Posted: 2/01/08

Mainstream Baptists hear Shurden, honor Lolley

By Brian Kaylor

Baptist General Convention of Missouri

ATLANTA—The New Baptist Covenant meets an important need, and historian Walter “Buddy” Shurden told Mainstream Baptists why and how.

Shurden addressed the Mainstream Baptist Network at a Feb. 1 breakfast held in conjunction with the celebration of a New Baptist Covenant in Atlanta.

Shurden, who called the interracial conference involving representatives from about 30 North American Baptist groups “the most significant Baptist meeting I have ever been to,” outlined four reasons why the New Baptist Covenant is needed:

• Origin.

Shurden began at the beginning for Baptists in terms of denominational life in the United States—the formation of the Triennial Convention in 1814. Luther Rice worked not only to raise money for missions, but also for denominational unity through that early 19th-century gathering.

Although clergy spearheaded the Triennial Convention, the celebration of a New Baptist Covenant was led by two Baptist laymen—former president Jimmy Carter and Mercer University President Bill Underwood.

Shurden called Carter “our Luther Rice” and praised the former president for his attempts over the last couple of decades to reconcile Baptists.

He also argued that the Atlanta gathering was sparked in large part from a desire to protect Baptist higher education. He credited former Mercer University President Kirby Godsey with helping start discussions that led to the event.

• Nature.

The New Baptist Covenant event was not an attempt to create a super-denomination, Shurden stressed. Although Baptists in 1814 needed a new denominational structure, Baptists today already have numerous denominational entities.

“The New Baptist Covenant Celebration is not an effort to form something together,” Shurden explained. “It is an effort to say something together about what we ought to be doing together.”

• Composition.

The celebration of a New Baptist Covenant marked a significant moment in Baptist life because it could become “a major step in racial reconciliation and gender recognition among Baptists in North America,” Shurden asserted.

The Triennial Convention was started by “33 white guys” and remained “a white guys’ club,” but the New Baptist Covenant event included from the beginning African-Americans and women.

“One of the reasons this program has been as good as it has been is because there were voices other than our voices—white voices—around that table,” he said.

• Purpose.

Pointing to the New Baptist Covenant’s focus on Luke 4, he declared that the celebration is helping Baptists “take seriously what Jesus took seriously.”

He lamented that most churches and denominations spend very little of their budgets addressing the areas addressed in Luke 4—good news for the poor, freedom for captives, recovery of sight for the blind, release for the oppressed—which Shurden said were “what Jesus took seriously.”

“This is not Democratic stuff or Republican stuff,” Shurden asserted. “This is Bible stuff. This is New Testament stuff.”

Also at the breakfast meeting, the Mainstream Baptist Network honored former Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary President Randall Lolley.

Lolley, who was unable to attend because his wife was recovering from an illness, was honored at the breakfast for his stand for traditional Baptist theological education.

Serving 14 years as president of Southeastern, Lolley resigned in the fall 1987 to protest trustees whose fundamentalist policies he said at the time were “contradictory to the dream which formed Southeastern.”

At the breakfast, David Key, director of the Baptist Studies Program at Chandler, and Larry Hovis, coordinator for Cooperative Baptist Fellowship of North Carolina, offered personal reflections and praise for Lolley.

Key asserted that when the history of the moderate Baptist movement is written, one chapter should be titled, “Randall Lolley’s bold Baptist stand.” Lolley’s example should be remembered as Baptists work to support the future of theological education, he added.

Hovis called Lolley a “great, courageous Baptist preacher, prophet” and said Lolley served as a catalyst for many “free and faithful institutions and ministries” that network together today.

Hovis announced CBF of North Carolina’s creation of the Randall and Lou Lolley Fund for theological education that will be launched formally in April.

Hovis also read a statement of greetings from Lolley, who said he was “honored beyond words.”

Posted: 2/01/08

Public servants & preachers challenge
Baptists to welcome ‘the stranger’

By Robert Marus

Associated Baptist Press

ATLANTA—The biblical command to “welcome the stranger” encompasses support for all of those on society’s margins, prominent preachers and public servants told participants at the celebration of a New Baptist Covenant Feb. 1.

In the Friday-morning plenary session of the Atlanta event, Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, Texas preacher Joel Gregory and former Surgeon General David Satcher insisted the plight of immigrants, the hungry and people lacking proper health care should be of utmost concern to followers of Christ.

“Behind us, in front of us, ahead of us we meet the face of the stranger in the word of God,” said Gregory, a professor of preaching at Baylor University’s Truett Theological Seminary. “It is not a marginal issue. It’s a central concern.”

Gregory and the other speakers spoke on one of the Baptist meeting’s broad themes—fulfilling the biblical mandate to embrace the other. Gregory noted that the oldest part of the Hebrew Bible —the Covenant Code—commands God’s people to welcome outsiders.

“It is interesting that no other ancient Near Eastern law said anything about the stranger,” he said. “But this odd God who chooses the Jews as his own people throughout (Scripture) addresses them about the stranger.”

Christians often try to care for strangers, foreigners and outsiders in the abstract, Gregory said, but God calls them to care for the stranger “in his concreteness, in his particularity, in his idiosyncrasies.”

“Behind every generalization is God’s particularity—that person in front of me right now.”

Gregory told the crowd that he and the vast majority of them, as Baptists, had not so long before been on the margins of culture themselves.

“For most of us it’s been little more than a 100 years ago when we were a rural, agrarian, proletarian, uneducated people. God has done something for us,” he said. “We dare not forget where we came from when it comes to the stranger—of all people, Baptist people cannot forget.”

Grassley, a Baptist who has used his position as ranking minority member of the Senate finance committee to focus on issues of hunger and economic justice, told listeners part of welcoming the stranger involves helping the world’s hungry.

“As descendants of Abraham, we’ve inherited the earth. We’re morally obligated to leave it better than we found it,” he said.

He cited statistics estimating that 1 out of 7 people in the world goes to bed hungry each night, and 400 million of them are children. Grassley also noted that food shortages and competition over food resources can create instability and conflict between nations and people groups.

“It’s said that society is only nine meals away from revolution,” he said. “Food security is fundamental to human existence. It’s amazing that something of such monumental importance is overlooked or underestimated by many.”

Grassley said the world—for the first time in history—began producing enough food to eliminate hunger altogether in the 1960s.

“Unfortunately, this condition, this increased food productivity has not solved hunger throughout the entire world,” he said. “Poverty, war, natural disasters contribute to the cycle of hunger. But we also confront 21st-century complexities that affect a wholesome, stable and deliverable food supply.”

Grassley said increasing free trade will help alleviate hunger worldwide, but Christians in the United States should begin focusing on practical ways of alleviating hunger themselves.

For instance, he cited the current Farm Bill making its way through Congress. Grassley attempted to include provisions that would cap the agricultural subsidies paid to large corporate farmers. Those lead to overproduction of subsidized crops, which in turn floods the markets in other nations and hurts farmers in poor countries.

“A 20-million member alliance would certainly create a formidable beacon to illuminate the darkness,” he said, referring to the collective membership of the various Baptist bodies participating in the meeting.

“If ever there was a time for unity, now is the moment—building consensus between agriculturalist and conservationists and building the food supply can create sustainable farming methods that protect the environment.”

Another group of disenfranchised outsiders even closer to home, according to Satcher, is the estimated 47 million Americans who have no health insurance.

Satcher noted that he nearly died of whooping cough as a toddler in rural Alabama because his parents were poor and no hospitals in his area would admit blacks.

Inequities persist in the United States’ health-care system, he noted.

“An African-American baby is 2 1/2 times as likely to die in the first year of life as a majority baby,” he said. Globally, child-mortality disparities between the wealthiest and poorest countries are far worse.

“For me, that is not a political issue; it’s a moral issue,” he said, to applause.

Grassley was also asked to speak about the subject of the immigration crisis in the place of his Senate colleague, South Carolina Republican Lindsay Graham. Organizers said Graham had to withdraw from the celebration at the last minute because he was stumping on the campaign trail for Arizona Sen. John McCain.

“I have come to the conclusion after two years of debate on immigration without success that it’s going to take the love of Jesus Christ to bring people together,” he said.

Grassley predicted that comprehensive immigration reform wouldn’t be able to pass Congress until after the next president takes office, and that it will continue to be an issue in the campaign.

“Now, I hope that in the presidential election … that the rhetoric of it doesn’t make the problem worse. It has that capability of doing that,” he said. “That’s why there has to be a lot of prayer for the two candidates.”

Posted: 2/01/08

Covenant participants close gathering
with determination but few specifics

By Greg Warner

Associated Baptist Press

ATLANTA—“We don’t want this to be a wasted moment,” Jimmy Carter said, describing the excitement and concern he said he found among participants in the first-of-its-kind New Baptist Covenant, which wrapped up its three-day gathering in Atlanta Feb. 1.

As the unprecedented event came to a close, participants and organizers alike pondered the challenging task of turning energy and enthusiasm into tangible action.

Former President Carter, a Baptist layman and the catalyst for the New Baptist Covenant, said many of the estimated 15,000 participants stopped him in the hallways of the Georgia World Congress Center to urge organizers to capture and build on the positive spirit of the gathering—the first collaborative meeting of more than 30 Baptist denominations and groups in North America.

No plans have been laid yet for another convocation, organizers said, and there is no need for a new interdenominational structure. But organizers committed to meet again in March to set a course for follow-up ministries.

Carter invited participants to submit ideas for future collaboration, but the organizers acknowledged getting 30 groups with different cultures and histories to work together would not be easy.

“The diversity of this group represents both its potential and its problem,” said William Shaw, one of the event organizers and president of the National Baptist Convention U.S.A., the oldest of the predominantly African-American Baptist denominations.

The diverse participants have “a sense of expectation” that the meeting will lead to a new era of collaboration and unity among Baptists who have been divided along racial and theological lines since before the Civil War.

“We’re not on a picnic here. We’re on a journey,” said program co-chair Jimmy Allen. “And we’re going to be working hard to overcome these cultural barriers.”

Carter said participants had already demonstrated a consensus to work on environmental stewardship, civil rights, equality for men and women, and ministry to immigrants.

Even the Southern Baptist Convention, the largest denominational group not involved in the New Baptist Covenant, might cooperate with the new coalition, he said, despite its initial opposition to the movement.

Bill Underwood, president of Mercer University and event co-chair with Carter, said the gathering will have a positive impact on the public witness of Baptists.

“People are seeing Baptists talking about working together and doing positive things together, rather than bickering,” he said. “I think that is a very positive thing for Baptists.”

“The next steps have already begun,” added David Goatley, president of the North American Baptist Fellowship, an umbrella group encompassing all the organizations in the New Baptist Covenant coalition. The relationships formed among the sponsoring groups and their leaders have paved the way for future collaboration, he said.

Shaw said the movement could have international impact as well. “There have been Christians around the world taking notice that we have been doing something unprecedented,” he said.

Shaw said the New Baptist Covenant movement represents “the moving of the Spirit of God within the religious community.” That Spirit “has moved us to respond to what we all agree is a central claim of the Kingdom of God,” summarized in Jesus’ sermon in Luke 4, which provided the framework for the New Baptist Covenant meeting and future collaboration.

Allen, the last moderate Baptist president of the Southern Baptist Convention in 1979, agreed the Covenant is “reflecting a movement of God that is bigger than any participating group.”

Allen said the Covenant leaders are not interested in organization, structure or control. While follow-up plans will come, he said, the leaders are welcoming suggestions from attendants and counting on grassroots involvement. “Everything is going to be considered that is suggested,” he said.

“We’re not trying to find ways to say no. We’re trying to find ways to say ‘go.’”

Daniel Vestal, executive coordinator of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, said the relationships formed among his fellow organizers will pave the way for whatever follows. And one role for the leaders is to foster relationships among grassroots participants.

“There’s nobody in a room over here planning this out,” Vestal said. “There is a desire among all of us not to control it.”

“I think the New Baptist Covenant is a gift from God,” he concluded. “Now we are responsible for how we steward and manage that gift with great care.”

Posted: 2/01/08

Need for church response grows as
HIV/AIDS pandemic continues to spread

By Carla Wynn Davis

Cooperative Baptist Fellowship

ATLANTA—About ten years ago, when Wayne Smith stepped into his first HIV/AIDS education class, the other students started applauding. A member of Central Baptist Church of Bearden in Knoxville, Tenn., Smith didn’t realize how significant his church affiliation would be. For those gathered, Smith’s presence sent a message.

“The church had come. It wasn’t Wayne Smith. It wasn’t Central Baptist Church Bearden. It was somebody from some church in this town has come,” Smith said.

Smith shared his story Feb. 1 during a special interest session about the HIV/AIDS pandemic at the celebration of a New Baptist Covenant in Atlanta. Now directing a Knoxville-based HIV/AIDS ministry called Samaritan Ministry, Smith helps provide education about the disease; meet food, clothing and shelter needs; and offer support groups for people living with the disease.

Despite advances in treatment and care, panelists said the HIV/AIDS pandemic still is growing, and churches still need to respond. The statistics remain staggering, with more than 42 million people living with HIV/AIDS and more than 22 million lives claimed by the disease. Each year in the United States, about 40,000 people are infected.

“My heart is pierced by the numbers. Those statistics will help to determine what we as a church believe our mission to be,” said Robin Brown-Haithco, who works in chaplaincy at Emory University hospitals in Atlanta.

And that mission, she said, is to embrace and accept people living with HIV/AIDS, developing a pastoral response that treats people with compassion instead of judgment.

When HIV/AIDS first began impacting the United States 25 years ago, it was a “gay man’s disease,” Smith said. People didn’t worry about it because they didn’t think it would affect them. It was easy to judge. Now, HIV/AIDS is a disease of the human family, Smith said.

Part of the reason churches have been slow to respond is that they have never developed a theology of sexuality and haven’t been willing to “come out of the shadows and talk about sex,” Brown-Haithco said.

The church must also become more hospitable and inclusive to people whose lives are changed forever by the disease. Brown-Haithco experienced this need firsthand after her niece died of AIDS-related lymphoma.

“My family had 4 months and 7 days [after diagnosis] to reconcile and bless her—all of her—until she died,” she said. “Many [people with HIV/AIDS] die without ever reconciling with their community or family. It’s time that the church invite [these people] to come home.”

Beginning a church ministry to HIV/AIDS victims doesn’t have to be daunting, Smith said. Partnering with the local health department or secular non-profits already working in the HIV/AIDS community can be a strong first step to getting involved. He also advised churches to start small, exploring ways to use gifts and resources they already have.

“You don’t have to invent a new project. Go to your local AIDS service organization. Find out what your church already does well and then offer that up as a gift to the HIV/AIDS community,” Smith said.

Educating church members about the disease, including the ways it’s transferred and the ways it’s not, is one way to combat common fears that typically slow church response, Smith said.

“There is no other disease that we can say we have this irrational fear of being around people with HIV/AIDS,” he said. “This HIV/ADS epidemic has been around 25 years, when are we going to get ready?”

“We do have a tendency to walk by, to pretend we don’t see and to be in denial,” Brown-Haithco said. “I think what we need to do is see people as humans and all persons as valued and worthy and that God calls us to tend to their pain and suffering.”

Posted: 2/01/08

Baptists challenged to advocate for reform
of a broken criminal justice system

By Bob Perkins

ATLANTA—It’s imperative that Baptists ask tough questions in order to spark reform of the U.S. criminal justice system, according to panelists engaging the criminal justice system breakout session Feb. 1 at the New Baptist Covenant Celebration.

Wendell Griffen, judge in the Arkansas Court of Appeals, said its time for Baptists to speak out about a broken system.

“Baptists should demand that the criminal justice system stop wrongful prosecutions,” Griffen said. “We who believe that Jesus was tried and punished wrongly should demand transparency in the criminal justice system.”

Griffen said the recent trend has been to hire more police officers and build more prisons, but that’s not a good solution.

“Just as it is ludicrous to suggest that we hire more morticians to treat cancer and AIDS, it is ludicrous to hire more police and jailors and to build more prisons to handle nonviolent drug offenders,” he said. “Most of the people in prison today are not there because of violent offenses. They are there for offenses against property and nonviolent drug offenses.”

Griffen said in some nonviolent felony cases, a judge has leeway in sentencing.

“Judges have the decision to fine a person instead of sentencing them to prison,” he said. “For example, women whose children live in the free world and the women live in prison because of a drug offense. They could be fined, they would not lose their jobs and they would not be taken from their children. This would be a whole lot more economical to do than to house a woman in a lock-up. If I told you I could do this for one-fifth of the cost of incarceration, you’d think I would be insane not to do it.”

Another place Baptists have a unique opportunity to have great impact is when prisoners are returned to the community. Dee Dee Coleman, pastor of Russell Street Missionary Baptist Church in Detroit, created Wings of Faith in 2002 with the goal of returning these people to society and limiting the odds that they would go back to prison.

“Last year in our country, we had more than 7 million people who received some sort of adjudication in the court system,” Coleman said. “We are in a crisis. The faith community glorifies God when we provide services to the least of these.”

Coleman said too many churches act like they don’t want to know who the offenders in prison are.

“We have no problem going to see the sick. But if someone says it’s time to go visit a person who is incarcerated, we don’t want to do it. But there are grandparents in the congregation that are raising their grandkids because one or more of the parents are in prison. There are wives whose husbands are jailed, or others in the church whose family members aren’t free.”

Coleman said when family members are set free, the work is just beginning.

“Not everybody is pleased when daddy comes home,” she said. “If a teenage child is in the house, and he has been playing the role as head of the family, the teen will deliberately get into an argument with the father in order to get him to violate his parole.”

Coleman said it’s important for churches to begin the reintegration process before the person gets out. Church member volunteers begin building relationships while the people are incarcerated to start identifying their needs and the needs of their family.

“When they re-enter the community, we provide a resource center designed for the offender population,” Coleman said. “For example, an ordinary service person cannot place an offender in just any job. Many times, people get out and they don’t know how they are going to eat. There are special taxes and special benefits available to help but they have to be educated to find these.”

Coleman encouraged the attendees by saying everyone in the church can help.

“Not everybody can do this work, but there is something for everybody to do. If you can offer a prayer, you can do this work. We want to be challenged and pushed to the limit to provide services to the least of these. It’s my belief that people will do better if they knew better.”

Pat Anderson is a missions advocate for Cooperative Baptist Fellowship Global Missions. He said he had been isolated growing up and wasn’t confronted with the entire drama of the criminal justice system until items had been stolen from him and his wife.

“As a Baptist Christian, a lifelong church person, it still amazes me that it wasn’t until I was a young adult that I didn’t have any contact with someone in prison,” Anderson said. “It was a new and different world. Turned to the Bible to get context and found out I had missed a lot.”

Anderson said he was inspired by the stories of Joseph, Daniel and Jeremiah.

“There are stories of prisoners who inspire throughout the biblical record,” he said. “It seemed like everyone in the New Testament did time. As I look at the biblical record, I cannot help but be encouraged by the people who were imprisoned.”

Posted: 2/01/08

Any church can participate in
disaster relief, Baptists are told

By Bob Perkins

ATLANTA—To test how prepared churches are to face natural disasters, panels offered suggestions for participants during a special interest session at the Celebration of a New Baptist Covenant meeting Feb. 1.

For example, conference leaders asked participants if they have “go bags” in their churches that are easily accessible for church members in the event of an immediate forced evacuation.

From New York City following Sept. 11, 2001, to the Gulf Coast following Hurricane Katrina, panelists shared their experiences organizing church responses to disasters. Willard Ashley, founding pastor of Abundant Joy Community Church in New York, said disaster can strike at any time and churches should be prepared.

“Go bags” are a collection of items a person might need in the event of an evacuation during a disaster. New York City residents are strongly encouraged to prepare one for every household, and each should include clothing, important documents, bottled water or nonperishable food items.

“We live in the retailing capital of the world, but no one bothered to ask the people who make these items how they would design one,” Ashley said. They developed the idea of a “go bag” with a built-in solar-panel that could recharge a radio or cell phone so people can help to protect the environment.

Richard Brunson, executive director of North Carolina Baptist Men, told participants any willing church can participate in disaster relief. As part of the North American Baptist Fellowship Disaster Relief Network, more than 30 different conventions and organizations are all organized. In the case of Katrina, his organization was heavily involved in aid to Gulfport, Miss.

There are three phases of relief that include mass care, recovery and long-term building. While mass care involves immediate needs such as food, water and shelter, it mostly involves trained volunteers and heavy equipment.

“State or national organizations are best-suited for this phase because of the training requirements for volunteers, and the equipment needed, such as water tankers,” Brunson said. “But the recovery phase can be handled very well by local churches.”

Brunson said the best way for a church to participate is to put together a disaster recovery trailer stocked with a generator, hand tools, power tools and other items. Churches can have an event where they accept donations for the items or purchase them outright, usually for about $1,000.

“Using the trailer, volunteers can help clean up after floods—do what they call ‘mud outs’ or tear outs,” Brunson said. “Some disaster victims have to rely on unscrupulous contractors who charge a fortune just to remove fallen trees. If volunteers can come in and do these things in the name of Jesus, it makes a big difference.”

Brunson said one of the biggest requirements for church disaster volunteers is being self contained. In many of the natural disaster areas, there is no electricity and no water.

“If you are not self-contained, you can’t help,” he said. “You really can’t depend upon anybody else. Working in Gulfport, we had to ship food in from North Carolina because they ran out of food and there was no refrigeration.”

Mary Landon Darden lives in Waco, Tex., but she felt a calling from God to open a shelter in her church, Seventh and James Baptist Church, for Katrina survivors. Although she said it’s a 10-hour drive to New Orleans, she convinced her pastor and other church members that they needed to begin work.

“Volunteers from our church converted Sunday School classrooms into place for families to live,” Darden said. “Within 24 hours, we had 56 people in our church.”

Darden became a catalyst for action in her city. Seeing that the need was far greater than the capacity of her church, she helped organize a meeting where 10 other churches agreed to open shelters, and other churches sent support and donations. They found housing for more than 510 people.

“We would have never made it without our partnerships,” Darden said. “We got help from many places, but the church is the only institution that could help with a disaster like this.”

Darden said the experience forever changed her and her church. “It built a fire in our church with the Holy Spirit and bonded us all closer together.”

Posted: 2/01/08

Pastors: World waits for authentic messengers

By Norman Jameson

Biblical Recorder

ATLANTA—People outside the church will hear a gospel message only from a passionate messenger who lives an authentic, transformed life, said two pastors leading a special interest session on evangelism at the celebration of a New Baptist Covenant in Atlanta Feb. 1.

“The proclaimer of the good news must be gripped and transformed by the presence of the living word of God and the power of the Holy Spirit,” said Brenda Little, pastor of Bethany Baptist Church of Christ in Evanston, Ill. “Saved and satisfied is not going to work.”

In a session intended to give participants handles on evangelism in their communities, Little, who said her church was “ice cold” when she was elected pastor in 1990 after 25 years as a pediatric nurse, said prayer is the starting point for witness.

Then, the church must embrace evangelism as its primary ministry or it “will never do evangelism or other missions with integrity and effectively,” she said. “Every ministry in the local church should be a concrete reflection of the life and ministry of Jesus Christ.”

Effective evangelism must be a lifestyle, Little said. “Somebody other than you ought to know that you are a believer.”

She said authentic ministry leads to people finding saving grace among believers. “Find a need and fill it, find a hurt and heal it,” she said.

Ronald Bobo, pastor of West Side Missionary Baptist Church in St. Louis, Mo., found feeding the hungry in the area surrounding the church “has been a good side door,” to reaching people.

“We were in the neighborhood all these years and didn’t realize how many hungry people there were,” Bobo said. It was not in the budget “but we just knew we had to get it done.”

Church men sponsored boys who enrolled in Boy Scouts and bought their uniforms. They formed relationships and started to meet physical and social needs.

“You can’t be afraid to go into the homes in these areas and neighborhoods that may not be middle class,” Bobo said. “To have the boldness to go to people where they are is important.”

While some participants complained that the evangelical message fails with youth consumed in the hip hop culture, West Side utilizes hip-hop methods in such areas as dance, mime, a contemporary choir and rappers.

“Sometimes people get upset,” Bobo said. “But you can use the method without using their message.”

He drew laughter when he said, “You can’t clean a fish until you catch it. Sometimes we try to clean ’em before we catch ’em.”

To win people in hostile neighborhoods, where unemployed or truant youth claim street corners and cut strangers no slack, Bobo said a potential evangelist must have an incarnational ministry.

Bobo wore a suit and tie every day in an area other professionals had abandoned, to get residents’ attention and “to present a different set of values,” he said. It took years, but over time “it turned around and we saw young people come. Your job is to be Jesus among them.”

Bobo said Christians in America are like Rip Van Winkle, who slept through a revolution. Jonah’s call to Nineveh was a wake-up call, he said.

“The world is coming to God and America is going in the opposite direction,” Bobo said. “America is a zombie—a sleeping, walking, talking nation.”

There is a revolution going on, he said, and Christians in America are going to miss it, unless we “learn to love people enough to seek their best good, their soul’s salvation.”

Posted: 2/01/08

Sexual exploitation alive in
America; churches can end it

By Hannah Elliott

Associated Baptist Press

ATLANTA (ABP)—Many churchgoers know human trafficking and sexual exploitation are global issues. But more than 200,000 children in the United States have become “sex commodities” as well, Baptist social workers say.

Ellyn Waller and Brenda Troy led a discussion about exploitive sex at the New Baptist Covenant meeting Feb. 1 in Atlanta—a city with the nation’s second-highest rate of human trafficking, they said.

The seeds of exploitation start early, and men have a large role in exacerbating it, they told a room of about 30 people attending the three-day event.

“The exploitation of women doesn’t just happen when they become women,” Waller said. “The intent is encouraged starting when they’re young. We also need to be thinking differently about what exploitation really is. It’s not necessarily the thing with sex acts. You can exploit women and children in the mind first.

“It should be [required in] men’s ministry to talk about how to treat women—and just the little things and the subtle thing we teach boys. It’s all cool when boys go out and sow their oats. We have to come to a position where we become equitable” with how boys and girls are socialized.

Both women lead outreach ministries in their church to women and men who work as prostitutes. The victims—as do the pimps—come from every race, age, gender, ethnicity and religion, they said.

Most “church folk” do not understand that many different circumstances can push someone into prostitution. The women called on congregants to recognize the fact that pimps or sexually exploited women and children may actually be within their numbers. And they challenged Baptists in particular to take note.

“This is a wake-up call to any of us—anyone who benefits from the child prostitution is guilty,” Waller, who attends Enon Tabernacle Baptist Church in Philadelphia, said. “When you go play the lottery, gambling money is all tied up in child prostitution.”

But when Christians work with people who are sexually exploited, “your perception changes about the lifestyle,” said Troy, who attends New Salem Baptist Church in Columbus, Ohio. “Not all of them were poor. Not all of them were homeless. A lot of them were successful people who just got dealt a bad deck of cards.”

Many of the people first lured into commercial sex acts—prostitution, exotic dancing, stripping and pornography—are children. One out of every three teens living on the street will be lured to prostitute within 48 hours of leaving home, Waller said. In the last eight years, 150,000 minors were lured into prostitution, with an average age of 12.

Troy works with New Salem Baptist members on Friday nights, talking with women who they find on the street. They tell them that God loves them no matter what they do.

“We tell the young ladies that they can trust us,” Troy said. “Second, we want them to learn the truth, which is in the Bible. We let them know we’re not here to judge you; we’re not here to tear you down—we just want to lend a helping hand. We want to help them break the stronghold of this lifestyle.”

The lifestyle can be a tough habit to break—even though 99.8 percent of the women who live it want out, Waller said. Women and children lured to a life on the street are often promised love and safety, which they desperately lack.

“A lot of things are promised to them,” Troy said. Pimps tell them, “Your family will be taken care of. Your family will never want for anything. Don’t tell anyone … but I’ll make sure your family is taken care of.”

Churches wanting to reach out to men, women and children who are exploited should take the time to get to know strangers who attend services, earn their trust and be aware of the warning signs of sexual coercion.

Look for physical and psychological control, because victims are trained to lie about pimps, Waller urged. Many victims are deliberately kept transient, distrust law enforcement officials (more than 90 percent of the arrests in relation to the sex trade are of the victims, not the purchasers or the pimps), have their names changed and are subjected to isolation and physical or emotional abuse. Others have been convinced they will be cut loose from their servitude after they pay off a debt or favor.

Someone who is being exploited may have excessive amounts of cash, hotel room keys, chronic homelessness, signs of branding like tattoos and jewelry, false IDs, a tendency to life about their age, and the presence of “an overly controlling, possessive and abusive individual,” Waller said.

One problem Troy and Waller said they face is overcrowding in women’s shelters and a refusal to take in women who work as prostitutes—“they come with a lot of junk,” one shelter leader told Waller. In Philadelphia, only the hospital will take in a woman during the night without an ID.

Besides providing shelter or counseling for the women, churches have multiple options to start a ministry for the sexually exploited. Troy said night evangelism by small groups of church members has proved a strong tool to stop the “epidemic.” Church leaders can also contact local attorneys, community activists, health-care providers and even postal employees for advice on reaching potential victims.

Troy said her church had to insist that something be done to effect change in her community. They work closely with policemen in unmarked cars to monitor the neighborhood for suspicious activity.

“We demanded, ‘You need to help us clean up this community. We’ve got babies walking in and out of here. We want this cleaned up and now,’” she said. “You’ve got to find someone who is willing to make a difference in your community. Once people begin to see that you’re serious, you’ll begin to make a difference.”

Posted: 2/01/08

Panelists offer practical
suggestions for peacemaking

By Patricia Heys

Cooperative Baptist Fellowship

ATLANTA—David Gushee and Stan Hastey offered Baptists ways to promote peacemaking during a special interest session Feb. 1 at the celebration of a New Baptist Covenant.

Gushee, a professor at Mercer University’s McAfee School of Theology in Atlanta and recent author of The Future of Faith in American Politics, talked about just war theory and its seven criteria. He also outlined the 10 best practices of peacemaking from Glen Stassen’s book Just Peacemaking.

“The hidden assumption I want to put on the table is peace is what God wants, because Jesus renounced violence, founded a movement of peace, said, ‘Blessed are the peacemakers,’ ” Gushee said. “Peace is normative. It is what we should be working for. War is a reflection of sin, expresses sin, advances sin. War is organized murder. It may sometimes be a necessary evil. It is never something to be celebrated.”

Gushee offered five things Christians could do to promote peacemaking—learn the criteria of just war theory, teach about the issues in church, establish a peacemaking group in church or add a dimension to current group, read and listen to diverse news sources and sharpen your critical edge as a follower of Christ.

“I think it is our responsibility to get out of our information niches, where we only listen to media we agree with,” Gushee said. “I think we also need to read international news sources. Pay attention to what the U.N. is saying, pay attention to what missionaries and people on the ground are saying. Start with a bias for peace and against war.”

Gushee acknowledged the historic nature of the Celebration in recognizing peacemaking as a moral issue and challenged people from all political parties to work together.

“We Baptists have a high view of the authority of the Bible, but we have lost the practice of dozen of passages about how you treat other people,” Gushee said.

“The Bible teaches all kind of things about how we should pray for others, forgive others, love others. But we forgot how to love, especially those that are different from ourselves politically. I think that moral collapse is one of the legacies we are trying to undo at this meeting. I think recognizing the basic humanity of all people, caring for them, loving them, is not negotiable. It is who we are in Christ.”

Stan Hastey, executive director of the Alliance of Baptists, focused on practical ways congregations can be involved in peacemaking. He mentioned 24 U.S. congregations that have established sister congregations in Cuba.

“It’s an excellent example of citizen diplomacy,” Hastey said. “It is one of the best ways of peacemaking—people to people, getting to know one other personally, getting to know one another’s families, and—in our case—churches.”

Hastey addressed the U.S. trade embargo with Cuba, calling it “economic warfare.” He also encouraged other churches to establish relationships with congregations in Cuba and offered the resources of the Alliance of Baptists.

“The U.S. alone maintains this position of economic war against Cuba, with the objective of bringing such economic strain to the country that it brings an end to the regime,” Hastey said. “What I want to suggest is that much more good is being done by those two dozen churches who are together bringing to bear citizen diplomacy.”

Posted: 2/01/08

Rogers challenges churches
to engage in justice issues

By Jeff Huett

Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty

ATLANTA—Participants at a session held in conjunction with the New Baptist Covenant celebration in Atlanta received a lesson in “going upstream” to address the root causes of injustice.

Melissa Rogers, a visiting professor of religion and public policy at the Wake Forest University Divinity School in Winston-Salem, N.C., led a special interest session that focused on matters at the intersection of faith and public policy.

To illustrate the distinction between one-on-one church ministries, which many churches engage, and seeking justice, Rogers told a story about a man standing on the side of a river and saving people one-by-one until finally deciding to go upriver to figure out who was throwing the people in the river.

“The discussion today is about going upstream,” Rogers said.

Just like food pantry, soup kitchen and other ministries that churches undertake, Rogers said it was important to be heard on issues such as advocating just economic policy, reforming the criminal justice system and pushing for sound environment polices.

“We should certainly bring our faith to bear on these questions,” Rogers said.

The Old Testament prophets Micah and Amos—as well as Jesus Christ’s example in the Gospels—demonstrate the biblical justification for personal involvement in the justice issues, she said. Prophets confront unjust social structures, she noted.

In addressing what she calls a false dichotomy fostered by those suggesting that ministers must choose between one-on-one ministries and justice issues, Rogers highlighted the African-American church, which she said has shown that there need not be a choice.

On the decision to enter the public policy arena, Rogers quoted religion scholar Martin Marty: “In the political world, not to be political is political.”

“That is to say, if you are silent, you create a political vacuum and that vacuum will be filled by something,” Rogers said. “We need voices from a perspective of a cause that is greater than ourselves to fill the vacuum.”

Rogers then offered principles to help participants navigate the sometimes perilous faith and politics intersection.

“While Christians can have disagreements about public policy issues,” she said, “we would be blind, deaf and dumb in today’s politics not to see the risks of religious engagement in public policy.”

In quoting former Representative Barbara Jordan of Texas, Rogers warned that “we are God’s servants, not his spokespeople.” Secondly she said religious groups should practice prophetic politics, not partisan politics.

“Is it really so difficult to see that no political party conducts itself in a manner that Jesus would?” she asked.

Additionally, “we must not let our faith be used,” Rogers said, drawing on a sermon by Martin Luther King, Jr., when he said that “the church must be the conscious of the state, not its tool.”

She also suggested that the separation of church and state and religious liberty should be at the forefront. “When we work on public policy issues, we should work for the common good and not for the establishment of Christendom,” she said.

After all, “the only faith that can call government to account … is the one that is seriously independent from government,” she said.

Posted: 2/02/08

Baptists wrestle with ways to find
common ground with other faiths

By Sue H. Poss

CBF of South Carolina

ATLANTA—As Baptists seek common ground to work with people of other faiths, they face the challenge of finding ways to be relevant in an interfaith context while retaining their own distinctive identity.

“We often don’t reach out to other faiths because we are scared of losing what’s essential about our Baptist faith,” said Noel Erskine, associate professor of theology and ethics at Candler School of Theology in Atlanta, Ga. “We are so afraid of losing our identity that we are not relevant in a multi-faith context.”

Erskine was one of three participants on a panel that discussed “Can we all get along? Finding common ground with other faiths.” Others on the panel were: Faysel Sharif, People of the Book Ministry; Virginia Baptist Mission Board in Falls Church, Va., a former Muslim who converted to Christianity 28 years ago; and Welton Gaddy, president of the Interfaith Alliance in Washington, D.C.

“Many Baptists have not been good at dialogue in the interfaith context,” Erskine said, “because you cannot have dialogue if you start from the idea that others are religions of unbelief.”

“We better act the way Jesus Christ has called upon us to act,” Sharif said. “We need to practice true faith—not Christianity as a religion but Christianity as a true relationship with God.”

Cultural differences play a part in understanding religious differences, Sharif stressed.

“Before you try to develop a relationship with a Muslim or Hindu, you must break down the barrier of stereotypes,” he said. “What we need to do to go forward and meet our neighbors is to establish a bridge on which we can communicate. Without that, we cannot reach out to Muslims, and Muslims cannot reach out to us.”

Gaddy, who works daily with 75 different religious traditions in the United States, said he believes the future of the church will be interreligious in nature.

“In that future, distinctions of diversity must be preserved,” he said. “We do not need a religious community shaped by the lowest common denominator. That would rob us of the symphonic-like nature of the people who make up this nation.”

Gaddy said that differences should not be ignored but should be recognized and respected if possible. One value that Gaddy said is shared among virtually all religions in the United States is religious freedom.

“Religious freedom is what has made the U.S. the most religiously pluralistic country in the world,” he said, noting that he subscribes to the motto “Out of many, cooperation,” not “out of many, one.”

Some specific suggestions the three panelists offered for churches and individuals who want to understand other religions better include:

• Have someone in the church, either staff or a volunteer, whose primary responsibility it is to help the congregation understand and reach out to other religions, giving particular attention to religious groups that may worship nearby.

• Educate yourself about the social practices of others.

• Listen to the stories of others.

• Begin to understand other faiths by first coming together in the civic realm (for example, to discuss a local school issue).

• Recognize that one culture is not superior to another.

• Learn to differentiate between what is cultural and what is spiritual.

• Demonstrate your Christian beliefs by your actions, not by preaching.

• Recognize in some tangible way a special day in the religion of a neighbor whose religion is different from yours.

• Get to know better a co-worker, neighbor or schoolmate of another religion.

• Study a book on another religion in Sunday school or on Wednesday night.

• Dream a new church—one not only focused on its own internal life but one that wants to reach out in dialogue.

• Recognize that God’s call to us is to love our neighbors.

• Begin with the common values that most people share: the dignity and worth of every person, the importance of compassion and of community.

Sharif said the secret to good interfaith relations is not complicated. “Just be a true Christian in the way that Jesus Christ modeled for us.”

Posted: 2/02/08

Relationships needed
to break poverty cycle

By John Pierce

Baptists Today

ATLANTA—While soup kitchens and clothes closets meet some basic human needs, something more personal is needed to counter poverty, said one who lives and works among the poor.

“We need football games, where we can play together,” said Jimmy Dorrell of Mission Waco, a multifaceted ministry with impoverished persons in Central Texas.

Relationship-building is the first and most important step in discovering ways to help break the cycle of poverty, he told participants in a special interest session Feb. 1 during the New Baptist Covenant celebration.

“You should have friends who are poor,” said Dorrell, who along with his wife, Janet, bought a home in an economically deprived north Waco community 28 years ago, raised four children and built long-term relationships with neighbors.

Mentors, who build relationships with and help guide those seeking to improve their lives, are an essential part of the decade-old Christian Women’s Job Corps and its counterpart, Christian Men’s Job Corps, said Cara Lynn Vogel of Woman’s Missionary Union of North Carolina.

The job-training ministry sites are separate by gender and vary in emphasis by location, Vogel said of the WMU ministry efforts in which “women mentor women and men mentor men.”

“The issue of poverty can be overwhelming,” said Vogel. “But more importantly, we need to talk about solutions.”

The solutions found in the Christian Jobs Corps efforts are built on mentors encouraging and enabling participants to develop through spiritual nurture, health and nutrition, education and job skills training.

Vogel told of an African-American woman, pregnant as a teen, whose experience in the program led to setting and repeating new goals. Today she is a pharmacist serving as a mentor to another woman at one of the sites in North Carolina.

“No two (job sites) are identical,” said Vogel, noting more than 2,100 persons participated in the programs for women and men in 2006.

Dorrell described his work in Waco as a holistic ministry that focuses on building relationships with the poor as well as mobilizing middle-class Christians to get involved.

Mission Waco offers numerous services such as job training, a health clinic, literacy, housing and economic development. Economic development is the hardest piece, Dorrell said.

An intense simulation experience gives volunteers a close encounter with poverty and better equips them for relating effectively with poor people, he said.

“People pay $45 to be poor,” he said of those participating in his “Plunge2Poverty” simulation experience.

Dorrell is also pastor of the Church Under the Bridge, a congregation that began when he and five homeless people got together to discuss faith. Worship now draws as many as 300 some Sundays, he said, including numerous homeless persons, as well as doctoral students from nearby Baylor University.

“I’ve learned more about the kingdom of God from the poor than I learned in seminary or anywhere else,” said Dorrell. “We have people who don’t fit—and we make room for them.”

One of the more challenging aspects of urban ministry is dealing with systemic issues and obstacles that make breaking the cycle of poverty more difficult, Dorrell said.

Mike Queen, pastor of the First Baptist Church of Wilmington, N.C., moderated the presentations and discussions. His congregation recently purchased an adjacent jail that is being converted into a ministry center despite some public resistance.

“When we talk about the systems, we’re talking about our local governments, largely,” he said. “You just have to be persistent (to bring about needed changes).”

Dorrell warned participants in the session on “Breaking the Cycle of Poverty” that sorrow and disappointment are present in ministry with the poor. He spoke of losing friends to early deaths, seeing them fall into addiction relapses or fail to show up for their jobs.

“If you dive into this seriously, you are going to have a lot of pain,” he said.

However, both Dorrell and Vogel shared words of hope as well as practical advice on ministry with impoverished persons.

“But it’s a long-haul ministry,” said Vogel. “It is not a quick fix or a Band-Aid.”