In this, our last issue for 1988, we review the major issues, events, and personalities that were the journalistic mainstay of CT News for the past 12 months. In addition to offering the “Top Ten” news stories of the year (as selected by the CT news staff), we are, for the first time, presenting a second look at some of the men, women, and children whose stories were a part of CT News (and church life) in 1988.
“This is more than a simple ‘where are they now’,” says associate news editor Randy Frame, who led this project. “Take Vladimir Khailo, for instance” (a celebrated Soviet immigrant who has now returned to Europe, unable to cope with life in the U.S.). “The follow-up to his triumphal entry into this country should serve the church notice that more help is needed to insure that people like him can survive the culture shock, foreign lifestyles, and, yes, the basic freedoms we so quickly take for granted.”
In addition to Khailo, CT also pays a return visit to drug-busting pastor Willie Wilson of Washington, D.C.; Sharon Batts, whose Top 40 prayer for abused children, “Dear Mr. Jesus,” took the country by storm late last year; and former Mississippi policeman Joe Daniels, who left the force rather than arrest picketing prolifers. Special thanks go to news intern Joe Maxwell, who telephonically tracked down the individuals in the writing of these interesting (and at times, sobering) vignettes.
HAROLD B. SMITH, Managing Editor
Cover illustration by Paul Turnbaugh, with reproduction of The Vision of Death by Gustave Doré
