c. 1999 Religion News Service

Most Americans are religious, but not committed to house of worship

(RNS) Large majorities of Americans say they’re religious and think spirituality is important, but that doesn’t translate into commitment to a single religion or house of worship, a MacArthur Foundation survey has found.

More than seven out of 10 Americans surveyed said they are religious and consider spirituality to be an important part of their lives, USA Today reported.

But about half attend religious services less than once a month or never. The findings also suggest that people are equally divided on whether it is best to explore different teachings or to follow one faith.”Spirituality in the U.S. is a mile wide and an inch deep,”said David Kinnaman of the Barna Research Group in Ventura, Calif., an organization that specializes in market research about faith and American culture.

There is an all-time high in interest in spirituality, he said.”But people are beginning to develop a hybrid personal faith that integrates different perspectives from different religions that may even be contradictory … That doesn’t bother them.” The lack of loyalty is found in other new research that shows about 40 to 45 percent of those attending Protestant churches on a given Sunday were raised in that denomination, said Nancy Ammerman, a sociologist at Hartford Seminary in Connecticut.

Cultural anthropologist Elizabeth Bird said a”pressure to declare a belief”may account for the high percentages of people who declare that they are religious.”Being an `out’ atheist is difficult in this country,”said Bird of the University of South Florida in Tampa.”It would be impossible for an atheist to become president. … You can be whatever religion you want _ Americans take a smorgasbord approach _ but there’s a knee-jerk cultural convention that you ought to be something.” The Midlife Development in the United States study involved a group of scientists funded by the Chicago-based MacArthur Foundation who looked at a variety of issues involving middle-aged Americans, including sex, work, religion and health.

New president named for New York’s Union Theological Seminary

(RNS) The Rev. Joseph C. Hough Jr., currently the dean and professor of ethics at Vanderbilt University Divinity School, has been named the new president of Union Theological Seminary in New York.”I can’t think of a better leader for progressive theological education at this important time of transition into the next century,”said the Rev. James Forbes, a Union faculty member and senior pastor of The Riverside Church in New York.

Hough, who becomes the 15th president of the seminary founded in 1836, succeeds New Testament scholar Holland L. Hendrix, who served as president from 1991 to 1998.

A graduate of Wake Forest University and Yale Divinity School, Hough has served on the faculty of Claremont Graduate School and was dean of the School of Theology at Claremont (California) from 1974 to 1987 and is the author of several books, including”Black Power and White Protestants”and”Christian Identity and Theological Education.” He is an ordained minister of the United Church of Christ.

Although Hough’s tenure will not officially begin until July 1, in his first action he has asked the Rev. Mary McNamara, currently serving as the seminary’s interim president, to serve as executive vice president.

Anti-pornography group names new president

(RNS) The National Coalition for the Protection of Children and Families has named Rick Schatz as its new president.

Schatz, who has been the organization’s chief operating officer since 1990, will retain that role in addition to serving as president.

Jerry Kirk, the founder of the coalition, will retain his role as chief executive officer and also become the chairman of the board.”I am delighted with the decision of the board to name Rick Schatz as president,”Kirk said in a statement.”Rick has been a visionary, an educator, a motivator, and a tireless leader in the fight to protect our families and children from the devastating effects of pornography.” The coalition, formerly known as the National Coalition Against Pornography, is an alliance of citizens’ action groups, businesses, foundations, religious denominations and faith groups that works to reduce sexual violence and exploitation related to pornography.

Canadian Sikh acquitted in temple melee stabbing

(RNS) A Sikh man charged with attempted murder for stabbing another Sikh during a bloody temple riot in Vancouver, British Columbia that attracted international attention last year has been acquitted of the charges.

British Columbia Supreme Court Justice Donna Martinson ruled Friday (Feb. 12) that although Sikh hardliner Piara Singh Panasar was”probably”guilty of the stabbing, testimony against him contained enough inconsistencies to create reasonable doubt.

The judge also acquitted two other hardline Sikhs involved in the riot, but found a fourth man, Manmohan Singh Lal, guilty of possession of a weapon _ a sharp metal kitchen utensil.

The judge said it was hard to reach verdicts in the case because the fracas was chaotic and testimony contradictory.

Several hundred Sikhs were swept up in the Jan. 11, 1997, melee that occurred when Sikh hardliners tried to forcibly stop moderate Sikhs from returning tables and chairs to the Guru Nanak Sikh temple in Surrey, a Vancouver suburb. The hardline traditionalists had earlier forcibly removed the tables against the wishes of the temple’s moderate elected executive.

The conservative Sikhs maintain that it is tradition that Sikhs must eat while squatting on the temple floor, to show everyone is at an equal level. The moderates say Sikhs are still equal if they eat at tables.

A number of Sikh riots over tables and chairs occurred last year in British Columbia, which has the largest Sikh populations in North America.

Many observers say the battle is actually over who will control British Columbia’s 15 Sikh temples, which typically bring in more than $1 million each year. The Canadian showdowns have become an international flashpoint in the ongoing controversy over the leadership of authoritarian Sikh high priest Ranjit Singh, of Amritsar, India, who was suspended last week by a 10-member executive board for causing division within Sikhism.

Ranjit Singh, who went to jail for murdering a Sikh rival in the 1980s, joined Canada’s tables and chairs battle by excommunicating more than a dozen moderate B.C. Sikh leaders who opposed his edict that all Sikhs must eat while on the floor.

In a separate but related development, the Associated Press reported Tuesday (Feb. 16) that Puran Singh, the new high priest who replaced Ranjit Singh, was out of danger after suffering a serious heart attack.

There are about 15 million Sikhs in the world, most of them in India, with pockets in Britain, Canada and the United States. Most orthodox Sikh men include”Singh,”which means”lion,”in their name.

British churches illegally using shortwave radio for religious services

(RNS) Discussions between the British government agency responsible for regulating broadcast frequencies and churches have begun in an effort to find a spectrum which could be used by churches to broadcast worship services to housebound members of their congregations, as well as for other similar purposes.

The talks were initiated after it was discovered that a number of Roman Catholic parishes were using Citizen’s Band radio to broadcast Masses for shut-ins illegally, because the services include music. All music is officially banned from CB.

About 10 parishes in the Nottingham diocese were using CB to broadcast Mass to their housebound parishioners _ who as a result felt more closely linked with the parish community than they had been when simply visited and brought communion by the parish priest or one of his assistants, church officials said.

The practice is believed to have been started by the Rev. Tom McMahon, a priest in Derby, England, who said he got the idea from colleagues in Northern Ireland, where apparently it is still going on. McMahon began using CB radio to broadcast one Mass on weekdays and two on Sundays in May 1998, but has stopped the practice since learning it is illegal.

The government’s Radiocommunications Agency, in a statement, said while it recognized the value of broadcasting church services to the housebound, Citizen’s Band radio was not appropriate for the purpose.”It is designed for short-term social or business conversation, and lengthy services can jam the channels,”it said.

But it said that because it recognized the need for such a service it is trying to identify a more suitable spectrum on the airwaves. And it said it does not intend to prosecute clergy who unwittingly broke the law.

Spanish version of Bible’s New International Version published

(RNS) The Nueva Version Internacional (NVI), a Spanish version of the popular New International Version of the Bible, has been published by the International Bible Society.

The new volume is the result of 10 years of translation work by Latin American Bible scholars. Published in mid-January, it will be launched in ceremonies in Los Angeles from Feb. 24 to 27.

The IBS intends to complete a Castilian, or European Spanish, version of the NVI within two years. A NVI New Testament was released in 1995.

Quote of the day: Psycotherapist Polly Berrien Berends

(RNS)”A child who sees his parents take time for quiet, prayerful openness when they are in trouble or at a loss will learn that this is a recourse for him as well. The importance of quiet time is something that our culture fails to respect. … thus we teach our children to fear silence and solitude _ or at the very least we distract them from it.” _ Polly Berrien Berends, psychotherapist and author, writing in the premiere issue of the journal”Spirituality and Health.”

DEA END RNS