c. 1998 Religion News Service

Lyons admits `improper relationship,’ seeks forgiveness

(RNS) The Rev. Henry J. Lyons, president of the National Baptist Convention, USA, has admitted to an”improper relationship”with Brenda Harris, a church employee with whom he is charged in a multimillion-dollar fraud case,according to a prominent member of the church’s board.

Lyons and Harris, who has served as a meeting coordinator for the denomination, asked forgiveness from the board after he acknowledged they had a lengthy”improper relationship,”said the Rev. E.V. Hill, the Associated Press reported.

The board met Monday (Sept. 7) at the start of the annual meeting of the NBCUSA, one of the nation’s largest black denominations.

Harris also apologized to Lyons’ wife, Deborah, who set fire last summer to a pricey home Lyons owned with another female denominational official.

Hill said the board forgave Lyons and Harris. But others were not ready to let the matter rest.”At this point, if Dr. Lyons had any love left for himself and the National Baptist Convention, he would step down,”said the Rev. Charles Kenyotta of New York.”To drag millions of people through all this mud is a shame. In the 118 years of our existence, we’ve never had a president this dumb.” Lyons, Harris, and Bernice Edwards, a former public relations director who co-owned the house with Lyons, were indicted in July in Florida on federal charges of extortion, fraud and money laundering. Lyons and Edwards also face federal charges of tax evasion as well as additional state charges.

Lyons and his aides have been accused of gaining money in the denomination’s name to purchase personal luxuries.

During a news conference Monday, Lyons acknowledged he had not given the denomination”all the sterling leadership”he could have. He declined to give details, citing a gag order.

But the church leader also said his denomination had progressed and he intends to run for a second five-year term as its president in 1999.

Hill said Lyons will be supported for re-election by the board because he has not been convicted of a crime. However, the board will re-evaluate its stand if Lyons is convicted.

Hill added that the NBCUSA is struggling financially because many churches have stopped sending money due to the scandal.”Our bills are paid, but we are broke,”he said.

Opinions on Clinton resignation, church discipline continue

(RNS) Gary Bauer, an evangelical political opponent of President Clinton, says he plans to run ads seeking Clinton’s resignation as other evangelicals, particularly the president’s fellow Southern Baptists, continue to voice opinions about political or church discipline after the president’s admission to a sexual indiscretion.

Bauer, who has been considering a run for the presidency, plans to run ads in Iowa for two weeks beginning Wednesday (Sept. 9).”For over a year the headlines out of Washington have taught our children that lying is OK, that fidelity is old-fashioned and that character doesn’t count,”Bauer says in one ad.”Every American parent’s job has been made more difficult. The virtue deficit has grown. Mr. President, it is time for you to put our country and our children first. It’s time for you to resign.” On Aug. 17, Clinton admitted to the American public that he had a relationship that was”not appropriate”with Monica Lewinsky, a former White House intern.

Meanwhile, in Southern Baptist circles, a statement by Southern Baptist Theological Seminary president R. Albert Mohler Jr. has prompted various reactions. Mohler, writing in a Religion News Service column, criticized Immanuel Baptist Church in Little Rock, Ark. _ Clinton’s longtime home church _ for not disciplining its famous member.

Mark Wingfield, editor of the Western Recorder, a Kentucky Baptist newspaper, however, has written his own commentary chiding Mohler.”Al Mohler apparently thinks he knows more about how a certain Arkansas church ought to handle its business than that church itself knows,”Wingfield wrote in a Sept. 1 editorial.”That’s not only arrogant, it runs against the Baptist doctrine of the autonomy of the local church.” Faculty at Mohler’s seminary, in turn, held a special meeting and passed a resolution by a vote of 32-3 that defended their president.”Dr. Mohler’s urgency about discipline exactly conforms to the biblical principles and Baptist practice of corporate holiness,”the resolution reads.”Exhortations from individuals and associations of churches have been prominent in Baptist history and constitute no violation of local church autonomy.” Leaders at Clinton’s church have not responded directly to the question of disciplining the president.

Meanwhile, the Washington Post reported that Southern Baptist Convention President Paige Patterson said Sunday (Sept. 6) that Clinton should resign”before he is instrumental in corrupting all our young people.” Also, Focus on the Family President James C. Dobson has sent a letter to ministry supporters decrying Americans'”disregard for morality.””How foolish to believe that a person who lacks honesty and moral integrity is qualified to lead a nation and the world!”Dobson writes in his regular monthly letter.”I am left to conclude that our greatest problem is not in the Oval Office. It is with the people of this land! We have lost our ability to discern the difference between right and wrong!”

PCA becomes nation’s top body of Reformed evangelicals

(RNS) The rapidly growing Presbyterian Church in America has become the nation’s largest body of evangelicals in the Reformed tradition.

In 1998, the Atlanta-based PCA reported some 283,000 members, surpassing the 279,000-member Christian Reformed Church. Both denominations are members of the National Association of Evangelicals.

During the past six years, the CRC experienced a 12 percent drop in membership, largely due to controversies surrounding its decision to ordain women, reported the United Reformed News Service, an independent news agency that specializes in coverage of Reformed and Presbyterian churches. During the same period, membership in the more theologically conservative PCA grew some 22 percent.

The nation’s third largest Reformed body is the 60,000-member Evangelical Presbyterian Church.

The PCA was formed in 1973, when 260 churches withdrew from the more liberal Southern Presbyterian Church before its merger with the United Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A., which eventually became the 2.6 million-member Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). One of the nation’s fastest-growing denominations, the PCA has some 1,300 congregations in 48 states and seven Canadian provinces.

Paul Gilchrist, retiring PCA stated clerk, said the denomination’s rapid growth can be attributed mostly to church planting and evangelistic outreach efforts rather than transfers of entire churches from other denominations.

Since 1993, the denomination has increased the number of its mission churches by 30 percent and currently has 185 congregations in various stages of church planting.”Most of the growth since (1993) has been the aggressive planting of churches with basic evangelism, going out to the people who are unchurched and starting basically from scratch,”said Gilchrist.

Guatemalan judge orders slain bishop’s remains exhumed

(RNS) The Guatemalan judge heading up the investigation of slain Roman Catholic Bishop Juan Gerardi Conedera has ordered the prelate’s body exhumed in an effort to find more evidence about the bishop’s April bludgeoning death.

The exhumation may be key to determining whether Gerardi was killed by a fellow priest _ as prosecutors contend _ or by military or paramilitary forces, as some human rights activists believe, the Associated Press reported Tuesday (Sept. 8).

Gerardi was killed April 26, two days after releasing a church-sponsored report on human rights abuses during Guatemala’s long civil war. The report placed much of the blame for the abuses on the military.

In July, however, police arrested the Rev. Mario Orantes Najera in connection with the death. Orantes lived in Gerardi’s house at the time of the killing.

Judge Isaias Figueroa Medina did not set a date for the exhumation but said forensic experts representing prosecutors, the court and the church’s Human Rights Office will be present at the exhumation and examination of the body.

Recovering L.A. cardinal praises Catholic faith healing

(RNS) Los Angeles Cardinal Roger Mahony has thanked Roman Catholic charismatics for their prayers during his summer surgery for prostate cancer. “Your prayers were very effective, and in fact I have over-recovered to the tune of about eight or 10 pounds worth,”Mahony, 62, told more than 10,000 Catholics at the closing Sunday (Sept. 6) Mass of the 27th annual Catholic Renewal Convention in Anaheim, Calif.

The Catholic charismatic movement, which began in the 1960s, stresses the charisms _ or spiritual gifts, such as the power to speak and pray in tongues and to heal _ attributed to early Christians.

Mahony praised the charismatics for being”so generous in your prayers and healing affecting my surgery in June and my recovery ever since.” The cardinal’s successful surgery stopped the spread of cancer beyond his prostate, portions of which were removed. Mahony said he visited patients while rehospitalized in July to dissolve a small blood clot and found that,”several people I visited here are never going to leave here alive.” Mahony told the audience he then said to God:”`Lord, every person I just visited on these two floors is far more sick than I am.’ And what did I learn in that? That no matter how difficult our situation is, there are always others around us with a greater cross, greater difficulty, a deeper situation than ours.”

Quote of the day: Valerie Morrow, a Detroit teenager”We are stepping out on our own. We need the help of elders but we are starting this from the ground up.” _ Valerie Morrow, a 16-year-old from Detroit, quoted by the Associated Press on Monday’s (Sept. 7) Million Youth Movement March in Atlanta, which hopes to inspire black youth to form an activist political movement.

DEA END RNS