News from the North American Scene: September 10, 1990

TELEVISION EVANGELISM

Bakker Pays His Debts

Former TV preacher Jim Bakker is now paying $100 monthly on debts of over $500,000, most of it in fines imposed on him after he was convicted for defrauding supporters of the PTL ministry. Bakker, 50, is serving a 45-year term at the Federal Medical Center in Rochester, Minnesota. He gets the money to make the monthly payments from family and followers, as well as from his 11-cents-an-hour job as an orderly, or janitor.

Shortly after entering the Rochester facility, Bakker agreed to participate in a financial-responsibility program designed to help inmates make restitution. Bakker turns over the money voluntarily, but according to prison spokesperson John Chreno, if Bakker declined to participate in the program, he could lose certain privileges.

COVENANT HOUSE

Report Indicts Ritter

An investigation into alleged improprieties at the New York City-based runaway-youth shelter Covenant House has been completed. And the news is not good for Catholic priest Bruce Ritter, the ministry’s founder and longtime president.

A report, based on a four-month investigation that entailed over 150 interviews, concludes that evidence that Ritter “engaged in sexual activities with certain residents and made sexual advances toward certain members of the Faith Community” is credible. The report cleared Ritter on charges of financial impropriety.

The investigation was conducted by former New York City police commissioner Robert McGuire. It was ordered by the Covenant House board of directors, which the report also chastised for its failure to exercise proper oversight.

Ritter resigned from Covenant House when allegations surfaced late last year. According to the report, had he not resigned, the investigation would have justified his dismissal. Ritter has consistently denied the charges of sexual impropriety and has not commented on the recent report.

ABORTION

Neutrality Carries The Day

It was by a narrow margin, 200 to 188. But the House of Delegates of the 365,000-member American Bar Association (ABA) on August 8 rescinded the prochoice stance on abortion it had adopted only six months earlier by a 238 to 106 vote. Prior to the House of Delegates’ consideration of the issue last month, the association’s general membership voted 885 to 837 in favor of a position of neutrality.

In a similar action, the executive council of the 14.2 million-member AFL-CIO has decided not to abandon its longstanding position of neutrality with respect to abortion. Some within the federation had urged it to take a prochoice stand.

James Bopp, general counsel for the National Right to Life Committee, said the ABA’s about-face shows it is “willing to respect the deeply held moral and religious beliefs of many of its members who were deeply offended by the proabortion resolution.” Said John Whitehead, president of the Rutherford Institute, a civil-liberties legal organization that specializes in sanctity-of-life issues, “I was pleased that the ABA recognized its responsibility to stay above the fray on this divisive issue.”

THE BIBLE

Tough Translating

During World War II, Allied forces were able to get messages through undecoded by using the language of Navajo Indians, a language apparently more than foreign to enemy forces. Among those who have no trouble understanding why that language was chosen for such a function are two men who are translating the Scriptures into Navajo.

Since 1984, pastor Tim Begay and lay pastor Joe Wilson, both Navajos, have worked on the project. Begay has worked on it full-time, while Wilson has assisted during summers. To date, they have completed 22 of the 26 New Testament books. Recently the American Bible Society printed one of those books, the Gospel of Mark, for use in hundreds of small churches in Navajo territory that spans three states.

One of the most difficult aspects of the work, say the translators, has been to translate passages dealing with concepts nonexistent in Navajo culture. For example, Jesus is said to have gone to a “lonely place” to pray. Said Fern Cole of the Navajo Lutheran Mission in Rock Point, Arizona, “In Navajo, you can’t speak of a place as lonely.” So the translation reads, “Jesus went to a place in which there was no sound and no people.”

PEOPLE AND EVENTS

Briefly Noted

Recovering: U.S. Senator Bill Armstrong (R-Colo.) after suffering a mild heart attack in July. Armstrong, an outspoken evangelical, was successfully treated with angioplasty, a medical procedure to clear blocked arteries, and is expected to make a full recovery.

Moving: Watergate figure Jeb Stuart Magruder, from his post as executive minister at the 8,900-member First Community Church in Columbus, Ohio, to become senior pastor of the 600-member First Presbyterian Church in Lexington, Kentucky. Magruder, 55, was ordained in 1983, seven years after completing a prison sentence for his role in Watergate. He was widely known in Columbus for chairing the city’s Commission on Ethics and Values.

Announced: The planned departure of Arthur Simon, president of Bread for the World since he founded the organization in 1972. The organization, which seeks to eliminate poverty through public policy, has 45,000 members representing 60 church-related bodies.

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