After 33 years at Focus on the Family, James Dobson signs off today. This is the final stage of transition for the founder of the organization. Dobson had already stepped down as president of the organization in 2003 and as chairman of the board last year. Focus announced the decision for Dobson to step down last October. Today was his last day as host of the Focus on the Family program.

Speaking to the one million plus listeners, Dobson said, "I love you, and that will not change. And I'm going from here to another responsibility. And please continue to pray for us."

Many listeners returned the sentiment. Over the past two weeks, Focus collected over forty-thousand cards thanking Dobson for his years of service.

Dobson's final broadcast was a chance for him to say good-bye and to receive well-wishes from the Focus leadership. On Monday, Focus on the Family will air a special chapel service where Dobson will say farewell to the minstry's employees.

In addition to the many goodbyes, Friday's broadcast also discussed the details of Dobson's new ministry. Family Talk, like Focus on the Family, will be based in Colorado Springs and will feature a new radio show focusing on family issues and public policy. Dobson will share the hosting microphone with his son, Ryan, and Focus radio producer LuAnn Crane.

Both Dobson and Focus leaders emphasized that the ministry will not be competition with Focus on the Family and noted that Focus on the Family gave Family Talk one million dollars to get it off the ground.

"We will try to cover the bases in a little different way," said Dobson. "How silly to think that one organization is going to meet of the whole country. That's crazy. It's like, well you've got a church on one corner so you don't need another church. That--I don't like the way that sounds because there's plenty of work for all of us to do. And we're not going to be very far from here, and I hope we can work in partnership."

Dobson is also scheduled to release a book, Bringing Up Girls, in April.

Yesterday’s Associated Press report on Christian-Voodooist tensions in Haiti was shocking enough. One group interrupted another’s religious service (there are of course differences in perspective on who “started it”) and eventually Christians in Cite Soleil destroyed the Voodooists’ religious objects. “Some threw rocks while others urinated on Voodoo symbols,” Paisley Dodds reported. “When police left, the crowd destroyed the altars and Voodoo offerings of food and rum.”

But later in the story, the comments from Frank Amedia of Touch Heaven Ministries were perhaps more surprising: “We would give food to the needy in the short term but if they refused to give up Voodoo, I'm not sure we would continue to support them in the long term because we wouldn't want to perpetuate that practice. We equate it with witchcraft, which is contrary to the Gospel.”

A Christian aid organization demanding conversions in exchange for food is a rare thing in the 21st century. It’s bad theology, bad missiology, and impractical (“rice Christians” tend to be nominal at best). So it’s rare to see such a stark suggestion that non-converts could be “cut off” from aid.

But late yesterday Amedia said his comments weren’t so stark after all. On his organization’s Touch Haiti Now site, he wrote:

Let me be clear that we have not and do not judge the need of someone we can help by the measure of their faith. Not once have we qualified a single person prior to giving them what we had, nor is this a program standard for our assistance during the crisis mode of this mission. … We do visit and qualify the organization or “camp” that is requesting assistance to do our best to assure that the supplies actually make it to those who are in need, and are not pilfered or re sold.

What was not included in this AP report was the essential body of my comments. I explained that our commission as ministers of the Gospel is to have compassion on whomever we can, to respond to their need with what we have. I responded to a direct question from Paisley which asked: “What would I do if I knew the person in need was a voodoo worshipper?” I responded that we would help them, but that everything we do is for the Glory of God and that we are committed to share our hearts. She then expanded her question to ask “Would I continue to help them knowing they were still practicing Voodoo?” I responded that I would show them our love by helping them and that I would hope to become their friend, and then as their friend, that our compassion and love might be the difference to lead them to Christ. She then asked “How long would we continue to supply them?” To that I answered that “I am not sure we could continue to support them in the long term because we would not want to perpetuate that process. We equate [voodoo] with witchcraft, which is contrary to the Gospel.”

Let there be no doubt that the love of God is our driving force, and He loves everyone. … That is why we have indiscriminately worked so hard, day and night, to help out urgently during this crisis mode for Haiti.

Amedia’s comments were apparently sparked not just by the Associated Press report but by responses to it. He concluded his post by saying, “To those of who you have written hate mail to me, please know that I do love you and forgive you and I can only hope that your judgments were premised on a lack of understanding of the full story. To the few who were wise to call and discuss this with me, I thank you that we were able to reason together and count you as my friends.”

Amedia’s “full story” still suggests there’s a cut-off point of sorts for aiding non-Christians. Thoughts? Does aid to Voodooists help Voodoo? Would you keep helping someone if they remained hostile to the gospel? If you aided someone for years and years and they never became a Christian, would you consider your efforts wasted?

AJS received an answer to prayer yesterday. The security company taking co-founder Kurt Ver Beek to court (see previous post) was a no-show Wednesday.

Read on for the update from Abram Huyser Honig:

Canadian figure skater Joannie Rochette will begin her quest for Olympic gold today with a heavy heart. Just hours before Rochette took to the ice on Sunday, her mother died unexpectedly. Rochette’s parents had flown in from their home in Montreal earlier in the day to watch her daughter compete this week.

They had been traveling to watch their daughter compete for years, and before that they had been shuffling her to and from ice skating practice from the time Rochette was a little girl. “She was a very supportive mom,” said one friend. “Supportive of the figure skating, but very much in the background of Joannie’s career. They had a really tight bond.” Rochette’s mother’s heart attack came completely unexpected, making her passing all the more devastating to the Olympian.

It must surely be difficult, then, for her to head back out onto the ice in pursuit of Olympic gold. Yet her competitors and friends on the Canadian team are full of support and encouragement. Benoit Lavoie, president of the Canadian Olympic skating association, said that Rochette was quickly able to control her grief. “The thing that amazed me is that she was so composed, going back into her Olympic mode.”

“Joannie is a very courageous person, and just to be here in the practice hall, I was very impressed,” the Canadian skater Cynthia Phaneuf said after the training session. “I think she is doing the right thing. She won’t get any better staying in her room. It shows how strong she is. It shows that she is a person to look up to here.”

The public too seems to hold unrealistically high expectations for Rochette. The New York Times closes its story by quoting an American skater whose mother has cancer. “I think this will spur her on to do even better.”

One critique that professional grieving counselors make of these kinds of statements is that we don’t like to be confronted with the emotions of a grieving person, so we expect the bereaved to function as if nothing had ever happened. It used to be that when someone died in Christian societies, the normal activities of life stopped. They were replaced by rituals of mourning. This provided a healthy respect for the deceased and allowed the bereaved to fully express their grief. Such rituals involved lots of community activity so that a person could–in his or her own time–resume normal life once again.

The historian of Western Christian attitudes toward dying, Philippe Aries, wrote that a death in a community once “solemnly altered space and time.” People stopped their activities and visited family members. The home was decorated so that all would know a grieving family was inside. They cared for the beloved’s corpse. And eventually, they carried it on to the church to worship a final time and then to the grave to rest until Christ returned.

Christians made a big deal out of death. If the death of a member of a community wasn’t worth lamenting, then what was her life worth? Of course, Christians historically made sure they did not mourn as those who have no hope, as the apostle Paul admonished. Yet, hope in the resurrection and belief that we would be reunited with our loved ones only means that a relationship, now broken, will be repaired. The ache of loss still mattered.

Of course, the Olympic Games cannot be stopped to allow space for a skater in mourning. And Rochette may truly feel that competing today is what is best for her and what her mother would have wanted. After all, the Olympics only come every four years. I wish her the best of luck out on the ice this evening.

Nevertheless, I can’t help but wonder: Would it be so bad if Rochette chose not to skate, out of respect for her mother and her own grief? And if she did, would the public also respect that choice? Would we be as quick to commend her actions if she made a different — equally courageous — choice and didn’t take to the ice? Or would we be disappointed that she wasn’t able to compartmentalize her grief and focus on “getting back to normal”?

CT has received word that the Association for a More Just Society, an evangelical justice ministry in Honduras, is facing a critical court trial on Wednesday.

AJS has long defended labor rights for poor Hondurans, to the extent that lawyer Dionisio Díaz García was murdered in 2006. Now one targeted Honduran company, SETECH, has sued the ministry for slander. AJS co-founder Kurt Ver Beek, a CT contributor on short-term missions, is facing the charges on behalf of the ministry.

The verdict will not only be a litmus test of the fairness of Honduras' court system, but could also wipe out AJS in Honduras.

Links and quotes after the jump....

Officials at Wheaton College announced this morning that Philip Ryken, pastor of Tenth Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia, will become the next president of the college.

Ryken graduated from Wheaton in 1988, and received his M.Div. from Westminster Theological Seminary in 1992 and his doctorate in historical theology from the University of Oxford in 1995. He became a pastor at Tenth Presbyterian Church in 1995 and became the senior pastor in 2000 after James Boice died. He and his wife Elisabeth have five children.

Most of his books address faith and the Christian life, such as Art for God's Sake, The Doctrines of Grace, and Exodus: Saved for God's Glory. Ryken's blog posts and sermons can be found on The Gospel Coalition's site and Reformation 21.

Ryken's father Leland Ryken is an English professor at Wheaton who recently wrote The Literary Study Bible with his son. The college is celebrating its 150-year anniversary this year and announced last year that President Duane Litfin would retire this summer.

Earlier this week, Baylor University announced that Kenneth Starr would become its next president.

Editor's note: Christianity Today did not break any embargoes related to this news. CT received notices from three people familiar with the details of this morning's meeting. CT has changed the time of this post (which reflected when the post was started) to the time when the post was published.

Update: The college posted a press release on its website today, stating that Ryken will begin his new position on July 1.

Update (April 2013): The Orlando Sentinel reports that televangelist Benny Hinn and his ex-wife Suzanne Hinn have re-married.
-----

Big news out of Waco: Kenneth Starr (yes, that Kenneth Starr) will be the new president of Baylor University.

Formerly Solicitor General of the United States, he has been a very prominent dean of Pepperdine University's School of Law (partly for his work at the school, and partly for his ongoing law work, like defending California's Proposition 8).

The Waco Tribune-Herald reports:

His national stature could potentially swell Baylor’s endowment with expressions of support, but the controversial nature of that stature could impact Baylor’s image as well.

An immediate challenge for Starr, however, lies closer to home. An ongoing feud between the Baylor administration and the Baylor Alumni Association has been racheted up in the last few months as the administration first made, then withdrew peaceful overtures for the BAA to be absorbed by Baylor and lose its independent status.

Starr must also be mindful of the Baylor faculty, which played a key role in the [July 2008] ouster of [John] Lilley after a highly controversial denial of tenure for a dozen professors. One source said the faculty representatives to the presidential search met Starr with a high degree of skepticism, but were ultimately won over by Starr’s personality.

The Church of Uganda released its official position on the Anti-Homosexuality Bill that, if passed in its proposed version, would recommend the death penalty or life in prison for various homosexual acts.

The bill suggests the death penalty for people have homosexual sex with minors, the disabled, while being HIV-positive, serial offenders, or if the person is in authority over another. In its executive summary, the Church of Uganda addresses the proportionality in sentencing but does not offer specific recommendations for changes to the proposed sentences. In a statement provided to Christianity Today, the Church of Uganda expressed concerns with the bill, recommending that the bill be amended to reflect the following:

1. Ensure that the law protects the confidentiality of medical, pastoral and counseling relationships, including those that disclose homosexual practice in accordance with the relevant professional codes of ethics.
2. Language that strengthens the existing Penal Code to protect the boy child, especially from homosexual exploitation; to prohibit lesbianism, bestiality, and other sexual perversions; and to prohibit procurement of material and promotion of homosexuality as normal or as an alternative lifestyle, be adopted.
3. Ensure that homosexual practice or the promotion of homosexual relations is not adopted as a human right.
4. Existing and future Educational materials and programmes on gender identity and sex education are in compliance with the values and the laws of Uganda.
5. The involvement of additional stakeholders in the evaluation of the gaps in the existing legislation, including, but not limited to, the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Education, and the Ministry of Internal Affairs, its Department of Immigration and other relevant departments.
6. The undertaking of a comprehensive legislative and literature review of all the laws and literature related to the subject at hand in order to identify the actual gaps in the existing legislations.