C. Lacy Thompson LBM Associate Editor   Someone recently wrote a column about how modern technology was supposed to free persons from being tied to "the office." Someone recently wrote a column about how modern technology was supposed to free persons from being tied to "the office."   Instead, the high-tech, computerized, e-mailing, cell phoning, voice messaging, handheld organizing world of the new century has done the opposite, the writer said.   Now, the entire world is one big office, the writer stressed. A person never is out of touch, never unavailable, always on call.   Such a situation creates some obvious problems - including spiritual ones.   "Be still, and know that I am God," the Old Testament psalmist urged.   And while the idea of "stillness" or solitude or silence may seem foreign in this mad-dash world, the truth of the verse still stands. The bottom line is simple - there is a direct correlation between "stillness" and one’s awareness of God.   Conversely, one also must suppose a correlation between the rush of the modern world and the growing spiritual confusion of so many people in it.   "Be still, and know … [Read more...]

Polly House Baptist Press   Have you heard about the latest epidemic? Signs of it can be found everywhere.   "Man, I never seem to get everything done these days."   "I know we need to get together, but there never is enough time." Have you heard about the latest epidemic? Signs of it can be found everywhere.   "Man, I never seem to get everything done these days."   "I know we need to get together, but there never is enough time."   "I figured out that between the cell phone, beeper, e-mail and regular telephone, I’m never ever alone."   As even casual observation reveals, there is an epidemic of "hurry sickness" in today’s run-as-fast-as-you-can world, John Tadlock emphasized recently.   "Everyone is busy," said Tadlock, collegiate ministries group leader with the Baptist General Association of Virginia. "Everyone uses the words, ‘There aren’t enough hours in a day.’ "   However, the truth is that days have the same number of hours they always have, Tadlock noted during a recent Southern Baptist conference in Glorieta, N.M.   The truth is that "hurry sickness" is spreading like wildfire.   Hurry … [Read more...]

The case of a lost Chandra Levy stubbornly refuses to fade from the news. The day this "On Second Thought" is written, Congressman Gary Condit is scheduled to be interviewed by Connie Chung this evening. We could hope enough questions will be answered The case of a lost Chandra Levy stubbornly refuses to fade from the news. The day this "On Second Thought" is written, Congressman Gary Condit is scheduled to be interviewed by Connie Chung this evening. We could hope enough questions will be answered at least to stop the cable-news-programs-turned- tabloids-of-the-airways from rehashing the situation 10 hours every day. That likely will not happen. Newspapers, magazines and broadcast programs will still manage to have every self-professed expert in any field discuss all they do not know and a smidgen of what they do know about anything even remotely related to the case.   One thing we have seen - we have seen an unrelenting search for Ms. Levy. The glaring searchlights of the media and public attention drove Washington, D.C. police and then the Federal Bureau of Investigation, to use every means possible to find either the living Ms. Levy or her dead body. While law enforcement has halted urgent physical … [Read more...]

Incidents of religious intolerance around the world are taking to a "tsunami wave," warned Paul Dekar, professor of evangelism and missions at Memphis (Tenn.) Theological Seminary. Incidents of religious intolerance around the world are taking to a "tsunami wave," warned Paul Dekar, professor of evangelism and missions at Memphis (Tenn.) Theological Seminary.   "(The) global scope of violations of religious freedom, as well as human rights generally, far exceeds the capacity of global institutions ... to address them," Dekar told the Baptist World Alliance Freedom and Justice Commission.   Dekar reminded the commission that the Baptist World Alliance is a frontline organization for Baptists in the fight for religious freedom, which is a biblical concern.   "Our concern for religious freedom begins with the Bible," Dekar recently emphasized.   He listed four crucial absolutes:   •Each human bears the image and likeness of God   •In Christ, believers participate in the divine nature   •In everything, believers are called to do to others as we would have them do to us   •God hates injustice and oppression, "and God weeps over what … [Read more...]

P>It is the fall of 2001 - do you know where your child is on the Internet?   Parents may not be as sure of the answer as they once were. It is the fall of 2001 - do you know where your child is on the Internet?   Parents may not be as sure of the answer as they once were.   Indeed, a new front in the battle over online pornography has opened, disabling some of the defenses used by parents to protect children from such material, a new congressional report charges.   Internet file-sharing programs are enabling users to download sexually explicit videos and photographs onto home computers, circumventing much of the filtering software designed to block the reception of pornography from the World Wide Web.   Hard-core adult pornography, child porn, sexual violence and bestiality are accessible without charge to people of all ages through new file-sharing programs such as Music City Morpheus, Aimster and BearShare. Users of such programs can even be unintentionally exposed to pornography when searching for other images.   That unsettling news for parents and others concerned about the proliferation of pornography came in a report issued by a section of … [Read more...]

It is the fall of 2001 - do you know where your child is on the Internet?   Parents may not be as sure of the answer as they once were. It is the fall of 2001 - do you know where your child is on the Internet?   Parents may not be as sure of the answer as they once were.   Indeed, a new front in the battle over online pornography has opened, disabling some of the defenses used by parents to protect children from such material, a new congressional report charges.   Internet file-sharing programs are enabling users to download sexually explicit videos and photographs onto home computers, circumventing much of the filtering software designed to block the reception of pornography from the World Wide Web.   Hard-core adult pornography, child porn, sexual violence and bestiality are accessible without charge to people of all ages through new file-sharing programs such as Music City Morpheus, Aimster and BearShare. Users of such programs can even be unintentionally exposed to pornography when searching for other images.   That unsettling news for parents and others concerned about the proliferation of pornography came in a report issued by a section of … [Read more...]

Sharon Pumpelly goes to work every day knowing that 500 people in her country will die of AIDS before the sun sets.   It is a race against the clock that Christian workers across Africa are fighting. The AIDS epidemic already has claimed 13 million Africans. Still, it is one that can be stopped. Sharon Pumpelly goes to work every day knowing that 500 people in her country will die of AIDS before the sun sets.   It is a race against the clock that Christian workers across Africa are fighting. The AIDS epidemic already has claimed 13 million Africans. Still, it is one that can be stopped.   Southern Baptist missionaries and their African partners are seeking that end. They do not want multitudes of Africans to die before hearing of God’s love and forgiveness.   "I keep saying one generation could end AIDS - one generation of young people following God’s ways," says Pumpelly, a Southern Baptist missions worker in Kenya. "Either I’m ignorant enough or naive enough or have faith enough to believe that’s how youth should be challenged. ... They are the hope, and they can make that kind of choice."   That hope prompted Pumpelly and a student ministry team in Uganda, … [Read more...]

As AIDS ravages the continent of Africa, Southern Bsptists and others respond with God's love and a message of hope for the future   Sue Sprenkle SBC International Mission Board As AIDS ravages the continent of Africa, Southern Bsptists and others respond with God's love and a message of hope for the future   The elderly woman sits in silence just outside the hospital’s open door. The electricity is off, but she does not notice the darkness. In a moment, a loud sob escapes her lips. It is the sound of grief - her daughter died just 20 minutes ago. Now, the woman grabs the hand of the person next to her and lets out a piercing wail. Soon, the wail turns into a slow, sad, mournful song.   For the past few days, this elderly woman sat next to her daughter, holding her hand, coaxing her to eat. When the daughter shivered from burning fever, she added a blanket. As visitors came and went, the mother made sure everyone greeted her daughter, even after the girl was comatose.   When the room filled with the sickening, sweet smell of death, everyone left but the mother - still smiling, still hoping.   In the hallways of Zimbabwe’s Sanyati Baptist Hospital, no one … [Read more...]

Teresa Young Wayland University   It was not a matter of breaking new ground or setting a precedent - and it was not about who was right or wrong. It was not a matter of breaking new ground or setting a precedent - and it was not about who was right or wrong.   For Annie Taylor, applying to attend Wayland Baptist University in Plainview, Texas, was simply a matter of convenience.   Still, her act - and the college’s acceptance of her application - would gain international media exposure for its role as a blow to the nation’s practice of segregation.   This year marks the 50th anniversary of Wayland’s voluntary move to integrate, making it the first four-year, liberal arts college in the former Confederacy to do so.   Taylor had a simple goal in submitting her application. The 48-year-old black teacher from Floydada, Texas, needed a few classes in order to keep her teacher certification. A couple of other schools were options - but Wayland College made more sense. It was only 30 miles away.   Still, this was 1951, a time when the United States still separated blacks from whites in restaurants, restrooms, drinking fountains and … [Read more...]

News that a Texas husband and wife were convicted in the largest child pornography business ever uncovered was not surprising to Richard Land.   Indeed, his concern is that the news was shocking to most other Americans. News that a Texas husband and wife were convicted in the largest child pornography business ever uncovered was not surprising to Richard Land.   Indeed, his concern is that the news was shocking to most other Americans.   The international porn ring is still being broken up, U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft reported after the August 8 conviction of the Texas couple.   As president of the Southern Baptist Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, Land said he knows that the growth of the Internet has brought nearly as much bad as good. And the ready availability of online child pornography is a case in point, he said.   Land cited a March 19, 2001, Newsweek report that legal authorities had done a good job in busting up child porn rings until the Internet provided a whole new and wide-open avenue for propagating the filth.   "Child pornography was pretty much eradicated in the 1980s," said Kevin Delli-Colli, chief of the U.S. Customs … [Read more...]