Faith Digest

Posted: 3/14/08

Faith Digest

Hinn submits records to Senate committee. After several weeks of delay, televangelist Benny Hinn has submitted a “significant amount” of financial material to a Senate committee that is investigating the finances of six prominent ministries to make sure they are complying with tax laws that apply to other nonprofit entities. Jill Gerber, a spokeswoman for the Senate Finance Committee, said ranking Republican Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa and his staff “will evaluate whether the material responds sufficiently but are encouraged by the demonstration of cooperation.” Joyce Meyer Ministries in Fenton, Mo., already provided materials that were reviewed by Senate staff. Kenneth Copeland Ministries submitted some materials. The other three ministries—Creflo Dollar, Paula and Randy White and Bishop Eddie Long—have yet to provide financial records.

Union Seminary appoints first woman president. Serene Jones, a feminist scholar who has taught 17 years at Yale Divinity School, has been named president of Union Theological Seminary. Jones, 48, is the first woman to head the 172-year-old nondenominational seminary located in upper Manhattan and affiliated with Columbia University. Jones will begin her duties July 1 at an institution that has served as a scholarly home for such major theological figures as Reinhold Niebuhr and Paul Tillich. Jones is an ordained minister in both the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) and the United Church of Christ.

NFL gives tacit blessing to church Super Bowl events. The National Football League will allow churches to air live showings of the Super Bowl on widescreen TVs, reversing a previous ban. Members of Congress, including Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, and church leaders had objected to the NFL’s rule that churches could not hold Super Bowl parties featuring TV screens larger than 55 inches, even though sports bars routinely do. “For future Super Bowls, the league will not object to live showings—regardless of screen size—of the Super Bowl by a religious organization when such showings are free and on premises used by the religious organization on a routine and customary basis,” NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell wrote in a letter to Hatch. Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., had introduced legislation that would allow churches to show the Super Bowl on widescreen televisions. Goodell told Hatch the league believes legislation is not necessary and will begin its policy with the Super Bowl next Feb. 1.

United Methodists join antitorture campaign. The United Methodist Church’s social policy office is circulating a petition that tells President Bush—a fellow Methodist—torture is immoral and ineffective. The Methodists’ General Board of Church and Society was one of 10 groups that sent a letter to Bush urging him to sign the Intelligence Authorization bill. The legislation would ban the CIA’s use of waterboarding or other interrogation techniques that many consider torture. President Bush has threatened to veto the bill, but more than 1,600 signers of the petition are urging him to authorize it.