—The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit ruled on April 13 that Crystal Evangelical Free Church in New Hope, Minnesota, may keep $13,450 donated by Bruce and Nancy Young before they declared bankruptcy in 1992. Initially, the church pegged its hopes of retaining the tithes on 1993’s federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act, but the Supreme Court ruled rfra unconstitutional last year. In April, however, the appeals court decided that religiously motivated donations to churches and charities before a donor files for bankruptcy are protected.
—Richard Winchell, general director with The Evangelical Alliance Mission (TEAM) from 1975 to 1994, died April 13 in Stuart, Florida, after a long battle with cancer. Winchell, 69, had also been board president of the Interdenominational Foreign Mission Association of North America.
—Richard Edmund Stearns, 47, becomes the head of U.S. operations of World Vision in Federal Way, Washington, on June 15, succeeding Robert Seiple, who is retiring after 11 years of leading the largest privately funded Christian relief-and-development organization (see p. 49). Stearns has been president of Lenox, Inc., a New Jersey-based company that manufactures fine china.
—Michael English, 35, has announced his return to Christian music. In 1996, English released his secular debut album Freedom after confessing to adultery with a Christian singer (CT, June 20, 1994, p. 115). English won six Dove awards in 1994.
—Church historian Jaroslav Pelikan, a lifelong Lutheran, became a member of the Orthodox Church of America March 25 at Saint Vladimir’s Seminary in Crestwood, New York. Pelikan, a 75-year-old former Yale University professor, is best known for his five-volume work The Christian Tradition.
—Ontario Bible College/Ontario Theological Seminary in Toronto has changed its name to Tyndale College and Seminary. The school, founded in 1894, has a combined enrollment of more than 1,000.
—Daniel Aleshire, 50, has been elected executive director of the Pittsburgh-based Association of Theological Schools in the United States and Canada (ATS). Aleshire, a Southern Baptist Theological Seminary faculty member from 1978 to 1990, will succeed 62-year-old James L. Waits, who leaves the post on June 30 to become president of the ATS fund for theological education. ATS is the accrediting and program agency for graduate theological education in North America, with 229 Protestant, Catholic, and Orthodox schools as members.
—Simon Greenleaf Law School in Anaheim, California, has merged with Trinity International University and changed its name to Trinity Law School. The new law school has 100 graduate students. Trinity International University, which includes Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, now has three campuses, in Illinois, Florida, and California.
—Charles Dokmo, 46, is the new president of Oak Brook, Illinois-based Opportunity International/U.S. Dokmo has been World Vision field director for Romania, Bulgaria, and Moldova. He replaces 51-year-old Eric Thurman, who has become a consultant for nonprofit organizations.
—Judy Mills Reimer is the new executive director of the Elgin, Illinois-based Church of the Brethren‘s 24-member general board. The denomination has 142,000 members.
—Construction has started on a 40-acre site for a $5.2 million headquarters for Orlando, Florida-based Pioneers, a 19-year-old organization with 10,000 missionaries in 40 countries.
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