Glazener urges Texas Baptists to seek
peace of Christ by breaking down walls of division
___By Scott Collins
___For Texas Baptist Communications
___CORPUS CHRISTI--Saying the life of Jesus Christ was about "breaking down walls and peacemaking," Baptist General Convention of Texas President Clyde Glazener called on Texas Baptists to follow Jesus' example of ministry and missions.
___Glazener, who was re-elected to a second one-year term during the 115th annual session of the BGCT, said during his president's message the task of Christians is not "wall-building" but "wall smashing."
___"Reconciliation for Jesus involved wall smashing," he said. "Indeed, it may be the same for us today."
___"We can't tolerate walls and be like Jesus," Glazener declared.
___Among the walls built by religious leaders today, he said, is an attempt by "some who build walls who will seek to justify their work with the Bible. The religious leaders of Jesus' day used the law," Glazener said. "They didn't follow the law themselves, but they almost personified it and treated it as on a par with God.
___"Then they used it like a club to beat others into line. One can do the same with the Bible."
___People who use the Bible in such a way "can claim that all others are liberals," he said.
___However, true liberalism and fundamentalism actually have more in common than might be evident, Glazener said. "The best friend to true liberalism is not those who want to obliterate walls. The best friend of liberalism is a loveless, witch-hunting fundamentalism.
___"The thing liberalism and fundamentalism most have in common is that they both think they have God in their hip pockets. One may cage God in rational process and the other cage him in a book."
___Glazener warned Texas Baptists not to be "badgered into wall-building by power brokers who call us 'liberal' and say we must agree with their ideas about God's limitations in using people and their interpretations" of the Bible.
___Instead, Texas Baptists love the Bible because "it tells us about Jesus," Glazener said. But he reminded messengers that the Bible "is not the highest expression to us from God. Jesus is the highest expression from God."
___"Any who say Texas Baptists believe the Bible is just another book like any other book knows he's lying even as he speaks," Glazener said, referencing accusations made after the SBC annual meeting this summer. SBC leaders quoted one sentence from a speech by a Texas Baptist pastor to make a claim that moderate Baptists believe the Bible is "just a book."
___"We do love the Bible as the word of God," Glazener said. "But we adore and worship Jesus who is the expression of God."
___Glazener said Texas Baptists should follow the model of Jesus as a peacemaker by reconciling people to each other and to God. "He gave us the ministry of reconciliation," he said.
___That includes "speaking up for those who are exploited and whose freedoms are violated," he said. "I tend to think (Jesus) is not pleased today by religious folks who become thought police for their followers and dictate their belief patterns, even if they claim to be evangelicals."
___Jesus "did not sell out justice and spiritual freedoms for an accommodated peace," Glazener said. "Rather, he fought for justice and spiritual freedoms and then purchased our justness and spiritual freedoms at awesome cost."
___Glazener ended his message by calling on Texas Baptists to wage peace in difficult times.
___"The way to lift up Jesus is to wage the peace of Christ," he said.
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