Louis Moore on Religion

Avery Willis remembered as a man who truly practiced what he preached

2010-08-01T20:45:00.008-05:00

An old saying offers some sage wisdom: "He who lives next door to the temple soon loses his fear of the gods."

As a big-city newspaper reporter covering religious leaders of every label and denomination and later as a denominational employee working around some of the heaviest-hitters in the Southern Baptist Convention, I learned to understand clearly that old saying. From a distance, religious leaders can inspire and look terrific, but up close some of them turn out to be great disappointments because of their humanity—translated: at times, their arrogance, selfishness, self-centeredness, petulance, and hypocrisy that's often not seen from the pew or by the TV audience.

I thought about this again today after I read of the passing early Friday morning of Avery Willis, one of the few denominational leaders I knew who truly lived what he preached.

No one, except Jesus, is perfect; Avery would be the first to admit that he had his foibles. But despite some of those, I admired him because his talk and walk were the same. Known as "Mr. MasterLife", Avery was noted for helping individuals learn how to deepen and articulate their faith and then to share it with others. He and my wife, Kay, teamed up to write the "new MasterLife" which debuted in 1996 and continues to impact millions of people around the globe even today. Many times he was in our home to converse with Kay about the project as well as there, along with his wife, Shirley, for social occasions. And we were in the Willises' home many times for the same reasons.

However, the image of Avery that sticks in my mind to this day—some 15 years after it happened—is of a cab ride with Avery through the streets of Buenos Aires, Argentina. He and I both were there to attend an international Baptist meeting. Riding in the back seat of the cab beside him, I listened attentively as Avery did his best to try and explain his faith in Christ to the person driving the cab. The cab driver was just another ordinary person, and Avery had no need to impress Kay and me as we rode the taxi with him back to our hotel. Impromptu, unrehearsed, and spontaneous all are words that describe Avery's actions that night.

At the same time Avery was a brilliant evangelism and missions strategist. He saw the big picture and looked for ways to reach the masses as well as individuals.

His actions were so out of character with many other leaders of all denominations that I encountered. In their big meetings, these leaders plotted and preached "strategy" for motivating others to help "win the world" to Christ; they talked a good game about what others needed to do. Somehow, though, some didn't seem to sense—as Avery did—their own personal responsibility in the effort.

Not only did Avery "witness" to the cab driver in Argentina, Kay and I saw him do the same thing in other countries and even back home in the States.

Remarkably, none of the instances I witnessed of Avery appeared to be done for show or because the person had an audience nearby. His actions seemed to express a heartfelt desire on his part.

After hearing of Avery's passing, Kay commented, "I imagine when he arrived at heaven's gates this morning, he was greeted by a whole host of people who shook his hand and told him they wouldn't be there had it not been for his efforts at witnessing to them."

Because she knew Avery even better than I—and better than most people—and was also good friends with Avery's wife, Shirley, I asked Kay to be a "guest columnist" to share her thoughts about Avery on this blog today. I hope you will enjoy reading her behind-the-scenes, in-depth perspective of a truly great man.

* * * * * * *

By Kay Moore

co-author with Avery Willis of the four-volume MasterLife revision

Avery already has been, and will be for the days and months ahead, eulogized for many exemplary things. But I have yet to see any of those laudatory remarks zero in on a happening that I believe truly captured the man:

At 8:52 p.m. on the night before he died at 5 the next morning, Avery was updating his status on his CaringBridge website. Naturally the words were few; he may have been dictating them to a family member, although I wouldn't put it past him to call for his laptop to be brought to his deathbed.

But unlike many his age (76, though young by today's standards, still was advanced enough to stereotype him into a "geezerhood" category, as far as being tech-savvy was concerned) Avery always understood--and utilized--the most recent technology as a means of advancing the Kingdom. He always remained current on new tech developments; usually he was a few steps ahead of us--his much-younger employees at LifeWay Christian Resources--in staying abreast of what the Internet could do for our programs. He expected us to follow suit.

I use the term "us" because I once was privileged to have Avery as one of my "big bosses" at LifeWay, then known as the Baptist Sunday School Board. At the time I joined the Board, Avery was a head-honcho in the Discipleship Training Department, as it was known then. My job-interview process before signing on landed me in Avery's office for the last of a series of grillings (including many questions about my spiritual life) before I became an editor over church-based support-group curriculum.

Many applicants would have been quaking in their boots to realize that they would have to pass muster before the esteemed Avery Willis--renowned author of MasterLife, legendary missionary to Indonesia, and widely respected speaker, preacher, and revivalist. But before any of those thoughts of trepidation could flit through my head, Avery shook my hand sincerely and with the signature twinkle in his eye (a twinkle that I'm sure never left his countenance even at the end) put me at ease immediately. Approachable always was the word to describe Avery. He wanted to know about the work, sure, but he also always wanted to know about the family and later about the small groups I personally was leading and whether the MasterLife concepts ("I want you not only to write it but live it", he adjured me the day I contracted alongside him to co-author the 1996 revision) were finding a home in my heart.

I'll never forget the day he and I began outlining the revision for what was to become MasterLife Book 3, "The Disciples' Victory." After only a few sentences into spelling out his vision for the project Avery scooted back his chair as we sat at the dining table and looked at me squarely. The twinkle still twinkled, but otherwise he was somber. "You know you'll experience warfare once you take on this topic," he warned. Inwardly (probably a little bit outwardly as well) I scoffed. "Oh, Avery," I said as I mentally rolled my eyes. "Been there; done that. I know how to deal with temptation." Still dead-on serious, he shook his head. "You've never known warfare like you will when you tackle this," he continued. "Just be on guard and stay prayed up." I promised I would.

Wow, how right he was! The devil certainly didn't want Book 3 to ever see the light of day. I'm not talking big, heinous trip-ups that Satan arrayed in front of me, but I did experience many, many times in which the devil certainly showed he wanted to stop me from my goals. Little annoyances, such as wrongful charges on personal credit-card bills, inexplicable computer glitches, and other out-of-the-ordinary troubles were my lot the entire time Avery and I worked on revising Book 3. Of the four MasterLife volumes in the new order (our goal was to reorganize into four six-week, more user-friendly segments than the original 24-month MasterLife that had appeared in the two brown ring binders that many original M'Lifers remember), "The Disciple's Victory" was my personal favorite (most people say Book 2 "The Disciple's Personality" tops their list, but Book 3 was the book of my heart). But it had the most struggle involved in getting it into print.

Despite Satan's attacks that clearly went with that territory, Book 3 gave me the most valuable asset I had when I sent my firstborn away to college across several state lines. Although I often felt helpless to assist my son since I was so far away, one thing I could do for him was to pray the spiritual armor on him every day. As a mom, having that vehicle at my disposal was a daily reminder that God cared even more about my boy's spiritual well-being than I, as his devoted mother, did. My son is grown now but still lives across several state lines from me. Praying the spiritual armor on him still is a daily task of mine, even though he's 34, married, and a father of two; it probably always will be (once a mom, always a mom). I'm so thankful that Avery taught me--and believers around the world--about that handy exercise.

Now that Avery has been promoted to Glory and no longer is working on this earth (although I'm sure he's already working a mile-a-minute in heaven), I can reveal the true secret to working with Avery Willis--a secret that only a few of his co-workers ever discovered but once anyone did, he or she found it absolutely foolproof. I mention this now in no way to be disrespectful but to simply show what an immensely busy man he was and the extreme demands and pressures on his time. That secret?

Before a meeting, get to him last.

Often before a department-wide assembly of the LifeWay discipleship staff, I would think that he and I had an arrangement worked out on a plan he would be presenting for me. But once Avery took the floor and began speaking on the topic of discussion, I would scratch my head in puzzlement. What had happened to my proposal that he had seemed to be so keen on? Meeting after meeting this would occur. Then one day I had something under my contact lens and had to arrive late at a department-wide meeting after I spent a stint at the washbowl to get my contact clean. As Avery also arrived at the meeting late and right in front of me, I saw a couple of DT co-workers, who stood outside the meeting door, divert Avery for a moment and bend his ear. He respectfully listened, courteously nodded, and then walked into the gathering.

When the time arrived for new business to be introduced, guess whose projects were most ardently advanced? The two co-workers who had gotten to him last. The development seemed more than coincidental.

Next time I had a major need that was critical to my area of responsibility, I decided to give this system a try. What could it hurt? Patiently but determinedly I waited by the meeting door until Avery was about to brush by. As I gestured for his attention, he courteously inclined his ear. I briefly refreshed his memory about an earlier discussion we had had and what my section needed to achieve. "Oh, yes, yes," he nodded in agreement. Some 20 minutes later, when Avery had the floor, my project was pushed through without a hitch.

Avery was a busy, busy man with his mind on countless things. I had gotten to him last.

As early Friday morning I learned he had just departed for Glory, part of me wished I had been able to have one last good conversation with him before he stepped through heaven's portals. After pouring out voluminous thank-you's for what he had meant in my life, I would have added one postscript, "Give Jesus a big hug for me. And my mother and daddy, too." I would like to have gotten to him last--just one more time.

I know one thing for sure: Jesus had a big hug for Avery awaiting him when he got there.

I also know that I was one among countless worshipers around the world today who had Avery on their minds as they attended their houses of worship and who were imagining what Glory must be like with him now as part of the heavenly host.

On the eve of his memorial service Tuesday in Arkansas, our church's congregational hymn, "Worship Christ, the Risen King", had some lines that summed up my thoughts about Avery's Promotion and his physical body about to be laid to rest.

See the tomb where death had laid Him,

Empty now, its mouth declares:

"Death and I could not contain Him,

For the throne of life He shares."

These hymn lines, obviously, were written about the resurrected Christ. But when Avery's body--felled too soon by disease and death--is returned to the earth for burial, the tomb will not be able to contain his spirit, which already is safe in the arms of Jesus.

And with Jesus, whom he served, wrote about, and emulated (as Louis described above), Avery today is sharing that Throne of Life. In MasterLife, Avery taught us how to live. As Avery mastered life and triumphed over death--he showed us how to die with The Disciple's Victory.

Going Rogue is not such a bad idea after all

2010-07-02T22:03:00.019-05:00

When we travel from Texas to Arizona and back every so often (to visit our children, grandchildren and second home in the beautiful Arizona West Valley), Kay and I like to get a book on tape and listen to it. Usually we try to find something about the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln, or something that isn't as current as today's newspaper.

This time, however, I chose, after a careful five minutes of study, to purchase a copy of Sarah Palin's Going Rogue. I did so partly out of curiosity and partly to get some kind of objective perspective on this very unique political personage.

In all honesty, I leaped for joy when John McCain chose Sarah as his running mate in the last presidential election. I thought he showed creativity, wisdom, and a willingness to depart from the "good ole' party line" when he chose a woman with children of varying ages, from a state without much political clout in elections or in Washington. By November, I voted for the McCain-Palin ticket more for Palin than for McCain, who seemed to run out of steam as if he knew the inevitable reality of President Obama's history-making election was upon him.

After the election, I was puzzled by many of Sarah's actions and the awful news coverage the mainstream media continued to drum up about her. She clearly was no darling of the liberal New York Times, Washington Post, . . . and even Yahoo News, which never missed an opportunity to gut her at every turn in its headlines or placement of questionable stories.

We listened to Sarah read her book to us for nearly 14 hours as our pickup truck made its way over familiar roads through West Texas, into New Mexico, and finally to Arizona's West Valley outside of Phoenix.

Sarah presented a very believable and understandable response to all the ugly headlines and comments made by the liberal Democrats and media—and even some Republicans—about her.

I liked some of what I heard Sarah say, but I didn't like some other things I heard her say. I also was puzzled by some of the things she needed to say but didn't.

She pictured herself as a maverick who was willing to stand up to party bosses and pros who think they and they alone know what is best for the country, including you and me. That part I admire very much. I personally consider myself—and those who have read my newspaper and blog columns over the years would likely agree—as "going rogue" in religious and political beliefs and actions. I don't like bureaucracies or party bosses of any persuasion trying to dictate to me what I should or should not believe.

In her book and in her lifestyle, Sarah displayed guts and independence—values I admire. I especially liked the fact that she truly lived up to the title of her book—Going Rogue. In my lifetime, I don't remember another politician of her stature with as much gumption as she has displayed. And that is very good. Too many in both political parties and too many denominations go along to get along with whatever their party bosses and leadership say or do. We desperately need in the U.S. political system—and the U.S. churches for that matter, too—leaders and people who are willing to think for themselves, speak for themselves, do the right thing, and act for the better good. Sarah seemed to personify all those elements.

What I didn't like were:

1. Her incessant references to Ronald Reagan and the Reagan legacy. She barely gave the Bushes a nod. and acted like she couldn't remember the name of any other Republican president (or for that matter Democratic president other than Barach Obama) who have occupied the White House. (There have been plenty, both good and bad.) Since I don't worship Reagan (or any other political leader) and found Bush The First much more likable and palatable than most people did, you can imagine that her "Reagan, Reagan, Reagan" did not set well with me.

2. I also didn't like some of her conclusions about what needs to be done in Washington. I liked some, but not all of what she said. (What would you expect from two "rogues"?)

What bothered me most, however, was what she did not say.

America's and the world's problems run much deeper than just the U.S. federal government and the ridiculous deficits that are occurring.

My federal tax rate has actually dropped over the past 10 years, thanks to former President George W. Bush's extreme tax cuts. The U.S. government has done nothing to make my life worse, except for Bush the Second's misrepresentation about those weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and the irresponsible way his administration let the banks and Wall Street get away with the things that led to the Great Recession.

But during the last 10 years my state and local property taxes sure haven't been lessened or held steady. Despite all the baloney about cutting taxes, Texas' Republican governor has overseen a massive (at least in my neighborhood) increase in the tax increase flowing to our local school district, city, and county.

And despite all the screaming and yelling that has gone on about the dangers of the feds administering health care, Blue Cross and Blue Shield, our health-insurance provider, has found a million different ways to triple our private health insurance rates (while forcing me to raise my deductibles) and cut the benefits (Oh, we're sorry but that medicine or drug or treatment isn't covered by your policy because of a loophole or technicality that we have hidden in fine print somewhere in your policy!).

And my local Kroger's, Walmart, and other friendly neighborhood haunts have found lots and lots of ways to raise their prices massively while telling me in their unending marketing campaigns how they are out to cut prices and help the little guy on a fixed income.

I just wish Sarah had mentioned some of these issues, too. The federal government is NOT the only problem. Multinational companies, huge hoggish banks, gigantic manipulative insurance companies and other bureaucracies and entities that Pope John Paul II used to warn us about are just as evil today as in the days when PJP wandered the earth in his popemobiles, jet planes and trains, and warned of the dangers that were developing because of the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer.

Neither America's nor the world's problems will be fully fixed in Washington. Instead, they will be fixed by compassionate caring in local neighborhoods; honest and straightforward politicians at all levels of government and not just the national level; ethical standards returning to the business world; and a myriad of other positive steps by honest and diligently working people of all races, nationalities, religions, and economic levels.

The problems we face today are too complex for simple solutions or pat answers.

I like the idea of "going rogue" and breaking with party bosses, traditions, and doing things "as they have always been done." Three cheers for Sarah for doing that.

I just think Sarah needs to take it about five levels up. I hope she will. At least she is saying what most politicians wouldn't dream of saying: that their party is wrong on certain issues and has been wrong at other times, too.

She struck me as neither a Republican nor a Democrat. I especially liked the fact that her husband likes to vote independently and won't toddy to any political party.

Keep your eyes on this "rogue" politician. She just might—I repeat might—keep on growing into the type of political leader this country and the world so desperately need—one with courage, independence, and the guts to do and say that which is right regardless of whose little political toes get stepped on.

The Earth is the Lord's and the fulness thereof. . . including that tragic oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico

2010-06-08T10:00:00.001-05:00

The great BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico may turn out to be the instrument God uses to get Southern Baptists and other Evangelicals out of their opposition and complacency toward environmental issues. And as bad as the mess in the gulf is, that may turn out to be a good thing.

With few exceptions, Southern Baptists have been extremely skeptical about environmental issues. They are, for instance, forever bad-mouthing anyone who dares to support the concept of global warming (including three of their own kinsmen—Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, and Al Gore). Their opposition to that issue screams so loudly that it gets in their way of expressing true positive biblical concern for the Earth and all that is in it. Those who haven't been opposed to everything environmentalists say about global warming have often been, to put it mildly, foot draggers on the issue of the environment in general.

I was heartened to read recently in Baptist Press an article by Russell Moore (no relation to me that I know of), dean of the theology school at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky., that spoke of a grave concern for the environment generated by the oil spill. Like so many Southern Baptists, Russell happens to have deep roots along the Gulf Coast. He had returned home to the Gulf Coast and saw first hand the devastation already pummeling the area because of the slick stuff inching its way onto the beaches and into the lives of millions of people.

Russell has for years been a good forecaster of important issues in the SBC, which makes his opinion on this matter even more interesting.

It's a shame that it takes a cruel rude awakening in one's backyard to prompt concern that should have been there all along about the environment. Christians, particularly Bible-believing conservative Evangelicals, ought to have been in the forefront of the environmental-concerns movement. After all, the biblical book of Genesis makes it abundantly clear that the Earth and all that live on it or around it are God's creation. And Genesis also makes it abundantly clear that we humans are to be stewards (caretakers) of all of God's creation including the Earth itself.

And it doesn't take a believer in the theory of global warming to recognize that we humans are doing a pitiful job of taking care of God's beautiful world. Pollution, trash, misuse, and other ills that beset our Earth should be obvious to even the most casual observer.

Yes, I know upfront and personal that Richard Land of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, has spoken out somewhat in support of environmental issues. Having worked at the ERLC when it was called the Christian Life Commission, I know personally of Richard's interest in the area. I also know that it falls low on his and the agency's priority list. Southern Baptists simply don't get anywhere near as excited about environmental issues as they do the pro-life movement. Everything these days in the SBC seems to revolve around that issue (which by the way I support but not to the exclusion of every other biblical issue).

Instead, like so much else these days, Southern Baptists and many Evangelicals have allowed the Republican Party and its secular political biases to dictate their agenda. And unfortunately opposition to environmental issues is one of those issues the right wing of the Republican Party has lit upon.

Concern for the Earth and all that inhabit it should never be a divisive political issue. It should never be a Republican nor a Democratic issue. It is a biblical issue. It's OK to debate whether global warming is real or not, but it's not OK to fight against the issue of global warming so much that it looks for all the world like total opposition to anything and everything environmentalists have to say.

The tragedy that is unfolding in the Gulf of Mexico contains frightening elements for all Americans—Republicans, Democrats, Tea Party advocates, and Independents—as well as all citizens of the world. It is difficult to think of anything good resulting from BP's blunder and its continuing display of ineptness at managing the mess. But if it does light a fire under Southern Baptists and other Evangelicals about our need to be better stewards of our Earth and all that is in and on it, then at least that will be good.

Arizona's misstep illustrates the divide between Christian denominations

2010-04-28T20:54:00.011-05:00

The last thing economically strapped Arizona needed was a national debacle over its new immigration law, but the action now seems to be the flash point in the long-running debate on the issue.

My wife and I were in Arizona when the new, controversial law was passed. We own a second home there—and pay property taxes—because we have family in Arizona's beautiful West Valley; we like the area very much. We watched the debate up-close and couldn't believe what was happening. Now back in Texas where we live most of the year, we feel embarrassed by Arizona's misguided action.

Sadly, we also have a good idea of the roots of the issue.

The law looks not only vindictive against all Hispanics, but it smacks of revenge being taken out on innocent people over the messed-up financial situation the state has managed to get itself into. Arizona—like California, Florida, Michigan and some other states who led us into the Great Recession—is in dire circumstances. Anger over the financial mess oozes on top of the hot desert sands. Home prices there have plummeted to unbelievable depths. The majority of the mortgage-holders in the state are underwater. The state's unemployment rate is high. The state's legislature is struggling to figure out what to do with all the red ink. Its largest city, Phoenix, in January laid off about 10 percent of its police and fire departments as well as cut even more drastically other city services—merely a benchmark for what other smaller cities and counties in the state are doing.

Economic misery often produces cockeyed behavior—regrettably often directed at innocent bystanders. This new law clearly is in that league.

The amazing thing about Arizona's new immigration law is how it appears to be dividing the religious community. The National Council of Churches and its affiliated mainline denominations have turned out swinging at the law. The NCC has called the law unChristian, immoral, and probably illegal. The Evangelical denominations for the most part so far have remained silent on the Arizona debacle.

Native-born U.S. Hispanics we know are boiling about the new Arizona law. Their anger is not limited to their denominational affiliations. Just because they may look Hispanic, they now will be forced—in Arizona at least—to carry on them proof of their citizenship.

Foot-dragging on this issue by Evangelical and other church leaders could drive a huge wedge between them and the rapidly growing Hispanic population in this country.

The next time I travel to Arizona, I personally plan to carry my Native American documents along with my U.S. citizenship documents. If asked to prove my nationality (which is very unlikely since I have no Hispanic heritage), I will show my Native American papers and then ask the nationality of the interrogator. Unless he or she also is a Native American, I will ask whether his or her ancestors were really, truly legal when they intruded on this land. Many people conveniently forget that except for Native Americans, all other Americans are descendants of people who may not always have had the proper legal papers to enter this country. Many of the first Americans certainly didn't ask permission of the people who already lived here then.

I hope Arizona's leaders not only quickly return to their senses and repeal the law but that the attitude they have displayed toward the whole Hispanic community doesn't turn out to be contagious in the rest of the Great Recession-riddled country. The last thing America needs to do right now is to alienate its Hispanic population, its neighbor to the South, and the rest of us who do not want to see our Hispanic friends mistreated.

SBC's "Great Commission" task force has stumbled badly

2010-03-10T19:17:00.011-06:00

When I first learned about the Great Commission Resurgence movement in the Southern Baptist Convention, I felt extremely optimistic that maybe—just maybe—this might be God's means of bringing the bureaucracy-laden, fervor-cooled, myopic, shrinking denomination back on the right track.

Then when I learned about the official Great Commission Resurgence Task Force that was formed after last year's SBC meeting, my hopes sank dramatically. I wrote at the time:

"After the committee's formation I was tempted to write a blog entitled 'Can the SBC bureaucracy save itself?' (Perhaps in the end this committee will be able to muster the courage, insights and influence necessary to make the required dramatic changes, but I remain skeptical because too many politicians and bureaucrats are now involved. What isn't needed is a simple rearranging of the chairs on the deck of this Titanic!)."

Now that I've read the preliminary report from this establishment-ladened committee, I am truly underwhelmed. Yes, underwhelmed. Overwhelmed I'm not.

This is looking more and more like a simple reshuffling the cards in a card game—a bureaucratic tug-o-war over money, position and power. That's the last thing the faltering denomination needs. The committee's recommendations look more like petty "robbing Peter to pay Paul" antics than the energy needed to expand the tent, bring in more members and more money, and re-ignite the cooling evangelistic fires that once burned so brightly inside the nation's largest non-Catholic denomination.

Presently top denominational bureaucrats are pointing fingers at each other over the committee's silly, Mickey-Mouse pronouncement that the solution lies in taking $2 million from the denomination's Executive Committee and giving it to its International Mission Board, which already receives 50-cents out of every dollar forwarded to the national denomination, and in taking funds away from its smallest state conventions, which are having a truly tough time living on the outskirts of the denomination's Southern base and staying afloat in this Great Recession, to invigorate its long-faltering North American Mission Board.

If this Movement is in reality just a ruse to steal each other's funding and play "pea-under-the- pod" bureaucracy games, then the Great Commission Resurgence is truly not what I—and many others—had hoped for: a way out for the denomination's cooling fervor, declining numbers, and dwindling dollars.

Instead of the Movement stirring up top, aging denominational bureaucrats to squabble over money and fuss about who's more evangelistic, the Great Commission Committee needed to motivate, inspire, and lead the denomination's core and younger lay and clergy members on the local level—not its bloated national bureaucracy—to aspire to new heights.

Time is running out for the task force to forge a creative, innovative, far-reaching, positive plan for the convention's future that truly will inspire the person in the pew.

New Baylor President Ken Starr needs to be as clear about his theology as he wanted Bill Clinton to be about his sexual activities

2010-02-15T18:13:00.033-06:00

Back in the 1990s, when the flame of Southern Baptist interest in establishing better relations with other Christian denominations was flickering and getting ready to go out, our home was practically ground zero for Southern Baptist ecumenical dialogue.

At that time Southern Baptists had only two official dialogues under way with other Christian groups—Roman Catholics and Churches of Christ. I served as one of the 10 Southern Baptists on the Roman Catholic-Southern Baptist dialogue; my wife Kay served as one of the 10 Southern Baptists on the Churches of Christ-Southern Baptist dialogue team. Kay at one time was the only female among the 20 Southern Baptists, 10 Roman Catholics and 10 representatives of the Churches of Christ—40 people all total—serving on the two teams.

To say we had a ringside seat on these discussions would be an understatement. Both dialogue teams each met for dinner and discussion in our home for one of their meetings.

I was invited to be on the RCC-SB dialogue team because of my extensive interest in the Roman Catholic Church and the fact that as religion editor of the Houston Chronicle I had traveled with Pope John Paul II on some of his many trips abroad and had spent about a month working in Rome covering the Vatican.

Kay was invited to be a participant in the Churches of Christ dialogue because of her extensive knowledge of and interest in the Churches of Christ. Her paternal grandfather was a minister in the Churches of Christ and her father was a lifelong member of a Church of Christ congregation. Only the fact that her dad's particular Church of Christ in their hometown in the late 1940s did not have an air-conditioner and the local Baptist church did kept Kay from growing up a member of a Church of Christ. Instead her mother—with Kay's father's blessings—chose to remain a Southern Baptist and to rear Kay in a Southern Baptist church which had a wonderfully cool church nursery for Sunday morning and evening and Wednesday-night services.

Recently we were reminded of how these two strains--Baptist and Churches of Christ--flowed into our own lives when our alma mater, Baptist-born-and-bred Baylor University in Waco, TX, announced that Judge Ken Starr, a born-and-bred member of the Churches of Christ, would be the new (14th) president of the school. While most alumni are fixated on Starr's controversial—and some say divisive—political life, we were intrigued and puzzled by his Churches of Christ heritage and affiliation and the odd statement in the Baylor press release rather deep in the story announcing that Judge Starr plans to join a Baptist church on arrival in Waco.

(News reports say Starr is officially a member of non-denominational mega-church McLean Bible Church in Virginia where Evangelical politicos often have their memberships. Church of Christ sources say, however, he was a "weekly attender" at the University Church of Christ on the Church of Christ-affiliated Pepperdine University campus in California where until February 15 he was the dean of the Pepperdine Law School.)

This brought back memories of some of the most controversial points in the Southern Baptist-Churches of Christ dialogue. Most interesting was the fact that the 10 members of the Churches of Christ team did not fit at all the traditional Southern Baptist stereotypes of members of the Churches of Christ. These were not people who were against just about everything progressive in church life—such as pianos, organs, Sunday School, nurseries, homes for the aged, and so forth. The Churches of Christ team members were erudite, articulate, positive, and surprising in their receptivity to new things and in their presentation of their theology—a far cry from backwoods locales in which Churches of Christ members were stereotyped for the things they were against more than for anything positive.

Southern Baptists on the COC-SB dialogue team also were surprised at the many negative stereotypes the Churches of Christ members had of their denomination, too.

Theologically the biggest sticking point between Southern Baptists and Churches of Christ has traditionally been the matter of baptism. Southern Baptists believe salvation occurs through faith in Jesus Christ as one's personal Lord and Savior. Southern Baptists believe baptism is a symbolic act after salvation and illustrates what has occurred inwardly in an individual. Members of the Churches of Christ, on the other hand, believe salvation occurs through baptism. COC members believe salvation occurs in the actual act of immersion. Thus, COC members are more in keeping with Roman Catholic theology and mainline Protestant theology which link salvation and baptism together. Though those may sound like technicalities to some people, these are major theological dividing points in Christianity.

During the dialogue, Kay found some of the COC team members hedging on whether salvation is through baptism alone. (Members of the Church of Christ team almost universally confided that the very oldest Churches of Christ members--people in Kay's grandfather's generation--were far less adamant about baptism for salvation than younger members were and documented how that particular controversial tenet increasingly "gathered steam" as the movement progressed). She often returned home from the dialogues reporting that some of the participants sounded more like Baptists than the stereotypical COC members. She was particularly fascinated by COC participants who insisted COC members are more diverse in their theology than most people believe.

And of course we know Southern Baptists who are equally as diverse and who also hedge on whether they think immersion in water is actually necessary for salvation to occur.

From our experiences on these dialogue teams and other life experiences, we both learned that one needs to listen carefully to what a member of a particular denomination says he or she believes before assuming that the person falls in lock-step with whatever the prevailing theological stereotype is of the person's denominational beliefs.

That's why we are eager to learn more about what the new Baylor president actually believes about theology as well as other important issues. 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.

Baylor University's presidential announcement puzzling

2010-02-15T16:50:00.009-06:00

I'm puzzled by the way Baylor University made the announcement of Ken Starr as the next president of Baylor.

I heard about it in an email from a friend who is editor of the national Church of Christ publication. He wrote wanting to know if Starr would be the first non-Baptist president of Baylor.

With no Baylor announcement to Baylor alumni in any of our email inboxes, Kay and I then checked out Starr on Wikipedia, which already listed Starr as the 14th president of Baylor University.

Finally about 30 minutes later the announcement from Baylor arrived in our inboxes. The fact that Starr is Church of Christ was buried deep in the story. The story also noted that Starr promised to join a Baptist church as soon as he arrives in Waco.

Absent in the story was anything that truly connected Starr to Baylor past or present. Now he is the future of our alma mater! He was until a few minutes ago the dean of the law school at Pepperdine University, the Church of Christ West Coast school.

So do you get hired as Baylor president by promising to join a Baptist church? Or when you become Baylor president does your theology suddenly shift from C of C to Southern Baptist? Interesting development.

For more on this development watch this blog later tonight.

Time for SBC leaders to step forward to take responsibility for their actions in preaching the message of "go"

2010-02-04T17:11:00.019-06:00

The news media is riveted to the story about the 10 Idaho Southern Baptists who are engulfed in the legal melodrama in Haiti. And well they should be. The issues involved in this case are fascinating, complex, and illustrative of the difficulties people wanting to do good sometimes encounter in today's world.

Don't think, however, that this is the first time individual Southern Baptists have been caught in messes such as this one. What makes this escapade so unusual is that it's out there for everyone to watch and comment on. The media seldom has gotten hold of other sticky situations like this one involving Southern Baptists. Usually the denomination has managed to skinny by some really troubling scenarios. This time it got caught in the glare of the public's headlights.

Take, for instance, the case about 11 years ago when a team of Southern Baptist volunteers from the Chicago area were detained in North Korea. Yes, North Korea. Unbeknown to most Americans, including rank-and-file Southern Baptists, the SBC has been working—sometimes openly, sometimes clandestinely—in that area for at least a decade and a half.

The case to which I refer to involved a volunteer team much like the one from Idaho, with approximately the same number of people. Well-intentioned, these Chicago Southern Baptists went to North Korea full of idealism. Also like the Idahoans, the Chicagoans were apparently naive about the circumstances in which they found themselves.

And blunder they did. Even though they were warned to be discreet in their witnessing, the Chicagoans stood on street corners in Pyongyang and handed out evangelistic tracts—a great big no-no in the world's most reclusive communist-atheist nation. That was like waving a red flag in front of a bunch of already-suspicious bulls. North Korean police hauled off the volunteer group and "detained" the visitors for several days, while Southern Baptist bureaucrats worked feverishly behind the scenes—and out of the public limelight—to obtain the release of the Chicagoans.

Since the U.S. has no official diplomatic ties with North Korea, these Southern Baptist officials had to work through the Swedish embassy in Pyongyang to get the volunteer team released.

Before the whole mess ended, the situation with the Southern Baptist prisoners was the first—and a highly secret—item on the agenda during one of the Clinton administration's official talks with North Korean representatives.

After days of agony, the Chicago Southern Baptists were freed and quickly dispatched across the North Korean-Chinese border through which they had entered the reclusive country.

My hunch is this is how the Haiti situation may end. Or will it? In the case of the volunteer team in North Korea, members of the media and the public never knew what was happening. They also didn't know even after the situation was over. Because of that, no one was able to raise questions about what that team thought it was doing and why members behaved in such a reckless manner.

The Haiti situation is front-page news around the world, so people of all kinds of religious persuasions, political leanings, and legal backgrounds are now involved. Perhaps this is good, because questions need to be asked about how situations like this happen and how they can be avoided in the future.

I don't believe incidents like this occur in a vacuum, nor do I buy the idea that such happenings always are the work of the devil. Also, these things happen too often to be considered a novelty.

Southern Baptist leaders quickly note that what happened in Haiti was the work of individuals from an autonomous, independent congregation. You can almost hear them throwing in the disclaimer "overzealous". Technically correct, these leaders act shocked and bewildered over the situation. For political as well as legal reasons, they are trying to stay aloof from the embarrassing circumstances while offering compassionate prayers for the 10 people and their families.

Nevertheless, someone needs to ask the central question here—Are denominational leaders truly innocent and non-culpable in this and other situations? The policy of the SBC is for volunteer mission groups from autonomous, independent congregations to go worldwide to witness to any and every people group in the world—and they truly mean to every people group in every country in the world, with no exceptions. This has been the policy of the SBC for at least 15 years. SBC leaders over and over preach the need for presenting the gospel to every people group on the planet.

The natural corollary of that dogma is that people are going. Individual Southern Baptists from autonomous, independent congregations are streaming overseas at ever-increasing numbers. Denominational leaders are not even sure how many are going; they just know large numbers are heeding their pleas. The question is, are Southern Baptist leaders truly preparing these hoards for the inevitable conflicts and difficulties volunteers such as the Idahoans and Chicagoans have encountered?

Back in 1985, as a religion reporter for the Houston Chronicle, I went to the former Soviet Union to clandestinely interview Jewish citizens who wanted to flee their homeland for Israel or the United States but were denied exit visas by their communist masters who feared the brain drain such an exodus would create. Given the times and circumstances, this was a tricky and dangerous assignment for me.

I went knowing full well the dangers and possibilities I might face. I also went having been briefed thoroughly by lawyers and other leaders of the American B'nai B'rith Jewish organization, which was working to free the Soviet Jews.

I will never forget one question and answer during that extensive briefing.

"What happens if we get arrested by the Soviets?" one of my traveling companions asked.

The lawyer leading the briefing gave an amazing answer: "Try to get word to me any way you can. I then will fly to where ever you are and use every legal skill I have and every resource I can muster to get you freed."

I found his words reassuring. If we got into trouble, he said emphatically neither he nor B'nai B'rith would leave us dangling at the far end of a long tether. They would be there for us. Fortunately, that adventure went off smoothly without any legal or political incident. I was able to write my series on the Refusniks--a series the Houston Chronicle nominated for a Pulitzer Prize.

I doubt seriously that any Southern Baptist leader gave either the Chicagoans or the Idahoans such an assurance. SBC leaders often prompt their members to do things they later act like are merely the actions of "independent, autonomous church members".

Now is the time for SBC leaders to step forward and to take responsibility for their actions in preaching the message of "go" but not providing the proper training to keep missteps such as the ones in Haiti from happening. Better yet, some ranking SBC leader, who has been preaching the "go" message, ought to step up to the plate and volunteer to be imprisoned in the place of the 10 people now being held in that country.

With leadership goes responsibility for one's actions. Political as well as church leaders need never forget that fact.

American's bankers need to remember Jesus' parable on debt forgiveness

2010-01-15T16:00:00.002-06:00

Every time I read or think about the big U.S. bankers and the Wall Street brokers who seem so indifferent to their gluttonous and ill behavior that brought on the Great Recession and their ravenous appetites for big bonuses, commissions, and salaries today, I am reminded of the words of Jesus in Matthew 18.

In this parable Jesus tells about a man who owed his master 10,000 talents (a money unit in that day). The man was not able to pay his huge debt, so the master began proceedings to sell the man, the man's wife, and the man's children into slavery to recover his money.

At that point the debtor pled for his life and the lives of his family members.

"The servant fell on his knees before him. ‘Be patient with me,' he begged, ‘and I will pay back everything'."

Jesus then said, "The servant's master took pity on him, canceled the debt and let him go."

What happens next in the parable exposes the character of the man who has just been forgiven.

"But when the servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii (another money unit of that day but much smaller than a talent). He grabbed him and began to choke him. 'Pay back what you owe me!' he demanded."

"His fellow servant fell to his knees and begged him, 'Be patient with me, and I will pay you back.'

"But he refused. Instead, he went off and had the man thrown into prison until he could pay the debt."

Jesus concludes the parable by saying, "Then the master called the servant in. 'You wicked servant,' he said, 'I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. Shouldn't you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?'

"In anger his master turned him over to the jailers to be tortured until he should pay back all he owed."

At the end of the parable Jesus says, "This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother from your heart."

Jesus' parable is incredibly parallel to what America's big bankers and Wall Street brokers have done and continue to do. When their backs were against the wall financially in late 2008, these financiers ran crying to the government for a huge bailout. They got it; the U.S. reprieved them from the mess they had created with their hoggish mortgage schemes.

Now that their fortunes are more secure because of the bailout, these same financiers continue to foreclose wildly on people's homes, jack up bank charges unmercifully, and act tight-fisted with even their best, most credit-worthy customers.

Most Americans have not escaped the ill behavior of these bankers. These individuals have figured out a million ways to dig deeper into everyone's pockets for extra profits to make more money for themselves—and to pay themselves bonuses accordingly.

Now President Obama for good reason is jawboning them for their ruthless behavior and threatening them with new taxes.

And well he should, because he is on solid biblical grounds.

The Bible says more about money than it does on any other single issue, including some of the pet issues of some church leaders.

Interestingly, few Christian leaders—evangelical or mainstream, liberal or conservative—have spoken out forcefully during the current national outrage over the indifferent, hoggish attitudes and behaviors of big U.S. bankers and Wall Street stockbrokers. The silence of most evangelical leaders on this issue screams loudly in our ears.

Even the mainstream and liberal church leaders have not been as outspoken about the bankers and Wall Street brokers as they should be.

I can't help wondering whether this situation is akin to the decades when churches remained silent on the hazards of smoking, while governments and secular groups drove home the point. Churches said nothing all because too many church leaders feared the wrath of—and loss of contributions from—wealthy tobacco growers and firms.

With the public's outrage growing daily and President Obama taking the lead on the issue, silent church leaders need to get out their Bibles and start studying the Scriptures again. Then maybe they will begin to act now before they are left once again choking on the dust from the public's disaffection with them for their failure to address the matter biblically.

Our decision had an unusual but positive ending

2009-11-16T09:45:00.000-06:00

After 40 years of marriage and just a few more years than that in the journalism profession, a few weeks ago Kay and I made a major, life-altering decision.

The decision was difficult for us to undertake. For months before we actually took the step, we fretted over it, analyzed it, and debated it.

Finally, we canceled our subscription to the Dallas Morning News, our local hometown daily newspaper.

No, we weren't angry at the newspaper. We actually like the Morning News a lot. (In college one summer Kay worked there writing bridal announcements in the old "Women's News Section".) Since we no longer live in Houston, Dallas' daily newspaper is the next best thing to receiving on our front porch every morning the Houston Chronicle, where we both worked for nearly 15 years.

The reason we canceled the newspaper was quite simple: seldom did we see in it anything truly "new" that we hadn't already seen on the Internet somewhere earlier. We also didn't like having to pay the newspaper's rising subscription fees year after year.

Our main hesitations were:

1. "Tradition" (ever since we married, we'd always had a newspaper delivered to our front porch. "What would a morning be like if it didn't start with me opening up the front door to retrieve the newspaper?" we wondered) and

2. Our love for the journalism profession (in which we spent most of our adult careers). Change is difficult under the best of circumstances, but when we see the profession that meant so much to us going through such gut-wrenching agony with declining advertising revenues, plummeting circulations, bankruptcies, and significant layoffs, we hated to contribute even in a small way to the depressing situation.

Eventually frugality borne on the wings of the Great Recession and plain old common sense finally won out over our emotions and attachment to tradition. Now my checkbook is fatter, my recycling bin leaner, and I even have more time to talk to my wife in the mornings while I drink my coffee.

Did we miss the newspaper?

Before we could address that question, a very strange thing happened. Apparently someone at the Morning News already had anticipated decisions by people like us.

The first day without a newspaper on our front porch a friend mentioned his puzzlement over a a smaller version of the Dallas Morning News, called Briefing, that landed in his front yard four days a week. He wondered whether someone was going to stick him with a bill some day, so he gave me a copy of the newspaper to inspect for the answer. I immediately realized that Briefing was a condensed form of the Dallas newspaper. Small and compact, it had shortened versions of most of the newspaper's main articles. It was easy and quick to read. Best of all it was delivered FREE (said so, by the way, on page 1 of every edition).

I called the Dallas Morning News to confirm that Briefing is truly free and then subscribed immediately.

Since Briefing arrives only four days a week, I occasionally miss the newspaper the other three days, but I've quickly adjusted to the change.

As I reflect on our personal decision and the newspaper's response to a changing business climate, I marvel that someone in the Morning News' leadership had the foresight and wisdom to break with the newspaper's own traditions and prepare for a future very much unlike its present or past. Many call newspapers a dying breed; what's really dying are newspapers’ abilities to "break" news stories ahead of other media, to charge readers for their "breaking" news, and to do business "as we've always done it".

All around us incredible changes are occurring at the speed of sound. Even churches, so often the bastions of complacency, are changing—maybe not as fast as they can, should, or need to. Rapid change seems inevitable today for every institution and person, including churches and other houses of worship.

"Change or die" is an old slogan. "Change or get run over in the stampede" is another way I would put it.

Had I known the Morning News was ahead of its game (but deftly not sending me a notice that I didn't have to keep paying my subscription fees in order to get its smaller paper), I doubt that I would have dallied for nearly a year before I canceled my subscription.

Next time I won't fret for so long over making a change I know in my heart is necessary. I hope I can say similar words like I said about the far-thinking approach at the Dallas Morning News about changes that need to occur in other institutions in our lives.

Baylor Alumni Association fails to reflect the school's diversity, width, and breadth

2009-10-30T12:15:00.015-05:00

One of the many things I enjoyed about being a big-city newspaper reporter was personal access to news events and newsmakers. Instead of having to read about people and events through the filter of others, I was there as an eyewitness.

I was reminded of this perk the other day when I drove past the place in which the much-anticipated meeting for the Baylor Alumni Association was about to be held. My wife said to me, "You like to see things firsthand, so why don't you just go on in?" So I did.

Kay knew that for the past several years I've been concerned about the direction the BAA has taken.

What I saw and heard at that meeting in the chapel at Truett Seminary on the Baylor campus confirmed my worst fears. While proclaiming its desire to represent all Baylor alumni and be the true and independent voice for all Baylor graduates, the organization has in effect been hijacked by a small group of disgruntled alumni who have a political agenda (a.k.a. "an axe to grind!") that they are very carefully carrying out.

Seldom do I attend a meeting in which I feel I am among the youngest in the audience. Even though I am 63, I felt a virtual youngster at this meeting. As I looked around I saw an overabundance of people who could best be described as a "Who Was Who" at Baylor many years ago. These former administrators, former faculty members, and former student leaders seemed to have one agenda: to re-claim the days of yesteryear.

This tiny minority of alumni want to turn the clock back to the days when Herbert H. Reynolds ran the university with his iron fist—the days when everything on campus was as Herb wanted it to be, or else. Or else included faculty and students—liberal or conservative—who didn't bow to his authority and were shunned or tossed aside. The group also didn't want to acknowledge that the glory days of Robert Sloan, Herb's young and visionary successor, ever existed. Many in the room were in the mob that at Herb's instigation ran off Sloan, throwing the university into its current state of political instability and chaos.

At the BAA meeting Herb's name, history, and family were invoked numerous times—almost causing some of his loyalists to genuflect—while Sloan's name, history and family were never acknowledged or present in any way. Herb's daughter, Rhonda, who led the attacks on Sloan, sits on the BAA board and at this meeting was awarded an honorary leadership position; his widow, Joy, was introduced with adulation. But nary a word was said about Sloan, his wife, Sue, or any of their seven children who like their parents also are Baylor graduates. Nor was a kind word said at all about Sloan's wounded friends or allies or any of the good things accomplished under the Sloan administration.

I easily concluded that working together for the benefit of ALL Baylor alumni is simply not on the agenda of BAA. Instead divisiveness fills its agenda.

The focus of the meeting was on the current Baylor administration's proposal to assist the BAA in becoming what it should be--a forum for ALL Baylor alumni that unites and motivates instead of divides and weakens. Instead of supporting the administration's plan, the folks gathered at the BAA meeting last Friday were poised to spit in the eye of yet another administration (the third since Reynolds) that they cannot control.

Several days after the meeting, the Baylor administration withdrew its fair-and-balanced proposal, basically letting the BAA wander off on its divisive and schismatic way.

Baylor needs to march forward into its bright future acknowledging the diversity of its large group of alumni and its great past, including the many good things accomplished by both the Reynolds and Sloan as well as other administrations. What it doesn't need is a small band of gray-haired, angry, schismatics continuing to masquerade as speaking for alumni that they truly don't have any intention of representing fairly.

Can the SBC reinvent itself as a powerful force for God today?

2009-09-22T22:05:00.022-05:00

Just a few short months ago Southern Baptists seemed determined to stonewall their deteriorating denominational situation.

Like ostriches with their heads stuck in the sand, SBC denominational leaders and laypeople alike seemed oblivious to declining baptisms, dwindling membership, and shrinking income—not to mention weakening morale in many quarters, especially among younger members.

Then late spring arrived and with it the so-called Great Commission Resurgence movement. At first the movement sounded like the kind of reform uprising the SBC so desperately needs—one led by laypeople from the grassroots up. Then just as quickly the denomination's bureaucracy rose up to seize control of the movement. The movement was institutionalized into a special SBC committee filled to the rafters with a wide assortment of SBC politicos and bureaucrats and only few of them genuine laypeople, women, or from the under-30 crowd.

After the committee's formation I was tempted to write a blog entitled "Can the SBC bureaucracy save itself?" (Perhaps in the end this committee will be able to muster the courage, insights and influence necessary to make the required dramatic changes, but I remain skeptical because too many politicians and bureaucrats are now involved. What isn't needed is a simple rearranging of the chairs on the deck of this Titanic!) Before I could pen that column, however, the situation at the top of the denomination began to unravel further.

The first blow occurred when trustees of the denomination's North American Mission Board unceremoniously dumped their new president and top staff (allowing them to "resign", of course)—a strong indication, which is widely known, that the agency is faltering badly.

Then last week the president of the SBC's mammoth International Mission Board, Jerry Rankin, suddenly announced plans to retire and step down by next summer. That bombshell was followed by the announcement this week that Morris Chapman, president of the SBC's powerful Executive Committee, is also making plans to exit the stage. Both men are 68 and neither has been inclined to go quietly into the night to pave the way for younger successors.

So what's going on in the midst of all this upheaval?

What was once a swirling mess is now churning into what looks like a denominational hurricane.

1. The decline in baptisms and church membership is serious business for a denomination that has had a decades-long love attraction to growth and big numbers. While the statistical decline so far has been minimal, any decline at all is like a bullet in the heart to a denomination that has attached its star and too much importance to rising numbers.

2. The economic recession is real and Southern Baptists have not been immune to the pain in the pocketbook of average Americans. Less money in Southern Baptist homes means less money in local church offering plates, which in turn means less money for the denominational bureaucracy to lay claim to. Unfortunately the SBC has lived too long on the illusion that the money supply will always expand—seen as another this-worldly sign of God's blessings on the denomination. SBC leaders know real emotional pain will follow dwindling dollars.

3. As I said in my book, Witness to the Truth, published 16 months ago, the SBC's entire bureaucracy is antiquated and in dire need of reform, revision, and dramatic downsizing. When they first took control of the SBC bureaucracy in the early 1990s, Conservative SBC leaders badly misjudged the situation they inherited from their Moderate predecessors. Had they not been so awestruck by the denomination's wealth and resources at their disposal, they might have stayed true to their original plans to downsize and severely overhaul the denomination's expensive, cumbersome and far-flung structures. Instead they liked the spoils of their war with the moderates too much and opted instead to mimic those they defeated. For starters, the denomination desperately needs to revise its way of propelling leaders into its hierarchy; setting term limits on agency heads and seminary presidents would be another worthy goal.

4. The technological revolution swirling around us is making many institutions obsolete, including many church organizations. Unfortunately, churches themselves are not immune to this trend. Facebook and Twitter provide social connections Sunday-school classes once provided. The Internet and cable TV expand our ability to tune in to a whole smorgasbord of preachers, theological discussions, and "religious" experiences for a lot less investment of time, money, emotions, and resources.

Meanwhile far too many SBC churches as well as others want to do things "like we've always done them"; they presume their traditions are written in the Bible instead of their own narrow ethno-linguistic Southern cultures.

5. Many denominational structures are ill-equipped for today when people don't need mission boards to find them places of service or money to support them, when givers to church want to see real progress and results from the money they are asked to invest instead of just trusting whatever religious leader puffs enough smoke, when old-line missions supporters are dying off at a fast clip and younger ones are not lining up to take their places at the offering plates; and when people in general want to cut across artificial denominational, political, and economic boundaries in search of things that help them live better lives in a more crowded, more complex, more dangerous, and a less-religious world.

Like people witnessing a dam that has broken, Southern Baptists today face a rising tide of transition that will determine whether the denomination as we know it will live on as a dying, myopic, irrelevant, isolated, navel-gazing institution or somehow dramatically reinvent itself as a powerful global force for God and good in our culture and world today.

I vote for reinvention, but then I'm just one lone voice crying in the wilderness of the Internet. Inertia and the fear of change are always major stumblingblocks to any real reform.

Health-care reform is absolutely necessary!

2009-07-20T20:06:00.018-05:00

After 16 years of elder-care responsibilities, Kay and I have entered a new era in our lives in which all the family members of our parents' generation have now gone to be with the Lord. With the passing in May of the sole survivor at 102 that makes us now a part of the oldest living generation in our families.

During those 16 years we had our own health issues as well as had to watch over the health care needs of six different relatives. That gave us a lot of first-hand experience with America's health care system. We learned many lessons—much of which is now being played out these days in the national debate on health-care reform.

I am rather amazed at how some of the conclusions I reached during the past 16 years—that health-care reform is absolutely necessary—are now center stage in the public health-care reform debate. My positions on this issue track better with the Mainline Protestant denominations than with my historical Evangelical roots. Sadly, the two groups are severely polarized today on this issue, with the Mainline groups lining up for reform and the Evangelicals running pitched battles against it. Rather than looking for the "right" position or the biblical position, unfortunately today's Evangelical leaders seem unmovable in their allegiance to any position the Republican Party pronounces, including medical-care reform.

Take, for instance, the matter of the primary-care physician, a centerpiece in the reform discussions. Over the years we've chauffered elderly loved ones to just about every specialist you can imagine. But their primary-care physicians always remained our favorites. They were there through thick and thin, through one illness or trauma after the next, while specialists entered and left the stage in a dizzying cycle. Managing the medical bills for most of our crew, I always noticed one consistent fact: how much more the specialists got paid when contrasted to the primary-care doctors. And ofttimes I couldn't figure out why. I also wondered why we had to use specialists instead of requesting that the primary-care physicians treat all matters.

On a repeat visit to one specialist, the doctor asked our elderly loved one to hold up her hands and move her fingers back and forth. That was all. Very little conversation. No new prescription. Just show me that you can move your fingers. "Take Tylenol if the arthritis flares up again," the doctor said. A total of two minutes in this doc's presence. The bill: $200.00, most of which Medicare and her supplemental insurance policy paid and which was more than double what the primary-care doctor would have charged.

My favorite story about a specialist involves a young ob-gyn physician who was called in to evaluate something unusual on a hospital x-ray. Apparently he'd never before seen a partial hysterectomy, which was popular back in the 1940s—his grandmothers' era. He puzzled over what the remains he saw on an X-ray could be. Then much to everyone's surprise he recommended our elderly loved one start taking hormones to see if her long-dormant menstrual cycle would start again. Quipped the loved one, "Young man, don't you realize I am nearly 100 years old; that's the most ridiculous idea I've ever heard! We are absolutely not going to do that." The displeased doctor stomped off, leaving all of us in the room laughing and me dialing my cellphone to ask the primary-care physician to make sure the "specialist" was released immediately from the case.

Just because a doctor can do something and it's covered by a medical insurance doesn't mean he or she should do it! Common sense needs to prevail.

Besides the inequity in the payments to the primary-care physician, what I remember most were:

1. How a single-payer system would certainly save trees and lots and lots of confusion and time on the part of the individual and/or his/her caretaker. The blizzard of paperwork I had to sort through trying to make heads or tails of all the medical bills and all the paperwork doctors, hospitals, Medicare and the insurance companies could generate was ridiculous.

2. Clearer, simpler rules certainly need to be mandatory. Medical rules and mistakes today can be extremely confusing, contradictory, and very costly. For instance, doctors often forget to mention things such as Medicare's requirement that the oxygen level be 88 or less for Medicare to pay for oxygen—while nursing homes require doctors to unprescribe oxygen before they will remove it from a resident, even when their oxygen level returns to normal. So, guess who pays when oxygen is provided that Medicare and insurance companies say is not necessary and won't cover?

3. Health care ought to be a right rather than a privilege. Today money buys health care. Mention that an elderly person has both Medicare and a good supplemental health insurance policy and adequate resources and no doctor blinks twice at signing up the person for anything. And I mean anything! No test is spared when the financial formula is right. (Contrast that to a time more than 20 years ago when I was unemployed and without health insurance and a medical secretary demanded advance payment immediately for a minor checkup!) Ethically money should not be the determining factor in deciding whether someone gets medical care.

4. Clearer, cleaner, less how-much-money-can-the-medical-community-make rules are needed for end-of-life issues. A medical directive, medical power of attorney, and living will are all absolutely necessary today in order to avoid costly, unnecessary medical intervention. Medical personnel will bombard a dying loved one with every medicine, idea and device they can possibly think of regardless of cost, practicality, or reasonableness until someone screams "Enough is enough is enough!" Medical decisions need to be based on what is right, not on how much money medical institutions and personnel can make off people and their insurance providers at the end of life.

Do we need health-care reform in this country? Absolutely! The National Council of Churches recently rolled out an impressive array of religious leaders in this country who say the time is long overdue for a revision. On this particular issue, these religious leaders clearly are pointing in the right direction. They need to be heard.

Once again: Jesus Christ was not a right-wing Republican, nor a left-wing Democrat

2009-05-28T16:42:00.019-05:00

In the years before the Conservative Resurgence, Southern Baptist Moderates, who ruled the SBC at the time, moved ever closer to total alignment with the Southern wing of the Democratic Party. This was personified by President Jimmy Carter, himself a former SBC politico.

In their love for Carter, SBC leaders then failed to note a political shift occurring right beneath their noses across the country and even in their own denomination—a shift which eventually brought on the Ronald Reagan revolution and all of its attendant conservative philosophies.

Will history now repeat itself again?

The SBC today could be renamed the Republican Baptist Convention. When the Republican Party sneezes, SBC leaders pop up with handkerchiefs and hand sanitizers. Their alignment with the Republican Party far exceeds the love affair the Moderates had with Carter back in the late 1970s.

Recently Richard Land of the SBC's Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission produced yet another column in Baptist Press taking the standard Republican Party line, this time on the nomination of Supreme Court nominee federal Judge Sonia Sotomayor. That's just the latest of his and other SBC leaders' statements that read as though they fell right out of the Republican Party play book.

SBC leaders could take some important lessons from the late Pope John Paul II. In 1979 when he set out to corral the excessive political involvement of some of his priests, particularly the Jesuits, John Paul said, "Jesus Christ was no political revolutionary and his priests are not to be either."

I was at the meeting in Puebla, Mexico, where John Paul made that famous statement. I was impressed with the wisdom in his words then and have been increasingly so over the years.

I very much admired the way John Paul II dealt with this issue. He was outspoken on various political points of view, yet no one could label him a particular party member. He had his own firm beliefs about many issues, yet he was able to speak out on social and ethical issues of his day without aligning himself with any particular political leader or party. He was, in other words, his "own man". He wasn't in the hip pocket of any politician or political party.

Through the past four decades I've often written and spoken on my basic belief that Jesus Christ was neither a Republican nor a Democrat and that church leaders err when they cozy up to one political party or the other. I believe firmly the church's agenda should never be fully aligned with any secular political party.

Church leaders need to speak to social, ethical, and biblical issues as addressed in the Bible, not act in lock-step unison with one political party or the other.

SBC leaders today would do well to remember what happened to the former SBC leaders when they became so obsessed with Carter and his version of Christianity as represented by the Democratic Party in the 1970s. Very soon they found themselves on the outs with the majority within the SBC, who opted to join in the Reagan revolution.

As with the days of Jimmy Carter, these are times of great political, social, and economic ferment and turmoil. If SBC leaders today keep opposing everything President Obama does and keep jumping at every play called by the Republican Party while the Republican Party continues to sink in public polls, SBC Conservative leaders today just could find themselves in the same mud puddle the Moderate leaders found themselves in during the aftermath of the Carter presidency.

Southern Baptists do not have a long history with the Republican Party. In fact, for more than 100 years, the Southern in Southern Baptist yielded a great disdain for the Party of Lincoln. A major component in the shift in the SBC's political loyalty occurred because of the rising affluence among Southern Baptists in general and the party's strategy to attract Southern loyalists in particular.

Somebody needs to tell Southern Baptist leaders today that it's time to take a deep breath, stand back from all the political wrangling, and start quoting the entirety of their inerrant Bibles instead of dancing to the tune of the right wing of the secular Republican Party.

Are Southern Baptists ready to wake up, smell the coffee, and do something about their bloated, irrelevant bureaucracy?

2009-04-16T20:25:00.017-05:00

A key, sitting Southern Baptist leader has finally admitted publicly the truth about the denomination's wasteful, irrelevant, unnecessary, and gigantic bureaucracy.

Daniel Akin, president of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, NC, this week spoke the truth when he said, "We (Southern Baptists) have become bloated and bureaucratic."

"It is easier to move some things through the federal government than the Southern Baptist Convention. Overlap and duplication in our associations, state and national conventions is strangling us," Akin said. "We waste time and resources, and many are fed up.

"The rally cry of the Conservative Resurgence was, 'We will not give our monies to liberal institutions.' Now the cry of the Great Commission Resurgence is, 'We will not give our money to bloated bureaucracies.'"

According to Baptist Press, "Akin called on Southern Baptist leaders to rethink everything they do—boards, organizations, agencies, structures—in light of a Great Commission agenda that maximizes cooperation and minimizes bureaucracy in planting churches and getting the Gospel to all people, everywhere."

I just hope and pray the average Southern Baptists in the pew will listen intently to Akin's words. I also hope and pray the SBC bureaucracy won't muzzle, character assassinate, or try to harm Akin for speaking the truth.

As I've said many times over the years, the SBC bureaucracy is the largest and most cumbersome church organization in the United States today. While Southern Baptists used to point fingers of shame at the Roman Catholic Church for its curia and its bureaucratic style, members of America's largest Protestant denomination were actually busy constructing their own indigenous form of the Catholic curia that dwarfs anything the Roman Catholic Church has in America today.

If the Southern Baptist Convention were a regular business, its wealth and personnel would rival some of the biggest companies in America today. So vast is the denomination's enterprise that it's difficult to calculate all the billions of its assets, all the thousands of its employees, and all the tentacles of the organization that reach into almost every country in the world today.

Yet the graying denomination today is mired in its own form of recession—falling church rolls, declining income, stagnated purpose, fragmented direction, and dwindling support among its next generation of church lay people and leaders.

Life in Southern Baptist's mammoth "Baptistdom" (my term for the SBC bureaucracy) has taken on a form of its own. It often would be unrecognizable to the SBC's founders and first-century Christians. More Southern than Baptist, more polite than effective, more navel-gazing than evangelical, the SBC's bureaucracy looks more like the federal bureaucracy than it does the biblical City of God Set on a Hill that it should be.

A couple of days ago I was chatting on the phone in a personal conversation with a former top leader of the SBC. He surprised me greatly when he suddenly said, "You know, Louis, we Conservatives have done a really poor job of managing the denomination's bureaucracy. I have to admit that the Moderates were much better at it."

Bullseye! The Moderates built the foundation and first tier of the Southern Baptist curia. And they managed their creation very well. The Conservatives revolted, took it over, and at first threatened to downsize it, reform it, and minimize it. Then they suddenly made a U-turn when they found the wealth, power, and creature comforts the bureaucracy affords so appealing.

In a day when taxpayer anger threatens the federal, state, and local governments as well as multinational corporations, Baptistdom could face severe headaches when SBC church members wake up, smell the coffee, and realize how much of their hard-earned tithes and offerings are wasted on airplane tickets, hotel rooms, catered lunches, fancy automobiles, beautiful offices, above-average salaries, wasteful practices, and all the other perks and accouterments that feed the denomination's bloated and ineffective bureaucracy.

We'll discuss this further in the days ahead. For now, keep your eye on Daniel Akin and what develops from his recent comments. Let's all pray he gets the respect he deserves for such courageous and right-on remarks.

Three key reasons why the SBC is losing members

2009-03-08T13:37:00.017-05:00

After rocking along for years showing small numerical increases in membership, the Southern Baptist Convention finally has reported a loss. The tiny drop is the beginning of what many believe could become an avalanche.

The reasons for the situation are multiple. Screaming "do more evangelism", as some are prone to do, merely puts a small bandage on the matter. This has been the hue and cry of denominational leaders at least since World War II.

The membership slowdown—now a statistical decline—doesn't surprise those of us who know the denomination well. The drop has been on the horizon for years. The biggest surprise is why this negative report has taken so long to occur.

The drop in membership has nothing to do whatsoever with the Conservative-Moderate theological war that was waged within the denomination 1979 to 1991. The surprise was that despite all that brouhaha, the denomination didn't tip into negative numbers back in those days. The Conservatives have been in power long enough now that they can't lay the blame of this current situation at the feet of the Moderates. That worn-out excuse won't hunt in 2009.

The current issues are threefold:

1. For more than 30 years the denomination has failed to demand that its congregations clean up their rolls and keep accurate membership records. Instead denominational leaders blissfully skipped along acting as though the membership numbers they were reporting were the real thing and knowing full well a time bomb was ticking away. Most pastors, church staff, and knowledgeable lay people on both sides of the political fence knew differently. They knew that year by year the numbers on those rolls were flooded with names of people who couldn't be found—either because they had died, had moved away with no forwarding address, or simply had exited out the church's back door without so much as leaving a goodbye note. This is one reason that within the denomination the hue and cry over the decline hasn't been more severe. Most lay and clergy leaders have known for a long time that their numbers are radioactive and unreliable.

2. The shift of the denomination during the past 25 years from its Southern Democratic roots to its current right-wing Republicanism has precipitated a massive polarization within the denomination that is thwarting its original goal to evangelize any potential candidate anywhere. People who are not aligned with the Republican Party no longer are comfortable—or even welcome—in denominational or church-leadership roles.

Marrying theology and politics—and aborting the once-cherished principle of the separation of church and state—now drives away potential converts to the Southern Baptist fold. As I keep asking Southern Baptist friends over and over, "What supporter of President Barack Obama in his or her right mind would want to attend—let alone join—a Southern Baptist church right now given the negative and sour political climate within the denomination and its churches against them and the man they admire?" Salvation isn't about how one voted last November, though some Southern Baptists seem determined to add that as a new pre-condition—even putting it before baptism.

3. The obsession of the denomination's leadership with "strategy" and "training" instead of leading by example is a major flaw that has led and will continue to lead to diminishing numbers of candidates for salvation and baptism. Except when called on to do showcase events, many higher-ups in the denomination's pecking order are less likely today to engage in real, old-fashioned, regular, shoe-leather witnessing to individuals and more likely to engage in bureaucratic "strategy" planning and training of others. On down the hierarchical line many pastors and church staff have picked up this "Do-as-I-say-not-do-as-I-do" attitude.

Simultaneously Southern Baptist lay people are more and more expecting "the church staff" to do the work of the ministry. That work includes bringing in new converts and new members.

With Southern Baptist clergy and lay people at such an impasse, does anyone wonder that Southern Baptist baptisms are declining and church membership is stagnated and ready to head downhill? The gridlock begs the question, who is doing the work now that once grew the SBC into the largest Protestant denomination in America?

Other factors, such as the breakdown of the traditional family, the rise of independent and Bible churches, the lure and effectiveness of the Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses among Southern Baptists, and the declining U.S. birthrate contribute to the drop in SBC numbers. Those are easier to cite—and hide behind—than the Big Three I've named. (For more information on the meltdown of religion in the average American's life be sure and note the new American Religious Identification Survey released today.)

Interestingly, Southern Baptist leaders seem mostly uninterested in addressing the matter of their shrinking numbers. Perhaps they believe "benign neglect" is their best approach.

The real issues I've addressed in this column call for tough actions. My hunch is Southern Baptists are no longer up for the challenge. They'd much rather stick their heads in the sand about their long-neglected, bloated church rolls, their divisive Republicanism, and their leaders who aren't really leading by example—and instead continue to beat the worn-out, guilt-producing, old drum song "do more evangelism".

Yes, more evangelism may be needed particularly by both upper-echelon clergy and lay people, but simultaneously and more importantly major efforts are needed to clear the boulders and obstacles blocking the path to growth. Otherwise these trends will continue and the SBC membership someday may look like the decimated memberships of the Mainline Protestant denominations, from whom the SBC has so readily tried to distance itself.

Eye-popping figures on SBC, RCC memberships released by National Council of Churches

2009-02-23T13:58:00.005-06:00

The following press release from the National Council of Churches is one of the most significant religious developments this decade. After bucking the trends that decimated other Christian bodies in the United States for the last 30 years, the Roman Catholic Church in the U.S. and the Southern Baptist Convention are both now posting numerical losses.

The source cited is one of the most reliable and authoritative information sources for church life today.

I will be writing more about this later, but I want my readers to see this breaking news now:

NCC's 2009 Yearbook of American & Canadian Churches
reports decline in Catholic, Southern Baptist membership

New York, February 23, 2009 -- The 77th annual edition of the Yearbook of American & Canadian Churches , long a highly regarded chronicler of growth and financial trends of religious institutions, records a slight but startling decline in membership of the nation's largest Christian communions.

Membership in the Roman Catholic Church declined 0.59 percent and the Southern Baptist Convention declined 0.24 percent, according to the 2009 edition of the Yearbook, edited by the National Council of Churches and published by Abingdon.

The figures indicate that the Catholic church lost 398,000 members since the appearance of the 2008 Yearbook. Southern Baptists lost nearly 40,000 members.

Both membership figures were compiled by the churches in 2007 and reported to the Yearbook in 2008. The 2009 Yearbook also includes an essay by the editor, the Rev. Dr. Eileen W. Lindner, on the various ways churches count their members.

Neither figure is earth-shattering given the size of the churches. Roman Catholics compose the nation's largest church with a membership of 67,117,016, and Southern Baptists rank second in the nation at 16,266,920.

But this year's reported decline raises eyebrows because Catholic and Southern Baptist membership has grown dependably over the years. Now they join virtually every mainline church in reporting a membership decline.

According to the 2009 Yearbook, among the 25 largest churches in the U.S., four are growing: the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (up 1.63 percent to 5,873,408; the Assemblies of God (up 0.96 percent to 2,863,265); Jehovah's Witnesses (up 2.12 percent to 1,092,169); and the Church of God of Cleveland, Tenn. (up 2.04 percent to 1,053,642).

There are no clear-cut theological or sociological reasons for church growth or decline, says Editor Lindner. "Many churches are feeling the impact of the lifestyles of younger generations of church-goers -- the 'Gen X'ers' or "Millenials' in their 20s and 30s who attend and support local congregations but resist joining them."

But former Southern Baptist President Frank Page told the Associated Press that the decline in his denomination was troubling because of the Southern Baptist emphasis on winning souls.

Page called on Southern Baptists to "recommit to a life of loving people and ministering to people without strings attached so people will be more open to hearing the Gospel message."

Lindner writes, "A slowing of the rate of growth of some churches and the decline of membership of others ought to be the focus of continued research and and thoughtful inquiry."

Churches listed in the Yearbook as experiencing the highest rate of membership loss are the United Church of Christ (down 6.01 percent), the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church (down 3.01 percent), the Presbyterian Church (USA) (down 2.79 percent), the Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod (down 1.44 percent) and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (down 1.35 percent), American Baptist Churches USA, on the other hand, cut its previous decline rate of 1.82 percent in half, now reporting a decline of 0.94 percent.

Membership of the top 25 churches in the U.S. totals 146,663,972 -- down 0.49 percent from last year's total of 147,382,460.

The top 25 churches reported in the 2009 Yearbook are in order of size:
The Roman Catholic Church, 67,117,06 members, down 0.59 percent. (Ranked 1)
The Southern Baptist Convention, 16,266,920 members, down 0.24 percent. (Ranked 2)
The United Methodist Church, 7,931,733 members, down 0.80 percent. (Ranked 3)
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 5,873,408 members, up 1.63 percent .(Ranked 4)
The Church of God in Christ, 5,499,875 members, no change reported. (Ranked 5)
National Baptist Convention, U.S.A., Inc., 5,000,000 members, no change reported. (Ranked 6)
Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, 4,709,956 members, down 1.35 percent. (Ranked 7)
National Baptist Convention of America, Inc., 3,500,000 members, no change reported. (Ranked 8)
Presbyterian Church (USA), 2,941,412 members, down 2.79 percent (Ranked 9)
Assemblies of God, 2,863,265 members, up 0.96 percent. (Ranked 10)
African Methodist Episcopal Church, 2,500,000 members, no change reported. (Ranked 11)
National Missionary Baptist Convention of America, 2,500,000 members, no change reported. (Ranked 11)
Progressive National Baptist Convention, Inc., 2,500,000 members, no change reported. (Ranked 11)
The Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod (LCMS), 2,383,084 members, down 1.44 percent. (Ranked 14)
The Episcopal Church, 2,116,749 members, down 1.76 percent. (Ranked 15)
Churches of Christ, 1,639,495 members, no change reported. (Ranked 16)
Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America, 1,500,000 members, no change reported. (Ranked 17)
Pentecostal Assemblies of the World, Inc., 1,500,000 members, no change reported. (Ranked 17)
The African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, 1,400,000 members, down 3.01 percent. (Ranked 19)
American Baptist Churches in the USA, 1,358,351, down 0.94 percent. (Ranked 20)
Baptist Bible Fellowship International, 1,200,000, no change reported. (Ranked 21)
United Church of Christ, 1,145,281 members, down 6.01 percent. (Ranked 22)
Jehovah's Witnesses, 1,092,169 members, up 2.12 percent (Ranked 23)
Christian Churches and Churches of Christ, 1,071,616 members, no change reported. (Ranked 24)
Church of God (Cleveland, Tenn.), 1,053,642 members, up 2.04 percent. (Ranked 25)

Trend toward hiding church-staff, church-bureaucracy salaries needs to be reversed

2009-02-13T11:10:00.017-06:00

Churches, synagogues, and other religious institutions would do well to take note of the rising anger in the public over those huge salaries and bonuses big-name bankers and Wall Street brokers are making and take appropriate transparent action quickly.

Simmering below the surface is a salary issue that's been lurking and building in the religious community for decades.

Once upon a time everyone in most Protestant congregations knew the salaries of the pastor, staff members, and even denominational leaders. Not any more. Following a four-decade trend, hiding these salaries from the view of even the most involved congregants has become commonplace.

The move toward secrecy parallels the dramatic rise in church-staff and church-bureaucracy salaries. Except in isolated (mostly rural) situations, church workers today are paid commensurate with—sometimes better than—secular employees elsewhere.

Pastors, church staff, and church-bureaucracy staff certainly deserve to be paid adequately for their work. Most of the time they serve diligently and faithfully. No one I know or have read on this issue argues against that. The concern is with the secrecy that has evolved in trying to pay these employees fairly.

As a child growing up in a Southern Baptist churches in Oklahoma City I was accustomed to the annual Wednesday Night Business Meeting discussion about how much the pastor should be paid. I just presumed that was how all churches behaved and would continue to act. Our pastor always made more than either of my parents or many other members of our church did. The discussions and tap-dancing that ensued were always fascinating to watch—probably a little uncomfortable for our well-educated, politically connected pastor but a good, clean, transparent airing of what otherwise would have been undercurrent gossip in the church.

My awakening that this wasn't the way all churches operated occurred in the early 1970s, after Kay and I moved to Houston and joined a large (now moderate) Southern Baptist church. Noticeably absent in the church's annual report was a breakdown of staff salaries. After the business session I politely approached the finance-committee chairperson and asked why that information was not in the printed budget I had received. His reply still rings in my ears: "If you want that information, you need to go ask the pastor for it. You'll have to present your reasons before he'll give it to you."

My reply to that was, "So the fox is now guarding the hen-house door. How interesting!"

That episode alerted me to be on the look out for similar behaviors in other church setting. Sure enough the trend was emerging and building fast in many churches and denominations.

Southern Baptist Conservatives rode into power in the early 1990s proclaiming their concern about secret salaries and often said denominational bureaucracy salaries were too high. Once in power, however, they quickly forgot that agenda. By 2005 the SBC Executive Committee, the power center of the denomination, was even fighting against some of its own trustees who claimed specific salary information was being withheld from them.

Camouflaging the issue is the fact that a few churches and denominational agencies continue to make salaries public. These handful are often cited by church officials as examples of openness in order to cover up the wider trend.

Also confusing the issue is the fact that church "salaries" are often not the full picture of what a church employee is really paid. Few lay people today truly understand the parsonage-allowance concept and how it can protect as much as half a pastor's salary from taxes and public scrutiny. Just as with those highly paid Wall Street bankers and corporate executives, church and denominational salaries need to be understood in the context of the whole "salary package"—bonuses, housing allowance, tax subsidies, benefits, and so forth.

So, are some church officials' salaries in the league with those corporate executives whose salary packages are drawing fire today? No one can say for sure, since secrecy continues to rule the day in far too many congregations and denominational agencies.

Transparency, openness, and honesty are hallmarks of earlier church times that are just as needed today as they were then—maybe even more so given the current economic crisis and concern about "salaries" that have grown too large for the average person to comprehend.

Read this great article in Church Executive magazine

2009-01-28T20:19:00.013-06:00

This one is short and sweet:

Church Executive magazine did a superb interview with me about Witness to the Truth. Ronald Keener, the reporter, asked some very insightful questions. His format is question-and-answer.

Click on the two links below to read parts 1 and 2 of the whole article:

http://churchexecutive.com/article.asp?IndexID=1168

http://churchexecutive.com/article.asp?IndexID=1185

I'm looking forward to meeting reporter Ron in person on Monday. He did his outstanding interview via phone and email.

Reflections on two presidential inaugurations 40 years apart

2009-01-23T17:20:00.010-06:00

Forty years ago, on January 20, I was serving as editor of The Baylor Lariat, the student newspaper at Baylor University in Waco, TX, and busy supervising the newspaper's coverage of the inauguration of Richard Nixon to succeed Lyndon B. Johnson as President of the United States.

Our student newspaper desks contained the old Royal manual typewriters. Stories were typed on paper, then edited by hand before being transported by foot across campus to the Baylor Press, where they were keypunched into an old linotype machine complete with hot, molten metal.

We watched the Nixon inauguration on a 13-inch, black-and-white TV carted into The Lariat newsroom for inauguration day. We obtained our Associated Press wire stories about the event from an old AP machine that noisily flowed a steady stream of paper from its top.

This past Tuesday, January 20, I thought back to those days while I visited The Baylor Lariat offices, one of my few times since 1969 to be there. I just marveled at how things had changed and yet how they had remained so much the same.

Student reporters this week sat in front of beautiful, clean iMac screens. They watched the news on a large, overhead color TV that appeared to be a permanent fixture in The Lariat newsroom. Their news of the inauguration of Barack Obama arrived via emails and blogs written by four Lariat students in D.C. for the event. (Student reporters in my day would have been blown away by the possibility of The Lariat paying their way to Washington for the inauguration.) Lariat stories and layouts of the paper moved electronically at lightning speed across campus to the printing presses of the local Waco newspaper.

Watching President Obama's inauguration also stirred other memories of four decades earlier. I entered Baylor the same semester John Westbrook broke the racial barrier, moved into Baylor's Martin Hall (where I lived at the time), and joined the Baylor Bears on the football field. As The Lariat editor in 1968-69, I hired the first African-American reporter for the school's newspaper. His name was Willie White. I worked diligently to see that he was in line to become editor of The Lariat two years later. I also wrote an editorial in The Lariat welcoming Dr. Vivienne Mayes as the first Baylor professor of African-American heritage to the campus. My editorial scolded the Baylor administration for waiting so long to hire a black professor and also for trying to play down the fact that Dr. Mayes had been denied admission as a student some years earlier because of her race.

So here I was 40 years to the day later sitting in The Lariat newsroom watching on TV as America inaugurated its first President of African-American heritage. The goose bumps told me that was actually more overwhelming than was seeing the computers sitting on the students' desks.

(Adding to my feeling of being surrounded by history, later that day I also was on Interstate 35 after former President George Bush landed in Waco and his motorcade traveled on to Crawford.)

I was there as a guest of the Journalism Department to talk about my career in religion journalism and my new book, Witness to the Truth about my 40-year career. I spent two days lecturing in classes, chatting with students, and visiting with professors in both the journalism and religion departments. What a marvelous and humbling experience it was!

I must admit I felt a bit ancient looking into the faces of the young student journalists—and even into the faces of many of the journalism professors. I was grateful that my host, longtime friend from college days and now Baylor journalism professor Mike Blackman, accompanied me most of the time I faced the youngsters.

I also thanked God that most of the religion professors with whom I dined were around my vintage.

Lariat reporter Jenna Williamson did a excellent job in her interview and article about Kay and me being back in The Lariat newsroom for the inauguration coverage. (Though she certainly doesn't look like she's been around that long, Kay had been city editor of The Lariat back then.)

Students seemed bright-eyed and eager to learn. I particularly enjoyed giving lectures on ethics in the media. Some of my greatest delights arrived afterward when Jenna, Mike, and others wrote to say students were still discussing what I had to say about ethics in the field of journalism. I had been able to tell by their eyes, rapt attention, and questions that they were listening without diversion.

As Kay and I bid adieu to the faculty and students Wednesday afternoon, we felt really good about the future of newspaper reporting in the next generation. Baylor journalism grads have always been a magnificent lot. Our peers have contributed much to newspapers over the past 40 years. I'm now confident that tradition will carry forth into future years.

Personal tie to Sanctity issue sparks my special letter (and plea) to President-elect Obama

2009-01-17T21:03:00.017-06:00

Dear President-elect Obama,

Only one issue kept me from voting for you.

As an activist during the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s, I so looked forward to the day when I could cast a presidential ballot for a person with an African-American heritage. I always thought I would vote for the first African-American Presidential candidate, regardless of which party, when he or she got his or her party's Presidential nomination.

I entered college the year my alma mater allowed its first African-American to become a student. I lived in the same dorm as the young man and admired his prowess on the football field. As a newspaper reporter on the Baylor University student newspaper, The Lariat, I interviewed the first African-American faculty member at the school and dared to spotlight how years earlier she had been denied admission when she wanted to attend our school. As the student newspaper's editor, I scolded the university's administration for waiting so long to make that faculty appointment. I even won a journalism award for what I said in my editorial. Then, I deliberately helped a young African-American journalist eventually become my successor as editor of The Baylor Lariat. (By the way, that was a feat that took decades to replicate.)

Do you get my point? I am so proud of you for making history this week. It hurt me greatly not to be able to vote for you.

But I still couldn't vote for you because of that one issue.

What is the issue? Abortion.

You see, Mr. President-elect, I have a very strong commitment opposing abortion. My commitment began long before my denomination, the Southern Baptist Convention, changed course and became truly pro-life. In fact, long before the Southern Baptist leaders you're likely to encounter on this issue over the next few years ever spoke out against abortion publicly even one time, I was pro-life and outspoken on that position.

Today is Sanctity of Human Life Sunday in Evangelical churches across our land. So, let me tell you on this day and on the eve of your inauguration as our nation's 44th President why I am pro-life.

It is a highly personal issue for me.

You see, I am married to an adopted person. I love her as much as you could love Michelle. We've been married almost 40 years. She is my best friend, my soul mate, and the love of my life. She is also the mother of my beloved son and daughter and the grandmother of my only grandchild. (Call me up sometime and I'll tell you all about that 3-year-old who wraps her grandmother and grandfather around her little tiny fingers!) I love all three of them very much, too.

One day I met the woman who gave birth to my wife and made an adoption plan for her. Back in the 1940s when people were so cruel to unwed mothers, the woman suffered much humiliation at the hands of many around her. I felt very sorry for her. Then she told me she felt so bad about being pregnant with my wife that she wanted to abort my wife and almost did. A few missing bucks made the difference. That startled me.

Then I got to thinking. If my wife's birthmother had aborted that baby, the love of my life would never have been able to enter my life. I would never have known the joy of being married for a very long time to a very special lady.

Then it dawned on me that my two precious children would not be here either. I can't imagine not having Matthew and Katie in my life. As children and now as adults, they have brought me untold joy and happiness. Years later when my granddaughter entered the picture, I thought, "Golly gee whiz, if Kay and I had never met and married and had our son, then this little princess would not be in my life either."

All this, of course, led me to read the Christian Scriptures more closely for an understanding of what God says about abortion. I found many passages in the Bible that underscored my concern and led me to a firm conviction about the sanctity of all human life.

Every time I think about abortion, I shudder and wonder who is going to have a great big gap in his or her life because some woman somewhere—perhaps because of humiliation, ignorance, greed, or whatever—chose to have an abortion.

I deeply regret that you do not share my perspective on this issue. Perhaps you would if you had married a woman who had been adopted as a baby. You are lucky you never had to face such thoughts. Nevertheless, I hope and pray that some day you will rethink your support of abortion—and if not oppose it, at least not work to support it.

By the way, my wife, Kay W. Moore, is the author of Gathering the Missing Pieces in an Adopted Life, published in 1994 by Broadman and Holman and then reprinted later in 2008 by Hannibal Books. This was one of the first books ever written from a truly Evangelical Christian perspective about adoption. It was based on a series Kay wrote in 1979 for the Houston Chronicle about her successful search (then a real novelty) for her birth mother. The series was even nominated by the Chronicle for a Pulitzer Prize. Let me know if you'd like to have a copy; I will personally see to it that you get one.

In the meanwhile, please know that I will continue to pray for you regularly, just as I have since the election. I may not have voted for you, but I truly want you to succeed. We may disagree on one major issue and maybe a few other smaller matters, but I do want you to become a truly great American President.

Blessings and Peace.

Louis Moore

WMU provides creative, biblical response to the growing recession

2008-12-14T13:47:00.012-06:00

Three cheers for Woman's Missionary Union and its willingness to act creatively and biblically during times of economic uncertainty and belt-tightening!

Instead of acting in the usual church-bureaucratic fashion—following the secular world's lead of laying people off or camouflaging its actions as some sort of reorganization—WMU has provided some important new groundwork for how to cope with the economic turmoil facing the United States and the rest of the world today.

According to Baptist Press on Friday: "During a Dec. 10 meeting at the 120-year-old organization’s Birmingham, Ala., headquarters, WMU Executive Director Wanda S. Lee told employees about the measures, which include budget reductions, streamlining expenses, a hiring freeze on vacant positions, a reduction on employer contributions to employee retirement plans, a freeze on merit pay increases, elimination of incentive bonuses in 2009 and the implementation of four weeks unpaid furlough for each staff member between January and August 2009."

News reports say WMU leadership sought to avoid layoffs and keep health insurance affordable for its about 100 employees, most of whom are female.

Putting individuals and families first and refusing to succumb to kneejerk business patterns which make some individuals and families suffer more than others, WMU acted in ways more consistent with biblical teachings about how Christians are to treat each other.

As the current economic recession continues to unfurl, church groups across the country are continuing to react in various ways, some more consistent than others with biblical principles. Many are amping up their pleas for more donations even as their donors' home values, retirement accounts, and incomes slide. Some such as Focus on the Family have cut jobs and laid off people. (See my previous blog on this.) And still others are quietly going about reorganizations, which do the dirty work of layoffs but with a "positive" public spin put on it.

These are difficult times mostly because even governments don't seem to know exactly what to do to halt the declines. And predictions about how long this recession is going to last and how deep it eventually will become keep growing.

Interesting to note in WMU's actions is that most measures are short-term and time-limited. Most seem to be confined to 2009. That pattern seems to argue for optimism that the current situation will soon turn around. We can only hope WMU is right.

Meanwhile, individual Christians, churches, church institutions, and parachurch organizations would all do well to take note of WMU's biblically based creativity in addressing the current situation.

Both Religious Right and Religious Left have much they could learn from one another

2008-12-03T16:40:00.021-06:00

After riding high for years, the Religious Right is about to see its sun begin to set on political influence in this country. Meanwhile, the sun is rising for the Religious Left's influence on American political life.

January 20 marks the day. That's when Barack Obama officially takes the oath of office as President of the United States.

The Religious Right opposed Obama, though some in that crowd tried to praise him for breaking the glass ceiling imposed by racial attitudes in this country. The Religious Left supported Obama about as subtly as the Religious Right tried to oppose him.

Already signs of the shift are everywhere.

I keep a watchful eye on this shifting landscape through two very important news sources for me—the Southern Baptist Convention's news agency Baptist Press, and the National Council of Churches' NCC News. Together they represent the ying and the yang of political/religious life in America today. For the naive, the SBC is very much a part of the Religious Right, while the National Council is very much part and parcel of the Religious Left.

One can almost see the teardrops falling in the daily SBC postings and the bright smiles emanating from what is becoming almost daily news releases from the NCC.

Sadly, both groups seem to limit their interests to a few select issues. Reading Baptist Press regularly and exclusively could lead one to believe the Bible is mostly concerned about only two political/social issues: the pro-life movement and the anti-homosexual movement. Reading NCC News regularly and exclusively could lead one to believe the Bible is mostly concerned about those prisoners at Guantanamo and Global Warming.

The truth is the Bible is filled with a lot more than just these four issues. The Bible contains information on just about every moral, ethical, economic, social, and relevant issue today. Name an issue, and the Bible offers up an applicable verse or a teaching that relates to it.

The Bible is also neither a Republican nor a Democratic handbook, though regrettably both the SBC and the NCC seem to have a penchant for skewing biblical teachings toward the party of preference of each.

Both the Religious Right and the Religious Left stand correctly on different issues—sometimes on the opposite side of the same coin. The Religious Right is correct in its strong pro-life stand on behalf of the unborn. But while the Religious Left is wrong on sanctity of human life issues, it does score well in reminding us that once a person is born, medical care, education, and other necessities matter much. I wish the Religious Right was as passionate for children living in poverty without adequate education and medical care and in troubled environments as it is about the unborn. The Bible is clear that both the unborn and the born are precious in God's sight.

The same could be said for a number of other issues. The Religious Left is more right than wrong on environmental issues; the Religious Right would do well to stop arguing about global warming, reread the book of Genesis about the Creation, and start emphasizing God's commands to be good stewards of the world He has given us.

I know members of the Religious Right who cannot see a bit of good in Obama's uncoming inauguration. For them the demise of the Religious Right's influence will be a disaster of unfathomable porportions.

I also know members of the Religious Left who will not for a moment concede that the Religious Right has done anything correct. To them the Religious Right's influence on political life for the past eight years has been a colossal disaster.

Both groups need to take some deep breaths and try to put things in perspective. Each brings to the table perspectives that deserve to be heard.

And each could learn from the other. In listening to each other and in genuine, above-politics dialogue both the Religious Right and the Religious Left just might learn some important biblical lessons and truths from the other. Neither has a complete lock on the truth.

Focus on the Families' layoff raises biblical questions

2008-11-23T20:28:00.017-06:00

Two news events this past week raise serious questions about how ethically Christians and non-Christians alike will muddle through these tough economic times. They also make me wonder whether when it's over in a few years anyone will be able to tell the difference between the Christians' responses and the secular world's responses to the current turmoil.

Case in point #1: By flying into Washington, D.C., on private jets and displaying uncommon opulence at the very moment they were begging for a government bailout, the leaders of the Big 3 Automakers looked like spoiled children whining for ice cream after being served a huge dinner and large pieces of cake for dessert.

Their PR staffs blew it by not advising those fat-cat corporate execs to drive their smallest, most fuel-efficient models to the nation's capital and proclaim every mile along the way their commitments to cutting the blubber from their own budgets as well as to energy conservation.

Instead Detroit's automakers looked like a bunch of greedy pigs gathering at the feeding trough. They looked unwilling to make the changes necessary for their bloated, debt-ridden businesses to survive.

Case in point #2: Focus on the Family announced that after "looking at October trends and talking to donors who are not in a position where they can give", it was cutting 202 jobs now to prepare for the shortfall later. On the surface the announcement sounded like good business sense. Had I not attended Focus' 25th anniversary several years ago in its fabulously opulent, new, palatial facilities in Colorado Springs, CO, I might not have stumbled so quickly on the announcement.

Let's re-frame Focus' announcement another way: The supposed family-oriented Focus on the Family ministry is going to lay off 149 workers (and rid itself of 53 vacant positions) to balance its books quickly while creating financial hardships for the 149 or so families impacted by the decision. With unemployment escalating, people's nest-eggs shrinking, and property values declining, what person in his or her right mind believes all 149 people will find new jobs quickly? Won't Focus' actions negatively impact not only the 149 people involved but also their families, including spouses, children and maybe even grandchildren?

With the ill winds of economic problems blowing across our country and around the world right now, expect other Christian organizations, denominational agencies, and even churches during the next year or two to follow Focus' lead.

I can't help but wonder whether anyone at Focus stopped and said, "Hey guys, let's look for some creative, biblical solutions here, like maybe all 1,150 of us, including James Dobson and the other top execs, taking a 20-percent pay cut so our fellow Christians will not have to face the economic hurricane alone out there."

In times like these, Christians may need to go back and re-read the Bible, starting with the Book of Acts. When the chips were down and persecution rampant, Acts reports that the early church "had everything in common" (see Acts 2:43-47). No where can I find a passage that says when the going got tough, the early church threw nearly one-sixth of its members overboard so the rest of them could continue to eat well and live lavishly.

Too often today the church--especially in its business practices--reflects too much the world's culture. Making money and the things money will buy has become far too important for churches and church organizations than they should be. Focus on the Family has grown its ministry based on challenging the world's standards and assumptions on many important issues; today that organization needs to look in its own mirrors.

After living for far too many years like people with heads in the sand, Detroit's pitiful jet-led campaign into Washington, D.C., could be expected. Buying first-class, round-trip tickets on American's Airlines next time won't undue the damage their stupidity has cost them. But at least those executives can plead ignorance of any ethical handbook for operating their business.

Churches including para-church organizations, on the other hand, can't plead the same ignorance. The Bible is supposed to be their moral compass. That book makes very clear many ethical matters, including how one is to treat fellow believers especially in difficult times.

When prosperity returns, will anyone be able to tell the Christians from their mortal enemies, the secularists? I sure hope so, but without radical solutions and actions no distinction may be apparent.

Keeping Secrets in the Church, part 2

2008-11-18T09:55:00.006-06:00

(When Terry Mattingly interviewed me for his excellent column on my new book, Witness to the Truth, he said he was writing two columns about secrecy in the church. For column #1 he used my book to zero in on secrecy in the Southern Baptist Convention. For column #2 he used Russ Shaw's new book to hone in on secrecy in the Roman Catholic Church. He found the fact to be interesting that both books came out simultaneously and focused so clearly on the lack of truth telling among church leaders and institutions today.

I believe that its failure to walk in the light of truth and honesty severely hinders the church and denominations today. Obviously Russ Shaw and Terry Mattingly believe along parallel lines. Spin-doctoring and and media manipulation in their own midst are serious problems that church leaders refuse to address.

(Read below how Terry has condensed quite nicely Russ's book.)

WASHINGTON BUREAU: Terry Mattingly's religion column for 11/12/08.

If you want to cause trouble for American bishops, stick them in a vise
between Rome and the armies of dissenters employed on Catholic campuses.

But the bishops had to vote on Ex Corde Ecclesiae ("From the Heart of the
Church"). After all, they had been arguing about this papal document
throughout the 1990s, trying to square the doctrinal vision of Pope John
Paul II with their American reality. Rome said their first response was too
weak, when it came to insisting that Catholic schools remain openly
Catholic. Finally, the bishops approved a tougher document on a 223-to-31
vote.

Soon after that 1999 showdown, someone "with a good reason for wanting to
know" emailed a simple question to Russell Shaw of the United States
Catholic Conference. Who voted against the statement?

"There was no way to know. In fact, the Vatican doesn't know -- for sure --
who those 31 bishops where," said Shaw, discussing one of the many
mysteries in his book, "Nothing to Hide: Secrecy, Communication and
Communion in the Catholic Church.

"The secret ballots were destroyed," he noted. "These days the voting
process is even more secret, since the bishops just push a button and
they've voted. Even if you wanted to know how your bishop voted, or you
wanted the Vatican to know how your bishop voted, there's no way to do
that."

Professionals have learned to read between the lines of debates held in the
open sessions that the U.S. bishops choose to schedule. Outside those
doors, insiders talk and spread rumors. Some bishops spin the press and
others, usually those sending messages to Rome, hold press conferences,
publish editorials or preach sermons. But many of the crucial facts remain
cloaked in secrecy.

Of course, noted Shaw, few leaders of powerful institutions enjoy
discussing their crucial decisions -- let alone corporate or personal sins
-- in public. When Catholic insiders complain about "clericalism" they are
confronting a problem that affects all hierarchies, from government to
academia, from the Pentagon to Wall Street.

"It's a kind of elitism, a way of thinking and behaving that assigns to the
managerial class a superior status," he said. "They are chiefs and everyone
else is an Indian. They set the agenda. They always make the final
decisions. They get to tell everyone else what to do."

Of course, there's truth in the old image that puts the pope at the top of
an ecclesiastical pyramid, with ranks of clergy cascading down to the pews.
Catholicism is not a democracy and there are times when leaders must keep
secrets. That's "a truth," said Shaw, but it is "not the only truth," since
the whole church is meant to be knit together in a Communion built on a
"radical equality of dignity and rights."

Part of what is happening, he explained, is that some bishops are
protecting a "facade of unity" that hides their doctrinal disagreements
with the Vatican. While Shaw believes the bishops are more united with Rome
now than they where were about 25 years ago, some bishops may be pushing
for more and more closed "executive" sessions as a subconscious way to
protect themselves.

Take, for example, the brutal waves of scandal caused by the sexual abuse
of children and teens by clergy. For several decades, argued Shaw, the
bishops have been afraid to openly discuss "the causes of the dreadful mess
-- nasty things like homosexuality among priests, theological rationalizing
on the subject of sex and the entrenched self-protectiveness of the old
clericalist culture."

That's the kind of scandal that creates global headlines. But, for most
Catholics, more commonplace forms of secrecy shape their lives at the local
level, said Shaw.

Consider another story reported in Shaw's book, about a woman who quietly
confronted a priest after a Mass in which he omitted the creed. When he
failed to acknowledge the error, she said, "Father, you teach your people
to be disobedient when you disobey the Church."

The offended priest was silent. Then he leaned forward and whispered, "You
know what honey? You're full of it." The priest walked away, giving the
woman and her husband what appeared to be "the single-digit salute."

Truth is, said Shaw, "clericalism is often alive and well at the local
level. That's the kind of secrecy and dishonesty that really cuts the heart
of many local parishes, destroying any hope for real Communion there."

Terry Mattingly (www.tmatt.net) directs the Washington Journalism Center at
the Council for Christian Colleges & Universities.

Keeping secrets in Southern Baptist, Roman Catholic churches

2008-11-05T14:09:00.008-06:00

(My book, Witness to the Truth, contains about 80,000 words. In about 650 words Scripps-Howard religion columnist Terry Mattingly did a masterful job capturing the essense of what I said in the book. Terry's column will appear in Scripps-Howard newspapers across the country for the next several weeks. Normally, I post only my columns on this blog. However, Terry did such a fine job that I asked his permission to post it here.)

WASHINGTON BUREAU: Terry Mattingly's religion column for 11/05/08.

EDITOR'S NOTE: First of two columns on keeping secrets in church.

Reporter Louis Moore didn't know much about the Lutheran Church-Missouri
Synod when he began covering its bitter civil war in the 1970s.

Nevertheless, as a Southern Baptist with a seminary degree he knew a
biblical-authority battle when he saw one -- so he caught on fast. Soon he
was appalled by the viciousness of the combat between "moderates" and
"conservatives" as the 2.7 million-member denomination careened toward
divorce.

Things got so bad he told a Houston Chronicle colleague that if the
Southern Baptist Convention "ever became embroiled in such a heinous war, I
would rather quit my job than be forced to cover it," noted Moore, in
"Witness to the Truth," his memoir about his life in the middle of some of
America's hottest religion stories.

"Regrettably, years later, I was an eyewitness to SBC behavior that made
the Lutherans' battle look like a Sunday school picnic."

The Lutheran fight was his "learner schism" and Moore witnessed many other
skirmishes in pulpits and pews before -- like it or not -- he was engulfed
by the battle to control America's largest non-Catholic flock. He also
served as president of the Religion Newswriters Association during that
time.

The Southern Baptist Convention's return to the theological right would be
near the top of any journalist's list of the pivotal events in American
religion in the late 20th Century. This Bible Belt apocalypse also affected
politicians ranging from Jimmy Carter to Ronald Reagan, and anyone else who
sought national office in the "culture war" era following the 1960s and,
especially, Roe v. Wade.

After leaving daily journalism, Moore saw the Southern Baptist world from
the other side of the notebook for 14 years, serving as an SBC media aide
on policy issues and then with the convention's giant foreign missions
agency.

Moore said that in the "best of times" he saw believers in many flocks who
were so "servant-hearted and so demonstrative of Godlike virtues" that the
memory of their faithful acts -- in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, for
example -- still inspires tears. But in the worst of times?

"I have seen church people ... violate every one of the Ten Commandments,
act boorish and selfish, be prejudiced, broadcast secular value systems and
in general behave worse than the heathen people they tried to reach," noted
Moore. In fact, just "name some sin or some act the Bible eschews, and I
could pair that vice up with some church leader or member I have known."

Moore said his career affirmed basic values that he learned as a young
journalist, values he saw vindicated time after time in the trenches. Wise
religious leaders, he said, would dare to:

* Adopt "sunshine laws" so that as many as possible of their meetings are
open to coverage by journalists from the mainstream and religious press.
"When you're dealing with money your people have put in the offering plate,
you should be as open as possible," he said. "The things that belong on the
table need to stay on the table."

* Acknowledge that "politics is a way of life and they need to make it
clear to the people in the pews how the game is played," he said. "I truly
admire the people who let the covert be overt."

* Come right out and admit what they believe, when it comes to divisive
issues of theology and public life. "Say what you mean and mean what you
say," he said. "Way too many religious leaders take one position in public
and say something completely different somewhere else."

It's easy to pinpoint the root cause of these temptations, said Moore. At
some point, religious leaders become so committed to protecting the
institution they lead that they are driven to hide its sins and failures.
There's a reason that clergy and politicians share a love of public
relations and have, at best, mixed feelings about journalism.

"People who get caught up in this kind of group think spend so much of
their time testing the waters and floating their trial balloons," he said.
"I prefer to deal with the people who are honest about what they truly
believe . . ..

"Of course, the other side of that equation is that these authentic
believers are often politically naive and that means that they don't
survive the realities of the political process."

NEXT WEEK: Why Catholic doors kept closing.

Terry Mattingly (www.tmatt.net) directs the Washington Journalism Center

at the Council for Christian Colleges & Universities.

Layoffs require honesty, ethical behavior, and moral justification

2008-10-25T22:20:00.011-05:00

With layoffs predicted and unemployment expected to climb in the next months, businesses and churches need to be reminded that honesty is always the best policy.

Times like these usually spawn all sort of silly, unethical games and immoral behaviors that employers sometimes adopt.

The reason for the layoffs is obvious: Banks blew it by lowering lending standards, then played fast and loose with the mortgages they secured from people not able to pay back the money they borrowed. Those rotten mortgages, sold in packages as supposedly excellent investments, have resulted in a meltdown of the entire financial system. This has required massive government intervention not seen since the Great Depression. All this has tightened credit, lowered sales of everything from houses to cars to toiletry items and heightened the possibility of a prolonged deep recession or even an economic depression.

Layoffs are inevitable in such a free-market cycle. They are not the fault of individual employees (except in the case of some immoral high-up bankers and Wall Street types who created the mess) who are now likely to lose their jobs in the midst of the meltdown.

Businesses and other entities, including churches, will have three options:

1. Tell the truth to their employees: The truth is that sales and other methods for securing funding are down. Less revenue means less money available for salaries and other things. This means some people will lose their jobs. The decisions of who will be laid off need to be based on clearly defined moral, just, and ethical guidelines administered in the fairest and best way possible.

2. Set up immoral or unethical scenarios where certain employees are targeted as people to be laid off because of arbitrary and random plans not easily explainable to them or anyone else. (These can range anywhere from personality conflicts to such arbitrary matters as whether a person participates in the office drinking parties to hidden illegal discrimination based on race, gender, religion or age.) Following this scenario, employees losing their jobs will be set up for failure. They will suddenly find themselves criticized for work that previously might have even received commendation. The persons losing their jobs will be made to feel that they somehow are to blame for the decision. The company will try to present itself as dealing with troubled employees instead of the soured economy. Churches are expert at this; they will tell staff members that they are "not spiritual enough" or don't exhibit Christian attitudes in their work, when the truth is, the church can't afford to pay their salaries any more.

3. Camouflage the whole nasty situation as some type of "reorganization" in which people suddenly find their positions eliminated. People will know they have been laid off, but the company (or church or entity) appears to be merely adjusting to a new organizational scheme. Churches and church institutions particularly use "reorganizations" as ruses for layoffs--presenting to the public an image that is both dishonest and unethical. Regrettably religious groups are not the only ones that follow this behavior. Mergers, such as those occurring in the banking industry right now, provide great covers for these kinds of scenarios to happen, too.

Over the years I've been a part of both secular and church institutions that have gone through these layoff cycles. I've seen all three of these options carried out by bosses who range from highly ethical to downright deceptive. I've seen bosses struggle gallantly with ethical dilemmas involving who goes and who stays; I've also seen bosses who refuse to own up to the realities of the marketplace and instead turn to blaming and shaming others to cover their own tracks and perhaps save on unemployment payroll taxes (which escalate when employees are fired without just cause). Sadly, churches and church institutions and businesses run by people who call themselves Christians have not always been the ones taking the high, ethical roads.

Thanks to the Internet and the transparency of the current economic crisis worldwide, we all are able to discern clearly that this is a dangerous time for employees as well as for employers. No one likes to lose his or her job; no ethical boss likes to have to lay off anyone.

Nevertheless, religious leaders need to take the initiative in making sure:

1. That they act in moral and ethical ways when any layoffs occur inside their institutions. Remember the old saying: actions speak louder than words. In this environment, pretense will easily be seen for what it is and only add to the growing lack of trust people show in institutions of all kinds today.

2. Speak out boldly about the need for layoffs to occur in morally just and ethically fair ways. Now is the time for religious leaders throughout the country to identify criteria that should be used and pinpoint unethical behaviors that ought to be carefully avoided.

Neither making certain employees scapegoats for the current mess nor whitewashing layoffs as some kind of innocent reorganization ought to be tolerated during the current crisis. We got into this situation because of unethical business practices by banks and Wall Street types; allowing other unethical business behaviors to be perpetuated during this crisis ought to be nipped in the bud quickly.

Openness, honesty, and truth are always the best options. Otherwise, the public will continue to lose faith in our system and way of life, which will birth far greater problems than will a declining stock market and slipping economy.

Time for churches to step up to the plate with some answers

2008-10-15T19:44:00.015-05:00

In this time of national economic crisis, Americans need more than just the facts about how many points the stock market is up or down each day, how many billions the government has spent today trying to free up the credit markets, which bank or financial institution totters on the brink of collapse, or what a Presidential candidate says about this or that federal rescue program.

This is a time when church leaders need to step up to the plate with good, solid perspective on what to do. The meltdown raises all sorts of ethical and moral issues that need to be addressed.

So far I've seen mostly the traditional, to-be-expected comments from church leaders. The real nitty-gritty, solid advice is not yet forthcoming.

Oh yes, some have stepped forward to remind folks about tithing (which sounds at this point more than a little self-serving), the need to get debt-free (a little late to be preaching that one, isn't it?), and the importance of investing by keeping one's eyes on the long term (which sounds too much like stockbrokers). And some others have stepped forward to remind us of "the poor" and less fortunate who are probably going to be squeezed much more than the rest of us in this bizarre situation (duh! Isn't that what always happens went the rich create a mess and then run for cover on faraway, exotic islands?).

Where are the fiery sermons on God's punishment on a rich nation that has squandered its rich heritage on riotous, lavish living including that occurring in faraway lands?

Or sermons on God frowning on Big Bankers, Wall Street brokers, and their cohorts for getting drunk on the smell of money exuding from those highly profitable (so they thought) adjustable-rate mortgages taken out by poor, innocent people, many of whom couldn't even read the legal papers in English that they were signing?

Or just a good ole moralistic sermon on "Be careful; your sins will find you out"?

The Bible abounds with sermon materials for times such as this. For starters, one need look no further than the so-called Minor Prophets including Amos and Hosea. The Sermon on the Mount is another fount of information.

Actually the Bible says more about money that about any other issue. If you thought it says more about sex than anything else, you'd better get out your Bible and start reading again! Money is far more often pictured as the culprit that leads to a fall than is sex.

Times like these demand some precise answers on all sorts of ethical issues. When layoffs occur, what is the appropriate criteria for deciding who has to go? Or are, from the biblical perspective, layoffs even an option for Christian employers?

During the current economic upheaval churches and church institutions will model in word as well as in deed. Most staff layoffs will occur quietly and behind the scenes. Is that biblical or only the Southern American way of passively aggressively dealing with life? Do better ways—such as uniform across-the-board staff salary cuts—exist to illustrate Christ's teachings?

Church pantries are no doubt gearing up for increased applicants. Are they also thinking about shelter for families who lose their homes? Or will they leave all this, as usual, to specialized ministries such as the Salvation Army?

Too many churches in America have too often succumbed to the materialistic tendencies and behaviors of our culture as a whole. What they do during the next six to 24 months will tell whether they have learned any lessons from re-reading the Bible in times such as these. I certainly hope they will display that they have.

Lessons learned from another economic collapse are worth remembering

2008-09-28T14:56:00.011-05:00

While most Americans feel numb and disoriented by the shocking economic news flowing out of Washington, D.C., these days, we Texans only need search our memories back 20 years for first-hand knowledge of what such turmoil can produce.

After rising at the time to unfathomable heights, in the mid-1980s oil prices—our state's key economic base then—stumbled dramatically. Then Black October 1987 occurred; this sent the U.S. stock market crashing down. While we tried to digest these serious blows to our state's economy, the savings-and-loan crisis unfolded beneath us. This sent the commercial and residential real-estate markets in Texas and nearby Oklahoma plummeting dramatically. Suddenly unemployment in Texas leaped to 11 percent. Large numbers of houses across both states went into foreclosure. Daily prominent citizens filed for bankruptcy while leading state bankers headed off to jail. "Quite a mess" only begins to describe that situation. Most of the nation remembers those times as a "mild" recession. Except for a few Pollyannas, most Texans remember the late 1980s as our version of the Great Depression. We also remember how so many outside of the state refused to understand our intense pain at the time.

Our family was impacted economically, socially, physically, and spiritually by all the turmoil swirling around us and eventually engulfing us. Lessons we learned extended far beyond just how to invest wisely and how to manage money in the midst of a wild economic hurricane. You can read more about that in my new book, Witness to the Truth, published by Hannibal Books in June. Chapters 18 and 19 (pages 204-238) focus on those tumultuous years.

Today--two decades later--I am glad now that I have those memories to guide me and my family during the current economic difficulties our country faces. Here are some lessons for survival we learned during those economically tough times:

1. God is still at work around us even when every thing appears to be falling apart. Our faith needs to remain in God, not money or the things money will buy.

2. Out of economic turmoil God can help us change, stretch and grow for our long-term good and His ultimate purposes for our lives. Sometimes painful economic situations help us make choices we've been needing to make but haven't for one reason or the other.

3. Remember that God's timetable is not ours. Unless some unexpected miracle occurs, the economic shocks of the past few weeks will linger for at least several more years. Despite the $700-billion bailout now before Congress, times ahead will probably be tough. When the Texas collapse occurred in the 1980s, too many of us thought incorrectly that things would get back to normal quickly. Instead, the fix took nearly a decade.

4. Be prepared for economic turmoil to spin off other social, physical, and spiritual problems. Friends, including church friends, find it easier to provide a casserole when you're sick than to minister when unemployment knocks. You can't always rely on friends and fellow school alums to help you find new employment, especially when their own work situations are shaky. Unstable family finances produce more divorces and marital difficulties than do adultery or other attacks on marriage. Avoid compartmentalizing economic issues as if they are somehow separate from the rest of life. Expect that these economic issues will impact other aspects of your life (both for good and for evil).

5. As Annie sang in the musical by the same name, "The sun will come out tomorrow". With all the gloom and doom political leaders and media representatives are spreading right now, remember that barring a nuclear holocaust (very unlikely) life will go on and eventually become "normal" again. That's how God created the Earth--for the sun to rise, seasons to occur, and life to go on until He alone calls a halt to it.

Twenty years after Texas' Great Depression, my family and I have stretched, grown, matured, and in so many other ways benefited from lessons learned during those difficult years. We can look back and be thankful, as the old saying goes, for burnt toast.

So why didn't all those people heed the coastal evacuation orders?

2008-09-15T17:39:00.012-05:00

Like many other Americans I am puzzling over why so many people refused to heed the mandatory evacuation orders along the Texas and Louisiana Gulf coasts last weekend as Hurricane Ike bore down on the region. I am also hoping and praying the rescuers won't find a large group somewhere of drowned victims.

But as I puzzle over the scene, my mind keeps racing back to two situations that help me understand what was going on with those people who refused to leave their homes and businesses.

First: Several years ago I served on the administrative committee of board of trustees for a national church agency. That committee recommended sites for the board's future meetings. (This particular board met six times a year.) The previous year we had spent several icy days in Virginia in January and had met in the Florida Panhandle a few days after Hurricane Katrina arrived in New Orleans. Later after reflecting on those two incidents, I told fellow committee members I thought we ought to exercise better judgment and travel to Florida in the winter and to the East Coast in the spring or autumn. Another board member, a pastor in Nevada, ridiculed me unmercifully both during and after the committee meeting for my lack of faith and for even mentioning such an idea. Despite his verbal abuse I could not figure out why he was so opposed to what seemed to me to be pure common sense.

Second: I spent more than a third of my life living in Houston. My family and I are survivors of Hurricane Alicia, which made its way through our West Houston neighborhood 25 years before Hurricane Ike made his grand entrance. I recall how trees in my yard were literally yanked up from the ground by Alicia's violent winds. But I also recall the many times I taped up and/or boarded up my windows in anticipation of other hurricanes, only to be greeted the next morning with beautiful, clear skies and news that the hurricane had suddenly and without warning veered south and gone into a less-populated area of Mexico. In one such situation I recall standing in the hot Texas sun the day after a near-miss from a hurricane and fuming because the tape had some how fused itself to my living-room windows and I couldn't scrape it off.

One illustration reminds me how difficult getting people to understand the predictability of weather during certain seasons is. (Is understanding that hurricanes don't happen in January along the Gulf Coast and ice and/or snow storms happen frequently all along the Eastern Seaboard in the winter that difficult to comprehend? And if you want to avoid either, you simply stay away in seasons where these things happen!)

The other illustration reminds me of the difficulty we experience in getting precise weather reports on what hurricanes, tornados or even ice storms are going to do. Despite all the remarkable progress meterologists have made in recent years in understanding our weather, storm tracks are still often an imprecise science.

No wonder then at least 100,000 people refused to heed the warnings and evacuate quickly out of harm's way. I can just hear them arguing before the storm like my colleague on the committee or my own mind after Houston experienced only bright sunshine on the day a hurricane had been predicted.

Common sense, however, needs to prevail in situations like this. Maybe the government and private enterprise need to pump more money into meterology in hopes of making weather forecasting more reliable. And maybe we all need to take deep breaths and then start discussing calmly and sanely the wisdom of building homes and businesses in areas that historically have endured some of the worst storms on this planet. (In case you haven't heard the fact enough times, the worst weather disaster in U.S. hisory was the Galveston hurricane of 1900, which prompted the Houston Ship Channel and the growth of Houston 65 miles inland from the Galveston coast.)

I've spent many memorable nights and days in New Orleans, Galveston and even on the Bolivar Peninsula. Despite my affection for those sites, I just wonder whether maybe God never intended for us humans to spoil these places' natural beauty with our homes, our hotels, our businesses, our cars, and all the other things that make up our modern civilization. Maybe in God's original plans these places really were supposed to be beautiful beach-front property and natural preserves--created to look at but not possess.

Sarah Palin is a reminder neither Jesus nor Paul opposed women, including mothers of small children, working outside the home

2008-09-07T20:22:00.025-05:00

With all the hubbub these days about an Evangelical Christian mother running for Vice President of the United States, some in the media, the church, and elsewhere act as if the issue of Christian women/mothers holding outside-the-home employment has never been addressed seriously, previously or positively. That's simply not so!

My wife, Kay, and I addressed the matter 26 years ago in our first book, When You Both Go to Work, published in hardback by Word Inc. in 1982 and re-released in paperback earlier this year by Hannibal Books. In 1982 we appeared in numerous newspapers and on TV and radio coast to coast, including the then-popular Jim and Tammy Bakker Show, discussing the issue of married Christian women in the workplace. Most interviewers and commentators zeroed in on Chapter 3, which spells out the what the Bible says on the issue. Even though the chapter is lengthy, given the current national interest, I offer it below as my blog today. The topic is as fresh today as when we wrote it more than a quarter century ago.

When You Both Go to Work
By Louis & Kay Moore

Chapter Three

Some Biblical Dimensions

I could hardly wait to get Pastor Jones on the telephone. In searching for two-paycheck families to interview for our book, we often contacted pastors such as Jones to get the names of active members of their churches whom they believed coped well with the two-paycheck lifestyle. I had zeroed in on this pastor because he was known in his community for his theologically liberal stances on a variety of matters.

He was affiliated with the United Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), a denomination noted for its stand on the equality of women. I assumed he would quickly spiel off the names of several employed couples among his membership. Then Kay and I would be in business to start our interviews.

I couldn't have been more shocked at his answer to our request. He was quiet a long time, muttering, “I’m thinking. I’m thinking . . ..” Finally, he blurted out, “I just can’t think of a single two-paycheck couple in this entire church.” Furthermore, he seemed to have some trouble even understanding why two-paycheck families in the church could possibly be an appropriate subject for a book.

Just the converse was true in the case of Pastor Smith.

I had dallied around for days before I contacted this minister because he was pastor of a Southern Baptist Church and was noted for his heavy fundamentalist leanings. Every time I picked up the phone to call this minister to get the names of two-paycheck couples in his congregation, I would put it down and tell myself that I just wasn’t ready to listen to what I was sure would be a sermon on “why women should stay at home where they belong.”

Finally, I bit the bullet and contacted him. Again, as with Pastor Jones, I couldn’t have been more surprised, but for an entirely different reason. Instead of the lecture I expected, this pastor tuned in immediately with our project.

“Why, that’s an excellent idea,” he said. “I know lots of couples in our church just like the people you are seeking. I am sure people really have a need for a book like yours.” He then rattled off a long list of names of employed couples—far too many for us to use from any one church.

What a reversal! The theological liberal couldn’t tune in with our project, but the fundamentalist almost bowled me over with his enthusiasm. And I had thought just the opposite would occur. After we completed our interviews and research, I continued to mull over these two contradictory conversations.

Finally I realized that another highly significant factor was involved besides the theological leanings of the ministers. The Presbyterian church was situated in an affluent section in its community, near a neighborhood populated by prosperous bankers and oil-company executives. The Baptist church, on the other hand, was situated in an economically and socially changing neighborhood. In the wealthy sector in which the Presbyterian church had its ministry, the right of women to work outside the home was more of a philosophical idea. In the Baptist church’s neighborhood, two paychecks were an economic necessity for many families.

These two phone calls also shed some new light on the way church friends had responded when Kay first returned to her newspaper job after our son was born. We had been members of a conservative Baptist church which was not far removed theologically from the fundamentalist church whose pastor eagerly helped with our book project. But it was situated in the same type of neighborhood as was the Presbyterian church whose pastor could barely tune into our subject matter. Suddenly we could see why Baptist residents of this affluent neighborhood had responded in the same way as did the reluctant Presbyterian pastor.

The two-paycheck issue is often presented as a theological one. The women of the church who prayed that Barbara would not follow Kay’s example of returning to work after her child was born did so, they thought, for theological reasons. They believed God’s will was for a mother to stay home and tend to her husband, children, and house. But, as our experience with the Presbyterian and Baptist ministers taught us, the issue often transcends theological lines. It often has as much to do with the culture in which people live as with their theological bias.

Cultural Attitudes Vary, Too

Before we go further, reflecting on how cultural attitudes toward two-paycheck families have varied during past centuries is important. The concept of working couples is not a new idea developed in the 1980s. Centuries ago the Industrial Revolution brought women out of their homes and into the marketplace to work alongside their husbands in business and industry. In 19th century England, for instance, the two-paycheck marriage was a matter of class: having a wife at home instead of in the factory was a luxury Englishmen of the poorer classes could not afford.

Too, no one today can accurately compare the lifestyle of farm couples during the last century or early in this century with the “husband at work, wife at home” model emphasized today. The farmer and his wife were much more akin to the employed couples of today than to the housewife who “stays home” in the suburbs while her husband goes off to earn the family’s living in the city.

The modern notion that the wife belongs at home all day with the children while the husband goes off to work to provide an income is largely a product of the post-war 1950s. During World War II, wives made the bombs and the airplanes and staffed the plants and watched the homefront while their husbands went to fight in the war. Rosie the Riveter became a national symbol of women at work in wartime. When the GI’s returned home, they wanted to repay their wives by retiring them to the luxury of new homes equipped with the latest in modern conveniences.

In that box of old pictures and memorabilia my mother recently gave me was a letter my father wrote to my mother from the Pacific, where he fought in Gen. Douglas MacArthur’s gallant effort to regain the Philippines and other territories seized by the Japanese during World War II. In the letter, Dad pledges to Mom that when the war is over, he will return home and get a job and that she will never have to be employed again. My father, I believe, was expressing an attitude that prevailed among many servicemen during World War II. Those men looked forward to a postwar prosperity that would enable their wives to give up their war-enforced duties and stay home with the “baby boom” babies of the late 1940s and early 1950s. In the 1950s, the men went off to the offices or factories to get ahead. They often left their wives with small children and with a new life that was much easier than earlier generations had known.

This cultural background is important to observe as we look at today’s struggle between those who believe (based on their concept of biblical premises) that a wife shouldn’t work and those who think a woman has a right to be in the marketplace.

Economic Necessity or Personal Fulfillment?

Another experience just after Kay returned to work served to affirm for us this dichotomy of culture and Bible. About the same time Kay went back to her newspaper job, another young woman in our Sunday-school class put her small child in a day-care center and took a clerical job.

Unlike Kay, however, this woman, named Jan, made it clear to one and all that she was working strictly for economic necessity. Career goals had nothing to do with her decision.

She and her husband needed the money. Her going to work at an outside job was the only answer for them. Curiously, Jan said she never felt the same type of criticism from other church members Kay had felt, although her circle of friends was the same as ours. In fact, we recall that Jan experienced only sympathy and even pity from other members of her Sunday-school class. For several weeks during that time, no one referred to Jan without calling her Poor Jan—poor almost becoming a part of her name. If the groups that criticized Kay had attacked Jan for working, Jan probably would have chimed right in with their criticism. She preferred to be at home but could not financially afford to be. So she took the only route open to her.

For members of this affluent church we attended, economic need seemed to be the only “valid” reason for a two-paycheck family. Although Kay’s course of action was no different than Jan’s was, somehow the women in the Sunday-school class implied that God looked less kindly on us because Kay returned to work for reasons of self-fulfillment rather than financial need. Jan became the “good working mother” because of her motivations, while Kay was pegged as the “bad working mother.” Therefore, Jan did not hear implications about God’s will, but Kay did.

Kay and I realize that this story of Jan reflects the broader issue of hypocrisy in churches, but it also shows how theological issues are used—not always consistently—against the two-paycheck family.

We were not the only couple who encountered opposition to their lifestyle based on theological grounds. And, as in the cases we cited, the opposition did not necessarily occur along denominational lines.

Bracing for Theological Battles

I called long distance to set up a personal interview with Rita and Jack Newton. But the moment I explained our project, Rita began pouring out her troubles over the telephone lines. She had been an elementary-school teacher before their child was born; she wanted to return to outside work as soon as the child was in grade school. In the meantime, she wanted to enroll in graduate study.

But Rita was alarmed by some hair-raising tales she had been told about what had happened when other mothers in the Church of Christ congregation she attended resumed their jobs.

According to Rita, women in their California congregation who returned to work with children at home were visited by elders of the congregation and were instructed not to continue their outside jobs. In one case, the elders even visited the babysitter of a woman who had just taken a job and told the sitter she was doing wrong by keeping the children of women who work outside the home. The elders claimed the church teaches that a woman who sits with the children of other women who work outside the home become something akin to an accomplice to a crime.

Just before I called, Rita had stopped attending the church’s women’s Bible class because of her teacher’s statements about the role of women. The teacher, wife of one of the church’s elders, went to visit Rita after the two had had a disagreement in the class. “She (the teacher) left in a state of shock at what I said,” said Rita. “I disagreed with several things she mentioned about the role of women. I told her so. She said it was a pity that I didn’t realize how great motherhood is and what woman’s role should be in the world.”

Rita said a woman at her church who is a employed wife and mother was offered a management position in her company. A few days after news about the promotion got out, two women from the congregation arrived to tell the friend that she should refuse the job. They claimed the Bible teaches that women should not be in a supervisory position over men.

Rita refused to return to the women’s Bible class at her church. At last report, she and Jack were frantically reading the New Testament, especially the letters of Paul, to better equip themselves to answer criticism and to counter arguments about employed women in the congregation.

Gay McFarland, a writer, says one of the main reasons she stopped attending her Bible church before her marriage to writer John Scarborough was the church’s teachings on employed wives. The large church she attended taught that the Bible says women belong at home with the children and not in the workaday world.

At the time we interviewed them, John and Gay were “sitting out” church for a while. Like many other couples, they were not sure how they would deal with the churchless situation when children arrived. But one thing was certain for them: a tolerant attitude about two-paycheck families likely would be their strongest criterion for choosing a church when they do reach a decision. “I’m just not going to belong to a church where I feel I’m a second-class citizen for working,” said Gay. “There are too many stresses already associated with working. The church shouldn’t add to them by making women feel bad when they earn a paycheck.”

Linda and Eric King, both attorneys and parents of three children, say they have received criticism of their lifestyle at their Church of Christ in Oklahoma. “Many people, including our present preacher, still believe a woman’s place is in the home. They view it as a religious matter. Thus, to some extent, a woman is usurping a man’s place when she leaves her domestic domain. We have had sermons intimating this, along with paeans to housewives,” said Linda.

Since the matter is so often bandied about, let’s look at what the Bible truly does say about the two-paycheck family and whether it really teaches that the woman’s place is always in the home. But before we look at some key Bible verses on this matter, let’s first review our understanding of what role the Bible should play in our lives and how it is to be interpreted.

Understanding the Bible

The Bible is our record of God’s revelation of Himself to humankind. It contains the truth about God. It was written by people whom God guided. We like the way Christianity Today, the evangelical fortnightly publication, described this revelation to the biblical writers: “No evangelical scholar defends the idea that God dictated the Bible by a method analogous to the way a businessman dictates a letter to his stenographer. The few who (unwisely, we think) use the term dictate mean only that the end product is just as much the word of God as though the whole Bible had been dictated by God.”1

The Bible is also our guide for living. It is divine authority. With the help of the Holy Spirit for interpretation, it is the most important book we have to help us understand God. We believe the Bible should be read, studied, and followed.

But we must not make the Bible more than what it claims to be. It is not a scientific textbook. According to that same article in Christianity Today, “Inerrancy does not mean that the Bible always uses exact language. It does not require that the Bible employ up-to-date scientific terminology. Evangelicals are not trying to make the Bible into a science textbook; they mean only that it is true.”2

We also understand that the Bible was written in the context of its culture. No one (at least in our circle of acquaintances) believes that, because King David had many wives, men today should be polygamous. By the same token, no one we know believes that, because Abraham fathered a child by a mistress, men today are free to pursue such activities. The Bible records the actions of sinful people who lived in various cultures—some that are alien to our present way of Christian living.

We must take care that we do not remove the cultural patterns which provided the environment for the writing of the Bible and superimpose them indiscriminately on our culture today.

So how then are we to we read the Bible? We can approach our study with an attitude of prayer and seek the wisdom of the Holy Spirit. We do not need any key, such as Mary Baker Eddy’s Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures or Joseph Smith’s Book of Mormon to unlock the Scriptures. Modern commentaries can help us understand the background of the Bible. But such commentaries do not take precedence over the Bible.

Let the Bible Speak to You

We have two ways to read the Bible: (1) letting it speak to us in ways that were intended, or (2) making it speak to us in ways that we want to hear. Theologians have two fancy words to describe these methods: exegesis and eisegesis. Exegesis means to understand what the Bible is saying to us. Eisegesis means to read in the Bible things we want it to say. Be careful that you do not use the Bible to say what you want it to say.

In Oklahoma, where I was reared, an uneducated Baptist preacher seemed to fall into the second category. This preacher strongly disliked a popular hairstyle of the day—the topknot, formed by wrapping a woman’s long hair into a bun on top of her head. In order to preach against the topknot, this preacher studied the Bible intently and looked for the key verses. He found what he was seeking in Mark 13:15, although he had to adjust his spelling a little. In the verse, Jesus was speaking about turbulent time ahead. Jesus said, Let him that is on the housetop not go down into the house. By adding the letter “k” to the word not and by doing a little surgery on the verse the pastor had the text of his sermon: “Top (k)not go down.”

He projected onto the Bible what he wanted to find. We can read the Bible in context to avoid making the same error.

The Working Couples in the Bible

The central theological question working couples need to answer is this: What does the Bible say about the two-paycheck lifestyle?

Our answer: The Bible is essentially silent on the matter. Working couples were simply not an issue when the Bible was being written. Scripture, however, has two important examples of working couples—Priscilla and Aquila in the New Testament and the “virtuous wife” in Proverbs.

Acts 18:3 says Priscilla and Aquila, a husband and wife, were both tentmakers. Paul stayed with them in Corinth because, the Scriptures say, he was of the same trade. Besides their work with tents, Priscilla and Aquila also worked together as teachers. They were instrumental in the doctrinal education of Apollos. Acts 18:24-26 describes Apollos as a Jew . . . a native of Alexandria . . . an eloquent man, well versed in the scriptures. He had been instructed in the way of the Lord; and being fervent in spirit, he spoke and taught accurately the things concerning Jesus, though he knew only the baptism of John. The Scriptures say that Priscilla and Aquila heard Apollos, then they took him and expounded to him the way of God more accurately.

From the story of Priscilla and Aquila, we know that at least one working husband and wife were actively involved in the early church.

The other example of a working couple is found in the Old Testament. The description of the virtuous wife in the 31st chapter of Proverbs seems to describe an ideal woman of early Bible days who does the same kind of balancing act between home, family, and career that many modern working couples do. According to Proverbs 31:10-18:

Who can find a wife with strength of character? She is far more precious than jewels. The heart of her husband trusts in her, and he will never lack profit. She does him good and not harm all the days of her life; she seeks wool and flax, and works with willing hands; she is like the merchant ship; she brings her food from afar. She rises while it is yet night, and gives food to her household, even a portion to her maidens; she considers a field and buys it; with the fruit of her hands she plants a vineyard. She girds her loins with strength, and makes her arms strong. She sees that her merchandise is profitable; her lamp does not go out at night.
(MLB)

Whether the virtuous wife described here was an early real-estate person, a produce grower, or a garment-maker who sewed for the public, we do not know. But clearly she seemed to be engaged in a business of some sort. She also was capable of performing superior intellectual tasks. The Scripture does not seem to view this capability as an indication of masculinity in a woman.

Except for these two brief examples, we see little direct biblical reference to two-paycheck couples. Jesus does not address the issue of working couples directly; neither does Paul, nor do any other biblical writers. But while the Bible is essentially silent on the issue of working couples, it does offer some pertinent teachings on several related companion issues—the use of God-given talents, the role of women, Christian marriage, and how Christians are to treat each other.

The Use of God-Given Talents

Christian vocalist Cynthia Clawson had just returned from one of her frequent out-of-town engagements when we met. At home in their living room, she and her husband, composer and actor Ragan Courtney, who are Baptists, discussed their hectic and unorthodox lifestyle. Several weeks out of each month, Cynthia travels to various American cities and gives vocal concerts. While she is gone from home, Ragan stays home with their toddler son, Will, and writes and composes.

How does Ragan feel about his wife’s travels and about her being in the spotlight so often? Ragan’s answer was simple and straight from the teachings of Jesus. “The biblical parable of the talents teaches that you do not bury talents,” said Ragan. He believes God has given Cynthia talents he wants her to use.3

The story of the talents is found in Matthew 25:14-30. Although the word talent in the parable actually refers to a coin, the implication is wider and could also refer to God-given abilities. In the story, Jesus encouraged His followers to use wisely what God has given them. In this parable, the follower who failed to use God’s gifts was punished.

Both men and women are given talents by God. Those talents are not limited to what any one culture labels as male or female. Some men have a special knack for cooking. Some women have a talent to manage business matters. God was no respecter of gender when he distributed abilities.

The Bible makes clear what happens when special gifts are allowed to lie dormant; this admonition was not merely directed at men.

I was especially impressed with Ragan’s response about his wife’s talents, because I identified heavily with his feeling. I encourage Kay to pursue her writing career because I believe her ability is from God; that’s the way I feel about mine, too. If we did not use our talents, we would be like the servant in Jesus’ parable who ran and hid his talent for fear of losing it. When questioned by his master, that servant replied,

“Master, I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you did not winnow; so I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground” (Matt. 25:24-25).

Then the master said to him: “You wicked and slothful servant! You knew that I reap where I have not sowed, and gather where I have not winnowed? Then you ought to have invested my money with the bankers, and at my coming I should have received what was my own with interest” (vv. 26-27).

Then the master took the servants talent from him and gave it to another, casting “the worthless servant into the outer darkness” (v. 30).

Employed Women in the Bible

Another companion issue to that of working couples is the issue of working women. A couple today usually becomes a two-paycheck family when the wife joins her husband as a breadwinner. The idea of employed men is neither new nor controversial; the idea of employed women is the one that generates controversy in some quarters today. Our purpose here is not to argue the whole feminist issue of equal pay, equal opportunities, or equal rights. We are specifically interested in what the Bible says about women—especially wives—being employed outside the home.

We recognize that many of the women in the Bible were homemakers and not business women. But contrary to popular misconception, several career women are mentioned in both the Old and New Testaments.

Deborah is described in Judges 4:4 as a prophetess. She was the wife of Lapidoth. She also was a judge of Israel, which means she was the ranking Jewish leader of her time. We could call her the Golda Meir of the Israel of her day. Judges 4:5 says Deborah sat on a hill under a palm and the people of Israel came up to her for judgment. Deborah became a great military leader when the leading Hebrew officer, Barak, refused to go into battle without her at his side. According to Judges 4:8-9, Barak said to Deborah, “If you will go with me, I will go: but if you will not go with me, I will not go.” And Deborah said to Barak, “I will surely go with you; nevertheless, the road on which you are going will not lead to your glory. For the Lord will sell Sisera into the hand of a woman.” Of course Deborah won the battle and gained fame as a leader in battle.

One of Paul’s first converts was an employed woman, Lydia, from the city of Thyatira. Paul met her while he visited with some women who had gathered for prayer outside the gate to riverside of Philippi, the leading city of the district of Macedonia. The story of that encounter is told in Acts 16:11-15.

Lydia is identified in the Scriptures as a seller of purple, which is generally interpreted as meaning purple cloth. Although the Bible does not state whether she was married, Lydia clearly seems to be a prosperous woman, because she maintained a household and had her own home.

Acts 16:15 says, And when she [Lydia] was baptized, with her household, she besought us, saying, “If you have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come to my house and stay.” And she prevailed upon us.

Paul must have been impressed with Lydia, for he returned to her home after his time in the Macedonian jail. Acts 16:40 reports, So they went out of the prison, and visited Lydia; and when they had seen the brethren, they exhorted them and departed.

Phoebe was another leading woman of the New Testament. We do not know what career she pursued, but we know that she played a key role in the early church and had duties beyond that of homemaker. Several scholars believe Paul entrusted his letter to the Romans to Phoebe for deliver. Austin H. Stouffer, in a Christianity Today article on the ordination of women, calls it a “task many of our churches would delegate only to men.”4 Stouffer and others also point out that Phoebe was a deaconess in the early church—possibly the only female deacon in the church.

In Romans 16:1-2, Paul says, I commend to you our sister Phoebe, a deaconess of the church at Cenchreae, that you may receive her in the Lord as befits the saints, and help her in whatever she may require from you, for she has been a helper of many and of myself as well.

What Did Jesus and Paul Say About Employed Women?

Any biblical discussion about working women must include a discussion about what Jesus and Paul said and taught about women employed outside the home.

Jesus never said that a woman’s place is in the home.

Nor did He say a woman’s place is in the marketplace. He did not speak directly to the question of two-paycheck marriages. But Jesus, in both words and deeds, did say much about the value and worth of persons male and female.

From these teachings we draw our understanding of what He might say today about employed women.

Many writers and theologians have pointed out that Jesus’ attitude toward women stood in sharp contrast to the customs of His day. A clear example of this is John 4:7-42, in which Jesus tells the woman at the well in Samaria that she had five former husbands and a current live-in boyfriend. For two reasons, the woman was shocked that Jesus would speak to her: (1) she was a Samaritan, and Jews had no dealings with these people, who were actually their relatives; and (2) she was a woman, perhaps of ill repute.

Jesus treated this woman of Samaria with respect, understanding, and forgiveness. Her testimony later served to tell the people of her village about Jesus. Jesus knew and respected the worth of this woman and violated traditional customs in winning her admiration forever.

The Mary, Martha, and Lazarus story in the New Testament also gives us a clue as to Jesus’ attitude where women were concerned. As Jesus went to visit this brother and two sisters who lived in Bethany near Jerusalem, Martha became so busy preparing the meal for her houseguest that she could not listen to all that Jesus had to say. Mary listened intently. Finally Martha asked Jesus to tell Mary to leave His side and to help her with meal preparations. Jesus scolds Martha and reminds her that values greater than a well-prepared meal exist. Here, Jesus had the perfect chance to lecture Mary on the role of women and to tell her to stay at home and tend to the culinary and domestic arts. Instead, He told Martha that she, too, should be listening and using her God-given thinking and reasoning abilities.

In Luke 8:1-3, we learn that women as well as men were instrumental in Jesus’ ministry. After this he [Jesus] went journeying from town to town and village to village, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom of God. With him were the Twelve and a number of women who had been set free from evil spirits and infirmities: Mary, known as Mary of Magdala, from whom seven devils had come out, Joanna, the wife of Chuza a steward of Herod’s, Susanna, and many others. These women provided for them out of their own resources (NEB).

The use of the term own resources indicates that the women did more than just offer their talents and physical labor. They offered funds.

Apparently, these were women of some means who shared their financial resources with Jesus and His disciples.

Later, at the time of Jesus’ death, some of these women were standing near the cross. In Luke 23:49, we learn that His [Jesus’] friends had all been standing at a distance [watching the crucifixion]; the women who had accompanied him from Galilee stood with them and watched it all (NEB). Then, after Jesus’ body was removed from the cross, these women were the ones who followed . . . took note of the tomb and observed how his body was laid. Then they went home and prepared spices and perfumes (vv. 55-56, NEB).

Two days later, on that first Easter morning, these were the women who reported the resurrection. So their role in the conclusion of Jesus’ earthly ministry was crucial.

Could some of the first bearers of the Good News of the resurrection have been businesswomen? We don’t know for sure. The Scriptures only tell us about Joanna’s husband’s job. The idea that Mary Magdala was a reformed prostitute is merely conjecture. We don’t know whether she had a husband or how she supported herself. We also don’t know any of these details about Susanna and the “many other” women who traveled with Jesus. The fact that these women traversed the country freely with Jesus and His disciples and had their own money to underwrite the journeys indicates that these were not typical homemakers of Jesus’ day.

We might speculate that these were businesswomen, or maybe partners in some two-paycheck lifestyle.

We won’t commit the same error the Oklahoma preacher did and try to read too much into Bible verses. But one thing is certain: Jesus did not encourage these women to hide their abilities and intelligence; He associated with them freely.

Paul was the bridge between Jews and Gentiles in spreading the gospel; he took the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus and interpreted them to the world outside of Judaism. Paul was “the man most responsible for carrying Christian faith to the Graeco-Roman world beyond Palestine,” says one source book. “Beginning his career as a fierce persecutor of the earliest followers of Jesus, he experienced a miraculous conversion, and from that time on he practiced Christian evangelism so zealously and successfully that he went down in history as the revered ‘apostle to the Gentiles.’”5

An entire book could be written on Paul’s views on women. In fact, Paul’s is the name that usually pops up when the discussion turns to women’s roles. In an editorial on “Women’s Role in Church and Family,” Christianity Today says, “The role of women in the home is more difficult to determine because of the interlacing of scripture and cultural patterns both in ancient and modern times.” Every example the editorial used after that statement is from the writings of Paul.6

We have neither the time nor the space to go into every detail of what Paul said about the role of women. We want, therefore, to concentrate on Paul’s attitude toward women working outside the home.

Paul is like Jesus was on the issue of working women. He never said a woman’s place is always at home, nor did he say that a woman’s place is never in the marketplace. Some people read certain passages from Paul and conclude that he was opposed to employed women. We believe these are only interpretations of people who set out to prove a certain premise.

When Royce Smith was preparing to take her job as truant officer, she and husband Skip, a purchasing supervisor, decided to enroll in a seminar on financial management offered at a neighborhood Baptist church.

To Royce’s shock, the Baptist pastor who taught the course kicked off the opening-night talk by attempting to “prove,” using two verses from Paul, that women should not work outside the home. Part of his text was 1 Timothy 5:8: If any one does not provide for his relatives . . . he has disowned the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.

The other part of the minister’s text was Titus 2:3-5: Bid the older women likewise to be reverent in behavior, not to be slanderers or slaves to drink; they are to teach what is good, and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, to be sensible, chaste, domestic, kind, and submissive to their husbands, that the word of God my not be discredited.

Royce said that pastor’s words at first made her apprehensive: “I felt like my decision (to go back to work) had been God’s will. My first reaction was, ‘Maybe I didn’t pray hard enough.’ So I prayed again and got the same answer—that this was the right step for me.”

The two verses from Paul quoted by the pastor at the financial seminar in no way exclude women from working outside the home. We believe modern women can use their talents outside the home and still meet all the requirements of the two verses: loving their husbands, caring for children, and being sensible, chaste, domestic, kind, and yes, even submissive —terms that get tossed around a lot in discussions about working women.

We’ll pick up on the subject of submission in a few pages when we explore the meaning of Christian marriage.

Back to Paul’s specific comments about employed women: We have already cited two passages that indicate Paul had golden opportunities to lecture employed women about their lifestyles—the cases of Lydia and Priscilla. But these passages concerning Paul’s relationship with Lydia contain no indication that would indicate he frowned on her career. In fact, one could argue that he willingly accepted the hospitality that her income and status allowed her to offer him. Lydia is, moreover, immortalized in the Scriptures as the seller of purple, just as professional women today want to be remembered as journalists, doctors, lawyers, real-estate brokers, and so on.

In his relationship with Priscilla and Aquila, Paul had the perfect opportunity to lecture or scold Priscilla about working alongside her husband in the tent-making business.

Paul never seemed to hesitate expressing his disapproval of other customs or behavior he considered wrong. Yet we see no indication whatsoever that Paul disapproved of this two-paycheck marriage.

In both cases, we believe Paul’s silence on the issue of employed women is significant.

Several other women played key roles in the life and ministry of Paul. We do not know whether all these women pursued careers outside the home. But we do know that women were not excluded from a vital role in the early church. Said Austin H. Stouffer in his article on the ordination of women, “Of the twenty-nine people Paul greets in Romans 16, many are women he addressed by name, contrary to Jewish custom: Phoebe, Tryphaena, Tryphosa, Julia, Mary.”7

Though Paul is often placed in the role of an opponent to modern employed women, we believe that image is unfounded. Our study of Scripture does not show Paul to be opposed to women being in the marketplace, as some would have us believe.

What the Bible Says About Marriage

Another biblical issue that relates to the two-paycheck family is that of Christian marriage.

Reflecting on two passages from Genesis in the Old Testament which set forth the principles on which Christian marriage is based is important. In the Genesis creation story, we find: So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. And God blessed them . . .. (Gen. 1:27-28). Then, a few verses further, we find the second creation story of man and woman, in Genesis 2:7, 21-24:

Then the Lord God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life: and man became a living being . . . So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh: and the rib which the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. Then the man said, “This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.” Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and cleaves to his wife, and they become one flesh.

In these beautiful verses which tell us of the first marriage and the first couple, we see that God created each of us—male and female—in His image. That means we each have value and worth, regardless of whether we are male or female. Many people have pointed out that God did not choose to remove a portion of Adam’s foot to make Eve, to show that woman is beneath man. Nor did he remove a portion of Adam’s head, to show that woman is above man. God instead chose to remove a portion of Adam’s rib to show that woman stands beside man. Man and woman are to be together, side by side.

We believe this side-by-side partnership is essential for a two-paycheck marriage—and any marriage—to work.

In a successful two-paycheck lifestyle, husbands and wives must see themselves as involved in a partnership in which both persons benefit from the relationship and the marriage, just as Adam and Eve benefited from each other. A husband and wife must work together—side by side—to make the lifestyle work.

Understanding Submission

Now, back to the verses from Paul on submission. These verses continually pop up like a jack-in-the-box as the theological basis for opposition to women working outside the home. The key verses on this subject are found in Ephesians 5. To understand Paul’s teachings on the roles of husbands and wives, reading these verses in context and in their entirety is absolutely essential.

Paul wrote, Wives, be subject to your husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and himself its Savior. As church is subject to Christ, so let wives also be subject in everything to their husbands. At this point, many opponents of the two-paycheck lifestyle stop reading their Bibles and start preaching. But Paul’s thoughts do not stop here. They continue on:

Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. Even so husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself, For no man ever hates his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body. For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. This mystery is a profound one, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church; however, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.
(Eph. 5:25-33)

In these verses, Paul was talking about a mutual relationship between a husband and wife in which both are treated with respect, appreciation, and love. Paul was not advocating a tyranny in which a husband walks all over his wife. He told a wife to respect her husband and his place in the family. He told a husband to respect his wife and treat her with love.

We concur with Paul in saying that any major decision in a family must be made jointly and with love and with respect. The decision to become a two-paycheck family must be made in an environment in which the husband loves his wife enough that he wants what is best for her.

The husband must love his wife enough to want her to be fulfilled as a person and to view her role as important. If being employed will help her find that fulfillment, then a husband should understand and work with his wife in order to achieve that goal. And the wife should love her husband and respect him enough to understand his wishes on the subject and to seek his counsel about the venture before she makes the decision.

Paul was correct: Marriage includes two people, two opinions, and two sets of standards and feelings to take into account. We say amen to Paul’s statement, Let each one of you love his wife as himself and let the wife see that she respects her husband. To us, it seems to affirm, not contradict, the basic premise of the two-paycheck marriage.

How Christians Are to Treat Each Other

We see a fourth companion issue to any discussion about two-paycheck families in the church. As we have shown, the Bible never directly addresses the issue of employed couples. But it is clear as a bell about the way Christians are to treat each another—even those who disagree with them.

The biblical standard for relating to others is love, patience, and a nonjudgmental attitude. This applies both to the churches and the two-paycheck families.

“Judge not, that ye be not judged. For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged,” says Jesus (Matt. 7:1, KJV). At another point, Jesus said, “Love thy neighbor as thyself” (Mark 12:31, KJV). These are verses that must always be recalled when Christians are discussing issues on which they disagree.

Churches as well as one-paycheck families have an obligation to refrain from making cruel and unnecessary judgments about two-paycheck families. And two-paycheck families have an equal obligation to understand and love those who disagree with their style of living. We’ll write more about this later in the chapter on how to deal with criticism.

An Issue Each Couple Must Decide

We believe, in view of the Bible’s essential silence on this issue, that becoming a two-paycheck family is a matter for each couple to decide together after prayer and discussion.

(To read further on this subject, locate a copy of When You Both Go to Work by Louis & Kay Moore. The book is available at www.hannibalbooks.com, www.amazon.com, www.barnesandnoble.com and other online and physical bookstores.)

Media's treatment of Sarah Palin is shameful, disgusting

2008-09-04T11:40:00.013-05:00

Let me start by being perfectly clear: Many who work in the news media in this country are not liberal.

Now let me quickly add: Many who work in the news media in this country are very liberal.

Characterizing all members of the media as liberal or affiliated with the left-wing of the Democratic Party is unfair. But somehow since last Friday those who are on the left-wing of the media seem to have grabbed the microphones and the writing assignments to cover the biggest breaking news in the Republican Party. They look like one motley, wild-eyed liberal, crazed crew.

As a former staff member of one of the largest newspapers in the United States, I feel embarrassed by what many of my colleagues have said and done since Friday. I'm talking, of course, about the treatment of Republican Vice Presidential Candidate Sarah Palin.

What I don't understand is the irrationality of the media's behavior. I understand pack journalism. I've always found such herd mentality a contradiction to the independence and freedom reporters say they crave.

But what has occurred since Friday noon goes beyond all common sense and decency. Take Yahoo's lead story today: the story said Sarah had "seduced" her Republican and prime-time TV audience. If someone had used that word with a sexual connotation to describe Barack Obama's or Hillary Clinton's speeches at the Democratic Convention last week in Denver, he or she would have been lynched professionally. Or at least fired. That was a purely sexist, intolerable use of the word "seduced". The only good thing I can say about Yahoo!'s story is that it was better than anything else the organization has published about Sarah since Friday. Since Saturday I have filed numerous complaints with the outfit about its offensive and irrational coverage—something I have never done previously.

Even the stately and usually sedate Dallas Morning News today chose a headline that said, "Palin plays up part of outsider". Come on, folks! Is this all you can think of to characterize last night's knock-your-socks-off, electrifying address? One gets the impression the headline writer at the paper thinks Sarah's an actress. I thought she was the governor of the largest (geographically speaking) state in the union.

And then, of course, we see the obsession and compulsion the news media has displayed about the five Palin children, particularly one teen-age daughter and the family's new baby. Like the Kennedys and Carters before them, when Bill and Hillary Clinton first headed toward the White House, they made clear the fact that Chelsea was off-limits to the media. For the most part, members of the Fifth Estate respected the Clintons' request. The Obamas have for months made that same request. Even though I am a voracious reader of the news, I know very little about the Obama children, because once again members of the media have agreed to their request. But the poor Palin children? God help them! They are being ridiculed and maligned every day in the press. Why? Because their mother is running for Vice President of the United States?

This behavior smacks of discrimination against a mother who works outside the home. If so, where are the so-called liberals on this one? I thought they advocated women with small children having the right to have outside jobs. When my wife, Kay, and I wrote in 1982 our first book, When You Both Go to Work, about churches and their attitudes toward employed women, we expected to find that conservative religious groups discriminated against mothers with outside employment and that liberal religious groups supported them. Instead in our research we found that churches in affluent areas tend to frown on or discriminate against employed mothers while churches—of whatever theological stripe and denominational persuasion—in blue-collar areas and lower white-collar neighborhoods tend to be much more tolerant and supportive of women who have outside work. It really seems to be a matter of class rather than theology.

So is this horrible treatment of the Palin family a result of discrimination by rich elitists against a blue-collar, working family? One can surely make a case for that.

Or is this because the children's father is a blue-collar, oil-field worker who doesn't have the political know-how to muster his highly paid professional people to call a few select media moguls on the phone and threaten them with invasion-of-privacy suits on behalf of his children? Libel laws protect the news media when its members report on public figures. And yes, Sarah is now a public figure. According to the laws of the land, members of the media can say almost whatever they want in print about her without facing a libel suit, because she is a public figure. But her children are not covered by those same laws, or at least they should not be. They are citizens and individuals in their own right—citizens who deserve to be treated respectfully.

I thought the family on stage last night at the Republican Convention looked absolutely precious. And very courageous! Not too long ago families hid their out-of-wedlock-pregnant teen-age daughters to keep the neighbors from knowing. And their boyfriends who did the dastardly act were banished with a shotgun aimed at their backsides. And small children with Down Syndrome were hidden in back bedrooms. Not so in this family. Here they were—warts and all—on the public stage. They were so much more refreshing and looked so much more natural than all the millionares' children with choreographed waves and sculpted hairstyles at other Republican and Democratic Conventions in the last several decades.

I don't condone teen-age pregnancy, but it happens. And the Bible is clear how we are to treat each other when we sin or make mistakes! Obviously, many of my colleagues in the news media haven't read any of those Scriptures--or even Miss Manners--on such things.

The flip side of this media debacle is that the nation is getting a chance to look in the mirror and see a family that looks an awful lot like families all across America. And in so doing, the media may reap the opposite of what these ill-mannered reporters have desired. And, if Sarah can withstand the scorching heat of prejudice and irrationality, she may accomplish what many of us have wanted for a very long time: a woman in the White House or at least one heartbeat away from it.

In Roman Catholic baptized and reared Sarah Palin, Southern Baptists will find a strong ally; and she will in them, too

2008-08-30T20:13:00.023-05:00

As the presumptive Vice-Presidential nominee of the Republican Party, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, who was baptized a Roman Catholic but now attends Assemblies of God churches, will illustrate how much the nation's largest Protestant denomination, the Southern Baptist Convention, has changed over the past 50 years.

Forty-eight years ago when the Democratic Party nominated John Fitzgerald Kennedy for President of the United States, Southern Baptist pastors and leaders recoiled at the nominee because of his Roman Catholic background. Ignoring Kennedy's impressive credentials and bright mind, the Baptists argued forcefully in sermons, church newsletters and every forum they could find that the election of Kennedy would de facto turn the country over to the pope in Rome.

Weeks before the election Kennedy recognized the seriousness of the situation and met with key Baptist pastors and leaders on the second floor of the Rice Hotel in downtown Houston. There he pledged his loyalty and fidelity to the American concept of the separation of church and state. After that the Baptists and their cohorts in other denominations calmed down and stopped fighting against him. (Many actually even voted for him!)

During that same time period, Southern Baptists pastors and leaders declined to interact with Assemblies of God pastors and churches, because they rejected their neo-Pentecostal theology. SBC churches or pastors in that day that leaned Pentecostal soon found themselves ostracized or even evicted from the SBC fold.

Nearly a half-century later, much has changed in the country and among Southern Baptists.

For one thing, in 1960 when the brouhaha over Kennedy's Catholicism occurred, Southern Baptist pastors and leaders mostly were affiliated with the Democratic Party. Southern Baptists' disaffection for Kennedy threatened a serious schism in that party.

Today, a significant majority of Southern Baptists and Evangelicals register as Republicans. That means they will be mostly loyal to their party's nominee, John McCain, even when they have some reservations about him.

Beyond party affiliation, however, another factor will trump many things in this election. Back when Southern Baptists fought against Kennedy, they and the Democractic Party were not at odds over one of the major social issues of our day—abortion. Until the early 1980s, Southern Baptists were mostly either benign toward or mildly supportive of abortion. The key escape-hatch phrase for the Southern Baptists back then was "abortion for the mental health of the mother". The Democratic Party then as well as now was comfortable with a pro-abortion stance. It became even more so after the Roe v Wade decision in 1973.

Today, Southern Baptists, Roman Catholics, and Assemblies of God are more united in their opposition to abortion than they are divided on many theological points.

Sarah Palin's strong pro-life stand—including her living personal testimony in favor of it—no doubt will grab the attention of a large majority of Southern Baptists as well as other Evangelicals. It will override any concern they might otherwise have about her Roman Catholic roots and her current Assemblies of God affiliation.

Many Evangelicals already have expressed dismay at John McCain's lukewarm opposition to abortion, while they express horror at Barack Obama's wholehearted support of it. Illustrating this attitude, the SBC's Richard Land recently likened McCain to a "third-rate fireman" and Obama to a "first-rate arsonist". Land left no doubt about his concern about both candidates' positions on abortion, but his comments also left no doubt McCain would get the nod—though a weak one—over Obama.

Some Southern Baptists even have considered boycotting the election altogether because of McCain's tepid approach to the pro-life movement.

Now enters Sarah Palin, the pro-life Roman Catholic-turned Assemblies and relatively unknown governor of Alaska. While Obama-oriented political writers at CNN, Yahoo and other media outlets roast McCain for choosing a relatively inexperienced Vice-Presidential running mate, they completely fail to note how much support Palin instantly will draw for her pro-life stand. Many voters will prefer a candidate with the right (and very strong!) stand on pro-life to a candidate with a tepid approach to pro-life issues but with many years in political life in Washington!

When Kennedy was running in 1960, many political commentators ignored and even laughed at those Southern Baptists preachers who were up in arms over Kennedy's Catholicism. Kennedy didn't laugh. He took the matter seriously. Had he not done so, he probably wouldn't have occupied the Oval Office, given his tiny margin of victory in the general election.

Today, some news commentators are laughing at Palin's limited credentials (ignoring, of course, how even Hillary Clinton not long ago poked fun at Obama's lack of experience, too). On election day, those same commentators may find that in Sarah Palin's nomination McCain pulled off a John F. Kennedy-like move that won him the election.

Time will tell.

Differing opinions make the world go around!

2008-08-20T21:42:00.011-05:00

Our poll on "What Should First Baptist Church of Dallas do with its Criswell College?" turned up some surprising results. Before posting the poll, I didn't think the answer that topped the final results—independence for the school—would draw more than a few votes. Actually, I thought that option was too Baylor-like for the Criswellians.

Of course, a poll is a poll is a poll. You conduct a poll to find out that which is not always obvious. This poll surely did turn up the non-obvious.

This poll carried no weight whatsoever except for the opinion of the people who regularly read this blog. Anybody who wanted to do so could vote in it. I set no preconditions, except that a person could only vote once. Through the technological wonder of Google, those who tried to vote twice were ignored and their second votes went into outer space.

I also don't expect First Baptist Church of Dallas to pay much attention to the results, though a few members may.

I also don't have a clue who voted or how they voted in this poll. I really don't care to know either. I just wanted to know how my readers generically feel about the issue. Google's report showed my earlier column on Criswell College was the highest-read entry to date on this blog. That surprised me not a little. I would have expected thoughtful columns on more weighty and important matters such as America's changing religious landscape and the troubles in the Republic of Georgia to have attracted the most attention. Even what I said about the firing of John Lilley as Baylor's president seemed a much more likely candidate for blog traffic than the Criswell College column. But then, I do know from my newspaper days that though church people decry controversy and try to act like they are above it, they always run toward it when it occurs within their midst.

The Criswell College poll, however, attracted an unusually high number of new visitors--far more than the original Criswell College column did. Within an hour of its posting, the number of visitors to this blog shot up dramatically. How so many people found out about the poll I'll probably never know. Some 56 people voted in the poll, but nearly 10 times that many dropped by to stare at it. I guess that's what they did, since they didn't bother to cast a ballot. Google's sleuths only recorded their silent stares. I wonder who the visitors thought I might report them to if they voted? The Dallas Police? My blog monitor shows these unnamed visitors mostly arrived from the Dallas area. No influx of Wacoans that I can tell! I suspect the visitors set sail from either Criswell College, First Baptist Church of Dallas, Southwestern Seminary, The Southern Baptists of Texas Convention—all mentioned in the poll—or a combination of all four.

While the poll carries no official weight, it does tell me something about my readers. For one thing, many of you are independent thinkers—like I am. I abhor herd mentality either among journalists who practice pack journalism or among church folks who march lockstep together or demand that others do that, too.

Apparently you, my friends and readers, reflect my drift, too. Four of you (7% who voted) said the First Baptist-Dallas should close the school; three of you (5% of those who voted) said the church should sell it to the highest bidder; another three of you (again 5% who voted) said the status quo ought to be preserved. Surprisingly only eight of you (14% of those who voted) said the church ought to give the school to the SBTC; the day I launched the poll I thought this option would be the immediate favorite, but it was never in the running for a top spot.

The option that managed to squeak out a distant second is the one some people are adamantly convinced will ultimately be the solution: give it to Southwestern Seminary. Those who are convinced of this are also the ones who seem to attribute every thing evil in the world to Paige Patterson, too. I just don't buy their line. He walked away from the school years ago and is now president of the world's largest theological seminary, so why would he be itching to get the smaller Criswell College back? Something about that doesn't add up. I see him more as the default player: take it in rather than see it closed or sold to the highest bidder.

Topping the poll were those who said the church should grant the school its independence. Now that's truly a novel idea! Twenty four (44% of the poll) liked this idea. That's more than the next three ideas combined! This option wasn't the majority, but it moved close to it.

Will independence occur? Don't count on it! Knowledgeable sources have explained the issue to me. It's called money. I'm aware that the college, not the church, owns KCBI radio station. Sources note that KCBI radio is worth somewhere around $25 million. Selling the radio station would reap a nice cash reward for either the college or the church. And when big money, such as this, is involved, church groups tend to behave in strange ways. Taking a Solomonic approach is often not in the formula.

Beyond money, another reason independence for the college isn't likely to happen is that it would be too much like what Baylor did several years ago. Remember when Herb Reynolds got his regents to vote to change the school's charter, then whisked the paperwork to Austin for recording before anyone at the BGCT or other Baptist entities knew what was happening? Criswell College graduates and staff screamed loudly about Reynolds' actions and Baylor's independence.

Though I think the idea of independence is worth serious consideration, I can't imagine the church seriously pursuing that idea.

Polls are fun. They give us something to think about. They give readers something to do beyond just reading others' opinions. The Criswell College poll was our first for this blog. From time to time on this blog we'll be conducting more polls on different topics. In fact, we've got another one under way already. Enjoy these as fun expression of opinion! Don't worry about my knowing who you are or how you vote. I'll only know if you tell me directly. But remember these are only polls—just a random sampling of people's opinions. And differing opinions are what make the world go around!

Faraway Georgia has had a long fascination with the U.S.

2008-08-11T20:26:00.020-05:00

The year was 1991. The Soviet Union was nearing its final gasping breaths. By year's end the hammer-and-sickle red flag would fly no more over the Kremlin or elsewhere in the Evil Empire.

Six years earlier I had traveled to the Soviet Union to write my award-winning newspaper series about Jewish Refusniks—Soviet citizens who wanted to flee their motherland for life in either Israel or the United States but were held back by persecution and sometimes imprisonment. I traveled incognito as a tourist in a group of Texas Jews supposedly vacationing in the land of their ancestors. By day we visited tourist sites; by night we ventured from apartment to apartment for our clandestine meetings with the Refusniks. These Soviet Jews were genuinely scared to death of their political keepers; their paranoia was contagious—something we visiting Americans experienced vicariously for the first time.

This time—in December 1991—I now was among my own Baptist people. Our small delegation traveled by way of Moscow to the Republic of Georgia, one of the new countries that was emerging from the breakup of the Soviet Union. Frankly, I'd never heard of the Republic of Georgia until I was invited to join the group.

We were invited there by Georgia Baptist leaders, who feared their Orthodox brethren almost as much as they had feared their former communist masters. Georgia's Baptists wanted the five of us U.S. Baptists to talk directly with Georgia's Orthodox leader about ending what they perceived as persecution by Georgia's Orthodox majority against their tiny Baptist minority. In short, they wanted us to bring American influence to bear on the patriarch, who in turn would influence his people to be nicer to the Georgia Baptists. For our part, we never could figure out how much influence we had, except that we were there physically. And we were Americans.

On arrival in Tblisi we thought our proposed talk with the Orthodox patriarch was our goal. Little did we realize the Georgia government was eyeing us with great curiosity and a much bigger game plan.

I tell this story now because I believe it illustrates the dilemma the U.S. faces in light of the overreaction by Russia starting last Saturday against the little nation of Georgia over Georgia's efforts to reclaim land—called South Ossetia—it believed was stolen from it about the time we visited by revolutionaries aligned with Moscow.

As soon as we arrived in Tblisi in 1991 we started hearing "We love America. We love Americans. We want to be allied with you Americans. Please, can't you get your country to begin diplomatic relations with us?"

Within a few days of our arrival these messages were being delivered by top Georgian government officials, who seemed more than eager to clear their calendars in order to welcome a band of wandering Baptists from America. Each day the top Georgia government official wanting to meet us seemed to be a little higher up in the ranks.

To everyone we met we kept saying, "We are here representing a large group of Baptists in America, not the U.S. government."

We decided we must be five of only a small handful of Americans in the entire country of Georgia that year. We also decided Americans were certainly greatly loved in that small, faraway country—or else somebody there sure thought they needed us awfully much.

Finally the invitation arrived for a command performance in the office of Zviad Gamsukhurdia, the country's first elected president. I must readily admit that even though I've traveled in more than 45 different countries, I'm not accustomed to spur-of-the-moment invitations to visit heads of state in their executive offices. This was a total surprise.

Richard Land, our group leader, tried to explain to the Georgian president about our interest in Orthodox persecution of Baptists. Gamsakhurdia was much more interested in whether we had connections with George H.W. Bush, then-President of the U.S, and influential people in the U.S. Congress. He specifically wanted to know if we could help him secure diplomatic recognition of Georgia by the U.S. government. Richard finally told him we would do what we could to help him—which wasn't much.

Returning in a taxi from the president's office/palace to our hotel, we were astonished to see so many military tanks and personnel on the Tblisi streets near the capital.

The next day we flew out of Tblisi to Moscow during the worst snowstorm I've ever seen on the smelliest and worst-maintained Soviet aircraft that I could possibly imagine.

Days after we met Gamsakhurdia, a coup ousted him from office. A few weeks later he and his family members all were murdered as they fled the rebels. In the upheaval the office in which we met him was burned.

In so many ways, the Baptist trip was more unnerving than was the previous Jewish trip, which itself was hair-raising. Georgia was a strange, strange place. Men walked around holding hands with each other. They even kissed each other goodbye in very unmanly ways. The military looked like something straight out of World War II. Why the government officials thought a tiny band of visiting Baptists from America might help them unlock their political fortunes in the U.S. would have been laughable had they not seemed to be so desperate.

Still, in 1991 the Georgians communicated beautifully several important messages: We love America. We need America. We will do anything we can to align with America.

Why did they love and need us so much? Probably because they hated the Soviets (translate today: Russians) so much.

Those are the messages they still are communicating this week.

My heart goes out to the Georgians now as the Russians have taken out their pent-up frustrations on those poor people. I just wish, however, that Georgia's government had not acted so stupidly last Friday night. Didn't it know the bully in its back yard was still a real threat and the country its people love so much was half a world away mired down in its own problems including Iraq and Afghanistan?

But now that the Russians have over-reacted so severely, maybe the Georgians will still get what they've sought for so long—the reciprocal U.S. interest in them accompanied by sympathy, awareness, and massive financial aid. Sometimes you have to lose in order to win. In this situation, Georgia still may turn out to be the big winner in its losing war with the Russians.

Criswell College battle is yet another example of the Orwellian drama

2008-08-05T21:19:00.012-05:00

(Shortly after posting this blog, I received word that Jerry Johnson this morning resigned as president of Criswell College. See http://www.texanonline.net/default.asp?action=article&aid=5856&issue=8/25/2008)

For months the rumor mill has flourished with juicy morsels about the simmering battle forming behind the scenes between First Baptist Church of Dallas' new pastor, Robert Jeffress, and the leaders of the college created by First Baptist Church of Dallas honoring its legendary and controversial pastor, Wallie Amos Criswell.

Despite efforts to keep the brouhaha out of the public arena, the story last week finally leaked to the Dallas Morning News, so now Baptist Press and other media this week are picking it up.

On the surface, the issue seems to be about one issue: money. Like so many big-church preachers, Jeffress wants to build yet another monstrosity of a church building. Some say costs for his new building may run $150 million or higher. Depending on whose version of the rumors you believe, Jeffress either wants to sell the college and its popular Christian radio station, KCBI, for cash for the expansion, or wants to get rid of both institutions to get rich First Baptist Dallas members who presently underwrite the college and radio station to shift their giving to the church's new building fund.

Jeffress denies the rumors—all except his desire to build the new monstrously expensive worship facility.

The school's president, Jerry Johnson, weighed in publicly last weekend and undergirded the allegations against Jeffress. So have some school trustees. They also allege that Jeffress is using his influence at the church to load the school's trustee board with like-minded individuals committed to his cause.

Why should anybody care whether First Baptist Dallas sells, disposes of, or junks what is tantamount to a small four-year, 350-student Bible college?

Beyond the jockeying going on between Jeffress and Johnson is a significant point lost in all the talk about money: Had Criswell College not existed, the conservatives (a.k.a. the fundamentalists) probably wouldn't be ruling and reigning in the Southern Baptist Convention today. The school played (and its former staff and students continue to play) a crucial role in providing the personpower and political muscle that was necessary to literally remove the SBC from the hands of the so-called moderates and place the reins of power in the hands of the conservatives.

Paige Patterson, now president of Southwestern Baptist Seminary in Fort Worth, was once the president of Criswell College. From that post, he joined with Judge Paul Pressler of Houston in launching the so-called Conservative Resurgence (a.k.a. The Fundamentalist Takeover) of the SBC. Patterson's administrative team, faculty, and students today hold the reins of political power in the SBC. For instance, Richard Land, now exec of the SBC's Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, once was Patterson's right-hand man as dean of the school. David Dockery, president of Tennessee Baptist's Union University and one of the SBC's leading theologians, once was a Criswell College faculty member. SBC trustee boards and SBC agencies are filled with Criswell College graduates, who occupy strategic power positions—far beyond the percentage of power positions occupied by any other Baptist college or university.

Johnson himself left an indelible historic mark on the SBC. He was chair of the Southern Seminary trustee board that trumped the mother seminary's moderate leadership and catapaulted the conservatives into power in Louisville.

So this is no little ordinary Bible college that Jeffress is messing with. This is the school which housed some of the key chiefs and many of the important warriors of the Conservative Resurgence. And, by the way, Jeffress now occupies the office once held by the granddaddy of the Conservative Resurgence, W.A. Criswell.

Granted, many of the players in the Conservative Resurgence now have moved on to bigger and better institutions. Their new jobs are accompanied by bigger and better salaries, perks, benefits, and political prestige. But Criswell College is the place where it all began for many of them.

Given this background I find great irony in the fact that the battle now rages over the college's future. It also raises the question whether all along the college was merely a Trojan Horse created as a staging ground for the troops to assault their moderate foes. If it is not worth saving now, what was its purpose originally?

This latest battle pitting SBC conservatives against each other over the future of Criswell College is one more example of a pattern I've been observing among the conservatives for several years now.

In my book, "Witness to the Truth", I note how the Conservative Resurgence reminds me more and more of the pigs in George Orwell's classic "Animal Farm", itself a satire on Soviet communism. In that story, the farm animals rise up against their human masters and overthrow them on a platform which points out the evil the humans had committed. Slowly at first, then eventually pall-mall, the animals—led by the pigs—become every bit as contentious, if not more so, than the humans they had overthrown, including squabbles among themselves. In my book I reported that I see many indications today that the conservatives have taken on the role of the pigs in their own version of "Animal Farm". High on my list of reasons is the squabbling occurring both publicly and privately among the ruling conservatives themselves.

As the scrape over Criswell College unfolds, we apparently need to score yet another one for the pigs!

Watch out churches, the future is now overtaking us!

2008-07-31T21:04:00.008-05:00

Forty years ago, if someone had described religious life in America today, that person would have been branded as some kind of kook for thinking such thoughts.

The Roman Catholic-Protestant-Jewish culture then couldn't begin to conceive that America four decades hence could more aptly be described as Christian-Jewish-Muslim-Hindu-Buddhist with a smattering of just about every other religion known to the human race.
The Charismatic (neo-Pentecostal) Movement was just beginning to emerge 40 years ago; its significant impact on almost every Christian denomination in the country, including the Roman Catholic Church and the Southern Baptist Convention, was unimaginable to most religious leaders then.
The Gay Rights Movement was miniscule and its future impact on just about every American denomination unfathomable; who then could have foreseen large denominations, such as the Episcopal Church, would be torn apart over the issue?
The Pro-Life Movement within Evangelical and Roman Catholic churches was so weak, hardly anyone took it seriously. No one 40 years ago could have accurately predicted the role the churches would play in the pro-life movement today.
The shrinking size and influence on the church on secular society was not on anyone's drawing board either. Who knew the downdraft would be so significant?
The divorce rate was growing rapidly, but who then could have foreseen its impact today on so many churches, church leaders, and American society in general?

So what about religious life in America 40 more years from now? Besides the trends I've named above, what will be the trends that will mark religious culture in the year 2050?

Like the past 40 years, the next 40 years will be colored by trends difficult to discern now. Any list viewed in retrospect is likely to seem naive and off-base. Nevertheless, presuming the past is a good indicator of the future, I offer some suggestions for what I think these next trends will be:

For better or for worse, the Green Revolution will make its mark on future religious life. How large its impact will be throughout the next 40 years is yet to be determined. The worse Global Warming becomes and the more the America-Must-Become-Energy-Self-Sufficient movement flourishes, the greater will be the Green Revolution's impact on America's religious life. Could the movements spark a return to neighborhood churches and the demise of megachurches with their massive buildings and long commutes? Will churches and church leaders that scoff today at Global Warming wake up one day and discover that as some of their predecessors did during the Civil Rights Movement that they were on the wrong side of the issue and that their opposition nearly cost them their credibility?
We Baby Boomers won't go quietly into the night. We never have been wallflowers; we won't be in this era, either. Count on us to change the whole image of retirement, the senior years, death, dying, and all the other issues associated with the later-in-life years. Churches and other religious institutions won't be able to avoid us and our aging ways and needs any more than will society as a whole.
The Internet already has revolutionized America's social, financial, and cultural fabric. It's only just begun to impact religious life. Will the current email prayer requests and church newsletters eventually give way to such things as iChat and video conference/church business and committee meetings? How about Sunday School classes conducted totally over the Internet? And maybe even interactive worship services tailored to individual needs and tastes, forming congregations from literally all over the world?
The end of the white/Anglo male domination of the American culture already spells some serious changes for the U.S. culture as a whole. How will Anglo, male-dominated churches particularly respond to the escalating political, financial, and social power of women, African-Americans, Hispanic-Americans, Asian-Americans and Native Americans? Tokenism won't work this time around; neither will the old head-in-the-sand approach. Will white-dominated churches finally find a way to blend all people into a multi-cultural congregation and sing with the children: "Red and yellow, black and white. They are precious in His sight. Jesus loves the little children of the world"?

Whatever the future holds, one thing is certain: change will be its primary characteristic.

Baylor's "palace coup" shows moderates act increasingly like their stereotype of fundamentalists

2008-07-24T13:13:00.012-05:00

When during the late 1980s and early 1990s the so-called fundmentalists (also known as the conservatives) opted to clean the Southern Baptist Convention's top bureaucracy of outspoken moderates, hardcore moderates at Baylor University screamed their heads off about the ruthless, vicious way they believed the conservatives were going about their task. Because of those firings, even when good reasons existed for some of them, Baylor's moderates painted the conservatives as people lacking in decency, honor, and just plain good manners.

So why now—more than a decade later—are Baylor's moderates acting as boorish and ruthless as those they accused back in the 1990s? Somebody needs to pin them to the floor and get them to explain their contradictory actions today.

I say this because on Thursday, July 24, for the second time in recent memory, Baylor's regents fired the university's president. Of course, they didn't use the word "fired", but that's what they did. Their public-relations staff issued a press release that danced all around the facts. You had to read deep inside the whitewash to garner the information: President John Lilley refused to go quietly into the night, so he was uncerimoniously dumped, with a regent named immediately as acting president.

I was not a supporter of Lilley's presidency--nothing personal against President Lilley, but simply because he was replacement for Robert Sloan, his predecessor. I've never met the man. I did think, however, that he brought at least a sense of respectable calm and dignity after the storm Baylor's moderates stirred up against former President Sloan.

According to the press release, Lilley was fired to help unite Baylor's warring factions. I'm trying to figure out that one; I thought that was the same reason the regents hired Lilley in the first place. He was supposed to be a peacekeeper and quiet interim, not a lightning rod for moderate anger like Sloan became.

So who is at war at Baylor right now anyway? Those of us who supported Robert Sloan have mostly sat on the sidelines for the past three years and watched Lilley's benign style with less-than-enthusiastic interest. He seemed to mean no harm, though issues that plagued Sloan also seemed to dog him, too.

The way Baylor's hardcore moderates treated Robert Sloan was a disgrace, but Sloan has gone to Houston now. I trust he is continuing to do well and has a happy, good life as president of Houston Baptist University. Many of us who supported him are still exhausted from watching in horror as the children of Sloan's predecessors, Dr. Herb Reynolds and Dr. Abner V. McCall, and their moderate buddies bludgeoned Sloan unmercifully, including slanders calling him a "fundmentalist" (which he was not). Apparently the Reynolds-McCall mob couldn't cope with all the good things Sloan accomplished for the school!

If Sloan's supporters were not fighting against poor Lilley, then who was? As Sesame Street's Big Bird would say, "Today's program was brought to you by the letter M." The "M", of course, stands for the word "moderates".

The situation right now gives every appearance that the hardcore Baylor moderates saw their chance to strike down Lilley quickly to set the stage to put one of their own on the throne at Baylor.

For several months now I have heard the rumors that Lilley was "on the way out". Since he was hired so late in his life, I've always figured his tenure as president would be short. Since I've been hearing about this for two months now, I presume what happened today was not a big surprise to a lot of Baylor insiders. My hunch is behind the scenes some political scheming and deal-making have been going on.

But firing the poor fellow? In such a cruel manner? And at an age where he is unlikely to ever get another job in a university administration? Did the regents also lock this Baylor alum's office door and refuse to let him re-enter it to claim his personal possessions? Is this and the scene beforehand with BU graduate Sloan the way an alma mater treats distinguished alumni?

And the moderate-dominated Baylor Alumni Association's response? Its lack of indignation over the regents' ugly behavior is puzzling. Its less-than-convincing statement about the upheaval makes one wonder what role the alumni organization actually played behind the scenes in this latest palace coup. Sloan supporters also couldn't help but notice that during the past three years the BAA has been rewarding Sloan's critics, especially the Reynolds family and its friends, with seats on its own board. So, I'm not surprised at the BAA's actions at the moment.

What did Lilley do wrong? Fail to grant tenure to a handful of professors? Did the moderates' beloved Herb Reynolds not do that also? Or was that OK because he only shunned conservatives and truth-telling journalists—banishing even liberals who questioned him?

Baylor students and alumni deserve better than the sorry politics that have engulfed the university during the past decade, thanks to Reynolds and his ilk. Robert Sloan deserved better. John Lilley deserved better, too.

Next time Baylor's moderates point fingers at the SBC's conservative leadership, somebody needs to tell them to first go look in the mirror. After protesting so loudly for years about the SBC's so-called fundamentalists, apparently Baylor's moderates have now morphed into what they hated so much!

If an opinion is worth holding, it can stand up in the midst of objective information on all sides of the opinion

2008-07-23T20:51:00.009-05:00

Many in the religion world focus on one part of the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution—the freedom of religion clause—but overlook or ignore another equally important freedom—that of freedom of the press.

Perhaps this is because they simply don't understand what freedom of the press really is.

For some odd reason, denominational journalists and their superiors seem to think freedom of the press is their right to proclaim their religious beliefs through the written or electronic media. I see that as part of the "free exercise of religion" guaranteed in the First Amendment. I don't equate that with Freedom of the Press.

I daily receive emails from a host of various religious groups. In my inbox an evangelical denominational press service and a liberal denominational press service are among the most prolific. In so many ways those two represent the ying and the yang of the issue. I seldom find objective, opinion-free, compelling, in-depth articles in either publication. Whatever they do always seems to point to supporting some opinion or position their respective group is hawking.

The popular issue of global warming is a primary example of the differences between opinion-based versus information-based press reporting. Denominational news services, both left and right, tend to round up people who support their position and quote them. I would find these articles so much more appealing if they quoted or at least cited in a balanced and fair manner people with opposing opinions, too. Unfortunately these articles appear more sermonic than they do balanced, fair, and objective journalism from which I and others can draw our own conclusions.

Freedom of the press is so much more to me than just being able to preach one's religion through the printed or electronic media.

I like to think of "freedom of the press" as the "freedom of the marketplace of ideas".

Having worked both in the secular and denominational media, I know my definition is a key reason why secular religion journalism seemed so much more in line with my basic style than did the denominational media. I revel in freedom; I resist control. I found more freedom in the secular world and more control in the denominational world.

The concept of the marketplace of ideas is different from that of people pounding away with their opinions on their pulpits regardless whether they are left, right or in between.

I like to start with gathering information before I make a decision. That's different than those who start with an opinion and then begin gathering facts to support their opinions. If an opinion is worth holding, it can stand up in the midst of objective information on all sides of the opinion.

Does that mean I believe everything I read in the newspaper or hear on the TV news? Or even on blogs? Absolutely not! I do like, however, to read opposing opinions and even articles that simply provide information and facts without ever drawing an opinion. That's why on some days I watch CNN, then the next day watch FOX network, then other networks on days after that. I like to have a 360-degree view, not a narrow slice of it.

Sadly, too often I find religious leaders—on both the left and the right—too busy with their opinions and trying to control rather than with enabling people to make up their own minds.

Freedom of the press is freedom from controls. Freedom of the press promotes discussion, openness, and candor. To me, press controls point to insecurity of beliefs. "Tell the truth and trust the people" is an old journalism expression, but it is as appropriate today as it ever has been.

We'll talk more about this important topic as the days go by.

Annual CBA retailer's show illustrates changes under way

2008-07-16T18:53:00.009-05:00

At the annual International Christian Retail Show in Orlando, FL, this week, the trends besieging the U.S. economy are self-evident in this large assemblage of companies that supply books, music, and other Christian products.

Ridiculously high gasoline prices appear to have cut into the usually robust attendance. Empty booth spaces and less than booming sales appear to reflect the hysteria surrounding the supposed recession impacting the U.S. economy coast to coast. The absence of huge, expensive advertising banners reflect the credit crunch.

Or are these things really as they seem?

The wild card here is the role that Internet shopping and online advertising and promotion play in today's sales of books and other items. Is business really slowing down as it appears? Or it is changing and morphing into some new forms?

Fifteen years ago Internet shopping was more like a pipe dream that only a small portion of the population understood. Today, it's as common as bluebonnets in spring in Texas. I rarely venture into a retail store to purchase clothes, books, and a whole array of other products and services; instead I travel to my favorite shopping websites such as amazon.com and landsend.com. Every time I do this I marvel that I never need to leave my computer. I pay bills, do my banking, read the daily news, and receive and send prayer requests using my computer.

I also marvel how much of my business itself is conducted on the Internet. Five years ago, books-on-demand printing was in its diaper stage. Today, knowing whether a book was produced one book at a time or printed on traditional presses rolling out thousands of copies an hour requires an expert eye and a lot of luck. On most computers the work of artists and writers travels at the speed of email.

Change is a hallmark of life these days. It seems to travel at the speed of lightning. This means old ways are passing away; new ways are emerging—all this at breakneck speed.

That's what makes assessing this year's show, sponsored by Christian Booksellers Association, so difficult. I asked a fellow participant what he thought of the world's largest Christian retail show. He responded, "I just met a man whose whole bookstore is online. He only purchases books one at a time from the wholesaler after he already has sold them through his online store". He seemed shocked at what he had learned. I was shocked that he was shocked at what he had heard.

Websites now feature all the new book titles launching into the market this year (a main reason store buyers once attended CBA each year). Even CBA offers online seminars like it formerly reserved only for this annual show.

I have no crystal ball on the future of CBA's International Christian Retail Show, but I do know that all the hubbub about the high gasoline prices, the so-called recession, and the hysteria of the "credit crunch" caused by the overheated real-estate market earlier this decade will force us to change—perhaps in some very drastic ways. But change is not always bad. God always can use change for His good.

Instead of fighting against Pew Forum poll results, see it as a "wake up" call

2008-07-07T23:11:00.010-05:00

So why have Southern Baptists seemed more jumpy than other religious groups have about the Pew Forum's recent poll on prevailing religious opinions?

One could argue that Baptists simply are trying to hold the pollsters accountable for their conclusions.

Or one might conclude that their public-relations folks have seen a "great news angle" and jumped in once again to get the denomination's name before the public.

I would contend that no other people—with the possible exception of the Mormons—stands to lose more than do the Southern Baptists if the recent Pew poll is correct and Americans are becoming increasingly universalistic in their approach to religion. Consequently, America's largest Protestant denomination has pounced with all fours on research by the Pew Forum that seems to affirm that a liberalizing approach to faith is under way in this country and even among their own members.

Southern Baptists represent America's leading Evangelical denomination. They represent the biggest, wealthiest, and most politically astute among the church groups that preach a you-must-be saved-to-go-to-heaven doctrine. Southern Baptists got to their bigger-than-thou status because of their approach to evangelism. Universalism undermines this basic doctrine on which the Southern Baptist populace was built.

If many correct paths exist to salvation, then no one belief is better than the others.

If many correct paths exist to God, then why bother to raise and to spend hundreds of millions of dollars annually to send more than 5,000 missionaries to every corner of the globe with the Good News of salvation available through Jesus Christ?

If many correct paths exist to salvation, then why bother to concern themselves with Jesus' words, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man comes to the Father except by Me" (John 14:6).

If many paths exist to God, then why bother to teach correct doctrine to their children or other church members?

The seeds of universalism have been planted in the American soil for the past four decades by the rapid rise and growth of so many non-Judeo-Christian religions here and the continuing secularization of our culture. Southern Baptists and other Evangelical groups have led the fight (somewhat unsuccessfully) against secularism; they've mostly ignored the greater threat of these alternative faiths literally sprouting like Kudzu under their noses.

Instead of trying to shout down the results of the Pew Forum's findings, Southern Baptists and other Evangelicals would be better served to use it as a wake-up call to the reality that is emerging in their own backyards.

The reality is, America's religious landscape is changing dramatically; it's spilling over into our churches—regardless whether denominational leaders are willing to face it squarely or not. Quibbling over a few percentage points or some wording in a poll only clouds the real issues. Encountering the real issue headon and deciding what strategy to follow is a much better approach.

Pew poll raises issue: Which religion are we talking about anyway?

2008-06-29T21:53:00.012-05:00

Last Tuesday the Dallas Morning News reported in a headline on its front page (the banner story), "Most say there is more than one path to eternal life, poll finds". The headline was drawn from findings in new research by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life.

On that same day other newspapers across the country also carried the story with similar headlines.

Two days later, Baptist Press reported "A new Pew Research Center poll result showing evangelicals holding universalistic beliefs regarding salvation may have been skewed at least somewhat because of how the question was worded."

Two days after that—on Saturday when it almost never publishes—Baptist Press took the unusual step of distributing what it termed "Breaking News", stating, "Study adds doubt about Pew poll 'universalism' claim".

Citing a soon-to-be released LifeWay study, the Baptist news service reported "The LifeWay Research finding adds quantifiable data to growing criticisms that the Pew survey was flawed in how it asked its question and that poor wording was the cause of Pew's counterintuitive conclusions about evangelicals' beliefs regarding the exclusivity of Christ for salvation."

Baptist Press quoted my friend, Scripps-Howard religion columnist Terry Mattingly, as saying, "I am being a bit picky here, but I suspect that if you asked a lot of people that Pew Forum question today, they would think of the great world religions. But many Christians would think more narrowly than that. Not all. Not many, perhaps. But some. What is your religion? I'm a Baptist, a Nazarene, an Episcopalian, a Catholic. Can people outside of your religion be saved? Of course. This is not the same thing, for many, as saying that they believe that salvation is found outside faith in Jesus Christ."

So, what's going on here? And what's all the hysteria about?

Several trends are at play all at the same time.

1. Forty years ago most Southern Baptists, Roman Catholics and other members of widely differing Christian groups looked on each other as "not saved". Before Vatican Council II, Roman Catholics, for instance, thought all Protestants were going to hell. Most Southern Baptists as well as some other groups thought the same thing of Roman Catholics as well as members of some other Protestant bodies.

2. Back then America was basically a Judeo-Christian country. That means most people who espoused a religion were either Jewish, Roman Catholic, or Protestant. The furthest thing from anybody's mind then was the possibility of America's becoming populated with Muslim mosques, Hindu temples, and Buddhist pagodas as well as an assortment of other houses of worship. The whole idea was just too far-fetched for most Americans in the 1960s to comprehend. When someone like me tried to say in the 1970s that in four or five decades U.S. Muslims would outnumber U.S. Jews, or U.S. Hindus would be inching alongside Episcopalians numerically, people would respond in disbelief.

That was then. This is now.

1. Today, Roman Catholics officially refer to Protestants as the "departed brethren", a major acknowledgement that Protestants are no longer according to official Catholic theology "going to hell". Roman Catholics are engaged in dialogue with other Christian groups on a varying scale, depending on how receptive various groups are to dialogue and recognition of Roman Catholics. Meanwhile, some Roman Catholics, including church leaders, and some in the more liberal Protestant denominations are starting to say Muslims worship the same God as Christians and Jews do, only they call him Allah instead of Jehovah (Yahweh and all the other names Christians give to God).

2. During the past 40 years Protestants have experienced the most incredible "member swapping" imaginable. Former Southern Baptists populate the Mormon church in surprising numbers. Former Roman Catholics can be found in significant numbers in Southern Baptist churches throughout the country. Presbyterians have jumped ship to join the United Methodists; Episopalians have become Roman Catholics. Got the picture? Churches have become more like chicken stew than separate dishes of pure chicken, pure tomatoes, pure potatoes, and so forth. Very few denominations remain "pure" Lutheran, Presbyterian, Baptist, Catholic, whatever. That mixture has lessened the ability to say "all Roman Catholics believe this, all Southern Baptists believe that, and "all members of the Churches of Christ believe this.". . . and so forth.

2. Today, Muslims are fast catching up in numbers with the U.S. Jewish population. U.S. Hindus really could soon numerically equal the Episcopalians; Buddhists are becoming almost as numerous as Presbyterians.

So, in the midst of this changing landscape, the Pew Forum steps in and asks a question about whether Christians believe others outside their faith will be going to heaven some day. No wonder confusion reigns!

The question itself is most legitimate, especially given the changes in American religious life that have been under way for nearly four decades. However, in the context of today's religious world, the question needs to be asked very precisely. Whose faith are we talking about anyway—Christian branches such as Episcopalians, Southern Baptists, United Methodist, and Roman Catholics? Or Christians generically along with Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus as well as others?

A summa cum laude seminary degree is not necessary to know that within Christianity, individual Christians—including Roman Catholic, Southern Baptist, United Pentecostal, United Methodist, etc.—are more accepting toward each other than in previous generations. How widespread this tolerance is needs to be determined by some really precise, skilled researchers.

At the same time, on the cutting edge is the issue involving how accepting Christians are of non-Christians. Granted, some Christians today believe Jews will go to heaven; some even believe Muslims will be there, too. But what about Hindus, Buddhists, and so forth? Again, more research is needed into exactly what is believed by whom about what.

Unfortunately, the Pew Forum needed to use a shotgun instead of a rifle in its research on these two issues. It needed to determine the answers to a lot of questions before drawing any generalized conclusion about the bigger issue of how tolerant Christians are today about the faith of others. In the chicken stew of today's religious environment, one lone question wasn't enough to get at the bigger picture. Regrettably, it only muddied the waters.

So, why are Southern Baptists in a snit about Pew's finding? More on that next time.

Local tragedy illuminates the dangers, challenges Evangelicals face in U.S.

2008-06-25T20:34:00.010-05:00

Two 20-Something men sharing their faith with two 19-year-old men on a city street late at night. Afterward, two new graves, two ruined lives in the local jail, a grieving young widow, and two precious little children who will now grow up without ever knowing their father.

Over the years I've grown accustomed to hearing, reading and writing such stories about American missionaries living overseas who were gunned down, knifed to death, or tortured unmercifully while trying to witness to non-Christians in other lands. Those situations, of course, are "over there".

But right here in America? In my own hometown? Only blocks from where I live and work? I can hardly find the words to describe my shock, my horror and my total disgust over the situation.

The key facts were buried so deep in the Dallas Morning News story the average reader who usually stops by the fifth paragraph probably missed them. Everybody in the Dallas area seems to be talking about how the confessed robber-murderers say they only got a total of $2.00 off the dead men. But I read every word in that news story just as I had all the other news stories about the incident. When I got to those incredible words, I lingered spellbound for several minutes before I completed the final 12 paragraphs.

Before they were murdered, "the two victims talked for a half-hour or more about their studio and the fact that they were Christians," Jason Trahan reported that the confessed murderers told him from their jail-house quarters.

"So that's what happened," I blurted to my wife, Kay. "Matt and Stephen were trying to witness to their murderers." Having personally met the effervescent Matt only six weeks ago, I could envision him effusing about his Christian recording studio and his faith.

Like everyone else who lives and works in Historic Downtown Garland, TX, we had been frantically searching for every morsel we could find to explain the inexplainable.

Responding to a frightened bicyclist who fled to a nearby fire station after spotting the bloody bodies lying in the street, Garland police about 1:20 a.m. last Friday morning found Matthew Bulter, 28, and Stephen Swan, 26, near Zion Gate Christian Recording Studio, which Matt owned and where Stephen worked part time for his best friend, Matt. Later, police arrested the two suspects driving Stephen's car, which had been stolen in the incident.

Since reading that Dallas News story, my mind has raced over and over about what might have happened that night and what the implications are for Evangelical Christians.

Were Matt and Stephen so intent on sharing their faith in Christ with total strangers that they just ignored the late hour, their isolated circumstances, and the strangeness of those night visitors wandering our normally empty streets after midnight?

Or did they think that because they talked about their faith, God somehow was going to put up a special barrier to protect them?

Or did they even realize they were in danger until, according the Dallas News, James Broadnax says he suddenly pulled his gun and started firing repeatedly into the bodies of both men?

International missionaries are taught that such incidents can happen to them--even in broad daylight--while overseas. No one is ever prepared fully for such a thing, but at least they are warned (or supposed to be warned) that such things can happen. They are also told how to take precautions.

But we don't give such warnings in America. We teach correctly that Jesus says we are to witness to our faith wherever we go, to whomever we meet. We know that Jesus and His disciples all suffered for their faith, but we presume that was then and this is now. After all, this is America. Right?

Nevertheless, I keep wondering: Has our society deteriorated so much that U.S. churches now must add to their evangelism training such warnings as "don't talk to strangers on dark streets late at night even if you think you live in the safest community in America"?

And if we have to develop such rules, where do we stop? "Don't witness after sundown", "Don't witness to strangers, period"? How about, "Just don't talk to strangers anywhere, any time, any place"? If we did that, soon we would water down Christ's commands about sharing with others to the point only our children and grandchildren would get to hear the Gospel message, and in some cases not even them.

Are things really that serious? I pray not. But in my mind I'm afraid this local incident isn't that rare. After all, I had to read deep into the news article to find the real story, something I don't usually do with other murder stories.

The banner headline on this story easily could have been about Christians slain while following Christ's commands to share their faith with others. I'm sure this buried fact wasn't lost on many other believers. Now we must decide what Jesus wants us to do in the aftermath.

Jesus Christ was neither a Democrat nor a Republican (also not a political revolutionary)

2008-06-23T21:43:00.014-05:00

The time was late February 1979. Polish Cardinal Karol Wojtela had become Pope John Paul II less than three months earlier. Now he was making his first overseas trip to the Western Hemisphere.

I was there standing on the tarmac at the Mexico City airport when John Paul's plane landed and he de-planed. A few days later I followed the pope's limo to Puebla, Mexico to hear some of the most profound words the pontiff ever spoke during his nearly 28-year reign:

"Jesus Christ was no political revolutionary. And His priests are not to be political revolutionaries either."

Spoken in Spanish but translated quickly in several versions into English, the words shocked those hoping the new, youthful, energetic pope would cast his lot with the Liberation theologians, who were stirring excitement in that day with their talk of blending church and secular politics into a potent political revolutionary force particularly in South America but also worldwide.

Some tried to label the Liberation theologians as heroes ushering in a new era of church activism. Others tried to label them as socialists, communists or simply political revolutionaries. Meanwhile some Roman Catholic priests and leaders were enamored with the idea of marching off to political war. John Paul put a stop to it.

Ironically, John Paul II will always be remembered for his impact on secular politics because of the role he played as the ethical and spiritual voice in the downfall of the Evil Empire, as President Ronald Reagan called the former Soviet Union. But he did it his way--not following the path of the Liberation theologians of his time. He did it by firmly stating over and over his beliefs and positions on moral, social and ethical issues. And he did it in his usual charming fashion. At no time did I ever witness him pander after any politicians, though he seemed to greet and treat them all with civility and cordiality.

The pope's words are similar to a statement I've made often both in print and in person: "Jesus Christ was neither a Democrat nor a Republican." With the race for the occupant of the White House after next January 20 heating up, you'll hear me repeat these words many times over the next months.

So often we Christians try to re-shape Jesus into our image, like the Medieval artists who fashioned the famous artwork that makes Jesus and His disciples look like Venice merchants in Medieval attire, complete with Medieval hairstyles, Medieval clothing, and so forth. American Christian leaders from both the left and the right have become adept at this same slight of hand. Each wants to re-make Jesus to match his or her own personal political preference.

Who would Jesus have voted for in the presidential primaries just ended? No one, because he would have found registering as either a Democrat or a Republic—a prerequisite for voting in many primaries—to be difficult.

By their very nature, political parties are born of compromise and political realities in order to win elections. No political party is 100% Christian or reflective of Christ's teachings. Sadly, some on the Religious Right and the Religious Left seem to have forgotten that.

Like John Paul, Jesus stood above the political fray. Yet His words dramatically impacted political leaders of His day. Jesus' teachings through the following centuries brought about a massive revolution in thought, belief, culture and action that people in His day would have found difficult to imagine.

During this political season in the U.S., may religious leaders once again hear and heed the words of John Paul spoken almost 30 years go. "Jesus Christ was no political revolutionary (and I add "neither was He a Republican nor a Democrat"). And his priests (pastors and other church leaders) are not to be political revolutionaries (party operatives) either."

Whither the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship? Don't ignore the glue that binds 'em

2008-06-20T07:14:00.014-05:00

Within the past four decades, two major U.S. Christian denominations have been wracked with internal dissension over how to interpret the Bible. One said the debate was over "infallibility" of the Scriptures; the other said the issue was "inerrancy" of the Bible. For all practical purposes the debates were the same.

In both cases—the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod and the Southern Baptist Convention—each denomination arrived on the threshold of a major division that might have divided each group along 50-50 or 60-40 percentage lines. However, in each case the losing side—in both cases known by the same "Moderate" label—hesitated so long and waffled on what to do that it not only lost the battle but ended up a tiny fraction of what it might have been.

The so-called Moderate wing of the Missouri Synod—once a very powerful and influential force—vanished completely into the annals of church history. Its remnants were absorbed into other pre-existing Lutheran bodies.

The lingering remnants of the SBC's Moderate wing are scattered and divided—hardly a shadow of what they formerly were—but lurking still like defeated bands of Confederate soldiers roaming the familiar countryside not quite sure what to do with themselves. Fractured and divided, their only common thread seems to be their disdain for the entrenched conservative rulers of the SBC.

This week in Memphis the largest group of those war veterans—the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship—met for its annual reunion. It displayed once again how small, insignificant, and angry the group has become. Its stagnated budget is but a tiny glimmer of the much wealthier SBC and its membership totals remain vague and nebulous--apparently hopelessly intertwined with SBC totals. Remaining passive while a key leader likened their debacle in the SBC to Hitler's Holocaust exposed the group's continuing seething anger.

I find feeling sorry for the CBF members easy because, as one extremely honest former Southern Baptist exec said to me over coffee one day: "I've spent my life swimming in this huge lake called Southern Baptists. I just don't know that I could ever move over and swim in a tiny pond (the CBF). What would I do?"

Many, particularly those with white hair at the Memphis meeting, once were influential in the SBC—often members of its huge bureaucracy somewhere. Now too many of them are crowded on the same ship without enough lay people to lead and not enough denominational money to function like in "the good ole days".

The lingering SBC Moderates have reinforced what I observed within the Missouri Synod: Denominations are made up of much more than just theology and common beliefs that bind them together. This "glue" consists of family ties, friendships, common histories, common ancestries, emotional connections, cultural language, and varied and assorted other things that create bonds between human beings.

When push comes to shove over tricky theological points, which the vast majority of church members usually never understand anyway, this "glue" continues to bind them together and keeps them from separating.

Because the Missouri Synod was smaller than the SBC—the Southern Baptists are roughly five times the size of the LCMS—this "glue" and its impact was easier to see. Families caught in the crevices of the fight couldn't stand to part with each other; a common Germanic history and sense of identify pulled all but the most stalwart Moderate Missouri Synod members back to the core once the Conservative wing scored a resounding win.

Those same factors that pulled the Missouri Synod back together are still at play within the SBC. Observing it has led me to conclude that while important, theological issues are not nearly as divisive within churches today as theologians, denominational leaders, and pastors like to think.

Whither the former Moderate Southern Baptists? Now that's an ongoing sticky subject!

Clergy often resist retirement, usually to their own personal detriment

2008-06-17T22:21:00.010-05:00

With Baby Boomers starting this year to move into retirement, the topic seems to be on the minds of many. Few, however, realize that retirement is truly a modern phenomenon.

It's also one from which religious leaders have often run. No group has resisted the modern concept of retirement more than the clergy has.

Just 40 years ago Vatican Council II moved the Roman Catholic clergy toward this major lifestyle change. Not only did Catholic cardinals over age 75 lose their votes for the next pope, VCII set the stage for the retirement of Catholic pastors over age 75, too. Before that Catholic priests—as well as other clergy—thought they had lifelong locks on their jobs.

Seventy-five was also a compromise between the modern trend toward age 65 and the priests' view of "never, no never".

As a newspaper reporter in the 1970s as the retirement trend was unfolding, I encountered many tricky situations involving the forced retirement of Catholic pastors. In one case the poor fellow was so angry at the pope, his local bishop, and the church's hierarchy for putting him out to pasture that he spewed venom all over me just because I happened to be standing there with a notebook in my hand. I didn't take it personally, because he and I both knew I had nothing to do with the life-altering decision. I was just merely a scribe trying to report the event and the pastor's curious negative reaction to it.

Even with the concept of retirement more embraced among Protestant churches, the thought of retirement still sends far too many church leaders into a blue funk or a counter-defense trying to ward it off as long as possible.

During my years on the religion beat at the Houston Chronicle I wrote more than my fair share of retirement stories about aging Houston clergy from all denominations and religions. I eventually developed my own little mind-game called "Guess how long this guy's gonna live?" During the interview, I would ask strategic questions designed to elicit from the retiring church leader how well he had planned for retirement. I wasn't checking on finances! I wanted to know how the clergyman pictured life without his being in the limelight of leading a church or a religious institution.

The longer the church leader waited to retire, the more he clung to his image of himself as a "church or religious leader" and the less he had planned emotionally for the reality, the higher I scored him for "likely to die soon".

Conversely, pastors and other church officials who seemed eager to shed their clergy robes, who looked forward to developing new hobbies and interests, and who seemed to have a zest for living and not just filling a church role scored low on my "likely-to-die soon" scale.

I often was amazed how my little scoring game was right on target.

I remember one aging United Methodist leader who twisted and manipulated every church law on the books to stay active as a church leader as long as he could. Finally trapped in the rule-book corner at age 73, he reluctantly agreed to step aside. What were his plans? "Take a long vacation and then decide what I'm going to do with the rest of my life." What did he plan to do in retirement? "I haven't planned anything yet."

I left the interview at the Methodist Building planning to file my notes on this clergyman where I could get to them quickly. No, he didn't tell me of any secret illnesses.

And yes, I did need those notes within six months of our interview to write his obituary.

I'm no psychologist--only an observer of religious life in America. I don't know if other professions face the same degree of attachment to their careers as members of the clergy do. But I do believe firmly that over-identification with the ministerial role has a tendency to kill people shortly after they officially "retire".

With so many Baby Boomer pastors and church leaders on the threshold of this major life transition, seeing how these folks approach this issue will be highly interesting.

Today U.S. presidents meet with Catholic pope and stir barely a ripple

2008-06-15T20:45:00.010-05:00

President George Bush's visit to see Pope Benedict XVI at the Vatican on Friday brought back memories of the first time a Roman Catholic pope called at the U.S. White House. The year was 1979. The pontiff was Pope John Paul II. The president was Jimmy Carter. I was there standing on the White House lawn along with about 100 other reporters who had special press badges allowing us to accompany John Paul on his historic first tour of the U.S.

The papal visit actually began three days earlier when John Paul's plane arrived in Boston for the historic precedent-setting six-day tour of America. The president sent wife Rosalyn to Boston to greet the pontiff and welcome him to America and lay the groundwork for the upcoming White House visit. Behind the scenes, U.S. protocol officials fretted whether Mrs. Carter should 1. stay airborne until the pope landed, or 2. stay on board her plane until the pope had stepped on Boston soil, or 3. be standing on the tarmac waiting to greet the pope as he stepped off the plane. While amused by that silly drama, I puzzled over why behind the scenes in the press room so many reporters kept making ugly remarks about Mrs. Carter.

Jimmy and Rosalyn Carter did what John and Jackie Kennedy never could have done. During the 1960 election, Kennedy was berated unmercifully with accusations that he, a Roman Catholic, would be subservient to the pope. Kennedy had to go out of his way to distance himself from any thought that the pope would influence his Presidency.

Carter, on the other hand, was a Southern Baptist. No one ever thought he would pay much attention to the pope. When the Carters welcomed John Paul to the White House, the visit was noteworthy for its lack of controversy. With a warm handshake and welcome to the nation's capitol, Carter changed the American political climate almost immediately. He, of course, rode the crest of America's great curiosity over the Polish pope's escalating popularity among Roman Catholics as well as others worldwide.

Because of the Carters, other U.S. Presidents have been able to meet almost casually with the pontiff both at the White House and at the Vatican. Such meetings have proven beneficial for the U.S.

George Bush's visit with Pope Benedict XVI on Friday hardly stirred more than a brief mention in the U.S. media.

Amazing how quickly America's political landscape can change and things once thought controversial can become commonplace! Makes me wonder what other changes we will see in the years ahead.

Al Gilbert's Convention Sermon made significant points

2008-06-11T22:27:00.008-05:00

Over the span of the last 40 years I've attended more than 30 annual meetings of the Southern Baptist Convention. Most often I have not found the annual "Convention Sermon" at the meeting to be particularly exciting or newsworthy. Sometimes I've found that "message" to be downright dull.

I wasn't at this year's annual session in Indianapolis—too busy launching my new book, Witness to the Truth, at Book Expo in Los Angeles and doing media interviews in Texas—but I sure wish I'd heard Al Gilbert's "Convention Sermon" this week. From Baptist Press reports, sounds as though he hit some really important nails on the head. Some of his comments sound like some of the messages about church bureaucracy I've delivered in Witness to the Truth and on this blog.

As I've said before, the Southern Baptist Convention has become the nation's Big Bureaucracy denomination—a label the SBC used to try to pin on Roman Catholics.

Don't get me wrong: church bureaucracies are fine in moderation. But left unchecked they can become self-serving, self-perpetuating institutions more caught up in their own self-importance and well-being than in supporting the local churches they are supposed to serve.

For the sake of transparency, let me tell you that Al and I are friends. About a decade ago he and I both worked for the same same SBC bureaucracy for a while: the International Mission Board. We even had the same title, but at different times: Special Assistant to the President.

Al and I didn't communicate about his sermon beforehand. Nor do I believe he would agree with everything I said in Witness to the Truth. But I do think Al is pointing in the right direction in the following quotes he offered in his Convention Sermon:

"Soon, we will be passing the baton to the next generation, and I don't know about you, but they tell me they are not sure they want it. That should make us sad and that should make us ask how we want to hand it off to the next generation."

"Our baptisms continue to fall. We know that we are not impacting the world for Christ. We are not even winning our own sons and daughters like we should."

"We have acknowledged that we have inflated numbers of membership and an incredible number of people on our rolls that are inactive and probably lost."

"Could it be that we have established processes in our organizations that are really bureaucratic barriers, instead of mobilizing us to win the world to Christ?"

"Can we really defend our bureaucracy to the next generation?"

Click here to read more about what Al, pastor of Calvary Baptist Church in Winston-Salem, NC, said: http://www.bpnews.net/BPnews.asp?ID=28243

All I can say is, Preach on, Brother Al! And may all Southern Baptists take heed to these crucial words.

Know thyself, then find the right congregation for you

2008-06-10T21:57:00.011-05:00

Churches have personalities just like you and I do.

Some are like youngsters--full of energy and life; others are like senior citizens waiting for the hospice nurse to arrive.

Some churches are gregarious and exciting like a square-dance club; others are stodgy and boring, like an old library's basement stacked with newspapers nobody will ever read again.

Some are engaged up to their eyebrows in politics, either in the secular world or their own denomination. Others are withdrawn and refuse to acknowledge the poorly clothed, starving people all around in their neighborhood.

We tend to think of churches as always being the same, particularly within a certain denomination. From my experience, that's a very wrong stereotype.

In chapter 10 of my newly published book, Witness to the Truth I describe the wide variety of churches within Houston's Episcopal scene. The four were about as different as east, west, north and south. Yet they all four belonged to the same Episcopal umbrella.

I could have written that chapter about four Houston churches within any denomination—Southern Baptist, Roman Catholic, United Methodist and so forth.

Often times this diversity has nothing whatsoever to do with the basic theology of the individual churches. It has much more to do with the geographical location, neighborhood, and personalities of the congregation and its leadership.

A grumpy, melancholy pastor produces a somber church.

A congregation situated in an arts community is more likely to produce a creative ministry.

A church based in a poor, ethnic neighborhood is more likely to have a heart for people in need of physical support.

And a high-brow pastor preaching to an affluent audience is much more inclined to produce a church with aristocratic overtones.

Finding the right church for you is easy if you know the kind of person you are and the kind of individuals to whom you best relate.

If you don't like chatty people, stay away from a socially outgoing congregation.

If you don't like social do-gooders, find your own water level elsewhere.

Know your own personality. Then figure out the personality of the church you are visiting.

Don't base your decision on a few people from a congregation or a few acts of kindness extended by individuals chosen to recruit for the church.

If you are the creative type, look for creativity.

If you are the structured kind, look for organization.

If you are outgoing, look at the church's social interaction.

An interesting twist to this observation is when the church bears the title "First". You find this in many Protestant denominations across the country. In my book I talk about "The First shall be Last". A "First" church usually means the congregation has a history dating back to a city's beginnings. As such it is tied more to the "old guard" and "old establishment" in a town and reflects that group's characteristics. Sometimes but not always this means the church is locked into tradition and not open to new ways of seeing and doing things.

Many pastors wring their hands about their church's "back door" (new members who either stop showing up or who quickly exit). What they seldom realize is that once affiliated with the church, new members may figure out the congregation's personality and recoil at it, finding it's not what they expected.

I contend that much of the turnover on church rolls could be stopped by better church shopping upfront.

After snickering at others, SBC now faces its own decline

2008-06-08T18:23:00.016-05:00

During the 1970s when the so-called Mainline Christian denominations began their incredible shrinking act, Southern Baptists and Roman Catholics looked on with puzzled amusement, because both America's Roman Catholic Church and America's largest Protestant denomination were growing at robust speeds.

Thanks to their opposition to birth control (practiced by some RC's but not by all), and rampant immigration of people from south of the U.S. border (who were predominantly RC's), the Roman Catholic Church in the U.S. knew the two trends would bode well for its future and keep it growing in numbers and influence.

Because they perceived themselves as an evangelistic denomination reaching out in all directions for new converts, Southern Baptists believed their future to be one of unstoppable growth. Somehow they believed they were immune to the realities that were engulfing other Protestant groups around them. Some even scoffed about the Episcopalians, United Methodists, Lutherans, and Presbyterians and their loss of evangelistic fervor.

Now four decades later—in the first decade of the 21st century—Roman Catholics continue to grow (as do U.S. immigration woes and many Roman Catholic families), but Southern Baptists are for the first time since the Great Depression reporting their first membership decline after several years of declining baptism rates. The situation was predictable and inevitable but is proving to be very painful for the SBC.

This SBC nosedive may be just a blip in history (as some convention leaders are trying desperately to forecast), but it also has the potential to turn into a major rout and thus an embarrassing headache for the denomination.

At the annual Southern Baptist Convention Tuesday and Wednesday in Indianapolis, the topic is likely to spawn much attention and probably a lot of hand-wringing and finger-pointing. The Washington Post reported recently that Convention President Frank S. Page said that without decisive action soon, the number of SBC churches could decline significantly by 2030.

Watch out for glib explanations about the decline. Expect a lot of pep-rally talk about evangelism but little focus on the underlying issues.

What has caused the problem?

1. Birth control. Smaller families mean fewer children to baptize. Like all Protestant denominations, Southern Baptists have faced this problem all along. The numbers are just now catching up with them.

2. Roll-cleaning. Southern Baptist leaders for years have joked about their 16-million member denomination that is really about 10-million strong at best. During the 1970s and 1980s Southern Baptists failed to follow the trend of major roll-cleaning, which resulted in the Mainline denominations arriving at more realistic—and honest—numbers. Once Southern Baptists realized their rolls were not accurate, they failed to develop a comprehensive policy to quietly let the air out of their numbers and slow the denomination's growth while baptism rates were at historical highs. Now with some church rolls so obviously overstated and some actually getting a much-needed cleansing, Southern Baptists face the double whammy that makes the situation all the more painful.

3. A graying Southern Baptist population. Like the rest of America, Southern Baptists are statistically growing older. That means more people with gray hair, the group least likely to reach out to win new converts, particularly among ethnic and minority groups that are growing so fast.

4. Failure to spot—and work against—the flight of young blacks to the Muslim faith. Since 1970, Islam has grown dramatically in the United States. Some of it has been the immigrants from Muslim countries. A sizable chunk of the growth, however, is from converts made in prisons, where young black males are disproportionally represented and in African-American neighborhoods where Southern Baptist churches are too few. The chapter, "Wrong (or Right?)-Way Corrigans" in my new book, Witness to the Truth, explains this development further.

5. Too many refugees from other denominations. Some SBC churches are packed to the rafters with members who did not grow up Southern Baptist but instead sprang from the exodus in the Mainline denominations over liberalism. Consequently these new members, who kept the growth going during the 1980s and 1990s, did not experience the evangelistic training that was so much a part of the denomination earlier. As the exodus from the mainline denominations levels off and actually begins to stop, these new Southern Baptists may not even know the importance of sharing their faith with others.

6. A house divided against itself. Read the questionnaire Baptist Press recently published with answers from the six SBC presidential candidates and you'll quickly note the large numbers of areas in which Southern Baptists are battling. Some of the fractures are deep and dangerous divides for the denomination. I discuss this more thoroughly in the chapter, "Reborn Again!", in Witness to the Truth.

This year's convention will be filled with calls for renewed evangelism efforts and plans for overcoming the quagmire. Most ideas are not new. Anybody remember former SBC President Bobby Welch's goal of reaching 1 million baptisms in a year? I have yet to see anything from anybody this year that hasn't been proposed previously or in a different wrapper or that addresses head-on the issues above that are pulling down the denomination's roll numbers.

Steering the rough waters ahead for the Southern Baptist Convention is going to take some mighty creative leadership and not just pep-rally talk.

Yes, I coined the phrase Baptistdom

2008-06-05T13:25:00.007-05:00

You won't find the word in your Webster's Dictionary, but you will find it in my new book, Witness to the Truth. You'll also find the word many times on this blog, "Louis Moore on Religion".

Yes, I coined the word. I have been using it for nearly 20 years now, ever since I first moved to Nashville, TN, almost 20 years ago to join the Southern Baptist bureaucracy. Some of my friends still laugh when I use MY word; other friends have started to pick it up.

That word is BAPTISTDOM. It's a compilation of the word Christendom and Baptist.

My definition of the word, however, is more akin to the word Curia. The word Curia refers to the bureaucracy of the Roman Catholic Church, centered at the Vatican in Rome. The Curia is notorious for its slippery, passive, courtly, overtly religious style.

Baptistdom is my label for the highly unusual Southern Baptist way of life we encountered in Nashville and later in Richmond. Baptistdom was like a peculiar and alien culture—something far, far different from "normal" life we had known in Houston and elsewhere. This wasn't because of Baptistdom's expressed faith in God nor because of its theological orientation so much as because of its unique small-town, Southern , bureaucratic, passive-aggressive style.

Over the years I realized how much Baptistdom was like the notorious Roman Catholic Curia. Both are bureaucracies with their own social codes, political agendas, and unusual way of conducting business. Gossip and behind-your-back, cutting remarks seemed to be written into Baptistdom's genetic code; people often joked that the walls of the SBC's Sunday School Board building (now LifeWay) at 127 9th Avenue North, Nashville, would physically fall down if gossip in that structure ceased. I would suspect these characteristics are also written into the genetic code of the Catholic Curia as well.

Baptistdom is much, much larger than most people, including most Southern Baptists, ever begin to fathom. Part of that naivete is because early Southern Baptists tried to thwart the development of a Curia-like Catholic bureaucracy by locating various denominational services strategically throughout the South. Thus, Nashville got the publishing operation and the top executive offices, Atlanta got the North American missionary operation, Richmond got the foreign-missionary operation, Dallas got the retirement-funds center, Birmingham got the Woman's Missionary Union, and Louisville, Fort Worth, Kansas City, New Orleans, Wake Forest, and (later) San Francisco each received one of the denomination's graduate schools in theology (called seminaries). Today, that diversity helps conceal the true size and wealth of Baptistdom. Diversifying to keep down a Curia-like bureaucracy worked fine until after World War II, when prosperity struck the SBC; its finances blossomed like its founding fathers never could have imagined. Suddenly each of these tiny entities grew large and wealthy. Today, Baptistdom is more like a corporate-minded Fortune 500 company than poor church people struggling to pay the rent.

The massive size of Baptistdom does not even begin to count the staff and receipts of more than 40,000 individual congregations throughout the country. Nor does it count the large state and associational staffs, nor the thousands employed by Southern Baptist-related colleges and university—and all of their budgets.

For more than a century, Southern Baptists have held to the myth that Roman Catholics are the large, bureaucratic denomination in America. When they finally look honestly into the mirror, Southern Baptists will discover that they—not the Roman Catholics—are truly America's big-bureaucracy denomination.

Please feel free to adopt and use my word: Baptistdom.

From the Darkness into the Light

2008-06-05T00:01:00.008-05:00

Churches maintain they have much to offer—to teach—"the world". And well they do. Jesus tells us Christians that we are to be "salt and light." in the world. That means we are to preserve our world against the decay of sin and bring the light of Christ into the hearts of every man, woman and child of every tribe, people group, race, and so forth on the Earth.

But the world has some things it can teach churches as well. Or, put another way, Christians and churches can learn some things from the world, too.

My dear mentor, friend and hero Don Pickels, former managing editor of the Houston Chronicle and also prior to his death a very devout Episcopalian, helped to create an amazing legal legacy for the people of Texas. It was called the "open-meetings law". It was passed by the Texas Legislature under pressure from the Houston Chronicle management and others. It was adopted in the wake of the Sharpstown Scandal, which occurred in the early 1970s and rocked the State of Texas dramatically after evidence surfaced that public officials were meeting secretly and making financial decisions that should be made only publicly.

I was reminded of this law two years ago when I was asked to serve on my home city's Plan Commission. As soon as I was officially elected by our City Council, our City Attorney called to tell me that I must spend about an hour watching a video created by the Texas Attorney General about the law. He even cracked that the law had something to do with pressure from the Houston Chronicle. I knew immediately to what law he was referring.

In simple terms, the video told us public officials that we must conduct our business out in the open, not secretly behind closed doors. As I sat for an hour and watched the video, I marveled how clear and precise the law was. Only an idiot could not understand the plain language and terms of the law and the video explaining it as well as the penalties for violating the law. Afterward, as I began my tenure on the public commission, I was grateful that I was schooled so quickly in such matters.

What I liked most was that the law is non-partisan, meaning it applies equally to Democrats and Republicans as well as Independents and other party members. I'm sure some politicians—being the personalities that they are—have tried to circumvent the law, but to my knowledge it has been administered fairly and equally in the State of Texas.

Regrettably, I know of no church bodies that have a similar law or policy. Texas' laws do not apply to churches, only government bodies. The same is true of "open-meeting" laws in other states. I've known a few people to argue that their religious organization has an "open- meetings" policy or rule, but on further investigation discovered that what they were referring to was nebulous, vague and filled with all sorts of loopholes—or in some cases was just the figment of the person's imagination.

Today in too many churches and denominations too much church business is conducted in the dark. Whether it is couched as a "forum" or "private dinner for trustees", a "deacon's meeting for deacons only" or a "closed church business session", it's all the same thing: God's business conducted in darkness.

On pages 250-251 in Witness to the Truth, I describe in detail the closed-door, unhealthy situation in the Southern Baptist Convention that I found when I arrived there to work in the early 1990s. Closed meetings remain the order of the day in the SBC, both in the denomination as well as in local churches.

In the wake of Vatican Council II, Roman Catholics learned to be more open and public, but they still have a long way to go to overcome their long history of conducting business in the dark.

Many other denominations have the same problem.

I know I'm an idealist, but I'd like to see all churches and denominations take a cue from the Texas Legislature and change this closed-door situation by adopting clear and unequivocal open-meetings laws or rules.

Denominational elections often need a strong dose of honesty

2008-06-03T00:55:00.009-05:00

I often find denominational elections a frustrating game of passive-aggressive lingo.

When they ruled during the 1960s and 1970s, Southern Baptist moderates honed the lingo into an amazingly beautiful Southern waltz. No one ever "ran" for election to one of the Southern Baptist Convention's top elected posts. Instead, their friends orchestrated their campaigns for them.

I could write the announcement for these moderate candidates before their news releases ever appeared on my desk: "My dear friend, Brother so-and-so, has asked me to allow him to nominate me for president (or first or second vice president) of the Southern Baptist Convention," the candidate would say. "After much prayer, I've decided to allow Brother so-and-so to do this."

These words seemed so sanctimonious except for one fact: they seldom matched the reality of what was occurring behind the scenes. Sometimes rumors had circulated wildly for years that the candidate himself had been behind the scenes twisting arms like crazy to build the resume and reputation and network that would propel him into one of those top jobs.

Southern Baptists moderates weren't the only ones who had this skill down to a well-choreographed script. One of my all-time favorite books is Charles Merrill Smith's How to be a Bishop Without Being Religious. A Christian bestseller in the 1960s, the book was a spoof on Methodist elections of bishops based more on images created by clothes (dark colors and loosely fitting), cars (small with dark colors and very non-sporty and traditional), and wives (neither shapely nor beautiful) than on faith in God and spiritual gifts. Smith paints the picture of clergy leadership more prone to testing the wind direction than on commitment and dedication to theological principles.

Other Christian groups also played similar silly games. I could always spot the "comer" among Roman Catholic priests. A dead giveaway was always in the way he spoke of and courted "THE Holy Father" (the pope). This signaled to the Curia (the church's bureaucracy) that he was a "team" player.

Now that Southern Baptist conservatives are returning to an era of multiple candidates for the convention presidency--after far too long rallying around only one candidate who was allowed to run at a time--they appear to be falling into the same trap their moderate forebears fell into: "Brother so-and-so has asked me to allow him . . . ."

Listen next week during the Southern Baptist Convention in Indianapolis, IN, for these semantic word games.

I personally wouldn't vote for a single candidate for any church office who tried to act as if he is being forced into the race because of friends or even because of The Big Friend Himself. I much prefer open and honest communication and politics in which people say what they mean and mean what they say about their intentions for church leadership posts.

Witness to the Truth debuts today

2008-05-31T20:24:00.011-05:00

The debut of my new book, Witness to the Truth, at the 2008 Book Expo America, the largest book trade show in the U.S., this weekend produced the types of curious responses I expected and that I anticipate will occur over the next weeks and months.

My book is subtitled Lessons learned by a veteran journalist through four decades of watching the church. I used raw, revealing anecdotes to paint the church as an authentically human institution but one that God still can use for His ongoing purposes, despite the sometimes disturbing antics and behaviors of church leaders.

During the editing and proofing process, I laughed repeatedly at an email from Deborah Davies, one of our editors at Hannibal Books, who suggested I rename the book Forest Gump Goes to Church. She keyed off the fact that through four decades I managed to find myself strategically poised to witness cataclysmic religious developments such as John Paul's first steps in the Western Hemisphere, the Episcopal Church's historic vote to ordain women, and my unique skybox view at the 1979 Southern Baptist Convention, a meeting which forever altered the history for the nation's largest Protestant denomination. Over the years I've been fortunate to meet almost all the big-name religious leaders of our time.

During the debut here in Los Angeles to bookstore buyers and librarians from across the U.S. as well around the world, my wife Kay tugged at my arm to get me to venture over and meet a librarian from the Houston area, where I spent the majority of my life and career. After introducing myself, I held out the book to the woman, who seemed to remember my years at the Houston Chronicle and literally jerked the book from my hands. Simultaneously she asked whether it had an index of names cited. Before I could answer her question, she found and started perusing the index. She spotted the name of a pastor we apparently both know and turned immediately to one of the references.

"Oh, my goodness, you saw him as very egotistical," she blurted wide-eyed. After a long silence, she said smiling, "Well, I guess we all have our opinions."

I offered to autograph the book for her. "Address it to my mother," she said. "I'm going to read it tonight and send it to her immediately."

What struck me as so humorous was that the pastor she fingered actually is a very minor character in the book; the denomination to which he belonged is not a major focus. The book is chocked full of details about numerous religious leaders and denominations.

Far beyond a mere chronicling of events, Witness to the Truth identifies 26 core "truths" that apply to a variety of religious groups regardless of their stripe. My parallels are designed to help readers better understand their own local church bodies and their roles in them.

Visit www.hannibalbooks.com right now and read the first chapter of my book as well as that index that captivated my new librarian-friend.

Happy reading!

Blog begins June 1

2008-05-28T00:07:00.003-05:00

Louis Moore's first comments on this blog will appear here on June 1, 2008.