A continuing trend Alabama suffers sixth loss in seven games
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Is the end of smoking as we know it coming? Area clergymen give their take on national study focusing on the job’s difficulties
By Jamon Smith Staff Writer
I
Tough career Pastors were asked a series of questions in a survey given by the Fuller Institute and Pastoral Care Inc. Here’s how they answered.
90% report working between 55 to 75 hours per week
80% believe the ministry has negatively effected their families
80% say they feel unqualified and discouraged as a pastor
90% say the ministry is completely different than imagined
70% say they are constantly fighting depression
70% say they do not have a close friend
33% confessed to inappropriate sexual behavior with someone in the church
50% say they would leave the ministry but have no other way of making a living
50% will not stay in the ministry for more than five years
n November and December last year, three Christian pastors committed suicide within 30 days of each other. The Rev. Teddy Parker Jr., senior pastor of Bibb Mount Zion Baptist Church in Macon, Ga., shot himself at his home Nov. 10 while his family and congregation waited on him to arrive at church to deliver the sermon. It was reported that he suffered from manic depression. In a sermon called “Facing Your Storm with Confidence” posted on YouTube May 13, 2010, Parker said he felt that God wasn’t talking to him and that he was facing his storms alone. Twenty days after Parker’s death, Pastor Ed Montgomery, who served at Full Gospel Christian Assemblies International Church in Hazel Crest, Ill., killed himself in front of his mother and son. Montgomery was reportedly still grieving the loss of his wife, Jackie Montgomery, who died from a brain aneurysm the year before. On Dec. 10, Isaac Hunter, the former pastor of Summit Church in Orlando, Fla., reportedly shot himself in his apartment. Hunter had resigned as pastor of Summit Church in fall 2012 after he admitted having an affair with a church staff member. His wife of 13 years had also fi led a domestic violence petition against him, describing his behavior as unstable and suicidal. Pastors are not exempt from troubles, they say, but many people — including pastors’ congregants — aren’t aware of the struggles pastors face because they usually keep that information to themselves. According to Pastoral Care Inc., a national nonprofit organization designed to help ministers from every Christian denomination through research, educational support and providing immediate assistance, more than 1,700 ministers SEE PASTORS | 8A
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“If you care about people, I don’t know how these kinds of things wouldn’t affect you. We’re called to be shepherds, and we have to take care of the sheep. ...Life is tough and this is a hard job, but we’ve been called to it and the Bible never promised that life would be easy. We just trust in the Lord.” The Rev. Jeremy Burrage, lead pastor of Capstone Church
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Experts are beginning to predict the future is a cigarette-free America By Mike Stobbe
The Associated Press
ATLANTA | Health officials have begun to predict the end of cigarette smoking in America. They have long wished for a cigarette-free America, but shied away from calling for smoking rates to fall to zero or near zero by any particular year. The power of tobacco companies and popularity of their products made such a goal seem like a pipe dream. But a confluence of changes has recently prompted public health leaders to start throwing around phrases like “endgame” and “tobacco-free generation.” Now, they talk about the slowly declining adult smoking rate dropping to 10 percent in the next decade and to 5 percent or lower by 2050. Acting U.S. Surgeon General Boris Lushniak last month released a 980-page report that pushed for stepped-up control measures. His conference was an animated showing of anti-smoking bravado, with Lushniak nearly yelling, re p e a t e d l y, “ E nou gh is enough!” “I can’t accept that we’re just allowing these numbers to trickle down,” he said, in a recent interview. “We believe we have the public health tools to get us to the zero level.” This is not the fi rst time a federal health official has spoken so boldly. In 1984, Surgeon General C. Everett Koop called for a “smoke-free society” by the year 2000. However, Koop didn’t offer specifics on how to
AP | NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY
This image provided by the New York Public Library shows one of the cigarette advertisements from 1920s through the 1950s included in an 2008 exhibit at the library. The ad reads, “Gee, Dad, you always get the best of everything... even Marlboro!”
achieve such a goal. “What’s different today is that we have policies and programs that have been proven to drive down tobacco use,” said Matthew Myers, president of the Campaign for Tobacco -Free K ids. “ We couldn’t say that in 1984.” SEE SMOKING | 11A
Justice Dept. applies same-sex rights to itself By Pete Yost
The Associated Press
“In every courthouse, in every proceeding and in every place where a member of the Department of Justice stands on behalf of the United States, they will strive to ensure that same-sex marriages receive the same privileges, protections and rights as oppositesex marriages under federal law.”
WASHINGTON | In an assertion of same-sex marriage rights, Attorney General Eric Holder is applying a landmark Supreme Court ruling to the Justice Department, announcing Saturday that same-sex spouses cannot be compelled to testify against each other, should be eligible to fi le for bankruptcy jointly and are entitled to the same rights and privileges as federal prison inmates in opposite-sex marriages. The Justice Department runs a number of benefits programs, and Holder says same-sex couples will qualify for them. They include the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund Attorney General SEE R IGHTS | 8A Eric Holder