June 30, 1999
Texas Baptist Forum
Leaders empower
___After reading the article reviewing speakers at the Southern Baptist Pastors' Conference (June 23), I feel compelled to suggest that it is important to understand that empowered leadership leads to empowering leadership.
___When the power of the Servant Leader, Jesus Christ, is experienced, it does not result in dictating to the sheep. It results in serving the sheep. Consequently, "Seek not only to beempowered, but to empower."
e-mail marvknox@flash.net
___Except for spiritual power, which all desperately need, we do not need pastors exerting more power over the churches, but pastors who will empower more of the people of God to be all he wants them to be.
___If by "visionary leaders" we mean leaders who believe themselves to be the sole receiver of visions for the church, let us have fewer visionary leaders. Instead, let us have leaders who smell more like the sheep and who discover God's vision along with and while walking among the people they serve.
___ Ken Coffee
___ San Antonio
Contradiction
___Sometimes I wonder if I should just be amused by the way some things are done in our Baptist life. Our International Mission Board, no doubt with the best intentions and in a way long overdue action, at last decides that it is time to try to allow more Hispanics to be missionaries (June 16).
___However, in a plain contradiction of terms, the board appoints a non-Hispanic to promote the Hispanic involvement in the missionary force--as if there were no Hispanic men with enough qualifications and experience to do not only the same, but even a better, job.
___I know nothing about Jason Carlisle, except what the story says, and I pray the best for him. However, it is just a contradiction to try to involve more Hispanics and not to look to the Hispanic Baptists to find the man to promote it.
___ Miguel Mesias
___ Shreveport, La.
God's diet
___I was shocked to read an article on Scott Strong, who is "convinced" that it is "God's will for everyone" to reject meat in their diets, opting for a vegetarian diet (May 26).
___Have we gotten so forgetful of what the Bible says about the last days that there will be those who "advocate abstaining from foods, which God has created to be gratefully shared in by those who believe and know the truth. For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected, if it is received with gratitude; for it is sanctified by means of the word of God and prayer" (1 Timothy 4:3-5)?
___Has God now given a new revelation that supercedes Peter's vision recorded in Acts 11, which states that God has cleansed these foods and they are no longer to be considered unholy (Acts 11:9)?
___It appears to me that mankind has not strayed from "God's diet" but is living according to the freedom he has given (although it is noted that while everything is permitted, not all things are beneficial). The underlying problem is that "the Hallelujah Diet aims to adapt that message (the virtues of raw fruits and vegetables) to evangelical Christian theology."
___The bottom line is that our theology should influence our actions, not vice versa.
___ Denton Popelka
___ Temple
Leader's agenda
___Your editorial regarding the next leader of the Baptist General Convention of Texas (June 16) is right on. I see Texas as the crucible in which the future--or non-future--of the Southern Baptist Convention will be shaped.
___The goal for Texas Baptists should be to advance the cause of Christ and bring people into a relevant and eternal relationship to God through Jesus. The theological haggling going on in Texas is not advancing that goal. Texas Baptists would do well to follow the lead of Baptists in North Carolina and incrementally move to a common platform.
___Trends in Texas have changed dramatically. The diverse minorities in Dallas, Houston and San Antonio are not holding their breath to see who wins some theological debate that might be brewing.
___The main agenda of the leader must be: "Mend the fences and work together." A victory by either side in isolation is failure.
___ Roger Simpson
___ San Jose, Calif.
The people's will
___Bill Weaver's criticism (June 9) of the views of Marv Knox and Leroy Fenton in calling upon Southern Baptist Convention leadership to avoid partisanship and include all Baptists in positions of leadership and service (May 26) is inconsistent with the will of Southern Baptists.
___In 1987, I and over 90 percent of the messengers to the SBC annual meeting approved the Peace Committee Report, which stated, "Because fairness in the process of making committee board appointments is essential to the process of reconciliation and peace, the committee recommends that the present and all future presidents of the Southern Baptist Convention, the Committee on Committees, and the Committee on Boards select nominees who endorse the Baptist Faith and Message Statement, and are drawn in balanced fashion from the broad spectrum of loyal, cooperative Southern Baptists, representative of the diversity of our denomination."
___Instead of Weaver's "the winner-take-all-approach," the Baptist tradition historically has been a commitment to fairness and balance, or what the current SBC president called for in the early days of the denominational controversy--"parity." It was a good plan in the early 1980s and a good plan in 1987. Because SBC leadership did not follow the "mandate of the people," all kinds of restructuring, not just that recommended in the "Covenant for a New Century" in 1995, continues to take place, including changes in the Texas plan for giving through the Cooperative Program.
___ Slayden Yarbrough
___ Shawnee, Okla.
More inerrant?
___The May 19 Standard says that Lifeway Christian Resources is producing the new Holman Christian Standard Bible. And with the blessing of the SBC leadership it is supposed to take out the errors in the "inerrant Bible."
___For twenty terrible hurtful, turbulent years this leadership has claimed an already existing "inerrant Bible," and everyone should claim allegiance to this claim or depart the fellowship of the SBC.
___It will be interesting to see how the NIV, NKJV, NASV and other translations are perceived and purchased once the new translation is on the market.
___ Bob King
___ Grand Prarie
Accountability
___It is curious that in the last 25 years our leaders have failed to solve the conservative/moderate controversy. Our responsibility is simple: Execute God's solution.
___Dysfunctional families tend to be afraid of problems, trying to deny or outlast them. Often, otherwise able men are more afraid of the solutions. Either way, we qualify as a dysfunctional family.
___We need Christ-like leaders, gentle giants, who are just as comfortable hugging their enemies as they are hanging their friends...as may be required. We need men who realize that peace for the sake of peace is never the objective. Godly peace is the fruit of justice.
___We need leaders who "love good and hate evil." We should do both with great skill. Being "gracious to a fault" is not being extra nice, it is a failure to hate well. To attain a certain virtue, one must hate the antithesis. This balance is a mark of true spiritual maturity and a prerequisite of great leadership.
___Our problem? Men who have elevated their opinions and agendas above the law of love. They are comfortable causing injury and division in the body.
___Our solution? Accountability. In an attempt to protect our autonomy, we have arrogantly supposed all will act honorably. I promise you, we will never solve this problem without some faculty for accountability.
___Poor solutions exacerbate, prolong and multiply our problems. Suing one another for slander in the world system is just another way to avoid man-to-man accountability.
___ Stanley Foy
___ Mt. Vernon
Political cleansing
___To read "ethnic cleansing" into the account of Mary and Joseph fleeing Herod (June 16) is to misunderstand the New Testament record.
___Herod, the king, was made aware of the birth of a potential rival. He then sought out the infant Jesus to dispose of him. Thus, he orders all male children below the age of 2 in the vicinity of Bethlehem to be slaguhtered.
___The Hebrews were not being exterminated by Roman officials as ethnic undesirables. It is a political matter, neither ethnic nor religious.
___This is "political stuff."
___ Ernest Atkinson
___ Tyler
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