c. 1996 Religion News Service
White House says persecution panel will come at”appropriate”time
(RNS) The White House said Thursday (Oct. 24) that it still plans to appoint a panel of top religious leaders to investigate and defend religious liberty abroad but left open the possibility the committee will not be formally put in place until after the Nov. 5 presidential election.”The president still intends to announce this committee but we’re waiting to do it at the appropriate time and in an appropriate way,”a White House spokeswoman said.
The White House comments came in response to the circulation of a letter to Clinton by a number of prominent conservative evangelicals and Roman Catholics criticizing the administration’s plan to appoint a broad-based interfaith committee rather than a single special adviser.
Noting that they had seen lists of proposed members, the evangelicals said they are”deeply troubled”that many of those mentioned appear to have little experience with persecuted religious minorities.
One of those frequently mentioned as a likely member of the panel is the Rev. Joan Brown Campbell, general secretary of the National Council of Churches and a frequent target of criticism by one of the conservative groups signing the letter to Clinton _ the Institute on Religion and Democracy.
The conservatives have sought the appointment of a single”internationally distinguished”special adviser on religious persecution rather than the State Department-lodged panel the administration is putting together.
In addition, they have sought a more narrow focus, arguing that the adviser should look specifically at the persecution of Christians.”Christians are the ones that are being persecuted in massive numbers,”Richard Land, executive director of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Christian Life Commission told the Washington Times Monday (Oct. 21).”And Christians are the ones that don’t seem to get the world attention when it happens.” Signers of the letter to Clinton, in addition to Land, were Bill Bright, Campus Crusade for Christ; Charles Colson, Prison Fellowship Ministries; Dwight Gibson, World Evangelical Fellowship; James Dobson, Focus on the Family; Tom Elliff, president of the Southern Baptist Convention; the Rev. Richard John Neuhaus, Institute on Religion and Public Life; Joseph Stowell, Moody Bible Institute; D. James Kennedy, Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church; Diane Knippers, Institute on Religion and Democracy; Episcopal Bishop James Stanton, diocese of Texas; Ravi Zacharias, Ravi Zacharias International Ministries; and Michael Novak, American Enterprise Institute.
Pope says evolution more than just a theory
(RNS) Pope John Paul II has given his support to the scientific concept of evolution, saying the idea is compatible with Christian faith but arguing that creation is still the work of God.
In a message Wednesday (Oct. 23) to a meeting of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, the pope said evolution is”more than just a theory”and endorsed the validity of the notion that there is a physical evolution of humanity and other species through natural selection and hereditary adaptation.”It is indeed remarkable that this theory has progressively taken root in the minds of researchers following a series of discoveries made in different spheres of knowledge,”the pope’s message said.”The convergence, neither sought nor provoked, of results of studies undertaken independently from each other constitutes in itself a significant argument in favor of this theory,”he said.
For Catholic theologians and scientists who read the Bible less literally than evangelical or fundamentalist Protestants, the theory of evolution has been viewed as an open question worthy of serious academic and scientific study.
Those Protestants tend to read the Genesis story of the six-day creation of the world as a literal rendering and have been sharply critical of the theories advanced by 19th-century English naturalist Charles Darwin. In the United States recently, advocates of”creation science”have mounted challenges to the teaching of evolution in public schools, demanding equal time for studying the Genesis account as an alternative scientific theory.
In 1950, Pope Pius XII, in his encyclical Humani Generis, said there is no objection to discussing evolution but warned it could play into the hands of communists eager to cut God out the creation story.
In his message Wednesday, John Paul said the evolution theory does not give enough weight to a person’s spirit and is”incapable of establishing the dignity of man.”He said the church and the faithful must remain firm on two points: that creation itself is the work of God, and human beings have another dimension beyond the physical.
Mainline Protestant conservatives join forces for `renewal’
(RNS) Leaders of conservative renewal groups within eight mainline Protestant denominations have formed the Association for Church Renewal to advance a stronger, more unified”witness to orthodox Christianity”in church and society.”Given the devastating moral crisis in our society, and the abandonment by many official church leaders of a public witness to biblical faith and practice, we have a new urgency for working together and speaking out together,”said James V. Heidinger II, president of Good News, an independent conservative caucus within the United Methodist Church and the new group’s chairman.
Officials of the new agency said their organizations reach some 750,000 members of the nation’s mainline Protestant bodies, which have a membership of between 30 million and 40 million.
The new group said it will coordinate efforts in defending orthodox faith, combatting what it calls threats of”neo-pagan syncretism”and moral relativism in the generally liberal mainline bodies.
Groups represented in the new association come from the American Baptist Churches/USA; Christian Church (Disciples of Christ); Episcopal Church; Evangelical Lutheran Church in American; Presbyterian Church (USA); United Church of Canada; United Church of Christ; and United Methodist Church.
Polish lawmakers trump veto to approve liberal abortion law
(RNS) The Sejm, the lower house of Poland’s parliament, Thursday (Oct. 24) sided with abortion rights activists rather than the country’s powerful Roman Catholic Church and voted to liberalize the nation’s strict abortion law.
By a 228-195 vote, deputies overrode a Senate veto of the measure that permits abortion before the 12th week of pregnancy if the woman is in financial need or feels emotionally unprepared for the pregnancy.
According to official figures, 559 abortions were performed in Poland in 1995, compared to 82,000 in 1989, before the communist regime was toppled. President Aleksander Kwasniewski has promised to sign the measure into law.
In voting to liberalize a 1993 law that banned all abortions except to save the life of the mother or in cases of incest or rape, the deputies defied the Vatican, which has lobbied hard against the bill. After the vote, L’Osservatore Romano, the Vatican newspaper, said that Poland, the homeland of Pope John Paul II, had”taken a decisive step forward towards the culture of death.” Earlier this month, John Paul lashed out at the legislation.”A nation that kills its own children is a nation without hope,”he said.
On Wednesday, about 40,000 demonstrators _ many pushing baby carriages or carrying rosaries and crosses _ marched through downtown Warsaw to protest the legislation.
Abortion opponents vowed to challenge the new law at the Constitutional Tribunal, which examines the constitutionality of Polish laws.
Quote of the day: Majid Ghaderi of Iran’s government-sponsored Institute for the Intellectual Development of Children and Young Adults
(RNS) The Barbie doll is a contraband item in Iran, where the blond doll and her companion Ken are considered anti-Islamic. To replace Barbie and Ken, Iran has decided to produce its own dolls, Sara and her brother Dara. In accordance with Islamic concerns about modesty, Sara will wear long flowing robes and Dara will wear a turban and long coat.
Announcing that the dolls will go on sale next summer, Majid Ghaderi, director of the Amusement Department of the government-sponsored Institute for the Intellectual Development of Children and Young Adults, said: “Barbie is an American woman who never wants to get pregnant and have babies. She never wants to look old and this contradicts our culture. Barbie is like a Trojan Horse. Inside it, it carries its Western cultural influences, such as makeup and indecent clothes. Once it enters our society, it dumps these influences on our children.”
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