c. 2007 Religion News Service
Labor group alleges crucifixes made in sweatshops
(RNS) Some crucifixes sold in the United States are made under “horrific” conditions in a Chinese factory, a labor rights leader said Tuesday (Nov. 20) in front of New York’s St. Patrick’s Cathedral.
Charles Kernaghan, director of the National Labor Committee, told reporters the products come from a factory in Dongguan, China, where employees _ mostly women _ work 15-hour days and are paid 26 cents an hour.
“It’s a throwback to the worst of the garment sweatshops 10, 20 years ago,” Kernaghan said, according to The Associated Press. Factory workers eat “slop” and live in dirty dormitories, he said.
Kernaghan charged that said St. Patrick’s and Trinity Episcopal Church at Wall Street sell crucifixes in their gift shops with the factory’s serial number.
Joe Zwilling, a spokesman for St. Patrick’s, said the church was unaware of the claims against the factory before Tuesday, while Trinity spokeswoman Diane Reed said her church had been “under the impression that these were mass-produced in Italy.”
St. Patrick’s and Trinity purchased their crucifixes from Singer Co. in Mount Vernon, N.Y. The company’s co-owner, Gerald Singer, told The Associated Press that his company bought the crucifixes from Full Start, a Chinese company.
“Whether they came out of a sweatshop, we do not know,” Singer said. “We asked Full Start to sign off that there are no sweatshop conditions involved, and no children and that they abide by Chinese law. This is a black eye for us.”
A man at the factory in question, who did not give his name, told The Associated Press that the claims were “totally incorrect,” and said the factory’s employees work eight hour days and have a 90-minute lunch break.
St. Patrick’s and Trinity have removed the crucifixes from their gift shops while looking further into the allegations. Zwilling was not available for follow-up questions on Wednesday.
_ Heather Donckels
Fourth Episcopal bishop leaves for Catholic Church
(RNS) Recently retired Episcopal Bishop John Lipscomb of Southwest Florida has said he intends to convert to Roman Catholicism, becoming the fourth Episcopal bishop to seek to join the Catholic Church this year.
Lipscomb said in a Nov. 20 letter to Diocese of Southwest Florida that he has requested release from his ordination vows and his responsibilities in the Episcopal House of Bishops. His wife, Marcie, will convert with him.
“Though a long season of prayer and reflection, Marcie and I have come to believe this is the leading of the Holy Spirit and God’s call to us for the next chapter of our lives,” Lipscomb wrote.
Lipscomb retired as bishop of Southwest Florida Sept. 15 after a decade leading the diocese. In August, Lipscomb was among a handful of bishops brought together by Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams to end the row over homosexuality and Scripture in the Episcopal Church.
Unlike other bishops who’ve converted this year, however, Lipscomb did not publicly point to that controversy as his reason for converting.
In September, Bishop Jeffrey Steenson of Albuquerque, N.M., became the first active bishop to announce his conversion. Earlier this year, retired bishops Daniel Herzog of Albany, N.Y., and Clarence C. Pope of Fort Worth, Texas said they were converting.
_ Daniel Burke
Indian Catholics dismiss new film on Jesus’ `lost years’
CHENNAI, India (RNS) Roman Catholic leaders in India have dismissed a proposed Hollywood film on Jesus Christ’s “lost years” in India as just “Hollywood makers in search of a new audience rather than the truth.”
The film, `The Aquarian Gospel,” will be directed by Drew Heriot and is scheduled for release in 2009. The movie seeks to fill in Jesus’ “lost years” between 13 and 30 with a story about him as a wandering mystic who traveled across India, living in Buddhist monasteries and speaking out against the country’s caste system.
The Guardian newspaper in London and The Hindu newspaper in India quoted a church spokesman dismissing the film as “fantasy and fiction,” especially in the wake of “The Da Vinci Code,” which upset many Indian Catholics.
The movie takes its name from a century-old book that examined Christianity’s Eastern roots. The film’s producers say it will follow the travels of Yeshua _ believed to be the name for Jesus in Aramaic _ from the Middle East to India. Casting for Hollywood and Indian actors has begun.
John Dayal, president of the All India Catholic Union, told the Guardian that he has “personally investigated many of these claims (about the legend of Jesus in India), and they remain what they first seem _ fiction.”
News report say the new film sets out to be a “fantasy action adventure account of Jesus’ life, with the three wise men as his mentors.
“We think that Indian religions and Buddhism, especially with the idea of meditation, played a big part in Christ’s thinking. In the film we are looking beyond the canonized Gospels to the `lost’ Gospels,” said producer William Sees Keenan.
_ Achal Narayanan
Oral Roberts University president resigns
OKLAHOMA CITY (RNS) The embattled president of Oral Roberts University has resigned amid intense scrutiny over allegations of financial, political and other wrongdoing at the charismatic Christian university in Tulsa.
Richard Roberts, son of the university’s namesake founder, submitted a resignation letter to ORU’s board of regents Friday (Nov. 23).
The resignation came just days before the board was scheduled to hear the results of an outside investigation of allegations against him and his wife, Lindsay.
In his letter, Roberts said, “I love ORU with all my heart. I love the students, faculty, staff and administration, and I want to see God’s best for all of them.“
A statement from the Rev. George Pearsons, chairman of ORU’s board of regents, said regents would meet Monday and Tuesday (Nov. 26 and 27) to determine action in the search process for a new president.
Roberts, a “lifetime spiritual regent” on the university board and chairman and CEO of Oral Roberts Ministries, had placed himself on an indefinite leave of absence Oct. 17 as university president. But he had said he expected to return to the post in “God’s timing.“
He was the second president in the 42-year history of the 4,000-student university, succeeding his father, Oral Roberts, in 1993.
Pearsons said executive regent Billy Joe Daugherty would continue to assume administrative responsibilities in the office of the president, working with chancellor Oral Roberts.
(OPTIONAL TRIM BEGINS)
The allegations that sparked the turmoil over Richard Roberts’ presidency were raised in a lawsuit filed Oct. 2 by three former ORU professors who claim efforts to act as whistleblowers cost them their jobs. The lawsuit in Tulsa County District Court alleges illegal political activity and lavish, unchecked spending by Richard Roberts and his family.
Two weeks ago (Nov. 12), tenured faculty approved a motion voicing “no confidence” in Richard Roberts and calling for “greater faculty governance and transparency of university finances.”
But faculty leaders said the vote should not be construed as a judgment of guilt or innocence with regard to the lawsuit, but rather a result of years of shortcomings by Roberts.
“I will add, too, that the tenured faculty met with Richard and Oral Roberts … and had a very beneficial and open discussion,” Linda Gray, an ORU English professor, told Religion News Service in an e-mail. “The faculty consistently expressed support for the Robertses, their ministry and the university as well as expressed situations we’d like to alter.“
_ Bobby Ross Jr.
Blair, afraid of being labeled a `nutter,’ kept faith private
LONDON (RNS) Former British prime minister Tony Blair says his religious faith, although rarely expressed in public, was “hugely important” to him but he feared he might be viewed as a “nutter” if he spoke out about it.
Blair, an Anglican who is widely expected to convert to Roman Catholicism within the next few weeks, told the BBC in an TV interview scheduled to be shown on Dec. 2 that “I don’t actually think there is anything wrong in having a religious conviction.”
But in Britain, unlike America, “it’s difficult if you talk about religious faith in our political system” and that if you do, “frankly, people … think you’re a nutter.”
During his 10 years in power, Blair was reluctant to discuss his religious faith, and his communications chief, Alastair Campbell, once tried to explain it by telling journalists that “we don’t do God” at the prime minister’s office.
Blair contrasted his situation with that of President Bush in the United States, where “you can talk about religious faith and people say, `yes, that’s fair enough,’ and it is something they respond to quite naturally.”
“If I am honest about it,” he said, “yes, of course, it (religious faith) was hugely important. There is no point denying it.”
But Blair remains reluctant to go into any details about his religion, including reports that he will join his wife Cherie as a Roman Catholic in a ceremony, possibly in December.
His friends are convinced the former prime minister’s life has a solid religious base. Campbell, despite his earlier remarks, now insists that his ex-boss “does do God, in quite a big way.”
_ Al Webb
Vietnamese church aims to replace gardens lost in Katrina
NEW ORLEANS (RNS) In one of the more unusual recovery projects to be born out of months of intense community planning, parishioners at Mary Queen of Vietnam Catholic Church have begun laying the groundwork for an urban farm, with the hope of rebuilding the rich communal vegetable gardens that once mimicked rural Vietnam in suburban New Orleans.
The working farm will be on a 20-acre parcel next to the church and likely will include a mix of smaller family and larger commercial lots, one or more fish-raising ponds and space for raising chickens or goats.
The project is being designed for free by the Tulane University architecture school’s City Center and Louisiana State University’s Robert Reich School of Landscape Architecture.
Beyond that, the project envisions a new open-air market where leaseholders could sell their produce to residents, local groceries or restaurants, supplanting the Saturday morning market nearby.
“They came to us with an outline of what they wanted us to do,” said Elizabeth Mossop, director of LSU’s school of landscape architecture. “All the operations will basically be organic. They’re very interested in water collection and recycling water on site. And we’re very interested in making it environmentally innovative in terms of materials, design and so forth.”
The project would restore the distinctive, relatively large-scale collective gardening that for the past 30 years transformed parts of the eastern New Orleans landscape into visions of Southeast Asia.
For decades, hundreds of Vietnamese families living around the church maintained _ and still maintain _ small backyard gardens to supply their own tables.
Katrina wreaked havoc on the larger communal gardens, and their elderly caretakers have been unable to repair them, said Peter Nguyen, the manager of the garden project.
The idea for a larger, more sophisticated communal garden is the vision of the Rev. Vien Nguyen, pastor of Mary Queen of Vietnam, said Peter Nguyen, who works for the Mary Queen of Vietnam Community Development Corp., a separate but related parish-based nonprofit.
The corporation recently purchased the land for $550,000, said Nguyen, a farmer who recently moved to New Orleans from Parrish, Fla., where he grew tropical fruit trees. His hope is that the farm will open for business in mid-2009.
_ Bruce Nolan
State Baptist conventions urge prevention of child abuse
(RNS) Following action taken on the national level this summer, several Southern Baptist state conventions took steps this fall to urge that children be protected from abuse.
Baptist groups in Alabama, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana and Ohio passed resolutions. Most encouraged churches to perform background checks on volunteers and staffers who work with children, reported Baptist Press, the news service of the Southern Baptist Convention.
They also recommended use of abuse prevention materials from the denomination’s LifeWay Christian Resources. But, like the decentralized national Southern Baptist Convention, the state bodies have no power to impose policies on autonomous member churches.
In June, Southern Baptists attending their national convention in San Antonio passed a resolution expressing their “moral outrage” about child sexual abuse and urging churches to take preventative steps.
“We renounce individuals, churches or other religious bodies that cover up, ignore, or otherwise contribute to or condone the abuse of children,” reads the non-binding resolution that passed June 13.
Other topics of concern in several states included hate crimes legislation and alcohol.
Baptists in Alabama, Indiana, Louisiana and Oklahoma opposed any legislation that expands hate crimes laws to include sexual orientation. Conservative religious groups have expressed concern that adding sexual orientation could threaten First Amendment rights by muzzling pastors who preach against homosexuality.
Five state conventions _ the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention, Florida, Missouri, Alabama and Oklahoma _ addressed use of alcohol, with some changing bylaws to clarify that trustees should not drink alcoholic beverages.
_ Adelle M. Banks
N.J. church makes good on $1 million pledge to Gulf Coast
SUMMIT, N.J. (RNS) The origins of Fountain Baptist Church here could hardly be more humble. In 1897, a small group of African-Americans, most of them gardeners or domestic workers, began praying together in a rented room.
The church now has the distinction of being one of the few nationwide ever to raise $1 million for a specific charitable cause.
Members of the congregation have been donating money for the Hurricane Katrina recovery effort since May 2006, when Fountain Baptist announced its $1 million pledge. The members met the pledge three weeks ago and celebrated the achievement Sunday (Nov. 25) at the church’s annual Thanksgiving services.
The Center for Philanthropy at Indiana University, which monitors big donations from American nonprofit organizations, said it knows of only one instance in which a single church has made a larger charitable gift: Oriental Mission Church in Los Angeles gave $3 million to help El Salvador earthquake victims in 2001.
Michael Williams, a trustee of 1,900-member Fountain Baptist Church, said: “Anytime you help someone and know they’re going to be blessed by your effort, there’s no better feeling. For us to make sacrifices _ because that’s what it was for many of us _ to do something for people who basically have nothing _ while we’ve been blessed with, from their perspective, everything _ it feels great.”
The church beat its own two-year pledge timetable by six months. Many members know people from Louisiana or Mississippi who suffered in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
Williams cited the biblical story of Job as part of the inspiration for his church’s generosity. Job was a righteous, prosperous man suddenly shattered by misfortune through no fault of his own.
“They know that, in fact, this could happen to them at any moment,” Williams said of his fellow Fountain Baptist members. “When you look at what happened to the people in New Orleans, one day things were pleasant and sunny and all was well, and in one week’s time you go from having all that you had, to life being turned completely upside down.”
According to the Rev. J. Michael Sanders, the pastor of Fountain Baptist, about $400,000 has paid for job and life-skills training for 200 families in Louisiana and Mississippi; $300,000 has helped 30 pastors whose churches were devastated by the storm, either physically or through member relocations; $200,000 has paid for housing and community-building projects; and $100,000 has gone toward general and administrative costs.
The Lott Carey Foreign Mission Convention, an African-American Baptist organization based in Washington, D.C., has administered the donation.
Patrice Edwards, a Fountain Baptist member for 17 years, said she expects the congregation’s giving to continue.
“There’s still a lot of work that has to be done in that area. It’s not like we met a goal and that’s it,” she said. “There’s still a lot of work to do in New Orleans.”
_ Jeff Diamant
Quote of the Week: U2 frontman Bono
(RNS) “I think knowing the Scriptures helped. I think I could debate with them. I hope they had appreciated that, and they knew I had respect for their beliefs. Even if I wasn’t the best example of how to live your life, they treated me with respect. I’m nervous of zealotism, even though I have to admit I’m a zealot for these issues of extreme poverty.”
_ Anti-poverty activist and U2 frontman Bono, quoted by The Washington Post about how he has been able to engage more conservative U.S. legislators.
KRE/RB END RNS
