c. 1997 Religion News Service
Polish priest charged with crime of insulting Jews
(RNS) A well-known Roman Catholic priest in Poland was charged Wednesday (Jan. 22) with the crime of insulting Jews in a 1995 sermon he gave during a Mass attended by then-Polish president Lech Walesa.
The Rev. Henryk Jankowski compared the Jewish Star of David to the Nazi swastika and to the hammer and sickle of communism, the Reuter news agency reported.”Father Jankowski is alleged to have violated the criminal law article … that deals with insulting and humiliating persons of other nationalities,”the prosecutor’s office in Gdansk said.
Jankowski, a close associate of Walesa, had been a key supporter of Walesa’s Solidarity labor movement, which long fought communist rule.
Walesa, who was defeated for re-election later in 1995, said he had not heard Jankowski’s inflammatory words. He later issued a statement condemning anti-Semitism.
The Polish Catholic Church also distanced itself from the priest’s remarks.”This is a lack of responsibility for one’s words, and a destruction of that which has been achieved through long efforts in mutual relations between the church and Judaism,”a church statement said.
Jankowski told reporters that the charges demonstrate a lack of freedom of speech in Poland.”It is a return to a communist totalitarianism,”he said.”As a Polish citizen, I feel persecuted by the Jewish minority.” If convicted, Jankowski could face up to three years in prison.
Credit card of atheist’s missing granddaughter is active
(RNS) Someone has been using and paying the bills on a credit card belonging to the missing granddaughter of Madalyn Murray O’Hair, the famous atheist who also has been missing for a year and half.
O’Hair disappeared with her granddaughter, Robin Murray, and her son, Jon Garth Murray, in September 1995. O’Hair is famous for her lawsuit that led to the landmark 1963 Supreme Court decision that outlawed organized prayer in public schools.
An officer for Nationwide Credit Corp. of Seattle confirmed that since August 1996 as much as $1,000 a month has been charged to an American Express card belonging to Robin Murray, the Associated Press reported.
The unidentified officer, whose corporation handles bill collections for American Express, said the monthly balances have been paid in full. The last bill, paid in December, was for $401.78.
Also, a Lord & Taylor account in Robin Murray’s name has been active and is paid in full. The last balance, paid in April 1996, totaled $233.79. Executives of the New York-based department store declined to say where the monthly statement was mailed or who made the last payment.
Bill Murray, O’Hair’s estranged son, sent a letter to Texas Gov. George W. Bush, asking that Bush assign the case to the Texas Rangers, a special investigative arm of the state’s public safety department.
The letter, which was received Wednesday (Jan. 22), will be reviewed, a Bush spokeswoman said.
Bill Murray, who has said he believes his relatives are dead, is trying to become guardian of the trio’s estates. Murray was 14 years old when he was named as a plaintiff in the landmark lawsuit. He grew alienated from his mother after he became an active Christian in 1980 and his mother later adopted his daughter Robin.
Worldwide Church of God selling its Texas university campus
(RNS) The Worldwide Church of God has put its Ambassador University campus in Big Sandy, Texas, up for sale in another indication of the financial instability that has gripped the sect as it attempts to move into mainstream evangelical Christianity.
Church spokeswoman Jennifer McGraw said Thursday (Jan. 23) that an asking price has yet to be determined. Sold or not, she added, the 50-year-old school will close at the end of the Spring 1997 semester.
Church officials are attempting to place the school’s 620 students _ down from a high of 1,380 in 1977 _ at other Christian colleges around the nation, McGraw said.
Since early 1995, the Pasadena, Calif.-based church founded in 1933 by the late Herbert W. Armstrong has slashed its staff and programs drastically. The changes were precipitated by a radical restatement of the sect’s theology, which has moved it from the fringe of mainstream Christian thought to the evangelical center.
Along the way, the church ended its mandatory tithing, changed its Sabbath day from Saturday to Sunday, and ended its prohibitions on members’ use of medical treatment and their celebration of birthdays and public holidays. The church also discarded the belief that Anglo-Saxons descended from the ancient lost tribes of Israel.
In the United States, church membership has dropped by half to about 50,000 and 140 of its 375 pastors have left. Even the church’s Pasadena headquarters has been put up for sale. In its heyday, the church was active in some 100 nations. Church membership around the globe today is about 81,000.
The university’s regents made the decision to sell the Big Sandy campus in late December. Until 1990, four years after Armstrong’s death, the Big Sandy campus was a two-year school, while the sect’s four-year Ambassador University was located in Pasadena. The school’s were then merged.
Malaysian Hindus observe annual festival of Thaipusam
(RNS) Piercing their bodies with skewers and hooks, hundreds of thousands of Malaysian Hindus joined an annual procession to a holy cave Thursday (Jan. 23).
The Thaipusam festival is celebrated throughout the country by Indians, but the grandest festivities are at the Batu (Stone) Caves, a limestone outcrop near the capital of Kuala Lumpur.
The centuries-old tradition of Hindus of Southern Indian descent is celebrated in Malaysia far more than it is in India, the Reuter news agency reported.
During the month leading up to the festival, devotees follow a strict spiritual regimen, including a vegetarian diet and a fast from dawn to dusk. They also abstain from smoking, alcohol and sex.
The big day begins with a dip in the river by thousands. These days, authorities urge devotees to use large tanks of fresh water to avoid river pollution.
After a prayer session, many devotees go into a trance.
They later carry”kavadis,”elaborate frames mounted on their heads and shoulders that usually contained a Hindu deity, up the 272 steps that lead to the temple inside the cave. They leave them in a heap before the Lord Murugan, the god celebrated in the festival.
Some kavadi carriers walk in a deep trance, with glazed eyes, while others screech unnervingly, a manifestation of the Hindu spirits they believe have taken over their bodies.
SBC, Campus Crusade meet to discuss youth evangelism
(RNS) Officials of the Southern Baptist Convention and Campus Crusade for Christ have met to discuss potential ways their organizations can work together to evangelize the nation’s youth.
An all-day meeting Friday (Jan. 17) in Atlanta ended with plans to create a task force to study how to reach out to youths in middle school through college.”We all felt that the exodus of our young people from churches upon graduation from high school had to be a priority matter for us,”said James T. Draper Jr., president of the Baptist Sunday School Board.”How can we reach this generation?” Jay Strack, a Southern Baptist evangelist based in Orlando, Fla., who moderated the meeting, said just seven out of 40,000 Southern Baptist churches baptized 100 or more teens in 1995 and just 50 churches baptized 50 or more.
Unofficial data provided by the SBC estimates that there are 30 million middle and high-school students and 14 million college and university students in the United States.
Bill Bright, whose Orlando-based Campus Crusade for Christ is most well-known for its evangelistic outreach at high school and college campuses, requested the meeting with Southern Baptist officials.”I believe this meeting will be used of God to lay the groundwork for a united evangelistic effort involving Southern Baptists and Campus Crusade which can help change our country,”Bright said.
Morris H. Chapman, president of the Southern Baptist Executive Committee, said he left the meeting with a sense of hope and urgency.”For the sake of our children and grandchildren, we cannot afford to lose this generation of teens and 20-somethings,”Chapman said.”Bill Bright shares with Southern Baptists a common burden for the soul of America.”
Quote of the Day: Microsoft founder Bill Gates
(RNS) In a Jan. 13 cover story in Time magazine, Microsoft Corp. founder Bill Gates offered his view of religion:”Just in terms of allocation of time resources, religion isn’t very efficient. There is a lot more I could be doing on a Sunday morning.”
MJP END RNS