c. 1996 Religion News Service
Regent law school gains ABA approval
(RNS) After a 10-year wait, Regent University School of Law has received full accreditation from the American Bar Association.
The House of Delegates of the American Bar Association, at its annual meeting in Orlando, Fla., voted Tuesday (Aug. 6) to give the Virginia Beach, Va., school the new status.”The fact that they acknowledge our overtly evangelical mission statement to me is a major breakthrough,”religious broadcaster Pat Robertson, founder and chancellor of the school, said in an interview with Religion News Service.
J. Nelson Happy, the law school dean, expressed his hopes that the religious orientation of the school will influence the field of law.”The legal profession needs more practitioners with not only a commitment to excellence, but also a commitment to the highest ethical standards,”Happy said in a statement.”Regent equips law students with both.” The accreditation comes after years of turmoil at the school on issues concerning tenure policies and academic freedom.
Happy’s predecessor, Herbert Titus, was fired in 1993. Supporters of Titus, who was considered a biblical conservative, said he was dismissed by Regent officials to help them persuade the ABA that it was a mainstream law school. His critics contend he was an autocrat who restricted discussion in and out of the classroom.
Robertson established what was originally known as CBN University in 1977, drawing its name from his Christian Broadcasting Network. The school later changed its name to Regent University. Regent University School of Law, established in 1986, received a”provisional accreditation”in 1989, which meant the institution was visited yearly by an ABA evaluation team.
Regent University School of Law expects 150 new students this fall, the largest incoming class in its history. Law school officials anticipate a total enrollment of 370 students. Robertson said he expects the ABA decision will prompt more students to attend the law school.”There’s no question that at this point somebody can come here secure in the knowledge that he will be qualified to take the bar in various states and his opportunity for career advancement after graduation will be on a much more solid footing,”Robertson said.
He predicted that evangelicals would have a greater influence in the legal field as a result of the ABA decision.”Evangelically trained scholars will be moving into positions as clerks for various judges, as members of legislative bodies and, of course, as practitioners of law around the country,”he said.
Eventually, he hopes some of the Regent law students will become”evangelical judges”and that the school will one day”be on a par with Yale, Harvard, the University of Virginia and other great law schools of America.” Robertson is a 1955 graduate of Yale University Law School.
Bonhoeffer formally cleared of treason charges in Hitler plot
(RNS) Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the German theologian executed by the Nazis in the waning days of World War II for his participation in a plot to kill Adolf Hitler, has been formally cleared of the treason charges that sent him to his death.
Justice officials in Berlin announced on Tuesday (Aug. 6), that Bonhoeffer’s guilty sentence had effectively been lifted when the German state of Bavaria threw out all Nazi-era convictions in May 1946, at the end of the war.
Bonhoeffer, born in 1906, was a leading member of the Confessing Church _ the body that refused to cooperate with the Nazis _ and an active member of the German resistance. He was arrested in 1943 for his anti-Nazi activities and hanged in April 1945 after being implicated in a 1944 high-level assassination attempt aimed at Hitler.
A Lutheran seminary in Hanover, Germany, had asked justice officials in Berlin to investigate Bonhoeffer’s case and overturn the treason charges on which Bonhoeffer was tried.
According to the Associated Press, the status of Bonhoeffer’s case required clarification because Bonhoeffer was tried in Berlin but executed in Bavaria.
With the publication in English of a number of his theological works written while in prison, including”Letters and Papers from Prison,””The Cost of Discipleship”and”Life Together,”Bonhoeffer emerged as one of the most significant Protestant theologians of the second half of the century.
Ultra-Orthodox Israeli housing official halts archaeological dig
(RNS) Archaeologists have been evicted from the largest construction site in Israel, raising new fears that ultra-Orthodox Jewish members of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government are determined to increase the already considerable influence that Jewish religious law has over the nation’s secular majority.
The order to stop archaeological work at Modi’in, about half-way between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, was issued Tuesday (Aug. 6) by Israel’s deputy housing minister, Rabbi Meir Porush.
Porush said it was more important to protect Jewish remains than study biblical sites. Traditional Jewish law forbids disturbing Jewish graves.
Yossi Levy, a member of Israel’s Antiquities Authority, said the decision at Modi’in, where a major new city is being constructed, marked the first time that an archaeological dig has been halted because of concerns that Jewish graves were in the area.
The decision stunned archaeologists, who viewed it as setting a precedent.”Once they stop the archaeologists from their research,”Yoram Tsafrir, the former head of Hebrew University’s archaeology department, told the Associated Press,”we lose our ability to study history, the origins of the country.”It affects our culture, our knowledge of history and the ability to live a normal life in this country.” Tsafrir said he expects that more digs will be ordered stopped because”in every place in Israel you will find bones.” Ultra-Orthodox Jewish religious parties won 23 seats in the 120-seat Knesset, or parliament, in the recent Israeli election and have become an important element of Netanyahu’s ruling coalition. In return for backing Netanyahu, ultra-religious politicians have been given key government posts.
Ultra-Orthodox protests at construction sites have long been a common occurrence in Israel. But lacking political power, past protests were often ineffectual as Israel’s secular Jewish majority prevailed. Normally, bones were dug up and reburied elsewhere.
Only about 10 percent of Israel’s Jewish population of more than 5 million is ultra-Orthodox.
The decision by Porush, a member of the United Torah Judaism Party, follows a government decision to partially close a major Jerusalem street on Saturdays, the Jewish Sabbath, in opposition to the wishes of secular Israelis.
Year Book: U.S. Jewish population held steady in 1995
(RNS) The U.S. Jewish population in 1995 held steady at 5.9 million people, or 2.3 percent of the total population, virtually unchanged from 1994, according to the 1996 American Jewish Year Book.
The figure is about 7 percent higher than the estimated 5.5 million”core”Jewish population reported in a seminal 1990 survey by the Council of Jewish Federations, which was based on a scientifically selected sample to project a total number for the United States. The Year Book figure is based on local community counts.
Five states were home to the majority Jews: New York (1,645,000); California (922,000); Florida (641,000); New Jersey (436,000) and Pennsylvania (330,000).
Japanese sect leader loses suit
(RNS) Shoko Asahara, the leader of the Aum Shinri Kyo sect in Japan and currently on trial for murder charges stemming from the March 1995 poison gas attack on the Tokyo subway system, has lost another legal battle.
On Wednesday (Aug. 7), a Japanese court ordered Asahara and another member of the sect to pay more than $1.5 million to the family of a man whose murder had been blamed on the group, the Associated Press reported.
Prosecutors said that Asahara ordered members of the group to abduct and murder Kiyoshi Kariya in February 1995 as punishment for persuading his sister to quit the sect.
The attack on the subway, which killed 12 and injured or sickened more than 5,500 others, was meant to divert police from their investigation of Kariya’s murder, prosecutors said during Asahara’s criminal trial for the gassing.
The subway-related trial is expected to drag on for years. If convicted, Asahara could face death by hanging. Court officials said the decision in the civil suit would have no effect on the criminal case, AP reported.
Quote of the day: the Rev. Joyce Karuri of the Anglican diocese of Kirinyaga, Kenya, on poverty in Africa.
(RNS) The Anglican bishops of Kenya and South Africa met recently to map out their priorities for the 1988 meeting of bishops of the worldwide Anglican Communion at Lambeth Palace, England. At the meeting the alleviation of poverty in Africa emerged as a key issue for the bishops. The Rev. Joyce Karuri, director of communications for the diocese of Kirinyaga, Kenya, told the bishops that African poverty has led to violence, family disintegration and a lack of concern for others:”The poverty of developing nations affects humanity because there is no security, there is a lot of degradation of the environment, (family) plot and school land end up being sold with no regard for the future.”
MJP END RNS
