
The original issue can be found at: http://www.baptistpress.com/issue-08/09/2010

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10 Christian aid workers killed in Afghanistan mountains
by Staff
Date: August 09, 2010 - Monday

KABUL, Afghanistan (BP)--Ten workers affiliated with a Christian aid group were murdered in the rugged mountains of Afghanistan after providing eye care to people in a remote area of the country.

International Assistance Mission, an openly Christian charity, has operated in Afghanistan for 44 years, negotiating with the Soviets, the mujahedeen government and then the Taliban for permission to continue its work assisting people in need of care.

But on Aug. 5, only one member of a team survived an ambush by several men wielding guns. The Taliban claimed responsibility for the deaths of six Americans, one German, one Briton and two Afghans, though police have not ruled out an attack by thieves.

The team, which included a 12th member, an Afghan, who earlier left the group to return home on his own, had set out for the remote Parun Valley of Nurestan province in three Land Rovers and then left their vehicles to trek 100 miles through the Hindu Kush mountains, The Washington Post reported.

Once they had completed their work, they were traveling back through snow and rain when they were attacked. The survivor, a driver named Saifullah, said the gunmen lined up the team members and began to execute them. Saifullah's life was spared after he shouted allegiance to Allah, The Post said.

"We are heartbroken by the loss of these heroic, generous people," Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said. "We condemn in the strongest possible terms this senseless act. We also condemn the Taliban's transparent attempt to justify the unjustifiable by making false accusations about their activities in Afghanistan."

The Taliban said the medical team was handing out Bibles written in Dari, but Dirk Frans, executive director of the aid organization, denied the claim. 

"We're not here to proselytize, hand out Bibles or whatever," Frans said. "Our witness is in doing this work under extreme conditions, for people who otherwise have no chance for getting anything."

The Post said IAM's 50 foreign volunteers and 500 Afghan staff members operate in seven Afghan provinces with a program budget of more than $3 million. Throughout four decades of service, four foreign aid workers had been killed and none of the Afghan staff had been killed until the recent massacre.

Among those who died was the team's leader, Tom Little, an optometrist from New York who had worked in the country for more than 30 years and was an inspiration to many who joined the team, CNN.com said. Little had established a system with his wife in which he would give her a 30-second call every 12 hours to let her know he was OK. When two cycles went by without a call, Libby Little said she knew something was wrong.

Also killed was Thomas Grams, a dentist from Durango, Colo., who gave up his private practice to do relief work; Glen Lapp, a Mennonite nurse from Pennsylvania who helped organize mobile eye camps; Dan Terry of Wisconsin, who was a liaison with aid organizations and governments; and Brian Carderelli, a videographer from Pennsylvania.

Cheryl Beckett, a student at Indiana Wesleyan University, had been working in Afghanistan since 2005, translating for women patients before she was killed. Her father is pastor of Woodlawn Christian Church in Knoxville, Tenn.

Another woman who died was Karen Woo, a general surgeon from Britain who gave up a comfortable life in London to promote maternal health care in remote regions. 

"Her motivation was purely humanitarian. She was a humanist and had no religious or political agenda," Woo's family said in a statement.

Daniela Beyer of Germany, a translator, also was killed along with Afghans Mahram Ali, a watchman, and Jawed, a cook who went by only one name.

The Christian Science Monitor said the attack has highlighted the trend of rising civilian casualties in Afghanistan and raised concerns among international aid workers that the Taliban may try to prevent future relief efforts. 

"Many &#91;aid agencies&#93; had until now assumed that the north of Afghanistan was a comparatively safe area to work in," The Independent newspaper in Britain said. "Aid workers spoke yesterday of their worries that the attack signaled increased hostility towards foreign charities and relief agencies."

But The Post said police in Badakhshan province have not ruled out that thieves unaffiliated with the Taliban could have committed the crime because the victims' belongings were ransacked after they were killed. The Taliban in the past has captured victims and then bartered for their release instead of killing them immediately.

International Assistance Mission said it will continue its work in Afghanistan despite the devastating loss of several personnel.
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Compiled by Baptist Press staff writer Erin Roach.


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Volunteer in Zambia dies in auto accident
by Staff
Date: August 09, 2010 - Monday

RICHMOND, Va. (BP)--Robert "Bob" Finck, a 51-year-old missions volunteer from Fellowship Community Church in Salem, Va., was killed early Monday morning, Aug. 9, in an automobile accident in Zambia, west of the capital city of Lusaka.

International Mission Board missionary Melissa Frady of Tennessee, accompanied by church team leader Tim Rogers, was driving Finck to a hospital after he reported experiencing severe kidney stone pain. The truck went off the road in Kafue National Park. Finck was thrown from the vehicle and died at the scene. Frady and Rogers received bruises and scrapes.

The accident occurred about 2 a.m. Monday in a remote area of the park. Rogers stayed at the scene, while Frady walked along the road until she flagged down a driver to take her toward Lusaka, where she was able to pick up a cell phone signal and call for help. 

Finck, Rogers and five other volunteers from Fellowship Community Church arrived in Zambia Aug. 6 and planned to stay until Aug. 14 to lead a Bible conference and minister to youth and children. They were about five hours from the capital when Finck asked to be taken to the hospital.

One of the team members reported over the weekend that three local people had made decisions to accept Christ as Savior. Fellowship Community Church, which will celebrate its 10th anniversary Aug. 11, was planning to have the Zambia team call in to report on their mission trip during the special service.

Stephanie Painter, the church's director of missions, described Finck as passionate about missions and heavily involved in local and overseas ministry projects. 

"He was very passionate about Zambia," said Painter, noting that this was his third trip to the country. "He was very involved. Sometimes he'd come in the office and we'd share mission trip stories.

"He was always stepping up to the plate," she added. "He was a special guy.... Everything about him was special."

Finck is survived by his wife, Sandi, and three children -- Amanda, 21; Brenna, 16; and Hunter, 10. Funeral arrangements are pending.
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Reported by the communications staff of the International Mission Board.


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Expert: Supreme Court likely cautious on 'gay marriage
by Michael Foust
Date: August 09, 2010 - Monday

WASHINGTON (BP)--The Supreme Court is unlikely to legalize "gay marriage" if it eventually decides to get involved in the issue, a court expert said on CBS' "Face the Nation" Aug. 8.

Although the high court's involvement in the California Proposition 8 decision could be at least a year or two away, court watchers already are guessing as to how the court would rule -- an outcome that might depend on where Justice Anthony Kennedy, the swing vote on the nine-member court, falls. Kennedy sometimes sides with the court's four-member conservative bloc and at other times with the four-member liberal bloc. It is assumed new Justice Elena Kagan will be part of the liberal bloc.

Jan Crawford, CBS News' chief legal correspondent and author of a book on the Supreme Court, called Kennedy a "human jump ball."

"And what &#91;the plaintiffs&#93; are asking Justice Kennedy to do, in this case, is ... he's got to grab the ball, take it down the court, slam it in the basket and shatter the backboard," Crawford said on the CBS program. "I mean, this is something that Anthony Kennedy doesn't do. He's a very cautious justice. He doesn't like to get ahead."

On Aug. 4, U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker overturned California's constitutional amendment that defined marriage as between one man and one woman, calling it discriminatory and ruling it violates the U.S. Constitution's equal protection and due process clauses. It is being appealed to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.

Kennedy has sided with the Supreme Court's liberal bloc majority in two high-profile cases involving homosexuality in the past two decades: 2003's Lawrence v. Texas, which overturned anti-sodomy statutes nationwide, and 1996's Romer v. Evans, which reversed a Colorado constitutional amendment that had prevented enforcement of laws protecting homosexuality. He wrote the majority opinions in each case.

Crawford acknowledged Kennedy has sided with the liberal bloc on homosexuality but called it an "enormous stretch" to ask the court to reverse the marriage laws of 45 states. Only five states recognize "gay marriage."

"The same-sex ruling that &#91;Kennedy&#93; wrote in 2003 that struck down laws that criminalized homosexual sex -- no one was enforcing these laws," Crawford said. "This would change the law of the nation. They would be so far ahead of public opinion and that is why this case was controversial from the beginning. Remember, the traditional gay rights groups did not want &#91;plaintiff attorney&#93; David Boies and his conservative counterpart Ted Olson to file this case because they think the Supreme Court is not ready. They wanted to see more states pass laws allowing same-sex marriage and then take it to the court and not put that onus and that pressure on the Supreme Court. And I would not be so confident if I were David Boies."

In the '03 Lawrence v. Texas case, Kennedy wrote that the ruling was not saying "the government must give formal recognition to any relationship that homosexual persons seek to enter." 

But Kennedy's track record and the lack of certainty on his position has conservatives concerned. Some, including Southern Baptist ethicist Richard Land, have said the only solution may be to pass a federal constitutional amendment defining marriage.

It is possible the Supreme Court will not take up the case at all. That becomes far more likely if Walker's ruling is overturned by the Ninth Circuit, considered one of the liberal appeals courts. Although the majority of justices on the Ninth Circuit are liberal, some are conservative. The case will be randomly assigned to a three-judge panel.

Boies, who appeared on the same program, said he remains confident about his chances before the Supreme Court.

"Remember, unlike abortion, the court is not creating a new legal right," Boies said. "This is a right that has been well recognized for a hundred years in terms of the right of individuals to marry. And all that's at issue here is can the state of California take away that right depending on the sex of your intended partner? ... Is there a rational basis for that distinction?"

Although Walker ruled there is no legitimate reason for "gay marriage" bans, other courts in the past have ruled differently, tying the interests to procreation and childrearing. For instance:

-- In 2006, after a federal judge overturned Nebraska's constitutional marriage amendment, an Eighth Circuit panel restored it, ruling that "whatever our personal views regarding this political and sociological debate, we cannot conclude that the state's justification 'lacks a rational relationship to legitimate state interests.'" That interest, the court wrote, is "to encourage heterosexual couples to bear and raise children in committed marriage relationships." Walker's opinion was far more sweeping than was the 2006 opinion by the federal judge. 

-- In 2006, Washington Supreme Court Justice Barbara A. Madsen, writing for the 4-3 majority in refusing to legalize "gay marriage," said that the state legislature "was entitled to believe that limiting marriage to opposite-sex couples furthers procreation, essential to survival of the human race, and furthers the well-being of children by encouraging families where children are reared in homes headed by the children's biological parents."

-- In 2007, the Maryland Supreme court refused to legalize "gay marriage," with Judge Glenn T. Harrell Jr. writing for the 4-3 majority, "&#91;V&#93;irtually every Supreme Court case recognizing as fundamental the right to marry indicates as the basis for the conclusion the institution's inextricable link to procreation, which necessarily and biologically involves participation (in ways either intimate or remote) by a man and a woman," Harrell wrote.

Harry R. Jackson Jr., a D.C.-area pastor, made a similar argument in a CNN.com column Aug. 8 when he wrote, "It is not bigotry, it is biology that discriminates between same-sex couples and opposite-sex couples."

"A marriage requires a husband and a wife, because these unions are necessary to make new life and connect children to their mother and father," Jackson wrote.
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Michael Foust is an assistant editor of Baptist Press. Read a Q&A about the Prop 8 case at http://www.bpnews.net/bpnews.asp?id=33464.


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70th Sturgis motorcycle rally begins
by Adam Miller
Date: August 09, 2010 - Monday

STURGIS, S.D. (BP)--For several days and into the early morning, bikers have rumbled in from across the U.S. toward Sturgis, S.D., where now a steady roar of engine and human energy is building on Main Street.

Today (Aug. 9) marks the official start of the 70th annual Sturgis Motorcycle Rally. This 70-year-old event turns the 7,000-resident town into a metropolis of a half-million bikers, tourists, volunteers and an army of people pulling this seven-day party together in the picturesque plains region.

Among the crowd are scores of Southern Baptist volunteers from churches across North America who are setting up camp and hospitality booths across a 60-plus mile expanse from Main Street of a town comprising only about four squares miles to an array of outlying venues.

For years, Southern Baptist bikers and volunteers have provided a Gospel witness encompassing hospitality and often simply a listening ear. This outreach has led many in the past to give their lives to Christ in the streets of Sturgis.

"People are walking away from Sturgis with Jesus in their hearts and He is going to begin to change their lives," said Jim Hamilton, executive director of the Dakota Baptist Convention and a motorcycle enthusiast. "With this intentional evangelism, we have been obedient witnesses in a place that desperately needs it."

Each morning during the Sturgis rally, Southern Baptists will provide training for volunteers on how to effectively and succinctly share their faith. By training, then doing and seeing the people they encounter invite Jesus into their lives, the volunteers return to their homes inspired and equipped to share their faith in their own communities, said Garvon Golden, a North American Mission Board (NAMB) missionary who is the Dakota Baptist Convention's sharing Christ strategist and overall coordinator of the Sturgis ministry.

Southern Baptist ministry at Sturgis will focus not just on bikers but also the "people groups" of motorcycle enthusiasts and those who provide support services for the week, including more than 1,700 vendors, police officers, sheriff's deputies, firefighters, emergency medical technicians and personnel who pick up more than a half-million tons of trash tossed during the week.

Volunteers are expected to come into contact with thousands of people each day. As they share Christ in person at the rally, Golden is encouraging Southern Baptists back home to join the efforts with prayer.

In the first four years of the Sturgis strategy, at least 16,777 people listened to someone give a personal testimony, and 3,753 people made first-time professions of faith in Jesus Christ. 

Volunteers and coordinators hope to see similar results this year, with Golden noting that follow-up will be a key part of the ministry. Names and contact information of those who make professions of faith are sent each day to NAMB's Evangelism Response Center, which redirects the information to a Southern Baptist church near the contact's home.

"Not everyone leaves with Christ as personal Lord and Savior," Hamilton acknowledged. "Some say, 'That was a good story' or 'I'm at a different place in my life right now.'"

"It is not up to us to save them," said Buck Hill, the Dakota convention's strategist for starting churches. "It's the Holy Spirit's job to draw them, and then God's to save them. However, we are called to spread the Good News, and that's what we do in Sturgis."
--30--
Adam Miller is a writer for the North American Mission Board on assignment Aug. 9-15 in Sturgis, S.D., for coverage of Southern Baptist outreach at the 70th annual Sturgis Motorcycle Rally. Karen Willoughby contributed to this story.


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Baptists welcome bicycle riders to town
by Richard Nations
Date: August 09, 2010 - Monday

WATERLOO, Iowa (BP)--A four-lane country road parallels the four-lane highway heading into Waterloo, Iowa, from Des Moines. The road was filled with bicyclists on a Thursday during the annual border-to-border ride sponsored by the Des Moines Register called RAGBRAI ("Register's Annual Bike Ride Across Iowa").

In Waterloo, one of the overnight towns along the 472-mile east-west route, pastor Ted Keys, his wife Sarah and members of Community Southern Baptist Church greeted a contingent of Baptists from across the country who had contacted the congregation about the overnight stop in Waterloo during the July 25-31 RAGBRAI.

Community Baptist not only offered accommodations at the church and the Keys' home, but also a meal of fried catfish with collard greens, sweet potatoes and corn bread. Mike Roberts, director of missions for the Northeast Iowa Baptist Association, his wife Ginny and others from the Baptist Convention of Iowa assisted with the hospitality.

In addition to staff members from a couple of state Baptist convention offices, a team of students with their professor from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky., were among the riders who enjoyed the evening in Waterloo.

This year 10,000 bicyclists signed up for the tour, although RAGBRAI officials estimated as many as 20,000 may have participated on some segments, since many ride along for a day or so without official registration. In addition, nearly all the riders have support crews who follow the route to transport luggage, camping equipment and meals during the week-long trek. Bikers camp in the towns along the way and local organizations and churches open up food stands and sell the riders pork chops, watermelon, bottled water and other sustenance. The riders often tent camp overnight in campgrounds and city parks.

Mark Coppenger, professor of Christian apologetics at Southern Seminary who also pastors the Chicago-area Evanston Baptist Church, said the team of seminary students was riding RAGBRAI as a missions experience.

"We wanted our students to experience a different kind of culture than in the South," Coppenger said. "Here in the heartland of America they are seeing a state with a strong rooting of a Christian culture, but a lot different than back home. Some of the spiritual vitality of the mostly mainline denominational churches in Iowa has left them. They are in need of a revival and a fresh infusion of the Gospel."

The 10-member seminary team and two support staff looked for "divine appointments" as they rode from town to town, Coppenger said. "I think lifting up the cross in Iowa was an encouragement to the residents, the riders and our students," he said of the team's witness to both riders and townspeople, which included small cards with a Gospel message and information about the seminary.

The riders were challenged physically as they rode up to 80 miles a day on both flat and sometimes-hilly roads, at times against headwinds and rainstorms, Coppenger said. When the last two days passed through a more hilly section of northeast Iowa, the seminary team described some of the inclines as "brutal."

"One student, a Korean-American, was getting pretty discouraged that last day as he was chugging up a long hill in a rainstorm," Coppenger recounted. "A lady passed him and commented on his Southern Seminary bike jersey with a prominent cross on the logo, saying she was 'so glad to see that image.' That encouragement helped the student make it up the hill."

Another Baptist rider, Norman Jameson, editor of North Carolina's Biblical Recorder, said he had a long conversation while "riding with a guy from Sioux Falls, S.D., on the futility of Vietnam and its similarities with Afghanistan. I'll admit that was an unusual one! I love chatting up people on the road and at the stops."

Commenting on the seminary team, which included both men and women, Jameson said the SBTS jerseys elicited questions like "What's an SBTS?"

"That opens doors for conversation, and they initiate conversations commenting on the unique jerseys, signs and apparel of others. I do it myself and it really opens doors," Jameson said.

Bill Pepper, director of business services for the Utah-Idaho Southern Baptist Convention, also was on the ride and was pleased to stop in his hometown of Storm Lake overnight and see family and friends.

"Some of the best of it was the scenery, the rolling hills in the northeastern corner," Pepper said of the ride. Moreover, he said, "There was a great sense of hospitality from the people, the vendors and the churches. In Rowley, Iowa, we met a guy by the name of Thomas who attended a Christian college in Nebraska. His fiancé is in a coma due to a car accident and their wedding has been put on hold. He talked about where he was at spiritually and he knew things were going to work out. We talked to him about holding on to his faith even though his world had been turned upside down."

It is traditional for RAGBRAI riders to dip their back tire in the Missouri River as they begin the ride and their front tire in the Mississippi River at the finish the trek through Storm Lake, Waterloo and a host of other towns. The Register claims RAGBRAI, in its 38th year for the bike ride, is the longest, largest and oldest touring bike ride in the world.

"I thought it was neat to be able to help them out," Sarah Keys said of the Baptists visiting from several states. "It was an opportunity to give back something to those who help us and we could reach out to help them."

The Keys, along with Roberts and others, encouraged the seminary students to come back to Iowa and help reach the state for Christ. There are 105 Southern Baptist churches in the state, but the northern Iowa route of RAGBRAI took the riders through several counties where there is no Southern Baptist work at all.
--30--
Richard Nations is the publications editor of the Iowa Baptist, newsjournal of the Baptist Convention of Iowa.


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FIRST-PERSON; Giving up on the Great Commission God?
by Chuck Lawless
Date: August 09, 2010 - Monday

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (BP)--The Great Commission demands that we share the Gospel with family and friends, but rarely do people turn to Christ as quickly as we would like. Have you ever prayed for somebody so long that you wondered if God was still listening? Are you now praying for someone, but your faith is wavering because God seemingly does not care about your loved one?  

It is easy to give up when we have prayed for others for many years. Our prayers are passionate and focused at the beginning, but they often become repetitious and wandering as the years go by. We speak the right language -- we are "just trusting God to save our loved ones in His time" -- but these words are more religious jargon than heartfelt belief. Truth be known, we come dangerously close to giving up on the God who gave us the Great Commission.  

That response is not entirely surprising. When we long for someone we love to follow Jesus, that love motivates us to pray. We unashamedly intercede because nothing else matters like the salvation of a family member or friend. Surely no one who really loves others would stop praying for them until they get saved.  

It is also that love, though, that makes us impatient with God. We know that God does not want anyone to perish (2 Peter 3:9). If He loves our family members more than we do (as we know He does), then why does He not save them now? Why is He not listening to our prayers? Our love for others makes any delay seem that much longer.  

The problem is even deeper, however. Perhaps -- and this possibility should arrest us -- we sometimes "give up" praying because we convince ourselves that our loved ones are not really lost. The longer we pray for others without a response, the easier it is for false teaching to creep in. "After all," we think, "our loved ones are good people. Maybe they really know God in their own way." The urgency of prayer wanes if our theology of lostness no longer demands God's intervention.  

In addition, many of our churches so seldom see non-believers come to Christ that we have come to expect little response to our praying. Others have prayed, but their loved ones have not followed Christ either. Some have even prayed for years to no avail. The names of non-believers on our church's prayer list -- if they are there at all -- have been there so long that we skip over them when we pray.

Gone are the days when church members groaned through the night on behalf of those who do not yet know Jesus. The stories of gut-wrenching, pew-grabbing intercessory prayer have become church history highlights rather than present-tense pursuits of the people of God. When doing the Great Commission is more about programs than about prayer, we should not be surprised that the few who do pray give up easily.  

What is the answer? One by one, person-by-person, believer-by-believer, we must intentionally decide to keep praying. God is still the God who came to earth to seek and save the lost (Luke 19:10). We still need others praying for us to be effective witnesses (Ephesians 6:18-20, Colossians 4:2-4) even as we intercede for non-believers (Romans 9:1-3, 10:1; 1 Timothy 2:1-4). God's plan simply has not changed.  

I became a follower of Christ in the summer of 1974. My pastor quickly taught me to pray for my immediate family, who were not believers. I understood little about prayer, but I knew that I wanted my loved ones to experience the joy that God gave me. "God, save them!" was the childlike cry of my heart.  

I wish I could say that my zeal for that intercession has always remained strong. If I am honest, I must admit that my enthusiasm has decreased at times. Never has my theology changed, however, and I remain convinced by Scripture that anyone without explicit faith in Jesus is destined for damnation. As I have traveled in my role as dean of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary's Billy Graham School, I have asked Christians around the world to join me in praying for my family.  

Just a few months ago, God graciously responded to those prayers. My father, at age 71, responded in repentance and faith to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. My wife and I had the great privilege of watching as my younger brother baptized our father into God's church.  

For 36 years, we had been praying. For 36 years, God had been silently hearing. In His right time, He overwhelmed my father with His love. The point is this: God is still the Great Commission God who hears the prayers of His people. Do not give up on Him.  
--30--
Chuck Lawless is dean of the Billy Graham School of Missions, Evangelism and Church Growth at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky.   



