Ram Dass, a spiritual pied piper who introduced a generation of young Americans to Hindu meditation, died December 23 in Maui, Hawaii, where he lived and taught. He was 88.
Ram Dass was born Richard Alpert to parents who were Jewish, a faith he later said he found “hollow.” By the time he entered Tufts University, he considered himself an atheist.
Archbishop Atallah Hanna, head of the Sebastia Diocese of the Greek Orthodox Church in Jerusalem, who has been outspoken on political issues of the region, was hospitalized on December 18 after being poisoned, according to a message from the World Council of Churches. According to reports, Hanna was rushed to the hospital after someone threw a gas canister into his church residence.
A diverse 16-member group of United Methodist bishops and other leaders has offered a proposal that would preserve the United Methodist Church while allowing traditionalist-minded congregations to form a new denomination. The separating group would get $25 million in United Methodist funds and would keep its local church properties. Details are in a nine-page “Protocol of Reconciliation and Grace through Separation,” released January 3.
As people around the world rang in the new decade, Australia continued to burn for a fifth straight month.
Before 2020 was a week old, 24 people had died in the bushfires that burned across more than 12 million acres of land, and thousands more had been evacuated.
In response to the national emergency, Australian faith communities have worked to provide support.
The Mormon world was rocked on December 16 when news broke that a whistleblower had accused the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints of misleading members regarding more than $100 billion retained in accounts accumulated from tithe donations.
But legal experts are skeptical the news will trigger a response from the IRS, and they note that the LDS Church’s tradition of aggressive saving dates back decades.
When Pope Francis announced on December 17 that he had abolished pontifical secrecy for cases of clerical sexual abuse, some observers compared the move to a regime opening its secret files, bringing to light years of testimony and documents.
The new protocol will transform legal proceedings and the lives of abuse survivors, those accused of abusing them, and bishops in charge of exercising oversight.
A United Methodist clergyman has retired “under complaint” after facing formal accusations of sexual misconduct and abuse from four women.
Under a resolution with the West Ohio Conference, Donald “Bud” Heckman can no longer represent himself as under appointment by the church nor perform ministerial activities in the name of the United Methodist Church. The agreement also states that Heckman “publicly acknowledges in writing his personal regret” for sexual misconduct, harassment, and not being celibate in singleness and faithful in marriage.
Calling President Trump’s behavior “profoundly immoral,” Mark Galli, editor in chief of the evangelical magazine Christianity Today, published an editorial in December calling for Trump to be removed from office.
“The impeachment hearings have made it absolutely clear . . . that President Trump has abused his authority for personal gain and betrayed his constitutional oath,” he wrote. “This damages the institution of the presidency, damages the reputation of our country, and damages both the spirit and the future of our people.”
The Katie Geneva Cannon Center for Womanist Leadership has received a three-year, $400,000 grant from the Henry Luce Foundation.
“This grant will support our programmatic agenda to shape the next generation of Black women seminarians, graduate students of religion, clergy, and theological faculty who seek to demystify hidden manifestations of systemic oppression and address persistent and effective strategies of justice-making,” said center director Melanie Jones, in a press release.