BAPTISTS AND POLITICS

There is a brazen, concerted effort afoot in our Country at the present time to persuade Southern Baptists who happen to be Republican to switch their allegiance to the Democrat Party or either stay away from the polls in '08. To that end, a hodge-podge of small, left leaning Baptist groups just concluded a joint convocation in Washington, D.C. on June 29. It was the usual anti-Southern Baptist clap trap that we have come to expect from liberals. Rachel Zoll of the Associated Press billed them as a group "trying to escape the shadow of Southern Baptists". The major participants included the American Baptists and the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship. According to the AP release, American Baptist USA Churches have about 1.2 million members and about 5,500 congregations nation-wide. They are mostly located in northern states. This compares to more than 16 million Southern Baptists in more than 42,000 churches with more than 10,000 foreign and domestic missionaries. This group was once known as the Northern Baptist Convention and was a live and vibrant denomination but liberalism won the day among Northern Baptists and the denomination is only a skeleton of its' former self. The most recent flight of churches from this group came about over differences concerning the nature of the Bible and homosexuality. They have trimmed their national staff and plan to sell their national office in Pennsylvania. The Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, based in Atlanta, was formed in 1991 by "moderate and liberal Southern Baptists who opposed the conservative Southern Baptist leadership". While they claim about 1,900 congregations as supportive, no one really knows. They adopted a small budget of $16,481,000 which was more than a half million dollars below their current budget. The budget, still to be approved by the General Assembly, cuts funding for most of their ministry areas including Global Missions. The two groups currently are jointly sponsoring two missionary couples who will represent both groups (Wow what an impact!). They are organizing a national Islamic/Baptist dialogue to improve relations with Muslims.

ALLEN PROMOTION

Jimmy Allen, former President of the Southern Baptist Convention who became President of the Radio/Television Commission (which he all but destroyed), was present to promote the Atlanta Convocation scheduled for January 30 - February 1, 2008 in Atlanta where a so-called "New Baptist Covenant" is to be launched.. That meeting is jointly hosted by Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton and is generally viewed as a political move to garner votes for Hilary. Jimmy Carter has repeatedly angered Americans with his repeated diatribes against the American Government while on foreign soil. His cozying up to dictators like Fidel Castro and terrorists like Yasser Arafat has left many in America disenchanted with him. His latest insult came on June 19 in Dublin, Ireland when he castigated the United States and the European Union because they have refused to give money to the terrorist organization, Hamas. Carter declared that Hamas had "won free and fair elections in 2006" (so did Hitler), and that the United States refusal to give them money was characterised as a "criminal" act. According to the Council on Foreign Relations, Hamas has slaughtered over 500 people and they have just taken over the Gaza Strip in a bloody battle. In remarks at Mansfield College in Oxford, England, Carter declared that Israel will never find peace with the Palestinians as long as Israel occupies its' neighbors' land. In his abysmal ignorance, Carter apparently doesn't understand that the land doesn't belong to the Palestinians. The land has belonged to the Jews since the time of Abraham. In fact, the Mosque of Omar is built on the ancient Jewish Temple site over the place on Mount Moriah where Abraham offered his son, Isaac but his son, Isaac, was spared when God provided a substitute (a picture of Calvary). In fact, the first of the Crusades launched by Urban II in 1095 was for the liberation of Jerusalem from Muslim control. The Muslims had taken the territory from the Jews through a bloody and butchery invasion that left thousands of Jews dead. A third Crusade to free the Holy City was launched by Gregory VIII after Saladin had overrun the field army of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem at the Battle of Hittin (July 1187) in his subsequent capture of the Holy City itself (October 1187). This campaign was led by Frederich I, Barbarossa, Phillip II of France and Richard the Lionhearted. Barbarossa perished by drowning in the river Cydnus in Anatolia before arriving in the Holy City. The Jews were finally driven out and left without a homeland for centuries. Now, they have returned to claim what is rightfully theirs. All of these assertions that Israel is an occupier have no basis in history.

THE USUAL SWILL

The participants in the meeting were fed the usual swill about the dangers of the "Religious Right". People like Richard Land, James Dobson, Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson were demonized for their so-called attempts to "co-op Christianity for the Republican Party". A film to that affect, at one point, displayed a quote from Richard Land that drew laughter from the audience. The film, prepared by the so-called "Baptist Center for Ethics" (no connection to the Southern Baptist Convention), featured interviews from members of the Democrat Party who were claiming to be Christians. They described the Christian Right as "defining too narrowly the issues that should be important to believers". Most of the people interviewed in the film were critical of Conservative Evangelicals. Guess what? All the politicians who appeared in the film were Democrats. They included Harold Ford Jr., a former Congressman from Tennessee, and Lincoln Davis, current Representative from Tennessee's Fourth Congressional District. One minister in the film called the War in Iraq as "immoral as a War can be". When an attendee questioned why the film contained no Republican voices, Robert Parham, Director of the so-called "Baptist Center for Ethics", whimpered that an effort was made to include a "prominent moderate Republican" but that he had declined. In a wild, senseless rant, Parham lashed out at the Republican Party by "challenging" a "prevailing 25 year myth, which is that GOP stands for God's Own Party". He asserted that they were trying to "introduce a new story into our culture". As a life long Southern Baptist and a life long Republican, I resent that kind of thing and I am offended by it. I have had about much contact with conservative Christians and Republicans as anyone and that is the first time I have ever heard that kind of acronym for GOP. That is something from Parham's own sick imagination. No, Southern Baptists are not just concerned about "two or three issues". Yes, the majority of us are opposed to abortion which we see as the taking of an innocent human life. We are opposed to creating human life in order to destroy it in the name of "stem cell research". Of course, stem cell research goes on all the time. It is not illegal. The big issue is whether or not the Government would fund the creation of stem cells in order to destroy them in research. That kind of stem cell research has not yielded any kind of advantages in medical research while adult stem cell research has. We support the First Amendment as strongly as anyone. That is the reason that most conservatives are opposed to the so-called "Fairness Doctrine" that is now being touted by liberals who want to shut down Talk Radio. We also support the Second Amendment whose constitutionality was recently affirmed by the US Supreme Court.

DECEIT

One truthful outcome of the Joint Assembly was that Baptist Press finally exposed the deceitfulness of the CBF reporting system. A Ruston, Louisiana Pastor of the 3,500 member Temple Baptist Church with a 2,8 million dollar budget was incensed that the CBF claimed his church as a supporting church because two families from his church desired to send some money to the CBF and designate it through the church. The Church has adopted By-laws stating its' affiliation with the Southern Baptists Convention only. The Church's Deacons were also described as "adamant" that the Church would use Southern Baptist literature only in their Sunday School. Yet, because the money from the two families was sent on a church check the church was counted as a supporter of the CBF when, in fact, it is not. The Pastor's response was that it would be "an absolute fabrication" according to the Baptist Press release. One can wonder if lying and deceitfulness are as repulsive to the CBF as Republican Christians.

PRECURSOR

The entire Joint Assembly was obviously a precursor to a Convocation scheduled from January 30 - February 1, 2008 and hosted by Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton. That meeting will include the National Baptist Convention USA Inc. and the Progressive Baptist Convention, both of whom are predominately Black. The vast majority of their members will likely vote Democrat. Southern Baptists have not been invited to participate in that Convocation. The speakers announced so far include a long list of liberal politicians. Former Governor Mike Huckabee of Arkansas had declined. Most Southern Baptists are completely convinced that it is a shameless, brazen and sleazy attempt to convince Baptist people that there is something wrong with them if they are Republican. Some of those same people who pretend to be so shocked about conservative Christians being involved in politics are not nearly so shocked if those Christians are willing to vote for the Democrats instead of the Republicans. It is a boorish attempt to put a Democrat face on the Baptists of America. That, my friends, is the bottom line of their entire effort!!