Baptist Briefs

Posted: 10/26/07

Baptist Briefs

Brister to retire at OBU. Oklahoma Baptist University trustees accepted the retirement of President Mark Brister during a mid-October special meeting on the university’s campus in Shawnee. Brister, who will retire effective Nov. 10 at the conclusion of OBU’s annual homecoming, has led the Christian liberal arts institution since Sept. 1, 1998.

His nine-year tenure as OBU’s 14th president is the third-longest in the university’s 97-year history. During the trustee meeting, John Parrish, executive vice president emeritus, was elected interim president, effective Nov. 11. Parrish retired from the university’s administration in November 2002 after more than 38 years at OBU. He was executive vice president and chief financial officer from 1995 until his retirement.

CBF falls short of budget. The Coopera-tive Baptist Fellowship reached only 86 percent of the amount budgeted for its recently completed fiscal year and ended the year with a shortfall, the CBF Coordinating Council learned at its mid-October meeting. CBF leaders reported the Fellowship received $19.1 million in total revenue, including $14.8 million in undesignated receipts (a category including the CBF Global Missions Offering), for the 2006-07 fiscal year. Expenses for the year totaled more than $21.6 million. The $8.2 million in undesignated contributions for 2006-07 was about $700,000 less than the previous year, continuing a three-year downturn, according to financial data. The Fellowship’s financial report indicated the organization finished the fiscal year 2006-2007 with a shortfall of $649,974 in unrestricted funds and $2.5 million total.

Seminary to Name Center for SBC’s Land. Officials at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary have announced plans to create a Richard Land Center for Cultural Engagement, honoring Southern Baptists’ public-policy guru. Land, president of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission since 1988, has represented Southern Baptists’ concerns in the media and on Capitol Hill for two decades. The center will conduct research in Christian morality and political action and study cultural and philosophical issues. Land joins another well-known fundamentalist Baptist activist, Paul Pressler, in becoming a building namesake. Pressler, a Texas judge who helped lead the so-called “conservative resurgence” in the Southern Baptist Convention, will have a law school named after him at the Baptist-affiliated Louisiana College.

Scholarships available for communications students. Baptist Communi-cators Association will award three scholarships next spring for the 2008-2009 academic year to communications students. Dec. 7 is the deadline application. A $1,000 scholarship will be awarded to an undergraduate student and a $500 scholarship to a graduate student in the name of Al Shackleford and Dan Martin, former editors of Baptist Press. The $1,000 Alan Compton/Bob Stanley Minority and International Scholarship is given to an undergraduate student of minority ethnic or international origin. Applicants must have at least a 2.5 GPA and have vocational aspirations in religious communications. Funds may be used for tuition, books, housing or food and will be forwarded to the institution in which the student is enrolled. Students may apply online at http://www.baptistcommunicators.org/about/scholarship.cfm. For further information, contact the BCA office at (615) 904-0152 or bca.office@comcast.net.