Posted: 5/28/04

TOGETHER:
God offers opportunity, accountability

In the process of revisioning and anticipating restructuring for our convention, I have found guidance in Jesus' teaching just before the crucifixion. Matthew 25 lays out Jesus' passion regarding what is important to him and the consequences of not knowing and acting on that.

He teaches three parables: The Ten Bridesmaids, The Three Servants and The Two Destinies. The first has to do with being prepared and making tough decisions. The second has to do with using wisely and courageously what has been put in your hands. The third has to do with true service to God and people. All three have to do with the consequences of not getting it right.

Jesus warns a time is coming when the doors will be shut, when the darkness will be filled with crying and remorse, and when ignoring the needs of people will bring eternal punishment.

We live in a culture that seeks to ignore the warnings. We think we can redefine marriage (serial marriages, living together without marriage, same-sex “marriage”) without negative consequences in the lives of children. We think we can ignore the needs of the immigrants who live among us, treat them as intruders and still create a secure future. We think we can depend on others to plan for the future and live off their wisdom, only to wind up bankrupt. We can be so afraid of failure that we will not make expensive investments of money and time so that the future can be better.

These stories insist God pays us the ultimate compliment. He believes we are responsible people who can make decisions for which we will be held accountable. God created us in his image so we can rejoice in our fellowship with him and he can expect of us moral lives. It is both our great opportunity to live in his image and our great challenge to realize we will be held accountable to live that way.

How does that help us in the process of planning for the future of this convention?

As we anticipate our Lord's return and the evangelism and missions we are commanded to do until then, we must use our resources wisely, so we do not run short and depend on others to provide “oil” for our lamps.

When God invests unusual resources in one of his servants, he has a right to expect faithful effort, wise investments and hard work.

We will be held accountable for how we cared for the hungry, thirsty, stranger, naked, sick and/or imprisoned. This is not optional. This service reveals whether or not we love Jesus.

Those who are helped can become helpers. God trusts some with great resources and others with fewer, but all are expected to use what they have.

We will be held accountable before God.

What if we fail? If we fail trying, there is forgiveness. If we do not try, the door is shut, the darkness awaits, there is only hell before us.

Jesus' teaching is urgent. Pray with me that all Texas Baptists will feel it. Can you hear: “Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master's happiness”?

There is another word: “You wicked, lazy servant! … Depart from me.”

I pray every day that I will be a faithful servant.

We are loved.

P.S. This is not “works” salvation being taught here. But it is a warning to all who consider salvation to be a verbal deal with God that changes nothing in the heart and leaves us the way we were.

Posted: 5/28/04

Former Soviet republic named a top
violator of religious freedom by panels

By Robert Marus

ABP Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON (ABP)–Members of two federal panels have turned a spotlight on an often-overlooked former Soviet state as one of the world's worst violators of religious freedom.

“Overall, Turkmenistan is a severe violator of religious freedom,” said Ron McNamara, deputy chief of staff for the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, also known as the United States Helsinki Commission.

McNamara's group and the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom co-sponsored a recent briefing for Capitol Hill staff and reporters.

It featured three experts on religious freedom conditions in the Central Asian dictatorship.

Despite the fact that Turkmenistan President Saparmurad Niyalov is a signatory to the Organization on Cooperation and Security in Europe, panelists said the nation has failed to meet the human-rights protections found in treaties agreed to by that group.

In particular, the nation essentially bans religious activity by any groups besides the Russian Orthodox Church and a government-approved brand of Sunni Islam.

Officially, “unregistered” religions are illegal, and congregations or groups of religious believers who attempt to hold a worship service without the government's express permission face stiff penalties–both of the legal and extra-legal variety.

However, the requirements for registration are stiff, and no group besides Sunni Muslim and Russian Orthodox groups has successfully registered since registration laws were created in the late 1990s.

According to Felix Corley, editor of the Forum 18 news service, the experience of congregations that have made applications for official registration has discouraged others from doing so.

He explained that all members of a congregation have to add their names to the registration application.

"The last time around, they came around, and they went through all the people on the list and harassed them," Corley said. "I mean, they could kick you out of your job, for example, if you're on a state-run job. They could … remove your child from higher education."

Corley's news agency covers religious freedom issues in Europe. He also noted that the government panel charged with monitoring religious activity in the country and reviewing registration applications is made up of religious leaders–thus having an inherent conflict of interest when it comes to legally authorizing religious groups that may compete with their own.

“Of its senior four officials of this committee, two of them are Muslim clerics, one of them is a Russian Orthodox priest, and one of them is a functionary of the state,” Corley said.

He explained that means the Muslims and the Russian Orthodox have a power of veto over any other community functioning in the country.

The council also appoints imams to mosques, rather than the congregations choosing their own leaders.

Lawrence Uzzell, president of International Religious Freedom Watch, said the government interferes in even approved Sunni Muslims' religious practice in other ways.

He noted the government's promotion of the Rukhnama–a book of spiritual sayings compiled by Niyalov.

“What our sources in Turkmenistan tell us is that when a Muslim enters a mosque in today's Turkmenistan, he is supposed to pause upon entering, touch the text of the holy Ruhknama, which must be on display … and reverence it in the same way that one would reverence the Koran,” Uzzell said.

He pointed to a government website promoting the Rukhnama in English. The site says the book's author was “a truly prophetic man” and that it is “on par with the Bible and the Koran.”

The book, Uzzell said, is taught extensively in Turkmenistan's public schools.

That should be enough to concern anyone–not just religious-freedom advocates, he insisted.

“If you're utterly indifferent to religion and to freedom of conscience, but just care about the quality of secular education, you have to be concerned about the fact that the Ruhknama is now taking over state education in Turkmenistan,” he said.

The State Department recently announced its designations for “countries of particular concern,” or CPCs, under the terms of the 1998 International Religious Freedom Act.

Although the independent U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom just recommended such a designation for Turkmenistan for the fifth straight year, so far officials at the State Department have not followed the suggestion.

Earlier this year, Niyalov announced he was loosening some of the registration requirements for religious communities.

But Corley, McNamara and others dismissed that as simply window-dressing to avoid CPC designation.

“Despite the moves made by the president in March under intense international pressure, the fundamentals on the ground have not changed,” Corley insisted.

“People cannot meet openly for worship if they're in an unregistered religious community.”

He also noted that only one church has applied since the rules change was announced, and it has heard nothing back about its application.

Posted: 5/28/04

CYBERCOLUMN:
Dad's old glove

By John Duncan

I’m sitting here under the old oak tree, thinking of Father’s Day. Actually, I’m thinking of a glove. Imagine a leather baseball glove. Hear the sound of the ball popping the leather. Smell the leather.

I think back to the ’70s, when I was a teenager. I am leaning against a steel chain-link fence on a softball diamond. My father wears a yellow jersey with blue letters on the front and numbers on the back. My father is wearing tennis shoes. A baseball glove fits nicely on his rather large left hand. I do not know if his team won or lost. I remember the game was played on a spring evening as the sun set.

Fast forward to a spring evening in 2004. Two of my teenage daughters sit in the stands behind a steel chain-link fence on a baseball diamond. I wear a red jersey. The jersey has black letters and no numbers. I am wearing cleats. A baseball glove fits nicely on my rather large left hand. My church softball team is winning. On this spring evening, the sun sets as the baseball diamond lights slowly come alive with the bulbs shining on the field.

I should tell you the baseball glove is my father’s, the one he used when I was a teenager. The softball guys give me a hard time about my glove. It has been restrung, tied with shoestrings and looks like it has been left out in the rain a dozen times. Just the other day, a hard-throwing teammate threw the softball so hard it broke the webbing. I cut a shoestring, fixed the broken webbing with a knot, and played the game with that glove.

The poet Percy Shelley has a line in one of his poems, “God dawned on chaos.” My glove has been fixed so much it looks like chaos. I need to purchase a new one, but I guess I am sentimental. I like that glove because my father passed it on to me.

Father’s Day arrives in the glory of a Texas summer. I am thankful for all that my father passed on to me—love, care, grace, hope, life, laughter, eternal things, not just things you can stuff in the garage or attic; not just baseball caps, bats and a leather glove.

When I think of my father, I think of the words of C.K. Chesterton, “The secret of life lives in laughter and humility.” My father discovered that secret. I thank the Lord for him and remember him every time I put on my baseball glove. I remember him on this Father’s Day.

Who knows, maybe I’ll call him and see if he wants to come over and play catch.

John Duncan is pastor of Lakeside Baptist Church in Granbury, Texas, and the writer of numerous articles in various journals and magazines

Posted: 5/25/04

CYBERCOLUMN:
Lessons from a Habitat house

By Brett Younger

With increasing frequency, ministers are expected to do manual labor as a way of sharing ministry with their parishioners. Ministry outside my comfort zone can feel like an interruption. I feel like I should be back at the church writing a newsletter column, but humility is a lesson learned in more than one way.

When volunteering requires a “waiver of liability,” it’s almost never a good sign. The form contains the ominous declaration that “as a volunteer, you are not covered by Workers’ Compensation Insurance.” It does not say, “chances are good that you, with your laughable lack of skills, will be disfigured beyond recognition,” but it could.

I spend every moment with Habitat for Humanity pretending to be adequate. At my last such attempt, the project manager encouraged me: “We have paint, caulk and trim. We can cover up everything you do.” My goal is to be assigned work no one actually needs to do. (One minister friend was strangely offended when given the job of painting pre-painted trim.) I live in fear of hearing, “Put a nail in that real quick.”

When I listen carefully, what I hear is more interesting than fear-provoking:

“Aren’t the little curly-cues that the saw makes cute?”

“You might want to count again.”

“Is your phone ringing? If it’s not, I should stop hammering for a while.”

“Aren’t you just Jimmy Carter?”

“Are you sure we’re building camaraderie?”

On my last trip to the construction site, I started out with a hammer, but someone took it away. Another person handed me an X-acto knife, but I knew that was a bad idea. For a while, I tried to make a job out of picking up things that real workers had dropped—nails, pencils, spare change.

I tried to look like I knew what I was doing. I hung a nail out of my mouth for a while, but everybody knew the truth. When I heard a serious carpenter talking about “deadwood,” I thought he was referring to me.

I was finally asked to work on an important job with a Methodist pastor. Sara and I were to put up the Tyvek weatherization wrap. It’s gift-wrapping a house with a staple gun. We moved quickly, but carefully. Each time we finished a wall, one of us would say, “That’s a wrap,” and laugh. Even at my level of expertise, it didn’t take long, so I ended up admiring my work and talking to the project director.

The house we were working on was advertised as a clergy-built house—which makes everything about the house suspect. Most of the workers had tools that made them look like they aren’t pastors—tool belts, levels, measuring tape and hammers that looked used. I asked the director how many of the people working on the house were ministers. She was defensive: “Some of them. The really inept clergy put the Tyvek wrap around the house.”

Working with Habitat is embarrassing and amazing. I keep waiting for profound, spiritual thoughts to flood my consciousness. The penetrating insights never come, but I have learned a lot while working with the organization: Sheetrock is neither a sheet nor rock. Clockwise to tighten; counter-clockwise to start all over. Measure twice, cut once. Habitat T-shirts and bumper stickers make ministers look socially aware even when we’re socially unconscious. The only thing worse than hitting your thumb with a hammer is hitting half your thumb. It’s foolish to put on coconut-scented sun block if you’re working inside a house. People will make fun of you. The way in which I am least likely to be like Jesus is by becoming a carpenter.

It’s remarkable that thousands of people—skilled and ministerial—pound nails, cut the ends off rafters, paint, pick up pencils and gift wrap. The best things we do can feel like interruptions. At the time, I spend too much energy thinking I should be doing something else—”I should be writing something inspiring.” Sometimes we need to stop dwelling on when we will get to the next task long enough to recognize that what may first feel like an interruption is actually a joyful part of our faith.

Brett Younger is pastor of Broadway Baptist Church, Fort Worth. This column is an excerpt from Who Moved My Pulpit? A Hilarious Look at Ministerial Life, available from Smyth & Helwys Publishing, books@helwys.com, (800) 747-3016.

Posted: 5/19/04

CECB recommends Executive Board
to ask HBU to end ties with SBCT

By Ferrell Foster

Texas Baptist Communications

DALLAS–The Baptist General Convention of Texas Christian Education Coordinating Board wants Houston Baptist University to rescind a "fraternal relationship" it established last year with the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention.

Coordinating board members recommended the BGCT Executive Board ask the university to sever its relationship with the competing state convention. And the coordinating board voted to escrow most BGCT funds budgeted for HBU beginning June 1.

Money earmarked for students through "ministerial financial aid" will not be affected by the proposed escrow.

The BGCT budgeted about $750,000 for HBU this year, including about $169,000 for ministry students.

The actions came in response to a September 2003 decision by university trustees to establish a fraternal relationship with the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention, a group that broke away from the BGCT in 1998.

The university made the decision almost two years after agreeing to "maintain a unique affiliation with the BGCT by not affiliating or establishing a formal relationship with other denominations, conventions or religious entities."

HBU President Doug Hodo said he did not want to respond to the coordinating board's recommendation until he received it in writing.

Messengers to the 2003 BGCT annual meeting approved a motion instructing the Christian Education Coordinating Board to "evaluate the implications" of the university's relationship with the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention and "clarify" its status with the BGCT.

The motion by Robert Creech of University Baptist Church in Houston instructed the coordinating board to report to the BGCT Executive Board at its May 25 meeting.

A six-person Christian Education Coordinating Board review committee brought its findings and recommendations to the coordinating board May 17.

The committee said HBU's fraternal relationship with the SBTC "violates the spirit and intent" of the BGCT's agreement with the university.

"HBU has chosen to relate to a convention that has been publicly critical of the BGCT, that holds certain differing values and convictions from those expressed by the BGCT, and that has openly encouraged churches to divert Cooperative Program funds in ways that have negatively impacted all of the ministries of the BGCT, including the affiliated and related institutions," the committee report states.

HBU is the only BGCT-affiliated university with such a SBTC relationship, but the committee and the board expressed a great deal of concern about the implications of the HBU decision on all BGCT institutions.

Keith Bruce, coordinator of BGCT's institutional ministries, said later that most—if not all—BGCT-affiliated universities have been approached about establishing fraternal relationships with SBTC. The efforts have come both from SBTC representatives and from alumni and other constituents wishing to pull the universities in that direction.

"Failure on the part of the BGCT to address this violation of the relationship agreement … would set a precedent for our other educational and ministry institutions that would not be in the best interests of the BGCT and those institutions," the report states.

At the report's core was the committee's finding that "there was no ambivalence or ambiguity in the language and intent" expressed in the agreement between HBU and the BGCT. "The BGCT entered into the relationship agreement with HBU in good faith and HBU freely signed and entered into" the agreement, it says.

The BGCT Executive Board will consider four recommendations regarding HBU when it meets May 25:

Affirm the review committee report.

Reaffirm the relationship agreement established in 2001 between the BGCT and HBU.

Ask the university to rescind its decision to relate to SBTC.

Affirm the decision to escrow budgeted funds and evaluate the level of future funding for HBU.

The HBU trustees approved the fraternal relationship with SBTC on Sept. 23, 2003. The resolution sealing the relationship stated the university's desire to "reach out to all Texas Baptists and likewise for all Texas Baptists to reach out" to the school.

It also affirmed the university's "unique affiliation and relationship" with the BGCT, as well as a "desire to be open to other Baptist entities in ways that will honor and not violate this unique affiliation."

The SBTC has two qualifications for institutions and organizations to establish a fraternal relationship, according to information given to the Christian Education Coordinating Board. The first is that such institutions "hold a high view of Scripture," and the second is that they "be in basic agreement with Southern Baptist distinctives."

The proposal that went to the HBU trustees was more detailed and included a listing of specific ways the SBTC and HBU might work together. While restating the university's affiliation with the BGCT, it described a fraternal relationship as being "based on a sense of brotherhood, recognizing common bonds of beliefs and aims."

Posted: 5/17/04

CYBERCOLUMN:
Circle Bluff

By Berry D. Simpson

We correctly analyzed our mistake. We’d started up the bluff too soon instead of searching downriver for the trail. We knew to correct our mistake we should keep moving up in elevation, but we also suspected we might be on the wrong bluff or might be making a long circuitous route that would sweep us past our target—the Circle Bluff lookout point.

We were lost in that we hadn’t yet found our trail, but we were never so lost we couldn’t find our way home. I was a little worried that we might waste all afternoon on this one hill trying to find a way down off the bluff, and I would feel bad about that, since Cyndi and I talked another family into hiking with us when they could have gone swimming with everyone else.

What we needed was a trail map. Even more, we needed a topographical map so we could find our location and correct our path. In fact, before we left camp, we studied the trail map posted on the dining hall wall and listened intently as the camp supervisor explained to us how to find the trail. We thought we had enough information.

As it turned out, we spent an hour scrambling up the wrong hill, walking stooped like Groucho Marx under giant cedar branches, scrambling over rocks and through thorn bushes. We couldn’t find the trail.

Eventually, we discovered a steep ravine. Knowing this would lead us back down to the river, and since the creek bottom was a solid slab of rock and easier hiking than the bushwhacking we’d been doing for the past hour, we decided to take it down to the river and back to camp.

But Cyndi wanted to try one more time to find the trail.

Since she has a better intuitive sense of direction than I do (I am more of a map reader), I thought she might be onto something. We all sat down while she hiked up the other side of the ravine, where she found the trail we’d been looking for almost immediately. We followed her voice up to the trail and returned to our original goal of hiking to the top of Circle Bluff. The rest of the afternoon was easy.

Wishing for a trail map reminded me of a story told by C.S. Lewis about a man who said he’d felt closest to God when out alone in the desert at night, and that experience was so much more real than all of Lewis’ talk. He said, “To anyone who’s met the real thing, all your formulas and dogmas seem so petty and pedantic and unreal.”

Lewis compared the personal experience of the presence of God and the subsequent study of religion, to a man who experiences the Atlantic Ocean for himself and then studies a map of the ocean. In turning from the ocean to the map he’s turning from something real to something less real. However, since his map was drawn from the personal experiences of thousands of ocean-goers, it contains a mass of observations unachievable by any one person.

A man’s personal experience is valuable if all he wants to do is reproduce his particular part of the ocean, but a map is more useful when he wants to go further than a mere walk on the beach.

Lewis said theology is like that map. It isn’t the same as God himself, but it’s based on the experiences of thousands of people who really were in touch with God.

I thought about our hike and what a comfort it was to finally see the trail created by so many feet over many years. It felt good, even peaceful, to realize we didn’t have to keep blazing our way through the cedar trees but could now fall in line with all those who’d gone before. It wasn’t easy. It was still a difficult climb on a long, rocky trail. But our pathway was now obvious and clear, and we had no more fears of getting lost. Lewis would’ve said hiking and sailing and finding God were alike: None was very safe without a map.

Personally, when I read Lewis and learn he’s already passed by the way I’m traveling, I’m comforted to fall in line and follow his trail. It isn’t easy. It’s still rocky and steep, but a clear path toward understanding God.

Maps aren’t the only answer, however. We could’ve stayed back at camp and studied the trail map all afternoon until we had it memorized, but we’d never have experienced the thrill of seeing the entire river valley, including the headwaters of the East Frio River, without doing the hard work.

And our Christian walk is often hard and rocky and steep, but we have the map provided to us by God himself in the Bible, and we have well-worn paths in front of us created by the feet of countless fellow searchers. But we won’t experience the breathtaking view of his presence unless we do the hard work. It is for us to start hiking.

Berry Simpson, a Sunday school teacher at First Baptist Church in Midland, is a petroleum engineer, writer, runner and member of the city council in Midland.

Storylist for 5/17/04 issue