A National Council of Churches (NCC) leader recently urged President Clinton to end America’s longstanding trade embargo against Cuba before his term as president ends.”If we wait until after the election, a new administration will have to select new ambassadors and new persons in the State Department,” said Robert Edgar, general secretary of the national ecumenical group. “Cuba will be placed on the back burner.” Edgar believes those concerned about Castro and his government’s policies should push for the sanctions to end instead of supporting policies that he says have not worked (CT, March 1, 1999, p. 25).

Bishop Cleared of Misconduct

Retired United Methodist Bishop Melvin G. Talbert of San Francisco was cleared of negligence charges in overseeing the case against 67 Methodist pastors who participated in a same-sex union service for two lesbians last year (CT, March 1, 1999, p. 17).Although Talbert supports ceremonies for same-sex unions, he filed charges against the pastors for failure to obey church law.Talbert, who retired in September, was also cleared of the allegation that he unduly influenced a Methodist investigation committee that examined the “Sacramento 67” case and then dropped all charges against the pastors.Several evangelical pastors who opposed the same-sex service have left the United Methodist denomination.

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Protestant, Roman Catholic, and nonsectarian schools stand to benefit greatly from school-voucher measures on ballots in California and Michigan. But both measures face significant opposition among voters, based on recent opinion surveys. Proposal 1 in Michigan and Proposition 38 in California would give thousands of dollars to parents who want to place children in private or parochial schools. Parents in Michigan would get $3,150 per year, roughly half of what the state spends on each public-school student. The California measure would give parents $4,000 per year, a little more than half of that state’s $7,000-per-child annual expenditure. A Field Poll in August showed the California measures in a dead heat, with around 40 percent on each side; a Los Angeles Times poll in June had Prop 38 winning by 10 percentage points, 51 to 41. Michigan’s Proposal 1 still had a summertime lead, 45 to 37 percent, in statewide polls. Detroit residents gave the voucher measure higher support. During the fall, voucher proponents enthusiastically cited a Harvard University study that found African-American students who transferred to a voucher-funded private school scored higher on achievement tests than their public-school peers. The Harvard study concluded that if those student gains held up over time, “the black-white test gap could be eliminated” in some instances with the use of vouchers. But one of the researchers connected to the Harvard study in September has openly questioned the study’s provoucher findings, calling them premature.In the meantime, opponents of vouchers have seen their words used in favor of the measure. California’s Democrat Gov. Grey Davis was reportedly chagrined to see remarks he made in a January address to the legislature employed in a pro-Prop 38 television ad.”California schools still rank near the bottom of the 50 states,” the ad shows Davis saying. “That’s not good enough for me, and it’s certainly not good enough for the children of California.”Passage of the voucher program might save money for California, the state’s legislative analysis office said, with reduced student enrollment meaning less strain on resources.Christian schools might undergo a sudden building boom if demand increases sharply. “We can only take the number of students we have seats for. Should the demand become significantly greater, that whole issue is going to need to be addressed,” says Jerry Haddock, southern California regional director of the Association of Christian Schools International.Many who resist school vouchers believe such programs will undermine public education in the long run. About 70,000 students are in voucher programs in Milwaukee, Cleveland, and Florida, where the program still faces a legal challenge. So far, the small size of the programs has not resolved the issue of whether vouchers harm public-education funding. Opponents of the measures in Michigan and California have included People for the American Way, the Episcopal Church, and—in Michigan—a synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. But antivoucher groups in both states have only hinted at concerns they might have over a growth spurt in religious schools, something almost certain to happen if vouchers pass.According to California Prop 38 campaign spokesman Chris Bertilli, that’s a deliberate strategy. “Most people in society understand that education coming from parochial schools is some of the best education you can get,” Bertilli says. “Offending those people would not be wise on their part.”John Lenzner, spokesman for No on Proposition 38, offered a tacit agreement. “This is not about [religious schools],” he tells CT. “We’re opposed to anybody getting the money.”

Related Elsewhere

Other media coverage of school vouchers includes:School Wars—The Washington Post (Sept. 25, 2000) Home-schoolers Shun Money from Prop. 38— Daily News (Sept. 25, 2000) School Voucher Proposal Dwarfs Existing Programs—Los Angeles Times (Sept. 24, 2000)Previous Christianity Today stories on vouchers include:Florida School Voucher Plan Struck Down by State Judge | Church-state issues not addressed in ruling. (March 24, 2000) Judge Freezes Voucher Enrollments | (Oct. 4, 1999) Religious Schools Make the Grade | Give Wisconsin an A for saying no to secularist nonsense. (Aug. 10, 1999) Voucher Victory | School-choice advocates win in Wisconsin, but can the movement gain momentum? (Sept. 7, 1998) Judge Stalls Voucher Expansion | (March 3, 1997)

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LAURA S. MENDENHALL has been selected as the new president at Columbia Theological Seminary in Decatur, Georgia. Before her appointment as president, Mendenhall was pastor for nine years at Westminster Presbyterian Church in Austin, Texas. She is chairwoman of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) General Assembly’s Permanent Judicial Council.

MICHAEL J. NYENHUIS has been appointed the new president and chief executive officer of map International, a nonprofit Christian relief and development organization based in Brunswick, Georgia. Since joining map in 1995, Nyenhuis has traveled to Latin America, Africa, the Middle East, and Europe to monitor medical distribution, disease prevention, and community health development for the organization.

The Board of Trustees at San Francisco Theological Seminary (SFTS) has named JAMES G. EMERSON JR. as interim president of the school. A former Presbyterian pastor in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), Emerson succeeds Donald W. McCullough, who resigned in May. (McCullough was convicted of two counts of sexual abuse by the Permanent Judicial Commission of the San Francisco Presbytery a few days after his resignation last summer.) In addition to serving on the Board of Trustees at SFTS, Emerson has taught various courses at the seminary for the past five years.

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The Clinton administration is playing with words when it comes to bioethics, says Douglas Johnson of the National Right to Life Committee, which resists the use of cells from destroyed human embryos in federally funded research.”If a law said that no federal funds may support research in which porpoises are destroyed,” Johnson says, “and a federal agency then told its grantees to arrange for porpoises to be caught and killed for use in federally approved experiments, everyone would recognize this as illegal and that the decision violates the express intent of the law.”The Clinton administration’s revised guidelines will allow federal funding of research on the estimated 150,000 human embryos left behind at fertility clinics, provided that federal funds are not used to actually destroy the embryos. That process will be done by independent researchers, often funded by corporate money. Embryos have highly important stem cells, which develop into each kind of human tissue that a growing fetus needs. Once researchers obtain the stem cells and multiply them, the resulting stem cells would be provided to federally supported scientists. Christians involved in this debate should avoid “the simplistic answers characteristic of bumper stickers, and search more deeply for the principles that best reflect biblical faith and the love of God,” says Gerald R. Winslow, a biomedical ethics professor at Loma Linda University, a Seventh-day Adventist school. A wide range of groups support using human embryos for stem-cell research. Celebrities Christopher Reeve, Mary Tyler Moore, and Michael J. Fox, all of whom may benefit from stem cell-based therapies, have testified this year in Congress, citing the significant promise that such research holds. Advocates for using surplus human embryos argue that federally funded research provides greater oversight of scientists, that human embryos will not be cloned or manufactured for research purposes, and that a human embryo is not legally a person. “The embryos. … bear as much resemblance to a human being as a goldfish,” Moore told a congressional panel.

Adult stem cells

Critics of using human embryos say that embryo research is unnecessary because stem cells derived from an adult or, best of all, from a patient are a highly favorable area of research. They also accuse the National Institutes of Health (NIH) of misrepresenting the issue to the public. The NIH rationale for favoring embryonic stem cells is that adult stem cells are either not available or not as useful. But a number of recent research studies have identified stem cells in adults and have shown that adult stem cells produce a variety of new cell types in the same way as embryonic stem cells. NIH says that adult stem cells were difficult to replicate. Ironically, research funded by NIH itself and the Christopher Reeve Paralysis Foundation, which advocates using surplus human embryos for research, reported in August that adult human bone-marrow cells grew rapidly in culture and formed nerve cells. Such new nerve cells have huge potential for treating paralysis and diseases of the nervous system, such as Parkinson’s. A growing supply of umbilical-cord blood, donated after childbirth, also provides a rich source of stem cells.

Funding questions

A key question is whether the Clinton administration will fund embryonic stem-cell research more generously than adult stem-cell research in coming years. As early as 2001, when new grants are awarded, the direction of federal research will be clearer.Some critics suspect that the issue is partly psychological. While research on embryos is not necessary to achieve treatment goals, some see it as a “one-size-fits-all solution” to a variety of research problems, says David Prentice, a molecular geneticist at Indiana State University.Jeremy Rifkin, author of The Biotech Century, notes that many medical researchers sit on bioethics advisory committees, so the ethics guidance passed to the White House often favors proceeding with research seen as “pushing the frontier.”That frontier includes research using human embryos, but not necessarily stem cells from adult donors, which is merely a transplant technology. Another key concern of critics is that the large and growing supply of unclaimed embryos will be used for purposes other than research into life-threatening diseases.Meanwhile, a bill sponsored by U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) would allow women to donate their unneeded frozen human embryos directly to federally financed researchers. The Senate may vote on the measure by the end of this year.

Related Elsewhere

Visit the NIH homepage.Read more about bioethics concerns at Trinity’s Center for Bioethics and Human Dignity.There are numerous other bioethics sites including the American Society for Biotheics and the Humanities, the National Bioethics Advisory Commission, and the UNESCO Bioethics Commission.Previous Christianity Today stories on stem cells include:Beyond the Impasse to What? | Stem-cell research may not need human embryos after all. But why are we researching in the first place? (Aug. 18, 2000) Thus Spoke Superman | Troubling language frames the stem-cell debate. (June 13, 2000) New Stem-Cell Research Guidelines Criticized | NIH guidelines skirt ethical issues about embryo destruction, charge bioethicists. (Jan. 28, 2000) Human Embryo Research Resisted (August 9, 1999) Embryo Research Contested (May 24, 1999) The Biotech Temptation | Research on human embryos holds great promise, but at what price? (July 12, 1999) Other media coverage of stem cell research includes:Shake-up for embryo research rules—The Scotsman (Sept. 27, 2000) New Cells Grow In Injured Eyes—Newsday (Sept. 27, 2000) Corporation Granted Patent for Device to Isolate Stem Cells From Blood—Yahoo (Sept. 25, 2000) Bush White House would end stem cell research—UPI News (Sept. 22, 2000)

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In the spring of 1999, Inuit Jackie Koneak, who works for the government of northern Quebec, was repairing a snowmobile in the village of Kuujjuaq, which sits above the Arctic Circle. He heard an announcement on his radio about a Christian renewal conference being held at an arena nearby, and hoping to reconnect with old friends whom he thought might be there, he decided to stop in. He left the snowmobile parts lying on the floor, and with hands still blackened with motor oil, stepped into the arena for a short respite from work.He stayed the whole day at what turned out to be a charismatic conference. When the speaker asked for people to come forward for prayer, Koneak went. “Something was pulling me,” he recalls. “I wanted to experience what others did.” He kept going back each day, and by the end of the week, he was a newly baptized believer.A church-based charismatic renewal in Canada’s remote Arctic region has deeply touched the lives of thousands of people like Jackie Koneak. But revival hasn’t come without controversy, and northern Canadian Christians are striving to harmonize this new wave of Christianity with their native culture and their historic ties to older, established churches.

Don’t be a dead caribou

Inuit people in northern Quebec (an area called Nunavik) and the new territory of Nunavut (formerly part of the Northwest Territories) are spread out across Canada’s eastern Arctic—a massive and inaccessible area with only 35,000 people. Life in a small village of fewer than 2,000 people is all that many Arctic residents may know.Some villages claim 40 to 60 percent of their people are born again because of the recent revival meetings. “Many of these communities have been completely transformed, right up to the top, right up to the mayors,” says evangelist Billy Arnaquq, who lives in the tiny village of Qikiqtarjuaq on Baffin Island in Nunavut.The Inuit are generally quiet but emotionally expressive; in worship, they often weep over abuses they have suffered or sins they have committed, and laugh out loud from a newfound spiritual joy.With metaphors that listeners can readily grasp, Inuit pastors encourage expressiveness: “Don’t be like a caribou that hangs dead in the storage locker!” exhorted one woman pastor in their native tongue of Inuktitut. “You must be alive in Christ.”According to church leaders, the charismatic movement has had visible results: people give more of themselves, they make major changes in their lifestyles, and they influence their communities for the better. In several villages, mayors and council members have become active believers, and in a few instances, the mayor doubles as the local pastor. Some villages report sharp drops in suicide and alcohol abuse, although such drops are difficult to verify.

Grandiose claims

But long-established leaders in the Anglican and Roman Catholic church, which helped bring Christianity to the Arctic 150 years ago, have expressed doubts about the value of charismatic worship and teaching.Traditional church leaders are troubled when they learn that some evangelists are reporting that, just now, native people are hearing the gospel story for the first time.”When you see people who are making capital out of the [poor Inuit in the North]—Please send us money so we can go tell them about the love of Jesus—it makes me wonder what their understanding of the North is,” says Anglican Bishop Chris Williams. His Diocese of the Arctic is a gigantic territory covering 1.5 million square miles. “People do know the gospel. They don’t all listen to it.”Williams, who came to the Arctic from England 40 years ago, especially objects to outsiders from southern Canada or the United States who fly up North for revival services and fly out again, making grandiose claims about their evangelistic successes.Ben Arreak, an Inuit Anglican priest in Kuujjuaq, agrees that the northern charismatic movement, which began almost 20 years ago, has been a source of divisiveness. When lifelong Anglicans moved to launch Full Gospel churches, it “caused division of the families and friends in small communities,” he says.Further concerns of Williams and other longtime church leaders include:

• The charismatic movement encourages a second baptism for Christians who were baptized as infants.
• Charismatic leaders sometimes exploit the emotions of the vulnerable.
• Some charismatic churches promote a “health and wealth” gospel.

“When extravagant promises are made and then not fulfilled, people get upset and give up on the Lord altogether,” says retired Anglican bishop John Sperry.Arnaquq, an independent charismatic evangelist whose father was an indigenous Anglican missionary, is well aware of the culture clash between traditionalists and charismatics. While many charismatic leaders admit they are not immune to criticism, they are finding a new willingness to cooperate and discuss problems.”Now many Anglican churches are completely wide open and now they invite us to come,” Arnaquq says. “Some of them will open their doors and some of them will not open their doors.”

Newfound openness

Paul Idlout, Anglican regional bishop for Nunavut, says that since the charismatic movement began, sexually abused individuals have been more willing to seek help from the church. “The movement is helping people open their feelings and express their hearts.”The charismatic movement has also encouraged more Bible study and an emphasis on grace. Although she was baptized in the Anglican church, “I never heard about being born again,” says Annie Tertiluk, a teacher and Full Gospel pastor overseeing churches on the Ungava Coast of Quebec. “I thought God was too holy for me to get close to him.”Then again, for every victorious Christian, there are reports of parents who are “slain in the Spirit” on Sunday and neglect their children for bingo games during the week; worship leaders who sing praises to God yet live outside of wedlock; fathers who read the Bible but also sexually abuse their children.Still, the renewal movement has given pastors a new passion to teach biblical morality. At one recent Bible conference, pastor Johnny Oovaut of Quaqtaq, Quebec, rebuked the several hundred people who had gathered from throughout Nunavik and Nunavut to study the Bible. “We have people today, they call themselves Christians,” he said. “They’re living together. Fornication: that’s unholy.”

Campaign against suicide

Both traditional and charismatic leaders agree that the Inuit and other northern people have urgent spiritual needs that cannot be ignored by any church.This realization has led to a deeper level of commitment to ministry, especially to dealing with a trio of perils among Arctic residents: alcoholism, sexual abuse, and suicide.In 1997 Anglican priests Moses Idlout and Peter Airo and lay reader Paulusie Padlayat undertook Trek Against Suicide—a 5,000-mile, 65-day snowmobile trip to 35 communities in the Nunavik and Nunavut regions to speak to their people about suicide and sexual abuse.Six people committed suicide in one year in a community of 900. The statistics are similar throughout the North. One study shows the suicide rate in Nunavik to be more than 300 per 100,000 people (and 200 in Nunavut), compared to fewer than 25 in Quebec, the province with the highest suicide rate in Canada. A majority of the people in any given community have lost a relative or close acquaintance through suicide in the last decade.As a result of these talks, people began to open up and respond to the message of love and forgiveness, says Moses Idlout, the younger brother of the Nunavut bishop. When professional counselors Clair and Clara Schnupp of Dryden, Ontario, followed up on the Trek Against Suicide a few months later, almost all the people they interviewed had a heightened awareness of the devastating effects of suicide. A majority—87 percent—felt the communities were already beginning to take more responsible action, including establishing intervention groups and offering counseling.For the Schnupps, a Mennonite couple who have worked with natives for 30 years through Northern Youth Ministries, the feedback was encouraging. Yet it also underscored the need for counseling among Inuit Christians. “We’re convinced that what is needed is good, solid biblical teaching that changes the core of the heart, that affects the damaged emotions from all this physical, emotional, verbal and sexual abuse,” says Clair Schnupp.There is a growing consensus among Inuit church leaders that Christian counseling will help struggling believers mature into solid Christians.”There’s a tremendous need for Christian counseling,” says James Arreak, a pastor in the Nunavut capital of Iqaluit who also works full time in the new government’s finance department. “When they come to the Lord, they bring with them whatever issues that are left unresolved in their hearts. It takes time and care to deliver the healing and the victory of Jesus Christ.”

A long journey

Many Inuit Christians are far from discouraged about the task ahead of them. Having been nomads for centuries, Inuit are familiar with long journeys.Their parents and grandparents traveled great distances to hear the gospel preached by pioneering missionaries. Many Christian leaders would like to set their differences aside.”The Lord didn’t call me into a denomination,” says Moses Idlout. “The Lord calls me to be filled with the Holy Spirit and introduce [others] to the Lord and fill them up with the Holy Spirit.”

Related Elsewhere

At this Nunavik tourism site you can see photos of the area, read a native history, and learn Inuit words. Nunatsiaq News is one of the largest papers servicing the Nunavik area.These basic Nunavut facts were created to help kids get to know the region, but adults might be interested in the information on this list as well.Previous Christianity Today stories about ministries in arctic North America include:Potlatch Gospel | Alaskan churches debate whether they should reach at-risk youth by using their culture’s pre-Christian traditions. (June 15, 2000) Arctic’s Anglican Bishop Looks for Priests to Brave the Cold | Nine vacancies in Anglican Communion’s largest diocesan territory, but no prospects. (Jan. 27, 2000)Previous Christianity Today stories examining revivals include:A Fresh Encounter with God | Anne Graham Lotz says, “Just give me Jesus” in five-city revival. (May 11, 2000) Violence Mars Bonnke’s Revival | Sixteen Nigerians die during opening rally. (Dec. 18, 1999) Harvest Season? | Filipinos are turning to God, but rapid church growth strains relationships among Christians.(June 14, 1999) Dental Miracle Reports Draw Criticism | (May 24, 1999) Hungry for God | Why more and more Christians are fasting for revival. (April 5, 1999) The Selling of ‘Miracle City’ | (April 5, 1999) Pensacola Outpouring Poised to Cover the Globe | (Feb. 8, 1999) The Cornfield Revival | For two years, thousands have been jumping for joy. (April 6, 1998) Brownsville Revival Rolls Onward | But success brings intense scrutiny for Pensacola Pentecostal church. (Feb. 9, 1998)

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Chris Wright, 52, has been appointed International Ministry Director of the Langham Partnership, a network of ministries based in ENGLAND and closely associated with John Stott Ministries. Langham and Stott Ministries award seminary and university scholarships to students from the developing world. They also give evangelical books to church leaders around the world. Stott, a prolific author, is also rector emeritus of All Souls, Langham, London.

Arabs living in North Africa and the ARABIC PENINSULA are now picking up a new digital channel on their televisions: sat-7. This satellite broadcast allows Arabs to view Christian programming in areas where many people remain unreached by the gospel. Of the 300 million Arabic-speaking people in the Middle East, 100 million own televisions with satellite access. Christians in these areas, along with Campus Crusade for Christ and the United Bible Societies, have worked for the past five years to expand sat-7 into a daily, digitally broadcast program.

The Roman Catholic Church in GERMANY has agreed to pay 5 million marks ($2.35 million) to forced laborers who were brought to Germany from abroad during World War II and worked in Catholic institutions. The church plans to spend an equal amount in promoting reconciliation. The announcement came one month after the Evangelical Church of Germany said it would contribute 10 million marks ($4.7 million) to a German government fund already established for laborers. The Catholic Church had previously denied that laborers were used at its institutions during the war.

An Anglican bishop in western KENYA has called for women in his church to reject the African tradition of joter, in which a widow marries another member of her husband’s family. Joter, also known as wife inheritance, is common among the Luo people of the Nyanza province. The Luo people are often polygamous, and several widows may be inherited by a single family member. Bishop Joseph Wasonga recently told women that they should publicly reject joter at their husbands’ funerals. Wasonga also denounced the second element of the ritual, in which a widow has sexual relations with an outsider before being given to another family member.

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