c. 2000 Religion News Service

Postal Service to Issue Eid-al-Fitr Stamp

(RNS) Earning praise from several Muslim organizations in the United States, the U.S. Postal Service on Monday (Nov. 13) unveiled a stamp commemorating the Muslim holiday of Eid-al-Fitr, a feast that marks the end of fasting for the holy month of Ramadan.

The stamp also commemorates Eid al-Adha, which marks the Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca.

The holidays join Thanksgiving and Christmas as the only ones honored with commemorative stamps for the year 2001.

“This is one sign that the Muslim presence in America is being recognized,” said Omar Ahmad, board chairman of the Council on American-Islamic Relations. CAIR joined the American Muslim Council, the Islamic Institute and the Islamic Supreme Council of America in praising the move.

The stamp will be available in October 2001, just before the start of Ramadan for that year.

On Eve of Clinton Visit, Group Says Vietnam Persecuting Christians

(RNS) Days before President Clinton is scheduled to visit Vietnam, a U.S.-based human rights group claims to have documents showing a government campaign “to arrest and reverse the country’s growing Christian movements.”

“Although Vietnam is a signatory to international conventions on human rights that guarantee religious freedom, these documents provide irrefutable evidence that repression continues to drive day-to-day policy and practice,” the Center for Religious Freedom, an arm of the human rights organization Freedom House, said Monday (Nov. 13).

Several of the documents refer to the Protestant movement among the Hmong and other tribal peoples as being “hostile,” “dangerous” and a “problem.”

One of the documents, which date from early February 1998 to June 6 of this year, questioned the role of Christian churches in the downfall of communism in Eastern Europe, and suggested the government “work hard to control religious leaders, officials and missionaries” and “be sure that the `religious law’ yields to the `secular law.”’

Another document prohibits religious study groups and encourages informing “government officials if a stranger arrives to preach religion.” Also included among the documents was a pledge asking Christians to renounce their faith.

“These documents are the smoking gun,” said Nina Shea, director of the Center for Religious Freedom. “They show that church closures, arrests and Bible burnings are not isolated acts of overzealous cadres, but are the policy directives of the Vietnamese Communist Party and state religious officials. They give the lie to Vietnam government claims that the state has liberalized religious freedom in recent years. We urge President Clinton to raise religious freedom concerns with top Vietnamese officials on his impending trip.”

Clinton is scheduled to begin his three-day tour of Vietnam Thursday, the first time a U.S. president has visited the country in 31 years. Some human rights organizations such as Human Rights Watch have asked the president to address Vietnam’s human rights record while he is in the country.

Meanwhile, a Buddhist monk detained last month by Vietnamese authorities for distributing aid to flood victims in southern Vietnam said Monday he has been allowed to resume his work in the Mekong Delta.

Thich Quang Do, 73, had been accused of breaking state laws that permit only state-coordinated aid relief, according to Reuters. Those who support Do, the deputy head of the banned Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam, said they believe the state’s change of heart was influenced by Clinton’s upcoming visit.

“The authorities are very afraid of publicity if they arrest him,” said Vo Tran Nhat, executive secretary of the International Buddhist Information Bureau, based in Paris.

British Government Proposes Lowering Taxes on Church Repairs

(RNS) To the delight of British churches, especially the Church of England, Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown has announced that in his next budget he will propose reducing value added tax (VAT) on repairing and maintaining church buildings from the present 17.5 percent to 5 percent. The proposal has to be approved by the European Commission in Brussels.

It has been a long-standing complaint of the Church of England, responsible for the upkeep of the vast majority of the country’s historic churches, that it has to pay VAT on church repairs whereas no VAT is charged on building a new church.

That makes it cheaper to raze a historic church and build a new one than to maintain the old building.

The same anomaly applies to housing and is a sore point with the owners of historic houses, some of which are quite modest dwellings that simply have the distinction of not having fallen down over the two, three or four centuries since they were built.

The Church of England’s annual expenditure on maintaining its buildings is well over $150 million a year, including VAT of over $30 million.

The Church of England estimates that the VAT bill for all the various denominations of the United Kingdom _ England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland _ is nearly $75 million a year.

Welcoming the chancellor’s initiative, Archbishop of Canterbury George Carey described VAT on church repairs as “a heavy and unjust burden on a great many parishes and congregations” and one which is not in the interest of caring for the buildings.

Gay Rights, Freedom of Religion Clash at Canada’s Supreme Court

(RNS) The principle of freedom of religion clashed with the rights of homosexuals when the Supreme Court of Canada heard arguments Thursday (Nov. 9) in a landmark case that centers on an evangelical Christian school in Langley, British Columbia.

Canada’s largest Catholic and evangelical organizations actively supported Trinity Western University in its battle before the nation’s top court in Ottawa over whether its rule banning homosexual behavior should bar it from being permitted to train teachers for public schools.

However, the British Columbia College of Teachers, which is responsible for disciplining the province’s 50,000 educators, has maintained in court for four years that Trinity-trained students might stigmatize and discriminate against public school students who are homosexual in violation of the Canadian Charter of Rights.

Trinity is one of only a few private universities in Canada, where, unlike in the United States, virtually all major post-secondary institutions are run by provincial governments.

Trinity Vice President Guy Saffold said his Christian liberal arts school should have the religious freedom to forbid homosexual behavior at the same time it teaches its 2,600 students that Christian faith demands they love and respect homosexuals.

Trinity’s denunciation of homosexual acts is included in a “community standards” statement requiring all students and faculty to refrain from practices that include drunkenness, swearing, cheating, stealing, abortion, involvement in the occult and such “sexual sins” as viewing pornography, premarital sex and adultery.

Claiming that religious schools have the right to follow their religious beliefs, even if they restrict homosexuals’ behavior, Saffold said he hopes Canada’s top court will make it clear that public bodies such as the College of Teachers “may not employ discriminatory practices that are contrary to civil liberties and undermine religious freedom.”

After hearing arguments from lawyers from all sides, the nine-member Supreme Court of Canada, as is customary, reserved its judgment until an unspecified later date.

The British Columbia Civil Liberties Association, normally a staunch defender of homosexual rights, surprised many by siding with Trinity.

It intervened before the nation’s top court on behalf of the Christian school, arguing that, although many people may not like evangelicals’ open condemnation of homosexuality, the school should not be sanctioned for its religious views.

The Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops and the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada, which together represent more than 15 million Canadians _ almost half the national population _ also appeared as intervenors on behalf of Trinity.

The College of Teachers was supported in the nation’s highest court by the Ontario Secondary School Teachers Federation and the group Equality for Gays and Lesbians Everywhere (EGALE).

Pope Urges Caution on Biotechnology

(RNS) Pope John Paul II has called the existence of hunger in the world in the year 2000 “an intolerable scandal,” but he urged caution on the use of biotechnology in agricultural production.

The 80-year-old Roman Catholic pontiff spoke at Holy Year celebrations Saturday and Sunday (Nov. 11 and 12) marking the Jubilee of the Agricultural World and the church’s Day of Thanksgiving for the Gifts of Creation.

“Every man, every people, has the right to live from the fruits of the Earth,” the pope declared. “It is an intolerable scandal that at the start of the new millennium very many people are still reduced to hunger and life in conditions unworthy of man.

“We can no longer limit ourselves to academic reflections. We must remove this shame from humanity with appropriate political and economic choices of planetary respite,” he said.

But the pope urged caution on putting into production controversial bioengineered crops. He warned that if the full scientific and ethical implications of genetic engineering were not understood, it could turn out to be a “disaster.”

Quoting from the biblical Book of Genesis, he said, “God blessed them, and God said to them, `Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the Earth and subdue it; and have domination over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air.”

“If an irresponsible culture of domination with ecologically devastating consequences is affirmed in regard to natural resources, especially under the pressure of industrialization, this is not in keeping with the design of God,” the pope said.

Genesis, he said, “consigns the Earth to the use, not the abuse, of man. It makes of man not the absolute arbiter of the governing of the Earth but the collaborator with the Creator, a stupendous mission but one also marked by precise confines that cannot be crossed with impunity.

“It is a principle to remember when it comes to promoting agricultural production with the application of biotechnology, which cannot be evaluated only on the basis of immediate economic interests,” John Paul said.

“It is necessary to subject it in advance to rigorous scientific and ethical checking to prevent it ending up in disaster for the health of man and the future of the Earth,” he said.

Lutheran Bishop Won’t Discipline Church With Gay Pastor

(RNS) A bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America has decided he will not file disciplinary charges against a Berkeley, Calif., congregation for deciding to call a gay man as its pastor.

The University Lutheran Chapel called the Rev. Jeff Johnson to be its pastor in September 1999. That decision could have brought disciplinary action because Johnson was not on the official clergy roster of the denomination.

The Rev. Robert W. Mattheis, bishop of the ELCA Sierra Pacific Synod in Oakland, Calif., revealed his decision in a Sept. 29 letter, the denomination announced Nov. 10.

The bishop censured the congregation earlier this year for calling Johnson despite the fact he was not on the clergy roster. Johnson’s 1990 ordination was not recognized by the denomination because he did not agree to live according to the “Vision and Expectations of the Ordained Ministry,” the ELCA document defining standards for its clergy.

Mattheis said his censure “remains in place,” despite the lack of disciplinary charges. He dropped his previous recommendation that campus ministry funding be withheld from University Lutheran Chapel.

“I will utilize the resources of ULC as we think through missional issues relating to the pastoral ministry of gay and lesbian persons who cannot subscribe to the Vision and Expectations document of the ELCA,” the bishop said.

Mattheis acknowledged that his decision would please some and disappoint others.

“Long ago, as the parent of young children, I came to the conclusion that whenever I was faced with indecision regarding how I would respond to a child’s behavior, I would always err on the side of grace,” he said.

“If I could not decide whether punishment or hugs were the best path, I would always choose hugs. … I’m referring to those times when you are trying to find your way, and you can make a compelling argument both ways. Hugs win.”

Baptist Theologian James McClendon Dead at 76

(RNS) Baptist theologian and educator James William McClendon Jr. died Oct. 30 in Altadena, Calif.

McClendon, 76, had been in declining health for two years, reported Associated Baptist Press, an independent news service.

He had taught at numerous theological schools and universities and served in the last 10 years as a scholar-in-residence at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, Calif. He completed the third of a three-volume work on systematic theology on his deathbed.

Kyle Childress, a longtime friend of McClendon, said the theologian enjoyed being a Baptist in multicultural and theologically diverse settings. He taught at Catholic and Episcopal schools after he was asked to leave a Southern Baptist school early in his career for helping raise money for a student to march with the late Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

“Jim had the great ability to have an in-depth conversation with the postmodernist philosophers and theologians, and at the same time he could sit in a Sunday-school class and have conversations with lay people in a way that light bulbs were going on in their heads saying, `Yeah, that makes sense,”’ said Childress, pastor of Austin Heights Baptist Church in Nacogdoches, Texas. “I think that’s the mark of a great teacher.”

Quote of the Day: Pop Singer Ricky Martin

(RNS) “Before I go to a country, I spend a week reading up on its history. If I’m going to India, I’ll read about Hinduism. If I’m going to an Asian country, Buddhism. For Israel, Judaism. It’s all enchanting, because the ultimate goal is to get closer to God. That gives me a lot of peace.”

_ Pop singer Ricky Martin in an interview in USA Today published Monday (Nov. 13).

DEA END RNS