The Anniston Star from Anniston, Alabama • Page 22

Religion and Ethics The Anniston Sur, Saturday, May 25, 1985 Rector has a vision of children's community Volun teers build homes for the poor By Michael J. McMaau SALEM, N.J. Former President Jimmy Carter serves on only one board of directors that of Habitat For Humanity, which harnesses the efforts of 5,000 volunteers to build housing for the poor in 89 American communities and in 13 foreign countries. During a three-day meeting in this little town in southern New Jersey, he preached a sermon asking a question that should be asked from every pulpit in America, Christian or Jewish: "What have you done over the last two years that was of genuine benefit to others which required real sacrifice of you or your family?" Most of us myself included would have to say "Nothing." But Jimmy and Roselyn Carter gave up a week's vacation in the Virgin Islands to help rehabilitate a tenement on the Lower East Side of New York last fall. And there he was giving up three more days for a board meeting.

m. Sr. McMaaui By LYNN MARKLEY Star Staff Writer The Rev. Edward John Wilson of Birmingham has a dream a dream that one day the world will live in peace. The International Children's Community is the core of that dream, a proposed multi-million dollar complex that would house an international school for children aged 15-17, a research complex that would define and resolve problems dealing with children and a world culture center where children could learn the arts, music, drama and literature of different nations participating in the program.

WILSON, the rector of Saint Mark's Episcopal Church in Birmingham, has been actively pursuing his.dream during the last six years and hopes the complex can be constructed in the Birmingham area. It's quite a dream for one man to undertake, but not quite an impossible dream, says Wilson. "This is a step toward world peace and also a realistic hope," he says. "It's realistic because the world needs it. If peace is to be had, then the ideals of peace must be placed in the minds of children.

"There exists no greater task nor higher ideal than to assist children in building a society based on mutual trust, cooperation and respect. The Community can be the force in developing this society through its three components, education, research and culture." The international high school will be initially for juniors and seniors, who will be taught by a faculty from different nations. Students will live, work and study together, Wilson says. The' International Research Center will provide scholars from different nations and disciplines an opportunity to work WILSON SAYS the groundwork is set for the Community but there is still a long way to go. Millions of dollars must be raised, specific Community concepts must be reached, international compromises must be agreed upon and finally a site must be chosen.

Wilson, who has contacted United Nation delegates from more than 25 countries, says the idea has been highly accepted among those diplomats and also said that a special representative of the U.N. Secretary-General will chair ore of two committees set up to establish the Community. The International Planning Committee, which is comprised of leaders in research, education and culture, will study the proposal to create the Sommunity, Wilson says. Murray Fuhrman, who is the UN representative to the Secretary General, will serve as chairman of this committee. The questions raised by this committee will then be channeled to another, the International Task Force, which will answer the questions privately and then collectively at the University of Alabama at Birmingham in November.

"EVERYONE SEES it as an extremely, fascinating idea," Wilson "The, concept could have a tremendous impact' on the world so far as world peace. The people I have spoken with from Paris to Cairo have tremendously accepted the idea." The Community is projected to cost millions and millions of dollars, but Wilson said funding will not major roadblock to the project. "I have proposed that each of the buildings and whatever else is needed for the facility be donated by the various countries participating in the program, all the way down to the streets and street lights," Wilson says. Rev. Edward John Wilson together on common problems, especially those involving children, like teenage pregnancies and the youth drug culture.

The center will also serve as a clearing house for information and all major research relating to children worldwide, he says. Over lunch, I asked him why he did so. Carter said: "All people with religious convictions have a desire to put what they believe into actual practice in a modern world. But that is difficult to do. Habitat gives a chance to do something for others, without it being charity or a handout.

"We don't give away anything. People are required to pay for the housing. They only have to pay for the cost of materials, and are given 20 years to pay with no interest being charged. We take their monthly payments, and build more housing. We try to supplement, not replace any government housing programs nor any built by entrepreneurs for profit." Habitat is a lengthened shadow of Millard Fuller, the most remarkable Christian I ever met.

Carter says "He has the most unbounded faith I've ever seen. He believes that with God's help, anything can be done." He is the only millionaire I know who gave his wealth to the poor. Fuller became a businessman at age 6 when his father gave him a pig to fatten and sell. Before graduating from high school, he had businesses in chickens, rabbits, cattle, and firecrackers. In law school, he launched a series of businesses for students: birthday cake deliveries, housing rentals, phone directories.

That led to a mail-order business for such products as holly wreaths, door mats, etc. sold to youth groups for fund-raising purposes. By' graduation he and a partner were earning After graduation, the two of them began publishing a cookbook sold by the Future Fanners of America as a fund-raiser and soon became America's largest cookbook publisher. By age 30, Fuller was a millionaire, with a big car, a weekend home, three farms. But there was a price paid.

He suddenly developed severe breathing problems. And his wife Linda left him. In 1965 she went to New York to see a pastor to discuss her marriage. Millard wrote in his book, BOKOTOLA, that suddenly "business, sales, profits, prestige everything which had seemed so important paled into total meaninglessness." So he went after her. Amidst tears, each talked of how they had betrayed each other and God in a "wild pursuit of money." Together, they decided to sell the business, give the money away and begin a new (Please see Volunteers, Page I) Catholic count declines It has more than doubled to a current 52,286,043, even though off slightly from the 52,392,934 of the year before, according to the Official Catholic Directory for 1985, issued this week by P.J.

Kenedy Sons of Wilmette, 111. That whopping constituency, the largest religious body in the United States, amounts to 22.04 percent of the country's population, down just three-tenths of a percent from the prior year. Protestant active membership as 'a whole makes up the largest bulk of Amerir can religious adherents, totalling 77 million, about 33 percent of the population. But they're dispersed in many different denominations. The biggest one, the Southern Baptist Convention, totals 14.3 million, the rest of them trailing down the line, with Roman Catholicism far in front as the largest single denomination.

In terms of religious preference in the country, the latest combined studies show 57 percent of the population Protestant, 29 percent Catholics, 2 percent Jewish, 4 percent other, 8 percent none. Stated preferences regularly exceed active memberships, which altogether make up about 60 pecent of the population. Along with the currently reported slight (Please see Catholic, Page 3) By GEORGE W. CORNELL AP Religion Writer For the third time in the last 15 years, the number of American Roman Catholics decreased last year in one of those rare downward blips in the otherwise upward climb of the church's modern history. The three dips, the only ones in nearly a half century of nationally recorded statistics, all came in recent times in 1969, a tiny decrease of 1,149, in 1978, a loss of 284,141, and in 1984, down 106,891.

Other than those three relatively modest downturns, the church has grown steadily ever since the compilation of national statistics began in 1945, when church membership totaled 23,963,671.".