c. 2004 Religion News Service
IRS Issues Election-Year Politicking Reminder to Churches
WASHINGTON (RNS) The Internal Revenue Service has warned churches and other houses of worship they risk losing their tax-exempt status if they engage in partisan election-year politics.
The IRS, in a routine advisory issued every four years since 1992, said religious groups are “prohibited from participating or intervening in any political campaign on behalf of, or in opposition to, any candidate for public office.”
Churches, charities and schools known as 501(c)3 groups for their section of the tax code, may hold nonpartisan voter education forums or voter registration drives, but may not endorse any candidate.
Nonprofit groups may not make donations to campaigns, raise funds for candidates, distribute campaign literature or “become involved in any other activities that may be beneficial or detrimental to any candidate,” the IRS said in an April 26 notice.
Rep. Walter Jones, R-N.C., however, said Wednesday (April 28) that clergy should be able to endorse candidates from their pulpits as a matter of free speech. Jones is the lead sponsor of a bill, the Houses of Worship Political Speech Protection Act, that would allow clergy endorsements without the threat of losing tax-exempt status.
In 2002, the House defeated the bill 239-178; Jones has since reintroduced it.
“It’s time to return the freedom of speech to the churches and synagogues in our country,” Jones said at the National Catholic Prayer Breakfast. “God has been the quarterback on this, and has led this effort to the 10-yard line.”
In 1995, the IRS revoked the tax-exempt status of the Church at Pierce Creek in Binghamton, N.Y., after the church paid for a full-page ad in USA Today in 1992 criticizing then-presidential candidate Bill Clinton.
The Federal Election Commission, concerned that some political committees are skirting campaign finance laws, is currently weighing proposed rules that could also require some nonprofits _ including churches _ to register as political committees that would be subject to stricter registration and disclosure rules.
The IRS said it would examine violations on a case-by-case basis, but warned that it has the power to assess fines and prohibit additional political expenditures in cases of “flagrant” violations.
_ Kevin Eckstrom
Gospel Music Association Gives MercyMe Top Honor at GMA Music Awards
(RNS) The Christian group MercyMe was named on Wednesday (April 28) as Artist of the Year, the top honor at the GMA Music Awards, the annual ceremony of the Gospel Music Association.
The band also won Dove Awards for Group of the Year and Pop/Contemporary Recorded Song of the Year for “Word of God Speak.” That song, composed by band leader Bart Millard and co-writer Pete Kipley, was named Song of the Year.
Jonathan Foreman, lead singer of Switchfoot, won the most Dove trophies, earning three with his band and three individually. His band won top Rock Recorded Song for “Ammunition” and best Rock/Contemporary Recorded Song for “Meant to Live.” Their album featuring both tracks, “The Beautiful Letdown,” was recognized as Rock/Contemporary Album of the Year. In addition, Foreman won two Doves for his songwriting and one for his production of that album.
Stacie Orrico was honored as Female Vocalist of the Year and also for top Pop/Contemporary Album for her self-titled project and Short Form Video of the Year for “(There’s Gotta Be) More to Life.”
Jeremy Camp earned two Dove Awards, one for Male Vocalist of the Year and another for New Artist of the Year.
There were several other winners of two honors, including the Crabb Family, the Martins, Smokie Norful, Michael Tait, Third Day, Randy Travis and CeCe Winans.
“Whether it’s rock or urban, country or traditional gospel, the music we saw showcased by artist performances and honored with Dove Awards tonight is as inspiring as it is entertaining,” said John W. Styll, president of the Gospel Music Association, in a statement issued Wednesday.
This year’s awards, which took place at Municipal Auditorium in Nashville, Tenn., were simulcast at 50 Regal Entertainment Group theaters across the country and will be broadcast on UPN on May 28 from 8 to 10 p.m. ET/PT.
Partial list of winners at GMA’s 35th Annual Music Awards:
Song of the Year: “Word of God Speak”
Songwriter of the Year: Mark Hall
Male Vocalist of the Year: Jeremy Camp
Female Vocalist of the Year: Stacie Orrico
Group of the Year: MercyMe
Artist of the Year: MercyMe
New Artist of the Year: Jeremy Camp
_ Adelle M. Banks
Magazine Will Stop Accepting Holocaust-Deniers’ Ads
LOS ANGELES (RNS) A Holocaust denial group’s advertisement in The Nation has prompted the prominent progressive magazine to rethink its wide-open advertising policy and also not take future ads from the neo-Nazi allied group.
“We reserve the right to turn (away) ads when they go over the line. It was found by some (at The Nation) to be so offensive that we just went with that decision,” said Nation publisher and editorial director Victor Navasky. “We have a very strong presumption on behalf of taking ads that are at political odds with the magazine.”
The one-eighth-of-a-page advertisement in the issued dated May 3 was placed by the Institute for Historical Review, a Newport Beach, Calif.-based Holocaust denial organization that on April 24 held a small “revisionist” conference in Sacramento, Calif., with help from the neo-Nazi group National Alliance.
The Nation ad promoted French writer Roger Garaudy’s book “The Founding Myths of Modern Israel,” which the ad said dissects “the most sacred of Jewish-Zionist icons, the Holocaust story.”
Mark Weber, the institute’s director, said in an interview that his group’s ad was “readily accepted for publication. I’m not trying to trick anybody about this ad.”
The advertisement was part of a standard, $1,600 ad purchase for four ads with two extra free ads thrown into the deal by a Nation advertising salesman. Nation associate publisher Peter Rothberg confirmed Weber’s account that the magazine solicited Weber to buy the ads, with both a phone call and another sales pitch by mail.
Free copies of the May 3 issue were handed out at the April 24-25 Los Angeles Times Book Festival at the University of California, Los Angeles. But the ad offended one of the magazine’s editors, so money paid for future advertising was returned to Weber’s group. “After the advertisement ran once,” said Rothberg, “we will not take this ad because it is a violation of our advertising policy.”
_ David Finnigan
Pope Urges Bishops to Set Example of Holiness in Wake of Abuse Scandal
VATICAN CITY (RNS) Pope John Paul II urged a group of U.S. bishops Thursday (April 29) to set an example of holiness in order to rebuild an American Catholic Church shaken by widespread scandals over pedophile priests.
The bishops, from the ecclesiastical provinces of Baltimore and Washington, were the second group of U.S. prelates to make the visit required of bishops every five years to report directly to the pope and Vatican officials and hear their counsel. The entire U.S. church hierarchy will come to the Vatican over a nine-month period.
The pope made no direct reference to the scandals that broke out in Boston in 2002 and involved thousands of priests throughout the country. Cardinal Bernard Law of Boston was forced to resign and other bishops were criticized for failing to adequately discipline priests accused of sexual abuse.
John Paul said that in his audiences with the U.S. bishops, he intended to “reflect on the mystery of the church and, in particular, the exercise of the episcopal ministry.”
“It is my hope that these reflections will serve as a point of departure for your own personal meditation and prayer and thus contribute to a pastoral discernment helpful for the renewal and building up of the church in the United States,” he said.
While underlining “the indefectible holiness” that Christ gave to the church, the pope said, “At the same time, the holiness of the church on Earth remains real yet imperfect.
“The grandeur of faith’s vision of the church’s unfailing holiness and the realistic acknowledgment of the sinfulness of her members should inspire in all a greater commitment to fidelity in the Christian life,” he said.
John Paul recommended that the bishops “cultivate an ecclesial spirituality” and adopt “a lifestyle which imitates the poverty of Christ.”
“I am deeply convinced,” he said, “that, in a church constantly called to interior renewal and prophetic witness, the exercise of episcopal authority must be built upon the testimony of personal holiness.”
The pope said that “a new zeal for holiness, which inspires all our initiatives and finds practical expression in a renewal of faith and Christian life,” is essential to the new evangelization he has called on Catholics to undertake at the start of the new millennium.
Cardinals Theodore McCarrick of Washington and William Keeler of Boston led the prelates from region IV of the U.S. Conference of Bishops.
_ Peggy Polk
After Excluding Muslim, Organizers Cancel Prayer Breakfast
BEAVERTON, Ore. (RNS) Organizers canceled a planned prayer breakfast Tuesday (April 27) after learning that most of Washington County’s mayors and one of two main speakers wouldn’t attend the May 5 event because a Muslim leader was excluded from participating.
“The purpose of the event is gone,” said Roy Dancer, the breakfast’s longtime registrar for its sponsor, the Beaverton-Tigard Chapter of the Full Gospel Businessmen’s Fellowship & Concerned Citizens.
Uniting the community’s pastoral, political and business people in prayer had been the purpose of the Mayors’ Prayer Breakfast of Washington County, he said. Without the host _ Beaverton Mayor Rob Drake _ and other mayors, he said, that couldn’t happen.
Shahriar Ahmed, president of the Bilal Mosque Association in Beaverton, along with Rabbi David Rosenberg of Portland, had been invited to the otherwise Christian breakfast at Drake’s request.
Ahmed had been scheduled to give the breakfast’s closing prayer from the dais before the fellowship informed him he couldn’t.
The fellowship apologized to Drake for placing him in an awkward position that caused him to withdraw as host and also to the Muslim community for any offense “taken to remarks related” to the breakfast. The apologies came in a news release.
Drake told fellowship members late last week he would not attend because they had withdrawn their invitation to Ahmed. Rosenberg also decided not to attend. And several other county mayors and Tom Brian, chairman of the county’s Board of Commissioners, quickly followed Drake’s lead.
A fellowship spokesman, Peter Reding, had said the invitation was withdrawn by the steering committee because Muslims pray to a God they call Allah and they aren’t part of the fellowship’s “Judeo-Christian tradition.”
Religious representatives including Muslims criticized the reasoning, saying tenets of the Muslim faith intertwine historically with those of Christianity and Judaism.
Meanwhile, the fellowship’s Dancer said that Oregon Air National Guard Col. Garry Dean, scheduled as one of the breakfast’s two inspirational speakers, had also decided not to participate.
“The Oregon National Guard does not and cannot support an organization that excludes others based on religion,” said Air Guard Capt. Misti Mazzia, a spokeswoman. “When it comes to any discrimination against anyone, that’s a no-brainer in the military.”
_ Richard Colby
Episcopal Church Honors Retiring Rep. Amo Houghton
WASHINGTON (RNS) The top bishop of the Episcopal Church presented one of the few remaining moderate Republican members of Congress with one of his church’s highest honors on Wednesday (April 28).
Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold presented the Presiding Bishop’s Award for Faith and Public Service to Rep. Amo Houghton, R-N.Y., who has represented upstate New York since 1987.
The award is given to honor a lay Episcopalian who “in his or her public life has demonstrated the profound influence of faith as shaped by the Anglican Tradition.”
Houghton, 77, was a founding member of the centrist Main Street Partnership and is co-chair of the Faith and Politics Institute, which aims to help politicians reflect their faith in public life. He is the former CEO of Corning Glassworks, which was started by his family.
On April 6, Houghton announced he would not seek a 10th term in the House.
“In this time of increasing polarization, the ability of Congressman Houghton to see and integrate multiple points of view and priorities has been of enormous value to our national life,” Griswold told Religion News Service.
“He is possessed of a truly Anglican spirit that can deal with paradox and complexity beyond the simple categories of right and wrong. Over the years he has demonstrated his understanding that people of differing points of view can work together in a spirit of mutual respect in order to serve the common good.”
The last person to receive the award, in 2000, was Pamela Chinnis, the former president of the church’s House of Deputies, comprised of lay and clergy delegates at the denomination’s triennial General Convention legislative meetings.
_ Kevin Eckstrom
Quote of the Day: Soul Music Singer Smokey Robinson
(RNS) “Had I not come out with an inspirational CD, you perhaps would have never known that I feel like I feel, that all songs, all the music I’ve ever done is a gift from God.”
_ Soul music singer Smokey Robinson, in an interview with the Reuters news agency.
DEA/PH END RNS
