Theologian and Christian apologist Norman Geisler, the author of dozens of books and the cofounder of two seminaries, has died at age 86. His family announced his death on July 1 on his website.
In April, Southern Evangelical Seminary near Charlotte, North Carolina, announced Geisler was retiring from his teaching duties “due to health reasons.” Geisler cofounded that seminary in 1992.
Verity A. Jones has joined the Lilly Endowment as program director in the religion division.
Jones has been a consultant to the religion division and helped lead several Lilly-funded initiatives. She directed the New Media Project, which helped pastors and congregational leaders examine how to use digital communications to enhance their ministries. She was associate director of the Wabash Pastoral Leadership Program at Wabash College and served on the board of directors at Louisville Institute, based at Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary.
Michael Bransfield, who resigned as bishop of the Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston, West Virginia, last year following a preliminary investigation into allegations of sexual and financial misconduct, has been barred by Pope Francis from public ministry. The pope has also prohibited him from living in the diocese where he served from 2005 to 2018.
Pope Francis has named Baltimore auxiliary bishop Mark Brennan to lead the Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston, West Virginia.
The sanctions call on Bransfield to “make personal amends for some of the harm he caused.
Kaji Douša, a Manhattan pastor, has filed a federal lawsuit alleging that US officials violated her religious freedom when she was put on a watchlist because of her ministry to migrants at the border.
Senior pastor of Park Avenue Christian Church and longtime advocate for immigrants’ rights, Douša was the only clergy member listed in a government database created to collect information on the caravan of Central American migrants that traveled through Mexico toward the US border last fall.
Amy Butler, the first female pastor to lead the Riverside Church in New York City, is leaving the historic progressive church. After five years at Riverside, Amy Butler will not renew her contract as senior minister, according to a statement from Butler and the church council posted on the church’s website.
Succeeding Demetrios Trakatellis, he is the first new US Greek Orthodox leader in two decades.
Ogden engaged “the credibility of the Christian witness,” he wrote in the Century’s How My Mind Has Changed series. “Christian faith itself claims to be credible in terms of common human experience.”