c. 1997 Religion News Service
Study: people dropping less of their income into offering baskets
(RNS) A new, comprehensive study of church giving patterns has found that the overall percentage of income church members give declined slightly between 1994 and 1995 to 2.46 and was sharply below that of 1968, when church members gave 3.11 percent of their income.
The study,”The State of Church Giving through 1995,”by John and Sylvia Ronsvalle of empty tomb, inc., a Christian research organization, in part looked at giving in 29 denominations. It said that if members had continued to give at the 1968 rate in 1995, the typical annual contribution per member would have been $629.69 instead of the current $498.20 and the aggregate giving would have been $18.8 billion rather than the current $14.4 billion.
In another part of the study, the Ronsvalles compared giving in eight denominations belonging to the National Association of Evangelicals and eight denominations belonging to the more liberal National Council of Churches.
They found that giving by evangelicals had declined from 6 percent of income in 1968 to 4 percent in 1995. Mainline members, who historically give at lesser rates, had a smaller decline _ from 3.3 percent in 1968 to 2.9 percent in 1995.
Although the study did not pinpoint reasons for the decline in giving by evangelicals, Sylvia Ronsvalle suggested it could mean that evangelical Christians are moving more toward the cultural mainstream. Non-denominational groups, which have proliferated among evangelical Christians in the past few decades, may also be claiming more dollars.
Update: Billy Graham leaves Florida hospital
(RNS) The Rev. Billy Graham was discharged from a hospital in Jacksonville, Fla., Tuesday (Dec. 9) after a weeklong stay caused by a respiratory infection.
The 79-year-old famed evangelist left St. Luke’s Hospital at mid-afternoon with instructions to continue to take oral antibiotics to prevent a reoccurrence of the infection. Graham made no comment upon leaving the hospital.
A statement issued by St. Luke’s said Graham is expected to remain in the Jacksonville area”for a short time for some additional rest and relaxation”before heading home to North Carolina in time for Christmas.”We have been encouraged by Dr. Graham’s quick recovery,”said Dr. Charles Burger, one of the evangelist’s doctors.
Graham was hospitalized Dec. 3 after experiencing fever, chills and discolored sputum while on vacation in the Caribbean.
Saddam Husseim to build world’s largest mosque
(RNS) Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein has approved plans for the construction of what would be the world’s largest mosque _ a facility expected to hold 30,000 worshippers and be named after him.”Saddam Grand Mosque”will be built in Baghdad, the Iraqi capital, and have four minarets and an artificial lake shaped like a map of the Arab world, al-Thawra, the official newspaper of the ruling Baath party said Tuesday (Dec. 9).
No cost was given for the project, but the Associated Press reported that Hussein has decreed that a large mosque bearing his name be built in each of Iraq’s 18 provinces.
The announcement of plan approval comes as Iraq has stepped up its complaints that U.N. trade sanctions stemming from Hussein’s 1990 ill-fated invasion of Kuwait are claiming the lives of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children who lack basic food and health care.
Iraq claims the sanctions _ imposed on Baghdad until its reveals the whereabouts of all its weapons of mass destruction _ have devastated its economy, leaving the government and civilians without the means to pay for basic needs.
The world’s largest existing mosque holds 18,000 and is in Morocco. However, the Grand Mosque of Mecca in Saudi Arabia _ which contains the Kaaba, Islam’s holiest shrine _ can hold up to 1 million people in adjacent open areas.
No starting date for the Saddam Grand Mosque project was announced. The idea of building the mosque was first proposed two years ago.
Jesuit head warns of growing East-West church division
(RNS) The head of the Jesuit religious order has warned that a denominational”iron curtain”threatens to further divide Orthodox Christianity and Western churches.
The Rev. Peter-Hans Kolvenbach, father-general of the 22,000-member Society of Jesus, the Roman Catholic Church’s largest religious order, blamed the problem on the Orthodox Church, which he said”treats the East as its own inalienable territory.” Kolvenbach, who is headquartered in Rome, made his comments recently in Hungary, ENI, a Geneva-based religious news agency, reported Friday (Dec. 5.)”After a thousand years of division and distrust, can we say we are becoming more united for the year 2000? Division seems to predominate within the churches themselves,”he said.
Kolvenbach’s remarks about Orthodoxy reflected growing Catholic concern over a recent Russian law that gives legal preference to the Russian Orthodox Church. The law threatens to stifle the activities of non-Russian Orthodox church groups in Russia, including the Catholic Church.
Kolvenbach was also downbeat about the possibility of further Catholic-Protestant reconciliation in the West. Rather than achieving”unity in Christ,”Catholic-Protestant dialogue has moved toward”mutual recognition of diversity,”he said.
Pope reportedly will visit the Americas in 1998
(RNS) Pope John Paul II is reportedly planning to visit North and South America sometime in 1998.
The only stop on the trip revealed so far is the Mexican shrine city of Guadalupe, Reuters news agency reported Tuesday (Dec. 9), citing unnamed church sources. No dates were give.
The pope’s visit would be a follow up to the current Vatican synod of North and South American bishops. The synod is discussing problems faced by Catholics in the Western Hemisphere as the church approaches the year 2000.
A majority of the nearly 300 bishops at the meeting voted for Guadalupe as their choice for the pope to visit as a follow up to the synod. A papal visit to the area is customary following a regional synod.
School cancels prayer meeting in wake of shooting in Kentucky
(RNS) A student prayer group that meets at the western Kentucky high school in Madisonville has been canceled because of a threat made to one of the students less than a week after the shooting at the high school in West Paducah, Ky., left three students dead.
Principal James L. Stevens announced Monday (Dec. 8) that students in the prayer group decided to cancel meetings until sometime next year. One student in the group received threatening phone calls after last week’s fatal shootings at Heath High School in West Paducah, according to the Washington Times.
Usually 25 to 30 students attend meetings at Madisonville-North Hopkins High School.
Stevens said one of the students reported receiving threatening phone calls at home. And another student was suspended for what Stevens called an”inappropriate comment.”There have been no reported threats in the school.”Those (threats) have been turned over to the Madisonville Police Department,”Stevens said.
Police are continuing their investigation of the shootings at Heath High.
First Catholic cardinal in Africa dead at 85
(RNS) Bishop Laurean Rugambwa, the first African to become a cardinal in the Roman Catholic Church, died Monday (Dec. 8) in Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania. He was 85.
Rugambwa became archbishop of Dar-es-Salaam in 1968 and served there until his retirement in 1992. The Vatican did not announce the cause of death, Reuters reported.
Rugambwa was born in Bukongo under the Nsiba tribe in what was then called Tanganyika, a part of Tanzania. A product of missionary education, he became a Catholic in his youth and was made a bishop in 1951. Later, Pope John XXIII made him the continent’s first cardinal.
Quote of the day: TV journalist Bill Moyers
(RNS)”No beat (in journalism) is more important and more neglected.” Emmy Award-winning television journalist Bill Moyers in a recent speech at Presbyterian College, Clinton, S.C.
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