c. 2004 Religion News Service

Bush Administration Asks Appeals Court Rehearing on Assisted Suicide Law

(RNS) The Bush administration asked a federal appellate court on Monday (July 12) to reconsider its spring decision to uphold Oregon’s assisted suicide law.

It would like the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to set aside its May ruling that backed the only law in the country that permits doctors to assist patients in hastening their deaths, the Associated Press reported.

The Justice Department said the case, decided 2-1, should be reheard by a panel of 11 judges.

The three-judge panel determined that U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft cannot hold Oregon physicians criminally liable for prescribing overdoses under the voter-approved Death With Dignity Act.

The administration believes federal drug laws bar doctors from dispensing medication that would be used to end the life of a patient.”Under specified conditions, the Controlled Substances Act allows registered physicians to prescribe controlled substances for legitimate medical purposes in the usual course of professional practice,”the Justice Department wrote in its petition.”The attorney general recently issued an interpretive rule clarifying that assisting suicide is not a legitimate medical purpose under the CSA.” Eli Stutsman, a lawyer who represents a doctor and pharmacist in the case, said the federal government does not have authority over the state assisted suicide law.”There is simply no basis in the construct or intent of federal law that gives the federal government the authority to regulate the practice of medicine or establish the standard of care in the states,”he said.

A recent Gallup Poll shows that about two-thirds of adults surveyed agree that doctors should legally be permitted to assist a person with an incurable disease to end his or her life.

Poll Says `Passion’ Is Popular but Changes Few Lives

(RNS) A new poll says 11 million people changed their religious beliefs after seeing Mel Gibson’s”The Passion of the Christ,”but only a tiny fraction of movie-goers became Christians after seeing the film.

The survey, by the Ventura, Calif.-based Barna Group, said the film about the death of Jesus was remarkably effective at drawing attention to the Christian savior, even if it persuaded few to make a profession of faith.”More than any other movie in recent years, `The Passion’ focused people on the person and purpose of Jesus Christ,”George Barna, the director of research, said.”In a society that revolves on relativism, spiritual diversity, tolerance and independence, galvanizing such intense consideration of Jesus Christ is a major achievement in itself.” The controversial film, which was denounced by Jewish groups for its portrayal of Jews, is the year’s top-grossing film, at $609 million worldwide. Barna said about 67 million adults have seen the movie, about one-third of all adults in the United States.

Barna’s survey of 1,618 adults found that 13 million adults (18 percent of those who saw it) altered their religious behavior, and 11 million (16 percent) changed their religious beliefs, after seeing the movie.

Barna said changed behavior involved increased church attendance, praying more often or involvement in church-related activities. Changed beliefs involved becoming more concerned for others, implications of”life choices or personal behavior”and an increased”appreciation”for Jesus’ death.

Still, less than one-tenth of 1 percent of movie-goers (about 67,000) became Christians after seeing the film, and less than one-half of 1 percent (335,000) were motivated to share their Christian faith, according to Barna’s research.

Barna said”major transformation is not likely to result from one-time exposure to a specific media product.”Barna’s overall survey had a margin of error of plus or minus 2.4 percentage points, and 3.9 percentage points for the 646 adults surveyed who saw the movie.

At the same time, research by Nielsen EDI Inc., which tracks movie sales, found”The Passion”was the most popular in suburbs and a wide swath of the Sun Belt, from Orange County, Calif., and New Mexico through Texas, Florida and up into Ohio, Detroit and New York City.

Michael Moore’s documentary,”Fahrenheit 9/11,”meanwhile, has generated similar passions but has been most popular in urban centers in Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, and the Washington-New York-Boston corridor, according to The New York Times.

-Kevin Eckstrom

Pastor: Missionaries Stirring Trouble for Kuwaiti Christians

WASHINGTON (RNS) The senior pastor of Kuwait’s National Evangelical Church told American journalists last week (July 6) that Christian missionaries from the West are making life more difficult for Kuwaiti Christians.”Sometimes they are detrimental to us,”the Rev. Amanuel Ghareeb said.”Unfortunately, these Western missionaries, they don’t consider the consequences of their activities.” Proselytizing by non-Muslim missionaries is illegal in Kuwait, though like many of its neighbors, the small Persian Gulf nation has laws protecting religious freedom. Ghareeb said when foreign missionaries proselytize in Kuwait, the government puts pressure on local churches.”We tell our friends, `You are responsible about your activities, but please don’t hurt, jeopardize, the ministry of the local churches who are trying to nurture the faith of the Christians who are living and working in the Gulf states,'”Ghareeb said.

Ghareeb attended the recent General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA) in Richmond, Va., which ended July 3. His church has 70 parishioners, he said, and there are 300,000 Christians-mostly from other countries-among Kuwait’s 2.3 million residents.

He said he believes Arab Christians could serve as a bridge between Muslims and Western nations, but disagreed with what he called the”Christian Zionism”of Western evangelical groups that see the Jewish state of Israel as a biblical prophecy come true.”Our understanding of the Bible is that the state of Israel is not the fulfillment of the Old Testament prophecy. It’s just a political entity,”Ghareeb said. He said that for the most part, Christian churches in the Middle East support a separate, independent Palestinian state.

-Jonah D. King

Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod President Re-Elected

(RNS) The Rev. Gerald B. Kieschnick was re-elected Sunday (July 11) to a second term as president of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, perhaps ending a long debate over his support for a New York pastor who participated in a controversial post-Sept. 11 event.

Some members of the 2.5-million-member denomination had thought Kieschnick should be ousted from his position after he supported the participation of the Rev. David Benke, the denomination’s leader in New York, in a Yankee Stadium ceremony featuring clergy of other Christian and non-Christian faiths.

Garnering 52.8 percent of the vote, Kieschnick was elected to another three-year term, defeating the Rev. Daniel Preus, the incumbent first vice president, who had 31 percent of the vote, and three other candidates.

Preus thought Kieschnick-who needed a simple majority for re-election-had made the wrong decision about the Benke case.

Preus also was defeated in his run to keep his first vice presidential seat by Oklahoma District President William Diekelman, an Owasso, Okla., pastor.

LCMS spokesman David Strand said Kieschnick is ready to move beyond the Benke debate and help the denomination focus on issues such as mission outreach and Christian education.”It would be altruistic to say that everyone in the Synod is suddenly walking arm-in-arm and whistling the exact same tune, but the Yankee Stadium matter is over,”he told Religion News Service.”While there may still be some hard feelings among certain people, the sense seems to be that the synod is coming together to focus on the real business at hand.” More than 1,200 voting delegates have gathered for the denomination’s triennial meeting in St. Louis, which concludes on July 15. A total of more than 2,000 Lutherans are attending the meeting.

-Adelle M. Banks

Professors Urge Recitation of Creed at Baptist World Alliance Meeting

(RNS) A group of Baptist professors wants the Baptist World Alliance to recite a creed describing the basics of the Christian faith when it gathers at a centennial meeting in England next year.

Four professors recently crafted a short document, titled”Confessing the Faith,”to voice their support for repeating the recitation of the Apostles’ Creed that occurred at the global group’s first congress in 1905.

The request, endorsed by a total of 28 theologians and educators, comes at a time when the Southern Baptist Convention has voted to withdraw membership and funding from the alliance, which it has accused of having a”leftward drift.”The professors say such a recitation would”show the shrills on the extreme to be wrong”and”move us toward unity for which our Lord prayed and which we seek.” The professors view recitation of the creed as an affirmation of faith that is appropriate for weekly worship as well as during the anniversary meeting.”Many Baptists acquired an allergy to creeds because of the illegitimate ways they have been used to bind the individual conscience, to substitute for a personal confession of faith, or to underwrite an established church-state order,”the document reads.”(BWA Founding President Alexander) Maclaren, however, called for the affirmation of the creed, `not as a piece of coercion or discipline, but as a simple acknowledgment of where we stand and what we believe.'” Baptist World Alliance General Secretary Denton Lotz told Religion News Service that a recitation of the Apostles’ Creed is likely during the meeting but the program for the gathering in Birmingham, England, has not yet been finalized.”At our first program committee (meeting) in 2001, we had already proposed to follow the great example”to repeat the Apostles’ Creed as a sign of the unity we have with Christians of all generations,”Lotz said Thursday (July 8).

Curtis Freeman, director of Duke University Divinity School’s Baptist House of Studies, said he and the three other co-authors of the”Confessing the Faith”document have a general interest in the increased recitation of the Apostles’ Creed or the Nicene Creed by Baptists and others at weekly church services.”What we’re wanting is to get a conversation going about why Baptists and other free church folks should recite a creed, not just once a century, but once a week,”he said in an interview.

Freeman, a supporter of the Baptist World Alliance as well as the moderate Cooperative Baptist Fellowship and Alliance of Baptists, said the 28 endorsers of the statement-from the United States as well as countries such as India, England, Brazil and Australia-are members of Baptist groups affiliated with the alliance.

-Adelle M. Banks

Episcopal Church Says `Doomsday’ Budget Has Not Happened

(RNS) A feared”doomsday scenario”with the Episcopal Church’s budget has not materialized, and income is running about $384,000 over projections, the church’s treasurer told denominational leaders.

In February, the church’s Executive Council approved a $40 million budget for 2004 that included $4 million in cutbacks as a handful of conservative dioceses said they would not send money in protest of last year’s election of an openly gay bishop.

In the six months following the approval of openly gay Bishop V. Gene Robinson in New Hampshire last August, the church saw a $2 million (7 percent) drop in contributions from dioceses.

As of May 31, 40 of the church’s 100 dioceses said they would give the recommended 21 percent of their income to the national church, and 52 dioceses pledged to give something less than the recommended 21 percent.

Five dioceses, including Pittsburgh and Dallas, have said they will send nothing. Three dioceses-Easton, Pa.; Newark, N.J.; and Southern Ohio-have said they will send more than 21 percent to help make up the difference.

Treasurer N. Kurt Barnes said he is expecting $27.4 million from dioceses this year, which is down from $31.2 million pledged last year. However, Barnes said the total could be $27.8 million by the end of the year.

At the end of the first quarter, the church had received $9.22 million from dioceses, according to Episcopal News Service.”Revenue is running in line with the budget, and expenses are slightly lower,”Barnes told the Executive Council at their June meeting in Burlington, Vt.”I’m very confident that we are in line with the revenue budget, and the `doomsday scenario’ that some people were predicting is not materializing.”-Kevin Eckstrom

Vatican Reports Deficit for Third Straight Year

VATICAN CITY (RNS) Hard hit by the continuing worldwide economic slump and a weak American dollar, the Vatican finished 2003 in the red for the third straight year, Vatican officials reported Thursday (July 8).

But the deficit of 9,569,456 euros, or $7.7 million, was 29 percent lower than the previous year’s deficit of 13,506,722 euros, or $10.8 million.

Cardinal Sergio Sebastiani, president of the Prefecture for the Economic Affairs of the Holy See, told a news conference that the Vatican continued to feel the effects of”a phase of crisis”provoked by”events such as the attack on the twin towers, the last series of terrorist attacks, the war in Iraq and the Israeli-Palestinian persisting conflict.” Sebastiani declined to comment on the payments to victims of sexually abusive priests that have drained the coffers of many U.S. dioceses and caused the Archdiocese of Portland, Ore., to declare bankruptcy Tuesday.

The prelate said, however, that U.S. Catholics remained the largest contributors to the Vatican.”There was not a drop,”he said.”The United States is always in first place for offerings.” Because the Vatican’s congregations, councils, tribunals, Synod of Bishops and other offices that make up the central administration of the Catholic Church do not produce revenue, the church looks to donations from dioceses and individual Catholics for funding.”The volume of donations that came to the Holy See in 2003 showed in its various components a decrease, due also to the increased value of the euro in relation to the U.S. dollar and to other currencies,”Sebastiani said. He said overall donations fell from 85.4 million euros to 79.6 million euros, the currency in which the Vatican operates.”A great part of our revenues are in dollars. When the dollar was much higher, our budget closed in the black,”the cardinal said.

The Vatican also suffered from low returns on its investments, which fell by 4.7 million euros to 11.6 million euros in 2003, Sebastiani said. But he said fluctuations in the rates of exchange were down from 45 million euros in 2002 to 32.8 million in 2003, and income from real estate rose from 19.1 million euros in 2002 to 22.4 million euros in 2003.

A cost-cutting campaign held institutional expenses in 2003 to 99.4 million euros, compared to 106 million euros the previous year, the cardinal said. The cost of the Vatican’s 2,674-member work force-made up of 1,099 clerics and 1,575 lay people-fell by more than 1 million euros.

-Peggy Polk

`Frugal Gourmet,’ Methodist Minister Jeff Smith Dead at 65

(RNS) Jeff Smith, the Seattle-based minister known for his role as public television’s”Frugal Gourmet”before scandal caused him to leave the airwaves, died July 7.

Smith, 65, died in his sleep, his business manager Jim Paddleford, said. He suffered from heart disease and had a 1981 valve replacement, the Associated Press reported.

The United Methodist minister sported a white beard and donned a striped apron on the PBS show that aired from 1983 to 1997.

He began teaching a course at the University of Puget Sound in Tacoma, Wash., called”Food as Sacrament and Celebration”in the 1960s.

Decades later,”The Frugal Gourmet”was the nation’s most-watched cooking program.

But in 1997, seven men filed suit alleging they had been sexually abused by Smith as youths. Six said they were abused while they worked for him at the Chaplain’s Pantry, a restaurant he ran in Tacoma in the 1970s. The seventh man alleged Smith abused him in 1992 after picking him up as a hitchhiker.

Smith denied the allegations and was never charged with a crime, but was soon off the air. He and his insurance companies paid an undisclosed sum for a suit settlement.”The saddest thing was he saw a career he had built … and the good he had done being taken away by largely unsubstantiated innuendo,”Paddleford said.”But he saw there was no way to undo or overcome the public relations and so he decided to retire.”Quote of the Week: New York City Police Officer Eduardo Delacruz.

(RNS)”My position in life is to treat people like I want to be treated. That’s what Jesus taught. That’s what I instill in my children.” -New York City Police Office Eduardo Delacruz, who was suspended for refusing to obey an order to arrest homeless people. Delacruz faces a departmental trial this month where he could be fired. He was quoted by The New York Times.