Table of Contents - Fall 2005

• Issue 056 Fall 2005 ONE PAGE version HTML
• Issue 056 Fall FULL PDF
• Lamentations By Clyde E. Fant, Jr.
• EthixBytes
• Religion and the Global Crisis by William E. Hull
• Jesus Has Been Hijacked By Bill Moyers
• Another Atheist Finds God By John Scott
• Coming Soon to a School Near You By Mark Chancey
• The War of the Lamb-What Is God Doing About Evil Jeph Holloway
• Is 'Biblical Counseling' At SBTS Biblical By Keith Herron
• A Very Long Shadow By Jerry W. Reeves
• 'Dear Pops' By Hal Haralson
• Book Reviews
  • Ethics-Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works, Volume 6 Edited by Clifford Green Reviewed by Adam C. English
  • The Beloved Community How Faith Shapes Social Justice, From the Civil Rights Movement to Today By Charles Marsh Reviewed by Darold Morgan
• Religious Freedom Award Remarks By Foy Valentine

Lamentations
By Clyde E. Fant, Jr.

“I am from Louisiana. In these last days, grief and outrage have held a contest inside of me. So I’m writing this, because I have to.”

How like a widow sits the city once so beautiful!
She weeps bitterly in the night, with tears on her cheeks,
Because there is none to comfort her.
She stretched forth her hands, but none came to her;
They heard how she was groaning, but none came unto her.
In her streets the flood bereaves;
In the sodden houses it is like death.
The leaders and elders of the city have fled, but the poor are trapped within her levees.
Continue

EthixBytes

William E. Hull
Research Professor

Endless media hype notwithstanding, a truly new millennium did not begin on January 1, 2000, 12:01 a.m., at Times Square in mid-Manhattan, but on September 11, 2001, 8:47 a.m., at the World Trade Center in lower-Manhattan. Suddenly, without warning or provocation, we were confronted with a civilizational clash of global proportions[i] that threatens to redefine our priorities for decades if not centuries to come. Gazing at ground zero, we came away with the deep intuition that nothing will ever be the same again.
Continue

Jesus Has Been Hijacked!
By Bill Moyers

I do not deserve this award. On the other hand, I have arthritis and I don’t deserve that, either. So thank you from the depth of a grateful heart.

I wish that I could have made it. I would like to be with you in person. But even as we speak I am in Europe fulfilling a long-standing commitment . There is no one I would rather this award for me than my soul-brother James Dunn. Actually, he and Howard Moody truly deserve this honor.

There could not be a more timely moment for you to be proclaiming once again freedom of conscience as the well-spring of our faith and our freedoms. The militant rhetoric of holy war echoes around the globe and, sadly, from the precincts and pews of our own country.

Who among us does not wince at the Republican Congressman who said that “Democrats cannot help but demonize Christians.”
Continue

Another Atheist Finds God
By John Scott, Dallas, Texas

The Associated Press recently reported that Professor Antony Flew of England now accepts the existence of God.[xix] That was newsworthy because Professor Flew had been the world’s leading intellectual champion for atheism for more than a half century. He changed his mind on the basis of recent scientific developments. When asked if his admirers might be upset with his newfound belief, he reaffirmed his commitment to Aristotle’s principle: “Follow the evidence, wherever it leads.”

Of course Professor Flew is not the first atheist to have changed his mind. The meeting in 1950, where he presented his most famous paper on atheism, was chaired by a former atheist. His name was C. S. Lewis, the author of Mere Christianity, a book that is still being published and persuading atheists to change their minds and hearts.
Continue

Updated Monday, October 24, 2005

Coming Soon to a School Near You?
By Mark Chancey

Chances are you have never heard of the National Council on Bible Curriculum in Public Schools or its textbook, The Bible in History and Literature. But if you are a member of a school board, you may be hearing about it soon. Over 1000 schools in 308 school districts in 36 states from Alaska to Florida currently utilize the curriculum, and over 175,000 students have taken courses based on it, according to the NCBCPS Web site (www.bibleinschools.net). It’s not a huge number, but it’s on the increase, says president and founder Elizabeth Ridenour. Seven years ago, only 71 school districts were using the curriculum.

The NCBCPS has not listed the schools using the curriculum so its geographic impact is difficult to measure. Over a fifth of the schools are in Texas and Louisiana, and it’s likely most of the others are in the rural south and Midwest.
Continue

The War of the Lamb: What Is God Doing About Evil?
Jeph Holloway

Our university chaplain has planned a series of chapel services, “Kingdom Practices of Kingdom People,” intended to address some of the significant ethical issues of our day. I endorse such an emphasis with the recognition that often the concern to direct attention to what we call “ethical issues” is a response to a situation we perceive to have gotten out of hand. The proliferation of ethics courses in business schools or medical schools, the appearance of a weekly column offering ethical guidance in the New York Times, and the competition between political parties as to who can lay claim to the language of “values” are all indications of a situation that has gotten out of hand.
Continue

Is 'Biblical Counseling' At SBTS Biblical?
By Keith Herron

There’s an old joke told among therapists that asks the question: “Why are there so many different psychological theories?” The answer: “It gives the therapist something to think about when the client is talking.”

If that’s so, what do biblical counselors think about?

In February 2005, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary issued a press release stating their plan to alter its historic pastoral counseling program to “a more biblical counseling approach.” This is a radical revision of the curriculum approach developed by Wayne Oates who taught there in the formative years of the emergence of pastoral counseling. More than that, the seminary has turned its back on a body of knowledge they claim was overly dependent upon science and not inclusive enough of biblical faith. In typical reductionistic style, they have reduced pastoral care and counseling to Freudian psychotherapy with no apparent understanding that pastoral counseling includes biblical faith in its understanding of the human condition.
Continue

A Very Long Shadow
By Jerry W. Reeves

There is a very long shadow casting its grip across Washington, D. C. these days. No, it is not the long, thin line of the Washington monument. Nor is it the selfish, evil shadow of the greedy lobbyists, as they vacuum their puppets in the offices of Congress and the White House for the profit of their wealthy, corrupt benefactors. It’s not even the shadow of a small Cessna nearing the White House.

It is the shadow of the Vatican.
Continue

'Dear Pops'
By Hal Haralson

The letter came on April 12, 2005, from our son, Brad who is 42 years old. He is an attorney living is San Angelo with his wife, Rachel and sons, Matthew (three years old) and Weston (1 year old).

Brad writes:

“Dear Pops, It is hard to believe I write this on your seventieth birthday. It seems like only yesterday we were hunting in the high country at Live Oak Ranch or piling into ‘Old Red’ to fish on Onion Creek at the Byrd Ranch.

I was cleaning out my truck and found an envelope with two letters in it. One of the letters was dated April 12, 1950 (your fifteenth birthday).”
Continue

• Ethics-Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works, Volume 6 Edited by Clifford Green Reviewed by Adam C. English
• The Beloved Community How Faith Shapes Social Justice, From the Civil Rights Movement to Today By Charles Marsh Reviewed by Darold Morgan

William E. Hull
Research Professor

Endless media hype notwithstanding, a truly new millennium did not begin on January 1, 2000, 12:01 a.m., at Times Square in mid-Manhattan, but on September 11, 2001, 8:47 a.m., at the World Trade Center in lower-Manhattan. Suddenly, without warning or provocation, we were confronted with a civilizational clash of global proportions[i] that threatens to redefine our priorities for decades if not centuries to come. Gazing at ground zero, we came away with the deep intuition that nothing will ever be the same again.
Continue