Civil Rights
Protesting Preachers

A group of preachers is engaged in an almost year-long legal dispute over whether they can preach on the streets of Beaufort, South Carolina.

A city ordinance passed last October that prohibits “willful” disturbances involving “loud and unseemly noise” has led to the arrests of about 50 protesting preachers, who have challenged the arrests in a case now pending in federal court. Karl Baker, pastor of Calvary Baptist Church, told the New York Times the problem is that Beaufort has a country club mentality and does not like the “redneck” preachers on its streets.

But local storekeepers say the problem is not what they say, but how loud they say it. Merchant Nancy Rhett said her husband once tested the volume of a street preacher on a sound meter and found it registered 80 decibels, the equivalent of a loud orchestra. Local preacher Wayne Williamson counters, “The Bible tells you to go to the highways and byways and tell the people to come.”

Evangelism
Soul Count

What would happen if local churches and parachurch groups nationwide organized on the same day to evangelize their neighborhoods? On September 20, the “National Evangelistic Census” hopes to win 25 million new converts to Christ with its interdenominational effort.

Participating churches will send evangelistic teams out door-to-door, presenting a gospel message and taking responsibility for follow-up and discipleship of new believers. A six-hour, prime-time, nationally televised “Soul-A-Thon” will tally the number of new converts. Over 45 denominations have committed to the census. Among the groups supporting the project are Youth with a Mission, Women’s Aglow, TEEN MANIA, and Campus Crusade for Christ, as well as the USA Radio Network and the CBN Radio Network. The campaign is the idea of Houston-based evangelists Charles and Frances Hunter. Last year the Hunters spearheaded similar crusades in Panama and Honduras, where Honduran pastors reportedly documented 1.5 million professions of faith.

Lawsuit
Bequest To Graham Challenged

A $250,000 bequest made by an elderly woman to the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association (BGEA) has become the focus of a legal battle. In a lawsuit filed last month, Leo Noltimier accuses the BGEA of defrauding and unduly influencing his aunt, Eva Noltimier of Roseville, Minnesota, in making her will. Noltimier died in 1987 at the age of 86, leaving approximately half her estate to the association.

The lawsuit seeks to recover assets of Noltimier’s estate for her nephew and niece, who claim to be the woman’s only legal heirs.

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Larry Ross, spokesman for the BGEA, denies the allegations. He says that Noltimier had contributed “regularly and consistently” to the BGEA, starting in 1969. Her will was drawn up in 1974 before she ever met anyone from the BGEA, and it named the BGEA as a partial beneficiary. In 1980, she established a revocable trust, naming the BGEA as sole trustee. She later signed a will and two trust amendments giving the BGEA further power over her financial affairs, Ross says.

An attorney for the nephew, Gregory Lang, contends that Noltimier was “too old to understand these complicated documents.” However, the BGEA says all documents were prepared at the request of Noltimier. ■

Abortion
American Bar Association Supports Abortion Rights

At least one nationally known conservative attorney says the American Bar Association’s (ABA) recent decision to support abortion is “reprehensible.” Well-known civil-rights attorney William Bentley Ball says, “Firstly, it politicizes what has been a splendid professional organization, and secondly, on the merits of the abortion issue, it is dead wrong.”

The House of Delegates of the ABA, the world’s largest legal association, voted 276 to 168 last month to fight laws that would restrict abortion, abandoning its previous neutrality. The decision could affect pending legislation since many of the group’s 370,000 members are politicians and legislators. The ABA may now lobby for laws assuring abortion rights. Two years ago the ABA adopted a policy of neutrality. Attorney General William Barr had urged the ABA to remain neutral and not get involved in “this divisive political issue.” ■

Canada
Broadcasters Ordered Off The Air

Four underground TV stations in western Canada have been ordered off the air by the federal broadcasting regulator, continuing the battle between Canada’s federal communications officials and Canada’s National Christian Broadcasters.

The stations were broadcasting despite a cease and desist order given by the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission to the operators of unlicensed UHF television rebroadcasters (CT, July 20, 1992, p. 52).

However, the commission announced a new round of hearings on religious broadcasting, according to a report by Christian Week magazine.

Evolution
Gould Attacks Critic

Harvard University’s Stephen Jay Gould, widely regarded as the most prestigious champion of evolution, has broken his year-long silence concerning University of California at Berkeley law professor Phillip Johnson’s book Darwin on Trial (CT, Aug. 19, 1991, p. 33). This year’s July issue of the Scientific American contained a three-page review by Gould that described Johnson’s book as “very bad.… full of errors, badly argued, based on false criteria, and abysmally written.”

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But when Johnson requested equivalent space for a reply essay, Scientific American declined. In a phone interview, Johnson described Gould’s review as a “series of random and irrational attacks on matters of detail, without ever coming to grips with the central intellectual thesis of my book.”

Johnson argues that Gould’s 1987 essay, “Evolution as Theory and Fact,” commits numerous logical errors, employs an illegitimate theological argument, and fails to marshal any convincing empirical evidence for large-scale evolution.

Though Johnson encountered brick walls with Gould and Scientific American, others have responded with evenhanded discussion. Most recently the American Scientific Affiliation, meeting in August in Hawaii, hosted Johnson for a formal discussion. And in March, an academic symposium at Southern Methodist University (SMU) hosted ten scholars who debated Johnson’s central thesis that Darwinism and neo-Darwinism require a commitment to “metaphysical naturalism” in order “to make a convincing case on their behalf.”

One of the SMU symposium’s organizers, Jon Buell of the Foundation for Thought and Ethics, said, “What was significant was that highly credentialed people from both sides of this issue came together, prepared top-quality papers, broke the silence, and engaged in serious dialogue with each other.”

—By Tom Woodward

Boycott
Church Groups Battle Retail Giants

For nearly two years, Donald Wildmon’s American Family Association (AFA) has called for a boycott of K Mart to protest the distribution of pornography through their subsidiary Waldenbooks. Recently the AFA criticized K Mart for using an advertisement that the group says promotes a homosexual lifestyle. K Mart says AFA misinterpreted the ad.

The commercial shows two men discussing the purchase of a chain saw for one man’s father. When the man points out that his father does not have a fireplace and doesn’t need to cut firewood, the other responds, “No, but you and I do,” and then places his hand on the shoulder of the other man.

A K Mart spokesperson told CT the ad is one in a series depicting the two men engaged in competition over their yards. She said that members of the men’s families have appeared in previous commercials. She also said that the company has no plans to change its distribution of magazines and that the company’s overall sales are up.

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Wal-Mart is the target of a federal lawsuit filed by the National Council of Churches and joined by the Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers Union and others. The suit claims Wal-Mart acted unlawfully by omitting from its 1992 proxy statement the plaintiffs’ shareholder resolution on equal-employment opportunity, affirmative action, and purchasing from women and minority contractors.

People And Events
Briefly Noted

Suspended: Ministerial credentials of theologian and ethicist John Howard Yoder, by a regional Mennonite Church commission, after Yoder was charged with sexual misconduct toward eight women who are in positions of national church leadership. Yoder, professor of Christian ethics at the University of Notre Dame, has acknowledged the truth of the charges and agreed to the course of restitution, including therapy. The suspension will allow Yoder to seek restoration of his credentials after a period of time that has yet to be determined. Notre Dame has not expressed plans to change Yoder’s standing with the university.

Indicted: T. J. Jemison, leader of the nation’s largest black denomination, the National Baptist Convention U.S.A., for denying under oath that he offered $1 million to beauty contestant Desiree Washington to recant her rape accusation against former heavyweight boxing champion Mike Tyson (CT, April 27, 1992, p. 45). Tyson was convicted in February. The indictment arose from testimony given by Jemison in June.

Elected: Robert Lloyd Lee, as president of the Association of Free Lutheran Congregations. Lee replaces former president Richard Snipstead, who last spring resigned his post of 14 years because of immoral conduct (CT, May 18, 1992, p. 45).

Divorcing: Gospel singer Sandi Patti, from her husband and former manager, John Helvering, citing an “irretrievable breakdown” of their 13-year marriage.

Died: Edward W. Goodrick, Bible scholar at Multnomah School of the Bible in Portland, Oregon, and coeditor of the NIV Exhaustive Concordance; July 22, of cancer, at age 79.

William F. Keesecker, leader in the United Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, at age 73.

Appointed: Glenn Bucher, as president of the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, California, as of July 1. Bucher was previously vice-president for academic affairs and dean of faculty at Columbia Theological Seminary in Atlanta.

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Changed: The name of the Association of Church Missions Committees (ACMC) to Advancing Churches in Missions Commitment.

Pcusa
Complaint Forces Resignation

Clark Chamberlain, who abruptly resigned as top administrator of the Presbyterian Church (USA) one day after being elected to the office, says he stepped down after learning that a sexual misconduct complaint would be filed against him.

Chamberlain won election as stated clerk last June over two-term incumbent James Andrews. Andrews was re-elected after Chamberlain’s resignation (CT, July 20, 1992, p. 46).

According to the Presbyterian News Service (PNS), the complaint against Chamberlain is now being handled by the denomination’s judicial process, and the denomination cannot comment on the matter. Presbyterian church law dictates that such complaints be investigated, and if found true, charges are to be presented to a judicial commission.

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