2007 Archives
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Around the State
Posted: 6/22/07
Officers of the Hispanic Baptist Convention of Texas were invited to the White House to take part in a Cinco de Mayo celebration held in the Rose Garden. They also took the opportunity to advocate passage of an immigration reform initiative. Pictured in the White House Rose Garden are Baldemar Borrego, president of the Hispanic Baptist Convention of Texas; Carlos Gutierrez, U.S. Secretary of Commerce; and Carlos Alfaro, an evangelical leader from Miami, Fla. Around the State
• San Marcos Baptist Academy has received a $500,000 donation to fund a new sports and fitness center. The gift, made by Don and Nancy Mafrige, both 1955 graduates of the academy, is the largest ever given by alumni.
• Houston Baptist University has announced the creation of the Elsa Jean and Don Looser Endowed Scholarship. Looser, who has announced his retirement as vice president of academic affairs, has served the university more than 44 years. His wife also served as a faculty member for three years.
San Marcos Baptist Academy has broken ground on an alumni plaza in preparation for the school’s 100-year anniversary in the fall. The alumni plaza will feature items that were part of the original campus. San Marcos Academy was located on Academy Street in San Marcos from its founding in 1907 until it moved to its present location on Ranch Road 12 in 1982. Several lamp posts, a central fountain and bricks from the downtown campus will be used to construct a memorial garden plaza outside the entrance to the school’s Carroll Hall. Construction of the plaza has been funded by Mary Nelle Payne Grusendorf, SMA class of 1948, and Nancy Payne Willingham, SMA class of 1950. Participating in the groundbreaking were Grusendorf, SMA Vice President for Development Bobby DuPree and Willingham. (San Marcos Baptist Academy/Photo by Don Anders) • Seventeen Dallas Baptist University students explored educational developments and leadership trends in South Korea earlier this month as a part of the school’s new doctor of education in educational leadership program. The students and their faculty sponsors partnered with local education leaders and visited a variety of K-12 schools and universities. Future trips abroad are being planned in conjunction with the program. For more information, call (214) 333-5484.
• Each summer, undergraduate and graduate students serve across the country and around the world working alongside Cooperative Baptist Fellowship Global Missions field personnel and Fellowship partners. Mary Beth Cooper of Gainesville, working with immigrants in Fredricksburg, Va.; Ashley Gatta of Round Rock, serving with Touching Miami with Love in Florida; Mary Beth Gilbert of Dallas, teaching English as a second language in Macedonia; Matt McGee of Arlington, serving in Southeast Asia; and Bethany Williams of Rising Star, who is serving as a service volunteer in Southeast Asia are among the more than 30 students taking part this summer.
06/22/2007 - By John Rutledge
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Atheists view ‘radical Christianity’ as threat
Posted: 6/22/07
Atheists view ‘radical Christianity’ as threat
By Adelle Banks
Religion News Service
WASHINGTON (RNS)—More than half of atheists and agnostics think “radical Christianity” is just as threatening in the United States as “radical Islam,” a new study reveals.
The Barna Group, a Ventura, Calif.-based research firm, found 56 percent of atheists and agnostics agree with that view. The firm, which often looks at opinions of religious Americans, delved into the beliefs of people of no faith and compared them to religious adults over a two-year period.
06/22/2007 - By John Rutledge
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Book Reviews
Posted: 6/22/07
Book Reviews
101 Amazing Truths about Jesus That You Probably Didn’t Know, by Mark Littleton (Howard Books)
Most of us know that Jesus was born of a virgin, died on a cross and rose three days later, but what about the things many Christians do not know? Did Jesus pay taxes? Was he an only child? Did he ever lose his temper? Did he like to have fun?
Mark Littleton answers these questions and more by taking an in-depth look at Jesus’ life.
What are you reading that other Texas Baptists would find helpful? Send suggestions and reviews to books@baptiststandard.com. Using contemporary language and modern examples, Littleton makes Jesus’ life applicable to the average person. He uses Scripture references to back up his claims.
06/22/2007 - By John Rutledge
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Faith Digest
Posted: 6/22/07
Faith Digest
Most Republicans doubt Darwin. Republicans are far more likely to doubt the theory of evolution than Democrats, a new Gallup Poll revealed. Sixty-eight percent of Republicans say they doubt humans evolved from lower life forms over millions of years; only 40 percent of Democrats hold the view. The poll was conducted by telephone last June and has a margin of error of plus or minus three percentage points. In a separate Gallup poll this May, respondents were asked to choose between three hypotheses about human origin and development. Just 14 percent believed God had no part in the process, while 43 percent believed God created man in present form. A full 38 percent took a centrist view, affirming that man evolved but God guided the process. Beyond political parties, the poll also found a correlation between church attendance and belief in evolution. Those who seldom or never attend church are three times more likely to be evolutionists than those who attend church weekly.
Bishop urges three-minute Sabbath in transit. An Anglican bishop has asked thousands of British rail commuters to spend a few minutes each day doing precisely nothing. To help them keep track of the three minutes of stress-beating silence he was urging upon them, Stephen Cottrell handed out miniature egg timers—which he called the “gift of time”—to travelers as they rushed by him at the train station. “By learning to sit still, slow down, by discerning when to shut up and when to speak out, you learn to travel through life differently,” Cottrell said. The cleric took his cue from a recent study by Britain’s University of Hertfordshire that found the walking speeds in 32 cities around the world had increased by 10 percent over the past decade.
06/22/2007 - By John Rutledge
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Baptists throw a lifeline to flooded Gainesville
Posted: 6/22/07
Texas Baptist Men volunteers Larry Toney of Wichita Falls and Jane Hayes of Whitesboro move boxes of food as the set up to serve meals in Gainesville. Baptists throw a lifeline
to flooded GainesvilleBy John Hall
Texas Baptist Communications
GAINESVILLE—Duke Dowling, pastor of Southside Baptist Church, admits he doesn’t know much about home repair. He can’t refurbish the more than 300 flooded homes in his community. He can’t even fix the home of the one family in his congregation whose home was swamped. But he knows plenty of people who can.
“I can’t build,” he said. “But I can go out and find people who can.”
06/22/2007 - By John Rutledge
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Tyler physician’s care for Iraqi refugees opens doors for ministry
Posted: 6/22/07
Tyler physician’s care for Iraqi
refugees opens doors for ministryBy Jessica Dooley
Communications Intern
YLER—Dick Hurst, a medical doctor and layman at First Baptist Church in Tyler, has journeyed to northern Iraq and the surrounding region at least a half-dozen times—including a trip earlier this year—to care for refugees and orphans.
And due in large part to the relationships he has built the last 16 years, multiple ministries are working together to meet needs in the region.
06/22/2007 - By John Rutledge
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Texas Baptist Forum
Posted: 6/22/07
Texas Baptist Forum
Recycle of abuse
Thank you for keeping clergy sexual abuse in the news (June 11).
I have been carrying the burden of this tragedy for over five years and still have tears running down my face. I don’t know if I will ever be the person I was before it happened to me.
• Jump to online-only letters below Letters are welcomed. Send them to marvknox@baptiststandard.com; 250 words maximum. 
“I sometimes marvel when people running for office are asked about faith and their answer is: ‘Oh, I don’t get into that; I keep that completely separate. My faith is completely immaterial to how I think and how I govern.’ And to me that’s really tantamount to saying that my faith is so marginal, so insignificant, so inconsequential that it really doesn’t impact the way I live. I would consider that an extraordinarily shallow faith.”
Mike Huckabee
Republican presidential candidate and former Baptist pastor, discussing faith and politics at the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life (RNS)“He’d say, ‘Just a moment, Lyndon,’ put the phone on his chest, and then motion for me to come in. To me, that said I was more important than the president of the United States! I’d crawl up on his bed, content just to lie there with my head on his chest.”
Ned Graham
Recalling times during his childhood when his father, evangelist Billy Graham, was on the phone with then-President Lyndon Johnson (Charisma/RNS)Since there is not much that can be done in my case, I am praying that changes can be done to keep others from suffering.
06/22/2007 - By John Rutledge
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