April 1, 2002
TEXAS BAPTIST FORUM:
Make a difference
___The American Family Association is a Christian organization attempting to change the character of television and other media programming being fed to America.
___The AFA is offering a new way for Christians to respond to the TV networks, stations and sponsors. AFA has initiated Internetwebsites titled onemillionmoms.com and onemilliondads.com. Moms and dads fed up with the trash we're fed daily on TV and other media can register by logging on to those Internet addresses.
E-mail the editor at marvknox@baptiststandard.com
___Once a week, the sites will name a target program or advertisement, along with an explanation of the target's offense. Registrants can send a prepared e-mail or their own comments to the offending party. One million to 2 million complaints delivered weekly to sponsors, TV stations and networks could result in much-needed change.
___Christians can do nothing and see television and other media continue their rapid moral decline, or we can stand up and make a difference.
___ Floyd E. Heard
___ Midland
More alive now
___Many Baptists throughout the United States, especially Texas Baptists, recently experienced a very sad day. Dan McBride, Christian minister/humorist/singer, was laid to rest.
___Over the past 43 years, Dan and Barbara ministered in thousands of churches. They helped our people not take themselves too seriously, but at the same time, they challenged us all to take God's calling on our lives more seriously.
___ I have had the great privilege of being Dan's pastor for the past three and half years, and I can tell you he was so much more than a talented performer. Dan was a genuine Christian minister. His vocal ability, sense of humor, love for people, servant attitude and sincere humility will be sorely missed.
___Dan's legacy of faithfulness to God remains on this earth through his wonderful wife, Barbara, and his five children, Michael, Nathan, Debbie, Becky and Susan, who are also faithfully serving the Lord. Pray for them, and pray that God will raise up others who will serve the Lord as he did.
___Thank God for Dan McBride, and thank God for Jesus Christ, who gives us the absolute assurance that Dan is more alive in heaven today than he ever was on this earth. Heaven will be more heavenly because he is there, and I look forward to laughing with him again.
___ Bruce Webb
___ Jacksonville
God at work
___Tarleton State University has received some PR the past several weeks (Feb. 11, March 11). Allow me to describe what God is doing at TSU through Baptist Student Ministry.
___We just returned from spring break mission trips to Portland, Ore., Seattle, Wash., South Padre Island and Guben, Germany. In fact, TSU students and staff have been involved in mission trips in 22 countries and about a dozen states the past several years. Thousands of dollars have been raised by students, generous churches and associations, and alumni to help students fulfill the Great Commission each year.
___Our Monday missions lunch challenges students each week to live outside their comfort zones. Our free lunch provided by area churches fills the building each week. In fact, a few weeks ago, we had to serve lunch from the front porch to make room for all the tables and chairs!
___Area college students can choose from over a dozen weekly Bible study groups offered through local churches and the BSM. Our intern program offers recent college graduates an opportunity to stay and serve the Lord here at TSU. In fact, our alumni will pay for most of their seminary costs.
___Our weekly worship and Bible study time (led by a guitar-playing communications major) has outgrown several locations. We are now having to lease space in our student center in order to have enough room!
___Yea, God!
___ Darrell Samuelson, BSM director
___ Tarleton State University
___ Stephenville
Heavy heart
___For some time, there has been a growing suspicion on the part of many chaplains that the chaplaincy was not highly valued by the Southern Baptist North American Mission Board.
___Now, with the latest news that NAMB's support is being withdrawn from ordained women chaplains, it becomes clear that it is more than suspicion. It appears to be a concerted effort to dismantle the entire chaplain ministry.
___My heart is heavy in my loss of faith in my own denomination.
___I am, and have been for years, an endorsed chaplain in California. Yet I often wonder, as do many other chaplains, when the "prophets" in Atlanta will receive further revelation to withdraw our endorsement. To lose faith in Christian brothers is a painful experience.
___ Harold F. Green
___ Susanville, Calif.
No safeguards
___Baptists have the creed/confession dialectic backward.
___The ancient creeds united a diverse Christian population in one commonly confessed faith in God the Father, the Lord Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit. They did so not by coercive measures to ensure a particular brand of interpreted orthodoxy triumphed. Rather, they were summary statements of the apostolic faith that allowed variation in interpretation without permitting heresy to step in.
___Confessions, on the other hand, are the various interpretations and expressions given to the Christian faith by particular believers. They are naturally divisive within the church universal, as the fractious history of Protestantism readily testifies.
___Creeds may be enforced by the church because of their universality. Theological confessions of faith may not be because of their particularity.
___Without the creeds, there are no safeguards against heresy within Christ's church. Creeds ensure a common orthodoxy while preserving the healthy diversity within the church that causes us to always be mindful that we stand together in need of grace, that none of us is perfect or righteous having all the correct answers.
___If we all thought alike, where would be the restraint upon our pride? Diversity keeps us humble.
___But if we did not have a creedal limit to our scriptural interpretations, what right would we have as a body of believers to draw any line between orthodoxy and heresy?
___ Kevin T. Holton
___ Waco
Weak, weak, weak
___In 1986, my wife and I wrote (basically signed) our statements of faith in agreement with the Baptist Faith & Message--gladly, I might add.
___It was part of the Foreign Mission Board's appointment process and our appointment to serve Southern Baptists in Zimbabwe.
___If I were on the field today, I'd sign it. Yes, the 2000 edition! From the e-mail I receive, it looks like about 99 percent of my missionary friends have already signed it. Good! I pray every SBC missionary will sign it and get on with the greater task.
___Today, I serve in one of the most desperate mission fields in the world. Most of the natives hold to relativism. Few know Jesus. Many have never been inside a church. Many do not have a Bible in their home--homes that are most often fragmented.
___This mission field is a product of a weak church--smack dab in the middle of what once was the buckle of the Bible belt! Weak churches seem to be a product of weak pulpits. Weak pulpits are a product of weak seminaries. Weak seminaries are a product of a weak convention.
___Praise the Lord, the Southern Baptist Convention has turned around and turned back to take a stand on the word!
___ Elbert F. White
___ Houston
All at stake
___At issue in the Baptist battle is the competency of the soul. It is rooted in the reality that all human beings are created in God's image.
___Soul competency involves the human capacity to respond freely to God within the context of a love relationship. Soul competency, therefore, universally applies to all human beings.
___In short, the individual conscience is sovereign; God will not delegate matters of religion to any human institution or authority. The competency of the soul is then inextricably related to the priesthood of the believer, democratic church polity and the separation of church and state. It also carries very significant implications for the nature of Baptist cooperation, pastoral leadership and religious authority. Logically, they all rise and fall together like a house of cards.
___This battle is "fundamentally" about the competency of the soul, the one and only fundamental Baptist distinctive.
___Everything is at stake here.
___ Don Fawcett
___ Santo
Led astray
___SBC leadership is using the 2000 Baptist Faith & Message as an "instrument of doctrinal accountability."
___Consider what the inspired word of God--2 Timothy 3:16--has to say about any addition to just saying a simple yes or no.
___Jesus says in Matthew 5:33-37 not to swear at all (v. 34). He says, "But let your 'Yes' be 'Yes' and your 'No,' 'No.' For whatever is more than these is from the evil one" (v. 37).
___The 2000 BF&M is a document written by men. International Mission Board President Jerry Rankin, and others, say you must sign a form saying you affirm this document so people who financially support you will know what you really believe.
___James 5:12 says, "But above all, my brethren, do not swear, either by heaven or by earth or with any other oath. But let your 'Yes' be 'Yes' and your 'No,' 'No,' lest you fall into judgement."
___No amount of double talk can change this affirmation statement from an oath.
___Who will you follow? The Apostle Paul says in Colossians 2:8, "Don't let anyone lead you astray with empty philosphy and high-sounding nonsense that come from human thinking and from evil powers of the world, and not from Christ."
___Are you being led astray? Are you being led to sin? I think so. When are SBC members going to reject this "empty philosophy and high-sounding nonsense"? I already have.
___ Larry W. Walker
___ Beaumont
Let them serve
___In the decade before my husband's retirement, we lived overseas and were privileged to host in our home many dedicated missionaries. At oil company compounds in the Muslim countries of Indonesia and Kuwait, we retained our Baptist beliefs but had to set aside denominational differences in order to worship with fellow Christians. The local lay leader or visiting missionary conducted each service in the form he chose.
___Because there was a shortage of people who would speak or even read from a book of sermons, I was asked to lead a service. Even though God laid a message on my heart, I felt bound by Paul's biblical prohibition.
___I asked advice of two SBC missionaries who, in effect, gave me their blessing. They said in their small pastorless church, each person--doctor, nurse or local layman--took turns leading worship.
___One thing I steadfastly refused to do overseas was recite a creed. I am a product of Training Union. I was taught and still believe man-made creeds are displeasing to God, creeds are instruments of division in the body of Christ, and Baptists have been persecuted and even killed for their refusal to affirm creedal statements.
___My refusal to read the Apostles' Creed seems laughable now that the SBC requires written adherence by missionaries to its own man-made statement of faith.
___These are God's called-out people! For the sake of our Savior, can't we just let them serve him?
___ Sue Karcher
___ Rockport
Division lines
___Once again, division lines are drawn in the sand with no thought for reconciliation. I received a letter from David Currie of Texas Baptists Committed inviting all "young ministers" to a conference. I have no problems with the retreat. However, I do have a problem with the next-to-last sentence of his letter: "I am not sending this letter to anyone I know is a fundamentalist. I'm not looking for a 24-hour argument."
___With this type of rhetoric, the hope of a few conservative pastors/churches of the Baptist General Convention of Texas is being greatly diminished. How long will this type of maligning go on before the demise of the BGCT as we know it will come about?
___ M.W. "Skip" Hill II
___ San Angelo
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