wfn.org | Episcopalians: News Briefs

[dmack@episcopalchurch.org]

July 11, 2003

2003-158

Episcopalians: News Briefs

"Young Adult Festival" models message of welcome during General 
Convention

(ENS) The first-ever Young Adult Festival occurring in 
conjunction with a General Convention of the Episcopal Church 
will gather 18-30 year olds from throughout the United States 
and abroad from July 29-August 8, 2003. The event, designed as a 
holistic experience of the 74th General Convention, will offer 
workshops and speakers, corporate worship, fellowship 
opportunities, and the ability to observe and participate in 
convention proceedings.

Festival participants will live in community during their time 
at convention, following the core tenets of "Hospitality, 
Formation, Witness, and Mission" that are part of the festival's 
"Statement of Purpose," a community covenant. "The Statement of 
Purpose is more than just a set of house rules," explained R.C. 
Laird, a member of the festival design team from Minneapolis. 
"The Statement represents our desire to live into the baptismal 
covenant in our everyday lives, in our individual callings and 
ministries, and we are excited to share this idea in a very 
visible way with our brothers and sisters at convention."

The program was designed with an eye toward encouraging young 
adults to develop a healthy, integrated approach to their whole 
lives, with particular focus on spiritual, physical, and 
financial issues. Participants will spend self-directed mornings 
connecting with convention as observers and visitors, attending 
committee hearings and legislative sessions, and networking with 
delegates and others. Afternoon programming will include 
speakers, as well as workshops in topics such as prayer and 
meditation, nutrition, stress relief, and personal financial 
management. Nutritional, spiritual, and financial advisors and 
massage therapists will be on hand for one-on-one guidance. In 
the evenings, the community will lead corporate prayer of 
various formats (from traditional to Taizi) to which the entire 
convention is invited. 

Scheduled speakers include Dean George Werner, president of the 
House of Deputies, noted author and artist Amanda Millay Hughes, 
and others. Legislative briefings, led each evening by Joseph 
Smith, Public Policy Network coordinator of the Episcopal Church 
Office of Government Relations, will keep festival participants 
apprised of new developments in convention proceedings and add 
to the educational component of the event. 

"The festival is different than other young adult'-themed 
events that have happened in the past," clarified Uchenna 
Ukaegbu, a design team member from Ann Arbor, Michigan. "It's 
not a social gathering, or a vocations conference, or a retreat, 
although it has elements of all of those things. We want to 
equip ourselves to be fully involved in the life of the church. 
The workshops we've scheduled will help us learn more about how 
we function. The daily legislative briefings and resource 
library we have established for the festival will help us learn 
more about how the church functions. It's not just about young 
adults being ministered to'--it's about how we take our places 
and fulfill our roles in the church." 

The festival is being underwritten by the Young Adult and Higher 
Education Ministries Office of the Ministries with Young People 
Cluster of the Episcopal Church. The Rev. Douglas Fenton, staff 
officer for Young Adult and Higher Education Ministries, says of 
the role of young adults in the church, "Know this: there are 
passionately motivated and committed young adults in the 
Episcopal Church faithfully striving to exercise their baptismal 
ministries. They are seeking ways to both welcome and be 
welcomed into the Church as a wider fellowship, and it is a 
struggle and a joy for which they are prepared. They are 
choosing to be witnesses to Christ." 

Most activities will be held at 425 Oak Grove Street ("425"), a 
property owned by St. Mark's Cathedral. Just four blocks from 
the convention center, 425 will be a nearby source of 
hospitality and respite from the rigors of Convention, a 
resource center for young adults and others involved in 
convention proceedings, and a hub for education for the entire 
community. It will also serve as a hostel for young adults who 
need a place to stay for part or all of convention. The festival 
will run two sessions, July 29-August 3, and August 3-8. The 
Young Adult Festival Web site is located at 
www.episcopalchurch.org/myp/youngadult.

Event for Latino teens focuses on "Breaking Down Barriers"

(ENS) Latino teens from dioceses across the country gathered 
June 25-29 in Berea, Kentucky, a small college town 50 miles 
from Lexington, for the National Episcopal Latino Youth Event, 
sponsored by the National Office of Hispanic Ministries and the 
Rev. Daniel Caballero, Hispanic missioner.

The 140 high school age Latino Episcopalians and their adult 
sponsors and design team spent their time together considering 
the many ways in which God and the church can help break down 
the barriers between persons and groups. Berea College was an 
appropriate venue for this event, because it was founded in the 
early 19th century by abolitionists to provide higher education 
for Afro-Americans and Appalachian youth, and has kept as its 
motto, "God has made of one blood all the peoples of the earth." 
Participants came from Florida, California, Oregon, Illinois, 
New Jersey, Texas, Pennsylvania, New York, Virginia, Georgia, 
Texas, Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Arizona.

"God blessed us with pleasant weather, great food, wonderful 
fellowship, outstanding music, spiritually uplifting worship 
services, challenging and provoking plenary sessions and 
workshops, participatory small group discussions, fun field 
trips, great accommodations, and young people and adults who 
were just more than happy to be together," said the Rev. Ramon 
I. Aymerich, who led a group of 34 young people and adults--the 
largest diocesan delegation present--from the Diocese of 
Southeast Florida.

Episcopal Relief and Development announces new board chair

(ERD) Episcopal Relief and Development (ERD) announced that 
Presiding Bishop Frank T. Griswold has appointed Bishop Harry 
Brown Bainbridge III as the new chairman of its board of 
directors. Bainbridge, Bishop of Idaho, has served as an ERD 
board member since 2001. He succeeds the late Bishop Robert G. 
Tharp, who served as chairman of ERD's board until his death in 
May of this year.

Bainbridge is the twelfth Bishop of Idaho and has served 
congregations in the dioceses of Tennessee, Western Louisiana, 
and Easton. He also served as chaplain and taught religion at 
the Sewanee Academy. 

"Bishop Bainbridge will bring his experience as a board member 
over these last years, clarity about the vision of what ERD can 
be, and, most important, a passionate commitment to ERD's work," 
said Griswold. 

"We look forward to working with Bishop Bainbridge to move ERD's 
vision forward and continue our efforts helping people worldwide 
on behalf of the Episcopal Church," said Sandra Swan, president 
of ERD.

Religious freedom advocate criticizes Iraq effort

(RNS)  A leading religious freedom advocate has warned that the 
Bush administration may throw away the possibility of creating a 
genuinely free Iraq because it is ceding authority to 
fundamentalist Shiite clergy in its effort to restore order to 
the chaotic country.

"It's a form of Shariah law, Islamic law, that's being imposed 
on a de facto basis," said Nina Shea of Freedom House's Center 
for Religious Freedom, a member of the U.S. Commission on 
International Religious Freedom. "Even more worrisome are 
Islamic courts that are being set up to settle disputes. They 
have been set up on an ad hoc basis, but with the acquiescence 
of the U.S. military, who's in charge. ... It's a dangerous 
trend."

Shea, who has been one of the most forceful proponents of making 
religious freedom a component of U.S. foreign policy, made her 
comments in an interview with Kim Lawton of the PBS television 
program "Religion and Ethics Newsweekly."

After its swift military victory in Iraq, the U.S. military has 
been plagued with a breakdown in law and order that has hindered 
the establishment of the religious liberty and democratic values 
the Bush administration said would result from the ouster of 
Saddam Hussein. Militant Shiite clerics, many of them 
fundamentalists and some of them trained in Iran, have begun 
entering the power vacuum, much to the concern of religious 
freedom advocates such as Shea. They believe the trend could 
result in establishment, with U.S. military backing, of local 
and other governments that mimic the theocratic Iranian 
regime--Shea called it "Taliban lite"--and the potential 
repression of the Christian minority and dissident Muslims. 
There have already been reports of Christian liquor store owners 
and distilleries attacked by conservative Muslims. Although 
Islam forbids alcohol, under Saddam's nominally secular state, 
Christians were allowed to make and sell alcohol. There have 
also been reports of women being forced to wear veils in public.

"The U.S. reconstruction team at times has turned over 
neighborhoods, hospitals, schools, even towns to the Shiite 
clergy to rule, to run," Shea said. "This is unacceptable." Shea 
acknowledged the need for law and order and the restoration of 
the supply of basic necessities such as electricity and water. 
"But meanwhile, there is a growing organization among extremist 
elements in the Islamic community there that threatens the very 
survival of a free democratic state," Shea told Lawton. 

She said that among the U.S. occupiers--and the policy-makers in 
Washington--there is "a great deal of reluctance and uncertainty 
about how to deal with religion, uncertainty about whether (the 
United States) should even assert that there is a fundamental 
right to religious freedom." She said the United States must 
"identify those Shiites and Islamic leaders who do embrace 
individual freedoms and human rights--and they are out 
there--and we have to be straightforward in insisting on 
religious freedom for everyone."

Activists concerned about funding of AIDS, development goals

(RNS) As President Bush headed to Africa for his first official 
visit to the continent, organizations supporting his plan to 
fight AIDS and foster economic development there hoped they 
would become a financial reality.

DATA (Debt, AIDS, Trade, Africa), an African advocacy 
organization founded by U2 lead singer Bono, and Bread for the 
World said they were concerned that Congress might not spend 
enough money to meet the president's goals.

"I believe the president is sincere in his convictions to put 
America out front in a way that hasn't been done before on these 
issues but we have to make sure that his intentions are not 
undone," Bono said in a conference call with reporters on July 
7.

Activists say the president's request for $18.9 billion for 
foreign aid that includes AIDS funding and development 
assistance through the Millennium Challenge Account, may receive 
a lower House allocation of $17.1 billion. Neena Moorjani, a 
spokeswoman for Rep. Jim Kolbe (R-AZ), chairman of the House 
Subcommittee on Foreign Operations, said of the lower figure: 
"Congress will appropriate more money than ever before in 
development assistance and HIV/AIDS programs."

The Rev. David Beckmann, president of Bread for the World, is 
concerned that other causes might be hurt even as the president 
attempts to increase AIDS and other funding for African causes. 
"He's got to deliver the money and he shouldn't take the money 
for these initiatives ... from programs of education for girls 
and assistance to farmers in Africa," said Beckmann, whose 
anti-hunger group is based in Washington.

In a briefing prior to the president's trip, National Security 
Adviser Condoleezza Rice said of the administration: "We are 
actively, all of us, actively engaging with the Congress to try 
and get full funding."

DATA launched a "Keep the President's Promise To Africa" 
campaign on July 6, asking churches, community organizations and 
local volunteers to sign cards pledging to contact Bush and 
members of Congress and build awareness about Africa with family 
and friends. Bono congratulated church leaders for getting more 
involved. "Particularly evangelicals, whom had seemed very 
judgmental to me over the years, turned out to be incredibly 
generous in their time and their support of this effort," he 
said. "I really had my view of the church turned upside down."

Speak out against abuse, council president urges Zimbabwe church 
leaders 

(ENI) The president of the Zimbabwe Council of Churches (ZCC), 
Anglican Bishop Sebastian Bakare, has castigated his fellow 
clergy for "remaining quiet" in the face of what he described as 
gross human rights violations and a worsening economic crisis in 
Zimbabwe.

"People linked to the government have abused other people and we 
are witnesses to that," Bakare said in his opening address at 
the ZCC's 37th annual general meeting in Harare. "But I am 
surprised that at times you have remained quiet." He deplored 
the deteriorating human rights situation in the country and the 
use of force to crush dissent.

"Our nation has established a culture of violence that continues 
incessantly," the ZCC leader said. "Murder, gang-rape, various 
forms of torture, harassment, destruction of property--all these 
evil acts reflect a society where both the law and law 
enforcement agents have ceased to be a resource for its 
citizens. Some people have become the law unto themselves. The 
church has remained a witness."

Bakare, who also heads the Anglican church's Manicaland diocese, 
near Zimbabwe's eastern border with Mozambique, challenged his 
counterparts in the ecumenical organization: "What are you doing 
to ensure your followers feel safe in these hardships? People 
are being assaulted on a daily basis and the violence appears to 
be increasing but you continue to remain distant witnesses as if 
you live on another planet. Let's unite and condemn what is 
wrong in our society."

Several church leaders at the meeting supported Bakare's 
statement but said they feared being targeted for reprisals if 
they spoke out against human rights violations perpetrated by 
pro-government groups or government departments.

A pastor who spoke to the independent Daily News newspaper on 
condition of anonymity said that ZCC staff feared being labeled 
as enemies of the government, and that their reluctance to make 
a firm stand against social injustices had "severely affected 
the ZCC's response to critical human rights and humanitarian 
issues."

British Methodists favor stronger links with Church of England 

(ENI) Methodists in Britain are hoping that their third attempt 
to forge closer links with the Church of England will succeed 
after their annual conference approved the move by 277 to 86.

Bids to unite the churches failed in 1969 and 1972 because of 
objections on the Anglican side. This time, the churches are 
planning a lower-key "covenant," which the Church of England's 
ruling general synod meeting later this month is also expected 
to approve. The covenant commits Anglicans and Methodists "as a 
priority, to work to overcome the remaining obstacles to the 
organic unity of our two churches."

During the Methodist conference debate, John Walker, co-chair of 
the covenant joint working group, said: "In one sense, this 
replicates what is already going on at a local level in some 
places. In another sense, we will be crossing a threshold into a 
new place."

With 24 per cent voting against the move, however, a substantial 
minority of Methodist opinion remains unreconciled to the 
pledge. Walker told ENI that "the breadth of views expressed at 
the conference will be responsibly represented in the ongoing 
process."

With about 1 million regular weekly worshipers, the Church of 
England is more than three times larger than the Britain's 
Methodist Church. Both have been affected by the slump in 
attendance that has hit most Christian denominations in the UK. 
Each shed about 40 per cent of regular Sunday attendees in the 
two decades leading up to 1998, according to the survey 
organization Christian Research.

Methodists have three to five years to overcome a "corporate 
death wish," according to Howard Mellor, principal of Cliff 
College, a Methodist training center. The church had to cope 
with an aging membership and needed a wholesale rethink on how 
it chooses, trains and supports ministers, he said. 

Change or be left behind, warns Reformed leader

(ENI)  Dr. Coan-Sen Song, president of the World Alliance of 
Reformed Churches (WARC), has warned that the ecumenical 
movement is too "institutionalized," challenged world church 
leaders to revitalize it because many congregations are 
indifferent to initiatives taken by world church bodies. He 
urged the executive committee to WARC to envision a new 
"people's ecumenical movement" and find a new language to 
communicate with churches on important issues.

At the same time, ecumenical bodies have avoided the use of 
"essential" Christian terms such as "evangelical," meaning 
Gospel or good news, "giving the impression that they are not 
quite evangelical. This is of course a false perception."

"The alliance has to be unabashedly evangelical,' not only 
implicitly but explicitly, not apologetically but joyfully," he 
said. "Why are we not able to convince ourselves, our member 
churches and Christians, even our critics, that the alliance is 
evangelical to the core?"

WARC has also sought to keep its identity distinct from other 
church bodies, Song said. "We should ask ourselves why we have 
been involved in pursuits of economic justice, gender equality 
or human rights. We have also to ask ourselves how our 
involvement in these things is different from the involvement of 
the United Nations, non-governmental organizations, and other 
ecumenical institutions."

He criticized the timidity of the ecumenical movement and its 
reliance on hierarchical structures. "An ecumenical movement 
that does not address itself to people's spiritual need and 
hunger at a deeper level -- as well as to their physical 
wellbeing -- will be limited in influence and impact," he said. 
"It will not be able to stem the tide of Christians who resort 
to charismatic churches."

He added, "The world has shifted. If we remain unchanged, we 
will be left behind. The World Council of Churches has been left 
behind. Once you are institutionalized, it's very hard to 
change."

WARC is a fellowship of 75 million Christians in 200 
Congregational, Presbyterian, Reformed and United churches in 
more than 100 countries around the world.

South African church leader urges continuing fight against 
racism

(ENI) A South African church leader has urged the international 
community to continue to support the fight against the lingering 
effects of racism after the apartheid system of racial 
discrimination collapsed.

"Apartheid is gone but racial attitudes haven't changed," said 
the Rev. Sol Jacob, a Methodist pastor in Pietermaritzburg, and 
former staff member of the South African Council of Churches at 
an executive committee meeting of the World Alliance of Reformed 
Churches (WARC). "Reconciliation has to happen between people."

"It's important for the world community to know we are facing 
new challenges," Jacob said. "We are left with poverty. Black 
people are so poor. We are faced with the economic oppression 
and we still suffer."

He praised the international community for the pressure it 
applied against the apartheid system that ruled from 1948 to 
1994 when South Africa elected a democratic government. 
"Economic sanctions and pressure brought the South African 
nation to its knees -- not the armed conflict of the liberation 
movement," he said at the meeting in a mountain village in 
Italy.

Jacob argued that some of the most difficult reconciliation work 
lay ahead. "It takes generations to change attitudes, especially 
if people are brought up separately -- separate work, separate 
education, separate buses. People mustn't think the thing is 
over. The real work begins now."

Churches in Liberia supporting peace and relief process

(ENI) Action by Churches Together (ACT), the global alliance of 
churches and relief agencies, has said that church leaders have 
played in a role in talks to persuade Liberian President Charles 
Taylor to step down. Following a request from Taylor to the 
church to help "save the country from further destruction," 
members of the Concerned Christian Community, one of ACT's 
partners in Liberia, met with the president for three hours 
recently.

Two rebel factions now control nearly two-thirds of Liberia 
after launching a war three years ago to oust Taylor. He has 
said publicly that he is accepting an offer of asylum from 
Nigeria although he said that his departure will depend on the 
arrival of international peace keepers.

Church World Service (CWS), the relief agency of the National 
Council of Churches in the U.S., reported that a delegation of 
church and civic leaders met with heads of state in the Ivory 
Coast, Guinea and Sierra Leone, urging their full support for 
the peace process. CWS has also appealed to UN Secretary General 
Kofi Annan urging the Security Council to participate in a 
peacekeeping mission and also appealed to Secretary of State 
Colin Powell urging the U.S. to join peace efforts and "assume a 
significant leadership role in concert with other international 
bodies.

"Such a stabilization force now seems the only viable way," said 
the Rev. John McCullough, executive director of CWS, "to 
accelerate positive closure and settlement of the peace talks in 
Ghana and finally bring decades of conflict to closure."

Canada's churches divided on rights regarding same-sex 
marriages

(RNS) Canadian church leaders are divided on whether the 
legalizing of same-sex marriages will force unwilling clergy to 
perform weddings for homosexual couples. 

United and Anglican church officials who support same-sex 
blessings are confident the federal government's historic 
decision to allow gays and lesbians to marry will not lead to 
clergy having to do anything against their religious conscience. 
The general secretary of the Canadian Council of Churches, an 
umbrella organization representing mainline Protestants and 
Catholics, also said she would take Prime Minister Jean Chritien 
on his word that clergy will be allowed to opt out of performing 
gay marriages.

However, an official with the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada, 
which is "deeply disappointed" with the Liberal government's 
move to legalize homosexual weddings, says he'll watch closely 
to make sure clergy won't be pressed into sanctifying marriages 
they don't condone. "We are deeply concerned that the effect of 
the redefinition will be to begin a process of marginalization 
for many churches and their clergy who currently participate in 
the civil registration of marriage," said EFC official Bruce 
Clemenger.

The federal Liberal government announced in June it will not 
appeal recent court rulings in Ontario, British Columbia and 
Quebec that had declared banning gay and lesbian marriages 
unconstitutional. Instead, Ottawa promised to immediately 
introduce legislation permitting same-sex marriage, making 
Canada only the third country in the world to do so, along with 
Belgium and the Netherlands. In an attempt to reassure 
Christians, Muslims, Jews, Hindus and members of other 
religions, Prime Minister Jean Chritien stressed, "We will be 
proposing legislation that will protect the right of churches 
and religious organizations to sanctify marriage as they define 
it."

In Canada, the Roman Catholic Church, evangelical denominations, 
Eastern Orthodox churches, Muslim organizations, Sikh temples 
and most arms of Anglicanism and Judaism oppose homosexual 
marriage. However, the United Church of Canada, liberal branches 
of Judaism, the Unitarian Church of Canada and the Anglican 
diocese for the Vancouver area have approved same-sex rites.

No matter what religion they belong to, most Canadian clergy 
combine two distinct roles when it comes to marriage ceremonies. 
On one hand, clergy perform purely religious marriage rituals 
that reflect their various faith traditions. At the same time, 
most clergy also agree to act as agents of the government and 
issue marriage licenses.

Vancouver School of Theology professor Richard Leggett was 
grateful for how the Liberal government's decision to change the 
definition of marriage to include gays and lesbians will put 
pressure on reluctant Christians to follow suit. "It will 
require a change in the church, because it will show that 
Anglicans in Vancouver who support same-sex blessings are not 
off the wall," said Leggett, an Anglican who has supported his 
diocese's controversial decision to approve same-sex blessings. 
"We've been represented in this diocese as renegades who are out 
of step. And this move by the federal government shows we're not 
out of step in the context in which we serve. That might not be 
relevant to some evangelicals, but it should be relevant to 
Anglicans."

Ossuary owner says artifact is no fraud

(RNS) When the so-called "James Ossuary," was first unveiled 
last October, a number of prominent archaeologists, geologists 
and paleographers had already authenticated the artifact's 
remarkable inscription of "James, son of Joseph, brother of 
Jesus," to the first century A.D.

Scholars said the ossuary-- a ritual burial box in which the 
bones of deceased first century Jews were typically stored-- was 
likely the first physical link to the figure of Jesus, who 
Christians believe was the Messiah.

But two weeks ago, sensation turned to scandal when a 
seven-member panel of experts appointed by the Israel 
Antiquities Authority ruled the inscription on the ossuary a 
probable forgery. The panel concluded that the patina, or crust 
of chalk, covering most of the inscription was a recent 
addition, not a natural result of aging over time. Handwriting 
experts also contended that most of the inscription is probably 
a new addition, not from the first century period.

But the previously anonymous owner, Oded Golan, has vigorously 
contested the Antiquities Authority's findings. In an interview 
with Religion News Service, Golan argued the scientific and 
archaeological conclusions reached by the panel of Israeli 
geologists and paleographers were not as conclusive as the final 
report seemed to indicate. He said that he was now in touch with 
a number of prominent international experts who would proceed to 
re-examine the panel's findings, in order to assess their 
validity.

"I have almost no doubt that we are talking about an authentic 
inscription," Golan said. "But I am not the expert, this is 
something that requires scientific review. In the aftermath of 
the Antiquities Authority's announcement, I have received a 
number of inquiries from geologists and other experts who 
dispute the conclusions drawn by the panel, or see different 
interpretations to their scientific findings. These experts will 
have to review the findings, perhaps even conduct a second round 
of (geological) tests, and then publish their conclusions. This 
will require a number of weeks or even months."

But the scientists may not have the final word in the 
still-unfolding drama. The Israeli police have been conducting a 
lengthy inquiry into the saga, and there are indications that 
they may soon wrap up their investigation. "If someone took a 
genuinely ancient ossuary, and applied to it a new inscription, 
then this is a matter of forgery and tampering with 
antiquities," said Uzi Dahari, deputy director general of the 
Antiquities Authority. "But the police are dealing with this 
question, not us."

Did meteorite prompt Constantine's conversion? 

(RNS) Could the impact of a meteorite hitting the Italian 
Apennines have been the sign in the sky-- believed to be in the 
shape of a cross-- that encouraged the Emperor Constantine to 
invoke the Christian God in his decisive battle in 312 when he 
defeated his fellow Emperor Maxentius at the Milvian Bridge?

The victory paved the way for the recognition of Christianity by 
the Roman Empire and the union of church and state that lasted 
for nearly 1,500 years.

The possibility is raised by a report in the current issue of 
New Scientist of the discovery of a meteorite impact crater 
dating from the fourth or fifth century A.D. in the Apennines. 
The crater is a seasonal lake, roughly circular with a diameter 
of between 115 and 140 meters, which has a pronounced raised rim 
and no inlet or outlet and is fed solely by rainfall. There are 
a dozen much smaller craters nearby, such as would be created 
when a meteorite with a diameter of some 10 meters shattered 
during entry into the atmosphere. A team led by the Swedish 
geologist Jens Ormo believes the crater was caused by a 
meteorite landing with a one-kiloton impact-- equivalent to a 
very small nuclear blast-- and producing shock waves, 
earthquakes and a mushroom cloud.

Samples from the crater's rim have been dated to the year 312 
plus or minus 40 years, but small amounts of contamination with 
recent material could account for a date significantly later 
than 312. However, from the written historical record it is 
uncertain whether Constantine's vision of the cross was a dream 
just before the decisive battle or, as Eusebius stated in his 
life of the emperor, a sign he saw in the heavens.

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