c. 1998 Religion News Service

`Hell House’ adds the Oval Office to its Halloween horror show

(RNS)”Hell House,”the controversial, widely-publicized Halloween show staged by a fundamentalist Denver-area church, is adding a scene about the White House scandal to its depictions of the evils the church believes afflict contemporary America.”We’ll have an Oval Office scene and a married couple playing Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky,”said the Rev. Kenneth Roberts of Abundant Life Christian Center in Arvada, Colo. Roberts is director and founder of Hell House.”Three demon spirits _ lies, lust and adultery _ will show the undoing of the president of the United States,”he added.

But he said the Oval Office scene will be suggestive rather than the sometimes all-too-real scenes usually portrayed in Hell House. “Everyone knows all the details,”he said.”So we’ll concentrate on the demons.” Hell House, now in its fourth year, has stunned, scared and sickened observers with such scenes as a car accident caused by drunken driving and an operating room showing a woman getting an abortion. It depicts hell with people writhing and screaming in misery.

Roberts said this year’s script is brand new but still retains its anti-abortion, anti-gay messages. The abortion, for example, will be set in the womb of the mother, giving the viewer an idea of what her aborted fetus would have become”if her mother had not killed her,”Roberts said.

But in addition to those scenes and the new Oval Office scene, the show also will depict a shooting in a high school cafeteria.”We have not and will not shy away from controversial issues,”Roberts said.”People need to know where the church stands on the issues of the day.”

Supreme Court begins new session with issues of religious interest

(RNS) The Supreme Court opened its new session Monday (Oct. 5) and rejected an appeal whose goal was to force a Minnesota church to return $13,450 in donations from a bankrupt couple.

The court will be making decisions on a number of others cases on topics of concern to religious groups, including welfare reform, sexual harassment, census regulations and immigration issues.

On Monday, the court rejected two cases dealing with churches, the Associated Press reported.

In the federal bankruptcy matter, the court refused, without comment, to use the case to clarify its 1997 decision striking down the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which had made it more difficult for government to interfere with how Americans practice their faith.

By leaving intact decisions that stopped attempts by the couple’s creditors to recover the money, the court’s action today appeared to have been prompted by a new federal law protecting religious donations in bankruptcy proceedings.

Also on Monday, the court turned aside an appeal by a Baptist minister in Texas who had sex with two women while giving them marriage counseling.

Without comment, the justices rejected Shelby Baucum’s argument that a federal jury violated his religious freedom by ruling he had committed malpractice and violated his fiduciary duties. Baucum, the now-resigned pastor of Casa View Baptist Church in Dallas, must pay each woman $115,000.

Meanwhile, the court opened its session with religious tradition and atypical protests outside its doors.

Four of the justices, including Chief Justice William Rehnquist, attended the Red Mass held on the Sunday before the term begins.

Speaking at the Cathedral of St. Matthew the Apostle in Washington, Cardinal Francis George, the archbishop of Chicago, seemed to challenge the listeners who will deal with upcoming court cases.”Today, as yesterday and tomorrow, the church speaks a language of respect for all public office holders, whose vocation is shaped by the constraints of law,”he said.”But the church, today as yesterday and tomorrow, also speaks as best she can to judge the actions and decision of public officials and the culture shaped by them when these are inadequate to the vision given us by the truths of faith.” As the court began its work on Monday, more than 1,000 protesters called on the court to hire more minority law clerks.

The Rev. Staccato Powell, associate general secretary for national ministries of the National Council of Churches, was among the rally participants.”The law clerks serving the U.S. Supreme Court need to be much more reflective of the fabric of America,”Powell said in a statement prior to the protest.”Law clerks actually shape the decisions made by the courtâÂ?¦”

Teen pleads guilty but mentally ill in prayer circle shootings

(RNS) A judge accepted pleas of guilty but mentally ill Monday (Oct. 5) from a Kentucky teen-ager accused of firing shots at a high school prayer circle group that killed three students and injured five more.

Michael Adam Carneal of Paducah told McCracken Circuit Judge Jeff Hines that he understood the pleas and had agreed to enter them.

The bespectacled 15-year-old was charged in the shootings at Heath High School last Dec. 1. The judge scheduled the sentencing for Dec. 16, the Associated Press reported.

Under a plea arrangement, the judge agreed to accept the pleas on the condition that the maximum penalty of life in prison with no possibility of parole for 25 years would be imposed.”It’s been a difficult case for everyone involved,”Commonwealth’s Attorney Tim Kaltenbach said after the hearing.

Defense lawyer Tom Osborne said Carneal is suffering from paranoia and a schizophrenia-like personality disorder, but he did not believe the defendant’s decision was affected by the mental illnesses.

Prosecutors and the families of the victims originally had opposed the idea of Carneal pleading guilty but mentally ill. Such a plea comes with a life term with the possibility of parole in as soon as 12 years, while a verdict of guilty to murder without the finding of mental illness carries a term of life with possible parole only after 25 years.

None of the relatives of the victims strongly disagreed with the plea arrangement that came with a higher minimum sentence.”He’s definitely going to serve 25 years,”said Kaltenbach.

Defense attorney Chuck Granner read a statement on behalf of Michael’s parents, John and Ann Carneal:”The Carneal family has sought nothing but the truth from the very beginning. The family was determined to do the right thing for themselves, for their son _ but most important for these victims.”

Dutch theologian: praying to Jesus is wrong

(RNS) A noted Dutch theologian says it is inappropriate to pray directly to Jesus.”One cannot pray to Jesus,”the Rev. Harry Kuitert, retired professor of theology from the Free University of Amsterdam and retired minister of the Reformed Churches in the Netherlands. To pray to Jesus, he said,”is a gross heresy _ Jesus only points back to God.” Kuitert made his comments in a new book about Jesus.”Jesus was a Jew, a follower of the Jewish faith and not God himself,”Kuitert maintains.

The book is already creating a stir in the Netherlands as Kuitert, a widely published writer on ethics and theology, is considered one of the most widely-read contemporary theologians in the country. For many Dutch Christians, Kuitert has provided inspiration for remaining in the church, Ecumenical News International reported.

In the book, Kuitert says it is inappropriate to pray to Jesus because”Jesus supported the Jewish view of God, so he never saw himself as God-on-earth. He is not a Second God, nor the Second Person in the Holy Trinity.” But ENI said a number of clergy in the Reformed Churches are planning to publish an”open letter”later this year challenging Kuitert’s view and providing a”positive witness about Jesus, the Son of God.”

Update: Christians march in New Delhi to protest alleged persecution

(RNS) Hundreds of Christians, many wearing black armbands, marched in New Delhi on Saturday (Oct. 3) to protest what they called rising”atrocities”against their minority community.”The community expressed its concerns (about) the alarming increase of atrocities on Christians in various parts of the country,”the Christians said in a statement submitted to Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, Reuters reported.

The statement was signed by Archbishop Alan de Lastic and three other Roman Catholic bishops.

The protest was sparked by an incident last month in which an unidentified gang broke into a convent and raped four nuns in the remote Jhabua district of the central state of Madhya Pradesh.

But Christians contend the incident is not an isolated one and they gave the government a list of 35 incidents of violence directed at Christians over the last three months.”In the face of such permeating and unrelenting violence patently designed to coerce Christians and hinder profession of their faith and social outreach program, the Christians in India are beginning, for the first time since independence (in 1947) to feel threatened,”the statement to the government said.

About 3 percent of India’s 930 million people are Christians and about 12 percent are Muslim. Most of the rest are Hindu.

Quote of the day: The Rev. Herbert W. Chilstrom

(RNS)”Anyone who has been in a position of high and visible leadership in government knows the power of temptation. Money. Power. Sex _ that subtle, unholy trinity of evil is a constant threat. To be tempted is one thing; to fall is another. To fall once and be sorrowful is one thing; to fall again and again and only admit to an `inappropriate relationship’ when one is caught is another.” _ The Rev. Herbert W. Chilstrom, former presiding bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America in a Sept. 1 personal letter to President Clinton urging Clinton to resign.

DEA END RNS