c. 2003 Religion News Service
Cumberland Presbyterians to Debate Display of American Flag
(RNS) A small Presbyterian denomination will debate this month whether the display of the American flag at church meetings is inappropriate for a multinational church.
The Cumberland Presbyterian Church will meet in Knoxville, Tenn., for its annual General Assembly meeting June 23-27. More than 100 delegates will meet to decide policy for the 85,000-member church.
A resolution from churches in Nashville, Tenn., would call on the church to “proudly display” the U.S. flag and nondenominational Christian flag at all General Assemblies in the United States.
The resolution says, “Following the terrorist attack on our nation on Sept. 11, 2001, there seems to be in our nation a renewed patriotism.” Some worry, however, that displaying the U.S. flag may offend non-American church members.
The Rev. Dwayne Tyus, stated clerk of the Nashville Presbytery, said the resolution was first approved last fall and then later rescinded out of fear of offending foreign church members. Tyus said it was passed a second time after amending it to apply only to meetings in the United States.
“There’s nothing wrong with patriotism,” Tyus said. “The side that was against this was not against the flag, they were just trying to look at the broader picture because the Cumberland Presbyterian Church is a multinational church” with congregations in Hong Kong, Japan, Liberia and other countries.
Tyus said some members were especially concerned because the denomination is scheduled to hold its 2008 meeting in Japan, home to former church moderator Masaharu Asayama. He added that some parishioners were concerned about displaying a secular symbol in a sacred setting.
“Whichever way it goes, if it makes it to the floor, it will be a heated thing,” he said.
The Cumberland Presbyterian Church was formed in Dickson County, Tenn., in 1810 over doctrinal differences on the nature of salvation. The church continued after some members objected to the 1906 merger with the then-Presbyterian Church.
_ Kevin Eckstrom
Lutheran Hour Ministries Faces Cutbacks in Worldwide Staff
(RNS) Lutheran Hour Ministries is facing cutbacks due to tighter budgets affected by the nation’s economic downturn.
The organization is a broadcasting ministry service of the International Lutheran Laymen’s League, which is an auxiliary of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod.
The ministry is eliminating 25 of 166 staff positions at its St. Louis headquarters, the denomination announced June 11.
It also will close 18 offices, affecting about 60 additional staff members overseas. Prior to these changes, the organization had 296 full- and part-time international staff. The changes will reduce the number of countries in which Lutheran Hour Ministries operates from 54 to 39.
Prior to these developments, 16 staffers accepted voluntary early retirement options as part of a restructuring of the organization.
“They’re (donors) saying to us, `Can you wait until things improve?”’ said Jim Telle, director of marketing communications for Lutheran Hour Ministries, in a statement. “It’s economics … that are bothering our donors.”
In April, the board of governors of International Lutheran Laymen’s League approved a 2003-04 budget of $25 million that was significantly lower than the previous year’s $31 million budget.
In an effort to keep the new budget in line with expected revenues, the restructuring has included the staff eliminations and the discontinuation of production of its “On Main Street” television and “Woman to Woman” radio programs.
“The Lutheran Hour,” the flagship program of the ministry, will continue its programming on radio and the Internet.
_ Adelle M. Banks
Roman Catholic, Orthodox Lay Reformers Hold Joint Meeting
BOSTON (RNS) Glimpsing a common goal to influence and reform their respective hierarchies, lay reformers from Roman Catholic and Orthodox denominations met for the first time earlier this month to swap insights and strategies.
Leaders from Orthodox Christian Laity in Detroit, Mich., traveled June 4 to the Newton, Mass. headquarters of Voice of the Faithful, the Roman Catholic group formed in response to last year’s clergy sex abuse scandal. The Orthodox initiated the meeting, according to Voice spokesperson Luise Dittrich, with hopes of learning from her group’s progress.
“They (in Orthodox churches) used to have lots of lay influence, and it’s slipped away over the years,” Dittrich said. “Our situation is the opposite. We never had it, but we’ve been gaining it over the past 30 years in order to make our church holy again.”
Both Orthodox and Roman Catholic Christians lay claim to being keepers of the religion’s oldest relics and rituals. Their divisions date back almost 1,000 years, to 1054, when papal authority and other issues set off an enduring split between Rome and Constantinople. To this day, neither church permits members of the other to partake of the Lord’s Supper from its priests.
Despite differences in structures and practices, however, lay reformers say they recognize a “kindred spirit.” Both groups formed in response to apparent improprieties on behalf of their leaders. The Orthodox group traces its roots to 1998 in order to correct alleged mismanagement in the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese.
Going forward, the 15 leaders at this month’s meeting resolved to share resources on the traditional roles of laity, as supported by a shared Christian tradition. They also agreed to promote lay involvement in the leadership of their respective churches and to meet again before the end of 2003.
_ G. Jeffrey MacDonald
Arson, Antagonism Plague Fledgling Protestant Church in Georgia
MOSCOW (RNS) In a double blow to the tiny Protestant minority in the former Soviet republic of Georgia, arsonists on Sunday (June 15) burned down a provincial Baptist church and an angry mob picketed a Pentecostal church in the capital, Tbilisi.
“They blocked the streets with their cars and wouldn’t let anybody through. They yelled at us, `Take your sect and get out of Georgia!,”’ Nikolai Kalutsky, pastor of the 250-member Pentecostal church, said Wednesday (June 18) by telephone from Tbilisi.
The crowd, who numbered 60 at their peak, succeeded in preventing believers from attending the 10 a.m. service and a charitable luncheon scheduled for afterwards. Kalutsky, 53, said about 20 policemen watched the daylong protest but did nothing to stop it or to help escort church members past the demonstrators.
In both the protest and the arson, Protestant leaders are pointing fingers at local priests from the country’s dominant Georgian Orthodox Church.
Kalutsky said he overheard a demonstrator conferring by mobile phone with a “Father David.” Nearly one year ago, Kalutsky’s church was the scene of a two-day demonstration led by two Orthodox priests who roughed up worshippers, sending Kalutsky’s wife to the hospital for three days with head injuries, he said.
A spokesman for the Georgian Orthodox Church said Wednesday he had not heard of any priests from his church being involved.
“What happened is unacceptable. We are indignant,” said Zurab Tskhovrebadze, adding that he spoke out Tuesday against the violence on the church’s national Radio Patriarchate program. “This will come to an end sooner or later because most (Orthodox) people do not have these feelings of hatred.”
Georgian Baptist Bishop Malkhaz Songulashvili reported in an e-mail, “The local people have already told me that they suspect the church was burned down by or with help of the local Orthodox priest.”
The Baptist church, in the town of Akhalsopeli, burned down at about 4 a.m. Sunday and will require an estimated $10,000 to reconstruct, Songulashvili wrote, noting that the congregation’s 30 families do not have such a sum.
In what some observers viewed as a positive sign that Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze was fulfilling a promise to uphold religious freedom, a Georgian court ordered the arrest earlier this month of a renegade Orthodox priest accused of leading a mob to burn tons of Baptist religious literature. But police have yet to arrest the priest, despite his appearance several times on Georgian television.
_ Frank Brown
Quote of the Day: Former Oklahoma Gov. Frank Keating
(RNS) “Still, I remain optimistic that the church _ my church _ will ultimately protect the innocent and hold the guilty accountable. The national review board, no matter who leads it, is an expression of the hopes of millions of American Catholics. As such, it can and must continue its work.”
_ Former Oklahoma Gov. Frank Keating in a column in the June 19 New York Times explaining his resignation as chairman of the national review board of lay Catholics probing the sexual abuse crisis in the church.
DEA END RNS
