Moderate Baptist Church Holds Jesse Helms Funeral

The funeral for North Carolina Senator Jesse Helms - described by NPR as a conservative purist - is being held tomorrow (Tuesday) at Hayes Barton Baptist Church in Raleigh, a decidedly moderate Baptist congregation. In an article published in Commonweal titled "The Right Hand of God: Jesse Helms's Political Theology," Hayes Barton is described as:

A church where the theology is as moderate and mainstream as its red-brick, tall-steeple architecture.

Hayes Barton is a dually-aligned congregation that list links on its resource page to the national Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, Cooperative Baptist Fellowship of North Carolina, Baptist World Alliance, Smyth & Helwys Publishing, and Acacia Resources (publishing division of EthicsDaily.com). Basically, the only "moderate-related" organization not listed is the Baptist Joint Committee!

The pastor of Hayes Barton Baptist Church is Dr. David Hailey. Before his call to Hayes Barton, Hailey served as pastor of the moderate Highland Hills Baptist Church which is another congregation affiliated with the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship. Hayes Barton also has on staff an ordained female. The Rev. Julia Ledford, a Campbell University Divinity School graduate, serves as the Minister of Christian Education at Hayes Barton Baptist Church. Many members of Hayes Barton are also actively involved in the ministries of the organizations listed above.

It's quite interesting that a true political fundamentalist/purist like Helms known best for his utter disdain for "liberals" and his inability to "agree to disagree" chose to remain a faithful member of a moderate Baptist church that understands quite well the importance of "agreeing to disagree" and supports with its time and money organizations that have been characterized by many (if not most) of his fellow conservative cohorts from the Christian Right as liberal at best and not-Christian at worst!


**Read testimonies from long-time Hayes Barton members here. According to this website, Helms served as a deacon and Sunday School teacher prior to his election to the United States Senate.
**Anne Graham Lotz is a former member of Hayes Barton. Lotz stated that she thought it was fitting for a "patriotic man" like Helms to pass away on Independence Day with "an exclamation point on his life."
**Her father, Billy Graham, described his long-time friend Jesse Helms as a "man of consistent conviction to conservative ideals and courage to faithfully serve God and country based on principle, not popularity or politics."

The Emerging Evangelical Center, Part 2

Here is a link to the Introduction of my paper entitled "Evangelical Centrists and Moderate Baptists: The Case For Incompatibility." You can read the entire paper here.

Tomorrow, I will post a section on Substantive Neutrality and Saturday I will post sections on the Baptist Joint Committee and the Texas Christian Life Commission.

The second section is below:

I. The Emerging Evangelical Center

A. David Gushee and the Emerging Evangelical Center

In his newly released book, The Future of Faith in American Politics: The Public Witness of the Evangelical Center, Baptist ethicist David Gushee identifies what he calls an “emerging evangelical center” that is neither left nor right.[1] While the “evangelical right” has long been represented by world renown fundamentalists such as James Dobson and the late Jerry Falwell, the “evangelical left” has in recent years come to be symbolized by lesser known but well respected religious leaders such as Jim Wallis and Tony Campolo.[2] But today, according to Gushee, there is “emerging a visible and increasingly powerful evangelical center”[3] that is “increasingly vibrant and promises to play an increasingly significant role within evangelical Christianity and the United States.”[4]

Throughout The Future of Faith in American Politics, Gushee attempts to “stake a claim” to this emerging evangelical center by contrasting it with the evangelical right and evangelical left.[5] Gushee offers strong criticisms of the evangelical right. He claims that the evangelical right has “given up its fundamental allegiance to Jesus Christ in aligning itself so tightly with the Republican Party.”[6] Gushee also laments the narrowness of the evangelical right’s political agenda. However, he stresses that there are a number of issues where the evangelical center is generally in full agreement with the evangelical right. These include opposition to gay marriage, Roe v. Wade, euthanasia, sex outside of heterosexual marriage, the creation-for-destruction of embryos and the harvesting of stem cells from existing embryos.[7]

Gushee also directs several criticisms towards the evangelical left and its leaders. He claims that leaders of the evangelical left such as Tony Campolo, Jim Wallis, and Brian McLaren tend to downplay issues central to the agenda of the evangelical right including abortion and homosexuality. Gushee chides the evangelical left for not addressing these issues as much as he would like.[8] However, Gushee notes that the evangelical center also shares many common characteristics with the evangelical left. Some of these include an emphasis on the plight of the poor as central to a biblical moral agenda, opposition to the routine resort to war, high priority given to the environment and climate change, a commitment to human rights which includes opposition to torture and a “constrained, critical patriotism rather than a nationalist ‘God and country’ stance.”[9]

Unlike the evangelical right and the evangelical left, Gushee explains that the evangelical center is more carefully committed to political independence and aims to avoid partisan entanglements. Where the evangelical left speaks of racial justice, the evangelical center prefers racial reconciliation. According to Gushee, the evangelical center rejects the “working pacifism” of the evangelical left and instead is willing to support wars that “meet a careful rendering of the just-war theory.” Gushee explains that the evangelical center does not resonate with the evangelical left’s tilt toward the Palestinians in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. While mostly silent on issues of gender and public education, the evangelical center speaks more openly and extensively than the evangelical left on abortion and gay marriage.[10]

B. Moderate Baptists and the Emerging Evangelical Center

Greg Warner, editor of the Associated Baptist Press, asked in a recent article, “If the Religious Right is losing its influence, as many pundits predict, will it be replaced by the ‘other’ evangelicals – a center and left coalition with a broader social agenda and a kinder, gentler brand of cultural engagement?”[11] One month later, Warner came back to his readers with another interesting question. He asked, “If an ‘evangelical center’ emerges from the current shake-up in American politics, will moderate Baptists[12] be part of it?”[13]

In his opinion pieces as a guest columnist for Associated Baptist Press, David Gushee has repeatedly answered Warner’s two questions in the affirmative.[14] He believes that most moderate Baptists are also evangelical centrists.[15] “Most moderate Baptists are center or center-left evangelicals, they just don’t know it,” says Gushee.[16] He notes that “if you define ‘evangelicalism’ as core doctrinal beliefs, there’s no reason why Baptists would not be evangelicals.” Dating the roots of the evangelical movement to the Protestant renewal movements of the sixteenth century, Gushee defines an “evangelical” as one who holds that the final, ultimate authority is the Bible, believes that Jesus Christ died for the salvation of all, believes in the importance of evangelism and in “engaged orthodoxy” or applying faith to bear on culture.[17] Gushee believes that by this definition over ninety percent of white Baptists in the South and ninety-five percent of African-American Baptists are evangelical Christians.[18] According to Gushee, one of his goals is to help moderate Baptists “reclaim the term ‘evangelical’ and reassociate with other evangelicals who are kindred spirits, if they only knew it.”[19]

Gushee is correct to note that moderate Baptists share much in common with those whom he dubs “evangelical centrists.”[20] The recent New Baptist Covenant Celebration held in Atlanta, Georgia proves this true. Organized by mostly moderate Baptist leaders, including former United States President Jimmy Carter, President Bill Underwood of Mercer University and Jimmy Allen, the last moderate President of the Southern Baptist Convention, the New Baptist Covenant is an informal alliance of thirty Baptist organizations representing over twenty million Baptists in North America.[21] This informal alliance hosted an historic three-day celebration in January, 2008 which focused on many of the same issues that Gushee asserts “evangelical centrists” are concerned with. The special sessions of this celebration which attracted more than 15,000 Baptists addressed issues such as: poverty, criminal justice reform, respecting religious diversity, peacemaking, immigration reform, the intersection of faith and public policy, sex trafficking, race and racism, HIV/AIDS pandemic, and religious liberty.[22]

Indeed, evangelical centrists share much in common with moderate Baptists. However, most moderate Baptists and their organizations would differ strongly with evangelical centrists on issues pertaining to the separation of church and state. In his book, Gushee emphasizes that the evangelical center as a whole is committed to a “substantive neutrality” reading of the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause rather than a “strict separationist” reading of that same clause.[23] He notes that this “substantive neutrality” interpretation of the Establishment Clause is a “consensus position” among evangelical centrists.[24]

Another “consensus position” among evangelical centrists deals with the First Amendment’s Free Exercise Clause. Gushee explains that the evangelical center supports the free exercise rights of evangelical churches and schools to “hire/admit according to religious and moral conviction tests appropriate to our faith tradition.”[25] According to Gushee, the evangelical center also supports the “equal access of faith-based organizations to government funds if their programs are effective in meeting social needs.” Gushee points out that evangelical centrists have been supportive of President Bush’s Faith-Based Initiative because they believe such programs “reflects a proper understanding of the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause.”[26] He notes that these religious liberty views are “rooted in the broad embrace of the ‘substantive neutrality’ interpretation of the First Amendment.”[27]

It appears that Gushee’s treatment of church-state issues has created a false dichotomy between substantive neutrality and strict separationism. Gushee does not have to limit the perspectives toward the interpretation of the Establishment Clause to two options. As renowned church-state expert Carl Esbeck points out in his widely read article entitled "Five Views of Church-State Relations in Contemporary American Thought," that there are more than two ways to interpret the Establishment Clause. Further, in his book, Gushee neglects to explicitly define what the term strict separationism actually means. Carl Esbeck's widely accepted definition of strict separationism asserts that a strict separationist desires an asbolute separation between civil affairs and religon even though they know that such is not presently possible in America.[28] Does Gushee accept this common definition of strict separationism? If the answer is yes, then surely Gushee knows that not all separationists are strict separationists. Or is Gushee really using "strict separationist" as a pejorative term to describe the average run of the mill separationist who opposes school vouchers and President Bush's Faith-Based Initiative?

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[1] David Gushee, The Future of Faith in American Politics: The Public Witness of the Evangelical Center (Waco: Baylor University Press, 2008), xviii. In an opinion piece written after the publication of his book, Gushee explained that polling data led him to argue that “non-white evangelicals and younger evangelicals definitely skewed in a centrist or more liberal direction overall than did older white evangelicals.” This data led Gushee to project that generational change and increasing demographic diversity among evangelicals in America “would lead to the emergence of a strong and visible evangelical center, a more muscular evangelical left, and in some cases a center-left coalition representing half or more of American evangelicals.” See David Gushee, “Emerging evangelical center may decide 200 election,” Associated Baptist Press, February 19, 2008, under “Opinion,” http://www.abpnews.com/3037.article [accessed April 4, 2008].

[2] David Gushee, “Emerging evangelical center may decide 2008 election,” Associated Baptist Press, February 19, 2008, under “Opinion,” http://www.abpnews.com/3037.article [accessed April 4, 2008].

[3] Ibid.

[4] Gushee, The Future of Faith in American Politics, 3.

[5] Gushee defines the “evangelical right” as the “conservative evangelical activist community” which includes organizations such as the American Family Association, Christian Coalition, Concerned Women for America, Eagle Forum, Family Research Council, Focus on the Family, High Impact Leadership Coalition, Moral Majority Coalition, Southern Baptist Convention Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission and the Traditional Values Coalition. See Gushee, The Future of Faith in American Politics, 23-55. Gushee notes that the “evangelical left” like most evangelicals roots their faith in the authority of the Bible. However, Gushee says the evangelical left is left because “it reads Scripture and interprets the demands of Christian discipleship to require what in our contemporary American and Christian contexts are considered left-leaning moral commitments.” See Gushee, The Future of Faith in American Politics, 58.

[6] Gushee, The Future of Faith in American Politics, 49.

[7] Gushee notes that only majority opposition exists among centrist evangelicals to the harvesting of stem cells from existing embryos. Gushee, The Future of Faith in American Politics, 88.

[8] Ibid, 88-89.

[9] Ibid.

[10] Ibid, 90-91

[11] Greg Warner, “Will ‘evangelical center’ emerge to rival waning Christian Right?” Associated Baptist Press, February 21, 2008, http://www.abpnews.com/3044.article [April 15, 2008].

[12] Moderate Baptists trace their Baptist lineage through the Southern Baptist Convention. Most moderate Baptists are actually former Southern Baptists. Historically, moderate Baptists have repeatedly affirmed the centrality of biblical authority but they resisted inerrancy as dogmatism. To this day, moderates continue in their attempt to affirm what they consider the heart of the Baptist heritage: the authority of the Bible for religious faith and practice, soul competency, personal religious experience, the priesthood of all believers, religious liberty and the separation of church and state, local church autonomy, anti-creedalism, and unity in missions and evangelism amidst some theological diversity. Moderate Baptists cooperate together at the national level primarily through the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship and to a much lesser extent the Mainstream Baptist Network. Some moderate Baptists in certain geographic areas have aligned themselves with the American Baptist Churches USA. At the state level, large numbers of moderate Baptists can be found participating in the Baptist General Convention of Texas, Baptist General Association of Virginia and the Baptist General Convention of Missouri. Moderate Baptists are also deeply supportive of the work of the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty and the Baptist World Alliance. In Texas, moderate Baptists turn to the Christian Life Commission to represent their social concerns at the Capitol in Austin. Though some “moderate Baptists” do not prefer being called “moderate,” this is the one adjective that has been used the most over the past thirty years to describe this particular group of Baptists. As a moderate Baptist myself, I hope the day will come when “Baptist” is no longer synonymous with “Southern Baptist” in American culture and the “moderate” qualifier will no longer be necessary.

[13] Greg Warner, “Will Baptists be counted among those in the ‘evangelical center’?,” Associated Baptist Press, March 13, 2008, http://www.abpnews.com/3081.article [accessed April 4, 2008].

[14] David Gushee, “Toward a truly evangelical Baptist future,” Associated Baptist Press, November 6, 2007, http://www.abpnews.com/2839.article [accessed April 4, 2008]; also, Greg Warner, “Will ‘evangelical center’ emerge to rival waning Christian Right?” and Greg Warner, “Will Baptists be counted among those in the ‘evangelical center’?”

[15] Gushee, “Toward a truly evangelical Baptist future.”

[16] Warner, “Will ‘evangelical center’ emerge to rival waning Christian Right?”

[17] For several decades, there has been debate as to whether Southern Baptists (and those Baptists with Southern Baptist roots) are actually evangelicals. In a 1976 Newsweek story, the late Foy Valentine who was then the Executive Director of the Christian Life Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention proclaimed “We are not evangelicals. That's a Yankee word." See Foy Valentine, quoted by Kenneth L. Woodward in “Born Again! The Year of the Evangelicals,” Newsweek, October 25, 1976, 76. Consequently, this issue of whether Southern Baptists are evangelicals was classically discussed in a book edited by James Leo Garrett, Jr., E. Glenn Hinson and James E. Tull entitled Are Southern Baptists "Evangelicals”? See James Leo Garrett, Jr., E. Glenn Hinson, and James E. Tull, eds., Are Southern Baptists “Evangelicals”? (Macon: Mercer University Press, 1983). Ten years later in 1993 this conversation was continued in a book edited by David Dockery (including contributions from Garrett and Hinson) entitled, Southern Baptists and American Evangelicals: The Conversation Continues. See David Dockery, ed., Southern Baptists and American Evangelicals: The Conversation Continues (Nashville: Broadman and Holman Press, 1993).

[18] Gushee, “Toward a truly evangelical Baptist future.”

[19] Warner, “Will ‘evangelical center’ emerge to rival waning Christian Right?” According to Gushee, Baptists in the South “remain extraordinarily fixated on Baptist identity rather than…international ecumenism.” He asks, “When will we (Baptists) discover the rest of the global Christian family?”

[20] Warner, “Will ‘evangelical center’ emerge to rival waning Christian Right?” Unlike Gushee and many evangelical centrists, moderate Baptists have been relatively silent on gay marriage and other issues relating to homosexuality. Moderate Baptists have also not articulated one view on abortion. Moderate Baptists generally have not been involved in the pro-life movement and few, if any, moderate leaders (unlike Gushee) have advocated for the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade. My experience growing up in Baptist life has taught me that most moderate Baptists would agree with fellow Baptist Jimmy Carter who is personally opposed to abortion and the Texas Christian Life Commission which has argued that abortion may be permissible in certain circumstances. This nuanced position would put most moderate Baptists at odds with many in the pro-life movement.

[21] Of the thirty participating organizations, seventeen can be described as “moderate Baptist” organizations or as organizations run by “moderate Baptists.”

[22] See the Celebration of a New Baptist Covenant website at http://www.newbaptistcelebration.com.

[23] Gushee, The Future of Faith in American Politics, 90-91.

[24] Ibid.

[25] Ibid.

[26] Ibid. Referencing “substantive neutrality” proponent Stephen Monsma, Gushee also notes that while the evangelical center has been supportive of programs such as the Faith-Based Initiative, some are not happy with the motivations or implementations on the part of President Bush’s Administration.

[27] Ibid. Throughout The Future of Faith in American Politics, Gushee points to the centrist statement published in 2004 by the National Association of Evangelicals entitled “For The Health Of The Nations: An Evangelical Call to Civic Responsibility,” which he describes as the most “careful, thorough, and balanced corporate statement of evangelical public witness that has yet to be offered.” According to Gushee, this centrist statement which characterizes the convictions of the evangelical center defends a substantive neutrality interpretation of the First Amendment. It reads, “when government assists nongovernmental organizations as part of an evenhanded educational, social service, or health care program, religious organizations receiving such aid do not become ‘state actors’ with constitutional duties.”

[28] Carl Esbeck, “Five Views of Church-State Relations in Contemporary American Thought,” Brigham Young University Law Review, no. 2 (1986): 379-385.

Evangelical Centrists and Moderate Baptists

Like last week, this upcoming week will be a light blogging period for me. I've got a paper to write and my last thesis chapter to finish. So, in light of that - I'm going to post a paper that I recently wrote. It's divided up into 5 parts with today being the Introduction. After I've posted all of the 5 parts, I'll link to the entire PDF.

The paper is entitled:

EVANGELICAL CENTRISTS AND MODERATE BAPTISTS

THE CASE FOR INCOMPATIBILITY

Introduction

Over the last two years, evangelical authors and activists have begun to argue that a coalition of irenic evangelicals has emerged as a bona fide constituency in American politics. These centrist evangelicals have embraced a broadened social agenda that according to a recent Beliefnet.com poll ranks poverty, the environment, health care, education, the economy, and ending torture and the Iraq war as more important issues than abortion and gay marriage, the two pet issues of the Religious Right's sex-and-abortion agenda.[1] Richard Cizik, Vice President for Governmental Affairs of the National Association of Evangelicals and one of the most prominent evangelical lobbyists in the United States, claims that "a historic shift is occurring." Cizik says this shift is the "equivalent to an earthquake in slow motion - people aren't sensing it."[2] Long time progressive Christian activist Jim Wallis describes this slow-motion earthquake as a new Great Awakening - "a revival of faith that is directly leading to new calls and commitments for social justice."[3]

Baptist ethicist and evangelical activist David Gushee sees hints of this new Great Awakening and can also feel the seismic waves. In his new book, The Future of Faith in American Politics: The Public Witness of the Evangelical Center, Gushee argues that an "evangelical center" is emerging onto the political scene which represents as many as one-third of America's evangelical community. According to Gushee, this "emerging evangelical center" may decide the 2008 Presidential Election in November.[4]

Meanwhile, another group of centrist Christians has re-emerged in recent months on the national scene. In January 2008, Atlanta played host to over 15,000 Baptists affiliated with organizations representing over a combined twenty million Baptists located in North America. This event, called the Celebration of a New Baptist Covenant, focused on many of the same social issues that the "evangelical center" is concerned with such as poverty, HIV/AIDs and immigration reform.[5]

Many of the organizers and participating organizations involved in the historic celebration are former Southern Baptists whom I describe in this paper as "moderate Baptists." In light of the emergence of an "evangelical center" in American politics, some have asked whether moderate Baptists will join up with this centrist coalition. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to analyze this important question and the possible ramifications for moderate Baptists if this important question is answered in the affirmative.

This paper is divided into four parts. Part I will examine David Gushee's argument for an "Emerging Evangelical Center." Part I will address the characteristics of this "Emerging Evangelical Center" with an emphasis on the church-state views of this coalition. Attention will also be given to the relationship between moderate Baptists and this new evangelical center. Part II will focus exclusively on the legal theory of "substantive neutrality” which Gushee emphasizes is the theory that evangelical centrists use to interpret the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause. Part III focuses on two moderate Baptist supported organizations, the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty and the Texas Christian Life Commission, which have consistently opposed all efforts to fund religious education and finance pervasively religious organizations. Part IV will offer a few concluding thoughts on any potential relationship between the evangelical center and moderate Baptists.

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[1] Greg Warner, “Will ‘evangelical center’ emerge to rival waning Christian Right?,” Associated Baptist Press, February 21, 2008, http://www.abpnews.com/3044.article [accessed April 4, 2008].

[2] Ibid.

[3] Jim Wallis, The Great Awakening: Reviving Faith & Politics in a Post-Religious Right America (New York: Harper Collins Publishers, 2008), 3-4.

[4] Warner, “Will ‘evangelical center’ emerge to rival waning Christian Right?”

[5] See the Celebration of a New Baptist Covenant website at http://www.newbaptistcelebration.com.

Baptist Blogging - The Whitsitt Journal

Below is my article from the Spring issue of The Whitsitt Journal, a semi-annual publication of the William Whitsitt Baptist Heritage Society.

Founded in 1992, following 12 years of denominational infighting among Southern Baptists, the William Whitsitt Baptist Heritage Society was birthed by moderate Baptist historians concerned that fundamentalism endangered much of traditional Baptist heritage. The Society publishes a Journal, meets annually during the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship General Assembly, and presents the annual Courage Award.

Baptist Blogging
By Aaron Weaver

Since the turn of the 21^st century, internet blogs have become a major facet in American politics. Some blogs, such as Arianna Huffington's “Huffington Post,” report the breaking news of the day while others serve merely as online gossip hubs. Bloggers are often the first to report on seemingly obscure stories. Beginning in 2002, mainstream media outlets began covering stories made popular in the blogosphere. In early December 2002, Senator Trent Lott (R-MS), Majority Leader of the United States Senate, praised Strom Thurmond at a party in his honor by suggesting that the United States would have been better off had Thurmond been elected President in 1948. Prominent bloggers like Josh Marshall (talkingpointsmemo.com), Atrios (atrios.blogspot.com), Glenn Reynolds (instapundit.com), and their 200,000+ readers viewed Lott's comments as a tacit approval of racial segregation, a policy advocated by Thurmond's 1948 presidential campaign. Ultimately, the efforts of these bloggers and their readers helped to create a political crisis that forced Lott to step down as Majority Leader. The role that blogging played in Lott's fall from grace gave greater credibility to blogs as a medium of news dissemination.

Since 2004, blogs have become increasingly mainstream as political consultants and candidates have begun using blogs as tools for outreach, fundraising, and opinion forming. Blog communities such as the Daily Kos (dailykos.com) have been quite successful in electing grassroots candidates at both the national and state levels. In fact, Howard Dean used his blog and other bloggers to help raise over $20 million in contributions via the Internet alone. Politicians such as Eliot Spitzer of New York even announced that he was running for Governor via his blog.

Blogs have also become an extremely popular and influential means of communication, especially as a medium of exchanging ideas, among Christians. Of the more than four million blogs in the constantly expanding blogosphere, thousands belong to Christians. Commonly referred to as “Godblogs”—blogs whose content is primarily of a religious nature—these bloggers actively seek to influence and impact the world around them. The power of the blogosphere lies in its interconnection. Admittedly, only a small percentage of the “Godblogs” generate thousands of visitors daily. However, through blog communities, group blogs, blogrings and other networks lies the power of less popular blogs to influence others.

Just last summer, Time Magazine wrote that bloggers contributed significantly to Frank Page's election as President of the Southern Baptist Convention in the first seriously contested presidential race since the Fundamentalist Takeover. Over the last two years, blogging among Southern Baptists has become increasingly popular, but not without controversy. Hundreds of Southern Baptists have become bloggers and many have dared to publicly challenge the decisions and motives of prominent fundamentalist leaders such as Paige Patterson and Roger Moran. The most influential and controversial Southern Baptist blogs belong to Wade Burleson (kerussocharis.blogspot.com), Oklahoma pastor and embattled trustee of the International Mission Board, Marty Duren (sbcoutpost.com), a Georgia pastor, and Ben Cole (baptistblog.wordpress.com), a young Texas pastor who quite frequently expresses strong disdain for his former boss Paige Patterson.

Unfortunately, most moderate Baptists have not chosen to jump into the cutting edge waters of the blogosphere to disseminate their views. Robert Parham of the Baptist Center of Ethics has described this condition, but also issued a challenge to moderates to make greater use of internet technology. In 2006 he wrote, "A few centrist Baptists are (blogging), however. They're a small tribe who apparently believe that moral opinions matter, that moderate avoidance of conflict is moral indifference, that candles shouldn't be hidden under bushels. They are young. They are outnumbered 10-1 by the fundamentalist bloggers."

Younger Baptists can be reached by blogging. They blog; they read blogs; they like blogs. They are exchanging ideas with each other, and they are willing to read blogs from other Baptists of all ages. Their blogging is of course not limited to Baptist or even religious subjects, but some bloggers are thinking and writing about topics of interests to moderate Baptists.

Some moderate/progressive Baptists are already making an impact. A few of the more significant moderate Baptist bloggers are as follows:

• Dr. Bruce Prescott, Executive Director of Mainstream Oklahoma Baptists, hosts the blog Mainstream Baptist (mainstreambaptist.blogspot.com) and is the “Father of the Baptist Blogosphere.” Blogging daily for three years, Prescott posts on a wide range of issues from the “New Baptist Covenant” to the need for a “Living Wage.” No friend of fundamentalists, Prescott frequently chides Southern Baptist leaders for their unwavering support of the Bush Administration. Prescott is also the founder of the “Mainstream Baptist Group Blog” (mainstreambaptists.blogspot.com) which features posts from a dozen "mainstream" Baptists who are committed to the separation of church and state, soul freedom, and compassionate justice.
• Brian Kaylor, a Communications Specialist for the Baptist General Convention of Missouri and doctoral student at the University of Missouri, hosts the blog “For God's Sake Shut Up!” (forgodsakeshutup.blogspot.com). Kaylor’s blog is designed to teach Christians how to communicate effectively, which includes knowing when to remain silent. All too often, Religious Right leaders make outrageous statements that damage the image and witness of Christians around the world. Kaylor confronts these harmful statements regularly on his blog.
• Melissa Rogers, Visiting Professor of Religion and Public Policy at Wake Forest University Divinity School, hosts a widely-read blog (melissarogers.typepad.com) on religion's intersection with public affairs. Recognized on Capitol Hill as one of America's top church-state experts, Rogers’ blog offers daily insight into the happenings of religion and politics both inside and outside of the beltway in Washington, D.C.
• Dr. Michael Westmoreland-White hosts “Levellers” (levellers.wordpress.com), a blog named after the religiously-inspired political movement for democracy, human rights, and peace led by Richard Overton. A former theologian (SBTS '95) turned peace activist/educator, Westmoreland-White focuses mostly on politics with a special emphasis on peace and justice related issues. Recently, Westmoreland-White started a “Christian Peace Bloggers’ blogring with over 50 active members.
• “Blog from the Capital” (www.bjconline.org/cgi-bin), hosted by the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty, is another noteworthy blog. Run by Don Byrd, “Blog from the Capital” provides the most comprehensive coverage of religious liberty issues and church-state jurisprudence in the entire blogosphere.
• Two more notable Baptist blogs are “Moral Contradictions” (moralcontradictions.org) hosted by Nathan White, a student at Baptist Theological Seminary of Richmond, and “Texas in Africa” (texasinafrica.blogspot.com), hosted by Laura Seay, a Ph.D. student at the University of Texas and member of the First Baptist Church of Austin. Both bloggers regularly write on social justice related issues.

Baptist blogging: add the phrase to your vocabulary.