Posted: 8/8/03

Astronomers pinpoint Crucifixion time

LONDON (RNS)–Two Romanian astronomers claim to have pinpointed the exact time and date of the Crucifixion of Jesus, the Internet news service Ananova has reported.

According to Liviu Mircea and Tiberiu Oproiu of the Astronomic Observatory Institute in Cluj, Romania, Jesus died at 3 p.m. on Friday, April 3, 33 A.D.

According to their reading of the New Testament data, Jesus was crucified on the day after the first night with a full moon after the vernal equinox. If the Crucifixion took place some time between the years 26 and 35, this could mean either Friday, April 7, 30, or Friday, April 3, 33. But it was only in the latter year that records show a solar eclipse as having occurred in Jerusalem, matching what it recorded in Mark 15:33–“And when the sixth hour had come, there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour.”

The two astronomers also timed the Resurrection as having occurred precisely at 4 a.m. the following Sunday, April 5.

Although by biblical accounts, Jesus would have been 33 when crucified, many biblical scholars believe the current Gregorian calendar pegged the year of Jesus' birth incorrectly in setting a starting point for the year Anno Domini. By their reckoning, Jesus would have been born between 3 B.C. and 5 B.C.

Posted: 8/8/03

Is 'The Da Vinci Code' as accurate as it claims?

By Nancy Haught

Religion News Service

WASHINGTON (RNS)–What's the secret to “The Da Vinci Code,” the novel by Dan Brown that's been smiling down from fiction best-seller lists since it debuted in April?

No, it's not the inside joke behind the Mona Lisa's languid smile or the redhead seated on the right hand of Jesus in the “Last Supper.” It's the note Brown tacks onto the first of his 454 printed pages under the cut-and-dried title “Fact.”

“All descriptions of artwork, architecture, documents, and secret rituals in this novel are accurate,” Brown writes.

OK, so what does all this cloak-and-dagger detail mean? Is the Christian church based on a lie? Does a secret society, once led by Leonardo da Vinci, protect the truth? Are tourists tramping all over it right now?

If these are among your questions, you've probably read the book, a real page-turner about Harvard University “symbologist” Robert Langdon and his hair-raising encounter with the Holy Grail. It's hovered near the top of the New York Times best-seller list for 15 weeks. Columbia Pictures has bought the movie rights, hoping some actor will do for symbology what Harrison Ford did for archaeology.

But back to the question at hand. What does this “accurate” description add up to? How much of “The Da Vinci Code” is true, and how much is a good story? And what difference does it make?

“It touches on enough strands of popular speculation and mythology that readers will think of it as more factual than it is,” says Charles Lippy, a history of religion professor and an expert on popular culture who says he enjoyed the book but never forgot it was a novel. Other readers may be more gullible.

Combine that, Brown's authoritative tone and some readers' penchant for conspiracy theories, and it may be that “The Da Vinci Code” could use a little cracking. Without giving too much away, here's a quick reader's guide to some key concepts:

First, there really is a phi. A character in “The Da Vinci Code” pronounces it “fee,” but James Schombert, an astronomer who also teaches the philosophy of science at the University of Oregon, knows it as the “golden ratio,” 1.618.

Schombert describes the number as a visual equivalent of music, a proportion that is pleasing to the eye. A painting, one of Leonardo's for example, painted along those lines may be divided into rectangles with the same proportions, and each will be balanced.

It's the same ratio behind the interlocking compartments of the shell of a nautilus and the relationship between parts of the human body, say the distance from one's shoulder to his fingertips, divided by the distance from his elbow to his fingertips.

Schombert sees the golden ratio as evidence that “the universe is properly built,” but he and some other scientists stop short of seeing it as a calling card of divinity, either masculine or feminine.

What was the artist up to? Few painters have been reinterpreted as often as da Vinci, says Richard Turner, author of “Inventing Leonardo.” Every generation has held him dear for different reasons.

Joseph Manca, an art history professor at Rice University who teaches a course on da Vinci and has written about him, hasn't run across the theories that Brown's hero, Langdon, and his fictional colleague, Leigh Teabing, trot out in “The Da Vinci Code.”

The “Mona Lisa” may be an encrypted ode to nature, Manca says, but the description of her as the epitome of androgyny isn't exactly the “inside joke” Langdon describes.

Manca also quibbles a bit with Langdon and Teabing's interpretations of the artist's “Last Supper.” The “disembodied” hand that grasps a dagger is clearly St. Peter's, Manca says. The disciple holds the weapon to foreshadow his attack on a Roman guard later that night. The redhead at the dinner table is John the Beloved, Manca says. He was the youngest of Jesus' disciples and is usually depicted as cleanshaven.

How close were Jesus and Mary Magdalene? Close, says Lippy of the University of Tennessee, but just how close they were is anybody's guess and not a new wrinkle in popular fiction, he says. “Remember 'The Last Temptation of Christ'?” But the “evidence” that Teabing insists exists is inconclusive, at best, Lippy says.

There is a Gospel according to Philip–with a passage like the one Brown quotes–among the books that didn't make it into the New Testament canon. But it's tough to blame that on Constantine, who didn't become a Christian until he was on his deathbed, Lippy says. The official collection, or canon, took years to develop, and to ascribe what made it and what didn't to any one person is an oversimplification, he adds.

The legend that Mary Magdalene ended her life in France has been around at least since the Crusades, says Lippy, who last summer stood over what some believe are her bones, which lie in a small church in Vezelay.

And there was a Priory of Sion, with connections to the Knights Templar, but Grail experts are divided over whether the secret group persisted into the current century and whether the documents that listed its grand masters are real or a hoax.

“The Da Vinci Code” is fun to read, but its pages hold little “real evidence,” Lippy says. “There is nothing that corroborates all this, other than almost a wish to have these things be so.”

It was just enough to send Lippy to the library, enough to make him wish he'd written the story instead. “There's a glimmer here, a glimmer there and then he adds the 'Mona Lisa,'” Lippy says. “Who is she smiling at? We readers just pounce on stuff like that.”

Posted: 8/8/03

Dead Sea Scroll exhibit
coming to Dallas next month

By Samuel Smith

Southwestern Seminary

FORT WORTH (BP)–Place the solid black fragment of lamb's skin under an infrared light, and the words revealed in 2,200-year-old Hebrew script are astounding.

The fragmentary passage from the Book of Isaiah found near the Dead Sea community of Qumran reads in part, “Your dead shall live again; their corpses will arise.”

Faculty, staff and students at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary got a rare glimpse of the Dead Sea Scroll fragment and other rare biblical manuscripts during a private exhibition in mid-July on the seminary's Fort Worth campus.

The full exhibit, “From the Dead Sea Scrolls to the Forbidden Book,” will open in early September and run through Nov. 16 at the Biblical Arts Center in Dallas. The exhibit aims to help those who have been touched by the Bible in English understand the struggles that made the freedom to own and read God's word possible.

“The exhibition is about the entire history of Scripture and how we got our Bible in America,” said Lee Biondi, a Los Angeles antiquities dealer who put the exhibit together.

That history begins with the Dead Sea Scrolls. The exhibit will feature fragments from the ancient texts of Genesis and Isaiah discovered near Qumran, as well as fragments from Leviticus and Exodus from a third-century copy of the Old Testament in Greek, the Septuagint.

Other highlights will include fragments from the earliest surviving papyrus manuscripts of the Gospel of John and the Apostle Paul's letter to the Colossians, both of which are owned by private collectors.

The papyrus and Dead Sea fragments alone are worth the trip to see the exhibit, Biondi said. “You would have to travel to museums all over the world to see as broad a cross-section of the history of Scripture which we will have on display.”

Bibles and fragments from the Latin manuscript tradition dating to the fourth century also will be included among the ancient treasures in the Dallas exhibit.

Latin became the dominant language in the study of the Bible for more than a millennium because the Catholic Church forbade the translation of Scripture into the language of the common people.

The exhibit includes a Bible in English from 1410, which belonged to British martyr Richard Hunne, who was convicted of heresy and burned at the stake by authorities for believing that the Bible should be accessible in English. It also includes Erasmus' printed 1522 Greek and Latin text, which became the basis for Bible translations in the language of common people throughout the Reformation.

From Erasmus' text, scholars produced the Geneva Bible in 1560 that became the Bible the Puritans brought to America. The exhibit includes a copy of the Geneva Bible and its successor, a first edition of the King James Version of 1611.

James, of course, owned the copyright to the text. Thus, printing the Bible in America during colonial times was illegal. The Bible was then called the “Forbidden Book.”

Being the rebels that they were, however, Congress commissioned Robert Aitken to print the Bible in 1782, even before the United States signed the Treaty of Paris, formally ending the Revolutionary War. The Aitken Bible today is rarer than the Gutenberg Bible, and one will be on display with the rest of the collection.

Advance tickets for the exhibit may be purchased online at www.deadseaexhibit.com. Tickets are $19 for adults and $12 for children. Groups of 20 or more receive a $2 discount off the adult ticket price.

Posted: 8/8/03

DOWN HOME:
To recycle or not, that's a question

Here's a question–straight from the home of teenagers–I've never seen Miss Manners tackle:

Is it OK to “recycle” toilet paper thrown into the trees on your front lawn?

This subject came up at our house recently, when some friends of Molly, our 16-year-old, TP'd our yard.

Michael and Mitchell possess better arms than the girls who typically sneak down our street in the dead of night to hurl rolls of toilet paper onto our pear and oak trees. The guys not only managed to drape white ribbons over the outside branches, but they also fired the rolls into the center of the trees, far away from easy reach at the top of our 10-foot step-ladder.

The trees have grown pretty tall–at least by new-subdivision-Texas standards–in the past eight years. And since I'm 46 years old and have no desire to break my back, I've quit reaching for the most extreme strands. If it ever rains again, the TP will wash out.

Fortunately, however, Michael and Mitchell had more cents than sense when they visited our yard. Girls apparently are raised to be more cost-conscious than boys, because they always use the cheapest single-ply toilet paper imaginable. You'd think you'd have to visit a Third World country to buy TP that cheap.

But the boys armed themselves with a highly advertised name-brand premium decorative material. It's sold on the basis of its absorbency, but I can tell you it will take a tuggin' and keep on draggin'. If I could reach a loose end, I could pull most of it out of the tree.

The bonus, however, developed as I worked the trees and discovered at least a dozen partial rolls, some nearly complete, wedged up in the branches. I gently pulled them down, tore off any damaged sheets, and stacked them by the front door.

“What are you doing with those?” my wife, Joanna, asked as I walked in the house, my arms piled with nearly new TP rolls.

“Recycling them,” I replied. “These are high-grade rolls. It'd be a sin to just throw them all away.”

Jo was busy with something in the kitchen, so I didn't hang around to hear whether or not she approved my idea.

Later, however, I heard my name, taken not quite in vain, but nearly abused: “Marv, what have you done?” Jo called from the guest bathroom. I arrived a second later to find her staring at five partial rolls of TP stacked in the basket where we keep such stuff.

She informed me that, while the Lord wants us to to be good stewards of all creation, and that includes recycling all things recyclable, it is verily inhospitable to offer formerly treed TP to guests in one's abode.

You may ask if she allowed me to save my stash for the master bathroom. That is, um, a personal question I'm not allowed to answer.

Posted: 8/8/03

Government and clergy promote drug education

WASHINGTON (RNS)–Bush administration officials and clergy from a variety of faiths have announced a new partnership to encourage houses of worship to be more involved in preventing substance abuse among youth.

“The best thing in the world is to have more of them not start” using drugs, said John Walters, the White House drug czar. “This is a very important step because of the influence of faith in many young people's lives.”

Walters' Office of National Drug Control Policy has produced several new resources, including a prevention guide for youth leaders in faith communities called “Pathways to Prevention: Guiding Youth to Wise Decisions,” and a smaller brochure offering suggestions for how faith leaders can prevent drug and alcohol abuse.

The 91-page prevention guide urges clergy to address substance abuse in sermons and includes tips for group interaction such as role-playing activities on how to deal with peer pressure. The resources, which also have been endorsed by Catholic and evangelical groups, are available online at www.TheAntiDrug.com/ Faith/Resources.html.

“This tool kit, I think, is going to be a lifesaver for a lot of churches that don't know how to talk to kids about this subject but want to,” said Jim Towey, director of the White House Office of Faith-based and Community Initiatives.

Posted: 8/8/03

Bluegrass colors a world
of musical joy for Bowie family

By Jo Gray

Special to the Standard

BOWIE–Bluegrass weaves a thread of love through the Duffin family of Bowie.

The five members of First Baptist Church comprise the Duffin Family Bluegrass Band, a professional avocation that recently took them to the stage of Dollywood Theme Park in Tennessee.

Chuck and Faith Duffin formed the band with their children–Jennifer, 18, Nathan, 14, and Lindsey, 10. They have played together as a family about three years.

“We feel, Chuck and I both, that this is a ministry,” Faith Duffin said. “People tell us they can see God's hand on our lives when we're performing.”

She also said she believes God has blessed the family in a special way.

“We have a lot of joy in each other and as a family,” she explained. “The thing about playing as a band is we're all dependent on each other. We have all learned that.”

Chuck and Faith Duffin met while playing in a high school orchestra and married weeks before she graduated. While he already had an interest in bluegrass music, she did not.

“I was strictly classical at the time,” she explained. “In fact, the first bluegrass festival we attended in Hugo, Okla., I stayed in the camper.”

Playing with a bluegrass band was living a childhood dream for Duffin, however. “I had wanted to play a banjo since I was 11 years old and saw one being played on 'Hee Haw,'” he said.

In time, the children announced they, too, wanted to play instruments. Nathan chose the banjo; Jennifer selected the bass fiddle; and Lindsey decided on the fiddle. Within a few weeks, they had mastered the instruments well enough to join their parents in performing.

As the performance group grew from two to five, the Duffin Family Bluegrass Band was formed. But that meant time away from school and weekends on the road.

Mrs. Duffin began home-schooling the children, and Duffin changed jobs to allow evenings and weekends with the family.

The family has made three recordings and two videos. A fourth recording is to be released soon. On it, an original gospel song written by Jennifer is featured, as well as an instrumental original by Lindsey. Titled “Favorites,” the newest release will include only gospel selections.

During the summer, the family carries a demanding schedule of performances. Duffin said he has toyed with the idea of going on the road full time but doesn't want to put pressure on the children to perform.

“Right now it's fun,” he said. “I don't want the kids to feel they have to perform. Doing it for fun instead of having to is different.”

Not all the group's performances are done for monetary rewards. A recent performance at First Baptist Church of Bowie was done out of love for the church family and to celebrate the baptisms of Nathan and Lindsey.

The Duffins also have performed at First Baptist Church of Montague, where Mrs. Duffin's mother is music director.

An Oct. 5 performance is planned at Lakeridge Baptist Church in Lubbock.

For more information about the family and to hear a sample of their music, visit their website at www.duffinfamilybluegrass.com.

Posted: 8/8/03

EDITORIAL:
Speak biblically, clearly, lovingly about homosexuality

Homosexuality has leaped out of the closet and landed in America's living rooms.

This summer, significant issues revolving around homosexuality have grabbed headlines in national media. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Texas' sodomy law unconstitutional, President Bush affirmed legal restriction against homosexual marriage and the Episcopal Church confirmed the election of its first openly gay bishop.

Many Americans–especially traditional Christians–find discussion of homosexuality embarrassing. It's like when parents talk about sex and their children want to put their fingers in their ears and chant, “Too much information; too much information …” until somebody changes the subject. But nobody's going to change this subject; not this time. Homosexuality is a fact of life in America, whether it's the orientation of the newest Episcopal bishop, the subject of constitutional amendments or a theme of seemingly every-other TV program.

So, what's a Christian to do?

Baptists and other people of biblical faith begin with Scripture. The Bible is clear: Homosexual practice is sinful. From the early pages of the Old Testament, God commands: “Do not lie with a man as one lies with a woman; that is detestable” (Leviticus 18:22). Similar condemnation of homosexual acts can be found in the New Testament. The Apostle Paul includes “homosexual offenders” among the “wicked (who) will not inherit the kingdom of God” (1 Corinthians 6:9). He also insists “men (who) committed indecent acts with other men” are among those who received “due penalty for their perversion” (Romans 1:27).

Some advocates of homosexual practice try to interpret the Bible to their advantage. For example, they say the men of Sodom (Genesis 19) were guilty of “inhospitality.” Homosexual rape is rather inhospitable. God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah because of their wickedness. Elsewhere, the Bible unequivocally condemns homosexual activity. (See Leviticus 18:22, 20:13; Deuteronomy 23:18; Romans 1:27, 1 Corinthians 6:9; 1 Timothy 1:10.)

Careful Bible study reveals God specifically condemns homosexual practice, but condemnation follows sin, not temptation to sin. This is why we must differentiate between homosexual activity and homosexuality. Can a person be a homosexual and not commit homosexual sin? Absolutely. A chaste person resists temptation and does not sin sexually, whether that person is tempted to commit fornication, adultery or a homosexual act.

Earnest Christians of good will debate whether homosexuals choose to be homosexual or have it thrust upon them by birth or traumatic circumstances. Some homosexuals, both practicing and non-practicing, testify they have not and would not choose their orientation. Others have adopted the lifestyle from among a rainbow of libidinous experiments. We will not resolve that debate.

However, the debate really is beside the point, because the Bible speaks to behavior, not desire or even inclination. And homosexual behavior is prohibited. Even if we grant that homosexual orientation is genetically derived, we must acknowledge that acting on those impulses is sinful, according to God's word. That means living within limits, whether or not those limits seem fair. Think of someone born blind or deaf. She would give anything to see, but she lives without light. He would give anything to hear, but he lives without sound. A homosexual may be willing to give almost anything to express himself or herself sexually, but the divine limitation within this inclination is chastity. Some homosexuals say this is unfair, that it prohibits them from being all God made them to be. Well, blindness and deafness are unfair, but they are limits within which people live, often for a lifetime.

When heterosexual Christians think about homosexuality, we often misconstrue God's wrath and righteousness. Because the practice seems repulsive and heinous to us, we hone in on how God must feel revulsion at the perversion of his created order. And it is true that God calls homosexual activity an abomination and detestable. More importantly, however, we must recognize God's response to all sin is indignation mixed with grief and alarm. Like a parent who responds swiftly and firmly when a toddler strays into the street, God reacts to our sin out of concern for how the sin itself harms us and impacts others. God hates our sin because God loves us.

And that brings us to Christians' response to homosexuals. Almost without fail, we speak of “hating the sin but loving the sinner,” and most homosexuals I've ever known don't buy it for a minute. For one, we say more than we realize when we speak of “hating” before “loving.” Moreover, most of the time, our actions are anything but loving. Of course, exhibiting love–an intense, intimate emotion–is awkward and difficult when we're talking about care for people whose actions run counter to our own inclinations. Still, the challenge for Christians in a world that seems to flaunt homosexual activity more day by day is to find ways we can be loving and caring to people who, after all, also are made in God's image.

That doesn't mean we forfeit our right to stand on principles of sexual morality. Christians do well to support the biblical and traditional definition of marriage–one woman and one man united faithfully for life. We also do well to say we will not endorse practicing homosexuals in positions of religious leadership. Since homosexual activity is sinful, we should not promote unrepentant sinners as leaders. And we do well to address the media, who seem to have an agenda for making homosexual practice normative in America; we do not agree, and we will not enrich those who promote and sponsor such an agenda.

But we also should heed the biblical teaching, cited by President Bush: “We're all sinners.” For 2,000 years, Christians have been advising others on how they can remove the splinters in their eyes while we're blinded by the logs in our own eyes. We need to remember our own sins are a stench in God's nostrils and, but for the grace of that same God, their sins might also be our own.

I've never been able to figure out why Christians seem to emphasize the heinous nature of sexual sin. Is it because we feel secure, that we will not succumb to those shortcomings? Or is it because we are frightened, and so we yell most loudly at that which scares us the most?

Homosexual sin is not the unpardonable sin, nor the only sin. We must speak with biblical and moral clarity. We also must endeavor mightily to speak with love.
–Marv Knox
E-mail the editor at marvknox@baptiststandard.com

Posted 8/8/03

CYBERCOLUMN:
The Gospel According to Seabiscuit

By Brett Younger

The Gospel According to Seabiscuit is playing to enthusiastic crowds. Laura Hillenbrand’s bestseller, "Seabiscuit: An American Legend," has my parents’ seal of approval—a seldom-awarded honor for a book given to them by their son.

The story features an unlikely cast of damaged and forgotten Depression-era castoffs. When he was born, Seabiscuit was described as a "runty little thing." The horse’s forelegs wouldn't straighten all the way. He spent two years floundering in the lowest ranks of horseracing. Seabiscuit lost 16 races in a row. The most respected trainer of the day beat Seabiscuit hard to cure him of "laziness." Dismissed as worthless, the horse was sold for a pittance.

The man who bought Seabiscuit, Charles Howard, was a self-made millionaire who knew about floundering. In his first two years as the owner of the new Buick dealership in San Francisco, he failed to sell a single car. Just as he began to succeed, his 15-year-old son died in a devastating car accident. His marriage collapsed, and Howard was inconsolable.

Seabiscuit’s new trainer, Tom Smith, was a mysterious, virtually mute refugee from a vanishing frontier. When Howard found Smith, he was living on a cot in a horse stall at a Mexican racetrack. Henry Ford’s gas-powered revolution had made the solitary, broken-down cowboy obsolete. "Tom Smith," wrote a reporter, "says almost nothing constantly."

Seabiscuit’s jockey, Red Pollard, had been abandoned by his father at a makeshift racetrack in a Montana hay field. He became a losing prizefighter as well as a failing bush-league jockey. After 12 years, his winning percentage riding horses was in single digits. Emotionally haunted and blind in one eye, Pollard had no money and no home.

These lost causes came together to give one another a second chance. The unlikely heroes continued to endure bad breaks and harsh fortune, but the lame losers heal one another.

In 1938, the subject of the most newspaper column inches wasn’t FDR, Hitler or Clark Gable. Nobody’s idea of a winner became the No. 1 newsmaker. Seabiscuit’s surprising victory in a match race with War Admiral (who was owned by the kind of people who never seem to need a second chance) is considered the greatest horse race ever. During the hopelessness of the Great Depression, a knobby-kneed horse with a goofy gait became a source of hope.

The present popularity of Seabiscuit’s story is almost as unlikely as Seabiscuit’s story. Why would our cynical, self-centered society embrace a story as sentimental and corny as a horse renewing our spirit? How could a story capture our imagination without car chases, comic book heroes or pirates? What leads people to read 340 pages about a horse or attend a movie without any of Charlie’s Angels in it?

Maybe what makes us pay attention is that we all instinctively understand how much we need the grace of a second chance.

Christians should recognize the message as central to our faith. Mending the broken is what the church is about. The church is here for those who think of themselves as dismissed as worthless, shattered by tragedy, wounded by divorce, damaged, forgotten and abandoned.

The gospel is the promise of redemption, a second chance, for the most unlikely, world-weary characters.

Brett Younger is pastor of Broadway Baptist Church in Fort Worth, Texas.

Posted: 8/22/03

ANOTHER VIEW:
Some talk of God's glory can make God too small

By Roger Olson

In the 1970s, a popular Christian book asked, “Is Your God Too Small?” Author Paul Little gently ridiculed the all-too-tiny gods of many American Christians, including the bell-hop god who jumps to answer every whim of praying people.

The main thrust of Little's book was that too many North American Christians have forgotten the sovereignty and majesty of the God of the Bible. That was a needed corrective to popular folk religion in an age when many people were calling God our “good buddy in the sky” (borrowing on citizens' band radio lingo) and falling for all kinds of theologies that trivialized God.

Today, we might ask, “Is your God too big?” Some evangelical writers and speakers are over-reacting to the trivialized and tiny deities of folk religion by inflating God's majesty and sovereignty at the expense of his loving kindness and mercy.

Of course, no biblically serious Christian really believes it is possible to conceive of God as “too big.” That includes this writer. It's a tongue-in-cheek question meant to get attention. But that doesn't take anything away from the seriousness of the issue behind the question.

While it may not be possible to conceive of God as too big (as we all know he's “big enough to rule the mighty universe”) it is possible to deny the other side of God's nature (“yet small enough to live within my heart”).

Thousands of Texas Baptists and other young people flock to massive Christian youth events to hear Minnesota pastor and writer John Piper, who encourages them to focus on God's glory and proclaim God's renown to all people. In his books, sermons and occasional papers published at his website (Desiring God Ministries) the pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church in downtown Minneapolis promotes the theology of Jonathan Edwards. He seldom mentions Edwards by name, but anyone familiar with the 18th century Puritan preacher of New England readily recognizes his influence on Piper's theology.

Why does God do anything at all–including create us and redeem some of us (the elect) from sin and condemnation? For his own good pleasure and glory, according to Edwards and Piper.

Why does God foreordain even sin and evil? For his own good pleasure and glory.

Does God ever merely allow bad things to happen? Certainly not. For his own good pleasure and glory and out of purposes hidden to us, God sovereignly controls even the terrorists who attacked the World Trade Center twin towers on Sept. 11, 2001.

Many Calvinists speak of the mystery of God's sovereignty; Piper makes no mystery of his own view that God controls everything that happens and never merely allows any event or decision, however evil it is. Even the fact that untold millions of God's human creatures–created in his likeness and image–are predestined by God to spend eternity suffering in the flames of hell is for his own glory.

God's sole ultimate and final purpose in everything he does is to glorify himself by displaying the full range of his attributes. At least in some of his writings, Piper fails to mention love as one of them. When he does mention love, it is God's love for his own glory that takes center stage; God's love for us is only for the sake of glorifying himself in showing mercy to the elect.

All that is debatable; evangelical Christians including Baptists have debated the details of God's majesty and sovereignty for centuries. For the most part, we've learned to live with our different perspectives.

Now, however, according to constant reports from youthful listeners, Piper is telling our young people they've been sold a bill of goods by the generation before them. That bill of goods is that Christ came to Earth to die on the cross for them. Instead, the Minnesota preacher passionately assures his young listeners, Christ died for God.

According to this line of reasoning, it is arrogant of us to think that the sovereign, glorious God would focus his purposes on us. We are not the center of God's plan and purpose in creation and redemption. Instead, everything God does is for his own glory and good pleasure.

Oh, of course, some of us (the elect) benefit from Christ's death on the cross. But that shouldn't be the focus of our attention or reason for our praise of God. Christ died for God before he died for us. That is, according to Piper, the purpose of God in Christ's death was not primarily loving kindness and compassion toward us but vindication of God's righteousness.

Piper certainly is right to point his listeners and readers to God and away from self-absorption. Too much popular folk Christianity has focused on what God can do for us. The gospel of health and wealth proclaimed on religious television is a travesty in that it makes God a great cosmic slot machine into which we feed our “seed faith offerings” in order to reap worldly rewards. Too many choruses and devotional talks focus on what being a Christian does for believers and not enough on the greatness of God.

But the pendulum is swinging–perhaps too far. Scripture assures us repeatedly that God loves us (John 3:16) and sent his Son, Jesus Christ, to die for us (Romans 5:8). The assertion that Christ died for God is true and needs to be heard and taken seriously. The implication–heard by many of Piper's youthful listeners–that Christ did not die equally for us is false and needs to be corrected.

This is a case of false “either/or” thinking. Surely the New Testament tells us that Christ died both for God (his glory and honor) and for us (because God loves us and wants to rescue us from condemnation and the ravages of sin).

Romans 5 could not be clearer. It is possible to dishonor God by denying his own loving purposes; it dishonors God when we imply that he loves and cares above all about his own glory and not equally about our well-being for our sakes. That makes God out to be the ultimate egoist–a cosmic self-centered dictator who demands homage not for his goodness but only for his greatness.

But the fact is, according to Scripture, God is love. Love is concerned for others and shows that concern in acts of loving kindness. Yes, the perfect love is between Father, Son and Holy Spirit, but it intentionally overflows in love for humanity.

The purpose of the cross was not only God's glory; it also was just as much God's passionate love for his fallen and dying creatures who he loves dearly. The Psalmist often praised God for his acts of mercy and kindness and not only for himself.

We need to be careful not to pit God's glory against God's passionate love and care for humanity. The two are inseparable. One should not be elevated above the other.

Piper and his promoters are to be commended for raising our young peoples' consciousness of the greatness of God. They are to be lauded for turning the attention of youth away from spiritual and material self-absorption to the holy God of the universe.

But even a wonderful message can take a pernicious twist. Piper and those who promote his message need to be gently corrected and urged to find the balance between the extremes of humanistic, self-centered spirituality on the one hand and exclusive focus on God's glory to the detriment of his personal, loving nature on the other hand.

Did Christ die for God? Absolutely. Did he die also for us? Most definitely. It's both/and and not either/or.

The God proclaimed by John Piper is sometimes “too big” in the sense that he doesn't seem personal enough to come near and dwell with us for our sakes. He's aloof and self-absorbed. That's not the loving, self-emptying, often vulnerable, caring and suffering God of the Bible. We need to hold both sides of God in Scripture in proper balance–his unspeakable greatness and his unbelievable goodness toward us.

Roger Olson is professor of theology at Baylor University's Truett Theological Seminary in Waco

Posted: 8/22/03

Conroe church looks to Bible
to plan how its garden grows

By George Henson

Staff Writer

CONROE–Sunday School classes at First Baptist Church in Conroe now can learn sitting at the feet of Jesus.

The church recently created a prayer garden with a sculpture by Texas artist Max Greiner as its focal point. The life-size bronze statue “Fisher of Men” was donated by Alan and Jeanie Boehm in honor of her parents, Dick and Ella Jean Schaefer, longtime members of the church.

A perpetual stream issues from the bottom of the statue and is recycled.

The prayer garden was fashioned totally from biblical plants with the help of landscape architect Diana Wilson. Wilson, who has worked on projects all over the world, including the office headquarters of the Department of Defense and the U.S. Embassy in Yemen, worked to incorporate Bible plants that would thrive in Conroe's climate.

“Creating beautiful pattern gardens in Saudi Arabia and Yemen early in my career definitely influenced my work on the First Baptist Church prayer garden,” she said. “These projects involved an incredible amount of research into the spirituality and symbolism associated with various plants and patterns. That experience prompted me to look to the Bible to find inspiration for the prayer garden design.”

Plants included are the blue lily of the Nile, pomegranate tree, fig vine, Italian cypress tree, ornamental papyrus grass, Easter lily, pygmy date palm, rose of Sharon, sweet olive tree, yellow flag iris and cyclamens.

“These are plants that Jesus could have sat next to when he prayed,” Business Administrator Judy Wilson pointed out. “Every plant and tree has a biblical meaning, which makes the garden that much more special.”

A diagram of the garden identifying each plant provides a biblical reference for visitors.

The full length of the garden faces a glass-walled passageway. Pastor Rusty Walton said it is not unusual to find people standing in the hallway admiring the garden.

The garden was meant to be used, however, not just admired. The statue and rock-bed stream are enclosed by a short cap-stoned wall that can be used as seats by those seeking a time of contemplation or by a Sunday School class in search of an outdoor setting. A bench under a trellis offers another possibility.

“We want this to be a place where people can come and pray any time they want,” Walton said. “They can even come at night if they let us know so that we can make it accessible.”

Gary Heavin, a landscape contractor and a member of the Conroe congregation, planted the garden.

Doing the work for his church and especially for something of such a spiritual nature was different than his normal work, he said. “My prayer every day was that I wasn't doing it for me, but for the Lord. It was really me trying to use whatever talents I have to display his handiwork.”

The project took 10 months to complete.

In addition to Bible studies and prayer, the garden will be used for weddings.

Walton said he looks forward to seeing the garden mature.

“It might look a little like it did when Jesus prayed,” he said.

Posted: 8/22/03

DOWN HOME:
Off to school … for the 2nd time

Some chores are easier the second time you have to do them.

Like taking your kiddo back to school: Joanna and I recently redeposited our oldest daughter, Lindsay, on the welcoming campus of our alma mater, Hardin-Simmons University in Abilene.

Last year, when we loaded her Papa's truck and moved her into the freshman girls' dorm, we cried a river of tears. This year, it was more like a bathtub of tears. OK, maybe a small swimming pool.

Crying is one of the things I've always appreciated about being the father of daughters. Several parents of boys I know have this thing about crying on or in front of their guys. Something about embarrassing them. Even the mothers seem to think they have to be stoic.

But with girls, you get to cry. In fact, I think they kind of like it, because they can actually see you really care. They hurt, and they take comfort in knowing you hurt with them.

If only they understood the half of it.

Sometimes, I think being the parent is harder than being the child because you've got a better idea what's coming. You know the changes that are taking place in your child's life. And, from experience, you know they may be incremental, but they're permanent.

Now, I have to admit my own sadness about the growth and maturation of my children is purely selfish. I love to feel needed. When Lindsay and her sister, Molly, were tiny, they depended on Jo and me for just about everything. With each passing year, they've needed us a little less. And the part of me that feeds off the nurture of their need finds that a little sad.

But besides raising children in the “nurture and admonition of the Lord,” the most gratifying accomplishment I've known is watching my daughters grow in maturity and independence year by year. That's my job–first to help them know and love God, but then to be strong, wise, thoughtful Christian people.

So, as we drove home from West Texas in the dark, I thought and prayed about how Lindsay will take strides of growth this year. Surrounded by bright classmates, committed faculty and caring staff, she will develop and mature in ways that would not be possible if she remained at home, dependent on her mother and me to work out all the hassles and challenges of her young life.

I also thought about her dorm room, a tiny cinder-block cube she made uniquely her own in about five short hours. I'll always remember how she figured she could take extra curtain material and brighten up a side wall. And how she and I hung up “sno-cone” Christmas lights along the wall above her bed.

And I remembered how she felt in my arms as I hugged her goodbye. She's a strong young woman now. But, thank God, she'll always be my girl.

Posted: 8/22/03

EDITORIAL:
Budgets reflect low priority of cooperative missions

Budgets make the best barometers of priorities. Unfortunately, a study of Baptist budgets from the past 15 years reveals a decline that has produced a missions-and-ministry drought.

From 1987 to 2002, Southern Baptist missions expenditures grew by only half the rate of churches' total receipts. Meanwhile, the portion of undesignated receipts those churches contributed to the Cooperative Program unified budget dropped by 30 percent. (See the full story on these trends here) Now, Baptist conventions and institutions at state and national levels are struggling to freeze or reduce budgets to reflect economic realities.

Of course, some Baptists believe budget talk is impious. But in this world, ministry efforts depend upon dollars. Just behind faithful, willing believers empowered by the Spirit of God, money is crucial to fulfilling Christ's Great Commission.

That's what's so vexing about the current budget crises among Baptists. Without sufficient funds, the tasks God has placed before Baptists will not be accomplished. Such woes dot the entire theological/political landscape–from the Southern Baptist Convention's International Mission Board, to the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship's Global Missions program, to the Baptist General Convention of Texas' upcoming 2004 budget.

Several factors can account for churches' decisions to keep more money at home:

Increasing costs. Close observers of the trend cite the escalating pricetag of doing church. It encompasses everything from higher premiums for ministers' insurance, to larger utilities bills to more expensive materials. However, these costs aren't significant enough, at least in most churches, to cover the growing gap between receipts and missions expenditures.

Hands-on missions. More and more churches are involving their members in direct-missions projects. This is wonderful. Modern transportation and technology have enabled today's Christians to apply Christ's commission to “Go, therefore …” to themselves, so they go on mission in Jesus' name. Unfortunately, many churches have diverted money from cooperative missions to pay for personal or local-church missions efforts. Like an offering, these funds should come from over and above the churches' regular missions contributions. Life-changing missions involvement should impact pocketbooks and church budgets to yield greater gifts, not expenditures that solely benefit individuals or the church.

Denominational discord. Twenty-five years of fighting have taken their toll on churches and, consequently, Baptist denominational budgets. Fed up with feuding, many Baptists have turned their hearts toward home and distanced themselves from fellow Baptists. While this is understandable, it is incomprehensibly short-sighted. First, punitive funding doesn't thwart the political process so much as it chokes the lifeline for ministry. Second, no matter what your theological/political persuasion, folks like you still are doing missions and ministry. With just a little research, your church can support cooperative endeavors you can endorse completely. Admittedly, conventions need to do a better job of telling their stories and explaining their needs. But local-church gatekeepers also need to trust their people with a free flow of information so they can understand what their missions dollars support and what won't get funded if they divert their money.

Tight pockets. Let's face it; tithing is not “natural.” Empty tomb, a ministry that focuses on missions funding needs, reports the average U.S. Christian only gives 2.6 percent of his or her income to church. And if all those people would tithe, almost $80 billion in additional funding would be available for missions causes.

That fact reflects what speaker Tony Campolo said when he collected an offering this summer: The good news is we've got enough money to reach the goal. The bad news is it's still in the people's pockets. U.S. Christians–Baptists included–have the resources to conduct amazing ministries. But for those resources to be unloosed, pastors need to preach courageous sermons on tithing, churches need to tithe their incomes and leaders need to demonstrate why cooperative giving is a divine investment in a glorious eternity.

–Marv Knox
E-mail the editor at marvknox@baptiststandard.com