c. 2008 Religion News Service
Watchdog group files `Pulpit Freedom Sunday’ complaints with IRS
(RNS) A Washington-based watchdog group has filed six complaints with the Internal Revenue Service after dozens of clergy participated in a challenge to rules that ban politicking from the pulpit.
At least 31 pastors took part in “Pulpit Freedom Sunday” (Sept. 28), according to the initiative’s organizers at the Alliance Defense Fund, a conservative Christian law firm based in Arizona.
“These pastors flagrantly violated the law and now must deal with the consequences,” said the Rev. Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State.
Pastors endorsed Sen. John McCain for president in five of the six churches, Lynn said.
Gary McCaleb, senior counsel with ADF, said: “It’s not a matter of separation of church and state when you’ve got the IRS in the pew. That’s oppression of free speech.”
McCaleb said 31 pastors who agreed to participate in the plan preached on Sunday. The ADF has asked the pastors, most of whom are evangelical, to send their sermons to the law firm, which plans a court challenge of the IRS rules against partisan politicking by tax exempt organizations.
Asked if all the participating pastors had endorsed a candidate for president, McCaleb said, “I think some had a pretty direct statement.” He said the goal was to find a group of pastors who supported an “exercise of faith” that could lead to a Supreme Court case.
Americans United’s complaints were filed against: Calvary Chapel on the King’s Highway, Philadelphia; Bethlehem First Baptist Church, Bethlehem, Ga.; Fairview Baptist Church, Edmond, Okla.; Warroad Community Church, Warroad, Minn; New Life Church in West Bend, Wis., and First Southern Baptist Church, Buena Park, Calif.
_ Adelle M. Banks
Baptist pastor, former seminary president dies
NEW ORLEANS _ (RNS) The Rev. Landrum Leavell II, who built New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary into one of the largest in the country, died in Wichita Falls, Texas, on Friday (Sept. 26), the seminary said. He was 81.
The school did not disclose a cause of death, but spokesman Paul South said Leavell had been ill for some time.
Although he considered himself primarily a pastor, Leavell held two doctor of divinity degrees and a doctorate in theology. A graduate of the Gentilly seminary, he had been a pastor of churches in Mississippi and Texas for 26 years when the struggling seminary asked him to become its seventh president in late 1974.
In 21 years under Leavell, the seminary’s enrollment more than quadrupled and its endowment grew from $1.5 million to $23 million.
With an enrollment of about 3,600 full- and part-time students, the Gentilly seminary is the third or fourth largest in the country, said Leavell’s successor, Chuck Kelley.
During Leavell’s presidency, the seminary reached far beyond its Gentilly campus. It established an extensive network of satellite centers across the Southeast, where distant students can pursue seminary studies. Some are linked by video so students in Orlando or Atlanta can take classes with their counterparts in New Orleans.
Leavell also rescued from near collapse the school’s undergraduate program, which was conceived by his uncle, Roland Leavell, the seminary’s fourth president.
“By any standard of measurement, he was one of the greatest presidents in the history of this institution,” Kelley said during ceremonies honoring the Leavell family in 2003.
Born in Tennessee, the Rev. Leavell was reared in Georgia in a legendary family in Southern Baptist lore. His grandparents, George Washington and Corra Leavell, bore nine sons, eight of whom became Southern Baptist pastors, evangelists, missionaries and denominational leaders.
Leavell was a vice president of the Southern Baptist Convention and was president of Baptist General Convention of Texas, the main Southern Baptist organization in that state.
_ Bruce Nolan
London home of Muhammad novel publisher attacked
LONDON (RNS) Scotland Yard has placed armed guards around the British publisher of a novel about Muhammad and his young wife Aisha that has angered some Muslims.
Police believe Muslim extremists may have been behind an attack Saturday (Sept. 27) on the London home of publisher Martin Rynja, in which gasoline was poured through the letterbox.
A fire erupted, but firefighters quickly extinguished it after battering down the front door. Little damage was reported, and there were no injuries.
Rynja heads the publishing house Gibson Square, which is scheduled to release “The Jewel of Medina,” by American author Sherry Jones, within coming weeks.
Rynja has described the volume as a “moving love story,” but some critics have termed it “softcore porn.” Anjem Choudary, a former member of the group al-Mujaharoun, told journalists that the novel “is an attack on the honor of Muhammad.”
“People should be aware of the consequences they might face when producing material like this,” Choudary said. “They should know the depths of feeling it might provoke.”
The case echoes that of novelist Salman Rushdie, whose book, “The Satanic Verses,” led to death threats from some Muslim leaders.
Rynja defended his decision to publish the novel, saying “I was completely bowled over by the novel and the moving love story it portrays.”
“I immediately felt that it was imperative to publish it,” he added. “In an open society there has to be open access to literary works, regardless of fear.”
_ Al Webb
Quote of the Day: The Rev. David Beckmann of Bread for the World
(RNS) “As people of faith, we know that the Lord’s Prayer petitions for daily bread and for the forgiveness of our debts and of debtors. In rescuing the U.S. economy, our leaders and Congress must ensure that both are done at the same time, too.”
_ The Rev. David Beckmann, president of the anti-hunger group Bread for the World, commenting on negotiations in Washington to secure a bailout plan for Wall Street.
DSB/LF END RNS
