Posted: 9/24/04

Bush considers himself in
'mainstream' of American religion

By Robert Marus

ABP Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON (ABP)—While many of President Bush's opponents and critics alike have pointed to his evangelical Christian faith as his defining characteristic, several intimately acquainted with Bush recently told a gathering of journalists the president considers himself in the mainstream of American religious life.

Speaking to the Religion Newswriters Association annual conference in Washington, experts familiar with Bush's much-talked-about faith said the president does not use it improperly in his work in the White House.

“He's all business in the Oval Office,” said Jim Towey, director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives. “He does not talk about his personal faith with staff—at least, not with me.”

Towey and Houston minister Kirbyjon Caldwell, one of Bush’s spiritual confidants, both described Bush's view of his own faith as being squarely in the mainstream of American religious life.

“He does not believe God told him to run (for president) and he certainly does not believe that God told him to drop bombs anywhere—that’s not his theology and not his ethos,” said Caldwell, pastor of the nation's largest United Methodist congregation.

Bush, who said during his 2000 election campaign that Jesus was his favorite philosopher “because he changed my heart,” has been lauded by conservative evangelical Protestants as one of their own.

Born into a family with Presbyterian and Episcopal roots, Bush is widely reported to have had a faith-deepening experience similar to an evangelical conversion around the time he turned 40, in the mid-1980s. He was a member of United Methodist congregations in Dallas and Austin during his Texas years.

However, according to a journalist who wrote a sympathetic book on Bush's faith, he is not a typical evangelical.

“It's not easy, although the temptation is there, to pigeon-hole this guy,” said David Aikman, a former Time magazine reporter and now head of an international fellowship of Christian journalists. “He does not like to be called an evangelical. He does not like to use the language ‘born again.’ This is no-no language in the White House.”

Aikman’s book is on the Bush-Cheney re-election campaign's suggested reading list, according to a recent e-mail notice from the campaign.

Speaking to journalists on a panel discussion about faith in the White House, Aikman said Bush is “very ecumenical” compared to most conservative Protestants, and that he is comfortable with people of all faiths.

“He is a Methodist, but he is comfortable with Baptists and Catholics and Episcopalians,”Aikman said.

The reporter also noted Bush “has worshipped in mainstream Episcopal churches, which evangelicals may think are liberal,” including the gay-friendly St. John’s Episcopal Church, just across Lafayette Square from the White House.

Bush’s parents attended St. John’s while they were in the White House, and the younger Bush and his wife, Laura, have attended there on some of the handful of occasions when they have been in Washington on a Sunday morning.

Aikman also noted Bush’s openness to people of minority faiths, such as Islam and Sikhism.

“He has had prayer sessions with followers of the Sikh religion in the Oval Office,” he said. “What's a born-again Christian doing praying with Sikh religionists? I don't know, but the Sikhs were very honored and very happy with that.

“So, although the cliché is this is the president of the Christian Right … in fact, he’s a far more complex and subtle individual in his faith orientation than many people have been led to believe,” Aikman concluded.

However, Bush has embraced positions on several divisive social issues—such as abortion rights and gay rights—congruent with those of the Religious Right.

Shaun Casey, assistant professor of Christian Ethics at Washington’s Wesley Theological Seminary, told the journalists that such actions are part of the way Bush was “exploiting religion brilliantly in this campaign.”

Casey noted recent reports that the Bush campaign had attempted to organize voters through conservative churches in important “battleground” states. “They have been directly reaching out to churches in a very, I would say, unseemly manner,” he said. “The Bush hagiography apparatus has marketed in a very Machiavellian way, in a very effective way, their message among the press corps.”

Nonetheless, Casey said, he didn’t question the authenticity of Bush's personal piety.

“I think we need to separate between the faith of the president and how religion is being used in the campaign,” he said.

Towey joked that Bush was not consumed at work by esoteric religious talk or practices. “I haven't walked in the Oval Office and seen him lost in prayer or levitating,” he said, to laughter.

Posted: 9/24/04

Baylor regents postpone call for Sloan's
resignation, reject call for faculty referendum

By Ken Camp

Managing Editor

WACO—Baylor University regents voted to postpone indefinitely a call for President Robert Sloan’s resignation, and they unanimously rejected a request by the university’s Faculty Senate to hold a faculty-wide referendum on Sloan’s administration.

After a motion was introduced at the Sept. 24 meeting calling for Sloan’s resignation, a second motion called for the matter to be postponed indefinitely, Chairman Will Davis announced after the executive session.

“It does not kill the idea for ever and ever. It can be brought up at another time,” he said.

Davis declined to reveal the vote margin on the motion to postpone, but one regent characterized it as “very close.”

The motion to postpone a call for resignation was one in a series of votes by regents on Sloan’s leadership. The board voted 31-4 in September 2003 to affirm Sloan. But his support had eroded by spring, and at the board’s May meeting, a motion to ask for Sloan’s resignation failed by an 18-17 secret ballot.

Regents took no vote on Sloan’s presidency at their July retreat, other than unanimously affirming the Baylor 2012 10-year plan that has become the often-controversial centerpiece of his administration.

While Davis described the Sept. 24 meeting as “collegial,” a regent said the mood was “very tense.” A majority of the board members expressed their views during extended discussion of Sloan’s leadership, he added.

Twice in a little more than a year, the university’s Faculty Senate passed votes of no confidence in Sloan’s leadership.

At a recent retreat, the group voted 29-1 to call for an independently administered secret-ballot survey asking all university faculty whether they believe Sloan should remain as Baylor’s president. Davis said the regents unanimously turned down that request and he personally did not believe it was appropriate to put the issue to “some kind of popularity contest.”

The regents’ vote came the same day Baylor started parents’ weekend and dedicated a $103.3 million science building. The 508,000-square-foot facility consolidates the chemistry, biology, geology, physics and neurology programs under one roof, along with most of the university’s pre-professional healthcare programs and five multidisciplinary research centers.

New facilities have been a key component of Baylor 2012, Sloan’s ten-year vision for making Baylor a top-tier university.

But capital expansion at the university—coupled with unprecedented levels of debt—during Sloan’s tenure as university president have raised the ire of his critics. They also faulted him for increasing tuition, failing to foster good relationships with alumni and faculty, and imposing narrow religious restrictions on faculty.

Prior to the regents meeting, 22 former Baylor regents submitted a resolution calling for the current board to replace Sloan immediately with an interim leader and initiate a nationwide presidential search.

The resolution accused Sloan of creating “the greatest divisiveness and distrust in the history of Baylor.”

“As a consequence, the faculty and staff have become demoralized, deflated and uncertain, and alumni and friends of the university are astounded that such problems have been allowed to continue for so long to the detriment of so many,” the resolution stated.

Signers included John Baugh, founder of the Houston-based SYSCO Corporation and a major Baylor benefactor. Baugh had addressed the regents at their May meeting, warning he would ask for loans to be repaid and his financial gifts to Baylor be returned unless the board took action to rescue the university from “the paralyzing quagmire in which it … is ensnared.”

Sources close to the university estimated gifts by Baugh and his family at more than $15 million, plus $3 million in outstanding loans.

Following the Sept. 24 regents meeting, Baugh said he felt university leaders were “still bogged down,” but he would not make a decision regarding his gifts and loans until he knew more about “what went on behind the scenes” or until “the direction they take is definitive.”

Other former regents who signed the resolution include George Anson, C.T. Beckham, Travis Berry, Dan Bagby, Glenn Biggs, Os Chrisman, George Cowden, Buckner Fanning, Randy Fields, Jack Folmar, Gale Galloway, Vernon Garrett, Jack Hightower, Gracie Hatfield Hilton, Sid Jones, Milfred Lewis, David McCall, Kelly McCann, Ella Wall Prichard, Ralph Storm and Hal Wingo.

Sloan, 55, is a native of Coleman and a graduate of Baylor University, Princeton Seminary and the University of Basel.

Before assuming the Baylor presidency in 1995, he was dean of Baylor’s Truett Theological Seminary.

Sloan served on the Baylor religion faculty from 1983 to 1995, and he taught at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary from 1980 to 1983.

He and his wife, Sue, have seven children.

Posted: 9/24/04

Learn to control, channel anger into
positive outlets, therapist recommends

By George Henson

Staff Writer

DALLAS—Anger is not a sin; it’s an emotion that needs to be controlled and channeled into positive action, Mark Gomez, a therapist with Rapha Christian Counseling, told youth ministers during a workshop at Lakeside Baptist Church in Dallas.

The workshop was part of series sponsored by Dallas Baptist Association for youth ministers.

Time constraints, finances, children, car problems and a myriad of other problems constantly build pressure in lives—just like what happens when a soft drink can is shaken. The question, Gomez said, is whether the pressure going to be expelled in small, safe bursts or spew all over people nearby.

“You’re always going to have pressure,” Gomez asserted. “The question is ‘How are you going to channel it, release it, control it?’”

Gomez, a former pastor, said the Bible gives evidence that anger is a neutral emotion and can be channeled for either good or bad.

He pointed to Proverbs 17:27, which says a wise man is even-tempered.

“He is even-tempered, not non-tempered. It doesn’t say he doesn’t have anger. It says he controls it,” Gomez said.

“Anger is natural and spiritual. It is a part of human nature, but it also is a part of God’s nature.”

He explained that being created in the image of God makes humans moral creatures with a concern for right and wrong.

But anger is an emotion that must be kept under control, he cautioned.

“Anger is power; it’s like dynamite,” he said.

He also compared it to a river. “Like a roaring river, it can wipe out a village ,or it can be channeled to produce electrical power for that village.”

The first step in channeling anger is to know what precedes it.

“Pay attention to your body and how it is that your body does anger. Pay attention to your kids in your youth group and what they do when they are feeling the pressure build, but also pay attention to yourself,” he counseled the youth ministers.

It is important to deal with anger before it becomes the controlling factor, Gomez said.

“If I’m going to work with someone on their anger, the last place I’m going to start is the feelings. Thoughts are the key,” he said. “Anger as an emotion is something you can’t control directly.”

Gomez used a volcano as another illustration of anger. Behaviors are the rock and lava that spews from the top, but other forces beneath the surface are the real cause.

“Anger is not a primary emotion. It is secondary. It has to have another core emotion to get anger going,” he said. “You never vomit from the neck up. It has to have a deeper source. Anger is the same way. Something deeper is needed to push it up.”

Some of the core emotions that fuel anger are frustration, fear, hate, depression, grief, guilt and shame.

“While anger sometimes seems like it comes out of nowhere, if you do an ‘anger autopsy,’ you’ll see the patterns involved,” he said.

Anger often begins in a gap between expectations and reality. “The gap between our expectations and reality are where emotions are born,” Gomez said. “The farther our expectations are from reality the more volatile the emotion.”

Part of changing expectations is changing thoughts and words. Words like “must,” “never” and “always” provide for unrealistic expectations. “These are words that demonstrate no flexibility or room for compromise in the way a need can be met,” Gomez said.

Gomez turned to Romans 12:2 to illustrate his point. “We are not renewed by the changing of our emotions, but our minds, our thoughts,” he said. “The bottom line is I need to change my expectations.”

One youth ministers at the workshop said he could he see how he needed to change some of his thinking to curb his own anger.

“I have to watch having anger toward certain students in my youth group. I’m beginning to see that maybe I have some unrealistic expectations for them—that I don’t need to look at them and think, ‘You should be better than this by now,’” he said.

Gomez told the youth ministers they can help change the way teens react to frustrations. “Teens are still moldable. The concrete hasn’t set yet,” he said.

He put on a tool belt that held nothing but different sizes and types of hammers to illustrate.

“Some of us don’t have enough different tools in our emotional tool belt—not enough coping skills,” he said. “Some kids, all they have in their tool belts are hammers for whacking. It may not be physical. It may be verbal, but that can do just as much damage.”

The test for whether anger is healthy is whether it restores relationships or destroys them,” he said.

“An angry God aims to restore, bringing people together, to ultimately give them peace. Satan’s anger aims to destroy, divide and bring fear,” he said.

Core emotions that may bring on a healthy anger are a hatred of evil, zealousness for righteousness and disappointment.

Gomez used Jesus’ cleansing of the temple to illustrate.

“Jesus expected the temple to be a place of worship, and it was turned into a mall where common people were being used and abused to the point where the last thing on their minds was worship. And worship was supposed to be the only purpose for the temple,” he said.

“God has the same zeal for cleansing the lives of young people and restoring them, just as he did that temple 2,000 years ago,” Gomez added.

Posted: 9/24/04

Christian therapist Mark Gomez
offers 10 tools for beating stress:

Get a grip on yourself. You are in contol of your emotions. You may not be able to change the outside world, but you can learn to deal with it.

Recognize you are in charge of your stress. You have control over most of your activities. Prioritize your time to reduce stress.

Determine the importance of a situation. Not getting invited to a party is not the end of the world. It may seem that way, but there will be other parties.

Go easy on yourself. No one is perfect. Try hard and do your best. That’s all anyone can ask of you.

Take one thing at a time and prepare for it. Prioritize your time. Don’t wait until the night before to study for two tests. Keep a calendar of activities.

Take care of yourself. Eat healthy food, exercise and get enough rest. Drugs and alcohol only lead to bigger problems.

Laugh or cry to relieve your tensions. Laugh at yourself. It’s hard to do, but it helps reduce stress.

Get involved. You will have less time to be sad, bored and lonely if you stay busy.

Visualize. Use your mind to “see” how you can manage a potentially stressful situation.

Don’t suffer in silence. An honest talk with someone you trust helps you get rid of bottled-up feelings and see things in a different light.

Posted: 9/24/04

Autistic child's gift teaches lesson
about God's love; leads to church start

By George Henson

Staff Writer

THORNDALE—Some people think the days of miracles are past, but Pastor Larry Griffith says he knows better. He’s seen God use a child’s toy to start a church.

Griffith took a step of faith when he prepared to travel to Brazil with Evangelist Sammy Tippit earlier this summer, leaving behind his pregnant wife.

“One of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do was get on that plane instead of staying with her,” Griffith said.

But he still felt God’s leading to go. He received confirmation as he said his good-byes to his two sons.

His oldest son, Dallas, is 9 years old. He also is autistic. His father says Dallas lives primarily in his own world, and the key components of that world are his little toy Hot Wheels cars.

“He is very possessive of his toy cars, and had his favorite one that he always kept with him—his security blanket—in his hand,” Griffith recalled.

While some autistic children are not very vocal, Dallas is. Dallas asked his father to bring him back a car from his trip.

“Part of the price you pay for being a preacher’s kid is that everything is a life lesson,” Griffith said. “So I preceded to tell him that I would try, but I wasn’t sure if I would be able to or not. And he should remember that in Brazil, the children were very poor, and many of them had never had even one car or any other toy.”

Dallas stood before his father for a few seconds and then held out the hand that held his most precious possession.

“He told me to give it to a boy in Brazil. My wife and I were dumbfounded and just stood there in tears.” Autistic children tend to be self-centered and reluctant to share, Griffith explained.

“We knew at that moment that God was up to something very special,” he said.

The flight from Texas to Sao Paulo, Brazil, was a long one, and all the way there, Griffith’s thoughts were drawn back to his son’s gift of his most prized possession.

“I began to see that as a picture of what God has done for us—the way he gave his son that we might have eternal life,” he said.

In Brazil, he preached at First Baptist Church in Jardra, and he recounted the story of his son’s gift. In the midst of telling that story and relating to the congregation how it was a picture of God’s love, he asked if a 9-year-old boy were present. A boy named Jefferson came to front. Griffith presented Jefferson with the first toy he ever possessed on behalf of his son, Dallas, who was giving the first gift he ever gave.

“The congregation just wept,” Griffith said.

After the service, four men said they had been impressed that they needed to share the story of God’s gift of love with people in a nearby neighborhood that had no church. One of the men owned a garage where he worked on cars and said it could serve as a church for the community.

The next day, Griffith and the four men went door-to-door through an impoverished neighborhood. The residents’ poverty had hardened their hearts toward God, he said.

“They said, ‘God doesn’t love me.’ But as we shared the story of Dallas’ gift and God’s gift of his Son, we would see hearts melt, and 27 people gave their hearts to Christ that first day,” Griffith recalled.

The men decided that with so many making professions of faith in Christ, the meetings in the garage could not wait until the next Sunday but needed to start that night. Each of the 27 who had made commitments to Christ was present.

Griffith and the men continued witnessing to the people and telling the story of a boy’s gift and how it mirrored God’s gift. By the end of the week, 131 people had made professions of faith in Christ.

When Sunday came, the garage overflowed with people.

“It was the most amazing thing I’ve every seen God do—start a church with an 88-cent car,” Griffith said.

The church in the garage still doesn’t have a name. Charter members have to go through paperwork and receive city approval before they have an official name. But unofficially, Griffith has his own name for the congregation.

“I call it First Baptist Church of Dallas.”