c. 1999 Religion News Service

Ohio asks Supreme Court assistance in voucher case

(RNS) Ohio’s state attorney general has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn a federal judge’s order temporarily barring new students from taking part in the state’s school voucher program.

State Attorney General Betty Montgomery made the request Tuesday (Oct. 19).

U.S. District Judge Solomon Oliver Jr. is overseeing a lawsuit brought by civil liberties groups and other critics who say the program violates the constitutional separation of church and state. He ruled in August that only previous voucher recipients could receive financial aid from the state until he makes a decision regarding the constitutionality of the program.

The judge has set a trial date of Dec. 13, the Associated Press reported.

The state appealed Oliver’s injunction to an appellate court Aug. 30 but never received a response.”We are simply perplexed why the Court of Appeals has not issued any ruling (or even an explanation of its inaction),”wrote Montgomery.

Steve Benen, a spokesman for Americans United for Separation of Church and State, said his group believes the state action”shows they aren’t confident that they will win their case.”

O’Connor’s doctors discover slight dehydration, blood clot

(RNS) Cardinal John O’Connor of New York, who is recovering from brain tumor surgery, has suffered from slight dehydration and a small blood clot.

The 79-year-old leader of the Archdiocese of New York checked himself into Memorial Sloan-Kettering Hospital on Monday (Oct. 18).”The doctors have found that the cardinal is recovering normally from the radiation treatments that he underwent for nearly five weeks,”said archdiocesan spokesman Joseph Zwilling in a statement.

O’Connor was awake and alert during a 20-minute examination when doctors discovered the blood clot in his left leg.

He has led the 2.3 million-member archdiocese since 1984.

Southern Baptists’ prayer focus: first Jews, now Hindus

(RNS) Southern Baptists have announced the publication of a prayer guide for members to pray for Hindus during Divali, an upcoming Hindu festival, a month after they sparked a debate by issuing a similar prayer guide aimed at Jews during Judaism’s High Holy Days.

Divali, or the Festival of Lights, is a widely observed Hindu holiday that is often celebrated by decorating homes with lights, wearing new clothes and setting off firecrackers. It will be celebrated this year in early November.

Some communities have planned celebrations for Nov. 7; others will celebrate on other days around that time.

The Southern Baptist Convention’s International Mission Board is publishing the new prayer booklet.”As Divali begins, we want to invite Southern Baptists to pray that the world’s Hindus might be convicted of sin and see Jesus is the light of the world,”said Randy Sprinkle, director of the board’s prayer strategy office, the denomination’s news service reported.

The prayer guide focused on Hindus is the third in a series of similar publications from the mission board. Two guides previously have been published for Muslim and Jewish religious festivals.

The Jewish-related guide was denounced by some Jewish leaders as offensive and arrogant while Baptists countered that it was”an act of love.” Southern Baptists plan to publish a fourth prayer guide that will focus on Buddhism.

Presbyterian court nixes gay ordinations

(RNS) A midlevel Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) panel has blocked efforts by two congregations to win affirmation for the ordination of homosexuals despite a constitutional amendment barring such ordinations.

In closely watched test cases of the denomination’s so-called”chastity and fidelity”amendment, the Permanent Judicial Commission of the Synod of the Northeast has rebuffed challenges to the provision by congregations in Vermont and Connecticut.

The”chastity and fidelity”amendment, while not using the word homosexual, sets out the requisites for ordained church officers including pastors, elders and deacons by requiring chastity in singleness and fidelity in marriage. The polity of the denomination does not permit same-sex marriages.

In the first case, the synod judicial commission ordered the Presbytery of Northern New England to require compliance with the constitution by a congregation in Burlington, Vt., that declared in 1997 it would defy the recently adopted”chastity and fidelity”amendment.

In the second case, the session, or church council, of First Presbyterian Church in Stamford, Conn., was ordered to re-examine an openly gay elder’s suitability for continued service on the session.

The judicial panel said a lower court, the Permanent Judicial Commission of the Presbytery of Southern New England, was wrong to uphold the election of previously ordained Elder Wayne Osborne to the session when his examination left some questions unanswered, Presbyterian News Service, the denomination’s official news agency reported.

The judicial panel told the presbytery it should continue to”work pastorally”with leaders of Christ Church, the Burlington congregation, to bring it into compliance with church law.

But the Rev. Rebecca Strader, who co-pastors the congregation, said the impact of the ruling is complicated.”The congregation has been unanimous in all its statements”on the issue, she said.”There’s not a sense that the congregation is all of a sudden going to turn its back on gay and lesbian members and somehow not be a safe and affirming place.”This is where the rubber hits the road,”she said,”with real people, with real faces, with real parishes. We’re one. I’m sure there are others.” In the Stamford case, a spokesman for the congregation said it is waiting for the presbytery _ the local governing body _ to act because the court did not overturn the ordination of Osborne but remanded it back to the presbytery.

Husband-wife team appointed to lead Baptist group’s missions

(RNS) A married couple long involved in missions work has been elected to lead the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship’s global missions program.

Gary and Barbara Baldridge were elected co-coordinators for global missions of the Atlanta-based moderate Baptist group Oct. 14. Their nomination had been announced in September.

They succeed Keith Parks, who retired in June as the 8-year-old organization’s first global-missions coordinator.

The Baldridges worked together for 16 years as foreign missionaries for the Southern Baptist Convention, reported Associated Baptist Press, an independent Baptist news service. They resigned those posts in 1994.

The appointment marks the first time a woman has filled a top administrative post in the fellowship.”In missionary life it’s very common for couples to work together,”said Gary Baldridge, 48.

Barbara Baldridge, 49, agreed.”We’ve always done it,”she said.”Our children think this is normal.” Gary Baldridge has been a global-missions associate for the fellowship since 1996. Barbara Baldridge has been operations manager for a church-based program in suburban Atlanta that offers food and financial aid to disadvantaged persons.

The fellowship is one of several groups of moderate Baptists that have developed since the conservative resurgence in the Southern Baptist Convention.

Scottish Baptists vote to ordain women

(RNS) Scottish Baptists have voted to admit women to the ordained ministry.

By 247 votes to 113, the assembly of the Baptist Union of Scotland agreed that member churches were free to ordain women. They also said member churches would be free to refuse to ordain women.

The issue last came up two years ago when a motion to allow women ministers failed by 28 votes to obtain the two-thirds majority it needed.

This year’s vote was preceded by an introduction to the resolution reaffirming historic Baptist belief about each individual church’s liberty to administer and interpret Jesus’ laws.”This implies there are issues of theological interpretation and practical administration in respect of which there may be a diversity of views over which each local church should have the liberty to make its own decision,”the resolution said.”The question of the role of women in the … ministry is such an issue and is one which each local church must have liberty to decide,”it said.

The Union’s structure thus has to accommodate this”legitimate diversity.” On this basis the assembly went on to accept that gender should be no bar to ordination.

South of the border, the Baptist Union of Great Britain (which despite its name basically covers England and Wales) has admitted women ministers since 1918, one of the very first British churches to do so.

Quote of the day: Divinity school dean Bill Leonard

(RNS)”There are Buddhists in Berea, Ky., Hindus in Jacksboro, Texas …, and an Islamic Center in downtown Asheville, N.C. If folks from those religious traditions have found their way to Berea, Jacksboro and Asheville, they are everywhere!” _ Bill Leonard, dean of Wake Forest University’s new divinity school, giving his inaugural convocation address in Winston-Salem, N.C., on Oct. 12.

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