Ongoing practical ethics column debuts

Posted: 9/02/05

Ongoing practical ethics column debuts

“Right or Wrong?”–an ongoing column designed to help Baptist Standard readers make wise ethical decisions–premieres in this edition of the newspaper.

“Right or Wrong?” is a collaboration between the T.B. Maston Chair of Christian Ethics at Hardin-Simmons University's Logsdon School of Theology and the newspaper, Standard Editor Marv Knox announced.

“Our lives are incredibly complex these days. Everywhere we turn, Christians face complicated issues regarding right and wrong,” Knox said. “The goal of this new column is to provide practical, down-to-earth, biblical answers to real-life ethical questions.”

The board of directors and staff of the Standard are excited to team up with the T.B. Maston Chair and Logsdon School of Theology to produce the column, he added.

“Bill Tillman (the T.B. Maston professor of Christian ethics at the Logsdon School) is the leading educator of Christian ethics among Baptists today,” Knox explained. “As content editor and director of the column, he brings depth, experience and wisdom to the task of educating all of us about ethical decision-making.”

Tillman noted history has come full circle, now that the T.B. Maston Chair is sponsoring an ethics column in the Standard.

Maston taught Christian ethics to thousands of Baptist ministers during his 41-year tenure at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, Tillman said. “They became pastors, teachers, denominational leaders and missionaries–spreading around the globe, living out their callings, and those callings carrying out the impact of Maston on them.”

For many of those years, Maston wrote an ethics column that was published in the Standard, Tillman recalled. And one of Maston's books was titled Right or Wrong?

“T.B. Maston dealt with some of the most difficult issues of the day–race relations, for example–but also those which call for continual and consistent address, such as church-state relations, family relations, a sense of stewardship of creation, one's own integrity and integrity on the corporate scale.”

Those issues will provide fodder for the new column, Knox said, noting he and Tillman will present ethical questions that impact the daily lives of today's Christians.

Tillman and Knox will formulate the ethical questions to be asked in each edition of the Standard. Seven writers from across Texas will take turns responding to the questions. Tillman will edit their answers for the column.

The “Right or Wrong?” columnists are Van Christian, pastor of First Baptist Church in Comanche; Stacy Conner, pastor of First Baptist Church in Muleshoe; Jeph Holloway, associate professor of religion at East Texas Baptist University; Kelvin Kelly, pastor of Mount Zion Baptist Church in Abilene; David Morgan, pastor of Trinity Baptist Church in Harker Heights; Emily Row, program coordinator for Texas Baptists Committed; and Philip Wise, pastor of Second Baptist Church in Lubbock.

Tillman and Knox encouraged readers to submit ethical questions for the column. Send them to Tillman at btillman@hsutx.edu.

“What a privilege to be a part of the ethical conversations going on among us,” Tillman said. “I think Dr. Maston would be proud.”