c. 1998 Religion News Service

Eds: Lowercase spelling of”empty tomb”in first item is cq.

Church members gave a bit more of their incomes to congregations in 1996

(RNS) Congregation members gave a slightly larger portion of their incomes to their churches in 1996 compared to the previous year, a new study reports.”The State of Church Giving through 1996,”a study by empty tomb, inc., also reveals a continuing decline in contributions to benevolences, which includes general denominational support, such as local and international missions.

In 1968, church members gave an average of 3.12 percent of their income to their congregations. That figure decreased by 17 percent to 2.58 percent in 1996, the latest year for which statistics are available. But giving has increased from the 1993 level of 2.47 percent and the 1995 level of 2.56 percent.

The portion of income that supports congregational finances, which sustain the local church operations, decreased from 2.46 percent in 1968 to 2.17 percent in 1996. The latest data represent an increase from the 1992 level of 2.04 percent.

The decline in benevolences has continued for a period of 11 years, though the rate of decline slowed from 1995. Giving in that category has dropped from 0.66 percent in 1968 to 0.41 percent in 1996.

The study also reviewed giving of evangelical and mainline denominations.

The researchers found that giving in evangelical denominations increased between 1968 and 1985 and decreased between 1985 and 1996. Giving by individual members of evangelical denominations to congregational finances increased between 1985 and 1996, but giving to benevolences decreased during the same period.

In mainline denominations, there was an increase in giving by individual members for total contributions and congregational finances but a decrease in giving to benevolences during the period between 1968 and 1996.

empty tomb is a Christian service and research organization based in Champaign, Ill. The study includes data from 29 Protestant denominations that published statistics in the”Yearbook of American and Canadian Churches.”The denominations include 29 million members and comprise about one-third of the estimated 350,000 religious congregations in the United States.

GOP names religious freedom panel members

(RNS) Congressional Republican leaders have selected their four members of the new, 10-member U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom.

Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott of Mississippi named former Colorado Sen. Bill Armstrong and John Bolton, a former assistant secretary of state. Outgoing House Speaker Newt Gingrich of Georgia picked Nina Shea, director of Freedom House’s Program of Religious Freedom, and Elliot Abrams, a former assistant secretary of state. The appointments are for two-year terms.

President Clinton will name three additional commission members, while Congressional Democrats will pick two more. The commission’s 10th _ and only non-voting _ member will be the White House’s ambassador-at-large on religious freedom issues.

Clinton has indicated that he will nominate ex-World Vision executive Robert Seiple to be ambassador-at-large. Clinton previously appointed Seiple special adviser to the State Department on religious freedom issues, a post he still holds.

The commission was established by the International Religious Freedom Act passed by Congress in October. The act, widely supported by American religious leaders, makes the treatment of religious believers by foreign governments a U.S. foreign policy priority.

Under the act, the commission is responsible for evaluating and recommending U.S. responses to violations of religious freedom by foreign governments. Those responses can range from private diplomatic inquiries to broad trade and economic aid sanctions.

Armstrong is a conservative evangelical Christian who served two terms in the Senate. Bolton served in the State Department under Presidents Reagan and Bush and is currently a senior vice president of the Washington-based American Enterprise Institute.

Abrams, formerly assistant secretary of state for human rights under Reagan, is now at Washington’s Ethics and Public Policy Center. Shea has been among the most visible of Washington-based activists on behalf of religious freedom. She is also a member of the State Department’s Advisory Committee on Religious Freedom Abroad.

IRS says Methodist deacons are clergy for tax purposes

(RNS) The Internal Revenue Service, in a so-called private-letter ruling, has said that three United Methodist deacons are clergy for federal income tax purposes.

The IRS was answering a question posed by the three ordained deacons who serve in a Texas church.

In its Dec. 10 ruling, the IRS said the three deacons were”ministers of the gospel performing services in the exercise of their ministries”within the meaning of IRS regulations.

In the United Methodist Church, both deacons and elders are ordained positions with elders performing sacramental functions similar to those of ordained pastors or priests in other denominations. Deacons, such as those at the Texas church, are full-time church employees and may conduct worship and assist with sacraments.

Of the three Texas deacons, the IRS said, it considered them”to be religious leaders who can perform substantially all the religious functions within the scope of the church’s tenets and practices.” The ruling applied only to the three deacons requesting the IRS response but Mary Logan, general counsel of the denomination’s General Council on Finance and Administration, said she was pleased the IRS ruling recognized the ordination of deacons as well as the ordination of elders in determining clergy status for tax purposes.”Every United Methodist deacon should review the ruling in consultation with his or her own tax adviser,”Logan said.

A footnote in the IRS ruling noted that the original inquiry asked for a ruling on any ordained deacon employed by a church, but the IRS said it would have to examine the facts relating to each individual minister.

McCarrick named to Vatican justice and peace council

(RNS) Archbishop Theodore McCarrick of the Archdiocese of Newark, N.J., has been named by Pope John Paul II to a five-year term on the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace.

The council, with a mandate to promote justice and peace in the world, works on such issues as the world of work and labor, economic and financial systems, war, disarmament and the arms trade and problems related to the environment.

Made up of 40 people from around the world, McCarrick’s appointment will bring to three the number of Americans serving on it. The others are Cardinal Roger Mahony of Los Angeles and Nancy Wisdo, director for domestic social development at the U.S. Catholic Conference.

McCarrick currently serves as chairman of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops’ committee on international policy. He also is a member of the State Department’s Advisory Committee on Religious Freedom Abroad.

Rabbinic ruling says its OK to erase”God”on computers

(RNS) A leading Orthodox rabbi in Israel has ruled that the word”God”may be erased from a computer screen or disk because the pixels do not constitute real letters.

Rabbi Moshe Shaul Klein published his ruling this week in a computer magazine aimed at Orthodox Jews, the Associated Press reported.

According to Jewish law, printed matter with the word God _”elohim”in Hebrew, and its translation in any other language _ must be stored, or ritually buried.

Klein’s ruling was in response to question from a reader of the magazine”Mahsheva Tova,”a pun which means both”Good Computer”and”Worthy Thinking.””The letters on a computer screen are an assemblage of pixels, dots of light, what have you,”an assistant to the rabbi told the AP.”Even when you save it to disk, it’s not like you’re throwing anything more than a sequence of ones and zeroes.”

Quote of the Day: Percussionist Mickey Hart

(RNS)”Rhythm has always been used to contact the spirit world. And our culture is on its way to understanding that, to living it … If there is a God, it is rhythm. And the best way of making rhythm is with a drum.” _ Percussionist Mickey Hart, former drummer with the Grateful Dead rock band, on the importance to psychological, physical and spiritual well-being of living in tune with the body’s internal rhythms. He was quoted in the January/February issue of”New Age”magazine.

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