wfn.org | UCC / NewsBytes, 8/3/98

["Barb Powell"<powellb@ucc.org>]

Monday, August 3, 1998 

          Welcome to NewsBytes, published online each week by the
          Office of Communication, United Church of Christ.  To submit
          story ideas, contact William C. Winslow at
          <winsloww@ucc.org>.

Church rallies to support Weston family 
           
In an extraordinary display of Christian love, members of Zoar
United Church of Christ, New Hanover, Ill., have come to the
support of the family of Russell Weston Jr., the man accused of
shooting two U.S. Capitol police officers. 
      "It has strengthened my faith as I have seen church members
reach out in love and sympathy for the family even though they
know the son has probably done something terribly wrong,"
comments Robin Keating, pastor of the rural church where the
Westons have been long-time members. 
      Keating says that as soon as the authorities removed the
barricades from around the family's house after questioning
members, church folk came by to offer support, prayers and
food. The church also offered to pay for the parents' trip to
Washington to see their son, who is in a hospital with gunshot
wounds sustained in the shootout. 
      "This is a proud family," says Keating of the family's decision
not to accept church aid. Keating says there has been no
shunning of the Westons and that no hate calls have been
received.

http://www.ucc.org/headline/weston.htm

http://www.ucc.org/opinion

             

'Yes' to affirmative action 
           
The executive director of the United Church of Christ's
communication office is "very pleased" with news of
broadcasters' vow to continue affirmative action, despite a court
decision which allows them to ignore Federal Communications
Commission guidelines. 
      "This validates what smart broadcasters know, that
affirmative action has been good for the industry, good for
America," says Arthur Lawrence Cribbs Jr., who heads the
UCC's Office of Communication. In 1968, the church agency
successfully petitioned the FCC to institute EEO guidelines for
broadcasters. Among those pledging support are ABC, CBS,
NBC, Fox, Time Warner, Cox and Cablevision.

http://www.ucc.org/headline/aa.htm

Boy Scouts and church tangle 
           
The Boy Scouts have told the Unitarian Universalist Association
to stop giving out religious awards, because the UUA supports
gay rights. And that is enough to make Malcolm Bertram want to
turn in his Eagle Scout badge. 
      "I think the Boy Scouts have gone off the edge," says
Bertram, a retired United Church of Christ minister from Cape
Cod. "I grew up in scouting, and I learned to accept all kinds of
people there. This is a reversal. They have no right to question a
religious organization's beliefs." 
      The Scouts are trying to prohibit the Unitarians from giving
their Religion and Life award. The case is in litigation over
whether the Scouts are a private or public organization. If the
latter, it would be illegal to discriminate.

http://www.uua.org

Are you talkin' to me? 
           
Protestants love to talk. So it's not surprising that the United
Church of Christ's 15th annual Craigville Colloquy on Cape Cod
drew lots of talkers--theologians, church historians, pastors and
laypeople--to talk about talk. 
      And talk they did. The Colloquy theme, "Faithful and
Powerful Language in Preaching, Prayer and Liturgy," provided
for a spirited debate--about how the Bible's meaning can be
transferred from one century to the next, about how language
can be faithful to the mind of God and about what God really
says in the Bible. 
      For a tradition that draws its authority from the Word,
language is serious business. Participants struggled with a host of
other language-related concerns: substitution of inclusive
language for traditional words about God, the painful debate
over recognition of same-sex relationships, the communication
gap between the church and a post-Christian culture. 
      "Christians always get into trouble when they disagree about
the meaning of words," observes Andy Lang, one of the
participants. 
      Can we get that in writing? 

http://www.ucc.org/headline/craig2.htm

In Memoriam 
           
Buffalo Bob Smith, host of The Howdy Doody Show 

"Home is not where one suppresses feelings for an enforced
harmony but the place where people grimace and disagree and
fight and love each other. Home is where loving arms restrain
even kicking and screaming. Home is life's boot camp." 

The Rev. Robert H. Tucker, pastor of First Congregational United
Church of Christ, Houston

Radio days
           
The Connecticut Conference of the United Church of Christ has
one of the coolest activities going for junior highs at its summer
camp this year. They are operating a radio station every night
and the kids are the producers. On tap: talk, music, maybe even
drama with sound effects, says Ken Ferguson, pastor of Storrs
(Conn.) Congregational UCC, the creative force behind the
project. He's a long time radio buff. The camp station, by the
way, is just powerful enough to go from cabin to cabin at Silver
Lake Conference Center.