Regional NBC gathering Jan. 31, 2009 in Birmingham, AL

[Stephen Fox]

Here is a fabulous profile of Black from Dec 14 08 Anniston Star.
Black has been nominated as Man of the Year in Alabama.

I first met Black compliment of Mark of this board, and had Stephen up to speak in Collinsville, April of 06.

Should be a great breakout with Black and Wayne Flynt in Bham. I hope President Carter attends as I think it will be supremely worth his time.

http://www.annistonstar.com/opinion/200 ... 3t0355.htm

[Stephen Fox]

Bham Covenant needs to make a prophetic word directed to Bama US Senator Jeff Sessions.
We should advance the cause of this fellow from Duke from the current cover story in The Christian Century.

http://www.christiancentury.org/article.lasso?id=6040

A second challenge of racial reconciliation was revealed at a May gathering of U.S. peace and justice leaders at Duke Divinity School. The hottest issue that emerged was not black-white but immigration and the black-brown divide. One black pastor's honest admission—"My people don't view immigration raids as our issue"—opened a candid and fresh conversation that led to redefinitions about who "our people" are. Since May this pastor has helped ignite a new interracial, grassroots coalition addressing immigration issues in Houston.

These first two challenges both point to the unfinished business of the civil rights movement: moving from integration to koinonia. Sharing spaces of everyday interracial life and mission together in local places is the deeper, more beautiful and transformational vision whose absence continues to impoverish us. Nowhere is this absence seen more vividly than in the segregated Sabbath of a church which has accepted ecclesial racialization as inevitable, coming somehow to believe that we can experience God's new creation without experiencing one another's company as brothers and sisters. We still don't desire one another's company in the intimate mutuality of worshiping together weekly, reading the Bible and praying together, eating together, and ministering at the margins together as allies for the sake of the gospel.

In this respect, the hope I am holding onto for Obama's leadership is the depth and candor of his Philadelphia speech on race and the fact that his most fundamental racial identity seems to be his being biracial. He represents a new generation of children of interracial families who have experienced the rich gifts and real challenges of finding intimacy across the divide, who refuse to choose between the cultures of their two parents. They want the best of both, see the flaws of self-sufficiency, and are willing to lose some friends along the way for the sake of their desire for something better than the old categories of who "my people" are.

To finally have a person like Obama as president, neither black nor white, may point us to what it looks like to embrace the harder, deeper work of mutuality and koinonia which is the church's unfinished business. Our communities and congregations need to look more like him.

—Chris Rice, codirector of the Center for Reconciliation at Duke Divinity School in Durham, North Carolina.

[Stephen Fox]

http://www.al.com/news/birminghamnews/m ... xml&coll=2

News got picked up by several Bham TV stations last night.

[Stephen Fox]

http://www.se.newbaptistcovenant.org/in ... &Itemid=40

I hope most of the Breakout leaders as they focus on going forward will bring with them the essay by Nell Irwin Painter on the Shoah and Southern History as part of their working Conversational Knowledge.

[Chris]

http://www.se.newbaptistcovenant.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=18&Itemid=40

I hope most of the Breakout leaders as they focus on going forward will bring with them the essay by Nell Irwin Painter on the Shoah and Southern History as part of their working Conversational Knowledge.

Don't hold your breath.

[Neil Heath]

Who among us is going to Birmingham for the Jan 31st meeting? I don't have plans to go at this time, but I'm sure some of us will be there.

Neil

[David Flick]

Who among us is going to Birmingham for the Jan 31st meeting? I don't have plans to go at this time, but I'm sure some of us will be there.

Neil

Neil, I'm not going to the one in Birmingham, but I am going to the one in Norman, Oklahoma in August.

[Big Daddy Weaver]

I'll likely be at the event in Norman. I hope to make it out to Wake Forest but money will play a factor in that.

Too bad I have to drive to Norman. The DFW area would have been a better choice for a location. Not sure how much racial diversity can be hoped for at the Norman event.

[Mark]

Too bad I have to drive to Norman. The DFW area would have been a better choice for a location. Not sure how much racial diversity can be hoped for at the Norman event...

Arrogant blowhard Texans.

[Cathy]

I will be in Norman. I know it's a distance for many Texans, but it's a quick trip from DFW. More than happy to give you and a couple of your friends a ride BDW. I think something is planned for Jimmy Carter on the OU campus as well. It may however be just a small Honor's College group meeting.

Dallas lacks the leadership to pull off a NBC meeting right now. Two of the most visibly CBF churches are pastorless and one more quietly affiliated and a bedrock of conservative politics is about to be. That church has been detached from its moderate roots for sometime anyway. BGCT execs can't plan and promote such a gathering for rather obvious reasons.

[Mark]

Dallas lacks the leadership to pull off a NBC meeting right now. Two of the most visibly CBF churches are pastorless and one more quietly affiliated and a bedrock of conservative politics is about to be. That church has been detached from its moderate roots for sometime anyway...

Could you elaborate on that a bit? (May be more appropriate for a separate thread.) Wilshire, Park Cities, Royal Lane, and Cliff Temple are four that I've long known to be staunchly moderate / progressive Baptist churches in the Dallas area.

BGCT execs can't plan and promote such a gathering for rather obvious reasons....

Then shame on them.

[Ed Pettibone]

Cathy wrote

Dallas lacks the leadership to pull off a NBC meeting right now. Two of the most visibly CBF churches are pastorless and one more quietly affiliated and a bedrock of conservative politics is about to be. That church has been detached from its moderate roots for sometime anyway. BGCT execs can't plan and promote such a gathering for rather obvious reasons.

Ed: First of all let me say I for one am glad to see that the initial Southwest Regional celebration of the NBC is not being held in Dallas or any where else in Texas. I say that simply because in my experience when discussing Baptist life in the Southwest Texas too often becomes the center of focus.

But it seems that you are making the assumption that if this event had been scheduled for Dallas that only CBF and BGCT in Dallas would be putting on the show. I am of the opinion that ABC-USA of the South and some from the Central region as well as the 2 National Baptist organizations, the Progressive Baptist and others would be involved as they where in delivering the original celebration in Atlanta, a year ago this month . And I am persuaded that like in Georgia many Churches that are dually aligned CBF/SBC churches in Texas would step up to sponsor, promote, attend and conduct such an event. That is to say nothing of the many other Baptist across the Southwest. In my humble opinion the surest way to kill the effectiveness of the New Baptist Covenant is for the impression to spread that it is the property of any one or two Baptist groups.

It has been suggested that a regional celebration be held in the Northeast in 2010, If it comes off, I can assure you that BFNE (baptist Fellowship of the Northeast) will not be the primary movers and doers although we will support and participate as will the NYS region of ABC-USA . I will put in at least a mild protest against it being held in either NYC or Boston, in both housing is to expensive. And please not Philadelphia. We get to both NYC and Boston a couple times each year. and philly often enough. Hartford Connetticutt would probably be my first choice. Most Baptist with a sense of history have been to Providence.

But we must all keep in mind that the NBC is about crossing lines in our parent BAPTIST denomination, not creating them.

[Chris]

It has been suggested that a regional celebration be held in the Northeast in 2010,

How about Trenton? It's accessible by train.

[Cathy]

Ed P:

But it seems that you are making the assumption that if this event had been scheduled for Dallas that only CBF and BGCT in Dallas would be putting on the show. I am of the opinion that ABC-USA of the South and some from the Central region as well as the 2 National Baptist organizations, the Progressive Baptist and others would be involved as they where in delivering the original celebration in Atlanta, a year ago this month

Well Ed I believe there is one ABC affiliated church in all of Dallas, Jerry's church. I spoke to the political realities in Dallas Baptist life and (in the case of the BGCT) Texas Baptist life. I appreciate the fact that it is desirable to have a broad group to sponsor and promote such an event. But Dallas is not the place. Many Dallasites will be at the celebration in Norman.

[Ed Pettibone]

I wrote "But Cathy it seems that you are making the assumption that if this event had been scheduled for Dallas that only CBF and BGCT in Dallas would be putting on the show. I am of the opinion that ABC-USA of the South and some from the Central region as well as the 2 National Baptist organizations, the Progressive Baptist and others would be involved as they where in delivering the original celebration in Atlanta, a year ago this month"

Cathy replied

Well Ed I believe there is one ABC affiliated church in all of Dallas, Jerry's church. I spoke to the political realities in Dallas Baptist life and (in the case of the BGCT) Texas Baptist life. I appreciate the fact that it is desirable to have a broad group to sponsor and promote such an event. But Dallas is not the place. Many Dallasites will be at the celebration in Norman.

ED: Well Cathy the ABC-USA church search site list FIVE in Dallas, bur again theer is no need for an Baptist event in Dallas to depend totally on folk from Dallas.
http://www.abcis.org/public/ChurchSearch.asp

Say hello to both David Flick and David Currie for me while you are in Norman. But gee I may see all three of you at the CBF assembly before that, I expect TEXAS baptist to do this one as well as they have in the past.

[Cathy]

Dallas lacks the leadership to pull off a NBC meeting right now. Two of the most visibly CBF churches are pastorless and one more quietly affiliated and a bedrock of conservative politics is about to be. That church has been detached from its moderate roots for sometime anyway...

Could you elaborate on that a bit? (May be more appropriate for a separate thread.) Wilshire, Park Cities, Royal Lane, and Cliff Temple are four that I've long known to be staunchly moderate / progressive Baptist churches in the Dallas area.

I'd agree with that list (and they are the ones I was thinking of).

Certainly Gaston Oaks the relocated Gaston Avenue Baptist is a moderate church, but I know of no CBF affiliation. I believe most of the nearby suburban FBCs are also moderate churches but not all are CBF identified.

[Mark]

Two of the most visibly CBF churches are pastorless and one more quietly affiliated and a bedrock of conservative politics is about to be. That church has been detached from its moderate roots for sometime anyway....

The highlighted part is what I still don't understand.

[Mark]

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!

It was wonderful. I'll try to offer a more personal perspective later on, but in the meantime here's the front-page account from yesterday's Birmingham News (Sunday, 2/01/09):
http://www.al.com/newsflash/regional/in ... labamanews

[Stephen Fox]

http://m.tuscaloosanews.com/tln/db_1258 ... &full=true

Couple thoughts; and I plan to blog later if anybody wants to take a look at that.
Disappointed that all the photos above save one were of President Carter--one of Jim Henry's daughter Kate Campbell; at same time he deserves much better treatment than the hate and ignorance that predominated in the 45 or so comments at the bham news blog linked in the Baps Today report.
http://blog.al.com/spotnews/2009/01/_fo ... arter.html
Carter is a great fellow. Pressler and company had a lot to do with the flaws of his Presidency; in response to a windfall profits tax Carter levied.
It all came up again just last week nationally in a call I got in to the Dianne Rehm show on author Burrough's new Book The Big Rich, about Texas Oil and politics. Hope some of you will google that program of Tuesday Jan 27 up.
Congratulations to Brent McDougal and network for putting together a stellar SAturday.
Do take a good look at what Marian Wright Edelman said above, in the Bham News story. It turns out she and I have SC connections.
I think I will start another discussion in the other forum and see where it goes.

SFox