c. 1998 Religion News Service

World Council condemns India’s nuclear tests

(RNS) The World Council of Churches, the Geneva-based international ecumenical agency, said Thursday (May 14) the recent series of nuclear tests conducted by India were”ill-considered and unwarranted.” The WCC said it had made its views known to Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee in a May 13 letter from the Rev. Konrad Raiser, the church group’s general secretary.

Raiser called on the Indian government to join other states that have declared a moratorium on further nuclear testing and to adopt a no-first-use policy.

Raiser said the tests were”a cause of profound concern and sadness.””The positions taken over the past 50 years by the World Council of Churches calling for the total abolition of atomic, hydrogen and nuclear weapons have often been informed especially by the reasoned arguments of Indians as well as other specialists,”Raiser said in his letter.”By providing some of the most revered architects and memorable leaders of the non-aligned movement, India offered enlightened leadership on these same issues to world public opinion,”he added.

But he said the tests by India, conducted as a United Nations’ committee dealing with a proposed Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty was meeting in Geneva, has”tarnished its image as a wise and considered voice of reason in international affairs.” India shocked the world Monday (May 11) when it set off three underground nuclear tests _ its first since 1974 _ and conducted two more on Wednesday. The tests have prompted the United States and some other nations to impose economic sanctions on the country.

Raiser told the Indian leader that it is”not too late to give evidence to the world that India has not forgotten or denied its venerable national heritage.”That same path of reason and active non-violence can lead India to reclaim the respected place on the world stage it ceded with these ill-considered and unwarranted tests.”

Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) membership decline slows

(RNS) Membership in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) continued to decline in 1997 but at a slower rate than the previous year.

Officials of the church’s Office of the General Assembly announced that total membership at the end of 1997 was 2,609,191, a decrease of 22,275 from 1996.

Previous membership declines had been above 30,000 every year since 1983, and was close to 34,000 in 1996.”I will not be really happy until the figures show growth,”the Rev. Clifton Kirkpatrick, General Assembly stated clerk, told Presbyterian News Service.”But we are finally going in the right direction.” Kirkpatrick said he thinks the denomination has been successful in evangelism.”There was a significant increase in the number of adult professions of faith, which means we Presbyterians are taking evangelism seriously,”he said.

Adult baptisms totaled 13,872 in 1997, an increase of 774. Membership through adult profession of faith increased by almost 1,500 to more than 97,000.

Kirkpatrick also was pleased there had been a decline in the”other”losses category, which includes church members”who have gone from the active roll to the inactive roll and then nowhere. Our biggest problem for many years has been `backdoor losses’ _ persons who are not lost just to the Presbyterian Church, but to any church.” That category decreased by 10,316 last year, to 106,321.

Kirkpatrick said the decline”shows we’re doing a better job of nurturing our members.”

Vatican urged to hold Rwanda genocide clergy accountable

(RNS) A London-based human rights group Wednesday (May 13) asked Pope John Paul II to hold accountable some three dozen Roman Catholic clergy it believes were involved in Rwanda’s 1994 genocide.

The group, African Rights, made public a letter it has written to the Vatican in which it charges some three dozen clergy, including bishops and nuns, were involved in the three-month spasm of violence in which some 500,000-800,000 mostly Tutsis were killed in a slaughter led by the majority Hutu government.

The Vatican had no comment on the 11-page letter, which it received Wednesday, the Associated Press reported.

Last month, a Rwandan court sentenced two priests to death for organizing the execution of 2,000 Tutsis who had sought refuge inside a church.

In the past, John Paul has said those in the church who played a role in the genocide should face up to their actions. But African Rights said that was not enough, urging the pope to scrutinize the church’s role in Rwanda. “The Catholic Church cannot play a constructive role in Rwanda as long as it continues to provide sanctuary to genocide suspects,” African Rights wrote.

Japanese diplomat who rescued Jews honored

(RNS) American Jews and Japanese nationals have joined in Los Angeles to honor Chiune Sugihara, the World War II Japanese diplomat who saved thousands of Jews.”This was a man of justice, a man of courage,”Shotaro Yachi,

Japan’s consul general in Los Angeles, said Monday (May 11) at a ceremony at the Simon Wiesenthal Center Museum of Tolerance, where a plaque and photograph honoring Sugihara were unveiled.

The Tokyo-based Japan-Israel Chamber of Commerce donated $30,000 to fund the memorial.

Sugihara was Japan’s consul-general in Soviet-occupied Lithuania in 1939, when the Nazis invaded neighboring Poland. From July 31 to Aug. 28, 1940, Sugihara issued 300 transit visas a day for refugee Jews fleeing German units, allowing thousands of Jews to travel safely across Russia and then to safe havens.

In 1985, a year before Sugihara died, Israel named him”righteous among the nations”for saving so many Jews, though saving them cost the diplomat his career.

Bomb explodes at Moscow synagogue

(RNS) FCFCA bomb exploded at an Orthodox synagogue in Moscow on Wednesday, (May 13) shattering windows and damaging a wall, just minutes after 70 children and their teachers ended a holiday celebration.

The blast injured several construction workers at an adjoining site where a new Jewish community center is being built, Rabbi Berel Lazar told the Associated Press. No one was killed and no congregants were injured in the incident.

It was the third act of violence directed at the synagogue run by ultra-Orthodox Lubavitch Jews. In 1993, arson destroyed the building. Three years later, the rebuilt synagogue was bombed. None of the cases have been solved.

“We’re getting tired of this,” Lazar said. “The government has got to put its foot down and do something about this. They can’t expect Jews to live here like this.”

Before the blast, children and their teachers had been celebrating the holiday of Lag B’Omer, a celebration of unity.

There are about 500,000 practicing Jews in Russia, according to government figures, though Jewish leaders believe the true number is about three times higher.

Quote of the day: Social ethicist Emilie M. Townes

(RNS)”We are losing people to Islam, we are losing people to the Nation of Islam. We are losing people to African traditional religions because the church is not asking or answering the very real questions in people’s lives.” _ Professor Emilie M. Townes, a social ethicist at St. Paul School of Theology, challenging black churches at an April conference on black theology, as quoted in Sightings, a publication of the Public Religion Project in Chicago.

DEA END RNS