Frank Lockwood
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
ATLANTA — The most famous Democratic Baptist politicians in the United States have flocked to Georgia the week before the state’s primary elections to talk about faith and public policy with thousands of fellow Baptists.But the top vote-getting Southern Baptist on the Republican side is skipping the event, citing concerns about the organizers’ motivations.

Former President Carter and former Vice President Al Gore have already addressed the Celebration of a New Baptist Covenant, and former President Clinton is to speak this evening.

Even a United Methodist, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, has made the pilgrimage although she is not on the official agenda. She spoke to the midwinter joint board session of the National Baptist Convention U.S.A. Inc. on Wednesday.

The Celebration, a three-day meeting of mainline, black and moderate-to-progressive Southern Baptists, has also attracted a few Republican notables to the Georgia World Congress Center. They include Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue, former presidential candidate Phil Gramm and Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa.

Carter, who helped convene the meeting in his home state, said at an opening news conference that the event will be “all-inclusive, noncritical. … We’ve tried any way possible to make sure that there’s no political identification to this meeting at all.”
The nation’s most famous Sunday School teacher expressed regret at Huckabee’s absence.

Huckabee, an ordained Southern Baptist minister and former president of the Arkansas Baptist State Convention, initially agreed to be a “major speaker,” according to Carter. But Huckabee rejected the invitation in May after Carter criticized President Bush in an interview with the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.

At the time, Huckabee expressed fears about the meeting’s direction. “I feel it would be best for me to decline the invitation and to not appear to be giving approval to what could be a political, rather than spiritual, agenda,” he told the Florida Baptist Witness.

At the news conference, Carter said the meeting’s aim is to unite Baptists and glorify God.

The agenda focuses on unity, peace, justice, diversity, poverty, hunger and liberation.
“That was an early rumor that [this event] was designed for political purposes, but there will be no political elements or character of this assembly if all of us leaders can prevent it,” Carter said, though he acknowledged, “There’s no way to prevent news reporters being interested in the political aspects of it.”

Leaders of the nation’s largest black Baptist denominations are present, as are top officials with the American Baptist Churches USA and the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship. There are even a couple of celebrities on hand — author John Grisham and former Baylor football coach Grant Teaff.

But leaders of the conservative, 16.3 million-member Southern Baptist Convention declined to attend. The event was organized to help unify Baptists across racial lines and to provide an alternative voice to the Southern Baptist Convention.

About three dozen Arkansans from across the state registered for the event, according to Lance Wallace of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship.

More than 10,000 people attended the celebration’s opening service, organizers say.
On Wednesday, 2,500 people paid $35 a plate to hear Gore, the Nobel Peace Prize winner, speak about “creation care” and global warning. Quoting Scripture and showing off pictures of the earth’s rapidly shrinking glaciers, Gore urged the crowd to stand up for the environment.

“Regardless of what political party you’re in, it makes no difference,” Gore said. “This is not a political issue, it is a moral issue, it is an ethical issue, it is a spiritual issue, it is about our duty to our children and our grandchildren.”

His voice rising, Gore quoted Deuteronomy, urging Baptists to “choose life” and preserve the planet.

Rejecting the idea that the earth belongs to man, Gore said, “It is not ours,” and then quoted Psalms: “The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof.”

The crowd gave Gore a standing ovation. “It was very inspiring and effectual and well-done,” said Carolyn Staley, education minister for Pulaski Heights Baptist Church in Little Rock. “He’s such a passionate evangelist for this, and it comes from his faith.”

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 31st, 2008 at 1:35 pm and is filed under Religion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.