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Church group makes environmental tour to mining-scarred mountains

EOLIA, Ky. -- Sam Gilbert made his living mining coal from the mountains of eastern Kentucky -- that's how he fed his family and paid his bills. He lives in the hills along Rocky Branch on Black Mountain and loves this piece of heaven.

He also sees what's happening at the top.

Before he retired, Gilbert was a strip miner. Now, in the push to dig the coal out faster, driven in part by consumers' incessant push for "cheap" energy, the coal companies have speeded up the process by blowing off the tops of mountains to get at the coal seams. It's a technique, aided by big machinery, known as mountaintop removal. It is transforming the landscape in these hills.

On an overcast Friday afternoon, Gilbert -- tall and lean in his blue jeans -- stood in his neighbors' front yard, leaning against a tree, telling visitors from Yale University and from Crescent Hill Church in Louisville about his efforts to take on the coal company and protect his property. This spring, Gilbert and his wife, Evelyn, pushed elected officials from Letcher Fiscal Court to block Cumberland River Coal Company from dumping debris from the top of Black Mountain down the creek behind their house, and also into another nearby creek.

The Gilberts and their allies from Kentuckians for the Commonwealth (www.kftc.org), a grassroots group working on justice issues, prevailed this time -- but stopped the dumping of mining debris into these two creeks only. The debris will be diverted to places where the coal company had already been at work.

Methodist Task Force Issues divestment recommendations

LAWRENCE, Massachusetts -- The New England Conference of The United Methodist Church has issued its Divestment Task Force report, including recommendations for divestment from twenty companies identified as supporting the Israeli occupation in Palestine.

Based on the research and findings of the Conference's Divestment Task Force, the report outlines the process and the recommendations for divestment. The company listing with details on each company and the reasons for the divestment recommendation can be found at www.neumc.org/divest. The Web site also includes the original resolution, a full copy of the report and recommendations of the Divestment Task Force, and additional supporting documentation and resources, including statements from Jewish organizations in support of divestment.

The Divestment Task Force was created to implement Resolution 204, which was passed during the 2005 New England Annual Conference session (RS-204: Resolution on Divesting from Companies that are Supporting in a Significant Way the Israeli Occupation of Palestinian Territories).  This resolution followed on the heels of Resolution 312, which was passed at the 2004 General Conference of The United Methodist Church.

California church youth killed in fatal crash

An adult and three teenagers from Upland, California, congregations, including First Church in Upland, died June 23 in a church van -- pickup truck collision west of Barstow, Calif.

Rebecca Vetterani, 28, a seminarian intern at First Church, died in the three-vehicle accident that shut down U.S. 395 west of Barstow for hours, according to a Los Angeles Times report. Her husband, youth director Tom Vetterani, was severely burned and in critical condition following the crash.

Synod courts hand down mixed messages on ordination standards

LOUISVILLE -- A church court has concluded that Pittsburgh Presbytery cannot "elevate" language from the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) Constitution to make compliance with ordination standards "essential" and that it must apply the guidelines to ministerial candidates on an individual basis.

The May 16 ruling by the Permanent Judicial Commission (PJC) of the Synod of the Trinity followed a two-day hearing in Camp Hill, Pa., regarding a resolution that Pittsburgh Presbytery adopted on Oct. 12, 2006.

The presbytery's resolution called compliance with the PC(USA)'s ordination standards from the Book of Order, which require chastity in singleness or fidelity in heterosexual marriage, an "essential of Reformed polity." It stated that no exceptions would be permitted within the jurisdiction of Pittsburgh Presbytery.

This ruling runs contrary to one handed down March 20 by the Permanent Judicial Commission of the Synod of Alaska-Northwest. 

Korean Presbyterians shave their heads to protest school law

SEOUL, South Korea -- At least 365 ministers, elders and missionaries of the Presbyterian Church of Korea (PCK) have shaved off their hair to protest a controversial revision to South Korea's law regulating private schools.

Joan S. Gray, moderator of the 217th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), learned of the ongoing outcry surrounding the reform bill during a recent visit here. The PCK and other private school owners have staged campaigns to stop the measure while threatening to close down schools.

The revised law requires private schools from elementary to university level to fill 25 percent of their boards of directors with outsiders who are unrelated to the institutions.

The aim, supporters say, is to produce more transparency in management and reduce corruption among those who control the schools.

MRTI facing ‘legitimate issues’ after 2006 GA divestment action

©2007. Used by permission.

LOUISVILLE -- Conversations are under way with three of the five multinational companies targeted by the denomination's Mission Responsibility Through Investment committee -- three years after a decision by the 216th General Assembly to use shareholder pressure to reform corporate behavior that supports the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

"Basically, the Assembly acknowledged there are legitimate issues here," said Bill Somplatsky-Jarman, who staffs MRTI's work, referring to actions taken by the 2006 Assembly that modified language in the original action, calling for investment in "peaceful pursuits" and specifically expanded its mandate to study corporate involvement in Gaza, historically Palestinian East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Israel.

The original language called for a process of phased, selective divestment of companies who profit from Israel's occupation of the West Bank and Gaza.

LCWE hosts Church leaders to plan 2010 meeting in Capetown

BUDAPEST, HUNGARY -- More than 360 Christian leaders from 60+ countries participated in the Lausanne Committee for World Evangelization (LCWE) Bi-Annual International Leadership Meeting, a week-long planning session that ended here June 22. The meeting was an opportunity for leaders to pray, plan, and work together toward Lausanne III: Cape Town 2010, the Third International Congress on World Evangelization to be held October 16-25, 2010.

The Budapest meeting of global Lausanne leadership discussed the potential barriers and opportunities of global evangelization, and how the Church can share the hope of the Gospel to every nation on earth. The Rev. S. Douglas (Doug) Birdsall, LCWE Executive Chair, urged the leaders to work together for the cause of Christ, "Because there is so much at stake. The task is bigger and the urgency more obvious."

Simple Way Community Center destroyed by fire

The Simple Way, an inner city Philadelphia community center, was destroyed by fire early in the morning of June 20. The seven-alarm fire consumed an abandoned warehouse in the Kensington neighborhood, the Simple Way Community Center on Potter Street, as well as at least eight nearby homes. More than 100 people were evacuated.

There were no casualties; all affected residents reached safety.

Eight families are now homeless, many having lost their automobiles as well.  Shane Claiborne, author of The Irresistible Revolution:  Living as an Ordinary Radical, a resident and leader of the community center, lost all his possessions to the fire. 

For further information, as well as information for making donations, go to www.thesimpleway.org.
 
 

Browns recall Ruth, Bell family

National and international tributes to Ruth Bell Graham since her death June 14 include the remembrances of a retired Presbyterian couple in Stone Mountain, Ga., G. Thompson "Tommy" Brown and his wife, Mardia Hooper Brown. "We knew and loved her. She was always cheerful," he says.

African church leader ‘outraged’ at Zimbabwe rights abuses

Cologne, Germany, 13 June (ENI)--The leader of a major grouping of African churches has expressed outrage at human rights abuses in Zimbabwe, and has urged the world to help resolve the political crisis in the southern African country.

'What is happening in Zimbabwe is an embarrassment even to us as Africans,' said the Rev. Mvume Dandala, general secretary of the Nairobi-based All Africa Conference of Churches, during a recent Protestant convention called the Kirchentag, held in Cologne in western Germany.

Future of Christianity under threat in Iraq, church leader warns

Rome, 14 June (ENI)--A Christian leader from Iraq has warned that Christianity may disappear from his country if no action is taken to stem the hardships faced by this minority community in the predominantly Muslim country.

'Members of all religions - including both Islam and Christianity - are suffering now in my country but Christians as a minority are in greater danger of seeing their historic churches disappear,' said Archbishop Jules Mikhael Al-Jamil, the Rome representative of the Syrian Catholic Church.

Christian Reformed Church agrees to women clergy

© Ecumenical News International

New York -- The Christian Reformed Church, one of the North American branches of the Protestant Reformed tradition, has voted to allow the ordination of women after almost four decades of discussion on the issue.

'I've worked and prayed for this moment for years,' said the Rev. George

Vander Weit, an advocate of women's ordination in the denomination. 'I think [this proposal] gives us space.'

The June 12 decision was made at the denomination's annual synod meeting in Grand Rapids, Mich. A day later, the synod voted to allow women as delegates to the denomination's synod.