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Today's Birmingham News says that former U.S. president Jimmy Carter will be the keynote speaker for this gathering, to be held 01/31/09 at the historic Sixteenth Street Baptist Church. Longtime Alabama and national CBF leader, Gary Furr, pastor of Vestavia Hills Baptist Church, is co-chairing the event.

Ya'll come.

I'm glad to hear Alabama Baptists are following up on the earlier Covenant meeting. I hope you will be attending, so you can give us a report!

Bruce Prescott has announced that the Midwest Regional NBC gathering will be held in early August at the convention center in Norman, Oklahoma.

I have never been to Oklahoma. Oklahoma has never been on my "states to visit" list. I really try to not go north of DFW.

I'll probably drive to Norman. If I can get a relatively cheap plane ticket, I'll head out to Birmingham. I don't particularly love Birmingham (the Civil Rights Museum is great) but I'll take Alabama over Oklahoma any day of the week. I hope both events are well attended. With Atlanta close by, I'm sure the Birmingham gathering will have a good crowd.

Are there a lot of NBC-friendly Baptist churches within a couple hours of Norman? I just don't know the area. Unfortunately, Texans that are located south Dallas really have a long way to travel for either event.

Over the past few days I have taken a second close look at segments of Tim Tyson's great work about race struggle in America, Blood Done Sign my Name.
Though he is United Methodist, that is beside the point. The Planners for the Atlanta meeting will be remiss and shortsighted in my opinion if they don't make him a featured speaker; and at a minimum gather a working conversation of his last two chapters in the book, We All Have our Own Stories to Tell, and the closing Chapter Blood Done Sign my Name which also titles the book.
And be sure to see the great Eudora Welty quote in the closing chapter.
I don't speak for http://www.tonycartledge.com but he has blogged about Tyson recently and I think he would easily join me in this endorsement as would
Curtis Freeman of Duke.
On another front hope the planners will toy with an official invitation to Anne Graham Lotz and Harry Dent's daughter Ginny Brant. Brant has been an IMB trustee and as I read the Tea leaves, especially if conversation with Graham Lotz is encouraged, is open to overtures from the Covenant mindset as she strikes me as a signer of the Memphis Declaration and other indicators as uncomfortable with the SBC break with the Baptist World Alliance.
I understand David Gushee and others have made some soundings in Brant's direction. Would be great if she could be made welcome in Birmingham and join us there.

Fox Says "The Planners for the Atlanta meeting will be remiss and shortsighted in my opinion if they don't make him a featured speaker;__.

Ed: Fox what Atlanta Meeting are you Talking about ? Do you perhaps mean the Birmingham event?

Even so, Steve, I think you miss the intent of the NBC and the Satellite forums such as the one scheduled for Birmingham. They are aimed at assisting Baptist of all stripes to communicate more effectively. Some believe we need to accomplish that, before we we start asking those from outside the Baptist family for advice. This is not to say that Baptist Colleges, Universities and Seminaries should not draw upon informed individuals from outside Baptist life in establishing their forums butt the new Baptis Covenant is designed to addresses issues in a Baptist context and across a wide spectrum of educatioal levels not just at the college and post graduate levels.

ED:I wish you would read Tony Cartledge's blog on Tim Tyson.

You just don't know what you are talking about on this one; I'm sorry.

Ed, instead of arguing with me; you need to spend 14 bucks on the ppbk and read this book.
In addition to a provocative and page turning story, he has some meditations on his experience that reach the higher eschelons of Civil Rights Struggle meditation.
Quit arguing, just read the book.
And if after you have read the entire book you think it not worth your time, then my apologies to you upfront as well as the warning I want be able to take you seriously about much after.
Hope things otherwise are well.


And my challenge to read this book goes to the staff of CBF Atlanta as well as all involved in the Covenant planning.

Flick, you can die ignorant if you want too, I can't stop you.

Or you can join Stephen Black and Wayne Flynt in Birmingham and learn a few things.

I am not demanding you or Anthony Jordan read anything, just saying you as well as the staff of CBF Atlanta will bring a little something extra to the breakout in Bham with Flynt and Stephen Black if you have a conversational knowledge of Tim Tyson under your belt.

How did Mrs. Flick like The Secret Life of Bees???

Check my blog. I just put up links and info regarding the New Baptist gathering to be held at Wake Forest.

Ed: Mark gave these "reasons" as to why it would not be stupid for David to drive to B'ham for that regional celebration of the New Baptist covenant when there will also be a similar meeting in Oklahoma.


Here are several excellent (and some semi-TIC) reasons to come to B'ham during the New Baptist Covenant:

1. A chance to be somewhere besides Oklahoma

2. A chance to worship at 16th St. Baptist Church

3. A chance to be near the heart of Crimson Tide football

4. A chance to spend quality time with Fox

5. A chance to to do hands-on mission work with the heathen tribes of nearby Georgia

6. A chance to avail oneself of Alabama's world-renowned cultural, educational, and literary resources

7. A chance to eat some good catfish and barbeque


But my friend mark Consider this.

The New Baptist Covenant is not an event, it is a document encouraging Baptist of every stripe to find ways of working together.

1. The purpose of the regional meeting is; a. To get baptist of different stripes within a region together to learn about one another. b.To make it convenient for those who have limited resources of money and time to participate in events similar to the original celebration held last January/February in Atlanta. C. And in doing a & b to lay the groundwork for future collaborative work.

2. In my understanding of Baptist Polity, the building is not the church. Although the 16th street building is well known due to the bombing that killed three young ladies, the 16th st building is not sacred. The 16th street Baptist Church is the body of Baptized believers who meet regularly at that location. It is they, their parents and grand parents who where among the most visible leaders in the civil rights movement of the 60's and 70's, but they will tell you of other congregations in the city (not all Baptist) who worked shoulder to shoulder with them. I have no doubt that they will be wonderful host for the NBC regional celebration but I will suggest that if one wishes to to experience the Church that meets there, most any other Sunday would be a better time.

3. Hey Auburn sometimes plays in B'ham too. And of course B'ham is home to its own University of Alabama [b]at Birmingham [/b].

4. Flick has had that privilege, I even took a picture with Flick's camera, of Fox and Flick together. It has been posted on these pages.

5. And that is why you made such effort to attend the Atlanta event in January ? And it is the SBC that does that "Cross over ---------" thing in the cities where they meet. I won't talk here about how they inflate those figures. Other than to say, they have met in Indianapolis three times in the past twenty years and I haven't seen any great impact there.

6. You are kidding aren't you?

7. Now Mark, if one wants REAL great cat fish, I suggest they leave B'ham, drive past the true home of the TIDE at Tuscaloosa and go on over past Meridian Mississippi to the town of Forest about half way between the state line and Jackson. And while B'ham does have some good Bar-B-Q Oklahoma does also. And if they didn't, there are a enough Texans involved in that Oklahoma NBC event I bet they could whip up a batch as good as any you have tasted. BTW my spell check recognizes Bar-B-Q but not barbeque.

And wasn't it FOUR children?

Where I met him for the first time, best I remember

I will do my best through friends to do a fundraiser for

#4 and #7

Of Mark's sterling 7 reasons why above.

Ed: Chris you make a good point when you say "I guess "sacred" is in the mind and heart of the beholder. The value of the "loss" (in each of these cases) lies within the heart of the individual."

But I would not say that "sacred" is the right word for that part of Lower Manhattan where the WTC once stood or that sacred is the right word for the spot in Oklahoma City where the Murrah Building once stood. Like the 16th St. Baptist Church those places are places that are significant memorials of the inhumanity perpetuated in some ones view of justice. What about those acts qualifies as sacred? I am less than persuaded that calling them sacred or refusing to do so really affects the value of the losses, but to use that term for such places, does in my view detract from the meaning of sacred.

As for Mark's offering the 16th Street Baptist church as a reason for attending the regional NBC event in Birmingham next January, when I am in various parts of the world I try to visit as many historic places as possible but I do not make pilgrimages to visit edifices.