c. 2003 Religion News Service
Study Shows Immigrant Churches More Effective at Meeting Needs
WASHINGTON (RNS) A new study of immigrant churches, mosques and temples shows that they are more active in meeting the social needs of their populations than most typical American congregations.
The study, which was conducted by Catholic University’s Life Cycle Institute and funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts, examined the role churches, mosques and temples play in the lives of Korean, Chinese, Indian, Salvadoran and West African immigrants.
Surveying 200 Christian, Muslim, Hindu and Sikh worship communities in the Washington area, researchers found that both poor and wealthy immigrant groups work with social service agencies to help their own members and needy people outside their communities.
Researchers also reported that immigrant congregations provide a broader range of services than their non-immigrant counterparts.
“Immigrant worship communities are as diverse as the new immigrants themselves,” Catholic University Professor Michael W. Foley, a principal researcher for the study, said in a statement. “They range from small, intimate Protestant churches to large mosques and Catholic parishes providing a variety of formal and informal programs to their members and neighbors.”
Some of the wealthier immigrant congregations, such as Korean and Chinese churches and Hindu and Sikh temples, resemble middle-class non-immigrant churches in their participation in blood drives and food programs for the homeless, while other congregations meet the needs of recent immigrants by providing services like English classes, the study showed.
“The value of this study is that it provides data about the role of churches in the empowerment of immigrants as they assimilate themselves into American life, sociology professor Dean Hoge of Catholic University said in a statement.
A separate study sponsored by several government agencies found that nearly two-thirds of new immigrants to the United States are Christian, due in part to large numbers of Catholics coming from Latin America.
_ Alexandra Alter
Jewish Group Raises Concerns About Gibson’s `Passion’ Film
(RNS) The Anti-Defamation League says it still has concerns that an upcoming movie on the death of Jesus by Mel Gibson will portray Jews as “blood-thirsty, sadistic and money-hungry enemies of Jesus.”
In a statement issued Wednesday (June 24), the ADL raised five separate concerns about “The Passion,” which is scheduled for release next year and has already generated buzz for its Aramaic dialogue and violent depictions of the crucifixion.
The ADL is concerned that the film resurrects old prejudices that blame Jews for the death of Jesus. The ADL said the film threatens to “oversimplify” history, present an “inescapably negative picture of Jewish society and leadership” and “portray Jews and the Temple as the locus of evil.”
Officials from the ADL and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops convened a group of Catholic and Jewish scholars to examine an early draft of the film’s script. The group’s private 18-page report saw several problems and relayed their concerns to Gibson.
Gibson, who vehemently denied charges of anti-semitism, demanded all copies of the script be returned and threatened to sue. The bishops conference apologized and agreed not to critique the film until its release next year.
The ADL said it “fully stands behind” the scholars’ report but refused to release it, saying only that it found the film “replete with objectionable elements.” The ADL said a misinformed film could “falsify history and fuel the animus of those who hate Jews.”
A spokesman for Gibson’s Icon Productions said company officials were unavailable for comment, and referred to a June 13 statement from Gibson in which he said “neither I nor my film are anti-Semitic.”
The scholars, for the most part, have declined to comment on the specifics of their report. The panel’s four Catholic members, led by Philip A. Cunningham at Boston College’s Center for Christian-Jewish Learning, warned in a June 17 statement that filmmakers like Gibson bear “considerable moral responsibility” when dramatizing the death of Jesus.
_ Kevin Eckstrom
Falwell Regains Internet Sites Featuring His Name
(RNS) Evangelist Jerry Falwell says he has gained the rights to two Internet domains that use his name after he threatened to continue legal challenges against the man who set up the parody Web sites.
Falwell said Wednesday (June 18) that Gary Cohn, a Highland Park, Ill., entrepreneur, decided to turn over jerryfalwell.com and jerryfallwell.com rather than face another suit from him, the Associated Press reported.
Cohn and his attorneys did not respond to requests for a comment from the AP.
Falwell, a Lynchburg, Va., pastor and religious broadcaster, has attempted to gain legal rights to the domains since early last year. He filed a complaint with the World Intellectual Property Organization, which ruled against him.
His later suit against Cohn in Virginia federal court was dismissed in March. After that dismissal, Falwell and his lawyers discovered that the name Jerry Falwell had been trademarked with Falwell’s talk show “Listen America” several years ago.
Jerry Falwell Jr., general counsel for Falwell’s Thomas Road Baptist Church, said the trademark was a key factor in getting Cohn to surrender the domain names.
Patterson Elected Southwestern Seminary President
(RNS) Former Southern Baptist Convention President Paige Patterson was unanimously elected Tuesday (June 24) as the new president of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas, the school announced.
Patterson, who currently is the president of another Southern Baptist seminary in North Carolina, is considered one of the architects of the conservative resurgence that began in the late 1970s in the nation’s largest Protestant denomination.
“The election of Paige Patterson as president of Southwestern Seminary is one of the greatest moments in the history of the Southern Baptist Convention,” said R. Albert Mohler, chairman of the Southern Baptist Council of Seminary Presidents, in a statement.
“Dr. Patterson is one of our greatest leaders, and the Martin Luther in the reformation of our convention and the recovery of biblical inerrancy and authority.”
Patterson, 60, is a third-generation Southern Baptist preacher and a native Texan. He served as president of the 16.2-million-member denomination from 1998 to 2000.
For the last 11 years, he has been president of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, N.C., where the enrollment has grown in that period from about 500 to almost 2,500.
Patterson called the move a “clear call of God.”
Southwestern had a spring enrollment of 2,894 and is considered one of the largest evangelical seminaries in the world.
He succeeds Kenneth S. Hemphill, who retired to become national strategist for the denomination’s Empowering Kingdom Growth initiative that aims to foster spiritual renewal among Southern Baptists. Hemphill succeeded Russell Dilday in 1994 after Dilday was fired by theologically conservative trustees who thought he was sympathetic to moderates in the denomination.
_ Adelle M. Banks
Court Dismisses Request To Reconsider Roe v. Wade
(RNS) A federal district court has dismissed a request by former “Jane Roe” plaintiff Norma McCorvey to reconsider the landmark U.S. Supreme Court ruling that legalized abortion three decades ago.
McCorvey, who became an anti-abortion activist 10 years ago, made the request June 17, seeking an inquiry into evidence she says shows abortion hurts women, the Associated Press reported.
On Thursday (June 19), Judge David Godbey of Dallas dismissed her request saying it was not made within a “reasonable time” of the original judgment.
“Whether or not the Supreme Court was infallible, its Roe decision was certainly final in this litigation,” he wrote. “It is simply too late now, 30 years after the fact, for McCorvey to revisit that judgment.”
McCorvey’s lawyer, Allan Parker, said it is likely that his client will ask the court to reconsider its decision.
Sarah Weddington, the abortion rights activist and lawyer who originally represented McCorvey, was pleased with Godbey’s ruling.
“It never should have been filed,” she said.
Quote of the Day: Rev. Huey J. Sevier of Mount Vernon, Va.
(RNS) “We are a throwaway society. We don’t recycle well. It is beyond me that a human being could discard an infant child, and I am angry. I suspect it’s a good thing that I am not God.”
_ The Rev. Huey J. Sevier, rector of St. James Episcopal Church in Mount Vernon, Va., who officiated at the burial Tuesday (June 24) of an infant whose body was found abandoned on a golf course.
KRE END RNS
