Associated Baptist Press
December 11, 2008 · (08-122)
David Wilkinson, Executive Director
Robert Marus, Acting Managing Editor/Washington Bureau Chief
Bob Allen, Senior Writer
In this issue
Ky. church, in Advent tradition, remembers homicide victims (296 words)
Indianapolis woman, church help ease pain of HIV/AIDS (674 words)
Anti-gay church's Santa protest latest part of Washington holiday 'circus' (518 words)
Kentucky Baptist paper names editor (366 words)
Opinion: Lessons learned from the Iraq war (773 words)
Ky. church, in Advent tradition, remembers homicide victims
By Bob Allen
LOUISVILLE, Ky. (ABP) -- Sixty-five crosses dot the front lawn of Highland Baptist Church in Louisville, Ky., one for each person in the city killed in an act of violence so far this year. Each year the church closes its worship service on the second Sunday of Advent -- which features lighting of the Peace Candle -- by moving outdoors. As names of murder victims are read, families come forward, take a cross and drive it into the ground with a mallet.
The observance began in 1997, Joe Phelps' first year as pastor, to draw attention to a spike in murders in the metropolitan area. It was intended to be a one-time event, but response was so strong it was repeated in 1998 and every year since.
Now, Phelps said, many people in the community know Highland as "that church that puts up crosses at Christmastime." Phelps said placing the crosses on the lawn, reading the names, taking home names of people and families to pray for during Advent, has become a significant event on the congregation's church calendar.
"This annual event is a sobering dose of Advent reality in the midst of the frivolity of the larger community's Christmas preparations," Phelps said. "It is a reminder that the work of Christmas is not done, that we long for the day when God's wholeness will cover the earth, when lion and lamb will lie down together."
Phelps said the crosses are not intended to imply that each murder victim is a Christian, but "that God identifies with the pain and brokenness in every life lost."
"It is a testament to the hope that God is not done," he said.
Homicides in Louisville are down this year, despite seven apparently unrelated slayings during the week of Thanksgiving.
Bob Allen is senior writer for Associated Baptist Press.
Indianapolis woman, church help ease pain of HIV/AIDS
By Charlotte Tubbs
INDIANAPOLIS (ABP) - The birthday celebrations that Karen Estle throws each month at an Indianapolis apartment building for people living with HIV/AIDS stick to the basics - a cake, sometimes pie, ice cream, soda and a card and gift bought from a local dollar store.
For many residents, the celebration is the only recognition of their birthday.
Some residents attend the birthday parties because they are regular members of the weekly HIV/AIDS support group that Estle leads. Others come to satisfy an empty stomach.
"I make it clear that everyone is welcome," said Estle, a member of Speedway Baptist Church in Indianapolis. "When a resident objects that someone only comes for cake, I explain it is not up to me to judge."
Estle, a certified pastoral counselor with an endorsement through the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, is the spiritual advisor with the palliative-care team at Wishard Health Services in Indianapolis.
During the 13 years that Estle has led the HIV/AIDS support group, residents have shared how others have abandoned or rejected them because of their HIV status. But the residents' expressions -- hardened by years of anger and fear -- begin to soften when Estle shares her own story of rejection.
Estle, who survived polio as a child, shares how some people were afraid to touch her when she had the dreaded disease of her day. Once, she was in her front yard when a man arrived to deliver some important papers to her parents. Rather than delivering the documents to the door and risking contact with someone who had polio, he instead tossed them into the yard.
"It amazes me how this story still calms down an angry new resident today as they realize I understand," Estle said. "I model Christ's unconditional love by touching, listening or being present. It creates an atmosphere in which topics and questions can be raised, discussed and wondered about. Over time, trust develops and healing comes."
The support group gives participants emotional and spiritual support as well as practical help with daily living. Residents have learned how to use the bus, where to buy groceries, how to access social services and how to deal with the side effects of medications, she said.
Estle has seen members of the group transformed by Christ's love. One man recently told Estle that he had let go of his anger and gave her a note asking her to keep spreading the "light." Other residents ask Estle to buy a gift for a hospital patient in place of a birthday gift for themselves.
Members of Speedway Baptist have joined Estle in her ministry at the apartment complex. The church, a CBF partner, covers the costs for the monthly birthday celebrations. One of the women's Bible study classes at Speedway provides meals for the residents four to five times a year. The women, who range in age from 50 to 90, eat with the residents and often play board games.
"I believe each of the women have helped residents heal from broken family relationships," Estle said. "The new residents are always surprised to find women who are like mothers and grandmas who are coming to feed and nurture them."
One of the women, Joyce Finch, lost her son to AIDS in 1992. She seldom mentioned his death and the disease that caused it at the time "because it was not a thing that was talked about," she said.
Finch's friendships with the residents have helped her heal from her son's loss, she said. Her first-hand experience with the challenges her son faced while living with AIDS now helps her relate to the residents.
"It takes a really courageous person to live with the physical effects of the disease and the social stigma attached to it," Finch said. "They need all of the encouragement and help that they can receive because it isn't an easy way to live. They need to be accepted as they are."
Finch said she follows the example set by Christ.
"Jesus was inclusive," she said. "He didn't turn his back on anyone."
Charlotte Tubbs is a writer for CBF.
Anti-gay church's Santa protest latest part of Washington holiday 'circus'
By Bob Allen
TOPEKA, Kan. (ABP) -- They've picketed high schools, military funerals and even the Southern Baptist Convention with their controversial message that God hates homosexuals. Now members of Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kan., have chosen a new target -- Santa Claus.
The headline-making congregation -- most of whom are related to Pastor Fred Phelps -- has weighed in on an ongoing controversy over religious displays at the Washington state Capitol by requesting permission to put up a sign that reads, "Santa Claus Will Take You to Hell."
Olympia, Wash., became an early battleground this year in what has been labeled the "Christmas wars." The Freedom From Religion Foundation received permission to display a Winter Solstice display on the front lawn of the Washington Legislature's office building, near a Christian Nativity scene erected by a private citizen. The atheist sign reads: "At this season of the Winter Solstice, may reason prevail. There are no gods, no devils, no angels, no heaven or hell. There is only our natural world. Religion is but myth and superstition that hardens hearts and enslaves minds."
The back of the sign reads: "State/Church: Keep Them Separate."
"Our sign is a reminder of the real reason for the season, the Winter Solstice," said Annie Laurie Gaylor, co-president of the Wisconsin-based foundation. Gaylor said Christians "really stole Christmas" from observances of the Solstice, which originally marked the shortest day of the year and celebrated the return of the sun and the new year.
About 500 people gathered Dec. 7 on the Washington Capitol steps to protest the Solstice sign. The sign was stolen but later found in a ditch.
Phelps wrote a letter to Washington Gov. Christine Gregoire (D) requesting permission to place another sign at what he said is a public forum that has been made available to multiple religious viewpoints.
The 3-by-5 foot placard carries a message, which can also be sung to the tune "Santa Claus is Coming to Town," that says Santa is a lie and to blame for the economy and the war.
"He is your favorite idol, you worship at his feet," one verse proclaims. "But when you stand before your God, he won't help you take the heat."
Phelps said the sign reflects "sincerely held religious beliefs" and a viewpoint "well-grounded in Scripture."
Phelps isn't the only person trying to get into the Washington State Capitol act. According to the Spokane Spokesman-Review, another Kansas group, the KC Free Thinkers, wants permission to put up a display celebrating a tongue-in-cheek deity named the Flying Spaghetti Monster. Meanwhile, an Olympia man wants to erect a pole celebrating Festivus, a holiday whose invention was part of the plot in a famous episode of the 1990s TV comedy "Seinfeld."
Yet another display request is from a Christian woman who wants to send a conciliatory message to the atheist community in an effort to ease tensions.
"It's a circus and we're center ring," state Sen. Pam Roach told the Seattle Times. Roach wants the atheist sign moved farther from the Nativity scene and for the governor to establish stricter guidelines for future holiday displays.
Bob Allen is senior writer for Associated Baptist Press.
Kentucky Baptist paper names editor
By ABP staff
LOUISVILLE, Ky. (ABP) -- Kentucky Baptists have tapped veteran denominational journalist Todd Deaton to become the next editor of their historic newspaper, the Western Recorder.
Deaton, 45, has been managing editor of the Baptist Courier, newspaper of the South Carolina Baptist Convention, since 1996. Before that he was associate editor for the Biblical Recorder in North Carolina.
"Todd Deaton meets and exceeds all of our requirements that we set," Skip Alexander, chairman of an editor search committee told the Kentucky Baptist Mission Board. "We believe he is right for Kentucky Baptists."
Alexander, pastor of Campbellsville, Ky., Baptist Church, introduced Deaton as "a bridge-builder and an encourager."
Deaton pledged to "support wholeheartedly" ministries of the state convention carried out through the Cooperative Program, a unified budget that supports both the Southern Baptist Convention and affiliated state bodies.
He said he "would reflect traditional, conservative Southern Baptist" views on social issues like same-sex marriage, gambling and embryonic stem-cell research. He said he looks forward to showcasing Baptist work across the state.
"I would like to make Kentucky Baptists the main story," he said. "My personal belief is that the state Baptist paper is your paper."
His election marks Deaton's return to the news journal affiliated with the Kentucky Baptist Convention. He worked three years as an intern for the newspaper while attending Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky., in the 1980s.
Founded in 1826, the Western Recorder is the second-oldest Baptist newspaper in the nation. Only Georgia's Christian Index, which is four years older, predates it. The Western portion of the journal's name owes to the fact that, when the paper was founded, Kentucky was part of America's western frontier.
Today the Kentucky Baptist Convention claims 2,400 affiliated churches and a variety of ministry institutions.
Deaton replaces Trennis Henderson, who resigned last March after eight years as editor to become vice president of communications at Ouachita Baptist University in Arkadelphia, Ark.
A graduate of Furman University in Greenville, S.C., Deaton holds a master of divinity degree from Southern Seminary and expects to complete a doctor of education degree from Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, N.C., in May.
He expects to assume his new role in mid-January.
Opinion: Lessons learned from the Iraq war
By David Gushee
(ABP) -- For President-elect Barack Obama, the agreement reached between the Bush Administration and the Iraqi government that sets a December 2011 exit date for American combat troops is a great Christmas gift. Indeed, the fact that this deal was being negotiated during the campaign helped Obama even before the election.
So now the basic policy issue has been settled. The United States will not remain in Iraq indefinitely. Our troop numbers will reduce gradually and, eventually, most troops will leave. The details of the draw-down, of any continuing U.S. military presence, and of how the United States will conduct itself in Iraq, will be the subject of negotiation between the governments of two sovereign states -- rather than of an imperial power dictating terms to a supine nation.
Even opponents of the war, as I have been, are obligated to note the progress of recent months and the more positive outlook for the Iraqi future than was imaginable even a year ago. The good news includes:
-- The existence of a central Iraqi government with a clear leader, the capacity to negotiate an agreement with the United States on pretty tough terms, debate that agreement in parliament, and gain passage of the deal with a very substantial majority across all ethnic groups;
-- The relative decline in terror attacks and loss of life;
-- Tentative signs of a return to relative normality, including the opening of schools, rebuilding of communities, return of displaced people, and restoration of government services.
These achievements testify both to vast improvements in U.S. military and diplomatic strategy, and to the maturation of the young Iraqi democracy and its leaders. Surely great credit also must go to the Iraqi people themselves, who stared into the abyss of civil war and mass slaughter just a few years ago and have turned away from that path, at least for now. Those who suggested that Iraq would collapse into total chaos or break up into three mini-states have proven too pessimistic -- although there was certainly reason, at the time, to fear such a turn of events.
These positive developments came too late, after too many mistakes, and at too great a cost, for President Bush to gain much political benefit. He gambled his presidency on the war in Iraq, and -- at least in real time -- he lost his wager. It will be left to history to judge whether the president will gain more credit or blame for this war. If Iraq settles into a relatively tolerant Islamic democracy, with a free press, fair elections, and an independent and just judiciary, the improvement over Saddam Hussein's "republic of fear" will be hard to gainsay.
But, even if the best occurs, this kind of war of choice is unlikely ever to be repeated by the United States.
We have lost over 4,000 soldiers; ten times more than that have been seriously injured. We have spent over $600 billion, and the costs will stay with us for decades, for example, in terms of medical care for our wounded veterans. We have overextended our military, and our budget, and will be paying in subtle and direct ways for this under-resourced war for a long time to come. We have damaged relationships with our allies and worsened perceptions of our nation in the Arab world. Post-Iraq, we are a crippled giant, staggering economically and weakening militarily. Our power is waning relative to China and to other nations that steward their resources, influence, and power more carefully than we do.
It is possible both to recognize the positive signs of recent days in Iraq and conclude that for our own nation, at least, the costs of this war outweighed the benefits.
I think that there can be a convergence between Christian ethics and national well-being here. Christian ethics operates with a bias against war due to the teachings of Jesus Christ and sensitivity to the atrocious costs of war for human beings made in God's image. Whether we embrace pacifism or just-war theory, Christians should bear witness to God's will for the just and peaceful resolution of global conflicts. Meanwhile, it is in the best interests of our own nation to find ways to do exactly the same thing.
Good questions to ask from this point forward include the following: If military action were not an option in this situation, what other options might we pursue? What creative peacemaking strategies could achieve our objectives? It seems sometimes that both as Christians, and as Americans, we have forgotten how to ask such questions. Now is the time to remember them. We really have no choice.
David Gushee is distinguished university professor of Christian ethics at Mercer University.
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