c. 2008 Religion News Service
Hagee’s attorneys succeed in removing YouTube videos
(RNS) Texas megachurch pastor John Hagee has successfully worked with copyright lawyers to get more than 120 videos featuring him removed from YouTube.
The development was reported by The Huffington Post, whose blogger Max Blumenthal discovered that a video he had made at Hagee’s Christians United for Israel conference last year was among those removed from the popular video Web site.
Juda Engelmayer, a spokesman for Hagee, confirmed that the videos had been removed.
“They were anything that contained clips of sermons, clips of activities happening at CUFI or John Hagee Ministries events,” he said.
Hagee is the outspoken pastor of Cornerstone Church in San Antonio. After his controversial comments about the Holocaust and Catholics were carried on the Internet, Sen. John McCain rejected Hagee’s endorsement of his presidential race.
Blumenthal criticized the move as “a naked exercise in news suppression.” Engelmayer would not respond directly to the comments of Huffington Post writers but said the removal of videos followed particular criteria.
“It wasn’t done on a targeted basis,” he said. “It was done strictly on a formulaic basis of whether it fit certain criteria.”
He said the removal was not timed to the upcoming annual summit of Christians United for Israel, July 21-24 in Washington.
Rather, he said Hagee’s daughter read a story about a studio that had successfully challenged YouTube and had material removed, sparking the work by lawyers several months ago.
Blumenthal wrote in a Huffington Post blog that his “Rapture Ready” mini-documentary “contained no copyrighted material whatsoever.”
Asked about that complaint, Engelmayer said, “I have not studied the video, so I can’t speak to his video at all.”
_ Adelle M. Banks
Conservatives threaten schism over Anglican women bishops
LONDON (RNS) The Church of England is facing the threat of a major split and years of turmoil over Monday’s (July 7) vote by the church’s General Synod to allow the ordination of women as bishops.
The Synod’s vote authorizes the formation of a group to draft a code to be put to a Synod vote next year. A ballot of dioceses in England will be required before a further vote by the General Synod, possibly not until 2012 at the earliest.
The Church of England has had women priests since 1994. Ten Anglican provinces allow women bishops, but only four _ the Episcopal Church in the United States, and Anglican churches in Canada, Australia and New Zealand _ currently have women serving as bishops.
At the Synod meeting this week, bishops voted 28 to 12 to move forward on female bishops; the clergy voted 124-44 and the laity 111-68 in favor.
The debate prompted the church’s No. 2 official, an exasperated Archbishop of York John Sentamu, to lambaste the church for wasting time on internal politics while ignoring the problems of the world outside.
“Jesus Christ is in the streets weeping,” Sentamu fumed in a separate speech before the vote. “Did you see the newspaper that said the Church is navel-gazing while our children are being slaughtered and killed?”
Meanwhile, in a letter to Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, more than 1,300 clergy, including 11 bishops, have already threatened to leave the Church of England if women are permitted to become bishops.
The letter’s signatories said they have begun “thinking very hard about the way ahead” and that “we will inevitably be asking whether we can, in conscience, continue as bishops, priests and deacons in the Church of England which has been our home.”
The embattled archbishop insisted he had no intention of limiting the authority of women within the church, saying, “I am deeply unhappy with any scheme or any solution to this which ends, as it were, structurally humiliating women who might be nominated.”
On Tuesday, the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity called the vote a “further obstacle to reconciliation between the Catholic Church and the Church of England.”
_ Al Webb
Gay man sues publishers over Bible verses
CASCADE TOWNSHIP, Mich. (RNS) A gay man is suing two heavyweight Christian publishers, claiming their versions of the Bible that refer to homosexuality as a sin violate his constitutional rights and have caused him emotional pain and mental instability.
Bradley LaShawn Fowler of Canton, Mich., is seeking $60 million from Zondervan, based in Cascade Township, and $10 million from Nashville, Tenn.-based Thomas Nelson Publishing.
Fowler filed the suit in federal court against Zondervan on Monday (July 7), the same day U.S. District Judge Julian Abele Cook Jr. refused to appoint an attorney to represent him in his case against Thomas Nelson.
Fowler filed a suit against Thomas Nelson in June. He is representing himself in both claims.
“The Court has some very genuine concerns about the nature and efficacy of these claims,” the judge wrote.
Fowler, 39, alleges Zondervan’s Bibles referring to homosexuality as a sin have made him an outcast from his family and contributed to physical discomfort and periods of “demoralization, chaos and bewilderment.”
The intent of the publisher was to design a religious, sacred document to reflect an individual opinion or a group’s conclusion to cause “me or anyone who is a homosexual to endure verbal abuse, discrimination, episodes of hate, and physical violence … including murder,” Fowler wrote.
Fowler’s suit claims Zondervan’s text revisions from a 1980s version of the Bible included, and then deleted, a reference to homosexuality in 1 Corinthians without informing the public of the changes.
The other suit, against Thomas Nelson and its New King James Bible, mirrors the allegations made against Zondervan.
_ Grand Rapids Press
Quote of the Day: The late philanthropist Sir John Templeton
(RNS) “I grew up as a Presbyterian. Presbyterians thought the Methodists were wrong. Catholics thought all Protestants were wrong. The Jews thought the Christians were wrong. So, what I’m financing is humility. I want people to realize that you shouldn’t think you know it all.”
_ The late John Templeton, who died Tuesday (July 8) at the age of 95, discussing the Templeton Prize for Progress Toward Research or Discoveries About Spiritual Realities. His quote comes from a 2005 interview with Business Week.
KRE/PH END RNS
