Posted: 7/29/05

American Baptists said at
crossroads over homosexuality issue

By Rob Marus

Associated Baptist Press

VALLEY FORGE, Pa. (ABP)—Leaders on all sides of the debate over homosexuality in the American Baptist Churches-USA see little resolution to concerns raised during the denomination’s recent biennial meeting.

“I don’t think the biennial solved anything, in terms of the future of the denomination,” said Mike Williams, executive minister for the American Baptist Churches of Michigan.

The lack of action means further moves by those disaffected with the national denomination could come between now and the next meeting of the denomination’s General Board in November.

Churches in at least four ABC regions threatened to withhold contributions to the national denomination or leave altogether if their concerns over homosexuality were not addressed at the biennial, which took place July 1-4.

The denomination’s General Board, meeting prior to the larger convocation in Denver, accepted the first reading of a petition from one region that calls for amendments to documents designed to more clearly state American Baptists’ opposition to homosexuality.

Regional fellowships are the channel through which local churches relate to the national body, which counts 1.5 million members in 5,836 churches. In recent years, several gay-friendly churches have been expelled from some of those regional bodies. The ABC General Board changed the denomination’s rules in 1999 to allow churches to join regions outside of their geographical area if the region is willing to accept them.

As a result, many pro-gay ABC churches have joined regions outside their geographical area.

The Indiana-Kentucky region initiated the petition to change the rules on regional affiliation back, as well as to amend a denominational identity statement to read that American Baptists are a people “who submit to the teaching of Scripture that God’s design for sexual intimacy places it within the context of marriage between one man and one woman, and acknowledge that the practice of homosexuality is incompatible with biblical teaching.”

The petition notes the ABC General Board’s 1992 approval of a resolution that declares homosexual practice “incompatible with biblical teaching,” but the petition says subsequent actions by denominational leaders have not sent as clear an anti-homosexuality message.

The denomination has presented “an inconsistent and confusing message to the world about what American Baptists profess to believe and what is actually practiced,” the petition reads.

It and another petition expressing concern over the unity in the denomination will receive a second reading at the November meeting of the General Board. If passed, it effectively would create a mechanism for expelling many gay-friendly churches from the ABC.

But the leader of the Indiana-Kentucky region said, despite the acceptance of their petition, many of his regional leaders who attended the meetings were disappointed.

“Our board … felt that the General Board (meeting) and biennial were somewhat orchestrated in the way that they were presented so that it would present a more open position (on the issue of homosexuality) than we would like,” said Larry Mason, executive minister for the American Baptist Churches of Indiana-Kentucky.

But Ken Pennings, the newly appointed executive director of the gay-friendly Association of Welcoming and Affirming Baptists, had a different view of the meetings.

Mason said the Indiana-Kentucky board had already appointed a task force to study the issue, and that leaders were conducting listening sessions with American Baptists from around the region. The task force will report to the regional board with recommendations on how to proceed at their November meeting—a week prior to the national ABC General Board meeting.

“I have no idea what that task force will decide,” Mason told Associated Baptist Press. But he added he expects the task force will offer some contingencies, should the ABC General Board adequately address the region’s concerns.

Asked what such an adequate action would look like, Mason said it might involve the General Board both approving a second reading of the part of the Indiana-Kentucky petition that involves expelling churches, as well as approving the change to the identity statement to clarify that homosexuality is incompatible with the Bible.

“I think that would help a lot of people here in Indiana-Kentucky to think that at least they have been heard, and that the denomination does stand on an issue of what they consider to be biblical authority,” he said. “So, I believe the first point of the petition—if that is not passed, it will be seen as a real statement of our denomination as to where they are going to lead in the future.”

Action may come sooner in the American Baptist Churches of the Pacific Southwest, one of the regions that threatened to alter its relationship with the national denomination “if the issues regarding homosexuality (were) not biblically dealt with by the end” of the biennial meeting. Dale Salico, executive minister of the Southern California-based region, declined to comment on his view of how the biennial went until after his regional board meets in August.

But Williams, of the Michigan region, said Salico’s region may be the watershed in a wider American Baptist movement. “I think it will be very interesting to see what Pacific Southwest decides to do,” he said. “If they decide to take some action, like formally separating from ABC-USA, then it might be a catalyst for other regions to consider that.”

During his address to about 2,000 delegates to the biennial July 1, ABC General Secretary Roy Medley pleaded for unity in the ethnically, geographically and theologically diverse denomination.

“We stand at a crossroads,” he said, according to the American Baptist News Service. “In our world, the path of radical discipleship—the path of radical love—is the road less taken. We dare not choose another. We dare not choose the wrong road … the road that leads to separation. That choice will certainly unite you with like-minded people but will give you small souls and make you comfortable Christians.”

Posted: 7/29/05

House passes Patriot Act, but concerns persist

By Analiz Gonzalez

Associated Baptist Press

WASHINGTON (ABP)—The House of Representatives voted to reauthorize a law that a diverse array of civil-liberties groups decry but President Bush says is essential to fighting the war on terror.

House members voted 257-171 to renew and make permanent the 2001 Patriot Act with only minimal changes.

The Patriot Act—quickly passed after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks—gave government agencies broad new powers to pursue suspected terrorists and terrorist organizations. Civil libertarians on both the left and the right ends of the political spectrum have criticized many of its provisions as too broad and dangerous to the very freedoms the law’s supporters aim to defend.

Its provisions are set to “sunset,” or expire, soon. But the House bill, if passed by the Senate, would make the law permanent.

The day before the House vote, a coalition calling itself Patriots to Restore Checks and Balances held a press conference to urge Congress to “fix the Patriot Act to enable the government to fight terror while preserving important checks and balances on law enforcement, thus limiting undue government intrusion into the private lives of average Americans.”

The group included civil libertarians as well as some religious conservatives. Many of them expressed concern that the bill gives government officials too much leeway to define terrorism and terrorist groups, thus opening some religious or political groups to investigation and even prosecution.

The coalition listed concerns with a section of the law as one of several reasons why “conservatives should support a robust debate on the Patriot Act.” That section defines terrorism as “any act that is dangerous to human life.”

Materials from Patriots to Restore Checks and Balances said Section 802 defines an act of terrorism as an action that “involves a violation of any state or federal law, and appears to be intended to influence government policy or coerce a civilian population. This definition is far too broad and vague, and could easily sweep in pro-life demonstrators, among others.”

Groups such as the American Civil Liberties Union have also criticized Patriot Act provisions that give the Federal Bureau of Investigations broad powers to access an individual’s medical and financial records. The Patriot Act also allows the FBI to search homes without notifying their occupants for months.

ACLU leaders said the House should have spent more time debating its amendments instead of pushing the act through Congress as quickly as it did in 2001.

“One can only wonder why this bill was placed on an artificial fast-track,” said ACLU Senior Counsel Lisa Graves in a press release. “Controversial sections of the act do not expire for another five months, and like the initial passage of the Patriot Act, its reauthorization process was rushed and not given the full measure of time for careful consideration of the ramifications of this bill.

“Instead of allowing a thorough debate on relevant amendments that would help place proper checks against government abuse, the leadership of the House instead pushed forward with a limited set of amendments and refused to allow votes on key amendments that would have restored key checks and balances and helped ensure greater oversight and protection of our civil liberties.”

In a letter addressed to the House, the ACLU said the House Judiciary Committee approved “a flawed bill that makes all but two of its expiring provisions permanent. It puts an excessively long 10-year sunset on those two provisions. It only includes minimal changes that the Justice Department has already conceded and does not address the major concerns raised about these intrusive powers.”

But President Bush, in a Baltimore speech the day the bill passed, defended its provisions.

“I want you to remember … the next time you hear someone make an unfair criticism of this important, good law,” President Bush said. “The Patriot Act hasn’t diminished American liberties. It has helped to defend American liberties.

“Before the Patriot Act, it was easier to track the phone contacts of a drug dealer than the phone contacts of a terrorist. Before the Patriot Act, it was easier to get the credit-card receipts of a tax cheat than that of an al Qaeda bankroller. Before the Patriot Act, agents could use wire taps to investigate a person committing mail fraud but not specifically to investigate a foreign terrorist carrying deadly weapons. Before the Patriot Act, investigators could follow the calls of mobsters who switched cell phones but not terrorists who switched cell phones. That didn’t make any sense. The Patriot Act ended all these double standards.”

Posted: 7/29/05

House amends funding bill to help Iraqi Christians

By Analiz Gonzalez

Associated Baptist Press

WASHINGTON (ABP)—The U.S. House of Representatives has amended a funding bill in an attempt to focus attention on the postwar plight of Iraqi Christians.

The amendment, which was added to the Foreign Relations Authorization Act on a voice vote, also asks the Bush administration to work with the United States Agency for International Development and use funding for welfare, education and resettlement of Iraq’s Christian minority.

The House then passed the bill, H.R. 2601.

Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.) offered the amendment. Eshoo is of Assyrian and Armenian descent and is the only Chaldo-Assyrian Christian in Congress. Iraqi Assyrian and Armenian minorities are two of several indigenous Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Christian groups with long histories in Iraq—histories that, in many cases, predate the advent of Islam in the nation.

Estimates of the number of Christians in Iraq vary, but the nation has long had one of the largest Christian populations in the Middle East. Under Saddam Hussein’s regime, they enjoyed a relatively high level of religious freedom. However, the political instability that has engulfed Iraq since American forces deposed Hussein in 2003 has led to an increase in anti-Christian attacks. Christians in Iraq also have complained of being overlooked as U.S. officials attempt to rebuild the fractious nation and broker peace deals and power-sharing agreements among competing factions of Iraqi Muslims.

“If a fully functioning and sustainable democracy is to emerge in Iraq, the basic rights and needs of all minority groups must be safeguarded,” Eschoo said while offering the amendment.

Up to 80,000 Iraqi Christians have fled Iraq since Hussein’s fall. “This ongoing exodus is deeply disturbing, and unless action is taken now to address the pressing needs of these indigenous Christians, we may well witness the complete loss of the Iraqi indigenous Christian community,” Eshoo said.

A lack of Christian representation on the committees drafting Iraq’s new constitution has caused additional fears in the Christian communities there, she added.

Rep. Dennis Cardoza (D-Calif.), who represents a large Assyrian community in central California, supported Eshoo’s amendment by saying he believes the United States has an obligation to “guarantee that the rights of all Iraqis, particularly women and Christians, are not overlooked in the constitutional process.”

“Throughout history, the Assyrian people have suffered greatly in their attempts to obtain greater freedom and recognition,” Cardoza said. “The Assyrians were essential partners in the Iraqi opposition movement, and paid dearly with the assassination of many political leaders under Saddam Hussein’s regime. We must make certain that the ethnic and religious groups that suffered and sacrificed under Saddam’s regime are afforded human-rights guarantees in the permanent constitution.”

Posted: 7/29/05

CYBER COLUMN:
Kinds of Baptists, among many

By Jeanie Miley

“What kind of Baptist are you?”

The question was hurled across the dinner table in my direction on the opening evening of what had been billed as an ecumenical retreat.

As a retreat leader and speaker across denominational lines, I get asked that kind of question all the time. Sometimes, frankly, the kind of Baptist I am is a barrier, and sometimes, it is a benefit, and I’ve learned to roll with the questions and take myself lightly even as I take my denominational affiliation seriously.

I’m not sure if it was the tone of voice or my fatigue on that particular night that sort of set my teeth on edge, but I tried one more time to establish my denominational identity and my credentials in as gracious a manner as possible. On the next night, however, I turned the tables on my inquisitor and asked him, “What kind of Methodist are you?”

I could tell he was surprised, and his reaction made me wonder why it is OK for people to make all manner of comments and ask all kinds of questions about us Baptists before they decide if they can share a retreat weekend with us, but it wasn’t OK for the questioning to go in the other direction! I could also tell that he had not given a moment’s thought to his own denominational identity.

The hard truth is that while we Baptists are big on independence and autonomy, what one of us does affects the perception that others have of us, and it’s a pretty well-known axiom that perception is everything. If someone perceives something or someone in a particular way, that perception becomes reality.

While we say that no one of us Baptists speaks for all of us, when what one of us does gets reported on the front pages of the major newspapers of the country, somehow, in peoples’ minds, we all get lumped in together, as a group.

I’m not sure how far this deal about being “my brother’s keeper” goes, but I have come to care a lot about how I present myself to others as a Baptist and a Christian, not to play to others’ opinion, but to make sure that what I say and do, decide and live does not stand in the way of Christ’s mission on earth.

I don’t feel responsible for changing perceptions, and the truth is that I am only one Baptist, out of many. I don’t have any illusions about having an effect or influence that is out of proportion to who I am. I am not on a mission to whitewash or defend the Baptist image, but neither do I want to tarnish my heritage or my community of faith by doing or saying something foolish.

It turned out that all my inquisitor wanted was to find out which Baptist church I attended in my city, and I thought that he wanted to know how I interpret the Bible, how I voted in the last election and what style of worship I prefer!

Actually, the dialogue turned out to be a good thing, for it moved us beyond the outward trappings or religion and denominationalism and opened up some pretty honest and straightforward dialogue about what it means to be a follower of Christ. In the long run, each of us clarified significant issues for the other, and, hopefully, we moved further along in acceptance, tolerance and hospitality.

In the end, what unites us, as Christians, is our common devotion to Jesus Christ. The centrality of Christ is the main thing.

Sometimes, though, I think that even we Baptists forget that.

Jeanie Miley is an author and columnist and a retreat and workshop leader. She is married to Martus Miley, pastor of River Oaks Baptist Church in Houston, and they have three adult daughters. Got feedback? Write her at Writer2530@aol.com.

Posted: 7/28/05

CBF will reconsider purpose statement revision

By Greg Warner

Associated Baptist Press

ATLANTA (ABP)—In a procedural about-face, the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship will reconsider a recent change to its purpose statement that deleted language about Jesus Christ and evangelism.

The revised statement was part of several amendments to the Fellowship’s constitution and bylaws that were considered minor when proposed to the annual CBF meeting July 1. But the statement stirred strong reactions both within the Fellowship’s constituency and beyond.

Joy Yee, incoming CBF national moderator, said July 20 the controversial change will be visited again by the Coordinating Council, the 69-member representative body that handles much of the Fellowship’s business. The council, which approved the changes in February, meets again Oct. 13-14.

The first sentence of the revised statement says the CBF’s purpose is “to serve Christians and churches as they discover and fulfill their God-given mission.” The old statement said, in part, the Fellowship’s purpose is “to bring together Baptists who desire to call out God’s gifts in each person in order that the gospel of Jesus Christ will be spread throughout the world in glad obedience to the Great Commission.”

Fellowship leaders said the change was intended to make the language of the constitution consistent with other CBF documents adopted in recent years, particularly the group’s mission statement—“to serve Christians and churches as they discover and fulfill their God-given mission.”

But some CBF members objected during debate July 1, saying deleting references to Jesus and evangelism would send the wrong message. The general assembly defeated two motions to send the documents or only the questionable section back to the committee that proposed the changes.

However, the debate didn’t end with the general assembly. “Discussions and concerned inquiries among Fellowship individuals” prompted CBF leaders to revisit the issue, the Fellowship said July 20.

The debate wasn’t limited to Fellowship constituents either. Critics in the Southern Baptist Convention said the new purpose statement reveals the Fellowship’s liberal bent. “This represents the eclipse of Christ in the moderate Baptist movement,” said Russell Moore, dean of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.

“There was never intent in the changes to diminish our commitment to the lordship of Jesus Christ or to the Great Commission,” countered Fellowship Coordinator Daniel Vestal. “I am saddened that anyone would interpret the actions by the council and assembly otherwise, but I do understand the questions that have been raised. One simply can’t read our mission statement, attend our gatherings or participate in our ministries without realizing the centrality of Jesus Christ in all we believe and do.”

Yee, senior pastor of New Covenant Baptist Church in San Francisco, voiced a similar sentiment. “It is in Jesus Christ that CBF lives, moves and has its being,” said Yee. “However, concerns that we remain clear about this fact in our documentation have been heard and the Coordinating Council will be asked to address this issue at our October meeting.”

As national moderator, CBF’s top elected position, Yee also serves as moderator of the Coordinating Council.

Jay Robison, the general assembly participant who made the unsuccessful motion to refer the new language back to committee, was reticent about Yee’s announcement, however.

“It depends on what they’re going to do when they take another look at it,” said Robison, pastor of Trinity Baptist Church in Lexington, Ky. “I think we had a very strong statement previously, one I was very comfortable with. And that’s why I wanted to see it remain. I think we had a strong statement that expressed not just a strong commitment to social action, but also a commitment to evangelism—and those two are not mutually exclusive.”

Posted: 7/28/05

HSU students help special
needs patients in Piedras Negras

Brenda De Rose of Fort Worth and Chad Walding of Conroe.

Physical therapy students from Hardin-Simmons University recently spent three days in Piedras Negras, Mexico, working with residents of Casa Bethesda, a home for people with special needs ranging from spinal injuries to Down’s Syndrome.

The 21 students and four university staff worked with 39 residents, as well as working in construction and maintenance at Casa Bethesda and distributing food bundles and New Testaments in some of the poorest parts of Piedras Negras.

Karli Rule of Mt. Vernon.

Posted: 7/28/05

Latest bombings not detering BWA meeting

By Greg Warner

Associated Baptist Press

DIDCOT, England (ABP)—”The congress proceeds as planned and our watchword is: 'In God we trust.'“

With those words, David Coffey, general secretary of the Baptist Union of Great Britain and incoming president of the Baptist World Alliance, tried to reassure 12,000-plus Baptists worldwide expected to attend the Baptist World Congress in Birmingham, 105 miles northwest of London.

Four “attempted bombings” struck London July 21, two weeks to the day after four explosions killed 56 people and injured hundreds in the city's transit system, authorities said. While the latest attacks were not nearly as deadly, they were eerily similar to the July 7 bombings. Both targeted three underground subway locations and one bus.

“We express our continuing sympathy to those who have lost loved ones and to those who were injured on 7/7 and to those who may have been involved in the latest events in London today,” Coffey said in a statement. “Here in the UK, we have lived for many years with acts of terrorism and believe it is important for Christians to witness to their faith and hope in Jesus Christ.

I assure those about to travel that the police are doing everything possible to strengthen security in our major cities.”

Coffey and Denton Lotz, general secretary of the BWA, reiterated their earlier assessment that the global Baptist meeting, even in the wake of terror attacks, sends the right message.

“I encourage all those planning to attend the congress to come to Birmingham as a witness to our solidarity with a suffering world and a persecuted church,” Coffey said of the July 27-31 meeting. “Many believers face threats to life on a regular basis. The current climate in the UK provides a context for God to speak to us in a deep way as a gathering of global Baptists.”

Lotz added: “The BWA sends prayers and sympathies to those who may have been injured. We are in solidarity with our brothers and sisters worldwide. We are grateful to the outstanding security of the British government and look forward with joy, excitement and enthusiasm to our Baptist World Congress. We pray God’s blessings upon the thousands already en route to the congress and anticipate an unusual congress of great spiritual depth and power.”

The Baptist World Congress, which meets once every five years, is celebrating the 100th anniversary of BWA, which was organized in England in 1905. Cancellations were minimal after the July 7 attacks, BWA officials reported.

Posted: 7/28/05

Roberts' critics, supporters debate
effect he would have on court

By Robert Marus

ABP Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON (ABP)—President Bush’s pick of a strong conservative for an open slot on the Supreme Court stirred strong reactions on both sides of America’s debate over the proper relationship between religion and government.

But, according to one church-state law expert, they may be premature in deciding how he will rule on church-state issues.

Ending an intense three-week period of speculation that had preoccupied Washington, Bush announced late July 19 that he had tapped John Roberts to replace retiring Justice Sandra Day O’Connor on the nation’s highest court. By midday July 20, some of the most vehement combatants in the church-state war had traded opening salvos over the federal appeals judge’s fitness to rule on weighty matters involving the First Amendment’s religion clauses.

“We’re just very pleased by President Bush’s nomination to the court,” said James Dobson, head of the Colorado-based Focus on the Family, in a noontime conference call with approximately 300 journalists around the nation. “Judge Roberts has a brilliant legal mind and his qualifications are impeccable.”

Alluding to his and other conservatives’ complaints about the judiciary’s role in the nation’s most divisive cultural debates, Dobson continued: “Most importantly, we believe that Judge Roberts will interpret the Constitution and not try to legislate from the bench, which has been the pattern in recent years.”

At about the same time, Americans United for Separation of Church and State—a frequent Dobson critic—issued a statement lambasting Roberts’ writings while he was a government attorney as being out of step with the First Amendment.

“Roberts will work to dismantle the wall of separation between church and state and open the door to majority rule on religious matters,” the statement read. “In a game with such high stakes, this unwise crusade should disqualify him.”

The AU statement noted that Roberts, while serving as a deputy solicitor general in the administration of President George H.W. Bush in 1991, signed off on a friend-of-the-court brief “urging the Supreme Court to scrap decades of settled church-state law and uphold school-sponsored prayer at public-school graduation ceremonies and other forms of government-endorsed religion.”

Roberts, who since 2003 has been a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, said during his Senate confirmation hearing for that position that one shouldn’t judge from his writings as a lawyer how he might rule as a jurist.

“I do not believe that it is proper to infer a lawyer’s personal views from the position that lawyer may advocate on behalf of a client in litigation,” he said.

Nonetheless, Dobson and his ideological allies, who do not interpret as strong a separation of church and state in the text of the Constitution as do some, seemed satisfied with the judge’s qualifications.

President Bush “has nominated a judge who knows the difference between the court and Congress, between litigating and legislating,” said Tony Perkins, president of the Washington-based Family Research Council, in the same teleconference as Dobson.

Roberts would replace Sandra Day O’Connor, who often—but not always—sided with strong church-state separationists in many of her rulings. Her vote frequently was the deciding one in controversial 5-4 decisions. Replacing her with someone who holds a different view of the First Amendment’s religious-liberty provisions could have significant effects on church-state law for decades to come.

Despite Roberts’ conservative credentials, he reportedly enjoys broad respect and goodwill across ideological lines in Washington’s political and legal communities. Many political commentators say that will ease his approval in the Senate, despite the rightward shift he’s likely to produce on the court.

But AU Executive Director Barry Lynn, according to the statement, said that would be an unwise move.

“Roberts’ judicial demeanor and the technical quality of his writings are not at issue, nor is his pleasant personality,” Lynn said. “An understanding and concern for religious minorities and fundamental civil and human rights is what is missing from his record of government service. Just because a candidate is well-liked does not make him qualified to serve on a tribunal that is often the last great protector of the rights of the people.”

Chip Lupu, a church-state expert and professor at George Washington University Law School, said his research assistants had not yet found any cases on which Roberts had ruled as a judge that involved religious-liberty issues. Therefore, he said, it’s nearly impossible to tell if Roberts would rule as a judge in accordance with the views reflected in his previous work as a government attorney.

“It wouldn’t be any surprise to you or me if he agreed with every line he wrote—but you don’t know if that’s what he would decide as a justice,” he said.

And, despite Dobson’s and Perkins’ assurances that Roberts would be in line with the court’s most conservative justices, Lupu noted that they sometimes disagree among themselves on church-state issues.

“I really have trouble seeing him being all the way over there with (Justice) Clarence Thomas—but is he going to be more like (Justice Antonin) Scalia or more like (Chief Justice William) Rehnquist?” Lupu asked. “It’s hard to tell.”

Posted: 7/28/05

Roberts' nomination for Supreme
Court could shift balance to the right

By Robert Marus

ABP Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON (ABP)—President Bush nominated a strong conservative, federal appellate judge John Roberts, to replace retiring moderate Justice Sandra Day O’Connor on the Supreme Court July 19.

After the announcement, activists on both sides of the nation’s cultural debates agreed that the move signaled Bush’s intent to shift the ideological balance on the nation’s highest court further to the right—possibly for decades.

Roberts, 50, has been a member of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit—generally thought of as the second-most-important federal court—since 2003. Previously, he served in private law practice in Washington, as well as stints in the administrations of Bush’s father and President Ronald Reagan.

Introducing Roberts to the nation in a prime-time address from the White House, the current President Bush noted the gravity of the moment.

“One of the most consequential decisions a president makes is his appointment of a justice to the Supreme Court,” he said. ”When a president chooses a justice, he’s placing in human hands the authority and majesty of the law. The decisions of the Supreme Court affect the life of every American.”

He said Roberts “has profound respect for the rule of law and for the liberties guaranteed to every citizen” and that, as a justice, Roberts would “strictly apply the Constitution and laws, not legislate from the bench.”

The latter is a reference to ongoing complaints from many conservatives that so-called “activist” judges have gone beyond the Constitution’s original meaning in deciding cases. But many moderates and liberals have countered that the definition of “activist” is in the eye of the beholder, pointing out examples of what they consider conservative judicial activism.

Roberts, in response, noted that he had often argued cases before the high court in his previous career as an attorney.

“That experience left me with a profound appreciation for the role of the court in our constitutional democracy and a deep regard for the court as an institution,” he said. “I always got a lump in my throat whenever I walked up those marble steps to argue a case before the Court, and I don’t think it was just from the nerves.”

Roberts’ nomination now moves to the Senate, which has been torn by ideological and partisan debates over many of Bush’s picks for lower federal courts. Bush has said his goal is to have the new justice in place by the time the Supreme Court begins its 2005-2006 term on Oct. 3, but Democrats have signaled that they won’t be bound by Bush’s timeline.

Republican senators offered mostly high praise for Roberts, who holds sufficiently conservative credentials. Democrats were generally cautious, not wanting to appear as if they were immediately attacking Bush’s choice. But interest groups concerned with social issues offered stronger language.

“With the Roberts nomination, the right to privacy and the future of a fair-minded court are in grave danger,” said Joe Solmonese, executive director of the gay-rights group Human Rights Campaign, in a statement issued about 20 minutes before Roberts’ nomination even became official. ”Judge Roberts has disputed the right to privacy laid out in (the landmark 1973 Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion,) Roe vs. Wade, and urged that the case be overruled.”

He continued: “Reversing Roe could undermine fundamental rights to privacy and liberty that are the legal underpinning for the freedom of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender Americans.”

Indeed, the court ruled in 2003 that laws banning gay sex were illegal, based on the right-to-privacy provisions the justices have interpreted in the Constitution. Those provisions also underpin the court’s opinions supporting a woman’s right to abortion.

But conservative religious groups offered praise for the pick. Christian Coalition President Roberta Combs issued a statement saying she believed “that President Bush kept his campaign promise today when he nominated John Roberts to the Supreme Court. We are trusting that Judge Roberts is in the mold of Supreme Court justices who President Bush promised to appoint to the Supreme Court: such as Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas.”

Scalia and Thomas are generally considered the high court’s most conservative members.

On two issues critical to religious voters—church-state relations and abortion rights—his previous writings may indicate that he would turn the court’s rulings sharply to the right. A report from the liberal group People for the American Way notes that, as deputy solicitor general under the elder President Bush, Roberts authored or signed onto court papers that said Roe vs. Wade had been “wrongly decided and should be overruled” and arguing that prayers at public-school graduation ceremonies did not violate the First Amendment.

However, when asked about Roe vs. Wade during the Senate’s 2003 confirmation hearing for his nomination to the appeals court, Roberts cautioned against reading too much into his past writings.

“I do not believe that it is proper to infer a lawyer’s personal views from the position that lawyer may advocate on behalf of a client in litigation,” he told the Senate Judiciary Committee. “The Supreme Court’s decision in Roe is binding precedent, and if I were to be confirmed as a circuit judge, I would be bound to follow it, regardless of any personal views. Nothing in my personal views would prevent me from doing so.”

However, as a justice on the nation’s highest court, Roberts would not be as absolutely bound by that body’s previous rulings.

While Roberts is considered a conservative, he is reportedly also well-known and well-liked in Washington circles, including among Democrats. He developed a strong reputation as a private attorney and in the Reagan and Bush administrations as a brilliant litigator.

Roberts was born in New York and raised in Indiana. He is a graduate of Harvard University and Harvard Law School. He and his wife, Jane, have two young children and reside in Bethesda, Md., just outside Washington.

Posted: 7/28/05

Left-Right coalition asks Congress
to debate merits of Patriot Act

By Analiz Gonzalez

Associated Baptist Press

WASHINGTON (ABP)—If some of the Patriot Act’s provisions aren’t allowed to expire, groups like pro-life demonstrators, defenders of traditional marriage and evangelicals who disagree with the administration’s foreign policy might find themselves under investigation as terrorists, members of an unusual left-right coalition said.

In a Washington press conference held by a group calling itself Patriots to Restore Checks and Balances, members of both liberal and conservative civil-liberties groups said they are asking Congress to spend time reviewing and debating the merits of the Patriot Act. The act, hastily passed in the wake of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, is due to expire soon. It is before the House for reauthorization.

The Patriot Act gave government agencies broad new powers to pursue suspected terrorists and terrorist organizations. Civil libertarians on both the left and the right ends of the political spectrum have criticized many of its provisions as too broad and dangerous to the very American freedoms the law’s supporters aim to defend.

The bipartisan Patriots to Restore Checks and Balances hopes to “fix the Patriot Act to enable the government to fight terror while preserving important checks and balances on law enforcement, thus limiting undue government intrusion into the private lives of average Americans.”

The coalition—which includes the American Civil Liberties Union and the American Conservative Union—listed concerns with a section of the law as one of several reasons why “conservatives should support a robust debate on the Patriot Act.”

That section defines terrorism as “any act that is dangerous to human life.”

Materials distributed by the group said Section 802 of the act regards an action that “involves a violation of any state or federal law, and appears to be intended to influence government policy or coerce a civilian population. This definition is far too broad and vague, and could easily sweep in pro-life demonstrators, among others.”

Other reasons the group listed for conservatives to oppose rushed re-authorization of the Patriot Act included:

Its alleged disregard of the Fourth Amendment’s protections against unreasonable search and seizure.

Section 213 of the act, which allows government to secretly search someone’s home or office, seize their possessions and not inform the person of the search for months.

Section 215, which allows the government to ask for secret court authorizations so officials can collect medical, financial, library and other personal records—whether or not the person searched is suspected of a crime or of being an agent of foreign power.

President Bush defended the Patriot Act during a July 20 speech in Baltimore.

“I want you to remember … the next time you hear someone make an unfair criticism of this important, good law,” President Bush said. “The Patriot Act hasn't diminished American liberties; it has helped to defend American liberties.

“Before the Patriot Act, it was easier to track the phone contacts of a drug dealer than the phone contacts of a terrorist. Before the Patriot Act, it was easier to get the credit-card receipts of a tax cheat than that of an al Qaeda bankroller. Before the Patriot Act, agents could use wiretaps to investigate a person committing mail fraud, but not specifically to investigate a foreign terrorist carrying deadly weapons. Before the Patriot Act, investigators could follow the calls of mobsters who switched cell phones, but not terrorists who switched cell phones. That didn't make any sense. The Patriot Act ended all these double standards.”

He ended his remarks by saying he expected Congress to renew the act “without weakening our ability to fight terror.”

Posted: 7/28/05

North Carolina nominees
excluded for ties with Alliance

By Tony Cartledge and Greg Warner

Associated Baptist Press

ASHEBORO, N.C. (ABP)—Nominees to leadership positions in the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina were rejected because they are members of churches affiliated with the Alliance of Baptists.

Using such “unpublished criteria” to exclude people from leadership is unfair, Jerry Harris, a member of the convention’s Executive Committee, said in a written statement read to the Executive Committee July 12. The committee on nominations rejected two nominees from his church, Greenwood Forest Baptist in Cary, Harris said.

Harris said he believes the committee acted unfairly in adopting requirements for nominees that were not known to the agency and institutional executives when they formulated their list of preferred nominations to board positions.

David Horton, conservative president of the convention, said he “totally” supports the committee on nominations’ work.

“Their only criteria,” Horton said, “was a listing of churches affiliated with the Alliance of Baptists.” The Alliance’s “very pro-homosexual stance” was seen “as being not in line with North Carolina Baptist churches,” he said.

The Alliance of Baptists was founded in 1987 as the first national organization started in response to conservative-led changes in the Southern Baptist Convention. The group was first called the Southern Baptist Alliance but changed its name in 1992.

The Alliance’s website lists 121 affiliated Baptist churches in 25 states. North Carolina, with 21, has the largest number. Seventeen of those listed have ties to the Baptist convention.

The Alliance website also includes a statement affirming same-sex marriage that was adopted during the organization’s annual meeting in 2004, as well as the report of a task force on human sexuality that was commissioned and received “with gratitude,” though not officially adopted, in 1995. That report supports full acceptance of gays, lesbians, bisexual and transgendered persons.

Horton cited resolutions approved at past state convention meetings stating that homosexuality is not an acceptable lifestyle. The committee “felt they had to make some kind of decision,” Horton said.

Alliance Executive Director Stan Hastey said the convention’s decision “doesn’t come as a great surprise,” adding, “I find it sad that this single criterion is identified as the end-all and be-all issue of our time.”

A convention or other Baptist body rightly can determine criteria for membership, he said. “Wisely, churches have exercised that right rarely,” he said, since the “right of association” is often in conflict with local-church autonomy.

The committee’s rejection of nominees in North Carolina “is guilt by association on two levels,” Hastey said, since it assumes that the nominees are in agreement with their churches’ affiliation with the Alliance and that the churches are in agreement with the Alliance’s position on homosexuality.

“We don’t have anything approaching unanimity ourselves on this issue,” he said of Alliance members.

Hastey acknowledged openness to gay Christians has become a distinctive of the Alliance. “That is not something we are likely to take back or deny,” he said. “I’m not trying to sidestep or downplay that aspect of who we are.” But the Alliance has never been on a “crusade” to push acceptance of homosexuality, he added.

“We would not impose (that view) or create pressure on churches to do anything other than figure out what they should do with this issue,” he said. The Alliance’s position statement “invites our churches to engage in a civil and Christian process to evaluate their stance and make their own decisions” about homosexuality, he said.

Several North Carolina Baptist institutions were affected by this year’s rejection of nominees to their boards, including the convention’s newspaper, the Biblical Recorder.

Traditionally, entity presidents are invited to prepare a list of twice as many candidates as needed, prioritized to meet the organization’s most pressing needs in terms of the prospective board members’ expertise, geographic location, gender, occupation or membership in a large or small church.

Convention bylaws call for the committee on nominations to recognize each entity’s need for persons with certain abilities and to work in consultation with the presidents to choose the best candidates.

This year, several college and institutional presidents were notified that one or more of their recommendations had been ruled unacceptable.

The heads of those entities issued a joint statement requesting the committee on nominations to reconsider, since the criterion excluding Alliance-related nominees was not made public.

The committee rejected the request.

John Butler, president of the convention’s board of directors, told the Executive Committee that, even though some high-priority nominees were rejected, all of the institutions and agencies—with the exception of the Biblical Recorder—did get a full slate of nominees who had been on their larger list.

The committee rejected six of the eight persons recommended by the Recorder for four open positions, adding two persons who had been recommended by other people. But none of the persons passed over for the Biblical Recorder board attends a church affiliated with the Alliance.

The Executive Committee was told the rejected nominees were not asked about their personal views on homosexuality or the Alliance.

An Executive Committee member asked whether the Alliance criterion would lead to other exclusions, such as membership in a church that supports the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship. George Bullard, associate executive director, said the committee on nominations made it clear that its policy was for the current year only. It is “not a convention policy, nor does it encumber next year’s nominations,” he said.

Horton suggested the convention may need to clarify the selection criteria used by the committee on nominations.

“Some may not agree with their decisions, but we are in a time … when the issue of homosexuality is a hot-button,” he said. “I think it is a defining issue for denominations, churches and individuals as to where they stand on that issue.”

Tony Cartledge is editor of the Biblical Recorder.

Posted: 7/28/05

Evangelical activist named head
of global religious freedom panel

By Robert Marus

ABP Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON (ABP)—A federal panel that monitors global conditions for religious freedom has elected an evangelical Christian activist as its chairman.

Michael Cromartie will serve a one-year term as chair of the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom. Cromartie, who was appointed to the bipartisan panel by President Bush, is vice president of the Washington-based Ethics and Public Policy Center, where he heads programs on religion and media and evangelicals in civic life.

Cromartie, a graduate of Covenant College and American University, has spoken and written frequently for Christian and secular news outlets—including Christianity Today, National Public Radio and the Washington Times. He also serves as an adjunct professor at Reformed Theological Seminary.

The commissioners elect a new chair annually, and follow a tradition of alternating between Democratic and Republican appointees. Cromartie replaces human-rights attorney Preeta Bansal, who was an appointee of former Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.).

The commission also re-elected Felice Gaer and Nina Shea to serve as vice chairpersons. Gaer, an appointee of House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), is director of the Jacob Blaustein Institute for the Advancement of Human Rights of the American Jewish

Committee. Shea, an appointee of House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) is director of the Center for Religious Freedom at Freedom House, an international human-rights group.

The commission, established as a result of the 1998 International Religious Freedom Act, is charged with auditing the status of religious freedom around the world and making recommendations to U.S. policy-makers when it finds violations.