Posted: 7/16/04

Hall warns Texas Baptists Committed
to avoid mistakes of failed corporate CEOs

By Marv Knox

Editor

HOUSTON—Lessons learned from failed businesses can spur the Baptist General Convention of Texas to success, BGCT President Ken Hall insisted.

“We must change the way we carry out our stewardship of ministry for the Lord,” he warned at the Texas Baptists Committed annual convocation in Houston.

Hall, president of Buckner Baptist Benevolences in Dallas, based his challenge on research presented in “Why Smart Executives Fail,” a book by Dartmouth College professor Sidney Finkelstein.

Hall pointed to seven “spectacularly unsuccessful” habits of these business leaders, as well as implications for Texas Baptists:

The illusion of personal pre-eminence.

In failed businesses, the executives often think they’re “more important than the product,” Hall said. Such thinking is absurd, since consumers buy the product, regardless of who heads the company.

The seduction of personal pre-eminence can cause Texas Baptists, and particularly their leaders, to forget God calls them to lead by serving others, not by dominating the spotlight of fame and recognition, he said.

“What we do is not about us,” Hall added, acknowledging, “As Baptists and as Texans, that goes against our pathology. … But we’re to be servants of the Lord and of others.”

The company is mine.

Some CEOs begin to view their companies as extensions of themselves and lose their sense of accountability to others, he pointed out.

Similarly, Texas Baptists can be tempted to see their cause as their own, and even if their cause is worthy, their perspective is skewed, he said.

“Texas Baptists are workers in the field of the Lord,” he explained. “The work of Texas Baptists doesn’t belong to the churches, the denomination, the Baptist Building or to Texas Baptists Committed. It belongs to the Lord.”

We have all the answers.

“No one has all the answers,” Hall said of business leaders as well as Texas Baptists.

“We believe in the principles of our movement, such as religious liberty, soul competency, the authority of the Bible and the separation of church and state,” he reported. “But that didn’t prevent Baptists from supporting slavery, segregation, male supremacy and other such sins. …

“Baptists thought they had all the answers. That’s how fundamentalism gained root in our lives. Christian humility demands we seek the Lord for our strategy and our methods.”

My way or the highway.

Execs who take this approach to business not only eliminate dissent, but they also “cut off their best chance for survival,” Hall said.

“My greatest fear for Texas Baptists has its roots in this habit,” Hall admitted. “It is a kind of reverse fundamentalism that says every church must take the same action, every institution must follow the same course.

“We must allow dissent … on practical issues. Our tent must be larger if we’re going to win this world to Christ.”

Obsessed with image.

Company heads who obsess about their image try to “spin” every issue to make them look good but fail to deal with substantive challenges to real success, Hall explained.

This is a condition that afflicts Texas Baptists and is illustrated by how they report their size, he claimed. “We say we have 2 million constituents. But we can’t find half of them.”

He affirmed the ministry of the Baptist Standard. “We need the Baptist Standard. We need somebody to tell us the truth—that we have warts as well as roses.”

While Texas Baptists love to trumpet their successes, “the truth is every day we’re losing this state to the devil,” he said.

Underestimating major obstacles.

Too many business leaders overlook challenges and refuse to admit failure, while they need to recognize reality, he said.

“Texas Baptists need to admit some obstacles are bigger than our intellects and our ability to overcome,” he urged. “But the difference between us and the business world is that Jesus is our advocate.

“Some problems are out there … that only God can overcome. It’s time to fall on our knees and ask God to rain down his power.”

Stubbornly relying on what worked in the past.

This habit is so seductive, because it tempts CEOs to trust in the methods, products and programs that gave them success before, Hall reported.

And it’s seductive for Texas Baptists, because the temptation to look back on their era of booming growth and productivity is strong, he said, insisting such an approach would be disastrous.

“We’re at the defining moment of this generation,” he said. “We can’t keep score the way we did in the 1950s and ’60s. The world is changing. It is beyond time for us to change.”

Issues of aging leadership, changing ethnic demographics, gender inclusiveness, missions support and methods of theological education “are just some of the questions we have to ask ourselves,” Hall urged. “Right now, we are not fulfilling Jesus’ commission to reach the world.”

Consequently, a process designed to reorganize the Baptist General Convention of Texas and focus the convention’s strategy for doing its work is vitally important, he added.

The process began early this year, led by BGCT Executive Director Charles Wade and the convention’s officers. Four teams worked throughout the spring to provide ideas for how the convention arrange its priorities and shape its strategy.

Now, a special committee is working on specific suggestions for reorganizing so that the convention’s structure will match its priorities and strategy. The committee will present its report to the BGCT Administrative Committee Sept. 2-3 and the BGCT Executive Board Sept. 28.

The committee’s proposals will “radically, dramatically change the way we do business as Texas Baptists,” Hall predicted. They will start with how the BGCT is governed and emphasize accountability and efficiency. They also will help the convention emphasize missions, church starting, Christian education and welfare, he added.

Hall told the group he has a prayer for his convention presidency: “I want to have set a stage for change, but my selfish prayer is I want our Texas Baptist family to be ahead of addressing these vital issues.”

Posted: 7/09/04

Baptists, Jews break bread together, build relationship

By Kirsten Pasha

Associated Baptist Press

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (ABP)–Members of Jewish and Baptist communities met for lunch during the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship general assembly to share stories and encourage an interfaith relationship.

Just in time, according to some Jewish and Baptist leaders.

The relationship between Jews and Baptists began “to atrophy” in the 1980s, said Jonathan Levine, national director of community services for the American Jewish Committee. Since then, Baptists and Jews have been like strangers to each other, he observed.

Robert Parham, executive director of the Baptist Center for Ethics, which sponsored the luncheon, said the relationship between Southern Baptists and Jews hit “rock-bottom” in the last 25 years.

Southern Baptist leaders have injured the relationship by refusing to participate with Jews in interfaith services after the Sept. 11 attacks, prioritizing conversion of Jews on their high holy days, not acknowledging any anti-Semitism in the movie “The Passion of the Christ” and comparing Judaism to a deadly tumor, Parham asserted.

Scott Hausman-Weiss, a rabbi at Temple Emmanu-el in Birmingham, said he came to recognize the “evil menace” as Baptist at rabbinic school as a result of the Southern Baptist attempts to proselytize Jews.

However, soon after Hausman-Weiss became a rabbi, his congregation's need for a place of worship led them to Southside Baptist Church in Birmingham. He said the church's building–which he may have considered to be the enemy's headquarters–became his own synagogue.

“When I saw the huge, purple banner above the door that said, 'A house of prayer for all peoples,' I truly thought, 'Oh, my God,'” Hausman-Weiss said. During the time of worship with the Baptists, he said, he considered the experience “truly a godly moment.”

Steve Jones, pastor of Southside Baptist Church, said his congregation received criticism from Christians for opening its doors to the Jews.

“We're not going to change (the Jews), but we will be changed by our relationship with them, and they will not change us, but they will be changed by their relationship with us,” Jones said. Hausman-Weiss “has said to me, 'You have been a Christian witness to us.' And Temple Emmanu-el has been a Jewish witness to us as well.”

The presence of two religions in one building has created situations that provoked both laughter and distress. Jones chuckled as he recalled the time he found a yarmulke in the baptistery. For the Jews, however, the cross was a painful reminder that they chose to cover during their services for their first couple of months at the church.

“It wasn't out of a need to defy or deface the Baptist church,” Hausman-Weiss said. “The problem with the cross … is it has historically represented the opposite of salvation and life eternal (for the Jews). … It's mayhem, murder and institutional hatred.”

Considering the deeply opposite sentiments tied to the cross for Jews and Christians, a bond between the two religions is “a relationship to be celebrated based on history, common humanity and good neighborliness,” said Arnold Belzer, a rabbi of Congregation Mickve Israel in Savannah, Ga.

The interfaith movement, according to Belzer, began with Congregation Mickve Israel's establishment in Savannah in 1733. The congregation has a special relationship with First Baptist Church in Savannah that, Belzer said, is a wonderful example of interfaith dialogue.

Levine, of the American Jewish Committee, said an interfaith movement will take work on the part of Jewish and Baptist congregations, but he insisted it is necessary for both groups.

“For those of us who look outward, coalitions are crucial,” he said. “The only way to break down stereotypes is ongoing dialogues. … My organization is absolutely committed to re-engaging with moderate Baptists. We really want to, and it's important for both of us.”

The Baptist Center for Ethics luncheon, though not officially part of the CBF assembly, was one of several CBF-related events involving Jewish relations. The CBF's ecumenical task force met with Huntsville, Ala., rabbi Jeff Ballon prior to the general assembly. And a CBF breakout session June 24 dealt with “developing a healthy and productive Jewish-Christian dialogue.

Posted: 7/09/04

CBF votes to help launch national ecumenical organization

By Marv Knox

Editor

BIRMINGHAM, Ala.–The Cooperative Baptist Fellowship voted to help start a national ecumenical organization, approved a $16 million budget and elected new leaders during its annual general assembly in Birmingham, Ala.

During the business portion of the three-day meeting, CBF participants agreed without debate or dissent to become a founding member of Christian Churches Together in the USA, a new organization expected to encompass denominations from across the spectrum of Christianity.

The movement to create Christian Churches Together began in 1991, as leaders of various groups began to “explore the need to expand fellowship and unity among all expressions of Christian faith,” noted John Finley, pastor of First Baptist Church in Savannah, Ga., and co-chair of the CBF's ecumenical task force.

Christian Churches Together will involve evangelical, Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Pentecostal, historical Protestant, and racial and ethnic Christian churches in America, added Sonja Phillips, the other chair of the task force and co-pastor of Central Baptist Church in Daytona Beach, Fla.

Membership will include churches that “believe in the Lord Jesus Christ as God and Savior” according to the Scriptures, who embrace the historic understanding of God as Trinity, and who “seek ways to work together to present a credible Christian witness” to society, Phillips said.

Lindsey McClintock of Calvary Baptist Church in Tyler, one of the new CBF Global Missions field personnel, is commissioned during the CBF general assembly in Birmingham, Ala. She will minister among youth in Berlin, Germany.

The idea of helping to start a broad ecumenical group is biblically sound, Finley reported.

Christian ecumenism flows from Jesus' prayer that his followers would be unified, Phillips stressed, noting, “this is a visible manifestation of Christ's presence in unity.

Participation in Christian Churches Together also is consistent with the CBF's identity as ecumenical Baptists who “embrace other Christians,” Finley said.

Already, the American Baptist Churches-USA, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and the United Methodist Church have affirmed the new organization.

It will be launched when 25 denominations and religious organizations vote to join, Finley said. That is expected to happen by May 2005.

The CBF's $16 million 2004-05 budget will begin July 1 and gained approval without discussion or negative votes.

The budget total is almost the same as the current budget, which was cut back last year after the CBF failed to meet its 2002-03 budget, said Philip Wise, chair of the CBF finance committee and pastor of Second Baptist Church in Lubbock.

Noting the end of the 2003-04 fiscal year was only days away, Wise told general assembly participants, “We're on track to finish in the black.”

The new $16,008,123 budget is $46 more than the 2003-04 budget. It is divided into four program sections and a fifth section of support.

The goal for the “faith formation” section is $509,782. It will fund evangelism and outreach, spiritual growth ministries and the “CBF Store,” which provides products and materials.

The “building community/ networking” section is targeted to receive $923,924.

Those funds will finance efforts to support congregational health, reconciliation and justice, marriage and families, and community-building, as well as grants to help build Baptist identity and relationships.

A total of $1,939,211 is earmarked for “leadership development.” It will include funds allocated to affiliated seminaries, divinity schools and Baptist studies programs.

Portions of that amount also will help support congregational leadership development networks, collegiate ministry and other leadership development programs.

The largest component of the budget, $9,044,566, will be allocated to “global missions and ministries.”

It will fund about 150 career missionaries, church-planting and missionary-training efforts, missions education and promotion, curriculum to support the missions endeavors, and “church mobilization.”

The support section, $3,550,640, underwrites the annual general assembly, communications and marketing, administration and the work of the CBF Coordinating Council.

Posted: 7/09/04

Vestal tells Coordinating Council it's time
for CBF to 'step up' and be good BWA member

By John Pierce & Greg Warner

Baptists Today & Associated Baptist Press

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (ABP)–Daniel Vestal, coordinator of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, said the Baptist World Alliance “is going to find a new vision and new life” in the next few months and years, even though it recently lost its largest member and donor.

Speaking to the CBF Coordinating Council for the first time since February, Vestal urged the Fellowship and its members to support BWA, a worldwide network of 210 Baptist bodies.

“It's time for us to step up and step out and say we are good members” of BWA, Vestal said.

The Southern Baptist Convention, which helped form the Baptist World Alliance 99 years ago, voted June 15 to withdraw its membership and funding from BWA over allegations of theological liberalism. The international organization denies those charges, saying the major factor in the SBC's departure was BWA's decision last year to accept the Fellowship as a member.

BWA will celebrate its centennial next year in Birmingham, England. “I think it is very important for CBFers to go,” Vestal said of the 2005 meeting.

Vestal also told of his 10-day tour of four African nations earlier this year that convinced him of the need for greater CBF mission involvement, particularly in response to the HIV/AIDS crisis there.

“HIV/AIDS is a moral problem, a medical problem, a social problem and a political problem–and it is our problem,” Vestal told council members.

The Coordinating Council heard about a new partnership between CBF and Call to Renewal, an anti-poverty advocacy group comprised largely of Christian evangelicals.

The Fellowship already fights poverty on a practical, local level through Partners in Hope, the Fellowship's rural poverty initiative, Vestal said. The anti-poverty partnership with Call to Renewal allows CBF “to make our voice heard in the public-policy arena,” Vestal said.

Yonce Shelton, national coordinator and policy director for the Washington-based group fielded questions from council members. “Poverty is the one issue with a biblical imperative that churches can agree on,” he told the council.

“This represents a step for us,” Vestal said of the new partnership, “and this body needs to get comfortable or uncomfortable with this.”

One council member said she was uncomfortable with Call to Renewal's support for President Bush's faith-based initiatives, which channel government money to religious social-ministry groups, including churches. Critics say the initiatives constitute government support or establishment of religion.

Shelton said Call to Renewal supported faith-based initiatives at the outset in order to take a positive approach and because they were supposed to be matched by public-policy changes and funding.

“We supported faith-based initiatives with the understanding … you can't just rely on churches,” he said. “You have to have the commitment to programs as well.”

Call to Renewal “took a lot of heat for that,” he added. The “rhetoric” from the Bush administration always was good on faith-based initiatives, but without the policy changes on poverty to back it up, Call to Renewal decided last year “we don't think we can support” the program, Shelton said. “We see it as crumbs from the table to churches that are already overworked.”

The council heard a report from CBF's Partnership Study Committee, which is examining the organization's funding of and relationships with other like-minded Baptist ministries and institutions. Committee Chair Charles Cantrell of Mountain Home, Mo., said the group will have its report ready before the council's October meeting.

Barbara Baldridge, co-coordinator for global missions, introduced new field personnel to the council. Two anonymous gifts totaling nearly $7 million, which were reported earlier, were credited with the expansion of CBF missionaries and mission projects.

Baldridge said CBF has 143 career missionaries on the field in addition to short-term workers and others holding secular employment.

Baldridge said morale remains high among field personnel despite continuing uncertainties throughout the world. "The level of difficulty varies greatly … ," she said. "We keep a close tab on the situation around the world. Most of our field personnel say, 'I'm staying right here no matter what.' Still, we keep in touch with them and keep their safety and best interest in mind."

Posted: 7/09/04

Being near the right Son opens doors, theologian preaches

By Robert Marus

Associated Baptist Press

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (ABP)– Being near the right Son can open doors for you, Virginia theologian John Kinney told participants at the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship's general assembly.

Speaking during the opening session of the moderate Baptist group's annual meeting in Birmingham, Kinney noted that his son, Erron, is a tight end for the NFL's Tennessee Titans. When visiting his son in Nashville, Kinney said, he often gets into places or gets the sort of treatment not available to most people.

That's taught him something: “Some of the promise and possibility in your life is not because of who you are, but because you're connected with the right Son,” Kinney said, making the application to Jesus Christ as the Son of God.

Kinney is dean of the school of theology at Virginia Union University, a historically African-American Baptist school in Richmond. Addressing the meeting's theme of “Being the Presence of Christ: Today … Tomorrow … Together,” he drew from Luke's account of the encounter with the risen Christ on the road to Emmaus to note that being Christ's presence in the world first requires Christians to recognize Christ's presence among them.

That was difficult for the two people in Luke 24:30-34, whose world had just been upended by the death of their leader, Kinney said.

“Could that day be much of the character of today?” he asked, citing “wars and rumors of wars, trouble at every hand.”

But, Kinney said, despite the disciples' dejected condition and inability at first to recognize their Lord in his resurrected state, “he still drew near.”

And as soon the pair realized Christ was sitting with them, he disappeared, Kinney said.

That caused them to realize their hearts had been “burning within” them when Jesus was walking with them along the road, explaining the prophecies about his coming and resurrection, he continued.

“What was something I didn't know and could only hear facts about is now burning as a part of who I am,” Kinney said.

Once believers are in close contact with Christ and feel in that relationship a burning passion, they can be that presence in the world, Kinney said.

He noted the people in Emmaus immediately got up and returned to Jerusalem to tell the others of their experience.

“They do not respond with a doctrine or a formula. They do not come at you with a form to follow. They come at you with a life that has been transformed, and invite you to be transformed,” he said.

“They tell you, 'There's something that has gotten a hold of me, and my life has been changed!'”

Posted: 7/09/04

Split personality compels Baptists to fight, historian asserts

By Marv Knox

Editor

BIRMINGHAM, Ala.–Baptists fight because of centuries-old paradoxical tendencies in their nature, church historian Bill Leonard believes.

Competing characteristics–inclination toward individualism and craving for community–practically compel Baptists into conflict, noted Leonard, dean of Wake Forest University's divinity school, during a breakout seminar at the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship general assembly.

“Baptist polity is terribly messy, even unruly,” Leonard said.

“It is predicated on an untenable tension between individualism and community. It is so untenable as to make conflict and schism not simply possible but probably, in many cases, essential.”

But that's not completely bad, he added, stressing, “It may be central to the future–in fact, the survival–of the church.”

From the start, Baptists practiced “radical congregationalism,” believing “Christ's authority was mediated not through bishop or king, but through the congregation of Christian believers,” he said. Consequently, Baptists have valued individualism and the free-standing autonomy of the local church.

Still, despite their individualistic intent, Baptists quickly began to band together in associations of churches, he added. They associated with other Baptist congregations “for fellowship, mutual encouragement, doctrinal solidarity and other connectional interactions,” which later included supporting missions.

Baptists appreciated the common values and strength in numbers, but tensions arose when the power of the larger group threatened the autonomy of the local congregations, he said.

Their polity embraces five sets of “distinctives,” which don't seem to relate but do so for Baptists, he reported. They are:

Biblical authority and liberty of conscience. Baptists believe the Bible is authoritative for both the church and individual believers, but they also believe individuals are free to interpret Scripture according to their own consciences, he said.

Regenerate church membership, open or closed. While Baptists insist church membership is limited to believers who profess faith in Christ, not all early Baptist churches required immersion for membership, Leonard said, noting they also did not agree whether local church membership was required for participation in the Lord's Supper.

Priesthood of laity and ordination of ministers. Even though Baptists affirm the “priesthood of all believers” and say all Christians are ministers, they also ordain selected members for specific leadership roles within the church, he said.

Local autonomy and associational cooperation. Leonard cited Baptists' tendencies to emphasize both the individual nature of each congregation and the value of cooperating “to accomplish ministries not possible for single churches.”

Religious liberty and loyalty to the state. Baptists have been champions of religious freedom, but also loyal advocates of the government, he said.

These paradoxes aren't unusual for Baptists, who have seemed contradictory from their earliest years, Leonard recalled. He noted early groups of Baptists included both General Baptists, who believed Christ died so that all people might have an opportunity for salvation, and Particular Baptists, who believed Christ died for only the people God preordained to become Christians.

“Essentially, Baptists have a split personality,” he quipped. “But the thing they all agree on is they're congregationalists and the church should be comprised of believers.”

But they disagree on a range of issues, he added, citing ordination of women, ministerial authority, biblical inerrancy, homosexuality, abortion, baptism and denominational participation.

Baptists' ability to hold onto their paradoxical tensions comes in handy today, when they number 40 million adherents worldwide and the United States alone is home to at least 50 distinct Baptist groups, Leonard said.

"Congregational polity means all members have a voice–potentially–in church affairs and congregations can determine their own futures based on consensus of community," he said. "This polity means individual churches can make choices on either side of controversial issues without necessarily dividing the entire denomination."

In response to a question, he noted Baptists cannot appeal to history for an exclusive interpretation of what “real” Baptists believe.

For example, some contemporary Baptists may say women cannot be deacons, but he read a quote from 1611 referencing women Baptist deacons.

Others claim Baptists don't cling to creeds, but he cited early cases to the contrary.

Despite tensions and generations of conflict, Baptists' complicated polity offers strengths in the postmodern world, Leonard pointed out.

The “growing concern for and move toward localism” is a hallmark of postmodernism, in which people care deeply about their communities and neighborhoods, and “it is happening on the left and on the right,” he said. Baptists' emphasis on local autonomy provides them with congregational identity as people seek authenticity.

“Each community is intentional about its identity and ministry,” he said, adding, “A reassertion of community serves as a response to–even a corrective for–rabid individualism.”

Some churches have reinstituted an old Baptist practice of laying hands on new Christians at their baptism, a practice that “offers outward sign of common callings, informing identity as … people of God,” he said.

Baptists' “genius” is their affirmation that “people can be trusted to interpret Scripture aright–in the context of community, under the leadership of the Holy Spirit,” Leonard affirmed.

He noted this concept embraces Baptists' historical contradiction–individual liberty exercised responsibly in community and guided by God.

Baptists' greatest challenge remains their ability to manage their rudimentary tension, he said: “How to nurture community, diversity and voice and decide which convictions are non-negotiable and which might be negotiated together. What is worth schism and what is not?”

Posted: 7/09/04

Fellowship welcomes Baptist World Alliance with open arms

By Trennis Henderson

Kentucky Western Recorder

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (ABP)–One week after Southern Baptist Convention messengers voted to cut ties to the Baptist World Alliance, Cooperative Baptist Fellowship participants welcomed the global alliance with open arms.

During the CBF general assembly in Birmingham, Ala., participants contributed $47,670 in a special offering for BWA, and they adopted a new CBF budget that doubles the BWA's allocation from $20,000 to $40,000.

Emphasizing “with membership comes responsibility,” offering envelopes distributed at the meeting noted CBF “is proud to be a part of this worldwide family of Baptists.”

BWA's acceptance of the Fellowship last year as a member body has been cited as a primary reason for the SBC's decision to end its 99-year partnership with BWA.

A February report from an SBC study committee stated the BWA's vote to include CBF “merely served as a confirmation that we must, as a convention, allow the world to see us without having to look through a BWA lens–a lens which, for us, has become too cloudy.”

There was nothing cloudy, however, about the BWA leader's affirmation of one of their newest member bodies.

“Welcome, the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, into the Baptist family,” BWA General Secretary Denton Lotz told the general assembly. “We belong together because we belong to Jesus Christ. … Let's move on and forget the past and move on to the glorious future in Jesus Christ.”

BWA's vote last year to accept the Fellowship “affirmed the Baptist principle of voluntary association,” Lotz said. “We want to embrace all Baptists.”

The Fellowship assembly received Lotz with a standing ovation, which he said he interpreted as “not for me but for Baptists of the world.”

CBF Moderator-Elect Bob Setzer, pastor of First Baptist Church of Christ in Macon, Ga., introduced Lotz and praised the organization's stance in the dispute with the SBC.

“False accusations and the threat of financial blackmail proved powerless to kowtow this (group of) … freedom-loving, Christ-centered Baptists,” he said.

Lotz, speaking earlier at a BWA breakfast, urged believers to tear down walls that hinder ministry efforts.

“We've got to overcome those terms of 'conservative' and 'liberal' and 'moderate', ” he said.

“I want to be a Baptist, a biblical Baptist. I want to be a Baptist who defends religious liberty and believes in the separation of church and state. I want to be a Baptist who is a drum major for justice like Martin Luther King. … I want to be a Baptist who believes in the priesthood of all believers.

“I want to be a Baptist who believes in freedom. Freedom does not come from Washington. It doesn't come from Beijing or from Moscow. Freedom comes from Jesus Christ, and Baptists better discover that again.”

Reflecting on BWA's 99-year history as a global Baptist fellowship, Lotz said: “In 1905, Baptists gathered together in London to show the essential oneness of the Baptist people in the Lord Jesus Christ. …

“We did not come together to tell you what to believe, but we came to affirm what we do believe and that is that Jesus Christ is our Lord and that he is our unity.”

BWA offers “a home for everybody” in Baptist life, he added. “We do not want Baptists to feel excluded. We want to tell everybody this morning that you're all welcome.”

Lotz called on Baptists to help tear down such walls as materialism, tribalism, gender, racism, poverty, paganism and secularism.

“We've been called to be wall-breakers,” he explained. “The tragedy of the conflict in the church today is that there is a secular society that's hurting and has no hope. And what are we doing? We are fighting about who believes what more.”

Lotz said believers can help break down walls “through prayer, through the cross, through love and through joy.”

The gospel involves lifting up Christ alone–“not the Baptist cause, not America, not colonialism, not imperialism,” Lotz insisted.

Detailing BWA's role in lifting up Christ around the globe, he said: “Your brothers and sisters in many countries of the world are suffering today for lack of religious freedom. That's why the Baptist World Alliance is concerned about religious freedom–not only for ourselves, but we want religious freedom for everybody.

“We can't defend religious freedom for ourselves if we're not willing to give it to others of other traditions.

“We want our Hindu and Muslim and Buddhist brothers and sisters to have freedom. But we also want the freedom to tell them, 'If you want peace and if you want hope, you've got to come to Jesus Christ, because he is the source of all hope.'”

Issuing a call for Baptist unity, Lotz urged Baptists to “become a loving people.”

“How can a world hear the gospel when we're filled with hatred, bitterness and anger and we're not loving?” he asked.

“We need to love everyone as Baptists, whether we're on the right or the left, in the middle–all these dumb terms we've got. We've got to love people into the kingdom.

“We need the Baptist World Alliance so we can listen to our brothers and sisters overseas who are breaking down walls and suffering to teach us what it means to preach the gospel. Let's break down the walls.”

Greg Warner of Associated Baptist Press contributed to this story.

“We did not come together to tell you what to believe, but we came to affirm what we do believe, and that is that Jesus Christ is our Lord and that he is our unity.”

Posted: 7/09/04

Faithful can help media set the record straight

By Marv Knox

Editor

BIRMINGHAM, Ala.–Although the media often “miss the story” when religion and politics make the news, people of faith can respond to set the record straight, according to the editors of Associated Baptist Press.

The challenge will be acute this year, since so many stories mix religion and politics, ABP Executive Editor Greg Warner told participants in a seminar during the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship general assembly.

Rob Marus, Washington bureau chief for the independent news service, cited three primary reasons why religion-and-politics stories are not reported adequately:

Journalists' inexperience or unfamiliarity with religious topics.

While critics often claim the secular media is less religious than the general population, surveys show 80 percent of journalists have a religious background, Marus said. But they still don't understand key details of religion stories, he added.

Ogburn leads workshop Tom Ogburn, Dallas-based associate coordinator for volunteer and partnership missions with CBF, leads a workshop at the CBF general assembly on developing a local-church missions strategy. The three key goals are to make strategy personal, priority and pervasive, he suggests.

For example, Judge Roy Moore made international news with his battle to retain a Ten Commandments monument in the Alabama Supreme Court building.

The media seldom questioned Moore's assertion that the monument expressed statements “generally accepted by culture,” Marus said. However, Moore's monument contained only the Protestant King James Version of the Ten Commandments, leaving out Catholic and Jewish translations, which are different.

Secular newspapers have tended to report same-sex marriage as an issue that pits “all the Christians against crazy liberal secularists,” Marus noted. But only one story, in the Washington Post, reported on Christians who oppose same-sex marriage on theological grounds but differentiate that from their legal understanding of the situation, he said.

Journalists' laziness and/or deadline pressure.

Journalists, particularly broadcasters, often fall into the trap of looking for easy soundbytes rather than digging deep to understand a story, Marus charged.

The Roy Moore/Ten Commandments story typically has been cast as “Christians vs. atheists,” he said.

“Very few reported about other Christians who have theological and legal reasons for opposing Moore,” he added.

He pointed to a broadcast by an Alabama television station containing extensive charges that Moore was the victim of a “coup” and only one brief paraphrase of a judge calling the charge untrue.

Willful bias for or against a religious perspective.

“You see this particularly on talk radio and from pundits on TV news programs that have a strong agenda,” Marus said.

To illustrate, he cited a story that discussed how Assyrian Christians suffered under Saddam Hussein's regime without ever mentioning Christians experienced more religious freedom under Saddam than did Shiite Muslims or Muslim Kurds and Turkmen.

Warner urged believers to challenge the bias they see in the media. He offered four suggestions.

First, write letters to the editor, he suggested, noting almost all newspapers publish readers' letters, and some broadcast outlets also air letters.

Second, get to know the religion editors and writers at their newspapers, he said. Also link the editors and writers to pastors and other religious leaders who could provide balancing perspectives on much of the news.

Third, write an article for the opinion-editorial page. “If you're a good writer, pitch an op-ed piece to your local newspaper in response to a story you've read that you thought was inaccurately covered,” Warner added, noting this is a good way to provide specific, nuanced information to counter misleading or false reports.

Finally, “pitch stories to your local news sources about local religious believers who might have a surprising or different view on religion-and-politics issues,” he urged.

Posted: 7/09/04

Networking, collaborating fellowships
on rise, speaker tells congregational leaders

By Kirsten Pasha

Associated Baptist Press

BIRMINGHAM, Ala (ABP)– “Lord, help us to become more of what you have already made us to be.”

Several hundred church leaders from around the United States gathered to explore what this prayer means for congregations in a time when mainline denominational churches are dying and independent evangelical churches are experiencing a surge.

Craig Van Gelder, professor at Luther Seminary in St. Paul, Minn., uttered that prayer five times during the five-hour seminar he led at the Congregational Leadership Institute during the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship general assembly.

“The church is a marvelous creation, both holy and human,” Van Gelder said. “What the church does flows out of what it is. … You have to go back to nature. What has God created?”

Van Gelder, a member of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, said the average age of ELCA members is in the 50s, and other Christian denominations, like Presbyterians, also are following that pattern.

Denominations with fellowships that network, share resources, collaborate and inspire each other will overtake mainline denominations that follow traditional models, he predicted.

Van Gelder said congregations often follow flawed models that take the focus off the only necessary points–creation and the cross.

The New Testament presents 96 images and analogies of God's people as a church, but the idea of community prevails, he said. "You can only know who you are when you're in community. Christians gather; they want to be in each other's presence. You cannot be a mature Christian alone," he said.

God blesses diversity, and the church brings unity, Van Gelder said.

But for Loren Pinkney of Raleigh, N.C., a recent graduate of Campbell University Divinity School, racial diversity within churches has not been welcomed.

Pinkney, who is black, told the CBF seminar that during his search for a job, many opportunities at Anglo churches have closed because of his color.

“If the Spirit of God crosses all boundaries, obviously we're not listening to the Spirit,” Pinkney said.

The Spirit, which came upon 120 people at Pentecost, allowed the glory of God to take up residence on earth through God's people, Van Gelder said. The Spirit of God is “restless” and takes the gospel to “everyone, everywhere and addresses everything.”

Surprisingly, “takes” is the most important word of that sentence, according to Van Gelder.

Fewer than 5 percent of Christian congregations use God as an acting subject–he's usually used as an object, he noted.

But “every square inch of creation belongs to God,” and it's his Spirit that drives the church, Van Gelder said.

Recent trends of the evangelical church help predict the church's future, he added.

Forty percent of Generation X pastors have no formal theological education, he reported. Although God has provided spiritual leaders, most of them are not coming from Christian colleges.

Seminaries must stop thinking traditionally as they recruit students, he insisted.

Also among the younger generation, Van Gelder said, people between the ages of 18 and 28 are very spiritual, but are the “most disaffected from institutional religion.”

Michael Kellett, a youth minister and student at Baptist Theological Seminary in Richmond, Va., said he has witnessed the regression of young people in his church.

“The church does a poor job educating youth and engaging them in the congregation,” Kellett said.

“When they go off to college, churches don't keep up with them. And when they come back, single-adult ministries are (rare). They have no place to be.”

The future of the church depends on the limitations Christians put on God and the imagination they have for God's plan for them, Van Gelder said.

“God is not going to grant us any more power than we already possess,” he said.

“We have not looked fully into what God has already created.”

Posted: 7/09/04

Jesus the foundation for fellowship in CBF, coordinator says

By Marv Knox

Editor

BIRMINGHAM, Ala.–“Fellowship” is a defining principle for the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, CBF Coordinator Daniel Vestal declared at the organization's general assembly.

Although CBF participants are separated by geography and involved in autonomous churches, they're organized as a fellowship, a collection of Christian friends “unlike a convention structure,” Vestal said.

He cited four principles of the CBF's fellowship:

“The foundation of our fellowship is Jesus Christ,” he insisted, noting each individual who affiliates with the CBF has responded to the call of Christ upon her or his life.

CBF Coordinator Daniel Vestal and Linda Davis-Mitchum, a CBF Leadership Scholar, pray during a session of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship general assembly in Birmingham, Ala. (Stanley Leary)

“We are Christian. This is the tie that binds our hearts together,” he said.

“But don't we need something else?” he asked, referencing creedal statements and authoritative structures that provide the stack-poles for other Christian groups.

“The answer is it is our common experience of faith and relationship to Jesus as Lord that is the basis of our Fellowship,” he responded. “Is that enough? I contend that it is. … We find our center unapologetically in Jesus the Christ.”

'”Our vision is to be the presence of Christ to one another and the world,” he added.

“This vision calls forth a kind of self-sacrifice and surrender to God that is not easy,” he acknowledged, citing several challenges to that goal.

“Can we be the presence of Christ to those with whom we differ? This seems to be the acid test of fellowship,” he said, noting CBF people differ over such topics as the war in Iraq, homosexuality and abortion, Demo-cratic and Republican politics, and embryonic stem-cell research.

"Can we be the presence of Christ to one another and this world when we are different from one another?" he added. "We devalue those who are different," but God blends their differences together to make "a symphony" that would not be possible if all Christians were alike.

“Can we be the presence of Christ to those who are difficult?” he queried, pointing out Jesus said his followers do not do well if they love only those who love them.

He urged CBF people to refrain from controlling and manipulating others, as well as to open themselves to others, intently focusing on each other as they relate.

'”Our mission is to serve,” he said, asking God to help the CBF never to become a hierarchical structure that uses others for its own gain.

“We exist to serve,” he charged. “We are a fellowship whose mission is to serve one another, to serve churches, to serve the poor.”

Admitting the CBF is not perfect, Vestal said the call to service transcends weaknesses and demands involvement for the sake of others.

"This Fellowship is worthy of your love and your care. It needs your love and your care," he said. "CBF needs pastors and laypeople … who want to serve" the poor, the disadvantaged, the people across the nation and around the world who do not have Christ in their lives.

“Our commitment is together,” he reported.

“We want to be and do all this together,” he said. “I believe the time is right for some new convergences. God is a god of convergences.”

He pointed to two significant “convergences” for the CBF–its recent membership in the Baptist World Alliance, a grouping of 211 Baptist denominations around the world, and a proposal to become a founding member of Christian Churches Together in the USA, a new ecumenical movement.

“It is time for Christians to converge together in the public square,” he said.

“We want to care about the poor, and we want to care for the poor. The time is right for people to converge, … to work for peace and prosperity, for justice and reconciliation.

“There has never been an hour when there was a greater need for Christian convergence.”

Christian unity will express Christian love, which “is able to bring permanent hope and peace to this world,” he said.

In another address, CBF Moderator Cynthia Holmes described how she is thankful for the organization.

Holmes, an attorney and member of Overland Baptist Church in St. Louis, has been the CBF's top elected leader the past year.

“I'm thankful to claim the label 'Baptist,'” Holmes said, noting CBF has the opportunity to champion endangered Baptist principles, such as soul competence, local church autonomy, religious liberty and freedom of conscience.

Holmes said she is thankful 226 churches joined the ranks of CBF congregations this past year, and that individuals felt God's leadership to make special gifts of $2 million and $5 million to the organization.

She expressed thanks that CBF not only helped provide support for about a dozen seminaries but also provided leadership scholarships to 77 students, and that the organization received a grant to create leadership networks that involve 350 ministers.

Other topics of gratitude included the Fellowship's partnerships with news organizations and ethics agencies, as well as ecumenical coalitions.

Holmes noted she is grateful the CBF has endorsed 414 chaplains, sent 151 career missionaries, involved 2,500 volunteers in its Rural Poverty Initiative to minister in the nation's poorest counties.

She also expressed gratitude that CBF partners with other Baptist groups, such as the Hispanic Baptist Convention of Texas, the Baptist Medical-Dental Fellowship, the All-Africa Baptist Fellowship, the Protestant Hour, the hunger- and poverty-fighting groups World Vision and Call to Renewal, the Baptist World Alliance and Christian Churches Together.

Posted: 7/09/04

Baptist Women in Ministry affirm
continuing need for organization

By Sandi Villarreal

Associated Baptist Press

BIRMINGHAM, Ala., (ABP)–Baptist Women in Ministry has affirmed the need for its existence, despite concerns brought up last year that the group is outdated.

This year's theme, “Rooted in the Past, Grounded for the Future,” emphasized the need for women ministers to mentor other women who are called into the ministry. The group met prior to the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship's annual general assembly.

“The need is more than clear for some kind of organization for things like public advocacy and helping make the connections for women” in ministry, said Eileen Campbell-Reed, a member of the group's transition team.

The transition team was established last year to determine, among other things, whether the group should continue to exist.

The team reached its findings through surveys sent out to male and female clergy and laity asking the questions: What are three urgent needs of Baptist women ministers? What is one important thing Baptist Women in Ministry has done for you? And what are the two most helpful things Baptist Women in Ministry could do for you?

The initial results of the survey found the most important need among women ministers is to find places to follow their call and have a networking organization to aid their efforts.

“A top need is that women get jobs,” Campbell-Reed said. “And another high need is for mentors who have jobs.”

In response to the survey question of what are the most significant needs of Baptist women in ministry, Campbell-Reed read one answer that she said expressed the feelings of many of the respondents: “To reach a place where we don't need to be designated, that is, that women ministers would be so common in Baptist life that there wouldn't need to be a special designation. Churches need to hire women pastors, not just say they support women in ministry.”

Suzanah Raffield, coordinator for the Birmingham-based Global Women, also emphasized the need for mentors. She preached at the Baptist Women in Ministry worship service and spoke of her experiences as she was mentored early in her career.

“It is our job to position others to see farther,” she said. “God has not given us the choice to remain silent.”

She told of her disappointment with certain groups that encourage women not to speak up. “What good is it to the kingdom of God when part of the body is encouraged to be silent?”

She also spoke of her difficulty remaining true to her self rather than adapting to her idea of what a minister should be. “One of the biggest lessons I learned (from being mentored) was that who I was as a woman was who I needed to be as a minister,” she said.

Posted: 7/09/04

Patterson reaffirms allegations that BWA
too open to gays, too anti-American in tone

By Robert Marus

Associated Baptist Press

WASHINGTON (ABP)–A Southern Baptist Convention leader reacted to charges that he slandered the Baptist World Alliance in a speech by affirming his complaints against the worldwide Baptist body–and issuing more.

Paige Patterson, president of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth and a member of a study committee that recommended the SBC break ties with the BWA, issued a statement on the controversy surrounding a speech he gave at the SBC annual meeting in Indianapolis urging messengers to vote in favor of leaving the alliance.

In it, Patterson cited “a continual leftward drift” in BWA as justification for the SBC's breaking ties. As an example of the alleged drift, Patterson noted that BWA continues to be affiliated with the American Baptist Churches USA, which has accepted a new regional association in the Pacific Northwest that contains some gay-friendly churches.

Although American Baptists' general board is officially on record as opposing homosexuality, Patterson accused the ABC of being too open to gay-friendly churches. The ABC defers to local churches' decisions on sexual-orientation issues. The SBC expels churches it views as “affirming” or “promoting” homosexuality.

BWA General Secretary Denton Lotz–who is a Southern Baptist–released a statement saying Patterson's charges “slandered” the alliance. BWA spokesperson Wendy Ryan said Southern Baptist leaders never had raised the homosexuality issue as a criticism of BWA prior to Patterson's speech.

But Patterson said it was one of many important issues leading to the recommendation to break ties.

“Southern Baptists have not said that the BWA promotes gay marriage or homosexuality,” Patterson said. “We have said, based on a press release from one of (BWA's denominational member) unions, that some unions now tolerate churches which welcome practitioners of homosexual behavior.

“We have also said that if the BWA tolerates a convention or union which is accepting of churches with this anti-biblical agenda, then we can no longer lend our name or resources to that alliance,” Patterson said.

Lotz also dismissed as “ridiculous” SBC leaders' charges that the BWA has given a platform to “anti-American” sentiments expressed by international Baptists without allowing Americans to respond.

“We are citizens of the kingdom of God and loyal citizens of our own nations. As Baptists who believe in the authority of the word of God, we believe that all of us must be open to the prophetic voice from God as it applies to our nations and to the world,” Lotz said.

“We believe that Baptists should be good and patriotic citizens of their countries, but patriotism must always be limited to and judged by the Bible's call for ultimate loyalty to Christ who is above all!”

Patterson said his criticism was that BWA leaders provided insufficient opportunity for Americans to respond to what he perceived as anti-American sentiments at BWA meetings.

“No charge has been made that the BWA is anti-American or anti-Southern Baptist,” he said. “Those sentiments are not infrequently stated, but we are all big boys here and can handle criticism. That to which we have objected is that when these charges come, no effort has been made in those same forums for participants to hear the other side or receive an answer that might put matters in a different light.”

Patterson also raised the issue of BWA tolerating member bodies that support women as pastors. He said that refuted Lotz's claim that BWA was a “conservative, evangelical” fellowship.

“The BWA says that it does not advocate the role of female pastors,” he said. “But neither does it call for a biblical position on the matter. In ways sometimes subtle, sometimes overt, some leadership in the BWA has, in fact, sanctioned such practices. Again, that is their right and privilege–just as it is our right and mandate to hold to a biblical position and not lend name and resources to the promotion of views that we honestly view as antithetical to biblical truth.”

Patterson also said BWA had repeatedly provided a platform at its events for “liberal and neo-orthodox presenters” such as former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa, and American Baptist sociologist Tony Campolo.

“Southern Baptists have no intention of engaging in any further tit for tat with BWA leadership,” Patterson concluded. “There is a world to reach for Christ. Southern Baptists shall now turn our attention to that. We would risk the suggestion that the BWA do the same.”