c. 1996 Religion News Service
Netanyahu’s visit prompts religious groups’ to press for peace
(RNS) American religious groups marked Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s meeting with President Clinton in Washington Tuesday (July 9) by urging Clinton to put pressure on Israel and the Palestinians to abide by the land-for-peace provisions of the Middle East peace process.
The U.S. Interreligious Committee for Peace in the Middle East, Churches for Middle East Peace and the Jewish Peace Lobby all sent letters to Clinton or issued statements underscoring the importance of U.S. support for the peace process.
The Interreligious Committee _ which claims a membership of 2,300 American Christians, Jews and Muslims _ called for”consistent, creative”U.S. leadership to assure that both the Israelis and Palestinians”recognize and respect the historic accomplishments already achieved through negotiations.” The committee, which sent its letter to likely Republican presidential candidate Bob Dole as well, also said American presidential politics should not be allowed to impact the peace process.”All too often in the past, positions taken by candidates have been extremely provocative,”the letter said.
The committee’s letter was signed by Dawud A. Assad, president of the Muslim Council of Mosques; the Rev. Joan Brown Campbell, general secretary of the National Council of Churches; and Albert Vorspan, former vice president of the Reform Jewish Union of American Hebrew Congregations.
Churches for Middle East Peace, a coalition of 15 Christian and Unitarian churches and organizations, many of which have ties to Arab Christian groups, asked Clinton to”make it clear”to Netanyahu that further Israeli settlement activity in the West Bank will be opposed.
Churches for Middle East Peace also said the president should urge Netanyahu to lift the closure of the West Bank and Gaza that has prevented Palestinians from getting to jobs in Israel. The closure was put into effect following a series of terrorist attacks in Israel.
Signing the Churches for Middle East Peace statement were the Washington offices of the American Baptist Churches, USA; the Quaker-affiliated American Friends Service Committee and Friends Committee on National Legislation; the Church of the Brethren; the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ); the Episcopal Church; the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America; Maryknoll Fathers and Brothers; the Mennonite Central Committee; the National Council of Churches; the Presbyterian Church (USA); the Roman Catholic Conference of Major Superiors of Men; the Unitarian Universalist Association; the United Church of Christ; and the United Methodist Church.
The Jewish Peace Lobby sent a letter to Clinton signed by some 150 American Reform, Reconstructionist and Conservative rabbis who linked further Israeli West Bank settlement activity or Palestinian terrorism with continued American economic aid.”To both the Palestinians and the Israelis,”the Peace Lobby’s letter to Clinton said,”we ask you to deliver this message: If they fail in these obligations to peace, continued economic assistance from the United States will not be forthcoming.”
Wisconsin governor tells archbishop to read Bible on welfare
(RNS) Wisconsin Gov. Tommy Thompson, architect of the state’s highly-lauded but controversial welfare reform law, said Monday (July 8) that Roman Catholic Archbishop Rembert Weakland of Milwaukee needs to read the Bible on the issue.
Thompson was irked by an op-ed piece Weakland, one of the church’s most liberal prelates, wrote July 4 in The Washington Post. Weakland said the Wisconsin plan, known as Wisconsin Works, or W-2,”is not welfare reform but welfare repeal.” Wisconsin Works has been put forward as a model for federal welfare reform legislation. It won initial plaudits from President Clinton but has not yet received the federal waivers necessary to enforce the program.
Weakland criticized the plan because it ends welfare as an entitlement and because it would deny benefits to children of unwed mothers who become pregnant while on welfare.”Catholic social teaching holds that the poor, especially children, have a moral claim on the resources of the community to secure the necessities of life,”Weakland wrote. He said society has recognized that right for more than 60 years and it”is patently unjust for a society as affluent as ours to nullify that covenant. Unfortunately, as enacted, Wisconsin Works does just that.” Weakland, an accomplished pianist, recently finished a sabbatical from his duties as archbishop of Milwaukee, during which he finished the work on a doctoral degree in music at Columbia University in New York.
Thompson, in responding to Weakland’s criticism, said”there is a thing in the Bible that says people should learn to take care of themselves and have a little bit of personal responsibility.”So I think maybe the bishop should come back to Wisconsin and read his Bible instead of playing piano in New York,”Thompson said.
South African churches break with government over abortion proposal
(RNS) A number of South African religious groups, including some whose moral support helped propel the African National Congress (ANC) into power, have broken with the government of President Nelson Mandela over the abortion issue.
On July 3, Mandela’s cabinet approved legislation which will allow abortion on demand during the first trimester of pregnancy.
Current South African law allows abortion up to the sixth week of pregnancy in cases of rape or where the birth would cause permanent damage to the mother’s physical or mental health.
The Rev. Emil Blaser, a spokesman for the South African Catholic Bishops’ Conference, said he found it”incomprehensible”that ANC leaders who struggled for the recognition of human dignity should approve of the taking of life.
He described the cabinet’s approval as”a sad day in the history of our country which will be regretted for many years.” The Rev. Ray McCauley, a spokesman for the evangelical Protestant Rhema Church, said the ANC had dismissed popular opinion, including a strong anti-abortion lobby among Muslim and Christian ANC members.
A number of prominent church leaders, including the Rev. Frank Chikane, former head of the South African Council of Churches, attempted to persuade the ANC to allow a non-partisan vote on the issue when it comes before the South African parliament, according to Ecumenical News International (ENI), the Geneva-based religious news agency.
But ENI said the ANC had decided to close ranks and require party members to vote for it.
Former Archbishop Desmond Tutu said last year that he considered abortion a”moral option”in some circumstances and perhaps even”obligatory”in cases of rape and incest, but the Anglican Church in the country is deeply divided on the issue.
Two other denominations prominent in South Africa _ the Methodists and Lutherans _ have not spoken out on the issue.
More groups join Baptist boycott of Disney
(RNS) The American Family Association, the group headed by United Methodist minister Donald Wildmon, has announced its support for the boycott of the Walt Disney Co. by the Southern Baptist Convention.
On July 3, Wildmon told Baptist Press, the official news service of the Southern Baptist Convention, that his group is mailing a packet of material to 28,500 Southern Baptist pastors explaining the boycott and a list of Disney products to be avoided.
The Southern Baptist Convention, meeting in New Orleans in June, adopted a resolution urging the boycott because of such Disney policies as extending insurance benefits to employees’ homosexual partners and allowing homosexual theme nights at its amusement parks.
The Assemblies of God, the Springfield, Mo.-based denomination, has also raised objections to what it calls Disney’s”increasing promotion”of homosexuality. It said that it has canceled its membership in the Magic Kingdom Club, a Disney discount program.
Boycotters claim the Disney policies favor gay rights over traditional family values, a charge the company has rejected.”We produce more family entertainment than anyone else, and we have had more in the past year than ever before,”Disney spokesman John Dreyer said after the boycott was announced. He said the company has a”growing commitment”to family entertainment.
Wildmon, who has been leading boycotts for 20 years against entertainment companies and advertisers who he says promote sex and violence in the media, said it generally takes up to two years for a boycott to have an impact.”If the SBC or the AFA calls for a boycott, you’re not going to see any effect in 30 days,”Wildmon said.”It’s foolish to think you are.”
Quote of the day: John T. Joyce, president of the International Union of Bricklayers and Allied Craftsworkers, on why he won’t support President Clinton’s re-election.
(RNS) On March 26, organized labor endorsed the re-election of President Clinton. The endorsement, however, has not been unanimous among union leaders. John T. Joyce, president of the International Union of Bricklayers and Allied Craftsworkers _ writing in the July 12 issue of the independent, lay-edited Roman Catholic magazine Commonweal _ cited Clinton’s veto of the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act as the reason he could no longer support Clinton. It left him, he wrote, a man without a party:”Protecting workers’ rights in this country and abroad is really just a part _ in my view the most vital part, but nonetheless just a part _ of the larger struggle to advance human rights generally. … If we cannot reverse the pressures threatening the absolute value of human life, we cannot ultimately succeed in the struggle for human rights and workers rights. The society that says it’s `O.K.’ to kill unborn human beings because they are handicapped or inconvenient … is the same society that says it’s `O.K.’ to dump workers on the economic trash heap. …”
MJP END RNS
