
The original issue can be found at: http://www.baptistpress.com/issue-10/12/2005

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Baptist workers struggle with tough conditions to deliver aid to quake survivors
by Erich Bridges
Date: October 12, 2005 - Wednesday

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (BP)--Southern Baptist aid workers are contending with bone-chilling rains, roads jammed with homeless survivors and mobs desperate for help as they take relief supplies into the heart of Pakistan’s earthquake-devastated Kashmir.

With 11 workers on the ground, more on the way -- and $150,000 in Southern Baptist disaster relief funds -- the relief team is transporting truckloads of medical supplies, tents and food into mountain areas near the epicenter of the worst earthquake in modern Pakistani history.

“Our people are getting into areas that other organizations aren’t getting into because we know the local language,” the team’s coordinator said Oct. 11 from their temporary base in Islamabad, Pakistan’s capital. “The U.N. and all the big guys are taking care of easy-to-get-to places. We’re trying to get to places nobody will go.

“So many are homeless, and today it rained. People are hunkered down under whatever kind of shelter they can find, so we’re buying as many tents as we can find. We’re sending daily truckloads of food up into these areas. We’ve chosen one village that seems to be overlooked and we’re declaring it our responsibility to get them back up on their feet as quickly as possible. More than 68 people have died in this one village and God has impressed on us: This is ours, let’s get these people in homes or at least shelters, let’s get them food, let’s get some doctors in there.”

But getting there at all remains a challenge.

The damaged village, a two-hour walk off a mountain highway, lies beyond barriers of landslide debris left by the 7.6-magnitude quake and multitudes of homeless people crowding the road. Relief team members tried to reach the village in a Land Cruiser packed with tents and supplies, but traveled only 8 kilometers in three hours before turning back to a damaged Christian hospital where they are aiding survivors.

“The whole road is just full of people,” another Southern Baptist worker explained. “Their homes have been destroyed and they’re standing on the road, waiting for anything that comes by. We tried to stop and distribute some tents and it turned into a mob in about 10 seconds. We were trying to give tents to families, but at one time there were about 50 people gathered around the back of the Land Cruiser, almost attacking us.

“It reminds you of the Exodus. They’re walking; they’re on cars, on top of trucks. We couldn’t get &#91;to the village&#93;, so we turned around and came back to the hospital. Last night we waited until it was completely dark and drove up a dry riverbed for quite a ways until we got to some villages on the side of the mountain. People were just sitting out on the edge of the riverbank. They had nowhere to go. We offered them some tents and made some good contacts.”

Meanwhile, the team has set up a large tent on the grounds of the damaged hospital near the quake’s epicenter. From that forward base, they’re distributing food and tents to homeless families.

One of the Southern Baptist workers, trained in emergency first aid, is working in tent “clinics” with a Pakistani doctor and three German pediatric nurses. They’re treating hundreds of injured survivors streaming in from flattened villages in the region.

“The injuries are all bad -- a lot of broken bones, compound fractures, big lacerations,” he reported after returning for the night to Islamabad Oct. 11. “The hospital is so damaged we can’t go inside the building, because even this morning we had another &#91;quake&#93; tremor. So we’re sitting in these tents and we didn’t have enough supplies because the road was blocked. I splinted I don’t know how many bones. We used little wooden vegetable crates. We broke those into pieces and used bed sheets for splints. If you can imagine broken bones sticking out of skin from injuries that happened 48 hours ago -- and they’ve been carried down out of the mountains. Some of them were pretty bad off. You patch them up the best you can and send ‘em home.”

One boy, carried in by his uncle, had survived the collapse of a school that killed his two brothers. His shoulder was crushed and he lay curled in a ball, moaning from internal injuries.

“He was in bad shape,” the worker said. “He had just lost his two brothers and he was there with his uncle because he didn’t know where his mother and father were. Every family up there has been shaken to the core. There’s a lot of panic mixed with grief mixed with desperation. But they’re receiving us with open hands and are so thankful for the work that we’re doing. We’re sharing God’s love in an area that hasn’t seen a lot of it.”

The Southern Baptist workers are urgently recruiting doctors and other medical volunteers to come to the area. Other disaster-trained volunteers likely will be mobilized later, but for now the difficult conditions and logistics call for patience.

“It’s very, very rugged,” the team coordinator said. “The volunteers we’re looking for have gotta be tough and they’ve got to be ready to sleep out under the stars.”

For more information on current and future volunteer needs, e-mail southasiavim@wigtake.org. To contribute financially to relief efforts, send gifts designated for “South Asia Earthquake Relief” to P.O. Box 6767, Richmond. Va. 23230. All funds will go 100 percent for relief aid. 

The Pakistani government’s earthquake death estimate remained at about 23,000 Oct. 12, but military officials in the quake region were placing the figure at above 35,000. In addition to the dead, Pakistani officials estimate more than 43,000 people were injured -- a figure that is sure to climb rapidly. More than 2.5 million people lost their homes in the quake and its immediate aftermath, according to United Nations relief coordinators in Islamabad.

The Oct. 8 earthquake struck hardest along Pakistan’s northwest frontier and in the mountainous Kashmir region -- fought over for decades by Pakistan and India. The quake claimed most of its victims in Pakistani-controlled Kashmir, but reportedly killed more than 1,000 people on the Indian side. It shook buildings from central Afghanistan to western Bangladesh. The quake and resulting landslides buried thousands of Pakistani villagers in the rubble of their homes, schools and businesses.

No Southern Baptists serving in South Asia were hurt in the earthquake and its immediate aftermath. A Southern Baptist assessment team on the Indian side of the heavily militarized Pakistan-India border region in Kashmir is investigating urgent needs there and likely will request disaster relief funds in coming days.

Back in Pakistan, “the people are calling it the ‘mountain tsunami,’” said the Southern Baptist team coordinator. “They’ve never seen anything like this in a long time. But it’s pulling everybody together. I just had a &#91;militant Muslim group&#93; take pity on me because I couldn’t get all the tents I needed for distribution, and they shared some of their tents with me.”

Another worker will never forget the hollow look in the eyes of three Pakistani women aided by the team.

“They had lost every member of their family -- husbands, sons, daughters,” he said. “We gave them some clean water and some food items. I can’t explain to you the look in these ladies’ eyes and other people in these villages that have lost their families. It’s the emptiest look I’ve ever seen. It breaks my heart because I know they don’t have any peace. They don’t know whether to be angry or be hurt or be mad. They have told us they feel like God is judging them -- but they don’t know why.

“I want to tell them that He is a God of love.”
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Some Supreme Court candidates asked not to be considered
by Michael Foust
Date: October 12, 2005 - Wednesday

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (BP)--During the days leading up to President Bush's nomination of Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court, "a couple" of the other candidates being considered withdrew their names from consideration, White House spokesman Scott McClellan said Oct. 12.

"Sometimes along the way people express that they would prefer not to be considered," McClellan said. "And there were a couple of individuals in this instance that asked that they not be considered, and that was when the list was longer. The list was in the double digits at that point in time."

McClellan -- who refused to give names -- was responding to comments made by Focus on the Family's James Dobson, who said on his radio broadcast earlier in the day that White House aide Karl Rove had told him some nominees had withdrawn from the process, wishing to avoid a tough nomination fight.

"&#91;W&#93;hat Karl told me is that some of those individuals took themselves off that list and they would not allow their names to be considered, because the process has become so vicious and so vitriolic and so bitter that they didn’t want to subject themselves or the members of their families to it," Dobson said.

Dobson's conversation with Rove, which the Focus founder said took place Oct. 1, has been the subject of much conversation in recent days. Dobson endorsed Miers' nomination on his radio program Oct. 5 but said there were "some things" he could not talk about because of "confidentiality." When word got out that Dobson had spoken with Rove, some senators, including Sen. Patrick Leahy, D.-Vt., suggested that Dobson be subpoenaed in order to discover more about the Dobson-Rove conversation. Leahy is the ranking Democratic member of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Dobson told his audience Oct. 12 that Rove had given him permission to reveal the content of their conversation, which took place two days before Bush nominated Miers.

"&#91;E&#93;ven today, many conservatives and many of 'em friends of mine, are being interviewed on talk shows and national television programs," Dobson said. "And they’re saying, 'Why didn’t the president appoint so-and-so? He or she would have been great. They had a wonderful judicial record. They would have been the kind of person we’ve been hoping and working and praying for to be on the court.' Well, it very well may be that those individuals didn’t want to be appointed. The Democrats have so politicized that process that it’s become an ordeal and many people just don’t want to go through that. And I’m not sure I blame them."

Dobson also said he was told by Rove that Bush was looking for a woman to fill the vacancy on the high court. If confirmed Miers would replace the retiring Sandra Day O'Connor, who has disappointed conservatives on several rulings, including her support of abortion rights.

Miers' faith has become a focal point in recent days. Bush was asked Oct. 12 why the White House believes "it's necessary" to tell "supporters that Harriet Miers attends a very conservative Christian church."

"People ask me why I picked Harriet Miers. They want to know Harriet Miers' background," Bush said. "They want to know as much as they possibly can before they form opinions. And part of Harriet Miers' life is her religion."

Dobson said he has told conservative leaders who are anxious about the nomination that Miers "might well be more in keeping with our views than they might think." Although her paper trail is thin, Miers is a member of a conservative church in Texas and some of her friends have said she is personally pro-life, although they say her personal beliefs would not impact her judicial rulings. Dobson emphasized that he and Rove did not talk about Miers' views on abortion.

"Karl Rove had shared with me her judicial philosophy, which was consistent with the promises that President Bush had made when he was campaigning," Dobson said. "&#91;Bush&#93; told the voters last year that he would select people to be on the court who would interpret the law rather than create it and judges who would not make social policy from the bench. Most of all, the president promised to appoint people who would uphold the Constitution and not use their powers to advance their own political agenda. Now, Mr. Rove assured me in that telephone conversation that Harriet Miers fit that description and that the president knew her well enough to say so with complete confidence.

"Then he suggested that I might want to validate that opinion by talking to people in Texas who knew Miers personally and he gave me the names of some individuals that I could call. And I quickly followed up on that conversation and got glowing reports from a federal judge in Texas, Ed Kinkeade, and a Texas Supreme Court justice, Nathan Hecht, who is highly respected and has known Harriet Miers for more than 25 years. And so, we talked to him and we talked to some others who are acquainted with Ms. Miers."

Dobson said Rove told him that that "Harriet Miers is an evangelical Christian, that she is from a very conservative church, which is almost universally pro-life, that she had taken on the American Bar Association on the issue of abortion and fought for a policy that would not be supportive of abortion &#91;and&#93; that she had been a member of the Texas Right to Life."

McClellan said Oct. 12 that while Miers attended some right to life events, he did not believe she was a member of Texas Right to Life. 

At one point in the broadcast Dobson even addressed members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, saying, "I have nothing to hide and I’ll be happy to come and talk to you. But I won’t have anything to say that I haven’t just told millions of people. And so, that’s really the end of my statement."

Dobson's comments came the day after one prominent conservative legal group, Liberty Counsel, announced that it could not support Miers' nomination. Liberty Counsel President Mathew Staver said he has nothing personally against Miers but that he was "terribly disappointed" that Bush nominated someone "who operates under the radar."

"First, the President had a number of highly qualified candidates with proven track records and well-developed judicial philosophies," Staver said in a statement. "He passed over them and chose an invisible nominee. Second, selecting a nominee who has held her views in silence for 60 years sends a wrong message to conservatives –- if you want to be appointed to the federal bench, you should keep your views to yourself. That’s a terrible message to send to our future leaders.”
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Luter among N.O. leaders who met with Bush to discuss future
by Erin Curry
Date: October 12, 2005 - Wednesday

NEW ORLEANS (BP)--Fred Luter, pastor of Franklin Avenue Baptist Church in New Orleans, was one of 17 business and civic leaders chosen by Mayor Ray Nagin for the Bring New Orleans Back Commission charged with the assignment of developing a master plan for rebuilding the flood-ravaged city.

The group dined with President Bush and his wife, Laura, at the Italian-Creole restaurant Bacco in the French Quarter Oct. 10 and had the opportunity to express their concerns and ideas with the nation’s leader.

Luter told Baptist Press he has known Nagin for years and the mayor has visited his 7,000-member Southern Baptist church several times. Luter believes he was chosen for the commission because of the number of people he represents and because he is a lifelong New Orleans resident.

“Everybody knows I love New Orleans,” he said Oct. 12.

The commission includes a cross-section of people from the political, educational, healthcare and religious sectors of New Orleans, Luter said, including Tulane University President Scott Cower, jazz legend Wynton Marsalis and Catholic Archbishop Alfred Hughes. Commission members will oversee 20 to 25 committees in charge of levees, economic development initiatives and education systems.

Nagin called the commissioners “some of the most authentic and highest integrity” people in the city, The Shreveport Times reported. Nagin said he's tired of hearing that local officials are too corrupt to handle the rebuilding. “For three-and-a-half years, we've been about integrity, we have been against corruption,” the mayor said.

Luter was pleased with Bush’s pledge that the federal government will not dictate the terms for rebuilding the Gulf Coast but will support the key decisions made by local leaders.

“That’s what we want. Nobody knows New Orleans better than us,” Luter said. “It’s a unique city. Unless you’ve been here, you don’t understand. It’s what we asked him: Mr. President, if you would just let us give you &#91;a plan based on&#93; what we as New Orleanians see and know that we can do to accomplish this. He was excited about it and said, “Good,” because again, nobody knows New Orleans better than we do.

“There were people in the government that were saying we shouldn’t even rebuild the city,” Luter added. “That would be a shame. The president himself said he couldn’t see the United States without New Orleans, and I agree with that.”

The dinner with Bush at Bacco was the first time Luter had met the president, and he left with a high opinion of him.

“I was thoroughly, thoroughly impressed with him. He’s a very personable man. He went around the room and shook hands and looked into the eyes of each of those commission members,” Luter said. “He spent time talking with people about their family and their loved ones. There even were two or three people who gave him their cell phones and he said hello to their loved ones. I was just blown away by that. I thought that was a very personal side that you don’t see of the president in news conferences and public events, but I thought that was very, very touching.”

Luter also said the meeting was worthwhile and encouraging to the members of the commission, most of whom lost homes and businesses in the flood and can easily be overwhelmed by the enormous task of rebuilding.

“I left really feeling good about the future of New Orleans,” Luter said. “The commitment we have from the president is what we wanted. It gave us the feeling that, ‘Wow, we can really do this thing,’ and we have the backing of the president of the United States, and so that made us feel really good.”

Franklin Avenue Baptist Church, Luter said, had eight feet of water inside the building during the flood. The church staff got an opportunity to walk the grounds for an up-close look for the first time in early October. They’re now meeting with insurance adjusters, and this month they hope to start the monumental cleanup effort in expectation of starting again on the same property.

“The whole bottom level was destroyed. Pews are thrown on top of each other,” Luter said. “All the church offices were totally destroyed, the family life center, gymnasium floor, the classrooms there, the nursery, the bookstore, the library -- all of those things were totally destroyed by the water.”

Cleanup will be a long process, he said, and leaders aren’t sure how long it will take because the task may depend on how much manpower they have and how many people are able to get inside the building given its current condition.

“I would hope to see something happening with &#91;the church property&#93;, even if we have to put a tent up or something, hopefully by March of next year,” the pastor said.

The process of gathering members anew is a daunting one for Luter, who said he has yet to hear from half his congregation. Church members are scattered all over America, and Luter has been traveling to various cities to preach each week in locations where he believes many of them have relocated.

“This past Sunday I was in Houston, and that was a tremendous success. We had about 525 of our members at a special service at First Baptist Church in Houston. Pastor Gregg &#91;Matte&#93; and his staff at First Baptist Houston just opened up their doors to us,” Luter said. “It was a service just for members of Franklin Avenue, and it was a phenomenal success. There were a lot of cries, a lot of tears, a lot of hugs because some of us have not seen any of us since the flood. As a matter of fact, some of us didn’t even know that the others of us were alive. So it was a really touching, emotional service.”

Among the most vivid lessons Luter is learning during this hardship is that it is unsafe to place one’s trust in material possessions.

“It’s like Job said, ‘The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away.’ You can work years of your life and build your dream home and have the property and material things that you want, but it can be gone in one day,” he said. “And that’s what happened to us, so we really appreciate life more and have learned not to put our trust in the things of this world because they can be here today and gone tomorrow.”

Luter said he is grateful for the support he and members of Franklin Avenue are receiving from fellow Southern Baptists nationwide. Because God had blessed him with the opportunity to travel throughout the country, preaching at conferences and churches for nearly a decade, he said he was introduced to a lot of people within the convention.

“Since the flood, members of our church who have gone to places you would not even think were on the map, many of them have run into people that knew of me and knew of Franklin Avenue, and people have opened up their arms, their homes, their churches, their gymnasiums and most of all their pocketbooks to assist our members,” Luter said.

“... That’s been the blessing that I’ve enjoyed, and I hope one day as a church family we’ll be able to do something like this for others who are going through tragic situations like we are.”
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Disaster relief rejuvenating 50-year-old Louisiana church
by Sherri Brown
Date: October 12, 2005 - Wednesday

RIVER RIDGE, La. (BP)--Churches at the forefront of disaster relief are easy to spot. They’re the ones with eight-foot-high stacks of bottled water dotting the parking lot and half-gallon jugs of waterless hand sanitizer on every table.

That’s exactly what Riverside Baptist Church looks like. The River Ridge church, just outside of New Orleans, has been feeding 1,500 to 2000 people every day for the past three weeks. Volunteers plan to continue feeding until November.

“We’ve got a crazy, eclectic group of people working here,” said Jim Caldwell, pastor of the church.

When Caldwell returned to the city and found the church’s facilities in fairly good shape, he envisioned the location as a food and water distribution center. He called the Louisiana Baptist Convention but help wasn’t immediately available in the post-hurricane days.

“But I knew we were supposed to do ministry,” said Caldwell, who had been pastor of the 50-year old-church for just three months when the storms hit. The next day he started looking for resources. A charismatic church, a biker ministry, a Texas restaurant owner and an interdenominational faith-based ministry volunteered to help the church set up a feeding ministry.

“It’s been a challenge,” Caldwell admitted. “I never had a course on driving a forklift, unloading trucks or ministering with all different personalities from different churches. We have very little in common, except that we all love Jesus.”

In the past three weeks the church has turned its gym into a food warehouse, its kitchen into an industrial-sized restaurant, church members into fulltime volunteers and a parking lot into a 500-seat restaurant.

Church members and other volunteers have tackled mundane jobs with willingness and creativity. The church had no showers but was housing dozens of volunteers every night. The North American Mission Board found a two-shower unit for them -- everything else was already in use. But two showers didn’t cut it for as many as 50 volunteers.

“We had a construction crew here to help out &#91;with hurricane cleanup&#93; and they built four showers out of a fence that was blown down in the storm and leftover pallets. It’s got hot and cold water, too,” Caldwell said, proudly.

The church currently is booking construction and cleanup teams to work every week through the end of the year. Volunteers will clean out flooded houses and cut down trees and brush.

While the neighborhoods are being changed, Caldwell and church leaders also are making plans to change the face of Riverside church via a three-phase plan for post-Katrina ministry.

“First phase is food, water and meals. We’re doing that now,” the pastor said. “The second phase is reaching out from this physical plant for practical ministry. The third phase is to reassess who we are as a church. Our ministry will be different.

“This church has always been known for its music and drama and children’s programs. I’m sure we’ll reclaim that. But after 50 years, that ministry hasn’t made the impact in the community like this past month has done. People know we’re here now. They didn’t know us before.”

Church members already have embraced the beginning of change.

Jackie Bigler has been a member since almost the church’s founding. Before the storm, she and her husband came to church on Sunday mornings. Since returning after Katrina, the couple has averaged 13 hour days almost every day.

“I think it’s wonderful. Before Katrina we just came to church,” she said. “Now I see a lot more love and care.”
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CULTURE DIGEST: Dartmouth student lambasted for esteeming Jesus in convocation speech; Victoria’s Secret displays draw ire
by Erin Curry
Date: October 12, 2005 - Wednesday

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (BP)--His speech has been called “appalling,” “reprehensible,” “an abuse of power,” “disrespectful” and “embarrassing.” What could have drawn such consternation?

The outrage is over a convocation speech by Noah Riner, student body president of Dartmouth College in Hanover, N.H., one which employed the sinless example of Jesus Christ as how men and women can manage to display good character as they make their way through a sinful world.

Riner gave the speech as he welcomed freshmen to the Ivy League campus Sept. 20, beginning with compliments toward the accomplished students.

“You’ve been told that you are a special class,” he said, according to a partial transcript published by The Washington Times. “A quick look at the statistics confirms that claim. Quite simply, you are the smartest and most diverse group of freshmen to set foot on the Dartmouth campus. You have more potential than all of the other classes. You really are special.”

The seasoned student went on to point out that it’s not enough to be special, talented, beautiful or smart because plenty of students have been so and have even graduated from Dartmouth but have gone on to commit crimes rooted in their corrupt character. Riner listed some examples, including a graduate who became a Soviet spy, one who murdered and one who sexually assaulted a young girl.

Then came the controversy.

“Character has a lot to do with sacrifice, laying our personal interests down for something bigger,” he said. “The best example of this is Jesus. In the Garden of Gethsemane, just hours before His crucifixion, Jesus prayed, ‘Father, if Thou be willing, remove this cup from me; nevertheless, not my will, but Thine, be done.’ He knew the right thing to do. He knew the cost would be agonizing torture and death. He did it anyway. That’s character.”

Riner added that Jesus is the solution for sinners like him and all others and Jesus’ message of redemption means there are consequences for actions.

“He gave His life for our sin so that we wouldn’t have to bear the penalty of the law, so we could see love. The problem is me; the solution is God’s love: Jesus on the cross, for us,” Riner said.

The next day, the vice president of the student body resigned, telling Riner, “Your first opportunity to represent Student Assembly to the incoming freshmen was appalling. You embarrassed the organization; you embarrassed yourself.”

Others heaved vicious criticism on Riner, including opinion pieces and cartoons in the student newspaper.

R. Albert Mohler Jr., president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, addressed the debacle in his Oct. 7 commentary on albertmohler.com.

“The controversy over Noah Riner’s convocation address at Dartmouth is a bracing reminder of the fact that America’s most prestigious academic institutions have become openly hostile to the very convictions upon which they were established,” Mohler wrote, after noting that the predecessor to Dartmouth College was founded in 1750 for the purpose of evangelizing Native Americans.

PRECEDENT SET IN DEFINING ‘PARENTS’ -- Ground has been broken in the realm of defining parentage in the context of new reproduction technologies after the Tennessee Supreme Court ruled Oct. 6 that a woman who gave birth to triplets conceived with their father’s sperm and eggs donated by another woman had legal rights as a mother, even though she is not genetically related to them.

The babies were born in 2001, and Charles Galiwango and Cindy Culpepper lived together, sharing parenting and financial responsibilities, The Tennessean newspaper in Nashville reported. But when their relationship ended, a unique custody battle ensued.

Legal scholars say the 4-1 decision could be used in future cases involving nontraditional parents, such as homosexual couples. 

“The woman is the child’s legal mother with all the rights and responsibilities of parenthood,” Chief Justice Frank F. Drowota III wrote in the majority opinion upholding earlier decisions to grant Galiwango and Culpepper joint custody of the children, with Culpepper listed as the primary custodian. Galiwango was granted visitation rights and ordered to pay child support, The Tennessean said.

“Recent developments in reproductive technology have caused a tectonic shift in the realities which underlie our legal conceptions of parenthood ...,” Drowota wrote. “We now live in an era where a child may have as many as five different ‘parents.’”

SHOPPERS PROTEST VICTORIA’S SECRET DISPLAY -- Victoria’s Secret is known for its scantily clad models, but shoppers at two particular malls are organizing efforts to make the lingerie chain clean up its store displays after carefully sculpted, nearly naked mannequins posed in provocative positions have offended passersby.

The lifelike mannequins, much more shapely and defined than the average clothes-displaying object, have drawn the ire of local residents in McLean, Va., and Wauwatosa, Wis., with about 50 Virginia shoppers staging protests at Tyson’s Corner Center, where a Victoria’s Secret store recently opened as part of a mall expansion.

“We can't bring our kids up here. There's a play area above it, you walk by it on the way to the food court. It's ridiculous. It's pushing the limit. It's going beyond publicity,” Suzanne Zolldan, an outraged parent, told Focus on the Family’s Family News in Focus.

Joe Cowden, another shopper at Tyson’s Corner, told Family News he and others in the community plan to keep the pressure on.

“We would hope that they would change what exists there currently and have it be toned down substantially,” he said.

Other parents are considering forbidding their teenagers to shop at the mall.

“My 13-year-old daughter is going to come here and shop for a bra?” Mary Lynne Carraway told The Washington Post. “Come on. I'm appalled. That's like sending her to a street with a strip joint. Is this the kind of message we want to send to our children, that this is what they should look like?”

CARRIE MCDONNALL BOOK RELEASED -- Carrie McDonnall, the International Mission Board worker who suffered major injuries as the lone survivor of an insurgent attack that killed her husband and three other workers in Iraq in March 2004, has released a book chronicling her story called “Facing Terror.”

The book recounts the events that led her to Iraq and serves as a call to serve Christ, even in the midst of tremendous danger among a people group hostile to the Gospel.

"I live my life without David, but am grateful for the time I had with him," McDonnall writes, referring to her husband. "The world is not our place of rest; it is a time to work and follow hard after Jesus. When we get home, we can rest. But for now, God is calling his children to share the gospel of the cross, the power of our Holy Father; it's time we obediently follow Him. May we all live our lives in a manner worthy of the calling we have received in Christ Jesus. May we live lives we will never regret."
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Prof’s view of Intelligent Design disputed by attorney at Pa. trial
by James Patterson
Date: October 12, 2005 - Wednesday

HARRISBURG, Pa. (BP)--A university professor garnered headlines when she testified that there are significant links between Intelligent Design and creationism at the outset of a much-publicized federal trial in Pennsylvania.

Her views, however, were quickly disputed by proponents of Intelligent Design, including the Seattle-based Discovery Institute and the Thomas More Law Center of Ann Arbor, Mich., which contend that Intelligent Design is based on empirical evidence not religion.

The non-jury trial, which began Sept. 26 in U.S. Middle District Court in Harrisburg and is scheduled to continue into November, marks the first time a U.S. court has been asked to rule whether Intelligent Design can be taught in public schools. And it is seen as the most significant court challenge to Darwin’s theory of evolution in nearly 20 years.

Barbara Forrest, a philosophy professor at Southeastern Louisiana University, testified that Intelligent Design’s position on just about every issue is “right out of the creationist’s playbook.” Forrest said Oct. 6 that Intelligent Design and creationism are essentially one in the same.

Eleven parents have joined with the American Civil Liberties Union and Americans United for the Separation of Church and State in a lawsuit against the Dover Area School District over its policy of informing science students that Intelligent Design could be an alternative to the theory of evolution.

The Dover Area School Board adopted the controversial policy in October 2004. It requires schools to briefly expose students to the existence of the Intelligent Design theory. At the same time, the policy prohibits teachers from teaching Intelligent Design or creationism or presenting their religious viewpoints.

The district’s policy means that Dover schools must read the following four paragraphs verbatim to ninth-grade students prior to their beginning study in their biology textbooks of chapters 15-17:

“The Pennsylvania Academic Standards require students to learn about Darwin’s Theory of Evolution and eventually to take a standardized test of which evolution is a part.

“Because Darwin’s Theory is a theory, it continues to be tested as new evidence is discovered. The Theory is not a fact. Gaps in the Theory exist for which there is not evidence. A theory is defined as a well-tested explanation that unifies a broad range of observations.

“Intelligent Design is an explanation of the origin of life that differs from Darwin’s view. The reference book, “Of Pandas and People,” is available in the library along with other resources for students who might be interested in gaining an understanding of what Intelligent Design actually involves.

“With respect to any theory, students are encouraged to keep an open mind. The school leaves the discussion of the Origins of Life to individual students and their families. As a Standards-driven district, class instruction focuses upon preparing students to achieve proficiency on Standards-based assessments.”

The plaintiffs in the case say the statement is an attempt by the district to introduce religion in the classroom, which they say violates the Establishment Clause in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. That clause states, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof....”

Much of Forrest’s testimony was based on a paper published in 2001 by former University of California, Berkeley law professor Phillip Johnson, titled, “The State of the Wedge.” The paper outlined a way for Intelligent Design supporters to “wedge” their way into classrooms and science over 20 years, Forrest said.

This could be accomplished, Forrest said, by unifying Christians, promoting the idea of a creator, challenging evolution and overthrowing science’s methodology in order to accommodate Christians’ beliefs. Forrest, in her testimony, also admitted that she does not believe in God.

But Richard Thompson, lead attorney for the district who is from the Thomas More Law Center, told Baptist Press that Forrest misrepresented the facts.

“The state of Pennsylvania’s academic standard requires students to be taught the theory of evolution and to be tested on it,” Thompson said. “We’re saying, listen, the students still are learning evolution, they’re still being tested on evolution. The only thing they were told was there was this other concept. So how does that establish religion?”

Thompson also questioned Forrest’s credibility on the subject, noting that she was on the board of the Secular Humanist Society of New Orleans; has been a member of the ACLU since the 1970s; and is a member of the board of directors for Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, a plaintiff in the lawsuit.

“Intelligent Design is a legitimate scientific theory held by legitimate, credible scientists,” Thompson said. “Now there may be religious implications to that scientific theory but the theory itself is not religious, the theory itself is science.” Thompson noted that “there are a whole host of religious implications to Darwin’s theory of evolution. When I cross-examined Barbara Forrest, I just started spouting off comments that the foremost evolutionists were making about religion, not about the science but about religion.

Describing how Forrest and other witnesses for the plaintiffs have mischaracterized Intelligent Design, Thompson said, “The main mischaracterization that they have made is they have argued that Intelligent Design is an inherently religious concept. It is not based upon faith or Scripture. The conclusions of Intelligent Design might be compatible with many religious beliefs, but that doesn’t mean that theory itself is based upon religious belief. It’s based upon a scientific study of biology. It’s based upon a scientific study of the empirical evidence.”

Casey Luskin, program officer in policy and legal affairs with the Discovery Institute’s Center for Science and Culture, agreed. Luskin told Baptist Press that Intelligent Design theory looks at the type of information that intelligent agents tend to produce when they act. Intelligence Designers say let’s look at nature and see if we can find natural objects which have that same kind of information.

“A lot of Barbara Forrest’s testimony has come into question because it’s what you called hearsay testimony,” Luskin said. “I’m very suspicious that Barbara Forrest might be misrepresenting Phillip Johnson in what she says he says there. For us, this is not an issue about religion or the Bible; this is about science. It’s not science versus religion; this is science versus science. Intelligent Design is a scientific theory. It uses the scientific method to make its claims. It’s not based upon the Bible. It’s not based upon any religious premises.

“Many people may see it as being compatible with their religious views but that doesn’t mean that the argument itself is stemming from a religious underpinning,” he said. “It’s stemming from the empirical evidence.”

In another development, a group of 85 scientists filed a friend-of-the-court brief in the case asking Judge John E. Jones III to deny the plaintiffs’ argument that Intelligent Design is unscientific. The scientists argue that the nature of science is not something the courts ought to decide; religious motivations are irrelevant to the scientific merits of a hypothesis; dissent among the scientific community is healthy; and existing scientific establishments are sometimes unable to admit they are in error.

Evolutionist Charles Darwin himself mentioned a creator in the final page of his book, “On the Origin of the Species,” Thompson noted. Darwin wrote, “There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being evolved.”
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James Patterson is a freelance writer in Indianapolis.


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Moratorium urged for off-reservation casinos
by Tom Strode
Date: October 12, 2005 - Wednesday

WASHINGTON (BP)--Opponents of gambling expansion are calling for the federal government to institute a two-year moratorium on permitting the development of off-reservation casinos.

Gambling foes from more than 20 states gathered at a recent Washington news conference to call for the Bush administration to halt the approval of casinos off Native American reservations in order for Congress to study a 1988 law regulating Indian gambling.

An off-reservation casino, also referred to as reservation shopping, involves the purchase of non-reservation property by an Indian tribe, which asks the federal government to hold the land in trust, making it tribal land as a result. Private developers then are able to build casinos on the land. State and local laws do not apply to such casinos, which are not taxable, the opponents said.

Reservation shopping “is happening more and more across the country, and then in parachutes the casino developers, the Donald Trumps, the guy who comes in with the money says, ‘I want to build a casino there on this new Indian land,’” said Jeff Benedict, an author and president of the Connecticut Alliance Against Casino Expansion, at an Oct. 7 news conference sponsored by the National Coalition Against Gambling Expansion.

Bridgeport, Ct., and downtown Buffalo, N.Y., are two of the locations where Indian tribes are seeking to establish off-reservation casinos, Benedict said.

“&#91;T&#93;he group that may be getting exploited the most in all this &#91;is&#93; the Indian tribes,” he said. “&#91;The&#93; guys that are walking away with the bags full of money in most cases are not the tribes, and the guys who are left holding the bag in most cases are the states and the towns where these things land.”

The proliferation of gambling is causing widespread societal problems, Benedict said. These include increases in divorces, suicides, bankruptcies and property foreclosures, he told reporters.

A two-year moratorium on permits for off-reservation casinos would enable Congress to re-examine the 17-year-old Indian Gaming Regulatory Act, which has “more holes in it than Swiss cheese,” Benedict said. “It’s being exploited to the detriment of Indian tribes; it’s hurting states, and it’s disregarding the needs of local communities and citizens.”

A Southern Baptist specialist on gambling issues also endorsed a moratorium.

“It is crucial for the United States to have some time to assess the impact of more gambling expansion on our nation,” said Barrett Duke, the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission’s vice president for public policy and research. “We must have time to assess any new gambling expansion, for once its starts, history teaches us it is nearly impossible to turn back.

“Already, we see gambling interests taking advantage of the tragedies on the Gulf Coast,” Duke said. “It is obvious that the gambling industry’s insatiable appetite for money will constantly push for more opportunity for gain. People with no vested interest in gambling must be given time to determine the legality as well as the impact of gambling expansion. I, for one, believe we have too much gambling already in our nation, and we are paying a terrible price for every dollar that gambling brings in.”

The Bush administration has surprisingly proposed tax breaks for casinos as part of the economic recovery package for Gulf Coast states in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Rep. Frank Wolf, R.-Va., spoke against the plan from the floor of the House of Representatives Sept. 22 and sent a letter to President Bush protesting the idea.

“I do not have the words to express the depth of my disappointment” with such a plan, Wolf said in his letter. He called the proposal a “dramatic shift from current federal policy.”

“This special interest incentive would be a disgrace,” Wolf wrote Bush. “I trust you will do the right thing and make sure federal resources go to the poor, the needy and the vulnerable and not the gambling interests who already have insurance to cover catastrophic events like hurricanes.”
--30--


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Ridgecrest builds to accommodate Centrifuge growth
by Staff
Date: October 12, 2005 - Wednesday

RIDGECREST, N.C. (BP)--The sounds of backhoes and bulldozers, for the moment, are mingling with the sounds of nature at Ridgecrest.

“We are almost doubling the size of our three-year-old Mountain Laurel Inn from 120 rooms to 230,” said Byron Hill, director of conference centers for LifeWay Christian Resources of the Southern Baptist Convention, which owns and operates Ridgecrest and LifeWay Glorieta Conference Center near Santa Fe, N.M. “This will allow us to handle groups of 300-400 people in Mountain Laurel alone. There will be a new multi-use recreation center with a full gym and stage that can seat 800 people.”

The new recreation center, called the “Arc” (Auditorium Recreation Center), will allow an expansion of the LifeWay’s Centrifuge camp ministry at the conference center. Currently, LifeWay can welcome 600 teenagers for Centrifuge, but with the new facilities, 800 teenagers can be accommodated. “This will make Ridgecrest a prime Centrifuge location,” Hill said. “In the summer, the Arc will be for the exclusive use of Centrifuge, but the rest of the year, it will be available for any number of other uses.”

The Arc will be ready in June 2006 -– in time for Centrifuge -– and the rest of the Mountain Laurel expansion will be finished in October 2006. A new convention center will be ready for guests in 2007.

The western North Carolina area is a popular tourist destination with attractions such as the Biltmore House, Chimney Rock, Lake Lure, Black Mountain and Asheville. Bed and breakfasts and hotels are everywhere.

“We want individual church members to think about Ridgecrest as a hotel destination, as well as a conference site,” Hill noted. “We offer church staff members and denominational employees from any denomination a $29 nightly rate, depending on availability, and individual rates start at $39 a night,” Hill said. “You can’t find that kind of rate anywhere else in the area.”

While Mountain Laurel Inn is Ridgecrest’s newest and nicest hotel, renovation is bringing others up to the same standard. Renovations to Walnut and Rhododendron will be completed in 2006 and 2007, respectively, joining Maple, which already has been totally renovated, Hill said.
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Ridgecrest reservations can be made by going to www.lifeway.com/ridgecrest or phoning 1-800-588-7222.


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FIRST-PERSON: Despite the flooding, ‘Blessed be His glorious name’
by Marilyn Stewart
Date: October 12, 2005 - Wednesday

NEW ORLEANS (BP)--After salvaging what we could from our flooded faculty home on the campus of New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, my husband, son and I headed to our church. We had heard reports and knew that we couldn’t leave town without seeing for ourselves what had happened to Edgewater Baptist Church.

My husband, Bob Stewart, is serving as interim pastor, his second time to do so in the seven years we have been members. As my husband likes to say, he is more than just the interim pastor, he is a member. Edgewater is very dear to us.

As we drove through the Gentilly area, down Fillmore Street toward Paris Avenue, we could see that the damage to the neighborhood was substantial. But as we topped the Fillmore Street bridge over the canal and got the first glimpse of the neighborhood around Edgewater, my heart stopped. “Scorched earth” is a term that comes to mind.

The distinction between dirt and vegetation was gone. Every building, every car, every plant was the same grayish-brown, lifeless color. Each street was just another row of abandoned homes with a water mark touching the gables.

Naively, I had assumed we would need the church key to get into the building. Instead, a block from the church we could see broken windows and doors standing askew. It had the look of a long-abandoned building.

Inside, sludge, mud and mold covered the halls from top to bottom. There was a bizarre feel to the recently painted preschool hall as bits of its white cloud and blue sky mural peeked through the awful gunk left by murky water.

Each preschool room was an upheaval of children’s furniture, toys and sippee cups so covered in mold that they were almost beyond recognition. The nursery was a mound of dirty linen, with one crib stacked on top of another. It was difficult to picture this as the same place where dozens of children played happily in our weekday preschool.

My camcorder was running as we walked brokenheartedly through the church office and through the kitchen where our French Quarter ministry had prepared so many Sunday meals for our homeless congregation. But when we reached the sanctuary, I turned off the camera.

Words and pictures cannot capture the stench, the uncontainable mold, the shadows and eerie silence, and the overwhelming sense of loss we felt as we stepped into the sanctuary. I learned that it is possible to weep while wearing an industrial-grade, toxic-mold-resistant face mask.

The sanctuary was a scrapheap of pews, Bibles and hymnals. Every pew had been ripped from its moorings and the room had clearly been a swirling soup of debris.

The pedal board from the organ had settled in the choir loft. The end of a pew rested on top of the piano. Pots and pans from the kitchen and the organ bench were at the bottom of the baptistery. The podium was at the exit and the Lord’s Supper table sat in the center of the room, under the chandelier, supporting a coffeepot from the kitchen.

Water had risen several inches above the door frames and reached halfway up the stained glass windows on the south side of the church, breaking them out. The strings of the baby grand piano were rusted and had snapped as the sounding board swelled with water.

Ugly mold covered the banners in the choir loft by the baptistery that read, “King of Kings and Lord of Lords.” The defilement seemed blasphemous.

Ironically, only the three folding chairs lined up against the back wall and a folding chair leaning against the wall behind the piano were apparently unmoved by the ravaging water.

In the fellowship hall, folding chairs remained lined up in perfect rows, Sunday School ready. The sludge and rust were the only clues that they, too, had been submerged for days.

Personal loss has been great as well.

Nick, a seminary student and one most faithful to our ministry, had returned to the campus to retrieve what he could of his young family’s possessions. He drove onto campus with a trailer. He left with a single chair.

Stories similar to his seem endless. So many in our congregation have lost homes and possessions. All of us have been displaced. For a few, the flood was just the latest in a series of trials or losses.

Yet, the words we had sung so many times as a congregation played over and over in my mind as we walked through the church. “...As the darkness closes in, Lord, still I will say, Blessed be the name of the Lord, Blessed be Your glorious name. You give and take away ... my heart will choose to say, Blessed be the name of the Lord.”

It was in the sanctuary that I realized why the loss of the church disturbed me more than even the loss of my own possessions. The network of support that we relied on in time of crisis had been breached. We were not there to comfort each other.

My husband and children and I are together and safe. But my church family is scattered and in need. The community we had ministered to, prayed for, begged the Lord for is hurting, and we can’t be there to help.

Jim Shaddix, our pastor until following the Lord to another place of ministry this year, had led our church to conclude our services with the prayer, “Lord, give us this city and do it in such a way that only You get the credit.”

Under Pastor Jim’s leadership we came to celebrate when one of our laymen or students moved away, viewing it as a way for Edgewater to touch the world. Each member left with a commission to be an ambassador for Christ on behalf of Edgewater Baptist Church.

We broadened our prayer to say, “Lord, give us the nations and do it in such a way that only You get the credit.”

Those who left our congregation were “the church scattered,” and we sent them out as missionaries. Each of us is now, literally, part of the scattered church. I pray that we can accept this as our commissioning service.

Our building likely will be condemned, our parsonage is severely damaged, our congregation is dispersed. If we see the commitment of lives in our city to Christ through this surreal turn of events, it will have been done in such a way that only the Lord will get the credit.

If we can show others the way to Christ as we are scattered across the nation, it will have been done His way.

May God grant me the grace to accept how He has chosen to answer our prayer and to say, “Blessed be His glorious name.”
--30--


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FIRST-PERSON: What about cremation?
by Mark Coppenger
Date: October 12, 2005 - Wednesday

EVANSTON, Ill. (BP)--In a week when I read about author Hunter Thompson’s ashes being shot out of a cannon in Colorado, when my classical philosophy class at Southern Seminary read through Plato’s Phaedo (where Socrates shows the greatest disrespect for the body), and when, preaching through Genesis, I came to chapter 50, which concerns the remains of Jacob and Joseph, I couldn’t help but think of cremation. 

Nationwide, one-fourth of the dead are cremated, and that percentage is much higher in some states, such as Colorado, where it is 50 percent. What is one to think when a loved one says they prefer it?

The arguments given for cremation include the following: 1. It’s less expensive, roughly one-fifth the cost of the traditional funeral; 2. It takes up less space; 3. The remains and their fortunes aren’t as “yucky.” Furthermore, the Bible doesn’t prohibit it, and it won’t be a hindrance to resurrection. God can reconstitute your body wherever, whenever and however He pleases. 

Still, I lean toward a traditional burial. Let me offer 10 reasons:

-- It shows peculiar reverence for the body. In the first century, many thought the body was vile, but Jesus became incarnate, to the consternation of Gnostics and their fellow travelers. In our century, the culture adores the body, spending billions for fitness club memberships, flattering fashions, cosmetic surgery, manicures and such. But there is little appreciation for bodies “past their prime,” for bodies broken by disease or accident. But loved ones cannot help but cherish the last touch of a wrinkled hand, with liver spots and veins ruptured by multiple IV punctures. Here was a body which bore you in its womb, which nursed you, which held you it its arms when you were struck with fever. It was a body whose face, limbs and stature were a comfort to you, not as so much “sand,” but as a creature in human form. And it is in that form that they are buried. Furthermore, economy and efficiency are the bottom line in garbage disposal, not in the disposition of human remains.

-- It teaches resurrection of the dead. The Greeks and Romans were prone to burn their dead, but the Christians believed that their departed were only sleeping -- hence, the word “cemetery” from the Greek verb, komein, “to sleep.” (By the way, the Latin version is “dormitory,” from which the dead arise for class.) 

-- It speaks the language of creeds and hymnody. From the “was buried, and rose again on the third day” of Nicea to the “He arose!” of “Low in the Grave He Lay” to the “Dem bones gonna walk around” of the spiritual “Dry Bones,” Christian worship is full of reference to the burial and resurrection of recognizable bodies. On Easter, we don’t sing, “Fast, on the winds he blew.... " or “Sprinkled about he was...."

-- It sustains the imagery of baptism. Romans 6:4 reads, “We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may life a new life.” I’d hate to think what sort of ceremony cremation would suggest.

-- It shuns bad associations. I suppose I could preach wearing shades and a sequined jump suit with cape, but my congregation would have trouble getting past the Elvis of it all. Through the centuries, the Christian church has associated the burning of the dead with paganism, whether in the Valley of Hinnom (cf. “gehenna”) or on the Hindu pyre. Of course, a Christian consumed in a fiery car accident is no less spiritually secure than one who dies intact, but for many, it seems odd to intentionally burn those who died, unless it was a dire matter of disease prevention.

-- It enjoys good associations. From Genesis 50 to Lazarus to Gethsemane, from Augustine, to Luther, to Annie Armstrong, burial of an intact body has been the norm in Christian circles. 

-- It seems to best satisfy the human psyche. The military’s painstaking retrieval of bodies, whether under the fire of combat or in the archaeologist-like search for bones at decades-old airplane crash sites, reflects this concern for more than tokens of the departed. Interest in wakes, visitations, vaults, embalming, and ossuaries seems to be a natural outworking of a fundamental human interest macro-preservation. Perhaps it is a sad attempt to deny the reality of death, but it is just as likely a function of reverence for these “jars of clay.”

-- It tweaks the environmental extremists. Much environmentalist literature disparages “anthropomorphism,” the elevation of mankind above the rest of nature. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) calls Thanksgiving “Holocaust on a Plate,” comparing the slaughter of turkeys to the slaughter of Jews in Auschwitz. Zero Population Growth (ZPG) fanatics try to intimidate those who would presume to “clutter” and “choke” the world with more than two kids. For one thing, all 6.5 billion people in the world could stand together within the city limits of Houston, Texas. We’ve got room for more people. But, of course, you need more space for burial. Still, it’s not that daunting. Providing a generous nine-foot by six-foot plot for each person, all of Illinois’ 12.5 million residents could be buried in about 25 square miles, or about a square quarter mile in each of the state’s 102 counties. We can manage, thank-you.

-- It magnifies cemeteries. Not only do cemeteries testify to man’s mortality -- a useful message in a world disinclined to contemplate such sobering truth -- but they also serve as a rich cultural and spiritual resource. If scattered ashes, mantle urns, or tiny plots were the norm, then one would miss such stirring experiences as a visit to the graves of Southern Baptist greats in Louisville’s Cave Hill Cemetery –- John Broadus, J. M. Frost, and A. T. Robertson.

-- It can serve archaeology and forensics. Scientists and historians are indebted to those who have chosen traditional burial.

Please don’t think this is an ad for funeral directors and cemetery developers. While many are honorable and helpful, others are predatory, exploiting the vulnerability of grieving families. The explosion of interest in cremation and do-it-yourself burials is in large measure a reaction to the funeral industry’s cost racketeers. But the issues are separable, and the point stands: The traditional burial has much to recommend it.
--30--
Mark Coppenger is pastor of Evanston (Ill.) Baptist Church and distinguished professor of apologetics at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky. Reprinted from the Illinois Baptist newsjournal, online at www.ibsa.org/illinoisbaptist.



