Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, November 27, 1993 TAG: 9311290155
SECTION: RELIGION PAGE: B-4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Frances Stebbins
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Roman Catholic youth will be joining Southern Baptist teens and college students in the "True Love Waits" campaign to encourage sexual abstinence until marriage.
Earlier this month, the National Catholic Youth Conference announced it would be supplying parishes with an overview of Catholic teaching on sexuality and teaching materials to be used with young people and families.
Catholic youth will be encouraged to sign the same pledge cards Southern Baptists are now using. Hundreds of thousands of the signed cards are to be displayed on the Mall in Washington in July 1994.
New crisis center for children
Presbyterian Home & Family Services based in Lynchburg is scheduled to open next week a second Genesis House for short-term emergency care of children in crisis. Like the first such facility, it is on the grounds at 150 Linden Ave. in Lynchburg. Eight additional beds will be available in what was once a cottage for extended residence of children, according to E. Peter Geitner, president of the corporation.
The Presbyterian agency also is constructing in Waynesboro a second group home for adults with mental retardation. In the planning stage for two years, it will augment, especially for Western Virginians, services of the other home in Fredericksburg.
Short-term care for children and permanent homes for the mentally disabled have replaced at most church institutions the residential child care with which many adults from broken homes grew up, Geitner pointed out.
Similar programs are in place at the Baptist facility in Salem.
Rodgerson retires from Baptist board
The Rev. Dr. Philip Rodgerson, who has often led workshops on church development and growth in Western Virginia, has retired from the staff of the Virginia Southern Baptist General Board staff in Richmond. Most recently Rodgerson has been director of the Division of Mission Ministrieswhich started a language program.
Notables decry Baha'is persecution by Iran
Three former secretaries of state joined 46 other prominent Americans in sponsoring an ad in the New York Times this week decrying Iranian persecution of Baha'is.
The Islamic republic has maintained a consistent pattern of persecution of Baha'is, who are considered heretics. Baha'is - followers of a prophet named Baha'u'llah - are denied employment and education, may be imprisoned and tortured with no provocation, and may even be denied burial permits for their dead.
Signers included such people as Zbigniew Brzezinski, Coretta Scott King and Elie Wiesel.
Southern Baptists ban women-led churches
The annual meeting of Southern Baptists in California this month voted to exclude participants from churches that ordain or hire women pastors.
In a 213 to 204 vote, representatives - called messengers - overruled their credentials committee and excluded the group from 19th Avenue Baptist Church of San Francisco.
Critics said the church's choice of a woman pastor was "unscriptural" and that to accept the messengers would cast a negative reflection on all Southern Baptist churches in the state.
After the vote, at least two messengers from other churches turned in their credentials in protest.
Food banks to get 60,000 blankets
Church World Service, an ecumenical relief agency, is distributing 60,000 blankets to Virginia food banks this month and next.
The program is in response to a request from the Virginia Council of Churches.
The first delivery will be to Roanoke, which will get 20,000 blankets to be given to the needy. Blankets also will go to Richmond, Harrisonburg/Staunton and Norfolk.
In 1992, Church World Service said, 66,000 people were housed in the state's 90 emergency shelters. About 36,000 were turned away because of lack of space.
by CNB