Elected John Lilley, 66, as president of Baylor University in Waco, Texas. Lilley, formerly president of the University of Nevada, Reno, took office on January 2. He replaced current chancellor and Baylor 2012 architect Robert Sloan, who resigned as president on June 1, 2005. Interim president William Underwood will become the president of Mercer University in Macon, Georgia, in July.

Died Seth Rohrer, a founder of Bethel College (Ind.), on November 13. Rohrer, 96, served on various boards and commissions for the National Association of Evangelicals during a span of more than 50 years. The nae named him layman of the year in 1971.

Closed Christian Herald newspaper, after more than 130 years of publication in Great Britain, at the end of January. The newspaper's executives cited rising costs, falling advertising revenues, and declining evangelical interest in reading among their reasons. Anglican minister Michael Baxter started the newspaper in 1874 to report on a visit by American evangelists Dwight Moody and Ira Sankey.

Acquitted Åke Green, by Sweden's Supreme Court, of hate-speech charges and a one-month jail sentence for denouncing homosexuality in a sermon. Green, a Pentecostal pastor, said in 2003 that homosexuality is "a deep cancerous tumor on all of society." The Supreme Court in Stockholm ruled in late November that the European Convention on Human Rights' article about free expression protects Green's sermon.



Related Elsewhere:

Baylor has more information about its new president. Christianity Today's past articles on the Battle for Baylor are available in our full coverage area.

Bethel College has more information about its deceased founder.

More about the Christian Herald and its closure is available on its website.

Weblog has covered Åke Green's trial and court appeals.

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