wfn.org | AMERICAN BAPTIST NEWS FOR OCTOBER 14, 1996

[LEAH_MCCARTER.parti@ecunet.org]

To: wfn-editors@wfn.org

American Baptist News Service_____________________
Office of Communication / American Baptist Churches USA
P.O. Box 851, Valley Forge, PA 19482-0851
Phone: (610)768-2077 / Fax: (610)768-2320 
Richard W. Schramm, Director (E-mail:
RICH_SCHRAMM.PARTI@ECUNET.ORG)

_________________________________________________________________
_________________________

UPDATE: OCTOBER 11, 1996
_________________________________________________________________
____________

NEWS FEATURE
BAPTIST JOINT COMMITTEE CELEBRATES 60 YEARS
AT CONFERENCE FEATURING ADDRESSES, WORSHIP
     The Baptist Joint Committee on Public Affairs, an
organization monitoring and advocating religious
liberty and church/state separation, celebrated its 60th
anniversary Oct. 6-8 with a conference featuring prominent
speakers and worship experiences.  The BJC, based in Washington,
D.C., relates to 12 Baptist bodies, including
American Baptist Churches USA.
     In an opening address, evangelical author and speaker Dr.
Tony Campolo criticized Christian groups that
"have chosen to operate from a position of power."  Power, he
maintained, "is dependent on an unwillingness to
love...whenever the church operates from the position of power it
forfeits its genius and its calling."  "Jesus
refused the power thing," Campolo said, adding that Scripture
calls us "to outdo one another in love," and, like
Christ, "set aside power and take the form of a servant."
     Dr. Joan Brown Campbell, general secretary of the National
Council of Churches of Christ in the USA,
commended the work of the BJC, noting the "expertise and
constancy" it has brought to church/state issues over
the years.  "Such a diverse nation [as the U.S.] can survive and
prosper," she said, "only when government
remains neutral in matters of faith."   Rabbi A. James Rudin,
National Interreligious Affairs director of the
American Jewish Committee, also lauded the BJC.  He cited the
organization's three-fold contributions: "to
religious liberty in all its richness..."; "to religious
pluralism, [which] the BJC recognizes must be nurtured and
protected"; and "to religious conviction, [for which] the Baptist
Joint Committee gives credibility and strength."
     Dr. Walter Shurden, noted historian and author, considered
the origins of the Baptist emphasis on
religious freedom.  "Baptists bled in their earliest years in
England and in New England...they were born in
adversity," he said.  "If you contrast that to our living in
prosperity, you begin to get a hunch about why the
notes of freedom [today] are rung fainter and fainter."  Shurden
maintained that "there was a Baptist joint
committee long before there was a Baptist Joint Committee
[because] Baptists lobbied jointly with their pens and
their lives."
     Former BJC staff member Oliver Thomas, currently special
counsel for the National Council of
Churches, criticized the "tribalism" mentality that fails to
enable "a large enough vision of America to sustain us
into the next century."  The challenge ahead, he said, "is
remembering what it means to be an American...
freedom of religion, freedom of conscience--that is the glue."
     Among other participants at the conference were Dr. Gardner
Taylor, pastor emeritus of Concord Baptist
Church of Christ in Brooklyn, N.Y.; Elenora Giddings Ivory,
director of the Washington Office of the
Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.); the Rev. Robert Tiller, veteran
American Baptist lobbyist; John Buchanan, former
Congressman from Alabama; Dr. Derek Davis, director of the J.M.
Dawson Institute of Church/State Studies,
Baylor University; and Dr. A. E. Dick Howard, professor of Law
and Public Affairs, the University of Virginia.
     Also during the gathering, Dr. James Dunn was honored for
his 15 years of leadership as executive
director of the Baptist Joint Committee.  "There is no one who
more truly honors Baptist history than James
Dunn," noted John Buchanan.                                       
                                           

                                                                 
o  Cornelius (Neil) Jones, American Baptist International
Ministries' treasurer and director of Business and
Finance for the past nine years and a former missionary in India
and Thailand, retired Sept. 30 after 39 years of
service.  He served as mission correspondent and as mission
treasurer and attorney to India, where he supervised
the transfer of all property and financial assets from
International Ministries to the Council of Baptist Churches
in North East India.  In 1972 he became mission treasurer in
Thailand, and in 1981 joined the International
Ministries staff as eastern representative for estate planning. 
Jones has served in an advisory capacity in recent
months; Bruce Borquist, former American Baptist missionary to the
Philippines, assumed the position of
treasurer/director of Business and Finance July 1, 1996.

96U1011
_________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________

"Update" currently is available in print form (mailed first class
at $40/year subscription cost); as document #111 on Fax Vault, a
fax-on-
demand service at (610)337-7439; as "American Baptist News
Service" on ABNET, the American Baptist Churches' computer
network (a
branch of ECUNET); and on the Internet Web sites for American
Baptist Churches USA (http://www.abc-usa.org) and for World-Wide
Faith
News (http://www.wfn.org/wfn).                              

    
                                    

 -0-