A true pioneer lost

News that Larry Norman died last Sunday — at the very young age of 60 — was shocking. He was a true pioneer of what grew into the popular genre known as Contemporary Christian Music.
In 1969, Norman recorded his first (and the first) "Christian Rock" record. His long hair and loud music were not widely received in most conservative Christian circles.
But Norman knew he had an audience. He was once quoted as saying: "I had no desire to preach to the converted."
Yet many of us young Christians in the '70s embraced both the new hair and musical styles.
(My ever-judging Tennessee Temple friends back then assured me that Jesus and his disciples got short haircuts by using Roman helmets like some rural folk once used soup bowls. Such scholarship!)
Norman threw open the door for many others such as 2nd Chapter of Acts, Andre Crouch and the Disciples, Keith Green, The Pat Terry Group, Dallas Holm and Praise, Honeytree, Mylon LeFevre and Broken Heart, and David Meece.
Their records (real records, LPs) spun on the turntables in our dorm rooms and their 8-track tapes boomed in our cars.
My music tastes have changed since then. And 14 years of campus ministry provided all the chorus singing I may ever need.
But I am grateful for those like Larry Norman who look for new and creative ways to express their faith.
Shortly before he died in Salem, Oregon, early this week, he said: "I am ready to fly home." Apparently, his faith endured to the end.

How does one celebrate a 400th anniversary?

At Baptists Today, we are busy planning a special April edition and a big celebration on April 3 to mark the 25th anniversary of this uniquely independent, national news journal.
It is staggering, however, to think of how the larger Baptist family might celebrate in 2009. That is the date to which historians trace the beginning of the Baptist movement.
Thomas Helwys (1550-1616) and John Smyth (1570-1612) led English Separatists to form what is considered the First Baptist Church of Anywhere around 1609 in Holland.
Then, in an act that would identify Baptists for 400 years, Helwys and Smyth split.
Helwys moved the congregation to London where he gave his life, literally, to the cause of religious liberty — a more noble mark for Baptists than church splits.
According to a story in Christian Today, European Baptists are already making plans for commemorations in July 2009 that are expected to draw many Baptists from across Europe — and likely from around the world.
At their best, Baptists are known for taking the Bible seriously while respecting individual interpretations, granting full freedom to individual congregations to choose their own leaders and chart their own courses, advocating for the religious rights of all persons of all faiths or none, and erecting no mediator between believers and their God other than Jesus Christ.
While Baptists are sometimes at their worst, these grand contributions to the Christian faith and larger society are worth celebrating at the four-century mark.
Several tour options to Europe or other places of significance to Baptist history will likely be offered.
Any other suggestions for how Baptists might otherwise mark this historic milestone?

To install an attic ladder...

Saturday's task was to replace the broken wooden attic ladder with a new, stronger version. I started on the task right after my daughter's morning softball practice in the mud.
Blogging was to come later, but the project (as all home projects) lasted longer than first expected.
Should you have this particularly project on your "to-do" list, perhaps some advice would be of help.
The most important step is to ensure the framed-out box that holds the pull-down ladder system is square.
The following will be helpful to complete the project: a framing square, saw, tape measure, pencil, drill, hammer and a couple of kids to go get the stuff you forgot to take up to the attic with you.
And if over 50, like me, a couple of Ibuprofen every four hours.

Technological advantage?

It is amazing how quickly we get used to grand technological advances. Recently, I noticed my daughter, a high school freshman, researching a school project on the Greek goddess Artemis. Within a few minutes, she had found extensive information on and images of the daughter of Zeus that were easily downloaded from the Internet.
As a high school freshman, back in the day, I would have trekked across the road to the Medleys' house and borrowed the "A" volume of the World Book Encyclopedia. That was about our only window to the greater world of knowledge beyond three blurry TV channels, radio and Reader's Digest.
A question remains, however. With easy and instant access to so much information, why are we so darn busy and woefully ignorant about so many things?

Thumbs up for Jack R. Linscott Jr.

Despite stormy weather, a bunch of us gathered at Roswell Street Baptist Church in Marietta, Ga., on Sunday afternoon to celebrate the uniquely bright life of Jack R. Linscott Jr. He died the week before at age 46.
Jack's father was taking classes at Southern Tech (now Southern Polytechnic State University) when I became Baptist campus minister there and at Kennesaw State University in 1981.
Young Jack was about 19 or 20 at the time and came with his dad to Bible studies, intramural football games and other activities.
Jack's developmental disabilities kept him from completing a traditional high school education, but it didn't keep him from enjoying college life.
He was as much a part of the Baptist Student Union (now called Baptist Campus Ministry) as anyone. And he stayed connected for three decades.
Unlike many parents who overprotect children with mental or physical disabilities, Jack Sr. pushed young Jack's independence.
For years he rode his bike all around bustling Cobb County with an amazing sense of direction. He was also known for all kinds of creative ways to get to his destination.
Jack liked to call people by their first and last names at all times. He would often give the person addressed a thumbs up and say: "So-and-so, you are a trip and a half."
His unexpected death brought together many of those who had known and loved Jack through the years. And everyone one of us had a story — or more than one story — that brought smiles to our faces.
I recall Jack going to a training program once for persons with similar mental challenges. When I asked how it was going, he replied: "I don't really like being around all those retarded kids."
I laughed because Jack didn't see himself in that way at all. He spent so much of his time hanging around with college students.
In restaurants, he would hold a menu that he couldn't read and order based on what he heard from others. His ability to fit in with the student group was amazing.
He participated in retreats, mission projects and other campus ministry efforts. He even shared an apartment with some students for awhile.
I once heard maturity defined as "learning to play the hand you are dealt." If so, Jack — though childlike in many ways — was quite mature. He played the hand he was dealt in life with maximum enthusiasm and created much joy for others.

Walker's round-trip magnet

Walker Knight, founding editor of Baptists Today, has a magnet on the refrigerator in his Decatur, Ga., home. It reads: "Peace like war must be waged."
The magnet correctly attributes the quote to Walker L. Knight. A friend brought it to him from Israel.
When visiting Walker in his home recently, I asked how his quote had made the journey from his mind to Israel and back to his own refrigerator.
Walker said he used the line first as part of a theme interpretation for a Woman's Missionary Union event in the 1970s. He then put it into print in Home Missions magazine, the popular and sometimes controversial publication he edited at the time.
John Nichol, then pastor of Oakhurst Baptist Church in Decatur, where Walker has been a member since 1959, picked up the quote and used when speaking to the First Baptist Church of Calhoun, Ga., where Bob Maddox was pastor and Jack (son of Jimmy and Rosalynn) Carter was a member. (Bob became a speech writer and religious liaison for President Carter.)
The line — "Peace like war must be waged" — was used by President Carter in a March 1979 speech hailing the peace treaty between Israel and Egypt, following the Camp David Accords in which Carter brought the leaders of those nations, Menachem Begin and Anwar Sadat, together.
From that speech, the quote has been picked by many. It was even put on a magnet in Israel. It is wise advice from a wise man.
Walker Knight is a person of wisdom, courage and compassion. I consider it an honor to carry on the work he began 25 years ago in founding the news journal Baptists Today.

Faith in the workplace

One of those places where religious freedom gets a little sticky is in how much an employer should be required to accommodate the religious practices of employees.
What about religious dress, asking someone to provide a service they consider unethical, or granting time off for scheduled prayers or holy days?
Those issues are being addressed as Congress considers the Workplace Religious Freedom Act once again.
The debate ultimately comes down to what is "reasonable" accommodation.
My childhood friend Steve was a Seventh-Day Adventist. When we went to work together in high school, washing dishes at the Days Inn restaurant, the accommodation was handled well.
He washed on Sundays and I washed on Saturdays (his Sabbath). But the growing religious pluralism makes workplace accommodation more challenging.
Aside from genuine concerns, some people could come up with all kinds of religious prohibitions to get out of work or certain kinds of work.
In fact, I remember another friend who was eager to miss our kitchen duty to go camping. As he stewed over his appeal to our boss, he wondered aloud: "Have I already used the dead grandmother story twice?"

Common sense about religious freedom

Once I argued in an editorial that applying principles of religious liberty requires only common sense. But it also requires a basic and accurate understanding of how this nation was formed with adequate protections to ensure full religious freedom for all citizens.
Revisionist histories abound that paint the founders as everything from complete heathens to evangelical Christians. According to Religion News Service, a new book by Gary Kowalski,titled "Revolutionary Spirits: The Enlightened Faith of America's Founding Fathers," reveals the more complex picture of the Founding Fathers' faith.
"His spiritual portraits of Washington, Franklin, Thomas Paine, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison argue that the founding fathers were neither devout Christians nor secularists," the article states.
I will look forward to reading this new work by the Unitarian Universalist minister. My hope is that — with honest history and fair minds — the issue of religious liberty will be less divisive among Americans.
While a few religious liberty cases require judicial discernment, the basic understanding of freedom is not that complicated.
Both those who insist that all religious expression should be done in private AND those who seek governmental preference for a particular religious expression are wrong.
In an election season when the religious faith of the candidates has gotten so much attention, it might be a good time to acknowledge just how valuable the constitutional protections of religious freedom are to this nation.
We can argue about the fine points of religious freedom, but we should never take this cherished gift for granted.

SBC's two-party system

A two-party system seems to be emerging in the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC). The question is whether the two parties will be divided over Calvinism or a different issue — when/where to stop drawing doctrinal lines.
Both issues have emerged in the SBC in recent years.
The announcement this week that Frank Cox (in photo) will be nominated for SBC president in June brings the divisions into greater light.
Cox, a suburban Atlanta pastor and captain of the Georgia Baptist Convention ship since the fundamentalist takeover, will oppose Southern Baptist Theological Seminary President Al Mohler, the most highly identified Calvinist in the SBC.
(Sure, a couple of other candidates will be nominated but attract little attention.)
Cox will be nominated by Alabama evangelist Junior Hill. If you want to find the Baptists most opposed to Calvinism, talk with the evangelists.
But the division into a two-party system is not completely clear.
Calvinism was not the emotionally debated issue at the 2007 SBC meeting in San Antonio. It was whether the narrow doctrinal statement, 2000 Baptist Faith and Message, was narrow enough.
A motion affirming the sufficiency of the statement passed by majority vote. But that has not stopped the SBC International Mission Board from imposing other doctrinal restrictions on missionaries.
Some SBC agency heads (including Mohler) described the Southern Baptist faith statement as a minimalist document for determining acceptable doctrine.
Some of this might be clarified if and when Cox makes a statement about whether or not he — like current SBC President Frank Page — thinks it is unwise to keep narrowing the doctrinal parameters for participation in the Convention.
(Anyone with the slightest knowledge knows, however, that the nature of fundamentalism is to continue tightening the circle of participation. Suspicion once reserved for those on the other side is turned on those once considered within the fold.)
Some say the contested election simply signifies a mild disagreement over whether an agency head should serve as SBC president. But Cox formerly served as vice president during seminary president Paige Patterson's second term as SBC president.
In his nominating speech, former SBC President James Merritt gave Cox's full support of Patterson as a top credential. So apparently, the conflict of interest issue is not a big deal to Cox.
Recent research suggests the non-Calvinist candidate would have an edge if that becomes the primary issue of identification for the candidates. That is, unless a whole bunch of young Southern Seminary grads and students show up in Indianapolis this summer. (Younger SBC pastors are much more likely to consider themselves to be Calvinists compared to the larger SBC population.)
So it looks like two debated issues, that have become flash points within Southern Baptist life, are headed for the big meeting this summer. It will be interesting to see which one shows up during the presidential election.
In the usual fashion, these real issues will not be presented openly in nomination speeches. Reality is generally masked by a bunch of spiritual code words.
For some of us, these latest squabbles are only mildly interesting, at best. The SBC got way to narrow for us a long, long time ago.

Practical 'next steps' for Covenant Baptists

The challenge in leaving a "feel good" meeting like the Celebration of a New Baptist Covenant last week is knowing what to do now that it is over. The next steps are risky.
If participants do nothing concrete, they risk having good feelings as the meeting's main legacy. (Although some things are already happening through new relationships.)
On the other hand, organizers know that creating a new super-convention is not the answer. But what is?
Are there steps Covenant Baptists can take that avoid the extremes of doing nothing and creating a formal union? I think so.
First we need to express appreciation to all those who organized, led and funded this experience. It was a massive success.
With all the normal work faced by a new university president, it is amazing that Bill Underwood would give so much of his time and the university's resources to making this thing happen.
So with a tip of the hat to those who invested so deeply in this endeavor, let me suggest a few things (based on feedback I have heard since the conclusion of the Celebration) that might keep the movement going without institutionalizing it too much.
1. Covenant Baptists need a communication point. As much as I hate to ask Mercer to do anything else, the office on the university's Atlanta campus seems to be a good place for this.
However, it would need to be a loose, widely supported effort to help the various participating groups to connect with one another. Not a new organization, but a communication point for existing Baptist groups that want to cooperate with one another around the issues raised at the meeting.
2. Continue finding ways, as individuals and groups,to keep the challenge of Luke 4 before Baptists. Commitments to tackling hunger, poverty, injustice and other forms of suffering can not be narrowed to specific legislation without losing a lot of people.
There needs to a strong commitment to the issue while allowing for various political solutions to arise.
3. Plan another gathering down the road. Maybe three or four or five years from now. There is no substitute for shared worship and face-to-face conversations. Relationships cannot be forced. But as David Goatley, president of the North American Baptist Fellowship, has said, organizers can create the "place" and "space" for new relationships to flourish.
But I think waiting a couple of weeks before mentioning the idea of another gathering to exhausted organizers might be wise.
Any other practical ideas or responses to these?

After the Celebration: Now what?

In the closing address of the Celebration of a New Baptist Covenant last night, former President Bill Clinton was gracious, biblically-astute, politically nonpartisan, insightful, personal — and a bit off topic.
He rightly called his fellow Baptists to relate in loving ways, even to those who are critical. He correctly described the different (and often divisive) ways persons of faith can view biblical authority and interpretation.
However, his focus was almost exclusively on the division in the Southern Baptist Convention over the last quarter-century between fundamentalists and moderates that led to the formation of new, more inclusive Baptist ways of belonging.
Not only have many recovering Southern Baptists, affiliated with groups like the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, the Alliance of Baptists, the Baptist General Association of Virginia and/or the Baptist General Convention of Texas, already moved on — but many others in attendance at the Celebration have had no previous SBC ties.
They are happily involved with other denominational groups such as the American Baptist Churches, USA, (whose breakup with Southern Baptists occurred more than 160 years ago over slavery) and/or various historically black National Baptist groups.
An effort to cross racial divides and build respectful relationships was a major aspect of and attraction to the New Baptist Covenant.
The Celebration was a step forward to new relationships, not a backward step to ones that painfully failed.
The purpose of the New Baptist Covenant was/is not about the impossible task of reconciling alienated former Southern Baptists with those who know not reconciliation, only dominance.
(In fact, the very week of the Celebration, one agency board of the non-participating SBC pushed out a trustee over the "crime" of dissenting opinion from the majority.)
Despite the repeated questioning of reporters and the attention given to the subject in Pres. Clinton's address, the historic gathering was not about the SBC at all.
The larger conglomeration of "other Baptists" of varied hues and histories came together in Atlanta to build new, hopeful relationships based on mutual trust and respect, not to revisit old ones severed by suspicion and condemnation.
The New Baptist Covenant is about a promising future of inclusion and cooperation.
While certainly imperfect and without a completely cohesive message, the Celebration was enriching and inspiring in so many ways.
Worship was uplifting, abundant and varied in style. Many wonderful gifts and talents were shared.
In special interest sessions, Baptists with similar concerns — yet often previously unacquainted — tackled some of the most challenging issues facing churches and communities today.
Now here on the morning after, when the Georgia World Congress Center is vacated by Baptists, the dominant question remains: What does this gathering mean for the future?
The answer will not come immediately, but over time.
But most importantly, we must realize that the "celebrity Baptists" got us talking, got us to town and got us to listen. However, the potentially deep impact of the New Baptist Covenant does not rest with those who stood behind the podium this week.
The significance will be defined and determined by the growing relationships and cooperative ministry efforts that occur outside the glaring spotlight of an Atlanta stage.

(Photo by Billy Howard)

Grisham one of us

Many of us, who identify ourselves as moderate Baptists of Southern Baptist heritage, felt a kinship with novelist John Grisham who spoke last night at the Celebration of a New Baptist Covenant.
Unlike many politicians and other guest speakers at various Baptist functions, Grisham clearly speaks our language and shares our common journey.
Except for the fact he has some 225 million books in print and the related fame, Grisham is one of us.
He told of being raised and nurtured in a Southern Baptist church in Mississippi. He is grateful for the good gifts of that upbringing.
However, he noted that the church of his childhood affirmed a strong commitment to biblical literalism that was used to justify racial and gender exclusion.
Today he has found a new home in a Cooperative Baptist Fellowship-related congregation that is open to racial and gender equality.
As a result of past Baptist blind spots, however, he (and we) are cautious. We can't assume we see clearly now rather than through some degree of dark glass.
Our rigidity, our dogmatism, has not served us well in the past. Therefore, we will strongly affirm our faith in Christ and seek to follow him and his teachings. But we will not put every doctrinal point or social position in concrete.
And we will not equate the narrow creedal conclusions of some other Baptists with indisputable divine revelation.
Grisham said he sometimes gets frustrated and defensive when trying to explain that he is Baptist, yet does not embrace the exclusive and judgmental attitudes that often define Baptists.
Many, like myself, can relate to this rarely-told personal story from a great storyteller. He is one of us. That is good to know.