News from the North American Scene: November 25, 1991

CANADA

Church Attendance Drops

The number of Canadians who attend church regularly is apparently dropping, while the number of those who claim no religious affiliation is climbing, according to a new study.

In a poll of 10,000 Canadians, those who said they attended church weekly between the years 1985 and 1990 dropped from nearly 27 percent to 24 percent, say authors Alain Barti and George Mori in Canadian Social Trends. The study, which was also reported in ChristianWeek, shows the sharpest drop in church attendance occurred among those living in Quebec, from 30 to 24 percent. Only 20 percent of the respondents from Western Canada said they went to church weekly, while 34 percent from the Atlantic provinces indicated weekly attendance, the strongest showing by any region of the country.

Meanwhile, the number of those who say they have no religion increased in the study, from 10 percent in 1985 to 12 percent in 1990.

BASEBALL AND BIBLE

Preacher Cries Foul

A Tennessee evangelist has filed a federal lawsuit claiming that his free-speech rights were violated during game two of last year’s World Series when security guards at Cincinnati’s Riverfront Stadium stopped him from displaying a Bible sign. Guy Aubrey, 33, of Cleveland, Tennessee, says in a suit filed in U.S. District Court in Cincinnati that he was walking to his seat holding a “John 3:16” sign, when a security guard grabbed him and told him his sign violated the rules of Major League Baseball and the Cincinnati Reds. Aubrey says in the suit that guards and city police threatened to throw him out of the stadium, so he relinquished his sign under protest.

The suit, filed with the help of the Rutherford Institute, claims a stadium is a “public forum” and therefore must allow signs as free speech. A similar case occurred in 1989 at Robert F. Kennedy stadium in Washington, D.C., in which stadium officials apologized.

LAWSUIT

Diocese Found Negligent

A Colorado woman who had an affair with her Episcopal priest has been awarded $1.2 million by a jury, which ruled the priest’s bishop and the Diocese of Colorado mishandled the matter once they learned of it.

Plaintiff Mary Tenantry said she became involved with the Reverend Paul Robinson in 1984 when she was seeking counseling from him. Tenantry originally sued Robinson, along with Bishop William Frey and the diocese, charging they were negligent. Robinson was dropped from the suit after he declared bankruptcy.

The jury found that Frey and the diocese were negligent in their handling of the matter once it came to light. In testimony, Frey, who left the diocese last year to become president of Trinity Episcopal School for Ministry in Ambridge, Pennsylvania, admitted to jurors that he allowed Robinson’s promotion from curate of one church to rector of another, even though he knew of the affair. Frey said that he thought the priest deserved another chance, adding that Tenantry had told him she did not want the diocese to take any action that would “hurt” Robinson.

“I’m probably guilty of beïng naive taking Mary and Paul at their word, but I’m not conscious of being malicious,” Frey said, according to Episcopal Life magazine.

MICHIGAN

Education Plan Killed

After years of protest, thousands of Michigan parents appear to have won the battle to remove from the public schools an education plan they say advocated teaching that espoused New Age techniques and values clarification.

The plan, called the “Michigan Model,” was effectively killed when Gov. John Engler vetoed $2 million in funds for the program; two days later another $14 million in federal grants for drug education to be used for the program also fell through. Critics said its methods of “child choice,” in which students worked out problems by talking with their peers, could actually encourage drug use.

PEOPLE AND EVENTS

Briefly Noted

Torched: five churches in Gainesville and Ocala, Florida, bringing to 23 the number of arson-related church fires in the state since 1990. The fires have prompted local parishioners to stand guard overnight in their churches.

Offered: the Zondervan Radio Network, a new international public-affairs service of news, features, interviews, and commentaries. The service will be offered to radio stations to air within existing newscasts or at other times.

Refused: by a unanimous decision of the board of trustees of the University of Bridgeport in Connecticut, a $50 million offer for the financially troubled school to affiliate with an arm of Sun Myung Moon’s Unification Church.

Acknowledged: by Gov. Guy Hunt of Alabama, a Primitive Baptist preacher, that he made eight state-paid trips to preaching engagements. Hunt said the flights were most often combined with business. He apologized for “an error in judgment,” but added that he and his wife had “no intentions of turning our backs on God or the practice of our personal religious faith.”

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