c. 2004 Religion News Service

Billy Graham Center Archives Spared in Fire at Wheaton College

(RNS) The archives of the Billy Graham Center at Wheaton College were spared when a fire broke out in the roof of the center’s auditorium on Tuesday (June 8).

Almost 100 firefighters fought the blaze and about 200 people were evacuated from the building, the interdenominational Christian college in Wheaton, Ill., announced.

“The fire department’s response was quick and effective,” said college president Duane Litfin in a statement.

“If they had not responded in a timely fashion and with the expertise they did, the building would have sustained much more damage.”

The Barrows Auditorium, a lecture hall used for conferences and classes, was the only area that sustained damage.

Classes had concluded for the summer, but some conferences may be affected by the fire. The cause is under investigation.

The center, a gift to the college from the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, opened in 1980. It includes the Billy Graham Center Museum, archives, special collections, offices and classrooms.

The Rev. Cliff Barrows, program director for Graham’s crusades for whom the auditorium was named, expressed relief that the fire did not cause serious injuries or major losses.

“Buildings can be replaced, but we are further thankful to the Lord that the historical section and archives were preserved, unaffected by fire, smoke or water damage,” he said in a statement.

_ Adelle M. Banks

Presbyterians Report Largest Membership Drop in Nearly Quarter Century

(RNS) The Presbyterian Church (USA) last year experienced its highest percentage loss in nearly a quarter century, the denomination has announced.

At the end of 2003, church membership was 2.4 million, down nearly 50,000 from the previous year. These Presbyterians were associated with 11,604 churches, 33 fewer than the total number of churches in 2002.

Clifton Kirkpatrick, stated clerk of the General Assembly, said in an opinion piece in the Presbyterian Outlook that the decline in active members of the church should “call us to prayer and repentance.”

“We as Presbyterians will only become a growing church if we begin on our knees, praying for forgiveness for our timidity in evangelism and seeking God’s renewal,” Kirkpatrick said. He called on Presbyterians to “become joyful evangelists, actively sharing the Good News and inviting others into the fellowship of our churches.”

In addition to stepping up efforts to evangelize, Kirkpatrick also said Presbyterian churches must expand youth programs and small group ministries, use the Internet more effectively, and work harder to make the church more multicultural. He also called on Presbyterians to support the Mission Initiative, a five-year, $40 million campaign to promote the establishment of overseas missions.

“I am convinced God intends for the Presbyterian Church to be a growing church,” Kirkpatrick said.

Kirkpatrick’s efforts to keep people in the church are aimed not at people who have converted to another denomination, but to people who have simply left.

“We are losing people to the secular world,” Kirpatrick said. Presbyterian religious leaders “need to give special attention to nurturing our members” and “reaching out to them when they begin to fall away from active membership,” he said.

In spite of the declining numbers, the report did offer Presbyterians some reason for optimism. Nearly one-third of churches have growing memberships. Also, total contributions and income for all churches increased 2.5 percent.

_ Juliana Finucane

Maryland’s Bishops Urge Death Sentence Commutation

(RNS) Maryland’s three Catholic bishops have called on Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. to commute the death sentence of a man scheduled to be executed as early as next week.

The June 9 letter was signed Cardinal William H. Keeler, archbishop of Baltimore; Cardinal Theodore E. McCarrick, archbishop of Washington; and Bishop Michael A. Saltarelli of Wilimington, whose diocese includes Maryland’s Eastern Shore.

“Framing the issue in this faith context,” the bishops wrote, “we are concerned that capital punishment further advances a destructive anti-life attitude.”

The bishops urged the governor to “be merciful, to extend the clemency that is yours by constitutional prerogative to Steven Oken.”

Oken is sentenced to die for the 1987 rape and murder of Dawn Marie Garvin. He was also convicted of murdering another woman in Maryland and a motel clerk in Maine.

The bishops wrote that they “share with those who suffer the awful consequnces of violent crime, particularly the relatives of victims.” However, the bishops cited Pope John Paul II, who has said that “if bloodless means are sufficient to defend human lives … and protect public order … public authority must limit itself to such means, because they better correspond to the concrete conditions of the human good and are more in conformity with the dignity of the human person.”

The letter from the Maryland bishops follows one sent by Archbishop Gabriel Montalvo, the papal representative to the United States.

Jervis Finney, the counsel to Ehrlich said “the governor has read and considered all of the letters from religious officials that he has seen.”

According to the Capital Punishment Project of the NAACP, Maryland has 12 people on death row. Oken would be the first execution in the state since 1998,and the third since the death penalty was re-established there in 1978.

Former governor Parris N. Glendenning had imposed a moratorium on executions in 2002, pending a report by the University of Maryland on the racial dimensions of capital punishment.

The study, released just days before Erlich lifted the moratorium, found that inmates were more likely to be sentenced to death if the victims were white. All three of the women Oken murdered were white. Oken is also white.

_ Daniel Burke

Irish Bishop Joins Campaign Urging Disarming of Paramilitary

(RNS) A dramatic appeal to loyalist (Protestant) paramilitary leaders to lead their communities out of despair into hope was made by Anglican Bishop Alan Harper of Connor when addressing his diocesan synod today (Tuesday).

Underlining the social and economic deprivation that marked so many loyalist areas of Belfast and elsewhere in his diocese, Harper cited the “all-pervasive presence” of paramilitary organizations, the high levels of criminality, intimidation and racketeering _ “much of it perpetrated or licensed by paramilitary groups,” he said _ and high levels of alcohol and drug abuse.

But he said the very success of the paramilitaries shows there are other possibilities.

“Some locally based paramilitaries exhibit some of the qualities of leadership which, if properly directed, could contribute to community well-being rather than suffering and harm,” he said.

“Let me say directly, therefore, to paramilitary leaders: you are currently destroying, and will ultimately completely destroy, the communities to which you belong, unless you take a different course.

“I recognize the immense pressures that you are under. I also recognize the immense financial rewards generated by the activities engaged in by your organizations. But those rewards are generated at the expense of your own community. You are consuming your own people. You are yourselves the greatest threat of all to the people you call your own.”

Harper said the only other coherent social groups rooted in the local community were the churches.

“If you were to put away the trappings and the ethics of the gun and the baseball bat, you would find that the churches, which are utterly committed to helping local communities to rebuild trust, self-respect, new prosperity and true security, would welcome the energy and leadership you could bring to a common task,” the bishop said. “We need communities at peace with themselves, self-confident, motivated, able to articulate their needs, ideals, hopes and fears so as to be taken seriously within wider society.”

Christian Scientists Select New President

(RNS) The Christian Science Church directors have selected a new president and two new readers, the board has announced.

Cynthia Neely of Chicago will lead the organization, which has nearly 2,000 worldwide branches and has its headquarters at the First Church of Christ in Boston. As president, Neely will lead the church’s annual meeting and continue to teach courses on spiritual healing and church scriptures during her one-year term.

“Cindy brings rich experience as a mother, as an African-American woman, and as an individual who has devoted her life to helping people know God _ and helping them find prayer-based solutions to all of life’s challenges,” said Virginia Harris, chairwoman of the Christian Science board of directors.

Lyle Young of Ottawa, Ontario, and Suzanne Cowin of Boca Raton, Fla., were elected as readers. They will be the first readers to conduct services in both Spanish and English during their three-year terms.

“Wherever (Lyle and Suzanne) go, they build bridges,” Harris said. “They see this church as a resource for the entire community.”

The Church of Christ, Scientist, was founded by Mary Baker Eddy in 1866. The group emphasizes practical, spiritually-based healing accessible to everyone.

_ Juliana Finucane

Quote of the Day: The Rev. Tobias Colgan

(RNS) “We’re guys, first of all. And we’re guys who are monks … we lean more toward the introverted.”

_ The Rev. Tobias Colgan, prior of St. Meinrad Archabbey in St. Meinrad, Ind., on the subdued response from monks at the archabbey to a $27 million bequest. He was quoted by the Associated Press.

DEA/JL END RNS