Died • Allen Finley, longtime leader of Partners International, on October 30 in North Carolina. He was 76. Finley guided the mission agency as executive director from 1960 to 1976, then as president/ceo until 1987, while Partners worked more closely with indigenous ministries.
Selected • Lee Young-hoon, as pastor of Seoul’s Yoido Full Gospel Church, the largest in the world. Founder Cho Yong-gi will apprentice Lee, 52, for two years before handing over leadership in 2009. Lee currently pastors the church’s Los Angeles affiliate congregation.
Resigned • Charles Colson, as chairman of the board of Prison Fellowship usa. Colson, 75, will remain on the board. Prison Fellowship International board chairman Michael Timmis will take the helm of the domestic ministry.
Assassinated • Pierre Gemayel, a Cabinet minister and Christian leader in Lebanon, on November 21 in Beirut. Gemayel prominently opposed Syria’s influence.
Dropped • Vietnam, from the U.S. State Department’s list of Countries of Particular Concern (cpc) with regard to religious freedom. Ambassador John Hanford explained that Vietnam has expanded religious freedom in the two years since they landed on the cpc list. The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom had recommended that Vietnam remain a cpc. Chairwoman Felice Gaer said that the “designation of Vietnam has been a positive incentive for engagement on religious freedom concerns. Lifting the designation removes that incentive.” The State Department added Uzbekistan to the list this year for crackdowns on conservative Muslims with no ties to terrorists.
Installed • Katharine Jefferts Schori, as presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church (usa) on November 4 in Washington, D.C. The former bishop of Nevada, who opposes traditional Anglican teaching on sexual ethics, encouraged the church during her inaugural address to support the U.N. Millennium Development Goals for combating hunger, disease, gender inequality, and poverty.
Related elsewhere:
Partners International and The Charlotte Observer have memorial articles on Allen Finley.
Lee Young-hoon
The Korea Times reported on Lee Young-hoon’s appointment as pastor.
Chuck Colson’s resignation was announced in a Prison Fellowship news release. His Christianity Todaycolumns are available on our site.
The BBC has an obituary for Pierre Gemayel. Other articles include:
Lebanese Christian leader killed | Pierre Gemayel, a leading anti-Syrian Lebanese minister and Maronite Christian leader, has been killed in the capital, Beirut. (BBC)
In Lebanon, a crisis for Christians | Pierre Gemayel’s murder is yet another blow to the Christian bloc, sidelined by a Sunni-Shiite political divide. (The Christian Science Monitor)
The United States Committee on International Religious Freedom’s report on Vietnam did not condone its removal from the State Department’s list of Countries of Particular Concern. The Baptist Press has an article.
The BBC has a profile of Katharine Jefferts Schori. An article on her installation ceremony and an interview are also available online.
