Posted: 12/15/04

CYBERCOLUMN: Christmas comes with light

By John Duncan

The Presbyterian preacher George Buttrick used to say that Christmas is the time when God “came down the backstairs of heaven lest he blind us by his light.” When Christmas arrived in Bethlehem, no neon light greeted him to announce his coming. The simple light of a star shone over the manger. Christmas comes with light.

C.S. Lewis called Christmas “the grand miracle.” He did so because Christ came in humility and light. Christmas comes with light.

I cannot help but think about the complexity of Christmas in these days: War in Iraq; starvation in Afghanistan; decay in Russia; fisticuffs and NBA brawls in Detroit; holiday plans; last-minute shopping; and the stress of the holidays. Still, Christmas comes with light.

Every year when Christmas rolls around, for some reason, I think of Christmas cookies. I think of the Christmas Eve I went to deliver Christmas cookies to Daniel. He had no place to live. He lived in the office where he worked. It was a cold, rainy Christmas Eve. I arrived, knocked on the glass door. Daniel stood at the door, crying. He stood, crying tears on Christmas Eve, drunk, alone. Daniel later gave his life to Christ, but the last time I saw him he said, “Old Daniel’s in the lion’s den again.” The darkness of Daniel’s past overshadowed him again. Darkness fills many hearts at Christmas. But Christmas comes with light.

I love this time of year: The celebrative music; the joy of carolers at your door on a frosty night; the pageants where shepherds dress up in bathrobes and child-like angels wear homemade wings and wise men come bearing, as one boy said, “gold. frankincense and fur”; the festivity of Christmas parties; the Christmas lights decorating neighborhoods; and the happiness and sometimes stress of families gathered together.

Several years ago at Casa Grande, Ariz., a man asked his wife, “Where do you want me to put the Christmas tree?” She replied, “I don’t care if you hang it from the ceiling!” He hung the tree from the ceiling, decorations, icicles, lights and all. Christmas comes with light.

Christmas, though, incites memory: Loved ones gone to be with the Lord; favorite gifts; family celebrations. Even in the sadness and darkness of those memories, Christmas comes with light.

More than anything, though, I love the fact that Christ came in simplicity to remove the darkness and to shine his light. That’s what Christmas is about. That’s why Jesus said, “I am the light of the world.” That’s why Paul said Christians shine like stars.

The prophet Isaiah (9:2) writes the best words about Christmas: “The people who have walked in darkness have seen a great light; Those who dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them a light has shined.” Christmas comes with light.

Christmas comes with Light. This Christmas, may it be merry for you! May you shine like a star!

John Duncan is pastor of Lakeside Baptist Church in Granbury, Texas, and the writer of numerous articles in various journals and magazines

Posted: 12/10/04

Majority in Baylor faculty
referendum vote against Sloan

By Ken Camp

Managing Editor

WACO—A majority of Baylor University faculty who voted in a nonbinding referendum on the leadership of President Robert Sloan believe he should be dismissed.

Sloan’s supporters already have pointed out the 418 voters calling for the president to be fired still is less than half of the faculty—but just barely.

Results posted on the faculty senate’s website showed 59 percent of 838 eligible faculty voted. Of the 490 votes cast, 85 percent were against retaining Sloan as president.

“The results of the referendum unequivocally confirm and reinforce the position that the Baylor faculty senate has taken in its two no-confidence votes against President Sloan in September 2003 and May 2004,” said a public statement from the faculty senate on its website.

“Over the course of the last 18 months, various Baylor administrators have continued to assert publicly and in private meetings that the opposition to President Sloan’s leadership was limited to a small, vocal group of faculty. The results of this referendum clearly refute that assertion.”

On the contrary, said Baylor Regents Chairman Will Davis of Austin, the referendum “sheds no new light on the fact that a segment of faculty do not agree with the current administration” at the Texas Baptist university.

“I would remind all Baylor constituents that the board of regents has the sole responsibility for determining who serves as president of the university,” Davis said. “I hope that the administration will continue to make progress in reaching out to faculty to address their concerns and that the faculty will reciprocate.”

The Baylor University administration offered no further comment.

Student Body President Jeff Leach called the referendum “divisive” and “ineffective in achieving reconciliation” at the university.

“The results of the referendum do nothing but to once again state what we already know—that there are debates and divisions that still remain amongst the faculty over President Robert Sloan and his administration,” Leach said. “All parties should realize that the ultimate responsibility in this dilemma lies with the board of regents. We call for divisive steps such as these to come to an end so that Baylor students can move forward, continuing to be proud of the university that we all love so dearly and so that true unity and reconciliation may be achieved.”

A public statement issued by 20 Baylor faculty—including Douglas Henry, director of the Institute for Faith & Learning, and Robert Kruschwitz, director of the Center for Christian Ethics—critiqued both the methodology and motivation for the faculty senate referendum.

“Debating ideas is the hallmark of academic life; taking polls is the province of politicians,” the group said. “Professors should be in the business of debating ideas. The Baylor faculty senate’s recent referendum was a political move that did not give any such opportunity, even as it was also a flawed and invalid means for assessing faculty opinion.”

The faculty said the regents “cannot possibly welcome the presumptuous rhetoric of some senators that the referendum has ‘established a precedent’ for the future conduct of the faculty.”

The group dismissed the votes calling for Sloan’s dismissal, pointing out that half of the eligible faculty either did not participate or voted in Sloan’s favor.

But the faculty senate applauded the “courage and integrity” of faculty members who cast ballots.

“We do know and appreciate that they did so in the face of semi-official calls for a boycott and in many cases placed their professional future in jeopardy,” said a statement on the faculty senate website.

Bill Carden, president of the Committee to Restore Integrity to Baylor, agreed, saying, “The results of the referendum speak for themselves, regardless of any spin that anyone might try to put on it.”

A little more than a year ago, Baylor University regents voted 31-4 to affirm Sloan. But by May, his support on the board had eroded to the point that he retained his job by one vote. A motion to ask for his resignation failed in an 18-17 secret-ballot vote.

In September, the regents voted to postpone indefinitely a call for Sloan’s resignation. At the same time, they unanimously rejected the faculty senate’s call for a facultywide referendum on Sloan’s presidency. The faculty senate proceeded with the vote anyway.

The McLennan County elections office conducted the referendum from Nov. 30 to Dec. 2 at the faculty senate’s request.

The next regularly scheduled board of regents meeting is Feb. 4.

Posted: 12/10/04

Vote fails to remove antiquated
language from Alabama constitution

By Robert Marus

ABP Washington Bureau

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (ABP)—Antiquated language from the segregationist era will remain in the Alabama Constitution for the time being after an automatic recount determined an attempt to strip it failed.

Supporters of the amendment that would have removed the language are accusing former state Chief Justice Roy Moore and the state head of the Christian Coalition of demagoguery in helping defeat the amendment.

Initial returns after the Nov. 2 election showed Amendment Two failing by less than 2,000 votes out of nearly 1.4 million cast statewide. The slim margin of defeat triggered the recount, which began Nov. 29. Alabama Secretary of State Nancy Worley announced the results showed little change in the election's outcome.

Moore and Alabama Christian Coalition President John Giles opposed the amendment, they said, because additional language in it could have opened the state to lawsuits over public-education funding, and that could have led to higher taxes.

Amendment Two proposed stripping two provisions from the 1901 document that were blatantly racist—one requiring separate schools for "white and colored children," and another regarding the Jim Crow-era practice of poll taxes.

The disputed language is moot because federal civil-rights law requires integration in public schools. But a group of Alabamians had mounted a campaign to get the language removed to help erase a stain on the state's history, from a period when black Alabamians were severely oppressed and subjected to public education and accommodations far inferior to those provided to their white counterparts.

Indeed, Moore and Giles both publicly supported removing those provisions. However, they disagreed with a third aspect of Amendment Two, which also would have removed another provision, added to the Alabama Constitution in 1956. That clause said it was not Alabama's responsibility to provide taxpayer-funded education to its citizens.

Historians say that amendment was an attempt to circumvent the Supreme Court's 1954 Brown vs. Board of Education decision, which banned segregation in public education.

But Moore, Giles and their allies argued removal of that language would open the state to lawsuits "activist" judges could use to impose new taxes for education.

"Our position on that is, activist judges that we have watched throughout the years have no boundaries constitutionally and statutorily," Giles said. "It's almost dressing up a bellman at the door of the courthouse with a bullhorn, saying, 'Lawsuits welcome.'"

But many legal experts in the state have ridiculed that argument.

Wayne Flynt, a professor of history at Auburn University and member of Auburn's First Baptist Church, accused Giles, Moore and their allies of willfully misleading voters.

"They know a circuit court judge in 1993 struck down the amendment they cherish," Flynt said. "They know the state Supreme Court twice upheld that ruling. They know the state recently passed an amendment requiring that any court-authorized tax increase be referred to a statewide referendum so no judge can unilaterally raise taxes. And they know the consequence of their demagoguery will be a national campaign of ridicule unparalleled in recent Alabama history."

The Alabama Supreme Court—including Moore—in 2002 upheld both the idea that the right-to-education provision was null but that judges could not impose new taxes without legislative approval.

Moore became a folk hero to many Alabamians in 2003, while he was the head of the Alabama Supreme Court, when he refused to obey a federal court's order that he remove a granite monument to the Ten Commandments he had installed in the rotunda of the state's judicial headquarters. A series of federal courts said the monument violated the First Amendment's ban on government establishment of religion.

Moore was removed from office for violating judicial-ethics rules. The U.S. Supreme Court declined Moore's appeals without comment.

However, opinion polls in Alabama taken in the wake of the incident showed overwhelming support for Moore and his position on the Ten Commandments. He is widely believed to be grooming himself for a run for another statewide office.

Flynt said Giles' desire for "political influence in the state" and Moore's desire for higher office led them to attempt to make an issue out of Amendment Two.

"I don't really mind that the (Alabama) Christian Coalition takes a position like this, but the arguments that they advance are either uninformed or demagogic—you take your pick," he said.

Tom Parker, one of Moore's former aides who himself won election to the state Supreme Court Nov. 2, joined his old boss and Giles in opposing Amendment Two during his campaign. Parker reportedly handed out Confederate battle flags on the campaign trail.

But Giles said the reasons to fear the removal of the language are legitimate, because newer amendments can sometimes take precedence over older amendments and court decisions.

"You have two debates here," Giles said. "One is removing the racial language. We're all for that; (it was) never a question in our mind. And we're going to see that taken out of the Alabama Constitution. The other is the debate over the right to an education—or is it a gift from the state? There are those who want to make it a constitutional right. And then we have judges deciding what is an education—both funding and standards."

Giles said he expects a "clean" version of the amendment that would remove only the blatantly racist constitutional language to be proposed in the legislative session that begins in February. He predicted the Christian Coalition would support it and that it would pass by a wide margin.

But Flynt argued it wouldn't be a truly "clean" version of the amendment, because the 1956 language was conceived in racism, even if its supporters don't want to admit that now.

"When your newly graduated sons or daughters sadly inform you that despite love for family, kin and community they have decided to strike out for greener pastures elsewhere, blame Roy Moore, Tom Parker, John Giles, et al," he wrote in the Birmingham News. "They have been accused of racism. I am convinced they are innocent of that charge. But they have proved themselves (all in the name of Christ) guilty of demagoguery, which is alive and thriving in the Heart of Dixie."

Nonetheless, Giles said he was simply trying not to throw the baby out with the proverbial bathwater. "We know that that was not such a glamorized part of our history in the 1950s and 1960s," he said. "But this is today, and there is nobody I know who wants to deny the gift of public education to our children."

Posted: 12/10/04

Church leads visitors on a walk-through journey to Bethlehem

By Michael Leathers

Associated Baptist Press

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (ABP)—With just a portable heater as defense against the cool night, Kendra Jackson waits for the next group of Christmas celebrants to arrive. The 30-something mother of two daughters is portraying Anna in the interactive Christmas drama produced by Western Oaks Baptist Church.

Jackson has never acted before, unless you count bit parts in her high school's production of "Li'l Abner." But she's been involved in the Western Oaks production, "Journey to Bethlehem," for the past three years because it "attracts people to church and helps them celebrate the season better."

The walk-through drama, told in nine scenes, has been performed by Western Oaks for the last five Decembers. Some 300 church members are involved in every aspect of the drama—from construction of outdoor and indoor sets in the fall to baking thousands of cookies for visitors. Even the script is locally written, tailored for the layout of the church.

While many churches stage living nativities and choir cantatas for Christmas, Western Oaks Pastor Jeff Blevins wanted the church to try a different approach—something unique that would be a gift to the community.

The answer was an interactive play. Visitors are taken through a tour of the Christmas story, led by a wise man searching for the location of the birth of the Christ child. The traveling audience follows their guide through the journey's nine scenes in and around the church. The audience interacts with different characters, each one revealing a little information they need to find the birthplace of Jesus.

"By making it an interactive journey, people feel like they participate in the story and in the journey," said D.J. Shultz, director of worship and music at Western Oaks.

That's important, because visitors are reminded in the final scene that "we're all on a journey" to find Christ—a journey that continues after they leave the church, he added.

This season, Western Oaks transformed its lobby into Herod's court, complete with a running fountain. Visitors are greeted and then sent through the drama in groups of 15 to 25 each. On busy nights, groups are dispatched every four minutes. Actors like Jackson may perform their scenes up to two dozen times in one evening.

Other characters include Zechariah, an excitable priest who is delighted to have visitors after losing and regaining his speech when his son, John the Baptist, was born. They meet Herod, who assigns a skeptical servant to tour with the group as they search for Jesus. They find help from a beggar child in a bustling marketplace. A merchant tells them about a star that another caravan of travelers had been following.

The tour ends with a reflective stop at the Bethlehem manger. There, Herod's servant tells the travelers she cannot return to Herod because she has been changed by the story of the newborn Messiah.

About 120 church members serve as cast and crew each night during the six-night production over two weekends. Last year, more than 4,200 people attended, the highest attendance of the five-year run. The church rewrites the story each year, adding new scenes and retiring some characters to keep the drama fresh for return visitors.

The interactive drama has been spreading to other churches. Calvary Baptist Church of Alton, Ill., planned a three-night performance of its own version of "Journey to Bethlehem.” The church sent about a dozen members to Western Oaks last year to attend a production. "Having the opportunity to see it done was so much more helpful than just reading it on paper," said Rick Patrick, the church's minister of education. The church is incorporating a living nativity into its production.

Blevins said one strength of the drama is that it brings families together to slow down for a few moments and reflect "in a world where we're racing toward Christmas."

Another strength, he said, is the drama's life-changing potential. One 19-year-old man, who was halfway through a drug rehab program, talked to Blevins after the drama because he was having serious questions about his life and purpose. He later made a decision to commit his life to following Jesus Christ.

The drama strengthens church members as well.

"I see our people coming alive and serving," Blevins said. "That's what we're designed to do."

Posted: 12/10/04

Colleyville church feeds the needy,
draws 138 to professions of faith in Christ

By Gregory Tomlin

Baptist Press

COLLEYVILLE (BP)—It wasn’t quite comparable to the New Testament feeding of the 5,000, but an army of volunteers served hot meals and passed out sacks of groceries to more than 2,800 people.

Even so, the real miracle occurred in the sanctuary of First Baptist Church in Colleyville, where 138 people came forward to accept salvation in Jesus Christ, ministers at the church insisted.

"At the end of the service tonight, we are going to give you good gifts. Your money is no good here. We are not taking up an offering, and we will not accept donations," Pastor Frank Harber told the 800-plus families at the event. "The gift of eternal life is just like that. It is free, and you would offend God if you tried to buy it."

The dinner, grocery distribution and gospel presentation were part of the church's third annual Mission Colleyville outreach. Attendance at the events has doubled in three years, since one of First Baptist's deacons conceived the idea of feeding and providing for the community’s most-neglected residents.

Ron Cogburn, deacon chairman when the idea of the mission was developed, said people in the area have embraced the mission because they see in it true compassion.

"Compassion without action is nothing. True mercy is compassion with action," Cogburn said. "We are not only telling the people here that Jesus loves them; we are showing them. Where else could they get a meal, groceries and toys for their children? This makes a lot of difference in their lives."

This year, more than 400 volunteers from the church participated in the mission. Bilingual pastors and ministers from area Hispanic churches also took part.

Carlos Flores, a minister at Highland Meadows Church, strolled around inside the tent on the church grounds where dinner was being served, greeting the families that carpooled from as far away as Irving. Several school buses also transported community members to the church.

Flores, wearing a bright red shirt with the word "bilingual" in white, shook hands, prayed with families and encouraged them to listen closely to the gospel message they would hear in the church's sanctuary.

"The people here at the church are doing this because they have a heart for people. They have a heart for the lost in the Hispanic community," Flores said.

Eric Vaughan, associate pastor at First Baptist Church, said he expects Mission

Colleyville to continue its growth. And he expects his church to seek more assistance from Hispanic churches.

"Each year, we have an increase in the number of Hispanics involved in this outreach. They are our brothers and sisters in Christ. As our population grows, we will need to partner with Hispanics to reach into their communities to share the gospel of Jesus Christ with them," Vaughan said.

"We have a heart and a passion to reach out to our Jerusalem, or northeast Tarrant County. It all boils down to the fact that this church body at its core, at its heart, is evangelistic."

Posted: 12/10/04

Shared holiday meal fills El Paso
Baptists with renewed passion for missions

By John Hall

Texas Baptist Communications

EL PASO—A holiday meal filled several Texas Baptists from El Paso with a renewed desire to see and meet needs around them.

Four members of First Baptist Church celebrated Thanksgiving at the Alfa & Omega School in Denia, Spain, where they taught children about why Americans celebrate the holiday. The Texas Baptists served turkey, dressing and cranberry sauce to more than 100 people.

The Texas Partnerships Resource Center of the Baptist General Convention of Texas has a relationship with Spanish Baptists.

The volunteers explained to the school’s students, staff workers and their families why Christians thank God for blessing them, said Debra Collins, First Baptist Church’s minister of missions, community ministries and women’s ministry.

Gay Brown, a member of First Baptist Church in El Paso, explains why Americans celebrate Thanksgiving to a class at the Alfa & Omega School in Denia, Spain.

“It was a lot of work,” said Gay Brown, a member of First Baptist Church. “It was a lot of fun. And it was an enormous blessing.”

The experience invigorated the travelers, who shared details of their trip with their church one Wednesday, Collins said. They also are telling stories about their journey to different segments of the congregation through Sunday school classes and personal relationships.

Brown emphasized to her class that God calls each person to be involved in mission work.

The trip to Spain gave volunteers a broader view of how God is expanding his kingdom, Collins said. El Paso Baptists saw ministry can take many different forms. They took that information home with them and are looking to apply it in their community.

“It gives us an extra focus that there are things we can do outside receiving support for Juarez and El Paso,” Collins said.

“Whether we go to Spain or we go across the river or are serving right here in El Paso, we are to be sharing the gospel,” she said.

Brown said she more clearly sees the needs in El Paso and its surrounding communities. She particularly mentioned ministering to people who live in a valley north of the West Texas city.

“We don’t have to go to Mexico,” she said. “We don’t have to go to Spain. We have (needs) all around here.”

For information on partnering with Spain and other countries, contact the Texas Partnerships Resource Center at (214) 828-5181 or via e-mail at texas_partnerships@bgct.org.

Posted: 12/10/04

Evangelical Theological Society to
adopt Chicago Statement on inerrancy

By Jeff Robinson

Baptist Press

SAN ANTONIO (BP)—Members of the Evangelical Theological Society passed a resolution to consider using the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy to clarify the organization’s position on the inerrancy of Scripture.

Adoption of the Chicago Statement would allow the society to exclude members or potential members who hold theological positions, such as open theism, that they believe undermine biblical inerrancy.

Members attending the 56th annual society meeting in San Antonio voted 234 (78.5 percent) to 58 to accept the resolution put forth by the society’s executive committee.

Greg Beale, the outgoing president of the society, said many members felt a more precise definition of inerrancy is needed in the wake of the recent challenge presented by open theism.

At the 2003 annual meeting in Atlanta, society members voted against revoking the membership of two theologians who hold to open theism or the openness of God, a position that teaches God does not know perfectly what will happen in the future.

The two theologians—Clark Pinnock and John Sanders —were acquitted largely because society members could not agree on a precise definition of the term “inerrancy” in the organization’s statement of faith.

To join the Evangelical Theological Society, one must sign a statement of faith that affirms belief in two doctrines—inerrancy of Scripture and the Trinity.

This year’s vote on the Chicago Statement does not automatically enact it as a society bylaw but allows the executive committee to examine the resolution further at its next meeting in August.

The committee will take feedback from society members and then decide whether to recommend adopting the Chicago Statement as a proposed bylaw at the 2005 Evangelical Theological Society national meeting in Valley Forge, Pa. Beale said the committee could bring the resolution before the society membership for adoption or could recommend further discussion.

If members vote to adopt the Chicago Statement, it will not become a part of the society’s statement of faith but will serve as “a useful instrument for interpreting” the article on inerrancy, Beale said.

If adopted as the interpretative instrument, the Chicago Statement then could be used for excluding members who hold aberrant views of Scripture, Beale said. One of the aspects of openness theology the resolution seeks to address is its teaching that some biblical prophecies will not actually be fulfilled in reality, a teaching many evangelicals believe undermines biblical inerrancy.

Society founder Roger Nicole, who brought the charges last year against Pinnock and Sanders, said adoption of the Chicago Statement would set forth precisely what the charter members of the society intended when they included the term “inerrancy” in their statement of faith.

“In my judgment, (adoption of the Chicago Statement) eliminates the claim by anyone that inerrancy is a vague term,” Nicole said. “The meaning of ‘inerrancy’ is clarified, and if there is any member who does not agree with that definition, he should resign … or be disciplined.”

The Chicago Statement was produced in the fall of 1978 during an international summit conference of concerned evangelical leaders. It was signed by nearly 300 evangelical scholars such as Nicole, Norman Geisler, Carl F.H. Henry, Harold Lindsell, J.I. Packer, Francis Schaeffer, R.C. Sproul and James Montgomery Boice.

It contains five short statements that define inerrancy, followed by 19 affirmations and denials that further define the doctrine. For example, the first article reads: “We affirm that the Holy Scriptures are to be received as the authoritative word of God. We deny that the Scriptures receive their authority from the church, tradition or any other human source.”

One of the brief opening statements says of Scripture: “Being wholly and verbally God-given … (it) is without error or fault in all its teaching, no less in what it states about God’s acts in creation, about the events of world history, and about its own literary origins under God, than in its witness to God’s saving grace in individual lives.”

By contrast, the society’s statement on Scripture is brief. It reads, “The Bible alone and the Bible in its entirety, is the word of God written, and therefore inerrant in the autographs.”