c. 1998 Religion News Service
Presbyterians elect moderator as annual meeting gets under way
(RNS) In one of its first orders of business Saturday (June 13), the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) elected a seminary president in Georgia as moderator of its 210th General Assembly.
The Rev. Douglas W. Oldenburg, 63, president of Columbia Theological Seminary in Decatur, was elected in a second ballot as the 2.6 million-member denomination’s annual gathering got underway in Charlotte, N.C.
Oldenburg, the chair of the denomination’s Committee on Theological Education, has been president of Columbia for the past 11 years, and has served congregations in Virginia, West Virginia and North Carolina.
Last month, Oldenburg and the other two candidates for moderator signed a joint statement urging the church to take a”sabbatical”at this year’s meeting from formal discussions on human sexuality, an explosive issue that has preoccupied the divided the denomination.
After his election, he called on Presbyterians”not to stop talking”about sexuality issues but”to move on while we keep talking,”reported Presbyterian News Service, the church’s official news agency.
At issue is the denomination’s ratification in 1996 of an amendment to the Book of Order that requires”chastity”for unmarried church leaders. Last year, assembly delegates proposed to soften the measure by requiring”integrity”in all relationships, but that measured failed to be adopted.
Oldenburg opposes the so-called”chastity”measure. However, he urged compliance with it since it has been formally added to the church’s rule book.
In a news conference before the start of the assembly, the Rev. Clifton Kirkpatrick, general assembly stated clerk, said he believed an appeal to commissioners to refrain from proposing another amendment on sexual standards would be heeded.”The concern will not go away,”he told a news conference,”but after two years of discussion and debate in the presbyteries, I believe a majority of Presbyterians do not want a third year of preoccupation with this issue.” During the 210th General Assembly, which runs through Saturday (June 20), Presbyterians plan to approve two new catechisms; to further relations with the Evangelical Church in America, the Reformed Church in American and the United Church of Christ, as well as two smaller Presbyterian denominations; to review plans to increase church membership numbers for ethnic minorities; and to discuss adoption of a resolution exploring the moral and ethical requirements for”Just Peacemaking.”
Annan wins Methodist peace award
(RNS) U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan has been awarded the 1998 World Methodist Peace Award.
In announcing the award, World Methodist Council president Frances Alguire said Annan had been chosen for”his courage, creativity and consistency in the pursuit of human reconciliation and world peace.” Annan, 50, a graduate of the Methodist Mfantispim School in Ghana, has been”a voice of reason and wisdom in a world which tends to see solutions to conflict more in the use of armed force than careful diplomacy,”said Alguire, according to a report by Ecumencial News International, the Geneva-based religious news agency.
The award will be presented to Annan in New York later this year. Past winners of the World Methodist Peace award include President Jimmy Carter and former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev.
The World Methodist Council, founded in 1881, links 73 Methodist and related United Church denominations in 108 nations.
LWF president adds voice to those calling for cancelation of debt
(RNS) The president of the Lutheran World Federation has added his voice to a growing list of religious leaders calling for the cancelation of debt for the world’s poorest nations to mark the third Christian millennium.”A European Christianity that retreats into an individualistic interpretation of justification without considering the consequences relating to canceling the debts of the nations of the South would be a hypocritical Christianity,”Bishop Christian Krause of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Brunswick, Germany, told the annual meeting of the LWF Council, the governing body of the 124-member-church LWF in Geneva June 8.
Krause said there was a close connection between God’s forgiveness of sin through justification, a key Lutheran doctrine, and forgiveness of Third World debt, reported Ecumenical News International, the Geneva-based religious news agency.
During its meeting, the LWF Council will debate whether to endorse a projected joint declaration with the Roman Catholic Church on the doctrine of justification, a major point of contention during the 16th-century Reformation.
The declaration has been particularly controversial in Germany, where a large number of theologians there have called on Lutherans to reject it. But Krause said he has found”surprisingly great interest”in the declaration”almost everywhere”during a recent visit to the Caribbean and Latin America.
Greek archbishop, ecumenical patriarch hold joint service
(RNS) Archbishop Christodoulous, the new leader of the Greek Orthodox Church, and Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew demonstrated improving relations when the two jointly held a service Sunday (June 14) in Istanbul.
Ties between the Greek Orthodox Church and Bartholomew, the spiritual leader of the world’s 300 million Orthodox Christians, were strained during the reign of Archbishop Seraphim, the predecessor to Christodoulous. Seraphim had dropped hints Bartholomew was attempting to become a pope-like figure with absolute power.
The ecumenical patriarch, who is based in Istanbul, is viewed as the”first among equals”with other Orthodox patriarchs. But the Greek Orthodox Church is independent and does not pledge allegiance to the patriarch.
As the service concluded, Bartholomew gave engraved medallions and a cross as gifts to Christodoulous. The ecumenical patriarch told the congregation that relations between the two churches would improve in the future, thus aiding the”unity of the Orthodox world.” Christodoulous, 59, succeeded Seraphim in May after his predecessor’s death and is considered a reformer.
Methodist woman minister made member of House of Lords
(RNS) The Rev. Kathleen Richardson, a 60-year-old Methodist minister and grandmother, has been made a”life peer”by Queen Elizabeth II, entitling her to a seat in the House of Lords, the upper house in Britain’s parliament.
Richardson has a long list of firsts behind her, including being the first woman Methodist minister to be a district chairman, the rough equivalent of a bishop, and the first _ and so far only _ woman to be elected head of the Methodist Conference of Great Britain, the top Methodist official in the country.
Since 1995 she has been moderator of the Free Churches’ Council, which links Britain’s non-Catholic and non-Anglican churches. She is the first Free Church minister to become a member of the House of Lords since the Rev. Donald Soper, the prominent Methodist preacher with whom she served briefly in 1962 when she was a student deaconess, was made a life peer in 1965.
Habitat for Humanity house erected in record time
(RNS) A Habitat for Humanity house has become habitable in record time.
A well-organized construction crew in Nashville, Tenn., took just four hours, 39 minutes and 8 seconds to complete the house on Friday (June 12).
The”blitz build”effort broke the previous record of a Habitat for Humanity affiliate in Pensacola, Fla., of five hours, 57 minutes.
It usually takes six months to construct a Habitat for Humanity house. But on Friday, the crew assembled the frame in 74 minutes and completed the roof one hour later, the Associated Press reported.
In preparation for the quick work, builders constructed the frame the previous day to ensure that all the parts fit together. Separate crews focused on each zone of the 1,057-square-foot house. For example, while a usual Habitat house requires only four drywallers, the Nashville house featured 50 drywallers using fast-drying materials.
The completed house included landscaping, with holly bushes planted in the front yard.
Habitat officials maintain the structure is as sound as any other home built by the organization.”There’s nothing second-rate about this house,”said Habitat for Humanity national founder Millard Fuller of Georgia, who took part in the ribbon-cutting ceremony.”It’s a modest house, but it’s a good, solid house and it’s perfect for this family.” Marilyn Winston, a medical assistant, will live in the air-conditioned, three-bedroom house with her son.
Quote of the Day: Tom Fortson of Promise Keepers
(RNS)”We expect that when you confront men to begin to do something meaningful in their families that some of them will fall away. The harder you push them to make lifelong lifestyle changes, the greater the chance for attrition. We are seeing men in the stadium this year that are here for a higher purpose, to go the distance, and learn about living a legacy.” _ Tom Fortson, Promise Keepers’ chief operating officer, at a Friday (June 12) news conference in St. Petersburg, Fla., where the evangelical men’s ministry held a conference.
END RNS
