c. 2003 Religion News Service

Baptists Seek Missionaries’ Support of Faith Statement

(RNS) The Southern Baptist Convention’s foreign missions agency is continuing its efforts to determine whether all of its missionaries have affirmed the latest version of the denomination’s faith statement.

Avery Willis, a senior vice president of the denomination’s International Mission Board, is personally calling workers to determine why they have delayed or refused to agree to the Baptist Faith and Message adopted in 2000, the denomination announced.

Some missionaries who are currently working in the United States are being told they cannot return to overseas assignments unless they have agreed to the statement, said Clyde Meador, associate vice president of overseas operations. Those who are abroad and preparing for a U.S. assignment have been told they must decide before their return.

“These calls are not being made to inform people that they are being fired,” Clyde Meador, associate vice president of overseas operations, said in a statement. “Everyone was asked a year ago to decide whether or not they would make this affirmation.”

Some missionaries who have not wished to affirm the 2000 version of the Baptist Faith and Message believe the mission board is trying to coerce them to agree to something they consider to be a creedal statement that refers to “doctrinal accountability.” Southern Baptist leaders have denied it is a creed.

“If this were really only a request and only a statement of faith, no one would be going to these great lengths to pressure and demand compliance to this document, and no one would be judged or terminated for refusing to sign it,” said Steve Armstrong, a Dallas-based missionary who received a call from Willis, in a report by Associated Baptist Press, an independent news service.

Thirty-two missionaries have submitted their resignations, citing the year-old request from mission board officials to affirm the statement as a factor. Board officials estimate that less than 1 percent of the more than 5,400 missionaries have not announced their decisions.

“We would deeply regret losing any missionary, but we are accountable to the churches in this matter,” said International Mission Board President Jerry Rankin in a statement. “If a missionary’s disagreements are so great that he cannot in good conscience promise to work in harmony with the (Baptist Faith and Message), we feel he has an obligation to Southern Baptists to tell them so.”

_ Adelle M. Banks

Vietnam Faulted on Treatment of Evangelical Christians

NEW YORK (RNS) A new report alleges that the Vietnamese government is intensifying repression against a group of indigenous peoples, many of them evangelical Christians, who are involved in a popular movement for religious freedom and land rights.

The report by New York-based Human Rights Watch says more than 200 Montagnards have been detained since February 2001 for their participation in peaceful protests, with 30 people arrested in the last two months, many of them during the Christmas season.

“The Vietnamese government’s crackdown against the Montagnards is as harsh as ever,” said Mike Jendrzejczyk of Human Rights Watch’s Asia Division.

The Human Rights Watch report, issued Jan. 21, cites an October 2002 internal directive by the Vietnamese government outlining a campaign to root out “Dega Protestantism,” a type of evangelical Christianity popular among many Montagnards in Vietnam’s Central Highlands.

The government views “Dega Protestantism” as dangerous, the report said, because it believes the religious movement has been a rallying force for those seeking an independent Montagnard homeland.

“People are being interrogated, arrested, beaten and jailed simply because they are Christians or are suspected of supporting the popular movement for land rights and religious freedom,” Jendrzejczyk said.

Highlanders have been forced to renounce Christianity before government authorities and pledge not to gather in groups or participate in demonstrations, the report said.

Many of those imprisoned have been incarcerated for more than six months at a time without trial; when they finally are granted a trial, defendants do not have access to their own lawyers, Human Rights Watch said. Defendants have been sentenced for up to 12 years for crimes that include violations of national security. Those trying to seek asylum in neighboring Cambodia have been sentenced on charges of “illegal migration.”

Arrests peaked during the Christmas season, the report said, when authorities detained dozens of Montagnards and also banned Christmas church services.

Vietnam’s Communist Party, which rules the country’s government, has not yet responded to the latest Human Rights Watch report. But earlier this month, the party harshly criticized the watchdog group’s annual report on global human rights violations during the year 2002. That report said Vietnamese authorities were suppressing Christian church leaders and land rights activists, as well as Buddhist groups.

The government said it “flatly rejected” the allegations, calling them “gross slander,” and said the problems in the Central Highlands were an internal issue. “In Vietnam, any violation of the law is handled in accordance with the country’s laws,” said Phan Thuy Thanh, a Foreign Ministry spokeswoman.

_ Chris Herlinger

In Boston, Eight Faiths Pray for Peace During State of Union

BOSTON (RNS) As President Bush readied the nation for war Tuesday night (Jan. 28), about 1,300 adherents of eight religious traditions filled a major church in Boston to protest and pray for peace.

The Interfaith Witness for Peace With Iraq at Trinity Church used a medley of prayers, hymns and proclamation to signal a broad cross-section of anti-war dissent from the religious community. Those gathered, first to worship and then to hold a candlelight vigil outside in 10-degree weather, came from Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, Sikh, Sufi and Quaker communities.

“As religious people concerned with the well-being of the human community, our concern knows no boundaries,” organizers said in a jointly signed statement. “It extends to all who suffer in war _ leaders, civilians and soldiers of every nation _ as well as those who work for peace in international organizations. We affirm the strategies of diplomacy, nonviolence and international negotiation to manage and resolve conflict between nations.”

While President Bush was putting final touches on his State of the Union address, Quakers were leading Bostonians in five minutes of silence to begin the service. Muslims broke the silence with an Arabic call to prayer and reading from the Quran. Hindus then offered a prayer for peace in Sanskrit, followed by a 15-minute homily from Massachusetts Episcopal Bishop Thomas Shaw.

Shaw urged the president to attend to the world’s “real threats,” such as AIDS in Africa, hunger and homelessness. In the meantime, his diocese intends to keep leading an interfaith movement opposing war with Iraq.

“When we seek violent solutions to problems, we violate our own principles” as religious people, said diocesan spokesman Kenneth Arnold. “We become what we hate.”

_ G. Jeffrey MacDonald

Church of Scotland: Keep Iraq Issue in `U.N. Court’

LONDON (RNS) The issue of Iraq “must remain within the U.N. court,” says Finlay Macdonald, moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland.

Macdonald, head of the Presbyterian denomination, said while he was prepared to give British Prime Minister Tony Blair credit for persuading President Bush that involving the United Nations and its weapons inspectors was the way to go, the signs remain “very ominous indeed” with such large numbers of U.S. and British troops being sent to the region.

“In my view it is vital that the United Nations be allowed to continue its strategy towards a peaceful solution, with war only as a last resort and then only sanctioned by a new U.N. resolution,” he said in a speech prepared for delivery to a local presbytery. “The issue must remain within the U.N. court. It is not a matter for the United States with Britain dragged along in tow.”

He urged members of the denomination to write to their member of Parliament and to Blair and “let them know what you think.” He also encouraged members to attend an anti-war rally in Glasgow on Feb. 15.

Macdonald quoted a suggestion made Monday (Jan. 27) by Chief Rabbi of Great Britain Jonathan Sacks at the Holocaust Day commemoration in Edinburgh. Sacks said, “The litmus test of a civilized society is whether it sacrifices its hatreds for the sake of its children, or the other way round.”

“How many Iraqi children, I wonder, will pay the price of presidential impatience, diplomatic failure and Saddam’s noncooperation? And to what end?” Macdonald said.

He said that while attention is focused on Iraq, the current Middle East conflict continues to fester with violence and suffering on both sides.

“At the same time the atrocious conditions in which many live without proper access to health care, clean water, education and proper nourishment continue to slip down our scale of priorities.

“A fraction of the cost of the present military buildup in the Gulf could do so much to make our world a fairer place _ and consequently a safer place,” he said.

Meanwhile, Britain’s five major aid agencies _ Oxfam, CAFOD, Christian Aid, ActionAid and Save the Children _ have warned that military action against Iraq could trigger a humanitarian disaster. They said that up to 16 million people in Iraq _ whose population is estimated at 23.3 million _ are already entirely dependent on food aid, while the country’s water and sanitation system is stretched to the limit.

“The humanitarian situation in Iraq is now more fragile than it was on the eve of the 1991 Gulf War,” said Oxfam director Barbara Stocking.

_ Robert Nowell

Quote of the Day: Metropolitan Community Churches Founder Troy Perry

(RNS) “For me it’s not a religious issue, it’s a legal issue. It’s a matter of equality and simple justice. If my country is to live out its promise of equality, all laws must be applied equally, and that includes our marriage laws.”

_ Rev. Troy D. Perry, founder of Metropolitan Community Churches, whose predominantly gay organization is encouraging gay and lesbian couples to apply for marriage licenses on Valentine’s Day.

DEA END RNS