People in the News

People in the News

In December 1994 former television evangelist James Orsen "Jim" Bakker, whose PTL Club and Heritage USA theme park cost his investors, the "lifetime partners," millions of dollars, was released from federal prison. His former wife and partner, Tammy Faye Bakker, had since married building contractor Roe Messner.

In August 1998 Father James Callan, who for twenty-two years had served the Corpus Christi parish in Rochester, New York, was suspended from the Roman Catholic Church. He was charged with having performed same-sex weddings, offering Communion to non-Catholics, and permitting a woman, Mary Ramerman, to wear a clerical stole and serve at the altar in a manner reserved for priests. In February 1999 he was excommunicated for starting a new church.

In 1991 Joan Brown Campbell was installed as general secretary of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America (NCC), the first ordained woman to hold that post.

James Earl "Jimmy" Carter, who used the prestige of his former office to undertake the role of peacemaker around the world, told the Christian Century part of the secret of his success: "I can get anyone to return my calls because I am a former President of the United States."

In September 1999 radical feminist theologian and scholar Mary Daly was dismissed from her tenured professorship at Boston College after she refused to admit men to her class.

In 1999 Robert W. Edgar, former U.S. congressman and president of Claremont School of Theology, replaced Joan Brown Campbell as executive secretary of the NCC. Edgar's first task was to restore the troubled finances of the organization that had deteriorated during Campbell's tenure.

William Franklin "Billy" Graham, though increasingly suffering from Parkinson's disease, continued to preach at evangelistic crusades and to lead the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association. His son, William Franklin Graham III, was increasingly recognized as Graham's successor—both as head of the association and as a forceful voice for evangelical Christianity. Billy, and his wife, Ruth Bell Graham, were awarded the Congressional Gold Medal in 1996.

In 1995 Gordon B. Hinckley was elected as the fifteenth president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormons) upon the death of his predecessor, Howard W. Hunter.

Rabbi Harold S. Kushner, whose book When Bad Things Happen to Good People (1981) comforted millions of Americans, in 1996 asked How Good Do We Have to Be? in a new work on morality and religion.

In 1999 Henry J. Lyons, former president of the National Baptist Convention USA, was sentenced to serve five and a half years in a Florida prison on charges of grand theft and racketeering.

In August 1994 Molly Marshall, the first and only theology professor at a Southern Baptist seminary, was fired from the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary for teaching not consistent with the new conservative direction of the institution.

Protestant church historian Martin E. Marty won the 1991 Campion Award from the Catholic Book Club.

In 1994 Mary Adelia McLeod became the first woman to head an Episcopal diocese, as Bishop of Vermont.

Benjamin F. Chavis Muhammad, a former United Church of Christ minister and head of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), announced in February 1997 that he had converted to the Nation of Islam and added Muhammad to his name.

John Richard Neuhaus, a Lutheran theologian, announced in 1990 that he was converting to Roman Catholicism.

Irish rock singer Sinead O'Connor, an outspoken critic of the Pope, startled viewers of the late-night comedy show "Saturday Night Live" by concluding a 1992 performance by ripping up a photo of Pope John Paul II and telling the audience, "Fight the real enemy."

Sister Helen Prejean of Louisiana, who worked with condemned prisoners, was awarded the Pope Paul VI Teacher of Peace Award and the Notre Dame Laetare Medal, both in 1996.

Robert A. Seiple served as the first ambassador-at-large for international religious freedom for the State Department, a position mandated by passage of the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998.

Archbishop Spyridon, head of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America, resigned in the wake of a three-year campaign against him by bishops and laity who saw him as autocratic and not in tune with American ways. He was replaced in 1999 by the Greek-born and Harvard-educated biblical scholar, Archbishop Demetrias Trakatellis.

In February 1999 Paul Weyrich, who, with Jerry Falwell, was one of the architects of the Moral Majority, announced, "I no longer believe that there is a moral majority. I do not believe that a majority of Americans actually shares our values." Weyrich was frustrated by the inability of Congress to remove President Bill Clinton from office in the impeachment process.