c. 1999 Religion News Service

More than 100 protest Baptist prayer plan for Hindus

(RNS) More than 100 people protested outside a prominent Southern Baptist church in Houston Sunday (Nov. 7), criticizing the Protestant denomination’s efforts to get members to pray for the salvation of Hindus.”We want all people to understand that religious intolerance is rearing its head in this country,”said Amit Misra, a Houston lawyer who led the coalition of local Hindu groups that planned the protest outside Second Baptist Church.”Some people aren’t aware of the type of hate that is being preached by mainstream churches.” The Southern Baptist Convention’s International Mission Board timed the distribution of the booklet with the Hindu festival of Divali, which was celebrated by many Hindus on Sunday. The booklet says Hindus do not understand personal responsibility or sin and”worship gods which are not God.” The guide requests that Baptists”pray that the darkness and the power of Satan will be broken.” Tara Imani, a member of Second Baptist _ one of the largest Baptist churches in the nation _ disagreed with the demonstrators, the Associated Press reported.”I think it is our God-given responsibility to pray for them to be converted,”said Imani, after talking with a demonstrator.”She asked me what I think about (the Hindu belief that there are) many paths. I said that there is one path. If there were many paths, then (Christians) would be fools. If they were right, it would mean Jesus was a liar, God was a liar.” Muslims remove tent as Nazareth’s mosque dispute continues

(RNS) Nazareth Muslims have removed a tent that served as a temporary mosque from an open lot next to the Basilica of the Annunciation, where they hope to construct a permanent facility.

The Muslims removed the tent Sunday (Nov. 7) as part of an agreement with the Israeli government, which has sought to walk a fine line between Nazareth’s majority Muslim community and Christian leaders who are against the mosque. The basilica is built over the site where the Virgin Mary is said to have been told by an angel that she would give birth to Jesus.

Catholic officials, who want to build a plaza to accommodate millennium pilgrims on the entire lot, have charged Israel with giving in to the demands of radical Islamists and discriminating against the church.

The cornerstone of the permanent mosque facility, which will cover a small portion of the lot, is scheduled to be laid in about two weeks.

The dispute has threatened to derail a planned visit to Nazareth, the city in which tradition says Jesus spent his boyhood, by Pope John Paul II. Church leaders have said they will close churches in Israel on Nov. 22-23 to protest the Israeli government’s action.”The pope’s visit is going to be seriously affected by the outcome of this,”said Father Robert Fortin, secretary general of the Catholic”Jubilee”committee in Jerusalem.”For us it is a terribly important issue. We just can’t let this thing go,”he said.”The consequences will be felt for centuries to come.”

Update: Chinese admit to Falun Gong deaths and large scale arrests

(RNS) Chinese police have admitted to arresting 111 Falun Gong members on charges of disturbing social order, stealing state secrets and conducting illegal business activities.

A government spokesman Monday (Nov. 8) also admitted that two members of the embattled spiritual movement have died in police custody, although he insisted that neither died because of police actions.

Despite the admission, it is still unknown how many Falun Gong members have been detained. Chinese law allows suspects to be held for weeks, and only those charged are considered arrested, the Associated Press reported.

Falun Gong members say as many as 3,000 may have been taken into custody during the recent round of daily protests in Beijing. The group’s protests were to demand official acceptance.

Instead, Chinese authorities have responded by cracking down harder on Falun Gong, which they regard as a political threat, even though the movement says it has no political agenda.

Falun Gong combines elements of Buddhism, Taoism and traditional Chinese”qigong”meditative and physical exercises. The group _ banned in China as a dangerous cult _ claims millions of members in China and around the world.

Authorities have also revealed they monitored the Internet to learn in advance of Falun Gong protest plans.

Christian Coalition to move closer to Capitol Hill

(RNS) Christian Coalition officials have announced plans to relocate to the Washington, D.C., area.

In a statement released Friday (Nov. 5), the organization said relocation would be completed”in the coming weeks”and would help the religious right’s leading political organization work more effectively.”This is a case of simple logistics and the necessity of this organization to be near our elected leaders,”said Pat Robertson, the coalition’s founder and president.”New headquarters in Northern Virginia allows Christian Coalition to maintain its Virginia roots while increasing its effectiveness on Capitol Hill.” The coalition, which began in 1989 following Robertson’s unsuccessful 1988 presidential campaign, chose Chesapeake, Va., for its national headquarters.

The coalition has been faced with recent, widely publicized problems, including the loss of a long legal battle to gain tax-exempt status, turnovers and dismissals of high-level staff and mounting financial difficulties. But coalition supporters, who cheered an August court decision declaring that their controversial voter guides are not partisan, say the group continues to be a”recognized”conservative voice in the country.

Presbyterian judicial committee mulls gay ordination issue

(RNS) A Presbyterian Church (USA) judicial committee is likely to determine this month (November) whether a group of South Jersey Presbyterian churches erred by accepting a gay candidate for ordination.

The committee wrapped up a hearing on the matter on Friday (Nov. 5) at a hotel in Newark, N.J.

After years of wrangling and several national elections, the majority of church members voted in 1997 to bar practicing homosexuals from leadership positions, although there have been actions of protest in liberal pockets such as the Northeast. “This case is important, because the Presbyterian Church is still in the active process of discernment about what its ordination standards will be,”said Doug Nave, co-chairman of Presbyterian Welcome, a group that advocates the inclusion of all people in the church.

Nave, who attended the hearing as an observer, said his organization and others are seeking to overturn the so-called Amendment B, which requires that church leaders and clergy either marry members of the opposite sex or remain celibate.

Conservatives within the denomination said they are pressing court cases against members who are flouting the church’s stance and threatening, in their eyes, the democratic fiber of the faith. “The impact could be that presbyteries start making decisions autonomously,”said John Adams, a representative of the traditionalist Presbyterian Lay Committee who attended Friday’s hearing. “That is not Presbyterian.” The Rev. Alison Bucklin, who leads a church in Gloucester County in southern New Jersey, was one of a dozen pastors who joined other church leaders in filing a complaint against fellow members of the West Jersey Presbytery, which represents 65 churches in southern New Jersey.

In March, church leaders there voted 81 to 61 to accept the candidacy of an openly gay graduate of Princeton Theological Seminary, Graham Van Keuren.

In a letter to church officials and in discussions before the vote, Van Keuren, who did not attend the hearing, said he did not plan on leading a celibate life.”I have grown to accept my call to a same-sex, intimate relationship, and God has blessed me with the knowledge that my sexuality and its expression in an appropriate same-sex relationship is a good gift from God,”Van Keuren said.

Presbytery officials argued that because they had not ordained Van Keuren _ in fact, had made it clear to him that they would not move forward unless church law is changed _ they had not erred.

Advocates said it is important to keep gay candidates for ordination in the pipeline in the event the law is changed, but traditionalists who brought the complaint said hairs shouldn’t be split over the church Book of Order.

Interfaith service held for mourners of plane crash victims

(RNS) An interfaith service on the shores of Newport, R.I., marked the end of a week of grief for the relatives and friends of the victims of the EgyptAir Flight 990, which crashed off Nantucket, Mass.

The 217 people who died after traveling on the plane that crashed Oct. 31 observed at least three faiths and came from seven nations.”Allahu akbar,”the Muslim mourners cried out in Arabic.”God is great.” More than 250 people gathered for the memorial service Sunday (Nov. 7) in which representatives from various faiths tried to bring them comfort, The New York Times reported.

Ahmed M. ElHattab, assistant secretary general of the Islamic Society of North America, encouraged those who mourned to submit to the will of God.”Lo, we belong to God, and lo, we are returning,”ElHattab said.”Let us remember it is God who grants life, and it is he who takes us back.” Rabbi Marc S. Jagolinzer, president of the Rhode Island Board of Rabbis, said those who had died would live on in the memories of those who were grieving for them.”Death cannot rob us of our past: the years, the dreams, the experiences we have shared,”Jagolinzer said.”What we have had, we shall always have.” The Rev. Marco Girgis of the St. Mary and St. Mena Coptic Orthodox Church in Cranston, R.I., prayed that God would receive the passengers in the afterlife.”Open for them, O Lord, the doors of paradise,”said Girgis.

Family members were given white roses that they either placed in a white wicker basket, to be flown over the crash site and spread at sea, or tossed into the surf in memory of their loved ones.

The Associated Press reported that other services had been held prior to the interfaith one on Sunday. On Thursday, a small memorial service for more than a dozen Coptic Christians _ members of an Egyptian Christian denomination _ who perished on the flight was observed in Cranston, R.I. On Friday, about 150 people attended an Islamic prayer service in Newport.

At the Sunday service, Egyptian Ambassador Nabil Al Fahmy read from the Bible and the Koran when he addressed the mourners.”Your loss is great, your pain deep, but you must find solace in the memory of those wonderful moments you shared with your loved ones,”he said.

Supreme Court lets Cleveland students get vouchers for now

(RNS) The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that students who attend religiously affiliated schools can participate _ at least temporarily _ in a Cleveland tuition voucher program for private schools.

In granting an emergency request from Ohio Attorney General Betty Montgomery, the court Friday (Nov. 5) overrode a federal judge’s order temporarily prohibiting new students from taking part in the program.

The judge’s order also had raised the possibility that students currently participating in the state-sponsored program would no longer be entitled to receive tuition aid after the current school semester.

The Supreme Court’s action, though a victory for voucher supporters, does not do much to clarify the law concerning the provision of tuition aid to families with children attending schools with a religious affiliation, the Associated Press reported.

U.S. District Judge Solomon Oliver Jr. in Cleveland is overseeing a lawsuit in which taxpayers and civil liberties groups have argued that the program violates the constitutional separation of church and state because most of the money pays for religious-school tuitions.

Oliver ruled in August that only previous recipients of tuition vouchers could get state financial aid until he determines the legitimacy of the program.

The Supreme Court order, based on a 5-4 vote, postponed the effects of Oliver’s ruling until the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals makes a determination.

Update: American missionaries released in Zimbabwe

(RNS) Three American missionaries convicted on weapons charges have been released in Zimbabwe and allowed to return home to Indianapolis.

Gary George Blanchard, 36, Joseph Wendell Pettijohn, 34, and John Lamonte Dixon, 35 _ all of whom are connected with the Pentecostal Harvestfield Ministries in Indianapolis _ were released Saturday (Nov. 6).

The men were arrested in March on various weapons charges. They admitted during their trial with trying to secretly takes guns from their base in the Congo to the United States, by way of Zimbabwe. They said they used the 39 guns they were found with for sport, hunting and self-defense.

Although each was sentenced to a year in jail, a judge ruled they had served much of their time while awaiting trial. Upon their release, the men were served with notices prohibiting them from ever returning to Zimbabwe.

Quote of the day: Evangelist Billy Graham

(RNS)”Compared to this time last year, I feel like I’m getting younger instead of older …. I do not intend to retire until God retires me.” _ Evangelist Billy Graham, who turned 81 Sunday (Nov. 7), commenting recently on his plans to continue his ministry through his writings, crusades and other gatherings focused on evangelism. Graham has suffered from Parkinson’s disease for more than five years.

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