Church Leaders

It was too dark in the auditorium to see her, but the woman standing at the microphone could be heard clearly.She had experienced a vision, she said, "of a volcano -- huge -- glowing orange. I knew it was about to blow any minute. The spirit has begun to trickle down the sides, but the big explosion is about to come."That explosion, say leaders of the Vineyard Christian Fellowship, is a new era in God's kingdom, marked by massive healings and conversions.The Severn church, which holds its services at a local high school, bills itself as "the church that heals," both physically and emotionally.

Crystal Sewell knows what she wants to see in the next pope: a combination of the last two. "I'm a conservative soul," the 29-year-old Reservoir Hill woman said Monday after the midday Mass at St. Alphonsus Church in downtown Baltimore. "I feel like John Paul II had this particular zeal for youth and that brought the youth closer to the Church. Benedict took over with instilling older traditions into today's youth, which brings a whole new focus on what it means to be Catholic today.

Darwin was not his given name. He was being treated for HIV/AIDS at The Johns Hopkins Hospital. As the hospital's senior chaplain, I visited him often. He was in tears as he told me that when his disease was known to his family he was rejected. When he went to church one Sunday, he was met by the pastor and two church officials at the door, and they denied him the right to enter the church. Again, he cried for being turned away. As his condition worsened I visited him daily. As I entered his room one day I was surprised to see him holding a teddy bear in his arms.

An upstairs room at Asbury Methodist Church is stuffed with memorabilia and documents of the Annapolis church, from faded photos of generations of church leaders to mugs commemorating the recent 200th anniversary. The filing cabinets that line a back wall in this informal exhibit space contain a trove of church records - births, deaths and marriages among them. The glass cabinets elsewhere in the room hold other items, including a tea kettle that a century ago sat on a wood-fired stove in the church, used to boil water for tea for the pastor and his visitors.

NEW YORK -- Religious leaders yesterday condemned a new movie rating system as pandering to "sexually exploitative material."The church officials urged the Motion Picture Association of America to reconsider its action replacing the "X" rating with the new "No Children" or "NC-17" rating."

Three leaders of a Woodbine church admitted yesterday in U.S. District Court in Baltimore to illegally smuggling aliens into the United States on student and religious visas and then forcing them to clean apartments and bookstores.The three organizers of the Word of Faith Outreach Organization, located in a large home in western Howard County, pleaded guilty as part of a plea agreement to committing visa and immigration fraud and illegally bringing a dozen Estonians to Maryland.The pastor, Joyce E. Perdue, 55, and Robert C. Hendricks, 37, the assistant pastor, likely face two years in prison.

A group of Baltimore-area church leaders plan to press state and local officials Thursday night to ensure that the influx of jobs and people from military base realignment does not harm Maryland's environment or the region's working families. Lt. Gov. Anthony G. Brown, Baltimore Mayor Sheila Dixon and several legislators are expected to attend the meeting of BRIDGE, a coalition of area congregations committed to improving social equity, said Gary Gillespie, a spokesman for the group. BRIDGE stands for Baltimore Regional Initiative Developing Genuine Equality.

BEIJING - Leaders of the official Protestant church defended China's policies on religious freedom last week, asserting that a record 15 million Chinese now worship in approved Protestant churches and that persecution of so-called underground Christians is rare. At a news conference that appeared intended in part to contradict reports - like one from the State Department Sept. 5 - that religious persecution in China is on the rise, the church leaders charged that meddling by hostile foreign evangelists has caused many of the reported conflicts between Christians and the police.

Facing the downtown entrance to the Jones Falls Expressway, a huge banner on the whitewashed wall of St. Vincent de Paul Catholic Church confronts thousands of commuters with its urgent message: "War is not the answer." At the other end of the JFX, cloistered nuns in a Lutherville monastery sit Tuesday nights in silence, praying for peace. A Lutheran church in Pimlico charters buses to anti-war marches. A peace candle burns night and day in an Episcopal church in Bolton Hill. Through social and spiritual action, in sermons and statements, leaders of many mainline denominations are mobilizing a vocal religious movement against a possible war in Iraq.

After making emotional appeals for mercy while acknowledging responsibility for illegally bringing a dozen young people to the United States and forcing them to work at menial jobs, three leaders of a Woodbine church were sentenced to prison terms yesterday in U.S. District Court in Baltimore.The events leading to yesterday's action began in 1992, when organizers of the Word of Faith World Outreach church left Maryland for Estonia, a small country on the Baltic Sea.After delivering Bibles and preaching for several years, church leaders returned with young Estonians under religious and student visas.

Meeting for the first time since voters in Maryland and two other states legalized same-sex marriage, members of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops said Tuesday that they have no plans to soften their position that genuine marriage can occur only between one man and one woman. "Are [the results] concerning? Sure they are," William E. Lori, the archbishop of Baltimore, said between sessions at the organization's fall general assembly in Baltimore, which has drawn about 300 bishops and archbishops to the Marriott Waterfront Hotel in Harbor East this week.

I appreciated Dan Rodricks ' insightful and compassionate column on the arguments against marriage equality being made by some church leaders, based on parts of the Bible that condemn homosexuality as "an abomination worthy of death" ("Same-sex unions: What would Jesus do?" Oct. 25). As a student of the Old Testament, I examined the Book of Leviticus, from which that phrase is drawn, as well as other parts of the Bible. Sure enough, a man lying with another man commits a mortal sin. But lo and behold: In the Book of Exodus, working on the Sabbath is also a mortal sin. Elsewhere in Leviticus, a man who eats shellfish or pork, or cuts his hair and beard, also commits acts worthy of death.

A day after his housemate was reported missing in Harford County, Alexander Kinyua went to church with his family and asked the pastor if he could borrow a Bible. "I said, 'Sure, take it, but bring it back,' " Pastor Eric T. Campbell, of Baltimore's Faith Evangelical Lutheran Church on East North Avenue, recounted Sunday. Campbell said he was unsure whether Kinyua did take a Bible with him last Sunday, three days before the Morgan State University electrical engineering student was charged with killing 37-year-old Kujoe Bonsafo Agyei-Kodie and confessed to eating some of the man's internal organs.

Pastors are charged with the heavy responsibility of leading His people to experience God's saving grace. We must fervently defend God's word with strength and humility. Our burden is light because we are powerless. All the power in this world derives from God's love. I am moved to pray to truly know God's law. In Leviticus 20:22 God teaches us to obey his law. Every pastor has read the Bible's 12 passages with terms commonly identified with homosexuality. I pray we learn to love to learn the contextual truths of the Bible.

The man who police say shot and critically wounded a co-rector and killed another worker at an Ellicott City church last week was angry about being told to limit his visits to the food pantry, church leaders said in a statement on Saturday. The shootings of the two women have plunged the congregation of St. Peter's Episcopal Church, founded in Howard County in 1842, into mourning. The church has announced a private service for Sunday at 10 a.m. The statement from the church says a custodian found the victims in an office.

Bullying is something we are trying to teach are children not to do, yet some African-American and Catholic churches in our state are prime examples of bullies. The vitriol from some clergymen against gay marriage is disgusting and hateful. These "leaders" are encouraging bullying against gay people. It is dangerous to teach their congregations to hate and be intolerant. Put simply, it is bullying. That is what it will lead to in schools, in our children, in adults. Gay marriage is now the law, and these churches are trying to take away that right of security between consenting adults who don't affect these churches.

With an execution warrant scheduled to go into effect Monday, death row inmate Vernon Lee Evans Jr. awaited word yesterday from Maryland's highest court on several pending appeals as leaders of the Roman Catholic church implored the governor to commute Evans' death sentence. Also yesterday, Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. received a statement -- signed by religious and civil rights leaders, professors and the author of a state-funded study that found geographic and racial disparities in imposition of capital punishment -- calling for ending executions until the system can be overhauled.

During the five-hour ride down from upstate New York to yesterday's Christian conference in Lutherville, Jay LaScolea was looking forward to gaining some information - and some inspiration. By lunchtime at the one-day conference for pastors and church leaders at Trinity Assembly of God, he was declaring the trip worth the trouble. "Just the passion these guys have to reach 1 billion souls, it's incredible," said LaScolea, a staff pastor at Victory Highway Wesleyan Church in Painted Post, N.Y. "I'm fired up."

One of my most conservative friends is Catholic, but he is not a "conservative Catholic. " In my book, he'd only be a conservative Catholic if he opposed the death penalty (he supports it), opposed abortion (he believes women should have the right to chose) and engaged in natural family planning (he appreciates the fact that all women he's had sex with, including his wife, used the Pill or another artificial contraceptive to avoid unwanted pregnancy). His opposition to the legalization of same-sex marriage puts him in agreement with the leadership of his church.

Darwin was not his given name. He was being treated for HIV/AIDS at The Johns Hopkins Hospital. As the hospital's senior chaplain, I visited him often. He was in tears as he told me that when his disease was known to his family he was rejected. When he went to church one Sunday, he was met by the pastor and two church officials at the door, and they denied him the right to enter the church. Again, he cried for being turned away. As his condition worsened I visited him daily. As I entered his room one day I was surprised to see him holding a teddy bear in his arms.