c. 1996 Religion News Service

Report says gunfire kills a young person every 92 minutes in America

(RNS)-Every 92 minutes a young person age 19 or under dies as a result of gunfire-most often murder-and gunfire is the second-leading cause of death for those age 10 to 19, according to a report by the Children’s Defense Fund (CDF).

The report by the Washington-based liberal advocacy group analyzed statistics for 1993-the most recent year available-compiled by the National Center for Health Statistics.

Gunfire deaths among young Americans rose 7 percent in 1993, to 5,751, the report said. There were 5,379 gun-related deaths in 1992.

Of the 5,751 gunfire deaths in 1993, 3,661 were homicides, 1,460 were suicides, 526 were accidents, and in 104 cases the cause is unknown, the report said.

The report said guns were the leading cause of death among black males 15 to 19 years old, with the gun-death rate among black males in that age group 153.1 per 100,000. Among their white peers, the rate was 28.8 per 1,000.”The morally unthinkable killing of children has not only become routine, but is increasing in the world’s leading democracy,”Marian Wright Edelman, president of the Children’s Defense Fund, said in a statement.”What will it take for parents and religious, community and political leaders to stand up and say `enough’?”she said.

Supreme Court Justice Scalia urges Christians to stand up for their faith

(RNS)-U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia urged Christians at a Mississippi prayer breakfast to stand up for their beliefs, even when the”worldly wise”dismiss them as simpletons.

In unusually candid remarks about religion by a member of the court, Scalia told the audience that the word cretin, or fool, is derived from the French word for Christian, the Associated Press reported.”To be honest about it, that is the view of Christians taken by modern society,”he told about 650 people at the First Baptist Church in downtown Jackson.

Scalia, who was appointed by President Ronald Reagan, said many of the”worldly wise,”or intellectual elite, will state watered-down religious views but are not as likely to accept the concept of miracles.

Scalia, a Roman Catholic, cited Thomas Jefferson’s editing of the New Testament, saying the Founding Father separated sublime biblical ideas from miraculous stories such as the Madonna as virgin and Jesus’ resurrection.”We are fools for Christ’s sake,”he said, getting a standing ovation.”We must pray for the courage to endure the scorn of the sophisticated world.” The Christian Legal Society of the Baptist-affiliated Mississippi College School of Law sponsored the breakfast.

Jewish groups condemn actor Brando’s”offensive”remarks

(RNS)-Jewish organizations are condemning actor Marlon Brando’s remarks about Jews in Hollywood as”extremely offensive”and”anti-Semitic.” In a Friday (April 5) appearance on CNN’s”Larry King Live,”the Oscar-winning star praised Jews for their contribution to American culture but then said:”Hollywood is run by Jews. It is owned by Jews, and they should have a greater sensitivity about the issue of people who are suffering.” Brando went on to list negative stereotypes depicted in the movies.”We’ve seen the nigger, and the greaseball,”he continued.”We’ve seen the chink. We’ve seen the slit-eyed dangerous Jap. We have seen the wily Filipino. We’ve seen everything, but we never saw the kike because they knew perfectly well that that’s where you draw the wagons around.” Abraham H. Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League, demanded an apology from the star of movies such as”The Godfather”and”A Streetcar Named Desire.””Mr. Brando should know what he said is utterly false, extremely offensive and plays into the hands of anti-Semites and bigots,”said Foxman.”Mr. Brando owes an apology to the Jewish men and women who work in Hollywood for vilifying them and to all Jews for his stereotyping and use of an anti-Semitic epithet.” Phil Baum, executive director of the American Jewish Congress, called Brando’s comments”blatantly anti-Semitic.””It is too much to hope that in his current state of mind, he would recognize that by wildly accusing Jews of permitting racist stereotypes to flourish in Hollywood, he is engaging in gross stereotyping himself,”Baum said.”Our review of Brando is clear: He should emulate silent movies, because his soundtrack is not worth hearing.” Reuters reported that a black swastika was affixed to Brando’s star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame early Monday (April 8). It was removed quickly.

U.S. missionaries preparing to leave Liberia

(RNS)-U.S. missionaries in Liberia have moved to the American embassy compound in preparation for evacuation from the country in the wake of a new round of factional fighting that broke out over the Easter weekend.

The missionaries are among thousands of foreign diplomats, Liberian civilians and foreign residents who have taken refuge at the embassy compound.

Zebediah Marewangepo, an executive with the United Methodist Church’s Board of Global Ministries, said he had been in touch with the church’s three missionaries in Monrovia.”They could not get out because the fighting was just outside the (Methodist) compound,”Marewangepo told United Methodist News Service, the denomination’s official news agency. But he said that by Sunday (April 7), the three missionaries-Janice McLain of Salem, Ore., and Barbara and William Daniel of Decatur, Ga., and their two children-had made it from their compound to the embassy and were waiting to be evacuated.

On Tuesday (April 9), the U.S. approved an evacuation plan, and the first group of Americans was expected to leave during the day.

The new round of fighting began when government troops tried to drive rebel leader Roosevelt Johnson from his home in Sinkor, a suburb of the Liberian capital of Monrovia, the Associated Press reported.

The government wants to arrest Johnson, fired as the nation’s rural development minister, for murder. The ouster of Johnson from the government upset the delicate balance among Liberian factions that had led to a fragile peace earlier this year. An estimated 150,000 people have been killed in the factional fighting since 1989.

Muslim extremists protest”Hagar the Horrible”cartoon

(RNS)-Five Muslim extremists offended by a”Hagar the Horrible”cartoon burst into the Kuwait offices of the English-language daily Arab Times and chased an editor at gunpoint out of the building.

No one was injured and the five people were captured on April 6, the Associated Press reported.

The U.S. comic strip, about a lovable but ill-mannered Viking and his eccentric family, depicted Hagar on a hill saying,”I pray and pray, but you never answer me.”A voice in the clouds responds:”Sorry if you don’t get through right away, keep trying. These days everyone wants to talk to me.” The newspaper printed an apology April 4, a week and a half after the cartoon appeared.”Inclusion of the cartoon was inappropriate but unintentional and done without malice,”the newspaper said.

Israeli settlers, Palestinians met secretly to discuss coexistence

(RNS)-Leaders of right-wing Israeli settlers and Palestinian officials have held a series of secret meetings in an effort to build trust and avert political violence between the two hostile West Bank communities, an Israeli newspaper reported Sunday (April 7).

According to the daily newspaper Haaretz, the meetings began in June 1994 and continued until January 1996, when they were suspended for the Palestinian elections.

According to The Los Angeles Times, which reported on the talks in Monday’s editions, while some settler leaders were involved in the small-scale trust-building talks, others sharply criticized the effort.

Uri Ariel, secretary general of the Council of Jewish Communities of Judea, Samaria and Gaza, called the talks”contrary”to the interests of Jewish settlers.

There are some 120,000 Jewish settlers in the West Bank. Most of them reject the 1993 accord that gives Palestinians control over West Bank land the settlers view as their birthright.

The secret talks were held under the auspices of the American Jewish Committee. Joseph Alpher, director of the AJC’s Israel/Middle East Office, said the talks did not aim to change the political view of either side, but to open lines of communications.”We wanted people to get to know each other,”Alpher told The Times.”We were looking for ways to avoid bloodshed.”

Robert S. Denny, former Baptist World Alliance leader, dies

(RNS)-Robert S. Denny, the general secretary of the Baptist World Alliance from 1968 to 1980, died Friday (April 5).

Denny, 81, had suffered from Alzheimer’s disease for the past two years.

During the communist totalitarianism of Eastern Europe, Denny played a significant role in defending religious freedom, according to Baptist Press, the official news service of the Southern Baptist Convention.

Quote of the day: The Rev. Lloyd Ogilvie, chaplain to the U.S. Senate, on God and the American nation.

(RNS)-The Rev. Lloyd Ogilvie, who became chaplain to the U.S. Senate March 15, 1995, spoke on his views of church, state and the Senate in an April 3 interview with”The Hill,”an independent newspaper that covers Congress:”I do believe in the separation of church and state, but I don’t believe in the separation of God and state. God has a special place in his plan for our nation. And as the Senate goes, so goes the nation.”

MJP END RNS