c. 2003 Religion News Service

Half of Americans Say Middle East Is Religiously Significant for Them

(RNS) Half of Americans think the Middle East has personal religious significance for them, while an almost equal percentage say it is historically significant, a recent Gallup Poll shows.

Thirty percent of Americans polled said they consider Israel and other countries of the Middle East to be “a holy land that has personal significance for you because you believe events that the Bible predicted will eventually occur there.” That view was most popular with Americans who describe themselves as “born again.”

Twenty percent of those surveyed said the region is a holy land that has personal religious significance for them for other reasons.

Close to half of Americans _ 47 percent _ said the region is historically significant but does not have personal religious significance for them.

Women are more likely than men _ 54 percent to 45 percent _ to link the region with religion, either due to biblical prophecy or other reasons. Likewise, 52 percent of Americans ages 65 and older considered the region to be a holy land compared to 40 percent of those ages 18 to 29.

Pollsters found that half or more of those holding to the various perspectives on the Middle East favor the creation of an independent Palestinian state. Fifty percent of those saying the region is religiously significant due to biblical prophecy favor a Palestinian state, compared to 26 percent who oppose it. The percentages favoring a Palestinian state are even larger in the other categories _ 65 percent of those who said the region was religiously significant for other reasons and 61 percent of those who said it was not a religiously significant region.

The poll also found that 58 percent of Americans in general favor the establishment of a Palestinian state on the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

The survey results are based on telephone interviews May 30-June 1 with 1,019 adults nationwide and have a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

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Americans’ Views on Religious Significance of the Middle East

Personally religiously significant due to biblical prophecy: 30 percent

Personally religiously significant for other reasons: 20 percent

Historically significant, but not personally religiously significant: 47 percent

Source: The Gallup Organization

_ Adelle M. Banks

Brethren Leaders Concerned by Growth of `Special Interests’

(RNS) Regional leaders from the Church of the Brethren say they are concerned that their denomination is becoming fractured by special interests, competing agendas and a “lack of common vision.”

The church’s Council of District Executives, comprised of leaders from 23 regional districts and 10 other officials, called for a churchwide consultation in early 2005 to find ways to unite the 134,000-member church.

In a statement adopted July 5, the council bemoaned “an increased sense of mistrust, disrespect and suspicion” toward church offices and agencies, as well as a “proliferation of special interest groups” which “can divert energy, talent and resources. …”

“In recent years we have noted with concern the development of various divisive trends and attitudes,” said the statement, adopted during the church’s Annual Conference meeting in Boise, Idaho.

The executives said the church is increasingly polarized by “issues” instead of united by a common mission, which reflects “a lack of theological and organizational clarity.”

The statement did not reference specific issues facing the church, but Nancy Knepper, the coordinator of district ministries, said the ordination of homosexuals and the authority of the Bible are two issues that prompted divisions.

The statement called for a “broadly represented consultation” that would bring together different groups within the church to discuss the divisions. Knepper said the consultation is initially scheduled for early 2005, although it would have no official decision-making authority.

The church has not held a consultation in more than 40 years.

The Church of the Brethren, headquartered in Elgin, Ill., is one of the historic “peace churches” that oppose all forms of violence. It is a close relative of other Anabaptist churches such as the Mennonites and the Amish.

_ Kevin Eckstrom

European Catholics Warned of Growing Vocations Crisis

(RNS) A sharp decline in the number of European men studying to be Catholic priests spells bad news for the future of the Catholic Church, according to European vocations directors.

At a conference in Warsaw, Poland, in mid-July, church leaders said the number of future priests has fallen to dangerously low levels in Ireland, Britain, Spain, France, Belgium and Switzerland, according to Ecumenical News International.

Only Italy, home to the Roman Catholic Church, and Poland, home to Pope John Paul II, reported increases in the number of seminarians. Poland has a remarkable 7,000 men studying for the priesthood _ one-quarter of all seminarians on the continent.

“In much of Europe, pastoral work can continue only because priests are working into old age,” said the Rev. Rainer Birkenmaier, the outgoing director of the European Vocations Service. “We need an evangelical effort among young people who are interested in faith and the church, but who haven’t yet decided whether they wish to serve Christ through their life.”

In the United States, the number of seminarians has dropped from 8,325 in 1965 to 3,584 last year, according to the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown University.

In Ireland, a bastion of Catholicism, seven of eight seminaries have closed in the past decade, according to Birkenmaier. In heavily Catholic Spain, there were no new recruits at 28 of the country’s 68 seminaries for the 2002-2003 academic year.

The four seminaries in England and Wales reported just 48 men for ordination, while in Belgium, seminary enrollment had dropped by half _ to just 26 men _ in the past five years.

Between 1991 and 2001, seminary admissions in France fell from 1,210 to 927. In Switzerland, there were no new students at four seminaries in Geneva, Fribourg, Lausanne and Sion.

Krzysztof Pawlina, a seminary director in Warsaw, told ENI that many new recruits seem to lack “psychic and emotional maturity.”

“One new phenomenon among seminarians is their unwillingness to make sacrifices and their fear of hard, responsible decisions,” he said. “More and more are asking for breaks before proceeding with ordination.”

_ Kevin Eckstrom

Nuns Sentenced for Anti-Nuclear Protest

(RNS) Three Roman Catholic nuns were sentenced to at least 21/2 years in prison for vandalizing a nuclear weapons silo as an anti-war protest.

The three Dominican nuns were arrested Oct. 6 at the silo in northeast Colorado after cutting through a fence and entering a Minuteman III silo site, bashing the silo with hammers and using their blood to paint a cross on it. Officials say they caused at least $1,000 in damage.

The nuns, Jackie Hudson, 68, Ardeth Platte, 66, and Carol Gilbert, 55, had until Aug. 25 to go to prison but chose to go immediately, the Associated Press reported.

At the hearing Friday (July 25), prosecutor Robert Brown listed the nuns’ previous arrests at anti-war protests.

“The ladies could not be deterred for the last 20 years,” Brown said at the hearing, according to the AP. “They will be deterred for the time the court sentences them.”

Despite their prior arrest records (Hudson, five times, Platte, 10 times, and Gilbert, 13 times), U.S. District Judge Robert Blackburn departed from sentencing guidelines, which call for a minimum of six years and a maximum of 30 years.

An outpouring of support for the nuns followed the sentencing as hundreds of demonstrators gathered at missile silos in Colorado and Nebraska to carry on the nuns’ pacifist work. Religious and political activists met to pray, dance, sing and hang an eviction notice on the silo.

Earlier, the nuns encouraged a crowd of 150 people gathered outside the courthouse before the hearing to take up their cause.

“The hope of the world rests on each of our shoulders,” Hudson said to the crowd. “We are doing our part. What about you?”

Former Southern Baptist Convention Executive Harold Bennett Dead at 78

(RNS) Harold C. Bennett, who served as the leader of the Southern Baptist Convention Executive Committee from 1979 to 1992, died Sunday (July 27) in Brentwood, Tenn. He was 78.

Bennett had pancreatic cancer, the denomination announced.

The former president-treasurer of the Executive Committee was the chief staff member who coordinated many of the affairs of the nation’s largest Protestant denomination between annual convention gatherings.

“We are shocked and saddened by the passing of Dr. Bennett,” said Morris H. Chapman, Bennett’s successor, in a statement. “He was a devoted Christian, a loyal Southern Baptist and a dear friend.”

Bennett previously served in administrative positions in Baptist conventions in Florida and Texas and also worked in various divisions of the denomination, including those related to North American missions and Sunday school resources.

He also served as the chair of the Baptist World Alliance’s 1995 congress in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

A native of Asheville, N.C., Bennett previously worked as a pastor, prison chaplain and Navy pilot.

_ Adelle M. Banks

Quote of the Day: Comedian Bob Hope

(RNS) “I do benefits for all religions. I’d hate to blow the hereafter on a technicality.”

_ Comedian Bob Hope, who died Sunday (July 27) at the age of 100, explaining that although he was baptized in later years as a Catholic, he did not limit himself to Catholic charities. He was quoted by The Washington Post.

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