c. 1997 Religion News Service
Promise Keepers: 500,000 already signed up for `Stand in the Gap’
(RNS) Officials at Promise Keepers, the evangelical men’s movement, say 500,000 men have so far signed up _ and $10 million has been raised _ for”Stand in the Gap,”a huge rally set for Oct. 4 on the National Mall in Washington.
Promise Keepers, which in recent years has drawn more than 2.6-million Christian men to stadiums across the nation for prayer, spiritual guidance and encouragement to be better husbands and fathers, hopes more than 1 million men will attend the fall event.”We are just planning a program for as many people who will come,”Promise Keepers spokesman Mark DeMoss said after a meeting with Washington officials and law enforcement organizations, the Washington Post reported Friday (Aug. 29).
The six-hour rally _ from noon to 6 p.m. _ will feature prominent evangelical speakers and music, but no politicians are scheduled to address the crowd.
Rally organizers say 90 percent of the Washington area’s 90,000 hotel rooms have been reserved for the weekend of the event, and many will be coming by chartered plane, trains and more than 6,000 buses.”This has the potential of being one of the biggest marches in the city’s history,”Sam Jordan, director of the D.C. Office of Emergency Preparedness, told the Post.
Disciples leader criticizes police beating of Haitian immigrant
(RNS) The Rev. Richard Hamm, general minister and president of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), has written a pastoral letter expressing his”outrage and sadness”over the alleged beating and torture of a Haitian immigrant by New York City police.
The immigrant, Abner Louima, is a member of Evangelical Crusade/Fishers of Men, a Disciples congregation in Brooklyn. The Rev. Philias Nicolas, the congregation’s senior pastor, is Louima’s uncle.
Louima, 30, was allegedly beaten and sexually brutalized by police in a police station bathroom on Aug. 9. According to Louima, police officers jammed the wooden handle of a toilet plunger into his rectum and his mouth after he was arrested on disorderly conduct charges. The charges were later dropped.
Louima remains hospitalized. On Friday (Aug. 29), hospital officials said they operated on him again to deal with complications from an earlier surgery to repair his battered body.”As Christians, and as citizens, I believe we must stand for zero tolerance of police abuse and for renewed commitment to public accountability of law enforcement officers and their agencies,”Hamm said in his pastoral letter.
He noted that in July the denomination’s general assembly adopted a resolution of police accountability that said while”the vast majority of law enforcement officers serve with accountability and integrity as they daily put themselves in harm’s way for the good of the community,”growing reports of incidents of police brutality are a cause for concern.”The United States,”Hamm said in the letter released Thursday (Aug. 28),”purports to be based upon freedom, justice, and the God-given equality of all persons.”But how can the nation live up to such a creed if its law officer operate outside the law and with no regard for the worth of persons?”he asked.
Top U.S. military official voices concern over land mine treaty
(RNS) Gen. John Shalikashvili, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has expressed his opposition to the proposed”fast-track”treaty that would place a comprehensive ban on the production, transfer, use and deployment of land mines.
Talks on the proposed treaty, which is being heavily pushed by religious groups and humanitarian aid agencies, are scheduled to begin Monday (Sept. 1) in Oslo, Norway, and the pact is expected to be signed in Ottawa, Canada, in early December.
The Clinton administration at first opposed the initiative, known as the Ottawa process. But on Aug. 18, the White House announced it was reversing itself and would join the Oslo talks, although it did not commit itself to signing the treaty.
Shalikashvili, the nation’s top military officer, said the United States had done more than any other country to rid the world of mines, including unilaterally giving up so-called”dumb”mines that do not self-destruct and spending more than $125 million in de-mining efforts around the world.”Yet somehow, we’ve managed to turn the argument around (so) that we are the bad guys on this issue,”the general told reporters Thursday (Aug. 28), according to the Washington Post.
The Pentagon wants any treaty banning land mines to include an exception allowing the United States to deploy mines along the border between South and North Korea and to allow for continued use of”smart”mines that self-destruct after a certain period.
Religious groups _ such as the U.S. Catholic Conference, Lutheran World Relief, World Vision, the Union of American Hebrew Congregations and Church World Service _ have generally opposed such exceptions.
In a separate development, Reuters reported Thursday (Aug. 28) that Germany has joined the more than 95 nations who have given their support to the Ottawa process and its goal of a comprehensive land mine ban.”Germany is deeply concerned by the human suffering caused by the proliferation of antipersonnel land mines,”Guenther Siebert, the nation’s ambassador to the United Nations-sponsored Conference of Disarmament, said in a speech in Geneva.”We vigorously support international efforts to combat and resolve the land mine problem.” Siebert also pledged that Germany would destroy all its antipersonnel land mines by the end of the year.
Black Baptist leader being urged to resign
(RNS) The Rev. Henry Lyons, scandal-embattled president of the National Baptist Convention, USA, is being urged to resign _ and some disgruntled members of the nation’s largest African-American Baptist body say they may try to force him out of office during the denomination’s upcoming annual meeting if Lyons doesn’t step down voluntarily.”I would hope the board (church leaders) would give him the option of stepping down,”the Rev. Moses Javis told USA Today.”But in our protest we’d ask him to resign and if he doesn’t resign, then we would vote him out.” The newspaper Friday (Aug. 29) identified Javis only as one of several Southern ministers who sent a letter to Lyons last week asking him to step down.
Lyons has been embroiled in controversy over allegations of financial and sexual misconduct. Some 12,000 church members are expected to gather in Denver for the denomination’s annual meeting, which begins Monday (Sept. 1).
As the allegations against Lyons have mounted, dozens of ministers from California to Tennessee have called on him to step down, or be ousted from his post as top leader of the 8.5 million-member denomination.
If his critics go through with their effort to remove Lyons, it would be the first time in the denomination’s 177-year history that a sitting president was asked to resign.
Lyons is not without his supporters, however.”He’s going to survive,”the Rev. Garret Wilkins, a pastor in Lyon’s hometown of St. Petersburg, Fla., told USA Today.”I feel that most of the members love him, and most of them still support him, and probably most of them feel he’s not guilty of anything.”
World Alliance of Reformed Churches gets three new members
(RNS) Three new churches have been admitted to membership in the World Alliance of Reformed Churches, raising the body’s membership to 211 denominations in 104 countries.
The new member churches are the Evangelical Church in the Dominican Republic, with 10,000 members; the United Church of Christ in the Solomon Islands, with 50,000 members; and the United Church of Christ Congregational in the Marshall Islands, with 30,000 members.
Quote of the day: seminary dean George H. Hunter
(RNS) George H. Hunter, dean and professor of evangelism and church growth at Asbury Theological Seminary, Wilmore, Ky., sharply criticized mainline Protestantism at a Vision 2000 conference sponsored by the United Methodist Church’s Board of Discipleship. Too many churches, he said, are stuck in the 1950s:”All our worship services are contemporary, but most are contemporary to some other generation.”
MJP END RNS
