HERITAGE & HISTORY SOCIETY TO PRESENT AWARDS. The Baptist Heritage & History Society will honor a church historian, a student, a denominational entity, a state convention executive and three ministers at an awards luncheon scheduled in conjunction with its annual meeting, June 7-9 in Campbellsville, Ky. Bill Leonard, founding dean of the Wake Forest University Divinity School, will receive The W. O. Carver Distinguished Service Award, the society's highest honor, for his career contributions to Baptist history. Bonnie Oliver, a religion student at Memphis Theological will receive the Norman W. Cox Award for the best article published by the society in 2006—“The Life and Times of Barbara Jordan: A Twentieth-Century Baptist and Political Pioneer.” The North American Baptist Heritage Commission in Sioux Falls, S.D., will receive the Davis C. Woolley Award for outstanding achievement in assessing and preserving Baptist history. James Porch, executive director of the Tennessee Baptist Convention, will receive the Carolyn Blevins Meritorious Service Award in recognition of his leading the Tennessee Baptist Convention to provide complimentary office space for the society. In cooperation with the H. Franklin Paschall Chair of biblical studies and preaching at Belmont University in Nashville, the society also will present the 2007 winners of the Baptist Heritage Preaching Contest. The first-place winner is Brent Jones, a Baptist minister and doctoral student in American history at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville; the second-place winner is Steve Hollaway, pastor of Latonia Baptist Church in Covington, Ky.; and the third-place winner is J. Adam Tyler, pastor of Mt. Zion Baptist Church in Buckingham, Va.
NEW BAPTIST COVENANT LAUNCHES WEBSITE. The New Baptist Covenant has launched www.newbaptistcovenant.org, a web site that provides information about the Celebration of a New Baptist Covenant event, slated for Jan. 30-Feb. 1 in Atlanta. In addition to providing general information about the celebration, the website also offers opportunities for volunteer involvement. Information on housing, transportation and needs for large room blocks also will be posted on the site.
PROFESSOR'S COMMENTS ON ISLAM SPARK CONTROVERSY. A North Carolina religion professor's statement that Christianity and Islam talk about “the same God” is causing a furor among Baptists in Texas. At a February conference in Austin, Texas, Charles Kimball of Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, N.C., said Islamic teaching about Allah involves “the same God that Jews and Christians are talking about.” Kimball spoke at a conference sponsored by the Christian Life Commission of the Baptist General Convention of Texas. His comments sparked resolutions by two associations of churches, which asked the BGCT to clarify its doctrinal position. Churches in the Midland/Odessa area approved a resolution refuting the “false and precarious” teaching that God as revealed in the Bible and Allah as presented in the Quran are the same. Meanwhile, churches in the Beaumont/Port Arthur area adopted a statement affirming the Trinity and urging Baptist state and national conventions to “distance themselves from any theological mindset” that undermines distinctive Christian doctrine. Charles Wade, the BGCT's executive director, responded May 2, saying “Texas Baptists can be assured that the BGCT and the CLC are committed to and worship the God of our Lord Jesus Christ and him alone.” Kimball said Jews, Christians and Muslims have radically different understandings of God, he said, but all three religions trace their beginnings to a common heritage. “When you're talking about the God of Abraham, Moses, Jesus and Mohammad, you're talking about the same God. It's not Vishnu. It's not Krishna. It's the God of Abraham,” he said. Acknowledging common ground between Christianity and Islam is “not the same as declaring they are equally valid paths to salvation,” he stressed.
S.C. BAPTISTS ELECT EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR. Messengers to a special meeting of the South Carolina Baptist Convention voted without opposition to elect Jim Austin the new executive director-treasurer of the state convention. The vote, taken at Riverland Hills Baptist Church in Irmo, S.C., moves Austin from his old position as associate executive director for the Missouri Baptist Convention to replace Carlisle Driggers, who retired in February after 15 years as executive director-treasurer. Austin agreed to be nominated to the South Carolina post less than a month before his supervisor—state executive David Clippard—was fired by the Missouri convention. A graduate of Jacksonville State University in Alabama, Austin attended Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth and Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, Calif. Austin formerly was pastor of Morganton Baptist Church in Morganton, Ga., Blackshear Place Baptist Church in Gainesville, Ga., and First Baptist Church, Roanoke, He and his wife have five children.
BRITISH BAPTISTS TAKE ACTION ON MIGRANTS, TRAFFICKING. Baptists in Great Britain are calling on their government and churches to do more for migrant workers and to oppose human trafficking around the world. The resolution came at the May 4-7 Baptist Assembly in Brighton, the largest European Baptist event of the year. Event organizers planned the meeting to correspond with the bicentenary anniversary of the abolition of the British slave trade in 1807. They also used the occasion to launch a new campaign against human trafficking. Alistair Brown, the general director of BMS World Mission, challenged delegates to face modern-day slavery, noting that lifestyles in the United Kingdom still relegate many people to a lifetime of forced labor and poverty. The Baptist conference concluded May 7, the same day as a migrant-worker rally in Trafalgar Square and a mass for migrant workers in Westminster Cathedral.