January 21, 2002

Support for capital punishment slipping
___WASHINGTON (RNS)--New research shows support for capital punishment may be slipping, even as Maryland's highest court voted to uphold the death penalty in a 4-3 vote.
___New figures released by the U.S. Justice Department said the 214 death sentences issued in 2000 represent a 29 percent drop from 1998. In addition, the number of inmates executed last year dropped 32 percent compared to 1999.
___More than half last year's death sentences came from five states--Texas, California, North Carolina, Florida and Pennsylvania.
___Richard Dieter, director of the Death Penalty Information Center, told USA Today growing unease with the death penalty--including overturned convictions, possible racial bias and executions of the mentally retarded--is giving prosecutors pause in seeking the death penalty.
___Even though support and use of the death penalty may be waning, advocates won a major victory in Maryland when the Court of Appeals rejected the case of four inmates who said a U.S. Supreme Court ruling invalidated the state's death penalty law.

Graham organization moving to Charlotte
___MINNEAPOLIS (RNS)--Leaders of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association will move the 51-year-old organization from its longtime location in Minneapolis to Charlotte, N.C.
___"Minneapolis has been very good to us, but we have run out of room to grow," Graham told ministry employees as they met for a biennial staff conference in West Virginia.
___Franklin Graham, eldest son of the evangelist and CEO of the association, said his father's hometown was the "most logical" new location for the ministries related to his family.
___Most already are in North Carolina. The younger Graham's Christian relief organization, Samaritan's Purse, is located in Boone. The Billy Graham Training Center at the Cove is in Asheville. The elder Graham's home is in Montreat.
___Relocation is not expected for three to five years.
___The relocation decision was fueled at least in part by the Minneapolis City Council's Nov. 9 decision to include ministry property in a new historic preservation district.

Jewish population gains most in Las Vegas
___WASHINGTON (RNS)--Las Vegas has the fastest-growing Jewish population in the country, followed closely by Seattle, according to the 2001 Jewish Year Book.
___The annual survey compiled by the American Jewish Committee also saw a decline of 10,000 in Miami's aging Jewish community--a longtime stronghold of East Coast Jewry. The Jewish community in Buffalo, N.Y., also shrank by 6,000.
___The explosive growth in Las Vegas--35 percent--mirrors record growth across the state documented by the 2000 U.S. Census. According to census figures, Nevada's population grew by 66 percent in the past decade; Clark County, home to Las Vegas, grew by 85.6 percent.
___Data for the survey was submitted by nearly 200 local Jewish federations to an umbrella group, United Jewish Communities, and the North American Jewish Data Bank.
___The total U.S. Jewish population remains at about 6 million, with 46 percent of Jews living in the Northeast, according to the Year Book. One-third of U.S. Jews live in the metropolitan New York area--down from 52 percent a century ago.
___Eleven percent of U.S. Jews live in the Midwest, and about 21 percent live in the South. Jews in the Western United States have risen from about 6 percent a century ago to 22 percent today.

Land blasts Democrats for Taliban comments
___NASHVILLE, Tenn.--A Southern Baptist Convention leader who has denied charges that his agency engages in partisan politics made statements Jan. 5 strongly denouncing the Democratic Party.
___Richard Land, president of the SBC's Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, said the Democratic Party is engaged in a campaign to compare the Religious Right with the Taliban of Afghanistan.
___Such a political strategy is an "outrageous battle plan" that will destroy the sense of unity found in the nation since Sept. 11, Land said in a Baptist Press article written by one of his employees.
___He cited a Dec. 31 political column in Newsweek magazine that outlined a Democratic Party strategy to warn Americans about "religious extremism and intolerance" both at home and abroad.
___Democratic charges that the Republican Party is too dependent upon an intolerant Religious Right is "outrageous," Land said.
___Last year, the Baptist General Convention of Texas defunded the ERLC in its Adopted Budget, charging that Land and his agency engage in partisan politics. Land, a former member of Texas Republican Gov. Bill Clements' staff, has strongly denied charges of partisanship.

Lilly gives $25 million to fight clergy burnout
___INDIANAPOLIS (RNS)--The Lilly Endowment is hoping to fight clergy burnout by spending $25 million to find ways for pastors to "sustain excellence" and "maintain energy and enthusiasm" throughout their careers.
___The Indianapolis-based foundation said the physical, spiritual and emotional health of pastors is key to maintaining healthy, vibrant congregations.
___Officials are seeking proposals for grants, which will range from $250,000 to $2 million over three- to five-year periods. Non-profit groups, ranging from seminaries and colleges to congregations and denominations, are invited to apply.
___Programs funded by the grants could include sabbaticals, networking with other clergy or ongoing studies for Christian pastors. "Local congregations are crucial institutions, and the pastors who lead them need and deserve support for sustaining excellent work," the foundation said.

Number of mosques increasing in U.S.
___HARTFORD, Conn. (RNS)--The number of mosques in the United States is on the increase, according to a study of 41 religious denominations by Hartford Seminary.
___The number of mosques in the nation increased 42 percent between 1990 and 2000--to at least 1,200--outpacing the 12 percent average increase among evangelical Protestant denominations and the 2 percent average increase among mainline Protestant, Catholic and Orthodox groups.
___Sixty percent of the 416 randomly selected mosques reported at least a 10 percent increase in membership between 1995 and 2000, according to the seminary's Faith Communities Today research, which surveyed more than 14,000 religious congregations in 41 faiths. Researchers continue to mine the data for new findings.
___Forty-eight percent of Mormon congregations reported similar growth numbers, as did 39 percent of evangelical Protestant congregations and 29 percent of Roman Catholic and Orthodox parishes.
___About 27 percent of mainline Protestant congregations reported such an increase. Mega-churches of all denominations ranked above Muslims at No. 1, with a reported average increase of 83 percent.
___The increase suggests that "Islam is one of the fastest growing religious groups in the United States," said David Roozen, director of Hartford Seminary's Institute for Religion Research and a co-director of the study.
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