c. 1996 Religion News Service

NCC delegation finds Christianity”vital and alive”in China

(RNS) Members of a National Council of Churches (NCC) delegation who have just returned from China say they found that the Christian church there is growing but facing a number of challenges.”We saw a church very vital and alive,”said the Rev. Joan Brown Campbell, general secretary of the 33-member NCC and co-leader, with NCC president and United Methodist Bishop Melvin Talbert, of the 13-member group.”Chinese Christians’ faith is very deeply personal,”Campbell said.”They speak very freely and often of their own personal conversion.” Campbell and other members of the delegation said, however, that the church faces a number of challenges, most pointedly what Talbert called”the marvelous problem”of a shortage of seminary-trained pastors.

It is estimated that there is only one trained pastor for every 3,000 to 4,000 parishioners.

The delegation members also said they were struck by the economic vitality of China.”The rebuilding of China is marked by the omnipresent icon of the construction crane,”said Episcopal Bishop Craig Anderson, president of General Theological Seminary in New York. “Paralleling such rapid change in the skyline is the religious change and reformation born of the new religious freedom in China,”Anderson said.”`Post-denominationalism’ and the phenomenal growth in membership within Chinese Protestantism contains elements that might well deepen our understanding of ecumenism in the United States.” Western-style denominations are barred in China.

The July 23-Aug 5 visit came at a time when Chinese officials were expressing a new round of complaints against religion _ especially in Buddhist Tibet and the Muslim-dominated Xinjiang province where religion is viewed as supporting separatist movements.

But few of those tensions were apparent in the report by the NCC delegation, though Campbell noted there are areas of the country where Christians have a much harder time than in other areas.”We were told that whatever you say about China, it will be true in some places and not true in other places, and true at some times and not other times,”she said.

Update: Judge rejects pleas to destroy taped confession

(RNS) U.S. District Judge Owen Panner of Portland, Ore., refused Monday (Aug. 12) to order the destruction of a jailhouse tape recording of a sacramental confession between a murder suspect and a priest.

Panner said the fact that the tape bears on the cases of two murder suspects outweighs the Roman Catholic Church’s interest in having it destroyed.

The church contends the tape recording, made secretly, violates the sanctity of the confessional and violates the priest’s religious freedom rights.

Panner accepted the argument that the priest’s religious freedom rights were violated but did not rule on whether the taping was illegal, the Associated Press reported.

The Portland archdiocese said it would appeal the ruling to the Supreme Court.”Today’s action sends the mistaken message the religious freedom guaranteed by the United States Constitution must give way to the state’s desire to secure a criminal conviction by clandestine and invasive means,”Archbishop Francis George said in a statement.

World Methodists urged to”get a mission, a vision, a life” (RNS) The Rev. Leonard Sweet, dean of Drew University Seminary in Madison, N.J., has told delegates to the World Mission Conference in Rio de Janeiro that they need to quit”whining, complaining, wimping out, (and) cry-babying and get on about the business of ministry in the world.”There’s a lot I don’t like about doing ministry in the latter days of the 20th century,”he told the 2,700 Methodists from around the world attending the Aug. 7-15 meeting.”(But) this is the time God has chosen you and God has chosen me to do ministry and lead the church.””If our Savior joins us where we are _ not where we ought to be _ then what excuse do we have? If Jesus descended into hell, then why aren’t we standing at the gates of hell, the precise place where Jesus founded his church, and there is building the church.” In particular, Sweet challenged the Methodists to confront the hate in the world.”I don’t like it that we live in a world where people are sharpening their knives to disembowel people different from them, where meanness is getting worse _ meanness towards races, religions, women, the poor, homosexuals, children, the elderly,”he said.”What is the church doing arriving so late at hate?”he asked.”Get a mission.”

Lutheran press files suit against its former president

(RNS) Augsburg Fortress Publishers, the publishing arm of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), has filed suit against Gary J.N. Aamodt, its former president, charging that he took excessive compensation without authorization.

The suit was filed in Minnesota’s Hennepin County District Court in Minneapolis. Aamodt was hired by Augsburg Fortress in 1992 and asked to resign in April 1995.

The Augsburg Fortress suit was a counterclaim to a suit filed by Aamodt in 1995, charging the publishing house with breach of contract, fraud, defamation and causing emotional distress.

According to Augsburg Fortress, while Aamodt was president of the publishing company, he directed Augsburg Fortress to buy an annuity in his name and pay the first-year premium of more than $234,000. He also allegedly had the company pay a tax bill of more than $200,000 that resulted from his ownership of the annuity and that the company also paid $129,000 to obtain a life insurance policy for Aamodt and an additional $110,874 for taxes.

Overall, it said that Aamodt received more than $825,000 in 1993, of which nearly $500,000 was unauthorized.

Aamodt, however, told the ELCA news service that,”I had a contract with Augsburg Fortress and I guess this is about promises made and promises not kept … and charges against me that are not true.”

Healers in Zimbabwe want tougher anti-witchcraft laws

(RNS) Zimbabwe’s traditional healers, who use a variety of folk and other remedies in dealing with illness, have called on the nation’s legislature to toughen laws against witchcraft.

According to the Africa Church Information Service, the practice of witchcraft and accusations of witchcraft have increased as the country’s economy has fallen on hard times.”Life for most people has become difficult in many sectors of society, and there are many frustrations and worries,”said Gordon Chavunduka, president of the Zimbabwe National Traditional Healers’ Association.”Frustrated, restless people are looking for a scapegoat,”he added.

Current Zimbabwe law dealing with witchcraft dates back to the 1899 Witchcraft Supression Act. It defines witchcraft as including a number of practices such as the throwing of bones, the use of charms and any other means or devices adopted in the practice of sorcery. A witch is defined as a person who uses poisons, harmful charms and other means or devices to cause disease, injury or death.

Under the proposal urged by the traditional healers, a person caught practicing witchcraft would be fined $5,000 _ up from the current $20. A false accusation of witchcraft would also be subject to a $5,000 fine.

Chavunduka said the the subject of witchcraft will be the main subject of discussion at the traditional healers’ annual convention in Harare Sept. 15.

Quote of the day: Tom Green, producer and host of”Lightmusic”on why he’s quitting the Christian music business.

(RNS) Tom Green, the producer and host of”Lightmusic,”a television program featuring contemporary Christian music videos, announced Aug. 10 that he has quit the business. Green’s award-winning 14-year-old program, produced in suburban Pittsburgh, is seen on 232 stations, four satellite networks and more than 1,000 cable systems around the world. In an interview with the Associated Press, Green spelled out his reasons for his disaffection with the Christian entertainment industry:”I am becoming more and more convinced that what our critics say about both contemporary Christian music and Christian television is true: We are second-rate, derivative and preaching to the choir. Contemporary Christian music’s formula continues to be: copy a three-year-old style and add the word, `Jesus.’ Christian television’s formula continues to be: find a bunch of people who will give you their life savings and program not to offend them.”

MJP END RNS