News from the North American Scene: September 16, 1991

SOUTHERN BAPTISTS

Moderate Faculty Leave

The effects of the conservative-moderate battles in the Southern Baptist Convention are increasingly evident at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, which could lose up to half of its faculty by the end of the 1991–92 academic year, according to a Religious News Service (RNS) report.

The rash of “voluntary departures,” primarily of moderate scholars, will enable conservatives to solidify their control over the faculty. “We now have a greater opportunity than ever before to hire more of the kind of people the Southern Baptist Convention wants on our seminary faculty,” said president Louis Drummond.

Five of the seminary’s 24 faculty members have officially announced plans to leave, but reports indicate as many as half plan to go. One of the departing professors, Samuel Balentine, professor of Hebrew and Old Testament, told RNS a main reason faculty are leaving is dissatisfaction with the seminary’s direction.

POLL

What Do Americans Believe?

While an estimated 74 percent of Americans strongly agree that “there is only one true God, who is holy and perfect, and who created the world and rules it today,” an estimated 64 percent either strongly agree or somewhat agree with the assertion that “there is no such thing as absolute truth.”

Those are some of the findings from a new survey of 1,005 people nationwide by evangelical pollster George Barna, entitled The Barna Report: What Americans Believe, 1991. Barna says in the report that “the evidence continues to mount which suggests that while religion is important, it is not central. People are more likely than ever to state that they do not have a high degree of confidence in religious institutions; to feel that being part of a local church is not a necessity; or to reject the idea that reading the Bible regularly will enhance their lives.”

The report indicates a great deal of ambivalence among Americans with regard to their beliefs. For instance, while 62 percent of the respondents said they have made a personal commitment to Jesus Christ, 64 percent said the term “born again” does not apply to them; fewer than 50 percent strongly agreed that the Bible is the written word of God and is totally accurate in all it teaches.

CANADA

Church Must Rehire Pastor

An evangelical minister in Canada has won a precedent-setting court battle in the Ontario Court of Appeal forcing his former church to rehire him and pay him eight years’ back pay, legal costs, and benefits, totaling at least $300,000.

Ronald McCaw was dismissed from Omond Memorial United Church in January 1983 after he refused a request by the North Bay Presbytery in North Bay, Ontario, to take a course to “improve his pastoral skills,” according to a report in the Ottawa Citizen newspaper. McCaw reportedly had asked the presbytery for help in reconciling two factions that had emerged in his church. But presbytery officials responded by asking him to take the course and then three days later voting to dismiss him from his pastorate.

PEOPLE AND EVENTS

Briefly Noted

Appointed: Clarence Reimer as the new president and chief executive officer of the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability. Reimer has served as ECFA’s director of member review and compliance for the last three years and prior to that served 18 years as president and CEO of CRISTA Ministries in Seattle, Washington.

Rereleased: Satan’s Underground, by Pelican Publishing Company. After a Cornerstone magazine article in December 1989 raised questions about the veracity of author Lauren Stratford’s autobiographical story of Satanic involvement and ritual abuse, Harvest House Publishers took the book off the market (CT, Feb. 19, 1990, p. 34).

Named: David Beckman, as president of Colorado Christian University, as of June 1, replacing Joe Wall, who has accepted a position as chancellor of the university and dean of the graduate school of ministry.

John Zehr, as the tenth president of Bethel College in North Newton, Kansas, replacing retiring president Harold Schultz. Zehr has been professor of physiology and biophysics at the University of Illinois, Urbana.

Celebrated: By InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, 50 years of ministry. The student ministry has 750 chapters on both secular and Christian college campuses across the country.

By Campus Crusade for Christ, 40 years of ministry

By Sojourners magazine, 20 years of publication. Originally called the Post-American, it began on the campus of Trinity Evangelical Divinity School and since 1975 has been published by the Sojourners Christian community in Washington, D.C.

Died: former astronaut James Irwin, 61, following a heart attack. Irwin walked on the moon during the Apollo 15 mission in 1971 and later became well known for leading several expeditions to Turkey’s Mount Ararat in search of Noah’s Ark.

Two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist Vaughn “Shoes” Shoemaker, who created the world-renowned cartoon character John Q. Public. A committed Christian, Shoemaker’s syndicated cartoons for the Chicago Daily News, Chicago’s American, and Chicago Today set a standard for modern cartoonists. He received an honorary doctor of letters from Wheaton College in 1945.

Correction: In the article “TBN Bid for Station Stalled by Complaints,” (Aug. 19, p. 52), CT reported that the Ethnic Programming Legal Defense Fund (EPLDF) had filed a complaint with the Federal Communications Commission. The complainant is in fact Dan Dorowicz, who is president of EPLDF.

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