Religion and the death penalty collide at the Supreme Court

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court is sending a message to states that want to continue to carry out the death penalty: Inmates must be allowed to have a spiritual adviser by their side as they are executed.

The high court around midnight Thursday declined to let Alabama proceed with the lethal injection of Willie B. Smith III. Smith had objected to Alabama’s policy that his pastor would have had to observe his execution from an adjacent room rather than the death chamber itself.

The order from the high court follows two years in which inmates saw some rare success in bringing challenges based on the issue of chaplains in the death chamber. This time, liberal and conservative members of the court normally in disagreement over death penalty issues found common ground not on the death penalty itself but on the issue of religious freedom and how the death penalty is carried out.

Justice Brett Kavanaugh, one of three justices who said they would have let Smith’s execution go forward, said Alabama’s policy applies equally to all inmates and serves a state interest in ensuring safety and security. But he said it was apparent that his colleagues who disagreed were providing a path for states to follow.

States that want to avoid months or years of litigation over the presence of spiritual advisers “should figure out a way to allow spiritual advisors into the execution room, as other States and the Federal Government have done,” he wrote in a dissent joined by Chief Justice John Roberts. Justice Clarence Thomas also would have allowed the execution of Smith, who was sentenced to die for the 1991 murder of 22-year-old Sharma Ruth Johnson in Birmingham.

Alabama had up until 2019 allowed a Christian prison chaplain employed by the state to be physically present in the execution chamber if requested by the inmate, but the state changed its policy in response to two earlier Supreme Court cases.

Robert Dunham, the executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, says the court’s order will most clearly affect states in the Deep South that have active execution chambers. Dunham said most state execution protocols, which set who is present in the death chamber, do not mention spiritual advisers. For most of the modern history of the U.S. death penalty since the 1970s, spiritual advisers have not been present in execution chambers, he said.

The federal government, which under President Donald Trump resumed federal executions following a 17-year hiatus and carried out 13 executions, allowed a spiritual adviser to be present in the death chamber. The Biden administration is still weighing how it will proceed in death penalty cases.

The court’s order in Smith’s case contained only statements from Kavanaugh and Justice Elena Kagan.

“Willie Smith is sentenced to death, and his last wish is to have his pastor with him as he dies,” Kagan wrote for herself and liberal justices Sonia Sotomayor and Stephen Breyer, as well as conservative Amy Coney Barrett. Kagan added: “Alabama has not carried its burden of showing that the exclusion of all clergy members from the execution chamber is necessary to ensure prison security.”

Justice Neil Gorsuch and Justice Samuel Alito did not make public their views, but at least one or perhaps both of them must have voted with their liberal colleagues to keep Smith’s execution on hold.

The court’s yearslong wrestling with the issue of chaplains in the death chamber began in 2019, when the justices declined to halt the execution of Alabama inmate Domineque Ray. Ray had objected that a Christian chaplain employed by the prison typically remained in the execution chamber during a lethal injection, but the state would not let his imam be present.

The next month, however, the justices halted the execution of a Texas inmate, Patrick Murphy, who objected after Texas officials wouldn’t allow his Buddhist spiritual adviser in the death chamber. Kavanaugh wrote at the time that states have two choices: Allow all inmates to have a religious adviser of their choice in the execution room or allow that person only in an adjacent viewing room.

In response, the Texas prison system changed its policy, allowing only prison security staff into the execution chamber. But in June, the high court kept Texas from executing Ruben Gutierrez after he objected to the new policy.

Diana Verm, a lawyer at the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, which had submitted briefs in two of the spiritual adviser cases, said it was unusual for the court with its conservative majority to halt executions.

“You can tell from some of the opinions that the justices don’t like the last-minute nature of execution litigation, but this is an area where they are saying: ‘Listen … religious liberty has to be a part of the process if it’s going to happen,” Verm said.

‘Western Elites Want a World Without Religion and History’: Publisher Slams Repurposing of Churches

Dutch churches are in a deep crisis. According to public broadcaster RTL News, some of them are unable to afford maintenance costs. Others suffer from a lack of attention by parishioners. In addition, almost all religious venues in the Netherlands recently fell victim to COVID restrictions, resulting in staggeringly low attendance and smaller contributions.

As a result, many venues placed “For Sale” signs on their premises, with some rural Dutch churches going for as low as 35,000 euros.

But money is not the key here, says Tom Zwitser – a manager at the Groningen-based firm Blue Tiger Studio and Blue Tiger Media. He believes churches are becoming deserted because a portion of the Western elite wants it that way:

“They want a world without religion and history”, says Zwitser. “The effects for the church originate in the incredible weakness of church leaders towards the government and towards their vocation”.

Why the West is ‘Losing its Religion’

Whether you believe in the globalist nature of recent changes in Europe‘s spiritual landscape or not, there are other factors at play when it comes to decline in church attendance.

In the age of COVID, many members of the Dutch clergy, namely Catholic Church bishops, were eager to follow government orders, says Tom Zwitser. They almost completely shut down venues during important rites and severely restricted Mass attendance:

“I cannot think of a time in history where church leaders so massively obeyed the government instead of serving the soul of the faithful. Many people went to church every week, but now, many of them haven’t attended Mass or service for months or even a year. And the same applies to the holy sacraments. I see this problem clearly as the transition of faith in God towards the state. And this is a top-down problem: where church leaders have more faith in the state than in God and His sacraments, the faithful will follow. So why should they go to church anyway?”

‘We Need a Reset, Like Russia Had Under Putin’

When it comes to religious freedom and the revival of traditional faith in the Netherlands, Tom Zwitser points to the East, mentioning the end of the Yeltsin era in Russia, when the country was in a state of disarray, but most negative tendencies came to a halt once Yeltsin stepped down. According to the Dutch publisher, it had a positive influence on the church, as Russians turned to God more frequently because their social and political life had become more balanced:

“The West needs a similar reset as Russia had under Putin. But instead of more of the same reset as we had over the last decades, the hierarchy needs a reset towards faith and tradition. We’ve been in a ‘woke Christianity’ for over 50 years and no real people – no real man or woman – wants to be part of that. I have seen some priests in our country becoming decent traditional priests within two years. When their mindset changed, their preaching follows very quickly, and their churches are full of people seeking truth and redemption, young and old, families and individuals”.

How Liveable are Cathedrals?

As drastic changes in Dutch society regarding religion are already happening, the pressing issue for some is what’s going to happen to those to religious buildings all over the country that end up in the hands of private and corporate buyers. And even though most Dutch residents seem to be fine with such transactions, conservative thinkers, such as Tom Zwitser, are pessimistic about cathedrals being turned into condos:

“Living in it might be a gimmick or something like that. But a church is not built for that. Architecture has a typology and you simply can’t live in a building which has been built for public service”, he says. “The idea of different private and public spheres isn’t liberal, but Christian. But modern people live anywhere; placeless and selfless. We live in a Potemkin city in which nothing really is what it suggests to be. Behind the facades everything is empty. This feeling has been growing in the West since the 19th century and is very dominant (Baudelaire and others)”.

According to researchers, since the year 1200, the Dutch have built more than 19,000 churches. By 2018 this number had fallen to 6,536. It’s expected that by 2025 only 1,900 religious venues will remain open in the Netherlands.

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Bagudu engages traditional, religion leaders on Kebbi’s cancer programme

Determined to create awareness on the danger of cancer disease in the state, Kebbi State Governor, Atiku Abubakar Bagudu, has said that he has engaged traditional and religious leaders on the cancer awareness programme of the state.

Bagudu, who stated this yesterday at Government House, Birnin Kebbi, while receiving the Minister of Health, Dr. Osagie Ehanire, who was on an assessment and inspection tour of the state’s cancer treatment centres, adding that his administration had been committed to the development of the diseases and health sectors at large.

He said Kebbi State shared borders with two countries, which gave it more courage to establish medical tourism. “We do supported some sick people from the neighbouring countries on healthcare service delivery, we thank the Federal Ministry of Health for rating Kebbi State as one of the best in terms of cancer programme” he added.

In his remarks, the Minister of Health, who was represented by Dr. Uche Nwokun, a consultant Haematologists, National Cancer Control Programme, Federal Ministry of Health, Abuja, said their aim of visiting was to access and inspect the two centres in the state.

He commended the efforts of the Kebbi State governor for contributing immensely to the development of the health sector in the state, assuring him of their support and love towards eradicating the disease.

West Virginia city’s evangelical Christians torn over religion’s role in politics

BLUEFIELD, W.Va. (AP) – If you’re Christian in Bluefield — and most everyone is, in this small city tucked into the Blue Ridge Mountains — you have your choice.

You can follow Pastor Doyle Bradford of Father’s House International Church, who has forcefully backed Donald Trump — doubting Trump’s defeat in November and joining some congregants at the Jan. 6 “Save America” rally that degenerated into the Capitol riot.

Or you can go less than 3 miles away next to the rail yard, to Faith Center Church, where Pastor Frederick Brown regards Bradford as a brother — but says he’s seriously mistaken. Or you can venture up East River Mountain to Crossroads Church, where Pastor Travis Lowe eschews Bradford’s fiery political rhetoric, seeking paths to Christian unity.

The three churches have much in common. All of them condemn the desecration of the Capitol and pray for a way to find common ground. 

But they diverge on a central issue: What is the role of evangelical Christianity in America’s divisive politics? 

Bradford and his flock defend his actions as expressions of freedom of speech and religious freedom, and say they should be allowed to voice their views against what they feel is an assault on democracy and Christian values. But his fellow pastors fear that fiery rhetoric and baseless claims made online and from the pulpit could stoke more tensions, rancor and divisiveness.

BIDEN ADDRESSES NATIONAL PRAYER BREAKFAST, SAYS ‘WE MUST DEFEAT POLITICAL EXTREMISM’

Though AP VoteCast found that about 8 in 10 evangelical voters supported Donald Trump in November — and though broadly, they have backed the political efforts of church leaders — they are not monolithic. 

As is evident in this Appalachian town of just more than 10,000.

Long before he followed his pastoral calling, Doyle Bradford dug for coal underground — a traditional vocation in Bluefield, where folks proudly recall how rock extracted from the surrounding hills powered ships in the two world wars and helped build the skylines of cities across America.

Joe Biden carried parts of Bluefield itself, small splotches of blue in the sea of red that is West Virginia. But Mercer County gave more than three-quarters of its votes to Trump, and Bradford and his pronouncements are very much in line with that.

“For those of you who are surprised at my attending (the Washington rally), we have 2 choices,” he wrote on Facebook, “I stand with the platform that most closely aligns with my faith and values. Those do not include the murder of babies in the womb, and not knowing which bathroom one should use and banning pronouns.”

He said he did not participate in or even see the violence Jan. 6. On Facebook, he said he believed it was a “planned response from non Trump supporters.” He claimed there was “plenty of evidence of fraud” in the presidential election — though there is no evidence that that is the case — and called on people to “wake up” because “America is at stake.”

NYPD OFFICER PUNISHED FOR WEARING PRO-TRUMP PATCH ON UNIFORM

In an interview, Bradford fiercely defended his actions and denied he was part of a larger movement toward Christian nationalism, described by a coalition gathered by the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty as an ideology that “demands Christianity be privileged by the state and implies that to be a good American, one must be Christian.”

“I consider myself a Christian who loves America, but what we’ve got going on in the Earth today is, if a Christian does love America, they’re automatically called nationalist,” Bradford said.

“I do not believe that America is any greater in the eyes of God than any other country. But as a minister of the Gospel, I do not want to be shut out of the public arena. I do have freedom of speech and freedom of religion, and it is my personal belief that America is going in a direction that will cause great harm to America.”

At Faith Center Church, Frederick Brown does not deny Bradford’s right to speak, but he does question the wisdom and even the godliness of some of the things he’s said.

Brown wants other religious leaders to return to “real Christianity” instead of getting wrapped up in the political arena. Although he respects Bradford as a “tremendous teacher” who loves God, he criticized some of his comments.

“With all love and due respect to my brother, I just feel that he has been completely out of order. I believe that he has said things publicly that just were not biblical,” he said.

“I’ve watched him declare that the wrath of God was coming upon people that did not vote for Trump, and the wrath of God was coming on the people that rigged the election. All of these things, from my perspective, that is totally contrary to what we teach and what we preach in Christendom.”

MISSING WEST VIRGINIA WOMAN FOUND DEAD IN WALMART PARKING LOT, POLICE INVESTIGATING

During a recent Sunday service — the first in-person one since November, due to the pandemic — Brown thanked the mostly Black congregation for its support after he contracted the coronavirus along with his wife and 17-month-old twins. Then he asked them to put politics aside and trust God. 

“I don’t know about you all,” he said, “but I’ve been through 11 presidents, and I have survived them all.”

In a town where another church marquee read, “Don’t look to the White House. Look to heaven,” Brown’s message reverberated.

“I’m ready for this political jockeying to be over with,” said congregant Jonathan Jessup. “You know, I’m sick of it because the only thing it’s doing is causing more division.”

At Crossroads Church, Travis Lowe has struggled with his own inclination to preserve Christian unity at all costs. He supported Black Lives Matter protests, but was reproached by a friend because his comments were divisive. He resolved to rein in his political speech.

In a post on Medium, he recounted how he struggled to remain silent as “pastors and prophets began to publicly take sides in the U.S. election. I was silent as scriptures were used to demonize political enemies. I was silent as the language of violence flowed from the mouths of `people of peace.'”

He recalled Bradford posted on Facebook after the first presidential debate that leaders in the church had supported Trump for years for not being a politician but were now backpedaling because he was not acting like one: “If you said he was the leader God chose, own it.” 

After Jan. 6, Lowe finally spoke out: “I can no longer risk having blood on my hands for the sake of unity.”

“I struggle to see the way that people can wave a banner of Christianity and still employ the language of violence, and even a lot of the imagery that I’ve seen used will reference Jesus as being a lion, a lion of the tribe of Judah,” he said. “But one of the things that I recognize in the New Testament is that every time that we expect Jesus to show up as a lion, he shows up as a lamb.”

Bradford takes pride in the diversity of his congregation, which includes white, Black and Latino members. His flock defend their pastor and say his church has transformed their lives through acceptance and love.

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That does not mean that they are happy with the violence they saw in Washington on Jan. 6, or that they are all certain that their faith offers clear instruction on how they should act politically.

“My biggest prayer is just that, God, that we would see the truth … and that this country would come together in unity,” said 21-year-old Kara Sandy, a congregant and junior at Bluefield State College. 

Congregant Brenda Gross teared up when she was asked about Jacob Chansley, an Arizona man who was part of the insurrection at the Capitol. Known as the “QAnon Shaman,” Chansley led a prayer at the Senate chamber thanking God “for allowing the United States of America to be reborn,” while shirtless and wearing face paint and a furry hat with horns. 

“I don’t know what prayer he prayed, but our Jesus was meek and mild. … He wasn’t representing the Jesus that I know and love,” she said.

Her husband attended the Washington rally with Bradford. Gross said she both stands by her pastor and prays for Biden, though she worries about Biden’s support for abortion rights, and how her community might lose jobs if he limits the use of coal. 

Gina Brooks, who leads the children’s ministry at Bradford’s church, agreed that the Capitol melee was a sorry spectacle: “It’s sad, it’s really disheartening to see people take on the name Christian and they’re not.” 

Brooks said she voted for Trump because she’s pro-life, but was often outraged by his behavior and felt it clashed with her Christian values. 

Her 18-year-old son Jacob, who is studying music at Bluefield College, a private, Christian liberal arts college, said that at times it’s best to try to remain impartial. 

“It’s important that people like us realize that we shouldn’t take sides, because the sides are what’s basically dividing the country,” he said. “As the body of Christ, our duty is to realize that this is sort of, I don’t know if I want to say like above us, but above our understanding. So, I think it’s just important that we just seek answers from our creator.”

But his mother said politics and religion are often deeply intertwined. She backed the decision to demonstrate by her pastor, whose most recent Facebook posts have been less strident, focusing on a message of unity and humility.

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“I agree with him … was there things that were wrong in our election? Absolutely. Is it our responsibility to intercede for this nation? Absolutely,” she said. 

“The end result is what the Lord’s will is, and if the Lord’s will is this, then so be it. But it doesn’t mean that we stop interceding in the spirit.”

Associated Press writer Elana Schor in Washington contributed to this report.

Is Turkey a Proof that Religion and Democracy Cannot Coexist?

Active Citizens, Armed Conflicts, Civil Society, Crime & Justice, Democracy, Featured, Gender, Gender Violence, Headlines, Human Rights, Middle East & North Africa, Press Freedom, Religion, TerraViva United Nations

NEW DELHI, India, Feb 8 2021 (IPS) – Over the years, Turkey has survived three Coup d’état in which its military forces took power, in 1960, 1971 and 1980. The coup in 1997, was carried out in a “post-modern way”, where generals sat down with the then prime minister, Necmettin Erbakan and forced him to resign. However the turning point in Turkey has been the failed coup attempt in July 2016, which has till date been one of the bloodiest coup attempts in its political history, leaving 241 people killed, and 2,194 others injured.

Soldiers and tanks took to the streets, explosions rang out in Ankara and Istanbul, fighter jets dropped bombs on their own parliament, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Hulusi Akar, was kidnapped by his own security detail. Thousands of citizens gathered in streets and squares around Anatolia to oppose the coup and with the help of loyalist soldiers and police forces, defeated the coup attempt.

“Freedom of expression in Turkey continues to backslide, particularly after the 2016 attempted coup,” says journalist Nazlan Ertan to IPS News. “Currently 70 journalists in Turkey are in jail, and some 170 media outlets have been closed down since 2016. More than 80 percent of the press institutions – newspapers and TV channels we considered admiral ships – are now in the hands of the companies close to the government. Key news either goes unreported, or comes out heavily biased,” says Nazlan.

In october 2020, eleven international rights groups issued a statement on Turkey’s clamp down on its press freedom,including its efforts to silence the press by stepping up online censorship through the new law targeting social media, mobilization partisan regulatory bodies, and launching a new offensive against judicial independence by targeting Turkey’s Constitutional Court (TCC). The group also flagged the continued jailing and prosecution of journalists as well as ongoing concerns over the safety of journalists and judicial independence.

International community must step up its bilateral and multilateral efforts to bring Turkey back into the club of countries that respects the rule of law, the group said.

According to Human Rights Watch’s World Report 2019, 130,000 public officials were dismissed following the 2016 coup over alleged association with U.S. – based Turkish Muslim cleric Fethullah Gülen. Turkey’s Ministry of Justice stated that as of June, “almost one-fifth of the total prison population was charged or convicted of terrorism offenses. Others have been charged with “insulting the president”.

A Turkish court on Friday resumed its high-profile show trial targeting leading Turkish civil society figure and philanthropist Osman Kavala accused of espionage and attempting to overthrow the constitutional order in the 2016 coup. Kavala has been accused of collaborating with Henri Barkey, a prominent U.S. based Turkey scholar who has been accused of having links to Fethullah Gulen’s network, which Ankara says orchestrated the coup attempt.

The court rejected Osman Kavala’s request to be released, and also ruled to merge two ongoing proceedings against Kavala and adjourned the trial until May 21, extending his detention since late 2017 by nearly four months.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has blamed the wife of jailed philanthropist Osman Kavala for provoking student protests at Bogazici University where she is an acclaimed academic. A report in Bloomberg stated that Erdogan called Ayse Bugra a “provocator” and her husband a “representative” of George Soros in Turkey.

Hundreds of protestors have been arrested at the university since January 4, including others who have been arrested at demonstrations in support of the students and LGBTQ rights in cities such as Ankara, Izmir and Bursa.

According to Nazlan, Bogazici University is a “microcosmos of all the issues we talk about in Turkey – academic freedom, independence, the right to assembly, LGBTQ movements and more”.

“Ever since the protests have started, hundreds of students have been taken into custody, those who expressed a rightful and peaceful opposition to the government appointed rector were vilified, the president and his cronies referred to them as terrorists, vandals, or “snakes whose heads should be crushed.”

The LGBTQ students who demonstrated with a rainbow flag were called “perverts who had no place in Turkey” by the Interior Minister,” says Nazlan.

The European Union and the United Nations has condemned these homophobic comments and called for demonstrators to be released.

Rights group Amnesty International has called on the government of Turkey to take urgent action to counter the increasing number of discriminatory statements and policies by the State officials against LGBTQ people. In a statement published in 2020, the rights group had urged the authorities to promote “equality both in their statements and actions.”

Nazlan adds that women in Turkey who have often used humour to make their voices heard, their situation continues to remain grim. In 2019, 474 women were murdered, mostly by partners and relatives and the figures in 2020, affected by coronavirus lockdhowns, are expected to be even higher.

“Women have been on the streets and various hashtags have surfaced – such as #ChallengeAccepted, #IstanbulConventionSavesLives and also #menshouldknowtheirplace. Domestic violence has increased, nearly half of all the women claim that they have faced some form of physical or psychological abuse in their lives,” says Nazlan.

Much before these brutal crackdowns on dissent following the attempted coup two years ago, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan held promises of turning Turkey into a “beacon of democracy for a region rife with religious conflict”, except today authoritaianism has destroyed the country and “the current Bogazici protests – which are still going on – is an example that no opposition is tolerated in Turkey anymore, no matter how peaceful or democratic,” says Nazlan.

The author is a journalist and filmmaker based out of New Delhi. She hosts a weekly online show called The Sania Farooqui Show where Muslim women from around the world are invited to share their views.

Afro-Brazilian religion ritual before Carnival

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) – Laura D’Oya, a priestess of an Afro-Brazilian religion, was at the center of the ceremony. Crouched down, she held a cigar in one of her hands and a top hat in the other. The temple in Rio de Janeiro was illuminated by red lights and dozens of practitioners sang and danced to the rhythm of an atabaque, a traditional hand drum.

                  The faithful of Umbanda, a religion that was born in Brazil, always perform rituals of spiritual protection as part of the pre-<a href="/topics/carnival/">Carnival</a> traditions. A spiritual mentor walked past <a href="/topics/laura/">Laura</a> in her Casa de Caridade Santa Barbara Iansa temple and prayed to activate a protective field to shield her from bad energies.












                  “Many people take advantage of this period to do good actions, but others do bad things. It (the ceremony) is for protection against events that can be more common (during carnival),” <a href="/topics/laura/">Laura</a> said before the ritual.
















                  As Portuguese colonists brought African slaves to Brazil, the enslaved men and women developed blends of their religions with Catholicism, which today include Candomble and Umbanda. They’re practiced by a tiny minority – some 600,000 of the more than 200 million Brazilians, according to the 2010 census - and Rio de Janeiro state is home to one-quarter of them. Afro-Brazilian religions have faced increased intolerance over recent years, with some of their temples destroyed.












                  Despite the fact Rio suspended street parties and the <a href="/topics/carnival/">Carnival</a> parade due to COVID-19, <a href="/topics/laura/">Laura’s</a> temple held the ceremony because they consider the period as one of disturbed energy. There is greater exposure of the human body and its sensuality, increasing the risk of accidents and other negative things, she explained.














                  Some protection rituals are even regularly performed at the <a href="/topics/carnival/">Carnival</a> parade grounds, known as the Sambadrome, which this year has been repurposed as a coronavirus vaccine station. Elderly Black women dressed in all white known as Bahianas usually wash the avenue before the parades to summon good energies for the public and the samba schools that stage the spectacle. Last year, one samba school’s parade centered on making a plea for people to respect Afro-Brazilian religions. 

























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                  The ceremony at Laura’s temple is for both spiritual and physical protection, she said. At the end of the ritual, all the practitioners leave the temple protected, once again, against the bad energies of the <a href="/topics/carnival/">Carnival</a>.
















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Buhari salutes Olupona, Professor of African Religion at 70

President Muhammadu Buhari has congratulated Prof. Jacob  Olupona on his 70th birthday, wishing him, his family, friends, acquaintances and the academia a most memorable milestone celebration.

The president, in a congratulatory message by his spokesman, Femi Adesina, in Abuja on Saturday, applauded the decades of research and accompanying rigour deployed by Olupona.

Olupona, a Nigerian National Order of Merit Award winner, in indigenous African religions, earns a worthy place at the Harvard Divinity School, with joint appointment as Professor of African and African-American Studies in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Harvard University.

Buhari commended the Professor for his research works into African spirituality, Pentecostalism, Yoruba festivals, Religious Pluralism in Africa and the Americas, among others.

He noted that the renowned academic had spent the past five decades, sharing and imparting knowledge globally.

The president wished the septuagenarian longer life and good health, urging the younger generations to derive inspiration from his sterling achievements.