Passages

Resigned • Wade Burleson, senior pastor of Emmanuel Baptist Church in Enid, Oklahoma, from the trustee board of the Southern Baptist Convention's International Mission Board. An outspoken critic of the board, particularly its 2006 decision not to appoint missionaries who use a "private prayer language," Burleson was censured in November 2007 for blogging about his disagreements with fellow trustees.

Died • David F. Wright, professor emeritus of patristic and Reformation studies at the University of Edinburgh's New College. He was 70. The editor and author of numerous scholarly works, Wright was called a "powerful voice for Bible-believing scholarship" by former student and prominent Presbyterian minister Ligon Duncan.

Died • Ruth Stafford Peale, cofounder and chairman emeritus of Guideposts magazine and wife of the late Norman Vincent Peale. The author of several books, including A Lifetime of Positive Thinking, Peale died at her home in Pawling, New York. She was 101.

Exited • Ted Haggard, former president of the National Association of Evangelicals and pastor of New Life Church in Colorado Springs, from his spiritual restoration program. Haggard was dismissed from New Life for sexual immorality in November 2006. New Life's trustees said in a statement that Haggard's restoration remained incomplete and that he should not return to vocational ministry. According to the statement, Haggard will continue an accountability relationship with pastor Tommy Barnett of Phoenix First Assembly of God in Arizona.

Awarded • Bob Fu, president of China Aid Association, with the 2007 John Leland Religious Liberty Award. Given by the Southern Baptist Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, the award honors the former Chinese house-church pastor and leader in the country's student democracy movement for "courageously defending the right of all people to exercise freely their religious faith." Fu currently lives in Midland, Texas.