Posted: 1/25/08

A girl at a Zapoteco village in a Oaxaca mountain makes corn tortillas by hand. The people in this community live in one-bedroom aluminum homes with dirt floors. (Photos by Russ Dilday/Buckner)

Buckner explores needs in Mexico

By Analiz González

Buckner International

MEXICO CITY—Observers of Mexico say it’s hard to speak of the country in absolute terms. Its needs are as varied as the multiple versions of “Mexican food” people eat in the United States.

Mexico has hundreds of people-groups with dozens of languages, lifestyles and dialects. In the cities, adults often crowd into forsaken rooms in overpopulated barrios.

Dexton Shores, director of ministry development in Mexico and the Border, speaks with a child in Oaxaca. Shores is identifying needs in Mexico for future church missions and ministry opportunities.

At least 1 million homeless children live in Mexico City, often raising each other on the streets. Mexico City is the largest city in the Americas—15 million people accounted for, and probably many more.

Dexton Shores, Buckner International’s director of ministry development in Mexico and the border, recently returned from an exploratory trip to discover mission opportunities in the country. One of the biggest problems he discovered is hunger.

Twenty-year-old Saul Martinez from Iglesia Bautista Horeb in Mexico City has coordinated a ministry to feed children the past three years. He hands them a bowl with rice or soup—something simple. As a boy, he went there to get food himself.

“Most of the people who live in this area are not originally from Mexico City,” Martinez said. “They don’t have steady salaries, and sometimes they have to go away to find work, and they leave their kids alone and with no food.”

Some women trek 30 minutes for the free meal with babies tied around their backs in pieces of cloth and other children walking by their side. Some children go alone.

Yanina Briseño de Gutiérrez, wife of Pastor Gilberto Gutiérrez, is the driving force behind Iglesia Bautista Horeb’s efforts to serve the women and children in Mexico City. She and her husband have dreams of one day creating a school to educate the street children and stop the cycle of early death, HIV and crime.

Many of the street kids are children of inmates. Mothers in prison can raise their children behind bars until their babies turn 6. After that, either they go to live with a relative or are left to find their own means of survival.

Children participate in an after-school program in a community center by the Oaxaca landfill. Most children attending the center come from families that live off the city dump by picking out cardboard and aluminum from the trash, anything that they can sell.

In Mexico, people accused of crimes are guilty until proven innocent, explained Jorge Quezada, who leads a ministry through Horeb to teach rondallas, or ethnic music, to prison inmates. Suspects are thrown into prison, often for as long as a year, while they await their trials.

The first Mexican ministry Buckner has supported is a gothic church plant and counseling center called Comunidad Subterránea, or “Subterranean Community.” This ministry has pulled drug users and satanic worshipers out of occults and addictions and into lives of freedom.

Leticia Hernandez and Laura Chavez, two young women who were raised in traditional Baptist churches, launched the ministry. They were part of an evangelism team, and as they went out and shared the gospel with teens clad in black and smelling of narcotics, they found their words rejected. So, they changed their approach.

They live by 1 Corinthians 9:22, which says, “I have become all things to all men so that by all possible means I might save some.” So they’ve taken on black garb and tuned into Christian rock.

In the process, they’ve grown in number, enlisting drug addicts and witches to the army of God through Christian heavy metal and testimonies they can identify with. They’re also providing counseling to get them on their feet and away from their old habits.

“We accept anyone who is rejected by the churches,” Hernandez said. “We tell them to come as they are and that God will clean them up after they decide to follow him.”

Buckner helps support this ministry by paying the rent of the building used for counseling and worship.

A young boy from a Zapoteco community plays outside his home. The infant mortality rate among the Zapoteco community is 25 percent.

Buckner plans to expand its ministry into another part of Mexico—the outskirts of Oaxaca City, where an indigenous group lives in a community called Cumbre, which means “peak of the mountain,” because they’re closer to the sun than the surrounding villages.

These people make tortillas by hand, grinding, mixing and cooking inside smoke-filled aluminum huts that are also their bedroom and living room, and everything. They die at an early age, and their children often don’t live to age 2 because of poor living conditions.

They are called Zapotecos—one of the many indigenous groups in the state of Oaxaca. Although the Zapotecos knows Spanish, there are dozens of languages and dialects spoken in the state of Oaxaca alone.

The Zapotecos have been abandoned by the government and often are denied basic voting rights, said Jaime García-Merino of Iglesia Bautista Esperanza. “They have little to no say in politics and are poorly educated. And for this group, there is no church in the area.”

Buckner plans to send volunteer mission groups to work with the Zapotecos and help build water filters that would stop the parasite problem among the children. Missionaries also would provide job-skill training and build green houses.

Mission groups also will have opportunities to work in other ministries in Mexico, such as the Mefiboset Shelter in Oaxaca. Mefiboset was started by Alfredo and Nidia Lopez, who live in a small apartment by a child rehabilitation center where infants and babies are treated for birth defects.

The Lopez family has a disabled child of their own—Pablito. Due to the treatments Pablito underwent at the center, they realized a lot of the people taking their children in for therapy have no place to stay.

So, the Lopez couple and their two boys began renting an apartment where they take in guests free of charge. While they stay in their home, Nidia works with the guests at putting together meals. And she sells handmade jewelry so she can buy food for her guests.

Another ministry Buckner wants to help is a community center by the Oaxaca landfill in the Guillermo Guardado Colonia. Most of the children attending the community center come from families that live off of the city dump. They pick out cardboard and aluminum from the trash—anything that they can sell.

The community center serves 100 and 120 children through a collaboration between Misión Maranata and Compassion International. Compassion International provides financial support for physical, spiritual and social needs. But the group doesn’t aid in construction, so the children are crammed into a tight, uncomfortable space.

They have only one restroom available, and children sometimes soil themselves when they have to wait in line for too long. The ministry’s only vehicle is more than 20 years old and barely fits the 10-12 church volunteers who ride into the center together. Buckner missionaries will be needed to provide parenting classes, teach Vacation Bible School and help improve living conditions with house repair projects.

For information about missions opportunities in Mexico, visit www.ItsYourMission.com or call (877) 7ORPHAN.

News of religion, faith, missions, Bible study and Christian ministry among Baptist churches, in Texas, the BGCT, the nation and around the world.

Posted: 1/25/08

On 35th anniversary of Roe v. Wade,
both sides celebrate decline of abortion

By Robert Marus

Associated Baptist Press

WASHINGTON (ABP)—As abortion-rights supporters and pro-life activists marked the 35th anniversary of the decision that legalized the procedure nationwide, new statistics show fewer women are choosing abortion.

A new study, released just days before the Jan. 22 anniversary of the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, showed the United States’ abortion rate is at its lowest in more than 30 years.

It also showed that the overall number of abortions nationwide is down more than 25 percent from its peak in 1990.

Tens of thousands of anti-abortion protestors gather on the National Mall for the annual March for Life to mark 35 years since the U.S. Supreme Court legalized abortion. (RNS photo by Greg Trotter)

Thousands of anti-abortion protesters marched through cold temperatures down the National Mall and up Capitol Hill to the Supreme Court’s building to mark the anniversary.

They were met by abortion-rights supporters who celebrated the court’s decision that state governments cannot impose undue burdens on a woman’s right to terminate her pregnancy.

Abortion opponents heard a recording from President Bush, who said he was “heartened by the news that the number of abortions is declining, but the most recent data reports that more than one in five pregnancies end in abortion. America is better than this, so we will continue to work for a culture of life.”

The numbers came from the Guttmacher Institute, which is affiliated with the abortion provider Planned Parenthood but is generally regarded by those on both sides of the abortion debate as the authority on reproductive-health statistics.

The study, released Jan. 17, showed that in 2005 (the most recent year for which complete statistics are available), there were 19.4 abortions per 1,000 U.S. women of childbearing age. That is a dramatic decrease since the rate’s 1981 peak of 29.3.

Researchers at the institute found there were 1.2 million abortions in 2005, about a 25 percent decline from the all-time high of 1.5 million in 1990.

The data also showed that abortions are increasingly done earlier, and a much larger percentage of them are done pharmaceutically, using the abortion pill known as RU-486, mifepristone, or by its brand name, Mifeprex.

The same day as the study, Nancy Keenan, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, delivered a speech at the University of Texas as part of commemorations of the Roe v. Wade anniversary.

In the speech, she said people in the abortion-rights community should not cede moral high ground to their opponents or shy away from rhetoric about supporting women who choose not to abort.

“We also believe that if we could prevent unintended pregnancy, then we could therefore reduce the need for abortion,” she said. “So, we stand for the teaching of honest, realistic sex education.

“We stand for the right to choose contraception, including the morning-after pill. And we stand with women who choose to continue their pregnancies, hoping that a compassionate society will support them in the responsibilities of raising a child.”

News of religion, faith, missions, Bible study and Christian ministry among Baptist churches, in Texas, the BGCT, the nation and around the world.

Posted: 1/25/08

Richard Cizik, vice president of governmental affairs for the National Association of Evangelicals.

Christian voters broadening political
agenda, evangelical panelists say

By Robert Marus

Associated Baptist Press

WASHINGTON (ABP)—The Washington auditorium that once hosted a news program famous for back-and-forth arguments between political opponents instead recently featured a very different dialogue—a group of evangelical Christians denouncing the religious and political polarization of the last two presidential campaign cycles.

Panel participants, who ranged from former supporters of President Bush to some of his most vehement Christian critics, addressed the question, “Choosing a president: What do evangelicals really want?”

Jim Wallis, founder of Sojourners/Call to Renewal

They spoke Jan. 23 on the George Washington University stage once used for the CNN show Crossfire.

The discussion validated many pundits observations that Christians in the United States are seeking new ways of adapting Christ’s commands to the political arena. While white evangelicals seem to be broadening their political agenda, evangelicals who are minorities are looking more critically at the Republican Party than in past elections.

“We are no longer single-issue voters, number one, and we’re not going to blindly follow prominent leaders in the Religious Right or otherwise who are telling us what we have to believe,” said Richard Cizik, vice president of governmental affairs for the National Association of Evangelicals.

Cizik, who opposes abortion and gay rights and twice voted for President Bush, is an outspoken proponent for Christians to combat global warming.

“For a lot of the young people I meet, the Religious Right has been replaced by Jesus,” said Jim Wallis, founder of Sojourners/Call to Renewal, an evangelical social-justice group. “Politics is stuck in its polarities—every issue has only two sides, and both sides do it.”

Wallis has been a frequent critic of many of President Bush’s policies, particularly regarding poverty and the Iraq war. He has also criticized Religious Right leaders for their closeness to Bush. His organization co-sponsored the discussion along with Beliefnet, the religion-focused Internet news site.

Such overt identification of evangelical Christians with the Republican Party is dangerous for Christians, one prominent African-American evangelical on the panel said. Harry Jackson, pastor of Hope Christian Church in suburban Washington, was one of only a handful of prominent black pastors to support Bush in both his 2000 and 2004 campaigns.

While Jackson declined to retract those endorsements, saying they were correct “at the time,” he did say that evangelicals’ support of Bush “was fear-based, versus vision- and passion-based.”

Even though he appreciated the moves that white evangelicals began to make 30 years ago to begin to affect the political process, Jackson said pinning their hopes on one party was a dangerous strategy.

“It’s impossible … to be a conscience to the entire nation and to be partisan as well,” Jackson said. “So, at some point we’ve lost our ability to be a conscience to the entire nation.”

Joel Hunter, pastor of an Orlando-area megachurch and a former president of the Christian Coalition, said the discussion reflected American evangelicals’ “forfeiting—at least in the last 50 years—of the agenda of Christ.”

That agenda, he continued, “was always to include the un-included. And I think when Christians got back into the political arena … they did it as a reaction against” the social revolutions of the 1960s.

Hunter said the evangelical political movement fell prey to the “certain seduction in political power that makes us all want to get in one category so that we can push through a particular political agenda.”

But, in politics, your agenda has to mature, he added. “It’s like the middle-school years— you’ve defined yourself by what you hate, what you’re not. But when you grow up, you have to define yourself by who you are, by what you build.”

The results of a Beliefnet poll of evangelicals, announced at the discussion, suggest that their agenda may be broadening beyond hot-button social issues.

It revealed that 41 percent of evangelicals identified themselves as Republicans, 30 percent as Democrats, and the remainder considered themselves independent or were affiliated with third parties.

Respondents also said the most important issue in the election is not abortion or gay rights, but the economy, with 85 percent ranking it either “most important” or “very important.”

In fact, they ranked six other issues above ending abortion on the scale of importance. Ending the Iraq war, caring for the poor, ending torture and cleaning up government all ranked ahead of the abortion issue. Preserving marriage as a heterosexual-only institution ranked even farther down the list, with less than half of respondents ranking it as important.

The poll was not scientific—it asked all Beliefnet readers about what issues they thought were the most important. It then considered results only from respondents who considered themselves evangelical or born-again Christians.

“There is a really interesting conversation going on now in evangelical Christianity,” said Steve Waldman, the founder and editor of Beliefnet, in announcing the survey results. “Although the press has gotten a little bit better at understanding (evangelicals), there is still a lot of stereotyping—people being put in boxes and a lack of awareness.”

One of the reasons for that, several panelists noted, is that when the media talks about “evangelical voters,” they almost always mean white evangelicals. African-American and Latino evangelicals, meanwhile, have always had broader policy agendas than their white counterparts.

“Immigration reform—that’s a moral issue for Latino evangelicals,” said Samuel Rodriguez, president of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference.

“The major difference between Latino evangelicals and white evangelicals is that many white evangelicals take their marching orders from Bishop Rush Limbaugh, Prophet Sean Hannity… and many Latino evangelicals still listen to Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.”

News of religion, faith, missions, Bible study and Christian ministry among Baptist churches, in Texas, the BGCT, the nation and around the world.

Posted: 1/25/08

Children gather outside the Martínez home to worship after Bible class. (Photos by Russ Dilday/Buckner)

Friends of Jesus share good
news with their parents

By Analiz González

Buckner International

OAXACA, Mexico — In southern Mexico, a group of recent Christian converts meets in a colonia in Oaxaca. And all the new believers are under age 15.

They study the Bible. They worship on the street Fridays and fearlessly invite others to learn about God. They know God changed their lives, and they share their faith with their parents.

Sergio, 9, sits and talks with Marco Antonio Martínez after an Amigos de Jesus meeting. Sergio is an orphan who has bonded with the Martínez family.

“These children come from families of non-converts,” explained Marco Antonio Martínez, who lends his house for the children’s Bible study, called Amigos de Jesus, or Friends of Jesus. “They’ve come here on their own, and they are taking the gospel home with them.

Martínez was hosting a Christian small group for adults in his home, and the children of the members had nothing to do while their parents prayed and talked about God.

So, Noemi García of Iglesia Bautista Esperanza started teaching them Bible stories and worship songs. The children brought friends. Then, those friends brought friends.

“They filled our dining room, bedroom and the hallway and we had nowhere else to put them,” Martínez said. “They started lining up outside the front of the house because there was no more room. We didn’t know what else to do, so we told them to stop coming.”

But they didn’t.

Martínez and his wife were startled when a dozen children knocked on their door the next week at the usual time. “Can you please teach us Bible stories?” one child asked.

Martinez couldn’t turn them away. And the group started growing all over again, with 50 children in faithful attendance. During Bible classes, the children crowd into corners. They sit in tiny plastic chairs or stand in the door frame—wherever there’s room.

“A lot make sacrifices so they can come,” Martínez said. “One time, 7-year-old Rosita came in with sores in her hands. It was because her mom said she could only go to Amigos de Jesus if she finished her chores early, so she hustled to make it. She’s always here at 5 p.m. sharp.”

Rosita, 7, chats with Amigos de Jesus leader Noemi García. Rosita is always punctual for class, Martínez said, even when she has to rush to finish her chores at home.

Sergio, age 9, is one of children who has benefited from this ministry. He lives alone in an aluminum shack across the street from the Martínez home. Women at church donated the clothes he wears.

“My parents died of cancer,” Sergio said calmly. “I like coming here to learn about Jesus. It’s my favorite thing.”

Sergio and the other children also enjoy a snack during Bible study as part of the ministry. They distribute anything they can afford—one tostada each on good days. Usually, the children each get a cookie. When times are rough, the women get together to boil apples to make them tea.

Their funds are low sometimes, and the number of children is growing back to the original number, which was about 70, but Martínez is glad for the help they are able to offer.

“They’ll take whatever we offer them,” Martínez said. “And they’re always grateful.”

Buckner mission opportunities to Oaxaca are being planned so volunteer missionaries can provide Vacation Bible School and activities for children and discipleship classes for adults. For more information, call (877) 7ORPHAN or visit www.ItsYourMission.com.

News of religion, faith, missions, Bible study and Christian ministry among Baptist churches, in Texas, the BGCT, the nation and around the world.

Storylist for week of 1/21/08

TAKE ME TO: Top Story |  Texas |  Opinion |  Baptists |  Faith & Culture |  Book Reviews |  Classifieds  |  Departments  |  Bible Study





• Responding to the Luke 4 mandate


• Trial date set for suit by dismissed female prof

• ENGAGE:The most effective evangelism tool? The one Christians will use

• BUA dedicates Piper Village

• On the Move

• Around the State

• Texas Tidbits


Responding to the Luke 4 Mandate
• Responding to the Luke 4 mandate

• Oklahoma Baptist feels called to minister in global hot spots

• Hands-on missions in Africa

• Caring for the poor: Whose job is it–church or state?


• Baptist Briefs


• Rob Bell: Christians shouldn't fear controversy over doctrine

• Survey: Unchurched Americans say church is full of hypocrites

• Former Klansman reflects on how God's grace redeemed a life of hate

• Redeemed Klansman reunites with long-ago victim

• Death penalty opponents find new allies among evangelicals

• Stop complaining, and life becomes more enjoyable

• Faith Digest


• Book Reviews


• Classified Ads

• Cartoon

• Around the State

• On the Move


• EDITORIAL: Countries, conventions need free press

• DOWN HOME: Comic's nonmarriage not funny

• TOGETHER: Texas Baptists ‘Engage' evangelism

• RIGHT or WRONG? 'Baptist' in name

• 2nd Opinion: Looking for something reliable

• Texas Baptist Forum



• BaptistWay Bible Series for January 20: Not an easy way

• Bible Studies for Life Series for January 20: Breakthrough in justice

• Explore the Bible Series for January 20: God wants us to value everyone

• Explore the Bible Series for January 27: Do you trust the Lord's promises?

• Bible Studies for Life Series for January 27: Breakthrough in confidence


Previously Posted
• Ministries continue in Kenya as violence subsides somewhat, but tension remains

• Displaced Kenyans in Uganda receive help from Baptist World Aid

• Mentors provide hope for at-risk elementary school students

• Single mother finds stability & purpose thanks to Gracewood

• In the shadows, slavery remains

• SBC surveying churches about Cooperative Program

• Christians in Kenya administer aid as unrest continues

• Racetracks unite in push for slot machines

• Baptist Children's Home runaway killed on San Antonio highway

• Pinkston named Texas WMU interim director

• Wayland classes in Kenya will proceed as scheduled

• Huckabee, Obama early victories spotlight religion in 2008 campaign

• CBF field personnel safe as violence continues in Kenya

• Southern Baptists respond to critical hunger needs in Kenya

• Buckner assumes Kenya children's home ministry

• Christians killed, churches burned in India

• Kenya violence affects Wayland students

• Former Valley Baptist Missions/Education Center president arrested

• Buckner postpones Kenya trips due to political unrest


• See articles from the previous 1/07/08 issue here.

Posted: 1/24/08

CERI launches child-sponsorship
program in Sri Lanka

By Haley Smith

Baptist Child & Family Services

Three years after a massive tsunami triggered an international outpouring of support for Sri Lanka and opened the door for a Texas Baptist agency to establish that nation’s foster care program, relief funds that had been used to help orphaned children are nearly depleted.

In response, Children’s Emergency Relief International has launched a child-sponsorship program and is appealing for individuals to provide monthly financial support for those orphans.

Sri Lankan orphans like U. Amasha treasure the photos and letters they receive from their CERI sponsors, who make it possible for them to remain in foster care. (CERI Photo)

CERI began work in Sri Lanka soon after the tsunami struck, eventually setting up a foster care program at the request of a government that historically had rejected similar programs.

In 2008, CERI cares for 172 children placed in foster homes in Sri Lanka.

In addition to children orphaned by the tsunami, an increasing number of children have lost parents because of the reignited civil war.

“Until now, CERI—the international arm of Baptist Child & Family Services—has sustained the Sri Lankan foster program primarily with gifts received immediately after the tsunami and has not needed to request individual sponsorship for each child,” CERI Executive Director Dearing Garner explained.

“Unfortunately, with those funds depleting and an increased need due to war and requests from the Sri Lankan government to receive additional children into the program, an emphasis for individual sponsors becomes necessary.”

CERI offers a $50 per month sponsorship for each child, which benefits an orphan and their foster family. The monthly support makes it economically possible for relatives to provide foster care. The money pays for food, clothes and schooling for the sponsored orphan, as well as monthly training for the foster family on parenting, communications, money management, and health and hygiene.

Each child and family in the program is assigned one of 12 case workers in Sri Lanka who then follows the child and foster family to ensure proper care and a loving environment. That includes making sure a small portion of the monthly disbursement goes into a savings account for the child for future education or vocational training.

Sri Lankan sponsors also have the opportunity to write and send photos to their sponsored orphan, as well as receive reports from the child.

“As the need for sponsors for orphans in Sri Lanka grows greater, CERI is looking for God’s people to answer the call,” Garner said.

To find out more about the CERI sponsorship program for Sri Lanka and to begin a sponsorship, visit www.CeriKids.org or call (281) 360-3702.

News of religion, faith, missions, Bible study and Christian ministry among Baptist churches, in Texas, the BGCT, the nation and around the world.

Posted: 1/23/08

2nd Opinion: What Is God Saying?

By Mike Midkiff

Pastor, Oak Grove Baptist Church, Marshall

The last two months have been very interesting for me driving around Harrison County. My two sons, Andrew and Ashton, have given me a new nickname. They call me “Crash” because of the three wrecks I have had.

The first “crash” occurred when I was not even in my Blazer. As I was walking into my favorite Chinese restaurant I heard the crunch of metal hitting metal. As I looked back I could see that my Blazer had been hit in the rear by a small pick-up.

As I went to investigate I found no driver in the pick-up. The pick-up had slipped out of gear, rolled down a small hill, and caused over $2,000 in damage. I found the driver and he had insurance. No problem, Blazer fixed and it looked like new.

The second “crash” happened the day after Christmas. After Wednesday night prayer meeting I went to Brookshire’s to buy some needed groceries. As I was two blocks from my home a young man decided to ignore a stop sign. I rammed into the Yukon he was driving.

My Blazer no longer had a front bumper or headlights as the momentum of the Yukon ripped them away finally stopping about 30 feet from impact. I had never been involved in any type of accident like this. The driver ran from the scene and left four passengers behind. He eventually returned and was arrested by the Marshall Police Department. My Blazer was totaled by my insurance company.

The third crash happened the night before I was to return my rent car after I had settled with my insurance company on my Blazer. I was driving home from the second night of our Winter Bible Study. As I was driving west on Highway 154, a dog appeared out of nowhere in the middle of the highway. I swerved trying to miss the dog, but was not successful. The impact caused damaged to the bumper on the right side of the rental car. This completed my accident total with three accidents in only two short months!

When I got home I told my family what had happened. I was perplexed as to why I was having such misfortune. All three accidents could not have been avoided. After I received the nickname “Crash,” my son Andrew asked, “Dad, what is God trying to tell you?”

I have been trying to discover what God is trying to say to me. God speaks through the Holy Spirit, through His Word, through prayer, and even circumstances. As a Christian, I want to discover God’s will for my life.

The three “crashes” have made me realize I am blessed. I am blessed because I was not hurt. I am blessed because my family can still joke with me by calling me “Crash.” I am blessed because I know God is personal and desires a relationship that is eternal through knowing His son, Jesus Christ.

As you reflect on your day, your week, your month, your life, what does God want you to hear from Him? Are you seeking His leadership in your life through reading the Bible, praying, and worshipping with a local body of believers?

Proverbs 3:6 says, “In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths,” even though there may be crashes and bumps along the road.

Mike Midkiff is pastor of Oak Grove Baptist Church in Marshall and Director of Public Relations at East Texas Baptist University.

News of religion, faith, missions, Bible study and Christian ministry among Baptist churches, in Texas, the BGCT, the nation and around the world.

Posted: 1/21/08

Huckabee’s role in SBC conflict
presaged political balancing act

By Robert Marus

Associated Baptist Press

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (ABP)—Mike Huckabee’s role in the holy war that divided the Southern Baptist Convention was as delicate a balancing act as the one he’s attempting now in his presidential campaign, balancing grassroots populism and right-wing conservatism.

Moreover, Huckabee’s nuanced role in denominational politics may have something to do with why the former Arkansas governor, despite earning a grassroots following among conservative evangelicals in early primaries, has failed to garner clear support from the Religious Right’s powerbrokers.

Mike Huckabee, shown as a young pastor and as governor of Arkansas speaking to Baptist newspaper editors in 1998. (Right photo by Jim Veneman)

Before entering secular politics, Huckabee served as a highly successful and charismatic pastor. His leadership in reviving two struggling congregations catapulted him to the presidency of the Arkansas Baptist State Convention, by far the state’s largest religious group.

But Huckabee’s 1989-91 leadership of Arkansas Baptists came at the height of the struggle between theological moderates and ultraconservatives for control of the SBC, the nation’s largest Protestant body. After 1991, it became clear that the conservatives had won—at least on the national level. But Huckabee won his first presidency with the support of Baptist moderates.

“He was the moderates’ candidate, (but) I wouldn’t say he was considered a moderate,” said Hal Bass, a professor of political science at Ouachita Baptist University in Arkadelphia, Ark. Bass is a longtime Baptist lay leader who considers himself a moderate.

In the 1989 battle for the Arkansas state convention’s presidency, Huckabee ran against Ronnie Floyd, pastor of a megachurch in the Northwest Arkansas city of Springdale. It was one of the most hyped elections in the group’s history. Floyd had the support of the SBC’s fundamentalist machine, which by then was well on its way to victory on the national level and in many of the other state conventions.

But Huckabee, by all accounts, declined to do the bidding of the fundamentalist party— and beat Floyd handily. However, by all accounts, he was theologically very conservative. In fact, he has since preached in the Springdale church as Floyd’s guest, and Floyd recently endorsed Huckabee’s presidential campaign.

“Certainly, he wasn’t in the trenches fighting on behalf of the conservative resurgence,” Bass said, using the term most often employed by fundamentalist Southern Baptists to denote the struggle. “That wasn’t who he was. That wasn’t the fight he wanted to make.”

Huckabee ran for denominational office using rhetoric that has found an echo in his current presidential campaign, Bass observed. “He is a conservative but isn’t angry about it,” he said.

Greg Kirksey, currently Huckabee’s pastor at the Church at Rock Creek in Little Rock, noted that Huckabee has repeatedly described himself that way on the national campaign trail.

“Even though that’s a great line and sounds like it’s something cute to say, that really is a very accurate summation of” Huckabee’s beliefs, both theological and political, he said. Kirksey is himself a former Arkansas Baptist president, and similarly was elected to that office with the support of moderates.

Bass said the way the candidate governed Arkansas to some extent backs up such rhetoric.

“If you look back at who Huckabee was as a candidate in Arkansas, it wasn’t all this ‘Christian leader’ stuff,” he said, referring to a caption in a television commercial Huckabee ran in Iowa prior to winning that state’s Republican caucus. “He governed much more as a pragmatist, not as an ideologue.”

Although Huckabee appealed strongly to Christian conservatives in his first foray into secular politics—he attempted unsuccessfully to unseat longtime Senator Dale Bumpers in 1992—he toned down such rhetoric for his next race. In 1993, he won a special election for the lieutenant governorship, eventually becoming governor.

As governor, Huckabee devoted much of his political capital with the Democrat-dominated legislature to passing educational reforms and improvements to the state’s infrastructure and social services. While he opposes abortion and expanding gay rights, he spent little time on legislative efforts tied to those issues.

“It seems to me that Huckabee shares with the Religious Right powerbrokers a profound social conservatism,” Bass said.

More recently Huckabee pleased SBC conservatives by withdrawing as a keynote speaker for the Celebration of a New Baptist Covenant, a historic gathering of 10,000 to 20,000 centrist and progressive Baptists in Atlanta Jan. 30-Feb. 1. One of the few Republicans on the original program, Huckabee said he canceled in protest of recent remarks by organizer Jimmy Carter—remarks SBC conservatives said were anti-Israel.

Nonetheless, Huckabee has not created a groundswell of support among evangelicalism’s powerbrokers the way he has its grass roots. While Religious Right leaders have not spoken out publicly against Huckabee, the most influential have also simply not said much to boost him.

Only a handful of prominent SBC leaders have come out in Huckabee’s favor as well. While churches and non-profit religious institutions are not allowed to endorse or campaign for candidates, a handful of Southern Baptist pastors and leaders have offered personal endorsements of their colleague. Among them are former pastor and denominational executive Jimmy Draper and Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary President Danny Akin.

Perhaps the most obvious omission in Huckabee’s crowd of supporters is Richard Land, the head of the SBC’s social-concerns agency and a conservative veteran of the denomination’s struggle. While he has, in the recent past, spoken glowingly of former Tennessee senator Fred Thompson and negatively of former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani, Land has had little to say about his fellow Southern Baptist’s candidacy.

Attempts to reach Huckabee campaign officials, in the midst of primary-state campaigning, were unsuccessful. However, in a December New York Times Magazine profile, Huckabee expressed frustration over Land’s reluctance.

“Richard Land swoons for Fred Thompson,” he said. “I don’t know what that’s about. For reasons I don’t fully understand, some of these Washington-based people forget why they are there. They make ‘electability’ their criterion. But I am a true soldier for the cause. If my own abandon me on the battlefield, it will have a chilling effect.”

Paul Pressler, a retired Texas judge who is one of the two acknowledged masterminds of the fundamentalist battle plan to wrest the SBC from moderates’ control, has also endorsed Thompson.

Privately, some close to Huckabee and familiar with Southern Baptist politics say that leaders like Land and Pressler simply don’t trust him because he refused to be a loyal foot-soldier during the SBC wars.

Bass said they may have other reasons. “I think he differs from them primarily along the economic front, and I think that reflects some socio-economic factors among the two groups,” he said.

“From my perspective, the SBC reps at the elite level, at the top level, have kind of ridden the wave of rising affluence among Baptists in the South,” Bass said, because many of them represent large, wealthy suburban congregations full of professionals. Huckabee’s last two churches—in Pine Bluff and Texarkana, Ark.—were in depressed parts of one of the nation’s poorest states.

Huckabee himself has touted his roots among the working poor and has embraced populist-style economic rhetoric on the campaign trail. “It strikes me that Huckabee’s roots are much more socio-economically with the blue-collar,” Bass said.

Land and other prominent evangelical leaders may also have other reasons for failing to get behind Huckabee, Bass added.

“It seems to me that … to the extent that Huckabee succeeds among evangelicals as he has so far, he’s very much risked becoming a niche candidate that could conceivably marginalize that evangelical constituency within the Republican Party,” he said. “He could prove to be a divisive force within the traditional Republican coalition. And maybe, just maybe, guys like Land could see that.”

Evangelical leaders who act as intermediaries to non-evangelical politicians could be threatened by one of their own actually becoming a nominee or president, Bass added.

“Richard Land has … status in Republican-coalition circles because it’s presumed he speaks for at least a strong element of Southern Baptists,” he said. “If Mike Huckabee is leading the Republican Party, Richard Land doesn’t have the same clout as if he’s speaking to a Ronald Reagan or a George Bush.”

Land, through an assistant, said he was unable to be interviewed by press time for this story.

Kirksey speculated that some non-Arkansans may simply not know his parishioner well enough.

“I think he was perceived by those who don’t know him outside the state as somebody who must be liberal, somebody who must be the enemy. And the reason I think why Mike beat Ronnie (Floyd) so bad in Arkansas was because people in Arkansas knew he wasn’t some kind of flaming liberal,” he said.

“He fought for a lot of the social issues that we use to identify a person as a conservative,” Kirksey added. “But he has a huge heart of compassion.”

Huckabee has continued to soft-pedal some of his theological conservatism on the secular campaign trail. At a recent GOP debate, he was asked about his public support of a 1998 amendment to the SBC’s doctrinal statement that called for wives to “graciously submit” to their husbands’ leadership.

The former governor responded by first saying that, for anybody who was familiar with his wife, “I don’t think they for one minute think that she’s going to just sit by and let me do whatever I want to. That would be an absolute total misunderstanding of Janet Huckabee.”

But then he gave a theological context for the amendment that, to many observers, appeared as if he were in favor of wives and husbands submitting mutually to each other. “As wives submit themselves to the husbands, the husbands also submit themselves, and it’s not a matter of one being somehow superior over the other. It’s both mutually showing their affection and submission as unto the Lord.”

However, the SBC messengers who approved the amendment explicitly rejected a moderate-backed motion that would have called for such mutual submission.

A Jan. 11 story in Baptist Press, the SBC-controlled denominational news service, interpreted Huckabee’s debate comments as supporting Southern Baptist conservatives’ view of the Scripture passage on which the statement was based. In that interpretation, Ephesians 5:22 calls wives to submit themselves to their husbands and husbands to submit themselves to Christ.

Bill Leonard, a Baptist historian and moderate veteran of the SBC wars, said Huckabee has danced along the conservative-moderate line before. Even though he was the moderate candidate for the Arkansas Baptist presidency in 1989, Leonard noted, he had dropped out of seminary years before to work for Texas evangelist James Robison. Prior to having a change of heart long after Huckabee left his employ, Robison was a rhetorical bomb-thrower for SBC conservatives.

“In some ways he reflects the old SBC—the pastor who wants to have it both ways, who wants to be conservative, but wants to hedge his bets with the principalities and powers of denominational leadership,” said Leonard, the dean of Wake Forest University Divinity School. “So, unlike clear-cut liberal/moderates or clear-cut conservatives/fundamentalists, Huckabee is the politician, even then, who wants to have it both ways. Or, in his words I’m sure, to ‘bridge both groups.’"

Kirksey took a brighter view of Huckabee’s role. Noting that his friend and church member had a close relationship with the late conservative evangelical leader Jerry Falwell, he also said Huckabee shares a broader social agenda with a new generation of Christian leaders like California pastor Rick Warren.

“That’s the neat thing about Mike—he can be a close friend with a Jerry Falwell, and he can be a close friend with somebody extreme on the other side,” he said. “I think the practice of his faith is more in line with the Rick Warren approach. It’s a ministry-driven kind of faith that’s concerned with making a difference in people’s lives.

News of religion, faith, missions, Bible study and Christian ministry among Baptist churches, in Texas, the BGCT, the nation and around the world.

Posted: 1/21/08

Obama again refutes Muslim rumors;
Jewish leaders denounce e-mails

By Robert Marus

Associated Baptist Press

WASHINGTON (ABP)—Churchgoing Congregationalist Barack Obama is being forced once again to explain that he is not secretly a Muslim bent on furthering an international Islamic conspiracy by winning the presidency.

Jewish and other religious leaders have joined him in denouncing an e-mail campaign that has resurfaced in primary states in recent weeks. Various versions of the messages have spread since at least January of 2007, when the conservative online magazine Insight published an article that falsely asserted Obama attended a madrassa—an Islamic religious school—while he lived in Indonesia.

During a debate between Democratic presidential hopefuls in Las Vegas, the Illinois senator was asked about the whisper-campaign rumors. The debate moderator, NBC Nightly News host Brian Williams, referred specifically to an e-mail NBC News had received. It said Obama had sworn his congressional oath of office on a Koran and that he refused to recite the Pledge of Allegiance or respect the United States flag.

“Well, look, first of all, let’s make clear what the facts are: I am a Christian,” Obama said. “I have been sworn in with a Bible. I pledge allegiance and lead the Pledge of Allegiance sometimes in the United States Senate when I’m presiding.”

Later, he said that “in the Internet age, there are going to be lies that are spread all over the place.… Fortunately, the American people are, I think, smarter than folks give them credit for. You know, it’s a testimony—these e-mails were going out in Iowa. They were going out in New Hampshire. And we did just fine” in those states.

The same day, the leaders of nine of the nation’s largest Jewish organizations released a joint statement denouncing as “hateful” the e-mail rumor campaign.

“Attempts of this sort to mislead and inflame voters should not be part of our political discourse and should be rebuffed by all who believe in our democracy,” the statement said. It was released, apparently, in response to reports that the e-mails were sent to Jewish voters in early primary states.

The statement added, “Jewish voters, like all voters, should support whichever candidate they believe would make the best president.”

Its signers included representatives of liberal and conservative nationwide Jewish organizations, including Nathan Diament of the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations in America and David Saperstein of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism.

A version of the e-mail message in question, reprinted on the myth-debunking website Snopes.com, notes that Obama’s late father was from a Kenyan Muslim family. The elder Obama divorced the senator’s mother, Ann Dunham, when the candidate was a toddler. The younger Obama had little contact with his father from then until his death.

Dunham, who is also deceased, was from Kansas and met Obama’s father when they attended the University of Hawaii. Obama was born in that state.

Snopes.com also notes that Obama’s Indonesian stepfather, Lolo Soetoro, was Muslim. Obama and his mother moved to Jakarta after she married Soetoro, and the senator attended elementary school there.

Based on those facts, the e-mail asserted that Obama attended a “radical” school that teaches a Wahhabist interpretation of Islam. Wahhabism is a fundamentalist sect of Sunni Islam with roots in Saudi Arabia. Wealthy Saudi donors have promoted Wahhabist teachings worldwide, but many Islam experts say the teachings promote radicalism and terrorism.

The e-mail also claims that Obama joined Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago “in an attempt to downplay his Muslim background” and says he took his oath of office, when sworn into the Senate in 2005, on a copy of the Koran rather than the Bible.

However, Obama’s father, while raised in a Muslim home, became agnostic before he met Dunham. His mother, who came from a non-practicing Protestant family in Kansas, was an anthropologist who encouraged the young Obama to attend a variety of religious services and read several religious texts.

Obama has spent significant time on the campaign trail appealing to progressive evangelical Christians. He has described his conversion experience—he joined the historically black Chicago congregation as a young adult—in evangelical terms.

In a 2004 Chicago Sun-Times article, Obama spoke about his “personal relationship with Jesus Christ.” His campaign autobiography, The Audacity of Hope, takes its name from the title of a sermon Obama heard at his church.

Only one member of Congress has been sworn into office using a Koran—Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minn., who became the first Muslim elected to Congress in 2006.

Obama supporters say the e-mailed rumors likely have their origin in the Insight article, which asserted that the school is a madrassa and that “most of these schools are financed by the Saudi Arabian government, and they teach a Wahhabi doctrine that denies the rights of non-Muslims.”

Several conservative media outlets, such as Fox News and Rush Limbaugh’s radio show, repeated the assertions from Insight. The magazine is owned by the same company— founded by Korean cult leader Sun Myung Moon—that owns the Washington Times.

But investigations by CNN and the Associated Press found that the Jakarta school Obama attended for two years is not a madrassa. The SDN Menteng 1 primary school is a co-educational public school that caters to children of wealthy Indonesians, Western expatriates and diplomats. Like other public schools in the majority-Muslim country, it offers religious instruction to Muslim students.

“This is a public school. We don’t focus on religion,” Hardi Priyono, the school’s deputy headmaster, told CNN. “In our daily lives, we try to respect religion, but we don’t give preferential treatment.”

News of religion, faith, missions, Bible study and Christian ministry among Baptist churches, in Texas, the BGCT, the nation and around the world.

Posted: 1/21/07

BaptistWay Bible Series for January 27

Me first

• Mark 9:30-37

By Andrew Daugherty

Christ Church, Rockwall

This Scripture passage is one of those you know must be verifiably accurate. Any text that would appear to make the disciples look discomfited rather than debonair must be absolutely authentic.

Some biblical scholars employ the “criterion of embarrassment” to determine the historical probability of certain texts in the Gospels or episodes in the life of Jesus. Texts and occasions that would present embarrassing material from Jesus or the disciples are sometimes said to be softened or suppressed by the Gospel writers. Anything that would weaken the writers’ arguments about the Jesus story or that might be held against them by opponents was of particular concern.

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But the synoptic Gospels (Mathew, Mark and Luke) are in agreement about this one, even though Matthew softens the scene some by extending the question at issue in the disciples’ debate: Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven? (Matthew 18:1).

Apparently Jesus overhears the mumbling disciples grumbling about who is the greatest. Seeing a teachable moment, he decides to ask the question anyway: What were you arguing about on the way? (v. 33). Ironically their arguments rooted in spiritual pride lead to a moment that was anything but their proudest. Their silence suggests so (v. 34).

The seriousness of what Jesus had just told the disciples draws even more attention to their petty opinions about who is the greatest. Jesus had just disclosed the harsh reality: The Son of Man is to be betrayed into human hands, and they will kill him, and three days after being killed, he will rise again (v. 31). But they did not understand what he was saying and were afraid to ask him (v. 32).

This was the second time Jesus had tried to tell them what was bound to happen in Jerusalem. Remember Peter’s rebuke of Jesus the first time (8:33)? Despite Jesus’ trying to tell them what was going to happen, the sacrifice and self-denial of Jesus’ journey to the cross did not fit their narrow notions of greatness.

So how did the disciples measure greatness? Was it based on their ability to understand all Jesus was saying to them? Was it measured by their loyalty to him personally? Were they considering a combination of factors like gifts, skills and age? Was it determined by how many healings and miracles they managed to perform? Did they talk about how many people they convinced to join the Jesus movement and if so, how did they tally those conversions? What sort of arguments did the disciples raise with one another?

In American culture, we often measure greatness based on individual achievements. Students with the highest SAT and GRE scores are admitted to the best schools. Professional sports often measure greatness by the number of home runs, the most touchdowns or the most points. The movie industry rewards greatness by awarding Oscars. The music industry rewards greatness by awarding Grammys. Standards of success are measured by who drives the most expensive car or the title they carry before or after their names—CEO, Rev., Ph.D or Esq.

We Baptists are notorious for measuring greatness relative to statistics and numbers. We measure quality based on quantity: What is your Sunday school attendance? How many members does your church have? What is the size of your youth group? How many people did you baptize last year? How big is your budget? How many satellite campuses do you have? So if we had to find ways to measure the impact of our ministries without referencing a number or statistic, what might we say? Might there be alternative ways to measure greatness?

Jesus provided some. Jesus did not evaluate the greatness of each disciple based on their criteria of greatness, whatever those criteria were. He turned the disciples’ notions of greatness upside down and said, “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all” (v. 35). Then he turned attention away from them and took a child in his arms. Jesus gives them a living example of greatness that is measured by whether a child is welcomed in his name.

We must not miss the significance of his example. In the first-century world, all children were at risk. Little social value was given to children, because by some estimates, the infant mortality rate was 30 percent. Another 30 percent were dead by 6 years old and 60 percent were dead by 16 years old. Children had no status, no value and certainly no bragging rights in society. They were not accepted as the pride and joy of society.

Jesus says whenever these children are accepted, he is accepted. The measure of greatness is measured by people’s response to those who need our love and care and have nothing to offer in return. According to Jesus, the way to greatness is not ascending the spiral staircase to superiority and power. The way to greatness is descending down in to the depths with helpless people who suffer and grieve and who are considered “nobodies” in society.

In our obsessive quest to be No. 1 and be the best and the brightest in a competitive dog-eat-dog world, Jesus offers us a better way; from “my way” to “God’s way.” In a world that rewards the winners and loathes the losers, Jesus calls us away from the ego-driven life to the servant-driven life.

Seems strange, doesn’t it? All our lives long we want to grow up in order to make something great of our lives. We are told to act like an adult. We strive to be independent, self-reliant and self-sufficient. Then when we’re all grown up, we discover Jesus says the secret to greatness in the kingdom of God doesn’t really have to do with any of those things.

In fact, greatness has as much to do with welcoming a child as it does with actually acting like one (Mark 10:13-16). We welcome the child by serving others who are vulnerable and dependent. We serve them, because we acknowledge our own vulnerability and dependence.

News of religion, faith, missions, Bible study and Christian ministry among Baptist churches, in Texas, the BGCT, the nation and around the world.

Posted: 1/18/08

Around the State

• Buckner Adoption will hold informational meetings for families interested in adopting internationally or domestically. Each meeting will detail the adoption process, fees and children available for adoption. All meetings will be held at the Buckner Children’s Home campus, located at 5200 South Buckner Boulevard in Dallas. Prior to attending each workshop, families must complete a free pre-application and questionnaire, available online at www.buckneradoption.org. There is a $50 materials fee for each meeting. Meetings have been scheduled for Feb. 15, 1:30 p.m.-5 p.m., international; March 7, 1:30 p.m.-5 p.m., international; April 11, 1:30-5 p.m., domestic infant; April 22, 6 p.m.-9:30 p.m., international; May 9, 1:30 p.m.-5 p.m., international; July 25, 9 a.m.-12:30 p.m., domestic infant; July 25, 1:30 p.m.-5 p.m., international; Aug. 22, 1:30 p.m.-5 p.m., international; Oct. 10, 9 a.m.-12:30 p.m., international; Oct. 10, 1:30 p.m.-5 p.m., domestic infant; and Nov. 21, 1:30 p.m.-5 p.m., international. To register, contact Sharon Hedrick at (866) 236-7823 or shedrick@buckner.org.

The Immortal Ten, a work by sculptor Bruce Green, has been erected on the Baylor University campus to memorialize the 10 Baylor students who died in a bus-train collision Jan. 22, 1927, in Round Rock. One of America’s first athletic tragedies happened on a rainy day as the men’s basketball team headed to Austin for a Southwest Conference matchup with Texas. As a result of the tragedy, the remainder of the 1927 season was canceled, and the first highway overpass in Texas was constructed in Round Rock.

• Five Baylor graduates were honored by the Baylor Alumni Association as distinguished alumni at a black-tie banquet Jan. 11. Honorees were Steven Browning, the U.S. ambassador to Uganda; Virginia DuPuy, mayor of Waco and CEO of DuPuy Oxygen; Mark Hurd, CEO, president and chairman of the board of Hewlett-Packard; James Shelhamer, deputy chief of the clinical center’s critical care medicine department at the National Institutes of Health; and Abelardo Valdez, a lawyer and former U.S. ambassador and chief of protocol for the White House.

• East Texas Baptist University’s department of nursing saw its first fall graduating class last semester. The four graduates were Peggy Gardner of Sherman, Caroline Caskey-Hardee of Liberty City, Helena Reed of Shreveport, La., and Jennifer Reznicek of Kaufman. All four already had been hired by hospitals upon graduation. One hundred eight students received degrees during fall commencement.

• Entreprenuer, author and philanthropist Paul Meyer of Waco was awarded an honorary doctor of humanities degree during University of Mary Hardin-Baylor fall commencement ceremonies. Meyer provided the lead gift for the Paul and Jane Meyer Christian Studies Center, which will be completed this year. The facility will provide a new chapel, classrooms and office space for the College of Christian Studies. One hundred eighty-three students received degrees during the ceremony.

• The North American Mission Board has appointed 10 missionaries with Texas ties. Ky Martin, a Mesquite resident, is serving in Rockwall as an evangelism specialist. He had been interim youth minister for First Church in Edgewood. Natalie Townley, a native of Seymour and Howard Payne University graduate, also will serve as an evangelism specialist in Rockwall. For the last three years, she has worked with the Baptist General Convention of Texas, mobilizing students to be on mission for Christ, and she will continue to serve the BGCT and NAMB as a US/C2 missionary for two years. Doug and Sonnie Beck will plant churches in Mobile, Ala. He is a graduate of Baylor University, and was an International Mission Board missionary nine years. Brandy Caffey has been appointed as a missionary for NAMB’s Strategic Focus Cities initiative in Baltimore. Prior to her appointment, she was director of recreation and singles ministries at First Church in Round Rock. El Paso native Alex DiMatteo has been appointed as a church starter in Schnectady, N.Y. Josh Martin has been named a collegiate evangelism missionary in Moscow, Idaho. An East Texas Baptist University graduate, he has been a youth ministry intern at First Church in Center, collegiate worship leader at Bel Air Church in Marshall, and youth minister at First Church in Devers. Roy and Weida Spannagel are serving in Jefferson City, Mo., where he has been appointed state director of missions. They both are Texas natives and Howard Payne University graduates. Stephen Woodard, is serving in New London, Conn., as regional collegiate evangelism coordinator. An Athens native, he is a graduate of Dallas Baptist University.

• David Gould has been named program director of Baptist Child & Family Services’ Luling Youth Ranch. The youth ranch is an emergency shelter providing a 90-day stay for children ages 5 to 17 who have been removed from their homes until more permanent arrangements can be made.

Anniveraries

• Michael Smith, 15th, as minister of music at First Church in Wichita Falls, Jan. 1.

• Nick Harris, 15th, as pastor of Ovilla Road Church in Red Oak, Jan. 1.

• Dan Connally, fifth, as pastor of Mount Pleasant Church in Comanche, Jan. 6. It also marked his 50th year in ministry.

• Ron Horton, 10th, as director of missions for Creath-Brazos Assocation.

Retiring

• Lynn Garrett, as minister of senior adults at First Church in Amarillo, effective Feb. 1. He served the church 13 years. His ministry began in the mid-1950s in Llano as music director at Pittsburg Avenue Church and later at Calvary Church in Pecos. In 1961, he was called as the first full-time minister of youth and music at First Church in Llano. In 1963, he began serving First Church in Anson as music, youth and education director and later held a similar position at First Church in Seminole. After a stint in Topeka, Kan., he returned to Texas and served Wolflin Avenue Church in Amarillo as minister of music and education. In 1980, he turned to music evangelism and led music in many states, Germany, Spain, Italy, Japan, Chile, Uruguay, Guatemala, Mexico and Canada. In 1994, he began serving First Church in Amarillo, ministering to needs of senior adults while the church was without a pastor. That position became permanent. He and his wife, Laverne, will relocate to Magnolia, where they will be available for senior-adult revivals, camps, seminars and music supply. They can be contacted through First Church in Magnolia.

Deaths

• Cecil Uzzel, 88, Jan. 3 in Clute. He was pastor of Emmanuel Church in Clute 25 years and Oletha Church in Thornton 12 years. He also helped start an English-speaking Baptist church in Germany while in the military. He served in the Pacific Theater during World War II. He was a survivor of the Bataan Death March and was a Japanese prisoner of war 41 months. He was preceded in death by his brothers, Wallace, Norris, Richard and Vernon; and his sisters, Betty and Clara Belle. He is survived by his wife of 66 years, Marthabelle; son, Joe; daughter, Sonja Harlan; five grandchildren; and five great-grandchildren.

• Guy Leutwyler, 81, Jan. 4 in Houston. He and his wife, Geraldine, ministered in music evangelism more than 50 years in churches along the Texas Gulf Coast. They also served in missions crusades in five countries. He was a member of First Church in Houston. He is survived by his wife of 59 years; daughters, Deborah Stroh and Retha Isaksen; sister, Joyce Bock; one grandson and one great-grandson.

• Bess Smith, 69, Jan. 10 in Austin. She was a faithful supporter of her husband, Ralph, in his ministry and taught teenagers and college students more than three decades. She particularly enjoyed accompanying youth on choir tours and ski trips. She served alongside her husband at Lake Hamilton Church in Arkansas, as well as First Church in Rosenberg and Hyde Park Church in Austin. She also was a founding member of Austin Church. She was preceded in death by her brothers, Charles and Dennis Noble. She is survived by her husband of 56 years; daughter, Diane Love; sons, Wallace and Peyton; seven grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren.

Events

• First Church in Devers will hold its 11th annual chili cook-off and gospel singing jubilee Jan. 26 at 5 p.m. Performers will include Closer Walk, New Direction, One Desire, The Hackett Family and Jennifer Hensley. Admission is free, but an offering will be taken. For more information, call (936) 549-7653. Harry McDaniel is pastor.

• The women of First Church in Center will hold their annual Joy Seekers Conference Feb. 22-23. Gwen Houston will be the guest speaker, and Grateful Heart will lead the praise and worship time. Prior to Feb. 15, the cost is $20, and Saturday’s lunch is provided. At the door, registration is $25. The conference begins at 6 p.m. Friday and 8:30 a.m. on Saturday. Childcare for children under 5 is available for $10 or Saturday-only for $8. A sack lunch will be provided for children on Saturday. Food for infants should be provided by mothers. Scholarships and other information are available by calling (936) 598-5605. Michael Hale is pastor.

Ordained

• Rick Barnes, Rick Campbell, Vince Easley, Wayne Jones, Lyle Shive, Tim Sorrells, Jamie Strain, John Strunc and Ronnie Turney as deacons at First Church in Duncanville.

Revival

• Northview Church, Bryan; Jan. 20-23; evangelists, Bill and Vicki Murphy; pastor, Cecil Rice.

News of religion, faith, missions, Bible study and Christian ministry among Baptist churches, in Texas, the BGCT, the nation and around the world.

Posted: 1/18/08

Book Reviews

Water from a Deep Well: Christian Spirituality from Early Martyrs to Modern Missionaries by Gerald L. Sittser (IVP Books)

Gerald Sittser, professor of theology at Whitworth College in Spokane, Wash., gives great amounts of information and insight into the lives of men and women of faith, from the time of the early church to the present.

Water from a Deep Well reveals myriad movements within the Christian community. From the early church fathers and the desert saints to present-day evangelicals, Sittser details the actions and commitments of those who lived their lives in devotion to God.

Chapters focus on early-church martys, the organizers of church orders, the significance of cathedral construction and icons, monastries, Christian mysticism, the reformers, conversion, preaching and mission movements. Loaded with many topics that one would expect to study in a church history class, his book is richly documented. But because of its breadth, the book does not go into depth, providing only enough information to offer an overview of the movements and the lives of the people involved. 

What are you reading that other Texas Baptists would find helpful? Send suggestions and reviews to books@baptiststandard.com.

Sittser closes each chapter by relating it to present world events and movements, exercises that require thoughtful consideration.

Presbyterian Sittser spends considerable time focusing on the lives and influence of Martin Luther and John Calvin. His information and insights into these two reformers make the book worth reading. However, very little is mentioned regarding the influence of the Anabaptists of Switzerland and the tremendous price they paid for their stand on believer’s baptism.

While acknowledging each movement and/or tradition cannot be included, and knowing each has its strengths and weaknesses, Sittser reveals the strengths, so the reader can appreciate them. “I have chosen to dwell on the good part of the story, though I could have done the opposite,” he writes. “But I believe that failures and abuses do not nullify the value of these traditions.” He also points out that the motivating force behind each tradition is Jesus Christ.

For the person who loves to read church history, Water from a Deep Well is informative and thought-provoking. For the person who loves to read books that will challenge one’s faith commitment, this is a must-read.

Randall Scott, pastor

Immanuel Baptist Church, Paris

 

Baptists and Religious Liberty: The Freedom Road by William M. Pinson Jr. (BaptistWay Press)

Baptist polity, practice and doctrine not only find their basis in the Bible, but also relate integrally to religious liberty, Bill Pinson asserts in this thoroughly researched but easy-to-read book.

Baptists historically have remained steadfast defenders of religious liberty for all people because they believe the Bible teaches God created humanity with soul freedom and soul competency. Consequently, they have called for the institutional separation of church and state as the best guarantee to ensure religious freedom.

In an engaging narrative style, Pinson tells the story of a Freedom Road stained with the blood of Christian martyrs—including many Baptists—who remained true to the simple-but-revolutionary idea that God created individuals free to respond in faith, and no human being or man-made entity has any right to stand in their way. That Freedom Road requires constant maintenance, and modern Baptists who either neglect it or detour from it to seek their own shortcuts betray their blood-bought heritage and endanger the free exercise of faith.

Ken Camp, managing editor

Baptist Standard, Dallas

News of religion, faith, missions, Bible study and Christian ministry among Baptist churches, in Texas, the BGCT, the nation and around the world.