In December 1994 former television evangelist James Orsen "Jim" Bakker, whose PTL Club and Heritage USA theme park cost his investors, the "lifetime partners," millions of dollars, was released from federal prison. His former wife and partner, Tammy Faye Bakker, had since married building contractor Roe Messner.

In August 1998 Father James Callan, who for twenty-two years had served the Corpus Christi parish in Rochester, New York, was suspended from the Roman Catholic Church. He was charged with having performed same-sex weddings, offering Communion to non-Catholics, and permitting a woman, Mary Ramerman, to wear a clerical stole and serve at the altar in a manner reserved for priests. In February 1999 he was excommunicated for starting a new church.

In 1991 Joan Brown Campbell was installed as general secretary of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America (NCC), the first...