Briefly Volume 33, Number 3 Evangelical group opens its doors The Presbyterian Layman Posted May 22, 2000 The National Association of Evangelicals, an organization committed to transforming culture through the Gospel of Jesus Christ, is transforming itself to enhance its ministry. The association’s board of directors recently adopted a major change in its membership rules. For the first time, the organization’s bylaws allow denominations that are members of mainline ecumenical groups to have membership with the association as well. That means, for instance, that a denomination such as the Presbyterian Church (USA), whose major ecumenical ties are with the World Council of Churches and the National Council of Churches, could also affiliate with the National Association of Evangelicals. The change in membership rules is likely to present a new opportunity – or dilemma – for mainline denominations that have focused their ecumenical work on the world and national councils. NCC and WCC under fire Conservative members of the mainline denominations have long criticized affiliations with the NCC and WCC because of their political agendas. Recently, the NCC has been under heavy fire because of its $3.9-million 1999 deficit, which is being retired mostly by mainline denominations. (The PCUSA gave $500,000 toward the bailout.) Leaders of the mainline denominations are beginning to listen more carefully to that criticism. They are also talking about broadening their ecumenical relationships. The National Association of Evangelicals is an ecumenical organization of 79 denominations with 27 million members. One of the association’s core values is a “Biblical faith demonstrated by loyalty to the Word of God and commitment to proclaiming its message worldwide.” New Baptist denomination now on paper Religion Today Posted May 22, 2000 Four prominent Baptists have filed legal papers to form a breakaway denomination to rival the Southern Baptist Convention. They incorporated and registered the name Baptist Convention of the Americas. Founding members consider themselves moderates compared to the more conservative SBC. They are Herbert H. Reynolds, ex-president of Baylor University; John F. Baugh, a Houston businessman who financed moderate organizations in other states; W. Winfred Moore, former pastor of First Baptist Church in Amarillo, Texas, and an unsuccessful candidate for the SBC presidency; and Paul Powell, a Tyler, Texas, pastor and former head of the SBC pension board. Templeton Prize: Physicist-futurist winner of award The Layman Posted May 22, 2000 Freeman Dyson, the “midwife of Quantum Electrodynamics,” futurist and popularizer of science, has been honored with the Templeton Award for Progress in Religion. The award has been presented annually by Sir John Templeton, a Wall Street financier who is a director emeritus of the Presbyterian Lay Committee. Dyson is among a growing number of scientists who say the universe – and life – has meaning. He is the author of Disturbing the Universe, Weapons and Hope, and Infinite in All Directions, which won the Phi Beta Kappa award. Dyson calls himself a “follower of Christ,” but thinks of religion as a “way of life, not a belief.” “I’m not a saint or a theologian, and I always thought you had to be one or the other [to win the Templeton],” he told Ecumenical News International. He occasionally attends a Presbyterian church in Princeton, and his daughter is an ordained Presbyterian minister in Maine. Previous winners of the Templeton Award include Mother Teresa, Billy Graham, Bill Bright of Campus Crusade for Christ, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and Charles Colson. Supreme Court: Students must pay for unwanted groups Religion Today Posted May 22, 2000 Students must pay fees to groups they don’t like, such as gay-rights organizations, at public colleges that charge mandatory fees, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled. The case involved former University of Wisconsin students who sued the school in 1996, complaining about having to pay fees that fund campus extracurricular groups, including the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Center and the International Socialist Organization. “As a conservative and a Christian, it was frustrating to see the money going to organizations I personally disagree with,” said Scott Southworth, one of the former students. The high court ruled that mandatory fees at public colleges and universities do not violate any student’s free-speech rights, but instead promote the university’s goal to “facilitate a wide range of speech,” Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote. Environment: Conservatives form stewardship council Religion Today Posted May 22, 2000 WASHINGTON – A group of prominent clergy and ministry leaders led by James Dobson of Focus on the Family announced formation of the Interfaith Council for Environmental Stewardship in Washington, D.C. During a press conference in Washington, the group issued the “Cornwall Declaration on Environmental Stewardship” stating their principles. Signers included D. James Kennedy of Coral Ridge Ministries; Richard Land of the Southern Baptist Convention; Rabbi Daniel Lapin, a conservative Jewish activist; Catholic priest Richard John Neuhaus of the journal First Things; and Robert Sirico, a Catholic priest who is president of the Acton Institute for the Study of Religion and Liberty. It was the first such major statement conservative evangelicals have made on the environment, news reports said. People should “care wisely and humbly for all creatures, first and foremost for their fellow human beings, recognizing their proper place in the created order,” signers of the declaration said. The group criticized much of the environmental movement as too radical. It said environmentalists too often base their actions on “faulty science and economics, strident street theater, and demands for immediate, drastic action on problems that are often hypothetical or overstated.” Debt Derails Bishop: Atlanta consecration service is canceled Ecumenical News International Posted May 22, 2000 Just a week from his scheduled consecration as Episcopal bishop of Atlanta, Robert Trache was told that the service was canceled. “The Standing Committee of the Diocese of Atlanta, by unanimous decision, has withdrawn its consent to the consecration,” the statement said. The statement cited “very recent discoveries of lack of disclosure in personal financial and family matters. The Standing Committee is no longer confident in Trache’s ability to function as bishop of Atlanta.” Trache, rector of St. James’ Church in Richmond, Va., was elected by a special council of the diocese on the fifth ballot. According to news reports, Trache filed for Chapter 7 personal bankruptcy three months after he was elected, listing his assets at less than $18,000 and his outstanding debts at more than $122,000, most of it to credit card companies. Scholar’s Find Studied: Sodom and Gomorrah at bottom of Dead Sea? Religion Today Posted May 22, 2000 A Bible scholar believes he may have found the ruins of Sodom and Gomorrah. Michael Sanders and an international team of researchers in November used a mini-submarine to find what appears to be the salt-encrusted remains of ancient settlements at the bottom of the Dead Sea, the Daily Telegraph of London said. Sodom and Gomorrah are the evil cities that the Bible says were destroyed by God with fire and brimstone. Sanders, who is British-born but resides in the United States, said the team would return to the area to chip off the salt for more conclusive evidence. There is a good chance that the mounds Sanders found are “the lost cities of the plains, possibly even Sodom and Gomorrah,” said John Whitaker, a geologist from Leicester University and former editor of Geology Today. Some archaeologists and scholars have concluded that the story of Sodom and Gomorrah was symbolic, but others think the cities existed in the region of the Dead Sea, the Telegraph said. Some experts are convinced that the “cities of the plain” were destroyed about 5,000 years ago by an earthquake that threw up flaming pitch. Archaeologists have discovered graves on a peninsula jutting into the Dead Sea that contains human bones dating from the Old Testament period, the Telegraph said.

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