Posted: 8/31/07

Investors with moral agenda are
bullish on faith-based mutual funds

By G. Jeffrey MacDonald

Religion News Service

WASHINGTON (RNS)—Religious activists with a moral agenda for corporate America used to rely primarily on consumer boycotts and sympathetic lawmakers to get Wall Street’s attention. But now their toolbox is growing—and there’s a lot more money in it.

Over the past decade, America’s market for religious investment products has grown by more than 3,500 percent, according to data from fund tracker Morningstar.

During the same period, faith-based mutual funds, which routinely agitate for social change in corporate board rooms or shun stocks they deem immoral, grew from about $500 million to more than $17 billion.

What’s emerging, observers say, is a market-based response to popular demand for ways people of faith can make their voices heard on issues closest to their hearts. And people of faith—especially social conservatives—are seizing what they see as a new opportunity to make a difference.

“It’s just a matter of growing up” and adding more sophisticated tools for advancing an agenda, said Ron Simkins, director of the Kripke Center for the Study of Religion & Society at Creighton University in Omaha, Neb. “Now, instead of boycotting Disney, they’ll be investing in Fox Family Films.”

Religious conservatives are mobilizing to attach a voice to the cash they already have on Wall Street. For example, the Tupelo, Miss.-based American Family Association is for the first time urging its 2.8 million online members to purge their investment portfolios of companies that support a “gay agenda” or “anti-family” practices.

Yet, as social conservatives increasingly tether their agendas to their investments, they’re hardly walking in lockstep. On the contrary, they’re choosing among a range of religious financial products—including 16 families of faith-based mutual funds—that vary in how they define corporate responsibility.

Evangelicals, for instance, are getting behind more than one vision. Some have contributed to the $600 million Timothy Plan, a family of mutual funds with evangelical roots and a pledge to avoid “securities of any company that is actively contributing to the moral decline of our society.” Translation: screening out companies—including many in the benchmark S&P 500 Index—affiliated with pornography, abortion, gambling, tobacco, alcohol and non-married lifestyles.

However, evangelicals also are behind much of the $900 million invested with Mennonite Mutual Aid Praxis Funds, which defies easy political categories. This group avoids companies such as Pfizer, which fund managers regard as manufacturers of abortion products. But it also lobbies on behalf of shareholders for eco-friendly corporate policies, and its pacifist orientation screens out stocks in defense contractors and bonds issued by the U.S. Treasury.

Mark Regier, stewardship investing service manager for Mennonite Mutual Aid, insists his firm hears evangelicals saying: “‘I want more. As an evangelical or conservative Christian, I do care about the environment. I do care about human rights. I do see the sense in being engaged with companies and encouraging them to move to more positive positions on social issues.’”

Promoters of what’s known as “morally responsible” or “biblically responsible” investing are expecting the values component to be a powerful drawing card.

Kingdom Advisors, a nationwide network of more than 1,200 Christian financial advisers, this year created a subgroup of those who offer biblically responsible investment products.

Centurion Funds, named after a faithful figure in the Gospel of Luke, launched less than a year ago with a pledge from company President David Lenoir to “not just avoid the ‘sin stocks’ but to look for the good in companies.”

And more than 600 investors, each committing at least $100,000 to private money management with Stewardship Partners in Matthews, N.C., have demonstrated there’s a market for customizing equity portfolios according to what CEO Rusty Leonard calls “red state (conservative) Christian values.”

For socially conservative activists, the process of engaging corporations has evolved gradually over two decades. Until now, the Mississippi-based AFA, for instance, has focused on consumer action.

Consumer pressure is easier than investor pressure to explain and to use in rallying a broad base of supporters, AFA President Tim Wildmon said.

But he insists his organization has been remiss in letting agenda-driven investing be the near-exclusive province of left-leaning mutual funds with a “socially responsible” label.

“We just dropped the ball on that,” Wildmon said. “We haven’t been very smart in that regard. But now that’s about to start changing.”

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

Posted: 8/31/07

North Carolina WMU decides
to leave convention’s control

CARY, N.C. (ABP)—The Woman’s Missionary Union of North Carolina board has voted to remove the missions organization from the North Carolina Baptist Building—and the state convention executive director’s attempt to assert authority over its staff.

The dramatic move culminates 16 months of tension between the state WMU and the rightward-shifting Baptist State Convention of North Carolina.

Conflict between the missions-promotion group and the North Carolina convention has simmered since April 2006, when the WMU leadership voted to change the term that described its relationship with the convention from “auxiliary” to “cooperative partner.”

At that time, it also assumed final authority in its own personnel matters, although it committed to stay aligned with Baptist State Convention personnel policies.

At issue was who could make the final call on potential new hires—a responsibility claimed by the state convention’s executive director-treasurer because each state WMU staff member is a convention employee.

However, North Carolina WMU staff positions mainly are funded through a state missions offering WMU members promote.

Several meetings took place between WMU and North Carolina Baptist leaders to resolve the issues.

However, they reached an impasse when neither side would budge from their position on ultimate authority in hiring WMU staff.

North Carolina Baptist Executive Director Milton Hollifield said in a prepared statement he was “grieved” that the longstanding relationship between the state convention and WMU had “moved to this level of consequential uncertainty.”

North Carolina WMU Executive Director Ruby Fulbright insisted Hollifield has taken a more active role in hiring matters.

She said in previous state convention administrations, WMU was wholly responsible for hiring and managing its staff and the North Carolina Baptist executive director merely signed paperwork to enter new WMU employees into the payroll system.

Fundamentalists supportive of recent decades’ rightward shift in the national Southern Baptist Convention solidified their control of the North Carolina convention—long a moderate bastion—in the years just prior to Hollifield’s appointment in 2006.

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

Posted: 8/31/07

Congregations aid flooded church in Oklahoma

By Carla Wynn Davis

Cooperative Baptist Fellowship

CHICKASHA, Okla.—Members of Cowboy Country Church in Chickasha, Okla., put hours of work into transforming an old building into their new church home. But after worshipping there just one Sunday, the building became uninhabitable.

The new church became infested with mold after flooding from Tropical Storm Erin, which blew through Chickasha Aug. 18-19. 

When Pastor Lynn Walker, arrived at the church to survey the situation, he found that a nearby creek and river had become one large rushing body of water. The church was flooding, and Walker waded through chest-high water, trying to save the congregation’s music and sound equipment.

But despite Walker’s efforts, the church lost about $10,000 in furnishings, rent, sound equipment and musical instruments.

So far three Oklahoma churches have offered funds to help the cowboy church recover some losses. The Cooperative Baptist Fellowship has contributed $2,000 toward the church’s recovery efforts, and more support could come from other state and regional CBF organizations, said Charles Ray, the Fellowship’s disaster response coordinator.

Members of First Baptist Church in Oklahoma City and NorthHaven Church in Norman, Okla., helped clean the damaged building. 

On Aug. 22, the church held Wednesday services outside the damaged church building, and for now, members have begun moving to another location. 

“They’re not giving up,” said T Thomas, Oklahoma CBF coordinator. “They’re moving ahead.”

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

Posted: 8/31/07

Louisiana College to open law school
named for SBC fundamentalist leader

By Greg Warner

Associated Baptist Press

PINEVILLE, La. (ABP)—Baptist-affiliated Louisiana College will establish a new “biblical” law school named after Paul Pressler, the Texas appeals-court judge better known for leading the fundamentalist takeover of the Southern Baptist Convention.

The college hopes to open the Judge Paul Pressler School of Law in 2009, said Joe Aguillard, president of the 1,000-student school. The school wants to have as many as 40 students in the first year and grow to 300, he said.

Louisiana College is affiliated with the Louisiana Baptist Convention, which elects its trustees. Like the SBC, the school has shifted in recent years to a more narrowly conservative stance. Some faculty members complained academic freedom was being curtailed, and the school’s accrediting agency placed the college on probation.

Aguillard said the law school—which would be the school’s first doctoral program—will teach “a biblical worldview” and seek accreditation with the American Bar Association.

“Founding a law school is a monumental undertaking but one that we are working on diligently,” Aguillard said in a press release. “Opening a conservative, Christian law school will fill a niche in the state of Louisiana and also the nation.”

Pressler, a Baptist layman from Houston, served in the Texas legislature and practiced law before being named a state judge in 1970. He later was appointed to the 14th Court of Appeals, from which he retired in 1993.

In 1989, President George H. W. Bush reportedly offered Pressler the post of director of the Office of Government Ethics, which angered Baptist moderates. In his 1999 autobiography, A Hill on Which to Die, Pressler said he declined the position rather than face confirmation and the “personal vendetta in which liberals engage to destroy innocent people.”

Pressler also served as a trustee of the SBC International Mission Board and as first vice president of the convention.

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

Posted: 8/31/07

Race: The final frontier

By Ken Camp

Managing Editor

When Anglos, Hispanics, African-Americans and Nigerians gather in the same place on Sunday morning, planning worship presents challenges.

“Its a lot more than just a question of hymns or choruses,” said Charlie Brown, pastor of The Crossing Baptist Church in Mesquite.

When people in the pews look at the front of the sanctuary, Brown wants them to see somebody leading in worship—praying, singing, preaching or whatever—to whom they can relate.

He also wants worship services to include elements that reflect the cultures represented in the congregation—and the increasingly diverse community around the church.

“Theologically, we say that sin is separation. But practically, we don’t do enough to break down separation,” Brown said. “We have to be intentional about it.”

When Brown and others started The Crossing Baptist Church 10 years ago, Anglos comprised all its membership. Now, non-Anglos make up about one-fourth of the congregation.

“We are richer—much richer—for it,” he said.

Brown realizes his congregation still has a long way to go before it becomes “a genuinely multiracial, multi-ethnic church,” but he believes it has the right vision. “We want to reflect the kingdom of God. We want to look like what God’s people look like,” he said.

But in most Ameri-can churches, the observation Martin Luther King Jr. made more than 50 years ago still holds true—11 a.m. on Sunday morning is “the most segregated hour” in the United States.

Some blame the church growth movement for perpetuating Sunday morning separation. Donald McGavran, the longtime senior professor at Fuller Theological Seminary who became known as “father of the church growth movement,” pioneered the homogenous unit principle—the idea that congregations grow when people don’t have to cross racial, linguistic or class barriers.

Bob Perry, congregational health team leader with the Baptist General Convention of Missouri, refuses to lay the responsibility for lack of diversity in churches at the feet of the church growth gurus. He believes McGavran and others “simply stated a theory that is born out of nature and social tendencies.”

But Perry also believes healthy churches put forth the effort needed to reflect the larger communities they serve.

When he served as director of missions in Richmond (Va.) Baptist Association, he realized the association had 15 predominantly African-American churches, about 60 Anglo churches, a handful of other ethnic congregations but not a single truly multiracial, multi-ethnic church.

Lanetta Lyles (center) talks with fellow members at The Crossing Baptist Church in Mesquite following Sunday services. From left are Leslie Gillespie, Mark Bevans, Lanetta Lyles, Isaiah and Alex Pinales.

Perry made attempts at the individual level to bridge divisions. He and his wife, Marilyn, joined a black church. He led the association to call its first African-American moderator and include African-American church leaders on associational councils and committees.

“All of this was just taking small steps to try to move in the direction of greater inclusiveness, diversity and unity,” he said. “But I can’t claim that we moved very far in my six years there toward truly integrating a church or creating a multi-ethnic church.”

Perry became convinced worship style remains the dividing line between races, particularly between African-Americans and Anglos.

“I don’t think there are theological barriers to black and whites worshipping together. I don’t think there are sociological barriers that prevent it; we have learned to integrate almost every other institution of society. I think the major holdup has been the varying expectations people have developed about what genuine worship of God looks and feels like,” he said.

“If everyone would be a little flexible, and if the church would make a real effort to accommodate the preferences of those they hope to reach, we will see more multi-ethnic churches.”

Churches that want to bridge barriers of race and culture need flexibility and patience with each other, Brown agreed. Based on his experience at The Crossing Baptist Church, he has become convinced that not only includes issues regarding worship style, but also matters of church governance.

Black members whose previous experience has been limited exclusively to African-American congregations often want to leave decisions about the church to the pastor, he observed.

Some Hispanic members have told Brown any disagreement expressed in church business meetings make them uncomfortable. They are accustomed to reaching a consensus after private conversations rather than openly debating issues and deciding matters by an up-or-down vote, he said.

The Crossing offered a seminar on Baptist polity to help its members understand the importance of congregational governance. In the process, members have grown in their awareness of the varied decision-making processes different cultures follow.

Brown believes one other ingredient is essential in multi-ethnic and multiracial congregations—humility. Church leaders who represent the majority racial or ethnic group in the congregation need to recognize they don’t have all the answers, he stressed.

“We have to stop all the nonsense—the over-under relationships and paternalistic attitudes,” he said.

In relating to Chris-tians from other racial and ethnic backgrounds, Brown said: “I have to recognize their understanding of the kingdom of God may be far greater than mine. They have something to teach us.”

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

Posted: 8/31/07

BOOKS: 'When All God’s Children Get Together'
A Memoir of Race and Baptists

By Marv Knox

Editor

Baptists can change, and reconciliation is possible, Emmanuel McCall testifies in his new book, When All God’s Children Get Together: A Memoir of Race and Baptists.

McCall’s book provides a travelogue of the journey Baptists in the South took during the past 50 years. It’s a trek that transported them from segregation to repentance, from mutual mistrust to reconciliation.

That journey parallels McCall’s ministry—from when he enrolled as the only African-American student at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in 1959, to when he stepped down as the Southern Baptist Convention’s race-relations leader in 1991, to his participation in bringing Baptists across the races together to affirm the New Baptist Covenant next year.

McCall recalls poignant moments in his own life that reflect a larger movement of racial awareness and an inch-by-inch march toward harmony. Born and raised in melting-pot Pennsylvania, he never encountered overt racism until he ventured south of the Mason-Dixon Line to attend Simmons College in Louisville, Ky., in 1953. That quiet, eager student couldn’t have known he would spend the rest of his life overcoming racism. His efforts freed blacks and whites alike from bonds of bigotry.

This book pays tribute to the grace and dignity of McCall’s fellow travelers. Like most memoirs, McCall’s names names. But unlike many stories of racism, McCall tells about the heroes—the courageous people who led Southern Baptists toward the light of racial responsiveness and harmony.

They range from his friend Duke McCall, president of Southern Seminary during his student days, to Arthur Rutledge, who created a safe haven at the Home Mission Board, where Emmanuel McCall could become the first African-American elected staff member at any SBC agency in 1968.

McCall’s memoir describes how God’s grace turned calamitous events into stepping-stones toward racial understanding. In 1957, the SBC Executive Committee tried to withdraw a mission study book that highlighted race relations, The Long Bridge. In 1972, the Sunday School Board pulled a student magazine, Becoming, because its cover featured a black young man talking to two white young women. These were tense times, but McCall shows how champions of reconciliation advanced the cause, even in the face of powerful forces.

This book provides a vital resource by chronicling how two Southern Baptist agencies—the Christian Life Commission and the Home Mission Board—advanced the cause of race relations, even when the cultural foundations of the South leaned the other way. It tells about the principled staff members at those agencies, whose personal acts of courage and discipline in time changed the hearts and minds of their fellow Baptists.

Although the book spans 50 years, it also looks to the future. McCall, a current vice president of the Baptist World Alliance and pastor of The Fellowship Group Baptist Church in East Point, Ga., and immediate past moderator of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, is promoting the New Baptist Covenant, a pledge of racial harmony and cooperation to achieve kingdom goals. About 20,000 Baptists of all races are expected to “celebrate” the covenant in Atlanta next January.

Writing When All God’s Children Get Together taught McCall lessons—about Bap-tists and about himself, he said in an e-mail interview.

“I have learned that Baptists can and will change, despite our autonomy and stubbornness,” he noted.

And he also developed “a deeper appreciation for the extent of my commitment to racial reconciliation,” he added. “For a period in my life (when he worked at the Home Mission Board), it was my calling. Even after leaving the HMB, I am still involved in ministries of racial reconciliation.”

Since that time, he has started two predominantly African-American congregations in suburban Atlanta, Christian Fellowship Baptist Church and The Fellowship Group. Both times, the young churches shared facilities with predominantly Anglo congregations in transitional neighborhoods.

Now, his work on behalf of the New Baptist Covenant strengthens racial reconciliation, he said. “I am helping black and white Baptists discover each other and begin learning again how to work together across racial lines.”

Practical as always, McCall pointed out the value of the New Baptist Covenant will not be demonstrated at the Atlanta meeting, no matter how large the gathering.

“The New Baptist Covenant will be successful if local coalitions of Baptists can overcome whatever differences we have, find the common needs to be addressed and join together in challenging the human problems we face,” he explained.

Looking back, McCall said Baptists, particularly in the American South, should learn lessons from the journey they have taken in the past 50 years.

“We should be reminded that the Bible can be twisted to make us believe, accept and defend culture instead of biblical truth,” he warned. “We Baptists are a ‘people of the book,’ but we often have spoken our culture and insecurities instead of God’s truth.

“We must continue to let the Holy Spirit break through our cultural biases to confront us with God through Jesus Christ.”

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

Posted: 8/31/07

Opportunities, challenges confront
increasingly multi-ethnic congregation

By Ken Camp

Managing Editor

DALLAS—Soon after Pastor Bruce Troy arrived at Gaston Oaks Baptist Church in Dallas, he challenged a group in the congregation to answer one question: “What would you do if God put 100 people on your doorstep?”

Three years later, Troy observed: “That’s exactly what he’s done. They just don’t speak English.”

Specifically, Gaston Oaks has opened its doors to the growing Karen people group living in several apartment complexes near the church.

In the last decade, many of the persecuted Karen people of Myanmar—or Burma as it is more commonly known in the West—fled to Thailand. As refugee camps there closed in the last year, a significant number of the Karen people have been relocated to northeast Dallas.

Gaston Oaks provides transportation to the church from the apartment complexes where the Karen have resettled, and volunteers lead English as a Second Language classes for them during the Sunday school hour.

The church also sees an opportunity to meet the needs of many Karen refugees through the Healing Hands Ministries, a medical clinic serving uninsured people in the Lake Highlands area of northeast Dallas. Janna Gardner, a member of Gaston Oaks, serves as the clinic’s executive director, and Gaston Oaks is one of several churches that sponsors the ministry.

In the Sunday morning worship services, Troy’s sermons are translated into Spanish and Karen, and non-English-speaking worshippers listen to an interpreter on headsets. Meanwhile, an Iranian congregation meets elsewhere on the church campus. And an African-American congregation —originally launched by a pastor displaced by Hurricane Katrina to meet the needs of other storm evacuees—also shares the congregation’s facility.

“We’ve been thrust into becoming a truly multicultural church family,” Troy said. As the church has tried to respond to its rapidly changing community, the transition has not always been smooth, he acknowledged.

On any given week, the Karen people make up half of the worshippers in the sanctuary. But Troy readily acknowledges the total number in worship has decreased.

“We’ve lost some folks,” he said, noting a variety of factors contributed to the decline. Even so, Troy believes God will use Gaston Oaks to make a difference in its community, as long as the church seeks to follow God’s mission.

“I don’t particularly like the word ‘missional.’ I can’t find it in the Bible. … We’re just want to become the church that God wants this church to be,” he said. “Sometimes it’s chaotic. We’re in a survival mode. But we know he’s going to take us through it.”

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

Posted: 8/31/07

Minorities are flocking to multi-ethnic
campus groups for Christian fellowship

By Matt Kennedy

Associated Baptist Press

DALLAS (ABP)—Anglo students continue to primarily populate college evangelical organizations, but ethnic minority students have started to join them in increasing numbers.

Two of the nation’s largest parachurch campus evangelical organizations, Campus Crusade for Christ and InterVarsity Christian Fellowship/USA, stress building ethnically diverse communities in their mission statements. And recent statistics cited in the San Francisco Chronicle and Christianity Today suggest their goals for diversity slowly are starting to become a reality.

According to InverVarsity’s annual national field report trends, membership rates have increased for African Americans, Asian Americans and Latino Americans by 3 percent, 16 percent and 22 percent, respectively, over the past five years. In the same time period, Anglo membership declined 9 percent.

Paula Fuller, InterVarsity vice president and director of multi-ethnic ministries, said there is not a direct correlation between the increase in minority membership and the decrease in non-minority membership. But—in a move away from the norm—she said her organization also has focused on the concept of “white identity” lately.

“We’ve started to realize that in order to have a multi-ethnic conversation, our white students and our white staff need to have a strong sense of their own ethnic identity,” Fuller said.

According to AFR trends, African-American InterVarsity membership increased by 48 percent over the past decade, more than any other ethnic group. Fuller said she doesn’t know the exact reason for the spike in African-American membership, but she cited a possible explanation.

“A couple of recent studies show that African-Americans students coming to college tend to be more spiritual on average in terms of regular church attendance, prayer or thinking about spiritual issues,” Fuller said. “That would indicate a higher percentage of them might be more inclined to seek out a Christian group on campus.”

At certain colleges, some national minority groups are the majority in their campus evangelical groups. Asian-American students outnumber all other ethnic groups by a wide margin in campus evangelical groups at the University of California at Berkley and many Ivy League schools, said Rebecca Kim, author of God’s New Whiz Kids.

Kim’s research shows Yale’s chapter of Campus Crusade for Christ is 90 percent Asian-American. And even though Asian-American students account for only 40 percent of UC Berkley’s enrollment, they make up 80 percent of the campus evangelical groups.

Many parachurch organizations, including InterVarsity, have established ethnicity-specific branches to compensate for the lack of diversity within many multi-ethnic ministries.

Tommy Dyo, national director of the Epic Movement, which is Campus Crusade for Christ’s Asian-American ministry, said his organization hasn’t reached its diversity goals because it still hasn’t achieved representative population numbers on a national level. However, he said, he’s seen an attitude shift within the organization that makes reaching the goal seem feasible.

Jim Lundgren, InterVarsity vice president and director of collegiate ministries, said non-Asian minority groups have a majority membership stake in campus evangelical groups at other colleges.

LaFe, or Latino Fellowship, is the national Latino-American ministry of InterVarsity that reaches schools with large Latino-American populations. Orlando Crespo, LaFe national director, said there shouldn’t be a debate between multi-ethnic ministry and ethnic-specific ministry because they go hand-in-hand.

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

Posted: 8/31/07

Baptists mark centennial of
social work education for churches

By Vicki M. Kabat and Franci Rogers

Baylor University

Looking back, Mallory Homeyer recalls how her desire to help other people was nurtured during her early years at First Baptist Church of Kenedy, where her mother was deeply involved in Woman’s Missionary Union.

“From a young age, the faces of the WMU women in my church were the faces of missions for me,” she said. “I grew up wanting to model my life after them,” she said.

But it wasn’t until Homeyer enrolled at Baylor University in 2002 and discovered its School of Social Work that she discovered her love for God and for helping others could be expressed through a profession she didn’t know existed—church social work.

Rena Groover of Pidcock, Ga.; Clemmie Ford of Knoxville, Tenn.; Alice Huey of Bessemer, Ala.; and Ella Jeter of Walters, Okla., were the first women to move into a rented house provided by Southern Baptist Theological Seminary on Nov. 26, 1904. The four had chosen to live together as roommates independently, but the seminary became worried about their safety and urged them to move into a place it rented for them. Three years later, the WMU Training School began as a partnership between Woman’s Missionary Union and Southern Seminary, with the goal to provide a formal education for young women called to serve God. (Southern Baptist Theological Seminary Photo)

“It combined all the things I have a passion for,” said Homeyer, who will serve as an intern at Elkins Lake Baptist Church in Huntsville next spring.

The Baylor School of Social Work’s fall class represents the 100th year of social work education for the church, and it’s a milestone Diana Garland, dean of the School, has made sure students recognize. The school has hosted centennial celebrations throughout the past year, with another planned for the Woman’s Missionary Union National Convention Oct. 17-20 in Little Rock, Ark.

“The role of social work is moving to the heart of the church,” Garland said. “The Greatest Commandment stands on two legs—the love of God and the love of our neighbor. Social work, especially in the church, helps us to know how to love our neighbor.”

The WMU Training School began in 1907 in Louisville, Ky., as a partnership between the WMU and Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, with the goal to provide a formal education for young women called to serve God.

Students came primarily from economically disadvantaged or rural areas, and they depended on the women of WMU to help them with tuition. In 1912, the Baptist Settlement House, later called the Goodwill Center, was established and was the beginning of the field component of social work education.

“Louisville, at that time, had a lot of immigrants who were struggling with poverty, language and culture, who came to the Goodwill Center,” said Laine Scales, professor of social work and author of All That Fits a Woman, a history of the early years of the WMU Training School. “Students would go there to implement and practice what they learned in the classroom. It is where they learned the heart of social work.”

The WMU Training School was renamed the Carver School of Missions and Social Work in the 1950s, and in 1957 it was deeded to the Southern Baptist Convention due to financial difficulties. Its assets were merged with Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, which later dismissed the Carver School faculty and reframed social work as a major within its School of Religious Education.

Anne Davis, a graduate of the last class of Carver, joined the seminary’s faculty in 1970 determined to rebuild what had been lost. Davis called Garland, a young academician and clinician to join her, along with Rob Rogers, today an associate professor at the School of Social Work. They and a few others developed a master’s program.

“At that time, the social work profession was rather allergic to the church, to anything that smacked of faith and ministry,” Garland said. “Social work was considered a mental health profession. In the Baptist world, however, Christian social ministries was recognized as an important mission of the church.”

In 1984, the Carver School of Church Social Work was established with Davis as its first dean. But in 1995, the new president of the seminary, with the backing of its trustees, closed the graduate social work program, stating that social work education was incongruent with conservative theology. Garland, who had been named dean in 1993, was dismissed.

Out of that turmoil, however, the legacy of graduate education in social work for the church re-emerged at Baylor University. Preston Dyer, then chair of the social work program in the sociology department, invited Garland to help him develop a master’s program in social work at Baylor.

In 1999, the first master of social work class of 14 was enrolled. In fall 2007, that master’s program has mushroomed to 124 students, including 14 in a dual degree offered in conjuction with Baylor’s Truett Theological Seminary. In 2005, the school was ranked in the top 100 graduate schools in U.S. News & World Report. That same year, the school officially became Baylor’s 11th academic unit, with Garland as its inaugural dean.

“Many churches are involved in a wide variety of ministry to people,” Baptist General Convention of Texas Executive Director Charles Wade said. “The more churches do this work, the more they see the need for carefully trained leaders, people who cannot only do social work ministry, but also can equip and train church volunteers to do it in a more effective way.”

Today, the legacy of those pioneering WMU women to provide quality education for young women who felt called to serve God continues at Baylor. WMU Executive Director Wanda Lee is pleased that the tradition has a new home.

“In 1907, the women had a place to call home” at the WMU Training School, she said. “We are grateful that the Baylor School of Social Work is there today to pick up the mantle of what was started 100 years ago.”

Wade values the faith-based, holistic perspective that informs the social work education at Baylor.

“There is social work education offered all over the country, but only at Baylor is the focus on helping train skilled people for working in social ministries as part of the church mission,” he said.

The school’s leaders hope for a new facility to accommodate its growing student enrollment, faculty and staff. A strategic plan, more than two years in development, has been drafted that calls for a doctoral program and increased international education opportunities.

Notably, the school has received more than $6 million in grants since 1999 to conduct research that explores the interrelationships between faith and service and its impact on churches, religiously affiliated organizations and the social work profession.

Social work student Homeyer, whose education is being partially subsidized by WMU scholarships, has found the home and the profession she has longed for since going to WMU meetings as a child with her mother.

“These women probably never realized how they shaped the church,” Homeyer said. “They were willing to be radical and to step out there. And now we need to do the same.”

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

Posted: 8/31/07

Texas Tidbits

TBM offers relief to Erin victims. Texas Baptist Men dispatched two clean-out teams, a shower unit and recovery group to two West Texas towns flooded by the remnants of Tropical Storm Erin. Clean-out teams from Amarillo and Lubbock, a recovery team from Waxahachie and a shower unit from O’Donnell headed to Merkel and Hamlin. The Ellis Christian Disaster Relief Box Unit took 2,000 moving boxes to help flood victims collect the items they would like to save. About 250 homes in Hamlin and 30 in Merkel were affected by flooding that occurred as a result of the remnants of Tropical Storm Erin. Texas Baptist Men disaster relief efforts can be supported by sending a check designated “disaster relief” to Disaster Relief, Texas Baptist Men, 5351 Catron, Dallas 75227 or via credit card by calling (214) 828-5351.

Ethics lecture program endowed at Howard Payne. A gift from Gary and Molli Elliston of Park Cities Baptist Church in Dallas has enabled Howard Payne University to establish a distinguished lecture program focusing on the significance of Christian ethics, beginning in the 2008 spring semester. The Ellistons endowed the Currie-Strickland Distinguished Lecture Series in honor of David Currie, executive director of Texas Baptists Committed, and in memory of Phil Strickland, director of the Texas Baptist Christian Life Commission. “On an annual basis, this lecture will provide a special opportunity to students, faculty and the general public to consider the importance of Christian ethics in the workplace, in the classroom, in ministry, in national and world affairs and in the minds of Christians as they make decisions in their daily lives,” Howard Payne President Lanny Hall said.

Retiree Ministries Retreat slated. Bill Pinson, Baptist General Convention of Texas executive director emeritus, will preach, and Bill Tolar, retired dean of the School of Theology at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, will teach daily Bible studies during the ninth annual Retiree Ministries Retreat at Glorieta Conference Center, Sept. 24-28. Music evangelist Dick Baker of McKinney will lead the music, and retired dentist Bill Hanson of Dallas will be the organist. The retreat is sponsored by the Baptist General Convention of Texas and Glorieta Conference Center. For reservations, contact Glorieta toll-free at (800) 797-4222. For more information, contact Richard Faling at (972) 742-1471.

Hillcrest names new president. Glenn Robinson, a health care system executive from South Carolina has been named president and chief executive officer of Hillcrest Health System by the Waco-based hospital system’s board. Robinson has more than 20 years experience in hospital executive management, most recently as chief executive officer of the Mary Black Health System in Spartanburg, S.C. Previously, he spent seven years as chief executive officer of the Nacogdoches Medical Center and Shelby Regional Medical Center. He also held executive positions at hospitals in Houston and Portland, Oregon. Robinson is a graduate of the University of Alabama and Trinity University in San Antonio. He and his wife, Rhonda, have three children—Josh, Jacob and Sarah Kathryn. They are members of First Baptist Church in Spartanburg, S.C.

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

Posted: 8/31/07

UMHB ‘Welcome Week’
includes community service

By Jennifer Sicking

University of Mary Hardin-Baylor

BELTON—Two University of Mary Hardin-Baylor students brushed paint on a stucco stairwell outside of the Temple Public Library, while other team members inside washed windows and dusted bookcases.

Elsewhere, students filled potholes, painted walls, sorted clothes and generally lent a helping hand throughout Belton and Temple.

Although classes had not started, it was part of the university’s Welcome Week for freshmen and transfer students, and it included community service projects. Thirty-four teams of about 375 students spread throughout the communities to help at ministries, nursing homes, and churches for two days, said Kristy Brischke, UMHB director of student organizations.

“I think it’s just a way to get students to know there’s another community out there,” she said. “They’re new to UMHB and that will be their home, but they need to understand there’s another community.”

Students participating in the Welcome Week agreed.

“It’s really good to get involved in the community you’ll be living in for the next however many years you’ll be staying here,” said Carolynn Cox, a freshman from Cypress.

Also, with students participating twice a year in Reaching Out, where students spend a Saturday performing community service, Cox said it was good to get a head start in helping others.

Courtni Habel, a sophomore from Rosebud who was helping with Welcome Week, said the community service also shows the freshmen what is available for ministry opportunities.

“They get a chance to see what they can get plugged into later at churches, the food pantry or Scott & White” Hospital, she said.

Lewis Simms, a freshman from Victoria, said he didn’t come to Welcome Week expecting to perform community service. However, he said he found it allows the students to become more familiar with their new communities.

“It makes it more personal to you,” he said. “You can drive by later and say, I helped paint that stairwell.”

For those people who received assistance, the extra hands helped to lighten the loads, especially with the maintenance division understaffed at the library.

“I think it’s fantastic,” said Dan Johnson, the library’s maintenance technician. “It frees me up to do other stuff. I’m always grateful to have volunteers come and help it be more presentable.”

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

Posted: 8/31/07

BaptistWay Bible Series for September 9

No excuses, no exceptions

• Romans 1:18-32; 2:1-13

By Andrew Daugherty

Christ Church, Rockwall

In the Oscar award-winning film Blood Diamond, the character Benjamin says, “My heart tells me people are good, but reality teaches me something different.”

Set in the African country of Sierra Leone during their 1990’s civil war, Blood Diamond exposes the cruel and dehumanizing business of diamond mining that exploits the gifts of the country’s land at the expense of its people’s lives. The beauty of the African soil is mixed with the blood of the African people by those who seek to profit from the illegal diamond trade. Rebel groups and warlords use these profits to finance conflict and civil wars that result in the displacement and death of millions of human beings.

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Watching these rebel leaders in the film brainwash good and innocent children into being ruthless soldiers who maim and kill others at will reflects the alternating potentials for both good and evil that reside within the human heart. That 10-year-old boys are taught and trained to mutilate others by chopping off hands and shooting mothers and children is a graphic example of the Apostle Paul’s indictment of the human family: “… and they exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling a mortal human being or birds or four-footed animals or reptiles” (v. 23).

Such acts of violence are not only crimes against humanity; they are acts of violence against God. Paul indicates that human beings resemble by nature what they worship. Rather than resemble the nature of the Creator who is good, those who become wicked are those who “did not honor him as God or give thanks to him …” (v. 21). Paul suggests this starts by “suppressing the truth” (v. 18). Acts of wickedness like torture or murder or rape arise at least as a by-product of denying the benevolent nature of God whose eternal power and goodness is evident in the things he has made.

In essence, those who oppose God’s goodness do so because they worship someone or something other than God. They live like God is dead, rearranging the created order and substituting the divine agenda with a human one. Some say truth is an early casualty in war. According to Paul, truth is an early casualty when human beings become so sure of themselves they think they are wise but are in fact fools. This denial of the role of the Creator results in the destructive practices of people who assume a job only God can do. This is a role reversal of seismic proportions.

Discussion Questions

• In what ways do you see “suppression of the truth” in our society? What are the consequences?

• Discuss Benjamin’s quote from Blood Diamond in light of Paul’s words to the Romans in 1:23: “My heart tells me people are good, but reality teaches me something different.”

• What are personal ways you experience “role reversals” in your relationship to God?

Romans 1:24-32

C.S. Lewis once said: “There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, ‘Thy will be done,’ and those to whom God says, in the end, ‘Thy will be done.’”

Three times Paul says, “God gave them up,” which is another way of saying the same thing. Is there a hint of resignation in this phrase? What does it mean that “God gave them up?” Isn’t a good God provoked to act on behalf of human beings who become victims of others’ arrogance, greed, racism, sexual exploitation and homophobia? How is justice to be done in such cases if God in effect says to the perpetrators, “Have it your way?”

Fortunately, this is not Paul’s theological finale. He still is providing a descriptive (rather than prescriptive) account of the human consequences that issue from exchanging “the truth about God for a lie” and worshipping and serving “the creature rather than the Creator” (v. 25). Paul has not yet reached an ultimate solution to the distortion of these roles. Yet in his laundry list of evil (vv. 29-31), Paul minces no words as to the nature of those who practice wickedness: They are full of envy, murder, deceit, they are gossips, haughty, boastful, faithless, heartless and ruthless, just to name a few.

As a general rule, readers of Romans tend to give short shrift to this list compared to Paul’s passing comments about homosexual acts carried out by heterosexual people in 1:26-27. Why is this? Though space will not allow here, perhaps a class would benefit from a conversation about where we recognize ourselves in 1:29-31 along with a respectful theological discussion of 1:26-27.

Romans 2:1-13

As we know, wickedness is not a disembodied evil. It has many faces and many names. As we have witnessed violence on a massive scale in places like Auschwitz, Sierra Leone and even in Iraq, what remains clear is that a good God opposes violence/wickedness in all its forms no matter who is waging the war.

This is to say that there is no country or race or social class or economic standing that exempts a person from God’s judgment. Paul makes clear in the previous passage that all persons who practice the wickedness he describes are subject to divine indictment. There is no person so pious as to be above reproach. Here, Paul rebukes those who would be tempted to “keep up spiritual appearances” in order to condemn others for the same evil acts in which they participate: “Do you imagine whoever you are, that when you judge those who do such things and yet do them yourself, you will escape the judgment of God” (v. 3)?

Yet God is infinitely patient and impartial. Just as judgment applies to all people, so does grace. God longs to restore the rightful roles of Creator and creature. The burden of proof to honor this righteous role is on each creature that is responsible to the Creator. To those who will practice righteousness over against wickedness, God’s justice will be revealed as good news to the world.

Discussion Questions

• What images come to mind when you hear the phrase, “God’s judgment?”

• What do you make of the notion that “what we despise in others is what we despise within ourselves?”

• In what ways do you judge others?

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