c. 2006 Religion News Service
Baptist Church Removes Woman From Teaching Sunday School
(RNS) A Baptist church in Watertown, N.Y., has dismissed an 81-year-old female adult Sunday school teacher, citing a biblical passage that prohibits women from teaching men.
Rev. Timothy LaBouf, pastor of First Baptist Church, said in a statement that “based on the consistent teaching of Scripture,” both men and women have roles within the church, but women are barred from teaching men.
The church’s board of deacons mailed a letter Aug. 9 announcing the decision to Mary Lambert, 81, who had taught an adult Sunday school class for 11 years, on Aug. 9. The letter quoted the New Testament book of 1 Timothy: “I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she must be silent.”
LaBouf said in an interview that the decision to remove Lambert was “multifaceted” and did not solely rest on the male-female designations in the Bible.
He cited a lawsuit that Lambert had threatened in May. According to LaBouf,the lawsuit, which was later dismissed, said that each new member should be scrutinized before joining the church. The church’s membership has skyrocketed from 18 to 200 members since LaBouf was hired as pastor two years ago.
But, LaBouf said, a legal counsel recommended that the deacons board stick to arguments with an ecclesiastical basis rather than other issues with Lambert, to avoid slander.
Lambert, who has been a church member for 54 years, was not available for comment.
LaBouf, who is also a member on the Watertown City Council, countered criticisms that the church’s decision could carry over to his political role.
“I believe that God has a special role for both men and women within the church setting,” he said in the interview. “I don’t believe that those special roles make one more inferior than the other. … And I believe that that ends at the church.”
The church has classes for children, men only, women only and both men and women. Lambert was teaching a co-ed class of about four men and women.
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Though other Baptist churches in the area have expressed disapproval about LaBouf’s decision, the Watertown church is shielded by its local autonomy.
“I would say that the majority of our churches would not affirm this particular choice,” said the Rev. William Carlsen, executive minister for American Baptist Churches of New York, in an interview.
But, he added, “They would also live and die by the right of this church to have that autonomy.”
Carlsen said that while only a local church can remove a pastor’s ordination (or, the title “Rev.”), the New York convention could, in severe cases, remove a pastor from the list of certified, ordained pastors.
However, this case would not prompt that action, Carlsen said.
“We would not consider this an act of misconduct,” he said.
_ Kat Glass
Woman Tapped to Lead Orthodox Synagogue in Manhattan
NEW YORK (RNS) A woman will lead an Orthodox Jewish synagogue in Manhattan, in what is seen as a breakthrough in a religious movement that does not ordain women as rabbis.
Dina Najman, 38, will be called the “rosh kehillah” (“head of the community”), not the “rabbi,” of Kehilat Orach Eliezer, a small congregation on Manhattan’s Upper West Side.
In her new role, Najman, the mother of three, will teach, rule on questions of religious law and counsel congregants. The congregation, which was founded in 1992, is not affiliated with an Orthodox synagogue association, but is Orthodox in practice.
Najman will not lead services or read Torah from the pulpit. Such functions are routinely performed by laymen in many Orthodox synagogues. She also will not officiate at religious ceremonies such as weddings.
While the American Reform and Conservative movements ordain women, the Orthodox movement does not. Several large Orthodox synagogues have created formal professional roles for women, with such titles as “religious mentor,” to provide religious education and counseling.
“I think it is a breakthrough,” said Blu Greenberg, the founding president of the Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance. “But it is not a totally radical departure; it is cumulative.”
While women are barred from certain functions in the Orthodox tradition, the boundaries have been expanding. Orthodox women teach Talmud, are advocates in rabbinic courts and are trained as authorities on questions of family purity law.
“The first step was women’s learning. That is what qualifies a woman _ or a man _ to be the leader of a community, of a congregation,” Greenberg said. “It is not a sacramental role, but the affirmation and mastery of rabbinic and sacred texts.”
Najman, a specialist in bioethics, is a member of a new generation of scholarly Orthodox women. She has studied at the Drisha Institute in New York, a center for women’s study of classical Jewish texts, and in Jerusalem. “We now have a critical mass of learned (Orthodox) women, and it is a natural extension for these women to function in this role of leadership,” Greenberg said.
Najman will take her new post on Sept. 16, the beginning of the Jewish penitential period known as the High Holy Days, and 22 years after Greenberg published her first article questioning when the Orthodox would ordain women.
“I thought it would happen in my lifetime, and here it is,” Greenberg said. “We still don’t have (an Orthodox) woman with the title of rabbi. I think the issue of titles is very important, but this is a great date: `rosh kehillah.”’
_ Marilyn Henry
Catholic Church in Southern Africa Speaks Out Against Traditional Customs
(RNS) In the latest attempt to suppress widely held traditional African beliefs, the Catholic Church in southern Africa lashed out against the mingling of Christian theology and “fear of the spirit world.”
The Southern African Catholic Bishops’ Conference _ a body of church leaders from Botswana, South Africa and Swaziland _ issued a statement Aug. 11 condemning elements of traditional religion that fly in the face of Catholic doctrine.
“We notice with a measure of concern that many African Christians, during difficult moments in their lives, resort to practices of the traditional religion,” the conference said in the statement.
“What is even more disturbing is the fact that some priests and the religious and lay people from other professions have resorted to becoming diviner-healers.”
Millions of blacks across the continent have embraced an altered form of Christianity since the days of colonial rule, often mixing the central tenants of Catholicism with centuries-old traditional beliefs including ancestor worship, divination and anti-witchcraft rituals.
According to 2001 census data, approximately 7.1 percent of South Africans say they are Catholic; in the tiny nation of Swaziland, 25 percent identify as Catholic. Thousands go to weekly Mass each Sunday but find little contradiction in visiting healers _ known as sangomas _ throughout the week to consult with spirits of dead relatives or to counter the mischief of local “witches.”
The strongly worded statement from the Catholic Church bars such activity in no uncertain terms: “NO to fortune telling; NO to witchcraft; NO to simony; herbs YES, magic medicines NO.”
Given their prevalence, affordability and cultural significance, sangomas remain the most powerful spiritual and medical figureheads in South Africa’s apartheid-era townships. The World Health Organization estimates that as many as 80 percent of black South Africans seek their counsel. Similar figures exist for Botswana, Swaziland and most other nations in sub-Saharan Africa.
The conference said the belief that ancestors “are endowed with supernatural powers borders on idolatry” and those practicing such beliefs “no doubt” afford ancestral spirits more recognition than Jesus Christ.
“Priests and religious (must) desist from practices involving spirits, and channel their ministries of healing through the sacraments and sacramentals of the Church.”
_ Jason Kane
Martyred Priest Gets New Grave Ahead of Possible Sainthood
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (RNS) A new grave has been dug for a Catholic priest who was gunned down in 1921 during the height of anti-Catholicism as church leaders explore possible sainthood for a priest they consider a martyr.
The Rev. James E. Coyle, who became pastor of St. Paul’s Cathedral in 1904, was shot to death on the porch of the cathedral’s rectory on Aug. 11, 1921. His new grave lies near the cathedral.
The Rev. Richard Donohoe, current pastor of the cathedral, plans to seek Vatican approval for moving Coyle’s remains.
“It would make his grave more visible and accessible to the people, for reflection on his cause for being declared a martyr or a saint,” Donohoe said. “It would be appropriate to have his body where he died.”
Bishop David E. Foley, who retired in February 2005 but still serves as administrator of the Diocese of Birmingham, said the possibility of asking for sainthood for Coyle is still in the early stages. Moving the grave will have to wait until that process begins, he said.
“You can’t open a grave of anyone who might be coming up for canonization,” Foley said. “Once the process of canonization begins, there is a ritual to open the grave and see the condition of the proposed saint’s body.”
A body that doesn’t decay can be considered evidence toward a person’s sainthood, Foley said.
Foley said he believes Coyle has the credentials for martyrdom, but he has not requested canonization yet because supporters are still researching Coyle’s life to make the case for sainthood. “We’re in the information-gathering process,” he said. “We’re not there yet.”
Coyle became pastor of St. Paul’s Cathedral during a period of rising anti-Catholic bigotry in Birmingham fueled by the Ku Klux Klan.
Coyle’s killing brought Birmingham’s religious and ethnic turmoil to a climax in an era dominated by Klan bigotry. The Klan of the time targeted blacks, Jews and Roman Catholics for persecution.
The Rev. Edwin R. Stephenson, a Klan member and Methodist minister who conducted weddings at the Jefferson County Courthouse, gunned down Coyle after becoming irate that Coyle had officiated at the marriage of his daughter, Ruth, to a Puerto Rican, Pedro Gussman. Future U.S. Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black defended Stephenson and gained an acquittal based on an appeal to the jury’s ethnic and religious prejudice.
_ Greg Garrison
Quote of the Day: Dumpster diver Ryan Beiler
(RNS) “It’s about allowing God’s provisions to be available. I’ll eat vegetables for a week, and the next week it’ll be mostly carbs.”
_ D.C. resident Ryan Beiler, Web editor for Sojourners magazine, explaining his rationale for dumpster diving. Beiler looks through the trash for most of his meals to save it from going to waste. He was quoted by The Washington Post.
KRE/JL END RNS
