c. 1996 Religion News Service
(Following is a collection of domestic religion stories compiled from RNS staff, wire and denominational reports).
Damaged Oklahoma City church to be rebuilt
(RNS)-First United Methodist Church of Oklahoma City, heavily damaged in the April 19, 1995, bombing of the Alfred Murrah Federal Building across the street from the sanctuary, will mark the first anniversary of the terrorist attack by breaking ground for a new facility.
The blast killed 168 people.”What we want to do as a church is to build a sanctuary … that is a tribute to goodness and life, and not to terror,”Senior Pastor Nick Harris told United Methodist News Service, the denomination’s official news agency.”We want our sanctuary to be a witness to the fact that good always triumphs over evil, that wherever human life and property raises its head, somebody is going to be there who is going to do something so spectacular that it overshadows the evil and shows love as the last word,”Harris said.
Harris said the new facility will cost $5.7 million and will include a”modern Gothic cathedral”seating 1,500 people on the main level.
The old sanctuary, which sustained structural damage, will be gutted, leaving the exterior walls. The new facility will include a three-story learning center, chapel and fellowship hall.
The old education building, which also was damaged in the blast, will be torn down and replaced by a new family life center and office complex.
Stellar Gospel Music Awards announced
(RNS)-Contemporary and traditional names in black gospel music were honored Jan. 6 at the 11th Annual Stellar Gospel Music Awards in Nashville, Tenn.”Gospel music, which originated with African-Americans, is alive and well,”said Don Jackson, executive producer of the program.
The awards ceremony will air on cable and broadcast stations between Jan. 13 and Feb. 18, including Chicago-based superstation WGN from 7 to 9 p.m. CST Jan. 15.
Award highlights included: performance by group or duo (contemporary),”The Call,”by Anointed; performance by group or duo (traditional),”Live in Memphis II,”by The Canton Spirituals; male vocalist (contemporary),”Show Up!,”by John P. Kee; male vocalist (traditional),”Live at Jackson State,”by the Rev. James Moore; female vocalist (contemporary),”More than a Melody,”by Yolanda Adams; female vocalist (traditional),”On Time God,”by Dottie Peoples; album of the year (contemporary),”Show Up!,”by New Life Community Choir featuring John P. Kee; album of the year (traditional),”On Time God,”by Dottie Peoples & Peoples Choice Chorale; and song of the year,”On Time God,”by Dottie Peoples & Peoples Choice Chorale.
U.S. churches responding to North Korean hunger threat
(RNS)-The Korean Methodist Church & Institute of Manhattan has contributed $10,000 to a new drive by the United Methodist Committee on Relief aimed at combating the threat of widespread hunger in North Korea.
The donation, said Sung-Eun S. Kim, a trustee of the New York congregation,”represents a voice in our Korean-American immigrant community-a voice that is neither political nor ideological, but that simply is a call to reach out to our sisters and brothers in need, struggling in that northern part of the Korean Peninsula to which we trace our common cultural and ethnic heritage.”It is hoped that this voice will be echoed and amplified by others in our community,”Kim added.
Relief officials in the United Methodist Church and other denominations also say they hope the Manhattan church’s donation will be the first of many responses to what was described by the Rev. S. Michael Hahm of the Methodists’ Board of Global Ministries as a”desperate”need in North Korea.
According to Church World Service, the relief arm of the National Council of Churches, 500,000 people remain in critical need as a result of flooding in July and August. Loss of crops has created a serious food shortage.”With rice and cabbage rations drastically reduced, hunger is widespread, with malnutrition becoming an increasing problem,”Church World Service said in announcing a $500,000 appeal to member churches and supporters.
The United Nations has estimated that flooding caused $15 billion in damage. In addition to the crop losses, the flooding seriously damaged roads, railways, bridges, power lines, water pipes and coal mines.
Church World Service, which already has sent antibiotics and rehydration tablets worth $31,000 to assist in halting the spread of cholera, has asked the U.S. Treasury Department for permission to send $500,000 worth of food and other relief commodities to North Korea.
Under U.S. law, trade with North Korea is forbidden and all shipments of humanitarian aid must receive U.S. government permission.
Wiesenthal Center urges end to `hate’ messages on the Internet
(RNS)-The Simon Wiesenthal Center, the Los Angeles-based Jewish human rights group, is asking universities and other providers of access to the Internet to refuse to carry messages that”promote racism, anti-Semitism, mayhem and violence.””Internet providers have a First Amendment right and a moral obligation not to provide these groups with a platform for their destructive propaganda,”Rabbi Abraham Cooper, the center’s associate dean, said in a letter to Internet access providers.
Targets of the center’s concern were groups using the Internet’s World Wide Web to publish documents denigrating blacks, Jews, homosexuals and other minorities, according to the New York Times.
The Times also quoted critics of the Wiesenthal Center’s campaign.”The Wiesenthal Center should realize that it is not possible to make anti-Semitism or historical revisionism (the idea that the Holocaust did not happen) go away by censoring it,”said Mike Godwin, a lawyer for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a civil liberties group that focuses on computer networks.”The best response is always to answer bad speech with more speech.”
MJP END
