Wayne Allen, part 2: Calling Southwestern trustees to apologize for seven ethical lapses

Last week, I wrote a Texas Baptists Committed blog post about the death of Wayne Allen, the retired senior pastor of First Baptist Church, Carrollton, and his lonely stand as the only Texan on the Southwestern Seminary Board of Trustees to vote against the firing of Russell Dilday in 1994.

Last night, I made a serendipitous discovery, and I'm convinced more than ever that God is quite frequently - not always, but frequently - the author of serendipity.

A little hungry just before bedtime, I decided to fix myself a piece of toast to quiet my hunger pangs and help me sleep (any excuse I can find for a late-night snack). But I wanted something to read as I ate, so I pulled something randomly from my bookshelves. Two shelves are taken up with old issues of magazines and journals. The issue I pulled down - entirely at random - happened to be the May 12, 1994, issue of Baptists Today, back when it was weekly rather than monthly and was printed in a newspaper format. (To my family and friends who needle me about keeping "everything under the sun," I say, "See? You never know when one of those 'everythings' might come in handy!")

On the front page was a provocative article by Cecil Sherman, then coordinator of the fledgling Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, in which he refuted First Baptist Dallas pastor O.S. Hawkins' false claim that Sherman did not accept the virgin birth of Christ. So I began reading, got to the bottom of the page, and found that the article was continued on page 4. But when I turned to page 4, my attention was diverted to an article on page 5 across the way: "Trustee says Southwestern board should apologize for 'wrongs.'"

Yes, there was much more to the story of Wayne Allen and the Southwestern trustees than his vote. He didn't stop there.

Yesterday, I was speaking to a friend who told me that he remembered Wayne Allen as being very conservative and didn't know he had taken this stand in the Dilday matter until reading my TBC blog post last week.

The article I found last night reminds us that the dispute between Fundamentalists and Moderates was not about theological differences. After all, Baptists have always had theological differences but have been able to cooperate in sharing the Gospel, because what unites us had been too important to let our differences divide us. No, the dispute arose because one faction wanted power and control. Unfortunately, when power and control become our desired destination, Christian ethics are thrown to the side as impediments to the journey.

But the story of Wayne Allen reminds us that not all who were sympathetic to the Fundamentalist cause were willing to surrender their commitment to following Christ's ethical example and teachings.

The article in Baptists Today, written by Associated Baptist Press, says that Wayne Allen challenged Southwestern Seminary trustees to "apologize to Southern Baptists for seven 'wrongs' committed in the firing of seminary president Russell Dilday. . . . 'Failure to do so is to refuse to be accountable,' the Dallas-area pastor said." It went on to say that Allen and a group of trustees had "fallen two votes short of the required 20 votes needed to call . . . an emergency trustee meeting" to discuss the drafting of such an apology.

Then the ABP/Baptists Today article listed seven wrongs, cited by Allen, "for which trustees need to answer and make amends. 'These are facts - not assumptions - because I was there,' he said." Following are these seven wrongs cited by Allen, copied verbatim from the May 12, 1994, article:

• The 'plot' to fire Dilday was 'carefully orchestrated and planned' by a group of trustees, without the knowledge of the rest of the board.
• There was a 'deliberate plan,' Allen said, to keep him and other trustees from knowing about the effort to fire Dilday.
• Dilday, students, faculty, and some trustees were led to believe no attack on Dilday was imminent, Allen said. 'This was deceit.'
• Each day of the three-day March board meeting, trustee leaders denied that a move against Dilday was afoot, Allen said.
• Chair Ralph Pulley and other trustee officers, Allen said, were out of line when, 30 minutes prior to their last session, they told Dilday he could accept a 'buyout' or be fired. The leaders 'did not have the authority to make such an offer,' Allen said.
• Neither were Pulley and the others empowered to hire former seminary vice president John Earl Seelig to handle public relations for the seminary, Allen said.
• Changing the locks on Dilday's office and his computer-access code created the public perception that Dilday was guilty of some criminal or immoral act, Allen said. 'This was wrong!'

Again, I never met Wayne Allen. We probably would have had differences over some theological issues and scriptural interpretations. Good grief, the Epiphany Sunday School class at Wilshire, of which my wife and I have been members for almost 8 years, thrive on such differences every week, but all of us leave there with mutual love and respect.

So, I imagine, it would have been if I had known Wayne Allen. His devotion to Jesus and his determination to follow Christ's example of ethical living, even though it meant calling to account his friends and colleagues, leave me with admiration and a wish that I had known him.

There are still those among us, calling themselves Baptist Christians, who lust for power and control, and who feel no compunction about lying, deceiving, and even slandering their brothers and sisters to achieve it. May we all follow the example of Wayne Allen and stand up for Christ, living in the way Christ taught us.

"Go and tell," but how?

A few days ago, Jeff Brumley of Associated Baptist Press wrote an article entitled, "The new face of interfaith dialogue."

Brumley writes that such dialogue is now being carried out "not just in formal conversations . . . but in local communities where friendships forge as ministers of various faiths work together for common goals amid increasing religious diversity in the Bible belt."

This subject carries special meaning for me, because my dad, A. Jase Jones, helped to lead many interfaith dialogue efforts, especially Jewish-Baptist dialogues, in the 1960s & 1970s through his work with the SBC Home Mission Board's Interfaith Witness Department.

Last month, I wrote a Texas Baptists Committed blog post about the trip to Israel that a group of us from Wilshire Baptist Church in Dallas took with a Jewish group from Temple Emanu-El. I titled it, "Traveling through Israel for 10 unforgettable days," and explained that what was especially memorable was the dialogue that went on between Jews and Baptists during that trip. There was a lot of conversation, some public, but also quite a few private one-on-one conversations. All of the conversations, at least those that I experienced, were constructive. We found common ground, but we also frankly discussed our differences. As in the cases that Brumley references, what started out as dialogue ultimately evolved into friendships forged during the trip. 

For those of us from Wilshire, there was an obvious, though tacit, understanding that our purpose in going with the group from Temple Emanu-El was not evangelism. It was to share the experience with, and learn from, each other. It was about mutual respect and sharing, not persuasion or argument. Yet for Christians, our lives are to be a witness, and Jesus told us to "go . . . and tell" (Matthew 28:19-20). So the impulse to witness to our Christian faith is never far from the surface. But what form should our witness take?

As I wrote in my blog post, I had one-on-one conversations with several members of Temple Emanu-El in which we shared our faith journeys with each other. For my part, there was no "this is what Christ has done for me, etc.," but rather "this is the route (including the missteps, stumbles, and falls) I've taken in my walk with God . . . this is how I've wound up where I am today in my Christian journey."

During one evening's group discussion, there seemed a consensus that Christian "missionaryism" is seen as a threat to the Jewish community and their identity, and I understand that - or at least I think I understand it, as well as I can from the perspective of one who is not Jewish. After all, these are a people who have been wanderers (as the title of Chaim Potok's enlightening book puts it) throughout their history. They have been rendered homeless repeatedly, and the perpetrators of the Holocaust sought to exterminate them. Who among us wouldn't forever feel threatened if our people had such a history?

We didn't ask our Jewish friends when or how it would be appropriate for us to share our faith with them, though I'm hopeful that we'll have the opportunity to ask them at a future get-together. But here are a few of my own thoughts (nothing set in stone, just some thoughts) about sharing our Christian faith in general:

• It should be done within the context of relationship. "Cold-calling" may work in sales, but our faith is not a product to be "sold." It is a relationship (with Christ) to be shared in relationship.
• It should be done with the permission, either explicit or implicit, of the other person. In other words, there should first be some understanding that the other person is open to hearing what we have to say.
• It should be mutual. If we are going to share our faith with others, we should be open to listening to their faith journey as well. There should be a mutual respect, with ears and minds open on both sides of the conversation.
• It should be done in an attitude of sharing, not one of persuasion or coercion.

These thoughts are not new ones for me. Through many conversations over the years with my dad, who passed away 5 years ago, I learned these attitudes, and I saw him demonstrate them throughout his life and ministry.

In his book, Neighbors Yet Strangers: The Jews and Christian Witness (Broadman Press, 1968), Daddy put it this way:

Love should be nonutilitarian. That is, it is not a love assumed for its usefulness in reaching Jewish people. If it is, it is not love at all. To be genuine, it must be a love of people because of their value as persons made in the likeness of God. If it is love assumed for its usefulness in reaching Jews, it is not the kind of love which Jesus has for [people]. His love is not conditioned on man's acceptance of him, for he keeps on loving forever even the ones who forever spurn him. Therefore, although the Christian always hopes for the salvation of his Jewish friend, he loves him whether or not there is any expectation that he will become a Christian. . . .

Possibly one reason that Christians have had so little success in reaching Jewish people for Christ is that they have shared with them so little of their lives. They have been content to let Jews and Christians travel through life on parallel but rarely-touching roads. On occasion, they have called across the 'median strip' an invitation to their Jewish friends to leave their road and travel the Christian's. Is it surprising that such an invitation has a hollow sound to Jewish ears? Harry Golden asks, 'If they don't want me for one hour at the Luncheon Club, why should they seek my companionship in heaven through all eternity?' . . .

Some Christians fear that they will offend by mentioning the name of Christ. If the Christian shares his life with his Jewish friend, the mention of Jesus' name is not likely to offend. Eugene A. Nida, veteran missionary, said, 'I have never found a man I could not speak to about Jesus Christ, if only we were walking down the same road together.'

In other words, be friends first, and you will probably wind up sharing your journeys with each other.

Richard Land and the importance of ethics

This Friday, June 1, a committee of the SBC Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission will issue a report on its investigation into remarks by President Richard Land regarding the Trayvon Martin shooting, as well as allegations that Land has carried on a pattern of plagiarism.

In an article that appeared in the Nashville Tenneseean a few days ago, Fred Luter - who is expected to be elected president of the SBC next month - is quoted as saying of the possibility that Land will be fired, "I don’t think you should throw out a lifetime of doing good because of one mistake."

I agree.

I agree, that is, with the principle as stated. But I disagree with the premise that what is being investigated was merely a "mistake." I also disagree with the premise that this was Land's only "mistake."

Ever since Land took over as head of the Commission 24 years ago, this body has continually trampled Baptist principles underfoot. What had previously been called the Christian Life Commission was renamed - in what proved to be a tragic irony - the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC).

Yet SBC leadership disposed of the Christian ethics departments in their seminaries and made the ERLC a handmaiden of a political wing espousing a narrow and twisted view of religious liberty that promoted use of the public coffers to support a few favored faiths while denying the religious freedom of others.

Now Richard Land stands accused of personal ethical lapses.

That's what happens when Christian leaders seek power for power's sake while denigrating the importance of ethics.

After gaining power in the Southern Baptist Convention in the late 1980s, leaders began dismantling the ethics departments in their seminaries. The names of T. B. Maston and Henlee Barnette, and those of their disciples, were spat upon and derided.

Why? Because Christian ethics stand in the way of power. Maston and Barnette followed the Christ who challenged the religious and political leaders of his day, the Christ who stood with the weak and powerless against their oppressors.

For those who sought and gained power in the SBC, Christian ethics were a threat, just as they were to the power-hungry in Jesus' day.

So this is where we wind up - with an Orwellian-named "Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission" that works relentlessly to undermine both ethics AND religious liberty. And with an ERLC leader whose many lapses are finally becoming inconvenient themselves even for the SBC. Seems to me, though, that the commissioners' concerns are too little, too late.

But it is not too late for future generations. With that in mind, it is essential that Baptists ramp-up our emphasis on Christian ethics in our seminaries and colleges. That should include strong support for the proposed Foy Valentine Chair of Christian Ethics at Truett Seminary on the Baylor campus, in memory of the man who for many years led the former Christian Life Commission to focus on the real ethical mandates of Christ. When we go back to graduating pastors and other leaders who are grounded in Christian ethics, our churches and institutions will reflect it, and so will our attitudes and actions.

"Heresy" along the journey to truth and faith

A few weeks ago, I had the privilege of having lunch with four students from four different Texas Baptist universities. I asked them about their courses of study and their plans for using their degrees after college. To a person, their long-range plans involved ministry to those in need.

Then I shared with them my concern about the number of young people today who are leaving the church, and asked them what they think church leaders need to do to show young people that the church is relevant to their lives.

The dominant answer seemed to be that young people want to be given the opportunity to make a real difference in people's lives. But they also want us to listen to them and acknowledge that they might have some fresh ideas and thoughts that could make a positive difference in the ministries of the church.

And it's not only that. They also want the freedom to search the scriptures and wrestle with their meaning. One young man in particular said something that intrigued me:

"We want to be able to say things that might sound like heresy."

Okay, that in itself sounded pretty heretical, didn't it? But let's not overreact. Let's listen to what he was really saying. He wants the freedom to make his faith his own rather than his parents' or his preacher's.

Over 40 years ago, I entered college with a lot of dogma in my head. It wasn't until that dogma was knocked loose that I was free to find my way to a faith that was my own. Yet, when I declared my independence of that dogma, a "friend" (or so I had thought, before then) in the dorm replied, "well, the devil sure got hold of you," and turned around and walked away. To the best of my memory, we never spoke to each other again.

What I did next was very Baptist - I went searching, for several years, for truth; truth, that is, that I could confidently accept as such. I finally wound up with a faith that was stronger than dogma, because it was a living faith and a real relationship with the living Christ. But I got there only because there were people in my life who - rather than shame me, as my onetime "friend" tried to do - gave me the freedom to find my own way. They encouraged me and they listened to me. So the journey continues today and, for those 40+ years since, there have continued to be such people in my life. It's the only way I've been able to learn and to grow and to serve.

We need to listen better and to encourage better. We need to give each other the freedom to "say things that might sound like heresy." When that young student said that to me a few weeks ago, my first thought was, "that's very Baptist!"

After all, Baptist pioneer Thomas Helwys died in prison because King James considered him a heretic. Colonial Baptist preacher John Leland spent time in jail because the authorities accused him of preaching heresy. Southern Baptist pastors in the 1940s and 1950s branded T. B. Maston a heretic for teaching that segregation was neither biblical nor Christian.

Whether young or old, we need to listen to each other. We might learn a few things. By listening to others with an open mind, we might discover that God is trying to teach us something, open our minds up to a new truth . . . or, at least, a truth that is new to us. By listening to each other, we help each other think through the meanings and implications of scripture. By listening and encouraging, we help each other to learn, to grow, and to serve more effectively. By sharing our own perspectives with humility rather than certitude and arrogance, we affirm that we all stand before God as flawed priests, helpless without the guidance of the Holy Spirit.

So maybe we need to quit throwing labels like "heresy" around so loosely, "for now we see through a glass, darkly." (1 Cor. 13:12a, KJV)

From the T. B. Maston Lectures at H-SU's Logsdon Seminary

I'm writing this from Abilene, where I've spent the past 2 days attending the 12th Annual T. B. Maston Lectures in Christian Ethics at Hardin-Simmons University's Logsdon Seminary.

This year's lecturer has been Dr. Neville Callam, general secretary of the Baptist World Alliance. Dr. Callam, a native of Jamaica, lectured Monday evening on Ethnicity: Establishing Borders of Exclusion. He spoke prophetically about how people use the language pertaining to ethnicity to categorize, stereotype, and exclude others.

Dr. Callam's theme this (Tuesday) morning was Communion: Celebrating Inclusive Community. We cannot honestly call the ordinance of communion "the supper of the Lord," he said, unless our practice of it is characterized by "fellowship in spirit and action, and loving concern for each other." He encouraged our sensitivity to"the capacity of the Lord's Supper to help us overcome rampant divisiveness."

Videos of these lectures will soon be available on the Logsdon Seminary Web site, and I will link to them through both the Maston Foundation (www.tbmaston.org) and Texas Baptists Committed (www.txbc.org) Web sites, as well as both the TBC Midweek Baptist Roundup e-newsletter and the T. B. Maston Foundation E-News.

In addition to Dr. Callam's challenging and thought-provoking lectures, a highlight for me has been meeting the Young Maston Scholars, students selected from Baptist universities across Texas, as well as other students attending the Lectures. I am consistently encouraged by meeting Texas Baptist students. Without exception, those I have met display a hunger to make a difference in the lives of those in need. They want to be given opportunities to serve in meaningful ways, and they want to be heard.

Please pray for our Texas Baptist universities and seminaries, and the outstanding people who lead and teach at those houses of learning. Give as you can, and start listening to these young people. If they are given a "place at the table," the future of Baptists is a bright one.

Death at Easter?

Whoa, what’s wrong with this picture?

Death at Easter, indeed.

Aren’t you forgetting something, pal.

Easter is when He arose, not when He died.

Besides who wants to think about something so gloomy.

It’s Spring and, depending on how the weather cooperates,

You’ve got sunshine, beautiful blossoms, birds singing

And heck, you’ve even got the Easter bunny

What’s this nonsense about death at Easter, anyway

Death is so final, so morbid, so … well, real.

Exactly.

You see it occurred to me that you can’t really have a resurrection

Without someone or something dying first

Now those of us who profess to have faith

Or those wish that they did

Or even those who’d like to be able to believe in something or someone

Will buy in on some level that something happened that first Easter

People of faith, such as myself, believe that God simply raised Jesus from the dead

(Simple for God but far from simple for us)

Death is enemy numero uno and, as has been quoted endlessly --

“Nobody gets out of here alive”

But Jesus did – at least that’s how the story goes

And that’s also my story and I’m sticking to it

My story?

Well, yes, in a way.

You see, getting back to this death at Easter thing,

Dreams can die, hopes can die, faith can die

And like all things dead, they get buried

But they don’t have to stay dead

They can be brought back to life

Not by wishful thinking or sheer willpower or clever maneuvering

They can be made alive again by … (are you ready for this?)

The grace of God

The unfailing, unearned, totally free grace of God

The kind of grace that can restore that which is broken

Or heal wounds too deep too imagine

Or shine the light of forgiveness on a dark and troubled soul

Or raise a man from the dead

That’s right.

God’s been in business of resurrection for a long time

And He’s still at it.

Death at Easter – Merely a Prelude

But one we’d do well not too ignore

Because as Abbie Huff, minister and wise woman, declares

“Look to the Broken Places. If it’s resurrection and new life

you’re looking for, the broken places are where we start”

Amen and amen.

Happy Easter

George Gagliardi

Trusting God to do His work through us

It was now about the sixth hour, and darkness came over the whole land until the ninth hour, for the sun stopped shining. And the curtain of the temple was torn in two. Jesus called out with a loud voice, "Father, into your hands I commit my spirit." When he had said this, he breathed his last. (Luke 23:44-47, NIV)

We have a hard time letting go of control over our spirit. It's not so much a trust in ourselves as it is a hesitancy to trust God. Jesus was divine, but he was also human . . . very human. In the garden, he gave voice to his humanity, asking the Father, "if you are willing, take this cup from me."

Remember, this isn't yet the resurrected Christ sitting at the right hand of the Father. This is the very human Jesus who wants to obey his Father but must summon every ounce of faith to do so. Yes, I believe that's what it took at that moment on the cross for Jesus to let go of his life and trust his spirit to the Father . . . faith. But not blind faith. Rather, a faith born of a relationship bathed in constant communion - and communication - with his Father.

I don't believe Jesus had any guarantees. There are no guarantees when you're human, because you don't yet know the outcome. No, what Jesus had was a promise, the same as we have. A promise that the Father would, in the end, raise him up.

When Jesus realized that his mission to humankind was completed ("it is finished"), he willingly committed his spirit to the Father, trusting his Father - whom he knew intimately - to keep His promise.

But it wasn't the first time he had "committed" his spirit to the Father. Far from it. He committed his spirit to the Father in the desert when he was tempted . . . and whenever broken bodies or broken spirits were brought to him for healing . . . and when the people turned to him for a word from God . . . and when he was unjustly accused by religious leaders and government authorities . . . and I could go on, but you get the idea. Committing his spirit to the Father wasn't simply a final act for Jesus . . . it was a way of life.

Last year, I produced a series of Baptist Briefs videos on the Youth Revival Movement for the Texas Baptists Committed Web site. No book has ever moved me as much as the late Bruce McIver's Riding the Wind of God: A Personal History of the Youth Revival Movement. What moved me most was the faith of a group of Baylor students, among them Bruce McIver, who started that movement in the mid-1940s. They almost immediately realized that the vision that God had given them was too big for them to accomplish, so they spent hours . . . and hours . . . and more hours . . . in prayer. They were often up 'til 2 or 3 in the morning, praying together in their dorm rooms.

In Chapter Six, Bruce McIver tells about Hudson Taylor, a missionary to China in the mid-1800s. He quotes Taylor as listing "three echelons, or levels, of praying" that he had discovered in his missionary experience:

First: "O, God, let me do your work."
Second: "O God, let me help you do your work."
Third: "O, God, do your work through me."

"A century later," McIver goes on to write, "hundreds of students at Baylor moved through these same echelons. . . . In a deep sense that can only come through prayer, there was a quiet cry, 'use me' or make us 'usable.'"

A miracle is simply God doing His work through people. Miracles are not rare if you know where to look for them . . . or how to pray for them. But it takes faith born of an intimate, daily relationship with the Father. And it takes people who, with no guarantees - but with a promise of the Father's presence - will pray, "O God, do your work through me" and then "Father, into your hands I commit my spirit."

Another birthday brings reminders of God's grace

Today's my birthday, and I've received many reminders of it on Facebook.

All of them are welcome, because they remind me of what is really of value in life - family and friends who you love, and who love you back.

Yes, another birthday brings many reminders and, having been born during the Truman administration, I have a lot to remember!

There are many people who have been important in my life, and quite a few of them are gone. Most important of all, my parents, Jase and Vivian Jones, who provided me a home filled with love and examples of Christian faithfulness. They're gone, but memory is a wonderful gift that God has given us, and I have great memories of them.

Another birthday is also a reminder that time is getting short, and there is still a lot I want to get done as long as I'm drawing breath. None of us knows exactly how long we have in this life, but when you're 61 you know you're well past the halfway point.

Most of all, my birthday is a reminder of how blessed I've been - a layperson who at this point in his life has been given ministry opportunities that are beyond what he ever imagined. Most of my adult life has been spent in the corporate world. In my 30s, I was a manager for Mountain Bell telephone. In my 40s and 50s, I was a technical writer and editor for various companies.

But now here I am with the opportunity to spend my days working on the matters about which I'm most passionate. Last year, just before I turned 60, the Texas Baptists Committed Board asked me to lead TBC as associate executive director. Last week, the TBMaston Foundation for Christian Ethics elected me as chair.

I especially thank God for T. B. Maston, whose influence has been a part of my life - whether or not I was aware of it - from the time I was born. After all, my impending birth was the reason that Dr. Maston granted Daddy a month's delay for his oral exams from March 1951 to April.

Daddy said that T. B. Maston and his own Daddy (A. Jase Jones, Sr.) were the two greatest influences in his life, and he passed that Maston influence down to my sister, Patsy, and me.

But back to the opportunities that God has given me. Even before being asked to fill my current roles with Texas Baptists Committed and the TBMaston Foundation, I had already spent the past few years developing content for their Web sites and blogs. Now I've been given the opportunity to do even more. So I get to spend my days working on issues that are at the heart of who I am, and I get to work with people on these Boards - and other people in Baptist life - for whom I have a great respect and affection. Most of all, I learn so much from these wonderful Baptists with whom I work.

That's probably the best thing about the work I do - the people I get to know and work with, such gracious and gifted Baptist ministers and laypersons. As I told the Maston Board last week, I really don't feel worthy to sit at the same table with those folks, knowing the great things many of them have accomplished for the Kingdom. But that's the grace of God, something we don't understand but gratefully accept. (And my friend Weston Ware, the recipient last November of the T. B. Maston Christian Ethics Award, reminded me that, if any of us who serve Christ were to wait until we're "worthy," we would never serve at all.)

So I thank God for another birthday - and all of you for how you bless my life and for how you bless the Kingdom of God.

T. B. MASTON SAID IT: He went about doing good

(Originally published as part of T. B. Maston's "Problems of the Christian Life" series in the Baptist Standard, April 17, 1968; several articles from this series are reprinted on the TBMaston Foundation Web site)

This five-word biography of Jesus, "He went about doing good," was part of the sermon of Peter in the house of Cornelius (Acts 10:38). This statement has deep meaning for followers of Christ.

Hoke Smith, an area representative of our Foreign Mission Board, recently said that the essence of missionary theory and practice could be reduced to a very concise formula: "To be like Jesus in attitudes, words, and deeds." This is not only the essence of missionary theory and practice, but it is also the essence of the Christian life.

If we are like Jesus, we will have a wayside ministry. He went about from place to place, and as He went He was helpful in His relation to suffering, sinning, seeking men and women. Jesus did not settle down in one spot and invite the people to come to Him. He went out where they were.

Our contemporary institutionalized concept of Christian work tends to localize and circumscribe our ministry for Him. We must move out of our church buildings and reach people where they are, or we will not reach the vast majority.

This does not mean that there will be no need for our buildings. We will still need them for worship and fellowship. But that worship and fellowship should be primarily preparatory. Also, we should seek to discover new approaches and techniques to transport some of that fellowship out where the people are.

Let us never forget that as Jesus went from place to place He ministered to the needs of the people.

What was the secret to the kind of life Jesus lived? Peter says that He went about doing good "for God was with him." Here was the source of His power. It was also the reason or the motive for the kind of life He lived.

At least His life was a natural expression of an inner desire. He could have used His miraculous power to perform miracles even more spectacular than most of those He performed. They would have been proof to the people that He was the Messiah, that He was the Son of God.

Why did He use His power so exclusively to relieve human needs? Approximately two-thirds of His recorded miracles were healing miracles. All others, with the possible exception of one or two, were miracles to relieve some human need. Why? He had a deep concern for people.

The more vital our relation is to Him, the deeper will be our desire to go about doing good. Also, the only source of the power that will enable us to have an effective wayside ministry is the power that comes from a vital relationship to Him.

FROM THE MASTON READER: Neglect of the Poor

(Both-And: A Maston Reader, Selected Readings from the Writings of T. B. Maston, published by the TBMaston Foundation in 2011, will provide the focus of the Texas Baptist Christian Life Conference on March 8-9 at Wilshire Baptist Church, Dallas.)

Southern Baptists are becoming increasingly a middle- and upper-class movement. The movement upward economically, educationally, and politically seems to be inevitable, but the movement away from the poor is not inevitable.

However, too many of our local churches tend to neglect "God's little ones," and for many of those churches those little ones are close by the church building. Also, we may discover that some of the neglected "little ones" are really among God's "big ones."

We should remember one proof that Jesus was the promised Messiah was that He preached the gospel to the poor (Luke 4:18; 7:22; cf Isaiah 61:1-12).

Furthermore, we should not forget that when the "Son of man" comes in judgment He will say to those on His right hand and on His left hand, "Inasmuch as ye have done it (done it not) unto one of the least of these, my brethren, ye have done it (done it not) unto me" (Matthew 25:40, 45).

He identified Himself with the little ones, even the least of them. What would be His word to us as individual Christians and churches?

(Excerpted from the article, "Materialistic Spirit Threatens Southern Baptists," written by T. B. Maston and originally published in the Baptist Standard, May 14, 1980; reprinted on p. 172 of Both-And: A Maston Reader.)

FROM THE MASTON READER: Monologue or Dialogue?

(Both-And: A Maston Reader, Selected Readings from the Writings of T. B. Maston, published by the TBMaston Foundation in 2011, will provide the focus of the Texas Baptist Christian Life Conference on March 8-9 at Wilshire Baptist Church, Dallas.)

Many problems arise in the area of human relations because of a failure of people to communicate with one another. A major factor contributing to this failure is the inability or the refusal of some people to enter into dialogue.

The latter is one reason for many conflicts that arise between parents and children, teachers and pupils, employers and employees, pastors and people. Also, the clashes between those of different cultures and colors stem to a considerable degree from a failure to carry on real dialogue. Martin Luther King Jr., in his famous "Letter from the Birmingham Jail," said: "Too long has our beloved Southland been bogged down in a tragic effort to live in monologue rather than dialogue."

Failure to Participate
The failure to participate in dialogue is primarily but not exclusively the responsibility of the individual or group with the advantage of age, prestige, or power. There is always the possibility of a two-way monologue. Two people or even two groups may seemingly but not really be speaking to one another.

As the younger or less powerful individual or group matures, there will be more necessity for dialogue. At least there will be insistence on an answer to the questions that are asked. Parents of teenage children become acutely aware of this insistence. But the same thing is true of other individuals and groups. For example, the Negro in recent years has insisted as never before on real dialogue.

The demand by the teenager, the college student, the employee, the Negro for dialogue may sound at times like a monologue. If it does, one possible reason is the refusal of the parent, the teacher, the administrator, the white man to enter into dialogue. The more the latter refuses to hear, the louder the former will speak.

Difficulty of Dialogue
Many people prefer monologue to dialogue because the latter is much more difficult. Dialogue means that one's position may be challenged. It is usually much easier to state a position than to defend it. Some feel threatened when they are asked to defend their position. When this happens, their reaction will be emotional rather than intelligent.

Also, to carry on effective dialogue, one must be able to listen attentively and to analyze objectively the position of the other person or group. This is hard to do. We need to know, however, that effective communication depends as much on ability to listen as on ability to speak.

Many problems in our churches and denomination stem from the fact that we tend to speak in monologue rather than dialogue. This is not only true of the preacher in the pulpit but also of the teacher in the classroom and of the denominational leader.

There is not enough opportunity for people generally to ask questions, to have a chance to talk back, or to state an opposing viewpoint. Unfortunately, too many of us in church-related vocations are not competent in the use of dialogue.

Dialogue is particularly important in a democracy. There is no real democracy without it. Also, the maturing of people in a democracy will be determined, to a considerable degree, by their participation through dialogue in the life and work of the democracy.

(Originally published in T. B. Maston's Problems of the Christian Life series in the Baptist Standard, December 10, 1969; reprinted on pp. 257-259 of Both-And: A Maston Reader.)

Ethical Issues Take Center Stage During March & April

The next 2 months offer numerous opportunities to delve into biblical ethics and specific ethical issues. Several conferences will focus on biblical Christian ethics and ways of applying Christ's life and teachings to the ethical issues of our day.

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Two weeks ago, in this blog space, I wrote a post about the Christian Life Conference that will take place at Wilshire Baptist Church in Dallas on March 8-9. Co-sponsored by the Texas Baptist Christian Life Commission, the Texas Baptist Office of Theological Education, and the TBMaston Foundation, the 2012 Christian Life Conference will center on the theme, Both/And Ethics in an Either/Or World.

Allen Verhey, professor of Christian ethics, Duke Divinity School, will speak on "Remembering Jesus: The Bible, the Community, and the Moral Life"; and "Remember Jesus in a World of Sickness and Suffering."

Michael Evans, pastor, Bethlehem Baptist Church, Mansfield, will speak on "Servants Mustering Courage to Commit."

Bill Tillman, director of the Texas Baptist Office of Theological Education, will speak on "Evangelism and Ethics."

Several breakout sessions will be offered as well. Click here for further information on speakers, breakout leaders, schedule, and registration.

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On March 29, Howard Payne University in Brownwood will host the 5th Annual Currie-Strickland Distinguished Lectures in Christian Ethics. This year's theme is Faith and Politics: Being Prophetic Without Being Partisan.

Stephen Reeves, legislative counsel for the Texas Baptist Christian Life Commission, will speak on "A Christian Voice in a Public Arena."

Suzii Paynter, director of the Texas Baptist Christian Life Commission and director of Advocacy and Care for Texas Baptists, will speak on "Leading Your Church to Be Politically Responsible."

C. Welton Gaddy, president of the Interfaith Alliance and pastor of Preaching and Worship at Northminster (Baptist) Church, Monroe, LA, will speak on "Preaching in an Election Year."

In addition to the events on March 29, which are open to the public, events are scheduled on March 30 for Howard Payne students only. Registration information will soon be available on the Howard Payne Web site at www.hputx.edu.

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On April 16-17, Hardin-Simmons University's Logsdon Seminary in Abilene will host the 12th Annual T. B. Maston Lectures in Christian Ethics. This year's theme is Community and Exclusion: The Ethics of Ethnicity and Communion.

Neville Callam, general secretary of the Baptist World Alliance, will deliver this year's lectures. On Monday evening, he will speak on "Ethnicity: Establishing Borders of Exclusion"; on Tuesday morning, he will speak on "Communion: Celebrating Inclusive Community."

Monday evening's program will also feature the recognition of the 2012 Young Maston Scholars. Click here for additional information.

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On April 19-21, First Baptist Church, Decatur, Georgia, will host A [Baptist] Conference on Sexuality and Covenant. The conference is co-sponsored by Cooperative Baptist Fellowship (CBF) and Center for Theology and Public Life, Mercer University. The CBF Web site explains that, "Through plenary presentation, small-group interaction, and resource breakouts, the conference aims to provide Baptists and other interested Christians an opportunity for honest, compassionate, and prayerful dialogue around matters and questions of sexuality."

Session conveners will be Rick Bennett, director of missional formation for CBF; and David Gushee, distinguished professor of Christian ethics, Mercer University. Click here for further information about schedule and speakers; and click here to register.

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On April 27-28, Heights Church of Christ (nondenominational) in Houston will host the Conference on Biblical Equality. Co-sponsored by Christians for Biblical Equality, Baptist Women for Equality, and Fuller Theological Seminary, the conference will center on the theme, A New Creation. A New Tradition. Reclaiming the Biblical Tradition of Man and Woman, One in Christ.

Speakers will include Katie Hays, senior minister, Northwest Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), Arlington, TX; J. R. Daniel Kirk, assistant professor of New Testament, Fuller Theological Seminary; Philip B. Payne, author of Man and Woman: One in Christ; and Todd D. Still, professor of Christian Scriptures, George W. Truett Theological Seminary at Baylor University. Click here for further information about speakers; click here for information about the schedule; and click here to register.

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Children have already paid enough for one preacher's sins

For two weeks, children are being barred from a Florida Baptist church while its pulpit is taken over by a registered sex offender.

In an Associated Baptist Press article published today, Bob Allen reported that Christ Tabernacle Missionary Baptist Church in Jacksonville, Florida, "has had to make adjustments since opening its pulpit to Darrell Gilyard, who recently served three years in prison for sex crimes with two girls committed while he was senior pastor at Shiloh Metropolitan Baptist Church in Jacksonville. As a registered sex offender, Gilyard, 49, is not allowed to be around minors."

Allen went on to note that Gilyard had once "resigned from a church after admitting to several extramarital affairs. That was after allegations of sexual misconduct at three previous churches."

Gilyard later served 15 years as pastor of Shiloh Metropolitan until 2008, when "he resigned . . . after he was charged with lewd and lascivious conduct for sending inappropriate text messages to two underage girls."

As a Christian, I deeply believe in God's power and desire to redeem. I believe in God's grace, and my conviction is that we are to share God's grace and forgiveness.

But what is redemption, in the case of one who has repeatedly used his position to prey upon others sexually? It should not mean returning to the pulpit. For the rest of his life, this man should be the preachee, not the preacher; his was not a single isolated occurrence - it has been a repeated pattern for at least two decades. His concern should be getting himself right with God, and he should not be presuming to get others right with God. He is in no position to do so.

Now this church has chosen to make young people pay the price for this man's sin; they have barred them from church for 2 weeks.

Last week, I wrote a Texas Baptists Committed blog post about the decision of LifeWay Christian Resources to let Bibles intended for sale to benefit breast cancer victims instead sit in a warehouse, gathering dust, because of differences over certain policy decisions of a partner organization. My main concern in writing that post was that God's word was being held hostage to man's (and I do mean man's) theology.

These two situations are related. In one, we keep God's word in a warehouse, away from those who need it. In the other, we keep God's children away from the preaching and teaching of His Word.

Oh, I agree that the children shouldn't be in the same room with Darrell Gilyard. But he is the one who should be forced to get his preaching in isolation, not the children. They should be in church with their parents and their friends.

He may well be a spellbinding preacher, but his "spell" has already proven costly for many. Yes, all of us are sinners, including preachers. But we should be able to trust the man or woman in the pulpit. Darrell Gilyard has broken that trust - time and time again - and forfeited the benefit of any doubt. It is irresponsible of any church to ignore the character of the person entrusted with the preaching of God's Word.

And it is just plain wrong to tell children they can't go to church because the preacher is one who can't be trusted to be in the same room with them.

Both/And: Religion and Spirituality

Jeff Bethke recently posted a popular video to YouTube. The video, entitled “Why I Hate Religion, But Love Jesus,” has garnered more than 19 million views. Bethke works for a non-profit called Jubilee Ranch in Tacoma, Washington, and he promotes himself as a Christian speaker (see http://jeffbethke.com/about/). Bethke’s video created a stir among many of my colleagues and friends. A long line of Facebook friends posted the video, with comments such as: “This is great,” and “He speaks the truth!” I’ve also been asked for my opinion regarding Bethke’s video on numerous occasions, because I have expressed some skepticism.

The video is quite interesting, especially since Bethke raps through a catchy poem. Yet, there seem to be some holes in his argument, namely, that one ought to hate religion in favor of loving Jesus. Bethke even puts forward that Jesus hated religion. Some points of biblical evidence, however, point out ways in which Jesus and his followers embraced religion. For instance, Jesus was reared by his parents in the Jewish religion, and it is quite clear that both Mary and Joseph faithfully followed the Law. Jesus even argued the tenets of religion from a young age, and seemed excited to be “doing his Father’s work” in the Temple. Later in his life, Jesus taught in synagogues, frequented the Temple, and called the Temple a “house of prayer for the nations.” This evidence hardly suggests that Jesus disdained religion. Perhaps it is more biblically accurate to say that Jesus disdained corrupted religion.

Disdain for corrupt religious practices pervades the entire Bible. For example, the prophets (especially Isaiah and Amos) call out religiously pious people for bringing the right sacrifices and bringing in enough tithes to fill up the treasury. Yet, these same folks who were full of theological and religious knowledge were also spiritually and morally bankrupt. Bethke seems to trend toward a similar idea, but he cannot put it accurately into words. Perhaps it is more accurate to say that the church reflects corrupt religion when all of the orders and rules are followed to the letter, but the spirit of that religious expression goes missing. The apostle James said: “This is pure and undefiled religion in the sight of our God and Father, to visit orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world.”

Further, when the early church fleshed out the religious expression of Christianity, it is quite clear that they struggled from the get-go. For example, they struggled with food distribution practices (Acts 6), tithing for the right reasons (Acts 5), racial equality (Acts 15), and missional practices (Acts 15:36-40). Also, it was Paul’s practice to frequent synagogues first on his missionary journeys. This seems to suggest that Paul brought the gospel first to the established religious order of the day. One also needs to remember that Paul’s writings were aimed at religious expressions in churches. If Paul had discounted or disdained religion, we probably would not have the majority of the New Testament as we know it today. 

Perhaps, then, it is easier for one (like Bethke) to say that he/she loves Jesus, likes the idea of the church, yet hates religion than it is for one to say, “I love Jesus and I am going to stick it out in organized religion in order to help our community live in the way of Jesus.”  Yet, at the other end of the spectrum, you have folks who say, “I see nothing wrong with religion at all. I get my fix, and I’m good.”

Being religious today is very hard work, and it is increasingly hard for ministers to work in this kind of polarized environment. We must realize, however, that corrupted religion is that way since people are corrupted and fallen. Religion, then, needs people who love Christ and care enough to live according to the law of love. Tinkering with religious machinery or leaving religion altogether cannot cure basic spiritual problems. Further, in my experience, some people use the argument, “I love Jesus and hate religion,” in order to get out of the hard work of spiritual discipline or practicing elementary spiritual formation in favor of a more emotional spiritual experience. Many Christians must admit, too, that they came to salvation partly because of organized religion, for it was a conduit which was used by God's Spirit to introduce us to Jesus Christ as Lord.


Rev. James Hassell
Agape Baptist Church of Fort Worth, Texas

Achieving racial reconciliation requires intentionality and persistence

One key element of the first New Baptist Covenant celebration in Atlanta, in January 2008, was racial unity. The four leading African-American Baptist conventions scheduled their annual meeting in Atlanta earlier the same week, and many of their members also attended the New Baptist Covenant celebration.

As former President Jimmy Carter noted, it was a landmark event in the history of Baptists in North America, with over 15,000 in attendance, split so closely between black and white. African-American preachers and musicians/worship leaders graced the podium.

Yet, as I looked around the room during the meetings that week, I couldn't help but be struck by competing images. One was the inspiring image of such a large number of people of different colors, races, and cultures worshipping in the same room. The other was the discomforting image of a room divided. You see - though, if you looked closely enough, there were surely exceptions to be found - for the most part, people were sitting with their own "kind." There wasn't a lot of personal fellowshipping between races.

This isn't an indictment; after all, if we're assessing guilt, then I was as guilty as anyone. But we were all likely sitting with friends - and, let's admit it, most of us still tend to have more friends that are similar to us than are different than us.

Since that time, I've made it a point to discuss occasionally with friends - including African-American friends - the question of what we can do to encourage worship across colors, across races, across cultures.

My desire for us to worship together is not simply for the sake of worship. My concern runs deeper than that. There are perspectives and concerns experienced by people of different colors, different races, and different cultures that are largely unique to their own community. I have a friend who pastors an African-American church in a low-income community. He often shares with me concerning the problems faced by people in his church and community. But I can't possibly understand those concerns, those problems, because I live in a community whose makeup and circumstances are overwhelmingly different.

The only way I - and others like me - can begin to understand other people's concerns and problems, and thus better minister to them, is to spend time with them. Quality time! Worship should be only a beginning, a doorway into a deeper experience, into partnership for ministry. It should be the beginning of learning and understanding . . . of feeling and caring about the needs of those whose lives and experiences are wholly different than our own.

I'm encouraged to see that some are giving serious thought and effort to bridging the gaps between colors, races, cultures, and circumstances. A few months ago, I attended the first of Texas Cooperative Baptist Fellowship's regional assemblies. One element of the assembly was a multicultural worship service, led by a young man who has been leading such services for 10 years. In some instances, elements and languages from different cultures were combined in the same song.

This week, I've been further encouraged to read two articles about initiatives undertaken to bridge these gaps. In the Virginia Baptist Religious Herald, Matt Walters of Gardner-Webb University in Boiling Springs, NC, writes, "An interracial group of dozens of Gardner-Webb Divinity students and professors recently took up that challenge [racial tension] by sharing in a conversation titled 'The Future of the Church: A Listening Session on Racial Reconciliation.' The event was sponsored by the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship of North Carolina's racial reconciliation ministry team and the GWU School of Divinity Student Association."

In his article, Walters quotes Gyasi Patterson, vice-chair of the CBF North Carolina racial reconciliation minsitry team, as stating, "The goal for the CBF's reconciliation team, and I hope the goal for the global church, is not just diversity, or the presence of difference. We want community, real relationships with one another, and conversation is where community begins."

In an Associated Baptist Press op-ed column, David Gushee, distinguished university professor of Christian ethics, Mercer University, writes that last week "Mercer University held two events related to an issue that has dropped off the radar: racial reconciliation."

Gushee makes a particularly intriguing observation that "I was struck by how racial reconciliation circa 2012 is made more complex because each generation has its own distinctive experiences, memories, and challenges. My 25-year-old students can hardly imagine a church culture in which a college kid would be refused entrance to a sanctuary because of his skin color. It is astonishing that it ever was that way among us."

He goes on to write that Mercer's McAfee School of Theology is "now 48 percent black, 47 percent white, and 5 percent 'other' in our student population. I have asked around, and no one I have met has ever encountered this exact racial makeup anywhere. We are participating in what I believe is a providential experiment in biracial engagement."

Something is happening, and it is encouraging. Most of us in the church have been complacent about this issue of racial reconciliation. It has been, as Gushee observes, "off the radar" for far too long. But some among us are beginning to be very intentional about getting to know each other better . . . better yet, getting to understand where each other "comes from."

It won't be easy, and it won't happen overnight. But some are taking the first steps. May more of us find ways to become engaged in such multiracial "providential experiments." The result will likely be increased understanding and enhanced ministry that touches people where they are . . . in other words, the presence of Christ.

Christian Life Conference in Dallas on March 8-9 focuses on the new Maston Reader

"Life is lived in the space between both law and grace, both freedom and responsibility, both individual and social ethics, both perfect and permissive will, both the ideal and the real. The both/and of Maston's thought characterizes his response to a variety of issues - and is consequently a fitting title for a book that is focused on his work."

The foregoing is taken from the Introduction, written by Charles McCullough, to Both/And: A Maston Reader, Selected Readings from the Writings of T. B. Maston, which was published last year by the TBMaston Foundation for Christian Ethics.

On March 8-9, the Texas Baptist Christian Life Commission's annual conference will focus on this book and its subject, the writings of Dr. T. B. Maston. Co-sponsored this year by the CLC, the Texas Baptist Office of Theological Education, and the TBMaston Foundation, the conference's theme is Christian Ethics: A Both/And Approach in an Either/Or World. Reflections on the Maston Reader will take center stage.

Featured speakers are:

• Allen Verhey, Professor of Christian Ethics, Duke Divinity School
  "Remembering Jesus: The Bible, the Community, and the Moral Life"
  "Remembering Jesus in a World of Sickness and Suffering"
• Bill Tillman, Director, Texas Baptist Office of Theological Education
  "Evangelism and Ethics"
• Michael Evans, Pastor, Bethlehem Baptist Church, Mansfield, Texas
  "Servants Mustering Courage to Commit"

Other speakers include:

• Kyle Childress, Pastor, Austin Heights Baptist Church, Nacogdoches, Texas
• Coleman Fannin, Lecturer, George W. Truett Theological Seminary, Baylor University
• Ken Hugghins, Pastor, Elkins Lake Baptist Church, Huntsville, Texas
• Jeanie Miley, Author, Speaker, and Retreat Leader, Houston, Texas
• Gus Reyes, Director, Texas Baptist Hispanic Education Initiative/Affinity Ministries

The conference, at Wilshire Baptist Church in Dallas, will begin at 1 p.m. Thursday, March 8, and continue with sessions Thursday evening and Friday morning.

Registration is $50 per person. To register online, go to texasbaptists.org/christianlifeconference, and click the "Registration" link on the left sidebar. You can also register by emailing marilyn.davis@texasbaptists.org or alicia.enriquez@texasbaptists.org, or calling the Christian Life Commission at 214-828-5192.

Steve Jobs and the Agony of God's Children

It's playing right now at The Public Theater in New York City. I'm hoping it eventually makes its way to the D-FW Metroplex. In the meantime, we have Doc Severinsen next month and Carol Burnett in April. Great entertainers both, but neither challenging our sensibilities.

We need our sensibilities challenged . . . our sense of right and wrong . . . our sense of ethics . . . our sense of those who provide our comfort through their own discomfort.

The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs is a one-man show, a monologue written and performed by Mike Daisey. I listened to an excerpt, lasting about 40 minutes, on a podcast from the This American Life show on Public Radio International. You can listen to this at http://podcast.thisamericanlife.org/podcast/454.mp3.

In it, he tells that almost all of the electronics to which we in America have become addicted are manufactured - by hand - in Foxconn Corporation's factory in Shenzhen, China. By some estimates, the factory houses as many as 430,000 workers. Foxconn makes, Daisey says, "electronics for Apple, Dell, Nokia, Panasonic, HP, Samsung, Sony, a third of the electronics products you use every day."

Daisey tells of his trip to the main gate of the Foxconn factory in Shenzhen, where he planned to stand and talk "to anyone who will talk to me." He says that guards at the gate carry guns, and "along the edges of each enormous building are the nets, because - right at the time that I am making this visit - there has been an epidemic of suicides at the Foxconn plant. Week after week, worker after worker has been climbing all the way up to the tops of these enormous buildings and then throwing themselves off, killing themselves in a brutal and public manner. . . . Foxconn's response . . . is to put up these nets."

Daisey goes on to tell of talking to the workers, through an interpreter he brought with him, as they come through the gate at shift change.

"Everyone wants to talk. . . . We can't keep up with them." In his first 2 hours, he says, "I know I met workers who were 14 years old, 13 years old, 12. . . . Do you really think it's credible that Apple doesn't know, or are they just doing what we're all doing? Do they just see what they want to see?"

Their hours, he says, are 60-minute hours, meaning that they don't get to take a minute here and there to go to the restroom or chat at the water cooler or go outside to smoke. They stand in an assembly line that shows no mercy. Everything is manufactured by hand, "and the lines only move as slow as its slowest members, and each person learns how to move perfectly as quickly as possible. If they can't do it, there are people behind them, watching them, and there are cameras watching both sets of people, and people watching the cameras."

"The official workday in China is 8 hours long," Daisey says, "and that's a joke. I never met anyone who had even heard of an 8-hour shift. Everyone I talked to worked 12-hour shifts, standard, and often much longer than that. . . . Sometimes, when there's a hot new gadget coming out, . . . it just pegs at 16 hours a day, and it just sits there for weeks and months at a time. . . . While I'm in the country, a worker at Foxconn dies after working a 34-hour shift. I wish I could say that's exceptional, but it's happened before."

There's more to Daisey's report . . . his monologue . . . his show. But that's enough.

I'm concerned about the treatment of these people by their employer and a Chinese government that looks the other way, possibly even encourages it. I'm also concerned about the culpability of corporations from America and elsewhere in this exploitation and abuse of human beings, children and otherwise. But what disturbs me even more is that they have pulled the rest of us - we American consumers - into this. We're responsible, too, because they're giving us what we demand at a price that's halfway acceptable to us . . . by exploiting God's children - of whatever age - on the other side of the world.

And Cain's question comes to me: "Am I my brother's keeper?" (Genesis 4:9b, NIV)

And Jesus' question: "Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?" And, after receiving the answer, "The one who had mercy on him," the challenge posed by Jesus: "Go and do likewise." (Luke 10: 36-37, NIV)

And Jesus' indictment of us all: "Whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me." (Matthew 25:45, NIV)

Inaugural Ethics Lecture at Truett Seminary

On Tuesday, Dr. Jonathan Tran delivered the inaugural Ethics Lecture, sponsored by the TBMaston Foundation, at Truett Seminary on the Baylor campus in Waco.

Dr. Tran's subject was ambitious: The Audacity of Hope and the Violence of Peace: Obama, War, and Christianity. Though he discussed the war policies of both Barack Obama and George W. Bush, neither president was his intended target. Bush, he said, gave us the "reasons for war," whereas Obama gave us the "theology of war." But he went on to say that neither Bush nor Obama had much choice in the matter. They were merely playing out the script that the American people have written for them. We love peace, he said, but we have decided the only way we can have peace is to wage war. Thus, we confuse our love for war with our love for peace.

We will publish Dr. Tran's lecture in the next edition of the Foundation's e-Newsletter in a few weeks and then on tbmaston.org. There will be plenty of Christians who disagree with him, but that's okay. The purpose of the lecturer . . . the prophet, if you will . . . is to challenge his listeners to look within, reexamine their closely-held beliefs and principles, and seek God's discernment. Dr. Tran did that.

My dad often told the story of sitting, as a doctoral student one day in the early 1950s, in T. B. Maston's office.

At that time, churches in the South by-and-large were segregated. Jim Crow laws still held sway. KKK rallies, cross-burnings, and lynchings were common. And most white Christians either took part in the hateful treatment of African-Americans or stood by passively, either accepting it or at least letting it happen without objection. But T. B. Maston was regularly challenging them to love and respect African-Americans as equals.

Dr. Maston pointed to the bulging bottom drawer of a nearby file cabinet. "See that bottom drawer?" Dr. Maston asked Daddy. "It's filled with hate mail."

Prophets aren't perfect, and they aren't always right. But their purpose is to point people to God and to Christ, and that will always make us uncomfortable, because the closer we get to Christ, the more we see how inadequate we are. But it's the first step in becoming faithful.

A. Jase Jones, part 1: Surrendered to God's Call

I've been thinking a lot about my Daddy the past few days. He passed away 4 years ago this week at the age of 93. Father's Day brought to mind our family's last visit with him. We celebrated Father's Day with him a day early that year, on Saturday. He died exactly a week later.

That last visit was a precious gift from God. Although Daddy had struggled in his last years - as so many do at that age - with a fuzzy memory and mental faculties that weren't as sharp as they once were, that Saturday he was truly his old self. He was recalling family memories as if they were yesterday, and he was laughing and joking with us - and we had a wonderful time together as a family that day.

As the rest of the family said goodbye and started toward the door to allow workers to take him back to his room, my son Travis and I lingered behind for one more goodbye. I had a pretty strong feeling that I might never see him again in this life. One more time, I told him how much I loved him, and he told me the same - and how proud he was of the man I had become. What a gift! Thank you, Lord.

Dr. A. Jase (Atwood Jason) Jones was a special man. Most people - even Baptists - don't know his name, because he was never prominent in national leadership. Yet he spent 22 years (January 1957 through December 1978) with the SBC Home Mission Board's Department of Interfaith Witness, leading the department's work in about a dozen midwestern and southwestern states.

Daddy surrendered to the ministry in the late 1930s, only after struggling against God's call for quite a time. When he finally surrendered to God's call, he was a rising young assistant manager in the F. W. Woolworth chain. In fact, he was told he was being transferred to a store that everyone knew was the final stepping stone to being promoted from assistant manager to manager.

Unfortunately for Woolworth, their timing was all wrong. Daddy had recently decided to stop fighting God's call to the Gospel ministry. When he told his manager that he couldn't in good conscience accept the transfer because he had decided to go to seminary to study for the ministry, his manager laughed at him and said, "You're going to be a preacher? There's no money in that!"

But now Daddy was the one who was laughing. "Don't you think I know that?" Money, he explained, had nothing to do with his decision; it was all about being faithful to God's call.

Daddy had graduated from the University of Texas at Austin in 1936. He was a Texan through and through, having been born in Corrigan in 1913 and grown up in various Texas towns.

Daddy married my Mother, Vivian Louise Otting, in January 1938, and they would soon be starting a family (my sister, Patsy, was born in 1941), so a Woolworth manager's salary would have made life more comfortable, but that wasn't what Mother and Daddy were about. They would trust God to provide what they needed.

Read part 2: Seminary Student; Pastor; Home Missionary; and Chaplain

Read part 3: Maston Foundation; and At Home with His Family

A. Jase Jones, part 2: Seminary Student; Pastor; Home Missionary; and Chaplain

Mother & Daddy with our kids, Alison & Travis (1991)

Daddy began study at Southwestern Seminary, but his study was interrupted when, in early 1943, he enlisted in the U. S. Army as a chaplain. For the next 2 years, he served under General George S. Patton's command in the European Theatre of Operations.

In the summer of 1945, after victory in Europe was achieved, his regiment returned home on the Queen Mary. They were expecting only a brief stay at home, for they were scheduled to ship out for the Pacific in the fall. Only Harry Truman's decisive actions, leading to Japan's surrender, changed those plans, meaning Daddy was home to stay.

He soon resumed his seminary work while pastoring small churches. He received his Master's degree from Southwestern in 1948 and decided to pursue a doctorate in theology, with a major in Christian Ethics under T. B. Maston.

In fact, my connection with Dr. Maston goes back to my birth. Daddy was scheduled to take his spring 1951 oral exam on March 16, but Mother was expecting, and the due date was right around the time of his exam. Although he was studying diligently (while also carrying out his pastoral responsibilities and working a part-time job with Foremost Dairy), his mind was preoccupied with taking care of Mother and preparing for the birth of their second child. So he requested an extension from Dr. Maston, and Dr. Maston granted him an extra month, rescheduling the exam for April 16. I was born on March 14.

Daddy received his Th.D. in Christian Ethics from Southwestern Seminary in 1956, just months before his 43rd birthday.

He continued pastoring small Texas churches until January 1957, when he began work with the SBC Home Mission Board. His work was co-sponsored by the Dallas and Tarrant Baptist Associations, and – for a time – by the Baptist General Convention of Texas. He had offices at both the Dallas and Tarrant Baptist Associations.

At that time, the department was known as the Department of Jewish Evangelism. He began studying the Jewish culture, the Jewish faith, and the Jewish people, and he developed a special lifelong love of - and admiration for - the Jewish people. In fact, in 1973 he and Mother spent a 6-month sabbatical in Israel, where he studied at the Institute of Holy Land Studies, and he obtained a working knowledge of the Hebrew language.

In 1962, we moved to Kansas City. He was still with the Home Mission Board, but his work was now co-sponsored by the Kansas City Baptist Association (where he had his office) and the Missouri Baptist Convention. In 1974, he and Mother moved "home" to Texas, and he spent his final 5 years with the Home Mission Board officing from their home in Marble Falls.

Through the years, in addition to his daily work as pastor and then home missionary, Daddy remained in the U. S. Army Reserves as a chaplain attached to hospital units, attending monthly meetings and performing his annual required 2 weeks of active duty (including a stint in 1963 as chaplain in the disciplinary barracks at Fort Leavenworth). Shortly before retiring from the Reserves at age 60 in 1973, he attained the rank of Colonel, an achievement of which he was especially proud.


Read part 1: Surrendered to God's Call

Read part 3: Maston Foundation; and At Home with Family