c. 2003 Religion News Service
NCC Joins Boycotts Against Taco Bell, Mount Olive Pickle
(RNS) The National Council of Churches voted Thursday (Nov. 6) to join boycotts against Taco Bell and the Mount Olive Pickle Company, the first boycotts endorsed by the NCC since the apartheid era.
The NCC’s General Assembly, meeting in Jackson, Miss., decried the two companies’ treatment of migrant farm workers who pick tomatoes and cucumbers in Florida and North Carolina.
The ecumenical body of 36 mainline Protestant and Orthodox churches endorses boycotts only as a “measure of last resort.” Resolutions to join both boycotts passed unanimously with only a handful of abstentions.
The last time the NCC endorsed a boycott was in 1988, against the Royal Dutch/Shell oil company for its investments in South Africa.
“Any time a Christian community comes together and seeks to exercise economic justice in this way, it is because there is a very serious injustice that cannot be resolved in any other way,” said the Rev. Clifton Kirkpatrick, stated clerk of the Presbyterian Church (USA), who brought the boycott issue to the NCC.
Three NCC-member churches _ the Presbyterian Church (USA), Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) and United Church of Christ _ have already individually endorsed the Taco Bell boycott. The United Church of Christ and Alliance of Baptists have joined the Mount Olive boycott.
NCC officials said a tomato picker in Florida must pick and haul two tons of tomatoes to earn $50. Three leaders of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers recently were awarded the 2003 Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Awards for their efforts to improve farmworkers’ conditions.
“We are not saying Taco Bell is guilty of slavery,” Gerardo Reyes Chavez, a Florida farmworker, told the NCC. “But when we ask Taco Bell, `Can you guarantee to us those tomatoes weren’t picked by slave labor?’ the answer is no.”
The boycotts will remain in effect until the companies launch talks with farmworker groups, raise wages and establish guidelines for working conditions.
Representatives of Taco Bell’s parent company, Yum! Brands, Inc., did not immediately return calls for comment. Louisville, Ky.-based Yum! Brands owns 33,000 restaurants around the world, including KFC, Long John Silver’s, Pizza Hut, Taco Bell and A&W.
The Mount Olive Pickle Co., based in Mount Olive, N.C., sells 70 million jars of pickles and relish each year. Mount Olive spokeswoman Lynn Williams said the NCC has not allowed company officials to speak to either its executive board or the General Assembly.
Williams acknowledged that some farmworkers labor in substandard conditions, but said Mount Olive mandates that its suppliers _ who actually employ the workers _ sign a statement of compliance with local labor policies. “We think that the demand … they’ve placed on us is inappropriate and unrealistic,” she said.
_ Kevin Eckstrom
Reform Jewish Movement Approves Name Change
(RNS) The Union of American Hebrew Congregations, the congregational arm of the Reform movement, voted Friday (Nov. 7) to change its name to the Union for Reform Judaism.
The vote passed by an overwhelming majority at the biennial convention of the 1.5 million-member movement, the largest Jewish denomination in America. The move comes at a time when national Jewish demographic figures indicate a declining population, but the Reform movement continues to grow.
The UAHC was founded 130 years ago as the Reform movement took root in the United States as a more liberal and social justice-oriented form of Jewish practice.
The movement is known for pioneering progressive issues like the ordination of women, the inclusion of gays and lesbians and welcoming interfaith families into synagogue life.
But movement leaders said that the use of the antiquated-sounding “Hebrew” in the organization’s name _ and its lack of the word “Reform” _ were out of touch with the vibrancy of the denomination’s work.
“In the 130 years since our founding, Reform congregations and the Union that serves them have undergone radical changes, growing into the largest and most dynamic religious movement in North American Jewish life,” said Rabbi Eric Yoffie, president of the Union. “The time has come for our name to reflect that.”
_ Holly Lebowitz Rossi
Graham Marks 85th Birthday, Prepares for Future `Crusades’
(RNS) Evangelist Billy Graham marked his 85th birthday Friday (Nov. 7) and began solidifying plans for continuing his evangelistic ministry next year.
“I never dreamed that I would live to be 85,” Graham said in a statement. “I am grateful to the Lord for the strength he gives me to hold additional crusades.”
Graham spokesman A. Larry Ross said officials of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association have decided to once again use the term “crusades” to describe Graham’s major events, rather than “missions.”
“I think that there’s been consensus among the leadership to return to the more familiar term `crusade,”’ Ross told Religion News Service.
“It’s what he’s been known for for all these years.”
In 2001, shortly after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Graham suggested the next announcement of an evangelistic outreach be called something other than a “crusade” in an effort to be sensitive to people of non-Christian faiths.
Ross said the change reflects an emphasis on the “denotation of the word” rather than “any implied connotation.”
The evangelist has been meeting with his son, Franklin, the CEO of the association, and others to discuss invitations he has received to hold future crusades.
He is scheduled to announce his plans for 2004 crusades in January.
_ Adelle M. Banks
CME Bishop Installed as President of National Council of Churches
(RNS) A bishop in the Christian Methodist Episcopal Church was installed Thursday (Nov. 6) as the next president of the National Council of Churches.
Bishop Thomas Hoyt, the CME bishop for Mississippi and Louisiana, was installed during the NCC’s General Assembly meeting in Jackson, Miss. He will serve a two-year term that officially starts Jan. 1, 2004.
Hoyt, 62, succeeds Elenie Huszagh, the first Orthodox laywoman to lead the NCC. The NCC is a coalition of 36 mainline Protestant and Orthodox churches. Its day-to-day operations are run by General Secretary Bob Edgar.
“Some of my colleagues in the black community said, `You’re wasting your time,”’ Hoyt said of his involvement in the ecumenical movement. “Sometimes I did feel that, but then I look around and see our mandate is to bring unity to the people of God _ not only for the churches but for humanity.”
Hoyt has pastored CME churches in North Carolina and New York and also served as pastor in United Methodist and Presbyterian congregations. He was elected bishop in 1994 and supervises 240 pastors and 320 congregations.
Hoyt said he hopes to continues the council’s work on poverty and the environment and expand interfaith talks with Muslim groups. “The stereotypes that too many Americans hold about Muslims have become even more troublesome after Sept. 11,” he said in a press release.
Hoyt holds degrees from Lane College, Phillips School of Theology, Union Theological Seminary and Duke University. He has taught at Hartford Seminary in Hartford, Conn.; Howard University in Washington; and the Interdenominational Theological Center in Atlanta.
_ Kevin Eckstrom
Donors Asked to Sponsor Cathedral Gargoyles
LONDON (RNS) Donors are being sought by Gloucester Cathedral to fund 10 new gargoyles for the building’s south elevation, where the existing ones, over 500 years old, are almost completely eroded.
Gargoyles are the extravagantly ornamented waterspouts used by medieval architects to ensure that rainwater draining from the roof fell clear of the fabric and did not damage the stonework.
The new gargoyles will depict various animals playing musical instruments, in keeping with Psalm 148 v. 10, where “beasts and all cattle, worms and feathered fowls” are among those exhorted to “praise the name of the Lord.”
The cathedral’s master mason, French-born Pascal Mychalysin, is currently working on designs including a ram, a lion, and single- and double-headed wolves.
The cathedral authorities hope that individuals or groups of people will make donations of $5,085 per gargoyle _ or a mere $4,237.50 if advantage is taken of the government’s “gift aid” plan whereby charities can recoup the tax that would have have been paid on the amount given.
Gloucester Cathedral has strong American connections. A plaque on the north wall of the nave commemorates the composer of the melody of “The Star-Spangled Banner,” John Stafford Smith, who was born in Gloucester, where his father, Martin, was the cathedral organist.
Gen. William Lyman, a veteran of the Revolutionary War who became a congressman and served as U.S. consul in London, is buried on the north side of the nave. He died in nearby Cheltenham in 1811.
_ Robert Nowell
`Three Wooden Crosses’ Named Country Song of the Year
(RNS) The song “Three Wooden Crosses,” recorded by singer Randy Travis and produced by the Christian record label Word Records, was named “Song of the Year” at the Country Music Awards on Wednesday (Nov. 5).
The 37th annual awards were held in Nashville, Tenn.
“You know, our world needs hope,” said Doug Johnson, who wrote the song with Kim Williams. “And if any of us can give anyone hope, well, we’ve done our job.”
The win marked the first CMA award for the two writers.
Their song “Three Wooden Crosses” is featured on Travis’ “Rise and Shine,” a country gospel album.
The song reached No. 1 status on charts ranking country music, a first for a Christian label.
_ Adelle M. Banks
`Brownsville Revival’ Leader Resigns Pastorate to Mentor Ministers
(RNS) The leader of a Pentecostal revival movement that reached its peak in the 1990s has announced his plans to resign from the pastorate.
Brownsville Assembly of God Pastor John Kilpatrick of Pensacola, Fla., said he wants to instead mentor other pastors, Charisma News Service reported.
“The Lord told me that he has called me to be a father (to leaders),” Kilpatrick told Charisma magazine. “Brownsville needs to move ahead, but it cannot move ahead with me at the helm because my mantle has changed.”
Kilpatrick, 53, intends to remain a member of the church and base his traveling ministry in Pensacola.
The revival at the church began in 1995 when evangelist Steve Hill visited on Father’s Day and triggered an unusual display of Pentecostal fervor. The next two years, visitors from across the globe lined up outside the church for nightly meetings.
Revival services are now held on Friday nights only and Kilpatrick estimated that the church has about 3,000 members.
The magazine reported that several others have moved on from the church.
Its worship leader, Lindell Cooley, announced a week before Kilpatrick’s resignation that he plans to start a church in Nashville, Tenn. Hill, who moved to Pensacola and preached nightly for several years at Brownsville, left in June 2000 and started a Dallas church this summer. Michael Brown, who helped start the Brownsville Revival School of Ministry, split from the church in 2001 and started his own school, which is currently based in Harrisburg, N.C.
Quote of the Day: United Methodist Bishop Ruediger Minor
(RNS) “Has United Methodism become another big American corporation, trying to take over the world in the general rush of globalization?”
_ United Methodist Bishop Ruediger Minor of Moscow, president of the church’s Council of Bishops, addressing the need for better relations between the U.S. church and its overseas conferences. He was quoted by United Methodist News Service.
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