c. 1997 Religion News Service
Update: Russian parliament approves new religion law
(RNS) The Federation Council, the upper house of the Russian parliament, Wednesday (Sept. 24) unanimously passed a controversial new law regulating religion that has been widely criticized outside the country for being discriminatory.
The vote in the Federation Council, taken without debate, was 137-0, the Associated Press reported. Last week the Duma, or lower house, also passed the law. On Monday, a senior Kremlin official was quoted as saying President Boris Yeltsin would sign the bill. Yeltsin vetoed an earlier version of the proposed law in July.
The proposed law would give special status to the Russian Orthodox Church and, to a lesser degree, Buddhism, Islam, Judaism and”Christianity,”defined as”traditional”Russian religions.”Christianity”is not defined in the law.
The law is widely viewed outside of Russia as seeking to protect the Russian Orthodox Church from losing members to western Protestant, Roman Catholic and other non-Christian”new religions.” U.S. evangelicals, the White House, Pope John Paul II and, most recently, Vice President Al Gore, have objected to the proposed legislation, calling it anti-democratic and a reminder of the former Soviet Union’s authoritarian approach to religion.
One of the bill’s clauses most criticized outside Russia says religious groups must be present in Russia for 15 years before they can publish or distribute religious literature or invite foreigners for preaching activities.
The Los Angeles Times, however, reported Wednesday that Russian government and church officials are offering assurances that the pending legislation will not be strictly enforced.
Those assurances have prompted some U.S. church officials to urge colleagues to avoid a potentially bitter confrontation with Russian church leaders over the issue.”It was apparent to all that a confrontational approach would not be helpful and could be very destructive to future relationships,”the Rev. Bruce Robbins, the United Methodist Church’s top ecumenical official, wrote to colleagues after a meeting with Russian Orthodox officials during the recent World Council of Churches Central Committee meeting in Geneva.
According to the Times, Sen. Robert F. Bennett, R-Utah, is also urging caution in reacting to the Russian law, saying he has received assurances from Russian officials that Mormons and some other non-traditional religions would not be adversely affected.
Christian groups urge to contact `Nothing Sacred’ sponsors
(RNS) The American Family Association and the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, two conservative Christian groups, are encouraging their members and supporters to express concern to advertisers over the new TV series”Nothing Sacred,”which depicts a Catholic priest’s struggles with earthly temptations.
The hour-long drama premiered Sept. 18 on ABC-TV, a subsidiary of the Walt Disney Co.
While the Catholic League and American Family Association have taken offense to the program, some reviewers have praised the show for its acting and writing about provocative subjects.”It may be very well-written, but … the way in which it was done we consider it to be an affront,”said Ed Vitagliano, news editor of American Family Association Journal.”If this sort of program portrayed in this kind of stereotypical fashion any other group besides Christians, I think there would be an even greater outcry, but Christian bashing _ and especially Catholic bashing _ just seems to be a hobby of sorts with Hollywood.” The American Family Association urged people to call sponsors of the show to express their views. It issued a statement about how it was insulted by the lead character, Father Ray, saying his sympathetic personality”makes you a bit like Jesus. So you become more and more like him until you become just like him _ a little wooden, nailed into a life you aren’t sure you want.” The Catholic League, which began criticizing the program more than a month before its premiere, has called for a boycott of the sponsors of the program.”Twenty-seven organizations, representing millions of Catholics, Protestants, Jews and Muslims, have pledged to boycott the sponsors of `Nothing Sacred,'”said William Donohue, Catholic League president.
Among the sponsors cited by both organizations are Kmart, Proctor & Gamble, Unilever (the soap and laundry detergent manufacturer) and Visa.
The concerns of the two organizations add to the list of questions raised in recent months by groups, including the Southern Baptist Convention and Focus on the Family, that have called for a boycott of Walt Disney Co. The critics believe Disney promotes anti-family values through its programs and policies, including one that offers medical benefits to partners of homosexual employees.
According to Baptist Press, the official news service of the Southern Baptist Convention, Disney issued a statement after Focus on the Family joined the boycott in late August and declared the company’s commitment to positive family entertainment.”We hope that the good we do will continue to exceed any objections people may have to our offerings along the way, and we hope we can continue to coexist in a world where we can be patient with one another,”Disney said.
Riley attacks vouchers as bad school policy
(RNS) In a sharp attack against school vouchers, Education Secretary Richard Riley criticized Tuesday (Sept. 23) both conservative and liberal members of Congress for what he said was bad public policy that could only hurt the nation’s public schools.
Riley, in speaking to reporters, said that vouchers _ a method of aiding some poor parents pay tuition to send their children to private schools _ would siphon money away from already struggling public schools and not produce the positive academic results that proponents promise.
As criticism of the nation’s public schools have mounted in recent years, the idea of vouchers as an alternative means of education has gained support. The idea is strongly supported by Roman Catholic officials and many conservative Christian leaders, and is even gaining ground among some liberals.
In his remarks, Riley took particular aim at a proposal that would give $7 million in school vouchers in fiscal year 1998 to 2,000 students in the District of Columbia to attend private and religious schools.
Such a program, he said, would leave another 75,000 students without such an opportunity, while at the same time”undermine a 200-year American commitment that has helped America keep faith with our democratic ideals and become a beacon of light for people all over the world.” Riley’s opposition to voucher programs is not new but Tuesday’s criticism was part of a larger offensive by the Clinton administration to topple several new bills in Congress to make vouchers available to needy children and their families nationwide.
Efforts in Cleveland and Milwaukee, where school choice legislation that includes religious schools as an option, are tied up in the courts.
In a separate but related development, the American Jewish Congress on Wednesday (Sept. 24) called on the Senate to defeat the voucher proposal for the D.C. schools.”The American Jewish Congress has consistently opposed school vouchers not only because they are a clear violation of the First Amendment separation of church and state, but because they would provide a diversion of resources from the public schools at a time when the schools face an enormous challenge in overcoming the problems of society to provide a quality education for America’s children,”said Phil Baum, executive director of the AJC.
Congress urged to change bankruptcy laws to protect church donations
(RNS) It’s not about money, it’s a matter of principle, maintains the Rev. Stephen Goold, who unsuccessfully battled the courts and creditors for the right to keep thousands of dollars in donations from a bankrupt, church-going couple.
Goold’s church, the Crystal Evangelical Free Church in New Hope, Minn., spent $280,000 in legal fees in its effort to stave off the couple’s creditors and retain more than $13,500 in donations from bankrupt Bruce and Nancy Young, the pastor told a Senate panel committee Tuesday (Sept. 23).
Goold’s legal battle at the Supreme Court level has failed. Although the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals had ruled in favor of Crystal Evangelical in 1996, the Supreme Court overturned the lower court’s decision after striking down the 1993 Religious Freedom Restoration Act on which the 8th Circuit relied for its ruling.
The church was subsequently told by the court to return all the money the Youngs donated before they declared bankruptcy.
Goold has now turned to Congress. He wants Congress to pass legislation preventing creditors from seizing donations those in debt give to the church.
Arguing that tithing is a spiritual duty, Goold told the Senate Judiciary Committee that bankruptcy law”must be rewritten because the Scriptures won’t be”rewritten.
The Youngs said they were observing the Old Testament practice of tithing, by giving 10 percent of the gross earnings from their electrical contracting business.
According to legal scholars, the Minnesota case represents the first time that creditors were successful in getting a bankruptcy judge to let them seize a church contribution. Opponents of the bankruptcy reform legislation, which is being crafted by Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, say it will encourage debtors to give their money away rather than pay their creditors, the Associated Press reported.”We may be faced with the frequent spectacle of purportedly impoverished debtors using our bankruptcy system to avoid their creditors while bestowing largesse through charitable giving,”said Donald Bernstein, a New York lawyer representing the National Bankruptcy Conference, a organization of bankruptcy attorneys, judges and scholars.
Quote of the day: Cardinal Roger Mahony
(RNS) On Sept. 4, Roman Catholic Cardinal Roger Mahony of Los Angeles issued a pastoral letter,”Gather Faithfully Together,”calling for full implementation of Vatican II’s liturgical vision. In the letter, Mahony reflected on the tension created in worship by cultural diversity:”We have to accomplish two results: to let the prevalent liturgy take on the pace, sounds and shape that other cultures bring; and to strive in our parishes to witness that in this Church there is finally no longer this people or that people, but one single assembly in Christ Jesus.”
MJP END RNS
