Liberal Bishop’s Appointment Causes a Stir in England

“Nothing short of a thunderbolt striking York Minster [cathedral] can stop the consecration of the bishop of Durham taking place.…” So said Richard Harries, dean of London’s King’s College, during a BBC Radio talk.

Harries was referring to the appointment of David Jenkins as the Church of England’s fourth most-senior bishop. A former Oxford don, Jenkins’s doubts concerning basic Christian beliefs had been widely covered in the British media.

Much to Harries’s astonishment, lightning did strike York Minster—England’s largest medieval cathedral—but it was three days too late to prevent Jenkins’s consecration. Fire caused by the lightning gutted the cathedral’s 750-year-old south transept. Some speculated that the fire might signify God’s hand of judgment at work.

The 59-year-old Jenkins was a little-known professor of theology when he was chosen in March to succeed John Habgood as bishop of Durham. But within six weeks he was making national headlines. The controversy began when he was questioned about the divinity of Christ on a national television program. He told an interviewer that he was “pretty clear” that the Virgin Birth was “a story told after the event in order to express and symbolize a faith that this Jesus was a unique event from God.”

In addition, he said the Resurrection was not a miracle. “It doesn’t seem to me that there was any one event which you could identify with the Resurrection.” He said Jesus’ miracles do not represent “the literal truth today,” nor was it necessary for a Christian to believe that Jesus was God made flesh.

Those assertions outraged many in the Church of England, especially in its Anglo-Catholic and evangelical wings. A petition signed by 12,500 churchgoers urged the archbishop of York to withhold Jenkins’s consecration if he declined to affirm publicly the creeds “as the church has consistently interpreted them.” A number of leading churchmen called for the consecration to be delayed until the appointment had been discussed by the church’s general synod.

Two weeks before the consecration, the TV program that first aired Jenkins’s doubts polled 31 Anglican bishops to see how closely their views matched his. The result sounded fresh alarms for the church’s growing evangelical constituency.

Nine of the bishops sided with Jenkins on the Resurrection, 10 on the Virgin Birth, and 15 on miracles. Nineteen agreed with him that Christians did not need to believe that Jesus was God made flesh. A public opinion poll commissioned by the TV program indicated that 78 percent of regular churchgoers and 52 percent of all those questioned believed Jesus was the Son of God.

Robert Runcie, archbishop of Canterbury and primate of all England, identified with the traditionalists. “It won’t do for us as Christians simply to think of the stories about Jesus as beautiful or helpful or meaningful,” he said. “It won’t do for us to strain out of the stories all that we find difficult because it has an element of miracle and mystery about it.”

Evangelical pressure groups, slow to respond initially, have begun rallying the faithful. An Essex clergyman sent letters to all 11,000 Anglican clergy to solicit their support for a campaign against liberal theology and permissive morality in the church. He received more than 1,000 supportive replies.

As for Jenkins, now bishop of Durham, he stands by his televised assertions. However, he insists that he accepts the divinity of Christ and believes in the Resurrection “as Saint Paul believed in it.”

JOHN CAPONin London

U.S. Says ‘No’ To Overseas Abortion Funding

U.S. delegates to the International Conference on Population, held in Mexico City last month, presented a policy statement staunchly opposed to the use of government funds for abortions overseas. “The United States does not consider abortion an acceptable element of family planning programs and will no longer contribute to those of which it is a part,” the paper said.

This shift in government policy will affect private organizations, such as International Planned Parenthood Federation, and it requires nations that support abortion to segregate U.S. aid into separate accounts. International Planned Parenthood could lose one-fifth of its budget, or $11 million per year, if it does not change its proabortion policies.

The first International Conference on Population met in Bucharest in 1974 and strongly endorsed governmental family planning measures to curb population growth. Reagan administration spokesmen say these efforts must be balanced with an emphasis on spurring economic growth overseas because prosperity results in lower population growth.

“Our primary objective,” said the policy paper, “will be to encourage developing countries to adopt sound economic policies and, where appropriate, population policies consistent with respect for human dignity and family values.

“Attempts to use abortion, involuntary sterilization, or other coercive measures in family planning must be shunned.”

Four U.S. congressmen who oppose abortion pressured the administration to issue a firm policy statement. Reps. Christopher H. Smith (R-N.J.), Jack Kemp (R-N.Y.), Henry Hyde (R-Ill.), and Vin Weber (R-Minn.) met with While House chief of staff James Baker to urge a permanent separation of abortion funding from population programs.

Smith, head of the congressional prolife caucus, vigorously opposes the well-documented use of coerced abortions and female infanticide in China. He was particularly alarmed about the United Nations Fund for Population Activities (UNFPA), sponsor of the Mexico City conference,because of its four-year, $50 million grant to the Chinese government’s population control program. UNFPA receives millions of American aid dollars.

Organizations that promote abortion as a family-planning alternative call the new administration policy “a significant setback.” They may challenge it in Congress by encouraging prochoice representatives to try to legislate a repeal of the strictures on funding.

North American Scene

The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled unconstitutional a Maryland law that limited the fund-raising costs of charities. The law sought to forbid fund raisers from charging charities a fee totaling more than 25 percent of contributions raised. The court’s majority opinion said the law operated on the “mistaken premise that high solicitation costs are an accurate measure of fraud.”

A federal judge has ruled against municipal sponsorship of a Michigan nativity scene because it promoted only one set of beliefs. The U.S. Supreme Court earlier upheld a nativity display on public property in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. However, U.S. District Judge Anna Diggs Taylor noted that the Pawtucket display included secular holiday symbols. She ruled that the Birmingham, Michigan, nativity scene was strictly religious.

A number of proabortion and feminist organizations are urging President Reagan to denounce violence against abortion clinics. The National Abortion Federation, whose Washington, D.C., headquarters were damaged by a bomb blast in July, reports that 10 clinics have been bombed or damaged by arson this year.

A group of Methodist clergymen and the American Jewish Congress are challenging a federal program designed to discourage adolescent sexual activity. Filed through the American Civil Liberties Union, the suit argues that the Adolescent Family Life Program promotes religious teachings in violation of the First Amendment. Under the law, the government has distributed more than $23 million to hospitals, universities, social service agencies, and religious organizations.

The U.S. Army is using a version of theFocus on the Familyfilm series to help provide positive role models for soldiers and their spouses. Christian author James Dobson, whose organization produced the film series, is a member of the army’s Task Force on Soldiers and Families.

An association of 51 Southern Baptist churches in North Carolina has taken its denomination to task for adopting an antitobacco resolution. Southern Baptist Convention messengers (delegates) in June urged Congress to terminate subsidies to tobacco farmers and encouraged Southern Baptists who grow tobacco to switch to another crop. A recent resolution adopted by the Johnson Baptist Association in North Carolina calls the crop “the lifeline for many of our people and the majority of the churches” in the association.

The science education program at Liberty Baptist College has gained the approval of Virginia’s state board of education.Last year the program won conditional approval after a battle over whether Liberty graduates would teach creationism. College chancellor Jerry Falwell had sparked the dispute by saying Liberty graduates would teach evolution only to show that it is “foolish.” Recently, a committee appointed by the state board of education found the college’s biology curriculum to be scientifically sound.

A Washington, D.C., newspaper owned by Sun Myung Moon’s Unification Church has fired its editor and publisher. Officials at the Washington Times said James Whelan had made outrageous contract demands, including a salary increase from $90,000 to $185,000 by 1989, a rent-free $800,000 house, and a new luxury car every two years. Whelan charged that Moon’s church had assumed direct control of the newspaper. The Unification Church has pumped $150 million into the two-year-old operation to keep it alive.

A group of religious radio stations and a music licensing agency have resolved more than seven years of litigation. U.S. District Judge Whitman Knapp approved a settlement between some 75 radio stations and the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP). The stations had challenged the method ASCAP uses to charge fees to radio stations that broadcast music licensed by ASCAP. The settlement provides for a judge to determine reasonable fees when religious radio stations and ASCAP fail to agree on terms for licenses.

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