Associated Baptist Press
January 30, 2009 · (09-13)
David Wilkinson, Executive Director
Robert Marus, Managing Editor/Washington Bureau Chief
Bob Allen, Senior Writer
In this issue
Obama picks religious adviser DuBois for faith-based post; questions remain (801 words)
Recession forces cutbacks at Southern Baptist agencies (584 words)
Opinion: God as athletic director (582 words)
Obama picks religious adviser DuBois for faith-based post; questions remain
By Robert Marus (801 words)
WASHINGTON (ABP) -- President Obama has selected a 26-year-old Pentecostal minister who served as his top religion adviser during the presidential campaign to head a revamped White House office on faith-based social services.
Critics of President Bush's attempt to expand the government's ability to fund the charitable work of churches expressed guarded optimism at the pick of Joshua DuBois to head the renamed White House Council for Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships.
The New York Times first reported Jan. 29 that DuBois, who joined the Obama campaign last year and served as its chief liaison with the evangelical Christian community, would head the new council. Other news outlets confirmed the news.
Burns Strider, who served as a religious strategist with Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign, said Obama's choice of DuBois "is no surprise, but even more it's an indicator of the importance placed on the goals and work of the faith office." Strider, a Mississippi native who was raised Southern Baptist, now does consulting with the Eleison Group, which focuses on faith and politics.
Advocates of strict church-state separation who have criticized direct government funding for explicitly religious charities and the way Bush used the faith-based issue were largely supportive of the expected appointment. But they said thorny questions remain for how Obama will handle the faith-based effort.
Welton Gaddy, president of the Interfaith Alliance, described DuBois as "an impressive, compassionate advocate with whom I have had several opportunities to meet throughout the electoral campaign and the work of President Obama's transition team."
Gaddy said he would have preferred Obama close the office altogether, but since the president has chosen simply to re-tool it, "the question remains whether or not a change in the name of the office as organized by the Bush administration will reflect substantive change in the policies of the Obama administration that advocates for religious liberty find acceptable."
Gaddy, who also serves as pastor for preaching and worship at Northminster Baptist Church in Monroe, La., said he was "cautiously optimistic" that Obama's faith-based office would avoid the mistakes he thought Bush's made.
"In recent conversations, senior transition officials assured me of President Obama's interest in establishing a council that protects religious freedom and assures constitutional separation between the institutions of religion and government," he added.
Gaddy and other church-state separationists opposed many aspects of the initiative, which Bush used to expand the numbers of government social-service programs that provided grants directly to churches and other overtly religious charities. While Bush and his supporters contended that churches were unnecessarily being left out of the programs, opponents said religious charities were already eligible for such grants as long as they clearly separated their clearly religious work from their other charitable work.
Bush officials argued that religious organizations should be eligible for funds on the same basis as secular providers, while retaining their special rights to discriminate in hiring on the basis of religion.
That aspect of the program proved the most contentious in Congress, and Gaddy and others have expressed hope that Obama would reverse Bush actions allowing religious organizations receiving federal funds to take religion into account when hiring for jobs wholly or partially subsidized with government dollars.
Obama promised not to allow discrimination under the program in a July campaign speech, but he and his surrogates have said little about the issue since.
Given the new president's background in constitutional law and assurances they have received from DuBois and other Obama officials, opponents of Bush's faith-based efforts expressed hope that the new administration in general -- and DuBois in particular -- would handle the initiative in ways more sensitive to their concerns.
"Josh clearly has the background and interest in bringing diverse groups together for a common purpose," Holly Hollman, general counsel for the Baptist Joint Committee, said Jan. 30. "He recognized the need to carefully consider various approaches to the more difficult aspects of the policy. We were pleased that he listened to our suggestions for correcting some of the problems in the Bush administration's approach and that he expressed a real desire to get things right."
Another criticism of the faith-based push under Bush was that his White House politicized the effort. That included accusations of grants to conservative religious groups as payoffs for their support of Bush in the 2000 and 2004 elections.
Strider said efforts to increase funding for faith-based groups under President Clinton's administration did not prove the political football they did under Bush, and that he expected DuBois and Obama to handle the effort in a similar fashion to Clinton.
"Politics doesn't belong in the faith-based office, and we are fortunate President Obama chose a trusted adviser in Rev. DuBois who is committed to dialogue with the whole faith community and will focus on programs and services that work for all," he said.
Robert Marus is managing editor and Washington bureau chief for Associated Baptist Press.
Recession forces cutbacks at Southern Baptist agencies
By Bob Allen (584 words)
DALLAS (ABP) -- Several Southern Baptist Convention entities are tightening the belt in response to budget shortfalls in a flagging economy.
GuideStone Financial Resources said Jan. 27 it just implemented a hiring freeze and is giving no raises to employees, with a goal of reducing its workforce by about 10 percent through attrition.
"The downturn in the global economy and the subsequent reduced value of securities in our investment funds has impacted the fee revenue that funds our budget," GuideStone President O.S. Hawkins said in an internal memo to employees.
On Jan. 28 the SBC International Mission Board drew $7 million from reserve funds to account for a declining dollar and higher costs overseas. Board treasurer David Steverson called it a "larger-than-usual" amount.
Those cutbacks come on the heels of similar actions by other SBC entities.
Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky., took steps to deal with a $3 million budget shortfall, reducing its administrative staff by 35 workers effective Jan. 30.
Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas, announced plans to cut its budget by up to $4 million to avert a "financial crisis." Cuts included closing a childcare center and isolated layoffs.
Facing a $1 million revenue shortfall, New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary announced an "austerity budget" Jan. 19 including temporary salary reductions but avoiding employee layoffs.
In December Woman's Missionary Union, an auxiliary to the SBC, announced cutbacks including unpaid furloughs for all workers in budget cuts totaling $1.4 million.
On Jan. 8, the SBC's North American Mission Board asked team leaders to operate at 90 percent of their approved budgets in 2009.
As of Dec. 31, year-to-date giving to the Cooperative Program, the SBC's unified budget, was about 5 percent behind the previous year's pace.
But SBC entities also rely on investments for income, and those funds have been hit hard by the recession. That particularly affects GuideStone, the convention's provider of retirement and health-care programs for church and denominational employees.
The agency also provides financial assistance for ministers in need -- a program that relies on investments for most of its operating income.
As of Dec. 31, GuideStone managed assets totaling $9.9 billion with an annual operating budget of $63 million, according to the SBC annual.
Hawkins said further cuts may be necessary if the market continues to decline.
"While we are hopeful about the future, further deterioration in the financial markets or a significantly prolonged recovery from the current recession may require other measures to further reduce future costs," he said. "Continued monitoring of the budget and additional strategic planning is a priority as we move through 2009 and into 2010 with all of its financial uncertainties."
In November the IMB cut back on administrative costs, such as limiting travel and not adjusting salaries. But the agency so far has avoided reducing its 5,300-member missionary force, which includes several thousand career missionaries.
"I believe we need to buckle our seatbelts and get ready for another challenging year in 2009," board treasurer Steverson said in a news release from the most recent trustee meeting. "While I believe the worst of the stock market decline is behind us, we now have to deal with all the fallout of that decline."
The total IMB budget before the cuts was $315 million, to be funded by $102 million through the Cooperative Program, $170 million from the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering, $24 million in investment income, $8 million designated for hunger and relief and $10 million in field-generated and other income.
Bob Allen is senior writer for Associated Baptist Press.
Opinion: God as athletic director
By Jim Evans (582 words)
(ABP) -- We have all seen it. A football player makes a big play, scores the winning touchdown, drops to one knee and points a finger towards the heavens.
What does it mean when, in a moment of success, a player acknowledges God in some way? Does the gesture mean that the player is giving God credit for the touchdown? Did God help the player or make the play happen?
I have always wanted to see the other side of this sort of athletic piety. Say for example, what would happen if a kicker, after missing a field goal, raises his arms palms up and stares into the sky as if to say, "Where were you when I needed you?" Or after a brutal tackle with a resulting fumble, the running back shakes his fist towards heaven as if to say, "Can't you hold onto the ball?"
I guess, since that kind of piety does not happen, the theology at work here goes something like this. When you win, God is with you -- but when you lose, you are on your own.
Of course, it doesn't always work out so well for winners.
Recently the Covenant School, a Christian school in Dallas, sent their girls' basketball team to play the girls' team at Dallas Academy, also a Christian school. At the end of the game the scoreboard read Covenant 100, Dallas Academy 0. You are reading that correctly; it is not a typo. The Dallas Academy girls were held scoreless for the entire game while the Covenant girls scored 100 points.
As the results of the game were made public, criticism began pouring in to administrators at Covenant. The Covenant team's deliberate effort to score 100 points while the Dallas girls did not score at all was dubbed un-Christian behavior. Apparently Jesus does not trounce his opponents, except maybe that pesky Antichrist.
Anyway, in the face of mounting criticism, the Covenant School is offering to forfeit its win. They are seeking forgiveness for running up the score and not allowing their opponent to score any points -- behavior they now admit was less than Christ-like.
So the theology at work here seems to be this: If you have success in appropriate portions, God is with you. But if you flaunt your abilities and run up the score, God is not with you. Or: If you lose, you are on your own -- unless you lose in such an egregious fashion as to invoke the oppressed-people syndrome in which case God is with you.
I remember an English professor in college who, after listening to two students argue over which team God loves better -- Alabama or Notre Dame -- finally said in exasperation, "God does not watch football games."
I am not sure he is right about that. The New Testament says that God watches the birds, takes note when a sparrow falls, numbers the hairs on our head, pays attention when little ones are at risk, seeks to protect rebellious children like a hen gathering her chicks, waits patiently for prodigal children, searches for us like a poor woman who cannot afford to lose a single coin, travels difficult paths to pull us out of the ditch.
So why wouldn't God watch football? The sticking point is that God may watch, but God does not take sides. God doesn't care who wins or loses. Like all things in life, God is mostly concerned about the way we play the game.
-- James L. Evans is pastor of Auburn First Baptist Church in Auburn, Ala. He can be reached at faithmatters@mindspring.com.
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