Baptist Briefs

Posted: 5/26/06

Baptist Briefs

Calvinist and evangelist square off in 1st VP race. A neo-Calvinist apparently will face off with an evangelist for first vice president of the Southern Baptist Convention this summer. Mark Dever, pastor of Washington’s Capitol Hill Baptist Church and a popular leader among SBC Calvinists, acknowledged he would allow himself to be nominated for the post. Keith Fordham, an evangelist from Fayetteville, Ga., will be nominated for the slot by Bill Britt, president of the Conference of Southern Baptist Evangelists. Fordham is the immediate past president of the conference.

Louisiana pastor to be SBC 2nd VP nominee. Jay Adkins, pastor of First Baptist Church in Westwego, La., will be nominated for second vice president of the Southern Baptist Convention by Joed Rice, pastor of Central Baptist Church in Ashland, Ky. Adkins, 33, expects to graduate from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary with a master of divinity degree this month. Earlier, Kentucky pastor Bill Dodson announced he would nominate Wiley Drake, pastor of First Southern Baptist Church in Buena Park, Calif., and Daniel Akin, president of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, said he would nominate J.D. Greear, pastor of the Summit Church in Durham, N.C., for the second vice president’s post.

Southern Baptists make up with Mickey Mouse. In the latest—and perhaps final—symbolic act of reconciliation between the Southern Baptist Convention and the Walt Disney empire, First Baptist Church of Orlando leaders baptized more than 100 people May 21 in a Disney World lake. The baptisms followed lifting a boycott that started in the 1990s, when SBC leaders criticized Disney Chairman Michael Eisner for instituting gay-friendly products and company policies. SBC members also decried perceived sexual licentiousness in some Disney movies. Eisner has since left the company, and the SBC formally terminated the boycott in 2005, although small pockets of the anti-Disney sentiment remain.

Baylor offers family ministry workshops at CBF. Two concurrent workshops in Baylor Social Work’s Family Ministry Academy will be offered June 21 in conjunction with the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship General Assembly in Atlanta. The academy is sponsored by Baylor’s Center for Family and Community Ministries and offers three one-day workshops for congregational and lay leaders on how to strengthen and support family ministries. Family Ministry 101 is an introduction to the changing dynamics of family and how congregations can meet them at their various points of need. Family Ministry 201 will explore in the morning session the concept of missional family and how congregations can meet the needs of these families, as well as the importance of shared history. In the afternoon, FM 201 offers three concurrent sessions—“Loss throughout Life,” “For Better, for Worse: Ministry to Couples at Various Stages of Marriage” and “Being Intentionally Intergenerational.” A panel discussion will conclude the day. The workshops, both at the Omni Hotel at the CNN Center, will be from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Cost is $100 per workshop, with materials included. Lunch is not provided. For more information, call (254) 710-4417.

Kentucky board affirms gay student’s dismissal. Members of the Kentucky Baptist Convention Mission Board voted to affirm the University of the Cumberlands’ recent decision to dismiss an openly homosexual student for violating the school’s code of conduct. The board action did not address a pair of lawsuits related to an $11 million state budget allocation to the University of the Cumberlands to help establish a pharmacy school. Opponents say the state money is inappropriate because of the school’s policy against homosexuals and its religious nature.

Southern Baptist Koreans meet separately from SBC. The Council of Korean Southern Baptist Churches in America will meet June 19-22 on the Wheaton College campus—one week and 800 miles removed from the Southern Baptist Convention’s annual meeting in Greensboro, N.C. Council leaders decided last year to break with tradition and not meet in conjunction with the SBC annual meeting.