Month: March 2012

$1 abortion surcharge decried by pro-lifers

WASHINGTON (BP) — A new federal regulation that includes an “abortion surcharge” and a secrecy clause further confirms the abortion-funding agenda of the Obama administration’s health-care reform, pro-life advocates say.

In a Wednesday (March 21) news conference on Capitol Hill, members of Congress and leaders of pro-life organizations decried the latest rule regarding the 2010 health care law, dubbed by critics as Obamacare. Since the rule’s March 12 release, pro-lifers have pointed to two particularly objectionable aspects in a document that is more than 640 pages in length:

— Health insurance plans in state exchanges are prohibited from specifically publicizing the fact they provide abortion coverage. They can disclose such coverage “only as part of the summary of benefits and coverage explanation, at the time of enrollment.”

— Every person enrolled in an insurance plan that covers abortion must pay a separate, monthly fee of at least $1 as an “abortion surcharge.” 

“So there will be millions, and perhaps tens of millions, of pro-life Americans who won’t have a clue that abortion coverage is in their package until the day they sign on the bottom line,” Rep. Chris Smith, R.-N.J., said at the March 21 news conference.

The “surcharge” and secrecy clause in the new rule are only the latest to be confirmed in a series of provisions protested by pro-life advocates and objectors to government funding of abortion. 

Pro-lifers have decried the fact the law will permit federally subsidized abortions. Religious liberty advocates have joined pro-lifers in also objecting to a January rule — like the latest one, also from the Department of Health and Human Services — that requires all health plans to cover contraceptives and sterilizations as preventive services without cost to employees. The contraceptives, as designated by the federal government, include some drugs that can cause abortions of tiny embryos. That rule has a religious exemption critics find woefully insufficient.

The “surcharge” and secrecy clause are “really a sideshow,” said Douglas Johnson, legislative director of the National Right to Life Committee (NRLC), at the news conference. 

“It is a diversion from what’s going on in the main tent, which is the federal subsidies,” he told reporters. “We’re talking about a massive new program, so-called tax credits. This is money coming straight out of the federal treasury which is going to subsidize the purchase of these plans for tens of millions of Americans.”

The cost to the federal government could be $80 billion a year, Johnson said.

Smith said, “Now, under Obamacare, taxpayer subsidies in the form of what’s called refundable, advanceable credits paid directly to the insurance company — that is to say, taxpayer funds — will subsidize insurance plans offered on the exchange that include abortion on demand — even late-term abortion.”

There are no restrictions on the reasons for abortions or how late they may be performed under the regulation, according to NRLC.

Charmaine Yoest, president of Americans United for Life, told reporters, “[A]s we predicted at the time that Obamacare was passed, the state exchanges do cover abortion and will force many Americans to pay for abortion regardless of their own personal, deeply held beliefs. That’s not American. That’s not the country that we live in. Many Americans will be compelled by law into an insurance plan that covers abortion.”

Fifteen states have enacted laws barring abortion coverage in health plans that are part of the exchanges, but those “opt-out” measures fall short of fully protecting pro-life citizens, according to NRLC. 

“A state legislature may forbid coverage of abortion in the exchange-participating health plans in that state — but under ObamaCare, the taxpayers who live in that state may not ‘opt out’ of subsidizing the abortion coverage for other Americans, perhaps numbering tens of millions, who live in other states that do not enact opt-out laws,” NRLC reported in a March 16 analysis.

In addition, the health-care law also empowers the Office of Personnel Management to offer “multi-state” health plans that could permit federal health plans that cover abortion, according to NRLC.

In the last 15 months, the House of Representatives has passed three bills that would repeal the health-care law or bar funding for abortion under the law. In each case, Obama has threatened a veto, and the Senate has either defeated or refused to vote on the proposals.

It appears repeal of the health-care law or reversal of its abortion-funding provisions will require the election of a Senate and a president supportive of such changes — or action by the U.S. Supreme Court. The court will hear oral arguments March 26-28 on the constitutionality of the health-care law.
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Tom Strode is Washington bureau chief for Baptist Press. Get Baptist Press headlines and breaking news on Twitter (@BaptistPress), Facebook (Facebook.com/BaptistPress) and in your email (baptistpress.com/SubscribeBP.asp).

Draper: Grassroots will decide if and how alternate name is used

SOUTHLAKE—While convention messengers will determine if the term “Great Commission Baptists” is adopted as an alternate name for Southern Baptists, it will be grassroots Southern Baptists who ultimately decide if it’s a term worth using, says Jimmy Draper of Southlake, who chaired the task force appointed by SBC President Bryant Wright last fall to consider a denominational name change.

Whatever messengers to the SBC annual meeting June 19-20 in New Orleans decide, the legal name Southern Baptist Convention appears set in stone.

“Virtually all of the feedback I’ve gotten has been very positive,” Draper, a former Texas pastor and president emeritus of LifeWay Christian Resources, told the TEXAN. “All of the people I’ve heard from are very happy we are not recommending a legal name change, but they’re also pleased we are offering an alternative for those who feel like it’s necessary.”

He also hopes this will lay to rest the matter of changing the name of the denomination. The question of a name change has been raised and rejected seven times since 1965.

“Our hope was that we could at least present it in a way that when the decision is made it would not need to come up again for perhaps a generation. People could refer back to this and say it was decided and the convention had full knowledge, and basically discourage any kind of pursuit of a name change,” Draper said.

“I would envision the Executive Committee website, which is now using the phrase ‘Southern Baptist Convention, reaching the world for Christ,’ changing to ‘Great Commission Baptists, reaching the world for Christ,’” he said. “The strength of it is if it catches on, great. If it doesn’t, we haven’t lost anything and we would see that we certainly made the right decision not changing our legal name.”

The SBC Executive Committee approved Wright’s request to forward the recommendation to messengers—a change from Wright’s earlier position of supporting a legal name change.

“This allows us to keep our legal name but gives freedom and encouragement to all churches and entities to focus on “Great Commission Baptists,” because it so clearly describes who we are and want to be—from our origin to the present and into the future,” Wright told SBC Life.

At the first meeting of the task force, Draper provided members with extensive background on earlier proposals for a name change, including a 1999 opinion by the SBC’s attorney which warned that amending the denomination’s charter to change its name could make the convention subject to laws requiring changes in its “instruments and practices, its governance structure, and perhaps polity.”

There was never any movement toward removing the word Baptist from the denomination’s name, Draper added, calling it a non-negotiable idea.

“It came as a surprise to me that everyone agreed with that, including the church planters, African Americans, Hispanics, Koreans,” Draper said. “That probably put us way down the road because we didn’t have to debate some of those things.”

“Baptist is a name that represented too much of our theology. The things that distinguish us from other denominations are wrapped up in the name Baptist,” he said.

“There was such a consensus as we moved through it that we would not change the legal name,” he added. “Almost immediately we felt we did need to give some type of descriptor to those who felt they needed some other type of name.”

For some groups and regions, the reference to “Southern” has interfered with ministry, particularly among African-American congregations, he explained.

Draper recalled Maryland pastor Ken Fentress sharing that “every one of those pastors have paid a real price with their peers because there’s such a strong feeling that the name Southern is identified with the Confederacy and pro-slavery.”

The SBC began in 1845 after a split with Northern Baptists over slavery.

At the Feb. 20 EC meeting, Draper said adopting a new label would say to the SBC’s African-American churches and church members, “We understand your struggle, and we are sensitive to your concerns. And we are doing this as a way to let you know we value you and we want you to be a part of what we’re doing. If this will help you, we ask you to consider using it,” he said.

Furthermore, church planters and congregations in areas outside the South may prefer the identification as “Great Commission Baptists,” Draper said, adding that an affirmative vote at the annual meeting would add the denomination’s blessing.

Draper told the TEXAN, “We deliberately didn’t strategize how it might be used because we felt like it would be too restrictive. Each church or entity would determine how they would use it,” he said. No one would be compelled to use the new label or expected to abandon the terms “SBC” or “Southern Baptists.”

SBTC president appointed to African-American advisory council

NASHVILLE, Tenn.—An African American Advisory Council has been created to communicate the perspectives of black churches and their leaders to Southern Baptist Convention entity leaders, Executive Committee President Frank S. Page has announced.

“Part of the work of the Executive Committee is … to provide quality connections and relationships,” Page said in a statement to SBC LIFE, journal of the Executive Committee. “I am very excited about working with the members of this council, which includes Dr. Ken Weathersby who is helping with all of our ethnic groups in raising awareness and involvement of our ethnic brothers and sisters in Cooperative Program promotion and development.”

Weathersby is the North American Mission Board's presidential ambassador for ethnic church relations.

The African American Advisory Council will be a three-year initiative (2012-2015) established by Page, as EC president, and Kevin Ezell, as NAMB president, in an ongoing effort, as SBC LIFE described it, “to engage the many faces of the SBC in meaningful dialogue about working together as full and equal partners in the harvest.”

Page first noted the council's formation in addressing the Executive Committee's Cooperative Program Subcommittee on Feb. 20. Last September, Page announced the creation of a Hispanic Advisory Council, which held its inaugural meeting in early February in Fort Worth, Texas. Other ethnically-oriented advisory groups may be named as deemed appropriate.

Among the African American Advisory Council's chief aims is to help the EC, NAMB and other SBC entity heads understand the perspectives that African American Southern Baptists bring to the common task of reaching the United States and the nations with the Gospel.

“The council is representative of the regions of the country and reflects the cultural diversity of the African American population,” SBC LIFE reported. “Its purpose is consultation, communication and cooperation. It will neither launch nor execute ministries. It will provide information, insight and counsel through NAMB and EC staff to the broader Southern Baptist community relative to the special needs and concerns of African American churches and church leaders in the Southern Baptist family of churches.”

The council will use surveys, phone conferences, Internet communication, personal meetings and other means to gather and communicate information from consultative African American groups and leaders. Among those with whom it will communicate are key African American pastors and laymen; the National African American Fellowship, SBC; the Black Southern Baptist Denominational Servants Network; the Black Church Leadership Network; and African American leaders serving in elected roles in state Baptist conventions and on state Baptist convention staffs.

“… [T]he council will enable the presidents and staff of the EC and NAMB to maintain vital contact with the African American Baptist family through participation in strategic meetings and personal conferences,” SBC LIFE reported. “One of the council's goals is more fully to incorporate African American Baptist churches and church leaders into the total fabric of Southern Baptist life and ministry.”

The council will be chaired by K. Marshall Williams, pastor of Nazarene Baptist Church in Philadelphia, Pa.

Also serving on the council, in addition to Ken Weatersby, will be:

Roscoe Belton of Middlebelt Baptist Church, Inkster, Mich.

Chandra Bennett, Greater Grace Temple Community Church, Nashville, Tenn.

Mark Croston, East End Baptist Church, Suffolk, Va.

James Dixon, El Bethel Baptist Church, Fort Washington, Md.

Leroy Fountain, Philadelphia Baptist Church, Lithonia, Ga.

Mark Hammond, Village Baptist Church, Norwalk, Calif.

Kim Hardy, Connections Community Church, Ypsilanti, Mich.

Keith Jefferson, Parkway Baptist Church, Moseley, Va.

Dennis Mitchell, Greenforest Community Baptist Church, Decatur, Ga.

Marvin Parker, Broadview Baptist Church, Broadview, Ill.

Kevin Smith, Watson Memorial Baptist Church, Louisville, Ky.

Bucas Sterling III, Kettering Baptist Church, Upper Marlboro, Md.

Terry Turner, Mesquite Friendship Baptist Church, Mesquite, Texas.

Alton B. Vines, New Seasons Church, Spring Valley, Calif.

Frank Williams, Bronx Baptist Church, Bronx, N.Y.

THE CHURCH: Practicing Believer’s Baptism

The sight of a large man sitting in a kiddie pool near the road caused quite a stir in the community. Cars were slowing down to take a look. Kids on bicycles stopped to watch. I was baptizing one of the first converts at a church plant in a heavily French Catholic Louisiana city. I pronounced the baptismal formula over him. I dipped him under the water and then lifted him back to a seated position. There was excitement that day for friends and family but also for the neighbors that witnessed a public baptism.

The baptism of that man, one of more than 100 new converts in the first year of the church's existence almost 40 years ago, was a novelty for the community. Though it was no doubt a curious site for those who had never seen immersion baptism, it was a powerful, visual introduction to the significance and symbolism of this vital church ordinance.

Baptism is an important act of obedience for the follower of Jesus. Jesus was baptized to express His Sonship and launch his Messianic mission. Our baptism is an act of identification with Him, the One who saved us by His mercy and grace. Put another way, baptism is an outward expression of our inward experience of faith in Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord.

Living in what some pollsters and pundits call a post-denominational age, the need to know the Bible's teaching about baptism is heightened by those who seek to downplay the differences between various Christian groups. When people come to our churches from non-Baptist traditions, how should we receive them? Should we allow people from other denominations to become members without submitting to scriptural baptism? Though all believers are brothers and sisters in Christ, the Lord does not give us permission to ignore Scripture's teaching on baptism in the interest of Christian unity. Believer's baptism by immersion is a Baptist distinctive that we may be in peril of losing, so it is imperative that we turn to the New Testament to determine what it says about believer's baptism.

THE PROPER CANDIDATE
Jesus' Great Commission introduces the divine order for baptism (Matthew 28:19-20). After people become disciples (the main verb in verse 19), they are to be baptized and are then to be taught to grow in spiritual maturity. Saved people, and only saved people, are to be baptized. This practice confirms God's plan for a regenerate church membership.

Despite the fact that many Christian groups regard baptism as necessary for salvation, the Bible is clear that only a person who has already confessed his or her faith in Jesus Christ and been saved should be baptized.

The book of Acts provides many examples of baptism following immediately after an individual had experienced Christian conversion. In each instance, the qualifying requirement before baptism was administered mirrored that of the Great Commission—the candidate was first a genuine believer in Jesus Christ.

This order is seen in the very first recorded conversions in the book of Acts. The 3,000 souls who were saved on the day of Pentecost received the Word of God, then they were baptized, then they were added to the church (Acts 2). Similarly, in Acts 8, Philip permitted the Ethiopian to be baptized after he confessed Jesus as the Son of God. Two chapters later, when Peter and his traveling companions saw that Cornelius had received the Holy Spirit just as they had, Peter instructed them to be baptized (Acts 10).

Only after the business woman Lydia believed was she baptized (Acts 16). The same holds true for the Philippian jailer (also in Acts 16) and the religious but lost disciples at Ephesus (Acts 19). In each instance, these believers came to a personal knowledge of Jesus Christ before being baptized. Neither infant baptism nor pre-conversion baptism is found anywhere in the New Testament.

Baptism is an act of obedience in the life of the Jesus follower. It does not save; but it does give the believer a clear conscience toward God. Baptism identifies the believer with Christ.

THE PROPER FORM
No other form of baptism demonstrates the gospel as accurately and powerfully as immersion. The word baptize (transliterated from the Greek verb baptizo) means to “dip, plunge, or immerse.” Neither sprinkling nor pouring is found within the sacred text of Scripture as an appropriate symbol for believer's baptism.

Scriptural baptism by immersion symbolizes death, burial, and resurrection. When a person is baptized, the candidate is immersed under the water to depict the death and burial of our Lord Jesus (Romans 6:3-5). Coming up out of the water, the candidate depicts the power of the resurrection. Jesus is alive, never to die again. Baptism proclaims the truth of this powerful gospel story using a graphic illustration.

Baptism is also a picture of the believer's personal experience of faith, picturing the spiritual transformation that happens when a person receives Jesus as Lord and Savior. The person without Christ is physically alive, yet spiritually dead. Being lowered beneath the water represents the death and burial of the old self. Being raised portrays that through faith there is new life in Christ (Colossians 2:12-13). Water cannot effectuate the remission of sins; it merely conveys the message of the gospel and the testimony of new life in Christ the new believer has received.

The Apostle Paul compared baptism to wearing a garment (Galatians 3:27). The new believer identifies with Christ through baptism like a soldier wears a uniform to declare which army he serves. By “putting on” Christ through baptism a believer is showing his or her willingness to enter into spiritual warfare as a soldier of the Cross. Immersion is the proper form for demonstrating this allegiance most clearly, the only mode of baptism that reflects full identification with the gospel message.

THE PROPER ADMINSTRATOR
Jesus gave the command to baptize new believers to the church. The entire church, however, cannot actually perform the ordinance of baptism. Only a person can, one authorized by the church to baptize converts. It is interesting to note that Jesus did not baptize anyone. While John the Baptist received his directive to baptize directly from heaven, the disciples were commissioned by Jesus, administering baptism on his behalf (John 4:1-2).

Baptists for years have followed the pattern of Acts 10 by asking consent from other believers before proceeding with baptism. In that passage, Peter asked his traveling companions before he baptized Cornelius and the other Gentile converts, “Can anyone withhold water and prevent these people from being baptized, who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have?” (Acts 10:47).

Following the resurrection of Jesus, the apostles baptized those who received Christ by faith under the mandate given by Jesus in the Great Commission (Matthew 28:19-20), a mandate that still applies to the church. To this day, the administrator of baptism derives his authority to baptize from the commandment Jesus gave to the church.

THE PROPER AUTHORITY
I have already stated that the church has been given the authority to administer baptism. The Baptist Faith and Message (BF&M) affirms this position, stating in article VII that baptism is a church ordinance. This indicates that baptism is to be performed under the auspices of a New Testament church. With that in mind, it is important to understand what makes a church a New Testament church.

A New Testament church will bear certain characteristics. First, it teaches salvation by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone. This position would understandably include a belief in the security of the believer, as Article V of the BF&M affirms. Other characteristics that describe a New Testament church are listed in Article VI of the BF&M. These include:

  • The church's two ordinances are baptism and the Lord's Supper.
  • The Word of God is its final rule of faith and practice.
  • Each congregation is independent and autonomous under the Lordship of Christ.
  • The church's recognized scriptural offices are pastors (bishops or elders, as an older version of the BF&M states) and deacons.
  • Ultimately, the church will seek to extend the gospel to the ends of the earth.

If these are the marks of a New Testament church, as Baptists generally and Southern
Baptists specifically have affirmed across the years, then only churches that embrace these distinctives have the authority to administer scriptural baptism. Some churches with Baptist in their name do not bear these marks, while some that do not have Baptist in their name do. It is what a church believes and teaches that makes it a New Testament church, not the name on the sign out front.

CONCLUSION
The ordinance of baptism is a symbol of genuine conversion for those who have accepted Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. It is not a sacrament that provides saving efficacy to infants or unbelievers. When we practice scriptural baptism, it is a joyous celebration of our Lord's resurrection and the believer's new life in Christ. Only immersion of the new believer portrays this accurately. With the authority for baptism residing in the local New Testament church, only a proper administrator, a person authorized by the congregation itself, should perform baptism.

It was a momentous day many years ago in South Louisiana when an adult man was baptized as a believer. Due to his public expression of faith in Jesus Christ in a kiddie pool near a road in our community, a number of other precious people came to faith in Christ. So, make much of baptism. Do it right and do it well. God will honor the obedience of the new believer and the church.

—Jim Richards is the executive director of the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention and is a member of First Baptist Church in Keller. This article appears in the spring 2012 edition of SBC Life, magazine of the Executive Committee of the Southern Baptist Convention, online at sbclife.org. Used by permission.

GuideStone marks history with top investment award

DALLAS—GuideStone Funds has become the first ever Christian-based, socially screened fund family to win the prestigious Lipper trophy for Best Overall Small Fund Group in the United States, ranking No. 1 out of 182 eligible companies. (Lipper classifies fund families with up to $40 billion in assets under management in its Small Fund Group.)

“The Lipper Award for Best Overall Small Fund Group recognizes a standard of excellence that we pursue every day as we seek to honor the Lord and enable our faithful participants to invest according to their biblical principles,” said O.S. Hawkins, president and chief executive officer of GuideStone Financial Resources, which received the honor March 8 in New York at the annual Lipper Award dinner sponsored by The Wall Street Journal, Thomson Reuters and Investment News. The firm was honored for its consistently strong investment performance across broad asset classes.

“People often think that they have to compromise biblical integrity for investment performance,” said Roddy Cummins, vice president and chief investment officer of GuideStone Funds. “We are dispelling that myth, which is evidenced by the Lipper trophy,” added Cummins, who was quick to first thank the Lord for his favor, and then recognize the daily collaborative efforts of the 450 employees at GuideStone, as well as the team of outside sub-advisors to the fund group.

GuideStone Funds has achieved its leading level of excellence through a sophisticated, proprietary manager-of-managers investment strategy that leverages what GuideStone believes to be the best possible intellectual capital worldwide. The 27 funds in the GuideStone Funds group are managed by more than 20 professionals dedicated to GuideStone’s investment process and committed to GuideStone’s biblically based, social-screening guidelines.

“Lipper is pleased to recognize GuideStone Funds as this year’s recipient for the Best Overall Small-Group Fund award,” said Jeff Tjornehoj, head of Americas Research with Lipper. “This is the first time that a socially responsible investing fund group has won the award. Twenty-eleven was a challenging year for the industry; GuideStone and all our winners should be congratulated for their achievements.”

“The Lipper Award is a very meaningful accomplishment professionally for our team, but most importantly it brings honor to the Lord and encouragement to our client base that is faithfully fulfilling their call to Christian ministry or raising their family on biblical values,” Cummins said. “It’s a joy to receive this award on behalf of the pastors, church workers, missionaries and others who are invested in GuideStone Funds. While they are out there living their lives and doing their work for God’s kingdom, we strive to enhance their financial security by delivering the highest quality investment program that reflects their biblical values,” Cummins concluded.

Land: Gov. ‘wilderness’ encroaching on church’s garden

Government establishing religion is not what concerns Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission President Richard Land. The danger he foresees is the government interfering with the free expression of religion—a threat he explained in a March 7 chapel message to the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention staff.

Recalling the First Amendment guarantee that Congress “shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,” Land said all of the restrictions in the First Amendment are placed on the government. 

“They’re there to keep the government from messing up the church,” he insisted.

Land recalled the position of noted Baptist preacher Roger Williams two centuries earlier in stating that there ought to be a wall of separation between the “garden of the church and the wilderness of the world.” Land described Williams’ conviction that the wall protected the church from the intrusion of the state.

“For the rest of your lifetime and mine, the greatest dangers to religious freedom are not going to be violations of the establishment clause with the government getting into the religion business,” Land said. “It’s going to be violations of the free exercise clause with the government seeking to confine and limit your ability to share your faith and to live your faith beyond your own home and your own church building.”

That attitude is reflected in a move away from the term “freedom of religion,” he said, in favor of “freedom of worship.”

“Freedom of worship is an emasculated, atrophied form of freedom of religion,” he responded. “Freedom of worship only protects the space between your ears and the space between your shoulders. It protects your home and maybe your place of worship, but it does not protect your Christian school, your Christian charity or your gospel outreach.”

In contrast, he said, “The free exercise of religion guarantees the right to live out your faith and to share your faith. That’s why it’s called the first freedom. It’s the freedom without which all of the other freedoms are meaningless.”

Freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, and freedom of the press are included in the First Amendment to protect the freedom of religion, he explained.

“Freedom of religion is under assault today in an unprecedented fashion by the federal government,” Land argued. “We currently have an administration that either fails to understand or rejects the clear meaning of the First Amendment.”

Recalling the recent Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church and School v. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission case involving ministerial exemption in hiring, Land told of a Lutheran schoolteacher who appealed her firing by complaining to the EEOC that her rights had been violated. “The Obama administration took up her case, arguing that a church school had no more special protections under the First Amendment than a country club.”

That position was so extreme that the Supreme Court rejected it on a 9-0 vote, he said. 

A similar mindset is behind the recent federal Health and Human Services ruling that reproductive services must be covered in all health insurance programs offered after August 2013—including those that can cause abortions, he said.

“In other words, it doesn’t matter if a Catholic charity, a Baptist hospital, a Catholic TV network or a Baptist college believes either contraception, abortifacient, or sterilization services are abhorrent and unconscionable, they’re going to force you to pay for them for your employees.”

President Obama announced Feb. 10 an accommodation that he said protects religious organizations by making insurance companies responsible for paying for contraceptives and sterilization, but critics contended his solution was insufficient. Some described it as an “accounting gimmick” that would still require religious organizations to be complicit in paying for employees’ abortion-causing contraceptives through their insurance companies. They have pointed out the president’s accommodation would not protect faith-based insurance plans or individuals who object to paying for such products.

“This shows a willful ignorance that many of these institutions are self-insured like us,” Land said, adding that the Southern Baptist-related GuideStone Financial Resources covers over 200,000 people with such policies. “We’re not going to pay for insurance that causes abortions,” Land insisted.

“We’re faced with a real problem. Either we violate our conscience and pay for insurance that covers reproductive services or we will refuse to do so and have to pay a fine for religious convictions in America and not have health insurance for our families.”

Land added, “We have a First Amendment protection against that kind of coercion from the government, but clearly the administration is acting like it’s violating the establishment clause as well as the free exercise clause and behaving like a secular Vatican granting papal indulgences to those it chooses.”

While advocates of the plan claim it ensures access to birth control and focuses on Catholic objections to contraception, Land said, “This debate is about coercion, not Catholics; conscience, not contraception, freedom, not fertility, and principle not pelvic politics.”

“We can only continue to have these freedoms if we defend them. That’s part of what being salt is,” said Land, calling on Southern Baptists to follow Jesus’ instruction in Matthew to be salt and light to the world.

“Salt keeps a dead thing from becoming a rotting thing. It has to touch that which it’s going to preserve,” he said. “Light has to be close enough that people can see the light and feel the heat.”

America must have a revival that leads to spiritual awakening for real change to occur, Land said. “As the saved who have been revived and the lost who have been awakened apply the truths of Scripture, that’s called a reformation, and that’s what we must have.”

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Five generations deep in ministry

A preacher once complained to a fellow preacher that despite his pleading prayers and efforts at modeling godliness, neither of his sons became preachers.

“Then there’s Wilson Welch,” the man marveled, “mean as a snake and his son is in the ministry and his daughter and son-in-law are foreign missionaries. I just don’t understand it.”

That old anecdote has provided more than one laugh around Welch family gatherings. It’s also a source of pride, the good kind.

But you’d have to know Wilson Welch.

The family ministry bug, which pre-dates Welch, keeps perpetuating itself to this day. Go figure. Wilson, at 83, is pastor at Ironton Baptist Church in the tiny community of Ironton, near Jacksonville.

“I went out to Ironton to preach for two weeks. That was nine years ago this past October,” Wilson Welch said with a half grin. “My two weeks haven’t run out yet.”

Wilson Welch’s giftedness includes his ability to relate to everyday working folk, “because that’s what he was,” said his son-in-law, Johnny Hailes, pastor of Park Street Baptist Church in Greenville.

Bivocational most of his ministry, he supported a family doing so many things that “if I told you all of it you wouldn’t have enough paper to write it on,” Welch said. The oil field was a source of income for many of those years.

He would often work a graveyard shift in the oil field. It wasn’t uncommon for him to leave late Saturday night for work and get home bone tired and just in time to clean up, don his Sunday best and arrive at church in time to preach. From all over Texas and New Mexico, to Kansas when it was uncharted territory for Southern Baptists, the Welch family answered the call, with the support and organization of Wilson’s late wife, Merle, and the kids in tow.

As he got older he sold life and health insurance.

“Oilfield work gave him a rough exterior, but his heart has always been tender, especially to those without Jesus as their savior,” Johnny Hailes said.

Ruth Ann Hailes, Wilson Welch’s daughter and Johnny’s wife, said her dad might have been misjudged at times, but his influence was bolstered by the fact that “he was the same at home as he was at church. He lived what he preached.”

Welch’s father, Olen, was a Southern Baptist preacher, as was his father-in-law, Luther Hood. And the ministry bug kept spreading.

Wilson’s son, Lee, is director of missions at Dogwood Trails Baptist Area in Jacksonville and pastored previously. There’s daughter Ruth Ann and preacher son-in-law Johnny. The couple’s son Adam Hailes is in his first year as an International Mission Board missionary with his family in Madagascar, working with an unreached people group. Before heading overseas, Adam pastored Ridgecrest Baptist in Commerce and served on church staffs in Fort Worth and Mount Pleasant. Not all of the Welch kids went into full-time ministry. Mark, the younger son, is a banker, and Ruth Ann’s younger sister, Debbie, lives in Tyler.

The first great-grandchild to join the ministry ranks is David Thorman, student minister under his grandfather at Park Street Baptist in Greenville. And other great-grandchildren, some too young to be bothered, might well hear the same call.

Wilson Welch said he felt called to preach early on, but in his teens “the devil told me I was trying to be like my daddy.” He tried to shake off God’s leading, but at age 19 while serving in the Army Air Corps at First Baptist Church of Anchorage, Alaska, he surrendered for good. That was 1948, and he’s been preaching ever since.

Wilson Welch said seeing his father’s dedication to pastor churches through thick and thin made a lasting impression on him. As for his family’s legacy of ministry service, it’s harder to pinpoint a reason, he said.

“For me, it was seeing my dad’s ministry and dedication, when in my ministry I’ve run across several preachers who after two or three troubled churches, they threw in the towel,” Wilson Welch said. “Of course, when the devil started showing me all the things my dad had gone through, there was a three- or four-year period where I decided God hadn’t called me.”

In fact, he said he wasn’t even sure he was saved. Things began to sort themselves out after that revival service in Alaska, when he sought out prayer for clarity regarding his salvation and his calling. Out of the Army Air Corps not long after that, “God carried back to White Flat, Texas,” Wilson recalled.

“‘You’re out of my will,’” Wilson said, recalling his impression of God’s message to him. “‘You are to do what I told you to do.’ That’s when I was definite about what God had for me to do. And I was fortunate enough that he blessed me with a perfect wife.”

Marie Welch, known as “Merle” to family and friends, played the piano, “which helped a lot,” Lee Welch said of his mother. “She was a sweet, sweet lady.”

A bivocational pastor with a piano-playing wife was a valuable combination in the far outposts where the family served, Lee Welch said.

“She was a Proverbs 31 woman,” he added. “She had a very quiet demeanor about her and was a service-oriented person.”

The couple celebrated their 50th year in ministry and their 50th wedding anniversary in the same year, 1998. Merle died in 2010 after battling Alzheimer’s.

Ruth Ann, the couple’s daughter, said her mother knew she was dying.

“‘I’m going to Heaven,’” she would say. “She would lay there and sing ‘Come on down, Lord.’ We know where she is and we are going see her again. She was a good pastor’s wife, bless her heart. She could pack in her sleep. Get ready to go to another place. Could turn any parsonage into a home, and she had some interesting ones.”

Like the church in Sedgwick, Kan., a few miles north of Wichita, where the Welches moved in 1959. The small church had a modest parsonage but no space for Sunday School. So Merle Welch, a woman with the gift of organization, Lee Welch said, would have the family up early on Sundays to make sure the parsonage could transition seamlessly into Sunday School space.

At Maljamar Baptist Church in Maljamar, N.M., the membership of oilfield workers and their families would change every eight or 10 months, Wilson Welch recalled. The ministry involved a few months’ investment into a group of souls, only to see them move away to their next work assignment.

Adam Hailes said his grandfather had a great balance of humor and bluntness, and his grandmother “kept him out of trouble.”

“Ministry gets ugly at times,” Adam Hailes said, “but he was always willing to be obedient to the Lord.”
Watching his grandfather care for his ailing grandmother as she deteriorated with Alzheimer’s “has been one of the great privileges of my life,” he said. “I pray that I will be able to love my wife Suzie that much one day.”

His grandfather also set an example as a soul winner and preacher. He recalled being in Wilson’s pickup truck late at night in the church parking lot as his grandfather led a couple to Christ.

“Most of all, he has always been willing to let the Word of God speak its truth clearly. I think that is one thing that he has set as a standard for all of us.”

It’s appropriate that ministry organizations often recognize the fruit of renowned pastors and leaders, Johnny Hailes remarked.

“But there are a lot of men like Wilson who have had a great influence on people’s lives in a way that only God has kept a record of.”

Chinese Bible translation led by LifeWay projected for 2014

Nearly 100 years after translators finished the Chinese Union Version (CUV) of the Bible, a newer version in Mandarin Chinese and translated directly from Greek and Hebrew has almost reached completion—thanks in part to a $200,000 grant from the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention back in 2007.

Jim Cook, senior vice president for international sales at B&H International, a branch of LifeWay’s B&H Publishers, said the New Testament of the Chinese Standard Bible (CSB) has already been released and said the entire Bible should be finished and available by the end of 2014.

The project is part of a LifeWay gospel initiative called “A Defining Moment” and done in conjunction with The Asia Bible Society, B&H International publishing group, Holman Bible Outreach International, and GrapeCity, an Asia-based software company.

“The translation that they are basing it on is the Holman Christian Standard Bible (HCSB),” Cook said. “The teams are working from the original Greek and Hebrew into Mandarin using the same philosophy as the HCSB used. This is the very first Chinese translation that’s ever been done where every word can be traced back to the original Greek or Hebrew words”

Colleyville resident Jimmy Draper, LifeWay’s president emeritus who spearheaded the Mandarin Bible translation as part of “A Defining Moment” gospel initiative during his presidency at LifeWay, said the new translation comes as Chinese language culture has changed and shifted from a century ago.

“The CUV is very hard to understand,” Draper said. “It can be used, but it takes highly educated Chinese theologians to use it.”

Cook said many Chinese people do not read the older version, released in 1919, because of its lack of readability.

“The old [version] was done basically by the government,” Cook said. “It was not done with theology in mind. The people that worked on it were not necessarily even Christians. It makes a big difference.”

Draper said the new version, which is being translated by Chinese Christians, theologians and scholars, will act as a complement to the CUV and in the finished product, both translations will lay side by side on two-column pages in the Bible.

Chinese native Louie Lu, a booster of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and a long-time member of Birchman Baptist Church in Fort Worth, said the Mandarin translation would allow many more Chinese people to read and understand the Bible.

“[It is important] to have an accurate translation in a language that today’s generation can understand and feel relevant to their lives,” Lu said, explaining that the CUV has become difficult for many to understand.

Lu said the language differences between the CUV and the CSB would be similar to the differences between the King James Version (KJV) and the New King James Version (NKJV), except more pronounced.

Cook and Draper both said the New Testament of the Mandarin translation, which has already been released, has so far been well-received among Chinese people, and since it acts as a complement to the CUV, they say they have not seen hostility toward it.

“They’re actually pirating it in China,” Cook said, “Which is good, because otherwise they’d be burning it. Their copying it is actually a compliment.”

While translators have completed drafts of every book of the Bible, Draper said scholars would spend the remaining months editing, revising and refining the drafts.

“It will be gone over with a fine-tooth comb to make sure there is nothing inaccurate in it,” Draper said.
Aaron Ma, director of Bible translations for the Asia Bible Society, said, “We have found the HCSB to be very accurate and literal to the original texts yet fluent, a well balanced translation. The HCSB has taken the middle road in a very optimal way and is neutral in its handling of textual criticism issue while respecting heritage.

“At the same time,” he said, “it is not overly academic nor does it follow recent trends such as gender inclusiveness. All of these principles are very consistent with those of the CSB.”

Yet presenting a new Bible translation to a field as large as China will be challenging, Ma said.

The translation project, which involves numerous native Chinese-speaking Greek and Hebrew scholars, includes many phases of editing and review, cross-checking and unification checking, testing and evaluation.

“In addition, our approach and methodology is constantly reviewed and revised from a quality control standpoint,” he said. “We are determined not to compromise in any way in terms of the quality.

“God is at work in China and in the Chinese-speaking community worldwide,” said Ma. “We pray that he will use the CSB in a powerful way to bless Chinese speakers, those who are Christians and those yet to be saved. All of this is for his glory.”

The SBTC’s $200,000 gift toward the multi-million dollar project was earmarked from surplus funds that year.

Cook said anyone who wishes to contribute to and support the project could still help by contacting Steve Drake at steve.drake@lifeway.com. n

—With additional reporting by Russ Rankin of LifeWay Christian Resources

Cass honored during evangelism conference

FRISCO—Don Cass, retiring SBTC director of evangelism and longtime Texas pastor, was honored with two awards marking his lifelong commitment to evangelism during the Feb. 27-29 Empower Evangelism Conference at Dr. Pepper Arena in Frisco.

Cass retired from his SBTC role at the end of February after eight years.

SBTC Executive Director Jim Richards presented Cass with the Roy Fish Award for Personal Evangelism and the W.A. Criswell Award for Pastoral Evangelism during the evening session on Feb. 28.

“Don Cass is one of God’s choicest servants,” Richards said. “Only eternity will show the souls saved, lives touched and churches enhanced by your contribution all to the glory of God. Don has led us to be better witnesses for Jesus by his enthusiastic commitment to evangelism.”

In lauding Cass’ accomplishments, Richards said one of his greatest giftings is “the ability to draw the net” in gospel proclamation.

During his 21 years as a pastor, “Don led his churches to be missional before the word was cool,”

Richards noted. “He taught his people how to share their faith. He instilled a culture of evangelism in every church he pastored. He led by example by being a personal soul winner.”

Just prior to the conference, Cass was also honored by the Conference of Texas Baptist Evangelists.  

In addition to serving the SBTC, Cass served nine years as associate evangelism director at the Baptist General Convention of Texas and as director of evangelism at the Baptist Convention of New Mexico.

He graduated from Wayland Baptist University and holds a master of divinity from Southwestern Seminary and a doctor of divinity from Criswell College.

He and his wife Barbara have a daughter and three grandchildren. Cass will continue serving the SBTC as a consultant.

Wright: Great Commission Baptists is ‘opportunity to describe who we are’

NASHVILLE, Tenn.—In a new video posted to Pray4SBC.com, Southern Baptist Convention President Bryant Wright explains his perspective on the Great Commission Baptists name option to be presented at the SBC annual meeting in New Orleans.

“I hope this video today will be just another way of helping you have a greater understanding of how God led in this process,” Wright said in the video recorded at the SBC Building in Nashville, Tenn., Feb. 21, the day after the task force he appointed to study a name change delivered its report to the Executive Committee.

Wright said the task force had seen God move in a unifying way in their midst as well as when they reported to the Executive Committee.

“All along it has been our hope that God would guide us in coming to a decision that would give a greater ability and opportunity for Southern Baptist Christians to reach that community where God has planted them,” Wright said.

“And if that regional name has been a hindrance, we were just studying how could that barrier be removed so that more people could come into the kingdom of Christ, come to faith in Christ by a ministry that really focuses on the Great Commission,” he said.

Wright said he could think of no greater descriptor than Great Commission Baptists to tell who the convention is and what their mission is while maintaining the legal name of the Southern Baptist Convention.

The task force started out exploring a legal name change, he said, but they began to have a “great unity” that altering the legal name was not the best approach.

“Think about a couple of scenarios. First of all, our founding in 1845 was actually approved and the charter was given by the state legislature of the state of Georgia,” Wright said. “Because of that, we have been grandfathered in when it comes to nonprofit regulations and what is asked for in nonprofit entities or organizations.”

All sorts of legal challenges could stem from a legal name change, he said. Also, what has joined Southern Baptists together has been voluntary cooperation through the years.

“Say the Southern Baptist Convention in June in New Orleans and then a second year—as it would be required to change the legal name, a second year—say it was overwhelmingly approved by the Southern Baptist Convention,” Wright said in the 12-minute video.

“Because of the autonomy of our entities, of our state conventions, of our local churches, you could have 10 states that decide to adopt that new legal name of the Southern Baptist Convention, whatever it may be. You could have 20-something states that decide they’re going to stay Southern Baptist,” he said.

“The potential for division, the potential for legal issues, the potential for problems with wills and gifts that have been designated to the Southern Baptist Convention, it just goes on and on and on. We just felt like that would not be healthy for the convention, nor would it be wise.”

A motion to change the name of the convention has come up 13 times since 1903, Wright said, and the task force hopes that by studying the issue and communicating the findings to Southern Baptists the idea will be settled in a lot of people’s minds for years to come.

At the same time, the Great Commission Baptists descriptor could give freedom to church plants and entities to describe who they are at any rate of speed they choose. It may be a 10- to 20-year process of incorporating a new name by which Southern Baptists are known, he said.

“When you think about the legal name change of GuideStone from the old Annuity Board of the Southern Baptist Convention, the legal name change of LifeWay from the old Sunday School Board, it’s been a 10- to 20-year process for those of us who grew up understanding the old names to begin to adopt and adapt in our everyday conversation the new names,” Wright said in the video.

“So I really believe that with God’s Spirit leading, as more and more feel that this is an opportunity to describe who we are, it can become second nature in thinking of Southern Baptists.”

No one would be forced to use the new descriptor, Wright said. It would simply be an option for voluntary cooperation as the Holy Spirit guides, he said.

“Wouldn’t it be an exciting day within our convention if what people think of most of all is that those folks in their mission, in their actions, in what they are focused on, are all about being Great Commission Baptists?”

Wright encouraged Southern Baptists to become more acquainted with the conclusions reached by the task force by reading coverage in Baptist Press and their state convention newspapers before gathering to vote on the issue at the SBC annual meeting in June. Task force members paid their own way to meetings, with no Cooperative Program funds for the process.

To watch Bryant Wright’s video on the name option, visit pray4sbc.com.