November 4, 2002
TEXAS BAPTIST FORUM:
Fundamentalists not alike
___Since the Beltway Sniper apparently has been caught, American Muslims are defending Islam by declaring that John Mohammad was "just a bad fundamentalist Muslim, just like there's bad fundamentalist Christians."
___"Fundamentalism" has gotten a bad name since I was converted in one of their tent revivals in 1947. I later attended a fundamentalist seminary before becoming a Southern Baptist. I know many fundamentalists have their dispensations right and their dispositions wrong, but I've never heard of one becoming a suicide bomber or killing innocent people.
E-mail the editor at marvknox@baptiststandard.com
___Everyone who thinks Islam is an honorable religion should read the Koran, all of it. Josh Billings used to say, "When you meet a fact in the middle of the road, you gotta take your hat off to it." Islam is not what it's cracked up to be. And Muslim fundamentalists aren't the same as Christian fundamentalists.
___ Doug Fincher
___ San Augustine
Missions education needed
___The relationship between persons responding to God's call to ministry and their participation in missions education expressed by Toni English (Oct. 21) is right on target.
___As a boy and teenager, I was very involved in Royal Ambassadors. Scriptures learned and insights gained were directly responsible for my hearing and answering God's call to ministry.
___Now, after 51 years as an ordained minister, 20 of those as a faculty member at one of our seminaries, I am deeply grieved to see the neglect, if not the elimination, of missions education in so many churches. I remember the testimony of a seminary student who told the class how she had discerned God's call in a Baptist Young Women's meeting.
___Missions education materials available through Woman's Missionary Union and the North American Mission Board are excellent resources.
___In addition to missions education training, I also had great support from my pastor and staff when I shared my calling.
___ Ferris Jordan
___ Baton Rouge, La.
Editor should be consistent
___Marv Knox's editorial regarding harmony in music styles (Oct. 14) rings a little hollow when you go back to the Sept. 30 issue, where he spews his venom toward the Southern Baptist Convention, simply because he has a bully pulpit and has a personal grudge against them.
___If he is going to be a peacemaker, he should be consistent.
___ Helen Watson
___ Winnie
Convention hijacked
___The editorial on the Southern Baptist Convention drifting away from its moorings (Sept 30) stated so clearly what has occurred during the past several years.
___In the last 25 years, SBC leaders have forsaken so many of the historic principles championed by Baptist heroes across the years, then cursed those who refuse to join their angry campaign.
___I have felt betrayed and rejected because I would not embrace the neo-fundamentalism of the new SBC.
___I would disagree with your editorial in one aspect, however. The SBC has not "drifted." It has been hijacked by a well-trained gang and intentionally steered to a new and strange land.
___In the years ahead, the Baptist General Convention of Texas will be increasingly grateful to have said "no" to this voyage.
___ Larry Payne
___ Amarillo
Other networks needed
___I feel like the Apostle Paul, who could brag about being a Hebrew of the Hebrews. I am in the same sense a Baptist of Baptists. My great grandfather was a Baptist minister, my grandfather was a Texas Baptist pastor, my father is a Texas Baptist pastor (Southwestern Seminary graduate), and my husband (Midwestern Seminary graduate) is a Texas Baptist pastor. I graduated from Howard Payne University.
___I have been a participating member of 20 Baptist churches in Germany, North Carolina, Missouri and Texas. Of course, this did not and does not make me a member of the kingdom of God. Only the Lord's call and my answering that call when I was 8 years old makes me a Christian.
___But if any church, association, state convention, national agency or national convention tells me I can't practice my spiritual gifts in a volunteer or a paid mission position because I do not accept the 2000 Baptist Faith & Message, then there is a need for other mission networks.
___If it happens someday that I am turned away from participation in mission activities, this is creedalism.
___ Robby Shewmake Rather
___ Greenville
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