c. 1998 Religion News Service
Christian Coalition petitions urge Clinton’s impeachment
(RNS) The Christian Coalition has delivered more than a quarter-million petition names to members of Congress urging them to impeach President Clinton.
Executive director Randy Tate said Thursday (Dec. 10) the petitions”allowed citizens to address this most important issue in a timely way.” Tate, who has called for Clinton’s ouster _ either through resignation or impeachment _ since August, said the president deserved to be removed from office on the grounds that he perjured himself before the Congress.
Tate said the Coalition began collecting the names in October. More than 250,000 names have been collected, he said, although the actual number is unknown.
Tate said copies of the petitions have been sent to every member of the House and Senate, regardless of their position on impeachment. The Coalition, the religious right’s leading advocacy group, has long opposed Clinton on such issues as abortion and gay rights.
U.N. General Assembly recognizes anti-Semitism for the first time
(RNS) More than 50 years after the Holocaust, the United Nations General Assembly has for the first time voted to condemn anti-Semitism.
The action came Wednesday (Dec. 9) in a resolution, adopted without opposition, that also urged governments to cooperate with a U.N. fact-finder examining various forms of intolerance _ including racism, religious discrimination, xenophobia and anti-Semitism.
Until now, the U.N. had never officially acknowledged the existence of anti-Semitism. Hostility toward Israel from Arab and Muslim nations, backed by the former Soviet Union, prevented any such action.
During a visit to Israel in March, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan pledged to work to reverse the situation. The Clinton administration also lobbied hard for U.N. condemnation of anti-Semitism.
While not acknowledging anti-Semitism, the General Assembly had voted to equate Zionism _ the Jewish effort to establish the state of Israel _ with racism. The General Assembly has since rescinded that action.
Financially troubled Baptist school off probation
(RNS) The financially-plagued University of Mobile has been removed from academic probation by a regional accrediting association and its Central American campus may be sold to a North Carolina Baptist college.
The university announced the decision by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools in a Dec. 8 statement.”We have worked hard to resolve this probation issue and we are certainly delighted with this wonderful news,”said Mark Foley, the school’s president, reported Baptist Press, the official news service of the Southern Baptist Convention.
The accrediting association had placed the school, which is affiliated with the Alabama Baptist State Convention, on probation in June 1997 because of financial concerns related to the school’s Latin American Branch Campus in Nicaragua.
Officials at Gardner-Webb University in Boiling Springs, N.C., said they are negotiating with the Mobile school concerning a purchase plan.
Foley was elected president in February after the Mobile school’s financial problems led to the termination of then-president Michael Magnoli. The university was dealing with a severe cash-flow crisis and owed millions due to its activities in Nicaragua.
Youth with a Mission chooses new leader, addresses persecution
(RNS) Youth with a Mission International, a Colorado-based missionary organization, has chosen its first non-white international president.
Frank Naea, 41, will become the head of the organization with 10,500 missionaries in 2000 during the group’s 40th anniversary year.
The former truck driver, a New Zealander of Samoan and Maori parents, has served the mission group since 1981 and is its regional director for the Pacific. He will serve a four-year term as president.”YWAM continues to grow and expand,”Naea said in a statement.”And I hope that during my term we will be able to look at issues that will enable us to be even more effective _ things like making sure there is room at the table for the next generation, indigenous and women leaders.” The organization also has decided to work in a partnership with The Voice of the Martyrs to assist persecuted churches around the globe. Seven hundred of YWAM’s full-time workers serve in places where Christians are persecuted, the ministry said.
The Voice of the Martyrs, which is based in Bartlesville, Okla., provides Bibles and other Christian literature to families of persecuted Christians in more than 50 countries.”While they provide literature, resources and finances, we will provide the people and the means of getting them into these countries,”said Fred Markert, director of YWAM’s Strategic Frontiers center in Colorado Springs.
Quote of the day: The Rev. Lorenzo Carlisle of Oakland, Calif.
(RNS)”Christ said, `Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.’ Mr. Patterson is simply laying down his life according to Scripture.” _ The Rev. Lorenzo Carlisle, spokesman for the family of David Patterson, an imprisoned convicted felon who wants to give his second kidney to his daughter, putting his life at risk. Carlisle, of Oakland, Calif., was quoted in the Dec. 10 USA Today.
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