c. 2004 Religion News Service
Ads Rejected by Networks Fueling Interest in UCC, Church Says
(RNS) Materials for a United Church of Christ ad campaign that was rejected by CBS and NBC as “too controversial” have been “flying off the shelves,” church officials said.
A 30-second spot featuring beefy bouncers outside a church denying entry to various people, including a gay couple, has received wide support after the networks rejected the ad.
“Jesus didn’t turn people away. Neither do we,” the ad said. NBC rejected the ad as “too controversial” while CBS officials said it was too political in the context of the current national debate over a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage.
“We’ve got everything, and everything is just flying off the shelves,” said Marie Tyson, the distribution manager at the church’s warehouse in Berea, Ohio. Tyson said churches are ordering record numbers of shirts, mugs, decals, stickers, postcards, letterhead and banners that were produced as part of the church’s $1.7 million “Still Speaking” ad campaign.
“We’re just coming in every day, saying, `How is God going to speak today?’ But we’re enjoying it, because we’ve never seen anything like it. Our churches are so excited, so proud.”
The networks’ refusal to broadcast the ad has been criticized by gay rights groups, the Interfaith Alliance, other churches, the Washington office of Reform Judaism and a coalition of church communications executives.
“Church doors are open to all who would come, but broadcast channels are increasingly closed to all but the wealthy and well-connected,” said a statement from the Communication Commission of the National Council of Churches.
The Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, which shares the UCC’s support of gay rights, said, “People of good will must not allow the rhetoric of bigotry to drown out the voices who bring a message of faith, hope and inclusiveness.”
At least one church group, the conservative Association for Church Renewal, has urged the UCC to withdraw the ads. Diane Knippers, vice chair of the evangelical alliance, said the ads are demeaning to other churches.
The ad “tries to boost the UCC by maligning all the other churches,” she said. “It insinuates that the typical American church turns away ethnic minorities, the disabled and homosexuals, whereas the UCC is uniquely welcoming of all persons. The facts do not bear out this false picture.”
_ Kevin Eckstrom
Mormon Tabernacle Choir Skips Overseas Tours, Cites Security Concerns
(RNS) The Mormon Tabernacle Choir has canceled a scheduled European tour next year due to concerns about terrorism.
The choir, which was going to make a summer tour of Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Finland, will make stops across the northwestern United States instead, the Associated Press reported.
The change in plans for the 360-voice group came after Gordon B. Hinckley, president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, decided the trip would make the singers an easy target for terrorists.
Initially the trip was changed to different European countries, but that was also determined to be too risky. Instead, the choir will tour northern California, Oregon, Nevada, Washington and Idaho.
The choir has made 11 international tours, visiting Canada, Brazil, Central America, New Zealand, Australia, Japan, Mexico, Israel and the former Soviet Union. Its first trip outside Utah was to Chicago in 1893 for the Columbian Exposition.
Pope Urges U.S. Bishops to Instruct Laity on their Proper Roles
VATICAN CITY (RNS) Pope John Paul II has urged American bishops to draw up a “comprehensive catechesis” to instruct lay men and women on their role in the Catholic Church and secular society.
Addressing bishops from the ecclesiastical provinces of Louisville, Ky., Mobile, Ala., and New Orleans, La., at an audience on Saturday (Dec. 4), the pope expressed his “profound appreciation for the outstanding contribution” of the laity to the “growth and expansion” of the U.S. Church.
But he underlined the need to overcome “serious pastoral problems” caused by a “growing failure” of lay men and women to understand that they must act in complete accordance with church teaching.
“There is urgent need for a comprehensive catechesis on the lay apostolate, which will necessarily highlight the importance of a properly formed conscience, the intrinsic relationship between freedom and moral truth and the grave duty incumbent upon each Christian to work to renew and perfect the temporal order in accordance with the values of God’s Kingdom,” John Paul said.
Catechesis is the teaching of the history, goals and principles of the Catholic faith through theology, biblical studies and the social sciences.
“While fully respecting the legitimate separation of church and state in American life, such a catechesis must also make clear that for the faithful Christian there can be no separation between the faith, which is to be believed and put into practice, and a commitment to full and responsible participation in professional, political and cultural life,” the pope said.
Groups of U.S. bishops have been visiting the Vatican since early this year. All diocesan bishops are required to meet with the pope and Vatican officials and hear their counsel every five years on what are called “ad limina” visits.
_ Peggy Polk
Scholar of Jonathan Edwards Wins 2004 Grawemeyer Award
(RNS) A Notre Dame professor who wrote a definitive biography on 18th century colonial preacher Jonathan Edwards has won the prestigious 2005 Grawemeyer Award in Religion.
George M. Marsden was awarded the prestigious honor for his biography of the colonial preacher and theologian, who is considered to be one of the most important American theologians and orators.
“We need to use history for the guidance it offers, learning from great figures in the past _ both in their brilliance and in their shortcomings,” Marsden said in a written statement. “Otherwise we are stuck with the wisdom of the present.”
Edwards is most famous for his sermon “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” but that sermon is often misunderstood and taken out of the context of Edwards’ complex life and thought, said award coordinator Susan R. Garrett, professor of New Testament at Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary.
Marsden offers a much more rounded and nuanced picture of Edwards, Garrett said.
Marsden has served as the Francis A. McAnaney professor of history at Notre Dame University since 1992. He is an expert on the history and present state of fundamentalism in America and the culture of American university education. His 2003 biography of Edwards, entitled “Jonathan Edwards: A Life,” is one of more than a dozen books he has published.
The annual religion award includes a cash prize of $200,000 and is given jointly by Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary and the University of Louisville. The university also presented awards this week in music composition, education, psychology and improving world order.
_ Itir Yakar
N.J. Catholics Lobby Against Charitable Immunity Law
TRENTON, N.J. (RNS) Leaders of the Catholic Church in New Jersey have been lobbying state legislators to amend a bill that would eliminate charitable immunity as a legal defense in cases where nonprofit organizations negligently employ child molesters.
The New Jersey Catholic Conference (NJCC), the lobbying arm of the state’s Catholic bishops, is urging lawmakers to set time limits on how far back the legislation would apply retroactively.
The church’s lobbying effort comes as the state Supreme Court is deciding whether a former student at the American Boychoir School has a right to sue the elite school in Princeton Township for alleged abuse between 1969 and 1971.
Advocates for survivors of sexual abuse and sponsors of the legislation have decried the church’s proposed amendment, saying it is unacceptable, arbitrary and unfair to victims.
Under the Catholic proposal, the church and other nonprofit institutions would be shielded from civil lawsuits for acts of child sex abuse committed by their employees before Sept. 24, 1992, the date New Jersey’s Child Sex Abuse Act went into effect. Charitable immunity would not be a defense for any act of child abuse after that date.
Church officials had been working to kill the bill, which would repeal part of the state’s 56-year-old Charitable Immunity Act. But after the state Senate overwhelmingly passed it, they realized their efforts were better spent trying to broker a deal that would at least leave them with some protections.
“We have been actively lobbying against the legislation right from the get-go,” said William Bolan, executive director of the NJCC. “But given the vote in the Senate, our position has been that we recognize there is not sufficient support in the Legislature to pass no bill.”
The Archbishop of Newark and the other Catholic bishops in the state have written letters to legislators, called some and met with others to express their opposition to the legislation or to push for the amendment, Bolan said.
Several Democratic legislators say at least one of their Assembly colleagues has been contacted about the bill by one of the most influential leaders in the U.S. Catholic Church, Cardinal Theodore McCarrick of Washington, the former archbishop of Newark.
Bolan argued that charitable immunity should be protected for various reasons, including the church’s social services, the impossibility of testing for employees who may be abusive and the fact that the church, as a charitable organization, is not like a corporation, which can pass on its expenses to customers.
But state Sen. Joseph Vitale, D-Woodbridge, a sponsor of the legislation, don’t buy Bolan’s arguments.
“It comes down to the church arguing economics over the rights of children who have been molested and raped,” Vitale said. “In my view, there is no choice. The choice must be for children past, present and future who are abused and victimized. They should all have equal access to justice.
_ Krystal Knapp
Quote of the Day: Former Habitat for Humanity CEO Millard Fuller
(RNS) “The danger, I fear, is that Habitat for Humanity will become a bureaucracy. If we lose the `movement mentality’ we will not go out of existence, but we will stagnate and become just `another nonprofit’ doing good work across the country and around the world.”
_ Former Habitat for Humanity CEO Millard Fuller in a November letter to members of the search committee seeking his replacement after he stepped aside to avoid an “unseemly” internal battle. Quoted by the Associated Press, Fuller has retained the title of “founder and president” in a compromise with the board of the Christian home-building charity.
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