TELEVISION
CBS Orders More Christy Episodes
Although not on the CBS television fall schedule, Christy will be waiting in the wings with 13 new episodes as a midseason replacement.
Christy, based on the book by Catherine Marshall (CT, April 4, 1994, p. 90), aired in two two-hour and four one-hour episodes in April and May. The Easter debut placed fifth in the Nielsen ratings. Ratings for the remaining Thursday-night run, though far from spectacular, were the highest CBS has had in the time slot for the past six years.
Although the network will not release figures, Christy executive producer Ken Wales says CBS has never had so many phone calls and letters from viewers praising a show. Production for the new episodes began last week in Tennessee with the same cast.
For the show to be a prolonged success, Wales says the network must be convinced that more than Christians will watch the program. Christy’s demographics are weakest in urban areas and among the viewers aged 18 to 35.
MUSIC
Talent Hunt Ends Homelessness
Two years ago, San Diego businessman Rex Neilson began looking for talented homeless people—those pushing shopping carts, sleeping under bridges, and eating in shelters—who could sing. The result is a 12-cut album, Voice of the Homeless, featuring 27 homeless singers. Thanks in large part to proceeds from record sales and concert tickets, all but one of the singers now is self-sufficient.
The music ranges from country-western to jazz to rap. Neilson, who sold an automotive business to start his own record company, has poured $100, 000 into the project.
The album, with half the songs written by homeless people, received a favorable review in Billboard. The original songs tell about poverty, unemployment, alcoholism, and divorce. The short biographies on the album jacket show many of the singers had college educations and successful careers before becoming homeless.
A second album is in the works. Three homeless singers from the Denver Rescue Mission, a Christian organization, have already been signed.
Lewis Thomas, one of the singers on the first album, is grateful to Neilson. Thomas, a former crack addict now working in a rescue mission, says, “I would be dead if it weren’t for this project.”
EPISCOPAL CHURCH
A Comeback for Matthew Fox?
Matthew Fox, the former Catholic priest dismissed last year from the Dominican Order, has found a new home where such discipline is far less likely: the Episcopal Church.
William E. Swing, bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of California, said Fox is engaged in Anglican studies and will be recognized as an Episcopal priest in December.
Fox—whose Oakland-based Institute in Culture and Creation Spirituality has counted a Wiccan, a Tai Chi master, and political activist Tom Hayden among its teachers—also enters the Anglican communion with a bang. He will import the “rave Mass” from Sheffield, England, to San Francisco’s Grace Cathedral in the fall. The rave Mass features loud music, dancing, and 42 video monitors “flashing images of galaxies, dancing atoms, DNA, lunar eclipses and male-female archetypes,” along with a colloquial Eucharistic exhortation: “Eat God.”
Following persistent criticism of Fox’s work by the Vatican, the Order of Preachers (Dominicans) placed Fox on sabbatical in 1989. Fox’s supervisor dismissed him in March 1993 when Fox resisted an order to move from Oakland to Chicago.
“I have not joined the Episcopal Church so I can tell it what to do,” Fox told CHRISTIANITY TODAY. “One thing I respect about the Episcopal Church is that it lets its battles hang out.”
By Doug LeBlanc.
NASHVILLE
Adultery Muzzles Careers of Singers
Warner Alliance Records has dropped Christian singer Michael English as a result of his illicit relationship with another married singer. English, 32, last month admitted to an affair with First Call singer Marabeth Jordon, who became pregnant as a result. Warner announced its decision to dissociate itself from English due to his “actions that were contrary to the very ideals he had been espousing.”
English’s announcement has caused some Christian radio stations to pull his music from their play lists. “We took him out immediately,” says Moody Broadcasting executive John
Maddox in Chicago. English has stopped performing Christian music and has asked for forgiveness.
English returned his six Dove Awards, including Artist of the Year, though the Gospel Music Association did not request them. Jordon has left First Call, and the Christian group already has named a replacement.
RELIGIOUS BROADCASTING
ECFA Drops Radio’s Bob George
The Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability (ECFA) has terminated the membership of Discipleship Counseling Services following the no-contest plea of its president, Bob George, to soliciting a prostitute. ECFA cited a violation of “biblically based moral, ethical, and financial behavior.”
George’s Dallas-based radio program, People to People, has been dropped by around two dozen stations, including those owned by Salem Com-munications and Bott Broadcasting. Last September the 61-year-old George was sentenced to six months of probation. George says he is innocent and pleaded no contest to avoid publicity. Harvest House, which published George’s Classic Christianity and Growing in Grace, says the company “without reservations” believes George’s version is accurate.
Dick Bott, Sr., president of Bott Broadcasting, says canceling People to People ensures George will no longer take advantage of audiences. “To put our heads in the sand and say we’re just going to ignore things has not served the church well in the past.”
By Jeff Hooten.
PRESBYTERIANS
Educator Quits over Grant to Muslims
Craig Van Alstine, the full-time Christian education director at John Knox Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) in Florissant, Missouri, resigned his post and has left the denomination because $4,100 from the One Great Hour of Sharing program will be given to an area Muslim school.
The Giddings-Lovejoy Presbytery is sending the funds to Clara Mohammed School as a method of aiding the poor and oppressed. Projects need not be Christian, according to program guidelines of the Committee for the Self Development of People.
Van Alstine, 38, wrote in a letter of protest to church officials: “The gospel of Jesus Christ and the faith of Islam spread by Muhammad are mutually exclusive.”
He notes that Islamic studies and prayer are part of the school’s curriculum. Van Alstine’s pastor, Alan Krummenacher, says the grant to the Muslim school “can be a bridge for understanding and cooperation.”
PUERTO RICO
Judge Strikes Down Voucher Plan
Puerto Rico’s school voucher program, which includes religious schools (CT, April 25, 1994, p. 42), has been declared unconstitutional. Superior Court judge Flavio Cumpiano ruled in April that the commonwealth’s constitution bars government funding of private schools.
The Washington-based Institute for Justice, which represents parents in the case, argued that the vouchers are “scholarships to economically disadvantaged youngsters” and are not aid to religious schools.
That argument is “a façade—the money’s going to the schools,” says Steven Green of Americans United for Separation of Church and State in Silver Spring, Maryland. He says the ruling “has applications throughout the country, because that is a common element of all choice schemes.”
News Briefs
♦ Jackson, Mississippi, principal Bishop Knox, suspended last November for allowing student-read prayers on the high-school intercom (CT, Jan. 10, 1994, p. 42), was reinstated and then removed again in April. A judge ruled Knox had not violated the Constitution or school policies. But five days later, the Mississippi Supreme Court issued a stay on the ruling until it could review the case. The Mississippi legislature recently passed a new law permitting prayers to be recited by students.
♦ Donald W. McCullough, a senior editor of CHRISTIANITY TODAY, will become president of San Francisco Theological Seminary on July 1. McCullough has been pastor of Solana Beach (Calif.) Presbyterian Church the past 14 years.
♦ Donald D. Long, 44, is the new general supervisor of the International Church of the Foursquare Gospel, succeeding the retiring J. Eugene and Donna Kurtz. Long has been supervisor of the Southern California district of Foursquare churches the past six years, during which 51 new congregations were started.
♦ The Alabama Supreme Court on April 21 upheld the ethics conviction of former Alabama governor Guy Hunt (CT, May 17, 1993, p. 86). Hunt, a part-time Primitive Baptist pastor, had appealed, claiming he did not receive a fair trial.
♦ Anti-abortion activist Rachelle Shannon, 38, of Grants Pass, Oregon, was sentenced to nine years and eight months in prison April 26 following convictions for attempted first-degree murder and aggravated assault in connection with shooting abortionist George Tiller (CT, April 25, 1994, p. 44).
♦ The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America has cut its 1994 budget by $2 million. A total of 20 staff positions has been eliminated, primarily in the areas of Christian education, outdoor ministries, and stewardship.
♦ Former televangelist Robert Tilton has been ordered by a jury to pay $500,000 in actual damages and $1 million in punitive damages for defrauding Mike and Vivian Elliott of New Port Richey, Florida. The jury decided that Tilton’s organization had misused a $3,500 donation after Vivian Elliott agreed to appear in a Success-N-Life testimonial on the condition the contribution be used to help construct a center for severely depressed people.
♦ Verley Sangster will become the new president of the Center for Urban Theological Studies next month in Philadelphia. Sangster, who will succeed the retiring Bill Krispin, has been an international vice president of Young Life since 1990.
♦ Kenneth N. Hansen, former chairman and chief executive officer, of Downers Grove, Illinois-based ServiceMaster Industries, Inc., died May 8 in Santa Barbara, California. Hansen, 75, was the former chairman of the board of Christian Service Brigade and had served as the organization’s second executive director.
♦ Grand Rapids (Mich.) Baptist College has changed its name to Cornerstone College to reflect the range of the school’s programs more accurately and to avoid confusion with other area schools.
♦ Steve Bell is the new executive director of the Chicago-based Concerts of Prayer International. Bell had been cohost and associate director of Chapel of the Air Ministries in Wheaton, Illinois, for 12 years.