c. 2004 Religion News Service

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Graham Utilizes Technology to Preach in Multiple Languages

PASADENA, Calif. (RNS) Evangelist Billy Graham has always gone to extraordinary efforts to communicate his message. But his four-day California crusade is being instantly interpreted into an unprecedented 26 languages, including sign language.

Ira Schipper, who has worked for the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association for 34 years, said crusades have been translated since 1980, but none has been immediately interpreted into as many languages as the Rose Bowl event.

Interpreters are isolated in individual booths wearing headsets. They listen to Graham’s message in English then quickly interpret it into another tongue. Each language is broadcast on a low-wave frequency. Attendees at the Rose Bowl receive the translated messages via headsets attuned to the appropriate frequency.

Schipper said it’s important that each person hears the message in his or her “heart language.”

“We believe that the message we have, that Mr. Graham’s been preaching for all these years, is the answer to the problems of the world, if people would get right with God through Jesus Christ,” he said.

The interpreters are all volunteers from local churches _ just a few of the 20,000 people from 1,200 churches who are sponsoring the event.

On Thursday, the crusade’s first day, Graham preached a simple message about the sins of man and the love of God to a crowd of about 45,000. It was the type of sermon that Graham, 86, has been preaching for 55 years in stadiums around the world.

Graham’s sermon, delivered in a matter-of-fact manner, still has the ability to stir people’s souls. When he invited his audience to come to the field and give their lives to Christ they poured from the stands.

Officials from the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association estimated that 2,500 people came forward. Some held hands, others pushed wheelchair-users toward the stage. Almost the entire field filled with people.

“You’ve come to Jesus,” Graham said to the group gathered before the stage. “He’ll forgive you. He’s willing to change you. But you have to allow him.”

Historically, Graham has always embraced the latest technology to communicate to an international audience. In 1995, during the Global Mission from San Juan, Puerto Rico, crusade organizers utilized satellite technology to beam tape-delayed messages in more than 100 languages to sites around the world.

“They estimate more than a billion people heard at least one of the programs,” said William Martin, author of the Graham biography “Prophet With Honor.” Nobody had done it on that big of a scale.”

_ Marshall Allen

Top Vatican Authority on Doctrine Denounces Europe’s Aggressive Secularism

ROME (RNS) Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the Vatican’s top authority on doctrine, on Friday (Nov. 19) denounced the rise of what he called an aggressive and at times intolerant secularism in formerly Christian Europe.

The German prelate, who is prefect of the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and considered a possible successor to Pope John Paul II, said in an interview with the newspaper La Repubblica that while the state must not impose religion on civil society it must permit religion to play a role.

“There exists a secular ideological aggressiveness that can be worrying,” Ratzinger said. He made the statement in connection with the withdrawal of the candidacy of Rocco Buttiglione, an Italian who holds traditional church views on homosexuality and the role of women, for European Union justice commissioner.

“Laicism is no longer that element of neutrality that opens spaces of freedom for all. It is beginning to transform itself into an ideology that is imposed through politics and does not concede public space to the Catholic and Christian vision,” he said.

Ratzinger said that a correct lay position should provide for “freedom of religion.”

“The state does not impose a religion but gives free space to religions with a responsibility toward civil society and thus permits these religions to be factors in the construction of the social life,” he said.

Asserting that Christianity “has trouble making itself understood in today’s world,” especially in Europe, Ratzinger said, “In political life it seems almost indecent to speak of God, almost as if it were an attack on the freedom of the non-believer.”

But he said that politics and economics “need moral responsibility” and added, “A society in which God is absolutely absent self-destructs. We have seen it in the great totalitarian regimes of the last century.”

Ratzinger also expressed strong opposition to Spain’s recognition of same-sex marriages, calling it “destructive for the family and for society.” The church regards the practice of homosexuality as a sin.

“If we judge this union more or less equivalent to matrimony, we have a society that no longer recognizes the specificity nor the fundamental character of the family, which is to be a man and a woman who have the scope to give continuity _ not only in the biological sense _ to humanity,” he said.

_ Peggy Polk

Pope Concerned About the Role of the “Little Flock” of Catholics in Asia

VATICAN CITY (RNS) Pope John Paul II expressed concern Friday (Nov. 19) about the role of the “little flock” of Catholics in Asia, whom he said are too often considered “foreign” to the continent’s multi-cultural society.

The pope addressed Asian bishops meeting to review the progress of the Catholic Church in Asia since they held a special assembly of bishops, called a synod, at the Vatican in 1998 to prepare for the new millennium.

The 84-year-old pontiff urged the bishops to follow the example of the apostles of the early church and their small band of disciples and continue to preach the Gospel even though Catholics are a small minority on the continent.

“The fact that the church in Asia is a small flock must not bring discouragement because the efficacy of evangelization does not depend on numbers,” John Paul said.

But, he said, the task “inevitably requires a fruitful dialogue with the multiethnic, multireligious and multicultural situation of Asia, where Christianity is too often seen as foreign.”

John Paul called dialogue “a characteristic way of life for the church in Asia” and urged the bishops to follow this path “with patience and courage” also in relations with other Christians.

“Despite all obstacles, it must make progress,” he said.

“Moreover,” the pope said, “the church intends to contribute to the cause of peace in Asia where various conflicts and terrorism provoke the loss of many human lives.” Christians have come under attack from both militant Hindus and Muslims terrorists.

“Unfortunately, in recent years, the fires of war have enlarged and it is therefore urgent to build peace, an undertaking that is not easy and awaits the support of all men of good will,” he said.

John Paul said that the high percentage of young people in Asia should be seen as a reason for “optimism for the future and a challenge for the present.”

This, he said, is because the young “are ready to dedicate themselves totally to a cause,” but if their dreams are not realized they can become disillusioned and fall prey to “promoters of extreme ideologies.”

_ Peggy Polk

Presiding Bishop of Church of God in Christ Re-elected

(RNS) Bishop Gilbert E. Patterson has won re-election as the presiding bishop of the Church of God in Christ, the nation’s largest Pentecostal denomination.

Patterson, who also is a pastor of a Memphis, Tenn., church, was re-elected Tuesday (Nov. 16) at the close of the predominantly black denomination’s annual meeting in Memphis.

Sherry DuPree, an author and expert on African-American Pentecostal groups, said Patterson helped improve centralized access to retirement and health benefits for the church group’s clergy during his first term as presiding bishop.

“He’s really bringing them into the 21st century,” she said.

Patterson came to the leadership of the denomination in 2000 after unseating the incumbent, Bishop Chandler David Owens.

The Church of God in Christ was ranked fourth among the nation’s top 10 denominations by the 2004 Yearbook of American and Canadian Churches, with more than 5 million members.

_ Adelle M. Banks

Sudan, Rebels, Pledge to End 21-Year Civil War; Darfur Warning Issued

(RNS) With the 15 members of the United Nations Security Council looking on, the Sudanese government and its main rebel group pledged Friday (Nov. 19) to stop a decades-old civil war by the end of this year.

“The parties declare their commitment to expeditiously complete negotiations … so as to conclude and sign the comprehensive peace agreement no later than 31 December 2004,” said the memorandum signed by the government and Sudan People’s Liberation Army/Movement.

All 15 envoys on the Security Council, including Ambassador John Danforth of the United States _ the council’s president this month and the initiator of the first meeting outside New York in 14 years _ then signed the memorandum as witnesses.

In return, the Council, meeting in Nairobi, Kenya in a rare session outside of New York, promised political support and economic aid, including “possible” debt relief, but left the amount unspecified. Sudanese officials have said long-term aid needs to implement the peace accords could amount to $1.8 billion.

“It’s up to you to prove the naysayers and skeptics wrong,” Danforth, an Episcopal priest who has worked as a special envoy to end the Sudanese civil war, told representatives of the government and rebels. “The violence and atrocities being perpetuated must end now. You have heard this message clearly from the Security Council _ heed it.”

The 21-year war in the south, pitting the Muslim-dominated government in Khartoum against mostly Christian and animist (traditionalist) rebels in the south, has claimed some 2 million lives, largely through war-related hunger and disease.

It has also prompted the formation of a strong international religious lobby, including liberal and evangelical Protestants, Roman Catholics, Muslims and Jews pressing the international community on the issue _ especially the separate Sudanese conflict in the country’s Darfur region.

That conflict, which began in February 2003 and pits non-Arab Muslim groups against the government and Arab militias, has left 1.8 million people displaced from their homes and left tens of thousands dead. The United Nations has called the Darfur conflict the world’s worst humanitarian crisis and the U.S. Congress, along with some human rights and aid groups, have labeled it genocide.

On Darfur, the council demanded the government and all armed groups “immediately cease all violence and attacks … refrain from forcible relocation of civilians, cooperate with international humanitarian relief and monitoring efforts … and reinforce throughout their ranks, their agreement to allow unhindered access and passage by humanitarian agencies and those in their employ.”

_ David E. Anderson

Quote of the Day: Tina Brown

“At a panel Thursday about who should be Time magazine’s Person of the Year, the debate was whether the annual milestone cover should feature Karl Rove or God, which seems a false choice since everyone knows they are the same thing. (For Karl Rove’s sake let’s hope they choose God. As anyone who worked for Henry VIII could tell you, eclipsing your boss is the first step to the tower.)”

_ Tina Brown, Washington Post columnist and former magazine publisher