c. 2008 Religion News Service

Associated Church Press honors top publications

(RNS) Religion News Service, The Catholic Sun and Mennonite Weekly Review were among the top winners of this year’s Associated Church Press awards, which were announced Tuesday (April 22) in Dallas.

Awards were given in more than 60 categories for work published in religious publications in 2007. Winners were designated “Best of the Christian Press.”

Religion News Service won an Award of Excellence, first-place honors, for “Best in Class” in the news service category. It was the first time RNS has won first-place honors for two consecutive years. RNS was followed by Presbyterian News Service, winning an Award of Merit, and Ecumenical News Service, gaining an Honorable Mention.

The Catholic Sun, the newspaper of the Diocese of Phoenix, won the first-place “Best in Class” award for a regional newspaper, followed by The Alabama Baptist and Word and Way, the newspaper of the Baptist General Convention of Missouri.

Mennonite Weekly Review won top honors in the national or international newspaper category, followed by The Anglican Journal. The Christian Chronicle, a newspaper for members of Churches of Christ, and United Church News, a publication of the United Church of Christ, tied for third place.

Other “Best in Class” winners include:

_ Special Interest Magazine: A Common Place (first place); New World Outlook (second place); devozine (third place).

_ Denominational Magazine: aLife, the magazine of The Christian and Missionary Alliance (first place); Disciples World and Interpreter (tied for second place); The Banner and U.S. Catholic (tied for third place).

_ General Interest Magazine: The Progressive Christian (first place), Sojourners (second place), Congregations (third place).

_ Journal: Touchstone (first place), The Cresset (second place), Reflections (third place).

_ Newsletter: Baptist Peacemaker (first place), Nuestra Parroquia (second place), Congregational Libraries Today and Vital Theology (tied for third place)

_ Independent Web site or E-zine: Cafe (first place), United Methodist NeXus (second place), Salt of the Earth (third place).

_ Adelle M. Banks

Clinton wins Catholic Pa. vote by 2-to-1 ratio

WASHINGTON (RNS) Sen. Hillary Clinton won the votes of Pennsylvania Catholics by more than a 2-to-1 ratio over Sen. Barack Obama in Tuesday’s (April 22) Democratic primary, according to exit polls.

Clinton (N.Y.) won 69 percent of the Catholic vote while Obama (Ill.) won 31 percent, according to exit poll figures on CNN.com.

Overall, Clinton defeated Obama by a 10-point margin in the closely watched race.

By a wide margin _ 64 percent to 36 percent _ Obama won the votes of people who listed their religion as “none.” He also won the vote of Protestants and other non-Catholic Christians 53 percent to 47 percent.

Clinton won the Jewish vote, 57 percent to 43 percent.

Voters who attend church weekly or occasionally tended to side with Clinton, while Obama carried the vote of those who never attend church.

Among weekly church attenders, 58 percent voted for Clinton, compared with 42 percent for Obama. Among those who attend church occasionally, 55 percent voted for Clinton and 45 percent voted for Obama. In the “never” category, 56 percent voted for Obama and 44 percent voted for Clinton.

_ Adelle M. Banks

Israeli court rules for Messianic Jews

JERUSALEM (RNS) Israel’s High Court of Justice has ruled that some _ though not all _ Messianic Jews may receive automatic Israeli citizenship under the country’s Law of Return immigration policy.

The court ruled on April 16 that Messianic Jews _ people who define themselves as Jewish believers in Jesus _ may immigrate to Israel under the country’s Law of Return if their father is Jewish, but not if their mother is.

The Law of Return affords citizenship to almost anyone who is born Jewish (who had a Jewish mother), as well as a non-Jewish person who can prove at least one of his parents or grandparents was Jewish according to Jewish law.

Two years ago, a dozen members of the Messianic community living in Israel petitioned the court after the Interior Ministry denied their request for citizenship, reportedly on the grounds that they were involved in missionary activity, which is illegal in Israel.

More than a decade ago, the court ruled that Jews who converted from Judaism cannot gain citizenship under the Law of Return. It based its decision on the law’s provision that “the rights of a Jew under this law … are also vested in a child and a grandchild of a Jew, the spouse of a Jew, the spouse of a child of a Jew and the spouse of a grandchild of a Jew, except for a person who has been a Jew and has voluntarily changed his religion.”

Baptist Press reported that Messianic community members will now “receive equal treatment under the Israeli Law of Return, which says that anyone who is born Jewish can immigrate from anywhere in the world to Israel and be granted citizenship automatically.”

But that may not be the case.

A staffer at the Jerusalem Institute of Justice, which petitioned the court on the matter, called the Baptist Press interpretation of the ruling “mistaken.”

“Only non-Jews will actually benefit from the ruling. If you’re a Jew according to Jewish law, if you were born of a Jewish mother, this ruling doesn’t apply to you. The Law of Return continues to prohibit Jewish converts to another religion to immigrate.”

However, the staffer said, the court’s decision “does change the situation for others who had a Jewish father, regardless of their religious beliefs. For these people, being part of the Messianic Jewish community cannot legally be a factor in determining citizenship.”

_ Michele Chabin

Quote of the Day: Evangelist Juanita Bynum

(RNS) “I have to make a decision … to take the love that I had for him with me.”

_ Evangelist Juanita Bynum, discussing her pending divorce from Bishop Thomas W. Weeks III, who is on probation after pleading guilty in March to assaulting her in a hotel parking lot outside Atlanta. She was quoted by the Associated Press, which obtained a transcript of comments she will make on a two-part episode of “Divorce Court” scheduled to air on Thursday (April 24) and Friday.

KRE/RB END RNS