Congress Of National Black Churches

Black leaders from eight religious denominations are planning a national telephone campaign to pressure President Clinton to veto legislation they say would dismantle welfare and Medicaid programs. The Congress of National Black Churches, concluding a three-day conference Friday, also released a 10-point program to deal with "deep despair" among black Americans.

Black leaders from eight religious denominations are planning a national telephone campaign to pressure President Clinton to veto legislation they say would dismantle welfare and Medicaid programs. The Congress of National Black Churches, concluding a three-day conference Friday, also released a 10-point program to deal with "deep despair" among black Americans.

Presidential candidate Bill Bradley drew enthusiastic reviews from African American church leaders Thursday after telling a group of about 150 ministers in Los Angeles that "race remains an unresolved dilemma" in America. Citing continuing racial discrimination in housing, health care and access to new technology, Bradley told the annual meeting of the Congress of National Black Churches at the Regal Biltmore Hotel, "I see it too, and it must end."

A consortium of security systems manufacturers plans to donate more than $1 million in materials over the next few years to help prevent damage to black churches. The Security Industry Coalition announced its plans to work with the Congress of National Black Churches earlier this month. Richard Chace, communications director for the Security Industry Coalition, based in Alexandria, Va.

Keith Hilliard made $320 a week working at a truck wash, but even on his and his wife's combined salaries, he said, "we were barely making it." So Hilliard decided to go into business for himself. He was encouraged by his church pastor, who had started a campaign called "EARN Ministry" to boost entrepreneurs in his African American congregation.

He is celebrated as a civil rights leader, a social reformer and a great orator, a towering figure representing 20th century pacifism and political leadership. But the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. also was a theologian, a title often overlooked each Jan. 15, on the anniversary of his birth. Yet it was King's theology--especially a path-breaking concept he called the "beloved community"--that shaped his life and made him one of the prophetic voices of his age.

Organizers and participants in the Stand for Children rally that drew 200,000 people to the nation's capital June 1 say the demonstration is only the beginning of an effort to forge a movement aimed at aiding young people. "It was a tremendous success," said J. Christoph Arnold of Rifton, N.Y., a senior elder of the Bruderhof movement, a sect similar to the Amish or Mennonites. "People came hungry for a message on how do we help our children. Now the task begins."

Leaders of major Protestant, Catholic and Jewish organizations condemned Republican welfare and Medicaid reform proposals Wednesday as "unholy" and beseeched President Clinton to veto the legislation. "Unholy legislation that destroys the safety net must not be signed into law by President Clinton," the organizations said in a joint statement. "The very soul of our nation is at risk."

Changes proposed by President George W. Bush's controversial Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives are radical in the extreme, causing jitters throughout the religious community. Clergy members are divided over the office's aim to hand over society's safety net to churches and other religious institutions. Jewish organizations worry the idea may violate the 1st Amendment.

On city hall steps, at church-sponsored prayer breakfasts and lunches--and in a nationally televised program emanating from Van Nuys' Church on the Way--millions of Americans on Thursday observe the 46th annual National Day of Prayer. Established in 1952, the day was designated in recent years as the first Thursday in May by Congress and proclaimed each year by the White House.

Because its ranks include a greater variety of beliefs and church backgrounds, the low-visibility Christian left may continue to have trouble matching the impact of the Christian right, according to a recently published study by a California Lutheran University scholar. Charles Hall, assistant professor of sociology at the Thousand Oaks campus, said his survey of 4,800 activists in eight national groups found that those on the right enjoyed a greater religious consensus.