Spirituality

Controversial Christian feminist group dissolving

St. Paul, Minn. — The Re-Imagining Community, a group that developed out of a controversial 1993 meeting of radical Christian feminists, appears to be dissolving.

The group’s seventh gathering last weekend, held at a University of Minnesota campus, drew about 200 devotees, compared with 2,200 at the original Re-Imagining conference.

The organization has no plans to hold future meetings and indicated its small office at the Minnesota Church Center is likely to shut down.

At the Re-Imagining conferences, all held in Minnesota, mainline Protestants and Roman Catholics celebrated feminine images and names for God, and challenged Christianity’s patriarchal traditions.

Conservatives organized to fight such concepts within the United Methodist Church and Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), denominations that aided the original conference.

Operation Rescue leader moves to North Carolina

Charlotte, N.C. — The leader of Operation Rescue/Operation Save America has moved from Dallas to Concord, N.C., to continue his fights against abortion and homosexuality.

The Rev. Philip “Flip” Benham, 55, has staged many publicized anti-abortion events in the past decade. The conservative Protestant minister won fame in 1995 by baptizing Norma McCorvey, the anonymous “Jane Roe” in the Roe v. Wade case that legalized abortion.

Benham is now a common figure outside Charlotte abortion clinics. At the group’s annual conference in Charlotte July 12-20, participants plan to hold a funeral for aborted fetuses and read the Bible in front of churches and mosques.

Benham, who operates from a two-room office, says local pastors give little support. “The evangelical church has been asleep here in Charlotte,” he said. “It’s as if they’ve got this awkward peace with the abortion industry.”

Maryland inmates study to go to pulpit

Hagerstown, Md. — About 30 inmates at the Maryland Correctional Training Center are studying to go from prison to the pulpit.

They are taking a two-year course for master’s degrees from Covenant Theological Seminary of Tallahassee, Fla. (which is unconnected to a Presbyterian Church in America school of the same name based in St. Louis).

The idea for the program, launched last November, came from former inmate Tony Pavlo, who was released in 2001 after serving time for armed robbery. He was taking Covenant classes under the tutelage of an evangelical Protestant pastor in Rockville, Md., and said he wished the same opportunity were available to those behind bars.

The Rev. Gerald Banks, chaplain at the medium-security prison, took the idea to warden Michael Stouffer, who approved.

“It is great to be able to be a blessing to your community, rather than a curse,” Pavlo said.

Since tuition is beyond the reach of most inmates, Rockville church members give donations and sponsor fund-raisers to defray the students’ expenses.