Everyone in that room loved and admired Gene Beaty. All of us would have had to wrack our brains to recall a time when he didn't smile. And I doubt any of us ever met up with him when he didn't go out of his way to find out how we were doing and to express concern for our well-being.

That might not seem completely remarkable, except almost every time any of us saw him for years and years, Gene suffered—probably more than we could imagine.

He died this summer at almost 77 from cancer he fought since his early 60s. The last four years, his struggle took a solitary turn.  Although his son, Mike, and daughter, Joanie, provided wonderful care, he missed his dear wife of more than 50 years, Billie, who preceded him in death.

Gene inspired me every time I saw him in church. He embodied courage and an indomitable will. And on countless Sundays, he summoned every ounce of courage and every scintilla of will to beat back pain, dress immaculately, don that loving smile and walk into church. Pain dogged his every step. And yet Gene loved Jesus and loved his church. The best way he knew to express that love was to show up and gather with his Savior and the people he adored.

I remember when I first reciprocated Gene's love. It happened at the end of a too-long deacons' meeting, when Gene led the closing prayer. At first, I wanted a "Dear God, thanks for these great folks and our church. Be with us this week. Amen" kind of prayer. Short and sweet. But that wasn't Gene's way. He poured out his heart to the Lord, passionately petitioning God to bless our church and our community and to inspire the folks in that room to love Jesus and love our world. As Gene warmed up, I realized we were in for a loooong prayer. But after a minute or so, I felt it couldn't be long enough. The old-timey folks used to say a really good prayer or hymn or sermon "lifted us to the throne of grace." Well, that's exactly what Gene's prayer did for me. And I just couldn't help but love a guy who loved the Lord and other people as much as Gene did.

At the funeral, Mike and Joanie told splendid stories about their dad. If you could have watched the crowd, you would have noticed people all over the place nodding their heads. We didn't necessarily know the details of their stories, but we knew the character of their dad. And we agreed with them in their testimony.

Gene is one of the Christians I've admired most. But looking back, I can recall scores and scores of funerals quite a bit like Gene's. Sure, sorrow filled our hearts. But those funerals became joyous occasions because we celebrated—and thanked God for—the lives of genuinely good people.

Who knows how many times the words "good," "kind," "generous" and "caring" reverberated in our church—not only from the lips of Mike and Joanie and one of our pastors, Kermit, but also from the folks who stood around afterward and remembered Gene and Billie.

As Kermit guided Gene's memorial service to an end, he shared the gospel. He told folks how they could place their faith in Jesus, accept the gift of salvation and see Gene and Billie in heaven one day. 

And I couldn't help but imagine Gene would add a footnote with which Kermit and everyone there could agree. Gene would have been sure to insist he never was good, kind, generous or caring enough to ensure his entrance into heaven. When he died the other day, he went to heaven because of God's grace and mercy.

But, thank God, those of us on this side of heaven catch glimpses of that grace and mercy. We see it in the lives of saints like Gene.

The news has been dispiriting lately. A gunman wreaks havoc in  a Wisconsin Sikh temple, killing six worshippers and injuring three others.  Hours later, an Islamic mosque, an apparent target of arsonists, burns to the ground in Missouri.

Victims of these violent acts expanded far beyond two congregations. They range far beyond Sikhs and Muslims, too. All people of all faiths suffer when intolerance and hatred take root in society.

Ascendancy of incivility

Unfortunately, our society is rife with intolerance and hatred. Incivility often dominates public discourse.  Conventional wisdom—depressingly often espoused by self-proclaimed Christians—sees people as "other" rather than fellow human beings created by God in God's own image. 

Sometimes, the approach is strange, and the source is embarrassingly close. A commenter on this website suggested the United States suspend the free exercise of religion in order to eliminate terrorism. He advocated (a) state sactionining of ministers "to ensure they have a rightful understanding of their religion," (b) requiring all sermons be screened "by authorities for improper topics" and (c) forbidding religious training of all children until age 18. 

I hope this commenter came across my editorial on the Second Amdendment through a search engine and is not a Baptist, much less a regular Baptist Standard reader, who should know better.

Champion of liberty

Baptists were born on the other side of the religious-liberty tracks. Both in England and in the colonies, early Baptists were outsiders and well-acquainted with oppression and persecution. Small wonder, then, the first—and possibly  greatest—American champion of religious liberty was a Baptist, Roger Williams. He founded Rhode Island Colony expressly as a haven for people of all faiths and no faith. And he also founded the first Baptist church in America there, in Providence.

Here are some quotes from The Bloudy Tenent of Persecution, for Cause of Conscience, which Williams wrote in 1644:

• "Men's consciences ought in no sort to be violated, urged, or constrained. And whenever men have attempted any thing by this violent course, whether openly or by secret means, the issue has been pernicious, and the cause of great and wonderful innovations in the principallest and mightiest kingdoms and countries."

• "It is the will and command of God that (since the coming of his Son the Lord Jesus) a permission of the most paganish, Jewish, Turkish, or antichristian consciences and worships, be granted to all men in all nations and countries … ."

 • "God requireth not a uniformity of religion to be enacted and enforced in any civil state; which enforced uniformity (sooner or later) is the greatest occasion of civil war, ravishing of conscience, persecution of Christ Jesus in his servants, and of the hypocrisy and destruction of millions of souls."

Williams built his political principles upon sound Baptist doctrine, most notably the notion of the priesthood of all believers. 

Now is our time

If Baptists stand true to our heritage and, more vitally, to the biblical principles that undergird our heritage, we will defend religious liberty for all people and exert our effort and influence to secure their safety.

Many friends and Internet acquaintances have been asking about my mother and father. I'm grateful to report they're back home and doing about as well as anyone could expect.

Mother and Daddy were involved in a horrific accident in southwestern Oklahoma July 4 as they headed home from a daytrip. Almost immediately after the northbound car in front of them swerved out of harm's way onto the highway shoulder, a southbound car that veered into their lane crashed into them.

Mother held the steering wheel and received the worst of it—a compound fracture of her right femur, nine broken ribs, deep cuts on both legs, a chipped bone in her lower right leg and bruising from ankles to eyebrows. She eventually endured two surgeries on her shattered leg. The crash broke several of Daddy's ribs, and he was bruised so badly he later required a blood transfusion.

They began their arduous recovery process in hospitals in separate cities. For two days, Daddy remained where they were transported immediately after the wreck, Duncan Regional Hospital. But a medical team flew Mother to the University of Oklahoma Medical Center in Oklahoma City. She received excellent treatment in the trauma intensive care unit, her home-away-from-home for almost a week. Then, after a couple more days, she transferred to the Valir rehabilitation hospital for two weeks of therapy that sometimes resembled torture.

Finally, three weeks after the accident, the medical team released Mother to home health care and in-home physical therapy. Few homecomings have been as sweet as the moment Mother inched her way across the threshold from their garage into the kitcken.

Now, she's "walking laps" several times a day—from the bedroom, down the hall, past the bathroom, into the living room and through the kitcken. She's also keeping up with her range-of-motion therapy and maintaining her breathing exercises. Although she faces a long road to recovery, she's bound and determined to make it. Daddy's doing a great job of looking after her while he also mends day by day.

So many of you have inquired about them and have assured us of your prayers. We have appreciated—and felt—every one of them. Through the entire ordeal, we have sensed God's presence and experienced divine peace. We're grateful for the miraculous healing touches of nurses, doctors, technicians and therapists. We thank God for them, and we thank God for restoration, as well as each breath of life.

A gullywasher blew through our Texas Panhandle village one summer afternoon, leaving a large puddle between our sidewalk and the street.

The reason our fight began has been lost to the ages.  But soon, Martha and I were slinging mud while eyeing the front door, expecting mother to run across the yard and stop us. By the time we wore ourselves out, we wore mud like a new skin. We sneaked around to the backyard, where Mother caught us before we could creep in the door. She stripped us to our skivvies, washed us down with the water hose, and chased us into the house. I think she threw our clothes away.

A half-century later, U.S. Christians stand on opposite sides of a theological/ecclesiological puddle. They're siblings, but they're divided along the liberal/conservative spectrum, and they're slinging mud for all they're worth.

Directional perspectives

The latest slinging took place in major media for all the world to see.

Ross Douthat, a conservative Catholic columnist, wrote a piece for the New York Times Sunday Review, "Can liberal Christianity be saved?" His launching point was the every-third-year meeting of the Episcopal Church's House of Bishops and its vote to bless same-sex unions. He noted Sunday Episcopal attendance has dropped 23 percent in the past decade. He suggested liberal Christianity has been declining in America since the 1960s. And he announced the impending death of liberal faith.

Diana Butler Bass, liberal Protestant author of Christianity After Religion, fired back from The Huffington Post with an essay called "Can Christianity be saved?" She pointed out liberals aren't the only ones in decline. For example, the Southern Baptist Convention, easily the nation's most conservative Protestant group, has been sliding. And without the influx of Latino immigrants, the Roman Catholic Church, to the right of the SBC, would be losing members, too. Bass admitted liberal Christianity slid into decline before its conservative siblings. But she provided anecdotal evidence of a "quiet renewal" of liberalism that may save U.S. Christianity.

On a smaller stage, Rachel Held Evans, a moderate author and speaker, responded to Douthat and Bass from her blogsite, www.rachelheldevans.com, with "Liberal Christianity, conservative Christianity, and the caught-in-between." She provided a detailed list of ways she resonates with aspects of both liberalism and conservatism. To buttress her point, she provided the plaintive pleas of her blog readers, who poignantly described the pain of ostracism and alienation fostered by strident voices from the poles of the faith spectrum. She also urged a "peacemaking" process that includes transparent conversation, nurturing diverse faith communities and learning to "argue better."

In the scheme of things, the Douthat-Bass-Evans exchange is one of the mildest mud fights on record. Even Douthat, who started it all, was fairly even-handed and civil. And Evans clearly echoes the Rodney King refrain, "Can't we all get along?"

Fallout of all that mud …

The broader range of mud-slinging between Christian conservatives and liberals propels their recent decline. Why would non-Christians, and particularly young people, even want to join them? The harshness of their criticism of the "other" Christians repels, not compels. And their inclination to side up with political parties-many conservative Christians seem to equate salvation with voting Republican, and their liberal counterparts see similar salvation in voting Democratic-blurs any distinction between partisan faith and partisan politics. So, who needs it?

Stop slinging

The most intriguing—not to mention scalable—possibility for stopping the mud fights between conservative and liberal Christians is to start individually.

Mother didn't intervene in the mud fight between Martha and me because she knew we loved each other. She knew we were best friends. She knew we'd tire of making a mess of each other and come to the house to clean up.

Something similar happens-or at least can happen-between conservative and liberal Christians. Here, I speak from experience. Wonderful friends and I interpret Scriptures differently and cancel each other's vote every election. But we care deeply for each other. We know each other's story. We can't help but realize we hold far, far more in common than we hold apart. And so we agree to disagree. Our times together are blessings, not to mention downright fun.

If we begin by strengthening our relationship with contrary-minded fellow Christians and making friends with others, we can begin weaving the strands of relationship that can pull us together.

Idealistic? Sure.

Difficult? Of course.

Possible? Certainly.

I'm conservative enough to believe in miracles and liberal enough to want them to happen to people who don't even like me. For now, anyway.

This Independence Day, my parents, Margaret and Marvin Knox, took a familiar trip. They drove from their home in southwestern Oklahoma to Wichita Falls, where they visited the grave of their only daughter and my sister, Martha. They placed new flowers, and they remembered her sweet, funny, joyful life.

Mother drove their minivan as they traveled home. A few miles south of Duncan, Okla., the car in front of them suddenly pulled onto the shoulder of the road. That's because a car headed the other way swerved into their lane. Mother barely had time to react before they crashed head-on, driver-to-driver.

The solo driver in the other car lost her life, but Mother and Daddy survived.

With help from other motorists, Daddy got out of the car. But rescue workers needed almost an hour to extricate mother from the tangled wreckage.

X-rays and scans confirmed the damage to their bodies. Both of them suffered broken ribs, and the impact severely fractured Mother's right femur, just above the knee. Because of her age and the extent of her injuries, the doctors in Duncan decided she should be transferred to a hospital in Oklahoma City.

So, following one of the most traumatic events in their lives, they said their I love yous and goodbyes and faced the future in separate hospitals.

Fortunately, Daddy progressed well and left the hospital less than 48 hours later. Mother, however, faces a much longer road to recovery. She'll need at least two surgeries to repair her right leg, and pulmonologists and therapists are working diligently to prevent her from contracting pneumonia, a distinct possibility for someone her age with her injuries.

While I wouldn't recommend looking after parents in two hospitals in separate cities, I can testify to blessings:

• God's presence is steady and sure. Even in the midst of trauma and tragedy, neither my parents, nor my brother, Martin, and I, nor anyone in our family has felt abandoned by the Lord. To the contrary, we have experienced the embrace of divine love and peace that surpasses all understanding.
• Americans debate health care, but the quality of trauma response and follow-up medical treatment staggers the imagination. My parents received excellent care in both hospitals. And the caliber of that care far surpassed mere knowledge. Mother and Daddy not only received excellent medical technology, but also compassion.
• Love and friendship heal all sorts of wounds. Mother, Daddy, Martin and I have heard from friends and family who have assured us of their prayers and care. Each visit and call lifted our spirits and provided hope.

We'd prefer to forget this Independence Day. Ironically, of all we've experienced, we'll remember this one the most. And I pray my parents will look heavenward next July 4, thanking God for life every time they see fireworks explode across the night sky.

Every year at this time, we stop to thank God for your birth. And when I do, I thank God for those women and men who brought you into this world so long ago.  God blessed them—and us—not only with bravery, but with prescience. Democracy still was an embryonic experiment, but they managed to look through the future and to see how it could be used to ennoble and empower their descendants across the centuries.

Through your 236 years, you have bestowed bountiful blessings upon this world.

Your warriors have battled for freedom, and not just for those of us fortunate enough to have been born within your borders. They have fought, and died, for freedom of folks they never would know, whose languages they never would speak. Our planet is a better place because of their passion and sacrifice.

Your geniuses have conferred inventions, medicines, surgical procedures, art, music, literature and all manner of blessings upon not just your own citizens, but also friends and foes alike.

Seeing beyond their own beliefs, your founders guaranteed religious liberty for all people who call you home. Today, that includes people whose theological imaginations would have stupified the framers of our Constitution and Bill of Rights.  But they're protected, too, just like everybody else. Some people want to tear down that "wall of separation" you built between church and state. What they desire is for the government to prop up their kind faith and to limit the practices of people they can't seem to understand. Thanks for writing a First Amendment that's far broader than those narrow minds. Because of our freedom and responsibility, faith flourishes here like no place else. Sure, we've got our share of kooky religion, but nobody intrudes between God and the American conscience. What a blessing!

Of course, not all is well on your 236th birthday. Some people say we're a more divided nation today than at any time since the Civil War. That's quite likely. We still suffer from some racial and ethnic divisions. Despite what I just said about religious liberty, we're still divided along faith lines, too. But the biggest divide today seems to be along class and political boundaries. We've got two large and fairly evenly split groups of people who see very different visions of America. They interpret the Constitution differently. They see our major institutions and businesses differently. They want different outcomes in our short-term future.

The most discouraging aspect of all of this is the fact we cannot cultivate leaders capable of guiding us past this divide. In fact, the political apparatus rewards dividers, not uniters. People who prey on fear and suspicion get elected. And they get re-elected by perpetuating those fears.

So, for your birthday, America, I want to make a wish. I pray God will bless us with a new cadre of leaders. We need women and men from both political parties who love country more than self, who value the common good more than political victories, who have the courage to seek what's best for all people and not the ascendancy of their party. 

Is that too much to ask? Absolutely not.

Will it change our future? I pray to God it will.

True confession: I love missions. And I'm a big fan of mission trips.

The best summer of my life happened between my junior and senior years in college, when I landed a job as a summer missi0nary and spent 10 weeks writing stories about mission work all over Colorado. That led to my first "real" job, reporting on the national work of the Baptist Home Mission Board. As an adult, I've gone on mission trips to China, Guatemala and Russia and participated in all kinds of local mission projects. As a parent, I helped send my daughters on summer projects from coast to coast.

But occasionally, I've wondered: Is this the best way to get missions done?

Was buying an airline ticket the best stewardship of that money? Did the projects we finished remain after we left? Did the people who told us they met Jesus while we lived among them really establish a relationship with our Savior?

Those and other questions echoed across the miles as I traveled back home. Sometimes, I felt deep peace and a resounding "yes" to those and other questions. Other times, I wasn't so sure.

At least I wasn't alone in my wondering. Christianity Today asked a similar question of three thoughtful missions leaders: "Should churches abandon travel-intensive short-term missions in favor of local projects?" You can read their answers here.

Of course, the short answer is "depends." And the best answer mirrors all reasonable discussions of missions: Christ-honoring, respectful, effective, lasting mission endeavors are complicated and nuanced and demand our best motives and clearest thinking.

The three leaders featured in CT provide terrific throught-provoking comments. If you are in any way involved in your church's missions efforts, read the article, pass it on, and discuss it as you plan other projects.

We have been commanded to love the Lord with all our minds as well as our hearts. And, among other things, that means thinking deeply and carefully about missions.

The Southern Baptist Convention will elect its first African-American president. The Cooperative Baptist Fellowship will contemplate its direction under a leader to be named later.

Healing moment; right prez

The SBC will take a huge healing leap when messengers select Fred Luter as president. He's a solid choice for a convention seeking to shed its racist image—an image recently and ironically compounded by the leader of its ethics agency.

Luter is pastor of Franklin Avenue Baptist Church in New Orleans, where the SBC meets June 19-20. Luter started out as a street preacher and built Franklin Avenue Baptist into one of the strongest congregations in the Big Easy. He led his church to survive  Hurricane Katrina due to incomprehensible courage, voluminous faith and sheer force of will.

As an SBC vice president, he has represented the convention well across the nation. He's a powerful and popular preacher. It's practically impossible to think of any knowledgeable Baptist who does not admire and respect Fred Luter.

Of course, the SBC got its start because of race. Baptists in the South owned slaves and felt their missionaries should be able to own slaves, too. The American Baptists, headquartered in the North, decreed they would not appoint slave-holders, so the Southerners seceded—15 years before the Civil War.

For generations, Southern Baptists tried to bleach away the stain of slavery and racism. They made great advances in the late 1960s and '70s, prodded and guided by lion-hearted leaders at the SBC's Home Mission Board and Christian Life Commission, plus a handful of pastors. Still, the stain persisted. In 1995, the convention actually repented of its 150-year-old sin. But with "Southern" as its first name, the stigma still persisted. That, and the fact African Americans still rode at the back of the SBC's leadership bus.

Luter stands to change all that. It will be hard to accuse the Southern Baptists of abject racism when their leader is a black preacher.

Uh-oh

But some Southern Baptists still do their part to perpetuate pariahship.

Richard Land, head of the SBC Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, actually earned a decent reputation for combatting racism. He has spoken on behalf of racial reconciliation and against racial oppression.

Unfortunately, he's  more partisan than prophetic. So, he jumped on a political opportunity. He accused President Obama of using the Trayvon Martin murder case to stir up racial resentment. Observers noted this seemed to be exactly what Land was doing at the time. And he also committed plagiarism, copping much of the diatribe that got him in trouble.

Although some SBC messengers may call for Land's resignation or removal, don't count on it. The Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission's board already dealt Land a humiliting punishment. They turned off his microphone—pulling the plug on his radio program, Richard Land Live! But they'll probably keep him on for a couple of reasons. First, he's 65 and near the end of his career. They can let him go a little while longer and let him leave on his own terms. And second, by their lights, he's been doing exactly what they paid him to do. For more than a quarter-century, Land has been a fighter in the Baptist "holy war" and in the larger culture wars. They're not likely to give their adversaries the satisfaction of watching one of their aging icons expire from friendly fire.

Three issues for CBF

As soon as the SBC annual meeting ends, the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship's general assembly will kick off a two-day run in Fort Worth. Three issues—two on the agenda and one not—are likely to occupy CBFers' attention.

Celebrating Vestal

First will be the retirement of CBF's longtime coordinator, Daniel Vestal. He will step down as the organization's top staff leader this summer. So, he will deliver his final address to CBF and be feted at a farewell reception when the general assembly draws to a close.

Texas Baptists know Vestal as a living legend. Oldtimers remember "Danny Vestal" as a scintillating youth evangelist who led hundreds, perhaps thousands, of teenagers to faith in Jesus before he was old enough to vote. Later, he was pastor of several leading Texas churches and one in suburban Atlanta.

On the national stage, Vestal accepted appointment to the SBC Peace Committee in the mid-1980s, when the "holy war" raged. He held a unique position—someone recognized as truly neutral and possibly a mediator in the movement to mend the widening rift in the convention. But Vestal's experience on the Peace Committee obviously opened his eyes to the hardball politics of the convention's right wing, and he expressed shock and horror at what he saw. A few years later, he helped so-called moderates launch the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship as a haven for "free and faithful" Baptists. And a few years after that, he became CBF's second coordinator.

Since then, Vestal has held a hard job. The heat generated by the Southern Baptist schism cooled. Many of the old guard who fought the "holy war" and helped fund the new CBF have headed home to heaven. And many of CBF's young leaders have no memory of, much less passion for, the battles out of which the organization developed.

So, CBF has struggled for identity in recent years. Consequently, budgets have languished. Staff has been cut. Allocations to CBF's ministry partners have been reduced. CBF faces a time of transition that begs for clear identity.

Still, Vestal will be remembered for his multiple passions—for loving Jesus, for evangelism and missions, for Baptist principles and ideals, for faith formation, for the local church. The CBF will celebrate those remarkable qualities and express their gratitude for his leadership.

But they will leave not knowing the identity of his successor. The search committee, led by George Mason, pastor of Wilshire Baptist Church in Dallas, is wisely taking its time to do deliberate work. This gives CBF time and space to bid farewell to Vestal and provides an opportunity for the new coordinator to start on her or his own terms.

Task force report

Vision will be the subject of the second major agenda item at the general assembly. A task force has spent the past couple of years listening to CBF Baptists and has drafted a report to guide the organization into the future. 

Participants are expected to adopt that report, which will help define CBF's mission and vision, reorganize its governance structure and redefine its relationships with state and regional affiliates. This is enormously important for CBF. But it's also very "inside baseball"—so much so that only CBF geeks can explain it. To other CBF geeks.

Unofficial, but present

The third important CBF issue in Fort Worth is not on the agenda, but you can bet it's on the mind of practically everyone traveling to Cowtown: What about homosexuals?

For years, CBF's basic position on homosexuality has been the same as thousands and thousands of Baptist churches': "Don't ask; don't tell." And ironically—because SBC leaders have hammered CBF as being "pro-gay"—its official policy is quite conservative. It calls for "faithfulness in marriage between a man and a woman and celibacy in singleness" and it prohibits the organization from hiring gays and lesbians.

This winter, the outgoing CBF moderator, Colleen Burroughs, said she wanted the organization to "have a conversation" on homosexuality and suggested it should drop its gay-hiring ban. Burroughs' statement, combined with CBF's decision to co-host a conference on human sexuality this spring, has caused the organization's adversaries to claim, "See, I told you so" and frightened many CBFers who worry they're right.

But the gay-hiring ban and CBF's stated position advocating only sex within a male-female marriage or celibacy aren't anywhere close to changing. The issue isn't even on the agenda this year. And the incoming moderator and moderator-elect aren't likely to place it on the agenda in the next two years.

Despite what CBF's detractors say, the organization is not monolithic on homosexuality and homosexual practice. Some CBFers are welcoming and affirming; others are as conservative on the issue as any Southern Baptist.

Challenge going forward

Over the past two decades, one of the most compelling aspects of CBF has been its ability—even its eagerness—to provide common ground for Baptists who don't agree on all issues. CBF was launched by Baptists who were ostracized by the Southern Baptist Convention because they did not hold a very specific and conservative view of Scripture. They understood the pain of being rejected by their "home" convention because they did not agree 100 percent with its new leaders.

If CBF holds to its noble heritage, it will find a way to cooperate across diversity, while pouring energy into shared commitments—the lordship of Christ, the primacy of missions and evangelism, the necessity of serving the poorest and most disenfranchised people on earth, the vital importance of theological education, and the vibrancy of the local church.

And if CBF turns loose of that heritage, "moderate" Baptists will wander through the 21st century without a national spiritual home.

If a psychoanalyst ever tried to figure me out, she wouldn't need to tell me to lie down on a couch and talk about my mama. She simply could ask, "So, what have you been humming lately?"

See, it's like this: I can't not hum. (OK, English teachers, I know I just used a double negative. Sometimes breaking the rules works.) Of course, I don't hum every second. But probably, I  hum at least once every hour I'm awake. Don't know why. Just do. 

Natural-born hummer

Some people only hum when they're happy. But if you're a natural-born hummer, you hum no matter your mood.

So, if you could hear me, you could check my mood by what I'm humming. Sort of like taking my emotional/spiritual temperature.

Now, understand the limitations of my range. If I had better taste, I'd memorize Mozart's "Requiem" for the tough times and maybe something by Vivaldi for the happy days. Or if I had a broader cultural upbringing, I'd know plenty blues tunes to intonate my temperament. But I'm more of a country music/Baptist Hymnal/’70s rock kind of a guy. This has narrowed my humming repetoire.

First, the sad …

When I'm stressed or down in the dumps, I can measure the degree of my despair by the direction of my dirges. If I'm feeling forlorn, I'll hear myself working on a Hank Williams tune, like "I'm So Lonesome, I Could Cry" or the George Jones classic "He Stopped Loving Her Today." But I'm also a person of faith and generally optimistic, so sometimes I hear myself trying to pull out of a funk with Isaac Watts' "Oh, God, Our Help in Ages Past" or Horatio Spafford's "It is Well With My Soul."

Also, the happy …

When I'm happy, almost any up-tempo tune might pop into my head and roll out of my throat. Lately, with all our much-needed rain, I've been ruminating on "Showers of Blessings." That's a great double  entendre, if ever I've hummed one. 

Most of the time, Lyle Lovett fills my internal playlist. "If I Had a Boat" and "Give Back My Heart, You Kicker Redneck Woman" come around just about every day. So does "She Ain't No Lady; She's My Wife," and I always remind myself it's the tune, not the words, I'm humming. Almost all of James Taylor's songbook makes me feel calm.

So, when I listen to myself, I get a pretty good bead on how I'm feeling and/or what I'm doing to cope.

How about you? How do you measure and/or modify your mood? 

Oh, and one more thing: All this humming also informs my prayers. Practically every day, I thank God for music. Even the tunes inside my head.

As a teenager and young adult, Lineberger exhibited rotten behavior that gives preachers' kids a bad name. He shoplifted, abused alcohol, got his girlfriend pregnant, disrespected his parents and teachers, wasted his talents and wrecked his friendships. All that happened even before he got thrown out of high school and into rehab shortly before graduation. And then things got worse.

Lineberger repeatedly embarrassed his parents. His father was a prominent North Texas pastor at the time. But they never stopped loving him. Even more important, neither did God.

Eventually, love cracked a young man's hard, hard shell, creating a way for a loving, thoughtful and sensitive soul to emerge. Now, he is an assistant vice president of Dallas Baptist University and directs its academic center in Plano. He's also a loving, attentive husband and father and active member of his church.

Lineberger has written What God Did With a Mess Like Me, a courageous and selfless book about his life. It provides a roadmap to redemption for teens and young adults who think they've been so bad God can't love them. And it paints a picture of hope for parents, siblings and others who love a young person like that.

We'll review the book in the Baptist Standard before too long, but I wanted you to know about it now. You can order it here. If you know a messed-up teenager or a messed-up teenager's parents, give them a copy. If you work with teens, buy copies for them and study the book together. 

And if you want to know more about Lineberger, visit his website.

More than 2,000 Americans falsely convicted of serious crimes have been exonerated during the past 23 years, according to a new data archive created by two law schools.

The University of Michigan Law School and the Center on Wrongful Convictions at Northwestern University School of Law researched the data nationwide. It paints a picture—previously officially unavailable—of how many times the criminal justice system has doled out erroneous convictions.

You can read an Associated Press article about the new database here.

The researchers analyzed information about 873 wrongful convictions. They said they are aware of 1,200 others for which they do not possess extensive data.

Of the 873 analyzed cases, the defendents spent a total of 10,000 years in prison, and the length of each incarceration lasted more than 11 years.

Ninety percent of the cases involved males, and 50 percent involved African-Americans.

The most common factor contributing to the false convictions—involved in half the cases studied—was perjured testimony or false accusations, the data analysis uncovered. Mistaken eyewitness indentification factored in 43 percent of the cases, and false or misleading forensic evidence came into play in 24 percent of the cases.

In homicides, perjury or false accusation was the most common factor in the false conviction. It occurred in about two-thirds of those cases.

This new data supports a Baptist Standard editorial calling for Gov. Rick Perry to place a moratorium on Texas executions and for the next session of the Texas Legislature to abolish the death penalty.

For decades, church leaders, demographers and pollsters have known the path beyond high school is the most treacherous in the religious landscape. Those are the years when a significant percentage of people who grew up attending church drop out, move on, drift away.

Now, a new survey documents that trend among the younger Millennials—basically, adults younger than age 29 and also known as "Generation Y." And the pace of prodigality is escalating.

Twenty-five percent of Americans age 18 to 24 identify themselves as religiously unaffiliated, according to a survey conducted by the Public Religion Research Institute and the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace and World Affairs at Georgetown University.

More disturbing, 55 percent of the young unaffiliated were involved with a religious group when they were younger. Not only did they fall away from faith, but they no longer even see themselves as related to any faith group.

You can read the Washington Post story here. And see the PRRI report here. See the Berkley Center website here, and the PRRI website here.

Across all faith groups, the only cohort that saw an increase from childhood to adulthood was the unaffiliated, which grew from 11 percent of children to 25 percent of young adults.

This illustrates why we have founded FaithVillage.com, a new social network that provides faith experiences for teens and young adults. 

We have pulled together a vast range of faith resources—from spiritual formation, to marriage and family, to Bible study, to missions and ministry, to following Christ in the "real world." FaithVillage.com not only features articles, but also videos, podcasts, blogs and webinars.

And it's built on a social networking platform, so that participants have their own profile pages, from which they can build and form all kinds of groups.

Also, it's free to churches, so they can communicate with their teens and young adults—all grouped together but also in all the varieties of groups that form within congregations. Plus, all this communication takes place among resources that otherwise would only be available on dozens of separate websites.

If you haven't dropped in, please visit FaithVillage.com. Better yet, encourage teens and young adults you know to participate. Urge your church to join and use FaithVillage to strengthen teens and young adults.

The research shows they can use all the help they can get.