A Muslim youth retreat planned for Christmas week at a Presbyterian conference center has a local Christian group up in arms.
The Muslim Youth of North America, an arm of the Islamic Society of North America, is sponsoring the retreat Dec. 19-25 at the Presbyterian Mo-Ranch Camp and Conference Center near Hunt.
According to the society’s website, about 100 youths ages 12-18 are expected from around the nation to participate in “intensive leadership and spiritual development training.”
Randy Simmons, a member of the Hill Country Oak Initiative, which launched an e-mail campaign protesting the retreat, said the Islamic Society has ties to terrorist organizations, and he doesn’t want them meeting in Kerr County.
“I don’t have any specific concerns with youth coming to Mo-Ranch,” Simmons said. “The concern ... is leadership of the group that is sponsoring the youth.”
The Islamic Society of North America was one of 302 Muslim groups named as unindicted co-conspirators in the 2008 trial of the Holy Land Foundation in Dallas. The foundation and five of its organizers were found guilty of illegally funneling more than $12 million to the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas.
The society has filed a motion with the Justice Department to be removed from that list, but that has not yet happened. In a statement on its website, the Islamic society states that it is opposed to terrorist acts of groups such as Hamas.
“ISNA remains consistent in its rejection of terrorism and violence,” the website states. “ISNA rejects all acts of terrorism, including those perpetrated by Hamas, Hizbullah and any other group that claims Islam as their inspiration.”
Simmons said he doesn’t believe there is any immediate threat of terrorist acts in Kerr County or that the youth group coming to Mo-Ranch is a terrorist organization, but he said he opposes the message being taught by the leaders of the Islamic Society of North America.
And he sees a “potential threat.”
“They’ve been operating undercover for a long time, and I don’t want to wake up one day and the next thing you know, we have a mosque and an Islamic settlement right here in Kerr County,” he said
David Jordan, president of Mo-Ranch, issued a statement this week after he began receiving e-mails and phone calls from members of the Oak Initiative about the conference.
He said that the youth group would not be participating in jihadist activities and defended the Presbyterian church’s efforts to work with other faiths, including Islam, Judaism and Catholicism.
The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) is listed as an interfaith partner of the Islamic Society of North America along with several other major religious denominations.
The Hill Country Oak Initiative is the local chapter of the international Oak Initiative formed in 2009 in Charlotte, N.C., during a meeting of religious leaders from around the country, including Simmons. The group’s president is the Rev. Rick Joyner, founder and executive director of MorningStar Ministries and Heritage International Ministries.
Since issuing the statement, Jordan said he has been getting e-mails and calls from people outside the county, including some messages with unclear intentions.
“I am concerned and disappointed in the tone and rhetoric of some of the e-mails and phone calls we have received,” Jordan said.