c. 2000 Religion News Service
Survey: Bush Preferred Among Born-again Christians
(RNS) Among born-again Christians who are likely to vote in November, Texas Gov. George W. Bush is the preferred presidential candidate, according to a recent poll from the Barna Research Group.
The Republican candidate is favored by 71 percent of born-again Christians who have already decided which candidate they will support, concluded the survey.
Twenty-eight percent of born-again Christians support Bush’s opponent, Vice President Al Gore, the report said.
The survey defined born-again Christians as people who have made a personal commitment to Christ and “believe that when they die they will go to heaven because they had confessed their sins and had accepted Jesus Christ as their savior.”
Bush’s greatest support among the 1,012 telephone poll respondents came from evangelicals, who are likely to comprise 10 percent of the voter turnout in November, the report noted. Eighty-five percent of evangelicals who are likely to vote and already have decided which candidate they will support said they intend to vote for Bush. Just 13 percent said the same for Gore.
Barna considers evangelicals to be a subset of born-again Christians, who in addition to meeting his definition of born-again, meet seven other conditions, including believing in sharing their Christian faith with non-Christians, the importance of faith in their lives, and the existence of Satan.
Sixty-four percent of Protestants who are likely to vote and have chosen a favorite candidate support Bush, compared to 35 percent for Gore. Catholics who are likely to vote and already have decided which candidate they will support are evenly split between the two candidates.
The report also noted that born-again voters were fairly equally divided between the Democratic and Republican parties at the beginning of the year, but now 43 percent align with Democrats and 36 percent with Republicans.
Among those voters who are not born-again and have already decided whom they will support in November, Bush’s popularity lags behind support for Gore, the report concluded. A little more than half _ 53 percent _ of those voters said they intended to vote for Gore, while 45 percent said they would choose Bush.
George Barna, president of the research group, described Bush’s hold on voters who are not born-again as “more tenuous.”
Barna said of Bush, “His ability to stay focused on issues that move the born-again vote, and to remain a candidate whose character appeals to the Christian constituency, will be a key in determining his ability to win in November.”
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In a separate poll about politics, a study by the Wall Street Journal and NBC News found that a majority of Americans say they have no reservations about a Jewish contender for the vice presidency. Democratic Sen. Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut is the first Jew to be named to a major party ticket.
More Americans said they worried that organizations connected to the Christian religious right exerted too much influence over government. Some 3 percent of the 2,017 people polled appeared to be anti-Semitic, one of the researchers who conducted the poll told the Wall Street Journal. An equally small percentage of respondents said they thought the religious beliefs of Dick Cheney, the Republican vice presidential contender, were troublesome.
Cardinal’s Proposal Preferring Catholic Immigrants Branded `Racist’
(RNS) A proposal by Cardinal Giacomo Biffi, the outspoken archbishop of Bologna, Italy, that his country give preference to Catholic immigrants over Muslims has outraged many political leaders, embarrassed Catholic aid organizations and disturbed Muslims.
“It makes me want to ask when the holy appeal for the new Crusades will arrive,” said Giampaolo Silvestri, spokesman for the Green political party. He labeled the proposal “xenophobic and racist.”
Making the proposal Wednesday (Sept. 13) at a news conference to issue a pastoral letter to the more than 900,000 Roman Catholics in his diocese, Biffi said the criteria for admitting immigrants should not be solely economic and social.
“We must worry about saving the very identity of the nation,” he said.
Muslims, the cardinal said, “have a different diet, different holy days, family rights incompatible with ours and a conception of women very far from ours to the point of allowing and practicing polygamy.”
Biffi, 72, an influential but often controversial prelate who is sometimes listed among possible successors to Pope John Paul II, urged that Italy give preference to immigrants from the Catholic countries of Latin America, the Philippines and Eritrea.
“I read Cardinal Biffi’s declarations with incredulity,” responded Liva Turco, minister of social solidarity in Italy’s center-left government. “A lay and democratic state can never accept suggestions that lead to discrimination against people on the basis of their religion, ethnicity or culture.”
Umberto Saleri, in charge of immigration issues for the Italian Federation of Trade Unions, said Biffi’s proposal was “serious to say the least.” He said both the Italian constitution and the regulations of the European Union bar such discrimination.
Speaking for the Catholic charity Caritas, which provides meals and beds for migrants and refugees, the Rev. Elvio Damoli, director for Italy, said that as a Catholic organization, Caritas “is called to welcome the immigrant without distinction of religion, ethnicity and to help them on the path to legality.”
“There is no Islamic invasion in Italy,” said Mario Marazziti, spokesman for the Catholic Community of Sant’Egidio. As an example, he said a school the community runs for migrants in Rome has students from 92 nations, 75 percent of them Christians and 24 percent Muslims.
Leaders of the Union of Islamic Communities in Italy called Biffi’s statement “disturbing” and compared it to the anti-Semitism that preceded the Holocaust.
“What worries me is that the roots of anti-Semitic discrimination were in Europe, and we don’t want what happened to the Jews to be repeated against the Muslims,” said Ali Schuetz, spokesman for the union.
“To think of Europe as a citadel under siege where only those with certain requisites can enter and where everything is immutable and must stay that way does not take into account that the world has changed,” said Hamza Piccardo, national secretary of the union.
Texas Baptist Committee Recommends Dropping More So. Baptist Funds
(RNS) The administrative committee of the Baptist General Convention of Texas is recommending that the state convention drastically reduce the funding sent next year to the Southern Baptist Convention Executive Committee and eliminate funding of the SBC’s religious liberty agency.
The recommendation, approved on Wednesday (Sept. 13), also affirms a theology-education study committee’s suggestion that the funding of the denomination’s six seminaries be reduced from $5.3 million this year to a maximum of $1 million next year.
The state convention’s administrative committee approved reducing funding from $706,000 to $10,000 for the SBC Executive Committee, the main administration for the nation’s largest Protestant denomination.
It also approved eliminating the $345,000 in funding that had been allocated to the SBC Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, reported Associated Baptist Press, an independent news service.
The convention’s executive committee is scheduled to consider the budget proposal at its Sept. 26 meeting.
Both supporters and opponents of the budget changes are encouraging Texas Baptists to attend the Oct. 30-31 meeting of the state convention in Corpus Christi, when the final decision regarding the budget proposals will be made.
They come at a time when some Texas moderates have urged the state convention to stop sending undesignated donations to the Southern Baptist Convention each year. The moderates have political and theological differences with conservative leaders who have gained control of the denomination since a resurgence began in 1979.
“This has been a prayerful and painful and sad process,” said Stephen Hatfield, chairman-elect of the administrative committee, who was quoted by Baptist Press, the news service of the Southern Baptist Convention.
He said the action by his committee means “we want to work with those who want to work with us and not fight with those who want to fight with us.”
China Continues Crackdown on Groups Similar to Falun Gong
(RNS) Continuing its crackdown on groups similar to the outlawed Falun Gong spiritual movement, China has banned qigong exercise groups from preaching religion and “ignorant superstition.”
The new regulations were published Friday (Sept. 15) in the state-owned China Sports Daily, the Associated Press reported. The rules restrict qigong groups, which practice traditional Chinese meditation and breathing exercises, to gatherings of fewer than 200 unless authorized by the police, and require that the groups be registered and certified by sports officials.
The groups are barred from using an individual’s name as their name, and cannot use titles that include the words China, Asia, Universe and world.
Unlicensed recordings, computer materials and publications cannot be distributed, and Buddhist worship practices associated with qigong and similar exercise groups are prohibited as well.
Authorities claimed qigong groups were being used by “unwholesome elements” to perpetuate superstition, threaten society and perpetrate fraud.
“These problems have seriously affected the normal conduct of healthful qigong activities, harming the interests of the masses,” read the preamble to the regulations.
Also on Friday (Sept. 15) Chinese authorities released details of criminal charges filed against the leader of Zhong Gong, a qigong group similar to Falun Gong, the spiritual movement authorities outlawed last July as a public threat.
Officials released signed testimonies of three women who claimed Zhang Hongbao, the founder of the Zhong Gong spiritual group, raped them in the early 1990s, The New York Times reported. The authenticity of the documents could not be verified, the newspaper noted.
Zhang, 46, entered Guam at the beginning of this year with a passport authorities believe is fake. Zhang, who is being held in a detention center in the American territory, is seeking political asylum and says he does not believe he will receive a fair trial in China.
A decision from an immigration court is expected by the end of this month.
Zhong Gong _ which has approximately 10 million followers in China _ was banned by China in February, some four months after Chinese president Jiang Zemin declared the group a cult. Since the president’s announcement, China has closed the group’s largest training base, confiscated assets worth an estimated $6 million, and shut down dozens of the group’s offices, according to reports from the Information Centre of Human Rights and Democratic Movement in China.
Bush Discusses Faith, Policy Issues With Baptist Press
(RNS) Republican presidential candidate George Bush discussed his personal faith and public policy viewpoints in a recent interview with Baptist Press, the news service of the Southern Baptist Convention.
“I would describe myself as a man who was raised a Christian, who sought redemption and found it in Jesus Christ,” Bush said, according to a transcript released by Baptist Press Wednesday (Sept. 13). “I admit I’m a lowly sinner.”
The Texas governor said in an Aug. 31 interview that he believes in prayer and is touched by those who say they are praying for him.
“Billy Graham reintroduced me to Jesus Christ is the way I like to put it,” Bush said. “I believe in prayer. I’m surrounded by prayer. I’m surrounded by a prayerful nation.”
Bush listed “practical” efforts he would make to fight abortion if elected president.
“Sign a ban on partial-birth abortions,” he said. “Encourage parental notification laws. These are laws that will help reduce abortion in America. Encourage adoption.”
He said his support of faith-based programs is not an attempt to have the government run churches or vice versa.
“What I am saying is that we’re going to welcome people of faith to help change people’s lives in America,” he said.
Bush said he supports traditional families and believes education about sexual abstinence needs to be promoted.
Asked by Will Hall, vice president for convention news of the SBC, how Southern Baptists can pray for him and his family, Bush responded: “My concerns about this race are my family. I’m worried about my girls. I’m worried about the fact that their daddy is running for president, and people will be saying ugly things about me. … My wife is a very strong person. She can handle herself. But there’s nothing like prayer to uplift her. And for me, it’s a prayer of wisdom, and patience, and discipline.”
Italians Mourn Executed Virginia Man
(RNS) Italians on Friday (Sept. 15) mourned the death of Derek Rocco Barnabei, executed by the state of Virginia on Thursday despite appeals for clemency from Pope John Paul II, Prime Minister Giuliano Amato and thousands of Italians.
An aide to the prime minister labeled as “bad taste” a State Department warning to Americans in Italy that activists might try to retaliate against them.
A spokesman for the U.S. Embassy said the warning was a routine response to a threat of reprisal from “unknown persons.”
“I think this is an act of surprising and extraordinary bad taste. Italy is a nation of great civility,” Enrico Micheli, an official in Amato’s office, said in a television interview.
The Florence newspaper La Nazione said it received a call early Friday from a man who claimed to speak for a known terrorist organization and threatened to “attack American capitals and possessions.”
There was no immediate comment from the Vatican on the execution although the pope, who strongly opposes the death penalty, made three appeals to Virginia Gov. James Gilmore to commute Barnabei’s sentence.
At his weekly general audience on Wednesday, the 80-year-old Roman Catholic pontiff called on Gilmore to act “in the spirit of clemency.”
Most Italian newspapers carried front-page reports of Barnabei’s execution by lethal injection.
The Italian news agency ANSA reported that in the hours before Barnabei, 33, was put to death for the rape-murder of his girlfriend in 1993, Gilmore’s office received 13,271 messages by fax, e-mail and telephone from Italians pleading for clemency.
Italy outlawed the death penalty in its post-World War II constitution and is campaigning for a U.N.-mandated moratorium on executions worldwide.
The case of Barnabei, who maintained his innocence to the end, drew added attention because of his Italian ancestry and a visit his mother, Jane, made to the Vatican last July to enlist the pope’s help.
Claudio Martini, president of the region of Tuscany, who collected 55,000 signatures in Barnabei’s behalf, said in a message to Jane Barnabei Friday that he sent her “a warm embrace in the name of the citizens who asked for the suspension of your son’s execution.”
Former Pepperdine President Leads New Online Network
(RNS) The former president of Pepperdine University is heading a new online network that aims to connect Christian churches and ministries via the Internet.
David Davenport, who lead the Malibu, Calif., school for 15 years, is chief executive officer of Christianity.com, which launched Sept. 5.
The online network is backed by Sequoia Capital, which specializes in venture capital financing for such online entities as Yahoo!.
It intends to be a link between Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox and messianic Jewish believers.
The network will offer Web site development and management, e-mail, e-commerce, distance education and other services.
“Worldwide, we’re linking the greatest message ever told with the greatest communication tool ever created,” said Davenport in a statement.
Quote of the Day: Wedgwood Baptist Church Pastor Al Meredith of Fort Worth, Texas
(RNS) “We are doing well because the whole Christian world is praying for us. We’ve had 20,000 cards and 13,000 e-mails sent to us. People are praying for us and that’s how we got through.”
Al Meredith, senior pastor of Wedgwood Baptist Church in Fort Worth, Texas, site of a shooting rampage a year ago (Sept. 15, 1999) that left seven people dead and seven others seriously wounded. He was quoted by Baptist Press, the news service of the Southern Baptist Convention.
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