c. 1998 Religion News Service

Religious groups continue to urge diplomacy to end Iraq crisis

(RNS) Religious leaders against new U.S. military attacks on Iraq are continuing to express their opposition in letters to President Bill Clinton and statements to the media.

Tuesday (Feb. 17), the leaders of the United Church of Christ (UCC) and the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), in a joint statement, urged no new attacks, despite Saddam Hussein’s ruthlessness.”We entertain no illusions about the nature of the Iraqi regime,”wrote the Rev. Paul H. Sherry, president of the Cleveland-based UCC, and the Rev. Richard L. Hamm, general minister and president of the Indianapolis-based Christian Church. The two mainline Protestant denominations share some ministries and functions.”It is, however, our vocation as church leaders not only to condemn the wrongdoing of tyrants, but also to speak on behalf of those who are rendered voiceless and without advocates in the corridors of power, in this instance the people of Iraq,”Sherry and Hamm said.

The religious leaders cited reports that more than a half-million Iraqi children have died as a result of the economic embargo against Iraq put in place by the United Nations at the end of the 1991 Gulf War. Renewed bombing, they continued, will only make the lives of children and other innocent Iraqi civilians”more miserable, and will only provoke the anger”of other Arabs.

Monday (Feb. 16), the National Council of Churches, in another letter to Clinton, called military action”morally ambiguous”and urged a diplomatic solution to the current crisis over U.N. access to Iraqi sites suspected of harboring Hussein’s chemical and biological weapons.

Noting the variety of religious voices that oppose renewed U.S. military action, the NCC _ whose 34 Protestant and Orthodox Christian member denominations have nearly 52 million members _ summed up its position by saying:”Pursue diplomacy. Urge Iraqi compliance. Resist the military option. Offer aid and healing. Build peace.” Roman Catholic leaders also issued additional condemnations of possible U.S. military strikes.

Seven U.S. Catholic cardinals and Bishop Anthony Pilla of Cleveland, president of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops, sent Clinton a letter urging a widening of the diplomatic efforts to persuade Hussein to comply to the U.N. demands.

Bombing, said the Catholic leaders, offers no guarantee that Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction will be fully and permanently eliminated and could lead to”aggressive action against other peoples and states by Iraq.” Also, the Sisters of Mercy of the Americas _ an international community of 6,200 nuns and 1,600 associates headquartered in Silver Spring, Md. _ said in a statement that the”people of Iraq are not responsible for the actions of Saddam Hussein. An attack on them would violate the most basic principles of morality.”

Update: Copyright dispute over `Devil’s Advocate’ settled

(RNS) A copyright dispute between Warner Bros. and the sculptor of work at the Washington National Cathedral has been resolved, allowing distribution of the video version of”Devil’s Advocate”to move forward.

Sculptor Frederick E. Hart and the cathedral had filed suit in federal court alleging that a sculpture that comes to life in the movie was illegally copied from Hart’s bas-relief that adorns the main entrance of the cathedral.

Warner Bros., the studio that produced the film, denied using the artist’s work but said it”regrets any confusion created as to the origins of the artwork in the film,”The Washington Post reported.

Representatives of both sides of the dispute announced the settlement on Friday (Feb. 13). Under the agreement, Warner Bros. will place stickers on packages of the videotape version of”Devil’s Advocate”that will disclaim any relationship to or endorsement by Washington National Cathedral or Hart. The studio also will change some of the disputed scenes before the movie is shown on network or cable television.

Hart’s attorney Campbell Killefer said his client”is thrilled”with the settlement. But Killefer declined to say whether the agreement included any monetary award.

Warner Bros. spokeswoman Barbara Brogliatti said the specific changes that will be made in the movie have not yet been designed.”We’re going to have to get a director in there and people with computers,”she said.”It’s going to be very expensive.” The sculpture in question is a bas-relief entitled”Ex Nihilo”(“Out of Nothing”) that depicts the creation of humankind from chaos as told in the book of Genesis. It features male and female nudes in various poses. In the movie, an image of the disputed artwork, located in the apartment of the devil, comes to life and writhes erotically.

Authorities considering possible conspiracy in new church fires

(RNS) Authorities are investigating a possible conspiracy in a recent spate of arsons at five white churches in North Carolina.”We have no suspects,”said Sheriff’s Capt. Johnny Phillips, who is leading the investigation of the most serious recent fire in Gastonia, N.C.

He confirmed that there have been similarities in the cases that have prompted suspicions of a conspiracy but he declined to describe them. Other sources said the arsonist or arsonists used similar materials and methods, The Washington Post reported.

Rashes of fires at black churches in the South during the past two years received wide publicity, but nationally there have been more white than black church burnings during that period. Investigators have found that arsons at white churches were started based on a wide range of motives while many of the black churches were burned because of racial hatred. White churches outnumber black churches by far in this country.

All five of the recent North Carolina fires were set near doors of the churches.

The first, on Feb. 8, was at First Baptist Church in Stanley and was contained before major damage was done. The next occurred Feb. 10 at Sunset Forest Baptist Church in Gastonia, causing at least $150,000 worth of damage when the main building was destroyed.

Three additional fires caused about $3,000 damage at each of three churches in the Charlotte area _ New Apostolic, Moore’s Chapel United Methodist and Garden Memorial Presbyterian.

Christian Coalition state leaders favor Ashcroft for president

(RNS) Sen. John D. Ashcroft, R-Mo., emerged as the favored presidential candidate of state Christian Coalition leaders in a poll taken at the organization’s mid-winter conference held in Virginia Beach, Va., over the Presidents Day weekend.

Ashcroft _ an evangelical Christian closely associated with many of the same positions as the Christian Coalition _ outpolled some 45 Republicans, Democrats and others who have been mentioned as possible presidential candidates in the 2000 election.

Ashcroft was the first or second choice of 29 of the 65 coalition state chairs and executive directors who were polled at the conference, The Washington Post reported Tuesday (Feb. 17). Arkansas’s Republican Gov. Mike Huckabee came in second with 16 first or second place ballots in the closed-door voting.

The coalition leaderships’ other top choices were all Republicans. They included businessman Steve Forbes and Oklahoma Rep. J.C. Watts with 15 votes; Texas Gov. George W. Bush with 10 and former Vice President Dan Quayle with eight.

Democrats _ who included Vice President Al Gore, House Minority Leader Richard A. Gephardt of Missouri, Sens. Bob Kerrey of Nebraska and John F. Kerry of Massachusetts and civil rights leader Jesse L. Jackson _ received a total of zero first or second place mentions.

Christian Coalition spokesman Arne Owens cautioned against reading too much into the poll.”This was just an effort to get a sense of where our people are at the moment,”he said in an interview.”This is very preliminary, and there’s no telling today how things will develop as we approach the next presidential election.”

Orthodox Jewish feminists counsel patience

(RNS) Slow down, make less noise and change will come for Orthodox Jewish women. That was the prevailing message at the second-annual International Conference on Feminism and Orthodoxy, held Sunday and Monday (Feb. 15-16) in New York.”Changes will come through consensus and not through confrontation,”said Chanah Henkin, founder of Nishmat, the Jerusalem Center for Advanced Study for Women.”We are witnessing today before our eyes … the emergence of the first generation of talmudically literate women.” About 2,000 people from across North America, Europe, and Israel participated in the conference, nearly twice the attendance of last year’s debut event. The conference examined a litany of issues, including domestic violence in Jewish communities, injustices in Jewish divorce law, and the possibility of expanding women’s roles within the strict confines of traditional Jewish law.

Henkin believes the emergence of well-trained women leaders eventually will force their acceptance by the Orthodox community’s entrenched male establishment. Her approach was representative of a larger conservative contingent at this year’s conference, which organizers said was intended to make the event more representative of the wide spectrum of Orthodox opinion.

But not all speakers were as accommodating as Henkin.”We are in and of the mainstream, though we don’t occupy the seats of power yet,”said Blu Greenberg, the matriarch of the Orthodox feminist movement, who organized the conference and makes no secret of her belief that Orthodox women should be allowed to become rabbis (they currently may not).”We have proven that feminism and Orthodoxy can live happily together.” Amy Strachman, a lawyer from Providence, R.I., said she was particularly interested in speakers’ analysis of Jewish texts concerning women.”Hopefully, it’ll let all of Orthodoxy, all of Judaism, know how serious people are about finding legal methods of modification,”she said.

Efforts continue to fight hunger

(RNS) As hundreds of thousands of teens prepare to raise money to fight hunger, another effort to help hungry people has raised $1.7 million in donations.

More than 600,000 U.S. teen-agers are expected to participate in the annual World Vision 30 Hour Famine from 1 p.m. Feb. 27 to 7 p.m. Feb. 28. Participants will consume only water and fruit juices and will work in groups to provide help to their communities through food drives and service at soup kitchens and homeless shelters.

The money raised during this year’s effort will be used to help emergency relief efforts and long-term development projects in countries such as North Korea, India, Azerbaijan, Mali, Peru and the United States.

Meanwhile, the”Souper Bowl of Caring”has raised $1.7 million in donations from about 9,000 churches in North America. Participating congregations collected one canned good or a dollar from parishioners as they left worship on Super Bowl weekend. The collections were distributed to local charities.

Baptist-affiliated University of Mobile gets new president

(RNS) The University of Mobile, a Southern Baptist-affiliated school that has been dealing with debt problems, has a new president.

Mark R. Foley, executive vice president of New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, was elected Friday (Feb. 13) by the university’s board of trustees, reported Baptist Press, the official news service of the Southern Baptist Convention.

Foley succeeds Michael Magnoli, who was ousted from his post last May. Magnoli’s departure was linked to a debt crisis of more than $3.6 million that was revealed in March 1997 and the start of a campus in San Marcos, Nicaragua, without the authorization of the Alabama Baptist State Convention.

Quote of the day: Robert Royal of the Ethics and Public Policy Center

(RNS)”A religious person has no business being an optimist _ or pessimist _ for the simple reason that, while much of what we do depends on our own brains and hands, ultimately we have to hope that we will get from somewhere else the illumination of mind and will for the day’s task.” _ Robert Royal of the Ethics and Public Policy Center writing in the current issue of the center’s publication, The American Character.

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