New Baylor president not a Baptist … yet

Ken Starr’s appointment as president of Baylor University raised eyebrows not only because of his controversial background investigating President Clinton but because of his non-Baptist religious roots.

Starr told the Texas Baptist Standard that he plans to join a Baptist church before beginning his duties on June 1.

Oklahoma pastor Mitch Randall pointed out in an article at EthicsDaily.com that Starr was raised in the Church of Christ and is currently a member of McLean Bible Church in Virginia.

“I wonder if Starr’s denominational metamorphosis occurred after careful theological reflection and prayer or after a contract was placed before him?” Randall asks.

Tim Rogers at SBC Today sees Starr’s plans as “another church member becoming Baptist because of convenience.”

“I wish Dr. Kenneth Starr the best, but this is another example of becoming a Baptist because it suits a particular need instead of it being a conviction of the soul.”

But Baptist blogger Wade Burleson, takes issue with those who are upset that Starr is “not Baptist enough.”

“I think that we Southern Baptists, unfortunately, are becoming more and more known for being Southern Baptists than devoted followers of Jesus Christ. When we are more concerned about the President of Baylor University being baptized in baptist waters than we are the spiritual condition and maturity of the man who takes the office, then we have sacrificed our ‘Christian’ heritage on the alter of religious ideology.”

Louis Moore, who covered religious issues in Texas for the Houston Chronicle, said in a blog post that Starr “needs to be as clear about his theology as he wanted Bill Clinton to be about his sexual activities.”

Moore’s wife Kay served in the 1990s as a Southern Baptist representative on a dialogue group of 10 Southern Baptists and 10 members of the Church of Christ. Moore lists specific issues that he and his wife feel Starr should address.

“We hope in the next weeks and months Judge Ken Starr will articulate as clearly as he wanted President Bill Clinton to articulate in the courtroom and that he (Starr) will state emphatically what he truly believes about baptism and salvation as well as about minor issues such as whether a church ought to have instrumental music in its worship center, whether a church ought to celebrate Easter, and whether he agrees with the traditional Churches of Christ viewpoint on the role of women in public worship.”

Until Starr answers those questions, hard-line conservative Baptists will have to be happy having a non-Baptist, right-wing political hero as president of the world’s largest Baptist university.

Attack on the ‘Camel Method’ gets personal/political

It’s intuitively obvious why a former Muslim would criticize the controversial “Camel” method of evangelizing Muslims. But it is startling to hear a Southern Baptist theologian accuse the retiring head of a key mission board of lying.

Ergun Caner, president of Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary in Lynchburg, Va., is the latest to take issue with the evangelistic method promoted by the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) International Mission Board as a way to reach Muslims.

Caner said on a podcast at the blog SBC Today that the “Camel Method” is heresy. He went on to say that the method is based on deception and that means Jerry Rankin, the president of the mission board, is lying.

Caner’s opposition takes on new light considering the wrestling for position brought on by Rankin’s upcoming retirement? Keep in mind that Caner and his brother, Emir, have strong ties to Paige Patterson, president of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and a major player in SBC politics.

In his book, Hardball Religion, former IMB trustee Wade Burleson says trustees loyal to Patterson tried to embarrass Rankin with the intention of removing him, according to a review by Baptists Today editor John Pierce.

In 2003, Patterson sent IMB trustees a paper questioning the mission board’s theological foundation. The document was written by Keith Eitel, then professor of Christian missions at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary where Patterson previously served as president and now dean of the School of Evangelism at Southwestern.

Ongoing efforts to discredit Rankin could convince trustees that a new direction is needed at the IMB. Perhaps one led by Eitel. Or someone else loyal to Patterson and his allies.

The 10 still-jailed Baptists in Haiti were warned [repeatedly]

A power outage reportedly prevents Haitian Prosecutor Josephe Manes Louis from delivering to the judge his now-completed recommendations regarding whether to release 10 Baptists who were arrested for child trafficking. Sad though their plight is, they were warned, repeatedly:

• The night before the 10 entered Haiti, journalist and social activist Anne-christine d’Adesky told the group’s leader, Laura Silsby, that her plan to collect 100 Haitian children and take them to the Dominican Republic was illegal and would be regarded as child trafficking.
• Dominican consul general Carlos Castillo told CNN:
  

  I warned her, I said as soon as you get there without the proper documents, you are going to get into trouble, because they are going to accuse you, because you have the intent to pass the border without the proper papers and they are going to accuse you with kids trafficking.

• A Haitian police officer told CNN that he stopped the Americans on Jan. 26 as they tried to take a bus of 40 children out of the country.
• Dixie Bickel, director of God’s Littlest Children orphanage in Thomasin, Haiti, told the Miami Herald that Silsby disregarded her warnings about trying to swoop in after the earthquake and haul Haitian children off to the Dominican Republic.

Their arrest was tragic but not, as Southern Baptist Convention Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission chief Richard Land claims, “outrageous.” More recently, he has reportedly become thankful for “whatever the US govt did” to free the 10.” Land, however, dwells in an alternate reality where the U.S. is “winning” a war in Iraq, telling Southern Baptist state newspaper editors, “that’s not something you’re reading about.”

Failures of due diligence can have a very high price indeed.