The original issue can be found at: http://www.baptistpress.com/issue-04/23/2009 DISCLAIMER: Baptist Press should be credited for any reprinted stories that originate with BP. Suggested credit line: Reprinted from Baptist Press (www.baptistpress.com), news service of the Southern Baptist Convention. Please note that Baptist Press periodically carries stories from other sources by permission. Individuals interested in reprinting non-BP stories should contact the entity where the story originated to seek reprint permission. -------------------------------------------------------------------- SBC missions giving rises; baptisms fall by Rob Phillips Date: April 23, 2009 - Thursday NASHVILLE, Tenn. (BP)--Southern Baptists gave 2.3 percent more to missions last year despite the economic downturn, but they lost members and baptized the fewest number of people since 1987, according to the denomination's Annual Church Profile, the yearly statistical report compiled by LifeWay Christian Resources in conjunction with 42 Baptist state conventions. Total giving to missions reached $1.36 billion in 2008. Through the denomination's Cooperative Program and special mission offerings, local churches voluntarily pool funds to support mission efforts in their states, throughout the nation and around the world. For example, Southern Baptists support more than 10,500 missionaries who engage nearly 1,200 people groups throughout North America and around the world. In addition, Cooperative Program funds support six seminaries, the International Mission Board, North American Mission Board and other SBC entities, with the exception of LifeWay and GuideStone Financial Resources, which are self-funding. At the state level, Cooperative Program funds support a variety of ministries, such as children's homes, disaster relief efforts, colleges and universities. The uptick in giving during a time of economic stress speaks well of Southern Baptists, said Thom S. Rainer, president and CEO of LifeWay. "Southern Baptists are among the most generous and mission-minded people in the world," Rainer said. "They will give even when they're hurting so the spiritual and physical needs of others are met." Offsetting the rise in giving, along with a slight increase in the total number of SBC churches and primary worship attendance, was the fourth consecutive year of decline in baptisms. Southern Baptists recorded 342,198 baptisms in 2008, a drop of 1.1 percent from the previous year. "The numbers simply tell us that Southern Baptists are not reaching as many people for Christ as they once did," Rainer said. "It still takes 47 Southern Baptists to baptize one person for Christ. I pray that all of our churches and our entities will become totally focused on obeying Christ's commission so that our convention will truly experience a Great Commission resurgence." The number of baptisms is regarded as a key measurement of the Southern Baptist Convention's overall effectiveness in evangelism. Baptism is a public act administered by the local church in which new followers of Christ are immersed in water. Baptism symbolizes believers' identification with Jesus in His death, burial and resurrection, signifies their new life in Christ and anticipates the day in which Christ will raise them from the dead, demonstrating His victory over sin and death. Total SBC membership fell by 38,482, or 0.2 percent last year, to 16,228,438. Sunday school enrollment dropped 123,817, or 1.6 percent, to 7,752,794. The total number of churches increased by 152 to 44,848, for a .34 percent gain. Primary worship attendance rose 35,449 to 6,184,317, an increase of .58 percent. Rainer pointed out that numeric/percent changes for certain categories could not be accurately figured for the 2008 compilation. Some state conventions did not ask for certain items to be reported, or asked in a way that yielded results not comparable to totals reported in 2007. Those categories and their 2008 totals include: -- Discipleship training enrollment: 1,798,330 -- Total tithes, offerings and special gifts: $11.1 billion -- Music ministry enrollment / participation: 1,416,694 -- WMU enrollment: 795,379 -- Men / boys mission education enrollment: 403,575 --30-- Rob Phillips is director of communications for LifeWay Christian Resources. For a statistical summary, click here. For a look at the statistics by state, click here. -------------------------------------------------------------------- Land: Plan B decision violates parent-child relationship by Tom Strode Date: April 23, 2009 - Thursday WASHINGTON (BP)--The federal government will not challenge a judge's controversial ruling on the Plan B "morning-after" pill, meaning 17-year-old females will be able to obtain a drug with abortion-causing qualities without a prescription. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced its decision in a brief statement April 22. The FDA notified Plan B's manufacturer, Duramed Research Inc., it could market the drug on a non-prescription basis to 17-year-olds upon the agency's approval of a request from the Pennsylvania firm. The agency's decision barely met the 30-day deadline set March 23 by New York judge Edward Korman. Before Korman's ruling, Plan B was available without a prescription for use by women 18 and older. Females 17 and under needed a prescription, a requirement for women of all ages until a rule change in 2006. Plan B is basically a heavier dose of birth control pills. Under the regimen, a woman takes two pills within 72 hours of sexual intercourse and another dose 12 hours later. The drug, also known as "emergency contraception," works to restrict ovulation in a woman. It also can act after conception, thereby causing an abortion, pro-lifers point out. This mechanism of the drug blocks implantation of a tiny embryo in the uterine wall. Southern Baptist ethics leader Richard Land decried the Food and Drug Administration's decision, saying it is "shameful that the Obama administration is not going to appeal this terrible decision" by Korman. "The judge's ruling that 17-year-old girls can now get Plan B, post-intercourse contraceptives without a prescription from their doctor is one more example of the government thinking that it has the right to interpose itself between parents and their children," said Land, president of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission. "It also shows the senseless double standard with which the law addresses the abortion issue. In most schools, a 17-year-old girl can't get an aspirin from the school nurse without parental permission, but she can buy an abortifacient drug over the counter without a prescription or without parental notification to kill her potential child. "The whole episode is shameful and dangerous," Land said. "Perhaps the most frightening thing about this whole episode is that the Obama administration doesn't seem to understand that." Wendy Wright, president of Concerned Women for America, said the Food and Drug Administration's refusal to appeal was "driven by politics, not what is good for patients or minors. Parents should be furious at the FDA's complete disregard for parental rights and the safety of minors." "Pregnancy counselors report that women are relying on Plan B as a regular form of birth control because it is easy to get," she said. "They are not aware that it is less effective than other methods of birth control and that it has not been tested to determine the effects of using it multiple times." The FDA did not comment in its latest statement on another part of Korman's opinion in which he opened the door to pre-teens having access to Plan B. He directed the agency to decide "whether to approve Plan B for over-the-counter status without age or point-of-sale restrictions." The Food and Drug Administration has the expertise to determine whether Plan B "may be used safely without a prescription by children as young as 11 or 12," Korman wrote in his 52-page opinion. The FDA policy on Plan B presents the confusing situation of a prescription being required for birth control pills but not for stronger doses of the same drug. In August 2005, the FDA postponed a decision on the request to sell Plan B over the counter before approving it with the 18-year-old age limit a year later. In May 2004, the agency had rejected an appeal for over-the-counter sales, citing a lack of evidence about the pill's effect on girls 16 and younger. The Food and Drug Administration gave the applicant an option of reapplying for over-the-counter sales for females 16 and older and prescription sales for girls 15 and younger. The agency did not act in "good faith" in its consideration of the request, Korman wrote in his opinion. President Reagan nominated Korman to the federal bench in 1985. FDA staff and officials agreed 17-year-olds could use the drug safely without a doctor's order, according to the record, Korman wrote. He therefore struck down the ban on non-prescription sales to 17-year-olds. In its April 22 statement, the Food and Drug Administration said lowering the non-prescription age limit to 17 was in line with research results from its drug evaluation arm. The FDA approved Plan B for sale by prescription in 1999. It had approved Preven, another "morning-after" pill, in 1998. Preven is no longer on the market, according to the agency. --30-- Tom Strode is Baptist Press Washington bureau chief. -------------------------------------------------------------------- MARRIAGE NEWS: Religious objectors in Iowa should be protected, groups say by Michael Foust Date: April 23, 2009 - Thursday To read how "gay marriage" impacts parental rights and religious freedom click here DES MOINES, Iowa (BP)--A prominent Christian legal group is warning that religious liberties will be threatened next week when the Iowa high court's "gay marriage" ruling goes into effect, directly impacting the job requirements of county officials who are required to issue marriage licenses. The Alliance Defense Fund, a legal organization, and the Iowa Family Policy Center released a letter Wednesday urging each of the state's 99 county recorders to adopt a policy allowing employees to opt out of issuing a marriage license if doing do so would violate their religious or moral beliefs. Such a policy could lead to legal action from Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller, a Democrat who supports the high court's ruling and who has said county recorders have a duty to abide by it. The Alliance Defense Fund, though, has promised to provide free legal representation to any recorder who is sued after adopting such a policy. ADF and the Iowa Family Policy Center released specific policy language they hope recorders adopt. The court's ruling is expected to take effect Monday. "It is a matter of religious freedom, and no one should be compelled to do anything that is offensive to their basic fundamental beliefs," Alliance Defense Fund attorney Doug Napier told Baptist Press. "To force county recorders to issue same-sex marriage licenses against their religious beliefs would be contrary to the constitution. … We know there are a number of county recorders that are very troubled by the Supreme Court's decision and personally are opposed to same-sex marriage." The court's ruling already has led to one official -- Third District Magistrate Francis Honrath -- to stop conducting marriage ceremonies altogether, the Des Moines Register reported. But Honrath, who is Catholic, is not a county recorder, and as a magistrate he has such an option. County recorders do not. Miller issued a statement Tuesday saying that "we expect duly-elected county recorders to comply with" the state constitution "as interpreted unanimously by the Iowa Supreme Court." "If necessary," he said, "we will explore legal actions to enforce and implement the Court’s ruling, working with the Iowa Dept. of Public Health and county attorneys." The Alliance Defense Fund and the Iowa Family Policy Center say the state has a history of protecting individual conscience rights, as evidenced by Iowa Code 146.1, which protects an "individual's religious beliefs or moral convictions" and prohibits doctors from being forced to perform abortions. "The policy is needed because the attorney general is giving bad advice to county recorders, saying that they have no option but to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples," Napier said. "Yet, they do have a right of conscience which he doesn't mention in his statement, and we wanted them to be aware that they have this right of conscience, that their employees have this right of conscience and it's protected under the constitution. And they should respect and honor that and take advantage of it themselves if they want to." ADF released a 93-word policy it said it would defend in court if a count recorder adopted it. It says, in part, "An individual who may lawfully perform services for or provide services to" the county recorder's office "shall not be required to issue or process a marriage license, or to perform, assist, or participate in such procedures, against that individual's religious beliefs or moral convictions." Napier said the policy would not, as critics charge, open the door to allowing employees to not issue marriage licenses to interracial couples. "Those kinds of red herrings have been brought up repeatedly," he said. "… The Thirteenth Amendment is in place and the Fourteenth Amendment is in place, and there's other laws that govern those issues." The controversy is but the latest salvo in what another pro-family organization, the National Organization for Marriage, has warned will happen when "gay marriage" is legalized. The organization launched a $1.5 million ad campaign in early April warning about the consequences to parental rights and religious liberty if marriage is redefined. Among the ad's examples was the true story of two Massachusetts parents whose second-grade son was read a book at school about a prince "marrying" another prince. The parents complained, but the school informed the couple they would not be given advance note in the future about any such books. The parents sued the school in federal court but lost. "Gay marriage" is legal in Massachusetts. --30-- Michael Foust is an assistant editor of Baptist Press. -------------------------------------------------------------------- MARRIAGE NEWS: Marriage gets N.H. win by Michael Foust Date: April 23, 2009 - Thursday To read how "gay marriage" impacts parental rights and religious freedom click here CONCORD, N.H. (BP)--Pro-family leaders in New Hampshire got a boost Tuesday when an opponent of a "gay marriage" bill won a special election for a state Senate seat. Republican Jeb Bradley, a former member of Congress, defeated Democrat Bud Martin for the 3rd district seat, 61-39 percent. Bradley opposes "gay marriage" while Martin supports it. Democrats still hold a 14-10 edge in the Senate, but Bradley's vote nevertheless could be critical, particularly since an unknown number of Senate Democrats are not enthusiastic about the bill, which passed in the state House 186-179. New Hampshire Democratic Gov. John Lynch says he opposes "gay marriage" but has not taken a position on the bill. The seat was vacated when the previous senator, a Republican, resigned in February. The Human Rights Campaign, the largest homosexual activist group in the nation, worked on the ground to try and elect Martin. The National Organization for Marriage countered by assisting Cornerstone Action PAC, a New Hampshire pro-family group, in helping citizens know where each candidate stood on the issue. --30-- Michael Foust is an assistant editor of Baptist Press. -------------------------------------------------------------------- TRUSTEES: Mohler comments on secularization, Islam, Southern Baptist Conv. by Jeff Robinson & David Roach Date: April 23, 2009 - Thursday EDITOR'S NOTE: This story follows an initial Baptist Press report April 22 on the trustee meeting at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. LOUISVILLE, Ky. (BP)--Students preparing for ministry at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary will face three major issues in the next 10-15 years, SBTS President R. Albert Mohler Jr. told trustees during their April 21 meeting at the Louisville, Ky., campus. The issues: an increasingly secularized American culture, Islam and a generational shift in the Southern Baptist Convention. Mohler said his first concern is the loss of a Judeo-Christian worldview and the embrace of secularism in the American culture, even in the Bible Belt where, until recently, churches have ministered in a region deeply influenced by Christianity. Every region of America, however, is rapidly becoming like Europe, Mohler said, which went from maintaining vestiges of its Christian heritage through the 1940s to rejecting the faith by the 1960s. "We are going to discover that cultural Christianity is what eventually disappears in a secularized age," Mohler said. "Cultural Christianity has been so much a part of the environment of our ministry and of the expectation of our churches that it's going to be a very different situation for the pastor of the First Baptist Church to worry about being arrested rather than to worry about whether he's going to get the first seat in the restaurant.... "[W]hen you start looking at a lot of the logic of what is becoming endemic in the culture toward the future, we're going to be in a very different situation than we've ever faced before," Mohler said. "And we're going to discover that we are not as many as we thought we were." Mohler cited two recent studies that have shown that the number of people in America who claim to be Christians has decreased dramatically over the past few years. Soon, only vestiges of Christianity may remain in America, he said. "We've got to prepare students to be ready for that and to be able to lead churches to be able to understand what it means to be the church when we no longer have the cultural supports that we had counted on, wrongly, I think, all these years," he said. A second concern Mohler voiced is the rise of Islam as a global religion. Recently, a United Nations human rights council passed a resolution condemning the defamation of religions, protecting Islam in particular. This development should disturb Christians, Mohler said, because it could hinder Gospel engagement of Muslims by Christian pastors, evangelists and missionaries. "Islam considers it a matter of every Muslim's responsibility to protect the honor of Islam," Mohler said. "Let me point out that we serve a Christ who was scorned and rejected of men. We are never called upon to defend the honor of the Gospel. We are called upon to defend the Gospel. God will defend His own honor. "We are not to call upon the state, and we are certainly not to call upon the United Nations, to criminalize assaults upon Christianity, because what we are really looking at in this defamation language is an end to evangelism and an end to missions. "Realize that we will be sending out students into a world where Islam is going to become a definitional issue for most of them either because they are going to be in Muslim-dominated lands or because they are going to be in lands of Muslim influence such as Europe or they are going to be in a world that is being reshaped to Muslim sensitivities." The third concern facing the seminary is the growing generational divide within the Southern Baptist Convention, Mohler said. With much of the convention's leadership growing older, the SBC faces a shift toward younger leadership in the coming years, he said Southern must train its students to graciously bridge the divide. "We are increasingly becoming generationally divided in such a way that the generations are not even talking to each other," Mohler said. "We're in a strategically dangerous moment here and Southern Seminary needs to be the place, a happy, healthy place, where we do not allow that to happen. "We have got to avoid a hardening of the wrong attitudes and a hardening of the wrong issues because we cannot afford to go off in different directions, generationally defined, in this denomination. That's a recipe for disaster." Also during the trustee meeting, the seminary's new Sesquicentennial Pavilion was opened with a ribbon-cutting ceremony. The seminary will hold a dedication ceremony for the pavilion during the SBC's June 23-24 annual meeting in Louisville in June. A marker of Southern's 150th anniversary, the pavilion serves as a welcome center to the campus and houses the admissions and security offices. The new building took approximately eight months to complete. "With this building we are making a statement that 150 years after Southern Seminary was established we have more to do, not less," Mohler said during the ribbon-cutting ceremony. "We have a greater challenge, not a lesser challenge. We have a glorious challenge.... This is a statement about the seriousness with which Southern Seminary takes this task and about the permanence that we believe the Lord has invested in us -- not in an institution, but in the unchanging, eternal truths upon which this institution is established." Mohler placed a time capsule behind a stone encasement. The capsule is scheduled to be opened in 2059 on the seminary's 200th birthday. Among the items in the capsule are seminary publications, a campus directory, an academic catalog and a letter from Mohler to the seminary president 50 years from now. Mohler said his letter contains an admonition to keep the seminary faithful to biblical truth. "What I basically did was write in such a way that if this institution isn't theologically where it needs to be whenever that thing is opened, they're going to know it," Mohler said. "It's going to be the most embarrassing letter ever read if indeed this institution is not preserved in that way. That is our prayer -- that it will be." Describing the new building as a reminder of God's blessings on the seminary and His faithfulness to provide for the training of ministers, Mohler said, "In a day in which many people say that an institution that stands for what this institution stands for would not survive, look how the Lord has blessed us beyond anything we could imagine." In other business, trustees: -- approved the creation of the new School of Church Ministries (see April 22 BP article). -- extended tenure to two professors: Brian Vickers, associate professor of New Testament interpretation, and Carl Stam, associate professor of church music and worship. -- promoted six professors: Gregg Allison to professor of Christian theology; T.J. Betts to associate professor of Old Testament interpretation; Timothy Paul Jones to associate professor of leadership and church ministry; Barry Joslin to associate professor of Christian theology; Russell D. Moore to professor of Christian theology and ethics; and Shawn Wright to associate professor of church history. -- installed Eric Johnson as the Lawrence and Charlotte Hoover Professor of Pastoral Care. -- approved the formation of an Academy of Sacred Music to serve as a think tank for the conservation of Christian hymnody and music. The academy will sponsor lectures, performances, recitals, symposia and other initiatives under a director appointed by the president. -- voted to change the name of the Billy Graham School of Missions, Evangelism and Church Growth to the Billy Graham School of Missions and Evangelism, dropping the term "church growth" because the term is dated. --30-- Jeff Robinson is director of news and information at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and David Roach is a writer for the seminary. -------------------------------------------------------------------- Mo. Baptists to vote on litigation funding by Staff Date: April 23, 2009 - Thursday JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (BP)--Messengers to the Missouri Baptist Convention's annual meeting in October will vote on a recommendation from the convention's executive board to spend Cooperative Program dollars to fund future litigation against five breakaway entities. The executive board unanimously approved a line item of $468,957 for legal fees in a proposed $15.75 million 2010 budget during its April 14 meeting in Jefferson City. "CP dollars purchased, built, established and maintained these five institutions," MBC Executive Director David Tolliver said. "In the fall, messengers will decide whether or not CP dollars will be used to recover the agencies." The executive board's action came just days after erroneous reports claimed that it had broken a promise to the convention by using CP money to fund the legal battle to retrieve Windermere Baptist Conference Center, Word & Way newsjournal, The Baptist Home retirement center, the Missouri Baptist Foundation and Missouri Baptist College. Messengers to the 2001 annual meeting overwhelmingly voted to direct the executive board to take all steps necessary to recover the entities. The original motion has been enthusiastically affirmed by messengers at annual meetings since. It contains no prohibition against using CP money. "I believe that the five agencies whose trustees voted to break away from our convention are Missouri Baptist Convention Cooperative Program ministries," said Randy Comer, chairman of the MBC's Agency Restoration Group and pastor of Highview Baptist Church in Chillicothe. "For the past 40 years, I have given financial support to the MBC's ministries through the Cooperative Program. We should use CP money to restore these ministries that we have supported through the years if we believe that they were and are MBC Cooperative Program ministries. I believe that they are and we should," Comer said. MBC leaders note that CP funds have always been used for a variety of purposes besides missions, ranging from buying light bulbs and brooms to purchasing telephones and computers. They also point out that this is not the first time CP money has been used to pay legal fees. CP money has paid for legal representation for Southwest Baptist University on at least four occasions. In Georgia, all funds spent by the state convention for legal fees for reclaiming a breakaway college were approved by the convention. In Tennessee, the state convention approved a line item in their budget for legal costs involving a college’s decision to no longer appoint convention-approved trustees. "When we get to the salient points of why and what we are doing, folks will get behind this, because it is a righteous cause," said Bruce McCoy, MBC president and executive board chairman and pastor of Canaan Baptist Church in St. Louis. The amount of CP money Missouri Baptists have poured into Windermere between 1971-2001, for example, was more than $2.5 million, according to Jay Hughes, MBC associate executive director. He said Missouri Baptists have invested about $24.6 million in all five breakaway entities during the same period. "We now have a responsibility as board members to help get the message out to the folks," McCoy said after the executive board vote. Tolliver said he also will help educate Missouri Baptists on the matter. He is about to embark on several "listening sessions" at various locations throughout the state in an effort to inform messengers and hear their views. Dates for the sessions will be announced soon. In a related action, the executive board also unanimously voted to encumber $500,000 from convention reserves as collateral for obtaining an additional $500,000 line of credit from a Jefferson City bank largely for the purpose of repaying a bridge loan of $346,000 incurred this past year in the legal battle. --30-- Reported by The Pathway, newsjournal of the Missouri Baptist Convention. -------------------------------------------------------------------- FIRST-PERSON: No truth without love, no love without truth by R. Albert Mohler Jr. Date: April 23, 2009 - Thursday LOUISVILLE, Ky. (BP)--The church's engagement with the culture involves a host of issues, controversies and decisions -- but no issue defines our current cultural crisis as clearly as homosexuality. Some churches and denominations have capitulated to the demands of the homosexual rights movement and now accept homosexuality as a fully valid lifestyle. Other denominations are teetering on the brink, and without a massive conservative resistance, they are almost certain to abandon biblical truth and bless what the Bible condemns. Within a few short years, a major dividing line has become evident -- with those churches endorsing homosexuality on one side, and those stubbornly resisting the cultural tide on the other. The homosexual rights movement understands that the evangelical church is one of the last resistance movements committed to a biblical morality. Because of this, the movement has adopted a strategy of isolating Christian opposition, and forcing change by political action and cultural pressure. Can we count on evangelicals to remain steadfastly biblical on this issue? Hardly. Scientific surveys and informal observation reveal that we have experienced a significant loss of conviction among youth and young adults. No moral revolution can succeed without shaping and changing the minds of young people and children. Inevitably, the schools have become crucial battlegrounds for the culture war. The Christian worldview has been undermined by pervasive curricula that teach moral relativism, reduce moral commandments to personal values, and promote homosexuality as a legitimate and attractive lifestyle option. Our churches must teach the basics of biblical morality to Christians who will otherwise never know that the Bible prescribes a model for sexual relationships. Young people must be told the truth about homosexuality -- and taught to esteem marriage as God's intention for human sexual relatedness. The times demand Christian courage. These days, courage means that preachers and Christian leaders must set an agenda for biblical confrontation, and not shrink from dealing with the full range of issues related to homosexuality. We must talk about what the Bible teaches about gender and what it means to be a man or a woman. We must talk about God's gift of sex and the covenant of marriage. And we must talk honestly about what homosexuality is, and why God has condemned this sin as an abomination in His sight. Courage is far too rare in many Christian circles. This explains the surrender of so many denominations, seminaries and churches to the homosexual agenda. But no surrender on this issue would have been possible, if the authority of Scripture had not already been undermined. And yet, even as courage is required, the times call for another Christian virtue as well: compassion. The tragic fact is that every congregation is almost certain to include persons struggling with homosexual desire or even involved in homosexual acts. Outside the walls of the church, homosexuals are waiting to see if the Christian church has anything more to say, after we declare that homosexuality is a sin. Liberal churches have redefined compassion to mean that the church changes its message to meet modern demands. They argue that to tell a homosexual he is a sinner is uncompassionate and intolerant. This is like arguing that a physician is intolerant because he tells a patient she has cancer. But, in the culture of political correctness, this argument holds a powerful attraction. Biblical Christians know that compassion requires telling the truth, and refusing to call sin something sinless. To hide or deny the sinfulness of sin is to lie, and there is no compassion in such a deadly deception. True compassion demands speaking the truth in love -- and there is the problem. Far too often, our courage is more evident than our compassion. In far too many cases, the options seem reduced to these: liberal churches preaching love without truth, and conservative churches preaching truth without love. Evangelical Christians must ask ourselves some very hard questions, but the hardest may be this: Why is it that we have been so ineffective in reaching persons trapped in this particular pattern of sin? The Gospel is for sinners, and for homosexual sinners just as much as for heterosexual sinners. As Paul explained to the Corinthian church, "Such were some of you; but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God" (1 Corinthians 6:11). I believe that we are failing the test of compassion. If the first requirement of compassion is that we tell the truth, the second requirement must surely be that we reach out to homosexuals with the Gospel. This means that we must develop caring ministries to make that concern concrete, and learn how to help homosexuals escape the powerful bonds of that sin -- even as we help others to escape their own bonds by grace. If we are really a Gospel people, if we really love homosexuals as other sinners, then we must reach out to them with a sincerity that makes that love tangible. We have not even approached that requirement until we are ready to say to homosexuals, "We want you to know the fullness of God's plan for you, to know the forgiveness of sins and the mercy of God, to receive the salvation that comes by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, to know the healing God works in sinners saved by grace, and to join us as fellow disciples of Jesus Christ, living out our obedience and growing in grace together." "Such were some of you." The church is not a place where sinners are welcomed to remain in their sin. To the contrary, it is the Body of Christ, made up of sinners transformed by grace. Not one of us deserves to be accepted within the beloved. It is all of grace, and each one of us has come out of sin. We sin if we call homosexuality something other than sin. We also sin if we act as if this sin cannot be forgiven. We cannot settle for truth without love nor love without truth. The Gospel settles the issue once and for all. This great moral crisis is a Gospel crisis. The genuine Body of Christ will reveal itself by courageous compassion, and compassionate courage. We will see this realized only when men and women freed by God's grace from bondage to homosexuality feel free to stand up in our churches and declare their testimony -- and when we are ready to welcome them as fellow disciples. Millions of hurting people are waiting to see if we mean what we preach. --30-- R. Albert Mohler Jr. is president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky. This column first appeared at AlbertMohler.com. -------------------------------------------------------------------- FIRST-PERSON: Hate the spin, love the spinner by Wes Kenney Date: April 23, 2009 - Thursday VALLIANT, Okla. (BP)--When I was in college at John Brown University in the early 1990's, I loved playing foosball. I played every day, at all hours. It's possible that, had I not loved it so much, I might not now be working my way through Liberty University's distance learning program, but I digress. I was never a great player, mainly because I was never able to generate enough power without spinning the handle, and spinning, in real competitive foosball, is strictly verboten. There was even a catchy saying in the foosball community at this private Christian college: "Hate the spin, but love the spinner." It is much easier to slam the ball into the back of the goal when you spin, but the truly talented players can fire unbelievably powerful shots just by the action of their wrists. They don't need to spin in order to be effective. On April 20, USA Today published an essay by Jonathan Merritt. Merritt, 26, is a recent graduate of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, and according to the footnote of his essay, he works as a faith and culture writer. The article is titled "An Evangelical's Plea: 'Love the Sinner'," and it is a call for Christians to reach out in love to the gays and lesbians around us, and to do so in tangible ways. This is a worthy point to make, and a call that all of us who name the name of Christ ought to heed. But in making the point, Merritt makes use of quite a lot of rhetorical "spin," enough to make me want to dust off that old catch phrase I learned around the foosball tables at JBU. Some of this "spin" can be found in his opening paragraphs, where he provides examples of quotes that he has mined from the internet in an attempt to demonstrate that evangelicals prefer to display their hatred for sin. To characterize the late Dr. D. James Kennedy as a "fundamentalist televangelist" can only serve to inflame and prejudice USA Today readers, who may be unfamiliar with his life and ministry, against anything he might have said. Some of the statements he quotes are indefensible, but some, given their proper context, might be entirely appropriate. His quote-mining "spin" can only serve to confuse the issue and it paints with too broad a brush. Another example of "spin" being employed by Mr. Merritt is in his use of statistics. He cites a Barna Research Group study which found that 80 percent of non-Christians ages 16-29 describe Christians as "confusing" on this issue. He then suggests that this is perhaps because "many recognize the difference between the life of Jesus Christ and the lives of those who claim to follow him." This is quite a leap, and I can't imagine what it is intended to suggest, if not that we ought to look to the opinions of the young non-Christians around us rather than to the scriptures when evaluating our degree of faithfulness to Christ. But perhaps most disturbing in Merritt's essay is his seeming willingness to compromise biblical definitions of sin and salvation. In discussing the marriage debate, he rightly states, "our biblical convictions prohibit a redefinition of marriage." But he then goes on to suggest "other areas" where we might be able to compromise, such as offering support for anti-discrimination measures in the workplace and in reducing legal impediments to inheritance and hospital visitation rights for same-sex couples. Let me be clear: I do not believe that it is a sin to be tempted by homosexual desires. I am convinced, however, because the Bible is very clear, that homosexual behavior is sinful. I will leave to others the debate over whether it is a chosen lifestyle or an inborn reality. That debate makes not one bit of difference to me. What scripture condemns is homosexual behavior. It sounds very compassionate to advocate for these rights; it might even make one feel as if they are "showing love" to gays and lesbians in a way that is "concrete and tangible." But what it is, in fact, is simply more terribly naïve "spin." The person who is enslaved to the sin of homosexuality does not need Christians to express love to them by making their sin easier to commit. Rather, they need Christians who will love them enough to come alongside them and show them their desperate need for a relationship with the One who can forgive them and restore them to a right relationship with their Creator. I am convinced, however, that Mr. Merritt's most egregious spin is contained in a paragraph in which he discusses marriage. It contains concepts that are, I believe, harmful to the Gospel itself. Merritt states: "God's model is a lifelong, monogamous, heterosexual union, but we must balance this message with the scriptural understanding that we are all sinners. Individuals who have decided to follow Christ have not ceased to be sinners; we are simply sinners who have taken advantage of God's gracious gift of salvation." This paragraph only tells part of the Gospel story, and the part it leaves out is absolutely essential to this discussion. In John's first epistle, he writes, "No one born of God makes a practice of sinning, for God's seed abides in him, and he cannot keep on sinning because he has been born of God" (1 John 3:9). Merritt's presentation of "God's gracious gift of salvation" in the paragraph quoted above makes it sound as though a sinner can hold to Christ while simultaneously holding to a habitual sin. This is not only false, but it is dangerously misleading, and offers false hope to those who wish to believe that their anti-biblical lifestyle can somehow be compatible with saving faith. God's Word is clear: It cannot. Mr. Merritt has many good points to make. And I have no doubt he possesses the necessary intellect and skill with the language in order to be effective in making them. In this essay, however, it seems that he has relied more upon spin, a spin with potentially dangerous consequences. Yes, I believe the phrase I learned during my misspent youth in Northwest Arkansas applies here. As Jonathan Merritt is my brother in Christ, I love the "spinner" who wrote this article. I'm just not terribly fond of his "spin." --30-- Wes Kenney is pastor of Trinity Baptist Church in Valliant, Okla. To read the Jonathan Merritt post on USA Today's blog, visit http://blogs.usatoday.com/oped/2009/04/an-evangelicals-plea-love-the-sinner.html. Jonathan Merritt is director of college and singles at Cross Pointe Church in Duluth, Ga. -------------------------------------------------------------------- WORLDVIEW: Outlaws at sea, chaos ashore by Erich Bridges Date: April 23, 2009 - Thursday Editor's note: "WorldView Conversation," the blog related to this column, can be found here . An audio version of this column is available here . RICHMOND, Va. (BP)--Those pirates tormenting ships off the coast of Somalia are no isolated band of cutthroats on an otherwise placid horizon. They represent what author William Langewiesche calls the "outlaw sea" -- global coastlines and deep waters increasingly plagued by buccaneers, hijackers, drug runners, smugglers and terrorists. In his 2004 book of the same name ("The Outlaw Sea: A World of Freedom, Chaos, and Crime," North Point Press), Langewiesche explored the vast expanses of blue. It's a place where hundreds of pirate attacks occur each year from Southeast Asia to the Caribbean, where thousands of unsafe, unregulated merchant ships sail the globe under so-called "flags of convenience" to mask their origins and owners. This region beyond nations, which covers three-quarters of the earth's surface, is a "reminder of the world as it was before, but also quite possibly ... a harbinger of a larger chaos to come," Langewiesche observed. What "larger chaos"? The Somali pirates reflect what's happening on dry land: "Failed states" continue to threaten not only their own people but the peoples and nations around them. Somalia is the poster child for "failed states." It fragmented more than 20 years ago amid clan wars. No stable national government exists. The chaos has sent throngs of refugees fleeing into other countries, subjected those who stayed behind to terrible suffering at the hands of thugs and warlords -- and attracted foreign terrorists looking for bases of operation. There are worse things than bad government. Anarchy, for instance. Ask the Somalis. Ask the people who endure seemingly endless violence in parts of Afghanistan, Pakistan and other places. Nuclear-armed Pakistan, in particular, teeters on the edge of instability as radical Islamists wield expanding influence. Its neighbor and longtime enemy, India, watches with growing alarm. "As much as India fears Pakistan, it fears Pakistan's collapse even more," reports Robert D. Kaplan in The Atlantic magazine. "The threat of Islamic anarchy in the region is perfectly suited to the further consolidation of Hindu nationalism." Hindu nationalism, in turn, increases extremism and violence against millions of Muslims and Christians in India. Everything is connected in a globalized, essentially borderless world. The current global economic crisis proves that proposition beyond reasonable doubt. That's why Christians in safe, quiet places should be concerned about "failed states" and chaotic areas within states. Not only do they destabilize whole regions and cause massive human suffering, they directly affect the church and the transmission of the Gospel. Many unreached and unevangelized people live within unstable nations and regions. Reaching them with the message of God's love becomes all the more difficult where chaos reigns. Missionaries who set out to work in such places often never reach their destination because of risks and barriers. If they do get there, they may find themselves targeted as easy prey. Or, they may be unable to minister effectively because of ongoing danger and disorder. Believers living in chaotic places also are vulnerable to violence and persecution. However, like the early Christians who evangelized the known world amid a crumbling empire, they find many opportunities to minister to desperate people and guide them toward Christ, the only true source of peace. People who flee chaos for freer, more peaceful areas often encounter the Gospel for the first time. Somali Muslims who might have faced instant martyrdom for seeking Christ in their homeland can learn about Him elsewhere. More than 150,000 Somalis have streamed into the city of London as refugees and asylum seekers since the early 1990s. They remain clan-oriented, wary of outsiders and strongly Muslim. However, they are finding friends among London Christians who help them with education, finding jobs and recovering from the traumas they have experienced. Farah,* a respected leader in London's Somali community, has a close Christian friend. Farah hasn't decided whether to follow Christ as Lord, but he believes all Somalis should have the right to understand and freely choose their own religious beliefs. "This is a man of influence, a man of peace, a man who desires to see better days for his people" wherever they are, says his Christian friend. One day, Farah hopes to return to his homeland and help rebuild it. One way or another, God reigns over all nations — even the failed ones. --30-- *Name changed. Erich Bridges is global correspondent for the International Mission Board.