March 31, 1999

Currie gives simple advice
to avoid pitfalls: 'Don't be stupid'
___By Ken Camp
___Texas Baptist Communications
___WACO--Borrowing a line from country-pop diva Shania Twain, David Currie last week offered simple advice to help Baptist preachers dodge church-state pitfalls: "Don't be stupid. Don't be ridiculous. Don't be absurd."
___Currie, executive director of Texas Baptists Committed, presented interpretations of the theme, "Pitfalls to Avoid as Seen from the Pulpit" at a conference on church-state issues and the ministry. The conference on the Baylor University campus was sponsored by Truett Seminary and the Washington-based Baptist Joint Committee on Public Affairs.
___Texans ought to know something about pits and falling in pits, Currie said at the outset, drawing on his background as a rancher. He drew a connection between falling into pits and the lifelong advice of his mother, who frequently admonished him: "I hate dumbness."
___"Most pitfalls we fall into can probably relate to a very simple factor: dumbness," he said, adding that Americans "don't talk enough about stupidity anymore."
___Likewise, most church-state problems encountered in ministry could be avoided by more careful thought and the eschewing of dumbness, Currie said.
___Returning to the Shania Twain theme, Currie exhorted the ministerial students and others at the conference: "Don't be stupid in relation to authority and confuse your kingdoms."
___Christians have dual citizenship in the kingdom of God and in an earthly nation, and problems arise when they fail to realize that the two are not the same, he said.
___"Folks get in trouble and act stupidly when they try to use government as a way of spreading the kingdom of God," Currie said. "One of the principles of freedom is that people do have the right to live life according to their own values. We are not a moral authority ... for non-believers."
___When seeking to influence public policy, Christians should argue their positions in the secular marketplace of ideas on the basis of the common good, not on the basis of a divine authority that non-believers do not recognize, he asserted.
___"Don't be ridiculous and forget your role," Currie urged, pointing out that pastors are called to be servant leaders, not just servants and not just leaders.
___"To understand your role as a leader only is to end up obsessed with power and arrogance, and you will fall. To understand your role as servant only is to understand your role as one of weakness and appeasement, and you will fail," he said.
___Finally, "don't be absurd and practice bad theology," he said, noting that Baptists, of all people, should operate from a foundation of biblical teaching and a clear sense of their own history.
___Currie claimed the Religious Right is theologically liberal because it has a watered-down doctrine of sin and a warped view of salvation. Rather than recognizing the impossibility of human perfection and the futility of trying to bring about heaven on earth by human effort, the Religious Right tries to use governmental powers to enforce morality and public piety, he said.
___"If we get everybody praying, it doesn't mean we'll get everyone saved," he said, debunking efforts to use "earthly power to try to bring about heavenly results."
___With additional reporting by Managing Editor Mark Wingfield

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