The Rev. Fred Luter Jr.’s election to the convention’s VP post made headlines last week and lots of people are talking about him and wanting to talk to him.

Look for a story about Luter(pictured here in an AP Photo)  in a future edition of The Oklahoman.

For those interested in the Time interview with Luter, here’s a link to the story: “10 Questions for Pastor Fred Luter Jr.”

Carla Hinton

Religion Editor

For those interested in Time’s interview with the New Orleans pastor, here’s a link to the story: “10 Questions for Pastor Fred Luter Jr.”

When we talked briefly about my recent story on his new book, Williams asked me if I had known ahead of time that the Southern Baptist Convention was going to talk as much as it did about diversity in leadership at the denomination’s annual meeting last week (June 14-15).

The story on Williams and his book on church diversity ran the Saturday before the SBC’s annual meeting in Phoenix. I knew that ethnic diversity was to be a topic, but I had no way of knowing there would be as much talk about it at the meeting which was shown via live streaming video.

Williams, in his book, makes the argument that churches need to intentionally ensure that their leadership staff is ethnically diverse to help the congregation become more ethnically diverse. Well the SBC delegates voted to approve a recommendation from their Executive Committee that called for the denomination’s leader to be encouraged to appoint ethnically diverse leaders to fill various leadership roles.

At the time that I was writing the story on Williams, I had no  idea that a large denomination would be discussing some of the very things he had talked about. Like I said, I knew the SBC was going to consider ethnic diversity in because the matter was on its agenda, but I didn’t know any of the details.

It all proved to be quite  interesting.

I sure wanted to tell Williams that I had thought it all out beforehand and planned it that way, but I didn’t.

Carla Hinton

Religion Editor  

The names of the new appointees were released today by White House Media Affairs.  The group is comprised of religious and secular leaders from different backgrounds. Each member of the council is appointed to a one-year term.

Some appointments to the council had already been made. However, Watkins’ name was released today, along with several other people. The Rev. Frank Page, who many Oklahoma Southern Baptists will be familiar with, has already been appointed to the council. Page is a  former Southern Baptist Convention president.

Here are the council members names. Asterisks denote those individuals whose appointments were made public today:

*Dr. Sharon Watkins, General Minister and President, Disciples of Christ (Christian Church), Indianapolis, Ind.

Diane Baillargeon, President & CEO, Seedco, New York , NY.

*Anju Bhargava, Founder, Asian Indian Women of America, New Jersey.

*Bishop Charles Blake, Presiding Bishop, Church of God in Christ, Los Angeles, Calif.

Noel Castellanos, CEO, Christian Community Development Association, Chicago, Ill.

*The Rev. Peg Chemberlin, President-Elect, National Council of Churches USA, Minneapolis, Minn.

Dr. Arturo Chavez, President & CEO, Mexican American Catholic College, San Antonio, Texas.

Fred Davie, Senior Adviser, Public/Private Ventures, New York , NY.

*Nathan Diament, Director of Public Policy, Orthodox Jewish Union, Washington, D.C.

Pastor Joel C. Hunter, Senior Pastor, Northland, a Church Distributed, Longwood, Fla.

*Harry Knox, Director, Religion and Faith Program, Human Rights Campaign, Washington, D.C.

Bishop Vashti M. McKenzie, Presiding Bishop, 13th Episcopal District, African Methodist Episcopal Church, Knoxville, Tenn.

*Dalia Mogahed, Executive Director, Gallup Center for Muslim Studies, Washington, D.C..

Rev. Otis Moss, Jr., Pastor emeritus, Olivet Institutional Baptist Church, Cleveland, Ohio.

The Rev.  Frank S. Page, (pictured at right) President emeritus, Southern Baptist Convention, Taylors, S. C.

Eboo S. Patel, Founder & Executive Director, Interfaith Youth Core, Chicago, Ill.

*Anthony Picarello, General Counsel , United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, Washington, D.C.

*Nancy Ratzan, Board Chair, National Council of Jewish Women, Miami, Fla.

Melissa Rogers, Director, Wake Forest School of Divinity Center for Religion and Public Affairs,  Winston-Salem , N.C.

Rabbi David N. Saperstein, Director & Counsel, Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, Washington, D.C.

The Rev. William J. Shaw, President, National Baptist Convention, USA, Philadelphia , Pa.

Father Larry J. Snyder, President, Catholic Charities USA, Alexandria , Va.

Richard Stearns, President, World Vision, Bellevue , Wash.

Judith N. Vredenburgh, President and Chief Executive Officer, Big Brothers / Big Sisters of America, Philadelphia , Pa.

Rev. Jim Wallis, President & Executive Director, Sojourners, Washington , D.C.

Carla Hinton

Religion Editor

Convention president Johnny Hunt announced the theme for the annual meeting this week.   

The Baptist Press reported that Hunt said he hopes the LoveLoud emphasis will “challenge our denomination to demonstrate to our communities, our country and around the world the difference Jesus Christ makes in our lives and in our churches.”

“This world has HEARD much from the church about who we are and what we believe. Too often they don’t SEE the church as being a different entity than others in their communities.

“The church simply has to become more of a force to penetrate the darkness that is increasing in our world,” Hunt told the Baptist Press.

Registration is now open for the meeting where the 150th anniversary of the founding of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary also will be celebrated.

Carla Hinton

Religion Editor

Many Oklahoma Southern Baptists are in the midst of the 40/40 Prayer Vigil which began Sept. 24 and continues through Nov. 2, right before the presidential election on Nov. 4

The prayer effort is to culminate with 40 hours of around the clock intercession during the last three days of the vigil. This 40-hour finale is to begin at 4 p.m. Oct. 31 and end at 8 a.m. Nov. 2.

Participants have been encouraged to focus personal spiritual revival, then to expand their circle of prayer concerns. 

More details are located on the Southern Baptist Convention’s Web site at www.sbc.net.

Carla Hinton

Religion Editor

LifeWay, a Southern Baptist Convention entity, has pulled copies of the magazine’s latest issue because of its cover story: Women pastors.

Customers can, however,  purchase the magazine at LifeWay stores, but they have to ask for it because the magazine has been placed behind the counter. 

“We removed the September/October issue of Gospel Today magazine from the shelves of LifeWay Christian Stores because the cover story, featuring female senior pastors, clearly advocated a position contrary to our denomination’s statement of faith, the Baptist Faith & Message,” Chris Turner, Life Way’s media relations manager, said in a prepared statement on Wednesday .

Turns out Land, president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission,  shared his views of Palin’s impact on Sen. John McCain’s presidential bid on CNN’s The Situation Room just a few hours ago.

According to the transcript of the show, available on CNN.com, Land said he thinks the addition of Palin is a positive for McCain as he seek’s the nation’s highest office with her as his running mate.

“It looks like, when they picked her, that they put the whole base on Red Bull. Yes, it is amazing how it has energized the base,” Land is reportedly said on the cable TV news show.

Land visited Oklahoma City on Aug. 19 at the request of the Capital Baptist Association of the Baptist General Convention of Oklahoma. During my interview with him, he predicted that McCain has particularly gained support from evangelicals because of his pro-life stance.

Land has never been one to mince words so I could easily see him likening Palin’s impact on McCain’s evangelical support base to a surge of a high profile energy drink.

That’s got to be good news to McCain’s camp.

(Photo above, David McDaniel/The Oklahoman: Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, talk about religion and politics during an August  interview in Oklahoma City.

Religion Editor

Carla Hinton 

The Rev. Wade Burleson’s self-imposed break from blogging is over.

Burleson, pastor of Emmanuel Baptist Church in Enid, made the official announcement with Monday’s posting on his blog at wadeburleson.com.

He took a blogging sabbatical in mid-May, surprising me since it was just a month before the Southern Baptist Convention’s annual meeting in Indianapolis.

Burleson (pictured above right) is well known among Southern Baptists for his blog, which earned him the ire of some leaders of the SBC’s International Mission Board. Burleson had been a trustee of the board, but he resigned after determining that he and his blog had become a distraction to the board, keeping them from focusing on the issues at hand concerning missionaries across the globe.

Judging from the comments following Burleson’s first postings since ending his break, the outspoken preacher’s posting have been missed by some.

What are his latest postings about?

Tuesday’s posting was on one of his favorite subjects: Baptist Identity, the new IMB doctrinal polices and the SBC.

Carla Hinton

Religion Editor   

Those ethical standards should be especially important for Christians — or other people of faith. One would think that the teachings of faith would help guide bloggers as they traverse their way through the blogosphere.

Several Oklahoma Southern Baptist bloggers I interviewed this week mentioned the personal attacks that sometimes are posted by other fellow Southern Baptists.

Each of the people I talked to said they wanted people to focus solely on the issues at hand, but a personal attack ripping into someone’s character or casting aspersions on an individual can cause undue harm. One blogger, the Rev. Ronnie W. Rogers of Trinity Baptist Church in Norman, said “spiritual harm” can be caused when bloggers air negative comments about internal affairs at their local church.

The Rev. Wes Kenney, a Southern Baptist pastor in Valliant, Okla., and one of the founders of SBCToday.com said he had noticed that some Southern Baptist bloggers had begun attacking some of the denomination’s leaders such as Paige Patterson and the Richard Land. Those kinds of postings can be discouraging, Kenney said.

The Associated Baptist Press recently had an interesting story on the issue of blogging ethics. That story  by Ken Camp makes some interesting points.

Then I found Rebecca Blood’s Weblog Handbook on Blog Ethics. 

This handbook includes six ethics rules for bloggers to abide by. Methinks they are pretty good, though they are not necessarily religious in nature.

Here they are:

1. Publish as fact only that which you believe to be true.

2. If material exists online, link to it when you reference it.

3. Publicly correct any misinformation.

4. Write each entry as if it could not be changed; add to, but do not rewrite or delete, any entry.

5. Disclose any conflict of interest.

6. Note questionable and biased sources.

With all that said, I guess it’s always a  good idea to remind bloggers that their words are out there for all to see.

Rogers, in Norman, said he wondered if some bloggers realized that, say 20 years from now, the things they post will still be out there on the blogosphere — where they could potentially come back and cause them or someone else some trouble …