A Common Peace Community takes root

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photo (1)By Alan Bean

The Common Peace Community was inaugurated on Saturday, March 23rd at Broadway Baptist Church with thirty-five wonderful people in attendance.  As participants entered the Good Shepherd Room, Al Travis, Broadway’s gifted organist, played softly in the background.  After we all had our food and were gathered around the tables, we talked about why we had come and what we were hoping to see.  The Rev. Sue Turner gave an eloquent invocation and then it was my turn to explain what a Common Peace Community is all about.  Here’s what I said: (more…)

Tale of murder and insanity puts prison on trial

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By Alan Bean

It now appears that Evan Spencer Ebel, recently paroled from a Colorado prison, murdered Nate Leon, a pizza delivery man, then, last Tuesday evening, went to the front door of Colorado prisons chief Tom Clements a shot him dead.

Two days later, Ebel was pulled over in Wise County, Texas by officers who thought he looked suspicious.  Ebel started shooting and led officers on a 100 mile per hour chase before wrecking the car.  He was taken to the hospital with a head wound and died shortly after arrival.

Ballistics tests link the gun Ebel fired at police officers in Texas to shells recovered at the scene of the Colorado murders.  Dominos Pizza paraphernalia was recovered from the black Cadillac Ebel was driving when he died in Texas. (more…)

Dinner with Lazarus

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By Charles Kiker

Six days before the Passover Jesus Came to Bethany, the home of Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead. There they gave a dinner for him. Martha served, and Lazarus was one of those at the table with him. Mary took a pound of costly perfume, made of pure nard, anointed Jesus’ feet, and wiped them with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume. But Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples (the one who was about to betray him), said, ‘Why was this perfume not sold for three hundred denarii and the money given to the poor?’ . . . Jesus said, ‘Leave her alone. She bought it so that she might keep it for the day of my burial. You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me.

When the great crowd of the Jews learned that he was there, they came not only because of Jesus, but also to see Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead. So the chief priests planned to put Lazarus to death as well, since it was on account of him that many of the Jews were deserting and were believing in Jesus.

Lazarus is there. Lazarus! Just a day or two before, Lazarus was dead! Dead! All bound up in grave clothes; wrapped up in the wrappings of death! He had been dead long enough that Martha objected, when Jesus asked them to roll away the stone from the mouth of the tomb, “Lord! By this time he’ll stink. He’s been dead four days.” (more…)

Putting Jesus back on trial

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Alan Bean

On Maundy Thursday, Mark Osler and Jeanne Bishop will be staging their 12th re-enactment of the trial of Jesus, this time using Texas law and legal procedure.

If Jesus was tried in a Texas court would he have been sentenced to life in prison, death, or would he have been acquitted?  Holy Week is the perfect time to reflect on this question and this article from the Austin American-Statesman gives Osler and Bishop  an opportunity to explain why they are putting Jesus on trial all over again.

Some might take offense at the very idea of placing Jesus on trial, in Texas or anywhere else; after all, he is the Son of God and all.

But there were good reasons for hauling Jesus in front of Pontius Pilate in the first century.  As Jeanne Bishop puts it: “When you tell people to give to the poor and sell everything you own and follow me, or you’re saying, ‘Turn the other cheek; don’t resist an evildoer,’ those are subversive things.”

Drama asks audience to consider Christ, death penalty

By Juan Castillo

American-Statesman Staff

If Jesus were prosecuted today under Texas law, what would we do?

Would we sentence him to a life behind bars, or would we sentence him to death? (more…)

District Attorney Drops Sexual Assault Charges on Legacy SMU Student

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This post by Friends of Justice intern Pierre Berastain originally appeared in Huffington Post

By Pierre Berastain

According to the Dallas Morning News, “The Dallas County district attorney’s office said Monday that a sexual assault charge against former SMU student John David ‘J.D.’ Mahaffey was dropped because prosecutors didn’t have evidence to show it wasn’t consensual.” According to the affidavit, Mahaffey forced another student to give him oral sex and warned him, “You better not tell a soul.” In a recorded phone conversation at SMU Police offices, the student tells Mahaffey, “You know I did not want to do that,” to which Mahaffey responds, “I know you didn’t, but we have to say it was consensual or lawyers, parents and the school will be involved.”

In November a grand jury indicted Mahaffey, but now the Dallas County District Attorney’s Office has dropped the charges, indicating that it does not have enough evidence to prosecute him. Mahaffey is a member of the fraternity Sigma Phi Epsilon and a legacy whose great-great-grandfather was on SMU’s founding committee. (more…)

In Memoriam: Gordon Cosby

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Mary and Gordon Cosby, circa 1960
Mary and Gordon Cosby, circa 1960

By Alan Bean

Gordon Cosby died yesterday at the tender age of 94.  With his wife, Mary, Gordon founded the Church of the Savior, and a long list of spin-off ministries, in Washington DC, over a period of sixty incredible years.  The Cosby’s are best known for their Journey Inward-Journey Outward approach to life and ministry: grounding doing in being and being in doing.

I only met the Cosby’s once, and not at the same time.  Gordon preached at the chapel of Southern Seminary in Louisville in the late 1970s and my wife, Nancy, was selected to give the introduction.  Nancy recalls that as they waited for the service to begin the seminary chaplain was babbling on about nothing in particular.  “Excuse me,” Cosby interrupted gently, “I am preparing myself for worship.”  The Church of the Savior was almost 30 years old at this time, and Cosby (who seemed pretty old to me) had over three more decades of ministry before him. (more…)

Racist comments disrupt CPAC “Race Card” session

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Pro-slavery comments from the audience drew unwanted attention to a breakout session at last week’s CPAC convention.  The session was called, “Trump the Race Card: Are You Sick and Tired of Being Called a Racist and You Know You’re Not One”.  Unfortunately, some attendees were racist and proud of it.  Or, to put the matter more delicately, they were proud of “their demographic” and feared that once-dominant white folks are gradually being disenfranchised.   (more…)

Lutheran Pastor shares God’s love for the poor

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Rev. Alexia Salvatierra

The Rev. Alexia Salvatierra will be speaking at our Common Peace Community kickoff event at 12 noon at Broadway Baptist Church this coming Saturday.  Alexia is a pastor with the Evangelical Church in America who works with the working poor of California (among other things).  She gives the lie to the common (and understandable) notion that evangelicals don’t care about the poor.  Caring about the poor is at the heart of Alexia’s life–and should be at the heart of ours.  We invite you to worship and rejoice with us on Saturday.

A changed life gets a second chance

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Nazry and Hope Mustakim

By Alan Bean

Hope and Nazry Mustakim will be speaking at the kickoff event for our Common Peace Community on Saturday.  If you live in the DFW area, we invite you to join us at 12 noon in Room 302 at Broadway Baptist Church in Fort Worth.  Hope didn’t have to worry about the Department of Homeland Security until she married a man from Singapore.  That simple decision opened a door to a strange and frightening world.

Armed immigration agents woke Nazry Mustakim and his wife, Hope, as dawn broke on March 30, 2011, banging on the door of their North Waco home. Even as they handcuffed 32-year-old Naz, as friends and family know him, agents promised the arrest was merely administrative. He’d be released within hours, they said. “His case had just been flagged for some reason,” Hope said. “I was told he’d be out in no time.” Naz texted his call-center boss, saying he’d be late for work.

Days later, however, U.S. Immigration and Customs officials told Hope that Naz would be deported to Singapore and he was sent to the ICE detention center in Pearsall, south of San Antonio, to wait. (more…)