c. 1999 Religion News Service

Seven teens, adults killed at Texas church

(RNS) Seven teen-agers and adults gathered at a Southern Baptist church in Fort Worth, Texas, were killed and another seven were injured Wednesday (Sept. 15) when a gunman entered the sanctuary with a semiautomatic weapon.

Authorities said Larry Gene Ashbrook, 47, killed himself in a pew of the Wedgwood Baptist Church after he entered the building spewing anti-Baptist rhetoric and sprayed the church with gunfire.

The shootings occurred at a service for teens at the church, located about 10 minutes from Ashbrook’s home, the Associated Press reported.

More than 150 people were gathered inside and the Christian rock group Forty Days was performing after the annual”See You at the Pole”gathering at local schools. Students had affirmed their faith and concern for their communities on school campuses earlier in the day.

Teens reported their shock at the violence inside the church.”It looked like a skit, it looked like something out of a movie,”said Bethany Williams, 16, whose purse was splattered with blood.”And I thought it was a fake gun making fake noises.” Herb Hollinger, vice president for convention news of the Southern Baptist Convention, said three of the adults who were killed were connected to Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, a Southern Baptist school located about five miles from the church. Two were current students and a third was a recent graduate and the director of the children’s choir at the church.

Authorities searched Ashbrook’s home but did not know what motivated the shooting, the AP reported.”I don’t know that we’ll ever know the answer to the question of why it happened,”said Robert Garrity, the FBI’s special agent in charge.”It may be an enigma for a long time.” Garrity said Ashbrook apparently wrecked his house before approaching the church, leaving family photos broken in pieces.”This has the appearance of being a very troubled man who, for whatever reason in his own mind, sought to quiet whatever demons that bothered him,”he said.

Police Chief Ralph Mendoza said there was no indication that Ashbrook knew anyone at the Southern Baptist church.

Pastor Al Meredith described the victims as”Sunday school teachers and one of the favored soloists in the church, the children’s choir director, kids, youth members, some active, some just getting active, some just beginning to find God.” The pastor hoped to have the church cleared for use by the weekend.”It is my heart’s desire that if the investigation gets cleared up, somehow, some way we can worship God in this facility Sunday morning,”he said.”Our heart’s desire is that the king of darkness will not prevail over the kingdom of light.”

Religious Freedom Amendment reintroduced in House

(RNS) Rep. Ernest Istook, R-Okla., reintroduced his proposed Religious Freedom Amendment on Tuesday (Sept. 15), telling a rally of supporters at a Washington church it would prevent the trampling of religious expression.

The proposed amendment, which failed to get the required two-thirds majority vote in the House in June 1998, was reintroduced with the same language Istook proposed last year.

The amendment would allow but not require school prayer and other religious expression on public property.

Istook said at the rally at Bible Way Temple the amendment would counter court decisions that have prevented school prayers and the posting of the Ten Commandments in public settings.”Nobody is compelled to do anything, but the people’s right to pray and express their religious beliefs … cannot be infringed anymore,”said Istook.

House Majority Leader Dick Armey, R-Texas, and Majority Whip Tom DeLay, R-Texas, appeared at the rally in support of Istook’s proposal.”The outbreak of godless education threatens to debase our society for generations,”said DeLay.”There is one thing that is not allowed in school under any circumstances and that is prayer.” DeLay was applauded by the more than 200 people at the rally.

The Rev. Barry Lynn, executive director of Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, observed the rally and called DeLay’s comment about school prayer”an outright lie.” He and other opponents noted Istook announced his reintroduction on the day hundreds of thousands of schoolchildren observed”See You at the Pole”by praying on their campuses for their school communities.

In a press conference held a couple hours before the rally, opponents to the amendment reiterated their stance that the measure was unnecessary.”The proposed amendment … would do great damage to religion as we know it,”said the Rev. Oliver”Buzz”Thomas, special counsel for religious liberty for the National Council of Churches.

Thomas said the amendment could prompt disagreements in schools about which religions should be acknowledged.”The last thing America needs is local-option religion,”he said.

Rep. Chet Edwards, D-Texas, joined the critics of the proposed measure.”He has to know there’s no chance of passage,”said Edwards of Istook.

Istook acknowledged the process for passage of the amendment might be a”multiyear”one, but urged rally attendees to call members of Congress and encourage their support.

In one aisle of the church, there were dozens of boxes of petitions requesting Congress to reconsider Istook’s amendment.

California school rejects Christian textbooks after suit

(RNS) A public elementary school in Belridge, Calif., has decided not to use Christian textbooks that describe other religions as cults after receiving pressure from the American Civil Liberties Union.

Steven Wentland, principal of Belridge Elementary School, said Wednesday (Sept. 15) that”every last flashcard”would be returned to A Beka Books Inc., a Pensacola, Fla.-based Christian publishing company.”We’ll pull them out. It’s OK,”said Wentland, who also serves as superintendent of the one-school, 60-student district.”We don’t hold any grudges.” He said he didn’t want to generate negative publicity or get into a courtroom battle, the Associated Press reported.

Wentland had approved the use of the A Beka curriculum for the school, located amid oil fields northwest of Bakersfield.

The school board also approved them. Parents signed consent forms after reviewing samples and were reassured that some material would be edited to avoid problems.

State education officials did not need to approve the books because an anonymous donor had offered to pay for them.

A Beka describes itself as”unashamedly Christian and traditional in its approach.” Some of the company’s books say God helped Columbus discover America.

History books tell students that although American Indians”attained a degree of civilization,”they”had no knowledge of the true God, and without this knowledge all other attainments are worthless.” Another volume states that non-Christians will be denied a spot in heaven, and that Jehovah’s Witnesses, Christian Scientists and Mormons belong to cults.

One grammar book asks students to place the correct punctuation at the end of the following sentence:”The Hebrew people often grumbled and complained.” The ACLU filed suit Aug. 24, a day after students returned from summer vacation to see a banner in the cafeteria that read:”This is the day the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it.” Michael Small, chief counsel for the ACLU’s Southern California office, said the Constitution permits schools to integrate the Bible and religion objectively, but the school had crossed the line.

Irish Presbyterians say ecumenism doesn’t include Catholics

(RNS) In an ecclesiastical shadow play to Ireland’s political problems, an effort to make a Protestant-Roman Catholic committee the top ecumenical body for Ireland has been blocked by the Presbyterian Church in Ireland.

The plan, which has been approved by the three other churches on the committee _ Anglican, Methodist and Catholic _ was defeated by a 224-144 vote during the Belfast General Assembly. Opponents said it was defeated by fears that an institutional identification with the Roman Catholic Church would imply approval of its doctrine.

The Presbyterians are largely centered in northern Ireland, where strife along sectarian and religious lines has generated decades of violence.”The Reformed (Presbyterian) churches gained their identity from the Reformation, from opposing the Catholic Church,”said David Stevens, joint secretary of the Protestant-Catholic Irish Inter-Church Meeting, the agency that would have become Ireland’s top ecumenical agency. He also serves as general secretary of the all-Protestant Irish Council of Churches.

The proposal would have eliminated the Protestant ICC and given more authority to the inter-church committee, reducing costs and ending some duplication of work as well as expanding the ecumenical table.

But the Presbyterians feared approval of the proposal would be seen as a compromise of doctrine and authority, according to the PCUSA News, the official news agency of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).”`Fear’ was the word used most repeatedly … and the comments made were really reciting the errors of Rome, rather than addressing the issue before us, which was … restructuring two ecumenical bodies,”said the Rev. Robert Herron, chairman of the Presbyterians’ inter-church committee and a plan proponent.”You can’t avoid the fact that the divisions within the political systems are not (purely) over political issues,”Herron added.”There’s deep-seated religious feeling in there. That’s all part of it.”

Pope seeks new solution in German abortion counseling controversy

(RNS) Pope John Paul II has met with Germany’s Roman Catholic hierarchy in a renewed attempt to resolve a damaging controversy over church-sponsored abortion counseling, the Vatican said Thursday (Sept. 16).

Chief Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls acknowledged in a report on the unusual daylong meeting held Wednesday (Sept. 15) that the pope’s earlier effort to solve the problem has backfired, not only failing in its purpose but deepening divisions within the church.

The pope summoned Cardinals Joachim Meisner of Cologne, Friedrich Wetter of Munich and George Sterzinsky of Berlin and Bishop Karl Lehmann of Mainz, president of the German bishops’ conference, to his summer residence at Castelgandolfo in the Alban Hills, south of Rome.

Also attending were Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith; Archbishop Tarcisco Bertone, secretary of the congregation; Cardinal Angelo Sodano, Vatican secretary of state; and Archbishop Paolo Sardi, special apostolic nuncio.

Navarro-Valls said the prelates met”in an objective and fraternal climate”to discuss a new approach to the problem that Ratzinger and Sodano had drawn up on instructions from the pope. Details of the new approach were not spelled out.

The controversy centers on certificates issued by church-run pregnancy counseling centers to women seeking legal abortions. German law requires a woman seeking an abortion to present certification that she has discussed her decision with a specialized counseling service.

Church officials, who operate 250 of Germany’s 1,500 pregnancy counseling centers, contend that by being able to issue the certificates, they attract women to counseling that tries to convince them not to have an abortion. But critics charge the church appears to be condoning abortion.

The German bishops agreed in June to an order from John Paul that, to remove any”legal or moral”ambiguity about the church’s stand, they add to the certificates the phrase:”This certificate cannot be used for the execution of a legal abortion.””With regard to this decision there arose a debate that has damaged the unity of the church in Germany and has provoked questions to the Holy See,”Navarro-Valls said.”Finally it has become evident that the above-mentioned addition would not, in fact, change the value of the certificate issued by the Catholic counselors, which, for this reason, would still serve for access to an abortion,”he said.

The spokesman said the pope has directed that the final version of the new approach be transmitted to Lehmann and made public at the next meeting of the full membership of the German Episcopal Conference.

Quote of the day: Lawyer Ayall Schanzer

(RNS)”We’ve taken care not to offend anyone. This is a property with great significance for the Polish people.” _ Lawyer Ayall Schanzer, quoted by Reuters on client Ron Balamuth’s legal steps to recover the title to the property his grandfather owned in Wadowice, Poland, and in which Pope John Paul II was born. The property is now a museum, and Balamuth says he will not alter the building.

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