Online Edition Saturday-Sunday, August 14-15, 2004
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Religious briefsDENVER (AP) - Promise Keepers founder Bill McCartney has reportedly been planning a new initiative for strengthening ties between evangelicals and Messianic Jews - a move that could damage relations between conservative Christians and Jewish leaders. McCartney and the Rev. Raleigh Washington, an elder at a Denver church led by a Messianic Jew, plan to announce the campaign called "Road to Jerusalem" on Dec. 3 in Palm Springs, Calif., The Denver Post reported. Neither McCartney nor Washington would comment on the report. Messianic Jews believe Jesus is the Messiah, but consider themselves Jewish and observe Jewish rituals. Jewish religious leaders, however, consider them Christian and are offended by their efforts to evangelize Jews. While evangelical Christians have become strong supporters of Israel, they usually don't associate with Messianic Jews to avoid offending Jewish leaders, said Russ Resnick, executive director of the Union of Messianic Jewish Congregations. Resnick said having McCartney's support would be "a significant thing." The Anti-Defamation League and other Jewish leaders have warned that any such alliance would make it impossible for them to work with evangelicals. McCartney has had previous ties to Messianic Jews. Leaders of the movement participated in a large Promise Keepers rally in Washington in 1997. McCartney founded the Christian men's organization in 1990, the same year he coached the University of Colorado to a share of the national football championship. He left the school in 1994 to run the ministry full time and resigned his post at Promise Keepers last September, saying he would devote more time to his family and his ill wife. - White House faith-based director vows to fight restrictive local government FALMOUTH, Maine (AP) - The head of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives says he'll fight local governments that block federal funding of religious groups. "Sometimes you see local governments that bully faith-based organizations and basically tell them that they have to compromise their religious beliefs and tenets if they want to partner with government," said Jim Towey, who met last week with Catholic Charities of Maine. "That may be their prerogative when it's state and local money," Towey said, "but when it's federal money that raises a whole different set of issues." Portland's domestic partnership ordinance restricts federal funding to the Roman Catholic nonprofit because it provides no benefits to same-sex partners of employees or unmarried heterosexual partners of staff members. The charity responded by suing the city in March 2003. Towey said ordinances such as the one in Portland "discriminate against faith-based organizations." Some objected to Towey's characterization of the law. "It is not bullying to tell a group that it has to obey the same laws as everyone else," said the Rev. Barry Lynn, director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, based in Washington, D.C. "Mr. Towey, although he talks about a level playing field, in fact wants to require secular groups to abide by civil rights laws but not religious groups. Frankly, they all should abide by basic principles of fairness and equality that we find in the Constitution, if they get federal funds." - U.S. Roman Catholic ordination class older, more educated WASHINGTON (AP) - Men who became American Roman Catholic priests this year were older and better educated than previous ordination classes, and more of them came from other countries, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops said. The percentage who were not from the United States rose from 24 percent to 31 percent between 1998 and this year, and came mainly from Vietnam, Mexico, the Philippines and Poland. The average age rose from 35 to 37 in the same period. The share of men without a bachelor's degree before entering the seminary dropped from 30 percent to 22 percent, and the number with a degree beyond a bachelor's rose from 13 percent to 28 percent in the same period. The survey was conducted by Dean Hoge, a sociologist at the Catholic University of America who has studied the priesthood for three decades. He based his findings on interviews with 336 respondents from dioceses and religious orders. - http://www.usccb.org/ - New Southern Baptist president wants 1 million baptisms a year DECATUR, Ala. (AP) - As the new president of the Southern Baptist Convention, the Rev. Bobby Welch says he will travel to all 50 states to push his goal of baptizing 1 million people a year. Welch and other convention leaders are concerned that the 16.3 million-member denomination - the nation's largest Protestant group - is stagnating. About 10,000 Southern Baptist churches held no baptisms last year. Welch has plastered a chartered bus with the slogan "Everyone Can!" and plans to travel more than 18,000 miles to spread his message. "The goal is not to fill the church house, but to empty it to go into the fields," Welch said last week, in an address at Decatur's Central Park Baptist Church. Welch insists the denomination can reach the 1 million baptism mark, even though it has never come close to such a large number in previous years. Southern Baptists have about 43,000 churches. They could reach Welch's goal if each church baptized two people a month for a year. Welch, pastor of First Baptist Church in Daytona Beach, Fla., said the idea isn't to get "scalps on our belts," but to let the world know that Southern Baptists represent Christ's love and forgiveness. - Hospital 'johnny' redesigned because of complaints from Muslim women PORTLAND, Maine (AP) - Maine Medical Center has redesigned its hospital gown after discovering that Muslim women accustomed to being fully covered were skipping appointments to avoid wearing the immodest garment. The old "johnny," as the garment is known, leaves a patient's backside and legs exposed. The new gown, which became available this summer, fully covers patients. "This is a great example of a challenge raised by a specific community that can ultimately benefit all patients," said Dana Farris Gaya, manager of interpreter and cross-cultural services. Maine Medical administrators decided they had to act last November after the hospital identified a high no-show rate for Muslim women from African countries, particularly Somalia. As many as three out of 10 women were skipping their appointments, said Osman Hersi, a medical interpreter at the hospital. Tracked down at home, the women described the horror of being asked to wear the revealing gowns during outpatient procedures and while waiting in a hallway in the radiology department. Islam teaches modesty in dress, and the women said the gowns went against their religious and cultural beliefs.
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