"Allow me to now make come connections that should cause NC Baptist to pay attention. As you look to the committees that were structured for the planning of this celebration you will notice some very well connected NC Baptist. First I want to point your attention to the Program Committee and you will not that Dr. Bill Leonard is a member of this committee. Dr. Leonard is the Dean of the Divinity School at Wake Forest University. You will remember that this is the divinity school that would not take a stand against receiving Gay and Lesbian Students to study for the ministry. It is not about the students themselves, but the fact that we have a Divinity School that does not support the scripture as speaking to the issue of homosexuality. Second, I want to point your attention to the Finance Committee. You will note that Dr. Mike Queen, Pastor of First Baptist Wilmington being involved in that committee. Dr. Queen, you will remember is a former President of the Executive Committee of the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina. While this does not really concern me as Dr. Queen is a pastor of an autonomous church, it would concern me if he were serving in a leadership position within our state convention at present. Third, there are 2 other NC Baptist connections serving on the Communications Committee that does concern me. One is Mrs. Ruby Fulbright. Mrs. Fulbright, as you know, is the Executive Director of WMU-NC. The same WMU-NC that recently left moved out from under the umbrella of the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina because they wanted to ‘do missions with other groups’. It seems that Mrs. Fulbright may have found another source of funding outside of NC Baptist by taking part in this celebration. Also, it concerns me to find Dr. Tony Cartledge listed as a member of this committee. It does not surprise me, but it does concern me that we have a professor teaching in a NC Baptist college/divinity school that will attend a celebration that puts down bible believing Baptist as being some fundamentalist idiots. Why does it concern me? Campbell University has a desire to still have access to the students in NC Baptist churches. These NC Baptist churches have repeatedly voted to align ourselves more fully with the Southern Baptist Convention, and we are sending our students to a school whose professors, at least one, openly plan a meeting to speak against the very rallying cry of the SBC." --- from : Southern Baptist In NC
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No wonder Dr. Queen said that I would've enjoyed the New Baptist Covenant Celebration ---anything that annoys Fundamentalists that much is a good thing.
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Unrelated but in the same vein I also discovered this older article:
Same-sex ceremony to be permitted in Wake Forest University's chapel
By Art Toalston
Oct. 11, 1999
http://www.bpnews.net/BPnews.asp?ID=71
WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. (BP)--A same-sex “covenant” ceremony for a Wake Forest University divinity school student and her lesbian partner has cleared by the president and chaplain of the university which until recent years had been affiliated with the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina.
Wake Forest Baptist Church, which meets in the university’s Wait Chapel, will conduct the same-sex ceremony, if the two women choose to proceed with the marriage-like ceremony.
At issue has been the holding of such a ceremony in a university facility.
In August, university chaplain Ed Christman declined to schedule the women’s ceremony, citing the lack of a university policy for such ceremonies. Christman, a member of Wake Forest Baptist Church, referred the matter to university President Thomas K. Hearn Jr., another member of the congregation.
Hearn turned the issue over to the university's board of trustees. A committee formed by the board issued a statement in September asking the church not to hold such ceremonies. The committee's report also noted the church's autonomy and said the university did not want to restrict the church's worship practices, according to an Oct. 8 article in the state Baptist newsjournal, the Biblical Recorder.
Hearn stated in his Sept. 28 ''State of the University'' speech it has never been the university's intention to interfere with Wake Forest Baptist Church’s internal matters, the Winston-Salem Journal reported. ''Nowhere does the [trustee committee] statement prohibit or forbid the church from doing anything,'' Hearn was quoted as saying.
In an Oct. 7 article, chaplain Christman then was quoted as saying that Hearn’s comments settled the question of university policy. Christman’s office controls scheduling for Wait Chapel.
The 24-student divinity school opened this fall with Bill Leonard, a longtime Baptist historian, as dean.
The divinity school receives part of its funding from the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, a national denomination-like organization of Baptist moderates.
Among the divinity school’s faculty members is James Dunn, recently retired as executive director of the Baptist Joint Committee on Public Affairs. At the divinity school, Dunn is visiting professor of Christianity and public policy.
The trustee committee which addressed the same-sex marriage issue was chaired by Mike Queen, pastor of First Baptist Church in Wilmington and a Wake Forest alumnus.
Queen declined additional comment to the Biblical Recorder, noting that his term as a trustee had just ended. "We've done our work," he told the journal. "We made our recommendation."
Hearn, in his "State of the University" address, said the trustees' report had been "all but universally misunderstood,” the Biblical Recorder recounted.
The trustees did not "forbid" or "prohibit" the church from doing anything, Hearn said. “In summary, Wake Forest deferred a liturgical, religious question to the appropriate body, the church."
-- End of story --
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