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• Barred abortion ship runs low on fuel | The crew of a Dutch abortion ship say they will continue their efforts to enter Portuguese territorial waters despite a week-long stand-off with two naval vessels dispatched by Lisbon (The Observer, London)
  
  
• Dutch abortion ship heads to Spain | A Dutch abortion ship, barred from Portuguese waters since last Saturday, is heading to Spain to resupply, Lusa news agency reported on Friday (Reuters)
  
  
• Leigh's 'Vera Drake' poses abortion dilemma | Is the abortionist and mother who is the heroine of the new movie "Vera Drake" helping young girls or putting their lives in danger? (Reuters)
  
  
• Abortion film opens at Venice | Film director Mike Leigh has premiered his most controversial project to date - an "overtly political" film about abortion - at the Venice Film Festival (BBC)
  
  

Glenn Wagner resigns, admits sermon plagiarism
Sad news out of North Carolina over the weekend: E. Glenn Wagner, the former Promise Keepers vice president who pastored Charlotte's massive Calvary Church, resigned over ongoing depression and sermon plagiarism.

In a letter to the church, Wagner (a contributor to Christianity Today sister publication Leadership Journal) talked of

a downward spiral, emotionally and mentally, which left me very tired and discouraged and fighting a losing battle with depression. … On a number of occasions, when I felt literally empty and devoid of any creative ability, I used material from the sermons of some of my brother preachers, in part or in whole, for my sermons, and did not give them credit. This was wrong. It is difficult to admit this failure, but now I ask for your forgiveness. Never before in my almost 30 years of ministry have I done anything like this. … . I believe that God continues to call me to ministry for the gospel. And I am hopeful that after we pass through these deep waters our ministry will, by God's grace, be stronger, and very honest.

An editorial in today's Charlotte Observer shows grace—neither letting Wagner off the hook for plagiarizing nor attacking a fallen leader. Wagner's confession, the paper says,

is only the latest reminder that preachers aren't immune to the pressures and temptations that afflict the rest of us. … When preachers cheat, it's often because they don't do what they tell their congregation to do. Acknowledge your struggles. Admit you're a flawed vessel -- after all, God already knows it, and your congregation probably does, too. Do your best and trust God -- and the congregation -- to say that's enough. The preacher and congregation share the responsibility for building that honest relationship.

The New York Times gets on the religious schools beat
The New York Times has published two excellent articles on Christian higher education this week. The first, a Times Magazine profile of Biola University, is a slice-of-life-ish examination of how the neoevangelical rejection of fundamentalist isolationism—something that saw its largest battles in Billy Graham era following World War II—is playing itself out today. The cover kicker gets it wrong: "Fast Times at Fundamentalist U." But inside, writer Samantha Shapiro gets credit for using the F-word in its proper historical context.

Not even Bob Jones uses the term fundamentalist any more, but there has been a 50-year struggle going on in conservative Protestantism between this group and neoevangelicals—now just called evangelicals. The battle hasn't been over theology proper, but over cultural engagement vs. cultural withdrawal. Here's Shapiro:

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September (Web-only) 2004, Vol. 48