c. 1999 Religion News Service

Romanian Orthodox Church invites pope to visit

(RNS) Pope John Paul II has been invited to visit Romania by that nation’s Orthodox Christian Church.

The invitation came Friday (Feb. 5) and was something of a surprise. Just weeks ago, the Romanian Orthodox Church said it would not invite the pontiff unless Romanian Eastern Rite Catholics dropped hundreds of lawsuits filed to regain property seized from them by Romania’s former communist government and given to the Orthodox.

Since then, the churches issued a joint statement in which the Catholics said they would try and resolve their dispute with the Orthodox”through dialogue.” The pope, who hopes to improve relations between the Roman Catholic Church and Orthodox Christianity, last year expressed interest in visiting Romania. Romanian President Emil Constantinescu then invited the pope, but said an invitation from the Romanian Orthodox Church was also necessary.

In 1948, some 2,500 Catholic churches were seized by Romanian communists and given to the Orthodox. Catholics make up about 5 percent of Romania’s 23 million people.

John Paul ended the 85th foreign trip of his 20-year pontificate Jan. 27. He visited Mexico City and St. Louis during the six-day trip.

Upon returning home, John Paul came down with the flu. The illness forced the 78-year-old pope, who suffers from a form of Parkinson’s disease, to follow a severly curtailed schedule for a week. Friday, he was reported recovered from the flu, although his schedule remained limited.

Meanwhile it was announced that Iranian President Mohammad Khatami, a moderate, will meet with John Paul when he visits Italy in March. The meeting, the first by a president of Muslim Iran, was tentatively set for March 11.

Southern Baptist adult Sunday school lesson on gays draws criticism

(RNS) A Southern Baptist adult Sunday school lesson that espouses helping people”escape”from homosexuality has drawn criticism from a group that opposes the”ex-gay”movement.

The lesson was published in the winter 1998-99 edition of the adult”Life & Work”quarterly publication of the Southern Baptist Convention’s LifeWay Christian Resources.

Chuck Lawless, a seminary professor who wrote the lesson, advocates”maintain(ing) God’s standards on sexuality while proclaiming his power to save and to free from sin. In this way we offer good news and we support those struggling to escape the homosexual lifestyle.” Noting that this view could prompt opposition, Lawless said,”We should be willing to take this risk, though, if we desire to be a healing influence in a broken world,”reported Baptist Press, the official news service of the Southern Baptist Convention.

Lawless, assistant professor of evangelism and church growth at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky., cited scriptural verses from the New Testament and the Hebrew Bible to support his views. Among them was Leviticus 18:22, which states,”Do not lie with a man as one lies with a woman; that is detestable.””Attempts to circumvent the biblical teachings to affirm homosexuality are fruitless,”he wrote.

Lawless also said that Christians should”help homosexuals see the truth of God’s Word while affirming their value as human beings. That task will likely require gentle persistence and patience. … (A) cognitive agreement that homosexuality is unnatural is only one step toward breaking that bondage. Further ministry is most often required.” Equal Partners in Faith, a Washington-based network of religious leaders who emphasize equality and diversity, issued a statement saying the lesson discriminated against gays.”This is one more tragic example of justifying social inequality in the name of religion,”said the Rev. Steven Baines, a moderate Southern Baptist minister and projects coordinator for Equal Partners in Faith.

The 2-year-old group, which has criticized Promise Keepers and the Christian Coalition in the past, co-published a report last fall entitled”Calculated Compassion: How the Ex-Gay Movement Serves the Right’s Attack of Democracy.””By promoting the ex-gay movement’s ideas, the Southern Baptist Convention is engaged in a kinder, gentler homophobia,”said the Rev. Meg Riley, co-chair of Equal Partners in Faith.”The language of compassion disguises the continuing intolerant and hateful attitudes that would criminalize people for being who they are.” Los Angeles Jewish group urges garment industry reform

(RNS) The American Jewish Committee’s Los Angeles regional chapter has issued a report saying the city’s large number of Jewish garment manufacturers and retailers”have a special obligation when confronted by worker injustices.” The report, written by the chapter’s commission on sweatshops, followed a nine-month study of the Los Angeles County garment industry. The study found that the county’s more than 160,000 garment workers, many of them recent Hispanic and Asian immigrants, are poorly paid and that employers often do not comply with health, labor and safety laws.

The AJC commission, which included five rabbis, urged an end to the industry’s opposition to widespread unionization, among other reforms. It also called for educating Jewish employers about Judaism’s religious teachings concerning the fair treatment of employees.

In addition to calling for reform based on Jewish law, the commission report noted that Jewish immigrants themselves once constituted a large percentage of the newly arrived immigrants laboring in garment industry sweatshops.”Both Jewish history and the Jewish religious tradition give Jews a vested interest in the character of the garment industry,”the report said.

Despite papal plea, Philippines executes convicted rapist

(RNS) A house painter convicted of raping his 10-year-old stepdaughter has been executed in the Philippines, a heavily Catholic nation, despite a plea from the pope asking that the man’s life be spared.

Leo Echegaray, who proclaimed himself innocent of the charge, was the first convicted criminal to be executed in the Philippines in 23 years. His execution took place Friday (Feb. 5).

The government abolished the death penalty in 1987, but restored it with the support of many Filipinos in 1994 in response to escalating crime. Since then, 915 people have been sentenced to death, eight of whom could be executed this year.

Echegaray’s case prompted a plea for clemency from Pope John Paul II _ who intervened during his recent visit to St. Louis to save a convicted murderer scheduled for execution _ as well as from the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines.

Human rights groups also urged clemency. Amnesty International called the execution”a huge step in the wrong direction for human rights in the Philippines,”the Associated Press reported.

However, President Joseph Estrada called the execution”proof of the government’s determination to maintain law and order.” The Catholic Church opposes the death penalty, which it says runs counter to its teachings concerning respect for all human life. In St. Louis, the pope called capital punishment wrong”even in the case of one who has done great evil”because it precludes all chance of repentance.

Muslims threaten violence if Salman Rushdie visits India

(RNS) Indian Muslims have warned of violence if Bombay-born author Salman Rushdie returns to his homeland for a visit.

India _ a majority Hindu nation with a sizable Muslim minority _ announced Wednesday (Feb. 3) that Rushdie, now a British citizen, had been granted a visa to visit.

Fears the move would seriously heighten tensions between the country’s Hindus and Muslims increased Friday (Feb. 5) when a major Muslim leader promised violence if Rushdie does visit. Syed Ahmed Bukhari of New Delhi’s Jama Masjid, India’s largest mosque, said Rushdie would be greeted by violent protests.”We will follow him from the moment he lands at the airport, to wherever he makes his speeches, and if necessary sacrifice our lives for Islam,”Bukhari said.”The punishment for blasphemy is death. If a desperate Muslim does something radical and sacrifices his life to oppose Salman Rushdie, the government will be responsible.” Rushdie’s novel,”The Satanic Verses,”prompted calls for his death from Iran’s late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in 1989. Khomeini said the book blasphemed the Prophet Muhammad and Islam. His fatwa, or Islamic religious ruling, forced Rushdie into hiding, where he has largely remained since.

India was the first nation to ban Rushdie’s novel. However, a spokesman for India’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, which heads the ruling coalition, said Rushdie had been give a visa now as evidence of the party’s commitment to secularism and democracy.

BJP spokesman Krishnan Lal Sharma condemned the fatwa and said Rushdie, who was born a Muslim, would be protected in India. A spokesman for Rushdie said the writer may visit India in the next few months. He has not been in India since the 1980s.

In 1989, at least 16 people died and hundreds were injured during Muslim protests and riots when”The Satanic Verses”was first published.

Chinese crackdown on Muslim separatists reported

(RNS) China has reportedly arrested hundreds of Muslim separatists in the northwestern Xinjiang region.

News agencies said the region, which is dominated by Uighur Muslims, has been the scene of sporadic violence since the mid-1990s. The separatists want their own independent nation, as they briefly had until 1949 when Beijing’s communist government regained control of the area.

Amnesty International said Thursday (Feb. 4) that in recent months”some Uighurs have been detained merely for being relatives or friends of political prisoners or fugitives, or simply for being Uighurs.” The human rights group said some of those arrested have been tortured and”some have been left physically and mentally scarred as a result.” Chinese authorities have denied the allegations of indiscriminate arrests and torture. Reports of recent crackdowns on religious and political dissent in China have been widespread. Tibetan Buddhists and Chinese Catholics loyal to the Vatican have been among the reported victims.

Nazarene author and professor Mendell Taylor dies

(RNS) Mendell Taylor, a well-known author and professor in the Church of the Nazarene, died Jan. 23 in Bethany, Okla.

Taylor, who was 86, was one of the five original faculty members at Nazarene Theological Seminary when it was established in Kansas City, Mo., in 1945. In addition to being dean of the seminary for 18 years, he was a professor of church history and missions, and registrar.

Taylor, who also served on the general board of the Church of the Nazarene, was the author of more than 15 books, including”Fifty Years of Nazarene Missions”and”Exploring Evangelism,”an interdenominational textbook.

Quote of the Day: Author and philosopher Ken Wilber

(RNS)”The despairingly sad thing is, it usually takes 10 or 20 years to discover that this is definitely not the case, and then, where has your life gone?” _ Author and philosopher Ken Wilber, writing in his new book”One Taste: The Journals of Ken Wilber”(Shambala), on the disillusion that follows the realization that faith in God alone does not guarantee that all of life’s concerns will work out as desired.

IR END RNS