Saturday, December 26, 1998

1998: A year of reflection on moral values

By IRA RIFKIN and ADELLE M. BANKS

Religion News Service

President Clinton's own attorneys called his extramarital relationship with Monica Lewinsky "sinful." Insisting the president's conduct warranted his ouster, religious broadcaster Pat Robertson said the "lamb of God is also the lion of Judah ... his justice still remains firm."

And even as they argued against Clinton's impeachment, a group of prominent Christian, Jewish and Muslim religious leaders said, "in his personal conduct, he has violated the fundamental moral teachings of our religious traditions."

There was no escaping the presidential scandal that engulfed the nation during 1998. Likewise, it was impossible to ignore the scandal's moral dimensions and the wealth of religious language employed to explain, or condemn, the president's behavior -- even as polls showed most Americans wanted the matter to somehow go away.

But it hasn't. Like it or not, 1998 was a year of forced public reflection on the nation's moral values.

The Rev. Richard Cizik, the National Association of Evangelicals interim Washington director, said the scandal could suggest a failure on the part of religious leaders.

"Why has the church not been able to nurture, discipline, and train one of her own (Clinton, a lifelong Southern Baptist) for responsible leadership in civil society?" he wrote. "It's a question that should not go unanswered -- and means that this crisis could be viewed as God's wake-up call to the church, as much as to Bill Clinton or the Congress."

The moral and religious implications of the presidential scandal overshadowed all other religion stories during 1998 -- beginning with Pope John Paul II's historic visit to communist Cuba, where an estimated 1 million people crowded Havana's Revolution Square to hear him call for greater religious and political freedom. But news of Clinton's liaison with Lewinsky broke just as the pontiff was arriving in the Caribbean island-nation in January, relegating John Paul to lesser news status.

But for religious believers, the scandal was by no means the year's only contentious debate over the moral implications of sexual behavior. There was also homosexuality.

Conservative Christian groups who view homosexuality as sinful supported "ex-gay" ministries -- which strive to transform homosexuals into heterosexuals -- while liberals argued for the acceptance of gays and lesbians as they are.

The debate intensified after the Oct. 12 death of Matthew Shepard, a gay Wyoming man who was tied to a fence, beaten and left to die. Critics charged religious conservatives with inciting Shepard's murder; conservatives condemned the death and expressed outrage over being blamed for it.

Homosexuality also figured prominently on the denominational front. United Methodist, Anglican, Lutheran, Reform Jewish, Christian Reformed Church, United Church of Christ, Canadian Presbyterian and Southern Baptist leaders were among those who wrestled with the issues of homosexual clergy or same-sex unions.

The year's most visible denominational squabble over homosexuality surfaced among United Methodists. In March, the Rev. Jimmy Creech was acquitted by a church court in Nebraska of performing a same-sex covenant service. In August, the denomination's highest court affirmed the church's stand against same-sex unions.

Anglican bishops from around the world, gathered at the once-a-decade Lambeth meeting, adopted a resolution condemning homosexual behavior.

In June, Southern Baptists affirmed their support for heterosexual marriage. But in doing so, they said wives should "submit ... graciously" to their husbands -- thereby opening another front in the nation's ongoing culture wars. Conservatives applauded the Baptists' stand for tradition; moderates and liberals viewed the statement as "morally questionable" and a reactionary response to increasing demands for gender equality.

But even as sexual and gender issues pushed Christians and others apart during 1998, denominations also sought to draw closer through ecumenical efforts.

Meeting in Harare, Zimbabwe, in early December, the World Council of Churches established a "forum" to explore how it might work more closely with groups currently outside the WCC, such as Roman Catholics and Pentecostals. It also set up a commission to deal with Orthodox Christian complaints that the 50-year-old global ecumenical body is too liberal.

Beyond the sweeping issues of morality and denominational unity, 1998 also saw religious groups face the challenges of addressing abuse, allegations about individual leaders and the ongoing work related to religious freedom and interfaith relations.

Several groups dealt with the lingering hurt of abusive actions by leaders and teachers, some of which occurred decades earlier.

In the Roman Catholic Church, Bishop J. Keith Symons of the Palm Beach, Fla., diocese, resigned in June after admitting to allegations he sexually molested teen-age boys early in his career. Rudolph "Rudy" Kos, a former priest and convicted pedophile from Dallas, was sentenced to life in prison in April and defrocked by the Vatican.

In addition, a jury awarded $30 million to two brothers who accused the Stockton, Calif., Catholic diocese of covering up sexual abuse by a parish priest for more than a decade.

The Rev. Henry J. Lyons, president of the National Baptist Convention, USA, pleaded innocent to state and federal charges that include grand theft, fraud and conspiracy stemming from accusations that he and some of his aides gained money in the denomination's name and used it to purchase personal luxuries. Lyons, who also faced allegations of marital infidelity, admitted in September to an improper relationship with one of two female aides with whom he has been criminally charged.

Other leading religion stories of 1998 included:

-- Religious freedom became an American foreign policy priority with passage of the International Religious Freedom Act designed to curtail the persecution of religious believers abroad. The law was spurred in part by the situation in Pakistan, where a Catholic bishop killed himself to protest Muslim persecution of Christians, and a new Russian law that some local authorities used to limit the freedom of unpopular religious minorities.

-- The Vatican issued its long-awaited statement on the Holocaust, only to meet widespread Jewish criticism that the document did not adequately address the wartime actions of Pope Pius XII. Jewish groups say Pius could have done more to save Jewish lives. Pope John Paul II further upset Jews by canonizing Edith Stein, a Jewish convert to Catholicism who was killed by the Nazis.

-- Irish voters approved a peace plan for Northern Ireland that, if it holds, would end decades of Catholic-Protestant strife. John Hume and David Trimble, leaders of Northern Island's main Catholic and Protestant political parties, were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for their efforts to end the violence.

-- Religious aid groups mobilized after Hurricane Mitch killed tens of thousands in Central America. Religious organizations also led the way in bringing food to famine-plagued North Korea and helping flood victims in Papua New Guinea and refugees in Kosovo.

-- Jack Kevorkian was ordered to stand trial for murder after a November "60 Minutes" episode showed him helping end the life of a man suffering from Lou Gehrig's disease; in March, the first death occurred under Oregon's new assisted suicide law, which was strongly opposed by many religious groups.

-- The U.S. Supreme Court decided not to review Wisconsin's controversial school voucher program, keeping intact a lower court decision allowing the plan to include religious schools.

-- Evangelical Christian and convicted murderer Karla Faye Tucker, was put to death in Texas in February despite pleas for mercy from such religious figures as Pat Robertson and Pope John Paul II.

-- A controversial constitutional amendment that would have allowed organized prayer in public schools was rejected by the House of Representatives in June.

-- Anti-abortion violence continued with the killing of Dr. Barnett Slepian of Amherst, N.Y., who performed abortions, and the bombing of a Birmingham, Ala., women's health clinic where abortions were performed. A security guard was killed in the bombing.

-- The Promise Keepers, which gained prominence with a huge "Stand in the Gap" rally in 1997, reduced its staff and witnessed a drop in attendance at its regional men's rallies.

-- Sir Sigmund Sternberg, a Hungarian-born British Jew active in interfaith dialogue, was named 1998 winner of the $1.2-million Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion.

-- Michael Adam Carneal of Paducah, Ky., pleaded guilty but mentally ill to the prayer circle shootings that killed three students.

-- Chicago physicist G. Richard Seed intensified the debate over the morality of bioengineering by announcing plans to begin work on cloning a human being.

-- Bishop Frank T. Griswold III was installed as presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church, and the Rev. Don Argue resigned as president of the National Association of Evangelicals. Bishop Wilton Gregory of Belleville, Ill., was chosen to be the first African-American vice president of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops

And still going strong was evangelist Billy Graham. During 1998, he turned 80 and led a crusade in Tampa, Fla., where he began his ministry.