ABORTION
Newspaper Admits Error
The Milwaukee Journal has admitted in an out-of-court settlement that it erred in firing a newsroom secretary because of her extracurricular prolife activities, which included picketing at abortion clinics. Diane Dew was released from her position at the newspaper last summer. Officials at the newspaper said that her antiabortion activities damaged the paper’s reputation for objective reporting.
Aided by the Rutherford Institute of Wisconsin, Dew filed complaints with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the Wisconsin Department of Industry, Labor and Human Relations. She said her dismissal constituted discrimination based on her prolife views.
In the ensuing flap came revelations that the paper’s parent company, Journal/Sentinel Inc., as well as its editor, Sig Gissler, had contributed financially to Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin. Gissler later acknowledged in print the contributions were a mistake.
ENVIRONMENT
An Orthodox Issue
A recent symposium held in Ligonier, Pennsylvania, marked the first major event at which Orthodox Christians in the Western Hemisphere have addressed the ecological crisis, according to Frederick Krueger of the North American Conference on Christianity and Ecology (NACCE). The symposium, “For the Transfiguration of Nature,” was sponsored by the NACCE and several Orthodox entities, including the Orthodox Church in America.
Several speakers acknowledged that Orthodox believers historically have not regarded ecology as a Christian issue. Consequently, they said, there has not been an adequate theological framework within which to address environmental concerns.
Commenting on the theme of the symposium, Krueger said, “The idea of a transfigured creation derives from the fact that as Christ redeemed humanity, so humanity is responsible to redeem the world.” This process begins, he added, through relationship with Christ.
LAWSUIT
Madalyn At It Again
Madalyn Murray O’Hair and the Society of Separationists have filed a $4 million suit against the National Legal Foundation (NLF) and its head, Robert Skolrood; Beverly LaHaye and Concerned Women for America (CWA); and the newspaper USA Today and its parent corporation, Gannett.
The suit apparently results from a USA Today news report about O’Hair’s plans to fight the “In God We Trust” motto on U.S. coins, a subsequent NLF advertisement in the newspaper, and a CWA fund-raising letter opposing the effort. The suit claims O’Hair’s “interests were injured by being maliciously cast in a false light and defamatorily termed” by the defendants. LaHaye called the lawsuit “ridiculous.”
PTL
More Indictments
A federal grand jury has handed down two perjury indictments in connection with its investigation of fraud and scandal at Jim Bakker’s PTL Ministries. Sam Johnson, former PTL director of world missions who now runs Heritage Ministries in Charlotte (CT, Oct. 6, 1989, p. 36), was charged with 12 counts of lying under oath regarding a $10,000 payment to Jessica Hahn in exchange for her secrecy concerning a sexual encounter with Bakker. Also indicted for perjury was former evangelist John Wesley Fletcher for his testimony about how Bakker was introduced to Hahn.
Heritage Ministries spokesperson Gerald Ogg said the 12 counts against Johnson revolve around Johnson’s claim (apparently made in 12 different contexts) that he could not remember where the money for Hahn came from. Ogg said he and others at Heritage Ministries believe the allegations that Johnson made the payment are the result of a “personal vendetta.” He did not mention any names, but the indictments came shortly after testimony from former PTL and Assemblies of God official Richard Dortch.
Johnson has said he will plead innocent. Ogg noted that national and regional Assemblies of God officials support Johnson in his claim that he told the truth.
PEOPLE AND EVENTS
Briefly Noted
Opened: Late last year, a Reformed Theological Seminary (RTS) campus in Orlando, Florida. Orlando was chosen partly because Florida, the nation’s fourth-most-populous state, had no accredited Protestant seminary to serve a growing evangelical population. Among the RTS professors in Orlando are theologians R. C. Sproul and Roger Nicole. The seminary’s main campus is in Jackson, Mississippi.
Announced: By Frank Peretti, author of the novel This Present Darkness, that producer Howard Kazanjian, who worked with George Lucas on Raiders of the Lost Ark and Return of the Jedi, is planning to bring Peretti’s book to the big screen.
Relocated: The publication Contemporary Christian Music, from Laguna Hills, California, to Nashville, Tennessee.
Died: On November 25 at the age of 101, Richard S. Beal, Sr. Beal is considered one of the “founding fathers” of the Conservative Baptist movement. He was instrumental in the 1943 founding of the Conservative Baptist Foreign Mission Society. In Beal’s 51 years (1918–69) as pastor of First Baptist Church in Tucson, Arizona, the church established 19 churches in the Tucson area, 13 of which went on to become independent Baptist congregations.
