Posted: 2/08/07

BaptistWay Bible Series for February 17

Not Me

• Mark 14:10-31

By Andrew Daugherty

Christ Church, Rockwall

There is high drama throughout Mark’s fourteenth chapter. At the Last Supper, Jesus again speaks candidly about what will happen, telling the disciples that he would be betrayed by one of his closest friends. At the beginning of this passage, the reader is told Judas already made arrangements for Jesus to be arrested. Judas becomes the chief informant in the plot to destroy Jesus.

Imagine the serious mood of this moment during the meal. By the time Jesus breaks the bad news to his friends around the table that one of them would betray him, the wine glasses are empty. The candles are barely burning. The only leftovers are the bread crumbs that have collected on the table; the way a table is supposed to look after a meal shared among friends. However, Judas seems not himself. He has hardly made eye contact with anyone the whole night. His head is low. His demeanor is quiet. The tension could have been cut with a butter knife.

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Mark’s Gospel delays the betrayal longer than John’s Gospel. In John, Jesus breaks off another piece of bread, dips it in the little bit of wine left and tells Judas to leave. Judas slides his clean feet into his sandals and walks out the door into the dark night; down the dirty trail of betrayal.

Here in Mark, Judas stays until dinner is over and then apparently makes a quiet exit. The next time we see Judas is when he arrives at Gethsemane with a crowd carrying clubs and swords.

After all they had been through together, Jesus must have felt Judas bury a metaphorical knife in his back before he ever felt the crown of thorns buried in his head. Jesus had trusted Judas as a friend and disciple. John’s Gospel says Jesus washed the feet of his disciples after sharing the Passover meal. Jesus had washed Judas’ feet, too. Jesus loved Judas anyway, even though Judas was going to walk out on him.

Country superstar Martina McBride sings a song titled, Anyway. The song in its own way depicts the spirit of freedom that comes with Jesus’ way of loving. Her lyrics say it like this:

God is great, but sometimes life ain’t good
And when I pray it doesn’t always turn out like I think it should
But I do it anyway, I do it anyway.
You can love someone with all your heart, for all the right reasons, and in a moment they can choose to walk away. Love ‘em anyway.

Jesus’ love doesn’t stop just because someone doesn’t act or feel the same way he does. He loves because he can’t help himself; it’s his nature to love. If Jesus only loved the ones who loved him back, he would have hardly been God become flesh. Love is as love does.

Jesus practiced the love he professed even toward somebody who would not return his love. Jesus wills to love Judas and thus practices the new commandment he passes down to his disciples: "that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you should also love one another."

In Christian worship, beyond preaching or praying or singing, we see this kind of love most clearly expressed in the celebration of Communion. It is through this sacred meal that we remember Jesus offered thanks over the bread and wine before passing it among his disciples, of whom one had betrayed him, one would deny him, and all would desert him. Still he offered thanks, saying grace by offering up both words and his very life. Jesus managed to grace the dreadful night of his betrayal with gratitude.

So when you and I gather around Christ’s table, we remember his last supper and participate as disciples who have betrayed, denied, and deserted the one who offered up his life for us. But we also look forward to a future meal in the coming kingdom of God; in a time beyond time at which all those God has loved beyond our failures will gather together to celebrate the sacred feast of God’s joy.

In speaking of Jesus’ command to “Do this in remembrance of me,” Dom Gregory Dix in The Shape of the Liturgy asks:

Was ever another command so obeyed?  For century after century . . . men have found no better thing than this to do for kings at their crowning and for criminals going to the scaffold; for armies in triumph or for a bride and bridegroom in a little country church; for the proclamation of a dogma or for a good crop of wheat; for the wisdom of the Parliament of a mighty nation or for a sick old woman afraid to die; for a schoolboy sitting an examination or for Columbus setting out to discover America).

God invites people of all cultures and languages and experiences to enjoy the feast of God that we can never repay but only receive as a gift. This is what we express in the celebration of Communion or the Lord’s Supper. We celebrate that we are no longer strangers. We are friends. In that sacred moment, there is juice and bread and a friendly host, who is Christ himself.

Posted: 2/07/08

Panhandle Pastor’s and
Laymen’s Conference slated

PLAINVIEW—Author Calvin Miller will be a keynote speaker at the 87th annual Panhandle Pastor’s and Laymen’s Conference, Feb. 18-19 at Wayland Baptist University in Plainview.

Miller, a native of Enid, Okla., teaches at Samford University’s Beeson Divinity School and has written more than 40 books of popular theology and inspiration.

Other key speakers on the program include Sandy Maddox from Orlando, Fla., a veteran conference and retreat speaker who leads the Treasures of Heart and Home ministry, and Leighton Flowers, youth evangelism director for the Baptist General Convention of Texas.

Musical guest Blake Bolerjack will perform mini-concerts during the Monday evening and Tuesday morning sessions.

This year’s theme, Transforming Churches Through Transformed Lives, focuses on Matthew 6:13-20. Various messages and Bible study will focus on this text and how it affects the lives of Christians and the church.

The two-day event will feature meetings, worship, messages, music and a golf tournament.

The entry fee for the Pastors’ Masters Golf Tournament at the Plainview Country Club is $40 and includes lunch and prizes. Anyone interested in playing in the golf tournament should call Micheal Summer at (806) 291-1165.

Posted: 2/07/08

Renewed violence forces Buckner to
cancel mission trips to Kenya through May

By Jenny Pope

Buckner International

DALLAS—All Buckner International mission trips to Kenya will be cancelled through May 2008, agency President Ken Hall said. The decision comes after violent unrest prompted by tainted presidential elections there Dec. 27.

The announcement follows a previous decision by Buckner to suspend mission trips until March. Hall and Vice President of Global Initiatives Randy Daniels announced the decision Jan. 30 after witnessing dangerous conditions first-hand in Nairobi and Kitale, Kenya.

“Flying over Kenya on our way to Kitale, we could see whole villages on fire and burgeoning refugee camps springing up,” Hall wrote on his blog.

According to recent reports from the Red Cross, more than 860 people have been killed and more than 200,000 displaced in the turmoil.

“This trip to Africa is reminding me that there is a very real presence of evil in our world,” Hall said. “Please pray for the people of Kenya and for this nation.”

Despite the violence, Hall said, the children Buckner cares for at the Baptist Children’s Center in Nairobi and Seed of Hope Children’s Home in Kitale are safe.

Daniels, who oversees Buckner International ministries in Kenya, said Buckner will continue to provide services to Kenya but will “rearrange the mission trips because we cannot guarantee safety at this time.”

George McCain, director of Buckner missions, has promised to work with mission teams to reschedule any trips planned to Kenya during this time. He said teams will plan to resume mission work in early summer.

“We all need to be in serious prayer for our brothers and sisters in Kenya,” he said. “Even though we cannot physically go there to help them right now, we know that God is there with them. And Buckner will continue to stand by their side. The needs are greater than ever.”

Buckner sent nine short-term mission teams to Kenya in 2007, including 166 people and six interns. The agency has been working in Kenya since 2002.

Posted: 2/06/08

Deadly Super Tuesday storms
devastate Union University

JACKSON, Tenn. (ABP)—Baptist-affiliated Union University was one of the hardest-hit spots as deadly tornadoes raked the Mid-South Feb. 5—the same day as Mardi Gras celebrations and the “Super Tuesday” primary elections.

The Tennessee Baptist Convention-related school’s campus sustained extensive damage as an evening tornado tore across the north side of Jackson, Tenn. The city of about 65,000 is located midway between Memphis and Nashville.

The Jackson Sun reported Feb. 6 that emergency workers rescued 13 students trapped in a demolished dormitory complex.

Union spokesman Tim Ellsworth told the paper that 51 students were transported to the hospital. While nine students had serious injuries, none of the injuries were life-threatening, he said. In an interview posted Feb. 6 on the website of local television station WBBJ, Ellsworth said school officials had confirmed that all of the seriously injured students “are going to be fine.”

However, he added, the campus “really looks like a bomb went off here.” He told the Baptist and Reflector, the state convention’s newspaper, that the university community was still in a state of shock the morning after the storm—but also a state of relief.

“It is incredible that no one has been killed,” he said.

Union’s two major residential complexes were mostly destroyed, and the roof was blown off one of the main academic buildings. That left the building flooded, according to Ellsworth.

Union University President David Dockery, in a Feb. 6 press conference, said the college received $2.6 million worth of damage from a tornado in 2002. The Feb. 5 storm was “15 times worse than that,” he said.

Ellsworth said classes have been canceled and will not resume before Feb. 18. “It will be a long time before the campus will be fully operational,” he said.

Storm victims off Union’s campus were not so fortunate. The same tornado killed two elderly residents in rural parts of Madison County, according to a Feb. 6 report in the Jackson paper.

And dozens of other tornadoes killed residents across the lower Mississippi Valley. As of midday Feb. 6, the Associated Press reported that 48 people had been confirmed dead in four states: 24 in Tennessee, 13 in Arkansas, seven in Kentucky and four in Alabama. The National Weather service received reports of 60 tornadoes in the region between the afternoon of Feb. 5 and the morning of Feb. 6.

That makes the event the deadliest tornado outbreak—and one of the largest—in more than 20 years. The death toll is even higher than the May 3, 1999, outbreak famous for a massive tornado that laid waste to large sections of Oklahoma City.

In Arkansas, the towns of Clinton and Atkins reportedly sustained direct hits from storms. Charlie Warren, editor of the Arkansas Baptist News, said Feb. 6 that he had not yet confirmed reports of the storms directly affecting any Arkansas Baptist congregations or institutions. The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reported that one storm destroyed a Baptist church in rural Pope County, but Warren said that congregation is not affiliated with the state convention.

He said Arkansas Baptist disaster-relief officials were meeting that morning to coordinate information and begin formulating a response.

Several presidential candidates, in delivering victory speeches after the largest day of presidential primaries in the nation’s history, asked supporters to pray for the storm’s victims. New York Sen. Hillary Clinton and former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee both have strong ties to Arkansas, one of the hardest-hit states. Clinton’s Democratic rival, Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, also asked supporters to pray for those affected by the bad weather.

President Bush took a moment during a brief Feb. 6 appearance at the Department of Agriculture to mention the storms’ toll and promise federal help. “Prayers can help, and so can the government,” Bush said. “I do want the people in those states to know that the American people stand with them.”

Compiled by Lonnie Wilkey of the Baptist & Reflector and Robert Marus of Associated Baptist Press. The story will be updated as more information becomes available.

Posted: 2/05/08

Explore the Bible Series for February 17

Do you seek the Lord’s guidance

• Genesis 24:34-48

By Donald Raney

First Baptist Church, Petersburg

Anyone who has spent much time around a church certainly has heard that God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life. Believers understand that God desires to reveal that plan to each of us and to lead us in fulfilling that plan.

Our problem is that following God’s leading often is difficult and many times we must admit we fail to seek God’s guidance. As we face various decisions in life, it simply is easier to rely on common sense or our own ideas of how to accomplish our goals. Perhaps at times we face a situation we have faced before, and, knowing how God had led previously, we assume God would lead us to do the same this time, and we proceed without seeking God’s direction.

The Bible is filled with numerous accounts of those who neglected to seek God’s guidance and the difficulties they encountered as a result. Even the great heroes of faith from Abraham to Moses to David experienced times when they wandered off the path on which God was leading. In Genesis 24, there is a story of a simple unnamed servant who provides us with a prime example of someone who sought God’s guidance and found great success in what he was called to do. As we study his story, we can learn some of the keys that will help us make sure we are always seeking God’s guidance.

Identify your tasks (Genesis 24:34-41)

Before we can follow God’s guidance, we must first know what God is calling us to do. Many believers may feel they know or have some general idea about what God is calling them to do. They may feel God leading them into some particular area of ministry and assume that they know (or at least can figure out) how to accomplish the task when God may have a specific place or method in mind which is different. As the individual jumps into the task and encounters difficulties, he or she may either force the issue or give up and resort to following own path.

Abraham’s servant was able to complete the task to which he was called because he had taken the time to find out exactly what the task involved. He asked questions concerning the details and possible complications in completing the task before he started. If he had simply heard, “Get a wife for Isaac,” he may have chosen a woman from the local area or at any point between Canaan and Ur. Once he found one, he may have used force to persuade or compel the woman and her family. Yet this servant demonstrated a deep commitment to his master’s plan by taking the time to identify the specific task he was called to perform.

As believers today seek to fulfill God’s purpose for our individual lives, we need to always be certain that we demonstrate the same level of commitment to discern exactly what God is calling us to do.

Rely on the Lord (Genesis 24:42-44)

Having identified the task, Abraham’s servant again served as an example to those seeking to follow God by relying on God’s leading throughout the mission. As he traveled he certainly would have remembered Abraham’s assurance to him that God would lead him to the right place (v. 40).

Once he arrived at the place God led him to, he first prayed God would lead him to the right woman. He did not go into the nearest town to find the woman. He relied on God to lead the right woman to him.

Today, when we have a sense of the direction God is leading, there is the temptation to plot our own course to that goal based on our best information and what we see as possible or feasible. It can be tempting to simply proceed in the way that seems best or to seek out short cuts. We can even find ourselves rationalizing our actions by telling ourselves that we are ultimately accomplishing the end to which God has called us and that we are doing so while making the most efficient use of our resources and abilities. Yet God often does not call us to a particular task to see if we can efficiently accomplish it through our own ingenuity or effort, but to see if we are willing to let go of our own ideas of what is possible and fully rely on God through every step of the process.

Praise the Lord (Genesis 24:45-48)

Finding success in the tasks God calls us to brings with it a real danger that many fall victim to. Often when we accomplish a task, particularly one which requires considerable effort or a significant stretching of our faith, it is easy to forget God’s guidance and claim responsibility for the success for ourselves. Abraham’s servant easily could have felt pride in accomplishing such a difficult task for his master. Yet as soon as Rebekah and her family agreed to the plan, the servant bowed and worshipped God, thanking him for the success.

Far too many believers over the years have accomplished great things by following God’s leading only to come to the end of the task and take credit. As we seek to follow God’s guidance, God is at work around and through us in ways that we will never know or understand. Apart from God’s guidance and empowering, we could never fulfill his call. Just as we seek to rely on God’s guidance to complete the tasks to which he calls us, we should never forget to personally and publicly praise him for the success when the mission is complete.

Posted: 2/05/08

More than 1,600 Hispanic Baptists
gather for evangelism conference

By Nora Frost

Texas Baptist Communications

HOUSTON—Tears fell like the emotional and spiritual baggage people carried to the Hispanic Evangelism Conference, sponsored by the Baptist General Convention of Texas Feb. 1-2.

Conference participants crowded in front of the altar and into the aisles each night to make spiritual decisions. People embraced and prayed for one another and for non-Christians around them as they professed Christ as Lord.

Featured preacher Alberto Mottesi encouraged Hispanic Texas Baptists to show compassion.

“The world is tired of religion,” Motessi said.

The best two ways to combat society’s apathy toward religion is by demonstrating loyalty to Christ and holiness before God, he said.

“Evangelism is a mandate from God,” said Roy Villarreal, a member of Iglesia Bautista Mount Horeb in McAllen. “This conference has prepared us and reminded us of that mandate. It has also helped re-establish the need for knowing the Bible.”

Though the Hispanic Evangelism Conference drew a large number of Hispanic leaders from churches, it also attracted about 300 future leaders in its student sessions.

Josh Fernandez, 15, of Katy, said he appreciated the contemporary worship and English workshops geared towards youth because he is able to relate and learn more from that culture.

Participants at the conference raised $5,700 as a love offering for the Asociación Bautista Latino América for rebuilding efforts in Mexico following Hurricane Dean.

Fueled by the conference’s Acts 4:33 theme, the more than 1,600 people in attendance said they were refreshed by the messages they heard, as well as the people they met.

“It was a great blessing to be able to learn from our brothers and sisters,” said Juanita Montoya, a member of Iglesia Bautista Hispana in Brookshire. “Plus, it has been great getting to know the great leadership that is around us.”

Workshops covered topics such as effective community outreach, new models for missions, personal evangelism and ministering to families along the border.

“This conference is a result of the diversified needs of Hispanic churches in Texas,” said Frank Palos, BGCT director of Hispanic evangelism. “It was resolved that Hispanics needed a conference to address the various types of needs in the church.”

Though the conference featured mainly Spanish workshops and worship, Palos said the conference was meant to serve the diverse cultural needs of Hispanic Baptists—Spanish- dominant, English-dominant and bilingual congregations.

Posted: 2/05/08

As Hispanic population grows,
so do ministry opportunities

By Nora Frost

Texas Baptist Communications

HOUSTON—Hispanics are a fast-growing population in the country, bringing with them increasing ministry opportunities. But those opportunities aren’t addressed as easily as providing material and training in Spanish, said Frank Palos, Baptist General Convention of Texas director of Hispanic evangelism.

Worship culture for Hispanics is as diverse as its demographic composition. About 1,200 Hispanic congregations are affiliated with the BGCT. Although the majority of those churches worship mainly in Spanish, about one-third of them have bilingual worship services, and about 1 percent of the Hispanic churches worship in English.

Worship patterns also tend to be grouped around generational differences. Grandparents tend to prefer traditional and Spanish worship, parents are comfortable in bilingual worship and children prefer contemporary and English worship, Palos said.

Sergio Ramos, church activation specialist with the WorldconneX missions network, said it is an exciting time to be involved in the Hispanic community regarding ministry, and he particularly encouraged Hispanics to get involved in international missions.

Some of the most valuable traits Hispanics share are being able to adapt, having the capacity to blend in physically with different ethnic groups and the willingness to put passion before comfort, he said. Hispanic culture also places great value on relationships—an emphasis that is also highly regarded in other cultures, he noted.

“We are people-oriented,” Ramos said about the Hispanic culture. “We relate to cultures because we are a mix of cultures ourselves.”

Alberto Mottesi is convinced the next great evangelism movement will be in the Hispanic community.

“The community is growing very quickly, and we have to be able to share (our faith) in the most comprehensive words,” Motessi said.

That is why he said gatherings such as the BGCT’s Hispanic Evangelism Conference are so vital, event organizers agreed.

Plus, with the world becoming more internationally connected, more opportunities to become involved in ministry emerge.

“The world is changing. And if we don’t get on board, we are going to have a lot of people who don’t know Christ,” Ramos said.

Posted: 2/04/08

New Baptist Covenant: Unity.
Harmony. Now, what comes next? 

By Marv Knox

Baptist Standard

ATLANTA—Fifteen thousand participants in the New Baptist Covenant convocation arrived in Atlanta Jan. 30 seeking unity in Christ and departed Feb. 1 wondering where their quest will lead.

In the meantime, they demonstrated racial, theological and geographic harmony as they prayed, sang, listened to sermons and attended workshops focusing on ministry to the people Jesus called "the least of these" in society.

The unprecedented event brought together African-American, Anglo, Asian-American and Hispanic Baptists. They represented 30 Baptist conventions and organizations, all affiliated with the North American Baptist Fellowship, the regional affiliate of the Baptist World Alliance. They also heard from two former U.S. presidents, Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, and a former vice president, Al Gore-all Baptists.

Participants scaled a 163-year-old wall that has divided the denomination since U.S. Baptists parted company over slavery more than a decade before the Civil War.

As women and men of numerous races sat side-by-side through sermons and hugged and laughed in hallways, they embodied a dream-come-true for Baptists who dreamed of racial reconciliation in their denomination.

"This is the most momentous event of my religious life," declared an emotional Carter, a son of the South and a lifelong Baptist.

For the first time in more than 160 years

"For the first time in more than 160 years, we are convening a major gathering of Baptists throughout an entire continent, without any threat to our unity caused by differences of our race or politics or geography or the legalistic interpretation of Scripture," said Carter, who co-chaired the gathering with Mercer University President Bill Underwood.

Carter's euphoria echoed the aspiration of another Baptist from Georgia, and the convocation fulfilled the prophecy of Martin Luther King Jr., Underwood told the crowd.

"Forty-five years ago, a native son of Atlanta, a Baptist pastor, shared with all of us his dream: One day, on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave-owners would be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood," Underwood said to sustained applause.

"Today, here on those red hills of Georgia, Baptists have come together to take a step in the long and difficult journey toward achieving Dr. King's great dream. After generations of putting up walls between us-separation, division by geography, by theology, but most of all division by race-a new day is dawning. … Today, we all sit down together at the table of Christian brotherhood and sisterhood."

Leaders of most of the participating groups first affirmed the New Baptist Covenant in April 2006, when Carter and Underwood invited them to Atlanta to talk about bridging Baptists' racial, theological and geographic divisions by working together "to promote peace with justice, to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, shelter the homeless, care for the sick and marginalized, welcome the strangers among us, and promote religious liberty and respect for religious diversity."

That effort piggybacked on a historic gathering of the four predominantly African-American Baptist conventions five years ago, plus ongoing discussions of unity within the North American Baptist Fellowship, NABF President David Goatley said.

• See latest photos and the latest video clips from the New Baptist Covenant Meeting. (And go here to see our complete coverage of the event).

New Baptist Covenant is a public witness

"The New Baptist Covenant is a public witness to our common commitment to the gospel of Jesus Christ in word and deed," explained Goatley, executive secretary of the Lott Carey Baptist Foreign Mission Convention.

"Never before have Baptists on this scale sought to cross the boundaries we choose to live behind-ethnicity, ideology, theology. Never before have Baptists on this scale sought to explore ministries of this impact. Never before have Baptists on this scale come together for cooperation and collaboration for missional ministry impact.

"We are at the threshold of great possibilities," Goatley said.

Prior to the convocation, critics suggested one of those possibilities was politics.

They claimed organizers stacked the program in favor of Democrats, citing the presence not only of Carter, but also Clinton and Gore. Carter refuted that charge in a news conference, noting the all-Baptist program also featured Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa. Organizers invited Republican presidential candidate and former Baptist pastor Mike Huckabee, who accepted and then declined months ago, as well as Sen. Lindsay Graham, R-S.C., who bowed out at the last minute to campaign for another presidential candidate who attends a Baptist church, John McCain.

Completely unified

In the convocation's opening session, Carter made a promise that also sounded like a warning to all the other speakers. Imploring the diverse Baptists to make unity the distinctive element of their gathering, he pledged, "There will be no criticism of others-let me say again-no criticism of others or exclusion of any Christians who would seek to join this cause."

Near the end of the meeting, he told reporters the convocation lived up to his nonpolitical billing. "We have deliberately avoided any identification by politics," he declared. "It's been a wonderful mixture of cohesive, different groups. All of us, so far as I know, have been completely unified."

"Unity in Christ" provided the convocation's theme. Plenary sessions focused on creating Baptist unity by following Jesus' mandate set out in his first sermon: "to preach good news to the poor … to proclaim freedom and recovery of sight to the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor."

Clinton, the closing speaker, called for unity toward a group with which many of the other participants disagree-the Southern Baptist Convention.

The SBC pulled out of the Baptist World Alliance-the organizational common denominator for all the groups affiliated with the New Baptist Covenant-several years ago, citing alleged "liberalism."

Clinton described the rift with the SBC as competing interpretations of the New Testament Epistle of James, "that people would know our faith by our works."

Baptists who gained control of the SBC focused on "works" related to issues such as opposition to abortion, the Equal Rights Amendment and gay rights, he noted, while "more progressive Baptists" focused on fighting poverty, protecting the environment and providing housing for poor people, he said.

They read Scripture in a different way

"I say this in good conscience: We all believe we are doing what we can. But so do they. They read the obligations of Scripture in a different way," he noted.

Calling for humility and respect, Clinton urged, "We should not let our response to the people who disagree with us be dictated by what they say about us or even how they treat people we care for. If there is any chance that this covenant can become an embracing one, that there can be a whole community, then there has to be a chance that we can find love."

Other speakers amplified the unity theme from a range of perspectives:

• Christian oneness centers on fulfilling Jesus' "radical mission," stressed William Shaw, president of the National Baptist Convention, USA, one of the four African-American conventions, and pastor of White Rock Baptist Church in Philadelphia.

Jesus wasn't satisfied merely to bring relief to the persecuted and victimized, he explained, noting Jesus "concretized" his mission by seeking to reverse the structures and situations that caused oppression.

The heart of that quest is establishing justice and uprooting injustice, Shaw noted. "When God made mankind, he made us male and female-in his image. To do injustice to anybody is to do injustice to the reality of God, because we are in his image, and his image is not to be demeaned."

That calls Baptists to seek change in society, he added. "You can't embrace the mission of Jesus and not encounter the reality of injustice. He came not with actions of charity. He came to change. … Justice says we need to change the structures of victimization."

Baptist name is associated with exclusion

• Unfortunately, the Baptist name is associated with exclusion, observed novelist John Grisham, a member of University Baptist Church in Charlottesville, Va. "The reason is because, for so long, so many Baptists have worked so hard to exclude so many," he said.

Grisham offered Baptists three suggestions for seeking unity: Restore their good name by respecting diversity, stay out of politics and "spend as much time out on the streets in ministry as in the church."

"Jesus preached more and taught more about helping the poor and the sick and the hungry than he did about heaven and hell. Shouldn't that tell us something?" he asked.

• Love is the key to unity, claimed Julie Pennington-Russell, pastor of First Baptist Church of Decatur, Ga. She accepted an assignment to speak on respecting diversity, but she said respect isn't sufficient to build unity.

Respect alone "has no power to change something that is broken between you and me," she said. "Only love can do that. … Let love take you by the hand and lead you like a child to a new way of seeing that brother or sister, and look for Jesus in the face of that person," she said.

Protecting children

• Marian Wright Edelman called for Baptists to unify around protecting children. She cited a litany of statistics that reveal the depth of poverty, neglect and risk that describe the United States' 13 million children in poverty, noting they add up to a national catastrophe.

"They are not acts of God," said Edelman, founder of the Children's Defense Fund. "They are our choices as citizens and as a nation. We created them; we can and must change them."

Churches "ought to be the locomotive, and not the caboose, in speaking up for children," she said.

• Baptists could express their unity by giving themselves-and their means-to rescue the poor, Tony Campolo said.

Jesus pronounced his priorities in Luke 4, beginning with preaching good news to the poor, noted Campolo, author and professor emeritus at Eastern University near Philadelphia.

"Do you think Jesus meant what he said, or do you think he was kidding?" he asked.

"There is nothing wrong with making a million dollars. I wish you all would make a million dollars. There is nothing wrong with making it, but there is something wrong with keeping it," he said. "My Bible tells me in 1 John 3:17, 'If anyone has the world's goods and sees his brother in need but shuts off his compassion from him-how can God's love reside in him?'"

After calling on both individuals and churches to pour themselves into ministering to the poor, he shouted, "Rise up, you suckers, and go out and do the work of Jesus!"

Protect the environment

• Gore called for Baptists to protect the environment, pleading for participants in the convocation to make creation care one of their major initiatives.

The former vice president and Nobel laureate discussed the research behind his Oscar-winning documentary, "An Inconvenient Truth" during a luncheon attended by 2,500 participants.

"The evidence is there," Gore said. "The signal is on the mountain. The trumpet has blown. The scientists are screaming from the rooftops. The ice is melting. The land is parched. The seas are rising. The storms are getting stronger. Why do we not judge what is right? …

"There is a distinct possibility that one of the messages coming out of this gathering and this new covenant is creation care-that we who are Baptists of like mind and attempting in our lives to the best of our abilities to glorify God, are not going to countenance the continued heaping of contempt on God's creation."

• Ironically, the world-for the first time in history-began producing enough food to eliminate hunger altogether in the 1960s, Grassley said, noting one in seven people worldwide goes to bed hungry each night.

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

Grassley said increasing free trade will help alleviate hunger worldwide, but Christians in the United States should begin focusing on practical ways of alleviating hunger themselves. "If ever there was a time for unity, now is the moment-building consensus between agriculturalists and conservationists and building the food supply can create sustainable farming methods that protect the environment."

Protect strangers

• The presence of "strangers" in the world provides a point for Baptist unity, stressed Joel Gregory, a professor of preaching at Baylor University's Truett Theological Seminary.

"Behind us, in front of us, ahead of us we meet the face of the stranger in the word of God," he said. "It is not a marginal issue. It's a central concern."

Unfortunately, Christians often try to care for strangers, foreigners and outsiders in the abstract, Gregory said, but God calls them to care for the stranger "in his concreteness, in his particularity, in his idiosyncrasies. … Behind every generalization is God's particularity-that person in front of me right now."

• Another group that needs the force of Baptist unity is composed of the 47 million Americans who do not have medical insurance, said former Surgeon General David Satcher, of the Morehouse School of Medicine.

Health care

Inequities persist in the United States' health-care system, he noted. "An African-American baby is 2 1/2 times as likely to die in the first year of life as a majority baby," and globally, child-mortality disparities between he wealthiest and poorest countries are far worse.

"For me, that is not a political issue; it's a moral issue," he said.

• Setting the captive free also is a moral issue, echoed Charles G. Adams, pastor of Hartford Baptist Church in Detroit.

If Baptists do not share freedom with others, "then our souls will be destroyed and our freedom with it," Adams said. "We are free only if we face the challenge of freedom, do the work of freedom, fight the fight of freedom and die the death for freedom.

"We are filled with the Spirit only to empty ourselves in the liberation of others. We are loved only to love others. We are free only to accept the responsibility of setting others free."

Convocation participants fleshed out the repeated calls for unity through ministry in 32 special-interest sessions. They featured practical applications of the unity/service theme.

Continue what began in Atlanta

Those sessions are likely to provide the backbone of structure for fleshing out what the convocation means and how participants will continue what began in Atlanta, predicted Jimmy Allen, program chairman for the event.

Ministerial students who attended each session took notes on the outcomes and proposals for cooperation in ministry, he said. They also gathered e-mail addresses of participants who want to continue collaboration on a range of poverty, racial, equality, peacemaking and other policy issues.

"Where we go from here will be very important," Carter told reporters. "People stop me and say, 'We don't want this to be just a moment, but a movement.'"

This spring, the convocation leadership group will reconvene in Atlanta to consider hundreds of suggestions and discuss how to follow up, he said.

The answer will not be creating yet another Baptist convention, Allen added. "This movement will not be centralized. It can't be. … We're not an organized structure. We're stimulating and reflecting a movement of God that is bigger than us."

Answers likely will include opportunities for individuals, congregations and larger Baptist groups "to add our voice to common commitment" to implement the ideas for ministry that surfaced in Atlanta, Carter said.

Implementation of those commitments could answer one criticism of the New Baptist Covenant-absence of Southern Baptist Convention leadership, he added.

Full report to Frank Page

Carter noted he had developed a positive relationship with SBC President Frank Page, who initially criticized the endeavor. Carter also said he would provide Page with a full report on the convocation and its possible outcomes.

"The results of this meeting will determine how the Southern Baptist leaders respond to us," he predicted. "We will reach out" to them to participate in follow-up projects, he added.

Carter also debunked the notion that no Southern Baptists participated in the convocation. For example, his congregation, Maranatha Baptist Church in Plains, Ga., allocates 5 percent of its budget to the SBC and 5 percent to the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship. Many other Baptists churches follow that pattern, he asserted.

Historian Walter Shurden, recently retired director of the Center for Baptist Studies at Mercer University and one of the early organizers of the convocation, said the event could become "a major step in racial reconciliation and gender recognition of Baptists in North America."

"It's the most significant Baptist meeting in my life, after playing in the Baptist yard 55 years or so," he said. "I've never been to a Baptist meeting where there was the equality as well as the presence" of multi-racial, multi-gender participation.

"It bears the marks of the ministry of Jesus."

Posted: 2/04/08

Inmates at Mexican women’s
prison find escape in music

By Analiz González

Buckner International

MEXICO CITY— The windows at Santa Marta Prison face in, so the inmates can never look out to see the surrounding peeks, which rise around the prison at night like solid beacons of hope. All they ever see is gray—walls, floors, ceilings.

Delia Ramirez is 19, but could pass for 14. She was assaulted by a man who tried to rape her. So she killed him. Now she sits in prison with a khaki uniform, which means she’s still awaiting trial. She is a child among women.

“I am not a Christian,” Ramirez said. “I would like to be one. But I just can’t bring myself to believe in God. It’s hard to believe in anything good when everything is so unfair.”

Santa Marta Prison in Mexico City is surrounded by barbed wire. All of the prison's windows face inside, so inmates cannot see outside the walls.

Another prisoner said she is incarcerated for accidentally running over a child and killing him. No one can bail her out. Another said she stabbed her husband when she caught him sexually assaulting their child.

Not all of the women have stories like this. Some have been in and out of prison multiple times for theft or violence. But they all long for freedom. Their eyes fill with tears when they talk of the children they will never raise.

For many, they find their only escape in music classes taught by Jorge Quezada from Iglesia Bautista Horeb. And through those classes, some have found faith in Christ.

Quezada teaches the women rondallas, or traditional Mexican tunes. One of their favorite songs, their “anthem,” as Quezada calls it, tells the story of a repentant rebel who was never loved.

“But I would like to be like that child, like that man who is full of joy,” they sing. “And I would like to give everything in me, all in exchange for that friendship and to sing, and to smile and forget all of my anger, and to laugh, and to live and to give only love.”

One of the inmates wrote a letter of thanks to visitors from Buckner International and Iglesia Bautista Horeb.

“The important thing,” she wrote, “is that we can express feelings though music and be able to share the loneliness that lives with us in this place. … We know that we are somewhat marginalized by society, but we know we have the company of an all-powerful God.”

Posted: 1/29/08

Atlanta meeting may prompt
real change, some Baptists insist

By Hannah Elliott

Associated Baptist Press

ATLANTA (ABP)—The Celebration of a New Baptist Covenant meeting will feature some big-name guests—Bill Clinton, Jimmy Carter, Al Gore, Tony Campolo and John Grisham, to name a few. But after the star-studded dust settles, what will emerge from the convocation?

Some say it’s too soon to tell what exactly will come of the gathering, scheduled Jan. 30-Feb. 1 in Atlanta. Organizers hope it will improve Baptists’ image and unite them in a new wave of social activism. Others wonder whether it will lead denominational bodies to work closer together or urge grassroots entities to band together—or both.

David Goatley, president of the North American Baptist Fellowship, an umbrella group for regional and national Baptist bodies, says he’s optimistic about the event’s lasting effects. Baptists have never before attempted a collaborative effort on this scale, he noted—especially between historically Anglo and African-Americans organizations. “Whatever the results, it’ll be worth the experiment,” Goatley said.

Political controversy

Detractors say the experiment is more of a political rally than anything else. With Clinton, Carter and other prominent Democrats featured during an election year, some Baptist conservatives have claimed the event is aimed at improving the Democratic Party’s image among Baptists.

It didn’t help that the event’s most prominent Republican speaker, presidential candidate Mike Huckabee, cancelled after Carter was quoted as sharply criticizing President Bush. Huckabee said he withdrew so he would not appear to approve of “what could be a political, rather than spiritual agenda,” he told the Florida Baptist Witness, a newspaper affiliated with the conservative Florida Baptist Convention.

Organizers say any political overtones are unintentional.

“My feeling is that we’re taking the best people we know, the people in the trenches … and trying to connect that up and let that flow,” said Jimmy Allen, a former Southern Baptist Convention president. “And then our task is to find out what we have and to keep it moving.”

Indeed, Republican Senators Lindsay Graham (S.C.) and Charles Grassley (Iowa) will speak during the event, which is the brainchild of Carter and Bill Underwood, president of the Baptist-affiliated Mercer University.

Diana Garland, dean of Baylor University’s School of Social Work, likened the meeting to a family reunion “after a very long hiatus.” It will help Baptists understand their heritage and claim an identity on both a grassroots and a denominational level, she said—and the beautiful part is that it’s “not a denominationally organized meeting.”

Making connections

“It’s not just about making connections, it’s about finding people” who share the same vision and goals,” said Garland, who will speak in a session on breaking the cycle of poverty. “This event is asking, ‘Where are we going as Baptists?’”

To hear event organizer Allen tell it, it’s too soon to tell where exactly they’ll end up.

“It’s hard to project” the outcome, he said. “If you look at the list of people we’ve got, you’re talking about the folks who are on the front lines (of ministry). We think a great momentum is going to flow out of that. We don’t know where it’s going to go, but we’re building on it.”

According to Allen, leaders have invited experts in fields like theology, law and politics so that they’ll disseminate best practices and network with their Baptist colleagues.

“The process is built for maximum participation … something that can evolve after the meeting is over,” he said. “We’ve got the best group I’ve ever seen. I’m just awed at the number of people who have in-depth experience in the areas in which they’re involved.”

Richard Munoz, director of the Immigration Service and Aid Center, is one such person. He’s scheduled to speak in a special session called “Welcoming the Stranger,” in which he plans teach church leaders what they can and cannot do legally to minister to immigrants, he said.

Munoz’s organization helps churches deal with several immigration-related issues. In an election year, he noted, the subject comes up a lot.

“You know, immigration is not just a border-state thing; it’s across the country,” said Munoz, who has already talked with other immigration experts who will attend the event. “We are very excited that (the event’s organizers) had a call for speakers because we can kind of share our ministry that we are doing in Texas, and hopefully that gets transplanted to the other states.”

Politically charged issues

But the fact that the meeting will deal with politically charged issues like immigration indicates to some that its agenda is being driven by moderate and progressive Baptists. Garland said she has sensed some internal conflict and confusion in churches that want to send delegates to the meeting but that are affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention —the large and conservative Baptist body that is not officially participating in the event. Many of the event’s organizers were moderates who have left the SBC since conservatives solidified their control over the denomination in the 1990s.

But Garland said no matter what Baptists may think about a certain issue, poverty is one cause around which they can unite.

“Yes, we’ve been shooting at one another for years,” she said. “And instead here is a time when a time when we’re saying, ‘How many Baptists of different stripes and spots can we gather together to talk about what Jesus called us to do, which is to bind up the broken-hearted and set captives free and seek social justice and respond to issues of global poverty?’”

Munoz, too, said the often-partisan nature of his particular expertise—immigration— shouldn’t have a bearing on the event as a whole.

“You can minister to folks whatever your stance is on immigration. We can all agree that we can be a good citizen like it says in Romans 13—to be the presence of Christ,” he said. “Really, if you think of it in terms of ministry, these (immigrants) are going to be the people you’re around. So whatever your stance is on immigration, whatever you think should be done, that’s for the politicians to decide.”

Diversity adds quality

Leo Thorne, associate general secretary of American Baptist Churches USA, said the diversity of political opinion actually adds quality to the discussion.

“It doesn’t make any difference what decision you make or action you take, there are always people who use their freedoms to express disagreement. That’s rich; that’s energizing. That’s wonderful that we can have a diversity of opinions of issues,” he said. “The bottom line is that the event is going to happen. There are thousands of people coming from all over, from (many) countries. That in itself is a testament to the fact that something is happening, something good. If there are those who disagree, that is OK with me.”

One of the biggest questions for the 10,000-plus expected attendees is whether the event will promote a grassroots surge of action among Baptist groups—or foster renewed dedication of denominational bodies to social-justice programs.

Capitalizing on what's learned

Thorne said he suspects denominational leaders will provide the structure and impetus for Baptists to capitalize on what they learn in Atlanta.

“The grassroots work will happen, there’s no doubt about that,” he said. “But there needs to be structure, and the denomination provides that.

“With the North American Baptist Fellowship, there is a structure in place already to take what is the outcome of the New Baptist Covenant and run with it. We don’t have to invent something to carry it forward. The denominational leaders are committed.”

Goatley, who is executive secretary of the Lott Carey Baptist Foreign Mission Society, a historically African-American Baptist group, has taken a more deliberate approach. He is using denominational promotion to trigger grassroots activism. He has compiled a document outlining opportunities for action for three groups—Baptist “communities” or denominational groups, Baptist congregations, and individual households.

'Summer of Jubilee'

Called “The Summer of Jubilee,” the effort encompasses seven weeks of service for Baptists in June and July. It urges Baptist communities to work with immigrants along the Mexican-U.S. border and help people still struggling after Hurricane Katrina. It urges Baptist churches to adopt the causes of at-risk kids and the elderly. Individual families will spend the time planting trees, cleaning streams and woodlands, and changing household lights to energy-efficient lighting.

“The long-term possibilities are ultimately dependent upon the openness and discernment of various Baptist believers to align ourselves with new opportunities of service inspired by the Holy Spirit,” Goatley said in an e-mail. “We had sought not to prescribe explicit action steps. We are creating space and a place for Baptists to find new sisters and brothers with whom they can explore new service opportunities.”

Goatley said denomination heads will record the efforts through Internet reporting and networking. Celebration organizers will also record and assess social work done after the January event. Allen said volunteers in Atlanta will attend every breakout session and record dialogue, contact information, areas of interest and skills of the people who attend. The information then will be entered into a resource database for later use.

Communication crucial

Communication before, during and after the event will be crucial, organizers say. They plan to erect event-related websites, send follow-up newsletters and even stream video of conferences for people who can’t attend. They hope the push to make the conference as accessible as possible will draw Baptists closer in unity, Thorne said.

“One of the things that is really critical is this emphasis on unity,” he said. “We’re not going to do everything the same way, but we can be united in spirit. We can be united in the cross. We can be united in mission.”

Posted: 1/30/08

Unity the focus of New Baptist
Covenant gathering, organizers insist

By Ken Camp

Managing Editor

ATLANTA—If a spirit of unity prevails at the Celebration of a New Baptist Covenant, organizers of the historic interracial meeting said they will consider the gathering a success.

And participants in the event will remain focused on the biblical mandate to show compassion and care for the needy, not become distracted by partisan politics “if we can prevent it,” former President Jimmy Carter added.

Event co-chairs Carter and Mercer University President Bill Underwood joined other members of the meeting’s steering committee in responding to reporters’ questions prior to the opening session at Atlanta’s Georgia World Congress Center.

Carter noted he and his wife, Rosalynn, had observed in their international travels how divisions within Christianity have been one of the faith’s greatest hindrances. And, he added, Baptists are perhaps known more than any other Christian group for their own internal divisions.

Perhaps the New Baptist Covenant—an informal alliance of more than 30 racially, geographically and theologically diverse Baptist groups throughout North America claiming more than 20 million members—can set an example for the church at large, Carter noted.

“If we can do it, maybe other Christians can do it as well,” he said.

A year of planning

The Atlanta meeting grew out of a year of planning and was scheduled to follow a joint meeting of the four largest historically African-American Baptist groups in the United States.

Representatives from the National Baptist Convention, USA; the National Baptist Convention of America; the Progressive National Baptist Convention and the National Missionary Baptist Convention of America had scheduled a joint mid-winter meeting for Atlanta, and the New Baptist Covenant celebration piggybacked on that meeting.

Many of the other Baptist groups joining in the celebration are predominantly comprised of Anglo or Hispanic members. The celebration’s most obvious diversity became evident as multicultural crowds filled the hallways of the meeting venue.

• See latest photos and the latest video clips from the New Baptist Covenant Meeting. (And go here to see our complete coverage of the event).

Underwood quoted Martin Luther King’s famous dream that “one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave-owners will be able to sit down together at a table of brotherhood.”

“It is fitting that today, on these red hills of Georgia, Baptists have come together and taken a step forward in the long journey to achieve Dr. King’s dream,” Underwood said.

SBC leaders absent

While the three-day celebration’s program includes representatives from a wide range of Baptist groups in North America, leaders of the Southern Baptist Convention—the nation’s largest Baptist denomination—were noticeably absent.

The SBC withdrew from the Baptist World Alliance and its regional affiliate, the North American Baptist Fellowship, several years ago. Most participating bodies in the New Baptist Covenant event belong to fellowship, and organizers planned their efforts around its membership.

Some SBC leaders—including current convention president Frank Page—have criticized the covenant celebration. But Carter noted he has developed “a wonderful relationship” with Page, a pastor in South Carolina. Carter said he plans to report to Page about the Atlanta event in the near future with a hope that Southern Baptists will want to cooperate on the initiatives that emerge from the event.

Carter expressed his desire that the New Baptist Covenant meeting would maintain an “all-inclusive” posture and “non-critical” tone—and that it steer clear of partisan politics.

Some critics had charged the event—which not only features Carter but also former President Bill Clinton and Vice President Al Gore—was designed to give Democrats an edge with Baptists in an election year.

Two Republicans withdrew

Of the three prominent Republicans who initially agreed to participate in the event—presidential hopeful and former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham and Iowa Sen. Charles Grassley—two ended up withdrawing.

Huckabee pulled out in May, after Carter was quoted as calling President Bush’s administration “the worst in history” in terms of the way it has affected America’s image around the world.

Graham withdrew shortly before the event, citing his duties in stumping for his Senate colleague John McCain’s presidential bid. Organizers said his speaking slot would be filled by another prominent Republican, former Texas senator Phil Gramm.

Carter said he was “not frustrated” by the organizers’ inability to attract more high-profile Republicans as program personalities. He expressed confidence that, if journalists polled celebration participants about their party affiliations, they probably would find them about equally divided between Democrats and Republicans.

Posted: 1/31/08

Baptist unity takes center stage
as New Covenant meeting opens

By Marv Knox & Greg Warner

Baptist Standard & Associated Baptist Press

ATLANTA—Baptist unity took center stage during the opening night of the New Baptist Covenant convocation in Atlanta Jan. 30.

About 10,000 African-American, Anglo, Asian-American and Hispanic Baptists gathered at the urging of former President Jimmy Carter and Mercer University President Bill Underwood.

• See latest photos and the latest video clips from the New Baptist Covenant Meeting. (And go here to see our complete coverage of the event).

They represented about 30 Baptist conventions and organizations, all affiliated with the North American Baptist Fellowship, the regional affiliate of the Baptist World Alliance.

“This is the most momentous event of my religious life,” said an emotional Carter, who at 84 has been a Baptist since he was a child. “For the first time in more than 160 years, we are convening a major gathering of Baptists throughout an entire continent, without any threat to our unity caused by differences of our race or politics or geography or the legalistic interpretation of Scripture.”

Gathering fulfills King prophecy

The convocation—the first trans-racial gathering of its kind since North American Baptists split over slavery in 1845—fulfilled the prophecy of Martin Luther King Jr., Underwood told the crowd.

“Forty-five years ago, a native son of Atlanta, a Baptist pastor, shared with all of us his dream: One day, on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave-owners would be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood,” Underwood said to sustained applause.

“Today, here on those red hills of Georgia, Baptists have come together to take a step in the long and difficult journey toward achieving Dr. King’s great dream. After generations of putting up walls between us—separation, division by geography, by theology, but most of all division by race—a new day is dawning.

“Today, in this place, Baptists gather from the North and the South; from Canada, Mexico, the United States and around the world; white, black and brown; conservative, moderate and progressive. Today, we all sit down together at the table of Christian brotherhood and sisterhood.

“Today, we celebrate a new day. We celebrate a new way. We celebrate a new Baptist covenant—united together to present an authentic and genuine Baptist voice; united in traditional Baptist values, including sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ … united in honoring the commandment of our Lord and Savior, to honor our commitment to love others as God has loved us, and we will do something about it.”

Leaders of most of the participating groups first affirmed the New Baptist Covenant in April 2006. The covenant focuses on Baptist unity by fulfilling the mandate Jesus announced in his first sermon—preaching good news to the poor, proclaiming freedom and recovery of sight to the blind, releasing the oppressed and proclaiming “the year of the Lord’s favor.”

Invitation for all to join

That year “is perhaps long overdue,” Carter said in a keynote address, in which he focused most of his remarks on the cause of unity. Opening wide the door of fellowship, he invited all Baptist Christians into the New Baptist Covenant movement.

Jimmy Carter at the podium.

He implored the diverse Baptists gathered in the Georgia World Congress Center to make unity the distinctive element of their gathering.

“There will be no criticism of others—let me say again—no criticism of others or exclusion of any Christians who would seek to join this cause,” he said.

“Animosity is like a cancer in the body of Christ,” declared Carter, who tried unsuccessfully a decade ago to convince feuding Southern Baptist factions to bury the ecclesiastical hatchet.

Bickering among Christians has produced a “negative image” in the public mindset, an image opposed to “the gentle and loving image of the one we profess to worship,” Carter said.

That was not true of the first-century Christians, who grew from a meager 1,000 adherents to become the dominant religion in the Roman Empire, he said. “That expansion could not have been possible if the members of the early church were as divided as we Christians are today.”

Divisions "debilitated" church

“I’m not minimizing the importance of the controversies” among Christians and Baptists, said Carter, pointing out many denominations are likewise divided. But the issues that drive Christians into factions are not nearly as important as the things on which there is widespread agreement, he said.

He cited a laundry list of issues that have divided Baptists—the role of women in ministry and marriage, varying accounts of creation, legalized abortion, civil rights for gays, separation of church and state, and the death penalty. Those issues have debilitated the Christian church, he said, yet they are no more important than the early church’s dispute over circumcision.

On the other hand, he continued, two issues that foster unanimity among Christians are salvation by grace through faith in Jesus Christ and the need to put aside differences for the sake of unity.

When faced with both sorts of issues, Carter said, “we should remember their relative importance.”

Peace with justice

William Shaw, president of the National Baptist Convention, USA, one of four prominent African-American Baptist conventions, preached on the evening theme: “Baptist Unity in Seeking Peace with Justice.”

“This night and these days, we do a bold and glorious thing: We attempt to express the oneness which was our Lord’s desire for his people,” declared Shaw, pastor of White Rock Baptist Church in Philadelphia. That oneness centers on fulfilling Jesus’ “radical mission,” Shaw said.

Jesus wasn’t satisfied to merely bring relief to the persecuted and victimized, he explained, noting Jesus “concretized” his mission by seeking to reverse the structures and situations that caused oppression.

The heart of that quest is establishing justice and uprooting injustice, Shaw noted.

“Justice itself is rooted in the reality of the incarnation, in the reality of creation,” he explained. “For when God made mankind, he made us male and female—in his image. To do injustice to anybody is to do injustice to the reality of God, because we are in his image, and his image is not to be demeaned.”

Seeking to change society

That calls Baptists to seek change in society, he added.

“You can’t embrace the mission of Jesus and not encounter the reality of injustice.

He came not with actions of charity. He came to change. … Justice says we need to change the structures of victimization.”

Shaw warned the crowd not to settle for faulty imitations of change, or justice.

“Jesus came for reversal,” he charged. “Calm without justice is an illusion of peace. It is disguised oppression.”

Citing a litany of such “disguised oppression,” he noted recent violence and massacres in Kenya, “imbalance of power” in the Middle East, isolating Native Americans on reservations, and both slavery and segregation in the United States.

“There is no peace without justice; there is no morality without justice,” he declared.

In fact, morality can masquerade as justice and actually become a “tool of injustice,” he said. “If it is right—and it is—that children who are conceived should be brought to life, should children who are born have the right to life like everybody else? … If there is no right to life, the right to be born is a tool of injustice.”

Unfortunately, “there is a strong will within us not to change,” Shaw observed

“God loved us so much and wanted change for us so much, he came from heaven to earth … for change,” he said.

But American Christians resist change by claiming racial, religious, national and economic superiority, he noted. The effect of the resistance is rejection of Jesus and closer identification with the people who sought to kill him than Jesus himself, he added.

Fortunately, Jesus “does not reject his rejectors, and this is our hope now,” he said. “Look how many times we have rejected his authenticity. But this one who has been rejected comes again and again to us with his work and his mission in the world.”

The convocation has brought Baptists to a “new moment,” insisted David Goatley, president of the North American Baptist Fellowship.

"Name our failures"

“The New Baptist Covenant is a public witness to our common commitment to the gospel of Jesus Christ in word and deed,” said Goatley, executive secretary of the Lott Carey Baptist Foreign Mission Convention.

Participants came to Atlanta “not to endorse things as they are, but to name … our failures to live up to the will of Christ,” he said, noting the event also provides an opportunity “to explore networking and collaboration for ministries … particularly for persons who are marginalized.”

“Welcome to something that has never happened before,” Goatley added. “Never before have Baptists on this scale sought to cross the boundaries we choose to live behind—ethnicity, ideology, theology. Never before have Baptists on this scale sought to explore ministries of this impact. Never before have Baptists on this scale come together for cooperation and collaboration for missional ministry impact.

“We are at the threshold of great possibilities, and we’re glad you’re here.”