Baylor regents fire president
John Lilley, president of Baylor University in Waco, Tex., has been terminated by the school’s board of regents after less than three years in the position. Lilley was the focus of controversy in March when he denied tenure to 12 of 30 faculty members recommended by a university-wide faculty tenure committee – a far higher percentage than usual. Earlier this month, Baylor’s faculty senate passed a “failure of shared governance” resolution. The July 24 vote to fire Lilley, taken during a regents’ meeting in Grapevine, Tex., was necessary “to unite Baylor’s many constituencies and move the university forward,” board chairman Howard Batson said in a written statement. Lilley has been credited with several successes during his short tenure as Baylor president. The school has its largest endowment, its highest seminary enrollment, its second-largest student body, and its highest spot in an influential national ranking of colleges and universities.
Sutton retirement package approved
An early retirement package for Jerry Sutton as pastor of Two Rivers Baptist Church in Nashville, Tenn., was approved by the congregation July 27. The package will include one month’s salary for each of Sutton’s 22 years as the church’s pastor, to be paid over a five-and-a-half-year period. Church members who voted July 27 approved the retirement package by a 78.8 percent margin. The church has been embroiled in controversy over Sutton’s leadership since July 2007, when a church trustee was removed from membership. A group of about 50 current or former church members filed suit in September, seeking access to detailed financial records and launched a Web site listing their grievances against the pastor.
Court again blocks Internet porn law
The U.S. Third Circuit Court of Appeals has again upheld a judge’s decision to block enforcement of a congressional effort to protect children from Internet pornography. A three-judge panel of the Third Circuit, based in Philadelphia, affirmed in a July 22 ruling a lower-court opinion permanently preventing enforcement of the Child Online Protection Act. It marked the third time the court has endorsed a judge’s preliminary or permanent injunction against the federal law. Enacted in 1998, COPA is intended to prohibit commercial Web sites from making sexually explicit material available to children under the age of 17, but it has never been enforced. In its latest ruling, the Third Circuit panel unanimously supported a 2007 decision by federal Judge Lowell Reed, who said COPA violated the First Amendment, which guarantees freedom of speech.
4 TV ministries won’t comply with probe
Four television ministries still have refused to comply fully with a U.S. Senate committee’s probe into their financial records nearly nine months after first being asked. The ministries of Kenneth Copeland, Creflo Dollar, Eddie Long, and Randy and Paula White have provided only partial information or none at all, said Sen. Charles Grassley, R.-Iowa, who initiated the investigation by requesting information from six televangelists in early November. The ministries of Benny Hinn and Joyce Meyer, however, gave “extensive answers to all questions,” Grassley said. Grassley’s questions of the televangelists were based on accounts of abuses from watchdog organizations and whistleblowers, as well as investigative news reports, he has said. Accusations of contributions being used to support lavish lifestyles have been leveled against at least some of the televangelists.