c. 2007 Religion News Service
Study Finds U.S. Jewish Population Higher Than Expected
Editors: In 4th graf, `birthright israel’ is cq
(RNS) The American Jewish population is 20 percent higher than previously reported, according to a new study released by the Brandeis University Steinhardt Social Research Institute.
The institute estimated there are 6 million to 6.4 million Jews living in the United States, along with another million people with Jewish ancestry, by analyzing survey data collected by a range of government, academic and private foundations.
This report disputes the 2000-’01 National Jewish Population Study, which reported only 5.2 million American Jews. The telephone-based survey had underestimated non-Orthodox Jews and those under age 55, the new study concludes.
A larger American Jewish population means that a lower percentage currently attends religious schools or participates in cultural activities like birthright israel, which offers free trips to Israel for Jews ages 18 to 26.
The survey can encourage such programs to reach out to a more diverse population, said Michael Steinhardt, a philanthropist who endowed SSRI and funds other Jewish programs.
“The good news, however, is that we can use this new information to reinvigorate our efforts towards causing a renaissance in Jewish life,” he said. “Speaking for myself, I’ve heard the clarion call, and I’m excited to get to it.”
_ Nicole Neroulias
Final Defendants Sentenced in Baptist Foundation of Arizona Fraud Case
(RNS) The final defendants in the lengthy Baptist Foundation of Arizona fraud case have been sentenced, with some receiving harsher penalties than expected.
On Friday (Feb. 2), Maricopa County Superior Judge Kenneth Fields sentenced five people linked to the foundation, The Arizona Republic reported.
Donald Dale Deardoff, the former foundation treasurer, was sentenced to four years in prison, despite a prosecutor’s recommendation that he be sent to county jail for one year. He was also ordered to pay $159 million in restitution.
The hearing marked the last chapter in fraudulent activities involving investments of mostly elderly people. Investors believed their money would help Baptist causes, including the building of churches. But state investigators determined that foundation executives had created a Ponzi scheme, using new investors’ money to pay off previous investors.
Many investors were able to recover some of their money after authorities took action.
The Republic reported defense attorneys had argued that their clients expected leniency because they cooperated in the conviction of former foundation president William Crotts and former legal counsel Thomas Grabinski. But the judge made a different determination, declaring all their crimes felonies rather than misdemeanors.
“You were in a position of trust,” he told Richard Lee Rolfes, a former secretary and financial consultant for foundation subsidiaries. “I can’t justify a misdemeanor.”
Rolfes and three other defendants were sentenced to three years’ supervised probation and ordered to pay restitution totaling $440,000.
In a Tuesday (Feb. 6) editorial, the Tucson Citizen called the case “a sad story of greed perpetrated in the name of a church.”
_ Adelle M. Banks
Scholars Say Young Catholics Key to Church’s Future
WASHINGTON (RNS) The authors of a new book say the future of the church depends on young Catholics who share the principal tenets of the faith but are likely to disagree with the church on social issues.
“If the older generation of Catholics assumes a young person’s world is like their own, they are mistaken,” said Jim Davidson, a sociology professor at Purdue University and co-author of “American Catholics Today.”
If the church does not begin to engage young people in a conversation, he added, it could lose members of that generation.
Davidson and Dean Hoge, another co-author and sociology professor at Catholic University, spoke at a Georgetown University forum sponsored by the school’s Woodstock Theological Center on Tuesday (Feb. 6).
For their study, the authors identified four generations of Catholics: pre-Vatican II _ those born before 1940; Vatican II, post-Vatican II, and millennial Catholics, whom they defined as those born between 1979 and 1987.
All four generations had some common ground. Majorities in each group believe in the real presence of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist, think the laity should be more involved in the church and condemn the recent clergy sexual abuse scandals.
But millennial Catholics were the least likely to agree with the church on issues such as gay marriage, premarital sex, the need for a celibate and male priesthood, and the teaching authority of the church.
These differences diminish millennials’ sense of Catholic identity, Hoge said.
He attributed many of these differences to the world in which young Catholics have grown up, noting that they have achieved a higher level of education than any previous generation, tend to live in the suburbs rather than in “Catholic enclaves” and are marrying non-Catholics at a rate of 45 percent to 50 percent.
Young adult Catholics consider the church’s sacraments, charity to the poor, devotion to Mary and the beliefs stated in the Nicene Creed to be the most central elements of Catholicism.
However, a majority do not accept that the church’s stances on the death penalty, abortion, personal confession or the celibacy of male priests are central to the faith.
The Rev. Thomas Reese, a senior fellow at Woodstock and the former editor of America Magazine, said young women’s disengagement with the church could be devastating.
“You hear about grandma, not grandpa, leading the rosary,” he said. “If women are turned off, it’s over. We close the doors.”
To help the church survive, Davidson suggested it should not “draw a line in the sand on peripheral issues.”
“Don’t define the Catholic identity with birth control,” he said. “The Catholic identity is the relationship with Christ.”
_ Katherine Boyle
Regional Group of Bishops Affirms `Process’ of Considering Bush Library
(RNS) A regional group of United Methodist bishops have affirmed the process surrounding the possible placement of President George W. Bush’s library and policy center on the grounds of Southern Methodist University.
The bishops, who represent United Methodists in the south central United States, adopted a resolution Feb. 5 at a two-day quarterly meeting with SMU President Gerald Turner. The resolution praised the president’s “careful stewardship and advocacy of the historic relationship between the university and the church.”
The controversy over whether Bush’s library should be located on the school’s Dallas campus has been fueled by critics who say the privately funded policy institute could associate the Methodist name with a partisan public relations enterprise.
Opponents of the library have posted an online petition with more than 10,000 signatures and voiced concerns that Bush’s management of the “war on terror” clashes with the denomination’s ethical principles.
“We understand the controversy involved in this proposal,” the bishops said in their resolution. “Our action today is focused on the process SMU has been engaged. SMU has been forthcoming and transparent in its dealings and communication with us.”
The resolution that was approved by the 10 active bishops present at the meeting affirmed their belief that the university’s trustees and administration were “acting responsibly and in good faith.”
At the same time, the conservative Washington-based Institute on Religion and Democracy has launched its own petition in support of the library. “Unlike the strident opponents of the Bush library, we believe that our church is built on the Christian faith, not a political ideology,” said the IRD’s Mark Tooley, a frequent critic of the liberal wings of mainline Protestant churches.
Tooley noted that there has been little criticism launched against Emory University, a Methodist-affiliated school in Atlanta, for its ties to former President Jimmy Carter’s library there.
_ Melissa Stee
Survey Says Canadians Have Most Tolerant Attitudes Toward Muslims
TORONTO (RNS) Canadians have the most tolerant attitudes toward Muslims among citizens of 23 Western countries, according to a new international study that measured levels of Islamophobia in each nation.
More than 32,000 respondents from 19 European countries, plus Canada, the U.S., Australia and New Zealand, were asked the question: “Would you like to have a person from this group as your neighbour?”
Of the nearly 2,000 people surveyed in Canada, only 6.5 percent said they would not like to live beside a Muslim. Respondents in Greece (20.9 percent), Belgium (19.8), Norway (19.3) and Finland (18.9) were most likely to answer “No” to the question.
Results in the United States and Britain were 10.9 and 14.1 percent, respectively. The average percentage of negative responses in all Western countries was 14.5 percent.
The study, called “Love Thy Neighbor,” was co-authored by economists Vani Borooah of the University of Ulster in Northern Ireland and John Mangan of the University of Queensland in Australia.
“There can be little doubt that, in the past decade or so in Western countries, there is an increasing awareness of, and a hardening of attitudes towards, people who are `different,”’ the authors state.
Less than 5 percent of respondents from Canada said they wouldn’t want to have a neighbor who is Jewish, an immigrant or someone of a different race.
Gays were more likely than any other group to be shunned. Just over 17 percent of Canadians said they would not want a gay neighbor. The overall percentage for Western nations was 19.6 percent.
The poll stands in contrast to a survey conducted in Canada in January, which found that only 53 percent of respondents had favorable opinions of Arabs, the lowest total among all other ethnic groups listed.
_ Ron Csillag
Southern Baptists Defend Agency After Critical Book Published
(RNS) Former and current officials of a Southern Baptist missions agency have expressed “sadness” and defended its management policies after a former employee published a book alleging financial mismanagement.
Mary Kinney Branson, a former editing and marketing director at the North American Mission Board, wrote “Spending God’s Money: Extravagance and Misuse in the Name of Ministry,” which was published in January by Father’s Press.
Branson’s book claims there were management problems and misplaced priorities at the Alpharetta, Ga.-based missions agency. She cited expenditures such as $12,000 a month on outside public relations firms and a $3,700 trip to the London premiere of the “Chronicles of Narnia” movie by former agency president Robert “Bob” Reccord and his wife.
Questions of mismanagement were raised last February in a report in The Christian Index, a biweekly newspaper that covers Georgia Baptists. Trustees of the missionary board investigated the newspaper’s claims and recommended more stringent controls, which have been adopted for the agency.
Reccord, who resigned last April after the newspaper and trustees’ reports, responded to the book by saying, “I am deeply saddened and grieved by the accusing and attacking tone which I understand it carries.” He said the agency was “focused on doing strategic ministry as effectively and efficiently as possible” during his nine years as president.
The mission board issued a statement saying some of the claims in Branson’s book are based on “her personal opinion, or hearsay.” It notes that the agency models the “type of accountability” that Branson said was needed.
Mike Ebert, an agency spokesman, said a trustee board search committee is working to find Reccord’s successor.
_ Adelle M. Banks
Christian Leaders Commit to Tackling `Scandal’ of Poverty
(RNS) Christian leaders from the country’s broadest-ever ecumenical group have issued a statement condemning the “scandal of widespread poverty” and calling for action by the public and private sectors to combat it.
“As leaders in Christian Churches Together, we believe that a renewed commitment to overcome poverty is central to the mission of the church and essential to our unity in Christ,” they said in a Feb. 9 statement.
The statement was released at the conclusion of the formal launch of Christian Churches Together, which includes five “families” of Christian faith groups (Catholics, evangelicals and Pentecostals, Orthodox, mainline Protestants and racial/ethnic churches).
Some of the 36 founding members who gathered in Pasadena, Calif., for the Feb. 6-9 meeting noted the rarity of such a broad group of Christians working together. The poverty statement calls for working with other faith groups as well as individuals and families, and the public and private sector.
“We believe substantial success in reducing domestic poverty requires an overall framework that insists that overcoming poverty requires both more personal responsibility and broader societal responsibility, both better choices by individuals and better policies and investments by government, both renewing wholesome families and strengthening economic incentives,” the statement reads.
The leaders cite four objectives to address domestic poverty: strengthening families and communities; reducing child poverty; combating racism and ensuring full-time work provides a “realistic escape from poverty and access to good health care”; and strengthening the educational system, particularly public schools.
The denominational executives pledged to continue addressing the issue at their 2008 annual gathering in Washington.
_ Adelle M. Banks
Nuns Reimbursed for Home That Was Commandeered During Katrina
NEW ORLEANS (RNS) In the chaotic aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, one of the facilities that emergency workers commandeered and operated from for weeks was a home for the elderly belonging to the Little Sisters of the Poor.
Almost 18 months after the storm, the religious order is finally getting paid for the use of its building.
The New Orleans City Council on Feb. 1 approved ordinances appropriating $43.7 million in Federal Emergency Management Agency reimbursements to various city departments.
The total included $4.1 million for the Fire Department, and buried in that figure was the $1.4 million owed to the Little Sisters of the Poor for the use of their Mary Joseph Residence for the Elderly.
The building housed local and out-of-state firefighters, police and National Guard members in the days after Katrina.
The nuns had evacuated to Baton Rouge before the storm with several dozen low-income senior citizens who lived at the residence. Before they could return, emergency workers took over the building.
The Mary Joseph Residence, which was scheduled to close by the end of 2005 anyway and has not reopened since Katrina, was one of 30 homes for the elderly operated by the Little Sisters of the Poor nationwide. Many of its former residents have moved to the order’s other homes.
The nuns said last month they were upset that they had not yet received the $1.4 million, which FEMA had finally approved and given to the city. City officials said they didn’t know they had gotten the money until Jan. 3, and then had to go through governmental channels to appropriate it.
_ Bruce Eggler
Beliefnet Names `Most Influential Black Spiritual Leaders’
(RNS) Seventeen African-American religious leaders _ ranging from megachurch pastors to spiritual advisers _ have been named the nation’s “most influential black spiritual leaders” by Beliefnet.
“Whether inspiring their congregations to stand up against social injustice or urging a focus on God-centered family values, African-American religious leaders are a crucial component of a rich and diverse spiritual landscape,” reads the introduction to the profiles written by editors at the interfaith Web site.
Among the megachurch pastors listed are:
_ Bishop T.D. Jakes, whose Dallas-based congregation is one of the largest in the country.
_ The Rev. Floyd Flake, a former congressman and pastor of Greater Allen A.M.E. Cathedral in Queens, N.Y.
_ “Prosperity Gospel” advocate Creflo Dollar, whose World Changers Church International has congregations in Atlanta and New York.
_ The Rev. Kirbyjon Caldwell, pastor of Windsor Village United Methodist Church in Houston and an adviser to President George W. Bush.
Denominational leaders cited include:
_ The Rev. William G. Sinkford, leader of the Unitarian Universalist Association and advocate for legalizing gay marriage.
_ Archbishop Wilton Gregory of Atlanta, the former leader of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.
_ Bishop Charles Blake, a member of the General Board of the Church of God in Christ and a Los Angeles pastor.
_ Bishop Vashti McKenzie, the first female bishop in the African Methodist Episcopal Church.
_ The Rev. William Shaw, president of the National Baptist Convention, USA.
Spiritual authors recognized include Iyanla Vanzant, founder of Inner Visions Spiritual Life Maintenance Network in Silver Spring, Md., and Renita Weems, author of “Showing Mary: How Women Can Share Prayers, Wisdom, and the Blessings of God.”
Others listed include Bishop Carlton Pearson of Tulsa, Okla.; the Rev. Calvin O. Butts III, pastor of Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem; Imam Siraj Wahhaj, the first Muslim to offer an invocation in the U.S. House of Representatives; and the Rev. Johnnie Colemon, pastor of Christ Universal Temple in Chicago.
The Web site also recognized the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, who has counseled Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill.; and the Rev. Gardner C. Taylor, senior pastor emeritus of Concord Baptist Church of Christ in Brooklyn, N.Y.
_ Adelle M. Banks
Quote of the Week: Evangelicals for Social Action Founder Ron Sider
(RNS) “If everyone from Jerry Falwell to Jim Wallis to Rick Warren wants to identify as evangelical, it tells you something about the attractiveness and good character of the term.”
_ Ron Sider, founder of Evangelicals for Social Action, discussing his decision to keep using the word “evangelical” to define himself. He was quoted by USA Today.
KRE/LF END RNS
