Associated Baptist Press - 8/5/2008

Associated Baptist Press
August 5, 2008 · (08-76)

Greg Warner, Executive Editor
Robert Marus, News Editor/Washington Bureau Chief

In this issue
Falling revenue causes LifeWay to cut staff
BWA births division for justice; scholars spotlight ecology, diversity
Riverside Church taps Braxton, former Wake prof, as new pastor
CBF missions blitz helps poverty-stricken Ark. county
CBF field personnel encourage artists, build bridges in Asian communities
Opinion: 'The Dark Knight' of the free will

Falling revenue causes LifeWay to cut staff
By Steve DeVane

NASHVILLE (ABP) -- LifeWay Christian Resources will cut 5 percent of its workforce by Sept. 30 because revenues are lower than expected, officials of the Southern Baptist Convention's publishing arm have announced.

The cuts represent about 100 jobs. Officials would not say exactly how many workers will be displaced.

The agency's $458.7 million revenue last year was higher than expenditures. LifeWay spokesman Rob Phillips said income this year is ahead of last year's pace, but below projections on which the budget is based.

LifeWay is also cutting expenses in other parts of its operations, said Thom Rainer, president and chief executive officer.

"These are hard but necessary steps to ensure the continued effectiveness of LifeWay ministries," he said in a written statement.

The organization is funded totally through the sale of its resources and does not receive direct financial support from the SBC.

Phillips would not release specifics, but said the lower income affects all business areas.

According to SBC Life, a publication of the SBC Executive Committee, LifeWay provides income over its expenses to the SBC. Last year, LifeWay contributed $790,000 to the SBC operating budget, according to a story written by Phillips. Those funds were part of nearly $12 million in financial and "in-kind" contributions to the SBC and its entities.

Phillips said in an interview that there is "a whole lot of in-kind contributions" in that total. In-kind contributions are services or products provided free of charge. Therefore, Phillips said, concluding that SBC LifeWay would have sufficient income to retain the jobs without the contributions is like comparing "apples and oranges," Phillips said.

"Those are two totally different ways that funds are being spoken of here," he said.

The shortfall in revenue could be due to a number of factors, less business than expected at LifeWay's regional bookstores, fewer participants attending events at the agency's two national conference centers and fewer outside retailers stocking literature published under LifeWay's Broadman and Holman imprint.

"The economy is basically hitting consumers in their pocketbooks," Phillips said. "Discretionary spending is down all over."

Phillips said the 100 jobs would be lost "mostly in Nashville," where the agency is headquartered, and "across the spectrum," including administrative, professional and support positions. Some employees losing their jobs are eligible for retirement, but he could not say how many.

Rainer said those whose positions have been deleted will get severance pay, some benefits and outplacement services. He said LifeWay is enduring the economic downturn better than many other Christian ministries.

"LifeWay is debt free and in excellent financial condition," he said. "Although we are adjusting our priorities and scaling back some operations, we are well positioned to continue our ministry to people and churches across the nation and around the world."

Phillips said LifeWay officials implemented "some reallocation of resources" in the past year that resulted in a "fairly small number of staff reductions." He said LifeWay's employment has "ebbed and flowed with the economy throughout its history."

The agency's most dramatic job reduction in recent memory came in 1992, when revenues were not keeping pace with expenses, according to Phillips. Jimmy Draper, who had recently become head of what was then called the Sunday School Board, instituted a voluntary retirement incentive program, which was accepted by 159 employees.

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-- Norman Jameson contributed to this story.

BWA births division for justice; scholars spotlight ecology, diversity
By Vicki Brown

WASHINGTON, DC (ABP) -- Concern for freedom and justice were on the minds of participants at two recent international Baptist meetings in Prague, Czech Republic.

Participants at meetings related to the Baptist World Alliance's annual gathering created a new office for global justice and issued a declaration of commitment to advocate for the world's marginalized, as well as a declaration of commitment to environmental concerns.

At their July 20-25 annual gathering, members of the BWA General Council established a division of freedom and justice. The office will address refugee and migrant issues and other social-justice concerns that are affecting member bodies of the global umbrella organization for Baptist groups.

"We are all fellow sojourners in this world and ... our treatment of the immigrants in our midst is central to authentic scriptural faith," council members declared in a separate resolution on justice issues.

They noted that globally there are more than 67 million refugees and internally displaced persons and more than 191 million international migrants. They urged the world's Baptists to "freely share resources" and to "act as advocates" on behalf of migrants and refugees.

The resolution came against the background of increasing discrimination and even violence against refugees and migrants in several parts of the world.

The council passed a separate resolution to express specific concern for the Romani people -- also known as Gypsies -- in Italy. It decried the Italian government's recently instituted policy of fingerprinting all individuals of Romani descent.

Through the new division, BWA will bring justice issues to its members' attention and advocate at the United Nations on behalf of refugees and migrants.

Following the council's sessions, a related meeting of Baptist theologians and scholars also called their brothers and sisters to a broader commitment to social justice. In a declaration, they stressed concern for ecology and diversity.

Gathered July 26-29 for the seventh Baptist International Conference on Theological Education, Baptist educators, pastors, theologians and emerging leaders committed to "[u]phold the sacredness of all life." Respecting and caring for God's creation "actively" demonstrates faith, participants declared.

Baptists should "welcome" the insights they can glean through the diversity already inherent in the cultures and contexts found in the "common Baptist way of life," participants noted in the declaration.

Participants agreed to "seek repentance for our failure to advocate for those who are abused, impoverished and marginalized." Then they promised to "prepare leaders" to help believers "live the Christian life, share the gospel and engage in works of justice."

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Riverside Church taps Braxton, former Wake prof, as new pastor
By Robert Marus

NEW YORK (ABP) -- One of the most prominent churches in mainline Protestantism has tapped a former Wake Forest Divinity School professor to fill its historic pulpit.

The pastor-search committee of Riverside Church, a landmark on the Upper West Side of Manhattan since 1929, has recommended Brad Braxton to become the congregation's senior minister. The recommendation, reportedly unanimous, was announced during Riverside's morning worship service Aug. 3.

The 39-year-old Braxton has been an associate professor of homiletics and New Testament at Vanderbilt University Divinity School since 2004. He previously taught at Wake Forest University Divinity School and has served also as pastor of the interdenominational Douglas Memorial Community Church in Baltimore.

If approved by the Riverside congregation in a Sept. 14 vote, Braxton would become the 2,400-member church's sixth senior pastor. He would assume a pulpit once occupied by famed preachers Harry Emerson Fosdick and William Sloane Coffin.

Braxton would replace James Forbes, 71, who retired last year after 18 years at Riverside. Forbes was the church's first African-American pastor. Some members grew disgruntled with his leadership for several reasons, including what they perceived as a lessening of the church's historic commitment to social justice.

Riverside's roots are in the former Park Avenue Baptist Church and a series of other progressive Baptist congregations in Manhattan. The church is now dually aligned with the American Baptist Churches USA and the United Church of Christ.

In the past, Riverside leaders have publicly opposed the United States' involvement in the Vietnam and Iraq wars. Church leaders were also early and outspoken Christian voices in favor of racial integration and the full inclusion of gays and lesbians in the life of Christian communities.

Braxton, who is also an African American, did not immediately respond to a request for comment Aug. 5, but told the New York Times that he would continue Riverside's commitment to social engagement. "Part of what religious communities do in their best moments is to seek after the truth with a sense of humility and a sense of openness for the sake of the common good," he said. "So I certainly would hope to continue in that marvelous legacy of congregational care internally, and bold, courageous, prophetic action externally, for which the Riverside Church has been known now for so many years."

Bill Leonard, dean of Wake Forest Divinity School, said by telephone Aug. 5 he was "delighted" that his former colleague would be recommended to Riverside.

"He was a fine colleague for us for four years and is not only an excellent preacher, but he is an excellent teacher of preaching," he said. "I'm just very, very delighted for him and his family and for Riverside Church; it's a great moment."

Braxton, the son of a Baptist minister, grew up in Salem, Va. He is a graduate of the University of Virginia, where he earned the prestigious Jefferson Scholarship. He was a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University, where he received a master's degree, and earned a Ph.D. in New Testament studies from Emory University.

He and his wife, Lazetta, have a three-year-old daughter, Karis.

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CBF missions blitz helps poverty-stricken Ark. county
By Carla Wynn Davis

HELENA-WEST HELENA, Ark. - His name is Frank, and he hadn't been near the water in more than 40 years. And who can blame him? The last time he got in the water, he was 11 years old and nearly drowned.

But now his grandchildren can swim, and they love it so much that he bought them an above-ground pool -- and that's what brought him to the Helena-West Helena, Ark., municipal pool for swimming lessons taught by members of Cooperative Baptist Fellowship partner churches.

The CBF supporters had to help Frank walk into the shallow end of the pool. But, by the end of the lesson, as the rest of the adult swimmers and teachers gathered for the closing prayer circle, Frank -- so deathly afraid of water -- nonetheless made it out of the shallow end.

"When I turned around, I saw Frank in the circle standing in the mid-section of the pool," said Kate Hall, the swim camp director and a member of Hayes Barton Baptist Church in Raleigh, N.C. "He told the volunteer, 'I have to go under this rope and join that prayer circle, because I have to thank God for what he's enabled me to do tonight.'"

The more than 230 children, teens and adults who took to the pool during swim camp were only one part of the All Church Challenge, a two-week missions blitz in Phillips County, Ark., where CBF field personnel Ben and Leonora Newell have served since 2002. The ministry is part of Together for Hope, the Fellowship's rural-poverty initiative in 20 of the poorest counties in the United States. Phillips County, of which Helena-West Helena is the seat, is in the Mississippi Delta region -- one of the nation's most poverty-stricken.

More than 250 Fellowship Baptists representing 21 churches traveled to the county to serve during the challenge July 12-24. Many have come before -- some year after year.

"As they make a long-term commitment, their ministry deepens," Leonora Newell said.

One of those churches is First Baptist Church in Elkin, N.C., which has sent teams for three years. Church member Betty Pittman spent the week traveling on the Stories on Wheels bus to Elaine, Ark., where they held a children's camp that included basketball, games and a Bible story.

"We're planting the seed, believing -- even though you can't see -- that the seed will sprout," she said.

Individuals keep coming back, too, like Van Jones, a member of St. John's Baptist Church in Raleigh, N.C., who has stayed both weeks for three years.

"I've planted roots in a mission project," he said. "This is worthwhile. I see a lot of change in the community. I might not live here, but I make a lot of friends."

And that's one of the goals of the All Church Challenge -- for local residents to get involved in, and energized by, the work. During the first week, Leonora Newell nearly canceled preschool camp because she didn't have enough workers, but local resident Jean Williams stepped in and said she'd find enough workers from the community. Local residents showed up, and the camp ran as planned.

"God intended local volunteers to get involved," Leonora said.

Fellowship Baptists came from as far away as Virginia and Texas for the blitz. B.F. Waddell, 87, came to help finish a new pavilion at the pool. On the way to Helena and back to North Carolina, where he is a member of McGill Baptist Church in Concord, he stopped to see two friends from his service in World War II. One he hadn't seen in 50 years.

Participants like Waddell spent the two weeks "sharing the gospel in all types of ways," Ben Newell said. They catalogued books for the community-center library, hosted a children's camp, worked in the community gardens, taught water aerobics and visited local residents in the nursing home. They also helped with construction like installing new siding at the home of Charley and Winifred Wells, who saved money all year long to buy the materials.

"This means the whole world to me," said Charley Wells. "I am being blessed. We've waited a long time."

At the end of the two weeks, there was time for celebration. Nearly 400 people gathered to see children perform the new songs they learned, to honor the efforts of local leaders, and to see the new pool pavilion dedicated to Hall, who helped launch the annual swim program four years ago, and Earnest Womack, the long-time local pool director.

As Ben Newell looked over the crowd, seeing the smiles and hearing all the laughter and conversation, he knew the last two weeks had made a difference.

"This is when you really realize the impact [the All Church Challenge] has," he said.

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CBF field personnel encourage artists, build bridges in Asian communities
By Patricia Heys

ATLANTA (ABP) -- "Did you hear the music they're playing," said a wedding attendee to his friend. "These Christians are just like we are."

Cooperative Baptist Fellowship field workers Jonathan and Tina believe that the arts have the power to break down barriers, as music did at that wedding in Southeast Asia. The wedding couple, two of the few Christians in the community, invited many of their non-Christian neighbors to the celebration.

"So often there is no separation between ethnicity, culture and religious tradition, even in North America," Jonathan said. "As the world becomes more multi-cultural, I think we have a difficult time dividing what is cultural and what is of our faith.

"In some places in Asia, if you follow Christ, then you can no longer say you are part of the community. Christianity is seen as the religion of the foreigner, and local Christians are sometimes asked to leave."

Jonathan and Tina -- whose names and specific location are not being published because of security concerns -- encourage Christian artists to stay connected to their cultures, using the music, dance and visual arts of their indigenous community to express their faith. They hope these expressions will help remove the walls between communities and local churches.

"When we began looking at how the arts are used in local communities, we realized that the arts could be a part of redefining in popular understanding what it means to be a Christian," Jonathan said.

"To follow Christ doesn't mean that you leave your culture behind and accept Western culture, but that you could live out your faith in your local community wearing your traditional clothes, playing your traditional instruments, and that is valid."

Pak Wayan became a Christian five years ago. When he did, he lost his inheritance and was asked to leave his community. Wayan serves as Jonathan and Tina's gamelan instructor, teaching them and other Christian musicians how to play the 20-piece metallaphone instrument that is the foundation of music in Southeast Asia.

His group of students has quickly grown from six to 16, and earlier this year, they played a piece Wayan wrote based on Psalm 150.

Recently, Wayan was invited back to his community to participate in its annual arts festival. Even while he celebrates this step toward acceptance, he is facing a new challenge -- diabetes. Through his relationship with Jonathan and Tina, Wayan was provided with a blood sugar tester, donated by a member of Winter Park Baptist Church in Wilmington, N.C. Now, Jonathan and Tina are helping raise funds for Wayan to have cataract surgery.

"Though still struggling with this life-changing illness, he is working diligently to change his diet and lifestyle," Tina said. "Not only has the blood sugar tester helped him physically, it has given him the opportunity to testify to the God who provides."

Jonathan and Tina provide support and encouragement to other artists as well. They also facilitate visual-art exhibitions, teach music and dance classes, work with local musicians to create compositions for worship and provide training to seminary students.

"God has placed within us such creative potential," Jonathan said. "And the arts speak in ways that make visible things that are invisible. When you read Scripture you know you see the music, the poetry, the stories. You see that Jesus walks away and leaves us to figure out the story's meaning. And artists today are doing the same thing.

"There's tremendous potential among artists to create expressions of the gospel that will continue to speak even when they have walked away."

Jonathan and Tina encourage churches and individuals to partner with Christian artists and communities around the world. They hope believers with skills in music, dance, painting, drama and other art forms will share their gifts.

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Opinion: 'The Dark Knight' of the free will
By Adam English

(ABP) -- Among those in the record-breaking crowd that appeared with money in hand to see The Dark Knight opening weekend were me and three of my friends. The second installment of the new Batman series from Warner Bros. and Legendary Pictures, which sold over $158 million in tickets the first weekend, set a new record for most money made in the first three days.

The Dark Knight is superior to Batman Begins in many ways: plot-development, suspense, action, effects and, of course, villainy. One cannot help but think that the premature death of actor Heath Ledger had something to do with the buzz surrounding the new film. But let that not take away from his performance. He played a wickedly unpredictable Joker.

As we pulled into the theater parking lot Friday night, my friends and I were engaged in a heavy discussion. Of all things that could be discussed before seeing a Batman flick, we were talking about free will. I have no idea how we got onto the topic, and I certainly could not have known how relevant our exchange was to the movie we were about to see.

Nick was saying that free will is tied to intention: knowingly choosing one thing over another. Free will is necessary because all of us are responsible before God for our actions. This implies that we somehow have a choice with regard to those actions. How can you be responsible for something you did not choose or something you were unaware of choosing?

Wes did not buy Nick's argument that we can exercise real choice with eternal consequences. Wes contended that God had already made the greater choice - for forgiveness, salvation and eternal life. God's choice was to redeem the world and not count our sin against us; any insistence on our part that we can escape or opt out of the love of God is illusory.

Choice is a key component of The Dark Knight. Every character is confronted by choices. Among the minor characters, Rachel Dawes (Maggie Gyllenhaal) must choose between two men. Alfred Pennyworth (Michael Caine) must decide what to do with a certain letter. Lucius Fox (Morgan Freeman) must decide whether or not to help Batman by using morally objectionable technology. And Lt. Gordon (Gary Oldham) must choose between aligning himself with the vigilante caped crusader or arresting him.

Among the main characters, Harvey "Two-Face" Dent (Aaron Eckhart) sees all choices as a matter of random chance, a flip of a coin. The Joker is a nihilist for whom all choices are absurd. Batman/Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) walks a razor's edge as Gotham's unelected but semi-official vigilante, choosing to protect the innocent, do justice and (in his words) inspire goodness while trying to avoid his own personal vendettas and emotions. Bruce Wayne's choice is even more complicated by his acknowledgment that vigilantism is not a good substitute for law and order, and if there was a way he could support the justice system without his bat suit, he would.

In The Dark Knight, more than a few characters - Batman/Bruce Wayne, Harvey Dent, Lt. Gordon, the mobsters, and the people of Gotham - are faced with impossible choices. The Joker revels in creating situations that force people to act against their moral commitments, against the law, against their better natures, and against their best interests. Director Christopher Nolan said in a Newsweek interview: "The Joker gets pleasure from taking somebody's rule set - their ethics, their morals - and turning them against each other. Paradox is the way you do that -- giving people impossible choices."

At first glance, one might say that, through his macabre "games," the Joker is the champion of choice and the true believer in free will. He certainly gives everyone plenty of choices to make. But, his choices are demented: choosing one life at the expense of another or saving oneself by ruining someone else.

The Joker is not after money, fame or even control. He says he simply wants to "introduce a little anarchy," "upset the established order." But, in a twisted way, isn't this the triumph of free will - choice that has been unmoored from the safe docks of law and order and morality?

As it turns out, what the Joker offers is not freedom or even choice. The characters in the movie act most freely when they can get around the Joker and outwit his false "choices." But when they cannot, their actions become involuntary. They act out of compulsion, fear and necessity. Even the Joker seems to be driven by an unrelenting anarchical agenda from which he derives no pleasure or relief. He is a prisoner of his own design, or perhaps his own madness.

The Joker has brought to life Friedrich Nietzsche's dream and St. Paul's nightmare. Nietzsche, that notorious 19th-century German challenger of Christianity, declared that moral systems of good and evil, noble and ignoble, right and wrong, were nothing more than human constructions, social conveniences and silly customs. Rules of ethics are no more true or absolute or eternal than rules of etiquette. They are manmade and arbitrary, and for these reasons should be consigned to the flames.

According to Nietzsche, humankind must forge ahead, beyond good and evil: "What is strong wins. That is the universal law. To speak of right and wrong per se makes no sense at all. No act of violence, rape, exploitation, or destruction is intrinsically 'unjust,' since life is violent, rapacious, exploitative, and destructive and cannot be conceived otherwise."

Survival of the fittest. What is strong wins. But, the game is given away in the last line of this passage, "and cannot be conceived otherwise." Why not? Who says? Here we glimpse the rigid determinism and unquestionable dogmatism that lies just under the surface of Nietzsche's so-called liberation of the will. There is no place for any alternative to the unswerving law of nature. When Harvey "Two-Face" Dent becomes "liberated" and uninhibited, the result is monstrous. He looks and acts less than fully human, more like a rabid animal or a machine programmed for vengeance.

For Paul, the worst of all possible conditions is finding that "I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate" (Romans 7:15). These are exactly the kind of options the Joker (and Satan) supplies: the kind that we can only hate. Sin, selfish behavior and disobedience to the law are not Promethean feats of free will but signs of slavery. According to Paul, disobedience, rebellion, and sin do not liberate us to "do whatever we want," as we might suppose, but trap and imprison our wills. We become "slaves to sin" (Romans 6:17).

Freedom, according to Paul and the Christian tradition, is not something we naturally possess and exercise. It is not our right or ability. Rather, like life itself, freedom is a gift. "For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Romans 6:23). And a little further, "For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and death" (Romans 8:2).

True freedom is not being able to do whatever we want any more than it is a choice between two options. True freedom means finding out who we really are, what we were created to be, and who our true family is. It does not mean declaring independence from all things, severing all ties to kin and kith, breaking all rules, and striking out on one's own. It means being redeemed: identified in the pile, picked up, cleaned off and given a home. "But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God" (John 1:12).

The Dark Knight poses dilemmas of choice and free will well worth pondering. But, the distance between Gotham and Jerusalem is considerable. In the world of Batman, choice is always tainted, plagued, tragic and maybe even absurd. In the free country of Zion, by contrast, choice is gift, adoption, recognition and surprisingly even love.

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-- Adam English is assistant professor of theology and philosophy at Campbell University in Buies Creek, N.C. (englisha@campbell.edu)