c. 1999 Religion News Service

Kentucky drops `evolution’ from science teaching guidelines

(RNS) Kentucky education officials have replaced the world”evolution”with the phrase”biological change over time”in their state’s guidelines for teaching science. Officials stressed that they have not diminished the teaching of evolution.

Deputy Education Commissioner Gene Wilhoit said”evolution”was replaced because it was”a lightning rod that creates a diversion from what we’re teaching.” The change is actually a return to wording that was in the guidelines until 1998, when science teachers in Kentucky successful lobbied to have”evolution”substituted. The original wording was restored this year without fanfare, the Associated Press reported.

Helen Mountjoy, Kentucky Board of Education chairwoman, said the change in terminology did not impact what is taught in classrooms around the state.”We teach evolution and we test evolution in Kentucky,”she said.”There is no change in the way we expect teachers to approach this subject.” However, the director of the Kentucky Science Teachers Association was critical of the change.”They chose the less scientifically correct term and went with a more politically feasible term,”Ken Rosenbaum said Wednesday (Oct. 6).”In science we have big words like `photosynthesis.’ Do we not call it photosynthesis? Do we call it plant food-making?” Religious conservatives across the nation, who say evolution is an unproven theory, have campaigned to get the biblical account of creation included in public classroom discussions concerning the origins of life on the planet.

In August, the Kansas Board of Education adopted new testing standards that play down evolution.

Vatican still undecided about controversial papal trip to Iraq

(RNS) The Vatican is still undecided about whether Pope John Paul II will make a controversial pilgrimage to Iraq in December to visit the Old Testament site of Ur of the Chaldees, according to a Vatican official.

The official would not specifically comment on a report by the Catholic newspaper Avvenire on Tuesday (Oct. 5) that the Vatican has taken a”pause for reflection”because of the sharp criticism of a papal visit by a group of Iraqi scholars last week.”At the moment, there is nothing to say about Iraq except the fact that the pope wants to go there,”the official said.”The trip, however, has never been announced officially.” Under consideration is whether to go ahead with the trip as planned Dec. 2-5, cancel it or reschedule it for a later date, the official said. John Paul is expected to travel to Israel and elsewhere in the Middle East in March.

In a”Letter of the Supreme Pontiff John Paul II Concerning Pilgrimage to the Places Linked to the History of Salvation,”issued June 30, John Paul said he hoped to visit Old and New Testament sites in Iraq, Egypt, Jordan, Israel, Syria and Greece to mark holy year 2000 and the start of the third millennium of Christianity.

He stressed that the trip would have no political implications.

The U.S. and British governments and Iraqi opposition leaders strongly oppose a papal visit to Iraq, however, on grounds that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein might try to exploit it.

Because the pope is a head of state as well as a religious leader,diplomatic protocol would require him to meet with the president even on a purely religious visit.

Iraq has said it would welcome a papal visit, and Saddam has ordered the renovation of Ur, the biblical birthplace of the Patriarch Abraham.

But the official Iraqi news agency INA on Sept. 28 quoted a letter by the seven Iraqi scholars charging that the pope would use the trip to acquit the West of crimes against Arabs and rally world opinion behind Israel.

They said that if the trip does take place, the pope should condemn the trade sanctions the United Nations imposed on Iraq after its invasion of Kuwait in 1990 and make clear his stand on the”suffering, hunger and disease”of Iraqis stemming from the sanctions.

The pope has repeatedly urged that the sanctions be lifted because of their ill effects on the Iraqi people, but making the statement in Iraq would change the character of what he wants to be a purely religious pilgrimage.

John Paul discussed his proposed pilgrimage with King Abdallah II of Jordan during a private audience last month and is expected to meet Friday with French Foreign Minister Hubert Vedrinem, who has just returned from a visit to Israel and the Palestine Authority-administered territory.

Interfaith vigils held in opposition to hatred, violence

(RNS) Interfaith vigils were held across the country Thursday (Oct. 7) to mark the anniversary of the deadly attack on gay student Matthew Shepherd and call for an end to hatred and violence.

The campaign”Stop the Hate: Interfaith Vigils Against Violence”was launched by the Interfaith Alliance and the Fellowship of Reconciliation. Leaders of the groups said more than 350 events were scheduled this week across the country.”Prolific hatred fills the population of this nation, and violence inspired by that hatred is rampant in our midst,”said the Rev. C. Welton Gaddy, executive director of the Interfaith Alliance, a Washington-based group that promotes respect and cooperation among religious people.”We believe that the community of people of faith can make a dramatic difference in halting the hatred that is breeding violence in our midst.” Gaddy and other religious leaders at a Washington news conference cited numerous cases of hate-driven violence, including the brutal murder of Shepherd, who died last Oct. 12 after an attack in Laramie, Wyo.; the dragging death of James Byrd, an African-American, in June 1998 in Jasper, Texas; and more recent shooting rampages at the Jewish Community Center in Los Angeles in August and Wedgwood Baptist Church in Fort Worth, Texas, in September.”At the heart of every religion stands the great truth of reality: that all life is sacred,”said the Rev. John Dear, executive director of the Fellowship of Reconciliation, a Nyack, N.Y.-based group that is the oldest interfaith peace organization in the country.”As people who believe in the God of nonviolence, we must stop the violence and practice faith-based nonviolence.” Aly Abuzaakouk, executive director of the Washington-based American Muslim Council, said one thing religious people should hate is hate.”It’s important that people of faith bring their hands together to stop the hate,”he said.”It is important that all of us speak against any kind of hate against any kind of group.” Mark Tooley, director of the Committee for United Methodists of the conservative Institute on Religion and Democracy, questioned why the supporters of the event seemed to not include any conservative groups.”In truth, this `Stop the Hate’ campaign seems to be one more effort by the religious left to stigmatize conservative and traditional religious belief as the ultimate cause for despicable but isolated acts of violence,”he said.

Among the endorsers of the vigils are the Buddhist Peace Fellowship, the Human Rights Campaign, the Muslim Peace Fellowship, the National Coalition of American Nuns, the National Council of Churches and the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice.

In a separate but related matter, the Associated Press reported that Benjamin Matthew Williams, 31, and James Tyler Williams, 29, pleaded innocent Wednesday to charges of murdering a gay couple in the Happy Valley community in rural Northern California. Authorities have said that evidence has been found in the homes of the two brothers that also links them to fire bombings that damaged three synagogues in the Sacramento area June 18.

ELCA bishops to write pastoral letter on people in poverty

(RNS) The Conference of Bishops of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America is expected to prepare a pastoral letter for church members on ministry with people living in poverty.

Concern for people living in poverty has been at the top of the bishops’ agenda for two years, said the Rev. Charles Maahs, chair of the conference and bishop of the Central States Synod, Shawnee Mission, Kan.”Jesus certainly directed us to the deprived as the ones who gave shape to his continued presence in the world,”said Presiding Bishop H. George Anderson.

The denomination has designated $3 million for ministries with people in poverty, including support for hunger programs.”We are in the midst of a four-year economic boom,”said the Rev. E. Roy Riley, bishop of the ELCA New Jersey Synod. Still, he said, 34.5 million people are living below the poverty line.”In this country we think of the poor as losers,”he added.”Jesus didn’t see people living in poverty as losers. We must get to know the people in poverty in this country. They are not losers. They are people with gifts and abilities. They just lack access.” The shape of the letter has not yet been determined but is likely to build on the church’s social statement on economic life adopted by its Churchwide Assembly earlier this year.”It must make people uncomfortable,”said the Rev. Gary Hansen, bishop of the ELCA North/West Lower Michigan Synod, based in Lansing, Mich.

The letter is expected to be ready for approval by the 65 bishops in March.

Campus Crusade opens new headquarters in Orlando, Fla.

(RNS) Campus Crusade for Christ, a prominent evangelical ministry based in Orlando, Fla., will officially open its new headquarters Saturday, Oct. 16.

The first phase of the Lake Hart campus includes office buildings that house the major communications and planning activities of the ministry as well as”VisionWalk,”a series of walkways that detail the ministry’s 48-year history.”We want a place that imparts vision to our staff and visitors, whether they just flew in from India or walked across the street, as well as functional offices and meeting places that help us carry that vision through,”said Bill Bright, founder and president of Campus Crusade.

Future phases will include a conference center, visitors’ center,”strategic prayer center,”hotel and retreat center.

The ministry has more than 20,000 full-time staff members and more than 663,000 volunteers in 181 countries.

Arthur Samuelson leaving Schocken Books

(RNS) Arthur Samuelson, editorial director of Schocken Books, a leading name in the field of Jewish book publishing, has resigned.

Samuelson said he and his wife, New York Times food critic Molly O’Neil, will launch a Web site and multimedia company focusing on food.

Samuelson’s departure from Schocken, now owned by the German conglomerate Bertelsmann, leaves the imprint without any editorial direction. Cecelia Cancellaro, Schocken’s only other editor, did not return from maternity leave earlier this year.

Schocken was founded in 1931 by Salman Schocken, a German Jewish department store owner and rare-book collector. Random House acquired Schocken in 1987, and Bertelsmann, in turn, took over Random House in 1998.

Samuelson first joined Schocken in 1980, when the company was still independent. He left after a few years but returned in 1993.

Schocken made its reputation by publishing such Jewish intellectual giants as S.Y. Agnon, Martin Buber and Gershom Scholem. Under Samuelson’s direction, it moved into new territory by publishing Rabbi Harold Kushner’s best-selling”When Bad Things Happen to Good People.” More recently, Samuelson oversaw the release of”The Schocken Bible”by Everett Fox, which was also marketed in Christian circles.

Sonny Mehta, president of Knopf Publishing Group, the Bertelsmann company of which Schocken is a part, told the Forward newspaper that the Schocken name will continue and that a new editorial director is being sought.

The Forward, a New York-based weekly Jewish newspaper, speculated in its Oct. 1 issue that Bertelsmann might keep the Schocken imprint going if for no other reason than that as a German company”it will never want to be seen liquidating a Jewish division that had, in its early independent days, fled the Nazi regime.”

Quote of the day: Rabbi Samuel Intrator on entertainer Michael Jackson

(RNS)”When I was teaching Torah … he was again swaying along and listening. He seemed to get into it. He seemed very spiritual from what I saw.” _ Rabbi Samuel Intrator, speaking about entertainer Michael Jackson, following his visit Oct. 1 to evening Sabbath services at New York’s Carlebach Shul, known for its innovative inclusion of singing and dancing in its worship services. He was quoted by Jewish Telegraphic News Agency.

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