WACO —Eighty years ago, an 11-year-old African-American boy walked in the dark on an Alabama country road, listening for the sound of his uncle’s truck and waiting for a promised ride home. But someone else came along, and the boy never forgot the terror of what happened next.

At first, Willie Thomas thought the men, carrying sickles and with their dogs tagging along, were hunting possums. Then one asked, “Hey, Boy. What you doing out here?”

So began a night of taunts, false accusations, the fashioning of a noose for Thomas’ hanging—and the merciful intervention of a passerby.

In video and audio recordings being transcribed by Baylor University students and to be archived at Baylor, Thomas—now Elder Willie Thomas, 90, of Birmingham, Ala.—and more than 70 other people recount how they narrowly escaped lynching, witnessed it or lived in fear of it.

Until now, not many African-Americans have been willing to speak openly about those experiences, said Angela Sims, assistant professor of ethics and black church studies at Saint Paul School of Theology in Kansas City, Mo. She conducted the interviews, which will be housed at Baylor’s Institute for Oral History for public viewing and listening.

In her travels, she interviewed people—mostly elderly—across the country, in locations as diverse as Oakland, Calif.; Philadelphia; Richmond, Va.; Omaha, Neb.; and Bossier City, La.

No one, Sims said, can tell a story like the person who has lived it. As Sims listened to people relive their experiences, she felt their fear. But she also marveled at their faith and their forgiveness of atrocities.

Those first-person memories need to be preserved before it is too late, she said.

“Five of my interviewees have already passed,” Sims said.

Sims launched the project, called Remembering Lynching: Strategies of Resistance and Vision of Justice, in July 2009. She was preparing to defend her dissertation about lynching and decided to expand it into an oral history after she heard Wallace Hartsfield, a Missouri pastor and civil rights activist, give a first-person account of a Florida lynching he witnessed.

Carey Newman, director of Baylor University Press, introduced her to Stephen Sloan, director of Baylor’s Institute for Oral History, in 2008, and she received training in interviewing at the institute.

Postcard of spectators at the lynching of Jesse Washington, May 16, 1916, in Waco. (Photo/Withoutsanctuary.com )

Sims, an award recipient in the Ford Foundation Fellowship 2010 postdoctoral competition, is writing a book called Conversations with Elders: African-Americans Remember Lynching, based partially on her oral history interviews. It is scheduled to be published by Baylor University Press in 2012.

Sims quickly realized that “for me to even get through an interview, I’d have to take a very clinical approach. There are times I’ve not been able to mask my gut reaction. But I try to be stoic because I don’t want my reaction to become the narrative.”

So it was as she listened to Thomas.

The men who stopped him were drunk, Thomas told Sims in the videotaped interview. They cursed him, accused him of accosting a white woman and sicced their dogs on him.

“Great big old dogs,” Thomas remembered. “But those dogs jumped up on me and licked my hand and wagged their tails.”

Then one man, who carried a rope, made a noose.

“He said, ‘Let me try it on and see how it works,’” Thomas said. “He put it around my neck, and it was a grass rope—you know how they scratch. I was in pain. He pulled it and said, ‘Oh, it’s going to work . . . You see that big tree down there in the hollow? That would be a good place to hang him.’”

Then a passing driver stopped to investigate—a man who knew the Thomas family. The man brandished a shotgun at Thomas’ tormentors and urged Thomas to hush his crying.

The man vowed not to leave until the men turned Thomas loose. Thomas’ captors said they would do so only if the boy had told the truth when he said his uncle was coming to fetch him.

“My uncle’s truck—sometimes it would run; sometimes it wouldn’t,” Thomas said. “But finally, here comes the old truck, with one eye—one light— out, and his motor going boop-de-boop-de-boop-de-boop. You talk about ‘Swing Low, Sweet Chariot.’ . . . There was nothing but Jesus at that moment.”

Sims’ work to elicit such accounts “exemplifies what’s best about oral history,” Sloan said. “It’s recording some deep and very personal and powerful episodes some of these folks haven’t talked about in years.”

While some people equate lynching with hanging, it actually is defined as a mob’s murder of someone without a lawful trial for real or alleged crimes. To find interview subjects, Sims called on friends and acquaintances who might know those who had experienced close brushes with lynching. Those friends could vouch for Sims as trustworthy. Still, some people canceled interviews, fearing repercussions.

Baylor student transcribers said the accounts are eye-opening, heart-wrenching and, occasionally, uplifting.

“I’m hesitant to use a term like ‘white guilt’ to describe what I felt while listening to these interviews, but it was hard hearing about all the terrible things these people had to go through for no good reason at all,” said Bethany Sellers, a senior graphic design major from Waco.

“There's no doubt that we’ve made significant progress concerning racial relations, but in this day and age, there’s still a lot of racism, depending on where you are and how hard you look.”

Ashley Yeaman, a junior journalism/anthropology major from Teague, was moved by the account of a man who, as a child, was hurried into a house by his grandmother so he would not see a lynching.

“Peering out the window, he saw a truck passing by with a body of a black man being dragged behind,” Yeaman said. “Many of the accounts are equally horrific tales, as well as personal stories of discrimination and mistreatment as a typical part of everyday life. … However, they also describe overcoming discrimination. One woman was one of four black school teachers who taught in all-white schools, heading the desegregation movement.”

Hearing how interviewees persevered and their hopes for the future has been inspiring, said Priscilla Martinez, a senior history major from San Antonio.

“It’s good to hear them speak optimistically and say, ‘It’s our legacy, but it’s getting better,’” she said. “All the people I heard being interviewed have been very religious, and it’s very uplifting when they conclude with that.”

Thomas said in his interview that when thinks of the white man who risked his own life to rescue a young boy: “It gives me a sense of forgiveness. I forgive those people.”

He said he believes the oral history project will benefit the nation.

“Truth and forgiveness have to be the order of the day,” he said.

They arrived in the United States from countries around the globe, often with no friends, few belongings and little knowledge of the new land they are entering in search of a better education.

They are the roughly 58,000 international students studying on college campuses throughout Texas, the third-largest group of international students in the United States. They’re primarily from Korea, India and China, but they come from a host of other countries as well, including Latin American nations and the Middle East.

Many excel academically and are seeking postgraduate degrees, said Beth Smith, director of the University of Texas at Dallas Baptist Student Ministry. They hope to gain knowledge and cultural understanding to be business leaders.

But that’s just the beginning. Students and Texas Baptists involved in Baptist Student Ministries statewide are among the first people some international students encounter when they come to Texas, providing a helpful hand and encouraging voice for young people who otherwise would be figuring out Texas on their own.

“They’re looking for community,” Smith said. “They’re looking for friendships. They’re pursuing obviously an academic education, so they’re looking for learning, but it’s not just in the classroom. They’re looking for cultural understanding in order to do business with Americans, with companies that are worldwide or international.”

University of Texas at Arlington Baptist Student Ministry volunteers meet international students coming to the university at the airport, give them a ride to the UTA campus and seek to help them however possible. This fall, BSM volunteers met about 120 new students at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport.

“That means when a new student comes from another country to Arlington, the first person they met is a believer from a local church who is here to serve them, meet their needs, show hospitality and greet them,” said Gary Stidham, director of the UTA BSM.

Students and volunteers with the UTD BSM attempt to help new international students locate furniture and help them get that furniture delivered. They offer to give the students rides to the store, doctor or anywhere else they seek to go.

The University of Texas at Austin Baptist Student Ministry seeks to build relationships with international students by having “dinner clubs” and conversation partners for students where they can improve their language skills.

No matter the approach, BSMs seek to help students and volunteers begin relationships with international students. Providing furniture, rides or friendship is simply a way Christians can share the hope of Christ to a group of young people who may feel alone and lost at times as they attempt to adjust to life in Texas.

Sean Williams, a University of Texas at Austin student, started a friendship with a visiting professor by becoming his conversation partner. The discussions helped them get to better know each other and gave the professor an opportunity to practice English. They enjoyed talking so much that they became friends.

As that friendship and those conversations developed, Williams and the professor discussed God and the Bible, which Williams used in the conversation sessions to help the professor improve his English skills. The professor, who came to the United States believing there was no God, professed Christ as Lord.

For more information about becoming involved in a BSM’s work with international students, call (888) 244-9400. To join the discussion about reaching out to international students, visit www.facebook.com/texasbaptists or www.texasbaptists.org/blog.

WASHINGTON (ABP) — Melissa Rogers is a veteran religious-liberty attorney and nationally recognized expert in church-state law. She currently is director of the Center for Religion and Public Affairs at the Wake Forest University School of Divinity. She also serves as a non-resident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington, and recently completed a term as the first chair of President Obama’s Advisory Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships. She has served as general counsel of the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty. In an e-mail interview, she reflects on some major developments in her field over the last decade and where things might go in the decade that just began:

Melissa Rogers

Q: What have been the most important developments for religious liberty – legally, politically and culturally – in the last decade?

A:

• More types of government funding flowing to more kinds of religious institutions. (This is courtesy of a continuing trend at the Supreme Court toward interpreting the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause in ways that place fewer restrictions on government funding and religious institutions and activities.)
• A trend toward limiting taxpayer standing to challenge certain potential Establishment Clause violations. (The Supreme Court kicked off this trend by placing more restrictions on the types of challenges that may be brought regarding potential Establishment Clause violations.)
• Continued ability of states and localities to maintain policies that are more restrictive regarding government funding [of] religious institutions and activities than what the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause requires, as long as those policies do not violate the federal Constitution (e.g., Locke v. Davey).
• The debate over the free-exercise rights of American Muslims intensifies.
• The increasing prominence of a group of evangelicals that has a different set of priorities than the so-called “Religious Right.” The “Religious Right” movement still exists, and many evangelicals continue to be at least somewhat sympathetic with a number of its positions on church-state issues. But a significant number of evangelicals — many of them young — are prioritizing issues such as care for God’s creation, concern for the poor and vulnerable, and nuclear disarmament.
• The growth in the number or prominence of secular organizations playing roles in this field, such as the Secular Coalition for America and the Freedom From Religion Foundation, and the aggressive campaigns of “new atheists” like Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins.
• Public schools take more steps to encourage academic teaching about religion.

Q: What issues, trends or potential battles do you see on the horizon in 2011?

A:

• A continuing debate over plans for an Islamic center in Lower Manhattan and plans for mosques in some American cities. The court battle will continue over the Oklahoma measure that bars state courts from considering Sharia, while other states are likely to consider similar measures. [New York Republican and House Homeland Security Committee Chair] Rep. Peter King’s hearings on “Islamic radicalization” will likely reignite a bitter national debate over the place of Islam in America, terrorism, and free exercise rights.
• Battles over policies requiring nondiscrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and the extent of exemptions for religious organizations from such policies.
• Continued debate over conscience clause issues in the health-care arena. The Department of Health and Human Services may complete a rule-making process on these issues in early 2011.
• The interagency working group established by President Obama’s November 2010 executive order [in response to the recommendations of the faith-based advisory council] will submit a report regarding implementation of the terms of the executive order and related matters in mid-March 2011. Advisory Council members and others who care about these issues will watch this process carefully.
• There will be mounting pressure on the Obama administration to implement a campaign promise to prohibit all organizations, including religious ones, from discriminating on the basis of religion in government-funded jobs. At the same time, a different coalition will fight hard to maintain the status quo.
• A Supreme Court decision by summer in the Arizona Christian School Tuition Organization v. Winn case.
• Lawsuits will continue over sectarian references in official prayers before legislative meetings.

Q: Expanding that into the following decade, where do you see trends taking the United States and the rest of the world in 2011-2020 in terms of religious freedom?

A: I’m limiting myself here to the United States, and I’m mostly raising questions instead of trying to forecast trends:

• What stamp will the Roberts Court put on establishment and free-exercise issues? Will it continue to limit standing to challenge alleged Establishment Clause violations? Will it revisit the endorsement test formulated by former Justice Sandra Day O’Connor? Will at least certain members of the court call for it to revisit its 1990 Employment Division v. Smith decision?
• What role will Justice Elena Kagan play on religious-liberty issues?
• Will the numbers of the “nones” (those who claim no religious affiliation) continue to grow at a rapid pace, and, if so, how will this affect law, public policy, and politics? What will be the trajectory of evangelicals who distinguish themselves from the “Religious Right” movement?
• If Mitt Romney runs for president in 2012, we will once again debate whether his Mormon faith is relevant to his candidacy, and, if so, how.
• How will the Tea Party movement incorporate those who have been pushing for a much weaker interpretation of the First Amendment's Establishment Clause? How much attention will be given to themes like these in upcoming elections and in law and policy at other times?
• As more religious institutions receive more types of government funding, how will it affect their ability to be true to their missions and to raise private money?
• How will limits on lawsuits brought to enforce the Establishment Clause affect the degree to which Establishment Clause values are honored by government?
• To what extent will religion be viewed and treated as distinctive in law and policy? Will current trends toward treating religion and religious institutions more like secular ideas, institutions, and pursuits expand? And, if so, how will that change religious liberty, religion, and religious institutions?

 — Robert Marus is managing editor and Washington bureau chief for Associated Baptist Press.

WASHINGTON (RNS)—The protracted and contentious debate over plans to build an Islamic community center near Ground Zero in New York was the top religion story of 2010, according to a survey of religion journalists.

The imam piloting the project, Feisal Abdul Rauf, was voted the Religion Newswriters Association’s top newsmaker of 2010, besting Pope Benedict XVI, Sarah Palin and aid workers in earthquake-ravaged Haiti.

Although the mosque project, known as Park51, is far from completion, the story dominated headlines for weeks, especially as the anniversary of the terrorist attacks of 9/11 approached. President Obama weighed in, saying Muslims have a right to build houses of worship, but other political leaders called the proposal insensitive to Americans still grieving over the loss of friends and family.

The response of faith-based charities to Haiti’s devastating earthquake last January— including child-smuggling accusations against Idaho evangelicals—was voted the No. 2 religion story of 2010.

Allegations that Benedict and other Catholic leaders responded inadequately to the sexual abuse of children by Catholic clergy; the rise of the Tea Party; and the various faith groups’ responses to Obama’s health-care bill rounded out the top five stories of 2010, according to the survey.

The remaining stories in the top 10 are:

6. Debates over homosexuality among mainline Protestants, particularly the Presbyterian Church (USA), the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, and the Episcopal Church.

7. The economic recession’s effect on churches and ministries, including the bankruptcy of the landmark Crystal Cathedral in southern California.

8. The suicide of several gay teens prompted soul searching among some American Christians about whether religion contributes to anti-gay attitudes.

9. A survey by the Pew Forum yielded some surprising results, including that atheists scored better than many Christians on a test of religious knowledge.

10. The Supreme Court began its session in October without a Protestant justice on the bench for the first time in history. Six Catholics and three Jews sit on the high court.

WASHINGTON (RNS)—The calendar may have said 2010, but for Pope Benedict XVI and much of his global flock, it looked and felt a lot like 2002. For the second time in a decade, charges of child molestation at the hands of Catholic priests dominated headlines—this time reaching the highest levels of the Vatican, as critics questioned whether Benedict himself mishandled abuse cases.

The Roman Catholic Church wasn’t the only institution battling a sense of deja vu, as some of the most controversial religion stories from the past 20 years returned to the headlines.

A 1994-style fight over health care reform not only pitted Republicans against Democrats, but also Catholic bishops against Catholic nuns. Lingering questions about President Obama’s Christian faith morphed into a belief among one in five Americans that he’s actually a Muslim. Nearly 10 years after 9/11, Islamophobia returned with a vengeance as a Florida pastor threatened to torch a pile of Qurans, and Tennessee officials debated whether Islam actually is a religion.

This time, the resurrected stories were more pointed, the debates more polarizing. Old stories found new life online, and voices that once would have been dismissed as extreme were amplified by the Internet, Facebook and Twitter.

“New media has had the effect of keeping certain news stories alive, bringing them back from the dead and propelling them into the news,” said Diane Winston, a scholar of religion and media at the University of Southern California.

The 2010 abuse scandal, unlike the 2002 crisis in the U.S., largely was confined to Europe, starting in Ireland and later erupting in the pope’s native Germany. Four bishops resigned, and Benedict ended the year by telling cardinals that worldwide guidelines for handling abuse cases will be forthcoming.

It was really almost like the crater of a volcano, out of which suddenly a tremendous cloud of filth came, darkening and soiling everything,” the pope told a German journalist in a book-length interview.

Here in the United States, the ghosts of 9/11 loomed large as a fight over a planned Islamic community center a few blocks from Ground Zero became a litmus test for tolerance toward American Muslims. Evangelist Franklin Graham was uninvited from a National Day of Prayer event at the Pentagon for calling Islam an “evil” and “wicked” religion, comments he made back in 2001.

Even as Michigan’s Rima Fakih was crowned the first Muslim Miss USA, 53 percent of Americans admitted harboring unfavorable views of Islam. Oklahoma voters passed a pre-emptive ban on judges using Islamic law in state courts.

Omid Safi, a professor of Islamic studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, said he is most concerned by the reaction against the organizers of Park51, the proposed Islamic center near Ground Zero.

“These are the most interfaith-y group of Muslims imaginable,” he said. “They are as successful an American story as it gets; it’s the perfect immigrant narrative. These are people who get sent by the State Department overseas to say Muslims can live freely in this country, and then they are caricatured as jihadist radicals.”

Distrust of Islam was not limited to American shores. A year after Switzerland banned minarets at mosques, Belgium and France banned Muslim women from wearing full-face veils in public.

Like the 1994 Republican resurgence, the Democrats’ midterm “shellacking” was fueled, in large part, by anger over health care reform. The plan split American Catholics, with bishops opposing it and Catholic hospitals and nuns supporting it. The hierarchy later dismissed dissenters’ support for the plan as mere “opinion,” however “well-considered.”

In the Episcopal Church, it felt a lot like 2003 again as Mary Glasspool was elected the church’s second openly gay bishop. New Hampshire Bishop V. Gene Robinson, whose 2003 election sparked a global schism, announced that he will retire in 2013.

Glasspool’s election prompted Anglican leaders in London to sideline their rebellious American branch on some international panels. The Presbyterian Church (USA) voted— for the fourth time in a dozen years—to allow openly gay clergy, and new rules that allow gay clergy prompted dissident Lutherans to form the North American Lutheran Church.

In a flashback to 1976, when Episcopalians opened the priesthood to women, the last hold-out diocese, in Quincy, Ill., finally ordained its first female priest.

A rash of teen suicides and gay bullying spurred religious leaders, rock stars and even Obama to join the “It Gets Better” project, while an October poll found that two-thirds of Americans see a link between religious teachings against homosexuality and higher rates of suicide among gay youths.

Religious teachings against homosexuality are not enough to justify a ban on gay marriage, a federal judge ruled in August in striking down California’s Proposition 8. And religious beliefs are not enough to justify the unconstitutional law that created the National Day of Prayer, another federal judge ruled in April.

Pioneering televangelist Robert Schuller, after a bitter and public family feud, handed his Southern California pulpit over to daughter Sheila Schuller Coleman, who filed for bankruptcy in October, citing church debts of $43 million.

In Oregon, prosecutors traveled down familiar terrain as two parents from a controversial faith-healing church were sentenced in the death of their teenage son; their daughter and son-in-law had been acquitted on similar charges last year. Another set of parents from the same church face similar manslaughter charges.

Religious and humanitarian groups rallied to deliver relief to earthquake-ravaged Haiti, where an estimated 220,000 died, more than 300,000 were injured and more than 1 million left homeless. Ten U.S. mission workers were detained, and later released, on charges of trying to smuggle Haitian orphans out of the country.

Along the Gulf Coast, social service agencies were stretched thin trying to deliver relief to families and businesses struggling to cope with the massive BP oil spill.

2010 saw several prominent culture warriors take a bow from the national stage:

• After stepping down last year as chairman of Focus on the Family, James Dobson turned off the microphone at his daily radio program only to start his own show.

• Ill health forced Donald Wildmon to retire as head of the American Family Association.

• Ergun Caner was forced to step down as dean of Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary after exaggerating his dramatic conversion from militant Islam.

At the same time, several controversial newsmakers from years past re-emerged for a second act in 2010:

• Colorado Springs pastor Ted Haggard started a new church four years after a stunning fall from grace in a scandal involving a male escort and drugs.

• Obama’s fiery former pastor, Jeremiah Wright, alleged that the president “threw me under the bus” during the 2008 campaign.

• Roy Moore, who lost his job as chief justice on the Alabama Supreme Court in 2003 for refusing to remove a 5,300-pound Ten Commandments monument, lost his second bid for governor.

• Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan returned to the spotlight to demand an apology from Jews for “the most vehement anti-black behavior in the annals of our history.”

• Whitewater prosecutor Kenneth Starr was named president of Baylor University, the world’s largest Baptist school.
2010 also saw the passing of several notable figures: Jews for Jesus founder Moishe Rosen died at age 78; pioneering feminist theologian Mary Daly died at age 81; Davey and Goliath creator Art Clokey died at age 88. Gospel artists Doug Oldham died at age 79, Albertina Walker at age 81 and Walter Hawkins at age 61.

WASHINGTON (ABP) – A new Gallup poll shows that, while personal measures of religious sentiment have remained fairly high among Americans, their membership in houses of worship continues a long decline and they increasingly believe that religion is losing influence in the country at large.

The survey results, released Dec. 29, show that 70 percent of respondents now believe faith is losing its influence in American life, while only 25 percent believe religion is becoming more influential. That is only second to the 75 percent of respondents who registered pessimism about the influence of faith  when asked the same question in 1970 — and tied with 2009’s figure for the second-highest percentage in the 53-year history of Gallup asking the question.

It’s also a dramatic departure from responses to the same question from just six years ago, when nearly equal numbers believed faith was gaining and losing influence in the United States.

“Americans' views of the influence of religion in the U.S. have fluctuated substantially in the years since 1957, when Gallup first asked this question,” said a summary of the statistics.

While significant majorities of Americans believed religion was gaining in influence in the late 1950s, those figures had reversed themselves by the end of the turbulent 60s. The relative percentages on each side of the question stablized at a near-even split in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

But by the early 1990s, a large majority again believed that secularism was ascendant in the country. In 2001, those who believed faith was gaining in influence again were in the majority, and the numbers stayed fairly even until 2005.

But the poll also showed that a significant majority of Americans — 54 percent — said religious faith remained “very important” in their own lives. Another 26 percent said faith was “fairly important” to them, while only a fifth of respondents said faith was “not very important” to them. Those percentages have remained relatively stable since the late 1970s.

But self-reported membership in a church or synagogue reached a record low of 61 percent (a tie with responses to the 2007 and 2008 surveys), while 38 percent of respondents said they did not belong to such a house of worship.

The stats reflected the continuation of a fairly steady decline in church membership since the early 1950s. Gallup has been asking Americans since 1937 if they belong to a church or synagogue, and self-reported church membership reached its peak in 1947, with 76 percent of respondents answering affirmitavely.

“Gallup's trends reflecting more personal views of religion do not show the same patterns of fluctuation as the broader questions about American society,” the report summary said. “What trends there are provide a somewhat mixed message. While almost all measures show that Americans were more religious in the 1940s and 1950s than in recent decades, Americans appear to be as personally religious now as they were in the late 1970s and 1980s. Church and synagogue membership, on the other hand, has drifted downward in a more steady fashion.”

The survey, of 2,048 adults contacted by telephone in May and December, has a margin of error of plus or minus three percentage points at a confidence level of 95 percent.

–Robert Marus is managing editor and Washington bureau chief for Associated Baptist Press.

WASHINGTON (ABP) — Judging from end-of-year assessments published in the last few days, there seems fairly universal agreement among close observers of faith and public life that the biggest religion story of 2010 in this country was also the biggest religious-freedom story: Islam and its discontents.

But the year’s often-nasty spats over mosques and Sharia law should not completely eclipse 2010’s other important religious-liberty developments, say many who study church-state relations.

Islam and the First Amendment

Nine years after a small group of Islamic extremists attacked the United States, several small disturbances over Islam seemed to merge into a perfect storm at the end of the summer — one with its eye centered on Lower Manhattan.

Feisal Rauf and his wife, Daisy Khan, the main proponents of building an Islamic center near Ground Zero.

The so-called “Ground Zero mosque” (which was neither actually at Ground Zero, nor technically a mosque) led newscasts for days in late August and topped the Religion Newswriters Association’s 2010 poll of the year’s 10 biggest religion stories. The group’s members also voted the main proponent of constructing an Islamic community center in Lower Manhattan, Feisal Abdul Rauf, as RNA’s “Religion Newsmaker of the Year.”

“As newsmaker of the year, Rauf beat out Pope Benedict XVI, the many faith-based workers helping victims of the Haitian government and Sarah Palin, who devoted significant portions of her second best selling book arguing that candidates for office take a public Christian stand,” said the association’s release announcing the poll results — generally considered the gold standard in gauging religion news.

The dispute brought national attention to other spats over the construction of Islamic facilities — in locales as diverse as Murfreesboro, Tenn.; Staten Island, N.Y.; and Temecula, Calif. — as many politicians took the opportunity to amp up combative rhetoric about Islam in an election year when conservative anger featured prominently at the polls. And a previously obscure Florida pastor raised an international furor with plans — from which he subsequently backed down — to hold a public burning of copies of the Quran on Sept. 11.

But the debate over the proposed Islamic center near Ground Zero exposed deeper fault lines over, and suspicions about, the role of Islam in American public life. In the Tennessee dispute, for instance, many mosque opponents claimed that Islam was a political system rather than a faith to be protected by the First Amendment.

Some proponents of a successful ballot initiative to amend the Oklahoma Constitution used similar rhetoric to argue for their measure, which would ban judges from referring to Islamic or international law in their legal reasoning. While it passed overwhelmingly in the November election, federal courts have prevented its enforcement pending the outcome of challenges to its constitutionality. Opponents say it violates the First Amendment by targeting Islam for special disdain.

Don Byrd, who blogs for the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty, lamented the tenor of 2010’s disputes over Islam in his end-of-the-year review.

“Nine years after the continued assurances of both Democratic and Republican presidents that we are not at war with Islam, and that it is a religion of peace, why are we still debating the equal rights of Muslim-Americans to practice their faith?” he asked. “Why are the murderous actions of terrorists still being ascribed to an entire religion and all of its peaceful followers? Why would a U.S. attorney in the year 2010 need to file a brief to explain to a Tennessee court that Islam is, in fact, a bona fide religion?    

“Is it merely the mania of an election year that has an entire state like Oklahoma voting to amend their constitution for fear of their courtrooms being overtaken by Sharia law? The fearful projections of a nation in economic distress that have resulted in an increase in workplace religious discrimination claims on the rise among Muslim-Americans? Or has this year revealed a deepening cultural rupture between America’s religious pluralism and the constitutional principles that protect it?”

Other religious-liberty developments

But Islam’s status in the United States wasn’t the only big religious-liberty news in 2010. Major court decisions, election-year rhetorical debates over the First Amendment and ongoing questions about the lines between gay rights and religious freedom were all important — if sometimes overlooked — developments in religious freedom.

Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito (SCOTUS photo)

The Supreme Court handed down two significant decisions touching on religious liberty in 2010. In a complex and limited April decision (Salazar v. Buono), the court let stand a federal government decision to preserve a cross — originally erected as a World War I memorial on public land in a remote California desert location — by transferring the small plot of land on which the cross stood to private hands.

But, to the relief of many church-state separationists, the court’s plurality did not get into the question of whether the man who originally challenged the cross had legal standing to bring the suit in the first place.  

In June, a closely divided court said in Christian Legal Society v. Martinez that the University of California was within its rights to deny the benefits of official recognition to a campus group because of the organization’s faith-based membership standards.

The justices, in a 5-4 decision, said that the university’s San Francisco-based Hastings College of Law does not have to exempt its chapter of the Christian Legal Society from a campus policy that bars officially recognized student groups from denying membership or leadership positions on the basis of religion or sexual orientation.  

The court’s four left-of-center justices and centrist “swing justice,” Anthony Kennedy, formed the majority while the four conservative justices were in the minority. Justice Samuel Alito, in a stinging dissenting opinion, said the majority’s decision was predicated on a belief in “no freedom for expression that offends prevailing standards of political correctness in our country’s institutions of higher learning.”

Gay rights and religious freedom

The thorny questions that surround protecting both the legal rights of gays and lesbians and those who, for religious reasons, oppose homosexuality featured prominently in two of the year's major legal issues.

In August, a federal judge overturned a California ban on gay marriage, saying proponents of the ban had put forth no arguments explaining why the state had a rational, secular interest in limiting marriage rights to heterosexual couples. Opponents said if the decision stood, it could open the door to limitations on the religious freedom of individuals and institutions in the state who oppose same-sex marriage.

Worries about the religious freedom of chaplains who oppose homosexuality also featured prominently in the debate over successful attempts, in Congress and the courts, to overturn the military’s ban on openly gay service members. Conservative religious groups attempted to rally their supporters to prevent the repeal of the so-called “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” law by pointing to chaplains who worried that being required to minister to openly gay soldiers could prevent them from speaking out about their convictions on homosexuality.

While the Pentagon’s report reviewing the issue noted significantly more opposition to doing away with the ban among the services’ chaplaincy corps than among the general public or service members at large, it said their fears were overblown.

“[T]he reality is that in today’s U.S. military, people of sharply different moral values and religious convictions — including those who believe that abortion is murder and those who do not, and those who believe Jesus Christ is the Son of God and those who do not … already co-exist, work, live, and fight together on a daily basis," the report said. "The other reality is that policies regarding service members’ individual expression and free exercise of religion already exist, and we believe they are adequate. Service members will not be required to change their personal views and religious beliefs; they must, however, continue to respect and serve with others who hold different views and beliefs.”

–Robert Marus is managing editor and Washington bureau chief for Associated Baptist Press.

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CARROLLTON, Ga. (ABP) — Two decades after settling the question of biblical inerrancy, Southern Baptists are battling about booze.

Seeking to remain relevant in today's culture, many Baptists have abandoned former taboos against social activities like dancing and going to movies. Now some are questioning the denomination's historic position of abstaining from alcohol, prompting others to draw a line.

The Baptist State Convention of North Carolina recently passed a motion to "study a policy of the social use of alcohol" related to funding of church plants, employment of personnel and nomination of persons to committees and boards of trustees.

"We as Southern Baptists in the North Carolina Baptist State Convention want the world to know that we promote the King of Kings, not the King of Beers," Tim Rogers, pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church in Indian Trail, N.C., told fellow messengers at the Nov. 8-10 annual meeting in Greensboro.

That is the same city where the Southern Baptist Convention adopted a resolution in 2006 expressing "total opposition" to alcoholic beverages and urging that no one who uses them be elected to a position of leadership in the denomination.

It was hardly groundbreaking — the convention has spoken against drinking more than 50 times dating back to 1886. What made it news, however, was a number of well-known conservatives who rose to speak against a statement calling for total abstinence.

The ruckus — and the post-convention blogs that kept the argument alive — prompted Peter Lumpkins, a Southern Baptist pastor for more than 20 years before turning to a writing ministry, to pen his first book: Alcohol Today: Abstinence in an Age of Indulgence, in 2009.

"One would be hard-pressed to locate a belief — outside believers' baptism by immersion itself — which reflects more unity among Southern Baptists than abstinence from intoxicating beverages for pleasurable purposes," Lumpkins said in an e-mail interview.

Lumpkins, who blogs at SBC Tomorrow, said younger Southern Baptist leaders do not appreciate that history and instead view teetotalism as extra-biblical and nothing more than "Pharisaical legalism."

Lumpkins is among Southern Baptists who view relaxed attitudes about social drinking as the biggest controversy facing the Southern Baptist Convention since the "conservative resurgence" debate over Scripture in the 1980s.

He writes in the book: "Make no mistake: the popular, trendy appeal for Bible studies in bars; pastors leading men's groups at cigar shops to puff, preach and partake; conference speakers who openly drink alcohol nevertheless are invited to college campuses as they carve out yet more influence into the youngest generation of Southern Baptists — all this makes an impending moral crisis among Southern Baptists predictably certain."

Lumpkins describes "a cataclysmic moral shift away from biblical holiness expressed in biblical Lordship toward the relativistic, postmodern norms of American pop culture, including its hedonistic obsession with fulfilling desires."

Unless the "Christian hedonism" trend is halted, Lumpkins fears "the largest Protestant voice for abstinence soon will succumb to the ominous lure of an age of indulgence. We will forfeit our biblical heritage to the whims of an obsessive pop morality that wildly sniffs the wind but for the faintest scent of pleasure fulfilled."

Lumpkins, a binge drinker in his youth, says the church has "conceded its historic role as the moral conscience of our culture, particularly as it forfeited its once-strong position on abstinence from intoxicating beverages for pleasurable purposes."

Without the abstinence standard, he argues the church either consciously or unconsciously helps promote a message in the larger culture that drinking is "cool."

In the book Lumpkins debunks a "common but untrue myth" that the Temperance movement leading to Prohibition was composed mainly of backwoods fundamentalists and uneducated moral legalists. To the contrary, he says the abstinence-only movement was led by the brightest theologians, Bible scholars, university presidents and medical professionals of the day.

He also lays out a biblical case for abstinence. While there are verses that seem to praise wine, he says, there are others that condemn wine, a point overlooked by those who argue the Bible only condemns drunkenness and not drinking.

His final hurdle is the story in the Gospel of John about the wedding feast in Cana where Jesus turns water into wine. Lumpkins says the Greek and Hebrew words translated "wine" don't distinguish between fresh and fermented grape juice, and he doubts the Son of God would "manifest forth his glory" by sprucing up a party that had run out of alcohol.

Lumpkins also critiques Baptists who abstain from drink for different reasons. He suspects most Southern Baptists hold a view similar to those expressed by Richard Land and Barrett Duke of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission that drinking is an "unwise" practice best to be avoided. Lumpkins says the question isn't whether drinking is wise but if it is moral.

"The way I've come to see it, forfeiting moral scruples toward the consumption of alcoholic beverages for pleasurable purposes forfeits the only biblical model we possess to biblically gauge moral scruples toward all other intoxicating substances for pleasurable purposes," he said in his e-mail.

"In other words, if the moral case is correct that consuming intoxicating beverages for pleasurable purposes remains ethically acceptable (if consumed in moderation), then it morally follows that consuming any other intoxicating substance is also ethically acceptable (if consumed in moderation). At least theoretically, the moral case is made for drug legalization. I realize this sounds radical. Yet, from the way I see the issue argued from the moderationist perspective (especially young Baptists), I can come to no other conclusion."

What about missionaries serving in countries that have no moral scruples against drinking faced with the prospect of offending a host offering them a glass of wine? Lumpkins called that a case of "conflicting absolutes" in a fallen world that qualified missionaries must figure out for themselves. On the other hand, he said the last person one would want to appoint to such a mission field is someone before qualifying who would answer "yes" to the question "do you believe in or practice social drinking?"

–Bob Allen is senior writer for Associated Baptist Press.

PLAINVIEW—Hang around Wes Cox or Rodney Watson, and it’s not difficult to see what season is arriving soon. Around August or September, both begin sporting extra facial hair, preparing for a special role that both cherish at Christmas.

Cox, who manages the bookstore at Wayland Baptist University’s Lubbock campus, and Watson, director of the Museum of the Llano Estacado at Wayland’s Plainview campus, both spend much of December donning red suits and hats and filling the role of Santa Claus.

Both relish the role and the joy it brings to children they encounter. But aside from the similarities of the character they portray and their basic experiences, Cox and Watson entered the world of the Jolly Old Elf in different ways.

Cox was volunteer weekend chaplain at University Medical Center and especially enjoyed visiting the pediatric unit. As the winter approached, his beard was getting full—a thick, pure white expanse across his face.

One of the childlife specialists at UMC noticed his resemblance to St. Nicholas and asked if he would play Santa for the annual breakfast for the children on the unit. Having volunteered many years with his wife, Barbara, for the Children’s Miracle Network, Cox jumped at the chance to touch the lives of sick children. He rented a costume locally for the role and still remembers his reaction six years later.

“I was sharing in a staff meeting at the Lubbock campus about the whole experience and how moving it was,” he said. “I couldn’t keep speaking because I got choked up. I just ended up pointing upward, wanting to give God the glory.”

From then on, Cox was hooked. He began researching options to buy his own suit since he wasn’t fond of the rented piece and wanted some more comfortable options. But the suits weren’t cheap.

Little did he know that a co-worker at Wayland-Lubbock was on the case. So moved by his experience, she took up donations from the campus employees toward a new suit, encouraging them to support this endeavor as Cox’s special ministry. The next year, about a week before his stint at UMC, the staff presented a new suit to Cox during a weekly meeting, once more moving him to tears.

“They said they wanted me to enjoy the ministry God had given me. I just signed ‘thank you’ because I couldn’t speak,” he said.

Besides the annual hospital breakfast, he has appeared at private parties, churches, nursing homes and other events dressed in the red suit. After that first solo act, he brought wife Barbara, who earned her degree at WBU-Lubbock in 2006, into the picture as Mrs. Claus, ordering her a special costume with an apron and hat. She often hands out candy canes and visits with children, and Cox finds Mrs. Claus often breaks the ice for some of the more timid children.

Rodney Watson, better known in December as Santa Claus, poses for a photo with Wayland students Bianca Grant and Caleb McLean during a “Late Night Study Breaks” session before finals on the Plainview campus. The rest of the year, Watson serves as director of the Museum of the Llano Estacado at Wayland’s Plainview campus (Photo courtesy Wayland Baptist University)

Watson was working at Hale County State Bank more than a decade ago when he got roped into his first gig as Santa. A pair of Rod Stewart concert tickets from his boss came with a warning: “This is going to cost you.”

Just days later, Watson learned the payoff would involve his playing Santa for the bank’s annual holiday open house featuring music and goodies. He reserved a Santa suit at the local costume shop that summer and began researching options for a beard that would look realistic, choosing a theatrical wig for the first few years.

“After coming to Wayland, I realized that my formerly red beard from my starving-artist days had turned gray, and I began to grow my own beard,” Watson said. “I have learned that the real beards scare fewer kids than the fake one does, and it is so much more comfortable than gluing on the fake stuff.”

He also called on his artistic talents to design a unique Santa suit that would still retain the integrity of the American tradition of St. Nick. His mother sewed the version he still wears for his many appearances.

Cox and Watson each recall funny and touching stories of visits with children who will say and do anything.

“After a few days of doing Santa, I asked one kid what he wanted for Christmas,” Watson recalled. “He looked at me with disgust and reminded me that he had just told me last night.”

Cox said he has heard all types of funny requests, but the experiences at UMC are particularly touching from year to year.

“The joy is seeing some of the kids we’ve seen for five years and how they’re getting better. Their attitude is so positive, and some recognize that I’m the same Santa and they joke with me,” he said.

“Hearing them say they are in remission since last year is so great. We just rejoice with them and tell them we’ll keep praying for them. As they get older, whatever their perception of Santa is, they’ll know that that person was not impersonal but was interested in their lives.”

Cox begins researching the hot toy trends in September so he’ll be able to talk more about what the children are requesting. That tip came after a request from one boy for a Transformer immediately had Cox thinking of electrical gear instead of the convertible toys.

Even during the joyful holiday season, Santas often experience heartbreaking moments, as well. For Watson, it is requests for food, for a father to get out of jail or for family drama to be resolved that really touch him.

“We just don’t realize how blessed we are until small children sit in your lap and ask for the things that most of us take for granted,” he said.

Cox recalled being choked up after a young boy would only whisper his request to Santa, saying, “I want my daddy to quit beating my mom and my brothers.” Unsure how to respond, he told the boy, “We’ll see what we can do.”

Mrs. Claus, played by Barbara Cox, adjusts the collar for Santa (Wes Cox) before he goes out to greet the children at University Medical Center’s Breakfast with Santa for pediatric patients. Wes Cox manages the bookstore at Wayland Baptist University’s Lubbock campus. (Photo courtesy UMC)

Both Santas say the full beard even gets them mistaken for St. Nick when they’re not in costume, even after Christmas has passed. Watson recalled a pair of young moms and three little girls staring intently during a meal with son Carey at a deli in Lubbock. Watson’s confirmation to the mother that he was indeed the real Santa resulted in chaos.

“Within three seconds, I was sitting in the floor of the restaurant, surrounded by children and taking Christmas wishes,” he laughed. “It was a blast.”

Cox recalled one little girl approaching him boldly while eating out one Dec. 27 to express her displeasure at receiving the wrong doll.

“She had her hands on her hips and said, ‘Santa, we need to talk,’” he said. “When I told her Santa can only go by what she tells me or writes down, she said, ‘I told my mom she was asking for the wrong doll.’ The whole restaurant was quiet. I asked her if that doll would be OK until next year and she said yes.”

Both Cox and Watson said children often want to hug them or thank them while in public, and they’ve even had pictures made with children—all out of costume. The instances are reminders of the joy that Santa brings to children and adults and the importance of the role they play, even if it is only for one month of the year.

“I keep asking myself why I keep doing it. Then, you get started and that first innocent child looks into your eyes and suddenly you remember the excitement that you felt as a child, and you pour your heart into it so each kid can have those special memories just like I do,” Watson said. “Knowing that they see so much more in you than is really there is truly a very humbling experience.”

Cox said he always tries to focus attention on Jesus’ birth as the reason for Christmas and the importance of that over the figure of Santa Claus. Handing out candy canes upside down—so they make a “J” for Jesus—is one aspect of their visits regularly.

“I try to point them to the fact that gifts are great, and Christmas is fantastic, but the real reason is to worship Jesus,” Cox said, noting that this year he also handed out cards with the Santa kneeling at the manger scene to drive home the point.

Watson shared a sentiment that he sees his role as a ministry to children.

“The thought occurred to me that playing Santa carries a responsibility that I was not aware of. The little things you do might well become some of life’s most precious memories with these kids and their families,” he said. “I try to pray each season that God will allow me to be what I need to be for each kid. This has become my ministry.”

LAREDO—Children living in colonias near Laredo will have a much happier Christmas, thanks to the Women on Mission and the mission development council at Adamsville Baptist Church.

The Central Texas church, about 16 miles from Lampasas, donated 41 pair of new athletic shoes, socks, candy and other gifts to Texas Baptist River Ministry.

Displaying shoes and other items Adamsville Baptist Church in Lampasas Baptist Association collected for distribution by Texas Baptist River Ministry to children living in colonias near Laredo are (left to right, standing) JoAnn Weatherhead, prayer director; Pastor Kelly Wolverton; Amy Brown, Women on Mission; (seated) Linda Weems, missions development council, Ruby Clark, Woman’s Missionary Union; and Betty Rials, chair of the mission development council. (PHOTOS/Courtesy of Betty Rials, Adamsville Baptist Church)

Pastor Kelly Wolverton, Joyce Straley with Women on Mission and Betty Rials, chair of the mission development council at Adamsville Baptist Church, delivered the donated goods to Mario Garcia of Laredo Baptist Association and River Ministry.

Garcia will distribute the presents to needy children in colonias outside Laredo. Many of the colonias on the Texas side of the border lack any utilities or plumbing, and many families live in primitive makeshift shelters, Rials noted.

In addition Rials, other members of the church’s mission development council are Linda Porter, Neil Weems, Susan Wolverton and Rick Williams. Other members of Women on Mission who serve with Straley include Amy Brown, DeeDee Rice, Ruby Clark and Pat Dannheim.

Adamsville Baptist Church, a congregation that averages about 70 in attendance, developed a relationship with Garcia during a Christmas-season mission trip in 2008, she added. During that trip, members of the Adamsville church delivered about 100 toy stuffed animals—along with some real goals and chickens—to an area about 18 miles east of Laredo.

BEEVILLE—Nine-year-old Carlos’ eyes lit up as wrapping paper flew in every direction and squeals of excitement filled the room. Blanco Baptist Association church members have looked forward to such moments for 50 years.

“So many of the people who come to the Blanco Christmas party have been involved with many aspects of STCHM throughout the year,” Moore explained. “Everything from serving and giving to praying for our kids and staff. The kids are always encouraged that someone thought enough of them to come to campus and spend an evening of fun and celebration with them.”

This was only the second year for brothers Carlos, Joe and Steven to attend the Blanco Christmas party.

“It was fun unwrapping presents,” said 11-year-old Joe. “It was like family time. I got a Play Station game.”

Ever since he became a Christian, Christmas is all about joy, 14-year-old Steven declared. He accepted Christ into his life “on the last Wednesday in May,” shortly after coming to live at Dimmick Cottage on the home’s campus. He was in the seventh grade at the time and is now a freshman.

“I am thankful for all the people who make the Blanco Christmas Party happen,” Steven said. “I love to meet new people, and my Christmas sponsors at the party were really neat. God has done a lot in my life through special people.”

Carlos captured the beauty of the evening: “We got gifts there that we don’t even deserve.”

Blanco Baptist volunteers would agree the same can be said about Christmas and God’s greatest Gift of all.

(ABP) — The year 2010 began badly with a deadly Jan. 13 earthquake in Haiti that killed an estimated 230,000 people and affected 3 million. The 7.0 magnitude quake left what was already one of the world's poorest countries in shambles, but it prompted unprecedented compassion in the United States.

The Cooperative Baptist Fellowship is part of a cooperative effort to rebuild homes in Haiti. Using rubble from a family's previous home, permanent housing for earthquake victims can be built for about $3,000

News of Baptist groups reaching out to earthquake victims dominated Associated Baptist Press in the months that followed. In all, ABP published 37 stories on relief efforts between Jan. 13 and Nov. 12. Subjects ranged from immediate response, fund raising and cooperation between Baptist organizations, projects like fitting victims who lost limbs with prosthetic devices and rebuilding permanent homes from earthquake rubble to recent medical response to a cholera outbreak.

Other newsmakers from 2010 included:

— "Bloated bureaucracies." The term first used in a chapel address by a seminary president advocating a "Great Commission Resurgence" in the Southern Baptist Convention stuck as shorthand for work of a task force studying ways to improve efficiency of the second largest faith group in the United States.

Recommendations approved at the SBC annual meeting in June included a major revamping of how Baptist associations, state conventions and the North American Mission Board will cooperate in church planting.

The sea change coincided with several high-profile leadership changes. Kevin Ezell, a pastor known for working outside official mission-funding channels like the Cooperative Program unified budget and Annie Armstrong Easter offering for home missions, proved a controversial choice as new president of the North American Mission Board. After taking office in mid-September, Ezell immediately offered a retirement-incentive package to senior employees with a goal of reducing staff by 25 percent. By year end he surpassed the goal, downsizing the 250-member staff by 99 jobs.

Two key posts were vacated — presidencies of the Executive Committee and International Mission Board. The Executive Committee chose former SBC president Frank Page to succeed Morris Chapman, who retired at the end of September. IMB trustees haven't announced a successor to retired President Jerry Rankin.

Similar conversations got underway this year at the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship. After several years of stalled funding, a group of CBF leaders went on a retreat in April to discuss the organization's future. It led to formation of a two-year study by a task force expected to report in 2012. Listening sessions are underway.

— Ken Starr. The choice of former Whitewater prosecutor Ken Starr as president of Baylor University in February took nearly everyone by surprise. Baylor is one of the world's most famous Baptist universities. Starr's religious background is Church of Christ, but he pledged to join a Baptist church after moving to Waco.

— Ergun Caner. After years of earning a reputation among Southern Baptists and other evangelical groups as an expert on Islam, the president of Liberty Theological Seminary became controversial after videos of him exaggerating his testimony from a Muslim to a Christian surfaced on the Internet. Claiming to have grown up overseas and trained as a terrorist, documents showed that Caner actually spent most of his childhood in Ohio. After an investigation, Liberty trustees voted in June to remove Caner as president.

— The "Idaho 10." What began as a mission of mercy for two Southern Baptist churches in Idaho turned into a cautionary tale of good intentions gone awry when 10 volunteer missionaries were arrested in Haiti while trying to remove 33 children from the country illegally. Officials said they suspected human trafficking, while the Baptists insisted they were just trying to find the earthquake victims temporary shelter in the neighboring Dominican Republic. Eight of the 10 were released after spending three weeks in a Haitian jail. A ninth was freed March 8. The last to be released, team leader and organizer Laura Silsby, remained jailed until May 17, when a judge found her guilty of reduced charges and sentenced her to time already served.

— Arson. A rash of 10 church fires in January and February set off a wave of fear in East Texas. Residents breathed a sigh of relief Feb. 21 with the arrest of two suspects. Jason Bourque, 19, and Daniel McAllister, 21, who had attended youth group together at a Southern Baptist church before drifting away a few years ago, pleaded guilty Dec. 15 to setting five fires. They await sentencing Jan. 10.

— Belmont University. After being out of the news since settling a lawsuit that severed ties with the Tennessee Baptist Convention, Belmont University in Nashville, Tenn., became an unlikely symbol in debate over gay rights in recent weeks. Lisa Howe, women's soccer coach at Belmont for six years, left her job suddenly Dec. 2 after telling her team she is a lesbian. Student and community protests accused Belmont's administration of firing her because of her sexual orientation. Belmont President Robert Fisher said the university does not discriminate against gays. Belmont's faculty senate voted Dec. 17 to recommend adding "sexual orientation" to existing nondiscrimination policies in faculty, staff and student handbooks.

— 20th anniversary of Associated Baptist Press. OK, so it probably isn't on anybody else's top-story list, but 2010 marked the 20th anniversary of the founding of Associated Baptist Press. Charles Overby, ABP's first board chair, accepted an award in October on behalf of board members and Baptist state paper editors who founded the news service. July 17 marked the actual anniversary of the firing of two top editors of Baptist Press in 1990 that led to formation of an alternative news source not subject to censorship by denominational leaders.

–Bob Allen is senior writer for Associated Baptist Press.