Posted: 1/21/05

Southern Baptists leaders reject ecumenical invitation

By Kevin Eckstrom

Religion New Service

WASHINGTON (RNS)–The Southern Baptist Convention has told organizers of Christian Churches Together in the USA it has no interest in joining the fledgling ecumenical organization.

The new organization, set to launch next fall, aims to bring Catholics, mainline Protestants, Orthodox Christians, black churches, evangelicals and Pentecostals together for the first time.

“For the most part, we don't do ecumenism, because you usually have to give up some doctrinal beliefs or ignore or emphasize others to work with folks that really aren't on the same path, share the same doctrines, the same beliefs–particularly about salvation,” said Martin King, a spokesman for the Southern Baptist North American Mission Board.

Other evangelical groups, such as the Salvation Army, the Evangelical Covenant Church and World Vision, have endorsed CCT.

“We just don't see that it would help us in our efforts to help our Southern Baptist churches share our understanding of how to be saved, so we have no plans to participate,” King said.

Wesley Granberg-Michaelson, general secretary of the Reformed Church in America and chair of the CCT steering committee, said he was disappointed–but not surprised–by the Southern Baptist rejection.

“It is pretty clear that this just wasn't a reasonable expectation of where they are right now,” Granberg-Michaelson said. “We never had a high anticipation that the Southern Baptists would be a part. We'd wanted to have as strong a participation as we could from across the board in terms of representing different constituencies.”

Posted: 1/21/05

'Birds & bees' talk should be ongoing conversation

By Michele Melendez

Religion News Service

WASHINGTON (RNS)–Bob Pastorio remembers feeling woozy when his children sprang out-of-nowhere questions related to sex. Even so, he said, he always answered honestly.

“We never used euphemisms, and we never used baby talk,” said Pastorio, 63, a Swoope, Va., father of four. “They notice stuff; they synthesize understanding from that.”

It isn't easy to talk about the birds and the bees–never mind the sexual images that permeate U.S. culture or sex education in schools.

“Parents sometimes avoid talking about sex and related issues with their children because they are not sure what to say and don't want to make a mistake in what they say or how they say it,” said Paul Kettlewell, a pediatric psychologist at Geisinger Medical Center in Danville, Pa. “Talking about sex with kids makes most parents anxious.”

A recently released government report says roughly a third of 20,000 15- to 19-year-olds in 2002 never had talked to a parent about how to say no to sex, about sexually transmitted diseases, methods of birth control and where to get them, or how to use a condom.

A survey by the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy suggests parents may underestimate their clout. Among 1,000 people 20 and older and 1,000 ages 12 to 19, only 28 percent of the older group said parents were most influential in their children's decisions about sex, while 37 percent of the youth listed parents No. 1.

Parenting experts recommend starting age-appropriate conversations years before puberty. They say to scrap the idea of one big “sex talk.”

Thomas Haller, a therapist in Bay City, Mich., and co-author of The 10 Commitments: Parenting With Purpose, said if parents don't have continual, informative talks before the pre-teen years, it's too late. The child has picked up clues elsewhere–friends, the Internet, television.

Pastorio remembers his own father giving him the dreaded talk during his freshman year of high school, long after he had learned the biology of sex through scientific articles and had ogled bare-breasted tribal women in National Geographic magazine.

“We kind of got through it, and never again, until the day I got married, did he make another sexual reference,” Pastorio remembered with a laugh.

He wanted to be more open with his own children, three of whom are grown. He shares custody of his youngest, Carla, 13.

Carla said she would feel more comfortable asking her mother, stepmother or friends questions about sex but knows her father is a willing resource.

When she was 11, Pastorio and his wife gave her a book for adolescent girls, written in the breezy style of a teen magazine. It covered the hormonal mysteries of pimples, breasts and desire and included sections on condoms, pregnancy and homosexuality.

“I was kind of freaked out,” Carla recalled. “I didn't tell them, but I think they could tell by the look on my face. It was a little too much information.”

Books are a good idea, experts say. But if parents suspect receiving such a book will make their child squirm, it can simply be made available on a bookshelf.

Children “may be too nervous or embarrassed to talk with their parents, but they need the correct information,” said Lissa Coffey, a Westlake Village, Calif., sociologist. “You don't need to give them the book; just have it out where they can have access to it.”

Much depends on the child's personality.

“If a child asks questions or is overheard making comments about sex, you can first gently ask what they've heard and what they think is the truth,” said Virginia Shiller, New Haven, Conn.-based author of Rewards for Kids! Ready-to-Use Charts & Activities for Positive Parenting.

It can be helpful for parents to discuss between themselves how they want to handle the inevitable.

John Hascall and his wife, of Ames, Iowa, were prepared when their son, at about age 5, blurted that perennial favorite: “Where do babies come from?”

“We just gave a simple answer like, 'Babies come from the mommy's body,' and at that age, that was a good enough answer,” said Hascall, 42, whose son now is 11. “As he's gotten older, he's asked more and more sophisticated questions, and we've always answered with what we thought was an honest answer of the same sophistication.”

Russell Arben Fox, 36, of Jonesboro, Ark., and his wife are figuring out how and when to talk about sex with their 8-year-old daughter, the oldest of three. The subject arose last year after the couple, lifelong Mormons, decided an updated movie version of the coming-of-age story Peter Pan was too advanced for her.

“Since we take our religion pretty seriously … obviously our values have been part of what we've taught our girls thus far, and it'll be an essential part of the sex talk, whenever we have it,” Fox said. “For Mormons, sexual activity within marriage is one of the purposes of creation.”

Balancing sex and spirituality can be an added challenge for families to whom faith is important, said Jimmy Hester, coordinator of True Love Waits, an international abstinence campaign spearheaded by LifeWay Christian Resources and the Southern Baptist Convention.

But, Hester said, those conversations need to happen–even through the elementary school years–to give children a foundation they can build upon in their teen years and through adulthood. And parents must show they believe what they say by respecting their spouse and their own bodies, Hester added.

“What we really fall back on are the values that we picked up from our parents,” he said, “not the values we picked up from our peers.”

Posted: 1/21/05

Switchfoot's success signals new trend in Christian music

By Erin Curry

Baptist Press

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (BP)–The popularity of Christian rock groups such as Switchfoot, MercyMe and Casting Crowns has signaled a growing trend for the gospel music industry, which reported a sales total of 43.4 million units in 2004.

"Gospel music will always be unique for its wide-ranging music styles and diverse audiences, and black gospel and praise and worship continue to be powerful categories of Christian music, but there has definitely been a measurable shift towards rock, alternative, hip-hop, urban and other styles of music particularly popular with younger customers," said John Styll, president of the Gospel Music Association.

"This is a great sign that a new generation of music fans has discovered these and other artists and hopefully indicates a continued bright outlook for gospel music."

Switchfoot joined Columbia Records, a mainstream company that helped push their single "Meant to Live," to No. 5 on Billboard's Adult Top 40 and caused a surge in both their Christian and mainstream retail sales, GMA representatives said.

"Switchfoot is reflective of our newer generation of Christian artists–artists whose lives are greatly influenced by their Christian faith, who write and record music that is informed by those beliefs, but don't use Christian rhetoric that might otherwise limit their audience," Stylls observed.

"From the start of their music careers, Switchfoot has been making their groundbreaking style of music, which speaks eternal truths in a way that relates to their generation and have patiently persisted until finally the world has taken notice.”

Posted: 1/21/05

Texas Tidbits

African-American Leadership Conference planned. The development of lay leaders in churches is the focus of an African-American Leadership Conference March 11-12 in Waco. George McCalep Jr., pastor of Greenforest Community Baptist Church in Decatur, Ga., will be the keynote speaker at the conference, sponsored by the Baptist General Convention of Texas. Participants will spend most of the conference time in groups for 11 specific types of ministry–church administration for general church leadership; Christian education; Sunday school and small-group directors; and women, deacon, music, adult, youth, children, preschool and technology ministries. Cost is $45, which includes lunch. Registration is required, and the conference will be limited to 500 participants. For more information, contact Andre Punch in the BGCT Bible Study/Disciple-ship Center at (214) 828-5281 or andre.punch@bgct.org.

Four Texans named "Baptists of the Year." The Baptist Center for Ethics' website, ethicsdaily.com, named four Texans among its Baptists of the year for 2004–Charlie Johnson, pastor of Trinity Baptist Church in San Antonio, which is converting a 55,000-square-foot grocery store building into a smoke- and alcohol-free entertainment center for young people; Albert Reyes, president of the Baptist University of the Americas in San Antonio and president of the Baptist General Convention of Texas; Suzii Paynter, public policy director of the BGCT's Christian Life Commission in Austin; and Mary Blye Howe, a member of Wilshire Baptist Church in Dallas, honored for her writing on interfaith relations.

HBU names first female trustee chair. Diane Williams has been appointed chair of the Houston Baptist University board of trustees. Williams, a member of Second Baptist Church in Houston, is the first woman to hold the position. She is a 1993 HBU graduate and has served on the board seven years.

Howard Payne trustees reaffirm guaranteed tuition. Trustees of Howard Payne University in Brownwood reaffirmed a guaranteed tuition plan for new students enrolling in classes in the fall semester. President Lanny Hall said block tuition for the next fiscal year will be $6,000, up 9.1 percent over the $5,500 in the 2004-2005 school year. The block tuition rate, however, will not increase as long as a student is enrolled full-time–12 hours or more–and is making satisfactory progress toward a degree for consecutive fall and spring semesters.

Posted: 1/21/05

TOGETHER:
'A place where people are being saved'

The dear elderly lady in Frederick Speakman's The Salty Tang asked the question that should be the measure for every church.

She was a tourist in an English cathedral, where the guide had pointed out the artistic beauty, the architectural accomplishments and the burial sites of important benefactors. Finally, she interrupted, “Young man, young man, when was the last time someone was saved in here?”

Texas Baptists have beautiful church buildings, youth and children's ministries of the highest order, giving patterns that others envy, growing numbers of church starts, disaster response teams that lead the way, and dedicated pastors, staff members and laity. But for us, too, the question that cuts through all the noise of our activity must be, “Has anybody been saved here lately?”

Executive Director BGCT Executive Board

I believe results will show that we baptized almost 50,000 people in our 5,700 congregations last year. We had a part in many others coming to Christ through mission trips and community ministries in Texas and around the world.

I thank God for everyone who has been saved this past year through the churches and ministries related to the Baptist General Convention of Texas. But I want–and I know you do too–for us to do more and be more useful to God in touching the people who live around us with the incredible good news of how much God truly loves them.

I want every Texas Baptist church to be a place where people are being saved. How can that be?

Pastor and people have to pray for people to be saved. Like your blessings, they need to be named one by one!

The church must invite often, welcome gladly and faithfully care for those God brings to your attention.

The gospel of salvation must be taught in Sunday school, preached from the pulpit and shared in the daily witness of the pastor and members.

Ministries that express the heart of God for people need to be started and people nurtured to faith.

The time of baptism needs to be an occasion for churchwide celebration.

Where can your church learn more about this and other matters that will help you reach people effectively? There is still room for you at Epicenter Jan. 27-29. It will be held at the Sheraton Grand Hotel in Irving; phone (800) 345-5251. For more information, call the BGCT Church Missions and Evangelism Section, (888) 747-7700, or visit the Epicenter website, www.bgct.org/epicenter.

This is an evangelism and missions conversation that will give you practical, powerful ways to mobilize your church, maximize your calling in reaching those without Christ and then helping them to become true disciples of our Lord Jesus. The time you invest in these three days will touch your heart, engage your mind, and encourage and stimulate you in giving your best as you work with the Holy Spirit in drawing your church deeper into evangelism and missions.

Check out the program. Take advantage of everything offered. Bring someone with you.

I'll see you there!

We are loved.

Posted: 1/21/05

Physician Andrew Bentley (left) from Breckenridge Village in Tyler–with the help of a volunteer with Texas Baptist Men–removes a stick imbedded in a Sri Lankan man's foot. (Photo by Richard Brake)	Sri Lankan children–even in a Muslim camp–eagerly greeted the Texas team.
Relief workers from Texas approach a man on a bicycle who was despondent after the loss of his family in the tsunami.

Broken lives touch hearts of relief team

By Craig Bird

Baptist Child & Family Services

SAN ANTONIO–The physical devastation was staggering. Fishing boats hurled over a peninsula and across a quarter-mile-wide lagoon before being dumped on the mainland. Piles of rubble where houses and office buildings once stood. Water wells contaminated with saltwater. Coastline beaches vanished. Bridges shattered.

But it was the damaged humanity that grabbed the hearts and minds of the men on the Baptist Child & Family Services Sri Lanka relief team.

“How do you pick up the pieces when everything you have is gone and many of the people you loved best are dead?” asked Baptist Child & Family Services President Kevin Dinnin. “There are faces and voices none of us will ever forget. There were examples of Sri Lankans living their faith that will inspire us as long as we live.”

A middle-aged man sat on his bicycle, deep into an unsuccessful effort to blot out the pain of losing his entire family through drinking. He initially refused offers of help from the Texas team and the Sri Lankan Christians they were assisting.

“Why should I be helped, why should I live when everyone else died,” he argued.

But eventually he accepted some basic medical care. More importantly, he began to talk through his survivor guilt and began to believe that these Christians, both the foreigners and his Sri Lankan neighbors who practiced this strange religion about Jesus thought he was well worth saving.

Another man, the only survivor in his family, walked trance-like to the relief camp set up at Heavenly Mission Harvest Church. He'd been there before, but only as the leader of a Hindu mob vandalizing the building and beating the pastor. Now that same pastor, Vijyaraj, gently cleaned his wounds where Andrew Bentley, a physician, could tend to him, and grieved with him with gentleness and compassion

Anoprathepan, who worked with the Texans as a translator, buried his sister and niece in a small Christian graveyard then began to help others. He walked the visitors on a tour, noting: “I put the bodies of 13 children in that grave. … A family of five is buried there.”

Another pastor, living in a tiny three-room house already crowded with his own family, took in nine orphaned children in the first week after the tsunami struck, “simply because they had no place else to go,” Dinnin reported. But even though refugee camps were no more than a scattering of tents, government officials took the children away when they learned of it, unwilling to risk them to the permanent care of a Christian.

The Sri Lankan Christians practiced what the Bible teaches about worshipping God at all times.

“I was awed by how they kept shouting out praises and how they sang with such confidence and joy,” said Richard Brake, a psychologist with Baptist Child & Family Services. “It was a real emotion, even though everyone there knew people who had died.”

Most of the 25 families in the church had lost all or part of their homes too–but none had died because the tsunami did not reach the church building Dec. 26. They were shouting praises and singing songs that day too.

At one camp, hundreds of children crowded around the Texans and listened to the translated questions in genuine friendliness–until Dinnin, as he always did, asked if he could pray for them.

No one had warned them it was a Muslim camp.

“They backed way up when they realized I was a Christian,” Dinnin said. “But I went over to the leaders and told them I had not meant to be confrontational and was simply praying to my God like I always do.”

“We went there to help hurting people, and it didn't matter if they were Christian or Buddhist or if they had a red dot on their forehead (Hindu) or had on a prayer hat (Muslim).

“But the Sri Lankan Christians, who live with the persecution and ridicule, felt the same way. They were helping everyone in Jesus' name.

“I can't help but believe that our presence not only encouraged those national believers but also helped people see that Christianity is not the enemy, that Christians do love and care for others without trying to dominate them.”

The physical damage will be repaired much quicker than the human emotional wounds will mend, he noted.

That's why the child care agency has committed to a long-term presence in Sri Lanka to help national Christians help their neighbors.

Posted: 1/21/05

Agency develops foster care program for hurting Sri Lanka

By Craig Bird

Baptist Child & Family Services

SAN ANTONIO–Success in Moldova led to Baptist Child & Family Services to become the lead agency in developing a foster care and kinship care program in Sri Lanka.

“One of our staff members noted that because we had been faithful to the ministry opportunity God gave in Moldova a few years back, he has trusted us with the chance to help provide long-term care for the most vulnerable of all the tsunami victims–the children,” said Baptist Child & Family Services President Kevin Dinnin. “I do know we all feel God's hand in this and intend to be faithful to that call. But it sure is happening fast.”

On New Year's Eve, David Beckett, a missionary in Sri Lanka and member of Currey Creek Baptist Church in Boerne, called Baptist Child & Family Services to ask the agency to set up emergency shelters and help implement a foster care program in Sri Lanka. One week later, a six-member team of childcare specialists from the children's home flew to South Asia.

Children's Emergency Relief International, an arm of the child care agency, named Beckett its Sri Lanka director.

At the invitation of Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La), Baptist Child & Family Services was scheduled to be included in a Jan. 21 conference call about the plight of Sri Lankan children, along with the Red Cross, UNICEF, Save the Children and CARE.

Landrieu, a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee's Foreign Operations Subcommittee, has promised to “work to provide as much U.S. aid as possible to these countries and to create a better framework for caring for the thousands of children orphaned by the disaster.”

It all happened because Beckett went to Moldova on a Children's Emergency Relief International mission trip, and when needs arose in Sri Lanka, he remembered what he saw there.

“In partnership with Gospel For Asia (an organization with more than 12,000 churches throughout Asia headed by Indian Baptist K. P. Yohannan), we will develop and support two child assistance centers in the hardest hit areas of Sri Lanka,” Dinnin said.

“The foster care program will partially mirror our Moldova operation by linking American sponsors to Sri Lankan families who assume the care of children. Often that will be relatives and even single parents who lost their spouse to the tsunami. Before the disaster, the government reported an average monthly income of less than $75. No one knows what it is now, but obviously it's so low that taking on even one more mouth to feed is beyond most Sri Lankans.

“We think for $20 to $30 a month, we can make it possible for these children to have a safe, secure life and a hope for a bright future. Gospel For Asia church families will be a key resource in providing suitable homes.”

Texas Baptists who want to contribute financially to the foster care and kinship care program in Sri Lanka can send gifts to Baptist Child & Family Services, 909 NE Loop 410, Ste. 800, San Antonio 78209 or call (210) 832-5000.

Posted: 1/21/05

Texas Baptists give to tsunami relief

By John Hall

Texas Baptist Communications

Texas Baptists are pouring their hearts and pocketbooks into disaster relief efforts in South Asia.

Texas Baptists donated more than $320,000 to tsunami relief through the Baptist General Convention of Texas. Some of that money is designated to be funneled to other entities, but a large portion will assist BGCT ministries such as Texas Baptist Men.

Donations made to the tsunami relief aid by Jan. 31 are tax-deductible for 2004.

Baylor University student government is attempting to raise $50,000 for Samaritan's Purse to use in the relief effort.

Houston Baptist University is donating admission and concession receipts from selected basketball games to UNICEF. Dallas Baptist University has raised enough money to pay for two Texas Baptist Men water purifiers. Several Baptist Student Ministries are raising funds.

East Texas Baptist University is collecting money for Texas Baptist Men, as well. The University of Mary Hardin-Baylor is collecting funds that will be disbursed by WorldconneX.

Valley Baptist Medical Center in Brownsville donated gloves, dressings and other medical supplies to South Asia. Baptist Health System in San Antonio provided a small supply of medical items for Baptist Child & Family Services' initial trip to South Asia.

Even the youngest Texas Baptists are giving. Children from Cook Springs Baptist Church in Huntsville gave $36.50 in change they had collected. A boy from First Baptist Church in Plano donated $100 of the money he received for Christmas.

Mark Kemp, pastor of First Baptist Church in Copperas Cove, said he encouraged his congregation to give to Texas Baptist Men because the men's ministry would seek to meet the spiritual needs of the people as well as provide physical necessities. This relief effort is an opportunity to witness in a largely non-Christian region, he added.

“Seeing the devastation and praying for the people, we felt we should respond in some way,” he said.

Southwest Chinese Baptist Church in Stafford has given more than $11,000 to the Southern Baptist Convention International Mission Board through the BGCT. Members were touched by the devastation they saw on television and in newspapers, Pastor Peter Leong said. They want to help in order to present a strong Christian witness. South Asians need Christ, he insisted.

“We need to show the kindness of God,” he said. “They need to know Christians care for them.”

Members of the congregation served in Thailand last year and plan to return this March. But that's not important in a situation like this, Leong said. "It's not whether you have been there or not. It's that God gave you kindness."

Posted: 1/21/05

Damage 'horrific' in Indonesia, pastor says

By John Hall

Texas Baptist Communications

BANDA ACEH, Indonesia–Images do not adequately depict the “horrific” devastation in Indonesia, reported a Keller pastor who is exploring ways to minister in South Asia.

Bob Roberts, pastor of Northwood Church for the Communities in Keller, writes in an online journal that the destruction in areas struck by tsunamis is difficult to stomach. Before visiting Banda Aceh, Indonesia, he was advised to buy clothes he could burn later because “the stench and smell gets in your clothes, and there's no way to get it out.”

"All I can say is, the pictures do not show how horrific it really is," he writes in his journal, which is linked to his church's website, www.northwoodchurch.org. "When you arrive at the airport, you are struck by the pictures of people on the wall that are missing. You drive through mud to get where you are going. Bodies most of the time, not all (of) the time, in body bags line the roads.

“It's leveled. Between a 9.0 earthquake and a tsunami, everything is flattened. Concrete and everything is piled with cars, people and boats mixed in like this kind of landscape stew. Soldiers and people are constantly pulling dead bodies from buildings. This will go on for months. A car is in the middle of a decimated concrete structure upside down.” Roberts reports he felt the pain of the people before arriving in Indonesia.

“Many people on this plane know people affected by the tsunami,” he wrote of his trip to Jakarta. “There's some sadness in people I've talked to. Even if they don't know anyone, it's like America after 9/11. We don't get the full scope of this. Yes, 155,000 dead and others missing, but over 1 million people homeless, and for them life is really bad.”

The pain is deep, but Roberts said the trip has value if God shows him ways his church can impact the nation. Ministering in this situation may seem treacherous to some, but sometimes God calls people to act boldly.

“Letting go of the knowledge of what the future will be or say about us. Most of us would like to live to know our legacy–not die without having seen it. That's very human. Faith is dying in obedience, not ever knowing the outcome except that you honored God.”

Posted: 1/21/05

TBM volunteers offer relief in Sri Lanka

By John Hall

Texas Baptist Communications

BATTICOLOA, Sri Lanka–God's Spirit is washing over areas of Sri Lanka that were worst hit by the tsunamis, revealing a changed topographical and spiritual terrain, a missionary in Sri Lanka ob-served.

God has arranged “divine appointments” that enabled the Christian disaster relief efforts to move more swiftly, said David Beckett, a Gospel for Asia missionary working in Sri Lanka and member of Currey Creek Baptist Church in Boerne.

A Canadian helped connect Texas Baptist Men to the water board of Batticoloa in eastern Sri Lanka. The parties then swiftly devised a way to clean wells contaminated by saltwater.

Texas Baptist Men volunteers and a team from Baptist Child & Family Services worship with a group of Christians in Sri Lanka. (Photo by Rex Campbell)

“We are exhausted and weary, both mentally and physically, though our spirits are high and our spirit rejoices with praise and wonder at seeing God's mighty and compassionate hand at work,” Beckett wrote. “He is doing so much to love the Sri Lankan people who are suffering from the tsunamis' destruction.”

Each TBM water purification team is cleaning 25 to 30 wells each day. Texas Baptist Men volunteers also are repairing the city water pumps and chlorination systems for Batticoloa and a more southern city, Kalmunai. This equipment supplies water for as many as 150,000 people along the country's eastern coast.

While cleaning the wells, Texas Baptist Men volunteers are showing Sri Lankans how to do the work themselves, thereby speeding up the recovery process. People cannot return to their towns until they get clean water.

TBM volunteers are feeding several thousand people a day in Batticoloa. TBM workers were constructing kitchens closer to Kalmunai, where more than 10,000 people live in refugee camps, but were asked to stop by the government.

Victim Relief Ministries chaplains are meeting the emotional and spiritual needs of many of those who lost loved ones. Kevin Dinnin, president of Baptist Child & Family Services, expressed amazement at how God's people are acting faithfully in the midst of disaster. His organization has committed to build two shelters for Sri Lanka orphans.

“How do you pick up the pieces when everything you have is gone and many of the people you loved best are dead?” he said. “There are faces and voices none of us will ever forget. There were examples of Sri Lankans living their faith that will inspire us as long as we live.”

The efforts already are making an impact in the largely Hindu and Muslim areas. One Sri Lankan pastor is getting a chance to minister to those who persecuted him.

Through Texas Baptist efforts, the pastor was able to provide a medical clinic for his village. He prayed with a man who once beat him because of his faith. The pastor serves those who repeatedly burned down his home.

“They're having a huge impact in so many different ways in Muslim and Hindu communities,” Beckett said. “You're hearing story after story of people breaking down and crying.”

Posted: 1/21/05

Theologian offers key to understanding U2's 'Atomic Bomb'

By Steven Harmon

I recently did something many folks might not expect a minister and theologian to do. I drove to the nearest music store and bought the latest CD by the world's most popular rock group–U2's How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb–on its release day.

In the early 1980s, I–along with many other Christian young people–started listening to the music of this up-and-coming band from Dublin, Ireland. We were attracted to the overtones of Christian spirituality and the prophetic passion for social justice around the world that pervaded their music.

Steven Harmon

During the 1990s, some wondered whether lead singer Bono and the other two self-identified Christians in the band (guitarist “The Edge” and drummer Larry Mullen Jr.) were de-emphasizing in their art the convictions that had resonated with us. Faith was not absent from their music in those years, however, and their 2000 album, All That You Can't Leave Behind, was more explicitly rooted in such biblical themes as grace and the economic justice of the Year of Jubilee. Eager to find out what their next project held in store, I looked forward to the release of Atomic Bomb almost as if I were a child awaiting Christmas.

My first listen through Atomic Bomb left me with two initial impressions. First, this album is going to be a hit. Musically, it's their best overall album ever, and four or five of the tracks are naturals for release as singles that should get good airplay. Second, the majority of the people who buy and listen to this music may not fully grasp its deepest significance. Of all the albums U2 has recorded over the past 25 years, this one is the most overtly Christian in its rendering of the world. But this is obvious only to those who already are being formed by the biblical story and thus look at the world through the same set of lenses worn by the creators of this music.

“Vertigo,” the album's lead track featured in the ubiquitous iPod/iTunes commercials during the last few weeks, is rich in allusions to Jesus' wilderness temptations. The video now playing on MTV underscores these connections through its desert-like setting and the band's descent into a dark abyss as Bono intones, “All of this, all of this can be yours/Just give me what I want, and no one gets hurt.” The song concludes with the lyric, “Your love is teaching me how to kneel” (kneeling imagery appears in several songs). The referent of “your” might be unclear, but at the end of a performance of “Vertigo” on NBC's “Saturday Night Live,” Bono called out, “Yeah, he loves you!”

The next track, “Miracle Drug,” simultaneously reflects Bono's participation in the DATA (Debt, AIDS, Trade and Africa) campaign and more generally the world of broken human relationships, both in need of God's help. The recipients of this help respond: “I was a stranger/You took me in.” The post-9/11 tribute to New York, “City of Blinding Lights,” closes with a reminder that “blessings are not just for those who kneel.” In other words, God “makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous” (Matthew 5:45). Disaster does not strike only those who are evil, and recovery from disaster is not only for those who are good.

Like the Song of Solomon in early Christian interpretation, several songs may be heard as explorations of either human or divine love. “Sometimes You Can't Make It on Your Own” and “All Because of You,” for example, are most meaningful when heard in light of a relational theology centered in the Christian understandings of God as Trinity and humans as the image of the relational God. “A Man and a Woman” challenges romanticized understandings of love and points the listener toward a deeper sort of relational commitment. Love deeper than romance is a repeated theme in the album.

U2's prophetic streak is not missing on Atomic Bomb. The hard-edged blues number “Love and Peace or Else” addresses the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and violence in general, exhorting the “daughters of Zion” and “Abraham's sons” to “Lay down your guns,” with “a brand new heart” as a prerequisite. The biblically allusive “Crumbs from Your Table” indicts Christians who turn a blind eye to need and injustice.

The concluding song, “Yahweh”, would come across as oddly disconnected from the rest of the album to anyone who missed the biblical motifs in the preceding 10 tracks. It could easily function as “praise and worship” music, yet it avoids the egocentricity and overly realized eschatology to which many songs of that genre fall prey.

After stanzas that plead for divine transformation of sinful human life, the chorus praises Yahweh (no generic deity here) while acknowledging the pain and darkness that belong to the already/not yet tension of life between the two advents.

In a voice breaking with raw emotion, Bono begs, “Yahweh, tell me now/Why the dark before the dawn?” before praying: “Take this city/A city should be shining on a hill/Take this city/If it be your will …. Take this heart/And make it break.”

It's not every day that Christians steeped in Scripture innately possess the key that unlocks the meaning of top-selling rock albums.

We may have an opportunity to explain this aspect of popular culture to some of its unchurched consumers. Let's not miss it.

The uninitiated may be interested in a couple of resources: Walk On: The Spiritual Journey of U2 by Steve Stockman, a Presbyterian minister in Ireland and chaplain at Queen's University in Belfast (Relevant Books, 2001), and Get Up off Your Knees: Preaching the U2 Catalog, a collection of sermons edited by Episcopal priests Raewynne J. Whitely and Beth Maynard (Cowley Publications, 2003). As Stockman acknowledges, Bono's unfortunate occasional public lapses into the language of the streets of Dublin do not provide the best model for Christian speech. Nevertheless, we should welcome the seriousness with which U2's music takes the language of Zion and its relation to our world.

Steven Harmon is associate professor of Christian theology at Campbell University Divinity School in Buies Creek, N.C.

Posted: 1/21/05

LifeWay Explore the Bible Series for Jan. 30

Jesus Christ is the capstone of his church

Luke 20:8-19

By Pakon Chan

Chinese Baptist Church, Arlington

The authority of Jesus (Luke 20:1-8)

The chief priests, scribes and elders were the component parts of the Sanhedrin, the supreme Council and governing body of the Jews. They were the religious aristocracy who ran the temple and exercised their own authority over it.

When they saw Jesus entering Jerusalem, cleansing the temple and then teaching in the temple courts, they asked him a series of questions. The Jewish authorities wanted to trap Jesus with those questions so they could charge him with some sort of wrongdoing.

When they confronted Jesus about his authority to teach in the temple, they expected an answer from Jesus would lead to a charge of blasphemy. But instead of giving them a direct answer, Jesus asked them to answer a question, “Was the baptism of John from heaven or from men?”

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Jesus knew their motivation was not to seek understanding, so he did not give them an answer. He used their own tactics to silence them, for Jesus knew they could not give any answer to his question (vv. 5-7).

People still approach Jesus with the same attitude. They do not want to know who Jesus is. All they want is to prove Jesus is not God or the Savior. They cannot accept any higher authority that will overpower them.

The rebellious tenants (Luke 20:9-16)

After his conversation with the religious leaders, Jesus told the people the parable of the tenants. In this parable, the beloved son represents Jesus (v. 13). God sent many prophets (servants) to Israel (vineyard) but they were martyred by her leaders (tenants).

In this parable, the landowner was depicted as very kind and patient. The rebellion of the tenants already was proven by their reaction to the servants who had been sent, but the landowner still wanted to give them one more chance. So he sent his beloved son and hoped they would respect him. It ended tragically in violence, and the son of the landowner was murdered by them.

When the religious leaders heard of this parable, they knew Jesus was speaking against them. Even though they understood the meaning of the parable, they did not accept it. Instead, they were even more eager to find a way to arrest Jesus (v. 19).

The parable points out very clearly that those who rebel against God will be punished. God has given people many chances to repent and accept Jesus, but if they keep ignoring this invitation, they will perish in eternity.

This parable was not only a warning to the Jewish religious leaders of those days; it is a warning for us too. We, as Christians, have the responsibility to tell our non-Christian friends to grasp the chance while it still is there to accept Jesus as their Savior. It is going to be very horrifying to see friends and family members one day perishing in eternity.

If we realize the seriousness of this parable, shouldn’t we take action now to lead people to Christ? We can make plans for this year to lead at least one person to Christ. When we do as we are commanded by the great commission, Jesus has promised to be with us. He will empower us and give us wisdom to share the gospel message with our friends. We can share our plan with our church leaders and ministers, and they will help us to accomplish it. The Apostle Paul has encouraged us that “by all possible means we might save some” (1 Corinthians 9:22).

Jesus is the capstone (Luke 20:17-19)

Man cannot change God’s plan. The religious leaders thought that by killing Jesus, his message and influence would be eliminated. But things did not happen as they wished. Jesus cited Psalm 118:22-23 to refer to a new temple he was going to build. He was the capstone of this new temple. The temple built by the Jewish people grew old and would be destroyed. The Messiah they were going to kill would become the capstone of the new temple not built by men. We are the new temple (1 Corinthians 3:16). Jesus is the living stone and the capstone of his church (1 Peter 2:4-5).

Discussion questions

What is your response after hearing this parable of the rebellious tenants?

Do you want to make a plan to lead one person to Christ for this year? Share your plan with your Sunday school class members.