c. 2007 Religion News Service
WCC Proposes `Six Church’ Meeting to Parallel Korean Talks
(RNS) The World Council of Churches has proposed a “six church” meeting to parallel and monitor the “six party” talks on nuclear and other issues affecting the Korean peninsula.
The church meeting would involve religious leaders from North and South Korea as well as the United States, Russia, China and Japan _ the six governments that began meeting in 2003 after North Korea withdrew from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. The talks had remained at a standstill until February, when North Korea agreed to shut down its nuclear facilities in return for economic and energy aid.
WCC General Secretary Samuel Kobia made the proposal for the “six church” talks in a speech to a conference in Seoul celebrating the centenary of the Korean Great Revival of 1907. A separate conference is exploring the churches’ role in aiding reunification of the two Koreas.
WCC officials said the proposal had won favor from a broad range of South Korean churches at the conferences, including members of the National Council of Churches in Korea and the Christian Council of Korea. Christians in the North are represented by the Korean Christian Federation.
Kobia urged churches in the six nations to “persuade their respective governments to ensure the continuity of these (government) talks to diffuse tension and conflict in the peninsula so that people can live together in peace.”
“We have come a long way since the epoch when discussion of reunification was considered an offense, and time has proved that the churches’ principled stand on this issue was prophetic,” Kobia told the International Consultation on the Role of Churches in Peace and Unification.
“But today the struggle for peace and reunification has to continue in a much more complex geopolitical landscape,” he said.
On Monday (Aug. 13), the U.S. nuclear envoy for North Korea, Christopher Hill, met in Beijing with his North Korean counterpart to lay the groundwork for six-party working group talks at the end of the week. Meanwhile, a summit meeting between North and South Korea _ only the second ever _ is planned for Aug. 28-30.
_ David E. Anderson
Christians Report Progress on Proselytizing Code
(RNS) Efforts to establish a code of conduct to govern Christian churches’ missionary and evangelism efforts _ especially those aimed at other Christians _ took a major step forward when the World Evangelical Alliance said it would support such a pact.
“We see this as a major step forward on the way to getting the code agreed on among organizations representing a huge body of Christians,” said Juan Michel, a spokesman for the World Council of Churches, which is heading up the project with the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue.
The code, expected to be finalized in 2010, would be directed at both inter-Christian evangelism and Christian mission to those outside the faith.
The decision of the WEA, which has 233 evangelical churches in more than 120 countries, was announced at an Aug. 8-12 consultation in Toulouse, France, attended by a broad spectrum of Christians, including Pentecostals and evangelicals, as well as WCC-churches and Roman Catholic representatives.
Efforts to create a code of conduct on conversion come at a critical moment. In Afghanistan, the Muslim-rooted Taliban holds more than 20 Korean Christian aid workers as hostages and in Latin America, Catholic leaders have voiced increasingly sharp criticism of evangelicals and Pentecostals for seeking to convert Catholics, and between Orthodox and Catholics in Russia.
The Rev. Thomas Schirrmacher, a German theologian who heads the WEA’s International Institute for Religious Freedom, said the code would seek to “establish the borderline between acceptable forms of mission protected by religious freedom, and undue forms of trying to convert people.”
“`Evangelical’ and `ecumenical’ Christians have never been as close in this regard as they are today,” he said.
At the same time, Schirrmacher said it will be very difficult to nail down specific “unethical means” of conversion.
Enforcement will also be a problem. Neither the WCC nor the WEA have any formal enforcement powers over their members. WCC officials also said that despite Vatican participation in the process, any code is unlikely to become official policy within the Roman Catholic Church.
At the Toulouse consultation, the Rev. Tony Richie from the U.S.-based Church of God, said the code of conduct would not be about “whether” Christians evangelize, but “how” they do it. He drew a distinction between “dialogical evangelism” and “aggressive evangelism.”
And Schirrmacher stressed that the code “will only make sense if it is not directed against evangelicals and Pentecostals but written together with them.”
WCC officials were heartened by the meeting.
“The fact that Protestants, Orthodox, Roman Catholics, Pentecostals and evangelicals were able to meet an discuss such a complex issue is in itself a success,” said the Rev. Hans Ucko, a Swedish theologian who heads the WCC’s program for interreligious dialogue.
_ David E. Anderson
Church-State Group Complains After Baptist Endorses Huckabee
(RNS) A church-state watchdog group is urging the Internal Revenue Service to investigate a top Southern Baptist pastor and radio personality, saying that he violated tax laws by endorsing presidential candidate Mike Huckabee.
Americans United for Separation of Church and State says California pastor and radio host Wiley Drake, the second vice president of the Southern Baptist Convention, broke the law by endorsing Huckabee for president. Huckabee, who is seeking the Republican nomination, is a former Southern Baptist pastor.
On Aug. 11, Drake released a letter saying “I am going to personally endorse Mike Huckabee. I ask all of my Southern Baptist brothers and sisters to consider getting behind Mike and helping him all you can. …I believe God has chosen Mike for such an hour.”
Drake’s letter was written on stationary from his First Southern Baptist Church of Buena Park, Calif., and referenced his title as second vice president of the 16 million-member Southern Baptist Convention, according to documents provided by Americans United.
Drake again endorsed Huckabee Aug. 13 on his radio show, “The Wiley Drake Show.”
“Federal tax law is clear,” said the Rev. Barry Lynn, executive director of Americans United. “Churches and other nonprofits may not endorse candidates if they want to keep their tax exemption. I am confident that the vast majority of Americans do not want to see their houses of worship politicized.”
Drake responded on Tuesday. “In light of the recent attack from the enemies of God I ask the children of God to go into action with Imprecatory Prayer, especially against Americans United for Separation of Church and State.”
_ Daniel Burke
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
Update: Woman Who Sought Sanctuary in Church Deported
(RNS) U.S. officials deported illegal Mexican immigrant and activist Elvira Arellano Sunday (Aug. 19) in Los Angeles, days after she left her refuge at a Chicago church to launch a national immigration-reform campaign.
Arellano, 32, was arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs officers “without incident” and transported to San Ysidro, Calif., where she was turned over to Mexican immigration officials late Sunday, ICE announced Monday.
Arellano’s 8-year-old son, Saul, who is a U.S. citizen, was with her at the time of her arrest, federal officials said, and was left in the custody of her traveling companions. Among those companions was the Rev. Walter Coleman, of Adalberto United Methodist Church in Chicago, where Arellano had eluded federal capture for more than a year.
After illegally entering the U.S. twice, Arellano was arrested in 2002 and convicted of using another person’s Social Security number to illegally obtain employment, ICE said.
On Aug. 15, Arellano announced that she would begin a multi-city campaign to push for immigration reform, which would end Sept. 12 with a vigil in Washington. Los Angeles was to be the first stop on that campaign.
_ Daniel Burke
Graham `Fair and Improving’ in Hospital
(RNS) Evangelist Billy Graham is in “fair and improving” condition at a North Carolina hospital after he was admitted Saturday (Aug. 18) for intestinal bleeding, a spokesperson said Monday.
Graham, 88, is alert, walking around and visiting with family, said Graham spokesperson Melany Ethridge.
The evangelist remains near his home, at Mission Health & Hospitals in Asheville, N.C., for “evaluation and rest,” Ethridge said.
Graham’s physicians have said the illness does not appear to be life-threatening.
Medical tests showed no areas of bleeding in the gastrointestinal tract, according to the hospital. The bleeding may have come from small pouches that form in the lower intestines, Graham’s doctors said.
The evangelist, whose wife of 64 years, Ruth Graham, died in June, suffers from Parkinson’s disease and has been largely home-bound in recent years.
_ Daniel Burke
Study Finds Criminal Futures for Many Aboriginal Victims
VANCOUVER, British Columbia (RNS) A startling psychological study suggests more than half the aboriginal students abused at Canada’s church-run residential schools went on to criminal activity.
The new research also counters widespread preconceptions that clergy were most responsible for abusing the former students.
The study, published in the August edition of the B.C. Medical Journal, shows that almost two-thirds of 127 aboriginals who say they were abused while attending Canada’s residential schools ended up involved in crime; three former students became murderers.
The former students who turned to crime, all of whom are now adults, have been convicted of physical assaults, robbery, major driving charges and numerous sex crimes.
The two criminologists who coauthored the report _ Ray Corrado of Simon Fraser University and Irwin Cohen of University College of the Fraser Valley _ link a century-long history of abuse at Canada’s more than 100 residential schools with the chronically high incarceration rate that continues among Canada’s aboriginals.
Another revealing discovery made by the study’s five researchers, led by psychologist Ingrid Sochting of suburban Vancouver’s Richmond General Hospital, is that the largest group of perpetrators at the now-defunct residential schools were non-clergy staff.
Canada’s aboriginal residential schools were operated for about a century by churches while being funded by the federal government, until the last ones were shut down, mainly in the 1960s and 1970s.
While many Canadians blame the Roman Catholic, Anglican and United Church of Canada denominations for what that went wrong inside residential schools, this study, for the first time, provides hard data suggesting priests were the abusers in only 3.7 percent of cases studied; nuns in 2.9 percent.
A minority of the aboriginals who agreed to be interviewed for the study _ 70 percent of whom were male _ admitted they had also been abused in their villages, usually before they were forced to attend residential schools. Their most common sexual abuser was an aunt.
When it came to physical abuse in the aboriginal villages, mothers were the victimizers in 37 percent of the cases, followed by fathers at 31 percent.
_ Douglas Todd
Vatican Starts Low-Cost Flight Service for Pilgrims
VATICAN CITY (RNS) The Vatican has its own bank, its own postal system, its own pharmacy and its own soccer tournament _ but until now, no official state-sponsored airline.
That will change when the Holy See teams up with a small Italian charter company, Mistral Air, to launch a low-cost charter service to ferry pilgrims to many of the most important Catholic shrines, including Lourdes in France, Fatima in Portugal, Czestochowa in Poland and Santiago di Compostela in Spain.
“The spirit of this new initiative is to meet the growing demand by pilgrims to visit the most important sites for the faith,” Father Cesare Atuire of the Vatican pilgrimage office, Opera Romana Pellegrinaggi, told the Rome newspaper La Repubblica.
Founded in 1981 by the Italian cinema actor Bud Spencer, Mistral Air functions mainly as a cargo transport service. The Italian state postal service and the Vatican pilgrimage office are both shareholders in the company which intends to use the same aircraft to fly pilgrims by day and cargo by night.
The new service will be able to count on not only parishes and churches throughout Italy for clients, but also the Rome-based religious travel agency Quo Vadis. According to some estimates, as many as 150 million pilgrims travel annually to religious sites worldwide, with 8 million going to Lourdes and 10 million to Mexico for the Virgin of Guadalupe.
The vicar of Rome, Cardinal Camillo Ruini, is expected to be on the company’s first flight, to Lourdes on Aug. 27. The plane’s headrests will bear the inscription, “I search for your face, Oh Lord.”
_ Paddy Agnew
National Council of Churches Appoints Acting General Secretary
(RNS) The National Council of Churches has appointed its deputy general secretary to serve as the organization’s acting general secretary.
Clare Chapman, who has handled finance and administration for the New York-based ecumenical organization, will serve until a successor for the Rev. Bob Edgar is chosen. Edgar, who led the NCC for almost eight years, leaves the council Aug. 31 to become the new president of Common Cause, a Washington-based nonpartisan advocacy group.
“We are blessed to have the administrative gifts and talents in Clare Chapman to manage the day-to-day leadership of the NCC,” said the Rev. Michael Livingston, NCC president. “Clare will carry us through to the end of the year when we expect to have our next general secretary in place.”
Several weeks ago, a search committee began considering candidates for the position.
“While we all acknowledge the improvement in financial stability that has occurred in Bob’s tenure, his strong leadership in advocating for peace, working for environmental justice and helping those living with poverty is his real legacy,” Chapman said.
_ Adelle M. Banks
Quote of the Week: Islamic Society of North America Leader Ingrid Mattson
(RNS) “I want to be sure I’m not the first and last young woman leader. Why be a flash in the pan?”
_ Islamic Society of North America President Ingrid Mattson, who begins the second half of her two-year term when the society meets for its national conference outside Chicago on Labor Day weekend. She was quoted by USA Today.
END RNS
