National Notes
___ Wilkinson enlarges his territory. Best-selling author Bruce Wilkinson has resigned as president of Walk Thru the Bible Ministries in Atlanta to pursue "a broader mission through the medium of television and film." Wilkinson, author of "The Prayer of Jabez," will move to California but expects to remain close to the Atlanta ministry he founded 25 years ago. Walk Thru the Bible hosted more than 2,500 seminars across the country last year. The para-church ministry also has a publishing arm.
___ Missionary wants $35 million from government. A missionary whose wife and infant daughter were killed last year when their plane was mistakenly shot down by a Peruvian fighter jet is seeking $35 million in compensation from the U.S. government. Jim Bowers, who worked with native tribes along the Amazon River with his wife and two children, is increasingly frustrated that his case seems stalled in Washington, said his lawyer, Karen Hastie Williams. Bowers' plane was targeted in a joint U.S.-Peruvian operation on April 20, 2001, when Peruvian officials mistook the plane for drug smugglers. Subsequent investigations found the CIA-run program had become sloppily managed and the Bowers' plane was not given warnings before it was shot down.
___ "Evil" up for grabs in Alabama. A state representative in Alabama has proposed legislation declaring that no class of citizens in the state is "inherently evil" in response to a controversial opinion by Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore. In a recent written opinion, Moore said homosexuality is "inherently evil" when the Supreme Court awarded custody of children to a heterosexual father instead of a lesbian mother. State Rep. Alvin Holmes, D-Montgomery, said he introduced the bill in the Alabama Legislature to ensure that future courts do not interpret Moore's opinion as state law.
___ AIDS funding encouraged. A broad coalition of religious groups is asking Congress to more than triple the current level of funding to fight the global AIDS pandemic. In a joint letter to the House and Senate Budget Committees, 23 mainline Protestant, evangelical, Roman Catholic, Jewish and Muslim groups asked for $2.5 billion in next year's budget to help the 40 million people infected with the virus around the world. Current funding is $779 million.
___ Fun gone from fundamentalism. Bob Jones University wants to shed its label as a "fundamentalist" school. "'Fundamentalist' evokes fear, suspicion and other repulsive connotations in its current usage," wrote Bob Jones III, president of the Tennessee school that proudly wore the label for decades. The changing sentiments don't surprise Robert Parham, executive director of the Baptist Center for Ethics in Nashville, Tenn. In a January column, he predicted Christian fundamentalists would dump the term because of perceived linkages to Muslim fundamentalism and terrorism. And, indeed, Jones explained the term "is beginning to carry an onerous connotation with the world at large because of the media's penchant for lumping Christian fundamentalists in the same heap as Islamic fundamentalists." His preferred term instead is "preservationist."
___ Bush whacked by young supporters over oil. A group describing itself as "young conservative Christians," founded by two Southern Baptists, is challenging the president they helped elect over his environmental policies. Christian Youth for Conservation formed in opposition to President George W. Bush's plan to drill for oil in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Brothers Brad and Phil Taylor, who grew up as members of Pleasant View Baptist Church in Port Deposit, Md., both supported Bush's presidential campaign. But they started the group, they said, after coming under conviction in their prayers about stewardship of the environment.
___ Faith-based leader, take two. Jim Towey is President Bush's new appointee to head the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives. Most recently, he was head of Aging with Dignity, a Florida-based advocacy group. He will replace John DiIulio, who returned to teaching. Towey describes himself as a Democrat and was director of Florida's human services agency under Democratic Gov. Lawton Chiles. However, he later endorsed Chiles' Republican successor, Gov. Jeb Bush, who is President Bush's brother. Towey also has worked for retired Republican Sen. Mark Hatfield of Oregon. Towey is a Catholic who lists the late Mother Teresa as one of his major inspirations.
___ House bill protects babies. The U.S. House of Representatives again has approved a bill providing legal protection to fully delivered babies, even when abortion is intended. The House approved by voice vote March 12 the Born Alive Infants Protection Act, H.R. 2175. The bill clarifies a newborn child fully outside his mother's womb is a person to be protected under federal law. The Senate has yet to act on the bill this year, although it approved the measure as an amendment to other legislation last year.
___ Presbyterians uphold gay ban. In a major setback for liberal Presbyterians, the nation's largest Presbyterian church on Feb. 19 soundly defeated a move to allow non-celibate gay clergy in church pulpits. The 5-year-old ban in the Presbyterian Church (USA) was upheld by a majority of the church's 173 regional bodies, called presbyteries. The amendment to the church's constitution, easily passed by delegates to last summer's general assembly, would have removed language that requires clergy to live "in fidelity within the covenant of marriage between a man and a woman, or chastity in singleness." It also would have deleted a 1978 provision that prohibits the ordination of "self-affirming practicing homosexuals."
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