RELIGION BRIEFING

Saturday, May 24, 2008

EVANGELICAL COALITION

One Million Christians Are Asked To Question Global Warming Threat

A coalition of conservative evangelical leaders wants to enlist 1 million Christians to sign a statement questioning whether human-caused global warming is a real threat and arguing that restrictive environmental policies harm poor people.

Materials from the "We Get It!" campaign say that "recent, slight warming" is an unproven threat that could lead to restrictions in energy use and drive up the cost of energy and food for the world's poor.

Several leaders and groups on the evangelical right back the campaign, including James Dobson of Focus on the Family, Richard Land of the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, the Family Research Council, the Institute on Religion and Democracy and the Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation.

The effort is a response, in part, to the 2006 launch of the Evangelical Climate Initiative, which acknowledges that people cause global warming and says that Christian moral convictions demand an urgent response.

-- Associated Press

CHRISTIAN MISSIONARIES

Orthodox Jews in Jerusalem Burn Copies of New Testament

Orthodox Jews have burned hundreds of copies of the New Testament in the latest act of violence against Christian missionaries in the Holy Land.

The deputy mayor of a mostly Orthodox town said missionaries had recently distributed the New Testaments. When residents complained, he said, the books were collected, tossed into a pile and burned.

Israeli authorities and Orthodox Jews frown on missionary activity aimed at Jews, although in most cases it is not illegal. Still, the concept of a Jew burning books is abhorrent to many in Israel because of the association with Nazis torching piles of Jewish books during the Holocaust.

-- Associated Press

MEMPHIS

Church Gives Worshipers $30,000 To Help Improve Others' Lives

The offerings at a church in Memphis have been reversed. On Sunday, Pastor Chris Bennett passed out 600 envelopes containing a total of $30,000, exhorting his congregation at Christ the Rock Church to take a "radical step of faith" and give the money away in random acts of kindness.

The envelopes contained varying amounts of cash, from $5 to $500. Pamela Beck-McQuade received an envelope containing $100. She bought three $33 supermarket gift certificates and gave them to shoppers. She planned to give the other dollar to a child.

The money had been donated by major church supporters.

-- Associated Press

CATHOLICS

Church Is Growing in Africa As Numbers Stall, Drop Elsewhere

Africa is the Catholic Church's region of biggest growth, with rising numbers of faithful, clergy and religious orders, according to Vatican statistics. But the church's growth in the Americas has largely stalled, and Europe's share of the world's largest church continues to decline.

The findings appeared in May 18 issue of the official Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano.

Although the world's proportion of baptized Catholics remained roughly the same over the seven-year period -- 1.1 billion Catholics, or 17.3 percent of the world's population -- its geographical distribution shifted markedly.

The most notable change was in Africa, where the share of the worldwide church rose from 12.4 percent to 14 percent.

The Western Hemisphere held steady with about half of the world's Catholics and 30 percent of its priests. Asia's share of the world's Catholic population also remained unchanged at 10 percent. The church continued to shrink in its traditional heartland, Europe, where the portion of the world's Catholics fell from 26.8 percent to 25 percent.

-- Religion News Service