c. 1997 Religion News Service
Schuller recovering from mild heart attack
(RNS) The Rev. Robert H. Schuller, whose Crystal Cathedral services are broadcast worldwide, is recovering from a mild heart attack in a California hospital.
Schuller, 71, experienced chest pains Friday (Dec. 12) and drove himself to the University of California, Irvine, Medical Center in Orange, Calif. Schuller, who had no history of heart problems, underwent angioplasty Saturday to remove a blockage from the artery of his left ventricle, the Associated Press reported.
Schuller’s doctor said the TV preacher did not have serious heart damage.”He shows every sign of a complete recovery and is expected to be discharged Tuesday,”Dr. Thomas Cesario said Sunday (Dec. 14).
Schuller was the subject of prayers by thousands gathered for worship Sunday at his church in Garden Grove, Calif. The service was led by Schuller’s son, the Rev. Robert A. Schuller.
The younger Schuller said it had not been determined whether his father would be able to preach on Christmas Eve. The elder Schuller usually preaches seven sermons on that day.
U.S. Supreme Court refuses to hear workplace-bias lawsuit
(RNS) The U.S. Supreme Court refused Monday (Dec. 15) to consider a workplace-bias lawsuit by a Massachusetts woman who said she was demoted because she refused to attend a religious seminar.
Without comment, the court turned away the woman’s argument that she should have the right to decline attendance at the seminar even if it did not conflict with her own religious beliefs.
Ruth V. Kolodziej of Springfield, Mass., was hired in 1987 by Electro-Term as a management-level employee. The firm, a self-described”Christian company,”makes and sells electrical connectors.
Company president Warren Smith required management-level workers to attend a weeklong seminar each year that dealt with responding to authority and conflict resolution. Participants in the nondenominational seminar were encouraged to study a workbook that included 1,000 biblical references.
Kolodziej, a Roman Catholic, started to attend the session, but objected to a section that depicted God’s”plan”for the family with God on the top, man below God and woman below man. She refused to complete the seminar and Smith demoted her to a non-management position.
In response, Kolodziej quit her job and sued, saying the required seminar attendance was a form of religious discrimination and violated federal law _ Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
A jury ruled that even though she had been required to attend a devotional service, the seminar did not conflict with her religious beliefs. Because of that decision, a verdict was entered for the company.
On appeal, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court also ruled against Kolodziej last July. The state court said in order to prove discrimination, she had to demonstrate she was punished for refusing to comply with a requirement that clashed with her religious views.
In the appeal acted on by the U.S. Supreme Court, Kolodziej’s lawyer said she should have the right to refrain from religious activity, regardless of her particular beliefs.
Religious leaders welcome treaty limiting greenhouse gas emissions
(RNS) The leader of an international church delegation to the United Nations’ recent conference on climate change has cautiously welcomed a treaty agreement to limit greenhouse gas emissions.
The agreement, reached Thursday (Dec. 11) in Kyoto, Japan, is a plan to decrease emissions of so-called”greenhouse gases,”such as carbon dioxide, which are a major cause of global warming. Carbon dioxide is produced by fossil fuels, such as burning oil.
David Hallman, climate change program coordinator for the World Council of Churches, said”at least the reduction targets for emissions by industrialized countries, like the U.S., Canada and Japan, are tighter than in the original proposals.” At the conference, environmental ministers from almost 160 countries reached an agreement that commits 38 industrialized nations to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by a little more than 5 percent below 1990 levels between 2008 and 2012. After those dates, they are committed to even deeper reductions.
Hallman expressed concern that there were”a number of big loopholes in the treaty which could allow the rich countries to claim they were meeting the targets without having to limit their domestic emission very much at all.” Hallman spoke about his views of the treaty in an interview with Ecumenical News International, a Geneva-based religious news agency.”Continuing close scrutiny will be needed at the national and international level by churches and other non-governmental organizations to make sure these loopholes don’t negate the intent of the treaty as it moves into an implementation phase over the next couple of years,”he said.
The World Council of Churches had initiated a campaign prior to the conference to increase public support for reductions in these emissions.
Other religious organizations also welcomed the treaty’s results.”It is a truly historic agreement for it holds the promise of a safer, cleaner, healthier world for our children,”said Mark J. Pelavin, associate director of Reform Judaism’s Religious Action Center in Washington, D.C.”Active U.S. participation in this effort to curb greenhouse gases is a critical step in leading developing nations of the world, including China and India, to act.”
Virginia Baptist leader calls for new partnership with denomination
(RNS) The ties between the historic Baptist General Association of Virginia and the Southern Baptist Convention _ strained already by conservative control of the 15.7 million-member denomination _ appear to be near the tearing point.
The latest rift between the Virginia convention, which is dominated by moderate leadership, and the denomination occurred Dec. 3, when the newly elected president of the Virginia body declared there is no true “partnership” with the SBC and that the relationship needs to be re-examined.
The Rev. William Wilson _ a moderate pastor elected in November to lead the state association for the coming year _ says the SBC now holds to “a strange definition of partnership” with the association by taking association money but only giving association leaders token appointments to SBC boards and committees.
There has been bad blood for a year between the state association and the SBC since a small group of Virginia churches broke with the moderate association and formed their own state convention, the Southern Baptist Conservatives of Virginia. The conservative group has received recognition from SBC agencies.
Now, Wilson said, the majority of trustees of SBC agencies from Virginia come from the conservative convention, while the remaining state association churches pour $11 million a year into the denomination’s work.
“I’m not the smartest person in the world, but I get the idea: `We want your money, but we don’t want you,”’ Wilson told the Virginia Baptist Mission Board. “We, in effect, are funding things (while) we have absolutely no say in how the money is spent, and personally I’m responsible for being a better steward than that.”
Wilson, of Waynesboro, Va., said he will ask next year’s state association budget committee to factor in this new reality as it prepares the 1999 budget. He said he wants the next budget to recognize “those who want to join with us in our mission and will treat us as a full partner in God’s family.”
Wilson is a former member of the coordinating committee of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, an organization of moderate Southern Baptists who have embarked on mission programs not controlled by the SBC leaders.
Bill Merrell, a spokesman for the SBC Executive Committee, said SBC officials were not aware of Wilson’s sentiments.”Until they see the actual statement, we have nothing proposed to say,”he said.”It would be intemperate to comment on anything we haven’t seen yet.”
Update: Castro makes Christmas a holiday in Cuba
(RNS) Cuban President Fidel Castro has declared Christmas an official holiday as a gesture to the Vatican in anticipation of the planned January visit of Pope John Paul II.
Christmas ceased to be a recognized holiday in Cuba in 1969, seven years after the Castro government officially declared the communist nation an atheistic state.
Cardinal Jaime Ortega, head of Cuba’s Catholic Church, has asked Castro to declare Christmas a state-sanction holiday as a gesture to the pope.
In a nationally televised speech Sunday (Dec. 14), Castro stressed that Christmas would be a holiday for this year only, the Associated Press reported.
Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls called Castro’s action a”decision much-desired by the Cuban people and the church.” In his TV speech, Castro also promised to allow the government-run news media to provide coverage of the papal visit, set for Jan. 21-25, and to provide transportation for those who wish to attend the four Masses John Paul will celebrate while in Cuba.
British parliament rejects aiding terminally ill to die quicker
(RNS) The British parliament has rejected a proposal to allow dying patients to ask their doctors for drugs that would hasten death.
The bill was overly rejected 234 to 89 Wednesday (Dec. 10), Reuters reported.
Joe Ashton, the Labour Party member of parliament who introduced the bill, denied passage would have promoted euthanasia. But Kevin McNamara, another Labour parliament member, argued that the bill would allow”mercy killing,”which is illegal under British law.
Quote of the Day: The Rev. Thomas Jackson of Dallas
(RNS)”We want to have both the compassion of Christ and the backbone of Christ. We’ve got to remember that Jesus wasn’t a wimp. Jesus was a carpenter. He wasn’t only a spiritually strong man, but a physically and emotionally strong one. Jesus would stand up and fight for what he believed in.” _ The Rev. Thomas Jackson of Dallas, quoted in the Washington Post Sunday (Dec. 14) on why he is fighting a court case stemming from efforts by neighbors of his Calvary Christian Center who want him to quiet his churches’ chimes _ which sound every hour and offer a 10-minute medley of hymns twice daily.
END RNS
