The ruling, issued June 20, is the latest development in a string of suits by evangelical chaplains who claim they have been discriminated against by naval chaplaincy officials. Nonliturgical chaplains say that Catholic and liturgical Protestants are more likely to be promoted.

In this case, Lt. Cmdr. Patrick M. Sturm, a Navy chaplain based in San Diego, filed suit after being denied promotion three years in a row. After seeking reconsideration by a naval board and filing his suit in federal district court, Sturm was promoted retroactively. The Navy then sought to have the case dismissed.

U.S. District Court Judge Thomas J. Whelan dismissed the part of the suit relating to Sturm’s promotions, but decided to consider his claims of stacked selection boards within the Navy.

“The pleadings contain specific and detailed factual allegations which suggest the Navy may be favoring certain religious groups over others,” Whelan wrote, “causing an unconstitutional religious preference or an infringement upon plaintiff’s rights to religious freedom.”

The Navy declined to respond to Whelan’s ruling.

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Related Elsewhere

More Navy Chaplains Allege Discrimination | “We’re not on the same ground as the high church group or the Catholics,” say evangelicals. (April 18, 2001)

Evangelicals File Bias Suit Against Navy | Claims made that complaints of religious discrimination have been ignored. (May 22, 2000)

The Washington Post covered the first of the suits when originally filed in April 2000.

Former U.S. Navy chaplain suing for reinstatement after allegedly being forced to resign for preaching ‘nonpluralism’, according to Religion News Service.

Judge Thomas J. Whelan presides over the Southern District of Califonia, but the site has no files on the case.

The Navy Chaplain Corps operates several Web sites, including those for the Navy Chief of Chaplains, the Chaplain Resource Branch, and Chaplain Education.

Other Christianity Today articles about religion in the military include:

The Just-Chaplain Theory | The church need not divorce the military to remain a godly counterculture.(July 27, 2000)

Irreconcilable Differences | The church should divorce the military. (March 6, 2000)

Wiccans Practice on U. S. Bases | Court okays pagan ceremonies. (July 12, 1999)

Military Chaplains Win Speech Case | Military personnel can speak against partial-birth abortion (June 6, 1997)

Military Chaplains Sue Over ‘Project Life’ Ban | Chaplains ordered to “actively avoid” political comment. (December 9, 1999)

The Florida state attorney general’s office has charged Crosswalk.com CEO Jon Scott Fehrenbacher with two counts of scheming to defraud and one count of exploitation of the elderly. The complaint alleges that Fehrenbacher violated a noncompete clause by using mutual-fund screening software at Crosswalk.com. He had sold the rights to the software before joining the company. Crosswalk.com board chairman Jim Buick said he expects the charges to be dismissed as baseless. Fehrenbacher has entered a plea of not guilty.

Orlando-based Campus Crusade for Christ raised more funds through Internet giving in fiscal 2000 than any other charity that participated in a survey conducted by The Chronicle of Philanthropy. Online donations provided $2.5 million of the $350 million in private support the organization received, representing a 70 percent increase in Internet contributions during the previous year. Officials said the rise in online donations is the result of increased awareness of the site and donors’ increased comfort with online transactions.

In his first public preaching event in seven months, Billy Graham spoke to overflow crowds at the Greater Louisville Crusade on June 21-24. About 2,300 people responded to the invitation each evening. It was the evangelist’s first crusade in Louisville since 1956.

Delegates to the annual meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention, held June 12-13 in New Orleans, affirmed covenant marriage and passed resolutions against human cloning, euthanasia, discrimination against military chaplains, and genocide in Sudan. The denomination of 15.9 million launched a Council on Family Life, which will address increasing divorce and cohabitation rates among Southern Baptists. Fred Luter Jr., a New Orleans pastor, became the first African American to preach the convention sermon.

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During June’s General Assembly at the denomination’s headquarters in Louisville, Kentucky, delegates voted 317-208 to lift a ban on ordaining homosexuals. The action nullified a 1978 resolution prohibiting ordination of “self-affirming, practicing homosexuals.” It also removed the requirement that ordained clergy are “to live either in fidelity within the covenant of marriage between a man and a woman, or chastity in singleness,” which had been in place since 1997.

“In one stroke of the pen, the assembly threw out the church’s historical position that sexual behavior is limited to a covenant marriage between a man and a woman,” says Parker T. Williamson, chief executive officer of the Presbyterian Lay Committee, based in Lenoir, North Carolina.

But the resolution must be ratified by a majority of the 2.5-million-member denomination’s 173 presbyteries. Last year the assembly voted to ban same-sex unions, but regional votes overturned the ban.

Newly elected moderator Jack Rogers, a retired San Francisco Theological Seminary professor, says it is appropriate for presbyteries to decide clergy ordination. At the national level, he says, the church should only establish standards on matters of salvation. Rogers, who called the debate on homosexuality the “Presbyterian civil war,” believes the denomination eventually will agree that active homosexuals must be accepted into the clergy.

“The church went through the same thing with the role of women and slavery and segregation,” Rogers told Christianity Today. In each case, “People believed the Bible taught one thing, and now everybody believes the Bible teaches something else.”

Conservatives, meanwhile, have formed a Confessing Church Movement within the PCUSA (ct, June 11, p. 15). The movement adheres to three basic beliefs: Jesus alone is the way of salvation; the Bible is God’s revealed Word; and marriage is the only appropriate relationship for sexual intercourse. By implication, joining churches indicate they will not install ministers who do not adhere to the beliefs. By the end of June, the Confessing Movement had signed up 538 of 11,200 PCUSA congregations.

Rogers says he is determined to keep the denomination together. The General Assembly voted 467-41 to appoint a 17-member “spiritual discernment” task force to undertake a four-year study on how to bridge divisions concerning “Christology, biblical authority and interpretation, ordination standards, and power.”

Joe Rightmyer, executive director since 1995 of the Louisville-based Presbyterians for Renewal, is encouraged by the plans for a lengthy churchwide study. “For years all we have been talking about is homosexuality,” Rightmyer says. “Now we have an opportunity to deal with each other theologically.”

Christ’s Role in Salvation

Many conservatives expressed regret that the resolution did not go further. A failed proposal said that Jesus alone is the “singular saving Lord.” The debate on whether Jesus is the only way to salvation lasted for two hours.

A comment by a Presbyterian minister from Chicago, Dirk Ficca, at a peacemaking conference in California in July 2000—”What’s the big deal about Jesus?”—sparked an outcry in the denomination and led to the debate at this year’s General Assembly.

“The General Assembly clearly was not the Presbyterian Church; it was not the church of Jesus Christ,” Williamson says. “They were unable to answer unequivocally the question Jesus asked: Who do you say that I am?”

Rightmyer agrees. “There was a real sadness in my spirit because unbelief was expressed on the floor of the assembly,” he says. “There’s nothing more essential in the life of our church than the doctrine of the Atonement.”

Rogers says that many delegates had reservations about creating new doctrinal statements from the floor. Williamson argues that if the church cannot agree that Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life, there will be few conservatives left to appease.

“This is a church in anguish,” Williamson says. “This assembly ruptured the soul of the denomination.”

The PCUSA might not have to wait until 2005 for a formal division, if presbyteries approve the sexuality measure by next year. “We already have schism in the church,” Williamson says. “At that point it would take formal shape.”

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Related Elsewhere

Christianity Today’sWeblog examined the PCUSA General Assembly’s decisions.

Media coverage of the vote for homosexual clergy included The Washington Post, The Dallas Morning News, The Chicago Tribune, and Louisville’s Courier Journal.

Coverage of the debate over Jesus as the only savior ran in The Dallas Morning News and Courier Journal.

Presbyweb offers extensive links and posts Ficca’s exact comments from July 2000 that led to “The Jesus Debate.”

Previous related Christianity Today articles include:

Presbyterians Vote Down Ban on Same-Sex Unions | Opponents say vague wording led to defeat. (March 29, 2001)

Presbyterians Propose Ban on Same-Sex Ceremonies | Change to church constitution, which passes by only 17 votes, now goes to presbyteries. (July 5, 2000)

Presbyterians urged to allow liberals to leave over homosexual ordination | “Irreconcilable” differences exist in the Presbyterian Church (USA) over the ordination of gay clergy. (February 28, 2000)

Presbyterians Support Same-Sex Unions | Northeast Synod rules 8-2 in favor of continuing church’s “holy union” ceremonies (January 10, 2000)

Homosexual’s Election Upheld | First Presbyterian Church of Stamford (Conn.) did not violate church law by electing an openly homosexual man to governing board. (August 16, 1999)

Presbyterians in Stalemate over Homosexual Ordination (August 10, 1998)

Mannoia says he stepped down at the urging of NAE’s executive committee. “I wouldn’t have done this if I didn’t sense that this is what the committee wanted,” he told Christianity Today.

Founded in 1942, NAE has more than 50 Protestant denominations as members, encompassing 43,000 individual congregations. In addition, about 250 parachurch ministries and schools are members.

NAE has recently undergone two dramatic changes—relocating from Carol Stream, Illinois, to Azusa, California (near Los Angeles), and voting in March 2000 that organizations may hold dual membership with the National Council of Churches, the mainline ecumenical body with a liberal reputation.

Mannoia, 45, has said he wanted to change the organization’s identity, moving it from an alternative to theological liberalism to an encourager of churches to transform communities. NAE’s conciliatory stance toward the NCC sparked controversy among NAE supporters. While Mannoia said the changes would encourage more ethnic diversity, some NAE supporters remained concerned. National Religious Broadcasters broke long-standing ties with NAE in the spring partly because of such concerns.

Billy Melvin, NAE’s president from 1966 to 1994, has been critical of Mannoia’s point of view. “If it is possible for a denomination to have membership in both the NAE and NCC, then that indicates there is no difference between the organizations,” he said.

Melvin disapproves of the NCC’s interaction with the Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Churches, an association of 300 churches supporting homosexual relationships.

Financial Pressures

Mannoia said NAE recently laid off three employees. “A month or two ago, we hit bottom,” he said.

Don Argue, NAE’s president from 1995 to 1998, says the organization draws support from several sources: member dues, appeals through the mail, and foundation grants. NAE confirmed that in 2000 the amount of donations to the organization dropped by 36 percent, from $887,915 in 1999 to $564,614, and the association’s total income dropped 29 percent, from $1,555,817 in 1999 to $1,109,181.

NAE’s expenses on fundraising efforts dropped by more than half, from $89,000 in 1999 to $39,000 in 2000. Total expenditures also declined.

Mannoia, a bishop of the Free Methodist Church of North America, admits he is not a fundraiser—an aspect of his job that Foggs says is crucial to NAE’s success.

“You cannot carry out a vision without adequate resources,” Foggs says. “He was not a fundraiser. That was a part of his [job] that he found difficult to embrace.”

Although Mannoia says NAE’s financial health is on the mend, he admits that the group has endured external and internal conflict. “In the process of change, you also create friction,” he says. “I realize I have been the catalyst for a lot of that.”

Mannoia says he wanted to continue promoting strong vision and movement for NAE, while the executive committee felt it was time to consolidate the organization’s assets and recuperate from a hard year.

“There are those who would assert that the pace of change was more rapid than many could embrace,” Foggs says.

“I’ve invested in creating a climate of change,” Mannoia says. “As you do these kind of things, there comes a point when your leadership is not as effective as it should be.”

Decision in Question

NAE’s executive committee now also has the delicate task of selecting Mannoia’s successor. “We’ll do an internal assessment and ask, ‘What kind of leadership gifts do we need?'” Foggs says. “Our process in the past has been to present a name at our annual meeting.”

NAE’s next annual meeting is scheduled for March 2002.

Foggs also said the executive committee is considering trimming NAE’s board, which has 168 members. “We’ve discussed the prospect of converting the board into an advisory group,” he says, adding that the change would eliminate unnecessary and undue delays in decision-making.

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Bending to international pressure, the Taliban regime in Afghanistan has backed off its recent edict requiring Hindus and other non-Muslims to wear yellow badges and orange or yellow clothing, the Afghanistan Peace Organization reports. Instead, Hindus will be required to carry identification cards to show to authorities. A Taliban official said the dress code was meant to protect Hindus from harassment by Muslim religious police. Warren Larson, academic program director of Muslim studies at Columbia International University, says the Taliban’s mistreatment of non-Muslims is actually turning people away from Islam. “I think they’re digging their own grave—making Islam unpopular,” he said. “The more Muslims see of this harshness, the more they are coming to Christ.”

Leaders from both Jewish and Orthodox Church communities in Russia met recently to question the mission activities of the evangelical groups Jews for Jesus and Shma Israel. Conference participants said the missionaries—who call Jews to believe in Jesus Christ—interpret many aspects of Judaism and Orthodoxy incorrectly. The Moscow meeting (which used the theme “The Missionary Threat—How to Combat It?”) included training for specialists who will oppose missionaries in the Jewish communities. Leaders also announced that a “Magen” league would be established to monitor the activity of the groups. David Brickner, executive director of Jews for Jesus, said that while organized opposition is not unusual, Russian Jewish leaders are using a “bizarre” strategy of allying with the Orthodox Church and the Russian government—two institutions that have been responsible for persecuting Russian Jews in the past. Brickner sees their efforts as “a direct response to the work of the Holy Spirit,” noting that hundreds of Jews and Gentiles in Minsk, Moscow, and St. Petersburg accepted Christ in recent evangelistic campaigns.

Police and protesters clashed in Egypt on June 17 when 6,000 Coptic Christians gathered at the Coptic Orthodox Cathedral in Cairo to protest a defamatory article in the state-run Islamic newspaper Al-Nabaa. Christian leaders worry that the story may spark more discrimination and persecution against Christians. The story accused the Al-Mohurraq monastery of sponsoring prostitution and extortion and featured sexually explicit photos of an alleged monk and an unidentified woman. Church authorities say the monk had been excommunicated from the Coptic Church in 1996 and that the photos came from a video he had made to extort money from the married woman involved.

As a result of new radio programs in Mongolia, Indonesia, Russia, and South Korea, the Far East Broadcasting Company recently reached an all-time high of over 500 broadcast hours per day. An increased demand for gospel radio broadcasts in countries like Mongolia, where no Christian churches had existed between the 13th century and 10 years ago, has allowed the FEBC to peak in the number of hours it is heard each day worldwide.

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