c. 1997 Religion News Service

Religious liberty advocates urge freedom for new religious movements

(RNS) Delegates to the Fourth World Congress on Religious Liberty have called on governments around the world to protect the religious liberties of sometimes controversial new religious movements”The Congress affirms that the principle of religious liberty applies equally to new religions as to established ones,”delegates said in a final statement issued at the end of the June 23-26 meeting in Rio de Janiero, Brazil.”We urge that any concerns regarding social disorder as pertain to new religious movements be handled with special sensitivity for religious minorities.” Without mentioning any specific country by name, the statement appeared aimed at such nations as Germany, which has been involved in a major dispute with the controversial Church of Scientology, and Russia, where a proposed law restricting minority religions is making its way through parliament.

The congress, sponsored by the International Religious Liberty Association, brought together 400 participants, including religious leaders, government officials and academics, from some 40 countries.”Governments and public officials should exercise caution and sensitivity when characterizing religious groups or religious beliefs so as to avoid stigmatizing specific groups or contributing to patterns of intolerance,”the final statement said.

The final statement also called on governments to grant believers the right of legal corporate recognition under which religious associations can”acquire or rent property for purposes of worship services, enter into contracts, establish educational institutions for training its own members … and in general carry out its religious mission as it sees fit.”

American Baptists affirm concern about RFRA, Hong Kong

(RNS) Delegates to the biennial meeting of American Baptist Churches USA affirmed”Statements of Concern”lamenting the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to overturn the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) and expressing their support for religious freedom for Christians in Hong Kong since it has reverted to Chinese rule.

The Supreme Court ruling that RFRA is unconstitutional was handed down on June 25, as the American Baptists met in Indianapolis. The Baptist meeting ended June 27.”We call upon the Congress to reject any reaction to this decision which would amend or alter the integrity of the First Amendment,”the statement reads.”We further encourage American Baptists to insist that Congress find an appropriate legislative vehicle to reassert a clear constitutional guarantee of the free exercise of religion.” As Hong Kong was transferred to Chinese administration on Tuesday (July 1), delegates urged their general secretary to share a message with Hong Kong Christians expressing solidarity with them.”We pray that they, and all persons, will live in a world where individuals may worship and speak freely, and share in the blessings and responsibilities of their society,”the statement on Hong Kong reads.

Delegates to the meeting also affirmed statements supporting immigrants and refugees, and calling on Russian President Boris Yeltsin to veto legislation that has passed in Russia’s lower house of parliament that would restrict the work of some non-native religious groups in the country.

In other action, the Rev. James B. Johnson, the recently retired senior minister of First Baptist Church of Fairmont, W.V., was elected president for 1998-1999. He has served as pastor in Springfield, Pa., and Philadelphia, and has held a number of regional and national positions in the denomination.

Rabbis affirm Reform Judaism’s ties to Israel

(RNS) Transcending current tensions between liberal American Jews and Israel’s Orthodox establishment, Reform Judaism’s rabbinic body has for the first time linked Reform theology to the secular Zionist movement that created the state of Israel.

Meeting in Miami, the Central Conference of American Rabbis (CCAR) passed a new platform that encompasses both biblical references to God promising the land of Israel to Abraham and the secular activism of Theodore Herzl, convenor of the First Zionist Congress in 1897.

The six-page platform was written in Hebrew to symbolically underscore the importance of Israel’s national language and it calls the land of Israel sacred to Jews. The document was overwhelmingly approved by some 600 rabbis attending the CCAR annual conference, which concluded Wednesday (June 25).

Passage of the statement represents an official revision of Reform Judaism’s historic hesitancy to embrace Zionism. During the Zionist movement’s early years, Reform leaders in Europe and the United States were openly hostile to the idea of Jews physically returning to the land of Israel.

They argued that the religion of Judaism no longer was tied to the land of its origin or to a specific people, and that agitating for the re-establishment of a Jewish state would unnecessarily antagonize world governments.

Since Israel’s independence in 1948, however, Reform leaders have gradually moved toward a full pro-Zionist position. The Reform movement has opened a branch of its seminary, Hebrew Union College, in Jerusalem, and has established agricultural settlements, or kibbutzim, in Israel, as well as programs to bring young Reform Jews to Israel.

The statement’s passage”banished any lingering misunderstanding of the serious commitment of Reform Judaism to Israel,”Rabbi Norman Palz of Cedar Grove, N.J., told the Miami Herald.

Significantly, the CCAR’s action came as Reform and other non-Orthodox Jewish leaders have been battling for official recognition within Israel. The Israeli Orthodox leadership has fought that recognition, drawing the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu into the fray.

Christian Science radio service is shut down

(RNS) Monitor Radio, the public radio service of the Christian Science Church, has been shut down by the church under the pressure of mounting financial losses.

According to The New York Times, an effort to find a rescuer to buy the service, which specialized in public affairs and in-depth reporting, fell apart last week.

The shutdown marks the end of efforts by the church to build a lasting electronic presence in American culture that began with the Depression.”I think that Monitor Radio was a worthwhile experiment on the part of the church, since we managed to reach over a million listeners a week domestically and uncounted millions over shortwave,”said David Cook, the editor in charge of both the church’s broadcast arm and of its 78,000 weekday circulation daily newspaper, The Christian Science Monitor.”On the basis of public service alone, it was a good thing to expose our values and our Monitor name,”he added.

Anti-abortion activist decries Hong Kong turnover

(RNS) U.S. anti-abortion activist Randall Terry staged an anti-Chinese demonstration Monday (June 30) in Hong Kong, denouncing China’s family planning policies.”This is not a day of celebration, this is a day of grieving,”Terry told a small group of supporters gathered outside the site where the formal ceremonies ending British colonial rule over the territory were to take place.

Terry, the founder of the militant anti-abortion group Operation Rescue, criticized China’s controversial”one-child”policy, which seeks to slow the nation’s population growth by increased use of contraception and, according to some critics, enforced abortion.

During the demonstration, Terry got into a shouting match with supporters of the return of Hong Kong to China, Reuters reported.”Why do you come here?”shouted Bernard Wijedoru, a Sri Lanka native who serves as a Hong Kong District Affairs Adviser to the Chinese government in Beijing.”What right do you have? … You are a bloodly coolie who wants to break up China.”

British Methodists urge action to end rich-poor polarization

(RNS) Urgent action to reverse the increasing polarization of British society between rich and poor was called for by the Methodist Conference of Great Britain in two separate debates Saturday (June 28) at the start of its week-long annual meeting.

The meeting, which is being held in London, lasts until July 5. The conference, the governing body of the Methodist Church of Great Britain, meets each year in a different venue.

At its opening session, the conference accepted a report on cities that drew attention to the way in which the urban poor are increasingly being excluded from any meaningful participation in society through unemployment, poverty and housing problems.

“The crucial element in all this is social exclusion, and it is social exclusion that we as Christians cannot tolerate,” said John Vincent, a former president of the Methodist Conference and founder of the Urban Theology Unit.

Vincent, co-chairman of the working group that drew up the report, told the conference the situation in Britain’s cities had deteriorated considerably since the Church of England’s controversial Faith in the City report was published in 1985.

Among other things, the report called for action to cut unemployment, expand educational opportunities for young people, and improved housing. It said the full social, economic and environmental costs and benefits of any proposed government intervention in the cities should be assessed to ensure that what might seem a benefit does not end up by making one section of the city population even worse off.

Top official of China’s state Catholic Church dies

(RNS) Bishop Zong Hauide, chairman of the China Patriotic Catholic Association and the Chinese Catholic Bishops’ College since 1982, has died. He was 80.

Both the association and bishops’ college were state-sanctioned organizations that stand in opposition to underground Chinese Roman Catholic institutions aligned with the Vatican.

Zong was ordained in 1943 and became a bishop in 1958.

He died Friday (June 27) in Beijing. No cause of death was given.

Quote of the day: Vaclav Havel, president of the Czech Republic

(RNS) The publication of Harvard Divinity School’s Center for the Study of Values in Public Life recently published excerpts from”The Art of the Impossible: Politics as Morality in Practice”(Knopf), by Vaclav Havel, president of the Czech Republic. In the excerpt, Havel argues that without the experience of the transcendental, neither hope nor human responsibility has any meaning:”True goodness, true responsibility, true justice, a true sense of things _ all these grow from roots that go much deeper than the world of our transitory earthly scheme. This is a message that speaks to us from the very heart of human religiosity.”

MJP END RNS