Editorial

It seems like every day brings a new headline about the neglect and abuse of the most vulnerable in our society – our children. The nation’s news cameras are focused regularly on our own state as another child has gone missing from the Department of Children and Families or one has been abducted, assaulted and murdered by predators who have failed to be adequately punished and removed from the public.

Reasonable citizens are left scratching their heads pondering the seemingly endless series of young victims. Why has it come to this?

Although the question is simple and the complete answer is complex, fingering one of the reasons for such a state of affairs is not beyond total comprehension.

There should be little doubt that our society’s march toward a Culture of Death is behind some of these headlines. These developments, although heinous and troubling, should not be surprising. A nation which allows the casual aborting of millions of innocent pre-born children, puts the profoundly disabled like Terri Schiavo in jeopardy, and condones one state’s affirmation of physician-assisted suicide is a society where our children – and all vulnerable citizens – are increasingly at risk.

Our Florida Legislature, as we go to press May 2, cannot come to an agreement on a simple bill requiring parents to be notified before their daughter gets an abortion. Mind you, the would-be law requires only parental notification – not approval – and pro-family forces in Tallahassee have to struggle mightily to get the bill passed!

Indeed, America is reaping today what has been sown in our nation for decades. It should be beyond debate that when our culture allows – and even celebrates – the taking of guiltless human life, debased sexual perversity and a laissez-faire approach to morality, there will be consequences. And have we seen such in recent months!

So, what should Christians do?

Cursing the darkness enveloping our society might make us temporarily feel better; retreating to our holy huddles and ignoring the peril may be sterile and uncomplicated; but neither is a proper Christian response.

The Baptist Faith and Message gives valuable guidance for followers of Christ in a sin-soaked society. In Article XV, “The Christian and the Social Order,” our statement of faith notes, “All Christians are under obligation to seek to make the will of Christ supreme in our own lives and in human society.”

The statement also asserts, “In the spirit of Christ, Christians should oppose racism, every form of greed, selfishness, and vice, and all forms of sexual immorality, including adultery, homosexuality, and pornography. We should work to provide for the orphaned, the needy, the abused, the aged, the helpless, and the sick. We should speak on behalf of the unborn and contend for the sanctity of all human life from conception to natural death.”

Florida Baptists can be grateful that our Children’s Homes is effectively taking up this obligation as it leads our state to care for defenseless and needy children and developmentally disabled adults. And, this Mother’s Day you can be a part of extending this important ministry.

Having celebrated its centennial anniversary last year, Florida Baptist Children’s Homes has served more than 23,000 children without discrimination and based solely on need. Children are helped in seven campuses from Pensacola to Miami with both their physical and spiritual needs through the ministry of Christian caregivers.

About 800 children and developmentally challenged adults per year are shown the love of Christ and given shelter in the midst of crises. Further, FBCH has a network of foster homes throughout the Sunshine State and provides adoption services, maternity care counseling, continuing education, follow-up care, developmental disabilities care and referrals.

One of the most exciting ways FBCH helps children is through its Sanctity of Human Life emphasis. Through this ministry, the Children’s Homes helps churches minister to women in crisis pregnancies, urging them to allow their unborn children to live by rejecting the false and harmful “solutions” the purveyors of the Culture of Death promulgated at abortion clinics.

My children have not known the needs experienced by the children under the care of FBCH, and neither have I. Perhaps, however, your childhood experience was not as blessed. If so, you would know better than others how important it is to serve the needs of children. All of us, then, should understand and value the critically important role Florida Baptist Children’s Homes serves the little ones of our state.

Because the Children’s Homes is a ministry of the Florida Baptist State Convention, operating under a board of directors elected by Florida Baptists, you can be certain that FBCH is managed with the highest integrity.

Like most ministries, Florida Baptist Children’s Homes operates by means of the financial support of benefactors and churches. Because FBCH is an agency of the FBSC, a major source of funding for the Homes is the Cooperative Program. Another key stream of funding comes through the annual Mother’s Day Offering. This year, the Children’s Homes hopes to raise $1.2 million through the offering, representing more than 13 percent of the ministry’s annual budget.

Every Florida Baptist has a role to play in meeting the financial needs of the Children’s Homes. Every church can set aside time for prayer for its ministry. Every Florida Baptist can give to support this critical ministry.

Perhaps my favorite quote of a political leader was uttered by President Teddy Roosevelt. In 1910 during a speech at the Sorbonne in Paris, Roosevelt uttered these memorable words:

“It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat.”

People like President Jimmy McAdams and his colleagues at Florida Baptist Children’s Homes are the ones who deserve the credit – and our best help.

Rather than getting in our holy huddles or cursing the darkness, let’s get in the arena and do our best to bring our society “under the sway of the principles of righteousness, truth and brotherly love,” as the Baptist Faith and Message asserts. One of the best ways to do so is to contribute to the Mother’s Day Offering. Please give generously to this worthy organization that is truly making a difference in our state.