Christian Century staff
Fred W. Meuser, Lutheran theologian and leader, dies at age 94
Meuser, a scholar of Martin Luther and American Lutheran history, also served on a multidenominational council and as a seminary president.
Vilmarie Cintrón-Olivieri and Cindy Kohlmann become PCUSA comoderators
The "bold, unapologetic women" will share the second most important position in the 1.4 million–member denomination for two years.
Beverly Lapp will be vice president, academic dean of Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary
The school's board of directors praised her “exceptional background in pedagogy.”
Philip Wingeier-Rayo will be academic dean of Wesley Theological Seminary
Wingeier-Rayo is a fourth-generation missionary, having spent 15 years in Cuba, Mexico, Nicaragua, and the Rio Grande Valley.
Alton B. Pollard III to lead Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary
The scholar of religion and culture will become president in September.
Fuller seminary to sell Pasadena campus and move
While still one of the largest seminaries in the U.S., Fuller has faced declining enrollment.
Southern Baptists call Paige Patterson to account
Firing him as seminary president is the most dramatic example of the #MeToo movement pervading the top reaches of the Southern Baptist Convention.
Michael Curry's sermon at royal wedding imagines 'when love is the way'
The Episcopal presiding bishop wove in references to Teilhard de Chardin, Martin Luther King Jr., and the composers of African American spirituals.
Edwin Mulder, Reformed church leader, dies at age 89
As general secretary of the Reformed Church in America, he led his denomination in standing against apartheid.
Peter Borgdorff, who brought global Reformed churches together, dies at age 78
Borgdorff was also the first executive director of the Christian Reformed Church in North America.
Loren Mead, founder of the Alban Institute, dies at age 88
The author of The Once and Future Church was part of the shift to looking at congregations in their contexts—not just the church in general.
Church acts as mediator in Nicaragua unrest, addresses corruption in Honduran government
Nicaraguan church leaders are among those decrying a violent response to protests. And in Honduras, a Jesuit-run radio station has charged the government with becoming a dictatorship.
Baylor seminary names 12 leading preachers among English speakers
The seminary's Lake Center for Effective Preaching surveyed homiletics professors and chose from more than 800 nominees.
Black liberation theologian James Cone dies at 79
In portraying Christ’s blackness, he upended the assumptions of a field dominated by white theologians and helped spawn other theories of liberation.
Bob Ricks, FBI's main spokesman in Waco standoff, looks back to 25 years ago
“Probably the best description of him is a master manipulator,” Ricks said of David Koresh, who died in a fire in 1993 along with dozens of his Branch Davidian followers.
Megachurch founder Bill Hybels denies reports of sexual misconduct
Church elders and an outside firm investigated and cleared Hybels. But recently several former employees went public with their accounts—and doubts about the investigations.
United Lutheran Seminary fires president
Theresa F. Latini led an organization that taught that sexuality could be changed. She now rejects that—but students, faculty, and alumni charged her and the board with keeping that fact secret.
Gabriel Fackre, 'ecumenical evangelical' theologian, dies at age 92
Fackre was influential in the formation of the United Church of Christ and wrote the five-volume work The Christian Story.
Amid detentions and deportation, sanctuary movement persists
Three Indonesian Christians moved into their church in New Jersey—one of more than 30 congregations sheltering people facing deportation.
Munib Younan, Palestinian Lutheran bishop, passes torch to Sani Ibrahim Azar
Before his consecration as bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan and the Holy Land, Azar was a pastor in Jerusalem's Old City for three decades.