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Hinson, president of Methodist Confessing Movement, dies after massive stroke
While the world mourned the loss of an estimated 150,000 who died in the December 26 tsunami, evangelicals in the United Methodist Church are mourning the passing of Bill Hinson, who died the same day at age 68

Hinson, longtime pastor of Houston's First United Methodist Church until his retirement in 2001, was one of the founders of the denomination's Confessing Movement, which represents 675,000 conservatives in the church, and was serving as its president. He recently made headlines with his call for an "amicable separation" in the denomination.

Hinson's death comes just days after that of another leading evangelical in the United Methodist Church, Ed Robb. In his 78 years, Robb founded or helped to lead most of the major renewal organizations within Methodism, sitting on the boards of the Confessing Movement, Good News, the Mission Society for United Methodists, and Asbury Theological Seminary, founded A Foundation for Theological Education, and helped to start the Institute on Religion and Democracy.

Other important deaths of late are Greek Orthodox leader Anthony Gergiannakis, who led believers in seven Western U.S. states, and New Testament scholar-giant Carsten Thiede, most known for his dating the gospels of Matthew and Mark to a few decades after Jesus' death. His most recent work, to be published in a book he was finishing at the time of his death, identifies the biblical village of Emmaus as the present-day Motza-Kolonia.

More deaths:

• Theologian criticized by Vatican dies | The Rev. Jacques Dupuis, a Belgian theologian whose book on religious plurality exploring salvation through non-Christian faiths was attacked by the Vatican, has died in Rome (Associated Press)
• You really have to love life to write about death every day | For 20 years I wrote obituaries at The Washington Post, at least 15,000 by the time I retired in March (Bart Barnes, The Washington Post)

Note
All tsunami-related stories are being covered in a separate weblog this week.

Life ethics:

• Harvard biologists criticize compromise plan for stem cells use | Two prominent Harvard University biologists last week criticized a potential compromise for the use of human embryonic stem cells, saying the idea -- meant to overcome ethical objections -- is scientifically ''flawed" (The Boston Globe)
• Stem-cell reality check | California reads the fine print on a recently passed initiative (Editorial, The Wall Street Journal)
• Embryology: Inconvenient facts | Our moral analysis must be built upon fundamental scientific truths. If we obscure the facts, then we will not think clearly or act responsibly about these issues (William L. Saunders, Jr., First Things)

Birth control:

• Bill would require birth control sales | Pharmacists would be required to fill prescriptions for contraceptives even when it goes against their religious or moral beliefs under a bill proposed by Assemblyman Lloyd Levine (Los Angeles Daily News)
• More women opting against birth control, study finds | At a time when the medical community has been heartened by a decline in risky sexual behavior by teenagers, a different problem has crept up: More adult women are forgoing birth control, a trend that has experts puzzled -- and alarmed about a potential rise in unintended pregnancies (The Washington Post)
• Comment: Alarming new trend: Adults having babies! | What's so strange about the Post's article is that it seems to go out of its way to avoid acknowledging the obvious point: that women having children is not a social problem at all--indeed, it is a social benefit, and a social necessity--when the women are married (James Taranto, The Wall Street Journal)

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January (Web-only) 2005, Vol. 49