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Peter W. Marty, 45, senior pastor of St. Paul Lutheran Church in Davenport, Iowa, in February will become the host of Lutheran Vespers, the radio ministry of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. Lutheran Vespers airs on 186 stations and reaches an estimated 3 million to 4 million listeners a year in the U.S., Africa, Australia, Europe, Guam and Puerto Rico. Marty will succeed Walt Wangerin Jr., who announced in June that he will leave the radio ministry in January after serving more than ten years as speaker. Wangerin, an ELCA pastor, professor, author and lecturer, is a faculty member at Valparaiso University. Marty, a member of the Christian Century board of trustees, will remain pastor of the 2,900-congregation in Iowa.

David E. Anderson, 62, a longtime religion writer for UPI wire service and since 1997 editor of Religion News Service, will leave his post in September to move to Montana with his family. He will be replaced by Mark O’Keefe, 43, a former religion writer with the Oregonian in Portland and currently a national correspondent on values and philanthropy with Newhouse News Service, which owns RNS. Anderson continues as senior editor.

Bernice Powell Jackson, the executive minister of the United Church of Christ’s social justice ministries, has been elected as the North American president for the World Council of Churches, joining seven co-presidents in identical roles for other regions. Jackson is also one of five top officials in the Cleveland-based UCC. She replaces Kathryn Bannister, a United Methodist pastor in Kansas, who in February said she would step down from the WCC co-presidency for personal reasons.