c. 1998 Religion News Service
State Department seeking religious leader exchanges with China
(RNS) The State Department’s chief human rights staffer said Washington hopes to arrange future exchanges of religious leaders with Beijing to”deepen the dialogue”on religious freedom in China.
Assistant Secretary John Shattuck, who heads the State Department’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, said Friday (July 10) the hoped-for exchanges would seek to build on last February’s”ground-breaking”visit to China by three American clerics.
Speaking to reporters at his State Department offices, Shattuck said his discussions with Chinese religious affairs officials during President Clinton’s recent visit to China gave him”good reason to believe”the exchanges will take place.
However, he provided no information as to when the exchanges might begin or whether they are even close to being finalized.
In February, the Rev. Don Argue, past president of the National Association of Evangelicals; Roman Catholic Archbishop Theodore E. McCarrick of Newark, N.J.; and Rabbi Arthur Schneier, president of the New York-based Appeal of Conscience Foundation, visited China as unofficial U.S. emissaries. During their visit _ the first such government-endorsed trip to China by U.S. religious leaders _ the delegation met with Chinese President Jiang Jemin and Chinese and Tibetan religious leaders, including some associated with groups not sanctioned by Beijing and, therefore, considered illegal.
Shattuck called that trip”ground breaking”in that the three clerics”made it clear to President Jemin”that religious freedom and other human rights issues would be raised by Clinton during his June visit to China.
Shattuck said future American delegations would likely be compromised of members of the State Department’s special advisory panel on religious freedom. Panel members represent a broad range of American religious groups, and Shattuck said future delegations to China would reflect this diversity.
During Clinton’s recent talks with Jemin and other Chinese officials, Shattuck said”the climate of discussion was … much more favorable on this issue of freedom of religion than it has been in the past.” Despite that, he added, the state of religious freedom in China”remains very serious in terms of abuses occurring in a wide variety of contexts throughout the country.”
Methodist annual conferences grapple with gay issues
(RNS) Nearly all of the 66 annual conferences _ or regional jurisdictions similar to a diocese _ of United Methodist Church grappled with issues surrounding homosexuality, especially the question of same-sex unions, during their spring and summer meetings.
But while the gay issue, which most recently has embroiled the church in controversy since March when a Nebraska pastor was narrowly acquitted of violating church rules in performing a same-sex ceremony, seemed to dominate annual conference deliberations, the lay and clergy delegates also expressed concern about Africa and children living in poverty.
Indeed, in the latter two instances, conferences put their money where their mouths were, collecting $264,000 for the Bishops’ Initiative on Children and Poverty, and $46,000 for the Hope for the Children of Africa campaign.
Still, it was the gay issue that seemed to dominate.
During this year’s meetings, 39 annual conferences dealt with the issue by adopting resolutions affirming statements on homosexuality in the church’s Book of Discipline and Social Principles, requesting the Judicial Council to rule the Social Principles are binding as law and affirming the Council of Bishops pastoral letter on the subject.
One conference reported it had 55 action requests on the issue and several conferences tabled discussion on the issue or declared moratoriums on the subject.
The Northwest Texas Conference adopted a resolution declaring itself both a”transforming”conference, meaning it supports gays and lesbians who want to stop being homosexual, and a”confessing”conference, meaning it pledges unequivocal support to Jesus and the doctrinal position of the United Methodist Church. South Georgia also became a confessing conference.
The Memphis Annual Conference voted to ask the General Conference, the church’s top legislative body set to next meet in 2000, to enact an”unmistakable”prohibition on same-sex marriages.
On other issues, four conferences _ North Georgia, Nebraska, California-Nevada, and Pacific Northwest _ called for closing the School of the Americas, the army training center at Fort Benning, Ga., while the New York conference condemned the armed groups claiming responsibility for the violence in Algeria. East Ohio called for reform of sweatshop conditions in the apparel industry and West Ohio adopted a”Resolution for an Apology for Slavery.”The Little Rock Conference called for a ban on a controversial late-term abortion procedure.
PCUSA synod bookkeeper charged with embezzlement
(RNS) A longtime synod bookkeeper in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) has been accused of embezzling at least $81,000.
Prosecutors in Jacksonville, Fla., have charged Synod of South Atlantic bookkeeper Adelita Magpusao with diverting church”pass through”funds for her personal use.”Pass through”funds are special gifts to specific projects and can be embezzled more easily since the recipients usually are not aware the donations are forthcoming, synod officials said.
The thefts were uncovered in mid-June, when an uncashed forged check was returned to the synod by an unfamiliar vendor, reported PCUSA News, the official news agency of the 2.6 million-member denomination. The check, which bore a synod rubber-stamped signature, was used to make a payment on one of Magpusao’s personal credit cards.
Subsequent auditing has turned up a number of other forged checks on which Magpusao apparently used signature stamps.”The irony is that two weeks before we discovered the problem, we received a clean 1997 audit,”the Rev. John Bartholomew, head of the Synod of South Atlantic, told PCUSA News.
Once the embezzlement was discovered,”we took decisive steps to clean up the mess,”said Bartholomew, adding that the synod is working with its insurer, auditors and bank to recover the stolen funds.
The synod also has requested its auditors determine exactly how much was embezzled and to whom the funds were originally earmarked.
Magpusao, who had been the synod’s bookkeeper for 10 years, was recently downsized from a full-time to part-time employee in a January cost-saving effort.
Film, TV writers honored for values that `enrich’ humanity
(RNS) Screenwriters of the feature film”Good Will Hunting”and the now-defunct ABC drama”Nothing Sacred”have been awarded 1998 Humanitas Prizes.
The prizes, which were announced at a Los Angeles luncheon Thursday (July 9), are awarded annually by the Human Family Educational and Cultural Institute, a group”set up specifically to acknowledge and acclaim entertainment writers whose work best communicates human values,”said Terrance Sweeney, the institute’s educational director.
Matt Damon and Ben Affleck will share a $25,000 Humanitas Prize for their work on”Good Will Hunting,”a Miramax film. Damon and Affleck also won an Academy Award for their script about an orphaned genius who overcomes years of childhood abuse.
Bill Cain won a $15,000 prize for his script”Proofs for the Existence of God,”an episode of the highly controversial”Nothing Sacred,”an ABC drama about the faith struggles of an inner-city Roman Catholic pastor. The series, which came under fire from some conservative Catholics for its less-than-perfect portrayal of a priest, was canceled this spring because of poor ratings.
Toni Ann Johnson won $25,000 for”Ruby Bridges,”a made-for-TV film about the true story of a 6-year-old girl who was the first black student at an all-white school in the 1960s south. It was produced by ABC’s”The Wonderful World of Disney.” Both Miramax and ABC are subsidiaries of the Walt Disney Co., the embattled entertainment giant that has become the favored whipping boy and target of boycotts by some conservative Christians _ most notably the Southern Baptist Convention _ for what opponents call the company’s”gay-friendly”policies and increasingly”anti-family”entertainment values.”What the Humanitas Prize organization does is judge the quality of the individual scripts and not the politics or negative products of individual studios,”Sweeney said.”… Our interest is in the human values in the good scripts, not in the ones that are offensive to audiences.” Others honorees included Paul Monash and Marshall Frady for their teleplay”George Wallace,”the story of the once-bigoted Alabama governor’s rise to power; and Marilyn Suzanne Miller for an episode of CBS’s”Murphy Brown”in which the lead character copes with breast cancer.
President of Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod re-elected to third term
(RNS) The Rev. Alvin L. Barry was re-elected Sunday (July 12) to his third three-year term as president of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod.
Barry’s re-election as head of the 2.6 million-member denomination came on the opening day of the church’s triennial convention in St. Louis.”I once again pledge to you this day that I will do all possible in a pastoral way to lead our church into the future,”said Barry, 67, in his acceptance remarks.”This is a great church that is faithful to the Scriptures and to the Lutheran Confessions … a great church that is boldly reaching out with the Gospel.”
L.A. Jewish survey shows lower intermarriage rate
(RNS) The rate of intermarriage among Los Angeles Jews _ for years believed among the highest in the nation _ turns out to be 11 percentage points lower than the national average, according to a new survey.
Since the 1990 release of a survey of American Jewry that found the national Jewish intermarriage rate to be about 52 percent, Jewish leaders have warned of the community’s slow demise through attrition.
In Los Angeles, the intermarriage rate was believed to be even higher. Some estimates placed it at more than 60 percent.
However, a new survey by the Jewish Federation of Los Angeles found the rate of intermarriage among the city’ more than 500,000 Jews to be 41 percent. Los Angeles has the nation’s second largest Jewish community.
The survey also found that 34 percent of the city’s Jews are affiliated with a synagogue, up from 25 percent in a similar survey conducted in 1979.
The Forward, a weekly Jewish newspaper, said in its July 10 edition”the findings are significant because they contradict some of the more dire predictions about American Jewry’s future.” But Bruce Phillips, a member of the federation’s research team, told the Los Angeles Jewish Journal that part of the reason for the lower intermarriage rate may simply be that intermarried couples are moving out of Los Angeles.
Another possible explanation, he said, is the increased number of newer Jewish immigrants settling in Los Angeles. The immigrants and their children tend to have lower intermarriage rates than Jews whose families have been in the United States for many years.
Another national Jewish survey is scheduled for 2000.
W.Va. Hare Krishna community re-embraced by sect
(RNS) A West Virginia Hare Krishna community that went from prime tourist attraction to crime scene has been provisionally readmitted to the Hindu sect.
At its peak in the early 1980s, some 400 tourist buses annually stopped at New Vrindavana, an ashram, or religious community, near Moundsville, W.Va. The 2,000-acre ashram’s main temple _ the”Palace of Gold”_ was described by The New York Times as the”Taj Mahal of the West.” Soon after, things went terribly wrong at New Vrindavana, and in 1988 the ashram was formally expelled from the International Society of Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON), as the Hare Krishna movement is formally known.
The expulsion coincided with claims by law enforcement officials that the ashram had raked in millions of dollars for nonexistant charities and broke copyright and trademark laws on the items it sold.
They also said the community’s religious authority, Kirtanananda Swami, had ordered the killings of two former ashram members who spread rumors that he was a pedophile. In a plea bargain arrangement, he later pleaded guilty to mail fraud and racketeering and is serving a 20-year jail term.
An ISKCON spokesman said Monday (July 13) that New Vrindavana has been provisionally readmitted to the sect”subject to an annual review for the next two years.” Spokesman Anuttama Dasa said New Vrindavana’s current leaders had apologized”for past mistakes and deviations,”and had pledged to adhere to Hare Krishna theology and abide by all state and federal laws.”When New Vrindavana went off the deep end it was a great shock,”Anuttama Dasa said.”We had no systems to deal with deviant communities. When New Vrindavana removed Kirtanananda and said it had corrected itself, we needed several years to assure that they had reformed.” Some 200 Hare Krishna members currently live in and around New Vrindavana. Some 450 lived there before the ashram’s troubles.
Quote of the day: United Methodist lay leader Kirk Crotts
(RNS)”The Baptists took a stand on this before it had a chance to get out of hand. It’s time for the Methodist Church to get off their blessed assurance and fall down to their knees before God.” _ Lay leader Kirk Crotts of East End United Methodist Church in Savannah, Ga., quoted by the United Methodist News Service on why he supports his congregation withholding funds from the denomination because it does not believe the church’s opposition to gays and lesbians is strong enough.
MJP END RNS
