c. 2000 Religion News Service
Georgia Pastor’s Name Floated for Southern Baptist President
(RNS) The name of James Merritt, a suburban Atlanta pastor, has been floated as a possible presidential nominee for the Southern Baptist Convention.
Merritt’s potential nomination was mentioned Jan. 31 at an annual pastors’ conference in Florida that has been a launching site for successful denominational presidential campaigns.
Dallas pastor Jack Graham said he was sorry weather-related travel problems prevented Merritt from attending the conference at First Baptist Church in Jacksonville.
“I was looking forward to him being here and hearing him preach and to asking him for the privilege of nominating him as president of the Southern Baptist Convention when we meet next,” said Graham, pastor of Prestonwood Baptist Church in Dallas. “I hope he’ll allow me to do that, but I’ll have to ask him another time, I guess.”
Merritt told Associated Baptist Press, an independent news service, that he “would be honored” if he were nominated, though he “hasn’t spoken directly” with anyone.
Merritt is pastor of First Baptist Church in Snellville, Ga., and the immediate past chairman of the SBC Executive Committee.
If elected, he would succeed Paige Patterson as president of the nation’s largest Protestant denomination.
Patterson, president of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, N.C., is serving a second one-year term and is ineligible for re-election.
Vatican Withholds Judgment on Haider, Austrian Cardinal Fears for Unity
(RNS) The Vatican has withheld judgment on the presence of Joerg Haider’s extreme right-wing Freedom Party in Austria’s new government, but the archbishop of Vienna said Friday (Feb. 4) he fears for the country’s unity.”The great tradition of the Holy See is very realistic: never make presumptions,”Cardinal Angelo Sodano, the Vatican secretary of state told reporters Thursday (Feb. 3) following a Vatican ceremony. Sodano ranks just below the pope in the Vatican hierarchy.
The United States and European Union countries have sharply criticized the inclusion of the Freedom Party in the coalition government sworn in Friday because of what they view as Haider’s xenophobia and sympathy for Nazism, policies which the Vatican also strongly opposes.
Austrian President Thomas Klestil agreed to formation of the government only on condition that Haider and Wolfgang Schuessel, leader of the conservative People’s Party, sign a”declaration of European values.” Schuessel became chancellor, but Haider remained as governor of Carinthia State rather than taking a cabinet post.”In the name of the Holy See, I say that our tradition is never to judge people but to judge what happens on the basis of moral doctrine,”Sodano said.”If it is something contrary to that (moral doctrine) the Holy See, the Roman pontiffs, have always known in 2,000 years of history how to speak out.””If there is anything against Christian morality it will be up to the Austrian Catholics, to the bishops of that noble and great nation, to speak first and then, eventually, to the Holy See. But we must not rush things,”he said.
In Vienna, Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn told a news conference he feared the divisive effects the controversy over Haider might have in Austria.”The value of unity is greater than the experience of divisions,”he said.
Like Sodano, Schoenborn refused to judge the new government, but he urged the international community not to issue a message of division and said he has invited all of Austria’s Roman Catholics to pray on Sunday (Feb. 6) for dialogue.”It is always good to speak to one another, and the states of the European Union should direct all their efforts toward an intense dialogue,”the Italian news agency ANSA quoted the cardinal as saying.
Pope John Paul II, who grew up in Poland during World War II, has condemned all forms of racism during his pontificate and also upheld the rights of migrants.
In the United States, meanwhile, the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations issued a statement praising the opposition to Haider and his party’s role in the new Austrian government.”Today, it is not too much to say that if this sort of unity and seriousness of purpose had prevailed in the 1930s, the history of the last century might have been spared much bloodshed,”said Ronald S. Lauder, chairman of the conference of Jewish groups.”For years there appeared to be a consensus that no civilized society would tolerate such behavior,”Lauder said of the Freedom Party’s anti-immigrant and racist platform.”The current regime in Vienna has shattered that fundamental consensus.”
Fourth Presbyterian Enters Race for Moderator
(RNS) A fourth person has announced her candidacy for moderator of the 212th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA) after receiving an endorsement from a California presbytery last weekend.
The Rev. Jill Martinez, 49, was endorsed Jan. 29 by the Presbytery of Santa Barbara. Martinez, a Mexican-American, joins three other candidates for the position: Elder Youngil Cho of Raleigh, N.C. (New Hope Presbytery), the Rev. John L. Herndon III of Huntsville, Ala. (North Alabama Presbytery), and the Rev. Syngman Rhee of Richmond, Va. (Atlantic Korean-American Presbytery). Cho and Rhee are both Korean, while Herndon is African-American.
Martinez currently serves as the Santa Barbara area manager for a non-profit organization that provides housing for low-income families in three California counties. She previously worked with the Presbytery of San Diego as its associate executive presbyter for mission.
She is also a former member of the governing body of the National Council of Churches, as well as the Council on Presbyterian Seminaries and the General Assembly’s Financial Issues Task Force.
Martinez, who once worked for a Presbyterian orphanage in Mexico, also chaired the committee to produce the Spanish Language Presbyterian Hymnal and delivered the keynote address for the Presbyterian Women’s Gathering.
She earned a bachelor’s degree in sociology from the University of Hawaii and a master of divinity degree from San Francisco Theological Seminary, where she is pursuing a doctoral degree in ministry.
Religious Environmental Partnership Founder Honored
(RNS) Paul Gorman, the founder and executive director of the National Religious Partnership for the Environment was named Thursday (Feb. 3) as the recipient of a $250,000 Heinz Award.
Gorman was one of five recipients of awards given annually by the Heinz Family Foundation. He won in the environmental category.
“Paul Gorman has helped change the discourse about the fate of the Earth by introducing spiritual and moral values into what has all too often been a debate between scientific views and hypothetical economic issues,” said Teresa Heinz, foundation chairman. “Through his work with the National Religious Partnership for the Environment, he serves as a much-needed reminder of the obligations of stewardship, whatever our religious tradition.”
Founded in 1993, the partnership is an alliance of faith groups working to increase awareness of environmental issues among major American faith groups. The alliance’s partners are the U.S. Catholic Conference, the National Council of Churches, the Evangelical Environmental Network and the Coalition on Environment and Jewish Life.
Methodist Minister Convicted of Child Porn Charges
(RNS) A former Methodist minister could spend the next 15 years in prison after admitting he received child pornography on his computer.
Lawrence Winford Kilbourn, 43, pleaded guilty Wednesday (Feb. 2) in federal court to receiving the illegal computer files.
He was arrested last fall after officials found more than 15,000 computer files and 200 videotapes in his church-owned home. Authorities were tipped off by Kilbourn’s 17-year-old daughter, who discovered in her father’s home a videotape of a child being fondled by a man she thought could be him.
In October, Kilbourn resigned as pastor of Forest Hills United Methodist Church in Tampa, Fla., where he had worked for a little more than a year.
Kilbourn will stand trial in April for sexual battery on a child under the age of 16 in connection with the alleged videotaped molestation. Authorities are also investigating whether Kilbourn had improper contact with children in the church’s day care or with those from his church youth group.
Quote of the Day: Gary Bauer, Conservative Religious and Political Activist
(RNS) “I decided to run for president because I believe our American destiny is in jeopardy. It is in jeopardy because we have, for the second time in our history, excluded an entire class of human beings from the unalienable rights with which we have all been endowed by God, the Author of Liberty. Our courts have excluded the unborn from the first of all rights, the right to life. … This will stick in our throats until we make it right. … Widening the circle of liberty to include the unborn will be the great civil rights struggle of the 21st century.”
_ Conservative religious and political activist Gary Bauer in his speech Friday (Feb. 4) dropping out the race for the Republican presidential nomination.
DEA END RNS
