c. 2003 Religion News Service

Baptist World Alliance Accepts Cooperative Baptist Fellowship As Member

(RNS) The Baptist World Alliance has accepted the moderate Cooperative Baptist Fellowship as a new member body, upsetting some more conservative leaders within the Southern Baptist Convention.

The alliance announced that the fellowship was accepted by a majority vote on Friday (July 11) of 75 of the 105 voting members at its General Council meeting in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

The decision was criticized by leaders of the Southern Baptist Convention while alliance officials sought to continue relations with them. The CBF originally formed to counter the conservative direction of the Southern Baptists, the nation’s largest Protestant denomination.

“This decision to accept CBF was based upon the facts that CBF met the requirements for membership,” said Billy Kim, president of the alliance and Denton Lotz, the group’s general secretary, in a statement. “It was not a decision against the SBC, but a democratic vote of the council to affirm our Baptist family. … We love our Southern Baptists brothers and sisters and want them to remain active and full participants in all our meetings as we affirm together our unity in Christ.”

Charles Kelley, president of New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, a Southern Baptist school, said the vote should prompt Southern Baptist reconsideration of its involvement with the alliance.

“The significance of the decision in accepting the CBF for full membership may only be the last straw which finally breaks a severely strained relationship stretching back several years,” said Kelley, a regular participant in alliance meetings, in a statement from the Southern Baptist Convention’s news service.

“This is about much more than CBF membership. This decision serves to tell us a great deal about the direction of the BWA. I do not believe that it is a direction Southern Baptists intend to go.”

During the annual Southern Baptist Convention in June, an official vote reduced Southern Baptist funding of the alliance from $425,000 to $300,000. SBC officials intend to use the $125,000 to pursue a new “kingdom relationships” initiative, which would link Southern Baptists with “other like-minded Christian bodies” worldwide.

The Falls Church, Va.-based Baptist World Alliance, in a separate vote, accepted four other new member bodies: Community of Baptist Churches of Eastern Congo, Association of Baptist Churches in the Central African Republic; Baptist Church in Bosnia and Herzegovina; and Fraternity of Baptist Churches in Cuba.

_ Adelle M. Banks

Archbishop of Canterbury Appeals for Unity, not `Meaningless Unanimity’

LONDON (RNS) Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, the spiritual leader of the fractured Anglican Communion, issued an urgent plea Monday (July 14) calling for a unity that does not have to mean “meaningless unanimity.”

Williams, in his first presidential address as archbishop, spoke to the Church of England’s General Synod meeting in York one week after an openly gay bishop-elect withdrew his nomination when conservatives threatened a revolt.

Williams said the furor over the nomination of the Rev. Jeffrey John as bishop of Reading has reinforced his view “that there are several different `Churches of England;’ that they do not communicate with each other very effectively; and that they need to learn how to do this better if they are to fulfill their primary task of witnessing to God’s transforming promise.”

The Episcopal Church, which is the U.S. branch of the communion, will meet later this month to confirm or reject the election of an openly gay priest as the next bishop of New Hampshire.

On Sunday, Williams spoke of the dangers inherent in appealing for unity in the Church. “To appeal to or speak in the name of unity in the Church is very easily capable of slipping into the search for an appearance of meaningless unanimity,” he said.

“Unity has become a flaccid word, a default option, a denial of pain and work and real difference. No one can speak against it: it is a motherhood and apple-pie concept; and this means that no one much wants to speak for it either.”

Williams recalled the warnings of St. Paul, who he said did not seek unity as a way of “denying conflict or smoothing over the surface, but because the conflicts and failures of the Churches are the opportunity for wresting a gift out of what seems a curse.”

Williams said the Church of England that he knows is a “mosaic of groups” who each authoratively claim the label “Anglican.” He also lamented the “soap opera” view of the church, popular in the tabloids, whose “life is about short-term conflicts, blazing rows in the pub, so to speak, mysterious plots and unfathomable motivations. It is both ridiculous and fascinating.”

Williams said the differing factions of the church rarely talk to one another only relate to each other “at a level of destructive and often angry bewilderment and denial.” In such a case, Williams said there could be “no possible reconciliation.”

_ Robert Nowell

Catholic Leaders Attend Private Meeting on Future of Church

WASHINGTON (RNS) Leaders of the U.S. Catholic hierarchy participated in a closed-door meeting with prominent lawyers, academics and media representatives that is now being criticized for its off-the-record format and several of the attendees.

The July 7 meeting at the Pope John Paul II Cultural Center in Washington brought together nearly 40 leading Catholics to discuss the future of the American church as it attempts to move beyond the sex abuse scandal, according to The Boston Globe and the Associated Press.

The daylong meeting, organized by Geoffrey T. Boisi, a former vice chairman of JPMorganChase, was not officially sanctioned by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, although six leading bishops _ including President Wilton Gregory of Belleville, Ill., and Washington Cardinal Theodore McCarrick _ attended.

Most participants refused to comment on the meeting, but several unnamed attendees told The Globe they addressed the “management failure” of church bishops in the scandal, the “dysfunctional” nature of some church operations and issues such as the celibate priesthood, the role of the laity and women, and holding leaders accountable.

“No bishops could leave that meeting without having a lot to reflect upon,” one participant said.

The Rev. Tom Reese, editor of America magazine and one of the participants, said, “It was an opportunity for some laypeople to get together with some bishops and have a conversation about the direction of the church and the future of the church. They had a very good, positive conversation.”

Monika K. Hellwig, president and executive director of the Association of Catholic Colleges and Universities, said “there are some things that will not move without Rome. But we can make some efforts to move Rome, and there is a whole range of other affairs that are really internal to the North American church, and they can reshape the way things are done.”

But Deal Hudson, the conservative editor of Crisis magazine, did not attend the meeting and criticized several members’ political agendas, including Hellwig, former Commonweal editors Margaret and Peter Steinfels, and AFL/CIO President John Sweeney.

“Why on earth would high-ranking bishops _ including the president of the (bishops’ conference) … _ entertain a meeting with such known liberals and dissenters, and do it in private?” Hudson said in an e-mail message.

Other attendees, according to The Globe and the Associated Press, were Notre Dame professor Scott Appleby; National Public Radio news analyst Cokie Roberts; the Rev. J. Bryan Hehir, president of Catholic Charities USA; Thomas S. Murphy, former CEO of Capital Cities/ABC, Inc.; and Kathleen McChesney, director of the bishops’ Office for Child and Youth Protection.

Lutheran Pastor Released After Being Sentenced in Native Laos

(RNS) A Lutheran pastor was reunited with his family in St. Paul, Minn., last Thursday (July 10) after being held in a Laotian prison for more than a month.

The safe return of the Rev. Naw-Karl Mua followed several weeks of intense diplomatic efforts to ensure his release.

“The release of Rev. Mua is good news for his family and our entire community,” Rep. Betty McCollum, D-Minn., told the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America News Service.

Mua, the pastor of the Light of Life Lutheran Church in Maplewood, Minn.,was sentenced to 15 years in prison along with two European journalists on charges of obstructing a police investigation and possessing illegal firearms on June 30.

A U.S. citizen and native of Laos, Mua was working as an interpreter for Thierry Falise of Belgium and and Vincent Reynaud of France, who were reporting on an ongoing rebel insurgency when the three were caught in crossfire between Hmong rebels and villagers on June 3. They were arrested along with three Laotian men for their alleged cooperation in the death of a village guard.

“I want to thank God for having protected me from Communist persecutions and giving me the strengths to endure the unbearable hardships during my arrest and imprisonment,” Mua said during a press conference at Beaver Lake Lutheran Church on Saturday (July 12), the Associated Press reported.

The three men had to pay fines of up to $2,500 each to the family of a slain village guard.

Mua met the journalists while working on a missionary project in neighboring Thailand and entered Laos legally as their translator on May 23. He was reported missing after failing to return for his son’s high school graduation in early June.

_ Alexandra Alter

Former Bishops’ President John Roach of Minneapolis Dead at 81

(RNS) Former St. Paul and Minneapolis Archbishop John Roach, a former president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and devoted advocate of social justice, died Friday (July 11) at the age of 81.

Roach served as archbishop of the Twin Cities from 1975 to 1995. Admirers said he will be remembered for his work in interfaith relations and his ability to unify the area’s 700,000 Roman Catholics during some of the church’s most difficult times.

When he was president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops from 1980 to 1983, he oversaw two of the conference’s most significant statements __ the pastoral letters on nuclear disarmament and economic justice.

“Archbishop Roach was a devoted churchman and a courageous leader rooted in prayer. His devotion to the Bishops’ Conference was inspiring,” said Bishop Wilton Gregory, the current president of the U.S. Conference of Bishops,in a statement.

Roach will be remembered by other Minneapolis religious communities as well. “Archbishop Roach recognized the importance of interfaith relations and worked within the Catholic community to build positive relationships between members of the Christian and Jewish communities,” David Orbuch, president of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Minnesota and the Dakotas, said in a statement. “It is up to us to build on the foundation of trust, compassion, faith and service that will be part of the legacy of Archbishop Roach.”

_ Alexandra Alter

Quote of the Day: United Church of Christ Southern Conference Minister Tim Downs

(RNS) “I tell them that by coming to us they have not crossed the River Jordan. We in the UCC (United Church of Christ) are still working it out. Don’t idealize us, because you’ll be disappointed. But accept us for what we are.”

_ The Rev. Tim Downs, United Church of Christ Southern Conference Minister,speaking about the decision of the Alliance of Baptists _ some of whose members were formerly related to the more conservative Southern Baptist Convention _ to form a partnership with the more liberal United Church of Christ. He was quoted in a church news release on Sunday (July 13), the day the UCC General Synod adopted a resolution affirming the partnership.

KRE END RNS