: Clean the whole inside, the top, everything, and then we’ll put Sternos® in the bottom.

ABERNETHY: The standards are strict and apply to every step of food preparation. If the inspectors find the facilities and methods and ingredients are all kosher, the final product gets a stamp of approval.

Rabbi MENACHEM GENACK (Rabbinic Administrator, Kashrut Division, Orthodox Union): The word “kosher” means “fit.” It means that the food has been prepared or meets the standards of kosher law, and those laws are first formulated in the Bible. Its purpose is spiritual more than physical.

Rabbi TZVI HERSH WEINREB (Executive VP, Orthodox Union): It takes, kind of, the presence of God and puts it into three meals a day.

ABERNETHY: So what qualifies as kosher?

Rabbi GENACK (Rabbinic Administrator, Orthodox Union): In terms of animals — it has to be animals that have split hooves and chew their cud.

The Bible has a definition for fish as well. In order for it to be a kosher fish it has to have fins and scales. Shellfish and pork are never permitted.

In order for an animal to be kosher, aside from that it has to be slaughtered in a particular way, which is essentially painless, consumption of blood is forbidden in the Torah, and that’s why kosher meat has to be salted, because the salting process extracts the blood from the meat.

The Bible says — the Torah says that you cannot seethe a kid in its mother’s milk. One is forbidden actually to cook meat and milk together.

You’re not even allowed to eat them, you know, in the same meal, or in the same time frame.

Products that are neither dairy nor meat don’t follow these regulations [and] are called “pareve,” which means “neutral” in Yiddish. A pareve product can be eaten with either meat or dairy.

ABERNETHY: For a variety of reasons — religious, health, or just plain preference — there’s been an explosion in the demand for kosher products among Jews and non-Jews over the past decade.

HARVEY BLITZ (Chairman of the Board, Orthodox Union): We now see a resurgence of interest in the study of Jewish texts. And so the breadth of the people who are interested, I think, in keeping kosher is expanding.

Rabbi MOSHE ELEFANT (Executive Rabbinic Coordinator, Orthodox Union): I have opportunity to meet a lot of people who want to be kosher-certified and are not necessarily Jewish or might never have known anything about kosher until they met me. And I many times give them a test. I tell them, “Why don’t you go home tonight and open up your pantry and see how many kosher products you have in your pantry and your refrigerator.” They call me back the next day and say, “Rabbi, I’m almost Jewish — everything in my pantry is already certified!”

Here you have a program that in every product, in every package, every day, you have that kosher symbol. And the people who are looking for it are a loyal group so, in terms of a marketing opportunity, it’s incredible.

Companies call us and say, you know, “We went kosher and our sales skyrocketed.” Like they say, “Kosher is hot.”

Billy Graham’s New York Crusade

Posted on by

 

BOB ABERNETHY, anchor: A grand finale this weekend for evangelist Billy Graham, who is leading what he says will be his last U.S. crusade at Flushing Meadows-Corona Park in New York City. The three-day meeting is his 417th. In a ministry spanning nearly 60 years, Graham has preached in person to more than 210 million people around the world. He says his age and poor health are now forcing him to bring the crusades to an end. Kim Lawton reports.

KIM LAWTON: In 1957, New York City played a key role in making the young and vigorous evangelist Billy Graham an international phenomenon. He preached at Madison Square Garden six nights a week for 16 weeks from May to September. More than two million people attended.

Today, the 86-year-old evangelist says he chose New York to finish off his nearly six decades of crusades.

post04-billygrahamnycReverend BILLY GRAHAM: This will be the last in America, I’m sure. But we do have an invitation to go to London, and we’re praying about that and thinking about that.

LAWTON: Graham’s physical ailments make it difficult for him to preach. He suffers from Parkinson’s disease, fluid on the brain, a recently-broken pelvis and other problems.

WENDY MURRAY ZOBA (Writer-in-Residence, Gordon College): He’s aging as we all know, and there is some bittersweet aspect to watching this one-time towering giant more enfeebled. His message is still as robust as always, but it’s very obvious that his physical disposition and state is much diminished.

Rev. GRAHAM (preaching): But God is love. And God is grace and mercy.

LAWTON: Author Wendy Murray Zoba has written widely about the evangelical community. She says while Graham’s basic message hasn’t changed over the years, he has toned down much of his rhetoric.

post03-billygrahamnycMs. ZOBA: He did start out with a very flamboyant, zealous, kind of in-your-face approach. But he quickly understood his role in a more circumspect way. He mellowed his approach to his public persona, and he truly became a unifier.

LAWTON: Graham admits there were times in his past when he got too politically involved, particularly during the Nixon era. He says he now avoids politics altogether.

Rev. GRAHAM: If I get up and talk about some political issue, it divides the audience. And what I want is a united audience to hear only the Gospel. There are many times that I went too far in talking about such issues, and I think this time I want to stick only to the Gospel.

LAWTON: This week, Graham told a packed news conference he’s very aware that he’s coming to the end of his ministry and his life.

Rev. GRAHAM: I’ve been asked so many times lately, do I fear death No, I look forward to death with great anticipation. I’m looking forward to seeing God face to face. And that could happen any day.

LAWTON: He says he has confidence in God for the future.

Rev. GRAHAM: The Bible says that Jesus is coming back to this earth. And someday he’s going to reign. And there’ll be no tears, no suffering, no death — a wonderful future. And I hope I’ll meet all of you there. And bring your camera, because I may have one too!

LAWTON: I’m Kim Lawton reporting.

William Martin on Billy Graham

Posted on by

 

Read Kim Lawton’s interview with Billy Graham biographer William Martin:

How significant is Billy Graham’s contribution to American evangelicalism?

I think it’s quite fair to say that that no one over the past 60 years has been more important to American evangelicalism than Billy Graham was. That he, when he first came on the scene in the early 1940s, it was a movement that was struggling, beleaguered. It had more power than many people thought, but after the Scopes trial, fundamentalism went into retreat, and it rebuilt itself between the two world wars. When it started to come out, there was a feeling that it might be something that was in the past. But Billy Graham, along with some other dynamic leaders, brought a great deal of energy and enthusiasm to evangelical Christianity through organizations, preeminently through Youth for Christ. [They] gave it fire, energy, optimism, vision, and then Billy Graham emerged from the pack as the outstanding representative of the movement. Through his crusades he gained national and international fame, but he did many other things besides that. He started CHRISTIANITY TODAY, which still is the flagship publication of evangelical Christianity, along with a number of other related publications under its umbrella. He organized international conferences that brought evangelical leaders from around the world together and helped them to develop this movement and to cooperate with each other and to enlarge the circle to include, for example, charismatics and Pentecostals, whom evangelicals had previously scorned. He went behind the Iron Curtain and made a more significant contribution, I think, than many people realize in breaking down the barriers to religious freedom in those areas through his own patient, polite way of working with the authorities rather than challenging them.

He has been criticized for that — that he wasn’t strong enough in speaking out against the Soviet Union.

At the time, when people criticized Billy Graham they said, “You are being used,” and he said, “I know we’re being used, but we’re also using them.” His approach in the former Soviet Union and the satellite states was to let people know that religious people are not a threat to the state: “There are more of them than there are communists. You do not want to oppress them. People in the West take religious freedom very seriously. You’re going to always have difficulty dealing with America, particularly if you oppress the religious rights of people.” Then, as his own freedom to preach and to publicize his meetings grew, he would tell the local people, “Now, you go to the ministers of religion here in charge of this and tell the state people in charge of religion, if you let an American Baptist do these things, surely you can let our own people do this.” Even people who criticized Mr. Graham at that time later acknowledged that his patience had played a role in encouraging a greater religious freedom. His role was more important there than many people believed. I truly believe that.

He has preached the same basic message for 50 years, but did his tone and style change?

Sure, his style changed greatly. If you look at some of the films and videos of his preaching, particularly in the late 1940s and on into the 1950s, he spoke at a rate that was gauged at something like 200 words a minute. He would walk a mile during his sermons, back and forth across the stage, with one of his assistants, Cliff Barrows, reeling in the microphone cord. And then the crucial change came in 1957 when he preached all summer in Madison Square Garden, packed the house pretty much every night for more than three months. ABC offered him a Saturday night slot to broadcast his crusade service live to the nation. For television, that style didn’t go over as well, and the medium reduced him down. He had to stay in one spot, and his oratorical style became cooler rather than hotter, as it had been previously. He became more conversational, as did the rhetorical style of politicians and others from that period. It’s a much more conversational sort of style than the revivalist oratory that was common earlier.

Did his theology mellow?

The theology changed somewhat, to be sure. He was much more of a literalist, or he actually went beyond the literal and would talk about what heaven would be like and what hell would be like — things that kept being brought up to him for the next 40 years. And he acknowledged that they embarrassed him somewhat. His theology always presented the basic invitation, the basic Christian message without going into the things that divided people. He was not interested in arguing about modes of baptism or things of that sort — things that divide many Christians. His great contribution, I think, was in bringing people together in a local area to cooperate with this general-purpose service without trimming his own message, but then leaving it up to churches to deepen and interpret that message in different kinds of ways.

That was problematic to many fundamentalist and evangelicals. Many people, many fundamentalists particularly, drew away from his ministry and refused to support it later because they thought he had become too liberal, too inclusive. He also showed, as he went along, as he traveled throughout the world, a greater appreciation for the strengths of other religions, even non-Christian religions.

How did he shape the perception evangelicals had of themselves?

Probably the first major impact that he had in that way was just the fact he was being given attention by TIME magazine, LIFE magazine, the Hearst newspapers, and then by pretty much everyone as a result of that. Here was a prominent young preacher of their own kind who was being paid attention to by the nation’s major media. That in itself provided a kind of legitimation. A second and perhaps ultimately even more important step was his association with the presidents — with Dwight Eisenhower, a little bit with John Kennedy, certainly with Lyndon Johnson, and most famously with Richard Nixon, but also with presidents since that. To think that one of our own, now the spokesman for our movement, the best known evangelical in the world, is also walking in the corridors of power, that he is friends with the most powerful men in the world, and he visits with powerful people of other kinds in other parts of the world — that again provided evangelicals themselves with a legitimation of their movement. In turn, of course, it provided those presidents with quite valuable legitimation, and they understood that — that to be associated with Billy Graham made them and their programs at least have the suspicion of being upright, righteous, perhaps even Christian, and that was a powerful help to them.

Wendy Zoba on Billy Graham

Posted on by

 

Read more of Kim Lawton’s interview about Billy Graham with journalist and author Wendy Murray Zoba, writer-in-residence at Gordon College in Wenham, Massachusetts:

How meaningful is it to see this giant of evangelical Christianity still going strong at age 86, still doing these crusades that he’s been doing for almost 60 years?

Billy Graham is doing a remarkable thing, going back into the pulpit at this stage of his career. He’s aging, as we all know, and there is some bittersweet aspect to watching this one-time towering giant more enfeebled. His message is still as robust as always, but it’s very obvious that his physical disposition and state is much diminished from the young man who used to prance around on stage and wave his finger and wave his Bible.

Evangelicalism is at a very critical juncture right now. Billy Graham is one of the towering figures that forged a new definition of what evangelicalism is. That definition is changing even so. Perhaps his presence can lend a sense of stability not only to those who consider themselves evangelicals but also to those who are outside that community and are questioning and, in some cases, feeling some fear about the presence of evangelicals on the cultural landscape. So this is a very timely crusade. I’m not quite sure how people will respond to seeing an older man who’s struggling on so many levels in a physical way. As I said, it could be very poignant, bittersweet. But we all love Billy Graham. He’s an institution, not just for the evangelical community but for all of us as a nation. We kind of look to him as our nation’s pastor, in a way.

Speaking of changing views and definitions, there was a time when he created fear in some quarters because of his preaching in the early days. How has he himself evolved?

He did start out with a very flamboyant, zealous, kind of in-your-face approach. It didn’t take long to mellow him. For one thing, he’s married to Ruth Bell Graham, and she kind of let him know when he was doing a little too much prancing around up there. Billy Graham is a man with a very clear vision and a very decisive direction in terms of what he wants to say and how he wants to say it. He did start out with the white shoes and the fancy pants and all of that and did kind of evoke some strange reactions from people. But he quickly understood his role in a more circumspect way. He mellowed his approach to his public persona, and he truly became a unifier. He’s very much wanting to break down walls, did break down walls and, at the same time, forged a new definition of what it means to be a believing person who trusts in the authority of the Bible without necessarily having to abdicate character and having to abdicate intellectualism and abdicate a sound and gracious spirit. Billy Graham has encapsulated all of that, and he has evolved as a preacher, but his message has stayed the same. He’s learned some hard lessons in terms of the way he might relate to those, for example, in the political sphere. He has been friends with many presidents through many terms and has adapted accordingly. He made a little bit of a mistake in the coziness he reached with Richard Nixon, but he learned from that, and he’s very malleable in that way and that evokes, I think, a sense of confidence in people. They trust him.

Was it his style that changed and mellowed, or his beliefs, or just how he was portraying and speaking about those beliefs?

His style mellowed over the years. He was quite animated at the beginning. It’s the zealousness of youth, I believe. He recognized his gift as a young man and immediately started to exercise it. It started to be off-putting in some ways, the way that he would wave his Bible around. And his wife enabled him to understand that he would serve the ministry and serve himself to slow down and to be more measured and more mellow in the way that he gave his presentation.

His message hasn’t changed. That’s the wonderful thing about Billy Graham. It’s as clear as poetry, and it is a kind of poetry. And his spirit has only expanded and become more gracious, and he’s willing to invite anyone to have a discussion or conversation with him. No one feels threatened doing so with him because his spirit has always been very gracious and unifying. So whereas his presentation has mellowed and matured, which is really the natural course for any ministry leader, his message has remained largely the same. It’s very clear, it’s very simple, and it’s very to the point, and he delivers it in a way that people can receive. Not everyone believes it but, in any case, people can receive it in large part because they trust the integrity of the man behind the message.

Where does Billy Graham fit into the changing definitions of evangelicalism?

Billy Graham took the movement to where it is today. Billy Graham is one of the shapers of the evangelical movement as we know it today, although evangelicalism as it is currently being perceived and understood is a different kind of evangelicalism than Billy Graham himself was shaping. He came of age during the time when there was a lot of uncertainty on the cultural and religious landscape about the place of the Bible and the role of Bible-believing Christians. Billy Graham, along with other strong and visionary leaders of his generation, felt it was very important that Christians who believed in the authority of the Bible continue to engage culture, continue to be part of the landscape and the cultural conversation. This is where he and several other leaders of that era — I’m thinking of the 1940s and the 1950s — seized upon the opportunity to take the message forward in a new and dynamic way.

Evangelicalism as we know it today was, at its insemination in the mid-twentieth century, very much a forward-looking and culturally engaged and intellectually hungry kind of expression of belief in Scripture and belief in the gospel narrative. Billy Graham gave that definition. He gave that — a person people could look to as, for lack of a better way of putting it, “The Answer Man” for the questions people might have about this kind of thing. While on the one hand his message was very clear and very simple, on the other hand Billy Graham was very sophisticated and, in some ways, very savvy in his approach to ministry and public presentation of a very profound theological narrative. He brought people together. He was very much a part of the shaping of institutions that today remain leading institutions in evangelicalism, and he always wanted the movement to be culturally engaged.

That has brought us today to a place that probably at that time Billy Graham wasn’t anticipating. Evangelicalism has become so culturally engaged that many outside the movement and outside the believing community are beginning to feel threatened by the presence of this subgroup and their political action and some of the positions they’re taking on cultural matters, and it’s becoming divisive. That’s something Billy Graham never would want, and I know that if he had the strength and the ability, he would also be trying to redress that and continue his unifying ministry. But we’re going to have to look for new leadership for that.

Will the era of the big crusade and that message that he so popularized also go with him?

He seized upon the same model of Charles Finney in the Second Great Awakening, the crusade model, where the opportunity for people to make a confession of faith was staged, was orchestrated. Music prepared the spirit; the “waiting benches,” as they were called, were filled with people who had been prompted ahead of time to start the flow. It’s a very staged event, but that in no way diminishes the authenticity of those who make confessions of faith and whose lives are changed at these crusades. I can’t anticipate whether the crusade model is going to continue to be viable. Obviously, people come together in these large, massive crowds and respond very emotively. That’s evident in secular rock concerts and that kind of thing. Whether that’s the venue where people will have an experience with an authentic faith moment in their lives is yet to be determined. We’re dealing with a different landscape of belief; we’re dealing with a different generation; we’re dealing with a different place in our world’s history, and the believing community has to be flexible enough to perceive that and not try to put new wine into old wineskins. The age in which we live is demanding adaptation, and the evangelical community has to be elastic, has to be flexible, has to be willing to make some adaptations and some changes and find new ways of being relevant. In many ways, if we cleave to those old models, the movement will become irrelevant and will not touch the hearts of a seeking public [that], I think, really does hunger for some solid answers relating to who God is and if there is a God.

Billy Graham certainly adapted his crusade model, bringing in rock groups, media, all sorts of other experiences.

He did. He was very dynamic in that way, and it served its purpose. But I know for a fact that bringing in CCM — Contemporary Christian Music — and ramping up the noise level or the sound level of a crusade isn’t necessarily going to penetrate the depths of the hungering souls that are looking for answers. It might. But the trappings of the crusade aren’t going to be sufficient to carry this next generation into a place of belief. There have to be solid, authentic, interactive questions and answers about who God is and the kind of world we’re living in and where God fits in and what does it mean. Who is Jesus? What does it mean to follow Jesus? Formulas and platitudes and pat answers do not work for this day and age, and that’s very much part and parcel of the package of the crusade event. So there has to be some flexibility within the community as we face this new century, this new millennium, and the age in which we live.

What has he meant to you and others?

Billy Graham is the man of the moment, the man of twentieth-century evangelicalism. I can’t number the people who, in the course of my career as a journalist, have said to me, “Oh, I heard Billy Graham on the radio,” or “I saw Billy Graham at a crusade.” Billy Graham’s name comes up all the time. Billy Graham was very seminal in my own spiritual evolution. He was the man of our century in terms of defining what it means to be a Bible-believing Christian in a way that’s respectable and honorable, and we all owe him a great debt of gratitude.

You mentioned he has been the nation’s pastor. What has he meant to the nation as a whole?

Billy Graham was present at our nation’s critical moments. He was present when 9/11 happened. When presidents die, when presidents take office, Billy Graham is there. He became an institution, and a comforting kind of institution. It’s the integrity of the man behind the message that people resonated with, even people outside the camp that would be called evangelicals. He won people’s hearts because he was a unifier. He was authentic. He was a man we could trust. Especially today, people are so jaded about evangelicalism, and with some reason. Many leaders who have asserted themselves into public positions have proven themselves to be duplicitous. Therefore, to find someone who is solid as a rock the way Billy Graham has been — by no means perfect, by no means perfect, but he has been solid, and he has been true, and he has been unafraid. And that has won the confidence of the mainstream culture. People who believe in his message and people who might be dubious about his message nevertheless trust Billy Graham and take no offense that he is present at the critical moments of our nation’s various passages.

Refusal to Treat

Posted on by

 

BOB ABERNETHY, anchor (March 17, 2006): In Washington, renewed debate over access to the emergency contraception drug known as Plan B. Right now, the drug is available by prescription only. But the Food and Drug Administration has repeatedly delayed action on an FDA committee recommendation that Plan B should be made available over the counter. This week, two U.S. senators said they would block President Bush’s nominee as head of the FDA until the agency acts on the over-the-counter decision. Supporters of Plan B say it will reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies. Opponents say it can be a form of abortion when it blocks the implantation of a fertilized egg. Last year, Lucky Severson looked at the moral dimensions of prescribing emergency contraception.

LUCKY SEVERSON: A rally outside the Illinois State Capitol in Springfield. It’s against pharmacists who refuse to fill prescriptions for emergency contraceptives.

RALLY PROTESTORS: Stop discriminating against women, and keep your judgments to yourself. Just fill it. No hassles. Just fill it. No lectures. Just fill it.

SEVERSON: Their complaint is not new, but the chorus is growing.

Another rally, this one outside the Colorado State Capitol, is to ensure that hospitals provide emergency contraceptives to rape victims.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER (At Rally): This bill would require hospitals to provide rape victims with information about emergency contraception which can prevent pregnancy when taken after an assault. On April 5, Governor Owens vetoed this bill.

SEVERSON: Forty-six states have what are known as “conscience clauses” that allow health care workers the right to refuse to perform abortions. What concerns many women and men is that several states are now debating legislation that would expand these clauses to include not only abortion but emergency contraceptives as well. Four states have similar laws in place.

QUIN HOSTETLER (Pharmacist): I’m a hard-line Catholic, so I believe that you shouldn’t use contraception and that you shouldn’t use the morning-after pill.

SEVERSON: Springfield pharmacist Quin Hostetler say his conscience would not allow him to fill an emergency contraceptive prescription.

(To Mr. Hostetler): You personally would not sell emergency contraceptives?

Mr. HOSTETLER: Not the morning-after pills, no; that I have a problem with.

SEVERSON: But he says he would not refuse to refer the patient to another pharmacist.

Mr. HOSTETLER: I don’t believe in forcing my morals down somebody else’s throat, and in return I don’t expect them to do the same to me. If I can help somebody in this instance get the medication that they need, I have no problem doing that, although I would not dispense it myself.

SEVERSON: Luciana Fortune-Bass says she is a churchgoing mother of three who got a call in the middle of the night from a traumatized friend. The young woman couldn’t get the pharmacist, also a woman, to fill her emergency contraceptive prescription.

LUCIANA FORTUNE-BASS (Speaking at Rally): The only thing I knew was that she had sex, the condom broke, and she was at a pharmacy, and the pharmacist refused to fill her prescription or even return it. I was livid.

When I got there, this lady was ridiculing her about the morality and the fact that her soul was in jeopardy and she was going to hell and she was a baby killer.

Luciana Fortune-BassSEVERSON: The pharmacist eventually gave back the prescription, and Luciana drove her friend to a pharmacy 45 minutes away. Health experts say one of the problems with pharmacists refusing to fill prescriptions is that emergency contraceptives are most effective the sooner they are taken.

(To Ms. Fortune-Bass): What do you say to a pharmacist who says, “This is what I believe”?

MS. FORTUNE-BASS: I say, “You are entitled to your beliefs, but don’t infringe your beliefs on me.”

SEVERSON: It’s situations like that of Luciana’s friend that prompted Illinois Governor Blagojevich to issue an emergency order requiring pharmacists to fill prescriptions.

Governor ROD BLAGOJEVICH (At Press Conference): That if a woman goes to a pharmacist with a prescription for birth control, the pharmacy or the pharmacist is not allowed to discriminate or choose who he sells it to or who he doesn’t sell it to.

SEVERSON: The governor’s emergency decree may have endeared him to many people in Illinois, but not to religious organizations that oppose abortion.

PHILIP KARST (The Illinois Catholic Health Association): When a pharmacist, in their moral thinking, believes that this is an inappropriate activity, I have difficulty with the state or the governor just saying his moral judgment is more important than the moral judgment of some individual in the state.

SEVERSON: In Illinois, four out of 10 hospitals don’t or won’t stock emergency contraceptives. But the real impact is in rural Illinois, where there are fewer hospitals to begin with. The same is true with pharmacies. In neighboring Missouri, nine out of 10 pharmacies don’t stock emergency contraceptives, which can make a traumatic experience all the more traumatic.

LEE JACOBS (Rape Victim Advocate): Just another layer of trauma on top of the trauma of being a victim of sexual violence. If it’s an issue of racism and sexism and classism, people in rural areas have that much more difficult of a time: people who don’t speak the English language, people who don’t have easy transportation to go to another pharmacy. It’s very real for people.

SEVERSON: Recently, 14 states introduced conscience clauses that would cover not only contraceptive services but allow pharmacists to refuse filling any prescription that offends their moral convictions. Opponents say it could open a Pandora’s box.

TOI HUTCHINSON (Assistant to Illinois Majority Leader): Understand that if someone can refuse a prescription for this, they can refuse a prescription for something else. So if you have a child who has ADD, and the pharmacist doesn’t believe that that really exists, can you get your Ritalin prescription?

SEVERSON: Many pharmacists would like to have the same conscience clause as doctors, who are granted considerable latitude in what they can refuse. Emergency room physician Calvin Bell, a Catholic, would not perform an abortion, sterilization, or withdraw a feeding tube in cases like that of Terri Schiavo. His religious beliefs also affect the way he treats rape victims.

Dr. Calvin Bell, Memorial Medical CenterDr. CALVIN BELL (Memorial Medical Center): This woman has at this point in time — she’s been victimized by someone, she’s been raped, she’s undergone a horrible trauma. But on the other hand, you’ve got a potential second life that is totally innocent, that’s done nothing wrong to anyone.

SEVERSON: Dr. Bell refuses to give rape victims emergency contraceptives, sometimes known as Plan B. In his opinion, life begins at fertilization, and the pill would prevent a fertilized egg from being implanted in the uterus.

Dr. BELL: Much of their action of these emergency “contraceptives” occurs actually after fertilization has occurred, so, in a sense, it’s an emergency abortifacient, is what we are talking about.

STEPHANI COX (Nurse Practitioner, Planned Parenthood, Springfield, IL): If the woman has a condom break, it comes off, she’s forgotten her pills, whatever the reason that she fears she may encounter an unplanned pregnancy, this gives her a second chance at preventing that pregnancy.

SEVERSON: Stephani Cox is a nurse practitioner with Planned Parenthood. She says Dr. Bell’s understanding of pregnancy goes against the accepted medical definition — that pregnancy begins only when the fertilized egg is implanted in the uterus.

Stephani Cox, Nurse Practitioner, Planned Parenthood, Springfield, ILMs. COX: If a woman should happen to have an early pregnancy that she is totally unaware of and take Plan B, it will do nothing. It does not cause a pregnancy. It does not harm the fetus. The pregnancy will continue as normal.

SEVERSON (To Dr. Bell): You would advocate to a rape victim that they continue the pregnancy?

Dr. BELL: If one of my daughters or my wife tragically suffered a rape, what would my advice be? My advice would be for them to carry the pregnancy to termination and give the baby up for adoption.

Ms. COX: Plan B, an emergency contraception, can prevent 22,000 pregnancies as a result of rape that end in an abortion. It can prevent 800,000 abortions a year. So, you know, even people who are antichoice should be on board with this. It’s preventing unplanned pregnancies, preventing the need for abortion.

SEVERSON: You don’t think that pharmacists ought to be given a right-of-conscience clause?

Ms. COX: My feeling is that once a pharmacist puts on his lab coat and steps into the pharmacy, it is his professional responsibility to fill every valid, legal prescription.

Mr. HOSTETLER: We have the same right that anybody else does. Just because we are a merchant, we should have the right to refuse to fill different prescriptions if we don’t feel morally correct with that.

SEVERSON: Several states are debating laws that would expand Quin Hostetler’s legal and moral discretion. And a few others are now considering legislation that would restrict them. Pressure on lawmakers will be intense — from both sides.

For Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly, I’m Lucky Severson in Springfield, Illinois.

ABERNETHY (March 17, 2006): Since we produced that story, Wal-Mart has agreed to stock emergency contraceptives and will begin dispensing them on Monday (March 20, 2006). But Wal-Mart is also allowing their pharmacists to refuse to fill Plan B prescriptions if they want, so long as that doesn’t violate state law.

Tord Gustavsen Interview

Posted on by

Tord Gustavsen and the Church of Jazz

Listen to “Colours of Mercy”
Update Required

Sorry you need the latest version of the free flash plug in. CLICK HERE to download it and then refresh this page.

The Tord Gustavsen Trio just completed an American tour to mark the release of a new CD called THE GROUND (ECM). “Gustavsen draws on his classical and church backgrounds to compose elegant, hymnlike melodies,” says THE WASHINGTON POST. Read an e-interview with Norwegian pianist Tord Gustavsen and listen to a track from the CD.

Almost everyone remarks on the prayerful, hymn-like quality of your music, and you call some of the pieces “wordless” hymns. What is the connection between hymns and prayer and jazz for you, and where did it come from?

Photo of Tord Gustavsen Trio by Erik Laeskogen

Photo: Erik Laeskogen

To me, there’s a strong connection on a personal level. I feel it’s important to dig into what’s lying deep in one’s musical self in order to play “organic” jazz, and that may involve getting in touch with music sung, played and/or listened to during childhood. Growing up, I had a lot of hymns and spirituals along with lullabies and children’s songs in my home, and so this music is crucial in making up my musical foundation. It’s best to reach out and explore from a nurturing and caressing foundation.

Also, there is of course a strong link between spirituals and jazz in music history; both European hymns and African American spirituals were among the important musical traditions present in the melting pot area where “jazz” was formed. Contemporary jazz that moves too far away from the devotional feel — with or without an explicitly spiritual emphasis — has a tendency to lose its appeal to me. I do love a lot of complex, hard core, intriguing music… but there is something about uplifting and profound grooves and about essential, simplistic sensualism in creative improvisation and melodying … these things are spiritual to me, and they are core elements of the music I cherish the most.

Across the U.S. — from the famous St. Peter’s Lutheran Church in Manhattan to the Church of St. John Coltrane in San Francisco — there are more and more churches where you can find jazz. What’s been your own experience of churches and their music (playing with choirs, your connection with Oslo’s Church City Mission) and where do you see and hear their influence on you? Where do gospel and the African American spiritual fit into what you do?

Jazz and “world music” have been present in churches in Norway for a couple of decades — not necessarily on a regular basis, but in occasional projects and special masses, etc. Also, a few of my colleagues have composed original “jazz masses” using Latin words from the old liturgies and Norwegian translations integrated in jazz’s musical language. Important as this has been, I often feel that one is looking too much for single-dimensional “happy” music when looking for jazz in churches. I have been involved in doing a meditative jazz vesper in an Oslo church during the last two years, responding to the need we’ve felt for a service with room for silence and reflection, using music with more space and incorporating musical landscapes that embrace melancholy and uplifted states without trying to impose a specific mood on people.

Regarding gospels and African American spirituals, cf. also the remarks above. I’ve played a lot of this music during the years, and spirituals are probably among the core sources of my own music today. I also did a special project a few years ago based on a collection of lesser-known but extremely inspiring spirituals I found at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in Harlem. I’m not, however, too intrigued by the way these traditions are mostly performed today. They are often connected to an easy-going theology of success and salvation that I don’t really support.

Your bio says you’ve composed music for the words of poet John Donne and you’ve even studied the history of religions. What draws you to the religious and the spiritual and to things theological?

The John Donne thing was a very important project to me. It was the first CD I ever recorded, with singer Siri Gjære in a vocal-piano duo with no other instruments added, thus very focused on the lyrics. The almost erotic-mystic aspects of his writing appealed to us, as did the extravagant flow of words; we thought they formed an intriguing combination with the naked simplistic-yet-subtly-twisted music we were making.

Photo of Tord Gustavsen Trio by Chris Tribble

Photo: Chris Tribble

I’m probably drawn to spiritual and theological issues mainly because I’ve been fascinated by the questions raised here ever since Sunday school. My outlook and perspectives have evolved from the traditional Lutheran views of my childhood toward an open-minded “secularized” spirituality still founded in the Christian sacraments but appreciating insights from several religions; staying in the liturgical serenity but taking in postmodern paradoxes; and being fed by the liberal theological wing of our church — this is basically my journey. The issues of theology are still important to me even though the perspectives are different.

It’s been said that jazz is music with deep religious roots and that it’s the best music for worship because of the way it speaks to the human condition. Does that ring true for you and your own experiences of music?

Well, I guess from what’s been said so far this should be quite obvious …

One critic has called your melodies “an abstracted alleluia.” When you write about the Colours of Mercy or Kneeling Down or other themes that seem to suggest something spiritual, even sacred, what do you want a listener to hear?

I should read this critic … it’s a really nice expression. But I don’t think I want the listener to experience anything specific — at least not something that can be equally well expressed in words in an interview. To me, the title “Kneeling Down” is almost too direct, but it still works because it really corresponds to the feeling I had of the melody myself. “Colours of Mercy” is a favorite title of mine, along with “The Ground,” at once mild and comforting and bold, and certainly always open to different readings — like I want the music to be, and like a religion we could truly relate to today would have to be.

Passover Seder: Why Is This Book Different from All Other Books?

Posted on by

by Juliana Ochs and Missy Daniel

For over 50 years, a family of New York City philanthropists has commissioned prominent artists to interpret Passover themes for the extended family’s annual seder, and now some of the remarkable results are available for all to see at the New York Public Library.

Since 1947, the descendents of Joseph and Anna Rose and Samuel and Belle Rose have accumulated three bound volumes of art inspired by texts of the Passover haggadah, a compilation of biblical passages, hymns, prayers, and rabbinic writings assembled to be read during the seder, the ceremony held in Jewish homes to commemorate the Israelites’ Exodus from Egypt in biblical times.

Tea Party Demonstration on the National Mall

“As a child, it was always a secret who the artist was going to be,” says Emily Rose, who lives in Cambridge, England. “When you walked into the seder it was not just to see family and friends, but to see what passage was chosen and what the illustrations were.” To this day, an important part of the family’s Passover experience is leafing through the different volumes and looking over all the past guests’ signatures.

For generations, Jewish artists have lavished illustrations and illuminations on Passover haggadahs, and the Rose family’s illustrated seder book has served as a great enrichment of its traditional Reconstructionist haggadah. “On one hand we have the same haggadah every year. It has stick illustrations; it is very plain,” says Emily Rose. “On the other hand, we have the seder book. It always highlights a particular theme or interpretation.”

Each year the chosen artist is different. In 1979 the illustration for the seder book featured Ellis Island and immigration. Representational painter Harvey Dinnerstein contributed an image of the Statue of Liberty and in the distance the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center, accompanied by lines from the Sim Shalom, a prayer for peace: “Bless our country that it may ever be a stronghold of peace and its advocate in the council of nations. May contentment reign within its borders.”

The Rose seder book illustrates how modern haggadahs have often reflected contemporary Jewish agendas and events. One contribution that stands out for Emily Rose is a 1972 image by David Levine, best known for his literary and political caricatures for THE NEW YORK REVIEW OF BOOKS, who did a drawing of former Israeli prime minister Golda Meir serving the seder table, along with some lines from the haggadah: “Behold, this is the bread of affliction… Let all who are hungry come and eat.” In addition to Meir, Levine drew former Israeli defense minister Moshe Dayan and David Ben-Gurion, the first prime minister of the modern state of Israel, who is depicted as a latter-day Moses.

“Three things come together in these volumes,” says Emily Rose’s father Daniel, a real estate developer and senior member of the family who lives in New York City. “Graphic arts, the Rose family’s love for books, and the Jewish tradition.” In 1974, graphic artist Leonard Baskin’s watercolor contributions to the family seder book highlighted Hebrew verses from the Song of Songs that are read liturgically during Passover to celebrate regeneration and the return of spring. A decade later, minimalist painter and sculptor Frank Stella’s collages for the seder book included one that gave prominence to a line from 19th-century German poet Heinrich Heine: “Ever since the Exodus, freedom has spoken with a Hebrew accent.” And in 1994, the seder book featured striking black-and-white photographs by Joan Roth, known for her pictures of Jewish women around the world.

The illustrated book has been a way to introduce creativity, change, and interpretation into the seder, says Emily Rose. “That to me is the Jewish tradition. We have tradition, and then we reinterpret it every year.” Reinterpretation was the theme for New York-based artist and illustrator Mark Podwal’s playful 1981 pen-and-ink drawing of the letters of the Hebrew alphabet literally dancing off a Torah scroll onto the pages of an English-language haggadah — and then off again. The lively line drawing is accompanied by these words: “The Torah is a living document and must be reinterpreted to each generation in its own idiom, in the language and culture of the time.”

Michael Terry, chief librarian of the Dorot Jewish Division at the New York Public Library and curator of the library’s exhibition of Passover-related manuscripts, books, and prints, of which the Rose family’s seder book is a part, says that the Passover ritual “is all about representation — representing the defining moment in Jewish history through speaking, singing, acting, and as far back as the most primitive Passover gesture of all, smearing a lamb’s blood on the doorposts through painting.” The object of a seder, he says, is “to visualize and re-create a sense of participation.” The Rose seder book both reinforces that participation and serves as an aesthetic endorsement of the participants’ religious and spiritual attachments — an expression of the belief that “this is my God, and I will beautify him,” says Terry.

Each of the commissioned artists also creates a sign-in page for the family, another part of the family’s Passover tradition. As guests arrive at the seder, “Everyone signs in, no matter how young,” says Rose. “The seder book illustrates the richness of the tradition visually” she adds. “It’s about the multiple ways one can interpret the haggadah.” Because of the range of the artists’ relation to Judaism and their varying understandings of Passover, says Rose, “It’s a very liberating book” — not unlike the Exodus story itself.

Juliana Ochs is a doctoral candidate in social anthropology at the University of Cambridge, where she is a Gates Cambridge scholar. Missy Daniel is an editor at RELIGION & ETHICS NEWSWEEKLY.

Shawl Ministry

Posted on by

 

BOB ABERNETHY: We have a Belief and Practice segment this week about a knitting ministry. Knitting has taken off as a trendy hobby in many cities, but knitters around the country are finding it can be a spiritual practice as well. We visited the prayer shawl ministry at St. James Episcopal Church in Lothian, Maryland, where members gather to knit and crochet shawls they hope will provide not only physical warmth but spiritual comfort as well. We spoke with Marjie Mack.

MARJIE MACK (St. James’s Prayer Shawl Ministry): I started knitting in high school. My mother taught me, and the first thing I made was a sweater with a pattern — black and white sweater. I was very proud of it. And then I hadn’t made anything else until last year, when I started with St. James’s prayer shawl ministry.

We start with a prayer.

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #1: Let us begin with a moment of silence.

Ms. MACK: We’ve probably made 100 prayer shawls over the last year — given them to all sorts of people, some as far away as Africa. A lot of times we knit in threes to symbolize the Trinity. It could be three rows at a time; it could be three stitches at a time.

I’ve always been one who’s had trouble expressing my grief or sorrow. Sometimes it’s hard to know what I can do for someone besides pray for them.

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #2: I’ve just found out she’s got breast cancer. She’s, like, 23.

Ms. MACK: At the blessing service the priest will say a prayer of blessing.

Reverend EILEEN HOUSE (St. James Parish): May God’s grace be upon these shawls, warming, comforting, enfolding, embracing in good times …

Ms. MACK: It’s a very moving service because we know by then who we’re going to give the shawl to, and we hope that they will receive it as a gift of love that would represent God’s love.

I recently started one for my friend Debi because her husband had been diagnosed with cancer, and I wanted to give Debi some kind of comfort. And she told me how much her husband Carl would really appreciate having a prayer shawl of his own.

They both have very strong faith, and they’ve inspired a lot of people with being open about what they’re going through.

DEBI FROCK: When we first found out that Carl had pancreatic cancer, we had just been to the doctor, and he told him that he had, at best, a year to live. We just looked at each other, and we said, “Who can we call to pray for us?” We’ve gotten a hundred or more cards from people, and most of them say, “We’re praying for you.”

CARL FROCK: I’m not ready to leave my wife and my children. I love them. So you pray that, you know, it’s not time yet. That maybe we’ll have 10 more years, 20 more years. You don’t know.

Ms. MACK: As you spend time in prayer for this person who you’re going to give it to, the shawl symbolizes that you care for them, that you love them and that, you know, God loves them. And we hope they receive it that way.

Mr. FROCK: Thanks, Marjie. I appreciate it.

KIM LAWTON, guest anchor (December 9, 2005): Since our story first aired last April, Carl Frock passed away. Marjie Mack is still knitting.

She and Carl’s wife Debi are active in a charity to help mothers and children in Ghana.

Easter Reconciliation in Northern Ireland

Posted on by

BOB ABERNETHY, anchor: Holy Week and Easter have special significance in Northern Ireland, a land torn by decades of religious conflict. It was on Good Friday in 1998 that Catholics and Protestants negotiated a power-sharing agreement designed to end hostilities. Seven years after the Good Friday accords, violence has decreased substantially, but lasting peace still has not come. Amid the ongoing tensions, a Benedictine monastery is working for reconciliation and unity. Kim Lawton has our profile of the monks and their work.

KIM LAWTON: Early spring in the foothills of the Mourne Mountains south of Belfast. Signs of new life are at every turn. This tranquil setting seems far removed from the Troubles, as people here call the hatred and killing that have wracked Northern Ireland for decades.

But Father Mark-Ephrem Nolan, abbot of Holy Cross Benedictine Monastery in Rostrevor, says bitterness here still runs deep.

French monks

Father MARK-EPHREM NOLAN (Abbot, Holy Cross Benedictine Monastery, Rostrevor, Ireland): There has been so much pain and suffering. I think it is sometimes very hard for people from outside this country to measure to what extent people’s lives have been deeply, deeply affected by the Troubles.

LAWTON: The very modern Holy Cross Monastery was dedicated just over a year ago, the first Benedictine monastery in Northern Ireland since the year 1183. It was established to work for peace and reconciliation.

Father NOLAN: Quite often, we talk of the two communities in Northern Ireland. I don’t think we can think of two communities in Christian terms. Perhaps you have got two political communities. There is one Christian community, which is divided within itself, and our call is to be reconciled in Christ Jesus.

LAWTON: The monastery is run by Nolan and four other monks who came with him from France in 1998. They were inspired by a Vatican document that urged monks and nuns to take their contemplative lives of prayer out into corners of the globe where people are divided. Nolan was born in Belfast and felt a call to minister in his conflict-ridden homeland. His French brother-monks shared his vision.

Father NOLAN: We hope to live here, and I think that’s at the heart of the monastic vocation — a ministry of compassion, to be with people who have suffered, who are suffering, to be a sign of the presence of Christ.

LAWTON: They live by the Rule of Saint Benedict, the set of instructions written in the sixth century by the founder of Western monasticism. It’s a simple life, marked by manual work, Bible study, regular intervals of prayer, and long periods of silence. The monks at Holy Cross support themselves by making candles, which are sold around the world. They also practice hospitality, with a guesthouse where people can come for spiritual retreat.

The monks gather five times daily to pray. People from all denominations in the community are invited to join them. Every day they pray for national healing, for peace and unity, and every day they pray for Catholic and Protestant church leaders by name.

congregants

Father NOLAN: A psychiatrist came one morning, a Catholic layman. He said to me, “You have no idea the bombshell you drop when you name the Presbyterian minister and the elders in the congregation.” He said, “People just have never heard that before.”

LAWTON: The monastery sponsors public healing services, where Catholics and Protestants alike talk openly about their stories of pain and loss. Holy Cross also hosts regular dialogue sessions for local Catholic and Protestant clergy.

Participants, including this Protestant pastor, say they’ve been touched.

UNIDENTIFIED PROTESTANT CLERGYMAN (At Service): I have experienced this community to be a community that holds a safe space, where the grace of God’s forgiveness and God’s work of reconciliation can flow.

LAWTON: The monks’ impact is being felt well beyond the community. One big supporter is the former Archbishop of Canterbury, the Anglican George Carey, who spoke at the monastery’s ecumenical dedication ceremony in January 2004.

monestary

Lord GEORGE CAREY (Former Archbishop of Canterbury): This monastery is a sign of hope that together we can do something, and we can do far more.

LAWTON: The monks have also gained an international following thanks to brisk sales of their CD of Gregorian and Taize chants.

But Father Nolan believes their biggest impact is in simply trying to live what they preach. He calls it “truthful living.”

Father NOLAN: The fact that we are trying to live reconciliation with our brothers day after day, brothers whom we didn’t choose, brothers whose legitimate differences we have to recognize and accept and rejoice in — then that speaks to the churches.

LAWTON: Here at Holy Cross, Nolan says the themes of Holy Week and Easter resonate deeply. Above their altar is an icon of Jesus on the cross. The inscription at the top reads, “May All Be One,” taken from Jesus’ prayer on the eve of his crucifixion — a constant reminder, Nolan says, that hope can come out of death.

Father NOLAN: We are, there’s no doubt, a marked people, a scarred people, a wounded people. But I think, by the power of God’s grace, those wounds can, in fact, become signs of resurrection and new life.

LAWTON: At the entrance of the monastery stands a giant version of the traditional resurrection icon. They have a smaller version inside, as well. Nolan says he loves the symbolism, which conveys the very core of his faith.

Resurrection icon

Father NOLAN: Christ, who is depicted here as trampling underfoot death and the powers of the underworld, pulling Adam and Eve, man and woman, forth from the regions of darkness, the regions of death — forth from the tomb, literally. Christ has a strong grasp there on Adam, pulling him forth, and there’s a gentle bidding of Eve.

LAWTON: They placed the icon at the entrance in order to proclaim their belief that the risen Jesus is in their midst.

Father NOLAN: That’s what we want to share with those who come to the monastery — that life of the risen Lord who is the one who brings us forth from darkness and brings us forth from the shadow of death, who gives new hope to people who have suffered and who is there with his message of peace.

LAWTON: It’s an Easter message, the monks say, for all year long.

I’m Kim Lawton in Rostrevor, Northern Ireland.

LAWTON (August 5, 2005): I was in touch with Father Nolan again this week. He told me his community feels great joy at the IRA disarmament, but they also know that hopes have come and gone many times before. He said, “It is clear that a long, long process of healing has to be lived through in our deeply wounded and still so bitterly divided society.” [Read Father Mark-Ephrem Nolan’s comments on the Irish Republican Army’s July 28, 2005 statement ending its armed struggle.]