News

Passages

Recent deaths and other transitions in the Christian world.

Died • Sherwood Eliot Wirt, Christian journalist and author, on November 8 in Seattle. “Woody” Wirt, 97, was a longtime associate of Billy Graham’s and founding editor of Decision magazine.

Died • Avery Cardinal Dulles, S.J., best known among evangelicals for his ecumenical work with Evangelicals and Catholics Together, on December 12 in the Bronx, New York. He was 90.

Died • Henry Brandt, the psychologist who pioneered modern biblical counseling, on November 24 in Singer Island, Florida. Brandt, 92, authored numerous books, including The Heart of the Problem.

Died • Paul Weyrich, cofounder of the Moral Majority with Jerry Falwell in 1979, on December 18. Weyrich, 66, was the first president of the Heritage Foundation.

Resigned • Robert A. Schuller, senior pastor of the Crystal Cathedral in Garden Grove, California. His father, Robert H. Schuller, removed him from the church’s Hour of Power television program in October due to “a lack of shared vision.”

Died • Frank Pollard, prominent Southern Baptist pastor and former seminary president, on November 30 in San Francisco. Pollard, 74, was named one of seven “outstanding Protestant preachers in America” by Time magazine in 1979.

Resigned • Jim Bolin, founding pastor of the 7,000-member Trinity Chapel in suburban Atlanta, for “inappropriate sexual behavior.” Church officials said Bolin, 56, would go through a two-year “restoration process” through the Church of God.

Died • George Docherty, Presbyterian minister credited with first proposing the addition of the phrase “under God” to the Pledge of Allegiance, on November 27 in Alexandria, Virginia. He was 97. His 1954 sermon heard by President Eisenhower led to Congress’s insertion of the phrase later that year.

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