c. 1997 Religion News Service

WCC launches urban anti-violence campaign

(RNS)”Churches which sanction the use of violence render a counter-witness to the gospel of Jesus Christ,”the Rev. Konrad Raiser, general secretary of the World Council of Churches told a crowd of 2,000 people Sunday (Aug. 31) in South Africa.

Raiser made his remarks to open the WCC’s Peace in the City campaign, an effort that will focus on strengthening anti-violence initiatives in seven cities around the world, including Boston.

Although focused on the seven cities, the aim of the program is to help local groups anywhere in the world find practical ways to end violence in their communities.”The campaign … is meant to give visibility to and thus strengthen the efforts of churches, Christian groups and communities in various cities of the world who are engaged in peace-building and limiting or overcoming violence,”the WCC said.”In cities we can discover the most vivid examples of how people struggle to resist violence, to maintain their dignity and enhance the dignity of others, to find ways of resolving conflict without resorting to violence.” Raiser acknowledged the WCC did not know how to overcome violence. But he said it was providing its resources so that people who discovered effective ways of overcoming violence could share their experience with others.

Salpy Eskidijian of Cyprus, WCC coordinator of the campaign, said the seven cities illustrate different kinds of violence. For example, she said, in Belfast, Northern Ireland, and Colombo, Sri Lanka, political, ethnic or sectarian conflict needed to be resolved. In Boston and Rio de Janeiro, urban and street violence affect the daily lives of residents.

Other cities in the campaign Kingston, Jamaica; Suva, Fiji; and Durban, South Africa.

Eskidijian said that after visits to five of the cities, it was clear to her that”peace cannot come if it is imposed from the top down.”And the churches are well placed at the grassroots level to help,”she told Ecumenical News International, the Geneva-based religious news agency.

The new program is modeled after the WCC’s Program to Combat Racism, which has provided theological, moral, practical and financial support to local efforts against racism, most notably to foes of South Africa’s apartheid system.

Mother Teresa: Princess Diana `helped me help the poor’

(RNS) Religious leaders in Britain _ and some outside _ reacted strongly to the death of Princess Diana when the car in which she was traveling went out of control and crashed Sunday (Aug. 31).

In Britain, Archbishop of Canterbury George Carey spoke to the nation from Winchester Cathedral and read the 23rd Psalm.”I was shattered to hear that this vibrant person had lost her life,”Carey said.”It is a terrible tragedy for everybody.”She seized the imagination of young and old alike. This beautiful woman was also a very vulnerable human being and out of that vulnerability and weakness, if you like, came lots of strength, her passion and her commitment to people.”The word `passion’ seems to to sum her up,”Carey added.”There was a commitment to people, to issues, to causes.” Carey said Diana was”a deeply religious person in the sense that she cared about people. … There was faith in her whole personality. Certainly she believed in God and certainly she believed in the power of love.” Anglican Archbishop of York David Hope said he was”numbed by the news. … She had a compassionate heart for those who experienced tragedy in their own lives.” Cardinal Basil Hume, the Roman Catholic leader of England and Wales, in a brief statement, said Diana”will be remembered with great gratitude by so many.”John Taylor, president of the (British) Methodist Conference, said Diana”brought to all her work a wonderful warm humanity which won the hearts of people right across the world, often in support of unpopular causes.” Britain’s Chief Rabbi, Jonathan Sacks, said in a statement:”A dazzling light has gone out of public life. For the young especially, the princess captured the mood of a generation. She had a natural rapport with the victims of today’s world.” On Sunday, the Missionaries of Charity, the Calcutta-based religious order founded by Nobel Peace Prize-winner Mother Teresa revealed that Diana had donated money on several occasions.”She helped me to help the poor and that’s the most beautiful thing,”Mother Teresa said in a statement.”She was very much concerned about the poor and her attitude toward the poor was good. That’s why she came close to me. She was a very great friend in love with the poor. She was like an ordinary housewife. She was a very good mother.” Meanwhile, in Oslo, Norway, delegates from 100 nations gathered for talks on an international treaty to ban antipersonnel land mines _ one of Diana’s chief causes _ rose and stood silently Monday (Sept. 1) at the conference’s opening session for a moment of reflection in Diana’s memory.”We shall spare no efforts at this conference to achieve the goals she set for herself,”Norwegian Foreign Minister Bjoern Tore Godal told the delegates.

Reform Jewish pre-school in Israel destroyed by arson

(RNS) An Israeli pre-school affiliated with Judaism’s Reform movement has been destroyed by arson. Reform leaders say the school structure is the latest casualty of the acrimonious dispute between Orthodox and non-Orthodox Jews in Israel.

The fire early Monday (Sept. 1) destroyed the 41-student Kamatz pre-school in the Jerusalem suburb of Mevasseret Zion. No one was injured in the early morning fire, which occurred prior to the opening of the first day of the new Israeli school year.

The Jerusalem Post Tuesday said there were no suspects in the blaze and no motive had been firmly established. Police did, however, rule the fire arson.

Reform leaders left no doubt they considered the blaze the work of ultra-Orthodox radicals.”While those responsible for the arson attack cannot yet be identified, there is no doubt that wildly irresponsible and incendiary remarks by Orthodox officials have contributed to a climate of hate that makes such attacks possible,”said Rabbi Eric H. Yoffie, president of the Reform Union of American Hebrew Congregations.

Rabbi Uri Regev, director of the Reform Israel Religious Action Center, noted that the day before the blaze, Orthodox Israeli Chief Rabbi Yisrael Lau had equated Reform Jews with Palestinian terrorists.

For months now, Reform and other non-Orthodox Israeli Jews have been locked in a battle with that nation’s Orthodox establishment over a bill in parliament that would give Orthodoxy legal power over all conversions to Judaism in Israel.

A commission established by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to reach a compromise on the conversion issue is now scheduled to issue a report by Sept. 18, having failed to meet a mid-August deadline.

Reform and Conservative Jews attempting to worship at Jerusalem’s Western Wall _ Judaism’s holiest site _ have also been physically attacked by Orthodox Jews angered by the non-Orthodox mixing of the sexes during prayer.

Methodists studying tax law application to new ordained deacons

(RNS) The United Methodist Church has created a new order of ordained deacons and while their duties may be clear within the denomination, their status under U.S. tax law is not.

Two agencies of the church _ the Board of Higher Education and Ministry and the General Council on Finance and Administration _ have announced they are studying the issue and have asked the Internal Revenue Service for a ruling on the matter.

At issue for the new deacons are how they may treat housing allowances and whether or not they must pay the employer’s portion of Social Security as well as the employee’s.

The confusion, according to United Methodist News Service, stems from Treasury Department regulations that defines a minister as one whose duties are”performance of sacredotal (priestly) functions.” In the past, diaconal Methodist ministers were consecrated and defined by the church as laity. In the new order, the deacon is ordained rather than consecrated and is considered by the church as clergy. But, while ordained elders (pastors or ministers) administer the sacraments, ordained deacons only assist them in their administration.

Except for performing baptisms and administering the Lord’s Supper (Holy Communion), the duties of the two orders are substantially the same.”We are aware of no case or ruling denying status as minister to someone who was ordained as a minister and clearly regarded as such by an established denomination,”the two agencies said in their letter to the IRS asking for a ruling on the issue.

It could take a year or more for the IRS to respond.

Former Southwestern Seminary head to be nominated for Texas post

(RNS) Russell Dilday, the former president of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, will be nominated this fall for the presidency of the Baptist General Convention of Texas.

Jesse Fletcher, chancellor of Hardin-Simmons University in Abilene, Texas, has announced that he will nominate Dilday.

Dilday was at the center of a political struggle among Texas Baptists in 1994, when he was fired by trustees of the Fort Worth seminary as part of the conservative takeover of the Southern Baptist Convention.

Dilday, 66, is currently teaching at Baylor University’s George W. Truett Seminary in Waco.

The convention’s annual meeting will be held Nov. 10-11 in Austin.

Both Fletcher and Dilday said the nomination is not rooted in politics, reported Associated Baptist Press, an independent Baptist news service. The men have known each other since the 1950s, when they were students at Southwestern Seminary.”I came to know his heart and life and got to admire him,”Fletcher said, adding that his admiration for Dilday grew as he served as a pastor and seminary president.

Dilday said he agreed to the nomination because he is a”debtor”to Texas Baptists and the state in general.”The shaping of my life has been vitally linked up with Baptist Texans,”Dilday said.

If elected, Dilday said, he will help Baptists in Texas”get beyond our political struggles and differences and pull together in encouraging all Baptist Texans to put these peripheral and minor differences behind us and meet our goals of winning Texans to faith in Christ and building Texas churches.” Officials of Southern Baptists of Texas, a conservative group, were still considering in late August whether they would support a candidate to oppose Dilday.”Right at this moment, we’re still working on that question,”said Ronnie Yarber, the group’s administrator.”I can’t say that it either will happen or who it will be.”

Quote of the Day: Grant Teaff of the American Football Coaches Assoc.

(RNS) Grant Teaff, a former Baylor University coach and current director of the American Football Coaches Association in Waco, Texas, commented recently about Christian athletes, in light of baseball and football player Deion Sanders’ recent Christian transformation. Teaff told Associated Baptist Press, an independent Baptist news service:”People would ask me, `If you’re a Christian, why doesn’t God let you win?’ Well the answer is that on the other side of the field are coaches and athletes that God loves, too. God doesn’t give a hoot and a holler about who wins. He cares about who plays the game.”

MJP END RNS