February 2, 2000
Texas Baptist Forum
Let grace rule
___When so many of us in Texas are scurrying after various personalities who might hold to our particular beliefs, we ought to remember the malady that struck the (first century) Corinthians. When they segregated themselves according to their favorite teachers, the Apostle Paul scolded them for their carnality.
___I wonder how much of our division in the state convention and the local church is dueto personality conflicts rather than theological differences. I wonder how much of the so-called struggle is centered upon our lust for power and greed and recognition.
Email the editor at marvknox@baptiststandard
___When the Holy Spirit fully controls a believer, we can be sure spiritual thoughts will be spiritually appraised. Do we not communicate our worldliness when we say and act the way we do?
___If we have the mind of Christ, then let's demonstrate our Christ-likeness, even with those who don't hold to the same non-essentials. Let grace rule the day.
___ Steve Skinner
___ Carrollton
Wait and see
___In your editorial (Jan. 26), you ask the churches to give the new leadership a chance and predict the Baptist General Convention of Texas' next 10 years will be bright. You also promise "creative engagement with culture."
___Although now a Baptist, I was not raised in our denomination. Years ago, I saw cultural compromise take place in the church in which I grew up. With the best of intentions, denominational leaders attempting to modernize the church's approach abandoned the fundamentals of Christianity and substituted relativism, revisionist biblical interpretation and a purposeful departure from historic faith and practice.
___Today, that church has lost millions of members and languishes in a decline of which I am sure their leaders did not dream when they started down that slippery slope.
___I fear the BGCT and the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship are on this path, not realizing the end result.
___I hope I am wrong.
___I am not writing in anger. It's just that I have seen this process before, and once burned am twice shy.
___I sincerely hope the BGCT will escape the fate that its current leaders and theologians seem to be inviting. We should know in about 10 years, when we are able to measure the "continental drift" of the convention since the admittedly historic El Paso meeting.
___ Joe F. Young
___ Seabrook
Liberties infringed
___Regarding student-initiated and student-worded prayer at school football games (Jan. 19), Phil Strickland's opposition seems to have missed the point.
___In fact, it is not when "the right to prayer" is "a majority-rule issue" but rather when it becomes a liberal-judge-rule issue, as it has become, that our religious liberties are infringed, as they have been.
___ Earle Ellis
___ Fort Worth
Nothing new
___As we move beyond Y2K fears and ease into the new century, let us not forget Ecclesiastes: There still is nothing new under the sun.
___With each new era, it seems more challenging to commune with our fellow man, even those calling themselves Christian, as evidenced recently by inflammatory remarks made within the Baptist General Convention of Texas and Southern Baptists of Texas Convention leadership.
___On the modern surface, the inability to talk with our brethren sounds absurd considering the emergence of the Internet and open media. But while we easily converse in real time with a stranger in another country, far too often we don't even know our next-door neighbor, or more importantly, his needs. We've never been so close and yet so far apart at any time in our history.
___Change is inevitable, but never before has change itself accelerated so rapidly. If we glue ourselves to God's immutable word, we can avoid becoming spirits within the machines. Let us remember our heavenly citizenship, calling and the command to consider others as more important than ourselves in this new era of promise.
___ David Sparks
___ Lewisville
The Golden Rule
___I was only 22 and had been in full-time ministry three years when I witnessed my first "firing" of a fellow church staff member. While not the most competent of people I've ever met, he deserved a better "exit" than he was shown.
___The process was void of anything redemptive because of a small group of people who attacked him like junkyard dogs on a thrown-out spare rib.
___I'm 36 now, and there's one thing I'll never forget about that experience: The sound of his wife crying on the other side of his closed office door as she was helping him clean out his office. Rarely do Christians, or those who claim to be, remember that the person they're showing the door usually has a spouse and family who must also make some sense of it all.
___I've never been fired nor encouraged to leave, for that matter. I don't have any latent bitterness or anger brooding in my heart. And after serving in local churches for 17 years, I am aware some ministers are dismissed for just reasons, such as immorality and ethical and control issues.
___I simply know that if people would take to heart Jesus' words, "Treat others the way you would like to be treated," the statistics cited in the editorial regarding fired ministers (Jan. 19) would drastically diminish.
___ Nick Watts
___ Lubbock
Amazing photo
___I recently saw the photo of the fetal surgery that was on the front page of the Dec. 1 Baptist Standard.
___I was awestruck. The photo was so moving and so beautiful I started crying. I called my girls and explained to them what the photo was. They, too, marveled at it.
___I took the photo to Sunday School and showed the girls in fifth grade the photo of the baby grasping her surgeon's gloved finger. All the girls were amazed. It was Sanctity of Life Sunday, and it really made an impact on all of us.
___ Jean Whitmore
___ Fort Worth
Never saw survey
___As a "professional librarian," I was incensed by the quotation from Al Mohler regarding librarians (Jan. 12). Usually, librarians have to defend themselves from being called "mousy," "losers" and the like. Now, we are radicals as the result of a survey which supposedly represents all of us.
___I have a graduate degree in library science and worked with church librarians across the country through the church media library department of the Sunday School Board (now LifeWay Christian Resources) for 36 years. I am a member of the American Library Association and receive the organization's monthly journal, but I did not complete nor remember seeing a survey asking if I have read "The Joy of Sex." I do not agree with all the stands taken by the organization, just as I do not agree with every decision made in business meeting at my church, where I am librarian.
___The use of inflammatory words and generalizations by denominational leaders has been detrimental to Baptists both within our ranks and in the Christian and secular worlds. My library leadership friends in Texas, many of whom I have encouraged to become professionals as well as volunteers, should not be indicted in such a way. Should Mohler check with pastors in churches with active media libraries, he would discover that they do not consider the librarians as "radicals" but as dedicated leaders who give unstintingly of their time, skills and efforts in providing invaluable materials and services to their church leaders and members.
___ Jackie Anderson
___ Nashville, Tenn.
Conclusions ridiculous
___So Al Mohler believes the nation's librarians are purveyors of a radical agenda because the majority of them have read "The Joy of Sex," believe Anita Hill told the truth about Clarence Thomas and do not believe AIDS is a punishment from God (Jan. 12).
___Provided the survey was legitimate, Mohler's conclusions are ridiculous. By nature, librarians are readers and are apt to read most all of the best-seller books. I have read "The Godfather." That does not make me a purveyor of criminal activity. I have not read the sex book, but I plan to read it now in order to see for myself what his fuss is about.
___The majority of librarians are women, and most women believe Anita Hill was telling the truth because of our own experiences as women in the workplace. Most Christians do not believe that any disease, including AIDS, is a judgment from God. We believe that illnesses happen in this imperfect world, to the innocent as well as to the guilty, and that God gives us the strength to cope with them.
___Mohler needs to take a graduate course in the meaning of statistics and how they can be skewed. He also needs to thoroughly read the New Testament.
___ Frankie R. Latham
___Point Blank
Heretics & Moderates
___ Similarity of Heretics and Moderates
___ 1. They were told their brothers should love them "as much as I love you."
___ 2. Accusers gave them slanderous names.
___ 3. Their names should have been 'original' and accuser's 'radical.'
___ 4. Were criticized. Moderates called barnacles, parasites, snakes, ungodly.
___ 5. Falsely accused. New convention's Plumbline: Deny deity of Christ, call
for ordination of gays, defend distribution of child pornography.
___ 6. Rejected leader's new Bible theology. Heretics rejected leaders making
Lord's Supper into a graven image, (wine into blood, etc.) Moderates
wondered how the Holy Spirit used the Bible for 1900 years without leader's
new word 'inerrant' and rejected them making the Bible a graven image.
___ 7. Considered non-Bible believers.
___ 8. Fellowship withdrawn. "I cannot have fellowship with those who do not
believe the Bible is the inerrant word of God." Coffey, president of new
convention
___ 9. Persecuted by fellow Christians. One burned at stakes. Other fired from
jobs.
___ 10. Recipients of deepest hatred in the world...religious hatred
___ 11. Had attitude of song verse: "Though the church is moving, I shall not be
moved."
___ History records leaders improving on God. In spite of Peter's "...are
you going to correct God...," Christian Judaism's necessary laws, improved
how Peter saw Gentiles saved. Leaders improved symbol of baptism into saving
babies, improved symbol of Christ's blood into reality, and now leaders have
improved the Bible into being perfect. Maybe the Bible is the way it is to
keep us from worshipping the messenger.
___Rex Ray
___Grand Prairie
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