c. 1998 Religion News Service

Newspaper chronicles Seventh-day Adventist controversies

(RNS) The Seventh-day Adventist Church, one of the fastest-growing religious movements in the world, is embroiled in controversy regarding its spending practices, control over local clergy and oversight of its global aid agency, the Los Angeles Times has reported.

In a two-part series published Thursday and Friday (Aug. 13-14), the newspaper chronicles its findings concerning the 10-million-member church, whose world headquarters are in Silver Spring, Md.

The first part of the series reports the church is facing challenges as it grows while trying to maintain evangelical traditions.”Where there once was strict obedience to the hierarchy of the multibillion-dollar church, there is now sometimes grass-roots rebellion prompting firings of pastors who have challenged the status quo,”the paper reports.

It cites several instances of pastors refusing to turn over a required 10 percent tithe to the larger church structure, leading to firings and the formation of independent churches. The report also said the church has drawn criticism for a 1996 document,”Total Commitment to God,”requiring annual reports and outside evaluations of church institutions to assess their adherence to spirituality standards.

The church placed a response to the first part of the series on its website and on its fax service, stating that the article reflects the tensions of a growing church.”Ongoing debates on a variety of topics illustrate the open attitude of the church’s administration,”the statement reads.”While there will always be some differences of opinion, the church strives to maintain fair and just procedures as would be expected from a Christian organization.” The statement from the church said it responded to requests for information from Times reporters for a 16-month period. It adds that much of the contents of the article is”old news”and voices disappointment the stories were not balanced with more material about the church’s”positive and beneficial work.” The second part of the series focused on the Adventist Development and Relief Agency (ADRA) and raised questions about the federally-funded efforts of the relief organization. It cites U.S. government audits that found documentation for millions of U.S. dollars was”inadequate or nonexistent.” The Times also quoted former church officials who acknowledged the difficulty of separating its humanitarian aid from its missionary efforts abroad.

But church officials were quoted in the second day’s article defending their overseas work overall.

Church President Robert H. Folkenberg called ADRA”99.44 percent clean, like Ivory soap.” And Mario Ochoa, ADRA’s executive vice president said,”An agency that is operating in a developing country is faced with all kinds of challenges to conduct its (fiscal and management) operations.”Overall, he said,”we are doing … an excellent job everywhere.”

Kenya’s Christian, Muslim lawmakers pledge `We Shall Overcome’

(RNS) In a show of unity and grief, Kenyan Christian and Muslim lawmakers Thursday (Aug. 13) joined in singing the American hymn-turned-civil rights anthem”We Shall Overcome”at a memorial service for the victims of the Aug. 7 bombing of the U.S. embassy in Nairobi.

The members of parliament also laid a huge wreath of red and white roses at the site of the embassy bombing and prayed for unity and tolerance.

In a separate pilgrimage to the site, a group of Kenyan women, each carrying a red or white rose and bearing a banner proclaiming,”Women in Pain,”offered prayers for the dead at an ecumenical service.”Who can approve of terrorism?”asked Cardinal Jozef Tomko, the head of the Vatican missionary service.”We must find another way of living on this earth.” While much of the media attention has been focused on the American victims of the bombing, U.S. and international relief agencies and religious aid groups have been responding with humanitarian aid to the Kenyan victims.

Immediately after the bombing, the International Rescue Committee assembled a team of nurses and set up an emergency first-aid station next to the embassy. American Red Cross blood was on the the first relief flight to Nairobi. International Aid, the Spring Lake, Mich.-based evangelical relief group, said it is working to restock the shelves at hospitals in Kenya, depleted by the need to treat some 5,000 people wounded in the attack in Kenya and the simultaneous attack on the U.S. embassy in Tanzania.

Meanwhile, Action by Churches Together, the joint World Council of Churches-Lutheran World Federation humanitarian agency, has issued an appeal for $150,000 to address immediate and long-term needs of victims.

It noted that it is working with the National Council of Churches of Kenya on an immediate needs appraisal. Church House, the NCCK headquarters, is located just 225 feet from the site of the bombed embassy and some 20 staff members of the church council were among the injured.

District court judge rules Maine tuition plan constitutional

(RNS) A U.S. District Court judge has ruled that a Maine policy regarding tuition payments is constitutional.

The American Center for Law and Justice had sued the state last November on behalf of three families who sent their children to a Catholic high school because there is no public secondary school in the town of Minot. State law requires that tuition be paid for high-school-age residents in such towns so they can attend other public high schools or private schools, but sectarian schools are excluded from the policy.”The plaintiffs certainly are free to send their children to a sectarian school. That is a right protected by the Constitution,”wrote U.S. Chief District Judge D. Brock Hornby in his ruling Tuesday (Aug. 11).”The law is clear, however that they do not have the right to require taxpayers to subsidize that choice,”he continued.”That is true in a district that builds and operates its own high schoolâÂ?¦; it is also true in a district that has no public high school.” Vincent McCarthy, Northeast regional counsel for the ACLJ in New Milford, Conn., Friday told Religion News Service he plans to appeal on behalf of the plaintiffs.”We believe the decision is wrong,”said McCarthy, whose public-interest law firm was founded by religious broadcaster Pat Robertson.”It upholds the discrimination of funding of private schools by Maine. Under the present system, Maine pays money for parents to send their children to private nonsectarian schools but not to private sectarian schools.” The Rev. Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, was pleased with the ruling.”This decision sends a strong message that taxpayers should never be forced to support private religious education,”said Lynn, whose Washington-based religious liberty watchdog group provided legal help to the state of Maine.”The Maine case was one more attempt to tear down public education and introduce a voucher program subsidizing private religious schools,”Lynn said.”The court rightly said no.”

Moravian province votes full communion with Lutherans

(RNS) The synod of the Northern Province of the Moravian Church has voted to approve establishing full communion with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the largest Lutheran body in the United States.

The Aug. 9 vote follows a vote in May by the Moravian denomination’s Southern Province also approving the full communion proposal. The ELCA will vote on the issue at its Churchwide Assembly in August 1999.

Full communion would allow the two churches to exchange clergy and permit members of one denomination to take Holy Communion in churches of the other faith body.”I am very pleased that the Northern Province has joined with the Southern Province in approving the full communion legislation,”said the Rev. R. Burke Johnson, newly elected president of the Provincial Elders Conference of the Northern Province.”I understand unity as God’s gift to the church; our task is to make that gift visible.” The Northern Province has some 29,000 members in 103 congregations in 14 states, the District of Columbia and two provinces of Canada. The Southern Province has some 20,000 members in three southeastern states. The ELCA has 5.2 million members.

Update: Negotiators work to settle dispute over Georgia O’Keeffe property

(RNS) Efforts are underway to reach an out-of-court settlement involving the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) Ghost Ranch Conference Center near Abiquiu, N.M., and a prospective buyer of a 12-acre tract of land and adobe house once owned by artist Georgia O’Keeffe.

The denomination filed suit in New Mexico on July 31 to stop the current property owner from selling the land to the founders of the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum and Study Center in nearby Santa Fe.

The O’Keeffe property is surrounded by the 21,000-acre Ghost Ranch conference center.

The denomination has argued that in 1987 the owner, Juan Hamilton, O’Keeffe’s former associate, signed a right-of-first-refusal agreement with the church that could be exercised if the 12-acre tract ever were to be sold.

John and Anne Marion, the prospective buyers, finance their philanthropic work through The Burnett Foundation, a family enterprise headquartered in Forth Worth, Texas. The foundation has offered Hamilton $3 million for the property and reportedly offered the denomination $250,000 to waive its first-refusal rights, an offer the church has declined.

Despite the filing of the suit, Presbyterian News Service reported Friday (Aug. 14) that a five-member team of negotiators from the church is working with the prospective buyers to settle the dispute out of court. The executive committee of the church’s General Assembly Council has authorized borrowing $3 million to buy the disputed 12 acres.

Preservation of Ghost Ranch itself and access to the O’Keeffe property are the primary points of contention, the news service said. The only road to the residence cuts through the middle of the conference center’s program area.

One of several former O’Keeffe residences in New Mexico, the now fragile adobe house at Ghost Ranch includes the studio where O’Keeffe painted some of her most famous landscapes of New Mexico’s buttes and mesas.

Southern Baptist president to host youth ministries conference

(RNS) Southern Baptist Convention President Paige Patterson will host a September conference to address his belief that youth ministries need to be more focused on evangelism at a time of increased school violence.

The conference, titled”Culture Shock ’98,”will be held Sept. 14-16 at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, N.C., where Patterson also serves as president.

The Baptist leader said he hopes the conference will encourage pastors and laypeople interested in working with youth to have a”biblically based program built on Christ-centered theology.”He believes many church youth programs are driven more by cultural trends and adolescent whims, reported Baptist Press, the official news service of the Southern Baptist Convention.”Enough of attempting to entertain kids into the church,”said Patterson.”Let’s get them to Christ and make teen-evangelists and apologists for the kingdom of God out of every one of them.”

Quote of the Day: Sara Ehrman, friend of Hillary Rodham Clinton

(RNS)”Mrs. Clinton is a religious woman. I’m sure that that faith gives her the strength to do what she needs to do.” Sara Ehrman, who has known first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton for 26 years, quoted in USA Today Friday (Aug. 14) about how she suspects her friend is handling the sex scandal swirling around President Clinton.

DEA END RNS