Associated Baptist Press - 10/30/2008

Associated Baptist Press
October 30, 2008 · (08-104)

David Wilkinson, Executive Director
Robert Marus, Acting Managing Editor/Washington Bureau Chief
Bob Allen, Senior Writer

In this issue
Religious Right appeals to fear as election nears (1,251 words)
Congo: New fighting creates latest humanitarian crisis (728 words)
Faculty, students, alumni want voice in Baylor presidential search (859 words)
Baptist criminal-justice advocate applauds Ga. stay of execution (597 words)

Religious Right appeals to fear as election nears
By Bob Allen (1,251 words)

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (ABP) -- Perfect love may cast out fear, but some Religious Right leaders seem intent on scaring the pants off of their followers as the Nov. 4 presidential election approaches.

With Republican nominee John McCain trailing in the polls, some conservative Christian leaders are warning their supporters of nightmare scenarios if Democrat Barack Obama wins.

The political-action arm of James Dobson's Focus on the Family ministry recently circulated an article written in the form of a letter from an imaginary Christian four years in the future. The "Letter from 2012 in Obama's America" attempts to create an image of what the United States might look like at the end of a President Obama's first term, assuming he wins.

The letter's author conjures a scenario that includes far-left liberals controlling the Supreme Court by a 6-3 majority, legalized gay marriage in all 50 states, a ban on preaching from the Bible on radio and television, taxpayer-funded abortion and, in some states, a ban on owning guns.

The letter does not claim to "predict" the imagined future events, but says each of them could happen and all are the "natural outcome" of legal and political trends embraced by the left.

The letter envisions liberal justices, after gaining dominance on the Supreme Court, immediately ruling that same-sex marriage is a constitutional right. Other scenarios include the demise of the Boy Scouts, who would choose to disband instead of obeying a Supreme Court ruling forcing them to accept gay scoutmasters; nationwide compulsory education on "gender identity" for first-grade students; requiring Christian adoption agencies to place children with gay couples; and forcing churches to perform same-sex marriages and to hire openly gay staff members.

In the letter's scenario, high schools would no longer be able to hold "See You at the Pole" prayer rallies, churches would be barred from meeting on public-school property, campus ministries would be shut down and the words "under God" would be stricken from the Pledge of Allegiance.

Doctors and nurses would be forced to perform abortions against their conscience. Home schooling would be curtailed. Pornography would be easily accessible on the airwaves. A "Fairness Doctrine" governing federally licensed broadcasters would require radio programs to provide equal time to opposing views, meaning that any social views expressed by conservative broadcasters like Dobson would be followed by immediate rebuttal from a liberal watchdog group.

The letter's imagined scenario for U.S. foreign policy turns even bleaker.

"Emboldened" by a premature U.S. withdrawal from Iraq, the writer says, al-Qaeda carries out terrorist attacks against in American cities. Following a pattern set when it sent troops into Georgian territory in 2008, Russia moves to occupy and retake satellite states of the former Soviet Union. Iran launches a nuclear attack on Israel, reducing it to a weaker country with an uncertain future.

The letter has prompted significant backlash from centrist and progressive Christians. Mara Vanderslice of the pro-Obama group Matthew 25 called it "blatant fearmongering in order to influence a political race."

"As Christians, we have been choosing hope over fear for 2,000 years," she said. "Our public witness should reflect our deepest hopes, not provoke unfounded fears."

Jim Wallis, of the Christian anti-poverty group Sojourners/Call to Renewal, said the letter "crosses all lines of decent public discourse."

In an Oct. 29 press release framed as a letter to Dobson, he continued: "In a time of utter political incivility, it shows the kind of negative Christian leadership that has become so embarrassing to so many of your fellow Christians in America. We are weary of this kind of Christian leadership, and that is why so many are forsaking the Religious Right in this election."

Wallis told Dobson the letter's fantasies "thoroughly" ignore "biblical teachings against slander" and "not only damage your credibility, they slander Barack Obama who, you should remember, is a brother in Christ, and they insult any Christian who might choose to vote for him."

Focus on the Family isn't the only conservative Christian outlet alarmed by the prospect of an Obama presidency. Editor Gerald Harris of the Georgia Baptist newspaper Christian Index envisioned "a new ideology" -- marked by a shifting moral compass and view that nothing is wrong except intolerance -- overtaking America.

"I don't know how much our nation will change before the presidential election in 2012, but I expect it to morph into something much different than what we have experienced in our history," Harris wrote. "The prevailing ideology that seems to be gaining new adherents each day will very likely become full-blown by then."

Harris said he can envision a day when sermons are censored, churches lose their tax-exempt status and Christians are ridiculed "if not outright persecuted" for their faith.

"Perhaps, the church will be sifted through persecution so that we will know who the genuine, authentic Christians really are," Harris wrote. "That may be a blessing in disguise, because Christianity has always flourished better in times of adversity than in times of prosperity."

John Pierce, editor of the moderate publication Baptists Today, found both Dobson's and Harris' appeals troubling.

"These are last-gasp efforts to scare gullible adherents who share a fear that the cultural dominance for conservative Christians could be lost," Pierce wrote in a blog entry. He said people who write such "nonsense" do so for one of two reasons: "Either they are being intentionally dishonest in order to persuade voters to their political side or they actually possess such irrational fears."

E-mail rumors have circulated for months alleging that Obama -- who was raised in an irreligious home but professed Christ two decades ago -- is secretly a Muslim or even the anti-Christ. But conservative Christian attacks on Obama and his supporters have intensified of late.

Janet Porter of the conservative activist group Faith2Action said in a column on the conservative WorldNetDaily website that a person cannot be a Christian and vote for Obama, because he is pro-choice on abortion and opposes a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage.

"To all those who name the name of Christ who plan to willfully disobey him by voting for Obama, take warning," she wrote. "Not only is our nation in grave danger, according to the word of God, so are you."

Porter said the election is not about the race or the economy, but rather "obeying God."

"Obama-Biden are pro-death. McCain-Palin are pro-life," she wrote, referencing the presidential candidates and their running mates. "Now choose life that you and your children may live."

Syndicated columnist Cal Thomas wrote a piece in June declaring Obama is "not a Christian" but rather a "false prophet" who denies central tenets of the faith.

Hal Lindsey, author of The Late Great Planet Earth, wrote in August that Obama would not be the anti-Christ, but the enthusiastic reception the candidate received on a recent international tour "provided a foretaste of the reception [the anti-Christ] can expect to receive."

"Everyone uses fear in the last part of a campaign, but evangelicals are especially theologically prone to those sorts of arguments," Clyde Wilcox, a Georgetown University political scientist, told the Associated Press. "There's a long tradition of predicting doom and gloom."

But evangelical author Margaret Feinberg told the AP that such attempts might backfire with younger voters. "Young evangelicals are tired -- like most people at this point in the election -- and rhetoric which is fear-based, strong-arms the listener and states opinion as fact will only polarize rather than further the informed, balanced discussion that younger voters are hungry for," she said.

-30-

-- Robert Marus contributed to this story.

Congo: New fighting creates latest humanitarian crisis
By Bob Allen (728 words)

NEW YORK (ABP) -- Escalating violence in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo is creating a "humanitarian crisis of catastrophic dimensions," the head of the United Nations said Oct. 29.

U.N. Secretary General Ban-Ki Moon called attention to the flare-up, which has followed several days in which tens of thousands of internally displaced Congolese have fled fighting in the North Kivu province. Government troops have battled ethnic Tutsi rebels led by Gen. Laurent Nkunda. Nkunda's forces routed the military and advanced to within miles of the provincial capital, Goma, before declaring a cease-fire to prevent panic in that city.

Several international relief agencies have suspended operations and are evacuating staff from the area until the situation stabilizes. Fighting has made it too dangerous to distribute food, prompting concern that an estimated 1 million people who have fled their homes since the most recent round of fighting began in August might be cut off from aid.

The situation only adds to Congo's suffering. Nearly 6 million people have died in a humanitarian crisis resulting from the nation's 1998-2003 civil war, mostly from hunger or disease and half of them children age 5 or younger. The war involved a scramble for control of the nation's rich resources, which include coltan, a mineral widely used in electronic devices like laptop computers, video-game consoles and cellular telephones.

Eastern Congo is home to the largest U.N. peacekeeping mission in the world. Recently, on top of fighting rebels, the U.N. troops have had to dodge rocks thrown by citizens frustrated that 17,000 soldiers have been unable to protect a remote and far-flung area populated by 8 million people.

The U.N. estimates that as many as 200,000 Congolese have been displaced by fighting in the last two months. An estimated 2 million people in the region have fled their homes since 2007.

Many of those who have fled are reportedly malnourished and in a state of fear and panic.

"Some of the people we spoke with said they were very hungry, had not eaten any food and did not know where they were going," said Michael Arunga, emergency-communications manager for the Christian relief organization World Vision. "Most said they had lost all their property, leaving it behind when fleeing from the fighting."

A British aid worker in Goma described a city in a state of "chaos" in a telephone interview with the BBC.

Laura Seay, a University of Texas Ph.D. candidate who studies the Congo and has lived there, said internally displaced persons don't always get all the protections afforded to refugees who cross international borders.

Camps for internal refugees are often overcrowded, with no permanent toilets or source of clean water, Seay, a Baptist, said. Once the rainy season starts, diseases like cholera and malaria spread quickly in the camps.

"My contacts in Goma say that this year's round of fighting has been particularly bad because it's made food distribution very difficult," Seay wrote in her blog, Texas in Africa.

"The violence coincided with the rise in food prices we're all experiencing, and rebel and army movements cut off the [U.N.] World Food Program's supply lines. Even hospitals in Goma weren't getting food rations for a few days earlier this month, nor was food going to the Mugunga camp, just outside the urban zone. If it's that bad in a city that is well-protected by peacekeepers, imagine what it's like in the countryside."

Nkunda, the rebel leader, claims he is protecting Congo's minority Tutsis from militias of Rwandan Hutus that have been present in the country since they carried out the anti-Tutsi genocide in neighboring Rwanda in 1994. He claims Congolese government forces are working with the militias. Suspicions are growing that Nkunda's latest offensive is supported by Rwanda.

Nkunda signed a peace agreement at the end of January, but says he won't disarm until the Rwandan Hutu remnant is removed from Congo. Congolese Pesident Joseph Kabila won't to talk to the rebel leader, whom he considers a terrorist.
On Oct. 29, World Vision called on all parties to cease hostilities and allow aid workers access to those in need.

"We will not abandon the critical needs in eastern Congo," said Omo Olupona, World Vision's southern Africa area director. "We expect to set up an operational base inside Rwanda, from where we will continue to monitor the crisis and support those in need of help."

-30-

Faculty, students, alumni want voice in Baylor presidential search
By Ken Camp (859 words)

WACO, Texas (ABP) -- Baylor University's faculty, alumni and students want a vote in choosing the school's next president, according to statements approved by representative bodies of each group.

The statements reflect continuing controversy over leadership at the Texas school, the world's largest Baptist institution of higher learning.

The Baylor Faculty Senate, the Baylor Alumni Association and Baylor Student Government each passed resolutions in recent weeks urging the school's board of regents to include faculty, staff, alumni, students and other constituencies as voting members of the presidential search committee.

The chair of the regents expressed his hope that the search committee would take seriously the suggestions of "the various members of the Baylor family," but he added the responsibility of choosing a president -- "and the method by which a president is selected" -- belongs to the board.

"It would be inappropriate for me to promise 'voting rights' to any party outside the Baylor board of regents," Regents Chair Howard Batson wrote in a statement to Faculty Senate Chair Georgia Green. However, he noted the board was "looking at best practices for presidential searches."

The regents are scheduled to meet prior to Baylor's Nov. 1 homecoming.

Baylor's Faculty Senate set the pace with a resolution adopted at its Sept. 9 meeting. The Baylor Alumni Association followed suit on Oct. 11, and Baylor Student Government approved a similar statement Oct. 23.

The resolutions indicate the degree of disunity that has plagued Baylor over the last five years.

Robert Sloan stepped down as Baylor's president in 2005. During the last two years of his presidency, the Faculty Senate twice gave him "no confidence" votes, and the regents voted three times on Sloan's continuing employment.

About nine months after Sloan and the regents agreed to the terms of his departure, the board unanimously elected John Lilley as president. Lilley had earned two degrees from Baylor, but he had been away from Texas 40 years. The board of regents fired him this July, halfway through his contract, for failing to "bring the Baylor family together."

In its recent resolution regarding the presidential search, the Faculty Senate commended the regents for their efforts "to unify the Baylor University community" by seeking input from faculty and other constituencies in naming David Garland as interim president and Elizabeth Davis as interim provost.

The alumni association resolution included a similar statement. The student resolution noted faculty and alumni were consulted regarding the interim provost and president positions, but Baylor Student Government did not have the opportunity to offer any input.

The Faculty Senate resolution also stated, "Baylor's standing in the larger academic community and its ability to raise institutional funds has been significantly hampered by transient leadership, perceptions of disunity and perceptions of non-standard procedures and searches."

When regents initiated the search that led to Lilley's hiring, they involved two groups -- a search committee made up entirely of regents and an advisory committee that included representatives from the school's various constituencies. Members of the advisory committee met with the search committee and participated in some candidate interviews, but did not have voting rights.

The Faculty Senate resolution urged the regents to follow the models of "America's best universities" where the presidential-search process is characterized by full faculty participation with voting rights, along with full the participation of students, staff and alumni.

Specifically, the Faculty Senate resolution called on the regents to form a search committee in which faculty representatives would serve with full voting rights and the balance between regents and faculty on the committee would reflect "best practices at other leading universities."

The resolution also called on regents to include, as voting members of the search committee, duly elected representatives of "Baylor's other constituent bodies," specifically mentioning not only the student body and alumni, but also the Baptist General Convention of Texas.

In their statements, the Baylor Alumni Association and Baylor Student Government voiced support for the Faculty Senate's resolution.

The alumni and student resolutions included calls for openness and transparency.

The Baylor Alumni Association statement noted a call in the most recent issue of the Baylor Line alumni publication "in favor of open communication and greater transparency of governance." Regent meetings are closed to the media and the public.

Batson, chairman of regents and pastor of First Baptist Church in Amarillo, Texas, issued a written statement in direct response to the Faculty Senate resolution.

"I am certainly grateful that the faculty recognizes the board of regents' attempts to reach out to them and take their input seriously. The goodwill between the faculty and the board is much better than I have experienced in many years," Batson said.

Citing the Southern Association of College and Schools accrediting agency, he noted "that the selection of the president properly resides with the board."
However, he noted the board was examining "best practices" for presidential searches.

"Of course, we will not be bound to any one model, but will consider both what Baylor has done in the past, as well as models from other universities," Batson said.

The board of regents "would like to continue to strengthen its relationship with all members of the Baylor family," he concluded.

-30-

Baptist criminal-justice activist applauds Ga. stay of execution
By Bob Allen (597 words)

ARLINGTON, Texas (ABP) -- An American Baptist minister who advocates criminal-justice reform hailed as a "miracle" the latest stay of execution for a black man convicted of murdering a white Georgia police officer nearly 20 years ago.

Alan Bean of the Arlington, Texas-based group Friends of Justice was one of about 600 death-penalty protestors who demonstrated on the steps of the Georgia State Capitol on the eve of the most recent scheduled date for execution of Troy Davis.

The provisional stay was issued Sept. 24 by the Atlanta-based 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. It was the third such stay for Davis, 40. His lawyers were given 15 days to file documents, after which the court will have 10 days to decide if the case should go back to a lower court, which could order a new trial.

Bean, best known for bringing attention to alleged racial injustice related to incidents at a Jena, La., high school in 2006, said the stay of execution was not expected. Davis has lost several appeals based on claims he is an innocent man.

Several public meetings and rallies were held in recent weeks around Atlanta demanding a new trial for Davis. One included about 1,000 people, who marched from a local park to Ebenezer Baptist Church, the historic congregation once co-pastored by Martin Luther King Jr. and Sr.

About 140,000 people signed a petition to halt Davis' execution by lethal injection. Pleas for commutation of his sentence came from former President Jimmy Carter, former Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa and Pope Benedict XVI. Other supporters include entertainer Harry Belafonte and Sister Helen Prejean, the nun whose anti-death penalty activism inspired the film Dead Man Walking.

Davis has spent 17 years on death row for the Aug. 19, 1989 murder of Mark Allen MacPhail, a 27-year-old police officer in Savannah.

People close to Davis say he was wrongly convicted. There was no physical evidence linking him to the crime, and a murder weapon was never found. The case against him was solely based on witness testimony implicating him, and seven of the nine witnesses against him have since recanted.

Bean said he doesn't know if Davis is guilty or innocent -- which, he contends, is precisely why there needs to be a new trial. What is clear from reading court documents, Bean said in a recent blog, is that "law enforcement shaped testimony through threats and promises."

"Police officers, outraged by the savage and merciless slaying of one of their own, rushed to judgment [and] then shaped the 'evidence' to support a hastily-reached conclusion," he wrote.

Bean said the issue for him is not about Troy Davis or even just the death penalty. "Ultimately, this new movement is about our broken criminal-justice system and the urgent need for sweeping reform."

Friends of Justice started in 1999 in response to a drug sting in Tulia, Texas, in which half of the town's black males were arrested and convicted on the uncorroborated testimony of an undercover narcotics officer. The group advocates greater due-process protections for poor people of color, who populate the criminal-justice system in numbers disproportionate to their percentage of the population.

Bean labels that disparity the "New Jim Crow" and compares modern-day justice reform to the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s. He said the Georgia rally on behalf of Davis "felt like the early stages of a religious revival."

"If you are the praying kind, please continue to pray for Troy Davis and for the nation that isn't sure what to do with him," Bean wrote.

-30-