Baptist Briefs: Nigerian Baptist pastors killed in bombing

Nigerian Baptist pastors killed in bombing. The head of the Baptist World Alliance protested continuing violence in Nigeria that recently claimed the lives of two Baptist pastors. BWA General Secretary Neville Callam issued the statement after Olasupo Ayokunle, president and chief executive officer of the Nigerian Baptist Convention, reported two pastors were among at least 15 people killed in a suicide bombing of a church located on a military base in Jaji in Kaduna State. Callam cited special concern about Maiduguri, where a third pastor reportedly fled after assassination attempts. Maiduguri is located in Borno state, the epicenter of a violent campaign by the militant group Boko Haram. A human-rights team led by BWA Director of Freedom and Justice Raimundo Barreto was scheduled to travel to Nigeria this month and expected to meet with government and church leaders.

{mosimage}Tucker named Arkansas leader. J.D. “Sonny” Tucker was elected executive director-treasurer of the Arkansas Baptist State Convention at the December meeting of the state convention’s executive board. He begins his duties Jan. 1. Tucker, 53, succeeds Emil Turner, who announced Aug. 2 his intention to retire in 2013. Tucker has served as leader of the convention’s evangelism and church growth team since 1997. He was pastor of Arkansas Baptist churches in Monticello, West Helena, Fair Oaks and Sparkman. He earned his undergraduate degree from Ouachita Baptist University and his master of divinity degree and doctorate from Mid-America Baptist Theological Seminary. He and his wife, Nicki, are members of First Baptist Church in Benton and have two grown children, Megan and Curt.

Hong Kong professor faces dismissal. A Hong Kong Baptist University professor will lose his job for publishing unsubstantiated claims about another university in a controversial book that has been denounced as politically motivated. Radio Television Hong Kong reported Professor Victor Sit Fung-shuen would be removed as director of Hong Kong Baptist University’s Advanced Institute for Contemporary China Studies. He served as editor in chief of the 2012 edition of the Blue Book of Hong Kong, published by Hong Kong Baptist University. The book, intended to evaluate the first 15 years of Hong Kong’s “One Country, Two Systems” reunification with mainland China, criticized “a multitude of intrusion of Western-style” values in education programs of universities and secondary and primary schools in the former British territory. The book alleged a U.S. foundation sponsored the general education curriculum and dominated the teaching direction of Chinese University of Hong Kong—an assertion Chinese University called “irresponsible and fictitious.” Hong Kong Baptist University, a school founded in 1956 by the Baptist Convention of Hong Kong with support from American Baptists that became publicly funded in 1983, apologized to Chinese University and established a committee to investigate.