c. 1997 Religion News Service
Nobel Peace Prize goes to effort to ban land mines
(RNS) The International Campaign to Ban Landmines, which under the direction of its U.S. leader and co-winner Jody Williams turned the quixotic vision of a handful of activists into a powerful movement on the brink of political success, has been awarded the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize.
The award, announced Friday (Oct. 10), was swiftly hailed by religious groups active in the campaign, which is close to its goal of making banning the weapons a feasible reality.”While we celebrate this honor, we also recognize the fact that the work of the campaign is only just beginning in its efforts to promote a truly global treaty bringing into practical effect the cherished aim of complete eradication of anti-personnel land mines,”said Lutheran World Federation General Secretary Ishmael Noko. The LWF has has been a member of the campaign since its inception.”The success of the campaign, against seemingly insurmountable human-made obstacles, is cause for praise and thanks to God,”Noko added.
The World Council of Churches, another member of the international campaign, also hailed the selection of the ICBLM and Williams for the peace prize.”The churches have first-hand experience of the terrible human suffering which land mines inflict on the most vulnerable people caught in zones of conflict, particularly peasant women and children,”a WCC spokesman said.”These indiscriminate weapons belong to a bygone age when the superpowers fought proxy wars in the world’s poorest countries,”the WCC said.”The churches vigorously protested this practice then, and will not accept today the `national security’ arguments used by some states to justify their refusal to join in a comprehensive ban.” One such country is the United States, which in September refused to sign on to a comprehensive ban on the weapon negotiated by some 90 nations in Oslo, and scheduled to be signed in Ottawa in early December.
The Nobel committee, in awarding the prize, made it clear it hoped it would bring pressure on the U.S. and other nations that have not signed the Oslo accord to do so.”It is clear that the committee with this award wishes, as it says in the citation, to have this (Oslo) convention gain even broader support,”said Francis Sejerstedt, chairman of the peace prize panel.
In Washington, White House spokesman Michael McCurry said President Clinton had no intention of changing his position, which insists that the United States be granted an exemption to the ban so it could deploy mines along the border between North and South Korea.
But President Boris Yeltsin of Russia, whose government also had refused to sign onto the Oslo accord, said Friday it would now do so.
Williams told Norwegian television she planned to call President Clinton and urge him to reverse his opposition to the treaty.”The United States continues to try to maintain the fiction that it is a leader on the issue of eliminating land mines,”she said.
There are an estimated 100 million land mines scattered in former and current trouble spots around the world, from Afghanistan to Mozambique. They kill or maim an estimated 26,000 people _ mostly women and children _ each year.
Baptist Joint Committee opposes Religious Freedom Amendment, vouchers
(RNS) The Baptist Joint Committee, an umbrella group of a number of Baptist agencies and denominations, has adopted resolutions opposing the proposed religious freedom constitutional amendment and tuition vouchers for public schools.
Board members voted on the statements during the committee’s annual meeting Oct. 6-7 in Washington, D.C. The committee represents 11 Baptist groups in North America on religious liberty issues..
The resolution on the”Religious Freedom Amendment”proposed by Rep. Ernest Istook, R-Okla., voiced BJC’s concern the measure would permit”religious coercion”in public schools.”This amendment is dangerous and unfaithful to our Baptist heritage,”the resolution reads.”Government-sponsored prayer in the classroom and government-endorsed religious expression in public places are inherently coercive and would relegate religious minorities to the status of outsiders and second-class citizens if they did not participate in worshipping the god of the majority.” Several committee directors worried the resolution could create controversy because some of them serve as directors of the National Association of Evangelicals, which supports the Istook amendment, reported Associated Baptist Press, an independent Baptist news service.”There is going to be a lot of confusion among our constituency,”said Ray Swatkowski, a representative of the Baptist General Conference from Arlington Heights, Ill.
Board members also criticized government assistance for”religious elementary and secondary schools”through tuition vouchers.
The resolution says religion should be”unmolested, uncoerced and unassisted”and should be supported by”the persuasive power of the truth it proclaims and not the coercive power of the state.” A third resolution praised the attention being given to worldwide Christian persecution, but questioned a bill before Congress that aims to deal with the issue.”To oppose religious persecution of Christians without showing sensitivity to other religious groups that might be persecuted does not make sense and is not Baptistic,”said James Dunn, the committee’s executive director.
Board members spoke out in another resolution about the June 25 decision of the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn the 1993 Religious Freedom Restoration Act.
The resolution called the decision”a frontal assault”on religious liberties and asked Congress and individual states to pass new legislation to help guarantee such liberties.
House backs school vouchers for District of Columbia
(RNS) By the narrowest of margins _ Speaker Newt Gingrich’s tie-breaking vote _ the House of Representatives Thursday (Oct. 9) approved a District of Columbia spending bill that includes a school voucher plan.
Despite the 203-202 House vote, the measure’s final approval appears unlikely. The Senate version of the bill contains no voucher provision, and President Clinton has vowed to veto the measure should it come to him with the voucher plan intact.
The $827.5-million district spending bill included an additional $7 million for vouchers added at the insistence of House Republicans, thrusting the capital’s schools into the highly charged national political debate over school vouchers.
All but 11 Republicans voted for the measure. Every House Democrat opposed it, as did the body’s lone independent.
The voucher plan would provide up to $3,200 per pupil for some 2,000 Washington students from low-income families and could be used to pay tuition at private secular or religious schools. Families also would be eligible for an additional $500 to cover tutoring and transportation costs.
District schools have been beset with a myriad of problems, which voucher supporters in the Congress have seized upon to bolster their case. Physical plant problems have been so widespread that the district was forced to delay the start of classes by three weeks this semester.”The bottom line is, the time has come for school choice,”said Rep. Tom DeLay, R-Texas.”The time has come for us to give parents the opportunity to have a greater role in choosing the right school for their own children and not have bureaucrats make that decision.” However, Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton, D-D.C., the district’s non-voting representative in the House, said Congress had no business forcing its support for vouchers on Washington residents, the Washington Post reported.”It is a scam on poor people,”said Norton.”The district’s public schools desperately need every cent of public money … Show some respect for me and the people I represent.”
Liberal American Jews dominate Zionist congress election
(RNS) Liberal Jewish religious movements have emerged the big winners in balloting to select American Jewish representatives to the upcoming World Zionist Congress meeting.
The liberal groups had engaged in a widespread campaign to get their supporters to participate in the normally little-noticed election _ the first in a decade _ as a sign of their upset over efforts by Israel’s Orthodox establishment to retain firm control over religious life there. The liberal movements, particularly American-style Reform and Conservative Judaism, say they deserve equal status in Israel as a matter of religious freedom.
Steven Bayme, national director of Jewish communal affairs for the American Jewish Committee, said the election strategy appeared to have paid off.”The real lesson coming out of this election is that religious pluralism is a real core issue for American Jews, and that’s a major statement,”he told the New York Jewish Week.
The Reform candidates won 47.7 percent of the valid ballots cast in the election, the results of which were announced in New York Thursday (Oct. 9). Conservative candidates won 26 percent of the votes. Candidates affiliated with an Orthodox Jewish slate garnered 10.8 percent of the vote.
Overall, about 108,000 valid ballots were cast in the election, meaning only a small fraction of the nation’s 5.9-million Jews actually took part in the voting.
The results also appear to confirm what Jewish demographers have said for years, which is that American Jews concerned with Israel issues are largely religiously-based today. In the past, they were primarily associated with political or social service-oriented Zionist groups, which fared poorly in the World Zionist Congress mail balloting conducted over several months.
Some 145 U.S. Jewish delegates _ or 29 percent of the 500 total delegates _ will attend the World Zionist Congress set for December in Jerusalem. Israeli delegates will account for 38 percent of the total, with the rest coming from other nations.
The congress is a 100-year-old international body which, prior to independence, worked to establish the state of Israel. Today, it helps determine policy for the quasi-governmental Jewish Agency, which disperses about $400-million annually in Israel on immigrant absorption and educational programs. Most of that money comes from American Jews.
Senate confirms Boggs as Vatican envoy
(RNS) In one of its last acts before taking an 11-day recess, the Senate late Thursday (Oct. 9), approved the nomination of former Rep. Lindy Boggs, D-La., to become ambassador to the Holy See.
Boggs’ confirmation was never in doubt, but her nomination and other ambassadorial nominations had been placed on hold by Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ken., under Senate rules allowing a member to block legislation.
McConnell said he had nothing against Boggs but was trying to gain leverage to change U.S. policy toward Mexico. He dropped his hold late Wednesday, clearing the way for confirmation Thursday night.
Boggs, 81, was nominated by President Clinton last month, and her confirmation was recommended by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee with unusual speed. Sen. Jesse Helms, R-N.C., the committee’s chairman who had held up other Clinton nominees and foreign policy initiatives, called Boggs a “dear lady” worthy of his panel’s “acceptance and respect.”
Boggs could not be reached for comment late Thursday, but has said she hopes to assume the Vatican post by mid-November.
She succeeds former Boston Mayor Raymond Flynn, who resigned to return to Massachusetts where he is expected to run for governor.
A nine-term congresswoman, Boggs assumed her seat in a special election in 1973 after the death of her husband, House Majority Leader Hale Boggs, whose plane disappeared over Alaska the year before. She retired in 1991.
The Vatican post, a liaison between Washington and the headquarters of the Roman Catholic Church, has assumed broader political dimensions as Pope John Paul II expanded the Vatican’s role in world affairs.
Christian TV network founder resigns when payment after affair disclosed
(RNS) The founder of a Florida-based network of Christian television stations has resigned after it was disclosed a secretary with whom he had an affair was given a secret payment.
Robert D’Andrea submitted his resignation from the board of the Christian Television Network on Wednesday (Oct. 8), five days after donors to the network filed suit claiming network money was used to pay the woman.”He didn’t want his continued involvement as a board member to be any reproach to the ministry he loves,”said board member David Gibbs III.
D’Andrea, who is married, had”an affair of the heart,”with an employee resulting in her receiving some kind of payment, Gibbs said. He declined to make any further comment because the payment came with a secrecy clause, the Associated Press reported.
The Christian Television Network, owns five TV stations in Tennessee and Florida, with its flagship, WCLF, in Largo, Fla.
German village relents, will accept Jewish immigrants
(RNS) A small German village has reversed itself and will allow 60 Russian Jews to settle there following charges of anti-Semitism.
Gollwitz, a village of about 400 residents some 40 miles west of Berlin, had denied the Russian Jews permission to move into an abandoned mansion there, saying it should instead be turned into a retirement home.
They maintained their village was not big enough to absorb such a large influx of foreigners, the Reuter news agency reported Friday (Oct. 10). However, German Jewish leaders said the village’s decision was a sign that anti-Semitism remains alive in Germany 50 years after the Holocaust.
Almuth Berger, the Brandenburg state representative for foreigners’ affairs, said the Russian Jews will not be allowed to move into the mansion before discussions with village officials are held to iron out details.
Gollwitz is in an area of formerly East Germany that is among the poorest in Germany. Brandenburg state, in which Gollwitz is located, has been the site of numerous attacks against foreigners in recent years.
Quote of the day: Baltimore Sun reporter Lyle Denniston
(RNS)”Religion cases are very heavy labor for this (Supreme) court. There is no part of its work that so certainly ties it in knots as do the cases testing the meaning of the First Amendment’s establishment clause and free exercise clause. In this sector of First Amendment law, the court’s doctrine is in a state of profound disarray.” Baltimore Sun Supreme Court reporter Lyle Denniston speaking to the annual meeting of the Baptist Joint Committee on Public Affairs.
END RNS
