c. 2000 Religion News Service

Study: Evangelical Parents May Spank More But Are Not Abusive

(RNS) Conservative Protestant parents yell at their children less frequently than other parents and the image that they are physically or emotionally abusive simply isn’t accurate, according to a new Princeton University study.

Brad Wilcox, a research fellow at Princeton’s Center for Research on Child Wellbeing, said the new study hopes to “clear the air” about assertions that evangelical and fundamentalist parents are abusive and authoritarian.

Wilcox’s new study, co-authored with John P. Bartkowski of Mississippi State University, found that evangelical parents combine elements of corporal punishment _ spanking _ with a strong sense of praise and affirmation for their children.

The study, using data from a 1987-1988 University of Wisconsin survey of 4,000 parents, found evangelical parents yell at their children less frequently than other parents. The study also found religious faith plays a greater role in parenting style than other factors, such as income or education.

“For almost a decade, a number of scholars have claimed that conservative Protestant parenting is abusive and authoritarian,” Wilcox said. “Our findings call into question those assertions and suggest that conservative Protestant parents have a neo-traditional style of parenting that may well be perfectly fine.”

Wilcox and Bartkowski used “conservative Protestant” to encompass members of traditionally conservative churches, such as the Southern Baptist Convention, Assemblies of God and other Pentecostal or independent churches.

While previous studies show evangelical parents are more likely to spank their children, Wilcox said the new study showed that they are more likely to praise or otherwise show affection to their children. Those two elements make up a distinctive evangelical method of parenting, he said.

While spanking does not necessarily translate into abusive parenting, Wilcox said yelling is just as important because parents who yell more are more likely to be physically abusive.

“There is a lot of affirmative parenting going on, and less yelling, and it suggests that this is not an abusive parenting style, and some of the accusations made against this subculture are, quite frankly, inaccurate,” Wilcox said.

Only Surviving Auschwitz Synagogue to Be Rededicated

(RNS) The only remaining synagogue in Oswiecim, Poland, will be rededicated on Tuesday (Sept. 12) after years of use as a munitions storehouse and carpet warehouse in the shadow of Auschwitz.

The Lomdei Mishnayot synagogue was the only one of the town’s 12 synagogues to survive the Nazi Holocaust, which decimated the town’s Jewish population. The town of Oswiecim was also the site of the Auschwitz concentration camp, one of the Nazis’ largest and most gruesome death camps where an estimated 1.3 million Jews, Germans and Poles died.

Before the war, the town had a thriving Jewish population of 7,000 Jews _ about two-thirds of the town’s residents. Each of the 12 synagogues was taken over by the Nazis and the Jews were rounded up and sent to the camp.

Lomdei Mishnayot is believed to have been used as a munitions storehouse during the war and was later turned into a carpet warehouse. The synagogue was returned to local Jews in 1998 as the first building in a government-sponsored restitution program.

A retired New York businessman, Fred Schwartz, headed a campaign to refurbish the synagogue. Schwartz formed the Auschwitz Jewish Center Foundation after a trip to Auschwitz in 1995 because he felt Jews needed a place to pray and reflect after visiting the camp, according to a news release.

Because there were no drawings of the interior of the synagogue, architects drew on the memories of the town’s surviving Jews. Arthur Rosenblatt, who designed the U.S. Holocaust Memorial and Museum in Washington, was the lead architect on the project.

Nadine Greenfield, a project manager for the foundation, told a German newspaper the foundation wanted to change the Jewish legacy in Oswiecim.

“Before Auschwitz, 60 percent of Oswiecim was Jewish, there was a vibrant community here, but now the only symbol for Jews is Auschwitz _ we want to change that,” Greenfield said. “We want people to focus not just on the piles of eyeglasses and shoes in the Auschwitz museum, but also on who wore those eyeglasses and shoes _ to give the cold, hard statistics … names and faces.”

Timorese Refugees Plead for Humanitarian Workers’ Return

(RNS) Days after the murder of three workers in a U.N. office in West Timor prompted the United Nations to pull its aid workers out of the region, East Timorese refugees living in West Timor called Monday (Sept. 11) for their return.

“We need aid,” Natalia Maria da Costa told The Washington Post from a refugee camp in Kupang. “The most important thing is food for the children.”

In just about three days the food supplies of most refugees will be depleted, she said, adding that rice the Indonesian government had promised to deliver had not arrived.

Other refugees said they were running out of medical supplies since a clinic run by an international relief agency had been closed.

Still, the leader of U.N. refugee operations insists the organization’s relief workers will not return to West Timor until militia forces in the region are dismantled.

On Sept. 6, an armed militia raided a U.N. office in West Timor and killed three workers. The attack was one of many in past weeks on international aid agencies by militias, tacitly supported by Indonesia’s government and opposed to the East Timorese vote last year for independence from Indonesia.

The violence that followed the vote spurred some 250,000 people to flee to West Timor. About two-thirds have since returned to East Timor, but others, like da Costa, remain. Some do so voluntarily while others say fear of physical harm from militia forces prevents them from leaving.

Emory University Receives $3 Million Grant for Religion Center

(RNS) Emory University in Atlanta has received a $3.2 million grant to establish a new Center for the Interdisciplinary Study of Religion.

The five-year grant will lead to the creation of a center, housed at Emory Law School, that will involve the collaboration of the university’s Law and Religion Program, Candler School of Theology, the Graduate Division of Religion and the religion department.

“This new center will provide an extraordinary opportunity to bring to Emory a steady diet of world-class scholars of religion and to bring to the world a steady diet of premier scholarship on religion,” said John Witte Jr., director of the Law and Religion Program, in a statement.

Witte will head the new center, which will be created from a grant from the Pew Charitable Trusts.

“Emory aspires to make religion one of the five or six cardinal themes that suffuses its scholarship and defines its educational mission nationally and internationally,” said Emory Provost Rebecca Chopp in a statement.

Regent University President Retires; Robertson’s Wife to Chair Board

(RNS) Regent University President Paul G. Cerjan has retired, the Virginia school’s board of trustees has announced.

Cerjan said in a statement that he told Regent Chancellor Pat Robertson when he arrived at the school in Virginia Beach that it would take three years to implement a strategic plan that would lead to the school’s growth.

“Now, after three years, I feel that we have achieved that goal,” he said. “I am comfortable that the university has the planning and operational capabilities in place to ensure continued success and growth. … After 40 years in public life, it is time for me to begin a new chapter in my life.”

Robertson expressed his gratitude for Cerjan’s leadership.

“President Cerjan has secured a firm foundation for the university,” Robertson said in a statement. “As we move forward, I am confident that Regent University will continue its pursuit of excellence and will achieve even greater successes in the future.”

Cerjan’s retirement was effective Sept. 7, the day of the trustee board’s announcement. While the board seeks his successor, Robertson will assume the duties of president.

Recent expansion of the university includes construction of the Northern Virginia campus in Alexandria, Va., which is scheduled to be finished in December.

In a separate but related matter, the board of directors of the Christian Broadcasting Network, which was founded by Robertson, has announced its appointment of his wife, Adelia “Dede” Robertson, as the chairman of Regents’ trustee board. She will begin her one-year term at the end of the board’s semi-annual meeting Oct. 26.

Dede Robertson served on the founding board of Regent University and has continued in that role for 22 years.

“She has an unparalleled grasp of the principles that underlie Regent University’s quest for excellence,” said CBN President Michael Little in a statement.

Quote of the Day: Democratic vice presidential nominee Sen. Joseph Lieberman

(RNS) “To me, faith can be a source _ but certainly not the only source _ of sound values.”

_ Democratic vice presidential nominee Sen. Joseph Lieberman talking about his frequent mentions of God and faith on the campaign trail. Lieberman, who was quoted in the Sept. 10 edition of The Washington Post, said it was not his intention to offend nonbelievers with his frequent references to God.

DEA END RNS