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General Convention

Sunday, December 31, 2006

Top Ten Stories of 2006

Baptist battles dominated news in 2006, editors say
By ABP Staff
Published: December 21, 2006
DALLAS (ABP) -- The election of an outsider as president of the Southern Baptist Convention was chosen by Baptist journalists as the most important story in Baptist life in 2006 -- a year when denominational affairs outweighed world news in the minds of Baptists of the South.
The election of SBC president Frank Page by discontented conservatives and the resignation of Bob Reccord as head of the North American Mission Board, after a probe found ineffectiveness and extravagant spending, were the most important Baptist news stories of the past year, according to an annual survey of journalists conducted by Associated Baptist Press.
Meanwhile, the controversy between "the blogging trustee" Wade Burleson and the SBC International Mission Board and a scandal in the Rio Grande Valley over funding for phony church-starts also commanded the attention of Baptists. The shift in power to a Democratic-controlled Congress was the only non-Baptist story to crack the top five.
Here’s the complete list:
1. An outsider president. In a major upset, Frank Page of South Carolina was elected president of the Southern Baptist Convention over two candidates closely tied to the SBC's conservative power structure. Page, who described his election as a victory for grassroots Baptists, won slightly more than 50 percent of the June vote by pledging more openness and power-sharing among SBC conservatives.
2. Reccord resigns. After a trustee investigation produced a scathing report of poor management, Bob Reccord resigned April 17 as president of the North American Mission Board, Southern Baptists' second largest mission agency. Allegations first surfaced in a February expose by the Christian Index newspaper. NAMB's trustees, after their own investigation, put Reccord under strict "executive-level controls" March 23, which many observers thought would prompt his resignation. With his possible ouster looming at the May 2 trustees meeting, Reccord met April 13 with several prominent Southern Baptist pastors seeking advice. Four days later, he resigned.
3. Wade Burleson. The Oklahoma pastor and rookie trustee used his weblog to speak against the decision by his fellow International Mission Board trustees not to appoint missionaries who use a "private prayer language" -- a variation of tongues-speaking -- in their personal devotions. Trustees threatened to dismiss Burleson for posting information about the board's deliberations. After a closed-door session March 22, however, trustees decided not to seek Burleson's removal, which would have required approval by the SBC. Instead the board censured him and adopted new guidelines to prohibit and punish future criticism of IMB actions by trustees. Burleson used his experience to warn of "narrowing" within the SBC and bolster Page's nomination for president.
4. Valleygate. A five-month investigation uncovered evidence that church-starting funds from the Baptist General Convention of Texas were misused between 1999 and 2005 in the Rio Grande Valley. Independent investigators discovered that 98 percent of the 258 new churches reported by three church-planters in the Valley no longer exist or never existed. The BGCT gave more than $1.3 million to those 258 churches. Pastors Otto Arrango, Aaron De La Torre and Armando Vera were accused and face possible legal action. The BGCT was faulted for poor oversight, uneven management, failure to abide by internal guidelines and misplaced trust.
5. A Democratic Congress. In the Nov. 4 midterm elections, Democrats gained more than a 30-seat majority over Republicans in the House and a one-seat majority in the Senate, as voters objected to the Iraq war and congressional scandals. The power shift could refocus Congress' culture wars from arguments over church-state issues and abortion rights to battles over gay rights, embryonic stem-cell research and federal judges. The new Congress includes 68 Baptists -- 61 in the House and 7 in the Senate.
6. Tongues revisited. Dwight McKissic, a pastor in Arlington, Texas, endorsed the practice of a "private prayer language" in an Aug. 29 chapel sermon at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, where he serves as a trustee of the institution. The seminary banned free distribution of the sermon through its website and announced its opposition to the practice. McKissic also criticized a policy of the International Mission Board that bans the appointment of missionaries who speak in tongues or practice a private prayer language. A wave of discussion ensued in the Baptist blogosphere. McKissic and supporters hosted a conference and plan another on diversity and freedom in devotion and worship.
7. A new Supreme Court. On Jan. 24, the Senate Judiciary Committee voted 10-8 to recommend Samuel Alito’s nomination to the Supreme Court. Congress concurred. Alito, a conservative, was tapped by President Bush to replace Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, a moderate. With the earlier confirmation of Chief Justice John Roberts, who replaced the late Chief Justice William Rehnquist, Republicans expect a solid conservative direction from the high court.
8. Katrina recovery. Churches were the “true first responders” to Hurricane Katrina victims in 2005, a new survey found. More than 86 percent of Louisiana churches gave services of some kind to Katrina evacuees, the study found. Nearly three-fourths offered food, more than half gave away clothing, and about 70 percent provided financial aid. The congregations also provided spiritual aid and comfort, researchers noted. Churches nationwide, led by Baptists, gave counseling, transportation, child care, shelter, meals, showers and housing.
9. Warren and Obama on AIDS. The second annual Global Summit on AIDS and the Church, held at Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, Calif., was the loudest voice yet rallying evangelicals to fight AIDS. Some conservatives objected to the open attitude Saddleback pastor Rick Warren, a Southern Baptist, demonstrated in selecting speakers, especially his choice to invite pro-choice Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.). But more than 2,000 people from 39 states and 18 countries attended the training event. Warren wants Christians to mount a global effort to prevent and treat AIDS. He said nothing comes close to the resources, history, tradition or scope of the church.
10. Alabama church arsons. Law enforcement officials arrested three men March 8 in connection with a string of nine fires at Baptist churches in rural Alabama. More than 100 ATF personnel sorting through more than 800 leads worked on the case in the days following the initial fires in early February. A tenth fire, although ruled arson, has yet to be connected to the initial nine. Most of the churches belonged to the Southern Baptist Convention, the statewide Alabama Baptist Convention and the local Bibb County Baptist Association.
Other stories that caught the attention of Baptists included:
11. North Carolina shift. The recent conservative shift in the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina prompted an Executive Board member to resign and several more churches to leave the convention. Tension continues to mount over control of the convention's institutions.
12. Evangelical shame. Ted Haggard, head of the National Association of Evangelicals and a prominent opponent of gay rights, resigned after a Colorado man came forward with allegations that Haggard paid him for sex and drugs. He was also fired as pastor of a prominent Colorado megachurch. After initial denials and changing stories, Ted Haggard admitted to unspecified acts of "sexual immorality." A Denver man, Mike Jones, said Haggard bought sex and methamphetamine for three years until their last encounter in August.
13. Muslim cartoons. Incensed Muslims sacked Christian neighborhoods and burned the Danish Embassy in Lebanon Feb. 5, angered by the publication of caricatures of the prophet Muhammad. More than 20,000 protesters threw rocks, burned buildings and sacked cars in an outpouring that left at least one person dead and 30 wounded. The 12 editorial cartoons, originally published in Denmark newspapers in September 2005, sparked demonstrations in Lebanon, Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, the Palestinian West Bank, India and New Zealand.
14. Peace activist killed. Tom Fox, 54, a Baptist peace activist, was found dead in Baghdad March 9. The lone American among four Christian peace activists who were held captive for months in Iraq, Fox was presumably executed by his abductors. His body was found in a garbage dump in the western part of the city. Fox's kidnappers had demanded the release of all Iraqis detained by U.S. and British forces and Iraqi police in exchange for the four hostages' lives.
15. Belmont tug-of-war. Tennessee Baptists voted May 9 to reject an offer of $5 million from Belmont University that would have given the school power to elect its own trustees. The Tennessee Baptist Convention leaders then filed a lawsuit against Belmont Sept. 29 to regain the approximately $58 million in funds it has donated to the school over the years. The suit is pending.
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Wednesday, December 20, 2006

Broken Back, Broken Church, Broken Family

'Large, viable remnant' wants to continue as Episcopal congregationDetermination to move forward outweighs sadness
Episcopal News Service

By: Mary Frances Schjonberg Posted: Tuesday, December 19, 2006

The 30 or so members of St. Stephen's Episcopal Church in Heathsville, Virginia, who opposed a recent vote by the majority of the congregation and the rector to join the Anglican Church of Nigeria say they want to continue as the Episcopal presence in their community. "We are prepared to continue to operate St. Stephen's as an Episcopal Church, and I think we have people who will agree to accept leadership positions and to continue to carry on the work of St. Stephen's Episcopal Church," said Dawn Mahaffey, one of the people who voted against what some members are calling "the secession."
Sandra Kirkpatrick referred to that slowly organizing group as a "large, viable remnant."
Their determination comes not without some pain.
"Two of the speakers who wished to secede from the Episcopal Church told those of us sitting in the congregation that if we voted 'no' we were imperiling our immortal souls, and that was hard to hear," said Kirkpatrick, describing a discussion held during the week before the voting began. "This was said lovingly by people who have been my friends - dear friends - for over 10 years but they are very, very, very convinced that they are dong the right thing in leaving the Episcopal Church and they are acting genuinely worried about those of us who are not."
Mahaffey said she does "truly love" the family she has at St. Stephen's.
"This is not personal. These people have been my family, and I, and I don't think any of the others that have come to me, would harbor any evil feelings toward our fellow parishioners," she said. "This has been an issue around leadership and it's just been the way in which it has been handled. I don't think it's been done in a kind and equitable and fair way."
She called the actions of the vestry and the rector, the Rev. Jeffrey Cerar, "divisive, irresponsible and manipulative."
At that meeting to discuss the resolutions, Margaret Cox, a St. Stephen's member whose husband was rector from 1967 to 1972, said that a resolution to take possession of the St. Stephen's property "sounds like taking something that does not belong to you." She reiterated a number of the bequests and gifts given to the parish through the years, adding that "none of us owns this property; we only hold it in trust."
Meade Kilduff, who was baptized at St. Stephen's on December 28, 1918, told the same meeting that she liked the liturgy, the Episcopal Church's history and tradition and the ways the Bible is emphasized "again and again."
"Last but not least I like the inclusiveness of our church. It is our gem," she said. "I want to assure you, there is at St. Stephen's a loyal and substantial group of communicants committed to staying at St. Stephen's as an Episcopal Church in the Diocese of Virginia."
Cox and Kilduff were part of a contingent that re-built St. Stephen's congregation after it dwindled to about 24 communicants in the 1970s, following a dispute with the diocese about vestry elections, Kirkpatrick said.
"Now these ladies, they're ready to do it again," she said. "There is a very staunch core of older people who don't want this to happen."
St. Stephen's is one of eight Diocese of Virginia congregations in which a majority of members announced December 17 that they were severing ties with the Episcopal Church and aligning themselves with Anglicans in either Nigeria or Uganda. More information about the Virginia votes is available here.
Heathsville is the county seat of Northumberland County in what is known as the Northern Neck of Virginia, a peninsula that borders the Potomac and Rappahannock rivers and the Chesapeake Bay. While the jurisdiction known as the Parish of St. Stephen's dates to the 1650s, the congregation of St. Stephen's was formed in the 1880s and, according to the church's website, "struggled for decades to keep the church open."
Mahaffey said there will be a meeting later this week to determine who is involved and what exactly they want to do.
The Diocese of Virginia issued a statement December 18 saying it plans to offer "every encouragement to establish structures necessary for their continuity as the Episcopal Church." Meanwhile, the statement said, the departing and remaining members of all eight congregations have agreed to a 30-day "standstill" during which no actions will be taken concerning church property.
A 40-day discernment period that led up to the vote felt like a "force-feeding" on the part of the vestry, Kirkpatrick said. However, the effort backfired in one small group as the members "managed to get into a serious discussion of what we wanted as Episcopalians, what we felt about our church and where our spiritual journeys had led us."
"At the end of this 40-day discernment period we had discovered each other," she said "We had found that there were enough of us that really cared to remain Episcopalians and really cared about being an Episcopal Church presence in Heathsville that we were ready to go to the consider expense of time, money and emotion to try and do this, as opposed to just going elsewhere, which would be very, very easy to do."
Both Mahaffey and Kirkpatrick said that the decision at the 2003 General Convention to consent to the election of Gene Robinson as bishop of New Hampshire prompted a change in the attitude of St. Stephen's leadership, which only got more determined with time.
Mahaffey said that Cerar initially said at a congregational meeting late in 2003 that he would try to work within the framework of the Episcopal Church to make changes but that he would leave if he felt he could not continue in the church. He said at that meeting that if he left and if others joined him, they would not attempt to take over St. Stephen's property, she said.
In December 2003, Kirkpatrick said, a vestry survey showed that the majority of St. Stephen's members wanted to remain in the Episcopal Church.
However, Mahaffey recalled, the perceived failings of the Episcopal Church "became the topic of his sermons from that point forward. It did not matter what the liturgy was for any given Sunday or what the Gospel was, there was always a way to bring the topic around to that issue. We very often got the message that the Episcopal Church had sinned and needed to be repentant."
"It got to the point that our needs for pastoral oversight and ministry were not being met because of the single-minded focus on this issue. We were not hearing the Word and how that was applicable in our daily lives. I don't think we were being ministered to in all of our needs."
There was a "steady outgo of people who found this message intolerable," Kirkpatrick said, and a "steady influx" of people who approved of the leadership's position.
"Everyone down here knew that St. Stephen's was taking this stance," she said.
Mahaffey said the growing disaffection with the Episcopal Church "has been very well staged."
"I think it has been sold to the congregation," she said. "Three years of hearing it week after week after week."
The issue of homosexuality was the "precipitating event but it has gone so far beyond that that I haven't even heard that mentioned in probably the last year," Kirkpatrick said. "The first year it was an issue, but not since. It has been: 'We know the truth and we are telling it to you. If you don't accept this truth then you really don't belong here."
"It is biblical inerrancy - taking the Bible seriously as a primary source, taking the Bible literally in a lot of cases. There's very much been from the pulpit and from everyone connected with the leaving-the-Episcopal-Church-side that there is one way, there is one truth and that they know what that one way and that one truth is... that anyone [who] believes, says, [or] accepts the idea that anyone could find truth in a religious life any way except through Jesus Christ in this particular narrow revelation of him is not a Christian."
Because many members left St. Stephen's or didn't attend frequently, some of them were declared ineligible to vote on either December 10 or December 17, including Mahaffey's 21-year-old son.
Acknowledging that the pressures of college and work also kept him away, Mahaffey said her son asked her a year ago: "Why would I want to sit there and have to listen to being indoctrinated into leaving something that I believe in?"
It is painful, she said, to have this example set for him.
Some have also questioned the ability of the parish's leadership to hold the vote on two different days. Kirkpatrick said that many people pushed to have the ballot boxes secured during the intervening days and they were in fact held in the evidence room of the county courthouse. A local paper featured a picture of the boxes being brought back to the church on December 17.
After the vote was announced that day, Kirkpatrick said the rector told the meeting that "he hoped that we continue as a congregation, and that he wanted very much to be a pastor to everyone, whether they voted yes or no, but that those of us who voted no should submit to the will of the majority who had decided to leave the church."
Mahaffey said she's disappointed that the dispute came down to the vote, which was 132-33 in favor of severing ties and 94-37 in favor of trying to retain the church property. Those who opposed either motion are not unanimous in their opinions about the Episcopal Church, she said.
"The bottom line of all of us that we can agree on is that it's not worth what's going on here," she said.
When she moved to the area, Kirkpatrick, who has been an Episcopalian for about 55 years, said she knew she was "more liberal in my theology" than many of the friends she made.
"But we have all this time been a wonderful church where we might not agree about things but we could talk about them, and grow and learn from each other," she said. "I have grown a great deal here and I am very, very grateful for the spiritual experience that I had at St. Stephen's before all this happened."
Mahaffey agreed that St. Stephen's has "good, loving people."
"In many ways I feel that the back of St. Stephen's has been broken and that neither side is going to be whole. We are now a broken church. We are a broken parish. We are a broken family," she said. "It could have all been prevented had what was promised to us in 2003 come to fruition: that we work within the framework of the church to affect change with things that we disagree . . . Now we're all going to have to find a way to heal - both sides. But there is a loyal following of Episcopalians at St. Stephen's and we don't want to be forgotten."


© 2004, The Episcopal Church, USA. Episcopal News Service content may be reprinted without permission as long as credit is given to ENS.

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