c. 2007 Religion News Service
Retired Episcopal Bishop Joins Catholic Church
(RNS) A recently retired conservative Episcopal bishop from Albany, N.Y., has left the church to become a Roman Catholic.
Daniel W. Herzog, 65, was bishop of Albany from 1998 to January 2007. He was an outspoken critic of the Episcopal Church’s liberal sway, especially its 2003 election of an openly gay bishop.
Herzog is just the third bishop since the Episcopal Church was founded in 1789 to convert to Roman Catholicism, according to Episcopal News Service.
Retired Bishop David Ball, who preceded Herzog as bishop of Albany, told the Albany Times Union that Herzog had been Roman Catholic before converting 35 years ago.
A suffragan _ or assistant _ bishop in Albany also left the diocese in March to join a missionary diocese of the Anglican Church of Nigeria. A handful of the 7,400-odd Episcopal parishes in the U.S. have recently left the Episcopal Church to join the Nigerian church, which is headed by conservative Archbishop Peter Akinola.
Episcopal Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori told Herzog that she wishes him well “as you enter another room in Christ’s Church.”
“You were certainly a dynamic member of the House of Bishops and one who had a forceful and strong ministry,” she wrote Herzog in a March 28 letter. “Your commitment to evangelism was notable. You will be missed.”
Jefferts Schori will now remove Herzog from ordained ministry in the Episcopal Church. But a church spokesperson said he will continue to receive a pension from the Episcopal Church.
_ Daniel Burke
Baylor Tops Relevant List of Best Christian Colleges
(RNS) Baylor University topped the list of Relevant Media Group’s first-ever ranking of top Christian colleges and universities in the United States.
Five colleges, ranging in size and location, made the list. Calvin College ranked second, followed by Pepperdine University, Wheaton College and Biola University.
The list, created by Relevant’s magazine editors, was compiled to offer readers a chance to preview available Christian campuses that ranked high on a scale of academics, student life and spiritual life.
“We felt it was important to offer our readers an insight into the Christian college opportunities that are out there,” Media Group founder and CEO Cameron Strang said. “We knew there were a handful of Christian-affiliated schools that offer a balanced worldview, top-notch academics and a great spiritual climate.”
The schools that made the list were selected for having special “traditions,” and close “proximity to Relevant churches,” editorial director Cara Davis said. For example, Baylor University has designated a special hour each week called the “Dr. Pepper hour,” when students and faculty mingle over sodas.
Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Mich., one of the smallest colleges on the list, “most closely embodies the Relevant worldview,” Davis said, which she described as centered around an “intersection of faith and culture.”
Pepperdine’s many international campuses and summer residential programs around the world earned the school in Malibu, Calif., a place on the list.
Wheaton College outside Chicago, known for its “strong honor code,” ranks 11th in the nation in the total number of graduates who earn doctorates.
On the outskirts of Los Angeles, Biola University involves its students and faculty in 200,000 hours of community service each year.
Davis said that although many students choose to attend state schools, Relevant’s college picks is a resource to show there are Christian schools that can still offer the “Relevant” lifestyle.
The Orlando, Fla.-based Relevant Media Group publishes Christian books, Relevant magazine and other products aimed at the 18-34 age group.
_ Melissa Stee
Woman Says Eating Smuggled Monkey Parts is Part of Her Religion
NEW YORK (RNS) In a clash of cultures playing out in Brooklyn federal court, a Staten Island woman claims she has the right to eat monkey parts in keeping with her religious beliefs.
That’s hooey, counter prosecutors, who contend that Mamie Manneh Jefferson illegally imported pieces of protected wildlife that carry the risk of “numerous” infectious diseases.
In addition, they argue, the Liberian native failed to show that eating the meat shipped from Guinea “arises from a sincere religious belief.”
Assistant U.S. Attorney Jonathan E. Green has asked a judge to reject Jefferson’s motion to dismiss smuggling charges against her. District Judge Raymond J. Dearie could rule on the motions after hearings in mid-April.
If ultimately convicted on the federal charge, the 39-year-old defendant, also known as Mamie Manneh, could face up to five years in a federal penitentiary, a fine, or a combination of the two.
She is currently serving a two-year state prison sentence in an unrelated case for running over her husband’s girlfriend in the parking lot of a movie theater in February 2006. The victim survived.
Jefferson’s legal troubles began Jan. 12, 2006.
Federal agents at JFK International Airport allegedly discovered 65 pieces of illegal smoked bushmeat _ including monkey skulls, limbs and torsos, along with antelope parts _ buried beneath smoked fish in a shipment to Jefferson from Guinea. The primate parts comprised green monkey and hamadryas baboon _ animals protected by law, prosecutors said.
Agents later found 33 pieces of dried, smoked bushmeat in the garage of Jefferson’s home. According to court papers, she said they were a “gift from God” sent from someone in Minnesota.
In moving to dismiss the federal case, Jefferson’s lawyer, Jan A. Rostal, said the prosecution _ apparently the first of its kind regarding African bushmeat _ violated her client’s right to “religious free exercise.” She branded it as “overkill.”
Jefferson is a member of a church that blends Christianity with African Traditional Religion. As part of their religious practices, they eat boiled, blessed bushmeat on Christmas and Easter and at “ritualistic events” such as weddings and baptisms, believing it brings them “closer to God.”
Green countered in court papers that Jefferson’s likening of bushmeat to Easter ham or Thanksgiving turkey put it in the realm of “cultural and traditional norms.” Although fellow church members submitted affidavits attesting to bushmeat consumption, none described eating green monkeys or hamadryas baboons as a “sacred tradition or part of a religious exercise,” he said.
_ Frank Donnelly
Quote of the Day: This American Life’s Ira Glass
(RNS) “Evangelical Christians are the most incompetently portrayed group in America, in TV, in fiction, in the news. When Christians say the media gets them wrong, Christians are absolutely right.”
_ Ira Glass, host of Public Radio International’s “This American Life.” He was quoted by The Forward, a New York-based Jewish newspaper.
KRE/LF END RNS
