April is Donate Life Month. That's a poignant irony for our family. In April of last year, my sister, Martha, died after the kidney our father donated to her 15 years earlier played out.

Martha had been on kidney dialysis for well more than a year while she worked her way through the approval process for receiving another kidney. She and I had entered the Paired Donor program, which allows a willing donor who is not a match for the recipient to donate a kidney to someone else, whose donor provides a kidney to the process. It's a life-giving program that often involves multiple donors and multiple recipients — and the extension of life.

Martha was blessed, because Daddy gave her a kidney long ago, and she enjoyed many more happy years. We expected her to get another kidney, but an adverse reaction to a rather mild medical procedure—combined with her dialysis-weakened condition—took her life. 

Need by the numbers

But many Americans who need organs aren't so fortunate. According to the Congressional Kidney Caucus:

• More than 79,000 Americans are awaiting organs, and more than 3,000 are added to the waiting list each month.

• Every day, 16 to 17 people die awaiting a transplant.

• About 10,000 to 14,000 people who die each year would be qualified to donate organs, but less than half actually donate organs.

• A computer registry, the National Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network, matches organs to recipients.

• The age of donors can range from birth to 65 and older, depending upon the organ or tissue being transplanted.

Registration is simple

Registration to become an organ donor is fast and simple. I registered in less than two minutes at the Donate Life Texas website.  If you don't live in Texas, you can register at the OrganDonor.gov website.

Christians are really good about guiding people toward eternal life. But just think how many lives we could extend and improve in the here-and-now — not to mention how solidly we could authenticate our love for others — if we all registered to become organ donors.

One of my favorite parts of the Bible—particularly the Old Testament, but also parts of the New—is all the dreaming. Over and over again, we read where God, or an angel, or a heavenly vision appeared to someone. Usually, the Divine Visitor explained what was going on: Why the visitation happened. What it means for the dreamer/receiver of the vision. What will happen next. And, sometimes, what to name the place where the dream/vision took place.

Now, I've got to admit it. Many times, I've longed for a dream of biblical proportions. This particularly was true when I was a young adult, trying to discern all the steps of family, career, and the general path through life. Joanna and I would talk late into the night about what we believed God wanted us to do next: Grad school or seminary? Take the new job or stay put? Buy a house or rent an apartment? Start a family? All our questions seemed weighty and ponderous. And all we really wanted to do was God's will.

So, I longed for God to speak to me. Clearly. Unambiguously. I figured a graphic, detailed dream featuring God or an angel would do the trick. Never mind that I probably would've questioned the sanity of anyone else who claimed to have seen such a vision. I wanted certainty.

Graphic frailty

But what I usually got was doubt and uncertainty. A graphic reminder of my own frailty and inability.

My most persistent vision is a particular version of an amazingly common dream. I've heard about and talked to many people who have dreamed they discover they enrolled in a class but forgot about it until time to take the final exam. Then, they have to pass a test for which they never prepared. Practically everyone—or at least every conscientious student—who ever went to college has dreamed something like this.

My VOPD—very own personal dream—dates to my junior year in high school. After living blissfully for 10 years in a small farming/ranching community, my family moved to a city that was easily 15 to 20 times larger than my hometown. The  "new" school I attended was huge. And the distance between my first period and second period classes was as far apart as physically possible—from the first-floor band hall down by the gym to English class on the third floor at the far end of the main building. 

Big test, bigger building

So, more than 30 years ago, I started dreaming about taking an exam in a class that, for some reason or other, I never bothered to attend. Later, throughout most of my adult life, the class morphed into a college course, but the physical trappings of the dream remained that colossal old building that scared the bejabbers out of the 17-year-old kid who felt at home in a Texas Panhandle village.

Some dreams are esoteric, and some are allegorical. Mine—this one, at least—always has been metaphorical. The character in the dream represents me. It was me when I was 17, and it's still me now that I'm 53. The course I never attended is the current big challenge in my life. And the monster of a school building stands for the complicated context in which that challenge takes place. 

Actually, I thought my long-term dream—maybe some would call it a nightmare—had become obsolete. I hadn't dreamed it, and rarely thought about it, for ages.

It's baaaaaack!

But it recently reappeared. This time, with a vengeance. I'm still scheduled to take a final exam in a course in which I somehow enrolled but never attended. But the humongous old school building has been connected to a much-larger new building with maze-like hallways and escalators and elevators that require passcodes and intricate knowledge to operate. Also—and this is new to the sequence of my dream—many people are around. They're all familiar with the buildings and the course schedules, but none will help me. In fact, they're rude and mean.

So, I wake up more frustrated than ever.

A dream interpreted

Thankfully, I don't need a prophet or an oracle to interpret my dream: I'm overwhelmed. The Baptist Standard is planning to launch a new web-based ministry to thousands, possibly millions, of young adult Christians. We intend to link them in a vibrant online community that will expand their personal faith, provide them with quality ministry resources and deepen their collaboration through up-to-date social networking tools. 

We're thrilled and excited about this ministry. We believe it's a vision—not merely a dream, but a vision—God has given us for strengthening Christian lives, building up the church and expanding God's kingdom.

But, as you might guess, it's going to require money. Lots of money. And I've got to raise it. So, even though I might deny it in the daylight, I get stressed. That's why my old lifelong dream appears. To remind me.

What's so funny?

Ironically, I often wake up laughing when I've had this dream. Sure, I'm still nervous, or else I wouldn't be dreaming this dream. But I can't help but chuckle at the transparency of it all. I've dreamed it so often for so long that I know the hidden underside of it as well as I know the contours of the parts that have played over and over in my sleep through countless nights of my lifetime.

And now, I also laugh at the preposterousness of it all. Through the years, all kinds of anxieties and insecurities prompted me to dream this dream.  And through the years, God was bigger than my fears. Sure, some of them were real and consequential. But God never failed to guide me through them. So, the same God who guided me before will guide me again.

Does that mean we'll raise all the money we need to build this new website and launch this new ministry? I pray so and hope so, for I believe God has given us the vision. But I don't know that for certain. 

God is present

What I do know is God is here with us as we seek God's will and work our way forward. God is faithful and will not forsake us. God's dreams for us are bigger than our own. God's dreams for me are beyond my imagination.

And I can sleep on that.

On Easter Sunday, Jesus rose from the grave. The Resurrection proved death is no match for God. We need not fear death, because God is greater. And if we need not fear death, then why fear anything else?

Christians should live fearless lives, since we do not fear death. Hell does not await us. And the Scriptures teach us  Jesus has gone to prepare an eternal dwelling for us. Wherever and whatever heaven is, it is more than enough, because it is in the eternal presence of God. In heaven, we finally will reside where we were created to abide, and we will become fully what we were created to be—beings who adore and glorify God.

I also look forward to heaven because I will be with my family and friends who died in Christ. I don't know exactly what to expect. In fact, Jesus played down the family aspect of heaven. But I anticipate joy in the presence of others whom God created and loves and whom Jesus calls his own. I trust those relationships—untainted by sin and mistaks and misunderstandings—will be far sweeter than any I've known in this life. That's saying something huge, because my family and friends have sustained me all the days of this life.

This year, as I've anticipated Easter, I've thought quite a bit about redemption and forgiveness of sin. This is a humbling exercise, because I've been reminded how much forgiveness I need. I am Adam's younger brother—a fallen, broken, sinful person. Unworthy of approaching God. Unworthy of forgiveness. Unworthy of holding my head up.

And yet, Jesus died for me. In the miracle of atonement, he bore the separation from God—spiritual and physical death—that I deserve. Can you fathom that kind of love? It overwhelms the mind and swamps the emotions. Unworthy, yet loved and redeemed.

Tangibly, Easter lasts only 24 short hours. This holiest, happiest of days dawns, and we rejoice with fellow believers and family. And then the sun sets, and life moves forward.

But I want to live in the light of Easter morning far beyond this one spin of the Earth. Remembering Jesus defeated death—after he bore my sin to the grave—fills my heart with gratitude. And gratitude propels me to seek to be Christ's presence in others' lives, not only at Easter, but throughout the year. 

Of course, I know I will fail. But the dawning of each new day is a reminder of that glorious Easter morning, and a reminder that in each day God provides, I can seek to express my gratitude by glorifying God and blessing others.

For the past several weeks, our Sunday school class has been studying Abraham—both his original story in the Old Testament book of Genesis and the reverberation of his story in the New Testament book of Hebrews' "Roll Call of Faith." The curriculum was written by an enormously insightful minister friend of mine, Gary Long, pastor of First Baptist Church in Gaithersburg, Md.

I've always loved Abraham's story. For starters, he was The Starter. Humanly speaking, everything Christians, Jews and Muslims know of faith begins with Abraham. 

Abraham was a person who consistently listened to God and obeyed. He didn't have the benefit of millennia of Godward thinking. No Old Testament. No New Testament. No generations of faithful ancestors. He didn't have a track record with God. And yet he listened, believed and followed God.

It wasn't enough that God asked him to pack up and move away from his family, his hometown and everything familiar. It wasn't enough that he accepted God's promise of a land that, when he finally got there, was inhabited by people who weren't familiar with God's promise to Abraham and weren't keen on the idea of giving their land away.

On top of all this, God promised Abraham: "I will make you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great; and so you shall be a blessing; … and in you all the families of the earth will be blessed." Later, God told Abraham: "Walk before me and be blameless, and I will make my covenant between me and you, and I will make you exceedingly numerous. You shall be the ancestor of a multitude of nations."

That sounds pretty terrific. Problem was, Abraham and his wife, Sarah, were childless. The Bible—which pretty consistently blames women for infertility—calls Sarah "barren." Also, they were old. Abraham was 99, and Sarah was 90.

So, when the Lord specifically promised Abraham that Sarah would get pregnant and give birth to a son in her 91st year, Sarah did a fairly predictable thing. She laughed. The Bible doesn't say if her laughter was full of mirth or sarcasm or maybe simple incredulity.

But then the Lord asks the question that has been at the center of Abraham and Sarah's life, particularly since all these grandiose promises started coming their way: "Is anything too hard for the Lord?" 

Apparently, Abraham believed otherwise, because, sure enough, he was a daddy before the year passed. 

But later, when that miracle child, Isaac, was a young boy, God asked for Isaac back. God told Abraham to take his son up on Mount Moriah and offer him as a sacrifice. And Abraham obeyed. The Scripture says Isaac carried the firewood while Abraham carried the knife and the fire. On the hike up the mountain, the boy asks his father, "Where is the lamb for the burnt offering," to which Abraham replies, "God will provide."

I can't help but think that, even as his heart was breaking, Abraham kept remembering the question: "Is anything too hard for the Lord?" as he bound his son, laid him on the firewood, placed his hand over his child's face and raise the knife high to plunge it into the boy's chest.

"Is anything too hard for God?" If God could open the womb of a barren 90-year-old woman so she could bring forth a child to a 99-year-old man, then God can do anything God wants. If God could give Isaac to Sarah and Abraham, then God could give them another child. Or, better yet, God could give Isaac to them again.

So, Abraham started to offer his only son as a sacrifice to his only God, until God stopped him and provided a ram for the sacrifice. 

Abraham remained faithful to God, and God remained faithful to Abraham. All those promises about blessing Abraham, about becoming the father of many nations, about blessing the whole world with his family. It all came true.

In our class, we talked about the difference between long-ago Abraham and about us today. We debated whether Abraham heard an actual voice from God or if Abraham "heard" just as we "hear" God inaudibly as we pray today.

God is the same God, throughout all the ages. And, although we're not Abraham, we're his spiritual heirs, and we're made of the same human stuff as Abraham and Sarah. 

The pivot point is that Abraham believed nothing is too hard for God. And the pivot point of our lives turns on whether we believe that, too.

I don't agree with them. But I respect them.

You know who they are—young Mormons on mission. According to their beliefs, they're earning their salvation by spreading their faith.

Of course, I think they're wrong, because I believe what the Apostle Paul wrote regarding salvation in Jesus Christ: "For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast" (Ephesians 2:8-9). 

Still, I respect their zeal to share their beliefs and their desire to see others join them. Set aside their misguided notion that a person can earn a space in heaven, and think about what would happen if all Christians evangelized as actively and consistently as Mormons. This world would be won to Christ.

Faith-sharing on the agenda

The image of young Mormon missionaries came to mind when I read a Religion News Service article about a recent conference on the political implications of sharing faith, particularly among Christians and Muslims.  The discussion turned quickly to proselytism.

Simply put, proselytism is "the act of attempting to convert people to another opinion and, particularly, another religion." In its basic meaning, proselytism is a value-neutral term. But Richard Land of the Southern Baptist Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission was correct when he noted proselytism has gained a "negative connotation of inducement." 

No to coercion; yes to sharing

That's not without reason. Throughout time, strong adherents of various faiths have used coercion to spread their faith. Think of Christian military might during the Crusades, as well as Muslim beheadings today. 

Sometimes, the coercion is less subtle yet still troublesome. Church historians and missiologists talk about "rice Christians," starving people who professed faith in Jesus in order to receive food from Christian missionaries. I used to live in a city where every cabdriver surely made numerous professions of faith, since practically every big-name preacher who came to town told stories about leading his "cabbie" to the Lord on the way from the airport. Wonder if cabbie converts get bigger tips from proselytizing preachers? 

Coercion and commerce aside, proselytism has received a bad reputation today because so many people think others don't have a right to "impose" their faith on others. In the strictest sense of the word, most Christians and especially all historic Baptists would agree with them. To be authentic, faith must be free. Imposition has no place in faith-sharing.

But testifying to one's faith is not an imposition on others. Everyone everywhere should have the right to express religious convictions freely. "For Christians, this is an act of love, not an act of hostility," Land correctly noted. People who believe Jesus is the way to eternal life and fulfillment in this life share their faith because they love and care for others and desire that all people would experience the best thing that could ever happen to them—a saving relationship with Jesus the Christ.

Religious freedom guaranteed

Fortunately, we live in a nation that guarantees religious liberty. The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution mandates that, while government cannot establish religion or religious practices, it also cannot prohibet the free exercise of faith—any faith.

Even though it has come under fire by religious groups who yearn for government support for religion—or at least their religion—the First Amendment's religion clauses provide significant support for peace across our land. Roger Finke, a sociologist at Penn State, said countries with anti-proselytizing laws, which consequently favor one religion over all others, are generally less peaceful and civil than countries where religious freedom is guaranteed.

In our own country, people are free to share their faith, just as they are free to tune out others who share different faiths. Neither can and should be silenced. Therefore, it is incumbent upon Christians who want all people to become fellow believers to share their faith winsomely and lovingly, rather than arrogantly and judgmentally.

So, hooray for the First Amendment, and hooray for proselytism—in the best sense of the word.

These are the people who claim to be "protecting" America? No wonder we're in such bad shape and seemingly headed the wrong way.

A front-page article in the Dallas Morning News reports how the State Board of Education voted down a recommendation that would have "required Texas students to be taught the reasons behind the prohibition of a state religion in the Bill of Rights."

Democrats supported the proposal, and Republicans shot it down. This concept historically has transcended partisan politics. It still should. Unfortunately, we've gotten so sideways to history that everything revolves around power and agenda rather than principle and altruism.

At least every Baptist in Texas should support teaching children the history of the two religion clauses in the First Amendment. It's in our DNA.

Religious liberty only for the powerful

While it is true that many, if not most, of the the people who colonized America sailed to the New World for religious liberty, it is not true that they desired religious liberty for all people. They wanted to practice religion they way they desired, and they felt empowered to force others on their turf to practice it their way, too. Sort of a Golden Rule in reverse: Do unto others as has been done unto you.

So, we had a hodgepodge of religion-themed colonies that protected their own religious rights but denied liberty to others: Congregationalists in Massachusetts, Anglicans in Virginia, Catholics in Maryland and so on. 

Roger Williams got thrown out of Massachusetts Colony in the middle of winter because he would not let the Congregationalists baptize his infant child. So, he planted the first Baptist church in America in Providence and founded the colony of Rhode Island to establish a place of true religious freedom for all kinds of people—not only Baptists, but Quakers, Jews, "Turks," and people of all faiths and even no faith. Williams, the first Baptist in America, instinctively knew that, to be authentic, faith must be free.

Religious liberty for all

Fast forward about 150 years, and the young United States of America is attempting to find its way forward. Early on, faith was at risk because religious liberty had not been guaranteed in the U.S. Constitution. That was when a Baptist pastor, John Leland, convinced James Madison to write guarantees for freedom of religion into the First Amendment. 

Religious liberty is called the "first freedom" because it is the first principle guaranteed in the First Amendment: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibity the free exercise thereof." 

These guarantees have ensured the vitality of faith and religious practice in the United States. Contrast that with the countries where government supports religion. Either—as in Western Europe—the churches are anemic, or—as in the Middle East and Eastern Europe—adherents to all the nonsanctioned religions are persecuted. If the United States turns its back on the religion clauses of the First Amendment and denies its rich heritage of church-state separation, we're headed toward similar fates or, ironically, both fates simultaneously.

Shooing to hell

And then there's Beck. Surely he's just pandering for viewers.  He told his TV audience the term "social justice" is a "code word" for communism and Nazism. Then he urged those viewers to leave their churches if the churches advocate on behalf of social justice. He said: "I beg you, look for the words 'social justice' or 'economic justice' on your church web site. If you find it, run as fast as you can. Social justice and economic justice, they are code words. Now, am I advising people to leave their church? Yes!"

Apparently, Beck has not read the New Testament. Jesus preached more about care for the poor, the disadvantaged, the outcast, the outsider than anything else. When churches talk about "social justice," they're talking about ministering to and caring for the people Jesus called "the least of these." In one of the most clear-yet-troubling passages in all the Gospels, Jesus says our fate will be linked to how we treat these people.

So, if you believe what Jesus said as recorded in Matthew 25:31-46 and then take Beck at his word, you've got to conclude Beck is the opposite of an evangelist. He's shooing his followers straight to hell.

 Our dinnertable.

That's it—a simple oak table and chairs we bought unfinished two decades or more ago, when the girls were preschoolers. Many of the best times of my life happened around that table.

Like all parents, Joanna and I made our share of mistakes while Lindsay and Molly were growing up.  If you want to know about all my "warts" and failures, just ask our daughters. They've seen ’em all. But one thing we did right: We set aside time to eat dinner together around that table almost every night.

Some parents talk about "quality time," and that's a good thing. Children love big events—vacations, birthday parties, special trips and over-the-top occasions. But quality time never can take the place of quantity time. And as our girls were growing up, we experienced most of our high-quality moments amidst the ordinariness of the quantity of time.

Refining time—quantity to quality

For our little family, the dinnertable provided the place where the abundance of quantity refined down to quality. Ironically, church commitments on Sundays and Wednesdays broke our every-night dinnertime more than anything else. As the girls got to high school and their schedules filled up, we occasionally missed some other nights, too. But even then, we generally gathered at the same time in the same place on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday nights, plus at least one weekend evening and lunch on Sunday. 

Several years ago, I marveled at the fact Lindsay and Molly did so well in school when they always learned "nothin'" on any given day. At dinner, I'd ask, "What did you learn at school today?" The almost-automatic answer consistently came back: "Nothin'."

But then we'd start talking, and I'd learn fascinating things about science and history and social studies. (It's hard to learn fascinating things about math over dinner, but if you look carefully at the top of that old table, you'll see numbers where, after dinner, they did their math homework.) Jo and I also learned about the girls' friends, their highs and lows, their anticipations and disappointments. Their mama and I also talked about our lives,  and the girls know us much better because they heard us discuss our days, our highs and lows, our anticipations and disappointments. All around the dinnertable.

A place of joy

We could talk about other child-raising rituals that have meant—and still mean—much to our family. Things like toddler bathtime, reading books at the end of the day, bedtime prayers, Advent wreaths at Christmas, long road trips to see family. Like sayin, "I love you" and showering little girls with hugs and kisses. Like telling them how proud I am of them and how grateful I am to be their daddy.

But the strongest symbol and most enduring artifact of the joy of raising our two daughters is that dinnertable. It's no longer very pretty. And it's certainly not in style. But it's my favorite piece of furniture, because it has been sanctified by the multitude of words, the gales of laughter, the river of tears and the cloud of prayers that have engulfed it.

On a recent road trip, I listened to a podcast (click the sermon beside 01-17.10) of an amazing worship service at Mars Hill Church in Grandville, Mich., where Rob Bell is the founding pastor. It took place the Sunday Shane Hipps joined the church as a teaching pastor.

Let's say right up front: I know some people don't like Rob Bell, and some people don't like Shane Hipps. Christianity is filled with "don't likers." But that's beside the point of this blog.

At the beginning of the worship service, lay leaders of Mars Hill Church, where Hipps has come, and Trinity Mennonite Church in Glendale, Ariz., where Hipps was pastor, talked about the spiritual steps that led to Hipps' transition.

Laity in both congregations knew about and participated in the process.That almost never happens. And it is amazing.

Directly and indirectly, Mars Hill contacted Hipps twice, inquiring if he would be interested in joining their church's ministry staff. Both times, Hipps turned them down. Eventually, Mars Hill's "discerning committee"—the group assigned to find a new teaching pastor—contacted Hipps and told him they discerned he was the right person to fill this position on their staff.

Hipps still felt reluctant to consider leaving Trinity Mennonite. But he respected their spiritual process and engaged it. But rather than shrouding his inovlement in secrecy, he included lay leaders of Trinity Mennonite. As they prayed and wept and talked and prayed some more, they joined their sisters and brothers at Mars Hill in determining God's will supported this move.

So, Hipps accepted the call to Mars Hill. And on his first Sunday there, members of Trinity Mennonite traveled to Michigan to express their love for their former pastor as well as their love for his new church. Their presence and participation represented Christian harmony. They not only blessed Hipps and his wife and daughters, but they blessed Mars Hill. And they honored Christ.

I listened to them with a lump in my throat, overwhelmed by the Christian love and grace two churches extended to each other as they jointly sought God's will  for both congregations and for a minister and his family.

If such honesty, trust and care dominated pastoral transitions, our churches would be much healthier and their pastors and staffs would be stronger and more effective.

(This is an early view of my editorial in the March 1 Standard.)

On one hand, many members of the “Baylor family” and others have praised Starr’s selection. They cite his: International name recognition, active Christian faith, high regard as attorney and judge, unprecedented improvement of the Pepperdine School of Law, advocacy for the rule of law as special investigator in the Clinton administration, skill as a fund-raiser, and lack of ties to Baylor and its decade-long “fight.”

On the other hand, many have criticized Starr’s election. They point to his: Early affiliation with the Church of Christ, current attendance at a CofC congregation, longtime membership in a nondenominational church that seems more fundamentalist than Texas Baptist churches, affiliation with Southern Baptists who opposed Texas Baptists and Baylor, apparent ease with which he switches denominations, the high-profile investigation of Bill Clinton and the controversial engagement in California’s Proposition 8.

Not merely facts or logic

Both sides cite facts and logic. But, of course, human beings cannot be reduced to facts, nor are they ruled by logic. Ken Starr is a human being and therefore more complex than his advocates’ and detractors’ litanies. So, he most likely will be neither the super-hero for which his fans long, nor the evil villain his foes fear. Besides, no matter what fans or foes think, the regents have voted. He will become Baylor’s 14th president June 1.

Goals for a productive tenure

Ultimately, Starr’s tenure at Baylor will not be judged by the resume he brings to office. His years in the Church of Christ and his experience as special investigator shaped him, but they will not determine whether he succeeds at Baylor. His legacy depends upon what he does at and for Baylor. Here are some goals to which he should aspire:

1. Extend Baylor’s legacy as distinctively Texas Baptist. This is not too much to ask. Baylor would not exist had not Texas Baptists birthed and nurtured it. This also is not parochial. Half of Baylor’s motto is “Pro Ecclesia.” Other schools serve specific aspects of the church—fundamentalist, liberal, evangelical, Catholic. The Texas Baptist/historic Baylor ethos is unique and deserves to be preserved. It’s theologically conservative, but not fundamentalist; expansive enough to welcome students and faculty of other Christian denominations; compassionate to serve all God’s children. Nor is this provincial. The other half of Baylor’s motto is “Pro Texana.” Baylor is Texan, and most of its students and alumni are Texans. Similar schools serve other states and regions. Texas needs Baylor to be uniquely Baylor.

2. Lead everybody, including the regents. Baylor has a strong-willed board of regents. The problem is strong boards are prone to overstep their bounds. Boards should set policy but leave administration to the administrators. Starr must exercise the gravitas of his reputation and provide a pattern for how boards respect the balance of power and duty.

3. Heal the rift. This is crucial; Baylor cannot be all it must be if it remains divided. While fault can be found all around, the primary reason for the divide is the denigration of Baylor’s past. Starr should start the healing by making amends to all alumni as well as to family and friends who love Baylor’s previous presidents.

4. Balance excellence. The root of the recent rift has been an interpretation of Baylor 2012 that implies Baylor’s historic reputation for greatness in the classroom impedes it from becoming a top tier research institution, which is the benchmark for acclaim. These are not mutually exclusive, and Starr must prove it. He can start by studying the School of Social Work, which manages both to the Nth degree.

5. Raise money. Baylor needs a $2 billion endowment. If Starr meets the first four goals, this one will fall into place.

He responded with surprise when I blogged supporting the right of Pam Tebow and her son, Tim, to make a pro-family, pro-life ad for the Super Bowl.

You remember the ruckus. Focus on the Family paid for a brief ad featuring the Tebows. It indirectly referenced the story of Tim’s birth: Pam came down with a serious illness in the Philippines when she was pregnant with Tim, and doctors recommended an abortion. She refused. He grew up healthy enough to lead the Florida football Gators to two national championships and to win the Heisman Trophy as college football’s best player.

Pre-broadcast news about the ad drew out the opposition—mostly the National Organization for Women and other pro-abortion groups. Normally, I take the middle ground in language about abortion, using the labels “pro-life” and “pro-choice,” which each group seems to prefer for itself. But the groups that raged against the Tebow ad (even before they saw it) proved themselves to be pro-abortion, not pro-choice. Pam Tebow exercised choice. She chose to carry her baby son to term. And they vilified her for it.

Not abortion, but labels

But this blog isn’t about abortion. It’s about labels. After I posted the Tebow blog, a reader who frequently comments on baptiststandard.com expressed surprise and remarked that I was “sounding like a Conservative! LOOK OUT!!”

I responded that my blog reflected my consistent, longstanding feelings about the topic.

He then proceeded to attempt to document my liberaldom. According to this reader—and others, I suppose—I’m a liberal because I don’t agree with all their interpretations of religion that, quite frankly, confuse me. People who embrace this system of belief call themselves “conservative Christians.” But when I try to exegete their faith, it presents itself as a mix of rigid-right politics, American exceptionalism and a kind of cultural Christianity that’s at least as much about middle-class suburban U.S. culture as it is about Christ.

Searching Scripture, following Christ

Here’s the deal: Since I was a child, I’ve been a serious follower of Jesus the Christ. (Of course, I’m a broken follower. I falter and fail and often repent and plead for forgiveness.) To that end, I’ve committed much of my life to a serious study of the Scriptures, particularly the Gospels, because I believe they are the divinely inspired guide for following Jesus and patterning our lives according to the ethical implications of his life and teachings. (Of course, I know I “see through a glass darkly” and do not understand everything clearly. But I’ve studied the Scripture’s languages and committed myself to the serious principles of study that attempt to direct us to the clearest interpretations of what Jesus said and did and the context in which he said and did them.)

In the Baptist culture, “conservative” generally has been the desired label, if you must be labeled. The pejorative terms have been “fundamentalist” for the folks on the far right, and “liberal” for everyone the fundamentalists disagree with. Just kidding. Lighten up. “Liberal” generally has been the term for the left.

The person who commented on my Tebow blog thinks I’m a liberal because I don’t agree with him, as if his positions are the bona fide, handed-down-directly–from-Jesus truth.

Maybe Jesus was a liberal

Actually, many of the reasons he thinks I’m a liberal are based upon my serious, informed attempt to follow Jesus.

In today’s secular political climate, which has been adopted as the religious norm by many church-going folks, advocacy on behalf of the poor and minorities and the outsiders is a sure sign of liberalism. Yet Jesus focused a huge portion of his ministry—both teaching and miracle-working—on alleviating the needs of the poor and bringing justice to the downtrodden.

If care for the poor and concern for the disenfranchised is “liberalism,” then I guess I’m a liberal. But I think that particular use of the label has its roots in politics, not the Gospels. According to the true definition of “conservative”—meaning to stay true to and preserve the original—then care for the poor, advocacy for the stranger and justice for the weak is about as conservative as you can get. Or else Jesus was just a bleeding-heart liberal. Read Matthew 25 and Luke 4, and you tell me what Jesus was.

I could go on with all kinds of illustrations, but they’d all be versions of the Jesus-and-“the least of these” theme.

If Jesus was a liberal, I’m happy to be one. But if you use “liberal” as a dirty word to hurt another Christian believer, think again. It’s quite likely the person you easily label comes at those positions out of fervent faith, serious Bible study and a passion to do exactly what Jesus would do.

For those of you who have hidden in your hermitage every autumn Saturday the past four years, Tim Tebow is the quarterback for the University of Florida Gators . During  his stellar career, Tebow has won the Heisman Trophy and led his team to two national championships.

He's a missionary kid who takes his Christian faith seriously. Every summer, even during his collegiate career, he's gone on mission trips to some of the poorest places on Earth. Sports fans who don't know about his mission work do know about his  beliefs, because he writes Scripture references on the "eye black" strips he sticks high on his cheeks during ballgames.

Lately, Tebow hasn't been taking his lumps from defensive linemen or streaking safeties. He's being pounded by women. Women—and some men—who don't like his stance against abortion.

Mom chose life

When she was pregnant with him, Tebow's mother, Pam, contracted a tropical ailment  while doing mission work in the Philippines. Doctors advised her to have an abortion, but she refused. And now, about 22 years later, she's a mom who's proud of her son, not so much because he's a football hero but because he's a fine Christian man.

Tim and Pam Tebow have filmed an ad supporting life, purchased by Focus on the Family, which CBS will air during the Super Bowl. And that's when the National Organization for Women and other groups that advocate for a woman's right to have an abortion audibled a blitz on Tebow. (Here's an overview story from The Christian Science Monitor. Here's a terrific column—written by a woman—from The Washington Post.)

The ad isn't public yet, but reportedly, it never mentions abortion. The ad tells Pam Tebow's story about deciding to risk the odds of her own death in order to give life to her son.

Let's be clear: Pam Tebow exercised choice. She chose to forego an abortion. She chose to risk her own life. She chose to bring her son into this world.

Feminist blitz — hypocritical

Ironically, NOW and other women's organizations are calling Tim Tebow and his ad an affront to women. They're lambasting him for being insensitive to women and women's issues, for demeaning women.

That would be funny if it weren't pathetic. And hypocritical. Why don't they put pressure on all the beer companies who feature bikini-clad women as sex objects? As a father of daughters, a husband and a son, I'm offended by the way those ads demean women. But instead of complaining about exploitation of pretty young females, the so-called women's organizations are screaming about an ad whose theme is "Celebrate Family. Celebrate Life."

Americans do not enjoy consensus on abortion. Even thoughtful, Bible-believing Christians do not agree. Texas Baptists have stated their opposition to abortion except for rape, incest and to save the life of the mother. But even we don't agree, with some of us taking a more conservative stance and some tilting the other way. 

Celebrate life

Still, Pam and Tim Tebow have staked their reputations by filming a commercial that, while not overtly condemning abortion, strongly advocates a mother's right to choose life for her child. 

All decent human beings—whatever their religious beliefs—should be able to celebrate that right as well as the choice Pam Tebow made slightly more than two decades ago.  And they should understand why Tim Tebow celebrates life and affirm his right to speak his minnd.

Buckner’s board of trustees elected Reyes as the Baptist childcare and eldercare agency’s sixth president Jan. 22. He succeeds Ken Hall, who guided Buckner 16 years and remains as its CEO, primarily to help raise money for myriad ministries to children literally around the globe.

Buckner expanded rapidly during Hall’s tenure, particularly investing lives, imagination, passion, expertise and money into orphan care, foster care and adoption services in some of the most desperate places on Earth.

Buckner also looked to the future, and Hall and the board began anticipating possibilities for his successor. About three years ago, they chose Reyes to be president of Buckner Children and Family Services, Buckner’s largest division and the flagship of the organization. Implicitly, they also chose Reyes as Hall’s heir apparent.

Three-year transition

Those three years gave Reyes opportunity to learn Buckner’s staff, operation, history and culture. It also allowed him to serve closely with and learn from Hall, whose leadership inclination kept pushing Buckner to take on new tasks on behalf of children. During that time, Reyes didn’t sit still. He also began to utilize his unique gifts of administration to refine the organization’s structure and of vision to define possibilities for deepening and broadening its ministries.

Those three years also gave Buckner staff and board members time to get to know Reyes and to get used to the idea that he would take over the reins from their beloved longtime leader, Hall.

So, Reyes’ election after three years of second-tier leadership seemed like a birth after parents and family spent months studying sonogram images—not a big surprise, but a significant celebration, heightened by anticipation of great things to come.

Straight from the heart

At a post-election news conference, Reyes revealed his heart on three occasions. Each time, his voice caught and his eyes misted as he expressed both deep emotion and passionate resolve to a room full of news media and board members.

First, he choked up when he talked about Hall. “I love you as a brother,” he said, turning to his mentor and friend and clasping his hand. Turning back to the audience, he said: “Ken Hall always focused on: What about the children? What about the elders? Whatever we do in the future is because of what he has done.”

Second, Reyes’ voice caught when he talked about the organization’s founder, R.C. Buckner. Citing  Buckner’s 1919 obituary in the Baptist Standard, he noted Buckner was praised for having the courage to launch a grand cause and for maintaining a pure soul. “Our cause is still a grand cause,” he stressed. “My prayer is that my soul would be as pure and I would be as brave as he was.”

And third, Reyes opened a window into his heart when he responded to a reporter’s question about his role as the first non-Anglo president of Buckner. Reyes, whose great-grandparents were cattle drivers who were murdered by rustlers, and whose grandfather was a poor migrant farm worker, talked about R.C. Buckner’s legacy of racial reconciliation and justice. “I want to continue that legacy,” he said. “I come from real humble roots, and I understand when people hurt and need help. … And we want to help.”

Children on his heart

Reyes is Texas-born and Texas-bred, and he’s a Texas Baptist through-and-through. But he holds the world’s children in his heart.

That makes the sixth Buckner president a lot like Buckner’s first and fifth presidents. And it means Buckner will continue to expand its ministries to serve as many of the world’s 143 million orphans as possible.