c. 1997 Religion News Service
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Two men convicted under new church arson law
(RNS) Two white men have become the first defendants in Texas to be convicted under a new federal law designed to combat the burning of black churches.
They each face a mandatory minimum prison sentence of five years and maximum sentences of between 30 and 40 years for the burning of Macedonia Baptist Church in Ferris. Both men are from Ferris, which is about 20 miles south of Dallas.
Robert Allen Stillman, 25, and Randall Elliott Moore, 22, pleaded guilty Friday (May 2) to federal arson charges. Stillman also pleaded guilty to burning a church because of the race of the people affiliated with the congregation. Moore entered a plea for conspiring to violate civil rights.
They are scheduled to be sentenced July 18, The New York Times reported.
The men were charged after law enforcement officials videotaped a discussion with Stillman and two informers in which he acknowledged using a gasoline can and a lighter to start the fire at the church.
The U.S. Attorney’s office said that when Stillman was asked why he wanted to burn the church, he responded,”`Cause it was a nigger church.”Stillman spoke of Moore’s involvement in the crime during the discussion.
The men will be sentenced under a law passed by Congress in 1996 after a spate of fires burned churches across the South and throughout the nation.
Forty-four of the Ferris church’s 45 members are black. The structure burned to the ground March 22.
More than 70 suspicious fires struck predominantly black churches in the South between January 1995 and the summer of 1996. A similar number of fires struck the region’s white churches during that time.
Children’s book recalled for insulting Islam’s founder
(RNS) Publisher Simon & Schuster has recalled more than 4,000 copies of a children’s book on religion following complaints from Muslims that the text was inaccurate and insulted the prophet Muhammad.
The book,”Great Lives: World Religions”published by the firm’s Atheneum Books imprint, is aimed at 10- to 12-year-olds and includes biographies of religious and spiritual leaders, emphasizing their human qualities.
The section on Muhammad described him as”a man who loved beautiful women, fine perfume and tasty food. He took pleasure in seeing the heads of his enemies torn from their bodies by the swords of his soldiers. He hated Christians and Jews, poets and painters, and anyone who criticized him.”Once he had a Jewish prisoner tortured in order to learn the location of the man’s hidden treasure. Then, having uncovered the secret, he had his victim murdered and added the dead man’s wife to the collection of women in his harem.” The book also depicted a warrior-like Muhammad wielding a sword.
All this prompted the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), a Washington-based Muslim defense agency, to complain. CAIR asked for an apology and the book’s recall.”Young people should have accurate and objective information about all the world’s great religions,”CAIR executive director Nihad Awad said in a statement issued Friday (May 2).”Muslims do not advocate censorship; just common decency, objectivity and respect for factual information.” In what The New York Times called”a rare concession,”Simon & Schuster agreed to recall outstanding copies of the book at a cost of $15,000. The publisher also conceded the chapter on Muhammad contained inaccuracies and was inflammatory.
Simon & Schuster agreed to work with CAIR on revising the chapter on Muhammad.
Baptist church in Georgia welcomes homosexuals
(RNS) A Baptist church in suburban Atlanta amended its church covenant earlier this year to specifically welcome people regardless of their sexual orientation.
Oakhurst Baptist Church in Decatur, Ga., now says it rejects denying”status in this fellowship”on the basis of sexual orientation or mental or physical disability. Previously, the church’s statement rejected discrimination based on”church office, possessions, education, race, age, gender or other distinctions.”A January vote changed the wording.
The new statement apparently puts the church at odds with the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC), reported Associated Baptist Press, an independent Baptist news service. The SBC amended its constitution in 1992 to ban membership by”churches which act to affirm, approve or endorse homosexual behavior,”said SBC spokesman Bill Merrell.
If the church’s covenant”does endorse or promote”homosexual behavior,”Merrell said it would be”a clear violation”of the convention’s stance.
Merrell is vice president for convention relations of the SBC’s Executive Committee.
The congregation currently appears to still qualify as a Southern Baptist church, despite minimal participation in the SBC in recent years.
An Oakhurst spokesperson said the church gives a token annual gift of $1 to the SBC’s unified budget, but also supports the SBC’s domestic and foreign missions efforts. SBC records show the most recent donation from the church to the Executive Committee was $1 in 1994-95, but gifts to missions and other SBC causes still qualifies a church to be represented in the SBC.
The congregation also is affiliated with more moderate Baptist groups.
Pope recognizes persecution of Gypsies with beatification
(RNS) In a move aimed at recognizing widespread persecution of their ethnic group, Pope John Paul II has become the first Roman Catholic pontiff to beatify a Gypsy.
The designation, reserved for martyrs and miracle workers among the faithful, was bestowed on Ceferino Jimenez Malla, a Spanish horse trader who was killed at the age of 75 by Republican forces during the Spanish Civil War in 1936 for refusing to renounce his faith.
At a colorful ceremony on St. Peter’s Square on Sunday (May 4), where Gypsy violinists performed, the pope said Jimenez Malla had set an example that”the charity of Christ knows no limits of race or culture.” An estimated 3,000 of the 30,000 people who gathered under brilliant sunlight for the ceremony were believed to be Gypsies, most of them from Europe.
Gypsies originally came from India about six centuries ago. They number about 1 million in western Europe, where they are mostly Catholic, and up to 3 million in eastern Europe, where they are generally Eastern Orthodox or Muslim.
Thousands of Gypsies have taken up residence in Rome, and many of them pack campsites on the periphery of the city. Some, as Jimenez Malla was, are itinerant workers.
The pope has frequently denounced the persecution of Gypsies, noting that they were among those slaughtered by the Nazi war machine during World War II.
The pope also beatified four other Catholics on Sunday, bringing the number of those so honored during his pontificate to 768, more than all the beatifications made by previous popes of this century combined. The pope has canonized or declared sainthood on 276 people, a designation that requires two miracles or one miracle and martyrdom.
The other four beatified included Bishop Florentino Asensio Barroso, also killed during the Spanish Civil War; Maria Encarnacion Rosal, a 19th-century nun who became the first Guatemalan to be beatified; Gaetano Catanoso, who founded a missionary order in Italy; and Enrico Rebuschini, a northern Italian priest who cared for the sick.
Jimenez Malla was jailed in July 1936 for trying to protect a priest from Republican army forces, and was killed the following month along with 12 other devout Catholics.
The pope has beatified more than 100 people killed during the Spanish Civil War. Although Jimenez Malla had no known connection to Gen. Francisco Franco’s Nationalist forces, many of those beatified were believed to be sympathetic to Franco’s regime.
Hindu temple raises $1.82 million from hair sales
(RNS) A Hindu temple in India has come up with a hair-raising way to raise money: selling the hair of pilgrims who shaved their heads to show their commitment to the faith.
The Venkateswara temple in the south Indian town of Tirupati raised $1.82 million last year by selling the hair of 6.5 million Hindus. Some 600 temple barbers participated in the effort, the Associated Press reported.
Much of the hair is exported to Europe and North America, where it is used to make wigs. The Venkateswara temple is considered one of the wealthiest Hindu temples in India.
Quote of the Day: Ben Dunn, creator of”Warrior Nun”comic books
(RNS) Ben Dunn, publisher of Antarctic Press in San Antonio, Texas, explained to USA Today why he created”Warrior Nun”comic books, which feature nuns battling evil demons:”Other superheroes, you never know what their faith is. Batman or Spider-Man or Superman, they do all these great things, but what do they believe in?”
END RNS
