c. 2008 Religion News Service

Mohler, facing surgery, withdraws from Baptist race

(RNS) The president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary has withdrawn his candidacy for president of the Southern Baptist Convention and will undergo surgery for a precancerous colon tumor, the seminary announced.

The Rev. R. Albert Mohler Jr., 48, said the tumor was discovered during a colonoscopy on Monday (Feb. 11).

“I have decided to give my greatest attention right now to addressing this new challenge and to ministering to my wife and children,” said Mohler, president of the seminary in Louisville, Ky. “This is clearly not the right time for me to accept this nomination.”

In late 2006, Mohler suffered serious abdominal pain and underwent surgery to remove scar tissue from a 1980s operation. After that surgery, he developed blood clots in both lungs, and doctors intend to take precautions to prevent a recurrence of blood clots.

“Sometimes we take it for granted that we live in an age like this one, in which God has given us the blessing of medical technology,” said Mohler.

“For most of human history, a tumor such as this one would have gone unnoticed until it was too late.”

The seminary said Mohler would probably need “an extensive period” of recovery. Mohler expressed confidence in the seminary’s leadership team, saying, “We will move forward with momentum.”

_ Adelle M. Banks

Alaska diocese to declare bankruptcy

(RNS) The Catholic Diocese of Fairbanks, Alaska, plans to file for bankruptcy after failed talks with an insurer and mounting legal expenses from clergy sex-abuse claims, becoming the sixth U.S. diocese to seek Chapter 11 protection.

Fairbanks Bishop Donald J. Kettler said, “I am legally and morally bound to both fulfill our mission and to pursue healing for those injured.” The Chapter 11 filing could come within five weeks, Kettler said.

More than 140 people have filed some 150 claims against the diocese in Alaska state court, according to the diocese. Those cases are “decades old, stretching from the 1950s through the early 1980s,” the diocese said in a statement.

Settlement talks with attorneys for the victims began last summer, the diocese said, but were scuttled by “the reluctance of a key insurance carrier to participate meaningfully in the process.” Costly legal expenses also drove the decision to file for bankruptcy, according to Kettler.

The Catholic dioceses of Spokane, Wash., Portland, Ore., Tucson, Ariz., Davenport, Iowa, and San Diego have also filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy because of sex-abuse lawsuits. All but Davenport have emerged with judge-approved settlements. A judge is scheduled to hold hearings on Davenport’s settlement and plan for reorganization March 5, according to the diocese.

The Fairbanks diocese, which encompasses Northern Alaska, is the nation’s largest geographically and is the only U.S. diocese under the Vatican’s missionary wing. Only eight of the diocese’s 46 parishes are financially self-sustaining, said Kettler.

_ Daniel Burke

Church of England finds something missing: Bibles

LONDON (RNS) The Church of England has discovered a shortage of a basic piece of equipment that it really cannot afford to do without _ an adequate supply of Bibles for its churches.

The Church’s General Synod this week voted to ensure that everyone visiting a church should have “easy and unfettered access” to a Bible, after delegates complained that many churches were failing to make them available.

No exact figures were available. But one briefing paper, presented to the Synod by delegate Tim Cox, said some churches keep Bibles under lock and key, and that one had removed them on grounds that “they were too difficult to dust.”

Cox said that while the Church of England was hiding away its Bibles, organizations including hotels, schools, hospitals and even prisons were providing the Scriptures to their clients, visitors and inmates.

One organization, Gideon International, was credited with distributing nearly a million copies of the Bible across England in 2007, many of which went into schools.

In 1536, King Henry VIII (whose six marriages had landed him in trouble with religious authorities of the day) ordered that an English version of the Bible be placed in every church. The Bibles often had to be shackled to the pulpit to guard them against violators of the Eighth Commandment, “Thou shalt not steal.”

Although the 16th century Bibles had to be chained down, Archbishop of Malmesbury Alan Hawker told the Synod on Thursday (Feb. 14), at least it was there, in a place where it was “critically important” that it was available for use.

_ Al Webb

Shuttlesworth family dispute cancels benefit concerts

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (RNS) A gospel concert series to benefit civil rights icon the Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth may be called off now that his children have objected to the project, questioning their stepmother’s motives.

“We think the funds he has are sufficient for his needs,” said Patricia Massengill, the oldest of Shuttlesworth’s four children. “If he truly needed funds, we would be all out trying to get them too. I’m sure he wouldn’t want anybody to beg on his behalf. It’s downright embarrassing.”

Shuttlesworth’s wife, Sephira, and a Chicago concert promoter say the children have acted out of jealousy of their stepmother, not in the best interest of their ailing 85-year-old father.

The concert promoter, Nona Farrar, said a planned concert Feb. 2 in Jackson, Miss., was postponed, and one set for Feb. 10 at the Apollo Theater in New York was canceled for lack of ticket sales. A Feb. 23 concert in Birmingham also may be canceled, she said.

Farrar said the children are going against their own father’s wishes.

“This was all arranged before he went in the hospital” with a stroke last year, Farrar said. “I spoke with Rev. Shuttlesworth personally about this. Rev. Shuttlesworth was fine with this before he even went in the hospital. He said go ahead and work it out with Sephira.”

Farrar said gospel musicians were paying their own travel expenses to perform to raise money for his medical bills.

“He never asked for money,” Farrar said. “I was happy to do it. I don’t need the children’s permission to do that. That is totally irresponsible. They have totally messed up my show.”

Farrar compared Shuttlesworth to civil rights leaders Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks and said he shouldn’t have to sell off his property to pay nursing home bills because so many people would gladly help him if they knew he was in need.

Fred and Sephira Shuttlesworth met more than 20 years ago and married in 2006. She was a longtime member of Greater New Light Baptist Church in Cincinnati, which Shuttlesworth founded in 1966 and where he retired as pastor in 2005. At the time of their marriage, he was 84; she was 49.

Massengill said that as long as her father owns property _ including rental houses and apartments _ her stepmother should not be raising funds through benefits.

“I don’t want this to be a bad end to his legacy,” Massengill said. “His work speaks volumes for him. I don’t want people collecting money in his name.”

_ Greg Garrison

Quote of the Day: Mercer University professor David Gushee

(RNS) “It is clear to me that the problem of torture is like a bone caught in our national throat. We can’t swallow it, but we can’t quite spit it out. And so we are choking on it.”

_ David Gushee, a professor of Christian ethics at Mercer University, in a column for Associated Baptist Press.

KRE/PH END RNS