Monday, October 02, 2006

HALLOWEEN BANNED AGAIN

About 60 parents and children gathered at the South Elgin, Ill., home of a principal who canceled the elementary school`s annual Halloween celebration. Dressed in Halloween costumes and carrying signs with frowning ghosts and jack-o-lanterns, they chanted 'Save Halloween' as TV cameras rolled, the Arlington Heights Daily Herald reported. Jacqueline Hazen, in her first year as principal, said she canceled the Halloween celebration because some parents complained about its pagan origins. She said the school would hold a 'fall celebration' instead.

But the protesting parents said Halloween is not about religion but about letting kids enjoy childhood. They said Hazen`s decision was an example of political correctness gone awry. Hazen said a number of parents -- even parents who do not object to Halloween -- had called to thank her for establishing a more inclusive celebration. The parents said their next step was to send a petition to Hazen.

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CHURCH OF ENGLAND DEMANDS APPROVAL OF HOMOSEXUALITY IN ITS PRIESTS

The son of Michael Howard, the former Conservative Party leader, has spoken for the first time about his distress at being turned down for ordination by the Church of England. Nick Howard, who completed a theology degree this summer, was not ordained because of his "unwillingness to listen" to other viewpoints. He told The Mail on Sunday that his strongly held evangelical beliefs on homosexuality and multifaith worship marked him out as a "troublemaker" even though they reflect official Anglican doctrine.

During his three-year training at Cranmer Hall, a theological college attached to the University of Durham, Nick discussed his concerns with tutors but found little comfort in their "blase attitudes". Fellow students, although often sympathetic to his orthodox views, did not want to incur the wrath of college authorities by speaking out. Nick, however, quietly reinforced his views by refusing to take Communion at the college's weekly Tuesday evening service. Instead he stayed in his pew, his head bowed in reflection. "An ethics tutor at the college was saying publicly that you can be in a gay sexual relationship and follow Christ," he explains. "That is incompatible with the teaching of the New Testament."

Nick was also encouraged to accord equal spiritual value to Muslim, Sikh and Hindu religions in the name of "multifaith ministry". "As a Christian, I believe that Jesus died for Sikhs and Muslims, too," he says, "so I long to share the good news with them so that they can be saved. It felt a bit awkward sitting there when everyone else was going up [for Communion] but I couldn't physically have done anything else because I can't pretend someone shares the same religion as me if, in reality, they don't." Yet, as a result of this silent declaration of belief, 30-year-old Nick now finds himself ostracised from the Anglican Church he so desperately wants to be a part of.

At the end of his final year, a panel of tutors explained that his "unwillingness to listen" would make him an unsuitable vicar. It was an extraordinary decision because Nick's view - that gay people are welcome to belong to the Church if they remain celibate - is official Anglican teaching. But many may feel that Nick's defence of the basic tenets of Christianity should be welcomed by the Church. After all, woolly-mindedness in its beliefs has seen a huge decline in congregations, while the clear dictums of Islam have contributed to its rapid growth around the globe.

Nick, a quietly spoken and gentle young man, lives in a modest studio flat above a garage in Maidenhead, Berkshire. He does not have a television because he cannot afford the licence. His car, a battered green Ford Fiesta, is rusting around the edges and a back window has been smashed by vandals. He now works for the Association of Evangelists, travelling round the country giving talks in churches, schools and universities. This evening he will speak on God and Politics at a church in Bournemouth, to tie in with the Conservative Party conference.

"In many ways, my current job is everything I've ever wanted to do - to explain the faith to people who don't know it or understand it," he says. "But I'd love to do it in the name of the Church of England. The Church needs reforming but I'd like to be involved from the inside rather than pointing fingers from the outside. "The great problem is that the Church is a mixture of people with lots of versions of the faith. If you're going to hold it together, you've got to be committed to not rocking the boat. Boat-rockers are rather unwelcome. But if I am rocking the boat, it's only because I think we may be about to capsize."

Nick's three-year postgraduate qualification, paid for by the Diocese of Oxford, would have cost about 40,000 pounds. "I knew the college wasn't happy because they gave me a warning in my second year," he says. "But I was surprised that they went that far. My only fault was wanting people to hear the Christian message as taught in the Bible. "If I'd tried to pretend we all believed the same thing when we didn't, that would go against the whole reason I want to be in Christian ministry."

The irony for Nick is that the majority of the world's 73 million Anglicans, many of whom worship in evangelical churches in Africa and South America, would agree with him. When Jeffrey John, the Dean of St Albans and a celibate homosexual, was chosen as the Bishop of Reading in 2003, his appointment provoked such an outcry that he stepped down. The subsequent election of a homosexual bishop by the Episcopal Church in the United States of America triggered a worldwide crisis in the Anglican Church. In October 2004, a Church commission called for a moratorium on the appointment of gay bishops and the performance of same-sex blessings. The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, has just backed a further resolution confirming that homosexual practice is incompatible with the Bible.

But Nick, an Eton and Oxford alumnus who gained a 2:1 in his postgraduate theology degree at Cranmer Hall, seems to have fallen foul of liberal Anglicans desperate to make their Church more palatable in the 21st Century. It is difficult not to conclude that his situation is the result of misguided political correctness. "I felt they were trying to change the message of the Bible so that it fits more happily with the culture that we live in," he says. "The college sent me to Bradford on a course entitled Ministry In A Multifaith Context. In the first session, we were told that we should be building the kingdom of God with Muslims, Sikhs and Hindus and that we would be bringing people into the mosque, temple or church as a place of worship." Nick was "horrified". For him, despite his upbringing as a Jew, Christianity is the "one true faith" and should be promoted as such.

According to one Anglican Canon: "Cranmer Hall is an evangelical foundation but it's fuzzy round the edges. They don't want to rub people up the wrong way with so-called outmoded thinking." But Anne Dyer, the warden of Cranmer Hall, insists that these criticisms are "not things that I recognise as being part of Cranmer or its programme. The decision to ordain somebody lies with the person's diocesan bishop. There are several parties that give the bishop advice and the principal of the college is one of those parties."

Nick's father still attends the St John's Wood liberal synagogue in North West London on Jewish holidays. One imagines he was taken aback when his ferociously bright 15-year-old son told him that he was converting to Christianity on the strength of one discussion group at the Eton Christian Union. But does he want to convert his own father? "I would be very keen for my family to come to faith in Christ," he says, after a long pause. "But I still consider myself a Jewish person who believes in Jesus, so I would not call it conversion. Despite this difference with my father, we do get on very well indeed. "We enjoy each other's company. We talk about politics, about football [they are both ardent Liverpool supporters] and we play chess. My family knows where I stand and that I really believe in it. "I did think hard about entering politics for a while, but politics deals with what is external to people whereas the Bible changes us from the inside. So I think preaching is more important."

The Church's history is littered with examples of the faithful taking a stand against the prevailing mindset of the time. In 1556, the Archbishop of Canterbury was sentenced to be burned at the stake by a Roman Catholic queen for his "heretical" views. His name was Thomas Cranmer. It cannot have escaped Nick's notice that Cranmer Hall, the very institution that wants to bar him from the priesthood, bears this martyr's name.

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Arnie limits brainwashing of children

Legislation would have pushed pro-homosexual agenda in schools

Governor Schwarzenegger today vetoed AB 606 (Levine-D) and AB 1056 (Chu-D), the final two bill identified as the "triple threat" to California families. The governor vetoed SB 1437 (Kuehl-D) earlier this month.

AB 606 would have required the State Board of Education to increase sensitivity to so- called "discrimination." The State Superintendent of Public Instruction would have had unlimited discretion to withhold state funds from schools that did not comply with his interpretation of the law. AB 1056 would have integrated tolerance training into history and social science curriculum and started a pilot program that forced students to learn a "new definition" of tolerance. According to this new definition, students would be forced to not only accept, but advocate homosexuality by "conveying respect" for a lifestyle that violates their religious beliefs.

"This is a victory for California families," stated Karen England, Executive Director of Capitol Resource Institute. "Due to the public outcry over these outrageous attacks on students with moral beliefs, the governor vetoed all three. This proves that when citizens who care about protecting their religious and moral beliefs speak out, we can make a huge difference." "The governor's office received thousands of phone calls, e-mails, letters and faxes regarding the triple threat," stated Meredith Turney, Capitol Resource Institute's Legislative Liaison. "Citizen activism is extremely effective."

"The priorities of the California legislature this session have been completely out of order," stated Turney. "Schools should be centers of learning- learning the fundamentals of education such as reading, writing and arithmetic. Instead, the legislature has focused on advancing a radical social agenda in public schools. Hopefully, next session the legislature will make educating-not indoctrinating- students a priority."

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