Sixty-five percent of America’s high-school students say they would cheat on an important exam, while 53 percent would lie to protect a friend who vandalized school property. These are among the results of the Girl Scouts Survey on the Beliefs and Moral Values, as reported by the Christian Science Monitor.
The study was based on Louis Harris and Associates’ polling of more than 5,000 children between fourth and twelfth grades in public, private, and parochial schools. A report on the study was cowritten by Harvard child psychiatrist Robert Coles and University of Virginia sociologist James Davison Hunter. Hunter was quoted as saying he was encouraged by indications in the study that children are capable of “fairly sophisticated moral reasoning.” But he said he was discouraged by indications that few people and institutions take moral education seriously.
NCC
Infamous Anniversary?
The National Council of Churches (NCC) has joined other religious groups concerned about the propriety of anticipated celebrations surrounding the five-hundredth anniversary of Christopher Columbus’s arrival in the New World. The governing board of the ecumenical organization approved a resolution stating that the explorer’s landing in America launched a legacy of “invasion, genocide, slavery, ‘ecoside,’ and exploitation of the wealth of the land.”
The NCC in May also made final adjustments to a year-long reorganization process intended to make the organization more efficient and representative of constituents. All the group’s major operating entities have been condensed into four new units.
ANGLICANISM
Rude Awakening
Anglican Bishop Alexander ’Muge of Kenya was all set to preach May 17 at Saint Luke’s Episcopal Church in Walnut Creek, California, near San Francisco. But in dinner conversation with church officials prior to the service, the bishop profferred the view that Anglicanism is declining in the U.S. in part because “homosexuals and lesbians have taken over the church leadership.” He found himself out of a speaking engagement.
According to an eyewitness account of the restaurant meeting given by ’Muge’s host, David Morisey, to the Religious News Service, Saint Luke’s rector, Gary Ost, and an unidentified female parishioner became furious to the point of yelling at ’Muge. Both said they were homosexuals. Several patrons reportedly left because of the disturbance.
At a press conference four days later, ’Muge called the incident “the shock of [his] entire Christian life.” However, Bishop William Swing of the Diocese of California issued a statement critical of the Kenyan visitor: “For Bishop Muge to fly in here, and in a few days and with an extremely limited participation in [the church’s discussion on homosexuality], to pronounce his conclusion is a marginal contribution at best to the life of our diocese.”
Lutherans who belong to the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) have formed a new organization, the Great Commission Network, which is expected to serve as an umbrella body for the dozen or so ELCA organizations unsatisfied with developments in their denomination.
As in renewal organizations in other mainline churches, the new network is concerned in part about the denominational officials’ attitudes toward Scripture and evangelism as well as about the church’s posture on such issues as homosexuality and abortion. Said Thomas Parrish, pastor of the Lutheran Church of Minnehaha Falls (Minn.) and a Network leader, “Our goal is to be the best friends the ELCA can have in terms of stimulating evangelism, world missions, prayer, and action. Our primary mission is not to be antagonistic—it is to revitalize the mission of the church. We want to be pro-active.”
PEOPLE AND EVENTS
Briefly Noted
Acquired: By producers Howard Kazanjian (Raiders of the Lost Ark and Return of the Jedi) and Bruce Isacson and actor Dean Jones, worldwide film rights to novelist Frank Peretti’sThis Present Darkness. A summer 1992 release is anticipated.
Moving: Youth for Christ headquarters, from Wheaton, Illinois, to Denver. A staff of 90 will begin working in new offices by mid-September.
Named: As president of Eastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Philadelphia, Manfred Brauch, who has served as acting president at Eastern for about a year.
Received: By President George Bush, an honorary doctoral degree from Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University.
Announced: Plans for James Dobson’s Pomona, California—based Focus on the Family ministry to relocate in Colorado Springs, Colorado. The move is contingent on the sale of Focus on the Family’s property in Pomona. A $4 million grant by the El Pomar Foundation of Colorado Springs precipitated the proposed move.
Named: As president-designate of the Institute of Holy Land Studies, Donald L. Brake, vice-president and dean of the Graduate School, Multnomah School of the Bible. He succeeds the retired Morris Inch.
CAPITAL CURRENTS
Gleaning from glasnost
Religious rights may not have been on the top of last month’s Washington summit agenda between Presidents Bush and Gorbachev, but religious leaders were definitely on the scene. The National Council of Churches and a delegation of church leaders from the USSR conducted a prayer vigil throughout the summit at the National Cathedral. Television preacher Robert Schuller, who was present at several Gorbachev meetings, held a press conference to announce he will be airing a monthly television program in the Soviet Union beginning in September. Jerry Falwell attended the welcoming ceremony on the White House Lawn. And Billy and Ruth Graham were overnight guests of the Bushes at the White House.
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EPA seeks church help
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator William Reilly is calling on churches to take a more active role in the formation of a national environmental policy. “In the next year, I would like to see each faith, each denomination … formulate its own authoritative restatement of the moral and spiritual basis for the stewardship of nature,” he said in a recent Washington speech.
Ethics discipline urged
The National Association of Evangelicals (NAE) is pushing the House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct to stop “treading water” in the ethics investigations of Reps. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) and Donald Lukens (R-Ohio). Frank is accused of homosexual misconduct, and Lukens was convicted for having sex with a minor. In an open letter, the NAE calls for both to be “at least censured, if not expelled.”
People and events
The Federal Communications Commission has adopted new rules to restrict minors’ access to dial-a-porn services. Included in the rules are provisions that dial-a-porn companies require credit card payments, access codes, or scrambling, and that calls must show up on customers’ phone bills.
Evangelicals for Social Action has closed its Washington office in an effort to “consolidate resources.” ESA will continue the “Washington Update” in its monthly newsletter with information provided by a part-time staff person.
Concerned Women for America has launched a new nationwide partnership campaign with existing crisis pregnancy centers in an effort to strengthen help for women with unplanned pregnancies.
Rep. Tony Hall (D-Ohio), chairman of the House Select Committee on Hunger, has begun a new campaign urging restaurants, hotels, and country clubs to reduce the amount of nutritious food thrown away.
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