—The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit ruled on April 13 that Crystal Evangelical Free Church in New Hope, Minnesota, may keep $13,450 donated by Bruce and Nancy Young before they declared bankruptcy in 1992. Initially, the church pegged its hopes of retaining the tithes on 1993's federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act, but the Supreme Court ruled rfra unconstitutional last year. In April, however, the appeals court decided that religiously motivated donations to churches and charities before a donor files for bankruptcy are protected.

—Richard Winchell, general director with The Evangelical Alliance Mission (TEAM) from 1975 to 1994, died April 13 in Stuart, Florida, after a long battle with cancer. Winchell, 69, had also been board president of the Interdenominational Foreign Mission Association of North America.

—Richard Edmund Stearns, 47, becomes the head of U.S. operations of World Vision in Federal Way, Washington, on June 15, succeeding Robert Seiple, who is retiring after 11 years of leading the largest privately funded Christian relief-and-development organization (see p. 49). Stearns has been president of Lenox, Inc., a New Jersey-based company that manufactures fine china.

—Michael English, 35, has announced his return to Christian music. In 1996, English released his secular debut album Freedom after confessing to adultery with a Christian singer (CT, June 20, 1994, p. 115). English won six Dove awards in 1994.

—Church historian Jaroslav Pelikan, a lifelong Lutheran, became a member of the Orthodox Church of America March 25 at Saint Vladimir's Seminary in Crestwood, New York. Pelikan, a 75-year-old former Yale University professor, is best known for his five-volume work ...