c. 1998 Religion News Service
Crouch, Dixie Hummingbirds among gospel hall of fame inductees
(RNS) Gospel artists Andrae Crouch, the Dixie Hummingbirds and the Mighty Clouds of Joy are among 10 individuals and groups who will be inducted into the Gospel Music Hall of Fame next month.
Crouch, a multi-Grammy Award singer and songwriter, will be honored along with other gospel celebrities at the second Annual Gospel Music Hall of Fame Induction Banquet and Awards Ceremony on Nov. 14 in Detroit.
A number of the gospel legends being honored have contributed to black gospel music for many decades. The Dixie Hummingbirds and the Rev. Milton Brunson’s Thompson Community Singers have been performing for 70 and 50 years, respectively. The Mighty Clouds of Joy, one of the few gospel acts to cross over from gospel radio to mainstream pop radio, began in 1960 and the Rance Allen Group, a trio of brothers from Monroe, Mich., first gave concerts almost 30 years ago.
The Canton Spirituals, a group organized in 1946, and Edwin Hawkins, who recorded”O Happy Day”in 1969, also have long contributed to the field.
Other inductees are Bobby Jones, who is known as”the goodwill ambassador of gospel music”for his role in Christian media, the Rev. James Moore, a popular male vocalist who records with mass choirs, and Richard Smallwood, known for his blend of traditional and contemporary gospel.
The hall of fame was founded in 1995 by David Gough, president of DoRohn Records, an independent gospel record label in Detroit. Its first inductees were honored last year. Gough told Religion News Service he hopes a museum will open by the end of November in a Detroit office building.”We’ll have a technologically enhanced wall of time depicting gospel music from 1865 through the present,”he said.
In three to five years, he hopes the museum will be in a free-standing facility.
Pope issues encyclical on faith and reason
(RNS) Pope John Paul II has issued a new encyclical _ a 150-page treatise on philosophy and modern life _ reaffirming central Roman Catholic tenets and warning humanity risks losing its soul in its worship of new technology.
The encyclical _ the pope’s 13th in his 20-year reign _ returns to some of his favorite themes as a philosopher and theologian as indicated by its title,”Faith and Reason.””A cursory glance at ancient history shows clearly how in different parts of the world, with their different cultures, there arise at the same time the fundamental questions which pervade human life: Who am I? Where I have come from and where am I going? Why is here evil? What is there after this life?” John Paul said the way people answer those questions”decides the direction which people seek to give to their lives.” The pontiff also called on Christians, atheists and followers of other religions to engage in a dialogue on the most pressing issues facing humanity. He cited such issues as the environment, peace, and the coexistence of different races and cultures.
And, showing off his intellectual range, the pontiff, a professor of ethics in his younger days, cited such thinkers as Aquinas, Augustine, Kierkegaard, Pascal, Plato, Aristotle, Confucius and Buddha.
At the same time, he warned against the temptations posed by some contemporary schools of philosophy and rejected any positions that call into question”the certitudes of faith.” The encyclical _ one the most authoritative documents a pope can issue _ was addressed to the bishops and was in effect a call for properly educating young Catholics in the face of a modern world that challenges the faith.”For it is undeniable that this time of rapid and complex change can leave, especially the younger generation, to whom the future belongs and on whom it depends, with a sense they have no valid points of reference,”the pope said.
U.S. teen pregnancy rate hits 20-year low, report finds
(RNS) The U.S. teen-age pregnancy rate in 1995 hit a 20-year low, according to a report released Thursday (Oct. 15) by the Alan Guttmacher Institute.
The institute, a New York and Washington-based group that concentrates on reproductive health research and policy analysis, found that there were 101 pregnancies per 1,000 females between the ages of 15 and 19. At its peak, the rate stood at 117 in 1990.
The number of teen pregnancies in 1995 was 889,980, the lowest recorded number since 1973, when there were 916,630.
The rates were published in a report titled”Falling Teen Pregnancy, Birthrates: What’s Behind the Declines?”in the October 1998 issue of the Guttmacher Report on Public Policy, a bimonthly policy review.”While the trends are encouraging, we must not forget that the pregnancy and birthrates for U.S. teen-agers are still extraordinarily high compared with rates for teen-agers in other industrialized countries,”said Patricia Donovan, senior associate for law and public policy at AGI.
Her analysis reported that recent survey data indicate two main factors contributing to the teen pregnancy decline _ fewer adolescents are having sex and more teens are using contraceptives.
Donovan said researchers link the trends in sexual activity and use of contraceptives to a variety of factors including encouragement to delay sexual activity, more conservative views among teens about casual sex and out-of-wedlock births, the popularity of long-lasting contraceptive methods and the fear of sexually transmitted diseases, especially AIDS.”The key is to adopt policies that will sustain the downward trends in teen-age pregnancy and birthrates,”she said.”Since messages about abstinence and consistent contraceptive use appear to be having an impact on teens, it is essential that adolescents continue to receive both.” Churches giving every British household a candle for millennium
LONDON (RNS) – Every household in Britain is to be given a candle by their local church or churches to help them mark the millennium.
Along with the candle and its holder, with an inscription”Millennium candle AD 2000,”will be a card with a resolution which the British churches hope everyone will join in saying at or about the time when 1999 becomes the year 2000:”Let there be
respect for the earth,
peace for its people,
love in our lives,
delight in the good,
forgiveness for past wrongs,
and from now on a new start.” In Scotland, households will, in addition, be asked to join in saying the Lord’s Prayer.
Local churches are being asked to buy kits containing the candle and holder and a card with the millennium resolution at a cost of 50 cents in order to distribute them as gifts to households in their area.
There are just over 20 million households in Britain, so the total cost to the churches for the whole exercise will amount to a little more than $10 million.
A Gallup poll has found that 58 percent of the British population are”very willing”or”willing”to light a candle and to take part in a shared moment of reflection on New Year’s Eve 1999, with 38 percent”very willing”or”willing”to recite the millennium resolution.
Fourteen percent were not at all willing to light a candle and 24 percent were not at all willing to recite the resolution, with 12 percent not very willing to do so.
The plan was welcomed by Chris Smith, the government’s Secretary for Culture, Media and Sport.
Suit involving historic Bruton Parish expanded to include priest
(RNS) The historic 300-year-old Bruton Parish (Episcopal) in Williamsburg, Va., already the focus of a pedophile lawsuit involving a baby sitter, is being hit harder by charges that a priest and a church member may have been part of it.
The Rev. Michael W. Jones, a priest who was an associate rector at the time of the alleged offenses in 1993 and 1994, is being accused of abusing children in the church’s care and having an”intimate sexual relationship”with a male teen-age baby sitter.
The allegations against Jones and lay leader John A. Grubb were made public Tuesday (Oct. 13) when a Richmond court formally accepted an expansion of a suit calling for damages against the church and others to more than $250 million.
In an amended version of the case by 35 people against Richard Wescott Weaverling _ the baby sitter convicted of multiple sex crimes and currently serving a 73-year prison sentence _ the plaintiffs say Jones, had”an intimate sexual relationship”with Weaverling before Weaverling was hired at the center.
The amended version of the suit also says Jones, who was in charge of youth programs, Weaverling, and Grubb”participated in the abuse of infant plaintiffs.” No criminal charges have been filed against either Jones or Grubb.
Jones, now rector of St. Thomas Episcopal Church in Chesapeake, Va., told the Richmond Times-Dispatch,”I deny all allegations.”Grubb could not be reached for comment.
The amended suit said the relationship between Jones and Weaverling began before Weaverling was hired by the parish and continued until Weaverling was caught”in an act of child molestation”and that Jones,”acted on his sexual interest in children”in the course of his job while Grubb touched and abused the children in a threatening way.
Bishop David C. Bane, bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Southern Virginia, said he’s confident Jones is innocent.
Bane’s predecessor, Bishop Frank H. Vest Jr., said that when allegations first arose he ordered Jones to undergo”an extensive four-day psychiatric evaluation.””This evaluation included several polygraphic tests, and I was assured by (a) nationally known psychiatrist that there was no way in which (Jones) could have been involved in any kind of child abuse,”Vest said.
Meanwhile, local prosecutors are begging off from pursuing the case.
Williamsburg Commonwealth’s Attorney Mike McGinty was asked last year to investigate, but said he was a member of the church when the offenses allegedly occurred and the Richmond Times-Dispatch said a series of other prosecutors also have asked to be excused.
Defendants in the case are Bruton Parish Church; the Episcopal Diocese of Southern Virginia; Weaverling, Weaverling’s mother; the Rev. Richard May, rector at the time of the assaults; Jones, Grubb and several current and former lay leaders of the church.
Sir John Templeton honored with award
(RNS) Sir John Marks Templeton, the creator of the Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion, has been honored for his life achievements by the Independent Institute.
The non-partisan public policy research foundation in Oakland, Calif., awarded Templeton, a successful financial analyst, its Alexis de Tocqueville Award at an Oct. 1 ceremony in San Francisco.”We recognize and appreciate Sir John’s contributions to advancing business excellence, free-market entrepreneurship, education, moral principles and economic and social welfare,”said David J. Theroux, the institute’s president and founder.”But above all, it is his unwavering dedication to the principles of individual liberty as the foundations of free and humane societies that makes him most deserving of this honor.” Templeton is the fourth recipient of the award, which is named for the well-known French political philosopher, in the institute’s 12-year history. Other winners were Nobel laureate economist James Buchanan, author Tom Peters and historian Robert Conquest.
Quote of the day: Wyoming Gov. Jim Geringer
(RNS)”What we don’t need is a bunch of wingnuts coming in.” _ Gov. Jim Geringer of Wyoming responding to reports that members of an anti-gay Topeka, Kan., church planned to picket the funeral of murdered gay student Matthew Shepard.
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