President of Montreat College Resigns, Investigated for Soliciting Child Sex

Note: Come back to our website later this afternoon (around 5 EST) for a complete roundup of what Christian and mainstream pundits and media are saying about the Supreme Court’s decisions.

President of Montreat College resigns as police investigate allegations Last Wednesday, John S. Lindberg resigned as president of Montreat College, a North Carolina Christian school associated with the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). He had held the job for only two months, so some suspicions were raised when a college press release said only that he was leaving “completely for personal reasons.”

This week, those personal reasons were revealed: a 13-year-old girl has accused him of soliciting sex over the Internet.

“The individual that was communicating knew that the victim was 13, or less than 15,” Stephen Hampton, Chief of the Statesville Police Department, told Charlotte television station WCNC. “There are no indications they knew one another prior to his contact with her via the Internet.”

Police said they are convinced that the e-mail was sent from his Internet address, but no charges have yet been filed.

Yesterday, a judge sealed court documents related to the investigation, including the search warrant “until an arrest warrant is issued, or until a true bill of indictment is returned by the Grand Jury.”

The college said they didn’t know about the investigation. “We are learning of this investigation at the same time as everyone else,” interim president Don King said.

Whether Lindberg is either arrested or cleared, Weblog will of course follow up on this very sad story.

Ten Commandments:

Court upholds Ten Commandments plaque on courthouse | The 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals said a reasonable person familiar with the Chester County plaque’s history would regard the decision to leave it in place as religiously neutral, rather than evangelical (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)
Chesco’s Commandments can remain | An appeals court cited historical value of the courthouse plaque (The Philadelphia Inquirer)
Ten Commandments can stay on courthouse, judges rule (The Express-Times, Pa.)

Franklin Graham:

Emergency relief | The embattled Franklin Graham sends aid to Iraq despite a welter of hand-wringing over what it will do to Muslim-Christian relations (World)
Franklin Graham’s works defy anti-Muslim image | In the summer of 1999 in a boggy field on the Albanian coast, I saw a dozen Samaritan’s Purse staffers build and run a small tent town for 2,000 mostly Muslim refugees who had fled ethnic violence in Kosovo (Van Kornegay, The State, Columbia, S.C.)

Life ethics:

Abortion ship leaves Polish port | Left for international waters with about a dozen Polish women aboard (BBC)
Home abortions call triggers row | Antiabortion campaigners say home terminations would not be safe for women (BBC)
Abortion rights supporters challenge specialty plates | They seek to counter ‘Choose Life’ tags (The Times-Picayune, New Orleans)
Planned Parenthood suing state | Loss of funding for clinics called a political attack (Houston Chronicle)

Faith-based initiative:

Faith, hope, and government | A former Bush adviser explains why the consensus favoring federal support for faith-based social services collapsed—and why it must be revived (John J. Diiulio Jr, The Boston Globe)
Bid to defund faith-based groups fails | Rep. Chet Edwards (D.-Tex.), offered a hastily crafted amendment to the Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education spending bill that would ensure that none of the funds appropriated in the bill would go to any group that “discriminates in job hiring based on religion.” (The Washington Times)
Head Start flim-flam | Thousands of Head Start workers and volunteers could be displaced as Bush Administration claims faith-based organizations have ‘religious hiring rights’ (Bill Berkowitz, WorkingForChange.com)
Not a leap of faith | The empirical case for faith-based social services (John J. DiIulio Jr., The Weekly Standard)

Courts and law:

Long Island man convicted in killing of a priest and a parishioner | Peter J. Troy has argued he was the victim of a set-up (The New York Times)
Keeping the faith | Law protect rights to wear religious items at work (Amarillo Globe-News, Tex.)
Woman who wore cross gets job back | School aide reinstated until Aug. 28 hearing (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)
£350,000 blow for church couple | The Law Lords agreed with the parish’s claim that the Wallbanks are obliged to foot the bill for repairs to the chancel in the village on the basis that the Wallbanks’ farm is rectorial property (BBC, audio)
Man uses strict faith as defense | Husband says woman shouldn’t be defendant in breast-feeding case (The Beacon Journal, Ohio)

Education:

Paige Patterson boldly takes Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary reins | Patterson has been president of the smaller Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, N.C., for 11 years (Ft. Worth Star-Telegram, Tex.)
Also: Baptist leader takes Texas position (The News & Observer, Raleigh, N.C.)
Also: Fort Worth seminary picks Patterson | Conservative was sole candidate for post at Southwestern Baptist (The Dallas Morning News)
Professor steeped in religion | Statues, crucifixes and other objects adorn every room of religious studies professor Susan Kwilecki’s house (The Roanoke Times, Va.)

Politics:

Low-income child tax credit must wait, Republicans say | Republican Senate leaders said there would be no agreement with the House this month to increase the child tax credit for 6.5 million low-income families (The New York Times)
Young Latinos: strong believers | Figure this one out: the very young are religious and ethically as conservative as the first generation of immigrants; yet they identify predominantly with the Democratic Party (Uwe Siemon-Netto, UPI)
Lutheran clergy denied visas for Winnipeg forum | Immigration Minister asks for review (National Post, Canada)

Religious liberty and human rights abuses:

China denies mistreating Christian leader | Ministry of Justice says Gong Shengliang is in good health and hasn’t been tortured (Associated Press)
Unclear evidence on Viet tolerance | Religious tensions simmer in highlands (The Mercury News, San Jose, Calif.)
Missionary to return to Yemen after terrorist attack | Donald W. Caswell, who was shot and wounded last year, said he and his family hoped to return to Yemen by Aug. 1 (Associated Press)

A challenge in India snarls foreign adoptions | Indian law allows only Hindus and Buddhists to adopt; Christians, Muslims and Jews in India may only become guardians (The New York Times)
The fight against genocide and slavery | Sudan’s government breaks faith with President Bush (Nat Hentoff, The Washington Times)

Sexual ethics:

Clergymen threaten to shun first gay bishop | More than 30 church leaders, including five bishops from Britain and abroad, said last night that they would not recognise the authority of the first openly homosexual bishop in the Church of England if his appointment was confirmed. (The Daily Telegraph, London)
Dr. John: I am not driven by a liberal agenda | The full text of Canon Jeffrey John’s statement on his nomination and appointment as Bishop of Reading, and the issues being hotly debated in the Church as a result (Reading Chronicle, Berkshire, England)
Gay rights law threatens holy row | Gay rights have been extended to the workplace under a new law … so long as your work is not with the Church. But you don’t have to wear a dog-collar to be caught out by this exemption (BBC)
Lively debate on homosexuality shows Church far from outdated | The interpretation of biblical texts has rightly been a matter of debate (Peter Carnley, The Sydney Morning Herald)
Fired church music director sees both sides | Bill Stein is gay. He has had the same companion for 10 years. Asked point-blank to promise to lead a “chaste” lifestyle or lose his job, he had to choose the latter (Judy Emerson, Rockford Register Star, Ill.)
Sports Illustrated catering to homosexuals | But Christians shouldn’t boycott (Brad Locke, Baptist Press)

Pornography:

Playboy’s bunny hops into teens’ closets | Sexist symbol of ’60s now a hot seller (The Washington Post)
Case against Hustler’s Flynt revived | Flynt and his brother could be arrested and tried for violating a 1999 court agreement banning them from distributing sexually explicit videotapes in Hamilton County, the county prosecutor said (Associated Press)
Debate rages over impact of pornography | Harmless outlet or does it incite sexual offences? (National Post, Canada)

Missions and ministry:

That old-time evangelism | Believers take campaign door-to-door in Laurel, Md. (The Washington Post)
Newton prison program faces more lawsuits | A federal judge has consolidated two civil lawsuits against the InnerChange Freedom Initiative at the Newton prison and has asked whether two more suits against the program should be added to the consolidation order (Newton Daily News, Kan.)
Also: Bush plans to introduce Christian rehab program in federal prison system | Move to expand Colson’s ministry draws fire from civil libertarians (Forward)

Helping young people keep the peace | Clergy, police offering slate of positive activities (The Washington Post)

Nuns heal stressed, suffering through touch | A relaxed mind more open to spirituality, sisters say (Chicago Tribune)
It is time to get serious about Jesus, pastor says | The Rev. Rickey Nelson Jones could not find the religious leadership he was looking for, so he started a ministry that seeks to put Christ’s teachings into practice daily (The Baltimore Sun)

Church life:

Church ban for feuding family | Squabbling in the pews between a Church Hill woman, her ex-lover and his new wife have led to her being banned from church services (Redditch Standard, England)
Sydney’s soldier of Christ set to smite | Peter Jensen is leading a crucial fight that will determine the future attitudes of the Anglican church worldwide (Piers Akerman, The Daily Telegraph, Australia)
Shakespeare’s church in urgent need of repair | The church, founded in 1210, is made of crumbly sandstone and has weathered over the years (Reuters)
Medical privacy laws testing patience of clergy | Lay ministers, too, finding frustration with new rules (Barrington Courier-Review, Ill., via Presbyweb)

Women in ministry:

Sharing the calling | While more women get involved with church, some hang on to traditional roles (Corpus Christi Caller-Times, Tex.)
It’s wrong: Those who keep women down twist the Scripture | It is quite clear from Scripture that women preachers were very much a part of the life of the early church (Tony Campolo, Winston-Salem Journal, N.C.)

Compensation for ministry heads:

Joyce Meyer’s $57 million evangelism empire | The Joyce Meyer Ministry has had no hint of the taint of scandal and corruption that has stricken some televangelists, but she’s not a member of the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability, either (St. Louis Business Journal)
Critics say John Hagee’s compensation is too high | In 2001, Hagee’s total compensation package amounted to more than $1.25 million (San Antonio Express-News)

Personalities:

For a deliberative body, a spiritual helper | Navy’s chief of chaplains turns to a new flock on Capitol Hill (The Washington Post)
His is a ministry of confrontation | Flip Benham speaks up—loudly—on abortion, other issues (The Charlotte Observer)
Also: Operation Rescue leader moves offices to North Carolina (Associated Press)
A way to renewal for Church | John O’Shea’s tough-guy-cop-turned-priest story was a made-for-TV movie waiting to happen (Dan Haley, Denver Post)

Bible:

Battle of biblical proportions | The cost of a gender-neutral Bible (Dale Buss, The Wall Street Journal)
Australian Bible gets church backing | The book has been endorsed by both the Anglican Archbishop of Sydney and Australia’s deputy prime minister (BBC)
Researchers unearth ancient Japanese Bible translation | 400-year-old Japanese translation of biblical literature has been found at a university in the old Polish city of Krakow (Mainichi Daily News)

Books:

Ghostwriters in the machine | Evangelical publishers are taking steps toward more honesty, but some trends are cause for concern (World)
Modern religious pilgrims | Paul C. Elie helps to explain why Dorothy Day, Thomas Merton, Flannery O’Connor and Walker Percy continue to speak to us (The Washington Times)
Competitors still: Benjamin Franklin and Jonathan Edwards | The exemplars of rival streams of American thought still compete for the public’s attention as biographies remember them 300 years after their birth (Associated Press)

Music:

Thousands gather for celebration of Christian music | As many as 100,000 will attend Creation 2003 (Lebanon Daily News, Penn.)
An overflow crowd spreads spirit of Creation 2003 to the Gap (The Patriot-News, Penn.)
Churches debate hip-hop as a bridge to youth culture | To some it’s a wack evangelical tool to honor God and keep a word that was made flesh fresh. To others it’s the devil’s handiwork leading youth into a world that glorifies rape and murder (The Plain Dealer, Cleveland)
Also: Hip-hop could give young voice in their church (Bakari Kitwana, The Plain Dealer)

Media and film:

Too much media harmful: study | Canadian Pediatric Society claims excessive media consumption may lead to a sedentary lifestyle and risky sexual behavior (Calgary Herald)
In Christian video games, Bibles are weapons of choice | “Obstacles of Life,” a Christian shoot-em-up game from MVG Christian Entertainment, just hit the markets this summer (Cathleen Falsani, Chicago Sun-Times)
Bonhoeffer lauds German theologian who resisted Nazis | Film turned out to be one of Gene Siskel Film Center’s biggest draws in years (Chicago Tribune)

Clergy sex abuse:

Is it too late to save the Catholic Church? | Not if its leaders will take this opportunity to make much-needed reforms. I’m not holding my breath (Tom Hogan, Newsweek)
Flagstaff ex-pastor receives 16 years in child sex abuse | Victims slept over with evangelical pastor’s daughters (The Arizona Republic)
On appeal, diocese can keep abuse-suit documents sealed | Though today’s decision was technical and narrow, it represented a victory for the diocese (The New York Times)

Other stories of interest:

Religion news in brief | Re-Imagining Community appears to be dissolving, Operation Rescue leader moves office, Louisiana court dismisses ACLU bid to end church sales tax exemptions, and other stories (Associated Press)
‘Christian terrorist’ is oxymoron | To call Rudolph a “Christian terrorist” is like calling a dog a cat (Bill Graves, The Oklahoman)
For Shakers, elegance was plain | The 19th-century American religious sect that emphasized simplicity and plain living (The New York Times)
Science and religion cease fire | The Biotechnology Industry Organization and the National Council of Churches signed a pact here to open channels of communication between them about the promise and potential perils of biotechnology (Wired News)
Unsocial gospel | D.G. Hart on American Protestantism (Robert W. Patterson, The Weekly Standard)