c. 2000 Religion News Service
Southern Baptist Membership Increases After One-Year Drop
(RNS) Membership in Southern Baptist churches increased again in 1999 after a decline in 1998 that marked the first drop in more than 70 years.
The 1999 total stands at 15,851,756 members, according to the denomination’s Annual Church Profile. That is an increase of 122,400, or 0.78 percent, from 1998.
The 1999 figure remains slightly below the all-time high from 1997 of 15,891,514 members, reported Baptist Press, the news service of the Southern Baptist Convention.
Average Sunday morning worship attendance was 5,418,348 in 1999, an increase of 0.36 percent from the 1998 figure of 5,398,692.
For the third year in a row, baptisms topped the 400,000 mark. The 1999 figure for baptisms is 419,342, a 2.97 percent jump from 1998’s 407,264. The total for baptisms in 1997 was 412,027.
Cliff Tharp, constituent information coordinator for the convention’s LifeWay Christian Resources section, said he believes the 1998 membership decline “likely was impacted by affiliation and data collection issues” last year.
“With an increasing trend of churches moving away from traditional affiliation patterns toward greater variety in their affiliations, we have found greater challenges in seeing that everyone is counted and counted only once,” he said.
Vatican will press for debt relief at May Day celebrations
(RNS) At least 200,000 workers from throughout the world will converge on Rome for a Jubilee May Day celebration devoted to the causes of full employment debt relief and featuring a papal Mass and a rock concert, the Vatican said Friday (April 14).
Preempting the tradition that May 1 belongs to labor unions, the Vatican declared May Day the “Jubilee of the Workers” and announced plans to juxtapose religious rites with a call for action on social issues and performances by rocker Lou Reed and other stars.
Cardinal Roger Etchegaray, president of the Vatican’s Central Committee for the Great Jubilee of the Year 2000, told a Vatican news conference that Pope John Paul II wants May 1 to be “an event of popular solidarity.”
Etchegaray noted that May 1 observances originated with “the blood spilled in the worker’s struggle at the end of the 19th century _ born with the era of industrialization and development.”
“At the dawn of the third millennium, in a completely different cultural context, the first of May is more topical than ever, and the pope wanted to give it a particular importance, making it one of the great events of the Jubilee year,” Etchegaray said.
“Today, more than the condition of the working man, it is the condition of the man without work that is worrying because he becomes a man amputated from his own personality,” the cardinal said.
Deploring the large number of jobless people “wounded by the modern economy,” Etchegaray said, “The employment crisis has become a structural fact.”
Monsignor Giampaolo Crepaldi, under secretary of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, said May Day celebrations also will focus on the campaign to cancel or drastically reduce the debt owed by developing countries.
“The debt problem is one facet of the problems linked to development,” Crepaldi said. “But you can’t have development without resolving the debt problem. Debt is emblematic of lack of development and extreme poverty.”
John Paul is an outspoken supporter of debt relief and last Sept. 23 met with U2 lead singer Bono and other entertainers promoting the Jubilee 2000 “Cancel the Debt” campaign.
On Monday, May 1, the pope will celebrate an outdoor Mass at Tor Vergata on the outskirts of Rome and deliver what the Vatican said will be “a strong message on the world of work and the dignity of man.”
Tenor Andrea Bocelli will sing a selection of sacred music, accompanied by the Orchestra and Chorus of Rome’s Academy of Santa Cecilia, directed by Myung- Whun Chung, and will join pop singers Noa of Israel and Khaled of Algeria in “Life is Beautiful,” the Jubilee theme song.
Monday night, Lou Reed, former lead singer of Velvet Underground and author of the controversial 1972 hit “Walk on the Wild Side,”will perform with Noa, Khaled, the Eurythmics and other stars at a televised rock concert dedicated to the debt relief campaign.
Vatican officials said their estimate of a crowd of 200,000 at the Mass and concert was a conservative one. The Tor Vergata space can hold 300,000 people, but some 600,000 attended Rome’s union-sponsored May Day concert last year.
Trial of Iranian Jews Adjourned
(RNS) An Iranian revolution court judge has postponed until May 1 the trial of 13 Iranian Jews accused of spying for Israel and the United States after defense lawyers asked for more time to prepare their case.
The delay, which will postpone the trial until after Passover, was hailed by Jewish and human rights groups.
“It is encouraging that Judge (Sadik) Nourani has given the defense lawyers more time to read the case files and meet their clients,” Human Rights Watch said in a statement.
The trial, which is closed to the media, the accused’s families, diplomats and human rights observers, opened Thursday (April 13) but was halted after only two hours.
At a news conference outside the courthouse in Shiraz, Iran, one court official said four of the 13 had confessed to the charges _ which have not been made public in detail _ and asked for clemency. But defense lawyers said no confessions were made in court.
The case is being closely watched outside Iran as a measure of Iranian reformers’ efforts to move the country closer to the rule of law.
Both the United States and Israel have said the spying charges are baseless.
China Arrests More Falun Gong Members
(RNS) A human rights monitoring group has reported that at least 200 members of the Falun Gong spiritual movement were arrested Thursday (April 13) in Beijing as they protested the government’s attempts to shut down the outlawed group.
The demonstrators had gathered to protest government efforts to stop the celebration of the first anniversary of a silent protest in Beijing that attracted 10,000 participants and prompted Chinese authorities to ban the group, according to the Hong Kong-based Information Center for Human Rights and Democratic Movement in China.
Spokesmen for the Ministry of Public Security and Beijing police denied any knowledge of the demonstration, the Associated Press reported.
Thursday’s protest came four days before the U.N. Human Rights Commission is expected to vote on a motion condemning China’s human rights record. Protesters called for the commission to look into the Chinese government’s treatment of its practitioners.
Chinese authorities have detained thousands of Falun Gong practitioners since declaring the group a threat to society and imposing a ban on the movement in July of 1999. The ban, claimed Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Sun Yuxi, “actually protected China’s human rights.”
Georgia Church Severs Ties with Southern Baptist Convention
(RNS) A 170-year-old church in Athens, Ga., has decided to sever ties with the Southern Baptist Convention.
Members of First Baptist Church in Athens voted 285-28 on Sunday (April 9) to drop their affiliation with the 15.8-million-member denomination.
“Members expressed concern that the SBC appeared to favor increased pastoral authority, restrictions on inquiry and discussion at the seminaries, and a reduced role for women at a time when First Baptist strongly favors priesthood of the believer, congregational authority, academic freedom and the ordination of women,” the church said in a statement.
The decision was made after two years of study by its Denominational Relations Committee, “town hall” meetings to discuss the pros and cons of leaving the SBC, a written survey and “much prayerful consideration,” the church stated.
Church members concluded that the congregation began moving away from the convention when the conservative resurgence began in the 1970s among the denomination’s leadership.
Bill Merrell, vice president for convention relations of the SBC Executive Committee, said the SBC regrets the church’s decision.
“We would wish that every Baptist congregation in America were happily involved in the work that we are doing together, but that is not the case and there is no value served in our condemning or casting stones at one another,” he said.
Merrell said SBC leaders do not agree with the church’s characterization of the denomination’s stands.
For instance, he said, “We highly applaud and appreciate the value and the worth of women in the work of the Lord. We don’t happen to believe that the New Testament teaches that women are to be pastors.”
The church cited Galatians 3:28, which says “there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus,” as the basis of its support for women’s ordination.
Ernie Hynds, church historian at the Athens church, said he was not certain that First Baptist was the first Georgia church to leave the denomination, but said that others have ties to the more moderate Cooperative Baptist Fellowship.
“If it is not the first, it is certainly one of the first,” he told Religion News Service. “There are other churches besides ours that have also joined the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, but as far as I know, none of the others have actually gone the next step and withdrawn from the SBC.”
Merrell also could not confirm that the Georgia church was the first in the state to withdraw from the denomination but said, `I don’t know of another one.”
The church, which was founded in 1830 _ 15 years before the SBC was created _ has about 800 members.
The church members decided to resolve their stance as they select a new senior minister. They wanted the new leader of the church to know where the congregation stood on SBC affiliation.
Judge Allows Breakaway Church to Temporarily Maintain Assets
(RNS) Maryland Chief Judge Robert M. Bell has ruled that a Prince George’s County, Md., church that severed ties with the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church can keep about $38 million in assets until a final decision is made in ongoing litigation.
The ruling Tuesday (April 11) marked a victory for From the Heart Church Ministries, which is led by the Rev. John A. Cherry Sr.
Cherry and about 24,000 members of his church broke ties with the AME Zion denomination in July but wanted to keep two sanctuaries, a school, a Lear jet and other assets. Cherry had been leading Full Gospel AME Zion Church, but broke away from the 1.5-million-member denomination because he felt financially and spiritually stymied.
Five days before the ruling, sheriff’s deputies began carrying out a trial court judge’s order by seizing items held by Cherry’s new congregation. But the seizure was stopped within hours by an order from Bell, The Washington Post reported.
Maryland’s intermediate appellate court then ordered the case be returned to the trial court for further action.
The appellate court decision led to the resignation from the case on Monday by the trial judge, who decided in April that the disputed assets belonged to the AME Zion Church.
Judge E. Allen Shepherd issued a statement saying he thinks it is a mistake to allow From the Heart Church Ministries to keep the assets pending appeal.
“I believe (this) will result in essential records and property which are clearly the property of the AME Zion Church being put unnecessarily at risk without any protection,” he said.
Bishop George W. Walker, president of the denomination’s Board of Bishops, expressed surprise at the ruling but said, “I am not going to comment on it at this point.”
The Rev. John A. Cherry II, the breakaway church’s assistant pastor and son of the pastor, was pleased with the decision.
“This still is about people and principle and not property,” he said.
Pope meets with descendant of the prophet Muhammad
(RNS) Pope John Paul II had a cordial meeting with King Mohammed VI of Morocco on Thursday (April 13) and asked him if he was indeed a descendant of the prophet Muhammad, who founded Islam.
Following a 15-minute official audience in the pope’s study overlooking St. Peter’s Square, the king presented the Roman Catholic pontiff with an ivory-handled dagger. John Paul gave the king a statuette of the Madonna.
It was the second time in just over a week and only the second time in his papacy that John Paul received a weapon as a gift from a head of state. President Ali Abdullah Saleh of Yemen presented him with a scimitar last Thursday (April 6).
“Are you the son of the prophet?” the pope asked the 36-year-old king.
When Mohammed said he was, the pope commented, “And you carry his name.”
Morocco was the first predominantly Muslim country that John Paul visited, delivering an historic address to some 80,000 Moroccan young people in a sports stadium in Casablanca on Aug. 19, 1985. King Hassan II, Mohammed’s late father, visited the Vatican in 1991 and praised the pope for his efforts in behalf of peace in the Middle East.
Mohammed, who succeeded to the throne last July, was accompanied to the Vatican by 14 government members, two of them women. All were dressed in djellabahs, long white Arab robes.
Quote of the Day: The Rev. Michael Pfleger, Chicago Catholic priest
(RNS) “We ask them how much they charge, and then we tell them we don’t want sex. We want to buy a little of their time for sharing our faith.”
The Rev. Michael Pfleger, pastor of St. Sabina’s Church, a Catholic parish on Chicago’s South Side that is buying time with prostitutes to share the gospel with them. He was quoted in the Thursday (April 13) edition of The Washington Post.
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