Posted: 3/02/07

Baptist Briefs

Hammond recommended as NAMB president. The North American Mission Board’s presidential search committee has recommended Geoffrey Hammond to become the agency’s next president. Hammon is senior associate director of the Souther Baptist Conservatives of Virginia. The NAMB board will vote on the recommendation at its March 20-21 meeting. Hammond, 49, is a graduate of Spurgeon’s Seminary in London and earned a doctor of ministry degree from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary.

Final Arizona defendants sentenced. The five final defendants affiliated with a fraud scandal at the Baptist Foundation of Arizona have been sentenced. Donald Dale Deardoff, former BFA treasurer, received four years in prison and was ordered to pay $150 million in restitution. Sentenced to three years of supervised probation and ordered to pay restitution after accepting plea agreements were Harold Dewayne Friend, a businessman who allegedly participated in fraudulent financial transactions; Jalma W. Hunsinger, director of two BFA subsidiaries; Edgar Alan Kuhn, former president of two BFA subsidiaries; and Richard Lee Rolfes, former owner of a firm that provided accounting services for some BFA subsidiaries. Last September, former BFA President William Crotts and former legal counsel Thomas Grabinski were sentenced to eight and six years, respectively, on fraud and racketeering charges.

Mainstream taps Texans. The Mainstream Baptist Network named four Texans to its Hall of Fame during the network’s annual convocation Feb. 23-24 in Irving. They are Vernon Davis, retired dean of Hardin-Simmons University’s Logsdon School of Theology, and three former Baptist General Convention of Texas presidents—Clyde Glazener, pastor of Gambrell Street Baptist Church in Fort Worth; Ken Hall, president of Buckner International; and Albert Reyes, president of Buckner Children & Family Services. The Mainstream Hall of Fame honors individuals who preserve and strengthen historic Baptist principles.

Tax guide available. Ministers can get help preparing their federal income tax returns from GuideStone Financial Resources’ Ministers Tax Guide for 2006 Returns. The tax guide can be obtained from the GuideStone website, www.GuideStone.org. Printed copies or a CD version can also be obtained by calling (888) 984-8433 between 7 a.m. and 6 p.m. Central time weekdays.

BTSR preaching conference focuses on justice. “Let Justice Roll” is the theme of the Chester Brown, Hampton Baptist Church Preaching and Worship Conference May 21-23 at Baptist Theological Seminary in Richmond, Va. Plenary and worship sessions will explore Christ’s call to minister to “the least of these.” Author/reformer Tony Campolo and folk singer Kate Campbell are featured conference leaders. Registration is $125. For more information or to register, contact BTSR at (804) 204-1220, e-mail pwconf@btsr.edu or visit www.btsr.edu/preaching_worship_conference.html.

Netherton joins Mercer. James Netherton, the embattled president of Carson-Newman College, is resigning from the Baptist-affiliated school to become executive vice president of Mercer University. Netherton, president of Carson-Newman since 2000, was the target of 129-71 “no confidence” vote from the faculty Oct. 4, followed by similar actions by retired faculty and alumni. Previously, he was vice president and chief operating officer at Baylor University and provost at Samford University.

SNAP says ‘sorry’ to SBC. SNAP—the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests and other Clergy—has apologized to Southern Baptist Convention for making false accusations that leaders had not responded to the organization. The apology came after SBC Executive Committee officials produced letters written last year, which explained how the convention handles abuse charges and related issues. “We said the SBC hadn’t replied to us, and we were wrong,” said SNAP Director David Clohessy. “I have no idea how this happened, and I’m terribly, terribly sorry. I’m very upset and embarrassed by this and deeply apologize to the convention for our mistake and for our erroneous comments to the press about the lack of reply.”

LifeWay names Waggoner VP. Brad Waggoner has been elected to the new position of vice president for research and ministry development at LifeWay Christian Resources in Nashville. Tenn. Waggoner has taught at Hardin-Simmons University in Abilene, Wayland Baptist University in Plainview and East Texas Baptist University in Marshall. He also was minister of education and college pastor at Elmcrest Baptist Church in Abilene.

Agee announces retirement from college association. Bob Agee has announced his retirement as executive director of the International Association of Baptist Colleges and Universities, effective at the association’s June 2007 annual meeting or “as soon thereafter as a new executive director can be named.” Agee, 68, was president of Oklahoma Baptist University and also served as executive director of the Consortium for Global Education, a sister organization that promotes partnerships between association members and more than 80 colleges and universities worldwide.

Posted: 3/02/07

2nd Opinion:
Peril of the church on the defensive

By John Pierce

The counterculture approach that Jesus took and taught focused on loving enemies, embracing outcasts and giving second chances to those soundly condemned by the religious establishment. I never thought of Jesus as a culture warrior on the defensive.

However, many modern church leaders—including some high-profile Baptists—seem to relish that role.

The church on the defensive is neither attractive nor effective. It is driven by fear and sees all sorts of sociological and scientific changes—as well as most theological rethinking—as threatening.

The defensive mindset is predicated on an “us-versus-them” perspective that sees those who don’t share their viewpoint on social issues and religious doctrine as enemies needing to be changed or defeated.

In today’s evangelical subculture, we often hear about a “biblical worldview.” Christian Reconstructionist groups such as American Vision—that seeks legislatively to restore “America’s biblical foundation”—use that terminology. Their annual national meetings are called “Worldview Super Conferences.”

Indeed, the fast-moving changes in the modern world—like unprecedented communications, ethnic and religious pluralism, technological advances—can be overwhelming and deserve to be viewed through the lens of Christian reflection. But too many Christian leaders seem overly threatened and too quick to get on the defensive.

A Southern Baptist leader and state convention executive defended taking what some call a negative position by opposing social issues like civil rights for homosexuals.

“I do not believe those of us who hold to a biblical worldview can ignore and white-wash those things that are destructive to our culture and the well-being of people,” he wrote in a newspaper column.

The only problem with such a statement is that not all Christians look through the lens of the biblical revelation and see the same things this leader and other fundamentalists see that put them on the defensive. But, sadly, most people think so, and often we have to explain the difference.

While a good dose of the gospel—that is, good news—is needed in our society, I do not share the same fears that I hear coming from many Christian leaders. Staying in the Christian fort and firing verbal missiles at cultural enemies does not appear particularly helpful in advancing the kingdom of God.

Going outside our ecclesiastical walls and being Christian among those who are not may not be as scary as we sometimes think. It also may be more of what following Jesus is about.

The biggest problems with standing in defense of the status quo is that (1) the changes most often opposed inevitably occur, and (2) the church has often been wrong through the years about what was argued to be the correct biblical viewpoint. That certainly was the case concerning the treatment of Native Americans, African slavery, racial discrimination, women’s rights and more.

We also could go back to all kinds of casualties related to science—from Copernicus and Galileo to more modern battles related to Creation.

It is good when church bodies look back and confess to and repent of their wrong thinking and past actions. It is more constructive, however, to slow down, hear a variety of voices and reach a better—and perhaps new—“biblical viewpoint” at the time the issue is arising.

The alternative to being the church on the defensive is not that we are silent or accommodating of every societal change that comes along.

It is that we act out of love rather than fear that we might lose some of our cultural dominance with every change we encounter.

John Pierce is executive editor of Baptists Today, a national autonomous magazine.

Posted: 3/02/07

DOWN HOME:
What’s better than Wheel O’Meals?

“Where do you want to go for dinner,” Joanna asked.

“I don’t care,” I replied. “Where do you want to go?”

“Doesn’t matter. You pick.”

“No, I picked last time. It’s your turn.”

If my wife and I had a nickel for every time we’ve had this conversation, we could dine at some mighty fine restaurants.

This gastronomical getalong actually began when our girls, Lindsay and Molly, still were home. But with four of us in the mix, including a couple of teenagers, it seemed like somebody had an opinion more often back then.

We didn’t eat out as often, either.

Jo’s a terrific cook and an attentive mother. So, our girls grew up eating plenty of home-cooked meals. The dinner table was our sanctuary, our forum, our theater. My favorite place in the world.

Now, however, the girls are out of the house. Lindsay graduated from Hardin-Simmons University, got married and moved to Florida. Molly’s a sophomore at Baylor University.

Before they left, I speculated that our “empty nest” kitchen would only need a coffee pot, microwave and mini-fridge. Fortunately, Jo still loves to cook, and we’re even remembering recipes we enjoyed in the “old days,” before children’s range of tastes reduced our menu.

But with two jobs and no kids to feed, dinner sometimes becomes more an issue of logistics and timing than dietary demands or cuisine choices.

Which brings us back to our standing “you choose/no, you choose” debate.

I’ve been thinking we need a system to streamline our selections and diminish our dining discussion.

And that’s why I’m thinking about inventing the Wheel O’Meals.

Imagine this: A wooden wheel with about a dozen or 15 pie-shaped sections. Each section would bear the name of a restaurant a short drive from our home. The wheel would have a needle that spins freely until it lands on one of the sections.

Of course, we’d need some groundrules. Each of us could veto one spin. And, upon mutual consent, we would declare a “spin again” if the arrow landed on a restaurant where we’d eaten in, oh, say the past two weeks. Other than that, wherever the arrow lands, that’s where we’ll eat.

As I figure it, the Wheel O’Meals will save time, promote marital harmony and potentitally contribute to a more-balanced diet.

The Wheel O’Meals would help us select from among a range of wonderful options. Jo and I should count our blessings, since we live near scores of excellent places to eat.

And as we dine, we must remember people who don’t have enough to eat. What if each time Texas Baptists ate out, we would set aside a dollar to contribute to the Texas Baptist Offering for World Hunger, which we’re collecting this month?

We could feed millions of hungry people in Jesus’ name.

—Marv Knox

Posted: 3/02/07

EDITORIAL:
Two issues resolved, 3rd straight ahead

The last time we met on this page, we waited to see how the Baptist General Convention of Texas Executive Board meeting Feb. 26-27 would turn out. The board faced three key issues. It deftly resolved two of them, but the third still stands as Texas Baptists’ most crucial challenge:

• Church-starting scandal.

A special oversight group presented a positive report on the convention’s response to misappropriation of church-starting funds in the Rio Grande Valley. Executive Board staff took the lead and, supported in some cases by Executive Board directors and others, moved to implement all seven recommendations offered by outside investigators who uncovered the extent of the scandal. Although some parts of a few recommendations are not completely functional, progress has been solid. (See story, page 2.)

“Vigilance” is the watchword for moving forward in BGCT church-starting. But Texas Baptists can feel confident lessons have been learned, accountability processes are being put in place and we will benefit from a stronger, more reliable church-starting program.

• Convention authority.

Whatever else may be said from the podium of a BGCT annual meeting, messengers never again will hear that the Executive Board has “preempted” their authority. Responding to a ruling like that last year, the board approved a “statement of understanding” that declares: “This board does not intend in any way for its actions prior to an annual meeting to ‘preempt’ the role of messengers. Rather, this board seeks to perform its duties faithfully between annual meetings.” And lest a parliamentarian ever be tempted to rule otherwise, the board also proposed a constitutional amendment that clarifies the point (See story).

• Leadership/future.

Responding to scandal and correcting a parliamentary loophole are easy fixes compared to meeting the conjoined challenge of the convention’s leadership and future.

The previous editorial reported, “Texas Baptists openly speculate about the tenure of Charles Wade, the Executive Board’s executive director.” Many Texas Baptists wish those words weren’t written, and I didn’t enjoy writing them. But denying an open secret doesn’t make it go away, and dysfunction does a disservice to our Texas Baptist family. Some Texas Baptists are upset because the Valley scandal happened on Charles Wade’s watch. Others are frustrated by the pace, order and shape of convention reorganization. Wade is a seasoned pastor, and he understands leading through calamity and change means picking up baggage as well as dealing with people who don’t like how things are done.

Still, the duration of the executive director’s tenure rests with the Executive Board and the executive director himself. The Executive Board’s Executive Committee met with him behind (appropriately) closed doors for slightly more than an hour. When they emerged, nobody discussed retirement or tenure issues.

So, Charles Wade is the executive director until further notice. Many Texas Baptists will continue to speculate regarding his tenure. (A favorite denominational church-parlor game involves two parts—speculating about when leaders will leave and speculating about who will succeed them.) In the meantime, his job is guiding Texas Baptists past a church-starting scandal and a parliamentary tangle and into the future. He’s giving every intention he intends to stay on the job.

That’s an ever-challenging task, because the BGCT’s future is anything but certain.

Like it or not, the BGCT is a denominational behemoth in a post-denominational age. Trend lines are running against denominational structures, especially conventions. Some futurists even see a time when state conventions no longer exist. Many historically loyal churches already act as if state conventions don’t exist.

Still, despite technology, rapid travel, innovation and the strength and flexibility of many churches, the age-old adage remains true: We can do more together than we can do alone.

That’s the reason the Baptist General Convention of Texas has a future. Or perhaps I should say, it can have a future if it envisions that future with creativity, courage, compassion and conviction.

Texas Baptists face some God-sized tasks we can accomplish only if we work together under the power of God.

But that will require crafting a completely different kind of convention. We’ll discuss this in the next edition. Hint: It begins by poking a hole in an old bromide: “The convention exists for the churches.”

Marv Knox is editor of the Baptist Standard.

Posted: 3/02/07

Politics plays role in hunger
elimination, Beckmann says

By Hannah Elliott

Associated Baptist Press

AUSTIN (ABP)—The movement to eradicate hunger and extreme poverty for millions of people around the world is not a lost cause, the president of Bread for the World stressed.

In fact, despite the population explosion, the number of people who are undernourished is slightly lower now than it was in the early 1970s, David Beckmann said. He participated in the Ethics Without Borders conference in Austin, organized by the Baptist General Convention of Texas’ Christian Life Commission.

Hundreds of millions of Chinese have escaped from extreme poverty and hunger in the last decade, and even African countries lacking much economic growth have made rapid progress in terms of child mortality rates and the number of children in school, Beckmann said.

“Based on that experience, the nations of the world in the year 2000 adopted the Millennium Development Goals: By the year 2015, we think it’s possible, and we intend to cut hunger and poverty in half in the world,” he said. “We think it’s possible to get virtually all the kids in the world into primary school, including the girls.”

The United Nations formed eight Millennium Development Goals, which range from halving extreme poverty to halting the spread of HIV/AIDS, to be met by 2015. President Bush has embraced the endeavor, Beckmann said.

A 2006 United Nations report showed some progress on the goal of halving poverty and hunger. In 1990, more than 28 percent of the developing world’s population, or 1.2 billion people, lived in extreme poverty. By 2002, the proportion was 19 percent. In Asia over the same period, the number of people living on less than $1 a day dropped by a quarter of a billion people.

Beckmann, a Lutheran clergyman and economist, said what excites him is the possibility in this century to overcome hunger and poverty.

“Those of us who read the Bible have to recognize this is the Lord God moving in our own time,” he said. “God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ hear the prayers of hungry mothers.”

The gospel is a gospel for the poor, Beckmann said. “And, in fact, the gospel of Jesus Christ is good news to the poor. Always has been. It gives people dignity and hope.”

Unfortunately, much of the poverty in parts of Asia and Africa remained unchanged, the 2006 millennium report noted. In sub-Saharan Africa, for example, the number of people living in extreme poverty increased by 140 million from 1990 to 2002.

More than 850 million people worldwide suffer from chronic hunger, Beckmann said. In the United States alone, more than 35 million people live in households that often run out of food.

Action against such poverty necessarily in-cludes political means, Beckmann said. If Chris-tians are serious about eradicating hunger, part of that action should be through implementing policies and changing laws that “keep people poor.”

He suggested extending the food-stamps program and providing debt reduction for the world’s poorest countries as preliminary measures to that effect. Twenty-five million people in the United States use food stamps every month, he said.

On Feb. 14, the Senate approved $463.5 billion to cover all domestic and foreign-aid spending for the fiscal year 2007. Poverty-focused assistance alone received a $1.4 billion increase over the amount of money dedicated to it in 2006.

Jose Antonio Ocampo, U.N. under-secretary-general for economic and social affairs, said the participation of developed countries in enhancing debt relief has lent some hope to those in need.

“The data … suggest that providing every child with a primary-school education is within our grasp,” he wrote in the 2006 update.

“The handful of countries in sub-Saharan Africa that are successfully lowering HIV infection rates and expanding treatment demonstrate that the war against AIDS can be won. Step by step, we see that women are gaining in political participation that will one day result in their full equal rights.”

Beckman likewise said poverty and hunger are intertwined with other topics discussed at the ethics conference, especially HIV/AIDS and U.S. relations with governments in the Middle East.

“Our relationships with the Muslim world would clearly be improved if we were more serious as a nation about trying to overcome poverty and hunger,” Beckmann said. “There’s a lot of poverty and hunger in even fairly healthy nations in the Middle East.”

Posted: 3/02/07

‘Clash of civilizations’ view
too simplistic, expert says

By Hannah Elliott

Associated Baptist Press

AUSTIN (ABP)—The “clash of civilizations” view of Muslim and Christian conflict only prolongs problems and encourages dangerous forms of fundamentalism, a prominent scholar told participants at the Ethics Without Borders conference.

Charles Kimball, who has visited the Middle East 40 times and worked closely with Congress, the White House and the State Department, spoke at the event, organized by the Baptist General Convention of Texas’ Christian Life Commission.

A professor of religion at Wake Forest University, Kimball called the clash of civilizations framework “an extremely unhelpful one” for people in the United States, most of whom know very little about Islam.

“I think it’s important to see in this kind of us-versus-them mentality the very deep Islamic bias that’s at work,” Kimball said.

“They advance a simplistic image that Islam is anti-Western, anti-us. The premise here is that Islam never modernized, never separated between church and state. That Islam is somehow incapable of differentiating between civilizations. That is simply untrue.”

The term “clash of civilizations” was first popularized in a 1993 Foreign Affairs article by Samuel Huntington. In the essay, Huntington said world politics is entering a new phase in which the fundamental source of conflict will be cultural, not ideological or economic.

“Nation-states will remain the most powerful actors in world affairs, but the principal conflicts of global politics will occur between nations and groups of different civilizations,” Huntington wrote. “The clash of civilizations will dominate global politics. The fault lines between civilizations will be the battle lines of the future.”

Islam was “the brilliant civilization that led the world” through much of history, Kimball said. Historians have said Western civilization was influenced by the Arab world and Islam in areas of philosophy, astronomy, mathematics, architecture and the university system.

Muslim scholars led the way in academic and scientific fronts well before their Western counterparts caught up, so to neatly divide the modern conflict into a clash of two different civilizations is much too simplistic, Kimball cautioned.

“This is not an anti-intellectual tradition,” he said. “It’s one that has been historically flexible and open. There are so many ways that we are interconnected historically with Islam that throws this premise on its ear.”

There are 10 times as many Muslims in Indonesia as Southern Baptists in the whole world and twice as many Muslims in China as Southern Baptists in the whole world, Kimbell noted. What’s more, the United States is home to more Muslim Americans than to Presbyterians or Episcopalians.

Christianity and Islam are the two largest religious traditions in the world, encompassing more than 45 percent of the world’s population. Indonesia has the most Muslims of any country.

Mohamed Elibiary, president of the Dallas-based Freedom and Justice Foundation, said in a response to Kimball’s presentation that while Islam is a varied religion, most American Muslims felt the same in the days and months after 9/11.

It was an “educational” time for them, he said, because it helped Muslim Americans “get to know our neighbors a little bit better.”

“The Jerry Falwells of the world, yeah, they ticked us off quite a bit,” Elibiary said. “All of us wanted to stand up to the bully. And we felt we were bullied. This isn’t much different than much of us feel around the world.”

And while not all Muslims agree on all aspects of Islamic theology, most have a general consensus on how to interpret holy scriptures and the teachings of the prophets, he said.

Those beliefs have traveled a long and difficult road with Christianity through the centuries, Kimball said. Like Christianity, Islam is a revolutionary monotheism.

Both religions “are talking about the same God,” he said. “There is really not much ambiguity about this. ‘Allah’ is simply the Arabic word for God.

“There is no God but God. That’s the fundamental beginning point” of Islam, Kimball said. “The name for God in Islam, in Arabic, is ‘Allah.’ This is not another god. This is the God. It’s the same God that Jews and Christians are talking about.”

Muslims and Christians simply understand God differently, Kimball said. He compared it to the way Christians often disagree even within their own denominations about certain beliefs.

Both Elibiary and Kimball stressed that at the center of the struggle to overcome a simplified view of Islam is a lack of education. That lack reinforces the depth of ignorance that feeds upon and builds “all kinds of fear in our country,” Kimball said. “Decision-makers don’t know the first thing about what they pontificate on television.”

Iran should not be confused with Afghanistan, and Lebanon should not be confused with Libya, any more than Greece with Great Britain or Sweden with Switzerland, he said.

“The importance here for us in terms of education is the willingness …,” he said. “We have to be willing to work much harder in what I call the dense thicket of particulars and quit talking in these generic terms.”

Elibiary agreed. “The fear of every minority is the majority being in hysteria,” he said.

Posted: 3/02/07

Networked church key
to ministering in 21st century

By John Hall

Texas Baptist Communications

AUSTIN—A “networked” church is poised for ministry in the 21st century, Anna Robbins of the London School of Theology claimed.

The world is being stretched by the simultaneous emphasis on context and culture as well as belief in a worldwide bond, Robbins said.

People are connecting with people on the other side of the globe, but they also understand that, much closer to home, the culture in which a person lives shapes that individual’s life, she explained.

“On the one hand, the world is growing more and more connected, more and more homogeneous. On the other hand, the world seems to be fragmenting through a recognition of difference, a plurality, a significance of context and culture,” she said during the Ethics Without Borders conference sponsored by the Baptist General Convention of Texas’ Christian Life Commission.

Understanding or balancing the paradox between connectedness and fragmentation is becoming increasingly complex, she said.

“It’s no longer true that what must be done is evident to all, even if how it ought to be done has always been more complex,” she lamented. “We even wonder sometimes if we’re speaking the same language across diverse contexts, let alone employing the same concepts or engaging the same rationality. We’re more and more the same, yet more and more wanting to stress our difference.”

The church is built upon the notion of Christians with a common belief in Christ working together, making it an international network, Robbins said.

“We say, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and that overcomes all of our contexts,” she explained. “That overcomes all of our pluralities, and it’s not just words. It’s a reality. If Jesus Christ is who he is, he is Lord of all people at all time. We are one people, no matter where we find ourselves.”

While the church may be built upon the notion of being a network, the connections must be developed further for it to serve as effectively as possible, Robbins said.

The lives of people within the network must impact the lives of other individuals within it, she illustrated. The plight of one group of Christians needs to affect the actions of another group.

“What difference does it matter for my church community that this church community doesn’t know if they’re going to be allowed to gather to worship tomorrow?” she asked. “What does it mean when I get together with my friends Sunday that a community that I have a contact with has nothing to eat tomorrow?

“These things have to have mutually life-changing consequences. A network can do that, but only if we take more responsibility for it.”

Posted: 3/02/07

Development key in Texas Baptist
fight against world hunger

By John Hall

Texas Baptist Communications

The Texas Baptist Offering for World Hunger feeds people today, tomorrow and long into the future.

Funds given through the offering are used to purchase food for starving families around the world, but more than of half of the donated money is used to empower people to support themselves.

This approach is crucial in helping people breaking the cycle of poverty and hunger, stressed Joe Haag, who coordinates the offering for the Texas Baptist Christian Life Commission.

A ministry method that meets people at all their points of need is more likely to alter individual behavior and lead to a self-supporting lifestyle than simply a handout, he said.

To this end, the offering supports English-as-a-second-language classes, job-training efforts and starting small businesses that enable people to earn a living and support their families.

“We are saving lives through this ministry,” Haag said. “All these ministries are through Baptist channels, and they’re holistic ministries.

“In feeding hungry people and helping them to escape poverty, we show them that God loves them. There is no more powerful witness for Christ than standing with people who have run out of hope and insisting through word and deed that God is their hope.”

This year, the Texas Baptist Offering for World Hunger emphasis will be held in March for the first time, but Texas Baptists can give to the offering year-around.

One of the ministries the offering supports is proVision Asia, which ministers to the physically challenged in Bangalore, India. These people are considered untouchable by society, but proVision Asia helped find 80 jobs for them last year, allowing them to support themselves and put food on their tables.

“Our target market is the physically challenged—the very poor and disabled community that are the untouchables,” said proVision Asia’s Jean Kingery. 

“Mahatma Gandhi called these people ‘children of God.’ God has called proVision Asia to touch the lives that are literally thrown aside in a dominant Hindu society, where the main belief ties ‘bad karma’ with the infirmity.”

The offering also funds hunger ministries in Texas.

Union Baptist Association distributes World Hunger Offering funds to nine sites in the Houston area, feeding about 5,000 people a month. Those ministries report about 30 professions of faith in Christ each month as a result of their outreach.

Sally Hinzie, the association’s missionary to the city, said World Hunger Offering funds enable churches to provide a larger ministry than they can support by themselves.

“Most (recipients) have strategies where they do get help from their local church, but it’s not enough. Their church cannot provide enough food for the people that are coming,” she said.

“We’re in an urban area, and the distance between poverty and middle class and upper class—the gap is growing daily. We have many hungry people in the city. That’s the bad news. And many of them are working poor.”

Haag said this is exactly what the leaders of the World Hunger Offering are trying to do—expand hunger ministries around the world. This year’s offering goal is $750,000, but it supports ministry that is worth much more.

“We try to serve and improve the lives that are given us,” he said. “That’s just a small part of the larger need, but we try to do what we can.”

Posted: 3/02/07

Christian Churches Together
seeks united front against poverty

PASADENA, Calif. (ABP)—Leaders from 36 Christian bodies and religious organizations have issued a joint statement addressing domestic poverty and urging constituents to alleviate the problem as part of their Christian duty.

“As Christian leaders in the wealthiest society on earth, we are called by God to urge our churches and nation to strengthen and expand efforts to address the scandal of widespread poverty in the United States and around the world,” the statement said. “The gospel and our ethical principles place our service of the poor and vulnerable and our work for justice at the center of Christian life and witness.”

Leaders convened at a meeting organized by Christian Churches Together, a loose coalition begun in 2001 to unify the “diverse expressions of Christian faith today.” It includes representatives from evangelical, Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Pentecostal and Protestant congregations.

Leonid Kishkovsky of the Orthodox Church of America said the annual gathering is “good news” for American Christians.

“Our gathering of the wider spectrum of U.S. Christian churches is succeeding in building mutual trust and overcoming stereotypes,” he said. “Our common hope and expectation is that CCT will enable our churches to offer a strong and united Christian moral voice and vision in the public square.”

With others like Archbishop Hovnan Derderian of the Armenian Orthodox Center in Los Angeles, William Shaw of the National Baptist Convention, USA, and Wesley Granberg-Michaelson of the Reformed Church in America, Kishkovsky emphasized the group has no partisan political agenda and wants instead to “create proposals that transcend divisive political divisions.”

“As leaders in Christian Churches Together, we believe that a renewed commitment to overcome poverty is central to the mission of the church and essential to our unity in Christ,” group leaders wrote.

“Therefore, in order to obey our God, respect the dignity of every person, and promote the common good of society, we must act. Our focus here is domestic poverty, but we reaffirm our commitment to overcome poverty all around the world.”

Their statement listed four main ways to eradicate poverty—strengthen families and communities, reduce child poverty, provide access to good education and ensure that full-time work offers a “realistic escape” from poverty.

Roughly 37 million people in the United States alone live below the poverty line. Eighteen percent of all U.S. children live in poverty.

Daniel Vestal, national coordinator for the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, called the event “the broadest ecumenical experiment ever attempted in this country.”

“It represents a desire for Christian unity that doesn’t compromise the integrity of any of the participating bodies but creates a way for us as Christians to draw closer to one another in Christ and explore ways for us to share a common witness to the nation,” he said.

The 16-million-member Southern Baptist Convention declined to participate in the coalition. But participating groups represent denominations or coalitions of churches with more than 100 million members, according to the organization.

Posted: 3/02/07

Human trafficking—exotic and close to home

By John Hall

Texas Baptist Communications

AUSTIN—Lauran Bethell likes dark streets and late nights. She loves prostitutes.

She’s a self-described “missionary who hangs out in red-light districts.”

Bethell, an American Baptist Churches missionary, and students from the International Baptist Theological Seminary walk the streets of Prague, Czech Republic, greeting prostitutes with carnations and a simple message—someone cares about you.

The greeting usually builds into a relationship between Bethell, the students and the prostitutes. They begin to recognize each other and develop a friendship. Bethell and the students started having coffee with some of the prostitutes in local bars.

The missionary discovered many of the prostitutes are Bulgarian gypsies. Some of them were trafficked into the country and forced into prostitution. Most of them asked Bethell and the students to pray for them, a request they gladly accepted.

“The focus of our work, the work we have felt most profoundly called to, is to pray with and to pray for,” she said during the Ethics Without Borders conference, organized by the Baptist General Convention of Texas’ Christian Life Commission.

Human trafficking happens in all nations, Bethell said. As many as 17,000 people—mostly women and girls—are trafficked into the United States each year. They travel primarily through Texas, California and New York.

Baptist General Convention of Texas-endorsed Chaplain Bruce Peterson of Alvin told conference participants human trafficking is an issue Texas Baptists must deal with, because it happens in their backyards. Trafficked individuals work in the food-service industry, bars and strip clubs. Some of them work as prostitutes.

Messengers to the 2006 BGCT annual meeting passed a resolution decrying human trafficking and calling upon Texas Baptists to minister to trafficked individuals at their point of need.

Peterson asked Texas Baptists to follow up on the resolution by looking for people near them who have been trafficked. Ministering to these individuals impacts a local Texas community, but it also touches victims’ families around the world.

“We’re without borders when it comes to this issue, and we need to live that way,” he said.

Bethell concurred human trafficking is a large issue.

When she first encountered the people who are modern-day slaves, she didn’t know what to do. She didn’t think she could affect such a large problem.

But Christians can fight it with little actions, she added. The prayer and relationships Bethell and the students have offered are evidence that strategy makes a difference.

Many of the prostitutes Bethell and the students met and befriended have stopped walking the streets. The first bar where students were having coffee with the prostitutes was raided and later shut down. The second also shut down. Both have been replaced by other businesses.

“My ‘not enough’ and the ‘not enough’ of so many people … were being multiplied way beyond anything we could have imagined,” said Bethell, who received the 2005 Baptist World Alliance Human Rights Award.

“Our God is not the God of not enough, but the God of the multiplication of loaves and fishes.”

Posted: 3/02/07

Faith Digest

No pope for Anglicans. An Anglican-Catholic commission has warned that doctrinal disputes within the Anglican Communion are an obstacle to unity between the two churches. An upcoming report by the International Anglican-Roman Catholic Commission for Unity and Mission lays out areas of doctrinal agreement and disagreement between the two churches and outlines ways to continue ecumenical dialogue. But contrary to rumors, officials said, the report does not propose a plan for Anglicans to unite under the pope. “Talk of plans to reunite the two communions is, sadly, much exaggerated,” the commission said. The “present context” of Anglican dispute would make it premature to issue a formal Anglican-Catholic statement of shared beliefs, which was the goal set by Anglican and Catholic bishops who launched the commission in 2000.

Beliefnet names ‘most influential black spiritual leaders.’ Two Texas pastors—T.D. Jakes of the Potter’s House in Dallas and Kirbyjohn Caldwell of Windsor Village United Methodist Church in Houston—have been listed among the 17 “most influential black spiritual leaders” by Beliefnet, an interfaith website. “Whether inspiring their congregations to stand up against social injustice or urging a focus on God-centered family values, African-American religious leaders are a crucial component of a rich and diverse spiritual landscape,” the Beliefnet editors wrote in their introduction to the list. Others on the list include William Shaw, president of the National Baptist Convention, USA, and Gardner Taylor, senior pastor emeritus of Concord Baptist Church of Christ in Brooklyn, N.Y.

Catholic parochial schools take dip. The glory days of the U.S. Catholic parochial school are gone, according to a new University of Notre Dame report. Enrollment in the nation’s 7,800 elementary and secondary Catholic schools is now about 2.4 million, after peaking near 5 million in the mid-1960s. Recent school closures wiped out the modest enrollment increases of the 1990s. The nuns and priests who educated generations of American Catholics are almost gone, retired or deceased. Collections and Mass attendance are down. Faculty salaries are too low, while tuitions and costs are rising, the report noted. Internal and external trends are responsible for the declines, including demographic shifts, the “changing role of religion in the lives of American Catholics” and an increase in other educational options. Moreover, only 3 percent of Latino families send their children to Catholic schools, despite the nation’s rising Hispanic Catholic population.

Canadians most tolerant toward Muslims. Canadians have the most tolerant attitudes toward Muslims among citizens of 23 Western countries, according to a new international study that measured levels of fear of Islam in each nation. More than 32,000 respondents from 19 European countries, plus Canada, the United States, Australia and New Zealand, were asked the question: “Would you like to have a person from this group as your neighbor?” Of nearly 2,000 people surveyed in Canada, only 6.5 percent said they would not like to live beside a Muslim. Respondents in Greece (20.9 percent), Belgium (19.8), Norway (19.3) and Finland (18.9) were most likely to answer “No” to the question. Results in the United States and Britain were 10.9 and 14.1 percent, respectively. The average percentage of negative responses in all Western countries was 14.5 percent. The study, called “Love Thy Neighbor,” was co-written by economists Vani Borooah of the University of Ulster in Northern Ireland and John Mangan of the University of Queensland in Australia.

Posted: 3/02/07

Author seeks to connect the
dots between sex and God

By Charles Honey

Grand Rapids Press

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (RNS)—About halfway through his new book, Sex God, Rob Bell recalls a scene of exquisite torture at a middle-school dance.

He was 12, lined up with all the boys on one side of the cafeteria, while all the girls were lined up on the other. Then he worked up the guts to “bravely venture across this massive chasm” and ask a girl to dance.

Her response? “She burst into tears and ran into the girls’ bathroom, where she spent the rest of the evening,” Bell recalls.

The anecdote is more than a funny and familiar peek into the adolescence of the pastor, author and leader of the Emergent Church movement. In typically elliptical fashion, Bell links this bit of hormonal humiliation to God’s yearning for love from humans.

Like the girl at the dance, people have the choice to say no to God, writes Bell, pastor of Mars Hill Bible Church in Grandville, Mich.

With references to the Song of Solomon and corny country ballads, Bell relates the vulnerable risk of love to God’s heartbreak when people turn their backs on him.

“In matters of love, it’s as if God has agreed to play by the same rules we do,” Bell notes.

In his second book, published by Zondervan and due in stores this month, Bell says sexuality is really about spirituality—a powerful human urge to connect with each other and with God.

“Sex. God. They’re connected,” Bell writes. “Where the one is, you will always find the other.”

It’s an argument likely to find an eager readership. Between the 11,000 worshippers who attend Mars Hill, more than 2 million viewers who have seen his NOOMA series of short videos and more than 200,000 copies sold of his 2005 book, Velvet Elvis, Bell has built up a national following.

A book on sex was a natural extension of his ministry, Bell said. When he’s preached on the topic at Mars Hill, people always thank him and ask for more.

“You can’t live in this world and deal with all the issues without bumping into spirituality and sexuality. It’s everywhere,” Bell said. Besides, he asks with a laugh, “Is there anything more interesting?”

Publisher’s Weekly found the book plenty interesting, in a starred review awarded to only one of about every eight books it reviews.

“Sex God is about relationships revealed in a way that elevates the human condition and offers hope to those whose relationships are wounded,” the review says. “This book joyfully ties, and then tightens, the knot between God and humankind.”

The tie is implicit in the title, which Bell playfully says “has lots of room for interpretation.” Does it just mean sex and God? Or sex is our god? Sex is like God? Bell leaves it up to readers.

“A lot of people are looking for God in sex,” he said.

He traces the idea in his 200-page book, subtitled “Exploring the endless connections between sexuality and spirituality.”

Sex God is bound to raise eyebrows. But readers will find more scriptural teaching than sex manual in its spare, often witty prose.

“Our sexuality is all of the ways we strive to reconnect with our world, with each other and with God,” Bell writes.

He compares the sexual experience with the sense of oneness people experience at rock concerts, church services or justice rallies. They are moments “God created us to experience all of the time. It’s our natural state. It’s how things are supposed to be,” he says in his book.

That sense of connection to something greater than oneself is the spiritual state people seek in sex, Bell asserts. It’s a desire to restore the harmony people felt with each other, the earth and their creator when God first made people, he says.

Bell calls it “God’s dream for the world.”

In fact, you don’t necessarily need to have sex in order to be sexual, Bell insists. He writes about a celibate friend who focuses his sexual energy on helping the oppressed, adding, “Some of the most sexual people I know are celibate.”

He presents sex as a powerful human urge that should neither be denied as an unclean thing, nor enslave people as lust and addiction.

And in startlingly graphic imagery, he compares the objectification of women in U.S. culture to the dehumanization of Jews in concentration camps.

Asked if the comparison is extreme, Bell shoots back, “Have you see any beer commercials lately?

“Think of the large-scale dehumanizing of women through ads, but nobody ever says this is insane. I think (the culture) is the water people are swimming in, and you have to drag them out of the water onto the beach.”

He does not harp on abstinence programs as a cure for teens’ sex problems. But he criticizes those who mock them as unrealistic, writing, “Who decided that kids—or anybody else for that matter—are unable to abstain?”

Bell also does not touch on homosexuality because, he says, it’s too big and volatile a subject for this book.

“The church has significant work to do in the area of homosexuality,” he said. “That’s another book for another time.”