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HORSESHOE BAY, Texas ? Baptist editors were urged to remain faithful to their calling as truth-tellers for Southern Baptists during the 2009 Association of State Baptist Papers fellowship in Horseshoe Bay, Feb. 10-13. The meeting was hosted by the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention.
Keynote speaker and founder of WORLD magazine, Joel Belz, also called on the editors not to abandon print media, but instead to infuse their work with a Christian worldview.
“Now when we live in a time when the printed page is called an endangered species, I want to say to you don’t believe it,” said Belz, who writes a weekly column for WORLD and is co-author of “Whirled Views,” a collection of columns with WORLD Editor-in-Chief Marvin Olasky. “It is still a powerful, powerful tool once you learn to make it useful.”
WORLD magazine’s roots draw from the Presbyterian Journal, a North Carolina newspaper founded by Nelson Bell, the father-in-law of Billy Graham, and God’s World, a weekly series for children that is still published today. Although WORLD faced a rocky start, the “senior version” of the kids magazine just recently surpassed the circulation of Christianity Today.
But even with a strong subscription list, Belz said he still has difficulty finding qualified writers to evaluate movies, books, music and art for the magazine’s review section. The founder eventually developed three criteria. First, a reporter must “see” accurately what is going on in any piece of art. Second, a reporter must report with interest what they have seen. And third, the reporter must write from a shepherd’s heart.
As he developed his qualifications for the review section, Belz said he realized those qualifications applied to the entire magazine, whether covering the federal stimulus bill or international issues.
“The basic premise of WORLD is from 1 John 1: 3, which states, ‘What we have seen and heard we declare to you.’ We are not there to simply warm over other people’s reports. [We] ask questions and see it for ourselves,” he said, adding that they recently sent a reporter to Baghdad for a week. “I’m not sure how many of you have done reporting in other countries. I like to be where I am safe, but if I am safe will I see what’s true?”
The tension between reporting from a position of safety and truly engaging the truth of a story is felt by every reporter, Belz said. The tension can also be seen in a church setting as editors seek to discern issues in a local church, region, or convention.
“When you talk to people, are you talking from a perspective of safety or are you talking from a perspective of seeing the truth?” he asked. “I discovered right away that what I thought at first for the review section was applicable to the whole magazine.”
But the call to be a truth-teller also applies to a believer’s personal walk with God, Belz said.
“It is incumbent on you as a disciple of Jesus to work harder and harder to see the world the way he sees it. That is what Christian worldview thinking is ? you see the world the way God sees it,” he said. “That is your task, not just as an editor, publisher or church person, but as a disciple of Jesus to see the world in crisper and crisper terms the way God sees it. And then to bear witness to what you’ve seen with interest.”
In the same way a reporter tries to draw a reader into his story, believers should seek to draw the lost into the gospel message.
“You don’t want to be Jesus’ witness with boring language ? you want to put it in sparkling terms [to those] who may have never heard.”
Held in connection with the fellowship of State Convention Executive Directors, editors also received updates from media representatives of LifeWay Christian Resources, the International Mission Board, the North American Mission Board, as well as remarks on the national evangelism initiative known as GPS (God’s Plan for Sharing) by NAMB President Geoff Hammond.
At the invitation of ASBP President Gary Ledbetter, two SBC entities appeared for the first time in decades to give reports t
