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Bitter infighting threatens Kenya’s Methodist Church

At the center of a controversy that has been unfolding since 2015 is Presiding Bishop Joseph Ntombura.

One of the closed campuses of Kenya Methodist University, Thursday, March 16, 2023, in the Nairobi city center. Photo by Fredrick Nzwili

March 20, 2023

By 

Fredrick Nzwili

NAIROBI, Kenya (RNS) — Disagreements within the Methodist Church in Kenya are threatening to tear apart the denomination, with some senior clergy seeking to form independent regional conferences.

At the center of a controversy that has been unfolding since 2015 is Presiding Bishop Joseph Ntombura. The church’s senior clergy accuse the leader of mishandling the church’s funds and investments, including church-owned operations, such as hospitals, a resort, a national university and various office buildings.

“He (Ntombura) has displayed total incompetence as a leader. The church has gone down to zero after he took over in 2013. We have institutions of high status,” former Bishop Paul Matumbi Muthuri told RNS in a telephone interview on March 14. “He has run down all these institutions.”

The Methodist Church in Kenya, established in 1862 by the British Methodist Church and made autonomous in 1967, has had a fairly stable history in the country until 2015 when, two years into his term, Ntombura changed the church’s constitution and established new rules.

“He established new rules that are strange to our tradition. So from 2015, the people have had bad leadership all along and they have been in court,” said Muthuri, who was fired as bishop by Ntombura.

Misheck Kobia Michubu, the steward of the Kawangware Circuit in Nairobi, told RNS the church and its institutions are in a precarious place.

“It is like we have lost direction. It is like the church is breaking into pieces,” said Michubu. “Every time the church members want to discuss these matters, (Ntombura) gets a court order.”

Presiding Bishop Joseph Ntombura speaks at a Kenya Methodist University event. Photo via social media

He pointed to the Kenya Methodist University as an example. During Ntombura’s tenure as presiding bishop, which also includes the role of university chancellor, the student population of the school has declined from 13,000 to less than 3,000, and five campuses have closed, according to Michubu.

“We have seen some items being auctioned. We hear there is a huge debt. We also hear the same regarding the church hospital in Maua (a town in Meru County). The problem has been a massive interference in the running of the institutions by the presiding bishop,” said Michubu.

He also registered concern about missions established by the Kenyan church in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and South Sudan, which had been running well, according to Michubu, but the current status of them is uncertain.

“They may be running, but very dismally,” he said.

Muthuri accuses Ntombura of defrocking more than 100 clerics, selling church properties and using the remaining ones as security to acquire loans.

Michubu agrees the clergy have borne the brunt of Ntombura’s administration, since those who dissent are not “stationed” or are moved from one station to another, some to as many as five in one month.

“He has been using stationing as a tool to punish those who don’t agree with him,” said the official.

Ntombura has not responded to telephone calls and RNS’ requests for comment, but in January he told Kenya’s Nation Newspaper that he is fighting corruption and that rogue clergy are attempting to block his efforts.

The Methodist Church in Kenya logo. Courtesy image

“The process of cleaning up the church affiliated institutions and restoring the dignity of the church, I have encountered a battalion of enemies. Corruption is fighting back,” he told the Nation on Jan. 19.

The bishop said he took over a church that had no money for mission work and was relying on loans to pay office rent. He also complained the official residence of the presiding bishop had no furniture when he moved in.

He said the church university was in a financial crisis and was borrowing money, while its official books showed a surplus. A forensic audit showed the institution was running on fake financial books, had unpaid statutory dues, loans and credits, according to Ntombura.

“We had to move with speed to restructure the loans and fix the management and save the university from the auctioneer’s hammer,” he told the daily.

Clerics and lay leaders say as a consequence of the infighting, the church’s membership has declined across the country, with people migrating to other churches. Some churches have been cutting links with Ntombura’s leadership, beginning with those in the coastal region, which formed a conference in 2019. In 2020, the Mt. Kenya region conference was established, and another in Nairobi is taking shape. These are partly autonomous and led by their own presidents.

“We are not splitting, but it is the same church which is decentralizing through regional conferences. We have had one conference in Nairobi, under one man or woman, but we feel the church has outgrown its establishment, and we cannot afford to have one center of power,” said Muthuri.

Ukraine’s Hare Krishnas survive war by Zoom and serving neighbors

Many of the estimated 15,000 Hare Krishnas who call Ukraine home have continued their daily practice and serve their neighbors, even as several temples have been damaged or destroyed and their communities scattered.

Ukranians take refuge in the basement of the Hare Krishna temple in Kyiv, Ukraine, during the current war with Russia. A variety of Hare Krishna temples across Ukraine use basements as bomb shelters. Photo courtesy of Acyuta Priya

March 20, 2023

By 

Tori Luecking

(RNS) — With no time even to wash her clothes as the Russians approached Mariupol a year ago, in southern Ukraine, Kalakeli Devi Dasi fled her native city with only a small suitcase filled with her dirty laundry. She also took with her a letter she was unable to deliver to her mother before Kalakeli and her friends joined a large convoy of cars heading southwest to the city of Berdyansk.

“It was very scary and we did not know what to expect,” said Kalakeli of the escape. “We saw much destruction. I saw burnt and torn bodies. It was a terrible and frightening sight. … We kept chanting the holy names of the Lord the whole way.”

Kalakeli is one of an estimated 15,000 Hare Krishnas who call Ukraine home, many of whom have continued their daily practice and serve their neighbors, even as several of their roughly 30 ISKCON temples have been damaged or destroyed and their communities scattered.

The Hare Krishna movement, whose formal name is the International Society of Krishna Consciousness, or ISKCON, has been active in Eastern Europe since 1971, when ISKCON’s founder, A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, traveled to the Soviet Union in the company of Shyamsundar Das, a close friend of Beatle George Harrison.

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Hare Krishna founder A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada in Germany in June 1974. Photo by Christian Jansen/Wikipedia/Creative Commons

Prabhupada arrived in New York in 1965 from Calcutta to spread in the West faith in the Hindu deity Lord Krishna. Related to the nearly 500-year-old Krishna consciousness movement in India, ISKCON is a monotheistic tradition within Hinduism whose main spiritual text is the Bhagavad Gita. Its adherents practice vegetarianism and meditation, Bhakti yoga and public chanting of Krishna’s names, and in the U.S. it is best known for its groups of saffron-clad devotees chanting mantras in public spaces or passing out literature on the street.

Having planted the seeds of ISKCON in the U.S., Prabhupada went to the Soviet Union in 1971 to teach the faith. From there, the theology spread underground by word of mouth, despite the Communist Party’s anti-religious agenda, eventually finding its way to Ukraine.

Other Hare Krishnas from abroad followed Prabhupada to continue to nurture the movement in the former Soviet Union. One of them, Niranjana Swami, a convert to ISKCON from Massachusetts, entered the U.S.S.R. under the guise of a tourist in the late 1980s but broke away from his tour at night to lecture in small, packed apartments, teaching as many as 100 people on an evening.

“I felt these people were so sincerely looking for God, because it had been suppressed in their lives for so long by the regime, that I felt the regime actually did much to expand God consciousness,” said Niranjana Swami. “Anything beyond the party line was, to them, seen as a potential message from the divine.” 

He was in Russia when the Soviet Union collapsed. “I happened to be in Moscow when Yeltsin was standing on the tanks around the parliament building.”

Niranjana Swami. Photo courtesy of Niranjana Swami and Amritamani Devi Dasi

Now 70 and a governing body commissioner for ISKCON, Niranjana Swami oversees communities in Moldova, Belarus, Lithuania and Ukraine, traveling widely and visiting Ukraine when he can. 

When the war broke out in Ukraine in 2022, local devotees turned to Niranjana Swami for support and guidance, and he began lecturing via Zoom. His collection of lectures about the war were recently compiled and published in a book titled, “Krishna Protects His Devotees.”

Niranjana Swami also helped mobilize the worldwide ISKCON community to raise thousands of dollars for those suffering from the effects of the war. Share Your Care, based in Kyiv, aims to help Hare Krishnas and their families relocate from conflict zones, supplement their loss of income and distribute food. Since the war began, an estimated 2 million plates of food have been distributed by ISKCON to Ukrainians in need.

The war has claimed the lives of at least five Hare Krishna devotees, and devastation in Kramatorsk and Bakhmut has cost the local communities its temples. In the face of this violence, deities have been relocated while larger temple rooms have been closed and their basements converted into bomb shelters. 

The Hare Krishna temple in Kyiv, Ukraine, before the current war with Russia. Photo courtesy of Acyuta Priya

Temple services and programs have resumed in cities in safer locales, while on the streets of Kyiv and other cities west of there, public chanting and book distribution have also resumed.

Much of this activity is overseen by Acyuta Priya, ISKCON’s zonal supervisor for Ukraine. Born to a staunchly Communist family when Ukraine was still a Soviet state, he joined the underground movement in 1980. “Of course I hated the Communist regime, because it wasn’t allowing me to dedicate my life to God,” he said.

The war has ended his normally itinerant existence; he is currently staying in a contact’s basement sauna in Chernivtsi, though he travels to various cities when possible. According to Acyuta Priya, 71 of the nearly 100 Hare Krishna community groups are still operating, serving Hare Krishnas and their neighbors. He said they continue to see new people joining the movement.

The Hare Krishna temple in Kyiv, Ukraine. Photo courtesy of Acyuta Priya

“People just come, they want to help and they have this volunteer spirit,” said Acyuta Priya. “I will tell you honestly, I am native Ukrainian, here from my birth, and I have never seen people be so united. It was unexpected for me.”

He attributes the Hare Krishnas’ resilience to their faith. “You have to understand that the Lord controls everything, and we need to see this war as an opportunity to raise up and to grow, and to grow mostly by giving and not just be in survival mode… There is a need to dedicate yourself to a higher cause, and it should be practical, not just theoretical,” said Acyuta Priya.

But some, like Kalakeli, have found homes outside the country. She moved frequently during the early weeks of the invasion, moving from Berdyansk to Zaporizhia, then to Dnipro, before finally leaving Ukraine and finding shelter with a community of fellow devotees in Denmark.

For nearly two months, Kalakeli was unable to contact or locate her mother, sister and nephews back in Mariupol.

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Kalakeli Devi Dasi, right, with her family. Photo courtesy of Kalakeli Devi Dasi

“My life became just an existence. Only ‘kirtan’ (devotional singing) dulled my pain for a while,” said Kalakeli. “Totally desperate, I began to have thoughts of going back and looking for my family.”

In April of last year, she was finally able to connect with her family via phone. They had all managed to stay safe back in Mariupol, but their home was destroyed in the war. They recently joined Kalakeli in Copenhagen. 

“The war taught us a lot,” said Kalakeli. “The main thing I have learned is that no one can take God away from me. In such difficult situations, there was nothing else we could do but trust in Krishna. Love for God will end all wars. We offer it to everyone and want nothing in return.” 

‘A time bomb’: India’s sinking holy town faces grim future

For months, the roughly 20,000 residents in Joshimath, revered by Hindu and Sikh pilgrims, have watched the earth slowly swallow their community.

Joshimath town is seen along side snow capped mountains, in India's Himalayan mountain state of Uttarakhand, Jan. 21, 2023. For months, residents in Joshimath, a holy town burrowed high up in India's Himalayan mountains, have seen their homes slowly sink. They pleaded for help, but it never arrived. In January however, their town made national headlines. Big, deep cracks had emerged in over 860 homes, making them unlivable. (AP Photo/Rajesh Kumar Singh)

March 1, 2023

By 

Shonal Ganguly, Krutika Path

S

JOSHIMATH, India (AP) — Inside a shrine overlooking snow-capped mountains, Hindu priests heaped spoonfuls of puffed rice and ghee into a crackling fire. They closed their eyes and chanted, hoping their prayers would somehow turn back time and save their holy — and sinking — town.

For months, the roughly 20,000 residents in Joshimath, burrowed in the Himalayas and revered by Hindu and Sikh pilgrims, have watched the earth slowly swallow their community. They pleaded for help that never arrived, and in January their desperate plight made it into the international spotlight.

But by then, Joshimath was already a disaster zone. Multistoried hotels slumped to one side; cracked roads gaped open. More than 860 homes were uninhabitable, splayed by deep fissures. And instead of saviors they got bulldozers that razed swaths of the town.

The holy town was built on piles of debris left behind by landslides and earthquakes. Scientists have warned for decades that Joshimath could not withstand the level of heavy construction that has recently been taking place.

“Cracks are widening every day and people are in fear. … It’s a time bomb,” said Atul Sati, an activist with the Save Joshimath Committee.

Joshimath’s future is at risk, experts and activists say, due in part to a push backed by the prime minister’s political party to grow religious tourism in Uttarakhand, the holy town’s home state. On top of climate change, extensive new construction to accommodate more tourists and accelerate hydropower projects in the region is exacerbating subsidence — the sinking of land.

Joshimath is said to have special spiritual powers and believed to be where Hindu guru Adi Shankaracharya found enlightenment in the 8th century before going on to establish four monasteries across India, including one in Joshimath.

Visitors pass through the town on their way to the famous Sikh shrine, Hemkund Sahib, and the Hindu temple, Badrinath.

“It must be protected,” said Brahmachari Mukundanand, a local priest who called Joshimath the “brain of North India” and explained that “our body can still function if some limbs are cut off. But if anything happens to our brain, we can’t function. … Its survival is extremely important.”

The town’s loose topsoil and soft rocks can only support so much and that limit, according to environmentalist Vimlendu Jha, may have already been breached.

“In the short term, you might think it’s development. But in the long term, it is actually devastation,” he said.

At least 240 families have been forced to relocate without knowing if they would be able to return.

Prabha Sati, who fled Joshimath last month when her home began to crack and tilt, came back to grab her belongings before state officials demolished her home.

“Now I will have to leave everything behind. Every small piece of it will be destroyed,” she said, blinking back tears.

Authorities, ignoring expert warnings, have continued to develop costly projects in the region, including a slew of hydropower stations and a lengthy highway. The latter is aimed at further boosting religious tourism, a key plank of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party.

Uttarakhand, dotted with several holy shrines, would see a surge in tourists in the next decade thanks to improved infrastructure, Modi said in 2021. Nearly 500,000 passed through Joshimath in 2019, state data shows.

A big draw is the Char Dham pilgrimage where pilgrims traverse challenging terrain and harsh weather to reach four, high-altitude temples. In 2022, 200 out of the 250,000 pilgrims died while making the journey. Authorities said the rise in visitors was straining existing infrastructure.

Already underway, the Char Dham infrastructure project, aims to make the journey more accessible via a long and wide all-weather highway and railway line that would crisscross through the mountains.

Some experts fear the project will exacerbate the fragile situation in the Himalayas where several towns are built atop debris.

To create such wide roads, engineers would need to smash boulders, cut trees and strip shrubbery, which would weaken slopes and make them “more susceptible to natural disasters,” said veteran environmentalist Ravi Chopra.

While construction for the project near Joshimath was paused last month, locals feared it was too late. A long crack running across one of the front walls in the famed Adi Shankaracharya monastery had deepened worryingly in recent weeks, said Vishnu Priyanand, one of the priests.

“Let places of worship remain as places of worship. Don’t make them tourist spots,” he pleaded.

It’s not just the highways.

In late January, hundreds of residents protested against the National Thermal Power Corporation’s Tapovan hydropower station located near Joshimath.

“Our town is on the verge of destruction because of this project,” said Atul Sati, the Save Joshimath Committee member.

Locals say construction blasts for a 12-kilometer (7-mile) tunnel for the station are causing homes to crumble. Work has been suspended but NTPC officials deny any link to Joshimath’s subsidence. Various government agencies were conducting surveys to determine what caused the damage, said Himanshu Khurana, the officer in charge of Chamoli district where Joshimath is located.

The crisis has reignited questions over whether India’s quest for more hydropower in the mountains to cut its reliance on coal can be achieved sustainably. Uttarakhand has around 100 hydropower projects in varying stages.

The heavy construction required for hydropower could do irreparable damage in a region already vulnerable to climate change, experts warn.

It could also displace entire villages, as residents of a one near Joshimath found out.

Haat, along the Alaknanda River, was once a sacred hamlet where the guru Adi Shankaracharya is said to have established another temple in the 8th Century.

Today, it is a dumping site for waste and a storage pit for construction materials after the village was acquired in 2009 by an energy enterprise to build a hydropower project.

The Laxmi Narayan temple is the only part of the village still standing. All of its residents were relocated, said Rajendra Hatwal, once the village chief who now lives in another town.

Hatwal and a few others still check in on the temple. A caretaker, who refused to leave, lives in a makeshift room next to it. He sweeps the grounds, cleans the idols and prepares tea for the odd guest who comes through.

They feared its days were numbered.

“We are fighting to protect the temple. We want to preserve our ancient culture to pass on to a new generation,” said Hatwal. “They have not only destroyed a village – they have finished a 1,200 year old culture.”

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AP photojournalist Rajesh Kumar Singh contributed to this report.

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Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

 Opinion

From Christchurch to Emanuel AME, we must recognize the patterns of white supremacy

Recent reports suggest the attacks on houses of worship are not rare and the perpetrators are seldom acting alone.   

In this June 20, 2015, file photo, Allen Sanders, right, kneels next to his wife, Georgette, both of McClellanville, South Carolina, as they pray at a sidewalk memorial in memory of the shooting victims in front of Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina. (AP Photo/David Goldman, File)

March 20, 2023

By 

Danielle N. Boaz

(RNS) — Four years ago, on March 15, 2019, a white supremacist opened fire on two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, leaving 51 dead and 40 others injured. While this was shocking in terms of the number of deaths and injuries, such attacks have become alarmingly common.

In the past 10 years alone, North America has seen white supremacists carry out mass shootings at multiple religious sites, including: the Overland Park Jewish Community Center and Village Shalom Retirement Center in Kansas (April 2014); the Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina (June 2015); the Islamic Cultural Centre of Quebec City, Canada (January 2017); the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (October 2018); and the Chabad of Poway synagogue in California (April 2019). 

Reporters and government officials often refer to these shooters as “lone wolves” and their crimes as “one offs.” They study the background of these individuals to attempt to determine what led them to carry out such horrific and supposedly unusual crimes. However, a recent report published by the International Commission to Combat Religious Racism (ICCRR) suggests these attacks are not rare, and the perpetrators are seldom acting alone.   

The ICCRR report examines racially motivated attacks on places of worship and religious community centers in the United States and Canada. In total, the report includes attacks on 58 places, which, in addition to the previously mentioned shootings, include acts of vandalism, arson, stabbings and bombings as well as plots or attempts to carry out these same kinds of attacks. Nearly all the perpetrators of these attacks were white males, and many of them openly declared their intent to protect the white race or to “defend” their country against non-white, non-Christian “invaders.” Many were also self-proclaimed Neo-Nazis and/or they used Nazi symbolism (i.e. swastikas, images of Adolf Hitler and coded phrases meaning “Heil Hitler”) in their attacks.  

Perhaps the most concerning finding in this study is the data on how many perpetrators were part of a larger conspiracy. The ICCRR reports that nearly 1 in 5 cases involved multiple perpetrators.

In nearly half of cases, the “perpetrators were part of, encouraged by, or trying to gain admission to a larger group of extremists who believe in racial supremacy. In many cases, these were well-known groups such as the Ku Klux Klan or the Aryan Brotherhood. In a few instances, the perpetrators organized their own groups for the purpose of training, obtaining weapons, and carrying out attacks.”

Additionally, in more than half of the cases, the perpetrators attacked or planned to attack more than one site. In total, nearly two-thirds of the cases involved a series of attacks, multiple perpetrators and/or affiliation with an extremist group. 

Students from the Yeshiva School in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood of Pittsburgh pay their respects as the funeral procession for Dr. Jerry Rabinowitz passes their school en route to Homewood Cemetery following a funeral service at the Jewish Community Center, Tuesday Oct. 30, 2018. Rabinowitz was one of 11 people killed while worshipping at the Tree of Life Synagogue on Saturday, Oct. 27, 2018. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)

The findings of a survey conducted jointly by the PRRI and the Brookings Institution, released on Feb. 8, 2023, adds another dimension to our understanding of the ICCRR report. The survey explores support for “Christian nationalism” in the United States. PRRI President and founder Robert P. Jones, Ph.D., defines “Christian nationalism” as belief in “the idea that America is destined to be a promised land for European Christians.” 

According to this definition, it found that 10% of Americans could be classified as adherents of Christian nationalism and that nearly 20% are sympathizers. Of white evangelical Protestants, it found that almost two-thirds are either adherents (29%) or sympathizers (35%). These Christian nationalists overwhelmingly agreed with arguments that are fueling racially motivated attacks on places of worship. For instance, more than 70% believe immigrants are “invading our country and replacing our cultural and ethnic background,” and more than two-thirds believe people from some majority-Muslim countries should be prevented from entering the United States.

The survey found that the majority of adherents of Christian nationalism disagree that white supremacy is a major problem in the United States. Perhaps most concerningly, approximately 17% of all respondents agreed with the statement, “the United States is a white Christian nation, and I am willing to fight to keep it that way.”  

Read together, the ICCRR report and the PRRI and Brookings Institution survey suggest there is a very serious but overlooked threat terrorizing religious communities in North America. Self-proclaimed Neo-Nazis and white supremacists are carrying out violent attacks against religious communities.

Both these attacks and their perpetrators are more organized than official responses would lead us to believe. Nevertheless, not only do large segments of the population refuse to believe white supremacy is an issue in the United States today, many of them appear to share the beliefs of the perpetrators of these attacks.

Danielle N. Boaz. Courtesy photo

These reports should leave us all wondering, and worrying, about the future of our racially and religiously diverse nation. 

(Danielle N. Boaz is associate professor of Africana studies at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, where she teaches courses on human rights, social justice and the law. She is also a PRRI Public Fellow. The views expressed in this commentary do not necessarily reflect those of Religion News Service.)

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Court rehears case to protect Oak Flat, an Apache sacred site in Arizona

‘A win for Apache Stronghold will be a win for people of all faiths,’ said Luke Goodrich.

This file photo taken June 15, 2015, shows the Resolution Copper Mining area Shaft #9, right, and Shaft #10, left, that await the expansion go-ahead in Superior, Arizona. The mountainous land near Superior is known as Oak Flat or Chi’chil Biłdagoteel. It’s where Apaches have harvested medicinal plants, held coming-of-age ceremonies and gathered acorns for generations. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin, File)

March 21, 2023

By 

Emily McFarlan Miller

(RNS) — The fight to save Oak Flat, a 6.7-square-mile stretch of land east of Phoenix considered sacred by the Apache and other Native Americans, is back in court this week.

In a move the Arizona Republic has called unusual, a full panel of 11 judges reheard oral arguments in the case of Apache Stronghold v. United States on Tuesday (March 21) in the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Pasadena, California.

The case previously had been heard by a three-judge panel, which held in a 2-1 ruling last summer that the government could proceed with the transfer of Oak Flat to Resolution Copper. The company, owned by British-Australian mining giant Rio Tinto, plans to turn the site into an underground copper mine.

Apache Stronghold — a coalition of Apache and other tribal nations, diverse faith leaders, prominent environmental groups, the National Congress of American Indians and others — has argued this would violate the religious rights of many Apache and other Native Americans who have held ceremonies on the site since time immemorial.

In this July 22, 2015, file photo, tribal councilman Wendsler Nosie Sr., right, speaks with Apache activists in a rally to save Oak Flat, land near Superior, Arizona, sacred to Western Apache tribes, in front of the U.S. Capitol in Washington. (AP Photo/Molly Riley, File)

“Oak Flat is where my people have come to connect with our Creator for millennia, and we have the right to continue that sacred tradition,” Apache Stronghold founder Wendsler Nosie Sr. said in a written statement after the hearing.

“Today we stood up in court for that right, determined to stop those who think that our place of worship can be treated differently simply because it lacks four walls and a steeple. We are hopeful that this time around, the Ninth Circuit will save Oak Flat.”

RELATED: Why Oak Flat in Arizona is a sacred space for the Apache and other Native Americans

Repairers of the Breach, a nonprofit headed by Bishop William J. Barber II and the Rev. A. Kazimir Brown, hosted a “spiritual gathering” online before the hearing.

It’s one of several religious groups supporting Apache Stronghold, including The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Seventh-day Adventists, the Islam and Religious Freedom Action Team of the Religious Freedom Institute, the Christian Legal Society, the Jewish Coalition for Religious Liberty and the Sikh Coalition.

“A win for Apache Stronghold will be a win for people of all faiths,” said Luke Goodrich, vice president and senior counsel at Becket Law, formerly the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, the nonprofit legal institution representing Apache Stronghold.

On Tuesday, Goodrich reiterated Apache Stronghold’s position to a new panel of judges: The destruction of Oak Flat, known in Apache as Chi’chil Biłdagoteel, would “irreparably harm the religious expression and practices of the region’s first inhabitants.”

A number of Apache ceremonies can take place only at Oak Flat, a “blessed place” where the Apache believe Ga’an — guardians or messengers between the people and Usen, the creator — dwell, according to court filings.

Richard H. Chambers United States Court of Appeals in Pasadena, California. Photo courtesy of Wikipedia/Creative Commons

“The government’s position in this case is that it can obliterate a place of worship for any reason or none at all, and not face consequences under federal religious liberty law. We asked the court today to recognize the obvious — that when the government destroys a sacred site, religious liberty law has something to say about it,” Goodrich said in a written statement afterward.

The site also encompasses the third largest copper ore deposit in the world, according to Joan Pepin, an attorney for the U.S. Forest Service.

Congress approved the transfer of the land to Resolution Copper in 2014 as part of the National Defense Authorization Act in exchange for 6,000 acres elsewhere. Pepin noted in court that the company has preserved another site, called Apache Leap, for religious and cultural uses.

The federal appeals court previously had ruled that Apache Stronghold failed to show a substantial burden on its religious exercise. Judges continued to press attorneys — who also included Stephanie Barclay, director of Notre Dame Law School’s Religious Liberty Initiative — to define “substantial burden” and what that looks like under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.

A decision in the case was not immediately expected.

RELATED: Apaches get rehearing in fight to preserve Oak Flat, a sacred site in Arizona