Charles Colson Tells Charles Stanley to Resign as Pastor

Charles Colson calls for Charles Stanley’s resignation The Christianity Todaycolumnist and Prison Fellowship founder devoted his June 13 ” Breakpoint” radio commentary to calling Charles Stanley to step down as pastor of Atlanta’s First Baptist Church. “I’m certain there’s a role for Charles Stanley in the Christian world, but he needs first a time for personal repentance and healing,” Colson said. “Biblical standards for pastors are very high, and rightly so. Given the already high divorce rate among Baptists, the last thing we need to do is to give one of our own leaders a pass, no matter how much we may respect him.” The commentary has been republished all over the Web, from Beliefnet to World magazine’s site. World also runs an excellent news item on Colson’s declaration and the Stanley divorce, quoting Colson as saying he’ll apologize for not contacting Stanley before the broadcast and for not making clear that it was Stanley’s wife who sued for divorce. World also notes that some radio stations refused to air that day’s “Breakpoint,” but that others dropped Stanley’s “InTouch” radio programs. We stand by our ads … except for that one Speaking of World magazine, the editors of the weekly publication had a rather embarrassing clarification to run in this week’s issue. Just one week after publisher Joel Belz promised readers, “We’ll never include anything in our ad pages that we know not to be true” and “[W]hen an ad promotes a viewpoint that is opposed to our bedrock philosophies, we will typically ask the advertiser to find some other venue,” the magazine ran an ad for The Doctrine of the Trinity: Christianity’s Self-Inflicted Wound, a book that attacks Trinitarianism as heretical blasphemy. A sharp-eyed reader points out the ad in this week’s Letters column: “Yikes! If anti-Trinity screeds aren’t opposed to World‘s ‘bedrock’ beliefs, then it’s time you stopped promoting yourself as a Christian magazine.” “That ad slipped by our normally sharp-eyed folks,” the magazine explains. “We’re sorry; we’ll try to be sharper-eyed in the future.” (We include the item today because of the irony factor, not to ridicule World. ChristianityToday.com understands as well as anyone how those ads slip by. Actually, the same ad slipped by the normally sharp-eyed editors of Christian History, one of our sister publications, as well. Big oops.) Prolifers’ suit against Supreme Court thrown out That didn’t take long. The Christian Defense Coalition just filed suit last Tuesday, saying limits on the size of signs prolife activists could carry was a limit on free speech. U.S. District Judge Thomas F. Hogan disagreed, ruling the court “allows all types of speech regardless of content and only limits … signs as necessary to serve the public’s safety, security, access and aesthetic interests.” The decision should eventually be available here, but wasn’t up the last time ChristianityToday.com Weblog checked. Indian prime minister condemns attacks on Christians Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee is calling on state governments to “firmly and impartially investigate all incidents of violence against Christians in India.” “My government guarantees no rights to any organization spreading ill-will and hatred,” he tells the BBC. Meanwhile, 45 graves in a Christian cemetery in Rajahmundry in East Godavari were desecrated last week, with crosses torn out and gravestones shattered. And radical Hindu leaders of the Bajrang Dal toldThe Times of India last week, “We are prepared to use violence. There is no limit. … Our aim is to drive them [Christians] all away. The day we start chasing them away, they won’t be able to save themselves.”

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