c. 1999 Religion News Service

Suspicious letter prompts precautionary measures at SBC building

(RNS) A suspicious letter received Friday (March 5) at the Nashville, Tenn., offices of the Southern Baptist Convention prompted precautionary decontamination treatment of several staffers.”A suspicious letter has been received in the offices of the Executive Committee of the Southern Baptist Convention,”said a brief statement released on Friday.”We do not know that the letter represents a serious threat, but we are exercising prudence in treating it as though it is serious. We are taking recommended precautions for the welfare of our employees and others in the building.” Art Toalston, editor of Baptist Press, the official news service of the Southern Baptist Convention, said he was not permitted to say who was given the precautionary treatment. He said the building was closed on Monday for cleaning after the episode.

Fire department officials are still investigating the contents of the letter, which was described by Nashville media as an”anthrax scare.” A report from Baptist Press said officials representing the FBI and health, fire and emergency departments were at the SBC building for four hours.

Bill Merrell, vice president of convention relations for the committee, said there did not appear to be any toxic contents in the suspicious envelope, but tests were being conducted.

Executive Committee President Morris H. Chapman described a sense of calm among the staff members who were confined for several hours on the building’s seventh floor.”There was a sense the Lord was here, guiding us through the day and giving us strength,”he said.

British Asians take to London streets to protest persecution in India

(RNS) Between 1,00 and 2,000 Asian Christians _ men, women, and children _ marched silently through central London on Saturday (March 6) to protest the persecution of Christians in India.

According to the Alliance of Asian Christians, over the past 10 months there have been 117 atrocities perpetrated against Christians in India, including the murder of an Australian missionary and his two sons.

In Rome recently, Roman Catholic Archbishop Alan de Lastic of Delhi said that in 1998 there had been 139 cases of violence against Christians, adding he believed the sharp rise in such incidents came as the result of the rise to power of the Bharatiya Janata Party, a Hindu nationalist political party.

Saturday’s march, which blocked traffic in central London and which took at least five minutes to pass any one point, halted while its leaders delivered a letter from Pradip Sudra, executive director of the Alliance of Asian Christians, and one from the Rev. Robert Amess, chairman of the Evangelical Alliance, to the Indian High Commissioner at India House.

The letters asked the Indian government to put a stop to the persecution of Christians and to protect its Christian citizens.

The message was reinforced by the placards marchers carried, which included such slogans as”Protect 1900 years of Indian Christianity,””Stop religious persecution in India,””We want justice for Indian Christians,”and”Stop persecuting Christians in India.”Buses brought marchers from as far as Yorkshire, Birmingham, Leicester, and Southampton.

Two years ago Pakistani Christians in England staged a similar demonstration to protest against the treatment of Christians in Pakistan.

Baseball team discriminated in giving churchgoer discounts

(RNS) A Maryland minor league baseball team’s policy of offering churchgoers who showed up with their church bulletins a hefty discount on park admission prices is a form of religious discrimination, the Maryland Human Rights Commission has found.

Carl Silverman of Waynesboro, Pa., a self-described agnostic who believes that it is impossible to know whether God exists, arrived at a Hagerstown Suns game in Hagerstown, Md., last Easter without a church bulletin, which was required for the discount.

Silverman said that when park officials refused to extend the discount to him and his family, they where denied their civil rights and complained to the human rights agency.

The human rights agency voiced its agreement with Silverman on March 3. The state agency has charged the team with violating state and federal laws against discrimination on the basis of creed in places of public accommodation.

If settlement efforts next month do not succeed, a public hearing will be scheduled. “We wanted to settle this all along,”said Silverman, represented by the American Civil Liberties Union.”It’s basically up to the Suns. If they remain intransigent, we’ll be having the hearing.” Silverman has proposed that the Suns extend the discount to members of secular charitable organizations.

A lawsuit filed against the promotion by the ACLU with the U.S. District Court in Baltimore is on hold pending the outcome of talks between the baseball team and Silverman.

Spanish Catholic official criticizes anti-AIDS campaign

(RNS) Cardinal Ricard Maria Carles, a top Roman Catholic Church official in Spain, has sharply criticized the Spanish government for its support of an anti-AIDS campaign which promotes condom use.

In a weekly newsletter, the cardinal, who is also the archbishop of Barcelona, denounced the notion that using condoms makes for”safe-sex.”He criticized authorities for what he called a failure to warn the young that condoms can fail.

The head of the Health Ministry’s AIDS Campaign said the archbishop’s objection would not influence the program, designed to curb the country’s number of new AIDS cases.”If this was a society where people didn’t have sex, then sexual relations would not be a way of transmitting the HIV virus. But Spain is not like that,”said Dr. Francisco Parras, reported the Associated Press.

Health officials estimate there are approximately 53,000 AIDS patients in Spain, with numbers of new cases declining sharply in recent years.

Quote of the day: Senior Pastor Joseph Roberts of Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta

(RNS)”Yes, we could have moved away. We could have gone to the suburbs. But Martin Luther King never ran to the suburbs. If we’re ever going to make our society better, we’ve got to stop running away from our brothers.” _ Senior Pastor Joseph Roberts, senior pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, preaching in the new location of the church where the late Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. was co-pastor. Roberts, who was quoted in USA Today, spoke at the first service across the street from the church’s old site.

DEA END RNS