
The original issue can be found at: http://www.baptistpress.com/issue-08/25/2010

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Obama administration hid pro-abstinence study while program funding was slashed
by Staff
Date: August 25, 2010 - Wednesday

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (BP)--In response to public pressure, the Department of Health and Human Services has disclosed a taxpayer-funded study that reflects positively on abstinence education, having first kept the full study under wraps while funding for such programs was slashed.

The National Survey of Adolescents and Their Parents in 2008 found that about 70 percent of parents agreed with the statement, "It is against your values for your adolescent to have sexual intercourse before marriage," as well as "Having sexual intercourse is something only married people should do." A majority of adolescents in the survey responded similarly.

Though the survey was presented at two conferences last year, when Lisa Rue, a researcher at the University of Northern Colorado, asked for a copy of the full survey, her request was denied. She tried again, the second time filing under the Freedom of Information Act. That request also was denied.

"The second denial from the Obama administration leaves me to reflect on the role of cultural values with regard to prevention science," Rue wrote in an editorial. "If we are truly interested in learning how to prevent two critical epidemics currently devastating our country (out-of-wedlock child bearing and sexually transmitted infections), then the nationally representative findings provide momentum and support for accessing cultural values of parents and children which promote optimal health choices for adolescents."

Valerie Huber, executive director of the National Abstinence Education Association, as well as pro-family news outlets called on concerned citizens to submit a Freedom of Information Act request to view the full study. The response was so vast that the HHS website reportedly was temporarily down Aug. 20. By the evening of Aug. 23, the full study was posted on the HHS website.

The NAEA said the episode calls into question whether the recent sex education policy decisions by the current administration and Congress truly reflect cultural norms or clear evidence-based trends.

"We are greatly concerned that the sex education policy being implemented by this administration does not reflect the values of what most parents and teens clearly want," Huber said Aug. 24.

Congress and the administration cut all abstinence-centered program grants from the 2010 budget, and funding for 176 abstinence programs is set to expire Sept. 30. Nearly 2 million students in those programs will be put at risk, the NAEA said.

"Our state has the highest teen pregnancy rate in the nation," said Larry McAdoo, executive director of an abstinence program in Mississippi that will lose funding. "I do not understand why our services to needy teens would be cut short. Mississippi's teens need more resources, not less.

"Our abstinence program equips youth with the skills necessary to make healthy choices. Soon, however, Mississippi's youth will be left without any resources to counter the sexual messages with which they are continually bombarded."

Among additional results of the study: 

-- General parent views about sex and abstinence were more conservative among blacks, Hispanics, parents from lower-income households and parents attending religious services more frequently.

-- The majority of parents surveyed favored their adolescents receiving abstinence messages from multiple sources. Ordered from most preferred to least preferred, parents favored abstinence messages delivered at a place of worship (85 percent), a doctor's office or health center (85 percent), school (83 percent), a community organization (71 percent) and the Internet (55 percent).

-- Adolescent frequency of attending religious services was strongly associated with more conservative general views about sex and abstinence among adolescents, as well as more restrictive views about their own sexual behavior.

-- Adolescent exposure to some specific topics related to sex and abstinence in a class or program appeared to increase the likelihood that adolescents heard and reported similar messages about sex and abstinence delivered by their parents.

"It is important that the representative government reflects the desires of its constituents," Huber said. "This study's findings call for a reinstatement of funding for abstinence education within the next fiscal budget."

President Obama's budget for 2010 replaced abstinence education programs with so-called comprehensive sex education programs that promote the use of condoms and other contraceptives among the nation's teenagers.
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Compiled by Baptist Press staff writer Erin Roach.


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Alaska voters OK parental notification
by Staff
Date: August 25, 2010 - Wednesday

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (BP)--Alaska pro-lifers tallied a key victory Aug. 24 with voter passage of a parental notification bill and could score another major win if pro-choice Sen. Lisa Murkowski loses to pro-life candidate Joe Miller in what would be a monumental Republican primary upset.

Murkowski was expected to cruise to victory Tuesday night but found herself in a tight race and trailing Wednesday as votes were still being counted. With 97.95 percent of the vote in, Miller led by 1,960 votes out of approximately 90,000 ballots cast. The Anchorage Daily News reported that, because of absentee ballots that are mailed in, the final result may not be known for more than a week.

Murkowski is pro-choice and has frustrated social conservatives over the years, including voting to federally fund embryonic stem cell research and voting to keep in place President Obama's policy that funds organizations that perform or promote abortions overseas. She supports the Roe v. Wade decision and says on her website that "abortion is a very personal issue that must be left to a woman and her physician."

Miller, endorsed by Alaska Right to Life, Sarah Palin and Mike Huckabee, made Murkowski's abortion views an issue in his campaign and says on his website he's "unequivocally pro-life" and believes "life must be protected from the moment of conception to the time of natural death."

Alaskans passed the parental notification initiative by a margin of 55-45 percent. Known as Measure 2, the new law requires that abortion doctors, prior to performing an abortion on a minor, notify at least one parent or guardian. It includes a judicial bypass. Alaska is the 37th states with a parental notification or requirement law, according to Americans United for Life.

"The people of Alaska have made it clear that parents should have the fundamental right to be informed before their children make a life-changing decision to have an abortion," Charmaine Yoest, president of Americans United for Life, said in a statement. 

Spending by both sides of Measure 2 totaled nearly $1 million, according to the Anchorage newspaper. 
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Compiled by Michael Foust, an assistant editor of Baptist Press.


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Former Baptist leader wins GOP runoff
by Michael Foust
Date: August 25, 2010 - Wednesday

OKLAHOMA CITY (BP)--A political newcomer and former Southern Baptist leader continued to surprise the political world Aug. 24 by winning the runoff in a congressional Republican primary to advance to the general election, where he will be the favorite to win a seat in the U.S. House.

James Lankford, who has never held political office, defeated Kevin Calvey 65-35 percent to win the GOP nomination for Oklahoma's fifth district, four weeks after he pulled a come-from-behind victory to win the primary's first round -- an upset that one political expert told Politico.com was "unfathomable." The district covers Oklahoma City.

Lankford, 42, was program director at the Baptist General Convention of Oklahoma's Falls Creek summer camp from 1996 to 2009 but quit his position because he said he felt God was calling him to run for Congress.

A former state legislator, Calvey was endorsed by the Club for Growth and had a significant cash advantage prior to the first round, although Lankford's first-round win gave him enough momentum to outraise Calvey in the final four weeks. Lankford also benefited by support from a strong Southern Baptist and evangelical base, as well as endorsements from Mike Huckabee and J.C. Watts.

During his acceptance speech he thanked the "normal Oklahomans" who had volunteered for his campaign and "who have a passion for our God, have a passion for our families, have a passion for our country."

"We just seem to have this same common belief that we just want our children to have the same America that we grew up with," he told supporters. "As a community, we're convinced that the current set of leaders in Washington, D.C., and the House of Representatives is spending too much, is taxing too much, and cares about the next generation too little.... The United States House of Representatives no longer represents us and our values and that has to change."

Lankford's campaign has been different, and his acceptance speech was, too: He ended it with a prayer for the volunteers and the nation.

Oklahoma's fifth district has not elected a Democrat since the early 1970s, and Lankford will be the general election favorite in what is already expected to be a good year for Republicans nationwide. He will face Democrat Billy Coyle and two independents. 

A pro-lifer and social conservative, Lankford began sensing God calling him into politics in 2008, before President Obama won the White House. That tug on his life intensified when he learned that Rep. Mary Fallin, who currently represents the fifth district, announced she would not run for re-election but instead run for governor. He resigned his position at Falls Creek to concentrate on the campaign.

Why didn't he begin his political career on a much smaller level, such as a run for state legislator? 

"We really sensed this was what God was calling us to do. It was very specific for us; it was this particular race, this particular year," Lankford told Baptist Press in July.

"Most of the people who do this end up in the newspaper the day after the election in the list that says, 'And others who ran were.' We understood the consequences -- I couldn't run Falls Creek and run for political office. I had to resign."

Fall Creek is a high-profile camp in Oklahoma that sees around 50,000 youth visit it each summer. It calls itself the "largest Christian youth encampment in the world" and it was a year-round job for Lankford; during the off months he was preparing for the next year's camp.

A member of Quail Springs Baptist Church in Oklahoma City, Lankford says he's always had an interest in political ideas but not necessarily political campaigns. He was a speech and history major at the University of Texas before going on to Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, where he received a master of divinity degree. 

"I was in speech and debate in middle school, high school, college," he said. "My mom was a librarian, and I grew up in the library and grew up around research."

But Lankford doesn't view his lack of political experience as a negative. In this year's atmosphere, it's likely a plus. He notes that when Republicans took control of the House in 1994, a majority of the 73 House freshmen had not held political office.

Lankford said there has been a "major overreach of how the government is functioning." 

"We're a federal system by constitutional design &#91;and&#93; not a national system," he said. "What I mean by that is, a national government has a small group of leaders that runs your whole country; a federal government has a specific responsibility they do for the nation and everything else is left up to the states and to the businesses and to the people. That's our design, that's what's made us so effective and that's what we're departing from. This is not a shot at the last two years. This has been occurring for decades now -- this rapid shift away from a basic federal system."

Lankford and his wife Cindy have two daughters ages 13 and 10. 
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Michael Foust is an assistant editor of Baptist Press. Watch Lankford's acceptance speech at http://bit.ly/bfG4SS.


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'Community' revival finds town responsive
by Philip Timothy
Date: August 25, 2010 - Wednesday

DEVILLE, La. (BP)--A spur-of-the-moment decision proved to be the catalyst needed to ignite a revival in a town of 1,000 people, and in the process has helped to heal an 87-year-old church.

As Robby Poole, pastor of Longview Baptist Church in Deville, La., was fixing the marquee to announce the church's approaching four-day revival, he sensed God telling him to use the word "community" instead of the church's name in the announcement.

He did, and what resulted was an overwhelming response from the community -- a spiritual movement that, at times, left Poole speechless, emotionally drained, on a spiritual high, and praising God for His power and love.

"It was the right word to use at the right time," Poole said. "Oftentimes people won't attend because they feel the revival is just for that church. It's not, of course, but that's the perception. That one change rang true with the community and they responded. Because of the vision God gave me, it turned into a community-wide event."

Sister churches in Deville embraced the idea of a community revival, cancelled their Sunday evening services, and pastors encouraged their members to attend. People from other denominations also came.

"Deville is like so many other communities," Poole said. "It is suffering. There is hurt, pain and poverty; drug and alcohol abuse; a brokenness that only God can repair and fix."

The community wasn't the only place hurting: Longview Baptist Church itself was slowly emerging from a difficult period in its history due to growth pains and changes in order to reach the community, coupled with the cost and stress related to the completion of a new children's education building.

"I can truthfully say that 2009 was my most difficult in 22 years of ministry," said Poole, who has served as Longview's pastor the last five years. "There wasn't a whole lot of fellowship and we had fallen on some lean ministry times."

In February, five weeks before revival, the deacons and volunteers from the church, taking a page from Louisiana Baptists' "Sharing the Peace of Jesus" evangelistic initiative, canvassed more than 3,000 homes in the area. Not only did they invite people to come on Easter Sunday, but also to the revival.

Evangelist Bill Britt, a veteran of more than 800 revivals and 90 overseas crusades, began the revival Sunday morning a little uncertain as to how he would be received.

"It felt a little tight before the music," Britt said. "But as I was sitting there, the Lord whispered in my heart, 'Son, I've got this under control. You just preach My Word.' I knew then everything was going to be all right."

Britt drew from the Book of Luke (14:25-34) for his morning message and continued in Luke (14:19) for the evening service.

"I'm not against new ideas -- new ways to reach out to people -- but God's Word is still the most powerful way to reach them," Britt said. "Too often we take a humanistic approach to things, instead of relying on the power of God. Far too many churches have given up on revival and VBS, because it takes a great amount of work and they simply just don't want to pay the price."

Mixing humor with Scripture, Britt's often-fiery delivery captivated and resonated through the people packing the Longview sanctuary nightly. At the invitation, the altar was filled with people, and counselors stayed busy helping individuals who were making life-changing decisions.

"I could sense the brokenness of all those getting saved," Britt said. "You could see God working in the hearts. You could feel the Holy Spirit changing lives, and that told me true revival was beginning to take place. I told a friend that on Monday or Tuesday night, I found the prayer guide -- 40 days of preparation for revival -- which Robby &#91;Longview's pastor&#93; had given out. It answered a lot of questions for me about this revival."

The revival included a series of events for the community -- midday manna, children's hot dog hog-out and youth pizza pig-out. Poole and Matt McCann, the church's minister of students/education, asked everyone to invite a friend to the gatherings.

On Tuesday night, the Longview's auditorium was filled with nearly 80 young children, their parents and another huge crowd. Younger children sometimes have a hard time staying still in church but Britt, who described the crucifixion of Jesus as told in the Gospel of Matthew, kept everyone, including the children, mesmerized.

"You could have heard a pin drop in the church," Poole said. "No one moved, not even the kids and that's surprising. They hung on every word."

One of the week's highlights came during a Wednesday morning assembly at Buckeye High School when Britt shared his testimony and spoke from the Word to 480 students.

"It is hard to get in any school and share the Gospel these days ... so I was thrilled to have the opportunity," Britt said. "It was amazing to see how the students responded. I was even more amazed to see how the teachers had such a burden for these students."

Britt invited the students to the revival that night and to bring a friend. Members of Longview's youth handed out cards inviting their friends and classmates to eat pizza and then attend the revival. Thirty pizzas were purchased for the night.

More than 175 students, a third of the high school's population, attended, filling 15 pews in the front of the church. By the night's end, 35 made decisions, including 26 professions of faith in Christ.

Realizing the need to extend the revival, Poole quickly conferred with Britt and the revival's music leaders, the Willis Family, to see if they could stay another day. They said they could and Poole announced the revival would be extended.

"I really didn't know what to expect or how many people would show up," Poole said. "I told everyone to invite a friend; I announced we would have another pizza night for the youth; and I said we'd see them back the next night."

At midnight, Poole changed the marquee, noting, "God is working! Revival continues."

The next day members of Longview's youth took it upon themselves to make an announcement at school, which was definitely the buzz among the students and the community. And those who had attended the night before invited more of their friends.

"I just believed in my heart &#91;that extending the revival&#93; was what God wanted me to do," Poole said. "I knew He was a big enough God to fill this church many times over and I just needed to put it in His hands.

"We were going through a true revival," the pastor continued. "I had experienced something similar 15 years ago when I was in student ministry. I didn't want this one to end. So many others have told me the same."

That night, despite high school softball and baseball games, the pews were full. Sixteen people were baptized to start the service and Britt preached once again.

At the invitation, people streamed into the aisles and filled the altar. Some youth, still dressed in their uniforms, came forth with a friend in tow, and another 31 decisions, including 23 professions of faith, were made.

"I feel completely blessed by God," Poole said. "He has been so gracious to me. I wouldn't want to have to endure another year like the last one. But if it meant going through the desperation, the brokenness, and the pain to reach where we are now, I would do it.

"Our jobs, though, are just beginning," the pastor noted. "We as a staff and as a church must begin discipleship with all the ones who accepted Jesus.

"This week has renewed and strengthened me. I don't want it to end and I really don't think it will. I think this revival is going to spread. It is a good and powerful first step. It has nothing to do with any man; it has everything to do with God."

In five days, there were more than 80 decisions, of which 62 were professions of faith, and 56 baptisms.

"Praise God," Britt said. "I love it when I can reach a person -- young or old. Weeks like this one are like a fresh breath of heaven on my heart. And it has certainly been a very good week for my wife Wendy and myself.

"But revival, true revival, isn't confined to just a few nights," Britt said. "I'm an optimist and I think God can bring revival to America. And I think He can do so starting right here in Deville.

"Stretch a rubber band out. It won't stay that big when you let go, but it will never be the same either," Britt said. "It is my prayer Longview and this community will never be the same."
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Philip Timothy is a staff writer for the Baptist Message, newsjournal of the Louisiana Baptist Convention.


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WHF helping desperate Pakistani families
by Staff
Date: August 25, 2010 - Wednesday

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (BP)--About 600 families in Pakistan's Sindh province are receiving desperately needed food supplies, thanks to the generosity of Christians who have donated to the Southern Baptist World Hunger Fund.

Bags of staple foods are being assembled by teams of disaster relief volunteers trained by Baptist Global Response, an international relief and development organization, with a total of $12,500 from the World Hunger Fund, said Francis Horton, who with his wife Angie directs BGR work in south Asia. For $25 per family, a food bag contains 44 pounds of flour, 12 pounds of rice, along with oil, lentils, spices, sugar, tea and soap.

"People in the flood zone are desperately looking for food," Horton said. "This will help survivors by literally saving their lives so we can look toward helping them rebuild their homes and replant their crops."

More than 17 million people have been driven from their homes, and the Indus River is not expected to reach peak flood stage for several more days, Pakistan's chief meteorologist told reporters Aug. 24. Millions of people have lost homes, possessions, crops and livestock, and the United Nations has estimated up to 3.5 million children are at high risk of deadly water-borne diseases.

Horton provided Baptist Press an on-the-scene video of a relief team packing the food bags. Go to http://www.bpnews.net/mediaplayer.asp?Id=69 to watch the video.
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Compiled by Baptist Press assistant editor Mark Kelly.


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FIRST-PERSON: Creating a generous culture in our churches
by Todd Deaton
Date: August 25, 2010 - Wednesday

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (BP)--Eight months of speculation have come to an end. Last week, when the Kentucky Great Commission Task Force released its report, two things were readily apparent: their primary objective seems to have been to reach a 50/50 split between Cooperative Program funds going to the Southern Baptist Convention and those kept for Kentucky Baptist Convention ministries as quickly as possible; their other objective was to reverse the steady erosion in CP receipts coming from our churches.

The prevailing assumption seems similar to that espoused in the movie, "Field of Dreams," suggesting that if our state convention adopts a budget that allocates 50 percent for SBC causes, then our churches will reciprocate by contributing more of their undesignated receipts to the Cooperative Program. The accepted imperative is that more money is needed to send more international missionaries and plant churches in our metro areas where vast numbers of people have yet to hear the Gospel.

In Task Force Chairman Hershael York's own words: "We believe we've got to reverse the decline in Cooperative Program giving," and "we believe that we're going to have to have a paradigm shift in order to get more resources to reach unreached, unengaged peoples around the world."

The issue, he and other task force members keenly assessed, is a spiritual one: "It's not about money; it's really about Jesus." Taking a cue from the success of the Find It Here evangelistic emphasis, they envision a spiritual emphasis among Kentucky Baptists called "More for Christ." Indeed, it's an ingenious catch-phrase that may easily become a rally cry.

"What we are after is trying to create a culture of giving and generosity and doing less for ourselves. That we're willing to wear old clothes, and we're willing to drive older cars and live in smaller houses and cut out a week's vacation in order to do a mission trip," York advocated. "Everything we do, we want it to be focused on Christ."

Even though the spiritual proposal is "our most significant one," according to York, the task force's recommendations go much further. Up front, they call for a 6 percent across-the-board cut for KBC agencies and institutions, a 9.85 percent reduction for the Kentucky Baptist Convention's Mission Board and the Woman's Missionary Union, and nearly a 13 percent cut for the University of the Cumberlands and Campbellsville University, effective with the 2011-2012 budget. The result is roughly a 53/47 split, with a stated seven-year intent to accomplish the remainder. It's a sharp hit, especially for the colleges, which will see an immediate loss of $192,000 annually, and the hard truth is that Kentucky Baptists' own missions and ministries will have to learn to do "more for Christ" with less -- possibly as much as $1.35 million less. Yet university and agency leaders and Mission Board staff also understand a call to sacrifice for the Great Commission.

The real key to continued success in accomplishing the Great Commission, however, rests with the third component: Churches are called upon to increase their Cooperative Program gifts by at least a quarter of a percent each year for the next seven years. This should enable the KBC to increase its Cooperative Program budget goal by three percent each year, York calculates.

In the past 12 years, total undesignated receipts of KBC churches have increased by $100 million, yet Cooperative Program support has not kept pace. "We've gotten more money from our people, and we've kept more of it at home or used it elsewhere," he assessed. York rightly appealed, "We feel it's wrong for us to merely vote to change the allocation and then not challenge our churches to give more." He continued, "It's wrong to ask the KBC to make cuts and then our churches just go on keeping more at home for ourselves. We think everybody needs to do more for Christ in order to reach more for Christ."

Certainly, the messengers who will raise their ballots in support of the Kentucky Great Commission Task Force's ambitious call and the ensuing stringent cuts required of the KBC's agencies and institutions should also willingly commit themselves to lead their churches to incrementally increase their CP support. "So if anybody thinks this is just about voting to change the slices of the pie, they are missing the point entirely," York corrected. "We must reverse the trend and get churches to say, 'We're going to spend less on us in order to do more for Christ.'" York is commendably leading his own church, Buck Run in Frankfort, to up its CP giving by one percent for the next two years.

Only if KBC churches do, in fact, follow suit and step up CP giving, will the plan work. According to York, nearly $24 million more would go to SBC causes, and with 51 percent set aside for the International Mission Board that would mean $11.8 million more annually to put missionaries on the field. "If we really buy in to this and start doing it, what we can accomplish for Christ is just mind-boggling," York said.

In the "Field of Dreams," Ray built the ball field and not only did some legendary ball players come, but he had an opportunity to play a game of catch with his father. If the task force's recommendations are adopted, our greatest hope is that Kentucky Baptists will, indeed, "play ball," and our Heavenly Father will smile approvingly on our Great Commission efforts.
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Todd Deaton is editor of the Western Recorder, online at WesternRecorder.org.


