c. 2007 Religion News Service
Radio Station Refuses Ads About Female Pastor
SYRACUSE, N.Y. (RNS) Mars Hill, a local Christian radio network, won’t accept paid advertising for an upcoming Christian crusade in Syracuse because a female pastor is participating.
“We can’t comfortably promote women in the role of pastor,” said Wayne Taylor, the general manager.
Mars Hill’s nine-member, all-male board of directors voted unanimously Tuesday (May 22) to accept an interpretation of Scripture that prohibits women from serving as church elders or pastors. That means the Syracuse-based network of four stations will not advertise or promote the two-day City Wide Crusade, which features a June 8 appearance by televangelist Pastor Paula White.
“It’s a doctrinal issue,” Taylor said. “It’s not about women preaching. It has to do with a woman taking on a pastor’s role.”
Some Christians say literal interpretations of the Bible describe specific roles for men and women. “We know it’s not going to be popular,” Taylor said of the board’s decision. “The word of God is what we’re taught.”
Bishop Robert Jones, founder of Syracuse’s Apostolic Church of Christ, the church whose 1970s neighborhood revival developed into the City Wide Crusade, disagrees with Taylor’s interpretation.
“I have no problem with women pastors,” Jones said.
William R. Clark, president of City Wide Crusade, said the organization had planned to pay the Mars Hill Network $250 for 25, 30-second ads about the June 7 and 8 event.
“I don’t know how you can discriminate against female pastors,” he said. “You should not sit in the judgment seat to determine who God will use to deliver the word.”
White and her husband, Randy White, are co-pastors of Without Walls Church in Tampa, Fla. Neither White nor her publicist was available for comment Tuesday.
_ Renee K. Gadoua
Parishioners Protest Plans to Sell Church to Synagogue
BERLIN (RNS) Fifteen German churchgoers are about to enter the third month of a sit-in to save their church from becoming a synagogue.
Due to falling attendance, Germany’s Evangelical (Protestant) church agreed to sell the Paul Gerhardt Church in Bielefeld to the local Jewish community, which wants to turn it into a synagogue. The decision sits poorly with longtime church members who feel their church has been sold out from under them.
“I’m going to stay here until I’m certain it (the sale) won’t happen,” said Hermann Geller, a 66-year-old retirees, quoted in the Sueddeutsche Zeitung (Southern German Newspaper), as he prepared to bed down on an air mattress for the 58th day of his vigil earlier this week.
The Paul Gerhardt congregation merged with the Church of Mary in 2005. At the time, the Gerhardt church’s congregation had dwindled to 1,600. When a vote came up in 2006 about whether to keep the Gerhardt church, built in 1958, or the Church of Mary, which was built in the 13th century, the vote came down clearly in Mary’s favor.
Geller and others say they were tricked and never told that their old church would be sold. The sale, according to a church spokesman, cannot be stopped.
Some opponents have argued that letting a Jewish congregation take over an old Christian landmark could lead to an outbreak of anti-Semitism in Bielefeld. Geller, speaking for the protesters, says there is plenty of space on the church’s plot of land for a synagogue alongside the church. He just wants his church to remain open, and to remain Christian.
Church officials have ruled out clearing the church by force.
Rabbi Henry Brandt says protesters are blocking “a project that could show that Jews have a place in German society once again.”
_ Niels Sorrells
Former Disciples Leader to Head Ecumenical Group
(RNS) The ecumenical group Christian Churches Together named a former head of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) as its first executive administrator.
The Rev. Richard L. Hamm, who served 10 years as general minister and president of the Disciples, will be the first full-time staffer at the fledgling Christian Churches Together.
“I have always been drawn to the vision of the various parts of the church of Jesus Christ in the United States seeking common ground and working together in all ways possible,” Hamm said in a statement.
Composed of 36 churches and denominations, Christian Churches Together was officially organized in 2006 and held its first meeting in February. The group draws members from five Christian “families”: Catholics, evangelicals and Pentecostals, Orthodox, mainline Protestants and racial/ethnic churches. The coalition has placed an early focus on evangelism and reducing poverty.
The Rev. Wesley Granberg-Michaelson, general secretary of the Reformed Church in America and a president of Christian Churches Together, said Hamm “was involved with CCT during its formative time and … understood the necessity of deepening fellowship between leaders of Christian `families’ who, in many cases, had little relationship with each other.”
Hamm is also founder and president of the Columbia Partnership, a Christian consulting firm. He said that CCT has “an appropriate post-modern model, with its focus on networking, consensus building and action. The prospect of helping to shape and grow such a post-modern organization for the sake of common witness and mission is truly exciting.”
_ Daniel Burke
Choir Told Not to Sing `The Lord’s Prayer’ at Graduation
PLAINFIELD TOWNSHIP, Mich. (RNS) The Comstock Park High School choir performed “The Lord’s Prayer” six months ago at a benefit for the family of Nick Szymanski, a choir member and deeply religious student who was killed in an accident last October.
In honor of their classmate, the choir decided to sing it again during the school’s May 31 graduation.
But that plan changed Wednesday (May 23) when choir director Keith VanGoor said school administrators would not allow them to sing the religious song during the graduation at Sunshine Community Church.
“We’re dealing with legal advice. Legal counsel said, `Don’t go there,”’ explained Dwight Anderson, the superintendent of Comstock Park Public Schools. “I feel bad for the kids because they do a great job with it.”
The choir is feeling pretty bad, too, said member Hilary Shively, a junior. They want to sing the song once again in remembrance of Szymanski.
“It wasn’t meant to be preached religiously towards others, although some may have taken it that way,” Shively said.
“The Supreme Court has ruled that prayer at a graduation ceremony isn’t appropriate,” Anderson said. “I say the Lord’s Prayer every day. I have a strong faith and teach a Bible class at my church. But we are going to abide by the law.”
Comstock Park High School Principal John Kraus brought the issue to Anderson’s attention after reviewing a draft of the commencement program, Anderson said. There were no complaints or threats of litigation that led to the decision. Kraus did not return calls for comment.
The choir first sang “The Lord’s Prayer” at a November dinner to raise money to cover Szymanski’s funeral costs. Szymanski, 16, was electrocuted Oct. 1 when a ladder he was moving came in contact with a power line. He was volunteering his time to help a church leader paint his house.
“His mom requested that we sing it,” Shively said.
Court rulings on similar cases are inconsistent, said Michigan Association of School Boards legal counsel Brad Banasik. A whole lot of choral music has its roots in religion, he said.
“What is the purpose of singing the song? If it’s a secular purpose, it may not be a violation. But if the sole purpose is based on religious intentions, then you may have a problem. If someone hears that song being performed at a graduation ceremony, would they perceive that as the school district endorsing Christianity?” Banasik said.
_ Beth Loechler
Quote of the Day: The Rev. Janet Parker from Arlington, Va.
(RNS) “I would like to suggest that we have to start reading the Bible backwards. … We begin with Revelation, not with the pristine garden. But then, reading backwards with the saints of all times and places, we discern the possibility for a new beginning _ we reach towards a new genesis, a new way of living in harmony with the earth … ”
_ The Rev. Janet Parker from Rock Spring Congregational United Church of Christ in Arlington, Va., who won the National Council of Churches first-ever Environmental Sermon Award.
KRE/JM END RNS
