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

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.

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

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.

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

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. 

Three key reasons why the SBC is losing members

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.