Posted: 3/16/07

Retooling required for reaching others

By Barbara Bedrick

Texas Baptist Communications

Urging ministers to retool their thinking about reaching others for Christ so they may retool the lives of church members and nonbelievers more effectively, Baptist pastor Charles Booth delivered the keynote speech at the African American Leadership Workshop March 9-10 at the George W. Truett Theological Seminary.

Quoting scripture, poetry and a scientist, Booth urged ministers at the 3rd annual conference sponsored by Baptist General Convention of Texas, to propagate by changing themselves.

With nearly 600 ministers and church leaders listening, Booth urged the Baptist leaders to “dip the bucket into an old well and prayerfully bring up fresh water,” to make Jesus the difference in their lives, the lives of church members and non-believers.

Booth, who is professor of preaching at Trinity Lutheran Seminary and pastor of Mt. Olivet Baptist Church in Columbus, Ohio, also encouraged ministers to pursue substance over style.

“The pulpit is no place for personal opinion,” said Booth. “The pulpit is the place for propagation of the gospel.”

Echoing the same theme in an interview following his speech, Booth noted too many churches are beginning to look like the culture we live in, instead of personifying Christian values.

“I think there are so many things now that have occurred in what I call the “secularization of the sacred” that necessitate our return to the roots of our biblical heritage and the claims that Christ made,” Booth stressed.

Booth says African American leaders need to return to a serious study of biblical heritage, make the Word of God practical and be wedded to the great concerns that are impacting the people they want to reach.

At Truett, Booth used the illustration of Paul in the New Testament to drive home a point about preaching. Saying Paul was short, had a humpback, bald head and a pointed nose, Booth told ministers not to worry about their external packaging or attire when they retool, but more importantly focus on what comes from within.

To examine a growing dilemma in the church and its membership, Booth quoted Shelley as saying, “I could accept Jesus Christ, if he didn’t bring along that bride, the church.”

Nearly 600 ministers and church leaders attended the African American Leadership Workshop sponsored by the BGCT
The church is not as powerful as it used to be, Booth said. At one time, the preacher spoke and everyone listened.

To underscore the need for transformation, Booth stressed that ministers, leaders and church members may be unable to reach nonbelievers unless they change.

He used Freud’s teachings to illustrate how the various church groups are battling the “super ego” and the “id” in the conflicts of their best versus their worst. Steer clear of church life that is “like a fraternity or a sorority,” Booth said.

“You are not a member of the church,” Booth said. “You are a disciple of the kingdom.”

The reason behind the chaos and conflict in the lives of church members is that “we [churches] have more members than disciples.”

The reason we have more members than disciples is that too many people are not willing to be retooled, Booth said.

If beliefs are based on what people watch on TV and what music sons and daughters listen to, “we are a people with a proclivity for profanity and vulgarity.”

To retool, Booth emphasized that ministers and church members need to be reeducated, be born again and go through rehabilitation. Turn the other cheek. Walk the second mile. Suffer from withdrawal symptoms.

The problem is, Booth adds, is that “some of us never have been rehabbed.” Referring to a scene in the movie about Ray Charles titled Ray, the professor described how Charles withdrew to a rehab center to get over a heroin addiction.

The emotion in the scene, Booth said, still shakes him from center to circumference. Withdrawal from what has always been your life is not always easy to do, he noted.

To accentuate his point, Booth used Saul’s journey from Damascus following three days of blindness into the Arabian Desert for three years.

“Sometimes it’s a struggle to become what the Lord wants you to become,” Booth said.

“But God gives you a period of detox, a period of rehab called grace.” With God’s grace always in your Christian toolbox, Booth said ministers and church members can be better positioned to lead others to Christ.

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

Posted: 3/16/07

Texas rural poverty ministry
helps residents in colonias

By Carla Wynn

Cooperative Baptist Fellowship

MCALLEN—In rural communities along the U.S.-Mexico border, many Hispanic families live in extreme poverty, in houses with dirt floors, no indoor plumbing and no electricity. But some are finding hope for a better life through a partnership between Together for Hope, the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship’s rural poverty initiative, and Buckner Border Ministries.

In the colonias—unincorporated communities along the border—many residents came to the United States from Mexico in pursuit of a better, more prosperous life.

“They’re not here to stay poor,” said Jorge Zapata, Buckner’s Border Ministries director. “They’re here to prosper. You help them, and they’re off.”

Most are unable to secure a loan and take many years to build a house. They save money and buy construction materials as they can. Often, families will live in a small shelter on the back of their property while they construct their new home closer to the road. These communities are transitional. Most families will succeed, but it may take several years, Zapata said.

Through the KidsHeart partnership between CBF and Buckner, volunteers come for biannual mission blitzes during spring break and summer—either helping with children’s activities, community block parties or construction projects.

With help from these volunteers, the ministry reached more than 54,000 people last year in 20 colonias in three counties along the Rio Grande. With more than 1,500 of these communities in the Rio Grande Valley, the need is overwhelming.

“We start with one family,” Zapata said. “We (don’t have resources) to help everyone.”

In areas where volunteer construction teams serve, local residents often work alongside the teams to finish a house.

“Volunteers help speed up the (building) process two or three years,” said Cheyenne Solis, one of Buckner’s mission group coordinators.

Another aspect of the ministry is Rio Grande Children’s Home, a Buckner-operated facility that provides care to 38 children. With help from local residents, the facility’s little-used chapel was converted to a warehouse, now storing resources as they are donated by churches and individuals.

“Through (the warehouse), we are ministering to thousands,” Zapata said. “We’re preaching the gospel not behind a pulpit but through clothing and furniture.”

“And it is effective preaching, as Jorge can tell stories of professions of faith, churches started and churches transformed,” said Tom Prevost, national coordinator of Together for Hope.

Volunteers distribute clothing, food, furniture, construction supplies, toys, backpacks and tennis shoes for children and—most significantly to many residents—Bibles.

“They take them like a treasure,” Zapata said. “They’ve never seen a Bible before in their lives.”

Most distribution goes through local community centers and churches—several of which have been constructed by volunteers. These denominationally diverse churches do the crucial follow-up with families who are helped by volunteer teams.

“These families are open to the gospel,” Solis said. “We’re all working together to try to share the gospel.”

Started in 2001, Together for Hope is a 20-year initiative of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship to come alongside, work with and learn from the relationships formed in rural communities in 20 counties across the nation in a long-term effort to address domestic poverty.

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

Posted: 3/16/07

Southwestern, McKissic back
away from ‘tongue’-lashing

By Robert Marus & Greg Warner

Associated Baptist Press

FORT WORTH (ABP)—Board leaders at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and an embattled trustee have agreed to meet and discuss their differences—with a threat to remove Texas pastor Dwight McKissic from the board taken off the table.

McKissic, pastor of Cornerstone Baptist Church in Arlington, and trustee officers issued a joint statement announcing a private meeting to be held immediately prior to Southwestern trustees’ spring meeting.

McKissic, who compared his treatment by the seminary to a “lynching,” previously had rejected the meeting because of preconditions he called unreasonable.

“Rev. McKissic and the officers of the board of trustees at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary have agreed to meet privately and confidentially,” the statement said. “The officers have also agreed to table any recommended action against Rev. McKissic. Both the officers and Rev. McKissic plan to make no further statements at this time.”

The statement did not describe the details of the planned meeting.

McKissic and board Chairman Van McClain previously disagreed publicly on terms for the meeting, which McClain had requested.

McClain told McKissic failure to reconcile prior to the April meeting could lead trustees to recommend that messengers attending the Southern Baptist Convention’s annual meeting in June remove McKissic from the board.

Only voting constituents at SBC annual meetings—known as “messengers”—have the power to forcibly remove a trustee from an SBC board. Although messengers never have taken such an action in the denomination’s 162-year history, trustees at a sister SBC agency recently made an abortive attempt to do the same thing.

Last year, trustees of the International Mission Board tried to remove Oklahoma pastor Wade Burleson from their ranks, but later backed down.

In both cases, the trustee controversies emerged around the issue of “private prayer languages,” a controversial devotional practice related to speaking in tongues.

And in both cases, the trustees were accused of breach of confidentiality with fellow board members.

McKissic preached a sermon at Southwestern Seminary last August in which he acknowledged he has practiced a private prayer language since his days as a student at South-western. He said he disagreed with the IMB’s November 2005 decision to amend its list of missionary qualifications to exclude candidates who use a “prayer language” in private.

Two months after McKissic’s sermon, Southwestern trustees adopted a policy stating the Southern Baptist seminary would not “endorse in any way, advertise or commend the conclusions of the contemporary charismatic movement including ‘private prayer language.’” McKissic was the lone trustee to vote against the measure.

McClain then requested the meeting with McKissic, saying the trustee had inappropriately used confidential material sent to him in advance of the board’s fall meeting. McClain also said he is concerned about the way McKissic has expressed his disagreement with board actions and seminary policies.

McClain said trustee leaders tried to meet privately with McKissic to discuss their concerns about his behavior. But McKissic insisted on bringing outside witnesses and tape-recording the meeting, McClain said, adding that would make a private meeting impossible.

McKissic said he simply was asking for those measures to protect himself and to ensure an accurate account of the meeting, should details be leaked to the media.

McKissic described the threat to remove him, as well as McClain’s refusal to present him with evidence of his wrongdoing prior to the meeting, as “nothing but a 21st-century lynching of an independent-thinking black man who has demonstrated strong support for the Southern Baptist Convention.”

“Because I will not join the ‘good old boys club,’ I’m subjected to removal as a trustee,” he said.

McKissic later apologized to McClain for the tone of his comments.

Southwestern trustees will meet April 2 in Fort Worth.

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

Posted: 3/16/07

TOGETHER:
Two events need prayer & support

Two events just ahead need your prayers and support.

First, please pray for the Missions Exchange gathering at Truett Seminary in April. About 100 invitations have gone out to representatives of the churches, institutions, associations, mission organizations and staff who relate to the BGCT. We want to encourage greater collaboration on the part of all our partners in this convention as we engage our Texas resources—people and money, passion and experience, organizational strength and creative energy—to touch Texas and the world. The results of this conversation will be publicized and will be used to shape the program and activities of the annual meeting in Amarillo this fall so that all Texas Baptists can be involved in this mission synergy.

Executive Director BGCT Executive Board

Please pray God will be present at this Missions Exchange and the participants will be truly attentive.

Second, a call has gone out to Baptists across North America to gather in Atlanta Jan. 30-Feb. 1, 2008, for the celebration of the New Baptist Covenant. Baptists will be challenged to hear and follow Jesus’ agenda: “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor” (Luke 4:18-19).

We Baptists are nothing if we are not Jesus people. We want to be about his work.

The other thing that excites me is that this will be the first time the rich heritage of American Baptist life in both its African-American and Anglo expressions will be celebrated in one place at one time. Anglo Baptists separated in 1845, largely because of differing views regarding slavery. The African-American Baptist experience moved along in a separate manner and flourished in a most remarkable way.

Baptists don’t agree on everything. But we do agree that we ought to be about what Jesus was about. On that we can speak with a strong and united voice. And can’t you just imagine how glorious the times of worship will be!

The two criticisms I have heard about this call to Atlanta revolve around the fear that it will be a partisan political event. I have been assured that strong Baptists who are both Republican and Democrat will be heard in prominent fashion at this meeting. The topics on which all will speak will be in regard to the issues related to the Jesus agenda and not partisan politics.

The other criticism has revolved around concerns regarding President Clinton’s involvement and his widely publicized misconduct during his time as president. I recall viewing a pastors’ conference at the Willow Creek Church in Chicago where Clinton repented and expressed sorrow for the harm he had brought to his family and the country. He asked for their prayers.

We Baptists believe in repentance, sorrow for sin, forgiveness, grace and the opportunity to serve Christ again. My mother was from Arkansas, and no one hoped more for Clinton’s presidency nor was more disappointed by his behavior. We can identify with her pain. Can we also pray that God will redeem brokenness and bring usefulness to all our lives?

Let’s keep our eyes on Jesus and see if we can’t help people across America see that he is the One who has called us to follow him, and his invitation extends to everyone.

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: 3/16/07

Texas Tidbits

Board OKs changes to scholarship program. The Baptist General Convention of Texas Executive Board approved an increase in the amount of money given to each 2007 recipient of the Mary Hill Davis Ethnic/Minority Scholarship. Each full-time student will receive $800 a semester, double what was offered in 2006. Members of ethnic and minority congregations affiliated with the BGCT who are planning to attend a BGCT-affiliated university can apply for the scholarship by April 15. More information about the scholarship and an online application can be found at www.bgct.org. The application and information also can be obtained by calling Tom Ruane or Amber Young at (888) 244-9400. The scholarship is provided by funds through the Mary Hill Davis Offering for Texas Missions.

Numbers add up for ETBU math scholarship. The Rutledge McClaran Mathematics Scholarship now honors the longtime mathematics professor and administrator at East Texas Baptist University. McClaran retired from full-time responsibilities last August, but he still is a part-time consultant at the university. He is an ETBU graduate and served on the faculty more than 41 years. He has been professor of mathematics, chair of the department of mathematics and computer science, academic dean, dean of instruction and dean of liberal arts. In 1989, he became the director of institutional planning, assessment and research. Gifts can be made to the McClaran Mathematics Scholarship by calling the ETBU office of institutional advancement at (903) 923-2070.

Gift enables Baylor to launch center. A $5 million donation by Gary Keller, chairman of Keller Williams Realty, will enable the marketing department in Baylor University’s Hankamer School of Business to launch a real estate research center. The Keller Center will focus on factors that influence individual home buyers in their decisions, as well as marketing and management issues important to real estate agencies and small businesses.

HBU Guild creates Sloan Scholarship. The Guild of Houston Baptist University—a women’s service organization— has created the Robert B. Sloan Jr. Endowed Scholarship. The scholarship will be awarded to a career classroom teacher pursuing a graduate degree in education. It honors Sloan, who was inaugurated as HBU president Nov. 29, for his lifelong commitment to excellence in Christian higher education and the integration of faith and learning in the classroom as a scholar, teacher, author, theologian, pastor and university president. Before joining HBU, he served as professor, president and chancellor at Baylor University. He also has served as pastor and interim pastor at more than 20 churches throughout Texas and Oklahoma.

Hispanic Preaching Conference set at Truett. The 5th annual Hispanic Preaching Conference at Baylor University’s Truett Theological Seminary will be held March 30-31. Mario Alberto Gonzalez, pastor of Primera Iglesia Bautista in El Paso, will be the featured speaker. Other conference leaders include Baldemar Borrego, president of the Hispanic Baptist Convention of Texas and pastor of Iglesia Nuevo Esperanza in Wichita Falls; Joel Weaver and Rady Roldan-Figueroa from Truett Seminary; Javier Elizondo from Baptist University of the Americas; Martin Ortega, pastor of Iglesia Bautista Emanuel in Midland; Rolando Rodriguez, director of Hispanic ministries for the Baptist General Convention of Texas; Victor Rodriguez, pastor of South San Filadelfia in San Antonio; Leslie Gomez, minister of music from Dallas; and Rhoda Gonzales, a pastor’s wife from North Dallas Family Church. Cost is $10. For more information, call (254) 710-3755 or visit www.truettseminary.net.

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

Posted: 3/16/07

CYBER COLUMN:
Reading habits and expanded horizons

By Berry D. Simpson

I read books all the time. When I was a kid, we would go to the library once a week as a class, and I always checked out a book. I remember one year—I don’t remember which grade, I think fourth or fifth, or which teacher, Morris or Henry, but I can picture the layout of the library in my mind—the librarian telling us boys to stick to Boys Life magazine and stop looking at the pictures in Seventeen. She also told me I should read something different. She thought I was reading too many books about war. She thought I should branch out a bit.

I remember thinking at the time, in my smart-alecky boy logic, that I was reading more books and thicker books than anyone else in class, certainly more books than any other boy, and shouldn’t my teacher have been satisfied with that? Why did she have to boss me around about which book I was reading, especially when this was leisure reading and not book-report reading?

I can remember the day when she made the suggestion; it was in front of the entire classroom. It’s not that she singled me out—she did, but she singled everyone out, making recommendations for everyone in class. While I wasn’t happy about someone telling me what to read (I still have a problem being told what to do by someone else), I didn’t want to get into trouble and lose my library privileges, and I was happy not to be the kid who was singled out with the challenge, “Why don’t you try to finish at least one book before the end of school?” I tried to find something else to read.

The first book I read after the challenge was about a family who escaped from East Germany during the Cold War. I didn’t think it counted as a war book. It was more of an espionage book, and besides, it was fiction. It was very exciting; each member of the family used a different route or method to find their way into West Germany.

The thing about reading books about war is that it is such a broad topic. In my elementary school, and in the Winkler County Library, there were rows of books about the American Revolution and the Civil War, about Hannibal and the Punic Wars, about the Spartans, about Alexander the Great, about Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull. There weren’t many good books about World War I and World War II in the 1960s, so I hadn’t started that huge topic yet.

I told this story to Cyndi, my loving wife who also happens to be a very good fifth-grade teacher, and for some reason she immediately took the side of my old teacher. Cyndi said if I were in her class, she would’ve encouraged me to expand into more topics. She would’ve tried to expand my horizons, so to speak—which, come to think of it, is one of her projects for me even as we are married and I am a grown-up.

I told Cyndi about the time I checked out a book titled Man O’ War, expecting to read about an 18th-century British battleship, only to be disappointed to find out the book was about some silly horse who won a couple of big-name races. Who cared about that, is what I thought. But I finished the book anyway, and made sure my teacher knew I was expanding my horizons. I respectfully brought it to her attention that I had read about a horse, not war.

The teacher’s advice was correct, of course. I needed more variety in my life. But in those days, I was still too young to know good advice when I heard it, something I am still trying to outgrow.

It wasn’t that I was a budding warrior. I’m still not a gun guy, and I never aspired to be in the military. I’m not sure why I read all those books about war, or why I continue to read them today. I think it might be because I enjoy the strategy, the decision-making under combat conditions and the after-battle analysis. I think I am also drawn to the men, ordinary men, who make quick decisions in courage under fire that turn the tide of battle.

I don’t picture myself as a soldier in spite of my habit of reading books about war, but I do hope to be an ordinary guy who helps turn the tide at the critical moment.

Berry Simpson, a Sunday school teacher at First Baptist Church in Midland, is a petroleum engineer, writer, runner and member of the city council in Midland. You can contact him through e-mail at berry@stonefoot.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: 3/16/07

NAE rebuffs Bush administration
in joining anti-torture statement

By Robert Marus

Associated Baptist Press

EDEN PRAIRIE, Minn. (ABP)—The nation’s umbrella group for evangelicals has endorsed a statement that takes aim at the Bush administration’s alleged use of torture in the war on terrorism.

Directors of the National Association of Evangelicals have endorsed a document called “An Evangelical Declaration Against Torture: Protecting Human Rights in an Age of Terror.” The endorsement came at the board’s March 8-9 meeting in Minnesota.

The document was drafted 17 theologians, ethicists and activists calling themselves Evangelicals for Human Rights. Baptist drafters include Union University professor David Gushee, who writes a column for Associated Baptist Press, and Fuller Seminary ethicist Glen Stassen.

“From a Christian perspective, every human life is sacred. Recognition of this transcendent moral dignity is non-negotiable for us as evangelical Christians in every area of life, including our assessment of public policies,” the statement says. “We write this declaration to affirm our support for detainee human rights and opposition to any resort to torture.”

It also praises a revised U.S. Army field manual that bans several controversial methods of handling prisoners, such as beatings and sexual humiliation. The 2004 torture-and-sexual-abuse scandal at the U.S.-run Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad brought U.S. officials under global scrutiny for treatment of prisoners.

However, the document also takes direct aim at what it calls “loopholes” in some federal laws on terrorism-suspect treatment passed in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

“Despite the military’s commendable efforts to remove itself from any involvement with torture, the current administration has decided to retain morally questionable interrogation techniques among the options available to our intelligence agencies. For some time it did so without any form of public disclosure or oversight,” the declaration says.

The document takes specific aim at the Military Commissions Act, which President Bush pushed through Congress and signed into law last October. The law prevents federal intelligence officials from being held to the same standards as military personnel in handling prisoners.

The NAE document faults the act for that position, as well as for preventing congressional or judicial oversight of CIA actions toward detainees: “This could prove to be a recipe for cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment of detainees, without the Constitution’s checks and balances so crucial for American justice.”

The declaration also faults the act for denying prisoners suspected of terrorist involvement many of the constitutional rights that Americans take for granted. For example, it allows prisoners to be held indefinitely without being formally charged in some cases and relaxes trial rules to allow hearsay and other evidence against suspected terrorists that would never be admissible in any U.S. criminal court.

The provisions “violate basic principles of due process that have been developed in Western judicial systems, including our own, for centuries,” the document says. “We see this as fraught with danger to basic human rights.”

NAE is an alliance of several evangelical denominations and institutions, representing about 30 million individual members. It does not include the nation’s largest Protestant body, the Southern Baptist Convention, which claims 16 million members and historically has eschewed membership in ecumenical groups.

Richard Cizik, NAE’s Washington-based policy director, is among the statement’s signers. Just before the board meeting, a group of conservative evangelical leaders headed by James Dobson had asked NAE directors to chasten or fire Cizik for his public advocacy to reduce global warming. The board declined to take any action against Cizik.

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

Posted: 3/16/07

Gingrich, potential GOP ‘08 candidate,
admits affair while pursuing Clinton

By Robert Marus

Associated Baptist Press

WASHINGTON (ABP)—Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Ga., chose one of the nation’s most popular evangelical radio programs to admit he had an extramarital affair while pursuing impeachment charges against former President Bill Clinton.

The admission came on James Dobson’s “Focus on the Family” broadcast. Some political observers surmised that Gingrich—by choosing Dobson’s show for his forum and making the admission early in the 2008 presidential election cycle—is fishing for GOP nomination support from conservative evangelical Christians.

“The honest answer is, ‘Yes,’” Gingrich said when Dobson asked him if he had the affair. Gingrich admitted he was cheating on his second wife even while he pushed Clinton’s impeachment during the 1998 sex-and-perjury scandal.

“There are times that I have fallen short of my own standards. There’s certainly times when I’ve fallen short of God’s standards and my neighbors’ standards,” he continued.

However, Gingrich drew a distinction between his affair—which ultimately led to the disintegration of his second marriage—and the acts for which the House impeached Clinton. The impeachment charges faulted Clinton for lying about his affair with Monica Lewinsky in testimony about a sexual-harassment lawsuit.

“The president of the United States got in trouble for committing a felony in front of a sitting federal judge,” Gingrich said. “The challenge I was faced with wasn’t about judging Bill Clinton as a person. I’m not going to cast the first stone.”

But, he continued, “I drew a line in my mind that said, ‘Even though I run the risk of being deeply embarrassed and … even though at a purely personal level I am not rendering judgment on another human being, as a leader of the government trying to uphold the rule of law, I have no choice except to move forward and say that you cannot accept felonies, and you cannot accept perjury in your highest officials.’”

While the House voted to impeach Clinton, the Senate acquitted him. In the 1998 mid-term congressional elections, Republicans lost several House seats. Polls at the time suggested that voters believed Gingrich and other Clinton antagonists had gone too far in trying to unseat a popular president.

Blame for the Republican losses and an ethical scandal forced Gingrich to step down as speaker.

Gingrich, who said he was raised Lutheran, became Southern Baptist while in graduate school. At the time of his affair, he belonged to a Southern Baptist congregation in suburban Atlanta.

During the interview, Dobson pointedly asked Gingrich if he had repented of his failings.

“I believe deeply that people fall short and that people have to recognize that they have to turn to God for forgiveness and to seek mercy,” the former speaker responded.

While Dobson referred to Gingrich’s “multiple marriages,” he did not press the politician on details of how his first two marriages ended. His marriage to his first wife, Jacqueline Battley, ended in 1981. She has said he discussed divorce details with her as she was in the hospital recovering from cancer surgery. Gingrich has said he does not recall whether that happened.

Gingrich married his second wife, Marianne Gingrich, just months after his first marriage ended. That marriage ended in 2000, after he acknowledged an affair with Callista Bisek, a congressional aide who was more than 20 years his junior. He soon married Bisek.

Craig Crawford, a writer for Congressional Quarterly, said on the publication’s website that the admission is the strongest evidence that Gingrich is courting religious conservatives in a bid for the GOP nomination.

“When politicians confess embarrassing details of their personal lives when they really don’t have to do so, usually it means they are up to something,” he wrote. “Why do this now? A bit of early spring cleaning will help keep the issue off the front page once, as is widely expected, Gingrich officially unveils a White House bid in the fall.”

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

Franklin Graham’s son injured in Iraq

BOONE, N.C. (BP)—Capt. Edward Graham, the youngest son of evangelist Franklin Graham, has sustained shrapnel wounds to his arms, legs and back in Iraq.

Graham, a 27-year-old Army Ranger and West Point graduate, did not suffer life-threatening injuries and is recovering at an undisclosed hospital, according to news reports.

“We know that he is fine and has asked for prayers for his men,” Jeremy Blume, a spokesman for Franklin Graham, told the Citizen-Times newspaper in Asheville, N.C., adding he had no more details on the incident. “Rangers aren’t allowed to disclose much information—even where he is.”

Glenn Wilcox, a close friend of the Graham family, told the Citizen-Times Graham is serving his second tour in Iraq and that his father is extremely proud of him.

“He’s a very fine, outstanding young man, but very tough and very sure of himself,” Wilcox said. “I’ve never met anyone I was more impressed with than Edward. And he loves it—he’s really committed to the United States, to West Point and to doing his job the very best he can.”

Graham is one of four children of Franklin Graham and one of 19 grandchildren of evangelist Billy Graham.

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Updated: 3/15/07

Terror victims receive relief for soles, hope for souls

By Russ Dilday

Buckner International

Thousands of children in war-torn regions of Beslan, Russia, and Grozny, Chechnya, recently received thousands of pairs of shoes donated through the Buckner Shoes for Orphan Souls drive.

Russian Ministries, a Christian group that collaborates with Buckner for ministry, distributed the shoes as part of a larger evangelistic effort to reach children and their families in the mostly Muslim-populated areas with the message of Christ.

Children orphaned by the terrorist attacks on Sept. 1, 2004 in Beslan received new shoes last December thanks to the Buckner Shoes for Orphan Souls shoe drive.

Beslan is the site of the Sept. 1, 2004, terrorist attack on School No. 1, which resulted in the deaths of hundreds of children and parents on the first day of the school year.

Orphan and low-income children in Beslan received many of the donated shoes, which Vladimir Pliev, a deacon for Transfiguration Church there, said “provided a wonderful opportunity to build relationships with thousands of children from all of the daycare centers, preschools, schools and orphanages in the entire Beslan County.”

The shoes were gratefully received, and the effort opened doors for more ministry in the region, he said.

“The most touching and emotional meetings took place while we were distributing shoes on behalf of our loving brothers and sisters in the U.S. to those whose destiny was changed as a result of the terror attack at School No. 1 … when the evil hand of terrorists took the lives of many parents, brothers, sisters and friends,” Pliev said.

The shoes bolstered inroads Pliev and other Christians already had been making into the community. He noted that Alina Plieva was among the children taken hostage in the 2004 attack. When her parents arrived at the school that day, panicked over the plight of their only child, Pliev urged them to pray to God to save their daughter. “They immediately responded and now believe that prayer saved their daughter’s life.”

Alina escaped death with facial scarring from shrapnel but has since recovered and called Pliev at the beginning of the distribution of shoes.

She “asked if she could bring her two cousins,” he said. “They all came, along with hundreds of other families and received the wonderful blessing of this free gift.”

The tragedy at School No. 1 has affected the community for generations, casting a pall of sorrow over thousands. Oleg Aziev, a volunteer from Transfiguration Church, said he noticed a sad-faced girl in the line to receive shoes and inquired about her.

“I asked her caregivers about her, and they told me that Alana is a true orphan,” he said. “She lost her entire family, except her elderly grandmother at School No. 1 when it was attacked by terrorists.”

Aziev picked up the girl, and held her. “I felt sorrow overflow in my heart. In my culture, it is not acceptable for a man to cry, but I found it hard to hold back my tears.”

Marina Kairova, a Russian Ministries staff member, is a counselor for the organization’s Beslan Youth Center. She emphasized that the shoes will do more than reach the children’s hearts; they also will reach their minds.

“Ludmila, the director of School No. 6 in Beslan, where many of the children attend who survived … the terror attack, mentioned that many of her students do not attend class because they do not have warm winter shoes,” Kairova said.

A preschool director pointed out shoe recipients like David, a student who “is fatherless and his mother only receives a small paycheck for doing very hard work in Beslan in order to provide for her son,” Kairova noted.

Another boy, Khetag, who is 14, also received shoes. Khetag has no parents and five siblings.

“All of these children are being raised by their grandmother, who provides for them by sweeping the streets of Beslan,” Kairova said. “Khetag helps her with this. During the shoe distribution outreach, we gave all six children shoes, socks and a collection of children’s literature and cassettes.”

Another Youth Center worker, who asked not to be identified because of safety concerns, said local residents “haven’t seen much love in this war-torn area (and) were very pleasantly surprised by all of the kindness, care, warmth and attention shown to them.”

“The doors of preschools, schools and the hearts of their directors are now open to partnering with the Christian center in Beslan,” she added. “They are eager to make the school auditoriums available for Christian presentations.”

Gannady Terkun, a pastor and Russian Ministries’ regional director in Vladikavkaz, said the group distributed 12,000 pairs of shoes and socks to 28 schools, daycares and internats—boarding schools that include orphanages—near Grozny, Chechnya, an active war zone.

The humanitarian aid went to “thousands of children who have seen nothing except blood and violence during the past number of years,” he noted.

“After their children received shoes,” Terkun said, “many mothers came to us and tearfully hugged and kissed us as they thanked us for the shoes and repeatedly asked whether they were really a free gift.

“Our workers explained that this gift was given freely by our Christian brothers and sisters in the U.S. on behalf of the Almighty God in the name of Isa (Jesus), who many Muslims believe is another prophet of Allah.”

Terkun thanked Buckner “and all Christians in the U.S. who made this generous gift possible. … This evangelistic shoe distribution has opened many doors.”

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

Updated: 3/15/07

Evangelical leaders turn up heat
on Cizik for global-warming warning

By Adelle Banks

Religion News Service

WASHINGTON (RNS)—The National Association of Evangelicals has affirmed its stance on caring for the environment—indirectly rebuffing complaints that a staffer was too environmentally friendly—and endorsed a statement condemning torture.

Focus on the Family Chairman James Dobson and two dozen other evangelical leaders had asked the board to consider ousting Richard Cizik, the NAE’s vice president for governmental affairs, because of his “relentless campaign” against global warming.

But NAE interim President Leith Anderson said no formal action was taken by the group’s board of directors on the request from Dobson and others, none of whom are members of the evangelical umbrella group.

“I affirmed him (Cizik), and I’ve done that publicly and in the board meeting and there was a lot of affirmation of Rich Cizik at the board meeting,” Anderson.

Instead of addressing the request related to Cizik, the board members reaffirmed an earlier document on “an evangelical call to public engagement,” which embraces care for the creation. They also affirmed a document titled “An Evangelical Decla-ration Against Torture: Protesting Human Rights in an Age of Terror.”

Cizik said he considered the board’s actions “a strong affirmation” of his role with the association.

“I think that support was … reflected in the vote we took on the torture and human rights document,” he said. “There was only one dissenting vote.”

The “public engagement” statement, first issued in 2003, notes the broad range of issues evangelicals should address, including religious freedom, sanctity of human life, care for the poor and protecting “God’s earth.” The torture document, developed by the Tennessee-based Evangelicals for Human Rights, is signed by Cizik, Christianity Today Editor David Neff and 20 other ministers and professors.

“When torture is employed by a state, that act communicates to the world and to one’s own people that human lives are not sacred, that they are not reflections of the Creator,” the statement said. “These are claims that no one who confesses Christ as Lord can accept.”

In a March 1 letter to NAE Board Chairman L. Roy Taylor, Dobson and other signatories had expressed concern that Cizik and others were moving the emphasis of evangelicals from the “great moral issues of our time,” including abortion and homosexuality.

Cizik said he doesn’t expect evangelicals—inside or outside the association—will always agree.

“I think we should view ourselves as a family that pulls together and unifies around basic principles and affords the opportunity to disagree without being fractious relatives who don’t talk to one another,” he said.

The meeting was held March 8-9 at Anderson’s Wooddale Church in Eden Prairie, Minn.

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

Updated: 3/15/07

BWA committee nominates
first non-white general secretary

By Robert Marus

Associated Baptist Press

FALLS CHURCH, Va. (ABP)—Neville Callam will make history for Baptists around the world if elected general secretary of the Baptist World Alliance.

If elected in July, the 55-year-old Jamaican pastor will be the first non-white chief executive of the group, which represents about 110 million Baptists in national and regional bodies across the planet. He would also be the first general secretary in the group’s 101-year history to hail from somewhere other than the United States or Europe.

Callam, who would succeed Denton Lotz, the organization’s retiring general secretary, was announced as the nominee March 7 during a meeting of the BWA Executive Committee at the group’s Falls Church, Va., headquarters. The panel responded by giving the nominee a standing ovation and symbolically affirming the candidate.

John Sundquist, chairman of the search committee that recommended Callam, called him “a seminal theological thinker,” “an articulate statesman” and an ingenious “Renaissance man.”

Callam, in response, said he would offer only one sentence: “All I have to say is, if this is how the Lord is leading us, I am willing to follow.”

The position will not become formal until the organization’s larger governing body, the BWA General Council, votes on Callam’s nomination during its July meeting in Accra, Ghana—a location Sundquist views as significant.

“We will, in the providence of God, install Neville Callam into the office of general secretary when we are in Ghana,” he said. “Neville’s grandparents were shipped in slave ships from Ghana to Jamaica. And now he becomes, in Ghana, the leader of the Baptist World Alliance.”

Pastor of Tarrant Baptist Church in Kingston, Jamaica, Callam has been heavily involved in BWA life more than 20 years. He has served on BWA governing bodies and on several other committees and work groups for the organization. He currently belongs to BWA’s Implementation Task Force, which is charged with restructuring the organization for the future.

Callam has served two terms as president of the Jamaica Baptist Union and has, at other times, held every other office for that denomination, including acting general secretary. He also worked on the boards of several public and religious media organizations in Jamaica.

He also serves as a member of the World Council of Churches’ Faith and Order Commission. It is a theological discussion forum whose membership is not limited to denominations that cooperate with the ecumenical council. Southern Baptist Convention leader Timothy George is the only other Baptist who serves on the commission.

A Harvard Divinity School and University of the West Indies graduate, Callam is a specialist in Christian ethics. He and his wife, Dulcie, have two grown children.

Burchell Taylor, president of the Caribbean Baptist Fellowship and a member of the Executive Committee, said Baptists in the West Indies are excited about Callam’s nomination and what it will signify for the global Baptist movement.

“We regard his elevation to this post as a great historic statement by this Baptist world family, and we do think that it will have consequences for the good as the unfolding future comes upon us,” he said.

The man Callam is slated to replace said the election of a non-white candidate who does not come from a First World nation signifies the radical changes global Christianity has undergone since the alliance’s founding.

“The fact is, the Christian faith has moved to the Southern Hemisphere. Neville represents that tradition of African Christianity that is winning the world” for Christ, said Lotz. “And maybe we in the West need to be re-missionized and re-evangelized by the (global) South.”

At the March meeting, BWA leaders also heard a financial report and expressed concern about strained relations with some Baptist unions in former Soviet-bloc countries.

Ellen Teague, BWA’s director of finance and administration, noted that the organization ended 2006 with nearly $500,000 more in net assets than it had at the end of 2005. She said BWA’s income from individual and church donations has increased dramatically in recent years. In 2003, for example, the group received approximately $315,000 directly from local churches. By 2006, the figure was more than $761,000.

The European Baptist Federation, comprised of BWA member unions from Europe, the Middle East and the former Soviet republics, reported that two Baptist denominations in small Central Asian republics had left BWA in the past year. Leaders of the Baptist unions in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan cited concerns similar to the Southern Baptists’ in deciding to leave the worldwide fellowship. The Southern Baptist Convention withdrew from the BWA, accusing the group of embracing liberalism and anti-Americanism.

In addition, Baptists in Romania are in the midst of a struggle over leadership that could decide the future of their relationship with BWA, said Tony Peck, European Baptist Federation Secretary.

An upcoming election for the Romanian Baptist Union’s presidency pits an anti-BWA candidate against Otniel Bunaciu, vice president of the Union’s seminary that supports continued BWA involvement.

“We need to pray for him (Bunaciu) and the Romanian Union for the future,” Peck said. “We really do need to pray for the situation. We don’t want a division and the split there; we want them to find a way forward in our Baptist world family.”

The committee also honored Lotz, whose retirement was announced a year ago. North American Baptists honored him with a banquet prior to the Executive Committee meeting; similar celebrations are set for Europe and the General Council meeting in Ghana.

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