c. 2000 Religion News Service
Presbyterians Try to Dampen Criticism of Peacemaking Conference
(RNS) Remarks by a Presbyterian minister at a recent peace conference that Christian proselytizing is sometimes akin to religious “ethnic cleansing” have conference organizers scurrying to finesse his remarks in order to dampen growing criticism of the conference.
The Rev. Dirk Ficca, a Chicago minister and executive director of the Council for a Parliament of the World’s Religions, spoke at the Presbyterian Peacemaking Conference in Orange, Calif., July 26-29.
In his remarks, Ficca told the 600 participants that Christianity is only one of the world’s religions and does not necessarily hold the corner on truth.
“Imagine that you’re in a church and that light is streaming through a number of stained-glass windows,” Ficca told the crowd. “The light is truth; the windows are religion; and the church is the world. Note that the window is not the light … Religions need to be distinguished from the light of God that shines through them.”
Ficca drew a distinction between “evangelizing” the good news of the gospel and “proselytizing” to make converts. Too often, Ficca said, non-Christians view proselytizing efforts as a form of religious “ethnic cleansing.”
“God’s ability to work in our lives is not determined by becoming a Christian,” Ficca said. “… So what’s the big deal about Jesus?”
In 1993, the church struggled to reign in another conference sponsored by church feminists that offered a view of God as a woman and called on the spirit of Sophia, a reference to the female view of the God of wisdom found in the book of Proverbs.
In a press release following the most recent meeting, conference officials issued a statement saying that Ficca’s comments do not reflect the theological positions of the 2.5 million-member church, or even the conference.
“At no time did the conference or its speakers present the Christian faith as an option among many,” the statement said. “In keeping with our church’s interfaith policy, participants were reminded that, as Presbyterians, we acknowledge that people of other faith perspectives have different views, to which we must listen respectfully and with which we must engage in meaningful dialogue.”
Progressive National Baptists Urge Attention to AIDS, Deaths
(RNS) Delegates to the annual meeting of the Progressive National Baptist Convention called on their churches to increase ministries to those suffering with AIDS and declared a “state of emergency” concerning the deaths of young African-Americans.
“We lifted up the AIDS crisis, encouraging our churches to certainly become sensitive and involved and hopefully develop programs within the local congregations that will be meaningful to those who are suffering because many of our members are victims,” said the Rev. C. Mackey Daniels, president of the denomination.
He told Religion News Service that some churches within the 2.5-million-member denomination already have developed AIDS ministries, but “we must do more.”
The meeting of about 10,000 registered participants ended Friday (Aug. 11) in Louisville, Ky.
“If you quantify the death and dying of African-Americans from whatever causes just for one day … the statistics would be very grim,” Daniels said. “We need to call upon Congress as well as the president and the two candidates to get a full investigation into the causes of massive death and dying of African-American youth.”
Daniels said his denomination also spoke out about the imprisonment of African-American males, many of whom are jailed “because of the hue of their skin.”
He urged greater spending on education and less on prisons.
“We cannot just continue to see the enormous number of our African-American males incarcerated,” said Daniels. “That in itself is a form of genocide. It dilutes one from growth, from educational opportunities, from being good fathers.
“It’s not just by accident that all of them are behind bars and not in college. College education affords tremendous opportunities and challenges. Incarceration affords nothing.”
The denomination also voiced its opposition to the death penalty.
“Who’s been put to death disproportionately?” asked Daniels, pastor of West Chestnut Street Baptist Church in Louisville. “The system is unfair and unkind to African-Americans.”
In other action, delegates approved the creation of the Progressive National Baptist Convention Foundation, which will foster charitable giving and bequests to the denomination. Daniels said money raised through the foundation will be used to support African-American colleges.
“We must become more familiar with understanding investments and how to manage our money for economic empowerment,” he said.
Colombian Church Leaders Warn on Military Aid
(RNS) Religious and human rights leaders in Colombia are warning that the steep increase in U.S. military aid to the Latin American country will increase the level of violence there rather than end the drug trade or the 30-year-old guerrilla war.
“`Plan Colombia’ is not really a plan for peace. It’s a plan for more war and more death,” Antony Sanchez, executive director of the Mennonite Development Foundation of Colombia told Ecumenical News Internationl, the Geneva-based religious news agency.
“It’s difficult to believe that ripping out a few more illicit coca fields is going to solve anything,” Sanchez said. “The peasants who are cultivating coca are just going to move further into the jungle, cutting down trees in the natural reserve of the Amazon valley in order to keep on cultivating it.”
Earlier this year, the Clinton administration won congressional support for a $1.3 billion aid package to support Colombian President Andres Pastrana’s “Plan Colombia,” an ambitious project to eradicate illegal cocoa production.
Clinton is due to briefly visit the country Aug. 30.
The U.S. aid package includes increasing the number of American troops in Colombia as well as providing the Colombian military with 63 high-tech military helicopters.
The helicopters’ stated goal is the ariel fumigation of the coca fields. But critics argue fumigation does not work while others say they fear the helicopters will be used by the army for military operations against rebels.
“Fumigation is a political obsession of the North Americans, even though it simply doesn’t work,” said Leila Lima, of the United Nations High Commission for Refugees.
“ Despite fumigation, coca production has increased,” Lima added. “What fumigation has done is increase the number of internally displaced people as well as push the agricultural frontier deeper into the jungle.”
Displacement has also increased in recent years because of the interlocking wars between government forces, left-wing guerrilla armies and right-wing paramilitary squads _ all of whom have connections with the drug traffickers.
Religious groups have formed an ecumenical network work with the displaced as a result of the rising number of internal refugees currently estimated at some 2 million people, or 5 percent of the population.
“Churches are particularly suited to this work,” Sanchez said. “We have lots of willing hands … and our focus on the spiritual factor in development is something that’s essential for constructing a new social fabric.”
Portland, Ore., Church Feeding Program to Continue
(RNS) The Portland, Ore., church that was involved in a dispute with its neighbors over its feeding program for the poor has made steps to resolve the conflict.
The new plan, worked out by representatives of Sunnyside Centenary United Methodist Church, neighborhood residents and a Portland police officer, include improved communication between the church and the neighborhood and a more active police presence.
The Portland City Council accepted the management plan for the twice-weekly meals program last month. It is scheduled to be formally adopted on Aug. 23, the United Methodist News Service reported.
Earlier in the year, a city hearings officer revoked a permit that allowed the church to offer a Wednesday night fellowship supper and a Friday night coffeehouse that included free meals to the poor. The council later reversed the decision and let the programs continue on the condition that the dispute was resolved.
The conflict has left supporters of the church with more than $14,000 in debts for legal fees and other expenses. The operating budget has quadrupled due to a new agreement that requires the church to hire a security guard when the program is operating.
Despite the conflicts, the church is committed to continuing its work.
“Hunger, homelessness and alienation will not just go away,” said Pat Schwiebert, volunteer coordinator for the 19-year-old dinner program. “It is the business of the church to minister to the least among us.”
Quote of the Day: North Carolinian Ron Boswell
(RNS) “A bunch of folk living on nothing in an out-of-the-way place with a weekly chance that they will be voted off the island? Why, Baptist preachers have been doing this for years.”
Letter writer Ron Boswell of Reidsville, N.C., commenting in a letter to the editor of North Carolina’s Biblical Recorder about the excitement over the CBS television show “Survivor.” His letter appeared in the Aug. 12 issue of the Southern Baptist state newspaper.
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