c. 2000 Religion News Service

Churches Challenged Over Clinton, Gore Appearances

(RNS) Americans United for Separation of Church and State have asked the Internal Revenue Service to launch an inquiry into whether churches in Michigan and Virginia violated a federal tax law that prohibits churches from active participation in politics by allowing President Clinton and Vice President Gore to speak from their pulpits.

Americans United said by allowing Gore’s appearance during church services Sunday (Oct. 29) at the Greater Grace Temple of the Apostolic Faith in Detroit and Clinton’s appearance at the Alfred Street Baptist Church in Alexandria, Va., the churches violated the law by supporting political candidates.

“Federal tax law clearly prohibits church intervention in a political campaign, but that appears to be exactly what these churches did,” said the Rev. Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United, in a statement. “The election may be just days away, but houses of worship have no business trying to help rally support for specific candidates.”

Lynn’s organization reported that during an appearance at the Alfred Street Baptist Church, Clinton voiced his support for the presidential campaign of Gore and the re-election bid of Sen. Chuck Robb, D-Va.

Clinton’s appearance “appears to have been a campaign rally held during a church worship service that was designed to benefit certain candidates,” Lynn said, adding, “I believe this amounts to a church endorsement of the Robb and Gore campaigns.”

Gore’s Michigan appearance was similar, Americans United said.

The group also criticized remarks from Grace Temple’s pastor, Bishop Charles H. Ellis III. “We have seen in this state what Republican dominance and control will do,” Ellis told his congregation members before Gore spoke to them, according to Americans United.

Meanwhile, on Monday, Clinton spoke to some 250 African-American religious leaders gathered in the White House East Room. He said they should encourage people to choose Gore “to keep the prosperity going.”

“I want you, in the days that remain, to make sure they know what the choices are and what the consequences are,” Clinton said, according to Reuters news agency. Gore “is a good person who will be a great president,” he told them.

Court Upholds Virginia’s `Moment of Silence’

(RNS) A federal court has affirmed the constitutionality of a Virginia law requiring public school students to observe a minute of silence in class each day.

In a 15-page opinion, U.S. District Judge Claude M. Hilton rejected the American Civil Liberties Union’s contention the law violated the constitutional separation of church and state because it allowed for prayer during the moment of silence.

But Virginia insisted the 4-month-old law had a secular purpose and did not favor religion.

“The court finds that the Commonwealth’s daily observance of one minute of silence act is constitutional, the act was enacted for a secular purpose, does not advance or inhibit religion, nor is there excessive entanglement with religion,” wrote Hilton, the Washington Post reported.

“The momentary silence neither advances nor inhibits religion,” he wrote. “Students may think as they wish _ and this thinking can be purely religious in nature or purely secular in nature. All that is required is that they sit silently.”

The Civil Liberties Union plans to appeal the ruling.

“It’s a disappointing opinion because we felt there was a strong legislative history showing that this (law), from the beginning to the end, was about promoting prayer in school,” Kent Willis, executive director of the organization’s Virginia chapter, told the Washington Times.

Under the law, all public schools in Virginia must observe a daily minute of silence allowing students to “meditate, pray or engage in any other silent activity.”

While previous state law permitted a minute of silence in Virginia public schools, schools were not required to institute it.

Iranian Jews Appeal Spy Convictions

(RNS) Ten Iranian Jews convicted of spying for Israel have appealed their sentences to Iran’s prosecutor-general.

“If the prosecutor-general decides that the final sentences passed by the courts are contrary to the law, he would demand reconsideration,” said Hossein Ali Amiri, the judiciary chief of the province where the Jews went on trial. “This will be the last judicial consideration of the case.”

Amiri told the Associated Press he is not certain when the prosecutor-general will make a decision.

In July an Iranian closed court in the southern city of Shiraz found the 10 Jews guilty of passing confidential information to Israel, and sentenced the men to prison terms ranging from four to 13 years.

In September, an appeals court gave the two men who received the longest prison sentences _ shoe salesman Dani Tefilin and university professor Asher Zadmehr _ reduced terms of nine and seven years, respectively. Others were given new terms that ranged from two to nine years and included time already served.

The appeals court also decided the men were innocent of belonging to an illegal spy ring and recruiting spies for the group, but ruled the men had cooperated with Israel.

The trial sparked an international outcry from political leaders and human rights groups who expressed concern about whether the closed court judicial proceedings would be fair. Both Israel, which maintains the men are innocent, and the United States support overturning the convictions.

Cardinal Winning Urges Votes Against `Therapeutic’ Cloning

(RNS) Cardinal Thomas Winning, archbishop of Glasgow, has written every Scottish member of Parliament urging them to vote against legislation that would allow therapeutic cloning.

The letter came just before the proposal, sponsored by Liberal Democrat Dr. Evan Harris, was briefly debated _ and defeated _ Tuesday (Oct. 31) in the House of Commons.

The vote was 175 to 83 against the Harris proposal.

Harris’ bill was intended to implement proposals put forward by the British government earlier this year and on which it promised a “free vote,” where members are not bound by party discipline but are free to vote their consciences.

Stressing that the Catholic Church’s concern is for the well-being and dignity of the human person, Winning told the members: “We are not opposed to progress, we are not `anti-science’ or in any way intent on blocking medical advances. Our concerns, however, run very deep.

“I would ask you to consider for a moment, in the quiet of your own conscience, whether it can be right to allow cloning to go ahead, albeit `therapeutic’ cloning, when the simple truth is that therapeutic cloning ultimately means killing those embryos which are `raided’ for their cells. This procedure exploits human beings at the most vulnerable stage of their lives. … In moral terms it is never permissible to perform an evil act so that good may come of it.”

Nor, he argued, would therapeutic cloning speedily produce new treatments for disease. “Therapeutic cloning is, in fact, a form of scientific research at a very early stage of development. In recent days it has become increasingly clear that there is in fact no need for embryo cloning. Stem cells from adults can be used for similar purposes as stem cells from embryo clones.

“This would not involve the creation and destruction of life and is a technique which should be encouraged,” the cardinal said in his letter.

Bible Society Partners With Thomas Nelson for Bible Resources

(RNS) The International Bible Society has announced an agreement with Thomas Nelson Publishers to distribute Bibles featuring the Nashville, Tenn., publishing company’s New King James Version.

“Bringing the NKJV into the IBS family and making it available with appropriate helps for the reader at our ministry prices can significantly increase the outreach and discipleship potential of the church,” said Peter Bradley, president of the Bible society, in a statement.

More than 110 million copies of the NKJV, introduced in 1982, have been distributed by Nelson Bibles, a division of Thomas Nelson.

The Bible society, based in Colorado Springs, Colo., will begin its production of the NKJV Bibles with the scheduled January 2001 release of a paperback Bible, New Testament and Gospel of John.

“The NKJV is perfectly suited for the broad evangelical community because it accurately communicates the deep truths of the Bible to a world that is in desperate need of Jesus _ and does so in a language they can easily understand,” said Tim Jordan, NKJV spokesman, in a statement.

“We’re delighted to partner with IBS.”

Quote of the day: Tom Cronin, police chief in Coeur D’Alene, Idaho

(RNS) “It was a symbolic move. We swept them out of town.”

_ Tom Cronin, police chief of Coeur D’Alene, Idaho, on the city’s use of two loud street-sweeping trucks right behind an Aryan Nations-sponsored parade of some two dozen white supremacists on Saturday (Oct. 28). He was quoted by the Associated Press.

DEA END RNS