c. 1997 Religion News Service

Lyons faces new allegations about burned-church donations

(RNS) The Rev. Henry J. Lyons, the president of the National Baptist Convention, USA, who already has been questioned about marital and financial irregularities, now has another allegation facing him.

According to a newspaper account, Lyons did not distribute in the manner he said he did $225,000 donated last fall to help rebuild black churches destroyed by arson.

Lyons, head of the nation’s largest black denomination, received the funds from the National Urban League and the Anti-Defamation League, the Associated Press reported.

Two weeks after receiving the check in the fall of 1996, Lyons wrote to thank the ADL and said six burned churches had each been given $35,000 to help them rebuild and the remaining $15,000 would be given to a seventh church.

But the Tampa Tribune reported Thursday (Sept. 11) that officials at six of the seven churches _ all members of Lyons’ denomination _ received a fraction of the money or nothing at all.

Of the six churches that Lyons said received $35,000 each, three said they had received $10,000 each, one said it had received $1,000, and two said they had received nothing.

Lyons wrote in his letter to the ADL that he wanted to send the $15,000 remaining from the donation _ after $35,000 was sent to each of six other churches, totaling $210,000 _ to the Sunlight Baptist Church near Talladega, Ala.

The Rev. Jesse Montgomery, pastor of Sunlight Baptist, said his church received $25,000 from the NBCUSA in June.

But Rising Star Baptist Church in Greensboro, Ala., one of the churches slated to receive $35,000, received no money from the denomination, said Mary Hodge, who oversees that church’s rebuilding fund.”Dr. Lyons needs to check his books,”Hodge said.”I’m very displeased because honesty is very high on my list.” Lyons, who survived efforts last week by church dissidents to remove him at his denomination’s annual meeting, could not be reached for comment. Grady Irvin, his lawyer, denied there was any wrongdoing.”You have indicated there is a discrepancy. There is no discrepancy,”Irvin said.”We owe no explanation to the media and will not facilitate the second assault by the media to discredit (Lyons). We simply aren’t going to waste our time.” National Urban League President Hugh Price also could not be reached for comment.

Abraham Foxman, the ADL’s national director, said his group would express its concern to Lyons and its hope that the funds will be delivered as pledged.”He represented to us in his letter that he had already done something it appears he has not,”Foxman said.”That is very troubling.” Update: GOP leaders vow action on religious persecution bill

(RNS) Despite White House opposition, House and Senate Republican leaders say they are committed to passing legislation that would impose economic sanctions on countries found to be engaged in religious persecution.

The vow came Wednesday (Sept. 10) after Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss., and House Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Ga., met privately with a Tibetan Buddhist nun.

After the meeting, the nun, Tsultrim Dolma, testified before the House International Relations Committee, saying she had been tortured and raped by Chinese soldiers because of her religious beliefs.”This is America,”Lott said after the meeting.”We have to be prepared to take action, and I am.” Gingrich called action on the proposed bill”one of the top priorities of this Republican Congress,”the Washington Times reported.

The committee has held two days of hearings on the proposed bill, sponsored in the House by Rep. Frank Wolf, D-Va. It would, if passed, stop non-humanitarian aid to countries found guilty of persecuting religious minorities.

Although many backers of the bill point especially to persecution of Christians as their major concern, China has also become a target because of its treatment of Tibetan Buddhists followers of the Dalai Lama, the exiled spiritual and political leader of Tibet.

On Tuesday, Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights John Shattuck told the committee the administration opposed the bill because it could play into the hands of extremist groups seeking to incite more intolerance.”The bill could seriously harm the very people it seeks to help _ those facing religious persecution,”he said.

In a separate but related development, the Associated Press reported Wednesday (Sept. 10) that a senior Tibetan Buddhist monk who is being held in a remote Chinese prison has reportedly gone on a hunger strike.

The monk, Chadrei Rinpoche, is the highest ranking Tibetan cleric to be arrested and sentenced in 17 years, according to the Tibetan Information Network, which supports an independent Tibet.

Another human rights group, Human Rights in China, said the monk,”in protest of denial of even his most basic human rights under labor camp regulations … commenced a hunger strike sometime in July.” The monk was arrested in May 1995 and sentenced to six years in prison for passing on information to the Dalai Lama.

Farrakhan to speak in Alabama as school board relents

(RNS) A rally featuring Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan will go forward as planned next week (Sept. 17) after the Montgomery County School Board backed off its refusal to rent out a school auditorium for the event.”The school board, in the face of litigation, has decided to honor the contract,”said Shannon Holliday, an American Civil Liberties Union lawyer who had filed suit on behalf of Farrakhan and the group planning the”Stop the Violence”rally.

School officials had first rented the auditorium of Carver High School to the group, but sought to cancel the contract after learning Farrakhan would be a featured speaker.

Critics have accused Farrakhan of preaching racial hatred and anti-Semitism.

The ACLU said school officials were infringing on Farrakhan’s free speech rights.”All persons have the right to express their political views and be protected no matter how controversial those views might be,”Holliday said.”Without that right, we would not have a democracy.” Holliday said the program will go on as planned but the general public will not be allowed on the school campus until after the school has closed for the day.

Prominent Presbyterian minister battling illnesses

(RNS) The Rev. D. James Kennedy, a prominent Presbyterian Church in America minister, has been battling several illnesses over the past few months.

The 66-year-old senior pastor of Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., missed presenting his annual Christian Statesman of the Year Award to Judge Roy S. Moore, the Alabama circuit court judge who wants to keep a replica of the Ten Commandments in his courtroom, at a dinner Wednesday (Sept. 10) in Washington.”He would be here absolutely if he could,”said Frank Wright, director of the D. James Kennedy Center for Christian Statesmanship in Washington.”He is a man who is in need of our prayers at this time.” Clark Hollingsworth, who runs the radio and television arm of Kennedy’s ministry, told those gathered at the banquet that Kennedy”suffered a complete physical collapse”in June and was ordered by doctors to take several weeks of complete rest.”He simply had gone too hard, too fast for too long,”said Hollingsworth, executive vice president of Coral Ridge Ministries Media.

Kennedy was feeling better, but three weeks ago, he suffered a high fever and was found to have arrhythmia, an irregularity in the heartbeat.”We’re just praying for his recovery,”said Hollingsworth.”He hopes to be in the pulpit this Sunday.” Wright said in an interview Thursday that Kennedy was in the hospital during the last week of August. Since then, he has also been afflicted with laryngitis, but Wright said he is”on the mend.” Kennedy regularly takes a”summer study leave,”but usually begins preaching again the first Sunday after Labor Day, Wright said. The”Coral Ridge Hour,”Kennedy’s TV broadcast has been airing previously aired messages.

Georgia Baptists, Mercer University reach compromise

(RNS) The Georgia Baptist Convention has reached a compromise that will allow it to continue its relationship with Southern Baptist-related Mercer University, whose president has been labeled a heretic by critics.

By a vote of 77-7, the state convention of Southern Baptists approved a proposal Tuesday (Sept. 9) that would modify its relationship with the school in Macon.

The proposal was endorsed by a 5-4 vote by the executive committee of Mercer’s board of trustees. Before it can take effect, it must also be approved by the school’s 45-member board of trustees in December.

The proposal includes a provision that would create a joint liaison committee of Mercer and convention officials to nominate Mercer trustee board members and to deal with issues that arise in relations between the school and the convention, reported Baptist Press, the official news service of the Southern Baptist Convention.

The proposal was made by a committee appointed last year by the convention executive committee after the publication of a controversial book by Mercer’s president R. Kirby Godsey, titled”When We Talk About God … Let’s Be Honest”(Smyth & Helwys).

Another committee presented its report to the convention executive committee that found Godsey’s views as expressed in the book were”punctuated with heresy.” After the executive committee adjourned, Nelson Price, chairman of the committee investigating Godsey’s views, called for the university president’s resignation.

Godsey responded by saying,”While I respect his views, I would certainly not allow those views to influence my judgment about leadership of the university.” David Hudson, chairman of the Mercer trustee’s executive committee, said the trustee group had voted 9-0 to reaffirm Mercer’s commitment to academic freedom, Godsey’s presidency and his right to publish the book.

Quote of the day: Anglican Bishop Richard Holloway of Edinburgh

(RNS) Bishop Richard Holloway of Edinburgh, head of the Anglican Church in Scotland, was recently interviewed by the Anglican Communion News Service about his new book,”Dancing on the Edge.”Holloway said he believes the church can no loger provide moral absolutes:”I am not saying the church should abdicate the role of moral guide, or moral friend, but I don’t think that we have the absolute authority to say to people `this is how you ought to behave.’ The church has done that very often in history. I’m saying that role is now at an end and we should be accompanying people in their confusion, in their anxiety. We should no longer … be ordering them from on-high, from a position of absolute certainty, because, I think, absolute certainty no longer exists.”

END RNS