Category: Uncategorized

At Mexican Border, Four in Five Drug Busts Involve American Citizens

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ImagePosted by  Pierre Berastain

“Three out of four people found with drugs by the border agency are U.S. citizens, the data show. Looked at another way, when the immigration status is known, four out of five busts—which may include multiple people—involve a U.S. citizen.”

Amidst the accusations of people like Governor Brewer and Sheriff Apaio that undocumented immigrants are dangerous criminals responsible for smuggling millions of dollars worth of drugs , this article brings a new and fresh perspective.

At Mexican Border, Four in Five Drug Busts Involve American Citizens

by , , 

The public’s view of a typical Mexican drug smuggler might not include U.S. Naval Academy grad Todd Britton-Harr, who was caught at a Border Patrol checkpoint in south Texas in December 2010 hauling a trailer with 1,100 pounds of marijuana.

Nor would someone like Laura Lynn Farris leap to mind. Border Patrol agents stopped the 52-year-old woman at a border checkpoint 15 miles south of the west Texas town of Alpine in February 2011 with 162 pounds of marijuana hidden under dirty blankets in laundry baskets. (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…)

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.

They shoot preachers, don’t they?

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By Alan Bean

In his book Don’t Shoot, criminologist David Kennedy identifies a disconnect between a criminal justice system built on the notion of personal responsibility and the fact that gang bangers think and behave as members of a group.  You can’t reduce gun violence by ratcheting up the penalties for individuals, Kennedy believes, you have to deal with entire neighborhoods at once.

Kennedy’s insight came to mind last week when I read Brent Younger’s post about “Preaching peace in a timid church“.    A few years ago, Younger moved from Broadway Baptist Church in Fort Worth to teach preaching at the McAfee School of Theology in Atlanta.

At the 2012 William Self Preaching Lectures at the McAfee School of Theology, “Preaching Peace in a Crumbling Empire,” Brian McLaren argued that the Bible is a call to speak God’s word of peace to an empire built on power.

“We preach the peace of one who was crucified, so we cannot preach power that crucifies,” McLaren said. “We preach a way of love and service, so we cannot preach conquest and domination.”

McLaren’s words in the chapel were challenging and inspiring. The words in the hall — not so much. Popular opinion seems to be that peace belongs in lectures, but not in sermons:

“That peace stuff wouldn’t fly at my church.”

“Now we know why McLaren isn’t a pastor anymore.”

“His last church must have been in Switzerland.”

“If I preach on peace, war will break out in the next deacons’ meeting.”

“I’ll preach against the war when McLaren agrees to pay my kid’s college tuition.”

In Jesus’ day prophets were run out of town, thrown off a cliff or stoned in the middle of the village. Now we dismiss prophets in the conversations between lectures.

The fear of social consequences largely determines what is said and remains unsaid in the pulpits of Christendom.  It isn’t just street punks who engage in group-think, it’s everybody.   (more…)

Cliburn gives his regards to Broadway

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By Alan Bean

Last night, Nancy and I watched a taped version of the funeral service for pianist Van Cliburn.  Eight speakers, including George W. Bush and Texas Governor Rick Perry, addressed the 1500 people seated in the theater-style “pews” of Broadway Baptist Church.  A choir of 300 belted out hymns handpicked for the occasion by the great pianist himself.  I have no intention of checking out in the near future, but if I do, I’ll go with Van’s hymn picks without exception: Love Divine All Loves Excelling, Guide Me O Thou Great Jehovah, All People that on Earth Do Dwell, When Morning Guilds the Skies, and Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing.  (You can find the complete bulletin for the service here.)

These are all old hymns, the kind that churches like Broadway keep alive.  Broadway is known as “the liberal Baptist Church” but there’s nothing liberal or avant garde about the congregation’s musical tastes.  In fact, the l-word doesn’t define the church at all, unless feeding the hungry and ministering to the homeless have suddenly become “liberal” activities.   (more…)

In Memoriam: Van Cliburn

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Van Cliburn performs in Moscow in 1958 (Courtesy of Van Cliburn Foundation) 

By Alan Bean

Acclaimed pianist Van Cliburn died yesterday after a long struggle with cancer.  The Associated Baptist Press has a wonderful piece about Cliburn’s Christian faith that features comments from key members of Broadway Baptist Church, the congregation Cliburn called home.  I have been a member of Broadway for almost two years, but I never had the pleasure of meeting it’s most famous member.  As pastor Brent Beasley notes in the ABP article, Cliburn would slip into a back pew at the beginning of the service, then slip out.  By all accounts he was a loving, shy, discreet, and deeply spiritual man. (more…)

Justice Scalia and the politics of racial resentment

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scalia-465.pngBy Alan Bean

According to Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, the Supreme Court needs to rescue Washington politicians from the scourge of political correctness.  Sure, the Senate voted 98-0 to keep key provisions of the 1965 Voting Rights Act in place, Scalia seemed to be saying, but they only voted that way because the right to vote has become a “black entitlement” and Senators didn’t see an upside to opposing civil rights.

One assumes the same arguments could have been employed against the Voting Rights Act when it was initially passed a half-century ago.  After Schwerner, Chaney and Goodman were murdered in 1964 for trying to register black voters in Mississippi, and after civil rights leaders were gassed, beaten and trampled by horses on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma,, Alabama in 1965 public opinion was inflamed and a band of craven politicians yielded to the dictates of political correctness by unconstitutionally placing sovereign states under a federal yoke.  Is that what Justice Scalia believes?  And what of Justices Roberts, Thomas, Kennedy and Alito?  Do they buy this line of reasoning? (more…)