c. 2000 Religion News Service
Sources Say Wright Offers to Withdraw As Chaplain Nominee
(RNS) The Rev. Charles Wright, the House chaplain nominee caught in an ongoing controversy, has offered to withdraw his name from consideration, Republican sources said.
The sources said Wright and House Speaker Dennis Hastert held an unannounced, private meeting Tuesday, the Associated Press reported.
Wright, whose nomination has been up in the air for several months, made his offer amid indications that Hastert was quickly moving to determine a replacement.
Asked by Religion News Service Thursday about the status of his nomination, Wright said: “I really can’t speak to that right at this moment.”
John Feehery, Hastert’s spokesman, did not immediately return a phone call seeking comment.
The Associated Press said Wright decided to offer his withdrawal without any pressure from Hastert.
Hastert has long voiced support for Wright, a Presbyterian Church (USA) minister. But some prominent Catholics have questioned whether anti-Catholic bias figured in Wright being favored over Catholic priest Timothy O’Brien.
The report of a bipartisan search committee showed a “final tally” of six semi-finalists with O’Brien receiving the most votes _ 14 _ and Wright getting the third-highest number _ 9.5.
Pollster: Statistics Show No Spiritual Revival
(RNS) California-based pollster George Barna reports that notions of major American spiritual revival, and particularly spiritual awakening among men, are mythical.
“There does not seem to be revival taking place in America,” Barna said in a statement released with an annual survey that showed little change in religious beliefs and behavior tracked by his Barna Research Group.
“Whether that is measured by church attendance, born-again status or theological purity, the statistics simply do not reflect a surge of any noticeable proportions,” Barna said. “The increase in Bible reading may be setting the stage for such a revival, but it does not appear to be occurring at the moment.”
Barna’s organization reports that Bible reading was popular in the early 1990s, then fell out of favor later in the decade. Now, it reports that 40 percent of adults read the Bible in a typical week.
Barna said there has not been a sizable increase in evidence of Christian men’s spiritual activity.
“There is reason to believe that America experienced a small increase in the proportion of men who are born again between 1990 and 2000,” he said. But he added, “The increase in the proportion of women who are born again was double that of men during the past decade.
“Church attendance among men has dropped in the past decade, as has Bible reading, Sunday school attendance and church volunteerism. Some good things have happened among men during the ’90s, but it does not appear that there has been a massive reawakening of the male soul in the last 10 years.”
The Ventura, Calif.-based organization also reported that 40 percent of adults attend a church service on a typical Sunday. That figure is relatively unchanged since 1994 but is a significant drop from the early ’90s when close to half of all adults attended churches on Sunday.
The survey showed that born-again Christians continue to represent 41 percent of adults. The Barna Research Group defines born-again Christians as “people who say they have made a personal commitment to Jesus Christ that is still important in their life today and who say they know they will go to heaven after they die because they have confessed their sins and accepted Jesus Christ as their savior.”
The survey results are based on telephone interviews with a random nationwide sample of 1,002 adults and have a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.
Mennonite Churches Narrowly Vote to Stay With Proposed Merger
(RNS) A group of Mennonite churches came within 10 votes of a decision not to join a proposed merger between the two major Mennonite branches next summer.
The Mennonite Church and the General Conference Mennonite Church plan to merge next summer to become the Mennonite Church USA, which will be the nation’s largest Mennonite body.
On Saturday (March 18), delegates from churches in the Eastern District Conference of the General Conference Mennonite Church were asked to vote on whether or not to join the proposed national body. Delegates from 26 congregations voted 114 to 104 to stay with the merger plan.
The Mennonites are a small, conservative denomination with historic ties to the Amish. The church is divided into roughly regional conferences, which are much like synods or dioceses in other Christian churches.
Opponents to the merger said there were major differences over the authority of Scripture and that the new church stressed “pluralism and relativism where more uniform doctrine should be applied,” said the Rev. Bob Gerhart, a Mennonite pastor opposed to the merger, according to the Mennonite Weekly Review, a church newspaper.
Like many other Protestant denominations, the Mennonites have been wrestling with the issue of homosexuality. Conservative members want the church to reaffirm its historic position against homosexuality before the merger, while more liberal members want the church to welcome gays and lesbians into church life.
The Rev. Warren Tyson, the minister for the Eastern District Conference, said that while Saturday’s vote was not directly centered on homosexuality, it reflected the concerns of some members that the new church’s positions on the infallibility of scripture “was less than foundational.”
Tyson said he does not expect churches to leave the conference, at least not before next summer’s meeting.
“I think most churches will stay until July to see what is presented for membership guidelines,” Tyson said.
Update: Ugandan Government to Investigate Suicide Deaths
(RNS) Uganda will appoint a commission to look into the deaths of hundreds of members of a spiritual group who died in a fire last week, and examine a number of other religious fringe groups in the country, the nation’s president announced Thursday (March 23), according to the Associated Press.
“There are quite a number of these groups,” President Yoweri Museveni said. “When people have no answers, they start looking for answers in metaphysics … for answers in the supernatural. By vigorously promoting investment (in rural areas), we will be able to provide solutions to some of these frustrations, but not all.”
On March 17, at least 200 members of the Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God died in the remote town of Kanungu in southwestern Uganda. Members of the group _ which predicted the world’s end in the year 2000 _ barricaded themselves inside their church and set the building on fire.
The Ten Commandments group, which supported strict obedience to the Ten Commandments, was formed in the late 1980s with the help of former Roman Catholic priest Joseph Kibweteere, who claimed to have made a cassette tape recording of a conversation between Jesus and the Virgin Mary in which Mary predicts the end of the world because people do not follow the Ten Commandments.
Officials are uncertain exactly how many people died in the blaze, but estimate the death toll could be as high as 500 _ including some people who did not belong to the group and at least 78 children. Police are investigating the deaths of the children as murder cases.
On Tuesday (March 21), searchers discovered six bodies in a latrine pit near the religious group’s compound. Police spokesman Assuman Mugenyi said the bodies appeared to have been buried for at least two weeks, and an exact cause of death has not been determined.
Police have identified the body of one group leader among those who died in the church fire, Dominic Kataribabo, 32. Despite initial police reports to the contrary, police have not located the body of another church leader, 40-year-old Cledonia Mwerinde.
Mwerinde and Kibweteere, 68, may have left the church camp before the fire, according to a 17-year-old church member who said he had left the church building to find food. Reuters reported that Ahimbisibwe, a man whose sister and mother died in the fire, told New Vision newspaper he had seen Kibweteere and Mwerinde carrying small bags as they left the church compound early the morning of March 17.
Minister of State for Regional Cooperation Amama Mbabazi said he had met Ahimbisibwe as well as several local residents who said they saw Mwerinde leave the church group’s compound.
“My gut feeling is that Kibweteere and his colleagues are on the run,” said Mbabazi.
Police spokesman Mugenyi discounted the rumors.
“I really doubt whether this man is still alive _ I don’t think there is anywhere he could get sanctuary after committing a crime like that,” he said.
President Museveni said two investigations into the Ten Commandments movement conducted since 1994 did not reveal anything troublesome about the group, according to the Associated Press. He said results of the second investigation may have been hidden by a regional officer connected to the group.
But according to Reuters, the president said a recent investigation into the group’s activities found they were a “threat to security,” but those findings were suppressed by a local district commissioner who did not reveal the information to higher authorities.
Museveni also said there would be an inquiry into the police investigation of the case, which some have charged is cursory.
On Wednesday (March 22), leaders of the Ten Commandment Movement _ some of whom were ex-communicated from the Roman Catholic Church _ were denounced by Roman Catholic leaders in Uganda, who interrupted an annual retreat to issue the statement in a response to charges Roman Catholic leaders were wrong to ostracize the group.
Bishops called the leaders “obsessed” and said church members were “misled” into an “obnoxious form of religiosity completely rejected by the Catholic Church,” the Washington Post reported. The bishops also said the church’s leaders were excommunicated because they had “erred and broke the discipline of the church.”
Update: Abducted Sierra Leone Aid Workers Released From Hospital
(RNS) Two relief agency staff members who were reportedly shot and kidnapped earlier this month in Sierra Leone have been released from an agency clinic.
Aaron Kargbo and Aruna Sherrif, workers with the Adventist Development and Relief Agency in Sierra Leone, were released March 17 and March 14, respectively, from the agency’s clinic 18 miles from Freetown. The two “are doing fine,” according to Prince Cummings, the agency’s Sierra Leone country director.
Kargbo and Sherrif were abducted March 7 somewhere between Port Loko and Freetown, and were found alongside a road between the two towns a day later by United Nations peacekeepers. They were taken to the Port Loko government hospital and listed in critical condition for several days.
“It is not certain why the two men were targeted, but according to Aaron and Aruna, the attackers claimed they wanted food and other benefits,” said Cummings.
Kargbo, a three-year member of the relief agency’s staff in Sierra Leone, and Sherrif, who joined the agency’s staff about two months ago, both worked at a center for rehabilitation for ex-combatants in Port Loko. Agency workers in Port Loko reported Kargbo and Sherrif missing after the two did not return from a journey March 7 to an agency field office in Freetown.
The Adventist Development and Relief Agency is part of the humanitarian arm of the Seventh-day Adventist Church.
Murphy-O’Connor Installed at Westminster Cathedral
(RNS) Archbishop Cormac Murphy-O’Connor stressed the theme of Christian unity as he was installed Wednesday (March 22) as the new Archbishop of Westminster and de facto head of the Roman Catholic Church in England.
O’Connor’s installation Mass was attended by a large number of guests from other churches, including Archbishop of Canterbury George Carey, the head of the worldwide Anglican Communion. Carey welcomed O’Connor on behalf of the other two co-presidents of Churches Together in England and pledged to work with him for Christian unity.
O’Connor becomes the fourth co-president of the ecumenical body, which links all the mainstream English churches.
Among the dignitaries, Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks watched the proceedings on television in a room in the Archbishop’s House.
The ceremony was evidence of the mainstreaming of the Roman Catholic Church in English life. The entire ceremony was broadcast live by BBC television, as had been the funeral of Cardinal Basil Hume, O’Connor’s predecessor.
Two members of the royal family were present _ the Duchess of Kent and Princess Michael of Kent _ in addition to a personal representative of the Prince of Wales.
Recalling that “tears came to my eyes” when he watched Pope John Paul II and then-Archbishop of Canterbury Robert Runcie praying together in Canterbury Cathedral during the pope’s 1982 visit to Britain, O’Connor said he thought to himself, “This is how it ought to be, this is how the enmities, the misunderstandings, the hurts of the past must end _ in common prayer, in a communion that is real, and in a common witness to the one Christ in whom we are already one.”
O’Connor said he was aware of the obstacles and difficulties on the path to Christian unity.
“The road to Christian unity is like a road with no exit, a pilgrimage of grace we make together,” he continued. “More and more, it seems to me that all of us who profess Jesus Christ must speak with one voice to give witness to him in this strange and wonderful new world in which we live. I pledge myself to do so with my whole heart.”
Quote of the Day: The Rev. Jerry Falwell
(RNS) “I feel the religious conservatives of America have fallen asleep again to the plight of the nation.”
The Rev. Jerry Falwell, explaining in an interview why he has begun a “People of Faith 2000” campaign and re-entered the political scene to help George W. Bush get elected president. He was quoted in the March 23 edition of USA Today.
KRE END RNS
