DALLAS (ABP) – A 10-member committee seeking a successor to Daniel Vestal as the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship executive coordinator met for the first time in Dallas in early January.

The initial meeting focused on members of the group getting acquainted, building consensus on a process and describing a timeline in liturgical terms.

“I’d say where we are right now is prayerful discernment,” said George Mason, chair of the search committee and pastor of Wilshire Baptist Church in Dallas. “This is really the Lenten season of our journey together as a committee. We are praying, we are reflecting and we are listening for direction from God.”

Mason said the committee is receiving nominations and applications through the secure e-mail address, CBFsearchcommittee@gmail.com, and encouraged the Fellowship community to respond with names. The committee also created an online questionnaire to survey the Fellowship on qualities needed in the next executive coordinator.

Mason said it is unlikely the committee will have a candidate by the time Vestal officially retires on June 30.

“We are not going to rush through this,” Mason said. “This is a crucial time for the Fellowship, and we are going to take this task seriously and follow a deliberate and Spirit-led process.”

Compensation survey available online. Ministers and staff serving in Southern Baptist churches have the opportunity to take the 2012 Compensation Survey at www.guidestone.org/compensationsurvey . A printed version of the survey may be obtained by contacting GuideStone Financial Resources at (888) 984-8433 between 7 a.m. and 6 p.m. Monday-Friday. The deadline for completion is May 31. The survey provides an accurate baseline of compensation among similar-sized churches in each state convention. Because of the surveys, administrators, personnel/finance committees and minister-search teams are able to receive customized reports that allow them to better determine adequate compensation for ministers and staff. All information is kept confidential, and no individual answers will be reported. The compensation survey is provided through the joint efforts of Baptist state conventions, LifeWay Christian Resources and GuideStone. Survey results will be released this summer.

Baptist journalist Newton dies at 75. Longtime Baptist journalist Jim Newton died Jan. 16 at Baptist Hospital hospice care in Clinton, Miss., after a battle with leukemia. Newton, 75, was born in Kingsville, into the third generation of a family of weekly newspaper editors. After graduating from Baylor University in 1958, he worked as associate editor of The Bishop News until he became press representative of the Baptist General Convention of Texas in 1959. He was assistant director of Baptist Press in Nashville, Tenn., from 1965 to 1973. After that, he worked eight years as editor of World Mission Journal, published by the SBC Brotherhood Commission in Memphis, Tenn. In 1980, he joined the staff of the Home Mission Board in Atlanta, retiring in 1992 as public relations director to accept a communications position with the U.S.-based office of World Vision International in California. After retiring to Clinton, Newton worked with the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship of Mississippi and was a member of Trace Ridge Baptist Church in Ridgeland, Miss. He also served as a news and media consultant for the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association. He is survived by his wife of 50 years, Patricia Tullos Newton, two daughters and five grandchildren.

Haitian school and orphanage dedicated. Two years after an earthquake killed thousands in Haiti, Baptists on the island nation and their international partners dedicated a school and orphanage for children affected by the disaster. Representatives of the Baptist General Association of Virginia, the Baptist World Alliance and Hungarian Baptist Aid participated in the dedication of the Source of Light complex in the Delmas 19 neighborhood of Port-au-Prince. The school for about 200 preschool, kindergarten and primary students has begun classes, and the orphanage, which will house about 50 children, will begin operations in early February. The Baptist World Alliance provided the majority of the funds through BWAid, its relief and development arm. The Virginia Baptist Mission Board contributed about $200,000. Hungarian Baptist Aid supervised construction in association with the Haiti Baptist Convention.

—Compiled from wire services

HOUSTON (ABP) – The host of a weekend gathering of religious conservatives seeking consensus on an alternative presidential candidate to GOP front-runner Mitt Romney denied charges that balloting was rigged to give Rick Santorum the nod over rivals Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry.

Paul Pressler, a former judge and architect of the “conservative resurgence” movement in the Southern Baptist Convention in the 1980s, disputed a Washington Times article about a weekend gathering at Pressler’s ranch near Houston claiming that organizers manipulated votes to guarantee that Santorum, a former senator and Roman Catholic, would come away with the group’s endorsement.

Paul Pressler

“It is people that did not have the meeting go the way they wanted to that are spinning it and lying about it,” Pressler said on The Michael Berry Show on KTRH news radio in Houston.

The newspaper article said Santorum won a first ballot over Gingrich but the margin was too close for organizers to claim consensus. A final ballot with more than 70 percent in favor of Santorum was said to have been taken after many backers of other candidates had left to catch flights home.

The article quoted Doug Wead, former President George H.W. Bush’s one-time liaison to evangelicals, saying by the end of the weekend “it was clear that this had been definitely planned all along as a Rick Santorum event.”

Another evangelical political organizer said he witnessed a possible incident of ballot-box stuffing when a participant was seen writing Santorum’s name on four separate ballots and casting all four.

Pressler said the allegation of stuffing the ballot box was traced to a young man who worked for a couple who had to leave early and asked him to cast ballots for them when the time for voting came.

“So he filled out three, not four, ballots,” Pressler said. “He did it on the first ballot but not on the second and the third, because he thought it was not correct.”

Pressler agreed the couple’s request for the young man to vote in their place was “questionable.”

“It shouldn’t have been done, but it was not stuffing the ballot box,” Pressler said. “It was a mistake, but it didn’t affect the ultimate outcome.

Pressler said he voted for Texas Gov. Rick Perry on the first of three ballots taken during the event but switched to Santorum “since it was obvious that Rick Perry would not prevail.”

Pressler said the purpose of the balloting was “to come to a consensus and let the consensus be known” and not a binding pledge about how to vote in the primary.

“It was informational,” Pressler said of the invitation-only gathering of about 160 social conservatives. “People heard what other people were doing and why. I think that it will have some influence on what people do hereafter, but it was not an implication that if you come you must support anybody. It’s just perhaps you will get enough information in this meeting that will cause you to change your thinking or adapt or something.”

“It was not a forced meeting,” he said. “It was an open forum, and one of the things we did most was pray. We had an hour of prayer there on Friday night. It was open for everybody praying, and we started every meeting and closed every meeting with prayer and prayed in between, and it was not partisan prayers.”

Pressler said he thinks the group’s dissatisfaction with Romney, who is a Mormon, is not due to a “religious problem” but rather about his record as a governor and the fact “he is a Northeasterner and really does not identify with people of the forks of the creek.”

“I think this group was much more concerned about his health plan in Massachusetts and other things like that,” Pressler said. “I think Romney has come a long way, and I will support him enthusiastically if he gets the Republican nomination. And I think everybody or almost everybody there will do the same thing.”

Pressler said the gathering was more diverse than just a group of evangelicals. “We had a Roman Catholic priest pray, opening or closing one of the sessions,” he said. “Some of my closest Catholic friends were there. I’m sure there were some Mormons there. I don’t know.”

Pressler said he has “never seen evangelicals so aroused” in an election season and predicted greater involvement by that bloc than ever before.

“Here I am, a person who spent 25 years in elective office — always elected as a Democrat — and for the first time in my life I don’t know one single person that supports the Democratic Party and Obama,” Pressler said.

“I personally believe that this group is destroying the nation economically and morally, and if it is allowed to continue we have a very bleak future as a country.” Pressler said of the current administration. “I travel a great deal and I see what’s going on in the world, and I shudder to think what is coming to America if we don’t stop this right now.”

–Bob Allen is managing editor of Associated Baptist Press.

(ABP) –Baptist journalists, pioneers in racial reconciliation and beloved leaders in the Southern Baptist Convention and Cooperative Baptist Fellowship were among deaths reported by ABPnews in 2012.

Francis McBeth, an internationally acclaimed composer and conductor and longtime professor of music at Ouachita Baptist University, died Friday, Jan. 6, at age 78.

Longtime Baptist journalist Jim Newton, 75, died Jan. 16 in Clinton, Miss., after a battle with leukemia. He was assistant director of the Baptist Press in Nashville, Tenn., from 1965 to 1973. After that he worked eight years as editor of World Mission Journal, published by the SBC Brotherhood Commission in Memphis, Tenn. In 1980 he joined the staff of the Home Mission Board in Atlanta, retiring in 1992 as public relations director to accept a communications position with the U.S. based-office of World Vision International in California. After retiring to Clinton, Miss., Newton worked with the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship of Mississippi.

Harold Branch, 92, the first African-American officer of the Baptist General Convention of Texas, died Jan. 20 in Corpus Christi, Texas, a community he had served in various capacities since 1956.

Lloyd Householder, 82, a veteran Southern Baptist denominational worker and communicator, died Jan. 30. Householder worked 32 years for the Southern Baptist Sunday School Board, now called LifeWay Christian Resources, before retiring in 1992 as assistant vice president for the office of communications. After retirement he served as first coordinator of the Tennessee Cooperative Baptist Fellowship in 1994-1995.

Melissa Cheliras, 33, Baptist campus minister at the University of Richmond, died Feb. 10, following a four-month battle with esophageal cancer.

Helen Fling, 97, a longtime leader in Woman’s Missionary Union, died March 1. The wife of Pastor Robert Fling, she was president of the women’s auxiliary to the Southern Baptist Convention from 1963 until 1969.

Lee Porter, 83, a retired editor at LifeWay Christian Resources who served 25 years as SBC recording secretary, an annually elected post responsible for casting, collecting and tabulating ballots during business sessions of the convention annual meeting, died May 17.

Julian Pentecost, longtime editor of the Religious Herald and a founding director of Associated Baptist Press, died May 31 at 87.

John Roberts, 85, the longest-serving editor in the history of The Baptist Courier, died Aug. 15. He joined the Courier staff in 1965 as associate editor and business manager. The following year he became editor, a job he kept until his retirement in 1996. He held leadership positions which included serving on the board of directors of Associated Baptist Press.

Jeff Trussell, 45, and Courteney Kaliszewski, 16, members of Cedar Grove Baptist Church in Maryville, Tenn., died Sept. 16 in a church van accident while returning from a weekend retreat. Tyler Schaeffer, 21, of Sevierville, Tenn., was charged with vehicular homicide and drug possession in the crash that also injured 12.

Henry V. Langford, a white Baptist preacher whose support for racial equality caused him to be blackballed by churches in the 1950s, died Oct. 7 at age 93. Langford served as pastor of small churches in Virginia before he used a weekly column he wrote for the local newspaper to voice support for the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court ruling that declared the “separate but equal” doctrine used to support school segregation unconstitutional. Langford was eventually forced to resign as minister at Shockoe Baptist Church in Chatham, Va., and could not find another congregation that would call him as pastor. He found a new calling in the Alcohol and Drug Education Council of Virginia Churches, where he served eight years as associate director and 13 as executive director, speaking to hundreds of school, church and community groups across Virginia about the signs and dangers of substance abuse during the 1960s and 1970s. Langford finally received long-overdue recognition in 2007 when the Virginia General Assembly passed a joint resolution honoring “his commitment to justice and equality for all citizens.”

John Dunaway, 79, a longtime Kentucky pastor who helped name the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, died Oct. 18 at his home in Huntsville, Ala., following a long illness. The Constitution offered at the inaugural CBF gathering proposed the group of disenfranchised Southern Baptists call itself the “United Baptist Coalition.” Dunaway, at the time pastor of First Baptist Church in Corbin, Ky., pointed out that an existing United Baptist group espoused “extreme Calvinist views” and “the identification with the United Baptists would be in conflict with who we are and what we are.” Ed Vick, a layman from Raleigh, N.C., said Baptists, in the truest sense of the word, are not united but rather cooperative. And so the group instead named itself the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship — today an 1,800-church organization with headquarters in Atlanta.

Salem Boulos Sweilem, who attended the Gaza Baptist Church in Gaza City, died Nov. 19 of an apparent heart attack triggered by stress during a nearby bombing that shook his home. More than 160 Palestinians were killed during eight days leading up to a ceasefire announced Nov. 21. Palestinian sources said half were civilians, and about 30 were children. More than 1,200 people were wounded.

K.H. Ting, an Anglican bishop prior to China’s Cultural Revolution who led a “post-denominational” re-emergence of Chinese Christianity in the 1970s and 1980s, died Nov. 22 after several years of poor health. In 1985, Ting and others set up the Amity Foundation, a Christian faith-based organization that promotes education, social services, health and rural development across China. Its work includes Nanjing Amity Printing Company, Ltd., a joint venture with the United Bible Societies launched in 1988 that recently celebrated the printing of its 100 millionth Bible.

WASHINGTON (ABP) – California pastor Wiley Drake’s three-year legal battle challenging President Obama’s eligibility received a setback Dec. 22, when the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals said he and other plaintiffs lacked legal standing to file their complaint.

A three-judge panel of the federal court based in Washington upheld a central California district court’s October 2009 dismissal of the lawsuit filed Jan. 20, 2009, the day Barack Obama was sworn in as president, but for slightly different reasons.

U.S. District Judge David Carter had said the plaintiffs lacked standing because Congress – not federal courts – has authority to remove a sitting president. The appellate court didn’t dispute the “redressability” issue cited by the lower court but added that in order to have standing the plaintiffs should have filed the lawsuit prior to the November 2008 election.

Drake, pastor of First Southern Baptist Church in Buena Park, Calif., ran as Alan Keyes' running mate on the American Independent Party's ticket in 2008. Along with party officials, they argued in the complaint that the race wasn’t fair because the winning candidate shouldn’t have been allowed to run. Claiming Obama does not meet the constitutional requirement that the president must be a “natural born citizen,” Drake and Keyes claimed an interest in having a fair competition for the positions they sought to obtain.

The appellate court said that once the 2008 general election was over, Drake and Keyes were no longer “candidates” who could claim they would be injured by the “potential loss of an election.”

“The political candidates failed to establish redressability sufficient to establish standing,” the judges ruled. “They cannot claim competitive standing because they were no longer candidates when they filed their complaint.”

Orly Taitz, one of the plaintiffs' lawyers, told reporters outside the courthouse she would ask the appeals court to convene a full 11-judge panel to review the case and if denied she would appeal to the Supreme Court. 

The lawsuit is one of a number of so-called "birther" lawsuits against Obama's election filed by individuals or groups who disbelieve the president's claim that he was born in Hawaii to an American mother, thus establishing his citizenship. So far none has succeeded.

Drake, 69, who served as second vice president of the Southern Baptist Convention in 2007-2008, has been a fixture at floor microphones during business sessions at the SBC annual meeting since the 1990s. He was a driving force behind the convention’s 1997 boycott of the Disney Company because of its gay-friendly corporate policies. In 2005 the convention called off the boycott, declaring it a success.

Once celebrated as a symbol of the small-church pastor who sacrificed to travel to SBC annual meetings to cast ballots for conservative candidates during a leadership change known to the winners as the “conservative resurgence” and to the losers as a “fundamentalist takeover, Drake’s reputation became tarnished after he said on the Alan Colmes Show on June 2, 2009, that he was praying for President Obama to die.

SBC leaders distanced themselves from the comment, describing Drake’s views as outside the mainstream. At the 2011 SBC annual meeting in Phoenix, the convention passed a resolution on “civil discourse” that denounced unspecified groups and individuals who have gained publicity by tactics including “calling for prayers for the deaths of public officials.” 

On Jan. 3 Drake sent out an e-mail announcing he is the official presidential candidate of the American Independent Party, a conservative alternative to the Republican Party established in 1967 by former San Diego Republican William Shearer.

—Bob Allen is managing editor of Associated Baptist Press.

Previous stories:

Court accepts Wiley Drake's 'birther' appeal

Court rejects 'birther' challenge by former SBC officer

Court rejects 'birther' challenge by former SBC officer

California appeals court strikes down Wiley Drake's 'birther' case

Drake's lawyer claims legal precedent for courts to remove a head of state

Judge delays ruling on dismissal of Wiley Drake's 'birther' case

Judge sets court date in 'birther' case filed by Wiley Drake

Wiley Drake wins round in legal battle challenging Obama's presidency

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. (ABP) – Here is a list of notable deaths in 2011 that were reported by Associated Baptist Press.

— Morris Ashcraft, 88, who taught at three Southern Baptist Convention seminaries before serving as acting president at the launch of Baptist Theological Seminary at Richmond in 1991, died Jan. 29 after a long illness.

— Richard "Dick" Brogan, 73, a white Baptist who spent a career as a teacher and missionary to African-American Baptists in the Deep South, died of a heart attack April 25 at Baptist Hospital in Jackson, Miss.

— Ardelle Clemons, 93, a founding board member of Associated Baptist Press, died Nov. 26 after a long illness. She joined the first ABP board in 1990 and was the longest-serving board member when she rotated off in 2004.

— Ross Coggins, 83, author of the missionary hymn “Send Me, O Lord, Send Me,” died Aug. 1 at his home in Annapolis, Md., after an illness.

— Alan Day, 62, pastor of First Baptist Church in Edmond, Okla., for more than 25 years, died Feb. 16 from injuries sustained in a motorcycle accident.

— Benjamin Easler, 6, was killed March 19 when a miniature train at Cleveland Park in Spartanburg, S.C., left the track and tipped over while carrying 15 children and adults from Corinth Baptist Church in Gaffney, S.C. His father, Dwight Easler, is the church’s pastor.

— Edwin Gaustad, 87, died March 25, in Santa Fe, N.M. A Baptist historian, he was one of America's leading experts on America's colonial period, particularly in areas of religious liberty, pluralism and dissent.

— Former Sen. Mark Hatfield, 89, an Oregon Republican whose Baptist faith helped shape his political views during nearly half a century in public office, died Aug. 7 after several years of declining health. The five-term senator and former Oregon governor was a long-time supporter of the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty.

— John Jonsson, 86, an emeritus professor of religion and former director of the African Studies program at Baylor University, died May 26 at his home in South Africa after an extended illness. A native South African, Baptist pastor and scholar, Jonsson openly protested the South African system of apartheid from the pulpit, the classroom and in other public forums, including a run as an anti-apartheid candidate for the South African parliament.

— Bill Junker, 83, longtime Baptist journalist who worked at the Southern Baptist Convention Home Mission Board until he retired in 1992, died June 8 after a long illness.

— Jack McEwen, 84, pastor emeritus of First Baptist Church of Chattanooga, Tenn.,  and academic dean at Southern Seminary in Louisville, Ky., from 1980 until 1983, died Dec. 5.

— Eugene Nida, 96, a Bible translator who pioneered a groundbreaking approach that led to most Bible translations in the 20th century, died Aug. 25 in a Brussels hospital. Rather than translating Hebrew and Greek biblical languages literally word for word, Nida’s “dynamic equivalence” or “functional equivalence” method seeks to convey the thoughts the biblical writers intended to convey.

— Gustavo Parajón, a medical doctor and pastor who was a leading voice for peace and justice ministry in Nicaragua for more than 40 years, died unexpectedly at his home March 13. He was an active supporter and participant in the Baptist Peace Fellowship of North America and a former American Baptist missionary.

— James Pleitz, 82, pastor of prominent churches including Park Cities Baptist Church in Dallas and First Baptist Church in Pensacola, Fla., and active in denominational leadership, died May 15 after an illness.

— Cecil Ray, 88, a long-time denominational worker who directed Planned Growth in Giving, a 15-year challenge for Southern Baptists to dramatically increase their financial support for world missions, died Aug. 23.

— Fred Shuttlesworth, 89, the last of the "Big Three" of the civil rights movement with Ralph Abernathy and Martin Luther King, died Oct. 5.

— Evelyn Stagg, 96, a trailblazer for Southern Baptist Women in Ministry, died Feb. 28. She co-authored the book Woman in the World of Jesus with her husband, longtime Southern Seminary professor Frank Stagg, and in 1983 was one of 33 women to help found what is today known as Baptist Women in Ministry.

— Oeita Theunissen, 87, known professionally and in church leadership as Oeita Bottorff, died Feb. 25 after a long battle with Alzheimer’s disease. She was a key organizer of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, which celebrated its 20th anniversary in 2011.

— Ed Vick, 76, a prominent Baptist layman and supporter of moderate causes including Associated Baptist Press, died May 13, seven weeks after being diagnosed with Stage 4 cancer. He served as a director of ABP from 1994 until he resigned May 3 due to his illness, and was a former board chair.

—Bob Allen is managing editor of Associated Baptist Press.

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. (ABP) – Between headlines of “Church backing pastor jailed on molestation charges” on Jan. 3 and “Scholar says Christmas as celebration of domesticity a modern invention” on Dec. 22, Associated Baptist Press published 586 news and feature stories in 2011. Some were more memorable than others. Here is our review of some of the year’s top newsmakers.

Rob Bell

—Rob Bell: The Michigan mega-church pastor’s book Love Wins sparked new debate about what the Bible really has to say about hell. Bell caught heck from fellow evangelicals including Southern Seminary President Albert Mohler, who convened a panel March 17 to warn students about the book’s “not just getting a doctrine wrong, but the loss of the gospel.” In June the Southern Baptist Convention responded with a resolution affirming “belief in the biblical teaching on eternal, conscious punishment of the unregenerate in Hell.”

— God (as in “acts of”): If 2010 is remembered as the year of the earthquake in Haiti, 2011 brought a whole smorgasbord of natural disasters.

John LaNoue (2nd from right) and Gary Smith (right) of Texas Baptist Men pray with rescue workers in Japan.

A March 11 earthquake and tsunami in Japan prompted one Baptist leader there to predict the country will remember 3/11 the same way Americans do 9/11. Baptists and others were also called upon to respond to suffering caused by spring tornadoes in the East, South and Joplin, Mo.; summer floods along the Mississippi River; wildfires in Texas; Hurricane Irene in August, drought in East Africa and even a rare east-coast earthquake that damaged buildings including two Baptist churches near the epicenter in Virginia.

— The Bible: 2011 marked the 400th anniversary of the King James Version, commonly known as the “book that changed the world,” but it also included introduction of some newer translations.

400th anniversary of the King James Bible.

The Southern Baptist Convention panned the latest New International Version in a rare resolution that came not from a committee but a messenger at a microphone on the floor. About the same time, five mainline denominations unveiled a new Common English Bible, a common-ground translation intended as a “denomination neutral” Bible for the 21st century.

— Trouble in Mayberry: Mount Airy, N.C., the place that inspired the fictional small town of Mayberry in the long-running “Andy Griffith Show,” made news July 26 when Surry Baptist Association voted to expel Flat Rock Baptist Church for calling a woman to be its pastor. Two other churches resigned their membership in protest. The pastor of First Baptist Church of Mt. Airy, a former association moderator, lamented that controversies that used to divide the Southern Baptist Convention were trickling down to local associations.

Not to be outdone, Daviess-McLean Baptist Association in Owensboro, Ky., kicked out two churches – one for allowing a gay-parent support group to use its building and another for being too Calvinistic, a doctrine admittedly “not heresy” but nonetheless “vastly different” from what a majority of the association’s churches believe.

Bryant Wright, president of the Southern Baptist Convention, center front, meets with members of a coalition of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender groups including GetEQUAL and Truth Wins Out, who hand delivered a petition to Wright asking the Southern Baptist Convention for an apology for its beliefs regarding the lifestyle of LGBT people. (BP PHOTO/Kent Harville.)

—Sex and the Southern Baptist: Six gay-rights groups traveled to Phoenix in June to hand deliver a petition calling for the Southern Baptist Convention to apologize for its treatment of gays. That didn’t happen, but SBC President Bryant Wright agreed to meet with representatives in a conversation that was open to members of the press. They didn’t agree on much, but in past years, Soulforce protesters were arrested for trespassing if they set foot on grounds of a convention center where Southern Baptists were meeting.

Meanwhile, over at the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, leaders began planning a [Baptist] Conversation on Sexuality and Covenant next April to clear the air about different ways that churches respond to challenges like gay marriage and heterosexual couples who live together but do not marry.

In North Carolina, Pullen Memorial Baptist Church in Raleigh voted Nov. 20 to cease performing civil marriage ceremonies until gay marriages in the state are legal.

Finally, a couple of prominent Southern Baptist congregations got mixed up in scandals involving sexual abuse by clergy.

After the arrest of a former minister of music in Mississippi Sept. 7 for sex charges involving young boys from incidents alleged to have occurred in the early 1980s, it became known that similar accusations had been made against the minister, John Langworthy, in 1989 while he was on staff of Prestonwood Baptist Church in Dallas. Church leaders, including future SBC President Jack Graham, fired Langworthy but did not notify the police.

Then after the Dec. 14 arrest of former youth minister Chad Foster, authorities wanted to interview seven girls Foster might have abused at Second Baptist Church in Houston, where he worked before moving to another church. That church’s pastor, Ed Young, is also a former SBC president.

SBC leaders Al Mohler and Richard Land both admonished Southern Baptists about their legal and moral obligation to report suspected child abuse in wake of the Penn State sex abuse scandal.

A member of Mohler’s board of trustees, meanwhile, faced questions about his handling of an internal investigation of allegations against Langworthy at Morrison Heights Baptist Church in Clinton, Miss., which elders refused to discuss with police citing clergy-penitent privilege.

—The end of the world as we know it: Radio Bible teacher Harold Camping’s doomsday prediction of May 21 did not materialize. Neither did a revised Rapture forecast of Oct. 21. ABP didn’t carry a story about the 2011 breakup of REM, known for the 1987 hit “It’s the End of the World as We Know It.” But we were there in June when the Southern Baptist Convention, usually known for values closer to the Tea Party than the Democratic Party, passed a resolution calling for “a just and compassionate path to legal status” for undocumented immigrants. Critics of the statement called it “Southern Baptist amnesty.”

–Bob Allen is managing editor of Associated Baptist Press.

FALLS CHURCH, Va. (ABP) – Leaders of the Baptist World Alliance traveled to Nashville, Tenn., Dec. 19 to meet with leaders of the Southern Baptist Convention, a founding member of the BWA that withdrew in 2004 over theological differences.

Initiated by BWA General Secretary Neville Callam, the joint meeting was part of a commitment made in 2004 for continued dialogue between the two groups.

Joining Callam in the BWA delegation were John Upton, current BWA president and executive director of the Baptist General Association of Virginia; George Bullard, general secretary of the North American Baptist Fellowship; and Sam Chaise, general secretary of Canadian Baptist Ministries.

Representing Southern Baptists were SBC President Bryant Wright; Frank Page, president of the SBC Executive Committee; Albert Mohler, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary; and Paige Patterson, president of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary.

Patterson was one of nine members of a BWA Study Committee that in 2004 recommended withdrawal from an organization that “no longer efficiently communicates to the unsaved a crystal clear gospel message that our Lord Jesus Christ is solely sufficient for salvation.”

A BWA press release described the Dec. 19 meeting as cordial, frank and respectful. Participants agreed the discussion was needed not just because of the pledge in 2004 but also “because of the vocation of Christians to live at peace with everyone.”

Bullard said the commitment was made in 2004 for annual meetings between the groups but it was not indicated when they would begin. In an effort to follow up, the BWA Executive Committee authorized Callam to write to the SBC to request a meeting. He received a favorable response, and the first meeting was scheduled for Dec. 19 in the offices of the SBC in Nashville.

Bullard said the meeting was primarily intended to begin a dialogue without strategic or organizational goals and was planned as fellowship and relationship.

“The two teams needed to get to know one another,” Bullard said. “My impression is that we accomplished that goal. It was a very congenial meeting. People were able to talk openly. We did not generate conclusions other than that relating to one another is a positive thing, we need to meet again next year, and we need to offer fraternal invitations to be observers in various meetings of each group.”

Bullard acknowledged that there would be speculation about whether at some point in the future the two organizations might reunite, but that was not the reason for the meeting.

Ironically, Dec. 19 marked the eighth anniversary of a preliminary report of the SBC/BWA Study Committee that found the BWA guilty of having an anti-American tone, encouraging women as pastors and refusing to discuss abortion.

“It is no longer wise stewardship to lend monetary support to an entity whose participants openly oppose many of our most cherished beliefs," read the report, whose members included Morris Chapman (chairman), Jimmy Draper, Tom Elliff, Paul Pressler, Jerry Rankin and Patterson.

Presenting recommendations at the 2004 SBC annual meeting, Patterson claimed that since American Baptist Churches USA, a BWA member, does not expel churches that endorse homosexuality that by continuing to give name and money to the BWA Southern Baptists would tacitly approve of gay marriage. Roy Medley, head of ABC/USA, called Patterson’s statement “completely outrageous.”

After voting to withdraw from the BWA, the SBC – at the time the BWA’s largest financial supporter – reallocated those funds to establish a Global Evangelical Relations office led since 2007 by former SBC President Bobby Welch. In May Welch joined the staff of the Tennessee Baptist Convention while continuing to assist the SBC Executive Committee “in a reduced role.” 

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (ABP) – Leaders of two large Christian traditions held preliminary conversations Dec. 13-15 to lay groundwork for ecumenical dialogue between Baptists and Pentecostals around the world.

Delegations from the Baptist World Alliance and Pentecostal World Fellowship set guidelines for anticipated multi-year meetings to pursue closer ties between two groups that together represent about one fifth of the world’s Christians.

"The purpose of the dialogue is to examine what it may mean for Baptists and Pentecostals to walk together in step with the Holy Spirit," representatives of the two groups said in a statement issued at Samford University's Beeson Divinity School in Birmingham, Ala. "Our intention is for the dialogue to be holistic in its evaluation of faith and practice."

Future talks tentatively scheduled annually from 2012 through 2014, with findings and recommendations to follow, would explore areas where Baptists and Pentecostals already agree, what the two groups offer to each other and “How do we walk together in the Holy Spirit?”

A new Pew Research Center report on global Christianity estimated there are 279 million Pentecostals around the world. They comprise 4 percent of the world’s population and 12.8 percent of all Christians.

Pentecostals are members of Protestant denominations or independent churches that hold the teaching that all Christians should seek a post-conversion religious experience called the baptism of the Holy Spirit. They believe that people who experience the baptism of the Holy Spirit may receive one or more spiritual gifts, including the abilities to prophesy or utter messages from God, practice physical healing or speak in tongues.

Another 305 million Christians worldwide are defined as “charismatic.” They belong to non-Pentecostal denominations but engage in spiritual practices associated with Pentecostalism, such as speaking or praying in tongues. That includes some Baptists, but in general the denomination teaches that miracles described in the New Testament ceased with the apostles and there is no need for a “second blessing” beyond salvation.

The Pentecostal World Fellowship is a cooperative body of Pentecostal churches and groups worldwide with 56 member organizations. It sponsors a triennial meeting first held in 1947 and in 1961 was named the Pentecostal World Conference.

The Baptist World Alliance has 221 member organizations with 176,000 churches and a combined membership of 41.6 million. That doesn’t include the largest Baptist group, the Southern Baptist Convention, which left the BWA in 2004 over theological differences with some of the more liberal Baptist member bodies in Europe and the United States. A catalyst for the break was the BWA’s acceptance into membership of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, a group of disenfranchised former Southern Baptists formed in 1991.

The Pentecostal dialogue team includes both a conservative Southern Baptist who remains active in the Baptist World Alliance, Beeson Divinity School Dean Timothy George, and Curtis Freeman, who directs the Baptist House of Studies at Duke Divinity School, one of 15 theology schools that partner with the Atlanta-based CBF.

The dialogue falls under work of the Baptist World Alliance’s Commission on Doctrine and Christian Unity. It exists to promote greater understanding with other Christian communions about Baptist beliefs such as believer’s baptism and religious liberty, while seeking areas of possible cooperation in areas like missions and evangelism.

BWA General Secretary Neville Callam, who led the BWA delegation, said he "was pleased that the time had arrived in which Baptists and Pentecostals could meet to consider how they might work together in the spirit of Jesus' prayer for the unity of the church."

Callam’s predecessor, Denton Lotz, first proposed dialogue with Pentecostals in 2001. The BWA executive committee authorized Callam in March to identify a small team "to explore the commencement of BWA/Pentecostal bilateral dialogue.” In July Callam presented team members, who in addition to Callam, George and Freeman include Fausto Vasconcelos, BWA director of the mission, evangelism and theological reflection, and Bill Brackney, a professor at Acadia Divinity College in Nova Scotia.

A separate BWA dialogue team held exploratory talks Oct. 30-Nov. 2 with the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, "first among equals" in the Eastern Orthodox communion and regarded as the representative and spiritual leader of the world's 300 million Orthodox Christians.

MONROE, La.—Danielle Flintroy described her life as "a complete mess" before arriving at Christian Women's Job Corps.

"I had lost my job, my home and my car," Flintroy said. "But more importantly, I almost lost my faith in God. It was the scariest thing I've ever experienced. I had an 11-year-old son to provide for, and my life was falling apart."

After being presented with the Sybil Bentley Dove Award, Danielle Flintroy speaks to the crowd gathered at the Louisiana Baptist Convention annual meeting at First Baptist Church in Covington.

Flintroy came to Christian Women's Job Corps of Monroe, La., because she wanted to make a step in the right direction, she said. Her favorite part of the program was the support and encouragement from her instructor and classmates.

"All the ladies bonded and became like a family," she said. "A loving family was exactly what I needed, because I felt my own family had turned their backs on me when I need them the most.

"Being in CWJC was like being welcomed into open, loving arms. It was peace in the middle of a raging storm. It was acceptance and guidance when I felt I didn't deserve it."

Woman's Missionary Union launched Christian Women's Job Corps more than 14 years ago to help women change their lives for the better by empowering them with biblical nourishment, a mentor for encouragement and accountability, and training opportunities to help them attain education, gainful employment and self-sufficiency.

Flintroy identifed Tonya Hancock, site coordinator for Monroe, as the most influential person for her in Christian Women's Job Corps.

"I already knew that with Christ all things are possible, but she made me believe it again," Flintroy said. "She made me know that God loves me in spite of myself and that he wants the best for me."

Her mentor, Tracey Bennett, said Flintroy has a kind and compassionate heart that draws her to help those in need or those less fortunate.

"Danielle seeks Jesus Christ in all she does," Bennett observed. "Her relationship with him spills over into all her other relationships. She knows and has experienced a tough and cruel world, but she uses the strength of the Lord to live her life."

In Christian Women's Job Corps, Flintroy learned first aid, CPR and computer skills. She prepared for a GED and learned interview etiquette and life management skills. But she said the most important thing she learned was Jeremiah 29:11—"'For I know the plans I have for you,' declares the LORD, 'plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.'"

"Because of CWJC, I have a much stronger faith and am ready to be a blessing for others in need," Flintroy said. "I give God all the glory for my blessings and triumphs. I can accept any challenges or obstacles with a smile in my heart because it's all in God's plan."

Flintroy is this year's recipient of the Sybil Bentley Dove Award, which is given annually to a current or former CWJC participant who advances herself through life skills, academic development, and faith in God. David George, president of the WMU Foundation, presented her with the award and a grant that accompanies it at the Louisiana Baptist Convention annual meeting at First Baptist Church in Covington.

Currently a resident and volunteer at the Louisiana Baptist Children's Home, Flintroy said her next steps are to find the job God wants her to have, secure housing for her and her son and get certified as a pharmacy technician.

"I am now able to use what I went through to let others know that no matter what you do or where you may end up, God will bring you out of the darkest hole and give you a purpose," she said. "You only have to seek him, and he will reveal his plan for you."

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (ABP) – A Southern Baptist seminary president says Christians who deny the Virgin Birth aren’t really Christians at all.

In a blog commentary reposted annually since it first appeared in 2006, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary President Albert Mohler said Dec. 14 that a person can come to Christ without full knowledge of all that Christians believe, but once aware of the Bible’s teaching cannot reject the Virgin Birth.

The Annunciation by Philippe de Champaigne (1602-1674)

Mohler said the Virgin Birth, mentioned in two of the four Gospels and not at all in the letters of Paul, was one of the first miracles to be discounted by liberal scholars like Catholic theologian Hans Kung and retired Episcopal bishop John Shelby Spong. More recently, he said, some evangelicals have argued that belief in the Virgin Birth isn’t necessary.

New York Times columnist William Kristoff wrote in 2003 that increasing faith in the Virgin Birth “reflects the way American Christianity is becoming less intellectual and more mystical over time.” 

Mohler said toning down the Virgin Birth in order to make Christianity more palatable to non-believers has theological consequences.

“If Jesus was not born of a virgin, who was His father?” he asked “There is no answer that will leave the gospel intact. The Virgin Birth explains how Christ could be both God and man, how He was without sin, and that the entire work of salvation is God’s gracious act. If Jesus was not born of a virgin, He had a human father. If Jesus was not born of a virgin, the Bible teaches a lie.”

Mohler said rejection of the Virgin Birth by Christians is evidence of “doctrinal and spiritual laxity.” He said those who deny or affirm Bible doctrines “only by force of whim” have “surrendered the authority of Scripture… undermined Christ’s nature and nullified the incarnation.”

“This much we know,” Mohler concluded. “All those who find salvation will be saved by the atoning work of Jesus the Christ — the virgin-born Savior. Anything less than this is just not Christianity, whatever it may call itself. A true Christian will not deny the Virgin Birth.”

–Bob Allen is managing editor of Associated Baptist Press.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (ABP) – A task force appointed to study a possible name change for the Southern Baptist Convention has completed its work and will bring recommendations to the SBC Executive Committee Feb. 20.

The study is available as a pdf file here.

“We are excited to make these recommendations believing that we have come to decisions that will please the Father and greatly strengthen our ability to reach more people with the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ,” task force chair Jimmy Draper, former head of LifeWay Christian Resources, said in a statement released through Baptist Press. “From the beginning we have desired only to discern God's will in this matter.”

SBC President Bryant Wright appointed the advisory group without Executive Committee action last fall. Wright, pastor of Johnson Ferry Baptist Church in Marietta, Ga., said he believed the current name is too regional and that a new identity might make the convention more effective in church planting.

Southern Baptists have rejected proposals to rename the convention eight times since 1965. The last was in 2004, when messengers to the convention voted 55 percent to 45 percent against then-President Jack Graham’s suggestion to appoint a committee to study a new name to better reflect the convention’s geographical scope.

Conventional wisdom holds that the “Southern” designation – a holdover from North-South separation prior to the Civil War – is a hindrance to appealing to converts beyond the Bible Belt. A new study by LifeWay Research, however, found that Southern Baptists have a more negative image in areas where they are better known.

Polling by the research arm of the SBC publisher LifeWay Christian Resources found that a majority of Americans – 53 percent – have a favorable impression of Southern Baptists. Forty percent, however, said they have a negative impression, ranking Southern Baptists behind Methodists and Catholics in popularity but ahead of Mormons and Muslims.

Americans in the South (40 percent) and West (44 percent) were found more likely to have an unfavorable opinion than those in the Northeast (34 percent) and Midwest (36 percent).

Americans age 18-29 were least likely to have a somewhat favorable opinion (26 percent) and the most likely to have a very unfavorable opinion (25 percent).

LifeWay Research President Ed Stetzer said many would likely see the research as “a bit of a Roscharch Test – people will see in it what they want to see.” He opened the comments section on his blog to discussion of what the findings might mean.

Ideas ranged from the anti-gay Westboro Baptist Church giving Baptists a bad name to “our stubborn resistance to change/increasing methodological irrelevance.”

“If I were a betting man, I'd say part of it is the impression that Baptists are fighting and ‘against’ things,” Stetzer offered. “Then, I would add that some of it is that Southern Baptists believe things that the world does not like…. You can fix the first part but not the second.”

Draper didn’t offer many hints to what the task force, which has no formal authority and will report to the Executive Committee by invitation of the president, might recommend, but he told Baptist Press that no one on the 19-member task force believed the word “Baptist” should be removed from the convention’s name.

—Bob Allen is managing editor of Associated Baptist Press.