c. 2000 Religion News Service

Catholic Bishops Want Vatican to Name King a Martyr

(RNS) American Catholic bishops have asked the Vatican to name slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. a 20th century martyr for Christianity, according to the Boston Globe.

King, along with four church women murdered in El Salvador in 1980, is among 10,000 people around the world nominated for recognition as 20th century martyrs by Pope John Paul II.”To think that his life of service and giving has been recognized, it’s very humbling to me,”said Christine King Farris, sister of the Baptist minister who was assasinated in 1968.

Those chosen as martyrs will be selected by a special Vatican commission, and will be honored in Rome in a May 7 ceremony, part of the Jubilee 2000 celebration marking Christianity’s 2,000th anniversary.

The group honored in Rome will include both Catholics and non-Catholics, and will be separate from the martyrs officially granted sainthood by the Roman Catholic Church.

Paul Henderson, director of the U.S. bishop’s office for Jubilee 2000, said the recognition granted to non-Catholics represents the pope’s wish for an inclusive celebration of Christianity.”One of the Holy Father’s emphases for the jubilee year is that it is not just a Catholic event but a celebration of 2,000 years of Christianity, for all,”said Henderson.

Daniel Boyarin, a professor at the University of California at Berkeley and author of `Dying for God: Martyrdom and the Making of Christianity and Judaism, hailed the pope’s decision.”For the pope to recognize non-Catholic martyrs is a very important ecumenical move,”Boyarin said.”It was only a few centuries ago when Catholics and Protestants were burning each other at the stake.”

Florida’s Bible History Classes Challenged

(RNS) Contending that Bible history classes in 14 Florida public school districts are”an open invitation”to school districts to violate the Constitution, People for the American Way has asked the state education department to remove the classes from a list of state-approved courses.”There are two critical problems with what they’re promoting: their curriculum presents the Bible from a Christian perspective, and it presents the Bible as history,”said Judith Schaeffer, deputy legal director for the foundation.”Both of those are unconstitutional in a public school.” In a report released Thursday (Jan. 13), the national nonprofit foundation claimed that 14 public school districts in Florida that have taught Bible history courses in high schools since 1997 were violating a 1963 Supreme Court ruling allowing public schools to teach the Bible”objectively as part of a secular program of education.” The classes are anything but objective, the report claims. According to one district’s lesson plan, Satan is the father of Jews, said Elliot Mincberg, legal director of the 300,000-member Washington-based group dedicated to defending constitutional and civil rights. Another course teaches biblical events _ such as the creation of humanity and the resurrection of Jesus _ as historical fact, he said.”They teach the Bible as if it were history,”said Mincberg.”Those things described in the Bible are events that are accepted by millions of people on faith, and appropriately so, but they’re not historical fact. To treat the Bible as a history book is wrong.” The report has prompted at least one district to take a closer look at its Bible history courses.”I’ve asked our district to survey our high schools to find out which schools, if any, are teaching those courses,”said Glenn Reynolds, superintendent of Florida’s Polk County School District, the state’s eighth-largest with 19 high schools and 78,000 students.”We’ve taught Bible courses for many years and they have been legitimate courses _ they fall within state frameworks. But we’ll look again at the course frameworks and teacher lesson plans to be sure we’re not in violation of any constitutional safeguards.” One school district said the Bible history courses in question are no longer offered at its schools.”We no longer teach any courses in bible history _ we stopped about two years ago,”said Charles McAulay, assistant superintendent of curriculum at the Marion County School District.”They were elective courses, and in order to teach an elective course you need students to request the class and you need a qualified teacher _ we ran out of both.”

Officials of 22 Christian Churches to Join Pope in Ecumenical Service

(RNS) Representatives of 22 Christian churches will join Pope John Paul II next week in a Holy Year service that will mark the largest such ecumenical gathering since the Second Vatican Council of the 1960s, Vatican officials said Friday (Jan. 14).

Delegations from churches that broke with Rome in the 5th, 11th and 16th centuries will take part Tuesday (Jan. 18) in the ceremonial opening of the Holy Door of the Basilica of St. Paul’s-Without-the-Walls and will concelebrate a Liturgy of the Word.

Both the Russian and Greek Orthodox churches were among Orthodox churches accepting the pope’s invitation although both have refused a papal visit. The Greek Orthodox Church sent a layman from the faculty of the University of Athens.

Others attending will include the Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury George Carey and leaders of the World Lutheran Federation, World Methodist Council, Disciples of Christ, Pentecostal Church, World Council of Churches and Union of Utrecht Catholic Church.

The Protestant Waldensian Church of Italy and the World Reformed Alliance will boycott the service to protest the pope’s stress on the granting of indulgences during Holy Year, a key issue in the Protestant Reformation.”We must respect the convictions and difficulties of our brothers, and they must respect ours. Respect is the basis of ecumenism,”Bishop Walter Kasper, secretary of the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of Christian Unity, told a Vatican news conference.

The service, heavily laden with symbols of the search for unity, will be the first of a series of ecumenical events in Rome and elsewhere in the world during the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, celebrated annually Jan. 18-25.

The pope customarily opens the week with a service at St. Paul’s because it was in that basilica, originally built by Constantine in the 4th century on the site of St. Paul’s tomb, that Pope John XXIII called Vatican II on Jan. 25, 1959.”The presence of 22 delegations represents the largest concentration of Christian churches after those held on the occasion of the Ecumenical Council Vatican II,”said Archbishop Crescenzio Sepe, secretary general of the Vatican’s Committee for the Great Jubilee of the Year 2000.

Report: China Jails Retired Air Force General for Falun Gong Ties

(RNS) A retired, high-ranking Chinese Air Force general has reportedly been sentenced to 17 years in jail on charges he played a key role in the banned Falun Gong spiritual meditation movement, a human rights group reported Friday (Jan. 14)

The general, Yu Changxin, 74, is a former professor at the Air Force Command Institute and reportedly was secretly tried Jan. 6 by the Air Force Military Court, the Hong Kong-based Information Center of Human Rights and Democratic Movement in China said.

A spokesman for the Ministry of Defense refused to confirm the report, the Associated Press reported.

The sect, founded by Li Hongzhi, who now lives in exile in the United States, combines elements of Buddhism, Taoism and qigong, a Chinese meditation and exercise practice.

Yu was accused of being a power behind the scenes in helping Li publish and sell the group’s materials.

The government banned the organization in July, apparently alarmed by its organizational ability and large following.

Church Council Head Warns Taxes May Be in Canadian Churches’ Future

(RNS) The only city in Canada believed to tax the property of religious organizations has backed down.

The little town of Armstrong, British Columbia, 300 miles northeast of Vancouver, decided this week to repeal its one-year-old decision to tax its eight churches and six charity organizations.

But the head of the Canadian Council of Churches, Janet Somerville, said in Toronto that Armstrong’s public struggle over taxes could be the harbinger of things to come for Canadian religious organizations.

Although Somerville said she was pleased that Armstrong officials voted unanimously on Monday (Jan. 10) to kill the extremely rare property tax on nonprofit organizations, she predicted the next two years will see a major debate across the country over whether to tax religious groups.”This is a fascinating story,”said Somerville, general secretary of the Canadian Council of Churches, umbrella organization for the nation’s mainline Protestant, Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches.

Somerville said she has never heard of any other Canadian municipality taxing religious property.”Although I’m grateful Armstrong will no longer tax its churches, I can see why people would want to. Canadians are so polite and don’t say anything. But a lot of Canadians have thought churches should be taxed and just been too restrained to say anything.” Armstrong Mayor Jerry Oglow said Wednesday that councillors repealed the new tax on religious property in response to a November plebiscite that revealed 72 percent of residents opposed it.

Halbrooks Named to Head The Divinity School in Rochester, N.Y.

(RNS) G. Thomas Halbrooks, dean of the faculty at Baptist Theological Seminary in Richmond, Va., has been named president of The Divinity School, a theological seminary in Rochester, N.Y., related to American Baptist Churches USA.

Halbrooks, who succeeds James Evans Jr., will take office on July 1, 2000.

An ordained American Baptist minister, Halbrooks earned a divinity degree from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, a doctoral degree from Emory University, and completed one year of study at Oxford University in England.

He helped establish the Baptist Theological Seminary in 1991.

David Stowe, UCC Mission Leader, Dies at 80

(RNS) The Rev. David M. Stowe, executive vice president emeritus of the United Church Board for World Ministries, the overseas mission arm of the United Church of Christ, died Monday (Jan. 10) in New Jersey of prostate cancer. Stowe was 80.

Ordained in 1943, Stowe served as executive vice president of the United Church Board from 1971 to 1985.

He graduated from the University of California at Los Angeles in 1940, and earned a divinity degree and a doctoral degree in theology from Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley, Calif.

The Iowa native also worked with the National Council of Churches, serving as executive secretary of the Division of Foreign Missions from 1963 until 1965 and as associate general secretary of the Council from 1965 until 1970. He served as educational secretary at the national headquarters of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, now part of the World Board, and also worked on its behalf as a missionary in China. He also worked as chaplain and chair of the department of religion at Carleton College in Northfield, Minn.

Quote of the day: the Rev. Gerald Durley of Atlanta.

(RNS)”One person even asked if I had ever heard her say the word `Jesus’! Now that is ridiculous.” Atlanta pastor Gerald Durley who has talked at length with Jane Fonda on the calls he has fielded from reporters and others on whether Fonda’s separation from Ted Turner was prompted by her becoming a born-again Christian. He was quoted in USA Today on Thursday (Jan. 13).

DEA END RNS