Posted: 11/19/04

Debate over academic freedom rages at Louisiana College

By Bruce Nolan

Religion News Service

PINEVILLE, La. (RNS)–With its neat red-brick buildings and green, impeccably groomed campus, Louisiana College, a small liberal arts institution owned by Louisiana's Southern Baptists, does not look like a tense, unhappy battleground. But it is.

For months, the college has been gripped by conflict between faculty and trustees over whether it has slowly drifted from its Southern Baptist identity.

The college's turmoil is but another example of a familiar struggle within many church-owned colleges and universities, whether Baylor University or Georgetown or Loyola: How does an institution display top-flight academic excellence and an intellectual atmosphere of free and skeptical inquiry, while holding as a matter of faith that certain truths already are definitively settled?

Students at Louisiana College visit on the grounds of the school's campus in Pineville, La. Observers say the quiet campus has become a battleground over academic freedom and religious commitment. (Malcolm Yarnell photo from www.lacollege.edu)

At Louisiana College, tension over that question has attracted the unwelcome attention of the powerful Southern Association of Colleges and Schools, the independent agency whose accreditation is every college's first claim to be taken seriously.

A team that visited Louisiana College in September filed a report describing a campus marred by “pervasive mistrust” and a demoralized faculty operating in “a general climate of fear.”

Moreover, the report found, trustees had abandoned their proper policy-setting role and thrust themselves into the daily life of Louisiana College. In recent months, investigators noted, trustees have taken a direct hand in faculty hiring, drawn up a new textbook policy and are rewriting the faculty handbook–all with little or no faculty participation.

Investigators said they came away from conversations with trustees “concerned that the college's … traditional commitment to academic freedom was in jeopardy.”

Few people believe the situation will spin out of control so badly that Louisiana College will suffer the ultimate punishment–loss of accreditation.

“I cannot see any scenario that would get us to that point,” said Trustee Chairman Bill Hudson.

But some faculty say probation is not so far-fetched.

“Probation would cut in half our freshman class next year,” said Carlton Winbery, a New Testament scholar who heads the religion department.

However things wind up in terms of accreditation, all parties agree something else is at stake–Louisiana College's Southern Baptist identity, its soul, and how it will look five years from now, accredited or not.

“The college is at the point where the constituencies are either ready to fall apart or ready to form a new consensus and move forward together,” said Malcolm Yarnell, an educator and theologian who will take over the troubled institution as its new president in January. “That's how critical it is.”

Louisiana College is on an 81-acre campus of dogwoods, pines and oaks centrally located in Pineville. Its 1,000 students attend an institution ranked among “America's 100 Best College Buys” by Institutional Research & Evaluation Inc. The state Baptist convention contributes about $3 million a year to the school, affectionately called “the jewel” of Louisiana Baptist life.

The college community describes it as an intimate place. Many faculty members, like education Associate Professor Joseph Aguillard, are third-generation Louisiana College families. Aguillard's parents met at Louisiana College. Years later, as a student there, he proposed to his wife under a tree outside what is now his office window.

Its culture is unmistakably evangelical. Every student is required to take courses in the Old and New Testament and another on Christian values. Students earn “spiritual credits” through required chapel attendance.

The Baptist Collegiate Ministries is one of the most active campus groups. Campus clubs are not permitted to screen R-rated movies on campus.

Most faculty are Southern Baptist. And for all, Baptist or otherwise, there is a clear expectation that faculty, staff and administrators be members of a local church.

“It's a very spiritually oriented campus,” said history Professor Thomas Howell.

“Nobody on the faculty quarrels with that. That's what Louisiana College is intended to be.”

But the contours of its spirituality very much are at issue.

In one respect, the battle at Louisiana College is a late mopping-up action in the conservative revolution that has pushed moderates out of Southern Baptist seminaries, schools and agencies during the past quarter-century.

One survivor is Winbery, whose religion department has been the target of a good deal of conservative displeasure.

Winbery describes himself as a Southern Baptist wholly devoted to the Bible and free in conscience to interpret it however he will.

The range of permissible Baptist beliefs is thus much broader for him than for conservatives who remade Baptist life since the mid-1970s and encoded their theology in a definitive statement of faith, the Baptist Faith & Message.

“I take an almost nonsectarian approach to the study of Scripture, the whole time letting them know I'm a committed Christian,” Winbery said.

Exposing his students to all the complexities and contradictions of Scripture, “I tell them this is how I work it out for myself, and I hope you'll come to some position that's appropriate to your faith.”

He said he believes many trustees want him and others to actively evangelize in class.

“The most horrible thing I can think of is a student pretending to be converted so he can get a better grade,” he said.

More broadly, Winbery and most other faculty members believe faculty and trustees hold fundamentally incompatible educational philosophies at Louisiana College.

Howell said, “I fear what they want is not an institution that educates, but indoctrinates … a place that basically protects students against what they see as worldly or immoral influences.”

Bruce Nolan is a staff writer at the Times-Picayune in New Orleans.

Posted: 11/19/04

Texas-based MercyMe receives
American Music Awards honors

By Adelle M. Banks

Religion News Service

LOS ANGELES (RNS)–The Texas-baseed Christian music group MercyMe was honored as the winner of the inspirational category at the American Music Awards.

The group received its award for Favorite Contemporary Inspirational Artist backstage but made an on-camera presentation of the adult contemporary award to Sheryl Crow.

Other nominees for the award were Steven Curtis Chapman and Third Day.

The three-hour awards show aired live on ABC from the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles.

Bart Millard, the group's lead singer, is a member of Highland Terrace Baptist Church in Greenville.

Posted: 11/19/04

Texas Baptist mission trips to Mexico
increase 25 percent with 620 groups

By John Hall

Texas Baptist Communications

Texas Baptist mission trips to Mexico through the Baptist General Convention of Texas River Ministry shot up more than 25 percent in the past year, including an increase in churches looking to serve in the nation's interior.

In the last 12 months, 620 mission groups served in Mexico, up from 489 teams in the previous 12-month period. River Ministry saw an increase in most categories, including church starts, evangelistic projects, construction efforts and the number of border churches served.

The rise is occurring across the nation. More than 70 groups served in El Paso and Juarez during 2004. More teams are planning trips to penetrate the interior of Mexico.

A Texas Baptist volunteer provides dental care for a young man along the Texas/Mexico border. Many Texas Baptists give free medical care through clinics facilitated by BGCT River Ministry.

The increase is the result of Texas Baptists becoming more aware of mission possibilities in Mexico, due in part to the partnership between the BGCT and the National Baptist Convention of Mexico, said Dexton Shores, director of BGCT River Ministry.

Geography makes Mexico the closest and easiest place for Texans to have an international mission experience, Shores noted.

The spiritual needs also call to Christians, he added. Though the majority of the country is nominally Roman Catholic, few people in many areas act upon a faith that includes Jesus.

“As close as Mexico is to the United States, it is still one of the least evangelized countries,” he said.

The portions of Mexico beyond the Texas border are among the nation's most unchurched, Shores said. Congregations are seeing this and are beginning to serve there more often. Hispanic churches are more quickly moving this way as they are familiar with the cultures of natives in these regions.

“They're seeing the need to spread the blessing to unreached areas,” Shores said.

Texas churches are not simply looking to serve for a week either, he added. They want to develop relationships with congregations and often are inviting their Mexican counterparts to serve in their ministries.

“We're going to partner with viable churches and viable conventions … and lend them a hand with a humble spirit,” he said.

Posted: 11/19/04

Mississippi Baptists elect first Hispanic officer, avoid effort
to make 2000 Baptist Faith & Message official doctrinal statement

JACKSON, Miss. (ABP)–For the first time in its 169-year history, the Mississippi Baptist Convention elected a Hispanic as an officer.

Messengers also threw their support behind state and national bans on gay marriage.

Joel Medina, bivocational pastor of Iglesia Internacional Las Americas in Carthage, was elected second vice president without opposition.

Gene Henderson, pastor of First Baptist Church of Brandon, was re-elected to a second term as president. Thad Moore, pastor of Poplar Springs Drive Baptist Church in Meridian, was re-elected to a second term as first vice president.

Messengers approved without dissent a 2005 budget of $31,314,491, which is a 1.5 percent increase over the current year's budget. The portion of the budget going to Southern Baptist Convention causes remains steady at 35 percent.

Messengers avoided an effort to make the 2000 Baptist Faith & Message the convention's doctrinal statement. Responding to a motion introduced during the 2003 annual meeting, the chairman of the constitution and bylaws committee offered an alternative on behalf of the committee, which messengers approved.

The motion by Ken Anderson, pastor of Parkway Baptist Church in Clinton, identified the Baptist Faith & Message as “a guide for understanding and teaching Baptist doctrine.”

In addition to voicing support for a ban on same-sex marriage, messengers also approved a resolution to set aside the first Tuesday of each month to pray and fast for revival in America.

The official messenger registration count for the 2004 meeting was 1,236, a decline of 177 messengers from the 2003 meeting.

Posted: 11/19/04

Missouri Baptist Convention moves toward
tightening its membership requirements

RAYTOWN, Mo. (ABP)–The fundamentalist-oriented Missouri Baptist Convention took the first step toward limiting membership to “Southern Baptist” churches and excluding churches that support moderate organizations, including the state and national Cooperative Baptist Fellowship and the Baptist General Convention of Missouri.

Messengers to the convention's annual meeting agreed to vote next year on four constitutional changes that would tighten requirements for MBC membership. Membership would be open only to churches identified as “Southern Baptist” and affiliated solely with the Missouri Baptist Convention.

If approved, the changes would exclude congregations that support both the traditional Missouri Baptist Convention and the newer alternative state convention established by moderates. Likewise, congregations that support the moderate Cooperative Baptist Fellowship would not be allowed to participate.

The proposed changes were included in the report of the continuing review committee accepted by messengers during the annual meeting in Raytown. Also proposed are rules and procedures to enforce the new standards. Messengers agreed to vote on the changes at their 2005 meeting.

One proposed amendment would modify the constitution's membership article to change wording from “any Baptist church” to “any Southern Baptist church” and to include the words “singly aligned.” No church could be an MBC church without cooperating with the Southern Baptist Convention–a move that departs from Baptist tradition.

Under the proposed guidelines, churches will be considered Southern Baptist if they have adopted a doctrinal statement that reflects “historical Southern Baptist faith, polity and practice,” if they support financially the work of the Southern Baptist Convention, and if they do not send representatives or financial support to other national conventions or organizations that act as national conventions.

The convention would have the right to examine churches' contributions to determine whether those congregations support other national or state conventions or other bodies that act as national or state conventions.

The Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, although it serves many functions of a convention or denomination, has declined to describe itself in those terms.

Although “dual alignment” with those moderate organizations would be excluded, the constitution would allow for African-American churches to affiliate with more than one convention.

The membership article would not “prohibit cooperation” by Baptist churches that have racial, ethnic or cultural ties to other organizations unless the relationship violates the MBC constitution, bylaws or business plan or “accepted Southern Baptist faith, polity and practice.”

Churches that merely allow individual members to designate contributions to other organizations would not be excluded because such a designation would not be considered an action of the church.

In other action, messengers defeated a motion that called for an end to legal action against five convention-related entities–Missouri Baptist University, the Missouri Baptist Foundation, Windermere Baptist Conference Center, the Baptist Home and Word & Way newsjournal.

The five entities changed their charters in 2000 and 2001 to allow each to elect its own trustees, rather than allowing the convention to continue to elect them. The MBC filed legal action against the five in 2002 and filed a new lawsuit Oct. 25.

Messengers approved a 2005 Cooperative Program budget of $16.7 million that earmarks 35.75 percent for the Southern Baptist Convention and 64.25 percent for Missouri Baptist Convention programs.

Posted: 11/19/04

Nigeria offers evangelistic door to reaching
rest of Africa, national Baptist leader says

By John Hall

Texas Baptist Communications

The evangelistic “door” to Africa is waiting for Texas Baptists to help turn the knob and open it, a Nigerian Baptist leader insists.

Nigeria is the only nation in Western Africa with a significant number of Christians, noted Tunde Taiwo, stewardship director for the Nigerian Baptist Convention.

Taiwo is on study leave at Baylor University's Truett Seminary through a cooperative venture involving the seminary, the Texas Partnerships Resource Center of the Baptist General Convention of Texas and the Nigerian Baptist Convention.

Nigerian Baptists have started ministries in Mali, Benin, Liberia and the Ivory Coast.

“If there's any way Africa and West Africa will be reached, Nigeria is the door,” he said.

Where Nigerian Baptists are supported adequately with prayer and resources, Christianity is spreading quickly, Taiwo said.

Southwestern Nigeria, where Southern Baptist mission work took root more than 150 years ago, is primarily Christian. Baptist leaders are making inroads in other parts of the nation, he noted.

But the rapid growth is viewed by some Nigerians as a threat, Taiwo said. The nation is deeply divided religiously–50 percent Muslims and 40 percent Christians. Muslims are most commonly found in the north, and Christians are most common in the south.

Christians in the north frequently experience persecution as a result of their beliefs, Taiwo said. Fundamentalist Muslims burned down the only Baptist seminary in the north.

The plight of Nigerian Baptists further is compromised by a lack of resources. They need nearly everything, including books, leadership materials, finances, training resources and medical supplies.

“We don't have books,” Taiwo said. “We don't have CDs. We don't have literature. We have nothing.”

Any of these items can be turned into ministry opportunities in Nigeria, Taiwo said. Medical clinics can serve people. Literature can be used for training believers and spreading the gospel.

Texas Baptists can help through the relationship developed through the BGCT Texas Partnerships Resource Center, Taiwo said. Prayer, mission teams and financial support from the state can enable further growth in Nigeria.

Texas Baptists can play a key role in expanding God's kingdom in a largely non-Christian continent, as Nigerian Baptists seek to start ministries in every African country.

“The prospects are high for church starting and ministry,” he said. “We just don't have the resources.”

For more information about the Nigerian partnership, contact the BGCT Texas Partnerships Resource Center at (214) 828-5181.

Posted: 11/19/04

North Carolina Baptists retain multiple giving options

By Steve DeVane

N.C. Biblical Recorder

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. (ABP)–Messengers to the annual meeting of the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina voted to keep the convention's four giving plans. But a move to eliminate the plan favored by moderates still looms as a possibility.

Ted Stone, an anti-drug and anti-alcohol activist from Durham, N.C., made a motion to abolish the alternate plans, which let churches pick which organizations to support.

His motion called for the state convention to go back to a single plan, with money being divided between North Carolina and the Southern Baptist Convention, deleting money for the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship and other moderate causes.

Stone's motion, which would have gone into effect with the 2006-07 budget, failed by at least a two-to-one margin on a show of ballots, according to convention officials.

Currently, churches giving to the state convention can choose one of four giving plans. In Plan A, the state convention keeps 68 percent of the money and sends 32 percent to the Southern Baptist Convention.

In Plan B, the state convention retains 68 percent and sends 10 percent to the SBC, with the remaining money going to missions partnerships, theological education and other causes. Plan C is similar to Plan B except the 10 percent is sent to the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship rather than the SBC.

Plans B and C also fund four independent Baptist ministries popular with moderates–Baptist World Alliance, Baptist Joint Committee on Religious Liberty, Associated Baptist Press and Baptist Center for Ethics.

Under Plan D, the state convention keeps 50 percent and sends 32 percent to the SBC. The other 18 percent goes to the conservative Fruitland Baptist Bible Institute, church-planting efforts and missions partnerships.

During debate, J.D. Greear, pastor of Summit Church in Durham, said if Stone's motion failed he would like messengers to consider doing away with only Plan C during consideration of the budget, eliminating funding for the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship.

“Whenever we have diversity in action, we are not united, and we are not as strong as we could be,” he said.

Stone said all neighboring state conventions give a higher percentage of money to the SBC than the North Carolina convention.

“It means we are not stepping up to the plate when it comes to supporting missionaries around the world,” said Stone, a trustee at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth.

LeRoy Burke, chairman of the convention's budget committee, said that while he personally supports going back to one plan, 80 percent of the input the committee received was in favor of the alternate giving plans.

“I rise today to ask the convention to vote against this at this time,” he said.

Jim Royston, the convention's executive director, also spoke against the motion. He said passing it might ultimately divide the state convention.

Paul Berry, of Grainger Baptist Church in Kinston, said the two groups involved in the Baptist controversy have different theologies. He asked how the state convention can continue to have integrity as long as it is comprised of such groups.

Greear claimed the CBF and the newer divinity schools formed in opposition to the Southern Baptist Convention because of differing stands on issues such as inerrancy, the exclusivity of the gospel, and the soundness of heterosexual marriage.

“There just came a point when we could no longer work together,” he said.

Mark Olson, pastor of Snyder Memorial Baptist Church in Fayetteville, said churches should respect each other's decisions to give through the various plans.

North Carolina Baptists should unite around the gospel of Jesus Christ, he said. “That's what unifies us, not giving plans.”

In other business, conservative David Horton, pastor of Gate City Baptist Church in Greensboro, was re-elected convention president without opposition for a second one-year term.

Posted: 11/19/04

On the Move

Scott Ayres to First United Methodist Church in Sugar Land as recreation minister from Eastwood Church in Gatesville, where he was minister of youth.

David Bonnet to First Church in Evant as pastor.

Brian Branum to River Road Church in Amarillo as music director.

Jimmy Flynn to First Church in Washburn as interim pastor.

David Fox has resigned as associate pastor at Calvary Church in Vernon.

John Glover to Field Street Church in Cleburne as minister to senior adults and single adults from Gober Church in Gober, where he was pastor.

Phil Gowen to First Church in South Bend as pastor.

Randall Hall to Colonial Hills Church in Cedar Hill as interim music minister.

Norm Hils to First Church in Universal City as minister of adminstration from Salem Sayers Church in Adkins.

Blake Hockaday to Bell Avenue Church in Amarillo as youth director from Southeast Church in Amarillo.

Richard Hollaway has resigned as pastor of First Church in Sanford.

J.E. Hopkins to Corpus Christi Association as associate to the director of missions.

Kyle Horton to CrossRoad Christian Fellowship in Lockhart as associate pastor.

Jason Huntington to River Road Church in Amarillo as youth director.

Jeff Lanningham to First Church in Vernon as minister of education from Wilshire Park Church in Midland.

Bill Louthan to First Church in Grandview as minister of music from First Church in Midlothian.

Kelly Nesbitt has completed an interim preschool ministry at First Church in Lewisville.

James Parker to First Church in Rowlett as minister to youth.

James Peach to Frio Church in Hereford as pastor.

Kelleigh Phillips has resigned as youth minister at Belmore Church in San Angelo.

Lupe Rando to Iglesia Nueva Vida in Vernon as pastor from Primera Iglesia in Cameron.

Eli Salinas to Primera Iglesia in Corpus Christi as pastor from Bell Community Mission in Belton.

Larry Sharp has resigned as minister of music at Hillside Church in Alvarado.

Sherry Shaw to First Church in Lewisville as preschool minister.

Bill Shiell to First Church in Knoxville, Tenn., as pastor from Southland Church in San Angelo.

Rodney Simmons has resigned as interim minister of music at First Church in Olney.

Jim Standard has resigned as pastor of Second Church in Lampasas.

Matthew Vaught has resigned as music minister at Belmore Church in San Angelo.

Michael Whittle to Lexington Church in Corpus Christi as youth/education minister from First Church in Mabank.

Posted: 11/19/04

Distance no barrier for churches in partnership

By John Hall

Texas Baptist Communications

When a pair of missions-minded Baptist churches decided to help each other expand their ministries, they were not going to let a little barrier like 1,800 miles stand in their way.

South Georgia Baptist Church in Amarillo and White Oak Baptist Church in Wallingford, Conn., have connected through a three-year relationship facilitated by the Texas Partnerships Resource Center of the Baptist General Convention of Texas.

By combining the churches' talents, the ministry of each is strengthened, said Mark Angerosa, pastor of White Oak Baptist Church.

Both sides learn from each other and can apply newfound knowledge in the respective settings, he said.

During the summer, members of the Texas Panhandle church helped White Oak Baptist Church hold its first Vacation Bible School in its facilities. Amarillo Baptists brought many of the decorations and supplies they used for the South Georgia Church Bible school to help produce the event in Connecticut.

White Oak still is feeling the effects of having more than 80 young people at the event, Angerosa said. Children's attendance has increased. Members met people in the community. White Oak leaders continue doing follow-up.

“It filled their church up,” said Robert Brown, minister of education at South Georgia Church. “They have some very good contacts.”

South Georgia church members also helped remodel the balcony of the sanctuary of White Oak Church.

Cooperation benefits both sides, and this relationship is no different, participants emphasized.

White Oak gained volunteers, but South Georgia members were given a larger view of God working, Brown said.

He believes White Oak Church can help the Amarillo congregation become more involved in mission work. They are a prime example of a mission-oriented church, he said. The 70-member congregation is planning to start other churches and has ministered in Haiti.

“Our goal as a church is to be involved in mission projects,” Brown said. “We believe as a staff when you go on a mission project, you will not come back the same.”

Angerosa and Brown are working out details for White Oak members to come to Amarillo, where they can further learn from each other.

“I'd like some of our members to see the church down there,” Angerosa said.

“We want to reciprocate the help. We don't just want to receive.”

Posted: 11/19/04

Abilene's Pioneer Drive Primetimers find joy in serving others

By George Henson

Staff Writer

ABILENE–Senior adults involved in the Primetimers ministry of Pioneer Drive Baptist Church in Abilene are using the prime time of their lives to serve other people.

Earlier this fall, the group traveled to Phoenix, Ariz., to aid the inner-city ministry of the Church on Fillmore Street.

“They had never had a senior adult group come before, and when I told him I wanted to bring a group of people on a mission trip, the pastor said, 'Great, bring their bedrolls, and they can sleep in the gym,'” said Associate Pastor Jeff Reid.

The 29 senior adults from Abilene fed more than 1,000 people during the week as they worked in the church's ministry to the poor and homeless.

They also helped with clothing distribution, worked on construction projects, repackaged bulk food items for distribution to families and cleaned many areas of the church.

They also painted rooms of an apartment complex the church rents to low-income senior adults–many who aren't Baptist or Christian.

Jewell Willis, 92, worked with a group of women who cleaned the pastor's study and the church library, prepared meals and assembled cookbooks.

“It's just a blessing to be able to serve other people,” she said.

Willis said she has been blessed with great health, “and I don't take any medicine either.” God has enabled her to serve, and she wants to be a part of the ministry, she added.

Joann Brown, one of the group's leaders, said the Primetimers also are involved in ministry locally.

They hold quarterly birthday parties for women at the state school, have a group who do local home repairs, have adopted an elementary school and visit shut-ins twice a month.

“I think this is the next step for senior adult work,” Brown said.

“To my notion, it started out mainly as a means of fellowship, but now it has moved on to the next phase and has more of a ministry emphasis.

“It's an expansion of senior adult ministry. Like Rick Warren says, ministry is the highest form of fellowship–and that is exactly what we've seen,” she said, quoting a lesson learned from “The Purpose Driven Life.”

“Ministry is fun,” she said.

Posted: 11/19/04

Religious Right opposes pro-choice
Republican as Senate committee chair

By Robert Marus

ABP Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON (ABP)–Religious conservatives are raising loud objections to the elevation of a pro-choice Republican to the chairmanship of the powerful Senate Judiciary Committee.

Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter is in line to become the committee's new chairman when the 109th Congress convenes next year.

Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), the previous chairman, was scheduled to turn over the reins because of term limits the Senate Republican Conference had imposed on committee chairmanships.

However, when Specter spoke to reporters following his own re-election on Nov. 2, he appeared to warn President Bush against sending the Senate any far-right nominees for federal judgeships–particularly the Supreme Court.

“When you talk about judges who would change the right of a woman to choose, overturn Roe vs. Wade, I think that is unlikely,” he said, according to published accounts.

Since then, conservative religious and anti-abortion groups have asked their supporters to flood Senate Republicans with messages opposing Specter's chairmanship.

The Judiciary Committee controls the approval process for the president's nominees to the federal bench.

“The prospect of Chairman Specter in the Judiciary Committee is a real and present threat to pro-life judges and to pivotal legislation like the marriage amendment” that would ban same-sex marriage, wrote Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, in a recent e-mail newsletter.

“We know Arlen Specter is hostile to pro-life judges, and he has said that he would have voted against the marriage amendment earlier this year if given the opportunity. The committee is simply too important for the issues that won elections last week to put in Specter's control.”

Since Election Day exit polls showed an unexpectedly large number of voters cited “moral values” as their preeminent concern when casting their ballots, socially conservative groups have claimed that as endorsement of their agenda.

As such, many have said they expect Bush to implement policies and nominate judges that oppose abortion rights and gay rights.

Despite the opposition, GOP leaders predict Specter will survive.

He repeatedly has attempted to clarify his comments, claiming he was only saying Senate Democrats are likely to filibuster Supreme Court nominees who might take extremist positions on abortion rights or other hot-button issues.

According to several media reports, Specter has been calling his fellow senators to reassure them he would not impose a “litmus test” on Bush's nominees to the federal bench.

In spite of protests, several prominent Republicans publicly came to the senator's defense.

Specter met with the Republican leadership Nov. 17 to plead his case and was “received very well,” said Majority Leader Bill Frist of Tennessee.

The Associated Press reported Texas Sen. John Cornyn, one of the Judiciary Committee's most conservative members, said Specter would satisfy his critics if he issued a public statement saying he would not oppose Bush's nominees.

But that didn't satisfy many conservative groups. The Hill, a newspaper that covers Congress, quoted an unnamed Senate Republican aide as saying Senate Republican leaders were worried that the issue was not fading among the party's conservative base.

“This is huge with the base. It's mushrooming, and it's not going away,” he said, according to the paper.

As many as 20 conservative groups–including the Family Research Council, Concerned Women for America, and the National Review magazine– have opposed Specter's elevation to chairman.

Beverly LaHaye, CWA founder and chairperson, sent a letter to Frist opposing Specter. She also copied it to members of the Judiciary Committee.

In it she said, “Sen. Specter has signaled in advance that he does not intend to conduct the Judiciary Committee in a fair and impartial manner. Therefore, he has disqualified himself from consideration for that position.”

The Judiciary Committee's members will have the first shot at deciding whether Specter should become chairman.

Although observers say it appears likely Specter will win the chairmanship, it will not be made official until committee Republicans and the full Senate GOP Conference vote on the matter in January.

Posted: 11/19/04

SUDAN: 'Falls the shadow'

By David E. Anderson

Religion News Service

WASHINGTON (RNS)–Sudan's government and rebel groups in the nation's troubled Darfur region, under political pressure from a United Nations Security Council meeting in Kenya, signed something of a peace agreement.

U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan warmly welcomed the recent accords as a “significant achievement.”

Annan “is hopeful that these measures, combined with the deployment and strengthening of the expanded African Union mission, will re-establish security and stability in the region and facilitate the safe return of the displaced and refugees to their home areas,” a public statement issued by the United Nations said.

But observers of Sudanese politics know, like the narrator of T.S. Eliot's “The Hollow Men,” that in Sudan, “Between the idea/And the reality … Falls the Shadow.”

A woman braids a young girl's hair at Abushouk camp near El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur state. The camp in the troubled Darfur region of western Sudan is home to more than 45,000 people driven from their villages by 22 months of fighting in Africa's largest country, where U.N. officials are currently investigating whether genocide has occurred. (REUTERS/Finbarr O'Reilly Photo)

Indeed, within hours of the signing of the pacts–one promising aid organizations access to the internally displaced refugees in Darfur and the other banning “hostile” military flights over the region–the shadow already had fallen: Amnesty International reported new attacks by Sudanese security forces on the Al Geir camp for internally displaced people.

According to Amnesty, the Sudanese security forces fired tear gas, assaulted residents and bulldozed shelters in the camp over the protests of international aid agency personnel and U.N. and African Union representatives.

“The attacks show how urgent it is for the international community to take firm measures at (the) …. U.N. Security Council meeting to ensure the security of civilians in Darfur and the protection of their rights,” a public statement from the human rights group said.

It is the way things go in the on-and-off, carrot-and-stick efforts to resolve the 20 months of fighting in Darfur–an area about the size of France–between the predominantly Arab and pro-government Janjaweed militias and the predominantly African rebels.

Unlike the conflict in southern Sudan, which pits Christian and animist Africans seeking greater autonomy against the Muslim government in Khartoum, both warring groups in Darfur are Muslim.

The Darfur crisis often is described as the world's worst humanitarian crisis, and it poses an immediate test for newly re-elected President Bush.

The administration has often warned Khartoum of “consequences” if it does not rein in the Janjaweed and continues its military operations in Darfur.

It also is one of the crises most intently watched by U.S. religious groups, who have banded together in broad coalitions that span theological, political and denominational divisions to pressure the U.S. government and the United Nations to pursue a more active role in seeking to resolve the conflict.

Human Rights Watch, the eminent human rights organization, urged sanctions on the Sudanese government for failing to disarm the Janjaweed militias. It released a 43-page report, “If We Return We Will Be Killed.”

"It's important to understand that ethnic cleansing in Darfur consists first of forcibly displacing people, then preventing them from returning home safely," Peter Takirambudde, head of HRW's Africa division, told reporters in Nairobi, Kenya. "What we are seeing with these raids and tear-gassing of displaced camps is the government violently relocating people to areas other than their homes."

In a related “stick” development, the Sudan Campaign, which includes black activists and religious groups such as Christian Solidarity International and the American Jewish Committee, announced they will press public pension funds to divest a purported $91 billion from companies doing business in Sudan.

“This issue has captured the moral center of the vast majority of the people in this country,” Walter Fauntroy told the Associated Press in announcing the Sudan Campaign.

But carrots also were in play as the Security Council meeting approached.

The Washington Post reported the Bush administration is pressing the United Nations to reward Sudan with debt relief and reconstruction funds if it makes final a peace deal with the rebels in largely Christian southern Sudan.

U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. John Danforth told the Post it would be extremely difficult to get a resolution actually imposing sanctions adopted by the Security Council.

The U.S. approach–at the moment–is that if the war in the south can be ended and the shaky ceasefire made permanent, it could lead to peace in Darfur, as well.

“We are absolutely not letting up one iota on the pressure with respect to Darfur,” Danforth said.

Sudan Liberation Army rebels gather for a meeting at Gellab, a village in the desert east of El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur state. (REUTERS/Antony Njuguna Photo)

“But it is widely recognized that the future of Darfur is also connected to the overall peace process, which would provide the basis for a political settlement for the entire country,” he added.

The question for the victims of what the U.S. Congress has called a “genocide” is what side of the Sudanese shadow–illusion or reality–the U.S. carrot falls on.

Meanwhile, a five-member U.N. panel arrived in Khartoum to begin the delicate task of determining whether the conflict in Darfur–which has taken an estimated 70,000 lives and displaced some 1.6 million people from their homes–qualifies as “genocide.”

Although the panel has three months to reach a conclusion, it was expected to provide an important backdrop for the U.N. Security Council's meeting in Nairobi.

Whether the carrot is more effective than the stick in erasing the shadow between word and deed in Darfur–and the rest of Sudan–however, remains to be seen.