News Briefs
Episcopal News Service. October 24, 2001 [2001-305]
Methodists Launch Campaign to Raise Visibility
(ENS) In an attempt to raise its public visibility, the United Methodist Church has launched a $20 million campaign using a variety of media. "You have to find another vocabulary to reach people outside the church," said Steve Horswill-Johnston, director of the media campaign at United Methodist Communications in Nashville. "Television is the language of the people, the kind of people we are seeking to bring into relationship with Christ and into our United Methodist congregations."
Those who designed the campaign hope to boost membership in the 8.5-million-member denomination that, like other mainline churches, has declined for about 40 years. "People have a hole in their soul," Horswill-Johnston said. "After September 11 that hole is bigger, wider, deeper."
The 30-second television ads, shown mostly on cable networks, started a week before the September 11 terrorist attacks, and have been seen by an estimated 100 million people.
The motto of the campaign is "Open hearts, open minds, open doors-the people of the United Methodist Church." It is an attempt to distill the major elements of Methodism-heartfelt religion, nonjudgmental attitude and social conscience.
In addition to the television ads, grants will support a local campaign of billboards and newspaper ads. Teams on the parish level have been trained to help congregations provide a warmer welcome.
Human rights agencies and churches condemn violence in Colombia
(ENI) International human rights agencies and churches have stepped up their criticism of the Colombian military following a series of massacres, accusing the military of nurturing ties with right-wing paramilitaries.
In a recent report, Human Rights Watch charged that the Colombian military and police had continued links with illegal paramilitary groups it believes responsible for the country's most serious human rights violations. A week after the report, Amnesty International said that it was "imperative to stop military aid from reaching the Colombian army and their paramilitary allies." It believes that right-wing paramilitary forces were responsible for the assassination of Yolanda Ceron, a Roman Catholic nun who was active in human rights work. Church leaders active in human rights work have been routinely harassed.
The concern comes at a time when there is increased criticism of Plan Colombia, a $3.1 billion attempt, sponsored by the United States, to eradicate the drug trade in Colombia, a country that produces three-quarters of the world's supply of cocaine. Critics charged that Colombia's military is using American military assistance to step up its war with leftist guerillas in the name of eradicating cocaine production, largely controlled by the guerillas.
As America is drawn more deeply into the country's civil war, the critics say, the result would be to undermine democracy and the rule of law and make the U.S. complicit in human rights violations.
Lutherans may take a fresh look at their ecumenical commitments
(ELCA) Presiding Bishop Mark S. Hanson of the Evangelical Lutheran Church (ELCA) in America said at a recent meeting of the church's bishops that he is "deeply committed" to ecumenical cooperation globally but added that it may be time to look at the church's 10-year-old ecumenical statement.
Since it was adopted in the 1991 Churchwide Assembly, it has served as the basis for the ELCA's move to full communion agreements with five churches-the Episcopal Church, the Moravian Church in America, the Presbyterian Church (USA), the Reformed Church in America and the United Church of Christ.
"This is the time to ask questions about the next steps in our ecumenical work," Hanson said at the Conference of Bishops. "We have limited energy, limited resources, but it is essential that we give focus to that."
"Much is yet to be done," said the Rev. Dan Martensen, who has retired as director of the Department for Ecumenical Affairs.
"Many tasks need to be taken, numerous challenges faced." He listed implementation of the full communion relationships, as well as continuing official dialogues with other churches and deepening interfaith relations. Among the challenges he cited were attention and sensitivity to those voices that reflect tension and conflict in the church; addressing a multicultural and multi-faith society; bringing new ecumenical experiences to a new generation of clergy; and reexamination of "our self-understanding" as a church.
Institute for Ecumenical and Cultural Research warns about distortions of religion
(ENS) In the wake of the terrorist attacks of September 11, the board of the Institute for Ecumenical and Cultural Research in Collegeville, Minnesota, has warned that "religions, including Christianity, can be hijacked by zealots whose hatreds masquerade as theological principle."
In an obvious reference to public comments by Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson, the October 12 statement said, "At this time of national trauma, some prominent Christians have blamed groups of which they disapprove for drawing divine wrath down on our country." The board said that "such bigotry is unworthy of followers of Christ, and is itself offensive to God and a threat to the common good." The board called on church leaders to "publicly dissociate Christian doctrine and ethics from the prejudice and intolerance that such scapegoating reflects." It also called on all Christians "to reaffirm that the love of God embraces all people. In all our speech and all our acts, we Christians are accountable to God in Christ, who challenges us to love and serve our neighbor."
Lutheran presiding bishop urges restraint in using military force
(ELCA) In one of his last actions before he retires October 31 as presiding bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, H. George Anderson urged President George W. Bush in a five-page letter to "exercise restraint in the use of military force" in responding to the terrorist attacks of September 11. He also urged Bush and other leaders "to give studied attention to the root causes of terrorism and the anger, fear and sense of hopelessness that prompt a few to act so desperately and violently."
Innocent people in Afghanistan or elsewhere should not be added to the "horrendous toll on civilians which occurred September 11," he wrote. "Any decision to use military force must be a mournful one, be seen as a tragic concession to a sinful world, and be governed by 'just war' principles." He added that intensified diplomatic activities "will demonstrate that collective efforts for good can and will prevail over evil acts in a sinful world." He praised Bush's efforts to protect Muslims from "discrimination, prejudice, and acts of hatred" and his clear statements that the campaign is against terrorism, not against Islam or Arabs.
Anderson said that ending the cycle of violence in Israel and Palestine would help promote reconciliation throughout the region and be an important factor in "preventing the kind of terrorism that rocked the United States on September 11." He said that the U.S. should support United Nations proposals for the introduction of observers and peacekeepers in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem.
(Complete text of the letter is available at www.loga.org.)
Internal battles may lead to split for Presbyterians
(PCUSA) Leaders of the Presbyterian Church (USA) are acknowledging for the first time that long-standing internal political battles may lead to a split for the denomination.
The Rev. Jack Rogers, moderator of the General Assembly, said at a New Jersey meeting that his principal concern about friction in the church is a pastoral one, observing that some church members are being led astray by groups such as the Presbyterian Lay Committee, a conservative board of 24 members that called the actions of last year's General Assembly "apostate." He charged that the committee and like-minded groups are "magnifying" differences within the church to justify separation. "I don't think we should allow that to happen," Rogers said. "Schism is a sin."
The church's stated clerk, the Rev. Clifton Kirkpatrick, said that his ministry was based on the idea that "God wants the church to be united" but he admitted it may be possible that some church members feel "so deeply alienated" that they have already decided to leave.
The Rev. Helen Cochrane, executive presbyter of the Philadelphia Presbytery, said that it was difficult to listen to talk about church conflict in the wake of the terrorist attacks on September 11. "This is not important," she said. "We have to look at life differently now.
Everything has changed. It's not that it's not important what we believe but we've got to understand our neighbors better."
Armenians celebrate 1700th anniversary
(ENI) One of the world's oldest churches, the Armenian Apostolic Church, is celebrating the 1700th anniversary of the adoption of Christianity in ancient Armenia. It was the first nation to officially adopt Christianity as a state religion in 301 AD. It became a powerful force in preserving the identity of the Armenians who have lived under foreign rule for much of their history.
This year's celebrations come at a significant time for Armenia, just emerging from 70 years of Communist rule by the Soviet Union, and a bloody war with neighboring Azerbaijan. It now faces the task of rebuilding.
To mark the anniversary, Pope John Paul II visited Armenia in September and Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomeos of Constantinople (Istanbul), symbolic leader of Orthodox churches worldwide, will visit soon. As part of the celebrations, Orthodox, Roman Catholic and Anglican leaders attended the consecration on September 23 of a new cathedral in Armenia's capital, Yerevan, dedicated to St. Gregory the Illuminator. According to tradition, the country was evangelized by the apostles Thaddeus and Bartholomew but it was St. Gregory who baptized King Tiridates III who then proclaimed Armenia a Christian state.
Canadian Anglican bishop resigns as diocese faces dissolution
(ENI) Bishop James Cruikshank of the Diocese of Cariboo in British Columbia is resigning as his diocese moves towards dissolution because of the costs of litigation linked to lawsuits brought by those who claim they were abused in residential schools operated by the church for the government.
In August 1999, a court made a substantial award to a former student at St. George's Residential School, a residential hostel for aboriginal students attending public school. The court found the church 60 percent liable and the federal government 40 percent liable. The lawsuit was one of thousands filed by former students at residential schools alleging physical, sexual and cultural abuse.
The diocese in north-central British Columbia is the smallest in the Anglican Church of Canada with a membership of 4,700 members, 11 full-time and nine part-time clergy. Archbishop David Crawley, metropolitan of the Province of British Columbia, will assume oversight of parishes in what will be known as "the former diocese of Cariboo."
Church officials had hoped that negotiations with the federal government would prevent the diocese from collapse. The diocese had proposed that it enter into an alternative dispute resolution process over the diocese's assets but has had no response.
Chair in liturgy at the General Seminary will honor Boone Porter
(ENS) A pledge of $1 million from the H. Boone and Violet M. Porter Charitable Foundation will endow a chair in liturgics at the General Theological Seminary in memory of H. Boone Porter, Jr., the seminary's first professor of liturgics. "He saw in liturgy the recreation of life that empowers us to be more than the products of our own history and to become children of light," said his son the Rev. Nicholas Porter. He expressed a hope that the chair would promote excellence and help the seminary and the Episcopal Church to "become communities where lives are recreated and transfigured."
Mrs. Porter said that she was "deeply moved that a new chair in liturgics will be dedicated in the name of my late husband."
Boone Porter was called to the seminary faculty when the position was established in 1960. A Berkeley Divinity School graduate and a tutor from 1950 to 1952, he received his doctorate from Oxford in 1954 and taught at Nashotah House, an Episcopal seminary in Wisconsin.
"Boone's program at GTS was the first formal doctoral program in liturgy in the country-before Notre Dame or Catholic University," said the Rev. Thomas Talley, professor emeritus of liturgics at GTS.
"Our Anglican heritage deeply values the scholarship which surrounds and undergirds our corporate worship," said Dean Ward Ewing of GTS.