Cutting off your nose ...

There's an old idiom used to describe a prideful person who has trouble maintaining relationships: "he'd cut off his nose to spite his face."

I couldn't help but recall that adage when reading about the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina (BSCNC) executive committee's decision to cut Woman's Missionary Union of North Carolina (WMU-NC) completely out of the budget loop while adding funds for what appears to be a replacement program.

According to stories posted by the Biblical Recorder and on the BSCNC website, the executive committee voted, in a called meeting on Oct. 29, to "authorize" WMU-NC to receive its own special offering in 2008, while dropping WMU-NC from the combined North Carolina Missions Offering (NCMO).

The committee's offer to sanction a special WMU-NC offering -- something that existed for many years before WMU-NC voluntarily gave it up to participate with other entities in the combined NCMO -- was conditioned by WMU-NC's agreement to work with the BSCNC to choose an acceptable date and "to provide BSCNC with financial information detailing its income and expense data.”

If the BSCNC is providing nothing to WMU-NC other than its official approval of the offering, I can't imagine why WMU-NC would be obliged to turn over its accounting records.

That's not the most important piece of this evolving puzzle, however. It appears that the executive committee intends to supplant WMU-NC's primary role of missions education and promotion, as well: while the proposed 2008 NCMO budget contains zero dollars for WMU-NC, it contains a new item of $384,695 for "Missions education and promotion."

That large sum replaces a $40,000 item in the current 2007 NCMO allocations for "NCMO Missions Education and Support," an item that was introduced several years ago to help finance promotion of the NCMO.

Removing WMU-NC while replacing the modest NCMO funding with an almost-tenfold $384,695 allocation for "missions education and promotion" sends a clear signal that the executive committee intends for the BSCNC to take over the role traditionally played by WMU-NC and to divorce itself from the ever-faithful organization of missions-minded women. It's possible, I suppose, that the BSCNC could use some of that money to contract with WMU-NC for services, but is that likely?

Budget committee member Steve Hardy, according to the BSC website, said the committee's action was "the culmination of a long sequence of events leading to the final resignation of the WMU-NC from the Baptist State Convention."

WMU-NC has consistently denied that it wants to "resign from," "leave," or otherwise separate from the Convention, stating a continuing desire to cooperate with and support the BSCNC and its mission partners. To suggest that WMU-NC wants to "resign" from the BSCNC is a bald-faced twisting of the truth.

The real rub, it appears, is that WMU-NC also wants to provide missions education and support to other groups, including the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, which many of the current power brokers see as anathema.

"Many of us in this room and across the Convention see the CBF as the most destructive force in the history of the Southern Baptist Convention," Hardy said, according to the Recorder.

Several years ago, while throwing up a smokescreen of untruthful distortions to hide its true intent, the SBC divorced itself from the Baptist World Alliance (BWA), mainly because the BWA was willing to accept CBF as a member.

Did WMU-NC's open willingness to work with CBF play a similar role in the BSCNC executive committee's 18-1 vote to turn WMU-NC's coming change of address into a full-fledged divorce?

I'd say the answer is as clear as the nose on their face ... if it hadn't been cut off.

J. Frank Norris would be proud

While compiling research for an article about independent Baptists, I came to realize that there would be far fewer independents if J. Frank Norris had been as successful as his spiritual heirs have been.

The independent Baptist movement was a direct outgrowth of the fundamentalist movement, which flowered in the early twentieth century in response to liberalizing tendencies among Protestants who accepted the findings of critical Bible study and broadened their theology to make room for modern scientific discoveries.

The publication and widespread distribution of a dozen slim paperbacks called The Fundamentals: a Testimony to the Truth spurred the development of a fundamentalist effort to take over both the Northern and Southern Baptist Conventions.

Neither convention succumbed to fundamentalist control, leading many to defect and set up independent associations, most of which splintered even further.

A prime mover in both the north and the south was the crusading Norris, who edited The Baptist Standard before selling his interest to become pastor of the First Baptist Church in Forth Worth. Texas. For a while, he served simultaneously as pastor of the Temple Baptist Church in Detroit.

Northern fundamentalists held rallies prior to the annual conventions in an effort to drum up support for their agenda, but failed to gain control. In 1922, the Northern Baptist Convention voted to affirm the New Testament, and nothing else, as its confession of faith.

Fundamentalist pressure was more successful among Southern Baptists, who voted in 1925 to adopt its first "Baptist Faith and Message," a version of the New Hampshire Confession of Faith that had been tweaked to express anti-evolutionary sentiments.

Southern Baptists did not surrender control of the convention to fundamentalist leaders, however. Norris' volatile temper and bizarre behavior (which included shooting an unarmed man to death in his office) led to the ouster of his Fort Worth church from its local association and the Baptist General Convention of Texas.

Facing increasing ostracism in the SBC, Norris started the Premillennial Baptist Missionary Fellowship in 1934. The movement grew, and in 1938 changed its name to the World Fundamental Baptist Missionary Fellowship. Norris’ incendiary actions, such as personally taking over the group’s Baptist Bible Seminary, spawned a mass defection of participants who started Baptist Bible Fellowship International (BBFI) in 1950.

The BBFI quickly started the Baptist Bible College in Springfield, Missouri. The college’s best-known alumnus has been Jerry Falwell, who founded Thomas Road Baptist Church and Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia.

By the time Falwell had founded the Moral Majority and reached the height of his influence, ultra-conservative Baptists led by fiery Texans had managed to do what Norris and the fundamentalists of the 1920's were unable to do. Using tactics not unlike their predecessors -- such as championing biblical inerrancy, demonizing opponents, and utilizing the pre-convention pastor's conference to rally support for a housecleaning agenda -- fundamentalist strategists gained complete control of the Southern Baptist Convention and systematically remade it in their own image.

The transformation was so wholesale that Falwell, the nation's leading independent Baptist, led his church in 1996 to add the SBC to its collection of alignments with independent groups like the Baptist Bible Fellowship International and the Southwide Baptist Fellowship.

This time around, the ostracized folk who felt led to move on were the outnumbered moderates, many of whom found new homes in the emerging Southern Baptist Alliance (now the Alliance of Baptists) and the more mainstream Cooperative Baptist Fellowship.

J. Frank Norris would be proud.

The things we believe

Just in time for Hallowe'en, an Ipsos poll sponsored by the Associated Press reveals that a third of us believe in ghosts.

For the sake of comparison, the poll points out that the 34 percent who believe in ghosts is comparable to the proportion of people who like baseball (36 percent), the number who think it was a good idea to invade Iraq (37 percent), and the number who think President Bush is doing a good job (31 percent).

There is nothing to suggest that these are the same people.

People are capable of believing many things, many of which make no sense at all. I've observed that often, people tend to recite things they've heard other people say, without giving the matter any serious thought.

I'd like to see a poll of the number of people who believe "Everything happens for a reason."

I hear it frequently, and often from people who clearly haven't thought about what they're saying. But, they've heard it from other people, sometimes from preachers who base their belief in a thoroughgoing doctrine of predestination that assumes: (1) God is the ultimate cause of everything that happens, and (2) God wouldn't do anything without a good reason.

Thus, they have little trouble approaching everything from an inconvenient flat tire to the murder of a child to a deadly hurricane with the explanation "Everything happens for a reason."

Hogwash.

The Bible is hardly finished declaring that God created all things (twice, actually, in Genesis 1-2) before it underscores a core reality of creation: humans are given free will to make choices for good or for bad.

Otherwise, we would be so many spiritual robots, doing and good and praising God because that's all our programming allows.

The only "reason" for many things that happen is that people make choices, not because of a lurking divine purpose.

I firmly believe that God can work with us to bring something good from even the most troublesome of times (Romans 8:28), but that tenet does not require us to assume that God caused the tragedy just so something good could come from it.

Asserting the "everything happens for a reason" serves mainly to absolve ourselves of responsibility by laying the consequences for our actions at the feet of God, claiming there's a divine purpose for everything.

If people would stop to think about what they're saying, rather than just parroting the folk religion they've heard on the street, I suspect we'd hear fewer people claiming that "everything happens for a reason."

You might as well believe in ghosts.

[The photo is from "ghostresearch.org."]

The last Baptist standing

Wade Burleson may be the last Baptist standing on the International Mission Board who truly understands the Baptist heritage of allowing (indeed, cherishing) freedom to dissent as well as cooperation.

Fellow trustee Jerry Corbaley is trying his best to topple Burleson from his position on the Southern Baptist Convention's flagship mission agency.

Californian Corbaley, whose personal blog consists mainly of solicited endorsements for a book he's written, recently e-mailed other IMB trustees to call for Burleson's dismissal at the board's Nov. 5-7 meeting, to be held in Springfield, Ill.

In his efforts to incriminate Burleson, Corbaley attached an amorphous collection of documents that amount to 153 pages if printed. He charges Burleson, perhaps the SBC's most popular blogger, with promoting "slander" and "gossip" on his blogs, and characterizes these sins as being so egregious that Burleson should not only be removed from the IMB, but openly shunned, a practice he attributes to 1 Corinthians 5:11 and Titus 3:10.

In a measured response to Corbaley's charges, Burleson details ways in which Corbaley has shunned him, refused to eat at the same table, and hung up when he tried to call.

To support his charges of slander and gossip, Corbaley's attachment begins with a copy of a conveniently timed August 2007 article on slander by SBC Life editor John Revell (SBC Life is the official public relations magazine for the SBC).

In addition, Corbaley includes "A list of comments by God on what he thinks about slander and gossip," a copy of a previous motion (in January 2006) to dismiss Burleson, excerpts from the IMB trustee policies, and a lengthy assortment of blogs, including hundreds of comments posted by others.

Anyone who knows Wade Burleson or who has read his posts understands that he is willing to say what he thinks and to stand up for those who have been mistreated (like Sheri Klouda, a Hebrew professor fired by Paige Patterson for being a woman in a man's world). Burleson is bold, but always in a kind and gentle-spirited way, and with enough humility to admit that he might sometimes be wrong. It is true that some of the comments posted to his blog have a meaner streak, but those cannot be attributed to Burleson.

Burleson dares to say he believes the SBC has gone far enough in narrowing doctrinal parameters for cooperation and service, and has stood against the efforts of Landmarkist and other ultra-right trustees who would disqualify potential missionaries who weren't baptized in an acceptable church or who utilize a "private prayer language" in private prayer.

Corbaley's efforts to remove Burleson are an obvious symptom of what's wrong with the more radical elements of the so-called "conservative resurgence."

Here's hoping that the IMB trustees will recognize Corbaley's tome (and tone) of intolerance for what it is, and stand with the one who understands what it means to be Baptist. If they remove anyone from the board, it should be the one who has already cut himself off from his brother.

Drinking is risky business ... duh

Folks who love their liquor will have a harder time pretending that drinking alcohol is anything but stupid, according to a recent article in the Chicago Tribune.

And you don't even have to "get stupid" to be stupid.

While the media went overboard publicizing a few studies claiming that a glass of red wine per day could slightly lessen the chance of heart attack or stroke, massive and persuasive evidence demonstrates that "drinking alcohol -- any form of alcohol, even in moderate amounts -- can pose a serious threat to your health."

Science, in this case, supports common sense.

Drinking alcohol has been shown to contribute to cancer of the mouth, throat, esophagus, and liver. Even breast cancer and colon cancer have been shown to be related to alcohol use: the more you drink, the greater the likelihood of getting it.

Lots of food products have been taken off the market that have a much smaller chance of contributing to cancer, but you don't mess with the beer, wine, and alcohol lobby. The alcohol industry has managed to get such powerful laws on their side that they are virtually immune to lawsuits, even though everyone with a head knows that they're peddling poison.

The Center for Disease Control and Prevention lists alcohol consumption as the third-largest cause of preventable death in the U.S. -- right after smoking and obesity.

Not to mention all the people killed or harmed by drunk drivers or angry people inflamed by alcohol.

Scientists haven't nailed down all the mechanisms for how alcohol kills, but the main culprit seems to be liver damage. The liver is the body's primary defense in clearing the blood of dangerous toxins. Aside from being a dangerous toxin in its own right, alcohol in any amount can cause damage to that all-important filter.

There was a time when churches -- many of them Baptist -- led the temperance movement and were quick to warn others of the dangers of drinking. They weren't even afraid to call a harmful habit "sin."

These days, we're more likely to wink at the social lubricant and emotional crutch, or even use it as a come-on to appear more relevant.

Is that a helpful witness? Christian leaders, perhaps more than anyone, have a responsibility to tell the truth: drinking alcohol may be cool, but it's not smart.

Facing the darkness

While driving to work on Thursday, my pre-dawn progress came to a standstill in a foggy bottom just south of a one-stop-light town not known for its traffic jams.

The fog and the darkness apparently contributed to a fender-bender, after which both drivers decided to leave their slightly damaged vehicles in the middle of the road.

I could see none of this, though I was less than 100 yards away when I came to a stop behind an electrician’s truck whose ladders and cables filled my field of vision for the next 10 minutes or so.

It seemed much longer.

In the early morning murk, the blinking lights I initially thought belonged to a couple of school buses turned out to be fire trucks. Small town fire departments generally don’t have much going on at 6:30 a.m., so the firemen were out in force in their heavy uniforms with the reflective bars, perhaps glad for something to do.

The fireman directing traffic let northbound traffic drive past for what seemed an interminable time: I counted more cars passing than I usually meet during the entire trip.

So, I sat in the dark, and watched the blinking lights, and took note of the electrician’s taped up ladders, and observed my automatic mileage calculator dipping lower and lower as the engine idled. Finally, I turned it off.

Eventually, southbound traffic was waved around. I discovered that I was only two vehicles back from the accident, but I hadn’t been able to see it.

Sometimes, life is like that.

Sometimes, we face roadblocks we don’t expect, obstacles we cannot see, dangers that come out of nowhere.

Later that morning, I learned that two women preparing lunches for the charitable “Meals on Wheels” program were attacked and stabbed in the kitchen of Lakeside Baptist Church in Rocky Mount, N.C. One of them died; the other is in critical condition. The assailant fled in his murder victim’s SUV. A later report says a suspect has been arrested and confessed to the crimes -- and that the victims had tried to help him find a shelter and other help prior the senseless stabbings.

It was haunting to see images of a familiar church plastered with yellow crime scene tape, to know that I’ve eaten food prepared in that same kitchen, and probably crossed paths with the victims.

Lakeside, a longtime participant in the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, has been a stalwart supporter of social ministries and community service for years.

It was good to hear pastor Jody Wright tell the TV cameras that Lakeside has no intention of backing down from its commitment to active ministry, even though it can sometimes be risky business.

Bad things can happen anywhere, anytime, and with no apparent rhyme or reason. We would like to see far enough down the road to avoid all trouble, or at least see clearly enough to understand why it happens, but that isn’t the way life works in a world where people are free to choose evil as well as good.

While we cannot see as far or as clearly as we would like to see, however, we can see enough to take the next step, and we can know that we are not alone in the darkness.

Sometimes, that has to be enough.

Work for green, or wait for gold?

Should Christians be at the forefront of the ecological bandwagon, promoting care for the earth because we care about the people who depend on it?

Or should we focus solely on souls and not worry about the earth because our eschatology predicts a bad end for this world and the divine gift of a new one?

It's not a new question, but I raise it in the light of recent comments by Al Mohler, who is president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, host of a regular radio program, a frequent blogger, and an outspoken proponent of a conservative and Calvinist remaking of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC).

According to EthicsDaily.com, Mohler recently discussed a Christian approach to environmentalism on his radio show, responding to news that fellow Baptist but political foe Al Gore had received a share of the Nobel Peace Prize.

Mohler said Christians shouldn't be immune to environmental concerns, but shouldn't make them a top priority, either. "We've got to expect this world to end badly," Mohler said, voicing a reference to the biblical Book of Revelation, which predicts the creation of a new heaven and a new earth.

One of Mohler's main concerns with environmentalists seems to be their efforts to curb overpopulation. "There are serious proposals out there, coming from the secular left, that one of the ways to deal with global warming is to stop having babies," Mohler said.

Mohler has previously described deliberate childlessness as "moral rebellion" against God's plan for the world.

Mohler's response, at least, is more measured than that of some outspoken preachers like John Hagee, who seriously want to provoke an all-out war in the Middle East in order to bring on Armaggedon and the end of the world.

An eschatological emphasis is also behind the change in focus at the SBC's mammoth international mission enterprise, the International Mission Board (IMB). The IMB once sponsored hospitals, schools, and other humanitarian efforts in many countries. Southern Baptists made many friends and won great respect for their humanitarian efforts.

That is no longer the case, however. While IMB missionaries still engage in some relief and community health efforts, the primary goal is winning souls rather than improving lives. IMB president Jerry Rankin said several years ago that God had convicted him that the world would end soon, and thus he has focused all efforts on bringing people to faith before the curtain falls.

I don't doubt the sincerity of those who think humanity's spiritual condition should always take priority over their physical condition, but I'm reminded of two things: (1) the Bible gives us a clear mandate to care for the earth as stewards, not exploiters, and (2) Jesus made it very clear that no one knows when the end will be.

Ignoring the environment because we expect the world to end before humans can use up the oil or melt Antarctica is a gamble we cannot afford to take.

Jezebel still making news

A Dutch scholar argued recently that a large opal signet in the Israel Museum was the official seal of the infamous Queen Jezebel. Could it be true?

Jezebel, according to a series of stories in 1-2 Kings, was a Phoenician princess who was married to the Israelite king Ahab, who ruled from about 869-850 B.C. She is charged with promoting the worship of Baal, and best known for an ongoing conflict with the prophet Elijah.

The large signet, pictured here from an image appearing on the Reformatorisch Dagblad website, has been known for at least 40 years. The seal's tantalizingly large size and elaborate iconography suggest that it belonged to someone who was wealthy and powerful -- and the inclusion of the consonants yzbl suggests that the someone could be Jezebel.

Unfortunately, the seal was not discovered in a legitimate archaeological excavation, but was dug up by looters and sold on the antiquities market, where it was documented by Israeli archaeologist Nahman Avigad in 1964. Avigad was hesitant to identify the seal's first owner: "Though fit for a queen, coming from the right period and bearing a rare name documented nowhere other than in the Hebrew Bible, we can never know for sure."

Marjo Korpel, the researcher mentioned above, is more confident. She is a specialist in Ugaritology, or the study of the people and language of ancient Ugarit, a Phoenician city contemporaneous with much of the biblical period, as well as being a Protestant minister. Korpel argues that the seal's symbolism, size, shape and presumed time period make it highly likely that the seal belonged to Jezebel.

To make her case, Korpel must restore two letters to a broken area of the inscription, is indicated in the proposed restoration that can be seen at the Katholiek Nederland website. Hebrew seal inscriptions typically begin with the letter lamed, transliterated as l, which can mean "belonging to." And, the biblical spelling of Jezebel's name begins with an aleph (transliterated by an apopstrophe).

Thus, Korpel restores l' to the broken part of the seal, giving us l'yzbl, "belonging to Jezebel."

Not so fast, says Christopher Rollston, in an article posted on the American Schools for Oriental Research website.

Rollston, who teaches at the Emmanuel School of Religion, is an epigrapher, or student of ancient inscriptions. He points to indications such as the "recumbent bet (the letter that grows from the line at the bottom left corner of the inscription) and the angular lamed (behind the falcon's tail, at the lower right) as evidence that the inscription comes from a period at least a century after Jezebel.

Rollston also finds it striking that the inscription includes no patronymic, or reference to one's father, as is common on many seals. In this case, one might expect it to say "daughter of Ethbaal." He notes other contemporary names that include the letters yzbl, and suggests that multiple letters could have been squeezed into the broken area at the top, giving more possibilities than Jezebel for the owner.

Did the large opal signet hang from the neck of Queen Jezebel and seal orders for the murder of Hebrew prophets? With no knowledge of the location or stratigraphy of the site where it was dug up, it is unlikely that we will ever be certain.

Even so, it's a fascinating thought.

Artful dodging

Charles Dickens' classic Oliver Twist includes a young rascal known as "the artful dodger" because of his ability to pick someone's pocket and make a quick getaway. The most accomplished "artful dodgers," I've observed, are politicians or other folk who twist things just enough to give the wrong impression and mislead the public while dodging the truth.

Informed readers are accustomed to seeing that sort of thing in denominational public relations channels like Baptist Press. Such behavior is not limited to the national scene, of course. There have been several examples relative to the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina (BSCNC) recently. I'll mention only two.

One regards the situation with Woman's Missionary Union of North Carolina (WMU-NC), which is moving out of the Baptist building because that is the only way, under the current administration, to fully preserve its autonomy with regard to hiring and having final supervision over its staff.

While WMU-NC has taken great pains to insist that it is changing its address, but not its core mission to serve BSCNC churches as a missions resource and missions offering promoter, people who should know better have made it sound as if WMU-NC is "separating," "resigning," or "leaving" the BSCNC.

That is a clear twisting of the truth, and WMU-NC executive director Ruby Fulbright confronts some of the misleading information in an article now posted on the WMU-NC website. The BSCNC's official position can be found in this press release.

A second and equally serious matter relates to the BSCNC's mounting budget crisis. Budget receipts have been down throughout the year. For months, BSCNC leaders blamed the lower receipts on the calendar, saying the financial year started a week later than in 2006. As I have pointed out several times, that is only because 2006 contained 53 Sundays, a calendar anomaly that won't happen again for a while. The 2006 budget was fully funded only because of that extra Sunday.

As long as the budget deficit remained around $700,000, the amount needed in an average week to meet the roughly $37 million budget, the argument carried some credibility and kept members of the BSC Executive Committee and Board of Directors from asking too many questions.

The deficit has continued to grow, however, reaching more than $1.8 million at the end of September, three quarters of the way through the financial year. Giving is down most notably in Plan C (20 percent) and among Plan A and Plan B churches that exclude the Southern Baptist Convention (32 percent and 29 percent, respectively). None of the plans showed an increase. Even those favored by the most conservative churches are down: the traditional Plan A by almost 2 percent, and Plan D by 0.22 percent.

The total is 6.57 percent below budget needs for the year, and 3.22 percent behind last year's totals.

Here's what should be making budget planners nervous: many churches begin their fiscal year in October, and it is highly likely that many more of those churches will be decreasing their gifts to the BSCNC rather than increasing them.

That means the traditional positive bump the budget gets during the fall may not materialize. BSCNC leaders acknowledged the budget uncertainty by postponing approval of the 2008-2009 from the regular meeting of the Executive Committee and Board of Directors in September to a special called meeting Oct. 29 -- an event that will cost thousands of extra dollars in itself.

What concerns me most is that budget planners have sought to lay the blame for budget uncertainy on lower receipts to the North Carolina Missions Offering (NCMO), which was down about 26 percent through September. WMU-NC and North Carolina Baptist Men are the two largest beneficiaries of the NCMO, though some money also goes for church planting.

Two things should be said here: if the BSCNC hadn't quibbled so much about its support for WMU-NC and the assurance of WMU-NC's place in future NCMO budgets, there wouldn't be such a deficit in NCMO giving. Some churches are choosing to give directly to WMU-NC instead of contributing to the NCMO.

A second thing to note is that the real budget problem is not with NCMO, which could potentially come up several hundred thousand dollars short, but with the BSCNC's primary budget, which could easily face a deficit of $2 million or more.

Please understand -- I really hope I'm wrong about this. I would love to see the BSCNC make and exceed its budget. I just don't think it's going to happen.

And the reason it won't happen is not because WMU-NC chose to leave the building. The reason has been building for years. Convention after convention, as the BSCNC has approved motions that show greater intolerance for diversity and lower support for beloved institutions, loyalty to the BSCNC has eroded. That is likely to continue.

When the churches that don't begin their fiscal year in October start a new budget cycle in January, I suspect they will reflect even less support for the BSCNC giving plans.

BSC budget planners have hoped to increase the 2008 budget by more than three percent, to nearly $39 million, with most of the increase going to church planting.

With prospects for meeting the current budget as dismal as they appear, proposing an increase for the next cycle will be a tough sell -- but it won't be due to WMU.

No angel under this "halo"

If you read this post from BT's Oct. 7 list of links or in your local newspaper, perhaps you were as taken aback as I was that multiple youth groups are using the new video game "Halo 3" as a draw for getting kids to church.

The wildly popular sci-fi shooting game has sold a gazillion copies, but the violence it depicts is so vivid that the game is rated M-17, for "mature" players only. You can't buy the game unless you're 17 years old, and can't even look at the website without entering your birthday -- at two different times -- to prove that you're either old enough or a liar.

Yet, some churches are allowing children well under 17 to play the game. It's common for churches to start "youth group" in sixth grade these days, which means some 11-year-olds could be vicariously blowing the bad guys' guts out at church when they're still years away from being old enough to officially buy the game.

I know the argument that you have to be relevant and try new things to get/keep the teenybopper crowd in church, but there has to be a limit somewhere. Porn movies would probably attract a crowd. Or a night of beer tasting. Or an uncensored game of "truth or dare."

Most rational people would recognize that those are over the line. It's hard for me to understand why an excessively violent video game should not also be well beyond the border.

It's one thing to shoot at the iconic aliens on "Space Invaders" -- it's another thing entirely to pull the trigger when pointing your digital gun at realistically portrayed people. Some argue that "it's only pixels."

That's only rubbish.

Protracted exposure to violence, whether it's in movies or on a computer screen or in person, can desensitize people toward the humanity of others. Our "enemies" become just that -- not real people who have feelings and families, but just another obstacle who's blocking our path.

However noble their motives and however righteous the "hero" of Halo appears to be, I see no passable justification for endorsing the idea that blowing people to bloody bits is acceptable, even in a video game.

Jesus never said "blast your enemies , disembowel those who persecute you, and behead those who despitefully use you."

I'm pretty sure he used a different verb.

A verb like "love."

It's that kind of behavior that deserves a halo.

Too much Jesus?

Chowan University, a small Baptist school in northeastern North Carolina, is experiencing a revival on more fronts than one. Since taking office as interim president in 2003 -- and being named permanent president in 2004 -- Chris White has led the school to a position of financial strength and increased enrollments. Instead of recruiting only the brightest students, Chowan embraces its focus on "students of promise," to borrow White's words, average students who can mature and grow into successful people.

Chowan has also ramped up efforts to promote the school as a Christian environment for education. A group called the Chowan Christian Service Organization was formed to provide scholarships to students who feel called into ministry, and some of those students are making a difference on campus.

In addition to minister to the university Mari Wiles, Chowan recently hired Craig and Jennifer Janney to serve as associate campus ministers.

Faith is promoted as integral to the enterprise. Faculty and others have been urged to pray for the school (that's J Brabban, chair of the religion department, in the photo).

When a student came to Wiles before the semester began and wanted help organizing a prayer meeting for students, she helped him put together a midnight meeting in "Squirrel Park," a central green space with many large trees.

My understanding is that the prayer meetings have continued, and a spiritual awakening is blossoming in a variety of ways.

The revival, alas, has been too much for at least one student. While I was on campus for a recent visit, vice-president for development John Tayloe told me a student had come in to indicate that he was withdrawing from school. "There's just too much Jesus talk and too much praying on this campus," he said.

Colleges don't like losing students, but Chowan takes pride in being a place where both Jesus and prayer are ubiquitous. The school's new marketing slogan is "Faith in your future." Stories like this give cause for faith in Chowan's future, as well.

Goatees get your goat?

While working on an earlier post about Doug Pagitt being axed from the upcoming Wired2Grow conference in North Carolina, I couldn't help being reminded of something I'd noticed before: the "preacher" uniform has really changed, at least in some circles.

There was a time when you could recognize a preacher because he was the only one wearing a suit or tie when coming through the check-out line at the grocery store. More than once, I've had tellers ask if I was a preacher. "You just look like one," they'd say, and I'd wonder why.

Nowadays, however, the look has changed. Rick Warren led the revolution by adopting Hawaiian shirts and a goatee as proper pulpit attire, and countless would-be-Saddlebackians followed suit (or, lack of suit).

Among emergents, the combination of a shaved head and beard or goatee has also become popular. Brian McLaren (below),despite the gray in his beard, was a primary trendsetter.

Indeed, it's hard to find an emerging/emergent spokesperson who doesn't sport facial hair, a T-shirt, and a pair of jeans with at least one hole in them. Pagitt (at top) has the requisite goatee, as does Ed Stetzer , a church planter turned consultant who often critiques the movement (and whose goatee is usually more well-behaved than in the picture at right).

Mark Driscoll, whose criticism of Pagitt contributed to his persona-non-grata status in North Carolina, also likes the scruffy beard look, though photos on the Internet suggest that it comes and goes.

And, Rick McKinley (right), who will apparently have to dialogue with himself at what is now Wired1Grow, features a championship goatee.

I don't intend any of this to be critical of those who prefer the shaggy-faced look. But, I couldn't resist a chuckle while running through some photos from Jordan as I prepared for an Old Testament class -- and remembered why we call it a "goatee."

The fear factor

I noted in a recent blog that emergent church leader Doug Pagitt, popular pastor of Solomon's Porch in Minneapolis and author of several books that challenge traditional thinking about church, has been dis-invited from speaking at the annual Wired2Grow event sponsored by the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina (BSCNC).

Apparently, there was a fear that participants might be exposed to heresy.

The event, scheduled for Oct. 16 and designed for innovative church leaders, has previously drawn other speakers related to the emergent movement, including Brian McLaren. But, strong conservatives are increasingly characterizing the emergent movement as a "neo-liberal cult."

Pagitt, in particular, was criticized following a recent CNN appearance in which he was asked about a Christian-oriented version of yoga that he practices. Several doctrinal-watchdog blogsites quickly criticized Pagitt -- and the BSCNC for inviting him. Connecticut-based Ken Silva of "Apprising Ministries," Dave and Deborah Dombrowski of Oregon who blog at Lighthouse Trails, and Bud Press of the no-physical-location-on-his-website "Christian Research Service" all took issue with Pagitt's proposed appearance and rejoiced in his dis-invitation. In the process, Press wrongly described the event as a "Southern Baptist" conference. Though the BSCNC relates to the SBC and most of is affiliated churches are Southern Baptist, it is an autonomous organization.

Pagitt was also was criticized by Acts 29 Network leader Mark Driscoll during a recent conference at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. Driscoll was originally involved in the emergent movement but later broke with it and went his own innovative way. At least some churches in the Acts 29 network approve of culture-friendly practices like Bible study sessions in a bar (beer included), but hold the fundamentalist line on other issues, such as women serving as pastors or elders (not allowed).

Driscoll lambasted "emergent village theology" during the conference and named Pagitt as one of several who hold "heretical" views on issues such as the penal substutionary view of the atonement (Pagitt thinks other views explain it better).

Driscoll also questioned why the BSCNC would invite Pagitt. Others picked up the drumbeat and BSC officials received e-mails and phone calls from people (including at least one who actually lives in North Carolina) who did not believe Pagitt should be on the program.

Soon, he wasn't.

Lynn Sasser, executive leader for the Congregational Services group at the BSCNC, told me the decision was his, in concert with other leaders of the BSCNC's Innovative Church Community network, based on additional information they had learned about Pagitt. Sasser expected the BSCNC to make no further comment, but Convention spokesperson Doug Baker apparently told Bud Press that information concerning Pagitt's views "on homosexuality, Christology, (and) the innerancy of scripture had been provided to the BSCNC" after the initial invitation was extended.

Chad Hall, former leader of the Innovative Church Team for the BSC, said he had invited Pagitt because he thought he would offer a good counterpoint for dialogue with Rick McKinley, pastor of Imago Dei Church in Portland, Oregon, who is also scheduled to speak. In surveys, previous Wired2Grow participants had asked for Pagitt, he said.

Hall left the BSCNC during the past year and is now a consultant for SAS Institute in Cary.

In a phone call, Pagitt told me that criticism ramped up after the CNN appearance. But, he said, the yoga classes taught in his church are holistic and practiced in a completely Christian context. Though yoga was developed within the Hindu tradition, one does not have to be a universalist in order to practice it, he said.

Regarding the withdrawn invitation, Pagitt said "I have no sour grapes about it. My feelings aren't hurt. I don't blame them for making the decision if they believe their constituency would not be happy with my appearance."

Pagitt said Sasser asked him about his beliefs regarding universalism, his view of scripture, and his views on homosexuality. He did not discuss the matters in detail, he said, because it seemed obvious that the dis-invitation was a foregone conclusion.

Pagitt affirmed that his views are likely to be different than the typical North Carolina Baptist. But, he said, "I was invited for a conference on innovation. What’s the point on having an event on innovation if you’re not willing to listen to the outsider at some level? If they’re not willing to be open to implications of ministry that we share, who are they willing to listen to?"

It's hard to learn from others when "pre-screening the belief system" is needed "to find out first if you believe as we do, and then we’ll listen to you," he said.

Aside from the locked door at the BSCNC, Pagitt expressed enthusiasm in that he is being asked to speak to many different denominational groups, and the emergent conversation is bringing many people together who ordinarily wouldn’t talk. "A special moment is going on in a cross-denominational expression of Christianity," he said.

To hear more about it, however, you'll have to look somewhere other than this year's Wired2Grow.