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Posted: 8/22/03

08/23/2003 - By John Rutledge

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Posted: 8/22/03

Churches keep greater share at home

By Mark Wingfield

Managing Editor

The amount of money flowing through Baptist church offering plates has increased 112 percent in the last 15 years, but the amount of money churches give to missions causes has increased at only half that rate.

08/23/2003 - By John Rutledge

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Posted: 8/22/03

State Baptist conventions feel
the pinch of decreased giving this year

By Mark Wingfield

Managing Editor

Times are tough all over for state Baptist conventions seeking to fund their ongoing ministries.

08/23/2003 - By John Rutledge

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Posted: 8/22/03

TITHING TAKES A TUMBLE:
Fewer households give a tenth

By Ken Walker

Baptist Press

GAINESVILLE, Ga. (BP)–The news that tithing declined by about 62 percent last year presents the church with both a warning and a challenge, say several experts in Christian financial and theological circles.

08/23/2003 - By John Rutledge

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Posted: 8/22/03

HISPANIC WOMEN'S CONFERENCE:
The meaning of life

By George Henson

Staff Writer

KELLER–Discovering your life's mission is crucial to having a life that renders eternal positive consequences, Albert Reyes told participants in the Celebrating the Hispanic Woman Conference.

08/23/2003 - By John Rutledge

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Posted: 8/22/03

Professor proposes proper purpose of anger

By George Henson

Staff Writer

KELLER–Despite what many people think, anger is not a sin, Nora Lozano told women attending a breakout session of the Celebrating the Hispanic Woman Conference.

08/23/2003 - By John Rutledge

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Posted: 8/22/03

Iraq workers anticipate arrival of food boxes

By Mark Kelly

International Mission Board

RICHMOND, Va. (BP)–Southern Baptist workers in Iraq are excited about the expected late-August arrival of 46,000 boxes of food packed by churches this past spring for hungry families in Iraq.

08/23/2003 - By John Rutledge

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Posted: 8/22/03

Groundbreaking set for
Baptist Learning Center

CORPUS CHRISTI–Groundbreaking ceremonies are scheduled Sept. 12 for an addition to the Baptist Learning Center of South Texas.

The new structure will include four apartments, a conference room and office space for the Baptist Student Ministry at Texas A&M-Corpus Christi.

Baptist Learning Center is an autonomous educational ministry that relates to the Baptist General Convention of Texas but receives no BGCT funding. The center collaborates with Howard Payne University and Hardin-Simmons University to offer courses toward the bachelor of arts degree and master of divinity degree.

08/23/2003 - By John Rutledge

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Posted: 8/22/03

Texas Baptist Forum:
Anger instead of love

You write about showing love toward the homosexual (Aug. 11), but I don't know any.

I'm angry, though, when it is flaunted in my face by the media. It is not right, and I don't like it being presented as completely all right.

If a person is struggling with a sin for deliverance, I can empathize and sympathize, for I, too, have wrestled. If, however, they are going to threaten me and tell me I have to accept what they are doing, then I do not have love but anger.

How dare they do that to me!

08/23/2003 - By John Rutledge

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Posted: 8/22/03

Mary Hill Davis gifts help set 'bad girls' straight

By Ken Camp

Texas Baptist Communications

AMARILLO–Participants in the Amarillo Christian Women's Job Corps enjoy a class where they study “Bad Girls of the Bible.”

08/23/2003 - By John Rutledge

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Posted: 8/22/03

Ten Commandments judge
told again, 'Thou shall not'

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (ABP) –Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore was overruled by his colleagues, who ordered Moore's monument to the Ten Commandments removed from public areas of the Alabama judicial building in Montgomery Aug. 21.

After a special conference that day, the court's eight associate justices, without dissent, ordered the building manager to remove a two-ton monument to the Protestant King James translation of the commandments. Moore had placed the monument in the center of the building's rotunda during the summer of 2001–without the associate justices' consent or knowledge.

Last fall, U.S. District Judge Myron Thompson declared the display in violation of the U.S. Constitution's ban on government endorsement of religion. After being upheld unanimously by a panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, Thompson ordered the monument removed by Aug. 20, threatening to levy fines against the state if Moore did not comply with his injunction. Moore refused, saying to do so would violate the state constitution. Moore claims that document allows the state to “acknowledge God” as the source of law.

08/23/2003 - By John Rutledge

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Posted: 8/22/03

Patterson brings six from Southeastern

FORT WORTH–When Paige Patterson moved from Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary to Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary this summer, he brought six staff members with him.

The North Carolina-to-Texas transplants are in addition to Patterson's wife, Dorothy, who was elected a full professor but will not draw a salary, and Patterson's faithful black Labrador Retriever, Noche, who accompanies him to the office.

Seminary spokesman Greg Tomlin said the Pattersons “invited six individuals from Southeastern to come to Southwestern with them.” They are:

08/23/2003 - By John Rutledge