Associated Baptist Press - 1/13/2009

Associated Baptist Press
January 13, 2009 · (09-6)

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

In this issue
Baptists, Muslims dialogue a step in right direction (977 words)
U.S. team's mission changes after Costa Rica earthquake (601 words)
Correction

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Baptists, Muslims say dialogue a step in right direction
By Bob Allen

NEWTON CENTER, Mass. (ABP) -- Several dozen Baptists and Muslims gathered Jan. 9-11 to repair a relationship better known for harsh anti-Islamic rhetoric by high-profile Baptist preachers than by dialogue or cooperation.

Stan Hastey, a Baptist member of the task force that planned the event, called it a "seminal but certainly promising" opportunity for improving a Baptist-Muslim dialogue marred by demonization of Islam in the post-9/11 United States.

He noted some of recent years' more combative pronouncements about Islam by prominent Baptists. They include a 2002 statement by former Southern Baptist Convention President Jerry Vines calling the Prophet Muhammad a "demon-possessed pedophile" and evangelist Franklin Graham's description of Islam as "an evil and wicked religion" in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

The event was held at the Islamic Center of Boston and Andover Newton Theological School in nearby Newton Center, Mass. Scholars from each tradition offered presentations on their own faith's holy book, doctrines and practices. Conversations centered around the theme of both traditions' emphasis on love of neighbor.

Participants said the interfaith gathering began with a Middle Eastern meal and fellowship Friday night at the Islamic center and ended with a Baptist-style worship service on Sunday morning.

The idea for the dialogue began in 2007, when Roy Medley, general secretary of American Baptist Churches USA, visited the Republic of Georgia and Lebanon. Baptist and Muslim leaders in both places implored him to seek to improve relations between the two faith groups in the United States.

Medley convened other Baptists, including Hastey, minister for missions and ecumenism for the Alliance of Baptists, to a preliminary meeting in 2007. It was held in conjunction with joint meetings of the ABC/USA and Cooperative Baptist Fellowship in Washington that summer.

Another participant in that meeting was Rob Sellers, a professor at Logson Seminary at Hardin-Simmons University, a Texas Baptist institution. Sellers, CBF's formal representative in the dialogue, said the organizers reached a consensus early on that any talks should focus on Baptist-Muslim relations rather than involvement in broader Christian-Muslim dialogue. They did that to "make the important point that there are other kinds of Baptists than those who get the headlines," Sellers said.

The Baptists found a willing partner in Sayyid Syeed, national interfaith director of the Islamic Society of North America.

Syeed said U.S. Muslims and Baptists share commonalities including commitment to separation of church and state and respect for religious tolerance, but "there are people on both sides who speak louder than others and demonize each others' religions and ensure the two stay apart."

"This can be addressed only if we create forums and situations that help the well-meaning Muslims and Baptists to come closer and recognize their passionate allies in each other," Syeed said in an e-mail interview. "We can jointly work to fight against injustice, poverty, death and disease rather than be ignorantly scared of each other and further contribute to injustice and tyranny around the globe."

Charles Kimball, director of the religious-studies program at the University of Oklahoma, told participants in the recent dialogue that Islam has presented Christians with unique challenges since the time of Muhammad.

He said recent events, starting with the 1979-81 Iranian hostage crisis and the rise of violent extremism in the name of Islam, have fed a popular image that Islam is inherently violent and dangerous. Often, he noted, Christian leaders have jumped on the Islam-is-violent bandwagon.

Kimball said a more appropriate Christian response to Muslims is education, dialogue and cooperation in community efforts.
Kimball said in many communities around the country, Jews, Christians and Muslims have come together to build Habitat for Humanity Houses and work on problems like public education, crime and prison reform. As the nation's second-largest faith group, Kimball said Baptists should be at the forefront of such efforts.

In another paper presented at the dialogue, Sellers cited traditions common to both Muslims and Baptists including championing religious liberty, meeting human needs, advocating for justice and educating the people.

Other Baptist groups represented in the talks included the Progressive National Baptist Convention and Lott Carey Foreign Mission Convention, both predominantly African-American Baptist bodies.

Cheryl Townsend Gilkes, professor of sociology and African-American studies at Colby College in Waterville, Maine, identified "seeds and connections" between Islam and the experiences of Baptist-derived slave communities in the South. Such connections led to the rise of African-American groups like the Nation of Islam.

She said those connections, such as an emphasis on prayer and other black Baptist commonalities with Islam less prominent in the white Baptist traditions, have an important role to play in cultivating and strengthening future Baptist and Muslim ties.

"We need to foster dialogue that allows us to see ourselves in the other, affirm what we share, and speak respectfully and gently about those things over which we must agree to disagree," Gilkes said.

Hastey said the entire event in Boston "was exemplary of how this kind of dialogue" could take place in the future. "I think it's important new ground that has potential of being significant," he said.

Sellers said next steps in the dialogue process are unclear, but both parties are committed to moving forward. "We've just had wonderful encounters with this group of Muslim leaders," he said. "It really is exciting. I think it's quite historic, and I hope it will be the beginning of a long relationship."

The event follows on the heels of a formal response from BWA leaders to a 2007 overture to Christians from a broad group of Islamic thinkers. Called "A Common Word Between Us and You," the Muslim scholars' document has inspired other responses from centrist and progressive evangelicals. Those responses, in turn have drawn some criticism from conservative evangelicals.

The BWA letter affirmed much of the Muslim initiative, while noting important theological differences like the Trinity that Baptists regard as non-negotiable.

Bob Allen is senior writer for Associated Baptist Press

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U.S. team's mission changes after Costa Rica earthquake
By Bob Allen

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (ABP) -- Ten mission volunteers in Costa Rica to provide safe drinking water and vision clinics turned to disaster relief when a 6.2-magnitude earthquake hit Jan. 9.

Nineteen people were confirmed dead and 23 missing as of Jan. 12 from the quake that hit near the Poas volcano, a popular tourist destination 25 miles from the Costa Rican capital of San Jose.

A PureWater PureLife team that was finishing the installation of a water system and conducting a vision clinic in Costa Rica at the time changed its itinerary after the temblor struck. Instead of moving to another part of the country, the volunteers from the non-profit faith-based organization EDGE Outreach in Louisville, Ky., decided to stay put and respond to needs of about 350 families cut off in the village of San Miguel de Sarapique.

The team refocused efforts on providing emergency relief for the next 10 days to an estimated 1,500 to 2,000 residents without food or safe water.

Mark Hogg, executive director of EDGE Outreach, said the town has no electric service or potable water. A factory that had employed 600 people collapsed.

Hogg said three miniature water-treatment plants will provide 1,200 gallons of pure water per hour, while a feeding operation will seek to serve at least one hot meal per person for 10 days. He said the operation will cost $35,000, and about $22,000 has been raised so far.

"It's really not a lot, when you think about 1,200 or 1,300 have water and food for a few days," he said. The water equipment will stay behind, allowing residents to produce clean drinking water for themselves long after the volunteers are gone.

"Our water work is all about empowerment," said Hogg, a business entrepreneur and former youth minister who started a non-profit charity in 1995 and has been doing water purification since 2001.

While people in developed countries take safe drinking water for granted, in developing countries 25,000 people die, on average, every day from water-borne diseases like cholera. Diarrhea is the world's second-leading cause of infant deaths. The World Heath Organization says 80 percent of all global illnesses can be attributed to unsafe water and inadequate sanitation.

Hogg said some mission groups travel long distances to drill a well but forget about purification, leaving residents at risk.

PureWater PureLife teams bring along a portable purifying machine that fits in a suitcase. The device uses table salt and electricity from a 12-volt battery to make chlorine, which kills water-borne bacteria. Volunteers are trained not only to set up the purifiers, but to repair United Nations wells needing service.

Shipments also include appropriate containers for the safe exchange of water. People exchange their old container for a new one that has been sanitized, reducing the risk of contamination from a dirty bucket or jar.

The team is ecumenical, with Protestant and Catholic members, but there are Baptist connections. Three members of the team hail from Kentucky Baptist congregations -- Crestwood Baptist Church and Phos Hilaron Church in Louisville, and Berea, Ky., Baptist Church. Each of those churches provided financial assistance, along with Crescent Hill Baptist Church in Louisville. Team members worshiped at Crescent Hill before embarking on the trip and were sent off with prayers and blessings from the congregation.

Hogg attended Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and belongs to a Baptist church. D.E. Adams, a musician popular at Baptist gatherings over the years, manages the organization's website and computer technology.

Links to the ministry appear on websites of both the Kentucky Baptist Convention and and Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention.

Bob Allen is senior writer for Associated Baptist Press.

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Correction:

An error in the fourth paragraph of the Jan. 12 ABP story, "Who founded the Baptist movement - John Smyth or John the Baptist?" incorrectly identified the location of Baptist Missionary Association Seminary as Jacksonville, Fla. The school is actually located in Jacksonville, Texas.