Associated Baptist Press - 2/5/2009

Associated Baptist Press
February 5, 2009 · (09-16)

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

In this issue
Obama rearranges faith-based office; vows t maintain church-state wall (1,203 words)
Parents to be reunited with kids kidnapped in seminary days (1,023 words)
Opinion: The habit of excess (682 words)

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Obama rearranges faith-based office; vows to maintain church-state wall
By Robert Marus (1,203 words)

WASHINGTON (ABP) -- President Obama announced a revamped version of his predecessor's office on faith-based charities Feb. 5, restructuring it with a broad advisory council and vowing to pay close attention to church-state concerns.

"The goal of this office will not be to favor one religious group over another -- or even religious groups over secular groups. It will simply be to work on behalf of those organizations that want to work on behalf of our communities, and to do so without blurring the line that our founders wisely drew between church and state," Obama said, in announcing the overhaul during his remarks at the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington.

He later signed an executive order creating the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Partnerships and the President's Advisory Council on Faith-Based and Community Partnerships.

Nonetheless, some supporters of strong church-state separation expressed frustration that Obama did not immediately undo Bush administration policies that allowed religious discrimination in hiring for jobs funded through the program.

"During the campaign, President Obama made clear that religious organizations that receive federal money should not discriminate. We strongly support that principle, but it's disappointing that today President Obama has missed an opportunity to put it into practice immediately," said a statement from People For the American Way President Kathryn Kolbert. "It's not about left or right: it's about upholding the Constitution. If churches accept federal funds, it's deeply inappropriate for them to discriminate on the basis of religion in their hiring."

According to some news reports Feb. 5, Obama will separately order the Justice Department to study the policy behind the Bush executive order, as well as other thorny church-state questions raised by the faith-based enterprise. Requests to the White House for the details of such an order were not returned by press time for this story.

In a July campaign speech, Obama promised that he would not allow religious discrimination under the program. But he has not elaborated on the promise since.

Some strong church-state separationist groups had hoped Obama would undo the office altogether. Under President Bush it became very controversial, with repeated accusations that Bush was politicizing the faith-based efort.

The office was formed in 2001 as one of the centerpieces of Bush's domestic policy. He repeatedly attempted to expand the government's ability to fund social services through churches and other pervasively religious charities.

Bush's legislative attempts to push the initiative largely failed, but he nonetheless achieved many of his goals through administrative means, such as executive orders and revising policies on the agency level. The faith-based effort spreads across scores of federal departments, offices and programs.

Bush officials insisted that public funds distributed through the program would not go to fund proselytizing, worship or other clearly religious content. But church-state watchdogs said it would be difficult for agencies whose ministries were entwined with religious content to separate out the secular content suitable for government funds. And it would be difficult for the government agencies providing the grants to monitor such programs without entangling itself in the churches' affairs.

A series of lawsuits -- including a 2007 one that ruled a government-funded Christian program for inmates in an Iowa prison unconstitutional -- raised questions about the ability of government officials to ensure constitutional standards in such programs.

Moreover, critics noted, religious organizations that provided primarily secular services -- such as Catholic Charities or Head Start programs -- had always been eligible to receive government funds through many social-service programs. They simply had to play by the same rules as secular grantees.

Leaders of the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty, which has been a stalwart opponent of government funding for churches, welcomed Obama's approach,but urged him to avoid what they viewed as Bush's mistakes.

"Partnerships between government and faith-based organizations are a given," said BJC Executive Director Brent Walker. "However, the rules of cooperation must be carefully crafted to protect religious liberty. I urge the president to ban religious hiring discrimination in government-funded programs. The BJC will continue to press for it."

Other religious groups and leaders from across the spectrum praised Obama's approach -- and particularly the scope of the office and the creation of the advisory council.

Obama's order "has moved faith and community outreach in a new direction that represents an improvement over what we saw during the Bush administration," said Welton Gaddy, executive director of the Interfaith Alliance and pastor for preaching and worship at Northminster Baptist Church in Monroe, La.

Faith in Public Life, a centrist group, released a statement saying Obama's creation of an advisory council for the project that is both religiously and ideologically diverse "captures a new moment in American faith and politics. Just as people of faith are transcending traditional categories of left and right, so is the President's Council."

The council includes executives of secular and religious charities, mainline Protestants, evangelicals, Catholics, Muslims and Jews. It also has members who strongly supported Bush's approach to faith-based funding and those who strongly criticized it.

The enterprise's scope also is much broader than that of Bush's faith-based office, which focused only on government funding for charities. The executive order creating the office and council noted that it would help Obama find ways to reduce poverty, address teenage pregnancy, reduce the abortion rate, "support fathers who stand by their families," and "work with the National Security Council to foster interfaith dialogue with leaders and scholars around the world."

There are at least four Baptists among the 15 announced members of the panel, which will ultimately have as many as 25 members. Frank Page, pastor of the First Baptist Church of Taylors, S.C. and the immediate past president of the Southern Baptist Convention is one. The panel also includes Melissa Rogers, a professor at Wake Forest Divinity School and former general counsel of the Baptist Joint Committee. Rogers has long been a critic of government efforts to fund pervasively religious charities. Her church -- Columbia Baptist in Falls Church, Va. -- is affiliated with both the SBC and the moderate Cooperative Baptist Fellowship.

The two other Baptist members of the council are from African-American Baptist backgrounds: William Shaw, president of the National Baptist Convention USA and a BJC board member; and Otis Moss, who recently retired as pastor of Olivet Institutional Baptist Church in Cleveland.

Page, reached by telephone Feb. 5, said he anticipated that some of his conservative brethren in the SBC would criticize him for agreeing to serve on a body appointed by a president they dislike. But, he added, he was impressed so far by Obama's approach to the issue and by assurances from the president and White House officials that the council would be a true advisory body in terms of formulating policy

"I want to be a voice in the process, and I think that's why I took it. If I'm going to make a difference, I think I need a place at the table," he said.

"I think that anyone who knows me knows that I'll be true to a relatively conservative, biblically based viewpoint," Page added. "I let them know that, and if at some time that my voice is nothing more than just a token conservative voice, I'll resign."

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Parents to be reunited with kids kidnapped in seminary days
By Bob Allen (1,023 words)

MURFREESBORO, Tenn. (ABP) -- A decades-old kidnapping case came to an end Feb. 2 with the arrest of a 72-year-old man accused of abducting two grandchildren left in his care while his daughter and son-in-law headed off for seminary in the late 1980s.

Police in San Jose, Calif., arrested Marvin Maple on charges he and his wife, Sandra Maple, kidnapped the two siblings during a family dispute that began when Mark Baskin decided to further his education at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky.

In an episode of the "Unsolved Mysteries" television show in the 1990s, Mark and Debbie Baskin said they expected money to be tight until they could find jobs, and Debbie's parents offered to take the two older children -- ages 8 and 7 -- into their home in Murfreesboro, Tenn., for the summer, while they headed off to Kentucky with their youngest child, who was 5.

Getting settled took longer than expected, and the children remained with their grandparents until Christmas. During a visit Debbie Baskin had a falling out with her mother and said she wanted to take her children back. The relationship continued to sour to the point that when visiting their children the Baskins were no longer welcome in the Maple home and stayed in a motel.

Following a visit in April 1988, the Maples petitioned for custody of the two children, claiming Bobby had been molested by both of his parents during their last visit. After a court hearing, at which Debbie Baskin claimed both of her parents perjured themselves, a judge gave the grandparents temporary custody pending a police investigation and psychiatric evaluation of both couples.

As allegations by the Maples grew more bizarre -- including that their daughter and son-in-law were part of a satanic cult that practiced animal sacrifices and sexual rituals -- detectives concluded there was no evidence of abuse and recommended the children be returned to their parents.

Before a court order to that effect could be issued, however, the Maples and the two children disappeared. Kidnapping warrants were issued March 13, 1989, and a March 29 court order granted custody to the Baskins, six weeks after the children disappeared.

According to media reports, Mark and Debbie Baskin took time off from teaching jobs in Montgomery County, Georgia, to head for California to be reunited with their two oldest children, whom they have not seen for nearly 20 years. Mark Baskin reportedly recently became pastor of Normantown Baptist Church in Vidalia, Ga., where the couple lives. Attempts to reach the Baskins were unsuccessful.

The Baskins, who left seminary after the ordeal and started selling insurance, told the Murfreesboro Post the couple knew they could either grow apart and get divorced or become closer, and they chose to stay together for the sake of their remaining son.

Later they took in a foster son when he was five weeks old, and adopted him at age 1. Now 16, Paul described discovery of his sister and brother as " awesome," while his brother Michael, 25, was delighted but worried.

Mark and Debbie Baskin also don't know what to expect when they are reunited with Christi, who is now 28, and Bobby, 27. Apparently neither child ever tried to contact their parents, but the Baskins don't know what their grandparents have said about them over the years.

Bobby Baskin, who now goes by the name Jonathan Bunting, is married and may have children. "I've been wondering for quite a while I might be a grandparent and not know it," Mark Baskin told the Murfreesboro Post.

Christie, who goes by the name of Jenny Bunting, reportedly has a nursing degree and works in nursing administration. She is single and lives with her grandfather.

Investigators don't know how Maple, who has been using an alias of John Bunting, faked identities for the children, who were homeschooled and sent to college. The children's grandmother is thought to have died a couple of years ago, but detectives from Tennessee planned to check that out while in California for extradition hearings.

Maple, who is being held on a fugitive warrant, reportedly was informed of his extradition rights Feb. 4. A hearing was scheduled Feb. 5 for Maples to either waive extradition or fight being returned to Tennessee to face kidnapping charges.

Given the opportunity, Mark Baskin said he would tell his children he loves them and doesn't blame them for what happened. He has said he doesn't hate his in-laws, but he fears them.

"Anybody who is crazy enough to do this to their own daughter is crazy enough to do almost anything," he said on Unsolved Mysteries.

Sightings of Maples and the children have been reported a few times over the years, but what finally led to his arrest was anger over how the media portrayed him. After reading about the case in the Jan. 12 issue of the San Diego Union-Tribune, Maples allegedly talked about it, and someone was concerned enough to call the police.

An investigating detective thanked the women for reporting their suspicions. "If they had minded their own business, this wouldn't be happening right now," said Capt. Preble Acton, who investigated the case in the 1990s for the Rutherford County Sheriff's Department in Tennessee.

The Baskins also thanked The Center for Missing and Exploited Children, which has been periodically sending out documents about Christie and Bobby for the last 20 years.

Cold case detective Lt. Bill Sharp said in a radio interview that the Baskins "could really use your prayers."

"It's hard to imagine what's going through their heart right now," Sharp said. Their children were stolen from them, officially left the town 19 years, 11 months and one day before Marvin Maple was arrested in San Jose last night -- almost 20 years ago."

Sharp, the father of two children, said he cannot imagine what it has been like for the Baskins not knowing what happened to their children and missing events like first dates and prom dances.

"You can't move on and get on with your life when you have two vacant and void spots in your heart," Sharp said.

Bob Allen is senior writer for Associated Baptist Press.

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Opinion: The habit of excess
By David Gushee (682 words)

(ABP) -- Contemporary ethicists have retrieved an ancient insight by emphasizing the central role of habit in morality. After centuries of moral theories that focused on identifying rational moral principles that ought to govern human decision making, today's ethicists have remembered the Greek philosophical insight that we are creatures of habit. We are what we do; and most days what we do is driven by habits rather than by conscious choice.

The habits of high-flyers in corporate America have come in for fierce criticism in recent days. The $700 billion bailout of the banking-and-finance sector has exposed to public view the habits of those who have lived at the peak of corporate power. Government money always comes with strings attached. In this case those strings have pulled open the curtains on numerous bad habits: huge executive compensation packages; massive golden parachutes for departing executives (many of whom are departing as failures); lavish spending on perks such as planes, office renovations, corporate retreats, and parties; and huge year-end bonuses often unrelated to corporate performance.

These habits have been deeply entrenched -- so entrenched that even after becoming recipients of massive infusions of public money in 2008, many of corporate America's titans have continued in such behaviors as if their companies were flush with cash. Old habits die hard, the saying goes, and this is surely true. But now the irresistible force of such habits has run into the immovable object of public outrage at a time of economic crisis.

It has seemed to this outside observer that the lavish habits found at the upper reaches of corporate America have been reinforced by the insularity of life at the top. Corporate boards seem to be populated by big-name, big-money titans of industry who are thoroughly accustomed to their own perks and have not hesitated to share them with those executives whom they purportedly supervise. If everyone has a corporate jet, if everyone spends millions on office renovations, if everyone flies to Tahoe for a weekend staff retreat, and if everyone makes about $10 million a year no matter how their company does, nothing seems odd about the particular culture of any particular company that does such things. The fact that service on a corporate board sometimes pays quite well in itself is a disincentive to blowing the whistle on the executives of that corporation.

Probably in no area other than money is habit more obviously central to behavior. People grow accustomed to the economic lifestyle which they inhabit. Those who have no disposable income grow accustomed to living accordingly; those who can blow $20,000 at the mall on a Thursday just because they feel like it grow accustomed to that lifestyle. I notice this in premarital counseling when I ask young couples to compare the economic habits they each grew up with. If Bill lived on food stamps and Mary in a gated community, their respective habits will pose a profound challenge to the success of their relationship.

Bad habits don't change by themselves. They don't change just because we hope they will. Normally they change only through concerted effort, most often reinforced by some kind of outside accountability -- thus Alcoholics Anonymous and every other habit-breaking/habit-formation group.

This week President Obama decided to impose a little accountability on corporate excess in the age of government bailouts. His proposals address most of the excesses that strike those outside the corporate bubble as most outrageous: executive compensation, exit packages, nonessential perks, and so on. His proposals cannot apply to those companies that do not receive government bailout money -- except, perhaps, in moral terms. Maybe some companies that are not on the government dole will voluntarily choose to reconsider policies of lavish excess. Wouldn't that be refreshing?

In the end, the government cannot make Americans develop a moral compass or care about something other than their own self-interest. It cannot police the ethics of every person and company. It can and must sometimes intervene, however, when the most grotesque bad habits of various actors in society end up negatively affecting the interests of the whole.

David Gushee is is distinguished university professor of Christian ethics at Mercer University.