c. 1999 Religion News Service
Israeli religious council size cuts will keep out non-Orthodox
(RNS) Israel’s Orthodox-dominated Religious Affairs Ministry has cut the size of the nation’s local religious councils in a move that will keep more liberal Reform and Conservative Jews from joining the bodies.
Spokesman Shimon Malka said Religious Affairs Minister Eli Suissa ordered the cuts in line with an eight-year-old plan to revamp the panels and not solely to keep non-Orthodox Jews from being included _ although Malka acknowledged that would be the effect because Reform and Conservative representatives receive fewer votes.
But that explanation was rejected by Reform and Conservative leaders.”Every trick in the book is legitimate in (Suissa’s) eyes to discredit and de-legitimatize Reform and Conservative Judaism,”Israeli Reform leader Rabbi Uri Regev said Tuesday (Jan. 12).”It’s a major threat to the rule of law in Israel.” Suissa’s action follows a high court ruling that he could not legally block the seating of duly elected non-Orthodox Jews to the religious council of Haifa, a northern port city. Malka said the cuts in the size of the religious councils _ which regulate everything from certifying restaurants that are in accordance with Jewish dietary laws to passing judgement on who may marry in Jewish religious ceremonies _ would take place after May.
The Haifa council is scheduled to meet within a few weeks. Malka said the Reform and Conservative Haifa council members would not be prevented from attending, the Associated Press reported.
The fight over the councils is part of a broader battle between some Orthodox Jews and their non-Orthodox co-religionists, who are trying to break the defacto Orthodox hegemony over Jewish religious life in Israel.
The Reform and Conservative Jews, who are a small minority in Israel despite dominating in the United States, paint the struggle as one over religious pluralism. The Orthodox say the battle is to maintain traditional Judaism.
Brazilian evangelicals targeted for `Christian’ products
(RNS) Protestants in Brazil, who make up about 12 percent of the country’s population, are divided over a recent trend by some companies to target consumer products specifically at evangelicals.
In recent months, for example, there has been an advertising campaign for Hosanna candy featuring a well-known model, Aline Barros, and the slogan,”The Word of God in every mouth,”a reference to the fact that there are biblical texts on the candy wrappers.
Other products aimed at evangelicals include Freegels Gospel candy, in cherry, grape, strawberry and mint flavors, which depict biblical figures. Even cosmetics, traditionally seen by many evangelicals as sinful, are being sold by Christian companies and are on the shopping lists of many evangelical consumers. One company is now offering perfumed oils for unction.
The practice of targeting consumer products at evangelicals has drawn criticism from some evangelical leaders.
The Rev. Pastor Alcebiades Fernandes Cavalcanti of the Evangelical Christian Church of Belo Horizonte, for example, has warned the new products could encourage latent vanity, particularly among women.”We are experiencing a new process of corrosion,”Ecumenical News International, the Geneva-based religious news agency, quoted the pastor as saying.
But other church leaders are in favor of products aimed at the evangelical world. “There are unemployed people selling these products … a labor market has been opened,”said the Rev. Carlos Alberto Tavares Alves of the Central Methodist Church in Rio de Janeiro.
Jomar Coelho, the manager of the Beleza Christa (Christian Beauty) company, recently told the Brazilian magazine Vinde that his company had requested believers”to carry out surveys and obtain information about the profile of the evangelical consumer.” Beleza Christa currently has 180 products in its”Christian line,”launched last March. There are oils and hair creams, skin lotions, shampoo for adults and children and a variety of colognes and perfumes. The bottles and containers of these products have biblical messages printed on them.
The company has said it has taken all necessary precautions to avoid offending anyone. “We never take the name of God in vain and we do not use symbols that contradict the beliefs of evangelical people,”said Coelho.
Shops that sell evangelical products have begun to receive another product _ perfumed oils for unction, from the Gospel Aroma line, created by the Rossini Heine cosmetics company. Unction, administered to the sick, is a practice carried out by many Pentecostal groups.
Neusi Rossini Pantera, creator of the Alabastro oils line, attends the Word of God Pentecostal Church and said she believes the new line of products would be well received by the evangelicals. She told Vinde that she got the idea to perfume the oils used for unction after visiting a number of churches.
Mormon missionaries: no more e-mail home
(RNS) The Mormon church has told its young missionaries around the world they may not use e-mail and faxes as ways of communicating with families and friends back home.
Don LeFevre, a spokesman for the church, said there will be exceptions to the new policy for missionaries living in areas where postal service is poor.
The church has always tightly controlled communication between missionaries _ typically young men in their early 20s _ and their families as a means of keeping the missionaries focused on their work.
Missionaries are allowed to phone home only twice a year _ on Christmas and Mother’s Day _ and are not supposed to write more than once a week. But LeFevre said that given the convenience of e-mail,”some missionaries may be communicating more than once a week and that would detract from missionary work.” But Bonnie Carter of Orem, Utah called the policy change”a cruel move”at a time when several missionaries have been injured or killed in foreign countries, the Associated Press reported. Her son, Andrew, is on a two-year mission for the church in Sweden. For a number of months, Andrew has been sending his family a weekly e-mail from a nearby library.
Carter said there have been occasions when she and her husband needed to communicate with their son about urgent matters like insurance or wiring money.”By the time he’s written us and we’ve written him, 20 days have passed,”she said.
Cuba policy wins qualified support from Protestants
(RNS) The Clinton administration’s easing of economic and travel restrictions on Cuba has won the qualified support of Protestants involved in ministry and policy advocacy involving the Caribbean island nation but they criticized the new policy for failing to lift the United States’ 37-year-old embargo against Cuba.
Approved on Jan. 5, the changes will: allow any U.S. resident to send payments of up to $1,200 a year to Cuban families, instead of just individuals; increase charter passenger flights to and from Cuba; allow food and agricultural supplies to be sold to Cuban nongovernmental groups and institute direct mail service.
The National Council of Churches, while welcoming Clinton’s policy change, criticized the president for not taking up the suggestion of Sen. John Warner, R-Va., calling for the creation of a bipartisan commission that would engage in a wholesale review of U.S Cuba policy.”… we do not feel that these measures are sufficient to resolve the conflict that has divided the two nations over the last 40 years”and in rejecting Warner’s recommendation for a bipartisan commission, the United States”has missed a historic opportunity”to review a policy”that has been demonstrated to be ineffective for the past 37 years,”the Rev. Joan Brown Campbell, NCC general secretary told Clinton in a letter.”This proposal is not only supported by both parties, but by broad sectors of the civil society in the United States, of which the Church is a part,”she said.
The Rev. Thom White Wolf Fassett, a member of the Americans for Humanitarian Trade with Cuba Advisory Council, called the Clinton administration’s actions”commendable”but unlikely to provide the necessary steps toward ending the embargo.”It’s a preliminary step, timid at best, in responding to the needs of the people of Cuba,”said Fassett, who is also general secretary of the United Methodist Board of Church and Society.
The United Methodist Church, the nation’s second largest Protestant denomination, is on record calling for an end to the U.S. economic embargo against Cuba.
The Rev. Michael Rivas, a Cuban-American and a deputy general secretary of the United Methodist Board of Global Ministries, agreed that”anything that in any way contributes to easing some of the problems has to be welcome.” Noting the church’s opposition to the embargo, Rivas said,”By that standard, this (action) is superficial,”Rivas said.
German churches in joint call for debt cancellation
(RNS) Protestant and Roman Catholic churches in Germany have joined in the worldwide call for the cancelation of poor countries’ debts.
In a statement,”Foreign debt _ an ethical challenge,”the Council of the Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD) and the Catholic Bishops’ Conference also proposed conditions that need to be fulfilled if the foreign debts are to be deferred or canceled.
The German religious leaders said forcing poor countries to adopt so-called structural adjustment measures _ reshaping their economies to finance their debt burden at the expense of social spending on health and education _ was not an answer to the debt problem.
Instead, debt relief must be aimed at fostering social and ecological improvements, the reduction of illiteracy rates and improvement in the education and health systems.
Constitutional and democratic reforms, reduction of corruption and slowing the flight of capital out of poor countries and restrictions on military spending are other criteria the religious leaders said should be used in assessing debt reduction proposals.”Debt-free countries which do not conduct any internal reforms will not have any credit rating on the international capital markets,”the paper said.
The Joint Statement recalled the jubilee ideal mentioned in the Old Testament where every 49 years, debts were to be forgiven and land returned to its original owners.
Quote of the day: Quaker Kenneth Mesner
(RNS)”We just never did have a feeling of vengeance. It didn’t occur to us. They grieve with us and we are grieving with them now.” _ Kenneth Mesner, a Quaker, speaking Monday (Jan. 11) at a parole board hearing in Lincoln, Neb., about seeking to save from execution Randolph Reeves, convicted of killing his daughter, Janet, and of his family’s relationship with the Reeves family.
DEA END RNS
