c. 2007 Religion News Service
Christian Reformed Church Votes to Allow Female Clergy
GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (RNS) The Christian Reformed Church quietly made history Tuesday (June 12) as the CRC Synod voted to remove the word “male” from its requirements for church office.
After 37 years of back-and-forth struggle, delegates opened the way for women to become ministers in any of the CRC’s 1,000-plus churches. If other proposed changes are approved as expected, women also will be able to serve as delegates to the Synod for the first time.
“This is the beginning of an opening I think is going to be monumental for the church,” said Carol Rottman, who has been working for women’s ordination since the mid-1970s.
However, the decision allows local church groups called classes to prohibit female ministers and elders from being delegated to their meetings. That was seen as a needed compromise for conservatives.
“There will be many of us who will continue to believe those biblical requirements involve a gender component, and it is impossible for us to surrender that idea,” said the Rev. Joel Nederhood of suburban Chicago. “What we have here is the kind of protection we must have.”
The vote came on the day the Synod recognized 30 candidates for ministry, including three women. However, it does not require any church to hire a woman _ a hurdle for new female ministers such as Karen Norris, who has not been hired in a yearlong search.
“The next step now is for churches to own up to what was decided tonight and say, `We’re willing to consider calling a female pastor,”’ said Norris, of Ontario.
_ Charles Honey
Study Says College Graduates More Likely to Keep the Faith
(RNS) It seems that the ivory tower is not undermining the faith after all.
A new study from the University of Texas at Austin indicates that college graduates are far more likely to maintain their religious beliefs and practices than those who never attended college.
Researchers found that four-year college students and graduates are least likely to neglect church attendance, say religion is less important in their lives or abandon their faith altogether. Those who do not pursue a degree are the most likely to leave religion behind.
“Many people assume college is public enemy number one for religion,” said assistant professor of sociology Mark Regnerus, author of “Forbidden Fruit: Sex and Religion in the Lives of American Teenagers.” “But we found young adults who don’t experience college are far more likely to turn away from religion.”
Jeremy Uecker, a graduate student and lead author of the study, said the findings suggest that the culture of the nation’s campuses is changing.
“Religion and spirituality are becoming more accepted in higher education, both in intellectual circles and in campus life,” he said in a press release. “Religious students are encountering a much less hostile environment than in years past.”
Among those least likely to leave their faith are Jews, Catholics and black Protestants, who often tie religion to cultural heritage. Women, Southerners and individuals whose parents are still married are also unlikely to abandon religion.
Researchers drew from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, which tracked more than 10,000 Americans from adolescence through early adulthood from 1994 to 1995 and again from 2001 to 2002. The complete study, titled “Losing My Religion,” appears in the June 2007 issue of the sociology journal Social Forces.
_ Michelle C. Rindels
Churches Push Congress to Ease Cuba Travel Restrictions
WASHINGTON (RNS) A coalition of mainline Christian leaders is pressing lawmakers to lift restrictions that have hampered religious travel to Cuba for two years.
The group, which includes members of the National Council of Churches (NCC) and executives from 11 of the nation’s largest mainline denominations, issued a statement June 7 urging lawmakers to support the Freedom to Travel to Cuba Act of 2007 in the Senate and the Export Freedom to Cuba Act of 2007 in the House.
Because of a Treasury Department policy, local and national religious organizations have been strictly limited in their travel to the communist country. Groups must apply for special licenses to travel and must limit the size of their delegations.
Last month, the Treasury Department dropped a threatened $34,000 fine against the Alliance of Baptists. Government officials had accused the group of using its travel license for improper tourist activities, but an investigation cleared the group.
John McCullough, executive director and CEO of the humanitarian agency Church World Service, called the regulations “unfair and inappropriate,” saying they “restrain religious freedom.”
“It’s a policy that has substantially restricted our ability to work with our ecumenical partners in Cuba on matters of spiritual and communal support,” McCullough said.
Church World Service was not the only group impeded by the policy. In the two years before the regulations took effect, the NCC took 33 delegations to Cuba. Under the current policy, the group could license no more than four trips per year.
The Rev. Clifton Kirkpatrick, stated clerk of the Presbyterian Church (USA), is part of the faith coalition backing the bill.
Kirkpatrick told Presbyterian News Service he didn’t understand why officials “place so many roadblocks in the way of people from the churches in this country being able to visit and support the churches there” and vice versa.
Lawmakers have shown some support for the measures; last year, 17 senators and 105 House members wrote to then-Treasury Secretary John Snow to express concern about the travel restrictions.
_ Michelle C. Rindels
Quote of the Day: Family Research Council President Tony Perkins
(RNS) “It sounds as if the economic side of the family is serving us divorce papers.”
_ Tony Perkins, president of Family Research Council, a conservative Christian advocacy group, on the divisions between fiscal and social conservatives on the Republican 2008 presidential field. He was quoted by The Wall Street Journal.
KRE/PH END RNS
