c. 1998 Religion News Service

PCA to study women in combat, length of creation day

(RNS) At its annual meeting last week, the Presbyterian Church in America voted to establish a study committee on the role of women in the military and an advisory committee to determine whether the six-day creation story in the biblical book of Genesis consisted of literal 24-hour days.

Also at the meeting, which ended Friday (July 3) in St. Louis, commissioners, or delegates, elected for the first time in 10 years a new stated clerk, the 300,000-member denomination’s top executive.

The request for the advisory committee to study the length of creation days came from two regional presbyteries, one of which, the Westminster Presbytery in eastern Tennessee and western Virginia, bars the ordination of pastors who hold views other than a 24-hour creation day.”Westminster Presbytery considers that any view which departs from the confessional doctrine of creation in six 24-hour days strikes at the fundamentals of the system of doctrine set forth in the holy Scriptures,”the presbytery said in making the overture, adding that”the culture in which we live has been permeated with evolutionary thinking which in unbiblical.” The 11-member advisory committee will issue a non-binding report.

Acting on the third straight request from the Presbyterian and Reformed Joint Commission on Chaplains and Military Personnel to study the role of women in the military, commissioners voted to study the issue. The PRJC is asking the PCA, the Orthodox Presbyterian Church and the Reformed Presbyterian Church in North America to adopt positions on the matter.

Some in the denomination believe the Bible prohibits women in combat, others are concerned over the close quartering of men and women in military life.

The seven-member study committee will present its findings at next year’s General Assembly in Louisville.

Also at the four-day meeting, the 1,290 commissioners elected the Rev. L. Roy Taylor, 53, as the church’s new stated clerk.

Taylor, a theology professor at Reformed Theological Seminary in Jackson, Miss., is the 25-year-old denomination’s third stated clerk. He said his priorities will be to maintain doctrinal purity and”peace and harmony”within the PCA.

The PCA is a theologically conservative evangelical denomination that formed in 1973, when 260 churches withdrew from the more liberal Southern Presbyterian Church before its merger with the United Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A., which eventually became the 2.6 million-member Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). The PCA, one of the nation’s fastest-growing denominations, has 1,356 churches in 48 states and seven Canadian provinces.

British Methodists, Anglicans ready talks at healing differences

(RNS) Britain’s Anglicans and Methodists are ready to once again initiate talks aimed at healing the 18th-century schism that separated the Methodists from the Church of England.

But the new round of talks, agreed to last November by the Church of England’s general synod and at the end of June by the Methodist Conference of Great Britain, are aimed less at merging the two church bodies as to laying the foundations on which a unity plan might be built.

The split between Methodism, an Anglican reform movement, and the Church of England came in 1784, when Methodist founder Charles Wesley began ordaining ministers.

There are some Methodist misgivings over the Church of England’s present inability to accept women bishops. Women have been ordained to the priesthood in the Church of England since 1994, but for women to become bishops would require new legislation be passed by its general synod and approved by Parliament _ a time-consuming business that would probably take at least three years.

Women serve at all levels of ministry in the Methodist church.

But in approving the decision to go ahead and restart talks with the Anglicans, the Methodist Conference also reaffirmed its commitment to women’s ministry at every level in the church.

The cautious approach to unity talks between Anglicans and Methodists reflects the painful experience of the failures of unity plans in 1969 and 1972 within the Church of England.

A third, broader unity plan failed to gain the necessary support from the Church of England’s synod in 1982. That plan would have involved the Church of England and the Methodist Church, along with the Moravian Church, the United Reformed Church and the Churches of Christ, entering into a covenant to work toward unity.

U.N. religious rights envoy to visit Vietnam

(RNS) Vietnam has invited Abdelfattah Amor, the United Nations special representative on religious intolerance, to visit the country, Vietnam’s foreign ministry announced Monday (July 6).

A spokeswoman for the ministry said Amor was asked to visit so that”he will have conditions for a better understanding about the policies and laws as well as the real situation for religion in Vietnam.” The trip is currently scheduled for October.

Vietnam has come under criticism by human rights groups and some Western governments who have accused it of detaining people for the peaceful expression of religious beliefs.

And the Roman Catholic Church has complained that priests face travel restrictions and that the government has delayed approval for new priests while imposing strict limits on the number of youths allowed to enter seminaries.

Last month, Communist Party leader Le Kha Phieu, Vietnam’s top official, said there remained some religious intolerance among party members.

Some of that intolerance stems from the staunch anti-communism of the Catholic Church and its close identification with the American-backed regime in South Vietnam during the Vietnam War-era.

Humanitarian groups call for Sudan bombing moratorium

(RNS) World Vision, the evangelical relief agency, and the U.S. Committee for Refugees, have issue a plea for an immediate moratorium on all bombing in southern Sudan.”The ariel bombings in the region are inhibiting the humanitarian response, thus limiting food and humanitarian assistance from reaching civilians who are traumatized by sporadic violence, exacerbating the famine conditions,”said Roger Winter, executive director of the U.S. Committee for Refugees.

Southern Sudan, populated largely by Christians and animists, has been waging a struggle for independence from the largely Muslim north.

The protracted fighting has left an estimated 2.6 million southern Sudanese at risk of dying from famine, according to the World Food Program, up from 350,000 just two months ago.

Update: Penthouse stands by `substance’ of Episcopal church story

(RNS) While still acknowledging it wouldn’t have printed the story if it knew then what it knows now, Penthouse magazine said Monday (July 6) it”stands behind the substance”of a 1996 article alleging sexual misconduct by Episcopal priests in Brooklyn, N.Y.

The Penthouse article prompted the resignation from the priesthood of the Rev. William Lloyd Andries, the focus of the article that alleged he and other Episcopal priests participated in homosexual orgies and same-sex marriage ceremonies with young Brazilian men.

Penthouse editor Peter Bloch sent a June 11 letter to Andries regarding the story to settle a suit brought by Andries against the magazine.

In the letter, Bloch referred to an investigation conducted on behalf of the Long Island diocese, which found that most of the allegations in the article were completely or largely untrue.”Penthouse has now had the opportunity to obtain information … that was not previously available and to read the diocesan report of the Episcopal Church of its investigation,”the letter from Bloch to Andries reads.”Had this information been available to Penthouse, we would not have published the article that appeared in the December 1996 issue. Having received this additional information, Penthouse regrets that it was not available before the article was published.” Nevertheless, on Monday (July 6) Bloch issued a statement insisting the magazine had not retracted the story.”The editor of Penthouse did not retract the article or admit anything,”said the statement.”No one at the magazine has apologized to Mr. Andries. The magazine stands behind the substance of the story.” Bloch’s statement was issued after a July 1 report by RNS on the suit’s settlement.

Bloch also disagreed with past statements by Andries, who has said he never was asked by the magazine or the article’s author, Rudy Maxa, to respond to allegations against him.”That is totally untrue,”he said.”Maxa did indeed call Andries several times to get his response to the accusations that were being made against him. Andries never returned the calls.”Penthouse’s original story said Andries”did not return repeated calls for comment.” Quote of the Day: a sign in Florida

(RNS)”Hell Broke Loose. Our Angels Took Care of Us.” _ A sign in a front yard on U.S. 1 near Scottsmoor, Fla., where wildfires have driven thousands from their homes, reported by USA Today in its July 6 edition.

DEA END RNS