c. 2003 Religion News Service
Lutherans End Meeting With Call to Protect Environment, Cancel Debt
(RNS) The Lutheran World Federation ended its weeklong meeting in Winnipeg, Canada, July 31 with resolutions calling for the cancellation of Third World debt, an appeal to the United States to abide by international agreements and a call to remove barriers based on race, gender and sexual orientation.
The Geneva-based coalition of 136 member churches represents nearly 62 million Lutherans around the world. The Rev. Mark Hanson, presiding bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, was elected to a six-year term as the coalition’s president.
Some 380 delegates approved a statement calling on the U.S. government to ratify the Kyoto protocol to reduce emissions that contribute to global warming. President Bush withdrew from the 1997 treaty, and the LWF called the United States “one of the largest contributors of carbon dioxide emission in the world.”
Delegates also passed a statement that urges countries, banks and other financial institutions to forgive poor Third World countries their foreign debt. “External debt has in fact become a modern tool for domination,” the statement said.
In a final “message” from the assembly, delegates pledged to continue talks with Lutheran churches that do not belong to the LWF _ including the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod in the United States _ and continue discussions on human sexuality “in a manner that is appropriate to the needs of each member church.”
The member churches pledged to remove barriers that keep people from “participating fully in the life that God envisions for all,” including racial, ethnic, gender, class, nationality, age, sexual orientation, caste and physical/mental conditions.
“The world in which we live still suffers under the brokenness caused by sin; and people are victims of injustice and the abuse of power,” the message said. “But in the midst of all suffering and injustice, God is continuously at work, healing our world.”
_ Kevin Eckstrom
Former Bakker Ministry Supporters Get $6.54 Back for $1,000 Payments
(RNS) Supporters of televangelist Jim Bakker’s former Praise the Lord ministry will get $6.54 each as the result of a class action settlement.
A 16-year-old lawsuit sought payments for the 165,000 people who joined the class action, the Associated Press reported. The plaintiffs had given $1,000 each for four-day vacation stays at a PTL resort near Charlotte, N.C., that was never constructed.
The lawyers will get $2.5 million of a $3.7 million settlement fund.
A July 24 order issued by U.S. District Judge Lacy Thornburg, based in Asheville, N.C., gives a California administrator one month to issue the checks. Former PTL accountants placed money in a settlement fund.
Thomas T. Anderson and Associates, a California-based law firm, had asked the judge for the entire settlement, saying it would be fruitless to search for all involved in the suit. Thornburg denied that request in 2002.
Bakker is on the air again with “The Jim Bakker Show,” taped in Branson, Mo.
He resigned from the Praise the Lord ministry in 1987 after admitting to an affair with a ministry secretary. He was convicted two years later of a wire and mail-fraud scheme involving the sale of more than 150,000 lifetime partnerships planned for the Heritage USA theme park in Fort Mill, S.C.
Bakker was sentenced to 45 years in prison but his term was reduced to 18 years and he served five before being paroled in 1995.
Update: Whites Get Paid for Attending Predominantly Black Church
(RNS) About a dozen white worshippers gained $5 an hour for taking up a Louisiana minister’s offer to attend his predominantly black church’s worship service on Sunday (Aug. 3).
Bishop Fred Caldwell, pastor of Greenwood Acres Full Gospel Baptist Church in Shreveport, offered to pay white visitors $5 an hour on Sundays and $10 an hour on Thursdays during the month of August, the Associated Press reported.
“The most racist institution on the planet is the denominational church and those of us who are born again need to cross the bridge, love one another and do what we know we need to do,” Caldwell said.
Only a few of the congregation’s 4,000-plus members are white.
“I came to see who had the nerve to do what he’s doing,” said Tommy Manshack, who received $15 for attending.
But many of the whites who attended either of the two services on Sunday didn’t take the money, which Caldwell was providing from his personal funds.
“I would feel guilty accepting the money,” said Tricia Ward. “But I was glad to be invited. That’s what it took to make me feel at ease.”
More whites than Caldwell expected _ about 30 _ came on Sunday.
“I just obeyed God and God did the rest,” he said.
Orthodox Mark Anniversary of St. Seraphim Canonization
MOSCOW _ Tens of thousands of Orthodox Christians on Friday (Aug. 1) ended four days of celebrations marking the 100th anniversary of the canonization of St. Seraphim of Sarov, one of Russia’s most beloved homegrown saints.
The festivities, led by the Russian Orthodox Church’s Patriarch Alexy II and attended by President Vladimir Putin, have been hailed as marking a new closeness between the country’s dominant faith and the government, which footed much of the bill for the ceremonies.
In speaking Thursday to a sea of mostly female pilgrims in headscarves, the patriarch drew parallels between church-state relations now and in 1903, when the last czar, Nicholas II, presided over the canonization.
“Here, 100 years ago, the emperor Nicholas prayed along with a multitude of people. Through God’s providence, we are here 100 years later in Sarov meeting with the president of Russia,” the ailing patriarch said in a hoarse, wavering voice on national television. “These festivities are a symbol of the unity of church, people and government.”
Putin’s rather perfunctory remarks gave no hint of a new willingness to cozy up to the church, as some political analysts had predicted in this year when parliamentary elections are set for December. Over half of Russia’s 145 million citizens claim some allegiance to the Russian Orthodox Church.
Along with St. Nicholas, St. Seraphim is perhaps the country’s most popular saint with his iconic image found not only in churches but on car dashboards and in apartments. Born in 1759 in Kursk, Russia, he moved 20 years later to a monastery in the town of Sarov, where he lived alternatively as a hermit in a nearby forest and in a cell that is now a major pilgrimage destination. Aside from his personal piety, Seraphim was known for his prophecies and sage advice.
His life has been a source of inspiration to Christians far beyond Russia’s borders. Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, head of the 70 million-member Anglican communion, made a largely unpublicized visit to Sarov on Friday. So, too, did Serbia’s Orthodox Patriarch Pavle and the Orthodox Church in America’s Metropolitan Herman.
Simple believers were largely excluded from the festivities in Sarov, a closed city that requires special security clearance to visit because it is the home of Russia’s nuclear weapons program. The estimated 20,000 pilgrims were able to take part in the ceremonial return of St. Seraphim’s remains to the nearby village of Diveyevo.
_ Frank Brown
Israel’s `Black Hebrews’ Granted Citizenship Eligibility
(RNS) Israel’s “Black Hebrews,” a 2,500-strong community of African- Americans who practice polygamy and veganism, are finally eligible for Israeli citizenship after 34 years, the Associated Press reported.
The group, which first arrived on tourist visas, lived unrecognized by the government with limited legal rights for decades. Now its members, who shun birth control and avoid meat, dairy products and sugar in a strict version of kibbutz collectivism, are celebrating their new rights to vote in municipal elections, establish their own residential communities and serve in the Israeli army.
“We’re ready to take on responsibilities and obligations as permanent residents,” Ben Yehuda, an American with two wives and 30 children who has lived in Israel for 30 years, told the Associated Press.
Their permanent resident status was granted July 29, an Interior Ministry spokeswoman told Reuters. People who are considered Jews according to rabbinical codes are eligible for immediate citizenship under Israel’s “Law of Return.” Israel’s rabbinate does not recognize the Black Hebrews as Jews, however.
The Black Hebrews first arrived in Israel in 1969 as the followers of Ben Carter, a Chicago bus driver who believed African-Americans were one of the 10 lost tribes of Israel. Believing himself to be God’s representative on Earth after experiencing a visitation from the angel Gabriel, Carter changed his name to Ben Ammi Ben-Israel and led 350 black Americans first to Liberia and then to Israel.
The group received temporary resident status in 1990 on condition that no more of them came from the United States.
With Israel’s decision to grant them permanent residency, a move some say signals a liberalization of the country’s naturalization policies, the group plans to move to a newly built neighborhood on the outskirts of the desert town of Dimona.
British Church Bells Will Toll for David Kelly
LONDON (RNS) As a mark of respect for Dr. David Kelly, the Ministry of Defense scientist who apparently committed suicide over his role in the controversy about Iraq weapons, many churches throughout the country are planning to toll their mourning bells at the time of his funeral.
Kelly apparently committed suicide after being exposed as the source for a BBC story about how the British government manipulated its intelligence on Iraq’s alleged weapons of mass destruction.
His death has created more turmoil for the government of Prime Minister Tony Blair among a population that largely opposed the war against Iraq and where there was widespread skepticism about whether Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.
Kelly’s funeral is set for Wednesday (Aug. 6).
Among churches taking part will be Shrewsbury Abbey, Truro Cathedral and Bristol’s historic church of St. Mary Redcliffe.
Exactly how many churches will be involved will not be known until the actual time, since the bell-ringing is in the nature of a spontaneous gesture as a mark of respect for Kelly and as an indication that people’s thoughts and prayers are with his family.
_ Robert Nowell
Quote of the Day: U.S. Secretary of Veterans Affairs Anthony J. Principi
(RNS) “I know St. Peter has welcomed Bob Hope to the gates of heaven, where there are so many soldiers, airmen and seamen who gave their lives and are waiting for him.”
_ U.S. Secretary of Veterans Affairs Anthony J. Principi, speaking Sunday (Aug. 3) on behalf of President Bush at a memorial Mass in honor of the late comedian Bob Hope at the Basilica of the Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington.
DEA END RNS
