THANKSGIVING-GOSPEL MISSIONS
Hundreds of gospel missions serving Thanksgiving dinners
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (AP) β The president of the Association of Gospel Rescue Missions says many Christians are leaving their family dinner tables to serve the needy this Thanksgiving.
John Ashmen says volunteers are needed year-round, but especially on Thanksgiving, when hundreds of Christian missions extend “radical hospitality” to poor and homeless people who might otherwise lack food and fellowship.
Ashmen says it’s a way to serve Jesus, who said Christians actually serve him when they help someone who is hungry, thirsty or imprisoned.
Besides food and shelter, Ashmen says the nation’s gospel rescue missions offer people the spiritual support needed to turn their lives around.
Sound: (3:06 a.m. audio feed)
GRAND HAVEN CROSS
Grand Haven cross draws criticism from groups
GRAND HAVEN, Mich. (AP) β A 48-foot-tall cross on city-owned property overlooking the Grand River in Michigan is raising questions from Grand Haven residents and a Jewish organization.
The Grand Haven Tribune reports that the Anti-Defamation League wrote a letter to Grand Haven city leaders calling for the removal of the cross from Dewey Hill.
City Manager Pat McGinnis says the cross is an expression of free speech and people are welcome to place other materials on the hill.
The Anti-Defamation League’s Michigan chapter and a group of residents say the city’s display of the cross on government property violates the First Amendment. The group Americans United for Separation of Church and State sent a similar letter in September.
The cross has been displayed periodically for 50 years, according to the Muskegon Chronicle.
DEPUTY SHERIFF-GAY PROTEST
Groups object to deputy’s letter on homosexuality
MEDFORD, Ore. (AP) β Some churches and gay rights groups in Oregon are denouncing letters written to a newspaper by a Jackson County sheriff’s officer calling homosexuality an abomination.
In a letter to the editor published Nov. 3 in the Mail Tribune, patrol sergeant Dace Cochran quoted a Bible passage saying it’s an abomination for men to lie with men. In a 2013 letter to the editor, Cochran also used the Bible passage and said same-sex marriages are “wrong no matter how you spin them.”
On Friday, leaders from Southern Oregon Pride, Lotus Rising Project, Rogue Valley LGBT Elders, the Medford Congregational United Church of Christ and Oregon Action called on Jackson County Sheriff Mike Winters and Jackson County commissioners to repudiate Cochran’s statements.
The sheriff’s office on Tuesday issued a statement saying, “Dace Cochran sent the letter during his own private time. He was not operating under any authority of the Jackson County Sheriff’s Office. Like everyone else, he has a right to freedom of speech. His opinions are his opinions, and his alone.”
CHURCH ABUSE
Retired Catholic priest gets 10 years in rape case
LAWRENCE, Mass. (AP) β A former high-ranking member of a Roman Catholic religious order has been sentenced to up to 10 years in prison for raping a boy at a Massachusetts summer camp in the 1980s.
The Rev. Richard McCormick of New York was also sentenced to 10 years of probation Wednesday.
The 73-year-old former member of the Salesian Society of North America was convicted Nov. 12 of five counts of child rape that prosecutors said occurred between 1981 and 1982 at a youth camp in Ipswich run by the order.
The now 44-year-old victim testified that McCormick took him out of activities or woke him late at night to force him into sexual acts.
McCormick’s attorney said his client’s accuser was motivated by money and the state had no evidence of a crime.
OBIT-LEO MOSKOVITZ
Banker who lived to 109 credited unlisted number
JERMYN, Pa. (AP) β A Pennsylvania banker and philanthropist who said the key to his longevity was having an unlisted phone number has died at the age of 109.
Leo Moskovitz joked that he lived so long because God couldn’t find his name in the phone book. He also said he ate either oatmeal or eggs for breakfast, but wasn’t sure if that’s why he lived so long.
Moskovitz founded the First National Bank of Jermyn, Pennsylvania, and served as its president until 1993. The University of Scranton commemorated Moskovitz’s support by naming a theater for him and wife Ann.
A funeral director says Moskovitz died Monday, two weeks before what would have been his 110th birthday.
JORDAN-EXTREMISM
AP Interview: Jordan prince calls for tolerance
AMMAN, Jordan (AP) β A brother of Jordan’s king is urging moderate Muslims to take a stand against extremists who he says violate the core values of Islam.
Prince Feisal also told The Associated Press on Wednesday that Jordan is trying to defuse religious tensions at a major Jerusalem shrine sacred to Muslims and Jews. The tensions have led to repeated clashes in recent weeks.
The prince heads “Generations for Peace,” a grassroots organization promoting peaceful conflict resolution. He says the group he founded in 2007 has reached more than 200,000 children and youths in 50 countries. Feisal says more programs of this type are needed.
Referring to the threat of Islamic extremism, he says that “it requires the moderates to stand up and say this … (has) nothing to do with our religion.”
IRAN-JEWS
Once maligned, Iran’s Jews find greater acceptance
YAZD, Iran (AP) β More than a thousand Jews have trekked across Iran this past week to visit a shrine in an ancient Persian city.
Iran has been a home for Jews for thousands of years, and now has the Middle East’s largest Jewish population outside of Israel. But while Iranian Jews in recent years had their faith continually criticized by the country’s Islamic governments, they’ve found new acceptance under moderate President Hassan Rouhani.
Those taking part in the recent pilgrimage to the tomb of a famed Jewish scholar praised the Iranian government’s new outreach.
Most of Iran’s 77 million people are Shiite Muslims and its ruling establishment is led by hard-line clerics who preach a strict version of Islam. Many Jews fled the country after the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Jews linked to Israel afterward were targeted. Today, estimates suggest some 20,000 Jews remain in the country.
