c. 2007 Religion News Service

Cut Farm Subsidies, Boost Food Stamps, Religious Leaders Say

(RNS) A group of religious leaders met on Capitol Hill Tuesday to lobby for a Farm Bill that would improve the Food Stamp Program _ a change they described as the quickest way to reduce hunger in the U.S.

Bread for the World, a Christian anti-hunger organization, is leading Baptists, Catholics, Lutherans and other churches to push what they call “reform that reflects American values of fairness and equal opportunity.”

Religious leaders have been visiting representatives and encouraging Christians to write letters to legislators _ both in favor of food stamps, which now pay recipients an average $1 per meal, and in opposition to what they see as an expensive and unjust farm subsidy program.

“Our nation’s farm policy needs to be guided by a strong moral compass,” said Rev. David Beckmann, president of Bread for the World, at a press conference. “An equitable system would not pour federal dollars into the largest farms in America without addressing the needs of those who need help the most.”

According to Oxfam, an anti-hunger advocacy group working with Bread for the World, just 25 percent of farmers qualify for commodity subsidies. Among those who do qualify, Oxfam said, only 10 percent receive 72 percent of the benefits.

The group also argued that these commodity payments distort the global market and have destructive repercussions abroad. Low prices for subsidized American products make it more difficult for foreign producers, such as cotton growers in sub-Saharan Africa, to compete in the global market.

“The House leadership must begin to address this bill from a moral perspective, which transcends the typical as-you-go-politics that have sustained U.S. agricultural policy,” said Episcopal Bishop John Bryson Chane of Washington.

The current farm legislation has been in place since 2002, when it was adopted with a ten-year price tag of $190 billion. Congress will debate a 2007 version through Thursday (July 19).

_ Michelle Rindels

Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod Delegates Re-elect Their President

(RNS) Delegates to the triennial convention of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod have re-elected their president and approved “altar and pulpit fellowship” with a smaller group of Lutherans.

The Rev. Gerald Kieschnick was re-elected Sunday (July 15) to lead the 2.5 million-member denomination for his third three-year term.

In an opening session prior to his re-election, Kieschnick, 64, urged members to do more to turn around a 35-year downward “slide” in membership, which was about 2.8 million in 1972.

“This ought not be!” he said. “I believe that God has called us to instill within the heart of every member of our synod a burning passion for souls _ hearts that will be ablaze with the purpose of taking the gospel of Jesus Christ to every hill and valley, every city, and every community in our land.”

Delegates to the meeting in Houston voted Monday to declare “altar and pulpit fellowship” with the American Association of Lutheran Churches (AALC), which has about 14,000 members. The declaration represents an agreement to share Communion at each other’s altars and to preach in each other’s pulpits.

The AALC made a similar declaration at its convention in June in St. Paul, Minn. The group formed in 1987 when its pastors were concerned about the doctrinal positions of Lutheran church bodies that merged in 1988 to become the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. Both the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, which was founded in 1847, and the AALC are more conservative theologically than the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.

_ Adelle M. Banks

No Chastity Ring for British Student, Court Rules

LONDON (RNS) A British court has rejected a teenage girl’s request that she be permitted to wear a chastity ring to school as a symbol of her Christian faith.

The High Court in London on Monday (July 16), denied a claim by 16-year-old Lydia Playfoot that her “purity ring” was a “religious artifact.” The court ruled instead that it was a “piece of jewelry” and she has “other means … to practice her belief.”

The court’s decision supports a ban imposed by the Milais School in Horsham, England, which says that wearing rings violates the institution’s uniform dress code.

The silver ring is inscribed with a Biblical verse: “God wants you to be holy, so you should keep clear of all sexual sin.”

The ring stems from the “Silver Ring Thing” movement in the U.S., in which Christian teenagers are encouraged to wear the ring to symbolize their pledge to refrain from pre-marital sex.

Playfoot’s lawyers argued that the school allowed Muslim and Sikh pupils to don headscarves and religious bangles and bracelets, and that her chastity ring should be regarded as a genuine religious symbol.

But the court found that she “was under no obligation, by reason of her belief, to wear the ring” and that the school’s ban was “fully justified.”

The teenager was one of a dozen girls at the Milais School who wore the ring and were ordered to remove it.

Playfoot said in a statement that the court’s decision “will mean that slowly, over time, people such as school governors, employers, political organizations and others will be allowed to stop Christians from publicly expressing and practicing their faith.”

_ Al Webb

Quote of the Day: Episcopal Bishop J. Jon Bruno of Los Angeles

(RNS) “I wouldn’t put up an immediate impediment because of someone’s past life. There’s no exclusion in the gospel for anybody.”

_ Episcopal Bishop J. Jon Bruno of Los Angeles, commenting on the decision of Ronald Boyer, a former pornographic film star who is pursuing the priesthood and is a member of an Oak Park, Calif., congregation. Bruno was quoted by The New York Times.

DSB/LF END RNS