c. 2000 Religion News Service
dc Talk’s Toby McKeehan Again Gets Most Dove Nominations
(RNS) For the second year in a row, dc Talk’s Toby McKeehan has received the most nominations for the Gospel Music Association’s annual Dove Awards.
McKeehan has been nominated for 10 awards, GMA officials announced Wednesday (Jan. 26) at a news conference in Nashville, Tenn.
The 31st annual awards presentation will be held April 20 at the Grand Ole Opry House in Nashville. It will be broadcast in syndication, with many major network affiliates and independent stations planning to air it during the weekend of Easter, which is April 23.
Several of McKeehan’s nominations were related to his membership in the Christian rock trio. The group’s hit song “Consume Me” was among those nominated for Song of the Year and “Supernatural” was nominated for Rock Recorded Song of the Year. McKeehan also received songwriter nominations for both songs.
Not far behind McKeehan, singer/songwriter Steven Curtis Chapman garnered nine nominations, including Artist of the Year, Male Vocalist of the Year and as composer of “Dive” in the Song of the Year and Pop/Contemporary Recorded Song categories. He also was nominated for his work as an artist and producer for his album “Speechless.”
Michael W. Smith, who won Artist of the Year in 1999, received eight nominations including Male Vocalist and Songwriter of the Year. Fred Hammond, a pioneer of urban praise and worship, earned seven nominations in contemporary and traditional gospel categories. Gospel music star Kirk Franklin garnered six nominations for work as an artist, producer and composer.
Nominations include:
Artist of the Year: Avalon, Steven Curtis Chapman, Point of Grace, Sixpence None the Richer, Michael W. Smith.
Female Vocalist of the Year: Jennifer Knapp, Leigh Nash, Nichole Nordeman, Kathy Troccoli, Jaci Velasquez.
Group of the Year: Audio Adrenaline, Avalon, the Cathedrals, Point of Grace, Sixpence None the Richer, Third Day.
Male Vocalist of the Year: Steven Curtis Chapman, Fred Hammond, Fernando Ortega, Chris Rice, Michael W. Smith.
New Artist of the Year: FFH, Ginny Owens, Raze, SonicFlood, Watermark.
Song of the Year: “Basic Instructions,” “Can’t Live a Day,” “Choose Life,” “Consume Me,” “Dive,” “I Will Follow Christ,” “I’ve Always Loved You,” “Jesus King of Angels,” “The Only Thing I Need,” “This Is Your Time.”
Songwriter of the Year: Brent Bourgeois, Cindy Morgan, Fernando Ortega, Michael W. Smith, Darlene Zschech.
Conservative, Orthodox Rabbis Challenge `Shared Jerusalem’ Proposal
(RNS) Calling Jerusalem “the united and indivisible capital solely of the State of Israel,” some 1,500 Conservative and Orthodox rabbis have issued a statement rejecting a proposal by other rabbis for a Jerusalem shared between Israelis and Palestinians.
The Rabbinical Assembly, representing 1,500 Conservative rabbis, and the Rabbinical Council of America, representing 1,100 Orthodox rabbis, released their statement on Tuesday (Jan. 25).
“Both sides have committed to discuss the issue. A statement by Jewish religious leaders weakening Israel’s hand is really an unwise thing to do,” said Rabbi Steven Dworken, executive vice president of the Rabbinical Council of America. “The fact that the Rabbinical Council of America and the Rabbinical Assembly got together shows you how strongly we feel. It does not happen every day _ nor every month.”
The statement was not signed by rabbis from Reconstructionist or Reform leadership. Reform leaders were offered an opportunity to sign but declined, according to Dworken.
The joint rabbinical statement was issued in response to a Jan. 19 proposal issued by the Jewish Peace Lobby, a group of more than 300 Reform, Reconstructionist and Conservative rabbis. Their proposal, in part released to coincide with a meeting between President Clinton and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat to discuss the peace process, called for Israel to share sovereignty over Jerusalem with Palestinians.
Palestinians want Israel to hand over east Jerusalem, reunited with west Jerusalem in 1967, so that it can be the Palestinian capital.
“The question is whether the pursuit of justice and peace requires that, in some form, Jerusalem be shared with the Palestinian people,” the rabbis wrote in their statement. “We believe that it does.”
Jerome Segal, founder of the Jewish Peace Lobby and director of the University of Maryland’s Center of International and Security Studies, criticized the joint rabbinical statement, saying it offered no “pragmatic reasons” for a rejection of the Peace Lobby’s proposal.
“Nothing in that statement responded to any of the arguments contained in our statement,” said Segal. “They offered no pragmatic reasons in defense of their own articulation of the position that Jerusalem should remain under the exclusive sovereignty of Israel.”
He also faulted the joint statement for its “internal inconsistency.”
“They’ve criticized the 300 rabbis who called for a shared Jerusalem on the grounds that this should be left to the Israel negotiators, but in the first paragraph they’ve put forth their own position as to what should happen to Jerusalem,” he said. “If they’re saying rabbis should not speak out and address those issues, then I’m at a total loss as to what they imagine the function of rabbis to be. It’s a baffling conception of what the roles of rabbis should be if they can’t speak out on the issue of Jerusalem.”
Though both statements take opposing positions, both appear to support some negotiation process, said Ron Young, executive director of the U.S. Interreligious Committee for Peace in the Middle East.
“I was glad to see in their statements an indication of support for negotiations,” Young said in an interview.
“As an American committee, it’s not our role to say what the specifics of the solution should be, but we do support the idea that the issue of Jerusalem has to be negotiated; some way must be found to get a mutual agreement. What Dworken said certainly implies he and the organizations he’s affiliated with do support the negotiations. And that’s really what’s important.”
Update: Non-Christian Religious Groups Enter Scottish Gay Debate
(RNS) Leaders of Britain’s main non-Christian communities have come out firmly against any repeal of a law that prevents local authorities from promoting homosexuality both generally and in teaching in schools.
The proposal before the Scottish Parliament to repeal Section 28, as the law is known, is based on “a fundamental confusion between tolerance and moral judgment,” said Jonathan Sacks, Britain’s chief rabbi.
“There is a real danger that the abolition of Section 28 will lead to the promotion of a homosexual lifestyle as morally equivalent to marriage,” he stated. “Not only will this confuse many young people whose sexual identities are still fluid, it will frustrate any attempt to educate children in the importance of marriage as the basis of a stable and caring society.”
The Muslim Council of Britain called on Muslims to petition their Members of Parliament against repeal.
“We do believe that the repeal of Section 28 will expose our young children, even at a very tender age, to immoral values and practices,” said a spokesman for the council. “Any teaching which presents homosexual practices as equivalent to marriage or in a morally neutral way is profoundly offensive and totally unacceptable.”
The president of the National Council of Hindu Temples, Om Parkash Sharma, described homosexuality as an unnatural state that should be actively discouraged, while the director of the Network of Sikh Organizations, Indarjit Singh, said that, though they were concerned that those who chose a gay lifestyle should not be discriminated against, it should not be promoted as a valid alternative to marriage.
Meanwhile, north of the Border, where the controversy over repeal has raged most fiercely, the eight Roman Catholic bishops have issued a joint statement opposing repeal.
But a senior bishop of the Church of England has come out in support of the government’s proposal to repeal the law. Writing in The Independent, Bishop Richard Harries of Oxford, chairman of the Church’s Board for Social Responsibility, said: “Whatever ills Section 28 was designed to stop, it has certainly done nothing to prevent homophobic bullying of young people. On the contrary, it is likely to have reinforced negative attitudes and given them an illicit veneer of respectability.”
Pope to Ask Forgiveness for All Humanity in Holy Land Visit During Lent
(VATICAN CITY) Pope John Paul II said Thursday (Jan. 27) he will ask “forgiveness and reconciliation” for all humanity when he makes his Holy Year pilgrimage to the Holy Land during Lent this year.
In his message for Lent, which begins March 8, the Roman Catholic pontiff also urged all Christians to give generously to charities aiding those “who suffer hunger, violence or injustice.”
Archbishop Paul Josef Cordes, president of the Pontifical Council Cor Unum, which coordinates Catholic aid worldwide, told a Vatican news conference on the pope’s message that John Paul had himself given $8.9 million to development projects in 1999, up from $7.5 million in 1998 and $4.7 million in 1997. The funds came from contributions to the pope by Catholic individuals and organizations.
Archbishop Angelo Massafra of Scutari in Albania said church aid had done much to relieve the plight of the refugees from Kosovo, most of them Muslims, who flooded into Albania in 1998.
John Paul said in his message that Lent, the 40-day liturgical season of fasting, prayer and almsgiving in preparation for Easter, “takes on a particular character” during celebrations of the church’s Great Jubilee of the Year 2000.
“Particular significance attaches to pilgrimage to the Holy Land and to Rome,” he said. “I too hope, precisely during Lent of the year 2000, to be a pilgrim in the Holy Land, to the places where our faith began, in order to celebrate the 2,000th Jubilee of the Incarnation.”
The pope is scheduled to visit biblical sites in Jordan, Israel and the Palestinian Authority territory March 20-26 on what he has called a pilgrimage through “the history of salvation.”
“I invite all Christians to accompany me with their prayers, while I myself, on the various stages of the pilgrimage, shall ask for forgiveness and reconciliation for the sons and daughters of the church and for all humanity,” he said.
Calling Lent “a time of conversation and reconciliation,” John Paul said the tragedies of the 20th century, from the Holocaust and ethnic cleansing to fraud and corruption, were caused by “the slavery of sin.”
“Sometimes it shows itself in dramatic and unusual ways, as happened in the course of the great tragedies of the 20th century, which deeply marked the lives of countless communities and individuals, the victims of cruel violence,” he said.
“In daily life, too, we see all sorts of forms of fraud, hatred, the destruction of others and lies of which man is both victim and sources.”
The pope urged all Christians to mark the new millennium by becoming “promoters of practical initiatives to ensure an equitable distribution of resources and the promotion of the complete human development of every individual.”
“The ancient Jewish jubilee, in fact, called for the freeing of slaves, the cancellation of debts, the giving of assistance to the poor,” he said. “Today, new forms of slavery and more tragic forms of poverty afflict vast numbers of people, especially in the so-called Third World countries.
“This is a cry of suffering and despair which must be heard and responded to by all those walking the path of the Jubilee. How can we ask for the grace of the Jubilee if we are insensitive to the needs of the poor, if we do not work to ensure that all have what is necessary to lead a decent life?” he asked.
iBelieve.com Launches as New Christian Web Site
Eds: Jef in 4th graf is CQ)
(RNS) A new Christian Web site, iBelieve.com, was launched Wednesday (Jan. 26) by a sister company of Family Christian Stores. It aims to serve as an online spiritual and social outlet for Internet-savvy Christians.
The site _ at http://www.iBelieve.com _ was unveiled at the CBA Expo, a meeting of members of the Christian retail industry in Nashville, Tenn.
The site will include areas focused on faith, life, community, the world and an online store. It also will feature chat rooms, bulletin boards, an online prayer request system, and author and artist events.
“In order to engage Christians on a daily basis and for the long term, we had to make iBelieve.com more than just e-commerce,” said Jef Fite, president of iBelieve.com. “We had to make it a true life destination site.”
The Grand Rapids, Mich.-based iBelieve.com is a sister company of Family Christian Stores, a chain of 346 Christian retail stores in 39 states.
“Our understanding of the Christian market is a tremendous asset, and we look forward to encouraging, informing and entertaining Christians at our site just as we have in our stores for more than 40 years,” said Leslie Dietzman, president of Family Christian Stores and CEO of iBelieve.com.
iBelieve.com is supported by a first-year investment of $30 million, primarily funded by the private equity firm Madison Dearborn Partners in Chicago.
Quote of the Day: Robert Record, president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s North American Mission Board
(RNS) “We believe that this ruling is the first step down a slippery slope that only ends in government censorship of all religious programs; we are determined not to allow that first step.”
_ Robert Record, president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s North American Mission Board, in a Jan. 26 statement on its determination that not all religious programming qualifies as educational.
DEA END RNS
