Posted: 5/02/06

Nash nominated as CBF missions coordinator

By Hannah Elliott

Associated Baptist Press

ATLANTA (ABP)—Robert Nash has received the nomination for the global missions coordinator position at the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship. CBF council members will vote to approve the nomination at their annual meeting June 21 in Atlanta.

The nomination comes after a year of interim service by Jack Snell, who held the position since the resignation of Barbra Baldridge. Baldridge resigned May 31 of last year amid unspecified personal reasons. She and her husband, Gary, had served in the top position for five years until Gary Baldridge retired in 2004 to pursue a writing career.

“I am humbled by the confidence that the search committee has placed in me as its nominee for this position and awed by the prospect of ministry alongside CBF’s field personnel and staff in the U.S. and around the world,” Nash said.

Search committee Chair Tim Brendle said the committee received input for the nomination process from staff, missionaries and church members. Nash stood out from the others, he said.

“We were blessed with the opportunity to review many strong resumes and to consider multiple candidates who were qualified to do this job,” Tim Brendle, the search committee chair, said in a CBF release. “Rob Nash truly has a heart for missions and the capacity to express our shared missions calling in fresh and challenging ways. I believe he can kindle new excitement in our churches and among our field personnel.”

Nash’s bid is slightly unusual in that he has not worked full-time on the mission field, nor has he held previous employment by CBF. Snell was a former pastor who led CBF missions efforts in Asia, and the Baldridges worked as missionaries for 17 years in Africa. Keith Parks, the first missions coordinator of CBF, was previously head of the Southern Baptist Foreign Mission Board and a revered missionary worker.

Nash grew up with missionary parents in the Philippines. Since then, the 47-year-old religion professor has traveled and studied in more than 30 countries in Asia, the Middle East, Africa, Europe and South America. He received a masters of divinity from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and serves as dean and associate professor of religion and international studies at Shorter College in Rome, Ga. He has also held various pastorates in Kentucky and Georgia.

Nash, his wife, Guyeth, and their two children are members of First Baptist Church in Rome, Ga.

Posted: 5/02/06

Playboy visits Baylor despite warnings

By Hannah Elliott

Associated Baptist Press

WACO (ABP)—Playboy photographers held an open casting call April 18 at Baylor University, despite the university’s discipline and suspension in recent years of students who posed in the magazine.

The magazine’s photographers traveled to Baylor to solicit women for its “Girls of the Big 12” spread, set to appear in the October issue. Spreads featuring women from schools in prominent athletic conferences posing nude are annual features in Playboy.

The visit is nothing new for Baylor officials, who have dealt with the controversy off-and-on since 1981, when the editors of the student newspaper were fired after an editorial column questioned Baylor’s policy against students posing for the magazine.

The return of the publication marks the first in four years. Playboy visits to Baylor in 1996 and 2002 caused problems, too.

A reported 15 Baylor women attended individual interviews in 2002, and 50 members of the Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity and four women were disciplined for posing clothed on an off-campus volleyball court. The punishment consisted of community service and essay writing. One woman who posed separately—wearing less—was suspended.

This year, Baylor officials preempted the issue, sending a university-wide e-mail that opposed the interviews, which were held at an undisclosed location and closed to the media.

“Associating with a magazine that is clearly antithetical to Baylor’s mission would be considered a violation of the code of conduct as outlined in the Student Policies and Procedures,” the email said. It also said punishment could involve everything from verbal reprimands to expulsion, depending on each case.

Bethany McCraw, associate dean for Judicial and Legal Student Services, told The Lariat student newspaper that the school’s student policies and procedures outline Baylor’s alignment with the “Christian principals as commonly perceived by Texas Baptists.” Even off-campus, she said, a failure to uphold such principles “detracts from the Christian witness Baylor strives to present to the world.”

Playboy has released a response, saying since Baylor belongs to the Big 12, “informed and consenting female Baylor students” should be included in a Big 12 spread.

Posted: 4/28/06

Expert explores myths
of multihousing ministry

By George Henson

Staff Writer

AMARILLO—Churches interested in reaching multitudes who do not know Christ as Savior should engage in multihousing ministry but do it with their eyes open, said Jeff Parsons, multihousing director for Amarillo Area Baptist Association.

Parsons pointed out the need for multihousing ministries to transform into church starts on the properties by describing eight myths of multihousing ministry:

• Myth No. 1: We’ll reach the parents through the kids. “By and large, this doesn’t work. It has worked to an extent, but not consistently or persistently,” Parsons said.

Two factors play into traditional multihousing ministries not reaching adults, the first of which is that adults are not the primary targets. “Parents are not being reached because we have no intentionality to reach adults,” he said.

A second part of the equation is that the workers involved generally are doing so because they have a heart and gift for ministering to children. “Often these same people feel very inadequate in reaching adults,” Parsons explained.

• Myth No. 2: We do acts of kindness to build relationships. Enticing someone to become a Christian through acts of kindness, indicates a wrong motivation for doing good works, he said. “Our good works aren’t bait. If our goal is to glorify Jesus, then there is sense of fulfillment that is contagious,” Parsons explained.

“It rarely works that someone sees your good works and asks why you are doing them and becomes a Christian. Our motivation is a key factor. If our goal is to glorify God, people will recognize that and be drawn to him.”

• Myth No. 3: Residents will eventually come to our church. This is the hardest thing for many churches to grips with, Parsons said. Primarily due to feelings of intimidation and inadequacy, apartment dwellers won’t come, and if they do, they won’t stay, he said.

Parsons cited a study that said if apartment dwellers join a traditional church, the retention rate is 24 percent. For those who attend a church started on site at the apartment complex, the retention rate is 70 percent.

“Integration into existing churches is an unnecessary stumbling block. The solution is to plant churches where they live,” he said.

• Myth No. 4: Starting a church on a property is too complicated. Just the opposite is true, Parsons said. The plan he advocates involves reading a passage of Scripture and asking six questions about that passage: What in these verses encourages you? What in these verses challenges you? What would the world look like if everyone did what this passage says? What could you do to live out this Scripture this week? What is God saying to you through this Scripture? How can we pray for you to live out this Scripture this week?

• Myth No. 5: Attendance numbers should increase quickly. It is important to remember that small numbers are not a bad thing and have some advantages, he noted. Also, up to 95 percent of people who hear the gospel in a multihousing community would not have heard it through any other means, he said. That makes each individual who hears vitally important.

• Myth No. 6: My work will look like what I do at my church. “Simple or organic churches are valid, attainable and reproducible,” he said, with an emphasis on being reproducible. He said while the piano, choir and other things a traditional church offers are hard to reproduce in an apartment setting, a simple church easily is reproduced, and needs to be. “Jesus didn’t say, ‘Y’all come,’ he said, ‘You go,’” Parsons pointed out.

• Myth No. 7: I can fully have the American dream and fully be in God’s will. Pursuit of the American dream can leave little time for investing in the lives of others, he said. “We want to do the church thing, but we want to have all the possessions everyone else has—the nice vacation, the big house, the kids involved in all the sports activities,” but then “we don’t have time in our schedules to invest our lives in people who need to know Christ.”

“Prioritize your life to bring joy and fulfillment, not stress and frustration,” Parsons counseled. “If there is an overabundance of stress and frustration instead of joy and fulfillment, that may be a sign your focus is on the American dream and not on Jesus Christ.”

• Myth No. 8: A relationship with the lost isn’t necessary to reach them. “Going up and knocking on doors and sharing Christ is by and large not going to work, largely because there is such a negative picture of the church prevalent in the world today,” Parsons said. There is no substitute for becoming involved in people’s lives, he stressed.

Posted: 4/28/06

RIGHT OR WRONG?
Responding to the poor

The hurricanes along the Gulf of Mexico revealed a demographic identified as the “new poor.” What does that mean? What about the “old poor”? How do Christians respond to this theologically?

Although the devastation wreaked along the Gulf Coast by the hurricanes of 2005 is a long way from being repaired, many of us who do not live in that region largely have forgotten those whose lives were so drastically altered. The threat of even more hurricanes in 2006 than in 2005 has caused many people to shift their focus from helping those hurt by last year’s hurricanes to protecting themselves and their property from the next hurricane. In a speech to the International Radio and Television Society, television journalist Ted Koppel put his finger on our problem:

“What is largely missing in American life today is a sense of context, of saying or doing anything that is intended or even expected to live beyond the moment. There is no culture in the world that is so obsessed as ours with immediacy. In our journalism, the trivial displaces the momentous because we tend to measure the importance of events by how recently they happened.”

One of the realities of the hurricane’s devastation has been the shift in economic status that many Gulf Coast residents have experienced. Thousands lost their jobs, their homes and their most prized possessions in the storms. Since most Americans are only a paycheck or two away from financial disaster, it is easy to identify with these folks who have been referred to as the “new poor.”

The flood waters that swept over the levees into the city of New Orleans exposed another segment of society that had been largely ignored—the “old poor.” Having lived in New Orleans five years, it was no surprise to me that the people who would be most affected by a storm surge would be the poorest citizens of that city. Like many cities in the South, New Orleans has a large African-American population that lives on the margins of society. The poor in New Orleans, most of whom are African-American, have lived in the lowest sections of the city for a long time. Federal housing projects were constructed on the cheapest land, which was below sea level. The poorest homeowners lived on reclaimed land that is always the first to flood. These folks were unable to flee the storm and had no resources to call upon when disaster struck.

How should Christians respond to this theologically? The answer is simple: We should respond by helping. Fortunately, many churches—especially Baptist churches—have responded to the enormous need along the Gulf Coast. It is vital that we continue to be informed about what we can do to help. News articles in the Baptist Standard and mission efforts spearheaded by the Baptist General Convention of Texas especially have been helpful.

Because it will take years to restore what has been destroyed, every Texas Baptist should be asking, “What can my church do to help?” Every Texas Baptist can be a part of this effort. You can give money for hurricane relief. You can organize work groups to partner with other groups in rebuilding homes. You can continue to pray for those who have been affected. When we do these things, we should be reminded of the words of Jesus, “Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.”

Philip Wise, senior pastor

Second Baptist Church

Lubbock

Right or Wrong? is sponsored by the T.B. Maston Chair of Christian Ethics at Hardin-Simmons University’s Logsdon School of Theology. Send your questions about how to apply your faith to btillman@hsutx.edu.

Posted: 4/28/06

Reccord resigns as NAMB president
after trustee investigation

By Greg Warner

Associated Baptist Press

ATLANTA (ABP)—After a trustee investigation produced a scathing report of numerous examples of poor management, Bob Reccord resigned as president of the North American Mission Board, effective immediately.

“I regret that events of recent weeks have created an environment which makes it difficult to lead the organization and to stay on mission,” Reccord, 54, said in a statement April 17.

Allegations first surfaced in a February expose by the Christian Index newspaper. NAMB’s trustees, after their own investigation, put Reccord under strict “executive-level controls” March 23, which many observers thought would prompt his resignation.

The trustees’ investigation faulted the missions leader for poor management, autocratic decision-making, extravagant spending on failed ministry projects, apparent conflicts of interest in no-bid contracts for a friend, and creating a “culture of fear” that prevented staffers from questioning the abuses.

They also said Reccord spent time and money on events and projects on the periphery of NAMB’s mission and was absent so much he couldn’t provide consistent, day-to-day oversight “to properly manage the agency,” which directs and coordinates Southern Baptist mission work in the United States and Canada.

Yet some trustees were most upset by Reccord’s blurring of the line between NAMB and personal interests, such as his extensive non-NAMB speaking schedule and a trip to London for Reccord and his wife to attend the premiere of the Chronicles of Narnia movie, which cost NAMB $3,800.

As the dust settled from the investigation, calls for Reccord to resign grew louder.

“There is an outcome that we all believe is necessary,” one trustee, who spoke only on the condition of anonymity, said in an interview prior to Reccord’s resignation. “Everybody gets it except Bob Reccord.”

Reccord did finally get the message. He reportedly resigned to trustee Chairman Barry Holcomb over the weekend, then informed NAMB employees April 17 in a hastily called staff meeting. Holcomb, a pastor from Alabama, was on hand to read a statement praising Reccord’s accomplishments and integrity.

Holcomb said the trustees’ investigation and audit found “no evidence that Dr. Reccord had done anything unethical in his role as president,” adding Reccord’s “integrity is strong and solid today.”

“Contrary to some opinions, Dr. Reccord is in no way being asked to resign, let alone forced to resign,” Holcomb said.

“First, he is taking this step for what he feels is best for Christ’s kingdom. While others might have placed their own personal well-being ahead of what was best for NAMB, Dr. Reccord is doing just the opposite. I believe that this is one of the strongest evidences of his personal character and integrity. He has a strong love for our missionaries, for those who work within NAMB and for our trustees. And so taking the high road of leadership on behalf of our missionaries, our agency and our convention, he is resigning today as president.”

Carlos Ferrer, recently named interim chief operating officer, also will assume acting executive officer duties, Holcomb said. No interim president has been named.

Trustees are expected to continue with policy reforms to ensure they are not caught off guard again, regardless of who is president, several said. A task force will make sure specific rules now will govern the president’s travel, speaking engagements and office time. A system of competitive bidding for outside contracts will be established. And new initiatives will require “appropriate oversight and approval by the board.”

Reccord alienated many state-level denominational leaders with his go-it-alone decision-making style, according to the NAMB investigation. Trustees said Reccord gave too much attention to his own public profile, seeking media exposure and speaking engagements that would bring him—and the agency—into the spotlight.

“Bob wanted someone to get him on CNN,” one trustee leader explained. Reccord hired two outside public-relations firms—contracts totaling $12,000 a month; more than $75,000 to date—to get him secular media placements like other SBC leaders Al Mohler and Richard Land.

Reccord and his administrators developed a pattern of launching expensive, often innovative, ministry projects without specific approval from trustees, who found out only after million-dollar losses resulted. Questionable contracts, like the ones with Reccord’s friend and neighbor Steve Sanford of InovaOne that brought charges of conflict of interest, weren’t disclosed until reported by the Christian Index.

However, Reccord’s innovations also brought some successes, his supporters say, pointing to high-profile urban-evangelism strategies as an example.

“He could have gotten approved, through the trustee board, anything he wanted in the way of ministry projects, but he tried to do it without approval,” one trustee leader concluded.

While some trustees—particularly pastors following the same leadership model—could accept those lapses, others could not, the trustee said. In the end, Reccord’s leadership style proved a poor fit for a denominational agency dependent on donations and collaboration from churches and conventions all across the spectrum, he concluded.

“He’s always flying at 40,000 feet,” said one trustee who supported Reccord in the past.

“The majority of trustees love Bob and would not disagree with his style. But his unwillingness to involve trustees more (was the biggest failure). There was not a lot there that couldn’t have been defended. The largest offense was we didn’t know so much was going on.”

Chairman Holcomb, in his statement to employees, defended Reccord’s leadership style: “Dr. Reccord has aptly noted that in convention life, entrepreneurial leadership and denominational requirements may be at odds with one another. This is no one’s fault—it is simply a reality. There is no question God has some special things in store for the next chapter of this out-of-the-box thinker.”

Reccord told employees he is undecided about his future plans but has been contacted about several possibilities.

Reccord was the first president of NAMB, formed in 1997 as part of a restructuring of the Southern Baptist Convention. The mission board included remnants from three SBC agencies—the Home Mission Board, Radio & Television Commission and Brotherhood Commission. Reccord led the implementation task force that oversaw the SBC restructuring.

Prior to coming to NAMB, he was senior pastor of First Baptist Church in Norfolk, Va., and Bell Shoals Baptist Church in Brandon, Fla.

Posted: 4/17/06

Proclamation for Immigration Reform

Hispanic Baptist Youth and Singles
Congreso Solemn Assembly, April 15, 2006

Whereas, our beloved United States of America, a nation of immigrants, is in the midst of the most dramatic immigration policy reform in the 21st century,

And whereas, 12 million undocumented immigrants are living and working in the United States today with 1.2 million undocumented immigrants living in Texas, And whereas, President George Bush has recommended that Congress considers comprehensive reform of U.S. Immigration Law,

And whereas, the Hispanic Baptist Convention of Texas and the Baptist General Convention of Texas passed resolutions in 2003 affirming Jesus’ concern for ministry to the “alien” and “stranger” in the land and encouraged “proactive involvement of ministry activity among immigrants, documented and undocumented, through prayer and action,”

And whereas, the Christian Life Commission of the Baptist General Convention of Texas has advocated support for stronger border security, respect for the law, the creation of a guest worker program for those who desire to work in the United States, and a pathway of dignity and respect toward citizenship for undocumented immigrants in our nation,

And whereas, Jesus placed the poor and the oppressed at the center of his mission on earth,

Be it therefore resolved that Texas Baptist youth and singles at the 2006 Hispanic Youth and Singles Congreso representing over 1,200 Hispanic congregations encourage President Bush, the U.S. Senate, and the U.S. House of Representatives to pass just and compassionate legislation that addresses stronger border security, respect for the law, and a process for citizenship with regard to U.S. undocumented immigrants.

Posted: 4/28/06

Missionaries refuse to resign under pressure

By Hannah Elliott

Associated Baptist Press

RICHMOND, Va. (ABP)—After receiving an April 15 ultimatum to resign or face termination, Wyman and Michelle Dobbs refused to resign as International Mission Board missionaries in Guinea, West Africa.

The couple was targeted for starting a church in Guinea that doesn’t meet the IMB guidelines and definition for a Baptist church. When the deadline passed, the Dobbses received a letter April 17 from an IMB regional director that said the missionaries will be terminated May 31.

The Dobbses, who have served an unreached people group in the mostly Muslim country eight years, started the church with the help of a missionary couple from the Christian and Missionary Alliance, an evangelical denomination with doctrinal standards and church governance very similar to those of Southern Baptists. The Dobbses have filed an appeal, which will be reviewed by a regional committee in May.

“I personally think this is an outrage,” said Jason Helmbacher, the Dobbses’ stateside pastor at Immanuel Baptist Church in Sallisaw, Okla. “I don’t believe it’s fair that they’ve been given an ultimatum based on misapplied policy. I just think it’s wrong.”

IMB Chairman Tom Hatley disagrees. Hatley said he must stand by IMB policy, which he said the Dobbses have violated. IMB policy states missionaries may plant churches in cooperation with non-Baptist missionaries who endorse the 2002 Baptist Faith & Message doctrinal statement—as the CMA couple has—but those churches must have Baptist doctrine at their core.

It is unclear what doctrinal deviation is alleged in the Dobbses’ case, but it has been reported the Dobbses and the Christian and Missionary Alliance couple started a “baptistic” church—one Baptist in doctrine and polity but not in identity.

The new church established in Guinea is one of only a handful of Christian outposts in the predominantly Muslim country—and the first congregation affiliated with IMB missionaries.

Helmbacher, who said his church has sent three groups of people to work with the Dobbses in less than two years, said the action against the couple has created confusion for church members who have just begun to get excited about missions.

“Our church is struggling to understand this,” Helmbacher said. “They don’t understand the politics. They’ve been confused and upset.” Helmbacher said church members have written letters and made phone calls to IMB trustees, trying to gain support for the Dobbses. Helmbacher said he fears the appeal might not make it through the May committee meeting—or a subsequent trustee vote.

Trustee Chairman Hatley did not speculate on the appeal’s outcome. He said it is a “staff decision” about violated policies.

“It’s a work in progress,” Hatley said. “It could or it couldn’t go through.”

If the Dobbses’ firing is not reversed on appeal, the full trustee board will vote on the termination in a later plenary session.

The IMB staff does not discuss pending personnel issues. The trustees who run the International Mission Board have insisted on increasingly strict policies about acceptable theology and practice among missionaries—such as requiring that church-starts meet a stringent definition of what it means to be a Baptist church. Supporters say IMB missionaries must reflect the beliefs of the denomination that sends them. Critics say the stricter IMB policies go too far.

The news of the potential firing comes on the heels of another controversy over new IMB policies designed to prevent missionaries from using private charismatic practices and to narrow the parameters of acceptable modes of baptism for missionary appointees.

Posted: 4/28/06

Resolution on Baptist dissent submitted

By Robert Marus

Associated Baptist Press

ARLINGTON (ABP)—In a sign of the controversy threatening to engulf the Southern Baptist Convention’s upcoming annual meeting, a Texas pastor has formally submitted a resolution that accuses SBC leaders of trying to “silence principled dissent.”

Benjamin Cole, a leading critic of recent actions by the SBC’s International Mission Board, has sent his resolution, titled “On Baptist Dissent,” to the SBC Resolutions Committee, according to a popular weblog run by an IMB trustee.

Wade Burleson’s blog—www.wadeburleson.com—reported the action and the proposal’s final text April 18. It says Southern Baptists recognize that “majorities are not always right, and that it is necessary for the voice of dissent … to be welcomed and heard if the dangers of authoritarian confessionalism or tyrannical governance are to be withstood both in our denomination and the world.”

It goes on to state, “we regard all attempts to silence principled dissent by fellow Baptists within our denomination, or of any religious minority, as a compromise of our cherished Baptist witness and an egregious disservice to the kingdom of God,” and that Southern Baptists “affirm dissenters both within our denomination and without who raise objection to articles of our confession, policies of our institutions and governance of our agencies when that dissent has been voiced in a manner consistent with the teaching of Jesus Christ.”

Cole, pastor of Parkview Baptist Church in Arlington—a congregation uniquely aligned with the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention—earlier wrote an open letter suggesting Southern Baptists should vote during their meeting June 13-14 in Greensboro, N.C., to dismiss all the trustees of the IMB.

Cole’s ire was raised by the board’s January decision to recommend the convention dismiss Burleson, pastor of Emmanuel Baptist Church in Enid, Okla., from his trustee post.

At the time, IMB trustee leaders had accused Burleson of “gossip and slander” for blogging about his opposition to restrictive new policies approved for IMB missionaries. Trustees later voted to rescind their request to remove Burleson, but they also approved a new policy that bars trustees from criticizing actions of the board.

That policy has proven as controversial as the original move to dismiss Burleson, particularly among younger pastors and laypeople who populate the SBC-related “blogosphere.”

Cole said in an interview he is the author of the resolution, an earlier version of which Burleson had posted on his website April 14. It wasn’t necessarily aimed solely at the IMB but at SBC agencies and leaders in general, he insisted.

“I really do think the cherished principle of dissent has been subverted in certain quarters of our denomination,” he said.

Cole also said he had submitted it to several other SBC pastors and leaders and that other Southern Baptists had run proposals for similar resolutions and motions by him. Discussion of such moves has dominated SBC blogs for weeks.

Among them may be a motion to force the IMB to re-think its controversial policy changes. Normally, motions messengers make from the floor of SBC meetings are referred to the agency they concern, and the agency’s trustees report back at the following year’s annual meeting. A two-thirds majority of the convention, however, can vote to require the agency to report back on the motion before the meeting is over.

In an April 17 post on his blog, “12 Witnesses,” Kentucky minister Art Rogers suggested that might happen during the Greensboro meeting.

“So, if a motion concerning policies at the IMB were ‘in order’ and therefore referred to the IMB’s (board of trustees), the convention could then direct, by 2/3 vote, that the (trustees) answer back to the convention before we dismissed,” he said. “Now, this does not give the convention the right to tell the IMB what to do concerning any policy, but it does give the convention the opportunity to express its mind clearly to the IMB’s governing body.”

Under SBC governing documents, only trustees of an agency—not the convention as a whole—can set policy for the agency.

The moves could be part of the stormiest SBC annual meeting since the decades-long battle between moderates and fundamentalists for control of the denomination during the late 1980s and early 1990s. The moderates, who lost, largely stopped attending SBC meetings and went on to form their own missionary-sending agencies and other institutions.

Little controversy has erupted at SBC meetings since then. But that may change this summer. In another sign of a brewing controversy, supporters of the SBC’s current leadership say the newfound dissent is actually an attack on Paige Patterson, president of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, who was one of the two architects of the rise of fundamentalists in the SBC.

Marty Duren, a Georgia pastor who owns the blog sbcoutpost.com, quoted letters April 14 from two conservative Texas leaders defending Patterson and targeting the IMB critics.

According to several IMB observers, Patterson is believed to be behind the controversial new IMB policies. Duren wrote that the letters defending Patterson are examples of how Patterson’s political machinery is retooling itself for a new fight—this time with fellow fundamentalists upset over the IMB’s moves.

“Yes, the signs are all in place and apparently the stars are aligned as the machine is belching forth black smoke while the carbon deposits are burned off the pistons and the framework is beginning to rock (and) sway,” Duren wrote.

“Do not be deceived, the SBC is resting between two visions: the past and the future, legalism and freedom, monument and movement, staidness and creativity, bureaucracy and restructure, law and Spirit, oligarchy and grass roots. … Apathy, this year, is capitulation to the status quo.”

Posted: 4/28/06

IMB isolationism contrary
to missions trend, experts say

By Ken Camp

Managing Editor

DALLAS—At a time when collaboration and cooperation characterize Christian missions, the Southern Baptist International Mission Board appears to be moving toward isolation and exclusion, some veteran missionaries and missiologists insist.

They point to IMB policies that prohibit private charismatic practices, narrow the parameters for acceptable baptism and require that church-starts meet a stringent definition of “Baptist” as indicators of a trend that runs contrary to the direction of most Christian missions enterprises.

“Yes, there is definitely a trend toward ecclesiastical exclusiveness, doctrinally and missiologically, in our SBC and IMB philosophies and strategies,” said Justice Anderson, who served as a missionary-professor 16 years at the International Baptist Seminary in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and 26 years as professor of missiology at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth.

Not so, said IMB spokesperson Wendy Norvelle, who quoted a board-approved basic operating principle: “Our basic role is to lead and facilitate the international missionary involvement of Southern Baptists in partnership with overseas Baptists and other Christians who are fulfilling the Great Commission.”

Norvelle pointed to ongoing partnerships with Wycliffe, Youth With A Mission and Campus Crusade as examples of IMB cooperation with non-Baptist Christians.

“We’re clearly working with many different people and groups representing a wide variety of Great Commission Christians,” Norvelle said. “It could be argued that our missionaries have been given more freedom to partner than ever before.”

But other missions practitioners point to different examples. For instance, the recent Ethne ’06 initiative in southeast Asia brought together about 350 Christian mission leaders from 50 countries to brainstorm, pray and develop collaborative strategies for sharing the gospel with the world’s least-reached people groups. Kent Parks of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship worked as a facilitator for the event.

As the convening group and steering committee put the program together, many participants asked if the IMB would be involved, he recalled.

“Several invited the IMB people from their region to be involved. I made it a point to contact several IMB friends” known from his eight years with the Southern Baptist mission board, he said, emphasizing to them it was not “a CBF effort.”

No regional-level IMB representatives attended the event. The only IMB personnel who participated were two researchers involved in the discussion on collaboration in research, Parks noted.

Ironically, the IMB “New Directions” plan implemented by President Jerry Rankin—later renamed “Strategic Directions for the 21st Century”—emphasized strategic alliances with non-Baptist Great Commission Christians, though critics at the time noted it did not extend to alliances with the CBF.

The plan established a five-level system describing guidelines for strategic relationships. At the lowest level—gaining entry to the targeted population—a summary of the guidelines states: “Creativity and flexibility are essential in associating with cultural programs, educational institutions, business forums or whatever can open the door to deeper levels of relationships.”

Likewise, at the second level—prayer and ministry in response to needs—missionaries are encouraged to cooperate with other Christians.

At the third level—evangelism and Scripture distribution—the pool of potential partners “is greatly reduced to those whose commitment is to New Testament evangelism and who present personal repentance and faith in Jesus Christ as the only way of salvation.”

At the top two levels—church-planting and theological education—the scope of cooperation constricts significantly.

Church-planting must be done in accord with the 2000 Baptist Faith & Message and meet 10 guidelines that define a Baptist church for IMB purposes. Those guidelines include believers’ baptism by immersion, regular observance of the Lord’s Supper, autonomy and self-governance, submission to “the inerrant word of God as the ultimate authority,” commitment to the Great Commission and a male-only pastorate.

Regarding theological education, “doctrinal purity” is the stated goal in the IMB guidelines. “This is the level at which we are seeking to influence the ongoing shape of Baptist work and identity, even after the missionary is no longer present, through theological education and ministerial training,” a summary of the guidelines states. “Seldom, if ever, would we engage in strategic relationships, even with other Great Com-mission Christians, at this level, though we sometimes find ourselves with opportunities to relate to indigenous institutions in which others may already be working.”

The movement toward cooperation with non-Baptist Great Commission Christians began in the mid-1980s during Keith Parks’ tenure as president of the Southern Baptist Foreign Mission Board—predecessor to the IMB.

Trustees at the time “were increasingly uneasy about whether the doctrine of these groups was acceptable,” Parks recalled. “They never understood our conviction that the synergy created would bring more into the kingdom and produce more churches than going it alone.”

The IMB trustees’ concern about enforcing doctrinal purity led the board not only to restrict its collaboration with non-Baptist Christians but also with other Baptists, he added. “One of the great tragedies of this trend toward exclusiveness is the separation from local Baptists in countries where missionaries have been involved for years. It seems to me that there would be great merit in continuing the practice of seeking to influence and mobilize these millions of Baptists who have come from earlier Baptist witness,” he said.

“The impression I have gotten is the IMB assumes it can reach more people, alone, with the ‘right kind of gospel’ than could be reached through influencing millions of Baptists and mobilizing them.

“Once, Southern Baptists were a people cooperating in a missions commitment. Now, they are a people enforcing conformity around doctrine. … When ‘true doctrine’ enforced by a self-chosen few is the basis for cooperation, the circle will continue to grow smaller and smaller.”

Some veteran missionaries like Anderson see the change in direction at the IMB as the unraveling of a tapestry carefully woven by previous generations of missions workers.

“My generation of missionaries was urged to cooperate with other Great Commission entities and to integrate our work with national conventions and agencies. We worked hard to fuse our work into the national entities and to gradually turn over leadership to national leaders,” Anderson said. “This has all changed rather rapidly, historically speaking, but has been concomitant of the fundamentalist movement and an isolationist mentality of the SBC.”

Christianity is experiencing its greatest growth in Africa, Southeast Asia and Latin America, and Southern Baptists need to find ways to cooperate with other Christians in those areas and influence that missionary movement in healthy ways—not grow more insulated and isolated, he insisted.

“A reactionary exclusiveness—doctrinally, strategically and ecclesiastically—cuts us off from the exciting future of evangelical missions and growth in these areas,” Anderson said.

Bill Tinsley, leader of WorldconneX, a missions network launched by the Baptist General Convention of Texas, agreed cooperation and collaboration represent the wave of the future in missions.

“The larger trend is definitely toward increased collaboration and cooperation among evangelicals, especially as the Christian center shifts to the Southern Hemisphere and non-Western Christians take responsibility for world missions,” Tinsley said.

“If we would join God in what he is doing in the 21st century, we must work more closely with other Christian groups. God is mobilizing the entire body of Christ to redeem and transform the world.”

Albert Reyes, president of Baptist University of the Americas in San Antonio, underscored the same point.

“We are moving to a place in missions where collaboration is currency,” Reyes said. “Kingdom-advancing missional strategists look for ways of collaborating for the greater good. Baptist Christians in any mission field demonstrate wisdom when they collaborate with other kingdom Christians to accomplish more together than they could by themselves.”

Rob Sellers, missions professor at Hardin-Simmons University’s Logsdon Seminary, echoed that sentiment, saying partnership and cooperation are crucial for 21st century missions.

“The kingdom of God is not an American colony or outpost. The church in Africa will not, and should not, look like its counterpart in Nashville or Rich-mond or Dallas,” Sellers said.

“The task of sharing Good News is larger than any one mission agency can accomplish by itself. Cooperation makes wonderful sense, and although there may be a risk that our partners see things differently than we, the benefits of cooperation justify our trying to make it work.”

Overwhelming need—particularly to share the gospel with unreached people groups—motivates the movement toward collaboration in missions, said Mike Stroope, missions professor at Baylor University’s Truett Theological Seminary.

“The world of Christian missions is rushing toward collaboration and networking because of the overwhelming number of people who have yet to hear the gospel of Jesus Christ,” Stroope said.

“Most missionaries around the world see the absolute necessity of finding ways of combining resources and uniting forces in order that they might generate a greater and more effective witness and plant a great number of churches. Rather than busying themselves with drawing hard and fast denominational and organizational boundaries, they are looking for ways to get every believer into the harvest.

“There is too much to be done to compete or to exclude. The vision of millions of people without Jesus should compel Baptists to link arms with Great Commission brothers and sisters around the world so that they might do whatever it takes to make Jesus Christ known and to establish his church.”

Posted: 4/28/06

BJC chief refutes ‘top 10 lies’ about church & state

By Marv Knox

Editor

ABILENE—Americans are besieged by lies about the relationship of church and state, Brent Walker insisted during the Maston Christian Ethics Lectures at Hardin-Simmons University’s Logsdon School of Theology, April 10-11.

“The lies I want to talk about are particularly insidious, because … most of them have at least a grain of truth in them,” said Walker, c “That’s what makes them so hard to answer with a sound bite or a clever slogan.”

Two kinds of people perpetuate the lies, he said. “People who should know better” sometimes spread them intentionally, and “well-intentioned souls who simply have been misled” sometimes repeat them “with a pure heart and the best of motives.”

Walker cited the “Top 10 lies that we hear about church and state”:

• “Our nation’s founders were born-again, Bible-believing evangelical Chris-tians, or our founders were Enlighten-ment rationalists who worshipped the ‘goddess of reason,’ or our founders were deists who posited a watch-maker God and were suspicious of religious ‘enthusiasms.’”

Generalizing about the founding fathers is difficult and dangerous, Walker said.

“Some were orthodox Christians, some were rationalists, yes, some were deists, and even an atheist or two thrown in,” he said. “We must acknowledge that, although most of them came out of a Christian heritage and tradition, our founders were a mixed lot when it came to their religion. But we can say with confidence that they were committed to ensuring religious liberty rather than enshrining their own particular religious opinions.”

• “We don’t have a separation of church and state in America because those words are not in the Constitution.”

“True, the words are not there, but the principle surely is,” he said. Similarly, the words “federalism,” “separation of powers” and “right to a fair trial” are not in Constitution, but those ideas are represented there.

Some critics have played down Thomas Jefferson’s use of the phrase “wall of separation” to describe the appropriate relationship of church and state. But Walker pointed out that James Madison, “the father of our Constitution,” wrote, “The number, the industry and the morality of the priesthood and the devotion of the people have been manifestly increased by the total separation of church and state.”

• “The separation of church and state comes from mid-19th century anti-Catholic bigotry and 20th century secularism.”

“This is simply not the case,” Walker insisted. He acknowledged some separationists may have take up the cause “with less-than-honorable motives,” but the rationale of most separationists has “nothing to do with anti-Catholicism.”

“The concept of church-state separation preceded the 19th century,” he said, adding, “Many—including my Baptist ancestors—insisted upon separation to protect religion, all religions, from the coercive and corrosive influences of government.”

• “The United States is a Christian nation.”

“This is a whopper!” he contended. “The United States of America is not a Christian nation—in law or in fact.”

Although no one can deny the nature of Americans as a religious people, the Constitution is a secular document, he said. “We do not have a Christian theocracy,” Walker explained. “We have a constitutional democracy in which all religious beliefs are protected.

“And that’s good. The same Constitution that refuses to privilege any religion, including Christianity, protects the rights of Christians to proclaim the gospel to all who will listen. As a result, paradoxically enough, we are a nation of Christians because we are not a Christian nation.”

• “Church-state separation only keeps the government from setting up a single national church or showing preference among denominations or faith groups, but not from aiding all religions on a nonpreferential basis.”

Although an early draft of the First Amendment singled out the banning of a national religion, Congress repeatedly declined to narrow the scope of the amendment, he said.

“The founders adopted a much more expansive amendment to keep the new federal government from making laws even ‘respecting an establishment of religion,’” he added. “They did not merely want to keep the federal government from setting up an official national church or to ban denominational discrimination.”

• “The First Amendment only applies to the federal government, not to the states.”

While the Bill of Rights—of which the First Amendment is a part—originally applied only to the federal government, the 14th Amendment has been interpreted “to ‘incorporate’ most of the Bill of Rights and apply those provisions to the states,” Walker said.

• “The Ten Commandments form the basis of our legal system.”

Only three Commandments—prohibitions against killing, stealing and bearing false witness—“are the proper subjects of secular law,” he observed, noting the other seven are religious. “Remember, American law is based on the common law of England,” he added. “But these prohibitions were already a part of Anglo-Saxon jurisprudence before England was Christianized.”

Also, numerous documents that influenced the U.S. legal system “say very little about religion and nothing about the Ten Commandments,” he said.

• “God has been kicked out of the public schools.”

“What a thing to say—to presume that Almighty God can be kicked out of anywhere,” Walker retorted. “No, as James Dunn (former executive director of the Baptist Joint Committee) is wont to say, ‘God has a perfect attendance record.’

“It is only state-sponsored religion that has been banned from the public schools. Voluntary student religious expression is not only not prohibited, it is protected—as long as it does not disrupt the educational process and respects other students’ rights not to participate.” Numerous religious activities are permitted in public schools “from voluntary prayer, to teaching about religion, to studying religious holidays, to Bible clubs before and after school, to religious attire,” he reported.

• “God has been kicked out of the public square.”

“This is also a big lie,” Walker stressed. “The institutional separation of church and state does not mean a segregation of religion from politics or God from government or the right of people of faith to speak forcefully in the public square.”

In fact, “religious speech in public places is commonplace,” he said, citing a litany of places and occasions where religion is practiced or displayed in public.

“Candidates for (political) office can and do talk freely about their religious beliefs and allow them to influence their stance on public policy, as long as the policy outcomes or government regulations have some secular justification,” he said. “… No, we do not have a ‘naked public square,’ as some have suggested. I’d say it’s dressed to the nines.”

• “The Baptist Joint Committee cares more about ‘no establishment’ than it does ‘free exercise,’” the two religion clauses of the First Amendment.

“This is not true,” Walker said, buttressing his claim with several examples of how the Baptist Joint committee has supported the free exercise of religion.

“For 70 years, the Baptist Joint Committee has pursued what most think is a balanced, sensibly centrist position on church-state issues, affirming both clauses in the First Amendment as essential to guarantee our God-given religious freedom. …

“Full-blown, well-rounded religious liberty depends on the enforcement of both of these clauses, and that’s what we try to do every day.”

Posted: 4/28/06

Five commandments for
religious Americans in political life

ABILENE—Religious Americans should follow five commandments as they “enter the fray of political life,” Baptist Joint Committee Executive Director Brent Walker advised.

Walker presented his commandments as part of the Maston Christian Ethics Lectures at Hardin-Simmons University’s Logsdon School of Theology.

The commandments are:

• “Thou shalt acknowledge the limited scope of thy perspective, exercising much humility.”

“Any foray into politics with focused religious motivation should be tempered with a good dose of humility and self-criticism,” Walker advised.

“We need to understand that, however sure we think we are of our position, the other person at least has something to say and maybe in the final analysis is right.”

He quoted the late congresswoman Barbara Jordan: “You would do well to pursue your causes with vigor, while remembering that you are a servant of God, not a spokesperson for God … and remembering that God might well choose to bless an opposing point of view for reasons that have not been revealed to you.”

• “Thou shalt acknowledge thy brother and sister may disagree with thee and yet deserve thy respect.”

“Any attempt to elevate ‘my’ view on an issue to the status of ‘the Christian’ or ‘the godly’ position, to the exclusion of others, should be held in check,” Walker admonished. “Religious persons of good will can (and usually do) disagree over how their religious convictions play out in the public arena.”

He cited theologian Carl F.H. Henry: “There is no direct line from the Bible to the ballot box.” That has practical application for how Christians think about politics, Walker insisted.

“We need to stop trying to convince each other we’ve got God in our hip pockets,” he urged. “God is not a Republican or a Democrat, nor even an American for that matter. God’s precinct is the universe.”

• “Thou shalt speak and act in a way that does not undercut thy witness, resisting the temptation to stereotype.”

“This means at least that we don’t lie about our opponents, or distort their positions or resort to violence,” he said. “It means that we speak forcefully to be sure but also truthfully, directly and lovingly—always paying proper attention to nuance. … Bumper stickers, sound bites and clever sloganeering do little to advance the commonwealth.”

• “Thou shalt not fall into the civil religion trap.”

Walker defined civil religion as “the merger of a fuzzy Judeo/Christian consensus with uncritical, flag-waving Americanism.”

Citing former Sen. Mark Hatfield, he noted civil religion “distorts the relationship between the state and our faith. It tends to enshrine … national righteousness while failing to speak of repentance, salvation and God’s standard of justice.”

“Civil religion results when we fail properly to distinguish between God and government,” Walker said. “It happens when we go too long on the pastoral and too short on the prophetic. When we fail to keep that healthy distance from government, we can get captured by government and used for political purposes.”

• “Thou shalt not involve thy church in electoral politics.”

“While our duties as citizens of faith require individuals to become involved, churches and religious organizations must be more circumspect,” Walker cautioned. “First, it can jeopardize the nonprofit’s tax-exempt status. The tax code is clear that, while churches may take a position on public issues, they may not support or oppose candidates for public office. This includes outright endorsement, financial support, distributing campaign literature and joining political action committees.”

The Maston Lectures are named for T.B. Maston, a pioneer Christian ethicist who taught generations of ministers at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. Logsdon’s Maston Chair of Christian Ethics sponsors the annual lectures.

Posted: 4/28/06

East Texas Baptist University student Matt Gillum of Aledo (left) works on a Habitat for Humanity project in Laredo during ETBU’s spring break. Other ETBU students served in Chicago and in Monterrey, Mexico. East Texas Baptist University student Hannah Parker of Atlanta, Texas, (right) gives up her spring break to help a Habitat for Humanity Project in Laredo.