SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (BP)—It isn’t clear whether the Illinois Senate will tackle a bill to lease the state’s lottery at a special session in November. But regardless of that legislation, it is only one of a dozen states contemplating such action.

The prospect of using private companies to operate lotteries violates a basic premise behind their adoption, some anti-gambling activists have noted. During the 18th century, privately operated lotteries flourished across the nation, but they became so corrupt that they vanished from the American landscape in the late 1800s because of citizens’ objections.

“One way (gambling proponents) were able to sell people on lotteries was promising that by operating the lottery themselves the state could assure no corruption could take place,” said Barrett Duke, vice president for public policy and research at the Southern Baptist Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission .

“Now states look like they are reneging on that promise. All of a sudden, we find these governments are preparing to relinquish some degree of this oversight to a third party. To me, this appears to be a violation of the trust these governments asked their people to place in them.”

Apart from the objections to privatization proposals, the overarching issue with lotteries remains the same—the way they prey on the poor and other vulnerable populations, a national anti-gambling activist noted.

Les Bernal, executive director of StopPredatoryGambling.org , points to one study that showed the top 5 percent of players account for 54 percent of sales, and at least one state, Ohio, schedules its lottery promotions to coincide with the receipt of government benefits, payroll and Social Security payments.

By their very nature, privatization proposals fail to protect the public, Bernal said.

“It’s time we started looking this thing in the eye,” Bernal said. “If we think the advertising for a state lottery is predatory, imagine you have a private entity pushing lottery products in every convenience store, gas station and restaurant in the state. If this was a bank, the government would step in and stop it.”

Illinois’ plan parallels other states that are looking at the possibility of multi-year leases in return for sizable up-front payments. Under the bill passed by its House of Representatives, the lottery would be leased for a minimum of 50 years in return for a minimum $10 billion payment. Illinois also would retain a 20 percent interest in the games’ profits.

However, such proposals don’t add up over the long term, according to a university professor who has coauthored a study of lottery leasing proposals in Illinois, California, Colorado, Indiana, Michigan and Texas.

Robert Purtell, a professor of public administration at the University of Albany, N.Y., said leasing of lotteries or other state-owned assets such as toll roads or bridges is a complex issue with far-reaching ramifications.

“It makes no sense to sell the lottery,” said Purtell, who wrote Hey, You Never Know: Selling State Lotteries in America with fellow professor James Fossett.

One concern, Purtell noted, is the hidden threat to taxpayers stemming from the underlying guarantee of state ownership. Because a state will be forced to step in and retake control of the lottery in the case of bankruptcy, a private operator has the incentive to invest its earnings in risky ventures.

States “are almost forced to take it over, and they’re forced to make good on all the prizes,” Purtell said.

Gambling expert David Schwartz described privatization proposals as generally lacking long-term benefits.

“You figure that politicians spend whatever they get now and then they’re going to need more money to do stuff and they won’t have the lottery. Then what are they going to sell off?” said Schwartz, director of the Center for Gaming Research at the University of Nevada at Las Vegas.

“Any time you start selling off infrastructure, that’s not usually a good sign. It’s like taking out a second mortgage on your house. It’s not really a sign that you’ve got a lot of money coming in.”

The possibility of expanded lottery games is among objections to Illinois’ plan that have been raised by Illinois Church Action on Alcohol and Addiction Problems. Executive Director Anita Bedell asked what company would pay $10 billion to lease 80 percent of the lottery and then operate under the same restrictions as the state.

The proposal also takes away the lottery’s original stated purpose of funding education, Bedell said, pointing that only 30 percent of the leasing payment will go to education and the remainder to state construction projects.

Proposals to lease lotteries take states in the wrong direction at a time of financial crisis, said Bernal of StopPredatoryGambling.org .

Lotteries symbolize the idea that there is free money available without the bill ever coming due—which Wall Street’s collapse demonstrates is a myth, Bernal said.

Instead, Bernal said, the United States needs to return to a standard of thrift and saving for the future instead of people gambling that they might win enough to take care of their bills.

“We’ve turned from a nation of small savers to a nation of habitual bettors,” Bernal said. “Twenty-one percent of Americans (according to a survey by the Tax Foundation) think the best way to save for retirement is to play the lottery.”

RICHMOND, Va. (BP)—The Southern Baptist International Mission Board has extended its child-protection policy to request that short-term mission team participants go through a screening process.

Because most volunteers who serve overseas come in contact with children, the IMB now requests that, starting Jan. 1, all short-term mission team participants 18 and older submit to screenings by their local church.

The process should include three parts—criminal background check, references and interview.

For team members under 18, only the reference part of the process would be completed. Screenings only need to be completed once every four years, regardless of how many overseas mission trips a person takes.

“The policy has grown out of the concern that all of us have for the safety and welfare of children around the globe,” said Ken Winter, the board’s vice president of church and partner services.

“We know that many Southern Baptist churches are already providing background checks and training for members who are serving in local church ministry, but it may not extend to those headed overseas as a part of a mission team.”

If a congregation does not already have a relationship with a company that conducts background checks, the board has contracted with an employment and volunteer background screening company to provide online service at discounted rates.

The board’s new child protection policy also requests that short-term mission team participants complete child-protection training. For churches that do not already have such training in place, the board will have free training materials available online beginning in January.

This training teaches basic principles of sound child protection as well as procedures to prevent, recognize and respond to abuse.

Churches will be asked to confirm that all mission team participants have completed the screening and training prior to working with International Mission Board field personnel.

The board already had a policy in place that compels the investigation of any accusation or indication of sexual abuse, as well as immediate dismissal and filing of appropriate criminal charges if sexual abuse is confirmed.

Under policy guidelines, all IMB personnel will continue to undergo thorough background checks.

No one may serve with the IMB who has a history of child abuse, a criminal conviction of a sexual nature or exhibits any other behavior indicative of sexual abuse.

More detailed information about the IMB child protection process is available at going to http://imb.org/vim/Step_2/team_leader.asp .

SAN ANTONIO—Sometimes Laura Mannes wishes she could fix the pain, grief and suffering she encounters each day as a chaplain. Then she reminds herself of her mission.

“I have to realize that I am a human being and not a human doing, and that sometimes sitting on the ash heap being beside someone is the most powerful care one can give,” said Mannes, a Cooperative Baptist Fellowship-endorsed chaplain at Northeast Baptist Hospital in San Antonio.

Mannes, a graduate of Baptist Theological Seminary at Richmond, fulfills her mission by caring for patients and family members when they face new diagnoses, end-of-life decisions, spiritual and emotional distress, or death. Often, that care involves connecting patients and their families to their faith communities.

Recently, Mannes responded to a call for an emergency room patient who was not responding to treatments. She helped facilitate the family’s discussion as they confronted end-of-life decisions regarding their mother’s care and ultimately decided to follow their mother’s wishes by foregoing life support.

The family shared with Mannes that their mother found joy in singing. So, Mannes led the family in song and prayer at their mother’s bedside. As they sang a benediction hymn, their mother died.

“It was a very holy moment. … You knew and felt God’s presence in that room,” Mannes said. “That room was a sacred place at that moment.”

Mannes believes death is not a taboo subject and no longer fears it like she did as a child.

“Jesus talked about his impending death with his disciples, and his disciples had trouble with it,” Mannes said. “I think that is the way it is today. Many individuals have trouble with it. But I see death as part of life. I do not see it as an end but another beginning to life eternally with God.”

Mannes did not grow up in church, but she started attending as a teenager when a friend invited her. Her background gives her insight into patients or families who do not belong to a church or who come to faith in Christ later in life, she said.

For Mannes, a prayer by Teresa of Avila inspires her to be the presence of Christ to others. One line states, “God of love, help us to remember that Christ has no body now on earth but ours, no hands but ours, no feet but ours.”

“I believe that being present with others and being that reminder of Christ on earth is what my ministry is all about,” Mannes said.

In addition to her work with patients and families, Mannes mentors chaplain residents and interns and confronts ethical challenges as a member of the hospital’s ethics committee. As a participant in interdisciplinary care rounds, Mannes collaborates with a nurse, social worker, physician and dietician to care for patients’ physical, spiritual and emotional needs.

She also ministers to staff and conducts a “Blessing of the Hands” ritual to remind staff members “that their hands are a tool of healing by bringing touch and comfort to the patient, and that what they do is a calling, not just a job,” she said.

OKLAHOMA CITY (ABP)—“How do you plan to stay in touch with your family while you’re deployed?” Baptist Chaplain Jim Kirkendall frequently asks young soldiers.

It’s one of the many topics Kirkendall addresses during personal visits with military personnel of the U.S. Army’s 95th Division in Oklahoma City to prepare them for deployment to Iraq and Afghanistan.

Soldiers are required to attend mandatory briefings by many Army departments—from the judge advocate general to family readiness. During these sessions, Kirkendall addresses the emotional impact of deployment and suicide prevention. He shares experiences from his own yearlong deployment in Iraq.

From 2006 to 2007, Kirkendall was attached to the Logistics Support Area Anaconda in Balad, Iraq, where he counseled soldiers and visited the wounded and workers at the Air Force Theater Hospital and the Contingency Aeromedical Staging Facility.

Kirkendall saw suffering among civilian and military personnel. While visiting soldiers and chaplains at the Air Force Theater Hospital, he heard, “Trauma code ER, trauma code ER.” He and another chaplain arrived in the emergency room as medics rushed into the facility a boy who had been shot in the head.

“So there he was, a small 10-year-old with no family around him but with two Christian military chaplains, each holding onto his hands and praying as he died,” Kirkendall said.

While in Iraq, he ministered to a mixture of American, Filipino, Indian, Pakistani, Turkish, Russian and Iraqi civilians, as well as personnel from all branches of the U.S. military. He also conducted training sessions for 25 junior chaplains.

“At LSA Anaconda, suffering was demonstrated by being absent from our loved ones for a very long time; death of a comrade; frustration in the office due to overbearing supervisors; lack of communication with family; spouse deciding to start a relationship with someone else and leave the soldier in Iraq; injured soldiers with limbs violently removed from their bodies; civilians caught in the middle between scratching out a living and having a war exploding around them; to interpreters using false names so their identity would be concealed,” he said.  “And the list goes on. The bottom line is God is still there.”

Now, Kirkendall—a Cooperative Baptist Fellow-ship-endorsed chaplain—talks with Oklahoma-based soldiers about the challenges they are likely to face. He also serves as the state chaplain for the Oklahoma Office of Juvenile Affairs.

“I love being a chaplain because I have a unique ministry of going where others cannot go,” he said. “The average pastor doesn’t get to go behind the fence of the medium and maximum secured areas … with 12- to 18-year-old adjudicated juvenile delinquents … (or) to serve in a combat zone and serve soldiers where life-and-death issues are addressed every day.”

FORT WORTH (ABP)—A Southern Baptist seminary professor has sparked controversy with a recent sermon labeling use of birth-control pills a sin.

Thomas White, vice president for student services and communications and associate professor of systematic theology at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, said in an Oct. 7 seminary chapel sermon that using birth-control pills is “wrong,” “not correct according to Scripture” and, in some cases, “murder of a life.”

White said one of the three ways the pill functions is to prevent a fertilized ovum from implanting in the uterus seven days after conception.
“The seventh day is seven days too long, and it’s murder of a life,” he said. “When the egg and the sperm meet, you have life.

“If you ask theologians, they’re going to tell you that the egg and the sperm meet when the soul is implanted,” White said. “There’s no other time to say that God creates the soul and puts it in than that point in time. And so at that point you have life. You have at the moment of conception life, and yet the third aspect of birth control is to say that life cannot implant onto the wall as it normally would, and so that life is going to be flushed down, and that, my friends, is wrong.”

Not all birth control 

After comments critical of his sermon appeared in a report on a local television station, White said in an e-mail to the Dallas Morning News that he doesn’t oppose all birth control, but just anything that ends life after conception.

In his Oct. 7 sermon, however, White seemed to suggest that all birth control was contrary to God’s plan. He said the root problem is that American society views children as a hindrance rather than a blessing from God.

White confessed that, after getting married nine years ago, he and his wife made the mistake of using contraceptives “because of my own selfishness.”

“I wanted kids, but I wanted kids in not God’s timing, but in my timing,” he said. “I didn’t want kids when I was in my M.Div. program, when I was going to have another mouth to feed, and it was going to inconvenience my ability to finish my course work and maybe move on and do a Ph.D. and all these type things. I wanted kids, but I wanted kids my way, my time, the way I wanted to do it, so I could plan my family out.”

“Folks, you are not in control of your destinies—God is,” he said.

“And the sooner we recognize that we are sinning when we say, ‘I am going to control every aspect of my family’ and we’re not giving control to God, we don’t trust him, we don’t believe that he knows better than we do—we think we know more than God does, and just like I did, some of you are involved in that exact same sin.”

White said Christians joke about fertile families, but Psalm 127—“Behold, children are an heritage of the Lord: and the fruit of the womb is his reward…. Blessed is the man whose quiver is full”—seems to uphold as an ideal.

“It’s my attitude, too,” he said. “I think about ten kids running around the house, and I think to myself, ‘Lord, is that really a blessing?’ That’s what (God’s) Word says.”

White also faulted couples who have children, but then pawn them off on others to raise.

Kids "pushed off to day care" 

“We want to take our kids and push them off to the day care,” he said. “Then we want to take our kids and push them off to the public schools, and then we want to take our kids and push them off to the church. And then when our kids mess up, we want to blame somebody else for our kid’s problems.”

“It’s not a day care’s responsibility, a church’s responsibility or a school’s responsibility to rear your children in the fear and admonition of the Lord,” he said. “It is your responsibility to do so.”

Wade Burleson, an Oklahoma pastor who blogs on Southern Baptist Convention issues at Grace and Truth to You accused White of “preaching personal opinions as if they were mandates from God.”

“This type of legalism will destroy not only the fabric of cooperation upon which our convention was built; it will ultimately destroy the powerful message of the gospel, because tertiary matters are elevated to a primary status of debate within the SBC and people who disagree are excluded,” Burleson said.

McKissic says message is "problematic"

Dwight McKissic, pastor of Cornerstone Baptist Church in Arlington, Texas, and a former Southwestern Seminary trustee, criticized White’s message as “extremely problematic, overly simplistic and unscriptural.”

McKissic resigned from the Southwestern Seminary board of trustees last year amid controversy over his own remarks at a 2006 chapel service. In them, he acknowledged that he had spoken in tongues in his private prayer life.

Southwestern President Paige Patterson and other seminary leaders have denounced the practice, which has been the subject of controversy at other SBC agencies in recent years.

In a statement released to a local TV station, McKissic said he sees a pattern developing at the seminary of “adopting views not supported by Scripture, but preached as if they are in line with Scripture.” He cited examples of the recent firing of a Hebrew professor because she is a woman and attempts to disqualify missionaries not baptized in Southern Baptist churches.

“This is fundamentalism run amok,” McKissic said. “I am concerned that this great Baptist seminary is slowly degenerating into a fundamentalist indoctrination camp.”

“These views represent a radical shift in Baptist life in the past few years,” McKissic said. “You would expect this kind of thinking to have come from Bob Jones University or some independent fundamentalist Baptist seminary, but not SWBTS. All of these aberrant views explain why the SBC is a denomination in decline.”

Richard Land, head of the SBC’s ethics-and-public-policy agency, reacted to the controversy over White’s remarks by saying he would not oppose all birth control. However, he did seem to oppose surgical sterilization as a form of contraception.

“The Southern Baptist Convention is not opposed to the use of birth control within marriage as long as the methods used do not cause the fertilized egg to abort and as long as the methods used do not bar having children all together unless there’s a medical reason the couple should not have children,” he said, according to WFAA-TV.
 

METAIRIE, La. (RNS)—In the past three years, Memorial Baptist Church has absorbed a series of hard punches from Hurricanes Katrina, Gustav and Ike, but the congregation and its pastor refuse to give up.

“The people in the church are phenomenal,” Pastor Jackie Gestes said. “When the Lord is with you, who can be against you? And in the midst of all this, we know he is with us.”

In 2005, Hurricane Katrina ripped the roof off the church’s sanctuary and left the worship space in shambles. Gestes and the congregation spent almost three years rebuilding while they worshipped in the fellowship hall.

The congregation held its first worship service in the remodeled sanctuary July 13. The renovation included new pews, carpet, sound system and a baby grand piano.

When Hurricane Gustav blew through on Sept. 1, its winds took the roof off—again—and damaged most of the inside of the sanctuary, including the pews, piano and carpet.

“We put a temporary plastic roof on the building and thought we could save the interior walls,” Gestes said.

But the winds from Hurricane Ike the following week ripped off the temporary roof and allowed rainwater to damage the interior walls and drywall.

“When the wind from Ike took off the plastic roof, it left the inside totally vulnerable to the rain,” Gestes said. “And that finished off the rest of the building.”

Now the congregation is faced with the challenge of having to rebuild the sanctuary a second time in three years, and it is once again holding Sunday worship services in the fellowship hall.

“The Sunday after Gustav, we met in the fellowship hall, and there was some shock among some of the people when they saw the damage for the first time,” Gestes said. “Yet at the same time, they were already thinking about rebuilding and talking about how soon we could get it done.”

The church plans to start rebuilding the sanctuary as soon as possible, Gestes said. The congregation’s goal is to have it finished in six months.

“Hard times bring people together, and we have a strong unity that only God can provide,” Gestes said. “And we are going to come back better than ever.”

James Marse Grant, editor emeritus of the North Carolina Baptist Biblical Recorder, died Oct. 17 at his home, in Raleigh, N.C. He was 88. Grant served as editor of Charity and Children, publication of Baptist Children’s Home of North Carolina, from 1949 to 1959. He was editor of the Biblical Recorder from 1959 to 1982. He is survived by his wife of 66 years, Marian Gibbs Grant; three daughters, Susan Rawls of Statesville, N.C., and Marcia Morton and Carol Potter, both of Raleigh; six grandchildren and three great-grandchildren; a brother, Truett A. Grant of Greensboro, N.C.; and a sister, Carolyn G. DeLapp, also of Greensboro. 

Former BWA women’s leader dies. Edna Lee de Gutiérrez of Mexico, a former vice president of the Baptist World Alliance and a past president of the BWA women’s department, died Oct. 5. Gutiérrez was involved in Baptist work in Latin America throughout her life. She served as president of the Mexican Baptist Youth Union, president of the Nicaraguan Baptist Convention, and president of the Baptist Women’s Union of Latin America. Her husband, Rolando Gutiérrez, was pastor of churches in Managua, Nicaragua, and Horeb Baptist Church in Mexico City. After an earthquake hit Mexico City in 1985, she led the women of Horeb Baptist Church to transform the church facility into a rescue center—feeding a hot meal to 6,000 people a day for three months and caring for 45 families living in tents. After her husband’s death in 1997, she served as pastor of Horeb Baptist Church more than 18 months. Gutiérrez served on the BWA’s general council, executive committee and church leadership commission. Gutiérrez is survived by three children. 

Messages requested for Graham birthday. Family and friends of Billy Graham are soliciting stories from people whose lives have been changed by the evangelist’s ministry, and they plan to deliver them to him on his 90th birthday, Nov. 7. The Billy Graham Evangelistic Association has set up a website —BillyGraham90.com— where people can send Graham stories, birthday greetings or simply a note of thanks to the man who likely has preached the gospel to more people than anyone in history. Messages to Graham also can be mailed to: Billy Graham’s 90th Birthday, Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, 1 Billy Graham Parkway, Charlotte, N.C. 28201. The deadline for submissions is Nov. 1.

New Orleans seeks associational missions director. The Baptist Association of Greater New Orleans is seeking a full-time director of missions to oversee the ministries of the association, which is undergoing significant organizational changes in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. In May, the association adopted a strategy plan, called the 2020 Vision, as its guide. The 2020 vision strategy plan, along with a detailed job description for the associational post, can be viewed and downloaded at www.bagnola.org, and resumes can be sent by e-mail to Lynn Gehrmann at lgehrmann@bagnola.org. The selection committee will begin reviewing applicants the first week of November. The association has received “so much loving ministry from Baptists across the U.S.A. in the three years since Katrina, and we are eternally grateful,” said veteran Director of Missions Joe McKeever. “We will appreciate continued prayers for the churches of our association, as we go forward in rebuilding the city and bringing the gospel of Christ to our people.”

WACO—Throughout their history, Baptists have uniformly revered the Bible but passionately disagreed about what it means, historian Bill Leonard told an audience at Baylor University’s Truett Theological Seminary.

Baptists’ earliest statements of faith proclaimed their affirmation of Scripture, reported Leonard, dean of Wake Forest University’s Divinity School.

The London Confession, published in 1644, stated: “The rule of this knowledge, faith and obedience … is not man’s inventions, opinions, devices, laws, constitutions or traditions unwritten whatsoever, but only the word of God contained in canonical Scriptures.”

The Orthodox Creed, affirmed in 1679, declared biblical authority does not rely upon “authority of any man, but only upon the authority of God.”

“Early Baptists recognized the complexity of reading, using and understanding biblical content, while insisting even the ‘unlearned’ could comprehend the text’s most basic instruction,” Leonard said.

But Baptists “often painted themselves into assorted theological and cultural corners” when their avowed loyalty to biblical authority clashed with “piety and practice, culture and conflict,” he added.

“When such theological and cultural dilemmas inevitably occur, many Baptists adapt, even change, their theology while clinging to the rhetoric of an uncompromised biblicism,” Leonard said. “And, being Baptists, when such differences occur, they often split, creating new communities gathered around diverse interpretations of pivotal texts.”

That has been true from the beginning, he said, reminding, “Baptists are really the only post-Reformation Protestant community to begin with two contradictory theological perspectives, one Arminian, the other Calvinist.” Arminians champion human free will, while Calvinists emphasize God’s sovereignty.

So, since the 17th century, Baptists have occupied “both ends of the … theological spectrum,” he said.

Evangelical inclusion 

A century later, Baptist missions pioneers William Carey and Andrew Fuller “stretched popular theology to the breaking point” by promoting what Leonard called “evangelical inclusion.” They emphasized the biblical mandate to take the gospel to the “heathen” around the world, while other Baptists vehemently disagreed, believing God could save the “elect” without human involvement.

In time, the advocates of missions carried the day for most Baptists, a victory that redefined their understanding of God’s plan for salvation.

A century after that, Baptists struggled with accommodating their theology to culture, Leonard added. The primary issue was slavery, and both sides claimed the Bible supported their position. And Baptist slaves cited numerous biblical references to support their cry for liberation.

In the last century, the question of accommodation to Scripture and/or culture focused on the role of women in Baptist churches, and particularly ordination, Leonard said. As with previous divisions, Baptists with polar-opposite positions each claimed to have the Bible on their side.

Even more recently, Baptists have debated the use of alcohol and the practice of personal piety, Leonard said. And as before, they all cited the Bibl

Dangerous necessity 

All these debates illustrate the fact biblical interpretation and application “is neither a simple nor primarily an academic pursuit,” he stressed. “It is a dangerous necessity undertaken implicitly or explicitly by every Baptist congregation and individual. (It) sent Baptists to jail and to the mission field (and) to the slave auctions. Interpreting the text is terribly dangerous then and now.”

The Baptist debates over the centuries also show “no theory of biblical inspiration or analysis is adequate to make ‘all things in Scripture’ ‘plain in themselves’ or ‘clear to all,’” he said. “Theories about the text cannot protect Baptists—or anyone else—from the power and unpredictability of the text itself.”

Baptists’ penchant for interpreting the Bible in their own light has produced both negative and positive consequences, Leonard observed.

“From their earliest days, Baptists developed a theological and ecclesial system that creates certain ‘Baptist ways’ for negotiating the hard sayings of the biblical text,” he said. “That system often carried Baptists into ‘cultural captivity,’ but also inspired prophetic, dissenting responses grounded in the power of individual and communal conscience.”

Based on Baptists’ 400-year track record, Leonard concluded with a question: “What issues are Baptists currently claiming with biblical … certainty that they will be compelled to apologize for in a century or two? …

“You see, the Bible may say it, and Baptists may believe it, but—historically speaking—that does not always settle it.”

WACO—To preserve spiritual vitality, Baptists must reconsider salvation as more than a mere transaction with God, church historian Bill Leonard noted during the Parchman lectures at Baylor University’s Truett Theological Seminary .

In 1612, just three years after he helped found the first Baptist church, Thomas Helwys wrote that converts join the church “upon their own confession of the faith and sins,” reported Leonard, dean of Wake Forest University’s Divinity School.

“Today, Baptists the world over would surely agree with that statement—at least in principle,” Leonard said. “But in practice, many Baptists groups lack consensus on what it really means to confess one’s faith.

Meaning of regeneration 

“If, historically, Baptists require that the church be composed of a ‘regenerate’ membership, what in the world do they mean by ‘regeneration,’ and how does one secure it?”

Accounts of the process of salvation have varied widely throughout church history, Leonard reported. Some salvation experiences have been dramatic, such as the Apostle Paul’s “Damascus Road” conversion, he said, listing a half-dozen other surprising conversions, from the New Testament to the 20th century.

“But not everyone reports such dramatic encounters with the Divine,” he added, citing occasions where believers were nurtured into the faith and have no conscious memory of being “apart from grace.”

Throughout church history, Catholics and Protestants disagreed about how salvation comes about, he said. But even among Protestants, who claim “faith alone” is necessary for salvation, perspectives were not uniform.

Questions about salvation 

This poses a set of questions, Leonard proposed: “How do common sinners know that grace has come to them? What does it mean to be saved for eternity? How does one receive salvation and keep it too? In short, how does the objective idea that God loves human beings and wants to ‘save’ them find its way into the subjective life of individuals so that they know that grace has come to them and salvation has been secured?”

Baptists responded by insisting the church is for the “saints only,” and requiring that every individual who would join a congregation “profess” faith in Jesus Christ, he said. Early Baptist congregations were not passive about this, either. They voted whether to accept or reject the applicant’s profession of faith as valid.

Consequently, this led Baptists to reject infant baptism, since infants, “incapable of such a cathartic experience, were not appropriate subjects for faith or baptism,” he said.

Baptists couldn't agree 

But even Baptists could not agree on “who could be saved and how salvation was secured,” Leonard noted.

General Baptists—who believed in a “general atonement” or that salvation is possible for all people—thought a person repented, expressed faith and then was “regenerated,” or saved.

Particular or Calvinistic Baptists—who believed in a “particular atonement” or that God would save only the “elect” whom God had chosen for salvation—thought salvation was “made possible only by the infusion of grace into the heart of totally depraved but elected individuals.” So, an elect person receives grace first, then repents and expresses faith.

Both perspectives were present in America, but the Calvinist approach prevailed until religious awakenings broke out in New England and revivalism advanced with westward migration, Leonard said.

“Revivalism created a theology of conversion and a methodology for securing it that shaped Baptist life to the present day,” he explained.

Walking the aisle 

“Revivalists called the unsaved to walk the aisle as an outward and visible sign of an experience of new birth. The ingredients of salvation in these settings included faith, submission, repentance and a conscious decision to follow Christ.”

This process became the norm and developed into a “transactional formula” that was focused on the Sinner’s Prayer and walking the “sawdust trail” of a tent revival or the aisle of a church, Leonard said.

“By the mid-20th century, the Sinner’s Prayer became the centerpiece of mass revivalism and conversionism for audiences large and small,” he said.

Consequently, “conversion turned from a surprising work of God into a salvific transaction,” he observed. A byproduct of that transaction was not just merely an emphasis on becoming a Christian but a de-emphasis on sanctification, or living a Christ-like life.

Also, this transaction approach to salvation was reinforced by the phrase “once saved, always saved,” Leonard said. While the statement sounds like a shorthand explanation of the doctrine of perseverance of the saints, it began to imply “that once the prayer was prayed, and the transaction sealed, God was compelled to save.”

Gift or entitlement? 

“Salvation was less a gift than an entitlement, once the necessary transaction was complete,” he noted. “Completing the transaction became the most, actually the only, real responsibility of sinners seeking eternal security. … The result has been a significant confusion as the idea of a believers’ church and the nature of conversion itself. In many churches, the same people are born again, again and again.”

Leonard called on Baptists to revisit their theology of regeneration and to confront the “theological and pastoral problems of transaction conversionism.”

Baptists share common ground with—and have something to learn from—the emerging church movement, one of the voices “raised in response to this evangelical confusion,” he said.

This movement insists “personal salvation is inseparable from covenant community—a strangely 17th century Baptist idea,” he said. “Salvation is itself an abidingly sacramental process, nurtured not in rabid individualism but in communal humility.”

He quoted emerging church leader Joel McClure: “The gospel is not that we agree with some abstract propositions in order to qualify to go to heaven when we die, but an invitation to live in a new way of life. Sharing the good news is not only about conversion. It is about inviting someone to walk with you relationally, and it takes awhile to demonstrate this gospel.”

WACO—After four centuries, believers’ baptism remains the symbol of Baptist identity, reflecting “the importance of uncoerced faith grounded in the power of conscience and the inevitability of dissent,” historian Bill Leonard stressed during the annual Parchman Lectures at Baylor University’s Truett Theological Seminary.

But in the 21st century, Baptists must respond to two pressing “problems” with baptism—the widespread requirement that long-term Christians be immersed before joining a Baptist church and the rebaptism of church members, Leonard urged.

This year’s Parchman Lectures contributed to Baylor’s ongoing celebration of the 400th anniversary of the Baptist movement. It began when John Smyth and Thomas Helwys led a group of English expatriates to start the first Baptist church in 1609 in Holland.

Dissent runs deep

“Baptists were dissenters from the very beginning,” noted Leonard, dean of Wake Forest University’s Divinity School. The original Baptists first rebelled against what they saw as the corruption of the Anglican Church and its affiliation with the English government. Next, they split from the English Separatists for not distancing themselves far enough from the Anglicans.

And then they even dissented among themselves, he wryly observed. By 1610, that little Baptist church had split itself over the validity of its baptism.

“Baptists understood conscience and dissent in light of the need for sinners to be regenerated—made new through conversion to Christ,” Leonard said. “Yet in their assertion that conscience could not be compelled by either state-based or faith-based establishments, they flung the door wide for religious liberty and pluralism … .

“Believers’ baptism, ultimately by immersion, was thus a radical act of Christian commitment, covenantal relationships and anti-establishment dissent.”
Their commitment drew from their identification with Christ. Their relationships reflected the value they placed upon the gathered church. And their dissent against the establishment welled up from their insistence that God alone, not religious or government authorities, is Lord of the conscience.

Historically, “the call to uncoerced faith produced the appeal to conscience and the necessity of dissent,” Leonard said. “It was the witness of the permanent minority, a group of people who never dreamed that their views would prevail this side of the kingdom of God, but who demanded voice and conscience nonetheless.”

They embodied their dissent by insisting on believers’—adult—baptism, refusing to baptize their infant children, he added. Their stand on baptism dissented not only against the practice of the established church, but also against the government, since at the time, national citizenship and church membership were considered the same.

Sigificance of believers' baptism

“Baptism is the outward … sign that links regenerate church membership, conscience and dissent as the central witness of Baptist identity in the world,” Leonard insisted. “In short, believers’ baptism does many things for the individual and community of faith.”

His list included:

• “It is a biblical act, identifying the believer with Jesus and the movement he called the kingdom of God.”

• “Believers’ baptism is a conversion act, demonstrating the new birth of an individual and incorporating that individual into Christ’s body, the church. … For those early Baptists, baptism was public profession of faith. It still is.”

• “Believers’ baptism is a churchly act that marks the entry of believers into the covenantal community of the church. Baptism, while administered to individuals, is not an individualistic act. It is incorporation into Christ and his church.”

• “Believers’ baptism was and remains a dangerous and dissenting act that frees Christian believers to challenge the principalities and powers of church in response to the dictates of conscience.” He cited the Standard Confession of 1660, in which early Baptists acknowledged the need for “civil magistrates in all nations” but pledged they would “obey God rather than men” when conscience so dictated.

Dealing with pressing problems

The persistent significance of baptism for the Baptist movement presents a vital question, Leonard said: “What are we to do about it on the way through the 21st century?”

Specifically, he asked: “How will we deal with the two most pressing baptismal problems confronting many contemporary Baptists congregations—rebaptism of non-immersed, long-term Christians and the rebaptism of Baptist church members?”

The requirement of rebaptism of people who were baptized as infants and now seek membership in a Baptist church “is perhaps the oldest and most historically divisive question in the history of the movement,” Leonard said. “Baptist churches are on ‘safe’ historical ground if they have either open or closed baptismal policies.”

Baptists have not always required rebaptism, particularly when the original baptism was part of the faith-life of the person’s family and not a requirement of government, he reported.

Also, the common practice of rebaptism of church members in some congregations should lead Baptists to study issues such as “the baptism of children, the nature of conversion and the theology of baptism itself,” he said.

Questions for churches to consider

To guide a 21st century study of Baptist baptism, Leonard presented a set of questions for churches:

• “Do those churches that accept baptism from other traditions have a way of incorporating new members liturgically and ‘covenantally’ into a believers’ church? Might a renewal of baptismal vows become a public profession of long-held faith in a new community of the faithful?”

• “Can churches that require immersion of non-immersed, long-time Christians articulate a clear biblical mandate for doing so, especially when ‘New Testament baptism’ is given to those who have made immediate profession of faith?”

• “Does immersion given to long-term Christians on the basis of a profession of faith require recipients to repudiate at least implicitly their earlier faith and the Christian tradition that nurtured them to grace?”

• “Should immersion of long-time Christians at least be distinguished from the immersion of new converts?”

• “Given that infant baptism is no longer mandated by state-based religious establishments, are Baptist churches that require immersion of all members prepared to declare that the churches from which would-be members come are ‘false churches’ or ‘mere societies’?”

• “Given that the New Testament knows nothing of child baptism, can Baptist churches that require immersion of all members claim ‘the true New Testament baptism’ if they baptize children under the age of 12, when Jewish children confirm their faith?

• “Given that many Baptist churches accept children—some even in the preschool ages—as members, how will they define the nature of a believers’ church?”

• “If Baptist churches baptize children, especially very young children, can they commit themselves to … helping children remember their profession of faith and baptism? Can they develop clear, intentional methods for ‘confirming’ the faith of children once they confront the moral and spiritual dilemmas of adolescence and adulthood?”

• “What can some Baptist churches do to extricate themselves from the cycle of rebaptism given multiple times to professing Christians? If baptism is administered in the name of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, when does rebaptism become an act of literally taking the name of God in vain?”

• “As Baptists lose their culture-dominant status, how does baptism become a renewed sign of conscience and dissent in the world?”

• “How might Baptist churches again become ‘a shelter for persons distressed of conscience’ and a prophetic community that distresses the consciences of members and nonmembers alike in response to the great issues, ideas and injustices of our times?

• “Might the early Baptists’ radical understanding of conscience encourage us to an equally radical concern for voice—an environment in which everyone can speak even when the differences are vast and irreconcilable?”

• “Might a recovery of Baptist dissent compel Baptists to articulate ideas that inform and challenge the church and the culture, even when they will never secure approval by a majority?”

In a question-and-answer session, a participant asked Leonard about his answers to the questions. He replied that, true to Baptist heritage, they are questions to be worked out by congregations themselves.

(ABP) — A biopic about evangelist Billy Graham hit theaters with a thud its opening weekend Oct. 10-12, earning far less than other religion-themed movies like Fireproof and Bill Maher's agnostic comedy documentary Religulous.

Billy: The Early Years, directed by former teen-heartthrob actor Robby Benson, grossed an estimated $199,938 from 282 locations, an average of $709 per screen, according to Variety.

Another specialty film geared toward Christian audiences, meanwhile, enjoyed a third successful weekend at the box office. Fireproof, produced by a movie-making ministry of Sherwood Baptist Church in Albany, Ga., grossed an estimated $3.2 million, bringing its total earnings to about $17 million. That's double the earnings of the last movie by Sherwood Pictures, Facing the Giants, in 2006.

Maher's Religulous, which takes a skeptical look at religion in general but is particularly hard on Christianity, fell 35 percent in its second weekend, but still managed to gross an estimated $2.2 million from 568 theaters. That brought the cumulative box office gross to $6.7 million.

Released by the Christian distributor Rocky Mountain Pictures, Billy: The Early Years focuses on Billy Graham's life as a teenager growing up on a farm in North Carolina. It continues through his young adulthood, when he burst onto the national scene as an evangelist who could draw thousands of people to his meetings, called “crusades.”

It stars Armie Hammer, the 22-year-old great-grandson of industrialist and philanthropist Armand Hammer, in his first major acting role.

ATLANTA (ABP) — Frank Morrow was in the Middle East doing relief work after a natural disaster when a local official asked, “Why do you do what you do? Why did you come?”
 
Morrow opened a paperback Bible and shared the story of Jesus. “Those moments are the open doors,” Morrow said. “That’s why we’re there.”
 
As Cooperative Baptist Fellowship field personnel, Morrow and wife Karen have had many opportunities to share Christ among one of the most unreached people groups in the Middle East. Commissioned as strategy coordinators in 1996, the Morrows began ministering in Germany, where large numbers of Middle Eastern refugees had sought asylum.
 
The Morrows helped the refugees in whatever way they could, while learning their language and more about this people group, once strong but now repressed, persecuted and nearly forgotten. Their land had been stolen and their culture outlawed.
 
After 10 years in Germany, the Morrows returned to the United States, with their work based in Fort Worth, Texas. They concentrate on building partnerships with other ministry organizations and helping provide translated media, books and Bibles for distribution in the Middle East.
 
They also connect with CBF partner churches about ways in which congregations can connect with ministry in the Middle East. Churches can partner with the Morrows through prayer, financial support, or by going to a Middle Eastern country to serve among a largely unreached people group, where the gospel is slow to spread.
 
“We don’t see mass conversions or quick change. It’s a long process,” Karen said. “For them to come to faith is a cutting off who they are. It’s a disgrace to their family. They risk their life to [come to Christ].”
 
One husband and wife became Christians in Germany and have returned to the Middle East to start a church among their own people. Even though they’re thousands of miles apart, Karen keeps in contact with the wife, a dear friend.
 
“I encourage her to keep the faith and to testify that God is at work and that God is alive. [She told me] ‘I don’t have another person like you who can share my deepest feelings and hurts with.’ We’re there to be that with people and to be that [presence] in their life,” Karen said. “I feel the biggest part of our work is enabling others to do the work.”

Editor’s note: Specific names and locations of people groups are not included for security reasons.