WASHINGTON (ABP)—One classic joke about Baptists is that wherever two or three are gathered, there are four opinions among them.

The same can be said of bloggers, and Baptists seem to have taken to blogs with particular gusto, on both the institutional and individual levels. But as a democratically governed and notoriously fractious bunch, blogging Baptists also seem to have put a new virtual twist on the time-honored tradition of contentious business meetings.

For instance, the recent highly publicized spat over homosexuality, pastoral leadership and other issues at a Texas Baptist church made headlines in local and national media outlets after a handful of members wrote about it in their personal blogs.

Two years ago, reform-minded bloggers in the Southern Baptist Convention helped an outsider candidate get elected president of the denomination for the first time in more than a decade. But their critiques of the denomination’s entrenched power structure earned them the enmity of some of their fellow conservative SBC supporters, who have denounced bloggers like Wade Burleson and Benjamin Cole with the ugliest accusation possible in modern-day Southern Baptist life—calling them “liberals.”

Rancorous?

Are Baptists prone to virtual fighting, and, if so, why? Prominent bloggers said that the rancorousness associated with many Baptist blogs may simply be a reflection of the rancorousness of Baptist life in general. And such contentiousness, while aired more prominently when sent to millions of homes via the Internet, isn’t inherently evil.

“Historically, we Baptists have been dissenters,” said Aaron Weaver, a graduate student at Baylor University who operates the the Big Daddy Weave blog. “The blog is merely a new medium … Baptists use to dissent when dissent is necessary. In some ways, blogs are a form of congregationalism.”

But in an age where megachurch pastors have a strong hand in their congregations’ decision-making and where an entrenched and well-funded bureaucracy holds tight political control over the Southern Baptist Convention, such congregationalism is less common, according to bloggers.

“The blog medium has tapped into the growing sense that congregational polity is an increasingly rare commodity among Baptists,” said Cole, an associate pastor at an Oklahoma church.

Two years ago, Cole’s now-inactive Baptist Blogger site helped contribute to the election of Frank Page as SBC president. He currently is a regular contributor to the SBC Outpost blog.

Outlet for frustration

“The frustration that the disenfranchised and unempowered have sensed on account of the new Baptist magisterium has given rise to their advent in the blogosphere,” he said.

And heretofore powerless bloggers can produce results that dissenting groups couldn’t have expected in Baptist life just a few years ago, in the pre-blog era. That, he said, is because “bureaucracies on both the local-church and denominational levels are too big and too slow to counter the speed with which dissident bloggers have articulated their ideas and ad-vanced their causes.”

Weaver agreed.

“The format of the blogosphere disallows coercion tactics that have been employed in the past by dictatorial church leaders,” he said. “The blog medium serves as a safe haven for those who feel that public dissent is their only option.”

Both Cole and Weaver agreed blogs can lend themselves to nastiness. But, they warned, don’t throw the baby out with the proverbial bath water.

The medium is neutral

“Blogs are not inherently bad,” Weaver said. “Negative and destructive blogs are a reflection of the blogger—not the blogosphere. I suppose anonymity can lead to people being dishonest. But if honesty is an issue, it is an issue of character and not the medium of blogging itself.”

Cole and other SBC bloggers have been criticized by their fellow conservatives for using blogs to reveal less-than-flattering information about prominent SBC leaders. But Baptist blogging’s critics are overlooking the whole of Baptist history, he said.

“Quite frankly, those who lament the ‘unhealthy’ and ‘un-Christian’ character of blogging must have been ridiculously blind or purposefully naïve for the last 400 years of Baptist bickering,” he said. “That some of the current SBC leadership weep and wail over blogging, and gather round like huddled martyrs, and yet they were the selfsame provocateurs of the fundamentalist juggernaut would be laughable if it wasn’t so pathetic.”

Cole concluded: “Would Christ blog about the malfeasance run amok in Baptist life? Probably not. Neither would he sit quietly and cover the backsides of the worst denominational offenders, as some of our convention trustees seem content to do.”

For some people, blogs are like a family reunion where people barely know each other. There’s a lot of talking going on, but there’s little agreement on much of anything.

But for many of the increasing number of Baptist bloggers, that’s the beauty of it.

A blog—short for “web log”—is a website or online journal where authors regularly publish commentaries on personal and public issues. Typically, blogs allow readers to comment on posts, creating the opportunity for readers to dialogue with each other and a post’s author.

Related Articles: • Blogging Baptists • Blogs become Baptist battleground • Looking for guidelines for Christian blogs? Start with the New Testament

The blogosphere is the world’s online dinner table, where people from all perspectives can share their thoughts and opinions on what is going on in their lives and the world around them.

Diane Schiano, researcher at the Palo Alto Research Center in Palo Alto, Calif., said people sit at the cybertable for as many reasons as there are blogs. Some are meant to update friends and family about what’s going on in someone’s life. Some use blogs as a kind of self-validation, seeing other people reading their blog as an indication that what they’re doing or saying is important. And younger people are clamoring to have their own place in cyberspace, she added.

“There are a lot of people who want to feel in constant contact,” Schiano said. “I call it hyper-connectivity. Wherever they go, whatever they’re doing, they want to be able to reach out to someone.”

Family, evangelism

Amanda Sturgill, a journalism professor at Baylor University , blogs on media and religious issues at aejrmig.blogspot.com . She believes Baptists, in particular, blog for two reasons—they are family-oriented, creating a desire to share their family lives with others, and as evangelicals, they believe they have something important to add to the global conversation.

Baptists may be supplying information and perspectives that Internet surfers are wanting, Sturgill noted. Research indicates 25 percent of web users have looked for religious information on the Internet.

“People from evangelical faiths have classically seen new media technologies as being a great witnessing tool—allowing believers to reach all the world in an expeditious manner. This has been true for everything from print to the World Wide Web. It’s no accident that Gutenberg’s first product was a Bible. But usually it doesn’t live up to hopes. There is Christian broadcasting, but mostly existing Christians watch and listen, for example,” Sturgill said.

“Blogs have the potential to be different because they can, at the same time, be both a megaphone and an intimate conversation. But to do this requires the blogger to actually interact with readers through comments and the like.”

Iron sharpening iron

Many Baptist bloggers point to participating in the online conversation as the primary reason they write. They talk about “iron sharpening iron,” noting that thinking through blog posts and responding to comments helps them improve their ministries. They also hope it helps others.

Marty Duren, a former contributor at www.sbcoutpost.com —a prominent blog pushing for change within the Southern Baptist Convention—now blogs on missional living at www.iemissional.com .

Duren believes he has learned some lessons in ministry and hopes to help others, multiplying his spiritual influence. And he wants to bring a biblical perspective to issues.

The blog also has given him the opportunity to meet people he otherwise wouldn’t have met. Recently, he had lunch with an Atlanta atheist he met through his blog.

Melissa Rogers, director of Wake Forest University’s Center for Religion and Public Affairs who blogs at melissarogers.typepad.com , said her blog was a natural outgrowth of her regular media tracking and discussions.

“I thought since I’m tracking these things anyway, they may be of use to others as well,” she said.

Access to younger generation

Aaron Weaver, a Baylor graduate student who blogs at www.thebigdaddyweave.com , uses his blog to stay informed of Baptist issues related to politics, but he also advocates what he calls Baptist distinctives. He believes blogging is a way to connect with younger generations.

“For the most part, the young Baptists that I know don’t read Baptist publications. They don’t read denominational newspapers. But they do read blogs; they like blogs. Many even have blogs of their own. They are exchanging ideas with each other, and they are willing to read blogs from other Baptists of all ages,” Weaver said.

“Their blogging is definitely not limited to Baptist or even religious subjects, but some young Baptists are thinking and writing about topics of interest to other Baptists. It is my hope that more younger Baptists will discover the Baptist blogosphere and become more interested in our distinctives, history and the future of Baptists.

“In our increasingly pluralistic, post-modern, post-denominational world, what is the future of Baptists?  That is a question which Baptists—young and old—should be dialoging about. The Baptist blogosphere is the perfect place in which to have that much-needed conversation.”

The New Testament book of James compares the tongue to raging fire and a wild beast that cannot be tamed. And the author of that book never was “flamed” on a blog or in a chat room.

Words have power, whether spoken or written in cyberspace. And Christians don’t get a free pass to ignore the Golden Rule when they log on to their computers, according to ethicist Bill Tillman.

“Basic civility and communication etiquette should always be in place for a Christian, no matter the medium,” said Tillman, the T.B. Maston professor of Christian ethics at Hardin-Simmons University’s Logsdon Seminary .

“The same guidelines such as those from James regarding discipline with our tongue should be translated over to any form of getting words to others or for others. Unfortunately, too many in the Christian circles who blog have operated with the guidelines you can find anywhere else in society. Usually, when cultural guidelines are used on format, style and word choice, things move to a lower level of style.”

Crossing the line

While self-expression has its place, some bloggers cross the line by focusing more on themselves than on the ideas they are trying to express, Tillman observed.

“I recognize a dynamic at work in some of them that the blogger is so intent on establishing herself or himself as a person of significance and all his or her ideas are so important that the communication comes off as nearly yelling,” he said. “There is quite a bit of emotional exhibitionism going across the Ethernet.”

Not everyone who claims to be speaking prophetically—or blogging prophetically—truly bears the mantle of prophet, Tillman noted.

“Being prophetic is not clearing off a space and having a fit, whatever the subject matter or the medium in which it is communicated,” he said.

Like any tool, blogging can be used for good or bad purposes, said David Gushee, distinguished professor of Christian ethics at Mercer University’s McAfee School of Theology .

“Blogging at its best represents the democratization of the media. It reflects an entrepreneurial culture in which skill and interest can override official status, title or position. An effective blogger can have more influence than the evening news or a thousand official press releases,” Gushee said.

David Gushee

“Blogging at its worst represents public speech unbound by public standards. It can damage both the blogger and especially the blogged-about. It can also waste enormous amounts of time and can become habitual or even addictive. It is the latest but not the last form of an addictive new technology.”

Time wasting or ministry?

Tillman echoed that theme of time-wasting, but he also noted blogs’ potential as ministry tools.

“There are actually ministry facets that can be addressed through blogging,” he said. But he urged caution—particularly for ministers who blog during office hours.

“Pastors and other ministers often have a great deal of time that is essentially handed to them by a church for the minister’s discretionary use,” he said.

“So much is left to the individual’s conscience to handle the time and how it’s used. With that said, I have to say that from some of the blogging I have read, probably some infringement is done on churches’ good will regarding their staff’s time.”

Blogs as a communications medium are neither good nor bad—but they have the capacity for both good and bad, Tillman added.

“There is a certain neutrality about the technology and the medium. But, just like fire, it’s how it’s used that qualifies its ethicality,” he said.

Some characteristics of blogs set them apart as distinctive, such as their potential reach and their capacity to allow anonymous expression in a public place. But those traits really just demonstrate the human capacity for good or evil, Gushee observed.

“Like all things human, blogging illustrates the exalted and debased nature of the human person and human community,” he said. “Moral responsibility involves curbing the damaging dimensions of blogging while elevating those dimensions that contribute to human wellbeing and the common good.”

LULING—The Governor’s Division of Emergency Management praised Baptist Child & Family Serives for its role in caring for children taken from a polygamist Fundamentalist Latter-Day Saints ranch in West Texas. But the highest praise came from the people whose opinions matter most—the children themselves.

“You’re nice,” a 6-year-old girl told BCFS Executive Vice President Nanci Gibbons as she walked past her on the playground at the BCFS Youth Ranch at Luling, where 75 children received care.

Gibbons thanked the child, but she asked why she believed she was nice.

“Because your shirt says BCFS,” the girl answered. “It means Best Care for Children.”

“For the children to recognize that the folks in BCFS shirts are there to help and be ‘nice’ is the best compliment we could get,” BCFS President Kevin Dinnin said.

Keeping siblings together

Placing 75 of the 462 children at the Youth Ranch allowed Child Protective Services to keep many sibling groups together. It also kept BCFS in overdrive mode to staff the facility and activate support programs with local school districts. A mobile medical unit also was stationed at the ranch.

The San Antonio-based agency was alerted April 4, just as the operation to remove children from the ranch in Eldorado got under way. Officials told BCFS to be ready to receive 24 children at the Youth Ranch. But the next day, Dinnin was asked if BCFS could supervise sheltering operations in San Angelo “for up to 150 women and children.”

At its peak, the shelters housed 550 women and children. Texas Baptist Men disaster relief, Victim Relief Ministries and volunteers from churches such as First Baptist in Plains served.

As incident commander, Dinnin provided overall command and control of all responding agencies. During the three weeks the shelters operated in San Angelo until the court ordered the children placed in child care facilities across the state, about 1,000 state, county and city personnel and volunteers worked under BCFS supervision as the agency interacted daily on critical incident decisions with various governmental agencies and officials.

Full deployment

BCFS deployed 55 employees, including most of its senior administrative staff, and more than $1 million worth of assets. In addition to two mobile medical clinics and a mobile feeding unit, BCFS provided the communication technology for the operation.

While CPS and the state courts decided about placement of the children, BCFS ministered to emotionally stressed women and children around the clock; accommodated religious practices by providing organic, non-processed meals and acceptable toys and play activities; treated outbreaks of chicken pox and upper respiratory infections; created an alternate phone system when the cable to the shelters and command post accidentally was cut; developed contingency plans for any of the possible court rulings; processed mountains of laundry; and handled all the purchasing.

When the courts ordered the transfer of the children to facilities across the state, BCFS tracked the bus convoys dispatched around the state by global positioning system.

“To categorize the sheltering operations as ‘highly successful’ is a gross understatement,” Dinnin added. ”To quote Chief Colley of the Governor’s Division of Emergency Management, BCFS was ‘the rock star of the San Angelo operation.’ We do appreciate that—but being noted for providing Best Care for Children is the highest compliment possible.”

WACO—God identifies with the poor and the powerless, and Christians encounter Christ when they serve the weakest of the world’s citizens, Daniel Vestal told participants in the Baylor University School of Social Work’s annual “family dinner.”

“Concern for the poor and the powerless is not partisan politics. It is central and integral to the gospel of Jesus Christ,” stressed Vestal, staff leader of the Atlanta-based Cooperative Baptist Fellowship.

Baptists haven’t always realized that truth, Vestal said, acknowledging he did not comprehend the connection between Christ and the poor when he was a young person growing up in a Texas Baptist church.

“The gospel used to be more about pie-in-the-sky than the here-and-now,” he recalled. His own “social conscience” awoke almost exactly 40 years ago, when Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated.

Vestal was a graduate student at Baylor in the spring of 1968. “I realized I bore responsibility for social and economic justice,” he remembered.

Wandering in the wilderness

But many Baptists still have been “wandering around in the wilderness for 40 years,” while the gap widens between rich and poor Americans and between rich and poor nations, he said.

Social workers trained at Baylor are “wonderful examples of practitioners of the gospel,” as they serve the poor and powerless, Vestal said. Unfortunately, they do not represent a dominant position among Christians, he added, lamenting, “The wind of the Spirit (regarding compassion for the poor) is getting more of a hearing in the world than in the church.”

Still, throughout the Gospels, Jesus continually expressed love and concern for the poor. He even went so far as to tell his followers the criterion for their own divine judgment will be how well they cared for the poor and powerless, he said.

Esther Reyes of Laredo, outstanding Bachelor of Social Work student, is congratulated by Gaynor Yancey, associate dean of the Baylor School of Social Work.

Since Pentecost—not long after Jesus’ ascension to heaven, when the Holy Spirit encompassed the young church—“Christ is no longer limited to time and place,” and the church’s task is to minister on behalf of Christ to the poor, for whom he cared so deeply, Vestal said.

Christian social work is distinctive, because it is centered upon Christ, who is “hidden among the poor,” he said, adding Christ also is “served among the poor” when the needs of the weak and powerless are tended.

“If you want to see the face of Christ, go to the poor, the powerless, the suffering,” he advised. “As you take Christ to them, you will find he already is there.”

Awards

Baylor’s School of Social Work announced winners of its annual student awards at the dinner, held at First Baptist Church of Woodway April 24. They are:

• Christen Argueta of San Antonio, outstanding Master of Social Work student.

• Esther Reyes of Laredo, outstanding Bachelor of Social Work student.

• Flor Avellaneda of McGregor and Melissa Ishio of Tsukuba, Japan, “Spirit of Social Work” recipients.

• Sarah Bush of Carrollton; Amy Downs of Henderson, Ky.; Joyce Hull of Chicago; and Crystal Leatch of Houston, excellence in research.

• Irine Thomas of Lewisville, outstanding grant writer.

• Sally Neeley of Mineola, BSW intern of the year.

• Viviana Triana of Colombia, field intern of the year.

DALLAS—Dropping baptism statistics tend to refocus Baptists on evangelism, which results in growing God’s kingdom, according to Clay Price, Baptist General Convention of Texas statistician.

Historically, the number of baptisms has risen and declined in a cyclical pattern, Price said. When Baptists see a decrease in baptisms, they typically put more emphasis on outreach and examine ways they can be more effective.

The number of baptisms taking place in Baptist churches was high in the 1950s, promoted highly through the “A Million More in ’54” campaign. Baptisms dropped in the mid-1960s, but rebounded in 1972. They dropped again toward the end of that decade but rose again in the 1980s.

Baptisms dropped in the early 1990s, but increased through the Texas 2000 evangelistic emphasis. Recently-elected BGCT Executive Director Randel Everett was launching Texas Hope 2010, an effort to share the gospel with every non-Christian in Texas by Easter 2010, before the latest statistics were released that indicated baptisms across the Southern Baptist Convention are down.

Having noted the cyclical nature of baptisms statistics, Price said the recent downturn in baptisms by Southern Baptists must be taken seriously. Perhaps the most telling statistic, he said, is that baptisms in churches that consistently report were down 24 percent.

Despite a gap in reporting, LifeWay’s statistics indicate a drop in baptisms for the third year in a row, down to lows not seen since 1970, said Ed Stetzer, LifeWay’s director of research.

Membership decline

The total membership of Southern Baptist churches also has declined.

“For now, Southern Baptists are a denomination in decline. Some of you were born into an SBC church; others of us chose it of our own accord,” Stetzer wrote on his blog. “Either way, it is dear to us all. Our responsibility before God is, then, to urgently consider how we should respond. Yes, most of our response should be personal and lived out in our local churches—this is a local-church issue. But if we are choosing to partner in this network of churches, and the network is faltering, it will also take some joint action.”

Stetzer noted areas that need to be addressed within Southern Baptist life—the lack of young and ethnic leaders, public infighting within the denomination and a need to focus on the gospel, which he noted is the most serious concern.

“The third, and most important, issue is our loss of focus on the gospel,” he wrote.

“I find it difficult to even say such a thing, but, I believe it to be true. We must recover a gospel centrality and cooperate in proclaiming that gospel locally and globally.”

• Hardin-Simmons University’s Logsdon School of Theology has named its outstanding students. Kimberly Williams of Comanche received the Logsdon School of Theology Award, traditionally considered by the faculty to be the school’s highest award for comprehensive achievement and all-around fitness for ministry. Also honored with scholarships were Robyn Holtmeyer, Emma Ellis, Jacob Snowden, Krista Toten, Caleb Groteluchen, Kara Donaldson, Alyson Morton, Will Ricketts, Megan Dick, Erin James, Matt McGowen, Megan Donohue, Brendan Kelso, David Tankersley, Charles Glidewell, Emily Burrows and Michelle Moore-Mitchell.

• Julie Welker, associate professor of communication at Howard Payne University , has been named the recipient of the Travis G. Jones Memorial Outstanding Coach Award by the National Christian College Forensics Association. Welker has coached HPU’s forensic speech team since it began competing two years ago.

• East Texas Baptist University has honored several of its students for academic excellence. Lee Ann Melton of Frisco received the Robert L. Hunt Accounting Award and the Florence Wood Quinn Achievement Award for the highest grade point average among business students. Denise Tomme of Diana was named the outstanding business student. Zane Gruznina from Latvia received the Edwin F. Moore Award for excellence in economics. Craig Cohen of Carrollton received the Dr. Harm Harms Award, presented to a student who excels in any area of business study. Emily Foster of Mount Pleasant received the Earl Thames Award, given to the student who best exhibits outstanding Christian character. Rebecca Rinehart of Orange received the Chase Bank Award, presented to the student voted by the business school faculty most likely to succeed. Matthew Huffman of Ennis received the Outstanding Management Information Systems Student award.

• Dallas Baptist University has named Bob Burgin faculty member of the year. Burgin has taught in the college of education since 1999, serving as associate dean of the college, as well as assistant professor of education and director of the secondary education department.

• Jerry Bawcom, president of the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor , recently was named a 2008 distinguished alumnus of the College of Education at Texas Tech University.

• Richard Singleton has been named program supervisor of the counseling program at STARRY , a nonprofit organization based in Round Rock that provides counseling to children and families in Williamson County at no charge.

Anniversaries

• Juan Sanchez, 10th, as pastor of Oakview Church in Lockhart, March 15.

• Stephen Hatfield, 15th, as pastor of First Church in Lewisville, April 25.

• Ron McGee, 10th, as music minister/instrumental and worship media at First Church in Lewisville, April 27.

• Allen Moers, 10th, as pastor of First Church of Rockport, May 1.

• Larry Blackmon, 15th, as pastor of First Church in Hearne, May 18.

• L.C. Stout, 15th, as pastor of Faith Church in Deport, May 23.

• Trey Bledsoe, 10th, as minister of students at College Creek Church in Temple, May 31.

• Houston Garner, 45th, as pastor of Hebron Church in Bells.

• Scott Talbert, fifth, as pastor of McDade Church in McDade.

• Jerry Howe, 10th, as pastor of Second Church in Levelland, June 8. The church is sending Howe and his wife, Kathy, on a trip to the Holy Land beginning the next day.

• Baptist Temple Church in Houston, 100th, June 8. The worship service will include proclamations from the mayor’s office, the governor’s office, the White House, the Baptist General Convention of Texas and Union Baptist Association. Daniel Vestal, national coordinator for Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, will be the keynote speaker. Former music minister Gerald Ray will lead the music, along with a choir made up of current and former members. Kelly Burkhart is pastor.

• Willow Springs Church in Alvarado, 120th, June 15. The church will celebrate with homecoming services and a lunch. Former director of missions Bill Roe will be the guest speaker. No Turning Back will present the special music. Wilma Reed will make a historical proclamation. Michael Simons is pastor.

Deaths

• Benito Hinojoso, 70, April 14 in Plainview. He was pastor of Iglesia Alfa y Omega in Plainview 31 years. He was active in Caprock-Staked Plains Association, holding several leadership positions through the years. He was preceded in death by his daughter, Teresa Hinojoso. He is survived by his wife of 53 years, Eloisa; sons, Joel and Ismael; daughters, AnnaBell Mirelez, Rachel Esquivel and Ruth Hinojoso; brother, Santos; sisters, Aurora Nevarez and Amelia Lopez; nine grandchildren; and five great-grandchildren.

• Cameron Byler, 79, April 28 in San Antonio. Byler was director of Baptist Men and coordinator of disaster relief for the Southern Baptist Convention Brotherhood Commission from 1985 to 1989. Byler joined the staff of the Tennessee Baptist Convention in 1989 in a similar position at the state level until his retirement in 1995. He also served as brotherhood director for the Alaska Baptist Convention and was state Royal Ambassador director for the Baptist General Convention of Texas. Byler was preceded in death by his first wife, Joyce, in 1988 and his second wife, Andrea, earlier this year. He is survived by his daughter, Barbara Garland; son, Chris; three grandchildren; and six great-grandchildren.

• Elsie Wheeless, 85, April 29 in Arlington. Her husband, Bill, is a retired long-time employee of the Baptist Standard. She had been a member of Fairview Church in Grand Prairie since 1980. She is survived by her husband of 66 years; and sons, William Jr. and Robert.

• Bill Schibler, April 30 in Temple. He entered the hospital for a hip replacement but subsequently suffered a stroke. At the time of his death, he was pastor of Grace Memorial Church in Clifton. He also had been pastor of churches in Golinda, La Grange, Cranfills Gap, Glen Rose, Hico, Cleburne and Meridian. He was preceded in death by his wife, Nita. He is survived by his daughters, Rita Ann Love, Vicki Cheek and Geraldine Walker; son, Gary; 13 grandchildren; and 19 great-grandchildren.

Events

• Calder Church in Beaumont held a luncheon for laypeople to meet Randel Everett, executive director of the Baptist General Convention of Texas. More than 110 people from 10 churches attended the April 29 event and shared a time of food, music and fellowship. Everett met with area pastors earlier in the day. Jim Fuller is pastor.

Ordained

• Sam Rodriquez to the ministry at Primera Iglesia in Mathis.

Revivals

• First Church, McLean; May 18-22; evangelist, Robert Barge; music, Jeff Gore; pastor, Kenneth Martin.

• First Church, Desdemona; June 1-4; evangelist, Ron Owen; pastor, Jess McCabe.

DALLAS—A committee formed to look at the long-range future of the Baptist General Convention of Texas began by examining the past.

At its initial May 5 meeting, the BGCT Future Focus Committee reviewed the work of previous study committees and examined Cooperative Program giving trends over the last 10 years.

“We wanted to gain a historical perspective and orient everyone on the committee—to get everyone to the same starting point,” said Stephen Hatfield, co-chair of the committee and pastor of First Baptist Church in Lewisville.

A look at Cooperative Program trends in the last decade revealed giving by Texas Baptist churches has remained fairly consistent, but the buying power of the funds has eroded significantly, noted Andy Pittman, co-chair and pastor of First Baptist Church in Lufkin.

“It particularly was eye-opening” to discover 51 percent of the Cooperative Program budget came from 171 churches last year, and 1,749 BGCT-related churches gave nothing to the Cooperative Program in 2007, Pittman added.

Executive Director Randel Everett challenged the committee to think about two questions as it looks to the future: “What does the BGCT do well? What are Texas Baptists passionate about?”

With 20 of its 25 members present, the committee divided into three subcommittees to explore specific concerns.

Hatfield will chair an eight-member finance subcommittee; Pittman will chair an eight-person institutional relations committee; and Steve Vernon, BGCT past president and pastor of First Baptist Church in Levelland, will chair a nine-member subcommittee related to Executive Board staff.

The Future Focus Committee scheduled its next two meetings for Aug. 5 and Nov. 3. The committee will complete its work and present its final report no later than the 2009 BGCT annual meeting.

ABILENE, Texas—Religion and politics inevitably will mix—especially in the U.S. presidential campaign—but that does not mean Americans should sanction a free-for-all, church-state expert Melissa Rogers insisted.

Rogers, director of the Center for Religion & Public Affairs at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, N.C., delivered the annual T.B. Maston Christian Ethics Lectures at Hardin-Simmons University’s Logsdon Seminary in Abilene.

“There’s a growing interest in religion’s role in politics that could result in an ‘anything goes’ approach,” she observed. “But it doesn’t have to be that way. There are some constructive ways of managing these issues.”

The U.S. Constitution guarantees the right to mix politics and religion—to a degree, reported Rogers, former executive director of the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life and former general counsel for the Baptist Joint Committee on Religious Liberty, both based in Washington.

“Our Constitution certainly says that religious groups and people have the right to participate in the debate of political issues,” she said, adding, “Private citizens clearly have a constitutional right to comment on issues of public concern in religious terms.”

And while Article VI of the Constitution forbids any government-imposed religious test for public office, “voters certainly are free to cast their ballots for any reason, including voting for or against someone because of his or her religion or lack thereof,” she noted. Still, the spirit of this constitutional provision should influence voters’ decisions, she argued.

Religion and politics will mix

More broadly, Rogers offered six suggestions for “managing the mix of religion and politics.” They are:

• “Accept the fact that religion and politics will mix,” she said. “They always have; they always will.”

Long before Mormon Mitt Romney and former Baptist pastor Mike Huckabee ran for president and candidate Barack Obama’s pastor made headlines, Americans were bringing their values to bear on political/religious discussions, she noted.

“There is nothing unconstitutional, un-American or otherwise wrong with the mere fact that some will draw on religion as a source of guidance when making decisions about public matters or that some will include religious references in their discussion of such matters,” she said.

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“The separation of church and state does not require the separation of religion and politics. Further, I believe any attempt to do so would not only generate a tremendous backlash, it also would be ultimately unsuccessful.”

Risks involved

• “Although the religious and political spheres overlap, they are different, and there are risks when religion and politics mix,” Rogers warned.

“This is one indication of the risks when religion and politics mix: We begin to think that those who disagree with us are enemies of God, and we are at the right hand of God. Other risks include the potential for damage to our pluralistic democracy and to the integrity of religion, including the use of religion as a means to a political end.”

• While religious people have rights to participate in politics, they are not better rights than others’ rights, she admonished.

She quoted Huckabee, who said on the campaign trail, “… I don’t feel like a person has to share my faith to share my love of this country.”

“America should be a place that welcomes all people of good will to bring their values to the political process and to participate fully and equally in that process,” she urged. “After all, religious people who are political conservatives are not the only Americans who have values and vote them. All God’s children got values, including nonreligious people, and all of us vote them.”

Candidates' obligation

• Candidates have an obligation to answer some questions that “touch on religion,” she insisted.

To illustrate, she showed a video clip of John McCain talking about whether the United States is a “Christian nation” and quoted Barack Obama discussing his beliefs about teaching evolution in public schools.

Emphasizing candidates should be willing to answer questions “about how their personal beliefs, including personal religious beliefs, might affect their governance,” she also referenced some statements by Obama about race, religion and patriotism, and played a clip of Huckabee answering a question about whether his religious perspective on marriage would impact his political decisions.

• “There’s good religious outreach and bad religious outreach by candidates,” Rogers said.

“Here I am talking not about what is politically effective, but about what is right,” she explained. Assuming they are respecting the tax rules that nonprofits must follow, she said, “It is good for candidates to reach out to religious as well as nonreligious communities and listen to religious as well as nonreligious groups.

“But it is not good for candidates to try to tell people of faith what their faith means to them, how they should vote, or to otherwise try to command, control and co-opt religion.”

The good and the bad

• Religious communities engage in both “good and bad forms of religious engagement” of politics, she reported.

The late U.S. Rep. Barbara Jordan offered “wise advice to those who speak of religion in the public square,” Rogers said, quoting Jordan: “‘You would do well to pursue your cause with vigor, while remembering that you are a servant of God, not a spokesperson for God.’”

Similarly, churches and other religious groups should resist politicians’ attempts to usurp the autonomy and freedom of religion, she added, warning against giving politicians access to church members’ contact information, church money and volunteers.

“Our faith is not an instrument of electoral politics, and we should never do anything that suggests it is,” she admonished. “Partisan politics should have no place in the pulpit. … Let’s say it again this election: God is not a Republican or a Democrat. An awesome God does not affiliate with any political party.”

ABILENE—Whatever the U.S. Supreme Court ultimately decides, communities should strive to have better conversations about the role of religion in public schools, Melissa Rogers told participants at the T.B. Maston Christian Ethics Lectures at Hardin-Simmons University’s Logsdon Seminary .

Rogers, director of the Center for Religion & Public Affairs at Wake Forest University, offered a few ground-rules for guiding the religion-in-schools debate in communities across the nation.

Before outlining her ground-rules, Rogers explained what kinds of prayer, religious speech and religious curriculum are allowed and disallowed in public schools.

Put simply, she said, “The only kind of prayer that is not permitted at public schools is the kind the government leads or sponsors.” For example, students may pray silently at any time and may pray audibly over lunches and at other times “as long as they are not disruptive and the school does not sponsor the religious expression.”

But schools “cannot organize or sponsor prayers during class time or at school events, whether through teacher-led prayer, inviting clergy to pray, organizing student votes on prayer or otherwise,” she reported, also noting, “Moments of silence are unconstitutional if they are used to promote prayer.”

Rogers affirmed the place of religion in public school curriculum.

“We cannot understand our nation or our world without understanding religion,” she said. “But how can we ensure that schools teach about religion rather than preach about it? After all, preaching about religion is not the job of the schools, but rather the job of religious leaders, houses of worship, and family.”

The landmark 1963 Supreme Court decision Abingdon Township v. Schempp “made clear that public schools could not engage in devotional teaching of religion,” she noted, adding, “In this same decision, the court also noted that academic teaching about religion was constitutional and even desirable within public school classrooms. …

No indoctrination

“The Supreme Court has made it clear that the school’s curricula must be shaped by academic rather than religious principles and that it must not otherwise seek to indoctrinate students in religion,” she said. Schools may teach about religion if they are neutral regarding faith, neither inculcating nor denigrating religion, she added.

Rogers noted some ways in which the new justices on the Supreme Court may differ on these issues from the justices they replaced. But she acknowledged predicting the Supreme Court’s course is risky and often unproductive.

“We cannot control what happens in the future at the Supreme Court,” she said. “We can control, however, how we deal with these issues in our communities, and I believe that we can and should invest our energies there.”

Seeking to alleviate local battles over religion in school, Rogers proposed four general ground-rules that she believes everyone can endorse, even if they differ on more specific church-state issues:

Not religion-free zone

• “Our nation’s public schools are not and should not be religion-free zones,” she said.

“Students who are people of faith will want to express that faith on campus, and they may do so in many ways that do not involve state sponsorship and thus do not violate the First Amendment. … Further, schools need to teach about religion. Schools should never indoctrinate; they should never press for the acceptance or rejection of religion. But schools should instruct students about the way religion has shaped societies.”

To ensure that these matters are handled appropriately, she called for “mandating and funding teacher training” regarding religion and public schools.

• “The government should never create a hierarchy of faiths,” she insisted.

“It isn’t the job of government to determine which faith is right or best or dominant,” Rogers said. Instead, it is the job of government to safeguard the rights of all people.

“In short, one does not have to believe all religions are equally true in order to believe that the government ought to treat all religions equally,” she said.

“We demand full religious liberty for Christians abroad, in countries that are majority Muslim, for example, and properly so. On the flip side, we must demand religious liberty for non-Christians here at home.”

• “We should never heckle or bully others because of their faiths, lack of faith or positions on church-state issues,” Rogers urged.

“This should not be a difficult one for Christians, given that Christ taught us to love our neighbors. Frankly, and sadly, we don’t have to look hard to find examples of Christians behaving badly when it comes to debates about religion and public schools. That’s a shame. As the song goes, they should know we are Christians by our love.”

Truth, not cliche or rumor

• Tell the truth about church-state issues, she pleaded.

“Prayer has not been kicked out of public schools,” she asserted, citing one of the persistent untruths told about church-state relations.

“As the saying goes, ‘As long as there are math tests in school, there will be prayer in school.’ More seriously, we’ve talked about a range of other ways in which prayer is permitted in public schools.”

If people have more narrow concerns, they should voice them, Rogers said, noting blanket statements are not truthful or helpful.

“We only confuse the issue and hurt our public witness when we make false statements like ‘prayer has been kicked out of public schools,’” she insisted.

BROWNWOOD—When clients arrive at Good Samaritan Ministries seeking food, clothing or school supplies for their children, some see no way out of poverty’s grip. Angelia Bostick gently encourages them to look around at the facility that houses the community ministry.

“It’s a testimony of transformation and what God can do,” said Bostick, founding executive director of Good Samaritan.

The 15,000-square-foot facility, just a few blocks off Main Street in downtown Brownwood, originally was three buildings separated by alleys. Over more than three-quarters of a century, the structures had housed a car-repair shop, a roller skating rink and a variety of businesses that flourished and floundered.

By the early 1990s, the abandoned buildings had fallen into disrepair. Good Samaritan secured the central 9,500-square-foot building for $200 a month, and then the ministry’s leaders purchased the surrounding property.

Thanks to a bequest from the estate of Suzanne Bacon—whose only contact with Good Samaritan was reading a newspaper article about the ministry—along with other gifts and a grant from USDA Rural Development, the three buildings were enclosed under one roof and totally renovated.

A chaplain thought of the ministry and its needs when he saw a load of discarded tiles at Carswell Naval Base and asked if Good Samaritan could have them. The mason who set the wall tiles at the Brownwood ministry marveled that he had the exact number needed to complete the job.

Bostick interprets that incident as a parable—an example of how what someone considered “junk” possessed value when placed in God’s hands. She uses that story—as well as other examples of denoted furnishings and decorations at the Good Samaritan facility—to teach subtle lessons about transformation to clients.
Most of the people who come to Good Samaritan receive that message gladly. Even though they may be working on Sundays and unable to attend church—or they may not feel altogether comfortable in church because they are embarrassed by their life situations—they recognize God as their only hope, she noted.

“Most of these people have a deep faith. The only way they can make it through the day is relying on God and his people,” she said.

Bostick, a member of Coggin Avenue Baptist Church in Brownwood, committed her life to vocational Christian service at age 17, but she struggled with how to fulfill what she believed was God’s calling. In 1991, she participated in a life-changing mission trip to Brazil. That’s when God gave her a passion for serving poor people, she said.

“In America, we can put blinders on and pretend poverty doesn’t exist. But in the Third World, you can’t avoid contact with poverty and human suffering. It touched my heart so deeply,” she said.

But rather than seek appointment to a foreign missions post, Bostick said, “God told me to go home and serve the poor.”
Consultants with the Baptist General Convention of Texas worked with the local association to conduct a community needs assessment of the Brownwood area.
Baptists in the area recognized the need for a comprehensive ministry that could draw support from churches of various denominations, and leaders invited Bostick to direct it.

“I agreed to do it until they could find somebody else,” she said, chuckling about the temporary assignment that has lasted 15 years with no end in sight.
Good Samaritan Ministries receives support from 38 churches—Baptist, Methodist, Disciples of Christ, Presbyterian, Lutheran, Church of the Nazarene, Assembly of God, Church of Christ, African Methodist Episcopal, Catholic and nondenominational.

Last year, volunteers from many of those churches logged more than 12,000 hours service at Good Samaritan.

The ministry provides food to about 600 families and 1,500 individuals a month. Texas Baptists help provide funding for Good Samaritan through gifts to the Texas Baptist Offering for World Hunger.

Good Samaritan purchases most the nonperishable food it distributes from the Food Bank of West Central Texas. In fact, the ministry is the food bank’s largest client in the 17 county-area it serves.

About one-third of the people in Brown County live in poverty, Bostick noted. The clientele at Good Samaritan reflects the ethnic make-up of the area—about three-fourths white, 18 percent Hispanic and 6 percent African-American.
About 15 percent of Good Samaritans’ clients are age 60 and older.  Three-fourths of the families served are single parents—or widowed grandparents caring for grandchildren.

“We have a lot of elderly people on fixed incomes. Many are grandparents who are raising kids because the children’s parents are not around or able,” Bostick said. “Meth labs are a bad problem around here, and they are breaking up families.”
Two-thirds of the people who seek help at Good Samaritan fall into the age 20 to 60 bracket. “We serve a lot of the working poor—the underemployed,” Bostick noted.

Elderly and disabled people represent a majority of the “regulars” at Good Samaritan who depend on the ministry for ongoing needs, she added.
“The working poor, on average, come about once every three months—when things get tight,” Bostick said.

“These are good people—the salt of the earth. But they are faced with tough choices. ‘Do I eat, or do I pay a bill?’ That’s not a good place to be.”

SAN ANTONIO, Texas – Cameron Byler, a pioneer in national disaster relief and men’s missions within the Southern Baptist Convention, died Apr. 28 in San Antonio after a bried illness. He would have turned 80 May 11.

A memorial service will be conducted at 1 p.m. May 3 at Trinity Baptist Church in San Antonio, where he had lived since moving from Tennessee last July. James Porch, executive director of the Tennessee Baptist Convention, will officiate.

Byler was preceded in death by his first wife, the former Joyce Christian, and his second wife, the former Andrea Hawkins, who died two months ago. He is survived by three children: Barbara Garland, Portland, Ore.; Chris Byler, San Antonio, and foster son Brad Gray, Nashville, Tenn. He is also survived by three grandchildren and six great-grandchildren.

Relatives, friends and Southern Baptist Convention colleagues remember Byler as literally a gentle giant of a man who stood 6’ 1” and weighed some 400 lbs. Byler played tight-end on the football team at Howard Payne University, where he earned a bachelor’s degree. He later coached at various Texas high schools.

“Cameron had forearms bigger than my thighs,” says Jim Furgerson, a friend for 45 years, who followed Byler’s footsteps in Texas Baptist Men’s ministry and as national disaster relief director.

“I never saw anything he couldn’t lift. I’ve seen him carry a horse to a stall. When I first met him in 1963, he had a 28-inch waist and a 60-inch chest. Southern Baptists have lost a giant – physically and spiritually,” said Furgerson.

Vision and mission

Furgerson described Byler as a man of vision and mission.

"He was a pioneer in volunteer missions, disaster relief, men’s mission education and church recreation,” Furgerson added. “Cameron was one of those ground-breakers and a change agent’s change agent. He was one of the first Southern Baptist men brave enough to take volunteers on challenging international response missions into foreign countries like Albania and Nicaragua.”

Byler began his career in ministry at Buckner Baptist Boy’s Ranch in central Texas in 1956. Six years later, he moved his family to Lubbock, where he served as activities director at First Baptist Church – at the time, only one of a few such positions in the entire SBC. He moved on to serve as Royal Ambassador director on the staff of Texas Baptist Men, and as manager of Zephyr Baptist Encampment on Lake Mathis near Corpus Christi, Texas.

When Hurricane Beulah trounced Texas in 1967, Byler and fellow Texas Baptist Bob Dixon became the SBC’s first-ever disaster relief team, serving food prepared on “buddy-burners” from the back of a pick-up truck in the wake of the devastating Category 5 hurricane which killed 58 Texans.

In 1981, Byler and first wife Joyce moved to Anchorage, Alaska, where he served four years on the Alaska convention staff in church planting and Baptist Men’s ministry. He built the first Baptist recreational camp in Alaska, Furgerson said.

Disaster relief strategist

Byler was tapped as the Baptist Brotherhood Commission’s first man to develop and execute a national strategy on how the Southern Baptist Convention would respond to disasters nationwide, according to Jim Burton, a North American Mission Board (NAMB) staff member.

“Until Cameron came along, each state did its own thing, but even the states knew national coordination was necessary,” Burton said. “As Baptist Men’s director and national disaster relief director out of the Brotherhood Commission in Memphis, he was responsible for bringing the states together.

Recently retired NAMB staffer Douglas Beggs, who hired Cameron for the national disaster relief director’s job in the mid-1980s, said it was Byler who negotiated the very first agreement between Southern Baptists and the American Red Cross on how the two agencies would cooperate in response to U.S. disasters.

“Cameron was a great friend and mentor to me and so many others,” says Beggs. “If Cameron was your friend, you could count on him for anything. He was a great giver, both of his time and himself. He loved reaching young boys and men for Christ and spent so much of his Baptist career in RA and recreational work.”