Vandals burn Israeli flag at Baptist church. A Baptist church that since last summer had flown the Israeli flag to show support for Israel fell victim to criminal activity July 17 when the star in the center of the flag was burned away, a local paper has reported. Cornerstone Baptist Church in Fort Worth, Texas, had lowered all three of the flags in the front of its church to commemorate the death of Lady Bird Johnson, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported July 18. But someone stood on an overturned trashcan and burned the Israeli flag to tatters, the paper reported Police told the paper the vandalism is classified as criminal mischief, not a hate crime, because the flag is not a religious symbol. No suspects have been named. (ABP)
Gushee to Mercer. David Gushee, a Baptist theologian and author, has been named to the position of distinguished university professor of Christian ethics at Mercer University in Macon, Ga. Gushee currently serves as a professor of philosophy at Union University in Jackson, Tenn. At Mercer, he is expected to teach interdisciplinary ethics courses throughout the school. A native of Virginia, Gushee is a graduate of the College of William and Mary, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and Union Theological Seminary in New York. A columnist for Christianity Today and Associated Baptist Press, Gushee has written or edited nine books. An ordained Baptist minister, Gushee is married to Jeanie. They have four children. (ABP)
Baptist cartoonist dies in car accident. Doug Marlette, a Baptist whose editorial cartoons often lampooned fundamentalist religion but whose folksy comic strip celebrated a rural Southern Baptist pastor, was killed in an automobile accident July 10. He was 57. The Pulitzer Prize winner, who recently joined the staff of the Tulsa World, died near Holly Springs, Miss., reportedly after a truck in which he was a passenger careened off a rain-slicked highway. James Dunn, former executive director of the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty, and another famous progressive Baptist preacher, Will Campbell, were reportedly the inspiration for one of the lead characters in “Kudzu,” a small-town Baptist preacher named Will B. Dunn. Marlette won the Pulitzer for editorial cartooning in 1988, after a series of drawings skewering the Religious Right's increasing involvement in secular politics. (ABP)