c. 1996 Religion News Service
Organizers of Million Man March say event is more than $66,000 in debt
(RNS)-Million Man March organizers say they have more than $66,000 in unpaid bills from the Oct. 16 march led by Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan.
The Rev. Benjamin F. Chavis Jr. and other leaders instrumental in the march released information from an audit on Friday (June 14), The Washington Post reported.
The audit showed that organizers raised $1.9 million before and during the march and incurred expenses of $2 million. Chavis and Nation of Islam leaders said Friday the march is $66,283 in debt.
Chavis said the debt is from bills owed to vendors. He added that, considering the number of people who took part in the march, it is”a miracle”that the debt was not higher.
In addition to the bills that are due, the march also owes the District of Columbia a promised payment of 10 percent of the cash raised from march participants-about $24,000.
Chavis said money must be raised in order to fulfill that promise.
National march organizers have been trying to raise money to cover the debts by seeking contributions from the 400 local committees that helped bring about 800,000 men to Washington.
Kamal Muhammad, chief accountant for the Nation of Islam, said $245,687 in donations was received from the crowd attending the event.”It was extremely important to release the financial report,”said Faye Williams, chairwoman of the Washington local organizing committee for the march.”I would have hoped it would have been released earlier, but these things take time.”
Liberia archbishop threatens to excommunicate militia fighters
(RNS)-The Roman Catholic archbishop of Liberia has threatened to excommunicate any church members who continue to participate in the factional fighting that has devastated the west African nation.
Archbishop Michael Francis said in his Sunday (June 16) sermon that Catholic militiamen who continue to take part in the fighting”will be expelled and isolated for good.””These Catholics are guilty of atrocities and they will not receive any sacraments from this church nor will they be given Christian burials,”Francis said, according to Reuter news agency.
The archbishop also said that church-run schools, hospitals and a radio station in the Liberian capital of Monrovia that have been looted or destroyed during the fighting will not reopen until a lasting peace takes hold. However,”a few health centers”will be opened, he said.
The Catholic Church runs many of the schools in Monrovia, where it also operates a job training center for ex-militiamen, who are often young boys and teen-agers.
Heavy fighting between factions vying for control of Liberia erupted in Monrovia on April 6, leading to the death of thousands and the systematic looting and destruction of much of the city. While the city is now calmer, armed militiamen remain in the city and international aid organizations said last week they would limit their functions in Monrovia to keep their resources from being stolen and then used by the fighters.
Centrist Orthodox rabbis reject messianic claims by Hasidic faction
(RNS)-The Orthodox Rabbinical Council of America (RCA) has formally-but indirectly-condemned the belief by some members of the Lubavitch Hasidic sect that their deceased leader will someday rise from the dead and reveal himself to be the messiah.
The Lubavitch rebbe, Menachem Mendel Schneerson, died two years ago this month. Since then a faction within the Hasidic sect, which adheres to an ultra-Orthodox form of Judaism, has maintained that the rebbe will either return from the dead or is not really dead-even though his body is buried in a Queens, N.Y., cemetery.
The issue has raised controversy within the Orthodox Jewish world, leading to the formal resolution passed at the RCA’s annual meeting, held June 10-14. The RCA is a far more mainstream group than is the Lubavitch messianic faction. The RCA is also the nation’s largest organization of Orthodox Jewish rabbis.
The RCA resolution did not mention the rebbe or the Lubavitch movement by name.
Rather, it referred to”disturbing developments”within the American Jewish community, and said the RCA”declares that there is not and has never been a place in Judaism for the belief that (the messiah) will begin his messianic mission only to experience death, burial and resurrection before completing it.” In response, Rabbi Shmuel Butman, head of the Lubavitch messianic group International Campaign to Bring Moshiach (Messiah in Hebrew), noted that Jewish teachings about the messiah have varied over the centuries and have included references to bodily resurrection.
He also criticized the RCA’s deciding”by popular vote”a question of Jewish law. Such questions have traditionally been decided by a small group of recognized rabbinic scholars, he said.
Butman called belief in the rebbe’s resurrection”an authentic Jewish belief.”
Civil rights leader criticizes Christian Coalition for church-fire summit
(RNS)-Southern Christian Leadership Conference President Joseph Lowery has criticized the Christian Coalition for its plans to hold a summit for pastors of African-American churches that have burned across the country.
The coalition scheduled the Atlanta summit for Tuesday (June 18) to discuss possible solutions to stop the attacks. Officials of the political organization, which claims 1.7 million members and supporters, have invited civil rights activists to participate in the meeting.
But Lowery, president of the Atlanta-based civil rights organization, does not plan to attend.”If the Christian Coalition is serious about helping black church people, a more effective way is to fight the extremist climate that has precipitated from groups like theirs,”Lowery said Friday (June 14), the Associated Press reported.”They are trying to exploit the situation.” In an appearance Sunday on NBC’s”Meet the Press,”Christian Coalition Executive Director Ralph Reed said Lowery’s remarks were”irresponsible”and added that his coalition is trying to make amends for past support of segregation by white Southern evangelicals. Reed’s organization offered a $25,000 reward in April to anyone who can prove that racism has motivated a series of arsons at African-American churches in the South.
Meanwhile, churches are continuing to be the victims of fire. Hills Chapel Baptist Church, a predominantly black church in Rocky Point, N.C., burned early Monday (June 17,) the second church fire in the state in less than two weeks. In addition, the former sanctuary of the predominantly white Pine Lake Baptist Church in Pine Lake, Ga., was heavily damaged in a fire early Monday (June 17).
Supreme Court orders scrutiny of Ohio measure denying gay rights
(RNS)-The U.S. Supreme Court Monday (June 17) ordered a lower court to re-examine a Cincinnati charter amendment that denies discrimination protection to homosexuals.
The justices, in a 6-3 ruling, told the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to restudy its 1995 ruling that upheld the Cincinnati ordinance in light of their May decision that struck down a similar Colorado constitutional amendment, the Associated Press reported. The Supreme Court ruled that the Colorado amendment violated the equal protection rights of gays and lesbians.
In 1993, Cincinnati voters approved an amendment to the city charter that barred enforcement or enactment of any law aimed at ending discrimination based on sexual orientation.
Justice Antonin Scalia, who dissented along with Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and Justice Clarence Thomas, said,”The consequence of holding this provision unconstitutional would be that nowhere in the country may the people decide, in democratic fashion, not to accord special protection to homosexuals.” Cindy Abel, executive director of Stonewall Cincinnati, a gay-rights group, said the Supreme Court’s latest action”demonstrates that it truly is unconstitutional to deny gays and lesbians the possibility of obtaining basic protection from discrimination.” Robert Knight, the director of cultural studies at the conservative Family Research Council in Washington, affirmed Scalia’s dissent.”As the sexual revolution keeps grinding, new litigants seeking rights for pedophilia, polygamy and other sexual `lifestyles’ will soon surface,”Knight said.”The people of Cincinnati were right to try to keep `sexual orientation’ from being awarded special protection.”
Treasury releases Pastors for Peace computers
(RNS)-The U.S. Treasury Department has released the last of the 395 Cuba-bound computers that were seized from Pastors for Peace, an activist group that opposes U.S. policy toward Cuba.
The computers, which will be used for medical purposes in Cuba, were seized earlier this year by U.S. Customs agents during three attempts by the Minneapolis-based Pastors for Peace to take the machines across the U.S.-Mexico border without government permission.
The last of the computers were released Friday (June 14) to the United Methodist Church, which is part of a coalition with six other mainline Protestant groups trying to resolve the dispute between the clergy and lay activists and the government.
The Rev. Thom White Wolf Fassett, general secretary of the Methodist’s General Board of Church and Society, is working with government officials to determine a way to export the computers to Cuba.”We’re looking ahead to the next step: transfer of the computers to Cuba,”Fassett said in a statement. He said he hopes to receive final word on the shipment as early as this week.
Under the Trading With the Enemy Act, exports to Cuba are banned. The government, however, allows humanitarian aid to be shipped to Cuba provided those shipping the aid receive a government license.
Quote of the Day: The Rev. Bennett W. Smith, president of the Progressive National Baptist Convention
(RNS)-The Rev. Bennett W. Smith, president of the predominantly black Progressive National Baptist Convention, spoke at a recent racism summit of U.S. Baptist leaders in Orlando, Fla.:”Let me tell you why racism is a sin. For the first 12 years of my life as a boy from Oklahoma, I was angry with God because I was born black. I despised every day I was born black. This is what racism has done to 100 percent of blacks who grew up in the South. Racism is seared into their consciences.”
MJP END RNS
