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Scholar and author Jerry Pattengale has been appointed interim CEO and president of the Religion News Founda­tion and CEO and publisher of Religion News Service, a subsidiary of the foundation. Pattengale re­places Tom Galla­gher, who was hired in 2016. A reason was not given for Gal­lagher’s departure.

“During this season of rapid change in the media industry and nonprofit sector, RNF and RNS are well-positioned for continued growth,” Pattengale said in a press release. “Our future looks bright, thanks to the remarkable expertise of our board, staff and journalists.”

Deborah Krause has been named the first female president at Eden Theo­logical Seminary. She will replace David Green­haw, who will retire from the United Church of Christ institution this summer after a 23-year tenure.

Krause currently serves as a professor of New Testament studies at Eden. Krause has worked to make Eden a more diverse campus. She led the seminary’s participation in the Fer­gu­son freedom movement following the 2014 shooting death of Michael Brown by a police officer in nearby Ferguson, Missouri.

In a surprise move, Pope Francis on December 8 appointed Filipino Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle of Manila as the head of Propaganda Fide, the major Vatican department for evangelization. It’s a move that emphasizes this pontificate’s efforts to highlight the global dimension of the church and taps the cardinal as a possible successor.

At 62, Cardinal Tagle will oversee all of the Catholic missions in the world, a natural transition from his current ap­pointment as president of the global Catholic charity Caritas Internationalis.

Delegates to the Union for Reform Judaism’s biennial meeting in Chicago on December 13 voted overwhelmingly to advocate for the creation of a federal commission to study and develop proposals for reparations to African Americans for slavery.

The resolution is the first such effort on the part of an American Jewish orga­nization but has precedent among some Protestant groups.

For decades, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was one of Boy Scouts of America’s greatest allies and the largest sponsor of troops. But the Utah-based church delivered a blow to the struggling organization when it announced that at the beginning of 2020 it would be pulling more than 400,000 young people out of the program and moving them into a new global program of its own.

The change may push the Boy Scouts closer to the brink of bankruptcy as it faces a new wave of sexual abuse lawsuits.

More than 10,000 Christians have signed a petition urging officials at Boston College to reject a potential donation from the Koch Foundation toward the Jesuit university’s political science department.

The online Christian social justice organization Faithful America submitted the signatures to school administrators on December 12, arguing that accepting money from the libertarian multibillionaire Koch family is “completely antithetical to BC’s Jesuit ideals.”

With the closing of the Newseum on December 31, the nation’s capital has one less museum, but the Religious Freedom Center that was housed there will continue operations.

Gene Policinski, chief operating officer of the Freedom Forum Institute, which includes the center among its projects, said the building has not been the core of his institute’s operations, which occur more in other locations and online.

The Nativity scene at Claremont United Methodist Church in California is striking.

Mannequins of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph are separated in individual cages topped with barbed wire. A baby Jesus is wrapped in what resembles a Mylar blanket, similar to the sheets migrants have been given in holding cells.

On a podium, a message reads: “What if this family sought refuge in our country today?”

Deon Johnson, an openly gay man, has been elected bishop of the Episcopal Dio­cese of Missouri. He will replace George Wayne Smith, who retires this spring after 18 years as bishop.

According to local press reports, John­son won the three-way election in a landslide—earning 113 of 164 delegate votes.

After the election, the husband and father of two spoke to the delegates by video, thanking them for the opportunity. “We are so looking forward to continuing this adventure that God has called us to with you and the amazing people who make up the diocese.”

Louie Crew Clay, a longtime advocate for the full inclusion of LGBTQ people in the Episcopal Church, died on November 27 at age 82 with his husband by his side, according to Eliza­beth Kaeton, a close friend.

Having earned a doctorate in En­glish, he taught at preparatory schools and universities in the United States, England, Hong Kong, and China. Most recently he taught at Rutgers University until his retirement in 2002. In 1974, he married Ernest Clay, though the marriage was not legally recognized until 2013.