By James V. Heidinger II,
President and Publisher

GOOD NEWS PERSPECTIVE – No. 5, October 22, 2007

  Welcome to this issue of Perspective, Good News’ email newsletter. If you find it helpful and informative, share it with others and invite them to subscribe by emailing us here at: perspective@goodnewsmag.org.

GLOBAL MINISTRIES CHIEF EXECUTIVE DISMISSED ABRUPTLY – The directors of the General Board of Global Ministries took action at the board’s fall meeting in Stamford, Connecticut, to abruptly dismiss the Rev. R. Randy Day, the mission agency’s chief executive.

The action not to re-nominate Day came October 9 upon the recommendation from the board’s personnel committee at its annual meeting. The dismissal was effective that day.

Following that action, directors approved the appointment of an interim chief executive, and retired United Methodist Bishop Felton May was chosen to fill that position.

Bishop Joel Martinez (San Antonio Area), the current president of GBGM, said in a statement released October 10 that the decision “does not diminish our appreciation for the many talents and skills of Randy Day but indicates that directors are looking for a different style of administrative leadership to take us into the future.”

For the full story, go to www.goodnewsmag.org or to: http://www.umc.org/site/apps/nl/content3.asp? c=lwL4KnN1LtH&b=2433457&ct=4509233

ELDER STATESMEN TELL OF VIOLENCE IN DARFUR – International elder statesmen including Archbishop Desmond Tutu and former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, along with Virgin airlines tycoon Richard Branson, have returned from Darfur reporting that the region in Sudan was rife with violence and deeply divided.

The three influential figures issued a warning that rape was widespread and was still being ignored by the Sudanese authorities in Khartoum, the nation’s capital. They also urged more pressure to be placed on Khartoum to hand over war crimes suspects for trial at the International Criminal Court.

Graca Machel, a veteran women and children’s rights advocate, was also a part of the delegation. She reported, “Every woman told us, we are raped, we are beaten and we are harassed.” She added, “We are very concerned that it doesn’t seem to have changed for the better, on the contrary it has changed for the worse. We were even told that yesterday a girl as young as 10 years was raped.”

The horrific tragedy that has befallen the people of Darfur in recent years can scarcely be overstated. For the full story, go to the ASSIST News Service web site at: www.assistnews.net, where the story is posted on October 6, 2007.

IS CHRISTIAN FAITH REALLY HARMFUL TO CHILDREN?  -- In his BreakPoint Commentary for 10/10/2007, Prison Fellowship Founder Chuck Colson cites the claim by outspoken atheist Richard Dawkins in his popular book The God Delusion that religious belief is “delusional” and that it is really a kind of “child abuse.”

The abuse comes, says Dawkins, when children are taught such things like nonbelievers spending an eternity in hell. If there is long-term damage caused by physical child abuse, Dawkins asks “why should you not sue for the long-term mental damage caused by mental child abuse?”

Colson notes that it is unfair to criticize Christianity for its teaching on the afterlife without discussing the atheistic alternative presumably preferred by Dawkins: that is, when we die, we become worm food, and the universe soon forgets that we ever existed. Colson says, “Now that’s the stuff of real childhood nightmares!”

Colson goes on to cite sociologists Christian Smith and Melinda Lundquist Denton who studied the impact of religious practice on American teenagers. They found that kids who were described as “devoted” or “regular” participants in religious activities did better than their un-churched counterparts. In fact, says the study, “They did better at school; they were more active in the community; and, contrary to what Dawkins says, they scored higher on measures of ‘emotional well-being.’”

My guess is that most of us reading about this would know intuitively that young believers were better off in their personal and social development and performance. But it is good to see it verified by a sociological study. For the full article, go to: http://www.breakpoint.org/listingarticle.asp?ID=1945&print=1  

STATISTICS OF INTEREST FROM THE REV. RILEY CASE – On numerous occasions, I have referred to my friend and colleague, Riley Case, as the Will Rogers of United Methodism. He’s an astute theologian and impressive historian. If you haven’t read his Evangelical and Methodist: A Popular History, published by Abingdon Press in 2004, you should do so ASAP.

Riley is a retired pastor and former district superintendent, a life-time honorary member of the Good News board, and the Associate Director of the Confessing Movement. He writes regularly for We Confess, the movement’s newsletter. In its July/August issue, summing up the reports from annual conferences, he notes that United Methodism declined by some 55,000 members in 2006, which is distressing but better than the 85,000 member loss of 2005. (The 2006 numbers may not yet be official.)

The 55,000 member loss was .7 percent of our membership, Riley notes, which was not as drastic as that of other liberal mainline churches. For example, last year, The Episcopal Church lost 1.6 percent of its members, the Presbyterian Church U.S.A. lost 2.8 percent, the Evangelical Lutheran Church 1.6 percent, and the United Church of Christ, 3.3 percent. Each of these denominations has been torn by the divisive debate over homosexuality.

There was some good news, however. The North Georgia Conference gained 4,385 new members and increased in average attendance by 2,407. By comparison, the California/Pacific (Southern California) Conference lost 1,365 and was down 1,855 in attendance. On a more sobering note, in 1960, both conferences claimed 204,000 members. Today, Cal/Pac Conference reports just 87,300 members while the North Georgia Conference reports 346,430.  For the full story, go to: http://confessingumc.org/Newsletter134.pdf