Anonymous blogging changes in FBC Jacksonville pastor's power

Anonymous blogs can if well-handled hold an institution accountable, somewhat the way a good newspaper does, by getting facts out.

On Dec. 8, 2008, we held FBC Jax Watchdog up as an example of how it's done. Not done perfectly. But done well.

Today, we checked back by, and they still appear to be doing the report, document and comment process we found earlier.

Looking at church bylaw changes, what they found is, just stated plain, startling. For example:

In the previous by-laws, there was no distinction between how discipline was to be carried out by different positions in the church - that is there were just "members" - and all "members" are to bring about reconciliation in accordance with Matthew 5:23-24 and 18:15-16. Any "member" who is accused of wrongdoing worthy of discipline would be investigated by the Deacons. Thus, it is reasonable to assume that all "members" are equal in this case - whether it be senior pastor, associate pastor, secretary, or layman - all must seek scripture reconciliation followed by Deacon investigation and report to the church. All persons including the pastor could be investigated and subjected to church discipline by the deacons.

Not so any more.

In the new bylaws, there are two distinct processes defined for church discipline: one for the pastor and other clergy, and one for everybody else. If a member has a grievance against the pastor he/she must seek reconciliation through Matthew 18, and still if no resolution is reached, and the church agrees, mediation with the Florida Baptist Convention will be used. Sounds reasonable, but the end result is this: the pastor is not accountable to any lay body for misdeeds he may commit! Its the offended party seeking reconciliation, and then arbitration with an outside body IF the church approves it.

Drop by and read that post all the way through if you have time. Indeed, read the series. If you've ever served as a deacon or an elder, anywhere, it isn't difficult reading.

BTW: Is that typical of big Baptist churches are run these days?

Judgment Day (at last) for Cardinal Mahoney (and others)?

"It took way, way too long, but the U.S. attorney has finally launched a grand jury investigation into the actions of Cardinal Roger M. Mahony when dealing with rapist priests in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, " wrote William Lobdell.

For eight years Lobdell covered the religion beat for the Los Angeles Times, and specifically the priestly sex abuse scandals. He has a written a book which among other things chronicles how interviewing the victims broke his heart. Commenting on the grand jury investigation, he went on to say:

Reading the initial story, the legal tactic seems a bit of a long shot, but why not try–especially if it can be used to punish other bishops, archbishops and cardinals who covered up and hid rapist priests, many of whom went on to commit sex crimes on other children?

To review just a few of Mahony’s sins (click here to see them all), he quietly kept two convicted child molesters in ministry. A priest who admitted to Mahony that he had molested two boys was allowed to keep his job, the authorities weren’t told, parishioners weren’t warned, and (you guessed it), the priest went on to molest others. Mahony’s handling of serial rapist of little children, Oliver O’Grady, was laid out with sickening beauty in the Oscar-nominated documentary, “Deliver Us From Evil.” As late as 2002, Mahony had at least eight known molesting priests working in his diocese, and only removed them when forced to do so by a legal settlement.

You can see, then, why victims responded with quiet strength to the news of the Mahony investigation. The video snipped from their news conference (below) is, we think, clear enough:

Transcript here.

Oklahoma Gov. Frank Keating resigned as chairman of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops' National Review Board examining sex abuse by Catholic Priests after Cardinal Mahony criticized him for comparing some church leaders to the Mafia.

In his resignation Keating wrote:

My remarks, which some Bishops found offensive, were deadly accurate. I make no apology . . . To resist Grand Jury subpoenas, to suppress the names of offending clerics, to deny, to obfuscate, to explain away; that is the model of a criminal organization, not my church.

The Honest Services statute was passed to overcome "conspiracies to deprive others of honest services."

Was that, or was that not the kind of problem Keating was describing? The answer is unclear to legal scholars. But L.A. Now was optimistic:

One federal law enforcement source said such a prosecution could be brought under a federal statute that makes it illegal to “scheme ... to deprive another of the intangible right of honest services.” In this case, the victims would be parishioners who relied on Mahony and other church leaders to keep their children safe from predatory priests, the source said.

Your thoughts? Louder please, so they can hear you in Los Angeles.

Black, Catholic, big-tent RNC Chairman Steele

The Republican religious right lost and put its own decline on display when big-tent former lieutenant governor of Maryland Michael Steele was elected the first black Republican National Committee chairman in history, Friday.

Underlying party direction didn't change and the Culture Warriors will still get plenty of attention. But Ken Blackwell was the candididate of the James C. Dobson wing of the Republican Party, as you can see from a quck look at his list of endorsers.

Steele, a former Catholic seminarian, promised immediately to upend the public perception that the Republicans are "a party unconcerned about minorities, a party that's unconcerned about the lives and dreams of average Americans."

Good as he is, that's unlikely, but things have unmistakably changed. Calling Steele a "moderate," however, would be a miscategorization.

Addendum

GetReligion notes with justified puzzlement that major newspapers led with the race issue and ignored the fact that Steele is a former seminarian.

Tmatt wrote:

I am not, let me stress, saying that the racial issue is not important. I am saying that it is very, very strange — when everyone knows the importance of centrist Catholics in American politics — to offer no information on the religious element in the story of the new leader of the Republican Party.

Agreed.

Atheist Bus ads run into heavy Genoa, Italy, traffic

Booted off Genoa, Italy, buses earlier this month after heated Catholic and Muslim protest, the atheist bus ads will run in drastically toned-down form on perhaps one bus for two weeks in February.

The new ad approved by advertising licensing agency IGP Decaux, reads: "The Good News Is There Are Millions of Atheists In Italy; The Excellent News Is They Believe In Freedom Of Expression."

Originally the message was "The Bad News Is God Doesn't Exist, The Good News Is You Don't Need Him."

The secretary of the Italian Union of Atheists, Agnostics and Rationalists (UAAR), Raffale Carcano, said the UAAR was working to get the original message approved in cities where IGP doesn't control advertising.

Heaven only knows whether they'll succeed.

Puzzled Cardinal Mahony gets 0 twitter love

"Mystified and puzzled" Cardinal Roger Mahony got no twitter love in his efforts to comprehend a federal grand jury investigation into the handling of alleged clergy child molestation cases by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles.

David Clohessy, director of Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, said he was stunned but gladdened by the report.

The LATimes said the prosecutors are applying an honest services legal theory in an apparently novel way” by trying to determine whether church officials’ actions constituted a fraud against parishioners. The applicable federal statute that bars conspiracies to deprive others of honest services, and in this case, the victims would be parishioners who entrusted the safety of their children to church leaders.

If the approach is "novel," it's an interesting novel. One wonders whether other denominations might yet find their own pages in it. Others whose conspiratorial silence contributes to the serial abuse of young parishioners.

How many clerical predator 'hush money' agreements?

They're like cockroaches explains Christa Brown of Stop Baptist Predators:

It is the very nature of such agreements that they hide in the dark. That’s the reason for them. By design and function, they keep troubling news quiet. Most of the time, they work. The people never talk, and you never hear about the hush money or the reason for it.

She discusses the New Life Church claims with regard to Ted Haggard:

After all, this is a church whose leaders not only paid a young man to keep quiet, but then they effectively denied doing it. Instead, they had the sickening gall to claim they were trying to help the young man. “Compassionate assistance,” said Brady Boyd, the senior pastor.

She proceeds to document how the Baptist General Convention of Texas has offered hush money to clergy sex abuse victims, and having purchased the victims' silence, denied having done so.

Read the entire post here. Hush money agreements are like cockroaches. Yes. The piece is well worth reading.

Inaugural Jesus

In The inaugural Jesus, Martin E. Marty writes:

We should devise some signal by which those who pray particular prayers (as I believe all are) let everyone know that while praying in their own integral style and form, they are aware and will at least implicitly assure their audiences that they are not speaking for everyone. They can then encourage others to translate what is being said into contexts they find congenial, and still share a communal experience.

Take the altogether worthwhile walk to that conclusion, starting here.

Grand Jury Could Charge Mail or Wire Fraud In L.A. Clergy Sex Abuse Cover-Up

Religion Clause reports:

The Los Angeles Times reported today that the U.S. Attorney's Office in Los Angeles has begun a grand jury investigation into the responses by Cardinal Roger M. Mahony, and possibly other top Catholic Church officials, to reports of sexual abuse by priests.

The rest is here.

Trample freedom of expression, but nothing to stop pedophiles?

How ironic for Richard Land to mourn the death of the unconstitutional, technologically ineffective Child Online Protection Act without having raised his voice for a pedophilia database to help protect young Baptists from clerical sexual predators.

Land is head of the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission. He decried the high court's decision on Jan. 22 as follows:

Unfortunately, our Supreme Court has concluded that an adult's supposed 'right' to see anything he wants to see trumps society's obligation to protect children from exposure to such spiritual toxic waste. Untold human suffering will be the result of this stupefyingly wrong decision.

As if parents were unable to take measures to protect their children.

It would be irrationally optimistic to expect Land and other COPA supporters to note that it:

• Would have imposed serious burdens on constitutionally-protected speech -- anything conceivably "harmful to minors." That standard proved impossible to effectively define.
• Would have failed to prevent children from seeing inappropriate material originating from outside of the US, or available by means other than the World Wide Web.
• Did not represent the least restrictive means of regulating speech. Parental supervision assisted by individually applied filters appear to be that.

A study commissioned by 49 state attorneys general, and released on January 14, noted that parents set their household standards and are the true enforcers of them. As a result:

Parents and caregivers should: educate themselves about the Internet and the ways in which their children use it, as well as about technology in general; explore and evaluate the effectiveness of available technological tools for their particular child and their family context, and adopt those tools as may be appropriate; be engaged and involved in their children's Internet use; be conscious of the common risks youth face to help their children understand and navigate the technologies; be attentive to at-risk minors in their community and in their children's peer group; and recognize when they need to seek help from others.

May we turn now to dealing with the large number of Baptist clerical sexual predators?

Last year the SBC failed to implement an obvious solution that would help, thus earning itself sixth place on Time Magazine's Top 10 Underreported News Stories of 2008:

Facing calls to curb child sex abuse within its churches, in June the Southern Baptist Convention -- the largest U.S. religious body after the Catholic Church -- urged local hiring committees to conduct federal background checks but rejected a proposal to create a central database of staff and clergy who have been either convicted of or indicted on charges of molesting minors.

Certainly the SBC cares enough about children to implement a solution that would actually help remedy a devastatingly destructive problem which burns like a wildfire through its midst?

Praises Darwin billboard

From the Madison (Wisc.) Capital Times

The Madison-based Freedom From Religion Foundation is unveiling a new billboard in Madison and two other cities to honor Charles Darwin as his 200th birthday approaches.

"Praise Darwin," reads the upper portion of the billboard, in biblical script, while the second line reads, "Evolve Beyond Belief."

The organization also plans to put up billboards in Dayton, Tenn., and Dover, Penn., in time for Darwin's Feb. 12 birthday. Dayton was the site of the infamous 1925 Scopes "Monkey Trial," while Dover is the small Pennsylvania town where an attempt by the local school board to promote "intelligent design" as a competing theory to Darwin's theory of evolution was tossed out by U.S. District Judge John Jones after a trial in 2005 that lasted 40 days and 40 nights.

Read the entire story here.

Saudis Imprison Blogger Who Is Christian Human Rights Advocate

From Compass Direct News:

Five months after the daughter of a member of Saudi Arabia’s religious police [Fatima Al-Mutairi] was killed for writing online about her faith in Christ, Saudi authorities have reportedly arrested a 28-year-old Christian man for describing his conversion and criticizing the kingdom’s judiciary on his Web site.

. . .

On his web site, which Saudi authorities have blocked, [Hamoud] Bin Saleh wrote that his journey to Christ began after witnessing the public beheading of three Pakistanis convicted of drug charges. Shaken, he began an extensive study of Islamic history and law, as well as Saudi justice. He became disillusioned with sharia (Islamic law) and dismayed that kingdom authorities only prosecuted poor Saudis and foreigners.

Read the rest here.

Stimulus Bill Includes Funds for Faith-Based Initiative

From Religion Clause:

Among the many items in the proposed economic stimulus bill, HR 1, The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, is a provision for funding of $100 million for grants to faith-based organization through the Compassion Capital Fund [at pg. 141 of bill].

Read it all here.

Judge tells Christian woman 'I would kill you'

Egyptian judge, according to WordNet Daily, said:

A woman arrested at the Cairo airport because her identity card described her as a Christian has been threatened for her faith by the judge in her case, according to a new report.

. . .

The decision to grant her bail came Saturday in the hearing before Hashem after Makkar told the judge about her new Christian faith and her abandonment of Islam.

Tawfiq told Compass Direct "the judge then said, 'I want to talk with Martha alone,' so we all left the room, and he said to her, 'Nobody changes from Muslim to Christian – you are a Muslim.'

Read it all here.

Hawaii civil unions bill fate may turn on one legislator

From the Honolulu Advertiser:

With a majority in the House supportive of civil unions, advocates believe the test will come in the state Senate, where there could be opposition from the Senate Judiciary and Government Operations Committee

. . .

The potential swing vote on the committee is state Sen. Robert Bunda, D-22nd (North Shore, Wahiawa), who has opposed same-sex marriage in the past but said he will keep an open mind on civil unions.

Read the entire story here.

Graphic: The religious affiliations of U.S. presidents

The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life offers us a nice graphic of the religious affiliation of U.S. presidents here.

Start the day with psychiatrist Robert Coles on the inner lives of children

Psychiastrist Robert Coles "spent his career exploring the inner lives of children," says National Public Radio's Speaking of Faith. "They can teach us about living honestly, searchingly and courageously if we let them."

Choose your audio download format and be enlightened here.

Court Rejects Suit Over School’s Expulsion of Alleged Lesbians

Howard Friedman writes:

In Doe v. California Lutheran High School Association, (Cal. App., Jan. 26, 2009), a California state appellate court held that a private religious high school is not a "business enterprise" and therefore is not subject to the Unruh Civil Rights Act.

From ABC News:

"They're giving private religious schools carte blanche to discriminate on any basis," said Kirk Hanson, the lawyer for the two girls, who were identified in court papers only as Jane Doe and Jane Roe.

The school argued that "The whole purpose of sending one’s child to a religious school is to ensure that he or she learns even secular subjects within a religious framework; otherwise, merely supplementing the child’s secular education with Sunday school or a religion class would suffice."

The entire ruling is here [.pdf].

Renew full Southern Baptist Convention church autonomy regarding the role of women?

Intransigence over permitting women to serve as pastors and deacons is among the principal forces grinding the Southern Baptist Convention down.

Oklahoma pastor Wade Burleson this week takes a clear stand for further discussion and an end to the denomination-destroying disfellowships over the issue. The outspoken former member of the Southern Baptist Convention's International Mission Board writes:

Let me be clear though. I am not advocating that a church should call a woman as pastor. Nor am I advocating that a church should always and only call a male pastor. I am simply open to the arguments on both sides. I see my brothers and sisters in Christ on the opposite spectrum of this issue being both Bible-believing followers of Christ who have simply reached different conclusions on this issue.

Without blinking, he forecasts an eventual conclusion for that dialog:

More pointedly, I would like to make a prediction. History will one day look back on this issue of “women” pastors in the SBC as we now look back on slavery within our Convention.

Meanwhile, the inquisitorial process of refusing to accept donations from or give aid to churches that do choose to, for example, call women as senior pastors, should end. He has demonstrated in previous blog entries that the process is at best only denying the church ministerial talent it desperately needs -- a view which has abundant support elsewhere.

In this case, however, Burleson finds theological and other support among inerrantists who are otherwise in theological step with the SBC's conservative leadership. Specifically, "John Zens (Are the Sisters Free to Function), theologian Dr. Gilbert Bilezikian (Beyond Sex Roles), and the ongoing ministry of Christians for Biblical Equality.

Absent an end to the current, ongoing intolerance, he foresees unreversed decline. He writes:

Bottom line, Southern Baptists too often pronounce judgment and condemnation before we dialogue, reflect and consider the consequences of our anathemas. I am simply asking for dialogue, patience and Christian grace. Let’s cooperate, not separate. We unite because of Christ and the glorious gospel, and we fund our kingdom work through the Cooperative Program. If we keep moving down the line toward of disfellowshipping from churches that interpret the Bible different than we do, then we ought to change the Cooperative Program’s name to the Conformity Program. If we don’t stop the nonsense of narrower and narrower parameters of fellowship and cooperation, then pretty soon the SBC will be the size of a mega church and not the largest Protestant denomination in the western world.

Creationism steals a Louisiana classroom march on science

Creationism stole a march on science via the Louisiana Science Education Act, which gives teachers license to use materials outside the curriculum specifically to teach "controversial" theories.

When state education officials translated legislation into policy that explicitly prohibited teaching intelligent design, the state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education pressured them into removing the language. The creationism-safe regulations were approved on Jan. 13, and the rest will almost inevitably end up on court.

Someone, says Barbara Forrest, a philosopher at Southeastern Louisiana University in Hammond, will use Discovery Institute's creationism-friendly book, Explore Evolution.

Americans United for Separation of Church and State has already promised to file a lawsuit if Louisiana public schools start teaching religious concepts in biology classes.

That is the anti-evolutionist's goal, argues Forest. They hope to find a more creationism-friendly federal judge and mount a better court case than in 1987 when Louisiana law mandating the equal-time teaching of creationism was ruled unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Refusing to do *what* for *whom* on Sunday?

Refusing to work on Sunday can be an admirable matter of faith, unless twisted. Tom Steagld writes of his waitress daughter:

A group of six church-goers came in last night after their evening services and sat down, not in her area but in another server's. When the girl came to greet them and take their drink order, one of them said, "We want to tell you up front that we will not be tipping you tonight because..."

Are you ready?

"...we do not believe in people working on Sunday."

The rest of this well-told modern moral fable is here

Inflamed anti-Semitism

Anti-Semitism's ugly flames were already flaring when Pope Benedict XVI extended his olive branch to a Holocaust-denier and three other right-wing bishops.

The Christian Science Monitor reports:

Since Dec. 27 some 60 cases of anti-Semitism – graffiti, four synagogues desecrated, and an attack on a Jewish youth – took place, according to Richard Prasquier of the Council of French Jewish Institutions in France (CRIF). Two Muslim youth were attacked by Jewish gangs.

In Germany Stephan J. Kramer, a leader of Germany’s Central Council of Jews, reported in Der Tagesspiegel:

The council, which represents Germany’s more than 100,000- member Jewish community, received about 40 percent more hate e- mail a week than usual during the recent conflict in Gaza . . . . A tenth of the 300 weekly messages were explicit death threats directed at council members, he was cited as saying.

In Turkey, according to Reuters:

Turkey's centuries-old Jewish community says it is alarmed by anti-Semitism that emerged during protests at Israel's Gaza assault, and is questioning how this reflects its status in the predominantly Muslim republic.

In Argentina, according to Anti-Defamation League National Director Abraham H. Foxman:

An outburst of hateful rhetoric against Israel and in-your-face anti-Semitism has not been seen like this in Argentina for decades.

And on it goes, as David Rothkopf further documents in his blog at Foreign Policy magazine, citing both events abroad and personal experience.

These events involve various forms of harm to ordinary people, not high-level negotiations among variously outraged or apologetic faith leaders. People who should, we feel, have been more carefuly considered as "an internal affair" with such dramatic external effects was attended to by the Vatican.

Reprieve for Larry Swearingen, whom four pathologists say is innocent

An execution-eve reprieve was granted Larry Swearingen by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans on Monday [01/26/2009], giving his lawyers time to present evidence that he did not commit the 1998 Texas murder.

Swearingen faced lethal injection Tuesday in Texas for the death of Melissa Trotter. Yet four forensic pathologists agree that he could not have committed the murder, because he was in jail when it occurred.

Harris County Medical Examiner Dr. Joye Carter is one of the four.

In the words of the court:

At trial, Dr. Carter testified that Trotter’s body had been left in the forest for approximately twenty-five days, which was consistent with the State’s theory that Swearingen murdered Trotter on December 8, 1998, and left he body in the forest. In her affidavit, Dr. Carter does not address the correctness of her original testimony based on decomposition and fungal growth, but states that if she had been provided certain additional data, she would have testified that the findings of her autopsy “are consistent with a date of exposure in the Sam Houston National Forest within fourteen days of discovery, and incompatible with exposure for a longer period of time.”

Those results indicate that Swearingen was in jail on outstanding traffic warrants when the 19-year-old’s body was left in the forest south of Huntsville, Texas. Specifically, he was in jail when the body was discovered on Jan. 2, 1999, and had been in jail since Dec. 11, 1998. Even using Dr. Carter's maximum of 14 days, the body was placed two days after Swearingen was jailed.

Thus the court goes on to say, "... that but for the alleged constitutional error of the State sponsoring the false testimony of Dr. Carter, no reasonable juror could find guilt beyond a reasonable doubt." (The full decision is here [.pdf]).

Texas state courts had refused to hear the issue:

Instead, the court dismissed Swearingen's petition for violating state laws that limit death row inmates to one petition for a writ of habeas corpus unless lawyers uncover information that was not available when the first appeal was filed.

Swearingen's attorneys now return to federal court to seek a new trial or release from prison.

Pope expresses 'full and indisputable solidarity' with the Jews

Responding to revulsion at the anti-Semitism of four traditionalist bishops whose excommunications were lifted Saturday, Pope Benedict XVI reaffirmed his "full and unquestionable solidarity with Jews."

JTA reported:

The pope said in his angelus prayer at his public audience Wednesday: "While I renew with affection the expression of my full and unquestionable solidarity with our (Jewish) brothers, I hope the memory of the Shoah will induce humanity to reflect on the unpredictable power of hate when it conquers the heart of man."

Vatican Radio reported that speaking of the Holocaust (haShoa), the Pope "firmly said:"

While I renew my affection for and complete solidarity with our Brothers of the First Alliance, I urge that the memory of the Shoah lead humanity to reflect on the unforeseeable power of evil when it conquers the Human Heart. May the Shoah be a warning to all against oblivion, against denial or revisionism, because violence committed against any one single human being is violence against all humanity. No man is an island, a well known poet once wrote. The Shoah teaches both the new and older generations, that only the demanding journey of listening and dialogue, of love and forgiveness can lead the world’s peoples, cultures and religions towards the desired goal of brotherhood and peace in truth. Never again may violence humiliate the dignity of man!

In an unusual front-page editorial the Vatican's daily newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano, attempted to push back the appearanc of anti-Semitism apparent in restoration of the four bishops, said the gesture does not yet mean a return to “full communion” with the Church and moreover is a call to the “full acceptance of the Magisterium, obviously including the Second Vatican Council.” The editorial clearly addresses anti-Semitism in general and the Holocaust denial of Bishop Richard Williamson:

After noting that the declaration “Nostra aetate” deplores “the hatred, persecution and all manifestations of anti-Semitism directed against the Jews of any time and by any person” and that this is “a teaching for Catholics that is not open to opinion,” L’Osservatore Romano said that the recent statements of denial by the British bishop “contradict this teaching and are therefore seriously grave and lamentable. Made know before the document lifting the excommunication, they are thus—as we have written—unacceptable.”

The positions taken are clear, forceful and with additional action and absent further missteps may well heal the old, reopened wounds.

'Haggard scandal isn't about gay sex'

Christa Brown at Stop Baptist Predators goes right to ethical core of the most recent Ted Haggard revelations when she writes:

It was about pastoral abuse and exploitation.

It was about a mega-church cover-up.

No one involved has any excuse for confusion about the real nature of the issues here. Decades of research and documentation of the psychiatric impact and ethical implications of the sexual exploitation of positions of power and trust, preceded everything that took place under fallen fundamentalist superstar Ted Haggard's authority at New Life Church.

She's simply being sraightforward when she writes:

The young man was in his early 20s. So he was of legal age. But here’s the thing. The young man was part of Haggard’s congregation.

Haggard was his “pastor.” That’s not just an empty word. A pastor occupies a position of high trust toward the members of his congregation.

That’s why what Haggard did was so abusive.

It wasn’t merely “inappropriate,” as the church describes it. Rather, Haggard’s conduct was abusive of another human being.

It is inherently manipulative for a minister to use a congregant -- even an adult congregant -- for his own sexual ends. In some states, such conduct might even be a felony, just as it would if a psychologist sexually exploited a client.

Truth came to the table in this case because the victim, Grant Haas, who had been paid to be quiet, stepped forward. Certainly knowing that he would be greeted with a blizzard of unfortunate implications.

Haas unhushed by the Haggard/New Life * money

Gently clarifying the nature of payments made by New Life Church to a young church volunteer who had a problem with fallen fundamentalist star Ted Haggard, the New York Times writes:

DENVER — The New Life Church, a nationally known evangelical institution that fired its founding pastor, Ted Haggard, in 2006 over accusations that he had had sex with a male prostitute, made payments starting in 2007 to a young male church member who had a relationship with Mr. Haggard before the dismissal, the church’s pastor told worshipers on Sunday.

The payments — part of a confidential legal settlement in 2007 that included money for counseling and college expenses — came from insurance money, not donations from members, the senior pastor of New Life, Brady Boyd, said in his sermon at the church in Colorado Springs.

Mr. Boyd said in an interview on Monday that the payments, and what has now amounted to second body blow of scandal, were kept quiet for two years partly because of legal constraints, and partly because of ministerial confidentiality rules, since the man had sought out church authorities for counseling about the affair. Mr. Boyd declined to identify the young man, but said he is now in his 20s and was over 18 at the time of the relationship. Mr. Haggard is now 52.

Mr. Boyd said he had decided to break the silence because the young man called a few weeks ago and said he was thinking of going public himself.

Grant Haas, now 25, sees matters differently:

Silence and abuse do seem to have robbed the victim of his church family.

Thus far we have heard no evidence that the church provided the emotional support and reassurance a victim requires to fully recover.

Human trafficking is a Clinton priority

Jim Wallis brings to our attention Hillary Clinton's answer to a confirmation hearing question from Barbara Boxer:

As Secretary of State I view these issues (human trafficking) as central to our foreign policy, not as adjunct or auxiliary or in any way lesser from all of the other issues that we have to confront. I too have followed the stories: this is not culture, this is not custom, this is criminal … I’ve also read closely Nick Kristof’s articles over the last many months on the young women he’s both rescued from prostitution and met who have been enslaved, tortured in every way: physically, emotionally, morally and I take very seriously the function of the State Department to lead the U.S. Government through the Office on Human Trafficking to do all that we can to end this modern form of slavery. We have sex slavery. We have wage slavery and it is primarily a slavery of girls and women.

Domestic policy must then be made to match foreign policy, and in domestic policy, the U.S. is no leader. Sweden is, as Ambassador Swanee Hunt and Lina Sidrys observed:

After years of parliamentary debate, in 1999 Swedes passed the Sex Purchase Law, which criminalized buying and decriminalized selling sex. This placed the emphasis on the buyers, while allowing women to seek help without being fined or deported. In five years, the number of prostituted women in Sweden dropped 40%. Today, the government estimates that less than 400 women are trafficked into the country, while in neighboring Finland it’s 17,000.

In rough economic terms, as a matter of domestic policy the Swiss attacked demand, rather than supply.

It works. Together with a foreign policy focus like the one Secretary of State Clinton can be expected to pursue, church and other nonprofit efforts, it should work very well indeed.

RIP John Updike

John Updike focused on the spiritual as well as the carnal.

The Boston Globe said:

. . . Religion figures throughout Mr. Updike's writing (fiction as well as essays). References abound to such religious philosophers as Kierkegaard, Paul Tillich, and Karl Barth. The protagonists of his novels "A Month of Sundays" (1975), "Roger's Version" (1986), and "The Witches of Eastwick" (1984) are, respectively, a minister, a religious historian, and the Devil (memorably played in the movie adaptation by Jack Nicholson.

Raised a Lutheran, Mr. Updike became a Congregationalist after moving to Massachusetts and later an Episcopalian.

The Revealer properly slapped the New York Times for using the occasion of the obituary to curiously describe Updike's most famous character, Rabbit Angstrom: "a believer in God even as he bedded women other than his wife."

Updike was a man who struggled so well through his art, and certainly Rabbit, with the issues which besiege us all, and our world is better for that.

UN President skips Holocaust Memorial after Jewish leaders threaten walkout

Facing a possible walkout by Jewish leaders, General Assembly President Miguel d'Escoto skipped U.N. Holocaust Memorial this morning. According to Harretz:

D'Escoto, who has repeatedly made virulently anti-Israel statements, was to be the event's host by virtue of his official position and was scheduled give the opening speech.

Last year, the General Assembly president likened Israel's actions in the West Bank and Gaza to "the apartheid of an earlier era," and tried to ban Israel's envoy to the UN from speaking at a ceremony to mark 60 years since the institution adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

AJC Executive Director David A. Harris told Haaretz that d'Escoto had chosen not to attend the event because he knew "he did not belong" there. Harris said D'Escoto also mostly likely understood that "his presence would have insulted the event because of his viscious attacks on Israel.

The U.N. General Assembly set Jan. 27 was set as International Holocaust Rememberance Day in 2005. It is to honor the victims of the Nazi era and is the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, the largest Nazi death camp. The associated U.N. resolution rejects denial of the Holocaust, and condemns discrimination and violence based on religion or ethnicity.

Professor Gabriela Shalev, Israel's ambassador to the UN, said in her speech to the assembly:

To remain silent and indifferent to the horrors of the Holocaust is probably the greatest sin of all, let alone denying it. We have a responsibility to act against the forces of anti-Semitism, bigotry and racism in any form."

Transforming Super Bowl weekend into the nation’s largest youth-led weekend of giving and serving

Souper Bowl of Caring "equips and mobilizes congregations, schools and businesses to positively impact their communities by collecting money or food on or near Super Bowl weekend. 100% of the collections are donated directly to the charity of each group's choice."

Who they are.

George Beverly Shea celebrating 100th birthday this weekend

The Asheville Citizen-Times writes:

MONTREAT - Christian singer George Beverly Shea, who has long performed with Rev. Billy Graham, will turn 100 on Feb. 1, and to celebrate, UNC-TV, the state public television network, is planning a musical special.

Oh ‘geez,’ another holy mischief of a sermon contest

The Canadian "holy mischief" magazine geez wants your entries in the Daringly Awkward Sermon Contest.

Seminary graduates will have no divine or other advantage in pursuing one of the three $400 prizes. Think of this as a theologian's version of The Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest, which makes wretched writing a hilarious art. This is satire amid which you may find a touch of heresy.

Consider for yourself some acid bits of Leslie Barnwell's winning entry in last year's Sermons you'd never hear in church contest:

When I was here last, you sat for me for a couple of hours. I drew and you talked. So I now know that you are close to my age, you’ve spent some serious time in a mental institution (bipolar disorder), and you’ve been let loose on your own since the facilities closed down. I know you live in a fourth-rate hotel room and can’t get, let alone keep, a job. You have practically no money and rarely get your medication right. You’ve been violent several times and have lost rights to various resources in the community, including a couple of churches, and have been in and out of jail.

Lately I’ve been getting this magazine called Geez and they had this off-the-wall-not-in-the-sanctuary sermon contest which is fairly bizarre in the first place. I thought, what would I write? To whom would I direct my words? To you? Well, I figure I’ve got nothing to say to you, Navita. Zero. Not for your enlightenment anyhow. What do you need to hear from me? That Jesus saves? That God has a wonderful plan for your life? Do you even need to know that a literal view of the Bible is a modern invention? How about a rehash of the Ten Commandments? Or maybe you need some clarity on how the message of holy scriptures jibes with the current eco-crisis. Sort of falling flat? I thought so.

It's only $30 to enter (details here). That includes the price of a subscription, which you may event want.

Almost the Onion knelt for prayer, geez won ten Canadian Church Press prizes last year. You can taste their earnest irreverence by perusing their online previews. They've also launched (wait for it) ... a blog.

They characterize the entire enterprise as “Adbusters for people of faith.”

Works for us.

The Lefebvre movement's troubled relationship with Judaism

The four Catholic bishops whose excommunication was lifted by the Vatican on Jan. 21 are members of the Lefebvre movement, whose long, troubled relationship with Judiasm the National Catholic Reporter documents today.

John L. Allen Jr. writes:

A troubled history with Judaism has long been part of the Catholic traditionalist movement associated with the late French Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre — beginning with Lefebvre himself, who spoke approvingly of both the World War II-era Vichy Regime in France and the far-right National Front, and who identified the contemporary enemies of the faith as “Jews, Communists and Freemasons” in an Aug. 31, 1985, letter to Pope John Paul II.

That helps explain in part why a man with the extreme views expressed by Bishop Richard Williamson, who denies the Holocaust, can find a home there. Other Lefebvre followers have taken similarly extreme positions, as Allen documents:

In 1997, one of the four bishops ordained by Lefebvre in 1988, Bernard Tissier de Mallerais, said, “The church for its part has at all times forbidden and condemned the killing of Jews, even when ‘their grave defects rendered them odious to the nations among which they were established.’ ... All this makes us think that the Jews are the most active artisans for the coming of Antichrist.”

Nor has their record been confined simply to making statements. In 1989, Paul Touvier, a fugitive charged with ordering the execution of seven Jews in 1944, was arrested in a priory of the Fraternity of St. Pius X in Nice, France. The fraternity stated at the time that Touvier had been granted asylum as “an act of charity to a homeless man.” When Touvier died in 1996, a parish church operated by the fraternity offered a requiem Mass in his honor.

We can perhaps accept that Pope Benedict XVI’s action in no way canonized such views, but rather acted to promote church unity and avoid schism.

We can accept that all that happened was that the four had their excommunications lifted. As far as the church is concerned, all four remain suspended.

We can accept that any further restoration will be part of a long process.

Yet the Lefebvre movement's anti-Semitic views and sometimes actions and the associated history loom over every aspect of the Vatican's action.

As Allen concluded:

Early returns, however, suggest that in the court of broader public opinion, disentangling the pope’s logic from the taint of association with anti-Semitism will be a tough sell. The chief rabbi of Rome, Riccardo Di Segni, sounded despondent on Monday about where things will go from here.

“I don’t know what kind of resolution there can be at this point,” Di Segni said.

When faith's dictates result in a child's death: Redrawing the legal line

From tragedy comes a likely landmark legal conflict. Kara Neumann, 11, died of treatable juvenile diabetes after her Wausau, Wisconsin, parents chose to pray for her recovery rather than take her to a doctor. Now they face criminal charges which may redraw the line of church/state separation.

Dirk Johnson of the International Herald Tribune wrote:

About a month after Kara's death last March, the Marathon County state attorney, Jill Falstad, brought charges of reckless endangerment against her parents, Dale and Leilani Neumann. Despite the Neumanns' claim that the charges violated their constitutional right to religious freedom, Judge Vincent Howard of Marathon County Circuit Court ordered Leilani Neumann to stand trial on May 14, and Dale Neumann on June 23. If convicted, each faces up to 25 years in prison.

Kara's parents beliefs are clear. Click here to read a testimonial by Kara's mother, Leilani, on AmericasLastDays.com.

For believers and nonbelievers alike, the debate is inescapable and it whipsaws across the legal and ideological landscape.

Those who defend the Neumanns see the legal action itself as an unacceptable intrusion on religious liberty.

At helptheneumanns.com David Eells writes:

Neumanns defend your rights now, very soon when Christians refuse the microchip in their hand and forehead and are not able to pay for meds or doctors they will have to trust God. However, then they will be deemed negligent and their children taken away, just as the prophets have seen. You who know what Revelation 13:15-17 means, think about this. Read the laws carefully.

Among those who have read the laws carefully and come to a different conclusion is Children's Healthcare Is a Legal Duty, Inc., which describes itself as,"a non-profit national membership organization established in 1983 to protect children from abusive religious and cultural practices, especially religion-based medical neglect. CHILD opposes religious exemptions from duties of care for children."

Yet CHILD treats the religious issues involved with respect, for example addressing religious attitudes on corporal punishment from a Biblical perspective.

The extreme opposite view from the Neumanns and their defenders in this debate is instead well-represented by Pharyngula, who argues for the legal establishment of a new principle:

Prayer doesn't work. Enshrine it in the law — prayer is not a helpful action, but rather a neglectful one. Teach it in the schools — when the health class instructs students in how to make a tourniquet or do CPR, also explain that prayer is not an option. Faith in prayer kills people.

The quiet question at the legal core of the intense issues raised is well explained at Get Religion, where tmatt writes:

The question is where courts draw the line on religious freedom, especially in limiting the rights of parents. As a rule, the limits are defined in terms of fraud, profit and clear threat to life.

But what is a clear threat? That’s the issue. Is practicing Christian Science or being a Jehovah’s Witness a clear threat? Courts tend to say no, especially since those groups tend to have good lawyers. The big question is what to do in precisely this kind of case.

This case does promise to begin rewriting the definitions of the law in ways that make it easier to bring legal force to bear on believers like the Neumanns.

That's unfortunate, because as you can see the case is awash in distracting emotional intensity, and thus what Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. was talking about when he said "bad cases make bad law."

What outcome is the right outcome?

Addendum

The police report is here [.pdf].

Tuesday execution set for Larry Swearingen, whom four pathologists say is innocent

The execution of Larry Swearingen is scheduled for Tuesday in Texas.

Four forensic pathologists agree that he could not have committed the murder. Chuck Lindell wrote for The Austin American-Statesman:

The four include the medical examiner whose testimony helped secure Swearingen's guilty verdict. That medical examiner now says college student Melissa Trotter's curiously preserved body could not have lain in the East Texas woods for more than 14 days — and probably was there for a much shorter time.

The results mean Swearingen was in jail when the 19-year-old's body was left behind, the pathologists say.

"It's just scientifically impossible for him to have killed the girl and thrown her into the woods," said James Rytting, Swearingen's appellate lawyer. "It's guilt by imagination."

The Houston Chronicle argues in a Jan. 23 editorial, Room for Doubt:

With the inmate facing an irreversible sentence — capital punishment — it is imperative that Texas Gov. Rick Perry stay the execution to prevent the death of a possibly innocent man.

Detailed, concise and readable analysis is provided by Jeralyn here.

Grits For Breakfast examines the issues in detail here.

The Texas Monthly examines the issues at great but well-written length here.

If you agree that a stay should be granted, your can use the Amnesty International USA form to send Governor Perry an email asking him to stay the execution.

Or stand aside while Swearingen becomes the fourth Texan executed this year.

Church brands lose their following

CBN News reports that denominational loyalty is on the decline:

Ellison Research, a national marketing company, found 51 percent prefer their denomination, but would consider others. Thirty-three percent of church-goers do not prefer any one denomination.

For Catholics, the survey shows that denomination is more important. Sixty percent would only consider the Catholic Church.

Comparatively, what does that mean?

Ellison Research president Ron Sellers points out that Protestants are about as loyal to their denomination as they are to their toothpaste.

Julia Duin, Religion Editor at the Washington Times, attrbutes "the exodus of people from churches to a lack of community friendliness, changing worship styles, and controlling pastors. ... 'they can't get through to their pastors.' "

The best pastors are, of course, adapting quickly.

Why uproar over the pope's reinstatement of Richard Williamson?

BBC reports:

The Pope has lifted the excommunication from the Roman Catholic Church of four bishops appointed by a breakaway archbishop more than 20 years ago.

One of Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre's appointees, Briton Richard Williamson, outraged Jews by saying the Nazi gas chambers did not exist.

Two of the other three appointees are French while the fourth is Argentinean.

Israel's envoy to the Vatican said the papal decision would "cast a shadow on relations with Jews".

Listen to Williamson (who for remarks like these is under investigation for violation of German hate crime laws):

The antisemitism goes on. The other three use a liturgy which calls for the conversion of Jews. Williamson has endorsed such anti-Semitic forgeries as The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.

Certainly the anyone concerned about ant-Semitism is likely to view the decision with unease. Along those lines, The Jerusalem Post reported:

The American Jewish Committee's director of Interreligious Affairs, Rabbi David Rosen, said that "while the Vatican's reconciliation with the SSPX [Society of Saint Pius X] is an internal matter of the Catholic Church, the embrace of an open Holocaust denier is shameful, a serious blow for Jewish-Vatican relations, and a slap in the face for the historic efforts of Pope John Paul II, who following his predecessors, made such remarkable efforts to eradicate and combat anti-Semitism.

The Vatican's position is that he is lying but lying is not grounds for excommunication.

So the excommunication, amid complexities of canon law and the drive to undo a schism in the church, is undone.

But Williamson's views are repudiated and he and the others are still not functioning bishops in the Roman Catholic Church.

Bernard Fellay is one of the Roman Catholic "traditionalist bishops," as they are termed, and head Swiss-based Priestly Society of Saint Pius X.

The Associated Press reported:

The head of the Swiss bishops' conference, Kurt Koch, later released a statement saying the gesture followed a letter from Fellay on December 15 asking the pope to lift the excommunications and recognising "the teachings of the Church and the primacy of the Pope."

Some additional process of reconciliation is to follow and through it we will see whether evil views are indeed somehow being embraced.

More about bWe

Shirley Taylor, who with her husband publishes bWe: Baptist Women for Equality email newsletter and Web site, told us via email:

I am just an ordinary woman who got fed up with the Southern Baptist Convention which holds sway over the local church, the local Baptist association, the state convention, and refuses to realize that the greater sin is not that women be allowed to serve, but that the greater sin is to keep women in their so-called place.

She explains, writing with the quiet tone of an after-church conversation, that the current disregard for women by the SBC can be cured, because it is a result of ignorance. The pastors "just don't know" how many of the women in their congregations believe women should be free to serve as deacons, and "even pastors."

She is helping inform them, and brings the summary force of a hammer blow to her convictions.

I wonder if that is in part because she has three granddaughters and would like a better future for them. In any case, she wrote:

Many of these church members have daughters and granddaughters who are feeling the call to go into ministry, and there is no option for them except to go on to the mission field. We are more than willing to ship our daughters off to a foreign land, but we allow our sons to stay home and preach. Doesn't anybody see the hypocrisy in this? Our bellies are full of camels that we have swallowed while straining out the gnat when it comes to women in authority. We stab those scriptures with our bony fingers and declare that women shall not have authority over men, and then we put them on every committee and give them every responsibility in a church, except as the office of a deacon. What makes the office of a deacon so sacred that we argue endlessly and heatedly about who should or should not be "scripturally allowed" to be one?

Women have been tainted with the sin of Eve long enough. If we truly believe that Jesus can wash away our sins, then why are we saying that Jesus cannot forgive women for something that Eve did, which was not even our sin. It is time we accepted the fact that Jesus makes both men and women whole through his saving grace.

She is a former employee of the Baptist General Convention of Texas, and knows most of her denomination's top leadership is moving away from rather than toward accepting women into its pulpits. But she is not alone. Enid, Okla., pastor Wade Burleson recently reprinted on his blog a persuasive account by Mimi Haddad explaining the role of women in the growth of South Korean churches.

Burleson, clearly aware of addressing himself to a church which is foundering on growth problems, then invites the theological debate which could lead to the changes bWe seeks. He includes with that invitation the example of a very effective Southern Baptist voice who, it is implied, would be far more effective if not barred from the pulpit:

I have two questions: What fault, if any, do you find in Mimi’s biblical reasoning? Has Beth Moore been released within the Southern Baptist Convention?

Some agree but are pessimistic. Some Baptist women raise other questions about Southern Baptist Church attitudes toward women. And there are some who see a failed an erroneous strategy.

Meanwhile, the volume of Southern Baptists asking their fundamentalist leaders to reconsider the theologies which led them to push women out of and away from a place in the pulpit, is rising.

Abuse of power is the Ted Haggard issue

Abuse of power is the principal issue raised by fallen Christian fundamentalist star Ted Haggard's relationship with a younger church member.

This week, New Life Church officials disclosed that in 2006 a young, male church volunteer reported having a sexual relationship with Haggard, who was pastor there at the time. And the church says there were others, thus far unnamed. All of this shortly after a Denver male prostitute claimed to have had a three-year cash-for-sex relationship with Haggard and so pushed Haggard out of that pulpit.

There is no confusion at all about the ethical, moral, psychological and spiritual violation which occurs when a pastor forms a covert, improper sexual relationship with a member of his congregation.

Nor is the abusive nature of such pastor/parishioner relationships late-breaking news. A 1998 report developed for the Christian Life Commission of the Baptist General Convention of Texas and published in the journal Christian Ethics Today, and thus made widely available, says:

Seminary professors Stanley Grenz and Roy Bell assert that sexual misconduct in the pastorate is a grave betrayal of trust that operates in two directions.

“It is a violation of a sacred sexual trust, marring the beautiful picture God has given of the relationship of Christ and the church. And it is a violation of a power trust, abusing the privilege of the pastoral position with which the ordained leader has been endowed by the church and its Lord.”

Sexual exploitation ordinarily occurs in an atmosphere of enforced silence. This silence is maintained not only by the participants but also by others who are unwilling to breach the dictated censorship.

The director of an organization for survivors of clergy abuse writes that the initial response of church officials is to hush the victim and cover-up the sexual abuse, which continues unchecked for years. [psychologist Peter] Rutter insists that this “code of silence” must be broken.

New Life Church in Colorado Springs maintained the code of silence. Brady Boyd, who succeeded Haggard as senior pastor of the 10,000-member New Life Church in Colorado Springs, told The Associated Press:

Boyd said the church reached a legal settlement to pay the man for counseling and college tuition, with one condition being that none of the parties involved discuss the matter publicly.

Boyd's explanation of that agreement, honest to a fault though it may be, is as you can see a contradiction of the well-known ethics and psychiatric dynamics of such relationships:

It wasn't at all a settlement to make him be quiet or not tell his story. Our desire was to help him. Here was a young man who wanted to get on with his life. We considered it more compassionate assistance — certainly not hush money. I know what's what everyone will want to say because that's the most salacious thing to say, but that's not at all what it was.

Not hush money, but with an attached requirement of silence.

Silence reinforces the victim's sense of helplessness and shame. Victims need therapy, emotional support and reassurance that life-sustaining church relationships will not be harmed. If the church is providing those things, good. We would like to hear and write about it. But not just financial payments with an attached requirement of silence. Taking away power from those victimized through the abuse of power is a repetition of the abuse.

Sistine YouTube (blogging pope?)

Slowed by an inheritance of Bush technological ineptitude, the Obama administration may reflect wistfully from time to time on the Catholic Church's YouTube channel.

Retro until almost the apotheosis of retro, the Vatican site describes its YouTube channel:

This channel offers news coverage of the main
activities of the Holy Father Pope Benedict XVI and of relevant Vatican events.
It is updated daily.
Video images are produced by Centro Televisio Vaticano (CTV), texts by Vatican Radio (RV) and CTV.
This video-news presents the Catholic Churchs position regarding the principal issues of the world today.
Links give access to the full and official texts of cited documents.

Pope Benedict XVI plans to get his views out regularly via YouTube.

This should not leave you with the impression that the Vatican is new to new media. Reuters reports the Vatican has had a Web site since 1995.

The next step is obvious, then. Inspired by the example of scribes of a bygone era and perhaps piqued a little by the success a very Protestant Obama is having at it, blessed by an organization that knows how to manage Web sites and connectivity, when will His Excellency begin to blog?

Vatican concerned about human trials for embryonic stem cell therapies

Catholic News Service wrote:

Catholic church leaders have spoken extensively about the ethics of using embryonic stem cells. Most recently Cardinal Francis E. George, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, wrote Jan. 19 to President Barack Obama discussing this and other health-related issues. Read the letter here.

In December, the Vatican issued a 32-page document, “Dignitatis Personae” (”The Dignity of a Person”) in which it warned of of the ethical dilemmas posed by new developments in stem cell research. Read the CNS story here.

How concerned?

CNS will have a report on this next week.

In response to FDA approval of trials, "which will use human stem cells authorized for research by then-President George W. Bush in 2001."

The Washington Post reports:

Geron Corp., a California-based biotech company, has been given the OK to implant embryonic stem cells in eight to 10 paraplegic patients who can use their arms but can't walk. Stem cell injections will be given within two weeks of the injury. The study will begin this summer, and will be conducted at up to seven different medical centers.

. . .

Patients will receive injections at the site of the injury. It is hoped these cells will mature into cells that will repair damaged nerves and produce chemicals that nerve cells need to function and grow.

This is about healing the lame and the halt. To us, this is about following a good example as best we mortals can.

Anti-evolutions' loss confirmed in 'formal' Texas Board of Education vote

Terrence Stutz of the Dallas Morning News reported at 11:09 AM CST on Friday, January 23, 2009:

AUSTIN – Without debate, the State Board of Education today tentatively approved new science curriculum standards that scrap a longstanding requirement that students be taught the “weaknesses” in the theory of evolution.

The action followed a meeting Thursday in which members who are aligned with social conservatives failed to muster enough votes on the 15-member board to retain the rule. Only seven Republican members backed the requirement.

The rest of the story here.

Full explanation of the debate here.

(bWe) Baptist Women for Equality

Shirley Taylor, a former employee of the Baptist General Convention of Texas, has founded a group called bWe - Baptist Women for Equality, whose goal is to open Southern Baptist leadership roles to women.

Specifically, they "advocate for women deacons and women pastors in Baptist churches."

Their Web site offers An Open Letter to Baptists (.pdf) which introduces the group and includes brief discussions of scripture and the Southern Baptist Convention's 2000 Baptist Faith and Message.

It begins:

Even if you think everything is all right in your church, please consider those other churches where women can be Ministers to Children, Ministers to Youth, Ministers to Women, can be on all committees which make church policy and pertain to theology, and financial matters, but who cannot serve a piece of bread and cup of juice.

Do you know why your church does not have women deacons? It can be found in “the cold heart of the church” which is your church’s By-laws. Church By-laws can be changed. When women decide that enough is enough, the cold heart of the church will be changed to include women as Deacons and accept women as Pastors.

Closing the site home page is:

How often do you tell your daughter that she is scripturally inferior to your son?

You tell her every time you take her to church.

How often do you tell your son that he is scripturally superior to his sister?

You tell them every time you take them to church.

Unless your church recognizes women deacons and women pastors.

The site has been frequently updated with new materials, thus far all in .pdf format.

Southern Baptist policies appear to us to be the focus of the site and its literature, since there are other Baptist organizations whose policies with regard to women are far more inclusive.

We look forward to learning more about the group and following their progress.

Obama to reverse Mexico City abortion policy today

Reuters reports that President Barack Obama will reverse the Mexico City Policy today.

Called the Mexico City Policy because it was unveiled at a United Nations conference there in 1984 by former President Ronald Reagan, it forbids U.S. funding abroad to organizations which offer abortion services or counseling there.

There is a similar story in the Wall Street Journal. Both stories are based on information from unnamed sources. Likewise an Associated Press story which has joined the chorus.

More prayer on the right, and less politicking

Pulpits which thundered on the right, now turning away from the culture wars?

Sandhya Bathija, writing at the Americans United for Separation of Church and State blog, says::

William Graham Tullian Tchividjian, the grandson of famous evangelist Billy Graham and the new pastor of Ft. Lauderdale’s Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church, surprisingly says he has no interest talking politics. It’s quite a change from his grandfather, and even more so from his predecessor, TV preacher D. James Kennedy.

Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church’s former pastor was a religious right leader who pursued the culture wars from his pulpit and on his radio and television broadcasts, books, pamphlets, tapes and DVDs.

That left an impression. One Tchividjian is correcting.

On Tuesday he told the Miami Herald:

''Dr. Kennedy came from a completely different generation, and my leadership by that fact alone will be different,'' Tchividjian said.

While the late Kennedy kept a hand in all aspects of the church organization, including its radio, television and print media arm, and Westminster Academy and Knox Theological Seminary in Fort Lauderdale, Tchividjian will oversee only the main church.

''Those ministries have gone their own separate ways. They have their own presidents,'' said Coral Ridge executive minister Ronald Siegenthaler. ``The church will be more focused on the local community, as opposed to more national and international outreach.''

We feel Bathija is right when she argues that Tchividjian is in step with the Pew Forum's August 2008, survey which found that 52 percent of Americans agreed that houses of worship should keep out of politics.

If a harbinger, Tchividjian is certainly a notable one. He will, however, not be lonely. The demographics are, for many, irresistible.

Texas state school board anti-evolutionists lose

A 20-year-old requirement that high school science classes discuss the so-called weaknesses in the theory of evolution, was dropped in a preliminary vote Thursday by the Texas State Board of Education.

The formal vote is scheduled today.

The Board was swayed, according to both the Dallas Morning News and Houston Chronicle, by the advice of a panel of science educators.

"We're not talking about faith. We're not talking about religion," said board member Mary Helen Berlanga, D-Corpus Christi. "We're talking about science. We need to stay with our experts and respect what they have requested us to do."

Kathy Miller, president of the watchdog group Texas Freedom Network (which live-blogs the debate here), has argued that the word weaknesses "has become a code word in the culture wars to attack evolution and promote creationism."

The key issues are explored at Teach them Science, a Web site devoted to the issue. It is maintained by the Center for Inquiry and the Clergy Letter Project. Or, alternatively, the New York Times offers a balanced but ultimately less detailed overview.

Other curriculum votes are scheduled for March, so the heated, two-decade debate is by no means over.

The final decision is of overarching importance because the size of the Texas textbook market gives it sweeping, national impact on the way school science textbooks in general are written.

Faith organizations applaud Obama's torture ban

For many who celebrate President Barack Obama's order requiring adherence to the U.S. Army Field for interrogation, the labor toward restoration of that standard was a matter of religious faith.

Faith in Public Life says it well:

For three years, religious leaders and organizations from across the faith and ideological spectrum have worked tirelessly to end America’s torture of detainees in its custody. Today, the faith community applauds President Obama’s executive orders banning torture, closing the prisons at Guantanamo Bay and secret locations, ensuring Red Cross access to all detainees, and ending extraordinary rendition. Together, we call for continuing diligence in the effort to ensure the US government never tortures again

Four religious organizations which had led the struggle against torture are listed in today's blog:

• Evangelicals for Human Rights, the leading Evangelical voice against U.S.-sponsored torture.
• National Religious Campaign Against Torture, a multi-faith coalition of more than 200 religious organizations and which includes diverse Christian, Jewish and Muslim leaders.
• Rabbis for Human Rights North America, the leading voice of the Jewish community against U.S.-sponsored torture.
• Faithful America, an 80,000-member online community of people of faith.

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops also pushed for and applauds the ban.

There are others.

That order and the attendant move to close the Guantanamo Bay facility are prayers answered, promises kept, justice and honor restored.

We are more secure as a consequence of this good thing, not less.