c. 2000 Religion News Service
“Souper Bowl of Caring” Organizers Continue to Help Hungry
(RNS) Organizers of “Souper Bowl of Caring,” a grassroots effort to enhance care for the hungry on Super Bowl Sunday, hope more than 15,000 congregations will participate in the initiative this year. The National Football League championship game is on Sunday (Jan. 30).
The effort, which began in 1990 and went nationwide in 1993, involves youth of individual congregations collecting food and cash donations for local soup kitchens.
The Rev. Brad Smith, founder of Souper Bowl of Caring, said $2.5 million was raised by 11,000 congregations in 1999. He hopes $3.5 million will be raised by 15,000 congregations this year.
More than 40 Christian denominations and some synagogues have been involved in the effort in the past, he told Religion News Service.
“Christ calls us to care for hurting and hungry people,” said Smith, associate pastor of Spring Valley Presbyterian Church in Columbia, S.C. “Superbowl Sunday is a day of conspicuous consumption _ the epitome of it. Here’s a chance for us to care for the needy.”
Smith said there has been a marked increase in participation over the years. The 1999 totals were double the 1997 giving and triple the 1996 totals.
The funds raised go directly to local charities chosen by congregations. Organizers ask that participants report this year’s totals to http://www.souperbowl.org or 1-800-358-SOUP on Sunday.
Religious Leaders Call for Sudan Disinvestment Campaign
(RNS) Urging investors to avoid underwriting “the world’s most egregrious practitioners of terrorism, starvation, religious persecution, slavery and literal genocide,” nine religious leaders have issued a letter calling for a halt on stock investment in two companies with major investments in a Sudanese government new oil pipeline.
The letter, sent Thursday (Jan. 27), charges that Talisman Energy Inc. and China National Petroleum Company are the two main sources of revenue for the Sudanese government, and money from those companies helps protect Sudan from international pressure to negotiate a settlement to a 16-year-old civil conflict between the Muslim-dominated government in the north and breakaway rebels in the largely Christian and animist south.
Talisman has invested about $750 million in Sudan’s main business cooperative for oil revenues, the Greater Nile Petroleum Operating Project, and the company holds one-fourth of its shares, according to the letter. The Chinese company has invested as much as $2 billion in the project and holds 40 percent of its shares.
The religious leaders ask investors to “divest any Talisman holdings you may have and, should it become available, to avoid any purchase of `Petro China’ stock,” and reject assurances from investment banks that Petro China would not fund China’s investments in the new pipeline.
The letter, co-sponsored by the Center for Religious Freedom of Freedom House and the Institute on Religion and Democracy, was sent to all 50 state treasurers in the United States, 150 of the nation’s largest public employee pension funds and the nation’s top 50 mutual fund companies.
The letter’s signers were: Diane L. Knippers, president of the Institute on Religion and Democracy, Charles W. Colson, founder of Prison Fellowship Ministries, and Dr. Richard Land, president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention;
Also: Rabbi Irving Greenberg, president of the Jewish Life Network; Nina Shea, director of the Center for Religious Freedom and Commissioner of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom; the Rev. Keith L. Ackerman, bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Quincy; Commissioner John Busby, national commander of the Salvation Army; Bishop Paride Taban of the Catholic Diocese of Torit in Eastern Equatoria, Sudan; the Rev. Chuck Singleton, senior pastor of Loveland Church in Rancho Cucamonga, Calif.
Unique Crematorium Created for Sikhs, Hindus
(RNS) The first crematorium in North America designed for Sikhs and Hindus will feature strategically placed windows through which up to 2,000 people can watch the dead person’s body burn to ashes.
The crematorium, scheduled to open later this year near the Fraser River in Delta, British Columbia, is specially designed to accommodate the religious and social needs of Vancouver’s Indo-Canadian population, which is one of the largest on the continent.
Not only will it be easy for the eldest son in each Indo-Canadian family to fulfill his duty to light the funeral furnace fire, there will be a large hall capable of handling the huge crowds that often flock to the open cremation of Sikhs and Hindus.
“All our gurus taught that you should face death boldly. No other crematorium in all of North America can provide us this kind of service,” said Ravinder Singh Dhir, one of the Sikh officials spearheading construction of the $6 million crematorium for the nonprofit Five Rivers Community Services Society.
Sikhs and Hindus, who together total about 200,000 in Greater Vancouver, follow religious traditions teaching cremating the dead rather than burying them so their spirits will be free to travel to a heavenly afterlife or be reincarnated.
“The idea is to not have anything left of the dead body. When we watch the cremation fire, we always pray for the soul not to come back to Earth,” said Dhir. “Our religion says do good work and give to charity in this life so that you won’t have to be reincarnated and come back. Instead, you’ll go to heaven.”
Although Sikhs and Hindus currently use Greater Vancouver’s commercial funeral companies, they have long complained that most of their crematoriums are too expensive and too small for large crowds, making it difficult to fully take part in the ritual burning of the body. The Five Rivers Community Services Society began gathering donations from Sikhs and Hindus in 1991 to build the ice-rink-sized crematorium.
Baptist Academy Dormitory Director Charged with Sex Crimes
(RNS) A well-regarded dormitory director at a Baptist academy in Texas has been charged with six felony counts relating to sexual crimes with minors.
Bradley Wayne Dixon, 34, has been dismissed from the San Marcos Baptist Academy in San Marcos and has been held in the Hays County Jail, The Austin American-Statesman reported.
Authorities have said six middle school boys have alleged that Dixon, known at the academy as Brad Bartlett, fondled them.
He was arrested on Jan. 17 and faces such charges as indecency with a child, possession of child pornography and sexual assault of a child.
Sheriff’s investigators said several boys have told them in written statements that Dixon fondled them between September 1998 and late 1999. They did not come forward earlier for fear of retaliation from him, an affidavit said. Dixon supervised 62 boys in grades six through eight who lived at the dormitory.
Dixon was hired in August 1997 as an assistant dormitory director and was promoted to dormitory director in May 1999. David McClintock, executive vice president of the academy, said a background check when Dixon was hired showed no criminal history.
“There were a lot of people that had a high regard for the work he was doing,” McClintock said. “He was available to the students and helped meet the requirements for activities and scheduling and the disciplinary functions of the office.”
The coeducational academy is financed by the Baptist General Convention of Texas, a state convention of the Southern Baptist Convention. The school, which has 330 boarding and day students in grades six through 12, is offering counseling to students and alerting parents about the arrest.
British Parliament Debates Tightening Anti-Euthanasia Law
(RNS) The House of Commons, overriding objections from the government and the British Medical Association, moved closer Friday (Jan. 28) to approving a bill aimed at tightening Britain’s anti-euthanasia law.
Conservative Member of Parliament Ann Winterton’s Medical Treatment (Prevention of Euthanasia) Bill would make it unlawful for a doctor or nurse “to withdraw or withhold from the patient medical treatment or sustenance if his purpose or one of his purposes in doing so is to hasten or otherwise cause the death of the patient.”
But Liberal Democrat Dr. Peter Brand said that if that had been the law when he qualified as a doctor in 1971, “I think I would now be a multi-murderer.”
During debate on the bill’s second reading, opponents stressed they were opposed to euthanasia but argued the bill would make things much more complicated for doctors treating the terminally ill.
“The consequences of the bill would be confusing and would rely a lot on the way the courts interpreted it,” said Health Minister Yvette Cooper.
In an explanatory statement attached to her bill, Winterton said it “does not require doctors officiously and inappropriately to strive to keep dying patients alive.”
But if it became law the courts in interpreting it would rely merely on its wording and not on the intention of the legislators.
The bill has received the backing of Bishop Peter Smith of East Anglia, chairman of the department for Christian responsibility and citizenship of the Roman Catholic bishops’ conference of England and Wales.
The bill would, he said, strengthen the protection of the law for vulnerable people and clarify public policy with regard to euthanasia.
However, the Church of England’s Board for Social Responsibility said it has grave reservations about the wording of the bill, saying it could compel doctors to give dying patients unnecessary and burdensome treatment instead of letting them die peacefully.
The bill now goes to committee where it can be amended.
Prince Charles to Represent Monarchy at Scottish Church’s Meeting
(RNS) Prince Charles will attend this year’s general assembly of the (Presbyterian) Church of Scotland as the Lord High Commissioner _ the official representative of the monarchy.
The Lord High Commissioner observes but does not participate in the meeting, this year being held in Edinburgh from May 20 to 26.
Queen Elizabeth herself attended the 1969 general assembly, while Princess Anne was Lord High Commissioner in 1996. The Lord High Commissioner, normally a prominent Scot, resides in the royal palace of Holyroodhouse and is addressed as “Your Grace,” the traditional form of address for Scottish monarchs. The position of the Lord High Commissioner reflects the unique status of the Church of Scotland which is Scotland’s established church but also independent of the state.
Gospel Singer Rex Nelon Dies After Heart Attack
(RNS) Rex Nelon, a bass singer well-known in Southern gospel circles, died Jan. 23 after suffering a heart attack.
Nelon, 68, had been traveling in Ireland with the “Gaither Homecoming Friends” tour, the Gospel Music Association announced.
The Nashville, Tenn.-based association issued a statement calling Nelon “one of the most respected men in Southern gospel music.”
Nelon, a leader in gospel music publishing, started his career with the Homeland Harmony Quartet in the 1950s. He later spent 20 years with Gospel Music Hall of Fame group The LeFevres, which he renamed The Rex Nelon Singers. The group is now known as “The Nelons.”
“Gospel music suffers a great loss with the death of Rex Nelon,” said Frank Breeden, president of the Gospel Music Association. “He was a real gentleman, a talented vocalist and a true encourager of young talent.”
Quote of the Day: Former Television Evangelist Jim Bakker
(RNS) “I believe personally that every person who died in the Holocaust is in heaven.”
_ Former television evangelist Jim Bakker in an interview Tuesday (Jan. 25) on CNN’s “Larry King Live.”
DEA END RNS
