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KLMNO ON FAITH washingtonpost.com/onfaith


Throughout the week, go to On Faith for updates, discussions, commentary and news about faith and religion. On Faith, led by Sally Quinn, is one of the online world’s most popular news and religion features, offering informative, interesting and insightful commentary every day on religion’s impact on Washington, national and international events. On Faith’s panel and contributors include distinguished theologians, scholars and thinkers on the subject of faith for believers and nonbelievers, as well as an award-winning blog, Under God.


Guest Voices Mansoor Ijaz says U.S. Muslims should be Americans first. Go to newsweek.washingtonpost. com/onfaith/guestvoices.


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Guest Voices Mollie Aiegler Hemingway critiques media coverage of the New York Islamic center controversy and says that reporters should stop lecturing and address American concerns about Islam. Go to newsweek.washingtonpost.com/ onfaith/guestvoices.


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Georgetown/On Faith Katherine Marshall says that religious literacy is crucial to understanding the Pakistan flood response and New York mosque debate. Go to newsweek. washingtonpost.com/onfaith/ georgetown.


Sufi Muslim volunteers prepare the annual Ramadan Breakfast of Kabashi Gadirryah in Khartoum, Sudan, on Wednesday. More than 1 billion Muslims around the world began the holy month of Ramadan this week with a daily dawn-to-dusk fast.


Sharing blessings, ‘one box at a time’ Churches in California and Arizona help start-up firm distribute discounted food


by Tony Perry On Faith


Jon Meacham writes that religious liberty should prevail near Ground Zero. Go to newsweek. washingtonpost.com/onfaith/ panelists/jon_meacham.


The Spirited Atheist


On the 90th anniversary of women gaining the right to vote, Susan Jacoby writes about women’s religious suffering. Go to newsweek. washingtonpost.com/onfaith/ spirited_atheist.


Religion Events


 Sunday, 10 a.m.: A federal job search and résumé workshop will be held at Capitol Hill Seventh-day Adventist Church, 914 Massachusetts Ave. NE. 202-543-1344 or www.chcsda.org. Wednesday, 7 p.m.: A performance by saxist Connie Frigo and pianist Judith Bible will be held at St. Augustine’s Episcopal Church, 600 M St. SW. Donations accepted. 202-554-3222 or www. staugustinesdc.org.


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associate pastor of Bayview Bap- tist Church in San Diego, asked volunteers involved in the dis- tribution process to join hands for a prayer circle. “Praise you, Lord,” Jackson


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prayed. “Because of you, some- body will eat tonight.” A few min- utes later, the pastor and volun- teers began checking lists and carrying the boxes to cars, trucks and sport-utility vehicles pulling up near the church in the Encan- to neighborhood of San Diego. On this recent Saturday, the scene was repeated at more than 200 churches across Southern California and others in Phoenix and Northern California, under a venture begun by the Treasure Box, a Carlsbad, Calif., start-up company.


Once a month, 20 trucks hired by the company deliver discount boxes of frozen food for dis- tribution to people who have paid for them in advance. More than 90 percent of the host sites are churches looking to supple- ment their traditional food-give- away programs. Between loads, Jackson dis-


cussed the reasons Bayview has become involved in the distribu- tion program. “To a lot of people, the church


efore members of the congregation began ar- riving to pick up the prepaid boxes of food, the Rev. Bruce Jackson,


is seen as anti-gay, or antiabor- tion, always espousing things to be against, but never helping,” he said. “This is a way to serve peo- ple directly and change their viewpoints about the church.” For owners and managers of


the Treasure Box, veterans of the food distribution business, the effort is not solely charitable. They hope ultimately to make a profit. The company, which started in


November 2008 and has sold about 200,000 boxes, delivers an average of 18,000 boxes a month. The break-even point, at which profits are a possibility, is about 20,000, company officials said. Good Source Solutions, the parent company of Treasure Box, has for decades been in the busi- ness of selling wholesale food to nonprofit groups and institu- tional buyers such as schools and jails. But persuading churches to participate is different, said Treasure Box Executive Director Steve Guy. “I can’t say, ‘God wants you to do this,’ but I can say, ‘This is a way to serve your community,’ ” Guy said. Tonita Boatner, a volunteer at


Bayview Baptist, believes in the Treasure Box approach and is trying to get other churches to sign up as distribution points and to spread the word to their congregations. It isn’t always easy, she said. “Churches have seen programs come and go, and they feel ripped off sometimes,” Boatner


said. “I understand the resis- tance.” Treasure Box provides a per- box subsidy to each church to off- set its overhead. To spread the word about the program, the company gave away several hun- dred boxes at a neighborhood festival in the spring. “We like to think we’re build- ing communities one box at a time,” said Good Source chief ex- ecutive Craig Shugert. There are four kinds of food boxes, each selling for $30, offi- cials said. The standard monthly box, with a retail value estimated at $65 to $100, contains 21 to 25 pounds of meat, vegetables, fruit, side dishes and a dessert. The menu this month included chick- en breasts, beef patties, beef meatballs, sausage links, chili, cheese ravioli, corn, green beans, mangoes, pasta, long-grain rice, oatmeal and a dessert. At holiday season, the box con- tains turkey and ham slices, stuffing and cranberry sauce. “Without this box today, I’m not sure how I would feed my family,” Cynthia Laugher, 37, a single mother of three girls, said as she collected a box recently. That Bayview Baptist was among the churches to volunteer as a distribution site is not sur- prising. With a congregation of 2,500 families, the church and its longtime pastor, the Rev. Timo- thy J. Winters, have a history of community outreach. The church has a food-give- away program of its own on the


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Blogging on religion, government and politics Religious-freedom officials enter Ground Zero debate


What position, if any, should members of the country’s primary governmental body dedicated to religious freedom be taking about the controversy near Ground Zero? So far I’ve seen three of the nine members of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom connected in various ways to the dispute. One overtly opposes the Muslim center and questions whether the organizers even have a right to build it. Another has written a piece defending the right of even radical religious groups to build houses of worship (though the piece raises unspecific general


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concerns about the center in question, leading the piece to come across, in my view, as critical). A third is among the leadership of an advocacy group strongly fighting the center but says he personally has “no public position” on it. I asked commission Chairman


Leonard Leo whether he felt it was a good idea for members of a federal body promoting religious freedom to feed the opposition to a house of worship, and he said, “Each commissioner has to draw their own sort of lines about what is appropriate or inappropriate to do.”


— Michelle Boorstein


third Friday of every month. It also conducts a “street evange- lism” effort, in which members go door to door in racially mixed, working-class communities ask- ing residents about their needs. “We have a lot of people hurt by this economy,” Jackson said. “These aren’t people looking for a handout, just help in making their food dollars go further.” This month, Treasure Box de- livered to 258 sites in five coun- ties in Southern California, more than 40 in the Phoenix area and about 25 in Central and North- ern California.


According to company data, most people buying the boxes have an annual income of $35,000 to $70,000, Shugert said. Treasure Box officials, working


with several churches, have ap- plied to be eligible for the federal food stamp program so custom- ers can pay for the boxes with their monthly allotments. “We get people calling us every day asking if they can use” their food stamp cards, said regional man- ager Marianne Richards. The distribution process at


Bayview Baptist went swiftly. Volunteers had lists ready. Jack- son, with help from Boatner’s son, Ivory Ballard, loaded boxes into trunks and back seats. Sister Clarice Armstrong, a


Bayview staff member, explained the church’s philosophy. “The Lord has blessed us, so we can bless others,” she said. —Los Angeles Times


The triumph of St. Thomas Forty years after a devastating


fire, St. Thomas’ Parish in Dupont Circle is rebuilding. Go to newsweek. washingtonpost.com/onfaith/ guestvoices.


A time to feed the spirit


What should Imam Rauf say?


Excerpts from the On Faith panel at washingtonpost.com/onfaith


Below is an excerpt from “On Faith,” a daily online religion section sponsored by The Washington Post. Each week, Sally Quinn engages figures from the world of faith in a conversation about an aspect of religion.


Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, the religious leader behind the planned Islamic center and mosque near Ground Zero, has been mum on the issue while he travels in the Middle East. What message of faith could he offer to turn this moment of division into a time of healing?


Silence is not moderation: The true scandal here is that Muslim moderates have been so abysmally lacking in candor about the nature of their faith and so slow to disavow its genuine (and growing) pathologies — leading perfectly sane and tolerant people to worry whether Muslim


moderation even exists. Sam Harris,


author, “Letter to a Christian Nation”


Rauf should not be held responsible for controversy: This controversy and the senseless idea of remembering 9/11 by burning the Koran proves to the Muslim world that we are arrogant and expect the world to kiss our feet.


Arun Gandhi,


co-founder, M.K. Gandhi Institute for Nonviolence


A chance at greatness: If Americans are to believe in a Western Islam, they have a right to be reassured that the past experience of Christians in Islamic lands will not be repeated.


John Mark Reynolds,


director, Torrey Honors Institute, Biola University


Take a lesson from Pope John Paul II: Think of the potential for hope and healing, silencing of skeptics, and promotion of peace if only Imam Rauf would do the “right” thing by not exercising his right to build an Islamic center at the geographic center of such a sore spot in our nation’s heart.


Danielle Bean,


author, editorial director, Faith and Family magazine


Ask Muslims for help with image problem: Rauf should say, “Right now more than 2


⁄3 of


Americans are against this project I’m trying to make happen. Not all of them are ignorant bigots. We need to stop giving the ones who aren’t reasons to agree with the ones who are.”


Jason Poling,


founding pastor, New Hope Community Church


Rauf should apologize: Rauf must apologize for both spreading the same propaganda that fuels terror and reopening the wounds of 9/11. If he does not, Americans will continue to


reject him and his mosque. Jordan Sekulow,


human rights lawyer, American Center for Law and Justice


READER COMMENTS


PURLGURL: Rauf is expected to say, “As an American, I will respect the will of our American peoples; I will build this mosque elsewhere.” However, Rauf is not an American. Rather, he is a Muslim living in America who is arrogantly defying the will of our American peoples.


JONTHOM: The WTC area is not “sacred ground.” Muslims have as much right to build there as anyone else, and the whole controversy has been manufactured to influence the November elections.


To read the complete essays and more “On Faith” commentary, go to washingtonpost.com/onfaith.


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