News from the North American Scene: October 23, 1995

SEMINARY UPDATE

Carver School Set to Move to Samford

Samford University is poised to take control of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary’s controversial Carver School of Church Social Work at the start of the 1996–97 school year, pending a vote by Southern’s trustees this month.

Approval is expected because the proposal has been recommended by a five-member study committee at Southern, located in Louisville, Kentucky. “Relocation of the Carver School to Samford holds promise of strengthening the Christian social conscience of our university community,” Samford president Thomas Corts says. “It is crucial that Southern Baptists maintain an emphasis on the great social issues of our time.”

Last month, trustees at Samford, a Southern Baptist school in Birmingham with 4,630 students, approved the transfer, which would include acquisition of all Carver School library books, periodicals, and computer software.

“This is the most positive and constructive proposal that could have been achieved under these circumstances,” Southern president R. Albert Mohler, Jr., told CT. “It would not be feasible to keep Carver here.”

In March, Mohler fired Diana Garland as dean of the nation’s only accredited master’s program in social work operated by a seminary (CT, May 15, 1995, p. 54).

Garland had openly criticized Mohler for not hiring Gordon College social-work professor David Sherwood, who would not affirm a ban on women in ordained ministry.

Southern trustees supported the 35-year-old Mohler in the firing and approved his request to hire only conservative faculty who agree with the seminary’s administration.

Fall enrollment at Southern dropped 13.4 percent compared to a year ago. Enrollment at the campus is 1,241, a decrease of 197 students, although Mohler says a larger drop had been expected. The Carver School is not accepting new students, and enrollment has dipped to 77 from 115. Only two full-time faculty remain after two professors retired and another’s contract expired.

Representatives from three accrediting agencies, including the Association of Theological Schools, are scheduled to visit Southern next month to investigate the Garland firing. Now, however, Mohler says the transfer to Samford may “supersede other concerns.”

By John W. Kennedy.

NEW BOOK

Account of Hinn’s Healings Challenged

The Saint Louis-based organization Personal Freedom Outreach (PFO) says faith healer Benny Hinn’s version of mass healings at an Ontario hospital in 1976 is more fiction than fact. Hinn describes the healings in his new book, Welcome, Holy Spirit. G. Richard Fisher, writing in the summer issue of PFO’s The QuarterlyJournal, labels Hinn’s “wildly embellished account” a “tall tale.”

In the book, Hinn claims that he and other clergy began to anoint patients in a Catholic hospital with oil, and they “began to receive instant healing.” Hinn, pastor of the 10,000-member Orlando (Fla.) Christian Center and host of television’s This Is Your Day, adds, “One by one, they began to testify of miracles that were taking place.”

He writes that “you could feel God’s spirit all over the building. Within a few minutes the hospital looked almost like it had been hit by an earthquake. People were under the power of the Holy Spirit up and down the hallways as well as in the rooms.”

Fisher reports, however, that Lois C. Krause, director of community relations at General Hospital I in Sault Ste. Marie, challenges Hinn’s descriptions.

“No such events have ever occurred at General Hospital,” says a hospital statement reported by PFO. Hinn’s “pronouncement can neitherbe verified through the medical records nor by testimony from past or present personnel of this hospital. Mr. Hinn’s claims are outlandish and unwarranted.”

Hinn ministry spokesperson George Parson would not comment on the specifics in PFO’s article, but affirmed the accuracy of Hinn’s book.

By Randy Frame.

ADVENTISTS

Fired Official Files Lawsuit

A Seventh-day Adventist leader has filed a defamation suit against the denomination and a woman who has accused him of sexual abuse. In a recent affidavit, the woman identified only as Jane Doe has described a history of sexual abuse and activity at the hands of David Dennis, an auditor of the Seventh-day Adventist church. As a result of her disclosures, Dennis was terminated last December after nearly 20 years as director of internal auditing for the Silver Spring, Maryland-based General Conference of the Seventh-day Adventists (GCSDA) for “conduct unbecoming an ordained minister and an elected leader of the General Conference.”

According to Dennis, however, “not one bit” of Doe’s affidavit about his conduct is true. “I have never touched this woman sexually,” he says. “I have been faithful to my wife. [Doe] is making this up.”

Dennis is suing Doe, the GCSDA, and several leaders of the church for defamation and breach of contract; he is seeking $1 million. In his filed complaint, Dennis claims that GCSDA president Robert Folkenberg has attempted to “divert and misuse assets and services” of the denomination “for his own personal benefit” and believes the real reason he lost his job was due to conflicts he had with the church leadership over the handling of financial issues.

Robert Nixon, general counsel for the GCSDA, says that while “the church has made mistakes in the past” with regard to finances, Dennis’s role as an auditor has nothing to do with his termination. “We believe he was properly terminated, as there was adequate evidence of a moral problem,” he said.

Dennis believes “that right will triumph and that the Lord will vindicate us.”

$67 MILLION PURCHASE

Nelson Acquires Greeting-Card Firm

Thomas Nelson, Inc., the largest commercial publisher of English-language Bible translations, the largest publisher of Christian books, and the nation’s largest producer of Christian music, last month signed a deal to buy C. R. Gibson in a cash transaction valued at $67 million. The Nashville-based Thomas Nelson offered $9 per share in an agreement approved unanimously by C. R. Gibson’s board of directors.

C. R. Gibson, headquartered in Norwalk, Connecticut, manufactures paper gift and stationery products, including a greeting card line. Last year Gibson reported net revenues of $67.5 million. Nelson has 1,400 employees. Gibson has 600.

Big takeovers are nothing new for Nelson. In 1992, the company bought competitor Word, Inc., from Capital Cities/ABC, for $72 million in cash. In August, Thomas Nelson announced a reorganization, joining the newly purchased Word Publishing into the company’s publishing unit. Forming of the Nelson/Word Publishing Group makes it one of the country’s top ten book publishers.

Revenues for the 197-year-old Thomas Nelson totaled $265 million in 1994, an increase of 17 percent from the previous year. The company’s stock value has risen 400 percent in the past five years.

Under the revamping, Byron Williamson will be the new president of Nelson/Word Publishing Group; Joseph Moore, executive vice president; and Sam Moore, chief executive officer. Sam Moore bought Nelson in 1972.

The company recently ventured into contemporary Christian and country music radio by launching the Morningstar network. Thomas Nelson also has been mulling the startup of a cable television network.

HABITAT FOR HUMANITY

Unclaimed Funds to Build Homes

Habitat for Humanity has received an early Christmas gift: a $1.2 million windfall in unclaimed funds from an unrelated class-action lawsuit.

Stephen Seidel, executive director of the Twin Cities Habitat for Humanity office, says Habitat’s reputation aided Judge Donald Alsop in his decision to donate the excess money to the organization. The money will be used in part to build 200 homes in the Twin Cities in the next five years. “We are not squirreling the money away,” Seidel says. “We’re going to build more homes.”

The donation comes from the leftovers of a $6.5 million settlement in a lawsuit against loan company ITT Consumer Financial. More than 250,000 plaintiffs were to receive payments ranging from $ 14 to $28, but about a quarter of the recipients did not claim their money. The funds were given to Habitat, a ministry that builds and rehabilitates houses to allow low-income families to purchase them at a reduced cost.

Ten percent of the donation has been sent to the parent Habitat for Humanity International in Americus, Georgia, to finance housebuilding efforts overseas. The organization was founded in 1976 by Millard Fuller.

News Briefs

♦ E. Edward Jones, president of the eight million—member National Baptist Convention of America, has questioned the Southern Baptist Convention’s (SBC) June apology for racism (CT, Aug. 14, 1995, p. 53). “The civil-rights struggle is still going on, and we need more than an apology,” Jones said at the black denomination’s annual convention last month. Jones speculated that the SBC is apologizing now in an effort to recruit members from his denomination. “I understand his skepticism,” SBC second vice president Gary Frost, an African American, said of Jones. “Our Southern Baptist Convention agrees this apology is late in coming, but I am convinced it is sincere and real.”

♦ Archbishop Geron lakovos, leader of the 2.5 million—member Greek Orthodox Church of North and South America since 1959, will retire next July 29 on his eighty-fifth birthday. He cited health and age as reasons in deciding to step down. lakovos has been a newsmaker throughout his administration. A year ago, he issued an interfaith marriage encyclical labeling Assemblies of God and Pentecostal adherents “not of the Christian tradition” (CT, Jan. 9, 1995, p. 42). In January, lakovos spearheaded a plan to unify ten branches of the Orthodox church in North America into an “administratively united” body (CT, Feb. 6, 1995, p. 45). Ecumenical Geron lakovos Patriarch Bartholomew, the faith’s worldwide leader, ordered lakovos to abandon the proposal.

♦ U.S. District Judge James Redden last month sentenced Rachelle “Shelley” Shannon, 39, of Grants Pass, Oregon, to 20 years in federal prison after the defendant admitted firebombing six West Coast abortion facilities in 1992. Redden called her a “terrorist.” Shannon will serve the term after she finishes a nine-year term handed down last year for wounding Wichita, Kansas, abortionist George Tiller in 1993.

♦ After laying off staff and faculty during the summer due to the threat of financial insolvency (CT, Aug. 14, 1995, p. 59), Ontario Bible College (OBC) and Ontario Theological Seminary (OTS) are both back in session for the fall with the return of 90 percent of previous student enrollments. Brian Stiller continues to serve as interim president, but he will return to his post as executive director of the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada when the OBC/OTS situation has stabilized and a new president is selected. By mid-September, OBC/OTS had already raised a third of the $1.5 million in desired donations for the fiscal year.

♦ In its crusade to further expand its efforts, the conservative Christian Coalition is planning to launch a Catholic arm, the Catholic Alliance. The predominantly Protestant Virginia Beach-based coalition has long cooperated with Roman Catholic leaders, particularly in prolife matters, but it has had difficulty building grassroots support in predominantly Catholic regions of the country.

♦ Clarence C. Pope, Jr., who last year became the first Episcopal bishop in more than 140 years to convert to Roman Catholicism (CT, Dec. 12, 1994, p. 66), has changed his mind. The 65-year-old retired Fort Worth bishop has decided to return to the Episcopal church, in large measure because he could not agree to the Catholic church’s request that he be “reordained” as a priest.

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