c. 1998 Religion News Service
Religion scholars criticize calls for Clinton forgiveness
(RNS) A group of 85 religion scholars and theologians are criticizing supporters of President Clinton who have called for forgiving Clinton since he has acknowledged his relationship with Monica Lewinsky was a sin.”We believe that serious misunderstandings of repentance and forgiveness are being exploited for political advantage,”the group said in a statement,”Declaration Concerning Religion, Ethics and the Crisis in the Clinton Presidency.””The resulting moral confusion is a threat to the integrity of American religion and the foundations of a civil society,”the declaration adds.
In a news release, the group said it rejected the views of ministers such as the Rev. Jesse Jackson and the Rev. J. Philip Wogaman that Clinton should be forgiven. It also criticized the White House for publicizing Clinton’s decision to undergo counseling with three ministers, including Wogaman, the pastor at Foundry Methodist Church in Washington, D.C., which the Clinton family frequently attends.”We fear the religious community is in danger of being called upon to provide authentication for a politically motivated and incomplete repentance that seeks to avert serious consequences for wrongful acts,”read the statement.”While we affirm pastoral counseling sessions are an appropriate, confidential arena to address these issues, we fear that announcing such meetings to convince the public of the president’s integrity compromises the integrity of religion.” The statement was released just three days before the House Judiciary Committee hears testimony on Thursday (Nov. 19) from independent counsel Kenneth Starr on whether Clinton should be impeached. Public opinion polls have suggested the American people do not want the president impeached.
In the statement, the Clinton critics, however, insisted that allowing Clinton to avoid any form of punishment would send the wrong message and have longterm consequences.”The widespread desire to `get this behind us’ does not take seriously enough the nature of transgressions and their social effects,”said the statement, which was signed by a range of scholars from evangelical and mainline Protestant seminaries and several Roman Catholic colleges and universities.
Some of the signatories are Democrats, including Princeton Seminary’s Max Stackhouse; Jean Bethke Elshtain of the University of Chicago Divinity School; Gabriel Fackre, theologian emeritus at Andover-Newton Theological School; Stanley Hauerwas of Duke University; and John Reumann of Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia.
In a separate but related development, another group of clerics and religious leaders _ most related to conservative causes _ have written Clinton urging him to resign as president.”A godly man will strive to avoid sin,”said the letter, organized by the Institute on Religion and Democracy.”But equally important, when he does fall, he will prove his character by the completeness of his repentance from sin, the humility with which he bears its consequences, and the fullness of his restitution to those he has wronged.” Signers of the letter included Diane Knippers, president of the IRD; the Rev. Richard John Neuhaus, editor of First Things magazine; Paige Patterson, president of the Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary and the Southern Baptist Convention; Mary Ellen Bork, board member of the Catholic Campaign for America; and Michael Cromartie, senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C.
Georgia Southern Baptists to exclude churches favoring same-sex marriages
(RNS) Georgia’s Southern Baptist churches have voted to bar churches that support same-sex marriages from their state convention.”It’s a shame as Georgia Baptists that we have to hear of people performing same-sex marriages,”the Rev. Frank Page of Augusta, Ga., told the Georgia Baptist Convention meeting Tuesday (Nov. 17) in Columbus, Ga.
Georgia has more than 1 million Southern Baptists, second only to Texas.
The measure adopted by the state convention says that churches should not knowingly take any action to affirm, approve or endorse homosexual behavior.
The proposal passed easily but was not without opposition, the Associated Press reported.”To speak on this very issue is perilous,”said Bill Self of John’s Creek Baptist Church in Alpharetta, Ga.”I want to ask one simple question. This year, the homosexuals. Who’s next, churches that receive African-Americans? Churches that allow women in the ministry?” The Rev. J. Robert White, executive director of the convention, said there are only a very small number of Baptist churches in Georgia that endorse homosexuality.
In other gay-related developments, opponents of same-sex marriage have gained enough signatures to place a measure banning homosexual unions on the California ballot in the year 2000 and the Vermont’s Supreme Court heard arguments in a case challenging the state’s 28-year-old ban on same-sex marriages.
Bread for the World hails Africa aid legislation
(RNS) Bread for the World, the grassroots Christian anti-hunger lobby, is hailing enactment of the”Africa: Seeds of Hope Act”which is expected to change the way U.S. foreign aid is used to help Africa.
The legislation was the top foreign policy goal of the Christian lobbying organization and the focus of a year-long campaign by the group’s 44,000 members.
David Beckmann, Bread’s president, said the new law, signed by President Clinton on Nov. 13,”will refocus U.S. aid to Africa more effectively to fight hunger and poverty, and it will make a real difference in the lives of ordinary people in Africa.” The bill directs the U.S. government to reprioritize U.S. aid to focus on small-scale African farmers and rural entrepreneurs. “Agriculture is the backbone of the African economy,”Beckmann said in a statement welcoming Clinton’s signing of the bill.”This legislation will help to transform Africa into a continent that can solve its own hunger problems.”
Update: Jehovah’s Witnesses trial in Russia again postponed
(RNS) A Moscow judge has again delayed a trial on whether Jehovah’s Witnesses should be banned in Russia, putting off the case until February.
The trial, which opened in civil court in September and then was delayed until Tuesday (Nov. 17), marks the first time prosecutors have used Russia’s recently enacted law on religion to disband a religious group.
Prosecutors contend the group should be dissolved in Russia, arguing the group destroys families because its practice of not celebrating national holidays creates rifts between family members and their general refusal of blood transfusions threatens lives.
Defense lawyers counter that no one is forced to join the sect and that the effort to disband the Witnesses violates the Russian Constitution and the European Convention on Human Rights.
At Tuesday’s hearing, defense lawyers asked for a delay because prosecutors said they had not submitted all their evidence, the Associated Press reported. The new date was set for Feb. 9.
Quote of the day: Yvonne Y. Haddad, professor of Islam
(RNS)”America, though a nation of immigrants, is nonetheless not particularly fond of them, no matter where they come from or what they believe in.” _ Yvonne Y. Haddad, a professor of Islam at Georgetown University, writing in”Muslim on the Americanization Path?”(Scholars Press), on discrimination against American Muslims.
DEA END RNS
