c. 1996 Religion News Service
Southern Baptists to collect money for burned black churches
(RNS)-Southern Baptists plan to pass the collection plate Wednesday night (June 12) during their annual meeting in New Orleans to support the black churches that have been victimized in a recent spate of church fires.”This is the first time we’ve taken an offering in 10 years,”said Herb Hollinger, spokesman for the national meeting, which began Tuesday (June 11).
The last time contributions were solicited during the convention was to fight world hunger, he said.
The Southern Baptist Convention, with 15.6 million members, is the largest Protestant denomination in the United States. At its convention last year, delegates passed a landmark resolution apologizing for the denomination’s past defense of slavery.
During the first day of the convention, about 15,000 delegates elected Tom Elliff, pastor of first Southern Baptist Church of Del City, Okla., to a one-year term as president. Elliff, a former missionary in Zimbabwe, was the only announced presidential candidate to succeed Jim Henry, an Orlando, Fla., pastor who is completing his second term.
The delegates also voted for a second and final time to streamline the denomination, reducing the number of its agencies from 19 to 12. Baptist officials say the move will make their missionary work more effective.
On Wednesday, Baptists are expected to vote on a resolution condemning the Walt Disney Co. for its”anti-family”policies, including the offering of benefits to partners of homosexuals, and another expressing support for black churches that have been burned across the South.
Congressman proposes $12 million to help ATF solve church arsons
(RNS)-Rep. Jim Lightfoot, an Iowa Republican and member of the House Appropriations Committee, plans to introduce legislation next week to provide $12 million in additional resources to help federal agents solve a rash of fires at churches across the country.”It takes a particularly sick mind to burn a house of worship,”Lightfoot, chairman of the subcommittee in charge of appropriations to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF), said Tuesday (June 11).”This is not an isolated problem. This is not just a problem in the South, and it’s not just a problem for African-American churches.” Elizabeth Morra, spokeswoman for the House Appropriations Committee, said Lightfoot”doesn’t want to diminish”the concerns of a delegation of African-American pastors who, along with National Council of Churches officials, said Monday that they believe the black church fires are racially motivated.
Rather, she said,”He’s concerned about all of them (burned churches) as a whole.” Lightfoot said the money will help ensure”that the agents in the field have enough money to do their job.” The ATF, allocated $378 million for fiscal 1996, has”a severe shortage of equipment and manpower”to deal with the church fires, Morra said. She said the ATF had requested additional funds.
Of 57 church fires in the last 18 months, Lightfoot said 32 have occurred at predominantly African-American churches.”We will not tolerate these crimes and will do everything in our power to stop them,”he said, noting that fires have also occurred in New York and Arizona.
The additional money would be used for overtime, travel, reward money and other law enforcement needs, he said.
About 200 agents of the ATF and the Federal Bureau of Investigation are working on the cases.
Andrea Andrews, Lightfoot’s press secretary, said his proposal will likely be considered by the House Appropriations Committee next week and by the entire House in July.
Lightfoot’s action is just one sign of greater political interest in the fires. On Wednesday (June 12), President Clinton plans to visit the site of the Mount Zion AME Church in Greeleyville, S.C., which burned in June 1995.
Dole touches off new GOP infighting over abortion
(RNS)-Republican presidential hopeful Bob Dole has reignited the abortion controversy within his party by saying a”declaration of tolerance”toward those who favor abortion rights should be prominently included in the GOP platform on the issue.
Dole’s comments Monday (June 10) drew the immediate ire of opponents of abortion rights, who said the candidate’s position weakened the Republicans’ strong anti-abortion plank, which calls for a constitutional amendment banning the procedure.
Dole’s rival in the Republican primaries, Pat Buchanan, said the former Kansas senator’s position amounted to”the negation and destruction of our party’s pro-life stand,”the Associated Press reported.
Ralph Reed, executive director of the Christian Coalition, told The New York Times that Dole’s stand could spur a divisive fight over the issue on the floor of the Republican national convention in San Diego in August.
Phyllis Schlafly, president of the anti-abortion Eagle Forum, said Dole’s position is”not acceptable at all.””We have a great pro-life plank in the platform. This is no time to retreat from it,”she told The Washington Times.
Dole says he is personally against abortion but wants to find a way for Republicans who back abortion rights also to feel welcome in the party. He appeared last week to have put the abortion controversy behind him when he said he favored a declaration of tolerance but did not say where in the platform it should placed.
Abortion foes generally welcomed Dole’s comments at that time, assuming that the candidate meant for the declaration to be a general statement covering a variety of issues and not tied directly to abortion.
Meanwhile, a new CBS-New York Times poll conducted before Dole made his first statement about a declaration of tolerance found that 72 percent of all Americans and 66 percent of Republicans do not believe the GOP should include in its platform a call for a constitutional amendment banning abortion.
The poll-conducted May 31-June 3-also found that only 32 percent want the government to do more to regulate abortion.
American Catholics give $7.8 million to church in Latin America
(RNS)-American Roman Catholics last year donated more than $7.8 million to the church in Latin American, where half the world’s Catholics are expected to be living by the year 2000.
In 1995, 137 dioceses in the United States contributed $4.4 million to the church in Latin America through a national collection. In addition, 41 dioceses reported directly donating another $34 million to Catholic programs in Latin America, according to a report from the U.S. Bishops’ Secretariat for the Church in Latin America.
The national collection funded grants to 321 projects in Latin American dioceses, including programs to enable youth and adult lay leaders to receive training and attend spiritual-renewal courses. Other projects included printing and buying children’s catechisms and texts for seminarians and underwriting research on issues relating to migrant workers and indigenous people.
Since 1965, American Catholics have contributed more than $72 million to support projects in Latin America.
Muslim-government fighting in Algeria claimed 6,400 lives in 1994-95
(RNS)-The bitter civil strife between Islamic militants and the government of Algeria claimed another 6,400 lives during 1994 and 1995, according to a report by an Algerian human-rights group.
An estimated 50,000 people have been killed since 1992 in Algeria, when Muslim militants began their war against the government after officials canceled a national election that the Islamic parties appeared on the verge of winning.
The government-appointed National Observatory of Human Rights said more than 5,000 Islamic militants were killed by security forces during 1994 and 1995. Another 1,400 civilians were killed by the militants, according to the Reuter news agency in a story about the report.
Among the civilians killed by the Muslim militants in the two-year period were 372 union activists, 300 women, 184 magistrates and 84 Muslim religious workers employed by the government.
Center for the Study of Religion in Public Life names director
(RNS)-Mark Silk, a newspaper journalist and author of books on religion in contemporary society, has been named the founding director of the new Center for the Study of Religion in Public Life at Trinity College in Hartford, Conn.
Silk, 46, a reporter with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution who has a doctorate in history from Harvard University, will begin the job in August, the college announced.
Silk, also an adjunct professor of religion at Atlanta’s Emory University, has worked closely with the American Academy of Religion and has participated in several university forums relating to religion in public life.
The center plans to bring to its campus visiting scholars and international leaders in such fields as anthropology, sociology, religious studies, political science and history. At Trinity, the scholars will teach, conduct research, organize conferences, publish papers and generally broaden the college’s curriculum, Trinity President Evan S. Dobelle said.
Silk graduated magna cum laude from Harvard in 1972 and acquired his doctorate in 1982. While at Harvard, he was a lecturer on history and literature.
At the Journal-Constitution, where he has worked for nine years, Silk has been a columnist and editorial writer, and has covered public housing and community development, legal and constitutional issues, drug policy, religion, telecommunications and Middle East policy.
He is the author of”Spiritual Politics: Religion and America Since World War II”and”Unsecular Media: Making News of Religion in America.”With his father, Leonard, an economic journalist for The New York Times who died last year, Silk wrote”The American Establishment”and the forthcoming book”Making Capitalism Work.”
Quote of the day: John Roxborogh of the Bible College of New Zealand on the language of spirituality.
(RNS)-Professor John Roxborogh of the Bible College of New Zealand, together with a group of students from the school, has drafted a statement on Evangelism and a Post-Secular Society, published in the latest issue of the Ecumenical Letter on Evangelism by the World Council of Churches. In the statement, Roxborogh and his students note that the language of spirituality has become pervasive in contemporary society:”It is time Christians gave up bemoaning secularism. For one thing it largely belongs to the past. For another it was not all bad. The challenge now is to identify questions we should be asking about mission in a world which is not simply pluralist, but post-secular. … More and more people see reality as incomplete without the language of spirituality, whatever they mean by it. … In this situation it would be ironic if Christians found that they have learnt to be so restrained in their own religious conversation, that they are no longer able to take part in a meaningful and critical dialogue with a newly spiritual world.”
MJP END RNS
