Duke bows to pressure, cancels weekly Muslim call to prayer

Duke bows to pressure, cancels weekly Muslim call to prayer

Posted: Jan 15, 2015 8:34 AM CSTUpdated: Jan 15, 2015 4:40 PM CSTby WNCN Staff


Duke cancels change in Muslim call to prayer

http://wncn.images.worldnow.com/images/6454595_G.jpg

DURHAM, N.C. -Duke University has canceled its plans to have a Muslim prayer announcement broadcast from Duke Chapel's belltower on Friday afternoons.

The university announced its plans to facilitate a weekly call to prayer; but on Thursday, Duke officials acknowledged the decision resulted in unintended backlash.

"Duke remains committed to fostering an inclusive, tolerant and welcoming campus for all of its students," said Michael Schoenfeld, vice president for public affairs and government relations. "However, it was clear that what was conceived as an effort to unify was not having the intended effect."

The initial plan was to broadcast a weekly call to prayer from the chapel's bell tower starting Jan. 16. The prayer service would then take place in the chapel basement.

The university said it will instead welcome members of the Muslim community to gather on the quadrangle outside the chapel, before moving to its regular location in the chapel basement.

"It's a slap in the face to Muslims," said Khalilah Sabra, with the Muslim American Society.

The chant was intended to announce the start of the Duke Muslim Student Association's prayer service, which the Muslim chaplain at Duke said "brings Muslims back to their purpose in life." However after the school announced the weekly broadcast, the university's Facebook page was flooded with angry comments.

One commenter said they had "totally lost respect for Duke University."

Another said that the university is a "... center for political correctness," and that it's "just plain bizarre that [they are] going to do an Islamic call to prayer."

The plan also drew the ire of evangelist Franklin Graham, who urged Duke alumni to withhold support because of violence against Christians that he attributed to Muslims.

Graham told WNCN he felt the school "was making a huge mistake."

"First of all, this chapel was given by donors, Methodists, from across this state and other areas, so that there would be a Christian chapel on the campus so that the students would have a place to worship the God of the Bible," Graham said.
In a statement posted on Facebook, Graham, the head of Samaritan's Purse and the son of Billy Graham, said, "As Christianity is being excluded from the public square and followers of Islam are raping, butchering and beheading Christians, Jews, and anyone who doesn't submit to their Sharia Islamic law, Duke is promoting this in the name of religious pluralism.
"I call on the donors and alumni to withhold their support from Duke until this policy is reversed."

Duke, a private school, was founded by Methodists and Quakers and has a divinity school historically connected to the United Methodist Church. Duke has roughly 15,000 students, including 6,500 undergraduates. The school said about 700 students are Muslim.

http://www.wncn.com/story/27857809/d...prayer-service

People fought back and won this time. But the Socialist, Communist, Islamo fascist conspirators will be back until they are defeated or their dream of a new state over America is complete.

W

I think that Duke provided alternative which permits Muslim students to use the chapel.
********************
Americans first in this magnificent country

American jobs for American workers

Fair trade, not free trade

I think Duke bowing to concerned Americans is much better than bowing to Islamists and Allah!

W

Duke definitely made the right decision to cancel this event. What were they thinking to begin with?! Duke may have been started as a religious based Methodist College, but truly, no one sees them today as a religion-related University. Duke is considered as one of the best secular schools in the world and to degrade it into any type of religious chanting or prayer house for any religion is just .... wrong.

And many thanks to all those who contacted Duke and spoke up about this. To see it this morning on the news and go "WTF" and then see it reversed by the evening news shows there was substantial opposition and a prompt and proper response by Duke officials.

A word also to religions who want to carry alot of religious baggage around with them from attire to books to head gear to multiple prayer moments and so forth: This doesn't work in the United States. You are a distraction. Leave all that nonsense at home. Keep your religion what it is: personal. That means out of school, out of the work place, out of politics, out of the news and oh yes please, off the streets.

FROM CHURCH BELL TOWER TO MINARET AND BACK AGAIN

Multiculturalism at Duke University blows up in its face.
By Mark Tooley – 1.16.15http://cdn.spectator.org/styles/arti...?itok=PJ9RDIhX


Supposedly Duke University thought turning the majestically Gothic bell tower of famous Duke Chapel into an Islamic minaret for every Friday call to prayer, heralded as “interreligious reimagining of a university icon,” would be non-controversial.

But the bow to campus multiculturalist ideology, thanks to nationwide publicity, barely lasted 24 hours. A campus spokesman curtly announced that what had been intended as unifying had become undesirably divisive. So the Muslim student group, which serves the five percent of Duke students said to be from Islamic backgrounds, will continue to worship in the chapel basement and will issue prayer calls outside the chapel instead.

The university also vaguely cited “threats” to explain its quick flip-flop. Some credited outspoken criticism of the bell tower/minaret policy from evangelist Franklin Graham, speaking from the other, more mountainous side of North Carolina. Almost no one offered a reasoned theological explanation for or against amplified Islamic prayer calls from the upper heights of Duke Chapel.

Of course, Duke’s initial decision was rooted in routine academic faddish multiculturalism, which disdains the truth claims of any religion, and sees various faiths as primarily a cacophony of spiritual diversity that advertises hyper-tolerance. The prominence that Duke Chapel would have afforded Islam, more so than other minority religious groups, probably owes to academic bias against Christianity as supposedly Western and imperialist, while viewing non-Western religions as victims of colonialism and modern discrimination meriting reparation.

There was also the added benefit of irritating conservative Christians, especially in the backwoods and hills of North Carolina, whom enlightened academics in Durham and Chapel Hill doubtless view condescendingly as yahoos, with Franklin Graham embodying many of their stereotypes.

Graham and other critics of the Duke minaret policy cited Islamic persecution of Christians overseas. And some recalled other Duke decisions that seemed to marginalize traditional Christians, such as evicting Chick-fil-A from campus several years ago, amid the restaurant owners’ controversial opposition to same sex marriage. There is also the history of the campus Muslim group, which has dubious overseas connections.

But what if Shinto priests or Buddhist monks were invited to perform their rites in the Duke Chapel bell tower? Any reason to object?
Duke University is affiliated with the United Methodist Church, but the school, like most institutions founded by Mainline Protestantism, has been primarily secular for decades. The school’s seminary, which trains Methodist and other clergy, has its own chapel on campus. Nearly fifteen years ago, Duke University compelled Duke Chapel to accept same sex unions, against United Methodist policy.

Undoubtedly the university would like Duke Chapel to transition from Christian church to interfaith community center. But the transition is far from complete. The chapel wasdedicated in 1935 as a “summons to men to find the synthesis of all experiences in Jesus Christ.” It resembles a medieval cathedral, built in cruciform shape, and redolent with Christian imagery in its glorious stain glass, stone carvings, and carved wood. It hosts regular Christian worship, and the bell tower sounds forth Christian chimes.

Some defenders of the initial minaret decision huffily derided the religious intolerance of critics, chastising conservative Christians for only cherishing religious freedom for themselves. But does religious freedom mean religious worship spaces should no longer adhere to their own faith and should instead become public market places where all belief systems are equally valid, or, as some believe, equally invalid?

Florida United Methodist Bishop Ken Carter, formerly a longtime North Carolina pastor and a Duke Divinity School graduate, thoughtfully explained why consecrated worship space should be honored. He distinguished between interfaith dialogue and the “consecration of space set apart for Christian worship,” noting that Duke Chapel indeed had been “consecrated and set apart for Christian worship.”

“I respect the sacred spaces of Jews and Muslims, and honor their own purposes,” Carter said. “Jews and Muslims are right to retain the identity of their holy places, and they are not bigots if they choose not to allow other religious traditions to practice in them. Christians are also not bigots in viewing Duke Chapel as a place set apart for Christian worship.”

Specifying that he comes “from a very different place than Franklin Graham,” Carter said, “I honor the goodness of many Muslims, and I acknowledge the failures of many Christians, myself included. I speak as an advocate for continued interfaith dialogue and for the integrity of consecrated places of worship. From my perspective, the reconsideration [against Duke Chapel for Islamic prayer] was a wise one.”

Tensions between zealous multiculturalists and serious religious adherents of course will continue at Duke and countless other campuses. Minority religious groups, when offered seeming favors by campus elites, should consider the implications. Negating consecrated Christian space in favor of multi-faith experimentation ultimately doesn’t advance tolerance or respect. Instead it potentially impoverishes respect for the integrity of all religions.


http://spectator.org/articles/61509/...and-back-again

IRD: Duke University Correct to Reverse Course on Muslim Call to Prayer


Institute on Religion and Democracy Press Release
January 15, 2015
Contact: Jeff Walton office: 202-682-4131, cell: 202-413-5639, e-mail: jwalton@TheIRD.org

“Duke Chapel is a Christian sanctuary that was dedicated in 1935 to proclaim the Gospel – not as a venue offering ‘equal time’ to all religions.”
-Faith J. H. McDonnell, IRD Religious Liberty Program Director

Washington, DC—Plans to begin issuing the Muslim call to prayer from a bell tower at North Carolina’s Duke University have been withdrawn after public outcry, the Associated Pressis reporting.

The Duke Muslim Students Association planned to chant the call, or adhan, from the Duke Chapel bell tower on Fridays. The adhan signals the beginning of the weekly prayer service. The call was to last three minutes and be “moderately amplified,” according to the University.

Duke has historic ties to the United Methodist Church, and the chapel’s associate dean for religious life defended the initial plans as representing “a larger commitment to religious pluralism that is at the heart of Duke’s mission.” Evangelist Franklin Graham was among those critical of the proposal.

Various Christian denominations hold prayer and worship services in the chapel. Approximately 700 of Duke’s 14,800 enrolled students identify as Muslim.

IRD Religious Liberty Program Director Faith J. H. McDonnell commented:

“Thank you to Duke University officials who were responsive to concerns about issuing the Islamic call to prayer from the chapel tower.

“Duke University would have been guilty of a double standard if it allowed the weekly public broadcast of the Muslim call to prayer from the Chapel belltower while not allowing equal public proclamation of the Gospel, or of Jewish Sabbath prayers.

“Additionally, there were significant concerns that the group set to sponsor the prayer — the Muslim Student Association — is a Saudi-backed political group associated with the Wahhabi movement of Islam. It is identified by the Muslim Brotherhood itself as the second most of important of its partner organizations in the ‘civilization-jihadist process.’”

www.TheIRD.org

http://juicyecumenism.com/2015/01/15...m-call-prayer/

Muslim Liars: How the Muslim Students Association Deceives the Naive

April 27, 2011 by
David Horowitz


http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-conte...genocideg1.gif

The Muslim Students Association is a national organization with chapters on hundreds of U.S. campuses. It has a privileged position on these campuses such that no student paper would print the statement that follows in this blog. It would be regarded as “offensive to an ethnic and religious group.” What is truly offensive are the subterfuges under which the MSA operates, lying about its core mission — which is to advance the Islamic jihad against the Jews and Christians of the Middle East, and ultimately against the United States.

Unfortunately the lies of the MSA (like its sister organizations CAIRand the Muslim American Society) are successful in snookering the willing accomplices of the political left and the unwitting accomplices of the inattentive middle to support and protect them.

Here is the deceptive Mission Statement of the Muslim Students Association at UC San Diego, where I confronted one of its members last year who endorsed the extermination of the Jews (and was defended by the MSA for doing so):

“The purpose of the Muslim Student Association 
of the University of California, San Diego
is to provide an environment for the development and networking
 of Muslims on campus while fostering a sense of community between Muslims and non-Muslims through education.”

This is an organization that sponsors Israel Apartheid weeks, sponsors Israel-hating speakers, advances the false and genocidal claim that that Israel exists on land stolen from a mythical “Palestine” that never existed and promotes the propaganda of the Muslim Brotherhood, creator of Hamas and spiritual guide of al Qaeda. Its “education” consists of informing the gullible that Islam means “peace” (actually it means “submission”) and that “terrorism is, in fact, a term that spans the entire world and manifests itself in various forms,” and is, in fact, a term applicable to “sanctions” (e.g., the sanctions against Iran to prevent its dictators from developing nuclear weapons. The MSA site directs the inquisitive who want to understand Islam (and Islam’s relation to terrorism) to a site called WhyIslam.org — a site that happens to be sponsored by the Islamic Circle of North America, which like the MSA itself, is a creation of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Unfortunately this transparent double talk is enough to snooker gullible university administrators, faculty and students into regarding the jihad-supporting MSA chapters as religious and cultural organizations, while providing them with special privileges and protections. This allows them to conduct their war against the Jews and Crusaders in the heart of America’s educational institutions.

The main Jewish organization on campus, Hillel, joined forces with this arm of the Muslim Brotherhood to attack the “Palestinian Wall of Lies” which our students put up at Brown, Florida State and the University of North Carolina, to refute the lies of the anti-Israel, anti-American left and the Nazis of Hamas — a sister organization of the MSA.

http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/dav...s-the-naive-2/

UC San Diego's Genocidal Student Org MSA Representative "For It" On Genocide of Jews World-wide

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2O28c2q4JY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2O28c2q4JY

Michigan State Professor Speaks Out Against MSA & CAIR

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vV7JwLv5oX0

OBAMA SIDES WITH ISLAMIC GROUP OVER FBI

'The opposite direction of trying to stamp out terrorism'

Published: 12/27/2014
at 7:45 PM
GARTH KANT

WASHINGTON – Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., had a succinct analysis of the Obama administration’s latest diplomatic move and how it appeared to conflict with FBI’s own assessment.

“The president is going exactly in the opposite direction of trying to stamp out terrorism,” she told WND upon hearing why Obama administration officials had huddled earlier in the week with representatives from the Council on American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR, and the Muslim American Society, or MAS.

According to a statement on CAIR’s website, representatives from the two U.S.-based Islamic groups met with senior government officials on December 22, and pledged to work together to counter a decision by the United Arab Emirates, or UAE, on November 15, to put CAIR and MAS on its list of foreign terrorist groups.

The UAE also outlawed the two organizations and declared CAIR and MAS to be front groups for the terrorist organization the Muslim Brotherhood.

The FBI severed contacts with CAIR in 2009 as “not an appropriate liaison partner” for the bureau because of evidence linking the group and its founders to Hamas, which the U.S. lists as a terrorist organization. Hamas runs Gaza and was founded as an offshoot of the jihadist organization the Muslim Brotherhood, based in Egypt.

“It’s interesting that the administration has parted ways with it’s own position and is now meeting with a U.S. court designated co-conspirator of terrorist financing,” observed Bachmann.

Federal prosecutors named CAIR an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation trial over a plot to fund Hamas. In November 2008, in the biggest terrorism financing trial in U.S. history, Holy Land Foundation members were convicted of sending millions of dollars to Hamas.

Justice Department prosecutors implicated CAIR and other prominent Islamic organizations in the U.S. in the conspiracy and said they had acted at the direction of the Muslim Brotherhood to support terrorism.

Furthermore, as WND reported in 2007, CAIR was a spinoff of the defunct Islamic Association for Palestine, launched by Hamas leader Mousa Abu Marzook and former university professor Sami al-Arian, who pleaded guilty in 2006 to conspiracy to provide services to Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Several CAIR staffers have been convicted on terrorism-related charges and CAIR founder Omar Ahmad allegedly told a group of Muslims they are in America not to assimilate but to help assert Islam’s rule over the country.

Nonetheless, on Monday, State Department spokesman Jeff Rathke said, “The United States does not consider these U.S. organizations (CAIR and MAS) to be terrorist organizations” and had asked the UAE for more information on the decision.
When a reporter noted the head of CAIR has been a White House guest and frequently visits the State Department, Rathke claimed CAIR was just one of many “faith-based groups” which had met with U.S. government officials.

“They obviously feel that the heat is off and once again are meeting with unindicted co-conspirators,” said Bachmann.
The congresswoman said she had no doubt that CAIR was a front group for jihadis because of all the evidence cited in the bill she introduced calling on the Obama administration to declare the Muslim Brotherhood a foreign terrorist organization.
“CAIR is a front group for the Muslim Brotherhood in the United States, as is the Muslim Student Association, and they try to present a storefront view of moderate, mainstream Muslim thought when, in fact, they are just the opposite.”


http://www.wnd.com/files/2013/12/cai...83-300x142.jpg
On it’s website, CAIR calls itself:

“America’s largest Muslim civil liberties and advocacy organization. Its mission is to enhance the understanding of Islam, encourage dialogue, protect civil liberties, empower American Muslims, and build coalitions that promote justice and mutual understanding.”

However, CAIR is cited several times in the text of the Muslim Brotherhood Terrorist Designation Act as a Brotherhood-controlled entity.

“They (CAIR) tend to be the mask covering up violent jihad across the globe. They pretend to be the mouthpiece of moderation when, in fact, they are anything but,” said Bachmann.

For its part, CAIR described its terrorist designation by the UAE as “shocking and bizarre.”

Indeed, why would the UAE do such a thing when its own ambassador has praised CAIR in the past and the country has allowed the group to raise funds there?

Daniel Pipes, president of the Middle East Forum, suggests it has little to do with terrorism and a lot to do with UAE leaders seeking to protect their own skin.

He notes the fracturing of the Islamist movement in recent years includes a divide between the Muslim Brotherhood and the Persian Gulf monarchies, including the UAE.

Pipes said those monarchies now see a threat to their existence from the Muslim Brotherhood, “as they do Hamas and its progeny — including CAIR.”


http://www.wnd.com/files/2014/12/UAE_Map-300x224.jpg

Even though she is retiring from Congress, Bachmann’s bill to designate the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organization is still alive and had 20 co-sponsors, at last count. She believes someone else will lead the effort and the bill will make it to the president’s desk because of the ever-increasing threat from Islamic jihad to the U.S. and the world. If so, Obama is expected to veto the measure.

As WND has reported, the bill would not only add the Muslim Brotherhood and its U.S. subsidiaries to the U.S. list of foreign terrorist organizations, it would also crack down on anyone in America who provides material support or funding to the Brotherhood or its front groups. At the same time, the bill proposes denying visas to any Brotherhood members seeking to enter the U.S., while deporting any foreign nationals associated with the Brotherhood already living in the U.S.

Additionally, the bill states: “Any United States financial institution that knowingly has possession of or control over funds in which the Muslim Brotherhood or its affiliates, associated groups, or agents have an interest shall retain possession of or control over the funds and report the funds to the Office of Foreign Assets Control of the Department of the Treasury.”

In effect, the law would freeze Muslim Brotherhood assets and dry up funding and recruiting for Brotherhood groups operating in the U.S. If aggressively enforced, the law would go a long way toward shutting down the subversive infrastructure the Egypt-based Brotherhood has spent the past 40 years building in America.

The Obama administration does not support such action, because it views the Brotherhood as a nonviolent political group and has engaged its leaders at home and abroad.

But former FBI agent John Guandolo, who helped draft the anti-Brotherhood bill, said the administration’s view is ill-informed.
The bureau’s foremost expert on the Brotherhood network, Guandolo helped uncover a Brotherhood conspiracy to overthrow the United States by “civilization jihad” following a raid on a suspected terrorist’s home in Northern Virginia.

Author of “Raising a Jihadi Generation: Understanding the Muslim Brotherhood Movement in America,” the veteran agent warns that “America faces an insurgency inside our homeland” from the Brotherhood.


“This is an enemy who is cunning, patient, well-supported and well-organized,” he said.

Guandolo said he is pleased to see other countries recognizing the threat from the Brotherhood and its front groups, such as CAIR.

“Since [CAIR leaders] are Hamas,” he said, “it is nice to see that at least the UAE recognizes the implications that this makes CAIR a terrorist organization.”

Guandolo said the Muslim American Society, or MAS, moreover, was founded by three senior Muslim Brotherhood members in the U.S. in the early 1990s, including the leader of the Brotherhood in America at the time, Ahmed Elkadi. MAS also runs jihad camps for Muslim youth throughout the U.S.

He says there is overwhelming documentary and testimonial evidence proving “CAIR and MAS are jihadi organizations – they are terrorists.”

However, Guandano says Attorney General Eric Holder pulled the plug on FBI investigations into the groups for “political reasons.”

Follow Garth Kant @DCgarth
Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2014/12/obama-sid...T0Jt0UVIJM5.99