DALLAS—Jesus fed hungry multitudes, and a South Dallas church believes it should do no less.

New El Bethel Baptist Church in Dallas launched Feed 5,000 about 11 years ago to provide food to homeless people living in shelters, street camps, tent cities and under bridges, said Lillian Tarkington, one of the leaders of the congregation’s outreach ministry.

‘We’ve got to do more’

Sara Blake, who has worked with the Feed 5,000 ministry since its beginning, still vividly remembers her first experience delivering meals on the streets.

“We knew there was a need, but we didn’t know how great it was. We fixed 50 bags of food and drove up to where the homeless were, thinking we were fixing to make a difference,” she recalled.

In a matter of minutes, the volunteers gave away all the food they brought, and it seemed to them they hardly had scratched the surface.

“We watched people who needed help, and we had nothing for them,” she said. “We went back to the church, regrouped and said: ‘We’ve got to do more. We’ve got to do better.’ So, we increased the number each time we went out.”

Over the past decade, volunteers have served hot breakfasts during the winter and cold water in the summer. Pastor Timothy Brown strongly supports the ministry, she added, noting his commitment to community ministry.

‘Whatever we have, we’re eager to share’

“For most of these people, the sky is their roof, and the ground is their bed,” Blake said. “Whatever we have, we’re eager to share.”

New El Bethel has received support from the Texas Baptist Hunger Offering for its Feed 5000 ministry.

In July and August, volunteers from New El Bethel provide about 100 snack packs per week they distribute to homeless and disadvantaged people at the Martin Luther King Community Center near Fair Park.

More than two dozen members meet at the church to assemble the bags, and about a half dozen give them away at the community center.

“The first time we meet somebody, we focus on feeding them the physical food they need first,” Blake said. But as the volunteers get acquainted with some of the same people week after week, they are able to talk with them more and pray with them.

“Every once in a while, we manage to get the word of God in,” she said. “Sometimes, they will come in saying: ‘God is good. He let me wake up this morning.’ There are people in church every week who never stop to thank God for another day.”

‘You’re that church that feeds us good’

At Christmas, volunteers from New El Bethel transport homeless people from shelters and other places they gather to the Larry Johnson Recreation Center in South Dallas for a Christmas party.

“We’ll give away toys to the children, food baskets and toiletries, and we’ll let people shop for clothes and shoes” at no cost, volunteer Yvette McCree said. Between 400 and 500 people from the shelters and the streets sit down to a hearty meal.

Word spreads among the homeless population, she noted.

“I can remember going to deliver water bottles to the shelter and to a tent city,” she recalled. “When people found out where we were from, somebody said, ‘You’re that church that feeds us good.’”

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WACO, Texas (RNS)—Tractor-trailer rigs roared overhead. Cigarette smoke wafted in the air as a praise band played drums and electric guitars on a stage set up amid tall concrete columns.

On the Sunday before Thanksgiving, poor people riding bicycles and pushing old grocery carts lined up—as they do every week—to eat and worship God underneath Interstate 35.

For now, a patch of gravel between Baylor University and a series of fast-food restaurants serves as the meeting place for Church Under the Bridge, which began with a handful of homeless people studying the Bible with Pastor Jimmy Dorrell in 1992.

“These people loved me when I didn’t love myself,” said Robert Walker, 50, who has battled drug addiction and spent time in and out of prison. “The only reason why I wouldn’t be here is if I was incarcerated.”

But next March, the 26-year-old church—which serves hundreds of this Central Texas city’s neediest and most vulnerable residents—will become homeless itself.

A $300 million, multiyear widening project along I-35 in Waco—a city of about 135,000 halfway between Dallas and Austin—will displace Church Under the Bridge.

The Texas Department of Transportation began warning Dorrell, co-founder and president of a ministry called Mission Waco, about the impending construction several years ago. He jokingly refers to the project as “our church remodel.”

“They were concerned about us,” Dorrell said of the highway officials. “We laugh about that because we’re just squatters. We have no right to be at the table.”

Moving to the Silos

After the Waco Tribune-Herald reported on the church’s plight, Dorrell got a call from one of this city’s most famous residents: Chip Gaines, who with his wife, Joanna, starred in the HGTV home-improvement reality series “Fixer Upper.”

Gaines offered the lawn of Magnolia Market at the Silos—the couple’s popular tourist destination, which drew an estimated 1.6 million visitors to Waco last year—as a temporary home for Church Under the Bridge. The attraction, closed on Sundays, is about four blocks from the bridge.

“I’ve known about Jimmy and the way he’s been selflessly serving this community for a while, since back when I was in college,” Chip Gaines, a Baylor alumnus, said in an emailed statement. “A few months ago, I read about how the I-35 project would impact his church, so we reached out to discuss his options and ultimately, to see if there was a way we might be able to help.

“I’ve always admired Jimmy from afar, so when we both agreed that the location of the Silos made sense for Church Under the Bridge, I knew we wanted to be part of the solution for this congregation,” Gaines added.

Dorrell, who also teaches courses at nearby Baylor and Truett Theological Seminary, said he has known Chip and Joanna Gaines since they were students. They’ve supported the church in the past, he noted.

Joanna Gaines has appeared in Mission Waco’s “Fashion with a Passion” style show, an annual fundraiser. More recently, the couple donated $51,000 to the ministry’s nonprofit grocery store, Jubilee Market, through an auction of items from the old Elite Cafe, now known as Magnolia Table, he said.

“They’re committed Christians. It’s very consistent with who they are,” Dorrell said of the celebrity couple inviting the church to meet on their property.

‘We’re here for the poor’

Dorrell expressed hope that Church Under the Bridge’s faithful will make the short trek to the new location and that tourists who show up to take pictures on Magnolia Market’s off day might join them.

If not, he’ll come up with an alternate plan.

“If the poor don’t show up, we’ll move,” he said, “because we’re there for the poor.”

As Sunday’s crowd devoured bowls of stew and cornbread and chomped giant pieces of chocolate cake, longtime attendee Walker—sporting a Dallas Cowboys jersey—said he sees pros and cons to the move.

“It might be a little different because I’m used to coming here. I love it here,” he said as worshippers clad in hoodies and wrapped in blankets took seats in metal-legged folding chairs on this cloudy, 45-degree morning. “This is sacred ground to me.”

Still, he’s ready to make the move.

“The main thing is to keep the body (of Christ) together, wherever we are,” he said. “As long as we allow the Spirit to usher in and the Bible to be preached, I think we’ll be all right. … What registers is the music, the people. You know what I’m saying?”

Leta Johnson, 60, is skeptical.

Johnson, who said she lives in a house with no electricity or running water, voiced apprehension about the change. She prefers the church move to a similar location.

“This is for people who don’t have clothes, that are embarrassed to go to church, that ain’t got a shower,” said Johnson, who worked as an underwater welder before addiction took hold of her. “You’re taking a lot away from us by redoing this bridge. Move us to another bridge, why can’t you? Sending us to a tourist attraction isn’t what we want.”

Brenda Coffman, 76, joins a group from Central Christian Church in feeding the souls below I-35 once a month. Her congregation is one of about 20 Waco churches that help with Church Under the Bridge.

Besides dipping homemade stew into plastic foam bowls, Coffman and her fellow volunteers make sack lunches with peanut butter sandwiches, bananas and fresh-cut carrots and celery for worshippers to take with them.

“I love to serve other people that are on the margins that don’t have enough to eat,” Coffman said. “I think that’s what Jesus taught us to do—to care about those people who are in need.”

She said the current location is easier to get to and worshippers can come and go as they please. To get to Magnolia, she said, worshippers will have to go through a single entrance, so “it’s going to be interesting to see how it works out.”

“But I think they’re very generous to offer,” Coffman said of the Gaineses.

Incarnational ministry

Eventually, Church Under the Bridge will return to its roots—only with better digs, Dorrell said.

Plans call for replacing the gravel lot with concrete and installing lower curbs, which will benefit the handicapped, the pastor said. Meanwhile, the lane widening will expand “the roof” over the bridge, which will keep the crowd dry on rainy days.

But regardless of the location, he said, the focus will remain the same—incarnational ministry emphasizing authentic Christian living.

“The church of Jesus Christ in America is, in so many ways, shallow,” Dorrell said during Sunday’s sermon,  speaking over the rumble of traffic. “You’ve got to grow up. Christianity is not just about being saved. That’s just the first step in a lifetime process.”

In a world full of sinners, though, Church Under the Bridge has an advantage, he suggested.

“We are a broken church with people who admit we’ve done things we shouldn’t have done.”

Mary Alice Birdwhistell knew at a young age she was called to ministry. So did her mom. The only question was what kind.

As far as Birdwhistell knew, the only options for her were children’s ministry, music ministry or maybe becoming a missionary to China. The answer became clear, however, the first time she stepped behind a pulpit to preach.

“No. 1: Mary Alice Birdwhistell,” a documentary of Birdwhistell’s journey to the pastorate, is a co-production of Ethics Daily and Baptist Women in Ministry that premiered Nov. 16 in Waco, where she is the senior pastor of Calvary Baptist.

Though Birdwhistell was and is Baptist, a Methodist minister in Kentucky was the first to ask Birdwhistell to fill the pulpit for him. To his astonishment, she said she’d never had the opportunity before. His question set in motion serious soul-searching.

Birdwhistell agonized over whether or not her preaching would disobey God.

“Is this what I want or what you want?” she asked God.

Ultimately, she accepted the invitation and discovered new life when she stepped behind the pulpit.

Mitch Randall, executive director of Ethics Daily, introduced the premiere as a celebration of women in ministry, but not everyone sees women in ministry as something to celebrate. Many disagree with and criticize the calling of women pastors. In responding to critics, Birdwhistell says she is her own worst critic, noting she constantly is seeking the Holy Spirit’s guidance.

Birdwhistell’s father—whose great-grandfather was an influential Baptist pastor in Lawrenceburg, Kentucky—also struggled to affirm women as pastors. After his own journey, which involved seeing God at work in his daughter’s life, he became supportive and proud of Birdwhistell in the pastorate.

Pam Durso, executive director of Baptist Women in Ministry, explained the hope behind the co-produced series of documentaries that begins with “No. 1: Mary Alice Birdwhistell.” She said when young girls can see women in the pulpit, taking up the offering and making decisions in the church, they will know it’s possible for God to call them to leadership in the church. Likewise, when search committees see women pastoring in these documentaries, they will know they can call women as pastors.

Randall went a step further. A large reason for co-producing these documentaries is to make clear “not only do we support women in senior pastor roles, but we are calling women to senior pastor roles,” he said. Despite more women graduating from seminary prepared for the pastorate, the number of women graduates afforded places to serve is exceedingly small.

In the face of such odds, Birdwhistell’s advice to her younger self is to remember she can do hard things and that God has been preparing and providing for her in many ways for the role of pastor.

To other young women who sense a call to ministry, Birdwhistell says, “You really have to bring your best self. I wish there weren’t different standards [for women], but there are.” Also, “believe in yourself.”

Ask almost any Baptist minister about family, and you stand a good chance of hearing about fathers, grandfathers or great-grandfathers who were ministers.

My own family includes several pastors and missionaries on my mother’s side. My father-in-law was a pastor and is now a director of missions. I recently ate breakfast with a pastor who traces the pastorate back four generations in his family. Marv Knox, my predecessor here at the Baptist Standard comes from a family of ministers. We are just a few examples of the legacy of ministry in some Baptist families.

In September 2018, I learned of the Crosby family coming together for their First Family Conference to celebrate at least 60 years of ministry by their family. Having known of the Crosbys and ministering in the same association as Danny, I wanted to know more. Joannah Buffington, daughter of Sam Crosby, compiled a list of family members in ministry, a small portion of which is included here.

Then I discovered the Curry family has a similar legacy and so invited them to be part of this story. Danny Curry thrilled in writing a history of his family legacy, some of which also is included here.

The Crosby family legacy

Russell and Donna Crosby raised 13 children during their 61 years of marriage, many of whom serve or have served in ministry. Their family now counts 72 grandchildren and 83 great-grandchildren.

The Crosby family was built on the deep faith of Russell and Donna and their commitment to serve the Lord and to lead their family to serve the Lord. Their abiding Christian faith is a living testimony of their devotion to Christ and the deliberate decision to practice Christian habits in their home that would shape the faith of generations to come.

Russell and Donna’s family has seen multiple children and grandchildren attend and graduate from Texas Baptist schools, including University of Mary Hardin Baylor, Baylor University, Hardin-Simmons University, Howard Payne University and Houston Baptist University; and Baptist seminaries, including New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, Truett Seminary, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and others.

Today, members of the Crosby family are part of churches across the state of Texas and beyond as children and student volunteers, Sunday school teachers, deacons, elders and worship leaders, to name a few of the roles in which they serve.

Of the 13 Crosby children, four are pastors—Tim (Trinity Baptist, Gatesville); Danny, who is fluent in Spanish and electric bass (First Baptist, Cleburne); Jon (Turnersville Baptist); Sam (First Baptist, San Saba)—and David is pastor emeritus of First Baptist New Orleans, where he was the pastor during Hurricane Katrina.

Four of the sons—Tom, Joe, James and Matt—have served on church staffs in other ministry positions, and three of the daughters are married to ministers.

Ten of the Crosby grandchildren are either serving in ministry positions or are preparing for them, and the importance of ministry continues to be evidenced among the Crosby great-grandchildren.

The Curry family legacy

Hugh Franklin Curry was ordained in Arkansas in 1878 and moved his family to MacGregor in 1883, where he organized several churches before heading out to the Texas frontier to serve as a Baptist General Convention of Texas missionary.

Hugh’s son, John, married the daughter of a pastor before becoming a pastor and associational missionary himself. John pastored numerous churches, many of them in West Texas.

Joseph Curry, one of John’s 11 children, moved out near the New Mexico border. During a meeting at the church he and his family attended in Plains, he and his son Billy Joe accepted Christ. Bill later attended Wayland Baptist University to prepare for ministry and was a pastor of churches in Texas and New Mexico, even trying to start a church in San Diego, Calif.

Bill’s son, Eddy, followed in his father’s footsteps, attending Wayland and serving as pastor of churches in Texas and Curry County, N.M. He also attended Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and now serves as the education minister at Pioneer Drive Baptist in Abilene. Eddy’s son, Kade, attended Hardin-Simmons University and Logsdon and has been a Presbyterian minister in Texas and Arkansas.

Another of Bill’s sons, Danny, also attended Wayland and pastored several churches throughout Texas before joining the BGCT staff as the area representative for Area 9, which stretches from Tarrant County to Wichita Falls and down to Stephenville.

Danny’s son, Craig, continues the Curry legacy as pastor of First Baptist in Plano. Craig already was leading in ministry before he attended Hardin-Simmons University and later Logsdon and Truett seminaries.

*******

The Crosby and Curry families’ reach and dedication to Christian ministry truly are remarkable. Not only are their families shaped by the local church, missions and theological education, but they have shaped countless other families and individuals for the sake of Christ and will continue to do so for years to come.

This Thanksgiving, in many ministry families, the pastor at the table will be expected to say grace. But in the Crosby and Curry families, they may have to play “Rock, Paper, Scissors” to decide which pastor will pray.

The following people contributed to this story: Joannah R. Buffington is the daughter of Sam Crosby and is the editor and social media coordinator in the office of the president at Houston Baptist University. Danny Crosby is pastor of First Baptist in Cleburne. Danny Curry is the area representative for area 9 of the BGCT. Eric Black is the executive director, publisher and editor of the Baptist Standard.

Christians in Bulgaria pledged to continue public prayer meetings and peaceful protests until the nation’s lawmakers either withdraw legislation that would severely restrict religious freedom or make substantive changes to it.

In early October, the Bulgarian Parliament approved on first reading changes to the Religious Denominations Act that would significantly restrict the rights of minority religions, including missionary activity and theological training.

The Nov. 16 deadline for receiving public comment on the amendments passed with the nation’s parliament taking no immediate action.

International pressure

Prior to the deadline, international attention to the situation in Bulgaria grew. Baptist World Alliance General Secretary Elijah Brown and European Baptist Federation General Secretary Anthony Peck sent a Nov. 8 letter to Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borissov asking the proposed legislation be withdrawn.

“No state, we believe, should be in a position to control the training and activities of ecclesiastic ministers, nor should a state favor one faith expression over another,” they wrote. “The Bulgarian constitution rightly guarantees freedom of religion; we urge that this principle be adhered to as the right of all the Bulgarian people.”

On Nov. 15, the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom tweeted: “USCIRF is concerned about proposed changes to be voted on tomorrow that would restrict #ReligiousFreedom in #Bulgaria.” The tweet included a link to the BWA Nov. 8 letter.

Christer Daelander, religious freedom representative of the European Baptist Federation and member of the BWA Religious Liberty Commission, wrote to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, saying the proposed changes in Bulgarian law would violate the United Nations Convention on Freedom of Religion or Belief, as well as similar European Conventions.

Kishan Manocha, senior adviser on freedom of religion or belief at the OSCE, replied in a Nov. 14 email, saying her organization’s Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights “has submitted a letter to the Bulgarian authorities signaling its readiness to prepare a legal opinion on said draft law.”

“We will also continue to closely follow developments pertaining to freedom of religion or belief in Bulgaria and would be pleased to hear from you again concerning further developments,” Manocha wrote.

Continue prayers and protests

In the days immediately preceding the Bulgarian Parliament’s Nov. 16 deadline, a working group of politicians and representatives of major religious bodies met to discuss the legislation. The meetings reportedly produced “some softening” on certain provisions, said Teodor Oprenov, pastor of Evangelical Baptist Church in Sofia and leader in the Baptist Union of Bulgaria.

“We hope to be able to see the changed document before they have it discussed in the parliament and vote on it,” Oprenov said in a Nov. 16 email.

However, fearing the changes may be “merely cosmetic,” Oprenov said, “many evangelicals have decided to continue with our prayers and peaceful protests until the suggestions for he changes of the religious law are completely withdrawn or until we see realistic suggestions which fairly guard the religious freedom and right to a belief of everyone in Bulgaria.”

About 2,000 Christians rallied in Sofia outside the Bulgarian Parliament and marched peacefully to the National Palace of Culture on Nov. 11, and smaller groups gathered to pray and protest around the country.

In spite of inclement weather, about 1,000 people participated in a second public demonstration Nov. 18, Oprenov reported in a Nov. 20 email.

“The weather was not kind to us, as rain and very cold wind made the open-air gathering very unpleasant,” he wrote. “The first snow of this winter came a few hours later. Some 1,000 people, though, still gathered in front of the Monument of the Soviet Army in Sofia to pray and peacefully protest against the discriminative bill in question.

“Words were said, prayers were offered, hymns were sung and a clear statement was declared that the evangelical Christians are against the entire set of suggestions for changes, not merely some clauses in the bill. We still believe that there is nothing in that text that is really of benefit to faith and religious freedom, but quite the opposite.”

Oprenov acknowledged proposed changes removed “some of the initial harsh and anti-constitutional and anti-freedom of religion clauses.” However, some discriminatory clauses remained, he said, and some reportedly were more restrictive than in the original amendments, such as raising the minimum membership requirement for registered religious groups from 300 to 3,000.

Protestants in Bulgaria planned another prayer meeting and protest in Sofia Nov. 25, along with additional public demonstrations in towns and cities throughout central and eastern Bulgaria, Oprenov said.

East Texas Baptist University student athletes participated in the school’s  third annual Operation Christmas Child Wrapping Party for the Samaritan’s Purse National Collection Week. All of ETBU’s 16 NCAA Division III and five club sports participated by contributing toys and wrapping each box. “The ETBU student athletes contributed over 230 shoeboxes that are full of gifts and will enable children all over the world to hear the story of Christ and the true meaning of Christmas,” said Ryan Erwin, vice president for athletics at ETBU.

Michael Evans, president of the Baptist General Convention of Texas and pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church in Mansfield, delivered a Nov. 13 lecture on race relations in Baptist life during a Christian Studies Forum at the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor. “Race Matters: Where Are We Now, And Where Do We Go From Here?” traced the history of African-American Baptist churches and conventions from the days of slavery to the present. Evans noted the BGCT has more African-Americans on staff and in positions of leadership today than at any time in its history. He called for church leaders to approach diversity with a goal of allowing all parties to start on even ground with equal stakes. “What I’m talking to you about is being a generation that can look beyond my melanin and see giftedness,” Evans said. “If you can see me as a person who God has poured giftedness into, if you can see what God is doing with your fellow students, then the very diversity that you’ve prayed about and hoped for will come to pass.

Baylor University installed Dennis R. Myers as the inaugural holder of the Danny and Lenn Prince Chair in Social Work within its Diana R. Garland School of Social Work. Myers is the chair of the school’s Gerontology Initiative. As holder of the Prince Chair, he will conduct research and develop evidence-based practice models, educational programs and practical resources to strengthen the care environment of residential facilities and enrich the lives of residents.

The University of Mary Hardin-Baylor recognized seniors Sydney Stolz of College Station and Allison Stevens of Weatherford as recipients of the Gary and Diane Heavin Servant Leadership Award. The award is presented in recognition of extraordinary time and energy students have devoted to ministry and community service during their time at UMHB. It includes a $1,000 cash award for each student, a portion of which can be donated to an organization of the student’s choice. Stoltz, a communications major who played on the women’s volleyball team three years, served as director of the Psalm 139 event at UMHB, a day designed to help women grow in their faith and foster community with others. She gave a portion of her cash award to Young Life, a teen outreach ministry. Stevens, a nursing major who has been active in Baptist Student Ministries, has been a leader in Heart for the Nations, a community of students that meets regularly to pray, study the Bible and support the spread of Christianity throughout the world. She has engaged in missions in Uganda, the Arabian Peninsula and France. Stevens gave a portion of her cash award to Agape Impact Ministries, an organization that works with abandoned, abused and orphaned children in the Philippines.

“Woven Together in Unity” is the theme of a Women’s World Day of Prayer brunch Nov. 29 in the Piper Great Hall of Truett Theological Seminary at Baylor University. Carolyn Porterfield, former Missionary Journeyman to Japan and retiring missional lifestyle leader for Woman’s Missionary Union of Texas, is the featured speaker. Cheryl Segura Gochis, vice president of human resources at Baylor, will lead a Bible study and devotional. Lexi English from Greater Bosqueville Baptist Church will provide the Scripture focus. The event will begin with a light complimentary brunch at 9:30 a.m., followed by a program and prayer at 10 a.m. Reservations are requested. Contact Kathy Hillman at Kathy_Hillman@baylor.edu or (254) 749-5347. The event is sponsored by WMU/Women’s Ministries of Waco Regional Baptist Association in cooperation with Truett Seminary and the Keston Center for Religion, Politics and Society at Baylor.

SAN ANTONIO—Almost 500 years after he helped birth—and died for—the Anabaptist movement, Felix Manz, among others, was verbally resurrected at Baptist University of the Américas’ annual Rollins Lecture given by Karen Bullock, professor of Christian heritage at B.H. Carroll Theological Institute.

BUA was an appropriate setting since Manz and the movement’s early leaders were university students when their study of the Greek New Testament with Ulrich Zwingli launched a quest for the “true visible church,” resulting in the Anabaptist movement and the bitter and bloody persecution that followed. Its theological descendants today include Baptists, Mennonites and Amish.

Radical Reformation reformers commemorated

Bullock described Manz’s martyrdom: “As some in the watching crowded taunted, ‘You wanted to be baptized?’ he was taken to the Limmat River and rowed out to the fisherman’s hut in the center of the strong current. His hands were lashed to a stick tied to his knees and a rope was tied around his neck. Given an opportunity to speak his last, he quoted in Latin, ‘In manus tuas, Domine, commendo spiritum meum’(Into your hands, Lord, I commend my spirit). He was thrown into the icy water, drowned, retrieved and burned.”

His crimes included refusing to have his children baptized as infants—convinced instead that believer’s baptism was the mark of the New Testament Church—and for advocating separation of church and state and the refusal to take an oath of loyalty to any other than God. Ulrich Zwingli, Manz’s former mentor, endorsed the killing to protect his own reform movement, which seemed threatened by these young scholars who were calling for a swifter, more radical reform.

The Anabaptists, Bullock explained, were the Fourth Wing, “the underground wing” of the reformation of the Christian church. “Not the Lutheran wing, which gave us the Lutheran Church; not the English wing, which birthed the Anglican church; and not even the Reformed wing primarily, which first emerged in Zurich with Zwingli and eventually became the Reformed movement. But we celebrate today that underground Reformation wing, which also sprang from Zurich in those explosive days—the Biblical Anabaptists.”

Bullock maintains the Biblical Anabaptists, among all of the other Radical groups, took the most direct route to reclaim the gospel message, biblical ecclesiology and social action in the world, than any other radical reformed group of that era. They paid a bloody price. According to historian Justo Gonzalez, there were more Anabaptist martyrs in the 16th century than Christians in the 1st century under pagan Roman emperors.

Bullock’s use of the term “Biblical Anabaptist” draws a distinction between those who continued to hold the basic tenets of the first Anabaptists and those, also called Radical Reformers and Anabaptists, who later veered into wildly divergent theologies and discarded basic doctrines.

In Münster in 1534-35, followers of Melchior Hoffmann attempted to fulfill their “obligation” to set up the kingdom of God and destroy the ungodly, forcing out Catholics and Lutherans out of the city.

A string of new edicts declared Münster the New Jerusalem and proclaimed that all adult citizens who refused to be baptized “by faith” would be killed as “godless” and “wicked.” And they were. When the city was retaken, thousands of Anabaptists who had flocked to this New Jerusalem were slaughtered.

After Münster, a generation of moderate Anabaptist leaders—like Menno Simons—had enough influence to limit the radicals and lead the rest of the compromised movement in a peaceful and orderly direction and restored biblical Anabaptism.

This, along with turmoil within the Church of England, laid a foundation for Baptists.

In 1607, Separatist pastors John Smythe and Thomas Helwys fled with their congregation from Gainsborough, England, to Amsterdam to escape government persecution. They found welcome in a Mennonite bakery with Jan Munter and his congregation of Dutch Mennonites.

In 1609, Smythe, Helwys and the Separatist congregation disbanded their church and reconstituted their assembly as the first Baptist church, having a strong family likeness to the Anabaptists.

Radical Reformation lays foundation for Baptist beliefs and practices

Most Baptists in America today share eight of the nine major doctrines espoused by the earliest Swiss Brethren—the Biblical Anabaptists—in Zurich almost 500 years ago:

• The authority of scripture for faith and practice, opposed to creeds, dogmas, culture, reason or traditions.
• A New Testament model for the church—regenerate, responsible and voluntary church membership should be without coercion or arraignment by the courts.
• Believer’s baptism, as opposed to infant baptism.
• The Eucharist as a non-sacramental Solemn Memorial.
• The priesthood of all believers.
• Separation of church and state.
• Religious liberty for all and no civil punishments for religious heresies.
• Living “in the world, but not of the world.”

The exception is refusal to serve in the military, which is still a major tenet for Mennonites.

In 2004, Mennonite representatives from around the world were invited to a service where the Reformed church officially and humbly asked forgiveness for the violence that had been perpetrated against the Anabaptists for more than 300 years, admitting the guilt of their church for the actions.

The Anabaptist responded: “History may recognize us as victims, and could incite us to find satisfaction in that. However, those here among you today, direct descendants of those Anabaptists persecuted in the past, no longer feel as victims. We do not ask for material retribution for the past; that would seem to us to be contrary to the Spirit of the Gospel. But the fact that you recognize the difficult points of your history in relation to ours helps us to see ourselves and to meet you differently. We thank you, therefore, for your statement, and wish to accept it in a spirit of forgiveness.”

Bullock urged the BUA students to learn from and honor the Biblical Radical Reformers: “When considering the courage, the enduring faithfulness, the almost endless suffering this people of God have absorbed, it is perhaps the most telling characteristic of the Biblical Anabaptists that they forgave their enemies. And in this way, perhaps more than in any other, demonstrated whose they were, and still are; for their beliefs and actions and responses mirror the Jesus they serve. May God instruct us from their witness.”

Craig Bird is the director of special projects in academic affairs for the Baptist University of the Américas in San Antonio.

WASHINGTON (RNS)—James Lawson, a minister known for his advocacy of nonviolence in the civil rights era and beyond, has been recommended for a Congressional Gold Medal.

“It is, I think, time for us as a nation to really recognize all that he has done for people in this country and for people in the world,” said Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., at a Nov. 14 reception where he announced legislation to honor the 90-year-old Lawson.

“He’s a shining light at a time where so many of these values are being called into question,” said Khanna.

More than a half dozen members of Congress, including civil rights veteran John Lewis and California Reps. Karen Bass and Barbara Lee, joined Khanna and Lawson at the Cannon House Office Building to support Khanna’s proposal and to praise Lawson for his decades of work. The medal is the highest civilian award given by Congress.

Trained students in nonviolent resistance

Lawson, a United Methodist minister, is renowned for training college students in Nashville, Tenn., in nonviolent protest so they could withstand harsh mistreatment as they defied Jim Crow laws by occupying segregated lunch counters.

Lewis, now a congressman from Georgia, recalled Lawson’s instructions before Lewis had to endure being spat upon and having lit cigarettes put in his hair and down his back.

“Every Tuesday night, this man taught us about the teaching of Gandhi. He inspired us and many of us grew to accept the way of peace, the way of love, to accept the philosophy and the discipline for nonviolence as a way of life,” Lewis said.

“If it hadn’t been for Jim Lawson, I don’t know what would have happened to our country; I don’t know what would have happened to me,” he added.

Decades later, Lawson, who lives in Los Angeles, still teaches students about civil rights.

Calling Lawson “one of the most consequential members of the civil rights movement,” Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, D-Mo., credited him with introducing Martin Luther King Jr. to “the whole concept of nonviolence.”

Lawson studied Gandhi’s principles of nonviolence as a missionary in India and after his return became a mentor of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. Later he was an adviser to King and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and the Southern field secretary of the Fellowship of Reconciliation.

But his influence is most felt in the education in specific nonviolent techniques that he gave activists who worked in the Freedom Rides and the March on Washington, and the high schoolers who became the first African-Americans to enroll at Central High School in Little Rock, Ark., known as the “Little Rock Nine.”

Nobody did more to ‘fix the flaws’

Rep. Jim Cooper, D-Tenn., son of the late segregationist Tennessee Gov. Prentice Cooper, said his father “was on the wrong side of history” and called Lawson “one of the greatest leaders of the 20th century and the 21st century.”

“The history of the South, the history of America, is a deeply flawed history but nobody has done more to fix those flaws than Dr. Lawson,” said Cooper.

Lee Saunders, president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, said Lawson was among those who gathered to mark the 50th anniversary of the sanitation workers’ strike that brought King to Memphis just before his assassination. Lawson preached at Clayborn Temple, the church from which strikers marched in 1968. Despite his age, Lawson insisted on marching with them five decades later.

“He still had that fire,” said Saunders. “He still believed strongly that if we fight and if we make our voices heard every single day in a nonviolent way, then we can win and we can be successful.”

William “Bill” Lucy, a longtime secretary-treasurer of the union, praised Lawson for agreeing to help the strikers as a young pastor at Centenary Methodist Church.

“Without Jim Lawson, we’d be on strike now, 50 years later,” Lucy said.

Lawson thanked the more than two dozen co-sponsors of the legislation for shedding light on a topic that he sees as crucial for a nation that has become more violent than he ever imagined it could be.

“While the gun discussion may be an important discussion, it doesn’t get into the virus that needs to be attacked—the spirit of violence, the language of violence, the thinking of violence, the despising of one another,” he said. “Nonviolence is the force that can save our nation from itself.”

DALLAS—Throughout American history, two versions of Christianity have competed for the loyalty of believers—slaveholder religion and the freedom church, author Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove told a Dallas audience.

“We are facing a moral crisis. What pains me most is that white evangelical Christians are making it possible,” said Wilson-Hartgrove, an Anglo who is an associate minister at the historically black St. John’s Missionary Baptist Church in Durham, N.C.

He led a workshop on “Finding Freedom from Slaveholder Religion” during the Red Letter Revival, an event sponsored by a group that emphasizes applying the teachings of Jesus to modern social issues.

Growing up in North Carolina—“just down the road from Mayberry,” in his words—Wilson-Hartgrove “trusted the moral narrative” he inherited from his family and neighbors, including its racist underpinnings, he said.

As a politically ambitious teenager who dreamed of becoming president someday, he received an appointment by Sen. Strom Thurmond from neighboring South Carolina to serve as a page in the U.S. Senate.

‘The narrative began to unravel”

In that role, he learned more about Thurmond’s history as an ardent segregationist who ran as the “Dixiecrat” candidate for president in 1948 and conducted the longest filibuster on record by a single senator in opposition to the Civil Rights Act of 1957.

“That’s when the narrative began to unravel for me,” particularly since most of the people he knew praised Thurmond as a moral champion who protected their Christian Southern heritage, he said.

Wilson-Hartgrove realized the version of the gospel he had learned as a white person growing up in the South was not good news for African-Americans.

“I began to ask, ‘What would another way of being Christian look like?’” he said.

A different understanding of gospel

At a key point in his life, Wilson-Hartgrove encountered William Barber II, pastor of Greenleaf Christian Church in Goldsboro, N.C.

“He began to teach me about a black-led, faith-rooted freedom struggle,” said Wilson-Hartgrove, author of Reconstructing the Gospel: Finding Freedom from Slaveholder Religion.

He learned how slaveholders and their allies used the Bible to support their arguments in favor of slavery and of an economic system dependent upon slave labor.

However, he also learned about “the freedom church that was born on the edge of the plantations,” he said. Meeting in brush arbors for worship, African-American slaves identified with biblical stories about how God delivered his people from slavery in Egypt and liberated them from exile in Babylon.

“There has always been a struggle between slaveholder religion and the freedom church,” Wilson-Hartgrove said.

Continuing influence of slaveholder religion

While the North won the Civil War, the South essentially won the narrative in terms of perpetuating immoral arguments couched in biblical language, throughout the Jim Crow era and continuing to the present, he asserted.

“Extremism claims moral language to justify sin,” he said. “The patterns we inherited from the 19^th century are with us still. But the faith that was at the heart of the civil rights movement is also with us still.”

Slaveholder religion has taken a spiritual toll on the United States, he insisted.

“We have split the gospel in two, and its warps us,” he said. “The narrative cuts off compassion and shriveled our hearts, leaving us with a diminished capacity to love God.”

Wilson-Hartgrove endorsed the idea of “fusion politics” Barber promotes as leader of the Poor People’s Campaign, bringing together people of faith from different races and political parties to support policies that advance economic justice for all people.

However, rather than focusing exclusively on electoral victories, Wilson-Hartgrove discussed how bringing people together around biblically based moral principles can lead to “surprising friendships.”

“God can transform relationships,” he said.

At its heart, racism in the United States is a spiritual problem that requires “soul work” to solve, Wilson-Hartgrove said.

“Deep healing is needed,” he said. “To be segregated from our neighbors by racial divisions and economic inequities makes it harder to know God. But as we listen to one another, we draw closer to one another and closer to God.”

NEDERLAND—A gospel-centered community group meeting in a house became a thriving and growing church reaching the lost and the broken in Nederland.

Cornerstone Church began when Ryan  and Arin Thompson felt burdened for their friends, family and neighbors who were lost and in need of the gospel in their community.

“We set out with this vision given to us by the Lord to start a church and partner with other great local churches in our city to seek and to save the lost, to make disciple-making disciples and to see our community transformed by the power of the gospel,” said Thompson, pastor of Cornerstone Church.

Dedra Curtice first visited Cornerstone at the invitation of her oldest daughter, Madison. On the first Sunday she attended, Thompson preached from the New Testament book of Acts about the early church and described what the body of Christ should look like.

“I remember the Lord saying, ‘This is where you are supposed to be seated,’” Curtice said.

She was raised in the church but was never discipled or taught the importance of living out her faith, she recalled, saying, “There was no relationship or community.”

“I started attending Cornerstone with my family and began learning and digging into God’s word. The more I would hear and read about discipleship and coming together, I realized it was a big piece of the puzzle that was missing in my life,” she said.

A few months after Curtice joined Cornerstone, the pastor asked if she would be willing to disciple a young woman in the church. Curtice was excited about the opportunity to meet with Sally. They met weekly for prayer, Bible study and time to share their lives with each other.

Transformational mission experience

Last Spring, Curtice was offered the opportunity to go on a mission trip through Cornerstone to serve the Amazon region of Brazil alongside two other church members. The church sponsors an indigenous Brazilian missionary through Texas Baptists’ Missionary Adoption Program, and the trip would give them the opportunity to meet the missionary.

She began to pray for God to provide the funds to go, and before she knew it, she had what she needed. The Amazon trip was life-changing for Curtice as she learned evangelism strategies and spent a week ministering to the Brazilian people away from the modern comforts of home.

“I prayed and prayed from the time I knew God was opening the door to go that he would change me—that he would change my heart,” she said.

God began to reveal her dependence on earthly conveniences. She felt convicted by the words of Jesus, “Where your treasure is, there your heart is also.”

Over the summer, God continued to bring to mind her shopping and spending habits. She decided to limit her spending and commit money each month to sponsor another Missionary Adoption Program missionary in Brazil. Rather than spending money on items she did not need, Curtice wanted to send money to a ministry partner to make a difference in the lives of others along the Amazon.

Reflecting on how God has moved in her life over the last year, she said, “My life has completely changed since I started being obedient to the Lord.”

She has seen growth from intentional discipleship and commitment to studying and living out God’s word, to obediently serving in Brazil and now sponsoring another missionary to continue that work.

‘The Spirit of God at work among us’

Curtice is one of many whose lives have been transformed by the power of the gospel at Cornerstone Church. Thompson has witnessed several friends from junior high and high school grow in their relationship with the Lord and celebrated immensely when his own father gave his life to Christ.

The church launched on Easter Sunday in 2017 with 20 covenant members and now has more than 100 people engaged in community groups.

“We have seen people far from God give their lives to Jesus, baptized and be discipled,” Thompson said. “It’s been humbling and encouraging to see the Spirit of God at work among us and the fruits of gospel ministry.”

Thompson described the church as passionate to equip and train disciple-makers to live on mission in their spheres of influence. Whether in their neighborhoods, the workplace or at the gym, members of the church are helping each other to see all of life as an opportunity to demonstrate and declare the good news of Jesus.

Thompson’s home congregation, First Baptist Church in Nederland, served as the sending church for Cornerstone. It was a special privilege to be sent out by those who he had served alongside for the majority of his life, Thompson said.

After months of meeting in their home, Thompson went through Texas Baptists’ Church Planting Center training in Houston and began the process of laying the groundwork for Cornerstone Church. The center provided a coach to meet with him monthly to discuss challenges and successes of planting a church and provide updates and reports to First Baptist in Nederland on the new church’s progress.

“Cornerstone Church is a family of believers in Jesus Christ that love God, love His Word and love each other,” stated Thompson. “Our hope is to be used by God to bring about the obedience of faith in Christ in more and more people for the sake of his name among all nations.”

The Baptist General Convention of Texas operates Church Planting Centers in El Paso, Belton and Tarrant County. Through gifts to the Cooperative Program, Texas Baptists provides funds for church planters to receive valuable training and resources. To learn more about the Church Planting Centers, email paul.atkinson@texasbaptists.org or call (214) 828-5217.  

DALLAS—Progressive Christians should acknowledge every child’s right to quality education as a justice issue, and conservative Christians should recognize neighborhood public schools as the third pillar—alongside the church and the home—for building responsible citizens with moral vision, Charles Foster Johnson told a Dallas audience.

“Public schools are the place where we create a public consciousness,” Johnson, founding executive director of Pastors for Texas Children, told workshop participants at the Red Letter Revival, a movement of Christians who say they want to apply the teachings of Jesus in society. “We need quality, fully funded public schools where every child is accepted.”

Public education for all is a moral duty, and public schoolteachers work in a “holy sanctuary” of learning, said Johnson, former pastor of Trinity Baptist Church in San Antonio and Second Baptist Church in Lubbock.

“They work long hours at low pay, often serving the poorest children,” he said.

Serious followers of Christ need to recognize public school advocacy as a vital part of their public witness, he asserted. Jesus said, “Let the children come to me.” Likewise, public schools invite all children to receive an education and attain their God-given potential, Johnson insisted, adding, “All means all.”

Threat of privatization

In contrast, privatized approaches to education serve only those who can afford it, he said. At the same time they serve a select constituency, proponents of vouchers for private schools divert tax dollars—funds intended for the common good—away from underfunded public schools, he asserted.

Charter schools are “a little trickier,” he acknowledged, particularly when they offer educational alternatives to underserved neighborhoods. However, even the best non-profit charter schools typically are governed by self-perpetuating boards in distant locations, and the people they serve have no voice in decision-making, he said.

For-profit schools simply are out to make money for wealthy investors, he emphasized.

“They are making commodities out of our children and markets out of our classrooms,” Johnson said.

In an increasingly polarized society, public schools offer a unique place that can bring together children of varied races and religions—children of privilege and children in need—to learn together and create life-changing relationships, he asserted.

Johnson urged concerned Christians to develop friendships with school superintendents to learn about local needs and nurture relationships with elected representatives, particularly in the Texas House of Representatives, to advocate for public education.

A renewed commitment to public education “can solve a lot of other issues in society,” he insisted.

Churches can make a difference by adopting public schools—providing school supplies, praying for educators, sponsoring teacher appreciation events and inviting members to become mentors and tutors for students, he said.

“If you want to change the world, read to a kid—particularly a child in the third grade or younger—for two hours a week,” Johnson said. “It’s the most Jesus-led, Spirit-filled act you can do.”

EDITOR’S NOTE: The third paragraph was edited after the article originally was posted to correct an identification error.

AUSTIN—Cody Shouse, Baptist Student Ministry director at the University of Texas, sat in Austin traffic on April 5, slowly making his way home from a weekly Bible study at the Longhorn BSM when another vehicle traveling 60 miles per hour hit his vehicle.

After being rushed to the hospital, Shouse learned he had a ruptured C1 vertebra. He immediately underwent a five-hour surgery to perform a cervical fusion, which included inserting six screws and two rods into his neck.

“The C1 holds your skull to your spine, and when it ruptures it begins to separate, not from the spine but from the skull, so I was just a few ligaments away from having what they call an internal decapitation,” Shouse explained. “My chiropractor, who has been practicing for 22 years, said he had never seen anyone with this injury walk ever again.”

During the first six weeks following surgery, Shouse was completely immobilized, wearing a neck brace at all times. He also suffered from a severe concussion for 10 weeks.

For six months following the surgery, Shouse was not able to turn or strain his neck, even without the brace. Simple tasks such as walking up or down stairs and getting out of a chair were extremely difficult.

“The most difficult thing was that I wasn’t able to contribute,” he said. “I had to watch my wife, Stephanie, do everything—take out the trash, mow the yard, take our son to school. All of the things I normally contributed to our family I just couldn’t do.”

He not only needed physical healing, but also mental, emotional and spiritual healing.

“I had bad neurological symptoms, so I really had a small mind. I couldn’t read for more than five minutes without my vision going blurry and getting a headache. I had very little capacity to love the Lord with my mind or strength, and I felt a decay in my communion and fellowship with God,” Shouse said.

“But as I read the Shema in Deuteronomy 6:4, I realized that as soon as my ability to love God with all my strength and mind was taken away, I really struggled loving the Lord with all of my heart. So that’s what I’ve been learning to try to do over the last few months. And as my strength and mind come back, I’m continuing to learn to love God with everything in me. At the end of this, I can learn to love him better with all of me and not just two-thirds of what he asks me to love him with.”

Doing ‘what families do’

During his recovery, Shouse’s family, friends, neighbors and the Longhorn BSM staff mowed his lawn, cooked his family meals, joined alongside his family in prayer and gave him rides to work as he went back part-time.

“They all stepped up and did what families do,” he said. “And my kids got to see people who love Jesus love each other. My 4-year-old daughter asked why a group of teenage boys from the church were mowing our lawn. It just didn’t make sense to her that these people we see once a week would come to our house and do that for us. So, we got to explain to her that when you have the commonality of loving Jesus, you do things that don’t make sense for each other. It was a beautiful thing to see her grasp that.”

As for work,  Shouse felt loved and supported. Not only was he able to take eight weeks off, but he experienced constant communication and celebration with Texas Baptists and BSM as healing took place. And when he couldn’t do something, there was no doubt or frustration.

“I don’t know of many employers who outright give 90 days, no questions asked, to heal. There was a lot of grace that didn’t have to be given,” he said. “Things had already changed so dramatically for my wife and kids, so the fact that nothing else had changed was just a really big thing for our family.”

He was able to return to Longhorn BSM full-time at the end of July.

On Oct. 9, the Shouse family celebrated as he was released from his medical restrictions. For the first time in 194 days, he was able to pick up and hold his three children.

“That was one of the most life-giving things I got to do in a long time,” he said.

Shouse continues to see incredible healing in his body. His headaches and blurry vision from the concussion have ceased, and he has gained some range of motion back in his neck. His doctors are hopeful he’ll regain up to 50 percent.

“If I keep 8 percent for the rest of my life, I’ll be able to do what God’s called me to do,” he said. “If I get 100 percent, I’ll be able to do what God’s called me to do.”