ZIMBABWE
Rebel Massacre
Sixteen white Christians, including seven women and five children, were hacked to death by a band of antigovernment rebels near Bulawayo, Zimbabwe.
The victims were missionaries working at two farms that make up the Pentecostal Community for Reconciliation. The community was formed to encourage racial reconciliation after a seven-year civil war established black majority rule in the country in 1980.
A 6-year-old boy escaped the slaughter by hiding in the bush, and a 13-year-old girl was released to carry a note to authorities. Home Affairs Minister Enos Nkala said the note stated that the rebels would “fight to the last man [to rid Zimbabwe of] Western, capitalist-orientated people.” Authorities were searching for a bandit known as Gayiguso, who was thought to be the leader of the rebel band that killed the missionaries.
ENGLAND
A Home For Barinov
A Christian magazine has launched a fund-raising campaign to buy a home in England for Christian rock musician Valeri Barinov, who emigrated from the Soviet Union in November.
In its January issue, Christian Family magazine solicits donations to the Home Help fund. The money will help provide permanent housing for the 42-year-old Barinov, his wife, Tanya, and their two teenage daughters. Barinov is known in the West as the composer of a Christian rock opera titled The Trumpet Call. The music was secretly recorded in the Soviet Union and then smuggled out of the country.
Barinov was arrested in 1984 and charged with attempting to cross the Soviet border illegally. He was convicted and sentenced to two-and-one-half years in a labor camp. After completing his sentence, Barinov applied for and eventually received permission to emigrate to the West. He and his family are living with friends in England until they can arrange permanent housing.
AUSTRALIA
No More Legal Limbo
The government of the Australian state of Victoria decided last month that two embryos left frozen since 1981 by a since-deceased Chilean couple should be offered to other childless couples.
The embryos, stored at a Melbourne hospital, had been in a legal limbo since 1983 when Elsa and Mario Rios died in a plane crash. The embryos were produced by in vitro fertilization using ova donated by Mrs. Rios and sperm from an anonymous donor. The Victoria government decided on the fate of the embryos after a California superior court ruled that Mrs. Rios’s mother is the sole heir to her estate. Thus, any children resulting from the implantation of the embryos will have no claim to the Rios estate.
Doctors at Epworth Hospital said the embryos will be made available to a married, infertile woman. They said the embryos’ chances of survival are only 5 percent.
FINLAND
Women In The Clergy
The bishops of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland have decided women can be ordained to the church’s clergy beginning March 6. The March date was set to allow time for the posts of women theologians—or lectors—to be changed to clergy posts.
Some 250 women serve as lectors in Finland’s Lutheran congregations. Individual ordinations will require both the consent of women lectors and the approval of congregational councils. One bishop has already said he will not ordain women into the clergy.
IRELAND
Condemning The IRA
Catholic bishops across the independent Republic of Ireland and British-ruled Northern Ireland have issued their strongest condemnation yet of the Irish Republican Army (IRA). The bishops issued their statement in the wake of an IRA bombing that killed 11 Protestant civilians and injured more than 60 others in Northern Ireland.
“It is sinful to join organizations committed to violence or to remain in them,” the statement read. “It is sinful to support such organizations or to call on others to support them.”
The statement did not mention the predominantly Catholic IRA by name, but Bishop Joseph Duffy confirmed that the message was issued to condemn IRA actions. The outlawed group seeks an end to British rule in Northern Ireland and the union of Northern Ireland with the Irish Republic. Approximately 1 million of Ireland’s 5 million people are Protestant, most of them living in the six-county area that makes up Northern Ireland.
WEST GERMANY
Chastity And Fidelity
A poll conducted by the Hamburg Sex Research Institute indicates that young women in West Germany are rejecting sexual permissiveness in favor of chastity.
The survey, published in Quick magazine, found that one in every three West German women aged 18 to 25 has not had sexual intercourse. Sixty-four percent of those polled considered virginity important, and 96 percent placed great value on sexual fidelity. Quick said young women are increasingly seeking permanent relationships based on love and affection.
Psychologist and sex researcher Reinhart Stalmann contrasted the current trend with the 1970s, when he says “it was considered progressive to jump into bed as early as possible with a boy. There was a kind of group pressure. Now it is again chic to wait for true love. Girls are proud when they are still untouched.”
