The result of 21-C
I am sharing this as a result of the time I spent at 21-C a couple of weeks ago.
It was refreshing to hear Bob Roberts share of his church's approach to being “church” in his community. I heard him say what I learned from 25-plus years of serving God in the conventional church-don't count on the association or convention to set up your ministry for you. Discover the gifts God gave the fellowship and get to work!
I have been ministering in the entertainment district of Richmond's Shockoe Bottom. I try to show God's authentic love with the unconventional population that lives, works and frequents the establishments. It is one of the most spiritually rewarding things I have ever done. God allowed me the opportunity to start a small group in a tattoo parlor and organize Christmas celebrations in a bar. We are believers and seekers discovering who God is to us. We are now much more than friends. Because the people I minister to work until the wee hours of the morning, they may never go to a conventional church.
To say we, as the church, want to be able to do this kind of ministry is noble and needed. Jesus walked and talked and ate with the people the “church” had declared unreachable. He did it this way for a reason-for us to follow the example!
I left 21-C with fear for the future of Baptist churches. I discovered over the last several months that we as a body of Baptist believers get excited about unique ministry opportunities in our back yards. We see it as needed, we just don't know how to support or fund it so we back away.
I am now heading back to the conventional church. I need to show others how to walk this path and I need to provide financially for my family. Both are reasons God has made plain, the “how” is the uncertainty.
This is Kingdom building at its basic level. How will we serve someone in Jesus' name today?
Mark Holland, Mechanicsville
Stop the arguments
The positive events in the beginning of the Feb 3 issue were placing me in a good mood, but I ran into a problem in the second column of page 5. I hope someone with more charity, more qualifications and less anger detected the anomaly.
The president of the Southern Baptist Convention's Executive Committee is quoted: “… with those whose primary goal coincides with ours, the evangelization of the masses.” If evangelism is indeed their primary goal, then why did they place so much time, energy and money into taking power?
I don't know a real answer to the divisions, but I learned of one very bad example. At one time three major denominations of Christians existed in North Africa: Arians, Catholics and Donatists. They argued and squabbled so much among themselves (for how long? for what reasons? maybe somebody who really knows church history can tell) that the Mohammedans, having come out of Arabia and conquered Egypt, took over the rest of the northern tier of Africa (through what is now Morocco) and wiped all three denominations out.
Spencer L. Williams, Alexandria
Spiritual sensitivities tweaked
Two articles in the Feb. 3 Herald tweaked my spiritual sensibilities. First, a letter which offered an interpretation of the Baptist General Association of Virginia's resolution on abortion. The letter was biased, but worse, it interpreted phrases in a way the writers never intended.
The writers says, “Full range of medical services of course means abortion.” Couldn't “full range of medical services” mean exactly what it says? The same is true of this example: “Full range of medical services is referring to the woman.” Really? I didn't read it that way.
Clearly the writer has agenda and my hope is that readers saw the letter for what it was-a slam at the BGAV, which the writer asserts “is disintegrating and will continue to do so as long as they support abortion.” Isn't it terribly unethical, unfair and unchristian to distort the language of a well-crafted BGAV resolution to advance a personal agenda? Clearly, the writer was attacking the BGAV, not the resolution!
Second is Ken Walker's article on Henry Blackaby's ideas concerning the recent tsunami. Blackaby sees the tsunami and other natural and manmade disasters as the judgment of God upon sin.
First, how does one speak lovingly of a God who “because of sin” instantly snuffs out the lives of thousands of unsuspecting men, women and innocent children? Instead of letting my mind dwell in a cesspool of negative theology, I have wondered how one might effectively take the message of God's love to that part of the world! Many Christians are doing so, while Blackby goes around speaking on the wrath of God.
Second, has Blackaby never considered that God set a series of natural laws into effect at creation? Unfortunately, though no fault of God, however, we humans have failed to respect these laws. Admittedly, many people are where they are through no fault of their own, but they must still bear the consequences of natural law. To illustrate, consider the lack of wisdom when one builds along the banks of the Mississippi River, a river which can and does change course precipitously. When homes are washed away, God is neither to blame nor is God wreaking judgment. When people build fine homes on the coast of Florida without regard for the annual hurricanes that buffet the region, how can they blame God when their homes are destroyed?
Third, Blackaby's brand of negative Christianity hinders the spread of the gospel at the time when the world is hungry for, and eager for, the gospel. With his views, I do pray he will stay at home. Please, Mr. Blackaby, do not spread your hateful ideas and unchristian attitudes around the Pacific Rim!
L. Milton Hankins, Catlettsburg, Ky.
Baptists and Jews
I see that Professor James Dunn in his piece “Baptists and Jews …” [Herald, Feb. 3] is still promoting the doctrine of the Baptist Joint Committee, People for the American Way, ACLU, atheists and others when it comes to church/state issues.
His support of tolerance toward Judaism is right on, and admirable, but I would like to ask Professor Dunn and others who think like him:
1. Since all governments reflect a particular “worldview,” is it better that ours be a Christian one, or a secular-humanist one?
2. How in the world could our government promote “forced faith?” (Dunn's words).
3. Is our public education better off since the Bible and God have been forbidden in public schools?
4. Do you care more about being tolerant and non-offensive than you do about exposing our society to the Word of God?
5. Why are the posting of the Ten Commandments in “public places” such a problem for you? And why do you call them “graven images?” It sounds demeaning.
6. Are you in favor of public schools promoting secular objectives in sex education, abortion rights and “civil unions?”
7. If no-then who and what can fill that void?
8. Why is it that secularists' tax dollars can be used to foster their beliefs, but Christians' tax dollars can't be used for education vouchers that are just a fraction of the cost of public school education?
9. Why is it that “faith based” programs are not as worthy of support as secular ones?
10. Since a “nation cannot be Christian; only persons can be Christians,” what do we call a nation whose people are predominately Christian and whose laws are based upon Christian principles?
11. Why do you get irritated because America is called Christian?
12. Since James Dunn is for “truth telling,” are the Jews, Muslims, pluralists and secularists going to heaven? If yes-why? If no-how can we keep silent?
13. Is government-tolerance of all faiths the same as approval of them? Why did you say yes or no?
14. Do you agree with Benjamin Franklin when he said; “History will also afford frequent opportunities of showing the necessity of a public religion … and the excellency of the Christian religion above all others, ancient or modern”?
15. Do you disagree with Joseph Story (Father of American jurisprudence, Supreme Court justice, founder of Harvard Law School) that “It yet remains a problem … whether any free government can be permanent where the public worship of God and the support of religion constitute no part of the policy or duty of the state in any assignable shape?”
16. Since almost all of the founders publicly acknowledged their dependence on God for the success of their efforts, why can't we teach that in the public schools?
I fear that leaders like Professor Dunn get their thinking from the post-1962 Supreme Court, rather than from the Bible and pre-1962 Supreme Court rulings and American history.
David Coburn, Ashland