c. 1997 Religion News Service

Study: Russian church exerts minimal influence on believers

(RNS) Although the Russian Orthodox Church remains the dominate faith among Russians, it exerts minimal influence on the values and behavior of young believers, according to new research by a Columbia University professor.

According to sociologist Susan Goodrich Lehmann, while half of young Russians consider themselves religious, few attend church regularly after they marry because church-sponsored family activities, such as Sunday School, do not exist.

Lehmann’s findings were based on a survey of 3,400 Russians aged 17 to 32.”Marriage and childbearing may bring Russian couples (but) without the widespread availability of religious instruction for children or other social benefits from church involvement which we typically find in America, the parents’ interest in the church is not sustained beyond a child’s first five years,”Lehmann said.

In the survey, Lehmann said she found that 13 percent of those surveyed said they both believe in and actively observe religious rituals. Another 37 percent reported they believe in religion but do not take part in rituals. The rest reported being non-religious.

Among Orthodox believers, Lehmann said 26 percent said they never attend church and 54 percent said they attend only for family celebrations or on religious holidays.

Religious groups urge Senate to act on civil rights nomination

(RNS) Leaders of 26 national religious, civil liberties and community organizations said Tuesday (Nov. 11) they are”gravely alarmed”at efforts to kill the nomination of President Clinton’s choice to head the Justice Department’s civil rights division.

Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, has said he will not bring up the nomination of Bill Lann Lee for a vote because of Lee’s support for current affirmative action programs.”That this candidate, who has been described as eminently qualified by supporters and most critics of the nomination, has had his nomination sidetracked into a policy debate over affirmative action ill serves both America and the cause of civil rights,”the groups said in a letter, sent to each member of the Senate.”Lee’s view that affirmative action remains a constitutional, legal and effective means of redressing infringements on civil rights, a view we share, is completely in consonance with the president’s long-held position,”the letter said.

Among the 26 groups urging a vote on Lee’s nomination were the American Jewish Congress, the Central Conference of American Rabbis, Church Women United, the Friends Committee on National Legislation, the National Council of Churches, the Presbyterian Church (USA), the Union of American Hebrew Congregations, and the United Church of Christ, Office for Church in Society.

Interfaith delegation urges action on North Korea famine

(RNS) An interfaith delegation that has just returned from North Korea says the communist country is gripped by a”silent emergency”and is in need of continued _ and increased _ humanitarian aid.”Somehow, we must rise above our own pain to sense the pain of others,”Rabbi Alexander M. Schindler, former president of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations and a board member of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, told a Tuesday (Nov. 11) news conference.”We cannot allow our religious and humanitarian obligations to be fixed by the boundaries of a single nation or even continent.” The 10-member delegation of the Interfaith Hunger Appeal, which visited North Korea Nov. 4-8, included representatives from Catholic Relief Services, Church World Services, Lutheran World Relief as well as the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee.”We went anticipating the worst,”said Bishop Howard Wennes, a board member of Lutheran World Relief, the New York-based Lutheran humanitarian agency and a member agency of the Interfaith Hunger Appeal.”Yet our first report is good news: Food and medicine given by governments and non-governmental agencies such as ours has helped many North Koreans fight sickness and hunger. At the same time, an aid worker told us the children she sees now are `stabilized’ … but not strong.” IHA members have contributed almost $2.6 million in humanitarian assistance to North Korea, including food, seeds, medicines, water-purification tablets, clothing and blankets.

Despite that, however, members of the delegation said the need is still overwhelming.

Victor Hsu, director of East Asia and the Pacific Region for Church World Service, said international policies are one obstacle to aiding North Korea.”We’ve been calling for the lifting of United Nations sanctions to help the flow of assistance,”Hsu said.

Wennes urged greater awareness of the problem among the American people.”We came away convinced that this is a nation desperately in need of continued and increased aid, including partnerships to address the development challenges that will outlast droughts and floods,”he said.

Southern Baptists in Texas adopt plan for new state initiatives

(RNS) Delegates to the moderate-dominated Baptist General Convention of Texas passed a plan at their annual meeting allowing the state group to look beyond Southern Baptist Convention entities for places to send their mission donations.

In other action during the Nov. 10-11 meeting in Austin, Russell H. Dilday Jr., former president of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, was elected president of the state group. Dilday, who was fired by conservative Southwestern trustees in 1994 after nearly 16 years as president, is a homiletics professor at George W. Truett Theological Seminary in Waco.

The Effectiveness/Efficiency Committee plan calling for a variety of new funding initiatives was opposed by the conservative Southern Baptists of Texas, who believe it will distance the state convention from the national denomination.

Miles Seaborn, president of Southern Baptists of Texas, said the affirmative vote on the plan makes a new Baptist convention in the state a greater possibility.”We have started the machinery in that direction,”said Seaborn, as quoted in the Dallas Morning News.

The Effectiveness/Efficiency plan creates new Texas-focused programs related to theological education, missions projects and literature for churches.

John Hatch, a pastor in Lake Jackson, Texas, made an unsuccessful motion to postpone consideration of the plan because he considered it divisive, reported Baptist Press, the official news service of the Southern Baptist Convention.”Potentially divisive votes … need to be tabled to preserve unity among Baptists in Texas,”he said.

But Charles Davenport, chairman of the state group’s administrative committee, said postponement would only be more divisive.”We should vote and get on with the business of reaching our state with the gospel of Jesus Christ,”he said.

The Baptist General Convention of Texas is the largest state convention of Southern Baptists in the country.

Bob Jones Jr., head of fundamentalist university, dies

(RNS) Bob Jones Jr., chancellor and chairman of the fundamentalist Christian Bob Jones University in Greenville, S.C., died Wednesday (Nov. 12). He was 86.

Jones, who preached daily at the university’s chapel service and spoke at Bible conferences around the globe, was diagnosed with abdominal cancer in September, the Associated Press reported.

Bob Jones College was founded by Jones’ father in 1927 in Cleveland, Tenn. In 1947, the year Jones was named president, it became a university and moved to Greenville.

Jones, an unabashed fundamentalist, once said he would”as soon speak to the devil himself”than speak to Pope John Paul II, who had come to visit South Carolina, the AP reported.

He is survived by his wife, Fannie May Holmes Jones; three children, including Bob Jones III, current president of the university; 10 grandchildren and three-great grandchildren.

C. Welton Gaddy elected president of Americans United

(RNS) The Rev. C. Welton Gaddy, pastor of Northminster Church in Monroe, La., has been elected president of Americans United for Separation of Church and State.

Gaddy, a Baptist, has been Northminster’s pastor for the past five years and has been involved in Americans United, the Washington-based church-state separationist group, since 1971.”Church-state separation is essential to protecting the religious freedom of all Americans,”Gaddy said after his Nov. 2 election.”Keeping a wholesome distance between the institutions of government and religion benefits both.” Gaddy replaces the Rev. Cal Didier, retired pastor of the House of Hope Presbyterian Church in St. Paul, Minn.

Quote of the day: Mary Robinson, U.N. Human Rights High Commissioner

(RNS)”Count up the results of 50 years of human rights mechanisms, 30 years of multi-billion-dollar development programs and endless high-level rhetoric, the global impact is quite underwhelming. We still have widespread discrimination on the basis of gender, ethnicity, religious belief or sexual orientation and there is still genocide _ twice in this decade alone. This is a failure of implementation that shames us all.” U.N. Human Rights Commissioner Mary Robinson as quoted by Reuters in a speech Tuesday (Nov. 11) marking the 50th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

MJP END RNS