Southern Baptists in Congress return to D.C.
No Southern Baptist members of Congress lost their seats in the Nov. 4 elections. Both senators and all 23 representatives who are members of Southern Baptist churches and were on the general-election ballot gained victories. Six Southern Baptists who are in the current Congress will not return to office, however. Four members of the House of Representatives decided not to run for re-election. Another Southern Baptist, after three terms in the House, ran for the Senate but lost, and a first-term House member in Tennessee lost in the GOP primary. In South Carolina, Lindsey Graham, R., seeking second term, a member of Corinth Baptist Church, Seneca, defeated Bob Conley, D. For the State House of Representatives, Henry Brown, R., First District, seeking fifth term, a member of Cooper River Baptist Church, North Charleston, defeated Linda Ketner, D.; and Gresham Barrett, R., Third District, seeking fourth term, a member of Westminster Baptist Church, Westminster, defeated Jane Dyer, D.
Pakistan earthquake assessment underway
Southern Baptists are assessing relief needs in the aftermath of a strong pre-dawn earthquake in southwestern Pakistan Oct. 29. Thousands of homes were destroyed or buried by landslides that also have blocked roads, according to news reports out of the region. The earliest reports listed at least 150 people killed. Many survivors will be faced with near-freezing nighttime temperatures. Government officials reported they were distributing tents, blankets and food into the quake zone. A Southern Baptist assessment team will work to identify which needs they can help with and look for communities not being adequately reached by relief efforts. Jim Brown, director of the U.S. office for Baptist Global Response, called for prayer “that God would work in this crisis to help people understand how much he loves them and wants them to experience lives filled with hope and purpose.”
Firm hopeful for stem cell trials
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration may permit clinical trials using embryonic stem cells to begin within three months, a biotechnology firm has reported. Tom Okarma, president of Geron Corp., said the firm has been working to overcome a hold placed by the FDA on the company’s application for a trial with human beings on a compound procured from embryonic stem cells to treat spinal cord injuries, according to a blog on The Scientist’s Internet site. The FDA placed a hold in May on the application. The FDA’s review process is nearly complete, and it may drop the hold within the next three months, Okarma told The Scientist, which is a magazine on the life sciences. A Southern Baptist bioethicist says, however, that review won’t solve at least one major problem: “Clinical trials using human embryos destroyed for their stem cells present a monumental ethical obstacle,” said C. Ben Mitchell, a professor of bioethics and contemporary culture at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. “Living human beings are purposefully killed in order to test medical treatments for other human beings.”
Grant, former N.C. editor, dies
Marse Grant, 88, editor emeritus of North Carolina Baptists’ Biblical Recorder, died Oct. 17 at his home in Raleigh. Grant edited the Recorder from 1960-82, longer than any other editor in the paper’s history. He previously was editor of Charity and Children, a North Carolina Baptist Children’s Homes publication, from 1949-59. Grant became one of the best-known North Carolina Baptists, attending more than 50 North Carolina Baptist State Convention annual meetings. Under his leadership, the Recorder’s circulation peaked at more than 120,000 in 1978.
Pastor freed, hospitalized after kidnapping
Southern Baptist pastor Manuel Jesus Tec is free after 11 days of torture at the hands of kidnappers who abducted him in Tijuana, Mexico, Oct. 21. Tec is recuperating at a San Diego hospital. Tec, 59, was released around 6 a.m. on Oct. 31. The family was instructed to meet one of the kidnappers under a bridge around 3:30 a.m. that morning. One of the pastor’s sons arrived at the bridge and was told his father would be delivered in five minutes. After two hours passed, the son returned home alone. The kidnappers had loosely buried his father under gravel and sand and shot at him with “some kind of a machine gun,” according to what the pastor later recounted. Fortunately, none of the bullets struck him. Policemen – possibly hearing the gunshots – found Tec, pulled him from the sand and carried him to a hospital. Around 8 a.m. on Friday, the Tijuana hospital contacted the family. The armed kidnappers abducted Tec, who is is pastor of a new Hispanic church plant in San Diego, as he was crossing over the border from San Diego.