c. 1998 Religion News Service
Update: American religious leaders arrive in China
(RNS) Three American religious leaders have arrived in China to explore the level of religious freedom there for Christians, Buddhists and others.
The three _ the Rev. Don Argue of the National Association of Evangelicals, Roman Catholic Archbishop Theodore McCarrick of Newark, N.J., and Rabbi Arthur Schneier of the Appeal of Conscience Foundation _ arrived in Beijing Monday (Feb. 9) for a three-week stay in China.
While there, the three will visit Lhasa, the capital of Chinese-occupied Tibet. Exiled Tibetan Buddhist leaders have charged China with seeking to systematically destroy Tibet’s Buddhist culture.
In the United States, some Christian and other religious leaders have been highly critical of the Chinese government’s alleged persecution of religious believers _ particularly Christians _ who do not belong to officially sanctioned church or temple bodies.
However, speaking with reporters upon their arrival, the three leaders sought to assure Chinese officials that they were not insensitive to Chinese concerns.”We’re not here to inspect but to share the importance of freedom of conscience,”Argue said.”We’re here to begin to talk as friends,”added McCarrick.
The visit is an outgrowth of last year’s Washington summit between President Bill Clinton and Chinese President Jiang Zemin.
Argue also said in Beijing that”evangelical Christianity in China is booming. We want to help the Chinese government understand that Christians are good citizens. They show up for work on time. They pay their bills. They’re honest.”
Muslim lobbying group changes leadership, direction
(RNS) The American Muslim Council (AMC), a top Washington lobbying group on behalf of Muslim issues, has announced new leadership and a new direction _ one that will focus more narrowly on domestic concerns.
The 7-year-old AMC will now be led by two African-American converts to Islam, replacing two foreign-born Muslims.
Atif Harden, a 44-year-old Washington political consultant with close ties to the Clinton administration, is AMC’s new executive director.
He replaces Abdurahman Alamoudi, who was born in what is now the African nation of Eritrea. Alamoudi will take over as director of the AMC-related American Muslim Foundation, a think tank and educational agency.
AMC’S new board president is Mujahid Ramadan, a 46-year-old drug policy consultant to Nevada Gov. Bob Miller and executive director of a Las Vegas program helping disadvantaged and”at risk”adolescents and adults obtain jobs. Ramadan had been the board vice president.
He replaces Dr. M.A. Cheema, a retired, Pakistan-born physician who lives in Milwaukee. Cheema will remain on the AMC board and direct fund raising.
In interviews Tuesday (Feb. 10), both Harden and Ramadan said AMC will direct its future energies toward domestic issues and away from international Muslim concerns, which in the past occupied much of the organization’s energies.”American Muslims educate their children here, live here, worship here. Those are our primary concerns as people and as Muslims and that’s what AMC will focus on,”said Harden, who held high-level posts at the 1996 Democratic National Convention, President Bill Clinton’s re-election campaign and his second inaugural committee.”We’ll look for common ground issues and concentrate on them.” Ramadan said the AMC”will continue to show concern for the international Muslim community, but our sphere of influence is national. All politics is local.” An estimated 3 million to 6 million Muslims live in the United States and about 40 percent of them are African-Americans.
AMC also announced that for the first time a woman has been named the organization’s vice president. She is Egyptian-born Dr. Souheir Elmasry of Chicago.
Update: Israeli conversion dispute back in court
(RNS) Non-Orthodox Jews took their cause for legal recognition in Israel back to court Tuesday (Feb. 10) as the government official who headed a panel that sought to fashion a compromise in the contentious”who is a Jew”dispute urged formation of a joint Orthodox and non-Orthodox institute to teach potential converts to Judaism _ even though Israel’s Orthodox chief rabbis have vetoed that idea.
Israel’s non-Orthodox religious leadership asked that nation’s Supreme Court to allow a Conservative Jew to serve on a local religious council. The government asked the court to delay for 60 days any decision in the matter.
The court action followed by a day a ruling by Israel’s Orthodox Chief Rabbinical Council _ the state body with de facto control over all Jewish religious life in Israel _ not to go along with a compromise plan put forth by Finance Minister Ya’acov Ne’eman.
Ne’eman headed a government-appointed panel that suggested Israel’s Reform, Conservative and Orthodox movements each prepare their own potential converts to Judaism with the Orthodox presiding over the actual conversion ceremonies.
However, Ne’eman said Tuesday (Feb. 10) that other Orthodox leaders could be found to support the concept if it were created under the auspices of an neutral body, such as Israel’s quasi-governmental Jewish Agency. “The proposal of the committee for the establishment of a Jewish Studies Institute … is a desirable thing if it will prevent divisions among the Jewish people _ and to accomplish this there is no need for agreement among all legal authorities,”said Ne’eman.
Ne’eman added that 80 out of 120 members of Israel’s Knesset had expressed support for his committee’s recommendation. He predicted the government would eventually adopt his plan over the chief rabbis’ objections.
Ne’eman, who is himself Orthodox, argued that the Chief Rabbinic Council’s decision left a back door open for the creation of the joint institute by stating it would consider all conversion candidates individually _”with no connection to where they studied.” Presently, only conversions performed in Israel under the auspices of the chief rabbis are recognized as Jews by the state. More liberal Reform and Conservative streams have been fighting to have conversions performed by their rabbis in Israel recognized as well. Conversions performed abroad are not effected by the dispute.
Most Jewish authorities agree the battle over conversions is really a battle over the legitimacy of the non-Orthodox religious movements _ which are dominant in the United States but constitute a small minority in Israel.
Reform Rabbi Uri Regev said that despite Ne’eman’s comments, he believed the concept of a joint institute was dead for the moment _ and that instead Israeli civil authorities should simply recognize conversions performed by all three Jewish streams.
WCC official hopes for better relations with Russian Orthodox
(RNS) The Rev. Konrad Raiser, general secretary of the World Council of Churches, says he hopes a recently concluded six-day visit to Moscow by a delegation of WCC officials will defuse tensions between the WCC and the Orthodox.
The WCC, the international ecumenical body with more than 330 member churches, has been sharply criticized by some Russian Orthodox leaders and there has been pressure for the Russian church _ the largest member church of the WCC _ to withdraw from the Geneva-based agency.
Some Orthodox have accused the WCC of hosting”pagan”rituals in their efforts to be inclusive of the Christian indigenous peoples of Canada and Australia and of being too tolerant of homosexuality and women priests.
The WCC does not have an official policy on either gays or women priests and members churches take a variety of stances on the issues.
Raiser praised the Orthodox for what he said was the church’s”courageous search for answers to the challenges of the modern world in a new situation”and said he felt some of the criticism directed at the WCC was the result of misinformation.”A fair amount of criticism is based on incomplete or a total lack of information or, even worse, distorted information,”Raiser told a Feb. 5 Moscow news conference at the conclusion of the visit.
The WCC delegation was invited to Russia by Patriarch Alexii II, leader of the Russian church.
The Orthodox church appears divided over the issue of retaining membership in the WCC, with moderates urging the church to retain its ties while working to reform the ecumenical group. But during the Raiser-led delegation’s visit, one highly conservative group _ the Union of Orthodox Brotherhoods _ distributed a statement urging the Orthodox church to break relations with”supporters of ecumenical heresy.”WCC membership is a sacrilege and apostasy from Orthodoxy,”the statement said.
Irish church attendance drop blamed on scandals, shifting moral views
(RNS) A dramatic drop in Irish Catholic church attendance is being blamed on a combination of sexual scandals among the church’s clergy and more liberal views on such issues as birth control and divorce, according to a new public opinion poll.
Surveys commissioned by the Irish bishops showed weekly Mass attendance rates of 91 percent in 1974 and 87 percent in 1984. The new survey, conducted for a TV talk show, showed a national Mass attendance rate of 60 percent and just a 52 percent rate in Dublin.
According to the poll, recent sex scandals among the clergy have damaged the authority of the church. But those surveyed also gave high marks to the quality of spiritual and community work done by the priests in their particular parish.
On church teaching issues, 52 percent of those surveyed disagreed with the church’s ban on divorce and 59 percent disagreed with the church’s stance on the use of contraception. In 1984, 65 percent agreed with the church’s teaching that it is always wrong for married couples to use contraception to avoid having children.
In addition, 58 percent said they disagreed with the church’s priestly celibacy requirement and 49 percent said the Vatican was wrong in refusing to ordain women as priests.
Rev. John Garcia Gensel, pastor to jazz community, dies
(RNS) The Rev. John Garcia Gensel, who helped bring jazz into the worship setting, died Friday (Feb. 6) in Muncy, Pa. He was 80.
Gensel died as a result of injuries he suffered in a fall after performing a baptism in December, The Washington Post reported.
In 1960, officials of his Lutheran Church in America agreed Gensel could devote half his time to pastoral care for the jazz community. Five years later, the denomination’s Board of American Missions appointed him full-time pastor to the jazz community, working from St. Peter’s Church in New York.
He began weekly jazz vespers on Sunday evenings and other jazz services, which were attended by jazz enthusiasts as well as church members. He also offered family counseling to jazz musicians and performed weddings and funerals for performers until his retirement in 1994.
Jazz legend Duke Ellington composed”The Shepherd Who Watches Over the Night Flock”about Gensel.
Rev. Thomas Kilgore, past leader of two denominations, dies
(RNS) The Rev. Thomas Kilgore Jr., one of the few men to lead two major national Baptist organizations, died Wednesday (Feb. 4) in Los Angeles. He was 84.
Kilgore was a leading figure in the fight for racial justice _ serving with the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in the Southern Christian Leadership Conference _ as well as a denominational leader.
He was overwhelmingly elected as the first black president of the American Baptist Convention _ now known as American Baptist Churches USA _ in the late 1960s. He was installed in 1969 and served for a year. Later, he led the predominantly black Progressive National Baptist Convention, serving as president from 1976 to 1978.
Kilgore was pastor emeritus of Second Baptist Church in Los Angeles, the oldest black Baptist church in that city.
Quote of the Day: Seminary president R. Albert Mohler Jr.
(RNS)”We see a surrender of conviction and accommodation to the culture and we see nothing less than a dumbing down of its content. We’ve gone from `Holy, Holy, Holy’ to `God the Swell Fellow.'” _ Southern Baptist Theological Seminary President R. Albert Mohler Jr., preaching Feb. 3 at his Louisville, Ky., school about the state of evangelical worship as reflected in its hymnody.
DEA END RNS
