AUSTIN, Texas (ABP) — Born with “a dream and an ache in the heart” 60 years ago, the Texas Baptist Christian Life Commission has challenged and helped shape the Lone Star State — and Baptists all over the nation — ever since.
In 1948, while hospitalized following a heart attack, Baptist General Convention of Texas Executive Secretary J. Howard Williams first envisioned a prophetic arm of the convention that would challenge Texas Baptists to think and act according to biblical principles — a dream realized by the formation of the CLC in 1950.
The commission first pushed Texas Baptists to rethink their attitudes and actions toward African Americans. Building a case upon biblical passages, it waged a grass-roots battle for racial reconciliation. Because of its stance, a dislike for the commission quickly formed in some quarters. But in the end, the commission’s viewpoint won out.
That effort set the precedent for how the commission would operate for the next 60 years — waging passionate efforts to urge Texas Baptists to act biblically, making friends, encountering people who strongly disagree with their stances and seeing its stance prevail.
Steve Vernon, associate executive director of the Baptist General Convention of Texas, presents an award to former Christian Life Commission Director Jimmy Allen at a luncheon celebrating the CLC’s 60th anniversary. (BGCT PHOTO)
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Former CLC Director Jimmy Allen, who fought for the end of segregated restrooms in the BGCT headquarters building and hired the convention’s first African-American staff member, said CLC leaders worked at the local, individual, congregational and statewide levels, believing the Bible would changes lives when put in front of people.
The CLC later would discuss church-state-separation issues, fight gambling expansion in the state and look for solutions to the nation’s immigration matters.
In recent decades, the commission has helped Texas Baptists tackle hunger and poverty. In 2009, Texas Baptists gave more than $900,000 – a record — to the Texas Baptist Offering for World Hunger, a giving channel created by CLC.
Throughout the years, the commission has become a group of “happy warriors who bought into the vision of applied Christianity,” said former CLC Director and retired Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty head James Dunn. He was among those who celebrated the CLC’s 60th anniversary at a gathering in Austin Oct. 18 that featured commission leaders past and present.
“We’ve fought these battles together,” he said. “How can we not be bonded together?”
In the commission’s journey, it has clung to a Christ-centered theology that is incarnational, personal and experiential, Dunn said. The CLC has encouraged a faith based on the notion that a personal relationship with Christ should profoundly affect how a Christian cares about other people.
Scripture and people committed to carrying the gospel throughout the state have changed the state for the better, said Suzii Paynter, the CLC’s current director.
“We are only as good as the folks who have laid the foundation and held a lighted torch of their calling,” she said.
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John Hall is news director for the Baptist General Convention of Texas.