ResigningJoseph M. Stowell, 60, president of Moody Bible Institute since 1987, effective February 28. Stowell plans to be a teaching pastor at Harvest Bible Chapel in Rolling Meadows, Illinois.
DiedJ. Robert Nelson, a United Methodist theologian and bioethicist, in Houston on July 6 of cancer. Nelson, who was 83, helped the U.S. Institutes of Health to devise ethical and religious guidelines for cloning.
DiedRobert W. Johnson, founder, chairman, and CEO of Dominion Video Satellite and the Sky Angel nationwide satellite television service, on August 5 of heart failure. He was 66.
ResignedRoger Cross, as president and CEO of Youth for Christ/USA. Cross served in the position for 13 of the 38 years he was involved with YFC. No successor has been named.
ResignedBrenda Bartella Peterson as senior religion adviser to the Democratic National Committee on August 5. Peterson, ordained in the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), resigned less than two weeks into her post. She recently sided with atheist Michael Newdow in urging the Supreme Court to remove the words "under God" from the Pledge of Allegiance.
NamedPeter Greer, as executive director of Hope International, a Christian organization based in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, that helps poor people start microenterprises. Greer is a former managing director for a community bank in Rwanda.
ElectedLigon Duncan III as moderator of the Presbyterian Church in America. Duncan, pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Jackson, Mississippi, succeeded Joel Belz during the 300,000-member denomination's June General Assembly in Pittsburgh.
DiedAuthor Charles Hummel, 81, on August 16 near his hometown in Connecticut. Hummel, who was a former director of faculty ministries for InterVarsity Christian Fellowship and past president of Barrington College in Rhode Island, was perhaps best known for his booklet "Tyranny of the Urgent," which has sold more than 1.2 million copies.
ResigningWalter Wangerin Jr., as speaker for Lutheran Vespers, the radio ministry of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. Wangerin, a pastor and writer, plans to finish his run on January 2, 2005. Peter W. Marty, a pastor from Davenport, Iowa, has been named to succeed Wangerin.