c. 1996 Religion News Service

Study: Reconstructionist Jews more observant as adults

(RNS) Members of Judaism’s small Reconstructionist denomination are likely to be more religiously observant now than they were growing up and are attracted to the movement largely out of interest in personal growth and spirituality, according to a new study.

The 1996 Demographic Study of the Reconstructionist Movement, the first in-depth study ever undertaken of Judaism’s smallest and newest branch, found that 53 percent of those Reconstructionist Jews who grew up with a low level of religious observance are more observant as adults. Observance was determined by such factors as synagogue attendance, eating only kosher foods and celebrating the Sabbath.

The survey of 1,324 Reconstructionist households (out of about 12,000 Reconstructionist households nationwide) also found that 54 percent said a”very important”reason they joined the 50,000-member movement was out of a commitment to Jewish study and learning. Sixty-five percent said the movement’s emphasis on inclusiveness and egalitarianism were”very important”reasons.

Rabbi Mordechai Liebling, executive director of the 50,000-member Jewish Reconstructionist Federation based in Wyncote, Pa., said Thursday (Nov. 21) that the findings were”validation”that the movement’s emphasis on”voluntary, meaningful Judaism works.” Although Reconstructionist Judaism _ an outgrowth of Conservative Judaism _ was organized as a separate denomination just over 40 year ago, it has already influenced the American Jewish scene far beyond its numbers.

Reconstructionists were the first to conduct bat mitzvah ceremonies for girls and are responsible for redefining the synagogue as a Jewish community and cultural center. Both those ideas have been widely adopted by Jews affiliated with Reform, Conservative and even Orthodox Judaism.

Reconstructionism began as a rationalistic movement that considered Judaism a civilization rather than just a faith. However, in recent years it has attracted many younger, liberal Jews searching for spiritual understanding and community.

That’s why, Liebling added, he was not surprised that the survey also found that just 23 percent of those surveyed said they joined a Reconstructionist congregation to work for peace in Israel. Just 18 percent said they joined out of a commitment to help the poor, despite the general liberal leanings of Reconstructionist Jews.”My experience is that concern for Israel and the poor are issues that Reconstructionists satisfy for themselves while working in other arenas,”Liebling said.

The survey, conducted by RL Associates of Princeton, N.J., for the Jewish Reconstructionist Federation, has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percent.

Cuban bishops warmly welcome pope-Castro meeting

(RNS) Cuba’s Roman Catholic bishops said Wednesday (Nov. 20) they warmly welcome the meeting between Cuban President Fidel Castro and Pope John Paul II and looked forward to the announced visit of the pope to Cuba.

Cardinal Jaime Ortega of Havana, in a statement issued in his capacity as head of the church in Cuba, suggested the United States government, which has sought to isolate Cuba and force Castro from power through the use of economic sanctions, could take a cue from the pope.”We appeal to those countries whose historic, economic or humanitarian interests link them to Cuba to also look through dialogue for solutions to existing conflicts,”Ortega said.”This gesture of the Holy Father invites us to do that.” On Tuesday (Nov. 19) at the Vatican, the aging pope and the elderly revolutionary, representatives of two sometimes bitterly competing ideologies, met for the first time. Their encounter climaxed the diplomatic drama the Roman Catholic Church and Cuban government have played out over the pontiff’s proposed trip to Cuba.

Ortega said the church in Cuba hoped the papal visit would increase the local church’s maneuvering room and let it play a more visible public and political role _ a role the government has long rejected and repressed, the Reuter news agency reported. Recent moves to increase dialogue in Cuba and in the international arena, Ortega said, could produce”abundant results for the life of our church and that of all our nation.” And he called on Cuban Catholics both at home and in exile to seek ways of reconciliation.

But The Washington Post reported Thursday (Nov. 21) that Cuban exiles in Miami were having little of the reconciliation talk and at best hoped the pope’s visit might be a catalyst for the overthrow of Castro.”Let’s hope that the visit will be at least as successful as (the pope) has been in changing the situation in Eastern Europe,”said Francisco J. Hernandez, president of the anti-Castro Cuban-American National Foundation.”Let’s hope there’s some words of encouragement to the opposition in Cuba.” Others put a more hopeful spin on the meeting and the proposed trip.”I believe it shows a great degree of desperation and weakness on the part of Castro to have requested a meeting with the pope,”said Sylvia Irionda of the group Mothers Against Repression.”This is the same regime and the same Castro that banned God from Cuba.” No date has been set for the pope’s trip to Cuba but officials on both sides said they hoped it will happen in the coming year.

Religious conservatives mull a”values”political action committee

(RNS) A prominent religious conservative says he is forming a political action committee (PAC) to push the”values”issues such as abortion and opposition to pornography that the Republican and Democratic parties have pushed to the sidelines.”The great danger facing America is not from barbarians at the gates, but the sickness of our own hearts,”Gary Bauer, president of the Family Research Council, said in a speech Wednesday (Nov. 20) at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank.

The Family Research Council is a spinoff of James Dobson’s Focus on the Family, one of the major groups in the conservative political constellation commonly called the religious right.

Bauer, a former official in the Reagan administration, had harsh words for his Republican Party and the presidential campaign of Bob Dole.”What is at stake is whether this great experiment in ordered liberty under God can survive,”he said.”That was the great issue that should have been central to the presidential election. Instead, in some bizarre role reversal, the party most associated with the permissiveness of the last 30 years constantly talked about values, while the party, my party, that counts on the votes of millions of Americans worried about our virtue deficit, instead seemed obsessed with our wallets.” Bauer said his political action committee would be named the Campaign for Working Families and would be anchored on opposition to abortion.

He blamed Dole’s defeat on his failure to push the conservative values agenda in the campaign and for not criticizing Clinton more strongly for the president’s veto of a law that would have outlawed a controversial method of late-term abortion.”Soon, sometime soon, the elites of the Republican Party had better find the courage to speak for the values of the people whose votes they count on on Election Day,”he said.

Report: Britain faces a loss of Christian identity

(RNS) A new report by a committee jointly sponsored by the Church of England and the Council of Churches for Britain and Ireland warns that at some time in the not-too-distant future, Britain may no longer be a recognizably Christian country.

The report, by the Mission Theological Advisory Group, found that while people still express a belief in God, there is a”drift”away from belonging to a Christian church and an increasing reliance on such things as horoscopes and soothsayers.”A very large number of people still claim to believe in God, to pray, to believe reasonably traditional things about the person of Christ,”said Church of England Bishop Michael Nazir-Ali of the diocese of Rochester.”But that does not work out into belonging to a Christian church.” The bishop said such believing would remain recognizably Christian only for so long.”There will come a time when people loose their moorings altogether and orthodox Christian belief in the population at large will become much more diffuse and much more mixed with other things that people are picking up.”Drifting belief, without belonging to any particular institution, is bound to get more and more mixed, pick-and-mix, and further and further away from orthodox Christianity,”he said.

Polish president signs liberalized abortion law

(RNS) President Aleksander Kwasniewski of Poland on Wednesday (Nov. 20) signed a law liberalizing access to abortion, ending a three-year campaign by Polish liberals to modify what had been one of the stricter anti-abortion laws in Europe.”The liberalization of previous regulations gives Poland a law that is close to the solutions in other European countries,”Kwasniewski said in a statement.”Conscience and not the fear of punishment meted out by the state should influence the people’s decisions in the matter.” Under the new law, women who feel financially or emotionally unable to give birth can terminate their pregnancies until the 12th week of pregnancy.

The law was sharply contested by Poland’s Roman Catholic Church, the nation’s dominant religious organization. The previous law allowed abortion only in cases threatening the mother’s life, if the fetus was irreparably damaged or if pregnancy resulted from rape or incest.

Queen: No more prayers for Princess Di

(RNS) Queen Elizabeth II, by royal decree, has ordered Princess Diana’s name removed from the Church of England’s prayer for the royal family because she is divorced from Prince Charles, Archbishop of Canterbury George Carey said Thursday (Nov. 21).

Beginning Sunday (Nov. 24), the prayer for the royal family read in all parishes of the Church of England, will read”Charles, Prince of Wales,”rather than”Prince and Princess of Wales.” A spokeswoman for the church said that”there is nothing to stop people praying for her (Diana) by name if they want to, but not attached to Charles,”the Associated Press reported.

Diana and Charles were divorced in August. Diana had no comment, her Kensington Palace office said.

Quote of the day: President Clinton’s Thanksgiving proclamation

(RNS) President Clinton, in his annual Thanksgiving proclamation, said the holiday is a time to reaffirm the nation’s mostly deeply held values, including a public recognition that, in the words of Thomas Jefferson, the”God who gave us life, gave us liberty.”Clinton urged Americans to consider the”genius”of the Founders in establishing a democracy:”The promise of freedom that sustained our founders through the hardships of the Revolution and the first challenging days of nationhood has become a reality for millions of immigrants who left their homelands for a new life on these shores. And the light of that freedom now shines brightly in many nations that once lived in the shadows of tyranny and oppression. … Americans today still cherish the fresh air of freedom, in which we can raise our families and worship God as we choose without fear of persecution. We still rejoice in this great land and in the civil and religious liberty it offers to all. And we still _ and always _ raise our voices in prayer to God, thanking Him in humility for the countless blessings He has bestowed on our Nation and our people.”

MJP END RNS