A federal judge has banned more than 40 textbooks from Alabama’s public schools on the ground that they unconstitutionally promote the “religion” of secular humanism.
U.S. District Court Judge W. Brevard Hand issued the ruling in a class-action suit brought by 624 Christian parents and teachers in Mobile County. They charged that the state had illegally established secular humanism as a religion by using texts that minimize or ignore the role of religion in American history and contemporary culture.
A spokesman for the liberal People for the American Way criticized the ruling as a “sweeping judicial book burning,” predicting that Hand’s ruling would be overturned on appeal. But Robert Skolrood, an attorney for the conservative National Legal Foundation, said the ruling “exposes humanism for what it really is—a wolf in sheep’s clothing prowling through the corridors of our public education system.…” The National Legal Foundation, formed by Christian broadcaster Pat Robertson, paid some of the plaintiffs’ legal costs.
FLORIDA
Church Sales Tax
Unless the Florida legislature changes its mind, the state’s churches will have to start collecting sales taxes on some of the services they provide.
A new law, set to take effect July 1, narrows the scope of organizations and professions that are exempt from charging sales tax on services. The law will require churches and other nonprofit organizations, as well as barbers, accountants, and doctors, to charge a 5 percent sales tax. The law could especially hurt private schools, which would be forced to charge taxes on tuition. Ironically, state-owned schools are exempt.
Critics of the law say it makes the church an agent of government. “One of the major reasons for the religion clauses of the First Amendment is to guard against excessive entanglement between the church and state, said Oliver Thomas, general counsel for the Baptist Joint Committee on Public Affairs. “This is precisely the type of entanglement the First Amendment intended to prevent.”
The Florida Baptist Convention is planning to form a task force to lobby for an exemption for churches and church-related organizations. When the state legislature reconvenes later this month, it will consider such proposals.
UNITED CHURCH OF CHRIST
Inclusive Language Worship
The new Book of Worship, published by the 1.7 million-member United Church of Christ, is believed to be the first complete worship book written in inclusive language for a U.S. denomination. The book also includes orders of worship for certain occasions, including weddings, memorial services, and a ceremony to recognize a divorce.
In its introduction, the book states: “Although the generic use of masculine terms may have been acceptable in the past, it excludes and offends many sensitive people of faith today.”
Among the orders of worship included in the 563-page book is a service for the “recognition of the end of a marriage.” The service is penitential in nature, acknowledging “that a divorce has occurred and that two human beings are seeking in earnest to reorder their lives in a wholesome, redemptive way,” said Dorothy Robinson, a member of the team that wrote the Book of Worship.
NATIONWIDE
Scriptures For Teens
The American Bible Society (ABS) this month will launch a three-year Scripture distribution project designed to persuade 1 million teenagers to follow Christ and to share the gospel with others.
“[The program] aims in part to deepen their understanding of the Bible,” said Maria Martinez, head of the ABS’S national distribution department. “But more than that, it will encourage them to share the Word in their own communities, counsel their peers through the Scriptures in times of crisis, and assist the American Bible Society in reaching out with the Word to people in other places in their own language.” As part of the program, American teenagers will be asked to help supply Scriptures for distribution to young people in other countries.
The U.S. program will distribute six collections of Scripture passages, dealing with issues such as relationships, loneliness, fear and rejection, peace as an alternative to war, homelessness, and hunger. The ABS expects to distribute 3.5 million copies of Scripture by the end of 1987 by working through 300,000 pastors and others involved in youth ministry.
PEOPLE AND EVENTS
Briefly Noted
Ceased: Publication of the Presbyterian Journal, a magazine founded in 1942 by members of the former Presbyterian Church, U.S. The magazine’s board was one of four groups instrumental in the 1973 formation of the Presbyterian Church in America. Circulation of the Presbyterian Journal topped 45,000 at one time, but dropped to less than 13,000 by last fall. The magazine’s final issue appeared March 18.
Died: Kurt E. Koch, 73, a German Christian widely regarded as a top authority on the occult, author of 36 books, and lecturer at more than 100 universities and seminaries in some 65 countries; January 25, in Aglasterhausen, West Germany.
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Filed: By theology professor Charles Curran, a lawsuit challenging his suspension from the Catholic University of America. The suspension followed a Vatican ruling last year that Curran was no longer “suitable nor eligible” to teach as a Catholic theologian because of his dissent from church teachings on sexual ethics. In his suit, Curran charges that university officials violated his academic freedom as well as his contractual rights by barring him from teaching three courses.
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We must always be people of the Word, but we’ll have to reimagine deep engagement with Scripture.
