c. 2000 Religion News Service

PAX TV Plans Three New “Christy” Movies

(RNS) PAX TV plans to present three new “Christy” movies in the coming season, building on the popularity of the novel by Catherine Marshall.

The broadcast television network, owned by Paxson Communications Corp., announced Monday (Aug. 21) that Lauren Lee Smith has been cast as lead character Christy Huddleston in the upcoming movies. She has appeared in the Fox series “Dark Angel” and MTV’s boy band parody “2Gether.”

One movie will air in the fall, probably in November, and two other movies are scheduled to air as a miniseries early next year.

“Christy” premiered as a TV movie in 1994 and aired for two seasons on CBS before it was canceled. It was lauded by Christian critics of television for its positive values and family entertainment and has continued to be popular in videos and reruns.

“We’ve had a tremendous amount of interest,” Tracy Speed, senior publicity manager for PAX TV, told Religion News Service. “People really love the show. … It’s an authentic product that’s faithful to the book and it’s all being done with the support of Catherine Marshall’s estate.”

Tom Blomquist, who served as writer and supervising producer of the original “Christy” series, is one of the executive producers for the new movies. Actors returning from the original series will include Stewart Finlay-McLennan as Dr. MacNeil, Bruce McKinnon as Jeb Spencer, Dale Dickey as Opal McHone and Andrew Stahl as Tom McHone.

Soulforce to Participate in D. James Kennedy’s Conservative Conference

(RNS) The Rev. Mel White and his army of gay-rights activists will converge on Fort Lauderdale, Fla., next month to participate in a conservative Christian powwow sponsored by one of the harshest critics of White’s cause, the Rev. D. James Kennedy.

Kennedy, a conservative heavyweight and pastor of Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church in Fort Lauderdale, will sponsor his annual “Reclaiming America for Christ” conference Sept. 29-Aug. 1. The meeting typically draws hundreds of evangelical Christians to hear from leaders of the religious right and to rally around the conservative banner.

White, a former ghostwriter for Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson, is the director of Soulforce, an ecumenical gay-rights movement urging nonviolent protests to anti-gay policies. This summer, Soulforce led more than 400 protesters to be arrested at four major denominational meetings.

White said members of his movement have attended Kennedy’s conference in the past, but this year they are registered delegates who will sit in on various sessions. White said he planned to record the sessions “so that they know we are listening.”

“We’re not going to threaten their conference or disrupt anything,” White said. “We’re going to record everything they say and share it with the world, so watch your hyperbole, watch your half-truths.”

Kennedy has been one of the leaders of the conservative movement fighting what he calls the “gay agenda” of same-sex unions and inclusion in the life of the church. White said that by participating in the meeting, he and his supporters will put a human face on the homosexuality debate.

“People will only change when they know us,” he said. “All the data in the world won’t change anybody’s mind. We have to be present. They’ve got to start having a sense of discontinuity at some point.”

A spokesman for Coral Ridge Ministries was not immediately available to comment.

Mennonite World Conference Appoints First Woman President

(RNS) The Mennonite World Conference has elected its first woman president to lead the body of 1 million Anabaptist Christians around the world.

Nancy Heisey, an associate professor of biblical studies and church history at Eastern Mennonite University in Harrisonburg, Va., will assume leadership of the organization in 2003.

The Mennonite World Conference is a global network of churches with a shared history in the Anabaptist tradition, which traces its roots to the 16th century Protestant Reformation. Anabaptists were more radical than other reformers, stressing adult baptism and seeking to adopt a New Testament lifestyle. They were persecuted by both Catholics and other Protestants.

Mennonites are the largest Anabaptist church; other branches include the Church of the Brethren and the Amish. More than half of all Mennonites are found in Africa, Asia and South America. There are about 355,000 members in the United States.

Heisey has worked with the Mennonite World Conference for 18 years, including three years as associate executive secretary. She was the administrator of the conference’s Burkina Faso program and an administrator in the Africa department, according to the Mennonite Weekly Review, a church newspaper.

“The work of God is bigger than each of us,” Heisey said after her election. “Each one of us is a part of that work. … It’s a task that none can do by ourselves, but we can all do together.”

Cardinal Blasts British Cloning Proposal

(RNS) The British government’s proposal to allow “therapeutic cloning” _ research into using stem cells from human embryos and cloning embryos for this purpose _ has been condemned by Cardinal Thomas Winning, Archbishop of Glasgow and chairman of the joint bioethics committee of the Roman Catholic bishops’ conferences of England and Wales, Scotland, and Ireland.

The proposal has yet to be endorsed by Parliament, where the government has promised a free vote _ one in which members are not bound by the decisions of their party but can vote according to their conscience.

Writing in the Sunday Telegraph (Aug. 20), the Scottish cardinal said that public concern over the issue had been dismissed as “merely an outbreak of irrational squeamishness.” But, he argued, “instinctive moral repugnance is no more than the natural response to a crass violation of nature’s laws.”

Winning said the proposal involves creating and nurturing “unborn children” in order to provide stem cells for experiments in the course of which they would be killed.

“Therapeutic cloning” is “the ultimate misnomer” because it actually means killing, he said.

“In moral terms it is never permissible to perform an evil act so that good may come of it,” he wrote. “This end, in short, does not justify those means.”

But it is not just a question of morality: Cloning humans is not only wrong but also unnecessary, he argued. “On the day that the government announced its backing for therapeutic cloning, researchers in Florida said that adult stem cells found in bone marrow can be converted into immature nerve cells,” the cardinal said. “So these could be used to treat brain disorders such as strokes or Parkinson’s disease. Embryos are not needed.”

“We are being duped into believing that we can conquer diseases like Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, diabetes and childhood leukemia, and repair hearts, livers, kidneys and so on only by cloning, cannibalism and killing human embryos,” he said.

Clinton Administration Supports Local Anti-Gay Discrimination Law

(RNS) The Clinton administration has offered first-time support to a local government’s effort to protect gays from discrimination in employment.

The Justice Department filed a friend-of-the-court brief in a case involving a Louisville, Ky., ordinance that has been challenged by a Southern Baptist physician.

Justice Department spokeswoman Kara Peterman confirmed that the administration had not previously filed a pro-gay-rights brief supporting a local anti-discrimination ordinance, the Associated Press reported. The brief was filed Aug. 15.

Dr. J. Barrett Hyman sued to have the ordinance overturned after Louisville enacted it last year.

He contends that the ordinance violates his constitutionally protected freedom of religion because his religious beliefs prevent him from hiring gays.

Francis Manion, a lawyer with the conservative American Center for Law and Justice who is representing Hyman, said the ordinance “would require him to in effect support or condone that lifestyle. He believes that requires him to violate his religious beliefs.”

The Justice Department brief argues that if Hyman wins, “other employers could claim that being required to employ individuals of a particular race, sex, national origin or religion violates their First Amendment rights to free exercise of religion or free association.”

Saudis Pledge to Improve Status of Women

(RNS) Saudi Arabia’s cabinet agreed Monday (Aug. 21) to join a United Nations-sponsored women’s rights agreement but rejected any clause that contradicts Islamic sharia law.

The cabinet specifically rejected a clause of the U.N. Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women that urged countries to “grant women equal rights with men with respect to the nationality of their children.”

The cabinet also rejected a second clause allowing the International Court of Justice to get involved in disputes about the interpretation or implementation of the agreement, Reuters news agency reported.

Saudia Arabian leaders have long insisted that steps are being taken to make sure all Saudi Arabian women take advantage of rights granted them under the nation’s laws, such as access to health care and free education.

Still, women in the country are required to abide by strict rules that mandate gender-segregated schools and prohibit women from traveling without written permission from a male relative.

Quote of the Day: United Church of Christ Pastor Donna Schaper of Miami

(RNS) “In a world increasingly populated by Zen-leaning Lutherans, or Buddhists turned Catholic, or Jews turned Quaker, it’s not surprising to find a highly personal spirituality replacing institutional religion. We are so mired in the self that we are losing sight of the sacred.”

_ The Rev. Donna Schaper, pastor of Coral Gables Congregational Church in Miami, writing about the need for more organized religion on college campuses in the Aug. 18 edition of The Chronicle of Higher Education.

DEA END RNS