Foy Dan Valentine - Gleaning from the media

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Foy Dan Valentine
July 3, 1923 - January 7, 2006
Edgewood, Texas - Dallas, Texas

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NEWS
Foy Valentine, SBC Ethics Pioneer, Dies

Bob Allen
01-07-06

Foy Valentine, leader of the Southern Baptist Convention’s moral-concerns agency for a tumultuous 27 years spanning from the civil-rights movement of the 1960s to the fundamentalist takeover of the denomination in the 1980s, died Saturday after an apparent heart attack at his home in Dallas.

Valentine, 82, had experienced heart trouble for several years. Funeral services are scheduled Wednesday at Park Cities Baptist Church in Dallas, where he was a member.

Valentine was the first doctoral student of T.B. Maston, a pioneer in the field of Christian ethics who taught many years at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary.

With a constituency entrenched in the South during segregation, most SBC agency heads tried to remain neutral in the early years of the civil-rights movement. Valentine was a rare exception. He once remarked that Southern Baptists "abandoned the Lordship of Christ in racial ethics," by perpetuating a culture of racism.

"The God of the Bible, the God Christians know through personal faith in Jesus Christ, is no abstract First Cause or Prime Mover, or Great Unknown out in the abstract Great Somewhere who can be placated by a bit of discrete crying in the chapel,” Valentine wrote. “He is a personal God who is very deeply and very definitely concerned. God cares and God is concerned. And since God is concerned, his people have an obligation to be concerned too."

Robert Parham, executive director of the Baptist Center for Ethics, worked as director of hunger concerns at the Christian Life Commission during the final years of Valentine’s tenure, 1985-1987.

Parham said Valentine “encouraged and aggravated a generation of Southern Baptist ministers in the 1960s and 1970s to care about applied Christianity.”

“He refused to let Southern Baptists define Christian faith by pietistic individualism and other-worldly evangelism,” Parham said. “He knew the Hebrew prophets and Jesus’ teachings were at the core of Christianity and should be at the heart of Southern Baptist life. He tried his best to lead Southern Baptists to prioritize Christian ethics.”

Valentine was a polarizing figure in the fundamentalist/moderate controversy of the 1980s. The Christian Life Commission, today called the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission and headed by religious right figure Richard Land, was an early target for fundamentalists.

A past president of Americans United for Separation of Church and State and board member of the religious-left Interfaith Alliance, Valentine was most despised by SBC fundamentalists for supporting the Religious Coalition for Abortion Rights, later known as the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice.

Valentine backed an SBC resolution in 1971 approving of abortion under some circumstances, including protecting the health of the mother, a position consistent with the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision that legalized most abortions two years later.

The SBC reversed that position in 1980, adopting a resolution calling for a constitutional ban on abortion under any circumstance except to save the life of the mother. Today Southern Baptist leaders are involved in an effort to stack the Supreme Court with conservative justices they hope will overturn Roe v. Wade.

The BCE’s Parham said Valentine viewed the agenda of the fundamentalist party, which eventually transformed into an arm of the religious right, as “foreign to the gospel.”

While best known for folksy writing and CLC seminars, Parham said, Valentine’s most-overlooked contribution was his work to expand ethics work within the SBC bureaucracy. Valentine grew the CLC from a staff of two to 15, despite opposition, and played a pivotal role in expanding Christian ethics work in state conventions and in seminaries.

“With the deaths of A. C. Miller, T. B. Maston and Henlee Barnette, Foy’s passing brings us closer to the end of a remarkable generation of Baptist ethics leaders, leaving us with too few prophets and social reformers,” Parham said.

After retiring from the Christian Life Commission, Valentine headed the Center for Christian Ethics, a partner organization of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship.

Bob Allen is managing editor of EthicsDaily.com.
Source http://ethicsdaily.com/article_detail.cfm?AID=6807

Ethics pioneer Foy Valentine dies suddenly in Dallas
By Greg Warner and Marv Knox
Published January 7, 2006

Editor's note: This article updates and corrects the one issued Sat., Jan. 7.

DALLAS (ABP) -- Pioneer Baptist ethicist Foy Valentine died suddenly Jan. 7 of an apparent heart attack, family members said. He was 82.

A native Texan and Dallas resident, Valentine was executive director of the Southern Baptist Convention's former Christian Life Commission in Nashville from 1960 to 1987.

Valentine, who has had heart problems for many years, awoke with chest pains Jan. 7 and asked his wife, Mary Louise, to drive him to the hospital. He fell unconscious five minutes away from the hospital, a family member said. Doctors tried unsuccessfully for 40 minutes to reestablish a heartbeat before pronouncing him dead.

A memorial service will be held Wednesday afternoon, Jan. 11, at 2 p.m., at Park Cities Baptist Church in Dallas after a private burial in his hometown of Edgewood, in Van Zandt County.

Valentine is survived by his wife of 58 years, three daughters -- Jean, Carol and Susan -- and five grandchildren.

"He was legitimately a 20th century prophet," said Jimmy Allen, a lifelong friend and colleague. "He was a pioneer in Christian ethics, civil rights and religious liberty. He dealt with the hardest kind of issues in a prophetic fashion."

Before going to the Christian Life Commission, Valentine was director of the Texas Baptist Christian Life Commission from 1953 to 1960.

A key figure in the emergence of progressive ethical thinking among Southern Baptists, Valentine's most notable influence was as a champion of civil rights -- long before Southern Baptists openly embraced the concept, colleagues said.

W.C. Fields, longtime director of Baptist Press and a friend of Valentine’s for decades, described Valentine as the most significant civil-rights leader among Southern Baptists during the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s.

The source of Valentine’s convictions regarding racial equality “without a doubt … came from his grounding in his faith, his love and understanding of the Scriptures and the fact that from his earliest days, his parents and peers helped him to become a deeply devoted Christian,” Fields noted.

“During those dark days, when civil rights was such an explosive issue, Foy always was well-informed, sure of the Christian approach, and he had the courage to follow through on his convictions,” Fields said. “His courage was amazing.

“There were people all across the country who disagreed with him in a very strong manner. And yet he was able to maintain his position with evenness and with good response to those who disagreed with him.”

Late in his career, Valentine became a favorite target of SBC conservatives because of his progressive stance on abortion and other volatile issues. In 1971, he was instrumental in the SBC's adoption of a resolution affirming a right to abortion in some cases.

Allen said Valentine's critics "overstated" his affirmation of abortion. "His position was that abortion was an evil but allowable for the health of the mother," said Allen, who succeeded Valentine at the Texas Baptist Christian Life Commission and later directed the SBC Radio and Television Commission.

While Valentine's critics used the abortion issue to rally conservative support in the SBC, their opposition went much deeper, Allen said. "The major antagonism with conservatives was they had been opposed to every progressive stance, particularly in the area of civil rights."

After retiring from the CLC, which later was renamed the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, Valentine founded the Center for Christian Ethics, now attached to Baylor University. He was the founding editor of the journal, Christian Ethics Today, in 1995 and a trustee of Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, among other national groups.

Valentine and Fields talked from time to time about the pressures of providing civil rights leadership to a convention founded, at least in part, because its leaders owned slaves. Valentine’s courage, conviction and even his sense of humor served him well on the front lines of the civil-rights movement, Fields said.

“He was a natural leader," Fields said. "He was willing to stand out there alone, to fall, to get back up and to fall again if necessary.”

Although Valentine was raised in deep East Texas, a region not known for its progressive posture regarding race in the first half of the 20th century, he defied stereotypes. On many issues, Valentine followed the lead of his mentor, ethics pioneer T. B. Maston. Valentine was Maston's first doctoral student at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, which awarded him a PhD in Christian ethics. Valentine also was a graduate of Baylor University.

“Humor might have been his saving grace. His ability to ride easy in the saddle was his great gift. He was a true Texan, and he could ride alone if necessary."

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Source http://www.abpnews.com/756.article

Foy Valentine

Graveside services for Foy Dan Valentine, 82, Edgewood, will be held at 10 a.m. Wednesday, January 11, at Small Cemetery, Edgewood, under direction of Hiett's LyBrand Funeral Home, Wills Point.

Memorial services will be held at 2 p.m. at Park Cities Baptist Church in Dallas.

Mr. Valentine died January 7, 2006, in Dallas.

He was born July 3, 1923, in Edgewood. A distinguished American churchman, he was cited by Christian Century magazine in 1975 as one of 20 innovative leaders in the religious world. He earned a bachelor of arts degree from Baylor University in 1944, a master of divinity degree from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in 1947, and a doctor of theology degree from Southwestern in 1947.

He received honorary doctoral degrees from three universities, including his alma mater, Baylor University, William Jewell College and Louisiana College. He was pastor of First Baptist Church of Gonzales, later moving to second executive director of the Christian Life Commission of the Baptist General Convention of Texas in 1953. In 1960, he was named executive director of the national Christian Life Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, retiring in 1987 after 27 years in that position.

He authored several books on applied Christianity, contributing to periodicals, and was a guest columnist in USA Today. He founded and wrote for the bi-monthly magazine, Christian Ethics Today. He was chair of the Christian Ethics Commission of the Baptist World Alliance. He was a founding member of the Board of Churches’ Center for Theology and Public Policy of the National Trust for Public Education and of the Center for Dialogue and Development.

He was appointed by the President of the United States to the President’s Commission for a National Agenda for the Eighties. He was a trustee and president of Americans Untied for Separation of Church and State. He served for 25 years as a trustee of the Baptist Joint Committee on Public Affairs.

Survivors include his wife of 58 years, Mary Louise Valentine, Edgewood; daughters, Jean, Carol and Susan; brother and sister-in-law, James H. and Bobbie Jean Valentine; grandchildren, Laura Krauss, John Berg, Trey, Will and Catherine Brown; son-in-law, Ronnie Brown; numerous nieces, nephews and other relatives.
Memorials may be made to The Fuller Center for Housing of Americus, Georgia, or charity of choice.
Source http://www.vanzandtnews.com/publish/article_2603.shtml

Ethics pioneer Foy Valentine dies in Dallas
By Greg Warner, Associated Baptist Press and Marv Knox, The Baptist Standard
(1/08/06)

DALLAS – Pioneer Baptist ethicist Foy Valentine died Jan. 7 of an apparent heart attack, family members said. He was 82.

A native Texan and Dallas resident, Valentine was executive director of what was then called Southern Baptist Convention Christian Life Commission from 1960 to 1987. The entity is now called the SBC Ethic and Religious Liberty Commission.

Before going to the Christian Life Commission, Valentine was director of the Texas Baptist Christian Life Commission from 1953 to 1960.

Valentine, who has had heart problems for years, awoke with chest pains Jan. 7 and asked his wife, Mary Louise, to drive him to the hospital. He fell unconscious five minutes away from the hospital. Doctors tried for 40 minutes to re-establish a heartbeat before pronouncing him dead.

A memorial service will be held at 2:00 on Jan. 11 at Park Cities Baptist Church after a private burial in his hometown of Edgewood.

Valentine is survived by his wife of 58 years, three daughters – Jean, Carol and Susan – and five grandchildren.

A key figure in the emergence of progressive ethical thinking among Southern Baptists, Valentine's most notable influence was as a champion of civil rights – long before Southern Baptists openly embraced the concept, colleagues said.

Charles Wade, Baptist General Convention of Texas executive director, said Valentine called Baptists to make ethical decisions based upon their faith. He prophetically asked them to look at their beliefs regarding race.

“Foy Valentine had a passion to make Paul shake hands with James. He was a Jesus man who heard clearly the call of Amos the prophet ‘Let justice roll on like a river; righteousness like a never failing stream,’” Wade said.

“He wanted Baptists to live up to the gospel of Jesus Christ, especially in the arenas of race, public and private morality, and social justice. His motto was ‘changed people changing the world.’

“He helped my generation of Baptists believe that eventually we would get it right in regard to race and justice. We will miss his powerful voice.”

Valentine and Fields talked from time to time about the pressures of providing civil rights leadership to a convention founded, at least in part, because its leaders owned slaves.

Valentine’s courage, conviction and even his sense of humor served him well on the front lines of the civil-rights movement, Fields said.

“He was a natural leader," Fields said. "He was willing to stand out there alone, to fall, to get back up and to fall again if necessary.”

Late in his career, Valentine became a favorite target of SBC conservatives because of his stance on abortion and other volatile issues. In 1971, he was instrumental in the SBC's adoption of a resolution affirming a right to abortion in some cases.

Foy Valentine, dead at 82, led SBC moral concerns arm 27 years
Jan 9, 2006
By Dwayne Hastings
Baptist Press

DALLAS (BP)--Foy Valentine, former executive director of the Southern Baptist Christian Life Commission (now the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission), died Jan. 7 at Baylor Medical Center in Dallas. Valentine, 82, was taken to the hospital after suffering a heart attack at home.

Valentine was born July 3, 1923, in Edgewood, Texas. He is survived by his wife of 58 years, Mary Louise, and three daughters, Jean, Carol and Susan. He was preceded in death by a daughter, Cindy.

During his first official report to the SBC during the 1960 annual meeting, Valentine told messengers the entity “interprets its grave responsibility to this convention to speak to the conscience of Southern Baptists on the application of Christian principles in everyday life.”

Richard Land, current ERLC president, expressed his sympathy to Valentine’s family and friends, noting that Valentine gave 27 years of “faithful service to Southern Baptists as head of the CLC,” particularly in what Land said was Valentine’s “eloquent witness to the biblical truth that racism is a sinful rebellion against the biblical teaching of the equality of all men before the cross.”

“While Dr. Valentine and I had significant differences of opinion on many issues, all Southern Baptists will be forever in his debt for his courageous and prophetic stance on racial reconciliation and racial equality in the turbulent middle third of the 20th century,” Land said, noting that it had been important for him as teenager in the 1960s to know that Valentine and the CLC were “on the right side of the race issue, when there were too many institutions and individuals in American life and Southern Baptist life who were on the wrong side.”

In his doctoral dissertation, “A Historical Study of Southern Baptists and Race Relations, 1917-1947,” Valentine wrote that he held out hope that “Southern Baptists will help to bring about the Christian way in race relations not by sponsoring legislative action or by fostering ecclesiastical fiats but by adopting, as individuals and as churches, the spirit and the mind of Christ in every phase of race relations.”

Valentine is listed as one of a handful of Southern Baptists who were “pioneers in race relations” by Jesse Fletcher in his book, “The Southern Baptist Convention: A Sesquicentennial History.”

“The Christian Life Commission took a very aggressive approach in trying to make inroads to entrench Southern views [on race] that had existed since the days of the Civil War,” Fletcher wrote, adding that “Valentine kept his staff and a small but enthusiastic cadre of followers on the leading edge of national social change.”

Valentine’s drive to bring Southern Baptists’ to a biblical understanding of the race issue “earned him a significant place in the history of our denomination,” Land affirmed.

Valentine made a profession of faith at age 11 at Pleasant Union Missionary Baptist Church near Edgewood. He was ordained to the Gospel ministry in 1942 at Seventh and James Baptist Church in Waco, Texas.

He received a bachelor of arts degree from Baylor University in Waco in 1944, a master of theology degree from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in 1947 and, under the tutelage of noted ethicist T.B. Maston, a doctor of theology degree from SWBTS in 1949.

He received the distinguished alumnus award from Southwestern Seminary in 1970 and honorary doctoral degrees from Baylor, William Jewell College and Louisiana College. He was listed in Who’s Who in America and was recognized by Christian Century magazine in 1975 as one of 20 innovative leaders in the religious world. Last year, he was honored with the George W. Truett Religious Freedom Award by Texas Baptist Heritage Center of the Baptist General Convention of Texas.

While a student at Southwestern, Valentine served as a special representative in race relations for the Baptist General Convention of Texas. In 1949 and 1950 he directed Baptist student activities at colleges in the Houston area.

He was called as pastor of the First Baptist Church of Gonzales, Texas, in 1950 and served as a member of the executive board of the Baptist General Convention of Texas and a member of the Texas Baptist Christian Life Commission -– which selected him as the commission’s director in 1953.

He became executive secretary (a title later changed to executive director) of the SBC’s Christian Life Commission in June 1960 and retired from the CLC in 1987.

Valentine’s departure from the CLC came during a contentious time in the Southern Baptist Convention. While he is praised roundly for his stance on race relations, during his tenure at the CLC his views on the separation of church and state, the sanctity of human life and other topics, including race, were divisive in the convention.

Valentine was a trustee and chairman of the executive committee of Protestants and Other Americans United for Separation of Church and State, now Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, in 50-plus years of involvement with the organization. He was appointed by President Carter to the President’s Commission for a National Agenda for the Eighties.

He also served on the Baptist World Alliance’s Commission on Religious Liberty and Human Rights and was a trustee and board president of the Baptist Joint Committee on Public Affairs (now the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty). And he served on the executive committee of the National Temperance League’s board of directors.

Valentine was the founding editor of Christian Ethics Today, continuing to write a column for the journal during the last year of his life. The Center for Christian Ethics, which advocates the strict separation of church and state, was founded in 1989 by Valentine.

He is the author of several books, including “Believe and Behave” (Broadman Press, 1964); “Citizenship for Christians” (Broadman, 1965); “The Cross in the Marketplace” (Word Books, 1966); “Where the Action Is: Studies in James” (Word, 1969); and “What Do You Do after You Say Amen” (Word, 1980).

A memorial service will be held at 2 p.m Wednesday, Jan. 11, at Park Cities Baptist Church in Dallas, followed by burial at Small Cemetery in Edgewood. The family has said donations in memory of Valentine may be made to The Fuller Center for Housing in Americus, Ga., or a personal charity.
--30--
Source http://www.bpnews.net/bpnews.asp?ID=22411

Foy Valentine: Southern Baptist who fought for racial equality
06:49 AM CST on Tuesday, January 10, 2006
By SAM HODGES / The Dallas Morning News
(Printed version: Page 10B Tuesday January 10, 2006 "Dallas and Religion" Page. The Dallas Morning News}

Foy Valentine was a white Texan who, during the 1960s and '70s, forced fellow Southern Baptists to confront their denomination's racist past and move toward integration.

Dr. Valentine, who died this weekend at 82, led the Southern Baptist Convention's Christian Life Commission – the denomination's public policy arm – for nearly 30 years.

He was a moderate often at odds with Southern Baptist conservatives. He stirred the pot not just on race, but on church-state separation, abortion and other controversial issues.

A pioneering Baptist ethicist, Dr. Valentine kept on his desk an engraved copy of his motto for half a century – "Helping changed people to change the world."

Dr. Valentine died at an area hospital after suffering a heart attack in his North Dallas home.

"Foy Valentine was one of the most influential Baptists of the 20th century," said Phil Strickland, director of the Baptist General Convention of Texas' Christian Life Commission. "He was always long on insight and long on courage."

Richard Land is a Baptist conservative who succeeded Dr. Valentine. (The agency has been renamed the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission.) Dr. Land has led the denomination to a stronger anti-abortion position and what moderate critics say is a less-strict position on the separation of church and state.

But Dr. Land, too, paid tribute to Dr. Valentine in a written statement released Monday.

Dr. Valentine grew up in the East Texas town of Edgewood, in Van Zandt County. In the 1940s, he earned an undergraduate degree at Baylor University and a master's and doctorate at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. There he studied with the renowned Baptist ethicist T.B. Maston, whom he acknowledged as a key influence.

Also in the '40s, Dr. Valentine spent a summer at Koinonia, a pioneering interracial farming community in south Georgia run by Clarence Jordan, a white Baptist theologian.

"We worked in the peanut patches," Dr. Valentine recalled in an essay. "We cut some wood. We gathered wild grapes. We visited with the neighbors. We made ice cream. We studied the Greek New Testament. We took an occasional sashay into town. We worked at improving race relations. We had some kind of a wonderful, rip-roaring, rousing, delightful time."

After seminary, Dr. Valentine served as a Baptist pastor in Texas. Then in 1953, he was named executive director of the Christian Life Commission of the Baptist General Convention of Texas, the largest state group within the Southern Baptist Convention. Seven years later, he moved to Nashville to lead the SBC's Christian Life Commission.

Through much of that time, he endured criticism within the denomination and the threat of budget cuts for his agency for his writing, speaking and organizing on behalf of improved race relations.

Toby Druin, editor emeritus of the Texas Baptist Standard newspaper, recalled as a young Baptist journalist attending a 1968 conference on race organized by Dr. Valentine. There, Mr. Druin heard from black civil rights leaders, including Bayard Rustin.

"It made me a better person and a better Baptist," Mr. Druin said.

Dr. Valentine was just as forceful on church-state separation issues and served as president of Americans United for Separation of Church and State. He also took what Baptist historian Barry Hankins called a moderate position on abortion rights in the 1970s.

"He's a hero to the moderates and progressive types because of his taking stands against segregation, long before it was in vogue to do so," said Dr. Hankins, a Baylor professor and author of Uneasy in Babylon: Southern Baptist Conservatives and American Culture. "He was one of the villains of the conservatives because of the abortion issue."

Dr. Valentine returned to Texas after retiring from the SBC in 1987 and continued to write prolifically on applied ethics. The author of several books, he also founded a Christian ethics center, now housed at Baylor, and Christian Ethics Today, a bimonthly magazine that has grown to more than 4,000 subscribers.

With folksy lyricism, he wrote often for that journal, quoting Shakespeare and Willie Nelson, and opining on everything from ethics to the joys of grandparenthood to the age-prolonging power of banana pudding topped by nutmeg and Blue Bell ice cream. He wrote nostalgically about his rural East Texas upbringing and about the solace he felt in his cabin retreat in New Mexico.

Dr. Valentine paid to have a collection of his columns published, with copies going to subscribers and other supporters of Christian Ethics Today. But the book – Whatsoever Things Are Lovely – proved to be a surprise hit, with readers gladly paying for extras, said Joe Trull, editor of the magazine.

"I just had an e-mail from someone wanting 25 copies," he said.

Dr. Valentine is survived by Mary Louise Valentine, his wife of 58 years; his daughters Jean Valentine, Carol Valentine and Susan Brown; and five grandchildren.

A memorial service will be at 2 p.m. Wednesday at Park Cities Baptist Church, near Northwest Highway and Preston Road. Burial will be in Edgefield.
Source: http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/obituaries/stories/DN-valentineob_10met.ART.State.Edition2.e404571.html

Former Southern Baptist leader Foy Valentine dies at 82
01/11/2006
Associated Press

Foy Valentine, a former Southern Baptist leader who stressed that racism was sinful and championed the separation of church and state, has died of a heart attack.

Valentine, 82, died Saturday at a Dallas hospital.

Valentine was the executive director of the Southern Baptist Christian Life Commission, now called the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, the denomination's public policy panel.

He was "on the right side of the race issue, when there were too many institutions and individuals in American life and Southern Baptist life who were on the wrong side," said Richard Land, his more conservative successor on the commission.

Although Valentine received praise for his stance on race relations, the convention was divided over his position on the separation of church and state and other topics.

Valentine, who earned a master's degree from Baylor University and a doctorate at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, served as president of Americans United for the Separation of Church and State.

He retired from the Christian Life Commission in 1987, after 27 years on the panel. After retiring, he started the Center for Christian Ethics, now at Baylor.

The Edgewood native authored "Whatsoever Things Are Lovely" and founded the magazine "Christian Ethics Today," writing a column for the journal during the last year of his life.

Valentine is survived by his wife of 58 years, Mary Louise, and three daughters, Jean, Carol and Susan. He was preceded in death by a daughter, Cindy.

A memorial service for Valentine was scheduled for 2 p.m Wednesday at Park Cities Baptist Church in Dallas, with burial at Small Cemetery in Edgewood.

___

Information from: The Dallas Morning News, http://www.dallasnews.com

Source: http://www.mysanantonio.com/sharedcontent/APStories/stories/D8F25F0O0.html

Monday, January 09, 2006

Foy Valentine Has Died

The saddest news I received when I returned from my trip to Turkey was hearing that Foy Valentine had died. Associated Baptist Press and Ethics Daily have posted stories about his sudden demise.

Foy was a friend to every Baptist that had a social conscience. His efforts to educate and involve Southern Baptistgs in the struggle for civil rights during the 1960's are his most enduring legacy. Few people have had such a profoundly good influence on Southern Baptists.

Dr. Bruce Prescott Norman, Oklahoma, United States
Mainstream Baptist - The personal blog of Dr. Bruce Prescott, Executive Director of Mainstream Oklahoma Baptists, President of the Oklahoma Chapter of Americans United for Separation of Church and State.

Posted: 1/20/06
Foy Valentine prodded Baptists to apply faith to life
By Marv Knox
Editor Baptist Standard

DALLAS--Friends and family celebrated Foy Valentine's love for God, which stimulated his love for people, his courage and even his "quirkiness" during a memorial service at Park Cities Baptist Church in Dallas.

Valentine, a Baptist leader who spent a lifetime prodding Christians to apply their faith to daily life, died of an apparent heart attack Jan. 7 in Dallas. He was 82.

Foy Valentine receives the George W. Truett Religious Freedom Award at the 2005 Texas Baptist Heritage Awards banquet. (Photo by David Clanton)

Valentine's family buried him in Van Zandt County, near his hometown of Edgewood, Jan. 11. Then they joined a crowd that spanned generations and geography to recall the life and legacy of the leader who presided over the Southern Baptist Convention's Christian Life Commission from 1960 to 1987.

"You can't talk about Foy Valentine without talking about courage," said David Sapp, pastor of Second Ponce de Leon Baptist Church in Atlanta, who worked for Valentine on the staff of the Christian Life Commission 30 years ago.

Valentine courageously led Southern Baptists through the civil rights movement, prompting them to embrace equality and justice in the face of withering criticism, Sapp said.

"While some stood in schoolhouse doors and shouted, 'Closed!' Foy stood in the churchouse door and shouted, 'Open!'" he recalled.

In addition to "courageous," many words described Valentine, he added, citing "color," "character," "judgment," "faith," "intelligence" and "love."

"Foy was not your basic sentimentalist, ... but he did deeds of love," Sapp reported.

"Foy Valentine loved the Lord Jesus Christ," which produced his loving deeds for others, he added. "But mostly, God loved Foy Valentine."

Valentine was a "modern prophet," insisted Jimmy Allen, former president of the Southern Baptist Convention, who worked for Valentine when he was director of the Texas Baptist Christian Life Commission and succeeded Valentine in that post when Valentine accepted the SBC position.

"I discovered a rare man," Allen said of meeting Valentine about 50 years ago. "In days of confused identities, this man knew who he was. Nothing could deter or confuse him. ... This man lived his whole life fighting for freedom."

Valentine championed freedom and religious liberty so much that he even opposed the 1963 Baptist Faith & Message, the SBC's doctrinal statement, Allen remembered, noting he sat next to Valentine when the document came up for a vote almost 43 years ago.

In the aftermath of Watergate, Foy Valentine led Baptist and governmental leaders in a call for integrity in public life. Valentine (center) is pictured in the early 1970s with (left to right) Brooks Hays, former congressman; Rep. Richard H. Fulton of Tennessee; Rep. William Jennings Bryan Dorn of South Carolina; and CLC Chair Cecil Sherman, pastor of First Baptist Church in Asheville, N.C. (File photo courtesy of Southern Baptist Historical Library & Archives)

"It's a step toward creedalism, and you're going to regret it," Valentine told Allen. Sure enough, when fundamentalists gained control of the SBC, they revised the Baptist Faith & Message, producing in 2000 a new, much more restrictive, document that Baptists who tended to agree with Valentine labeled a creed.

Valentine gathered his courage through his sense of calling from God, Allen told the memorial service crowd, insisting the courage that enabled Valentine to champion biblical positions in the face of bitter opposition derived from his understanding that God had given him his assignment.

"Here was a rare man, who lived a rare life and showed us the way to live life at its fullest," Allen said.

Valentine's ability to champion racial reconciliation and to lead Baptists toward biblical positions even when they were unpopular transcended animosity and bitterness, noted Darold Morgan, former president of the SBC Annuity Board and a Valentine friend for six decades.

"Most of his years of active ministry came through tumultuous times," Morgan said, adding that Valentine remained "confident and serene" even in the midst of turbulence.

Morgan described leafing through the Bible Valentine carried with him throughout his adult life. Near the back, Valentine wrote the words of Martin Luther: "My soul is too big to harbor hatred against any man."

All three speakers brought the memorial crowd to laughter, recalling some of Valentine's habits and proclivities--such as his colorful expressions, "unwavering certainty," love for the color turquoise and penchant for playing Scrabble.

"We're not going to put a halo on Foy," Morgan said of his friend. "In the final analysis, he was a delightfully quirky character. Quirky, yes, but lovable moreso."

"Across this last half-century of Baptist life, there has been no person of greater conviction, courage and character than Foy Valentine," said his pastor at Park Cities Baptist Church, Jim Denison.

In interviews, Valentine friends, colleagues and even one of his chief rivals paid tribute to his legacy.

W.C. Fields, longtime director of Baptist Press and a friend of Valentine's for decades, described Valentine as the most significant civil-rights leader among Southern Baptists during the 1960s, '70s and '80s.

"During those dark days, when civil rights was such an explosive issue, Foy always was well-informed, sure of the Christian approach, and he had the courage to follow through on his convictions," Fields said. "His courage was amazing."

One of Valentine's strengths was his insistence on building ethical principles upon Scripture, noted Floyd Craig, who worked with Valentine as communications director of the SBC Christian Life Commission from 1967 to 1979.

"Foy always went back to the Bible," Craig said.

"That was a key ingredient for Foy, whether it was race or any issue. He constantly reminded Baptists that, whatever ethics we might have, for a Christian, it all starts in the Bible."

Ironically, fundamentalists who gained control of the Southern Baptist Convention criticized previous SBC leaders of Valentine's generation for not believing the Bible enough, Craig said.

"It always hacked him, I think, when conservatives would use (the Bible) as a basis for what they did," he recalled. "Foy would say, 'I don't think they've read the Book.'"

Valentine made major contributions to Baptists for a variety of reasons, said Robert Parham, who worked for Valentine at the SBC Christian Life Commission in the 1980s and now is executive director of the Baptist Center for Ethics.

"Foy encouraged and aggravated a generation of Southern Baptist ministers in the 1960s and 1970s to care about applied Christianity," Parham said in a statement posted on the Baptist Center for Ethics' website, ethicsdaily.com.

"He refused to let Southern Baptists define Christian faith by pietistic individualism and other-worldly evangelism. He knew the Hebrew prophets and Jesus' teachings were at the core of Christianity and should be at the heart of Southern Baptist life. He tried his best to lead Southern Baptists to prioritize Christian ethics."

And Valentine was on the front edge of resistance to the fundamentalist movement that eventually took over the SBC, Parham recalled. "In the 1980s, he rightly saw the building danger of the fundamentalist takeover of the SBC and rallied agency heads to counter that threat. Not surprisingly, the Christian Life Commission became an early takeover target and was eventually transformed into an arm of the religious right, an agenda that Foy found foreign to the gospel."

"During the last decade, Foy focused on the journal he founded, Christian Ethics Today," said Joe Trull, now editor of that magazine. "A wordsmith of the first order, his articles were unique, as was he, in content and style. He worked hours on his typewriter--he refused to the end to be computerized--to get each article just right."

Richard Land, president of the SBC Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, which emerged from the former SBC Christian Life Commission in the 1990s, noted Valentine gave 27 years of "faithful service to Southern Baptists as head of the CLC," particularly in what Land said was Valentine's "eloquent witness to the biblical truth that racism is a sinful rebellion against the biblical teaching of the equality of all men before the cross."

"While Dr. Valentine and I had significant differences of opinion on many issues, all Southern Baptists will be forever in his debt for his courageous and prophetic stance on racial reconciliation and racial equality in the turbulent middle third of the 20th century," Land said, noting it had been important for him as teenager in the 1960s to know that Valentine and the CLC were "on the right side of the race issue, when there were too many institutions and individuals in American life and Southern Baptist life who were on the wrong side."

Valentine, who had heart problems for many years, awoke with chest pains Jan. 7 and asked his wife, Mary Louise, to drive him to the hospital.

He fell unconscious five minutes away from the hospital, a family member said. Doctors tried unsuccessfully for 40 minutes to re-establish a heartbeat before pronouncing him dead.

Valentine is survived by his wife of 58 years, three daughters--Jean, Carol and Susan--and five grandchildren.

He earned an undergraduate degree from Baylor University and master's and doctoral degrees from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary.

After retiring from the Christian Life Commission, Valentine founded the Center for Christian Ethics, now attached to Baylor. He was the founding editor of the journal, Christian Ethics Today, in 1995 and a trustee of Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, among other national groups.

Greg Warner of Associated Baptist Press contributed to this story.

Source: http://www.baptiststandard.com/postnuke/index.php?module=htmlpages&func=display&pid=4425

Posted: 1/20/06
TOGETHER:
One of a kind, plus 2 soul heart-cries

When I was in my twenties, I was deeply convicted about racial injustice and the failure of Baptists to move to a biblical view of Christlike love and acceptance. For many young Baptists and me, Foy Valentine was the prophetic voice we needed to hear.

Taught by the unforgettable biblical ethics professor T.B. Maston at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, Foy became a voice for Baptists in the call for justice and righteousness in our nation. He served as director of the Baptist General Convention of Texas Christian Life Commission before taking the CLC responsibility for Southern Baptists. He was not liked by everyone, but he saved me from despair and helped me believe Baptists would one day get it right.

We celebrated his life and the difference he made at his funeral at Park Cities Baptist Church in Dallas Jan. 11.

Executive Director
BGCT Executive Board

Foy had a favorite response to those who tried to divide the importance of evangelism and ethics: "People are always telling me we need to change people and then let them change the world. I am one of those changed people, and I want to change the world. Isn't it time for us to do that?"

Foy believed evangelism was absolutely crucial to the life of the church because only Jesus saves. But he believed equally that Jesus-saved people ought to care about what Jesus cared about.

I liked to say about him, "Foy made Paul shake hands with James." We will miss him. But he did what he was called to do: By the grace of God, he made a difference.

As I pray about the future of Texas Baptists and ask God to lead me as I serve you, these are the heart-cries of my soul:

Begin new churches. I was in a new church the other evening, and the atmosphere was warm and welcoming; the anticipation for the future was palpable. Texas is growing by more than 4 million people a decade. Who will care for the souls of men and women, boys and girls, families and communities? I believe Baptists will.

Pastors, I encourage you to look for places where churches need to be started. There are people your church will not reach for Jesus unless you start a church or a ministry that touches their lives. The BGCT wants to help churches start 1,500 new congregations in Texas by the end of 2010.

Affirm the children. Make sure your church is paying attention to the children--the children who are in your church, the children who are in no one's church yet, and the children who are abandoned or are at risk to drop out of school and out of life.

A director of missions in our state buried his mother recently. He wrote me that his mother and dad cared for 350 foster children over 25 years.

There are many ways to affirm children, and our churches can show the way. Children need parents who love and care for them. They need friends and advocates in the halls of government. They need to see the way of Christ, and they need to be told the stories of the Bible and experience the love of God in Christ Jesus.

In my next column, I will continue the list of my soul's desires. Texas Baptists are making a real difference in people's lives across Texas and even around the world. I am grateful to share with you in the calling God has issued to our people.

We are loved.

Charles Wade is executive director of the Baptist General Convention of Texas.

Source: http://www.baptiststandard.com/postnuke/index.php?module=htmlpages&func=display&pid=4473

Updated Thursday February 02, 2006

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Foy Valentine: Southern Baptist who fought for racial equality 06:49 AM CST on Tuesday, January 10, 2006 By SAM HODGES / The Dallas Morning News (Printed version: Page 10B Tuesday January 10, 2006 "Dallas and Religion" Page. The Dallas Morning News}

Monday, January 09, 2006

Foy Valentine Has Died

Foy Valentine: Southern Baptist who fought for racial equality
06:49 AM CST on Tuesday, January 10, 2006
By SAM HODGES / The Dallas Morning News
(Printed version: Page 10B Tuesday January 10, 2006 "Dallas and Religion" Page. The Dallas Morning News}