c. 2005 Religion News Service

Researchers: More Than 1,200 Megachurches in the United States

(RNS) Protestant megachurches _ those with weekly attendance exceeding 2,000 _ may be far more prevalent than originally thought.

Researchers at the Connecticut-based Hartford Institute for Religion Research and the Dallas-based Leadership Network say they have discovered that the number of Protestant megachurches may be at least 1,200 rather than the figure of about 850 they have previously cited.

“It’s hard to believe we missed so many,” said Scott Thumma, a professor at Hartford Seminary, where the institute is housed.

“At one point, there were small (enough) numbers of megachurches that one person could kind of know them all. Now there’s become so many that it really takes some kind of team effort or sharing of information in order to keep up with the accuracy.”

He is collaborating with experts at Leadership Network, an organization that works with pastors of large churches, to further refine the numbers of churches that claim more than 2,000 in weekly worship attendance.

“Our preliminary research for the major survey effort indicates there could very well be another 200 to 400 megachurches in addition to these,” said Warren Bird of Leadership Network in a statement about the conclusion that there are at least 1,200 megachurches. “We’ll have to see what information the questionnaires return to know for sure.”

Thumma said in an interview that megachurch critics who thought the large congregations were a baby-boom phenomenon that would wane quickly seem to be incorrect.

“In fact, they’re increasing almost exponentially over the last 20 years,” he said. “We’ve found megachurches now in just about every state.”

Thumma said there are still vastly more small congregations, but the growth of the megachurches has implications for seminaries and denominations as they influence worship life and church programming.

While these churches represent a minuscule percentage of all congregations, “more and more people are clustering in the larger and larger congregations,” he said.

Although researchers must await results of surveys they will send to more than 1,700 large congregations in mid-May, they already have a sense of where the largest of some 1,200 megachurches are. Texas has the most with 174 megachurches, followed by California with 169, Florida with 83 and Georgia with 64.

_ Adelle M. Banks

Pope Describes His Role as Teacher, Not `Absolute Sovereign’

ROME (RNS) Pope Benedict XVI says he sees his role as a teacher of the faith rather than “an absolute sovereign whose thoughts and will are law.”

The German-born pontiff, who for more than two decades headed the Vatican office that guards Catholic doctrine, spoke at a Mass on Saturday (May 7) in the Basilica of St. John Lateran, the cathedral church of Rome, at which he was installed as bishop of Rome.

Benedict, elected pope on April 19, inaugurated his reign with a Mass in St. Peter’s Square on April 24, but tradition called for him also to take formal possession of the chair of the bishop of Rome in St. John Lateran. A 19th century marble throne, it contains the remains of a fifth century throne.

Examining the nature and the limits of his authority as leader of the world’s more than 1 billion Catholics, Benedict called the “power of teaching” essential to the papacy.

“This power of teaching frightens many people within and without the church. They ask themselves if it does not threaten freedom of conscience, if it is not a presumption opposed to freedom of thought. It is not,” he said.

Benedict said that the power that Christ conferred on the Apostle Peter, the first bishop of Rome, and his successors is “a mandate to serve. The power to teach in the church carries a commitment to service in obedience to faith.”

“The pope is not an absolute sovereign whose thoughts and will are law. On the contrary, the ministry of the pope guarantees obedience toward Christ and toward his word,” Benedict said. “He must not proclaim his own ideas but rather constantly bind himself and the church to obedience toward the word of God in the face of all attempts at adapting and watering down and every opportunism.”

Offering his predecessor as an example, Benedict said that John Paul II responded to “erroneous interpretations of freedom” by underlining “the inviolability of being human, the inviolability of human life from conception to natural death.”

“Freedom to kill is not true freedom but a tyranny that reduces the human being to slavery,” he said. There was long applause from the worshippers crowding the church, including Italian government officials opposed to a referendum next month on proposals to remove limits on assisted procreation and permit research using fetuses.

_ Peggy Polk

Conservative Christians Welcome New Federal Obscenity Task Force

(RNS) Conservative Christian groups are hailing the creation of a new U.S. Department of Justice task force that aims to prosecute distributors of hard-core pornography.

The Obscenity Prosecution Task Force was announced Thursday (May 5) by Assistant Attorney General Christopher A. Wray.

“The Justice Department is committed to respecting and protecting the First Amendment rights of all individuals,” said Wray in a statement. “However, the welfare of America’s families and children demands that we enforce the laws on the books, and that is what this task force is designed to do.”

Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, was among leaders of conservative Christian groups who welcomed the step.

“It is now clear that Attorney General Alberto Gonzales is fully committed to going after distributors of obscenity and fulfilling his promise to make obscenity crimes a major priority at the Department of Justice,” said Perkins, who is based in Washington, in a statement.

Randy Sharp, director of special projects for the Tupelo, Miss.-based American Family Association, said, “The establishment of a dedicated task force puts distributors of obscenity on notice that the Justice Department is serious about enforcing the law.”

Jan LaRue, chief counsel of the Washington-based Concerned Women for America, particularly welcomed the task force’s plans to address Internet pornography.

“Hard-core pornography is a serious cultural epidemic that has only worsened with the proliferation of Internet porn sites available to children,” she said in a statement.

Wray said the coordinated task force _ involving Justice Department experts on computer crime, asset seizure and racketeering _ will address obscenity cases in an age of mass marketing and technological advances.

“With the creation of this task force, our commitment to law enforcement in this vital area is taken one step further,” he said. “The special challenges that obscenity cases pose in the computer age require an equally specialized response.”

_ Adelle M. Banks

Canadian Anglicans Give up Voting Rights at International Meeting

TORONTO (RNS) Representatives of Canada’s Anglican churches will “attend but not participate fully” in next month’s meeting of the Anglican Consultative Council in Nottingham, England.

The decision was made Sunday (May 8) at the conclusion of a weekend meeting of the Council of General Synod, the church’s governing body between triennial meetings of the General Synod.

The move means that Canadian Anglican churches will give up their voting and speaking rights at the meeting of the global church to appease conservatives angered by their support of same-sex unions.

The Canadian churches will attend as observers rather than full participants, but will take part in a parallel hearing to explain their stance on the blessing of same-sex unions.

The decision was in response to a February request by the primates of the church that the U.S. and Canadian Anglicans voluntarily withdraw from the council.

Archbishop Andrew Hutchison, primate of the Anglican Church of Canada, said the decision complies with the primates’ request. He told the Anglican Journal that voluntary withdrawal did not necessarily mean total absence from the gathering, since the North American churches were also invited to send representatives to a “consultation process” at the June meeting.

Each church has been allotted 90 minutes to “set out the thinking behind (their) recent actions” on same-sex marriage and the ordination of gay bishops.

The Episcopal Church in the United States (ECUSA) also voted last month to voluntarily withdraw from “official participation” in the Nottingham meeting, but said its members would be present “to listen to reports” and “be available for conversation and consultation.”

Canadian Anglican delegates at the weekend meeting concluded unanimously that the blessing of same-sex unions “is a matter of doctrine, but not core doctrine in the sense of being credal.”

Last month, Canadian Anglican bishops approved a two-year moratorium on the blessing of same-sex unions.

_ Ron Csillag

United Methodists Start Effort to Help Retired Clergy Overseas

(RNS) A United Methodist church group is asking its denomination to make pensions for retired Methodist ministers overseas a top priority at their May and June meetings.

“This is just the beginning of an effort to try to address the difficulties they experience,” said Mike Lee, spokesman for the United Methodist Board of Pension and Health Benefits, based in Evanston, Ill., one of five church agencies taking part in the church’s Central Conference Pension Initiative.

Lee said the initiative’s Global Pensions Task Force _ formed in 2000 at the request of the United Methodist General Conference, the church’s highest legislative body _ is developing models to aid elderly Methodist ministers and their spouses in 26 countries in Africa, Asia and Eastern Europe. These nations are part of the United Methodist central conferences.

Task force leaders will urge United Methodist churches in the U.S. to help in the effort at the denomination’s gatherings in May and June.

“We need their help to address a basic issue of justice with regard to enabling clergy in developing countries _ their brothers and sisters, really _ to retire with dignity and hope,” Barbara Boigegrain, chief executive of the pension and health benefits board, said in a statement.

Boigegrain was one of several church leaders who visited Liberia in March to assess the conditions for retired Methodist clergy and their families.

To fuel the process, the pension task force is building a seed fund _ with the goal of $25 million in five years _ for further investigation and education on the situation.

“They will in some cases provide emergency funds for widows who are destitute,” Lee said.

The new initiative will not affect United Methodist ministers in the U.S., Lee said.

_ Celeste Kennel-Shank

Quote of the Day: Donald R. Eastman III, Eckerd College President

(RNS) “Neither the actions of judges, nor research on stem cells, nor the putative follies of the liberal media, nor the sad life of Terri Schiavo, nor the use of the filibuster are addressed in the Bible, and no one _ no one on this Earth _ has been given direct access to God’s views on these matters, not to mention so many others.”

_ Donald R. Eastman III, president of Eckerd College in St. Petersburg, Fla., writing in a guest column in the St. Petersburg Times.

MO/PH RNS END