News briefs

Butler elected to top lay post in ELCA

Religion News Service

Addie J. Butler, an assistant dean at the Community College of Philadelphia, has been elected vice president of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America - the top lay post in the 5.2 million-member denomination.

Butler's election this week came on the fifth ballot taken during the denomination's Churchwide Assembly, its top decision-making body.

Butler, an African-American, told the assembly she was baptized in a Baptist church when she 8 years old and joined a predominantly African-American Lutheran congregation in Washington, D.C. in 1969, drawing laughter from throughout the hall when she said she thought that congregation was "typical" of the denomination.

Groups voice support, disappointment for dropping NIV translation

Religion News Service

Baptist Women in Ministry and the Conservative Congregational Christian Conference have recently taken opposing sides on the International Bible Society's decision to drop plans for a gender-accurate translation of the New International Version (NIV) of the Bible.

Becca Gurney, president of Baptist Women in Ministry, wrote a letter to the Bible society expressing her group's disappointment in the decision and urging translators to reconsider publishing a Bible that has more gender-inclusive language than the current NIV.

Baptist Women in Ministry, organized in 1983, is comprised of about 350 members who are affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention - whose conservative leaders have opposed women's ordination - as well as other Baptist organizations.

Meanwhile, delegates to the Conservative Congregational Christian Conference passed a resolution at their annual meeting in Greeley, Colo., commending the society's stand.

AG council opposes persecution, re-elects superintendent

Religion News Service

Delegates to the Assemblies of God biennial General Council, who met in Indianapolis earlier this month, expressed their opposition to religious persecution, re-elected the Rev. Thomas Trask as general superintendent and retained the denomination's rule that divorced and remarried individuals cannot be given ministerial credentials.

In a resolution on "The Persecuted Church Worldwide," delegates confessed that their denomination had not done enough to address the needs of people who are persecuted for their faith. They resolved to "express to our government our uncompromising opposition to religious persecution" and "to inform our constituency on an ongoing basis on the plight of such persecuted Christians."

The denomination, formed in 1914, is one of the largest Pentecostal groups in the country. It has about 2.5 million members in the United States and more than 25 million members worldwide.