| BAPTISTS TODAY
News Release www.baptiststoday.org |
February 24, 2005
WASHINGTON, D.C. — First Amendment freedoms will be the focus of an April 14-15 event in the nation’s capital sponsored by the Baptist Joint Committee for Religion Liberty, Associated Baptist Press and Baptists Today news journal.
Freedom Forum executive Charles Overby, historian Walter Shurden and U.S. Reps. David Price and Chet Edwards will address the theme, “Free to Worship, Free to Know.” A panel of pastors will discuss the impact of founding freedoms on local churches.
A celebration on the Jefferson Memorial Plaza will feature historian Fred Anderson portraying John Leland, an early Baptist advocate for religious liberty. Events will be held at various D.C. landmarks and include an evening driving tour.
The conference is open to the public with a $150 registration fee covering three meals, program expenses and coach transportation to all events. Registration and housing details, along with a full schedule, may be found at www.firstfreedoms.com.
The program will conclude Friday, April 15 at 3 p.m. giving participants the chance to enjoy optional springtime activities in Washington.
The First Freedoms Project was launched in June 2004 to build awareness
of and support for a free press, religious liberty and other
historic freedoms. Baptist statesman Jimmy Allen hailed the value of this
unique partnership.
“We're needing to recover our voices,” said Allen. “How do you do that? The people who talk about championing religious freedom are joining together.”
Alabama pastor Gary Burton endorsed the project aimed at providing congregations with resources for better educating Baptist laity on founding freedoms as well as a simpler means for providing financial support to those carrying out freedom-focused ministries daily.
“The First Freedoms Project is an idea whose time has come,” said Burton, longtime pastor of Pintlala Baptist Church in Hope Hull, Ala. “Religious liberty and freedom of the press are symbiotic twins; it is scary to contemplate the domino effect when one or the other is compromised.”
The three sponsoring Baptist organizations — whose assignments are specifically tied to religious liberty and freedom of the press — are partnering with churches to discover creative ways congregations can celebrate and support America’s treasured founding freedoms.
Like Wilshire Baptist Church in Dallas has done recently, congregations are
encouraged to become First Freedoms partners by contacting one of the sponsoring
ministries: Associated Baptist Press, Greg Warner, executive editor,
1-800-340-6626; Brent Walker, executive director, Baptist Joint Committee
for Religious Liberty, 1-202-544-4226: or Baptists Today, John Pierce, executive
editor, 1-877-752-5658.
(John Pierce is executive editor of Baptists Today, an autonomous,
national news journal based in Macon, Ga.)