Moscow Meeting Eases Russia’s Interchurch Tensions

By Andrei Zolotov, Ecumenical News International, in Moscow

First major interchurch meeting since 1997 religion law called ‘highly important’

High-level representatives of 33 traditional Christian communities of the former Soviet Union have called for closer co-operation among Christians.

The appeal was made by participants at a conference in Moscow, "Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, and today and forever," (taken from Hebrews 13:8). The gathering was the third major event organized by the Christian Inter-confessional Consultative Committee.

The consultative committee, set up in 1994, is an informal grouping of Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Baptist, and Lutheran churches, as well as Old Believers, Seventh-day Adventists and Pentecostals.

The meeting, held late in November, was the first such gathering since Russia adopted a new law on religion in 1997. Some minority churches have criticized the law, claiming it discriminates against them, and this has increased tension between churches.

"Joint initiatives of Christians, who are united in a desire to do good for people, are highly important," Patriarch Alexei II, head of the region's biggest religious organization, the Russian Orthodox Church, said in his speech at the opening of the conference on November 23 in the St Daniel Hotel. The hotel is part of a complex linked to Danielovsky Monastery, which houses the offices of the church's Moscow Patriarchate.

Cardinal Edward Idris Cassidy, president of the Vatican's Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, read a message from Pope John Paul II, who was "greatly encouraged" by the inter-church initiative. International ecumenical organizations, such as the World Council of Churches and the Conference of European Churches, as well as the Lutheran World Federation and several other major Christian organizations, sent representatives. During the three-day conference, participants discussed a range of issues including theology and mission, Christianity and morals, Christian co-operation in the political sphere, and "pseudo-religious phenomena."

"The very fact that we gathered [here] is proof of goodwill," said Metropolitan Kirill, a leading Russian Orthodox official and head of the Moscow Patriarchate's department of external church relations.

Metropolitan Kirill, who was co-chairman of the conference, said the church representatives were "realists" who understood that conferences alone "are not capable of solving the existing problems."

However, "this co-operation in itself improves the climate," he added.

Many participants praised the "fraternal spirit" in which the conference was conducted, a sharp contrast to the often tense atmosphere in inter-church relations in Russia.

"If church members see this they will also soften their hearts towards each other," Pyotr Konovalchik, president of the Union of Evangelical Christians-Baptists and also a co-chairman of the conference, said.

Archbishop Tadeusz Kondrusiewicz, the leader of European Russia's Roman Catholics, said that if the example of the conference were followed "at a local level, then this world would gradually change."

In a statement released at the end of the conference, participants vowed to "continue Christ's mission in the world," to help the third millennium become "not a post-Christian era, but a new Christian spring."

Looking back at the 70 years of official atheism and persecution of Christians under Communist rule, they stressed that "the voice of martyrs is stronger than the voice of divisions [among Christians]. The witness of martyrs, who belonged to different confessions, is our inheritance."

The final document condemned the use of religion to "ignite hatred and encourage violence." The document added that true moral values must be rooted in Christ. Without a religious core, such values were eroded in today's society.

The document condemned xenophobia and nationalism.

One of the most heated discussions was in a session devoted to the spread of religious sects. Hilarion Alfeyev, a senior Moscow Patriarchate official in charge of inter-Christian relations, told ENI after the conference that for the first time Christians of the former Soviet Union had jointly drawn up criteria to distinguish between Christian churches and sects.

The final document states that "pseudo-Christian sects" do not confess Jesus Christ as God and Savior, reject the doctrine of the Holy Trinity, distort the Holy Scriptures or replace them with other texts, reject baptism conducted in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, attempt to change the system of Christian values and destroy the Christian way of life. But many participants opposed the idea of drawing up a list of religious organizations that could be described as "sects."

"The activities [of sects] not only inflict irreparable damage to a person and society, but also discredit Christianity," the document declares.

But it also states that traditional faiths are partly responsible for the spread of sects because of "poor educational work" and inadequate pastoral care.

A permanent commission is likely to be set up under the auspices of the Christian Inter-Confessional Consultative Committee to research the activities of sects and new religious movements.

Related Elsewhere

See our November 30 article, "Russia's minority churches welcome liberal ruling on religion law"

The Grove Press Bible

John Wilson, Editor, Books & Culture

A former porn publisher gets in the Good Book biz

if you came of age in the sixties, as I did, the notion of a Bible issued with the imprimatur of Grove Press may strike you as a bad joke, if not downright blasphemous. In those days of free speech and free love, Grove was known for two things: literary pornography (remember, this was before every Borders and Barnes & Noble outlet offered a generously stocked section of “erotica”) and avant-garde literature, most notably the works of Samuel Beckett. (Proustian moment: do you recall the day you proudly shelled out a couple of bucks for your copy of Alain Robbe-Grillet’s Jealousy?)

Today Grove is just a name in the corporate maze of Megapublishing, trying to get whatever mileage it can from its history. Hence the mild frisson fiftysomethings will experience when they walk into bookstores this Christmas season and spy a boxed set of a dozen books of the Bible—in the King James Version—published by Grove Press.

But fiftysomethings presumably aren’t the primary target for these volumes, which strive to make the Bible hip (see for example a response to the series in the online magazine Salon.) The project originated in Britain, where the Pocket Canons (as they are called) were published in 1998 by Canongate Books. Each little book came with an introduction by a contemporary writer, and since many of the introducers were far from reverent, the series provoked controversy. It also sold well.

For the American edition, Grove commissioned a new set of introductions. Some of the twelve writers for this first batch—comprising six books from the Old Testament and six from the New—are Christians (Kathleen Norris, for instance, on Revelation); many are not. The books are handsomely designed, with black-and-white photos for cover art and very readable text. They are priced at $2.95 each, $24.95 for the boxed set.

If King James English was good enough for Jesus …

So Grove Press has jumped into the niche-Bible business. Why not? Isn’t everyone else doing it? Still, you can’t help but wish that on the sly, Grove had retained an editor from Tyndale House, say, to vet the introductions for truly egregious errors, such as the howler in the second sentence of the novelist E.L. Doctorow’s introduction to Genesis:

The King James Version of The Bible, an early-seventeenth-century translation, seems, by its now venerable diction, to have added a degree of poetic luster to the ancient tales, genealogies, and covenantal events of the original. It is the version preachers quote from who believe in the divinity of the text.

Well, not exactly. The preachers I have heard every Sunday for many years rarely quote from the KJV, but they most assuredly “believe in the divinity of the text,” as do several close friends who have given their lives to translating the Bible into languages that lacked a written form before the process of translation began. In short, fundamental differences in belief aside, Doctorow is simply ignorant of the actual use of the Bible in Christian communities.

Similar lapses mar other volumes, but there are also engagements with the heart of Scripture, as in Barry Hannah’s potent words on the Gospel According to Mark. And who knows, after all, how many people who end up with one of these little books will even read the introduction? They may simply turn the page, and read, and not stop until they come to the last words. Even so, come, Lord Jesus.

John Wilson is Editor of Books & Culture, Christianity Today‘s sister publication. Books & Culture Corner appears on ChristianityToday.com every Monday. You can read more from Books & Culture atwww.booksandculture.com

Related Elsewhere

Salon had a pretty ridiculous article about the Grove Press Bible last Monday in an article titled, “Second coming | With its hip new edition of the Good Book, Grove Press aims to save the Bible from the fundamentalists.”

Read Mordecai Richler’s introduction to the “Pocket Canon” Book of Job at Saturday Night‘s Web site.

Earlier Books & Culture Corner articles:

Everything Old Is on TV | Antiques Roadshow asks, ‘What do you want to know today?’ By Elesha Coffman

Cockroaches for Jesus | America’s most respected newspaper stoops to cartoon history at millennium’s end. By John Wilson

1984, 50 Years Later | Stop the spinning, I’m getting dizzy. By John Wilson

Positive About Potter

Ted Olsen

Despite what you’ve heard, Christian leaders like the children’s books.

Christians hate the Harry Potter books. It’s undeniable. Just look at the media reports about how Christian parents around the country are trying to get the book banned from libraries and schools. “It’s a good thing when children enjoy books, isn’t it? Most of us think so,” wrote children’s book author Judy Blume in a New York Times opinion piece. “[But] in Minnesota, Michigan, New York, California, and South Carolina, parents who feel the books promote interest in the occult have called for their removal from classrooms and school libraries. I knew this was coming. The only surprise is that it took so long. … If children are excited about a book, it must be suspect.”

Likewise, Los Angeles Times writer Steve Chawkins wrote of the controversy, “I enjoy these periodic battles about book-banning. … Hostility is often high. If you disagree with those who are so eager to protect your children, you are not merely wrong; you are twisted, negligent, evil, a dupe of dark forces, and, as in my case, a bad parent.”

But here’s the problem with painting with such a broad brush: It’s just not true. In fact, as far as I can tell, while no major Christian leader has come out to condemn J.K. Rowling’s series, many have given it the thumbs-up. If our readers know of any major Christian leader who has actually told Christians not to read the books, I’d be happy to know about it; but in my research, even those Christians known for criticizing all that is popular culture have been pretty positive about Potter.

One of the most quoted supporters of the Potter books is Christianity Today columnist Charles Colson, who, in his November 2 Breakpoint radio broadcast, noted that Harry and his friends “develop courage, loyalty, and a willingness to sacrifice for one another—even at the risk of their lives. Not bad lessons in a self-centered world.” Colson dismisses the magic and sorcery in the books as “purely mechanical, as opposed to occultic. That is, Harry and his friends cast spells, read crystal balls, and turn themselves into animals—but they don’t make contact with a supernatural world. … [It’s not] the kind of real-life witchcraft the Bible condemns.” (If you don’t have the RealAudio player, you can get the transcript of Colson’s broadcast at www.breakpoint.org)

Focus on the Family’s review is one of the most recent—and most critical—of the Christian reviews, but the strongest that Focus’s critic, Lindy Beam, can muster is “Apart from the benefit of wise adult guidance in reading these books, it is best to leave Harry Potter on the shelf.” Still the review is mixed, rather than negative: “Harry Potter contains valuable lessons about love, courage, and the ultimate victory of good over evil,” Beam writes. “The spiritual fault of Harry Potter is not so much that Rowling is playing to dark supernatural powers, but that she doesn’t acknowledge any supernatural powers at all. These stories are not fueled by witchcraft, but by secularism.” (One wonders if such an argument also faults Winnie the Pooh and The Wizard of Oz.)

The Focus on the Family Web site’s “Parent to Parent” area offers mixed—not to say moderate—reviews. Two parents claim “I cannot say I sensed anything ‘evil’ about the book. It was pure fantasy,” and “I [do not believe Potter’s books] lead us to believe that the people who take themselves seriously as witches are ‘ok’ or safe.” Two others are outraged. “The book becomes very satanic,” writes one. “This series is simply Satan’s way of infecting the minds of our children,” writes another.

World Magazine has offered not one, but two reviews of Harry Potter—one very positive, one less so—and later made Potter-related news. In its May 29 issue, World critic Roy Maynard praised Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone as “a delight—with a surprising bit of depth.” He dismissed the most controversial subjects in less than a paragraph: “Rowling … keeps it safe, inoffensive, and non-occult. This is the realm of Gandalf and the Wizard of Id, not witchcraft. There is a fairy-tale order to it all in which, as Chesterton and Tolkien pointed out, magic must have rules, and good does not—cannot—mix with bad.”

Five months later, World was less positive in a three-page cover story about the Harry Potter phenomenon. Still, the magazine notes that Rowling’s witchcraft bears little resemblance to modern wicca. “A reader drawn in would find that the real world of witchcraft is not Harry Potter’s world. Neither attractive nor harmless, it is powerful and evil.” Still, writers Anne McCain and Susan Olasky warn that the books contain “dark elements,” and that “unlike biblical stories, in Potter’s world bad things seem to happen for no reason.” Like Colson—and just about every other reviewer of the books—World encourages its readers to choose C.S. Lewis’s Narnia series and J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings as “better worlds for a child’s imagination,” but says there’s plenty of fodder for discussion and enjoyment in these fantasy books as well.

That was the October 30 issue of World. The following issue, November 6, included an announcement that God’s World Book Club, a division of the organization that owns World, was withdrawing the Harry Potter books from its catalog. “We reviewed and recommended the Harry Potter books as wholesome, good-versus-evil fantasy in the spirit of J.R.R. Tolkien or C.S. Lewis,” the full-page announcement said. “However, the fact that the books are not Christ-centered and further evidence that they are not written from a perspective compatible with Christianity have led us to retract the books. … We sincerely apologize for offense given and thank our customers for contributing to the discussion that led to this decision.”

Meanwhile, on the other side of the Atlantic, in J.K. Rowling’s native country, Christianity magazine has nothing but praise for the book. Mark Greene, Director of the London Institute for Contemporary Christianity, writes that he balked at buying Harry Potter for his god-daughter when he heard it was set in a school for witches and wizards. He bought Narnia instead. Now, interestingly, he regrets his decision: “I wish I’d been the one to introduce her to Harry—fine lad you know, courageous, resourceful, humble, fun, good mind. Comes from good stock, you know. She could do worse, far worse. And, as far as literary companions go, frankly, not much better.” (Neither the article nor the magazine appears online, as far as I can tell.)

It shouldn’t surprise our readers that The Christian Century has no quarrels with Harry Potter, either. Still, its December 1 lead editorial, “Wizards and Muggles,” makes some excellent—and surprising—points about Christians and fantasy. “Rowling is not the first fantasy writer to be attacked by conservative Christians. Even the explicitly Christian writer Madeleine L’Engle has taken heat for the ‘magic’ elements in A Wrinkle in Time. Such critics are right in thinking that fantasy writing is powerful and needs to be taken seriously. But we strongly doubt that it fosters an attachment to evil powers. Harry’s world, in any case, is a moral one.” The unsigned editorial also notes that “one of the salutary effects of fantasy writing is to remove us from the everyday world and prompt us to look at the ordinary in fresh ways. … G.K. Chesterton claimed that his own journey to Christian faith began with his childhood absorption in fairy tales. From fairly [fairy?] tales he learned that the world is precious but puzzling, coherent but mysterious, full of unseen connections and decisive truths.” Though the Century doesn’t mention it, C.S. Lewis made a similar claim.

Perhaps the most insightful discussion of the Potter books comes from Wheaton College professor Alan Jacobs in the bimonthly Mars Hill Audio Journal. In the September/October volume, Jacobs defends the books as promoting “a kind of spiritual warfare. … A struggle between good and evil. … There is in books like this the possibility for serious moral reflection … [and] the question of what to do with magic powers is explored in an appropriate and morally serious way.” Furthermore, Jacobs notes that contemporary Christian unease with magic is somewhat recent:

In sixteenth-century Europe you would find Christians who were deeply involved in astrology largely because they were Calvinists. And it was understood at the time that there was a close connection between a predestinarian theology and astrology because astrology confirms or supports a predestinarian theology by suggesting that the outcome and direction of our lives is fixed before our births … Other Christians at the same time who dismissed astrology as being a bunch of hogwash but who were very much engaged with magic. … Magic was not thought to be any more at odds with Christianity than experiemental science. The big question then is to what use do you put magic? Now we see magic as an intrinsically dangerous thing. Our focus now is on experimental science and technology, and we tend to have the same kinds of debates about technology now that Christians had about magic several centuries ago.

Jacobs and Mars Hill host Ken Meyers then discuss how Star Trek technology, as imagined as Potter’s magic, is treated differently by Christians, even though the two have similar ends: “If we imagine somebody stepping on to a little circle and then suddenly dissolving, and then reappearing instantly somewhere else, and we call this a transporter, and we’re told that it is a device that is created by technology, then we go ‘oh, that’s cool.’ But if we imagine someone waving a wand and then disappearing and reappearing somewhere else, we’re much less comfortable.

“I’ll give the final word to Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling, in a quote from a CNN interview: “I have met thousands of children now, and not even one time has a child come up to me and said, ‘Ms. Rowling, I’m so glad I’ve read these books because now I want to be a witch.’ They see it for what it is. It is a fantasy world and they understand that completely. I don’t believe in magic, either.”

Ted Olsen is Online and Opinion Editor of Christianity Today.

Related Elsewhere

See today’s related Harry Potter stories, “Parents Push for Wizard-Free Reading,” and “Why We Like Harry Potter | The series is a ‘Book of Virtues’ with a preadolescent funny bone.”

Copyright © 1999 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

Lord’s Prayer a Musical Hit in United Kingdom

Cedric Pulford, Ecumenical News International, in London

Cliff Richard’s rejected recording reaches number one

A 59-year-old former teen idol has put the Lord’s Prayer, sung to the tune of Auld Lang Syne, at the top of the UK national hit parade.

The BBC and other mainstream radio stations kept Sir Cliff Richard’s Millennium Prayer off their playlists, saying the musical quality was too poor. Denied the oxygen of publicity, the record was expected to fail, but instead the music world learned November 29 that the recording had seized the number one spot ahead of current pop idols, Boyzone.

A music industry executive, Gennaro Castaldo, told London’s Daily Mirror newspaper: “It shows that for once this is not simply about marketing and radio play. It looks like his devoted fan base, coupled with the push from the wider Christian community, has helped him along.”

Among many red faces in the recording industry are executives from Richard’s long-time recording company, EMI, who did not want the song, even from a star with 13 previous British number one hits in a 40-year recording career.

Instead, the Millennium Prayer was brought out by a smaller company.

Even Richard, who is a committed Christian, at first had doubts about the idea of combining Christianity’s foundation prayer with a tune known in many countries as the herald of the new year. He was reported as feeling that the idea made one “want to puke [vomit]” before realizing that it was “a stroke of genius … The combination of the two is perfect.”

Richard is an enduring figure on the British music scene. His first UK no 1 record was Living Doll in 1959 – and he took the same song back to the top in 1986.

Knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 1995, Richard has never married and has a reputation for clean living. His boyish looks have earned him the nickname “the Peter Pan of pop.” He has never been linked to the rock and roll drug scene and claims to have been the worse for alcohol just twice in his life.

Premier, a London-based Christian radio station of which Sir Cliff Richard is a patron, was one of the few British stations to regularly play the Millennium Prayer before it reached the top of the hit parade.

Cindy Kent, a Premier presenter and a friend of Richard who used to sing with him, told ENI: “When we heard that BBC Radio 2 would not be playing the record, we were amazed. We felt they had greatly underestimated Cliff’s popularity.

“It is a melodic arrangement, and the Christian character of the millennium was another reason why we expected it to succeed.”

Premier Christian Radio started playing the Millennium Prayer every hour on the hour through the day as a way of demonstrating its support for the record. It called BBC Radio 2’s decision “unbelievable” and “an incredible abdication of its responsibilities to its millions of listeners across the country.”

It was particularly incensed at the denial of airtime because Richard was giving the proceeds to children’s charities, Cindy Kent said.

She had spoken to Cliff Richard after the record reached no 1. “He was thrilled but also bewildered at the treatment of the record [by most radio stations],” she said. “He wasn’t bitter. I don’t think Cliff has it in him to be bitter.”

A columnist with the Sun tabloid newspaper in London, Dominic Mohan, expressed his surprise at Cliff’s improbable hit: “Never in 1000 years would I have believed the Lord’s Prayer, sung to the tune of Auld Lang Syne, would have made it to the top spot.”

Kent believed a factor in the record’s steady climb to the top was the “British thing to love the underdog.” With the odds stacked against Richard, many people would have thought: “We’ll show them.”

Related Elsewhere

For more on Cliff Richard, visit the Sir Cliff Richard Home Page or Cliff Richard News.

If you have the RealAudio player, you can hear a clip of the Millennium Prayer here.

Premier Radio can be heard through its Web site: www.premier.org.uk

Jailed Sudanese Priests Reject presidential Amnesty

Barbara G. Baker, Compass Direct

Clerics waiting for ‘total acquittal’ by courts

After 16 months in prison on what their church says are trumped-up charges, two Sudanese Catholic priests have refused to accept a presidential amnesty promised last week to political prisoners.

Both Fr. Hilary Boma and Fr. Lino Sebit have been under arrest since August 1998, accused of masterminding a series of explosions in Khartoum designed to overthrow Sudan’s Islamist regime.

In a statement released by Missionary Services News Agency (MISNA) November 26, the two clerics declared they “do not intend to benefit” from President Omar al-Bashir’s blanket offer to release political prisoners.

The president announced the general amnesty when he met on November 25 with Sadiq al-Mahdi, a former prime minister and leader of the opposition Ummah Party. It was one of several conciliatory gestures given to convince key opposition groups to sign peace accords with Khartoum’s National Islamic Front (NIF) government.

Both Catholic and Protestant sources in Khartoum confirmed that “all members of Sudan’s church” approved of the “courageous stand” taken by Boma and Sebit in refusing to benefit from the general amnesty ordered after the Ummah agreement.

“They will in fact only leave the prison with a total acquittal,” the MISNA release stated, noting that the priests were determined to wait “until full light is shed on the terrorism charges that led to their arrest and detention.”

After weeks of systematic torture and months of solitary confinement, Boma and Sebit had been put on trial with 18 other defendants in a highly publicized military tribunal during October 1998. According to reports issued by church sources, human rights groups and a United Nations inquiry, the two priests as well as other fellow defendants had been forced under torture to sign false confessions to the charges filed against them.

But court proceedings bogged down this past January when the defense appealed to the Constitutional Court that their clients, all but one of whom are civilians, could not be tried legally before a military court. The stalemate was not resolved until November 5, 1999, when the Sudanese justice minister finally ordered the case transferred to the jurisdiction of the civil criminal courts.

Boma, chancellor of the Khartoum Diocese, and Sebit, a parish priest, have been outspoken critics of Sudanese government attempts to curtail Christian institutions and ministry. A major point of contention fueling the 16-year civil war between the Arab Muslim North and African Christian-animist South has been Khartoum’s forced Islamization program imposed on the predominantly non-Muslim Southern Sudanese.

According to a November 28 report from the British Broadcasting Company, the opposition National Democratic Alliance (NDA) flatly rejected the Ummah agreement with the NIF regime, declaring it would not solve the country’s problems because “it failed to address the crucial issues of the separation of religion and state.”

There has been no confirmation whether any of the priests’ co-defendants have agreed to accept the proposed amnesty.

Although Catholic Archbishop Gabriel Zubeir Wako of the Khartoum Diocese insists that Sudan’s Christians are “neither anti-Islam nor anti-government,” he accuses the Khartoum regime of making the church’s institutions and personnel a deliberate target of persecution and discrimination.

In a plenary address to the Bishops of France meeting in Lourdes on November 7, Archbishop Wako declared that Sudan’s Christians had been scattered “to almost every corner of the Sudan under continuous harassment by the security forces, under constant humiliation and frequently made the scapegoat in times of crisis.”

“All parties to the war need to be pressured,” he pled, “into considering carefully the irreparable harm this war is doing to the country and to the spirit of the people.”

Related Elsewhere

The U.S. Department of State Annual Report on International Religious Freedom examines Sudan’s religious freedom from political and societal perspectives, and remarks on what the U.S. government has done in response to human rights infringements in the country.

See our print magazine’s August 9, 1999 cover story on Sudan, particularly on slavery in the country.

For more coverage of this story, check out Missionary Services News Agency.

Two Major Philippine Churches Sign Agreement for Closer Links

Sophia Lizares-Bodegon, Ecumenical News International, in Manila

Reformed and Catholic-influenced denominations working toward full union

As church bells rang and sky rockets exploded in the sky, leaders of the United Church of Christ in the Philippines (UCCP) and the Iglesia Filipina Independiente (IFI) signed a Covenant of Partnership that could lead to full union “in God’s own time.”

The covenant, signed November 28, is a 400-word document binding the UCCP, itself a union of churches from the Reformed tradition, and the IFI, a Filipino church that separated from Rome but which has retained Catholic practice and tradition.

The church leaders declared in the document that despite differences in doctrine, polity and religious practices, both churches are “integral parts of the one, holy, catholic and apostolic church of Jesus Christ.” The document adds that the two denominations draw strength and inspiration from a common Scripture and common creeds. Recognizing common beliefs and hopeful in Jesus’ prayer “that they may be one,” the churches also agreed to undertake joint theological and doctrinal studies, service programs, and theological education.

Tomas A. Millamena, Obispo Maximo (leading bishop) of the IFI, and Bishop Elmer M. Bolocon, general secretary of the UCCP, signed the covenant. Among the witnesses who also signed were NCCP leaders, mission partners, and representatives of workers’ organizations, the urban poor and student groups.

Bishop Erme Camba, as the chair of the UCCP Communion on Church Union and Unity, oversaw the negotiations for the covenant. He said that formal talks had started three years ago in an ecumenical fellowship of bishops.

The two churches have a history of co-operation, especially in actions against the Marcos dictatorship more than 20 years ago. “We wanted to put it in writing,” Bishop Camba said. “Although there are certain agreements regarding baptism, issues regarding the Eucharist and apostolic succession need to be discussed. But that does not deter us from coming together,” Bishop Camba added.

He stressed that the phrase “in God’s own time” was important because the theological understanding and the practice of the Eucharist and the ministry in the two churches were completely different and “seem irreconcilable.”

But he expressed optimism that work for peace, justice and integrity of creation between the two denominations would proceed in a higher gear.

Leading German Bishop Says Church Will Bow to Rome in Abortion Controversy

Frauke Brauns, Ecumenical News International, in Bonn, Germany

Church’s participation in abortion counseling will end

After months of controversy, the leaders of Germany’s Roman Catholic Church have agreed to a demand by Pope John Paul II that they end church participation in a system of compulsory counseling for women considering abortion.

“We have tried as long as possible to resist, but now we have lost,” Bishop Karl Lehmann of Mainz, chairman of the German Bishops’ Conference (DBK), said at a press conference last week. Bishop Lehmann’s announcement is significant since he had previously refused to rule out the possibility of remaining within the current system. But despite Bishop Lehmann’s announcement, a number of Catholic bishops have already announced that for the time being they are unable to follow the wishes of the Pope in withdrawing from the system.

Although abortion is technically illegal in Germany, women can obtain one if they get a certificate from an officially recognized counseling center stating that they have talked over the matter. Of Germany’s 1685 counseling centers, 254 are sponsored by the Protestant church and 264 by two Catholic organizations.

Church organizations have traditionally played a major role in Germany in providing social services on behalf of the state.

Official church participation in the counseling system has deeply split Germany’s Catholic community. Catholics critical of their church’s participation in the system argue that by issuing certificates that will allow women, if they wish, to have an abortion, the church is an accessory to the killing of unborn life.

But Catholic supporters say that it is better for women considering abortions to attend centers run by the Catholic Church and that the church should not turn its back on women who find themselves with an unwanted pregnancy. They add that after counseling many women decide not to request a certificate, and that not all women who request certificates decide to go through with an abortion.

In recent months Rome has exerted increasing pressure on the German bishops to stop Catholic counseling centers from issuing certificates, which would mean that the church would no longer be part of the official system.

Last month, after German bishops visited the Vatican, Pope John Paul again wrote to them making clear his expectation that the Catholic Church would withdraw from the system. The letter called for all German dioceses to act on the Vatican’s wishes as soon as possible.

The issue has also divided the country’s 27 Catholic bishops. While Cardinal Joachim Meisner of Cologne and Bishop Franz Dyba of Fulda have led a minority of bishops opposing the counseling system, Bishop Lehmann and at least 12 others have tried to find a compromise respecting the Pope’s wishes but allowing the church to remain within the system.

Despite the efforts of Bishop Lehmann, however, the church remains divided. The standing council of the DBK agreed last month that Catholic counseling centers should stop issuing certificates in the course of 2000. Such a step would have the effect of ending Catholic participation in the current state-sponsored system.

The dioceses of Paderborn, Munster and Speyer have already announced that they will withdraw from the system in January 2000. However, Bishop Hermann Josef Spital of Trier, Bishop Franz Kamphaus of Limburg and five others have said that they reserve the right to remain in the present system “if no convincing alternative can be found.”

Bishop Lehmann has warned them that they must follow the wishes of the Pope. At the same time, Bishop Lehmann has been exploring ways in which the church could remain part of the counseling system but would not be obliged to issue certificates. He suggested this week that the law could be changed to allow women simply to declare on oath that they had attended counseling. But so far the state has rejected the idea of changing the law.

“We saw it coming that the bishops would not resist the pressure of Rome,” said Annegret Laakmann of the We Are Church movement, which is seeking major reforms in the Catholic Church.

The German bishops could have prevented a lot of confusion and damage done to the church if they had taken a stronger stand from the start, Laakmann told ENI. “They should have decided either to stay within the system or leave when the Pope first contacted them on the matter.”

Every woman, she said, must be able to attend a Catholic counseling center.

Laakmann is also president of Frauenwuerde (Women’s dignity), an association founded by Catholic lay people last year to examine the issue.

The controversy about the participation in the counseling system has provoked a much wider debate in Germany about the relationship between church and state, including the system of church tax whereby the state collects a tax from church members on behalf of the churches.

The Central Committee of German Catholics (ZdK), the country’s biggest Catholic lay movement, has created its own associationﾗDonum vitae (The Gift of Life)ﾗto take over the Catholic counseling of pregnant women considering abortion.

Christine Bergmann, Germany’s minister for family matters, has said she regretted the bishops’ decision.

“The state will not finance counseling that will not issue a certificate,” she said in an interview with the radio station Deutschlandfunk early this week.

The Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD), Germany s main Protestant body, has also expressed disappointment over the withdrawal of the Catholic Church from the present system. Manfred Kock, EKD chairperson, said at a press conference that the EKD would remain within the system, but would not be able to fill the gap left by the Catholic Church.

“A Roman Catholic woman has the right to counseling by her church,” he said.

Bishop Margot Kassmann of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Hanoverﾗone of the EKD’s 24 member churchesﾗtold ENI that it was “morally acceptable” for the Protestant church to remain within the counseling system.

Although the Protestant and Roman Catholic churches had issued a joint statementﾗ”God is a friend of life”ﾗon the issue of abortion issue, it was only possible to save unborn life with the help of the mothers, she said.

Churches should always respect and stand by those women who felt unable to continue with their pregnancy, whether because the child would be handicapped, because they were pregnant because of rape or for financial reasons, Bishop Kassmann said.

She added that no woman who visited a counseling center of either the Protestant or Catholic church should be let down, pointing out that stopping counseling would not put an end to abortion.

Hans Kung, a leading Swiss Catholic theologian whose license to teach Catholic theology was removed by Rome in the early 1980s, has called on the German bishops to follow their own consciences rather than orders from Rome. He criticized what he called “the despotic principle to obey the command of a superior without any regard for one’s own responsibility,” particularly in the light of Germany’s own history where many subordinates of the Nazi regime claimed to be only following orders.

Used with permission, Ecumenical News International, Copyright 1999

Tashkent Christian Threatened with Two-Year Prison Term

Felix Corley, Compass Direct

Nukus church registration blocked by Uzbek authorities

A Baptist Christian and former mission leader arrested on Sunday, November 28 in Tashkent was still being subjected to lengthy police interrogations in the Uzbek capital yesterday. Nikolai Andreus is being threatened with a two-year prison term, Christian sources in the Central Asian state report.

Andreus was detained as he was traveling by bus to a Sunday morning worship service. A police lieutenant on the bus demanded to see his identity documents and then searched Andreus’ bag, uncovering some 200 Christian tracts in the Uzbek language.

The officer then halted the bus near the Khamzin district police station, just two stops from Andreus’ home. The Christian was interrogated by an officer named Karimov, deputy head of the police station, who reportedly threatened and tried to intimidate Andreus, accusing him of “anti-state activities.”

Two hours later, police officers conducted a search of Andreus’ home in the presence of the required four witnesses, but without authorization from the procurator, sources told Compass. The officials confiscated all the Christian literature they found.

During the search, Andreus’ daughter Nataliya asked the police officers what would happen to her father. The most senior policeman told her he faces a two-year prison term.

Andreus was later transferred to the criminal department of the police, where he was again interrogated. He was asked where he had obtained the literature, where he was taking it, who it was for and why. The interrogators tried to force him to admit he was guilty of anti-state activity, missionary activity (which is illegal in Uzbekistan) and the distribution of anti-Islamic propaganda.

Andreus insisted that the books had been imported from Russia two years ago, before restrictions were imposed on the importation of religious literature. He denied he had conducted anti-state activity.

Although freed at 7 p.m. on Sunday, Andreus was instructed to report the next morning for further questioning at the Chief Police Department. The interrogations lasted from 10 in the morning until 8 in the evening.

“Only one of the three officers interrogating him gave his name,” a source told Compass. “He was a police officer called Rakhmonov. The other two were in civilian clothes.” Andreus believes they were officers of the National Security Ministry (the former KGB).

“The whole day they tried to get him to admit that he is guilty of missionary activity, distributing literature and, through this, helping to destabilize the political situation in the country,” the source added.

He was allowed to return home for the night, but his identity documents were not returned to him. When Andreus protested that he would need his passport to vote in the upcoming December 5 elections, he was told that he did not understand the law: no one in prison was allowed to keep their documents, let alone take part in voting, the police explained.

His interrogations resumed again on Tuesday, November 30.

Andreus had been deputy head of the Khudo Khokhlasa (If God Wills It) mission in Tashkent until it was banned by Uzbek authorities in 1997.

In separate news, Compass has learned from sources in Uzbekistan that local Mahalla Committee authorities in Nukus have refused to give the necessary signature on the registration application of the Full Gospel congregation in the city. “All the other signatures on the registration application are there,” the source reported, “but obviously the local authorities do not want the church to be registered.”

Although the church has asked the Mahalla Committee to issue a statement spelling out why they will not sign the application, the committee has so far refused. The church filed its registration application with the Karakalpakstan Ministry of Justice in Nukus in early October.

The Nukus Full Gospel Church became well known when three of its leading members were arrested and sentenced to heavy prison terms earlier in the year, including the pastor, Rashid Turibayev. The three were among five Christian prisoners freed on President Islam Karimov’s orders in August, after intensive protests from around the world.

Related Elsewhere

The U.S. Department of State Annual Report on International Religious Freedom examines Uzbekistan’s religious freedom from political and societal perspectives, and remarks on what the U.S. government has done in response to human rights infringements in the country.

Earlier Christianity Today stories on Uzbekistan include “Uzbek Pastor Faces Drug Charges” (April 26, 1999) and “Uzbekistan Religion Law Jeopardizes Evangelism” (October 5, 1998)

For more on Uzbekistan, see Britannica.com’s article on the country.

New Delhi Center Dedicated to Princess Di’s Wish to End ‘Stigma’ of Leprosy

By Anto Akkara, Ecumenical News International, in New Delhi

$1.43 million center aimed at education and media

The Leprosy Mission International (TLMI) has marked the 125th anniversary of its foundation by dedicating its latest venture in the fight against leprosy to the late Diana, Princess of Wales.

TLMI officials said that the princess had helped the organization “enormously” with her patronage.

The Diana Princess of Wales Health Education and Media Centerﾗentirely funded by a grant of 890,000 pounds sterling (US$1.43 million) from the Diana Princess of Wales Memorial Fundﾗwas opened November 28 at Noida, on the outskirts of New Delhi.

“She [Princess Diana] would have been thrilled to see this health-education and media center bearing her name, dedicated to promoting awareness and to countering the stigma associated with leprosy,” Christopher Spence, chairman of the memorial fund, said at the center’s inauguration.

Spence reminded the TLMI delegates that the Princess of Wales had “cared very deeply about the campaign and the work [to eradicate] leprosy. She was well aware of the power of communication to spread awareness, to promote the end of stigma and marginalization of leprosy patients.”

More than 150 members of TLMI’s international general council, from 33 countries, attended celebrations in New Delhi marking the 125th anniversary. TLMI was founded in India in 1874 by an Irish teacher, Wellesley Cosby Bailey.

Now based in London, TLMI is a Christian action group with churches and individual Christians contributing 80 percent of its annual budget of US$13 million.

Thomas Townley Macan, Britain’s deputy High Commissioner in India, said it was appropriate that the media education center should have been dedicated to Diana, a “supporter of the causes of the poor.”

“She would surely be rejoicing that the fund created in her memory is supporting a cause dear to her heart,” the British diplomat said.

“Diana had special concern for anybody who was disadvantaged. When [in the early 1990s] we asked her to be our patron, she accepted it cheerfully,” said Stewart Smith, TLMI chairman.

Smith later told ENI that “more than anybody else, she [the Princess of Wales] could touch hearts. She was precious to us.” A photo of the princess sitting on the bed of a patient in a leprosy hospital in Nepal made news headlines in 1993, he said.

“The impact of this single photo on the front page of the national daily [newspaper] probably did more than what we had achieved in ten years of our awareness campaign,” TLMI’s general director, Trevor Durston, said.

“Leprosy has remained not only a disease that afflicts a large number of people, but it carries with it a stigma,” C. Chidambaram, former Indian finance minister, said in a speech at the opening. Leprosy had been regarded in rural areas as “an incurable affliction,” said Chidambaram, who is originally from the state of Tamil Nadu in southern India, which has a high incidence of leprosy. “In fact, it is considered a curse suffered in this birth [life] for what one may have done in the last birth,” he said, adding that “awareness and health education are as important as health care” for the eradication of leprosy.

In 1998, according to figures from the World Health Organization, India accounted for nearly 70 percent of the 800 000 new cases of leprosy detected worldwide.

Spence later told ENI: “Towards the end of her short life, due to personal crisis, she [the Princess of Wales] wanted to reduce the number of charities [more than 100] of which she was patron. She chose to head only six, and one of them was Leprosy Mission.”

When the memorial fund offered to support the Leprosy Mission with funds, the Indian branch of the organization proposed the establishment of the media center. The proposal was in fact based on a question the princess asked during a visit to a Leprosy Mission hospital in Calcutta in 1992.

“What are you going to do with the stigma?” Princess Diana had asked TLMI officials.

Cornelius Walters, TLMI’s South Asia director, told ENI at the opening: “This center is a fruit of that question.”

Related Elsewhere

The Leprosy Mission International’s Web site has news updates, a kid’s page, and other resources regarding leprosy.

Homosexual Group Institutes Award for Straight Religious Leaders

Chris Herlinger, Ecumenical News International, in New York

Former United Church of Christ president receives first award for championing gay rights

An ecumenical coalition of gay and lesbian organizations has instituted an annual award to be given to a US heterosexual religious leader who has championed the cause of homosexual rights.

The award is named after the man who is also its first recipient, Paul H. Sherry, recently retired president of the United Church of Christ.

The Dr Paul H. Sherry Leadership and Courage Award will be given each year by the Interfaith Assembly of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) Caucuses and Affirming Organizations during the annual general assembly of the National Council of Churches (NCC), the principal ecumenical organization in the US.

The Interfaith Assembly represents caucuses in more than a dozen US churches.

Dr Sherry received the inaugural award last month during the NCC’s general assembly and 50th-anniversary celebrations in Cleveland, Ohio. At a prayer breakfast on 11 November, he told Interfaith Assembly members that those who deserved the award most were the members themselves.

Expressing surprise at receiving the award, Dr Sherry said: “I know the exclusion and pain you have felt. But I truly believe that through your efforts God’s purpose will be fulfilled.”

In an interview with ENI, Dr Sherry said he had always believed it was a “Gospel imperative” that the church embrace all, including sexual minorities. “Gays and lesbians have been so put upon,” Dr Sherry said, particularly within the church. He felt the issue had to be addressed directly by a church leader.

The 1.4 million-member United Church of Christ, whose roots are in the US Congregational churchﾗthe church of the American Puritansﾗhas gained a high profile for its progressive views on many social issues. About 300 of its congregations welcome gay and lesbian members, and the church is among the few US churches to ordain openly gay and lesbian clergy.

Dr Sherry has been one of the most prominent US church leaders to call for full participation of gays and lesbians in the church. He has repeated his appeal not only in the US, but also in international ecumenical meetings.

He told ENI he was optimistic about the cause of gay and lesbian rights, but acknowledged that numerous obstacles remain. “I continue to hope that there will be leaders in our communions who will fight for what I believe is right,” he said.

But he suggested that the NCC and its member denominations continued to give “mixed signals” on the issue of homosexuality.

Questions related to homosexuality remain a cause of tension and division for some NCC member churches, including several of the biggest Protestant denominations in the US, such as the United Methodist Church and the Presbyterian Church (USA). Recently the United Methodist Church has argued over the blessing of relationships for same-sex couples, while the Presbyterians have for years debated the ordination of openly gay and lesbian clergy.

“There’s hardly a communion within the council that is not dealing with the issue of ‘what do we do with these homosexual folk’?” said Gwynne Guibord, US ecumenical officer of the Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Churches (MCC), a predominantly gay and lesbian denomination. She chaired the Interfaith Assembly’s prayer breakfast in Cleveland.

The NCC itself has repeatedly called for equal rights for homosexuals in the public sphere, but the MCC has not been allowed to join the NCC. Earlier this decade the NCC declined to take action on a request by the MCC for “observer status” at NCC meetings. Opposition by several US churchesﾗincluding Orthodox and mainly black congregationsﾗhas often been cited as the reason for the NCC’s refusal to recognize the MCC. (The NCC has since cancelled “observer status” for non-member churches.)

However, the continued internal debates over the issue of homosexuality within NCC-member churches had also been an important factor in the NCC’s reluctance to formally embrace the MCC, said Eileen Lindner, NCC associate general secretary.

Both Lindner and Guibord said the MCC has been making quiet inroads within the US ecumenical movement. “Informally there have been great advances,” Lindner said.

But Lindner said full acceptance of the MCC and even the Interfaith Assembly itself was still some way off for many within NCC-member denominations. However, pointing out that she was speaking here as a church historian and not as an ecumenical official, Lindner added: “Can anybody doubt that time is not on the side of those who have an exclusionary view of the church?”

A United Methodist minister from Nebraska has been defrocked by a church court for performing a “holy union” for a male couple. Jimmy Creech was stripped of his credentials by a 13-member United Methodist jury in Grand Island, Nebraska. He was found guilty of violating church law by performing the ceremony in North Carolina last year. Creech immediately criticized the 17 November decision, calling it “a scandalous day for the United Methodist Church,” the Associated Press reported. The jury foreman said the jury was simply following church law, which prevented clergy from performing such ceremonies.

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