• Coral Ridge Ministries announced in April that it closed the Center for Reclaiming America for Christ. Executive vice president Brian Fisher said Coral Ridge plans to focus on media ministry with the goal of expanding its audience from 3 million to 30 million in five years. D. James Kennedy, Coral Ridge’s founder, is still recovering after suffering a cardiac arrest in December. Coral Ridge leaders have not yet announced the status of the annual Reclaiming America for Christ conference.
• Iraq landed on the U.S. Commission for International Religious Freedom’s watch list, announced in May. Three of the commission’s nine members recommended Iraq be placed on the more serious list of Countries of Particular Concern (CPC), which names nations the State Department may sanction. The commission also criticized the State Department for removing Vietnam in 2006 from the CPC list, which includes China, Iran, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, and six other nations.
• InterVarsity Christian Fellowship negotiated agreements in April with the University of Wisconsin-Superior and in May with Georgetown University to return to both campuses. The University of Wisconsin-Superior derecognized InterVarsity in February 2006 for violating the school’s nondiscrimination policies. InterVarsity, headquartered in Madison, negotiated with school officials and a federal judge to write a constitution that ministry leaders hope will serve as a model on other campuses. Last fall, Georgetown banned InterVarsity and five other Protestant ministries. But after inviting the ministries to return, Georgetown announced a new Council of Affiliated Protestant Ministries. Officials at the Roman Catholic university said their problem with Protestant ministries had been one of communication, not theology.
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Related Elsewhere:
Ted Olsen commented the closing of Coral Ridge’s Center for Reclaiming America for Christ in CT Liveblog.
The USCIRF‘s May 2007 report has a long section on Iraq.
Christianity Today‘s coverage of Iraq is available in our special section.
A 2003 Christianity Today article, Campus Collisions looks at why InterVarsity Christian Fellowship was derecognized at some of America’s leading universities (October 1, 2003).
Documents and other resources on the suit are available at The Alliance Defense Fund’s Center for Academic Freedom, which sued on behalf of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship.
InterVarsity has more resources on the suit against University of Wisconsin and the fellowship’s re-recognition.
