c. 2007 Religion News Service
Gordon-Conwell Seminary President Resigns
(RNS) The president of Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary has resigned “due to family considerations,” but will continue to serve as a professor on the school’s Charlotte, N.C., campus.
James Emery White resigned effective June 30, the school announced Wednesday (May 16), “due to family considerations which resulted in his unanticipated inability to relocate as planned from North Carolina to Massachusetts.”
White, the founding pastor of Mecklenberg Community Church in Charlotte, began serving as president last July 1, and had commuted to Gordon-Conwell’s main campus north of Boston.
Haddon W. Robinson, 76, a professor of preaching at the seminary, will serve as interim president. White, 45, will continue to serve as a professor of theology and culture in Charlotte.
Thomas J. Colatosti, chairman of the seminary’s board of trustees, said the board is “deeply saddened” by White’s resignation.
“Dr. White powerfully embraced, represented and communicated the trustees’ vision to more effectively equip men and women for pastoral and global ministry with a Christian worldview and to build stronger relationships with both the traditional and contemporary churches,” Colatosti said.
He welcomed Robinson as interim president, stating, “He comes to us with a strong record of accomplishment as a leader in graduate theological education and national and international recognition as a scholar, teacher and preacher.”
Robinson, the former president of Denver Seminary, is also the senior director of the seminary’s doctor of ministry program.
_ Adelle M. Banks
Guilty Pleas Close Alabama Church Arson Cases
CARROLLTON, Ala. (RNS) Two men pleaded guilty Wednesday (May 16) to burning a church in Pickens County, a step that ends federal and state prosecution in a 2006 arson spree that targeted nine rural churches.
“As far as court goes, this is it,” said Pickens County District Attorney Chris McCool. “The next step is that they go to federal prison.”
Matthew Cloyd and Benjamin Moseley, both 21, pleaded guilty to arson and burglary charges, acknowledging they set fire to Dancy First Baptist Church, one of the nine churches burned in February 2006. A friend, Russell DeBusk, was involved in five of the fires and earlier pleaded guilty to his role.
Wearing buzz cuts and orange jail jumpsuits at the county courthouse, Cloyd and Moseley pleaded guilty to second-degree arson and third-degree burglary charges. The men will serve two-year state prison sentences that will run at the same time as prison sentences that were previously handed down in Bibb, Sumter and Greene counties.
The concurrent state sentences will begin once they complete an eight-year federal prison term ordered by U.S. District Judge R. David Proctor in February.
DeBusk, 20, will also serve a seven-year federal prison term followed by a two-year state sentence for the fires in Bibb County.
“They’re ready to go,” said Cloyd’s attorney, Tommy Spina.
McCool said he did not seek any additional state prison time for Cloyd and Moseley at the request of Dancy’s pastor, the Rev. Walter Hawkins, and church members.
“It’s a great testimony of the faith of this church,” McCool said. “The church was adamant that these boys not receive any more time. From the beginning, they were more concerned with these boys’ souls than they have been with their own church.”
In addition to federal prison, the three men must pay $3.1 million in restitution, with Cloyd and Moseley to pay a greater share. They also are to perform 300 hours of community service work at the churches once they are released.
_ Val Walton
Oregon Priest Convicted of Abuse in Rare Jury Trial
PORTLAND, Ore. (RNS) A jury on Wednesday (May 16) decided that a Catholic priest sexually abused two teenage boys at a state reform school in the 1970s and awarded them nearly $1.4 million.
The jury determined that the Rev. Michael Sprauer molested Robert Paul and Randy Sloan at MacLaren Youth Correctional Facility in Woodburn, Ore., in the 1970s.
The civil suit was the first Catholic priest sex abuse case to go to trial in Oregon and one of the few that has reached a jury anywhere in the country.
The jury sided with the plaintiffs despite their juvenile criminal records, substance abuse problems and defense accusations that they were making it all up.
“I proved that he was a child molester,” Paul said after the verdict. “I proved that I was not lying.”
Sloan criticized Sprauer, who attended the trial but skipped the reading of the verdict. “He knew he was guilty,” Sloan said. “He’s definitely a coward.” Sprauer couldn’t be reached for comment.
Bud Bunce, a spokesman for the Portland Archdiocese, defended the priest.
“We are saddened and disappointed that the jury did not find in favor of Father Michael Sprauer,” Bunce said. “Father Sprauer has steadfastly maintained that these accusations were false, and we believe him because we know him.”
The jury also ruled that Sprauer did not sexually abuse the two men’s co-plaintiff, Norman Klettke, who said he was satisfied that Sloan and Paul won.
“I think it was a just verdict,” Klettke said.
The verdict included $185,000 in economic damages, $1 million in non-economic damages and $200,000 in punitive damages.
The lawsuits named Sprauer and the state of Oregon, which employed him at MacLaren and later at the state Department of Corrections. Sprauer worked at MacLaren from 1972 to 1975, roughly at the time that Paul and Sloan claimed he abused them.
The verdict doesn’t mean the plaintiffs will get paid any time soon _ or ever. The state likely will appeal, which could take years. In addition, the state will argue that the jury’s awards exceed the amount allowed under state law in civil cases.
Sprauer, who was first sued in 2003, faces a dozen more lawsuits by men who accuse him of molesting them at MacLaren.
_ Ashbel S. “Tony” Green
Democrats to End Abstinence-Only Funding
WASHINGTON (RNS) Congressional Democrats say they will pull the plug on abstinence-only sex education when a $50 million grant expires on June 30, a move sparking outrage among social conservative groups.
“As the House works to eliminate abstinence funding, their solution is simple _ provide more pills that prevent and abort pregnancies,” said Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council.
Perkins, in an e-mail to supporters, said Democrats are pushing a “radical agenda that few voters expected _ or supported _ when they propelled the Democrats to power.”
Democrats would still include money for abstinence teachings in schools, but would combine it with comprehensive sex-ed programs that would teach about birth control and other safe sex methods.
States currently pay for abstinence-only education in public schools by matching $3 for every $4 they receive from the federal government. Congress initially approved the Title V funding as part of welfare reform.
Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich., chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, said Wednesday (May 16) that the decision to stop funding for the program wasn’t difficult at all.
“Abstinence-only education seems to be a colossal failure,” Dingell said, according to the Associated Press.
Dingell backed that statement with a recent study by Mathematica Policy Research Inc. that showed students in four abstinence-only education programs were equally likely to have sex at the same age as those not in abstinence programs.
“With all we know about how to prevent teen pregnancy and reduce sexually transmitted diseases, it is high time to redirect the millions of federal dollars that we squander every year on abstinence-only education to programs that actually work,” said Rep. Diana DeGette, D-Colo., according to the AP.
Valerie Huber, executive director of the National Abstinence Education Association, said cutting Title V funding would rally supporters of abstinence education.
“It’s a public health message that offers risk elimination for youth,” she told the AP. “It’s also consistent with what parents across America want for their youth.“
A recent Zogby International Poll of 1,002 parents with children ages 10 to 16 found that 83 percent of them want their children to wait to have sex until they are married.
_ Philip Turner
Quote of the Day: White House Press Secretary Tony Snow
(RNS) “Faith and reason are knitted together in the human soul. So don’t leave home without either one.”
_ White House Press Secretary Tony Snow, speaking at the May 12 commencement at Catholic University of America. He was quoted by The Washington Post.
KRE/RB END RNS
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