c. 1998 Religion News Service

Alabama court order on school prayer is appealed

(RNS) The American Center for Law and Justice, the conservative legal advocacy group founded by religious broadcaster Pat Robertson, said Thursday (March 19) it is joining an appeal seeking to overturn portions of a federal court order restricting state-sponsored prayer and religious activity in the public schools in DeKalb County, Alabama.”The federal court order is seriously flawed,”said Jay Sekulow, chief counsel of the ACLJ in announcing the appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit.”We are asking the appeals court to safeguard the free speech rights of public school students in Alabama.” The appeal, filed by Alabama Attorney General Bill Pryor on Wednesday, challenges portions of a ruling by U.S. District Court Judge Ira DeMent, who in October 1997 issued an order barring”religious activity in class, including vocal prayer, Bible and religious devotional or scriptural readings”and other forms of public religious activity in the schools.

The lawsuit challenging the DeKalb County practices and DeMent’s subsequent order have created a firestorm of political and religious controversy in Alabama. Republican Gov. Fob James offered to defy DeMent’s order by leading prayers at any pubic school that invited him but has since backed away from that stance.

Sekulow said the state’s appeal is asking the court to”clear the way for students to participate in constitutionally protected student-led and student-initiated”religious activities.

Movieguide winners:”Amistad,””Walker Texas … Ranger” (RNS) The CBS TV series”Walker Texas … Ranger”and DreamWorks Pictures'”Amistad”were the top winners of the Sixth Annual Movieguide Awards.

The annual awards presentation of the Christian Film and Television Commission, held Wednesday (March 18) in Universal City, Calif., honors feature films and TV shows for their social and spiritual values.

Both”Walker Texas … Ranger”and”Amistad”each won a $25,000 Epiphany Prize, sponsored by John Marks Templeton, the international financier who also sponsors the Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion, the world’s largest cash award.

Methodist agency asks for constitution change on baptism, membership

(RNS) The United Methodist Church’s Board of Discipleship will ask the denomination’s top governing body to amend the church’s constitution to change its definition of membership.

The proposed change is aimed at bringing the constitution in line with recommendations made in a theological paper”By Water and the Spirit: A United Methodist Understanding of Baptism,”which was adopted by the church’s General Conference _ its top legislative body _ in 1996.

The statement says that”God’s baptism”makes a person a member of the church, regardless of age.

Currently, the church’s Book of Discipline, which includes the church’s constitution and outlines membership criteria, states that all people”when they take the appropriate vows”are eligible for membership.

Although the 1996 General Conference adopted legislation implementing the”By Water and Spirit”understanding, the church’s Judicial Council, its highest court, said the legislation was unconstitutional, leaving the church’s theological understanding of baptism and membership and church law at odds with one another.

The”By Water and Spirit”statement affirms both sacramental and evangelical understandings of baptism, according to the Rev. Dan Benedict, an official with the Board of Discipleship. The sacramental reflects the belief that God makes an initiative toward people in baptism and the evangelical view holds that humans must profess the faith and affirm what God has done in baptism.

The dual understanding led the paper to call for granting church membership to all those baptized even if they had not yet made a profession of faith.

French diplomat urges Europe’s Protestants to support political unity

(RNS) A senior French diplomat has told a meeting of European church leaders they should be more active in supporting political efforts at unifying Europe.”The construction of Europe is an important arena for ecumenism, and the rapprochement between churches is an important factor in European integration,”said Francois Scheer, France’s ambassador to Germany.

Scheer made his comments at a symposium held by the Leuenberg Church Fellowship, which groups more than 90 Lutheran, Reformed, and United Methodist churches in Europe, Ecumenical News International, the Geneva-based religious news agency reported.”For a long time, we Protestants cultivated our difference,”the ambassador said.”But, as we now become aware of the problems which liberalism and individualism have brought to our countries, we must be enriched by our diversity and pay great attention to the quest for unity.” Heinrich Rusterholz, president of the executive committee of the Leuenberg Church Fellowship, echoed Scheer.”What unites us,”he said of the churches in the fellowship,”is the idea that Europe must be united sooner or later.” Protestant churches, said Rusterholz, can contribute the”values of freedom, of democracy, of human rights”to the European Union _ the grouping of 15 European nations seeking to create a more united Europe.

Court rejects worker’s religious pilgrimage timing

(RNS) A federal appeals court said Wednesday (March 18) that while a woman was entitled to time off from her department store job to go on a religious pilgrimage, she couldn’t do it during the store’s busy holiday season.

Saying that Mary Tiano’s timing of her pilgrimage to Medjugorje, Yugoslavia, where she hoped to see a vision of the Virgin Mary, was”a personal preference and not a part of her calling,”the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned a lower court’s award of damages against a Phoenix department store, the Associated Press reported.

Tiano, a devout Roman Catholic, said she had a”calling from God”in August 1988 to attend a pilgrimage planned that October to Medjugorje. She asked for unpaid leave from her job but was turned down because the store prohibited leaves during the October-December holiday season. She left anyway and returned about two weeks later, and was told she had resigned voluntarily. She was out of work more than a year.

U.S. District Court Judge Roger Strand had ruled that Tiano had suffered religious discrimination because the store refused to offer a reasonable accommodation to her religious beliefs.

But the appeals court, in a 2-1 decision, said Tiano had failed to show she needed to go on a pilgrimage at that particular time.

Quote of the day: The Rev. Thomas O’Malley

(RNS)”If you live in an atmosphere where you can speak about God and the creation and human liberty and responsibility, about sin and grace, about a judgment, if you can do that, then your `canvas’ is ever so much broader. You can talk about a lot of things that other folks talk not at all about, or talk about uncomfortably.” _ The Rev. Thomas O’Malley, president of Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, on what Catholic identity brings to a university, in an interview with the Los Angeles Time on Thursday (March 19).

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