Posted: 7/06/07

Free from debt, Breckenridge
now free to focus on ministry

By Ken Camp

Managing Editor

TYLER—Breckenridge Village faced the greatest challenge in its challenge-filled history, but it got by with a little help from its friends. Make that $3.7 million worth of help in 12 months and friends ranging from the Baptist General Convention of Texas to a Jewish family foundation.

Breckenridge Village, a residential community for adults with mild to moderate developmental disabilities, recently retired its building debt in dramatic fashion—offering a new lease on life to the Tyler facility and lifting a burden from the shoulders of its parent agency, Baptist Child & Family Services.

Rosie Simmons (left), who coordinates many of the activities at Breckenridge Village at Tyler, helps Breckenridge resident Deborah with a project.

Breckenridge—built on donated land with volunteer labor provided by Texas Baptist Men—has struggled financially since it opened its doors nine years ago. Baptist Child & Family Services agreed to take on the ministry at the BGCT Executive Board’s request after a study committee determined the need for a Christian agency to care for mentally retarded adults.

But the original business projections “grossly underestimated the cost of care,” said Kevin Dinnin, president of the agency. Changes in governmental regulations—including requirements that Breckenridge be licensed as an assisted living facility, with a low resident-to-staff ratio and a registered nurse on duty—compounded the problem.

“While Breckenridge Village of Tyler has operated in a financially prudent manner, it has proven impossible to service the capital bond debt through operating revenue,” Dinnin explained.

“Historically, without the burden of capital debt, (Breckenridge Village) has been able to operate in a balanced budget position, exclusive of the non-cash item of depreciation. Tuition paid on behalf of the residents and fundraising for scholarships has proven to generate adequate income to provide for the care of those who call (Breckenridge) home.”

At a recent noteburning ceremony, Texas Baptist officials applauded the commitment of Baptist Child & Family Services to provide an important ministry to an often-forgotten segment of the population, in spite of financial challenges.

The celebration marked the successful completion of a yearlong fundraising campaign. The Rogers Foundation in Tyler had offered Baptist Child & Family Services a $1 million challenge grant on the condition Breckenridge Village could raise $2.7 million by May 31.

After receiving $1.05 million from Green Acres Baptist Church in Tyler and many other smaller gifts, the campaign received a $250,000 grant from the Meadows Foundation in Dallas two weeks before the deadline. But it still lacked nearly $1 million to meet the goal.

A San Antonio donor gave $200,000, and the BGCT Executive Board approved $350,000 from an estate gift. Then on May 31, a Jewish family foundation in East Texas gave the final $450,000 that allowed Breckenridge to receive its challenge grant and retire its debt.

“We believe Breckenridge Village can be a financially viable entity now,” Dinnin said.

Four years ago, he brought a significantly different report to the BGCT Human Welfare Coordinating Board—the body that related to Texas Baptists’ benevolence institutions.

At that time, the BGCT allocated additional funds beyond the budget just to keep Breckenridge Village afloat. A shortfall in Cooperative Program giving, combined with the high cost of resident care and new state-imposed standards, had created a critical situation for Breckenridge. Baptist Child & Family Services had to lay off more than 15 employees and dismiss the executive director at Breckenridge.

“Baptist Child & Family Services was a different agency then than it is today,” Dinnin explained, pointing to its expansion in the last four years, both within Texas and internationally. Fifteen years ago, the agency’s annual budget barely topped $1 million. Next year’s proposed budget exceeds $20 million, he noted.

He also pointed out Baptist Child & Family Services has benefited financially from mineral rights on property in the Texas Panhandle, where two producing wells have provided significant income in recent years.

Four years ago, Dinnin told the coordinating board the long-term future of Breckenridge Village depended not only on increased Cooperative Program giving by Texas Baptist churches, but also the creation of a $5 million endowment.

The endowment stands nowhere near that goal yet, but with the debt on Breckenridge Village retired, the residential community now has a stability that should make it much more attractive to potential donors, Dinnin noted.

Already, several friends of Breckenridge Village have included the ministry in their estate plans, he said. The debt-retirement campaign gave the residential community an unprecedented level of positive visibility in the Tyler area, and it opened doors to new donors in the East Texas business community.

Breckenridge Village Executive Director Charles Dodson underscored the same theme.

“Eliminating our indebtedness will take pressure off of meeting debt service expenses in our operating budget,” Dodson said. “It will enable us to concentrate development initiatives on building our general scholarship fund.”

Roughly 95 percent of residents receive some scholarship assistance. Current cost of care is $3,200 a month for each resident, but $500 of that has been applied to debt service.

Debt retirement also allows Breckenridge to expand its ministries, including both its day-care program, teaching life skills and vocational skills to developmentally challenged Tyler-area residents, and its residential services.

“We will be able to open a sixth house and move our capacity from 40 to 48 residents,” Dinnin noted.

While he hopes the BGCT Cooperative Program allocation will be increased for scholarship assistance, Dinnin believes Breckenridge Village has moved beyond the point where the BGCT will have to step in to provide over-and-above financial assistance, as it has in the past.

“I do not anticipate any emergency kind of funding requests for Breckenridge. Never has our financial trouble been greater than our debt service. Without that concern, it should be financially viable,” he said, adding the institution has “weathered the storm.”

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

Posted: 7/06/07

Baptist Briefs

Southwestern Seminary trustee resigns. Dwight McKissic, who frequently has been at odds with fellow trustees at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, resigned from the school’s board. McKissic, pastor of the predominantly African-American Cornerstone Baptist Church in Arlington, was the lone dissenter when trustees voted last October to forbid the seminary from employing professors who advocate speaking in tongues. Earlier, in a chapel sermon at Southwestern, McKissic said that since his days as a student at the seminary, he has used a “private prayer language,” considered by many a variation of tongues-speaking. In March, trustees tried to expel him permanently from the board, a move McKissic called “nothing but a 21st-century lynching.” Trustees later decided not to remove him. The debate over tongues “has taken a tremendous toll on my family and ministry, and my wife believes it has negatively impacted my health,” McKissic said in a letter to Van McClain, chairman of the seminary trustee board. He also said he has been “distracted and consumed” by the controversy and needs to refocus on his family and church.

Baptist college association elects leader. The International Association of Baptist Colleges and Universities board elected Thomas Corts, president emeritus of Samford University, as the association’s executive director. Corts, 65, succeeds Bob Agee, who announced last December he would retire at the June meeting. Corts served as interim chancellor of the Alabama College System last year. Prior to that position, he was president of Samford University from 1983 to 2006. He served previously at Wingate University in North Carolina, the Higher Education Consortium of Kentucky and Georgetown College in Kentucky. Corts is married to the former Marla Ruth Haas. They have three children and six grandchildren.

CBF church-starting specialist to retire. Phil Hester, a Cooperative Baptist Fellowship specialist for new churches, has announced he plans to retire at the end of this year. During his seven-year tenure at CBF, Hester helped start churches in 21 states, including a cowboy church in Texas and an emergent church in Florida. Hester also created and facilitated the annual CBF Boot Camp for Church Starts, held each August. Before coming to CBF, Hester worked as an advertising agency president, professor, consultant and church starter. He lives in St. Petersburg, Fla.

Missionary receives Whitsitt Society award. Lauren Bethell, an American Baptist missionary who has spent most of her adult life ministering to and rescuing women from prostitution and sexual trafficking, received the William H. Whitsitt Baptist Heritage Society’s annual Courage Award. The group met during the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship general assembly in Washington, June 28.

African-American convention tackles AIDS. For the first time, the nation’s largest African-American religious body corporately addressed the HIV/AIDS crisis. AIDS awareness and prevention figured prominently on the agenda for the annual meeting of the National Baptist Convention USA, Inc. in St. Louis. Leaders of the 7.5 million-member group said 45,000 National Baptists participated in the gathering. Organizers also planned to hold a forum to address 3,000 black youths on the topic of HIV prevention. Nationwide, African-Americans constitute nearly half of new HIV/AIDS diagnosis. HIV infection is the United States’ leading cause of death for black women aged 25-34, according to the Centers for Disease Control.

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

Posted: 7/06/07

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

Posted: 7/06/07

Joint meeting of American Baptists,
CBF models newfound cooperation

By Robert Dilday & Marv Knox

Associated Baptist Press & Baptist Standard

WASHINGTON (ABP)—Worship infused with music and missions, cooperation and communion, and doses of laughter marked a historic reunion of Baptists in the nation’s capital city.

The American Baptist Churches USA and the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship held their first national joint worship service—a long-awaited coming together of Baptists whose shared commitment to missions and Baptist principles once was shattered by slavery.

“This is an awesome God moment,” ABC General Secretary Roy Medley told the crowd of almost 4,000 participants, divided almost evenly between representatives of both groups. “It gladdens the heart of God. It makes God happy to see us working together. … What an awesome moment.”

The service in Washington’s convention center marked the end of the Fellowship’s annual general assembly and the beginning of ABC’s 100th anniversary celebration. Program organizers noted the joint ABC/Fellowship session had been five years in planning. Actually, it was 162 years in the making.

Baptists in the United States first united to support missions in 1814, but they divided acrimoniously in 1845. Baptists in the North, who later reorganized as the American Baptist Churches in 1907, opposed slavery. The Southern Baptist Convention split from them because of their support for slavery. The Fellowship formed out of the SBC in 1991 after more than a decade of conflict with fundamentalists. Although some Fellowship churches still relate to the SBC and some do not, almost all of them trace their roots to the Southern convention.

The strong presence of the Washington-based Progressive National Baptist Convention—one of four historic African-American Baptist groups—underscored the racial nature of the old division. But the Progressive National Baptists’ presence also projected an even larger reunion. The Fellowship, American Baptists and Progressive National Baptists are among the key groups promoting a “celebration” of the New Baptist Covenant, which will be held in Atlanta Jan. 30-Feb. 1, 2008.

The New Baptist Covenant convocation involves about 40 groups that comprise 20 million Baptists in America. It intentionally seeks to bridge the racial divide created by slavery. The rallying point is Baptists’ historic commitment to minister to those Jesus said he came to serve—the poorest and most helpless people.

The June 29 worship service represented the breadth of Fellowship and American Baptist diversity through music—from traditional hymns and newer praise choruses sung by the audience to a rousing gospel solo belted by Cheri Coleman, folk music by Kate Campbell and a raucous Caribbean beat blasted by the Haitian Alliance Choir.

Participants also keyed on their common focus on missions. Midway through the worship service, they celebrated the appointment of two couples that will serve under joint appointment of the ABC and Fellowship.

Duane and Marcia Binkley are former ABC missionaries among the Karen people group in Thailand. During their new term, they will minister to Karen people both in Thailand and in the United States.

Nancy and Steve James previously served as medical missionaries in Haiti and now are members of a Fellowship church in North Carolina. The Fellowship is helping the ABC send them back to Haiti.

The ABC presented its first Religious Freedom Award to the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty. The Washington-based Baptist Joint Committee represents 14 Baptist bodies.

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

Posted: 7/06/07

Music bridges racial and cultural gaps

By Barbara Bedrick

Texas Baptist Communications

TOKYO—At 26, Kyoko Murakami’s journey of faith began when she started singing with the Tokyo Voices of Praise gospel choir in 1997. She sang about Jesus, but she didn’t know why. For four years, she performed, but she didn’t worship.

In 2001, a Christian friend handed her a Bible and encouraged her to read it. Soon the words and the gospel songs began to touch her heart.

Douglas Edwards, member of Minnehulla Baptist Church in Goliad, sings gospel music with choir members from Chofu Minami Baptist Church at Japan concert hall before an audience of 500 people, most of them not Christians.

“I began to realize the meaning of the words, and I knew that Jesus was my Savior,” Murakami said. Today she co-directs the Tokyo Voices of Praise gospel choir and leads several others at area Baptist churches. Gospel music is popular in Japan, but many of the people in the choirs are not Christians, she added.

“The people who come to hear and sing the gospel music get to experience the atmosphere of Jesus speaking to them,” Murakami said. “For non-believers, the gospel music is performing, but for believers it is not a performance. It’s worship. ”

Stories like Murakami’s are one reason a group of African-American Texas Baptists recently traveled 5,000 miles to sing spirituals and soften hearts in a nation where the Japanese Baptist Convention says less than one percent of the population is Christian, and people worship more than 1 million gods.

Crossing cultural and ethnic boundaries, the African-American Texas Voices of Praise gospel choir—with members drawn from 10 Baptist churches statewide— witnessed in the universal language of music.

Texas Voices of Praise gospel choir singers Jacqueline Byrd from New Covenant Christian Fellowship Church in Dallas and Pamla Joseph from New Providence Baptist Church, join in worship, sharing the gospel in song with a Japanese audience.

For Leonard Hornsby, executive pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church in Mansfield, it’s his second gospel tour in two years, having sung in Spain in 2005.

“Singing gospel music in Japan was significant because we gave hundreds of Japanese people exposure to spirituals sung by Christians, which is vastly different than those sung by non-believers,” Hornsby said. “Many of the Japanese at our concerts had never heard the gospel before, so they could see, hear and feel the Spirit moving,”

Andre Byrd, pastor of New Covenant Christian Fellowship in Dallas, and his wife, Jacqueline, said Japan and its people have changed their lives forever. “The people we sang to have blessed us more than we may have blessed them,” Andre said.

Hundreds of gospel choir directors and singers in Japan enjoy the experience but fail to realize the significance of the songs they sing. Yet, because of the Japanese fascination with gospel music inspired by the Sister Act movie series, churches have found offering gospel concerts, workshops, classes and practice locations are effective avenues for evangelism. 

With arms outstretched, a Japanese woman joins the Texas Voices of Praise choir in singing “This Little Light of Mine.”

“Gospel music is really a tool now to reach often very hard-hearted Japanese people, so I talked to the Japanese Baptist Convention about how we could help,” said Yutaka Takarada, pastor of Japanese Baptist Church of North Texas, who helped coordinate the first such Baptist General Convention of Texas mission trip to Japan.

Takarada partnered with Charlie Singleton, director of BGCT African-American affinity ministries, who together with Roy Cotton, BGCT church starter, pulled together a Texas gospel choir.  

The choir first sang together during practice at the Chofu Minami Baptist Church near Tokyo.

Japanese green tea and snacks provided pre-concert sustenance as the choir performed to capacity crowds including a sold-out 500-seat concert hall. Singing at large and small venues, Texas Baptists had the opportunity to share the meaning behind gospel music and saw firsthand its impact on Japanese lives.   

“One of the things that impressed and inspired me was the statement of the people who said they could feel the sincerity through the music ministry,” said Singleton, founding pastor of First Missionary Baptist Church in Fort Worth, who also delivered a sermon at the Fujiyoshida church.

“It was not a performance, but people who were sincere in their commitment and ministry.”

Young Japanese mother and daughter clap to the rhythmic beat of spirituals sung by an African-American Texas Baptist choir at a Tokyo concert.

As tears fell from the eyes of Texas Voices of Praise members, other choir members and many in the audience, hearts began to soften toward God’s message.

“What words could not express, the tears, the hugs, and the tenderness said in volumes,” Singleton said. “The language barrier could not stop the Spirit, as the saying goes, ‘It ran from heart to heart and from breast to breast.’”

At each church, choir members used gospel songs and testimonies of their faith journeys to reach more than 1,500 Japanese people over the nine-day mission trip. Leading a workshop at the Fujiyoshida church, Cotton, Lillie Williams and James Edwards explained how gospel music began when slaves were brought from Africa to the United States. By singing spirituals, they didn’t feel so homesick. The slaves embraced the songs as they sang about going to their eternal homes.

The crowds often were in tears after the Texas choir members shared their testimonies. They listened as a young mother shared her story of survival through God as she raised three children out of wedlock. They heard from a former convict who turned to Christ in prison and from a retired banker who prayed for an abusive stepfather to find salvation after she became a Christian at age 8.

For long-time music director and composer James Edwards, and his nephew, Douglas, members of Minnehulla Baptist Church in Goliad, the trip was a struggle and a blessing. They lost their brother and uncle, Ronald Edwards, former president of the African American Fellowship of Texas, about a week before the trip. Edwards composed a song he debuted in his brother’s memory at one Tokyo concert.

Planting seeds of Christianity was central to the Texas mission. One woman who was not a Christian said she had joined a gospel choir three months ago, and she came to sing with the Texas choir. Her husband and son came to church for the first time that day.

“We can’t all be preachers or musicians, but we all have something that God has blessed us with that we can use for his service even if it’s conversation and a hug,” said Annette Sowell, a member of Fellowship Baptist Church in Texas City. “Anyone is capable of being a missionary, and I would just say do it—just do it, and let God use you.”

See previous article: Music cuts across language, cultural barriers in Japan

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

Posted: 7/06/07

2nd Opinion:
Following Christ: More than ‘Red’

By Gary Long

Bono and Oprah are two of the most powerful figures in the entertainment business. So, naturally, it caught everyone’s attention when they went “Red.” They are two key celebrities affiliated with the “Red” campaign, an idea to brand products and give proceeds from the sales to fight diseases—specifically HIV/AIDS—in Third World nations.

On the surface, it seems like a good idea to “do the ‘Red’ thing.” Bono explained the campaign to Relevant magazine: “Some people won’t put on marching boots, so we’ve got to get people where they are at, and they’re in the shopping malls. Now you’re buying jeans and T-shirts, and you’re paying for 10 women in Africa to get medication for their children with HIV.”

But my concerns are several:

First, I can make a pretty good biblical case that buying more “stuff” isn’t good for people who already live in a culture of excess.

Then there’s the whole false sense of having done good. Have I really done something special by buying a “Red” iPod rather than the white one? And lest we miss this little ethical quandary, there’s the strange partnership of consumer frenzy, corporate profit and fund raising. Aren’t the big corporations just riding a “feel good for buying” wave to sell more of their stuff and increase their bottom lines?

As people who allegedly build our lives based on biblical principles, Christians are called to care for the world by taking up a cross like Jesus, not by taking up our shopping bags. I was troubled by this same issue when President Bush told us the very best thing we could do for our nation in the wake of 9/11 was to continue spending.

Even in the church, this is present. The issue is even more theologically complicated by “prosperity gospel” TV preachers and megachurches that have turned our faith into one more consumer choice to make. In Matthew 10.32-42, Jesus talks about commitment to his cause. He gives startling and difficult words, saying, “Anyone who loves his father or mother more than me is not worthy of me.” In other words, commitment to Christ supersedes all things. He follows on by saying, “Anyone who does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me.”

Commitment to following Christ is more than our consumer choices. Following Jesus has to be more than the “hip” church we pick, or how our T-shirt touts our cause in some chic/pop/relevant way. Commitment to Christ must mean more than just the things we buy, wear, eat or drink. It must be more than all those things and yet include every one of those things.

Gary Long is senior pastor of Willow Meadows Baptist Church in Houston (www.wmbc.org).

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

Posted: 7/06/07

DOWN HOME:
A terrific ride for a good, long talk

If our family vacation had a theme this year, it would have been “riding.”

We rode the family sedan out past West Texas, across New Mexico and up into the Colorado mountains. When we got there, we rode the rapids in a raft, rode over a pass in a train and rode through mountain meadows on the backs of horses. When the time came to leave, we rode our car back down out of the mountains, west across the mesas and plains of New Mexico, south through the Texas Panhandle and, deep into the night, back to our home near Dallas.

Except for the time we paid about $3.50 per gallon to fill our gas tank, we had a terrific trip.

Some people prefer to fly when they go to the mountains or the beach. I freely acknowledge they have a point: Both peaks and waves are a long, long way from here. In theory, flying is best. Except for three facts:

• Driving is cheaper. Even at $3.50 per gallon, it’s still the most economical way to go. I heard this on the radio. A reporter priced plane, train, bus and car for the same trip. The car won, by a mile full of dollars.

• Expectations are more reasonable. When you fly, you expect to get there quickly. Not so, Buck Rogers. I’ve been on way too many planes (for my taste, at least) this spring and summer. And almost every time, I’ve been disappointed. “Delayed” seems to be the operative word on airport departure-and-arrival signs. Once, we finally got to our hotel at 2:15 a.m. That’ll ruin your trip. Cars may take longer, but at least you can stop to get some sleep and eat when and where you want.

• Car time is family time. Ever since our daughters, Lindsay and Molly, got past the toddler stage, I’ve loved family road trips with Joanna and the girls. Where else can you get so much focused family time?

Lindsay’s grown and gone, and Molly’s halfway through college. But we took our vacation this year (sandwiched between two Baptist conventions, yuck) the one week when Molly could go with us. Don’t tell R.J., the rafting guide, Mike, the train conductor, and Sue, the horse trainer, but I enjoyed riding in the car with Joanna and Molly the most.

I reveled in hours and hours of conversation. We talked about religion and politics and books and movies and music and food and friends. We oohed and aahed at the scenery. We listened to music and occasionally sang along. We played our favorite, “The People Guessing Game” (aka “Twenty Questions”) and, as is our longstanding custom, “Mr. Brent” was the first correct answer. We relived the past and speculated about the future. Try that on a plane, and everyone in a five-row radius will be ready to throw you overboard.

So, I thank God for car vacations. We always come home in that quasi-state of tired-but-rested. And, best of all, caught up on conversation.
–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: 7/06/07

EDITORIAL:
Think about immigration & Jesus

Don’t you wish America’s political leadership had an ounce of moral imagination? The Senate’s failure to improve our immigration system represents a new low in legislative ineffectiveness. (Coming from someone who’s watched the Texas Legislature at un-work, that’s a mouthful.) One side wanted reform. But even with support from the president and top members of both parties, they couldn’t put together a plan to answer basic concerns, much less build a victorious coalition. Not to be outdone, the other side behaved just as badly. They waved the flag of fear long enough to beat back the reformers. Yet their warnings about “amnesty” for “illegal immigrants” rang hollow when they failed to offer an option for alleviating the problem.

So, now what do we have? Something to scare and/or trouble almost everyone: Porous borders. Between 12 million and 14 million undocumented workers living in the United States. Strained social services, particularly in the Southwest. Industries vital to our economy—such as agriculture and construction in the Southwest, textiles in the Southeast—dependent upon cheap labor. Thousands, if not millions, of workers who are vulnerable and exploited. Thousands, perhaps millions, of U.S. workers whose job status and/or income is affected by competition from immigrant workers. Families torn apart. Millions of citizens angry and confused by the dramatic changes they’re seeing in their culture and communities.

Meanwhile, back in Congress … . Well, nothing.

Common sense has sprung from other quarters, however. In a Wall Street Journal column, Peggy Noonan, the former Reagan White House speechwriter, laid out a two-step solution that’s profoundly simple: Secure the borders. Admit the workers we need.

Noonan’s initial step seems obvious, for several reasons. First, our national security demands it. Each border should be secure to protect us from terrorism. (By the way, far more known terrorists have come through Canada than Mexico.) Second, we are a nation of law. Crossing borders without authorization is illegal, and we should prevent illegal activity. Third, and I’m not sure Noonan intended this, secure borders are more humane to would-be illegal crossers. Better to stop at a border than to die of heatstroke in the back of a tractor-trailer or die of dehydration in the desert.

Noonan’s second step is practical. She proposed open borders for workers we need, citing specifically engineers and nurses. But anyone who has lived in this part of the country recognizes the border should be open—a crack, at least—to some less-skilled workers. Where would the Texas economy be without an abundant supply of hard-working agriculture and construction laborers with modest skills but strong backs? Regulated immigration would secure the supply of workers, support their fair treatment and create more humane conditions for their families.

Of course, the most sensitive problem remains: What to do with up to 14 million undocumented workers? While “amnesty” was treated like a four-letter word in the political debate, we need a serious discussion of the situation. Deportation of that many people is not realistic. Logistically, it’s practically impossible. And the rapid loss of that many workers would have the exact opposite result the deporters intend—dire consequences for the economy.

I’m convinced Jesus would find a way to document the workers and make them safe and productive residents. Study the Scriptures. Jesus wasn’t soft on sin, but he wasn’t all about punishment, either. He focused his gifts—and his divine imagination—on redemption. Time after time, he told sinners, “Go, and sin no more.” Jesus emphasized second chances, fresh starts, better tomorrows.

When it comes to immigration, Lord knows we need a better tomorrow.

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

Posted: 7/06/07

Faith Digest

Polluted lower Jordan River an endangered site. The lower portion of the Jordan River is so polluted, the World Monuments Fund has designated it an “Endangered Cultural Heritage Site.” The international body for the protection of monuments recently placed the river revered by Jews, Christians and Muslims on the organization’s “watch list” of 100 endangered sites. About 90 percent of the river’s natural water flow has been diverted by Israel, Jordan and Syria for domestic and agricultural use, with sewage flowing in its place, according to Friends of the Earth Middle East, an environmental organization with offices in Israel, Jordan and the Palestinian Authority.

Network takes over struggling biblical theme park. Trinity Broadcasting Network has become the new owner of the Holy Land Experience, a biblical theme park in Orlando, Fla. The ownership change came as five members of the network’s leadership team—including TBN founders Paul and Janice Crouch and their son—were announced as new board members of the theme park. The Orlando Sentinel reported the tourist attraction—which features music, drama and portrayals of Jesus’ ministry, death and resur-rection—has experienced financial troubles and declining attendance.

Does this pew make me look fat? Highly religious people are the least likely to think of themselves as fat, a new study from Cornell University reveals. In fact, they often thought they were thinner than they actually were. Researcher Karen Kim speculates that religion “encourages self-worth beyond the body” and protects people from the ideal body imagery that pervades popular culture. The study looked at more than 3,000 men and women in six categories—conservative Protestant, mainline Protestant, Roman Catholic, Jewish, other religions and no religion. Participants were asked whether they were very or somewhat overweight, very or somewhat underweight or about right. The accuracy of their perceptions was measured against medical standards. The one exception to the correlation between strong religious commitment and good body image: Jewish women. They tended to overestimate their weight.

Sheep shear church lawn, save parish money. A church vicar in Devon, England, has found the best answer to keeping his two-acre churchyard tidy and the grass mowed is a flock of sheep. John Leonard, vicar of Kingskerswell, acquired the sheep 18 months ago to help maintain the grounds of the next-door manor house. Leonard said he meant to buy four lambs that would be sent off for slaughter after a year. But he ended up with four “Jacob” sheep, a rare breed that tradition says are descendants of the flock kept by the biblical patriarch. He named them Matthew, Mark, Luke and John before realizing they were all female. They were renamed Martha, Marcia, Lucy and Joanna. Using the sheep as lawnmowers has meant a savings of about $3,000, Leonard said. The sheep have bred. Leonard now has six lambs and says he will keep three and find good homes for the others—as mobile lawnmowers.

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

Posted: 7/06/07

U.S. Hispanic believers prefer
‘Spirit-filled’ worship in Spanish

By Ted Parks

Associated Baptist Press

WASHINGTON (ABP)—Hispanic believers in the United States prefer “Spirit-filled religious expression” and gravitate toward a “distinctively ethnic” worship experience, opting to go to church with other Hispanics and speak Spanish when they get there, according to a recent report by the Washington, D.C.-based Pew Hispanic Center.

Titled “Changing Faiths: Latinos and the Transformation of American Religion,” the Pew study suggests more than half of Latino Catholics in the United States, 54 percent, are charismatic or Pentecostal, with the proportion of charismatic and Pentecostal believers even larger among Latino Protestants, at 57 percent.

These figures sharply contrast non-Hispanic believers, among whom about one of every 10 Catholics is charismatic or Pentecostal, compared to one out of five Protestants.

The report uses “renewalist Christianity” as an umbrella term for Pentecostal and charismatic movements worldwide. Renewalism stresses the direct presence of the Spirit in believers’ lives as evidenced by speaking in tongues, miraculous healings and divine revelations. A rapidly growing movement across the globe, renewalism includes about a quarter of the world’s Christians, the study says.

In addition to charismatic experiences, renewalist Christianity emphasizes regular Bible reading, evangelism, a literal view of Scripture, and the “prosperity gospel”—the belief that God rewards faithfulness with health and financial success.

Surprisingly, embracing practices like miraculous healings and divine revelations—phenomena associated with Pentecostal Protestants—has not undermined the doctrinal core of Latino Catholics in the United States.

The study showed charismatic Latino Catholics are more likely than their noncharismatic counterparts to pray the rosary, go to confession and believe in transubstantiation—the doctrine that the bread and wine of communion become Christ’s literal body and blood.

Samuel Rodriguez, president of the California-based National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, marvels at the widespread charismatic presence among Latino Catholics.

“There are more Catholic Pentecostals than there are Pentecostal Pentecostals,” Rodriguez said.

He offered both theological and cultural explanations for the charismatic tilt of Latino believers. Latin America was colonized principally by Spain and Portugal—southern European nations remaining largely outside the Protestant Reformation that swept the north of Europe. So, Mexico and Central and South America were unable to experience the original spiritual revolution associated with Germany’s Martin Luther, Rodriguez said.

He linked the arrival of dramatic religious reform to the expansion of Pentecostal Christianity following the birth of the modern Pentecostal movement around the beginning of the 20th century.

“All of a sudden, the Protestant Reformation hit Latin America via Pentecostalism,” Rodriguez said. “The very first time Latin America removed itself, in its definition, from the shackles of Catholicism came via this very experiential faith.”

Culturally, Rodriguez believes, charismatic Christianity resonates with the emotional and relational dimensions of Hispanic culture.

Hispanics represent “a very affective … sort of culture,” Rodriguez said. “The charismatic movement … talks about relationship with the person of God through the Holy Spirit,” he explained. “The Spirit-filled ethos embraces emotions and experiential moments of faith, and … that is the DNA of the Latino culture.”

The Pew report also found Hispanic believers in the United States prefer worshipping with fellow Latino believers. Among Hispanic Catholics, 70 percent worship in ethnically and linguistically Hispanic churches. For evangelical Christians, the figure is 62 percent, for mainline Protestants, 48 percent. In the report, an “ethnic church” means one with at least some Hispanic clergy, worship services in Spanish and a majority of Hispanic congregants.

While higher percentages of foreign-born Latinos than U.S.-born go to services done in Spanish, Hispanic churches are by no means uniquely for Spanish-only immigrants. The study found 48 percent of U.S.-born Latino believers worship in Hispanic congregations.

As for language ability, 80 percent of Hispanics who primarily speak Spanish attend Latino churches, but, even among bilingual believers, 64 percent prefer a Hispanic worship experience.

Rene Maciel, who will become president of the Baptist University of the Americas in San Antonio in August, confirmed the tendency of Hispanic believers to stick together. While Latino Christians don’t intentionally avoid other believers, they often have practices rooted in culture that “keep drawing them to … their congregations, to their people, to their worship services, to their music,” he said.

And with the university’s mission to train church leaders for service in Hispanic settings, Maciel emphasized the need for believers of all stripes to pay attention to the changing ethnic makeup where they live.

“There are more and more Hispanics moving into … our neighborhood,” he said. “For us to be able to reach those people, we need to be cross-cultural. We need to understand the culture.”

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

Posted: 7/06/07

Scholar mulls the possibilities
of U.S. relations with Muslims

By Omar Sacirbey

Religion News Service

WASHINGTON (RNS)—What if, Akbar Ahmed asks, America had limited its military response to 9/11 to liberating Afghanistan from the Taliban and al-Qaida? What if, instead of invading Iraq and waging a global war on terror, the United States had expanded diplomacy and exchange programs with Muslim nations, and tried to win Muslim hearts and minds with hospitals, schools and irrigation?

Those are the questions Ahmed, a former Pakistani diplomat and renown Islamic scholar at American University in Washington, tackles in his new book Journey Into Islam, an analysis of relations between America and the Islamic world.

Such an approach, Ahmed argues, could have spared America and the Muslim world the violence, turmoil and fear both societies feel today, and that stands to get worse.

Ahmed argues it’s not too late—if never more urgent—for America to bring home its soldiers and send students and young professionals to the Muslim world as emissaries of American freedom, prosperity and compassion.

“The only way to battle the intolerance and hatred in our world is with compassion and love as our intention rather than exclusion and hatred,” Ahmed said. “It is possible, but it requires a dramatic shift in our manner of thinking and acting as a world power.”

The main purpose of the trip, Ahmed explained, was to determine how Muslims are “constructing their religious identities,” and therefore a whole range of actions and strategies, as a result of their current situation.

Ahmed divides the competing forces in the Islamic world into three categories:

• Orthodox Muslims, who feel threatened by the West and respond with hostility and rigid interpretation of their faith.

• Modernist Muslims, who also feel threatened by the West but whose corruption and authoritarianism cost them any public confidence they may have enjoyed.

• Sufi Muslims, whose views of a common humanity and inclusiveness hold out the best hope for an East-West détente, in his view.

Hostility to globalization and American military power is rooted less in Islam and more in tribal notions of defending the homeland from invaders, Ahmed argues. America’s problems in Iraq and Afghanistan, Ahmed concludes, “are the direct result of their failures to recognize or understand the tribal base of these societies.”

This can only be corrected when Americans take the time to learn about the Islamic world and approach its problems with compassion, Ahmed insists.

Some critics call that appeasement, but studies and the personal experiences of Americans who have traveled to the Islamic world suggest personal contact wins Muslim friends for America, he writes.

Ahmed also takes Muslim societies to task, not only their leaders whose repressive policies have made radical Muslims more popular, but also the corruption, inflammatory media and uneducated clerics.

“There hasn’t been a single Muslim scholar to emerge as a visionary theologian to ring in an Islamic Renaissance,” Ahmed writes.

He notes with open trepidation the spread and appeal of Islamic radicalism in places like Indonesia, where a rising number of Muslims support Shariah law and reject pluralism.

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

Posted: 7/06/07

Texas Baptist Forum

Speaking in tongues

I was concerned with the report that over half of our Southern Baptist Convention pastors believe in a special prayer language (June 11).

• Jump to online-only letters below

Letters are welcomed. Send them to marvknox@baptiststandard.com; 250 words maximum.

“The life of faith is first and foremost about our relationship with God. It is not about how good our behavior is. Nor does it hinge on how correct our theology is. … What God really cares about is whether we love him.” Njongonkulu Ndungane Anglican archbishop of South Africa (Communion News Service/RNS) “Cars shall not be for you an expression of power and domination, and an occasion of sin.” Driver’s ‘Ten Commandments’ The Vatican’s Pontifical Council for the Pastoral Care of Migrants and Itinerant People, urging safety and charity for motorists (RNS) “It sounds as if the economic side of the family is serving us divorce papers.” Tony Perkins President of Family Research Council, a conservative Christian advocacy group, on the divisions between fiscal and social conservatives on the Republican 2008 presidential field (The Wall Street Journal/RNS)

If Jesus prayed in a language we could understand, why shouldn’t we? Any language we use should be for the edification of his church, not the division of the saints.

What is most important is that we talk to our Creator; focusing on who he is and who we are. If anyone’s praise and gratitude are voiced in gibberish, I won’t say God can’t understand, but who are you trying to impress? As far as my knowledge goes, the Bible only references the Holy Spirit interceding for us with groans we cannot understand.

As for my heart, it speaks a language I understand and can share with my God and Savior—with which I can also share the good news of the gospel with those around me.

Diana Clendenin

Christoval

At this year’s SBC annual meeting, Southern Seminary President Al Mohler declared that his belief on a certain controversial matter is the only acceptable belief of Baptists.

He stated, in so many words, that all good Baptists believe there is no valid present-day practice of speaking in tongues in private prayer. However, biblically, the human spirit can pray, sing, bless and give thanks to God, using words given by the Holy Spirit, which the mind doesn’t understand (1 Corinthians 14:15-17). The Apostle Paul prayed a lot in this way, privately (1 Corinthians 14:18-19).

More importantly for this discussion, all such spiritual gifts are to be used up to—and in anticipation of—Jesus’ return (1 Corinthians 1:7). Prior to that time, even the best of the gifts can bring only partial satisfaction and understanding (1 Corinthians 13:9-10).

Finally and most importantly, Mohler’s position is in direct disobedience to a command of Scripture (1 Corinthians 14:39b).

Bob Garringer

Austin

Clergy sexual abuse

I am grateful for your courageous and informative articles on the topic of clergy sexual abuse (June 11). Few denominations have addressed this issue unless forced to do so as a result of legal suits or scandal.

I am thankful Texas Baptists are recognizing this problem as one of justice and protection of persons who are vulnerable, and not simply as “risk management.” Your editorial holding congregations responsible for the well-being of their own members and for the members of other congregations that may unknowingly hire an abusive leader was on target.

We must recognize that although clergy sexual abuse may take the form of sexual behavior, the real issue is abuse of a church leader’s spiritual power. Abuse of power is the issue at stake when children are abused; it is also the issue when a leader crosses boundaries with and betrays the trust of adults. When a sexual relationship happens between a church leader and a member of the church community, even when both are adults, it is never an “affair.” It is abuse.

Thank you for providing Texas churches with helpful information about this issue. We must be sure our churches are safe places for all God’s children, even those who are grown up and trust their leaders to seek good for them, and not harm.

Diana Garland

Waco

Execution as godly

I have a different opinion in response to “Execution as torture” (June 25). Crime endangers those who are most vulnerable. Society has an obligation to protect the innocent. That is evident from the biblical precedent for those acts we now classify as offenses that warrant the death penalty. 

We are faced with a society under assault from violent criminals. With our prisons overloaded and the recidivism rate at 70 percent, correction and rehabilitation are not working. Crime continues even in prison.

Even maiming, such as cutting off a hand, is not effective and surely not humane.  The death penalty, while not perfect, is the only 100 percent effective deterrent to crime.  

A major problem is the long appeal process after passing the death sentence. Either a limit of three or at most five years for appeals should follow a death sentence. Whether hanging, electrocution, firing squad, beheading or a lethal drug dosage is the most humane method of execution, only our society by its laws should determine.  

Opposition to the death penalty would be an easy way out, but like the ostrich sticking his head in the sand, it does nothing to solve the problem of violent criminals in our society. If the death penalty was abolished forever, it is almost certain society would ultimately find it necessary to condone vigilante justice. 

Punishment for violent crime is an unpleasant subject to discuss and surely not politically correct, but face it we must. 

Royal E. Smith

Southlake

Clergy Abuse
Commendations and kudos for your approach to the devastating issue of abuse in churches (June 11).

Not only did you provide a balanced context for the problems facing today’s epidemic addiction to pornography and abuse, but you chronicled the convention’s stance and willingness to avoid the structural problems faced by other denominations.

Thank you for breaking the silence and offering helpful guidance for dealing with and avoiding further problems through “redemptive” ministry.

Jerry Tanner

Kingsville

Chaplains

Thanks for your Memorial Day package and all the information about our chaplains serving in areas of combat (May 28). Praise God for all of them.

The article on the New Baptist Covenant meeting was very informative also. I see that more politicians have joined the ranks, and we will surely be guaranteed a political meeting just like the government, where nothing is accomplished. The largest group will be absent. The Southern Baptist Convention will not be attending I understand, so the things that affect Texans most will be ignored.

One good thing is the courageous move by Mike Huckabee in that he has cancelled his participation after President Jimmy Carter lambasted President Bush. I can only hope that some of the others will do the same. Why in the world did they decide to take on this project at this particular time? It seems pretty obvious to me.

Betty Westbrook

Plano

Death Penalty

I would like to comment on the letter about the death penalty (June 25).

First, God gave mankind the death penalty in Genesis 9:6.  It was further revealed and codified by God in Exodus 21:12-24. In the New Testament, Paul comments on it in Romans 13:1-4. 

While cultural ideas have changed on what is cruel and unusual punishment, God has given us the death penalty, and it is civil government’s duty to see it carried out by whatever means is acceptable in its time. 

The writer let his personal cultural ideas cloud his judgment on  this issue. The Scripture is plain and clear. Civil government is ordained by God to punish evildoers and it bears not the sword in vain.

Michael Simons

Cleburne

Faith & Politics

I agree with your editorial “We need to discuss faith and politics” (June 25). Why are people afraid to discuss politics among their Christian friends? 

In this day of talk radio and TV evangelists who tell folks they have the only “truth,” many are afraid to talk about anything that may be politically incorrect.

I have been pleasantly surprised sometimes to find not everyone lacks the courage to disagree with politically correct positions. However, because of the shrill, angry responses to which they have become accustomed, they would rather remain silent than voice their beliefs.

When we are in conversation, we have an obligation to defend the truth, no matter how uncomfortable it may be for us at the moment. Unfortunately, today many of us prefer a beautiful lie to the ugly truth. It is simply easier to go along with the crowd. We have an obligation to get the truth from the Bible and apply it with Christian love. Even when we disagree, we should do so without creating unnecessary offense. 

Carl L. Hess

Ozark, Ala.

Ann Carson’s letter (June 11) was sadly reflective of all too many church members of this country, and all too disturbing. Her claim is that the Baptist Standard should not discuss politics because she believes in a “separation of church and state.”

Like most using that term, she apparantly does not know that it does not mean that you shouldn’t speak of politics in church or vice versa, but rather that the state does not control the church, nor does the church directly control the state. That said, the “separation of church and state” as she is using it is unbiblical.

There are numerous places in the Bible, both Old and New Testaments, that clearly state that our faith should—no, must—impact every aspect of our lives. She suggests that using politics to decide to become Christian is equivalent to using Christianity to determine politics. Absolutely incorrect, and absolutely dangerous. 

Unlike politics, which are administered by man and controlled by man, Christianity is administered by the Holy Spirit and controlled by God. Obviously, we should not let politics control our Christianity. But it should be just as obvious that Christianity, if authentic, can and must control our politics. If you are voting for politicians that are diametrically opposed to Christian values and doctrines, then it’s time to check your spirit.  The last I checked, if you support ungodly activity, you cannot be living a Christian life.

John Swann

Groesbeck

Relevant Issues

What’s going on? When I was a kid, my best friend and I used to read the Baptist Standard and laugh at the issues of the day, such as whether it was worse to have a rattlesnake or a beer in your refrigerator. (At my house, the rattlesnake was more welcome.)

Something has happened. Now, when I pick up the Baptist Standard, I see Baptists addressing poverty, broken homes, starvation in Africa, training church leaders in China, helping families with economic and debt issues, and more.

Texas Baptists better watch out: If we’re not careful, the world will think Texas Baptists have figured out what it means to follow Jesus in the 21st century.

Vic Henry

Sachse

Herbert Reynolds

I did not know Herbert Reynolds at Baylor University, but I did meet and know him when he was director of the research center at Holloman Air Force Base/White Sands Missile Range near Alamogordo, N.M. 

As associate pastor at First Baptist Church of Alamogordo, I talked with him when he visited our services and encouraged him in his efforts to teach a men’s Sunday school class at the chapel on the base. He did, and it was the largest men’s Bible class in New Mexico the whole time he taught it. We certainly would have welcomed and used him, his family, his talents and his tithes at First Baptist, but we gloried in the ministry he had with those airmen that we could never hope to match. 

I was always very grateful that he led the movement to protect Baylor from a fundamentalist takeover as was openly announced by the same leaders who took over our seminaries. They really wanted to control the largest Baptist university in the world! 

Texas Baptists and Christians across the world honor him as a great leader noted for his courage and giant intellect. 

Cyrus B. Fletcher

Baytown

There were so many absolutely deserved kudos for my friend Herbert Reynolds (June 11), but I would like to speak from the Air Force active duty experience. Herb and I were stationed together at Holloman Air Force Base, a research and development base. He was not only a “Christian Gentleman” but a true “Officer and a Gentleman.” As we worked together in the chapel program, we could always depend on a crowd when Herb was the speaker.

He shared with many what he called the “witness of excellence,” and he would add: “I run the best lab in the Air Force, and I am a Christian.”

James L. Hays

Norman, Okla.

Christian homemaking seminary course

Just when we think there is nothing left in the fundamental fountain of flawed finesse, we read that at least two of the seminaries are going to offer academic programs for young women that are designed to teach them how to make a Christian home.  Making no effort to disguise the intent of this subterfuge, Paige Patterson evidently hopes this ploy will help women further understand that there will never be a place for them in ministerial service

These classes are not for men. The assumption that men are not involved in homemaking, Christian or otherwise, is affirmed by the 1998 doctrinal statement that asserts the Southern Baptist Convention’s belief that a wife has “the God-given responsibility to help her husband and to serve as his helper in managing the household.”  That’s it? 

We know the present leaders of convention politics see women as “enablers,” not leaders, and they attempt to have us believe God is the originator of that dictum. With that in mind, and flying under the banner of “saving the family” women are, once again, being diminished by men who are, no doubt, Christian, but sadly misguided and biased with a masculine affinity for preferential status in the eyes of God.

A woman who feels God values her as a created being and allows her to respond to a special calling for any service, in his name, cannot function as a Southern Baptist and should remove herself from membership.

Edward Clark

Danville, Ky.

Prayer language

“Half of SBC pastors believe in ‘prayer languages’” (June 11) is the most ridiculous headline I have ever read in the Baptist Standard.

I am 78 years old and have been in a Southern Baptist church since the Cradle Roll department. I have been in a Southern Baptist Sunday school and training union for a lifetime and never heard of “a private prayer language” even in one lesson.

I was saved at the age of 12 and called to preach in a Southern Baptist church at the age of 18. I am now in my 61st year as a gospel preacher.

Preaching as a pastor and as an evangelist in 36 states across our convention, I have never heard a Southern Baptist pastor mention a private prayer language.

Neither have I ever met a Southern Baptist church member who claimed to talk in tongues while praying in public or in private.

I have heard great Southern Baptist preaching throughout my lifetime, and not one preacher ever referred to praying in tongues. I have read thousands of Baptist sermons and never found one mention of private prayer language.

It has been my experience that when a Baptist pastor or church embraces the speaking in tongues heresy, the local Baptist qssociation withdraws fellowship from them.

Half of SBC pastors believe in prayer language?

O, no! That is far, far from the truth.

C.T. McGuire

Timpson

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