2007 Archives
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Are atheists now becoming the new fundamentalists?
Posted: 6/08/07
Are atheists now becoming
the new fundamentalists?By Benedicta Cipolla
Religion News Service
WASHINGTON (RNS)—Despite its minority status, atheism has enjoyed the spotlight recently, with several books that feature vehement arguments against religion topping bestseller lists.
But now even some secular humanists are saying they should embrace more than the strident rhetoric poured out in books like Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion and Sam Harris’ The End of Faith and Letter to a Christian Nation.
06/08/2007 - By John Rutledge
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East Texas cousins keep Bible Drill competition all in the family
Posted: 6/08/07
Cousins Tanner Shirley and Jessie Price, both from First Baptist Church in Atlanta, were scheduled to compete at the National Bible Drill competition in North Carolina June 8. Shirley, a sophomore, won the Texas Bible Drill senior high competition, and Price, an eighth grader, won the Texas junior high Bible Drill division. (Photo by Ferrell Foster/BGCT ) East Texas cousins keep Bible Drill
competition all in the familyBy Barbara Bedrick
Texas Baptist Communications
ATLANTA—A family legacy took two East Texas teenagers to the national stage.
Fulfilling a commitment they made to their great-grandmother, cousins Tanner Shirley and Jessie Price from First Baptist Church in Atlanta advanced to the national round of Bible Drill competition in North Carolina June 8.
06/08/2007 - By John Rutledge
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Book Reviews
Posted: 6/08/07
Book Reviews
The AIDS Crisis By Deborah Dortzbach and W. Meredith Long (InterVarsity Press)
Baptist churches in Texas, as elsewhere, are becoming more open in talking about AIDS. Twenty years ago, we discovered how the virus is spread. But we haven’t yet discovered a cure. Worldwide, 8,000 people are dying every day. By 2010, it is estimated, 25 million children will have been orphaned.
How will we respond? The authors, working with World Relief, are experienced in the attempt. They tell stories about victims in Africa and Asia, and these people do not seem far away. Then they encourage American Christians to get proactive in our own communities, locking arms with any organization concerned with ministry to AIDS victims.
What are you reading that other Texas Baptists would find helpful? Send suggestions and reviews to books@baptiststandard.com. Abstinence from sexual relations before marriage is championed. Yet the book faces the fact that education must go further. “Our youth have to know now. Our strategies in youth groups and our instructions in homes and churches need to be fresh and relevant.”
06/08/2007 - By John Rutledge
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Baptist Briefs
Posted: 6/08/07
Baptist Briefs
N.C. colleges may elect trustees, lose funding. Five colleges affiliated with the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina would be able to elect their own trustees under a plan adopted by the convention’s board of directors, but the schools will lose the convention’s direct financial support. The plan, which would be phased in over four years, is intended to avoid a showdown over how much control the Baptist convention should have over the schools—Campbell University, Chowan University, Gardner-Webb University, Mars Hill College and Wingate University. The board overwhelmingly approved the proposal from the state convention’s council on Christian higher education. To become policy, messengers to the Baptist State Convention must approve it two consecutive years.
N.C. state paper set to elect editor. Norman Jameson has been recommended as the new editor of the Biblical Recorder, the North Carolina Baptist state newspaper. The paper’s board of directors was expected to vote June 7. Jameson, executive leader for public relations for the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina, would succeed Tony Cartledge, 55, who has announced plans to become a professor at Campbell University Divinity School in Buies Creek, N.C. Cartledge will remain editor through July 31. Jameson, 54, graduated from Oklahoma Baptist University and Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. He worked for the Colorado Springs Gazette Telegraph, was feature editor of Baptist Press, associate editor of the Oklahoma Baptist Messenger and communications director for Baptist Children’s Home in North Carolina before joining the North Carolina state convention staff. Jameson and his wife, Sue Ellen, have three adult children and are members of Hayes Barton Baptist Church in Raleigh, N.C.
Kentucky paper names news director. Drew Nichter, an associate director and news producer for a television station in Louisville, Ky., has been named news director of the Western Recorder, the Kentucky Baptist newspaper. Nichter, 30, succeeds David Winfrey, who resigned after 10 years to accept a position as a marketing strategist. He is a graduate of Indiana University Southeast, where he was assistant editor of the university’s campus newspaper.
Asian Federation changes name. At the recent Asian Baptist Federation Congress in Chiang Mai, Thailand, the group voted to change its name to the Asia Pacific Baptist Federation. Officials said the new name more accurately reflects the composition of the regional body, which includes countries in the South Pacific such as Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Australia and New Zealand. The federation consists of 60 conventions and unions in 20 countries with about 30,000 churches that claim more than 5 million members.
Princeton Review recognizes Mercer. The Princeton Review has named Mercer University in Georgia one of the nation’s best value undergraduate institutions. Mercer is featured in the 2008 edition of America’s Best Value Colleges. The guide profiles 165 colleges chosen for their excellent academics, generous financial aid packages and/or relatively low costs of attendance. Mercer was one of only 75 private institutions to be named a “best value.” The Princeton Review selected the schools based on data obtained from administrators at more than 650 colleges during the 2005-06 academic year and surveys of students attending the schools.
06/08/2007 - By John Rutledge
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2nd Opinion: Called to witness Christ’s peace
Posted: 6/08/07
2nd Opinion: Called to witness Christ’s peace
By Beth Newman
A few nights ago, just at bedtime, my husband and I heard some kind of owl—at least we assumed it was an owl—announcing its presence among the oaks in our backyard. A little research on the Internet led us to believe it was a screech owl. I was excited, because I’m a budding bird enthusiast; my husband was excited, because he saw an end to his mole problems. According to what he read, once an owl establishes a territory, he will hunt it over until he exhausts the prey.
Unfortunately, as we waxed eloquent about the bloody demise of the rodents tunneling through our yard, our 6-year-old son overheard and burst into tears over the slaughter of his friends whom he pronounced “tiny and shiny black.”
“Isn’t there enough room for the owl and mole and us?” he wondered.
It was the neighborhood version of Rodney King’s “Why can’t we all just get along?”
06/08/2007 - By John Rutledge
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DBU students reach out to orphans in Guatemala
Posted: 6/08/07
DBU students reach out
to orphans in GuatemalaBy Blake Killingsworth
Dallas Baptist University
ELA, Guatemala—Twenty-five Dallas Baptist University students shared the love of Christ with orphans during a recent 12-day trip to Guatemala—and fell in love with the children in the process.
For the last four years, DBU students have made the trek to Latin America under the auspices of Buckner International. Recently, DBU entered a formal partnership agreement with Buckner. In addition to the school’s pledge to continue its hands-on involvement in Guatemala and Buckner’s promise to facilitate the trips, DBU also established a scholarship for Buckner’s Guatemalan staff to take classes through the school’s online education program.
Dallas Baptist University student Lindsay Springer blows bubbles with a child in the Xela orphanage in Guatemala. 06/08/2007 - By John Rutledge
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EDITORIAL: Hold churches accountable for abuse
Posted: 6/08/07
EDITORIAL:
Hold churches accountable for abuseWe need another directory to document clergy sexual abuse. When we learn churches knowingly allow—or force—an abusing minister to move on without doing something to warn others, let’s publish their names.
This sounds harsh. But it’s nothing compared to the pain and anguish victims go through when their ministers violate their trust and abuse them sexually. So, churches that know about it but don’t help stop it should be shamed as if they actually aided and abetted this heinous act. They did.
Because of our polity, Baptists have struggled with deciding how to report sexual abuse by their ministers. We don’t have an ecclesiastical hierarchy to enforce rules and regulations, no bishop to render justice or warn other congregations. We don’t require ordination for service, so we can’t pull a clergy’s credentials to block a job with a church after violating trust with another congregation. And, of course, we don’t tell churches what to do, so we can’t require them to report abuse, just as we can’t tell them who or who not to hire as ministers.
Baptists also have been understandably cautious about reporting sexual abuse. Short of legal conviction or confession, making a claim of clergy misconduct is fraught with legal peril. Churches and convention officials have been reticent to risk charges of libel and slander in order to stop a perp from plaguing a new set of parishioners. And they have been appropriately reticent to publicize names of accused perpetrators unless the charges have been substantiated.
06/08/2007 - By John Rutledge
