“The union of love, based on matrimony between a man and a woman, which makes up the family, represents a good for all society that cannot be substituted by, confused with or compared to other types of unions.”

Pope Benedict XVI

Speaking after the California Supreme Court ruled homosexual couples have a constitutional right to marriage (RNS)

“I guess I’m not saying that any group should bend its principles. But perhaps it’s possible for people of good will on opposite sides of even a contentious issue to find something worth noting in the other side’s position once in awhile.”

Jeffrey Weiss

Dallas Morning News reporter/blogger, regarding immediate reaction by advocacy groups to the California court decision on same-sex marriage (www.dallasnews.com)

“The only part of my faith that has any play in my judicial enterprise is whatever commandment it is—the sixth—‘Thou shalt not lie.’”

Antonin Scalia

U.S. Supreme Court justice, when asked how Catholicism influences his judicial decisions (The Tim Russert Show/RNS)

My son and his wife divorced and fought bitterly for custody of their 3-year-old son. Now, our former daughter-in-law refuses to let my wife and me visit our grandson. We believe she has a moral obligation to allow us to know him. What are our options?

Divorce is one of life’s most painful experiences, whether we are a party or a loved one. Unfortunately, you are experiencing the inevitable bitterness generated by the battle. Once spouses have aired dirty laundry in court, healing is difficult.

My first suggestion may be one you are not anxious to hear. Judging your former daughter-in-law’s response in moral terms is not the best approach. Examine your part in the bitter battle. How did you treat your daughter-in-law during the process? If she believes rightly or wrongly that you encouraged the situation, she may believe her position is appropriate and be reluctant to leave her son with folks who may continue to speak badly of her.

Peacemaker

Play the peacemaker role. Although it is difficult, reach out to your former daughter-in-law in love. Determine what would allow her to feel comfortable with you in her son’s life. Enlist the intervention of a mutual friend or pastor, if necessary.

In my state, grandparents may seek court-ordered visits. But forced visits can be painful. Your grandson will sense his mother’s discomfort. Taking your former daughter-in-law to court should be your last option. You already have seen the unfortunate results. Also, there are limits on the amount of court-ordered visitation. In my state, grandparents can go to court only if they have been denied access to their grandchild for 90 days and visitation is in his best interest

If your son has visitation or temporary custody, he should allow you to see your grandson during those visits. If that option exists, the court may not grant you any separate time. It would be unusual for your daughter-in-law to have the right to dictate who your son may allow to see the child during his custody. If she is attempting to do so, it may be that your son should seek legal assistance to eliminate that limitation.

Court battles can be expensive and lengthy

If court is your only option, be prepared for an expensive, lengthy battle. Although courts have held that grandparent visitation will be ordered if all of the contingencies are met, they also have held that a day or two a month is sufficient. Such limited contact may inhibit a healthy and normal grandparent relationship.

As you obviously love your grandson and want him to have a happy and healthy childhood, being a peacemaker may be your highest moral obligation. It will be difficult to re-establish a civil, if not loving, relationship with your former daughter-in-law. For your grandson’s sake, do everything in your power to set aside your anger and bitterness toward her. That may be your greatest gift to him.

Cynthia Holmes, attorney

Former moderator, Cooperative Baptist Fellowship

Clayton, Mo.

Right or Wrong? is sponsored by the T.B. Maston Chair of Christian Ethics at Hardin-Simmons University’s Logsdon School of Theology. Send your questions about how to apply your faith to btillman@hsutx.edu.

I’m frequently told we need more leaders. The statement usually relates to pastors or other staff but often includes volunteers, as well. This especially is true in the Hispanic community and in smaller churches that cannot afford full-time staff.

This is not a new concern.

Jesus said: “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Therefore, beseech the Lord of the harvest to send out workers into his harvest” (Matthew 9:37-38).

The Apostle Paul wrote: “How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? How will they believe in him whom they have not heard? And how will they hear without a preacher? How will they preach unless they are sent?” (Romans 10:14-15)

I remember frequent occasions as a child being challenged by a pastor to consider whether God was calling me to the ministry. Guest preachers at camps reminded us of the harvest field and the need for preachers and missionaries. Are we still offering this invitation?

I recently heard a pastor say to one of his church members when he introduced her that her 9-year-old son was going to be a preacher when he is grown.

It is obviously God who calls, yet can’t we prompt, and are we not commanded to beseech the Lord of the harvest?

We also face the challenge of equipping those who are called. I was 18 years old when I was called to be pastor of a small church near Hope, Ark. It was the practice of this church to call college pastors. Even though I must have tortured them with my sermons, they were patient, prayed for me and encouraged me. This also probably helped me to be a more eager student.

In our Baptist tradition, we do not have to wait until we have completed seminary to serve on the staff of a church. I have spent some of the best years of my life helping to form and lead a Baptist seminary, yet many churches may never be led by seminary graduates.

I recently met Ishmel Gaspar, pastor of Iglesia Bautista Sublime Gracias, a church near the Mexico border. He is a bivocational pastor who has started a church in his home. I do not know what his level of formal training is, but I do know they have led a significant number of folks to Christ, are equipping them as Christ-followers and are feeding more than 1,000 people every month who live in their colonias.

The western heritage churches model laypeople being called out as leaders in their churches, equipped through a certification program from Truett Seminary and trained in weekend seminars. The Baptist University of the Américas also has several locations where ministry certification is offered in Spanish.

We must continue to provide ministry preparation at all levels—certificate, diploma, associate, bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral. We must pray and call out leaders into the harvest. We must practice the 2 Timothy 2:2 model of Paul selecting and training gifted leaders who in turn will lead others. Perhaps it isn’t too late for God to call you.

Randel Everett is executive director of the Baptist General Convention of Texas Executive Board.

The things a man will do for a woman.

Well, in my case, it was the thing a little boy would do to impress a little girl.

More specifically, it involved choking down my fear, shoring up my courage and jumping off the high dive at the swimming pool in the Texas Panhandle town of Perryton, where I grew up.

I regret to tell you the first time I took the plunge off the high dive wasn’t the first time I climbed to the top of the ladder, gripped the railing and looked down into the water.

From the deck, down by the water, jumping off the high dive always looked like so much fun. For several years, I watched other kids ascend the ladder, run down the diving board, take a bouncing step, hit the end of the board as it was springing, and soar up into the thin air and down into the cool, clear water.

How I wanted to be like those kids—free and graceful as ducks, arching through the sky and landing gracefully in water. (OK, I was a kid, and my lexicon of metaphors was limited. But I knew ducks flew and liked water. I loved water and wanted to fly.)

So, I would climb to the top of the ladder, intending to jump, soar and splash. And then, instead of the mighty duck, I resembled the other fowl I knew well. A chicken. And with the red hues of embarrassment blotching my cheeks and the bile of shame burning my throat, I would back down the stairs, hoping no one noticed.

Until Linda McDowell went swimming. When I was in the third and fourth grades, I thought the sun rose and set over Linda’s house. She was my girlfriend, and I imagined I was her beau.

The problem was I didn’t know Linda was at the pool until I was at the top of the high dive. Talk about bad timing. No way could I back out now.

And that was how I found the courage to jump. Months later, Linda broke my little 10-year-old heart (during the fourth-grade Christmas party, no less). But in that brief, shining moment, she inspired me to soar with the ducks and introduced me to a lifetime of thrills from the top of the high dive.

So, why am I telling you this old, old story?

Metaphorically speaking, you’re my Linda and I’m at the top of the high dive again. Only this time, I’m choking down my fear, shoring up my courage and getting set to jump into the world of blogging. With you looking up, I’m more afraid of backing down than taking the plunge.

We’re building a better website, and one feature is a blog component. It will give us the chance to visit more than just once every-other week. Over the years, I’ve wished I could write to you more often than our printing schedule allowed. But now that I can, I’m wondering if I’ll verbally soar like a swan or dive like a duck. To find out, visit our newly updated website, baptiststandard.com, and click on my blog, Truth Be Told.

I’ve been told I just need the courage to act on my principles. My response is that sometimes prudence should be the driving force for doing the ethical thing. How can we balance these virtues?

In the middle of April, my Baptist principles and commitment to the gospel collided with American politics. On a Tuesday, the president of the United States drove to Andrews Air Force Base to welcome the pope to America. The pope was the first dignitary the president had greeted at the Air Force base in his seven years in office. Everyone else has been greeted at the White House, which symbolizes people come to the president. But the president went to the pope. This was a symbolic gesture that smacked of undue favoritism in my Baptist opinion. On Thursday of that week, the business of Congress was suspended so the 100 Catholic members could attend the Mass held in the Nationals ballpark. While no laws were made favoring or establishing a religion, this did feel like special treatment.

Wednesday of that same week, the Democrats were holding a debate for the Pennsylvania primary. Barack Obama said, “The point I was making was that when people feel like Washington’s not listening to them, when they’re promised year after year, decade after decade, that their economic situation is going to change, and it doesn’t, then politically they end up focusing on those things that are constant, like religion.”

My blood really began to boil. “Jesus is not fallback position for economic hard times,” I muttered to myself. By Thursday noon, I had put aside my planned sermon for Sunday morning and was ready to tackle the fickle beast of American politics.

On a drive Thursday afternoon, I told my wife of my outrage and my plans to put everything right on Sunday morning. She began talking me down from the ledge with the comment, “Will this sermon be helpful to our people, or are you just blowing off steam?”

I was like you, caught between the courage of my convictions and the prudence of doing the right thing in the right way. I did not have a solution to my anger. I would have been railing against an injustice I could not remedy, nor could the members of my church. I preached a sermon from John 7 asking the question, “Who is Jesus to you?”—a better and more important question.

You are right. We do need to balance prudence with courage, and courage with prudence. There are times when we are called upon to do the hard thing that changes the circumstances in our world. But in every case, we need to make sure our courage is tempered with helpful words and redeeming actions. Yet do not quiet your courage in the name of prudence. Let us do what is right with wisdom.

Stacy Conner, pastor

First Baptist Church

Muleshoe

Right or Wrong? is sponsored by the T.B. Maston Chair of Christian Ethics at Hardin-Simmons University's Logsdon School of Theology. Send your questions about how to apply your faith to btillman@hsutx.edu .

“We deplore those who are led astray—those Jehovah’s Witnesses, Baptists, evangelicals, Pentecostals and many others who cut Christ’s robes like bandits, who are like the soldiers who crucified Christ, who ripped apart Christ's holy coat.”
Aleksei D. Zorin
Chief Russian Orthodox priest in Stary Oskol, Russia, in a televised sermon that denounced Protestant “sects” (New York Times/RNS)

“Whenever we see euphemisms in use, we can know that something morally dubious is going on. Torture is not ‘torture’; it is ‘enhanced interrogation.’ Genocide is not ‘murder’; it is ‘special treatment’ or ‘ethnic cleansing.’ And a developing human being in its first stages is not a ‘baby’ but a ‘potential life.’”
David Gushee
Ethics professor at Mercer University’s McAfee School of Theology (ABP)

“To avoid misunderstandings I would like to say: I was atheist and I stay atheist.”
Mikhail Gorbachev
Former Soviet leader, debunking rumors he converted to Catholicism (RNS)

It has been a privilege for me to travel throughout much of Texas during the last month and see God at work in many of our churches and institutions.

I had the opportunity to meet with more than 1,000 of our pastors and numerous leaders of our institutions. I have been on the campuses of several of our universities, met with more than 90 percent of our directors of missions, been engaged in conversations with some of our Baptist Student Ministry directors and interns, and preached in several of our churches. I was privileged to attend the annual Woman’s Missionary Union of Texas meeting, the Hispanic preaching conference and the minister of education retreat. In each situation, there was a spirit of optimism and a desire to work together in our kingdom assignment.

Addressing ethnic diversity

Missions, evangelism and discipleship (through Sunday school or other small groups) were at the heart of the conversations. Questions were raised about what we need to do to better reflect the ethnic diversity of Texas and how to allow Texas Baptists 35 years old and younger to become more involved in the leadership of our churches. A strong loyalty to our schools and agencies was expressed from alumni and families who had been directly affected by BGCT partners.

Some misconceptions were addressed. Our recent reduction of budget led to the belief that giving through the BGCT Cooperative Program was declining. Fortunately, that is not true. At the end of April, our gifts through the Texas CP were slightly ahead of last year. The majority of BGCT operating funds comes from two sources—Cooperative Program giving from BGCT churches and investment income from funds provided over the years through faithful Texas Baptists. The 2008 BGCT budget called for an increase in CP giving of about $3.4 million, or 8.5 percent. It also projected the use of $6.8 million in investment funds, which is $1.9 million beyond the level called for by a new state regulation that went into effect this year. As a result, we anticipate BGCT budget income about $5.3 million less than what was projected. I’m hopeful the trend of increased giving will continue so we can approach the 2009 budget realistically and hopefully.

Deciding as a family

Another misconception is that we give to the Cooperative Program. Russell Dilday reminded the Future Focus Committee that we give through, not to, the Cooperative Program. Churches determine how they choose to support missions and ministry and then channel the gifts through the BGCT. As a Texas Baptist family, we decide how these dollars need to be directed for our kingdom work.

A new initiative, Texas Hope 2010, has been shared in these meetings. It is our desire to share the hope of Christ with every person in Texas within their own language and context by Resurrection Sunday 2010. This is the most important assignment we have as Texas Baptists. It will take all of us to fulfill this challenge. Let’s equip our children, youth and adults to begin to pray, care and share so that the lost of our state will experience the love of Christ.

We’re breathing easier at our house these days. Molly, our youngest daughter, returned home after studying in Europe for a semester.

Back when I was in college, I thought “suffering for Jesus” as a summer missionary in Colorado was pretty exotic. I never dreamed of spending a semester overseas.

But Baylor University’s international studies program figured large when Molly evaluated where to go to college. And thanks to scholarships and variations in tuition, she wound up studying at the University of Maastricht in the Netherlands for not much more than the cost of a normal semester in Waco. So, her dream became a reality.

Vicarious travel

Joanna and I watched from afar. Through the semester, we traded instant messages online and even talked through Skype, a telephone program that works on my laptop computer. We monitored Facebook for new pictures of our darlin’ daughter in exotic places.

The quality of studying overseas multiplies the more students travel and experience various cultures and societies. Maastricht filled the bill for Molly, our family’s world citizen.

A few days after they arrived in the Netherlands, the entire Baylor group took a trip to Istanbul, Turkey. OK, I was nervous, but my prayer life picked up.

Once the semester started, the kids went to school four days a week and traveled during long weekends. Truth be told, I probably enjoyed hearing about Molly’s journeys about as much as she enjoyed actually taking them.

Exotic destinations

Every Sunday, I awaited news from her destinations—Prague, Berlin, The Hague, Bruges, Amsterdam, some little town in eastern France, Interlaken, Paris. Some parents live vicariously through their children’s athletic or musical prowess. Me, I just got a kick out of hearing where my kid visited over the weekend.

When their studies ended, the students spent a month backpacking over Europe. So, the variety and pace of reports quickened—Edinburgh, Glasgow, Dublin, Porto, Lisbon, Madrid, Barcelona, some little town in southern France, Cinque Terra, Pisa, Florence, Rome, Athens, Santorini.

When she got home, Molly showed us pictures. We spent an entire evening on the couch, reliving her semester, trip by trip. I inadvertently revealed my low-browness when I acknowledged my jealousy peaked at the wrong time—not when she saw the “Mona Lisa” or visited St. Peter’s Basilica, but when she sledded down the Swiss Alps at night.

The world became both larger and smaller for Molly this semester. She experienced a dizzying array of complex cultures but also got to know real human beings in strange and far-off places.

I thank God Molly got to see so much of the world. And I thank God for bringing her home.

-Marv Knox

Let’s say God’s in a quirky mood, like when he created the platypus or nudged the Appalachian State football team past Michigan.

Let’s say he decides, for a few hours only, to drastically relax his standards on miracles. For this one morning, the new protocol is boiled down to:

• Requester must believe in God.

• Requester must have honorable motives.

• Request granted.

So at 6 a.m. on this special morning, unannounced, God lets the miracles begin.

At 6:03, the first prayerful soul offers up her daybreak litany of sick and dying friends and acquaintances.

At 6:05, those who are awake feel much better.

Overdue bills

At 6:42, those in that first healed generation begin offering prayers of their own. Mostly they give thanks, but some include requests for this healing power to spread—more healings, a couple of saved marriages for friends or relatives, the payment of overdue bills piled up during a long hospital stay.

At 7:15, one of the couples whose marriage was on the rocks awaken at the same time, not on opposite sides of the bed, but cheek by cheek. Ignoring the morning breath, they share their first kiss in a long time and are late getting the kids up for school.

At 8:07, a clerk at the hospital calls to confirm payment of those bills. The clerk is told of the miracle behind the payment.

At 8:10, the clerk summons her faith and prays for a better-paying job to support her aging parents.

At 8:15, she gets a call from an old friend at a bank about a position as a loan officer.

Between 8:15 and 9, the hospital discharges most of its patients as word spreads from room to room about the potent power of prayer.

Repurcussions

At 9:02, a bank loan officer arrives for work only to be told she has been replaced. No reason given.

At 9:07, two people die in a collision at the crowded exit from the hospital parking lot.

At 9:11, little Johnny prays that he can be one of the popular kids at school, so that everyone will stop making fun of him.

At 9:15, a single mother prays that the man she’s seeing will finally leave his wife so that her children can have the father they need.

At 9:22, the wife, on her way home from belatedly dropping off the kids at school, picks up her cell phone. It’s her husband. “Hey, sweetie,” she purrs, but he answers curtly: “I want out. I don’t love you anymore.”

By 9:30, the financial power of prayer is being broadly tapped. Loans are being forgiven, bank accounts are filling out of thin air and 401(k) portfolios are growing beyond all reason.

At 10:15, the stock markets begin reacting to news of irregularities in the banking industry.

At 10:19, a third-grader on the playground is sobbing miserably, wondering why little Johnny, his only friend, doesn’t want to play with him today.

At 10:42, the former loan officer, distraught and not knowing where to turn, turns her car off a cliff.

By 10:52, there are no more cliffs, for all of the mountains have been moved one at a time into the sea by rookie believers, just checking to see if it would really work.

Cleaning up the mess

At 11 a.m., God does the world a favor. He stops the morning of miracles an hour early.

He cleans up the mess.

He goes back to moving in mysterious ways.

So mysterious that even those who believe firmly that God is at work in the world are seldom certain: Did I just witness a miracle, or was it merely … one of those weird coincidences?

The power is always there if a mountain needs to be moved into the sea, but mostly God keeps a lighter touch on the controls.

Maybe we should pray that he never hands us those controls.

Not even for a single morning.

Doug Mendenhall, author of How Jesus Ended up in the Food Court, serves is a columnist for the Huntsville Times in Huntsville, Ala. His column is distributed by Religion News Service.

We just don’t hear about the Ten Commandments anymore. They carry the essence of the law of our land and guidelines for all of life. I’m embarrassed that our preachers apparently aren’t preaching the Ten Commandments. Lots of morality issues would be settled if they did, don’t you think?

I love the Ten Commandments. They distill many of God’s laws and are unique among the legal codes of the ancient world. As you say, they have had a formative influence on our laws. Yet as wonderful as they are, they shouldn’t be a central focus of Christian proclamation for many reasons.

First, God calls us to a relationship with the living Christ, not a legal code. This relationship comes through the Holy Spirit. The Apostle Paul wrote in Galatians 3:24-25 that the law was put in charge of us to lead us to Christ, so we could be justified by faith. Now that we have faith in Christ, we’re no longer under the supervision of the law. Our moral and ethical guidance come from Christ’s presence in us through the Holy Spirit.

Love is the centerpiece

Second, Jesus didn’t make the Ten Commandments the centerpiece of his teaching and preaching. Remember the Pharisee who tested Jesus by asking him, “Which is the greatest commandment in the law?” (Matthew 22:34-40) Jesus didn’t quote any of the Ten Commandments. Instead, he quoted Deuteronomy 6:5, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind,” and Leviticus 19:18, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” He said of these, “All the Law and the Prophets hang on these commandments” (Matthew 22:40).

Jesus meant that if we love God with all our beings, we’ll fulfill his commands to worship him alone, to make no idols, and to keep his Sabbath day. If we love our neighbors as ourselves, we won’t murder them or steal from them, or covet what they have. As the Apostle Paul wrote: “Love does no harm to its neighbor. Therefore, love is the fulfillment of the law” (Romans 13:10).

Christ's commands

Third, the Ten Commandments have never been central to the church’s proclamation of the gospel. Instead, Christians have focused on teaching believers to obey everything Christ commanded, including the two commandments listed above.

Although the Ten Commandments should not be central to Christian proclamation, they remain important because they give flesh and definition to God’s commands to love. Love is subjective. Laws like the Ten Commandments anchor love in objective commands.

The Ten Commandments should be included in Christian instruction, but learning them won’t solve moral problems in churches and in society. What’s most needed in the church is for Christians to develop their relationships with the living Christ and imitate his attitudes and actions.

Robert Prince, pastor

First Baptist Church, Waynesville, N.C.

Right or Wrong? is sponsored by the T.B. Maston Chair of Christian Ethics at Hardin-Simmons University's Logsdon School of Theology. Send your questions about how to apply your faith to btillman@hsutx.edu.

“Science and faith, reason and faith should never be seen as opposites but as bed-fellows.”
—Tony Blair, former British prime minister and a recent convert to Catholicism (RNS)

“I want to say it again, and again, and again: Islam is not a religion. It is a political system … bent on world domination, not a religion.”
—Pat Robertson, religious broadcaster, speaking on the 700 Club (RNS)

“What will this do for Ronald McDonald’s image? What secret has Ronald been keeping?”
—Dwayne Hastings, vice president of the Southern Baptist Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, regarding McDonald’s sponsorship of the Gay & Lesbian Chamber of Commerce (BP)

“God.”
—George W. Bush, U.S. president, when asked what he saw when he looked into Pope Benedict’s eyes (RNS)

“Texas Baptists saved the life of my son.” One man shocked me with this statement after I met with students at Truett Seminary in Waco.

He and his wife were missionaries to China. They went to China with one child and soon became pregnant with their second. In China, they were allowed only one child and were told they would have to abort. Of course, that was not an option. Texas Baptists brought them to Texas and provided him with a scholarship to study at Truett. He will graduate in May, and he and his family hope to return to China as missionaries with their 2 1/2-year-old miracle son. Sheila and I met Kati (Kathryn) at Buckner International’s annual donor dinner. She is a beautiful 4-year-old from Guatemala. Kati was born with facial deformities and was abandoned at birth. This little throw-away child was taken to a Buckner home in Guatemala. Baylor Health Care learned of her condition and brought her to Dallas, where she received numerous surgeries. Now this beautiful little girl has been adopted and has a mother, father and siblings. Scott Collins of Buckner said 100,000 children are cared for in Buckner facilities around the world.

During these last few weeks, I have had the opportunity to begin a tour of Texas to meet with our church and institutional leaders. Susan shared about her desperate situation when she was a single mother with two small children, no job and no place to live. She was directed to the BGCT’s ministry in Round Rock, where she and her two sons lived the next 11 months. The staff of Children at Heart Ministries introduced Susan to Christ, taught her how to manage a budget, got her a job, and she and her boys moved to her own apartment.

A few years later, Susan told her boys God was calling her to go back and help mothers who were having problems like she had. Her 6-year-old asked: “Momma, we lived there because you were having problems? I thought it was because it was fun!” Many mothers have been rescued through this ministry.

It has been exciting to visit many of our Texas Baptist universities. Tatenda Tanzeneva, the student body president at the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor, led a prayer for me after I spoke in chapel. This senior from Zimbabwe prayed the most sincere and eloquent prayer of blessing before his fellow classmates. His prayer represented the obvious fact that students from around the world are finding a place in our universities, where they are receiving an excellent Christ-centered education.

Individual churches perform incredible ministries. Yet no church alone can provide shelter, food and a Christian environment for 100,000 children. No single church can rescue single moms and orphaned children. Not even the largest church can provide college and seminary training for students in every part of Texas, but when we share our resources, prayers and passions through the BGCT, we can be a part of God’s work that is greater than our eyes have seen and our ears have heard. It is a privilege to serve with you in these kingdom opportunities.

Randel Everett is executive director of the Baptist General Convention of Texas Executive Board.