Cyclones of Color at Jupiter’s North Pole-JPL/NASA
“We should always be disposed to believe that that which appears white is really black if the hierarchy of the Church so decides.” Saint Ignatius
My mom will probably come home tomorrow. She will need lots of help but she shall live to discuss her political beliefs another day, willingly drinking warm ginger ale. Thank you for your kindness and prayers. The following is the post I was working on when she had to be rushed to the hospital. One really nice thing happened. I found out my best friend in high school reads this blog and she contacted me while I was in the ER. I look forward to connecting with her!
After years of being told *I just don’t understand* when it comes to the oft-described *autonomy* of each SBC church, I’m gratified to see some others questioning the standard answer…”We can’t tell individual churches what to do. There is no hierarchy.” It appears that the ERLC a member of the SBC hierarchy (think Russell Moore) has gotten itself into a bit of a pickle.
Robert Downen and John Tedesco exposed the deeply disturbing issue of sexual abuse in the SBC in Abuse of Faith: 20 years, 700 victims: Southern Baptist sexual abuse spreads as leaders resist reforms
I don’t want to rehash the quickly broken promises of the JD Greear. Southern Baptist Convention President J.D. Greear: Combating sexual abuse not a distraction but gospel issue. Caring Well was a one and done. Having spoken with a group of pastors in the SBC, I came to the conclusion that nothing was going to change. The promise that the Credential Committee would be willing to unseat messengers from churches that covered up sex abuse was a joke from the start. There was a dirty little secret that Greear and bros didn’t mention. If the SBC actually did something, they would give fodder to the lawyers and victims. That fodder? Maybe, just maybe, the SBC functions as a hierarchy after all. Could the SBC be held liable for abuse in the member churches?
Here is your prime example that the SBC won’t punish any member church for covering up sex abuse. Steve Bradley (Stonebridge Church) Who Didn’t Report Jules Woodson’s Abuse and Refuses to Speak With Her, Was Commended By the Credentialing Committee For Exemplifying SBC Faith and Practices
Jules’ abuse was admitted by her abuser. Steve Bradley, the lead pastor, didn’t report it. He refuses to speak with Jules. This is a slam dunk for the Credentials Committee. Yet after a year, they claimed that Bradley and the church do things in keeping with the Baptist Faith and Message so Jules needs to go away. They believe that pastors who don’t report abuse are good little Baptists. Greear is nowhere to be found. He’s got more important things to do than worry about sex abuse. The CC even lied in their letter to Jules, claiming they read her blog. She doesn’t have a blog.
In the meantime, CJ Mahaney’s Sovereign Grace Louisville is still a member of the SBC in spite of Mohler’s *I believe there was a problem.* In fact, no church has been given the ridiculously mild *You can’t send messengers* to our vaunted SBC annual meeting. Not one!!!
So what’s the problem?
I had a feeling something was up when I read Jules’ letter from the CC. Are they really that stupid? Or are they scared about something? Downen and Tedesco give us some answers in Southern Baptist Convention claims no control over local churches. But new rules, lawsuit may test that argument
Years ago, I had an Anglican pastor tell me I should have brought the problems of sex abuse in my former church to the SBC hierarchy. I think he thought I was lying when I said there was no hierarchy and no one to whom I could appeal. In fact, JD Greear, crying crocodile tears for the victims of sexual abuse, already knew the SBC could be in serious trouble over this issue. Did you know that last year the SBC received $11.6 billion in donations? And, as we know, it’s usually all about the $$$$$$.
A day before the Southern Baptist Convention adopted reforms in response to an ongoing sexual abuse crisis, a Baptist leader (Joe Knott a well connected NC lawyer and Baptist bigwig) warned the measures might make it easier for abuse victims to sue the organization — and gain access to the hundreds of millions of dollars it collects every year.
You see, even the credentialing thing (saying that the churches are in keeping with the Baptist Faith and message and eligible to send messengers to the annual meeting) could be a problem.
“I don’t see how in the world we’re supposed to know how 50,000 churches are acting,” Knott said. “But if we’re telling the public, ‘We do know, we’ve given them credentials,’ that seems to be a big problem potentially.”
Knott is correct. The SBC doesn’t control everyone but they can control what they want (in my opinion.) For example, they would not allow a church that had a homosexual pastor to be a member. When I have brought this up, I’m told some variation of “It’s against the SBC standards* except that wasn’t my point. I was attempting to show that the SBC does control the actions of its member churches.
For decades, Southern Baptist lawyers have argued the convention has no oversight over any of the churches that voluntarily cooperate with one another, but do not answer to an authority figure such as a pope. They maintain the SBC cannot be held liable in lawsuits filed against any of the 47,000 churches that make up the nation’s second-largest faith group.
I kept being told that the courts would never hold them responsible. Yet, that made no sense to me. What I didn’t know is that this so-called autonomy has not been tested in court Uh oh!
August “Augie” Boto, a longtime leader and general counsel for the SBC’s executive committee, said the SBC has yet to be named in an abuse lawsuit that reached the appellate courts.
That means that there’s no legal precedent for the argument that the SBC has routinely claimed — that church autonomy protects the SBC from litigation, Boto said.
In fact, that challenge is happening now.
Those findings are now at the heart of a Virginia lawsuit that claims negligence by local, state and national Baptist leaders. The suit’s plaintiffs say eight boys were molested or raped by youth minister Jeffrey Dale Clark, who was later convicted of criminal charges.
The victims sued Clark’s church and other parties. Then, in a rare move, they added the SBC as a defendant.
I wrote about this lawsuit in January 2020. Prediction: SBC Entities Will Be Sued Because the *Doctrine* of Autonomy of Churches Is Not Easily Understood or Accepted and Will Be Challenged In the post I quoted Boz Tchividjian who appeared to agree with me.
In Friday’s TWW post, lawyer Boz Tchividjian appeared to disagree that the SBC churches function autonomously. Boz called out the supposed autonomy of the SBC polity.
You will recognize what he said about this since many on TWW have said the same thing. He said a system that claims to have little or no authority over local churches would somehow find that authority if a church hired a woman or a gay person as pastor.
And the heat is getting ramped up. The Florida Baptist Convention had a multi-million settlement over a sex abuse situation.
While the SBC has avoided any legal liabilities in sexual abuse lawsuits, a recent case in Florida involving a convicted child molester resulted in a multi-million dollar settlement in 2014 against the Florida Baptist Convention, a state organization of Southern Baptists.
That lawsuit argued that Florida Baptist leaders failed to fully check the background of Doug Myers, who had been accused of misconduct in Maryland and Alabama in the years before he began abusing a child at a church he had established on behalf of Florida Southern Baptist groups.
The ERLC messed up in an amicus brief by using the word *hierarchy” and I predict there is trouble ahead for the SBC.
And the SBC got to work denying there is a hierarchy. The Christian Index posted an opinion piece to make sure no one in their right minds would think there was a hierarchy. There is absolutely no SBC hierarchy So why are they so worried? Randy Davis of the Tennessee Baptist Mission Board explains.
I emphasize this point because of a recent amicus brief signed and submitted by the SBC Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC) related to the legal case of Will McRaney v. NAMB. An amicus brief is a “friend of the court” statement submitted by a party or an organization interested in the argument of a case in which that party or organization – in this case the ERLC – is not one of the litigants. In the amicus brief, the ERLC included language, namely the use of “hierarchy,” that misstates and misrepresents the historic non-connectionism, autonomous polity of Baptists, and incorrectly describes the hierarchal relationship between SBC entities and churches. It’s only one word, but destructive to our understanding of how we relate to one another and has significant future legal implications.
Most of the rest of this post is what appears to me to be a frantic denial that there is any sort of hierarchy in the SBC.
Your churches (SBC) send messengers to our conventions, SBC, and TBC. Those messengers elect trustees for SBC and TBC entities. Those trustees represent the interests of churches in relation to those institutions, guiding those institutions to act in accordance with the collective wishes of churches. Churches do not act in accordance with the wishes of institutions. That is why board trustee engagement in the policies and procedures of all our entities is so vitally important. It is not an honorary appointment that garners a participation certificate. Trusteeship is a legal responsibility of serious importance.
We even codify this structure in Article IV of the SBC Constitution to prevent a denominational hierarchy: “While independent and sovereign in its own sphere, the Convention does not claim and will never attempt to exercise any authority over any other Baptist body, whether church, auxiliary organization, associations, or conventions.”
If we allow drift from this benchmark polity, the damage will be extremely significant and invite grave consequences.
Those consequences? It has to be the Benjamins.
And he knows that the amicus brief which uses the word hierarchy by the ERLC is an egregious error that must be corrected.
By egregious he means super-dee-duper crazy bad and that the ERLC better do something quick. He’s right.
My hope is that the ERLC would take immediate action to rectify this egregious erro
The truth has been unveiled and I believe that the SBC may lose on this one.
The cat is out of the bag. The amicus brief has been sitting out there for a while. Whatever one says on the Internet is forever. The word *hierarchy* will come back to haunt those in charge of the SBC. Yes, there are people who are in charge of the SBC. That is a problem in and of itself.
I have had this autonomy thing explained to me over and over again by SBC people that I truly respect. Call me thickheaded (and they will.) However, if I still don’t get this autonomy thing, there are many others out there who will not. Some of those people will be sitting judges and, possibly, sitting juries instead of a dull-witted blogger.
1
Seems like its a Mal-archy!
Not only did the ERLC’s brief refer to the SBC as a “hierarchy,” but it also stated that the Southern Baptist Convention “is the umbrella Southern Baptist governing body over all of the various groups of churches.” See page 10 of the brief. http://willmcraney.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/ERLC-amicus-brief-for-NAMB-Ezell-En-Banc.pdf
“denial that there is any sort of hierarchy in the SBC”
As a 70+ year ex-Southern Baptist (New Calvinism ran me off), I can tell you that there is a hierarchical pyramid of sorts within the denomination. Local churches are members of regional “Associations” … Associations report to State Conventions … State Conventions are members of the national Southern Baptist Convention. At each level, the higher entity exerts a certain level influence over the lower one. Local churches support the associations and State Convention. The State Conventions send money gathered from individual church congregations to support the work of SBC agencies at the top of the pyramid (seminaries, home and international mission agencies, publishing house, ERLC, etc.). The State boys are always pleading for more money; a high percentage of it is filtered off to pay hefty salaries of State executives.
Local churches are “autonomous” as long as they believe and behave according to the authorities above them. Once they wander outside of the lines, higher-uppers call them into account. There is a big brother watching every local church – he’s called the Director of Missions … there’s one at each regional Association. Put a woman in the pulpit and you’ll hear from him and executives at the State Convention!
Because like Calvary Chapel (my local clone donor for non-Denoms), they are autonomous independent churchers when that is to their advantage and a single steamroller marching in lockstep when that is to their advangage. (Note the one constant in both.)
Disperse for Defense, Concentrate for Attack.
Wasn’t stripping the pew-sitters to send all those Benjamins to the Vatican a real big issue almost exactly 500 years ago?
As far back as 1990, Baptist scholar and Boston U professor of religion Nancy Ammerman cited research that scaled the degree of local church autonomy in various U.S. denominations, and concluded that Southern Baptists were “among the most tightly-knit, hierarchically functioning denominations in America.” (Baptist Battles at pp. 260, 270 – a book that won the Distinguished Book Award from the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion)
So, I don’t think the ERLC made a mistake. Rather, it told the truth of de facto reality as it has long existed in the SBC. They may claim that they are non-hierarchical, but in actual practice, they are “hierarchically functioning.”
It would seem that the Conservative Resurgence history would be admissible evidence. Baptist leaders where able to establish a standard of favor vs. non-favor within the Convention.
Just further example(s) of the lack of integrity in SBC leadership..
.
Quoting from the opening post:
🙂
AKA “Not my circus, not my monkey.”
The “Conservative” Resurgence was a “Calvinist” resurgence in disguise. Talk about hierarchy! The movers and shakers of New Calvinism within SBC (Al Mohler et al.) imposed Calvinist belief and practice on millions of non-Calvinist Southern Baptists who didn’t ask for it! They have been busy through stealth and deception to Calvinize the SBC; the new reformers now control all key SBC entities (seminaries, mission agencies, publishing house, ERLC, church planting program, and a growing number of churches taken over by lying their way into pulpits). Local congregations autonomous? … nah, they are puppets which will lose their churches if they don’t bow to the New Calvinist movement.
Blessings to your Mom and you. There are often competing demands between pursuit of Truth and the requirements of Family and most of us agree that the latter comes first. But thank you for your dedication to the former! I feel like it’s 2001 and you and a small group of like-principled collaborators are the Globe Spotlight team, alone against the combined powers of the Church, but able to prevail because you persisted.
And as Max alluded up-thread, if there’s ever a woman allowed in the pulpit, they’ll (the hierarchy) swing into action faster than you can say one-timothy-two-twelve…
That book needs to get into the right hands . . . namely attorneys for the plaintiffs!!
OOOOOOOOOH, YOU OWN THEM! LEGALLY!
What is puzzling you is the nature of their game…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MF9fGKxS8Kk
Jesus weeps?
Yep, and galatians-three-twenty-eight won’t delay them one bit.
SBC leaders tend to have a real “Pontius Pilate” mentality when it comes down to leadership. Churches are only ‘autonomous’ so long as that autonomy suits the leaders. When we approached our area missionary about the issue of too many churches being planted in a concentrated area around us, he played the ‘autonomy’ trump card, and basically told us that church planters can plant wherever they want. By throwing down the ‘autonomy’ card, leaders seem to think that they are absolved of any kind of responsibility to do the right thing.
The Bible says otherwise in James 4:17, “So for one who knows the right thing to do and does not do it, for him it is sin.” God isn’t fooled in the least by their little ‘autonomy’ game!
When choosing churches, Ummmmm remember to always think twice…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1AdPY73qxo
Perhaps a contractual strategy could work.
Local congregations could be required, in order to be recognized as being in friendly cooperation with the SBC, to indemnify SBC entities against all damage awards arising out of suits in which the local congregation, or officers thereof, is the principal defendant.
I would think that failure to promise to indemnify would be a pretty strong hint of “unfriendliness.”
This thought is offered only half in snark. Few congregations would agree to such terms as a condition for contributing to SBC entities (and enjoying the benefits of SBC recognition). It’s sort of a group-level analogue to the unwisdom of members signing church membership contracts.
In the past (pre-New Calvinism), it was a noble thing for local churches to give to SBC’s Cooperative Program, Annie Armstrong Offering, and Lottie Moon Offering … to support home and foreign missions … it was a way to be a part of a bigger thing in the U.S. and around the world. Now, a lion’s share of those funds are directed to finance the New Calvinist takeover of the denomination. The church planting program alone expends $60 million per year to plant reformed theology throughout the U.S. … without asking millions of mainline non-Calvinist Southern Baptists if they want to change SBC’s default theology to Calvinism. It’s the darnedest thing I’ve ever seen … the pew ain’t got a clue.
Max,
It is a pretty sleazy move… it ranks up their with GM buying the companies that made trolly cars and then drove them into bankruptcy.. that way cities had to give up public transit and buy more cars!
but of course, a church denomination would never so something sleazy.. so, this must be fake news
Does it really matter that they have replaced the gospel?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMzB8nn4xtw&list=RDJ1AdPY73qxo&index=2
Sleazy is a bit harsh … slimy is a better adjective to describe Mohler and the Mohlerites.
“…“hierarchy,”…incorrectly describes the hierarchal relationship between SBC entities and churches.
It’s only one word, but destructive to our understanding of how we relate to one another and has significant future legal implications.”
+++++++++++++++
good grief.
reminds of a line from one of my most favorite movie, The Owl And The Pussycat”:
Doris Wilgus (Barbra Streisand) to Felix (George Segal): “I may be a pro$titute by I am not promi$cuous!”
Max,
“In disguise…”
… lot of cosplay going on.
Yeah, they probably dress up like John Calvin and Jonathan Edwards when a group of them get together. They have a sickness.
Yes they do:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r7h4np9_UMk
https://www.sbc.net/about/becoming-a-southern-baptist-church/faq/
“In order to qualify as a church that can seat messengers at an SBC annual meeting, the church must have met two criteria — (1) the church must be openly identified as a cooperating Southern Baptist church through a credentialing process with its state Baptist convention or directly with the SBC Executive Committee and (2) the church must have made “bona fide” contributions to Convention work in the fiscal year which precedes the annual meeting
“The Executive Committee is always happy to assist churches that truly want to partner with the Convention, openly identifying with the Convention, its purposes, and its work and contributing as “bona fide” contributors to Convention work through its ministry entities.
“The Executive Committee does not encourage churches or pastors to make a token identification with the Convention if the pastor and church leadership have no long-term intention of leading the church to participate fully in Convention work and contribute systematically and regularly to support the Convention’s missions and ministries.“
Jerome,
There they are in that clip you shared, right on cue, costumed, selling their snake oil – their next book. Money changers in the temple.
Pass. Ah the relief, to not buy another book, never have to follow another “pastor’s” or “leader’s” latest gimmick (theology reveal).
Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever; Jesus loves us – this we know; for the Bible tells us so. One book, the Bible.
Reading is good. A recent fav is “News of the World”, which soon releases on film, with Tom Hanks. I’ve published a novel, a story – take it or leave it. Not for sale in any church or in conjunction with any theology, at all.
However, the latest mind-blowing “theology” from these pastor-leader peddlers that we MUST have for the abundant life? Snake oil.
Search the church for truth & answers, but truth finally shows up in, for example, @RobDownenChron’s work at the “Houston Chronicle”.
Truth: The church is full of predators. It’s truth (steer clear) & answers (why the church is so messed up) with mugs of predatory pastors. https://www.houstonchronicle.com/local/investigations/abuse-of-faith/
The will follow Christ’s advice and settle the matter out of court, so it’s not likely they will reveal their hierarchy, so Dee, we will continue to rely on your sleuthery.
One point of disagreement: the internet is not forever. Sites come and, more often than not, go. Platforms are abandoned or orphaned (I just got a warning from Google about Drive storage), subscriptions and domains expire, and then there are old fashioned data-wiping server crashes. The internet is not forever, and it is forgetful.
Ava Aaronson,
The NT has many warnings about wolves in sheep’s clothing…. growing up in fundamentalist/evangelical land, I saw many…… in fact, not just NT, but OT warns of “false prophets”…. I can not tell you how many times I sat through sermons where preacher is predicting this is the “end times”…. yet the NT clearly says no man knows when “Son of G$d” will return…
All snake oil..
PS.. If I understand Calvanista theology, they do not believe in a “Rapture” like preacher in my past, others we would probably be seeing video about them telling us Christ is coming at any minute!
Probably the only truly good thing I got out of the SBC was a firm belief in being born again coupled with priesthood of THE believer.
In today’s church world, you need to know BEFORE you enter a church what you believe the Bible teaches, and find one that comes the closest. Take your time, and if it does not seem people are being harmed, you might settle in for a spell.
But do not join. Keep unfettered so when the place changes from a to b, as the SBC did from whosever will to only the chosen few, you can quietly and easily slide on down the road.
Never thought I would live to see the day I would say that. But there it is. I have friends who were career missionaries on the Navajo rez for roughly 50 years, who refuse to darken the door of a church today. They are still winning folks to Christ, ministering despite a cancer diagnosis in the middle of a pandemic that is hitting the rez hard.
They, and I, have one question that may be telling on all this slimy snake oil stuff: when did we go from a good news that Satan seeks to kill and destroy but Jesus will save us from the wrath God pours on His ENEMIES, not His kids, to a message that God is like a very angry tyrant furious at the entire world but capriciously saving a select few so they will adore Him for His glorious power? What happened to loving and trusting God? Would you love and trust a parent who keeps making babies so he can torture them but if you can worm your way to his good side you can watch and enjoy the show?
How can we evangelize the world to run into the arms of a mean and angry God? Does that look even remotely like Jesus, who wept over those who were rejecting Him? Who prayed for even those who were literally killing Him?
Good grief all you have to do is look at the world around us to see what this constant quest for power leads to…how it hurts everyone and everything around.
Whatever happened to the fact “God is love?”
Rant over but some days I am just reeling from the fact that what should be the safest place in the world, the church, has become one of the most dangerous.
Forgot to add: not all Calvinists are bleak and all about the power. Case in point the Cumberland Presbyterian Church catechism paints a very different picture of God. Good reading!
Indeed – that was a good thing because it was Gospel truth! In the 2000 revision of The Baptist Faith & Message, long-standing Southern Baptist doctrines of soul competency and priesthood of ‘the’ believer were diminished. It was then that the denomination started trending toward Calvinism in belief and practice … thanks to Al Mohler who was on the BFM2000 revision committee. A once-great evangelistic denomination started preaching another gospel in many of its churches … subtle at first, but in your face now with its band of new reformers.
linda,
This.
#Chollywood or Church?
The question.
Unfortunately, many 21st century churchgoers don’t search the Scriptures daily for Truth. They prefer Chollywood over real-deal Church. They want to sway to the beat of the drums, not seek God’s face for the times in which they live. So the beat goes on.
Yes yes yes, to Ava and Linda, too. The last (now three, unfortunately) churches we’ve attended, the onus of daily scripture reading is used as a sledgehammer of guilt to pound the congregation from the pulpit. Yet for all their “encouragement” to people to “be in the Word,” leaders often acted as though they were the only ones who actually did it. The looks of surprise, the sputtering and defensiveness that erupted when they’d say something controversial, and I’d respond with, “But doesn’t Paul also say such and such just two verses later?”
When their words say they want people to be in the Word, but their actions often do not, that it not a good sign. It would be funny, if it wasn’t so incredibly sad.
I’m with you, Max. The Sword of the Word of God in the hearts and minds of every pew peon is the best offense against wolves and false shepherds.
AMEN! Wordless and prayerless churchgoers are powerless against the enemy. They are prey to predators, unequipped to sort out truth from error.
Baptist Press not has a “we did not mean to say what we said” up on their web site. I would think there has been some serious conversations behind the scenes concerning how do we undo this and probably some looking for the one or ones to BLAME.
now not not…
Bingo.
Christians in the Word, in fellowship with God Himself, guided by God’s Holy Spirit, just as Jesus promised. That doesn’t always go well, with the pastors, that is.
“Choose this day whom you shall serve, listen to.”
This is called “The WEAPONIZED Word”.
(Anyone want to do some filk/novelty lyrics for Pat Benatar’s “Stop Using Sex as a Weapon”? Because he same card is in play.)
Ava, that (and its next verse) has become the favorite Verse of anti-maskers.
You know, from the Superspreader Event churches?
Headless Unicorn Guy,
And who are they serving? Listening to?
The question.
Exactly. Their choice, their demise.