c. 1997 Religion News Service
Bible studies found to reduce rearrests
(RNS) A new study conducted for Prison Fellowship Ministries shows that some inmates who were actively involved in the fellowship’s Bible studies were less likely to be rearrested in the year after their release from prison.
The study, published in the March 1997 scholarly journal Justice Quarterly, found that 14 percent of those frequently involved in Prison Fellowship Bible studies were rearrested, compared to 41 percent of those who were not.
John DiIulio, a public policy analyst and professor of politics and public affairs at Princeton University, said at a Tuesday (April 8) news conference in Washington, D.C., that prison officials should examine Prison Fellowship’s program”not because it is faith-based but because it is apparently so very effective.””Today’s study suggests that these programs have great potential,”said DiIulio, author of”No Escape: The Future of American Corrections.” The study, conducted by the National Institute for Healthcare Research (NIHR), compared 201 male inmates from four New York prisons who took part in Prison Fellowship Bible studies with 201 inmates who did not. The researchers acknowledged the study had a variety of limitations, including the fact that it was not random and did not have a national scope.”Though this study has several acknowledged limitations, our findings at least suggest that religious programs have the potential to affect former inmates’ behavior after release,”the authors concluded.
Byron Johnson, a criminologist at Lamar University in Beaumont, Texas, and one of the authors of the study, said he would like to see additional studies of religious programs in prisons and suspects Muslim programs would have similar effects on prisoners.
Tom Pratt, Prison Fellowship’s president, said he expects the findings could also apply to other Christian prison ministries.”I expect any time they engage a group of people, they’re going to see the same results we have,”said Pratt, who estimated there are about 450 prison ministries nationwide.
David Larson, NIHR president and co-author of the study, urged the federal government to consider further study of the issue, since many religious programs exist in federal prisons.”The case can be made for federal funding,”he said.
Baptist conference center mistakenly books”New Age”group
(RNS) The director of a Southern Baptist conference center in New Mexico admitted he made a mistake by permitting what he called a New Age group to meet at the facility.
In February, the”Star Visions”conference, which involved 179 people, met at the Glorieta (N.M.) Baptist Conference Center, which is owned and operated by the Baptist Sunday School Board.”This group should never have been booked at the conference center,”Larry Haslam, director of the center, told Baptist Press, the official news service of the Southern Baptist Convention.”We have strict guidelines about the types of groups we have on campus. We didn’t do a good job of following them, but we have already taken steps to make sure this never happens again.” Glorieta officials do not allow non-Christian religious groups to meet at the facility.
Michael Salz, a”Star Visions”organizer, told RNS he disagreed with the Baptists’ conclusion that his gathering was non-Christian.”I think we are definitely Christian in the largest sense of the word,”said Salz.”I think we very much believe in Spirit, in God … We’re certainly not godless, by any means.” Salz described Star Visions participants as those interested in being better connected to God and others.
The group has been active since last August and has no official membership, but has sponsored several conferences.
The meetings have attracted people from a variety of backgrounds, ranging from quantum physicists to American Indian and Canadian elders, to people interested in metaphysics, Salz said. Most are concerned also with preserving the environment.
Salz said before the event he furnished center officials with a flier about the conference.”I don’t think there was any deception … either intentionally or otherwise,”he said.
According to Baptist Press, the Star Visions event prompted protests from Southern Baptists attending other meetings at the Glorieta center during the conference and by ministers who later learned of the event.
Proselytizing creates anti-ecumenical backlash in Russia
(RNS)”Destructive”religious and parareligious groups are creating an anti-ecumenical atmosphere in the Russian Orthodox Church, according to a top official of the church’s Department of External Relations.
The Rev. Viktor Petlyuchenko, deputy chairman of the department, said the”aggressive proselytizing”of Orthodox Christians by non-Orthodox groups has made the church wary of contact with non-Orthodox churches.
Petlyuchenko made his comments following a recent meeting between leaders of the Evangelical Church of Germany (EKD) and top Russian Orthodox officials. EKD leaders urged the Russians to maintain their ecumenical ties.
Both bodies are key members of the Geneva-based World Council of Churches, the international ecumenical body consisting of mainline Protestant, Anglican and Orthodox churches.
Proselytizing, mixed with the Orthodox’s uncomfortable relationship with the WCC, has led some officials to recommend the church downgrade its status within the WCC from full member to observer.
Petlyuchenko, without being more specific, said that certain”processes”taking place within the WCC have made the Orthodox uncomfortable and they”do not feel at home and are unable to speak in full voice of their vision.” Bishop Christoph Demke, speaking at a news conference in Moscow, said the EKD delegation urged the Russian church to”maintain the momentum”of its past ecumenical work.”Ecumenical thinking cannot be inherited from previous generations, it requires constant nursing,”Demke said, according to a report from Ecumenical News International, the Geneva-based religious news news agency.
The German church leaders said they told the Russians they were willing to share their experiences with”real sects”in Germany and would investigate ways to help the Russian church on the issue.
Priest, parishioners arrested protesting weapons sales to East Timor
(RNS) A Roman Catholic parish priest, three of his parishioners and four refugees from East Timor were arrested on Easter Monday (March 31) after they climbed over a fence of a British weapons factory to protest the sale of fighter jets to Indonesia.”We are here celebrating Easter alongside four men who have survived the genocide in East Timor,”the Rev. Arthur Fitzgerald, parish priest of St. Michaels in Liverpool, said as he was arrested at the British Aerospace factory at Warton, England.”British Aerospace Hawk jets are being used by the Indonesian regime to slaughter innocents in East Timor,”he added.”This trade in death has to stop.” Indonesia, a largely Muslim nation, annexed Timor in 1976 and has been fighting independence efforts by the East Timorese, who are largely Christian, ever since. Last year, East Timorese Roman Catholic Bishop Carlos Belo and human rights activist Jose Ramos Horta were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for their efforts on behalf of the Timorese.
The British company has been a longtime target of religious activists supporting the Timorese independence movement.
Fitzgerald and the other protesters were released on bail and will go on trial later this month. Last summer, four women protesters were acquitted by a jury of causing criminal damage to a Hawk jet at the Warton factory after arguing they had used reasonable force to try to prevent a crime _ genocide in East Timor.
Shulman, 100-year-old former Hadassah president, dies
(RNS) Rebecca Shulman, former national president of Hadassah, the Women’s Zionist Organization of America, died March 30 in New York City.
She was 100. The cause of death was not reported.
Shulman was president of the organization from 1953 to 1956. A lifelong Zionist, she served as a delegate and national board member of the World Zionist Congress in the 1920s and 1930s.
She worked alongside other activists for a Jewish state and in 1945, when chairman of the Hadassah National Convention, called on the organization’s members to be”soldiers”in the war for Jewish nationhood and liberation.
After her Hadassah presidency, Shulman devoted time to improving medical services in Israel and the construction of Hadassah-Hebrew University Medical Center, the largest medical care and research facility in the Middle East.
Quote of the Day: author Dale Evans Rogers
(RNS) Actress and singer Dale Evans Rogers writes in her new book,”Our Values: Stories and Wisdom,”about the need to believe in the words of the Bible:”It doesn’t do any good to have millions of Bibles on bookshelves unless the truths within their pages are applied to our lives. It doesn’t do any good for a witness to place his hand on the Bible and swear to tell `the whole truth, nothing but the truth, so help me God’ unless the Bible is the basis of that person’s belief system. He might as well swear on a comic book!”
MJP END RNS
