c. 2007 Religion News Service
South African Church Lauded for AIDS Work
(RNS) A predominantly white congregation in South Africa has been awarded top honors for its fight against AIDS among blacks by two U.S.-based religious groups.
Fish Hoek Baptist Church received the Courageous Leadership Award, a joint project by the Willow Creek Association (an extension of the Willow Creek megachurch near Chicago) and the Christian development organization World Vision. The South African congregation was selected from a pool of 100 entries and will receive $120,000 for its HIV-AIDS efforts.
The award aims to honor local churches attempting to “meet the holistic needs” of impoverished communities around the world.
The congregation composed largely of white and wealthy residents of Fish Hoek _ a coastal community about an hour’s train ride south of Cape Town _ was honored for its success in battling “increasing HIV-AIDS compassion fatigue,” as well as for its treatment and prevention efforts.
According to U.N. health officials, South Africa claims the largest HIV-positive population in the world; about 20 percent of adults there have now contracted the virus.
In 1999, the church established Living Hope Community Centre to combat the Cape Peninsula’s mounting health crisis. Initially funded by the church itself, the center now receives significant financial support from a number of donors, including the Bush administration’s international AIDS relief program.
Still, the church continues to contribute to the ministry by offering volunteers, staff salaries, and monthly operational expenses.
Living Hope today employs 147 paid staff members and has spread into six communities, offering services such as hospice and home-based care, food distribution, HIV testing and a range counseling services.
At the same time, it has occasionally come under stinging criticism from South Africa’s leading anti-AIDS lobby group, Treatment Action Campaign, for its insistence upon mixing evangelism with HIV/AIDS treatment and training.
Runners up for the Courageous Leadership Award were West Angeles Church of Christ in God in Los Angeles and Rockland Community Church in Golden, Colo. Both will receive $40,000.
_ Jason Kane
Toothpaste Cut from Relief Kits
(RNS) The Church of the Brethren is pulling toothpaste from its humanitarian relief kits because of concern over expiration dates and toxic toothpaste from China.
Loretta Wolf, director of the Brethren’s material resources program, said toothpaste will no longer be included in hygiene kits sent around the world from the Brethren Service Center in New Windsor, Md.
The toothpaste removal also applies to disaster relief materials that are packed, stored and shipped by the Brethren on behalf of other Christian aid organizations such as Church World Service and Lutheran World Relief, Wolf said.
Donors are asked to mark donations as “hygiene kit w/o toothpaste.”
Church World Service is purchasing bulk toothpaste to send with the hygiene kits, the Brethren reported.
Wolf said the decision to remove the toothpaste follows a “problem with expiration dates,” as well as a warning from U.S. health officials in June that Chinese-made toothpaste containing a poison used in antifreeze had reached the U.S.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration warned that the toothpaste had a “low but meaningful risk of toxicity and injury” to children and people with kidney or liver disease.
_ Daniel Burke
Episcopalians Turn Over Keys to Michigan Cathedral
PORTAGE, Mich. (RNS) After 40 years, a “simple, quiet, sedate liturgy” brought the landmark Episcopal Cathedral of Christ the King to a close.
The building, which resembles a fortress-like castle, has been the bishop’s seat for the Episcopal Diocese of Western Michigan since its construction in 1968. The diocese sold it to the 2,300-member Kalamazoo Valley Family Church after leaders decided they had neither the resources nor support to maintain the building or 30-acre grounds.
A traditional “secularization liturgy” on Wednesday (Aug. 15) marked the end of the diocese’s religious use of the cathedral. Bishop Robert Gepert read a statement saying the site is no longer under his jurisdiction and can be used for any purpose.
The building initially had a lot of use as a mission church of the diocese, but it has not had much diocesan use the past 20 years, said the Rev. Canon William Spaid.
Many Episcopalians from the sprawling diocese never get to the cathedral, he said. The cathedral has been used for ordinations, large gatherings and liturgies that serve as models for churches.
The diocese has no plans for a new cathedral or spiritual hub. Spaid said the bishop’s seat will be wherever the bishop is serving at a given time.
The $1.275 million sale means the parish congregation at the cathedral is meeting for worship temporarily at a local athletic club, said the Rev. Cynthia Black, the congregation’s rector.
_ Ron Cammel
Quote of the Day: Dallas megachurch pastor T.D. Jakes
(RNS) “In order to be an effective leader, you can’t just be President of the Christians. It insults our intelligence to assume that we would let difference separate us.”
_ Dallas megachurch pastor T.D. Jakes, writing a letter to the editor in Time magazine in response to its July 23 article on Democrats and religion. (Aug. 9)
KRE/CM END RNSEditors: Fish Hoek in first item is CQ
