AUSTIN—A bill requiring most women seeking abortions to undergo a sonogram at least 24 hours prior to the procedure and to hear a description of the baby’s physical features has passed both chambers of the Texas Legislature and awaits the promised signature of Republican Gov. Rick Perry.

House Bill 15 would give a woman the option of seeing her unborn baby and would require a physician or certified sonographer to describe the dimensions of the baby and the existence of the baby’s arms, legs, and internal organs, including a heartbeat, during the sonogram. 

Women living in counties of fewer than 60,000 people or beyond 100 miles of an abortion facility and those in a life-threatening “medical emergency” would be exempt from the 24-hour waiting period. Also, in cases of rape, incest or fetal abnormality, women could refuse hearing the verbal description from the sonogram.

In January at the start of the legislative session, Perry placed the bill on emergency status, giving it priority consideration over other bills.

Rep. Sid Miller, R-Stephenville, was chief sponsor of the House version, with state Sen. Dan Patrick, R-Houston, sponsoring the state Senate version. The Senate passed the bill on a third reading, 21-10, on May 3. On May 5, the House passed it, 94-41.

Patrick told the TEXAN last month that a few pro-life groups had criticized the bill as not stringent enough, but it got support from Liberty Institute, Texas Right to Life and Eagle Forum. 

It was roundly opposed by abortion rights groups, who claim it violates doctor-patient privacy. The Texas Medical Association, for example, argued it not only “sets a dangerous precedent of legislation prescribing the details of the practice of medicine, but it also clearly mandates that physicians practice in a manner inconsistent with medical ethics.”

But Miller, the House sponsor, told reporters: “House Bill 15 will protect human life, the lives of the unborn victims of abortion, as well as those facing life-changing decisions. … This legislation will save numerous unborn lives.”

After it passed the Texas Senate on May 3, Perry said in a statement: “The Texas Senate has taken admirable action today by passing this significant sonogram legislation, and I want to thank Rep. Sid Miller and Sen. Dan Patrick for their work on this issue. Ensuring Texans have access to all the information when making such an important decision is a critical step in our efforts to protect life, and I look forward to this legislation reaching my desk very soon.”

A similar bill passed last year in Oklahoma is in limbo, awaiting the outcome of a lawsuit filed by the Center for Reproductive Rights, based in New York City.

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PHOENIX—The annual Pastors’ Wives Conference will follow the same theme—“Aspire”—as the Southern Baptist Convention’s Pastors’ Conference. Kay Warren, wife of California pastor Rick Warren, will be the keynote speaker.

It is scheduled 8:30-11:45 a.m. Monday, June 13, in the North Ballroom A/B of the Phoenix Convention Center. There is no cost for the event and registration is not required. Women who serve in any area of local church leadership, missions and denominational work are invited to join ministers’ wives in attendance.

Warren is a two-time cancer survivor and an advocate for those affected by HIV/AIDS and the “global giants of spiritual darkness, lack of servant leaders, poverty, disease and ignorance.” Author of “Say Yes to God,” she is a frequent columnist in both secular and religious media. She and her husband Rick began Saddleback Church in the living room of their condominium. The church now reaches thousands of Southern Californians with the gospel.

The conference also will feature a testimony from Heather Moore of Christ Fellowship in Tampa, Fla. Barbara O’Chester of Wake Forest, N.C., will close the session with a time of guided prayer for minister’s wives.

Questions from the audience will be fielded by a panel of ministry women led by Susie Hawkins, wife of GuideStone Financial Resources President O.S. Hawkins and author of “From One Ministry Wife to Another.” Warren and Moore will join the panel, along with Lynette Ezell of Alpharetta, Ga., and Meredith Floyd of Cross Church in Fayetteville, Ark.

“We want to give our ministry wives a time of spiritual encouragement and refreshment,” said Jeana Floyd of Springdale, Ark., one of the organizers of the annual program. “The message, testimonies and interactive discussion are designed to address issues that concern our pastors’ wives today. Although our focus is ministry wives, all women are welcome.”

Joint funding for this year’s session is being provided by LifeWay Christian Resources and the North American Mission Board with displays of interest to women provided in the ballroom lobby.

DALLAS—Easter and Christmas pageants in ancient Greek? Texas college students texting each other in the language of Paul’s day? A Chihuahua that obeys the command to sit—when she hears it said the way the apostle Peter would have?

This is the not-so-far off world of Daniel Streett, associate professor of Greek and New Testament at Criswell College. Along with a handful of others worldwide, Streett is paving the way for his students to learn New Testament Greek the way other students learn modern Spanish, French, or German—as a living, oral language. Through simple commands, such as sit, stand, walk, the use of common objects and everyday phrases, as well as pictures and games like Jeopardy and UNO, Streett brings not only learning and fluency to the classroom, but also fun. 

“This method keeps the students engaged and enthusiastic,” Streett said. “They find that Greek class is actually fun, and they begin to get a feel for the language.”

Streett began using this oral language method for Greek instruction six years ago while teaching at Criswell. He was inspired by Randall Buth, a Greek and Hebrew scholar in Jerusalem who was teaching biblical languages using this approach.  

“I also knew that everyone who was actually fluent in a second language had become that way through immersion, not by learning grammatical terminology and translating texts,” Streett explained. 

Typical Greek instruction, he noted, focuses on learning grammatical terminology, memorizing charts of word-forms, and learning rules of grammar, with students memorizing one-word definitions of countless Greek terms. Streett described the process as “tedious, mind-numbing, and ineffective.”

“I quickly found that there was an overwhelming consensus that the best way to learn a language was by immersion in that language, beginning with simple, easily understood words, motions, and commands, and slowly and incrementally increasing in complexity.” 

In Streett’s experience, this was also the way that not only children but also successful adult learners learned a language. 

“Many of my graduate school peers had attended guided immersion experiences in Germany. They came back in six months much more proficient in German than they were in Greek or Hebrew, which they had studied for many years.”  

To Streett, the concept of true language fluency—the ability to pick up the New Testament and read and comprehend it as easily as if it were written in English—should be the goal of biblical language instruction.

“It seems to me that as Greek teachers, we are usually teaching students who hope to be teaching the Bible for the rest of their lives,” Streett said. “The Bible is written in Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic, and true fluency in these languages is the only thing that will give the pastor legitimate authority and confidence to speak on the meaning of the text. 

“Doesn’t it make sense to ask someone who will be spending 10 to 20 hours a week preparing to teach or teaching the Bible for the next 30 to 40 years to spend two or three years immersed in the original languages, to gain a feel for the Greek and the ability to read the text fluently for pleasure and understanding? I look at Jewish rabbis who routinely memorize the Torah and Mishnah in Hebrew. I look at the Muslim Huffadh who memorize the entire Quran in Arabic. And then I see the dearth of Greek and Hebrew proficiency among evangelical pastors and I can’t help but think what that would say to an outsider about how seriously or unseriously we take our sacred texts.”

Despite the potential benefits of God’s people when pastors become fully fluent in Greek, the greatest opposition Streett found to the method was the notion that biblical Greek was a “dead” language. Therefore ministry students didn’t need to speak ancient Greek, they just needed to read it. But Streett didn’t accept this notion.  

“Was it really dead? I could accept that a language like Ugaritic or Hittite, for which we possess only fragments of a language, was dead. But we have more ancient Greek than we could read in 10 lifetimes. There is appropriate vocabulary for everything under the sun. And, to top it off, we have a modern version of the language that provides us with words for modern items. Most words in modern Greek are based off classical roots and require only slight modification to transform them in ancient Greek structure.” 

Excited about the possibilities of providing his students an alternative means to embrace biblical Greek, Streett began to adapt an oral language learning approach to his own classroom. He soon realized this would be far more difficult than a more traditional approach—despite having studied biblical Greek for six years, for the first time in his life Streett would have to think in Greek. John Schwandt, senior fellow of classical languages at New Saint Andrews College in Moscow, Idaho, and director of the National Biblical Greek Exam, has also been teaching Greek as well as Latin orally for a number of years. A fellow member with Streett of the Society of Biblical Literature, Schwandt commiserates with Streett’s struggle to teach in this manner.

“I had to relearn how I learned Greek. Often in Greek courses we talk about the language, but we don’t actually learn the language. So we have this shell game going on where we call this learning the language. If there is no meaning for the Greek text to us, then we are trusting in our method, not the text itself.

“When you have students going around and talking in the language, then reading with ease, there is a great reward,” Schwandt continued. “It makes such a difference to read the Bible and realize that Greek can actually live—you can read God’s Word as he actually preserved it. It’s an amazing experience.”

As one of Streett’s students, David Burnett agrees with Schwandt.  

“For students who are training to be effective pastors and teachers of God’s Word, Dr. Streett has removed the fear from learning Greek,” Burnett said. “He is making it possible for someone who is not inherently a linguist to have the ability to learn the ancient language in which our holy text was penned.”

For his part, Streett is troubled by the false sense of comfort typical Greek instruction offers Bible students.  

“The Bible wasn’t written in English, so when we read it in English, in a sense we’re seeing through a veil. When a student learns to use tools like lexicons and grammar texts, we think they’ve lifted the veil, but they’ve actually only thinned it.”

The only way to lift that veil, Streett argued, is to follow the natural linguistic pattern for learning languages, where reading comes after hearing and speaking, not before. 

“Language is internalized by hearing and speaking. Reading is as easy as recognizing the written form of the words that you already know. Put simply, if you want to learn to read a language, the best way to do it is first to learn to converse in the language. To read for enjoyment you must be fluent in the language. But you cannot become fluent in the language solely by reading.”

Having joined Streett’s class after having become discouraged by his own inability to comprehend the Greek text, Burnett said he has seen remarkable progress in his own Greek abilities.  

“After a year of studying Greek, I felt as though I might be able to parse a few verbs here and there, but I wouldn’t be able to simply pick up my Greek New Testament and read it with any level of comprehension,” Burnett explained. “In the first year of Dr. Streett’s immersive method of teaching Greek, we learned triple the vocabulary of a normal first year Greek student—over 1,000 words—and most of them were learned intuitively through spoken and heard repetition.”

All of this, Streett said, came from rudimentary beginnings.  

“When I began, I had no worthwhile functional ability in Greek, and I had virtually no ability to speak Greek, or to understand Greek texts read out loud—which incidentally is the way early Christians would have originally encountered them!” he said.

“My wife and I acquired a Chihuahua, whom we named Athena, and we trained her in Greek. Chihuahuas are not very smart—their brains being about the size of a pea—but Athena has done well with her limited resources. Due to my wife’s rigorous training, Athena now responds to sit, lay down, come, eat, walk, outside, well done, stretch, fetch, and heel.”

Streett’s point: “My dog now knows more Greek now than I knew when I began teaching!”

SAN ANTONIO—Cooperative Program receipts were ahead of budget in the first quarter of 2011 and were $480,777 ahead compared to the same time last year, the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention Executive Board was told during its April 26 meeting in San Antonio.

The board hired a new Hispanic Initiative & Ethnic Ministries associate, Jesse Contreras, and learned of the planned retirement of Don Cass, SBTC evangelism director, who joined the convention staff eight years ago. In a letter copied to board members, Cass said he plans to leave his post at the end of February 2012.

The board also approved the affiliation of 58 churches while also clearing its roll of 39 congregations. Of those, 33 have disbanded, three disaffiliated with the SBTC and three others merged with other churches. The total number of SBTC affiliated churches as of May 4 was 2,362. 

GIVING AHEAD OF BUDGET
The $6.28 million in undesignated receipts was $33,747 ahead of budget through the end of March, Chief Financial Officer Joe Davis reported. Compared to the same period last year, CP receipts were up $480,777. Total net operating income through March was $373,138.

The 2011 CP budget is $24,940,475, with 45 percent—or $11,752,726—marked for in-state ministry.

Through March, giving through the Reach Texas Offering for state missions was up $5,722 over the same period last year; the Lottie Moon Offering for International Missions and the Annie Armstrong Offering for North American Missions were both down from a year ago, by $750,667 and $78,213, respectively.

Davis also reported that a $422,631 CP shortfall at year’s end was offset mostly by under-spending, resulting in a total net operating income of $1,101,553 as of Dec. 31.

NEW ASSOCIATE
Contreras, the newly elected associate for the Hispanic Initiative and Ethnic Ministries, will direct and assist with the Spanish-language portions of the SBTC annual meeting and the Empower Evangelism Conference, youth camp at Alto Frio, regional Spanish equipping conferences, and related ministries with and for Hispanic Baptists and other ethnic groups.

Contreras came to faith in Christ following the witness of Criswell College students in 1992. He went on to earn a bachelor of arts in biblical studies and a master of arts in Christian education from Criswell.

Contreras has served churches in the Dallas-Fort Worth area and in Manila, The Philippines. Most recently, he was worship and discipleship pastor at Woodbridge Bible Fellowship in Wylie. 

A native of Monterrey, Mexico, Contreras moved to Dallas in 1985. He and his wife Wendy have three children.

CASS RETIREMENT
Cass said in his retirement letter, addressed to SBTC Executive Director Jim Richards and copied to the board, “I can hardly believe I am at that [retirement] stage in life, but reality tells me I am.”

Cass said his frequent travel schedule and his wife’s scheduled back surgery—her fifth—makes his continuing as evangelism director “no longer wise.”

“Forty-five years ago I promised her and God that next to Jesus she would be my highest priority in life and I must keep that promise,” he wrote.

Cass came to the SBTC as evangelism director on March 1, 2004, succeeding interim director Ronnie Yarber. He served six years as New Mexico Baptists’ evangelism director and also served as an associate evangelism director at the Baptist General Convention of Texas as well as pastor of numerous churches in Texas and New Mexico.   

SBTC FOUNDATION
Johnathan Gray, SBTC Foundation executive director, told the board the foundation’s assets as of Dec. 31 had grown to nearly $20 million. Gray said the SBTCF Enhanced Cash Fund—a short-term investment available to churches and ministry institutions—ended the year with an annualized 1.4 percent return. Meanwhile, the annual return rate of the SBTCF Endowment Fund was 13.52 percent while the SBTCF Income Fund garnered an annual return rate of 7.41 percent.

The foundation has also begun offering the Next Generation Fund, a perpetual ministry fund that annually support the ministries aided by the Reach Texas Offering, Gray said.

Also, Gray said an online estate planner is now accessible at sbtexasfoundation.com.

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR’S REPORT 
SBTC Executive Director Jim Richards spent most of his report time speaking of the Cooperative Program, the unified missions funding channel that fuels cooperative Southern Baptist work in Texas and worldwide.

Richards said a CP Summit in February with leading CP giving churches revealed that more needs to be done in explaining and promoting CP to church leaders and members. He lauded a new promotional video (accessible at sbtexas.com/CP) that includes testimonies of how the CP propels ministry endeavors in Texas and beyond.

“The response to the renewed emphasis on the Cooperative Program has been encouraging and the confidence that we have here in Texas in the SBTC CP has been a blessing. But there still are some alarming trends,” Richards said. “And these trends show us that unless there is more information and then enthusiasm of giving through the Cooperative Program, that there will be a debilitating effect.” 

Over a 15-year-span, “the dollars have increased, the church budgets have increased, but the Cooperative Program percentage of giving has decreased,” Richards said, adding that at current levels of giving decline, the SBC missionary and education ministries could become “unsustainable.” 

“And the only thing we can do is turn it around. So let’s turn it around. It’s not time to give up, it’s time now to be enthused by all these testimonies we’ve heard, all these people who are getting saved, all these new churches getting started. It’s because we’re doing it together. We’re doing it through the Cooperative Program.”

Richards urged pastors and lay persons to join the convention staff in taking up the cause of championing the Cooperative Program. 

JACKSON, Tenn.—For decades Southern Baptists have mourned biblical illiteracy among children and adults in local churches and more broadly among the general population. Former Texan George Guthrie experienced this frustration firsthand as a Baptist college professor who found incoming freshmen averaging just 57 percent on a basic biblical literacy exam he offers at the beginning of each semester. 

While Guthrie teaches at a school where the average ACT score is over 25 and most students grew up attending Southern Baptist churches, his results were consistent with what other professors reported at top Christian universities across the United States.

It’s not that the multiple-choice questions he asks are terribly hard: Which of these books would you find in the New Testament? Whom did Pontius Pilate release during Jesus’ trial? How many temptations did Jesus experience in the wilderness? Where would you look in the Bible to find the Sermon on the Mount?

Compared to a catechism used before the founding of America which taught children to remember “K is for Korah, God’s wrath he defied and low to devour him the earth opened wide,” the test Guthrie composed should be a breeze.

Unfortunately, the track record among older adults is no better. “Ask one hundred church members if they have read the Bible today and eighty-four of them will say ‘no.’ Ask them if they have read the Bible at least once in the past week, and sixty-eight of them will say ‘no,’” Guthrie wrote. 

“Even more disconcerting, ask those one hundred church members if reading or studying the Bible has made any significant difference in the way they live their lives. Only thirty-seven out of one hundred will say ‘yes,’” he reported.

“Since we as Christians should be ‘people of the Book,’ something is wrong with this picture. We should know the Bible well, but we really don’t. All of the polls show those who claim to be evangelical Christians only do marginally better than their nonbelieving neighbors when asked questions about the content of the Bible, and a biblical view of the world is not making inroads into how we think about and live our lives.”

Ultimately, Guthrie said, “Our biblical illiteracy hurts us personally, hurts our churches, hurts our witness, and thus, hurts the advancement of the gospel in the world.”

Two Southern Baptists have teamed up with LifeWay Christian Resources to recover biblical literacy among a people known for their allegiance to the Word of God. Knowing that the challenge requires an air assault and a ground war, Guthrie and Alabama pastor David Platt are enlisting church leaders and especially families to emphasize the goal of an initiative known as “Read the Bible for Life.”

“As a pastor, I’m fighting the air war,” Platt explained during a recent workshop promoting the campaign. Like thousands of Southern Baptist pastors, Platt said he exposes those attending worship services to the Word of God week by week. “But if all they’re doing is sitting in a seat and listening to me, once a week, preach the Word, it’s not going to soak in where biblical orientation can take hold.”

That’s where the ground war comes in, Platt said. “Through Sunday School classes or small groups—however the structure looks—this is how the gospel will spread through the ends of the earth with disciples making disciples more than events where you go listen to good Bible teachers.”

Platt said the focus on church and worship gatherings tends to “squash out spreading the Word in the seats or pews.” To make a difference, individual believers must “fight the ground war hard core,” he told church leaders April 15-16. “Wherever you have spheres of influence, saturate with the Word.”

He and award-winning musician and author Michael Card joined Guthrie, the Benjamin W. Perry Professor of Bible at Union University in Jackson, Tenn., to train 700 church leaders and students to utilize the curriculum in their own ministry settings. Nine of Union’s Christian studies faculty led breakout sessions on related topics, with podcasts available at uu.edu/events/ReadtheBibleforLife/.

“We all need to realize this is a spiritual dynamic,” Guthrie related. “It is not a natural thing for people to orient their lives around the Word of God, an ancient book, rather than go with natural currents of the culture.” With that in mind, he urged those leading out in the fight for biblical literacy to pray consistently that God would bring about a deep commitment to the Word.

B&H Publishing Group, the trade publishing arm of LifeWay Christian Resources of the Southern Baptist Convention, in partnership with Union’s Ryan Center for Biblical Studies, has already released Guthrie’s book “Read the Bible for Life: Your Guide to Understanding and Living God’s Word.” It features 16 narrative conversations the author conducted with biblical scholars, discussing basic tools and attitudes needed to read the Bible more effectively and includes several daily Bible reading plans and interactive application.

The companion video curriculum is designed specifically for small groups and includes creative teaching segments, interactive exercises and guest interviews with many of the scholars featured in the book.

It’s not a one-size-fits-all approach he’s recommending; some churches will utilize the curriculum in Sunday School or small groups, many will take advantage of individual reading plans and others will involve the whole congregation studying together. 

“You have to be obedient to what God calls you to do in your own life and your family and the ministry of teaching God has given you in the local church. Be available, and then make Spirit-led appeals in the church to consider some of the opportunities we’re talking about,” he told conference participants.

Guthrie described the nine-week curriculum as basic training, offering a 30-minute video-based instruction and the expectation that actual teachers—not just facilitators—will instruct class participants in that week’s assignment while students keep up with workbook lessons at home.

“It walks through a step-by-step process of how we read the Psalms, etc., and doesn’t go into great depth, but there are basic principles so that people will ask questions,” he explained. “If you’re reading about Gideon, you’ll ask how is God the hero of this story. What does this have to do with God’s covenant?” The book itself offers greater detail for those who want to study beyond the workbook.

Directing participants in the curriculum back to God as the source and subject of every biblical passage, Guthrie warns against viewing the Bible as a self-help book, looking primarily for what it says to or about our lives.

“It’s true that the Bible is relevant to us and should be applied to our lives, but we can discover its true relevance only to the extent that we encounter God through Scripture,” he writes in one workbook chapter. 

After receiving an orientation during the nine-week study, churches are encouraged to read through Scripture together over the course of a year, preferably while the pastor preaches through highlights in his messages.

“Obviously a pastor can’t preach everything, but you get the framework for the story of Scripture.” In the process, Guthrie said, students remember the principles they learned during the foundational study and hear those reinforced.

“We need people reading the Bible individually, discussing it in small groups and hearing dynamic messages on key passages, and then it starts coming together.”

In November LifeWay will release “Reading God’s Story: A Chronological Daily Bible” organized to make clear the step-by-step development of the biblical story and “A Reader’s Guide to the Bible,” featuring a one-year chronological Bible reading plan and brief commentary, coaching readers to apply the Scripture to life. Union University will be posting podcasts of the chronological readings for download by those who prefer to listen to Scripture being read.

Guthrie will serve as keynote speaker for a promotion of “Read the Bible for Life (RTB4L)” sponsored by the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention. The training is planned from 9 a.m.-1:30 p.m. on Sept. 9 at First Baptist Church of Euless. Breakout sessions will be offered to apply RTB4L throughout all of church life. How to apply RTB4L to children’s ministry will be taught by Karen Kennemur, Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary assistant professor for childhood education.

A session on using the approach with students will be led by Ken Lasater, a family approach session will be led by Lance Crowell, and “Connecting RTB4L with Your Sermons and Running a RTB4L Campaign in Your Church” will be led by Kenneth Priest along with Guthrie. Lasater, Crowell and Priest are SBTC ministry associates. A working lunch will be offered during the final breakout session and Guthrie will deliver the final keynote message to close the session.

While the SBTC’s training will help church leaders involve all ages in Bible study, Guthrie said he hopes to see parents teaching their own children instead of following a common trend of passing the buck to Sunday School teachers who have limited influence and time.

“We’ve been hustling to get the four main tools out there,” Guthrie said in answer to a question about additional age-graded resources. “What we’re doing in the first phase is to provide foundational tools for the church as a whole, though teenagers can certainly engage in the video curriculum and book as it is written at a level that is very readable,” he responded. 

When The Church at Brook Hills in Birmingham utilized the curriculum, Platt and other staff members developed family devotion guides that track with the chronological reading plan and are making them available to download.

“My heart and David’s is the same in that I really believe the beginning place for all this is the family,” Guthrie shared. “If parents will read the Word, love the Word and live the Word in the context of their family, that’s the real foundation they need. In some ways that’s far more than any graded Sunday School.” 

Platt added: “That’s why we wanted to equip our heads of households in our church to walk their children through the Word together.” The four-page daily worship guides are based around the text for that week with a teaching guide to make the material applicable for preschoolers, children or youth; a prayer card for the nations; Scripture memory and worship song and a coloring page based on the lesson.

Ryan Center for Biblical Studies Director Ray Van Ness closed the April conference by holding up a copy of the 1615 edition of the Geneva Bible, reminding those present of the power of Scripture to change the world. 

“God has done this before in the church,” Van Ness said. “He is ready and willing to bless us in this Word.”
 
More information about the book, as well as other resources about the “Read the Bible for Life” project are available at readthebibleforlife.com. Guthrie’s blog and many of his interviews are available at blog.georgehguthrie.com.

WASHINGTON (BP)–The U.S. House of Representatives passed a government-wide ban on abortion funding in a 251-175 vote May 4. 

The bill — the No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act, H.R. 3 — would institute a permanent prohibition on federal funds and subsidies for abortion. It would serve to standardize bans on abortion funding that now exist in various federal programs, many of which have to be approved each year, and make certain the prohibition extends to all agencies. The ban would apply to last year's health-care reform law, which authorizes federal subsidies for insurance plans that cover abortion. In addition, it also would establish conscience clause protections for pro-life, health-care providers.

The legislation, however, seems destined to fail in this congressional session. It faces likely defeat in the Senate. Even if it were to survive the Senate, President Obama seems certain to veto it. The White House released a statement May 2 saying it opposes the bill and the president would be advised to use his veto power to thwart it. 

Southern Baptist ethicist Richard Land urged selected House members to vote for the bill in a May 3 letter.

“We find it unconscionable that a single taxpayer dollar be funneled to abortion,” the president of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission said. The legislation's passage would mean “concerns on abortion funding would be significantly abated,” Land said.

The No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act seeks to address a problem in the effort to prevent federal money from underwriting abortion — the need to reauthorize yearly many bans in a variety of government programs. It would bring together in one permanent law such pro-life riders as the Hyde Amendment, which bans Health and Human Services funds from paying for abortion; and the Smith Amendment, which applies a similar prohibition to federal employees.

The House-passed legislation includes exceptions for abortions in cases of a danger to the mother's life and pregnancy by rape or incest.

Rep. Chris Smith, R.-N.J., is the chief sponsor of the bill, and Rep. Dan Lipinski of Illinois is the lead Democratic cosponsor. 

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Compiled by Tom Strode, Washington bureau chief for Baptist Press. See how your representative voted at http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2011/roll292.xml

SOUTH ASIA (BP)–While some Americans danced in the streets and chanted “USA! USA!” in response to Osama bin Laden's death on Sunday, others fell to their knees in prayer. 



American workers in South Asia prayed for doors to open in the Muslim world to the Gospel with the death of the al-Qaida leader. They prayed for the safety of Americans living throughout the Muslim world as fears of retaliation surfaced. And they prayed for local Christians who might be subjected to possible persecution.



The 10-year hunt for bin Laden has been seen as a war against Islam throughout much of the Muslim world and not just an attack on terrorism.



Bin Laden was the architect of a number of atrocities, including the attacks on New York and Washington on September 11, 2001 — as well as the death of countless thousands in other parts of the world. To many in the West, bin Laden was the embodiment of global terrorism, but to many in South Asia, he was revered as one who fought world powers in the name of jihad.



Deanna Cassmore*, a Christian living in South Asia, encouraged fellow Christians to pray for the possible volatile situation in Muslim countries around the world.



“Praying immediately for peace to prevail is the only thing that can keep things under control,” Cassmore said. “There is a very real mob mentality that takes over in situations like this, so praying for believers and Americans [in these areas] can save lives.”



Cassmore once visited the area where bin Laden and his colleagues hid out, just outside of Islamabad. She described it as a beautiful city near the mountains.



“I was surprised this morning when they said that was where bin Laden stayed,” she said. “I could picture in my mind many, many places in the tribal areas where he might have hid — mountains, caves, deserted valley — but I never dreamed he would be in the city.”



Goldie Francis* said she was “weirdly sad” to receive the news. The American Christian who has lived in South Asia for years had been praying for bin Laden's salvation.



Cade Rutledge*, another American living in South Asia, said he first heard about the death over the loudspeakers at his neighborhood mosque.



“They weren't talking in an angry way,” Rutledge said. “It feels like a calm before a storm. You just don't know how people are going to react.”



Christians in Pakistan and other surrounding countries said Monday was peaceful, but word about America's ground operation that killed the man at the top of the U.S. “most wanted” list was just starting to get out.



Those living in Pakistan warned that while the average Pakistani does not support al-Qaida or bin Laden, many in the country were not happy that American soldiers were on Pakistani soil. They fear retaliation will be taken out on local Christians. 



Any conflict involving America often implicates local believers. Christianity is associated with America.



“Pray for strength to stand firm in persecution,” Leigh Weil*, a Christian who lives in South Asia said. “People are kidnapped and killed every day. Pray that [Christians] will stand firm in their faith.”



A senior U.S. official warned U.S. citizens living abroad to take extra safety precautions this week. Rutledge and other foreign Christians said their national friends often warn them when trouble is brewing.



Darren Cantwell*, a Christian leader in South Asia, said when he lived in Pakistan his landlord would tell his family not to go out when unrest was possible. The landlord was so protective that he would even go get groceries or whatever the family needed in an effort to keep them safe.



Rutledge and Weil said it's often hard for Americans to think of Muslims in this area of the world as “people.”



“Everybody here does not support the Taliban [or al-Qaida],” Weil said. “They're people. They want peace. They are in a struggle for freedom. 



“These are real people, with real issues. Moms. Dads. Looking for jobs. Looking for peace. It's this internal struggle that everyone has until they find that freedom in Christ,” she continued. “They're not all scary terrorists.”



Cantwell said now is the time to pray for doors to open in the Muslim world. With the death of bin Laden, the Christian worker asks Christians to pray for Muslims — in America and the rest of the world — to seek truth in a fresh way.



Among the prayer requests of Christian workers in South Asia:



— Pray for security and peace to reign in the hearts of those in countries where demonstrations due to bin Laden's death are possible.



— Pray for opportunities for Christian workers and local Christians to share their faith with their friends.



— Pray for all, that their hearts be open to the Gospel as they contemplate their eternal destination.



— Pray for those who are tired of radical reactions to world events that have led to the death of thousands. Pray that they find peace and the strength to change their communities for the better.



— Pray that national Christians will respond in love and compassion to their Muslim neighbors, no matter what their reaction may be to bin Laden's death.

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*Names changed. Susie Rain is an International Mission Board editor/writer living in Southeast Asia. Torie Speicher contributed to this article.