Passages: SBC leader resigns, adoption agency co-founder dies, and other transitions in the Christian world.

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SBC leader resigns, adoption agency co-founder dies, and other transitions in the Christian world.

[ posted 9/17/2009 9:49AM ]

Resigned: Geoff Hammond, as president of the Southern Baptist Convention's North American Mission Board, on August 11 amid trustee concerns over his leadership. Hammond held the position since 2007.

Died: Geoffrey W. Bromiley, theologian and translator of works by Karl Barth and Ernst Käsemann into English, on August 7. He was 94.

Died: Eunice Kennedy Shriver, pro-life activist whose Catholic faith led her to found the Special Olympics, on August 11 in Massachusetts. She was 88.

Died: Mary Vanden Bosch, co-founder of Bethany Christian Services, the largest adoption agency in the U.S., on August 3. She was 93.

Died: Ernest W. Lefever, conservative minister and founder of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, on July 29 of a progressive brain disease. He was 89.

Died: Graham Stanton, an award-winning New Testament British scholar, on July 18. He was 69.

Appointed: Ronald Carpenter Sr., as general superintendent of the International Pentecostal Holiness Church. Carpenter had directed the denomination's church planting branch, Evangelism USA, since 1997. He succeeds James D. Leggett, who will become president of Holmes Bible College in September.

Died: Paul William Gericke, founder of popular Christian radio station Lifesongs 89.1, on July 13. Gericke, 85, had served at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary since 1965.

Died: Frank Toews, missionary pilot for Africa Inland Mission, in a plane crash August 1 in Nairobi, Kenya. He had flown for the air transport ministry since 2003.

Died: John B. Coburn, former Episcopal bishop of Massachusetts, on August 8 in Bedford, Massachusetts. He was 94.

Died: Bob Lehnhart, former Mission Aviation Fellowship pilot and founder of AirServ, on August 18 from a boating accident in Alaska. He was 76.

Died: Charles E. Blair, scandal-plagued founder of Denver megachurch Calvary Temple, on August 20. He was 88.

Died: H. Wesley Wiley, civil rights leader and former pastor of Covenant Baptist Church in D.C., on July 16 in Maryland from bone cancer. He was 94.