c. 2000 Religion News Service
Church, School Reject Scouts Over Gay Ban
(RNS) In a dual reaction to Boy Scouts of America’s policy banning gay troop leaders, a Taunton, Mass., church and elementary school have rejected sponsoring Scout troops.
The Union Congregational Church’s governing board voted earlier this month not to renew the local troop’s charter in January.
“They are exclusionary and we are not,” said the Rev. Beverly Duncan, the church’s pastor. “This is how we took a stand for the gospel as we understood it, the gospel of inclusion of all people.”
In June, the U.S. Supreme Court said the Scouts have a right as a private organization to exclude practicing and outspoken homosexuals from the ranks of leadership. To have as a leader a “gay rights activist,” the court said, “would, at the very least, force the organization to send a message, both to the youth members and the world, that the Boy Scouts accepts homosexual conduct as a legitimate form of behavior.”
Following that June decision, Duncan said, members of her congregation approached her with concerns about making church space and resources available to a Scout troop. After the church voted on Nov. 8 to cut ties, one church member asked Bennett Elementary School Principal Leo Melanson whether the school should be hosting a Cub Scout Pack, Duncan said.
Days later, the school also severed official ties with the Scouts.
Melanson “felt it was a conflict and he felt it would be better if we found another organization to align with,” said Stephen Gray, executive director of the Scouts’ Annawon Council, in an interview with The Enterprise of Brockton.
Cub Scout Pack 52 will continue to use the school despite its loss of sponsorship. Boy Scout Troop 44, which currently meets at Union Congregational, will need to find a new meeting site in January.
Supremacist Challenges Kosher, Other Prison Food on Religious Grounds
(RNS) Michael Scatena has a devil of a time eating in prison because he says his white supremacist religion imposes strict dietary restrictions.
He says he is not permitted to eat or drink anything that is approved as kosher for Jews because he is a member of the World Church of the Creator, which the Anti-Defamation League calls a violent hate group on the radical right.
Scatena also claims his religious dietary restrictions rule out such things as the ketchup, mustard, mayonaise, orange juice, cereal and milk that is served to inmates in the maximum security prison in Somers, Conn.
Scatena sought a court order to force prison authorities to give him “non-rabbinical food and liquid staples that are free of the Jewish religious food symbols” and to provide him a vegetarian diet.
Pondering the problem, Connecticut Judge J. T. R. Rittenband said under American law he “is willing to accept the WCC as a religion” no matter how racist and abhorrent the principles of the religion may be.
The judge cited a passage from the church’s “White Man’s Bible” that says, “As the White Race becomes united, informed and aroused we will boycott every Jew and every aspect of Jewish influence in our society.”
Rittenband noted the White Man’s Bible is banned from Connecticut prisons as inflamatory and a danger to security.
Nevertheless, the judge said, he found that making Scatena eat the food he objects to “is a violation of his religious principles.”
But the judge denied the inmate’s request for a court order, suggesting “the remedy for the plaintiff is simply, `Don’t eat or drink such foods.”’
To keep up his nutrition, the judge recommended Scatena follow the example of picky school children: Eat a lot of peanut butter and jelly, which do not have the offending labels on them, to supplement a diet of raw fruits, vegetables and water.
Church Could Raise $7 million with Mobile Phone Aerials
(RNS) – The Church of England may be able to raise an extra $7 million a year _ a mere drop in the ocean compared to its annual operating costs of about $1 billion _ by allowing mobile phone companies to use the towers and steeples of its churches to site aerials for mobile phones.
The companies that have gained licenses for the third generation of mobile phones _ which will operate on a broader bandwidth to allow the easier transmission of data _ have to have 87 percent of their coverage in place by the year 2007, and apparently some 11,000 new aerial sites will be needed. Already dioceses and parishes have been approached to see if they would make their facilities available.
Decisions on allowing a mobile phone company to use the church tower or steeple rests with each parish and its parochial church council.
To help the parishes, the Archbishops’ Council, the Church of England’s central executive, has drawn up a scheme to provide parishes with the guidance and help they might need.
Some 50-70 churches are already allowing their steeples to be used.
The council aims to ensure that each church that agrees to house a mobile phone aerial will receive a proper rental fee and that strict conditions on installation, aesthetics and maintenance are met.
Those churches that have had mobile phone aerials installed are receiving annual rents of $7,000 and more, a major aid to some church budgets.
Bishops, Rabbis Speak Out on Religious Hatred, Environmental Damage
(RNS) The nation’s Catholic bishops and leaders of the Reform and Conservative movements of Judaism issued two joint statements condemning religious hatred and calling for increased protection of the environment for the nation’s children.
The statements were issued after a Nov. 20 meeting in Baltimore between the bishops’ ecumenical committee and the National Council of Synagogues (representing Reform and Conservative Judaism).
“We condemn any acts of desecration of holy places or deeds of verbal or physical violence that threaten any person’s ability to practice their religion freely,” the statement said. “Such actions we repudiate as sinful and offensive to God according to both the Christian and Jewish traditions.”
The religious leaders noted a spate of recent synagogue vandalism in the United States and Europe, and said that the ongoing tension in the Middle East could not be the only factor for such a surge in anti-Semitic violence.
“There is no justification whatsoever for the violation of any people’s religious liberties,” the statement said.
In the reflection on children and the environment, the religious leaders pointed to both Jewish and Christian sacred texts to show the importance of God’s creation and man’s duty to protect it.
“Jews and Christians infused with the spirit of the Psalms view nature as a living testimony to a living God,” they said.
The two sides called on the government to help low-income families protect their children from harmful exposure to toxins and dangerous materials, saying that children are especially at risk for sickness from an unhealthy environment.
“As leaders in the Jewish and Catholic communities, we strongly support efforts to protect the most vulnerable among us, who certainly include the children of our nation,” the statement said. “Because of our common concern for and desire to protect our children, we encourage our Jewish and Catholic people at the local and national level to work together to make our environment safe for children.”
Christian-Jewish Leader Promises $17 Million for Israel
(RNS) A Chicago-based Orthodox rabbi has given $3 million to help Jewish organizations in Israel and has promised $14 million more next year as he leads “solidarity” groups of Christians to the embattled Holy Land.
Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein, founder and president of the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, presented the $3 million check to Keren Hayesod, one of Israel’s largest refugee servicing centers, during a trip in October.
Eckstein is leading a second trip to the Middle East and is scheduled to arrive in Israel on Dec. 7 after first making a stop in Odessa, Ukraine. Eckstein, who says he is committed to building bridges between the Christian and Jewish communities, said U.S. Christians need to stand with Israel.
“The Fellowship is committed to Israel and her people, and solidarity missions prove just how dedicated the Christian communities in the United States are to alleviating the problems of the Jewish people,” Eckstein said. “I personally pledge to continue leading these missions as a means to bring tourism to the terror-stricken country regardless of the current climate.”
In a telephone interview from Tel Aviv, Eckstein said his group of 25 volunteers _ who are each paying about $3,300 for the trip _ will help paint a dining room at a Jewish service center in Odessa. Last year, the group helped clear an overgrown Jewish cemetery.
During their five-day stay in Israel, Eckstein’s group will assist in caring for the sick and hungry and working with Russian and Ethiopian Jewish immigrants in refugee centers.
Eckstein said the trip is a way for “people who wanted to do more than just send a check” to show solidarity with Israel and the Jewish diaspora. Eckstein cautioned, however, that not only Israeli Jews are the recipients of the social services provided by his group. Some of the money will go to the welfare department for the city of Jerusalem, which also works with Palestinians.
“It’s a basic humanitarian issue,” Eckstein said. “Most of the people who are helped in Israel and the former Soviet Union are Jews, but it doesn’t exclude others who are the beneficiaries of these services.”
Eckstein’s organization, founded in 1983, has 200,000 members in the United States who hope to build support in this country for Jews in Israel.
Congressional Chaplains Get Special Seats at National Cathedral
(RNS) The Washington National Cathedral has designated “perpetual seats of honor” for the chaplains of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives.
An interfaith evensong service was held Nov. 15 to recognize the chaplaincies now held by the Rev. Lloyd J. Ogilvie, Senate chaplain, and the Rev. Daniel P. Coughlin, House chaplain.
“Although many leaders of Congress are nurtured by the spiritual care of their own religious affiliations in their home states and districts, congressional chaplains provide a unique pastoral presence by means of their intimate understanding of the demands and challenges of legislating and interpreting democracy,” said the Very Rev. Nathan D. Baxter, dean of the cathedral in the District of Columbia, in a statement.
“By their presence and service, chaplains have historically been a reminder to religious and nonreligious leaders that the true roots of democracy are spiritual _ that the source and inspiration of democracy is beyond human invention.”
In comments reported in Roll Call, a Capitol Hill newspaper, both chaplains voiced their pleasure with the ceremony.
“As kids would say, `It was awesome,”’ said Coughlin, a Catholic priest appointed by House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) in March after a controversy about the selection process.
Ogilvie, a former Presbyterian Church (USA) pastor, said he felt “profound gratitude” for the recognition and said the ceremony was an “affirmation of the kind of work that we try to do.”
Tax Collector Saint New Patron for Russia’s Tax Police
(RNS) The tax collector who became an apostle has been named patron saint of Russia’s tax police.
Saint Matthew was officially accorded the honor by the leader of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Alexii II, Agence France Presse reported.
According to a report published Thursday (Nov. 30) in a Russian newspaper, tax police spokesman Yury Tretyakov said tax collectors gained favor with the Orthodox Church by assisting with renovation efforts at a church cathedral near tax police headquarters, Reuters reported.
The agency, known to have its agents burst into buildings wearing black ski masks to conduct audits, is not “planning to make our heavenly protection into a cult,” the newspaper quoted Tretyakov as saying. “It simply means that tax police will have another holiday, Nov. 29, St. Matthew’s day,” he said.
Quote of the Day: Kentucky Baptist Pastor Jay Adkins
(RNS) “With all due respect, aren’t you glad God so loved the world that he didn’t send a committee?”
_ Jay Adkins, pastor of Fellowship Baptist Church in South Shore, Ky., speaking at a recent meeting of the Kentucky Baptist Convention in opposition to a proposal to appoint a committee to study the Baptist Faith and Message of the Southern Baptist Convention. He was quoted in the Monday (Nov. 27) report of Baptist Press, the denomination’s official news service.
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