Associated Baptist Press - 1/26/2009

Associated Baptist Press
January 26, 2009 · (09-11)

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

In this issue
Website seeks to rally support for women's ordination (938 words)
Baptist foundation loses money in Madoff scandal (567 words)
Prominent Dallas pastor accepts BGCT post (288 words)
Birmingham site of first of four regional new Baptist Covenant meetings (951 words)
Opinion: Wrestling with God's word (1,063 words)

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Website seeks to rally support for women's ordination
By Bob Allen

CONROE, Texas (ABP) -- A former Baptist General Convention of Texas employee and her husband of 47 years have started a website urging Baptist women to speak up for their rights to be ordained as deacons and senior pastors.

Shirley and Don Taylor launched a Baptist Women for Equality (bWe) website and open letter calling on Baptist women to question church bylaws that limit certain leadership roles to men.

"The action must come from women themselves," Shirley Taylor said in an email interview. "The men have been supportive, but women have not stepped up and claimed their equality."

Taylor said men she worked for at the BGCT were very supportive of women -- though her website is not associated with the state convention -- but there is no church in her association that has a woman deacon.

She said that is partly due to what she believes is faulty teaching about submission, but more so because no one challenges church bylaws that limit the offices of pastor and deacon to men.

Taylor, a grandmother of three, said she attended Baptist churches for many years without worrying about women's equality, until the Southern Baptist Convention changed the Baptist Faith & Message in 1998 and again in 2000 with views she found demeaning to women. Taylor said the SBC, America's second-largest faith group behind Roman Catholics, has "consistently shown a mean spirit toward women."

Taylor started talking to Baptist men and women and found that many -- including pastors -- are ready for women deacons. They know church bylaws excluding women deacons can be changed, but often treat them as if they are sacred documents and would never think of challenging them.

While visiting a large Texas church in October, Taylor coined a phrase describing such bylaws as "the cold heart of the church." It came to her as she sang along with a choir of 35 women and 15 men singing praises to God, and it dawned on her that no matter how much those women loved God, the church they served had bylaws that prevented them from serving as deacons.

She said parents who take their daughters to a church that does not recognize women deacons and pastors tell them they are scripturally inferior to boys every time they attend.

"Every time my church observes the Lord's Supper, and I see only men going forward to serve the bread and juice, I would look at the young girls and wonder how long it would be before they realized that their church was willing to send them off to a foreign land to serve as a missionary but would not allow them to serve the congregation at home," she said.

"We expect that these girls will become Sunday school teachers and Bible school teachers someday and will lead children to Christ. But we will not allow them to serve that child they lead to the Lord a piece of bread or cup of juice."

Taylor said churches have too long "bullied" women with selected Bible verses written by the Apostle Paul. First Timothy 3, for example, often quoted as limiting pastoral roles to men, she says was written in a time where women were considered the property of men, had little education and could not publicly speak to men who were not part of their family.

Women today take their equal rights for granted in everyday life, she said, but "foolishly" give them up in church because of a misinterpretation of Paul's words.

Taylor said for a long time she sympathized with people who said it was one thing for a church to have women deacons, but they were unsure about having a female as pastor, because it wasn't something they were used to.

That changed for her when she studied Acts 10:14-15, where Peter protests he would never eat "impure" non-kosher food and a voice replies, "Do not call anything impure that God has made clean." If the blood of Jesus could make a pig clean, she reasoned, surely it could reverse the curse of Eve on women.

Taylor calls on women to be proactive by talking to other women and their families, friends, fellow church members and pastors. She encourages women to forward her open letter to others, and email her to join the cause.

Taylor acknowledged she has met resistance -- from some people who fear men will stop coming to a church if women are in charge and and others who spout Bible verses demanding the subordination of women -- but she is undeterred.

"I believe that when people start talking that attitudes will change," Taylor said. "If I have changed my attitude (and I have), then what is keeping the other women sitting in their pews from coming to the same conclusion?"

Taylor said women in Baptist churches are already doing many things that a deacon does, but without the title. She said churches pick what they want to believe, allowing women equal voice in church business matters, sending them to preach as missionaries and granting them any role in church leadership except one or two.

Taylor said her husband is very supportive of the effort, spending hours faxing an abbreviated version of the open letter to churches and LifeWay Christian Stores. Together they have contacted more than 1,000 churches with their message.

"Women are tired of being bullied by men in Baptist churches with selected quotes from Apostle Paul," she wrote in the open letter. "Since we allow women to be the voice to our children to bring them to salvation, how can we deny them any position God calls them to fill?"

Bob Allen is senior writer for Associated Baptist Press.

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Baptist foundation loses money in Madoff scandal

OKLAHOMA CITY (ABP) -- At least one Baptist group lost money as part of Bernard Madoff's alleged $50 billion Ponzi scheme. The Baptist Foundation of Oklahoma said it lost $1.4 million, less than 1 percent of its assets, when third-party money managers invested in two of Madoff's allegedly fraudulent hedge funds.

Madoff, former NASDAQ chairman and founder of Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC, was arrested in December for allegedly swindling a number of high-profile Jewish charities and celebrities including Kevin Bacon, Larry King and Zsa Zsa Gabor.

Robert Kellogg, president and CEF of the Baptist Foundation of Oklahoma, said his organization, which manages investment funds for Southern Baptist ministries, did not make any direct investments with Madoff, but learned in mid-December from its investment consultant that one of its managers gave the foundation "nominal exposure" to allegedly fraudulent management by Madoff.

Kellogg said total losses amounted to about $1.4 million out of a total of $234 million in assents managed by the foundation.

"To become a victim of fraud, despite our best efforts, is frustrating and disappointing," Kellogg said. "While we are thankful the loss represents less than 1 percent of our assets under management, it's still a letdown whether it's $1 or $1 million."

Kellogg said the Foundation remains fiscally strong and at the end of this month will distribute for the second consecutive year $10 million to more than 300 charitable organizations.

Oklahoma Baptist University, the foundation's largest client, lost about $600,000 of its endowment holdings. University officials said the loss would not have a significant impact on the school's operating budget.

"While we certainly were saddened by the scam, it is a very small part of the overall investments of the University," said Randy Smith, OBU senior vice president for business affairs. "The loss does not weaken our overall financial stability."

Madoff is accused of defrauding investors by selling them investments not paid back by legitimate stock gains but with money from new investors. The alleged crime is named after Charles Ponzi, who invented the pyramid scheme in 1920.

Like many Ponzi schemes, Madoff is accused of an affinity fraud, which preys on victims of identifiable groups such as ethnic or religious communities. The Madoff scandal targeted high-profile Jewish charities, including the American Jewish Congress, Elie Weisel's Foundation for Humanity and a charity started by filmmaker Steven Spielberg.

A smaller-but-similar scandal hit Baptists in the 1990s, when 11,000 investors in the Baptist Foundation of Arizona fell victim to a $550 million Ponzi scheme.

The BFA began marketing individual funds, often in churches, telling prospective investors their funds would be safe, yield high returns and help strengthen Southern Baptists in the state. Foundation officials invested aggressively in Arizona's hot real-estate market, which eventually cooled.

Whistle-blowers went to the media, prompting investigation by state officials, who forced the foundation to stop selling securities in 1999. The foundation filed for bankruptcy, listing assets of $220 million and liabilities of $640 million.

Investors eventually recovered a portion of their money through sale of assets and legal settlements, including $217 million from Arthur Andersen, the now-defunct accounting firm later involved in the Enron scandal. Several BFA officials went to prison.

Kellogg said the Oklahoma Baptist foundation would take the occasion to review "due diligence efforts" for investing but lamented that it is difficult and sometimes impossible to "detect and prevent fraud committed by a deliberate and determined mind."

Bob Allen is senior writer for Associated Baptist Press.

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Prominent Dallas pastor accepts BGCT post

DALLAS (ABP) -- Jim Denison has resigned as senior teaching pastor at Park Cities Baptist Church in Dallas to become founding president of the Center for Informed Faith and theologian-in-residence with the Baptist General Convention of Texas.

The new Center or Informed Faith is an independently financed ministry -- funded by anonymous donors -- that will have offices at the Baptist Building in Dallas.

As BGCT theologian-in-residence, Denison will provide theological resources for Texas Baptists through church conferences and seminars, Internet resources, BaptistWay Press publications and annual meeting workshops. He also will be available for pulpit supply and interim pastorates.

"This center is an exciting new venture," said BGCT Executive Director Randel Everett. "It reflects an innovative approach to serving the needs of our churches in Texas while also being involved in ministry beyond the state. We pray that this will be a kingdom thing."

Jeff Byrd will be director of the Center for Informed Faith. Byrd has resigned as associate pastor for missions at Park Cities Baptist.

"The mission of the center is to equip the church to reach the world," Denison said. "The center will promote cultural engagement, spiritual renewal and practical discipleship. ... It will speak to current events from a Christian perspective."

The center will work with a number of partners in doing ministry, including the BGCT, Dallas Baptist University, B.H. Carroll Theological Institute, Global Media Outreach, East-West Ministries International, the American Tract Society and others, Denison said.

Denison has been pastor of Park Cities Baptist since June 1998. Park Cities is one of the largest congregations in Dallas and one of the BGCT's strongest supporters. Denison also has a ministry to more than 12,000 people through his daily e-mail called "God Issues Today."

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Birmingham site of first of four regional New Baptist Covenant meetings
By Bob Allen

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (ABP) -- Planners of a Jan. 31 gathering of diverse Baptist groups hope a national mood set by the election of America's first African-American president will spill over into renewed relationships between black and white Baptists.

"We are very excited in this time of a new atmosphere in the entire country to do some work to bring together a larger sense of the Baptist family," said Gary Furr, co-chairman of a steering committee planning the first of a series of regional gatherings of an interracial network known as the New Baptist Covenant.

Former President Jimmy Carter, who spearheaded the movement that prompted some 15,000 Baptists from 30 organizations representing 20 million Baptists across North America to attend a national meeting a year ago in Atlanta, is keynote speaker for the first of four regional repeats of the gathering scheduled for 2009.

It will be held in Birmingham, Ala. -- significant for its role in the Civil Rights Movement.

Sessions for the first event are scheduled at four sites: 16th Street Baptist Church, the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute and St. Paul's United Methodist Church, all within walking distance of each other in the downtown part of the city.

The historically black 16th Street Church is a particularly symbolic location, because it is where one of the most shocking incidents of the African-American struggle for civil rights took place. On Sept. 15, 1963, at the end of a tumultuous summer of anti-segregation protests in Birmingham, a bomb set by segregationists exploded at the church. It killed four young girls attending Sunday School.

Joining Carter on the program are Marian Wright Edelman, founder and president of the Children's Defense Fund, and Robert Smith, associate professor of divinity at Samford University's Beeson Divinity School.

Small groups will focus on special interests including health care, poverty and race.

"I am proud to be a part of the New Baptist Covenant initiative," said Arthur Price, pastor of 16th Street Baptist Church and the planning team's other co-chair. "If ever there is a time when God's people must come together and be on one accord to make an impact in our churches and the culture around us for Christ, it is now."

Furr -- the white pastor of suburban Vestavia Hills Baptist Church -- said he and Price, who is black, have been developing a friendship for several years and have done a number of things together, so planning the meeting together was a natural thing.

Particularly with regard to the helping the poor, Furr said he hopes the event will drive home the message that "we need one another and we need to help one another."

"Our hopes for this event are, first of all, it will be a time of inspiration, worship and challenge to all of us to build community and to forge new relationships with one another and pledge to cooperate with one another more fully," Furr said. "Our greatest hope is that people go home with a new set of relationships."

Jimmy Allen, a past president of the Southern Baptist Convention and coordinator for the national New Baptist Covenant celebration, said other regional gatherings are scheduled April 2-4 in Kansas City, Mo.; April 23-24 in Winston-Salem, N.C., and Aug. 6-7 in Norman, Okla. A fifth regional gathering is being planned in Chicago, with a tentative date in June 2010, and a triennial national gathering is planned for 2011.

A Baptist theological student network formed out of the New Baptist Covenant has also set meetings for March 26-28 at Mercer University in Georgia.

Allen said each regional gathering is planned by a local steering committee, and he serves as a volunteer coordinator to help with scheduling and other matters when asked. "Each of the meetings comes out of a grass-roots response to the national meeting and the aftermath of it," he said.

Planning for the New Baptist Covenant goes back to April 10, 2006, when Carter, a prominent Baptist layman, and Mercer University President Bill Underwood convened 18 Baptist leaders for a meeting at the Carter Center in Atlanta. Out of that meeting came a document called A North American Baptist Covenant pledging to:

-- "Create an authentic and prophetic Baptist voice for these complex times;

-- "Emphasize traditional Baptist values, including sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ and its implications for public and private morality; and,

-- "Promote peace with justice, feed the hungry, clothe the naked, shelter the homeless, care for the sick and marginalized, welcome the strangers among us, and promote religious liberty and respect for religious diversity."

A follow-up meeting of 80 representatives of more than 30 Baptist organizations held Jan. 9, 2007, firmed up plans for a national gathering Jan. 30 -- Feb. 1, 2008, organized around a theme based on Luke 4:18-19, in which Jesus reads from the Old Testament book of Isaiah: "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim the release of the captives, and the recovering of sight of the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord."

At the meeting last year, Carter described the New Baptist Covenant as "the most momentous event of my religious life."

The stated purpose for the regional gatherings is to "unite Baptists from our various conventions, fellowships and organizations to celebrate, exhort, network and encourage one another in fulfilling the obligations of our new Baptist Covenant."

"We are very excited about the possibility of a full crowd coming for this, and that President Carter is coming," Furr said of the Birmingham gathering. "We're looking forward to a wonderful time."

Bob Allen is senior writer for Associated Baptist Press.

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Opinion: Wrestling with God's word
By Miguel De La Torre

(ABP) -- Since converting to Christianity in my early 20s, I have found the biblical text to be a crucial part of my spiritual formation. I look to the Scriptures for truths and wisdom upon which to base my life.

In times of trouble, I have found comfort and guidance in the pages of my worn-out Bible. But to say that the Bible is crucial to my intellectual development does not become an excuse to stop thinking -- to blindly accept what others tell me the Bible says.

If we are, according to Jesus, to love the Lord our God with all of our mind, then I am to use my mind to better grasp the divine mystery. For those of us who take our faith seriously, we must leave behind the ignorant bliss of claiming to be among the people of the Book yet bother not to actually read its pages.

Those who call themselves Christians but neither study nor know the biblical text, except for some Sunday school stories they vaguely remember when they were children, usually fall prey to religious demagogues who do the textual interpretation for them in such a way that it advances the self-proclaimed religious leader's power and privilege.

And here is the danger of allowing others to dictate to you what the Bible says.

According to Jesus, on the Day of Judgment, many will come to him: "Lord, Lord, did we not cast out demons in your name, did we not establish multi-million dollar radio empires in your name? Did we not organize colossal stadium-filled televangelical spectacles in your name?"

And truly Jesus will look at them and say "Get away from me you wicked people, for I never knew you!"

Not to love the Lord our God with all of our mind is to endanger our very salvation as we allow the religious self-proclaimed leaders to fuse and confuse a neoconservative or liberal political agenda with the Word of God. We are called to honestly struggle with the biblical text to prevent taking the wide and easy road that leads to perdition.

But a word of warning for those who choose to wrestle with the text, you may end up, like Jacob, walking away with a limp. At times, to read the Bible creates more questions, more doubts, and more frustrations. But I believe that this type of biblical wrestling is what leads to the steep and narrow road upon which few traverse.

Much within the biblical text causes me to have restless nights. Allow me to share just one of the terrifying texts, which I can neither explain nor comprehend.

When Joshua led God's chosen people into the land of Canaan, he found other people living there. How do you claim a land when it is already occupied?

According to the text, after conquering the first town (Jericho) they followed God's direction and put everything to death -- men and women; young and old; ox, sheep, and donkey. Everything was put to death without mercy.

Let's dwell on this for a moment. God has you invade another people's land and kill everything -- not just the soldier-combatants, but the civilians.

The spears of God's people are thrust through babies. The swords of God's people lop off the heads of children. Pregnant women are killed. Families are decimated before each other's eyes. A gory bloodbath takes place that has more in common with some diabolical scene from the depths of Hell than the glories of Heaven.

Think of the Nazi concentration camps. Today we would call "God's command" ethnic cleansing, war crime, genocide and crimes against humanity.

Is the God of love, peace and redemption truly the author of ethnic cleansing? Did God actually command total annihilation? Is the God of life for some the God of death for others?

This call to a bloodbath is not restricted to the Book of Joshua. It is interesting to read the sermons of preachers in North America when the land was being colonized by the Europeans. The indigenous people were usually referred to as the Canaanites, thus prophesying their own genocide so that the invaders could steal their land under some biblical justification.

If I am honest with myself, the Book of Joshua depicts a non-biblical God.

But the Canaanites worshipped false gods and did despicable things before the eyes of God, some may reply in defense of God -- as if God needs defending. Such unexamined retorts undermine the very purpose of the biblical text, which is to force us to think and ponder that which makes us spiritually uncomfortable.

But, for argument sake, let's say that this is true. What then are the biblical implications? Do we have a right to kill everything that does not recognize the true God, the true God being how a Christian defines God?

Should we then invade and decimate all non-believers who in our eyes do despicable things? Obviously some have answered "yes" to these questions. Think of the Crusades. Think of the centuries of religious laws.

So, should we today set up concentration camps to kill, in God's name, Muslim, Jews, Hindu, Buddhists, indigenous-faith practitioners, etc.?

After all, if God's way never changes, if his command to massacre people who never heard of him and thus worship differently was ethically acceptable in the time of Joshua, why shouldn't it be acceptable today?

Here is the crux of the dilemma -- either I repudiate God's command concerning the genocide of the Canaanites, or I conclude that there exist circumstances when ethnic cleansing is acceptable.

There's another alternative. I might begin to question the biblical text itself. Maybe God did not order the massacre of civilians. Maybe Joshua projected his desires upon God to provide religious justification for taking another person's house and land.

This, of course raises complex questions. Are there parts of Scriptures that are not from God but projected onto God? A disturbing question indeed; Jesus seems to have thought so, telling his disciples, "You have heard it said ..., but I say unto you...."

Hence I return to my original premise: To attempt to look into God's face usually means an encounter where the wrestling might leave you wounded.

Forgive me while I limp away and store up my energy, so that on another day I can again attempt to look into God's eyes to ascertain God's character.

-- Miguel De La Torre is associate professor of social ethics at the Iliff School of Theology in Denver.