c. 2004 Religion News Service
Survey: Presbyterians Prefer Cremation, Memorial Services
(RNS) A survey of Presbyterian pastors and parishioners shows that most prefer a memorial service to a funeral, and want their bodies cremated rather than buried.
The periodic survey by the Presbyterian Panel measured pastors’ and members’ thoughts about death and dying in late 2002 and was released in April. The survey was sent to 3,000 members, elders and ordained ministers in the Presbyterian Church (USA).
Forty percent of members and 53 percent of pastors want to be cremated; about 20 percent of respondents weren’t sure. For those who want to be cremated, one-third of pastors and members want their ashes scattered, while 30 percent of pastors and 25 percent of members want their ashes buried.
About 13 percent from both groups want their ashes placed in a memorial columbarium, while only 4 percent of members and 1 percent of pastors want their ashes kept by a family member or friend.
Only about one-third or less of respondents want a traditional funeral with their body present, while about half of members, and two-thirds of pastors, want a memorial service where their body is not present.
Substantial majorities want a closed casket at their services, with fewer than 16 percent who want an open casket. Well more than half want a eulogy delivered by a pastor, while only one-third want a family member to deliver a tribute.
At the services, members’ favorite hymns seem to be “Amazing Grace,” followed by “How Great Thou Art,” “In the Garden” and “The Old Rugged Cross.” Among pastors, “For All the Saints” ranks highest, followed by “Amazing Grace,” “Be Thou My Vision” and “A Mighty Fortress.”
On the afterlife, 87 percent of members and 92 percent of pastors believe in heaven, compared to only 57 percent of members and 64 percent of pastors believe in hell.
_ Kevin Eckstrom
Appeals Court Rules Florida Town Violated Religious Land-Use Law
(RNS) An appeals court has ruled that the town of Surfside, Fla., violated a religious land-use law when it excluded churches and synagogues from zoning areas where it permitted private clubs.
The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Wednesday (April 21) that Surfside violated the equal-terms provision of the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act. The decision overturns a lower court ruling in a case involving two small Orthodox synagogues in Miami-Dade County.
“… Surfside improperly targeted religious assemblies and violated Free Exercise requirements of neutrality and general applicability,” the three-judge panel determined.
“ … (t)he purpose and operation of the ordinance reveal an impermissible attempt to target religious assemblies.”
The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, which filed an amicus brief in the case, said the ruling marked the first time an appellate court has ruled on the constitutionality of the land-use aspects of the 2000 law, known as RLUIPA.
The town and the synagogues disagreed about whether the congregations had the legal right to stay in the town’s business district. Surfside officials argued that the congregations “contribute little synergy” to retail shopping areas and would erode the town’s tax base.
The synagogues had argued that the zoning ordinance violated RLUIPA, which includes a provision that states that “(n)o government shall impose or implement a land use regulation in a manner that treats a religious assembly or institution on less than equal terms with a nonreligious assembly or institution.”
The court, in a 60-page decision, declared that the land-use law does not make government officials become experts on religious worship or tie government funds to religious practice.
“RLUIPA requires only that states avoid discriminating against or among religious institutions,” they said.
They also said that the law mandates “equal” and not “special” treatment of religious institutions and, thus, does not advance religion.
In a separate but related matter, the Becket Fund and Liberty Counsel joined the Anti-Defamation League and four other Jewish organizations in filing a friend-of-the-court brief April 15 in another case about the religious land-use law. They urged the same appeals court to uphold the constitutionality of the law in a case involving a rabbi who wants to continue holding services in his Orange County, Fla., home.
_ Adelle M. Banks
Rock Band Third Day Joins Get Out the Vote Effort
WASHINGTON (RNS) Christian rock band Third Day partnered with Republican National Committee Chairman Ed Gillespie on April 20, at an MTV-sponsored news conference to encourage young people to vote.
“In our culture, younger conservatives often feel ostracized by their peers,” Third Day bassist Tai Anderson said in a statement. “We hope to make sure that no voice feels marginalized during this important election. While we personally support our president, George W. Bush, we hope to encourage all young people to exercise their right to vote.”
The two appeared on MTV live from The George Washington University as part of MTV’s “Choose or Lose” campaign, which has joined with the RNC and Democratic National Committee in an effort to bring 20 million voters under 30 to the polls in November. MTV also launched the “Stand up and Holla!” contest Monday to select young speakers for each party’s summer convention.
Young people between 18 and 24 years old were invited to submit essays about their political views for a chance to speak at either the Democratic National Convention in Boston or the Republican National Convention in New York City this summer.
“One of the main goals of `Choose or Lose’ is to show the world that the young adult voting bloc of more than 20 million is active, inspired and heading to the polls in November,” said Van Toffler, president of MTV and MTV2, in a statement. “These partnerships with the RNCC and DNCC reinforce the fact that both parties recognize the strength and importance of young adult voters in 2004.”
The news conference, hosted by Grammy-winning Third Day and MTV News Correspondent Gideon Yago, marks the first time both political committees have joined to target young people.
“Giving young adults a voice at our convention in Boston this summer is just another example of Democrats working to engage America’s youth in the political process,”said president of the 2004 Democratic National Convention Terry McAuliffe in a statement. “Their voices should be heard _ and it’s time to pump up the volume.”
To enter “Stand up and Holla!,” young voters should visit each party’s Web site, http://www.2004nycgop.org or http://www.DEMS2004.org. The public will vote on the finalists for each contest at MTV.com, and the winner of each will be announced on MTV’s TRL.
“Choose or Lose,” began in 1992 to inform young adults about the political process, and culminates each year in an election_night wrapup.
_ Amanda Mantone
Muslim Head Scarf Issue Debated
WASHINGTON (RNS) The heated debate over Muslim girls wearing headscarves in French public schools leapt across the Atlantic Ocean and into a panel discussion at the Washington-based Brookings Institution on April 19.
An employee of the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs faced off against two Muslim scholars on the French law passed last month banning wearing religious symbols in public schools.
While the French government has argued that headscarves violate a neutral learning environment, many Muslims claim the new law that will be implemented in September is discriminatory and infringes upon their freedom to practice their beliefs.
One of the reasons the French government has banned the headscarf in public schools is to avoid Muslim girls who wear the hijab, or head covering, from pressuring those who don’t.
“The most important problem is the group effect _ bullying,” said Justin Vaisse, who works for the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs and is an affiliated scholar at Brookings. “School is a place during six hours of the day, you should be free of all pressures,” Vaisse said. “The state has a duty to protect the individual from group pressure. It’s the balancing of one freedom against the other … balanc(ing) the freedom of some girls to wear the scarf and those girls who don’t want to wear it.”
Husain Haqqani, a visiting scholar at Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, argued along with his fellow Muslim panelist, that women who wear the headscarf choose to do so.
“The girls who wear headscarves do not impose their ideas on anyone,” Haqqani said. “Those who choose to wear it believe it is a sign of chastity and modesty. It is not easy to make daughters do anything. They don’t do it out of obedience.”
According to Vaisse, the real issue behind the veil is the integration of 5 million to 6 million Muslims into French society.
But Haqqani said France is going about the integration process in the wrong way.
“You can’t have pure states anymore,” he said. “You have to change what it means to be French. Integration is never what you wear; it’s how you are treated.”
_ Mandy Morgan
Christian Groups to Celebrate Europe’s `Unity in Diversity’
ROME (RNS) Some 10,000 Christians will hold an unprecedented ecumenical meeting in the German city of Stuttgart next month to celebrate the “unity in diversity” of the new Europe, organizers said Thursday (April 22).
Those attending the first international assembly of its kind will include members of more than 150 Christian-oriented movements, communities and groups, 49 Catholic, Lutheran, Orthodox and Anglican bishops and some 30 political leaders. Satellite linkups will carry the meeting to 151 cities throughout Europe.
The assembly will be held on May 8, the 59th anniversary of the end of World War II in Europe, but its purpose is to look to the future of the continent with the European Union’s expansion to 25 members on May 1.
The participants will be “working together to give a soul to the new Europe in the making, unity in diversity, for the Europe that lives up to its vocation of peace and unity among nations,” the organizers said.
Gabriella Fallacaro of the Focolare Movement told a news conference the assembly would be only the first of a series of ecumenical events aimed at building something more than “a Europe of the market and a geographical Europe.”
“It could be said that Europe today is waiting for a spiritual contribution, waiting to become a Europe of the spirit,” she said. “Until now the Christian movements have given an individual contribution. Now we want to give it together.”
Andrea Riccardi, founder of the Community of Sant’Egidio, said he regretted that the preamble of the new European constitution does not include either a reference to the continent’s Christian roots or a condemnation of the Holocaust. These, he said, “are not a memory of the past but represent the future.”
“I am convinced that the memory of Christianity, just as the memory of the evil lived through, is the basis for what Europe is called to be,” Riccardi said.
In addition to the Focolare and Sant’Egidio, the organizers are the Young Men’s Christian Association in Germany, the Spanish Cursillos de Cristiandad, the Meeting of Leaders of Evangelical and Free Church Movements and Communities in Germany, the German Schoenstatt Movement and the Charismatic Renewal Movement in the Evangelical and Lutheran Churches in Germany.
_ Peggy Polk
Quote of the Day: Rev. James Meeks of Chicago
(RNS) “If white kids couldn’t read and black kids could, the evangelical church would address it. If white kids were in jail and not going to college, the evangelical church would address it. So if you live in a society and you only address the things that face your ethnicity, you are not really concerned about social ills.”
_ The Rev. James Meeks, pastor of Salem Baptist Church in Chicago and executive vice president of the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition. He was quoted by Christianity Today.
DEA/JL END RNS
