Divinity School

The chairman of the theology department at Loyola College of Maryland has been selected as the next dean of the Duke University Divinity School, officials at the Durham, N.C., campus announced yesterday.If the choice is affirmed by Duke's trustees, L. Gregory Jones, 36, an ordained United Methodist minister, will succeed Dennis Campbell on July 1.Jones is a graduate of Duke Divinity; his father, former Duke Divinity Dean Jameson Jones, died in office in 1982, several months before the younger Jones matriculated.

There's a saying that a church is not a building, it's the people. And Jay Gamble knows where to find the people. The pastor of LifeChange AME Church, based in Slayton House in the Columbia village of Wilde Lake, holds church services on Sunday like most other ministers, but every weeknight at 11 p.m., he hosts a different kind of service -- on Twitter. Gamble -- @jaygamble, as he's known on the micro-blogging platform -- currently has more than 22,000 followers, and has tweeted more than 8,300 times.

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. -- The lines have been drawn by officials at Wake Forest University, where soft-spoken Bill J. Leonard, the founding dean of a planned divinity school, has put in his bid to keep the New South new.Although it has not yet opened its doors, the creation of the school represents a response to the success of Baptist conservatives in influencing public life during the past 20 years.Wake Forest intends to train a small, dedicated cadre of moderate Baptist ministers to preach what it considers a more tolerant brand of the Protestant faith.

The Rev. R. Douglas Pitt, a retired Episcopal rector who had been senior minister at Old St. Paul's in downtown Baltimore and earlier served two other city parishes, died Jan. 27 of complications from a stroke at Gilchrist Hospice Care. He was 85. Mr. Pitt was born and raised in Richmond, Va., and attended the University of Virginia, earning his bachelor's degree in 1951 from the University of Richmond. His college studies were interrupted by service with the Army's 279th General Hospital during the Berlin airlift after World War II. Mr. Pitt graduated in 1954 from Bexley Hall, the divinity school of Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio, where he won a prize for his preaching.

The Rev. Howard G. Norton, an Episcopal priest and former educator, died Tuesday of Alzheimer's disease at College Manor in Lutherville. The longtime Roland Park resident was 77. Father Norton had been an interim priest at the Episcopal Church of the Guardian Angel in Remington and was part-time priest at Episcopal Cathedral Church of the Incarnation in Baltimore from 1966 to 1970. He taught philosophy at Morgan State University from 1975 to 1980. From 1979 to 1986, he coordinated the Institute of Philosophical Theology at Coppin State College.

Cambridge.--My father's favorite memories always seemed to involve Camp Mooween. Even now, decades after Mooween's demise, he meets regularly with other campers to mull over Mooween lore.The ties which bind these men transcend the songs they invariably sing or the tales they repeatedly tell. Beyond the ritual is an experience: These boys became men at Mooween. They learned a way of being in the world which embraced integrity, responsibility and community. The values which took them from boyhood to manhood were instilled during campfires at Council Rock and nurtured in endurance tests on Red Cedar Lake.

A former television reporter who had served as a spokesman for Council President Bernard C. "Jack" Young for the past two months has resigned. Dennis Edwards, who joined Young's team shortly after he was elected president in February, resigned on Friday, according to Lester J. Davis, a press officer for Young. Edwards had intended to "get the office up and running" and "decided he did what he set out to do," said Davis. Edwards, a minister who pursuing a degree from a divinity school, did not work most Fridays due to his class schedule.

The Rev. R. Douglas Pitt, a retired Episcopal rector who had been senior minister at Old St. Paul's in downtown Baltimore and earlier served two other city parishes, died Jan. 27 of complications from a stroke at Gilchrist Hospice Care. He was 85. Mr. Pitt was born and raised in Richmond, Va., and attended the University of Virginia, earning his bachelor's degree in 1951 from the University of Richmond. His college studies were interrupted by service with the Army's 279th General Hospital during the Berlin airlift after World War II. Mr. Pitt graduated in 1954 from Bexley Hall, the divinity school of Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio, where he won a prize for his preaching.

There's a saying that a church is not a building, it's the people. And Jay Gamble knows where to find the people. The pastor of LifeChange AME Church, based in Slayton House in the Columbia village of Wilde Lake, holds church services on Sunday like most other ministers, but every weeknight at 11 p.m., he hosts a different kind of service -- on Twitter. Gamble -- @jaygamble, as he's known on the micro-blogging platform -- currently has more than 22,000 followers, and has tweeted more than 8,300 times.

PUTTING Michael Milken in prison was ridiculous in the first place, and sending him up for 10 years was outrageous. He was just another finagler, after all. The financial world abounds in finaglers, always has, always will. They go with the territory, as fixed wheels, stacked decks and loaded dice go with casino sports.Of course Milken's killing had been just too, too big. To put it another way, he was not as brilliant as Wall Street fans made him out to be, because raking in dollars by the billion was bound to start envy's poisonous juices bubbling and boiling.

A former television reporter who had served as a spokesman for Council President Bernard C. "Jack" Young for the past two months has resigned. Dennis Edwards, who joined Young's team shortly after he was elected president in February, resigned on Friday, according to Lester J. Davis, a press officer for Young. Edwards had intended to "get the office up and running" and "decided he did what he set out to do," said Davis. Edwards, a minister who pursuing a degree from a divinity school, did not work most Fridays due to his class schedule.

Where Paul Flowers has been: Florida (born); Wales (toddler); Nashville (teen-ager); ninth grade (dropped out); San Francisco (headed there at 17); homeless (once he arrived); college (off and on); Pentagon (Navy intelligence); divinity school (virtually); and Baltimore (bike messenger, coffeehouse waiter and ponderer of the universe). Where Flowers is going: New Orleans (to talk to voodoo priests); Arizona (to meet with Hopi elders); Central America (to visit Mayan ruins); Egypt (pyramids)

Bill Faris believes in hell, that frightful nether world where the thermostat is always set on high, where sinners toil for eternity in unspeakable torment. But you'd never know it listening to him preach at his south Orange County, Calif., evangelical church. He never mentions the topic; his flock shows little interest in it. "It isn't sexy enough anymore," says Faris, pastor of Crown Valley Vineyard Christian Fellowship. In churches across America, hell is being frozen out as clergy find themselves increasingly hesitant to sermonize on Christianity's outpost for lost souls.

The Rev. Howard G. Norton, an Episcopal priest and former educator, died Tuesday of Alzheimer's disease at College Manor in Lutherville. The longtime Roland Park resident was 77. Father Norton had been an interim priest at the Episcopal Church of the Guardian Angel in Remington and was part-time priest at Episcopal Cathedral Church of the Incarnation in Baltimore from 1966 to 1970. He taught philosophy at Morgan State University from 1975 to 1980. From 1979 to 1986, he coordinated the Institute of Philosophical Theology at Coppin State College.

DURHAM, N.C. -- Few regard death as a good thing, but is there such a thing as a "good death"? Duke University believes there is and that each of us is entitled to one. Toward that end, the school has opened a $13.5 million research center devoted to the care of terminally ill patients and their families. The existence of the institute is an emphatic assertion that the end of life need not be a choice between a lingering, painful death and a Kevorkian-style assisted suicide. There is a third option, a death carefully controlled to minimize pain while allowing the patient opportunities to come to terms with the end of life.

The Choral Arts Society has decided, rather waggishly, to call its concert Sunday "The Three B's."And it doesn't mean Beethoven, Bach and Brahms, the usual three B's, but Bernstein, Britten and, well, Bob.Leonard Bernstein was too busy a conductor and musical activist to compose as much as the world wished he had. "Chichester Psalms," the work Choral Arts will perform on this program, is one of his masterpieces.Benjamin Britten is the greatest English composer of this century. Though best known for operas such as "Peter Grimes" and "A Midsummer Night's Dream," he holds a special place in the hearts of choral singers and choirmasters for his rich choral output.

The Choral Arts Society has decided, rather waggishly, to call its concert Sunday "The Three B's."And it doesn't mean Beethoven, Bach and Brahms, the usual three B's, but Bernstein, Britten and, well, Bob.Leonard Bernstein was too busy a conductor and musical activist to compose as much as the world wished he had. "Chichester Psalms," the work Choral Arts will perform on this program, is one of his masterpieces.Benjamin Britten is the greatest English composer of this century. Though best known for operas such as "Peter Grimes" and "A Midsummer Night's Dream," he holds a special place in the hearts of choral singers and choirmasters for his rich choral output.

Somerville, Massachusetts. -- The brick row house in the working-class neighborhood is almost deceptively quiet this Sunday afternoon. The only sign of a political campaign is the Bob Massie bumper sticker on the car across from the playground.As I come in, the two Massie boys are heading off with their mother to get new sneakers for growing feet that continually test the family budget. In the modest kitchen the cookbook is propped open to a recipe for pumpkin soup.Bob Massie, Episcopal minister and Democratic candidate for lieutenant governor of Massachusetts has something rare these days: a free afternoon.

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. -- The lines have been drawn by officials at Wake Forest University, where soft-spoken Bill J. Leonard, the founding dean of a planned divinity school, has put in his bid to keep the New South new.Although it has not yet opened its doors, the creation of the school represents a response to the success of Baptist conservatives in influencing public life during the past 20 years.Wake Forest intends to train a small, dedicated cadre of moderate Baptist ministers to preach what it considers a more tolerant brand of the Protestant faith.