Opposition to Gay Clergy Heating Up

Last summer the ruling body of the United Church of Canada opened the door for practicing homosexuals to serve as clergy in the 860,000-member denomination. And while opponents of the controversial action have not left the denomination in large numbers, they have not ignored the issue either. At least three patterns of opposition have developed:

• Working within the United Church, the Community of Concern (COC) now claims to represent close to 1,500 congregations and ministers. By dint of sheer numbers, the COC hopes to persuade next summer’s general council to back away from gay ordination.

• Some large and influential United churches are declining to support the COC, but are developing “positive” pro-family programs, for example, to tackle the gay issue.

• Some 75 United Church ministers out of 3,000 have left to affiliate with the 167-year-old Conference of Congregational Christian Churches of Canada (CCC). In the process, they have swelled the tiny, six-church, Ontario-based group into a nationwide denomination.

COC executive director Gordon Ross says his group is currently surveying the United Church to determine the real strength of opposition to gay ordination. According to Ross, four of the church’s twelve regional conferences have voted not to ordain practicing gays, and at least two others were expected to follow.

Additionally, the COC theological education committee is preparing a brief for the church’s ministry division. That brief will very likely press for approval of clergy-training alternatives to denominational seminaries, which do not discourage homosexual practice.

While the COC disclaims “fundamentalist” labels, Ross says the homosexual ordination issue has helped evangelicals and traditional liberals in the United Church to find common ground. If the theological education committee makes headway, evangelical schools such as Vancouver’s Regent College and Toronto’s Ontario Theological Seminary may emerge as acceptable alternatives to the denominational institutions.

One of the churches choosing to work within the United Church is Toronto’s 2,000-member Kingsway-Lambton United Church. Leaders there recently put together a “Focus on the Family” weekend designed to reinforce traditional family values. The weekend utilized Canadian Focus on the Family resource people.

The church’s senior minister, Harry Denning, believes such activities effectively respond to the kind of gay activism that undercuts family values.

By Lloyd Mackey.

NORTH AMERICAN SCENE

GAMBLING

Pursuing the Jackpot

Millions of Americans are seeking their fortunes through various forms of gambling, according to a New York Times/CBS News survey. Sixty-three percent of those questioned said they had placed at least one bet in the past year; 23 percent reported playing the lottery weekly.

The poll also found widespread public acceptance of gambling, with 77 percent approving lotteries and 43 percent approving legal sports betting. Gambling is accepted even among religious people, according to the poll. More than half of all Protestants—and nearly half of those who said religion is very important to them—reported having gambled at least once in the last year.

CONGRESS

Washington Waxing Spiritual?

U.S. Senator Claiborne Pell (D-R.I.) has sent spiritual shock waves across Washington, D.C., with a proposal recommending that a congressional commission study ways to “promote personal excellence and the highest levels of human potential.” Two of the commission members, Pell stipulated, must have training in “extraordinary human performance research.”

It was Pell who last year requested that a Senate hearing witness close the session with Transcendental Meditation. Pell denied his current proposal is designed to promote any “religious belief or any philosophical system.” But critics charge it is a plug for the New Age movement.

Meanwhile in the House of Representatives, Rep. William Dannemeyer (R-Calif.) has introduced the “Community Life Amendment,” which, among other things, would establish “the right of the people to allow voluntary school prayer and the teaching of the Judeo-Christian ethic in public schools.”

UPDATE

CBN Law School Approved

The Board of Governors of the American Bar Association (ABA) has granted provisional approval of the Christian Broadcasting Network University (CBNU) School of Law. The ABA action puts an apparent end to a struggle that has gone on since 1986, when CBNU acquired the law school from Oral Roberts University and the ABA’s approval of the school was rescinded.

Earlier this year, nearly 50 CBNU students filed a lawsuit charging the ABA with violations of civil rights and antitrust laws because of its refusal to accredit their school. Without ABA approval, students are denied access to the bar examination in 43 states and the District of Columbia. A district court judge dismissed the case.

In 1987, the ABA accreditation committee expressed concern about the school’s religious orientation. An ABA site-team visit in April of this year questioned law school dean Herb Titus extensively on the school’s religious beliefs. But an ABA council determined in June that CBNU “substantially complies with the Standards for Approval of Law Schools.”

ABORTION

“Necessity” Defense Wins Out

A North Carolina district judge acquitted six abortion protesters of trespassing charges last month after their attorney used the “defense of necessity.” The attorney argued that a February demonstration in front of an abortion clinic was necessary to save human lives.

The decision, rendered by Mecklenburg County Judge Bill Constangy, has proved highly controversial in North Carolina and around the country. Observers say it was the first time in the state a judge allowed the necessity defense in an abortion protest case. Constangy is being accused of bias in the case because he allegedly sports a bumper sticker that reads, “I am a Pro-life Democrat.”

To date, no judge has allowed the necessity defense in a jury trial of an abortion protest case. Judges in a bench trial have considerably more freedom to determine the legitimacy of evidence and arguments.

PEOPLE AND EVENTS

Briefly Noted

Withdrawn: From consideration as head of the Department of Health and Human Services Family Support Administration, Robert Fulton, the personal choice of Secretary Louis Sullivan. Fulton came under fire from prolife groups who alleged that while in state office, he failed to stop—and indeed covered up—an Oklahoma program that denied medical treatment to handicapped infants based on their “quality of life potential.”

Named: As executive director of the Evangelical Foreign Missions Association (EFMA), Paul McKaughan, most recently the associate international director of the Lausanne Committee for World Evangelization. McKaughan will succeed Wade Coggins, who will retire next March after 15 years in the position. EFMA members support some 13,000 missionaries in more than 140 countries.

Sold: Over 140,000 copies of the book Out of the Blue, written by Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Orel Hershiser (as told to Jerry Jenkins). Published by Wolgemuth & Hyatt, the book spent nine weeks on the New York Times best-seller list, getting as high as number five.

Granted: Retirement pension for Raleigh Washington, pastor of the Rock of Our Salvation Free Church in Chicago. Washington, 50, was dishonorably discharged from the U.S. Army in 1980 a day short of the 20 years required to receive a pension. Washington, whose church was featured in the March 4, 1988, issue of CT (p. 21), last month rejoined the army for one day in order to receive his pension while his case is reconsidered.

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