c. 1996 Religion News Service
Southern Baptists, largest Protestant denomination, keep growing
(RNS)-The Southern Baptist Convention, the largest Protestant denomination in the United States, continues to grow, with a slight increase in membership and a 4 percent increase in baptisms last year.
Newly released statistics show that church membership reached 15,668,077 in 1995, an increase of 48,165 or 0.3 percent over 1994. Baptisms for the year totaled 393,811, an increase of 4.1 percent or 15,348 over 1994, according to Baptist Press, the official news service of the Southern Baptist Convention.
With a gain of 210 Southern Baptist churches over the 1994 total of 39,910, the denomination has 40,120 churches.
Some statistics showed slight decreases.
For example, Sunday school enrollment decreased by 0.7 percent, or 55,698, to 8,207,860. Enrollment in the Woman’s Missionary Union, an autonomous auxiliary of the denomination that supports mission efforts, decreased by 3.9 percent, or 43,427, to 1,061,279.
The total of tithes, offerings and special gifts for the year amounted to $5,635,014,266, an increase of $62,562,438 or 1.1 percent over 1994.
Pope John Paul II marks 10th anniversary of visit to synagogue
(RNS)-Pope John Paul II, marking the 10th anniversary of his historic visit to a Jewish synagogue, Monday (April 15) hailed the”new spirit of friendship”that is growing between Jews and the Roman Catholic Church.
John Paul made his comments to Rome’s chief rabbi, Elio Toaff, and other leaders of the city’s Jewish community during an audience at the Vatican.
The leaders were invited to the Vatican to mark the anniversary of John Paul’s April 13, 1986, visit to Toaff’s synagogue. It was the first such visit by a Roman pontiff.”The new spirit of friendship and reciprocal solicitude which characterizes Catholic-Jewish relations can be the most important symbol that Jews and Catholics have to offer to a troubled world which doesn’t know how to recognize the supremacy of love over hate,”Reuters quoted the pope as saying.
John Paul said Toaff’s visit to the Vatican”allows me to re-live the experience”of 10 years ago and to”welcome you in my home like you welcomed me in yours.” The Vatican is currently working on a major document in which the church assesses Catholic treatment of the Jews during the Holocaust and analyzes church teachings some contend has fostered anti-Semitism over the ages.
John Paul has made improvement of Catholic-Jewish relations a high priority of his papacy. In 1994, the Vatican and Israel established full diplomatic ties.
Muslim woman refused hotel clerk job because she wears head scarf
(RNS)-A Falls Church, Va., hotel owner has refused to hire a Muslim woman as a front desk clerk because she wanted to wear a head scarf to work.
Phillip Kirby, owner of the Quality Inn Governor, said he told Hanem Zahwy, 41, of Falls Church, that wearing a hijab, or head scarf, would violate hotel policy on employee uniforms, which prohibits wearing any headgear, The Washington Post reported Saturday (April 13).
Muslim women wear clothing over all of their bodies except their hands and feet, according to Islamic beliefs. They traditionally cover their heads with a hijab.
Zahwy said she was willing to wear a scarf of any fabric or color to match the hotel’s uniform.”I was shocked,”she said.”I felt I was qualified for the job and I really wanted to do it.” Muslim activists criticized the hotel and feared such situations would occur more as women from a growing U.S. Muslim community enter the country’s workplaces.”If you say you won’t hire someone because of religious headgear, that means you will never hire a Muslim woman,”said Ibrahim Hooper, communications director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations in Washington.”Or a male Sikh, ever. Or an observant Jew, ever. That’s a ridiculous position.” Hooper’s group has asked Muslim and civil rights groups to send protest letters to the hotel and Choice Hotels International, the Silver Spring, Md.-based company that franchises Quality Inns.
A Choice Hotels spokesman said decisions about employment are left to the owner of the hotel, which is independently operated.
Kirby said his stance was not anti-Muslim and noted that about 10 Muslims work at the hotel. He said he did not know if any of those employees were women.”This is not about employing Muslims,”he said.”There are suggestions that we’re being discriminatory, which we’re not. I told the woman, `This is what our uniform code is,’ and she said she couldn’t go along with that and I said, `We’re sorry.'”
Adventists find aging baby boomers more positive about mission effort
(RNS)-Baby boomers in the Seventh-day Adventist Church in North America have a more positive view about the denomination’s world missions effort now than they did 30 years ago, according to a new report by the church.”Baby boomers have moved closer to the positive views of other generations, in that they are less likely today to say the world mission program is `outdated’ and more likely to see its impact as Christ-centered,”the report said.
Baby boomers are those born between 1946 and 1964.
The report,”North American Attitudes Toward World Missions,”is based on two surveys: The denomination took one survey among students at Adventist colleges in 1966-67. The same questions were asked in another survey earlier this year of a new group of baby-boom-age Adventists.
According to the report, when the baby boomer generation was in college, it was less likely to believe that missionaries make a sacrifice and live in primitive conditions than it now believes.
Today’s baby boomers also believe church members are more interested in world missions than boomers thought was the case when they were in college.
“Holy Coat”to be displayed in German city of Trier
(RNS)-For only the third time this century, a cloak some believe is the robe worn by Jesus on his way to the crucifixion will go on display in the German city of Trier.
According to Reuters, the Roman Catholic diocese of Trier expects as many as 1 million pilgrims and tourists to see the so-called”Holy Coat of Trier”at the city’s cathedral between April 19 and May 16.
Local folklore maintains the seamless cloak was brought to Trier, then an important city in the Roman empire, by Empress Helena in the fourth century but the authenticity of the relic has long been challenged.
During one showing of the cloak in the 16th century, Protestant reformer Martin Luther called it a”great swindle.” According to Reuters, only a few fragments of the original material survive between patches of different cloth added over the centuries. The entire garment suffered from a 19th-century attempt to preserve it by dipping it in a sort of rubber solution.
The cloak’s importance as a relic is based on the story of the crucifixion of Jesus found in the Gospel of John. The biblical story recounts how Roman soldiers divided Jesus’ clothes into four, but left the coat intact because it was seamless and cast lots for it.
For the Trier diocese, however, the authenticity of the cloak is not the most important issue.”It brings home the human side of Christ, and the fact that it is seamless symbolizes the unity of the church,”Christoph Rosenzweig, the exhibition’s press officer, told Reuters.
Quote of the day: Henry Cisneros, Secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, on religious institutions and the inner-city.
(RNS)-Housing and Urban Development Secretary Henry Cisneros has established a Religious Organizations Initiative to involve religious groups in aiding in inner-city development. In a recent essay distributed by HUD,”Higher Ground: Faith Communities and Community Building,”Cisneros spoke of the role of religious groups in the inner-city:”Faith communities-churches, mosques, and temples-have unique resources that can help rejuvenate inner-city neighborhoods. Perhaps most important, however, their leaders typically represent a rare source of organizational skill. They are people who think actively about the problems of their communities and have the ability to conceive of solutions, mobilize support, and provide follow-through.”
MJP END
