Two kinds of Baptists, same kind of problem

In Atlanta, law enforcement authorities are investigating a controversial mortgage scheme that allegedly preyed on financially troubled homeowners. Two Baptist mega-church pastors are linked to the scheme.

As reported by CBS Atlanta News, a company called Matrix Capital promised to lower people's mortgages if they paid a $1,500 upfront fee. Police say "thousands of homeowners paid Matrix Capital the money," but rather than getting their mortgages lowered, "most of them ended up in bankruptcy and losing their homes." Just before Christmas, some started asking whether their own pastors were the ones who had let the wolf in the door.

Southern Baptist pastor Gary Hawkins was "the face of the company's promotional video," and he "vouched" for the man behind the company, Fred Lee, even though Lee already had a "questionable history." Now Lee is "accused of stealing" from members of Hawkins' Southern Baptist Convention-affiliated church, Voices of Faith in Stone Mountain, Ga. With 11,000 members, Voices of Faith is one of the Georgia Baptist Convention's fastest growing churches.

Many of those who forked over $1,500 – and who eventually lost their homes – had attended a Matrix Capital seminar at Hawkins' Voices of Faith church. People say they trusted Matrix Capital because they trusted Hawkins, and because the sales pitch was made "in the sanctity of their local church."

Independent Baptist pastor Eddie Long also allowed Matrix Capital to present seminars at his 25,000-member New Birth Missionary Baptist Church in Lithonia, Ga.

Now, CBS Atlanta News is asking why these two Baptist pastors invited this company "into their churches to prey on their flock."

Police say that Southern Baptist pastor Hawkins was "less than forthcoming with records that would have shown if payments were made" either to him personally or to the church.

Independent Baptist pastor Long is the same pastor who is also embroiled in civil lawsuits alleging clergy sex abuse. Four young men have accused him of using spiritual authority to coerce them into sexual acts when they were teen church members.

When news of the sex scandal first broke, some Baptists tried to distance themselves by questioning whether Long was really a Baptist – despite the fact that his church is called New Birth Missionary Baptist Church. They pointed to the fact that Long uses the title of "bishop." Though the "bishop" title is unusual in Baptist life, Southern Baptist pastor Hawkins also refers to himself as a "bishop." (For more background on “Baptist bishops,” see this article in Slate, naming Baptist historians Doug Weaver, Bill Leonard and David Key as sources for the information.)

Other Baptists tried to distance themselves by pointing out that Long's church was not affiliated with any Baptist denominational entity – as though denominational affiliation might automatically protect against such scandals. For example, in writing about the Long scandal, the president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Al Mohler, proclaimed that independent congregations "lack the discipline of a denomination."

But where is the denominational discipline in the Southern Baptist Convention? What exactly was Mohler talking about?

The people in Hawkins' Southern Baptist church were no better protected than the people in Long's independent Baptist church. They lost their money and their homes just the same as those in the independent Baptist church.

If someone in Hawkins' church had wanted to seek denominational intervention before hundreds lost their homes, where could they have turned? What denominational office would have even heard a complaint about Hawkins? The reality is that, within the SBC, the "discipline of a denomination" is nonexistent.

Though they are denominationally affiliated, Southern Baptists share the same problem as independent Baptists. They lack any effective system for clergy accountability.

In every church, the pastor is usually the most powerful and trusted person. Yet, among both Southern Baptists and independent Baptists, churches engage the delusion that a pastor's own colleagues and congregants can exercise effective oversight. They can't.

Despite their denominational structure, Southern Baptist officials refuse to implement the sort of disciplinary processes that other major denominations now have (including American Baptist Churches – USA). Southern Baptist officials reject even the possibility of providing churches with the resource of a trained review board for objectively assessing complaints about clergy and for relaying information to congregants. Even this lesser form of denominational accountability is too much for the SBC.

Without accountability, power corrupts. We have repeatedly seen this truth manifested, both in the context of financial shenanigans and also in the context of clergy sex abuse. And we have repeatedly seen it manifested among both Southern Baptists and independent Baptists.

The root of their shared problem is a systemic lack of accountability. This is the root that so desperately needs a remedy.
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Thanks to EthicsDaily for publishing this column!

Transformative life-sustaining art

Artist Jason deCaires Taylor submerges life-size sculptures underwater. "His works become artificial reefs, attracting marine life, while offering the viewer privileged temporal encounters, as the shifting sand of the ocean floor, and the works change from moment to moment."

This is hauntingly beautiful work that defies description. Let me just share a few more images with you . . .

Gay-hate in the name of Christian belief

Clint McCance, vice-president of the Midland School District in Arkansas, got angry at last week’s call for people to wear purple as a means of showing solidarity with gay teens who struggle in the face of bullying. McCance gave vent to his anger, and showed himself as one of those bullies. Here is what he wrote on Facebook:

“Seriously, they want me to wear purple because five queers committed suicide. The only way im wearin it for them is if they all commit suicide. I cant believe the people of this world have gotten this stupid. We are honoring the fact that they sinned and killed thereselves because of their sin. REALLY PEOPLE."

"It pisses me off … that we make special purple fag day for them. I like that fags can’t procreate. I also enjoy the fact that they often give each other AIDS and die. I would disown my kids if they were gay. They will not be welcome at my home or in my vicinity. I will absolutely run them off. Of course my kids will know better. My kids will have solid Christian beliefs.”

In the wake of last month’s five suicides of teens subjected to gay-bullying, I can hardly imagine any words more hateful than those of Clint McCance. (A close second might be the “christian” words of high Southern Baptist officials who castigated clergy sex abuse survivors as “opportunists” and “evil-doers.” But I digress …)

Clint McCance was a public school official. Turn that ugly thought over in your head.

Columnist Leonard Pitts summed up the absolute awfulness of it by posing this question: “Can you imagine if you were a kid, lonely, alienated, struggling with your nascent sexual identity, daily tormented by classmates who think it’s funny to call you a fag or dunk your face in the toilet, and you go to a school administrator for help and this guy is who you get?”

After widespread condemnation of his remarks, Mr. McCance apologized on CNN and announced his resignation from the school board. He said that, down-the-road, if his constituents want to vote him back in, then he “will run again.”

I, for one, am hoping that Mr. McCance’s constituents will have long memories.
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Related post: “Would Tyler Clementi be loved by SBC churches?”

Would Tyler Clementi be loved by SBC churches?

As an 18-year-old college freshman, Tyler Clementi threw himself off a bridge after what has been widely described as an incident of gay-bullying. Other students surreptitiously filmed Tyler while he was having an encounter with another male in his dorm room, and they streamed it over the internet.

Tyler’s death rests in company with three other teen suicides during September, all of whom had allegedly been targeted and taunted because of their homosexuality. Of course, these are just the ones we know about.

In response to these tragedies, a Southern Baptist seminary president, Al Mohler, pondered the role of the Christian faith community and rightly pointed out that teens such as Tyler “need to know that they are loved and cherished for who they are.”

“Much of our response to homosexuality is rooted in ignorance and fear,” said Mohler. “Far too many evangelical pastors talk about sexual orientation with a crude dismissal or with glib assurances that gay persons simply choose to be gay.” In these statements, Mohler is surely correct.

But then he asked this question: “What if Tyler Clementi had been in your church?”

I found myself wondering exactly what churches Mohler was talking about.

In June 2009, “it took messengers to the Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting… only 30 seconds” to oust a church from affiliation “because of the church’s perceived toleration of gay members.” The Convention’s messengers “chose overwhelmingly” to dismiss the church, and they did so based on a recommendation that was approved by the Convention’s Executive Committee without a single dissenting vote.

So it doesn’t seem realistic to imagine that Tyler Clementi could have been in a Southern Baptist church -- at least not if he presented himself as a gay person -- because the Southern Baptist Convention ousts churches that have openly gay members.

It is good for Mohler to talk about how churches should show love to gay people. But first things first. Before Southern Baptists can become more loving in their interactions with gay people in their midst, they must start by allowing gay people to come into their midst – and by welcoming them just as they are, as children of God.

No one is asking Southern Baptists to lie about their beliefs. But an essential first step for churches that want to show Christian care to gay people is to open their doors to gay people.

Teens watch what we do, and actions speak far louder than words.

What message do you imagine teens heard when the North Carolina Baptist Convention adopted one of the strongest anti-gay measures of any church-body in America by authorizing denominational officials to investigate churches so as to ascertain whether they were being supportive of homosexual behavior? Many churches came under suspicion, and Myers Park Baptist Church was ousted because it reportedly acted in ways that “welcome and affirm” homosexuals as members and in leadership.

What message do you imagine teens heard when the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention ousted a church because it allowed its facilities to be used by a separate ministry group, Eklektos, that was welcoming of gay and lesbian people? “We are united in Christ and in the affirmation that all people are loved and called by Christ to be His disciples and to be part of His healing/reconciling work in the world,” said the Eklektos website. The church that dared to allow this organization to even use its facilities was a church that got ousted.

What message do you imagine teens heard when the country’s largest statewide Baptist organization, the Baptist General Convention of Texas, asked a church to remove itself from affiliation after learning that the church had added to its website a statement that the congregation was “a vibrant mosaic of varied racial identities, ethnicities, [and] sexual orientations”?

What message do you imagine teens heard when one of the Southern Baptist Convention’s largest churches, Bellevue, refused to allow a women’s softball team into the league because the coach was a lesbian? As reported in the Commercial Appeal, church officials told the coach that her team couldn’t compete because of her “deviant” lifestyle. Yet, this same church retains a senior pastor who, for six months, kept quiet about a staff minister’s admitted molestation of a kid.

Teens see examples of conduct like this and they take away a message. It is not a message that communicates loving care for gay people.

Al Mohler has said some good words, but actions speak louder. By their actions, Southern Baptists have helped to foster a climate of anti-gay sentiment, which can all-too-easily fester into anti-gay bullying.
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Thanks to EthicsDaily for publishing this column!
Thanks also to Dr. Bruce Prescott for spotlighting it on his Mainstream Baptist blog.

Baptist officials should denounce Baptists' anti-Muslim rhetoric

On August 22, the senior pastor of First Baptist Church of Dallas, Dr. Robert Jeffress declared Islam is an "evil religion." The "deep, dark, dirty secret of Islam," said Jeffress, is that "it is a religion that promotes pedophilia ... sex with children."

On August 28, a mosque site in Murfreesboro, Tennessee was vandalized by a fire that authorities are describing as an apparent arson.

I’m not saying the two events are connected, but I do think the close sequence is noteworthy. And I think fear-mongering talk like that of Dr. Jeffress is irresponsible.

After all, Dr. Jeffress does not carry the voice of some mere fringe group. He is the senior pastor of one of the most prominent churches in the largest Protestant denomination in the United States of America.

And he didn’t limit his remarks to particular groups, or particular individuals, or particular deeds. Rather, he characterized the entirety of the Islamic “religion” as being “evil.” And he said the “religion” itself promotes “sex with children.”

Can you imagine how insulted our Muslim neighbors must feel?

There are 1.57 billion Muslims in the world, and they are as diverse as Christians in theology and practice. Yet, Jeffress lumped the entirety of this “religion” into the category of “evil.”

When a high-level religious leader says such things, he feeds and fosters fear. Such anti-Muslim rhetoric helps to create a climate in which hate can thrive and violence can more readily sprout.

And let’s not forget, the fear-mongering remarks of pastor Robert Jeffress came just a few days after the remarks of televangelist Pat Robertson, who was also ordained as a Southern Baptist minister. Robertson said that Muslims could wind up taking over the Murfreesboro city council to pass ordinances that require public prayer and foot washing.

Yes . . . that would be the same Pat Robertson who also declared that the Haitian earthquake was the fault of the devastated Haitian people for having made a deal with the devil. So I’m sure some may think the name itself is “'nuf said.” But that’s precisely my point: I don’t think nearly enough is said.

Giving credit where credit is due, Southern Baptist officials Richard Land and Frank Page spoke out against the burning of the Murfreesboro mosque site. “It’s time for us to stand up for the tolerance we believe in,” said Page.

But where were their voices when one of their own, Southern Baptist pastor Robert Jeffress, publicly declared Islam as an “evil religion”?

What a greater impact Southern Baptist officials might have if they would take a stand, not only against acts of physical violence and vandalism, but also against the sort of fear-mongering hate-speech that fosters the climate for such acts.

And they should denounce such hate-speech even when it means speaking out about one of their own most prominent pastors.

But I haven't heard Southern Baptist officials say anything at all about the fear-mongering of Dr. Robert Jeffress . . . and I don't imagine they will.

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9/8/10: See also (1) "Dallas pastor's broad-brush criticism of Islam goes way too far," Dallas Morning News; and (2) "Baptist leaders meet with Holder, denounce Baptists trashing Islam," Associated Baptist Press.

Update 11/2/10: Dallas mayor Tom Leppert is a member of First Baptist Church of Dallas. What must our Muslim neighbors think when they see that the senior pastor of such a prominent church can make such dreadful statements with so few other officials -- either public officials or religious officials -- who will step up to the plate and speak out against such statements?

Cordoba Isn't Code for Islamic Conquest

When I first learned that the Islamic center in lower Manhattan would be called “Cordoba House,” I saw only the beauty in it. The symbolism of the name seemed obvious.

Cordoba was a city in which Muslims, Jews and Christians lived peaceably side-by-side in the 9th, 10th and 11th centuries. Under Muslim rule, the city was a beacon of light and learning compared to other European cities of that era.

So, for me, the name “Cordoba” evoked an image of interfaith understanding and tolerance. It evoked in my heart a feeling of hope for humankind’s ability to move beyond bloodshed so as to see our shared humanity and give thanks for our neighbors.

I saw Cordoba House as a gracious outreach effort and as an appropriate tribute to the thousands of people who died at Ground Zero. There in the melting pot of Manhattan, those who died were people from all parts of the globe, people from all walks of life, and people from all the major faith groups.

Many other Americans hold a very different perspective from mine. They oppose construction of Cordoba House, and often quite vehemently, as an endless stream of news reports and columnists have now recounted.

Pollsters say that roughly two-thirds of Americans now oppose it.

But that opposition has been fueled, at least in part, by political pandering and misinformation.

Newt Gingrich, former Speaker of the House and potential 2012 presidential candidate, told Americans that “Cordoba House” was “a deliberately insulting term.” He claimed that “Cordoba” was “a symbol of Islamic conquest.”

Gingrich is wrong and his inflammatory words serve only to foster fear. “Cordoba” is not some code word for “Islamic conquest” and it never has been.

I suspect Gingrich probably knows this. After all, he holds a PhD in history. But that only leads me to wonder why Gingrich doesn’t also put the Muslim rule of Cordoba in context with what came afterwards.

When Christians regained control in the Iberian peninsula, there was great bloodshed. Then, when outbreaks of the plague came in the 14th century, people blamed the Jews, and there was still more mayhem and murder. That was followed in the 15th century by the Christian torturers of the Spanish Inquisition.

Medieval Christendom could have surely done better if it had followed the example of interfaith tolerance that was demonstrated under Muslim rule at Cordoba.

When I hear such distortions as those of Gingrich, I get the impression that some American politicians think the way to win votes is by spewing mindless vitriol about Muslims. Maybe they’re right. Maybe their vitriol will win them votes. But the cost for our country is steep, and I weep at such hate-mongering.

Did we learn nothing from the history lesson of 1930’s Germany? In a country that was by and large Christian, the politicians so demonized a minority religious group that they ultimately created a climate compatible for concentration camps.

Ground Zero is hallowed ground. So there is surely room for dialogue and debate about the sensibilities of the Cordoba House project. But the legal arguments against it were untenable from the get-go. It was nearly a no-brainer. In this country, a religious group has the right to build on privately-owned property, consistent with local zoning regulations.

Thank God we live in such a country. As Americans, we would betray only ourselves if we curtailed the exercise of that right through governmental intervention.

And if we’re going to engage dialogue on the sensibility of the Cordoba House project, let us at least be clear on the facts. Despite the media’s shorthand of “Ground Zero mosque,” the reality is that it’s not just a mosque and it’s not at Ground Zero.

The Cordoba House is a planned community center that includes, not only a room for prayer and worship, but a fitness center, a swimming pool, a basketball court, a food court, and an auditorium for performance arts. The location of the project is two dense Manhattan blocks from the northern edge of Ground Zero, and about six blocks from the site of one of the towers that was destroyed in the attacks.

Will this project be a force for healing, hope and peace? Or will it not? Which is more likely over the long run? These are the sorts of questions worthy of discussion.

But as Americans, let us not lessen ourselves by suggesting that Muslims have no “right.” They do.

And let us engage this debate based on facts, and not based on the manipulations of political pandering.
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Thanks to EthicsDaily for publishing this column!