c. 1998 Religion News Service
Archbishop Huddleston, apartheid foe, dead at 84
(RNS) Archbishop Trevor Huddleston, the Anglican priest who spent much of his life fighting apartheid and was among the first to alert the world to the system’s abuses, has died in northern England. He was 84.
Although no cause of death was immediately announced, Huddleston had suffered from diabetes for more than 50 years. “If you could say that anybody single-handedly made apartheid a world issue, then that person was Trevor Huddleston,”said Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the retired head of the Anglican archdiocese of Cape Town, South Africa, and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts against the South African system of racial separation.
Tutu described Huddleston as”just an incredible person”and said the world was”a very much better place”because of him.”He made sure that apartheid got on to the world agenda and stayed there,”Tutu said.
Huddleston was best known for his 1956 book,”Naught for Your Comfort,”based on his experience in Sophiatown and other South African townships where blacks were feeling the full impact of the apartheid regime imposed by the National Party government in 1948.
He was banned from South Africa in 1956 after the minority white government decided his presence was a threat to the apartheid system.”I had to declare myself in fully supporting the resistance movement of the African National Congress,”Huddleston once said in an interview about the organization, which was once decried as communist and terrorist and whose leader, Nelson Mandela, now heads the multiracial South African government.”I felt as a Christian priest that was what I had to do.” Ordained deacon in 1936 and priest in 1937, Huddleston joined the Community of the Resurrection, the Anglican religious community based in Mirfield, Yorkshire, in 1941, and was sent in 1943 to work in their South African mission.
In 1956, after being banned from South Africa, he returned to England and in 1959 became one of the founders of the Anti-Apartheid Movement.
In 1960, he went to Tanzania as Bishop of Masasi, returning to England in 1968 to work as Bishop of Stepney, one of the four bishops with responsibility for a section of the diocese of London, but in 1978 went overseas again to serve as bishop of Mauritius and archbishop of the Anglican province of the Indian Ocean, which covers Madagascar, Mauritius and the Seychelles.
He retired in 1983 and spent his retirement heading the Anti-Apartheid Movement. In May 1994, he was present for Mandela’s inauguration.
Archbishop of Canterbury George Carey described Huddleston as”a great campaigner for social justice in South Africa,”calling him”a man of simple lifestyle and a tireless compassionate advocate for the poor and marginalized.” In Geneva, World Council of Churches General Secretary Konrad Raiser called Huddleston”one of the most courageous Anglican clergyman of his generation”and said he played”an extraordinarily important role in helping the world’s churches see that they had to be involved in the anti-apartheid struggle.”
Christian Reformed Church reports membership drop
(RNS) The Christian Reformed Church, the theologically conservative denomination based in Grand Rapids, Mich., has reported its second largest membership drop in history, losing 6,835 members from its 1997 total of 285,864.
Conservatives in the church blamed the denomination’s fight over women’s ordination as the reason, saying conservatives were leaving to join a secession movement on the women’s issue.
But CRC General Secretary David Englehard, without specifically denying the cause, accused the conservatives of misrepresenting church positions”so that people will be more comfortable pulling out.””More and more congregations are finding out that a lot of the rhetoric of the churches that have seceded has been gross misrepresentations for their own purposes and the truth,”he said.
In particular, he said those leaving the church had misrepresented the denomination’s stands on abortion, homosexuality and creation science.
Since the debate over women in office erupted in 1992, the denomination has lost slightly more than 37,000 members.
The 1997-98 loss of 6,835 members _ 2.4 percent of its membership _ is second only to a 3.5 percent decline in 1993-94, when the church lost 11,000 members.
Australian churches condemn proposal to restrict Aboriginal land rights
(RNS) Australian church leaders have sharply criticized the government over proposed legislation they say would further restrict the land rights of the nation’s indigenous Aborigines, saying the proposal would do”immense harm to Australian society and to our international standing.””The rights of the indigenous Australians are too important to become the political focus of the next election,”said the senior leaders of the country’s Roman Catholic, Anglican, Baptist and Uniting Church denominations.
At issue is an interpretation by the Australian High Court of the country’s Native Title Act, which gives the Aboriginal minority the right of use or occupation of land based on traditional laws and customs, including access for any combination of the rights to live, hunt, fish and perform traditional ceremonies.
In 1996, the High Court ruled that leasehold land held by”pastoralists”_ white farmers who run cattle on vast tracts of land _ did not automatically override Aboriginal claims to native title.
In response to the ruling, the government has put forward a bill to amend the Native Title Act to make it harder for Aborigines to claim their land rights and to make the issue the focus of a general election that it is expected in the near future, said Ecumenical News International, the Geneva-based religious news agency.”Indigenous Australians are very much a minority in this country, unrepresented in a parliament that has debated away many of their rights,”the church leaders said.”It is incumbent upon all sides of politics to pay special attention to defending and promoting the rights of indigenous people and to respect their views,”they added, saying they were especially concerned that the legislature could have”even contemplated legislating away the notion of indigenous people’s spiritual connection with their land.” The statement, in the form of an open letter, was issued by Anglican Archbishop Peter Carnley of Perth; Roman Catholic Bishop Ted Collins of Darwin; the Rev. John Mavor, president of the Uniting Church; Gregor Henderson, general secretary of the General Assembly of the Uniting Church; and prominent Baptist pastor Tim Costello.
Presence of women bishops prompts Lambeth boycott
(RNS) Opposition to women bishops will lead at least two Anglican bishops _ and perhaps more _ to boycott the Lambeth Conference in July, the gathering of the nearly 800 bishops of the worldwide Anglican Communion held every 10 years.
The two staunchly traditional prelates are both British expatriates serving in Madagascar: Bishops Keith Benzies of Antsiranana and Donald Smith of Toamasina.
But Madagascar’s two indigenous bishops, Archbishop Remi Rabenirina of Antananarivo and Bishop Jean-Claude Andrianjafimanana of Mahajanga, told London’s Church Times they both plan to attend the conference.
The Anglican Communion now has 11 women bishops, including eight in the United States, two in Canada, and one in New Zealand.
The first was Bishop Barbara Harris, elected suffragan bishop of Massachusetts six weeks after the end of the 1988 Lambeth Conference. At that meeting, a significant minority of the bishops present _ 187 of 464 voting on the relevant resolution _ asked Anglican churches to refrain from ordaining women as bishops to avoid further division in the communion, which was _ and is _ already badly divided over the issue of women priests.
The Church Times said some 50 other traditionalist bishops are planning to boycott some elements of the conference, including worship services, Bible studies or working group sessions in which a woman bishop is taking part.
Quote of the Day: Christian youth club supporter Benny Proffitt
(RNS)”We believe that if we are to see America’s young people come to Christ and America turn around, it’s going to happen through our schools, not our churches.” _ Benny Proffitt, founder of First Priority, a Tennessee-based organization encouraging Christian youth clubs in public schools, as quoted in the April 27 issue of Time magazine.
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