c. 2004 Religion News Service
Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod President Re-Elected
(RNS) The Rev. Gerald B. Kieschnick was re-elected Sunday (July 11) to a second term as president of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, perhaps ending a long debate over his support for a New York pastor who participated in a controversial post-Sept. 11 event.
Some members of the 2.5-million-member denomination had thought Kieschnick should be ousted from his position after he supported the participation of the Rev. David Benke, the denomination’s leader in New York, in a Yankee Stadium ceremony featuring clergy of other Christian and non-Christian faiths.
Garnering 52.8 percent of the vote, Kieschnick was elected to another three-year term, defeating the Rev. Daniel Preus, the incumbent first vice president, who had 31 percent of the vote, and three other candidates.
Preus thought Kieschnick _ who needed a simple majority for re-election _ had made the wrong decision about the Benke case.
Preus also was defeated in his run to keep his first vice presidential seat by Oklahoma District President William Diekelman, an Owasso, Okla., pastor.
LCMS spokesman David Strand said Kieschnick is ready to move beyond the Benke debate and help the denomination focus on issues such as mission outreach and Christian education.
“It would be altruistic to say that everyone in the Synod is suddenly walking arm-in-arm and whistling the exact same tune, but the Yankee Stadium matter is over,” he told Religion News Service. “While there may still be some hard feelings among certain people, the sense seems to be that the synod is coming together to focus on the real business at hand.”
More than 1,200 voting delegates have gathered for the denomination’s triennial meeting in St. Louis, which concludes on July 15. A total of more than 2,000 Lutherans are attending the meeting.
_ Adelle M. Banks
Ratzinger Says U.S. Bishops `Very Much in Harmony’ on Communion
WASHINGTON (RNS) The Vatican cardinal who oversees church doctrine said a statement on Catholic politicians recently adopted by American bishops is “very much in harmony” with his own approach to the issue.
Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, seemed to downplay any talk that the U.S. bishops had ignored his recommendations to deny Communion to politicians who support abortion.
Rather than an ironclad denial of Communion for politicians, the U.S. bishops emphasized teaching and persuasion in dealing with dissenting politicians. However, they said different bishops could “legitimately make different judgments” about how to handle politicians.
In a July 9 letter to Cardinal Theodore McCarrick of Washington, Ratzinger said the U.S. bishops and Rome are on the same page.
“The statement is very much in harmony with the general principles … sent as a fraternal service _ to clarify the doctrine of the church on this specific issue _ in order to assist the American bishops in their related discussion and determinations,” said Ratzinger, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.
In their statement adopted June 18 at a private retreat outside Denver, the U.S. bishops said politicians who support abortion on demand are “cooperators in evil” and should be denied public honors by the church. However, those politicians may still receive Communion.
Leaked portions of correspondence between the two cardinals had implied that Ratzinger wanted a tougher stand against dissenting politicians than what the U.S. bishops adopted.
Last year, a document released by Ratzinger’s office said there was no leeway for Catholic politicians to support abortion. “A well-formed Christian conscience does not permit one to vote for a political program or an individual law which contradicts the fundamental contents of faith and morals,” the document said.
McCarrick, who is heading a task force of U.S. bishops that is mulling ways to respond to dissenting politicians, said he was “grateful” that the U.S. bishops and Rome are in agreement.
“(Ratzinger) has consistently expressed his respect for the role of the bishops in carrying out their responsibilities as teachers, pastors and leaders in their own local situations,” McCarrick said in a statement.
_ Kevin Eckstrom
Episcopal Church Says `Doomsday’ Budget Has Not Happened
(RNS) A feared “doomsday scenario” with the Episcopal Church’s budget has not materialized, and income is running about $384,000 over projections, the church’s treasurer told denominational leaders.
In February, the church’s Executive Council approved a $40 million budget for 2004 that included $4 million in cutbacks as a handful of conservative dioceses said they would not send money in protest of last year’s election of an openly gay bishop.
In the six months following the approval of openly gay Bishop V. Gene Robinson in New Hampshire last August, the church saw a $2 million (7 percent) drop in contributions from dioceses.
As of May 31, 40 of the church’s 100 dioceses said they would give the recommended 21 percent of their income to the national church, and 52 dioceses pledged to give something less than the recommended 21 percent.
Five dioceses, including Pittsburgh and Dallas, have said they will send nothing. Three dioceses _ Easton, Pa.; Newark, N.J.; and Southern Ohio _ have said they will send more than 21 percent to help make up the difference.
Treasurer N. Kurt Barnes said he is expecting $27.4 million from dioceses this year, which is down from $31.2 million pledged last year. However, Barnes said the total could be $27.8 million by the end of the year.
At the end of the first quarter, the church had received $9.22 million from dioceses, according to Episcopal News Service.
“Revenue is running in line with the budget, and expenses are slightly lower,” Barnes told the Executive Council at their June meeting in Burlington, Vt. “I’m very confident that we are in line with the revenue budget, and the `doomsday scenario’ that some people were predicting is not materializing.”
_ Kevin Eckstrom
Church of England Rejects New Heresy Procedures
LONDON (RNS) By a very narrow margin, the Church of England’s general synod, meeting in York, England, has rejected proposals to institute new, streamlined legal procedures to deal with doctrinal and liturgical deviations, or heresy.
Critics contend the present procedures are cumbersome, and note that no legal proceedings against Church of England clergy on doctrinal issues have been initiated since 1871.
Up-to-date procedures for disciplining clergy on issues other than doctrine and ritual were approved by the synod in 2003 and are now coming into effect. But doctrinal discipline remains outside the scope of the new system.
The synod’s bishops argued for consideration of revised procedures which, among other things, would take contemporary human rights legislation into account.
However, the proposed legislation failed to gain required support from all three houses of the Church of England. The bishops voted 27-12 in favor and the laity voted 164-51 in support of revised procedures. But the clergy voted against the plan 103-99.
Fear of destabilization fueled the opposition to “heresy trials” in a church deeply divided on a number of issues, including homosexuality.
Assurances that heresy proceedings could only be initiated by groups representing a significant proportion of church members were not sufficient to ease the concerns of opponents.
_ Robert Nowell
Professors Urge Recitation of Creed at Baptist World Alliance Meeting
(RNS) A group of Baptist professors wants the Baptist World Alliance to recite a creed describing the basics of the Christian faith when it gathers at a centennial meeting in England next year.
Four professors recently crafted a short document, titled “Confessing the Faith,” to voice their support for repeating the recitation of the Apostles’ Creed that occurred at the global group’s first congress in 1905.
The request, endorsed by a total of 28 theologians and educators, comes at a time when the Southern Baptist Convention has voted to withdraw membership and funding from the alliance, which it has accused of having a “leftward drift.” The professors say such a recitation would “show the shrills on the extreme to be wrong” and “move us toward unity for which our Lord prayed and which we seek.”
The professors view recitation of the creed as an affirmation of faith that is appropriate for weekly worship as well as during the anniversary meeting.
“Many Baptists acquired an allergy to creeds because of the illegitimate ways they have been used to bind the individual conscience, to substitute for a personal confession of faith, or to underwrite an established church-state order,” the document reads. “(BWA Founding President Alexander) Maclaren, however, called for the affirmation of the creed, `not as a piece of coercion or discipline, but as a simple acknowledgment of where we stand and what we believe.”’
Baptist World Alliance General Secretary Denton Lotz told Religion News Service that a recitation of the Apostles’ Creed is likely during the meeting but the program for the gathering in Birmingham, England, has not yet been finalized.
“At our first program committee (meeting) in 2001, we had already proposed to follow the great example “to repeat the Apostles’ Creed as a sign of the unity we have with Christians of all generations,” Lotz said Thursday (July 8).
Curtis Freeman, director of Duke University Divinity School’s Baptist House of Studies, said he and the three other co-authors of the “Confessing the Faith” document have a general interest in the increased recitation of the Apostles’ Creed or the Nicene Creed by Baptists and others at weekly church services.
“What we’re wanting is to get a conversation going about why Baptists and other free church folks should recite a creed, not just once a century, but once a week,” he said in an interview.
Freeman, a supporter of the Baptist World Alliance as well as the moderate Cooperative Baptist Fellowship and Alliance of Baptists, said the 28 endorsers of the statement _ from the United States as well as countries such as India, England, Brazil and Australia _ are members of Baptist groups affiliated with the alliance.
_ Adelle M. Banks
`Dirty Pretty Things,’ `Joan of Arcadia’ Take Humanitas Awards
HOLLYWOOD (RNS) The Miramax film “Dirty Pretty Things,” the CBS series, “Joan of Arcadia” and Fox Broadcasting’s sitcom, “The Bernie Mac Show,” won top prizes July 8 at the 30th Humanitas Prize awards luncheon.
The “Dirty Pretty Things” screenplay won the $25,000 Humanitas film script prize for its portrayal of life among illegal immgirants in London, including a Nigerian doctor working as a cabdriver. A $15,000 prize was awarded to the script of a pilot episode of the God-centered “Joan of Arcadia” and a $10,000 prize was given for a “Bernie Mac” script.
Also winning a $25,000 Humanitas honor was playwright Tony Kushner’s HBO adaptation of his play, “Angels In America.”
More than 350 people attended the 30th anniversary Humanitas luncheon at the Universal Hilton Hotel, where $115,000 in prize money was distributed for quality film and TV scripts.
The Rev. Frank Desiderio, the Paulist priest who took over as the Humanitas prize president following the death of its founder the Rev. Ellwood “Bud” Kaiser, said the honored scripts are part of a bulwark against the rise of non-scripted reality TV. If reality TV scripts were to be honored, he told the audience, they probably would be called, “the de-Humanitas Prize for the most humiliating moment on TV.”
Other prizes went to the Showtime movie “Crown Heights,” which is about the black-Jewish tensions that once simmered in that New York City neighborhood. Screenwriter Toni Ann Johnson said she tried to make her script reflect how blacks and Jews working together in Crown Heights wanted “to take a small piece of the world and repair it.”
Also honored with a $10,000 Humanitas award was the script for the independent coming-of-age film “Mean Creek,” which opens in August and was written by Chicago native Jacob Aaron Estes. It was based partly on Estes’ unpleasant experiences as a teenager at a Jewish summer camp in Northern California. “I was tortured at Jewish camp, absolutely,” he said.
_ David Finnigan
Quote of the Day: New York City Police Officer Eduardo Delacruz.
(RNS) “My position in life is to treat people like I want to be treated. That’s what Jesus taught. That’s what I instill in my children.”
_ New York City Police Office Eduardo Delacruz, who was suspended for refusing to obey an order to arrest homeless people. Delacruz faces a departmental trial this month where he could be fired. He was quoted by The New York Times.
DEA/MO/JL END RNS
