c. 1997 Religion News Service

Baptist World Alliance officials schedule racism conference

(RNS) Baptist World Alliance officials scheduled an international conference on racism and called for prayer for global evangelism at their recent general council meeting.

The council approved an International Conference on Racism and Ethnic Conflict, scheduled for January 1998 in Atlanta, and timed to coincide with the birthday of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., the slain civil rights leader and Baptist minister.”We as Baptists must be in the forefront of reconciliation,”said Denton Lotz, general secretary of BWA.”That is part of our tradition as Baptists.” More than 500 delegates gathered for the meeting in Vancouver, British Columbia, reported Baptist Press, the official news service of the Southern Baptist Convention.

Nilson do Amaral Fanini, BWA president, re-emphasized his”World Prayer 2000″initiative, which calls for Baptists to pray for world evangelization and personal revival.”We need prayer power more than any other power,”Fanini said.

The council also encouraged a renewed commitment to peace in the Middle East, human rights and a ban on land mines.

Church leaders denounce violence in Kenya

(RNS) Church leaders in Kenya and from around the world have denounced the violence, including an attack on the Anglican All Saints’ Cathedral in Nairobi, used by the Kenyan government to put down pro-democracy demonstrations earlier this week.

At least 10 people are believed to have died at the hands of police and many of the demonstrators were beaten as they took shelter in the cathedral.

One of those injured during the demonstrations Monday (July 7) was the Rev. Timothy Njoya, a prominent and outspoken pro-reform cleric who is a member of the Presbyterian Church of East Africa.

In Capetown, South Africa, Archbishop Njongonkulu Ndungane said the attack on the demonstrators was”reminiscent of the oppression of the worst days of apartheid.” In Britain, the general assembly of the United Reformed Church expressed”distress and concern”at the events. In a letter to the Presbyterian Church of East Africa, leaders of the British church said”lives are being put on the line for freedom and decency in public life.” In Kenya, the nation’s Roman Catholic bishops accused the government of committing”atrocities.””We all watched in horror as the police, in a sacrilegious and pathologicial zeal, bloodied All Saints’ Cathedral,”the bishops said.

Canon Enos Ashimala, provincial secretary of the Anglican Church of the Province of Kenya, said the cathedral had been desecrated by the attacks. He said a service of cleansing would be held Sunday (July 13).

Vatican offical: Obstacles to unity with Lutherans not insurmountable

(RNS) Cardinal Edward Cassidy, the Vatican’s top ecumenical official, has rejected the idea that there are insurmountable obstacles to the unity of Roman Catholicism and Lutheranism.”My reaction is always that this (ecumenical work) is not only our work. Our Lord is calling us, and we are not engaged in protecting ourselves. The grace is coming from God,”Cassidy told a news conference in Hong Kong during the general assembly meeting of the Lutheran World Federation.

According to a number of ecumenical observers, the Lutheran practice of ordaining women and the Vatican’s adamant opposition to women’s ordination has created an insurmountable stumbling block, further contributing to the division between Catholics and Lutherans that stretches back to the 16th-century Reformation.

Cassidy acknowledged that ministry _ the priesthood _ and”authority in the church”_ the role of the pope and papacy _ remained the two most difficult issues dividing Catholics and Lutherans.

And he also said that”new ethical”differences on such issues as homosexuality, sex before marriage and the permanence of marriage have arisen between the two churches, according to Ecumenical News International, the Geneva-based religious news agency.

But Cassidy and Lutheran leaders pointed to the work of theologians from both traditions on the key doctrine of justification by faith _ how people are saved _ as a sign of progress.

The Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification 1997 is being studied by the Vatican and Lutheran churches around the world and is expected to be agreed on and issued before the end of the decade, signaling the end of the 400-year-old dispute.

Televangelist Tilton returns to TV

(RNS) Televangelist Robert Tilton has returned to television, years after a prominent critique by ABC-TV’s”PrimeTime Live.” Tilton’s”Success-N-Life”program, an hour of teaching and testimonies, was relaunched in April. It is currently aired in Los Angeles, Atlanta, Detroit and Nashville, and is scheduled to begin airing in New York in August.

The program is produced by Word of Faith Church, a congregation near Dallas where Tilton is senior pastor.”Unfortunately, we got caught up in all that craziness over television ministries and it cost us dearly,”said Tilton, referring to the televangelist scandals of the 1980s.”Certainly many of the faithful were hurt over what happened to us, and in relaunching the program, I’ve had to give careful consideration and prayer to past circumstances to make sure we … have learned the lessons well. I believe we have, otherwise God would not allow us to go forward as he has.””Success-N-Life”went off the air in the mid-1980s, after airing nationwide since the late 1970s.

In February, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear Tilton’s charge that the 1991 ABC report portrayed him in a false light. The”PrimeTime Live”report quoted people who said Tilton kept donations from mail sent to him while throwing out unread prayer requests that were sent without money. Tilton’s direct mail campaign draw more than $80 million a year.

A judge threw out the libel case, ruling that Tilton had not proved the report false.

Quote of the day: United Reform Church delegate Ian Ring

(RNS) Ian Ring, a delegate to the general assembly of the United Reform Church, meeting in Portsmouth, England, was a co-sponsor of a resolution _ which passed overwhelmingly _ calling on the media to be more sensitive in using the names of Jesus and God”in a profane and irreligious context.””People seem to feel free to use religious swear words in place of sexual swear words, which they know they cannot use in their media.”

MJP END RNS