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1. Minn. campus supervisor dismissed for off-campus ministry
"A dedicated Christian, [Prior Lake High School campus supervisor Chris] Lind has become a de facto advice-giver, friend, and religious mentor to some students," the Minneapolis Star-Tribune reported Tuesday. "He said the district told him not to talk to students — even off campus — about 'traditional values,' namely, the district didn't want him to talk to students about abstinence or their sexual orientation. He didn't listen." So he was placed on administrative leave, and a school board vote Monday may terminate him completely.

2. National Right to Life dumps Colorado chapter
Last month, Colorado Right to Life, Operation Rescue, and the American Life League took out ads in The Colorado Springs Gazette and The Washington Times criticizing Focus on the Family's James Dobson for his views on the partial-birth abortion ban. The groups say the ban doesn't actually save lives and distracts from efforts to ban abortion altogether. "It's our contention it's a wicked ruling," Colorado Right to Life vice president Leslie Hanks told the Rocky Mountain News. The national committee says it disagreed with the ad and with the state chapter's approach. Focus on the Family praised the national body's decision.

3. Does Amnesty International support abortion?
Cardinal Renato Martino, who heads the Vatican's justice and peace department, says the human rights organization does, and says "individuals and Catholic organizations must withdraw their support" of the organization. Amnesty says its new policy does not promote abortion as a universal right. "Amnesty International's position is not for abortion as a right but for women's human rights to be free of fear, threat, and coercion as they manage all consequences of rape and other grave human-rights violations," said the organization's Kate Gilmore. But Amnesty says it does support the "decriminalization of abortion."

4. Trouble at one of the world's top evangelical seminaries
The Guardian reports that the former principals of Wycliffe Hall, the evangelical theology college at Oxford University, are criticizing the current head, Richard Turnbull. They have written a letter to the bishop of Liverpool, who is chairman of the school's governing council.

"One of the authors acknowledged yesterday that the letter had been prompted by The Guardian's disclosure four weeks ago that staff felt bullied and intimidated and a culture of homophobia and misogyny was developing," The Guardian's Stephen Bates reported. "More than a third of the academic staff have recently left, including the vice-principal, and its best-known academic, the Thought for the Day speaker Elaine Storkey, has been threatened with disciplinary proceedings for raising concerns at a private staff meeting." Alister McGrath, who preceded Turnbull, was one of those who "authorized" the letter, says Bates. It's unclear if "culture of homophobia and misogyny" only means support of limiting ordination to men who do not engage in extramarital sex, and if the three former principals would agree with the Guardian's characterization.

5. Episcopalians thumb their nose at Anglican Communion, orthodox members
So what else is new?

Quote of the day
"This year, newspapers across the country are struggling hard to find something bad to say about this convention. May they only be able to report [that] the name of the Lord Jesus was lifted high."

—Southern Baptist Convention president Frank Page, at the close of the denomination's annual meeting.

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June (Web-only) 2007, Vol. 51