Posted: 11/07/03

Waco firefighters use a ladder truck to access the roof of the new Baylor science building, where a fire broke out.

Fire damages science building under construction at Baylor; work goes on

WACO–The massive science building under construction at Baylor University sustained about $250,000 in damages due to a fire Oct. 31, according to Waco Fire Marshal Jerry Hawk.

Fire damage was limited to the roof, although smoke and water damaged other parts of the 500,000-square-foot building, Hawk told the Waco Tribune-Herald.

President Robert Sloan said the $103-million building should open on schedule in fall 2004. Faculty are projected to occupy new offices in the building next summer.

No one was injured in the fire.

Ten Waco fire units were called to the scene about 4:22 a.m. Firefighters were able to contain the fire, which investigators said might have been started by a temporary electrical source. The fire was isolated to the fifth floor, and firewall in the roof of the fourth floor kept it from spreading to the lower floors of the building.

Posted: 11/07/03

100 mayors support Baylor's Bush library bid

WACO–Baylor University's quest to become home to the future George W. Bush presidential library has received the endorsement of 100 Central Texas mayors.

The mayors of communities in 23 counties affixed their signatures to a letter sent to the White House.

“This region already is honored by your residence and frequent presence in Crawford, and the placement of your presidential library at Baylor will allow us to be of service to you and help prepare future generations of leaders,” the letter stated.

Baylor administrator Tommye Lou Davis, who is heading the university's library campaign, said Baylor's location in Waco is “ideally suited to facilitate access from across the state.”

The mayors also said to Bush: “As the oldest university in Texas, Baylor has a strong tradition of preparing young leaders of character who have a deep understanding of their discipline and a broader awareness of their responsibility to serve their community and nation. The location of your presidential library in Central Texas will further this heritage in a truly unique fashion, and we urge you to give careful consideration to Baylor University's proposal.”

Among the mayors signing the letter were Linda Ethridge of Waco, William Jones of Temple, Maureen Jouett of Killeen, Will Lowrance of Hillsboro and John Moser of Stephenville.

Posted: 11/07/03

Bivocational pastor of the year credited with helping other pastors

By George Henson

Staff Writer

DALLAS–Resources, confidants and members can sometimes be in short supply for bivocational pastors, but one pastor's efforts to help with all those situations earned him the title of exemplary pastor of the year.

Mark Dunn, pastor of Crestview Baptist Church in Dallas, was the driving force behind Allied Baptist Churches of Dallas, a consortium of small churches with bivocational pastors. He also is an adjunct professor in the Mary Crowley College of Christian Faith at Dallas Baptist University.

Mark Dunn, pastor of Crestview Baptist Church in Dallas, and his family.

There is no question he is a pastor first, Dunn said. “I'm called to preach, but I'm not called to teach. I can teach and I do it well, but my calling is to the pastorate.”

While Dunn is certain of his calling, he admits after being fired from another church he did for a while have questions.

“It was a dark time,” he explained. “I thought I had done some good ministry things to reach a part of the city that didn't really have another strong Baptist work, and yet I was without a church.”

Coming out of that situation and not immediately securing a new position caused a great deal of introspection, he said. “I questioned it to the core of my call. But I now realize God had to rehabilitate me to show me what he had for me.”

After more than a year, he was hired as interim children's minister at Gaston Oaks Baptist Church in Dallas.

Dunn said he approached the children's ministry there as a pastor would with a focus on outreach and discipleship.

While he enjoyed success there, even that sparked internal alarms, he said. “I thought, 'If I do real well here, no one will ever call me as a pastor again.'”

He later was called as pastor at Crestview.

“I now see God was there with me every step of the way, which I knew, but I can see it much clearer now,” Dunn explained.

His congregation averages an attendance of less than 50 on Sunday mornings, but Dunn enjoys the challenge of being a bivocational pastor.

It is a challenge, though, he emphasized. “Bivocational ministry is the most unappreciated and misunderstood part of ministry. Many times bivocational pastors are seen as undereducated or undercommitted, not really called to the pastorate, or someone who hasn't gotten real good direction on how to pursue their call.”

Despite being named the top bivocational pastor in the state by the Texas Bivocational Ministers and Spouses Association, Dunn doesn't consider himself a true bivocational pastor because his second job takes less time than many other bivocationals experience.

Other bivocational pastors serve for less money and sacrifice much more family time, sleep time and work time than he does, he insisted.

Dunn sees his teaching at DBU and his preaching at Crestview working well together.

“The pastorate makes me more people-oriented, and teaching leads me to dig deeper in biblical study that makes for a richer preaching experience,” he said. “I think the preaching and teaching are complimentary in my life.”

Dunn also serves as the representative of bivocational pastors on the BGCT's new WorldConneX mission board. In addition to that, he serves as founder and head of the Allied Baptist Churches of Dallas, a passion for him.

“Most small churches or churches with bivocational pastors are just barely making it,” Dunn said. “But if we all share what we have, we strengthen one another.”

The alliance is made up of six area churches and a few more pastors who are interested in the concept. The group has joined forces to present an Easter musical.

“The people have just loved it,” Dunn said. “When people are standing on their toes to sing because they have such a charge because they are seeing their choir loft full for the first time in 25 years, it is exciting.”

So far, the group is made up of Crestview, First Baptist Church in Pleasant Grove, Irving Baptist Fellowship, Valley View Baptist Church in Dallas and Faith Baptist Church in Duncanville. “We're growing by feeling our way in the dark,” Dunn said.

Joint youth activities and a summer camp also have been a boon to churches' young people, Dunn said. “Since they knew this would be a permanent type of association and they would be seeing these same people at different events throughout the year, the kids have put in extra effort to visit with one another and establish relationships.”

The get-togethers have made the youth area the fastest growing segment of some of the churches involved.

The idea, however, is not necessarily to find a program that will lead to large numerical growth for the churches involved, he said. “I don't have it in my mind that we would surge to several hundred people coming each week, but that we would move toward health, harmony and focus on God's mission.”

He also hopes to create an awareness of the needs of small churches.

“Programs designed for 125 people don't cut it here,” Dunn said. “Many times, we can't afford the module, and if it calls for a lot of volunteers, we don't have the people.”

He hopes to see programs developed for small churches that still maintain the same level of excellence as materials for larger churches.

This is crucial to evangelizing people in the inner city, he insisted. “Nobody's building churches in the inner city. They're moving out and pulling people from the inner city with them. We're just trying to pull them down the block.”

Posted: 11/07/03

Prayer spurs smaller church to revival

By John Hall

Texas Baptist Communications

DALLAS–Church members across Texas often greet each other with a smile and handshake on Sunday mornings. Crestview Baptist Church gets on its knees to welcome God.

As many as 30 people, but usually about 10, gather every Sunday morning to usher in the Lord's day and pray for God to move through the upcoming services, according to Pastor Mark Dunn.

The prayer time is purposely steered away from immediate personal needs and toward the church, Dunn continued. It sets the tone for everyone involved and prepares their hearts for worship. The prayers also let God know the congregation wants to make a difference in lives, he said.

Once a month, the group meets in the sanctuary. Members travel around the sanctuary touching the pulpit and pews, praying for the specific person who will be there during the service.

“It doesn't look very exciting, but it's very deep,” Dunn said. “It's compelling to the people. They want to see God's work today. It's not 'bless me.' We're praying for the church.”

Prayer has helped the 40-member church adapt to a transitioning neighborhood, the Dallas Baptist University professor reported. An attitude of expecting God to work has helped create a welcoming community of believers that is open to newcomers.

“The love among the people has just been outstanding,” Dunn said. “That's hard to communicate to the world. They receive people and love them. It's like family ought to be.”

The morning meditations also serve as the source of the church's recent spiritual revival, according to Dunn, who is in his seventh year at the church. The pastor recently helped network five small churches to put on a series of revivals.

“None of us could afford evangelists. Even if a love offering could be taken, it wouldn't be very much,” he explained.

Together, the churches held five revivals in five weeks. Congregation members combined to form a 30-person choir that performed each Monday evening. Each pastor spoke during a service at another church. Several of the pastors were present at each service, lending support and encouragement.

Crestview Baptist Church surrounded each service with prayer, asking God to move. Although the churches did not pass out decision cards, leaders witnessed decisions in four of the five services, and at least one person made a profession of faith in Christ.

But revival truly occurred during the prayer times, Dunn said. Church members became focused on reaching people with the gospel and moving their faith to the center of their lives.

“Those prayer times are where the revival happened,” he said. “The service was really a celebration.”

Posted: 11/07/03

Baptist Briefs

Patterson sent letter to IMB trustees. The "Vision Assessment" document written by a Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary professor and distributed to trustees of the Southern Baptist International Mission Board carried a cover letter from Paige Patterson, president of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. After reporting in last week's issue about the document, which is critical of the current IMB administration, the Baptist Standard obtained a copy of Patterson's cover letter, in which he said, "The critical importance of this paper, especially in light of the conservative movement in the Southern Baptist Convention, will be apparent to you as you read it." Meanwhile, IMB spokesman Larry Cox told Associated Baptist Press Keith Eitel's criticisms are "groundless accusations" and will be addressed by trustees this week.

ABC faces missions shortfall. American Baptists' global missions agency faces a $3 million budget shortfall next year and could be forced to recall missionaries if finances don't improve. The International Ministries division of American Baptist Churches in the USA issued a news release Nov. 3 reporting "a serious financial challenge," brought about because giving by American Baptist churches has not kept up with growth of missionary work. Hector Cortez, who took over as International Ministries' executive director in August, blamed losses in the stock market and a decades-long decline in denominational giving as factors behind the agency's financial woes.

Posted: 11/07/03

Buckner and church partner to provide food service

By Russ Dilday

Buckner News Service

DALLAS–A line of cars winds snake-like through the parking lot of First Baptist Church of Urbandale, wrapping around the block.

They're lined up to receive food stacked in bulk on 10 pallets at the front steps of the church–fresh vegetables, juice, cereal and soft drinks.

Cars line up near First Baptist Church of Urbandale for the monthly food distribution that is staffed by a wide variety of volunteers.

“Two!” shouts Jackie Belt, manager of the Buckner Crisis Relief Center, to volunteers as the next car in line pulls up. Belt's administrative assistant, Sharon Hedrick, takes down the occupants' information as they pass by. The shouted number indicates the number of families represented by those in the car. They will receive two families' worth of distributed food.

“One!” he calls out as the following vehicle containing a mother and three children pulls up. As if on cue, the gray sky opens up in a light downpour, drenching Belt, Hedrick and volunteers. But the occupants inside each car stay dry. They are only required to open their trunks, where the volunteers stack the food.

Belt coordinates the Food for Families program the second Friday of each month, distributing the food to pre-screened families who have submitted requests and have been approved for vouchers, based on need.

“I work with the North Texas Food Bank to recruit volunteers, line up the food drops, distribute the food, work with the church on arranging the parking lot for all the cars and oversee the cleanup process so we don't leave it a mess for the church,” he explained. “We serve about 150 families representing close to 450 to 500 people on average.”

By the end of this afternoon, 37 volunteers had served 203 families representing 809 people.

Along with the location provided by First Baptist Church of Urbandale, Food for Families is a partnership between Buckner Children & Family Services, Sharing Life Ministries of Mesquite, Southeast Dallas Emergency Food Center, Pathway of Life, and The Family Place.

Each organization provides at least two volunteers for the distribution. This summer, Buckner Children's Home residents and houseparents helped.

Among the most active volunteers are students at Dallas Academy, where Karen Kinsella is assistant director.

This community service provides her students lessons in giving, she said. “I know without giving to the community, the world doesn't work very well. I want (these students) to understand that. These kids all have a pretty good lifestyle, and it's really important for them to see the other side of what's going on out there in the world and to know they can make a contribution in ways other than money–giving of their time, giving of themselves.

Through its partnership with Buckner Children & Family Services and other area ministries, First Baptist Church of Urbandale has extended its outreach and now provides basic food support for as many as 200 families each month. (Russ Dilday/Buckner Photos)

“This is a classroom,” she said. “They may not remember the algebraic equations they are learning two or three years from now, but maybe they'll remember the lesson of learning to give to other people.”

Those receiving the food also learn something about the compassion of the Christian community, affirmed one of the recipients, Mary.

“Oh, Lord, it means so much to me,” she said. “I lost my job about two years ago, and they have helped my whole family. I have two granddaughters that live with me. I'm getting food for my friend Bernice. She has five kids staying with her–her daughter got on some drugs–and she doesn't have a car.”

These scenes of need make an impression on the student volunteers, said Dallas Academy student Jeff Earnshaw.

“Where there's a lot of kids, that's the worst. One lady looked like she would be a senior in high school, and she had three kids, and I didn't see a father in the car. That got to me. She looked my age and has three kids. It looked like she was out there on her own.”

Posted: 11/07/03

New Texas-based seminary names
first four faculty; Corley to lead

By Mark Wingfield

Managing Editor

DALLAS–Four faculty members have resigned from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary to become the inaugural faculty of the B.H. Carroll Theological Institute.

However, founders insist the new seminary has not been formed in reaction to changing leadership at Southwestern and will not seek to draw students away from Southwestern or other traditional seminaries.

Read reactions to establishment of the seminary below.

Bruce Corley, former dean of theology at Southwestern and former faculty member at Baylor University's Truett Seminary, has resigned as a New Testament professor at Southwestern and will become president of the Carroll Institute, announced Russell Dilday, former Southwestern president and an organizer of the new enterprise.

Inaugural faculty of the Carroll Institute are Bruce Corley, Stan Moore, Budd Smith and Jim Spivey.

Corley will be joined by Jim Spivey, Budd Smith and Stan Moore.

Spivey, who has taught church history 16 years at Southwestern, will teach historical theology at the Carroll Institute. At Southwestern, he also has been administrative dean for the seminary's Houston campus.

Smith, who has taught Christian education at Southwestern for 24 years, will teach in that same field in his new assignment. At Southwestern, he also has directed the Oxford Studies Program.

Moore, a former missionary to Brazil, has taught church music at Southwestern for 16 years. He currently is acting dean of the School of Church Music there.

Dilday and Scotty Gray, a retired administrator at Southwestern, announced the first faculty appointments at a news conference Nov. 4 at Park Cities Baptist Church in Dallas.

Park Cities will become the first of what organizers hope will become 100 teaching churches–the backbone of the Carroll Institute's concept. Numerous other churches have expressed interest in the concept, but no other agreements have been finalized, Dilday said.

However, churches currently served by the 1,400 doctor of philosophy graduates of Southwestern Seminary are “the kind of churches we're targeting,” he added.

Neither Dilday nor Gray will draw compensation from the seminary, although Dilday has been given the honorary title of chancellor. Gray has served as director of the seminary during its initial development.

Jim Denison, pastor of Park Cities Baptist Church, explained the concept of a teaching church tied to seminary studies will provide a more practical education than an institutional seminary.

“This is a new way of doing theological education that at the same time returns us to our roots,” Denison said. He and the other organizers cited the original vision of B.H. Carroll, who as pastor of First Baptist Church in Waco founded the precursor to Southwestern Seminary as a department of Baylor University. Carroll became the founding president of Southwestern when it separated from Baylor and moved to Fort Worth in the early 20th century.

This happened in the context of educating ministerial students within the local church, Denison said. “We are returning to his vision and advancing his vision.”

Ironically, when Baylor University formed Truett Seminary in 1991, it was hailed as a fulfillment of Carroll's vision of placing a seminary within a university. More recently, Southwestern Seminary President Paige Patterson in his inaugural address pledged to tie Southwestern to the founding vision of Carroll.

Although Carroll's name and vision have been tapped in various ways, this is the first time an institution has been named for him.

The Carroll Institute is needed, organizers said, because of its different approach to theological education and because existing seminaries are not producing enough trained ministers to meet demands.

“In the past 20 years, the number of Southern Baptist churches has grown by 17 percent, but the number of ministers has grown only 10 percent,” explained a document distributed to reporters. “The number of SBC seminary graduates per church has declined 30 percent. The number of SBC seminary graduates per member of SBC churches has declined 45 percent.”

Although the institute will have a small headquarters somewhere in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex, its primary work will be done through affiliated teaching churches. Ideally, organizers said, students will be engaged in ministry roles with those and other churches concurrent with their studies.

“Carroll Institute will not aim at recruiting students who desire to attend one of the residential seminaries already in existence,” according to information given to reporters. “It will recruit students who desire to continue ministering in their own local congregations while pursuing theological education at a teaching church very near their home base.”

Instruction will be delivered in four ways, the organizers said:

Traditional classroom settings with face-to-face interaction between teachers and students.

Live electronic instruction via the Internet, akin to distance-learning concepts in use in many universities.

Online classes.

Electronic correspondence studies.

Classes will begin in fall 2004, and tuition will cost $100 per credit hour. The rate will be the same for both Southern Baptist and non-Southern Baptist students.

The business plan calls for reaching 500 to 1,000 students enrolled in the Metroplex alone, with 200 to 300 at each additional teaching church site.

The institute will develop both a physical library and a virtual library, Dilday and Gray said. Students also will access other existing libraries in or near where they live.

The institute's primary collection received an initial boost from Eddie Belle Newport, widow of John Newport, longtime academic vice president at Southwestern. The 4,892-volume Newport library will be housed at the institute's headquarters.

In addition, the Carroll Institute library will include 500 volumes donated by Lois Hendricks, widow of William Hendricks, longtime theology professor at Southwestern Seminary, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and Texas Christian University's Brite Divinity School.

Six other retired faculty members are “in the process of making their libraries available to us,” reported Carl Wrotenbery, retired director of libraries at Southwestern.

Full implementation of the Carroll Institute's business plan, including endowments, will require $35 million to $50 million, Gray said. The initial cost is estimated at $8 million to $10 million.

Required funding for the first year will be about $400,000, Dilday said. To date, about half that amount has been raised, he added, including one large gift and a number of smaller and mid-sized gifts.

The Carroll Institute plans to remain an autonomous Baptist institution that will “seek to build collaborative and collegial relationships with all Southern Baptists, with the Southern Baptist denomination as a whole, with state conventions and with local churches,” the press statement said.

Dilday and Denison insisted the Carroll Institute will not serve only moderate Baptist churches disaffected by the rightward shift in the SBC.

“We do not see this as a moderate seminary,” Denison said, adding that the institute will not become “politically identified.”

Information given to reporters said the “sole authority for faith, practice and teaching” in the institute will be “Jesus Christ, whose will is revealed in the holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments. The confessional position of Carroll Institute is the consensus of opinion concerning those articles of the Christian faith and practice that have been most surely held and expressed in historic Baptist principles and practices.”

Articles of incorporation filed with the Texas Secretary of State May 1 list three men as directors of the corporation: Gray, Herbert Howard and William Latham, all of Fort Worth.

A strategic plan document lists 16 people as members of the strategic planning group that has birthed the Carroll Institute. In addition to Dilday, Denison, Gray, Howard and Latham, they are Tom Chism, Tom Coston, Robert Feather, Tom Hill, Cheri Jordan, Hilda Moffett, Joan Trew, Fran Wilson, Michael Wright, Wrotenbery and Jerry Yowell.

The institute also announced a website–www.bhcti.org.

A formal launch of the institution, along with announcements about a headquarters location and more teaching churches, will occur in January, Dilday said.

Reactions mixed to Carroll Institute launch

Paige Patterson, president of Southwestern Seminary: “People are, of course, free to employ whatever name they wish. Whether this is done with integrity depends upon whether the principles of the one whose name is thereby invoked are honored and espoused. While one may question the justice of using the name of the founder of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in a competing effort against that seminary, the real test will be whether they have honored Carroll's name or just used it.”

Paul Powell, dean of Truett Seminary at Baylor University: “The need for theological education is vast and this is a bold experiment. These are my friends and I wish them God's favor.”

Charles Wade, executive director of the Baptist General Convention of Texas: “I welcome this new paradigm of seminary education represented by the B.H. Carroll Institute in our ongoing effort to train effective Christian leaders, biblically sound pastors, passionate gospel preachers, evangelists, missionaries and ministers who value our Baptist heritage. The leadership announced are men who have contributed greatly to Texas Baptist life. We look forward to working with them and commend them to our churches.”

Posted: 11/07/03


See second cartoon here

"Next time, give us more meat. You left milk stains on the carpet."

Posted: 11/07/03

Designated gifts boost CBF despite drop in church giving

ATLANTA–As projected, undesignated gifts to the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship fell short of budget goals for the 2002-2003 fiscal year, requiring a $513,000 dip into reserve funds for operations.

However, designated giving pushed total revenue for the CBF to a record $24.5 million, according to audited figures released by CBF officials.

Total revenue increased 15.1 percent, but contributions from churches fell 2.1 percent.

“We knew this was going to be a down year, the mid-year contribution numbers confirmed it, and we began making modifications and amending our plan early on,” said Jim Strawn, the Fellowship's chief financial officer. “Without that fiscally responsible action, the deficit would have been more.”

The CBF maintains operating reserves of $8.3 million, Strawn said.

Designated contributions increased 28 percent from the previous year, fueled by a Lilly Endowment grant for ministerial development and a $5 million anonymous gift.

The CBF's Global Missions Offering received $5.3 million, short of the $6.1 million goal.

The $5 million gift in April enabled the Fellowship to commission 18 new global missions field personnel at the general assembly in Charlotte, N.C., in June. Without that gift, which designated $4.2 million for global missions over the next three years, the Fellowship would not have been able to send new field personnel, officials said. The gift also included $500,000 designated for endowment for the CBF Church Benefits Board, $250,000 for church starts and $50,000 for a new, shared database system in the Atlanta Resource Center.

Gifts from churches and individuals in Texas to national CBF totaled $3.13 million, down slightly from the previous year's total of $3.14 million. Undesignated gifts from Texas totaled $1.4 million, while the Global Missions Offering received $1.32 million from Texas.

The number of churches contributing in Texas rose from 379 in fiscal year 2001-02 to 450 in fiscal year 2002-03. The number of individual contributors also rose from 609 in 2001-02 to 638 in 2002-03.

Nationwide, the number of churches contributing to the CBF increased for the fiscal year, and the number of individuals contributing also increased. More than 1,800 churches and 3,700 individuals made contributions to CBF in fiscal 2002-03, compared to 1,715 churches and 3,128 individuals in fiscal 2001-02.

Church counts are approximate because CBF of Florida began reporting church contributions mid-year and because CBF does not receive the names of churches that contribute through the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina. CBF also is a part of giving plans through the Baptist General Convention of Texas and the Baptist General Association of Virginia. Those two states provide church counts to CBF.

Posted: 11/07/03

Census tracks grandparents raising grandchildren

ALEXANDRIA, Va.–Nearly 6 million grandparents live in the same household with their grandchildren in the United States, and 40 percent of those grandparents are the primary caregivers for their grandchildren.

The data, based on the 2000 Census, was released by the Census Bureau at a Generations United Conference in Alexandria, Va.

One-third of grandparent caregivers live in “skipped generation” households where neither parent of the grandchildren is present.

The report, “Grandparents Living With Grandchildren: 2000,” shows the geographic distribution of grandparents living with grandchildren and serving as caregivers, as well as the length of time the grandparents cared for the grandchildren. The percentage of grandparent caregivers who live in poverty also is shown.

Among the report's highlights:

Almost all grandparents responsible for grandchildren were either the householder or the householder's spouse (94 percent).

Coresident grandparents younger than 60 were more likely to be grandparent caregivers than were grandparents age 60 and over.

Racial and ethnic differences in grandparent coresidence and caregiving were prominent. Although the majority of grandparents living with grandchildren were non-Hispanic white (2.7 million), they comprised only 2 percent of the non-Hispanic white population age 30 and over. By comparison, 6 percent to 10 percent of other racial and ethnic groups lived with their grandchildren.

Nineteen percent of grandparent caregivers were living in poverty in 1999. The highest proportion of grandparent caregivers in poverty was in the South (21 percent), and the lowest proportions were in the West (16 percent) and the Midwest (15 percent).

Posted: 11/07/03

Officials claim no underground church in China

WASHINGTON (RNS)–Leaders of government-sanctioned Protestant churches in China said Oct. 22 that “there are no underground churches in China” and dismissed reports of harassed Christians in the communist nation.

Officials from the China Christian Council and the Three-Self Patriotic Movement also agreed with Beijing labeling the Falun Gong movement an “evil cult” that must be stopped.

“The Chinese government is doing a better and better job of ensuring freedom of religious belief,” Cao Shengjie, president of the China Christian Council, said at a news conference at the Chinese Embassy. “If the government had not implemented this policy, the Christian church in China could not have had this development.”

Cao dismissed reports of a thriving but persecuted underground church that human rights groups say has been harassed by Chinese officials. Instead, she said, there are “only a limited number” of churches that have not registered with the government.

“In the final analysis, a church is a church, and there can be no underground or above ground between them,” Presbyter Ji Jianhong, chairman of the Three-Self Patriotic Movement, said through a translator.

U.S. officials disagree. Last May, Secretary of State Colin Powell named China a “country of particular concern” for its religious freedom policies, and the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom reported “widespread and serious abuses of the right to freedom of religion and belief in China.”

Paul Marshall, a senior fellow at the Center for Religious Freedom at Freedom House, a human rights watchdog group, estimated at least 25 million people belong to the underground churches, and “it could be double or triple that.”

“They are wrong on both counts,” Marshall said. “There is an underground church, and it is persecuted.”

Much of the concern by human rights groups has focused on the government's crackdown on the Falun Gong movement, which it labeled an “evil cult” that aims to subvert the government.

Cao said: “Falun Gong has nothing to do with the question of religious belief. It is an evil cult that has committed many crimes against the Chinese people.”

Both Cao and Ji said Western churches must not try to establish missionary outposts in China.

Posted: 11/07/03

Scholars see shift in church-state views

By Kristen Campbell

Religion News Service

WASHINGTON (RNS)–In the beginning, Baptists preached, promoted and, yes, probably prayed for separation of church and state.

Indeed, Roger Williams, co-founder of the first Baptist church in the United States, wrote in the 1640s: “An enforced uniformity of religion throughout a nation or civil state confounds the civil and religious, denies the principles of Christianity and civility, and that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh.”

So the ways in which many Southern Baptists–the nation's largest Protestant denomination–have shifted their views regarding separation of church and state in recent years have been surprising to Charles Haynes, senior scholar at the First Amendment Center in Arlington, Va.

“Baptists were the great separationists in our early history and were the army that supported … disestablishment in Virginia,” Haynes said. “Theologically, going back to Williams and others, Baptists always believed that authentic religion was corrupted when the state got involved in it.

“It's a long history of theological and political opposition to church and state entanglement that has been reversed, by at least the Southern Baptist Convention,” Haynes said.

But Cecil Taylor, dean of the School of Religion at the Southern Baptist-related University of Mobile in Alabama, contends it's the current crop of separationists who have changed their views, not Southern Baptists.

“The Baptists that I know favored separation of church and state so long as it meant the state could not interfere in church matters,” Taylor said. “Separation of church and state has come to mean the excision of God from government as we perceive it.”

Today, Taylor said, the United States is engaged in a “dangerous experiment. … We are trying to build a stable, workable society without reference to God. That appears to be the objective of the courts and the people who are filing the suits. They want no recognition of God by the state.

“That is an experiment that has never been attempted before in the history of man. … I'm not sure the experiment's working out very well.”

Sentiments like Taylor's may evolve from a belief that Supreme Court decisions and secular culture have destroyed morality, Haynes replied. “So the response to that is, 'We need to return the nation to God.'”

Those who espouse such views mark a change in Southern Baptists' ideology, said Haynes, who believes the group's thinking changed as the Southern Baptist Convention grew more theologically and socially conservative. During that transformation, which started more than 20 years ago, the nation's largest Protestant group also gained political clout.

“When the group becomes the majority in some parts of the country and a powerful force politically and religiously, there does seem to be a tendency to forget what it was like to be the beleaguered minority,” Haynes said.

“The Baptists in Utah, they understand why it's so important for the state not to promote religion, particularly in a public school. They feel the impact of it,” Haynes said. “They understand the importance of the First Amendment because they need it. … They're aware of what it means to be persecuted.

“That's why, of course, under the First Amendment, it's important for citizens to take responsibility to guard the rights of other people,” he said. “We're all a religious minority somewhere in the country. The only way for that to work without violence, without oppression, is for the state to be neutral.”