BELTON—Police cars and fire engines lined the streets on the north side of the University of Mary-Hardin Baylor campus. Paramedics carried students on stretchers and loaded them into ambulances. But it was just a drill—an emergency response exercise planned long before an armed rampage occurred two days earlier at Virginia Tech.

Bell County’s emergency planning committee had scheduled the drill—a simulated hazardous-materials spill on the railroad tracks adjacent to the UMHB campus—months earlier, university spokesperson Carol Woodward said.

UMHB emergency response personnel confer during emergency preparedness drill.

04/28/2007 - By John Rutledge

Southern Baptists fall short of baptism goal. Southern Baptists failed to meet their goal of baptizing 1 million people in 2006, according to statistics reported by Southern Baptist Convention-affiliated churches. Baptisms for 2006 instead declined by 1.89 percent—364,826 in 2006 versus 371,850 in 2005. The SBC baptism thrust was launched by immediate past-President Bobby Welch at the outset of his two years in office in June 2004.

International Baptists discuss local-church autonomy. Sixty seven Baptist theologians, leaders and pastors from around the world gathered at a Baptist World Alliance symposium at the German Baptist Seminary in Elstal, Berlin, to talk about the theology of the church—particularly issues of local-church autonomy. Participants examined the relationship of the local church to the larger Baptist community of associations, national conventions and unions, regional fellowships and the Baptist World Alliance. At the end of the symposium, participants issued a statement concluding, “For Baptists, the local church is wholly church but not the whole church.”

CBF offers church-starter ‘boot camp’ at Truett. The Cooperative Baptist Fellowship’s New Church Starts Boot Camp will be held July 29-Aug. 3 at Baylor University’s Truett Seminary in Waco. The annual event offers individuals interested in starting churches opportunities for networking, learning about practical resources and assessing their ministerial gifts and calling. American Baptist Churches USA and the Baptist General Convention of Texas also are sponsoring the event. Featured speakers include Tom Johnson, American Baptist new-church planting coordinator; Andre Punch, BGCT congregational strategists director; and Charles Higgs, BGCT director of western-heritage ministries.

04/28/2007 - By John Rutledge

An editorial can’t do justice to the complexity of immigration. So, consider this a discussion-starter to accompany the package of articles on immigration in this paper. Let’s structure our thinking in three categories.

Problems

Immigration problems and the passion they stir swirl around three items:

04/28/2007 - By John Rutledge

Court dismisses suit against Boy Scouts. A federal appeals court has dismissed a lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union that challenged the U.S. Department of Defense’s support of the Boy Scouts of America and their national Jamboree. In 1999, the ACLU filed suit claiming the “Boy Scouts’ policy requiring religious oaths” violated the separation of church and state. The ACLU objected to the the Boy Scouts holding their national Jamboree at Fort A.P. Hill in Virginia every four years because the Scout Oath begins: “On my honor I will do my best to do my duty to God and my country.” A lower court had ruled a 1972 law that allowed the Defense Department to support the Scouts was unconstitutional because it advanced religion on government property, but the Chicago-based 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected that ruling.

Only one Brit in 10 attends church. A survey by a British charity indicates more than half of Britain’s adults claim to be Christian, but only one in 10 regularly attends weekly church services. Tearfund, a Christian relief and development charity, said its poll of 7,000 men and women over age 16 suggests Christianity remains the dominant faith in Britain, with 53 percent—26.2 million—of the adult population adhering to its beliefs. But those figures from 2006 also represent a sharp decline from the last British census, in 2001, when nearly three-quarters of adults identified themselves as Christian. The poll indicates only 7.6 million adults in a nation of more than 60 million people go to church each month, and only one in 10 attends each week. Two-thirds of the people polled said the only times they had gone to church were for weddings, baptisms and funerals.

Evangelical leader named to religious freedom panel. Former National Association of Evangelicals President Don Argue has been appointed to the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom. Argue is expected to start the position May 15, replacing Roman Catholic Bishop Ricardo Ramirez of Las Cruces, N.M. Argue is president of Northwest University in Kirkland, Wash., a school affiliated with the Assemblies of God. In 1996, he was appointed to serve on President Clinton’s Advisory Committee on Religious Freedom, which led to establishment of the commission. In 1998, Clinton chose Argue to be part of an official delegation of U.S. religious leaders to China. Argue was president of the National Association of Evangelicals from 1995 to 1998, when he resigned to take the university position.

Fingerprint scanner a tool of Antichrist, school employee believes. A public school employee in St. John the Baptist Parish, La., was suspended for refusing to use a biometric time clock that scans fingerprints, claiming the process violates his religious beliefs. Joe Cook, director of the Louisiana chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, urged the school board to allow Herman Clayton, a school system electrician and Baptist minister, to continue signing in and out of work, as he did for several months before being suspended without pay in February. Clayton objected to the fingerprint scanning system based on his belief in end-times prophecy. The St. John school district implemented the $75,000 fingerprint identification system last fall. Employees use it to clock in and out of work by placing a finger in front of a small scanner that recognizes key points on each employee’s finger.

04/28/2007 - By John Rutledge

ARRISBURG, Pa. (RNS)— Filmmaker Martin Doblmeier, who set out to explore the nature of forgiveness, was almost finished when the news broke about the Amish school shooting in West Nickel Mines, Pa., last October.

He went to Lancaster County to film a segment on what happened after a gunman invaded the school and killed five girls and then himself. He found an Amish delegation that went to the gunman’s widow to show support and forgiveness.

04/28/2007 - By John Rutledge

The survey by the Pew Research Center shows religious voters leaning toward more recognizable candidates in the early stages of the race, said John Green, a senior fellow at the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life.

04/28/2007 - By John Rutledge

“Americans have always struggled with immigrants. Non-conformist immigrants like Quakers and Baptists were exiled and sent back to England or the Caribbean by the colonial religious establishment,” church historian Bill Leonard noted. “Roger Williams (who founded the first Baptist church in the colonies) was an unacceptable immigrant.”

04/28/2007 - By John Rutledge

If that individual is an undocumented immigrant, his presence presents legal and ethical issues many congregations do not know how to address, said Krista Gregory, consultant with the Baptist Immigration Services Network, started by the Baptist General Convention of Texas.

04/28/2007 - By John Rutledge