c. 2000 Religion News Service
Bauer Not a Candidate for Family Research Council Presidency
(RNS) Just days after Gary Bauer announced he is no longer running for U.S. president, a spokeswoman for the Family Research Council, the conservative Christian public policy organization he led for a decade, said Wednesday (Feb. 9) he is not a candidate for its presidency.
“Our board is currently in the process of looking for a new president,” the FRC’s Kristin Hansen told Religion News Service.
Asked if Bauer is under consideration, she said, “He is not.”
Bauer dropped out of the presidential race Feb. 4.
Hansen declined to respond to a report on ChristianityToday.com about an internal survey indicating more than 60 percent of the staff polled in the late fall did not think the organization should be led by someone with a high profile in partisan politics.
“There were some inaccuracies in that article,” Hansen said. For example, she said, the article incorrectly reported that Chuck Donovan, FRC’s executive vice president and acting chief executive officer, is a Democrat.
Hansen said she did not know when a decision about a new president would be made.
Bauer served as president of the council from 1988 until January 1999 when he left to explore a Republican candidacy for U.S. president.
Poll: Most Americans Favor Laws Opposing Gay Discrimination
(RNS) The majority of Americans favor legislation opposing discrimination against gays, but most people responding to a recent poll remain opposed to same-sex marriage and adoption by gay couples.
The nationwide Harris poll of 1,010 adults found 56 percent of those surveyed were in favor of expanding current laws banning discrimination based on race, age, disability, religion and gender to include gay men and lesbians.
Thirty-four percent of respondents opposed such legislation and 11 percent refused to answer or said they did not know.
The results indicate increasing public acceptance of gays, Reuters reported. Two years ago, 52 percent were in favor of such anti-discrimination legislation and 41 percent opposed it.
The majority of states do not bar anti-gay discrimination and federal law does not ban employers from firing workers or landlords from refusing to rent to people because they are gay.
Fifteen percent of those surveyed said they approved of legalizing marriage between two men and 16 percent supported it for two women. Fifty-seven percent of respondents rejected it for men and 55 percent disapproved for women.
About one-quarter of those surveyed said they did not feel strongly about the issue and 2 percent to 4 percent refused to respond or said they did not know.
Still, the percentage approving same-sex marriage increased about 50 percent from four years ago. At that time, 11 percent supported it for women and 10 percent for men.
Adoption by gay couples was opposed strongly. Fifty-five percent and 57 percent disapproved of adoption by female and male couples respectively, while 22 percent and 21 percent approved. Almost 20 percent said they did not feel strongly about gay couples adopting.
The poll, conducted Jan. 6-10, did not use the term margin of error, but had a “statistical precision” of plus or minus 3 percentage points.
Court Rejects Challenge to `Supremacist’ Church
(RNS) Claiming the law on which the suit was based is too vague, a judge has dismissed an effort by the Illinois attorney general challenging the status of the white supremacist World Church of the Creator as a charitable organization.
Cook County Circuit Court Judge Julia Nowicki said Tuesday (Feb. 8) that honoring Attorney General Jim Ryan’s request to enforce the state’s charitable solicitation law against the church _ led by white supremacist Matt Hale _ would harm freedom of speech.
In the lawsuit, Ryan asked the court to determine the truth of the church’s claim that it is a charity. The suit was filed after one of its members, Benjamin Smith, committed suicide after killing two people and wounding nine others _ all minorities _ in a shooting spree last July in Illinois and Indiana.
Had the court decided the Church of the Creator was not a charity, the church would be required to pay Illinois taxes, the Associated Press reported. Ryan’s lawsuit also wanted the court to order the church to account for its finances as other churches must do under Illinois law.
Hale said he was “happy that the witch hunt that was begun by Jim Ryan has been brought to an end.”
“Our great victory today is cause not only for celebration, but also for renewed commitment to even greater activism for our white race,” the AP quoted him as saying.
The circuit court judge will probably be asked to rethink her ruling, said Dan Curry, a spokesman for Ryan, who added that the lawsuit could move on to the Illinois Supreme Court. He rebutted Hale’s charge that the suit was a “witch hunt.”
“This is about Attorney General Ryan doing his job, which is protecting the charitable assets of this state,” said Curry. “The court said this morning that the law is too vague. We respectfully disagree.”
Pope Welcomes Pentecostal Clergy on Ecumenical Pilgrimage to Rome
(RNS) Pope John Paul II gave a warm welcome Wednesday (Feb. 9) to a group of 162 Pentecostal clergy making an ecumenical pilgrimage to Rome to learn more about their roots in Christianity.
The clergy, led by Bishop J. Delano Ellis II of Cleveland, president of the Joint College of African-American Bishops and presiding bishop of the United Pentecostal Churches of Christ, were among 13,000 pilgrims attending the pope’s weekly general audience in St. Peter’s Square.
“I extend a special welcome to the members of the Joint College of African-American Pentecostal Bishops,” the Roman Catholic pontiff said. “I am confident that your visit to Rome will help to strengthen ecumenical relations between Catholics and Pentecostals.
“I thought it was tremendous,” Ellis said later. “I thought it went a long way toward ecumenical development.”
Ellis, making his sixth visit to Rome, said he believed his was the largest group of Pentecostal clergy ever to make a pilgrimage to the city. The last Pentecostal visit was by a smaller group from the Church of God in Christ a decade ago, he said.
During the eight days of “Session 2000,” the clergy and their spouses will visit the major basilicas, hear lectures at the Pontifical North American College and hold study sessions.
On Sunday (Feb. 13), they will have their own service in the baroque Church of Santa Susana, the American Catholic Church in Rome. U.S. Ambassador to the Vatican Lindy Boggs will attend and present a proclamation to the Joint College of African-American Bishops from President Clinton to mark this month’s Black History Month observances in America.
But they also are finding time for informal activities. Many of the clergy took time off after Wednesday’s audience to visit some of the many clerical outfitters in Rome.
“We went shopping and most of us bought vestments and more of us shall,” Ellis said. “Our dress is relatively similar although we are not quite as Roman-looking in our formal vestments.”
Ellis said that although there is no formal dialogue between his group and Roman Catholics, relations have been improving since the early 1970s, and as presiding bishop he has sought to encourage friendships between Pentecostal and Roman Catholic clergy.
“We are beginning to see our bishops becoming much more appreciative of our common history,” Ellis said. “I’m sure this visit will give us a better understanding of what the Roman church really is and appreciation for our own history as the great-granddaughter of the Roman Catholic Church.”
Ellis said his church traces its history from the Roman Catholic Church to the Anglican and Methodist churches. “We are connected,” he said. “We are one family. We have one blood, the blood of Christ.”
In terms of church government and theology, the Pentecostals “lean more toward the Anglican Church,” the bishop said. But he said they shared the positions of the Catholic Church against abortion, the practice of homosexuality and drugs and on “a myriad of other social issues.”
Ellis said changes in the style of worship and more rigorous training for clergy also are bringing Pentecostals closer to Roman Catholics.
“We are beginning to develop liturgy and litany. We are becoming a wee bit more liturgical and formal in our worship, not just going where the spirit leads us much anymore,” he said. “We are developing a healthy appreciation for serious worship, and worship that is reflective of the entire pilgrim church of Jesus Christ.”
Florida Judge Halts `Choose Life’ License Plate Distribution
(RNS) A Florida judge has halted distribution of the state’s new “Choose Life” license plates while she determines if they amount to a political statement against abortion.
Circuit Judge Lucy Chernow Brown issued her decision Monday (Feb. 7) after a suit was filed by the National Organization for Women.
NOW argued that Florida improperly approved a “religious motto, which has frequently been used to harass, intimidate and at times kill and maim those who seek to exercise their rights, including the right to choose abortion,” the Associated Press reported.
The state Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles had intended to start selling the plates for an extra $22 in March. The manufacture of 10,000 of the “Choose Life” plates had begun when Brown’s order was released.
Proceeds from the sale of the plates would go to organizations aiding pregnant women who decide to put their babies up for adoption.
New Primate of Anglican Church of Australia Named
(RNS) The Most Rev. Peter Carnley, Anglican archbishop of Perth, Australia, has been elected primate of the Anglican Church of Australia.
Carnley, who was elected Feb. 3, is considered a leading theologian among the bishops of Australian Anglican churches.
In an interview with Anglican Media Sydney, the media and communications arm of the Diocese of Sydney, Carnley said turning around the decline in church attendance in the Australian church will be his primary focus as primate.
Quote of the Day: New York Pastor Jim Cymbala
(RNS) “Church growth has proved to be a mirage. Over 90 percent of what we call church growth is just moving Christians from one building to another … from First Nazarene to First Assembly, from First Presbyterian to First Methodist to First Baptist.”
_ Jim Cymbala, pastor of Brooklyn Tabernacle in New York, speaking at the recent 2000 Texas Baptist Evangelism Conference in Fort Worth. He was quoted in the Feb. 8 report of Associated Baptist Press, an independent news service.
DEA END RNS
