c. 1998 Religion News Service

Christian retailers voice concerns about book company merger

(RNS) Christian retailers have voiced concerns about how the plans of Barnes & Noble to purchase Ingram Book Group will affect their business.

Ingram Book Group, a subsidiary of Nashville, Tenn.-based Ingram Industries, owns Spring Arbor Distributors, a major wholesale distributor to Christian book stores. In early November, Barnes & Noble, which is based in New York, announced its plans to purchase Ingram for $600 million.

Bill Anderson, president of CBA, the trade group formerly known as the Christian Booksellers Association, said retailers affiliated with his organization have expressed a number of concerns.”It raises questions about service levels,”said Anderson, whose office is in Colorado Springs, Colo.

Some Christian store owners are wondering if other stores will get preferential treatment when there are new releases or limited stock available should Barnes & Noble, which also carries Christian products, purchase Ingram.

In addition, retailers are particularly concerned about whether their confidential account information will continue to be protected.”They feel like Spring Arbor has a fair bit of account information history on them as a Christian retailer,”he said.”In effect, now that another retailer owns that distributor … they’re in effect sending their information to their competitor’s house or would-be competitor’s house.” A spokeswoman for Barnes & Noble could not be reached immediately, but an Ingram spokesman said he did not expect there to be any change in the way the company currently operates should the sale go through.”Ingram expects _ once the sale is concluded _ to operate Ingram Book Group as a wholly owned but relatively independent subsidiary of Barnes & Noble,”said Keel Hunt.”The emphasis would be on the word `independent.'” Still, Anderson said there has been a range of reactions to the news of the purchase agreement. Some plan to change the way they prioritize their orders, a system known in the business as”cascading,”placing Spring Arbor further down their list of publishers and distributors from whom they make their purchases.”I’m hearing everything from a wait and see …. to `I’m going to change the way my automatic ordering cascades down,'”he said.

Canadian religious leaders back treaty with tribal group

(RNS) A diverse coalition of more than 100 prominent religious leaders has come out in full support of the first treaty to be signed with native Indians in modern Canadian history.

The treaty with the Nisga’a Indians of British Columbia was endorsed at a celebration Thursday (Nov. 19) that included high-ranking Catholics, Anglicans, Buddhists, Lutherans, Mennonites, Muslims, Seventh-Day Adventists, Sikhs, Unitarians, United Church members and Zoroastrians.

The religious leaders’ joint statement backed the highly contested Nisga’a treaty on the grounds that the tribe never ceded any of its territory by treaty and, instead, had its lands occupied and resources taken away by European settlers.

Signed in August by representatives of the Nisga’a and the British Columbia and Canadian federal governments, the treaty gives the Nisga’a 800 square miles of land in north-coastal British Columbia, just south of the Alaska panhandle. The parcel of forested land is larger than the state of Rhode Island.

The treaty also gives the Nisga’a about $100 million in cash and self-government over such things as education, forestry, mining and tribal legal issues. Nisga’a voters approved the deal in early November.

But the treaty _ which must still be approved by British Columbia’s provincial government and the federal Parliament in Ottawa _ is meeting strong resistance from the federal Reform Party and provincial Liberal leader Gordon Campbell.

Nevertheless, the religious leaders backed the treaty at a colorful celebration with British Columbia Premier Glen Clark and Nisga’a representatives at the Museum of Anthropology on the University of British Columbia campus in Vancouver.

Clark said it was”gratifying to see such an important group of people join in with their support.”The interfaith coalition endorsed the principles of the Nisga’a agreement on the grounds it was the result of lengthy negotiations held in good faith.

The religious officials also said they supported the historic Nisga’a treaty because the Supreme Court of Canada had recently decided that, where native people have not ceded rights by treaty, they maintain an ongoing proprietary interest in lands they occupied.

British Columbia is the only Canadian province that has no treaties with the vast majority of its native people. The Nisga’a treaty is expected to be the first of many signed in the province in upcoming years.

India vows to protect Christians

(RNS) An Indian government official Tuesday (Nov. 24) sought to assure that nation’s Christians that they would be protected from sectarian strife.

The remarks by B.P. Singh, India’s senior Interior Ministry official, came after a human rights group _ the United Christian Forum for Human Rights _ said violence against Christians in India had increased dramatically.

While 1998 government data showed 33 attacks on Christians compared with 21 in all of 1997, officials maintained that Christians where not singled out. Singh said”our investigations have shown that the attacks were not by a particular community against another community, but by criminals,”the Associated Press reported.

As an example, Singh said that eight of the 19 persons arrested in the rape of four Catholic nuns in September were Christians. The event occurred in Jhabwa in the central state of Madhya Pradesh.

Government officials also pledged to deal sternly with cases of forced conversions of Christians, who comprise about 2.3 percent of India’s population. “Every single forcible conversion is being investigated, and the government will take stern action against those who have violated the law,”said Singh.

Prime Minister Atal Behari Bajpayee’s Hindu nationalist political party has been often accused of deep seated bias against non-Hindu minorities, but has steadfastly denied those allegations. “There is no place for religious bigotry and communal violence in a democracy like ours,”Bajpayee said earlier this month.”Acts of violence against the minority community, wherever and in whatever form they occur in the country, must be dealt with sternly.”

Florida ban on certain abortions struck down

(RNS) A Florida federal judge has struck down as unconstitutional a state law favored by opponents of a controversial late-term abortion procedure.

U.S. District Judge Donald Graham issued his ruling Tuesday (Nov. 24) in Miami. Graham said the Florida law”has the unconstitutional purpose and effect of placing a substantial obstacle in the path of women seeking an abortion prior to the fetus attaining viability,”the Associated Press reported.

The controversial procedure dubbed”partial-birth abortion”by opponents has been at the center of the nation’s ongoing and heated abortion debates. Because the procedure involves the partial delivery and subsequent destruction of a fetus, anti-abortion groups have focused on the technique while also seeking to outlaw other types of abortion.

Doctors, who under the law could have been sentenced to five years in prison for performing the procedure, argued during an earlier hearing on the law that while so-called”partial-term abortions”were the ostensible target, nearly all abortions could fall under the law’s jurisdiction.

Four Florida doctors and several clinics in Miami challenged the law, which was set to go into effect June 30 but was held up by a restaining order, pending Graham’s ruling.

A similar Arkansas law was struck down earlier this month. Similar laws have been struck down in Alaska, Arkansas, Arizona, Illinois, Michigan and Montana.

Human rights group says Chinese police beat missionary

(RNS) A human rights group said Tuesday (Nov. 24) that Chinese police had inflicted severe head injuries on a woman active in underground church missionary activities _ a crime in China.

Cheng Meiying, jailed for her role as leader of underground house churches that operate outside of strict government control, was left with severe head injuries after she was beaten with a water-soaked rope whip and a police baton, said New York-based Human Rights in China.

Cheng has suffered complete memory loss and is so disoriented she”exhibits the appearance of insanity,”the group said.

Cheng was released from prison Saturday (nov. 21) by police who apparently hoped to avoid responsibility for her injuries, said the rights group.

Chinese authorities arrested Cheng and about 140 members of Protestant churches on Oct. 26 and Nov. 5 in the cities of Wugang and Nanyang in Henan province, where leaders of the country’s underground churches were meeting.

These churches, which meet in private homes, are not part of the state-sanctioned non-denominational Protestant church, the China Christian Council, and are not registered with the government, as Chinese law requires.

An official of Fangcheng Prison in Henan told the Associated Press that more than 70 of the church leaders remain in prison. He denied any were beaten.

Human Rights in China reported that Cheng traveled extensively throughout Heilongjiang, Inner Mongolia and Hebei provinces. She helped found many house churches, for which Cheng was detained and imprisoned frequently, said the rights group.

The Chinese Christian church claims 11 million Protestant members, a number that does not account for the many unregistered underground believers.

Update: UCC pro-gay pastoral letter called unbiblical

(RNS) The United Church of Christ Nov. 19 pastoral letter reaffirming the denomination’s support for gays, lesbians and bisexuals has been attacked by the head of a conservative movement within the church.

In a three-page response, the Rev. David Runnion-Bareford called the pastoral letter”theologically in error,”demeaning and divisive. Runnion-Bareford is executive director of Biblical Witness Fellowship, a conservative movement within the largely liberal UCC, and a senior pastor in Candia, N.H.

At issue is the UCC President Paul Sherry’s letter reaffirming his denomination’s acceptance of gays, lesbians and bisexuals as church members, ministers and leaders.

In a press release Runnion-Bareford said the pastoral letter promoted putting those engaged in”sexual sin”in positions of church authority. He protested the president’s”criticism of those who uphold Christian teaching on sexuality as intolerant”and charged Sherry with”failing to listen to the ecumenical witness of the global church.”

Quote of the Day: David Kinnaman of Barna Research Group”One of the projections we’re making is that by the year 2010, between 10 and 20 percent of the U.S. population will rely exclusively or primarily on the Internet for religious purposes. These people will never set foot on a church campus again.” _ David Kinnaman, research associate of the Barna Research Group, an evangelical Christian marketing research firm based in Oxnard, Calif. He was quoted in the Washington Times Wednesday (Nov. 25).

IR END RNS