c. 1997 Religion News Service

New coalition urges greater emphasis on spiritual health care

(RNS) Members of a new coalition of chaplains and health care professionals announced plans Thursday (Sept. 18) to work together to promote increased awareness and availability of the spiritual dimensions of health care and counseling.

At a Washington news conference, Rosemary Marmouget, president of the National Interfaith Coalition for Spiritual Healthcare and Counseling, said a growing number of chaplains and pastoral counselors go through intensive training similar to a medical residency.”We are here this morning to make the public aware of thousands of professional spiritual caregivers among you, in your communities, who understand that total healing means not just surgery and pharmaceuticals alone,”she said,”but also requires the skills that reach deep within one’s soul to touch, to empower and to heal the very essence of our beings.” The coalition includes 32 groups ranging from denominations to chaplains’ associations. Special interest groups for the elderly, Hispanic Americans and black churches are represented on its national advisory committee. Its formation comes at a time when medical experts are presenting data showing a majority of Americans would like to have their spirituality addressed when being cared for by health professionals.

The coalition plans to be involved in efforts to make spiritual health care and counseling more accessible to the poor, the elderly and other at-risk people, and to make such services more available in hospitals, correctional centers and work places. Coalition members also plan to be involved in statewide initiatives to prevent youth substance abuse.

Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, an advocate of medical care research, commended the coalition for its reinforcement of the blending of health and spirituality.”This is a unifying issue, one that reaches across religious faiths and brings people of all backgrounds together,”he said.”The coalition is about making sure the role of spiritual health care is not forgotten.” The founding associations of the coalition are the College of Chaplains, the Association for Clinical Pastoral Education, the American Association of Pastoral Counselors and the National Association of Catholic Chaplains. Other coalition members include the National Association of Jewish Chaplains, the Assemblies of God, the United Church of Christ, the American Correctional Chaplains Association, and the American Association for Ministry in the Workplace.

NBCUSA sued for defaulting on loan

(RNS) The National Baptist Convention, USA, has been sued by a Nashville, Tenn., bank for failing to repay a $300,000 loan.

The lawsuit, filed Friday (Sept. 12) in Nashville, is the latest challenge to face the denomination, whose president, the Rev. Henry J. Lyons, recently survived attempts to oust him after allegations of marital and financial irregularities.

On Tuesday (Sept. 16), the NBCUSA returned $214,500 to the Anti-Defamation League that had not yet been distributed to burned African-American churches.

The loan from Union Planters Bank was to help the convention market Union Planters credit cards to millions of Baptists, the bank said in court papers. But Lyons and another denominational official kept $225,000 of the money as their”commissions”for negotiating the deal, the St. Petersburg Times reported.

In an interview in late August, Lyons described the $300,000 as a payment, not a loan.

But Robert R. Campbell, an attorney for the bank, said,”It was unequivocally a loan.” The campaign aimed to encourage members of the 8.5 million-member denomination to purchase the cards, decorated with pictures of clouds and the convention logo. The promotion failed when few members of the denomination, the country’s largest black church group, signed up.

The newspaper was unable to reach Lyons or his attorney about how they planned to respond to the suit.

In other matters, the newspaper reported that Lyons has formed a four-person committee, including himself, that will hold monthly meetings to oversee the convention’s finances. The committee will meet later this month to discuss hiring a professional financial officer, Lyons said.

Lyons also has been working to change the status of visible examples of his wealth. State sale taxes totaling about $10,000 on his $135,000 Mercedes-Benz have been paid. He originally bought the car in the church’s name, avoiding state taxes, but now plans to get rid of the car. He also plans to put the $700,000 home he bought with a female church official on the market next month.”I have been putting out one fire after another,”Lyons said.

Robertson to Christian Coalition: `I want a winner’

(RNS) Religious broadcaster Pat Robertson, founder of the Christian Coalition, told a private meeting of some 100 coalition activists that he wants”a winner”in the next presidential election.

Robertson’s remarks were tape-recorded last weekend in Atlanta by Americans United for Separation of Church and State, a group that has frequently been critical of the Christian Coalition. Americans United says the coalition is a partisan political organization that does not deserve tax-exempt status.

At the beginning of his speech, Robertson made clear his remarks were not for public consumption.”This is sort of speaking in the family,”he said.”If there’s any press here, would you please shoot yourself? Leave. Do something.” Robertson then went on to speak favorably of Tammany Hall, the former political machine in New York, and the political machines in other big cities as models for the coalition’s activities.

In the speech, Robertson mocked Vice President Al Gore as”Ozone Al”and said House Democratic leader Dick Gephardt, D-Mo., was unelectable.”So I don’t think at this time and juncture the Democrats are going to be able to take the White House unless we throw it away,”he said.”But we have to get a responsible person and we have to realize some strategy.” Barry Lynn, executive director of Americans United, said the tape showed that the Christian Coalition”is nothing but a hardball Republican political machine with a thin veneer of religiosity. … The IRS should move promptly to remove the Christian Coalition’s provisional tax-exempt status.” Arne Owens, the coalition’s communications director, confirmed the accuracy of the remarks but said Robertson was speaking as”a private citizen.” The Christian Coalition, he said,”will not endorse a candidate. We do not tell people how to vote.” Robertson, in his remarks, suggested he was aware of the laws constraining partisan electoral activity.”I know that all these laws say that we’ve got to be careful, but there’s nothing that says we can’t have a few informal discussions among ourselves,”he said, prompting chuckles from the audience.

WCC tones down criticism of Shell in Nigeria

(RNS) The World Council of Churches, the leading Christian ecumenical agency, has retreated from threats of boycotting Shell International for conducting business in Nigeria.

The change also comes after Shell, which has considerable investments in the military-ruled country, met with WCC officials and assured them it was doing everything it could to economically help the Nigerian people and encourage the government to ease human rights restrictions.

Consequently, a 1996 WCC report that suggested member churches could”divest their shares in Shell”as a”practical demonstration of solidarity with the Nigerian people as well as an option consistent with Christian ethics,”was omitted from a new statement.

The newly crafted statement, issued during a meeting of the WCC’s central committee, also dropped an earlier recommendation that petroleum companies operating in the country”withhold their cooperation from the Nigerian government until … the rule of law is restored.” World Council officials said they changed their stance because they believed Shell officials were cooperating in their effort to help Nigerians, about 5,000 of whom work for the company. They also said they wanted to retain pressure on the government to ease abuses.”You can react emotionally and make Shell a scapegoat but I don’t think that is fair,”said Bishop Michael Stephen of the Methodist Church in Nigeria.”The pressure should be on the government.” Nonetheless, despite its willingness to meet WCC officials and improve services for the people of the oil-rich Ogoni region, the company remains the focus of some criticism for not having responded faster and refusing to take a tougher line with the government.”Shell should have shown more concern to the people, through compensation, health care and the like,”said the Rev. Joseph Omoyajowo of the evangelical Church of the Province of Nigeria.

The controversy over Shell’s drilling operations in Nigeria flared in 1995, after the government executed human rights activist Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight other Ognonis.

Professor urges TV news media to ditch `body bag’ reporting

(RNS) A former TV news producer has challenged the nation’s TV news media to abandon”body bag journalism”and the consultants who push stations to focus on crime reportage, while testing the theory that a different kind of journalism would improve a local station’s ratings.”Take the money you spend on consultants and hire a good young reporter and videographer,”said Robert Lissit, a professor at Syracuse University and a former news producer at ABC, NBC and PBS.”Use the young team on crime stories, and free a veteran team to do government stories and enterprise reporting. Cover education and consumer news and race relations. Do good, solid reporting. At the end of the year, I think your ratings may go up.” Lissit, who is with the Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse, made his remarks in the Everett C. Parker Ethics in Telecommunications Lecture sponsored by the United Church of Christ and the National Council of Churches.

Lissit criticized the”market-driven”approach to news gathering.”Market-driven news is giving the viewers what the stations think they want,”he said.”Some might ask if that isn’t simply representative democracy at work: `What could be more democratic than giving viewers what they want?’ My answer: `What could be more irresponsible, more cynical, more profoundly wrong.”

Quote of the day

(RNS)”I have never heard of one of our agencies stopping everything for three days to focus solely on worship and prayer. … We’ve spent plenty of time on programs and work but not a lot time on our knees.” John Avant, pastor of New Hope Baptist Church, Fayettville, Ga., on the Southern Baptist Convention’s North American Mission Board decision to shut down for three days of prayer and fasting.

MJP END RNS