SPIRITUAL LIFE IN BRIEF

Published Saturday, June 9, 2007

Separatist preacher readies for big move

ANDERSON, S.C. (AP) - The leader of a small group that ultimately wants to secede from the United States and form a Christian republic is preparing to move to the South Carolina county his organization has picked as a good base of operations.

Cory Burnell, leader of Christian Exodus, said he has found a job and is ready to move his family and operations by July from California to Anderson, in the state’s northwest corner.

His family, which includes his wife and three children, will join more than a dozen other like-minded families already living in South Carolina. Burnell said he expects another two dozen families in his movement to move to the area by 2008.

Christian Exodus aims to claim a voice in the South Carolina state government and eventually secede from the United States to form its own separate Christian republic.

Muslim girls get a chance to go to prom

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) - It was a prom for girls only, where more than 100 Muslim teenagers could take off their headscarves, let loose and dance, experiencing an American rite of passage without violating Islamic culture and values.

The Saturday night PROM - Party foR Only Muslimahs, or Muslim girls - at the University of Minnesota’s Coffman Memorial Union provided a chance for the girls to participate in a major high school experience.

Many Muslim girls don’t attend their high school proms because they aren’t allowed to dance with members of the opposite sex, and prom dresses can be too revealing for some Muslim girls to wear in public.

"I’d hate to miss this," said Sabrina Wazwaz, 15, a freshman who attends Twin Cities Academy in St. Paul, Minn. "I think it’s really nice how they thought of the Muslim girls who can’t go to the American prom, so they made this for us."

The event included dinner, performances by the girls during a talent show, a fashion show of clothing from different cultures and dancing. The event was organized by Muslim Youth of Minnesota and co-sponsored by the University of Minnesota’s Al-Madinah Cultural Center.

Local leaders decry church’s blackface skit

GASTONIA, N.C. (AP) - Local black leaders are decrying a recent performance by three white men at a church who wore blackface while pantomiming traditional black hymns.

The performance at Pilgrim Baptist Church was meant to honor gospel music history and was not meant to offend anyone, said the Rev. Thomas Holbrooks Jr., pastor at the church. "It was in no way making fun," Holbrooks said. "Lord knows we love the old spirituals they sing. That’s why they did it."

The church should have honored black music without the makeup, said David Moore, president of the not-for-profit Gaston County Organization for Community Concerns, which seeks to improve the quality of life for minorities.

"I have no problem with anyone that wants to sing black music, but to pretend that you’re a black person when you’re not a black person seems to be more of a mockery than a celebration," Moore said. "It’s misguided at this time in our culture, in our society."

Church members were told to dress 19th-century attire for the skit performed at the church’s mother-daughter banquet on the weekend before Mother’s Day, said Teresa Holbrooks, the pastor’s wife. The black makeup was her idea, she said.