Baptist Briefs

Lumberton youth pens prize-winning essay. Nathan Webb, a senior at Lumberton High School, won the grand prize in this year’s Religious Liberty Essay Scholarship Contest, sponsored by the Religious Liberty Council of the Baptist Joint Committee. He is the son of Bob and Dianne Webb and attends First Baptist Church of Loeb. His essay was written as a reflection on the 50th anniversary of John F. Kennedy’s landmark 1960 speech about the relationship between his religion and his politics and the importance of separation of church and state. His essay was selected as the best from entries submitted by high school juniors and seniors from 17 states. Webb will receive a $1,000 scholarship and a trip to Washington, D.C., in conjunction with the Baptist Joint Committee board meeting in October. His essay will appear in a forthcoming issue of Report from the Capital, the Baptist Joint Committee’s monthly newsletter, and is posted here.

Theologian Pinnock dies. Clark Pinnock, an influential theologian whose spiritual pilgrimage led from a fiery fundamentalism as a young professor to an openness that caused some to brand him a heretic, died Aug. 15 of a heart attack. Pinnock, 73, had withdrawn from public life since announcing in March he had Alzheimer’s disease, but his death was unexpected. Teaching at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary from 1965 until 1969, Pinnock became an influential figure in the Southern Baptist Convention’s battles over biblical inerrancy, counting among his students future SBC presidents Paige Patterson, Adrian Rogers and Jerry Vines. After moving on to Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, Regent College and McMaster Divinity College, Pinnock’s hardline views on the Bible changed. Later, he became an early and outspoken proponent of “open theism,” a belief about the nature of God that focuses on God’s self-imposed limitations in dealing with humanity. Those views nearly got Pinnock kicked out of the Evangelical Theological Society. In 2002, members of the group for academic professionals voted 388 to 231 to retain him as a member.

Missouri leader moves to CBF Foundation. James Smith, president and treasurer of the Missouri Baptist Foundation, will retire from his position and will assume a similar post with the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship Foundation. Smith, who has headed the Missouri foundation since 1993, will begin duties with the CBF Foundation Oct. 1. Less than 20 years old, the CBF Foundation has assets of around $38 million and serves mission and ministry causes around the world. Since Smith took its helm, the Missouri foundation’s assets have grown from $54 million to nearly $170 million and currently stand at about $140 million, with almost 1,200 actively managed accounts. In addition to his work with the foundation, Smith, an ordained Baptist minister, has served as interim pastor of several Missouri churches. He currently is serving as interim at Memorial Baptist Church in Columbia, Mo. Before accepting the Missouri post, he served as executive vice president of the Oklahoma Baptist Foundation.

Texas Baptists honored for church starting. The Southern Baptist North American Mission Board recently honored Texas Baptists for starting more congregations in 2009 than any other state group. Last year, Texas Baptists facilitated starting 262 congregations, including 89 churches that received funding through the Baptist General Convention of Texas church-starting process.