c. 1998 Religion News Service
Israel court rules in favor of Reform, Conservative Jews
(RNS) Israel’s High Court of Justice, further opening the door to non-Orthodox Judaism in the Jewish state, has ordered the appointment of Reform and Conservative representatives to local religious councils in three cities.
The decision was hailed by Rabbi Uri Regev, head of Israel’s Movement for Progressive Judaism, who called it an important step forward for religious pluralism in Israel.
Currently, Orthodox Judaism maintains tight control over Jewish religious expression in Israel and has fought in the courts and in the political arena not to cede any ground to non-Orthodox movements.
The court ruling applied directly to Tel Aviv, Haifa and Arad. However, the court also ordered a government committee to resolve similar cases regarding religious councils in Jerusalem and Kiryat Tivon, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency news service reported Tuesday (Nov. 3).
In its ruling, the court’s 13 justices said support of religion and not affiliation should be the primary criterion for membership in local religious councils. The councils, affiliated with the government’s Religious Affairs Ministry, have exclusive jurisdiction over weddings, burials and other Jewish lifecycle events. They also certify that local restaurants, hotels and other food-serving establishments follow Jewish dietary laws.
Regev called the ruling an”important stepping stone”toward full religious pluralism in Israel. He said the ruling builds on a similar court decision last year that ordered the religious council in Netanya to seat a Reform representative.
However, Rabbi Sha’ar Yishuv Cohen, chief rabbi of Haifa, told Israel Radio he doubted Orthodox and non-Orthodox council members would be able to work together because of their varying standards of religious observance.
Reform and Conservative Judaism, the main movements in the United States, have relatively few adherents in Israel, where Orthodoxy is dominant among the nation’s religious Jews.
China scuttles China tour by Dalai Lama; Tibetan doctors’ U.S. visit
(RNS) Chinese authorities have blocked the Dalai Lama from visiting a mountain in China considered sacred by Buddhists and a group of Tibetan doctors from attending a conference in Washington, according to reports.
A spokesman for China’s Foreign Ministry said Tuesday (Nov. 3) the Dalai Lama, Tibet’s exiled Buddhist religious and political leader, will not be allowed to visit Wutai, a sacred mountain in northern China, as had been reported.
The Associated Press reported that the visit to Wutai would have preceded a stop in Beijing, China’s capital, for talks with Chinese leaders.
The Dalai Lama has not visited China or Tibet since 1959, when he fled his homeland following a failed uprising against Beijing’s military occupation of the Himalayan state. Beijing says Tibet is an historic part of greater China, despite Tibet’s independent status this century.
The Dalai Lama has said he seeks greater cultural and religious autonomy for Tibet rather than full independence. But that has not satisfied Chinese officials, who want him to fully renounce all claims of any sort of separate status for Tibet as well as Taiwan.
The decision to deny the Tibetan doctors attendance at a conference on Tibetan medicine in Washington was seen as tied to China’s dispute with the Dalai Lama, the Washington Post reported Tuesday. The exiled leader is scheduled to arrive in Washington Saturday (Nov. 7), and will speak at the conference.
Tibetan medicine is distinct from western medicine and is based on holistic and spiritual principles. More than 1,500 medical professionals are expected to attend the conference.
China has cracked down on doctors practicing Tibetan medicine since 1959. Tibetan nationalists view the crackdown as an aspect of China’s effort to destroy traditional Tibetan Buddhist religion and culture.
Spielberg’s”Saving Private Ryan”honored by Catholics in Media
(RNS) Filmmaker Steven Spielberg’s”Saving Private Ryan”has been honored with the Catholics in Media 1998 motion picture award.”What’s important for all of us who make films is to respect our audience with taste and integrity, and with ideas and ideals,”Spielberg told the 500 people at the Beverly Hilton Hotel event Sunday (Nov. 1).
It is the second time the Jewish Spielberg has won the motion picture award from the Catholic group. His”Schindler’s List”won the same CIMA award in 1994. He said Sunday that receiving the second honor”leaves me very humbled.” Singer Rosemary Clooney received the group’s Lifetime Achievement Award,
and accepted it by singing”Our Love Is Here To Say,”accompanied by Tony Bennett’s pianist, Ralph Sharon.
This year’s CIMA television award went not to ABC’s law drama,”The Practice.” Spielberg arrived after the three-and-a-half-hour event’s All Souls Day Mass, in which actors Gregory Peck and Carmen Zapata read the biblical lessons. Los Angeles Cardinal Roger Mahony introduced the filmmaker, lauding the World War II epic as an,”anti-war film.””We constantly need to remind ourselves that we cannot take personal blessings and achievements for granted, and we have to continue to earn them. In our professional life it’s our responsibility to earn your continued support for films with meaning, and films that uplift the spirit,”Spielberg said.
Methodist court: conferences may not use ideological labels
(RNS) The United Methodist Church’s top court has ruled that the denomination’s annual conferences _ regional geographic jurisdictions _ may not use, identify themselves with, or take on the label of an unofficial body or movement.”Such identification or labeling is divisive and makes the official bodies of the church subject to the possibility of being in conflict with the Discipline and doctrine of the United Methodist Church,”the denomination’s Judicial Council said in one of more than 20 rulings it issued at the end of its Oct. 28-30 session.
The ruling bars the regional bodies from adopting such labels as”reconciling conference”or”transforming conference”_ labels identified with two opposing sides on the volatile gay issue.
The case before the Judicial Council arose when the Northwest Texas Annual Conference voted to become a”confessing conference,”the name of a theologically conservative movement within the nation’s second largest Protestant denomination.
In its analysis and rationale, the council noted that the church’s Articles of Religion, Confession of Faith and the General Rules are protected from change, paraphrase or summary and noted an earlier ruling that said conferences do not have the authority to change the Discipline _ lawbook _ of the church.
It said that the Northwest Texas Conference had approved doctrinal statements in its resolution on becoming a”confessing conference”and in doing so violated the church’s constitution.
The decision marked a 180-degree turnabout in the council’s thinking and caused it to reverse an earlier decision in which it allowed the Wisconsin Annual Conference to become identified as a”reconciling”_ pro-gay _ conference, and one that authorized the denomination’s churchwide Commission on Christian Unity and Interreligious Concerns to become a”reconciling commission.” The Reconciling movement counts 148 congregations, 23 campus ministries, six conferences and other groups who publicly welcome all persons regardless of their sexual orientation.
The Transforming Congregations movement affirms that homosexual practice is a sin and that the Holy Spirit is available to transform the life of the homosexual.
The Confessing movement wants the denomination to”retrieve its classical doctrinal identity.” In a separate but related ruling, the council said a statement in the church’s Social Principles barring same-sex unions is constitutional. It earlier had ruled that the ban had the force of church law even though it is contained in the Social Principles.
Two conferences had challenged the constitutionality of the ban.
Quote of the day: The Rev. Joan Brown Campbell, general secretary of the National Council of Churches.
(RNS)”… Christians in China are terribly offended at the tide of rumor that there’s widespread, terrible persecution. The most damaging (misperception) is when people say, `The people in the registered churches aren’t real Christians.’ That’s so arrogant. Of course they are real Christians.” The Rev. Joan Brown Campbell, general secretary of the National Council of Churches, in a report on a mid-October visit to China by an NCC delegation.
DEA END RNS
