On February 4, the International Criminal Court found Dominic Ongwen, a trusted lieutenant in the Lord’s Resistance Army, guilty of 61 counts of murder, rape, sexual enslavement, and the “forced pregnancy” of women—a charge not previously lodged in that court.
In founding the guerrilla group known later as the LRA in 1987, Joseph Kony declared that its purpose was to restore the dignity of the ethnic Acholi people in northern Uganda and to call them to return to the dictates of God’s law.
Alabama is amending its lethal injection procedures to allow a condemned inmate to have his spiritual adviser in the execution chamber, state lawyers wrote in a February 25 court filing.
The move comes after the US Supreme Court sided with Alabama inmate Willie B. Smith III, who had sought to have his pastor in the chamber. Alabama had previously argued that only prison staff should be allowed in the chamber for security reasons.
A grant program for rural United Methodist Churches in North Carolina aims to help congregations see their food pantry ministries within the larger picture of hunger in America.
The project, called Come to the Table, offers mini-grants of up to $1,000 to rural Methodist churches in North Carolina that are providing nutrition assistance to food-insecure families. It’s funded through the Duke Endowment.
Marsha Scipio has been named director of Baptist World Aid, the community development arm of the Baptist World Alliance.
Scipio, who was born in Trinidad and Tobago, currently serves as associate minister and youth pastor at Berean Baptist Church in Brooklyn, New York. She is also the founder of Women Who Minister, an ecumenical conference dedicated to the “spiritual rejuvenation” of women in ministry.
Carmelo Domenic Licciardello, an evangelical performing artist known as Carman, died on February 16. He was 65.
The musician had been hospitalized in Las Vegas for complications after surgery to repair a hiatal hernia, according to a press release posted on his Facebook page.
Carman came to fame during the mid-1980s heyday of contemporary Christian music with the release of his hit song “The Champion.” His 1991 record Addicted to Jesus was Billboard’s Christian album of the year.
Candace M. Lewis has been named president-dean of Gammon Theological Seminary in Atlanta, the first woman to serve in that role in the school’s 138-year history.
Lewis, an ordained elder in the Florida Conference of the United Methodist Church, most recently served as executive director of the denomination’s national resource for church planters. Previously, she was a district superintendent in the Florida Conference and the founding pastor of New Life Community United Methodist Church in Jacksonville, Florida.