c. 2006 Religion News Service
Charges Dismissed Against Presbyterian Minister in Gay Wedding Case
(RNS) Charges have been dropped against a Presbyterian pastor accused of officiating at a lesbian wedding after a church court found church prosecutors failed to file their paperwork on time.
The Rev. Janet Edwards of Pittsburgh faced possible expulsion if convicted. Her legal team said they consider the case closed and do not anticipate an appeal within the Presbyterian Church (USA).
“As I came up to the trial, I reflected upon Jesus’ prayer before his crucifixion, that `if it be your will, let this cup pass from me,”’ Edwards said. “I know many of my friends were desperately praying that prayer for me, and I know they’re happy that their prayers were answered.”
Edwards, a direct descendant of famed Puritan preacher Jonathan Edwards, was charged with officiating at the 2005 wedding of Brenda Cole and Nancy McConn in Pittsburgh. The two women were legally married in Vancouver, British Columbia, several days later.
The Presbyterian Church (USA) allows same-sex unions as long as they are not equated with traditional marriage.
But because church officials failed to file the proper paperwork by a Sept. 8 deadline, an eight-member church court dismissed the case in less than two hours on Nov. 15.
Edwards said she knew she might be cleared because of the procedural error but was prepared to face trial. She also said she would consider officiating at a similar ceremony in the future as part of her “pastoral duty.”
_ Kevin Eckstrom
Progressive Groups Say War, Poverty Moved Religious Voters at Polls
WASHINGTON (RNS) Moral concerns about poverty and the war in Iraq drove the religious vote more than abortion and same-sex marriage in the midterm elections, according to an exit poll released Nov. 15 by two progressive faith-based groups.
Faith in Public Life and Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good, both based in Washington, said the results signal a shift among religious voters from hot-button issues to broader concerns, such as economic justice and integrity in government.
The national poll, conducted by the nonpartisan firm Zogby International, surveyed 16,477 voters Nov. 7-10, including 4,186 Catholics and 3,807 “born-again Christians.” The Zogby poll was conducted by e-mail and has a margin of error of plus or minus 0.8 percentage points.
More than 45 percent of those polled said the war in Iraq was “the moral issue that most influenced” their vote, an increase of four percentage points from the 2004 presidential election. Abortion as an issue declined by five points, with just under 8 percent citing it as a motivating factor. The drop on abortion was most significant among Protestants, down 10 points to 14.4 percent.
More than 57 percent of those surveyed named poverty/economic justice or greed/materialism as the nation’s “most urgent moral crisis.” Only 25 percent named abortion or same-sex marriage.
The poll results should prompt legislators to tackle a broader moral agenda for religious voters, said Tom Perriello, co-founder of Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good.
“No party has stepped up with a serious plan for poverty and economic justice,” Perriello said. “This means there’s a wide opening for leaders to address the deeper moral issues not addressed in the election.”
_ Rebecca U. Cho
Ohio Bishops Give $3 Million to Sex-Abuse Counseling Fund
CLEVELAND (RNS) Ohio’s Catholic bishops are reaching out to survivors of childhood sexual abuse with a new program that will allow victims to get counseling independent of the church.
In what appears to be the first voluntary program of its kind in the country, eight dioceses and an Eastern Rite jurisdiction have contributed $3 million to a fund for victims of childhood sexual abuse who no longer trust the church to help them.
“It’s the right thing to do,” Timothy Luckhaupt, executive director of the Catholic Conference of Ohio, said Wednesday (Nov. 15). “We’ve harmed people. We should help them.”
The new Counseling Assistance Fund will accept claims from those abused as minors by clergy or other representatives of the Catholic Church and who were Ohio residents at the time. Abuse victims have 18 months to submit a claim.
In an effort to get the word out, the Catholic Conference is notifying mental health agencies and is asking all the state’s parishes to make people aware of the fund during weekend Masses.
Under the fund, abuse survivors who are not currently working with a diocesan program or have a pending legal claim against the church may submit a claim for mental health services. The request will be evaluated by a claims panel that the church said is independently appointed by county Probate Court judges and other public officials.
_ David Briggs
Publishers Weekly Chooses Best Religion Books of 2006
(RNS) Publishers Weekly has released its list of this year’s best religion books. The list, including 10 nonfiction books and two fiction titles, was released in its Nov. 6 issue.
The nonfiction titles are:
_ “Christianity for the Rest of Us: How the Neighborhood Church is Transforming Faith” by Diana Butler Bass (HarperSanFrancisco)
_ “Peter, Paul & Mary Magdalene: The Followers of Jesus in History and Legend” by Bart D. Ehrman (Oxford)
_ “Gonzo Judaism: A Fresh Path for an Ancient Faith” by Niles Elliot Goldstein (St. Martin’s)
_ “Overcoming Life’s Disappointments” by Harold S. Kushner (Knopf)
_ “My Life With the Saints” by James Martin (Loyola Press)
_ “Darkness Is My Only Companion: A Christian Response to Mental Illness” by Kathryn Greene-McCreight (Brazos)
_ “A Jew Among the Evangelicals: A Guide for the Perplexed” by Mark Pinsky (Westminster John Knox Press)
_ “Essential Torah: A Complete Guide to the Five Books of Moses” by George Robinson (Schocken)
_ “Rumspringa: To Be or Not to Be Amish” by Tom Shachtman (North Point Press)
_ “Prayer: Does It Make Any Difference?” by Philip Yancey (Zondervan).
The fiction titles chosen are:
_ “Winter Birds” by Jamie Langston Turner (Baker/Bethany House)
_ “Dwelling Places” by Vinita Hampton Wright (HarperSanFrancisco).
_ Adelle M. Banks
Church Says Limitations Violate Religious Freedom
MONTCLAIR, N.J. (RNS) A New Jersey megachurch said restrictions imposed by town officials _ including a required two-hour lapse between Sunday services _ violate state and federal religious discrimination laws.
The restrictions, imposed as part of the approval for the church’s expansion program, prohibit Christ Church from holding Friday and Sunday evening events, require that Bible study be held on Wednesdays and cut the number of parking spaces the church can build.
The church formally opposed the restrictions in a recent letter to the planning board in Rockaway Township, N.J.
“They placed conditions that are just not possible for the church to fully conduct its activities,” church spokesman Marc Weinstein said. “They basically have tied both hands behind their back. And it’s unfair, because the issue here is that none of these conditions are being placed on any other religious institutions in Rockaway Township.”
But Mayor Louis Sceusi said the township’s conditions were lawful, and came directly from testimony provided by the church’s pastor, the Rev. David Ireland, and others.
“As long as we do it based on the evidence that was presented, we are within our legal rights, and actually, we’re following our obligation just as we followed our obligation to approve the application,” Sceusi said. “We’ve tried our best to balance the interests of the town also, and to mitigate the strain that it’s going to create on the township.”
Christ Church has been a controversial project that involved nearly three years of hearings before township boards. Many residents were upset about the project’s size, the additional traffic it would cause, its environmental impact and the fact that the church is a tax-exempt organization.
In October, the planning board approved the church’s plans for a sanctuary for some 2,500 people, a K-5 school and other amenities.
But the approval came with dozens of conditions, some of which are contrary to the U.S. Constitution and a federal law that prohibits land use decisions that discriminate against religious organizations, church leaders said.
_ Paula Saha
Lutherans Apologize for Persecution of Anabaptists
(RNS) The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America has expressed “deep and abiding sorrow” for the persecution of Anabaptists nearly five centuries ago in Europe.
The ELCA’s church council, which issued the apology at its biennial meeting Nov. 11-13, hopes it will soothe relations between the ELCA and present-day Anabaptists, including the Mennonite Church USA.
“The council acted because past statements have become problematic for the ELCA’s present-day relationships with” Mennonites “and other Christians who trace their heritage to the 16th century Anabaptist reformers,” the ELCA said in a news release.
During the 16th century Protestant reformation, early reformers such as Martin Luther argued that Anabaptists and others who do not practice infant baptism should be punished by civil authorities. Moreover, the Augsburg Confession, an expression of faith and doctrine written around 1530 and still honored by Lutherans, explicitly condemns Anabaptists for adult baptism and their theology of grace.
Scores of early Anabaptists, whose name means “re-baptizers,” were executed for baptizing adults; Anabaptists believe one must be an adult to understand the implications of the sacrament. Some of the Anabaptists’ spiritual descendants, including the Amish and Old Order Mennonites, still bear a mistrust of civil authorities, and illustrated copies of the book “Martyrs Mirror” are found in many Amish homes and schools.
The ELCA council said that the condemnations in the Augsburg Confession do not apply to today’s Mennonite Church USA. The council also said it “rejects the arguments” by Luther and other early reformers “in which they hold that governmental authorities should punish Anabaptists for their teaching.”
_ Daniel Burke
NBA, Methodists Team Up to Fight Malaria
WASHINGTON (RNS) The NBA, Sports Illustrated and the United Methodist Church are caught up together in nets.
In an effort to stop the spread of malaria in Africa, where the disease is a leading killer of children, NBA Cares, Sports Illustrated, the United Methodist Church and others announced a new campaign with the United Nations Foundation to provide mosquito nets to families in need.
The “Nothing But Nets” campaign asks individuals to donate $10 to send an insecticide-treated net to Africa where it can be used to cover people while they’re sleeping to prevent mosquito bites that lead to malaria.
“It’s a wonderful 21st century mix of the secular and sacred, which is really unprecedented,” said United Methodist Bishop Thomas Bickerton of Western Pennsylvania.
He said the denomination has historically paired the spread of the gospel with social outreach, and joining the campaign was “a natural partnership.”
About 500 million people are infected worldwide with the disease each year, resulting in 1 million deaths. Ninety percent of the dead are in Africa; most are African children, according to the World Health Organization Web site.
Bickerton said the U.N. approached the United Methodist Church last summer to join in its efforts because the church has been sending missionaries to Africa for more than 160 years and has established a strong base in area hospitals and churches.
“(The U.N.) said, `You’ve got the networks. We’ve got the resources and ideas. Let’s partner up,”’ he said.
Bickerton said sponsors such as the NBA and Sports Illustrated can help stimulate young people _ specifically high school and college students _ within the church to join in the campaign efforts.
“The campaign gives us an opportunity to reach a generation that we’re struggling to reach, quite frankly,” he said. The NBA has agreed to send players to the United Methodists’ international Youth 2007 gathering next July, according to Bickerton.
_ Rebecca U. Cho
Government Ditches `Hunger’ Label for `Very Low Food Security’
WASHINGTON (RNS) The U.S. Department of Agriculture has decided that Americans who go without food are no longer hungry _ instead, they possess “very low food security.”
In an annual report released Nov. 15 that measures Americans’ access to food, the word “hunger” was omitted in favor of what the department has decided is the more scientifically accurate term.
The president of Bread for the World, an ecumenical Christian anti-hunger group based in Washington, blasted the department’s move as an attempt by the Bush administration to play down the reality of hunger in the U.S.
“This was a politically motivated resort to jargon in order to reduce the scandal of hunger in America,” the Rev. David Beckmann said. He said the department’s move was under the influence of an administration that does not like to acknowledge that Americans are hungry.
The Committee on National Statistics of the National Academies, an independent panel of scientific experts who made the recommendation, is defending the change in terminology, saying that hunger is a term that describes the consequences rather than the state of food security.
Because hunger is “an individual-level physiological condition that may result from food insecurity,” it must be measured on a person-to-person basis that is beyond the scope of the annual report, the committee said on the department’s Web site.
The report measures the ability of Americans to put sufficient food on the table for a healthy lifestyle. In previous years, “hunger” had been used to describe Americans at the lowest end of the measure, least able to adequately feed themselves and their families.
Critics also accused the administration of playing politics by waiting until after the Nov. 7 elections to release the report instead of putting it out, as usual, in October.
Beckmann said the new term is a “technical, bloodless word” that obscures reality, while hunger is a word that motivates people into action.
“These people who are being described as food insecure _ these people are hungry,” he said. “`Hunger’ has meaning to people. `Very low food security’ doesn’t mean anything.”
The Department of Agriculture said there were 35 million Americans in 2005 _ down from 38 million in 2004 _ who lived in households that at some point in the year were not able to put food on the table. The number of people threatened by “very low food security” was stable at 10 million after five consecutive years on the rise.
_ Rebecca U. Cho
Vatican to Review Condoms, Disease Prevention
VATICAN CITY (RNS) Vatican officials are gearing up to review current policy on infectious diseases amid continuing pressure for the church to relax its ban on condom use as a form of disease prevention.
The Roman Catholic Church’s ban on condoms has been at the center of intense public and internal debate in light of the AIDS epidemic that has ravaged Africa and other parts of the developing world. Current church policy advocates abstinence as the only acceptable method for preventing the spread of sexually transmitted diseases.
On Tuesday (Nov. 21), Vatican health minister Cardinal Javier Lozano Barragan announced his office would conduct a seminar Thursday through Saturday (Nov. 23-35) on whether the methods of prevention and treatment currently in use by the church’s global network of health care workers are effective.
“We will interrogate ourselves on the moral and ethical dimensions of the epidemics,” Barragan said. The Vatican banned condoms in 1968 as a form of contraception. No pope, however, has addressed the question of condoms in the context of AIDS and other infectious diseases.
Barragan did not say whether any modifications to the condom ban would be on the table, however.
In April, Barragan told the Rome newspaper La Repubblica that Pope Benedict XVI had asked his office to carefully study the issue. He did not indicate whether the Vatican ultimately intended to relax the decades-long condom ban.
“It is Benedict XVI who asked us for a study on this particular aspect of using a condom by those afflicted with AIDS and by those with infectious diseases,” Barragan was quoted as saying.
Those comments came two days after the leftist monthly L’espresso published comments by Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini calling condom use a “lesser evil” when used to prevent AIDS infection. Martini, the former archbishop of Milan once considered a contender for the papacy, has been a leading voice in the liberal wing of the Roman Catholic hierarchy.
_ Stacy Meichtry
Quote of the Week: Evangelical leader Leith Anderson
(RNS) “If there are some who are concerned about the viability of the (National Association of Evangelicals), it’s based on their ignorance, not reality. … This is like a plane crash. When a plane crashes, you’re sad and it’s big news, but you don’t abandon the airline industry. You recognize that’s the safest way to travel.”
_ Leith Anderson, interim president of the National Association of Evangelicals, responding to criticisms that the resignation of former president Ted Haggard has exposed weaknesses in the organization. Haggard resigned after admitting to charges of “sexual immorality” with a male escort. Anderson was quoted by Christianity Today magazine.
KRE/PH END RNS
