wfn.org | Public Ritual, Public Spectacle Dominate Religion Stories of '97

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13-January-1998 
98008 
 
    Public Ritual, Public Spectacle Dominate 
    Religion Stories of '97 
 
    by Michael J. Paquette 
    Religion News Service 
 
WASHINGTON--In the world of faith, the past year was marked by events of 
sweeping religious and spiritual proportions, as masses of humanity 
gathered around the globe to publicly act out rituals of collective 
yearning and grief to a degree rarely, if ever, seen before. 
 
    From the hundreds of thousands of Christian men who gathered in 
Washington to the spontaneous, global grief over the twinned deaths of 
Princess Diana and Mother Teresa, Americans and others appeared gripped in 
an inchoate spiritual revival that transcended traditions and institutions. 
 
    "Once again we have discovered that America is a very religious nation, 
but one less and less tied to historic labels," said David Neff, executive 
editor of "Christianity Today" magazine. "People looked to public rituals 
to help them understand the big questions, which is religion in its purest 
form."  Witness: 
 
    *  In Washington, an estimated half-million Christian men assembled in 
       October on the National Mall to pray and sing praises for more than 
       six hours during the Promise Keepers' "Stand in the Gap" rally -- 
       possibly the largest religious event in U.S. history. 
    *  In London, and in countless cities worldwide, mourners gathered 
       throughout September in public displays of grief over the untimely 
       death of Princess Diana. Millions more watched her funeral 
       broadcasted live from Westminster Abbey. 
    *  In Calcutta, after hundreds of thousands queued up for days to view 
       her lifeless body, Mother Teresa, the tiny Roman Catholic nun who 
       ministered to the world's poor and dying, was laid to rest a week 
       after Diana in a televised state funeral previously reserved for 
       India's most revered and powerful. 
    *  In Paris, nearly 1 million pilgrims belied the skeptics by gathering 
       under a hot August sun to witness Pope John Paul II celebrate 
       outdoor Mass during World Youth Days. 
 
    "There's a growing interest -- almost a revival -- in our culture in 
the religious instinct," said James M. Wall, editor of "The Christian 
Century" magazine. "All of these events illustrate a spiritual hunger and 
yearning that's not always well understood by the popular media." 
 
    However, huge displays of religious expression were not the only 
significant religion stories of 1997. There was also controversy and 
tragedy: 
 
    *  The Rev. Henry Lyons, president of the National Baptist Convention, 
       U.S.A., the nation's largest predominately black denomination, came 
       under fire for possible marital infidelity and misuse of church 
       funds after his wife set fire to a luxury home he co-owned with a 
       female church official.  After a tumultuous national meeting in 
       September, Lyons retained his beleaguered presidency as state and 
       federal officials continue to investigate his finances. 
    *  Alabama judge Roy S. Moore became embroiled in a yet unresolved 
       legal battle to keep a replica of the Ten Commandments on his 
       courtroom wall. The brouhaha developed into a national debate that 
       pitted church-state separationists against religious conservatives 
       and Gov.  Fob James, who declared he would call out the National 
       Guard to stop federal authorities from removing the plaque. 
    *  In March, 39 members of Heaven's Gate, a quasi-religious group that 
       mixed elements of apocalyptic Christianity with UFOs and the 
       Hale-Bopp comet, committed suicide in California after posting their 
       beliefs on the Internet and leaving videos of themselves explaining 
       their actions. 
    *  In Israel, liberal Reform and Conservative Jewish groups delayed 
       until early next year their push to attain legal status in the 
       Jewish state after months of angry confrontation with 
       government-appointed Orthodox leaders, who have the final word on 
       Jewish religious issues there.  In the United States, some Reform 
       and Conservative leaders publicly urged halting financial support to 
       Israeli causes until Orthodoxy's hegemony in the Jewish state is 
       broken. 
 
    Also grabbing headlines in 1997 was the continuing effort toward the 
seemingly impossible task of achieving unity among Christians of various 
stripes. 
 
    At national meetings throughout the summer, delegate decision-makers of 
the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), the Presbyterian Church 
(U.S.A.), the Reformed Church in America and the United Church of Christ 
extended a hand of reconciliation to one another by adopting "A Formula of 
Agreement," a pact  establishing "full communion" [among] the churches. 
 
    However, the ELCA rejected by a slim margin the "Concordat of 
Agreement," a similar unity proposal with the Episcopal Church, which had 
earlier been approved by the Episcopalians. 
 
    Overseas, the quest for unity among European Christians remained 
elusive as the growing schism between Eastern and Western churches became 
even more pronounced when in June delegates to the Second European 
Ecumenical Assembly adopted a formal message that said, in part, "Our 
divisions and enmities still provoke conflict and are a serious obstacle to 
making visible the gift of reconciliation." 
 
    Emblematic of the East-West rift was the decision by the Georgian 
Orthodox Church to pull out of the World Council of Churches in June. That 
same month, the Russian Orthodox Church put to rest speculation that its 
leader, Patriarch Alexii, would meet with Pope John Paul II in Vienna. 
 
    Within Roman Catholicism, the quest for unity also had its highs and 
lows.  Leaders of the Common Ground project gathered in March for their 
first formal meeting, in which 40 lay leaders, scholars and church 
officials from the moderate left and moderate right discussed such divisive 
issues as the role of women and the meaning of human sexuality. 
 
    On the ecumenical front, Catholic bishops from the Americas ended their 
monthlong synod at the Vatican by recognizing that they first need to speak 
with one Catholic voice before they can find commonality with other 
Christians. 
 
    But perhaps the most divisive issue in all of Christiandom in 1997 -- 
and beyond -- has been the increased focus on homosexuality: 
 
   *   The nation's Roman Catholic bishops extended to parents and families 
       of homosexuals an "outstretched hand" of support in an October 
       pastoral statement that also reaffirmed church teaching that 
       homosexual activity is a sin. 
   *   Episcopal bishops kept alive the issue of blessing same-sex unions 
       in July when they approved a directive for the church's liturgical 
       experts to continue a theological study of such blessings and to 
       come up with recommendations for the next General Convention in 
       2000. 
   *   Last spring, the presbyteries of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) 
       adopted the so-called "fidelity and chastity" amendment for the 
       ordained.  Largely viewed by critics as a measure to bar homosexuals 
       from the ministry, the General Assembly later adopted a softer 
       proposal that substituted "integrity" for "chastity," and sent the 
       matter back to the presbyteries. 
   *   And the nation's oldest continuous Mennonite congregation, located 
       in Philadelphia, was expelled from its conference for accepting 
       homosexuals. 
 
    The year brought a mixed bag for religionists concerning public policy. 
The U.S. Supreme Court in June struck down the four-year-old Religious 
Freedom Restoration Act, much to the chagrin of religious groups on both 
the right and the left. 
 
    But religious conservatives in Congress and elsewhere managed to keep 
alive the yet unpassed Religious Freedom Amendment that would put the name 
of God in the Constitution and limit government's ability to interfere with 
school prayer and other religious expression. 
 
    This fall, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, spiritual leader of the 
world's 250-million Orthodox Christians, spent a month criss-crossing the 
United States and raised American awareness of the Greek, Russian and other 
national expressions of Orthodoxy to new heights. 
 
    In November, the Rev. Sun Myung Moon's Unification Church staged a week 
of  cultural, sport and religious events in the nation's capital, capping 
it with a marriage-blessing ceremony that drew nearly 40,000 church members 
and others to RFK Stadium. 
 
    The issue of religious persecution around the world continued to 
capture national attention in 1997 after a congressional bill was proposed 
in May to impose a variety of economic and other sanctions against foreign 
nations that persecute religious minorities. Later, in July, the State 
Department issued a report on the persecution of Christians in 78 nations 
-- mostly communist, formerly communist or Muslim ruled -- in which the 
government believes problems may exist. 
 
    China was of particular concern to the State Department -- as it was to 
conservative Christian leaders concerned with Beijing's takeover in July of 
Hong Kong and the future of the burgeoning Christian movement. Conservative 
church leaders were among those who led the unsuccessful battle to deny 
China "most favored nation" trading status because of Beijing's alleged 
mistreatment of Christians and other religionists. 
 
    In Russia, President Boris Yeltsin and the Parliament haggled over a 
proposal that denies full legal status to all faiths other than the 
nation's "traditional" religions of Russian Orthodoxy, Judaism, Islam and 
Buddhism. In the end, Yeltsin signed a measure that included a vague 
reference to Christianity as a protected faith. And in Germany, the Church 
of Scientology continued to face an ongoing government crackdown on the 
church. 
 
    In the realm of ethics, the U.S. Supreme Court, in a decision favored 
by many religious groups, ruled unanimously to uphold state laws that 
forbid doctor-assisted euthanasia. But in what many observers considered a 
bellwether for the nation, Oregonians voted in November to retain a measure 
permitting the practice. 
 
    Public discourse on cloning grew as new genetic research made the 
possibility of cloning of humans a reality. Both euthanasia and cloning 
promise to be hotly debated well into the next millennium. 
 
    The year was a tough one for the embattled Walt Disney Co. In June, 
delegates to the Southern Baptist Convention voted overwhelmingly to 
boycott the media giant due to frustration with the company's adoption of 
policies and its airing of TV programs that favor homosexual rights. Some 
traditionalist Catholics also attacked Disney and its subsidiary, ABC, for 
airing the controversial new TV drama "Nothing Sacred," which explores the 
difficulties of running a parish in the '90s. 
 
    Major transitions during the year included the departure of Ralph Reed 
as head of the Christian Coalition; the naming of Lindy Boggs, the 
81-year-old former Congresswoman, as U.S. ambassador to the Vatican; the 
election of Frank Griswold as presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church; the 
death, at age 63, of John Wimber, the founder of the charismatic 
Association of Vineyard Churches; and the naming of Portland, Ore., 
Archbishop Francis George to head up the Chicago Archdiocese left vacant by 
the death of Cardinal Joseph Bernardin late last year. 
 
    Also, civil rights activist Benjamin Chavis Muhammad joined Louis 
Farrakhan's Nation of Islam and was consequently stripped of his 
ministerial credentials from the United Church of Christ; the nation's 
largest African-American Muslim group renamed itself the Muslim American 
Society; in a controversial move, the Vatican announced its intention to 
canonize Edith Stein, a German Jew who converted to Roman Catholicism at 31 
and was later murdered at Auschwitz; and the Church of Jesus Christ of 
Latter-day Saints celebrated its 150th anniversary with a re-creation of 
Mormon pioneer Brigham Young's trek across the plains to Salt Lake Valley. 

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