c. 1998 Religion News Service
Florida school board reaches settlement over Bible courses
(RNS) The school board in Lee County, Fla., has reached a settlement agreement with members of the community over controversial elective Bible courses and will continue to offer them using a secular textbook.”Our board voted Wednesday (Feb. 25) evening in a special meeting to accept the plaintiffs’ offer of settlement and they signed off on that offer,”said Wayne Perry, public information officer for the district.
As of Friday, the agreement still awaited a judge’s approval.
The dispute pitted religious conservatives, who argued the Bible should be taught as historically accurate, against religious liberals, who argued that the Bible, while a historical document, is not necessarily accurate in its portrayal of history and teaching its history as fact represents a particular religious slant on history.
Carole Shields, president of People for the American Way Foundation, said she was pleased with the outcome. Her organization, along with the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida and the Florida law firm of Steel Hector & Davis sued the school board in December on behalf of parents and other county residents.”This settlement is a victory for the plaintiffs and for everyone in Lee County who cares about the First Amendment and religious liberty,”Shields said.”The plaintiffs have achieved what they set out to achieve in bringing this lawsuit: the withdrawal of the unconstitutional curricula adopted by the school board and, in their place, new and objective curricula for teaching students about the Bible.” The district plans to use a textbook called”Introduction to the Bible,”which is used for college introductory courses, Perry said. In addition, the district also will offer electives in world history and comparative religion.
The new courses will be audiotaped so plaintiffs can continue to monitor how the instruction is being handled. The elective Old Testament class that has been offered since Jan. 22 was also being videotaped for that purpose.
Perry said the current class will continue. But the New Testament class that had been scheduled to begin March 30 will be replaced with”An Introduction to the Bible Part II.” If the judge approves the settlement, Perry said the district will withdraw its appeal of the judge’s injunction that blocked plans for the previously scheduled New Testament class.
The plaintiffs said the former curricula taught the Bible was literally true and, thus, was unconstitutional.
Perry denied that was the case.”It never did, but they just didn’t believe that was possible to be done,”he said.”It was always being taught as one account, not the only account of history.”
Mexico expels another foreign priest from the volatile Chiapas region
(RNS) The government of Mexico has expelled another foreign priest from the volatile Chiapas area, charging the French Roman Catholic missionary with”unauthorized political activities.” Michel Henri Jean Chanteau, a 67-year-old priest who has worked in Chiapas for more than 30 years, was picked up by immigration authorities, taken to Mexico City and put on a plane for Paris, the government’s Interior Ministry said Thursday (Feb. 26).
Chanteau spent most of his missionary career in the village of Acteal in Chiapas. Acteal was the site of a Dec. 22 massacre where 45 Indian peasants were massacred.”He (Chanteau) has publicly expressed that the massacre of Acteal was a government plan to destroy the bases of support for the Zapatistas,”the Ministry said in its announcement.
The Zapatistas are a largely Indian group of peasants who have been waging a generally non-violent campaign against the government demanding better living conditions and more democracy in Mexico.
Chanteau was the fourth foreign cleric or human rights worker deported by Mexico in the past two weeks as part of what the government says is a crackdown on foreigners interfering in Mexican politics. The other three were Americans and all were sympathetic with the Zapatista cause, according to wire service reports.”We energetically protest this new aggression against the diocese of San Cristobal while impunity continues for public officials and members of the paramilitary groups responsible for the massacre and other murders in the state of Chiapas,”the Roman Catholic diocese of San Cristobal de las Casas said in a statement protesting Chanteau’s expulsion.
Senate committee approves bill protecting tithes
(RNS) The Senate Judiciary Committee unanimously approved a bill Thursday (Feb. 26) that would protect tithes and pledges received by churches from creditors of people who file for bankruptcy.
The bill was co-sponsored by Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, the committee chairman, and Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa. It is considered one of the first attempts to reinstitute protections under the 1993 Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which was voided by the Supreme Court in 1997, the Associated Press reported.
Since the high court’s decision, courts have asked several churches to surrender money to creditors from donors who declared bankruptcy.”Such judicial action seriously threatens the ability of religious institutions not only to function but to survive,”Hatch said in a statement.
The bill would bar federal bankruptcy judges from making churches and other tax-exempt charities return donations of up to 15 percent of a debtor’s gross annual income. The measure also would protect post-bankruptcy tithing.
Rep. Ron Packard, R-Calif., has introduced a companion bill in the House, co-sponsored by more than 100 members.
No date has been set for the vote by the whole Senate.
Group of Anglican bishops urge go-slow approach to ban on fox hunting
(RNS) Six of the Church of England’s 44 diocesan bishops have called for a thorough investigation into fox hunting by an impartial body such as a Royal Commission before any legislation banning hunting is enacted by Parliament.
Legislation to ban hunting with hounds was given preliminary approval in the House of Commons on November 28 by a vote of 411-151.
But it is considered very unlikely the bill will become law because the Labor government of Prime Minister Tony Blair is not making it a priority nor setting aside parliamentary time for its consideration.
However, the government has said it would favor similar legislation being brought before Parliament within the next two years.”We believe that, because the proposed legislation would cause far-reaching changes to rural communities, it should be introduced only when the issues have been thoroughly and impartially examined by a formal process of investigation,”the six bishops said in a letter to the Daily Telegraph newspaper Wednesday (Feb. 25).
All of the bishops are from rural dioceses and said they were”deeply concerned”about the possible consequences of such legislation.
Some English Anglican religious leaders and other faith-based groups have called for outlawing the sport of fox hunting.
Cooperative Baptist Fellowship expands services
(RNS) The Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, a moderate Baptist group, is expanding its services, saying it will soon offer increased benefits to ministers in its ranks and has already begun endorsing chaplains.
The first chaplain to be endorsed by the fellowship was a woman, Paula Peek, the chaplain coordinator for Hospice Care Plus in Richmond, Ky.
The changes in the fellowship, begun in 1991 as a protest movement of moderate Southern Baptists to the conservative leadership of the Southern Baptist Convention, were discussed during the fellowship’s Coordinating Council meeting Feb. 19-21 in Atlanta, reported Associated Baptist Press, an independent news service.
The decisions come a year after the fellowship was forced to make cuts in its budget due to an unexpected shortfall in contributions to the group’s work.
The council approved a $14.8 million operating budget for 1998-99. If approved by the fellowship’s general assembly this summer, it would limit spending to 90 percent of budget levels during the first seven months of the fiscal year.
Council members authorized fellowship officials to implement a retirement-benefits program to ministers and staffers of”member churches and other affiliated organizations.” Although the fellowship has declined to become a convention or denomination, the organization has branched out from its original goal of offering alternative missions programs and a means to give money to specific SBC agencies. The SBC no longer accepts funds from the fellowship.
The chaplain endorsements were announced by a new committee that has been charged with endorsing chaplains.
Ed Beddingfield, chair of the council on endorsement, said it was”significant”that the first chaplain endorsed by the group was a woman.
Peek said the fellowship’s decision last summer to become a chaplain-endorsing entity provided”a welcome and timely opportunity for me and others who do not want Southern Baptist Convention endorsement.” In addition to Peek, the fellowship has endorsed four male chaplains.
The fellowship supports the right of women to minister in all roles, including as pastors. The Southern Baptist Convention passed a resolution in 1984 that encouraged women to serve in church work”other than pastoral functions and leadership roles entailing ordination.” Quote of the day: Alaska Superior Court Judge Sen Tan
(RNS)”The maturity or immaturity of minors and their capacity for decision making does not diminish the right of privacy of that person.” Alaska Superior Court Judge Sen Tan in a ruling released Thursday (Feb. 26) striking down the state’s law that would have mandated parental or judicial approval for a minor to get an abortion.
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