by Keith Bassham
Though the Tribune covers Baptist Bible Fellowship mission work each month, one of our better traditions is to take one issue of the Tribune every year and devote it almost entirely to missions. This first issue in volume 62 is the Missions Issue for 2011.
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Our cover this month is a photo from downtown Boston. In the foreground is the historic Faneuil Hall, the venue for the Monday night meeting in the BBFI Fall Fellowship hosted by Boston Baptist College. It was my great honor to speak in this building at the college’s commencement this past May, and it will be a genuine treat for our Fellowship to have a bit of our own history in this building. See other details about the meeting in this magazine, and visit the meeting website, www. boston2011.net. Boston President David Melton, his staff, student body, and area pastors will do all they can to make the meeting memorable and profitable for our Fellowship.
Speaking of history, readers know that we publish snippets from past Tribunes in our “Digressions” section. Last month, an alert reader noted our excerpt was from 1951 though the heading indicated the page was 50 years old. It was, of course, 60 years old as the reader noted.
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The issues connected with same-sex marriage and homosexual activism continue to ripple. One large evangelical ministry has tried to distance itself from Exodus International, a group who ministers to homosexuals and helps churches to address the issues of homosexuality with grace and truth. Because Exodus considers homosexuality to be sinful and heterosexuality is God’s norm for human behavior, they come under a lot of criticism. Apparently, the aforesaid evangelical ministry, while agreeing in general with the Exodus position, did not want to continue to be associated with them. The Christian community obviously does not speak with one voice on the matter.
But, then, the United States government has a similar schizophrenia. The Obama administration, acting through the office of the U. S. Attorney, refuses to defend the legally enacted Defense of Marriage Act and has taken the position that at least one section of DOMA is unconstitutional.
In a case currently before the court, Tom Strode of Baptist Press writes, “In its legal briefs arguing that the law should be upheld, the legal team hired by the U.S. House says DOMA, as it’s often called, is naturally tied to procreation and children benefit from having both a mother and father in the home. The Justice Department [of the Obama administration] has discounted the procreation argument and argued that the gender of parents does not matter.”
This all reflects confusion. Evangelicals and other Christians may be confused. Governments may be confused. Media may be confused. I may be confused. But the Bible evidences no confusion on the subject. And clearly societies who remain in their confusion are, according to the Apostle in Romans 1:28-32, headed for trouble.