%1

United Methodist pastor Anna Blaedel will face a church trial for “practices de­clared by the United Methodist Church to be in­compatible with Chris­tian teachings, including . . . being a self-avowed practicing homosexual.”

Blaedel has faced several complaints after announcing at the 2016 Iowa Con­ference: “I am a self-avowed practicing homosexual.” Blaedel re­signed as director of the Wesley Center at the Uni­ver­sity of Iowa last April during Holy Week.

Alison Cheek, one of the first female priests in the Episcopal Church and the first to publicly celebrate the Eucharist, died on September 1 at her home in Brevard, North Carolina, according to friends. She was 92.

Author and historian Ibram X. Kendi will be one of the featured speakers at this year’s National Council of Churches’ Christian Unity Gath­ering in Hamp­ton, Virginia.

Kendi joins a slate of speakers at the October event that includes Olav Fykse Tveit, general secretary of the World Council of Churches; Agnes Abuom, moderator of the World Coun­cil of Churches Central Committee; and Mark L. Mac­Donald, the Anglican Church of Canada’s first National Indi­genous Anglican Archbishop.

On August 21, Azza Karam was named as secretary general of Religions for Peace, becoming the first woman and first Muslim to lead the international interfaith coalition. She succeeds Wil­liam F. Vendley, who served as secretary general for 27 years.

Karam is currently a professor of religion and development at the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam and the lead facilitator for the United Nation’s Strategic Learning Exchange on Reli­gion, Development and Diplomacy.

Sociologist Wade Clark Roof, who helped Americans grasp the spiritual lives of the baby boomer generation, died on August 24 at the age of 80. Perhaps best known for his 1993 book, A Generation of Seekers: The Spiritual Journeys of the Baby Boom Generation, he wrote widely on religious pluralism, generational change, contemporary spirituality, and civil society. He was a frequent commentator on the shifting current of mainline Protestantism.