c. 1997 Religion News Service
One-room schools increasingly religious and private
(RNS) One-room schools are still in operation in the United States and they are increasingly religious and private rather than public institutions.
About 1,636 one-room schools are in session, reported USA Today. Research by Mark W. Dewalt, associate professor of education at Winthrop University in Rock Hill, S.C., rejects the notion that such schools are no longer in existence.
Dewalt finds that private one-room schools, often sponsored by religious organizations, are on the rise. Old Order Mennonite or Amish groups now have 708 such schools, compared to 467 in 1985.
Other private one-room schools increased from 91 in 1986 to 481 in 1996.
According to Dewalt’s study, religious organizations often permitted their children to attend public schools that were nearby, but moved them to one room-schools when districts started to”bus students to consolidated elementary, middle or high schools.” Dewalt pointed out that there was a”dramatic impact on the proliferation of these schools”after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1972 that the Amish had the right to organize their own schools for children in the first through eighth grades.
Other religious groups that are likely to sponsor schools are Lutherans, Seventh-day Adventists, Episcopalians and Hutterites, members of an Anabaptist sect that began in Moravia.
The education level of teachers in the schools ranges from Amish teachers who have eighth-grade training to Hutterites and Adventists, who are college graduates.
Schools range in size from five pupils to about 36.
Dewalt said an Old Order Mennonite school operating in central Pennsylvania has instruction and structure similar to many one room-schools of the early 1900s. Such institutions will continue as educational options”well into the next century,”his report says.
Maine Supreme Court rules in favor of bishop
(RNS) The Maine Supreme Court ruled Friday (April 4) that it was not its place to decide whether a Roman Catholic bishop neglected to supervise a priest accused of having an affair.
Citing the church’s right to practice religion without government interference, the Court ruled 4-2 that courts cannot decide whether a church official has fulfilled his managerial responsibilities, Reuters reported.”When a civil court undertakes to compare the relationship between a religious institution and its clergy with the agency relationship of the business world … the risk of constitutional violation is evident,” Chief Justice Daniel Wathen wrote.
The ruling blocked a lawsuit brought by two parishioners against Bishop Joseph Gerry, the head of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Portland who oversees all Catholic churches in Maine.
Justice Kermit Lipez, in a dissenting opinion, said the court should have let the trial go forward to balance the rights of the church with the rights of the parishioners.
Albert Swanson and his wife Ruth charged Gerry with negligence after Maurice Morin, a priest in Grey, Maine, allegedly had an affair with Ruth Swanson after he counseled the couple in 1990.
According to court documents, the incident almost caused the couple to divorce, and their son committed suicide because of the family’s impending breakup.
“The plaintiff’s claim that the negligence of the church caused them extreme emotional distress and psychological damage emphasizes that we are not dealing solely with matters of religious belief or internal church policy,” Lipez wrote.
The Swanson’s suit against Morin is still pending.
Poll: Americans favor getting rid of nuclear arms
(RNS) _ As memories of the Cold War fade, a substantial number of Americans no longer see any reason for the United States to maintain a stockpile of nuclear weapons, according to a new poll.
The poll, conducted for Abolition 2000, an umbrella organization of peace, religious, environmental and other antiwar advocacy groups, said that nine out 10 Americans support an international treaty to eliminate nuclear arms.
And 84 percent said they would feel safer in a world in which no country, including the United States, had nuclear weapons.”Americans see no reason for maintaining the Cold War nuclear policy and see every reason for eliminating the nuclear threat once and for all,”said Alice Slater, president of the New York-based Global Resource Action Center for the Environment, one of the leading groups in Abolition 2000.”It doesn’t seem to matter whether you’re liberal or conservative, pro-defense spending or not _ the bottom line is that the bomb makes us feel unsafe and we want to be rid of it,”she added.”It’s time for our leaders to end this final chapter of the Cold War.” According to the poll, 53 percent of those polled said they believe too much money is spent building and maintaining nuclear weapons. About a third _ 32 percent _ feel the United States is spending about the right amount and 6 percent said the government was spending too little. The remaining 9 percent said they were unsure.
It also said a broad majority of 74 percent said they disagreed with the fact that the United States spends more on building and maintaining its nuclear weapons than it spends on the combination of the Head Start program, fighting illiteracy and providing college scholarships.
The poll also found that 77 percent of those polled opposed the United States spending money to develop new nuclear weapons.
The poll of 1,006 Americans, conducted by Lake Sosin & Associates, had a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percent.
Update: Police break up protest against Israeli cricket team
(RNS) Police in Malaysia used water cannons Friday (April 4) to disperse 700 protesters who opposed the government’s decision to allow the Israeli team to play in an international cricket tournament.
Police arrested 100 demonstrators in Kuala Lumpur, 50 of whom fled into a nearby mosque in an attempt to escape police. The Israel-Argentina match was not affected because organizers changed its location at the last minute.
“This is a stupid act. We want to show the Israelis that Muslims are right-thinking people but with this act, the objective is not met,” Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad said.
Anti-Israel protesters have disrupted the International Cricket Council Trophy tournament three times since competition began last month. The Israeli cricket team is the first of any Israeli sports team to compete in mostly Muslim Malaysia.
Malaysia was granted permission by the council to hold the tournament on the condition that it allow Israel to play. Malaysia has no diplomatic relations with Israel and does not allow its citizens to have contact with Israelis.
China detains eight Protestant underground church leaders
(RNS) Chinese government officials have detained eight of the most important Protestant leaders of China’s underground house-church movement, according to a report from the Puebla Program on Religious Freedom.
Puebla, a division of Freedom House, a New York-based human rights organization, said it received confirmation Thursday (April 3) that the arrests had taken place.
The most well-known figure arrested was Peter Xiu, a leader of the Wilderness house church network which is said to have 4 million members and is believed to be the biggest house church movement in China.
The arrests occurred shortly before Easter and before Vice President Al Gore’s visit. Officials from China’s Public Security Bureau followed an overseas visitor to a meeting with Peter Xiu and other Christian leaders in Zheng Zhou in Henan province, where everyone was rounded up and detained, the group said. The overseas visitor was released from house arrest a few days later.
Puebla does not know if charges have been leveled against the leaders, but it said it assumes they are being held for their underground church activities.
Protestants in China are required to attend state-sponsored churches called the Three Self Patriotic Movement. Those who worship independently are in danger of arrest, imprisonment, torture, property confiscation and even death, according to Puebla.
Nina Shea, Director of Puebla, criticized Gore for his actions in China.”Vice President Gore _ in toasting China’s Premier Li Peng over commercial agreements while failing to forcefully assert America’s concern for religious freedom _ gave the message that the U.S. government is willing to avert its eyes from the ongoing crackdown against Chinese Christians,”Shea said.
Milton Brunson, leader of Grammy-winning gospel ensemble, dies
(RNS) The Rev. Milton Brunson, who founded a Chicago community choir that grew into a Grammy Award-winning gospel ensemble, died April 1 in Chicago.
Brunson was 67. The cause of death was not reported.
Brunson founded the Thompson Community Singers on Chicago’s West Side when he was a senior in high school, the Washington Post reported. The singers went on to perform songs that hit the top of the gospel charts and won a Grammy in 1995 for”Through God’s Eyes.”
Quote of the Day: The Rev. Eugene Rivers of Dorchester, Mass.
(RNS) The Eugene F. Rivers, pastor of the Azusa Christian Community in Dorchester, Mass., a Pentecostal community founded by African-American students, is the author of an article called”The Idol of White Supremacy,”in the March-April 1997 issue of Sojourners magazine. He writes of Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan:”To me, Farrakhan exists as a judgment against the sins of the black church. We in the black church have failed to do what God has called us to do and God let a false prophet, in my view, be lifted up to call us out, to embarrass us.”
DEA END RNS
