c. 2008 Religion News Service
Bush says faith-based initiative a success
WASHINGTON (RNS) Seven years after President Bush launched his faith-based initiative, a White House report declares success in helping faith and community groups in each state receive government funding to aid the needy.
“The Quiet Revolution,” released Monday (Feb. 25) by the White House Office of Faith-based and Community Initiatives, reports that the Bush administration has helped train more than 100,000 leaders of faith and community groups on how to access funding and become more effective.
Timed to the winter meeting of the National Governors Association, it includes a 53-page report highlighting the grants won by nonprofits _ religious and secular _ in each state.
“I’m a big believer that government ought to empower people who have got a great capacity to help change people’s lives,” Bush told governors Monday at the White House.
Thirty-five governors have offices or liaisons focused on faith-based and community organizations. But the report also notes active efforts in other states without an official liaison. Nonprofits in California, for example, received federal grant awards of more than $1.1 billion in 2006, the White House said.
The report also reviewed Bush’s efforts to give faith-based groups the opportunity to compete for funds “on a level playing field.” Faith-based organizations won almost $2.2 billion of the $14.7 billion in grants provided by the federal government in 2006 for social services including recovering addicts, homeless people, AIDS victims and prisoners re-entering society.
The Rev. Barry Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, said Bush has improperly used the program as a tool for public policy.
“Bush says he has `leveled the playing field’ for religion but, in fact, he’s tilted it toward religious groups, allowing them to discriminate in hiring in publicly funded programs,” he said. “Faith plays a positive role in many Americans’ lives, but it’s wrong for the government to make religion the basis for public policy.”
_ Adelle M. Banks
Union Seminary appoints first woman president
NEW YORK (RNS) Serene Jones, a feminist scholar who currently teaches at Yale Divinity School, has been named the new president of Union Theological Seminary, one of the flagship institutions of liberal Protestantism.
Jones, 48, is the first woman to head the 172-year-old non-denominational seminary located in upper Manhattan and affiliated with Columbia University.
Her presidency also represents a generational shift: Jones succeeds 74-year-old Joseph C. Hough Jr., who is retiring after serving nine years in the post.
Jones will begin her duties July 1 at an institution that has served as a scholarly home for such major theological figures as Reinhold Niebuhr, Paul Tillich and, more recently, the black theologian James Cone.
In announcing the appointment, David Callard, the chairman of Union’s board of trustees, said that Jones will help Union “not only to continue its role as a leading institution of theological education but also to be a strong voice at a time when religion, with all its pluralistic manifestations, has become an increasingly powerful and divisive issue.”
Union is emerging from a period of financial uncertainty, and one of Jones’ challenges will be to build on Hough’s record of raising money. Hough is credited with helping boost Union’s endowment to close to $100 million, averting fears that the seminary might shut its doors. Last year, he said fundraising would have to remain a major part of his successor’s job.
In an interview Tuesday (Feb. 26), Jones acknowledged that fact but also said her job will be made easier because “Union is completely stable. It’s not going away.”
“The dark clouds have passed; the place is lean but ready to go,” she said, adding that the seminary is now poised to begin a period of expansion.
Given Union’s urban locale, Jones said, the school is in a unique position to become a center of dialogue and study about the contemporary cultural shifts in Christianity _ changes that she said might prove ultimately as important as the changes caused by the Reformation.
Jones has taught at Yale for 17 years and holds degrees from the University of Oklahoma, Yale Divinity School and Yale University. She is an ordained minister in both the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) and the United Church of Christ.
_ Chris Herlinger
Muslim scholars extend olive branch to Jewish leaders
LONDON (RNS) Muslim scholars and leaders meeting in Britain have sent a letter to Jewish rabbis around the world calling for a far-reaching dialogue to try to end long-standing conflicts between the two faiths.
Some 100 imams, rabbis and community leaders, as well as businessmen and journalists, gathered Monday (Feb. 25) in Cambridge for what organizers billed as the “world’s first cross-denominational statement in modern times from Muslims to Jews.”
In the keynote address, Oxford University professor Tariq Ramadan explained the letter as an attempt to “generate dialogue and understanding between Jews and Muslims.”
“At the moment,” the letter said, “there is no challenge more pressing than the need to bring to a closure some of the historical and long-lasting estrangements between the Jews and Muslims.”
The letter outlined no details, but instead called for “positive and constructive action to improve Muslim-Jewish relations.” It insisted, “We must keep talking, especially when we do not agree.”
Ramadan said he saw dialogue with Jews as “a risk but a necessity.”
He said, “We need to get beyond `tolerance,’ which is saying that `I put up with you but I would rather you were not here,’ to a mutual knowledge and respect.”
Rabbi Danny Rich, head of England’s Liberal Judaism movement, welcomed the letter, saying Muslims and Jews “have more in common than divides them, and … together could contribute to making the world a more decent place for us, our children and future generations to occupy.”
But Judea Pearl, a professor at UCLA whose son, Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl was killed by Islamic militants in Pakistan six years ago, expressed “disappointment” that the letter “explicitly” affirmed the rights of Palestinians but failed to do the same for Israelis.
_ Al Webb
Hasbro apologizes for removing `Israel’ from Monopoly game
JERUSALEM (RNS) Toymaker Hasbro Inc. has apologized for deleting the word “Israel” in an online contest to determine which cities will be featured in its upcoming World Edition of the board game Monopoly.
Hasbro has since deleted all references to countries on its contest site.
“We would never want to enter into any political debate,” a company spokesperson said in a statement. “Unfortunately, a mid-level person made a series of regrettable decisions without consulting senior management. We apologize for any upset this has caused our Monopoly fans.”
The company said last Thursday (Feb. 21) that an employee had deleted the word “Israel” following demands by pro-Palestinian activists not to recognize Jerusalem as part of Israel.
Hasbro’s about-face followed an online campaign by Jewish groups to flood the company with complaints. A widely distributed e-mail message urged Israel’s supporters to “call the toll-free numbers and voice your outrage _ and boycott Hasbro products until this is corrected.”
The Israeli government also lodged a complaint with Hasbro for singling out Jerusalem as the only city without a country.
Jerusalem’s legal status is a highly charged issue and a source of friction between Israel _ which claims both the western and eastern parts of the city as its capital _ and those who do not recognize Israeli sovereignty over part or all of the city.
People around the world have until Feb. 29 to vote for the top 20 cities that will make it onto the Monopoly board, and until March 9 to vote for two “wild card” cities.
_ Michele Chabin
UpDATE: Benny Hinn submits records to Senate committee
WASHINGTON (RNS) After several weeks of delay, televangelist Benny Hinn has submitted a “significant amount” of financial material to a Senate committee that is investigating the finances of six prominent ministries.
Jill Gerber, a spokeswoman for the Senate Finance Committee, said ranking Republican Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa “and his staff will evaluate whether the material responds sufficiently but are encouraged by the demonstration of cooperation.”
Rusty Leonard, the founder of MinistryWatch.com, a North Carolina-based watchdog organization that advocates financial accountability of Christian ministries, welcomed Hinn’s cooperation.
“We were pleased to hear that Benny Hinn has come to his senses and agreed to cooperate with Sen. Grassley,” Leonard said. “We hope that the other … uncooperative ministries will also reach the same conclusion that answering the senator’s very legitimate questions is their best option.”
Two other ministries _ Joyce Meyer Ministries in Fenton, Mo., and Kenneth Copeland Ministries in Newark, Texas _ have already provided materials that were reviewed by Senate staff.
Joyce Meyer Ministries has provided substantial information in response to Grassley’s questions, a representative for Grassley said. Details will be discussed in a meeting between Grassley’s staff and Meyer’s representatives.
While Copeland has responded, the material he provided did not adequately answer Grassley’s questions, Gerber said. Grassley is considering additional steps in the congressional review.
The other three ministries _ Creflo Dollar, Paula and Randy White and Bishop Eddie Long _ have yet to provide financial records. Grassley’s investigators continue to be in contact with these ministries, as Grassley considers sending follow-up letters.
“In the end, we trust that needed actions will be taken to assure that donors in the future are treated fairly by these and other ministries that now hide their finances from those who give sacrificially and faithfully,” Leonard said.
_ Brittani Hamm
Quote of the Day: Amish buggy driver Jacob Gingerich
(RNS) “I have concern for my family. I have concern for safety on the highway. I stay to the right as much as I can and let cars pass. But I put my trust in God.”
_ Jacob Gingerich, an Amish man who was slapped with nearly $130 in fines and court costs by officials in Graves County, Ky., for not having display lights and a slow-moving vehicle sign on his horse-drawn buggy. He was quoted by The Associated Press.
KRE/RB END RNS
