c. 1997 Religion News Service

Patriarch pays a low-profile call on White House

(RNS) On the day the Clinton Administration unveiled its response to global warming and tensions heightened between Greece and Turkey, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, was welcomed Wednesday (Oct. 22) at the White House in an unexpectedly low-key meeting.

In a brief session with President Clinton, Bartholomew, an ethnic Greek whose ancient see is located in Turkey, discussed environmental issues, religious freedom and religious tolerance with Clinton, according to White House spokesman Mike McCurry.

Before the private meeting, Clinton praised Bartholomew as”a man who has always stressed the deep obligations inherent in God’s gift of the natural world.” Bartholomew arrived Sunday from Istanbul for a month-long tour of the United States.

Though officials of the Greek Orthodox Church had expected the meeting with the President would help showcase the patriarch as an influential spiritual leader, the encounter was closed to the press at the last minute.

Though no official explanation was given for the decision to tone down the meeting, a heightening of tensions between Greece and Turkey may have led to the decision.

Earlier Wednesday, the Clinton administration expressed concern over reports that Turkish fighter jets buzzed a plane carrying the Greek defense minister Monday as he was returning from military exercises in Cyprus. Greece and Turkey have long been at odds over who controls the island nation.

The incident, which occurred Monday near the Aegean island of Rhodes, involved two pairs of Turkish F-16s, which buzzed a non-combat aircraft carrying Greek Defense Minister Akis Tsochadzopoulos. The planes were intercepted by eight Greek jetfighters, according to the Associated Press.

The Turkish government denied the charge.

Wednesday evening, the patriarch was to attend a State Department banquet hosted by Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. Thursday morning the patriarch is scheduled to meet with Vice President Al Gore.

Florida school district latest to enter religion-in-schools dispute

(RNS) The Lee County School Board in Fort Myers, Fla., has approved an elective Bible-history curriculum, prompting a dispute about the role of religion in the public-school setting.

After opening with a prayer Tuesday (Oct. 21), the board voted 3-2 to permit the courses.

It is the latest arena in which there has been a disagreement about the role of religious teaching, which is now offered in about 18 percent of the nation’s school districts.”The Bible should not be a banned book in our culture. It’s been treated as if it were asbestos,”said Jay Sekulow, a lawyer with the American Center for Law and Justice, a conservative group founded by religious broadcaster Pat Robertson.”I think you have pretty broad pockets of support for … courses in the Bible. It’s not just the evangelical community pushing it.” But Lisa Versaci of People for the American Way vigorously opposes such curricula.”They’re teaching the Bible as if it were historical fact,”she said.”By doing that, you’re teaching schoolchildren there is only one faith. It’s not everyone’s reality, and it can’t be taught that way.” Sample items from the proposed curriculum for the Fort Myers school district require students to identify historical events mentioned in the Bible and trace their implications for the next generations, USA Today reported.

The approved curriculum includes the New Testament. However, school chief Bruce Harter had proposed that the Resurrection and other parts of the New Testament be dropped from the curriculum to assure its ability to withstand a legal challenge.

With the classes scheduled to begin in January, 125 of the Lee County School District’s 13,500 high school students have signed up to take the courses.

Wayne Perry, school district spokesman, said most people were surprised that the curriculum caused controversy.”Only 125 kids … what’s the big deal?”he said.”The big deal, of course, is religion vs. history, and that’s been the focal point.”

ADL report hits hate on the World Wide Web

(RNS) A new report by the Anti-Defamation League says the group has identified some 250 sites on the World Wide Web that preach hate and seek to recruit members for neo-Nazi, anti-Semitic and racist groups.

A double click of the mouse can bring an Internet surfer to”I Hate Jews – The Anti-Semitic Home Page,”or to the homepage of the Ku Klux Klan and the White Nationalist Resource Page. Click again and one can play the Ku Klux Klan’s version of hangman where the prize is hanging”Leroy,”an African American figure.”Shrewd bigots of all kinds are rushing to use the enormous power of this new communications medium, and we must match and surpass,”said Abraham H. Foxman, the ADL’s national director.”We must continue to expose them, to hold them up to public scrutiny and to counter their messages of hate,”Foxman told a news conference at which the report was released.

Foxman said the number of hate sites in cyberspace has more than doubled in the last year.

The ADL leader urged the development of software programs similar to that available to parents who want to block their children’s access to sex and violence on television as a means of protecting young people from the hate messages.

He said the group has also started discussions with America Online, one of the biggest Internet service providers, to see if it is possible to create a warning system that would alert members to content they might find objectionable.”There needs to be a way for adults to be alerted, whether it’s ringing bells or something else, to let people know they are entering a hate zone,”Foxman said.

Foundation disburses money away from SBC seminary

(RNS) A foundation established as the Southern Baptist Convention’s conservative resurgence influenced denominational seminaries has distributed its funds to divinity schools other than the SBC’s six theological schools.

Alumni and Friends of Theological Education began in 1990 when Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky., came under the control of the denomination’s conservative leadership.”Individuals and churches who loved the seminary wished to give to its support,”said Steve Shoemaker, a Fort Worth, Texas pastor who was president of the organization, which dissolved with the disbursement of funds.”But they did not want to commit these monies to the seminary without a provision which could redistribute the funds if Southern Seminary left its heritage and went a new way. This foundation gave them a way to give to Southern Seminary in an uncertain time.” Shoemaker said the school’s administration and faculty has now undergone”almost a complete overhaul,”reported Associated Baptist Press, an independent Baptist news service.

The foundation’s board of directors decided to act on a provision of the organization’s charter allowing money to be redirected when Southern Seminary”no longer fulfills its mission in a manner consistent with the heritage of the institution during the first century and a quarter of its history.” As a result, the foundation has distributed about $2,500 each to five causes: Baptist Theological Seminary in Richmond, Va.; Baylor University’s George W. Truett Theological Seminary in Waco, Texas; Mercer University Divinity School in Atlanta; Wake Forest University Divinity School in Winston-Salem, N.C.; and Kentucky Baptists who are planning a seminary in that state.

Religious groups call for preservation of Endangered Species Act

(RNS) A coalition of religious groups, reaching into their sacred texts and belief systems for justification, Wednesday (Oct. 22) called on Congress to preserve the Endangered Species Act.

The Act, a key component of the web of U.S.environmental law, is under siege in the Republican-controlled Congress by some GOP lawmakers who want to ease its tight restrictions and make it easier for corporations and others to engage in development projects.”Proverbs 13:22 teaches us that `Good people leave an inheritance to their children’s children,”Rabbi David Saperstein, director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, told a news conference of religious groups calling for extending the ESA in its current form.”I know that what we do today will determine whether the children of my two young sons, Daniel and Ari, will be left an inheritance more sacred, more precious than silver or gold, an abundance of the wondrous and varied species of plants and animals, God’s creation itself,”Saperstein said.

Saperstein was joined by representatives of the United Methodist Church’s Board of Church and Society, the Evangelical Environmental Network, the Coalition for Jewish Life and the Environment, and the American Baptist Churches, USA.”This is a call to America to protect the common good,”Saperstein said.”That good is a moral obligation.” The Rev. Thom White Wolf Fassett, of the Methodist board of church and society, told the news conference that”protecting endangered species is not only a matter of politics or economics, but one that touches our deepest values.”Therefore, recovery of species, not political or economic considerations, must be the primary goal of any reauthorized Endangered Species Act,”he said.

Britain’s Cardinal Hume issues pastoral marking abortion anniversary

adv 12:01 a.m. Thursday

(RNS)”Unconditional respect for human life is the foundation of a civilized society,”Cardinal Basil Hume, Archbishop of Westminster, said in a new pastoral letter marking the 30th anniversary of Britain’s law easing access to legal abortion.

The letter is to be read in churches throughout the archdiocese on Sunday (October 26), as abortion opponents conclude a weekend of marches, vigils and prayers services condemning the law.”The right to life from the moment of conception to life’s natural end is paramount,”Hume said.”When this is not recognized, then our civilization will begin to collapse, and the `culture of death’ will be victorious.” Hume called on abortion opponents to work to change the hearts and minds of the people.”That is not at all easy, for the acceptance of abortion has become very much part of the thinking of many people,”he said.”We should question the assumption that there is a right to abort,”he added.”We should state, where we can, that becoming pregnant and then killing the life in the womb is, at the very least, irresponsible.” Hume called the nearly 5 million abortions that have taken place since 1967″a grave scandal,”adding:”As a nation we should all hang our heads in shame.” Along with the other bishops of England and Wales, Hume is asking Catholics to mark the anniversary by vigils of prayer over the weekend and the bishops’ conference has asked that Sunday be”an occasion for communal repentance” end adv 12:01 a.m. Thursday

Quote of the day: First lady Hillary Rodham Clinton

(RNS)”Domestic and sexual violence against women remains one of the most serious and under-reported human rights violations in our hemisphere.” First lady Hillary Rodham Clinton in a speech Monday (Oct. 20) at the Inter-American Development Bank.

DEA END RNS