c. 1997 Religion News Service
Reed to be featured at Ten Commandments rally
(RNS) Ralph Reed, executive director of the Christian Coalition, will headline a rally organizers say will draw thousands Saturday (April 11) in support of Alabama Judge Tom Moore’s practice of displaying a replica of the Ten Commandments in his courtroom and having pastors open his court with prayer.
Republican Gov. Fob James and former Alabama Sen. Jeremiah Denton are also expected to speak at the rally.
Moore’s cause has won the support of conservative religious leaders as well as Alabama and national political figures. James has promised to call out the National Guard to protect the Ten Commandments plaque if federal courts rule that it violates the separation of church and state.
On Thursday, Alabama Sens. Jeff Sessions and Richard Shelby, joined by Rep. Robert Aderholt, _ all Republicans _ filed a friend-of-the-court brief with the Alabama Supreme Court supporting Moore’s practices.
Those practices are being challenged by the American Civil Liberties Union.
On Friday, Americans United for Separation of Church and State criticized the proposed rally to support Moore as”a scam intended to lure Christians into a radical crusade against the Constitution and the rule of law.” The Rev. Barry Lynn, executive director of Americans United, said many Christians”have been fooled into thinking this rally is about support for the Ten Commandments.”In fact, it’s about opposition to the rule of law and church-state separation,”he said.
Moore contends the First Amendment to the Constitution gives him the right to practice Christianity in his courtroom.
At the same time, however, Moore said he would not allow non-Christians to lead prayers in his court.”My duty under the Constitution is to acknowledge the Judeo-Christian God”not the gods of other faiths, he told the Associated Press.”We are not a nation founded upon the Hindu god or Buddha.”
South African church council voices support for Boesak
(RNS) The South African Council of Churches (SACC) has expressed its support and friendship for Allan Boesak, the former clergyman and prominent anti-apartheid activist facing charges of misappropriating funds meant for victims of apartheid.”We assured him of our continued friendship and fellowship,”the SACC said in a statement Tuesday (April 8).”It does not mean that we have chosen sides in the case now to be heard in the high court,”the statement added.”It simply means that Allan Boesak is a friend who was one of us during the years of struggle and remains one of us now, whatever his personal circumstances.” Boesak, a former Dutch Reformed cleric who quit the pulpit in 1990 after acknowledging an extramarital affair. As president of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches, Boesak was one of the most charismatic and articulate anti-apartheid activists during the 1980s and early 1990s. He was also a regional official of the African National Congress, headed by Nelson Mandela, now South Africa’s president.
Boesak, who has been studying and teaching in the United States, recently returned to South Africa to face charges stemming from his administration of the now-defunct Foundation for Peace and Justice, which he headed.
He is charged with 21 counts of theft and nine of fraud in the mishandling of about $225,000 given the foundation by DanChurchAid, a Danish relief and aid organization. His trial is scheduled to begin Aug. 4.”Our major concern,”the SACC said in its statement,”is that this trial will be used by those who do not care for our new democracy and its basis of one united people to turn it into a national `O.J. Simpson-type’ trial to separate once again a people who are now together in one nation.”
Orthodox leader calls on Vatican to join WCC
(RNS) Patriarch Bartholomew I, the spiritual leader of the world’s Orthodox Christians, has called on the Roman Catholic Church to join the World Council of Churches (WCC) in time for the international ecumenical body’s 50th anniversary next year.
The Roman Catholic Church, the world’s largest Christian body with between 850 million to 900 million members, cooperates with the WCC on a number of fronts but has always rejected membership.
The WCC, with 322 Orthodox, Anglican and Protestant member churches, is the pre-eminent ecumenical agency in the world.
Bartholomew issued his call to the Vatican in remarks made to journalists at the Orthodox headquarters in Istanbul (formerly Constantinople) and were reported by The Tablet, the British religious periodical.
The call comes at a time of heightened ecumenical activity at the international level. Pope John Paul II, for example, has made unity of the Christian churches a major theme of his preparations for the celebration of the new millennium.
For its part, the WCC is engaged in a wide-ranging review of its activities and structure as part of its preparation for marking the golden anniversary of its 1948 founding in the aftermath of World War II.
The Rev. Konrad Raiser, general secretary of the WCC, has often called on the international body to find new structural”models”that would allow the Roman Catholic Church to take what he calls its”natural place”in the ecumenical movement. For example, he has called for considering the establishment of a new ecumenical”forum”that could include the Roman Catholic Church and other non-WCC churches.
But while the Vatican has repeatedly said it wants to pursue church unity efforts, major stumbling blocks remain, including the issue of the role of the papacy and the fact that a number of WCC churches ordain women as clergy.
Survey: 99 percent of Brazilians believe in God
(RNS) Ninety-nine percent of Brazilians believe in God, according to a Vox Populi Institute survey taken during Easter week, but 57 percent of the 1,998 respondents said they had not been to a church or religious building that week.
The survey _ titled”To Believe in God _ What does this mean today?”_ was published in Veda magazine last week.
Of those surveyed, 69 percent report a belief in heaven. But only 32 percent anticipate they will get there. Forty-four percent believe in hell, according to the survey.
Only nine percent said they have no religious affiliation. Seventy-two percent are Roman Catholic, 11 percent are Protestant and the remaining eight percent report they follow indigenous Brazilian and Afro-Brazilian religions.
The survey results were reported by Ecumenical News International (ENI), the Geneva-based religious news agency, and did not include a margin of error.
Quote of the day: the Rev. F. Dean Lueking
(RNS) Writing in a recent issue of The Christian Century, the Rev. F. Dean Lueking, pastor of Grace Lutheran Church in River Forest, Ill., explores the biblical idea of touching, prompted by the story of Jesus’ encounter with the disciples after his resurrection:”Touch points to the future. The risen Lord’s invitation to touch and see portends what is yet to come for our bodies. We long for that fulfillment, to embrace the Christ and those long gone from us.”
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