Posted: 10/28/05

Narnia author's stepson
describes the real C.S. Lewis

By Sarah Price Brown

Religion News Service

LOS ANGELES (RNS)–When 8-year-old Douglas Gresham met C.S. Lewis, the man who would become his stepfather, he was disappointed.

The American boy had expected the British author of The Chronicles of Narnia fantasy books "to be wearing silver armor and carrying a sword with a jeweled pommel."

Douglas Gresham

Instead, Lewis “was a stooped, balding, professorial-looking gentleman in shabby clothes, with long, nicotine-stained fingers,” said Gresham, now 59.

More than 40 years after Lewis' death, people still have their own ideas about him. Depending on whom you ask, Lewis was a scholar, fantasy writer, Christian saint–or all that and more.

As Disney prepares to release its much-anticipated movie version of The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe Dec. 9, more people than ever are asking: Who was C.S. Lewis? And what is his legacy?

To many, Lewis is an icon of orthodox Christianity. Despite growing up believing there was no God, Lewis turned to Christianity as an adult.

He then dedicated himself to promoting the faith and did so, his admirers say, using simple language and logical reasoning anyone could understand.

Lewis' Christian devotees find meaning in his religious works such as Mere Christianity, a collection of radio addresses Lewis gave in the early 1940s that explains the common beliefs among Christians of different denominations.

Christians also see symbolism in Lewis' children's books. For instance, Aslan–the great lion in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe who sacrifices himself for a human sinner and ultimately is resurrected–represents Jesus Christ.

In some evangelical circles, Lewis is revered. On the 100th anniversary of Lewis' birth, the evangelical magazine Christianity Today published a piece calling Lewis “our patron saint” and citing a poll in which the magazine's readers chose Lewis as the most influential writer in their lives.

“It is a bit of a paradox that C.S. Lewis, an Anglican, has emerged as a virtual 'saint' among American evangelicals,” said Mark Sargent, provost of Gordon College, a Christian school in Wenham, Mass. “But it was Lewis, more than any other author, who rekindled the life of the imagination within the evangelical community.”

Gresham, who became Lewis' stepson when his mother, Joy Davidman, married the professor, cautioned against any such interpretation of his stepfather.

“If you want to remember him, remember him as a man with all the foibles and difficulties and dark times in his life that men have … not as some kind of plaster saint,” said Gresham, whose book about Lewis, Jack's Life, was released Oct. 1. “He was a man of great humor, great warmth. He was a fun bloke to be around.”

Nobody is saying Lewis was perfect, said Bruce Edwards, evangelical author of the new book Further Up & Further In about the spiritual messages in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.

“Is there hero-worship involved in how people admire Lewis?” Edwards asked. “Sure.”

But Edwards warned against linking evangelicals' admiration for Lewis to a naivete about the world.

“It's a convenient caricature to say, 'Oh, they've got their Bibles, and they've got C.S. Lewis' Mere Christianity, and they've got Narnia, and they don't need to look outside their window anymore,” Edwards said. “I've never met anybody like that, who has such an ostrichlike view of the world.”

Hero-worship of Lewis is not isolated to evangelicals.

“He's very popular among people who keep the old faith, and not so popular among the modernists,” said Richard Purthill, Catholic author of the book, C.S. Lewis' Case for the Christian Faith. Purthill praised Lewis as a Christian apologist, one who gave people a rational basis for believing in Christianity.

Stan Mattson, president of the C.S. Lewis Foundation in Redlands, Calif., which encourages Christians to openly participate in scholarship and the arts, said the group chose Lewis as its mentor because Lewis was a respected scholar who “was not prepared to check his faith at the door.”

Describing himself as a “mere Christian,” Mattson said he, like Lewis, belonged to the wider world of Christianity.

Lewis “wouldn't be comfortable, really, being co-opted by any one group,” said Mark Tauber, vice president and deputy publisher of HarperSanFrancisco, the division of HarperCollins that publishes Lewis' nonfiction books.

Tauber said he continually was surprised by the broad appeal of Lewis, who wrote more than 30 books. Recently, Tauber received a call from a Mormon leader who mentioned that religious school teachers were using Mere Christianity in the classroom. “We had no idea that the Mormons were into Lewis,” Tauber said.

For Gresham, all this talk about his stepfather and his legacy is misplaced.

“People should not be trying to remember C.S. Lewis at all,” Gresham said. “They should be trying to remember the Jesus Christ whom he represented and whom he preached.”

Posted: 10/28/05

Narnia offers churches
outreach opportunities

By George Henson

Staff Writer

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe is a 20th century children's classic read and enjoyed by Christians and non-Christians alike. It has been translated into 40 languages and sells more than 6 million copies each year.

For that reason, some Christians believe the Dec. 9 movie retelling the C.S. Lewis story may be an even better film for churches to promote than 2004's The Passion of the Christ.

Because forgiveness and the sacrificial death and resurrection of Aslan the Lion are such key components of the story, it opens the way for dialogue, said Jarvis Ward, national facilitator of city and community ministries for the Mission America Coalition, an interdenominational group that wants to share the gospel of Christ with every person in America. “This gives people the chance to share the story within a story,” Ward said.

The popularity of feature-length films is such that the church must find a way to employ the medium, said Doug Gresham, co-producer of the film and stepson of Lewis. “I think that it is extremely important that this medium–cinema–be put to proper uses and this film is an example of how it can be done,” he said.

A variety of materials are being made available to churches for promotion of the film. The website www.narniaresources.com offers posters, mini-posters, bulletin inserts, door hangers, a resource DVD that includes clips and behind-the-scenes information, and a kit with materials for adult leaders. An event guide gives instructions on how to produce a Narnia event that includes coloring pages and lessons plans. Most materials are available only for the cost of shipping and handling.

Another website, www.outreach.com, offers a number of customizable pieces that allow churches to include information about themselves. Costs of these materials are available on the website.

Posted: 10/28/05

New books explore Lewis mystique

By Ann Byle

Religion News Service

WASHINGTON (RNS)–When The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe was published in 1950, it was impossible to conceive the influence this story, written by a childless Oxford professor, would have on generations of readers.

Anticipating the Dec. 9 film release of Disney's The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, publishers are releasing scores of books tapping into the mystique of Narnia and its creator, C.S. Lewis.

One is by Lewis scholar Peter J. Schakel of Michigan-based Hope College, whose The Way Into Narnia: A Reader's Guide, recently was released by Eerdmans Publishing Co. Schakel offers readers a brief look at Lewis' life, as well as themes and meanings for each of the Chronicles. He also provides explanatory annotations for each book.

“I very deliberately aimed for general readers,” said Schakel, whose two other books on the subject targeted academic audiences.

"My hope is that the book will enrich and enhance and enlarge the experience of reading the Chronicles of Narnia."

Christian readers long have suggested the tales are a biblical allegory.

Schakel, the Peter C. and Emajean Cook Professor of English at Hope–in Holland, Mich.–said the Chronicles are fascinating stories that take readers into other worlds and carry significant spiritual meaning.

"Lewis was a deeply Christian man," Schakel said. "He wrote a lot of Christian nonfiction works, but I think his primary reason for writing the Chronicles was to write a story.

“He would never have wanted to sacrifice the story for a religious effect. His argument was that Christians ought to be the best at whatever they do, which would then give opportunity to witness to what Christianity is and can be, but he had to write good fiction first.”

Schakel readily acknowledges the similarities between Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien, a friend of Lewis and author of The Lord of the Rings. Both Narnia and Tolkien's Middle Earth have changed our culture, Schakel said.

“These two popularized the idea of going into other worlds,” he said. “They expanded readers' appetites for it enormously and, in that sense, made the book world and the film world what it is today.”

Schakel is excited about the new film because it will introduce Lewis to a new group of fans and bring people back to the books.

"When I start to see plush Aslans and Narnia lunch boxes and Happy Meal toys, I think I'll cringe," he said.

Posted: 10/28/05

N.C. Baptists make sharp right turn

By Greg Warner

Associated Baptist Press

WAKE FOREST, N.C. (ABP)– North Carolina Baptists' hard right turn clearly appears to be picking up steam.

As recently as two years ago, control of the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina, once a moderate stronghold, was in doubt. But after losing a string of elections, most moderate Baptists have tired of defending the denominational battleground.

Meanwhile, emboldened fundamentalists have made several moves recently to flex their newfound muscle:

Impatient with a search process that could take 16 months to hire a new executive director, ultra-conservatives are moving to replace the convention's interim director with one clearly identified with their movement.

A new proposal would further tighten membership restrictions to exclude churches that accept gays as members or support organizations that condone homosexual behavior, creating perhaps the most specific ban of gay-friendly churches in Southern Baptist life.

Another proposal in the works would stop the convention from counting money churches send to support the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship as Cooperative Program giving. And a more drastic approach to do away with all four of the convention's alternative giving plans–returning to a traditional SBC-only budget–also is being proposed.

In July, nominees to trustee positions in the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina were rejected because they are members of churches affiliated with the Alliance of Baptists, a national organization conservatives say has a “pro-homosexual stance.”

Fundamentalists rejected several candidates for the board of the Biblical Recorder, the convention's newspaper, and replaced them with hard-liners. The nominating committee's chairman said the newspaper was singled out because it needs to become “more conservative.”

Anticipating even more contentious times ahead, the five colleges and universities that relate to the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina recently asked the convention for a formal study of its legal relationships with the schools. Such a study could lead to severing ties between the convention and some of the schools–Campbell University, Chowan College, Gardner-Webb University, Mars Hill College and Wingate University.

North Carolina Baptists of all stripes are pointing to the annual convention meeting Nov. 14-16, which will vote on many of the conservatives' proposals, as a pivotal event. But while that prospect motivated moderates to action in years past, it has generated more resignation than talk of revolution.

Moderates are not even fielding a candidate for convention president this year. Conservative Stan Welch, pastor of Blackwelder Park Baptist Church in Kannapolis, is the only candidate to emerge so far.

Already, conservatives are acting to counter any apathy that might arise among their followers because of the moderate concession.

“The fight's not over,” Bill Sanderson, president of Conserva-tive Carolina Baptists, told a rally at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary Oct. 20, one of three scheduled across the state. “We can't say we don't need to be at the convention this year.”

Greg Mathis, a former convention president and a current member of the budget committee, told the group the practice of counting CBF money that is channeled through the North Carolina budget as Cooperative Program funding is a top complaint among conservatives.

But Mathis urged attendees to support the modest CBF-related budget change rather than do away with all four alternative budgets–which would leave the convention with a single plan that sends 35 percent of church contributions to the SBC. Such a surgical, precise approach to the budget is preferable to the “chainsaw approach,” because doing away with all four plans might have unintended consequences, he said.

Posted: 10/28/05

On the Move

Franklin Atkinson to Port Caddo Church in Marshall as intentional interim pastor.

Bruce Barber to First Church in Roanoke as pastor.

Al Camp has resigned as business administrator at Grace Temple in Denton.

Cindy Combs to First Church in Amarillo as interim children's minister.

Bob Craig has completed an interim pastorate at Calvary Church in Brenham.

Matt Cumnow to Oaklawn Church in Bellmead as minister of youth.

John Curry has resigned as pastor of First Church in Blackwell. He is available for supply and revivals at (432) 923-2163.

Shelby Deatherage to Southeast Church in Amarillo as minister of music.

Marvin Denison has resigned as pastor at First Church in Cumby.

Ken Dowdy has resigned as associate pastor at First Church in Lexington.

Melinda Fotenot has resigned as minister of music at Central Church in Thornton.

Michael Goodman to East Texas Baptist University as Baptist Student Ministry director.

J.D. Graham to Silver Lake Church in Mineola as pastor, where he had been interim.

Johnny Griffin to First Church in Washburn as pastor.

Bryan Houser to Amarillo Area Association as missions coordinator from Shiloh Terrace Church in Dallas, where he was minister of missions.

Nanette Johnson has resigned as children's minister at First Church in Waxahachie.

James Jackson Jr. to Field Street Church in Cleburne as minister of community ministries.

Jeremy Johnston to Preston Highlands Church in Dallas as pastor from Builders Church in Merkel.

Codi Knowles to First Church in Denton as international ministry coordinator.

Chad Lewis to Williams Creek Church in Axtell as interim pastor.

Dusty Maxwell as resigned as minister of youth and children at Central Church in Thornton.

Henry McBrayer to Friendship Church in Cleburne as pastor, where he had been interim.

Dean Meade to Calvary Church in Brenham as pastor.

Daryl Mize to Southside Church in Franklin as pastor.

Billy Neal to First Church in Bells as pastor.

Tim Newton has resigned at First Church in Denton as youth ministry assistant.

Andrew Null to First Church in Ponder as student minister.

B.J. Ramon to Amarillo College as Baptist Student Ministries director.

Rob Ramsey has resigned as youth minister at East Sherman Church in Sherman.

Matt Reynolds to First Church in Texarkana as minister of students.

Joy Schaeffer to First Church in Wichita Falls as director of youth and children's music.

Jerome Street to First Church in Edmonson as minister of music.

Kyle Streun to First Church in Hereford as pastor.

Mika Sumpter to First Church in Denton as interim university minister.

Dennis Whatley to North Shore Church in Avinger as interim pastor.

Regina Wheat has resigned as children's director at Elmcrest Church in Abilene.

Posted: 10/28/05

Americans believe in traditional
family but tolerant of divorce

By Adelle Banks

Religion News Service

WASHINGTON (RNS)–Most Americans continue to believe that “God's plan for marriage is one man, one woman, for life,” but they still are tolerant of those who divorce, a new survey on family and faith shows.

A poll by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research conducted for the PBS program Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly found 71 percent of Americans said they believe in the ideal of lifelong traditional marriage. But just 22 percent of those surveyed agreed “divorce is a sin.”

Religious conservatives were most likely to agree that divorce is sinful. But they still were a minority within their own ranks, with 34 percent of evangelical Christians and 30 percent of traditional Catholics saying divorce is sinful.

The survey also looked at the religious practices of traditional and nontraditional families and how people prioritize moral values. The survey was released ahead of a four-part series on “Faith and Family in America” that will be broadcast by Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly.

More than half of the people polled–52 percent–said divorce can be the best solution when a couple can't work out their marital problems. This sentiment about divorce mostly held across the religious spectrum, with 63 percent of those who described themselves as liberal Catholics agreeing, along with 61 percent of mainline Protestants, 50 percent of people with no religious preference, 48 percent of evangelical Christians and 46 percent of traditional Catholics.

John Green, professor of political science and director of the Bliss Institute of Applied Politics at the University of Akron in Ohio, said the tension between the ideal image and real stresses of marriage and family life reflects the success of churches and other religious institutions in upholding a high standard for marriage.

“On the one hand, it may be that the ideal has persisted precisely because the reality has changed,” said Green, who helped analyze the survey results. “On the other hand, Americans have become much, much more tolerant of deviations from that ideal.”

Researchers found stark differences, along with some similarities, in the religious practices and beliefs of traditional and nontraditional families, which they categorized as married parents with children younger than 18 (traditional) and unmarried parents with children younger than 18 (nontraditional). For example, half the traditional parents said they attend religious services at least once a week, compared with only one-third of nontraditional parents.

But both sets of parents are almost equally likely to say religion is “very important” in their lives–55 percent of nontraditional versus 59 percent of traditional–and to say they read religious Scriptures each week–49 percent of both traditional and nontraditional families).

Brad Wilcox, assistant professor of sociology at the University of Virginia, also provided analysis of some of the survey results. He noted that while researchers have found Protestants, including evangelicals, are not more likely than other groups to remain married, there is a strong link between religious practice and stable marriage.

“Folks who go to church or to synagogue on a regular basis are much less likely to divorce,” he said.

The survey also revealed how Americans define the term “moral values.”

Asked whether certain phrases meet their definition of the term, the highest percentage–36 percent–chose “personal values, such as honesty and responsibility.” That was followed by “family values, such as trying to protect children from sex and violence on TV and the Internet.” Social issues, including abortion and gay marriage, and social justice matters, such as human rights and discrimination, each were cited by only 10 percent of the people surveyed.

Posted: 10/28/055

Ministry helps stay-at-home moms

By Jocelyn Delgado

Communications Intern

HOUSTON–Desperate housewives these women are not. Right at Home ministry teaches women who transition from high-powered careers to feel right at home as stay-at-home moms.

Founder Kristen Taraszewski landed her first out-of-college job as a mission controller at NASA in Houston. Her career was cut short when, after a year of marriage, she was pregnant. After deciding to leave her job and stay at home, she had to transition from constant collaboration with coworkers to constant solitude.

“When a person is isolated, it's difficult to be strong,” Taraszewski said. Something clicked after she attended a seminar at University Baptist Church in Houston on discovering giftedness. She was pregnant with her second child and at six months, he was diagnosed with a condition linked with cancer. She realized time with her children was limited.

“I was kind of beating myself up,” she said. “It was like a light bulb went on, and I was just freed of all that.” There was a moment of feeling that it's OK to feel that way and that energy should go toward helping other people, Taraszewski said.

She got together with some friends in similar situations and formed the trial group for Right at Home ministry at the church.

“It's a really unique time in their world,” she said. “There are many opportunities for women in the workforce, but we're seeing a lot of women leave to be at-home mothers. Along with transition comes some hardship.”

The Right at Home ministry tries to equip women with tools based on Christian principles, Taraszewski said.

The program has two phases, transitioning out of work and when their children begin school. A high percentage of women want to go back to work in some capacity, so there will be a third phase to help with resume-writing, confidence-building and transition, Taraszewski said.

The church provides daycare once a week, while women interact with marriage and family therapists, study the Bible and participate in discussions with professionals about Christian parenting.

“Everybody looks forward to that day,” co-director Linda Gaither said. “It's kind of like your weekend afternoon tea.”

Lynna Dizon joined the group after leaving her career as a lawyer to stay home with her child. She wanted a connection.

“You're alone, and you have this infant,” Dizon said. “All of the connections you've made are gone, because you're at home now, and your friends are working.”

She wanted to make Christian friends in similar situations. “There's a whole other world of women that stay at home,” Dizon said. “It just gives you that sense of belonging and that sense that you've got the support that you need.”

Groups recently formed at surrounding churches in Houston and in Minneapolis, where Taraszewski heads the nonprofit corporation. Programs max out at about 50 participants, so women ask about starting more groups. Taraszewski is developing start-up packets with registration information and tools to determine whether it's right for them.

Each year, the group sponsors a consignment sale with baby clothes, and in November the group will sponsor a fun run to promote health. Money raised goes to churches helping with childcare.

“When my children are older, I'm not going to regret a moment during these years,” Dizon said.

Posted: 10/28/05

Support for embryonic
stem cell research increasing

By Jeffrey MacDonald

Religion News Service

WASHINGTON (RNS)–Peggy Willocks describes herself as a conservative, pro-life Christian in “the heart of the Bible Belt,” Johnson City, Tenn. So when she considered embryonic stem cell research two years ago, she found it morally repulsive.

“I was equating it with killing a child,” said Willocks, 54, who now gives talks in support of such research. “I thought of it as grinding up fetuses and all of that, so I didn't want any part of it.”

What changed Willocks was a personal experience. She watched a friend and a fellow Parkinson's sufferer get to where she could move only her eyes for two months before dying. Willocks then went back to her Bible, recalled God's compassion for the living and determined that cells in a Petri dish aren't sacred because Scripture informs her that “life begins in the womb,” she said.

Surveys show Willocks is not alone in her reassessment. A Gallup poll taken in May found 60 percent of Americans say medical research involving stem cells from human embryos is “morally acceptable.” That's up significantly from May 2002, when 52 percent held that opinion, according to Gallup research.

December 2004 polling data from the Washington-based Pew Research Center for the People and the Press points to a similar trend toward growing support over the past three years.

As with abortion, much hinges on the moral status of biological material that could one day become a full-fledged human being. Although the moral concerns echo those of firmly entrenched factions in the abortion debate, conclusions reached in the stem cell debate are proving far more tenuous, even for people of faith.

In explaining the discrepancy, observers point to American pragmatism. Americans tingle at the prospect of curing previously deadly diseases, they say, and that potential to save lives has a way of making the protection of embryos a concern of lesser importance.

“The hope for medical breakthroughs is outweighing the destruction of embryos,” said Carroll Doherty, editor at the Pew Center. “Is there less concern for the embryo? I don't think so. People are just feeling it's worth it” to attain a greater good.

Pew polling shows the greatest surge in support among Roman Catholics and mainline Protestants, especially those who said they didn't know what to think on the issue two years ago. In March 2002, for instance, 43 percent of white Catholics said it was more important to conduct embryonic stem cell research than to protect embryos. By December 2004, that climbed to 63 percent. Among non-evangelical Protestants, the percentage prioritizing research grew from 51 percent to 69 percent over the same period. As Willocks' change of heart shows, developments close to home can play a huge role.

Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif., said he is “adamantly against abortion,” but he became a committed advocate for embryonic stem cell research after his wife gave birth to triplets last year via in vitro fertilization. He now believes “a fertilized egg is not a human being until it is implanted in a mother's womb.”

“I hadn't thought it through too much before that,” Rohrabacher said. “I'd have to say my personal experience had a lot to do with my position. … To say 'life begins at conception'–we have to realize that science now has made that phrase obsolete.”

Among the general public, Pew polling from last December showed opposition to embryonic research to be firmest among those who attend religious services weekly. In that group, 50 percent prioritized protecting the embryo, versus 38 percent who said doing research is more important.

Yet even among this group, support for research is growing. In March 2002, only 28 percent had said research is more important than protecting embryos. Most of the new support in this group, Doherty said, is coming from those who were undecided in 2002.

Posted: 10/28/05

Texas Tidbits

Valley Baptist Health System hosts seminar. Valley Baptist Health System will host a seminar on forensic sciences Nov. 4-5 at the Radisson Resort on South Padre Island. The seminar will address the high incidence of child abuse in the Rio Grande Valley, along with ways to prevent it and techniques to use in investigating child deaths. The seminar is designed for police, Child Protective Services workers, attorneys, social workers, ministers, health care providers and other professionals. For more information, call (956) 389-4702, e-mail Gena.McDonald@valleybaptist.net or visit www.valleybaptist.net.

Immediate deadline for Historical Society reservations. Members of the Texas Baptist Historical Society will elect officers, honor history-writing award winners and hear a presentation about the early history of Independence Baptist Church by Pastor Butch Strickland, curator of the Texas Baptist Historical Center-Museum, at 10:45 a.m., Nov. 14 at the Austin Convention Center, 500 East Cesar Chavez St. in Austin. Cost of the lunch meeting is $20 per person, and the reservation deadline is Oct. 31. To make reservations, call (972) 331-2235 or e-mail autumn.hendon@bgct.org. Advance payment can be mailed to the Texas Baptist Historical Society, 4144 N. Central Expressway, Suite 110, Dallas 75204.

Hardin-Simmons receives unrestricted gift. Hardin-Simmons University received a bequest estimated at more than $9 million–the largest in the school's history–from the June Frost Leland estate. Leland was a 1940 HSU graduate and Abilene philanthropist who died Sept. 2. "While we knew HSU was to be a recipient of Mrs. Leland's generosity in her will, we had no idea the bequest would be of this magnitude," President Craig Turner said. "The HSU family is humbled and grateful, because Mrs. Leland's largesse will have a profound impact on the university and its students from now on."

Logsdon dean addresses UMHB Bible conference. Tommy Brisco, dean of the Logsdon School of Theology at Hardin-Simmons University, will be the featured speaker at the annual University of Mary Hardin-Baylor Bible conference, Nov. 10. The conference, focusing on the Old Testament book of Hosea, is sponsored by the UMHB College of Christian Studies. The cost of the conference, which includes lunch, is $20 prior to Nov. 7 and $25 at the door. For more information or to register, contact Linda Fuessel at (254) 295-5075 or e-mail lfuessel@umhb.edu.

Texas Acteens named to panel. Six Texas Acteens have been selected to serve on the 2005-2006 Texas Acteens Advisory Panel. They are Rachel Latham of Travis Avenue Baptist Church, Fort Worth; Ashley Nash of Freeman Heights Baptist Church, Garland; Erica Lea of South Main Baptist Church, Pasadena; Samantha Cozad of First Baptist Church, Humble; Kara Fonville of Lakeside Baptist Church, Garland; and Kara Battershell of Hyde Park Baptist Church, Austin.

UMHB athletic training education program accredited. The University of Mary Hardin-Baylor has received accreditation for its athletic training education program offered in the exercise and sport science department. UMHB is one of 14 colleges in Texas and 338 in the United States with Committee for Accreditation of Allied Health Education Programs accreditation, which allows students to become both state-licensed and nationally certified athletic trainers.

Posted: 10/28/05

Southeast Texas needs workers for recovery

By Ken Camp

Managing Editor

VIDOR–Baptists in Southeast Texas are grateful for the immediate relief Texas Baptists and others provided in the wake of Hurricane Rita. But now the long, hard work of recovery and rebuilding has started, and they are shorthanded, said Terry Wright, moderator for Golden Triangle Baptist Association.

“We just can't get enough chainsaw crews in here, and we're struggling to get the word out,” said Wright, pastor of First Baptist Church in Vidor.

The Baptist General Convention of Texas has invested more than $300,000 into helping Golden Triangle Baptist Association and Sabine Neches Baptist Area after Hurricane Rita. Texas Baptist Men is coordinating multiple chainsaw teams from around the country who are working in the region.

Golden Triangle Association purchased chainsaws and has offered training for workers from its own churches, but more are needed, Wright said.

The national focus on Southeast Texas was short-lived, as new disasters such as Hurricane Wilma grabbed headlines, Wright noted. But long after TV crews moved on to other stories, people in Southeast Texas continued to clear away downed pine trees, struggled to restore utilities and began to repair or rebuild homes, churches and businesses.

“The BGCT has been gracious in the financial assistance it has provided. Texas Baptist Men have been great to help us. But everybody is stretched thin,” Wright said. “We need individual churches to respond now and send down teams to help.”

Golden Triangle Association and Sabine Neches Area have worked together to coordinate a system for receiving volunteers and financial assistance, he said.

They established a separate nonprofit corporation to help with residential construction and set up a regional support system of 15 centers from Jasper to Port Arthur that can house up to 600 volunteer workers.

“We need to fill up those centers over the next four weeks or so,” Wright said. “We have the system in place. Now, we need to fill it up with workers.”

Specific needs include chainsaw operators to clear downed trees, volunteer builders and cooks to prepare meals for other workers. Baptists in the area have established a regional relief office to coordinate volunteer assignments. Potential volunteers should call (409) 769-4258.

The BGCT also is helping to connect Texas Baptist churches with congregations affected by the hurricanes. About 100 churches so far have volunteered to partner with an impacted church in East Texas. For more information on the BGCT Church2Church partnerships, call (888) 311-3900.

John Hall of Texas Baptist Communica-tions contributed to this article.

Posted: 10/27/05

Miers' withdrawal leaves
question mark on court pick

By Robert Marus

ABP Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON (ABP)—Social conservatives breathed a sigh of relief Oct. 27 after the surprise announcement that White House Counsel Harriet Miers had withdrawn her nomination for an open seat on the Supreme Court.

But her change of heart—in the face of mounting criticism from some in the Religious Right and other conservatives who doubted her qualifications—left a giant question mark over what sort of person President Bush will now tap to replace moderate Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, who has announced she will retire as soon as her successor is installed.

Most observers, and especially influential Christian conservatives, expect Bush to name an experienced candidate with unquestioned conservative credentials.

O’Connor’s seat is a pivotal one on a court that is often divided 5-4 on contentious social issues. A justice with a conservative social agenda replacing O’Connor—who often voted to support abortion rights, gay rights and church-state separation—could change the face of American jurisprudence for decades to come.

The White House announced Miers’ withdrawal as Washington’s business day began, immediately swamping all other news in the capital. White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan told reporters that Miers had phoned Bush the evening of Oct. 26 to inform him of her decision, and formalized it with a letter the next morning.

“I have been greatly honored and humbled by the confidence that you have shown in me and have appreciated immensely your support and the support of many others,” Miers wrote. “However, I am concerned that the confirmation process presents a burden for the White House and our staff that is not in the best interest of the country.”

Bush, in a statement, said he had “reluctantly accepted” her decision.

Both Bush and Miers blamed the move on the Senate Judiciary Committee, whose members must vote on nominees to federal courts before the entire Senate does. The committee’s chairman, Pennsylvania Republican Arlen Specter, and ranking member, Vermont Democrat Patrick Leahy, had indicated they could not learn information essential to judging Miers’ qualifications for the post without probing her work as the White House’s chief lawyer.

“It is clear that senators would not be satisfied until they gained access to internal documents concerning advice provided during her tenure at the White House—disclosures that would undermine a president’s ability to receive candid counsel,” Bush said.

But the move came amid pressure from Bush’s right-wing base. A growing chorus of conservative commentators and activists had requested the White House withdraw Miers, questioning both her commitment to a solidly conservative judicial philosophy and her professional qualifications for the post. It came only days after a coalition of conservative groups launched the website WithdrawMiers.org.

The scenario—Miers voluntarily withdrawing her nomination and citing issues of executive privilege —actually had been recommended by several conservative commentators recently as a way for Miers and the White House to save face.

The issue of executive privilege and a stalemate with the Judiciary Committee is “really a red herring,” said Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.), one of the panel’s senior members, speaking to reporters just off the Senate floor Oct. 27.

One of the few senators strongly to support Miers’ nomination, Texas Republican John Cornyn, blamed its derailment on “pundits” who “want the president to pick a fight” with Democrats by nominating a well-known judicial conservative to replace O’Connor.

“What some went so far as to suggest is that they would want somebody who will rule in a particular way (on contentious issues such as abortion rights and gay rights), and that is an unprincipled position,” Cornyn said in a Capitol press conference the same day.

Approaching Miers’ situation from the opposite ideological perspective, Kennedy seemed to concur with Cornyn. “The issue really was the extreme right wing of the president’s party putting a litmus test on Supreme Court nominees,” he said.

Miers’ withdrawal came only a day after the Washington Post published excerpts from speeches she had given in the early 1990s, while she served as president of the Texas Bar Association and was one of Dallas’ most prominent attorneys. In one speech, she seemed to express support for abortion rights.

However, in 1989 while she was a candidate for a Dallas City Council seat, Miers answered a questionnaire from a pro-life group in part by saying she would support an amendment to the federal Constitution that would ban legalized abortion except to save the mother’s life.

In the same 1993 speech, she articulated support for a principle of “self-determination” for individuals when religious beliefs or moral principles come in conflict with the law—acknowledging, for instance, that the government could not force religious observance on school children.

In another speech around on the topic of women in leadership, she praised female political leaders—such as liberal Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, then-first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, and conservative Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas).

Such revelations about Miers’ thinking and her lack of a “paper trail” or history of articulating her judicial philosophy led many conservatives to doubt her fitness. The doubts persisted despite her support from Bush and active participation in a pro-life evangelical church in Dallas. Many conservative intellectuals had opposed Miers since Bush announced her nomination on Oct. 3.

Lukewarm support for Miers from many conservative Christians eventually dissolved into open rebellion. Concerned Women for America, led by Christian activist Beverly LaHaye, called Wednesday night for Miers to withdraw. Just two hours later, she did.

In a statement released after Miers’ decision, Focus on the Family founder James Dobson called it a “wise decision.” While the Colorado-based religious broadcaster had earlier tried to use his considerable weight in the evangelical community to back Miers, he said he had begun to have doubts.

“In recent days, I have grown increasingly concerned about her conservative credentials,” Dobson said. He cited the abortion speech and her expressions of “so much praise for left-wing feminist leaders” as reasons that he now realizes he “would not have been able to support her candidacy.”

Such social conservatives —who supported Bush overwhelmingly in the 2000 and 2004 elections—“want a (Supreme Court) candidate who, coming in, they know absolutely certain will be pro-life and anti-homosexual,” said Derek Davis, director of the J.M. Dawson Institute of Church-State Studies at Baylor University, in a telephone interview Oct. 27. “The problem (with Miers) has been that all these ultraconservatives were not happy with her because she was not the home-run candidate that they thought they were going to get.”

The question, then, becomes: Who will Bush be able to nominate successfully, given the dynamics of the Miers debacle?

Like Democrats, progressive-to-liberal interest groups denounced the Miers withdrawal Oct. 27 as caving to pressure from the far right.

“We know that Religious Right leaders are bitterly opposed to ensuring Americans’ right to self-determination on questions of religion and lifestyle,” said Barry Lynn, director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, in a statement. “They want to make all the important decisions and impose those choices on the rest of us. It’s no wonder they reacted to Miers’ remarks with such hostility.”

Many progressives and liberals called on Bush to nominate a consensus candidate for the spot. “I think there’s an extraordinary opportunity for this president, at this time, to bring the country together with a Supreme Court nomination,” Kennedy told reporters. “Whether we’re going to have a political battle or a political struggle is in the hands of the president of the United States.”

But finding a candidate simultaneously acceptable to Democrats, moderate Republicans and conservative Christian activists may be threading a very fine needle, according to Davis.

“He needs to find somebody who’s to the right of Harriet Miers, and obviously so. But he can’t name somebody who’s going to be perceived by the country as another Robert Bork,” Davis said, referring to the Ronald Reagan appointee to the Supreme Court whose nomination failed miserably in 1984 because of his ultraconservative views on judicial philosophy.

“And I don’t know who that person is,” Davis concluded.

© Copyright 2005 Associated Baptist Press  

Posted: 10/27/05

Rosa Parks remembered as looking
to God in stand for civil rights

By Robert Marus, Greg Warner

Associated Baptist Press

DETROIT (ABP)—Reacting to news of Rosa Parks’ death, Christian leaders said Jesus was the model for the woman who kept her bus seat in order to stand against injustice.

“She saw her participation in the struggle for justice as integral to her being a disciple of Jesus,” said Peter Gathje, a professor at Christian Brothers University in Memphis, Tenn. 

“Because she recognized a law higher than human law, she knew that breaking an unjust human law was perfectly consistent with her Christian faith. Just as Jesus broke laws in the name of the higher law of God, so too did Rosa Parks.”

Parks died at her home in Detroit the evening of Oct. 24, according to the local medical examiner’s office. She was 92, and had been involved in educational efforts in the Detroit area for decades.

But the lifelong member of the African Methodist Episcopal Church will forever be remembered by generations of Americans as the Montgomery, Ala., woman whose defiant act sparked the greatest social upheaval in post-World War II American life—the civil rights movement.

Parks “was a giant in the land,” said Gary Percesepe, executive director of the Baptist Peace Fellowship of North America. “When Rosa Parks sat down, an entire nation began to act up.”

On the evening of Dec. 1, 1955, Parks was a 42-year-old seamstress and housekeeper in Montgomery, heading home from her job at a downtown department store. In defiance of a local segregationist law, she refused a city bus driver’s order to get up from her seat to make room for white people who had just gotten on the bus.

Parks was arrested for disorderly conduct. On the advice of a white attorney who was a friend and in consultation with local civil-rights leaders, she agreed to challenge in court the law segregating the city’s buses. Her attorneys argued that it contradicted the Supreme Court’s 1954 Brown vs. Board of Education decision, which outlawed segregation in public schools. The argument eventually prevailed, and segregation in Montgomery’s public accommodations was also declared unconstitutional.

“God sat with me as I remained calm and determined not to be treated with less dignity than any other citizen of Montgomery,” Parks said, remembering her famous display of courage in a 2000 interview with the Montgomery Advertiser.

The action led to the Montgomery bus boycott, which lasted more than a year and involved more than 40,000 black residents. Rather than ride the buses, notorious for such treatment of blacks, the protesters walked or made use of an elaborate system of black-owned taxicab companies, carpools and station wagons purchased by black congregations and dubbed “rolling churches.”

The event was the first major protest of the civil rights movement, and catapulted the 26-year-old pastor of Montgomery’s Dexter Avenue Baptist Church to its forefront. As a result, Martin Luther King Jr.’s philosophy of nonviolence steered the movement from its start.

Contrary to popular perceptions of her defiance as the action of a fed-up and tired woman, Parks’ act was both spontaneous and planned.

A longtime volunteer secretary of the local chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, Parks had been involved in the early years of civil-rights advocacy for African-Americans.

She was born Rosa Louise McCauley Feb. 13, 1913, in Tuskeegee, Ala., the daughter of a carpenter and a teacher. In 1932, she married Raymond Parks, a barber who was also active in the NAACP. He helped lead a committee of black Montgomery men who raised funds for a group of African-Americans arrested in Scottsboro, Ala., and wrongly accused of raping a white teenager. The “Scottsboro Boys,” as they were called, were cleared by the Supreme Court in two 1930s decisions.

The arrests of two other Montgomery black women had presaged Parks’ bus protest. However, NCAAP officials had considered neither of those incidents the proper “test case” for their plans—plans of which Parks was aware— to challenge the city’s segregationist bus laws.

But the quiet seamstress and housekeeper—considered by those in Montgomery’s African-American community to be humble, dignified and morally unimpeachable—proved the perfect candidate, according to historians’ accounts of the boycotts. Within a few days’ time, she had become the symbolic mother of a movement that would breach the levees of the South’s oppressive racial structures in a long-pent-up flood of justice.

How did such a meek woman end up breaking the back of a decades-old system of oppression?

“Rosa Parks’ disobedience to an unjust law was grounded, I believe, in her instinctive understanding of a higher moral order based on the sovereignty of God and the dignity of each person made in his image,” said Timothy George, dean of Beeson Divinity School at Samford University in Birmingham, Ala. “Rosa Parks was not a theologian, but she knew the words of Amos and Jesus as well as if she had been their contemporary.”

Parks’ civil disobedience was part of a wider tradition among American Christians— especially those of minority denominational traditions or ethnic backgrounds, according to one historian.

“Rosa Parks’ passing should cause Baptists to remember that the practice of civil disobedience among Baptists did not begin in the 20th century with the civil rights movement,” said Walter Shurden of Mercer University in Macon, Ga.

“Early Baptists of New England, in the 17th and 18th centuries, refused to abide by laws that constrained their consciences. Early Baptists in America deliberately, intentionally and premeditatively broke laws that they saw as unjust.

“Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King, Jr. had Baptist predecessors in civil disobedience. Their names? Roger Williams, John Clarke, Obadiah Holmes, and Isaac Backus, among others,” Shurden continued. “The death of Ms. Parks could goad Baptists to remember what we ought not to forget.”

“Rosa Parks’ courage to confront a cultural norm could shove us all away from the dumbness and numbness of ‘going along to get along,’” added Tom Prevost, national director of the rural poverty initiative for the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship.

“She was done with segregation. We should be done with mindless consumerism, heartless elitism, and endless demonizing of those who don’t agree with us. When will we ever learn to be kind to one another?”