wayland_orientation_90803

September 5, 2003

Posted: 9/5/03

College orientation isn't just for students any more

By Teresa Young

Wayland Baptist University

PLAINVIEW–As soon as Pam and Don Trotter of Littlefield arrived on the Wayland Baptist University campus a few years back to move their son Clay into his dorm room, Mrs. Trotter began to dread the upcoming Saturday afternoon.

That's when the “Big Bye-Bye” is scheduled, the formal time for parents and new students to make the break that signals a new phase in life for both parents and children.

Wayland's Baptist Student Ministries director, Donnie Brown, reassures parents of his role in helping provide opportunities for spiritual growth for students. Brown was one of several campus leaders who addressed parents during orientation for new students and their parents.

Painful though it was, however, the event was not nearly as excruciating as it could have been, Mrs. Trotter said, thanks to a carefully crafted orientation program.

“It made the transition easier, even though I was crying my eyes out,” she recalled.

This year, the Trotters were back on campus to deliver their last child, Bryan, to his freshman year. While still emotional, the time was not nearly as difficult, Mrs. Trotter said.

Dale and Beverly Thurman of Littlefield agreed. The ease they found in leaving Ryan, their second child to attend Wayland, was created in part by the orientation program for parents, they said.

“Here, you're a family,” Thurman explained. “The staff is so warm, and they know our students by name.”

Wayland's freshman orientation weekend, called Koinonia after the Greek word for fellowship, features a variety of activities designed to help new students bond with one another and with a select group of upperclassmen as they ease into the college experience.

But orientation at Wayland offers a track for parents as well.

“Koinonia is designed to have parents and students together. Most of the questions come from parents at the beginning,” explained Brian McClenagan, a Wayland counselor. “As the day moves on, we ease the parents and students apart. By the evening time, the students are doing one thing, and the parents are off doing something else.”

The events are designed to introduce parents to the Wayland family of administrators, faculty and staff and familiarize them with the campus so that they feel more at ease leaving a son or daughter. By the time the goodbyes come on Saturday, most parents are comfortable with the break.

“Hopefully by this time, the parents have seen that they're leaving their child in a good place and that their students are almost ready for parents to leave,” McClenagan said. “Parents view college as an investment, and it's nice to know that they're getting their money's worth–or more. Orientation is our chance to help them feel like they've made the right decision.”

The reassurance offered through orientation definitely helped Frank and Sandy Drury of Lubbock, who brought their only daughter, Brianne, to Wayland this year. They arrived on Friday and stayed for the parents' portion of orientation, which includes information sessions, a Friday night mixer and a breakfast for parents at the home of Wayland President Paul Armes and his wife, Duanea. Facing their first experience leaving a student at college, the Drurys found the process eased by the activities.

“The students really made Brianne feel welcome. It's personal, and everyone here is so helpful and available,” Drury said. “You get to meet people and get to know other folks, and that takes a lot of the anxiety out.”

After the goodbyes, Wayland officials urge parents to check in occasionally with their children but allow room for the student to be independent and make friends. Students are encouraged to stay on campus for at least the first three weekends, preferably until fall break.

“That initial period, from when they leave to when they come home for the first time, is critical,” McClenegan said. “That's a great time of growth.”

McClenagan said parents should be aware, too, that when the first visit back home does come, the parents may be in for an awakening.

“They'll be different,” he said. “Parents shouldn't get their feelings hurt if the student gets home on Friday, does their laundry and can't wait to get back to school. That's a good sign.”

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.



wesley_90803

September 5, 2003

Posted: 9/5/03

300 years later, Wesley influences American religion

By Kevin Eckstrom

Religion News Service

WASHINGTON (RNS)–Four years before his death in 1791, John Wesley was concerned about his Methodist followers.

“I still think that when the Methodists leave the church,” he worried in 1787, “God will leave them.”

When he started preaching in 1739, Wesley's only mission was to revive the Church of England, not start a new church. But on the family tree of American churches, several major branches find their roots in Wesley's 18th century movement.

John Wesley

Wesley's most direct descendants are the 10 million members of the United Methodist Church. That's not counting nearly 4 million members of churches like the African Methodist Episcopal Church, the 70 million members of the World Methodist Council or still millions more in the Salvation Army, the Wesleyan churches, the Church of the Nazarene or countless Holiness churches.

Add to that the 625 million Pentecostals around the world who claim Wesley as a spiritual forbear and you have the second largest Christian movement in the world, outpaced only by the Roman Catholic Church.

Now, 300 years after his birth on June 17, 1703, perhaps no one would be more surprised by Wesley's enduring influence–and the host of churches he fathered–than Wesley himself.

“Certainly he would be one of the three most influential Christian leaders as far as his effects on American religious life,” said Vinson Synan, dean of the School of Divinity at Regent University and author of “The Century of the Holy Spirit: 100 Years of Pentecostal and Charismatic Renewal.”

It's an ironic mantle to place on someone who spent only 18 months in the American Colonies, during a disastrous stint as a missionary to Georgia from 1735 to 1737.

Yet Wesley's theological DNA is deeply imprinted on American religion, from Billy Graham revivals and the 41 percent of Americans who claim to be “born again” to the hospitals, universities and social movements that were founded to usher in Wesley's era of social holiness.

By the mid-1800s, fueled by frontier conversions, the Methodists were the largest Christian group in the United States. Methodists pioneered circuit riders and a sophisticated “class meeting” system that relied on lay leaders rather than ordained professionals. Wesley's gospel found particular appeal among the poor, illiterate and uneducated.

“The fact that Wesley didn't assume that what you were born into was what you had to be is really a new patent on religion that people take for granted today,” said Martin Marty, the dean of American church historians, who teaches at the University of Chicago.

Methodists established a wide swath of territory from Baltimore to Kansas, where they became the typical Protestant church. Along the way, they started such educational institutions as Emory, Duke, Boston University and Northwestern while championing abolition, prohibition and eventually civil rights.

Toward the end of the 19th century, some of Wesley's followers left to form Holiness churches in an effort to recover the old-time religion of emotional conversion. That split gave birth to the Nazarenes and the Salvation Army, who shed some of Wesley's cherished sacramental worship.

Then, between 1900 and 1920, another split gave birth to the Pentecostals, who wanted still more emotion and spirit-filled worship.

Wesley was born the 15th of 19 children in 1703 to an Anglican clergyman. At 6, he was rescued from a rectory fire–“a brand plucked from the burning,” as his mother later said–in Epworth, England.

He entered Oxford at 17 and with his brother, Charles, founded a Bible club in 1729 that was derided by classmates. “The one charge then advanced against them was that they were 'righteous overmuch'; that they were abundantly too scrupulous and too strict,” Wesley later wrote.

Their critics labeled them “Methodists” for their strict adherence to prayer and pious living. Wesley originally shunned the name but later adopted it as his own.

In 1735, he set off to convert the Indians in Georgia, an effort Wesley later admitted was a failure. His high-church Anglicanism found few friends in Savannah, and he was run out of town in 1738 after an unsuccessful attempt to woo young Sophy Hopkey.

Back in England, Wesley began to attend Moravian meetings. Within three months, he had his most important conversion experience during a meeting on Aldersgate Street in London.

“I felt my heart strangely warmed,” he wrote in his journals. “I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone for salvation; and an assurance was given me that he had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death.”

The strange warming of Wesley's heart convinced him of the need for a personal conversion, an impulse that still defines evangelical Christianity.

Wesley launched a major tour of England, rising every day at 4 a.m. to preach to workers at 5 a.m. in fields and factories. Riding mostly on horseback, he preached 40,000 sermons and logged nearly 250,000 miles around Britain.

He and his brother forged a partnership that eventually frayed.

Charles was a prolific hymn writer, penning the words to “Hark the Herald Angels Sing,” “O for a Thousand Tongues to Sing” and hundreds of others.

The American Revolution drove the church and the brothers apart.

When the war severed relations across the Atlantic, John Wesley appointed leaders to shepherd the fledgling U.S. church. Charles disagreed with the decision and said many of his brother's appointments were unqualified.

Gradually, the American church grew to resent Wesley's meddling from England.

Throughout his life, John Wesley was unlucky in love. His Georgia wooing had ended badly. He married his wife, Mary, in 1751 over his brother's objections. After a stormy marriage and a 10-year separation, she died in 1781 while her husband was away. His journals noted that he missed her funeral and he “was not informed of it till a day or two after.”

“Here's a man who (at) the heart of his message is love, loving God, and loving neighbor … who was just simply incapable of developing an intimate loving relationship with a woman,” said Richard Heitzenrater, a Wesley scholar at Duke Divinity School.

By all accounts, he was not the warm and cuddly type. Roy Hattersley, author of the new “The Life of John Wesley,” described him as “authoritarian, humorless and didactic.”

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.



gleaning_90803

September 5, 2003

Posted: 9/5/03

Volunteers glean harvest for the poor, help for farmer

By Jo Gray

Special to the Standard

FORESTBURG–A Texas fruit grower and a group of Baptist volunteers combined to create a bountiful harvest for the poor of Montague County this summer.

Doug Reynolds, owner of an apple orchard near Forestburg, knew the gala apples left hanging on his trees did not meet the standards required for selling to the public. The edible apples would fall off and rot unless someone picked them.

A group of senior citizens from the nearby community of Saint Jo rose to the challenge, volunteering to glean the apples left in the fields. Gleaning dates back to the Old Testament times, when crops that otherwise would be wasted were gathered by the poor.

Ralph Goins, director of the Society of Saint Andrews of Dallas, loads a bag of apples into a pickup.

The apple gleaning was organized by Ralph Goins, state director of the Society of Saint Andrew. Formed in 1979 by two ministers, the society is a Christian ministry dedicated to meeting physical and spiritual need. The non-denominational organization has as its goal to feed many on a small budget.

A Dallas office opened in 1994, and Goins was hired as director. He gave up a high-paying corporate job to work at what he felt God wanted him to do, he said.

“I gave up the corporate job and the Lexus,” he said with a smile. “I now drive a Chevrolet truck and am away from home a lot, speaking to organizations and churches, getting people involved in the gleanings.”

The recipient of the recent apple gleaning in Montague County was the Bowie Baptist Mission. The mission provides food for those who need it. The pickup load of fresh apples will go a long way toward providing healthier options for many parents whose children don't always have balanced diets.

Many area churches collect non-perishable food items for the mission, but it is rare to have fresh fruits and vegetables, volunteers said.

Some of the other crops gleaned by the volunteers include sweet potatoes, watermelons and potatoes.

Bags for the produce are obtained without charge from the manufacturer. The ones used for packaging the apples were an over-run for an order from an onion producer.

“The printing on the bag doesn't matter,” Goins said. “We only had to pay the cost of the freight to get the bags.”

Volunteers Doris Coates, Gayle Edwards and Billie Beane gather apples for the Bowie Baptist Mission.

Pointing out that every penny saved is important, Goins said he recently has established a club of women volunteers to assist in the gleaning program.

The women, known as the Way of Ruth, collect and sell material items, Goins said. “Some of the items are obtained from garage sales. They may be collectibles or antiques.” The women try to get items donated or buy them at a very low price, and then they then sell them for a higher price.

Proceeds from the women's group help support the Society of Saint Andrew.

Goins hopes other growers will learn about the gleanings and donate damaged crops like Reynolds did.

“We were in Jacksboro where an apple orchard had been damaged by late frost and hail,” Goins said. “It was there we learned about (Reynolds') orchard. A phone call was made, and a time was arranged.”

Reynolds said he hopes to be able to use the service of the gleaners next year. It not only helps those less fortunate, but having someone pick the defective apples assisted him in what would have been a big cleanup job.

More information about the gleaning program may be found at www.endhunger.org or by calling Goins at (972) 253-4559.

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.



onthemove_90803

September 5, 2003

Posted: 9/5/03

On the Move

Hollie Atkinson to First Church in Daingerfield as intentional interim pastor.

bluebull Seth Carnes to Southside Church in Brownwood as minister of youth.

bluebull Ricky Clabaugh has resigned as youth minister at Calvary Church in Abilene.

bluebull Jim Curtis to Elmwood Church in Abilene as music minister.

bluebull Gary Day has resigned as pastor of First Church in Blanket.

bluebull Eric Evans to Southside Church in Brownwood as pastor of worship and administration.

bluebull Larry Floyd to Lakeshore Drive Church in Weatherford as youth minister.

bluebull Timothy Hardaway to Lane Prairie Church in Joshua as minister of music.

bluebull Ken Horton to Honey Creek Church in Wolfe City as pastor.

bluebull Steve Horton to Lebanon Church in Cleburne as minister of music.

bluebull Billy Lester has resigned as minister of youth at Southside Church in Brownwood.

bluebull Arturo Malacara has resigned as pastor of Iglesia Parkview in Hallsville.

bluebull Don McNair to First Church in Iredell as youth and music leader.

bluebull Durward Minor has resigned as pastor of Holiday Hills Church in Abilene.

bluebull Noe Rodriguez to First Church in Valley Mills as associate pastor and youth leader.

bluebull Jay Sikes to First Church in Point as pastor.

bluebull Tim Waechter to First Church in Devine as minister of music from First Church in Yoakum, where he was minister of music and administration.

bluebull John West to First Church in Ore City as pastor.

bluebull Joey Wilbourn to Midtown Church in Brownwood as pastor.

bluebull Scott Wright has resigned as associate pastor and minister to youth at Calvary Church in Brenham.

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.



storylist8_11_81103

September 5, 2003

Posted 8/8/03

Article List for 8/11/03 issue


GO TO SECTIONS:
 • Texas      • Baptists     
• Religion      • Departments      • Opinion      • Bible Study     



• Mary Hill Davis gifts warm hearts and homes

• Montana Vista stands as mountain of witness in El Paso

• Church's mission wrapped up in its name: Perigrino

• Volunteers: The future of border missions

• 24 churches join in Progreso mission

• All-State musicians hoist a tune and a tool on mission

• New BGCT camp unifies diverse Asian teenagers

• BGCT reduces budget for schools but income could rise

• BGCT annual session will offer 'learning and sharing' sessions

• Bivocational ministers discuss how to respond to abuse cases

• Dead Sea Scroll exhibit coming to Dallas next month

• Bluegrass colors a world of musical joy for Bowie family

• Retirement means teaching duty for Rainey

• Half of Americans approve of unmarried women giving birth

• Garland book contains stories of family faith

• Churches struggle to keep newlyweds in church after wedding

• BEFORE 'I DO': Does premarital counseling make a difference?

• Mexican Baptists and Texas Baptists launch three-year partnership

• Nominees sought for Texas Baptist ministry awards

• Church's vision for a clinic grows with aid from other churches

• Missions network edges forward

• PAISANO: Family camping

• School Supply Train greeted eagerly in Longview

• Memories Spann the ages as professor visits school he started

• Wayland touches Africa through Kenya program

• On the Move

• Around the State

• Texas Tidbits



• Land 'troubled' by Ten Commandments judge's defiance of federal court ruling

• Africa True Love Waits program encouraged by Bush commitment

• Rick Warren sees his role as Bible 'translator' for 21st century people

• Harold Bennett, former SBC executive, dies at 78

• Missionary calls teens to 'fall in love with Jesus'

• Acteens raise their hands in service in classrooms around Nashville

• National Acteens Convention knocks at Nashville

• Acteens tour the world through Global Village created for them

• Cobb leaving CBF leadership

• Baylor chaplains honor volunteer for service

• Education journal studies Baptist governance

• Commission magazine remembered for influence

• Retired missionaries ask SBC leaders to stop inflammatory words against Islam

• Stock market gives IMB some financial relief

• A NOTABLE PERFORMANCE: Musical premieres at Glorieta

• Baptist Briefs



• Operation rescue protestor disrupts worship service

• Christian Baseball League Aims to Offer `Godly' Way of Doing Sports

• Moore ordered to remove monument

• House amendments called political grandstanding

• Astronomers pinpoint crucifixion time

• Is 'The Da Vinci Code' as accurate as it claims to be?

• Government and clergy promote drug education

• Exodus International's convention touts 'freedom' from homosexuality

• Ex-gay warns of winning argument, losing neighbor

• Bush weighs in on defining marriage

• Charitable choice component slows advancement of Head Start bill

• Meteor proposed as Constantine's vision

• Owner of James ossuary suspected in far-reaching antiquities fraud

• Majority approve of reciting 'under God'

• Religious affiliation adds a jolt to appointment

• Churchgoers found to be more altruistic

• BIG DADDY WEAVE: Weaving a way

• Whites paid to go to church



• Texas Baptist Forum

• On the Move

• Around the State

• Cartoon

• Classified Ads


• Explore the Bible for August 10: Faith always has feet; deeds indicate devotion

• Explore the Bible Lesson for Aug. 17: The body's most powerful muscle–the tongue

• Explore the Bible Lesson for Aug. 24: Submission to God is key to glorious living

• Family Bible Study for August 10: Flee temptation and avoid the places it prowls

• Family Bible Study for Aug. 17: God uses those who persevere through the test

• Family Bible Study for Aug. 24: A primer for mending broken relationships



• EDITORIAL: Speak biblically, clearly, lovingly about homosexuality

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

• TOGETHER: Pray & give to meet great needs

• Texas Baptist Forum

• He Said/ She Said

• CYBERCOLUMN: The gospel according to Seabiscuit by Brett Younger

See articles from previous issue 7/28/03 here.



hesaid_90803

September 5, 2003

Posted: 9/2/03

He Said/ She Said:
Church talk

She Said:

Kids not only say the darndest things. At church, they also do the darndest things.

At our church, the first Sunday of each month is when we serve the Lord's Supper. Since Mark is a deacon and I'm in the choir, that leaves Luke and Garrett adrift on that Sunday.

ALISON WINGFIELD

They're just 11 years old, however, and since they're often dangerous when left alone together, we don't let them sit by themselves in worship those Sundays. Instead, they sit with a true saint in our church, Janice Jernberg, who was their first-grade Sunday School teacher and is the model of church etiquette and propriety.

She is definitely good for them, but I'm not sure how good they are for her.

She rightly encourages them not to talk or draw during the Lord's Supper. And she encourages them to follow along in the order of service by marking the hymn numbers and participating in the readings.

In the in-between times, however, they resort to their usual practice of drawing fighter jets, falling bombs, swords, knives, bows and arrows and other weapons of mass destruction. The more we sing or preach about peace and goodwill toward all humanity, the more they draw weapons, it seems.

We recently heard a report from another adult who sits near this spectacle on the first Sunday of each month. Our boys have added their own twist to a part of the service on Lord's Supper Sundays.

On these Sundays, the congregations passes the peace, an ancient church practice of turning to the person on either side of you and saying, "Peace to you," to which that person responds, "And also with you."

Luke and Garrett, we now learn, don't follow proper form in this practice. Instead, they turn to each other, hold up the two-finger peace sign of the 1960s and mumble, "Peace, man."

You've got to start somewhere.

He Said:

What seems to make Luke and Garrett such a lethal combination in worship is the fact that there's two of them. I see other single children acting much better, and I want to believe that either Luke or Garrett individually would behave better in church without the enticement the other brings.

MARK WINGFIELD

And they are getting older, nearing the age when they'll leave my pew and sit with the youth group up front. They've got to make a lot of progress in the next year if that transition is to go smoothly, however. I'm not sure the church is ready for the Wingfield twins to be sitting front and center without adult supervision.

Last Sunday proves the point beautifully–or horribly, perhaps.

I had to sit on the platform to give the welcome to guests and introduce our guest preacher for the day, Albert Reyes of Hispanic Baptist Theological School. In the rush of the morning, it had not occurred to me that Luke and Garrett would be left by themselves during worship.

This situation was compounded when Alison had to rush our family dog to the veterinary emergency room just before Sunday School started. But that's another column in itself.

So in the bustle of the moment, I told the boys to sit with Deo, our single friend from Burundi who attends my Sunday School class.

About midway through the sermon, I thought to look over to my far left and check up on Luke and Garrett. Because of the angle at which I was sitting on the platform, it was not easy to do this without being obvious.

I immediately saw mouths flapping, arms flailing and heads bobbing. I also saw people sitting behind and in front of the boys staring angrily at them but apparently too polite to bop them on the head. The boys were oblivious to anyone else around them.

I pondered. I stared. I stewed. I glared. They never looked my way to catch the evil eye, because they were too busy jabbering.

I considered stepping down from the platform and walking halfway back in the sanctuary to pluck the boys from their misbehavior. I imagined the scene that would create. I weighed the options.

Just as I was a single impulse away from stepping out, the boys settled back into their seats to draw more weapons of mass destruction. Surely we can make it another 10 minutes to the invitation hymn, I thought.

And we did. Never have I been so glad for a sermon to end–especially an excellent sermon.

We had our own call to repentance at the front of the church as soon as the service ended.

See previous He Said/ She Said column here.

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.



moore_response_82503

September 5, 2003

Posted: 8/22/03

Judge's case makes some
conservatives uneasy in witness stand

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 Ten Commandments monument in the state judicial building.

Media and protesters gather outside the judicial building Aug. 27, soon after the Ten Commandments monument was moved. (ABP photo by Greg Warner)

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 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 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.”

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.



moore_update_82503

September 5, 2003

Posted: 8/26/03

Judge Moore suspended pending ethics complaint

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (BP)–Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore will be suspended from his position for 10 days, pending an ethics complaint for refusing to follow a federal court order to remove the Ten Commandments monument he ordered installed in the Alabama judicial building in 2001.

Many protesters, including some families, camped out all day — and even overnight — on the plaza outside the Alabama judicial building. (ABP photo by Greg Warner)

Moore was automatically suspended with pay Aug. 22 when the nine-member Alabama Judicial Inquiry Commission referred an ethics complaint against Moore to the Court of the Judiciary, which holds trial-like proceedings and can discipline and remove judges.

Moore will have 30 days to respond to the complaint. Moore had no immediate comment.

Moore has been steadfast in his refusal to remove the 5,300-pound Ten Commandments monument, missing the Aug. 20 deadline given by federal Judge Myron Thompson.

Although the monument remained in the rotunda of the state judicial building Aug. 22, it had been ordered removed by a vote of Moore's associate justices the day before. The justices ordered the monument removed "as soon as practicable."

Alabama Attorney General Bill Pryor said the monument would be moved "very soon." Demonstrators remained outside the building Aug. 22, hoping to prevent its removal by peaceful means.

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.



heritage_awards_90803

September 5, 2003

Posted: 8/29/03

Four honored with Texas Baptist Heritage Awards

By Ken Camp

Texas Baptist Communications

Four longtime denominational leaders were honored at the third annual Texas Baptist Heritage Awards banquet, held Aug. 21 at Union Station in Dallas.

The Baptist Distinctives Committee and Texas Baptist Heritage Center of the Baptist General Convention of Texas presented awards to Amelia Bishop of Austin, C.E. Colton of Dallas, Lynn Craft of Athens and Landrum Leavell II of Wichita Falls.

Bishop, who served as president of Woman's Missionary Union of Texas from 1984 to 1988, received the Mary Hill Davis Texas Missions Award for exemplifying the Texas Baptist commitment to missions and ministry to all people in all places.

Bishop worked on the Texas WMU staff in the early 1950s as state young people's secretary and was vice president of Texas WMU from 1980 to 1984. She and her husband, Ivyloy, now deceased, both taught at Wayland Baptist University, and she also taught at the high school in Plainview.

She has served on the BGCT Executive Board and various Texas Baptist committees. She also has been a member of the Truett Seminary advisory board and the Texas Baptist Laity Institute board.

Bishop is a graduate of the University of Texas at El Paso and Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. She is the author of two devotional books and a biography of Texas WMU leader Eula Mae Henderson, and she has written numerous articles for a wide range of publications.

Colton, longtime pastor, author and former chairman of the religion department at Wayland Baptist University, received the J.B. Gambrell Denominational Service Award for contributing to the understanding and advancement of Baptist distinctives through Texas Baptist denominational service.

Colton was pastor of Royal Haven Baptist Church in Dallas for nearly 30 years before retiring in 1987. Previous pastorates included First Baptist Church of Carrollton and North Temple Baptist Church of Dallas.

Colton is a former vice president of the BGCT and former chairman of the Baptist Standard board of directors. He has served Dallas Baptist Association as moderator and as president of the pastor's conference. He also served as a trustees of the Annuity Board of the Southern Baptist Convention.

He holds degrees from Baylor University, Southwestern Seminary and Central Baptist Seminary and is the author of 16 books on a variety of topics, including biblical and theological studies and practical help for improving the fellowship and ministry of churches.

Craft, president of the Baptist Foundation of Texas, received the Sam Houston Distinguished Service Award for his contributions to Baptist causes and his community as a lay leader in civic and business life.

He has served the Baptist Foundation of Texas more than three decades. He was named executive vice president in 1972, and the foundation's board of directors elected him as president in 1976.

He created the trust division in the mid-1970s, and in recent years he led the foundation to establish the Concord Trust Co. as a wholly owned subsidiary.

Craft is a certified public accountant who holds an undergraduate accounting degree from Baylor University and a master's degree in banking and finance from Southern Methodist University. He is a deacon and Sunday School teacher at First Baptist Church in Athens.

Leavell, former pastor and seminary president, received the George W. Truett Religious Freedom Award for his contributions to the promotion of Baptist distinctives, particularly his advocacy of religious liberty and separation of church and state.

Leavell served as pastor of several churches in Mississippi before becoming pastor of First Baptist Church in Wichita Falls in 1963. He was president of the BGCT from 1971 to 1973, and he served on various committees and boards of both the BGCT and the Southern Baptist Convention.

He served from 1975 to 1994 as president of New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. While at the seminary, he taught evangelism as well as serving as the school's chief executive officer.

He served as a trustee of the Baptist Joint Committee on Public Affairs, and in 1996 he contributed to a book of sermons prepared by the BGCT Baptist Distinctives Committee.

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.



teen_abuse_90803

September 5, 2003

Posted: 8/29/03

Teen sex often involves abuse

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (BP)–Among teenagers who have had sex, one-quarter of those relationships included some form of abuse, with nearly one in 10 teens reporting physical abuse within their relationships, according to a study by Child Trends.

The study also found that one-fourth of teens who have had sex reported having sex with their first partner only once.

Richard Ross, founder of the abstinence program True Love Waits and professor of youth and student ministry at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, drew a link to the entertainment business' inaccurate portrayal of sexual encounters.

"In order to titillate bored adults and hormonally raging teens into buying $8 movie tickets, the movie industry usually portrays teen sex as a grand adventure without consequences," Ross said. "This study suggests otherwise. For any number of reasons, one-fourth finds their first sexual encounter with a partner so negative that they never repeat the mistake. Even more alarming, one-quarter find that what they thought would be magical is instead filled with shoving, insults, disrespect and even violence."

One-fourth of teenagers who have had sex reported that verbal abuse such as name-calling, insults, threats of violence and disrespectful treatment occurred within their first sexual relationship, the Child Trends study noted. Nine percent reported physical abuse, and 7 percent reported both physical and verbal abuse.

In other findings, Child Trends reported that a majority of teens viewed their first sexual relationship as more than a casual fling, with 85 percent of teens defining their first sexual relationships as romantic involvements and 61 percent having begun sex within three months of the start of a romantic relationship.

Teen girls were more likely to have older partners, the study found. Among sexually active teens, half of girls reported their first sexual partner was at least two years older. Nearly one in five girls had a partner who was four or more years older.

Founded in 1979, Child Trends is a non-profit research organization based in Washington, D.C., and dedicated to improving the lives of children by providing science-based information to improve the decisions, programs and policies that affect children.

The Child Trends study found that among teens who had sex, 59 percent discussed contraception with their partners before they had sex for the first time. Twenty-two percent reported never using contraception with their first sexual partner.

Concerning ethnicity, 17 percent of sexually active Hispanic teens experienced physical violence in their first sexual encounter, compared with 6 percent of non-Hispanic whites and 12 percent of non-Hispanic blacks. Also, Hispanic teens were less vigilant when it came to using contraception, the study found, with 36 percent reporting they did not use contraception during their first sexual relationships.

"Though this study is filled with troubling news, we must not miss the best news," Ross said. "The study reaffirms that now less than half of teenagers have had intercourse before 18. Rates of teenage sexual activity started dropping about the time True Love Waits and the broader abstinence movement emerged. By God's grace, we hit the tipping point just last year. Now abstinent youth are in the majority. We need to celebrate that."

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.



medical_plans_90803

September 5, 2003

Posted: 8/29/03

Q&A sessions planned by Annuity Board

Representatives of the Southern Baptist Convention's Annuity Board will conduct 13 regional meetings in Texas this fall to answer questions about the new medical plans that will be available to Southern Baptist ministers, church and denominational employees and seminary students in 2004.

Locations, dates and times are:
Abilene, Pioneer Drive Baptist Church, Sept. 23, 10 a.m.
Austin, Austin Baptist Association, Sept. 9, 10 a.m.
Beaumont, First Baptist Church, Sept. 11, 10 a.m.
Euless, First Baptist Church, Sept. 18, 10 a.m.
Fort Worth, Travis Avenue Baptist Church, Sept. 18, 2 p.m.
Houston, First Baptist Church, Sept. 10, 10 a.m.
Lubbock, Southcrest Baptist Church, Sept. 24, 10 a.m.
Richardson, First Baptist Church, Sept. 16, 10 a.m.
Rowlett, Lake Pointe Church, Sept. 17, 10 a.m.
San Antonio, First Baptist Church, Sept. 9, 2 p.m.
Spring, Spring Baptist Church, Sept. 10, 2 p.m.
Tyler, First Baptist Church, Sept. 22, 2 p.m.
Waco, Columbus Avenue Baptist Church, Sept. 22, 10 a.m.

Anyone who is currently participating in an Annuity Board medical plan should receive re-enrollment materials, including rates and benefits of the new PPO plans either in the mail or from their employer in September. Participants are encouraged to bring their packets and any questions they might have to the meeting that is most convenient for them. Annuity Board staff will be available to answer questions about the new medical plans and other life and health plans.

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.



namb_budget_90803

September 5, 2003

Posted: 8/29/03

NAMB plans cut in budget, staff

ALPHARETTA, GA (ABP)–The North American Mission Board plans to cut $11 million from its budget next year, which will eliminate 31 full- and part-time positions–some of which are vacant–and leave seven current employees without jobs.

The proposed $118 million budget–6 percent less than this year–awaits approval by trustees of the Southern Baptist Convention agency during their meeting Oct. 8.

The 2004 budget cuts $3 million from travel expenses, $1.6 million in communication projects, more than $4 million from support of various programs and $1.7 million from personnel expenses.

Officials blamed the cuts on sluggish contributions and the economic downturn. The agency joins other SBC entities and Christian ministries that have reduced staff and services recently. In June, the SBC International Mission Board eliminated 61 positions affecting 37 employees. A recent Baptist Standard survey of eight large state Baptist conventions showed all eight are receiving less money from churches than last year.

Twelve of the 31 NAMB positions are vacant and won't be filled. Three employees whose positions were eliminated will retire. Nine others are transferring to other jobs at NAMB. The remaining seven will lose their jobs. The agency employs about 460 people.

NAMB spokesman Marty King said the agency would not identify the employees affected. Positions were eliminated based on need, he said. "This is not a reflection of performance. This number was a lot bigger two weeks ago."

King said 11 eliminated positions are for support workers, 14 are professional positions that are not supervisory, and six are management positions with supervisory responsibilities.

NAMB officials project the agency's income next year will be $7.2 million less than the 2003 budget–nearly a 6 percent decrease. But some of that money will have to be directed to fixed-cost increases, they said.

"The bottom line is we anticipate having $3.4 million more in expenses we cannot control, but $7.2 million less income," said NAMB President Bob Reccord. "That means we must come up with nearly $11 million in spending cuts in 2004."

Reccord expressed appreciation to Southern Baptists for supporting NAMB financially, which he said "allowed us to endure our country's economic downturn better than so many other ministries, non-profits and even for-profit organizations.

"But we must face the fact that mission giving is not keeping pace with growing increases in expenses like health insurance, utilities, and capital and fixed expenses which will increase almost $3.4 million next year," he said.

Randy Singer, NAMB executive vice president, said that although income from the SBC Cooperative Program and Annie Armstrong Easter Offering–which together comprise more than 75 percent of NAMB's income–have increased incrementally over the past several years, those increases have barely kept pace with inflation.

"Due primarily to the impact of the sluggish economy on our investment income, NAMB has not reached income projections four of the last five years," Singer said. "We must submit a 2004 budget which takes that into account."

The proposed 2004 budget freezes salaries for NAMB missionaries and staff, the second year in a row staff have not received pay raises. NAMB funding of state Baptist conventions is not being reduced, but neither will partnership funding increase. The proposed staff reductions do not reduce support for NAMB missionaries who are jointly supported with state Baptist conventions, Singer said.

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.