Today's BP Ledger contains items from:

William Carey Library

World News Service (two items)

Hardin-Simmons University

New Ralph D. Winter Biography Highlights Lasting Impact of Sometimes Controversial World-Changer

PASADENA, Calif. (William Carey Library) -- Legendary American missionary strategist Ralph D. Winter always provoked strong reactions, one way or another. The U.S. Center for World Mission and William Carey Library are bringing us an important biography, The Ralph D. Winter Story: How One Man Dared to Shake Up World Missions (William Carey Library, 2013), by renowned author Harold Fickett. This long overdue book captures both the genius and the controversy of a self-described "social engineer," named by TIME magazine as one of the 25 Most Influential Evangelicals in America.

Winter (1924-2009), who revolutionized our understanding of the missionary task and championed a truly innovative approach to training global church leaders, had plenty of influential fans.

-- Billy Graham wrote, "Ralph Winter has not only helped promote evangelism among many mission boards around the world, but by his research, training and publishing he has accelerated world evangelization."

-- Missionary statesman Ray Tallman described him as "perhaps the most influential person in missions of the last 50 years."

However, some who worked most closely with Winter didn't always see him that way.

-- A mission administrator said: "A great deal could be written about his transient ideas and schemes, many of them impracticable and not founded upon careful planning."

-- Said another missionary colleague, frustrated by the constant questions and tinkering of Ralph Winter and his wife, Roberta: "One of the two of us will have to leave."

Both views of Winter, who founded both the U.S. Center for World Mission and William Carey Library, were true at different points in his long and productive life … and The Ralph D. Winter Story reveals how both worked together to shape the man who came up with innovative solutions to problems missionaries face in expanding the kingdom of God.

The book also shows how Winter grappled with the theological meaning of the bone-marrow cancer that eventually killed both Roberta and himself. His tentative answers on "evil intelligent design" provoked new ways of thinking, fresh controversy, and a unique initiative—the Roberta Winter Institute, which focuses on the wide open field of disease eradication for the glory of God.

The Ralph D. Winter Story: How One Man Dared to Shake Up World Missions, published by William Carey Library, provides an outstanding look at the life, ministry, and continuing influence of one of the true giants of the evangelical missionary movement, and indeed of contemporary evangelical faith.

Based in Pasadena near the campus of the U.S. Center for World Mission, William Carey Library publishes and distributes books and other materials used to mobilize individuals and organizations in world mission. Founded in 1969 to publish, at reasonable cost, the best in current thinking on world mission, William Carey Library has especially sought to assist the work of the mission executive, the field missionary and his/her home church, and the student of world mission. In publishing, William Carey Library has specialized in short print runs of valuable books that other publishers might not find attractive or feasible. In distribution, William Carey Library has sought to distribute at low cost not only its own books, but also selected mission resources from other publishers.

Founded in 1976, the U.S. Center for World Mission (USCWM) has sought to foster cooperation between organizations focused on the world's unreached peoples. Not only is William Carey Library a cooperating agency at the USCWM, but for many years William Carey Library and the USCWM have enjoyed a management partnership in which William Carey Library has published or distributed many of the key resources the USCWM has promoted.

**********

Faithful Leadership in Indiana

By Russ Pulliam

INDIANAPOLIS (World News Service) -- The Christian conservative movement may be dwindling in other parts of the country, but in Indiana politics it has matured into a dominant influence in state government. The handoff from Gov. Mitch Daniels to his successor, former U.S. Rep. Mike Pence, on Jan. 7 illustrates the trend.

Pence is more vocal than Daniels about his personal faith in Jesus Christ and has been a favorite of Tea Party conservatives for his fiscal conservatism during his time in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Daniels shares the same faith in Christ as Pence but has a more Presbyterian reticence in how he expresses his commitment. And during his years in the governor's mansion, Daniels has come across as more of a fiscal conservative than a social one.

Together the two Republican politicians provide an intriguing opportunity to compare and contrast how Christians carry their faith into the public arena.

For Indiana Republicans, Daniels has been the state's strongest governor since Oliver P. Morton, who served during the Civil War. Facing a big deficit when he took office in 2005, Daniels moved quickly to cut spending and balance the budget. He leased the state toll road, unleashing $2.5 billion worth of road and highway improvements that his predecessors had drawn up on paper but never could figure out how to finance. He got the General Assembly to put the state on daylight savings time—a big deal that had divided the state for years. He shortened the waiting time at Bureau of Motor Vehicle license branch facilities.

The big and small stuff added up, and Daniels won a second term in 2008, even as Barack Obama became the first Democrat to carry the state in a presidential election since the Lyndon Johnson landslide of 1964.

In his second term, Daniels pushed through the state's biggest education changes in history: more charter schools, private school scholarships for poor children to escape public schools, and merit pay for teachers. His fiscal conservatism came in handy during the recession, as the state suffered less than neighbors such as Michigan, Illinois, and Ohio.

Like former President Ronald Reagan, Daniels had lots of liberal critics, but even some of his critics came to appreciate parts of his second-term record. He's leaving the state with a AAA credit rating and a $1 billion surplus.

Daniels' emphasis on the economy tended to obscure a solid record as a social conservative. Quiet about how his faith drives him, he prefers Bible passages such as James 1:22, to be a doer of a Word rather than a talker about it. Before he was governor, Daniels helped start an inner-city private school in Indianapolis, Oaks Academy, with a remarkable 50-50 racial balance mixed with classical and Christian emphases. Daniels is a no-nonsense manager and doesn't cry for the cameras the way former President Bill Clinton could. But he could break down emotionally in speaking to smaller audiences about the faith side of this educational endeavor, remembering the prayer meetings late at night when the school was about to run out of money in its early years. Oaks Academy also became an anchor in a neighborhood transformation of what had been one of the worst crime sections of the city. It also indirectly laid the groundwork for education reform in the state, by showing how high expectations could lead to better education in a low-income part of town.

Daniels also gave eloquent speeches about the crying need for each child to have a father and mother staying committed to each other, for the sake of the children. He had practiced what he preached, both in deepening his faith in Christ and reuniting with his wife, Cheri, after a divorce in the 1990s.

Yet, in contrast to Pence, Daniels was never a big favorite of Christian conservative groups in Indiana or nationally. He once called for a truce on social issues debate, trying to make the point that a nation that literally runs out of cash cannot pay for military defense or anything else. Economists explaining dismal truths are seldom popular.

Even so, for a time in 2011 Daniels could have jumped into the GOP presidential race and perhaps could have offered a stronger challenge to Barack Obama than Mitt Romney. Instead he'll be president of Purdue University in West Lafayette, Ind., and try his reform-minded hand on higher education.

His successor in the governor's mansion doesn't have the same hard-nosed managerial style. Like Daniels, Pence was a conservative presidential hope in 2011, but his advisers realized he should seek executive branch experience rather than try to be the first person to go from the U.S. House of Representatives to the White House since James Garfield in 1881.

Pence talks about taking the state from good to great. A former radio talk show host, he's more of a cheerleader than Daniels. He's been a favorite among Christian conservatives in Indiana and nationally. His family is a part of the nondenominational Community Church of Greenwood, Ind., whereas Daniels has been a long-time member of Tabernacle Presbyterian Church, with its history of inner-city mission in Indianapolis.

What's surprising is how two Christian conservatives, of different styles but very similar views of the world, have come to dominate Indiana in recent years, even as Barack Obama worked his electioneering magic on the state in 2008 over John McCain.

Timing may be a factor. Daniels was an influential behind-the-scenes political player for 30 years in Indiana circles. When he decided to run for governor in 2004 and try to end 16 years of Democratic dominance of the governor's mansion, other potential GOP rivals stepped out of his way. Daniels never identified himself as a conservative-movement candidate in the first place, and he wasn't especially public about his faith. But he had keen grasp of market economics and he applied it at the state level with unusual success.

Pence, 53, a decade younger than Daniels, 63, had run for the U.S. House in 1988 and 1990, losing both times. He put his Christian faith to work in the aftermath, repenting publicly of negative campaigning and befriending Democrats as he spent the 1990s in the political wilderness of Indiana talk radio. Coming back into politics in a 2000 race for the House, he quickly became a leader of conservatives in Congress and helped them enlarge their numbers and influence until he ran for governor.

The Religious Right movement may not be so much dead or dwindling as it is evolving in states such as Indiana. Politically, the movement is not only strong in the governor's office, but also in Indiana's General Assembly, with a number of younger Christian conservatives working their way into leadership positions.

The era of top-down national leadership of a Pat Robertson or a James Dobson has faded. But a voter hunger for leaders of faith and limited government is still available for the harvest by competent candidates like Daniels and Pence.

********** Continued...