c. 1998 Religion News Service
Texas Baptist board rejects church with gay deacon
(RNS) The executive board of the Baptist General Convention of Texas has voted to disassociate itself from a Southern Baptist church that ordained a gay deacon.”We cannot approve of churches endorsing homosexual practice as biblically legitimate,”said Charles Davenport, head of the committee that drafted the motion adopted by the 180-member board Tuesday (Feb. 24).
The University Baptist Church in Austin ordained a gay man, Hans Venable, as a deacon a few years ago.
He said his case was similar to the fight to permit blacks in his church to sit in the same pews with whites in the 1940s, the Associated Press reported.”I do see this as a very similar issue,”he said, noting that biblical arguments were made against blacks in the church in the past.
But Venable was hopeful the debate preceding the board vote would fuel discussion about the church and homosexuality.”I have to say that there are a lot of positive outcomes,”he said.”It’s just been such a wonderful opportunity to talk about our ministry and spread the debate further about how gays and lesbians can be safe in church, where they can be loved and participate fully.” The board’s motion requests the church remove claims to affiliation with the convention from its Internet site and literature. The convention also will no longer take donations from the church for missions efforts.
Larry Bethune, pastor of University Baptist, said the congregation will likely heed the requests.
Convention officials decided to vote on the matter after they learned in January the church’s Web site mentions its affiliation with the state group. The church also sparked controversy when it invited homosexuals to take part in Open Circle, a ministry for lesbians and gays.
Leaders of the convention said their vote did not condemn the church’s acceptance of gays.”We commend the church for their ministry, and we feel that churches should minister (to homosexuals),”said Davenport.”But ministering to is different than an affirmation of, and we interpret (the church’s activities) to be an affirmation of.” Bethune said the distinction was lost on him.”I don’t feel very commended as a church for our ministry to gays and lesbians today,”he said after the vote.”The convention has an odd way of showing it.”
U.S. religious delegation inquires about imprisoned Dalai Lama supporters
(RNS) A delegation of U.S. religious leaders has toured Tibet and sought information about the fate of imprisoned followers of the Dalai Lama.
The group met with the mayor of Lhasa and Tibet’s senior government official in charge of religious affairs on Tuesday (Feb. 24), said spokesman Walter Jennings. They also toured the Jokhang Temple, the holiest shrine in Tibetan Buddhism.
The delegation leaders _ Archbishop Theodore McCarrick of the Archdiocese of Newark, N.J., Rabbi Arthur Schneier of New York and the Rev. Don Argue, president of the National Association of Evangelicals in Carol Stream, Ill. _ have inquired about conditions in prisons and monasteries, Jennings said.
The clerics declined to provide details of their efforts to reporters”because they don’t want to be denied access to other officials and frustrate their results,”he said, the Associated Press reported.
The delegation is scheduled to leave Tibet on Thursday, with the four-day tour of that region ending a 19-day trip to China that came after an invitation from Chinese President Jiang Zemin.
Officials in China have mounted a campaign to discredit the Dalai Lama, Tibet’s exiled spiritual leader whom they accuse of seeking independence from Tibet. The Dalai Lama has said he seeks autonomy, not independence.
Cemolin Danzengchilie, who is regarded in Tibetan Buddhism as a reincarnated teacher, was quoted in the state-run Xinhua News Agency as telling the delegation:”I have faith in the Dalai Lama as a religious figure, but I object to his activities overseas aimed at splitting the motherland.” The delegation members have been visiting China to check into allegations that Christians, Buddhists, Muslims and other believers face government-orchestrated persecution because of their faith.
Promise Keepers, facing layoffs, releases tentative conference list
(RNS) Promise Keepers, the evangelical men’s ministry that recently announced plans to lay off its entire paid staff, has released its tentative list of men’s regional conferences for 1998.
Organization officials consider the schedule to be a”pretty good possibility,”considering the current financial straits of Promise Keepers, said Roger Chapman, a spokesman for the ministry.”Of course, nothing is written in stone,”he said.”I guess it would be entirely dependent on whether donations come in whether we’d be able to do these things. It’s not 100 percent, but these are our plans.” Bill McCartney, the group’s founder, announced Feb. 18 that the staff would be laid off as of March 31 because there was not enough money to pay them.
The schedule of conferences, from May to October, includes 10 new cities and arenas and stadiums that range in seating capacity from 9,000 to 85,000.”We’ve got men that are excited to have it in their back yard rather than having to travel,”Chapman said.
According to the Denver Post, McCartney said he has received $1 million in pledges _ from 1,000 churches agreeing to give $1,000 each _ to aid Promise Keepers. He said those pledges came before he announced Feb. 19 he believed it was God’s will”that every church that names the name of Jesus”should make such a donation.
The schedule of conferences is as follows: May 15-16, Detroit; May 22-23, Little Rock, Ark., and Los Angeles; June 5-6, Fresno, Calif.; June 12-13, St. Petersburg, Fla., and Knoxville, Tenn.; June 19-20, Columbia, Mo.; July 10-11, Philadelphia; July 17-18, Minneapolis; July 24-25, Indianapolis; July 31 to Aug. 1, Eugene, Ore.; Aug. 7-8, Omaha, Neb.; Aug. 14-15, Grand Rapids, Mich.; Aug. 21-22, Houston; Sept. 18-19, Tucson, Ariz.; Sept. 25-26, Milwaukee; Oct. 2-3, Columbia, S.C.; Oct. 9-10, Colorado Springs, Colo., and Sacramento, Calif.
American Center for Law and Justice now includes international cases
(RNS) The American Center for Law and Justice, a public interest law firm founded by religious broadcaster Pat Robertson in 1990, has expanded to include international cases.”Discrimination against people of faith is an international issue,”said Jay Sekulow, chief counsel for the ACLJ, in a statement.”In many countries, the government does not respect the religious beliefs and practices of its citizens, and in some cases, works to stifle and suppress those beliefs.” Sekulow also serves as chief counsel for the European Center for Law and Justice, the ACLJ’s international arm that began last summer. Established to defend human rights and religious liberties of Christians in Europe, the new division has offices in London and Strasbourg, France.
The ECLJ claimed its first legal victory in a case dealing with the rights of Greek citizens to express their religious beliefs freely.
The European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg announced Tuesday (Feb. 24) it had upheld the actions of several Greek military officers who shared their Christian beliefs with civilians. The case, Larissis, Mandalaridis, and Sarandis v. Greece, was a challenge to the Greek anti-proselytizing law that prohibits evangelism.”I believe it is clear that the European Court is concerned about protecting the religious liberties of Europeans _ even in the face of a hostile and discriminatory law,”said Warwick Montgomery, the senior counsel of the ECLJ who argued the case before the court last fall.
Sekulow said the ECLJ is working on other religious liberties cases in Germany, England and the former Soviet Union.
Scottish Anglican bishop urges rethinking of drug laws
(RNS) _ Bishop Richard Holloway of Edinburgh, head of the Scottish Episcopal Church, has added his voice to those calling for a government study rethinking Britain’s laws on illegal drugs.”There are more than echoes here of the ancient culture of sin and witchcraft that hold certain substances or natural activities to be wrong in themselves, inherently wicked,”Holloway said in a speech prepared for delivery Thursday (Feb. 26) but made public Wednesday.
Holloway thus added his voice to a growing number of religious and secular leaders questioning Britain’s current drug laws, especially as they apply to marijuana use.
Last May, for example, the general assembly of the (Presbyterian) Church of Scotland overwhelmingly endorsed a call for a royal commission to investigate the legalization of marijuana.
Holloway said part of the problem is that drugs are not wrong in themselves but can be misused.”The drugs that are now illegal substances in Britain and the United States were gradually outlawed for reasons that have as much to do with politics, class, and race as with the problematic qualities of the drugs themselves,”the bishop said.”If the moral calculus were based simply on the potential danger of any particular drug, then we would have outlawed the two most dangerous drugs on the market long ago _ alcohol and tobacco,”he added.
Holloway said the American experiment with Prohibition, under which alcohol was banned in the 1920s and early 1930s, was”the classic case study”of what happens when something people want is made illegal.”It entrenched and institutionalized crime in the United States on a scale that could not previously have been imagined,”he said.”By the time the Volstead Act (which imposed Prohibition) was repealed in 1933 the damage was done.” He also said that while a total ban on drugs did not seem to work, a totally libertarian approach could expose weaker members of society to dangers the they could not cope with.”Whether we approve or not, it seems to be the case that most people like to use drugs, euphoric or mind-altering substances, because of the pleasure they derive from doing so,”Holloway said.”However, some people all of the time and many people some of the time misuse these substances to a greater or lesser extent.
Holloway said the nation should look to other models than prohibition for its drug policy.”There is a middle way between absolute prohibition and absolute license, and we are already following it in our management of legal drugs,”the bishop said.
Graham autobiography named Christianity Today’s Book of the Year
(RNS) Billy Graham’s popular autobiography”Just As I Am”has been named the 1998 Book of the Year by Christianity Today.
The autobiography, published by HarperSanFrancisco/Zondervan, leads the evangelical magazine’s annual list of top 25 titles.
Others among the top five, are in order: “The Outrageous Idea of Christian Scholarship,”by George M. Marsden (Oxford University Press;”Revive Us Again: The Reawakening of American Fundamentalism”by Joel A. Carpenter (Oxford University Press);”What’s So Amazing About Grace?”by Philip Yancey (Zondervan); and”Defeating Darwinism by Opening Minds”by Phillip E. Johnson (InterVarsity).
The titles were chosen through a balloting process that included scholars, writers, pastors and other church leaders. The winners will be honored in the magazine’s annual issue on books that will be published April 27.
Quote of the Day: Television star Ellen DeGeneres
(RNS)”We’re getting every indication they’re not picking the show up. I’m gay, the character’s gay and that’s the problem everyone has with the show. It’s just too controversial. Nobody wants to deal with it.” Ellen DeGeneres, star of the ABC television show”Ellen,”which features an out-of-the-closet lesbian, predicting on”Entertainment Tonight”the show will not be back next fall.
DEA END RNS
