Blocked/ignored/slammed for asking questions about or of Southern Baptist leaders?

It is an American axiom that timely questions often help the nation, its organizations and its people make better decisions. Tough questions, like those like those currently being asked of Ergun Caner, writes Wade Burleson, are "legitimate queries of a Christian brother to ensure accountability and integrity of Christian ministry."

Yet Southern Baptist leaders are apparently often prey to an allergy to questions. Ordinary twitter users who seek clarification from key leaders like SBC President @johnnymhunt, researchers like President of LifeWay Research @edstetzer or sometimes even from a publication like the @westernrecorder (just to name a few) learn this quickly enough.

Genuflection via retweeting is the default SBC twitter response to leadership tweets. That's why resounding silence is likely to greet even the best-phrased, best-intentioned, most germane of queries.

Violations of the genuflection rule are punished. Curious twitter users may find themselves blocked (forbidden to follow a user's tweet stream) for asking a pointed question. Even more often twitter-blocked is anyone who somehow receives and asks additional questions about an answer. Much less disagrees. Thus making inappropriate and disruptive use of the "block" function to suppress ordinary debate and commonplace journalistic inquiry.

Because so many of the SBC chickens do barricade themselves in their pulpits, SBC twitterworld offers satiric accounts, like @fakebp, directed at gently smoking them out with humor. Similarly, there are satiric twitter hashtags, like #fakeGCR.

Together those help reveal how often clarity of statement and transparency of intention are disdained.

But accountability, Pastor Burleson?

Srsly. For the time being, not absent the application of a hammer or like device.

How to kill a state convention in four years (Updated)

A recommendation in the Southern Baptist Convention's Great Commission Resurgence Task Force progress report would be a "death sentence" for some state Baptist conventions and harm others, a state executive said.

Others have also raised concerns about a proposal that would end cooperative agreements between the North American Mission Board contributions and state conventions over four years. The move would cut $50.6 million that NAMB sends to state conventions each year.

Joseph Bunce, executive director of the Baptist Convention of New Mexico, said in an article for Baptist Press that some parts of the report concern him.

"I would rather not take my concerns item-by-item at this point, but highlight one area that, if the report is adopted as-is, would create a huge dilemma for our state convention and dismantle other Western state conventions," he said.

Bunce points out that once the cooperative agreements end, missionaries that have been jointly funded by NAMB and state conventions would come under the direct supervision of NAMB, rather than the state conventions as they have historically.

"This is huge for New Mexico and is a death sentence for other Western state conventions," he said. "For example, if jointly funded missionaries were removed from the Wyoming Convention staff, only one out of the eight people serving in their leadership could be supported by the Wyoming Convention."

According to the 2010 NAMB Ministry Report, 3,666 of the 5,304 NAMB missionaries operate "under various levels of cooperative funding with state conventions and local associations."

Bunce noted that the report calls for states to adjust their budgets, which would reduce the amount forwarded to the SBC.

"I find it very difficult to understand this logic, as state conventions have been chided for not sending on more gifts for work outside their respective states," Bunce said. "Now we are told to keep more dollars in-state to pay for our own staffs, rather than have jointly funded missionaries."

The progress report said, "When churches give more through the Cooperative Program and state conventions keep less of it within their respective states, and a compelling unified Gospel vision is cast for Southern Baptists, we will see giving through the Cooperative Program increase in a major way."

Bunce pointed out that the report is not final. And Tim Patterson, chairman of the NAMB trustees, told Baptist Press that the GCR task force is leaving the particulars of implementing the plan to NAMB's trustees. He said NAMB will still work under cooperative agreements and will still work with state conventions as highly valued partners.

"The states will absolutely take on a greater role than ever before," Patterson said. "Their responsibilities will increase as NAMB becomes much more of a facilitator than a program provider."

But the progress report says that any future partnerships involving financial support, would be "project-driven, meaning these projects must be driven by the North American missional strategy and fulfill the direct mission and priorities of the North American Mission Board. Additionally, any funding must be streamlined, since the North American Mission Board will become the leader in reaching North America."

Jim Drake, pastor of Brushfork Baptist Church in Bluefield, West Va., wrote in a blog post about the possibility that NAMB would stop sending money to state conventions.

"I wonder how this will impact small conventions like West Virginia’s," he said. "My initial impression is that support will continue, but with far less state autonomy."

George Bullard, who has consulted with 50 different denominations, said in one of 20 observations he made about the report that he thinks the state conventions will "manage their budgets accordingly” as the report suggests when they lose national cooperative agreement funds.

"They will adjust Cooperative Program percentage to replace what they feel is essential," he said.

Bullard said that he agrees the cooperative agreement system needs revision.

"But, it does not need eliminating," he said.

Even worse, eliminating the program would eliminate some state conventions.

Update

Scott Brewer is president of the 425-church Northwest Baptist Convention. He wrote that money the Northwest convention would stand to lose from NAMB is a large part of the convention's budget. Brewer, whose convention consists of Washington, Oregon and northern Idaho, said:

Obviously this raises questions about the future of state conventions that exist outside of the South. I’m not sure how a large southern state convention would be impacted by this but our convention would be radically impacted.

Religious Right + SBC Fundamentalists = flight of millennials from the church?

Oklahoma's Bruce Prescott ponders the conjunction of dates. The millennials, "who were born after 1980 and came of age around the millennium," certainly grew up amid the ardent voices of the Southern Baptist Convention's fundamentalists and the others of the Religious Right. As Prescott observes:

The fundamentalist takeover of the Southern Baptist Convention began in 1979. The rise of the Religious Right in America dates from the same year.

Certainly Prescott is not the first to see "a link between in-your-face religion in the public square and declining interest in organized religion among young people."

While not focused precisely on the issue Prescott addresses, Michael Gerson, senior research fellow in the Center on Faith & International Affairs at the Institute for Global Engagement, made a show of discovering the relationship for himself late last year.

Somewhat similarly, Tullian Tchividjian, grandson of Billy Graham, responded to the shift in public attitudes away from right-wing political zeal and turned Ft. Lauderdale’s Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church away from its hyper-political, right-wing activist heritage.

Of course he had to fight off an attempt by the old hands to remove him from the pulpit there.

In the necessity of that fight is one answer to Prescott's closing question: Will those who helped bring the alienation about "ever realize"?

Apparently not.

Caner apologizes for calling Rankin a liar

The president of a Baptist seminary has apologized for a personal attack on the head of the International Mission Board.

Ergun Caner, the president of Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary, said he got carried away while criticizing the Camel Method of outreach to Muslims, according to a report by Associated Baptist Press. Caner said the deceptive strategy meant IMB president Jerry Rankin is lying.

Caner said he admitted in a chapel service at the seminary that he made a mistake. He also sent Rankin a letter of apology.

"If you're dumb enough to say something like that, you've got to be man enough to own up to it," he said.

The online demise of The Council for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood

The Council for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood Web site is back. They explain their long absence as follows:

Approximately three weeks ago, it appears that someone hacked into our server and severely damaged the CBMW website. Not only did this prohibit use of the site but is also kept us from even being able to send out a mass email to even explain the challenge we were facing to some of you.

We have been working around the clock to fix the problem. In addition to this, we moved our entire site to a different server that will give us access to more technical help in the future and will save us quite a bit of money as well. I am deeply grateful for the people who helped us rectify the situation and enable us to once again serve you with material that will help your home and church.

Not persuasive reasons for an extended outage, unless you stir in large helpings of other management issues. Whatever the case, they did not fulfill Wade Burleson's wish [explained below].

The Council for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood (CBMW) is as of this writing missing from the Web and Internet at large. The domain name has apparently not been lost to them, but it isn't attached to a server.

They lent their fundamentally Southern Baptist clout to the Danvers Statement on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, which was subsequently affirmed as a key document of faith by Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary and by Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary.

Wade Burleson today says in his comment on the CBMW's perhaps temporary Internet invisibility:

Over the course of the past three years I have written a few times about The Council for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood (CBMW). Southern Baptists, including Dorothy Patterson, Al Mohler, Danny Akin and others, serve on the Board of Directors of the Council. Randy Stinson, Dean of Church Ministries at Southern Seminary, serves as the Executive Director of the CBMW. I have written about CBMW teaching various forms of patriarchy, calling Irving Bible Church elders' decision to allow a woman to teach the Bible "a grave moral concern" (comparable to homosexuality), advocating the eternal subordination of women to men, encouraging abused women to merely "pray for their husbands," and stating that opposing "male authority" is the same as opposing Christ's authority.

He proposes that CBMW return as a site of "scholarly exegesis."

Rather than, say, continue as a living caricature of Christian paternalism.

Toward a new Legionaries of Christ/Regnum Christi beginning

The Legionaries of Christ (LC) and associated lay organization Regnum Christi (RC) continue to struggle amid debate and uncertain leadership toward the report of the Apostolic Visitation [investigation], due in March. That investigation may be followed by a refounding of the order under new leadership, suggests the Mexican newspaper "Reforma."

The Apostolic Visitation was provoked not only by reports that LC founder Marcial Maciel fathered perhaps six children, attended by news that some are pursuing legal action seeking compensation from the $250-million-a-year organization, his cult-like leadership and abuse of subordinates. But also by the Legion leadership's history of coverup and legal actions to silence former members and suppress documents.

A Jan. 24 attempt by LC Director General Father Alvaro Corcuera to suppress a roiling email debate over the order's future, failed. If it ever really stopped, the debate was reopened by an “open letter” from Father Julien Durodie of the LC in Paris. He wrote, among other things:

I see the Legion as a work made by human hands and therefore needs to be purified and perfected. It has made mistakes, yes, and it will continue to do so. Any organization facing such a situation is entitled to differences and hesitations. Benevolent exterior criticism is also normal and understandable. All of this is now clearer than ever. And although I may be wrong, I have no fear, because I know how to tell the difference between God and his works.

I also believed, especially after living with Fr. Maciel for three years at the headquarters, that he was holy. Why not?

But, I never put my supernatural trust in him as a human person. My faith is not affected by his disordered life, but on the contrary, it is purified. Of course I am affected by the scandal, and the cries of the victims fill me with sorrow. But all of this does not call into question God’s call.

Shortly thereafter the Secretary General of the order, Rev. Evaristo Sada, told a gathering of more than 10,000 members of Regnum Christi in Mexico City that the crisis caused by revelations of the double life led by Rev. Marcial Maciel has led them to a time to “face the consequences and, with determination, correct what must be correct.” He went on:

With all my heart, I wish to ask forgiveness of the persons who our founder may have affected as a result of the immoral acts in his personal life, and the persons who may have been wounded by their consequences. Father Alvaro (Rev. Alvaro Corcuera is the current leader of the order) has done so and has is doing so publicly and personally, but we again ask forgiveness because we sincerely regret what the Church and these persons have suffered.

While no longer denial, strategic, still. March beckons.

Extreme Makeover: SBC Edition

The "progress report" released Feb. 22 by Southern Baptist Convention's Great Commission Resurgence Task Force is "strategically naive and historically ignorant," a denominational expert says.

George Bullard, strategic coordinator for The Columbia Partnership consulting group, made the comment on Twitter just after the report was released. Bullard, who retired as associate executive director of the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina and also served on the staff at the South Carolina convention, made more than a dozen observations about the report on his Facebook fan page.

In a video presentation that's as much sermon as report, task force chairman Ronnie Floyd went over the document's six components, including a new vision statement supported by eight core values. (A downloadable pdf file of the report is available here.)

In his observations on Facebook, Bullard commends parts of the report, but questions other portions. He supports the call to reach cities, but doubts that it can happen with the national strategy dictated by the report.

Bullard agrees with the emphasis on church planting, but says the committee's call for "implementing a direct strategy" for planting churches in North America shows that it does not understand denominationalism.

When asked, via a comment on Facebook, to explain the comment Bullard said he believes "the committee does not understand what makes a complex denominational system work with effectiveness." Committee members "show a narrow understanding of the role of state conventions and associations," he said. Also:

They are right about the focus on congregations and urging them to be missional. They are wrong about what type of denominational structures will best empower and support them.

They are right about the primacy of church planting, but not about doing so from a national and direct strategy. Passion is essential for great church planting, and you cannot push that from a national perspective. It must be grassroots.

They do not understand that national strategies must be frameworks that focus around principles, and that the best specific strategies of locally-owned, custom-made, and open-ended.

In one of his Facebook postings, Bullard said that regarding the report's call to work with other Christ-followers, the SBC has traditionally wanted to "go it alone."

"Working with other Baptists in North America has even been a challenge; even though some are more conservative and evangelistic than SBC," he said.

Tony Cartledge, a contributing editor for Baptists Today, posted on his blog that he found the frequent mention of "missional" in the report interesting since that term has been used by the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship for years. He notes that while CBF uses the term more as a "holistic call for churches to live and minister to all as Jesus did," the GCR task force defines it as merely evangelism.

"Whether you define "missional" in terms of holistic ministry or propositional evangelism, it's easier said than done, and certainly can't be implemented by decree," Cartledge said.

Cartledge points out potential areas for disagreement in several parts of the report. He notes that the report says "envy, strife and division" need to become unacceptable in the SBC.

"Given the major structural shifts, blurring boundaries, and financial redirection called for in the task force's preachy-toned report, the outcome is likely to be more strife and division in the SBC, not less," he said.

Wade Burleson, an Oklahoma pastor and prominent Baptist blogger, talked about the report in light of an International Indian Conference in 1843 that led to lasting peace among warring tribes.

"One of these days, hopefully soon, there should be a similar conference among Southern Baptists," he said.

Burleson commended the GCR Task Force for trying to accomplish the difficult task of finding common agreement among Southern Baptists.

"But as long as some groups see other groups as the enemy (and want them gone from the SBC), it will be difficult to focus on the Great Commission," he said.

Remaining two Baptist missionaries to be freed

BBC reports:

Bernard Sainvil told Reuters the case, which involves 33 children, should be closed this week because there were no criminal grounds to pursue it.

A lawyer for the two said he thought they would be freed by Thursday.

ABC reported that with regard to Laura Silsby and Charisa Coulter, the judge has all the information he wants.

Archbishop Fisichella stands his ground

Archbishop Salvatore (Rino) Fisichella is standing his ground against an eruption of U.S. "hyper-partisanship" into Vatican affairs. He isn't going to resign, apologize or lend further ink to his critics.

Five members of the 145-member Pontifical Academy for Life, which Fisichella heads, circulated a letter calling for his resignation.

Their campaign was supported by Judie Brown, president of the American Life League and in an essay by Monsignor Michel Schooyans, an academy member and emeritus professor at Belgium's Louvain University. Schooyans argued that Fisischella had fallen into a trap of "bogus compassion."

The letter was greeted with surprise by the Vatican spokesman, Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi. CNS reported:

"It's a bit strange that persons who are members of an academy address a request of this kind without addressing it to the competent authorities," Father Lombardi said. "It's astounding and seems incorrect that such a document be given public circulation."

At issue is the March, 2009, case of a nine-year-old Brazilian girl, about whom Allison Hantschell wrote:

I had an Easy-Bake Oven, when I was 9. It made tiny cupcakes and itty-bitty cookies, and I haven't been able to stop thinking about it since I read about the girl in Brazil.

I don't know her name, but she's 9 years old, living in Brazil. Brutally raped by her stepfather, multiple times over a period of years, and finally impregnated with twins.

Nine years old. And instead of playing baseball, or learning numbers, or baking tiny cupcakes and itty-bitty cookies, this little girl is at the center of a worldwide controversy over the Roman Catholic Church, its views on abortion, and, above all, the role of mercy and the incoherence of men.

In response to the abortion, the Archbishop of Olinda and Recife, Brazil, Jose Cardoso Sobrinho announced that he was excommunicating the doctors and the young girl’s mother. When that was not received well, the response was recast.

Anyone (with certain exemptions) who consciously worked to stop a birth excommunicated himself/herself, so:

Brazil’s Catholic bishops conference denied that the archbishop of Recife and Olinda, Jose Cardoso Sobrinho, excommunicated the mother and doctors who practiced a legal abortion on a nine-year-old girl that was pregnant with twins after being raped by her stepfather. . . . The secretary general of the bishops conference, Dimas Lara Barbosa, said that the prelate “at no time excommunicated anyone."

Archbishop Fisichella's alleged sin was to write in the Vatican newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano, that the public declaration of the already automatic excommunications was "hasty" and the nine-year-old girl, whose life was saved by the abortion of twins she was physically unequipped to have, "should have been above all defended, embraced, treated with sweetness to make her feel that we were all on her side, all of us, without distinction."

For this, he was accused of "pseudo-compassion" - no idle charge. And one he has rejected. For good reason. Indeed, the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith issued a clarification in July, reiterating the Catholic Church's unwavering opposition to abortion and observing that Fisichella's words had been "manipulated and exploited."

Smoking Jesus and other blasphemies

Deja vu stalked last week's uproar over print publication of cigarette-smoking Jesus of the Sacred Heart, drinking something out of a can. This time, it manifested in a Skyline Publications Meghalaya, India, cursive writing exercise book. Which was promptly taken out of service by the government of that 70% Catholic province.

The image made a previous appearance in June of 2008, reported IndiaTime , when it was printed on the cover of "Vachana Jyotis, a magazine published by [the Catholic] diocese of Neyyattinkara, in the southern state of Kerala."

About a year earlier, in August of 2007, that or a similar image caused an uproar and temporary government shutdown of a newspaper in Kuala Lumpur. Agence France-Presse reported

KUALA LUMPUR -- A Malaysian newspaper has apologized to Kuala Lumpur's Roman Catholic archbishop after publishing a front page picture of Jesus Christ clutching a cigarette, the paper's manager said Thursday

The Makkal Osai, a Tamil-language daily, printed the picture earlier in the week, provoking criticism from religious leaders and politicians in multicultural Malaysia.

S.M. Periasamy, general manager of the paper, said someone had downloaded the image from the internet to illustrate an article, and did not notice that Jesus appeared to be smoking.

"We are sorry for the mistake, but it was a very honest one," he told Agence France-Presse, adding that the person responsible had been suspended.

Local media reported that the picture also showed Jesus holding a beer can in one hand, but Periasamy said it was in fact non-alcoholic.

Christians aren't being singled out. Kurt Westergarrd still sees life-threatening backlash from his cartoons of the Muslim Prophet Muhammad. The Mexican Playboy had to apologize for its nearly nude Mary in 2008. Artist M.F. Husain was arrested in 2006 for his nude representations of Hindu gods and goddesses. There was much unhappiness in 2004 over Buddha Bikinis. In 2003, Denmark's Kvickly supermarkets decided to ditch a line of sandals which has people walking on images of Jesus Christ and the Virgin Mary by putting their images on the inside of slippers - after selling some 4,000 pairs but receiving some 200 complaints. A Catholic priest in Aarhus, Denmark, accused the store of blasphemy.

Such works, whether art or bad digital imaging hacks, cannot equal in their desultory impact the force of living blasphemies, written into the lives of those whose trust and bodies are defiled by clergy.

Not one orphan among the 33

"There is not one orphan" among the 33 Haitian children a group of U.S. Baptists attempted to take across the border into the Dominican Republic, the Associated Press has determined.

This contradicts the account of Laura Silsby, and is attended by accounts of distraught parents who feel misled and want their children back.

Freedom Sunday: Stop human trafficking, wherever you are

Churches will be celebrating Freedom Sunday on Feb. 21 in Canada, Poland, Uganda, Pakistan, Denmark, India, Thailand, the United Kingdom, South Africa, Australia, the USA, Sweden, Germany, the Netherlands, Jamaica, and underground in China and Vietnam. Praying for the enslaved.

There is a map to help you find a participating church in The Underground Church Network.

The project is sponsored by Not For Sale.

Read stories from North America.

Allegations of sexual misconduct whipsaw Israeli religious nationalists

In Israel, a scandal has erupted over allegations of sexual abuse leveled at Orthodox Rabbi Mordechai Elon. Best known for his advocacy of the West Bank Settlement movement.

The issue is actually longstanding. Elon, 50, gave up his regular TV show and retired as head of a major yeshiva religious school in Jerusalem three years ago. Alastair Macdonald of Reuters writes:

At issue is the power of charismatic clerics over young people in their care, as well as questions about the extent to which religious communities should regulate their own affairs without involving the Jewish state's secular authorities.

A Justice Ministry spokesman said the attorney-general had asked police to consider whether there was sufficient evidence to mount a formal criminal investigation, after the organisation Takana alleged Elon had broken a promise made to fellow rabbis some years ago to limit his contacts with young men and youths.

. . . .

Columnist Nahum Barnea of Israel's top-selling newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth said: "Every word in this story becomes an emotional atom bomb when it happens in a religious society -- sex, homosexuality, charisma, minors, a rabbi's power.

"This is not a storm in a teacup. This is a typhoon. No wonder many in the national-religious public felt this week that their world had collapsed," Barnea wrote on Friday.

Broad, related concerns had already attracted the public interest required to provoke legislative action. Yair Ettinger, Jonathan Lis and Tomer Zarchin of Haaretz write:

The Knesset is expected next week to discuss a bill attributing criminal liability to rabbis who sexually harass persons seeking their counsel. The debate was scheduled several weeks ago, long before the accusations against Elon were made.

Elon's case exploded into public view because his fellow rabbis called him to account.

[H/T: Episcopal Cafe]

HotAir's move to Salem not without risks

With the announcement timed to coincide with the Conservative Political Action Conference, which opened today in Washington D.C., the conservative blog Hot Air has been acquired from Michelle Malkin by Salem Communications.

Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) conservative political activism is visible in the fretwork of that deal. Salem's board of directors features "Judge" Paul Pressler, architect of the SBC conservative takeover. Among Salem's syndicated radio shows iare Richard Land Live, whose host is chief of the SBC Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, and the Albert Mohler Program, whose host is president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.

Mediaite alludes to that commercial political/religious binding when it writes:

Salem Communication defines itself as a leading U.S. radio broadcaster, Internet content provider, and magazine and book publisher targeting audiences interested in Christian and family-themed content and conservative values. Perhaps their most relevant property to this transaction is Townhall.com which claims itself to be the #1 conservative website. The “About Us” section of its website claims “Townhall.com pulls together political commentary and analysis from over 100 leading columnists and opinion leaders, research from 100 partner organizations, conservative talk-radio and a community of millions of grassroots conservatives.”

Debt-burdened Salem was "branded a 'bottom rung' company by Moody's Investors Service" because is saddled with "the weight of $320 million in debt." And HotAir brings to that business mix a large audience injection. with attendant potential for increased advertising revenue:

Hot Air ranks as the seventh-largest conservative website over the past three months, according to rankings from the Web information company Alexa — though the rankings include Fox News, The Wall Street Journal and Drudge Report

Townhall, meanwhile, had the 12th-largest audience over the same time.

We'll see whether the ideological synergies are sufficiently financial.

Haitian judge release eight of the jailed Baptists [Update: Now back in the U.S.]

Haitian Judge Bernard Saint-Vil released eight of the 10 U.S. Baptists who were "charged with child kidnapping" after they were stopped while trying to take more than 30 Haitian children across the border into the Dominican Republic in the wake of last month's earthquake.

Reuters reported:

The judge ruled eight can be released on bail and will be allowed to leave the country. But the leader of the group, Laura Silsby, and another woman, Charisa Coulter, will not be released on bail and it is reported they will still face charges.

Coulter, who is a diabetic, has reportedly been taken to a field hospital and is in "a lot of pain."

Upon entering court today the judge said, according to Reuters:

I have already prepared the draft to order the release of eight of the Americans today, but as far as Mrs Silsby and Mrs Coulter are concerned, I need to ask some further questions. Actually I am considering hearing them as early as tomorrow.

AFP reported:

The US nationals, set free by Judge Bernard Saint-Vil, were placed in a van with diplomatic plates and driven out of the compound where they had been held since their arrest January 29.

The group was whisked into the Port-au-Prince airport, but when asked if they would stay overnight in Haiti, the group's lawyer Aviol Fleurant said, "I think so."

The eight left Haiti aboard a U.S. Air Force C-130 cargo plane and deplaned in Miami at about midnight last night. Frank James of National Public Radio reported:

Eight Baptist missionaries spent their first night of freedom in three weeks in a Miami hotel after a Haitian judge released them from jail where they were being held on suspicion of child trafficking for trying to transport Haitian children out of the country without the proper authorization.

'Blood Done Sign My Name'

Some of us recall walking shoulder to shoulder with Golden Frinks:

Do you?

New Baylor president not a Baptist ... yet

Ken Starr's appointment as president of Baylor University raised eyebrows not only because of his controversial background investigating President Clinton but because of his non-Baptist religious roots.

Starr told the Texas Baptist Standard that he plans to join a Baptist church before beginning his duties on June 1.

Oklahoma pastor Mitch Randall pointed out in an article at EthicsDaily.com that Starr was raised in the Church of Christ and is currently a member of McLean Bible Church in Virginia.

"I wonder if Starr's denominational metamorphosis occurred after careful theological reflection and prayer or after a contract was placed before him?" Randall asks.

Tim Rogers at SBC Today sees Starr's plans as "another church member becoming Baptist because of convenience."

"I wish Dr. Kenneth Starr the best, but this is another example of becoming a Baptist because it suits a particular need instead of it being a conviction of the soul."

But Baptist blogger Wade Burleson, takes issue with those who are upset that Starr is "not Baptist enough."

"I think that we Southern Baptists, unfortunately, are becoming more and more known for being Southern Baptists than devoted followers of Jesus Christ. When we are more concerned about the President of Baylor University being baptized in baptist waters than we are the spiritual condition and maturity of the man who takes the office, then we have sacrificed our 'Christian' heritage on the alter of religious ideology."

Louis Moore, who covered religious issues in Texas for the Houston Chronicle, said in a blog post that Starr "needs to be as clear about his theology as he wanted Bill Clinton to be about his sexual activities."

Moore's wife Kay served in the 1990s as a Southern Baptist representative on a dialogue group of 10 Southern Baptists and 10 members of the Church of Christ. Moore lists specific issues that he and his wife feel Starr should address.

"We hope in the next weeks and months Judge Ken Starr will articulate as clearly as he wanted President Bill Clinton to articulate in the courtroom and that he (Starr) will state emphatically what he truly believes about baptism and salvation as well as about minor issues such as whether a church ought to have instrumental music in its worship center, whether a church ought to celebrate Easter, and whether he agrees with the traditional Churches of Christ viewpoint on the role of women in public worship."

Until Starr answers those questions, hard-line conservative Baptists will have to be happy having a non-Baptist, right-wing political hero as president of the world's largest Baptist university.

Attack on Camel Method gets personal/political

It's intuitively obvious why a former Muslim would criticize the controversial "Camel" method of evangelizing Muslims. But it is startling to hear a Southern Baptist theologian accuse the retiring head of a key mission board of lying.

Ergun Caner, president of Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary in Lynchburg, Va., is the latest to take issue with the evangelistic method promoted by the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) International Mission Board as a way to reach Muslims.

Caner said on a podcast at the blog SBC Today that the "Camel Method" is heresy. He went on to say that the method is based on deception and that means Jerry Rankin, the president of the mission board, is lying.

Caner's opposition takes on new light considering the wrestling for position brought on by Rankin's upcoming retirement. Keep in mind that Caner and his brother, Emir, have strong ties to Paige Patterson, president of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and a major player in SBC politics.

In his book, Hardball Religion, former IMB trustee Wade Burleson says trustees loyal to Patterson tried to embarrass Rankin with the intention of removing him, according to a review by Baptists Today editor John Pierce.

In 2003, Patterson sent IMB trustees a paper questioning the mission board's theological foundation. The document was written by Keith Eitel, then professor of Christian missions at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary where Patterson previously served as president and now dean of the School of Evangelism at Southwestern.

Ongoing efforts to discredit Rankin could convince trustees that a new direction is needed at the IMB. Perhaps one led by Eitel. Or someone else loyal to Patterson and his allies.

The 10 jailed Baptists in Haiti were warned [repeatedly]

A power outage reportedly prevents Haitian Prosecutor Josephe Manes Louis from delivering to the judge his now-completed recommendations regarding whether to release 10 Baptists who were arrested for child trafficking. Sad though their plight is, they were warned, repeatedly:

• The night before the 10 entered Haiti, journalist and social activist Anne-christine d'Adesky told the group's leader, Laura Silsby, that her plan to collect 100 Haitian children and take them to the Dominican Republic was illegal and would be regarded as child trafficking.
• Dominican consul general Carlos Castillo told CNN:

  I warned her, I said as soon as you get there without the proper documents, you are going to get into trouble, because they are going to accuse you, because you have the intent to pass the border without the proper papers and they are going to accuse you with kids trafficking.

• A Haitian police officer told CNN that he stopped the Americans on Jan. 26 as they tried to take a bus of 40 children out of the country.
• Dixie Bickel, director of God's Littlest Children orphanage in Thomasin, Haiti, told the Miami Herald that Silsby disregarded her warnings about trying to swoop in after the earthquake and haul Haitian children off to the Dominican Republic.

Their arrest was tragic but not, as Southern Baptist Convention Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission chief Richard Land claims, "outrageous." More recently, he has reportedly become thankful for "whatever the US govt did" to free the 10." Land, however, dwells in an alternate reality where the U.S. is "winning" a war in Iraq, telling Southern Baptist state newspaper editors, "that's not something you're reading about."

Failures of due diligence can have a very high price indeed.

N.C. Bishops' bad call on curricula

North Carolina's Catholic bishops are overwrought about proposed new language for a nonexistent civics and economics textbook, CNA reports.

Bishop of Raleigh Michael F. Burbidge and Bishop of Charlotte Peter J. Jugis sent a Feb. 11 letter to the state's Catholics referring to "draft text that is being proposed for a revised textbook on Civics and Economics," although they are actually taking issue with the language of curriculum standards for Social Studies, Civics and Economics [.pdf]. Not a textbook.

Even so, the Catholic Diocese of Raleigh reports in its News section:

The proposed text asserts that Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision by the U.S. Supreme Court that legalized abortion and struck down state and federal laws that regulated and limited access to abortion, is an example of how the Supreme Court has upheld rights against oppressive government. The implication of this proposed text is that opposition to Roe v. Wade is wrong.

The language over which they are hyperventilating, and over which North Carolina's right-wing Civitas Review waxed righteous before them, is in fact a well-accepted example of U.S. Supreme Court actions upholding individual rights and overruling oppressive government. That general language is so frequently used to define that topic in text books, law review articles, Constitutional Law coursework descriptions and the like that Google search on it returns 4,700,000 (four million, seven hundred thousand) hits.

Specifically, the version we searched on is:

Using three Supreme Court Cases (e.g., Brown v Board, Roe v Wade, Korematsu v US) as support explain how the US Supreme Court has upheld rights against oppressive government?

The bishops' letter also said comments are closed tomorrow (Feb. 15), and that is incorrect as well. The State Board of Education, Department of Public Instruction has announced via its Web site:

The deadline for feedback on 1.0 has been extended through March 2nd, 2010.

The bishops and Civitas are objecting to a curriculum standard which requires, as it should, honest and accurate student understanding of the law of the land, because they disagree with the law. Not because the curriculum actually errs.

Addendum

Last year, the pair attracted attention in part by calling together for a marriage protection amendment and by opposing the School Violence Prevention Act, an anti-bullying law which directs local school systems to guard against harassment based on sexual orientation and gender identity.

Frank Page voted for a Faith-Based Slush Fund

Under the Bush administraion, the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives was a political program. Rather than abolish the entire experiment, the Obama administration took office bent on constructive civil reform. Which, when dealing with slush funds, must include establishing fiscal accountability. Something former Southern Baptist Convention President Frank Page voted against.

Bruce Prescott got the goods on Page from the a report on the White House Web site. The report shows Page voted against requiring "houses of worship that wish to receive direct federal social service funds to establish separate corporations as a necessary means for achieving church-state separation and protecting religious autonomy, while also urging states to reduce any unnecessary administrative costs and burdens associated with attaining this status."

Barry Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State wrote of this matter:

One year after Obama announced his version of the faith-based office, civil rights and civil liberties groups such as mine are still fighting Bush-era battles over tax funding to religious groups that proselytize, job discrimination on religious grounds in public programs and lack of accountability. It's disheartening.

I am not a member of the president's 25-member Advisory Council on Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships, the body Obama formed one year ago to examine these issues. But I did serve on a task force offering the Council advice on a range of questions.

During our deliberations, I often found myself on the other side from conservative religious activists who resisted even the most benign and reasonable rules that would safeguard the rights of taxpayers and the disadvantaged as well as help preserve the constitutional separation of church and state.

. . .

Conservative religious representatives on the Council disagreed. They want sectarian groups to have access to plenty of government money with very little (if any) meaningful accountability. That's the status quo; they like it.

Resistance to accountability by Page and others like him could provoke a consensus around the view that the entire program is, if not flatly unconstitutional, then unwise.

Baptist missionaries' legal adviser has trafficking issues

Update

A man offering legal advice to most of the 10 Baptists, Jorge Puello, "may have a string of legal charges against him in the United States as well as a warrant for his arrest in El Salvador for sex trafficking, records show." The New York Times reported Saturday:

The man, Jorge Puello, was brought into the case from the Dominican Republic as a lawyer to help the 10 Americans arrested last month for trying to remove 33 children from the country after the earthquake without government permission.

A Web site that was abruptly taken down on Friday described Mr. Puello and his cousin, Alejandro Puello, as law partners.

. . .

Salvadoran police say they want to question Mr. Puello in connection with a sex trafficking ring that was broken up last year in which women and girls from Central America and the Caribbean were lured into prostitution through offers of modeling jobs. The suspect police are seeking is named Jorge Anibal Torres Puello, which Mr. Puello said was not his full name.

. . .

Public records and court documents in the United States also indicate that a person with the same name and birth date is considered a fugitive and is wanted by the Miami police, the United States Customs and the United States Marshals Service. The name and birth date are also the same as the man being pursued by the police in El Salvador and for whom Interpol has transmitted an arrest warrant.

An order is listed in the United States national crime database for a man with that name and birth date to be arrested on sight and reported to United States immigration officials. Those records say he is wanted in connection with crimes including bank fraud in the United States and Canada, and theft of American government property. Police records say he has violated parole.

The Miami Herald reported Saturday:

Salvadoran police say photos that surfaced Friday show the legal advisor to American missionaries jailed in Haiti may be the lead suspect in a human trafficking ring involving child prostitution in El Salvador.

Police say they are waiting for fingerprints to determine if Jorge Anibal Torres Puello is also wanted in El Salvador on charges of promoting prostitution among children in what has been one of the nation's most vexing social problems

The Idaho Statesman reported:

While investigators in the Dominican Republic, El Salvador and Florida look into Jorge Puello's past, the families and representatives of several of the 10 jailed Americans he has been working for say they don't know how he became their advocate in the ordeal.

Puello, is suspected of leading a trafficking ring involving Central American and Caribbean women and girls, and says it is a case of mistaken identity. The New York Times reported Friday:

When the judge presiding over the Haitian case learned on Thursday of the investigation in El Salvador, he said he would begin his own inquiry of the adviser, a Dominican man who was in the judge’s chambers days before.

The judge in the case has recommended release of the 10 Americans, but that does not settle the issue. The Christian Science Monitor reports:

The judge's opinion still will be reviewed by prosecutors in the case. The prosecutors' decision could take up to five days to be issued, Haitian judicial officials said.

Whuddya know: The Obama administration didn't abandon anyone

The unabandoned "Southern Baptist Ten" in Haiti apparently owe some thanks to the Obama administration, especially often-maligned Secretary of State Hillary Clinton:

Reg Brown, a Washington,D.C., attorney for detainee Jim Allen of Texas, said Allen's team of lawyers is "cautiously optimistic" that their client would soon be released. "We believe the secretary of state has played a constructive role in that Secretary (Hillary) Clinton wants to bring the Americans home," said Brown, who this week wrote to Clinton asking for her assistance.

Self-protective outcry from Southern Baptist Convention bigwigs, despite their role in causing the problem, may have been irrelevant to the proceedings themselves and, given the SBC's longtime role as a Republican Party auxiliary, off the Obama administration's radar.

Haitian judge may release the 10 Baptists: Update

Finding no malevolent intentions, a Haitian judge has apparently decided to release the 10 Baptists who have been at the center of so much furor, Reuters reported Wednesday afternoon. The report was based upon disclosures by an unnamed "judicial source:"

"One thing an investigating judge seeks in a criminal investigation is criminal intentions on the part of the people involved, and there is nothing that shows that criminal intention here," the source said.

That seems fair, and will give us all time to wonder why top Southern Baptist Convention officials seemed to be more concerned about the denomination's image than about either the missionaries themselves or about the Haitian children whose protection is and was the objective of Haiti's legal system in this case.

Bear in mind that the 10 Southern Baptists were arrested out of a legitimate Haitian concern with child trafficking. Specifically, the U.S. State Department issued a cautionary statement on Jan. 26 which said:

In the aftermath of a crisis such as the Haiti earthquake, children are especially vulnerable; and there is increased potential for abuse of, and trafficking in, children. The United States remains committed to working with the Government of Haiti to implement safeguards to protect children and their families in Haiti.

Update: Thursday afternoon

Release may be "provisional:"

Later, Saint-Vil said he would recommend provisional freedom for the detainees while the investigation continues. But it wasn't clear whether their possible release means they would be allowed to leave Haiti, or what implications the judge's decision could have on whether the charges may be dropped.

Winter storms bury the Cheyenne River Sioux Reservation in misery

South Dakota's Cheyenne River Sioux Reservation is besieged by winter storms, "leaving about 30,000 residents in two communities without water, electricity or heat for at least a week," and Bishop John Tarrant of the Episcopal Diocese of South Dakota has appealed for emergency relief funds.

Cathy Lynn Grossman writes:

No photos or video of sweet suffering faces. No popular vacation landscape for a backdrop. No personal connective ties. Are those the reasons the natural disaster in the Great Plains has gone below our philanthropy radar?

Keith Olbermann appeals for help:

Attacks on faith-based program reveal its flaws

No one should be surprised that President Obama's faith-based initiatives are drawing fire from liberals and conservatives.

After all, it is known that the program failed to increase churches' social services and some have advocated doing away with the program completely. Also, a broad coalition of organizations jointly said the Religious Freedom Restoration Act was meant to protect religious liberty not lead to discrimination.

So folks like Barry Lynn, head of Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, and former Southern Baptist Convention president Frank Page, still take issue with the program.

David Waters, who edits an online discussion about faith for the Post and Newsweek and blogs about religion, concludes that the faith-based initiative remains a "fundamentally flawed concept."

"The federal government and U.S. religious groups serve two different masters. The government serves taxpayers, religious groups serve God. When it comes to distributing and overseeing the use of federal tax dollars, government overrules God."

Churches and other faith-based groups that take government funding, should follow the rules, Waters said.

"If not, they can decide to help people the old-fashioned way -- because God calls them to, not because government pays them to."

Well said.

Abusing Native American religious rites to deadly effect

James Arthur Ray ran high-end "Spiritual Warrior" retreats which desecreated Sioux sweat-lodge rituals. Until an Oct. 8, 2009, incident in Sedona, Arizona, which resulted in three deaths and 20 other hospitalizations. On Feb. 3, 2010, the Yavapai County Arizona Sheriff's Dept. arrested Ray, charging him with three counts of manslaughter

Those three were simply the most recent deaths resulting from the "commodification" of American Indian cultural and religious practices, observed Judith Weisenfeld, Princeton University professor of religion and associate faculty in the Center for African American Studies.

Native Americans have not responded passively to the desecration of their traditions. The Lakota Nation has filed a lawsuit under the Sioux treaty of 1868.

Wikipedia says, in summary:

The Lakota Nation holds that James Arthur Ray and the Angel Valley Retreat Center have “violated the peace between the United States and the Lakota Nation” and have caused the “desecration of our Sacred Oinikiga (purification ceremony) by causing the death of Liz Neuman, Kirby Brown and James Shore”. As well, the Lakota claim that James Arthur Ray and the Angel Valley Retreat Center fraudulently impersonated Indians and must be held responsible for causing the deaths and injuries, and for evidence destruction through dismantling of the sweat lodge. The lawsuit seeks to have the treaty enforced and does not seek monetary compensation.

The Lakota have also published a "Declaration of War Against Exploiters of Lakota Spirituality," which does a great deal to clarify the cultural/religious issues involved.

The tony, $9,000 a head retreats are regarded by Native Americans as altogether corrupt. There is, explains Chief Arvol Looking Horse, "19th Generation Keeper of the Sacred White Buffalo Calf Pipe Bundle," no for-pay Lakota/Dakota/Nakota Oyate spiritual rite [.pdf]:

When you do ceremony, you can not have money on your mind. We deal with the pure sincere energy to create healing that comes from everyone in that circle of ceremony. The heart and mind must be connected. When you involve money, it changes the energy of healing. The person wants to get what they paid for; the Spirit Grandfather will not be there, our way of life is now being exploited! You do more damage than good. No mention of monetary energy should exist in healing, not even with a can of love donations. When that energy exists, they will not even come.

The issues here are clearly more complex than "buyer beware," although a visit to New Age Frauds & Plastic Shamans is a good place to begin is you are considering the purchase of such services.

Bottom line? That path is not for sale, either.

[H/T Judith Weisenfeld]

Using a killer's words to blame the victim

Abused by Baylor University when she had to courage to report being assaulted by "murdering minister" Matt Baker when he was a student there, Lora Wilson is still a target of reflexive abuse.

Blame the victim is a hideous American practice, not exclusively a Southern Baptist sin -- one at which Christa Brown fired back when Lora Wilson was maligned with Baker's words in a recent blog comment.

The smear continues in part because the Southern Baptist institutions which are at fault have failed to acknowledge their responsibility. Christa writes:

To this day, no Baylor official has made any public expression of remorse. No one at First Baptist of Waco, a church that had two reports of Baker’s abuse, has expressed any sorrow about letting the man move on without consequence. No one at the Baptist General Convention of Texas has offered any explanation for how someone with so many abuse and assault reports could move so easily through its affiliated churches and organizations. And no one in Baptistland has made even the feeblest of effort to reach out to the many more who were likely wounded by “murdering minister” Matt Baker -- the many who are probably still silent.

Change a mind ...

Beyond hype, hope for spirit-minded sports

Nothing demonstrates the outrageous devotion of sports fans like the overwhelming hype of Super Bowl week.

This year's version has a particularly religious flavor with Focus on Family buying some of the famously expensive commercial time with an anti-abortion ad featuring University of Florida quarterback Tim Tebow. And just a little more than a week before the big game, Phoenix Cardinal quarterback Kurt Warner announced his retirement by thanking God for the opportunity to play.

But amid the hoopla, Shirl James Hoffman, emeritus professor of kinesiology at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, encourages a different approach to sports. His article in Christianity Today, is called "Sports Fanatics: How Christians have succumbed to the sports culture — and what might be done about it."

Hoffman has spent 40 years in sports as an athlete, an official, a coach, a professor and an administrator. He sees an evangelistic fascination with sports like the call, "Onward Christian Athletes," and the seemingly omnipresent "skin-deep evangelism."

Christian evangelicals, he says, "have been quick to harness sports to personal and institutional agendas," but also points out that organized sports too often bring out the worst in people. He believes that Christians have a "duty to seek the redemption of sports, and to point society toward a better way of playing."

Hoffman cites numerous difficulties, including that the "big-time sports culture lifts up values in sharp contrast with what Christians for centuries have understood as the embodiment of the gospel." Nonetheless he calls for a Christian view "that sports are derivatives of the God-given play impulse—intended less to test our spiritual limits than as times and places to recover our spiritual centers of gravity and to rehearse spiritual truths, dim images of the real game that will begin when we leave this world behind."

The piece is well worth the read for sports-minded Christians and spirit-minded sports fans.

Farewell NAMB/IMB merger

Merger of the big, troubled North American Mission Board (NAMB) with the big, troubled International Mission Board (IMB) is apparently off the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) drawing boards.

Thus spake the Great Commission Resurgence Task Force (GCRTF) Chairman Ronnie Floyd in a speech Monday at a Florida pastor's conference. Although SBC President Johnny Hunt once called stories reporting the possibility of such a merger "ludicrous," Floyd confessed:

There was great, great, great discussion studying, planning and even to the point of having strategic formation of the possibility of the other. But we just really sensed in our heart that wasn’t right at this time.

"Sensed" presumably means heard the uproar set off by the GCRTF's fog-enshrouded considerations of merger and objection by SBC elder statesman Duke K. McCall and others to the further concentration of SBC executive authority such a merger would entail.

'GetReligion' nails the Haggard book event

Steve Rabey writing about coverage of Gayle Haggard's promotion of her new book about life with Ted:

The Haggard story has now evolved into the type of media events Neal Gabler called “lifies,” which are celebrity-driven, media-friendly stories about failure and redemption that serve up big, gooey life lessons for viewers.