SCHOOL PRAYER
Students Support Ousted Principal
Hundreds of students in high schools throughout Mississippi cut classes in November and December to show support for an embattled Jackson high-school principal who allowed students to read a prayer over the school intercom.
After the student prayer, Knox was fired from his position as principal of Jackson’s Wingfield High School, but he is fighting the action through the school board.
Knox asserts that his actions were constitutional based on a 1992 court ruling that said student-led prayers were lawful at graduation ceremonies. He noted that Wingfield students voted 490 to 96 in favor of reading the nonsectarian prayer, the same one used to open the U.S. Congress.
But Jackson school superintendent Ben Canada maintained that forcing the whole student body to listen to a prayer over the school intercom is not legal.
Thousands have turned out at two rallies on the steps of the state capitol to protest Knox’s firing.
Yet some local Christian leaders spoke against the flurry of protests.
Frank Pollard, pastor of the state’s largest church, First Baptist in Jackson, said on an aired interview that public praying is not the best way for Christians to witness.
Christian legal expert Jay Sekulow of the American Center for Law and Justice appeared at a Jackson news conference to support Canada.
“The district acknowledged the students have the right to pray,” says Sekulow. “What is not constitutionally protected is prayer over the intercom.”
By Joe Maxwell.
PRESBYTERIANS
Homosexual Ordination Upheld
The highest court in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) ruled in November that the ordination of two homosexuals as deacons by an Oregon church was “irregular” but should not be annulled. The decision was more of a procedural victory than a precedent-setter for Central Presbyterian Church of Eugene, Oregon, which had ordained a homosexual man and a lesbian in 1991.
The case was brought by Hope Presbyterian Church of Portland, Oregon, which sought to have the ordinations annulled. Commission moderator David Snellgrove says Hope church simply failed to prove its case. Hope had claimed that the ordinations violated Presbyterian law and constituted a rebellion against the Word and will of God.
UPDATE
Salem Pastor Fighting the Occult
A Salem, Massachusetts, United Methodist minister believes a local interfaith group, which last year welcomed a witch into its ranks, has grown too ecumenical. Ken Steigler has therefore formed a new group strictly for Christian leaders, the Salem Christian Clergy Association. Many attendees formerly belonged to the Salem Religious Leaders Association, which allowed a Wiccan high priest to join (CT, Sept. 13, 1993, p. 58).
In addition, Steigler is the pastor adviser for a new Occult Survivors Anonymous support group “for recovering occult practitioners and those seeking the way out of the magical arts.” The group meets at Steigler’s church. Opponents have shot bullets through stained glass windows and painted a pentagram on the outside of the church. Steigler estimates there are 500 “hard-core” occultists in the city.
CHILD PORNOGRAPHY
Clinton Orders Contradict Reno
Under orders from President Clinton, Attorney General Janet Reno has sent a measure to Congress to broaden the definition of child pornography after her Justice Department had argued for a narrower definition.
A court of appeals had upheld the child pornography conviction of Stephen A. Knox of State College, Pennsylvania. Knox owned videos that zoomed in on crotch areas of young girls wearing tight-fitting clothes. Yet the Justice Department sided with Knox, saying genitalia must be fully exposed and the child must be engaged in sexual conduct for such pornography to be considered illegal.
However, 130 U.S. House members demanded that Reno withdraw the Justice Department opinion. The Senate approved 100 to 0 a resolution denouncing the shift on pornography. Clinton, wary of being labeled soft on child porn, directed Reno to propose more restrictive legislation. That sparked criticism from Republicans, who said new laws are not needed if the administration will properly interpret existing ones. Reno’s actions prompted new calls for her resignation from some conservative groups.
PEOPLE AND EVENTS
In Brief
The Church Council of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) voted last month to appoint an 11-member panel to ensure the biblical soundness of its sexuality task force. Karen Bloomquist, the staff member chiefly responsible for a controversial 21-page human sexuality statement (CT, Nov. 22, 1993, p. 43), has resigned from the project. Charles Miller, executive director of the ELCA Division for Church in Society, asked her to resign, though he said she had been subjected to “unjust and personal attacks” evoked by “fears and anxieties” about the draft.
• Joel Gregory, former pastor of First Baptist Church in Dallas, has filed for divorce based on a “mutual, joint decision” with his wife of more than 25 years because of “a long-term difference in expectations compounded by the stress of public events in recent years.” Gregory, 45, was pastor of the largest Southern Baptist Convention church from November 1990 to September 1992, but quit when he said former pastor W. A. Criswell did not give him full control (CT, Nov. 9, 1992, p. 50).
• Charles Swindoll, 59, who had planned to become the new president of Dallas Seminary while maintaining his pastorate at the First Evangelical Free Church of Fullerton, California, has now decided to resign his pastorate and move to Nashville, where he intends to start a new church. He assumes his new duties at Dallas on June 30.
• An estimated 2,000 McDonald’s restaurants have refused to participate in a corporate promotion of the PG 13-rated Wayne’s World. Many franchisees balked at carrying the video after the American Family Association said it “endorses a lifestyle of promiscuity, irresponsibility, and profanity for teenagers.”
• The Renewal Fellowship, a “network of evangelical congregations and individuals covenanted around the ministry of renewal,” has formed, electing Bonn Clayton of Golden Valley, Minnesota, as acting president. The group traces its beginnings to a 1991 meeting of nearly 200 United Church of Christ clergy and laity, but now includes transdenominational members “whose roots are in the tradition of the reformed Christian, evangelical, and congregational heritage.”
• Margaret Landon, whose book Anna and the King of Siam inspired the musical The King and I, died December 4 in Alexandria, Virginia, at age 90. A former missionary, Landon’s research on a Thailand missionary inspired the book.
• Focus on the Family has regained ownership of its former headquarters in Pomona, California, because the buyer defaulted on a $9.1 million loan. Focus, which moved to Colorado Springs in 1991, retains the $2 million down payment made by Cordova Chase Corporation. But the Pomona property is back on the market for $9 million.
• California Southern Baptists voted 213 to 204 to prohibit seating of delegates from San Francisco’s 19th Avenue Baptist Church at a state meeting in November because the pastor is a woman. Julie Pennington-Russell has been a leader in the denomination’s moderate wing, the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship.
