c. 1998 Religion News Service

Twenty-five percent of Christians worldwide are Pentecostal

(RNS) More than 25 percent of the world’s Christians are Pentecostal or charismatic, a Pentecostal historian said at the recent 18th Pentecostal World Conference.

Vinson Synan told the gathering in Seoul, Korea, that there are close to 2 billion people who have accepted the Christian faith worldwide. He estimated that of that number, 540 million are charismatic or Pentecostal, reported the Assemblies of God News & Information Service.”The continuing explosive growth of Pentecostalism indicates that the renewal will continue with increasing strength into the next millennium,”he said.

More than 10,000 people attended the meeting, which is held in part to foster the sharing of ideas and worldwide networking among Pentecostal leaders.”When we know each other, we can more effectively resolve difficulties and move the mission of the church forward,”said conference chairman Ray H. Hughes.”PWC offers Pentecostals an opportunity to be a unifying force in a divided world.” The conference was held from Sept. 22 through 25 at Yoido Full Gospel Church, which is believed to be one of the largest churches in the world. David Yonggi Cho, pastor of the Assemblies of God congregation, said that some 30 percent of Koreans are Christian and 60 percent of that number are Pentecostal.

Statistics also show that Christianity, rather than Buddhism, is now the major faith group in Korea.

Canadian church leaders ask probe of state-sponsored gambling

(RNS) A group of 18 Canadian church leaders, representing a broad spectrum of theological views, have asked the country’s justice ministry to initiate a probe of state-sponsored gambling in Canada.”The promotion of state-sponsored gambling is at an all-time high in Canada,”the church leaders said.

They asked the government to establish an independent body to study”the social, economic and legal impact of legal and illegal gambling and charitable gaming in Canada, and to make recommendations regarding public policy.” Macleans, a national magazine, recently estimated the Canadian gambling industry was a $19 billion-a-year business and that the average family gambled $840 a year.”It’s not church leaders who feel most strongly that gambling has become a real social threat,”Bonnie Greene of the United Church of Canada told Ecumenical News International, the Geneva-based religious news agency.”It’s the people in the pews, the grassroots,”said Greene, whose study of gambling earlier this year sparked the ecumenical letter.”They don’t see gambling as only a question of personal morality anymore, either. Now they’re worried about what it’s doing to their whole community, and to all the other parts of their economy.” In the letter, the 18 leaders _ from the UCC, Anglican, Baptist, Orthodox, Methodist, Quaker, Lutheran and Salvation Army churches _ also called on Canada’s provincial governments to”place a moratorium on gambling expansion until such time as a public review has been completed and policy recommendations have been enacted.”

Creech, back in the pulpit, says he would do it again

(RNS) The Rev. Jimmy Creech, the United Methodist pastor whose performance of a same-sex union ceremony at his Nebraska church brought the denomination to the edge of schism, told a North Carolina congregation Sunday (Sept. 27) he would do it again.

Speaking to an overflow audience at a United Church of Christ congregation in Chapel Hill, N.C., Creech said Christians are not fully sharing the gospel until they embrace gays as part of the kingdom of God, the Associated Press reported.”I think the church has been wounded by prejudice and bigotry toward lesbians, gay men and bisexual persons that compromise its ability to speak truthfully and clearly the gospel of Jesus Christ,”Creech said.”What matters to me is the quality of relationship with people,”he added.”If it is a loving, caring relationship, I don’t really care what gender they are.” Earlier this year, Creech was narrowly acquitted at a church trial of charges that he disobeyed denominational rules by performing the ceremony.

The acquittal led a number of churches to threaten to leave the denomination or withhold funds. In August, however, the church’s Judicial Council _ its Supreme Court _ strengthened the rules against same-sex ceremonies saying they the rules were church law and not guidelines.

Creech was not reappointed to his Nebraska pulpit and has been on a voluntary leave of absence from the parish ministry since shortly after the March trial.

Update: Survey underscores Polish upset with Jews over Auschwitz

(RNS) A new Polish opinion poll has found that the majority of Poles believe Jews are not sensitive toward Polish suffering at Auschwitz during World War II.

Auschwitz, located in southern Poland, has been the site of a recent campaign by Catholic militants to erect crosses in memory of the estimated 152 Polish Catholics who died during World War II at the former Nazi death camp.

Overall, some 1.5 million people died at Auschwitz, 90 percent of them Jews. Jewish groups say placing crosses at Auschwitz improperly shifts the focus from Jewish suffering at the site.

In the survey published Friday (Sept. 25) in Gazeta Wyborcza, a leading newspaper, 59 percent of those polled said Jews do not respect Polish sensitivities toward Auschwitz. Twenty-three percent said Jews respect Polish feelings about Auschwitz.

Fifty-four said they think Poles respect Jewish sensitivities about Auschwitz, while 35 percent disagreed, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency reported. The survey also found that just 15 percent of the respondents backed the placing of new crosses at Auschwitz. However, about half of those surveyed supported the continued presence at Auschwitz of a cross placed there to mark a Mass at the site celebrated by Pope John Paul II a decade ago.

Polish Catholic bishops already have stated their opposition to the placing of the new crosses at Auschwitz, although that has not stopped Catholic militants from continuing to defy the church leaders.

Meanwhile, a Catholic priest whose parishioners were among those who placed the new crosses at Auschwitz has resigned. Rev. Ryszard Krol, a priest in the village of Kepice, resigned due to deteriorating health, according to church officials, and not the cross controversy, the Associated Press said Monday (Sept. 28).

Update: Black Jewish family gets OK to stay in Israel

(RNS) An African-American family that converted to Judaism and sought to emigrate to Israel has finally been allowed to settle permanently in the Jewish state.”We are thankful that (immigration authorities) finally decided to grant my family citizenship,”Elazar Yisrael told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency news service.”It’s a long struggle, but the family is rejoicing.” Under Israel’s Law of Return, Jews _ including those that convert to the faith under non-Orthodox auspices, such as the Yisraels _ are supposed to receive Israeli citizenship automatically when arriving in Israel and announcing their attention to stay.

Yisrael moved to Israel in 1996. But when his wife and four children came to Israel from Chicago to join him earlier this year, they were detained and told they had to leave Israel.

Israeli officials said they feared the family was connected to the controversial Black Hebrews sect, a group originally from Chicago that is not considered Jewish by Israel’s rabbinic establishment.

The Yisraels’ cause was taken up by Israel’s Conservative Jewish movement, under whose auspices they converted to Judaism in Los Angeles. Some of those who advocated on behalf of the family charged racism on the part of Israeli officials.

International Aid gets first chief operating officer

(RNS) International Aid, a Michigan-based emergency relief and missionary assistance organization, has named its first chief operating officer.

Jeanette”Jinny”De Jong, the former vice president of student life at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Mich., moved to International Aid in Spring Lake, Mich., in late August.

The relief agency has provided emergency relief in natural disasters. In 1997, its global work offering medical aid, emergency relief and missionary assistance had an estimated value of more than $63 million.

Quote of the Day: Pakistani Muslim leader Allama Hussain Turrabi

(RNS)”No one has a right to scrap a fatwa. Whoever indulges in blasphemy or leaves Islam must be killed.” _ Allama Hussain Turrabi, a Pakistani Shiite Muslim leader, responding to news that moderate Iranian Muslim officials had softened their stand toward the fatwa, or religious dictate, ordering the death of British writer Salman Rushdie because of his novel,”The Satanic Verses.”Turrabi was quoted Saturday (Sept. 26) by the Associated Press.

DEA END RNS