Thursday, March 04, 1999

• Push for hate crime laws threatens religious freedom, Land contends

  by Dwayne Hastings, posted Thursday, March 04, 1999 (25 years ago)

  AUSTIN, Texas (BP)--The U.S. Constitution’s prohibition against government seeking to control its citizens’ freedom of conscience is in peril, Richard Land said in an address during the Southern Baptist Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission's annual conference in Austin, Texas.

  The recent push to broaden hate crime statutes relating to criticism of homosexual behavior is at the heart of the erosion of the constitutional right to free exercise, the ERLC president said during March ... Read More

• Monica Lewinsky tells of abortion, family’s contemplation of suicide

  by Art Toalston, posted Thursday, March 04, 1999 (25 years ago)

  WASHINGTON (BP)--Add the death of an innocent life to the saga of a misguided Monica Lewinsky in Washington, D.C.

  Lewinsky had an abortion as a result of a three-month relationship with an older Pentagon co-worker, she revealed on network TV March 3 -- a 1996 relationship during a hiatus in her 18-month extramarital affair with President Clinton.

  She never told the president of her abortion, Lewinsky told Barbara Walters during a two-hour ABC “20/20” interview.

  Walters cut s... Read More

• Christians should be honest earlier to avoid adultery, O'Chester says

  by Tom Strode, posted Thursday, March 04, 1999 (25 years ago)

  AUSTIN, Texas (BP)--Many Christians become involved in adultery because they ignore some "danger signs," Barbara O'Chester said at the annual conference of the Southern Baptist Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission.

  O'Chester, a pastor's wife and founder of a popular women's retreat ministry, said many Christians become "caught up in immorality" because they "aren't honest enough early enough." A husband or wife should be concerned, she said, if:

  -- "You get exciting news, and the first pe... Read More

• Return to biblical foundation urged for church to help young people

  by Tom Strode, posted Thursday, March 04, 1999 (25 years ago)

  AUSTIN, Texas (BP)--The church has failed to help young people, especially black males, succeed in life because it has abandoned its biblical principles, a pastor of an innovative, predominantly African American church said at the annual conference of the Southern Baptist Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission.

  Sterling Lands, pastor of Greater Calvary Baptist Church in Austin, Texas, said in the closing address of the March 1-3 conference Christians have dealt with symptoms and have not stood... Read More

• Historic basis of Christianity imperative, scholar declares

  by Kyle Roberts, posted Thursday, March 04, 1999 (25 years ago)

  KANSAS CITY, Mo. (BP)--Today’s society wrongly views the story of Jesus as a non-historical myth, said Steven Evans, president of the Society of Christian Philosophers.

  Salvation, however, “is not merely psychological self-help,” Evans, professor of philosophy and dean for research and scholarship at Calvin College, Grand Rapids, Mich., said March 3 at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, Kansas City, Mo.

  Using Peter’s declaration that he was an eyewitness to th... Read More

• In drought, pray for forgiveness, not just for rain, Blackaby says

  by Robyn Little, posted Thursday, March 04, 1999 (25 years ago)

  FORT WORTH, Texas (BP)--During the Texas drought last summer, noted author and speaker Henry Blackaby didn't pray for rain -- he prayed for forgiveness.

  "Is there anything in Texas that might cause God to withhold the rain to get the heart of his people to return to him, to seek his face in repentance and prayer and confessing of sin so that he could heal the land?" Blackaby recalled asking himself during one of the worst droughts in Texas history.

  Blackaby, keynote speaker at Southwestern... Read More