News from the North American Scene: April 27, 1992

Children

Hunger Bill To Congress

Every fifth child in America is hungry, studies say. In late March, Congress began considering a measure that would provide nearly $2 billion in new funds for three government agencies that have proven to be effective in caring for those children.

The Every Fifth Child Act, developed by the antihunger group Bread for the World, was presented to Congress by Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and Sen. Robert Dole (R-Kan.). It would provide money for the Special Supplemental Food Program for Women, Infants, and Children; Head Start; and Job Corps.

“America’s children have already suffered from a decade of neglect,” says Bread for the World president David Beckmann. “The current recession only compounds their suffering.” An estimated 5.5 million children under age 12 in the United States are hungry, Beckmann says. An additional 6 million children often may not have enough food to eat, and one in every five U.S. children lives in poverty.

Orthodox Church

Ncc: Agreeing To Disagree

Leaders of the Orthodox church and the National Council of Churches (NCC) have agreed to disagree in hopes of preserving an increasingly tenuous working relationship.

Leaders of the Standing Conference of Canonical Orthodox Bishops in the Americas, a pan-Orthodox body representing ten Orthodox denominations, say they will “provisionally resume” their membership based on the new agreement. Under its terms, when the NCC issues a public statement upon which its members do not concur, a minority group statement may also be issued.

Led by the 1.9 million-member Greek Orthodox Church of North and South America, the Orthodox bodies broke from the NCC in June, citing liberal trends (CT, Aug. 19, 1991, p. 41).

Keeping the Orthodox bodies in the fold is seen as a victory for NCC General Secretary Joan Campbell, who had said the Orthodox were too important to lose. She said the new arrangement shows respect for varying opinions.

“The unity of the church is a high calling, and we must strive to find ways to respect and dignify our diversity, to preserve the bond of unity that binds us,” Campbell said.

The Orthodox groups’ return to the NCC was also contingent on whether the council would adopt the principles of the 1950 Toronto Statement, in which Orthodox bodies were assured by the World Council of Churches they could be full members without endorsing the more liberal theological stances of other church bodies.

Drugs For Sex

Teen Accuses Pastor; Suit Names Crouch And Aguilar

Religious broadcaster Paul Crouch has been dragged into another controversy after a youth at a drug-rehabilitation ranch run by a Crouch-supported ministry claimed a pastor there offered him drugs for sex.

Ryan Brewer, now 18, and his parents claim in a suit that last year he received cocaine in exchange for sex from pastor Mario Yanez Ruiz, the leader of the Shiloh Set Free Ranch in Colleyville, Texas. The ranch is run by controversial biker/pastor Phil Aguilar, leader of Set Free Christian Fellowship in Los Angeles, who founded the Colleyville ranch at the invitation of Crouch, who owns it.

A spokesperson for both Paul Crouch and his wife, Jan, attorney Dennis Brewer, says that “There is absolutely no basis for [the Crouches’] inclusion in the lawsuit.” Brewer says the Crouches don’t choose the facility’s staff, oversee its day-to-day activities, or “advertise the services of Set Free.” However, Crouch has featured Aguilar’s ministry on his Trinity Broadcasting Network (TBN).

A spokesperson for Aguilar, Israel Carmona, says the charges against Aguilar are “lies” motivated by a desire to bleed TBN of money. “Our allegation is that we are innocent victims of a pursuit of financial gain by a family whose business has been bankrupt for some years,” Carmona told CHRISTIANITY TODAY. The suit seeks unspecified damages, but Brewer’s attorney indicated the amount will exceed one million dollars. He claims Brewer has undeniable proof to back his charges.

The new controversy, coupled with another suit the Crouches faced concerning efforts to expand their network (CT, Aug. 19, 1991, p. 53), recently gained Crouch attention in the March 30, 1992, issue of Newsweek.

Denominations

Did National Baptists Try To Protect Tyson?

The Federal Bureau of Investigation is reportedly investigating whether leaders of the 7 million-member National Baptist Convention U.S.A. offered $1 million to beauty pageant contestant Desiree Washington to drop her rape charges against former heavyweight champion Mike Tyson. Convention president T. J. Jemison denies any such action by the predominantly black denomination. Tyson was convicted of rape last month.

Lutherans Delay Sexuality Vote

Lutherans have delayed from 1993 to 1995 discussing and voting on a controversial sexuality report after conservatives expressed strong reservations over its language. The “Human Sexuality and the Christian Faith” report, drafted by the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America’s (ELCA) Division for Church in Society board, says that “no absolutistic judgments can be made” about sexual relationships between persons of like gender.

That assertion raised the ire of ELCA conservatives and prompted a refutation by Leonard Klein in the unofficial denomination newsletter, the Forum Letter. The sexuality document endorses monogamy and speaks against infidelity. But Klein says the “ill-designed task force” has been “manipulative, false, and misleading” by leaving the door open for committed homosexual relationships. He chastised the committee for allegedly operating from “a very clear and very wrong doctrine … namely that the church is simply the sum of its members.”

Church State

Voices Of Conscience

Stephen Schroeder, 30, was sentenced in early March to six weekends in jail and nine months under home detention for smashing a limestone tablet of the Ten Commandments located outside the Indiana statehouse. Schroeder, a member of an Assemblies of God church, said he broke the tablet because it did not list the second commandment forbidding graven images. He also believed a triangular engraving on the tablet amounted to a graven image, according to Religious News Service.

Schroeder said he would serve the time but would not pay $2,500 to the state to replace the tablet. “I refuse to pay to put up what I risked everything to remove,” said Schroeder, a forklift driver.

• Prolife groups demonstrated in Miami in early March to support Maytee Albo, for 14 years a social worker for the Dade County Public Defender’s office, who claims she was fired after refusing to refer and transport clients for abortions. “I could not, in good conscience, continue to refer clients to receive abortions,” said Albo. Pat Mahoney, leader of the Christian Defense Coalition and a candidate for U.S. President, has said he will lead a campaign to have Albo reinstated.

People And Events

Briefly Noted

Changed: the name of the moderate Southern Baptist Alliance to the Alliance of Baptists, Inc. Alliance director Stan Hastey says many in the group, which draws its members largely from North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, and the District of Columbia, “no longer consider ourselves Southern Baptists.” The group has 73,000 members and 133 affiliate churches.

Approved: The Perkins Center for the Advanced Study and Practice of Evangelism, a $6 million center at Southern Methodist University that will emphasize research, education of ministers and laity, and resources for evangelism.

Founded: the Worldwide Leadership Council, Inc., a new organization to be headed by Jim Groen, past-president and chairman of Youth for Christ International. Groen says the new ministry will focus on “equipping the church worldwide in youth ministry, mentoring young leaders for twenty-first century leadership, and helping to provide the church in North America with a world Christian perspective.”

Extended: a grace period for creation theologian Matthew Fox, before his ouster from the Province of Saint Albert the Great in Chicago and the Dominican Order at large. Fox has been given until April 30 to return to Chicago from Oakland, where he runs the Institute in Culture and Creation Spirituality.

Launched: The Reformed Witness, a new publication for conservatives in the Christian Reformed Church. The magazine will go out to 77,105 households. “People in the pews just don’t know what’s going on in Grand Rapids,” says Brian Yonk man, chairman of the publication committee.

Died: Internationally known scholar George Gay, senior associate professor of New Testament and founder of the Hispanic Ministries program at Fuller Theological Seminary, on March 20. Gay, 75, had suffered from colon cancer.

Retired: Lewis Drummond, 65, as president of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, effective June 30. Drummond came to the Southern Baptist seminary in 1988, several months after the school’s president and other administrators and staff members resigned to protest the control being exerted by conservative trustees. The North Carolina seminary was placed on probation by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools last December amid concerns about its financial condition and long-running disputes among the faculty, administration, and board. Drummond announced his plans following a closed-door meeting of the trustees’ executive committee. In a prepared statement, he said: “It has become increasingly a clear conviction that I must leave the rebuilding to another.”

Granted: $180,000 from the Henry Luce Foundation to the Institute of Religion and Health, founded by Norman Vincent Peale, to help support training of African-American, Hispanic, and Asian clergy.

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