News


By the staff of The Lutheran, ELCA News Service and Religion News Service


New Midland president Jody Horner was named president of Midland University, Fremont, Neb., effective Feb. 1. She is the fifth woman to lead an ELCA college or univer- sity. Horner succeeds Benjamin Sasse, who was elected to Congress last November. Previously she was president of the Wichita, Kan.-based Cargill Meat Solutions and Cargill Case Ready, where she championed the launch of the Cargill Innovation Center, a $15 million collaboration among food scientists, microbi- ologists and culinary teams. She has served on the board of regents for St. Olaf College, Northfield, Minn., her alma mater. She helped develop a strategic plan for St. Olaf and leads a task force charged with finding ways to help reduce student debt.


Tax break stands In November a federal appeals court rejected a case brought by an athe- ist organization that would have declared tax-exempt clergy housing allowances—often a large part of a pastor’s compensation—unconsti- tutional. The ruling overturned a 2013 decision of a U.S. District Court judge. But the Freedom from Reli- gion Foundation, a Madison, Wis.- based First Amendment watchdog group that has pursued the case since 2011, vowed to continue its fight.


First for church At presstime, Libby Lane, 48, a par- ish priest from Hale, England, was set to become the first woman bishop in the Church of England on Jan. 26, ending centuries of all-male bishops. Lane, a mother of two and the wife of an Anglican vicar, was appointed as a suffragan bishop—one subordinate


to a metropolitan or diocesan bishop. 9 


8 www.thelutheran.org


2014 an unsettling year, with religion in starring role


F


or most of recorded history, Isis was an Egyptian goddess who cared for widows and orphans,


cured the sick and even brought the dead back to life. In 2014 the world met the other ISIS. The rise of the so-called Islamic


State, variously known as ISIS or ISIL, dominated last year’s headlines as it sowed death and destruction across Iraq and Syria. But the terror of ISIS wasn’t the only source of unrest, according to Religion News Service’s annual review of stories. The Ebola virus in West Africa put


the world on edge, and a bloody war between Israelis and Palestinians in Gaza, kidnapped schoolgirls in Nige- ria and the slaughter of more than 100 children at a military school in Paki- stan added to the mix. At home, America wrestled with


police shootings as grand juries declined to prosecute officers in the deaths of unarmed African-Ameri- can men in Ferguson, Mo., and New York City. From botched prison executions to a stream of desperate migrant children flooding America’s southern border, things felt troubled and disorienting. Religion played a large role in those


stories and in other major headlines: • A banner year for church-state court decisions. A string of court decisions paved a way for greater accommodation of religion in public life, dealing a blow to atheist groups that warned the separation of church and state was under attack. The U.S. Supreme Court upheld sectarian prayers at public meetings, and the justices ruled 5-4 in favor of Hobby Lobby, the arts-and-crafts chain, in its


bid to refuse a full range of contracep- tive services to employees. • Pope Francis wanted open debate, and he got it. The pope hosted a headline-grabbing Synod on the Family at the Vatican that publicly pitted Roman Catholic conservatives against his reformist allies who want to open communion to divorced and remarried Roman Catholics as well as create more space for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender members and their families. • A whirlwind shift on marriage equality. The number of states allow- ing same-sex marriage doubled, from 17 to 35 in addition to the District of Columbia, after the Supreme Court declined to review a number of pro- marriage rulings from lower courts. The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) voted to allow gay clergy, and a num- ber of United Methodist pastors were vindicated after court battles over marrying same-sex couples. • Mormon misconceptions. In a series of online essays, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints tried to debunk popular caricatures of Mormon beliefs, a remarkable exercise in the real-time evolution of a distinctly homegrown American religion. No, the church said, Mor- mons don’t get their own planet in the afterlife, and yes, founder Joseph Smith practiced plural marriage—as many as 40 wives. • America, meet the Satanists. Satanists, curiously, had a big year in 2014. In Oklahoma City, the New York-based Satanic Temple unveiled plans to erect a monument to Satan on the state capitol grounds (next to a Ten Commandments monument).


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