Kesher Talk

Religion in wartime. Religion & Ethics Newsweekly has a whole section on military chaplains, with quotes by several chaplains, and interviews with Capt. James B. Magness, Chaplain for the U.S. Atlantic fleet, Episcopal Military Bishop George Packard, and the first Navy Muslim chaplain, Lieutenant MALAK IBN NOEL.

R&E also has an interview with an editor of a popular anthology of prayers, about the role of prayer in war time.

BeliefNet is a great site about religion and spirituality and their challenges in modern life, with sections for every religion you've ever heard of and some you probably haven't. The site also has a number of articles about the war, and a blog, which has a few posts about trying to avoid harming sacred and historical sites in Iraq, which I will reproduce most of since they seem to not believe in permalinks.

. . . with some shooting continuing [in Karbala] and in Najaf, another city sacred to the Shiites, military spokesmen on both sides are fighting a spin war over who is desecrating the shrines.
Iraqis say American jets are buzzing the ancient tombs. American generals say G.I.s are holding fire even when fired at from mosques.
In our scorebook, the American side is ahead on points, since the latter is a crime, experts say, almost unforgiveable under Islamic rules of war.

Below that is another post on the topic:

. . . Karbala contains the tomb of the Prophet Muhammad's grandson Hussein, who died there with his 72 followers in a massacre that might be called the Alamo of Islam. The shrine to Hussein commemorates the ultimate example of Muslim martyrdom, and Hussein himself is a founding imam of Shia Islam.
Though his own son-in-law is said to have destroyed the shrine while quelling Shiite riots after the Gulf War, Saddam has often made ingenious use of Islamic imagery. If the invasion comes down to a bloody fight between "infidels" and Iraqi troops at Karbala, the spiritual symbolism could well poison an American victory, especially for those Shiites whose support the coalition has been hoping for.

BeliefNet also has an interactive map showing historical sites in Iraq that have religious meaning, and a link to a tour of holy sites slated for October '04. I imagine Iraq will be glad for the tourism dollars.

(I had commented on Command Post about concern that Saddam is storing weapons next to historical sites in the belief that coalition forces won't risk damaging these sites.)

Here's a chart showing number of soldiers of each major religious group in the US.

posted by Judith @ 4/03/2003 06:27:53 PM