Posted: 12/05/03

Waist-deep floodwaters made it difficult for residents of Gracewood, a Baptist General Convention of Texas ministry in Houston, to leave the property as more water surged in. TBM volunteers (right) responded to help repair water damage.

Houston flooding sweeps ministry's
residents into sudden evacuation

HOUSTON–November flood waters threatened the single mothers and their children taking refuge at the Gracewood ministry of Texas Baptist Children's Home & Family Services.

But Texas Baptist Men came to the rescue the next day, as workers began surveying the extensive damage.

With little warning, rising floodwater blanketed the Gracewood campus in Houston.

“The water came up so quickly that we barely had time to react,” said Executive Director Mike Hammack. “We immediately shut off the electricity and gas and began evacuating the families.”

The trip was harrowing. Two vehicles stalled in the swirling water before a third was able to transport the children to safety. Soon, the road became impassable, leaving the remaining staff and mothers to wade through a mile of murky, waist-deep water before reaching high ground.

Although the flood was short-lived, the devastation will take months to repair.

Staff began pulling carpet and other waterlogged items the next day. Reinforcement soon arrived in the form of a Texas Baptist Men disaster relief unit.

Roy Childs led the unit, which included six men from LaGrange and three from Austin. Forty other volunteers from Lakewood Church in Houston joined them.

Fifty volunteers tackled a mountain of soggy labor that day.

The Texas Baptist Men volunteers were not deterred by water. They have seen water damage before.

“We go in and pull sheetrock, vacuum water out, pressure wash and sanitize what's left,” Childs explained. “Each person brings their own set of skills. We've worked together long enough to know each other's strengths.

“It's a ministry, a calling. If you've ever come in after a flood and seen the devastated homes, smelled the stench of stagnant water and mold … our ability to face this can only come from God.”

While repairs are made, Gracewood residents are staying at a local hotel.

For more information about flood relief at Gracewood, contact (713) 988-9757 or info@gracewood.org.

Posted: 12/05/03

Friendly families sought to host
international students at holidays

By George Henson

Staff Writer

DALLAS–Dallas-area families looking for a cultural exchange this holiday season will find just that through the Friendship International House program at Dallas Baptist University.

For more than 20 years, international students at DBU have shared the Christmas holidays with American host families. The students spend their evenings and weekends with their host families and take part as a group in planned weekday activities. Host families provide a place to sleep, some meals and transportation to activities.

Jim and Margaret Gayle pose with two international students who celebrated the Christmas season with them last year through Friendship House International.

Students visit the Sixth Floor Museum, Tuba Christmas Concert at Thanksgiving Square, City Hall, Fair Park, Six Flags and go horseback riding at Camp El Har.

They spend Christmas Day with their host families and attend church services with them.

The DBU program sprang from a nationwide program of the Southern Baptist Convention. That program folded in 2000, but leaders of the DBU program, along with a handful of others across the nation, kept their programs going.

“The students are just incredible,” said Cookie Stokes, one of the DBU leaders. “Most of them have never been in an American home before, and the holidays are about the only opportunity for that to happen.”

Last year, several students from Dallas went to Murray, Ky., to participate in the program there. “Our hope is that we will have enough host families this year for some of their students to come to Dallas so that we can reciprocate,” Stokes said.

Families desiring to participate are asked to sign up as soon as possible, but a Dec. 12 deadline has been established. Call Stokes at (972) 771-3363, ext. 23, or Delores Kube at (214) 391-5511.

“We've had families with children and families without children participate, and it works either way,” Stokes said. “These students are in a Christian environment at DBU, but they really enjoy being a part of what they call an American Christmas.”

Dallas Baptist Association and various churches fund the program.

Posted: 12/05/03

TEXAS BAPTIST FORUM:
Alcohol & stumbling

At the recent Lubbock convention, the Baptist General Convention of Texas adopted a resolution calling for Texas Baptists and others to “take positive steps toward the reduction of alcohol use and abuse in our communities … .”

E-mail the editor at marvknox@baptiststandard.com

At best, a Christian's public drinking is a stumbling block to other believers and waters down the witness of the individual, as well as the church and denomination represented. Normally, alcohol contributes to the denigration of families and, many times, to the deaths of persons through vehicle accidents, violent crime and disease.

Not all Texas or Southern Baptists agree alcohol is a spiritual and societal evil to be avoided, though it's incorporated into the church covenant embraced and displayed by many of our churches. But one would expect that our visible Baptist leaders should and would lead the way in setting the public abstinence example.

This year, however, I have seen two visible Texas Baptists drinking alcohol in public.

If you preach God's word or accept a leadership position in God's kingdom work, I urge you to “not cause anyone to stumble, whether Jews, Greeks or the church of God”–or yourself.

Chuck Pace

Lake Jackson

Iraq & moral credibility

As a Baptist, I wonder: Have our Baptist leaders lost their moral compass?

Unlike other Christian leaders, ours remain silent on the greatest evil of our time–our government's illegal, unprovoked war against the people of Iraq. That war, built on lies and deception, has killed over 10,000 innocent human beings–many of them children. In a republic, Christians bear some responsibility for what their government does.

Some Baptist leaders are focusing attention on homosexual behavior. To even mention homosexual behavior against the backdrop of silence on the war is to “strain at a gnat and swallow a camel.” The war, after all, is not just about sin–it's about evil. In the words of Matthew 23:23, these leaders have “omitted the weightier matters of the law.”

By their silence on this evil, Baptist leaders and the church generally have lost their moral credibility to criticize sexual behavior or anything else.

Where are the Dietrich Bonhoeffers and Martin Luther Kings to awaken us from moral slumber?

Many Baptist leaders seem to have more faith in one politician than they have in the teachings of Jesus.

A recent Time magazine poll shows the greatest support for our government's actions comes from those who attend church the most. Is it time for good people to get out of the church?

If standing against evil will divide the church, then the church needs to be divided.

Charles Reed

Waco

Carroll & women deacons

I just finished reading through B.H. Carroll's commentary on the pastoral epistles in his “Interpretation of the English Bible.” I paid careful attention to his comments regarding 1 Timothy 3 and women deacons.

One of the letters in the Nov. 17 Texas Baptist Forum was correct to state that women served as deacons at First Baptist Church in Waco while Carroll was pastor. It failed, however, to note that Carroll insisted the church never ordain women, that women could not pray or speak in public and that women deacons limit their ministry to women.

Personally, I disagree with Carroll on all these points; I do not believe women should serve as deacons (1 Timothy 3:8-13), and I do believe they can talk to God or men in public and can minister to men.

Nonetheless, the comments from one of the Standard's readers about Carroll and women deacons misrepresented Carroll's position. This underscores the urgent need for Baptists to exercise caution when using historical resources from the Baptist heritage.

David Mills

Auburn, Ga.

Lessons & Christian beauty

Fifteen years ago, we joined a senior adult Sunday School class, taught by a man who simply read to us the lesson from the Baptist Standard. About six years later, I became the teacher, and he brought the Baptist Standard lesson to class every Sunday to read it to the class if I did not quote from it–frustrating for a new teacher!

For the last three months, I have realized that John Duncan's lessons in the Baptist Standard are bright lights in a dismal world.

The teacher's quarterly described our freedom from laws and demanded perfection of the readers by way of discovering our guilt. Duncan's lessons have taught the very beautiful life of being a Christian. He makes it easy to teach love for God and man.

Thanks to John Duncan, and thanks to the Baptist Standard for these gentle and loving lessons.

Shirley Wright

Detroit

BWA blessing

I have been privileged to attend eight world congresses of the Baptist World Alliance since 1950. My first assignment for the BWA was in 1965. I have attended BWA meetings on six continents.

The BWA has welcomed into its membership any convention or union that evidences adherence to the core beliefs shared by Baptists. The BWA General Council is a representative body with membership allocated according to church membership. The Southern Baptist Convention has the largest number of members, 17. Each of the 211 unions or conventions has at least one member.

Baptist leaders outside North America have tended to have a basic gratitude to the SBC for its expansive missionary work. Many conventions and unions originated from the work of Southern Baptist missionaries, while others derived from the missionary work of British, American (formerly Northern), Canadian, Swedish, Australian or New Zealand Baptists.

But also during recent years, these same overseas leaders have come to fear and resist what they perceive as neo-colonialist tendencies from the SBC, according to which they feel they have become less-than-equal brothers and sisters in the worldwide Baptist brotherhood at the very time when the BWA has become more global than ever.

Mistaken attitudes and policies can be disastrous for Baptist unity and evangelization, whereas truly Christian and biblical attitudes and actions can be a decisive blessing, opening new doors in the unfolding 21st century.

James Leo Garrett

Fort Worth

Pen-pal ministry

I am writing this letter on behalf of Chinese students who are taking English in their country and who want American pen-pals.

The National Fellowship of Baptist Educators is seeking Christian young people who will answer at least one letter from Chinese students who have written letters “to an American friend.” After the first exchange of letters, correspondence might be continued by e-mail or regular mail.

We will provide guidelines on ways students may share their faith and be a Christian influence in a country where missionary work is restricted.

This makes a great project for a Sunday School class, Acteens or Challenger group, or any Christian youth organization. Individual students also may participate.

To request letters or further information, contact John Carter, Executive Director, National Fellowship of Baptist Educators, Samford University Box 292305, Birmingham, Ala. 35229; phone (205) 822-4106; e-mail j-fcarter@juno.com.

Give the name, address, telephone number and e-mail address of the group leader to whom we may send the letters. Indicate the number of letters needed from grades 7-9 and the number from grades 10-12.

Provide the name of the group that is participating. If an American teacher would like to correspond with a Chinese teacher, let us know.

Requests must be received by Jan. 15. Letters will be sent during the two weeks following.

We'll look forward to hearing from any person or group.

John Carter

Birmingham, Ala.

What do you think? Submit letters for Texas Baptist Forum to marvknox@baptiststandard.com or Box 660267, Dallas 75266-0267. Letters must be no longer than 250 words.

Posted: 12/05/03

Marriage amendment proposed in U.S. Congress

By Robert Marus

ABP Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON (ABP)–The United States Senate has become the latest battlefield in the ongoing culture war over gay marriage. A quintet of conservative Republican senators introduced the Federal Marriage Amendment Nov. 25, shortly before senators adjourned for their holiday break.

The measure would amend the U.S. Constitution to ban marriage and “the legal incidents thereof” to same-sex couples. The move came only one week after the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ordered the state's legislature to legalize gay marriage.

The proposal's initial co-sponsors are Sens. Wayne Allard, R-Colo., Sam Brownback, R-Kan., Jim Bunning, R-Ky., James Inhofe, R-Okla., and Jeff Sessions, R-Ala.

The proposal's text reads: “Marriage in the United States shall consist only of the union of a man and a woman. Neither this Constitution, nor the Constitution of any State, nor State or Federal law, shall be construed to require that marital status or the legal incidents thereof be conferred upon unmarried couples or groups.”

Supporters argue the amendment's language is tailored narrowly enough to protect state laws that define marriage as solely a heterosexual institution without infringing on other rights. But some opponents warn its language is broad enough to deny marriage-like rights–such as hospital visitation, inheritance and child custody–to gay and lesbian couples that have long enjoyed such rights in certain states.

The Alliance for Marriage, an organization advocating the Federal Marriage Amendment, said in a Nov. 25 news release that the proposal's language “ensures that state legislatures–not the courts–will continue to decide all issues related to the allocation of marital benefits” and that the amendment would have “no impact at all on the benefits offered by private businesses and corporations to their employees.”

Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., has said he will oppose such an amendment.

President Bush and his spokesmen have so far declined to state publicly if the White House will support the constitutional amendment.

The bill, S.J. Res. 26, was referred to the Senate Judiciary Committee. An identical proposal in the House, introduced by Rep. Marilyn Musgrave, R-Colo., had gained 107 co-sponsors as of Dec. 1.

Congress has not successfully amended the Constitution since 1971, when 18-year-olds got the right to vote. Constitutional amendments must be ratified by three-fourths of the states.

Posted: 12/05/03

Missouri president bans newspaper from convention events

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (ABP)–In a move unprecedented in Southern Baptist circles, a state convention president will attempt to bar a Baptist publication in Missouri from attending or reporting on state Baptist meetings.

David Tolliver, recently elected president of the Missouri Baptist Convention, informed the editor of the Word & Way that the staff of the 107-year-old news journal no longer will be allowed to attend convention meetings, including Executive Board sessions and committee meetings. Tolliver also will attempt to bar Word & Way from the convention's annual meetings, events frequently attended by secular media.

In a Nov. 19 letter to Editor Bill Webb, Tolliver explained that his “directive” is a result of the action the Word & Way and four other convention agencies took to establish self-perpetuating trustee boards.

Word & Way, Missouri Baptist University, Windermere Baptist Conference Center and the Missouri Baptist Foundation changed their charters in 2001 to allow each entity to elect its own trustees rather than allow the convention to elect them. The Baptist Home trustees took the same action a year earlier.

The Missouri Baptist Convention filed suit in August 2002 to force the boards of the five entities to rescind their charter changes.

“It is simply a matter of prudence that litigants not have direct communication or personal interaction with one another,” Tolliver said in the letter. Tolliver said his directive will be withdrawn once the litigation is settled.

Tolliver, pastor of Pisgah Baptist Church in Excelsior Springs, is a member of the convention's legal task force charged with overseeing the legal effort to recover the five breakaway agencies.

The convention's action against Word & Way is probably unprecedented, according to longtime Baptist observers, who could not recall another incident in which a state convention excluded a Baptist publication from all its meetings.

In a telephone interview Nov. 24, Tolliver emphasized the lawsuit as his primary reason for expelling Word & Way from board proceedings. “This was not done in animosity but in prudence,” he said.

When asked why the convention waited more than a year to bar news journal staff, he responded: “In my opinion, it should have been done a year ago … but I wasn't in a position to do it. … I have said in several instances (in the last year) that it should have been done. … This is not anything personal. I think it's the right thing.”

Tolliver said the directive would not apply to other news organizations because they are not involved in legal action with the Missouri convention.

The convention president added that he plans to ask all executive board members to refrain from talking with Word & Way, although he acknowledged he cannot force them to comply.

In his letter, Tolliver also noted Word & Way would be barred from the convention's annual meeting. However, under the Missouri Baptist Convention constitution and bylaws, convention leaders must allow elected messengers from recognized churches to participate in the annual sessions. Current Word & Way staffers are members of Missouri Baptist Convention churches.

Word & Way board Chairman Bob Cox said he does not understand Tolliver's reasoning.

“I don't know how you can bar anybody from the convention. I don't understand how you can just bar somebody from a public meeting.”

Posted: 12/05/03

'Nones' aren't the loneliest
number when it comes to religion

By Mark O'Keefe

Religion News Service

PORTLAND, Ore. (RNS)–Their numbers have more than doubled in a decade, to nearly 30 million. Organized as a religious denomination, they would trail only Catholics and Baptists in members.

They are the “nones,” named for their response to a question in public opinion polls: “What is your religion, if any?”

Some nones are atheists, others agnostics, still others self-styled dabblers in a variety of faiths and philosophies. Despite their discomfort with organized religion, many consider themselves quite spiritual.

Matt Blevins, 30, of Portland, Ore., has experienced spiritual moments camping, biking and skiing in the Pacific Northwest, where "nones," those professing no religion, outnumber any single religious category. (Kraig Scattarella/RNS Photos)

Take, for example, Matt Blevins, 30, a Portland, Ore., environmentalist who, like many nones, is relatively young, liberal and religiously uncommitted. Sunday morning service? Blevins defines that as an attentive waiter at brunch.

“I think I was baptized Episcopalian, but I'm not quite sure,” Blevins said. “I try to put those things out of my mind. I just don't buy most of the stuff from organized religion. For the most part, it provides more problems than solutions.”

Blevins' cathedral is the great outdoors. While camping, biking and skiing, he has had experiences that can only be described as transcendent, he said.

“For me, those moments are just as moving as what people may experience when they go to revivals. I'm taken to a different place where I have a bigger perspective on life and the universe and everything. If that's a spiritual connection, I'll take it.”

Nones are especially prevalent in the Pacific Northwest. In Oregon and Washington, where 21 percent and 25 percent, respectively, claim no particular faith, nones outnumber any single religious category.

“If people are interested in hiking on Sunday morning rather than going to church, that's fine. The culture won't say that's unacceptable. In fact, the culture will say that's perfectly acceptable,” said Mark Shibley, a sociologist at Southern Oregon University who has studied and written about nones.

But the religionless might find some parts of the country less tolerant.

Lauren Windle of Indianapolis grew up as an atheist in New York City, where most of her friends were Catholic or Jewish. She was exposed to religious ideas when her mother would take her to the library to check out books on Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

“I've been asked my whole life, 'What are you?'” said Windle, 48. “As a child, I would have to say, 'Nothing.' And who wants to say you are nothing? This answer was never, ever accepted.”

“If anyone in the Bible Belt learns you're a none,” said Betsy Lampe, 46, a none from Lakeland, Fla., “they immediately and mistakenly believe that you're either a Satan worshipper or a communist and treat you as such.

“To them, you must be labeled. This may be why the none category is growing. They're running off any potential new converts with their offensive labeling.”

Many nones believe in God, but not in organized religion.

Whatever the reason, nones grew from 8 percent of the U.S. population in 1990 to more than 14 percent in 2001.

That's the conclusion of religion experts who compared results of the National Survey of Religious Identification, conducted in 1990, and the American Religious Identification Survey, which in 2001 sought to update the earlier poll.

“That makes nones the fastest-growing religious group in the United States, if you think about them as a religious group,” said Patricia O'Connell Killen, a professor of religious history at Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma, Wash. “We're just coming to grips with the reality that this group even exists.”

Nones could form a powerful constituency for marketing or political causes. But few see them that way, and even fewer try to communicate with them.

“Because of their indifference, they're not in one place,” said John Green, a professor specializing in religion and politics at the University of Akron in Ohio. “It's hard to put together a mailing list. It's difficult to get them on the phone. You can't call them together for a meeting.”

Yet thanks to the American Religious Identification Survey, much is now known about nones.

Young people are more likely to profess no religion. One in three nones is less than 30 years old, compared with one in five of all survey respondents. More are single (29 percent) than the adult population as a whole (20 percent). Fifty-nine percent are male. Their education level (23 percent college graduates) is virtually the same as the national average for adults. Seventeen percent are Republicans, 30 percent are Democrats, and 43 percent are independents.

Many nones believe in God. Nearly half “agreed strongly” that God exists. “It is more accurate to describe them as unaffiliated than as non-believers,” said Ariela Keysar, study director of the American Religious Identification Survey.

Catharine Lamm has used three terms to describe her religious skepticism: secular humanist, agnostic and atheist. “But the word 'atheist' isn't that great,” she said. “It's a negative word. It says I'm against something, and that doesn't quite capture me.”

She likes the potential of a new term–“bright”–coined to describe people with a naturalist as opposed to a supernaturalist world view. The word has gained popularity through a July op-ed piece in the New York Times arguing for its use.

“I would say I have a spirit within myself,” said Lamm, 34, of Hanover, N.H., “but it's composed of logic, emotions, love and all those things that make me human. There's no dependency on an outside power source. Whatever spirituality I have comes from within.”

Allyson Leonard, 24, of Bloomfield, N.J., decries what she terms “groupthink mentality” and half-jokingly tells people she attended Roman Catholic schools for 14 years to learn she has no faith at all in organized religion.

Her doubts began at age 10 when she was told people who didn't attend mass were barred from heaven. She immediately thought of “Pop,” her beloved grandfather.

“You're telling me that he's going to hell because he doesn't go to mass on Sundays?” she remembers asking.

Leonard, a publicist who works in New York City, came to see religion as “death insurance.” She's not willing to pay the premiums.

“I don't worry about it,” she said. “I look at it and say: 'OK, I know I'm living the best life I can here and now. If nothing happens after I die, fine.'

“I just don't see the point of planning for something I don't know exists.”

Posted: 12/05/03

On the Move

Scott Arant to First Church in Bloomington as pastor.

Roy Fish to First Church in Center as interim pastor.

David Forshee to Blue Ridge Church in Marlin as pastor.

Tony Lamascus to Walnut Street Church in Nocona as pastor.

Micah Meurer to River Road Church in Amarillo as pastor.

Gary Miller to First Church in Runaway Bay as pastor.

Basilio Montez has resigned as pastor of Primera Iglesia in Cameron.

Bob Wimberly to First Church in New Baden as pastor.

Joseph Zillmen to First Church in Washburn as pastor.

Posted: 12/05/03

Theological society won't oust two 'open theists'

By Adelle Banks

Religion News Service

ATLANTA (RNS)–The Evangelical Theological Society voted last month to retain two members whose status had been challenged after they published controversial views supporting open theism–the belief that God may not always know the future.

The memberships of scholars John Sanders and Clark Pinnock were sustained when the society's members failed to vote by a two-thirds majority that either should be removed.

Both scholars said they were “relieved” by the votes, which had questioned whether they had violated the society's commitment to inerrancy, the belief that the Bible is without error.

Outgoing society President David Howard Jr. said the votes by more than 600 scholars attending the annual meeting in Atlanta did not focus on the merits of open theism. Rather, they addressed whether the two men agreed with the group's “doctrinal basis,” which consists of two sentences affirming inerrancy and the Trinity.

The society's executive committee had recommended 7-2 that Sanders be removed from membership. In a report issued prior to the meeting, it said his book “The God Who Risks” leaves one “with a Bible that one cannot affirm teaches anything about the future except for stating probabilities.”

In an interview, Sanders discussed an example he cited to the committee, the reference in 2 Kings 20 to King Hezekiah, who was expected to die but then did not after he prayed to God. The prophet Isaiah, who had previously said Hezekiah would die, then said he would recover from his illness.

“That's the 'open' of 'open theism,'” said Sanders, a philosophy and religion professor at Huntington College in Huntington, Ind. “God is open to what we do. What we do makes a difference to what God decides to do.”

The secret ballot about Sanders came close to the necessary two-thirds, with 62.7 percent favoring expulsion and 37.3 percent opposing expulsion. Some considered it a warning for scholars like Sanders to rethink some of their arguments.

The executive committee had recommended unanimously that Pinnock's membership be sustained after he made changes to a footnote of his book “Most Moved Mover.”

Pinnock said in an interview that he had not denied inerrancy in that footnote but was declaring that “prophecies can be pretty vague sometimes.” The reference was to Paul's statement in 1 Thessalonians about the return of Jesus.

“According to Paul, the Second Coming seemed to be just around the corner (1 Thessalonians 4:17), even though we today know that it has still not come even in our day,” he wrote in the revised note. “His word was, however, perfectly appropriate, given the fact that Paul thought that the coming could come at any time.”

Pinnock, professor emeritus of systematic theology at McMaster Divinity College in Ontario, Canada, also was retained, with 33 percent voting in favor of expelling him and 67 percent voting against expulsion.

“I think it was a vote of moderation,” Pinnock said in an interview after the vote. “In recent years, the tendency had been to turn always to the right, and this was saying: 'No, this is enough. Let's stop … hurting each other.'”

Both scholars say they are simultaneously inerrantists and open theists. Although the vote was technically on whether the men had violated the sentiment of the society about inerrancy, there is a debate within the group as to whether open theism and inerrancy can be compatible.

Al Mohler, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, was disappointed with the outcome of the votes because he believes the two concepts are “absolutely incompatible.”

“If the Evangelical Theological Society does not muster the courage to define its own convictions and to determine its own membership on the basis of those convictions, then there will be, eventually, nothing evangelical about the Evangelical Theological Society,” he said.

The faculty and trustees of Mohler's seminary in Louisville, Ky., had adopted a resolution opposing open theism ahead of the meeting in hopes of influencing the vote.

Mohler said the society should develop a definition of inerrancy. Some charged during the debate that there was not a clear definition of inerrancy to use as a basis for charges against Sanders and Pinnock.

Howard, the outgoing president and an Old Testament professor at Bethel Theological Seminary in St. Paul, Minn., said some in the organization argue that it is not a church, but rather an academic society where hard issues–including open theism–can be debated.

After a yearlong process that included issuing reports and responses on the society's website, he was satisfied the group had proved it can handle such debates.

“A lot of people came … expecting to see a good fight,” he said. “There was vigorous debate, but it was all done in great dignity and decency and in order. Ultimately, I guess, we're all wanting to advance the cause of Christ.”

Posted: 12/05/03

Must states recognize same-sex marriage?

By Robert Marus

ABP Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON (ABP)–Will the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court's decision to legalize same-sex marriage lead to gay marriage in all 50 states?

Although many on both sides of the gay-marriage issue have predicted the Massachusetts decision will force gay marriage on the rest of the states, that outcome is by no means clear, according to two legal experts.

Some activists have insisted that one state's decision to legalize same-sex marriage would apply to the other states because of a part of the U.S. Constitution called the “full faith and credit clause.” That clause requires states to recognize the legal decisions of other states.

"We don't have to recognize those marriages." —Todd Gaziano, director of the Heritage Foundation's Center for Legal and Judicial Studies

That would seem to make it simple for a gay couple legally married in Massachusetts to move to Alabama and demand legal recognition of their union. However, according to a legal scholar at a conservative Washington think tank, full-faith-and-credit-clause law is a bit more complicated than that.

“The full faith and credit clause does not apply automatically for two reasons,” said Todd Gaziano, director of the Heritage Foundation's Center for Legal and Judicial Studies.

The first reason, Gaziano said, is because the clause applies to judgments or court orders of the states–“and a marriage isn't a final judgment in a lawsuit or a court order in a lawsuit.”

The second reason the clause may not apply to same-sex marriages, Gaziano noted, is because “Congress has the authority–and the states themselves have full authority–to take things outside the scope of the full faith and credit clause.”

For instance, Congress already has passed a measure–signed into law by former President Clinton–that bans gay marriage at the federal level. The federal Defense of Marriage Act also became the model for similar same-sex-marriage bans on the state level. As of Nov. 18, the date of the Massachusetts decision, 37 states had their own state Defense of Marriage Act laws.

That could mean, according to Gaziano, that gay marriage “offends the public policy” of those states. If the courts agreed, then previous case law suggests such a state would not have to recognize a gay marriage performed in another state.

“Even without the federal legislation, the area of marriage recognition is one where the states have been able to reserve certain issues with respect (to) public policy,” Gaziano added. For example, he said, some states allow first cousins to marry, while such a union would explicitly contradict the public policy of other states.

“We don't have to recognize those marriages,” Gaziano said.

A supporter of same-sex-marriage rights agreed that the issue isn't entirely clear. Paul Cates of the American Civil Liberties Union's Gay and Lesbian Rights Project said gay-rights activists may have to rely on arguments other than the full-faith-and-credit one.

Referring to the U.S. Supreme Court's June decision in Lawrence vs. Texas overturning state bans on sodomy, Cates said, “while the court said in Lawrence that lesbian and gay people (were welcomed) into the American family and said that our relationships should be protected, they specifically said it didn't affect marriage.”

Both Cates and Gaziano said an argument leading to legalized same-sex marriage in all 50 states may have to hinge on the due-process and equal-protection clauses of the Constitution.

However, one thing the Massachusetts decision almost certainly will do in the legal realm is provide gay couples, for the first time, with legal standing to challenge the federal Defense of Marriage Act in court.

“By operation of law, all married couples should be extended the more than 1,000 federal protections and responsibilities administered at the federal level,” the Human Rights Campaign, a gay-rights organization, said in a Nov. 18 press release.

“However, the so-called Defense of Marriage Act purports to discriminate against same-sex married couples and deny them these protections. Because no state has recognized civil marriage for same-sex couples in the past, this law has not yet been challenged in court.”

Posted: 12/05/03

Grand Prairie sewing ministry mends
broken hearts, covers fragile lives

By George Henson

Staff Writer

GRAND PRAIRIE–The women of Fairview Baptist Church handcraft gifts of love for people who need a unique kind of shelter.

Their ministry began with crafting turbans for female cancer patients who had lost their hair. Now, the group of 15 women have expanded to make baby blankets and bears for children.

Frankie Bilbrey works on a baby blanket that will assure an infant goes home from Parkland Hospital appropriately wrapped. The women from Fairview Baptist Church in Grand Prairie sew to aid both babies and women who lose their hair due to cancer treatments.

Laverne Swiney began making the turbans on her own after seeing a sewing program on television about how to use sewing to help others. She didn't have a lot of time at that point in her life, however, because she was helping her husband fight his battle with the deadly disease. By the time the disease eventually claimed him, she had seen first hand the need for turbans in countless waiting rooms.

“That's probably what keeps most of us coming here–that feeling that we are doing something to help people when they are in such a bad way,” she said.

Like Swiney, a number of the group know how bad cancer can be. Marvis Frazier is a cancer survivor, as is Frankie Bilbrey. Nita Gearhart's husband is a cancer survivor. One of the group's number, Peggy Duncan, died from the disease.

Bilbrey recalled once waiting to see her oncologist and recognizing a Fairview-made turban on one of the other women in the waiting room.

“It was such wild colors, I knew it had to one of ours,” she said. “Then I heard her tell her daughter: 'We're going to have to do something about this turban. It's getting so dirty, and I can't do without it.' I told her there were some more in a box in another room and she should go pick out a couple. She was timid, but eventually she did. Then she asked me how I knew about it, and I told her I was a part of the group that made them. She just looked at me and said, 'What a blessing.'”

Patients who wear turbans made by the group often donate material or money so the women can buy more material. That donated material has led the group to branch out into other projects.

Some of the material didn't seem right for turbans but worked well for baby blankets or lap robes for senior citizens and battered women. Other material seemed right for teddy bears and walker caddies for senior adults.

One member of the group is not able to make it to the group sewing sessions but crochets about 60 baby caps each month. Those caps often are used to clothe stillborn babies for a photograph to be given to grieving parents.

The group started making baby blankets after dropping off the turbans at Parkland Hospital in Dallas. While on a tour of the facility, they were taken by the nursery, where they learned a disturbing fact.

“When they told us that some of those babies went home in their daddies' jean jackets because they didn't have anything else to wrap them in, we said that wasn't going to happen any more,” Carolyn Crabb recalled.

Crabb also was the one who came up with the idea of making the walker caddies. The caddies strap around the cross bar of the walker, and the patient can use the pockets to carry things they no longer can carry in their hands.

Frazier, a spunky 84 years old, said she is delighted to help despite the fact that arthritis limits what she can do.

“I was a cancer patient and survived,” she said. “Now I take a pill every day. It's my hallelujah pill. Any pill I can take that will keep me alive and off chemotherapy is my hallelujah pill. But I know God has been very good to me and I need to be doing something every day to help other people.”

Fay Bell feared there would not be a job for her with the group because she could not sew. But friends told her to come on and they would find a job for her.

“I found I had a talent for putting the stuffing in the teddy bears,” she said. “I'm just proud the Lord has given me something I can do to help other people.”

The bears sometimes are given to sick children, but most often they are given to children of cancer patients who are visiting an ill parent.

Gearhart has found her niche in helping with the bears as well. “I enjoy it so much. I love cutting out bears, because I can visualize the smiles of the little ones when they get their bears. I just love cutting out and cutting up.”

The women work three consecutive days for two months in a row. This allows them to leave their materials out and not have to spend time setting up and taking down each day, Swiney said. The third month, they deliver the things they have made.

They supply products to Parkland Hospital, three cancer centers, four nursing homes and a home for battered women and their children.

Since the group began in 1999, they have made 2,811 turbans, 311 bonnets, 168 lap robes, 12 walker caddies, 492 baby blankets, 625 bears, 481 baby caps and 36 pillows.

Posted: 12/05/03

Can tax-funded church schools discriminate?

By Robert Marus

ABP Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON (ABP)–If a church-run school takes public money in the form of vouchers, can it expel gay students on moral grounds?

This once-theoretical question has sparked a real-life debate in Denver. Denver Public Schools and the school district in neighboring Jefferson County initially rejected the application of Silver State Baptist School in Lakewood, Colo., to participate in a new voucher program established by the state legislature. The program provides scholarships to students in poorly performing public schools who want to attend private schools, including religious ones.

However, the legislation creating the program allows school districts to deny participation to any school that “teaches hatred” of any group.

At issue is a Silver State school policy that lists “premarital sex, homosexuality and sexual perversion” as grounds for a student's expulsion. Public school officials in Denver were quoted in local news outlets as saying the policy constitutes hatred of gays and lesbians.

School officials cited the policy when denying Silver State the right to participate in the voucher program in late October. However, a few days later, Denver officials accepted the school into the program after the school changed wording on its application and its disciplinary code.

The code now reads, “Premarital sex and sexual perversion, between opposite and/or same sex students, will constitute grounds for disciplinary action, including suspension or expulsion.”

The new wording means “the school isn't singling out a group of students–homosexuals–as the first, original application did,” said Tanya Caughey, a Denver Public Schools spokesperson.

However, the school's principal said the policy's thrust won't change.

“That hasn't changed, nor will it change in the future,” Rodolfo Gomez said. “Our board is in the process of evaluating our policy to make sure that it is strongly, clearly written to present a biblical position.”

Gomez declined to say what the school would do if it discovered a student was gay but not sexually active. He noted the policy is unfinished. He also said the school in nearly 40 years of existence never had to deal with the issue of an openly gay student.

Opponents of government money for parochial schools and other religious organizations have long argued that government funding inevitably would lead to excessive government regulation of such organizations, thus compromising their religious freedom.

Last year, a closely divided Supreme Court declared that a Cleveland school voucher plan including religious schools did not violate the Constitution's ban on government support for religion. The Cleveland program also contained language banning participating schools from “teaching hatred of any person or group.”

In the dissenting opinion to that case, authored by Justice David Souter and joined by three of his colleagues, Souter argued that the “teaching hatred” ban in the program “could be understood (or subsequently broadened) to prohibit religions from teaching traditionally legitimate articles of faith as to the error, sinfulness or ignorance of others, if they want government money for their schools.”

Posted: 12/05/03

Conservatives fail to gain ground in Tennessee

JACKSON, Tenn. (ABP)–Several attempts to place more conservatives in leadership of the Tennessee Baptist Convention and its institutions failed during the convention's annual meeting.

The convention's 1,905 messengers also adopted resolutions supporting the proposed Federal Marriage Amendment and the phrase “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance. A 2003-04 budget of $35.55 million was adopted, which is 4.4 percent less than the current budget. The Southern Baptist Convention will receive 37.5 percent of undesignated funds, while 62.5 percent will finance the state convention's ministries.

Led by a group called Concerned Tennessee Baptists, conservatives offered seven substitute nominees to those presented for election by convention committees. All seven nominations from the floor failed.

Some conservatives are concerned that too many members of the committee on committees and the committee on boards–which nominate leaders–are associated with the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, a moderate group that differs from the more conservative Southern Baptist Convention. A motion to consider changing the qualifications for those serving on the two committees was narrowly defeated.

The defeats caused some conservatives to question their financial support of the Tennessee Baptist Convention.

“It's going to cause many of us to rethink the way we support state mission giving,” Glenn Denton, pastor of Hillcrest Baptist Church in Lebanon, told the Nashville Tennessean.

Former Nashville pastor Bill Sherman of Fairview said screening committee members for support of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship is at odds with the traditional Baptist belief of soul liberty. “It will be a can of worms we will regret from now on,” Sherman said.

In other business, messengers elected Mike Boyd, pastor of Wallace Memorial Baptist Church in Knoxville, as president over Randy Davis, pastor of First Baptist Church in Sevierville, 53 percent to 47 percent.

Davis, described as an inerrantist in his nomination speech, was endorsed by Concerned Tennessee Baptists in a “2003 Conservative Voters Guide” distributed to messengers.

Robert Tyson, a director of missions from Springfield, was elected first vice president with no opposition.

Millington pastor Steve Flockhart, who was endorsed by the conservative group, was elected second vice president over Michael Smith, pastor of First Baptist Church in Murfreesboro, 57 percent to 43 percent. Flockhart, pastor of Crosspointe Baptist Church in Millington, was nominated by prominent conservative pastor Jerry Sutton of Nashville.