Posted: 12/21/06

Baylor’s oldest new graduate
receives long-awaited degree

By Cynthia Jackson

Baylor University

SHREVEPORT, La.—The list of graduates at Baylor University’s December commencement included M.L. “Hub” Northen, who enrolled at the school 81 years earlier and left Baylor in 1929 one credit short of a degree.

Northen, who is 100 years old, was unable to attend the ceremony due to health concerns. But Terry Maness, dean of Baylor’s Hankamer School of Business, told the assembly Northen is the oldest person ever to obtain a degree from Baylor.

Northen arrived at Baylor University in 1925 with $100 his parents had managed to save. He paid his tuition by cleaning Brooks Hall for 25 cents per hour. And for an extra 35 cents a day, he lit a fire at 3:30 a.m., so students could take their morning baths.

When the Great Depression hit in 1929, Northen quit school to begin fulltime work to help support his family financially. At the time, he lacked only one class credit to earn his degree.

Through the years, Northen organized Baylor alumni and supported the university’s sports recruiting efforts, but he never claimed to be a Baylor graduate.

But in 2004, when he and his wife, Annie Lee, moved to a care facility, his family discovered something while sorting through the Northens’ household items to prepare their house for sale.

“It was the biggest shock to all of us to find in a bunch of rolled-up documents a 1929 diploma of graduation for Marvin Lafayette Northen,” said grandson Gary Northen Jr.

He asked his grandfather about the diploma and learned it had been mailed by mistake.

“He then told me that he was one class short of the graduation requirements—a single chemistry class,” he said. “Although apparently an error on the part of the records department, since he did not attend graduation at the end of the quarter, the diploma was mailed to him at his home in Holland, Texas.”

His grandfather explained when he received it, he didn’t have enough money for postage to send it back to the university.

The grandson made some inquiries at Baylor, and that resulted in his grandfather being awarded a bachelor of business administration degree during Sunday morning services at Trinity Heights Baptist Church in Shreveport, La., Dec. 3.

The ceremony was a surprise to his grandfather and to the rest of the Northen family.

“I understand … that you have held on to a signed diploma proclaiming your degree from Baylor University,” David Pennington, interim chair and professor of chemistry, wrote in a letter to Northen. “But because of your honesty, you never claimed to have earned that degree because you lacked a single chemistry course, Chemistry 101.

“Therefore, it is my genuine pleasure to inform you that because of your honesty and 81 years of experience in the interim, you are hereby granted credit for Chemistry 101, fulfilling the last of your formal degree requirements for that BBA degree and legitimizing your status as a genuine graduate of Baylor University.”

Many letters poured in from old friends, Baylor supporters, Baylor officials and Baylor athletic coaches past and present, including legendary football coach Grant Teaff.

“There are supporters, and then there are people like Hub Northen,” Teaff wrote. “The kind of person who thinks every recruiting class is the best one ever recruited, and that every team, even if they stumble a little along the way, is the best team Baylor ever had.”

Baptist Standard Editor Emeritus Toby Druin also sent a letter of congratulations.

“Every conversation we have had has given me a deeper appreciation for the university and for your love of the school and the days you spent there and the esteem you have for it today,” Druin wrote. “I am sure that no one bleeds more green and gold than M.L. Northen.”

Baylor President Emeritus Hebert H. Reynolds wrote to Northen: “You are undoubtedly the most senior person to ever receive a Baylor degree after having diligently pursued this goal for the past 80 years! You have been one of Baylor’s finest stalwarts since the day you stepped on the campus in the 1920s, and all of us who have known you through the years have the utmost respect for you as a person, as well as a son of Baylor who has never wavered in your love and support of your beloved alma mater.”

News of religion, faith, missions, Bible study and Christian ministry among Texas Baptist churches, in the BGCT, the Southern Baptist Convention ( SBC ) and around the world.

Posted: 12/21/06

BGCT African-American
ministries director named

By Barbara Bedrick

Texas Baptist Communications

DALLAS—Charles Singleton, pastor of First Missionary Baptist Church in Fort Worth, is leaving the church he founded 22 years ago to become director of African-American ministries for the Baptist General Convention of Texas.

“The African-American congregations of the BGCT are growing and are committed to reaching all the people they can for Christ and discipling them in his call and way,” said Charles Wade, BGCT executive director. “I am excited and proud that Rev. Charlie Singleton has agreed to answer God’s call and our invitation to serve in this strategic role.  He will be a great leader among us.”

Singleton becomes the third BGCT African-American ministries director in more than two decades. He assumes his new post Jan. 1.

Ron Gunter, BGCT associate executive director and chief operating officer, praised Singleton’s ministerial experience.

“Rev. Charlie Singleton is a wonderful leader who will give the BGCT great direction for the future in the area of our African American Ministries,” Gunter said. “He is a well known and respected leader that will take our ministries to a new height. We are blessed to have him on our staff.”

Singleton served on the BGCT Executive Board from 2002 to 2006, the BGCT mission funding committee since 2001 and as a BGCT field representative in Tarrant County for African-American ministries since 1998.

Singleton is president of the Tarrant Baptist Association Pastor’s Conference, and he has held numerous other offices with that organization, including moderator in 2004.

“I see this as an opportunity to connect more African-American congregations with the convention,” Singleton said. In his new role, he hopes to bring a “spirit of collaboration, not only with the African American Fellowship but with other affinity groups”

During Singleton’s tenure at First Missionary Baptist, the congregation started the Southeast Hispanic Baptist Church to minister to the Hispanic population in the area and fostered an extensive youth outreach ministry. Thirty-three new members have joined the congregation this year. The church grew from 70 to nearly 300 members under his tenure.

Singleton believes the congregation and the city will consider his legacy as “having a pastor’s heart for the church and the community.”

The Fort Worth pastor also founded Miller Avenue Christian Academy, an academic and spiritual ministry to children two years old through second grade. His congregation collaborated with Fort Worth school district to develop tutoring and other after school outreach programs.

Singleton also served in various community roles including tenure on the Fort Worth City Planning Commission and Allied Communities of Tarrant County.

Singleton has participated in mission trips to Brazil, Nigeria, West Africa, Spain, England, India and South Africa.

Singleton’s ministry experience dates back to 1975 when he was ordained as a pastor at St. Paul Baptist Church, Calif. He served as associate pastor there two years. Singleton was pastor of Antioch Baptist Church of Fort Worth from 1981 to 1984. He was a founding member of the African American Fellowship.

Singleton is a graduate of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth.

News of religion, faith, missions, Bible study and Christian ministry among Texas Baptist churches, in the BGCT, the Southern Baptist Convention ( SBC ) and around the world.

Posted: 12/20/06

Chrismukkah? Hybrid holiday shows
tension in religiously blended families

By Hannah Elliott

Associated Baptist Press

DALLAS (ABP)—There’s a new winter holiday on the rise, and it could be the perfect opportunity to enjoy Fa-La-La-La Latkes, Blitzen’s Blintzes, and Christmas trees filled with “menorahments.”

It’s not Christmas. And it’s not Hanukkah. It’s both. And the humor and religious syncretism behind the hybrid holiday “Chrismukkah” cut to the heart of modern-day tensions in American society.

According to the United Jewish Communities’ National Jewish Population Survey, roughly 31 percent of married Jews in the United States have non-Jewish spouses. For Jews who married after 1995, the intermarriage rate is nearly 50 percent.

Chrismukkah was invented for Jewish-Christian families who decide to celebrate both holidays. The term had its first wide pop-culture appearance in 2003, thanks to a mixed-faith family featured on the now-canceled Fox television show The O.C.

But several new books are taking the holiday at least semi-seriously, reflecting the increasing number of American families that blend Christianity and Judaism.

Chrismukkah: The Official Guide to the World’s Most Beloved Holiday by Gersh Kuntzman, and Chrismukkah: Everything You Need to Know to Celebrate the Hybrid Holiday by Ron Gompertz, both extol the virtues of the Dec. 15-25 celebration. Judaikitsch: Tchotchkes, Schmattes & Nosherei by Jennifer Traig and Victoria Traig also highlights the new holiday alternative.

Gompertz, a Jew who moved from New York to Bozeman, Mont., founded the website www.chrismukkah.com. He is married to the daughter of a pastor in the United Church of Christ, and the couple has decided to raise their daughter in the Jewish faith.

Gompertz’s family chooses to celebrate Hanukkah. But in addition to lighting the menorah and frying latkes—that’s a traditional Hanukkah potato pancake—they add a Christmas tree.

“Frankly, it’s fun to challenge the status quo and question tradition,” he said. “Chrismukkah has gotten people talking, allowing expression of diverse opinion, and it’s helped bring Jewish intermarriage issues to mainstream cultural awareness.”

While he sits on the board of directors for Bozeman’s synagogue and calls himself “a proud Jew,” Gompertz recognizes compromise as a key part of fostering a good marriage with his wife, Michelle. It’s one of the reasons they launched the website as a project to express their views as a “real interfaith family.”

“While we are typical in the sense that … we never had a political or theological agenda, we certainly don’t believe we represent the beliefs of all interfaith couples,” he wrote on his website. “That said, it has been a nice surprise to find how many others share our beliefs and values. We’ve found that by celebrating both December holidays … we manage to keep peace and harmony within our family.”

Chrismukkah fans say the event celebrates both Christian and Jewish beliefs, even if it is a bit tongue-in-cheek. It’s a state of mind for the season—a “multicultural mish-mash of the cherished holiday rituals we grew up with,” Gompertz wrote. And that’s one of the reasons the website is popular, he said.

But the reason Gompertz likes his new holiday is exactly why Chrismukkah critics dislike it.

In 2004, the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights and the New York Board of Rabbis issued a joint statement disparaging the holiday for misrepresenting the spiritual aspects of Christmas and Hanukkah.

“Chrismukkah is a multicultural mess that glosses over the historical significance of both Hanukkah and Christmas,” said William Donohue, the Catholic League’s president.

“In this vein, we would agree with the recent statement on mixed marriages prepared by the U.S. Catholic-Jewish Consultation Committee. It branded attempts to raise a child simultaneously as both Jewish and Catholic a ‘violation of the integrity of both religious traditions, at best, and, at worst, syncretism.’ From a Catholic perspective, anything which contributes to this phenomenon should be resisted, and that would include Chrismukkah.”

The term has also been used disparagingly in recent years by some as a way to describe the commercialization of Hanukkah and the dominance of commercialized Christmas in American culture.

Rabbi Jeremy Schneider of Temple Shalom in Dallas said Hanukkah is ultimately about maintaining a Jewish belief system in the face of a larger majority belief system surrounding the Jewish community. To create a “hybrid” holiday, he said, insults both Christianity and Judaism.

“Even if the majority of Christians do not take their religious symbols seriously, that does not give Jews license to adopt them and proclaim them secular or American symbols,” he said in an e-mail interview. “I urge my congregants to (imagine) how we would feel if Christians started wearing a tallit, a Jewish prayer shawl, or a yarmulke, a Jewish head covering, and ‘de-Judaized’ them for their own purposes.”

In an essay called “Confronting the December Dilemmas,” Ron Wolfson said that by adopting Christmas and its customs, Jews introduce symbols and traditions into their families that are foreign to Judaism. Wolfson is a Jewish educator and president of Synagogue 3000, a Jewish networking and resource center with offices in New York City and Los Angeles.

Christmas celebrates the birth of a Messiah whom Jews do not recognize, and Hanukkah celebrates the right not to assimilate into the dominant non-Jewish culture—the very thing that Jews who celebrate Christmas are doing, he said.

“Many Jewish educators will advise parents to give children who want to celebrate Christmas a very important message: Christmas is someone else’s party, not ours,” Wolfson wrote. “Just as we can appreciate someone else’s birthday celebration and be happy for them, we can wonder at how beautiful Christmas is, but it is not our party.”

Jewish people have many more holidays than just Hanukkah to celebrate, Wolfson continued. It may be difficult to convince Jewish children that they don’t need to trim a Christmas tree or wait for Santa, but once they have experienced the meaning and beauty of their own Jewish traditions, he said, children “will understand that to be Jewish is to be enriched by a calendar brimming with joyous celebration.”

Who knows? The kids might not even miss that kosher fruitcake.

News of religion, faith, missions, Bible study and Christian ministry among Texas Baptist churches, in the BGCT, the Southern Baptist Convention ( SBC ) and around the world.

Updated: 12/15/06

Warren confesses he was
‘blind' to AIDS epidemic

By Hannah Elliott

Associated Baptist Press

LAKE FOREST, Calif. (ABP)—For 20 years, Rick Warren was wrong about AIDS, he told listeners at the 2006 Global Summit on AIDS and the Church.

The megachurch pastor and best-selling author said he initially wasn’t afraid of AIDS, nor did he judge those who had it.

“It’s not a sin to be sick,” he said. But he just didn’t care about it.

Fortunately for him, he said, his wife did care. Four years ago, Kay Warren’s compassion led the couple to travel to several countries in Africa to learn about the disease.

Since then, the Warrens, who founded Saddleback Church in Southern California, have worked to raise awareness in their church and among Christians worldwide with the ambitious goal of eradicating the contractible immune deficiency.

Warren told conference listeners he can’t believe he was “so blind to something this big,” adding that it makes the bubonic plague look “like a picnic.”

Indeed, the statistics about people with HIV/AIDS are astounding. In the United States, more than 1 million live with the HIV virus that causes AIDS. Worldwide, more than 40 million people have it, and experts project that by 2010 a total of 100 million people will have carried HIV.

To get Christians involved, the Warrens invited AIDS experts, policymakers, religious leaders, medical researchers and ambassadors to their Lake Forest, Calif., church for a two-day summit headlined by Sens. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) and Sam Brownback (R-Kan.) with video presentations from Bono of the rock group U-2 and Bill and Melinda Gates.

The event, attended by more than 2,000 people—many of them AIDS-fighters themselves—featured training sessions and seminars, plus free AIDS testing for anyone who came.

As an example to other Christian leaders, Warren was tested for HIV a year ago, along with 60 of his staff members. Obama and Brownback also agreed to undergo a public AIDS test.

And despite some criticism from the evangelical community that Warren should not work with Obama because of the senator’s pro-choice stance on abortion, the pastor said he will cooperate with anyone who wants to work against AIDS, no matter what motivations he or she may have.

“I think the Jesus way of change is always to show love, even to your critics,” he said. “We will work with whoever wants to work to save lives and let the chips fall as they may. … I don’t care what motivation you have. Let’s just get it done.”

Kay Warren had that same feeling of urgency when she first learned about the 12 million African children orphaned by AIDS.

Until then, she told the crowd, she thought AIDS was “a gay disease, as though that meant it was something I didn’t have to care about.” But then, in 2002, she picked up a news magazine “and suddenly caught a glimpse of a new reality. It rocked my world.”

At that moment, “it was as if my senses had been awakened and that was all I could see,” she said. If Christians do not become “seriously disturbed” by the millions of people who die every year from AIDS, she continued, they will have lived lives using the wrong measure of success.

Of course, when Warren first realized her obligation to help AIDS victims, she said, she faced several obstacles–barriers that also stop churches from taking action– ignorance about the disease; irrational fear about contracting it; worry about what others will think; and paralysis because of the sheer size of the problem.

All of her fears were unfounded, she said. Humanly speaking, it is impossible to end HIV, she said, “but with God, it is possible. With his church, when you and I show up, I do believe there is hope.”

“Jesus was not worried about his reputation. Ever. Ever!” she said. “Jesus Christ lived boldly. He talked to those he was going to talk to. He talked frankly. He talked straight. Jesus hung out with everybody and anybody — prostitutes, tax collectors. And Jesus didn’t give it a thought. And if Jesus didn’t put any barriers around the people he would hang out with, who was I” to do so?

The Warrens’ conference is the first to promote a solely church-based strategy to mobilize millions of Christians to work toward the prevention and treatment of HIV/AIDS. They said they hope pastors who have used Rick Warren's best-selling Purpose Driven books—which have spawned a small publishing industry and a burgeoning worldwide network of churches— will use strategies and resources from the conference to develop AIDS-fighting plans within their congregations.

Those local churches, Warren said, are the only force that can eradicate the disease. In many parts of the world, he said, the Christian church is the only civil-social structure. And the church is the “only truly global organization, existing in every country and in thousands of indigenous people groups that are not represented by the United Nations or any multi-national corporation.”

With such a historic, widespread, efficient base, not to mention a divine mandate to help the orphan and widow, Warren said, the church must help.

“The purpose of influence is to speak up for those who have no influence,” he said. “We are blessed to be a blessing. God does not bless you just so you can feel good. He blesses you to be a blessing to others.”

He pointed out that Americans, if they have any food in their refrigerators, clothes on their backs, and roofs over their heads, are richer than 75 percent of the world. Most Americans have access to good health care, and “most people of the world would love to have your problems,” he added.

God commands the fortunate to help those in need, Warren said. Quite simply, God didn’t cause AIDS to happen, but he allowed it, according to Warren, and God’s plan for AIDS is that Christians help those affected by it.

“We have to care because Jesus modeled it,” he said. “Jesus is the most compassionate person who ever lived. If you want to be like him … then you have to care about people who are sick. AIDS is a terrible scourge, a terrible pandemic. It is also the greatest opportunity to show love to the world.”

“The world has been living with AIDS for 25 years, and rather than it getting better, it has gotten worse,” Warren said. “It will never be solved by government alone…it will never be solved by churches alone. … It will never be solved by (non-governmental organizations) alone. We have to work together.”

News of religion, faith, missions, Bible study and Christian ministry among Texas Baptist churches, in the BGCT, the Southern Baptist Convention ( SBC ) and around the world.

Updated: 12/15/06

Morality alone cannot stop AIDS

By Hannah Elliott

Associated Baptist Press

LAKE FOREST, Calif. (ABP)—The choice between preventing AIDS by teaching abstinence or by distributing condoms is a false choice, Sen. Barack Obama told a mostly evangelical audience on World AIDS Day.

Instead, both methods for dealing with HIV/AIDS should be used to their fullest extent, Obama (D-Ill.) told listeners at the Global Summit on AIDS and the Church at Saddleback Church in Southern California.

There is a spiritual and moral dimension to fighting AIDS, he continued, and churches can fill that need.

“Let me say this: I don’t think we can deny that there is a moral and spiritual component to prevention, that in too many places all over the world where AIDS is prevalent— including our own country, by the way—the relationship between men and women, between sexuality and spirituality, has broken down and needs to be repaired,” he said.

When a husband hides infidelity from his wife, Obama said, it’s not only a sin; it’s a potential death sentence. That is a problem in many African countries where AIDS has spread unchecked, he noted.

When trying to change attitudes about a man’s prerogative for promiscuity and rape, Obama said, local churches like Saddleback provide a moral basis for better choices.

But faith-based morality alone won’t stop AIDS, he warned.

“I also believe that we cannot ignore that abstinence and fidelity may too often be the ideal and not the reality—that we are dealing with flesh-and-blood men and women and not abstractions—and that if condoms and potentially microbicides can prevent millions of deaths, they should be made more widely available,” he added.

Obama, a special guest of Saddleback Church pastor and author Rick Warren, appeared at the summit despite calls from pro-life activists and Religious Right hardliners for Warren to rescind the invitation because of the senator’s pro-choice stance on abortion.

Protestors, led by Phyllis Schlafly of the Eagle Forum, circulated a letter condemning the senator and asking Warren how he can hope “to fight one evil while justifying another.” Based in Alton, Ill., the Eagle Forum has championed the pro-life cause since 1972.

“If Senator Obama cannot defend the most helpless citizens in our country, he has nothing to say to the AIDS crisis. … We will never work with those can support the murder of babies in the womb,” the letter said.

Warren, for his part, was nonplused by the criticism. He told reporters he would work with anyone committed to ending AIDS, no matter what their motivation or peripheral beliefs. Obama shared the Saddleback pulpit with Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.) a pro-choice conservative Christian.

“Kay and I have built our entire ministry on being unifiers, not dividers,” Warren said. “There will always be people who criticize us. If you can only work with people you agree with on everything, you’ve ruled out the world, because nobody agrees with you on everything.”

Obama took the same stance. While acknowledging disagreements about the best way to slow the spread of HIV/AIDS, he said the tendency to frame the issue in either/or terms is wrong.

Some people say the only way to prevent the disease is for men and women to change their sexual behavior, but for others such a prescription is unrealistic, Obama said.

He also said he “respectfully but unequivocally” disagrees with those who, out of sincere religious convictions, oppose condom distribution, microbicides and programs promoting delayed sexual activity. He said he does not accept the notion that “those who make mistakes in their lives should be given an effective death sentence.” He insisted he is unwilling to allow innocent people—wives with unfaithful husbands or children who contract the virus through birth—to “suffer, when condoms or other measures would have kept them from harm.”

Obama, a member of a United Church of Christ congregation, told the group his faith reminds him that all people are sinners. Living according to the example set by Jesus is the most difficult kind of faith but the most rewarding as well, he said.

“My Bible tells me that when God sent his only son to earth, it was to heal the sick and comfort the weary; to feed the hungry and clothe the naked; to befriend the outcast and redeem those who strayed from righteousness,” he said. “It is a way of life that can not only light our way as people of faith, but guide us to a new and better politics as Americans.”

News of religion, faith, missions, Bible study and Christian ministry among Texas Baptist churches, in the BGCT, the Southern Baptist Convention ( SBC ) and around the world.

Posted: 12/15/06

AIDS workers debate what lessons Uganda teaches

By Jason Kane

Religion News Service

WASHINGTON (RNS)—Stalled in the gridlocked streets of Johannesburg on her way to an AIDS event, Rukia Cornelius fumed about the tendency of Americans to mix their religious and political beliefs. South Africans have suffered as a result, she said.

“I’m a little bit tired, but I’m also angry, because we need the money, but treatment can’t be done with such a provision on abstinence,” said Cornelius, national campaign manager of the South African AIDS lobby group Treatment Action Campaign.

Her frustration with President Bush’s AIDS initiative has increased as a number of organizations formerly devoted to preventing HIV/AIDS have abandoned their efforts in favor of treating it. It’s a shift specifically designed to avoid restrictions attached to U.S. AIDS-prevention funding, Cornelius said.

Caroline Tumuhembise, 20, sits with other young sex workers who met to discuss ways to prevent HIV infection in Uganda. The Bush administration has embraced Uganda’s abstinence-first approach to fighting AIDS in Africa. (RNS photo courtesy of Ami Vitale/CARE)

“In a country like South Africa, the Bush administration’s abstinence-above-all-else approach is simply not working,” she said, pointing to religious, cultural and economic factors that have tangled such efforts.

Some workers, activists and scholars agree, saying the abstinence approach pushed into law by U.S. religious conservatives has translated poorly to Africa. The Christian doctrine of abstinence, they say, is a concept that doesn’t always resonate in traditional African cultures and is therefore stalling efforts to save lives.

But abstinence advocates point to Uganda as evidence their approach can work in an African context.

Embedded in the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, the provision dictates a third of the initiative’s prevention funding should go toward abstinence programming. This amounts to 7 percent of the overall $15 billion Bush has requested from Congress over five years.

Ironically, each side in the abstinence war of words is loudly demanding identical action—an evidence-based approach that “works for Africa.”

Most support the ABC philosophy successfully implemented in Uganda—Abstinence, Be faithful, and—if all else fails—use Condoms.

But there’s little consensus over the proper balance between the three, and some fear ABC emphasizes Western ideals at the expense of cultural norms in Africa, home to 12 of the initiative’s 14 “focus countries.”

Sibusiso Mas-ondo, professor of traditional African religion at the University of Cape Town in Rondebosch, South Africa, cited a number of factors that could undermine an abstinence strategy.

“Abstinence as defined by the Christian church was never a practice of traditional Africans,” Masondo said. “The only time when people abstained from sexual activity was during rituals and other major events in the life of the community.”

The rigid nature of the prevention funding restricts efforts to tailor programming to local conditions, said Jodi Jacobson, executive director at the Center for Health and Gender Equity, based in Takoma Park, Md. In the male-dominated societies of Africa, critical gender issues prevent women from controlling their sexual relationships, she said.

According to Jacobson, the highest HIV/AIDS infection rates for women in their 20s and 30s are among married women who contract the virus from their husbands.

“What the abstinence-until-marriage programs do is funnel extraordinarily large amounts of money to particular programming,” she said. “This is completely and wholly ideological and flies in the face of all evidence of what works.”

But ABC advocates point to Uganda where, beginning in the early 1990s, President Yoweri Museveni launched a society-wide offensive on the epidemic, which at that time infected 15 percent of adults. Ten years later and with ABC programming firmly entrenched, the infection rate dropped to 5 percent.

Ambassador Mark Dybul, the U.S. global AIDS coordinator charged with distributing the President’s Emergency Plan funds, said the Ugandan model represents undeniable success. He uses it to tell participants in the debate to start “listening to the Africans” and stop bickering among themselves.

“We’ve got a balanced ABC approach while most people have a C-only approach,” Dybul said, adding the United States still is the largest supplier of condoms worldwide.

Catholic Relief Services maintains the ABC strategy has worked remarkably well on the ground. Jed Hoffman, director for the organization’s AIDSRelief project, said despite the legislation’s religious roots, abstinence programming simply is one of the most effective methods available in preventing the spread of the epidemic.

“We’re a very pragmatic, evidence-based society, and we want to do what works. And evidence shows that promoting abstinence is one of the things that works,” he said.

News of religion, faith, missions, Bible study and Christian ministry among Texas Baptist churches, in the BGCT, the Southern Baptist Convention ( SBC ) and around the world.

Posted: 12/18/06

DBU students raise funds to help hungry

Dallas Baptist University students recently completed a Christmas food drive for Bro Bill’s Helping Hands Ministry in West Dallas, collecting more than 1,800 food items to benefit the West Dallas community ministry. 

The DBU Ministry Student Fellowship sponsored, organized and administered the food drive.

Brother Bill’s Helping Hands Ministry grew out of West Dallas Baptist Church, where Bill Harrod served as pastor. Harrod led the church—now named Iglesia Bautista Harrod Memorial—to minister to physical needs in the community beginning in the 1950s.

The ministry’s Christmas outreach to children is its best-known program in the area, but Helping Hands also provides services—including food—to families throughout the year.

Helping Hands Ministry—a nonprofit ministry with an approved client list of more than 600 families—also plans to open a wellness clinic in the near future.

Suzanne Griffin, director of Helping Hands Ministry, first became acquainted with the ministry as a child when she visited it with her mother in the 1950s.

She worked as a volunteer at the ministry for many years and was named full-time director two years ago.  DBU has provided volunteers for Helping Hands Ministry for many years, said Joe Mosley, director of ministry students.

News of religion, faith, missions, Bible study and Christian ministry among Texas Baptist churches, in the BGCT, the Southern Baptist Convention ( SBC ) and around the world.

Posted: 12/18/06

Ex-gay says: Treat homosexuality
as temptation, not orientation

By Hannah Elliott

Associated Baptist Press

LAKE FOREST, Calif. (ABP)—For Christians to love homosexuals like Jesus would, they should stop thinking of homosexuality as an orientation and start thinking of it as a temptation, says Tim Wilkins, himself “formerly gay.”

Wilkins, who founded a group that helps people who have “unwanted same-sex attractions,” offered his controversial view during a breakout session at Saddleback Church’s Global Summit on AIDS and the Church. The summit brought Christians and AIDS workers together to address prevention and treatment of the disease, which originally was associated with homosexuals.

“In practical terms … mankind is heterosexual—physiologically, anatomically and biologically,” Wilkins told his audience mostly of evangelicals. “The only part that is not heterosexual is the mind, and that is not a big deal because the Bible says we are transformed by the renewing of our mind.”

Wilkins knows what it’s like to be attracted to other men. For many of his developmental and early-adult years, he experienced and acted on those homosexual feelings.

But now, married for 13 years and with three daughters, Wilkins says he does not give in to the temptation to indulge in homosexual conduct. And his work at Cross Ministries is devoted to preaching the same message.

Wilkins told conference participants they must love people not only from their heart and gut but also from their head.

“We actually choose to love people. And you have not loved anybody unless you choose to love somebody that is completely different from you,” he said. “Sometimes, if not most of the time, our expressions of love … are counterintuitive and counterproductive. No one has ever been argued out of homosexuality.”

For Christians to love homosexuals as Jesus would, one of the first steps is to stop thinking of homosexuality as an orientation and think of it as a temptation, Wilkins said.

His own experience with same-sex attraction, Wilkins said, was “not predominantly (about) homosexuality;” it was an issue with his own sin nature—something inside every human being. Everyone faces temptation, Wilkins said, and people are simply tempted by different things.

After they recognize the origin of the attraction, Christians can love homosexuals by showing them that homosexuality is not the opposite of heterosexuality, but it’s a “counterfeit” sexuality, he said.

With such a controversial message about homosexuality, Wilkins has plenty of critics. Mike Airhart, who contributes to the website www.exgaywatch.com, wrote that Wilkins offers no solid advice for gay people, choosing instead to speak against them.

“Wilkins dismisses the ‘counterfeit love found in homosexuality,’ offers no constructive reflections about gay people, and provides no trace of opposition to antigay discrimination,” Airhart wrote.

Wilkins has also come under fire from some religious groups who are uncomfortable with his admissions that he may still struggle with “temptations” for same-sex attraction.

Last September, Wilkins told a North Carolina church group “he was not cured, but merely suppressing his sexuality,” according to political activist Wayne Besen. Besen wrote Anything But Straight: Unmasking the Scandals and Lies Behind the Ex-Gay Myth.

Besen disagreed with Wilkins’ alleged belief “that those who don’t become straight or successfully celibate fail because they are not sufficiently obedient to God.”

“From my experience this message is particularly dangerous,” Besen wrote, adding that people who don’t change after extraordinary effort often despair, falling into depression, low self-esteem or suicide.

Despite his detractors, Wilkins soldiers on with his message that turning from homosexuality comes from a relationship with God, which brings freedom. During the AIDS summit at Saddleback, none of his listeners spoke up to object to his ideas, even during the question-and-answer session.

Christians focus too much on talking about change for homosexuals instead of talking about the freedom that comes from knowing God, Wilkins said. The idea that Christians should try to “convert” homosexuals to heterosexuality “does not place the appropriate emphasis on Jesus Christ, the author and perfecter of our faith.”

What’s more, to peddle heterosexuality to people attracted to those of the same sex just doesn’t make sense, Wilkins said. “If beautiful women were the remedy for male homosexuality, there would be no gay men.”

Further, he added, it’s not a sin to be attracted to the same sex—the attraction itself is a moot point. Instead, when Christians lead people to a relationship with Jesus, those with same-sex attractions will get a savior who fulfills their needs for love, acceptance and affirmation.

After he became spiritually intimate with God, Wilkins said, his needs for intimacy with men diminished.

“What I needed was a savior,” he said. “I needed Jesus Christ. The relationship which precedes every relationship in the world is the one with our heavenly father.”

Saddleback’s two-day summit was intended to motivate and equip Christians and churches to address the needs of people worldwide living with HIV/AIDS. Seminars addressed a number of medical and spiritual topics, including how to set up an HIV/AIDS ministry in a local church.

Although AIDS worldwide is primarily spread through heterosexual sex, it was first recognized in the United States as a disease of homosexual men. Because of how it first emerged in the public psyche, many people still think of HIV/AIDS as a homosexual disease.

In the United States, 42 percent of men first obtain the human immunodeficiency virus through homosexual contact, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But a full 33 percent get it through heterosexual relationships. Many others (25 percent) get it through unsafe injection of drugs. Seventy-five percent of women in the United States obtain HIV through heterosexual contact, the center reports.

News of religion, faith, missions, Bible study and Christian ministry among Texas Baptist churches, in the BGCT, the Southern Baptist Convention ( SBC ) and around the world.

Posted: 12/18/06

Court to decide if taxpayers
can sue over faith-based plan

By Robert Marus

ABP Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON (ABP)—The Supreme Court will, for the first time, hear a case directly related to President Bush’s faith-based initiatives, his attempt to expand the government’s ability to fund social services through churches and other religious charities.

However, the case does not deal directly with whether the program violates the First Amendment’s ban on government establishment of religion, as some of its critics contend. Rather, the court will consider a narrower issue—whether a group of taxpayers has “standing,” or the right to sue, over the use of general executive-branch funds to promote the faith-based plan.

In an unusual move, the court agreed to hear Hein v. Freedom From Religion Foundation and expedite its normal schedule for each side in the case to file legal papers.

In the case, President Bush’s administration appealed a 2005 ruling from the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. That decision said that a group of taxpayers, represented by the Wisconsin-based Freedom From Religion Foundation, could challenge the White House’s practice of spending money on a series of conferences to promote the faith-based initiative.

The taxpayers said they had standing to challenge the practice because government money was being used to promote religion, even though Congress did not specifically appropriate the money for any religious groups.

Attorneys for the government responded that giving taxpayers the right to sue over the conferences would dramatically expand the rules for such lawsuits dealing with the First Amendment’s religion clauses.

The expedited briefing schedule calls for legal documents in the case to be filed by Feb. 16, about 78 days after the Dec. 1 ruling. The normal briefing schedule is for such documents to be on file by 115 days after the court agrees to hear the case.

Because of the expedited schedule, the justices could hear oral arguments in the case by the end of February—meaning they could hand down a decision in the case by the end of the court’s 2006-07 term in June.

News of religion, faith, missions, Bible study and Christian ministry among Texas Baptist churches, in the BGCT, the Southern Baptist Convention ( SBC ) and around the world.

Posted: 12/15/06

Book Reviews

The Christmas Angel by Katherine Duhon, (Vantage Press)

In this children’s book, Katherine Duhon relates the story of a typical brother and sister eagerly waiting for Santa. Except this year, Milly and Tommy must see the bearded gift-giver in person. They want Saint Nick to bring back their momma’s smile after their daddy’s death.

When the jolly fellow fails to appear, the young boy and girl don coats, caps, mittens and muffs, and slip out to search for Santa. The two lose their way as the snow slows their steps and the wind whistles through the trees. But God’s Christmas angel helps the children learn a lesson in patience and the healing of time.

What are you reading that other Texas Baptists would find helpful? Send suggestions and reviews to marvknox@baptiststandard.com.

Black-and-white pen-and-ink illustrations of the wide-eyed children add interest to The Christmas Angel, a story of love, hope and the magic of Christmas.

Once Upon a Christmas by Lauraine Snelling and Lenora Worth, (Steeple Hill)

The cover of Once Upon a Christmas suggests the perfect way to enjoy two romantic novellas—curled up in front of a twinkling tree sipping rich hot chocolate or spicy tea. In “The Most Wonderful Time of the Year,” Lauraine Snelling introduces single graphic artist Blythe Stensrude, who’s ready to remove the holidays from her calendar. Busy with burgeoning business, Blythe hasn’t the time even for de-signing her church’s Christmas program as promised. However, Harley, the only male in her life, has other ideas. The dog has his eye on Matty, and the two bassets manage to introduce their masters via tangled leashes. Just when the blossoming relationship be-tween Blythe and Thane Davidson seems destined for a merry Christmas, Thane becomes guardian of his 3-year-old niece. Readers agonize with Blythe as she struggles to overcome her fear of motherhood to grasp the love God sent.

Lenora Worth sets the shorter selection, “’T’was the Week before Christmas,” in the Louisiana bayous. Matriarch Betty Jean Melancon, a former state senator who raised five sons and has 14 grandsons, dotes on her only granddaughter. Elise Rachelle Melancon arrives early at the family estate to help her widowed grandmother prepare for the family gathering. But Mamere has a different project in mind—polishing a handsome local to win back his gone-off-to-LSU-and-gotten-too-good-for-him girlfriend. The 25-year-old oil executive grudgingly takes on the impossible task to surprising results, at least to everyone but Grandmother Melancon.

These Christian romances from award-winning authors offer a relaxing evening or two in the midst of the hectic holidays.

The Christmas Angel by Thomas Kinkade and Katherine Spencer, (Cape Light Novels)

Thomas Kinkade not only paints beautiful canvases; along with best-selling author Katherine Spencer, he draws wonderful word pictures. In The Christmas Angel, Kinkade and Spencer spin a holiday story set in Cape Light as three plot lines meander through the pages. On her morning jog, Mayor Emily Warwick, who as a young girl gave up now-grown Sara for adoption, discovers a baby left in her church’s crèche. After becoming Jane’s foster parents, Emily and her husband, Dan, struggle with the real-life issues of jobs, age, adoption and changing relationships.

Meanwhile Sara, whose search for her birth mother led her to Emily, struggles with her future and whether it includes romance with the ready-to-be married Luke. And Pastor Ben struggles with discouragement and doubt as his congregation seems more concerned with the annual Christmas fair than offering help and hope to the poor of Wood’s Hollow, a short, winding road away.

With the plots sometimes converging and sometimes diverging, The Christmas Angel shows the honest ups and downs of Christian life and how God uses real people as his Christmas angels. This happy-ending story leaves the reader ready for the next Cape Light novel.

All reviews are written by Kathy Robinson Hillman, former president, Woman’s Missionary Union of Texas, Waco.

News of religion, faith, missions, Bible study and Christian ministry among Texas Baptist churches, in the BGCT, the Southern Baptist Convention ( SBC ) and around the world.

Posted: 12/15/06

Waco students light up lives, raise money

By George Henson

Staff Writer

WACO—Students at McLennan Community College are helping Waco-area residents hang Christmas lights this holiday season so that they can share the im-pact of Christ’s birth with other students next spring.

“There are a lot of people who can’t put up their own lights anymore, and their sons or daughters live too far away or don’t have time to put lights up for them. We get to help with that and raise money so that we can participate in Beach Reach,” Jacob Garcia ex-plained.

Garcia and his friends from the McLennan Community College Baptist Student Ministry are putting up lights for whatever donation people offer. Payment has ranged widely, but they see hanging the lights as a ministry in itself.

“The majority of folks we put up lights for are older people, and we feel good about getting to help them with this,” he said.

They also have met some very nice people, he added.

“Some people come out and watch us unless it’s cold, then they usually stay inside. But one lady brought us out some really good hot chocolate. That was our favorite house right there,” he joked.

Dennis Vergara, a native of Honduras, insisted his focus is on raising money to participate in Beach Reach, an outreach to college students on South Padre Island during spring break. The cost for the McClennan County students to make the trip is $350 per person.

While most students flee to the island for days of sun and drinking, Baptist Student Ministry students from across the state go to share the love of Christ.

“We’re going to go and give them rides so that they won’t have to drive drunk, but also to share the word of God as we go,” Vergara said. “It’s good to give back and help keep people safe. I had other choices of what I could do with my spring break, but that’s how I want to spend my time.”

Russell Etheredge plans to return after ministering on the beach last year.

“It was a blast; it was just so much fun,” he said. “Just getting to interact with people and being able to share my faith with them was great.

“And the funny thing is, I was a definite ‘no’ until about two days before spring break, and the Holy Spirit got to working.”

Fear prompted his reluctance, he acknowledged, but now he can’t wait to return to the beach.

“It’s an exhausting week. From 8 o’clock in the evening until 4 or 5 in the morning, we’re giving rides to people, and then we’re back up early that morning fixing breakfast for people. It’s exhausting, not just physically, but spiritually. It’s exciting, though, to meet other college students from all across the state that are just as excited about following Christ,” Etheredge said.

News of religion, faith, missions, Bible study and Christian ministry among Texas Baptist churches, in the BGCT, the Southern Baptist Convention ( SBC ) and around the world.

Posted: 12/15/06

News of religion, faith, missions, Bible study and Christian ministry among Texas Baptist churches, in the BGCT, the Southern Baptist Convention ( SBC ) and around the world.