%1

Barbara Harris, the first woman to be ordained and consecrated as a bishop in the worldwide Anglican Communion, died on March 13 at a hospice house after a recent hospitalization. She was 89.

Harris, who was known for quoting the words “Hallelujah anyhow” from a gospel song, served as suffragan bishop in the Diocese of Massachusetts from 1989 until she retired in 2002. She then served as assisting bishop in the Diocese of Washington from 2003 to 2007.

Ioan Sauca has been appointed acting general secretary of the World Council of Churches until the WCC executive committee meets in June. The executive committee had planned to meet at the end of March, but that gathering was postponed due to concerns about COVID-19.

Bread for the World, a prominent Christian advocacy group dedicated to ending hunger, has elected Seattle pastor and author Eugene Cho as its new president.

It’s a dramatic change for Bread, which is well known in Washington for galvanizing religious groups to protect federal policies that help the impoverished. Recent years have seen the group fight to stop proposed cuts to the Sup­plemental Nutrition Assistance Program, also known as food stamps, and push for more flexibility in allowing the government to provide aid for nations in need.

Edith Blumhofer, a renowned scholar of religious history in the United States, died of pancreatic cancer on March 5. She was 69.

Blumhofer, who taught at Wheaton College for nearly 30 years, was known for studying subsets of evangelicalism that other scholars did not take seriously, namely, Pentecostals and charismatics. She wrote numerous books on the topic, and in 2006, she wrote a cover story for the Century about the Azusa Street Revival.

For nearly two years Rosa del Carmen Ortez-Cruz took sanctuary from deportation at the Church of Reconciliation, not knowing if she would ever be able to emerge from her confinement.

On February 26, a three-judge panel of the US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit ruled that immigration authorities may not deport her. The unanimous ruling means Ortez-Cruz will be entitled to stay and work in the United States for the foreseeable future.

The Southern Baptist Convention’s Executive Com­mit­tee will launch a task force to examine the activities of the Eth­ics and Religious Li­berty Com­mission, the convention’s pub­lic policy organization headed by theologian and author Russell Moore.

Southern Baptist leaders fear controversy over Moore could lead to a drop in donations.