c. 1999 Religion News Service
Majority of Americans want to simplify holiday celebrations
(RNS) The vast majority of Americans feel the holidays have become too commercial and 58 percent say they have tried to simplify their holiday celebrations, a new poll shows.
The poll of 1,015 adults across the country was commissioned by the Center for a New American Dream, a nonprofit organization based in Takoma Park, Md., that promotes responsible consumption.
It found that 91 percent of Americans think the holidays are too commercialized and the idea of”peace on earth”has been forgotten by too many people.
The study indicates people are starting to act on those sentiments, with 3 out of 5 surveyed saying they have started to buy fewer gifts or simplify their holiday celebration in other ways.”People are learning to reconnect with the joyfulness of the holiday,”said Betsy Taylor, executive director of the Center for a New American Dream.”A third of the people we surveyed told us that they were simplifying their holidays to have a celebration that is more in keeping with their family’s values. And almost 1 in 4 said that they made changes to reduce stress or have more time with their friends and family.” More than 1 in 4 Americans reported feeling pressure to have a more expensive or elaborate holiday than they would like.
If there were no pressures to give presents, 35 percent said they would give gifts as planned and 39 percent said they would either pay off debts or save the money.
Chicago coalition asks Southern Baptists to forgo evangelism
(RNS) A coalition of Chicago religious leaders has asked Southern Baptists to reconsider plans to bring a massive evangelistic effort to the city next summer.
The scores of volunteers the Southern Baptists plan to gather in the city”could disrupt the pattern of peaceful interfaith relations in our community, and unwittingly abet the designs of those who seek to provoke hate crimes by fomenting faith-based prejudice,”the Council of Religious Leaders of Metropolitan Chicago wrote in a letter to Southern Baptist Convention President Paige Patterson.
While acknowledging the Baptists’ First Amendment right to evangelize, the letter expresses particular concern that Muslims and Jews”appear to be among your primary targets”and are groups that have been the victims of violence in recent months in the city.
The Nov. 27 letter was signed by the Rev. Paul H. Rutgers, executive director of the council.
He said the letter’s endorsers include Roman Catholic Cardinal Francis George of the Archdiocese of Chicago, Rabbi Ira Youdovin, executive vice president of the Chicago Board of Rabbis, Bishop Iakovos of the Chicago diocese of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America, and Bishop C. Joseph Sprague of the United Methodist Church’s Northern Illinois Conference.”We have an extremely diverse religious community here,”Rutgers told Religion News Service.”And the sensitivities, frankly, both about targeting certain faith groups and about anything that would contribute to a climate of prejudice or singling out becomes a very sensitive issue for us in a metropolitan community like Chicago.” The recent controversy about prayer guides distributed by the SBC’s International Mission Board concerning evangelism of Jews, Hindus and Muslims was a”major factor”in the writing of the letter, said Rutgers.
Herb Hollinger, a spokesman for the Southern Baptist Convention, said news of the letter came as a shock to denominational leaders, who don’t consider their actions to be threatening.”We’re surprised that the religious leaders of Chicago don’t see our heart,”said Hollinger.”Our heart is to bring a message of good news, encouragement, faith, hope to people. That’s our intent and that’s certainly what we’re going to try and do.” He said the prayer booklets, aimed at helping Southern Baptists”pray more intelligently for their neighbors,”are unrelated to the plans for Chicago.”We’ve never said that we’re going to target specific groups,”he said.”We’re going to target anybody that needs to hear the gospel.” Hollinger could not estimate the number of people who will participate in the Chicago component of the”Strategic Focus Cities”effort, but said,”we hope it’s a lot.” Asked if he expected the letter to prompt a change in the evangelistic plans, Hollinger said,”I would seriously doubt that.” The Southern Baptists also plan a major evangelism project in Phoenix next year. They plan similar projects in Las Vegas and Boston in 2001 and in Philadelphia and Seattle in 2002.
Pope holds”cordial”meeting with the leader of the Episcopal Church
(RNS) Pope John Paul II held a”cordial”meeting Monday (Nov. 29) with Bishop Frank T. Griswold III, leader of the Episcopal Church, to discuss ecumenical relations and their common stand on debt relief and other social issues.
Griswold, the presiding bishop and primate of the 2.5-million member U.S. church, also is co-chairman of the Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission (ARCIC). He came to Rome to attend ARCIC’s annual informal talks last week and to install John Baycroft, the former bishop of Ottawa, as director of the Anglican Center in Rome.
Canon David Perry, the presiding bishop’s deputy for ecumenical relations, described the papal audience as”cordial.”He said the pope and the bishop met alone for about 20 minutes.
Perry said John Paul and Griswold talked about”The Gift of Authority,”the ARCIC report issued earlier this year, which tackles one of the most difficult issues in the search for unity between the two churches.
In contrast to the 1 billion-member Roman Catholic Church with its strict hierarchy under the absolute sovereignty of the pope, the Anglican Communion, which has 70 million members worldwide, is made up of 36 self-governing churches, which regard the archbishop of Canterbury as the”first among equals.””The Gift of Authority”still has to be discussed and approved or rejected by both churches, a process that could take as long as eight to 10 years. Previous reports dealing with the communion, priestly ordination and other key issues also are awaiting action by the churches.
Relations have been complicated by the decision of many Anglican churches to ordain women and allow them to be elevated to be bishops.”Our conversations with the Roman Catholic Church, both internationally and nationally, are part of a long-term relationship, and this visit is one more step forward,”Perry said.”We have many, many common issues to work on. Many we are alike on, but we obviously have some we disagree about, and this visit is an indication that we are going to continue to work on them.”
Report: More than 35,000 Falun Gong members detained
(RNS) More than 35,000 members of China’s banned Falun Gong spiritual movement have been detained in crackdowns since July by Beijing police, a human rights group has reported.
The Hong Kong-based Information Center of Human Rights and Democratic Movement in China quoted senior Chinese Communist Party official Li Liang as saying that 35,792 people were detained between July and October.
More than 24,000 of the detentions occurred July 20-22, when China’s crackdown against the Falun Gong movement went into high gear. Another 4,230 detentions occurred Oct. 25-30.
It was unclear how many of the detentions involved repeat offenders and how many of those involved were charged with crimes, the Associated Press reported Monday (Nov. 29).
Falun Gong takes Buddhist and Taoist principles combined with traditional Chinese qigong physical exercises and meditation. Although the group insists it is nonpolitical, Beijing officials have denounced Falun Gong as a political threat to China’s stability and has outlawed its existence.
Falun Gong has fought back with nonviolent civil disobedience, such as silent protests in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square. The group’s founder, Li Hongzhi, lives in the New York area, where a spokeswoman for Falun Gong said at least 20 of those detained have been sentenced to forced labor.
Idaho cross sparks debate over religious symbols
(RNS) An estimated 10,000 people marched in Boise in opposition to a threat by an atheist organization to file suit in an effort to force the removal of a 60-foot cross that for 43 years has stood on a 1,000-foot bluff overlooking the Idaho city.
The Idaho Jaycees constructed the cross on what was then public property in 1956, then purchased the sliver of land on which it stands for $100 in 1972 to thwart a potential suit from the American Civil Liberties Union.
Recently, Rob Sherman, a Chicago talk-radio host and atheist, said he believed the land sale was a sham and called for legal action to get the cross removed.”It’s blatantly unconstitutional,”he told The New York Times.”Whenever government editorializes about religion by putting a religious symbol on public land, it creates a climate of bigotry, intolerance, hatred and tyranny against non-Christians in general and against atheists in particular.” The Saturday (Nov. 27) march, which ended with a rally outside the Idaho Statehouse, was just one of a host of expressions in support of the cross. Gov. Dirk Kempthorne, Sen. Larry E. Craig, R-Idaho, and other leading Idaho politicians have pledged to support the church and letters to the editor in local newspapers have run 10-to-1 in favor of retaining the cross.
Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi reopens two years after earthquake
(RNS) The seven-centuries-old Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi, badly damaged by an earthquake two years ago, has reopened with a Mass in memory of four people killed by falling debris.
Italian President Carlo Azeglio Ciampi, five present and former government ministers and 623 workers who helped to restore the early Renaissance church attended the Mass on Sunday (Nov. 28) celebrated by Cardinal Angelo Sodano, Vatican secretary of state.
The basilica in the Umbrian hilltown where St. Francis was born in 1182 suffered severe damage in two strong earthquakes that hit central Italy on Sept. 26, 1997. Vaulting from the 80-foot ceiling collapsed in the second tremor, killing two state technicians, a Franciscan friar and a young Polish postulate, who were inspecting the damage caused by the earlier shock.”We feel united to ours the voices of so many brothers and sisters of the Franciscan tradition who gave life to this basilica, from St. Francis to St. Clare,”Sodano said during the dedication of a new high altar donated by Pope John Paul II.
But others criticized the government’s decision to pour $40 million into the restoration project when 3,200 people, made homeless by the earthquakes and months of aftershocks, are still living in makeshift corrugated metal containers.”We are very happy that the basilica has been repaired,”said Mother Bernadetta, superior of a convent of Franciscan Poor Clare nuns in nearby Nocera Umbra.”We cannot forget, however, the discomfort of those who live in containers. I am sure that Francis would have thought first of the houses and then of the art.” Minister of Culture Giovanna Melandri hailed the work of the craftsmen and women and art experts who helped to restore the basilica.”The restoration of the basilica of Assisi is for us a model of how to put technology, talent, resources and work into civil action at the service of a country that is finally learning to admire its immense patrimony of art and culture,”she said.
Workmen re-enforced the church’s ceiling with 25,000 bricks to help the building withstand future earthquakes while art restorers using computers pieced together some 320,000 fragments of precious frescoes by Giotto and Cimabue. Some frescoes are only partially complete because not all the fragments could be recovered.
Britain opens state-funded school for Sikhs
(RNS) Britain now has its first state-funded Sikh school.
The Guru Nanak Sikh primary and secondary school at Hayes in West London, which began in 1993 as a private independent school, has been granted voluntary aided status, which means the government pays the operating costs and all but 15 percent of the cost of maintaining the buildings.
Until just two years ago, the only state-aided schools were Christian, especially Roman Catholic, and Jewish. In January 1998, two Muslim schools, one in north London and one in Birmingham, were given grant-maintained status.
There are about 400,000 Sikhs in Britain. The British Sikh community has its origin in migrations from India after World War II, particularly during the 1950s and 1960s before the imposition of more strict controls on immigration.
Quote of the day: Seminary professor Al Bean
(RNS)”Christian martyrdom is not a matter of lions and Roman coliseums, or medieval religious wars. It is a 1990s matter in nations we count as friends, nations we woo because they provide oil, cheap labor or markets for our products.” _ Al Bean, professor of Old Testament and Hebrew at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, speaking at the seminary’s Nov. 18 chapel service on the Kansas City, Mo., campus. He was quoted by Baptist Press, the news service of the Southern Baptist Convention.
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