c. 2000 Religion News Service

Alliance of Baptists Becomes Member of National Council of Churches

(RNS) The Alliance of Baptists, a moderate group that formed in opposition to the conservative direction of the Southern Baptist Convention, has become the 36th member communion of the National Council of Churches.

Delegates to the NCC’s General Assembly in Atlanta voted unanimously Thursday (Nov. 17) to accept the alliance, a 60,000-member organization that is based in Washington.

Stan Hastey, executive director of the alliance, thanked the General Assembly for welcoming his organization.

“We have looked forward to this day from the day of our founding, February 12, 1987, when our founders, 33 brave women and men, declared … that we commit ourselves to the larger body of Jesus Christ,” said Hastey. “Today we lean into and try to live up to that initial commitment.”

Hastey said his organization belongs in the ecumenical body because it is committed to historical Baptist principles and inclusivity.

Presbyterian Court Allows Church to Elect Openly Gay Elder

(RNS) A regional Presbyterian Church (USA) court has upheld the right of a Connecticut church to install an openly gay elder, although the case still faces a struggle in a national church court.

The case involves the installation of Wayne Osborne as an elder of First Presbyterian Church in Stamford, Conn., almost a decade ago. He was re-elected to a three-year term nearly three years ago, but legal wrangling has prevented Osborne from actually serving as elder since his first election.

Meeting in Newark, N.J., on Nov. 6, the church’s Synod of the Northeast upheld Osborne’s election and said the Stamford church had performed a thorough examination of his eligibility to serve as elder. Osborne received the same verdict from a local church court representing churches in Southern New England.

The case hinges on church rules that prescribe “fidelity in marriage and chastity in singleness” for church officers and define marriage as between one man and one woman, which effectively excludes non-celibate gays and lesbians from church leadership.

When Osborne was first questioned by the church, he said he was “chaste in God’s eyes,” and the church and regional presbytery accepted his answer. But on appeal, the synod court said it needed more detailed answers.

Upon further questioning, Osborne refused to say whether he was sexually active, and said Scripture does not necessarily equate “chastity” with sexual abstinence. The synod court said Osborne’s second set of answers were “sufficient, procedurally and substantively.”

A spokesman for Osborne’s church said the court victory signaled that local churches can make their own decisions as to who is eligible to serve.

“Congregations and sessions have the right to install somebody that we feel is called to that office,” said Steve Hart, an elder at First Presbyterian. “That’s the bottom line.”

The case now heads _ on appeal _ to the national church’s Permanent Judicial Council, but the case will probably not be ready to be heard when the court next meets in February.

Church of England Calls for Changes in Iraqi Sanctions

(RNS) The general synod of the Church of England has called for radical changes in the United Nations-imposed sanctions on Iraq to stop making ordinary citizens pay the price of Saddam Hussein’s misdeeds.

The economic sanctions were imposed a decade ago as a result of the Gulf War following Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait.

By a vote of 255-29 the synod Thursday (Nov. 16) passed a resolution which, while noting the humanitarian crisis in Iraq is a consequence of the invasion and the government’s continued failure to comply with U.N. resolutions, went on to recognize that “after 10 years sanctions have failed to achieve their purpose and that continuing with the present sanctions policy is unlikely to yield further political dividend without creating additional human suffering.”

The synod called on the British government to do its best to ensure “that the price of securing peace and stability in the region is paid by the leadership of Iraq rather than the most vulnerable Iraqi people.”

Introducing the resolution, Bishop Humphrey Taylor of Selby said originally it had been thought sanctions would provide the Iraqi government with “a short, sharp shock” and they would be lifted within 18 months. That would have met the traditional “just war” criteria of limited ends and reasonable chance of success.

But the criterion of a reasonable chance of success is not being met, while the application of sanctions means innocent civilians, who were often victims of their own government, also became victims of the international community, Taylor said.

“The threshold of what is morally justifiable is crossed when the effects on the population are so severe and the probability of further success is so small,” Taylor told the synod. “Making civilian groups suffer in the hope of putting pressure thereby on the government of Iraq is questionable morally and also politically when that government is immune to the suffering of its own people.”

Brigham Young: No Multiple Piercings

(RNS) A new policy at Brigham Young University limits ear piercings for coeds and forbids the piercing of any other part of the body.

“Excessive ear piercing (more than two per ear) and all other body piercing are not acceptable,” according to a standards policy for female students posted on the Mormon university’s Web site.

The new rule, which will take effect May 1, became a part of the honor code last week.

“Men have always been asked to avoid piercings,” university spokeswoman Carri Jenkins told the Associated Press.

The policy addition follows recent remarks from Gordon B. Hinckley, president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, that advised against ear piercings for men and said just one set of earrings is appropriate for women.

“I know a lot of girls who, after the prophet spoke, took their earrings right out,” said Ali Anderson, a senior at the school, which is owned by the church.

Students should take the code seriously, said Jenkins, but students who do not follow the policy will probably not face suspension.

Earlier this year Brigham Young University suspended a student who they claimed broke the university’s honor code prohibiting single students from living with members of the opposite sex. Julie Stoffer, of Delafield, Wis., was suspended for the fall semester for living with four men and two women in New Orleans during filming for the MTV reality program “The Real World.”

Pope Urges Medicine to Treat Suffering Person, Not Just a Sick Body

(RNS) Pope John Paul II called on health care workers Friday (Nov. 17) to treat the suffering person in his or her entirety and not just a sick body.

The 80-year-old Roman Catholic pontiff, who himself suffers from a debilitating neurological disease, addressed participants in the 15th International Conference on Health Care and Society, organized by the Pontifical Council for Health Pastoral Care.

“The focus of attention and care by both the health care system and society must always be the person considered in the concreteness of his place in a family, work, a social context and a geographical area,” the pope said.

“Thus,” he said, “to go to see the sick means to go to see the suffering person and not simply to treat a sick body.”

John Paul said health care workers must ask themselves toward which model of medicine they are oriented: “a medicine at the service of the integral well-being of the person or instead a medicine characterized by technical and organizational efficiency.”

“Medicine that aims principally at enriching knowledge in view of its own technological efficiency betrays its original ethos, opening the door to dangerous developments,” he warned. “Only by serving the integral well-being of man can medicine contribute to its progress and happiness and not become an instrument of manipulation and death.”

Dominican Theologian Jean-Marie Tillard Dead at 73

(RNS) The Rev. Jean-Marie Tillard, a widely respected Dominican theologian who was a strong advocate of ecumenical and interfaith dialogue, has died in Ottawa, Canada, after a long illness. He was 73.

Born in France on Sept. 2, 1927, Tillard was a disciple of the Rev. Yves Congar, the French theologian who played a key role in shaping the liberal reforms of the Second Vatican Council, which met between 1962 and 1965. Tillard himself was a “peritus,” or expert, for the Canadian bishops at the council.

Tillard was the first authoritative Roman Catholic theologian to urge a re-examination of papal primacy, a major obstacle to Christian unity, without incurring the wrath of the Vatican.

Pope John Paul II called him to Rome to help prepare the 1995 encyclical “Ut Unum Sint: On Commitment to Ecumenism,” in which the pontiff expressed willingness to discuss the exercise of the papacy.

After studying with Congar at the Dominican Theological Faculty in Paris, Tillard completed his theological studies in Ottawa and taught at the University of Quebec.

Tillard was an expert on Eastern and Orthodox religious life and was deeply involved in Catholic dialogue with Anglicans and Lutherans. He served as a vice moderator on the Faith and Order Commission of the World Council of Churches from 1977 until his death and was considered one of its most incisive theologians. He also served on the Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission as well as the international groups engaging in ecumenical dialogue involving the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) and the Orthodox-Roman Catholic Commission.

His ecumenical model was of autonomous local churches joined by privileged relations with the bishop of Rome. His most important writing was in the field of ecclesiology _ the nature of the church _ and he wrote major studies on the idea of papal primacy and the idea of the church as a communion.

His books included “Church of Churches,” published in 1978; “The Bishop of Rome” (1982), which discussed papal primacy; and “An Ecclesiology of Communion and Catholicity” (1995).

“Father Jean will be remembered by his Faith and Order friends with thanksgiving for his passionate commitment to the search for the visible unity of the church, for his penetrating insights, his flair and imagination, his humor and his ability to find appropriate ways to move beyond theological expressions crafted in isolation to common theological affirmation and agreement,” said the Rev. Alan Falcolner, director of the WCC’s Faith and Order Secretariat.

Quote of the Day: The Rev. Michael Kinnamon

(RNS) “God has already made us one, prior to any decisions we make about it. Jesse Jackson and Pat Robertson are called to the same banquet whether they like it or not.”

_ Michael Kinnamon, professor at Eden Theological Seminary in St. Louis and general secretary of the Consultation on Church Union. He was quoted by the Associated Press).

DEA END RNS