c. 1997 Religion News Service

Candidates announced for Episcopal Church’s top spot

(RNS) Four bishops have been nominated to succeed Presiding Bishop Edmond Browning as the top official of the 2.5 million-member Episcopal Church.

The four nominees are: Frank Griswold III of Chicago; Robert Rowley Jr. of Northwestern Pennsylvania; Richard Shimpfky of El Camino Real (Calif.), and Don Wimberly of Lexington (Ky.).

The election is slated for July 21 in the House of Bishops during the church’s General Convention in Philadelphia. It must be affirmed by the House of Deputies.

The naming of the four candidates climaxes a two-year process seeking a successor for Browning, who leaves office after completing a 12-year term. Unlike Browning, however, the new presiding bishop will serve one nine-year term because of a change in church rules.

Although it is still possible for bishops to be nominated from the floor of the House of Bishops during the General Convention, it is considered unlikely such a nominee could get elected because of the lengthy background check required of all active clergy and others moving into leadership roles in the church.

Seminary to close church music school

(RNS) The trustees of Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary in Mill Valley, Calif., have voted to close the seminary’s church music school because of a”financial emergency.” Trustees voted April 8 to close the Dixon School of Church Music effective July 31, Baptist Press, the official news service of the Southern Baptist Convention, reported.

Trustee chairman George Mullinax called the decision”tough,”and music school professors have complained they did not get enough notice about the closing.

Before the vote, seminary officials reported the school had been faced with declining revenue, decreasing enrollment and rising costs.

A financial analysis showed the school had operated with deficits that ranged from $107,833 in 1992-93 to $245,382 last year. It was predicted there would be continuing annual deficits of more than $120,000 through the 2001-02 school year.

Since 1985, 60 students have graduated with degrees from the seminary’s music programs.

The decision affects four tenured professors, several part-time music instructors and 25 current students. But William O.”Bill”Crews, seminary president, has promised to help students finish their degree programs.

Israeli court keeps controversial street open

(RNS) Israel’s Supreme Court ruled Sunday (April 13) that a Jerusalem street should remain open to traffic on the Jewish Sabbath despite protests from ultra-Orthodox Jews.

The decision has prompted new protests, with teen-age seminary students throwing empty bottles and stones at passing cars and police on the evening of the decision.

The ruling concerning Bar Ilan Street is a symbol of the increasing culture clashes between secular and religious Jews in Israel. The street passes through an ultra-Orthodox neighborhood, but also connects neighborhoods in the center of the city with a university and a major hospital. It has been the scene of fights between police and residents on most Saturdays for more than a year.”This ruling will not stop us from fighting for our rights,”said activist Yehuda Meshi-Zahav.”It’s our neighborhood.” Orthodox Jews consider driving to be a violation of the Jewish Sabbath, which lasts from sundown Friday to sundown Saturday.

Secular Jews cheered the ruling as a win for religious pluralism and democracy in Israel.

A committee appointed by the court suggested the road be closed during Jewish holy days and Sabbath prayer hours, but religious Jews said the recommendation was inadequate.

Britain’s Catholic bishops call for millennium present to poor

(RNS) Roman Catholic Bishops in England and Wales have proposed Western countries observe a Millennium Jubilee similar to the Year of Jubilee in the Old Testament, where God told the Israelites to free slaves, cancel debts and return possessions to their original owners every 50 years.

The bishops have asked Western countries to reduce or cancel the debts of Third World countries, which they say would help more than half the world’s population, according to a report from Ecumenical News International, the Geneva-based religious news agency.”We believe that the start of the new millennium should be a time to give hope to impoverished people, and to put behind us the past mistakes of lenders and borrowers,”the bishops said in a statement.”It is hard to envisage a better symbol of what the millennium is truly celebrating.” The Catholic relief agency CAFOD said that for every dollar wealthy countries give in aid, they receive three dollars back for debt repayment on earlier loans.

Much of the Third World debt _ about $250 billion _ is owed to the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, which launched an initiative last year to act on the unpayable debts of the poorest countries.

Julian Filochowski, CAFOD director, said the initiative”doesn’t go far enough”and called for a”concerted international effort”to reduce Third World debt.

Many analysts argue Western banks and governments are partly to blame for the escalating debt of Third World countries because they encourage capital-intensive”big (development) projects”and are responsible for large increases in global interest rates.

Farrakhan tells whites to atone for treatment of blacks

(RNS) Nation of Islam leader Minister Louis Farrakhan led an interfaith church service in downtown Philadelphia Tuesday (April 14) while some 500 black protesters marched through the city’s Grays Ferry section, where racial tension has been high.

Farrakhan preached against the injustices he said America has perpetuated against blacks, the Associated Press reported. “There must not only be confession,”he said in an 80-minute speech.”There must be a turning _ a turning to and a turning from. There must be some act of atonement, so that there is forgiveness and reconciliation.” In two months, two incidents in the mostly white, working-class, South Philadelphia neighborhood have raised racial tensions.

On Feb. 23, a black woman and two children were beaten by a mob of white men who had been attending a party at a Catholic church social hall. A month later two black men shot and killed a white teen during a drug store robbery police said was not racially motivated.

The Nation of Islam had originally planned to march 5,000 black protesters through Grays Ferry with Farrakhan at the lead, but called it off when Mayor Edward Rendell, who was concerned about potential rioting, asked Farrakhan to lead an interfaith rally at Tindley United Methodist Church instead.

Rendell, a Jew, was sharply criticized by Jewish leaders, who boycotted the meeting, citing the Farrakhan’s history of anti-Semitism. Catholic leaders also boycotted the interfaith event.”Farrakhan is a minister of hate and that is why it is good news to learn that Catholic and Jewish leaders are refusing to meet with him in Philadelphia this week,”said William Donohue, president of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, a New York-based anti-bias organization.”They should no more dialogue with Farrakhan than with the Imperial Wizards of the Ku Klux Klan.” Farrakhan said Jews and Catholics in Philadelphia should not have boycotted the meeting on racial healing just because he was leading it.”I think it is a mistake that the church won’t be present. I think it is a mistake that members of the synagogue won’t be present,”he said.”The church is the bastion of love, but all of this hate is coming toward us out of the church.” Worshipers sadly send a church to an intentional fiery end

(RNS) A Russian Orthodox Church that closed six years ago burned to the ground Monday (April 14) after former worshipers donated it to a Pennsylvania fire department for use in training firefighters.

The Aliquippa, Pa., church closed after membership dwindled from 300 to 15 and members began attending a church in nearby Ambridge. Church members could not afford to restore or tear down the church, the Associated Press reported.

The former worshipers watched and wept as flames consumed St. Nicholas Russian Orthodox Church. Pearl Perault, a former church officer, described the scene as”heart-breaking,”but said it gave her peace to know it was being done the right way.

After worshipers began attending the Ambridge church, the vacant onion-domed church in Aliquippa was”adopted”by vandals, drifters and drug users, who stole church valuables and defaced and destroyed other items in the church.”There were a lot of alcohol bottles inside the church. There was graffiti all over the walls,”said Fire Chief Darryl Jones.

Perault said she planned to bury some of the ashes from the rubble with her family.

Quote of the Day: Clyde Gray, pastor of Berryville, Ark., church

(RNS) Clyde Gray, pastor of First Baptist Church in Berryville, Ark., told Baptist news services why his church closed its day-care center. The church sent a letter to parents in February announcing that the center would close in the spring because the church board believes God wants women to stay at home. He said:”Operating a day care was sending a mixed signal with home and family values. We want to be conscientious about the message that we’re sending out.”

MJP END RNS