Posted: 9/29/07

Book reviews

Premium Roast with Ruth by Sandra Glahn (AMG Publishers)

In Premium Roast with Ruth, the newest addition to the Coffee Cup Bible Study Series, award-winning author and seminary professor Sandra Glahn brings the biblical character Ruth to her reader’s front doorstep.

Glahn presents a panoramic picture of Ruth’s world, the history of Israel and Moab—spiritual climate, Levitical laws, Israelite customs and past relationship between the two nations—while showing how it all correlates with the world of the “21st century woman with cell phones, washing machines and SUVs.”

Other Bible studies cover the book of Ruth, but the rich blend of warm anecdotes, engaging questions, in-depth extra-biblical research, aesthetics and sensitivity to the current reading audience, as well as the audience of biblical times, is where Premium Roast uniquely shines. At the author’s website (www.aspire2.com), we even find recipes that use barley!

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

Premium Roast with Ruth will not only plunge you in the Bible, but also move you to explore the way you see yourself and the diverse world around you. If you’re looking for a Bible study that teaches you the Scripture and is relevant to the 21st century woman, or if you simply want to know what Oprah Winfrey and Ruth’s sister-in-law have in common, Premium Roast with Ruth has your answer.

Millicent Martin Poole, director

Christian Women’s Job Corp of Grand Prairie

Grand Prairie

Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places: A Conversation in Spiritual Theology by Eugene H. Peterson (Eerdmans)

Eugene Peterson, the pastor and scholar best known as the translator of The Message, takes the reader on an exploration of spiritual theology in this first book of a five-volume series.

Using Scripture as his unequivocal foundation and imagery from a Gerard Manley Hopkins poem, Peterson challenges Christians to dig below the surface of theology and actually do what good theology is intended for—living.

“Spiritual theology is the attention that we give to the details of living life on this (Jesus-revealed) way,” he says. “It is a protest against theology depersonalized into information about God; it is a protest against theology functionalized into a program of strategic planning for God.”

This “lived theology” is reveling in the fact Jesus Christ is playfully present and dynamically active in creation, history and community.

Peterson’s pastoral heart and poetic command of the original biblical languages make for thoughtful reflection and exciting depth of application. May we, as Christ’s disciples, join in living adventurously as we watch him at play!

Greg Bowman, minister to students

First Baptist Church

Duncanville

Dwelling: Living Fully From the Space You Call Home By Mary Beth Lagerbog (Revell)

Turning a house into a home that is both peaceful and functional can be a challenge. Mary Beth Lagerborg, director of media for the Mother’s of Preschoolers organization and co-author of the best-selling Once-a-Month Cooking, offers the advice for a more inviting home in Dwelling.

Through personal stories and interviews, the book allows readers to catch a glimpse into the homes of people from across the nation. The suggestions on cleaning, decorating, cooking and hosting provide ideas for improving their own home life.

Dwelling lets readers find a place of community among people from different locales and backgrounds. It offers a reminder that everyone needs a place to call home. And it suggests creative ways the readers can make theirs better—for themselves as well as guests.

Dwelling is a good read, whether the home is for one or for many. It offers readers inspiration for creating homes they can enjoy. For a home ready to host a dinner party to a place to seek refuge, this book can help make those dreams a reality.

Rebekah Hardage

Communications intern

Waco

News of religion, faith, missions, Bible study and Christian ministry among Baptist churches, in Texas, the BGCT, the nation and around the world.

Posted: 9/29/07

Baptist Briefs

ABP Names Interim Development director. The Associated Baptist Press board hired an interim development director at a recent meeting. Todd Heifner, managing partner of Charles Heifner Associates of Birmingham, Ala., will work six-to-nine months as development director for ABP and the strategic alliance formed between ABP and three Baptist state newspapers—the Baptist Standard, the Virginia Religious Herald and the Missouri Word & Way. Heifner, who holds master’s degrees in business administration and institutional advancement, previously worked in development for the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty and Samford University.

Candidate claims Baptist identity. Republican presidential candidate John McCain raised questions about his religious affiliation with a comment at a recent campaign stop in heavily Baptist South Carolina. The Associated Press reported McCain answered a question about how his Episcopal faith affects his decision-making by saying: “It plays a role in my life. By the way, I’m not Episcopalian. I’m Baptist.” McCain previously had identified himself as Episcopalian and is listed that way in several congressional directories. But he also has acknowledged that for years he and his family have attended North Phoenix Baptist Church when at home in Arizona. He had said in the past his wife and family had been baptized at the church, but he had not. However, Associated Press reported McCain indicated in his South Carolina comments he was an “active member” of the North Phoenix church.

Ethics commission honors Fu. Trustees of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission recently voted to honor Bob Fu, a leader in the student democracy movement that ended in the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre. Trustees named Fu the 2007 recipient of the John Leland Religious Liberty Award. Fu was imprisoned after Chinese authorities discovered he had started a Bible school in an empty factory building. Fu and his wife fled from China in 1996. In 2002, Fu founded China Aid Association, an organization that seeks to draw international attention to human rights violations against house-church Christians in China.

Judge declines to drop suit against Southwestern. A U.S. District Court judge refused Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary’s request to dismiss an employment lawsuit filed against the school and its president by a former theology professor. The judge ruled the case can proceed with an amended complaint against the seminary. Sheri Klouda claims she was wrongly denied tenure because she is a woman after she was hired for a tenure-track position in 2002. The seminary maintains her tenure denial is consistent with a policy enacted after her hiring that stipulates only men should teach men in theology.

Way paved for GuideStone to offer its own insurance. The Southern Baptist Convention Executive Committee approved legal documents to allow GuideStone Financial Resources to set up five new subsidiaries providing investment financial advice, its own property and casualty insurance, and its own life insurance. GuideStone President O.S. Hawkins said with its own insurance company, GuideStone will be able to lower costs for church property and casualty insurance, and it will be able to expand what it offers participants in terms of life insurance.

News of religion, faith, missions, Bible study and Christian ministry among Baptist churches, in Texas, the BGCT, the nation and around the world.

Posted: 9/29/07

News of religion, faith, missions, Bible study and Christian ministry among Baptist churches, in Texas, the BGCT, the nation and around the world.

Posted: 9/29/07

2nd Opinion:
A better way to find pastors

By Roger Olson

Recently, our church was invaded by a group of thieves. Well, not exactly, but that’s how it felt to us. We only discovered the deed later when our beloved pastor announced her resignation. The group of thieves were a pastoral search committee from another state. They infiltrated our Sunday morning worship service and conspired to persuade our pastor to move to their church.

It’s a little difficult to be very hard on them. That’s how we got her to come to our church nine years ago! Our pastoral search committee flew hundreds of miles to the church she was then pastoring in another state and infiltrated its Sunday morning worship service and conspired to persuade her to come to our church.

You might think I’m being a little hard on pastoral search committees. And, of course, I am—for the purpose of provoking thought about a tradition that needs re-consideration.

I don’t really believe pastoral search committees are “groups of thieves.” At least that’s not their intention. They’re simply following custom. And how else does a Baptist church find a pastor?

But to defend my opposition to this tried-and-true method, let me use an analogy. Suppose you found out that a neighboring Baptist church in your own association had formed a committee to “persuade” some of your members to move to their church? They were infiltrating the church and inviting well-established members to come to their homes and visit their church with the intention of “sheep-stealing,” as it is generally called. Wouldn’t you be incensed? I think every Baptist would be.

We consider sheep-stealing a serious offense, and any church that engages in it will probably be censured by the local association. Certainly other churches will turn their backs on it. But, then, why do we think it’s OK to steal another church’s pastor? We say, “But it was God’s will, or else he wouldn’t have accepted our church’s call.” But what if we said that about a family we “persuaded” to move from another church to ours? Who would take that seriously?

The plain fact of the matter is that the present method is wrong. It amounts to pastor-stealing. It’s no better than going out to steal members from sister churches. Why do we do it—besides it’s the custom? (Customs are often wrong.)

We do it out of ignorance of a better method of finding a good pastor, and we want to make sure we get the best there is. But isn’t that the sin of coveting? When we “invite” a pastor to leave his or her church and come to ours, aren’t we coveting that church’s pastor?

Fortunately, there is an alternative way of calling a new pastor. The Baptist General Convention of Texas sponsors a program called LeaderConnect that helps churches find a pastor who already wants to move. That way, the church isn’t stealing a pastor from another congregation. And Truett Seminary and the BGCT jointly sponsor a person located at the seminary who does much the same—Judy Battles.

I urge all churches to consider using these resources when seeking to fill their pulpits rather than invading a sister church to steal its pastor.

Roger Olson is professor of theology at Baylor University’s George W. Truett Theological Seminary in Waco.

News of religion, faith, missions, Bible study and Christian ministry among Baptist churches, in Texas, the BGCT, the nation and around the world.

Posted: 9/29/07

DOWN HOME:
Fox-in-a-bottle outwits squirrel

Joanna noticed the dead spot first.

While everything else on our lot still shimmered brilliant green, the top eight or 10 feet of the center branch in our favorite maple in the middle of the backyard turned bitter brown.

Not golden amber or rustic crimson, like you might expect of a maple in North Texas six weeks or two months from now. Just bitter brown. Dead brown. This-branch-ain’t-coming-back brown.

We craned our necks to see what had happened up there, near the top of the third-most-stately tree on our property. (I’m partial to the bald cypresses.) We saw a strip of bare, withering trunk where bark used to be.

My thoughts turned to the “tree doctor” we paid to cut webworms out of most of our trees.

When he answered his cell phone, I told him one of his workers must’ve scraped the bark off our tree and killed the big center branch.

He didn’t seem surprised. “Is the bark stripped off all the way around?” he asked.

“Sure is,” I told him.

“Mr. Knox, what you’ve got is a boar squirrel,” he explained. “This is probably his first mating season. See, he climbed up there and stripped that bark off and ‘sprayed’ the spot to mark his turf. Next, he’ll come back to get those dead leaves for his nest so it’ll be all ready when his baby squirrels arrive.”

Now, I don’t believe in haunted houses. But if someone told me squirrels really are ghosts, then I’d say our house is haunted. We’ve just been in it a year, but we’ve already had our share of squirrel nuisances.

Last winter, a squirrel screamed and scraped in the wall between our kitchen and dining room for, oh, “40 days and 40 nights”—or a really long, long time—until he, as they say, gave up the ghost. This spring, a marauding band of punk squirrels acted like our attic was a rodent theme park until we re-covered all the fan vents with wire mesh. And now the squirrel version of Don Juan is trimming our tree to spruce up his lair.

“Mr. Knox, what you need is a bottle of red fox urine,” the tree doctor told me. Anticipating my profound inquiry—“Huh?”—he continued: “The red fox is the natural predator and enemy of your boar squirrel. So, if you can make him think a red fox lives in your backyard, he will leave your maple tree alone.”

Turns out, my friend Peter had half a bottle of the stuff in his garage, and he gave it to me. Now, our puppy, Topanga, has this strange sense she is not alone when she runs out into the backyard. I just hope our little tree-tearing friend feels the same way.

Oh, and lest you think the turf-marking mannerisms of our squirrel and red-fox-in-a-bottle are confined to the animal kingdom, just watch what happens when a visitor to your church sits in the pew that “belongs” to a longtime member.

Fur may fly.

–Marv Knox

News of religion, faith, missions, Bible study and Christian ministry among Baptist churches, in Texas, the BGCT, the nation and around the world.

Posted: 9/29/07

EDITORIAL:
If we don’t change, this is just Round 1

Painful and dispiriting as it was, the Baptist General Convention of Texas Executive Board’s recent vote on the 2008 budget was both secondary and inevitable.

The board voted 52-28 to recommend a $50.1 million budget, which will be considered by messengers to the BGCT annual meeting in Amarillo Oct. 29-30.

Obviously, $50 million is serious money. It will fund a vast array of ministries. Lives will be changed because Texas Baptists invested in them. This is substantial.

But the 2008 goal represents a decline of almost $500,000 from this year’s budget. That’s a major reduction, especially when our state is growing, needs are expanding and the cost of ministry is increasing. The 2008 budget also points to pain. It means eliminating 25 to 30 Executive Board staff positions.

You need to read the report on the budget debate. The tension, anxiety and frustration reflected in that article was palpable and wrenching.

The budget vote was secondary because it followed a more tangible and irrepressible vote. Ballots in that initial vote have been cast every time a church decides how much to contribute to the BGCT Cooperative Program. While the Executive Board votes in speculation about a future budget, churches vote with authority about the present budget. And the truth is that many churches have voted negatively by reducing the amount of their money they are willing to invest in the state convention. For multiple reasons, their confidence in the Cooperative Program has declined, and they’re putting that money elsewhere.

The tightness of funds, of course, made the angst and pain of the Executive Board’s debate and vote inevitable. When any group—whether a family, a church or a convention—is strapped for cash, priorities are tested. Visions for the future are thrown into competition. Turf wars erupt.

Unfortunately, the approved budget and the amendments the board also considered represent only stop-gap measures. We may enter 2008 with a “balanced” budget, but if the BGCT does not change substantially in the next 12 months, we’ll be looking at more layoffs and a smaller budget for 2009. Here are three places to start:

• We need a real budget based on real priorities. No one truly believes a reduced-staff Executive Board can conduct all its current ministries effectively. We need to prioritize based on the needs of churches and lost and hurting people. We must start with the highest priorities and fund them so we succeed. Without question, we will eliminate some programs in order to conduct our priorities with excellence. If Texas Baptists seriously want to accomplish the lower-priority ministries, they will have to pay for them.

• We need to capitalize on the strength of our institutions. We must support them better, while they renew their focus on cooperatively meeting the needs of the churches as well as their specific ministries. And for this renewed support, they should be expected to promote the Cooperative Program through their extensive constituencies, so that it reaches new heights.

• We must embrace and include all who truly love and support the BGCT. Too many Texas Baptists feel left out, on the margins of our convention. Mostly, this has to do with their support for the Southern Baptist Convention. While they do not have the right to force others to feel the same way or to force the convention as a whole to violate its conscience regarding the national convention, if they love, respect and support the BGCT, they deserve to participate and to feel loved and respected in return.

For all our present challenges, the BGCT still possesses enormous resources—financial, human and spiritual. If we are willing to embrace the painful process of wise and disciplined change, we can emerge stronger and more vibrant.

News of religion, faith, missions, Bible study and Christian ministry among Baptist churches, in Texas, the BGCT, the nation and around the world.

Posted: 9/29/07

Faith Digest

Game designed to foster understanding. A mechanical engineer from Lincoln, Neb., has designed a question-and-answer game to promote interfaith awareness. John Cooper created “7th Heaven,” a game that tests players’ knowledge of Judaism, Islam and Christianity in a way intended to help people junior high school age and older enjoy learning about different religious practices. Cooper began thinking about the concept a couple of years ago after he met some Iraqi refugees while volunteering at the People’s City Mission in Lincoln. Conversations with refugees and others led him to explore common themes shared by the three faiths.

Insurer rejects pro-homosexual church. A United Church of Christ congregation’s pro-gay stance puts it “at a higher risk” of litigation and property damage, a leading U.S. church insurer said in refusing to offer coverage to a Michigan congregation. Brotherhood Mutual, a Fort Wayne, Ind.-based insurance company, turned down the business of the West Adrian United Church of Christ after learning the church publicly endorses same-sex marriage and gay clergy. “Based on national media reports, controversial stances such as those … have resulted in property damage and potential for increased litigation among churches that have chosen publicly to endorse these positions,” wrote Marci J. Fretz, a regional underwriter for Brotherhood Mutual, in a July 30 letter to the West Adrian Church. Brotherhood Mutual declined to offer a quote to the church located in Adrian, Mich. Another insurer covered the church.

Pentagon ends probe of Muslim chaplain. The Pentagon’s inspector general has concluded a review of a former Muslim chaplain who was detained and later cleared of espionage charges, saying the Department of Defense acted properly in investigating the Army chaplain. “We found that DOD officials acted in good faith and within applicable standards in ordering Chaplain (James) Yee’s initial and continued pretrial confinement and Chaplain Yee was not targeted because of his religious affiliation,” reads a two-page executive summary of the review involving former Army Chaplain (Capt.) Yee. He was held at a military brig for 76 days, and the charges against him were dropped in March 2004. The inspector general said an investigation determined in May 2004 that Yee possessed 54 documents with secret information when he was arrested in 2003.

Catholic diocese pays millions to settle abuse cases. The Roman Catholic Diocese of San Diego has agreed to pay $198 million to 144 alleged victims of sexual abuse by clergy or other church employees—the second-largest such settlement since the abuse crisis exploded five years ago. The settlement follows four years of negotiations and a threat from a U.S. bankruptcy judge to dismiss the diocese’s Chapter 11 claim if a settlement was not reached by a Sept. 11 deadline. In the wake of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles’ record-setting $660 million settlement in July, the San Diego agreement brings to more than $2 billion the total amount the U.S. Catholic church has paid in sexual abuse-related matters since 1950.

News of religion, faith, missions, Bible study and Christian ministry among Baptist churches, in Texas, the BGCT, the nation and around the world.

Posted: 9/29/07

Use ‘moral imagination’ in
addressing global warming, expert says

By Ken Camp

Managing Editor

BILENE—“Premillenial pessimism” and blind allegiance to politicians backed by big oil companies contribute to evangelicals’ relative silence about the threat of global warming, said Richard Cizik, the National Association for Evangelicals’ vice president for governmental affairs.

In a Hardin-Simmons University chapel address, Cizik challenged students to use “moral imagination” in exercising stewardship of the world God created.

“I believe global warning threatens everything,” he said, echoing a position that came close to costing him his job earlier this year.

See related articles: • It's not easy being green • Use 'moral imagination' in addressing global warming, expert says • Energy-efficient green churches have more money for ministry • Some evangelicals go green, but skepticism lingers • 10 steps to help save the world • Providing clean water is life-giving work, biologist says

In March, about two-dozen high-profile Religious Right figures—including James Dobson of Focus on the Family—called on the NAE board either to silence or fire Cizik for his public statements on global warning.

They insisted an emphasis on environmentalism would dilute evangelicals’ political clout and take their focus off issues such as abortion and gay marriage.

But Cizik, an ordained Presbyterian minister, insisted environmental degradation is a pro-life issue, and global climate change presents a threat to all of God’s creation.

“It’s not the devil’s diversion. It may be God’s way of getting our attention,” he said.

A theology of creation care means Christians strive to “bring the sustainable values of heaven to this earth,” he told students in Abilene.

“We’re not using resources for heavenly purposes but for our own selfish interests,” he said. “Our dependence on foreign oil means we’re transferring wealth to Middle Eastern religious dictators and importing oil to fuel a lifestyle that serves only our own interests.”

In part, creation care requires responsible lifestyle changes by individuals.

“We are living in sin, and we need to repent,” he said. “Unless we change, we are doomed.”

Recycling, driving hybrid cars and making homes more energy-efficient will help, but it won’t make enough difference, Cizik insisted. Citizens must demand public policy change—a difficult chore when politicians owe favors to big energy companies, he stressed.

“Are you going to save your friends or are you going to save the planet? I think, in effect, the president has said he will save his friends at the expense of the planet,” he said.

Evangelicals motivated by a sense of stewardship to God’s creation need to “bridge outward” and find common cause with scientists and secularists who may find reason to effect environmental change on the basis of public health or national security arguments, Cizik said.

“On this issue, we are all at peril. We must all work together,” Cizik said.

“Everything is at stake—the future of the planet even,” he continued.

At that point, a student interrupted Cizik to ask, “If we know the world will end in fire anyway, what does it matter?”

Cizik responded by pointing to the New Testament image of the new heaven and new earth as a renewed and restored creation, and he stressed the stewardship responsibility given to God’s people.

“It’s not about eschatology. It’s about theology,” he said.

In an interview after his chapel sermon, Cizik noted the student’s question represented a viewpoint prevalent among many evangelicals.

“The premillenial dispensational view has produced a pessimism about the earth that is frankly unbiblical,” he said.

A theology that teaches an end-times doomsday scenario has contributed to evangelical preachers’ unwillingness to address the environment as a moral and ethical issue. He compared it to how, in most evangelical circles, “churches opted out and preachers were silent” during the Civil Rights Movements of the 1950s and 1960s.

“I believe climate change and global warming is the civil rights issue of the 21st century,” he said. “We’re at a historically defining moment.”

Society does not have to choose between job creation and a clean environment, he insisted. Global warming and a dirty environment endanger both the working poor in the United States and people living in Third World poverty.

“Hundreds of millions of people of color” could be negatively affected by global climate change, he insisted.

Cizik sees the potential for a “convergence of concern” over global warming that could build bridges between people of faith and the secular scientific community.

Ironically, some high-profile Religious Right figures have used global warming as a wedge issue.

Cizik, who identifies himself as a “conservative Republican who voted for George W. Bush twice,” believes opposition to creation care grows out of fear that concern for environmental issues could drive some evangelicals into the arms of the Democrats.

“They’re interested in preserving the relationship between big business, particularly big oil, and evangelical conservatives—the two wings of the Republican Party,” he said in an interview.

“I don’t believe in conspiracy theories. It’s not a secret conspiracy. It’s right out in the open.”

That seems to reveal misplaced allegiance by some Christian conservatives, he added.

“It appears they care more about the welfare of the Republican Party than they do about the kingdom of God,” he said. “If that’s not the case, then they should say so.”

News of religion, faith, missions, Bible study and Christian ministry among Baptist churches, in Texas, the BGCT, the nation and around the world.

Posted: 9/29/07

Energy-efficient green churches
have more money for ministry

By George Henson

Staff Writer

WALKERTOWN, N.C.—Churches gradually are becoming more environmentally conscious about their facilities—and that green-consciousness is growing.

In some cases, business people in churches have seen the economic benefits that come with energy efficiency at work. Some members have heard news coverage about global warming and the need to conserve natural resources. Other congregations have members interested in the creation care movement that teaches God gave people responsibility of caring for the environment, and it is time to do a better job.

All that translates to more churches feeling an urge to do a better job with energy efficiency, said Bob Adams, a church consultant with the JH Batten design/building firm in Walkertown, N.C.

Adams, who for 23 years served on church staffs in Kentucky, Georgia and North Carolina, offers another reason—every dollar saved through energy efficiency can be spent on ministry.

“It’s really a stewardship issue,” he asserted.

Because of that, congregations need to investigate the most efficient way to build new buildings. The considerations are different than they were in the past.

“There are many more ways to build a church than there were 20 years ago and many more choices of building materials. And in some cases, all those choices can lead to more confusion,” he admitted.

A key for new church construction is flexibility.

“The utilization of a church building is much broader than it was 15 years ago. They once were used strictly as worship and education space for a few hours a week, but churches are becoming more of a community center and need to be designed as flexibly as possible to facilitate those uses,” Adams said.

Many churches are used for ministries not in place at the time of construction, he said. Since there is no way to foretell exactly how the building may be used, it needs to be adaptable to multiple possibilities.

As green churches and green buildings in general constitute a larger segment of the construction business, Adams said the cost of constructing energy-efficient buildings has gone down. As what was once a small niche grew larger, more companies and newer technologies have driven down prices.

While he admits the initial construction costs still are a little higher for green buildings, he counsels taking a more far-reaching look.

“Churches are notorious for thinking about the initial costs and forgetting about the operational costs. Businesses have seen the flaw in this for a long time, but churches are still drawn to lower initial costs and having to pay more in the long run,” Adams said.

“Also, the constant introduction of new products and technologies are bringing costs down quickly and the payback period for recouping those costs is being reduced.”

Churches wishing to do a better job with the buildings they have should start with lighting. Simply changing fluorescent light bulbs to smaller diameter energy-efficient bulbs can save dollars. Also, motion-sensitive switches can be installed that turn off lights when no one has been in a room for a pre-determined time.

Replacing mechanical ballasts with electrical ballasts also will help recoup costs in a short time.

Another way to help maintain energy efficiency and keep costs down is to maintain a regular cycle for changing filters on air-conditioning and heating units.

Also, make sure toilets and water fountains are functioning properly—not continuing to run and using excess water.

“Really, it’s your home environment times 10,” Adams said. “The same things that we should take care of in our homes, we need to make sure are done in our churches.”

A good resource is an energy cost analysis included in an 86-page document written especially for churches by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, he noted. The document can be downloaded at www.energystar.gov/congregations at no charge.

News of religion, faith, missions, Bible study and Christian ministry among Baptist churches, in Texas, the BGCT, the nation and around the world.

Posted: 9/29/07

Some evangelicals go
green, but skepticism lingers

By Adelle M. Banks

Religion News Service

WASHINGTON (RNS)—When Harry Jackson saw melting glaciers and devastated forests on a recent trip to Alaska, he decided global warming should be a higher priority on his list of key issues for evangelicals.

“I thought the globe was warming, but I thought that there was a whole lot of hype attached and there were not a lot of practical solutions presented,” said Jackson, pastor of a megachurch in Beltsville, Md.

The trip to Alaska was a bit of a road-to-Damascus moment for Jackson, a leading voice among conservative black pastors. Earlier this year, he had gone on CNN to question environmentally friendly evangelical leaders and joined a protest against Richard Cizik, the green-minded vice president of the National Association of Evangelicals.

But now, after traveling with scientists and evangelicals on a weeklong trip last month sponsored by Harvard Medical School and the NAE, Jackson is ready to work to bring evangelicals from the left and right together to address reducing carbon emissions and oil use.

“I believe we can kind of come to a working agreement on an environmental agenda,” he said.

Some evangelical leaders, often one by one, have similar conversion stories, moving them from merely being concerned about creation toward a sense that they should do something to protect it. One group, the Evangelical Climate Initiative, says its number of supporters has inched up from 86 early last year to 106 today.

But the support that’s slowly growing in some circles is nuanced at best, and there are many evangelicals who remain unconvinced.

Religious broadcaster Pat Robertson made headlines during last summer’s heat wave when he remarked, “I have not been one who believed in this global warming, but I tell you, they’re making a convert out of me with these blistering summers.”

See related articles: • It's not easy being green • Use 'moral imagination' in addressing global warming, expert says • Energy-efficient green churches have more money for ministry • Some evangelicals go green, but skepticism lingers • 10 steps to help save the world • Providing clean water is life-giving work, biologist says

But Robertson’s spokeswoman said he still hasn’t joined one or the other side of the climate change debate.

“Pat has not made any new comments since last summer, and he hasn’t joined any organizations regarding global warming … and continues to weigh all the facts and arguments,” said Angell Vasko.

Jackson, though moved by the sight of an Eskimo village losing island homes to storm surge erosion, remains hesitant to embrace some energy-reducing recommendations, but he admits he’s a changed man who better understands the need for “environmental justice.”

“You’re not going to change this problem by turning lights off so many hours a day,” said Jackson, who also flew over forests eaten up by spruce bark beetles, whose reproductive rates have increased with warmer temperatures. “The personal impact is not as heavy as the corporate im-pact of transitioning fuel sources.”

While Rob-ertson and Jackson have-n’t, others have signed onto the Evangelical Climate Initia-tive, hoping to be role models.

“I wanted to take a public stance and be an encourager to others to get serious about our responsibility to care for creation,” said Paul Corts, president of the Council for Christian Colleges & Universities, who added his name this spring.

“And signing the ECI was a simple but significant way I could encourage others.”

Other evangelical leaders are being outspoken in other ways. Progressive evangelical pastor Rob Bell, who leads Mars Hill Bible Church in Grandville, Mich., recently concluded a summer sermon series on “God is Green.”

Bell, who’s preached on the environment for five years and made family lifestyle changes such as downsizing from two cars to one and swapping a clothes dryer for a clothesline, said he was surprised that a statement from the Evan-gelical Climate Initiative was even necessary.

“To me, it’s just obvious,” said Bell. “It’s sad to me that they would even need to state the obvious.”

Richard Land of the Southern Baptist Conven-tion’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, is among those who remain unconvinced humans are the major cause of global warming.

“It’s certainly going to be an uphill battle to get a significant number of evangelicals to support the Evangelical Climate Initiative because it’s wrong-headed,” Land said.

“Science is not near as clear as liberal arts theologians are.”

Rusty Pritchard, national outreach director of the Evangelical Environ-mental Network, said despite continuing criticism, there is a “transformation in the conversation,” with people asking how to answer skeptics rather than being skeptical themselves.

“It’s an uphill battle,” he said. “But I feel like the wind is at our backs.”

News of religion, faith, missions, Bible study and Christian ministry among Baptist churches, in Texas, the BGCT, the nation and around the world.

Posted: 9/29/07

10 steps to help save the world

By Hannah Elliott

Associated Baptist Press

NEW YORK (ABP)—With all the talk of global warming, environmental degradation and increase in pollution-caused disease, it’s easy to get overwhelmed. But experts say changing just a few daily habits can help alleviate some of those problems. And if enough people make those changes, it’ll benefit the whole world.

Here are 10 simple things everyone can do to go green—and improve their own quality of life in the process.

1. Replace incandescent light bulbs with compact fluorescent light bulbs. The fluorescent bulbs cost a little more than the conventional ones, but they use only 25 percent of the electricity and last years longer. Found in practically every home store, the fluorescent bulbs are often labeled “Energy Savers” or have the “Energy Star” label.

2. Recycle. Every three months, Americans throw away enough aluminum to rebuild the nation’s entire commercial air fleet, according to the Recycler’s Handbook. Recycling re-sources like aluminum, glass and paper saves energy and slows global warming. It also reduces water pollution, acid rain and soil erosion. Churches can get in on the act by setting up corporate recycling bins in offices and parking lots. To find a local recycling center, call 1-800-CLEANUP.

3. Garden with friends or neighbors. Green plants remove carbon dioxide from the air and then release oxygen through photosynthesis. Vegetable and herb gardens provide healthy, inexpensive food, and working on a garden is a great bonding opportunity for families or churches and neighborhoods. Avoid synthetic fertilizers and pesticides. And use homemade mulch or compost.

4. Support local markets and merchants rather than chain stores. Farmers’ markets provide the perfect opportunity to support local growers, many of whom produce their wares in environmentally conscious ways. Independently owned stores, too, are firmly rooted in the community, which usually means they carefully protect local resources. Chain stores, on the other hand, have no such stake in local environs.

5. Vote with your money. Support environmentally responsible companies. Buy products with a high recycled content. And fix broken items instead of buying new ones.

See related articles: • It's not easy being green • Use 'moral imagination' in addressing global warming, expert says • Energy-efficient green churches have more money for ministry • Some evangelicals go green, but skepticism lingers • 10 steps to help save the world • Providing clean water is life-giving work, biologist says

6. Winterize your house and car—and help others in your church do the same. Rusty Pritchard of the Evangelical Environmental Network suggests churches help senior citizens caulk and weather-strip all doors and windows. Also check fluid and air levels in cars in order to conserve energy through the winter months.

7. Walk more; drive less. Motor vehicles release a third of all the carbon dioxide in the U.S. and Canada each year. Walking reduces energy consumption, noise pollution and air pollution. It also saves gas money. And residential property values go up when traffic goes down.

8. Use energy-saver appliances, and use them less often. A study by Cambridge University’s Institute of Manufacturing found 60 percent of energy associated with clothing comes from washing and drying. Instead, hang clothes on a clothesline. Wait to run dishwashers until they’re completely full. Turn off computers and lights when not using them.

9. Open the windows. When possible, allow windows, curtains and blinds to regulate temperature rather than the thermostat. Every degree turned up in the summer and down in the winter can save up to 5 percent in air conditioning and heating costs.

10. Buy green power. According to a recent report by Time magazine, more than 600 utilities in 37 states offer green energy. Visit eere.energy.gov/ greenpower to learn which companies provide the service.

In general, it’ll take a transformation of hearts and minds to bring real change, experts say.

Like many people in developed nations, Christians too easily can adopt a culture of commercialism, Pritchard insists.

But people of faith should have a direct—even leading—role in effecting change by living lives of simplicity, contemplation, conservation and compassion.

“How many Christians actually take a Sabbath and rest and don’t consume?” he asked.

“We’ve got to think of ways to slow down and think of things that are eternal, spending more time in God’s word and more time in prayer. They help immunize us against … consumerism.”

News of religion, faith, missions, Bible study and Christian ministry among Baptist churches, in Texas, the BGCT, the nation and around the world.

Posted: 9/29/07

Providing clean water is
life-giving work, biologist says

By Melissa Browning

Cooperative Baptist Fellowship

ATLANTA (ABP)—When Darrell Smith explains the development work he does in Macedonia, he often tells the story from Luke’s Gospel of Jesus cleansing the lepers.

“Jesus healed them simply because they asked,” said Smith, a mission worker with the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship. “They did not have to listen to a sermon. They were not required to do anything in order to receive healing. In fact, Jesus knew that 90 percent would never say thank you or give him a second thought. But he healed them anyway.”

This is how the native Texan sees his own work of providing clean water, working with farmers and participating in disaster-response relief work.

For Smith, providing clean water is the most life-giving part of his work. He started to sense his own calling when the Berlin Wall fell. At the time, Smith was working as a biologist for the U.S. government, and he began to feel a spiritual burden for Eastern Europe. Now living with his family in Mace-donia, Smith uses his doctorate in ecology to make contacts within the scientific community there.

And he is able to work with the Macedonian government in what he calls “creation care.”

Smith says Macedonia faces many environmental challenges, but he has been able to improve the water quality of a dying lake, help clean a polluted river and establish new nature preserves in the region.

See related articles: • It's not easy being green • Use 'moral imagination' in addressing global warming, expert says • Energy-efficient green churches have more money for ministry • Some evangelicals go green, but skepticism lingers • 10 steps to help save the world • Providing clean water is life-giving work, biologist says

It isn’t only about clean water. The environmental work provides a chance for Smith to share his faith—a faith that motivates his work.

For instance, he recently was sitting in a restaurant with a local village leader and a civil engineer. The engineer’s firm had just completed a design plan for a village sewage system, which primarily was paid for by CBF. As they were discussing the plan, the engineer turned to Smith and said: “I know you’re a Christian and have helped us a great deal on this project.”

Smith said he was thrilled to realize a door had opened for the three friends to talk about their faiths.

“What an opportunity it was for us to build bridges through our mutual compassion for the villagers, who had been living with contaminated drinking water and sewage flowing in the street for so many years,” Smith said.

That conversation and others like it especially are important, Smith said, because it was only a few years ago that Christian Serbs had tried to exterminate the Albanians of Kosovo.

Clean water not only gives health to families who need it, but in Macedonia, it builds peace, he stressed. It is a reminder of reconciliation.

News of religion, faith, missions, Bible study and Christian ministry among Baptist churches, in Texas, the BGCT, the nation and around the world.