– Integrity, Inc., has laid off 30 of its 145 workers after restructuring, due to lower-than-expected sales growth. The Mobile, Alabama-based company, which plans to produce children’s videos as well as continue to distribute praise music, changed its name from Integrity Music in the September restructuring.
– Television evangelist Robert Tilton, who divorced his first wife, Marte, in 1993, filed for divorce from his second wife, Leigh, on November 20 after a 21-month marriage.
– Theologian Herschel H. Hobbs, who in 1963 chaired a committee that crafted the statement known as the Baptist Faith and Message, died November 28 of a heart attack. Hobbs, 88, served as president of the Southern Baptist Convention from 1961 to 1963 and also served on the Christianity Today, Inc., board.
– All but one of the more than 300 Ontario Bible College (OBC) and Ontario Theological Seminary (OTS) creditors approved a five-year debt repayment plan that will pay them half of what is owed. Two-thirds approval was needed to keep Canada’s largest seminary and oldest Bible college from filing immediate bankruptcy. OBC and OTS laid off faculty and staff last summer to keep from going under (CT, Aug. 14, 1995, p. 59).
– Apologist Greg Lyle Bahnsen, one of the leaders of the Christian Reconstruction school of thought, died December 11 in Santa Ana, California. Bahnsen, 47, died six days after complications resulting from an artificial heart valve implant.
– The Center for Judeo-Christian Values in America, a Washington, D.C., public-policy center designed to promote morality based on shared beliefs, formed in December. Yechiel Eckstein, president of the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, is founder of the new group. Two U.S. senators, Republican Dan Coats of Indiana and Democrat Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut, are cochairs.
– The Minnesota Court of Appeals dismissed a suit against the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) and its Board of Pensions November 28, saying civil courts did not have jurisdiction over church bodies to determine pension fund investments in socially screened funds. A group of nearly 50 pastors led by Thomas Basich (CT, May 15, 1995, p. 52) had sued the ELCA on grounds of breach of contract and fiduciary duty.
– William R. Jones, former comptroller for the United Methodist Church Board of Global Ministries, has been accused of embezzling $400,000 from the denomination’s mission agency. Jones, a two-year employee, allegedly transferred the money to his personal bank account the day before he left his job.
– The heresy trial of retired Episcopal Bishop Walter Righter will begin February 27 in Wilmington, Delaware. The charge stems from Righter’s ordination in 1990 of a practicing homosexual as a deacon (CT, Oct. 2, 1995, p. 107).
– CORRECTION: A January 8 issue news item improperly stated the reason for the resignation three years ago of Calvary Church pastor and Solid Rock Radio host David Hocking. Hocking, in fact, resigned due to a “sexual sin” with a married woman.
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