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Christian Churches Together in the USA has named Richard L. Hamm, a former chief executive for 10 years of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), to become the ecumenical group’s first executive administrator. The CCT, launched officially in January, brings together leaders in mainline Protestant, Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, evangelical, and racial and ethnic churches. Hamm’s appointment as the group’s first full-time staff person was made by the CCT steering committee during its May 15-16 meeting in Chicago. Hamm “was involved with CCT during its formative time” and understood the need to deepen fellowship between participants before adopting common witness statements on poverty and evangelism, said Wesley Granberg-Michaelson, CCT president and moderator of the steering committee. Hamm will assume the post August 1.

Openly gay Episcopal bishop V. Gene Robinson of New Hampshire reacted angrily to his exclusion from a key decennial meeting of Anglican leaders in England next year, saying that it is “an affront to the entire Episcopal Church.” Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, the spiritual leader of the worldwide Anglican Communion, sent the first round of invitations to the 2008 Lambeth Conference, scheduled for next July. Also left off the invitation list was Bishop Martyn Minns of Virginia, a leader of the Convocation of Anglicans in North America, a conservative splinter group under the aegis of the Anglican Church of Nigeria. “One thing is clear,” Minns said, “a great deal can happen and will happen before next July.”