Posted: 4/13/06

Judas got a bum rap, scholars say

By Stacy Meichtry

Religion News Service

ROME (RNS)—Every great story deserves a great villain. For Christians who consider the Easter narrative the greatest ever told, no one in history quite matches the despicable deeds and evil nature of Judas Iscariot.

But questions of whether Judas deserves his foul reputation have become increasingly loud in recent years, with some calling for a historical makeover for the fallen disciple.

Not only has Judas become a character in Hollywood films sympathetically portraying him as a misunderstood revolutionary, he has benefited from a raft of scholarly research that aims to absolve him through close readings of the Gospel accounts and other early Christian texts.

Judas is even getting his own text. The National Geographic Society is unveiling a 4th century Gospel of Judas in a series airing on its National Geographic Channel. According to that gospel, Judas was fulfilling a divine plan by handing Christ over to his executioners.

As Christians observed Lent and prepared for Holy Week and Easter, Pope Benedict XVI seized upon a recent weekly audience to defend the traditional view of Judas, labeling him the “traitor apostle.”

But some scholars point to human nature’s tendency to demonize a foreign enemy, and they see Judas straddling the distinction between foreign and insider enmity.

“The major problem of the current time is how to deal with the other,” or the unfamiliar, said William Klassen, author of Judas: Betrayer or Friend of Jesus and a leading advocate for the rehabilitation of Judas. “Judas opens that up for us in a way that no other person in history does.”

Scholars like Klassen argue that Judas’ last name “Iscariot” indicates he was probably from the village of Kerioth in southern Judea, while the other apostles came from the northern region of Galilee.

Judas, therefore, was an outsider who found his way into Christ’s inner circle and who allegedly abused his position of privilege.

The unique bond between Christ and Judas is apparent in the earliest gospel accounts, including the Gospel of Mark, written around 70 A.D. In Mark, Judas identifies Christ to authorities with a kiss.

“He’s an intimate betrayer,” said Elaine Pagels, professor of early Christianity at Princeton University. “That’s what’s so troubling. Judas turned in his own teacher.”

Centuries after Christ’s death, however, historical accounts of Judas begin to deprive him of his insider status. Taking license with his first name, which literally means “Jew,” early Christian writers and medieval historians aimed to alienate Judas from the church’s founders by applying anti-Jewish stereotypes to him, some modern writers insist.

As centuries passed from the moment of Christ’s death, Judas began to acquire more pronounced Semitic features in Western art and literature. In the fourth-century writings of St. Augustine, early Christianity’s most influential theologian, Judas is presented as a distinctly Jewish foil to St. Peter, the founder of the church.

The more Christianity sought to distinguish itself from Judaism, in other words, the more Judas became distinctly Jewish, scholars like Klassen assert. The evil he represented, meanwhile, evolved from a question of personal sin to one of a foreign threat.

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: 4/13/06

Give it up for Lent:

By Hannah Elliott

Associated Baptist Press

DALLAS (ABP)—For Ray Vickrey and Mike Clingenpeel, Easter doesn’t mean much without about 40 days of reflection and repentance before it.

Though the two men serve as pastors of congregations in different states—Vickrey at Royal Lane Baptist Church in Dallas and Clingenpeel at River Road Church, Baptist in Richmond, Va.—they both have led their congregations in Lenten and holy week services this year.

Their decision to recognize Lent speaks to a larger Baptist community that, although not historically tied to the tradition, has taken to observing the holiday. And while it might be a confusing trend for some, for others, it’s more than just a fad.

Both Clingenpeel and Vickrey said that only through Lent can the full meaning of Easter emerge.

A growing number of Baptists find meaning in Lent

“In my opinion, the full impact of the Easter message takes affect only when you walk through the dark shadows of the cross,” Clingenpeel said. “It’s a penitent season, and the Lenten activities remind us that it’s a time for reflection and repentance.”

Royal Lane Baptist, which started celebrating Lent in the 1970s, scheduled Lenten services every week leading up to Easter, along with a Good Friday service focused on the sorrow and suffering of Christ.

“We dare not rush to Easter without pausing to look upon the suffering Savior,” Vickrey said.

Another Dallas congregation, Wilshire Baptist Church, celebrates Lent with a different emphasis in mind. Led by Pastor George Mason, people at Wilshire study the Lenten season as part of their adherence to the entire Christian calendar.

The 40-day period between Ash Wednesday and Easter, Lent comes from a Germanic root word meaning “spring.” The observance usually involves confession, fasting, prayer, meditation and giving.

Lent more commonly is celebrated in Catholic and other liturgical churches. Baptists, who trace their origins to protest movements that withdrew from the established Christian traditions, have looked upon such high-church vestiges with suspicion.

But in recent years, some Baptist congregations have turned to Lent and other liturgical traditions to recapture ancient Christian practices.

Andrew Daugherty, a Wilshire pastoral resident, said the church celebrates all holidays on the Christian calendar, including Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, Easter and Pentecost. It also follows a revised common lectionary—scheduled scriptural readings—during worship. This year, church members hung banners from the columns in the sanctuary to symbolize the “color and beauty of the church year.”

“This … uses the framework of the human life cycle to take on issues of the life cycle of faith,” Daugherty said. “Our goal is to use Lent as a time to do a refresher course on the basic teachings and practices of the Christian church across time. We will move through dedication and birth stories, confession and conversion, baptism, discipleship, death and resurrection.”

Terre Johnson, minister of music at Vestavia Hills Baptist Church in Birmingham, Ala., said his church has celebrated Lent almost 50 years to focus on meaningful days besides Christmas and Easter.

“The thinking of our church is that we observe most of the Christian calendar since we are part of a larger Christian body,” he said. “We focus our minds on that.”

Clingenpeel hopes for the same focus. While River Road has been “a Baptist church since its inception,” he wants his church to join the “larger liturgical tradition” as well.

“It allows us, in a mystical sense, to worship with believers around the world,” Clingenpeel said. “We want to be a part of the Christian community that celebrates that tradition.”

Church members at Royal Lane take that mentality a step further. They display identical crosses and flowers on their front lawns during Holy Week and share breakfast together as a congregation—all to foster the spirit of community, Vickrey said.

Maundy Thursday services play a large role for Baptist churches that observe Lent. Wilshire, for instance, plans to use the service as a means to emphasize grace.

“Maundy Thursday is the most meaningful for me, and I think others would say the same,” Clingenpeel said. “It is a service of light and shadows. We read accounts of the Last Supper and Crucifixion. It allows members to enter into introspection and … to focus on the weight of sin and the cross.”

Clingenpeel thinks the number of Baptist churches that celebrate Lent will continue to increase.

“Some … churches have avoided it because they don’t want to be linked with something resembling Catholicism, but that doesn’t necessarily concern us,” Clingenpeel said. “We really like being linked with a larger community.” 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: 4/13/06

Missouri Baptists link with WorldconneX

By David Williams

WorldconneX

ROACH, Mo.—The Baptist General Convention of Missouri has entered into a three-year partnership with WorldconneX, a missions network Texas Baptists launched in 2004.

The state convention’s executive board approved the partnership, designed to encourage and help Missouri Baptist churches and their members personally engage in missions. The board also approved a three-year partnership with the Baptist General Convention of Texas.

“This opens the door for us to provide the same opportunities to Missouri Baptists that we already provide to Texas Baptists,” said Bill Tinsley, World-conneX leader.

Opportunities include development of affinity groups through which churches and institutions work together as they focus on specific people groups, nations, regions or missions approaches. Some Missouri Baptists already are involved in the Guatemala team WorldconneX developed during the past two years.

Other international missions opportunities also will be available through the partnership, Tinsley added.

“We are developing diplomatic connections in hard-to-reach parts of the world, and Missouri Baptists will be welcome to join alongside Texas Baptists as we move into those areas,” he said.

Missouri Baptist churches also will be eligible to take advantage of the “front-line sending services” being developed by WorldconneX to help churches send their own missions personnel. Those services include cross-cultural training, strategy consultation and ways for churches to handle insurance, annuity and international money transfers for people they send overseas.

WorldconneX also will provide New Realities conferences for clusters of BCGM churches. The conferences center on what Tinsley calls the seven new realities that have changed the world and missions in the 21st century.

In addition to working with churches, WorldconneX will help individual church members with short-term and long-term missions connections to fulfill God’s vision for their lives, Tinsley said.

Gary Snowden, missions mobilization team leader for the Baptist General Convention of Missouri, said the convention already has begun to benefit from its relationship with WorldconneX.

“WorldconneX facilitated our involvement with the Guatemala affinity group and a face-to-face meeting with the different entities and the leadership of the Guatemala Baptist Convention in Guatemala City in January,” Snowden said. “That, in turn, has led to the establishment of a three-year partnership agreement between the (Missouri convention) and the Guatemala Baptist Convention.”

WorldconneX staffer Carol Childress participated in Missouri Baptists’ recent annual meeting, leading a Bible study in one of the general sessions and guided a breakout session on new realities in missions.

“We anticipate that the relationship with WorldconneX will enable the churches affiliated with the (Missouri convention) to strengthen their direct involvement in missions at many levels,” Snowden said.

The partnership with Missouri Baptists fits well with the overall strategy of WorldconneX, Tinsley said.

“While WorldconneX focuses on services to Texas Baptists, it was created to relate to evangelical missions entites and others outside Texas,” Tinsley said. “From the outset, WorldconneX has recognized that while our primary base is Texas Baptists, we are not limited to Texas and not limited to Baptists.”

The WorldconneX board largely is composed of Texas Baptists but includes members from Virginia, Indiana and Florida.

As part of the partnership, the Missouri Baptists committed 10 percent of the world missions portion of their budget to WorldconneX. The actual amount of that funding is difficult to forecast, said Executive Director Jim Hill, because each Baptist General Convention of Missouri church chooses how to divide its Cooperative Program giving. Churches determine whether their national/world portion goes to Missouri Baptist world missions or to the Southern Baptist Convention or Cooperative Baptist Fellowship.

“I would anticipate that our world missions initiatives will grow over the next few years,” Hill said.

The Missouri convention also will forward gifts from churches and individuals designated to WorldconneX, he added. 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: 4/13/06

On the Move

• Ed Adcock to First Church in Grand Prairie as minister of music from First Church in DeRitter, La.

• Charles Baker to Calvary Church in Abilene as music minister.

• Lashley Banks to Grayson Association as director of missions.

• Matthew Butter has resigned as pastor of Littleville Church in Hamilton.

• Elwin Collom to Hillcrest Church in Big Spring as pastor from First Church in Coahoma.

• Jason Crookham to Forestburg Church in Forestburg as youth minister.

• Gerald Dudley to Cowboy Heritage Church of Freestone County as pastor.

• Matthew Dunman to Coryell Community Church in Gatesville as youth minister.

• Colby Gardner to Leona Church in Leona as student minister.

• Nichole Hackney to Forestburg Church in Forestburg as children’s minister.

• Jim Heiligman to First Church in Moody as youth minister.

• Josh Holcombe to First Church in Three Rivers as minister of students.

• Matt Isabell to Calvary Church in Mexia as music minister, where he was interim.

• Tim Murkey to Oletha Church in Thornton as pastor.

• Eric Ream to First Church in Mexia as minister of youth/students.

• Jesus Reyes to Primera Iglesia in Rockdale as pastor, where he had been interim.

• Brian Roberson to Live Oak Church in Gatesville as minister of youth.

• Brian Robertson to First Church in Dawson as pastor.

• Richard Robinson to First Church in Kenedy as music minister, where he was interim.

• Dan Rogers to First Church in Purdon as pastor.

• Christine Roop to Shining Star Fellowship in Abilen as children’s minister.

• Charles Smith to First Church in Grand Prairie as minister of education, where he was minister of children.

• Johnathan Smith to Adamsville Church in Lampasas as youth minister.

• John Stewart to Henderson Street Church in Cleburne as worship leader/minister of education, where he was worship leader.

• Ben Tallcott to Central Church in Italy as minister of music.

• Dave Townes to Little Deer Creek in Chilton as pastor.

• Mark Wood to Field Street Church in Cleburne as minister of community missions/evangelism. 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: 4/13/06

PanFork Camp geared to grow

By George Henson

Staff Writer

WELLINGTON—PanFork Baptist Camp is working hard to prepare for growth in both the camp and the kingdom of God.

Recognizing that many people make eternal decisions during a week of camp, both prongs of their new approaches are aimed at making the camp more accessible to more people.

One facet of providing for more campers is construction of a worship center that will seat about 200 people.

“It gives our camp more versatility,” explained Richard Laverty, pastor of First Baptist Church in Perryton. He said the worship center makes the camp a fitting site for small conferences that might be swallowed up in the camp’s larger tabernacle. It also enables the encampment to hold simultaneous camps for two groups, such as Girls in Action and Royal Ambassadors.

The new chapel can trace its genesis to when Gem Baptist Church disbanded and gave the camp its building, said Jes Stafford, pastor of Eleventh Street Baptist Church in Shamrock.

Initially, encampment leaders considered moving the church building to the camp’s property, but that was not economically feasible.

“While we were looking at the possibilities, it did open our eyes to what we might be able to accomplish with a building like that to give us a second, smaller worship center,” Stafford said.

Everything possible was salvaged from the church and employed in building the chapel, including the steeple. In the church’s honor, the new building will be called Gem Chapel.

While the inspiration for the building was there, the money wasn’t, Camp Director Jay Hammond acknowledged.

“We built it because we felt like it was the Lord’s leading,” he said. “It’s really been built on faith. We didn’t have the money to finish it when we started it, but God has provided for us all along the way.”

When a local bank offered the camp a $50,000 line of credit for the project, Hammond said he was loathe to take it, but did as a safety net. So far, however, it hasn’t been needed.

“It’s something the Lord has done, and we give him all the glory for it,” Stafford said.

About $25,000 still is to be raised to finish paying for the building, but Hammond remains certain the funds will come in.

He is quick to add, however, that the only reason the amount outstanding is so small is due to the efforts of Texas Baptist Men construction groups. Construction teams spent eight weeks on the building, with some individuals spending even more time, effectively cutting the cost of the building almost in half, Hammond said.

Ken Shaffer, a member of Eleventh Street, was one of the leaders of the TBM construction crew. While he works on camps across the state, the 5,000-square-foot building at PanFork was special to him. “That’s where all three of my boys were saved,” he explained.

A dedication service will be May 5 in conjunction with the beginning of Adult Camp.

With more space, the camp also is starting a “Kids to Camp” scholarship program, Stafford said. “We’re just not sending enough lost kids to camp,” he noted. “Some churches are able to provide scholarships, but some of the smaller churches just can’t afford it. Maybe these scholarships will help to get to camp some of the kids we’ve been missing.”

Hammond echoed the need to get children to camp. “Recognizing the effectiveness of the camp experience, we want every lost kid possible at camp, and we’re trying every way possible to get them there.”

Donors to the scholarship fund can contact Hammond at (806) 447-2627.

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: 4/13/06

Persecution of Christians not limited to Afghanistan

By Hannah Elliott

Associated Baptist Press

DALLAS (ABP)—As Afghan Adbul Rahman finds safety in Italy after dodging a death sentence for converting from Islam to Christianity, other Christians worldwide continue to face extreme persecution from countrymen who oppose their beliefs.

While Rahman’s case gained national media attention, thousands of others facing similar plights go unnoticed, according to organizations like Voice of the Martyrs, a nondenominational agency devoted to helping persecuted Christians.

Todd Nettleton, director of news services for the Oklahoma-based group, said Rahman’s case gained an unusual amount of media attention partly because of how it emerged. In Rahman’s case, the presiding judge explained the situation on national TV in Afghanistan, which garnered media attention. International protests soon followed.

“From there, it just sort of exploded,” Nettleton said. “It just sort of stuck in everybody’s craw.”

Plus, Nettleton said, the already-tense situation in Afghanistan and presence of U.S. soldiers made Americans especially interested in the outcome of Rahman’s trial.

The new Afghan constitution, drafted since the American invasion in 2001, protects religious freedom. But another section establishes Islam as the supreme law of the land. That ambiguity, coupled with local Afghan leaders wielding additional authority, leaves Christian converts vulnerable.

At least two other Afghan Christian converts have been jailed in recent days, according to Compass Direct, another Christian group that monitors persecution. However, the agency declined to disclose details about the cases.

Although Rahman escaped execution, other Christian converts do not, said Carl Moeller, president of California-based Open Doors.

“In most places where Christians face persecution for their faith, it’s by mobs or their family,” Moeller said. “Honor killing … is a cultural phenomenon. We know of hundreds of Christians who die in this way every year.”

Some persecution goes unpunished—especially in Muslim areas like the Sudan and Saudi Arabia—because of the dishonor families face when a family member converts. To avoid that deep disgrace, non-Christian families or neighbors often take it upon themselves to kill the new Christian, said Moeller.

Although the gravity of Rahman’s ordeal sparked international interest, Afghanistan doesn’t top most organizations’ lists of countries most dangerous for Christians. That distinction goes to such hotspots as North Korea, Saudi Arabia and China, according to private and government organizations.

China, for example, has been designated by the U.S. secretary of state as a “country of particular concern.” In its 2003 annual report, the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom described the Chinese government as “a particularly severe violator of religious freedom. Persons continue to be confined, tortured, imprisoned and subject to other forms of ill treatment on account of their religion or belief.”

Because of famine in North Korea, Christians in China often harbor starving Koreans who cross the border. When newly converted refugees return to North Korea, they face arrest or death. As many as 100,000 Christians are in North Korean labor camps—one-fifth of the estimated Christian population—according to reports.

On a broader scale, experts estimate roughly 200 million Christians worldwide suffer interrogation, arrest or even death for their faith, while 200 million to 400 million more face discrimination and alienation on a regular basis. Besides North Korea, Saudi Arabia and China, most groups list Iran, Afghanistan, Somalia, Vietnam and Yemen as particularly dangerous for Christians.

But just because a nation doesn’t make the top 10 doesn’t mean it’s safe for new converts.

Indonesia remains a dangerous country for Christian converts as well. Open Doors reported more than 600 churches destroyed and more than 20,000 people killed in Muslim-Christian clashes in Indonesia in recent years.

The most recent instance of Indonesian violence toward Christians occurred March 26, as hundreds of Muslims descended on Sunday services at a church building in Gunung Putri, West Java, Voice of the Martyrs reported. The mob forced Pastor Daniel Fekky to cease holding services in the building, which the mob claimed was “misused” according to Indonesian law.

And in Sudan alone, more than 2 million people have died by war, genocide and famine since 1983, Open Doors said. The number includes a large population of Christians, who often are the targets of church bombings, destruction of hospitals and schools, massacres, and murders of church leaders.

In the face of such maltreatment, Moeller said, concerned Christians should pray for their foreign brothers and sisters.

Nettleton agreed. “I think the first thing that we can do is pray. That’s always the first step,” he said. “The next step is to educate yourself.”

Both Nettleton and Moeller encourage Christians to write and call government representatives on behalf of the incarcerated. In some cases, concerned parties can write directly to people who are jailed. Several organizations, including Voice of the Martyrs, publish names and addresses of incarcerated Christians.

Observers say such an outpouring for Rahman made a difference.

“Thousands of people actually sent letters and called the Afghan embassy for the Rahman case,” Nettleton said, “so much so that they actually posted on their website, ‘Yes, we have heard you.’”

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: 4/13/06

Rwandan genocide survivor
finds freedom in forgiveness

By Bob Smietana

Religion News Service

WASHINGTON (RNS)—A line from Christ’s model prayer—“forgive us … as we forgive”—haunted Immaculee Ilibagiza during the Rwandan genocide of 1994.

As she relates in her recently released memoir, Left to Tell, Ilibagiza was a 22-year-old university student visiting her family during the Easter holiday when a plane carrying Rwanda President Juvenal Habyarimana was shot down on April 6, 1994. His death sparked a “pandemic of violence,” Ilibagiza said.

“It was a disease, an epidemic of hate,” she said in an interview, and it took time to realize only forgiveness could bring healing. Ilibagiza’s parents, two of her brothers, and hundreds of her friends and neighbors—all Tutsis—were hacked to death with machetes by armed mobs of Hutus.

She found refuge in the house of a Hutu pastor, who hid Ilibagiza and seven other women in a tiny spare bathroom. A wooden wardrobe, slid in front of the bathroom door to hide the room’s existence, was all that stood between her and certain death.

In that small room, Ilibagiza—overcome with fear, anger and despair—began to recite prayers for hours at a time, asking God to spare her life. But every time she prayed the Lord’s Prayer, she stumbled. How could God ask her to forgive her family’s killers? She hated them with a “murderous passion” and wanted them to pay for what they’d done.

“In the early days of the genocide, if I had been given the opportunity to kill one of the killers, I think I would have,” she acknowledged.

The more she prayed, the more Ilibagiza realized she had been consumed by hatred, and she feared she was becoming just like the people who murdered her family.

“The hatred, it was so heavy,” she said. “When you feel you have to revenge them, to revenge your whole family, (it’s overwhelming). I don’t know how they live with themselves, the people who did this.” She felt as if God was asking her to “pray for the devil.” But the alternative— a life consumed by hate—seemed too much to bear. Out of desperation, and focused on the words of Jesus on the cross—“Forgive them, Father, for they know not what they do”—Ilibagiza began to pray that God would forgive her family’s killers.

“My heart is so heavy that it could crush me,” she wrote in her memoirs. “Touch my heart, Lord, and show me how to forgive.”

Forgiveness, Ilibagiza said, mostly is about letting go.

“If you believe enough to let go of hate—if you can say to God, ‘I am weak, I can’t do it’—that is enough,” she said. “God will do the rest.”

“Forgiveness has saved my life,” she said. “It’s a new life, almost like a resurrection.”

This sense of resurrection sustained her when it seemed that she faced certain death, Ilibagiza said. Several times mobs ransacked the pastor’s house, believing he was hiding Tutsis, but the hidden bathroom never was discovered.

After three months in hiding, and suffering from malnutrition, she and the other women eventually were rescued by French troops.

More suffering awaited Ilibagiza in a refugee camp. She had hoped her brother Damascence had escaped as well, but learned he had been cornered by a gang of thugs and hacked to death with a machete. One of the thugs sliced opened Damascence’s skull to look at his brain because Ilibagiza’s brother had a master’s degree. His killers had laughed about wanting to see inside the brain of a “smart Tutsi.”

Years later, Ilibagiza would visit one of her brother’s killers, a man named Felicien, in jail. The guard who took her to the cell expected her to curse Felicien. Instead, when she saw his face, and saw how a once-handsome young man had become a battered and emaciated prisoner, she took hold of Felicien’s hand and told him she forgave him.

When the guard asked her why, she said, “Forgiveness is all I have to offer.”

Ilibagiza, who now works for the United Nations in New York, visited Rwanda recently to film a documentary, Diary of Immaculee (www.diaryofimmaculee.com). She said she hopes her country “can learn to live again.”

“The people are still brokenhearted,” she said. “The country was broken on so many levels they don’t know where to start. … I feel an urgency to fix whatever I can.”

Ilibagiza said that before the genocide, she was never really sure if God exists. Now she knows, she said, and she believes God loves all people.

“If God is our Father,” she said, “that means he is suffering with us, with both the victims and the killers. Those people who killed in Rwanda are his children. If I am a good sister, I want to pray that they would be released from this evil, rather than cursing them to hell. I want people to hold onto God and to understand how big, how wide and how high God’s love is. It’s much bigger than we can understand.”

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: 4/13/06

ABP & Standard form strategic alliance

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. (ABP)—Associated Baptist Press and the Baptist Standard are creating a “strategic alliance” to improve the quality and efficiency of their news organizations.

The two have cooperated closely for more than a decade, but the new alliance signals shared vision and integrated resources, reported ABP Executive Editor Greg Warner and Standard Editor Marv Knox.

ABP, an independent news service with offices in Washington, D.C., Dallas and Jacksonville, Fla., supplies news and feature stories, primarily about Baptists but also other Christians, to denominational and secular media, as well as directly to subscribers. The Standard, a Dallas-based newspaper affiliated with the Baptist General Convention of Texas, has about 100,000 subscribers to its print edition alone, in addition to wide Internet distribution. Both organizations disseminate their news directly through websites and e-mail.

The new relationship could include some shared operations, coordinated news gathering and dissemination, expanded electronic distribution capabilities, and perhaps other services, Warner and Knox said.

“These days, it’s really clear that those of us in Baptist journalism can strengthen our ministry by working together,” Warner said. “While Associated Baptist Press and the Baptist Standard have been doing this for a long time, we intend to explore other steps we can take to share our load, reduce overlapping efforts and create new ways to distribute information about global Christians.”

“Fast-developing trends impact our ministry every month,” Knox added, citing wireless Internet access, electronic feeds to cell phones, and audio and video podcasts. “But even with these innovations, we’re committed to the traditional print media that remain an important part of our heritage as a free press for Baptists. We believe close collaboration will help us do our jobs better than ever—through a variety of distribution systems.”

Warner noted: “We have only one goal—to provide Baptists and global Christians with better, more reliable news and information.”

“And it’s clear we can do far more when we work together than we can working independently,” said Knox, one of several current or former Baptist editors who serve on the ABP board.

The Standard board approved the concept Feb. 24 and appointed a subcommittee to draft specific recommendations. The ABP board approved the alliance April 7. A joint committee will work out details of the arrangement for approval by both boards.

Already, ABP’s news editor, Hannah Elliott, works out of the Standard’s office in Dallas. Both organizations have agreed to share the expertise of the Standard’s administrative assistant, Beth Campbell, to help coordinate fund-raising efforts.

The boards intend to conduct market research to help them plan their alliance. Warner and Knox predicted the study and implementation process would last about 12 to 18 months.

Associated Baptist Press began in 1990, launched primarily by editors of state Baptist newspapers. In addition to those papers and about 60 secular daily newspapers, ABP subscribers include secular and faith-based media providers, radio and television stations, churches and religious organizations, and about 3,000 individual subscribers.

The Baptist Standard has published continually since 1888 and has been affiliated with the Texas Baptist convention for almost a century. Its readership is primarily in Texas, but the paper also circulates nationally and internationally.

For more than a decade, the Standard has been ABP’s largest outside news provider and user. In 2005, ABP distributed 663 news articles. The Standard wrote more than 70 of them, and the Texas Baptist convention’s news service produced more than 30 others. Ken Camp, the Standard’s managing editor, provided 58 articles to ABP. That total ranked third—behind ABP Washington bureau Chief Robert Marus and Warner—in volume of ABP production.

Last year, the Standard printed 235 ABP stories, about 35 percent of the total. The editors suggested the new alliance, though not a merger, is a logical next step for both organizations that will not only save money but expand the capabilities of each.

“We’re already in a trusted relationship,” Warner said.

“That’s why it fits,” Knox added. “Even though this is a new and unique arrangement, it seems totally natural.” 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: 4/13/06

Texas Tidbits

ETBU business students place in top 20 globally. Students from East Texas Baptist University’s Fred M. Hale School of Business who participated in the GLO-BUS strategic management simulation placed in the top 20 in an overall worldwide ranking. ETBU students operated a digital camera company in head-to-head competition against companies run by other schools. The team’s challenge was to craft and execute a competitive strategy that resulted in a respected brand image, kept their company in contention for global market leadership, and produced good financial performance as measured by earnings per share, return on investment, stock price appreciation and credit rating.

Baylor Horizons project gets Lilly grant. Baylor Horizons, a university project designed to help students, faculty and staff explore the relationship between faith and vocation, has received a $500,000 grant from Lilly Endowment as a follow-up to an earlier $2 million grant in 2000. With matching funds Baylor will provide, the grant will total $1.1 million for the three-year project.

Baylor receives $2.9 million for lupus study. Baylor Research Institute recently received two grants totaling $2.9 million to study lupus, an autoimmune disease that affects more than 1 million people in the United States. Jacques Banchereau, director of the Baylor Institute for Immunology Research, received $1.9 million from the National Institutes of Allergies and Infectious Diseases to study groups of immune system cells—called T cells—to see how they differ in lupus patients and healthy individuals. Virginia Pascual was awarded a $1 million research award from the Alliance for Lupus Research for a project that teams lupus clinicians from throughout North America to validate signatures—altered gene expression patterns—identified in the blood of lupus patients. Dallas-based Baylor Institute for Immunology Research is the immunology research component of Baylor Research Institute, an affiliate of Baylor Health Care System.

Buckner receives $1.5 million foundation grant. Buckner Children & Family Services has received a $1.5 million grant from the Christ is Our Salvation Foundation. The gift, which is being made over a three-year period, will support four programs that provide hands-on volunteer opportunities—new church and community ministry collaborations with churches, humanitarian aid along the Texas/Mexico border, the Kids Hope USA mentoring program for at-risk children and ongoing Buckner ministries in the Vickery Meadows area of Dallas.

Grant to Baylor social work school funds study. Diana Garland, dean of Baylor University’s School of Social Work, and Jon Singletary, director of the school’s Center for Family and Community Ministries, have received two grants totaling more than $76,000 to conduct the first major national study in 20 years of congregation-based early childhood education and family support. The Louisville Institute, a Lilly Endowment program for the study of American religion, has committed $40,896. The A.L. Mailman Family Foundation, which funds projects to improve early childhood education and the well-being of young children and their families, has committed an additional $35,000 to conduct this yearlong research project. This research will be the first step toward developing resources and training to help congregation leaders and early childhood educators, Garland said. The final report, expected in June 2007, will be available on the Center for Family and Community Ministries website at www.family-ministry.org, and it will be followed by publications and workshops for early childhood educators in congregations, she noted. 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: 4/13/06

TOGETHER:
‘Scandalous’ cross really is good news

At this Easter season, we look carefully at the meaning of the cross and resurrection of our Lord Jesus.

I was asked by a friend, “How do Baptists view people of other religions?” While I can’t speak for all Baptists, I shared this perspective out of this Baptist’s heart and mind:

A Christian always must begin from Scripture. When you do, you notice Jesus embraced and affirmed people who often were the most unloved in their communities—a Good Samaritan, the woman at the well, a blind beggar, Zaccheus the tax collector. He had an aversion to religious arrogance and hypocrisy but had an affinity for outcasts.

Executive Director BGCT Executive Board

But do all people need to come to faith in Christ Jesus in order to be saved? Is there salvation in some other way?

These questions introduce the “scandal of particularity,” but it’s a scandal that is embedded in Jesus’ words, in his cross and resurrection, and in the preaching of the gospel.

Jesus knew people desire a broad way, but he called us to a narrow way (Matthew 7:13-14). He invited us to follow him, for it is a terrible thing to gain the world and lose one’s soul (Mark 8:34-38). He said he is the way, the truth and the life, and no one comes to the Father except through him (John 14:6). If God knows another way to save people than through his Son, Jesus Christ, then I will not scold him nor try to teach him that it is wrong! But I have no basis upon which to hold out that possibility to people. Rather, I am nailed to the cross in this matter. For Jesus prayed, “Father, if there can be another way … let this cup pass from me” (Matthew 26:39).

Even Christians sometimes are offended by the cross. It is too violent, too bloody, too “in your face,” and it really does make us look like we were really bad if God had to do that in order to save us.

The only gospel I know is that God loves the world and sent his Son so that all who would believe in him may have life everlasting and not perish. It may seem narrow to our world, but to the world in which Jesus lived, it was good news, because it was the first time anyone said: “All the world is welcome to come. Jesus will embrace all of you.”

Isn’t it interesting that in the early church the question was not, “Do Jews need to be saved by Jesus?” The question was, “Can anyone except a Jew be saved by Jesus?” The gospel of Christ spread across the world, welcoming men and women, slave and free, rich and poor. The gospel does bring the reality of judgment to the forefront. After all, if we are not really in need of salvation, if everything is really all right without Jesus, then why did he find it necessary to come to the earth and then to offer himself in sacrifice?

So, how do you approach people of other religions? You respect, you listen, you learn and you also share what you know of God in Jesus Christ. It is God’s Holy Spirit who will work to bring faith, as well as conviction of sin and need, to the heart of another. You must not, you cannot, browbeat them into the kingdom. But you must try the best you can to help them get as good a view of Jesus as you can. And you must know that we do that by both word and life. No one lives so holy that the word of God does not need to be spoken. And no one’s word is much believed if there is not integrity and Christ-likeness in the speaker. As I like to say: Jesus is our best argument. He is the reason I am so glad to be a part of his company.

God loves the world.

Charles Wade is executive director of the Baptist General Convention of Texas.

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: 4/13/06

Organ donor provides
gift of life to fellow minister

By George Henson

Staff Writer

HOUSTON—When Jerry Wooley left Houston earlier this month to take a job in Nashville, he left more than his heart in Texas. He also left behind his kidney, but it went to a good home—within his ministerial colleague Jeff Waldo.

Waldo is associate pastor for discipleship at University Baptist Church in Houston. Wooley, until the end of last month, was education minister at Park Place Baptist Church in Houston. He now is leader of the Vacation Bible School division of Lifeway Christian Resources.

“We had worked on a few associational projects, so we ran into each other from time to time, and I had always thought of him as a likable guy, but we weren’t friends that hung out together or anything like that,” Wooley said.

“But I always had a tremendous respect for Jeff. He was such a futuristic thinker, working on these projects together, it seemed that the rest of us were focused on the nuts and bolts of things, while Jeff could see the long-range implications.”

Even months after the Sept. 7 surgery, they have met only once. But they have a standing engagement for Waldo to buy Wooley dinner on the anniversary of the surgery each year, even though now it will be a longer trip.

“At least I can make it,” Waldo said with obvious gratitude.

His ability to make such a trip was not always as certain. About 10 years ago, he began to feel something was not right, but it wasn’t until about five years ago that his ailment was diagnosed as FGS—focal glomerulosclerosis. The disease causes the kidneys to scar for some unknown reason, and as the scarring increases, the ability of the kidney to function decreases.

His disease progressed to the point that in January 2005 he applied for a kidney transplant and was approved as a candidate.

In mid-April of last year, the first donor was approved, and a June 6 surgery date was slated.

In May, however, Waldo’s condition deteriorated. Doctors told him May 13 he needed to start dialysis immediately.

“I had always dreaded the thought of dialysis and told them I was scheduled for transplant surgery June 6. They told me, ‘If we don’t start dialysis next week, you’ll probably be dead by then,’” he recalled.

Just a few days before the surgery, doctors determined the prospective donor might need his kidney in the future, and the surgery was cancelled.

On June 6, Wooley learned of Waldo’s plight. He was in the offices of Union Baptist Association when Karen Campbell, senior church consultant there, mentioned Waldo’s surgery was to have happened that day but had fallen through.

“That was the first I knew that he needed a kidney. I knew that he had medical problems but didn’t know what they were,” Wooley recalled.

He spent the next 24 hours researching kidney disease and the transplant process.

“It wasn’t a matter of finding out whether or not I wanted to do it—I knew almost as soon as she said it that not only that I going to go through the process, but that I was the one—but to find out exactly what I was in for,” he said.

He called the next day to begin the screening process.

While Wooley was certain he would be the donor, Waldo’s reaction was measured.

“I really didn’t think he would be selected. There were already several other people further along in the process, and I thought it would probably be one of them,” he recalled.

Also, Waldo said he didn’t want anyone to feel any responsibility to save his life.

“I didn’t want to put any pressure on anybody, because forking over a kidney is kind of a big deal,” he said.

Already two of Waldo’s close friends had gone through the screening process, only to be told in the end they wouldn’t qualify. Both men had sat in Waldo’s living room in tears apologizing for not being able to give him a kidney.

“I did not want that to happen again,” Waldo said.

To try to minimize the feelings of responsibility, Waldo requested future candidates be given numbers to give them a degree of anonymity.

So, Wooley had Waldo put on the Park Place prayer list June 6. In August, that was changed to “Jeff Waldo and Donor No. 9”—Wooley’s designation.

“For a month, they were praying for Jeff and Donor No. 9, never knowing that it was me,” he said.

As the process went on, Wooley began to feel that same driving compulsion to be the one to make the donation that Waldo had seen in his two friends.

“It’s a real difficult situation showing up in a transplant clinic, waiting in the waiting room and actually going through the door for the testing to begin, but it actually becomes a driving force in your life. You begin to feel, ‘I have to do this,’” Wooley explained.

And the testing came often.

“From June 10 until the day of the surgery, I was at the hospital every week for some sort of testing procedure,” he recalled.

Part of Wooley’s desire to be a donor traces back to sermons by his pastor, James Clark.

“He always preached to us about doing things for the kingdom. I even had a Post-it note stuck on my computer that asked, ‘What are you doing for the kingdom?’

“I really felt that being Jeff’s donor was part of my kingdom responsibility. That was the way I felt about this kidney. It wasn’t mine. It was God’s to allocate as he saw fit. And I believed he wanted me to give it to keep this futuristic thinker alive and working for his kingdom,” Wooley explained.

While the men still don’t get together socially, “there is definitely an attachment there,” Waldo admits, and they talk on the phone regularly.

“This man saved my life. There’s no other way to put it,” Waldo said.

Having received such a grand gift, he can’t help but think of more than 90,000 other people awaiting organs. He particularly wants to make people aware that April is Donate Life Month, an emphasis on organ donation.

“I think it is appropriate that Donate Life and Easter are in the same month,” he wrote on his blog at jeffwaldo.blogspot.com. “Transplant recipients know a little bit about substitutionary atonement. If Jerry had not donated, it would have been a much longer wait for me. Because of his donation, I am able to pursue an almost normal life.” 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: 4/13/06

Easter play at UMHB Jesus prays in the Garden of Gethsemane (left) while the disciples sleep in this scene from the 67th annual University of Mary Hardin-Baylor on-campus outdoor Easter pageant. At right, Pilate, portrayed by Mark Leech of Belton, speaks concerning Jesus during the trial.  Jesus is portrayed by UMHB Student Body President David Griffin, a senior finance major from Spring. The pageant is produced, directed, costumed and performed by university students. More than 90 UMHB students, as well as many children from the community, participated. Michon Blair of Rowlett was this year's Easter pageant director. Assistant directors were Mandi Bundrick of Liberty Hill and Kyle Tubbs of Garland.

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.