c. 2006 Religion News Service
Baptist Group Returns Jesus Reference to Constitution
(RNS) The Cooperative Baptist Fellowship General Assembly approved a new constitutional preamble that once again includes a reference to Jesus Christ.
About 4,100 people attended the annual meeting of the moderate Baptist group from June 22-23 in Atlanta. During a business session, the assembly approved language that states: “We gladly declare our allegiance to Jesus Christ as Lord and to his gospel as we seek to be the continuing presence of Christ in this world.”
At their meeting last July, the Baptists adopted language that matched the Atlanta-based group’s mission statement. But that language omitted a reference to Jesus Christ, prompting concerns from both fellowship members and Southern Baptist leaders with more conservative theological views.
Also during the meeting, Emmanuel McCall, pastor of Baptist Fellowship Group in East Point, Ga., became the first African-American to serve as moderator, the fellowship’s highest elected post.
The meeting was preceded by an HIV/AIDS summit attended by more than 400 people, and the assembly itself included a challenge to meet the needs of the world.
“We are not separate from the pains of the world,” said South African pastor and social justice advocate Trevor Hudson, who gave a keynote address. “The role of the church is for the pain and hurt and suffering of the world to be concentrated and held and maybe even healed.”
_ Adelle M. Banks
Rick Warren to Preach in Communist North Korea
LAKE FOREST, Calif. (RNS) Evangelical pastor Rick Warren has been invited to preach this summer to some 15,000 Christians in North Korea, a communist country infamous not only for its nuclear threats but also for its religious persecution.
Warren, author of the bestselling book, “The Purpose-Driven Life,” said he would make the trip as part of a nearly 40-day journey to meet with the leaders of 13 foreign countries.
“I want to ask you to pray for me,” Warren told about 5,000 worshippers at his Saddleback Church on Sunday (June 25). He said he would be embarking on a “grueling” tour, meeting with presidents, business leaders and pastors in countries such as Australia, Malaysia, Singapore, Rwanda and South Korea, where he would preach at the world’s largest church.
And then, he told the crowd, “I’ve received another invitation.” Warren said North Korea would allow him to preach in a stadium seating 15,000, but that he could preach in a larger venue if he could fill the seats.
A collective gasp arose from the worshippers. Then, claps and cheers. The sense of excitement spilled over into conversations after the service.
“God’s using Rick Warren as a vessel for peace,” said Sue Foley, a photographer for the church.
Alan Bennett, a self-employed worshipper from Orange County, said he was “shocked” to hear the news, but said it was “awesome. … I was really taken aback that they would allow a Christian speaker, let alone an evangelist,” to preach.
Since 2001, the State Department has designated North Korea a “country of particular concern” for religious freedom violations. Religious freedom essentially does not exist in the highly centralized state, where Kim Jong Il reigns as Supreme Being.
The communist regime prohibits citizens from belonging to unauthorized religious groups. And its authorized groups are largely propaganda, organized for the benefit of foreigners, according to a 2005 U.S. State Department report on International Religious Freedom.
Believers who proselytize or have ties to evangelical groups in China are arrested, tortured or executed, the report said. Still, religious leaders like Billy Graham have visited North Korea in highly choreographed trips. Warren said he had asked Graham for advice on his upcoming trip.
“I know they’re going to use me,” Warren said, responding to a question about whether he was concerned that the invitation could be a set-up, a ruse to draw out Christians so that the government could punish them.
“So I’m going to use them.”
_ Sarah Price Brown
Insurance Policy for Raising Infant Jesus Revoked
LONDON (RNS) A $1.8 million insurance policy _ taken out by three Scottish sisters in the event one of them gave birth to Jesus on his second coming _ has been withdrawn by the insurance company following a complaint from a Catholic.
The policy was originally taken out in 2000 by the three women in the same family living in Inverness, Scotland. They were paying annual premiums of about $180 each. The premiums _ now totaling about $3,240 _ have been refunded.
The proposal was one of a number of “weird requests” received by British Insurance Limited, of Braintree, Essex, around the time of the millennium. The company’s main business is unemployment insurance.
The insurancy policy was meant to cover expenses related to raising the young Messiah. “I thought the request legitimate, albeit weird,” explained the company’s managing director, Simon Burgess.
But Burgess said the company was mindful of people’s sensitivities and did not want to cause any offense. So when a woman telephoned him, saying she was from the Catholic Church in Scotland, and asked him if he would reconsider what he was doing, he decided to withdraw the coverage and refund the premiums.
However, according to the Scottish Catholic press office, no official complaint was made by the Catholic Church in Scotland.
_ Robert Nowell
Fewer Americans Think Government Should Promote `Moral Values’
(RNS) The number of Americans who believe the federal government should promote “moral values” has dropped significantly in the last 10 years, according to a recent Gallup poll.
In 1996, 60 percent of Americans thought the government should promote moral values, but that number fell to 48 percent in 2006.
“Moral values” are not defined in the poll. So-called “values voters” emerged after the 2004 elections when exit polls found that “moral values” ranked highest among voters’ concerns.
The change appears to be a “fairly recent phenomenon,” according the Gallup News Service. In September 2005, half of Americans said the government should promote “traditional values” and 47 percent said it should not favor any values.
Prior to that, there had been roughly a 10-point margin in favor of promoting “traditional values,” according to Gallup.
More than 60 percent of conservatives and people who attend church weekly believe politicians should legislate morality or promote ideology. Sixty-six percent of liberals disagreed.
A separate Gallup poll found that a strong majority of Americans continue to support “right-to-die” laws for terminally ill patients. More than six in 10 support the idea of euthanasia or doctor-assisted suicide, according to the poll.
Seventy-one percent of Catholics said they support a doctor ending a patient’s life by painless means, and 62 percent said they support doctor-assisted suicide. Fewer Protestants support the practices _ 61 and 50 percent, respectively.
Though support for euthanasia bumped up to 75 percent following the death of Terri Schiavo in 2005, approval has now settled down to 69 percent. That number has remained fairly constant since 1990, according to Gallup.
In addition, support for doctor-assisted suicide climbed to 64 percent in 2006 from 58 percent in 2005.
Finally, a third Gallup poll found that almost three-quarters of Americans say they’ve maintained the same religious preference during their entire lifetime. Of those that did change preferences, 40 percent said they did so because they disagreed with the teachings on their original religion.
Each of the three polls was conducted by telephone interviews of a national sample of 1,002 adults. The maximum sampling error is plus or minus 3 percentage points.
_ Daniel Burke
Quote of the Day: Sister Mary de Paul
(RNS) “We’ve always felt very connected in a sense to our founders’ mother and father. Taking care of the deceased is an act of mercy, and it’s an act of our faith.”
_ Sister Mary de Paul of the Dominican Sisters of Hawthorne, explaining why her order paid to move the remains of poet Nathaniel Hawthorne’s wife, Sofia, and his daughter, Una, from London to Hawthorne’s grave in Concord, Mass., after 142 years. The order of nuns was founded by Hawthorne’s other daughter, Rose. She was quoted by The New York Times.
KRE/LF END RNS
Editors: To obtain a photo of Rick Warren to accompany the second item, go to the RNS Web site at https://religionnews.com. On the lower right, click on “photos,” then search by subject or slug.
