c. 2003 Religion News Service

Suspended Alabama Chief Justice Appeals to U.S. Supreme Court

WASHINGTON (RNS) Suspended Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore has formally asked the U.S. Supreme Court to hear his case concerning the placement of a Ten Commandments monument in his state’s judicial building, his lawyers said.

In a legal document made public Monday (Sept. 29), Moore seeks the high court’s interpretation of the First Amendment concerning church-state disputes about public displays of religion.

“… this court has failed to discharge its duty to provide a uniform rule of law governing Establishment Clause cases,” reads the document, which attorneys said was filed on Friday. “As a consequence of this failure, the lower federal courts are floundering in a sea of precedents with no legal rudder.”

In a statement, Moore said he hopes the Supreme Court justices will permit him to acknowledge God in his public capacity.

“As our petition makes clear, the Federal District courts of our land have been led to believe the First Amendment prohibits the acknowledgment of God,” Moore said. “The U.S. Supreme Court should now clarify the Establishment Clause to show that the acknowledgment of God was not only the very basis for the First Amendment, but also provides freedom of conscience for all people.”

Last year, an Alabama district judge ruled that Moore’s placement of the monument violated the Establishment Clause. An appeals court affirmed the lower opinion on July 1. When the district judge subsequently ordered the removal of the monument and Moore refused, he was overruled by his fellow associate justices and the monument was removed from the rotunda of the judicial building. He was suspended for his actions and faces trial himself on ethics charges in November.

A spokesman for one of the groups that sued to get the monument removed said he did not expect the high court to take the case.

“The brief is based on the same tired, discredited arguments that were utterly rejected by lower federal courts,” Robert Boston, a spokesman for Americans United for Separation of Church and State, told Religion News Service.

“It is highly unlikely the U.S. Supreme Court will find them persuasive.”

Experts on both sides of the case predicted it could be two months or longer before the high court’s justices determine whether they will hear the case.

_ Adelle M. Banks

Poll: Most Americans OK With Monument With Biblical, Not Quranic Verses

(RNS) The majority of Americans approve of the display of a Ten Commandments monument in a public building but disapprove of a similar display featuring a verse from the Quran, Islam’s holy book, a new USA Today/CNN/Gallup Poll shows.

The poll, taken Sept. 19-21 and reported Tuesday (Sept. 30) in USA Today, found that 70 percent of U.S. adults approve of the display of a monument to the Ten Commandments in a public school or government building, while 29 percent disapprove and 1 percent had no opinion.

But the percentages were practically reversed concerning display of a monument with a verse from the Quran in a government building or a public school. In that case, 64 percent of those polled disapproved of display of a Quranic verse, while 33 percent approved and 3 percent offered no opinion.

A similar disparity in views was displayed in answers to questions about funding of social programs such as those providing day care or drug rehabilitation.

Asked about the use of federal funds for such programs if they are run by “Christian religious organizations,” 64 percent approved, 34 percent disapproved and 2 percent had no opinion.

But responses to a similar question regarding use of federal funds for social programs run by “Islamic religious organizations” showed that 56 percent disapproved, 41 percent approved and 3 percent had no opinion.

In general, public displays of religion met approval with those contacted for the survey. For example, 90 percent approved of the inscription “In God We Trust” on American coins and 78 percent approved of a nondenominational prayer as part of an official program at a public school’s sporting event or graduation.

Views were more mixed about the possibility that the government may be harming people’s rights when it promotes religion. Fifty-four percent of respondents said they lean toward the view that “any time government promotes the teachings of a religion, it can harm the rights of people who do not belong to that religion.” Forty percent said they would more likely agree with the view that “government can promote the teachings of a religion without harming the rights of people who do not belong to that religion.” Six percent offered no opinion on that question.

The survey results were based on telephone interviews of 1,003 adults ages 18 and older and had a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

_ Adelle M. Banks

Disciples’ Leader Comes Under Fire Again for Borrowed Sermons

WASHINGTON (RNS) The moderator of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) has come under fire a second time for publishing a sermon that contained significant portions of borrowed and unattributed material.

The sermon, “How Can Everything Be All Right?” by the Rev. Alvin O. Jackson, contains passages from a 1982 book by the late theologian Lewis B. Smedes, The Washington Post reported.

St. Louis-based Chalice Press said it has suspended a book, “Shaken Foundations: Sermons From America’s Pulpits After the Terrorist Attacks” that featured Jackson’s sermon along with 18 others.

In August, Jackson apologized after he admitted he “borrowed liberally” from at least 17 sermons by other prominent pastors. Jackson said sermons should be held “to a different standard” than other published work.

“I take full responsibility for what I’ve done,” Jackson, pastor of Washington’s National City Christian Church, told The Post at the time. “It was poor judgment on my part.”

Jackson will conclude his term as the denomination’s highest-elected official in October after chairing the Disciples’ General Assembly meeting in Charlotte, N.C.

An analysis by The Washington Post also found significant portions of the sermon were taken from a Baltimore Sun article by Michael Ollove. The Post found that 21 of 22 sentences in Jackson’s sermon were copied from a Sept. 12, 2001, story by Ollove.

“I don’t remember where I got that,” Jackson told The Post, adding that Smedes’ material had been in his files for some time. “I don’t dispute it, but I don’t remember it.”

Cyrus White, publisher of Chalice Press, said he typically asks authors to sign a statement verifying that their material is their own. That was not done in this case because of a desire to get the book published by early 2002.

Jackson said he would meet Tuesday with a denominational committee as part of an ongoing “conversation” about his work at the Washington church, the flagship congregation of the denomination.

Scotland’s New Cardinal Urges `Full and Open Discussion’ of Celibacy

LONDON (RNS) Archbishop Keith O’Brien of St. Andrews and Edinburgh (Scotland), named Sunday (Sept. 28) by Pope John Paul II to be a cardinal, has called for a “full and open discussion” within the church of issues such as contraception and celibacy.

O’Brien, in an interview with The Herald, the Glasgow daily paper, said there is “a clear distinction between things that confront us in the church at the present time which we can say are God’s law, like murder, abortion. We can’t compromise on matters like that.

“Other matters of church law, and celibacy by priests is one of those sorts of things, can be discussed. In other branches of the Catholic Church throughout the world (i.e. the Eastern churches in communion with Rome) there are married priests, and in England there are a number of converts from Anglicanism who are married and who became Roman Catholic priests.

“So there is no problem about that. What I would ask for in the church at every level, including the cardinals’ level and the pope’s level, is to be able to have a full and open discussion about these issues to see where we stand and what the need is and what the implications are.”

The question of artificial contraception was also one that should be open for discussion, he said.

In the interview, O’Brien acknowledged celibacy is a concern for younger priests. He cited the case of one Edinburgh priest who three years after ordination became involved with a Catholic teacher. “I think, why should he not be a married priest?” the archbishop asked.

On homosexuality he admitted that gay clergy were a fact of life.

“If 10 percent of men are gay, then it’s a reasonable assumption that 10 percent of priests and 10 percent of bishops are gay,” he told The Scotsman, the Edinburgh daily, in a separate interview. “But it is what you do about it. If they are living a celibate life, then God bless the men.”

_ Robert Nowell

Disciples’ First President, Dale Fiers, Dies at 96

(RNS) The Rev. A. Dale Fiers, the architect and first president of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) died Sunday (Sept. 28) in Jacksonville, Fla. He was 96.

Fiers was the first president of the Indianapolis-based denomination when it was formally inaugurated in 1968. During his five years in office, Fiers helped frame the church’s looseknit structure that gives substantial autonomy to local churches grouped into 36 regions.

“From this vantage point I think I can see beyond these days of decision about restructure to the road ahead when the accent will increasingly be on the mission which God summons his church,” Fiers said in 1968.

Fiers, who was raised in West Palm Beach, Fla., marched with Martin Luther King Jr. for civil rights in Alabama and helped give shape to the denomination’s commitment to ecumenism.

“Dale was a giant among Christian leaders,” said the Rev. Richard Hamm, the church’s outgoing president and general minister. “We had come to feel that he would always be with us, but his death reminds us and the church that we are in God’s hands, and this is our source of comfort.”

Prior to serving as president, Fiers pastored four churches in Ohio between 1929 and 1951 and served as president of the Disciples’ United Christian Missionary Society for 15 years, and as executive secretary for the International Convention of Christian Churches.

He is survived by his son, Alan. His wife, Betty, and daughter, Barbara, had previously died.

_ Kevin Eckstrom

Quote of the Day: Georg Gaenswein, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger’s private secretary.

(RNS) “He (Pope John Paul II) can’t walk and stand anymore but he is a hero for the faithful. The fact that he doesn’t give up despite his illness makes him even more credible.”

_ George Gaenswein, private secretary to Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, in an interview with the German magazine Bunte, reported by Reuters on Sept. 30.

DEA END RNS