Posted: 4/13/07

Self-examination benefits
church with pastor, too

By Jonathan Petty

Wayland Baptist University

PLAINVIEW—At some point, every church needs to step back and re-evaluate its purpose. Micheal Summers, Wayland Baptist University’s director of church services, believes an intentional interim minister can most effectively lead churches through that process, but churches with pastors can benefit, also.

Summers has served as intentional interim throughout his 10-year tenure with Wayland. In his experience, he always has seen churches grow as a result of the process.

“I have seen more progress toward the people of God doing the work of God than I have seen in most pastorates,” Summers said. “Basically, we focus on why we are here. What is our purpose?”

The process transforms members from people who “are here to be entertained,” or those who “are here to just sit and watch,” to people who are actively involved in the work of the church, he said.

Intentional interims lead the church in a process that begins by setting up a leadership team with the purpose of looking at five areas of the church—history, organizational structure, identity and vision, denominational and mission linkages, and preparation for the new pastor.

Churches—not the intentional interim minister—decide for themselves what changes need to be made, he stressed.           

“The people themselves do the studies, surveys and evaluations,” Summers said. “It’s not a thing of the pastor doing it for them. The intentional interim has no agenda. He is there to help whatever church he is in to find out who they are and to follow what God is leading that church to do.”

Introspection and evaluation are good for every church and every congregation, Summers said, and churches do not have to wait for an interim period to go through the process. Certified intentional interims also are available to consult with churches to help lead them through this process.

While the overall process may take six months to a year, Summers also has developed a church tune-up program that he offers to churches that would like to spend a weekend looking into this process.

“We do the same kinds of things we do in the intentional interim but in a weekend format for churches who have pastors,” Summers said.

“That has been very effective to open their eyes to why they are here and what they are doing. We won’t solve everything in a weekend. We won’t look at everything in a weekend.

“It is just a tune-up, but hopefully from that, they can springboard and do some further follow-up.”

Posted: 4/13/07

Standard, others launch
new era of collaboration

The current print edition of the Baptist Standard represents the first in a collaborative venture that also involves Associated Baptist Press and the Virginia Baptist Religious Herald and soon will expand to include the Missouri Baptist Word & Way.

The editorial staffs of each partner in the venture now work together to select content for many of the pages that contain stories of general interest, including the cover stories and related articles. Lindsay Bergstrom of Associated Baptist Press then provides the graphic design for each of those jointly planned pages.

The collaborative arrangement not only provides cost savings for partner publications that split the cost of the design fee, but also broadens the scope of each newspaper, Baptist Standard Editor Marv Knox noted.

“Baptist Standard readers will benefit from the combined newsgathering resources of our partners as we work together,” Knox said.

At the same time, he added, each newspaper maintains its own editorial freedom, and readers will see no significant drop in state-specific news coverage.

To accommodate its partner publications, readers may notice the redesigned Standard is printed on a slightly smaller page. However, the average page count per issue increases from 20 to 24 pages.

Posted: 4/13/07

2nd Opinion:
Good manners & speaking truth

By Beth Newman

The early onset of the presidential campaign has brought a call for a “return to civility.” There seems, however, little prospect for any immediate restoration of such civility, assuming it ever existed. We’re not sure any longer what such civility would look like; and there is a great deal at stake.

In Cormac McCarthy’s novel No Country for Old Men, Sheriff Bell is speculating on the causes of violence enveloping his Texas county: “It starts when you begin to overlook bad manners. Any time you quit hearin’ ‘Sir’ and ‘Ma’am,’ the end is pretty much in sight.” This observation provoked some amusement for reviewers, but McCarthy is quite serious. He knows—and we ought to remember—manners always are a code for something deeper. They proceed from a prior understanding of the world.

But as odd as it might sound, “manners” as lack of offense has led to a distortion of Christian discipleship. The pressure to be nice, maintain civility, get along, be agreeable has crippled our ability to speak truthfully. Too often, these kind of “manners” picture God as a therapeutic nice guy who simply wants us to be nice too.

As is well known, Jesus’ words offended his listeners time and again.

Recently in my theology class, we have been reading Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Life Together. When Bonhoeffer wrote this classic, national socialism was on a steep rise in Germany. Many Christians willingly gave their allegiance to its ideology. In the face of a politics based on lies, Bonhoeffer sought to discern how Christians might learn to live more truthfully so that they would be capable of speaking the truth.

This simple classic is about life together in Christian community, yet its simplicity belies the profound grasp Bonhoeffer had on costly discipleship. He rightly perceived that only when Christians practice speaking the truth to one another, through confession, encouragement, admonishment, hymn-singing, prayer and other such practices, would they be able to live and speak truthfully before the world. His concern was not whether truthfulness “offends” or violates a code of agreeableness. In his context of Nazi Germany, too much was at stake to worry about merely trying to get along for its own sake.

And what about our context?

We might be tempted to think, “Well, Bonhoeffer lived in more urgent times, as Hitler and his cohorts were carrying out their monstrous plan.”

But this tempting thought is deceptive. In every time and place, Christians are called to speak truthfully to and about those powers and allegiances that easily compromise their lives and thus make Christ’s body less visible.

The question is, “Are practices of truthful speech in place in our faith communities?” Are we able to confess our sins to one another? Are we willing to have others admonish and encourage us in our times of need? Are we able to see ourselves as members one of another, such that we recognize God has given us our brothers and sisters in Christ, in all their strengths and weaknesses?

Christian manners are not about civility or agreeableness, nor are they ways of manipulating so as to get our way. They are rather faithful habits that enable us to live truthfully before a world that easily gets lost in deception.

We—as Christians—live in a world that is increasingly fragmented, and there is no more important task facing us than the forging of a vision of the common good based on the truth of who and whose we are.

Beth Newman is professor of theology and ethics at Baptist Theological Seminary at Richmond. Her column is distributed by Associated Baptist Press.

Posted: 4/13/07

DOWN HOME:
Bundle of fur mends broken hearts

Guilt pangs strike at the oddest moments.

Like when I’m cuddling with her, amazed by her comely looks and loving nature. Suddenly, I realize the reason she’s here is because the one who came before her no longer is part of my life.

Then, when I’m startled or excited, I forget for a second, and I call her the name of the one who came before her. Although she never acknowledges the slip, I feel absolutely awful.

Adjusting to a new puppy never is simple. Especially when the one who came before her was part of our family 14 years.

Betsy grew up with our daughters. We got her when she was 6 weeks old, on Molly’s fifth and Lindsay’s eighth birthdays. She quickly made herself at home. We trained her to ring a bell by the back door; she trained us to get up and open the back door whenever she wanted to go outside. When one of us got sick, she hovered like a nurse. She always met me at the door at the end of the day. We celebrated her birthday and hung her stocking with ours at Christmas. After awhile, we couldn’t imagine life without her.

But since Betsy aged about seven years for every one of ours, the ravages of time finally caught up with her. First, she went deaf. Then, almost simultaneously, she started losing her vision and had a hard time using her back legs.

If the vet had tried to talk me out of what I asked him to do, I would’ve crumbled. But he assured me the hardest decision also was the most loving. So, we said goodbye to Betsy.

We grieved for more than a year. Especially during breakfast, and right after work, and at bedtime. Life wasn’t the same.

But, finally, we decided the time had come to enter the next phase of our lives. Thanks to the Dallas Morning News classifieds and the Internet, we found Betsy’s adorable successor.

In the old days, we would’ve said she’s a mutt. But nowadays, every dog has a lineage, and ours is a cava-tzu. Her father is a cavalier King Charles spaniel, and her mother is a shih-tzu. Best I can tell, she’s got her daddy’s spaniel personality (think doggy attention-deficit disorder) and her mother’s looks (think Ewoks from Star Wars).

We named her Topanga. If that name isn’t familiar, then you didn’t raise kids in the ’90s. One of the favorite TV programs at our house when Lindsay and Molly lived in it was Boy Meets World. One of the main characters—with a mane as thick as you can imagine—was a girl named Topanga.

Before we picked up our puppy, I’d been considering names. The other contender was Winnie, from The Wonder Years. But the moment I saw that little ball of brindle-and-white fur, I knew Topanga would be a fit.

When I consider all of creation, I’m amazed at God’s wonder and majesty. But when I count my blessings, I thank God for dogs.

–Marv Knox

Posted: 4/13/07

EDITORIAL:
BGCT prepares for torch to be passed

Charles Wade’s announced retirement means 2007 will be an exceptional year for the Baptist General Convention of Texas.

Of course, Wade won’t retire as executive director of the BGCT Executive Board until early next year. But several processes that will occur in the coming months will ensure 2007’s legacy as a red-letter year in BGCT history: Wade will spend much of the year focusing on work begun during his tenure, seeking to complete several projects. A committee selected by Executive Board and BGCT officers will nominate Wade’s successor, who should be elected in early fall. And the executive director-elect should work alongside Wade for three months, seeking to ensure a smooth leadership transition.

So, 2007 will be a pivotal year for the BGCT, as one era ends and another begins. This doesn’t happen often. In the past century, only 14 people have held this post, and that number was padded by three short tenures in the late 1920s and early ’30s. Only five leaders have been executive director in the past 54 years, and the impact of each rippled into the tenure of the next one. History teaches us the shadow of Wade’s legacy will fall onto the new days of his successor.

At the proper time near his retirement, the Baptist Standard will offer a retrospective of the eight-year Wade administration. Now, however, several items bear remembering.

Almost every Texas Baptist who heard Charles Wade speak since November 1999 heard him urge all of us to “love people up close to Jesus.” That phrase encapsules three values deeply engrained in his DNA:

• Love. Wade brought a tender pastor’s heart to this job. During a long pastoral ministry, he continuously demonstrated his love for people. That love expressed itself most clearly in Mission Arlington, the ministry started while he was pastor of First Baptist Church in Arlington, which demonstrated love for the folks Jesus called “the least of these,” who need not only salvation, but also food, clothing, shelter, medical care, counsel and someone to hug them—literally and tightly.

Through these years, he also demonstrated his love for Texas Baptists. He has worked tirelessly to show his love for pastors and church staff, going out of his way and expending time he didn’t have to spend time with them. He also has loved the Baptist Building staff unconditionally.

• People. If anything, Charles Wade is a people person. About the only thing he loves more than worshipping with people is visiting with them afterward, learning their names and sharing their stories. I have watched him closely when I knew he was bone-weary, and yet he was the picture of energy when he was with people, simply because he adores them.

• Jesus. Never doubt that our Savior is the center of Charles Wade’s life. One of the defining moments of his tenure happened early on, when he stood on the floor of the Southern Baptist Convention—outnumbered by the thousands—to urge the SBC not to remove a vital reference to Jesus from the Baptist Faith & Message statement. He didn’t do that because he wanted to fight fundamentalism; he did it because he loves Jesus.

Another word that is not included in that phrase but that defines Charles Wade is courage. During the darkest hour of his tenure, he exhibited the courage to invite outside investigators to get to the bottom of the Valley scandal. He also exhibited courage in leading the most significant reorganization of convention governance in a half-century and a major reorganization of Executive Board staff.

The full implications of governance changes will be determined under the leadership of Wade’s successor, as will completion of the staff reorganization.

In the meantime, pray for Charles and Rosemary Wade and for the committee that will nominate a successor.

Marv Knox is editor of the Baptist Standard.

Posted: 4/13/07

Fair Trade sales skyrocket

By Katherine Boyle

Religion News Service

WASHINGTON (RNS)—Fair Trade sales are skyrocketing across the nation, with programs selling more coffee, handicrafts and chocolate from Third World countries than ever before.

“Fair Trade gives people of faith the option of an ethical consumer choice,” said Kattie Sommerfeld, the Fair Trade projects coordinator at Lutheran World Relief, where handicraft sales have doubled over the past year. “It’s a holistic approach to helping development.”

Prices for Fair Trade products are set by the Fair Trade Labeling Organization, which comprises a number of national groups, traders and farmer representatives.

Fair Trade prices are based on the cost of production, a sustainable income for the farmers or producers, and “living wages” for workers.

Agricultural products, for example, include a 5 percent per-pound premium that goes to a farming cooperative for investment in social projects and infrastructure improvements in the country of origin. Fair Trade products also are grown in an environmentally safe manner and with humane labor conditions.

Many Christian and Jewish organizations obtain their Fair Trade products through Equal Exchange in Bridgewater, Mass., the nation’s oldest and largest for-profit Fair Trade company.

When the Equal Exchange Interfaith Program went national in 1997, 57 churches were involved. To date, more than 16,000 religious organizations have purchased Fair Trade products through the Interfaith Program. In 2006, the Interfaith Program brought in an estimated $6.6 million in revenue, up from $5.9 million in 2005.

For many consumers, buying Fair Trade is a way to express their religious faith. They pay a little more but have the satisfaction of knowing they are doing their small part to support workers in poor countries.

A number of private and public universities have joined the Fair Trade campaign as well. They include Wheaton College, a Christian liberal arts university outside Chicago, and the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Ind., which began offering Fair Trade coffee in its dining halls and in many campus restaurants in 2004. Notre Dame also holds an annual Fair Trade handicrafts sale.

In the United States, Fair Trade imports are regulated by TransFair USA, a member of the Fair Trade Labeling Organization. During the first half of 2006, the organization certified nearly 80 percent more Fair Trade coffee than during the first half of 2005. Products such as cocoa, rice and sugar also have seen increases.

Posted: 4/13/07

Faith Digest

Amish school reopens after shooting. Amish children entered their new school in Lancaster County, Penn., exactly six months after a gun-toting neighbor walked into their old schoolhouse and shot 10 students, killing five. The Amish demolished the old schoolhouse to erase a reminder of the horror experienced there. Four of the five girls who were shot Oct. 2 have returned to the new school, called New Hope Amish School. The fifth, a 6-year-old, needs a feeding tube and is not able to communicate, the Associated Press reported.

Flying imams test tolerance. Six Muslim imams filed suit after being thrown off a US Airways flight when other passengers reported suspicious behavior. The imams allegedly were praying in their seats, speaking negatively about President Bush and the Iraq war and asking for longer seatbelts, which passengers feared would be used as weapons. The imams are suing the airline, the airport and “those who may have knowingly made false reports against the imams with the intent to discriminate against them,” according to a letter from the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a Washington-based Muslim civil rights group. The news prompted the U.S. House to pass shield laws to protect individuals who report suspicious behavior.

Baylor tops list of Christian schools. Baylor University topped the list of Relevant Media Group’s first-ever ranking of top Christian colleges and universities in the United States. Five colleges, ranging in size and location, made the list. Calvin College ranked second, followed by Pepperdine University, Wheaton College and Biola University. The list, created by Relevant’s magazine editors, was compiled to offer readers a chance to preview available Christian campuses that ranked high on a scale of academics, student life and spiritual life.

Woman claims religious right to eat monkey meat. A Staten Island woman claims she has the right to eat protected species in keeping with her religious beliefs. But prosecutors contend Liberian-born Mamie Manneh Jefferson illegally imported pieces of protected wildlife that carry the risk of infectious diseases. They argue she failed to show that eating the meat arises from a sincere religious belief. More than a year ago, federal agents at JFK International Airport allegedly discovered 65 pieces of illegal smoked bushmeat—including green monkey, hamadryas baboon and antelope—buried beneath smoked fish in a shipment to Jefferson from Guinea. Agents later found 33 pieces of bushmeat in the garage of Jefferson’s home. Jefferson is a member of a church that blends Christianity with African traditional religion. As part of their religious practices, they eat boiled, blessed bushmeat on Christmas and Easter and at ritualistic events such as weddings and baptisms, believing it brings them closer to God. If ultimately convicted on the federal smuggling charge, the 39-year-old defendant could face up to five years in a federal penitentiary, a fine, or a combination of the two. She currently is serving a two-year state prison sentence in an unrelated case for running over her husband’s girlfriend in the parking lot of a movie theater in February 2006. The victim survived.

Posted: 4/13/07

Texas Baptist named to
head international aid ministry

By Craig Bird

Baptist Child & Family Services

Dearing Garner, longtime Texas Baptist pastor, has been named executive director of Children’s Emergency Relief International, the Houston-based overseas arm of Baptist Child & Family Services.

Garner previously headed the agency’s work in Africa. Steve Davis, who had the organization’s work in Moldova, has been named associate executive director of the agency.

Garner joined the staff in December 2005, just months after retiring as founding pastor of First Baptist Church of Kingwood after 27 years, to continue his lifelong involvement in partnership missions. For several years, he had been working closely with Children’s Emergency Relief International in Moldova on Operation Knit Together—an ongoing ministry he founded in 1999 to provide shoes and a Christian witness to the residents of Moldova’s government orphanages.

“At my first staff retreat, I mentioned that CERI should look at Africa. And before I knew it, I was put in charge of doing just that,” he explained. “I wanted to be part of CERI because I had seen firsthand its philosophy of working with national Christians to help children and families, and I had seen the passion and commitment of the staff. This opportunity was too big a blessing to pass up.”

Garner has been a member of the Baptist General Convention of Texas Executive Board and a trustee of Houston Baptist University.

Garner, a Virginia native, graduated from Carson-Newman College before earning his master of divinity and doctor of ministry degrees from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary.

Posted: 4/13/07

Are some people born to be religious?

By Bruce Nolan

Religion News Service

NEW ORLEANS (RNS)—A recent debate at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary was titled “The Future of Atheism,” but the heart of the dialogue explored a related question: Can mankind’s age-old belief in God be explained purely as a stubbornly recurring natural phenomenon—not much different than the common cold?

There is provocative evidence that is so, argued Daniel Dennett, a Tufts University philosopher, atheist and author of Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon.

But that “evidence” is suspect even in terms of good science, countered Alister McGrath, an Oxford University biophysicist-turned-Christian theologian. And even if it could be demonstrated that mankind is biologically predisposed to the idea of religion, he said, that still would not settle the ages-old “God question.”

The two met for two days of conversation and debate for the seminary’s third Greer-Heard Point-Counterpoint Forum in Faith and Culture. The annual forum pits an evangelical scholar against a nonevangelical in an intellectual wrestling match on a major cultural or faith topic.

The two staked out their ground before an audience of about 800. Observers characterized Dennett as good-humored, informal and sometimes droll, while McGrath was quicker, livelier and trying to make quick points in the style of an Oxford debater.

“I am a student of religion,” Dennett said by way of self-description. “I am an atheist, but that does not mean that I hate religion.”

Dennett’s basic argument is that some ideas—including religion—are like genes or viruses with their own evolutionary history. They jump from generation to generation. Weak ones die; strong ones survive.

“They spread because they can spread. They’re fit, and you can’t get rid of them any more than you can get rid of the common cold,” he said.

Fellow atheist and biologist Richard Dawkins in the early 1970s first proposed this idea, calling such ideas “memes.”

In Breaking the Spell, Dennett calls for a thorough scientific study of the incidence of the idea of religion in man, based on the idea that certain ideas—religion among them—are memes that successfully perpetuate themselves across generations for their own sake, not necessarily the good of their hosts.

That makes a certain sense, he argued. Consider that some exceptionally successful religions, like Christianity, Islam and Judaism, have endured for thousands of years.

“They can’t all be true,” he said. “So, if your religion has survived because it is true, the other religions that are robust and well today have survived for other reasons. What might those reasons be?”

For example, he asked, might there be a genetic or other natural explanation for why some people are deeply moved by a religious ritual or service, while others have tin ears?

“Could there be a genetic basis for this?” Dennett asked. “There could,” he answered himself.

“Do we know yet? No.

“Could we find out? Yes.”

McGrath’s primary counter was not theological, but scientific. A former atheist who enrolled at Oxford to study chemistry, McGrath discovered Christianity there and found it a “much more interesting and intellectually satisfying worldview than atheism.”

Still, the scientist in him challenged the scientific legitimacy of Dawkins’ concept of memes. He noted that Dawkins first proposed memes as cultural entities replicating themselves across generations, analogously to genes.

But postulating their existence merely by way of analogy is not science, McGrath said. It might be true, he acknowledged, that mankind has a “God-center” in the brain, “a so-called mystical gene favored by natural selection.”

“But—and it’s a big ‘but’—I wonder where the science is? Where is the rigorous evidence for this? … It’s a huge way from ‘might’ to ‘is,’” he said. “It seems to me the real issue is whether memes exist, irrespective of their implications for religion.”

The idea that memes exist is unnecessary, McGrath said. Other social sciences like cultural anthropology do a better job than hypothetical memes in describing the cultural role of religion over the ages, he said.

McGrath laid another charge against Dawkins: Belief in God is a mere trick of evolution; but disbelief isn’t, and is therefore “right.”

“That’s dangerously subjective judgment,” McGrath charged.

Near the end, a member of the audience asked both men to address the title of the forum, “Does Atheism Have a Future?”

“No,” answered Dennett, half-joking, “because we’re going to destroy the planet before the future arrives.”

“Yes,” countered McGrath, the Christian, in the same half-joking vein, “because people don’t know a good thing when they see it.”

—Bruce Nolan writes for the Times-Picayune in New Orleans.

Posted: 4/13/07

When Howard Payne students show love
to child, it leads Muslim family to church

By Kalie Lowrie

Howard Payne University

NEW YORK—Adam, a little boy in Queens, brought his devoutly Muslim family to Sunday school at a Christian church. They never had been interested in Christianity before, but after Adam spent the week with nine Christian students from Brownwood, they were ready to see what it was all about.

Those nine students from Howard Payne University—along with 40 of their peers—traveled to New York City for spring break to minister to people in the Big Apple.

Senior Brittany Longoria led the group that worked with Adam and other children at an Indonesian church in Queens. Throughout the week, Adam was quiet and withdrawn, she recalled. It was not until the last 10 minutes of every day that he would open up and smile. The girls in Longoria’s group worried about his behavior, but they kept showing him love.

At the end of the week, Adam’s grandmother told Longoria about Adam’s family—Muslims who had a bad view of Christianity. No Christians ever had reached out to them before, but now, because of the love they had demonstrated, the entire family was going to be in Bible study the next Sunday.

Andy Dennis, Baptist Student Ministry director, planned the five spring break mission trips for HPU this year, all in New York City. He wanted to allow students to experience different aspects of ministry in the same place. In a city of 8 million people, it was not hard for Dennis to find places for the students to serve.

Adam, a Muslim boy from Queens, spent the week playing with a team from Howard Payne University. Because of this team’s impact on his life, his whole family attended Sunday school at an Indonesian church the following Sunday. (Photo/Brittany Longoria)

Each morning, the students di-vided into five groups, led by seniors Amy Perkins, Phillip Scott, Andy O’Quinn, Longoria and Ashley Hayes. Each team had a different focus, but all had the same goal in mind—sharing the gospel of Jesus.

Focused on primary needs-based ministry, Perkins led her group through the Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens and Manhattan as they worked with the homeless and after-school kids’ clubs. They worked with the Salvation Army, the New York City Rescue Mission and New York City Relief.

“Throughout the week, I was able to see the ways in which God changed our hearts to see people through his eyes and not our own,” Perkins said. “I was constantly amazed by the ways in which he broke down so many barriers to allow us to connect with people that I personally never would have thought I’d be able to connect with.

“One thing I really got out of the trip was simply realizing how different my view of New York City was after my first contact with the community—by serving and hanging out with the people who are considered to be at the very bottom of society. It made me think about my future and how differently I would view the needs of new communities I encounter if I began by serving and building relationships with the people at the ‘bottom.’”

Scott led another team in a construction project at the Park Slope Community Church in Brooklyn. They painted the balcony and sanctuary of the church, disassembled an industrial refrigerator and repaired a water-damaged plaster wall.

“Construction projects typically face setbacks due to unexpected complications,” Scott said. “But everything we set our hands to resulted in success. God demonstrated his provision, allowing us to accomplish more than we thought possible. We learned that God is ever-present, even in seemingly unspiritual tasks, such as construction work.”

Additional projects included prayer walking around university campuses and ministering to internationals in Queens.

Posted: 4/13/07

Churches show lasting benefits from
intentional interim ministry, study says

By Ken Camp

Managing Editor

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C.—Churches that go through the intentional interim ministry process show lasting benefits, recent research has demonstrated.

The Center for Congregational Health examined churches 24 to 36 months after they completed the intentional interim process, paying particular attention to how it affected each church’s new pastor.

Research included on-site interviews, telephone conferences and mailed questionnaires completed by pastors and transition team members.

In a questionnaire, pastors gave their new churches highest marks for clearly communicating shared expectations and for differentiating their congregational identity from the former pastor’s personality and leadership style.

They also responded favorably to questions about whether they felt involved in their congregation’s shared vision of the future.

When members of transitional teams were asked to evaluate their congregations, they generally described the health of their churches as improved or improving.

Les Robinson of the Center for Congregational Health saw the survey results as “affirming” the intentional interim process.

“Churches that go through the process seem more in touch with who they are as the people of God and who God wants them to be,” Robinson said. “As such, they are in a better position to know what kind of pastor they need.”

Pastors gave lowest marks to their new churches for having systems of training lay leadership for various ministry tasks and for incorporating new people into leadership roles.

“This is by far the weakest link,” Robinson acknowledged.

Almost two-thirds of the respondents said their churches had no plan or program for training lay leaders. The center has created an advisory group to examine the issue of leadership development and to shore up that weakness, Robinson noted.

Most surveyed churches showed increases in nearly every readily measurable area. Membership grew 11 percent, with nine congregations gaining members and two decreasing in membership. Overall worship attendance increased about 9.5 percent, with eight churches experiencing growth and three measuring some decline. Church budgets grew overall by 4.5 percent, with eight churches showing a gain and three reporting a drop in giving.

The one exception to growth was in Sunday school and Bible study attendance. More than half of the churches reported a decline, with the overall decrease measuring about 6.5 percent.

Posted: 4/13/07

Novel challenges readers to view
gospel through the eyes of Judas

By Francis X. Rocca

Religion News Service

ROME (RNS)—A new book by a colorful British author and an Australian New Testament scholar offers a sympathetic portrayal of Judas as the unwitting betrayer of Christ.

The Gospel According to Judas, by Benjamin Iscariot, published simultaneously in eight languages, is a work of fiction presented in the form of Scripture, complete with numbered verses, pages in gold trim and key passages highlighted in red ink.

The unlikely co-authors are best-selling novelist Jeffrey Archer, known since 1992 as Lord Archer of Weston-Super-Mare, and Francis J. Moloney, former dean of the School of Theology and Religious Studies at Catholic University of America in Washington.

Their account of the life and teachings of Jesus Christ is based on the four Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, but it deviates from the standard narrative on certain important points—most significantly in asserting that Judas unintentionally abetted the capture of Jesus that led to his crucifixion.

In this new version, Judas hands Jesus over to Jewish leaders in the mistaken belief that they will save him from death at the hands of the Romans.

In the fictional version, Judas does not receive 30 pieces of silver.

The book portrays Judas as disillusioned when Jesus turns out not to be the warrior king he expected, even as he continues to venerate him as a prophet.

Following the death of Christ, the book’s Judas does not hang himself as recounted in the Gospel of Matthew. Instead, he joins a community of ascetic Jews near the Dead Sea, living there until he was crucified by the Romans at the age of 70.

Archer, who is listed as the book’s principal author, said he sought out an academic collaborator at the behest of his publisher and agreed to give Moloney a veto on any material that did not meet scholarly standards.

The authors have taken pains to distinguish their Gospel According to Judas from The Gospel of Judas published last year. That book was based a third-century manuscript never accepted as part of the Christian canon of Scripture.

“We’re telling the traditional story, through the eyes of Judas,” said Moloney. He acknowledged “a few details in the book that may bother traditional Christian readers.”

For example, Archer and Moloney portray Jesus performing healing miracles, but they quote Judas as dismissing reports that Jesus walked on water or turned water into wine.

Archer is a past master at generating controversy. A former Conservative member of Parliament, he was convicted in 2001 of perjury in a libel trial and spent two years in prison, an experience he used as the basis for three volumes of Prison Diaries.