Briefly noted

Christian Century, April 4, 2001

* Facing two problems common to many Protestant denominations, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) is offering a program to help pay off seminary debt for pastors who agree to serve small churches. The Board of Pensions is offering the deal to recent graduates of Presbyterian-affiliated seminaries who agree to serve as pastor of a congregation of 150 or fewer members that has an annual budget of $100,000 or less. In return, the denomination would pay off as much as $10,000 of seminary debt if the minister agrees to serve that church for at least five years. Statistics from the United Methodist-affiliated Candler School of Theology at Emory University show seminary graduates with student loans had an average debt of $25,660 in 1997.

* Four years after former President Clinton refused to sign an international treaty banning the production and use of landmines, religious leaders and activists opposed to the mines gathered March 8 on Capitol Hill to urge President Bush to support the agreement his predecessor shunned. "Landmines have failed as a military weapon, only to become a constant daily threat to the lives of civilians," said Bob Edgar of the National Council of Churches. The United States, along with Cuba, Iraq, Russia and China, refused to sign the treaty, which took effect in March 1999. Though the United States has not produced landmines since 1996, and though a moratorium on exporting them has been in place since 1992, Washington has reserved the right to use the mines in certain defensive military situations.