c. 2006 Religion News Service

Southern Baptists’ Baptism Campaign Ends

(RNS) The Southern Baptists’ “Everyone Can” campaign to baptize 1 million people has officially ended, but denominational executives won’t know the numerical outcome until next year.

“Regardless of what the number turns out to be in baptisms, we will know that it could have never been at that level had we not had the sort of emphasis we did,” former Southern Baptist Convention President Bobby Welch told Baptist Press, his denomination’s news service.

“So if it ends not doing as well as most of us hoped, we can know it would have done a lot worse had we not put this two-year emphasis on.”

Welch, whose term as Southern Baptist president ended in June, toured the country for two months in 2004 in a bus emblazoned with the campaign slogan “Witness, Win and Baptize … ONE MILLION!” He visited all 50 states, urging pastors and congregations to take evangelism efforts more seriously and reverse the denomination’s declining rate of baptisms.

The most recent statistics, released by the denomination last April, showed that there was a slight increase in membership in 2005, to 16.2 million, but a 4.15 percent decrease in baptisms, totaling 371,850. Welch had hoped for 1 million baptisms between Oct. 1, 2005, and Sept. 30, 2006. Information about 2006 will not be available until next year, Baptist officials have said.

Current President Frank Page told Baptist Press that he intends to develop an “implementation strategy” as a follow-up to Welch’s efforts.

Southern Baptist Theological Seminary President R. Albert Mohler Jr. said in an interview that a program may not be the best way to address the declining baptismal rate.

“I think it points to some deeper issues in terms of what we have to do in terms of recommitting ourselves in being gospel churches,” he said.

“A president of the SBC serves a maximum of two years. This is a very large denomination. It’s very hard to get anything cranked up in two years, for that matter, even in 20.”

_ Adelle M. Banks

Burned Alabama Church, Rebuilt, Gets New Steeple

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (RNS) Burned by arsonists and rebuilt with help from volunteers, Pleasant Sabine Baptist Church in Bibb County got its new steeple Tuesday (Oct. 3).

A work crew hoisted the steeple atop the new church building and delivered a baptistery, moving the church closer to completion of its rebuilding project.

Of the three Bibb County churches burned to the ground Feb. 3, Pleasant Sabine has been the first to rebuild. Two others, Rehobeth Baptist and Ashby Baptist, are still planning their structures.

“Some of them are just breaking ground,” said Frances Griffin, who was at Pleasant Sabine Baptist Church on Tuesday morning.

With volunteer help from members of other churches, students and faculty at Birmingham-Southern College and others, Pleasant Sabine Baptist has made good time on its effort to bounce back from arson.

“It’s a blessing from the Lord,” said church member Spurgeion Boddie, who grew up attending the church and was there to watch the steeple raised onto the new building. “We got quite a bit of help.”

The church had $100,000 worth of insurance and the cost to rebuild will be about $375,000. Contributions have come from across the country.

Much of the rebuilding has been paid for with the donations, including $53,000 from a fund administered by Birmingham-Southern College, where the three young men charged as arsonists met as students.

“The Lord works in mysterious ways,” Boddie said.

The three former college students, Ben Moseley, Russell DeBusk and Matthew Cloyd, arrested March 8, are still being held on charges related to the burning of nine churches.

_ Greg Garrison

Anglicans’ Mother Church Being Held Together With Duct Tape

LONDON (RNS) Britain’s Canterbury Cathedral, the ancient mother church of worldwide Anglicanism, is falling apart at the seams and being held together by duct tape _ and it’s going to cost at least $95 million to fix.

That’s the sum that Allan Willett, chairman of the cathedral’s trustees, says will be needed to keep Canterbury from literally crumbling to bits. This, he adds, is a “critical point in history” for the cathedral, and that if the funds are not forthcoming, then “deterioration will turn into dereliction.”

The extent of the medieval cathedral’s disrepair was disclosed Tuesday (Oct. 3) at the church’s launch of a global campaign to raise the money over the next five years. An immediate aim is an appeal to Anglicans and wealthy benefactors around the world.

The picture-postcard images of the cathedral belie the reality _ chunks of masonry falling from the walls, the duct tape that is holding together a fifth of its 12th century marble pillars, rotting support beams that are letting the rain in, 500-year-old carvings relentlessly eroding in the Bell Harry Tower.

Canterbury, in southeast England, survived the scandal of the “murder in the cathedral” of Archbishop Thomas Becket (the “turbulent priest” who rankled King Henry II) and the Nazis’ extensive bombing of Britain in World War II.

But the serious corrosion and pollution that is deteriorating the medieval stonework is threatening the very core of its existence. “Despite its 900 turbulent years,” said Willett, “it is the next few years that represent this cathedral’s time of greatest danger.”

Canterbury Cathedral receives no aid from the British government or from the Church Commissioners, the investment arm of the Church of England. Instead, it relies heavily on its million-plus visitors a year to help foot costs of upkeep and maintenance.

But surveyor John Burton told The Daily Telegraph newspaper in London that deterioration of the stonework is too fast for the cathedral’s regular $1.9 million annual maintenance and conservation program to keep up with.

A $57 million works campaign has already been drafted, with a completion target set for 2016.

With the bills expected to start rolling in soon, Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams sounded a clarion call: “Generations have played their part in creating and preserving this magnificent building. It is time for us to do our bit.”

_ Al Webb

Church-State Group Threatens Suit Over Wiccan Veterans’ Markers

WASHINGTON (RNS) The federal government may soon face a lawsuit for its failure to recognize the Wiccan symbol as an approved emblem for U.S. veterans’ memorial plaques.

In a letter to the Department of Veterans Affairs, Americans United for Separation of Church and State asked the agency to approve the inclusion of the Wiccan pentacle, a five-pointed star contained in a circle, as a symbol on veterans’ memorials.

The group insisted that the government act by Oct. 10 or face legal action.

Veterans Affairs has delayed for years on an issue that amounts to unconstitutional discrimination against Wiccans on the basis of their religion, according to Americans United, a Washington-based church-state watchdog group.

“Our clients are prepared to take legal action, but we hope that won’t be necessary,” said Richard B. Katskee, assistant legal director for Americans United, on Tuesday (Oct. 3).

Americans United represents a prominent Wiccan group, Circle Sanctuary, and two of its members who are widows of U.S. veterans. Roberta Stewart lost her husband, Sgt. Patrick Stewart, when he was killed in action last year in Afghanistan. Karen DePolito’s husband, Jerome Birnbaum, a Korean War veteran, died last year.

There are about 2,000 Wiccans in the U.S. armed services, Katskee said. But the Wiccan faith _ which involves nature worship and belief in magical powers _ is not on the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs’ list of 38 approved religions.

The agency approved the emblems of several other religions in recent years in a matter of months, including the Sikh and Soka Gakkai Buddhist emblems, according to Americans United.

By not approving the Wiccan symbol, Veterans Affairs appears to be favoring one religion over another, the group said.

Last month, the Nevada Office of Veterans Services approved the display of the Wiccan symbol on Sgt. Stewart’s plaque in the Northern Nevada Veterans Memorial Cemetery in Fernley, despite the lack of federal approval.

The VA did not have an immediate response to the threat of the lawsuit.

_ Rebecca U. Cho

Quote of the Day: Emad Levy, the last rabbi in Baghdad

(RNS)“I have my God and I have my prayers. This is all that is important to me.”

_ Iraqi Jew Emad Levy, the only rabbi left in Baghdad, which other Jews have fled because of violence and anti-Semitism. He was quoted by The Washington Post.

KRE/PH END RNS