The Episcopal Church on June 1 was part of a successful push by shareholders of gun manufacturer Sturm, Ruger & Co. to pressure the company to study the lethality of its products and include the findings in a human rights impact report.
The Episcopal Church has invested in Ruger since late 2018 as part of its broader participation in shareholder advocacy campaigns on issues ranging from human trafficking to climate change.
For three minutes last summer, a call to investigate how Southern Baptist leaders have dealt with sexual abuse was dead in the water.
Then a little-known denominational bylaw and a pastor from Indiana saved it.
“I just had to do it,” said Todd Benkert, pastor of Oak Creek Community Church in Mishawaka, Indiana. “It was me or nobody.”
The African Methodist Episcopal Church has sued a former executive who oversaw its pension plan’s investment portfolio, charging that he and others embezzled money and defrauded AME clergy and church employees who were relying on its annuity plan for their retirement.
The legal action follows the filing of class action suits that alleged the church mishandled the pension funds, with one claiming at least $90 million is missing. The denomination, in turn, alleges that Jerome V. Harris and others are to blame for the tens of millions in financial mismanagement.
At a special assembly held May 27–30 in Kansas City, Missouri, delegates from the nation’s largest Mennonite denomination shifted Mennonite Church USA’s stance toward LGBTQ people in an affirming direction.
Decisions by the 506 delegates indicated that LGBTQ acceptance has grown during MC USA’s 20-year history and that disagreement persists on sexual ethics and church governance.
Bishop Mildred “Bonnie” Hines, the first female bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, has died at age 67.
“We are sad because we will miss her powerful preaching, her electrifying teaching, her dynamic leadership, and her loving spirit,” said the board of bishops in a statement. “We are glad because she is free from her infirmities and is in the presence of her Lord, whom she served so faithfully.”
Hines, the 98th bishop of the AME Zion Church, died May 23. She was the sole female bishop of the historically Black denomination, which dates to 1796.
Metropolitan Gennadios of Sassima, a leader of the Greek Orthodox Church in Turkey, a noted scholar, and a popular ecumenist, died June 1.
In a statement, Agnes Abuom, moderator of the World Council of Churches Central Committee, praised Gennadios’s dedication to the ecumenical movement.
“He led a principled life devoted to [promoting] ecumenism, unity, and ecumenical leadership development,” she said. “When we needed him, he was there, ready to serve the ecumenical movement.”
Brett Opalinski has been selected as the next dean of Methodist studies at the Candler School of Theology. He will also serve as an assistant professor in the practice of spiritual formation and church leadership.
He succeeds Anne Burkholder, who is retiring after 14 years of leading the school’s Methodist studies program.