c. 2003 Religion News Service
Lawyers Appeal Case Involving Religious Messages on School Mural
(RNS) A Virginia-based civil liberties organization has appealed a decision permitting a high school to censor a student’s religious writings on a school mural.
The Rutherford Institute in Charlottesville is appealing a May ruling by a U.S. district court in Miami that school officials at Boca Raton Community High School correctly asked a student to remove references to God she and other members of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes had placed on a mural on school grounds as part of a student government project.
According to the court filing, Sharah Harris was instructed in 2002 by school principal Ed Harris to paint over religious symbols and language such as a cross and the words “God Loves You.”
“Boca Raton High School officials are out of step with the U.S. Supreme Court, which has repeatedly ruled that personal religious speech like Sharah’s mural is as protected as other types of speech,” said John Whitehead, president of the Rutherford Institute, in a statement.
“To allow this type of discrimination against religious speech would mean that state agencies could pick and choose among favored speech and eventually destroy the concept of free speech.”
His organization has asked the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to determine whether the lower court erred in its ruling that the First Amendment did not prevent the censorship.
A legal representative of the school district did not immediately return phone calls to Religion News Service.
The Palm Beach Post reported at the time of the May decision that a school attorney said the religious proclamations on school walls could give the impression that the stated views are sponsored by the school.
In a separate matter, the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals recently denied a request to rehear a case involving a pre-kindergarten student who was prevented from distributing pencils and candy canes with religious messages to his classmates, the Associated Press reported. An attorney for Daniel Walz had sought the entire court’s review of the matter after a three-judge panel affirmed a lower court’s finding that school officials in Egg Harbor Township, N.J., acted properly.
_ Adelle M. Banks
Close Friend Says Pope Suffers But Will Continue `Until the End’
VATICAN CITY (RNS) As a weak and ailing Pope John Paul II prepares to celebrate the 25th anniversary of his pontificate, a Polish friend said Monday (Oct. 13) that although John Paul is suffering, he is not afraid and “will go on until the end.”
The Rev. Tadeusz Styczen, who succeeded the former Karol Wojtyla as professor of moral philosophy at the University of Lublin, spoke at a news conference called to present a new collection of John Paul’s writing on philosophy before he became pope. The 1,200-page book is titled “Metaphysics of the Person.”
“The pope feels like one who carries the cross of Jesus,” Styczen said. “For him this constitutes a privilege. John Paul II has never been afraid, and he is absolutely not afraid at this phase.
“Certainly, when you look at his face you understand his weariness and suffering. But this, in my opinion, is the most beautiful period of his pontificate. He suffers, but he does not resign himself; he will go on until the end.”
Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls denied a report Friday that the pope, who suffers from Parkinson’s disease and severe arthritis, is now undergoing kidney dialysis. He said no one tries to hide the pope’s “physical limitations,” but these limitations “are not an obstacle to his mission.”
Although he looked tired, John Paul kept to his schedule during the weekend. His appointments included an audience with President Kay Rala Xamana Gusmao of East Timor and an address to some 3,000 pilgrims from Sardinia.
In a message Monday to the first Congress of Catholic Laity of Eastern Europe under way in the Ukrainian capital of Kiev, the pope recalled his “extraordinary experiences” traveling in the formerly communist countries.
“Providence alone knows whether I shall be able to continue my pastoral pilgrimages in your blessed lands,” he said.
The 83-year-old pontiff will open eight days of celebrations of his jubilee at his general audience on Wednesday (Oct. 15). He will preside over a Mass of thanksgiving to mark the anniversary of his election on Oct. 16, beatify Mother Teresa on Oct. 19 and create 30 new cardinals at a consistory Oct. 21-22.
Speaking Sunday at the midday Angelus prayer, John Paul said he remembered “in a special way” the first Angelus he recited from his study window overlooking St. Peter’s Square on Oct. 22, 1978. He said that with the prayer he had tried to “embrace all the future of the pontificate, of the people of God and of all the human family.”
Recalling that he had ended the Angelus by telling young people that “you are the future of the world; you are the hope of the church; you are my hope,” the pope said, “Today I would like to thank them for always being close to me during these years, and I would like them to know that I continue to count on them.”
_ Peggy Polk
Adventist-Linked Company Serves `Vege Burger’ to McDonald’s
(RNS) An Australian food company affiliated with the Seventh-day Adventist Church is the supplier of vegetarian patties to McDonald’s Australia.
The Australian restaurant chain launched a new “Salads Plus” menu in August that includes the option of a vegetarian “burger.”
Sanitarium Health Food Company, a major health food arm of the church, has sold more than 1.8 million vegetarian patties to the restaurant chain, Adventist News Network reported.
“We are delighted that McDonald’s has created a range of lighter, healthier food choices and taken the additional step of providing nutrition labeling on products,” said Dale Williams, Sanitarium’s general manager for business development.
The “Vege Burger” is a chickpea patty made from a blend of whole cooked chickpeas, vegetables and spices and placed on a McDonald’s herb focaccia bun.
In a news release, the food company said the veggie burgers are grilled separately from other McDonald’s burgers.
“Importantly, McDonald’s agreed not to offer the Vege Burger with `fries and Coke’ as an extra value meal,” the company added.
_ Adelle M. Banks
English Gay Movement Criticizes Nigerian Prelate for Anti-Gay Views
LONDON (RNS) In an open letter to the primates of the Anglican Communion, who will meet in London on Wednesday and Thursday (Oct. 15-16), the Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement has sharply criticized the views of the Nigerian primate, Archbishop Peter Akinola.
Akinola leads the opposition to the acceptance of gay bishops, such as Bishop-elect V. Gene Robinson of New Hampshire, and approval by the church of same-sex blessings, such as that of the Anglican diocese of New Westminster, Canada.
The 38 primates of the church, including Akinola, will discuss the crisis this week at the invitation of Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams.
In the letter, the movement also criticized the lack of input at the primates’ meeting from lesbian and gay Christians.
“The very people who are at the center of this debate, whose very presence has caused the debate, will in all probability not be directly heard at your meeting,” said its letter. “This is very strange and calls into doubt the validity of the meeting.”
The letter described as “astonishing” a recent article by Akinola on the subject and sought to rebut his arguments.
After stating that homosexuality was not a choice but “a perfectly acceptable variation in human behavior,” the letter addressed the question of biblical interpretation. “Homosexuality is not discussed in the Bible,” said the letter, not even in the much-quoted passage in Leviticus because, it said, the contemporary concept did not exist when Leviticus was written.
“There are various theories about what Leviticus is condemning, but Leviticus had no idea whatsoever about loving, stable relationships in the way we understand them today,” the letter went on. “A small nomadic society under threat from all sides would have had a natural vested interest in promoting heterosexual sex for reasons of procreation and the survival of the tribe, but they could not have been condemning what we think of as homosexuality today.”
But even if they were, why are so many of the book’s other condemnations, such as usury, ignored, the letter asked. “This particular practice, as seen in the activities of the World Bank and the IMF (International Monetary Fund) in the affairs of Nigeria, has caused far more, and more serious, problems for Archbishop Peter’s people than same-sex relationships or gay bishops could ever cause,” the letter suggested.
Further, the letter argued, much of the debate has been characterized by a wish to import into Anglicanism a “top down” centralization alien to this form of Christianity, they said of Akinola’s anti-gay organizing among the African churches.
“For many years, bishops from all over the world have come to Lambeth every 10 years to consult with one another as brothers (and recently sisters) on issues that affected the whole communion.
“But the Lambeth Conference has never had any legislative authority. It can advise, and has some authority as the mind of the whole communion, but it cannot order the entire communion. Thus the actions of bishops in any individual diocese or province cannot be directly ordered by the Lambeth Conference.”
The letter warned that “there is certainly a danger” of schism in the 77 million-member Anglican Communion. “But the danger is from those who wish to force an outmoded method of biblical interpretation which takes no notice of scientific development and a totalitarian model of authority, both of which are deeply un-Anglican and seriously worrying.”
Among the questions the movement posed for the primates was this final one: “Is there a threat to the model of authority which has subsisted in the Communion up till now? How serious is this threat, and what are the implications for the Communion if it is so?”
_ Robert Nowell
Herman Will Jr., Methodist Peace Activist, Dead at 88
(RNS) Herman Will Jr., who worked on peace and justice issues in Methodist and ecumenical circles for more than three decades, died Sept. 27.
Will, 88, was a former staff executive of the United Methodist Board of Church and Society and the author of “War and Peace in the Methodist Tradition,” a history of the church’s peace witness, United Methodist News Service reported.
“Herman Will was an unrelenting guardian of justice and was unafraid to witness to the church’s commitment to world peace and attendant issues,” said the Rev. Thom White Wolf Fassett, former top executive at the Washington-based board.
Will was an active participant in the national youth movement of the former Methodist Episcopal Church and served as youth secretary for the Methodist Commission on World Peace. After embracing religious pacifism, he became a conscientious objector when he was drafted during World War II.
When the Board of Christian Social Concerns, now the Board of Church and Society, was formed in 1960, he moved to Washington to direct its peace division until his retirement in 1980.
Writing to his grandson, Will offered the following advice: “Religion can help you to be more concerned about others, less about yourself, and to seek justice and peace.”
_ Adelle M. Banks
Quote of the Day: Songwriter and author Michael Card
(RNS) “It seems ironic that in the era of the megachurch the impact of the church is decreasing rather than increasing. That’s a symptom that should be stopping people in their tracks. But no one is willing to say that the emperor has no clothes. I look at the gospels and the life of Jesus, and I see no precedent for bigger and better.”
_ Songwriter and author Michael Card, in an interview with EP News, an independent evangelical news service.
DEA END RNS
