Posted: 12/14/07

Interracial New Baptist Covenant
program focuses on unity in Christ

By Hannah Elliott

Associated Baptist Press

ATLANTA (ABP)—Even though they are known for their history of independence, Baptists from more than 40 American and Canadian groups will converge under a banner of unity next month in Atlanta.

Organizers of the Celebration of a New Baptist Covenant recently announced the event’s theme, “Unity in Christ,” and details of special breakout sessions. The historic convergence—20,000 Baptists expected from a wide variety of geographical, racial, denominational and ideological backgrounds—is scheduled Jan. 30-Feb. 1 at the Georgia World Congress Center.

The organizers are seeking common ground that will unite Baptists around an agenda of ministry. To that end, special-interest sessions will focus on religious liberty, poverty, racism, AIDS, faith in public policy, stewardship of the earth, evangelism, financial stewardship and prophetic preaching.

Both the special-interest and plenary sessions are organized around themes in the ministry agenda announced in Jesus’ sermon in Luke 4:18-19, organizers explained. The five plenary sessions will focus on unity in peacemaking, in preaching good news to the poor, in respecting diversity, in welcoming the stranger and in setting the captive free.

One goal of the meeting is to provide “an atmosphere in which networking can be accelerated,” Jimmy Allen, the event’s program chairman, said.

Networking opportunities for broad groups of Baptists have been in short supply. Indeed, Allen told a group of Baptist leaders in February, Baptists have shied away from such broad-based cooperation since before the Civil War.

Such networking will serve the purpose of pan-Baptist cooperation on fostering social justice and alleviating social ills, Allen said. For attendees, the theme will be “hard to miss” with the range and depth of the sessions planned, Allen said. He is a former Southern Baptist Convention president and one of the initiators of the moderate Cooperative Baptist Fellowship.

Nobel Peace Prize laureate and former Vice President Al Gore will speak about Christian environmentalism during a special luncheon. Other speakers include Baptist author and sociologist Tony Campolo, former presidents Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, Truett Theological Seminary professor Joel Gregory, journalist Bill Moyers, and two Baptists who are both prominent Republican senators—South Carolina’s Lindsey Graham and Iowa’s Charles Grassley.

One breakout track will focus on disaster-relief ministries. Allen has invited experts such as Tommy McDearis, pastor of Blacksburg (Va.) Baptist Church, and Samuel Tolbert, general secretary of the National Baptist Convention of America. McDearis was one of the first responders after the April massacre at Virginia Tech. The university campus is adjacent to his church. Tolbert led in flood relief and community rebuilding in New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina, which devastated many African-American Baptist congregations.

The disaster-relief program also features Millard Fuller, founder of the Habitat for Humanity housing ministry for the working poor.

While organizers still are finalizing other presenters and moderators, several well-known names in Baptist life already have confirmed their participation. Welton Gaddy, president of the Interfaith Alliance, and Neville Callam, new general secretary of the Baptist World Alliance, will speak about Baptists finding common ground with people of other faiths.

Other speakers and their topics include Stan Hastey, executive director of the Alliance of Baptists, on peacemaking; Brent Walker, executive director of the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty, about the separation of church and state; Suzii Paynter, director of the Christian Life Commission of the Baptist General Convention of Texas, about faith and public policy; Lauran Bethell, a Baptist missionary based in Prague, about sexual exploitation; and Malcolm Marler, of the Center for AIDS Research at the University of Alabama, about the HIV/AIDS pandemic.

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

Posted: 12/14/07

New Jersey church makes good
on $1 million pledge to Gulf Coast

By Jeff Diamant

Religion News Service

SUMMIT, N.J. (RNS)—Fountain Baptist Church, an African-American congregation formed 110 years ago in Summit, N.J., mostly by gardeners and domestic workers, recently gained the distinction of being one of the few churches nationwide ever to raise $1 million for a specific charitable cause.

Members of the congregation have been donating money for the Hurricane Katrina recovery effort since May 2006, when Fountain Baptist announced its $1 million pledge. The members met the pledge in November and celebrated the achievement at the church’s annual Thanksgiving services.

The Center for Philanthropy at Indiana University, which monitors big donations from American nonprofit organizations, said it knows of only one instance in which a single church has made a larger charitable gift—Oriental Mission Church in Los Angeles gave $3 million to help El Salvador earthquake victims in 2001.

“Anytime you help someone and know they’re going to be blessed by your effort, there’s no better feeling,” said Michael Williams, a trustee of the 1,900-member Fountain Baptist Church.

“For us to make sacrifices, because that’s what it was for many of us, to do something for people who basically have nothing—while we’ve been blessed with, from their perspective, everything—it feels great.”

The church beat its own two-year pledge timetable by six months. Many members know people from Louisiana or Mississippi who suffered in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

“When you look at what happened to the people in New Orleans, one day things were pleasant and sunny and all was well, and in one week’s time you go from having all that you had, to life being turned completely upside down,” Williams said.

Fountain Baptist Pastor Michael Sanders reported about $400,000 has paid for job and life-skills training for 200 families in Louisiana and Mississippi; $300,000 has helped 30 pastors whose churches were devastated by the storm, either physically or through member relocations; $200,000 has paid for housing and community-building projects; and $100,000 has gone toward general and administrative costs.

The Lott Carey Foreign Mission Convention, an African-American Baptist organization based in Washington, D.C., has administered the donation.

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

Posted: 12/14/07

On the Move

• Roddy Arnold to First Church in Pottsboro as pastor.

• Brian Brewer to First Church in Sulphur Springs as high school minister.

• Jonathan Brown to First Church in Temple as minister of children from First Church in Kingwood.

• John Cox has resigned as pastor of McMahan Church in Dale.

• Brandon Durham to North Waco Church in Waco as pastor.

• Mike Homeyer to Fellowship Church in Marble Falls as pastor from First Church in Hubbard, where he was youth minister.

• Ken James has completed an interim pastorate at First Church in Mertens and is available for supply or interims at (254) 867-6257.

• Matt Jeffreys has resigned as young adult minister at First Church in Lewisville to start a church in California.

• Dustin Jenkins to Alamo Heights Church in Port Lavaca as youth and worship leader.

• Harvey Knesek has resigned as pastor of Second Church in Victoria.

• Dajuana Neal to Bones Chapel in Whitesboro as music minister.

• Peter Parker to First Church in Woodson as pastor, where he had been interim.

• Lynn Parks has completed an interim pastorate at North Waco Church in Waco.

• Tim Studstill to First Church in Waxahachie as interim minister of music.

• John Turner to Southlake Church in Waxahachie as music and youth minister.

• Jason Vickers to First Church in Dorchester as interim youth minister.

• Andrew Werley to First Church in Anna as pastor from First Church in Woodway, where he was minister of young adults.

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

Posted: 12/14/07

Romney garners praise, criticism
for church-state views in speech

By Robert Marus

Associated Baptist Press

WASHINGTON (ABP)—Mitt Romney’s speech on faith and public affairs elicited both praise and criticism from a broad spectrum of observers—and it didn’t always break down along traditional right-left lines.

The highly anticipated speech by the Republican presidential contender was designed to allay the fears of evangelical Christians, who make up a large proportion of GOP voters in Iowa. Recent polls have shown churchgoing evangelicals are more likely than any other major group to harbor doubts about electing a Mormon president.

However, the speech’s oblique references to Mormonism annoyed some conservatives, who wanted Romney to be more specific about its significant doctrinal differences from orthodox Christianity. Others complained the speech did nothing to allay their fears that he was truly on their side on social issues, given his recent conversion to social conservatism.

But the speech heartened other conservatives, who contended Romney should not have to discuss the details of his personal faith while noting his faith-informed values would come to bear on his decisions if elected to office.

Meanwhile, some moderates and liberals praised the speech’s ringing endorsement of religious liberty, while others criticized Romney for short-changing atheists and other nonreligious people and for his critique of those who support strong church-state separation.

Tony Perkins of the conservative Family Research Council wrote in an e-mail newsletter that Romney’s remarks were “well-delivered” and, at times, “offered many compelling thoughts.” Perkins, the group’s president and a Southern Baptist, particularly praised the speech for its endorsement of the idea that American freedom and democracy stem from what Romney called “a common creed of moral convictions.”

In a column for Beliefnet.com, Richard Land, head of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, said the speech—which he had been advising Romney to give for a year now—was “an eloquent defense of the positive and crucial rule that religion has played in our nation’s history” and would elevate the entire nation’s level of political discourse on faith and politics.

“Why? Because he reminded Americans, in a high-profile venue with the focused attention of the media and millions of citizens listening, of our priceless heritage both of religious freedom and religious diversity.”

The Interfaith Alliance—an organization that espouses strong church-state separation—also gave the speech a cautious thumbs-up for its endorsement of religious freedom.

“Governor Romney should be commended for taking religious liberty so seriously,” said Welton Gaddy, the group’s president and a Baptist minister, in a statement released shortly after the speech. “This speech is exactly the kind of conversation that we would hope candidates running for president would have with the American people on the role of faith in public life. While I may disagree with some of the points made in the speech, … I appreciate the overall tone.”

But other groups that endorse strong separation of church and state found fault with a section of the speech in which Romney claimed some people have taken separation of church and state too far.

Brent Walker, executive director of the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty, said that view was misguided.

“Church-state separation actually ensures our vibrant religious landscape and in no way strips the public square of talk about religion and matters of faith. Church-state separation simply requires that official government action have a secular purpose and have the primary effect that neither advances nor inhibits religion,” Walker said, in a response to a question in a discussion on the Washington Post/Newsweek online “On Faith” feature.

“Gov. Romney should also understand that ‘secular’ is not a bad word,” he continued. “While our culture need not be secular, our government must be—not in the sense of being hostile to religion, but being religiously neutral.”

Some conservatives also criticized Romney’s speech. New York Times columnist David Brooks noted Romney’s claim that American democracy required religious belief left non-believers out in the cold.

“Romney described a community yesterday. Observant Catholics, Baptists, Methodists, Jews and Muslims are inside that community. The nonobservant are not,” he wrote.

Brooks also said Romney’s distinction between religious Americans with common values and nonreligious ones itself diminished the importance of religion.

“The second casualty of the faith war is theology itself. In rallying the armies of faith against their supposed enemies, Romney waved away any theological distinctions among them with the brush of his hand,” he wrote.

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

Posted: 12/14/07

TBM sends chainsaws to
Oklahoma, blankets to Iraq

By John Hall

Texas Baptist Communications

DALLAS—Texas Baptist Men disaster relief is responding to emergencies and meeting needs from central Oklahoma to northern Iraq.

Four chainsaw crews were dispatched to Oklahoma City to clear away fallen limbs caused by an ice storm that paralyzed much of the Midwest. The crews, who are being housed and fed at Northwest Baptist Church in Oklahoma City, may work up to two weeks.

TBM also is sending 10,000 blankets to Kurds who are migrating from southern Iraq, which historically is more unstable and unfriendly to Kurds, to a Kurdish-controlled area in the northern portion of the war-torn nation.

“We are sending blankets for humanitarian purposes,” said Gary Smith, TBM disaster relief volunteer coordinator. “We have people who are fleeing terrorist activity to somewhere it is safe. They need the blankets to stay warm until they have shelter.”

For information on how to support TBM disaster relief ministries, visit www.texasbaptistmen.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: 12/14/07

Texas Tidbits

Group encourages women in Baptist pulpits. Baptist Women in Ministry is encouraging Baptist churches to invite a woman from their congregation, community or a seminary to preach Feb. 3 as part of the Martha Stearns Marshall Day of Preaching. The day honors Marshall, an 18th century Baptist preacher, and is meant to further develop the skills of Baptist women who feel God’s calling to preach. Last year, more than 50 congregations in the United States and one in Japan participated in the day. Baptist Women in Ministry hopes at least 100 churches will participate this year, said Julie O’Teter, a member of the group’s leadership team. For more information, visit www.bwim.info or e-mail Julie.Oteter@bgct.org.

 Texans on New Baptist Covenant program. Two Texas Baptist pastors—George Mason from Wilshire Baptist Church in Dallas and Ellis Orosco from Calvary Baptist Church in McAllen—will be part of a miniature preaching festival within next year’s Celebration of a New Baptist Covenant. The homiletics mini-conference is scheduled to take place during the breakout-session times at the conference, Jan. 30-Feb. 1 in Atlanta.

Church delays decision on gay couples. Broadway Baptist Church in Fort Worth postponed a scheduled Dec. 2 decision on whether to include homosexuals as couples in a church pictorial directory. The church referred the matter to its deacons, who are expected to bring a recommendation by Feb. 24. The issue surfaced when some gay church members asked to be photographed as couples and pictured as such in the church directory, scheduled for publication as part of the church’s 125th anniversary celebration. Some members expressed concern that picturing gays as couples would be perceived as the church’s endorsement of homosexual behavior. The Baptist General Convention of Texas—with which Broadway is affiliated—is on record affirming churches that minister to homosexuals but has characterized homosexual behavior as sinful. BGCT practice has been to reject financial contributions from a church that endorses homosexual behavior, thereby essentially cutting ties between that church and the state convention.

Valley Baptist’s cardiovascular care recognized nationally. Valley Baptist Medical Center-Harlingen has been named one of the top 100 hospitals in the nation—and the only one south of Houston—for saving lives and reducing complications in heart patients. The results from the Thomson Top 100 Hospitals awards will be published in Modern Healthcare, and the award will be presented to Valley Baptist at the 100 Top Hospitals Summit in Colorado Springs, Co., next summer. Thomson Healthcare analyzed and scored Valley Baptist and more than 1,000 other hospitals around the country for patient survival rates, preventing infections, and other measures related to heart attack, congestive heart failure, bypass surgery, angioplasties and other coronary interventions.

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

Posted: 12/14/07

TOGETHER:
Tune your heart to the wait

Rosemary says I am a terrible “waiter.” She says everywhere I go, I have to have a handful of stuff to read or a list of calls to make or a piece of paper to write another list on. I can’t stand to be waiting with nothing to do.

Executive Director BGCT Executive Board

When we served a church composed of military families in Germany, we learned they know a lot about waiting. Husbands and fathers often were gone for weeks at a time. They accepted the waiting as a necessary part of being in the Army. Soldiers told of being gone from their families during World War II for three, four, even five years without furlough.

Can you imagine that kind of waiting?

While living two years in a German village, we were introduced to Advent, which instantly made sense to me. Here was a way that Christians through the centuries had reminded themselves in a daily way that Christmas is about Christ. Each day in the homes, an Advent calendar with Scriptures and prayers would mark the days of waiting for Christmas.

I learned that the four weeks of Advent begin with a solemn time of darkness in the sanctuaries as the people of God await the coming of the Light. I never could quite carry it off with my congregations. We could not keep it solemn and dark until Christmas when the Light would appear. We Americans (maybe especially Baptists) are very impatient. We don’t like to wait. So, we would sing the plaintive “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel” on the first Sunday of Advent, but by the second Sunday, we were singing, “Joy to the World, the Lord is Come.”

This has been a season of waiting for Rosemary and me.

In just a few weeks, I will retire as your executive director for the BGCT. Frankly, I haven’t had much time to think about it. Several matters still need my attention. I am trying to figure out how to “phase out” my tenure in this office. I have never retired before.

We wait patiently as the search committee for the new executive director does its work. Let me encourage you to wait with eagerness, something like we do for Christmas. We have a great committee at work, and you are praying for them.

God will guide them to the right person to take up this holy task.

I have learned that if you will put away your stuff for awhile and lean into God’s love and joy for you, you will grow bigger of heart and vision.

Your soul will expand.

It may be the Apostle Paul was thinking something along these lines when he wrote in Romans 8, “All around us we observe a pregnant creation. … The Spirit of God is arousing us within. We’re also feeling the birth pangs, … That is why waiting does not diminish us. … We are enlarged in the waiting. … The longer we wait, the larger we become and the more joyful our expectancy.”

My prayer for you is a heart tuned to the wait.

We are loved.

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

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

Posted: 12/12/07

Bible Studies for Life Series for December 16

Being changed by the Savior

• Luke 1:26-56

By Steve Dominy

First Baptist Church, Gatesville

Sometimes familiarity breeds contempt. Sometimes it breeds complacency, which, I would contend, is a form of contempt. So it is with this story. Most of us know this story so well we don’t really need to read it.

I used to spend a week or two with my grandparents each summer. Every day, they would get up, get a cup of coffee and then read the Bible together and pray. Each of them had read it several times. I remember asking why they would read something again and again when they already knew it. My granddaddy replied, “With the Bible, there is always something knew to learn.”

And so it is, even if we don’t learn something knew, our faith is deepened and our eyes opened more to the majesty and grace of God.

The story of the announcement to Mary of her role in the birth of Jesus divides the story of Elizabeth and the coming of John the Baptist. The story of Mary and Jesus bounces between the story of Elizabeth and John. First we see Gabriel’s announcement to Zechariah and Elizabeth’s pregnancy. Luke then moves to Gabriel’s announcement to Mary and her sharing this with Elizabeth. He then moves back to the birth of John and finally to the birth of Jesus. Luke tells this as two different stories and one story. The stories are as different as night and day and the same as two peas in a pod.

Zechariah and Elizabeth are established; they are well past the age of childbearing. Mary is the opposite—a young virgin anticipating her upcoming marriage. But the similarities far outweigh any differences we might see. In fact, the differences serve to heighten the similarity. In both stories, God takes the initiative. In both stories, we see God reveal his grace and his power.

They are stories of grace in that through their sons God expresses his grace to the world, and they are stories of grace in that, no matter how faithful Mary and Elizabeth are, God uses sinful people in his work of redemption. Neither Mary nor Elizabeth conceive by their own volition, Luke makes it abundantly clear that God is the power behind the conception and birth of both John and Jesus. Both women expressed dismay, Elizabeth because of her age, and Mary because she was a virgin, but God used both to reveal that, “Nothing is impossible with God.”

The virgin birth is an important part not only of the Christmas story, but of our Christian heritage. It is one of the pointers to the incarnation, that God became flesh. It helps us to grasp that Jesus is both God and human, that in Jesus, God has come to us. This miraculous conception takes place solely by the will and word of God; it takes place purely by God’s initiative.

That Jesus was both God and man is crucial to the Christian understanding of salvation. Many of the heresies throughout the history of the church have their basis in a misunderstanding of the nature of Jesus’ person. They either deny the humanity or deity of Christ. Any belief that denies the deity or humanity of Christ ceases to be Christian. That Jesus was born is evidence of his humanity, but that is not the full story. The Word that became flesh did not originate from human origins. Joseph cared for Jesus, and filled the role of his father on Earth but Christ came from God, and no other.

Not only should we take note of the means of Jesus’ birth, we also should take note of several things about Mary. Mary is told the Lord is with her and that she is highly favored. Mary is the recipient of God’s grace.

We usually understand grace to be God’s unmerited favor, and we should, but the best definition that I know comes from T.F. Torrance: “Grace is not some thing God gives us, it is the way God gives us himself.” To know grace is to know the presence of the Lord in our lives. The grace she knows results in her obedience, her faithfulness and her worship.

Verses 46-55 comprise Mary’s song, or the Magnificat. The song is Mary’s response to the outpouring of God’s grace and the evidence of God’s grace in her life and in the life of Elizabeth. It is a response full of gratitude, praise and assurance proclaiming the goodness, power and grace of God.

In the first section, Mary praises God for the favor he bestows on her. Fred Craddock says that even this section is not purely autobiographical but that through Mary God has begun to reverse the fortunes of the world so that the last shall be first and the first last. The kingdom of God is intruding on the kingdoms of this world and turning them upside down.

What fascinates me most about this song is the tense in which Mary sings. Each time that Mary sings of God she sings of what God has done. Each line begins with, “He has …” and lists the mighty acts of God. There has been some discussion as to how we should understand these acts of which Mary sings. Should we understand them as a recitation of things God already has done? Is Mary singing only in the past tense, or is there more to it than that?

In light of what Mary has been through with the announcement by Gabriel and her encounter with Elizabeth, I think that it is best to read this song in light of what God is doing now. The fulfillment of the promises of God are so certain Mary can sing of them as having already being accomplished. There is no question in her mind God is at work bringing his rule to bear on his world.

That is the kind of assurance we can seek this Christmas. Our familiarity with the story, but more importantly with the Christ who has come should bring us to live in the assurance that God will complete all that he has begun in Christ. May God bring us to live our lives in the recognition that all he is doing is a done deal. News of religion, faith, missions, Bible study and Christian ministry among Baptist churches, in Texas, the BGCT, the nation and around the world.

Posted: 12/12/07

BaptistWay Bible Series for December 16

Live the unbound life

• Mark 2:13-17, 23—3:6

By Andrew Daugherty

Christ Church, Rockwall

As Mark establishes earlier in chapter 2, Jesus is set at odds against the religious leaders of his time. Keep in mind Mark’s announcement of this Gospel as the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God (1:1). The people in political and religious power (the Jewish scribes, the Pharisees, the Herodians and the Sadducees) do not agree with Mark’s definition of Jesus’ identity. Because they don’t see eye-to-eye with Mark about the fundamental nature of who Jesus is, they become more and more offended by all he says and does, because it conflicts with their interpretations and practices of the rules and regulations of the Torah.

These are neither simple nor respectful disagreements over minor points of belief. To the authorities and powers-that-be, Jesus is desecrating everything their Jewish religion holds near and dear. To the Jewish leaders, Jesus is a religious felon who needs to be punished for his crimes against God’s law. He eats with sinners and those who pollute religious purity.

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Yet Jesus says that these are the same people who need to be helped (2:15-17). To add insult to injury, Jesus threatens the Pharisees’ sensibilities about keeping the Sabbath holy. Jesus subordinates the rules of the Sabbath to the needs of the people. He says the Sabbath was made to serve human beings. Human beings were not made to serve the Sabbath.

Perhaps more than anything else, the controversy about the Sabbath sets the context for this series of exchanges between the scribes and Pharisees and Jesus. The reason is that Jesus reveals the compassion of God toward people. He is not arbitrarily “thumbing his nose” at authority. Jesus was not simply opposed to the law per se, he was opposed to the way the law was used to oppress people rather than make them free from the burden of work.

Ironically, the very commandment intended to unburden people from work actually became a burden in and of itself. Jesus was clear that he came to fulfill the law, not abolish it. Therefore, Jesus wants to fulfill the law by helping people understand the commandment about keeping Sabbath as it was meant to be practiced in the first place. If the Sabbath was intended to help people rest, then surely other practices to help people like healing, saving a life or feeding a hungry person would serve to enrich the Sabbath, not defame it.

To be sure, Mark never portrays Jesus as opposing the law despite his differences with the so-called keepers of the law. Overall, Jesus differed from the scribes and Pharisees over the law being a servant rather than a master. The reality Jesus conveys is that the religious leaders had desecrated the law of God by turning it in to something that burdened people rather than served people.

In his book Jesus Before Christianity, Albert Nolan highlights this: “The scribes had made the Sabbath, like so many other law, into an intolerable burden. They were using the Sabbath against people instead of using it for them. The law as they saw it was supposed to be a yoke, a penance, an oppressive measure; whereas for Jesus it was supposed to be used for the benefit of people, to serve their needs and genuine interests. We have here two different attitudes to law, two different opinions about its purpose and therefore two different ways of using it. The attitude of the scribes leads to casuistry, legalism, hypocrisy and suffering. Jesus’ attitude led to permissiveness whenever the needs of people would not be met by observance of the law, and to strictness whenever this would best serve their needs.”

Said another way, the rub of differences comes when we realize Jesus believed rules and regulations should serve the person; the person is not made to serve the rules and regulations. When those rules and regulations begin to function in a way that burdens people, then those rules and regulations have ceased to serve any beneficial function. The scribes and Pharisees were ready to serve the rules and regulations even if it meant a person’s quality of life would suffer because of it.

The religious leaders of his time reduced the dynamic, personal relationship with God to an impersonal set of moral absolutes and easy-to-remember rules. Likewise today, sometimes we prefer to know what the religious or cultural rules and boundaries are, and then we commit to do our best not to break or bend any of them. We want to know what we can do and what we are forbidden to do and still have God or society accept us. Yet God’s gospel of free grace transcends cold, calculated rules.

When we watch Jesus in these exchanges in Mark, God’s law of love is a holy unruliness that defies a series of black and white technicalities. When rules exist alone, they are the law minus love. Jesus seeks to marry the rule of law with the law of love. In so doing, love keeps the law from becoming oppressive and the law keeps love from becoming licentious. Jesus is faithful to the law by being faithful in loving others, even when it means breaking the rules. News of religion, faith, missions, Bible study and Christian ministry among Baptist churches, in Texas, the BGCT, the nation and around the world.

Posted: 12/06/07

Romney: ‘No candidate should
become the spokesman for his faith’

By Ken Camp

Managing Editor

COLLEGE STATION—People of faith who value religious liberty “have a friend and an ally in me,” but promoters of the “religion of secularism” who want to strip religion from the public square do not, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, a Republican presidential contender and a Mormon, told religious and social conservatives in Texas.

Romney spoke to invited guests at the George H.W. Bush Presidential Library on the Texas A&M University campus in College Station.

The venue is less than 100 miles from Houston, where John F. Kennedy spoke to Baptist ministers in 1960 to assure them his Roman Catholic faith would not unduly influence his decisions as president, and Romney alluded to Kennedy’s speech.

“Almost 50 years ago another candidate from Massachusetts explained that he was an American running for president, not a Catholic running for president,” Romney said.

“Like him, I am an American running for president. I do not define my candidacy by my religion. A person should not be elected because of his faith nor should he be rejected because of his faith.”

Like Kennedy, Romney asserted his belief in the institutional separation of church and state. He insisted he would not allow any Mormon church authority to exert influence over presidential decisions, and he would not put any church doctrine above presidential duties.

“If I am fortunate to become your president, I will serve no one religion, no one group, no one cause, and no one interest. A president must serve only the common cause of the people of the United States,” he said.

However, Romney refused to disavow any tenets his Mormon faith, which many evangelicals characterize as a cult.

“I believe in my Mormon faith and I endeavor to live by it. My faith is the faith of my fathers. I will be true to them and to my beliefs,” he said, adding that if his personal beliefs damage his presidential hopes, “so be it.”

But just as the Constitution allows no religious test for public office, he expressed confidence that his commitment to Mormonism would not end his candidacy. Rather, he said, the American people rightly would question his character if he turned his back on his personal beliefs to advance his candidacy.

“Americans do not respect believers of convenience,” he said.

Romney specifically affirmed his belief in Jesus Christ as “the Son of God and the Savior of mankind,” but he declined to address the specific doctrines of Mormonism that distinguish it from other faiths.

“Each religion has its own unique doctrines and history. These are not bases for criticism but rather a test of our tolerance. Religious tolerance would be a shallow principle indeed if it were reserved only for faiths with which we agree,” he said.

“There are some who would have a presidential candidate describe and explain his church’s distinctive doctrines. To do so would enable the very religious test the founders prohibited in the constitution. No candidate should become the spokesman for his faith. For if he becomes president he will need the prayers of the people of all faiths.”

Adherents of all major religion “share a common creed of moral convictions,” he said.

While Romney stressed that religious liberty is “fundamental to America’s greatness,” he affirmed public displays of civil piety such as references to God in the Pledge of Allegiance and on currency, and he expressed approval for “nativity scenes and menorahs” displayed in the public square.

The United States benefits from its moral and religious heritage drawn from multiple sources—“our nation’s symphony of faith,” Romney said.

“Our greatness would not long endure without judges who respect the foundation of faith upon which our constitution rests. I will take care to separate the affairs of government from any religion, but I will not separate us from ‘the God who gave us liberty,’” he said.

Some people have carried separation of church and state too far by seeking to have any reference to America’s religious heritage or its dependence on God removed from public life, Romney asserted.

“It is as if they are intent on establishing a new religion in America—the religion of secularism. They are wrong,” he said.

“Freedom requires religion just as religion requires freedom. Freedom opens the windows of the soul so man can discover his most profound beliefs and commune with God. Freedom and religion endure together or perish alone.”

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

Posted: 12/10/07

Executive Board may vote on
short-term interim executive director

By John Hall

Texas Baptist Communications

DALLAS—The Baptist General Convention of Texas Executive Board may bring in an interim executive director—at least for a short time.

BGCT Executive Board leaders are examining options for short-term leadership of the board’s staff in the likely event the next convention executive director will not be on the job before BGCT Executive Director Charles Wade retires at the end of January.

Ken Hugghins, chairman of the BGCT Executive Director Search Committee, noted that even if a nominee is brought to the Executive Board in early January and approved, that person most likely would not start until mid-February. The candidate would need to give at least a two-week notice and take another couple weeks to relocate, creating at least a month-long gap between being voted on and assuming the new position.

Wade is set to retire Jan. 31. Assuming the next executive director starts in mid-February, there will be at least a two-week window where the convention would not have a chief executive officer or chief operating officer. BGCT Chief Financial Officer David Nabors would be the only executive leader remaining on the convention’s Executive Board staff.

BGCT Executive Board Chairman John Petty said the board will vote on a short-term leader for the convention’s staff—probably by e-mail ballot—if the next executive director cannot start before Wade retires. He indicated there are qualified candidates who could fill this short-term role. That person would not be someone who currently works on the convention staff, he specified.

“We’re very confident we can address that situation without any major gaps in leadership,” he said.

The search committee is making progress, having narrowed the field to fewer than nine candidates, Hugghins said. It is wrapping up the first round of candidate interviews and has interviewed one candidate twice.

Jerry Carlisle, pastor of First Baptist Church in Plano, has resigned from the search committee and allowed his name to be consideration for the executive director position.

In a letter to his congregation, Carlisle indicated search committee members asked him to submit his resume, which he reluctantly did after praying about the situation. In order to avoid a conflict of interest, Carlisle resigned from the search committee.

God “made it clear that I needed to make myself available for the committee’s consideration, so I have,” Carlisle wrote. “I do not know what the committee will conclude. Regardless, I do not know what God is calling me to do. I only know I want to obey him.” 

Carlisle’s resignation does not mean he will be the next executive director, Hugghins said. Carlisle has been interviewed by the committee.

“We are being led a step at a time,” Hugghins said. “It’s not a conclusion, but a step. We’re not always sure how the next step is connected to the step before or how it is connected to the next step. But we are sure we are being led.”

The search committee will nominate an executive director candidate to the Executive Board, which will then vote on that person.

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Posted: 12/07/07

CYBER COLUMN:
Merry Christmas, Ross Wolfe

By John Duncan

I’m sitting here under the old oak tree, thinking about Christmas and wondering in the spirit of the season about Ross Wolfe. Where are you, dear brother? Ross Wolfe, I wish you a Merry Christmas.

You sent me a letter, and I lost it while moving to a new town. If you had seen the 6,000 pounds of stuff, file cabinets and hundreds of books and papers stacked high that the movers moved to my new office, you would understand. I dug deep for your letter, but to no avail. In fact, you have, through the years, sent me letters.

You once sent me a letter that began, “I’m fine, and it’s really been a blessing in jail.” Were you the Apostle Paul writing your epistles from jail and naming them your prison letters? Were you Dietrich Bonhoeffer writing “Letters and Papers from Prison,” glorious words like Bonhoeffer’s own, “Jesus does not call men to a new religion, but to life”? Or were you in prison, because as you once stated, “I messed up again”? Ross Wolfe, I hurt for you and long to see you and thank you for your letters, and I wish you a Merry Christmas.

Your last two letters stated the same things to me, that you aimed be free again, of alcohol’s demon pain, of jail, and of a clouded past to sing again at Rinky Tinks, a small ice cream parlor on the square of a small Texas town. Are you writing songs and singing again?

Oh, dear brother, you can sing. I will never forget you once told me you played piano for the opening act for Ray Charles. “For Ray Charles?” I quizzed you as I could think of only one thing: “Georgia On My Mind,” which, incidentally, was the name of one of your friends. Your face glowed like an angel as you shared the Ray Charles good news, happiness nipping your nose like you were a child who had unwrapped a toy at Christmas.

I will never forget that twice you gave me CD recordings of your melodious music, “Ross Wolfe in Memphis” and “Every Day I Praise the Lord, ” a CD which has the picture of a beautiful white church with a tall steeple and trees with green leaves and a price tag still on it of $18.48 plus $1.52 tax. How did you arrive at the price? Did I ever pay you the $20.00? Are you attending a tall-steepled church that sings Christmas hymns during this season? Are you still singing “Every Day I Praise the Lord”? Do you know it is almost Christmas, Ross Wolfe? 

Ross Wolfe, I will never forget your sweet grandmother Opal, sweetest lady this side of the Jordan and Brazos Rivers, this side of the moon and the earth. She prayed for you and told me so with a crinkled forehead of concern and prayed that you walk the narrow road, and she yearned for you to sing the songs of God’s amazing grace. She begged God that you would live with the Christ tune of joy vibrating and making rhythm in your heart. She loved you, and how wonderful it is to have people praying for you with hearts pouring out love. She prayed that the devil’s hand would not strangle you, but that God’s hand would guide you and keep you free.

I will never forget you sent me another letter about your new song, one that I believe you wrote in jail, titled, “Bump it on Down, Devil.” In another letter, you stated that you were in “my lowest time” and longed to “think about COMING HOME.” I noted you put “coming home” in capital letters and felt you lived on the edge of despair and hope, on the edge of homelessness and wanting to go home. Despair filtered in your soul, in the words of the Psalmist, “I cried out to God with my voice—to God with my voice; and he gave ear to me. In the day of my trouble I sought the Lord; My hand was stretched out in the night without ceasing; My soul refused to be comforted” (Psalm 77:1-2).

“Despair,” Victor Frankl once wrote, “is suffering without meaning.” Despair gave way to fear for you because, in your lowest state, maybe you were losing all hope. You feared the devil would strangle your soul, and you wrote a song, “Bump it on Down, Devil,” as if to say: Despair cannot win; I long to go home; life has meaning.

Can any place be better than home at Christmas? Can life possess meaning in the Christ of Christmas? Ross, are you writing a song of hope?

Ross, one of your letters stated that you wanted people to see Jesus in you. I know you struggled, and maybe still do. We all do from time to time. It’s called life, a series of events that add up to the sum of all our parts, the misery and mercy, mess that imprisons us and the glory that sets us free, and the fear and joy. Ross Wolfe, I wish you a Merry Christmas and know, deep in the fiery depths of my soul and yours, that what you really long for is joy. “Joy comes in the morning,” the Bible says, and after the pain of childbirth. It is birth I am thinking about now, Mary’s birth and the joy of Christmas. Did you know it is almost Christmas?

I love Christmas. While the world seesaws on the edge of great fear in a world of terror and great joy in a world where people long to go home for Christmas, I think of Mary’s great fear and her great joy in bringing Jesus into the world; of Mary’s great pain and yet the joyful celebration of Christ’s birth; of Mary when the devil and Herod tried to do all they could to keep Jesus from living and legions of angels when they showed up time and time again in the Christmas story, like Clarence in “It’s A Wonderful Life,” declaring, “You can live again! You can live again!”

I love Christmas! Ross Wolfe, have you written any songs about Christmas? Hey, did Ray Charles like Christmas? Did he ever write an unpublished song, “Christmas on My Mind?”

When I think of Christmas, I think of hope, for people to be free and full of joy and love and peace on earth that comes from heaven and good will towards men. When Saint Matthew announced the birth of Jesus in his Gospel, the encouraging word was one of hope—for God’s presence to lead us home; for salvation from sins and when we mess up; for a star that would shine and lead us to Christ who desires to be worshipped. When Luke recorded the message of angels, their wings glistening like glitter, his Gospel proclaimed an angelic announcement of hope that lights up the dark sky. When John philosophically introduced the child born in Bethlehem as the Word becoming flesh and blood among us, his words became a song of hope for all the nations to sing. Hope reigns at Christmas. Hope sings. Hope shines. Hope hums in the heart. Remember, Ross, your grandmother prayed sweet prayers for Christ’s hope to hum in your heart.

Ross, it is almost Christmas. I cannot wait. I hope it snows, snowflakes on Christmas Eve trickling out of the sky like cotton balls floating in midair racing to the ground to see which one gets to earth first to blanket it with a carpet of snow so that boys and girls and men like me can build snowmen in their yards. Yes, I hope it snows, my dear brother Ross. But even if it does not, this Christmas I think of you and am reminded that Jesus washes our sins as white as snow. The prophet Isaiah said that. And this Christmas I sing the songs of Christmas joy like angels with God’s glory, dazzling onlookers to vibrate my soul with peace and love and hope. And this Christmas, I remember that I need not live on the edge of fear because great joy has come in Emmanuel, “God with us.” And this Christmas, I guess a lot of people, Ross, will think, like you did that day in prison, of “COMING HOME.”

Pliny the Elder in the first century said, “Home is where the heart is.” North Carolina writer Thomas Wolfe said, “You can’t go home again.” But I have found you can go home again, and that home fills the heart and that the heart can make a home for Jesus, Emmanuel, and if it does, despair goes away, peace comes, joy soars and love flourishes like flowers coloring a mountain and filling the air with a fresh smell.

Love, God’s love, Christmas peace, and Christ’s joy is what I send to you this Christmas, Ross Wolfe. Are you in Memphis? Granbury? Georgetown, Texas? Maybe one day I can see you and your bright smile. Maybe, big man that you are, you will give me a teddy bear hug like once you did when you got out of jail and we met with some men from the church at Jack in the Box. You were so happy on that day.

Maybe, just maybe, you will write a Christmas song and send the words to me in a letter. Write a song about Christmas, despair surrendering to hope, fear bowing to joy, and love finding a way in the bitterness of life in the person of Emmanuel.

Oh, Ross, write a song about snow, star-like flakes falling from the sky like glittering stars streaking from the heavens to paint the earth white. I miss your grandmother Opal. And, Christmas joy, oh boy, I wish I had thought to tell you to say hello to Ray Charles for me before he died.

And to you, Ross Wolfe, I say, “Peace on Earth, Goodwill to men. Emmanuel, God be with you.” I pray you are happy, dear brother, like the day at Jack in the Box. I pray you are free. I pray that Christmas joy hums in your heart, the dazzling glory of God’s grace vibrating your heart with the hum of Christ’s hope. Ross Wolfe, I wish you a Merry Christmas. I hope you think of COMING HOME and that you make it home. Christmas joy, oh boy! Merry Christmas!

P.S.: This will be my last cybercolumn. I would like to express my appreciation to Marv Knox and the Baptist Standard for his outstanding leadership and editing and for the privilege of writing. With future changes in the web design of the Standard and changes in my own life, I look forward to reading the Standard and to writing projects that I am planning for the future. Stay tuned in future days. Thanks for reading, for the privilege of writing, and, like my words to Ross Wolfe, “I wish you a Merry Christmas!” Christmas joy!

John Duncan, formerly pastor of Lakeside Baptist Church in Granbury, Texas, recently moved to Georgetown, Texas, where he is pastor of First Baptist Church.

News of religion, faith, missions, Bible study and Christian ministry among Texas Baptist churches, in the BGCT, the Southern Baptist Convention ( SBC ) and around the world.