Posted: 8/22/03
|
|
|
| BGCT student summer missionary Angie Cornett poses with children she met prayerwalking in Northern Africa. | |
 |
 |
| Jason Ellis of Texas A&M-Commerce plays with a child in Sabine-Neches Baptist Association. | |
News of religion, faith, missions, Bible study and Christian ministry among Texas Baptist churches, in the BGCT, the Southern Baptist Convention ( SBC ) and around the world.
Posted: 8/22/03
Four college students from Texas spent a month in Zambia doing mountain bike evangelism.
Justin Childress, Richie Conry, Randy Kelley and Mickey Matlock served through the Baptist General Convention of Texas Baptist Student Ministry and the Southern Baptist Convention International Mission Board.
Childress is from Texas A&M; Conry from the University of North Texas; Kelley from the University of Houston; and Matlock from Midwestern State University.
| Student missionary Mickey Matlock rides into a village on his mountain bike, greeted by local children. |
Mountain bike evangelism is a relatively new ministry in Zambia in which volunteer teams visit remote areas and unreached people groups. The students camped in the bush and biked from hut to hut in the villages sharing the gospel.
“God made me dependent on his word for my words, because when we would come upon a house there were times when I had no words to say but Scripture, and it was powerful,” Conry said.
Their other objectives besides telling people about Jesus were to discover what the spiritual background and practices of the people.
Zambians are considered eager to discuss spiritual things and often follow the first religion that comes their way, mission workers report. Cults such as Jehovah's Witnesses, Mormonism and the New Apostolic Church have a foothold there.
The students discovered most Zambians have heard of Jesus but don't understand he is the Son of God and “the way, the truth, and the life,” as the Bible states.
The first place the four Texans went was a sparsely populated area near the Democratic Republic of Congo. They biked within a few hundred meters of the border. There is one Baptist church in this area, with a membership of about 50.
When they first pulled up, the Zambians were so excited they did not stop singing and dancing until well into the night. Some of the locals brought their children by so that they could see a mzungu (white person) for the first time.
The mountain bike team camped the majority of the trip. They ate military rations, drank filtered water and went for days without bathing. They tried to fight off mosquitoes, but half the team still contracted malaria.
While tough, the students still found the trip rewarding.
“You are always seeing the glory of God personified through the incredible landscapes and animals,” Kelley said.
Posted: 8/22/03
Amarillo hospital ranked highly. Baptist-St. Anthony Hospital in Amarillo was ranked among the best hospitals in the United States this year by U.S. News & World Report. In the magazine's annual evaluation of hospitals by specialization, Baptist-St. Anthony ranked among the top 50 hospitals in neurology and neurosurgery as well as for treating kidney disease.
Flamming to speak at HSU. James Flamming, pastor of First Baptist Church of Richmond, Va., since 1983 and former pastor of First Baptist Church of Abilene, will speak at Hardin-Simmons University's Sept. 4 convocation program in Behrens Chapel. Dedication services also will be held for the new Elwin Skiles Social Sciences Building and the Linebery Boulevard and Linebery Clock Tower. That evening, dedication services will be held for the renovated Caldwell Music Building.
Another Flowers blooms. Leighton Flowers has accepted a part-time position as consultant in youth evangelism with the Baptist General Convention of Texas Center for Strategic Evangelism. Effective Aug. 1, he assumed many of the responsibilities previously carried by his father, Chuck Flowers, who is on medical leave from the BGCT. Flowers, 29, is a graduate of Hardin-Simmons University in Abilene and Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth. He has served nearly two years as staff evangelist at Cornerstone Baptist Church of Wylie. Previously, he was youth minister at Colonial Hills Baptist Church in Cedar Hill. While attending seminary, he was pastor of First Baptist Church in Era.
Texas men serve shrimpers. Baptist disaster relief volunteers served about 500 meals to Gulf of Mexico shrimp fishermen who were forced to dock as they waited out Tropical Storm Erika. The storm, which fell short of hurricane intensity, made landfall before dawn Aug. 16 in northern Mexico.The South Texas disaster relief unit from the Corpus Christi and Beeville area was activated Aug. 15. Texas Baptist Men volunteers from the region set up a field kitchen in Brownsville to serve shrimp boat crews at the request of the Salvation Army.
Posted: 8/22/03
As I have participated in the ordination of Baptist deacons through the years, one doctrinal conviction most often mentioned in their testimonies has been the priesthood of the believer. Baptists have cherished this biblical doctrine and have believed it to be a bulwark against any authoritarian religion that is pressed down on others by some formal or informal religious hierarchy.
The Old Testament role of priest was to serve the people, intercede with God on their behalf and lead in the worship rituals, including offering sacrifices. When Jesus offered himself as the perfect and sufficient sacrifice for the sins of the world, he brought an end to the sacrificial system. He became the Great High Priest and made those who believe in him priests who serve under him.
| CHARLES WADE Executive Director BGCT Executive Board |
It is not that Baptists do not believe in the importance of priests. Rather, we believe the role is so important that God has called all Jesus' followers to be priests. We have the privilege of standing beside one another, for we all need priests who can intercede in prayer for us, listen to us with spiritual ears, help us see the sin in our life, and love and serve as Jesus commanded us to do.
The relationship of pastor and people is one of mutual respect and submission to God. God gives the church spiritual leadership through his calling and gifting of some individuals. But the church must identify and call those people to be their spiritual leaders. No one stands in an authoritative role between God and us.
The doctrine of the priesthood of the believers means there is no division between clergy and laity. We all can do the work of God. Clergy are called by God to lead, and they are also called by the people to their particular place of service in the church. Laity are called by God as well. Their particular role is given to them by the church, as the congregation calls them to serve in accomplishing kingdom work.
Benefits of this doctrine are many. God's people are freed up for service. They are able to move out of a role of dependency on some spiritual leader. They are released from any narrow legalism some teacher or preacher might seek to impose. They are able to enter into the true mystery of God's grace and not into some artificial mystery concocted by ritual and tradition. The mark of every believer's calling into this priesthood is baptism.
Requirements that fall upon these believer priests are significant. A priest of God must seek the will of Christ. Decisions made individually and in the life of the congregation are determined not by one's preferences but by one's prayerful understanding of what God desires to be done. A priest of God has the invitation to come boldly into the presence of God and make one's petitions and intercessions known.
What we have been invited to do we must do faithfully and courageously. A priest of God must serve God passionately. Half-hearted service is never acceptable, but especially is it not acceptable for those who are called to be God's priests.
We love him, and we love one another. Those are commands, and we dare not ignore them if we are serious about our calling as priests in his kingdom.
We are loved.
Posted: 8/22/03
By Mark Wingfield
Managing Editor
CANYON–Texas Baptists who ventured to Pioneer Amphitheater at Palo Duro Canyon this summer saw a product of their own mission work on stage.
Josh Stockel, who played one of the lead roles in this summer's production of the “Texas Legacies” musical, is a senior at the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor in Belton.
UMHB is one of eight universities affiliated with and supported by the Baptist General Convention of Texas, preparing students to be both vocational ministers and lay leaders in congregations.
| Josh Stockel |
“Texas Legacies” is the new production staged in Palo Duro Canyon, successor to the “Texas” musical that ran for more than 30 years.
Stockel, an exercise and sports science major, auditioned for the show after seeing a notice posted at school. The Katy native vaguely remembered seeing the outdoor drama as a child.
“All I remembered was a cowboy shaking my hand and a lightning bolt,” he confessed.
Stockel was “pretty surprised” when he was offered the role of J.C. Travis, a range boss who figures prominently in the storyline.
About 1,300 people auditioned for the 43-member cast.
Stockel left for Canyon the day after his last final exam at UMHB in May. After three weeks of rehearsals, the production ran six nights a week from June 5 through Aug. 16.
After the last show, Stockel went straight back to Belton, a day late for training as a dormitory resident assistant.
Stockel, who played football for Mayd Creek High School in Katy, was recruited to UMHB as a football player. He also received a choir scholarship.
Through participation in the university's Concert Choir and First Baptist Church of Belton, Stockel expanded his experience in music and drama, while continuing to prepare for a career in high school coaching.
He landed a role as an extra in “Second Hand Lions,” a motion picture filmed in Austin and scheduled for release Sept. 26.
His unexpected opportunities in singing and acting have caused him to ponder his future, he admitted. “I'm really trying to seek God's direction. This is just boom–God has opened so many doors for me in the last year with acting. If God wants me to teach, I'll do that. If God wants me to act and sing, I'll do that. …. I don't want to close any doors.”
Regardless, his experience in the Panhandle this summer provided both professional and spiritual development, he said.
Although raised in the Houston suburbs, he had some experience with the outdoors and with horses through his career as a Boy Scout. But the Eagle Scout discovered life in rural West Texas is a far cry from the big city.
“Life is completely different here,” he said, explaining he benefitted from learning how to ride bareback and wrangle horses.
Stockel also has learned more about acting this summer, he added. “This is the biggest role I've ever had. I had a lot of people work with me–acting coaches, the director. I've had a lot of one-on-one time with experienced people. I ask a lot of questions and try to learn stuff on the go.”
The outdoor amphitheater presents its own unique challenges, Stockel reported, including learning to project without microphones and keeping constant watch for unexpected obstacles on stage.
“We've had a lot of rain and winds this summer. It's real weird trying to deliver your lines with rain rolling off your hat. Also animals, lots of things with little creatures. A deer ran across stage. One of the horses got loose and ran across stage. We had a scorpion on the stage and a tarantula.”
Off stage, Stockel has soaked in the beauty of the canyon, hiking and rappelling regularly.
He's also found quiet time to pray and study the Bible, he said, explaining that Buddy Young, Baptist Student Ministry director at West Texas A&M, has provided a weekly Bible study for the cast this summer.
Stockel's past spiritual experience has taught him there may be more to life ahead than he could have anticipated.
Before becoming a Christian at 16, he was “your typical football player,” he said. “I got in a lot of trouble.
“But then I discovered there's really more to life than I thought there was,” he said. “From then on, it's been a great ride working with God. Everything I do is through God and not because of my own actions.”
Posted: 8/22/03
| Wayland Baptist University students perform a concert in Spain, where they debuted the original composition of Wayland professor Gary Belshaw. |
By Jonathan Petty
Wayland Baptist University
PLAINVIEW–After being tucked away for more than 20 years, “A Espana” finally made its successful debut before a captivated Spanish crowd.
The piece was performed by a group of Wayland Baptist University students who participated in a mission trip to Spain this summer. The work, composed by Wayland Assistant Professor of Piano Gary Belshaw, was designed to combine Scripture readings with music for both band and choir.
It was the crowning achievement of the group's two main concerts while spending a week in Valencia, Madrid and the surrounding areas of Spain.
“I originally wrote it in 1981 in English,” Belshaw said of the first piece. “I rearranged it for our group to sing in Spanish.”
The composition was made up of three movements, which took about 15 minutes to perform. After dusting off the original piece, Belshaw added two other pieces, which were designed specifically for the members of the group traveling to Spain to perform in the native tongue.
“For some reason, we didn't have anything in Spanish in our repertoire,” he said.
Belshaw, who received his doctorate from Texas Tech University, said it took about a month to complete the work, “stealing time from other activities.” Not knowing any Spanish, he used a Spanish version of the New American Standard Bible, translated from original manuscripts, and his parallel Bible to set the Scriptures he wanted to use to music.
The piece begins with the first chapter of John–“In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God”–and from there moves through Scriptures that focus on the importance of God's promises to humanity.
Being able to perform a piece written specifically for the trip was meaningful, especially for Belshaw, who wasn't sure how anyone would react.
“Even the students and faculty were more receptive than I thought,” he said. “They liked doing something original.”
While the piece made its debut in Spain, Belshaw said it is far from finished. Even the title isn't set in stone. In Spanish, there are two words meaning “for.” Belshaw said the translator changed the name of the piece from “A Espana” to “Para Espana.”
“I'm thinking about changing it to 'Whenever I go to Spain,' or 'Songs for Spain,'” Belshaw said.
Wayland music professor Robert Black, who organized the trip, said the students were “unbelievably effective.”
“We made lots of good music, made friends and helped a lot of Baptist churches and ministries in Spain by giving them some credibility.”
Posted 8/18/03
By Mark Wingfield
Managing Editor
In his first public comments on the plight of Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore, Richard Land said Aug. 18 he is troubled by the Southern Baptist judge's open defiance of a federal court ruling.
Land, president of the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, has been a frequent apologist in the national media for Religious Right causes. But an article on the website EthicsDaily.com Aug. 15 noted Land had been noticeable in his silence on the case of the Alabama chief justice erecting a massive Ten Commandments monument in the state judicial building.
A federal court has ruled that Moore must remove the display because it violates the United States Constitution by endorsing one religion over others. Moore has declared he will not remove the 5,280-pound edifice and will appeal his case directly to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Some of his supporters have threatened to engage in civil disobedience to prevent law enforcement officials from carrying out the order of U.S. District Judge Myron Thompson. Thompson has mandated the monument be removed from the courts building by Aug. 20.
The unusual case has left no safe ground for Religious Right figures who also specialize in church-state law. Land joined Jay Sekulow, head of Pat Robertson's American Center for Law and Justice, in questioning the legal path Moore has undertaken.
"However much sympathy I may have for Judge Moore's beliefs and convictions about the Ten Commandments and the role they have played in Western civilization and American jurisprudence, I am dismayed at the prospect of a judge defying a court order," Land said. "One of the foundational principles of American law is that we believe in the rule of law."
On his Aug. 15 syndicated radio broadcast, Sekulow voiced doubt, "legally speaking, that Judge Moore is correct here."
He added: "I support the display of the Ten Commandments. I think it is the Western foundation of law (and) clearly displayed at the Supreme Court building of the United States."
However, Moore and his legal team have taken an unorthodox legal stance "that is going to require a constitutional showdown in Alabama," Sekulow said.
Other figures associated with the Religious Right have taken up Moore's cause, however.
Rick Scarborough, who resigned as pastor of First Baptist Church of Pearland last year to give full attention to his Vision America organization, sponsored a "Restore the Commandments" rally Aug. 16 on the steps of the Alabama State Supreme Court building. An estimated crowd of 4,000 people participated in the rally.
Members of Vision America's advisory board include prominent Southern Baptist pastors Jerry Falwell, Ronnie Floyd and Adrian Rogers, as well as Houston layman Paul Pressler.
Among the speakers were Falwell, former Republican presidential candidate Alan Keyes and former Constitution Party presidential nominee Howard Phillips. Baptist Press reported that Focus on the Family founder James Dobson sent a letter of support for Moore, while James Kennedy's Coral Ridge Ministries sent a box full of 150,000 signatures supporting Moore.
Falwell, who took a decidedly different tone than Land's later comments, said that before flying to Alabama he was asked by someone why he was supporting a person who was "breaking the law."
"I said, 'Did you ask Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. that question?'
Falwell asserted that "civil disobedience is the right of every one of us when we feel that breaking man's law enables us to keep God's law."
Land countered two days later that Moore had not exhausted all avenues of legal action before forcing the looming showdown.
"As I understand it, while civil disobedience may be an ultimate option for individual Christians as a matter of conscience, it would only be justified morally when all legal recourse has been exhausted," Land said. "And then, civil disobedience, to be justified, must be non-violent, and the person who feels compelled to disobey the law must be willing to pay the consequences of disobeying the law.
"After all, what gave Dr. Martin Luther King's 'Letter From Birmingham Jail' its biggest impact was the fact he wrote it from the Birmingham jail, where he was being incarcerated for refusing to obey an unjust law after having exhausted his legal recourse," Land said.
Nevertheless, Land said, he believes Moore's Ten Commandments display is constitutional.
"It's my understanding that the Ten Commandments display was paid for by Judge Moore and private sources and that no public money was used to construct the display," he said. "If that indeed is true and a display of items from another faith would be accommodated if a judge from another faith wished to erect a similar display on public property, then I believe this would fit within the parameters of government accommodation of the people's right to express their religious convictions in public forums."
The Baptist Joint Committee, the religious-liberty watchdog organization defunded by the SBC more than a decade ago but still funded by Texas Baptists, has opposed Moore's monument as unconstitutional.
More than 40 Alabama clergy and religious leaders signed on to an amicus brief prepared by the BJC opposing the Alabama monument. Also joining the brief were the American Jewish Committee, the Anti-defamation League, the Commission on Social Action of Reform Judaism, the Interfaith Alliance, the Interfaith Alliance of Alabama and Clifton Kirkpatrick as stated clerk of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA).
The BJC brief argues the display "violates the freedom of conscience of those outside the Judeo-Christian faith by endorsing particular sectarian beliefs of that tradition."
Posted 8/13/03
By Clinton Wolf
International Mission Board
ENTEBBE, Uganda (BP)–Baptists working with the True Love Waits program in East Africa are encouraged following President Bush’s commitment to U.S. support of abstinence-based programs in the war on AIDS.
Such programs headed the president’s list as he outlined a strategy for battling the spread of the AIDS virus in Africa and around the world.
"We will work with governments and private groups and faith-based organizations to put in place a comprehensive system to prevent, to diagnose and to treat AIDS," Bush told an audience of about 100 during his visit to Uganda this summer as part of a five-country visit to Africa.
| President Bush told reporters July 30 that he believes in the "sanctity" of traditional marriage and believes it should be protected by law. (BP Photo) |
"We will support abstinence-based education for young people in schools and churches and community centers."
Bush’s comments were made following a visit to a clinic in Entebbe, less than 10 minutes from the airport where his plane landed.
Noting the success of Uganda’s triple emphasis on abstinence, marital fidelity and the use of condoms, Bush commended the country as a model for AIDS treatment across the continent. More than 30 million people in Africa live with the AIDS virus, but in Uganda the infection rate of the disease–how fast it is spreading to others–has fallen from 30 percent to 5 percent since the early 1990s.
Andrew Mwenge, senior pastor of Kampala Baptist Church in Kampala, Uganda, and longtime volunteer with True Love Waits, believes the president’s comments will increase the credibility of True Love Waits’ focus on abstinence. Although True Love Waits has been in Uganda since 1994, Mwenge believes the program often has been sidelined by agencies.
"The money is here, but the problem is sometimes getting to it," Mwenge said. "I think we will have a better hearing. This has brought it to the forefront."
Mwenge and his staff already have been at work on proposals to fund True Love Waits in its next phase, taking the message of abstinence until marriage to teacher-training colleges.
In neighboring Kenya, staff at the Baptist AIDS Response Agency–a joint effort between the Baptist Convention of Kenya and the International Mission Board’s Baptist Mission of Kenya–were equally encouraged by the president’s support.
Debby Marshall, strategy consultant for AIDS work in Kenya, noted that the True Love Waits program has faced challenges in obtaining funding because of its insistence on abstinence, rather than the use of condoms. Marshall said she hopes the president’s support of abstinence-based programs will ease some of this difficulty.
"I’m very hopeful," Marshall said. "It’s encouraging because abstinence is biblically based, and the president is supporting something from a biblical perspective, not a secular perspective."
Posted 8/13/03
By Ted Parks
Religion News Service
LAKE FOREST, Calif. (RNS)–Before his junior year in high school, Rick Warren knelt in a cabin at summer camp. “God, if you're really alive, I want to know you,” he prayed. The response? Nothing he could hear or see. “No thunder, lightning,” Warren said. But it didn't deter him.
Three decades later, Warren writes non-fiction best-sellers and leads one of the largest evangelical congregations in America. His “The Purpose-Driven Life” has hovered on the New York Times hardcover advice best-seller list for more than 25 weeks. The Saddleback Church near Los Angeles where he is pastor shot from seven at its founding in 1980 to more than 17,000 who currently crowd into six weekend services. He has been a guest in the George W. Bush White House.
| Rick Warren with his wife, Kay. |
The secret of his preaching and publishing success? Warren sees himself as a communicator, as someone able to transmit the mysteries of the faith to ordinary 21st-century people.
“I am in essence a translator,” Warren said in a recent interview at Saddleback. “I love to challenge myself to teach theology to non-theological people, without telling them it's theology and without using theological terms.”
Those who hear and read Warren believe he makes his message not only clear but relevant.
Warren is “understandable to people,” said Paul Wilkes, author and program director for Pastoral Summit, a North Carolina-based organization dedicated to strengthening individual churches. “There's a hunger in people's hearts he … has an insight into.” He “really hits people where they live.”
“I think he is one of the best teachers in the world,” said Matt Moser, a church worker from Zurich, Switzerland, who was among the thousands of pastors and church leaders at a recent “Purpose-Driven Church” conference at Saddleback. Moser especially appreciated Warren's ability to connect with nonbelievers.
There's preaching in Warren's blood. One ancestor studied under the great 19th century English evangelist Charles Spurgeon and came to America as a circuit-riding preacher, he said. And Warren's father was a minister. But the mega-church pastor made clear he never intended to follow in the steps of his preaching forbears.
Growing up in small-town Redwood Valley, Calif., Warren liked the challenges and opportunities of leadership, serving as class president several years. His keenest interests were politics and government. While a sophomore in high school, Warren won an appointment to serve as a page in the U.S. Senate.
The summer before he was scheduled to go to Washington, Warren took a job as lifeguard at a Christian camp. Observing lives of faith he sincerely wanted to imitate, Warren said, he decided to have a talk with God. And despite the lack of proof anyone was listening, the future pastor's life began to change. No longer interested in politics, he turned down the chance to work in Washington.
Warren started a Christian prayer group at school, then started getting invitations to speak in churches. He sidestepped, not marched, into ministry. “I just kind of veered in that direction,” he said.
After graduating from California Baptist College, Warren left for Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth. While in Texas, Warren wrote the country's 100 largest churches to find out what made them grow. He decided a key factor in developing healthy churches is continuity of leadership.
The conclusions of his research mirrored his own longing. If he could only stay wherever he went, Warren promised, “God, I'll go any place in the world.”
And although he and his wife, Kaye, wanted to go overseas, they felt the divine answer was no. Spending their last $1,000 on a U-Haul trailer, the couple headed back to California, hosting the home Bible study in January 1980 that eventually would mushroom into Saddleback Church.
Besides shepherding his own flock, the Saddleback leader reaches out to other ministers. On his “Pastors.com” website, Warren offers an e-mail newsletter, “Rick Warren's Ministry Toolbox.” His e-mail ministry tips reach 83,000 church leaders weekly.
In the second half of the 1990s, Warren took on the IRS when he saw a chance to impact the lives of his fellow pastors across the country. Like many other clergy, Warren had claimed a housing deduction under a parsonage allowance that gives ministers a tax break on their homes. After auditing several of the pastor's returns, the IRS assessed Warren's home at what he insists was well below its actual value, ruling that he had excluded too much money from his taxable income.
Believing the tax law unclear and that he was not the only one to suffer from its vagueness, Warren mounted legal challenges and won. Later, when the government appealed, the appeals court challenged the constitutionality of the parsonage allowance itself. But after President Bush signed the Clergy Housing Allowance Clarification Act into law in May 2002, the appeal was dismissed.
For Warren, the fight wasn't about money. “I'm going to take this to court on behalf of every pastor in America,” he said. “I was doing this for the other people.”
Even with the national prominence, the Saddleback pastor insists his love is the local church and his goal is not fame, but positive spiritual influence.
“I'm still dealing with the day-to-day things that pastors go through,” Warren said. “I'm not a bureaucrat … I'm a spiritual entrepreneur.”
Posted 8/13/03
By Steve DeVane
N.C. Biblical Recorder
CONCORD, N.C.–A protester was arrested at McGill Baptist Church in Concord, N.C., July 13 after he stood up at the end of a worship service and started shouting.
McGill was expelled from Cabarrus Association in April for baptizing two gay men.
The protester, Steven Borchert of Lafayette, Ind., was at the church with a several other people from “Operation Rescue – Operation Save America.” The group opposes homosexuality, abortion and Islam, according to its website.
The group, which moved its headquarters to Concord this year, held a series of protests and other events in the Charlotte area July 12-20.
Borchert was charged with first-degree trespassing and resisting, obstructing or delaying a law enforcement officer. He served four days in jail, officials said.
Officials with Operation Rescue could not be reached for comment, but the group's director, Flip Benham, said what Borchert did was inappropriate, according to the Independent-Tribune, a newspaper that covers Concord and Kannapolis.
“We did the right thing, but there we did it in the wrong way,” he said. “It is our responsibility, and we need to own that sin.
Steve Ayers, McGill's pastor, said church members considered going to visit Borchert in jail but were told by authorities that he was so agitated their visit likely would make the situation worse.
At the conclusion of the church's 8:45 a.m. worship service, Borchert stood up and shouted repeatedly: “This is a den of iniquity. This is an abomination before the Lord.”
He was among a dozen members of the protest group in the service that morning. Another 25 protesters were stationed outside the church building.
Posted: 8/8/03
| "Let's try that new church down the street," you said. "What harm can come from that?" |
Posted: 8/8/03
By Hannah Lodwick
Associated Baptist Press
ORLANDO, Fla. (ABP)–Sy Rogers, an author and speaker who lived as a woman for 18 months, has apologized to Exodus International delegates and members of the homosexual community for “a church that would rather win an argument than a neighbor.”
“Jesus didn't rail against the Romans. He railed against those who loved the law,” Rogers said. “You who are far from God can be reconnected to him through Christ. Whatever you think of us is OK, (but) he wants you to know him as a father.”
Rogers provided the evening's keynote address for about 1,000 “ex-gays” and their pastors, counselors and family members who convened in Orlando, Fla., this summer for the largest conference of its kind in the world.
Now in its 28th year, the Exodus conference provides a week of workshops, worship and testimony for homosexuals who have rejected the homosexual lifestyle. The sometimes-controversial organization has more than 135 affiliated ministries in 17 countries.
Now married and a father, Rogers says he was sexually violated as a child and spent years living as a homosexual. As recounted in “One of the Boys: The Sy Rogers Story,” he took hormone replacements in preparation for a sex change but decided against the operation at the last minute.
In his speech, Rogers said it didn't matter if critics attended the conference to spy or scoff; many Exodus participants started out that way too. Protestors from gay support groups have picketed conferences and disrupted performances in years past.
“We are not your enemies,” Rogers said to any critics in the audience. “We understand that you may not understand. Our message to you is not about change. That's putting the cart before the horse. This isn't self-improvement. This is about establishing the lordship of Christ in your life.”
Rogers also addressed parents of homosexuals and people who still struggle with homosexuality. He offered encouragement from the sexual struggles of Rahab, David and Samson. The issue of sin for those biblical characters, he said, proved no threat to a God who provides redemption.
“God has a history of sexual stuff,” Rogers said. “So, if this is new to you, have hope in God for whom this is not.”
Rogers urged individuals who struggle with feelings of shame and guilt about homosexual urges to take hope. Like diabetics who need a doctor to provide insulin, he said, they could get righteousness only from “Dr. Jesus.”
That change would prove a struggle, he warned.
“While I felt dirty, he made me feel clean again and again,” he said to thunderous applause. “But it wasn't magic deliverance, to be sure. Not 'one, two, three; now you're free.'”
But some people bristle at the implication homosexuals need “deliverance” at all.
Laura Montgomery Rutt, director of communications for Soulforce, said even using the term “homosexual lifestyle” misrepresents homosexuals.
“It's not living a lifestyle,” she said. “I have a gay brother, and he goes to work every morning just like I do. It (homosexuality) is morally equivalent to being left-handed.”
Soulforce's mission statement says it is “an interfaith movement committed to ending spiritual violence perpetuated by religious policies and teachings against gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people.” The group frequently pickets Southern Baptist Convention meetings.
Soulforce leaders say the problem with Exodus is its approach.
“The problem lies in expecting other people to follow the same path,” Montgomery Rutt said. “It is not a valid path for everyone. Many people have struggled in ex-gay ministries.”
Rogers apparently has heard that argument before. “Whatever skepticism you may have, I understand,” he told the Orlando audience. “But as things change, the impossible becomes the possible.”