NASHVILLE—Months before the start of the 2016 ERLC National Conference leadership within the Southern Baptist Convention’s public policy entity, along with like-minded organizations, had already voiced their concerns about the two would-be presidential candidates. No shouts of “Rome is burning” rang out in the convention hall Aug. 25-27, but the terms “dumpster fire” and “presidential election” were used interchangeably.

On the eve of an election that arguably offers two of the most unpopular presidential candidates in U.S. history, religious liberties are threatened, Christianity is marginalized or vilified, and some Christians blur the lines between religious and political fervor. Although speakers often painted a bleak picture, they encouraged Christians to view the election and its aftermath as an opportunity to present the distinct and hopeful message of the gospel.

“A lot of Christians [are] not seeing themselves adequately [represented] in the political space as it is [and are] now coming forth with a distinctly Christian witness and rhetoric,” said Steve Harris, ERLC director of advocacy. “They’re saying, ‘I’m not tethering my Christian identity to any political ideology because that taints the witness.’”

Speakers posited that the presidential offerings may indicate that the church has gone far afield from its Acts 1:8 commission. They said faith in a political party to fix problems and promote the common good exemplified American Christians’ dereliction of duty.

During the panel discussion “2016 and Beyond: Reshaping Evangelical Political Engagement,” Bruce Ashford noted that in Augustine’s The City of God, pagan intellectuals, philosophers and politicians blamed Christians for the crumbling Roman Empire.

“Augustine responded that Rome’s politics, philosophy and religion were corrupt on their own. It is Rome’s corruption that was at fault, and that Rome needed Christianity more than ever,” said Ashford, provost and professor of theology and culture at Southeastern Seminary.

“As I see it, every modern political ideology has idols lurking underneath.”

Other speakers repeated the allusion to cultural idols and suggested too many American Christians have sought to influence culture through politics instead of the gospel.

People too often find their sense of identity in their political affiliations and assess others by the same standard, establishing “us” versus “them” strongholds, ERLC President Russell Moore said.

“Politics across the board, from the far left to the far right, has become a religion. It has become a kind of transcendent source of authority and a transcendent source of identity,” Moore said during a panel discussion titled “2016 and the Future of Evangelical Politics.”

Just as a Christian’s faith and fidelity to Scripture should inform all areas of cultural engagement from the arts, business, education, and more, one’s political involvement should be tempered by the truth and grace of the gospel.

But in an attempt to expedite cultural change Christians have, via their preferred political party, elected people who promised make changes on their behalf, which has created a lazy electorate, said David French, a veteran, attorney, and writer for National Review magazine.

“You are delegating the fight over fundamental values to somebody else,” French said.

This pattern exemplifies a quest for control, which facilitates the construction of more idols, said Andy Crouch, executive editor of Christianity Today.

“The core diagnosis of culture—what’s gone wrong in the human story—is that the image bearers became idol makers,” Crouch said. “The ones who were meant to exercise authority and vulnerability and bring order and abundance to the world turned over that image-bearing responsibility to inanimate things that promised them something other than what they were actually given.”

Christian political engagement—mixing of the sacred and secular—requires diligent self-examination.  Moore said, “We have to dethrone politics as a religion and source of identity while at the same time remaining engaged in our responsibilities as citizens, … including the political process.”

Moore and others argued that engaging in political speech, especially on the topics of marriage and human sexuality, has resurrected the myth that the Christians are to blame for society’s ills.

And those who do get blamed and find themselves in court often receive legal assistance from Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF). Erik Stanley, ADF senior counsel spoke of the increasing number of cases challenging religious liberty and freedom of speech.

“The public square is nothing more or less than a battleground of gods each vying to push the levers of power in its favor,” Stanley said, quoting author Jonathan Leeman. “Therefore churches do not need to take up arms against the state in order to pose a threat to the state. They only need to oppose the gods upon which a nation’s political and economic institutions depend.”

In the midst of those battles and the “dumpster fire” of a presidential election, conference speakers reminded the audience “rage is not a strategy, and despair is not an option.”

Jennifer Marshall, vice president of the Heritage Foundation, believes there is reason for hope.

“I think the positive trends are coming out of the toughest things facing us today,” Marshall said. “So the fact that we are being presented with the challenges to the understanding of the meaning of marriage [and] to what it means to be made in the image of God—male and female. These most basic things have been taken for granted for a long time in the culture and in the church. And, so, the challenges on these issues are causing many people to go back and to think through ‘why do we believe like we believe?’ It’s the good things that will emerge from this crucible.”

LAGARTO, Ecuador When you’re on a mission trip and the town’s mayor tells you to keep coming back, you know you’re doing something right. 

But that’s what happened to a 13-member team in late July, when an Ecuadorian village president—the equivalent of a mayor—heaped compliments on team leader Tony Mathews, pastor of North Garland Baptist Fellowship. The trip was sponsored by the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention, which is in the third year of a five-year partnership to reach the Afro-Ecuadorians people group. 

“The president of Lagarto came to me and he said, ‘You are in Lagarto’s heart. Please come back. Don’t stop coming,’” Mathews told the TEXAN. 

This was Mathews’ fourth mission trip to Ecuador and the most fruitful one yet. The team witnessed many decisions for Christ and deepened relationships that will allow the gospel to continue spreading in the future in an area where there are few Christians.

Team members held leadership development training sessions for men and women that included evangelism as well as training for life and day-to-day skills. Ecuadorian men were taught, among other things, how to be better husbands and fathers. Women were taught relationship and business skills, including how to use the Internet.   

One day, after the sessions, the wife of one of the Ecuadorian men asked them, “What did you do to my husband? He’s a changed man.” 

Team member Roxanne Brown of North Garland Baptist Fellowship said that despite the language barrier, the “women and children that I met were so warm and gracious” that “we had no problems communicating.”

“God has blessed us in the U.S. with so much,” Brown said, “and whether it’s our time, our money, our prayers, or even ourselves to go, we all can be part of the Great Commission in some way.”  

Using SBTC funds, the team also helped begin construction on an external wall to a Lagarto school—a school which previously had only three walls. The ease-of-access to the inside of the building had invited thieves.   

“It was an amazing, wonderful time to see how excited the people were,” Mathews said.

The peoples’ hunger for the gospel was evident and convicting, Mathews said. He visited one home where among the seven children, four of them—all sons—are blind. One of the sons, a man in his 20s, listens to the Bible on audio tape throughout each day. 

“He loved the Lord so deeply,” Mathews said. “Those of us with 20/20 vision have access to reading the Bible and seeing it with our eyes but often don’t read it, but here he is and can’t see, but yet he listens to it around the clock.”

Roberto Cepeda, a member of Cornerstone Baptist Church in Arlington who went on the trip, said it exceeded his expectations.

“I learned that God can use all our skill sets, whatever they may be, to impact the lives of others,” Cepeda said. 

The multi-cultural makeup of the mission team—three Caucasians, two Hispanics and eight African-Americans—also stood out to Mathews.

“The African-American community is really under-represented [on mission trips], and we are seeing a movement of God in our African-American community and beyond,” Mathews said.

Lagarto has no evangelical churches, but the goal is for that to change in the near future, said SBTC mobilization director Barry Calhoun. In fact, the team found a man who is willing to donate land for the yet-to-be-built church.  

“We’re really excited not only about the salvations but the potential salvations that could come out of this for many, many years to come,” said Calhoun. 

“The idea of going somewhere once or twice does not equate to a lasting relationship,” Calhoun said. “What we see here is what it means to actually be in a partnership for a long period of time.”

Mathews said a long-term partnership makes a difference. 

“They don’t see you as someone who is just coming there to help them spiritually, which certainly is our goal,” Mathews said, “but they also see that we really want to build relationships with them and help them with the other things that are perhaps not spiritual in nature.”

For more information on how your church can be involved, contact Barry Calhoun at 817-552-2500. 

RICHMOND, Va.—International Mission Board trustees approved the appointment of 27 new missionaries, five of them with ties to Texas, and announced a vice president of mobilization during their board meeting Aug. 23-24 near Richmond, Va.

“Two years ago at this trustee meeting, by God’s grace alone, this body elected me to lead this IMB family,” IMB President David Platt said during the Aug. 24 plenary session. “Now, two years later, I find myself standing here at the end of a deeply encouraging two days with trustees during which we have discussed where the IMB is now and we have dreamed about where God is leading the IMB in the days ahead.

Platt said IMB leaders are hard at work considering, “How do we mobilize this entire Southern Baptist ecosystem of tens of thousands of churches, local associations, state conventions, seminaries and other entities for the spread of the gospel to billions of people who’ve never heard it?” Leaders are meeting with state and national entities and local churches of all sizes to explore how IMB can best serve them and send multitudes more missionaries with them.

Edgar Aponte, who currently serves as director of Hispanic leadership development and instructor of theology at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, N.C., was affirmed by trustees as vice president of mobilization. He will work with other executive leaders in the overall strategy of IMB with particular emphasis on the board’s mobilization efforts, lead teams and networks to mobilize churches in sending missionary teams, and develop relationships across the Southern Baptist Convention.

“Edgar Aponte is an incredibly gifted man of God,” said Danny Akin, president of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. “The Lord has blessed him with a wide range of abilities and talents. He excels at whatever he does.”

Prior to his work at SEBTS, Aponte served as the ministry of foreign affairs in Washington, D.C., on behalf of his home nation, the Dominican Republic. His role of minister counselor in the political section involved coordinating the political relations between the embassy and the State Department, Department of Labor, U.S. Congress and Department of Defense; advising the ambassador and authorities on a broad range of policy issues from the bilateral agenda; and engaging in meetings with other embassies and interest groups about specific regional issues such as human trafficking and drug trafficking. Prior to that, he worked in banking for five years.

An avid learner, Aponte earned a bachelor’s degree in business administration; a graduate degree in corporate finance; and a master’s degree in business administration (management). He also earned a master’s degree in Christian ministry from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, and is completing a doctorate in theological studies with a concentration in systematic theology from Southeastern Seminary.

In a recent visit with IMB mobilization team leaders, Aponte expressed that he sees the team leading IMB in engaging in strategic partnerships with SBC churches.

“We are Southern Baptists because of missions,” he said. “That is why the SBC started in 1845. Missions is the heart of who we are as a denomination … taking the gospel to where Christ has not been preached. Working together, we can do more than working by ourselves.

“As IMB we have to emphasize the centrality of the CP in our work of cooperation; the CP has shaped Southern Baptist life for almost 100 years, and God has used it as a means to bless our churches and the nations.”

In the pinnacle of the trustee meeting, 27 new missionaries were appointed during a Sending Celebration, which recognized both the new personnel and the churches sending them to take the gospel to the nations.

Appointees with ties to Texas include three people who will work among Central Asian people, including a couple from Rock Creek Baptist Church in Crowley and a woman who was educated in Texas and served a local church in the state. Another couple, being sent by The Village Church in Flower Mound, will serve an American people group. Names are not being used to protect their safety on the field.