c. 1996 Religion News Service

Treasury department releases seized Cuba-bound computers

(RNS)-The U.S. Treasury Department late Friday (May 24) released some 374 Cuba-bound computers seized earlier this year from Pastors for Peace, a clergy and lay activist group that opposes U.S. policy toward Cuba.

The computers, to be used in Cuba’s faltering health-care system, were seized by U.S. Customs agents in January and February during three efforts by Pastors for Peace, a Minneapolis-based group, to take the computers across the U.S.-Mexico border near San Diego without government permission.

Late Friday, the computers were handed over to officials from the United Methodist Church and six other mainline Protestant agencies as part of a deal aimed at resolving the three-month dispute between the activists and the government. The dispute led the Rev. Lucius Walker, executive director of Pastors for Peace, and two other activists to begin a liquid-only fast.

Under the Trading With the Enemy Act, exports to Cuba are banned. The government, however, allows humanitarian aid to be shipped to Cuba provided those shipping the aid receive a government license.

Pastors for Peace, contending the Cuban embargo is immoral, refused to apply for a humanitarian license.

As a result of the release of the computers to the United Methodist Church’s Board of Church and Society, Walker and the two other activists ended the 94-day fast.

On Tuesday (May 28), a Treasury Department spokesman confirmed the computers were handed over to the Methodist church officials and said the department will consider any request to send them to Cuba.

But the release of the computers does not end the confrontation between the government and the activists. Walker said the Methodists had made a commitment to deliver the computers to Cuba without a U.S. government license.

The Rev. Thom White Wolf Fassett, general secretary of the Methodist’s General Board of Church and Society, who negotiated the release agreement with the government, said he had provided Treasury with the required information necessary to allow the computers’ delivery.

But he said further negotiations are under way with the Treasury Department on the terms under which the Methodists may ship the computers to Cuba.

Two churches deemed charismatic by Florida Baptists ousted from convention

(RNS)-Two churches labeled as charismatic by Southern Baptist leaders have been ousted from the Florida Baptist Convention.

The convention’s board of missions ruled at a recent meeting that the churches advocated doctrines such as speaking in tongues and being”slain in the Spirit,”which are considered non-Baptist doctrines, reported Associated Baptist Press, an independent Baptist news service. A decision about a third church has been delayed, pending further investigation.

The board has denied voting privileges to Trumpets of Truth International Church in Homosassa Springs, formerly the First Baptist Church of Homosassa Springs, and Riverside Christian Church in Hernando, formerly the Riverside Baptist Church. The board also voted to decline mission gifts from the churches.

John Sullivan, executive director of the Florida Baptist Convention, said the churches were ousted for holding views contrary to those cited in”The Baptist Faith and Message,”a doctrinal statement adopted by the Southern Baptist Convention in 1963.

Ad hoc committee members read the Trumpets of Truth statement of faith and found”there was very little, if any, with which I could identify as Baptist,”Sullivan said.

Baptist leaders said the church’s practices included being”slain in the Spirit,”a Pentecostal custom where a worshiper faints and falls on the floor.

Leaders of Trumpets of Truth could not be reached for comment.

Charles Brannon, pastor of Riverside Christian Church in Hernando, disagreed with the state convention’s description of his church as charismatic and declared that his church’s practices are biblical.”We don’t fit into that (charismatic) camp,”he told Associated Baptist Press.”We love Southern Baptists … but … denying scriptural principles in favor of Baptist tradition, there is no way we can follow the leadership of such people.” Brannon, who declined to meet with the ad hoc committee, said his congregation will try to affiliate with like-minded Baptist churches.”There are a lot of Southern Baptist churches going the way we are going,”he said.

World Council finds Chinese churches growing, vulnerable

(RNS)-The Christian church in China is experiencing”explosive”growth but remains subject to strict regulation, a World Council of Churches (WCC) delegation reported.”We have encountered a vital, rapidly growing Christian church in all the provinces visited,”said the Rev. Dwain Epps, WCC International Affairs coordinator, upon his return to Geneva.”Church-state relations were positive, overall, but with important and troubling exceptions.” Epps was part of a 13-member WCC panel that ended an 11-day visit to China in mid-May. Invited by the China Christian Council (CCC), the state-sanctioned Protestant body, the delegation had a mandate to observe the implementation of China’s new 1994 laws on religion. China allows Christians to practice their faith but only in churches registered with the government.

The WCC team reported May 23 that, according to Chinese church estimates, China has 10 million baptized Christians,”and their number is growing daily.”According to Epps, some Christian communities in China are growing 20 to 30 percent a year.

That growth, however, means”there remains a dearth of qualified pastoral leadership,”the panel said in a report on the visit.

The report also said that despite official recognition of a measure of freedom of religion, it found some local authorities remain hostile to religion and religious expression.

In Zhejiang province, the report said,”relations between the church and state officials appeared friendly and constructive.”But team members visiting the province of Henan, a mainly rural region, reported that local government officials seemed”to have `stage-managed’ the visit”and”free conversations with church leaders and believers were virtually impossible.”Despite this, the delegation was able to piece together a pattern of state abuse with respect to the implementation of the decrees on religion,”the report said.

Epps said the delegation also heard reports of other cases of repression.”We would not deny that this is going on,”he said.”Given the nature of the situation, there is potential for a sharper policy of political control (of religion) being developed by the state. This would be disadvantageous both for CCC-related people and certainly for others.”The other side of the picture is that I was pleased and surprised to hear from (church and government) officials … of a quite remarkable degree of tolerance,”Epps said, noting that Christians are generally considered outside the mainstream of Chinese society.

Catholic religious order in Australia may sell assets to pay abuse claims

(RNS)-Australia’s Christian Brothers, a Roman Catholic religious order that runs schools, orphanages and shelters for the homeless, says it may have to sell some of its assets to pay for a settlement with victims of child sexual abuse allegedly committed by members of the order.

Brother Julian McDonald, head of the Christian Brothers in the state of New South Wales, told Reuters on Tuesday (May 28) that the order had offered a confidential compensation package to 201 people claiming damages for sexual and psychological abuse.

But he refused to put a dollar figure on the size of the settlement.”It will be of such a magnitude to deal adequately with the kinds of difficulties these people have to deal with,”he said.”These kinds of things are not inexpensive.” McDonald said the order would not sell any of its schools, but did say it would consider selling other assets to make the payment.”We are looking at all kinds of possibilities,”he said.

The group of 201 men filed a class action suit against the Brothers, claiming damages for physical and sexual assault that allegedly took place in the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s. In 1993, the religious order publicly apologized for any sexual abuse of children in its care.

Baptist World Alliance leader hopes South African Baptist talks resume

(RNS)-Baptist World Alliance general secretary Denton Lotz has voiced hopes that talks will resume between racially divided Baptists in South Africa.

Talks have broken off between the mainly white Baptist Union of Southern Africa and the predominantly black Baptist Convention of South Africa.”It is our fervent prayer that discussions will resume and that our Baptist brothers and sisters in South Africa will one day be able to celebrate in a public service that unity for which Christ prayed,”Lotz told Baptist Press, the news service of the Southern Baptist Convention.”The BWA continues to stand ready to participate in future discussions by sending a team.” The union, led by General Secretary Terry Rae, and the convention, led by General Secretary Desmond Hoffmeister, received a Baptist World Alliance delegation last November in Johannesburg. At that time, convention and union participants agreed to continue to meet. But since that time, unity talks have broken off.

Hoffmeister said the union”is not ready to deal with people of color,”according to a report from Ecumenical News International, a news service sponsored by the World Council of Churches. He said talks could resume when the union”unequivocally demonstrates”its readiness for genuine reconciliation.

Rae, the union leader, said in an open letter to the convention that his group regretted the lapse in talks.”The negotiations have been long and hard,”he said.”More than once we have asked ourselves whether there was sufficient gain to justify the pain.” He said the union remains committed to continuing negotiations.

The Baptist Union of Southern Africa created the Bantu Baptist Church for black members in 1927, but retained overall white control. Fifty years later, black congregations and pastors of the former Bantu Baptist Church broke away from the union and formed the Baptist Convention of South Africa.

Old Catholic group in Germany ordains two women to the priesthood

(RNS)-The Old Catholics, a denomination that formed in a break with the Roman Catholic Church in 1870 over the issue of papal infallibility, ordained two women to the priesthood Sunday (May 26) in a colorful ceremony in Constance, Germany.

The ordination ceremony came less than three weeks before Pope John Paul II is to visit Germany.”Is it not truly painful that the church has taken almost 2,000 years to finally come to the conclusion that women should be brought into the highest service of the church?”said Bishop Joachim Vobbe, the leader of Germany’s Old Catholics.

The two women ordained were Angela Berlis, 33, a theologian, and Regina Pickel-Bossau, 48, a teacher.

The Old Catholic Church in Germany has about 30,000 members in Germany and some 230,000 worldwide. Its membership in the United States is estimated at 70,000.

The Vatican, according to The New York Times, said it did not believe the ordinations of the women were valid and said it is questionable whether any of the Old Catholic priests are truly priests in the Catholic sense.

Quote of the day: The Aga Khan, spiritual leader of Ismaili Muslims, on Islam and the modern world.

(RNS)-The Aga Khan Sunday (May 26) became the first Muslim ever to deliver the commencement address in the 232-year history of Brown University. The Aga Khan is the imam, or religious leader, of the world’s Ismaili Muslims, a sect within Islam’s Shi’ite branch.

He spoke about the need for mutual understanding between the Islamic world and the West:”As globalization unfolds, the Islamic world will be there in myriad ways. Multitudinous encounters are inevitable. It is time for us to ask: How can we ensure that these innumerable contacts will result in a more peaceful world, and a better life? We should be seeking out and welcoming these encounters, and not fearing them. We should be energizing them with knowledge, wisdom and shared hope. But this will be enormously difficult to achieve until the civilizations and faith of the Islamic world are part of the mainstream of world culture and knowledge, and fully understood by its dominant force which is yours in the West.”

MJP END RNS