___ SBC receipts up at mid-year. Halfway through the fiscal year, giving to the Southern Baptist Convention's Cooperative Program is 2.39 percent ahead of the same period a year ago, according Morris Chapman, president of the SBC Executive Committee. The six-month total is $74.9 million, compared to $73.18 million in the same period the previous year.
___ Hawkins reports good year. "Future generations will view the year 2000 as a significant milestone in the Annuity Board's history," President O.S. Hawkins told trustees in late February. He cited a number of new initiatives, including new products and services. Total assets were $7.7 billion at the end of 2000, compared to $8 billion one year earlier. Annuity Board officials said lackluster performance in the U.S. and international financial markets produced a loss in net income for the year of $190 million. Gifts to the endowment program, meanwhile, set a new record, and relief payments to needy retirees also reached a high.
___ Seminary touts discipline. Now that the Southern Baptist Convention has affirmed its belief in the inerrancy of Scripture, churches ought to restore a strong practice of church discipline, contend authors of the winter edition of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary's journal. The Southern Baptist Journal of Theology includes articles by seminary President Al Mohler and others. Mohler writes: "Individuals now claim an enormous zone of personal privacy and moral autonomy. The congregation--redefined as a mere voluntary association--has no right to intrude into this space. Many congregations have forfeited any responsibility to confront even the most public sins of their members. Consumed with pragmatic methods of church growth and congregational engineering, most churches leave moral matters to the domain of the individual conscience."
Get printer-friendly version of this story
Send this story to a friend
Contents/ Masthead / Why We're Here / Links / Archive / E-mail us/ SUBSCRIBE!
|