
The original issue can be found at: http://www.baptistpress.com/issue-04/17/2002

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Court's decision on child porn 'dark day,' ERLC's Land says
by Tom Strode
Date: April 17, 2002 - Wednesday

WASHINGTON (BP)--The U.S. Supreme Court dealt Congress a defeat in the legislative effort to curb child pornography.

The justices announced April 16 they had voted to invalidate portions of the Child Pornography Prevention Act, a 1996 federal law that expanded a ban on child porn to include images that appear to be of children under 18 engaged in sexually explicit conduct.

The high court voted 6-3 to strike down a provision that banned visual depictions, including computer-generated images, that appear to be of minors engaged in explicit sex. The court, with Associate Justice Sandra Day O'Connor joining the majority, voted 7-2 against a section that prohibited sexually explicit images that are promoted or presented as involving children.

The two provisions under consideration restrict legal speech, thereby making them "overbroad and unconstitutional," Associate Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote for the majority.

Opponents of child pornography chastised the justices.

"This decision by the Supreme Court marks a dark day for the court and an even darker day for the nation's children," said Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission. "This egregious and dangerous decision is one more sad illustration of the extent to which we have become a society that champions the so-called rights and privileges of adults over the protection and welfare of children.

"Child pornography, virtual or otherwise, leads people into addiction to child pornography," Land said. "It will incite some adults to sexually molest children and will often be used as part of the molestation itself. This is undeniable based on both the existing research and the testimony of convicted child molesters. I don't know what the justices could have been thinking, but it wasn't about the welfare of the nation's children."

Rep. Mark Foley, R.-Fla., cochairman of the Congressional Missing and Exploited Children's Caucus, said in a written statement, "I'm deeply disappointed the high court sided with pedophiles over children. Whether in movies or photographs, it doesn't make a difference whether or not the person engaged in sex is actually a child. If it looks like a child and is said to be a child, pedophiles have found their fix -- and their search for true child pornography will only be enhanced."

Attorney General John Ashcroft expressed disappointment with the ruling, saying it made the Justice Department's "ability to prosecute those who produce and possess child pornography immeasurably more difficult."

"However, I am undeterred in my resolve to protect our children from the pornographers and other predators who would prey on their innocence," Ashcroft said. "I would warn the child pornographers and others who exploit our children that they will find little refuge in today's decision. We will continue to use every available resource to identify, investigate and prosecute child-pornography cases to the fullest extent of the law."

Ashcroft said he would work with Congress to revise the law.

Supporters of the law contended the ban on "virtual" child porn is necessary to stymie the demand for such sexual images and to aid prosecutors in child-pornography cases in which defendants argue the images are not of real children. CPPA backers also argued "virtual" child porn is used by pedophiles to lure children into sexual encounters and into participating in the production of child pornography.

Critics of the measure said it could result in restrictions on more legitimate works.

The majority opinion in Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition expressed that very concern. Recent movies such as "Traffic" and "American Beauty" may include a single sequence that could be subject to the law "without inquiry into the work's redeeming value," Kennedy wrote for the majority. "This is inconsistent with an essential First Amendment rule: The artistic merit of a work does not depend on the presence of a single explicit scene.

"The government may not suppress lawful speech as the means to suppress unlawful speech."

A previous court decision upholding a law against child pornography protected children actually involved in its production, but children are not victimized in this case, Kennedy wrote.

The majority rejected Congress' concern that "virtual" child porn incites adults to abuse children sexually. "The mere tendency of speech to encourage unlawful acts is not a sufficient reason for banning it," Kennedy wrote.

Of the argument pedophiles use "virtual" porn to seduce children, Kennedy said candy and video games "might be used for immoral purposes, yet we would not expect those to be prohibited because they can be misused."

Joining Kennedy and, in one case, O'Connor in the majority were Associate Justices John Paul Stevens, David Souter, Clarence Thomas, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer.

Chief Justice William Rehnquist and Associate Justice Antonin Scalia dissented in both portions of the court's decision.

In his dissent, Rehnquist said the CPPA's goal of guaranteeing the enforcement of child porn laws "is a compelling one. The statute need not be read to do any more than precisely this, which is not offensive to the First Amendment."

Jan LaRue, senior director of legal studies for Family Research Council, called the court's concern about mainstream movies being prosecuted "abject nonsense."

"All the court needed to do is determine the reach of the statute and exclude the kinds of images to which it could not apply," LaRue said in a written release. "That's the court's job and by failing to do it, they've failed children and left them vulnerable to sexual predators. That the Supreme Court of the United States can entertain the notion that virtual images of children being sexually violated has 'value' that needs protection is an abomination."

Another portion of the law remained viable. The justices did not consider a measure that bars computer morphing, which is the altering of photos of children to appear that they are engaged in sexual conduct.

A federal judge upheld the CPPA in California, but the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, based in San Francisco, reversed the decision. It was the only one of five federal appeals courts to reject the law. The First, Fourth, Fifth and 11th districts upheld it.

The high court will soon deliver another decision related to pornography and children. In this same term, the justices heard arguments in Ashcroft v. ACLU, which involves a 1998 federal law that bans commercial websites from making sexually explicit material available to minors. Congress passed the 1998 law, the Child Online Protection Act, after the court struck down a more expansive 1996 measure, the Communications Decency Act.
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Intelligent design gets hearing in Ohio
by Karen L. Willoughby
Date: April 17, 2002 - Wednesday

COLUMBUS, Ohio (BP)--When a State Board of Education subcommittee began a scheduled review of Ohio public schools' science curriculum, they had no idea an intense media firestorm would accompany their deliberations.

At issue: whether the curriculum should be limited to evolution or whether the study of the beginnings of life should include intelligent design, which holds that life is too complex to have just happened.

Ohio has thus become the first state to formally address the place of intelligent design in the classroom.

The board's deliberations included an evolution/intelligent design debate that drew more than 1,000 people to Veteran's Memorial Auditorium in Columbus in mid-March. The issue could erupt in the state legislature and some Ohio newspapers say the issue could put Gov. Bob Taft on the hot seat in his re-election campaign this November.

"It's a political ballgame now," Lynn Elfner, a member of a state education board science advisory committee and director of the Ohio Academy of Science, was quoted as saying in a front-page article in the Cleveland Plain Dealer.

Unhappy with an early draft of the proposed science standard for grades K-12 specifically calling for teaching only evolution, the science standards subcommittee of the State Board of Education in January probed deeper. They invited John Calvert, an attorney from Kansas with specialized training in geology, to make a presentation to them on "What Should Ohio Tell Children About Their Origins." Calvert is cofounder of the Intelligent Design Network.

"What really pricked my interest in this subject initially was learning that science essentially abandons the scientific method when it deals with origins science," Calvert told the six-member subcommittee of the 19-member board during a 30-minute presentation. "Darwinian evolution assumes as a starting point that the unsupported hypothesis of chemical evolution is true."

Calvert also noted, "The effect of modern origins science is to imbue a belief in naturalism" -- evolution's "doctrine that all phenomena result only from natural processes and not by design."

"According to a naturalistic worldview," he said, "we are mere occurrences that just happen without purpose."

Discussion of intelligent design is essentially censored when it is kept out of the classroom, Calvert also said.

The naturalistic worldview, Barrett Duke of the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission told Baptist Press, "is what has brought us to this time in our nation when life has become so devalued."

"Because the naturalistic worldview considers people to be no more than the product of chemical reactions, it allows no room for innate human worth," said Duke, the ERLC's vice president for research. "The inevitable result of a naturalistic worldview is abortion, infanticide, euthanasia and the many other atrocities committed in the name of science and technology that we are witnessing today."

All biology textbooks and the proposed Ohio science standard address a fundamental question, Calvert told the subcommittee: Where do we come from?

"So the question becomes," he explained, "what should we tell our kids about it? If we are just occurrences that result from random and undirected natural processes, then we have no inherent purpose. However, if we are the product of design, then we have an inherent purpose since all designs have a purpose."

The design hypothesis is supported by an abundance of scientific evidence and does not derive its authority from any religious text, the geologist-turned-attorney said. He provided six examples to the subcommittee, noting, for example, that the fossil record is in many respects more consistent with the design hypothesis than the naturalistic hypothesis. It shows sharp bursts of increased complexity and long periods of stasis, rather than a gradual progression of complexity as predicted by Darwinian evolution.

"Although the evidence of design is scientifically derived, it clearly has religious implications," Calvert acknowledged. "But that is also true of the naturalistic hypothesis. Any answer to the 'Where do we come from?' question has religious implications -- either positive or negative. Design positively impacts theism; naturalism negatively impacts it."

The Ohio State Board of Education's science standards subcommittee responded to Calvert's 30-minute talk by inviting two evolution proponents and two intelligent design proponents to debate the issue on March 11.

Each side's major positions were listed the next day in The Columbus Dispatch.

For evolution:

-- Nearly all scientists accept evolution; debate centers on details.

-- Evolution critics avoid peer review and debate, the basic process of science.

-- Arguments that complex life couldn't have evolved from natural processes are rebutted by findings in molecular biology and genetics.

-- Critics fault evolution without giving evidence for intelligent design.

-- Intelligent design doesn't explain why some species become extinct or change significantly over time.

-- Science taught in schools should reflect scientific consensus.

The major positions for intelligent design:

-- It would have been impossible for natural processes to have resulted in certain complex organisms unless a designer intervened.

-- A growing number of scientists question Darwinian evolution.

-- Intelligent design is a scientific, not religious argument.

-- Instead of legitimate peer review, the scientific establishment censors contrary views.

-- Congress wants students to hear all points of view.

This last point refers to the Leave No Child Behind Act of 2001, which President Bush signed into federal law on Jan. 8. This law includes an amendment introduced by Sen. Rick Santorum, R.-Pa., stating: "Where topics are taught that may generate controversy (such as biological evolution), the curriculum should help students to understand the full range of scientific views that exist, why such topics may generate controversy, and how scientific discoveries can profoundly affect society."

Frederick J. Hutchison, an avid debater from Ohio with an interest in the evolution/intelligent design controversy, attended the debate in Columbus and wrote a point-by-point analysis that has been circulated on the Internet.

The evolution team apparently came prepared to challenge the intelligent design team's expected "equal time for teaching both theories" proposal, Hutchison wrote. Instead, the ID team argued merely for removal of the threat of punishment and legal action against teachers who present ID theory.

"The opposing team, taken off guard by the unexpected compromise proposal, fumbled the football," Hutchison wrote. "They failed to effectively rebut that there are many scientific controversies with Darwinism. ... &#91;They&#93; faced the criticism that they are against freedom of speech and inquiry. They faced the rather embarrassing charge that they are trying to prevent the students finding out about the weakness of Darwinism."

Hutchison's complete analysis of the debate, along with other articles and resources about intelligent design, can be found at the www.discovery.org Internet site of the Discovery Institute, which has become a key think tank for intelligent design.

Following Calvert's presentation, the debate and other study sessions, a second draft of the proposed science standards was issued April 1 on the Internet at http://www.ode.state.oh.us. Comments on the draft proposal will be taken at that website until May 15 and via U.S. mail until June 1.

The State Board of Education has received 1,151 e-mails since the first of the year, said spokesman Beth Gianforcaro.

"We have received 19 e-mail letters that support teaching intelligent design or creationism only," she said, along with "633 comments that support teaching both intelligent design and evolution, 371 for evolution only, 18 against the teaching of evolution, and 110 that address some other issue."

A group of 52 Ohio scientists have signed a statement declaring, among other things, that "where alternative scientific theories exist in any area of inquiry (such as ... biological evolution vs. intelligent design) students should be permitted to learn the evidence for and against them." A group called Ohio Citizens for Science, meanwhile, has put up a petition on their website that supports the teaching of evolution only: www.ecology.cwru.edu/ohioscience/. It claims more than 3,500 signatures so far.

Despite the ID team's insistence that intelligent design is about science rather than religion, most objections to it are because of its similarity to the biblical view of creation, which holds that God created everything. Intelligent design says there must have been a creator, but doesn't name that creator.

"It's a shrouded way of bringing religion into the schools," said state school board member Martha Wise in a New York Times article. After identifying herself as a creationist, the retired business executive said nevertheless, "I think intelligent design is a theology, and it belongs in another curriculum."

In addition to the Discovery Institute and Ohio Citizens for Science, numerous advocates on both sides of the controversy before and after the Ohio debate have used the Internet to make their points.

The Anti-Defamation League, which proclaims atop its website that it has been "fighting Anti-Semitism, Bigotry and Extremism since 1913," has produced an online guide for parents and teachers on why it believes intelligent design and other religious theories of creation have no place in a science class.

"Religion in the Science Class? Why Creationism and Intelligent Design Don't Belong" uses a question-and-answer format to address "why efforts to introduce creationism in the science curriculum violate the separation of church and state," CNSNews.com reported March 29.

Information about the intelligent design group led by Calvert, meanwhile, can be accessed at intelligentdesignnetwork.org.

Chuck Colson, in a column posted on the Internet, came down squarely on the side of intellectual fairness in the March 14 edition of his BreakPoint commentary referencing the Ohio debate. Colson used Darwin's own words to make his point: "&#91;O&#93;n the last page &#91;of Darwin's classic text, 'Origin of Species'&#93; Darwin says that life itself was 'first breathed by the Creator' -- a phrase that would today give fits to civil liberties lawyers," Colson wrote. The entire column can be accessed www.pfm.org/breakpoint.

"Sometimes it's surprising there is so much interest this the subject, but it's one we acknowledge people feel very deeply about," said spokesman Gianforcaro of the Ohio State Board of Education. "We have seen what other states have gone through with this issue. It's one the board wants to deliberate very carefully."
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(BP) photos posted in the BP Photo Library at http://www.bpnews.net. Photo titles: ORIGINS OPTIONS and JOHN CALVERT.


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Debate over evolution in schools spans almost 8 decades since Scopes
by Karen L. Willoughby
Date: April 17, 2002 - Wednesday

COLUMBUS, Ohio (BP)--Americans have grappled for nearly eight decades with the question of what to teach public school students about origins science.

In the study of how life began, evolutionists -- now politically correctly being called naturalists -- claim chemicals came together through random chance and life developed through survival of the fittest, while creationists postulate that God created life.

In recent years, intelligent design has emerged, utilizing science itself in reasoning that living matter is too complex to have been the result of random chance, thus some entity must have purposefully created it.

Congress recently weighed in with its opinion. Other groups as varied as the Anti-Defamation League, Family Research Council and Prison Fellowship also have voiced a position.

"&#91;T&#93;eachers have a constitutional right to teach, and students to learn, about scientific controversies," Sen. Rick Santorum, R.-Pa., said to Congress last December after passage of the 2001 education bill, the No Child Left Behind Act, which included a nudge for putting evolution to the test. According to the Congressional Record, Santorum went on to say, "Efforts to shut down scientific debates as such only serve to thwart the true purposes of education, science and law. There is a question here of academic freedom -- freedom to learn as well as to teach."

The ADL says that intelligent design and other religious theories of creation have no place in science classes. The Family Research Council suggests that since science is not included in the "3 Rs" of education, the question isn't germane. Chuck Colson, founder of Prison Fellowship, says evolution's proponent Charles Darwin taught intelligent design.

But to start at the beginning 77 years ago, John Scopes was convicted in 1925 in a Tennessee courtroom of the crime of teaching Charles Darwin's 1859 perspective on evolution. Objections to curtailing intellectual freedom in public schools erupted around the nation, and the Supreme Court ruled 43 years later -- in 1968 -- that states could not prohibit teaching evolution.

A balanced approach -- teaching evolution and creation science -- became the norm, until the Supreme Court in 1987 determined that requiring the teaching of creation science violated the "establishment of religion" clause of the U.S. Constitution.

A federal appellate court in 1990 pushed the envelope. It determined that a school district could prohibit the teaching of creation science.

One year later, in 1991, retired law professor Phillip Johnson wrote "Darwin on Trial," which thrust the intelligent design movement into the nation's spotlight.

Opponents charge that intelligent design is creationism in disguise, and poor science at that. Advocates say intelligent design's purpose is to broaden origins science.

"Complex systems are found at the very basis of life, and that throws a major monkey wrench into Darwin's theory," said Mark Edwards, spokesman for the Discovery Institute in Seattle, which has become a key think tank for intelligent design. "We're encountering evidence of life that can't be explained by anything other than an intelligent designer."

Catherine Candisky in The Columbus Dispatch in February wrote an in-depth article about the origins science controversy and the deliberations of the Ohio State Board of Education, which is reviewing the state's science standards this year. A subcommittee is looking into the possibility that a study of intelligent design become part of the curriculum. 

This follows an aborted reversal of the trend toward teaching evolution only. The Kansas Board of Education in 1999 eliminated references to the theory of evolution and the "big bang" theory on state assessment tests, but voters later ousted board members who supported the measure and in 2001 evolution was restored.

Between the Kansas and Ohio controversies, what is known as the "Santorum Amendment" became federal law on Jan. 8 when President Bush signed the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. The amendment states: "The &#91;Senate and House&#93; Conferees recognize that a quality science education should prepare students to distinguish the data and testable theories of science from religious or philosophical claims that are made in the name of science. Where topics are taught that may generate controversy (such as biological evolution), the curriculum should help students to understand the full range of scientific views that exist, why such topics may generate controversy, and how scientific discoveries can profoundly affect society."

The Senate passed the Santorum Amendment by a 98-1 vote.

"This allows parents and teachers to say they have the ability to argue for and against evolution in the classroom; that they have the authority of Congress behind them," Family Research Council lobbyist Laura McGee told Baptist Press. "This is a huge victory."

Beth Gianforcaro, a spokesperson for the Ohio State Board of Education, said the science standards subcommittee was referring to the Santorum Amendment in its deliberations.

"We're going through, analyzing the &#91;Santorum Amendment&#93; now and comparing it to what's been done," she said. "It's possible we're going to make some refinements, some modifications to be in compliance with the bill.

"The bottom line question before &#91;the state board&#93;," Gianforcaro continued, "is, Should this information be included in the science standards?"
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2 profs take 3000-year look at the human origins debate
by Staff
Date: April 17, 2002 - Wednesday

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (BP)--Two professors at Baptist-affiliated Union University have entered the evolution/intelligent design debate via a new book, "Designer Universe: Intelligent Design and the Existence of God," from Broadman & Holman Publishers.

Jimmy H. Davis is acting dean of the college of arts and sciences and professor of chemistry at Union, located in Jackson, Tenn. Harry L. Poe is vice president of academic resources and information service and associate professor of Christian studies at Union.

"We have seen that for over three thousand years in different places and cultures, the notion of the design of the universe has enjoyed remarkable resilience," Davis and Poe write. "Not only has this idea survived changes in religious context, but it has survived changes in philosophical and scientific worldview as well."

Yet ahead, they write, may be "a new understanding of reality and the possibilities of human knowledge rooted in the ancient Hebrew understanding of the soul made in the image of God."

Davis and Poe, in the first three chapters of their book, explore various ways people have considered design over the last 3,000 years or so. The section, they note, "provides a condensed overview of many of the major positions that have influenced the course of thought in the West. We mention briefly how different religions and philosophies have thought about design and explore how the philosophical views have influenced both the theology and the science of the West."

The concluding three chapters of the 250-page book then explore realms of scientific study in which major breakthroughs have provided renewed speculation on design, including cosmology, math and physics, and chemistry and biology.

Davis and Poe recap the new terminology emerging from recent design discussions, such as anthropic principles, irreducible complexity and specified complexity. Science has been "quite successful at describing processes," they note, "but has failed at explaining origins."

Broadman & Holman is the trade publishing arm of LifeWay Christian Resources of the Southern Baptist Convention.
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(BP) photo posted in the BP Photo Library at http://www.bpnews.net. Photo title: DESIGNER UNIVERSE.


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Land says Arafat is detriment in search for Mideast peace
by Dwayne Hastings
Date: April 17, 2002 - Wednesday

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (BP)--The road to peace in the Middle East does not lead through Yasser Arafat's besieged headquarters in Ramallah, Richard Land said April 15.

"The American government has to find other people in the Middle East, not Arafat, who can negotiate an end to this violence," said the head of the SBC's Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission. "Arafat tries to say he is a peacemaker and a head of state," Land said, "but he is nothing more than a terrorist."

The Israelis uncovered the smoking gun that underscores Arafat's involvement in the recent spate of violence directed at innocent Israeli citizens, Land said. When Israeli soldiers took control of Palestinian Authority headquarters in the West Bank, they found lists in Arafat's own handwriting authorizing payment of $600 to three terrorists, including two senior members of the militant Fatah wing, he explained.

Land said the Israeli troops uncovered other documents that revealed Arafat's personal involvement in providing $350 each to 12 Fatah activists, members of the group implicated in several recent terrorist attacks.

The Israeli military moved into the West Bank March 29 after a bombing killed more than two dozen people gathered for a Seder, the traditional meal associated with the Jewish Passover.

Land pointed to a report released April 14 by WAFA, the official news agency of the Palestinian Authority, which allowed for "no hope for future reconciliation," as evidence that the Palestinians were not interested in negotiating an end to the hostilities.

The WAFA report said the United States should anticipate the worst, saying "fighting weaponry is possible but fighting a human bomb is impossible because it is the weapon of the individual and it is hidden deep inside the individual's brain, and it is unseen." According to press reports, there have been about 80 suicide bombings since Palestinians launched their uprising against the Israelis in September 2000.

It is the al-Aqsa Brigade, a group attached to the Fatah organization founded and headed by Arafat, that has claimed responsibility for the majority of bombings and other attacks in recent months, according to an April 15 Washington Times report.

"Yasser Arafat is an active terrorist; he is not a reformed terrorist," Land said. "He is directing the terrorist campaign against the civilian population of Israel. Not only can he stop the bloodshed, he's not trying to stop it. He is aiding and abetting these efforts. You can't negotiate with thugs, terrorists and murderers."

Israel plays by one set of rules, targeting for destruction only those who are terrorists and attempting to limit civilian casualties, Land said, while noting the Palestinian Authority intentionally targets innocent civilians as their targets. "Israel has the right to do everything it can to defend its civilian population," he noted.

The Israeli military offensive against terrorists in Palestinian territory mirrors America's war on terrorism in that both countries are attacking the terrorists where they are so they can't attack each nation's population, Land said.

"You can't stop because you understand you have to root out terrorism where it breeds," he continued. "Israel is defending its right to survive.

"The U.S. has to bring the full force of its influence to bear on the Islamic countries surrounding the nation of Israel," Land said. "They must be told, 'You have to be the one to negotiate on behalf of the Palestinians.'"

Yet any real hope for peace must overcome the virulent strains of anti-Semitism that emanate from many of these countries, Land said. "We are seeing terrible suffering brought on by 20 years of anti-Semitic propaganda being poured out ceaselessly through the government-controlled Arab press."

Land said he had read translations of statements, columns and broadcasts in the state-controlled Arab media that are as "vile and vicious in their anti-Semitism as anything that came out of Nazi Germany."

The United States and its allies need to suspend "normal relations with countries that allow this kind of toxic, state-sponsored anti-Semitism to be perpetuated within their borders," Land said. He cited Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Syria as well as the Palestinian Authority as the worst offenders at the present time. "They have poisoned the minds and hearts of a whole generation of Arab youth who do not look upon the Israelis as human beings," he said.

"The moral and spiritual bankruptcy of those willing to train and poison the minds of their children and to strap explosives on their children and send them into crowded areas to attack Israelis is reprehensible," Land said. "Any attempt to allege moral equivalency between Israel and the Palestinian Authority is grotesque."
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Powell leaves Mideast unable to achieve ceasefire result
by Julie Stahl
Date: April 17, 2002 - Wednesday

JERUSALEM (BP)--Secretary of State Colin Powell wrapped up his Israeli-Palestinian ceasefire mission somewhat empty-handed on April 17, saying the term "ceasefire" was "not relevant" at this time, CNSNews.com reported.

Palestinian Authority officials reacted angrily to Powell's mission, saying the situation on the ground had actually gotten worse since his arrival. But Israel said it did not view Powell's mission as a failure.

Powell, who spent a week shuttling back and forth between Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat, spoke to a Jerusalem news conference after a difficult morning meeting with Arafat.

"We could have &#91;had&#93; a ceasefire declared today but what would it mean?" Powell asked.

"One side is still pursuing an operation that they are bringing to a close but they have not yet brought to a close, and the other side is not in a position to respond because the incursion has not yet ended ... and so 'ceasefire' is not a relevant term at the moment," he said.

Nevertheless, Powell said, a ceasefire would become relevant as soon as the Israeli incursion ended and security discussions resumed.

Powell, who was going to Cairo for talks with the Egyptian Foreign Minister later in the day, said he was leaving Ambassador William Burns in the region to continue talks with the two sides. CIA Chief George Tenet and Gen. Anthony Zinni also would likely return to the region to get involved in the talks, he said.

Powell said he had received assurances from Sharon that Israel would withdraw its troops within a "week or so," and he said he had emphasized to Arafat the need to make a strategic choice to abandon violence.

President Bush has demanded an immediate Israeli withdrawal from the PA-controlled cities. But Sharon defied international and U.S. pressure and said Israeli troops would stay until their mission was accomplished.

"Prime Minister Sharon has stated his intention to complete Israel's withdrawal from the areas it recently occupied," Powell told reporters. "He has provided me with a timeline through this weekend, and as you all know, reservists are now returning home."

Israel's Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Shaul Mofaz announced during the week that Israeli reservists, who received emergency wartime call-up notices about three weeks ago following a series of suicide bombings, would be released from the army following the April 17 conclusion of Israel's Independence Day.

Powell, who opened the press conference by congratulating Israel on its 54th Independence Day anniversary and reaffirming America's commitment to Israel's "unshakeable security," said Washington had made no secret of its disappointment with Arafat's performance.

"We believed all along &#91;Arafat&#93; could have done more &#91;to stop terror&#93;," Powell said.

"I made it as clear as I can to him that we have been disappointed with his performance and it's time for him to make a strategic choice &#91;to abandon violence&#93;," he said.

"If he does not make that strategic choice, it becomes very difficult for the United States or anyone else to play a role in achieving what the Palestinian people want."

Following Powell's meeting with the Palestinian leader in Ramallah on April 17, an angry Arafat charged that Israel's pledged troop withdrawal was not sincere.

Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said Powell had left the situation on the ground "much worse" than when he had arrived. He also accused Sharon of having "torpedoed" Powell's efforts.

Several hours prior to the meeting, Arafat said Powell had accomplished nothing during his time here. "Powell had spent more than one week in the region, a week and a half in the region but nothing has happened," Arafat said in a telephone interview with Tunisian state television.

Arafat also said international and Arab action is needed "as quickly as possible because the situation is highly dangerous."

Sharon's foreign policy adviser Danny Ayalon said April 16 that Israel did not regard Powell's mission as "a failure."
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Stahl is the Jerusalem bureau chief with www.CNSNews.com. Used by permission.



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U.S. commission voices alarm over anti-Semitism in Europe
by Staff
Date: April 17, 2002 - Wednesday

WASHINGTON (BP)--The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom deplored the recent flurry of attacks on synagogues, other Jewish sites, and individuals in France and Belgium in a statement issued April 15.

The commission's news release noted a firebombing had seriously damaged several synagogues. One in Marseille burned to the ground.

"Shots were fired at a kosher shop, a Jewish couple was attacked on the street, a bus full of schoolchildren was stoned, and high school soccer players were beaten by a gang wielding metal bars," the commission release recounted, noting more than 400 incidents have been documented in France since October 2000. The USCIRF is an independent federal agency advising President Bush and Congress. Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, is among its members.

"These attacks on Jews in France and Belgium are despicable," said Michael K. Young, USCIRF chairman. "We hope the French government, in particular, will follow through on its recent statements to track down the perpetrators and hold them to account, making it clear such behavior will not be tolerated in France. The U.S. government should follow this issue carefully and urge the French authorities to treat these incidents with the seriousness they deserve."

There were 228 acts of violence against Jews or Jewish property recorded in 2001, according to a study released by Tel Aviv University.

The secretary-general of the World Jewish Congress, Avi Beker, said in The Jerusalem Post April 9, "... we are witnessing what future historians may yet call a watershed in the very long and gloomy history of anti-Semitism on the continent. These days no Jew with a kippa on his head feels comfortable walking the streets of any city or town in Europe."

Beker suggested the last 10 days have seen the worst anti-Semitic activity in Europe since the end of World War II.
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House votes 408-0 for bill to protect housing allowance
by Tom Strode
Date: April 17, 2002 - Wednesday

WASHINGTON (BP)--The House of Representatives weighed in on the legality of a cap on the housing tax exemption for clergy April 16, approving without opposition a bill designed to preserve the longstanding allowance.

The House voted 408-0 for the Clergy Housing Allowance Clarification Act, H.R. 4156. The bill would clarify the exemption by amending the Internal Revenue Code to make clear the allowance should not exceed the "fair rental value" of a house, including "furnishings, appurtenances such as a garage, plus the cost of utilities." The bill would codify the revenue ruling which the IRS had been using for years.

A Senate version of the legislation has not been introduced, but senators could consider the House-approved measure.

The House acted on the bill only six days after it was introduced by Rep. Jim Ramstad, R.-Minn. The speed with which representatives moved came in reaction to a threat by a federal appeals court to strike down the allowance as unconstitutional. A panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals announced in March it is reviewing the constitutionality of the allowance, even though neither side in the related case challenged the exemption.

"It is important to get this in the black-letter law and thereby put the full force of Congress behind the clergy housing allowance," said Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission. "The almost unprecedented speed, as well as the unanimous vote, by which this legislation passed the House of Representatives illustrates both the urgent need for the legislation and Congress' support for maintaining the allowance."

Lawyers from the SBC's Executive Committee, Annuity Board and ERLC have worked to see the exemption is preserved.

In a written statement, Ramstad called the Ninth Circuit's consideration of the housing allowance "judicial overreach on the part of America's most activist circuit court."

"The court could invalidate the clergy housing allowance any day, and that's why today's speedy consideration of my legislation by the House was so crucial," Ramstad said. "The House has done its job in a bipartisan way, and now the Senate needs to step up to the plate, pass this bill and prevent a disastrous tax increase on America's clergy."

While Ramstad's bill would not settle the issue of constitutionality, he and other supporters hope that by clarifying the "fair rental value" language formerly used by the Internal Revenue Service, it will set the stage for settlement in a pending case, thereby ending the Ninth Circuit's threat to the allowance.

Since 1921, pastors and other religious leaders have been able to deduct from federal taxes a portion of their income for housing. This allowance has been especially helpful in enabling small churches to have a fulltime pastor.

Abolition of the allowance would have a highly negative impact on pastors and other congregational leaders, as well as churches and other religious bodies. It has been estimated loss of the allowance would result in members of the clergy paying an additional $2.3 billion in taxes during the next five years.

The question of the allowance's constitutionality came when the Ninth Circuit received the case, Warren vs. Commissioner of Internal Revenue. A divided three-judge panel announced it would consider whether it should weigh the exemption's constitutionality and, if so, whether the allowance would pass the test under the First Amendment's ban on government establishment of religion.

The panel appointed Erwin Chemerinsky, a professor at the University of Southern California Law School, to write a brief on those issues for the court. In interviews, Chemerinsky already has said he believes the allowance is invalid. The panel requested both parties in the case submit briefs as well. The deadlines for the briefs are in May. Neither party, however, has challenged the exemption's constitutionality.

The potential crisis for pastors and churches began not as a challenge of the allowance's constitutionality but of the IRS' application of a limitation on it.

Rick Warren, pastor of Saddleback Valley Community Church, a large and highly influential Southern Baptist church in Lake Forest, Calif., sued the IRS after an agent assessed his home's value at far less than its worth and thereby reduced the housing allowance, Warren said. The IRS penalized Warren for the years 1993-95 for the difference between the IRS valuation and the exemption from taxable income he claimed.

In an April 12 recap of the dispute, Warren said his wife, Kay, and he "decided to challenge the vagueness of the revenue ruling that allowed agents to arbitrarily assess the value of a parsonage without any objective standard." He is not opposed to the "fair market rental value" clause IRS uses if the "IRS will define a 'fair' written, objective standard to be used by all IRS agents," said Warren, who wrote "The Purpose Driven Church."

In May 2000, a U.S. Tax Court in California decided in Warren's favor by a 14-3 vote. The court ruled the exemption in the code is limited "to the amount used to provide a home, not the fair market rental value of the home." The IRS appealed the ruling.

The bill by Ramstad would add the following language to the tax code: "And to the extent such allowance does not exceed the fair rental value of the home, including furnishings and appurtenances such as a garage, plus the cost of utilities." The amendment would not apply to taxable years before 2001. Amended tax returns could be filed without penalty or interest under the bill.

The bill's section on congressional findings and purpose was removed before passage. In his floor speech, Ramstad said the portions were stripped from the bill to follow the practice of the Ways and Means Committee on tax measures. "However, the fact that it has been deleted does not, let me repeat that, does not, reflect the lack of support &#91;for the findings and purpose&#93; within the House or among the bill's sponsors," Ramstad said.

Those interested in contacting their senators about the legislation may do so by accessing www.erlc.com/capitolhill.
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FIRST-PERSON: Self-indulgence & wheelchairs
by Larry Burkett
Date: April 17, 2002 - Wednesday

GAINESVILLE, Ga. (BP)--The United States is a nation of pleasure-seekers without equal in the world. We build billion-dollar industries to produce items so indulgent and trivial that you have to wonder if we're not a little bit nuts.

Even the tragic events of Sept. 11 seem to have only temporarily slowed down this indulgent drive for faster, more and bigger.

What qualifies as indulgent? Anything that has little or no utility is an indulgence. It's trivial. Every year, in the weeks before Christmas, we see a whole lot of indulging going on. But, the holiday season is only a condensed picture of what occurs during the rest of the year.

Of course, I'm not suggesting that we're to think that all material belongings are bad. After all, God wouldn't give us the intelligence to create such things as toys, clothes and cars, and then forbid us to use them. 

God wants us to prosper and enjoy the fruits of our labors. However, in the United States we've stretched this principle beyond the boundaries of common sense. We're always searching for bigger and more unique "stuff" to make us happy.

The vivacious Joni Eareckson Tada has been a quadriplegic since she was injured in a swimming accident years ago when she dove into the Chesapeake Bay. She understands the importance of a wheelchair. On one of Joni's travels to Africa, her Joni and Friends ministry provided wheelchairs to homeless and handicapped people. Some of the people had been impaired by disease while others were missing limbs.

Those she was visiting lived each day of their lives in oppressive heat without even simple comforts. Unfortunately, the supply of wheelchairs she brought to Africa was limited. Many of those people in need were left out of the distribution, including some teenage boys. Nevertheless, instead of becoming jealous or angry, these young men celebrated with the people who did receive wheelchairs.

How could those young men, living in such difficult circumstances, find the will to be happy? A more suitable question might be, "How can people who are in much better circumstances, like Americans, not find the will to be happy in the midst of such plenty?"

The answer lies in King Solomon's wisdom: "Better is a little with the fear of the Lord, than great treasure and turmoil with it" (Proverbs 15:16).

Remember that anything you accumulate that has little or no utility to you is an indulgence. Then, does that mean Christians can never have things purely for pleasure? Of course it doesn't. However, expanding your collection of such items should be consciously and diligently controlled. Don't allow pursuing such things to become the norm for you, as many have today.

Are you an indulgent Christian? Well, you might be if any of the following strike a chord:

-- You continually seek something better than you had before.

-- You always must have something bigger or better than someone else has.

-- You find yourself consistently trying to top the lifestyles of others.

And this might be the clincher: You're an indulgent Christian if you're embarrassed by your lavish lifestyle and often find yourself explaining or rationalizing the things you've done or accumulated.

Are you self-indulgent?

If you were in need of a wheelchair and had been left off the distribution list as those young Africans were, would you have rejoiced with those who did receive wheelchairs?
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Burkett is chairman of the board of Crown Ministries, which merged last fall with the ministry he founded in 1976, Christian Financial Concepts. A Southern Baptist layman based in Gainesville, Ga., Burkett is the host of the national "Money Matters" radio program and author of two resources published by LifeWay Christian Resources of the Southern Baptist Convention: "How Much Is Enough? 30 Days to Personal Revival" and "Jesus on Money."



