Subject:  Religion in the News 
Date:     Tue, 21 Apr 1998 23:49:01 +0000 
To:       "Hebraic Heritage Newsgroup"<heb_roots_chr@geocities.com>  
  

From:    Eddie Chumney 
To:      heb_roots_chr@geocities.com 
Subject: Religion in the News 
  

RUSSIAN ORTHODOX LEADER NOT READY TO MEET WITH POPE 

Copyright   1998 Nando.net   1998 Reuters News Service Moscow 
(April 14, 1998) 

The head of the Russian Orthodox Church said on Tuesday it was 
still too early for him to meet Pope John Paul for what would be 
the first top-level discussions between the two Christian 
churches in a millennium. "At the present time the prevalent view 
in the Russian Orthodox Church is that the ground for such a 
meeting has not been sufficiently prepared," Patriarch Alexiy II 
said in written answers to questions from Reuters.  "Not in a 
technical sense of course, but because we still do not have the 
necessary degree of understanding between our two churches of the 
problems and ways of solving them," he wrote ahead of the Russian 
Orthodox Easter next weekend. 

Pope John Paul has called for stronger relations between 
Christianity's different churches as believers prepare to 
celebrate the 2,000th anniversary of the birth of Jesus Christ. 

But the two church leaders have been unable to agree to meet and 
talks last June on a possible encounter collapsed. 

RUSSIA'S RELIGION LAW 

April 15, 1998 Moscow (AP) 

An American missionary has been forced to return to the United 
States under a Russia's new law restricting foreign religious 
groups, a news report said Wednesday.  Dan Pollard, former pastor 
of an independent Baptist church in Russia's Far East, was denied 
renewal of his visa and left Russia in March, the 
English-language Moscow Times reported. 

The newspaper said that Pollard, who started a church in 1992 in 
the Pacific coast town of Vanino, more than 4,000 miles east of 
Moscow, is one of the first foreigners forced out under the new 
restrictions.  In an interview, Pollard told the newspaper that a 
local official in the Khabarovsk region told him he wanted to rid 
the region of foreign missionaries. 
  

VATICAN: POPE CAN'T VISIT ISRAEL DUE TO 'POLITICAL CONTEXT' 

By Lisa Palmieri-billig Rome (April 19) Jerusalem Post 

Vatican Secretary of Relations between States Monsignor Jean 
Louis Tauran yesterday dampened expectations of a papal visit to 
Israel in the near future.  He told reporters that in "today's 
political context the conditions" necessary for a papal visit, 
"do not exist..."  While ruling out a visit "at this moment," he 
left the future open. 

"Let's see what happens in two years. The great dilemma of the 
Holy Father, said Tauran, is that if he makes a pilgrimage to the 
Holy Land, instead of being "a symbol of peace" it would 
"legitimize, consecrate, situations of international injustice." 

Tauran, considered the Vatican's "foreign minister," said there 
was great "frustration among both the Palestinian and Israeli 
populations regarding the peace process begun in Madrid. They ask 
what fruits has it brought, and the reply is 'none.'" 

He said there was "danger that we are moving toward dramatic 
developments... that the frustration will lead to irrational 
reactions. I think that those responsible politically for the 
region, from whichever side, and the international community, 
must be aware of the risks of such deep frustration." 
  

BISHOP SAYS THE BIBLE IS ROOT OF HOMOPHOBIA 

by Ruth Gledhil, Religion Correspondent - London Times 4/18/98 

THE leader of the Anglican Church in Scotland today accuses the 
churches of homophobia and links this to "ignorant" Bible texts. = 

The Right Rev Richard Holloway, Bishop of Edinburgh, will tell 
the conference of the Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement in 
London: "Violent homophobia is still alive and kicking, and much 
of it is motivated by religious zeal." He says: "The Bible, 
though it is one of our greatest treasures, is also our greatest 
danger." 

His comments will cause further anguish in a Church struggling to 
control the conflict over homosexuality. On Easter Day Peter 
Tatchell, the gay rights campaigner, pictured, was charged with 
"riotous or violent behaviour in a church" after disrupting the 
Archbishop of Canterbury's sermon. 

In his address, released yesterday to The Times, Bishop Holloway 
says that traditional religions are being abandoned as "primitive 
superstitions" because they cannot change. "This is why many 
feminists have abandoned Christianity," he says. "They see it as 
incurably patriarchal and oppressive." 

He says the Bible can no longer be read as a fixed and unchanging 
law, and must be seen as "flawed and fallible". Declaring that 
eventually the churches will accept homosexuality, he says: "We 
have recently abandoned the text's tyranny over women, as we 
abandoned its justification of slavery, and soon we'll abandon 
its ignorant misunderstanding of homosexuality. 

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