United Methodists have defeated amendments that would have made church membership open to all Christians regardless of sexual orientation and furthered the creation of a new, U.S.-only governing body, according to the denomination's news service.

Delegates at the United Methodist Church's General Conference last year approved the sexual orientation amendment, as well as several others that would have changed how the international church is governed. But the amendments failed to gain support from two-thirds of the denomination's annual conferences, as required by church law. The conferences voted in May and June.

Twenty-seven of the 44 regional conferences that reported voting results rejected the amendment that would have made membership in local churches open to "all persons, upon taking vows declaring the Christian faith, and relationship in Jesus Christ," according to United Methodist
News Service.

The amendment followed a controversial case in 2005 in which a Virginia clergyman denied membership to a gay man who would not agree to change his sexuality. The UMC's high court later backed the pastor's decision.

The complicated amendments to church polity in the UMC, which counts 8 million members in the U.S. and about 3.5 million more in Asia, Africa and Europe, was seen by some as a way to make it easier for Americans to pass pro-gay resolutions.

"It is only thanks to the African and other international delegates that United Methodism has upheld biblical standards about homosexuality," Mark Tooley, a Methodist and president of the Institute on Religion & Democracy, warned in April.

"Liberals increasingly resent the growing African influence in our church and know they cannot win when the African churches are growing and the U.S. church declines, unless they can at least partially separate the U.S. church from the African churches," he wrote in lobbying against the amendments.

Advocates for the changes say it would have allowed local churches to be more responsive to cultural contexts without interference from a large, churchwide bureaucracy.

Posted by Sarah Pulliam Bailey at July 30, 2009 2:46PM | Comments (13)

For those following the ongoing political crisis in Honduras, evangelical observers at the Tegucigalpa-based Association for a More Just Society have put together a helpful Web site that aggregates news reports and analysis and offers a prayer and advocacy guide. You can find it here.

Also, CT examines the impact of the political crisis on short-term missions in Honduras here.

And our original blog post is here.

Posted by Jeremy Weber at July 28, 2009 4:03PM | Comments (0)

In the days following, the General Convention of TEC (the Episcopal Church based in the US), Rowan Williams, as Archbishop of Canterbury, has held off making any comment. Until today.

The UK's Daily Telegraph says:

Dr Williams acknowledged for the first time that believers may have to accept "two styles of being Anglican" in order to avoid schism. The decision by Episcopal bishops in the US earlier this month to press ahead with the ordination of homosexual priests and bishops — effectively overturning a ban on the practice — has pushed the 80 million-strong global church to the brink of an irrevocable split.

Williams' lengthy statement puts an accent on realistic analysis and description. It is likely to make some, if not most, on both sides of the global Anglican Communion, unhappy in that Williams does not map out how Anglicans are to resolve their differences once and for all.

The core issues are: gay clergy, gay bishops, the inter-dependence of the communion's 35-plus members and their commitment to traditional/orthodox teaching.

Here are just a few highlights from the ABC:

* A realistic assessment of what [the TEC] Convention has resolved does not suggest that it will repair the broken bridges into the life of other Anglican provinces; very serious anxieties have already been expressed. The repeated request for moratoria on the election of partnered gay clergy as bishops and on liturgical recognition of same-sex partnerships has clearly not found universal favour, although a significant minority of bishops has just as clearly expressed its intention to remain with the consensus of the Communion. The statement that the Resolutions are essentially 'descriptive' is helpful, but unlikely to allay anxieties.

* No Anglican has any business reinforcing prejudice against LGBT people, questioning their human dignity and civil liberties or their place within the Body of Christ. Our overall record as a Communion has not been consistent in this respect and this needs to be acknowledged with penitence.

* A blessing for a same-sex union cannot have the authority of the Church Catholic, or even of the Communion as a whole. And if this is the case, a person living in such a union is in the same case as a heterosexual person living in a sexual relationship outside the marriage bond; whatever the human respect and pastoral sensitivity such persons must be given, their chosen lifestyle is not one that the Church's teaching sanctions, and thus it is hard to see how they can act in the necessarily representative role that the ordained ministry, especially the episcopate, requires.

Here's the link to the full statement.

Posted by Tim Morgan at July 27, 2009 12:05PM | Comments (10)

Attendance dropped by one-fifth at this year's CBA convention of Christian retailers, the organization reported, as overall Christian retail sales plunged by more than 10 percent.

Attendance of Christian retail professionals totaled 1,903, a drop of 20 percent from 2008 figures. International visitors at the Denver convention also dropped by 28 percent, to 534 attending from 56 countries. The International Christian Retail Show concluded on July 15.

"In light of the economy and its effects over the past 10 months, we approached this show with conservative expectations," said CBA President and CEO Bill Anderson, who said most trade shows have seen drops in attendance. "While we knew attendance would be down some, I'm satisfied with a strong turnout and the enthusiasm and positive tone throughout the event by both retailers and suppliers."

The low attendance numbers follow a drop in sales reported in May by the Colorado Springs, Colo.-based organization that once was called the Christian Booksellers Association.

Its annual "State of the Industry" survey found that Christian retail stores saw net sales drop 10.75 percent from the previous year. During 2008, at least 91 stores closed, while 54 new ones opened.

Posted by Sarah Pulliam Bailey at July 20, 2009 3:36PM | Comments (1)

Last Friday, The Episcopal Church (TEC) completed its General Convention in Anaheim, California. The bottom line for conservatives still inside TEC is that they are increasingly adopting the language of remnant theology to describe their commitment to remain within TEC.

The church's Left-learning majority exercised extraordinary dominance and pressed forward with two measures:

D025. Gay Clergy, Bishops. This measure strongly endorses opening the office of priest and bishop to all qualified persons and is widely viewed as legally opening the door to gay and lesbian ordination as clergy and consecration as bishop.

C056. Same-sex blessings. This measure authorizes church leaders to develop services for the blessing of same-sex unions and openly allows bishops to respond sort of on a case by case basis and grants an attitude of generosity toward LGBT couples seeking a church blessing of their relationship.

In response, about 29 bishops (nearly all conservatives) signed the so-called Anaheim Statement. George Conger reports:

Twenty-nine bishops have endorsed a letter affirming their desire to remain part of the Anglican Communion and Episcopal Church while being faithful to the calls for restraint made by the wider church.

Styled as the "Anaheim Statement," the letter of dissent to the actions of the 76th General Convention pledged the bishops' fealty to the requests made by the Archbishop of Canterbury, the 2008 Lambeth Conference, the primates' meetings and ACC-14 to observe a moratoria on same-gender blessings, cross-border interventions and the ordination of gay and lesbian people to the episcopate.

So, the big question for conservatives is this: What is holding this remnant together?

The Left sees only conservative condemnations and what conservative evangelicals are against as the glue that can only hold the Right together for so long.

The Right, however, puts high hopes on the Anglican Convenant, evangelism, natural church growth, and liberal over-reach as elements that will give them the edge in the long haul.

Posted by Tim Morgan at July 20, 2009 9:21AM | Comments (23)

Upon receiving the news that Walter Cronkite had died on Friday, evangelist Billy Graham released this statement from his home in Montreat, N.C.:

"Walter Cronkite was one of the closest friends I had in journalism. He was an icon. I doubt if anybody will replace him in the hearts and minds of Americans. I respected his views on so many subjects."

"I will never forget Walter's narration of a documentary film produced about my wife, Ruth. May God bless his family during these days." (Cronkite also narrated an audiobook about Ruth.)

In his 1997 autobiography Just As I Am, Graham wrote about meeting Cronkite during his famous 1957 New York Crusade:

"I went to be interviewed by Walter Cronkite for his CBS television news show, recorded for broadcast the following night. He was an amiable host, and we had a great time, sitting together in a room overlooking Times Square. He asked the kind of leading questions I love to answer, about our work, our objectives, the message we preached, and what we had to offer New York.

"The news staff then screened some film clips that they had taken around Times Square and Broadway, and Walter asked me to comment on them. I observed that thousands of frustrated and bewildered people there who were searching for reality, could find it if they would give their lives to Christ."

As for Cronkite's own religious beliefs, here's what Wikipedia says, FWIW:

"Cronkite's family was Protestant and changed their denomination three times while he was a child. Cronkite himself joined the Episcopal church as a youth explaining in a 1994 interview: 'I got into a Boy Scout troop that met in an Episcopal church. The church had a wonderful minister who was also the scoutmaster. And I suppose you can say he proselytized me. At any rate, I was much involved with the church, and became Episcopalian — and an acolyte. Later, when I worked for a paper in Houston, I was church editor for a while. The Episcopal House of Bishops met in Houston one year, and I became intrigued by the leaders of the church — fascinated by their discussions and their erudition.'"

Posted by Mark Moring at July 18, 2009 12:46AM | Comments (7)

One day after The Episcopal Church vote to open the sacramental offices of clergy and bishop to active gays and lesbians, the church is poised today to vote on a resolution that will endorse the blessing of same-sex unions through a officially permitted rite.

Here are some of the details from George Conger, now writing for the Washington Times:

The U.S. Episcopal Church put itself on a collision course with the rest of the Anglican Communion by formally approving Tuesday the ordination of gay bishops, defying warnings that the Church of England may respond by recognizing a rival Anglican church. The 2.1-million-member U.S. branch of the Anglican Communion also was preparing Wednesday to approve blessing ceremonies for same-sex unions, a further slap at the Archbishop of Canterbury, who warned the U.S. church last week not to act in ways that deepen the splits in the 77-million-member worldwide communion. In Tuesday's actions, the U.S. church reversed a promise made to the rest of the communion by agreeing to end the church's gay-bishop ban, which the church imposed in 2006 at its last triennial convention after the worldwide furor over the 2003 consecration of Bishop V. Gene Robinson of New Hampshire.

Conservative reaction to these events is growing hotter. Virtue Online raised further anxiety about "tyranny of the majority:"

Bishop Peter Beckwith of Springfield [IL] rose in opposition to the whole matter. "Why waste my time and your time...is it casting a pearl before swine thing. This is another clear instance that we are allowing our church to be shaped by the secular culture rather than pursuing our God given mission in pursing the secular culture." Bishop Stacy Sauls of Lexington said the church allowed divorced persons as a concession to human frailty. "It is time for the church be liberated from hypocrisy under which it has been operating about our gay brothers and sisters. Divorce contradicted sexual ethics. Our gay and lesbian members don't think much about what other Anglicans around the world think. The Nigerians are our most ardent critic. The Scribes and the Pharisees tied people up in burdens..." Bishop Beckwith then requested the resolution be approved by a roll call vote, which would ensure voting on it is public and recorded. This was passed and the House went into recess. C056 is now scheduled for consideration tomorrow afternoon; if it passes through the House of Bishops it will move to the House of Deputies for adoption. Not all bishops were in favor of C056.

Posted by Tim Morgan at July 15, 2009 11:54AM | Comments (13)

Anyone who passed away between Michael Jackson's June 25 death and his July 7 memorial service was bound to go unsung. But one scholar whose passing should have been more widely noted was Martin Hengel, who specialized in the intersections between rabbinic Judaism and early Christianity. He was Emeritus Professor of New Testament and Early Judaism at the University of Tübingen. After battling cancer, he died in Tübingen, Germany, on July 2 at the age of 82.

Yesterday when I heard the news of Hengel's passing from Whitworth College's Jim Edwards, I e-mailed several evangelical New Testament scholars for their comments.

One common theme that emerged among these friends is that Hengel labored to fight skeptical approaches to reading the NT documents — and did so effectively. Wrote Jim Edwards: "Hengel … reversed the speculative trend of historical pessimism regarding the age and reliability of the NT and early Christian writings." Most specifically, in the words of Dallas Seminary's Darrell Bock, "He fought Bultmannism his entire career."

Wheaton College's Gary Burge chimed in: "Hengel stood against a tide of skepticism that had swept NT studies since mid-century. … Today Hengel's name stands behind many vital convictions we possess about the trustworthiness of the gospels — convictions that the evangelical church assumes every day — but whose defender that church may never know." Denver Seminary's Craig Blomberg said that Hengel wrote "not always quite as conservatively as American evangelicals might like, but light years away from the standard German liberalism."

Several other themes emerged: One was that, according to Edwards, Hengel cared for the faith and the church, something that often gets ignored in the academic discipline of biblical studies. And according to Asbury's Ben Witherington, Hengel "exemplified what John Wesley looked for in a Christian scholar — both erudition and evangelical fervor, both knowledge and vital piety."

Another was the rigor of his scholarship — and the rigor he demanded of his students. North Park University's McKnight called him "a scholar's scholar," and Witherington called him a "polymath," and said Hengel's "knowledge was encyclopedic, his energy was seemingly inexhaustible, and his footnotes were endless." Most importantly, he inspired younger scholars to reach for the same high standard. Blomberg wrote: "I will always remember his challenge to evangelicals to learn the relevant languages for biblical scholarship better than anyone else and to master the relevant primary literature of the ancient world better than anyone else, because, given our convictions about the Bible, we had more reason than anyone else to do so."

Finally, let me mention Hengel's personal touch. Gary Burge was amazed that shortly after he published his doctoral dissertation, he received a letter from Hengel "offering generous compliments and encouragement." Burge continued: "I had known of him only through his scholarship and now suddenly it was clear that behind this great name was a person, a pastor, a fellow-believer whose effort one afternoon brought remarkable encouragement to a fledgling scholar." Bock similarly noted that three separate times when he was on sabbatical in Tübingen, Hengel took the time to mentor him. Witherington also remembers with fondness being the guest of Hengel and his wife in Tübingen.

Jim Edwards wrote that Hengel had once told him that "his primary purpose in scholarship and writing was to unmask the errors of Bultmann's assumptions and conclusions. He did that, and far more, establishing a historical foundation for NT studies that is both historically responsible and certainly congenial to those who have a high view of the Word."

Long-term readers of Christianity Today will know that the early CT also engaged in the debunk-Bultmann project. And even in more recent times, CT was pleased (with Darrell Bock as broker) to give Hengel a platform from which to give strong encouragement to evangelical biblical scholars. Read "Raising the Bar: A daring proposal for the future of evangelical New Testament Scholarship" (CT, Oct. 22, 2001). And then to get a taste of the man himself, watch the video interview on the website of the Centre for Public Christianity.

Posted by David Neff at July 14, 2009 3:21PM | Comments (4)

Starting last week, The Episcopal Church (TEC) has been meeting in Anaheim, California, for its General Convention. The convention is subdivided into the House of Bishops and the House of Deputies (lay and clergy).

The big question coming into the convention was whether the convention would move to repeal so-called B033, approved at their last convention. This resolution B033 called for the church to abide by a moratorium for consecrating openly homosexual individuals to the office of Bishop. (In 2003, the openly gay V. Gene Robinson was named as Bishop of New Hampshire.)

Last night, the House of Bishops approved D025, a measure from the House of Deputies that will allow gay clergy to serve openly in all offices of the church. The Associated Press reports:

The Episcopal Church moved Monday toward affirming their acceptance of gays and lesbians for all roles in ministry, despite pressure from fellow Anglicans worldwide for a decisive moratorium on consecrating another openly gay bishop.

Bishops at the Episcopal General Convention in Anaheim, Calif., voted 99-45 with two abstentions for a statement declaring "God has called and may call" to ministry gays in committed lifelong relationships.

Lay and priest delegates to the meeting had comfortably approved a nearly identical statement, and were expected to adopt the latest version before the meeting ends Friday.

Leaders of the Anglican Communion have been pushing Episcopalians to roll back their support for gays and lesbians since 2003, when the U.S. denomination consecrated the first openly gay bishop, V. Gene Robinson of New Hampshire. The Episcopal Church is the U.S. Anglican body.

During the debate, several conservative bishops spoke out, according to Virtue Online:

The bishop of West Virginia objected, "We need to face the fact that this is a repudiation of B033... now we're shooting the gap..." and will, he felt, do the very things that the Communion has asked The Episcopal Church not to do. Peter Beckwith, Bishop of Springfield, agreed, "I do not believe it is right... sex outside marriage is inappropriate" and more importantly, he thought that what was at stake was "a perceived justice issue" over and against the "integrity of the Communion." The Bishop of Albany Bill Love spoke in the same vein, stating that "If this resolution passes, The Episcopal Church will cease to be what its always been." For him, passing amended D025 would "totally shred" the Communion... a loss to us and the wider Church." Others, notably Bishop Mark Lawrence of South Carolina and Bishop John W. Howe of Central Florida spoke powerfully against the resolution. But the tide of the House was against them and the Archbishop of Canterbury, who had warned against such legislation earlier that day at General Synod.

The vote was hailed as a milestone by Integrity, the leading organization for supporters of gay ordination. Late yesterday, Integrity in a press statement said:

By a nearly 2-1 margin, the bishops of the Episcopal Church passed an amended version of resolution D025, which effectively ends the "BO33 Era" and returns the church to relying on its canons and discernment processes for the election of bishops. "While concurrence on the amended resolution by the House of Deputies is necessary before it is officially adopted by the church as a whole," said Integrity President Susan Russell, "there is no question that today's vote in the House of Bishops was an historic move forward and a great day for all who support the full inclusion of all the baptized in the Body of Christ."

Posted by Tim Morgan at July 14, 2009 8:50AM | Comments (22)

What do you get when you put a Muslim imam, a Greek Orthodox priest, a rabbi, a Buddhist monk and 10 atheists in the same room? Penitents Compete, a new reality TV show in Turkey, in which contestants from those religions try to convert atheists to their faith.

Those behind the program say they want to promote religious belief while educating Turkey's mostly Muslim population about other faiths.

"The project aims to turn disbelievers on to God," the station's deputy director, Ahmet Ozdemir, told the Hürriyet Daily News and Economic Review.

For the whole story, check out this piece in The Guardian.

Posted by Mark Moring at July 7, 2009 5:50PM | Comments (3)

A Michigan-based Christian relief group, International Aid, has closed its doors amid financial struggles while World Vision, one of the largest evangelical relief agencies, has eliminated about 75 positions.

International Aid needed to collect about $1.5 million in the past two months to balance its $70 million budget, but only gathered between $150,000 and $200,000, according to CEO Gordon Loux.

"Since we have insufficient funds, the board felt it was prudent to cease operations," Loux said.

The Spring Lake, Mich.-based Christian nonprofit has offered health and humanitarian support worldwide since 1980. Loux said he is in discussions with six or seven nonprofits about rolling some programs into other organizations.

About 40 people were employed by International Aid, roughly half of the organization's staff a year ago. The company also has 32 employees working in Honduras and the Philippines who will be out of jobs.

Meanwhile, about 50 members of World Vision's 1,200-member staff were laid off and about 25 open positions will not be filled, said spokesman Dean Owen.

"We can no longer avoid the painful cost reduction steps that many organizations have already implemented," said Richard Stearns, president of World Vision, U.S. "The efforts of our faithful employees and donors have allowed us to swim against the tide longer than almost any other
nonprofit."

Private cash donations, which increased 4 percent during the last quarter of 2008, have begun to decline. In the first quarter of 2009, donations dropped about 3 percent. Between April and June, they were about 18 percent below the previous year.

Despite the drop in donations, most child sponsors "remain loyal," Stearns said, giving about $30 a month that is designated to aid a particular needy child.

Among other cost-cutting measures, World Vision is canceling merit raises for the second year in a row and increasing employees' premiums for health benefits. Owen said the layoffs were the organization's first since 1995.

Owen said the layoffs are only occurring among U.S. staff and should not affect the global work of the organization. "Part of the point of this was to make sure we were able to fulfill our funding obligations to our programs around the world," he said.

Posted by Sarah Pulliam Bailey at July 7, 2009 5:28PM | Comments (0)

Last Sunday's removal of president Manuel Zelaya by the Honduran military has drawn strong criticism from the international community, uniting such disparate voices as Barack Obama and the United Nations with Hugo Chavez and Fidel Castro. Yet evangelicals in Honduras tell CT that the majority of the Central American nation -- including its Protestants and Catholics -- are in favor of the removal of Zelaya, though not necessarily of the military method.

"It's sad to see the OAS and the UN forcing Honduras to take back this president," said Maria Elena Umana-Alvarez, a well-connected Honduran evangelical. "We feel that what has happened is a reply to the fervent prayers of so many Christians. For many of us, it's not a coup, but the rescue of our country and our democracy."

Below the jump is an analysis of the situation offered by ASJ, a Christian social justice organization in Honduras.

The events surrounding Zelaya have caused evangelical church leaders, traditionally apolitical, to make initial steps into the realm of political activism. The week before Sunday's ballot box showdown, leaders of the main Honduran evangelical associations, including Oswaldo Canales, Rene Peñalba, Misael Argeñal, and Evelio Reyes, led peaceful demonstrations calling upon Zelaya to stop his efforts to change the Honduran constitution and focus on more-pressing domestic concerns, such as the aftermath of May's 7.3-magnitude earthquake. Evangelicals were involved with another large rally on Tuesday.

The 'coup' comes during the peak of the summer short-term missions season in Honduras, causing some missions groups and churches to either come home early or cancel planned trips.

Umana-Alvarez, who hosts a number of missions groups each summer, said caution this week is advisable amid the uncertainty of how nations such as Venezuela and Nicaragua will respond to Saturday's expected showdown between the OAS-backed returning Zelaya and the interim Honduran government that refuses to accept him back.

However, she said that canceling trips altogether this year would be an overreaction at the expense of Hondurans in need of the water projects and other works planned by missions groups.

Photo by Eleana Borjas Cuello.

Below is an analysis offered by Dr. Kurt Ver Beek, Calvin College professor, and Andrew Clouse, communications specialist with the Asociación para una Sociedad más Justa:

Political leaders from around the world are racing to be the first and loudest to condemn this past Sunday's coup in Honduras. Everyone from President Obama to Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, from the United Nation's general secretary to Fidel Castro, are denouncing the coup, threatening sanctions and calling for the return to office of ousted President Manuel Zelaya. Yet why are so many Hondurans, including key evangelical leaders, so divided about the coup and Zelaya's return?

It all starts with the constitution. The Honduran constitution has 379 articles - and all but four can be reformed. It's one of these four non-negotiables that's causing all the fuss. The article states that a Honduran president cannot be re-elected. Ever. One four-year term is the only shot a president can have. Nearly all Latin American countries wrote this into their constitutions during the 1970s and 1980s in an attempt to avoid their presidents' tendency to use second terms to consolidate power and stay in office permanently.

So starting with president-turned-dictator-turned-fugitive Alberto Fujimori in Peru, and more recently including Hugo Chavez in Venezuela, Evo Morales in Bolivia, Rafael Correa in Ecuador and now a little closer to home - Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua and Zelaya in Honduras - Latin American presidents have sought to reform their constitutions to permit re-election. In the last few years Venezuelan president Chavez has been building ALBA, a block of Latin American presidents designed to challenge the U.S. hegemony in the region. His country's oil income in the form of finance grants, loans and political advisors serves as the carrot to entice presidents to join ALBA. And predictably enough, six of the nine members of the ALBA countries have or are trying to reform their constitutions to pave the way for their possible re-election.

Honduran president Zelaya began a full-out effort to reform the constitution in March of this year by announcing a referendum to be held Sunday, June 28 - the day the coup took place - to determine whether the people wanted an assembly called to rewrite the constitution before presidential elections in November. Almost immediately, the country's political, economic and many religious leaders began lining up against this effort. The Supreme Court ruled the referendum illegal; the Congress voted to sanction the president; the attorney general's office began investigations into possible charges; both political parties - including the president's own - condemned his actions; and church leaders like Evelio Reyes, pastor of one of the largest evangelical churches in Honduras, began holding high-profile prayer vigils each morning in front of government offices.

Had the president done a better job during his first three years in office, his efforts may have been more popular. However his administration has been plagued by ineffectiveness and myriad accusations of corruption. During his first year in office, his administration received over $4 billion in debt forgiveness - with the chief condition that any money not spent on debt was to be invested in reducing poverty. Many organizations, including Christian NGOs, worked for over a year to define how this money could be best invested. However, Zelaya ignored their efforts and instead tried to buy votes by spending 70 percent of the money on raises for teachers and health workers, and the rest on ineffective but politically powerful "cash coupons" for the rural poor. Zelaya has also failed to deliver on promises to build houses, promote land reform, build a new international airport and fight corruption. In the meantime, he has used public funds to finance a pro-government newspaper and TV station, flashy TV and radio ads and pro-government demonstrations. Zelaya did move beyond rhetoric early this year when he impetuously hiked the minimum wage by 60 percent. The raise was desperately needed, but its overnight implementation in an already-struggling economy led to thousands of minimum-wage job losses as many businesses found it impossible to make payroll.

In short, Zelaya's record is dismal. And that fact has led many Hondurans, including most evangelicals, to be relieved to see his ineffective and corrupt administration come to an unexpected end. Pastor Evelio Reyes, in a speech to support the new government said, "We cannot tolérate these kinds of actions. No country in the world puts up with these types of barbarities, and Honduras won't either because we have dignity."

But the president does have his supporters. Despite his decidedly non-leftist background, Zelaya has managed to gain the support of some of the most radical social groups in Honduras by funding their organizations and protests and promising them seats at the constitutional assembly that would have rewritten the constitution. These groups are expert mobilizers and are now returning the favor by leading the increasingly violent protests seeking Zelaya's return to office.

But other, less radical Hondurans and church leaders also disapprove of the coup. First, the rhetoric Zelaya used during the last three months to promote a rewrite of the constitution touched a nerve for many Hondurans, including evangelicals. Zelaya's speeches as well as very professional TV and radio ads (designed by Venezuelan advisors) argued that the 70 percent of the Honduran population who live on less than $2 a day have seen little benefit from 20 plus years of democratic rule in which a political and economic elite have run the country and everything in it for their own illicit gain. Zelaya said it was time to hear the "voice of the people" and that reforming the constitution was a good first step in getting that voice heard. This message resonated with the poor and those, including many Christians, concerned about issues of poverty and injustice. Mario Cantor, an evangelical pastor in a marginal urban community, said this:

"The majority of people who supported the cuarta urna (the "fourth ballot box") believed that the constitution needed to be reformed to be more inclusive. According to some, the constitution excluded certain sectors of the community. So they believe that there is a need to create a constitution that allows the people to have more participation in the country´s decisions. Zelaya himself was talking about a more equitable society, where distribution of wealth is fairer, talking about the common good, as Jesus did."

In addition, many Hondurans and Honduran Christians are uncomfortable with the military's role in Zelaya's ouster, fearing a return to the situation of the 1970s and 1980s when the military was clearly the power behind the president. This was an era of fear, violence and corruption that few Hondurans care to relive. They argue that like him or not, if Zelaya was breaking the law, he should have been charged and tried instead of forcibly removed from his home and flown to Costa Rica. And they are uneasy hearing reports of suspended civil liberties and protesters detained.

They want the democratic system to work the way it is supposed to. As megachurch pastor Rene Peñalba stated, Zelaya's goal "in itself was not bad, but he got the method wrong. And I would say the same about the other side. [Zelaya] deserved to go to trial, but they got the method wrong. Both sides got it wrong."

While the fear of an oversized role of the military is understandable, it seems clear that they were an ambivalent partner in the ouster, directed by a small but powerful political and economic elite. Although initially Zelaya's allies in carrying out the referendum, the military has shifted since there was clearly little enthusiasm for the task. Just days before the referendum, Zelaya fired the chief general and the rest of the general's staff quit in solidarity. Zelaya and his supporters staged a dramatic showdown at a military warehouse to get the ballots while the military stood silently by. And most obviously, while the military carried out the arrest and flew Zelaya to Costa Rica, they did not seize power but immediately installed the president of Congress as President of the country.

What's clear among all the conflict is that all the existing powers in Honduras - the ruling elite, the Zelaya administration, and the military - show by their rhetoric that they recognize what most ordinary Hondurans want - to live in a country where their voice will be heard and where true democracy and rule of law flourish.

Carlos Hernandez, president of the Association for a More Just Society, a Christian social justice organization in Honduras, argues, "As Christians we need to make the legal systems work for everyone - from the poorest Honduran to the most powerful. So first of all, Zelaya should return to the country and there should be a full investigation into his actions. If he has broken laws, he should be tried and sentenced - not sent to Costa Rica without a trial. Second, we should also push for an investigation into who was responsible for this coup and they should also be investigated and tried. It is only then, by showing that neither side is above the law and that neither side can take the law into their own hands, that we can show the world that justice for all is possible, even in Honduras."

Posted by Jeremy Weber at July 3, 2009 6:01PM | Comments (22)

Today, the Michigan-based ministry International Aid announced its decision to cease operations. The news release (posted today, but dated yesterday) reads as follows:

SPRING LAKE, Mich., July 1, 2009 – Spring Lake, Mich. - based International Aid (IA) said today it is ceasing operations effective immediately. Board Chair Roger Spoelman said the board voted this morning to shut down the agency.

"While this was a tough decision for all of us who believe in the mission of the organization, we simply do not have the resources to continue even another day," said Spoelman. IA acting CEO Dr. Gordon D. Loux informed the agency's 40 U.S. employees this afternoon. The shutdown also immediately affects 32 employees in Honduras and the Philippines.

Founded in 1980, International Aid provided health care services, technology, training and supplies to the poor in developing countries around the globe in addition to emergency aid for those affected by natural disasters.

Loux said the agency will continue shipments of medical equipment and supplies. He said he will be working with vendors and creditors affected by today's shut down as well as notifying the agency's corporate and other partners.

Posted by David Neff at July 2, 2009 1:32PM | Comments (2)