c. 1996 Religion News Service

Leaders of Adventist, Orthodox church meet in Istanbul

(RNS) In the first-ever visit by Seventh-day Adventist Church officials to the Ecumenical Patriarchate, headquarters of the worldwide Orthodox movement in Istanbul, Turkey, leaders from the two groups discussed tensions created by Protestants attempting to spread their faith in Eastern Europe.”The goals of the visit were to achieve better mutual understanding and to break down false stereotypes, and to discover points of friction between Orthodox and Adventist Christians,”APD, the Switzerland-based Adventist press service, said of the Oct. 25 meeting.

The news agency described the talks as”friendly”and said the Adventist church leaders”appreciated the openness in all of the conversations offered to the small delegation.” An Orthodox spokesman told Ecumenical News International, the Geneva-based religious news agency, that the talks were”frank and open.”It was a breakthrough in the debate concerning proselytism in Eastern Europe,”the Orthodox official said.”It was also agreed that such exploratory meetings should continue.” Since the fall of communism in 1989, the number of Protestant missionaries in Eastern Europe has greatly increased, angering local, traditional Orthodox churches who regard such activity as a form of religious trespassing and”sheep stealing.” Tensions between Adventists and Orthodox have been especially strong in Romania and Bulgaria.

Activist wants laity involved in choice of Denver archbishop

(RNS) Gerry Frank, a Roman Catholic layman in the archdiocese of Denver, is trying to organize a convention of 5,000 church members to recommend candidates to succeed Archbishop J. Francis Stafford, who is leaving in November for a new job in Rome.”We have both a right and a duty to choose the style and character of leadership that will facilitate us,”Frank wrote in the current edition of Leaven, an independent, alternative Catholic newsletter.”When the issue is so critical and we face the loss of several generations to the church, we surely have the right to veto leadership that will be weight on our shoulders,”he said.

Frank’s proposal, which is similar to reform demands being made in the United States and Europe, was dismissed by church leaders in Denver.

New bishops are chosen”after quiet and confidential consultation with bishops, priests, religious and lay people,”said Fran Maier, Stafford’s spokesman. And, Maier added, everyone who participates in such closed-door discussions is under the”seal of pontifical secrets,”such discussions are not to be made public.

He said Catholics who participate in Frank’s public but unofficial process are”out of touch with how the church operates internally. The church doesn’t respond to the horizons of the current political culture.” Frank’s proposal, however, is not without precedent.

Just last week, Archbishop Keith O’Brien of the Scottish archdiocese of St. Andrews and Edinburgh wrote a pastoral letter asking people in the diocese of Argyll and the Isles to express their views and opinions about a possible successor for Bishop Roderick Wright, who resigned in the wake of a sexual misconduct scandal.

The call for the democratic election of new bishops is also one of the reforms being urged by We Are Church, a movement of liberal, reform-minded Catholics in the United States and Europe. Frank is chairman of the We Are Church effort in Denver.

The group is seeking 1 million petition signatures calling for reforms that would allow the ordination of women and married men, as well as the popular election of bishops. Similar campaigns in Germany and Austria have netted more than 2.3 million signatures.”Just as no government is effective without the consent of the governed, no church is effective without the active consent of its members,”Frank said.

Theologian urges preachers to give hell its due

(RNS) Hell has been banished from prominence in most preachers’ sermons and needs to be restored as an essential part of the Gospel message of Jesus, according to a Alberto Roldan, a leading theologian in Buenos Aires, Argentina.”What happened to hell in evangelical preaching,”Roldan asked in an article in El Puente, Argentina’s best-known Protestant magazine.”We must admit that the focus has moved from the `beyond’ to the `here and now.’ Protestant preaching always emphasized hell.” Roldan is dean of Argentina’s International Theological Education Faculty and also teaches at the Biblical Institute of Buenos Aires.

Hell, he said,”although lost in the tunnel of time, forms an essential part of the Gospel, which prior to being `good news’ is `bad news’ in terms of sin and its eternal consequences.” Roldan said that eclipse of hell in preaching by evangelicals means that preachers are”offering a cheap grace, without faith, without repentance, without discipleship.”He said while preachers should preach sermons focused on”solutions to people’s problems,”they should not”imply the suppression of hell.”

Sudan’s divided church councils issue call to end war

(RNS) Sudan’s divided church councils have taken the unprecedented step of joining together to issue a joint appeal for an end to the civil war there.”Peace-making … remains a matter of faith for all Christians and an important mission of the church,”the joint statement said.”It is therefore imperative that the churches actively participate in peace-making efforts.” Sudan has been involved in civil war since 1983, pitting the Islamic government of Sudan, based in Khartoum, against the largely Christian and animist southern Sudan, which seeks greater autonomy from the north.

The civil war has led to divisions between churches in the north and south and to the creation of two church councils _ the Sudan Council of Churches, based in Khartoum and representing churches in the north, and the New Sudan Council of Churches, based in Nairobi, Kenya, but representing churches only in the south. It was formed in 1990 because members felt the church council in the north could not adequately represent the interests of Christians in the south.

In addition to calling for an end to the civil war, the joint statement also calls for a referendum or similar process to resolve the issue of self-determination for southern Sudan, and for international humanitarian assistance to all areas affected by the war.

The joint statement was the result of five days of delicate negotiations between church council officials in September in Morges, Switzerland. The discussions were brokered by the World Council of Churches and the All-Africa Council of Churches.

The Rev. Sam Kobia, a senior official of the WCC who helped negotiate the joint declaration, said that churches in the Islamic-dominated north have until now felt so intimidated by the National Islamic Front that even to comment on the civil war, let alone take a position, has been impossible.

Quote of the day: Syndicated columnist Cal Thomas

(RNS) In a letter to a group of Catholic scientists at the Vatican last week, Pope John Paul II reaffirmed decades-old church teaching that Catholicism has no theological objections to the theory of evolution as long as scientists accept that creation itself is the work of God and that human beings have a dimension beyond the physical. But for some conservative commentators, the pope’s comments represented a retreat from sound doctrine. Columnist Cal Thomas put it this way in his syndicated column:”Having surrendered to evolutionary theorists, the pope cannot credibly defend other doctrinal issues _ such as the virgin birth, the deity of Jesus, his bodily resurrection and our salvation _ because the same book (the Bible) that says God created the world and everything in it out of nothing also testifies to these other things.”

MJP END RNS