USA: The American Bible Society has named the Rev Dr R Lamar Vest as the new head of its Board of Trustees.

ABS elects new chair of Board of Trustees

NEW YORK, United States — The American Bible Society (ABS) has named the Rev Dr R Lamar Vest as the new head of its Board of Trustees.

Dr Vest, who is General Overseer (presiding bishop) of the Church of God (Cleveland, Tennessee), a large Pentecostal denomination with more than 850,000 members, was the unanimous choice of the trustees at a meeting at the ABS headquarters in New York. He succeeds Sally Shoemaker Robinson who was elected chairman of the Global Board of the United Bible Societies, in May.

Dr Vest said he was honoured and happy at the recognition, which he had not expected.

He has served on the Executive Committee of the ABS since 1994, and served on its Board of Trustees for the four years prior to that.

He began his ministry as a pastor in his native state of South Carolina. In the 1980s he was Director of Youth and Christian Education of the Church of God, from 1990 to 1994 he held the office of General Overseer of the Church of God and from 1994 to 1996 he was its Director of Media Ministries. He also participated for many years in the National Association of Evangelicals before being elected chairman in 1998.

Dr Eugene Habecker, ABS President, said that Sally Shoemaker Robinson, the outgoing chair of the board, had done “a terrific job”.

“I look forward to Dr Vest following in her excellent footsteps,” he added.

Commenting on the events of September 11, Dr Vest said that they had helped Americans to understand that they were part of a global family brought together by shared suffering. He added the ABS was now being presented with a new opportunity.

Positive response by national media
to new Turkish Bible

ISTANBUL, Turkey — Prompted by the positive response of the media to the launch of the Turkish Bible earlier this month (see Latest News #164), Ameniel Bagdas, Executive Secretary of the Bible Society in Turkey (BST) has been reflecting on how public attitudes to the Bible in this secular state have changed in recent years.

“In 1974 the Bible Society applied to the Tercüman Newspaper and a Turkish television channel to advertise the Turkish Bible and New Testament,” Mr Bagdas said. “I had a contact with the newspaper’s editor, who agreed to run the advert in a Saturday edition. The day the advert appeared the newspaper received hundreds of telephone calls from people threatening to burn their offices and kill the owners of the newspaper.

“The editor came to my office, returned the money we had paid for the advert, and apologised that he would no longer be able to advertise our products.

“When we launched the Bible in modern Turkish [two weeks ago] on October 6, however, five newspapers, two television stations and a radio station ran stories about the new Scripture. Nearly all of them mentioned that this was the first new translation of the Turkish Bible in [more than] 300 years, and that the previous one was completed in about 1666 by Ali Bey - the Sultan's personal translator. [This translation was revised several times, most recently in 1941].

“Some of them explained that the Holy Bible is composed of the Old and New Testaments and said that it was now available to buy from book dealers,” Mr Bagdas added.

The newspapers which ran stories about the new translation included some of Turkey’s most influential and popular dailies, and have a combined readership of more than two million.