c. 1999 Religion News Service

African-American megachurch leaves United Methodist Church

(RNS) The pastor of an African-American megachurch outside Washington, D.C., has decided to start a new congregation and leave the United Methodist Church.

The Rev. C. Anthony Muse resigned as pastor of Resurrection Prayer Worship Center of the United Methodist Church in Brandywine, Md., effective Nov. 22, the office of Bishop Felton May announced. May is the United Methodist bishop of the Baltimore-Washington Conference.

Muse, a former Maryland state delegate, is starting a new church, called Ark of Safety Christian Church, and is leaving behind an unfinished building with an indebtedness of $6 million, the conference said.

In an October letter, Muse announced his church council had voted unanimously to make the move.

When Muse resigned, the church seemed to be”seriously in arrears”on payments for the church, said the Rev. Jim Knowles-Tuell, conference treasurer, in a statement. Muse’s letter had said the church’s debt service amounted to $55,000 a month.

May, who accepted Muse’s resignation with regret, appointed two interim pastors, one of whom, the Rev. Hal T. Henderson, is the associate pastor of Resurrection Prayer Worship Center. About 90 people attended a prayer service on Nov. 28, the first Sunday after Muse’s resignation, while Muse conducted his first service elsewhere.

In 1998, the church reported having a membership of 4,259 and an average attendance at Sunday worship of 1,625.

Henderson said Muse originally planned to attempt to take Resurrection Prayer Worship Center from the denomination but later opted for starting a new, nondenominational church.”Pastor Muse changed his mind and withdrew and took a portion of the congregation with him,”said Henderson.”Those who weren’t going, they just stayed put.” In his October letter, Muse said he believed the church agencies should have given him more money to help with new construction.

May responded to Muse’s complaint by saying the denomination had given the church more than $1 million in loans and security deposits.”Few congregations in the entire denomination … have been the beneficiary of such generosity,”May said.

Aum Shinrikyo takes responsibility, apologizes for deadly gas attacks

(RNS) Japan’s Aum Shinrikyo movement has taken responsibility and apologized for the deadly 1995 poison gas attack it launched in Tokyo’s subway and other such incidents.”We now offer our sincere apology for the victims and their family members,”Tatsuko Muaoka, the group’s acting leader, said in a statement Wednesday (Dec. 1). She also said Aum Shinrikyo would offer”as much compensation as possible”for the attack, but declined to elaborate.

The admission marked the first time the group has taken responsibility for the attack, which killed 12 and sickened thousands in March 1995. Seven people were killed in an Aum Shinrikyo attack in the city of Matsumoto in 1994.

A number of group members have been convicted of launching the attack and others are currently on trial, among them Shoko Asahara, the former Aum Shinrikyo guru.

A bill in the Japanese parliament would provide for monitoring groups such as Aum Shinrikyo and is expected to become law by year’s end. The relatives of victims of the subway attack speculated that the expected law is probably what prompted Muaoka’s statement.

The group has about 2,100 remaining members, according to the Associated Press.

Pope warns of”disastrous consequences”if traditional family abandoned

(RNS) Pope John Paul II warned Wednesday (Dec. 1) of”disastrous consequences”if society abandons the traditional family based on the marriage of a man and a woman.

Speaking to some 7,000 pilgrims attending his weekly general audience, the Roman Catholic pontiff urged”not only believers but all men of goodwill”to reflect on the value of matrimony and the family in preparation for Holy Year 2000.”Some sectors of society question the very understanding of the family as a stable community founded on marriage between a man and a women,”John Paul said.”New definitions of marriage and the family are being put forward which foster narrow individualism and ethical relativism.” Blaming”the crisis of the family”on”the crisis of society,”he cited loneliness, violence and drugs as”pathological phenomena”that attack the traditional family unit.

But, he warned,”Where the family gives way, society lacks its connective tissue with disastrous consequences that attack people, particularly the weakest, from children to adolescents to the handicapped, the sick and the elderly.” The pope also reiterated the church’s opposition to all forms of artificial birth control. He called the birth of a child”the maximum expression of the communion of man and woman.””The family is founded on genuine love between a man and a woman, a love which is open to new life,”he said.”Children must be seen as a blessing from God and the fruit of the love by which parents play a part in God’s creative plan.” In Bologna, Sergio Lo Giudice, the president of Arcigay, Italy’s national organization of homosexuals and lesbians, accused the Vatican of choosing”to remain blind and deaf”to a changing society and forgetting the unrealized promises of Vatican II.”Gays have no plan nor any interest in placing the heterosexual family in crisis,”Lo Giudice said.”We believe that everyone is free to chose the way in which to conduct his or her own personal plan of existence.”

Moltmann wins $200,000 Grawemeyer award

(RNS) German theologian Jurgen Moltmann, whose vast academic output has been a major influence on a generation of European, North American and Latin American theologians, has been named winner of the 2000 Louisville Grawemeyer Award in Religion.

The $200,000 prize, given by the Louisville Presbyterian Seminary and the University of Louisville, recognizes outstanding and creative works that promote understanding of the relationship between the human and the divine.

Moltmann was cited for his recent book,”The Coming of God: Christian Eschatology”(Fortress Press), which looks to the biblical”end times”with optimism rather than dread. The book argues that traditional and customary ideas of the last days that stress God’s wrath and judgment are dysfunctional and even dangerous. He argues for a renewed eschatology anchored in hope, informed by Jewish and messianic thought and oriented toward the coming reign of God.

A professor emeritus of systematic theology at the University of Tubingen in Germany, Moltmann has been one of the most influential Christian theologians since his groundbreaking 1967 book,”Theology of Hope.”

Late-term abortion laws in Wisconsin, Illinois temporarily blocked

(RNS) Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens has temporarily barred Illinois and Wisconsin from enforcing laws that ban some late-term abortions.

Stevens’ order, issued Tuesday (Nov. 30), will remain in effect while abortion providers prepare to seek a Supreme Court review of a federal appeals court decision last month upholding both laws, the Associated Press reported.

Both laws ban a procedure known by its opponents as”partial birth abortion.” The Wisconsin law, enacted in 1998, provides for life in prison for anyone performing the procedure except to save the life of the mother. The Illinois law, enacted in 1997, makes it a felony to use the procedure.

In September, another federal appeals court ruled similar laws in Nebraska, Arkansas and Iowa were unconstitutional. The conflicting results at the federal appeals level make it likely that the Supreme Court will agree to step in and resolve the issue.

Greek Orthodox name new chancellor

(RNS) The Rev. Archimandrite Savas Zembillas, 42, has been named chancellor of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America. The chancellor’s office oversees coordination between the New York-based archdiocese and the church’s clergy.

A priest since 1995, Zembillas had served as pastor of St. Demetrios Church in Merrick, N.Y.

Zembillas is a native of Gary, Ind. He was appointed chancellor by Archbishop Demetrios, who has reorganized the administration of the archdiocese since he took over as its head in September.

Zembillas replaces the Rev. Michael Kontogiorgis, who had served as acting chancellor. Kontogiorgis will return to his former position of assistant chancellor.

Quote of the day: Israeli official Uri Mor

(RNS)”There is another system of time inside the Holy Sepulcher. We are working on seconds and they on eternity.” _ Uri Mor, the Israeli government’s liaison with Christian churches, explaining the difficulty of getting repairs or changes at Jerusalem’s Church of the Holy Sepulcher handled expeditiously. Israel wants a second entrance opened to the church, built over the traditional site of Jesus’ crucifixion and burial, but disputes between the Christian groups that control parts of the church have made the process difficult. Mor was quoted by the New York Times (Dec. 1).

DEA END RNS