Part Two: Mike Stone’s Angry; Ronnie Floyd’s Not Happy, An Investigation Will Happen, and This Should Be One Heckuva SBC Annual Meeting.

Partial Solar Eclipse on 6/10/21-NASA

“A clergyman who engages in business, and who rises from poverty to wealth, and from obscurity to a high position, avoid as you would the plague.” Jerome


Addendum: I can’t write fast enough to keep up with all. this stuff.

SBC Executive Committee Engages Guidepost Solutions to Conduct Independent Process Assessment (6/11/21)

The Southern Baptist Convention Executive Committee is committed to serving Southern Baptists with integrity, excellence, transparency and accountability. As part of this commitment, Dr. Ronnie Floyd, president and CEO of the SBC Executive Committee, has announced today that the organization has hired Guidepost Solutions to conduct an independent review of its processes as they relate to the recent accusations of the inappropriate handling of sexual abuse claims alleged by Dr. Russell Moore, former president of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission.

This decision comes after a week of deliberately working through the details of this outside review and selection of a firm. These efforts included diligently reviewing the selected firm and receiving input from SBC Executive Committee chairman Rolland Slade. Guidepost Solutions is a global leader in monitoring, compliance, sensitive investigations, and risk management solutions and has deep experience providing advice and counsel to faith communities in this area…. continue reading

Amazing how fast they move when they know they are in trouble. They=Executive Committee which seems to be running this show.


According to a Church Leaders post, Floyd, Stone React to Second Leaked Moore Letter–‘It’s Outrageous’

Dated May 31, 2021, Moore’s letter is directed to Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) president J.D. Greear. It implicates SBC Executive Committee (EC) president and CEO Dr. Ronnie Floyd and SBC presidential hopeful Mike Stone in suppressing investigations into sexual abuse within the denomination.

…As a victim of childhood sexual abuse, I find the latest attack from Russell Moore to be absolutely slanderous, and it is as inflammatory as it is inaccurate,” said Mike Stone in a video response posted to Twitter on June 5. Stone, who is the pastor of Emmanuel Baptist Church in Blackshear, Ga., rejected Moore’s claims in the strongest possible terms

Pastor Mike Stone: running for SBC President is angry (well there’s a stronger word but I’ll be polite) at Russell Moore’s letter.

The following video was posted before Phillip Bethancourt’s whistleblower letter arrived on June 10.

Stone calls Moore’s letter “fallacious” and “laughable.” He said that for these accusations to come to light in such a way“Is scandalous, unscriptural, ungodly, and outrageous.”

According to the Washington Post:

Stone dismissed Moore’s claims as the politically motivated work of a “disillusioned” man.

However, it is my opinion that Mike Stone is the one who is politically motivated. Moore’s letter may have cost him the election for SBC Presidency. To make matters worse for Stone, the Washington Post appears to believe that Moore is the one with credibility, not Stone or Floyd. Ouch! Will the SBC elect a president who is not known for his credibility? I think not.

Moore’s charges are serious and specific. The responses from the accused have been vague, smarmy and blustery. In a contest of credibility, there is no contest. Moore is a man of faith and conviction who spent years trying to defend a tradition he loves before feeling compelled to leave it. His opponents have betrayed the denomination and the Gospel they claim to serve.

Phillip Bethancourt’s letter is leading towards a call for a third-party independent investigation of the SBC.

Bethancourt said he would release the entire audio if a third-party investigation becomes a reality. (Now that seems possible.)

The Washington Post wrote:

In his letter, Bethancourt said he made the recordings of meetings involving Moore, Stone — who was then chair of the SBC’s Executive Committee — and Floyd in 2019. At the time, Bethancourt was on the staff of the ERLC.

Bethancourt said in his letter that he only shared clips and not the full audio of the two meetings because the names of abuse survivors are mentioned. He said he would release the full recording of the meetings to a third-party investigator if Southern Baptists decide to appoint one to look into the matter.

In the days since Moore’s letters were leaked, a number of pastors have called for a third-party investigation into how the SBC leadership has responded to abuse allegations.

Could there be a third-party investigation of the SBC? There will be one. See above.

Religion News SEevices posted Pressure mounts for an independent investigation of SBC Executive Committee handling of abuse

ared Wellman, pastor of Tate Springs Baptist Church in Arlington, Texas, and a member of the SBC Executive Committee, is concerned with how Baptist leaders have handled accusations of abuse. He said Baptist leaders have failed to listen to abuse survivors and he wants to see an independent investigation.

Wellman worries some Baptist leaders may want to set up an internal task force to look at the matter. That would be a mistake, according to Wellman.

“I think it is time for an outside investigation,” he said. “I think messengers from SBC churches deserve that — to help regain trust back in our Executive Committee.”

Of course, this post would not be complete without addressing Ronnie Floyd’s statement.

According to Baptist News Global in Southern Baptist whistleblower’ offers audio clips to back Russell Moore’s claims:

In a second audio clip from the same debriefing, Floyd cites concerns by Executive Committee trustees about Denhollander in particular and wants to know how he should respond to criticism from his own board members. Moore suggests that the Executive Committee should “not do stupid stuff again.”

In a third audio clip, Floyd says he’s not worried about what abuse survivors might say but is instead concerned to “preserve the base.” Moore responds by saying that striving only to talk about how great the SBC is will “destroy the denomination’s credibility.”

It seems that Floyd is more concerned about *the base* as opposed to seeking to serve the abused and broken-hearted. #Jesusdontlikethat! However, he appears to be getting a leg up on the independent investigation, making me think that they realize it is a done deal. (I wrote this before the above announcement was made.) It looks like they plan to *control the process.* (I was right about this as well!)

Southern Baptists want to care for abuse survivors but don’t agree on how to do that, Floyd told RNS. “However, the SBC is not divided on the priority of caring for abuse survivors and protecting the vulnerable in our churches.”

He also indicated to RNS that the leadership of the Executive Committee already is discussing its own plan to hire an outside investigator to review the actions of the Executive Committee. Two SBC pastors have indicated they intend to make a motion at next week’s annual meeting asking whoever is elected president of the convention to appoint a task force to hire a third-party investigator.

Floyd’s comment to RNS raises the possibility that he and the Executive Committee might attempt to manage the selection of an outside investigator. (I was correct here as well. It’s really nice to get such quick corroboration of my thoughts.)

Here is a link to Baptist Press and a Statement by Floyd on June 5, 2021. I call this the *skillful hands* statement.

I have received a copy of the letter from former ERLC president Russell Moore to our current SBC president J.D. Greear. Some of the matters referenced occurred prior to my coming here in this role. For those matters of which I was present, I do not have the same recollection of these occurrences as stated. I do take seriously allegations in this letter which may raise concern for Southern Baptists. I have been very committed to always operate with the highest integrity and skillful hands. I am right now considering ways in which we can develop the best path forward for the sake of Southern Baptists and our God-called commitment to our unified Great Commission vision.

Well, between Part One and Two, there is plenty to discuss. Join me in offering some predictions regarding the SBC Annual Meeting. My predictions:

  • Mike Stone will lose the election.
  • Al Mohler should remove his name from consideration. He won’t.
  • However, given this mess, Mohler has the best chance to win. People like stability.
  • New leadership is desperately needed.
  • Dwight McKissic seems poised to leave if Mohler or Stone wins.
  • If McKissic leaves, there will be more African American churches that withdraw as well.
  • Talking about sex abuse will cause a large number of people to leave the SBC.
  • It is worth the discussion to have a third party, outside investigation. As I well know, an internal investigation ends up solving nothing. (Done deal.)
  • If the SBC actually decides to do something about sex abuse such as a database, they prove they are in it for the long haul. Some people will stay if they think change is coming.
  • I think Floyd and Stone will attempt to wrest control of any investigation. If they do so, the investigation will be meaningless. (Wrote this before the above statement)
  • It is time that the SBC deals with the simple request of Jules Woodson. Lean on Steve Bradley to speak with her.
  • Expect to hear some sad stories of abuse.
  • Looks like the SBC is hemorrhaging members. I am one of those. I expect more to leave in the coming year.
  • The Calvinist Reform which was supposed to make a difference didn’t. They only contributed authoritarianism to the mess.
  • The SBC has a woman problem. It’s time to stop focusing on complementarianism and submission and, instead, move more women into high-profile positions.
  • Could there be talk of a split in the SBC?

Comments

Part Two: Mike Stone’s Angry; Ronnie Floyd’s Not Happy, An Investigation Will Happen, and This Should Be One Heckuva SBC Annual Meeting. — 347 Comments

  1. RELEASE: SBC Executive Committee Engages Guidepost Solutions to Conduct Independent Process Assessment

  2. Oh me, oh my. I just realized that my daughter has a medical appointment in Nashville on Wednesday, …… ‘bout a mile and a half from where the convention is being held!

  3. What? I’m 1st?

    On your predictions:
    No split but some new affinity group.
    McKissick said he would leave national SBC based on the CRT stuff.
    Stone is sunk,one hopes
    No database this year.
    Will be ugly, I’ll be there guitar and all.

  4. Of course key questions about the investigation remain unanswered. “The SBC Executive Committee commits to providing full support and transparency to
    Guidepost Solutions including making individuals available for interviews and providing relevant documents.” — Sure, but: We know what the insiders that you will make available will say. Real transparency involves more than just that.

    (1) Will you commit to interviewing the victims of the abuse and the subsequent maltreatment by those in the SBC they went to? (2) Will you commit to interviewing Russell Moore and others who were the targets of the intimidation? (3) Will you commit to release the full, unedited results?

    A so-called “independent” investigation is meaningless if you only interview insiders, look at the SBC’s existing processes, and spin the results to make it look like you might need a few tweaks but are basically exonerated.

  5. Dee,
    1.). Ronnie Floyd and “preserve the base”??? Well, gee whiz ……. I wonder where Floyd gets the money to pay for those Armani suits?

    2.). I believe that if your predictions are not spot on, they are too close for any minor variations to amount to anything.

  6. “They=Executive Committee which seems to be running this show.”

    Then it won’t truly be an independent investigation.

  7. As a young man, my Dad offered several words of wisdom when I struck out on my own. They included:

    “Son, if you ever get on a bus and it’s going the wrong way, get off at the first stop.”

    “Beware of snakes in the grass.”

    The SBC bus is going the wrong way … I got off.

    SBC has a bunch of snakes in its grassy high places. Beware where you tread. (I feel slimy everytime I listen to these guys)

  8. Sowre-Sweet Dayes: Guideposts is for the business (from their website) not an impartial body. IMO, I fear victims will be re-tramatized by their investigation.

    Perhaps engaging Guidepost Solutions to investigate is like engaging MinistrySafe to investigate. And since MinistrySafe works to protect the church and not the victims / survivors….

  9. “it is my opinion that Mike Stone is the one who is politically motivated. Moore’s letter may have cost him the election for SBC Presidency” (Dee)

    In a roundabout way, Moore just endorsed Mohler for SBC President. Stone didn’t have much of a chance against Pope Mohler, but this certainly took him out of the running. New Calvinism has been winning on all SBC fronts in recent years … not much of a battle for the reformers to capture the SBC – grassroots (non-Calvinist) Southern Baptists can’t find any generals worth a hoot.

  10. Wow … just wow. We can only hope the dots are now going to be publicly connected and the leadership corruption exposed. The members of the SBC DESERVE TO KNOW.

    Guideposts??? Didn’t they just produce a report Acceptable by JD GREAER despite Bryan Loritts own teary admission on tape that he WAS CULPABLE??? Imo, Just More Smokescreens and mirrors.

  11. researcher: Perhaps engaging Guidepost Solutions to investigate is like engaging MinistrySafe to investigate. And since MinistrySafe works to protect the church and not the victims / survivors….

    Hah. Think about it. Who’s gonna be payin’ Guidestone’s fees? Not the victims!

  12. Max,

    YES! I can’t tell you how glad I am to no longer be part of the SBC. When I think of the huge sacrifices of time and money that our family gave to our former church, and will never get back, I could weep. What a waste.

    Ordinary people have the power to send a strong message to the SBC and its corrupt leaders, or any other corrupt religious organisation, by voting with their wallets and their feet. No more money to pay salaries + no more bodies in pews = no more corrupt organisation. Problem solved.

  13. one of the dones: Ordinary people have the power to send a strong message to the SBC and its corrupt leaders, or any other corrupt religious organisation, by voting with their wallets and their feet

    The problem is that “ordinary people” in SBC pews ain’t got a clue what’s going on with their denomination. But their pastors do and they aren’t talking for various reasons. I fault church leaders at 47,000 SBC churches for keeping their congregations in the dark … they should have been having “family meetings” to inform and warn Southern Baptists about the Calvinization of their denomination and misc. other shenanigans by the SBC elite. If millions of mainline (non-Calvinist) Southern Baptists were going to vote with their wallets and feet, it should have been when Platt recalled 1,000 foreign missionaries … yep, the whosoever-wills should have thrown a big fit about that! SBC had plenty of money to keep those folks on the field, instead of spending $60 million the same year to plant 1,000 New Calvinist churches in North America (and every year since).

  14. bendeni: A so-called “independent” investigation is meaningless if you only interview insiders, look at the SBC’s existing processes, and spin the results to make it look like you might need a few tweaks but are basically exonerated.

    Why should anyone in the SBC expect this to be an independent investigation? My prediction is little to nothing will happen and the SBC will continue with some current members leaving.

  15. Tom Parker: My prediction is little to nothing will happen and the SBC will continue with some current members leaving.

    Yep, that’ll be about it. Pope Mohler will take the throne, SBC’s elite will make bank, backroom deals will go on without missing a beat, and the Great Commission will be shelved for another year.

  16. researcher: Perhaps engaging Guidepost Solutions to investigate is like engaging MinistrySafe to investigate. And since MinistrySafe works to protect the church and not the victims / survivors….

    In other words, the fix is in. It will at most put off the reckoning for a year or two.

  17. I didn’t understand the SBC when I was a missionary in South America from the mid-80s to early 90s. They called themselves and their churches “los bautistas del sur”-literally, Southern Baptists.

    How far south do you need to go to still be a Southern Baptist? I mean, we were almost sitting on the equator in our country. It did give me a good laugh.

  18. Max:

    (I feel slimy everytime I listen to these guys)

    TRUTH!

    It just might be because THEY are slimy.

    I would assume that after wearing the sheep outfit for too long the wolf inside begins to get a bit skanky.

  19. Denominations serve no good purpose (that can’t be found elsewhere). The only purpose they *DO* serve, is to continue buffeting the power of colonizers & settlers. It’s time to burn the whole thing down. In the case of the SBC, it was time long ago. Good riddance.

  20. Linn: How far south do you need to go to still be a Southern Baptist? I mean, we were almost sitting on the equator in our country. It did give me a good laugh.

    On the flip side, there’s a handful of Southern Baptist churches in Maine. (I am a Southern Kentuckian, and we live in Kentucky, but hubby was born and raised in the mountains of central, western Maine.)
    I’m just not used to wearing thermal underwear to church beneath my skirt in October. And, those churches surely don’t feel, look,…….. or especially *sound* southern.

  21. Max: The problem is that “ordinary people” in SBC pews ain’t got a clue what’s going on with their denomination. But their pastors do and they aren’t talking for various reasons. I fault church leaders at 47,000 SBC churches for keeping their congregations in the dark … they should have been having “family meetings”

    Somehow, my husband knows there’s a bunch of *stuff* (not the word he used) going on at the convention this year. I made a remark about daughter’s med. appt. being such a short drive from the Music City Center and the boatload of people expected to attend. Hubby hasn’t been to church in several months because of a nasty combination COVID and politics, but he’s heard (or read) some things somehow. I don’t know who’s side he’s on, or even if he’s taking sides……..

    As for faulting the pastors for churches being in the dark ….. I’ve no doubt that that is true in most cases. But I know two pastors who tried to educate the congregation, and nobody wanted to hear it.
    I blame a little bit of everybody, but first and foremost the head honchos in the SBC ranks and seminary leaders for being either willfully blind, or cloak-and-dagger deceivers. They are more self-serving politicians than Christians.

  22. Nancy2(aka Kevlar): I don’t know who’s side he’s on, or even if he’s taking sides……..

    Years ago, I was asked to preach at a church in a neighboring city (I used to do some lay-preaching/teaching). Before I spoke, the pastor called to ask me “What side are you on?” At the time, I had no idea what he was talking about, so I responded “I’m on Jesus’ side!” He said that was not enough, he needed to know what side I was on. I repeated “Jesus” … to which he responded “You can’t come to preach here if I don’t know what ‘side’ you are on.” Later, I figured he must have meant conservative vs. liberal or non-Calvinist vs. Calvinist or perhaps Cardinals vs. Cubs. Anyway, I’m not as naive as I used to be … but I’m still on Jesus’ side. Reckon what side the attendees at the SBC conference will be on next week?

  23. Nancy2(aka Kevlar): As for faulting the pastors for churches being in the dark ….. I’ve no doubt that that is true in most cases. But I know two pastors who tried to educate the congregation, and nobody wanted to hear it.

    Tell us only soothing things, pastor. Tell us what we want to hear. Encourage us, don’t warn us. That’s about them, not about us. Nothing like that would ever happen around here.

  24. Max: Yep, that’ll be about it.Pope Mohler will take the throne, SBC’s elite will make bank, backroom deals will go on without missing a beat, and the Great Commission will be shelved for another year.

    That’s why it’s called “The Jeeesus Racket”.

  25. Max: Tell us only soothing things, pastor. Tell us what we want to hear. Encourage us, don’t warn us.

    My writing partner (the burned-out country preacher) literally got told so much to his face:

    “WE DON’T WANT TO LEARN ANY BIG WORDS, PREACHER. YOU’RE HERE TO KEEP US COMFORTABLE.”

  26. Max: Tell us only soothing things, pastor. Tell us what we want to hear.

    This is a particularly-odious form of fanservice called “M*sturb*ting Your Target Audience”. Type examples are Wish-Fullfillment Fanfics, Atlas Shrugged, and Left Behind.

  27. lyle: Denominations serve no good purpose (that can’t be found elsewhere).

    I agree that the SBC has outlived its purpose (starting in 1865), but burning down all denominations might be carrying it just a bit too far. Would that not be like burning down all the stadiums because some of them have Kenny Chesney concerts?

  28. Headless Unicorn Guy: Type examples are Wish-Fullfillment Fanfics, Atlas Shrugged, and Left Behind.

    Some people aren’t that mature. It’s more like, “ Daddy, read me a betime story!”

  29. Catholic Gate-Crasher: It’s 2021, and they still don’t have a database? Yikes.

    That’s right, and anyone on Twitter I see who is talking about how great and wonderful the SBC is gets a link from the Houston Chronicle, and a reminder that article was published in 2019 and it’s two years later. I am not in the mood for self-congratulatory Southern Baptists right now.

  30. The reason there was a job opening for Ronnie Floyd 3 years ago was that his predecessor, Frank Page, had some sort of moral failing and inappropriate relationship which inspired him to suddenly retire. The EC promised due diligence to get to the bottom of it, although they were pretty sure nothing illegal happened. https://baptistnews.com/article/sbc-spokesman-promises-due-diligence-regarding-frank-pages-unidentified-indiscretion/#.YMTY1sBOLYU
    One pesky little-known pastor wasn’t happy with the vague language, and Paige Patterson said there was nothing to see there— just move along!
    So IF the EC ever got around to investigating, it’d be nice to know if the inappropriate activities of their President/CEO included any Clergy Sexual Abuse, or they did not. Apparently nothing disqualified this guy from pastoring, since he got a new gig with a SB church.
    I think SBC leaders want all the sheeple to assume there were “just” some mutually organic moments with one consenting adult female. So old-fashioned a notion it’s quaint!

  31. From the Washington Post yesterday, an opinion piece.

    Opinion: Of course the SBC hasn’t fixed its sexual abuse problem. Look at its theology.

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/06/11/sbc-has-bad-sexist-theology-course-bad-culture-follows/

    And from the end of the piece:

    More than two years after the Houston Chronicle and San Antonio Express-News produced a devastating look at sexual abuse in the SBC, the denomination has not taken the steps necessary to address the problem. Can that really surprise anyone? Men who believe that no woman’s voice should be heard in the pulpit, and that no woman should be trusted with authority, can hardly be expected to listen when women speak the truth about men in positions of power. Thus, bad theology begets bad policy, and bad policy begets moral decay.

    This is but one issue. Another issue is, of course, the SBC’s problems with racism. I can talk about the woman issue because I’m a woman. I don’t feel competent at all to speak to the racism because I’m so white I’d glow in the dark except for the freckles.

    There are other issues as well, but I’m not going down that path right now, just concentrating on the things in the news this week.

  32. Dave A A: Paige Patterson said there was nothing to see there— just move along!

    When PP says things like that, always look more closely.

  33. Muslin, fka Dee Holmes: This is but one issue. Another issue is, of course, the SBC’s problems with racism.

    And that’s why their approach is so morally bankrupt. One leader in the SBC makes bleating protest noises about one thin slice of injustice. Other prominent folk pile on and shut him up. Everybody learns what happens to those who point out moral rot. Days and decades elapse while people spar over the complaint, complainer, timing of the complaint, priorities, etc. Hey, but at least they talked about it!

  34. Friend: And that’s why their approach is so morally bankrupt. One leader in the SBC makes bleating protest noises about one thin slice of injustice. Other prominent folk pile on and shut him up. Everybody learns what happens to those who point out moral rot. Days and decades elapse while people spar over the complaint, complainer, timing of the complaint, priorities, etc. Hey, but at least they talked about it!

    In the end, nothing gets done to fix the issue, which, at a bare minimum, would be a database of convicted ministers in the SBC. I’d note a database was a bridge too far for Augie Boto, who used to be on the SBC Executive Committee and is a lawyer, also the same guy who wrote in a leaked email that advocates for abuse survivors (like Christa Brown and Rachael Denhollander) were part of a “satanic scheme” to derail evangelism. *

    Reminds me of Jesus’ condemnation of the religious leaders of his day: “You travel over land and sea to win a single convert, and when you have succeeded, you make them twice as much a child of hell as you are.” (Matthew 23:15) Why would anyone WANT to join a church system where child sexual abuse is not just shoved under the rug, but you’ve got a whole denominational leadership standing on that corner of the rug?

    * Boto was also involved in trying to take over the Riley Foundation whose funds were to be directed to Baylor and SWBTS, instead directing them to Patterson’s Sandy Creek Foundation. While he’s not mentioned in this article, which is a recounting of Patterson’s shady actions for the last 3 or so years, just know this guy was involved.

    https://baptistnews.com/article/the-saga-of-southwestern-seminary-and-the-pattersons-just-got-stranger-and-its-all-in-the-sbc-book-of-reports/

    Note: The article is long; Patterson had his finger in many pies. However, it does not include how Patterson was duped, and in turn duped a donor into paying $500,000 for a tiny scrap of papyrus purporting to be from the Dead Sea Scrolls. Instead, the fragment is likely a forgery. Probably because that action took place in 2009, well before Patterson was ousted from SWBTS.

  35. Friend: Days and decades elapse while people spar over the complaint, complainer, timing of the complaint, priorities, etc. Hey, but at least they talked about it!

    The goal being that they bicker about it until people burn out, move on, and fogeddahboutit.

  36. Muslin, fka Dee Holmes: Patterson was ousted from SWBTS

    He should have stayed “ousted” … he keeps digging a bigger hole for himself. Any little bit of a good SBC legacy he ‘might’ have left has slipped away from him.

    “When a person has escaped from the wicked ways of the world … and then gets tangled up with sin and becomes its slave again, he is worse off than he was before” (2 Peter 2:20).

  37. Max: When PP says things like that, always look more closely.

    All I have now is 2 paragraphs of his open letter quote by the Baptist News. The rest has gone to 404 not found land. A great job of sin-leveling. We do still have the open letter by pastor Nathan J Norman, in which he suggested Page accurately confess what he did, and return all the ill-gotten gains he collected. Aside from him, every other leader in the denomination seems to have followed PP’s advice and moved along.

  38. Muslin, fka Dee Holmes: part of a “satanic scheme” to derail evangelism.

    From the New York Times article linked to upthread by ChuckP: “No matter what happens in Nashville, the conservatives are pressing on to strengthen their institutional and cultural power. Tom Ascol, who leads Founders Ministries, an influential conservative group, has been hosting regular calls with fellow pastors who are newly engaged in the fight.

    Next year Founders will host a conference called Militant and Triumphant, whose website makes its ambitions plain:

    “We indeed do not wage war against flesh and blood, but we do wage war.””

    From the Founders website regarding the 2022 National Founders Conference: What we need are Christians, and especially church leaders, who are willing to follow our Lord in resisting these satanic attacks and storming the very gates of hell in the fulfillment of our commission to make disciples. What we need—what we desperately need—is a renewed sense of the church militant and triumphant.

    (The short video on the 2022 National Founders Conference page sounds more like a military call to arms than a call to put on the full armour of God.)

  39. Friend,

    “Days and decades elapse while people spar over the complaint, complainer, timing of the complaint,…”
    +++++++++++++++++++

    “He had mean eyes! It’s scandalous, it’s unscriptural, it’s ungodly, it’s outrageous.”

    good grief… it’s technicality-town.

    we could make a game of it… for any of the several ethics scandals in the SBC, how many technicalities can we contrive and call them ‘biblical’, to divert attention away from what really happened?

  40. Hmmm. I read through the letter and J.D. Greer comes out looking a lot better than I expected.
    As to the SBC, I am very glad I no longer am a member. I thought the idea of not having missionaries have to beg for money every time they had a furlough was a good one, but that was associated with a large pot of money that games could be played with.

  41. elastigirl: we could make a game of it… for any of the several ethics scandals in the SBC, how many technicalities can we contrive and call them ‘biblical’, to divert attention away from what really happened?

    If there’s s bustle in your hedgerow
    Don’t be alarmed now
    It’s just a spring clean for the May Queen…

  42. Julie Roys has a post up with a quote from someone very familiar here. Looks like he is going to propose a response to CRT:

    “Wade Burleson, a pastor of an Enid, Oklahoma, church, argued CRT is rooted in Marxism.

    “Christ is a uniter,” said Burleson. “I don’t see CRT uniting. I see it dividing. Marxism has a goal of dividing.”

  43. Max: Al Mohler is taking the “love” high road as he heads to the SBC annual meeting

    He “loved” mainline Southern Baptists enough to wrench the only SBC they knew away from them … to return the denomination to its pre-Civil War Calvinist roots, without asking millions of non-Calvinist Southern Baptists if they wanted to go there! But, he’s sincere, I suppose … truly believing that he is restoring the one-true gospel (= Calvinism) to the church. He’s passionate, but it’s a misplaced passion. And he’s been a brilliant general of the takeover … the New Calvinists now control all SBC entities and the general himself will be crowned King next week in Nashville.

  44. Max: He “loved” mainline Southern Baptists enough to wrench the only SBC they knew away from them … to return the denomination to its pre-Civil War Calvinist roots, without asking millions of non-Calvinist Southern Baptists if they wanted to go there! But, he’s sincere, I suppose … truly believing that he is restoring the one-true gospel (= Calvinism) to the church. He’s passionate, but it’s a misplaced passion. And he’s been a brilliant general of the takeover … the New Calvinists now control all SBC entities and the general himself will be crowned King next week in Nashville.

    And the people in the pews will care less. Where is there spiritual discernment? It is a broad statement but I would rather associate with “liberal” Christians than the “cpnservative” ones in the SBC.

  45. Catholic Gate-Crasher: It’s 2021, and they still don’t have a database? Yikes.

    If leadership set up a database would they be on it themselves, as complicit for cover-ups?

    And this looks neither independent nor investigative:

    “he and the Executive Committee might attempt to manage the selection of an outside investigator.”

  46. Tom Parker: And the people in the pews will care less.

    Bingo!

    “Prophets speak nothing but lies; priests rule on their own authority, and my people offer no objections. But what will they do when it all comes to an end?” (Jeremiah 5:31)

  47. bendeni: (1) Will you commit to interviewing the victims of the abuse and the subsequent maltreatment by those in the SBC they went to?

    “Authoritarians disappear people, and they also disappear fields of knowledge that threaten their goals.” @ruthbenghiat: researcher of authoritarians, propaganda, democracy protection. “Strongmen: Mussolini to the Present” http://ruthbenghiat.com

    Disappearing victims who are witnesses who are survivors who are fighters. And disappearing their inconvenient testimonies.

  48. Not much in the news about revisiting the role of women in SBC ministry. But with the Beth Moore situation, it will surely come up at SBC-Nashville next week.

    Yep, it could be a heckuva SBC annual meeting! Who gets crowned SBC President this year will signal the direction SBC is heading theologically. The critical race theory will require the denomination to draw a line in the sand and Russell Moore’s grand exit will cause some weeping and gnashing of teeth among the brethren/sistren. In the meantime, Jesus weeps.

  49. Max: revisiting the role of women in SBC ministry.

    Yep. And we know how that “revisit” will go. It will just be more of the same, with plastic-flowery words, glossing over male superiority, spilling out of fake smiley faces.
    Business as usual.

  50. Ava Aaronson: disappear fields of knowledge that threaten their goals.

    Yeah …,.. but not such as easy thing to do since the advent of the internet; and devoted, determined bloggers like Dee.

  51. Nancy2(aka Kevlar): Yep. And we know how that “revisit” will go. It will just be more of the same, with plastic-flowery words, glossing over male superiority, spilling out of fake smiley faces.
    Business as usual.

    I know the SBC leaders want, but I wish they would just come right out and say that they hate women!

  52. Nancy2(aka Kevlar): Yep. And we know how that “revisit” will go. It will just be more of the same, with plastic-flowery words, glossing over male superiority, spilling out of fake smiley faces.
    Business as usual.

    15,000 messengers representing millions of Southern Baptists. Never has seemed right to me. I also imagine lots of what happens at the Convention is choreographed.

  53. Max: You mean like this?:

    Tee heee. She pinned his ears back with 60-penny barn nails, didn’t she?

  54. Tom Parker: I also imagine lots of what happens at the Convention is choreographed.

    The crucial ones definitely are choreographed…….. busing people in to sway the votes is a definite red flag.

  55. Tom Parker: 15,000 messengers representing millions of Southern Baptists. Never has seemed right to me. I also imagine lots of what happens at the Convention is choreographed.

    Attendance at the SBC annual meeting in the 1980s averaged 30,000-40,000. In recent years it has been less than 10,000. I think a lot of churches just simply threw up their hands and said “What’s the point in sending messengers?”, feeling (as you note) that the meetings are “choreographed.” Everyone already knows that Mohler will be President, that carefully edited resolutions will be adopted with insufficient Q&A exchange, that the new reformers will be sweeping all the votes as they tweet each other what to do, that the whole spectacle will be just smoke and mirrors, and that millions of “little guys” in the pews just don’t matter (except their tithes and offerings, of course). SBC is the poster boy for the Christian Industrial Complex – a religious pyramid scheme with a handful of elites in control

  56. Ava Aaronson:
    God bless Dee et al. Ever grateful.

    I’ll second that, and Amen it! TWW was one of the first (maybe the first) good blog I discovered when I thought I was losing my religion. I have since learned that my religion lost me, and it has no interest in finding me.

  57. Nancy2(aka Kevlar): busing people in to sway the votes is a definite red flag

    The young reformers will hang out in coffee shops near the convention center and scurry back to cast their votes when tweeted to do so.

  58. Max: Yeah, but Slick Al won in the end and sent all those wimmenfolk at Southern packing.

    Slick Al is just a bottom dealing card sharp.

  59. Tom Parker: I wish they would just come right out and say that they hate women!

    I don’t think they hate women; I think they are afraid of us. But that’s just my opinion, and I am a woman.

  60. Max: The critical race theory will require the denomination to draw a line in the sand

    It requires no such line. THE SBC will probably choose that line though. They will become more white than they already are by their own choices. And Jesus weeps.

  61. Nancy2(aka Kevlar),

    The way women are treated is like the scene in Inside Out that Joy drew a circle around Sadness and told her that’s where Sadness belongs. Sadness should stay inside the circle so that not to mess things up for Joy.

  62. Nancy2(aka Kevlar): Ava Aaronson: disappear fields of knowledge that threaten their goals.

    Yeah …,.. but not such as easy thing to do since the advent of the internet; and devoted, determined bloggers like Dee.

    That. (And the advent of the Internet Archive 🙂 although things like videos don’t always archive well….)

  63. Nancy(aka Kevlar): Tee heee. She pinned his ears back with 60-penny barn nails, didn’t she?

    And of course nobody answered the mere woman. She clearly asked to meet with the Great Man in his office. They just moved on to the next question.

    Does anyone know who she is?

  64. Nancy2(aka Kevlar): Yeah …,.. but not such as easy thing to do since the advent of the internet; and devoted, determined bloggers like Dee.

    Indeed, grateful for Dee and the Internet.

    If folks don’t know, this “disappearing” is also about teaching the unpleasant parts of American history, such as the message that slavery was evil.

    I grew up in a place where folks were terribly afraid to talk about racism, for fear that African Americans would learn about history and attack white people. I’m not even kidding. It took awhile for me to learn that African Americans were far more savvy than I was about racism and its historical roots.

    We do need to teach a balanced view of history—not just the good stuff—in the classroom, although the Internet plays a valuable role.

  65. I did read where one of the major groups coming to the SBC are going to bus in people. This was never done until the FUNDAMENTALIST tried and were successful taking over the SBC. It is all about Power!

  66. Mr. Jesperson,

    Thank you. He has written recently and proudly about his membership in the John Birch Society. That organization’s reflex is to see a communist threat in absolutely everything they don’t personally endorse. I realize this is a bit uncomfortable on TWW because of his help for abuse victims, but he is retiring soon.

  67. Friend,

    Amen… Slavery, based on race, has got to rank up there as a really BIG sociological/political evil.. And the 3/5 “compromise” in the US Constitution:

    In the United States Constitution, the Three-fifths Compromise is part of Article 1, Section 2, Clause 3. Section 2 of the Fourteenth Amendment (1868) later superseded this clause and explicitly repealed the compromise.

    This “clause” enshrines that evil in our “beloved” US Constitution. And what I just said, will tick off lots and lots of people….

  68. Friend: Thank you. He has written recently and proudly about his membership in the John Birch Society. That organization’s reflex is to see a communist threat in absolutely everything they don’t personally endorse. I realize this is a bit uncomfortable on TWW because of his help for abuse victims, but he is retiring soon.

    I will make just one comment in reference to what you said above. I’ve found his positions confusing such as supporting the John Birch Society.

  69. Jeffrey J Chalmers: In the United States Constitution, the Three-fifths Compromise is part of Article 1, Section 2, Clause 3. Section 2 of the Fourteenth Amendment (1868) later superseded this clause and explicitly repealed the compromise.

    But the real story behind the Three-Fifths Compromise is a bit different than what’s normally expected.

    The Compromise (first of many-many regarding That Peculiar Institution) was to balance out the Congressional/Electoral College clout of the Northern/Free States and the Southern/Slave States so that neither of these two power blocs could dominate the other.

    The SLAVE States (cue Rutledge of the Carolinas in 1776) wanted their slave populations counted to increase their clout. The FREE States (cue Adams of Massachusetts in 17776) wanted only the Free populations counted to increase their clout. And the Compromise was to keep the soon-to-be 14 States United instead of splitting into two separate countries.

    Thus began an 74-year balancing act between two implacable factions to keep the Union from coming apart along the Mason-Dixon Fault Line.

  70. Max: Attendance at the SBC annual meeting in the 1980s averaged 30,000-40,000. In recent years it has been less than 10,000. I think a lot of churches just simply threw up their hands and said “What’s the point in sending messengers?”, feeling (as you note) that the meetings are “choreographed.”

    This description has the “feel” of a kind of “vote suppression”, which — in analogy to the wider US context — favors the faction which is most motivated to “turn out” and cast a ballot. It is possible to discern an intentional policy of discouraging attendance at SBC annual meetings, or is this simply a natural outcome of the way the meetings have been run in recent decades>

  71. Friend: Thank you. He has written recently and proudly about his membership in the John Birch Society. That organization’s reflex is to see a communist threat in absolutely everything they don’t personally endorse.

    And you still see echoes of Cold War Birchism popping up today. Like the COVID-19 Pandemic, AKA the COMMUNIST! Chinese Virus. Not since the end of the Cold War have I heard such a return to the terms “RED China” and “COMMUNIST China”.

    The John Birch Society also overlapped with American Christians, much as that other political cult QAnon does today. In Seventies/Eighties Christian AM radio, an early Ttelevangelist named Billy James Hargis always started his radio preaching shows with “For Christ and AGAINST COMMUNISM!”

    In 1972, Bircher Congressman James H Schmitz ran for Prez under the American Independent Party (AKA George Wallace’s Third Party of 1968).

    I distinctly remember “Chick Tracts” distributed by Schmitz’s campaign; the style was almost identical to Jack Chick (with the exception of “COMMUNIST!” for “SATAN!”; the last page of the tract (under “What should I do?”) began “PRAY!” followed by several Bible verses. The overlap was there.

  72. Nancy2(aka Kevlar): I don’t think they hate women; I think they are afraid of us. But that’s just my opinion, and I am a woman.

    I’ve always said that they’re scared you-know-whatless of women.
    Scared of their strength and their sexual power.

  73. Mr. Jesperson:
    Julie Roys has a post up with a quote from someone very familiar here.Looks like he is going to propose a response to CRT:

    “Wade Burleson, a pastor of an Enid, Oklahoma, church, argued CRT is rooted in Marxism.

    “Christ is a uniter,” said Burleson. “I don’t see CRT uniting. I see it dividing. Marxism has a goal of dividing.”

    Others have suspected Wade has been slowly going off the deep end for some time. The type example most often cited was his posting (rant?) about Nikola Tesla (RL “Mad Scientists” and innovative electrical engineer, who does attract a lot of crackpots).

    And CRT Cultural Marxism(TM) is just the latest Newspeak for the “World COMMUNIST Conspiracy(TM)” of the Birchers. (Cold War predecessor of today’s “Global Cabal of Global Elite Illuminati” a la the QAnon Cult.)

  74. Nancy2(aka Kevlar): I don’t think they hate women;I think they are afraid of us.But that’s just my opinion, and I am a woman.

    “Fear has pulled more triggers than Hate.”
    — David Drake, Old Nathan

  75. Max: The critical race theory will require the denomination to draw a line in the sand

    The danger in Critical Race Theory is if it becomes an end in itself Righteous Cause. As I’ve seen with a lot of Righteous Causes, when they become ends in themselves (like “Diversity solely for the sake of Diversity”), they become Dead Ends.

  76. Friend: I grew up in a place where folks were terribly afraid to talk about racism, for fear that African Americans would learn about history and attack white people. I’m not even kidding.

    You’re not the only one. There’s a lot of built-up hostility there, and these days everyone thinks Zero-Sum, i.e. The Only Way for Me to Win is to MAKE YOU LOSE! Win 0r Lose, Top or Bottom, Dom or Sub. Kill or Be Killed.

    What BLM and CRT really need to do is Show & Convince Us Whites how this can be a Win-Win Situation for us both instead of a Win-Lose Situation with Whitey’s turn in the barrel.

  77. Muff Potter: I’ve always said that they’re scared you-know-whatless of women.
    Scared of their strength and their sexual power.

    You forgot to mention our most important feature …… our intelligence, Muff …….. our intelligence. : )
    (Says she who has suffered a near-fatal head injury, plus a stoke.)

  78. Headless Unicorn Guy: “Fear has pulled more triggers than Hate.”
    — David Drake, Old Nathan

    “Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Angers leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.”
    –Jedi Grand Master Yoda

  79. Headless Unicorn Guy: The danger in Critical Race Theory is if it becomes an end in itself Righteous Cause.

    The SBC and others have gone a thousand miles out of their way to whip up hysteria against CRT, by deliberately twisting the definition and aims of an academic school of thought that has been around since the 1970s.

    Let’s imagine that a toothpaste company has been using a moon-and-stars logo on their products for a century. Opponents of the company suddenly unleash a furious nationwide campaign that “proves” the logo is satanic. If the public listens only to the opponents, the company will find itself cast in a weak supporting role as a purveyor of toothpaste and facts. And facts rarely win, when the Righteous are shrieking that someone is of the Devil.

  80. Nancy2(aka Kevlar): You forgot to mention our most important feature …… our intelligence, Muff …….. our intelligence. : )
    (Says she who has suffered a near-fatal head injury, plus a stoke.)

    Brainy women have always been an aphrodisiac for me.

  81. Friend:

    “And facts rarely win, when the Righteous are shrieking…”

    +++++++++++++++++++++

    I think that’s the status quo evangelical concept of faith, in practice.

  82. Tom Parker,

    I was very sorry to hear of his retirement from the ministry. The Church needs people who will stand up for those who are persecuted, even if it costs them in the end.

  83. Nancy2(aka Kevlar): Okay, warning: the link I am posting is a political piece, but it does explain the premise of CRT, and make it easy to see how CRT has become such a big issue in the SBC.
    https://www.rawstory.com/what-is-critical-race-theory/

    Thank you for the link, Nancy2(aka Kevlar)…. 🙂

    From the article (one of the things I appreciated….the differentiation between “systemic” and “systematic”):

    However, doing so conflates “systemic” with “systematic”: “systemic” practices are those that affect a complex whole of which they are a part; “systematic” practices are planned and methodical. To say an attitude or pattern is structural does not mean that it is unavoidable and unchangeable, that it cannot be addressed and its effects reduced through reforms. Indeed, a central tenet of the theory is that racism has produced its effects through specific, historical institutions, and that reduction of racial inequities can be accomplished, but only once the existence of such injustices is recognized.

    The following excerpt from the article could be applied to any number of things that get gagged, tabled, shoved under the rug, etc., in the “church” (I am omitting the two prior paragraphs in the article as my comment would a) be too long, and b) potentially be taken politically, which is not my intent).

    From the article:

    Parallels between the gagging of anti-slavery petitions and the campaign to prohibit the teaching of Critical Race Theory are clear, if unnoticed before now. Like the Southern delegations who opposed discussion of slavery, opponents of Critical Race Theory believe that any discussion of persistent racial inequities in legal and other institutions is unacceptable because it is “divisive.”

  84. BozT wise words on “Independent Investigation”

    https://mobile.twitter.com/BozT/status/1404148954078535682

    “However, engagement in a process that is designed to allow the institution who is the subject of the investigation to have ultimate control will only further wound the wounded while allowing the institution to claim that the process was legitimate because survivors agreed to participate in it.”

  85. Sowre-Sweet Dayes,

    I agree with BozT.
    The SBC head honchos will have control over what, and who, Guidepost Sol. has access to. The head honchos can control, to a great extent, the information Guidepost receives.
    On top of that, the SBC will be paying the bill for the “investigation”.

  86. researcher: opponents of Critical Race Theory believe that any discussion of persistent racial inequities in legal and other institutions is unacceptable because it is “divisive.”

    That is exactly what is happening in the SBC. But, the “devisiveness” is already blatantly obvious. There is historical, generational devisiveness in the SBC that NEEDS to be addressed. IMHO, everybody needs to lay their cards on the table ……. lay out the causes of the divisiveness in a civilized, gracious manner, and then work towards a solution. Complain, confess, admit, expose, compromise, think, pray….…… whatever. But, admit to and expose the problems, and work together to solve those problems. But, I don’t see that happening.
    If the SBC keeps sweeping this stuff under the rug and tamping it down, I believe will fester and finally blow like a pyroclastic volcano. Many more members will scatter, and it will serve them right.

  87. researcher: opponents of Critical Race Theory believe that any discussion of persistent racial inequities in legal and other institutions is unacceptable because it is “divisive.”

    They ‘believe’ it will be divisive. They are making it so as they speak and write about as they are. They are quite capable of making it nondivisive.

  88. Bridget,

    We need more than one critical theory of everything. Insisting on package dealing is divisive. God gave human beings faculties like inference because He wants individuals.

  89. The SBC has black pastors and layman, go to them, let them tell their stories and come up with solutions that are Christ honoring and help solving some of the issues. That is what Jesus would do, remember how he handled the woman at the well. This is a scene from a series called Tho Chosen and always brings a tear to my eye, the Samaritan woman could easily be a black during any time period, you can feel her frustration, hurt and pain in her voice because of ethnicity, gender and mistakes she has made

    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=el7dzoNV3IY

    If we only could learn from him!!!

  90. Bridget: researcher: opponents of Critical Race Theory believe that any discussion of persistent racial inequities in legal and other institutions is unacceptable because it is “divisive.”

    This could be said about both sides. The problem as I see it with CRT is the element of post-modern philosophy that it is built upon. This works both ways with its proponents claiming racism is everywhere with most everyone just because of their personal experience. Yet the opponents can do the exact same thing: they do not see racism around them so it exists nowhere. The reality is between these points and we will get nowhere if all we do is base everything on our personal experience. This is the weakness of post-modern philosophy. Everyone running around in their own bubbles assuming that everyone else is just like them and if they are not “then what the hell is wrong with those @$#%*!” Using the same philosophy you have people seeing racism everywhere and nowhere. No objective reality leads to utter confusion and problems that cannot be solved. Instead their is a bunch of shouting going on and concerns of pointless violence coming on both sides.

  91. If the SBC doesn’t handle the race issue and the sex abuse issues with respect and some acknowledgment of the problems of being a minority in our society than I am done with them. I have zero hope if the conservatives win that that it will be done so I am hoping and praying for a moderate to win. I owe the SBC a debt of gratitude as they led me to faith in Christ ( the first in my family to believe) but at some point I and many others may have to walk away from them. If things don’t change. I am embarrassed to say that I am a SBC’er in conversations with friends.

  92. Chuck P: I am embarrassed to say that I am a SBC’er in conversations with friends.

    Or you could say, “I’m a bad Southern Baptist. I can’t remember which preacher’s been fired and whether it’s time to forgive them yet.”

  93. Chuck P:
    The SBC has black pastors and layman, go to them, let them tell their stories and come up with solutions that are Christ honoring and help solving some of the issues.That is what Jesus would do, remember how he handled the woman at the well.This is a scene from a series called Tho Chosen and always brings a tear to my eye, the Samaritan woman could easily be a black during any time period, you can feel her frustration, hurt and pain in her voice because of ethnicity, gender and mistakes she has made

    Meant to say a black individual who has faced repeated discrimination not a black, need better proofreading. No disrespect meant.

    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=el7dzoNV3IY

    If we only could learn from him!!!

  94. Ava Aaronson: Anyone here at TWW with tickets to the carnival?
    Anyone, sans tickets, out on the sidewalk, just shy of the transit bus exhaust blowing by?

    Oh, don’t tempt me !!!
    I’m fairly familiar with Nashville, and if there isn’t a traffic jam, I can hop in my car and be at the Music City Center in an hour and fifteen……… my daughter has a medical appointment about a mile and a half from there just off Charlotte Ave., on Wed..!!!

  95. Chuck P: t at some point I and many others may have to walk away from them. If things don’t change. I am embarrassed to say that I am a SBC’er in conversations with friends.

    I hear ya. I joined a Southern Baptist church in 1978. I’ve been a Southern Baptist ever since, but I haven’t attended a service since Feb. 2016. I’m about as white as they come, but I’m a female ——- I can’t just sit there and listen to it anymore…….. I certainly can’t live it.
    Another commenter on here, Max, has left the SBC. I will probably leave, too. I keep hoping things will change, but I believe it’s a false hope,

  96. Dee,
    It was so nice to see you on the “For Such A Time As This” panel. Good information , good discussion. And it was nice to see you relate in person instead of just blogging back and forth. Good job and congratulations to you and the other panelists.

  97. Ava Aaronson: Lovely city. Music is amazing

    Some fantastic food downtown, between Church St. and Riverfront park, too !!! Parking is a royal pain, though.

  98. Just finished watching one of my favorite scientists talking about Cognitive Bias. This is an important topic, whether we are talking about CRT or save the institution at all costs or claiming that everyone involved in a particular large group is either stupid or evil or both. The ability to start seeing your own is a place where true wisdom starts. She is talking about scientists getting stuck or getting on a bandwagon that leads to nowhere but the ideas are equally valid within any group. So if it is CRT seeing racism where it is not or proponents seeing it nowhere or scientists ignoring a creator just because the idea is unpopular, all of this is just cognitive biases at work leading people in circles or into basically nowhere. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZNeD2a95ROE

  99. Samuel Conner: This description has the “feel” of a kind of “vote suppression”, which — in analogy to the wider US context — favors the faction which is most motivated to “turn out” and cast a ballot. It is possible to discern an intentional policy of discouraging attendance at SBC annual meetings, or is this simply a natural outcome of the way the meetings have been run in recent decades>

    I will point out that the language used is very close to what they already use for women. And their theology is heavily invested in an elite pastoral class making all the decisions for everyone else. ESS defined a class system even putting one of the members of the trinity in essential slavery. Add their praise of the SBC founders, and I believe that all along, New Calvinism was a move toward a theocracy with slavery.

    https://biblicalpersonhood.wordpress.com/christian-myths-on-gender-and-gender-roles/myth-woman-is-the-derivative-image-of-god-and-man-the-direct-image/

    I don’t even think most New Calvinists are aware they are supporting this kind of system.

  100. Leslie Lea: It was so nice to see you on the “For Such A Time As This” panel. Good information , good discussion. And it was nice to see you relate in person instead of just blogging back and forth. Good job and congratulations to you and the other panelists.

    I really enjoyed it, too. I was actually wondering if the rally was going to go off this year, because their website hadn’t been updated and I hadn’t seen anything about it on FB.

    In other news, we have an orange kitten coming home today after his neuter. His name is Elliott. For some reason, my dad can’t seem to remember that name, so I might have to change it. If you have any suggestions, let me know.

    I walked him around the shelter for a while and he was super chill, not even flinching when a barking dog ran up to us. He looks like he is a Maine Coon mix (I have a 16-year-old Maine who is a lazy bum), but his mama is a Siamese, so that should be interesting. I was really tempted by her, she was a sweetheart.

  101. I think the one player to watch in the next few months is Randy Adams.

    I agree he has no chance to win the SBC Presidency. BUT six of the western state conventions have drastically cut back CP funding, with nine others about to join them. And that’s the area where Jordan Hall of the notorious Pulpit and Pen has been picking off pastors to leave the SBC and go indie (though right now he’s only going after those who are hard-core Calvinists).

    If Mohler and Stone go into a runoff (I doubt Litton has enough to win or get into a runoff), Adams may come with a deal: support my push for a forensic audit, OR watch the SBC dwindle to near nothing in the Western US as those state conventions and churches depart (because they’re already ready to go; I’ve done my best to hold them off for now but I can’t do it much longer).

  102. Nancy2(aka Kevlar): Max, has left the SBC

    The SBC left me years before I left it. I’m a stubborn ole guy – I stayed longer than I should have when the “Conservatives” turned out to be Calvinists. In the 1950s I signed on with a denomination which was non-Calvinist in belief and practice; which focused on evangelism and missions around the world; which preached whosoever-will-may-come to ALL people; which taught soul competency and priesthood of the believer; where every believer was treated equal without distinction of race, class or gender; where folks were known first by their love not their theology; where the authority of Jesus superseded the illegitimate authority of mere men; where Jesus had influence over His people, not Calvin and Mohler. When I realized that those days were over for the SBC, I entered the Done ranks … done with the SBC, but not done with Jesus.

  103. Nancy2(aka Kevlar): I don’t think they hate women; I think they are afraid of us.

    Some of the best Bible teachers I had as a Southern Baptist were women. There was a day in SBC life when they had more freedom to use their spiritual gifts. Two things put an end to that: the good ole boys in the old SBC and the NeoCals in the new SBC. Both groups are afraid that some women might know more than them Biblically/spiritually so they attempt to shut them down with the “beauty of complementarity” before the “beauty of hearing God” through women enters the church. It’s a sickness that churchmen have.

  104. Mark R: If Mohler and Stone go into a runoff (I doubt Litton has enough to win or get into a runoff), Adams may come with a deal: support my push for a forensic audit, OR watch the SBC dwindle to near nothing in the Western US as those state conventions and churches depart (because they’re already ready to go; I’ve done my best to hold them off for now but I can’t do it much longer).

    I think another split after the convention is also a possibility. Between all the factions, there’s a lot of anger, and people are just tired of all the drama and nastiness and attempts to control the entities and resolutions committee.

  105. Max: Both groups are afraid that some women might know more than them Biblically/spiritually so they attempt to shut them down with the “beauty of complementarity”

    Sounds like a variant of “I Have to Be The Smartest MAN In The Room!” Syndrome.

  106. ishy: I think another split after the convention is also a possibility. Between all the factions, there’s a lot of anger, and people are just tired of all the drama and nastiness and attempts to control the entities and resolutions committee.

    I think the western state conventions WILL leave if Adams isn’t elected or at least gets something for his support. Alaska already cut its CP funding to ZERO and several others were going to do so but were talked out of it at the last minute by HQ. Lose those, and maybe also the northern state ones, and SBC goes back to being a regional denomination.

  107. From the OP Mike Stone will lose the election.

    While this should be the case, it is in no way a guaranteed outcome. If the CBN (not Pat R’s, Paige P’s) is able to get the focus to remain on the many other controversies swirling around this convention (there are many more besides the SA/CSA survivors and their advocates and the CRT confusion), then Stone might have a chance to win by elimination. I wish it were not so, but nothing can be discounted as of yet.

  108. ishy: I think another split after the convention is also a possibility. Between all the factions, there’s a lot of anger, and people are just tired of all the drama and nastiness and attempts to control the entities and resolutions committee.

    Southern Baptist: “B-b-b-but I thought schisms only happened in the Unrighteous churches!?”

    Me: [laughs in Mainline]

  109. Burwell Stark: Stone might have a chance to win by elimination

    Nah, the New Calvinists will tweet Mohler to victory tomorrow. The reformers are organized; the grassroots are not.

  110. I also think Mohler will win, as Stone’s recent controversies will probably derail him. The New Cals also tend to be bloc voters. And let’s be honest, the rest would be smart in voting for Adams, but most of the SBC is so focused on sides that they probably won’t.

    I think a lot of people know now that Mohler’s “We all need to just get along” speech implies that everybody is expected to get along with their agenda, but they’ve spent a long time converting the denomination and I think it will lead to a split either now or later.

  111. Rolland Slade was just reelected as EC chair. He is outspoken against abuse (and the first black pastor to chair). That’s a good sign.

  112. Headless Unicorn Guy: “I Have to Be The Smartest MAN In The Room!” Syndrome.

    ++++++++++++++++++++++++++

    This is really a thing? Is there a clinical name for this so I can explain to my brother-in~law what his diagnosis is?

    (Not narcissism, cuz that would be “I was BORN the smartest man in the room at all times”)

  113. Max: It’s a sickness that churchmen have.

    And all of it based on an alleged proscription written by Paul to his protege in Ephesus.
    Well, my soul competency and priesthood as a believer tells me that it was a one-shot deal written to Timothy to correct a particular situation at Ephesus, NOT a universal proscription for all times and for all spaces.

  114. ishy: we have an orange kitten coming home today after his neuter. His name is Elliott. For some reason, my dad can’t seem to remember that name, so I might have to change it. If you have any suggestions, let me know.

    +++++++++++++++++

    Oh, I’m really good at this.

    Marktwain
    Galileo
    (They were both redheads)

    Lou Grant
    Oscar Madison
    Felix Unger

    (because I love 70s tv, when I was very young, of course)

  115. The amount of anger I feel watching people who discarded me and silenced me for speaking out against abuse in the SBC *now* playing like they are victim advocates and standing up for wrongs. (After they went along with everything and stayed silent to make sure they kept their positions and opportunities.)

    I have barely recovered years later and lost all my school work I worker my behind off for, mind you. A million other awful things happened to me. The silencing, condescension and dismissal I experienced came from the Russell Moore types and the “we’re not Page Patterson” types.

    It isn’t okay that for decades people have already spoken out and have given all the answers. Especially the victims. *They* are the ones who care. The SBC has been far past saving for awhile. Jumping ship right as it is finally going down
    – when you’ve been enabling it and profiting off of it for years -isn’t prophecy or courage.

  116. Ava Aaronson: Tomorrow is now today and @RobDownenChron is there, live tweeting the action. Apparently, they let Rob in, with his database.

    They were stuck between a rock and a hard place on that decision. How could you not let Rob in? Trying to hide something?! (the answer is yes and now they have to hide it real good)

  117. emily honey,

    “watching people who discarded me and silenced me for speaking out against abuse in the SBC *now* playing like they are victim advocates and standing up for wrongs. (After they went along with everything and stayed silent to make sure they kept their positions and opportunities.)

    I have barely recovered years later and lost all my school work”
    ++++++++++++++++++++++

    very sorry for these circumstances.

    your story is worth telling and worth hearing.

  118. emily honey: It isn’t okay that for decades people have already spoken out and have given all the answers. Especially the victims. *They* are the ones who care. The SBC has been far past saving for awhile. Jumping ship right as it is finally going down
    – when you’ve been enabling it and profiting off of it for years -isn’t prophecy or courage.

    @RobDownenChron live tweeting at the event:
    “‘This may be the second or third worst decision in the entire history of the SBC,’ @pastordmack tells me. ‘You went on record not giving women who are abused a transparent investigation…You can only do that if you devalue and disrespect women.’ #SBC2021 #SBC21 #SBCtoo #SBC”

  119. Ava Aaronson: “‘This may be the second or third worst decision in the entire history of the SBC,’ @pastordmack tells me. ‘You went on record not giving women who are abused a transparent investigation…You can only do that if you devalue and disrespect women.’ #SBC2021 #SBC21 #SBCtoo #SBC”

    Robert Downen
    @RobDownenChron

    In all seriousness (and AFAIK): The EC vote doesn’t change anything about proposals from the floor tomorrow.

    It’s likely tho to galvanize support among those who are already skeptical of SBC leadership on abuse matters. #SBC21 #SBC2021 #SBCtoo #SBC

  120. ishy,

    “EC may get outvoted by the entire convention tomorrow…”
    ++++++++++++++++

    i couldn’t be farther from the SBC in every way, but even so i’ll make this an annual holiday.

  121. I was under the impression that all proposals from the floor had to go through the resolutions committee, though, so I am curious about that and if they passed a proposal through already.

  122. Over at Pravda, Dave Miller had this to say about today’s goings on at the convention:

    “ Ronnie Floyd has been regaling them with how wonderful “we are” and they have been taking actions that say the opposite.

    Jared Wellman brought a motion to expand the investigation to include Rachael Denhollander’d suggested alterations. It was defeated. It becomes increasingly suspicious that Ronnie is seeking to use his investigation to avoid a real investigation.”

  123. ishy: I think another split after the convention is also a possibility. Between all the factions, there’s a lot of anger, and people are just tired of all the drama and nastiness and attempts to control the entities and resolutions committee.

    Me, too. Here’s another piece of Dave Miller’s post:

    “ Rumors have been swirling about actions the CBN-controlled faction will seek to take.

    *They are increasingly setting themselves up as the SBC oversight board, seeking to become the ruling elders over the other entities. The Business and Financial Plan MUST be defeated.”

    CBN – Paige Patterson’s Conservative Baptist Network.
    I wonder who wants to be the Baptist pope?

  124. elastigirl: emily honey,

    “watching people who discarded me and silenced me for speaking out against abuse in the SBC *now* playing like they are victim advocates and standing up for wrongs. (After they went along with everything and stayed silent to make sure they kept their positions and opportunities.)

    I have barely recovered years later and lost all my school work”
    ++++++++++++++++++++++

    very sorry for these circumstances.

    your story is worth telling and worth hearing.

    That. (Bold added by me.)

    (I can totally empathize with the having barely recovered….very big sigh….)

  125. Nancy2(aka Kevlar): CBN – Paige Patterson’s Conservative Baptist Network.
    I wonder who wants to be the Baptist pope?

    You already said it! I think Mike Stone wants to nominate himself as well. But the New Cals already set themselves up as the oversight board, so that won’t be an easy battle.

    I have noticed today on Twitter a lot people who seem to forget about the New Calvinists and their drive to authoritarianism (I suspect some of them are New Calvinists and just want to pretend their group isn’t as bad when they are).

    I saw this tweeted, and I noticed it seemed completely ignorant of the authoritarian movement and the huge number of elder-run SBC churches (like the two in my town), which is not the SBC polity of the traditional Baptists: https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2021/june-web-only/abuse-southern-baptist-convention-members-stop-corruption.html

    We are not in Kansas anymore, Toto…

  126. Wait, wut?

    Jon Glass @jcglass
    So, several candidates running, only senior pastors voting (a new thing) and voting by standing. This won’t be chaotic at all. #SBC21

  127. ishy: So, several candidates running, only senior pastors voting (a new thing)

    There are more SBC “lead pastors” in their 20s-30s than you can shake a stick at, thanks to the New Calvinist church planting program (I mean theology planting program).

  128. Bridget,

    Similarly to how H.U.G. put it; data and conclusions are different things, and how we weight different data is an additional issue. There must be lots of ways to acknowledge the realities truthfully and explore creatively towards constructive, fresh new ground.

    Headless Unicorn Guy,

    Over here we had a dominant faction insisting that their chaotic way of leaving the EU was the only way, instead of a sensible method. (The referendum didn’t propose an outcome, and it didn’t count abstentions which referendums should: the vote was 37-34-28.)

    Sadly followers seldom get given enough voice anywhere really, to contribute unique elements to the overall good. I give the name “package dealing” to intellectual dictatorship or acquiescence in it, in place of “cafeteria” which is each person holding unique beliefs and perspectives.

    All-or-nothing versus all-or-nothing; not eclectic enough. Then convention-time “pretend compromises” make it worse.

    Incidentally in Healing Wounded History ( 978 0 281 06625 4 ) Russ Parker proposes that “representational confession” for the sins of our forebears or superiors, as Daniel did, in interceding has some spiritual power. There had been prayers for battle sites. Do SBC believe in Holy Spirit help?

  129. Michael in UK: Do SBC believe in Holy Spirit help?

    Oh, I suppose they still believe in the Holy Spirit … but are not able to access His help since they have grieved and quenched Him in recent years. They are pretty much running on their own power at this point.

  130. ishy: I saw this tweeted, and I noticed it seemed completely ignorant of the authoritarian movement and the huge number of elder-run SBC churches (like the two in my town), which is not the SBC polity of the traditional Baptists: https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2021/june-web-only/abuse-southern-baptist-convention-members-stop-corruption.html

    We are not in Kansas anymore, Toto…

    From the article: “Baptists believe church authority resides in individual members filled with the Holy Spirit.”

    That was during the last millennium. Elder-rule under New Calvinism has pretty much ended congregational polity. Oh, congregational governance still exists in many small traditional (non-Calvinist) SBC churches, but the ones in my area would not be accused of having many members filled with the Holy Spirit.

    Toto wouldn’t even consider being a Southern Baptist today! It’s as scary as the Land of Oz.

  131. ishy: Why do they have a president for everything??

    It’s sort of like everyone being a Vice President in a bank. Title means everything.

  132. Nancy2(aka Kevlar): CBN – Paige Patterson’s Conservative Baptist Network.
    I wonder who wants to be the Baptist pope?

    It would be darn near impossible to dethrone Pope Mohler. Paige Patterson sure doesn’t have a chance at SBC Popery … recent revelations of his post-SWBTS shenanigans have sealed his fate. Besides, there are already “Conservatives” in the SBC (aka Calvinists who now control every jot and tittle). IMO, CBN will split off of the SBC with a handful of churches … and they might anoint Patterson to be some sort of head honcho.

  133. Tom Parker: I know the SBC leaders want, but I wish they would just come right out and say that they hate women!

    This is true, but they appear to love little girls just fine; and little boys, also, too. So sad, wanting power over the powerless!

    Also full of racism, from their founding days in the mid-1800s until right now!

  134. Mr. Jesperson: “Wade Burleson, a pastor of an Enid, Oklahoma, church, argued CRT is rooted in Marxism.

    “Christ is a uniter,” said Burleson. “I don’t see CRT uniting. I see it dividing. Marxism has a goal of dividing.”

    BLERGH. CRT is not based in Marxism. It comes out of Critical Legal Studies and is a framework for looking at political and social issues. But it’s easy to denounce what you don’t want to understand.

    To give an example, the Constitution as originally implemented assumed chattel slavery would continue to exist, to wit the 3/5ths compromise in Article 1, Section 2, Clause 3. Basically, enslaved persons were counted as 3/5ths of a free person.

    It is my understanding that CRT would look at the impact of this action on political and social systems. As I said, it assumes slavery will continue to exist. I also gave slave states a disproportionate impact in Congress because enslaved persons were considered population to be counted when apportioning seats in the House. From that flowed other impacts, such as the various battles in Congress, the “compromises” that failed, leading up to the Civil War and the repeal of this clause by the 14th Amendment.

    This is a very simple example. One could add all sorts of legal, political and social strictures that adversely impacted people of color from 1619 until today.

    In my opinion, people are upset about CRT not just because they don’t understand it, but also because it removes the veneer of civilized racism we live with in our society. That’s harsh. But it’s reality.

  135. Muslin, fka Dee Holmes,

    I’m grappling with chicken-and-egg questions. It seems that the SBC passed a pro-CRT resolution in 2019, and now they are in a complete fury about it. Did the SBC start this battle all by itself, and then cause it to morph beyond their denomination and into nationwide hysteria? Here’s the beginning of an article:

    If he had the chance to turn back time, Pastor Stephen Feinstein says, he might not have proposed Resolution 9.

    The innocuous-sounding and nonbinding statement adopted by Southern Baptists who attended their 2019 annual meeting has contributed to a fierce battle over critical race theory, an academic approach to understanding systemic racism. The resolution allowed for CRT to be used as an analytical tool but also stated that it should be subordinate to Scripture.

    The debate around CRT has only grown more contentious in the years following, even as the nation’s largest Protestant denomination was unable to meet in person for two years due to pandemic restrictions.

    “Oh my gosh, I had no idea, and if I could do it all over again, I would have just shut my fingers up and not typed anything,” said the California pastor and U.S. Army Reserve chaplain who admits he might have naively thought it would be adopted and harmony would reign.

    “That is not what happened.”

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/religion/at-least-three-critical-race-theory-statements-proposed-for-southern-baptist-meeting/2021/06/11/517ccfd2-cb09-11eb-8708-64991f2acf28_story.html

  136. Mr. Jesperson:
    Julie Roys has a post up with a quote from someone very familiar here.Looks like he is going to propose a response to CRT:

    “Wade Burleson, a pastor of an Enid, Oklahoma, church, argued CRT is rooted in Marxism.

    “Christ is a uniter,” said Burleson. “I don’t see CRT uniting. I see it dividing. Marxism has a goal of dividing.”

    I’m on record that I disagree with Burleson on this. I don’t think he’s representing CRT correctly.

  137. Michael in UK: There must be lots of ways to acknowledge the realities truthfully and explore creatively towards constructive, fresh new ground.

    It seems to me that many people would not be willing to put this amount of work in on the subject. They just want it to go away, be left in the past . . . which it can’t because there are ramifications still today.

  138. Bridget,

    You’re right. White Americans who grow up in segregated communities have a lot of ridiculous misconceptions about African Americans. They can’t face the thought of sharing the discussion, listening, learning something new. In this limited, primitive worldview, things are just fine, as long as white people are the only ones who are ever allowed to talk. 🙁

  139. Friend,

    ““Oh my gosh, I had no idea, and if I could do it all over again, I would have just shut my fingers up and not typed anything,” said the California pastor and U.S. Army Reserve chaplain who admits he might have naively thought it would be adopted and harmony would reign.

    “That is not what happened.””–Pastor Stephen Feinstein
    ++++++++++++++++++++++++++

    he wished he hadn’t proposed Resolution 9…

    (allowing for CRT [an academic approach to understanding systemic racism] to be used as an analytical tool but subordinate to Scripture)

    …because it didn’t result in harmony??

    as if wrestling with the fact of slavery, SBC’s history, and the associated multi-faceted legacies would be, could be, and should be harmonious.
    .
    .
    some issues are so laden with human cruelty and deep complexity that the only right course of action is to face them head on and struggle, wrestle, which will be inherently divisive, to get through to some kind of resolution.

    as i see it, ‘biblical’ takes on laughable proportions when ‘unity’ and ‘harmony’ are the only biblical considerations that matter, such that people apologize and repent of approaching the necessary hard and messy work.

  140. elastigirl,

    researcher,

    Thank you – I can barely share even a basic detail without it feeling like too much. A lot of my healing has been trying to find newness and progress away from these groups. I externally left but the internal leaving is much harder to do.

    I really think the system needs to gone after – and exposed. There is too much “we’re not them” and positioning and posturing and not enough self-reflection. Family systems theory and social psychology helped me put to words what I was saw.

    I remember feeling like I was in a 90’s John Grisham movie (lol) uncovering and researching all the SBC corruption through google finding Christa Brown’s website and story, Dee Ann Miller, and all the real stories of the conservative resurgence and putting all the pieces together while trying to understand what was happening to me. I knew deep in my bones that I couldn’t in good conscience spent one more minute studying or participating in the SBC anymore. We are responsible for what we know and what we see when it comes across our path. And we are are responsible for what we do with that information. The SGM and Mahaney enablement is what triggered me the most.

  141. Bridget,
    Friend,

    “It seems to me that many people would not be willing to put this amount of work in on the subject. They just want it to go away, be left in the past . . .”
    ++++++++++++++

    ““Oh my gosh, I had no idea, and if I could do it all over again, I would have just shut my fingers up and not typed anything,”

    said the California pastor and U.S. Army Reserve chaplain who admits he might have naively thought it would be adopted and harmony would reign.”
    .
    .
    yeah… “run away! run away!”

    (I’m sort of repeating myself — i’m just ‘flabberghasted’ [i’m pretty sure], whatever that means)

  142. emily honey,

    so sorry for all this sh|t. (this deserves the lightning bolt, not the lightening bug)

    i’m quite sure that if you were to tell your story and it was recorded somehow, God would join you and your voice (your voice, and God’s voice) and the raw emotive truth of the sound of it would shake mountains and part seas.

    i suspect you are a veneer-free zone.

  143. emily honey: The SGM and Mahaney enablement is what triggered me the most.

    And not one word will be said about that this week at the SBC annual meeting … while the one who enabled Mahaney will be crowned SBC King (Al Mohler).

  144. emily honey: . There is too much “we’re not them”

    And that is BS!!! They aid and abet, at the very least. That makes them a “…them” .

  145. elastigirl: some issues are so laden with human cruelty and deep complexity that the only right course of action is to face them head on and struggle, wrestle, which will be inherently divisive, to get through to some kind of resolution.

    This!

    Wisdom

  146. ishy,

    Regarding women as the derivative image of God… It’s funny. When I read Genesis 1 and 2, I see the reverse more clearly (not that either is “clear,” by any means). Man was “incomplete,” almost like a beta test. It doesn’t say that about woman, does it?

  147. Frankly, I predict Ed Litton will win the election. If he does, it will send a pretty loud and clear message.

  148. emily honey: emily honey on Mon Jun 14, 2021 at 10:37 PM said:

    elastigirl,

    researcher,

    Thank you – I can barely share even a basic detail without it feeling like too much. A lot of my healing has been trying to find newness and progress away from these groups. I externally left but the internal leaving is much harder to do.

    … There is too much “we’re not them” and positioning and posturing and not enough self-reflection. Family systems theory and social psychology helped me put to words what I was saw.

    I walked out of it, but did it walk out of me? I expel the overstayed tenant daily by simple prayers but especially by taking up hobbies I previously hadn’t dared. Even some “Calvinist” authors I’ve stumbled across (almost unknown ones) have good logic and epistemology, and love the real sciences and the better facets of postmodernism (genuinely and not just manoeuvring). Pierre Bourdieu with his habitus is most humane. We can call to not be messed with!

    The jigsaw-like clues we were given over half a lifetime (and not just in “Calvinism”) (a miraculous property acquisition, some sensitive reponsibilities for a peer, the parallel channels) eventually form the picture of a Lemony Snicket-style Series Of Unfortunate Events. How “incredible”!

    A lot of evangelicals have been in fear from the Wimber-style power craze combined with the Billy Graham-like cultivating of big politics. They forgot to cultivate imagination, inference and intuition. The baking groups and the flower groups have a good point: it is their defiance against fear.

    Evangelicals bought into the “the word is the thing” idea (against the advice of C S Peirce) so can’t see their way out of this. But they should open their hearts. Music “ministers” should try Brahms quartets – with minimal amplifying. I and some evangelical acquaintances nearly went to an aeroplane museum / fly-in one Sunday – then we didn’t (but we should have).

    P.s what do con-evos make of Huckleberry Finn or are they boycotting agnostics?

  149. Wild Honey,

    Just So stories were among many normal and witty ways of narrating. The meaning was crucial and was passed along in parallel. The bit about the rib is a multi-lingual pun on “she who bore lives” as she was the furthest ancestress back that most people remembered. Fundamentalists deny that there should be any meanings to Scripture, at all. J H Newman – who always considered his youth in evangelicalism gave him the crucial continuing foundation in his faith – advises that belief should be by assent to degrees of inference. Likewise the bulk of chapter 1 is neither Creation nor Evolution and was never supposed to be. This is hermeneutics, semiotics and quasi-indexicality (mind reading, including our God’s). Bring it on!

  150. elastigirl: …because it didn’t result in harmony??

    Ha, looks like Pastor and Army Reserve Chaplain (MAJ) Feinstein is not exactly pro harmony in general. A chaplain is supposed to meet soldiers where they are, and I have to wonder if this man is capable of that.

    He wrote and self-published this book (sold on Amazon, so I guess he’s unworried about Big Tech):

    We Destroy Arguments: How presuppositional apologetics empowers the believer to refute unbelief

    Have you ever had your faith challenged by an unbeliever to where you felt helpless and without an answer? If so, this book is for you. Whether the challenge comes from unsaved loved ones, co-workers, college professors, or TV personalities, you can be certain that such challenges will come to every Christian. Knowing this, the Bible commands every Christian to be ready. The purpose of this book is to help Christians to always be prepared to make a defense for the hope that is within them (1Peter 3:15). Yet, if we are to properly achieve this goal, then a particular type of defense is in order-a presuppositional defense. “We Destroy Arguments” gives you just that. When it is all said and done, Christians will learn how to make an irrefutable defense for the hope that is within them. Truly, this book is what Evangelicals have been waiting for. Stephen Feinstein is a pastor at Sovereign Way Christian Church in Hesperia, CA. His ministry focuses heavily on expositional preaching, biblical counseling, systematic theology, apologetics, church history, and practical theology. His goal is to help Christians become biblical people doing biblical things in the biblical way. He also is a United States Army Reserve chaplain.

  151. elastigirl,

    Friend,

    Here is a five-star Amazon review of We Destroy Arguments. I am wondering if the reviewer realizes why people fall silent… but, as the reviewer wisely observes, “That is what this book do.” The full review:

    When you read this book, think of it as your are learning a martial art. In deed this book is very effective. This book will do what the title says. It will destroy arguments. Although this book isn’t trying to prove that god exist. Is designed to close the lips of your opponents. The occasions I’v used this method, Atheist basically crumbles at facing the futility of their own thinking vs the Cristian thinking.

    It’s because of this book that I,v decided to invest more studying presuppositionalism rather than evidentialism. Although this method can be alternated with a more friendly discussion, in deed will do what it says, will shut their mouths and leave them not just without argument, but without reason it self. It’s hard to even debate when your own “assumptions” against god, deny the possibility to even justify your own use reason, when show that those assumptions render reason it self invalid..

    Therefore the fact the use reason is inconsistent with the spoused assumptions, they fall in sheer futility
    That is what this book do. Although the book stresses a chapter to prepare the heart the mind and makes énfasis in the respectful attitude to apply it,
    I suggest to alternate a read on how to have friendly conversations like
    “How to talk to a Skeptical”
    of Donald Jhonson. I would recommend reading it too, just to be reminded of being thoughtful and not abuse the use of this lethal method, that will effectively shatter the atheist arguments..

    Highly recommended..

  152. Wild Honey: When I read Genesis 1 and 2 … Man was “incomplete,” almost like a beta test. It doesn’t say that about woman, does it?

    To which my wife shouted a hearty AMEN!

  153. Wild Honey: Regarding women as the derivative image of God …

    … SBC has opened their pulpits to men who believe such things, hoping that the “beauty of complementarity” will keep the derivatives in check.

  154. I can hear SBC’s New Calvinist twitter chatter now as they gather to vote: “Mohler, Mohler, Mohler”

    I wonder how many of the 17,000 “messengers” are of New Calvinist persuasion? Since there isn’t a checkbox for theological leaning on the registration form, we will never know … but I bet a significant percentage of attendees are NeoCal. (they probably bussed in gob of them from Louisville)

  155. Bridget,

    Wade Burleson misrepresents a lot of things. And is big-time conspiracy peddler to boot who fancies himself an expert in physics and electrical engineering.

  156. elastigirl: i want to see/read a current interview with this woman, and hear her story. Who is this fabulous woman? it’s not impossible to find her.

    No wonder they turned off comments for this vid.
    Some of them guys looked like they wanted to open fire on Fort Sumter again.

  157. Muslin, fka Dee Holmes,

    Dee,

    Wade is well-known for denouncing things he doesn’t understand and for pretending to be an expert on things he doesn’t understand either. He has no credibility at all on anything in my opinion. I reminded of something St. Augustine said about that.

    But I know you will have have your blinders on when it comes to Wade no matter how much worse he gets. And of course I fully expect this comment to not be allowed to be posted either.

  158. The award for distinguished service presented by the SBC Ministers’ Wives’ organization is named after a woman preacher!

    The Willie Turner Dawson Award was given out occasionally in the last century, but has been presented annually since 2001. A number of wives of SBC Presidents have accepted the honor: Dorothy Patterson, Joyce Rogers, Donna Gaines, Carol Ann Draper, Janet Hunt, Jeannie Eliff, Jeana Floyd. Other recipients: Rhonda Kelley, Susie Hawkins, Kathy Litton, Ann Iorg, Barbara O’Chester.

    Most of these (and/or their husbands) were depicted on windows of Dorothy Patterson’s ‘Heroes of the Conservative Resurgence’ stained glass project at SWBTS.

    All they say now is that Willie Turner Dawson was a “pastor’s wife”, a “teacher and lecturer” who urged Baptists “to give more to overseas missions through the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering”.

    But Willie Turner Dawson was a preacher, and was nearly elected Vice President of the Southern Baptist Convention!

  159. In 1923, the ‘Baptist and Reflector’ reported from the SBC Annual Meeting in Kansas City that “Mrs. J. M. Dawson of Texas, received the next highest vote [for Convention Vice President]”

    pp. 2-3 “Election of Officers”
    http://media2.sbhla.org.s3.amazonaws.com/tbarchive/1923/TB_1923_05_31.pdf

    “Dr. W. C. Reeves of Clarksville, Tenn., presented the name of Mrs. J. M. Dawson, of Waco, Texas, for vice-president, it being the first time in the history of the organization that the name of a woman had been mentioned in that connection. The comment was quitely passed among those delegates opposing membership of women in the convention that this step was but an advance toward the goal of having a woman as president of the convention, a consummation greatly to be deplored by this element of Baptists.”

  160. 1933 SBC Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C.
    Willie Turner Dawson and Amy Lee Stockton listed among the ministers in town preaching in local churches:

    “Baptist Visitors to Occupy Pulpits”
    https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83045462/1933-05-20/ed-1/seq-9/

    Yes, Willie Turner Dawson at Fifth Baptist, and Amy Lee Stockton was preaching at Capitol Hill Metropolitan Baptist, a church which has always been conservative doctrinally according to its website (Mark Dever’s church).

    1942, back at same church:

    “Fifth Baptist Church…Evangelistic meetings will be held from Palm Sunday until Easter…Mrs. J. M. Dawson of Waco, Tex., will speak twice on Sundays and daily at 8 p.m.”
    https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83045462/1942-03-21/ed-1/seq-25/

  161. Jerome: Dorothy Patterson’s ‘Heroes of the Conservative Resurgence’ stained glass project at SWBTS

    Reckon what happened to those hall of fame stained glass windows in the chapel after the Pattersons’ exit of shame?

  162. elastigirl: i want to see/read a current interview with this woman, and hear her story. Who is this fabulous woman? it’s not impossible to find her

    There were other bold women in that 1993 Q&A session with Dr. Mohler who challenged his views on women in ministry. Yes, it would be great to know what happened to them after Mohler swept through the seminary belittling, humiliating, and subordinating women professors and students. I don’t know how to find out about their whereabouts.

  163. Friend: [Quoting from the We Destroy Arguments book blurb] Have you ever had your faith challenged by an unbeliever….Whether the challenge comes from unsaved loved ones, co-workers, college professors….you can be certain that such challenges will come to every Christian. Knowing this, the Bible commands every Christian to be ready…..Yet, if we are to properly achieve this goal, then a particular type of defense is in order….When it is all said and done, Christians will learn how to make an irrefutable defense for the hope that is within them…..goal is to help Christians become biblical people doing biblical things in the biblical way.

    First. I don’t remember anyone ever asking me about why (or how) I became a Christian (although I have told some people in the natural flow of some very specific conversations about how and when I was baptised and saved).

    Second. There are some people who would consider me a “bad Christian” because I wouldn’t be able to explain why I became a Christian. (I remember a Christian woman telling me that her husband enjoyed “discussing” with Mormon’s the errors in Mormon beliefs….I told this woman I couldn’t do that kind of “discussing”, as it might destroy the only thing that that person had to cling to. I will NOT risk driving a person to suicide!!)

    Third. Not all of us are called to be evangelists….we live our lives the best we can, believing in Jesus Christ and following the leading of the Holy Spirit….I have always thought that if I helped someone (even if all I did was smile or wave at them) in my own little corner of the world, that maybe I might be the beginning of a ripple effect….that someone I helped would be able to do the (big) things I cannot (and have no desire) to do.

    (There were times, however, when I DID set out (and sometimes with anticipation 🙂 ) to deliberately take some very specific people down a peg….)

  164. @dee Hold the presses – Joe Knott is a board member of the SBC-EC? Dare I ask which ‘party’ he belongs to? SMH

  165. Max,

    Since comments are turned off, I went looking for a longer version of the session. The woman in question speaks a bit after the 40-minute mark. The comments below are quite something. Here’s my personal favorite:

    “I’m a woman and had to stop watching at 43:40. Could these people not read? They were allowing their self love to interfere with what is written… who cares about what anyone human thinks???? IF IT IS WRITTEN, IT IS WRITTEN!!!!”

    https://youtu.be/QQTQOnv21Z8

  166. Max: To which my wife shouted a hearty AMEN!

    Auld Nature swears
    The lovely dears
    Her wisest work she classes, oh!
    Her ‘prentice han’
    She tried on man,
    And then she made the lassies, oh!

    Quoting from (very senior) memory so please excuse any misquotes.

  167. researcher: Not all of us are called to be evangelists

    That’s really it in a nutshell.

    Many fundamentalists and evangelicals strangely assume that the people around them are unsaved, and endlessly curious about Jesus, never heard of Jesus, or (contrarily) harbor a hatred of Jesus. This is just so utterly kooky, and self defeating.

    The lived example has power.

  168. “At the center of these tortuous matters is the Rev. Ronnie Floyd, the denomination’s chief executive, who finds himself not only ill-equipped but increasingly hearing calls for his resignation.”

    “On Floyd’s watch, the 15 million member SBC has been convulsing and hemorrhaging from a series of self-inflicted wounds and circular firing squads. The denomination’s numbers continue to decline, as does its political and cultural clout.”

    “Proof positive that Floyd’s troubles are mounting was a coordinated, albeit clumsy, tweetstorm in which Southern Baptist establishment leaders praised Floyd’s leadership and character online. It’s perhaps prophetic that when evangelical power brokers last circled the wagons in this fashion it was to defend now-disgraced denominational leader Paige Patterson.”

    “There is a sense among some Southern Baptists that something must change if this denomination is to survive — while Floyd represents a dying good-ole-boy network that’s resistant to transparency and accountability. If he is to survive, he’ll likely have to reintroduce himself as a new kind of leader who can bring the convention together before it completely falls apart.”

    https://religionnews.com/2021/06/15/in-this-crucial-moment-southern-baptist-chief-executive-ronnie-floyd-is-over-his-head/

  169. Russell Moore lives in the Nashville area. Do you reckon he is lurking in a dark corner at the SBC annual meeting to hear what they might be saying about him?

  170. researcher: “Floyd represents a dying good-ole-boy network … If he is to survive, he’ll likely have to reintroduce himself as a new kind of leader who can bring the convention together before it completely falls apart.”

    If Dr. Floyd is to survive as head of SBC’s Executive Committee, he will have to reinvent himself as a New Calvinist. He better get on the bandwagon with Mohler and the Mohlerites or else. There ain’t no room for the ole boys any longer … the new boys are in control now.

  171. Friend: https://youtu.be/QQTQOnv21Z8

    Whew! There’s a lot packed in that video of young Mohler. IMO, the now older Mohler still carries the same cold stare and cold heart about the views he expressed then. A man that will most likely be crowned SBC President today … disturbing indeed.

  172. CM: Wade is well-known for denouncing things he doesn’t understand and for pretending to be an expert on things he doesn’t understand either. He has no credibility at all on anything in my opinion. I reminded of something St. Augustine said about that.

    I have to admit my disappointment with him yesterday about his reasoning for being Southern Baptist… which was all about Baptist principles but gave no reason for continuing with the SBC in particular. You don’t have to be in the SBC to be Baptist. I also question if the SBC stands for what people keep saying it stands for, because I don’t see them standing for anything but money right now.

    And I don’t claim to be too knowledgeable on CRT, but I have noticed that any mention of racism at all is being called CRT now when I at least know that CRT is an academic framework.

  173. researcher: r a Christian woman telling me that her husband enjoyed “discussing” with Mormon’s the errors in Mormon beliefs….I told this woman I couldn’t do that kind of “discussing”, as it might destroy the only thing that that person had to cling to. I will NOT risk driving a person to suicide!!)

    I think there are a lot of “Christians” who non-Christians think are bad Christians, because they are frankly terrible people. And I’ve learned 80 different ways to evangelize in college and seminary and missions training, but none of them mean squat in front of someone who I’ve treated badly.

  174. Bridget: I’m on record that I disagree with Burleson on this. I don’t think he’s representing CRT correctly.

    I’ll go on record too.
    I also think he has veered too far off into right-wing propaganda these days.

  175. researcher: that any discussion of [pick your topic] is unacceptable because it is “divisive.”

    Actually what divisive means is “makes us uncomfortable about current or past events”.

  176. Max: Mohler still carries the same cold stare and cold heart

    There’s an old saying that I’m sure you’re familiar with: “The eyes are the window to the soul.”
    Al Mohler’s eyes are empty.
    I wonder how many more empty eyes are looking down upon the church messengers at the convention?

  177. Muff Potter: I’ll go on record too.
    I also think he has veered too far off into right-wing propaganda these days.

    Yeah, count me in……..
    Besides that, those in favor of using CRT are/have not proposed that the SBC adopt CRT, or anything close to that. They only want portions of CRT to be used as an analytical/educational tool.

  178. ishy,

    how’z Leo? (or however he was christened)

    if we adopt 3 pets at once, i’m naming them Rhoda, Phyllis, and Mr. Grant.

  179. As a general comment about racism.

    For the last few years I’ve come to feel much of the push back against anything that implies racism in any institutions comes from the past.

    Past generations that is.

    If you just do the math you will find that a huge number of people in the country have ancestors going back no more than a generation or few who were utter racists. And served as deacons or pastors of local churches, policemen, councilmen, etc… and were instrumental in suppressing or flat out attacking people of a darker color.

    How many of them are avoiding the entire subject today because there’s a rumor that their kindly grandfather who built them that swing set and took them hunting when they were 10 back in the 50s or 60s was involved in a lynching?

    Or just that their grandfather or great grandfather was able to keep their farm in the depression via a government loan while their current neighbors’ ancestors lost their as the same program local admins refused to deal with them? Or said admin was their grandfather?

    Or sponsored that resolution that their church or school should never integrate as it was God’s will that the races be separated?

    Just how many people want to keep that door closed when behind it is evidence or hard facts that show their relatives were total Tail Holes?

    Or in a milder form that their grandfather nearly levitated out of a hospital bed with a broken hip when his realized he might be sharing a bed pan with a person with very a very dark skin color? (Told to me by my father about my grandfather around 1978 or so.)

    Just some thoughts I’ve had for a while now.

  180. elastigirl: if we adopt 3 pets at once, i’m naming them Rhoda, Phyllis, and Mr. Grant.

    Years ago, I had a blue tick ‘coon hound I named Jedidiah Cooper ——- after the Clint Eastwood character in “Hang ‘em High”.
    When “Jed” was an itty bitty, he got a dog chain wrapped around his throat…… did some major damage, thus the name. I took him and nursed him back to health. He turned out to be one fine hunting dog! …..good guard dog, too!

  181. elastigirl: how’z Leo? (or however he was christened)

    if we adopt 3 pets at once, i’m naming them Rhoda, Phyllis, and Mr. Grant.

    I love those names! We used to have a cat named Mr. Cat.

    He’s doing very well. I did a poll among friends on Facebook with a list of names and everyone picked a different one. So I read the names off to the kitten and when I said “Leo” he meowed and climbed my pant leg. So Leo it is!

  182. ishy,

    I knew someone who named their dog “Dam*it”

    So he could say “Come here Dam*it!” and the dog would come over.

  183. ishy: So I read the names off to the kitten and when I said “Leo” he meowed and climbed my pant leg. So Leo it is!

    Whew, it’s a good thing his name was on the list! 😉

  184. elastigirl,

    I have thought about recording my story and insights and sharing it. I’m not sure if it would make me feel more isolated and invite more erasure than I already went through.

  185. Robert Downen @RobDownenChron

    ITS A RUNOFF. Stone and Litton going toe-to-toe now.

    Full results:

    Mohler: 3764, 23.62%
    Stone: 5216, 36.48%
    Litton: 4630, 32.38%
    Adams: 673, 4.7%

  186. ishy: but I have noticed that any mention of racism at all is being called CRT now when I at least know that CRT is an academic framework.

    And it’s a legal academic framework not a historical academic framework. States are seriously trying to stop teachers from teaching truth. It’s sad.

  187. Bridget: States are seriously trying to stop teachers from teaching truth. It’s sad.

    And here’s what happens. Orchestrated campaigns upset some parents upset, who cause confrontations at meetings. The school district points out, accurately, that the curriculum does not include CRT. But the rabble-rousers smell a rat, and they refuse to believe this, and/or they find out that Mr. Wilson told the sixth grade that slavery was bad, thus calling all white children racists.

  188. ishy: SBC presidential election goes to a run-off between Litton and Stone. Mohler is #out

    Whoa! I can’t believe it! I’m still processing how something like this could happen. Mohler and the Mohlerites were on a roll! Evidently, the grassroots ole boy Conservative Baptist Network is more organized than I thought it was. This means war!!

  189. In a shocking but hopeful turn of events….

    Robert Downen @RobDownenChron

    LITTON WINS. #SBC21 #SBC2021 #SBC #SBCtoo

  190. Phillip Bethancourt @pbethancourt
    Another big step on confronting sexual abuse, as #SBC21 overwhelmingly passes a resolution declaring that those who commit sexual abuse is “permanently disqualified from holding the office of pastor”

  191. Allime:
    Frankly, I predict Ed Litton will win the election. If he does, it will send a pretty loud and clear message.

    You called it!

  192. Ed Litton won the run-off … he is SBC’s new President.

    Mohler wasn’t progressive enough – not being female-friendly cost him.

    Stone was too ole boy – but the new Conservative Baptist Network put on a good show in the vote.

    Litton will have his hands full trying to bring peace between the various SBC factions. A split is sure to come.

  193. ishy: You called it!

    HA! Thanks for the recognition.
    And Litten’s win is likely for the best. #strategery **wink**

  194. Allime: HA! Thanks for the recognition.
    And Litten’s win is likely for the best. #strategery **wink**

    I was too afraid to hope. I’ve been so disappointed in the past. But I’m feeling a little encouraged now…

  195. Max,

    Meant to say “leans more left than right” … but I’m not sure at this point who the good/bad guys are in either direction.

  196. Max: Meant to say “leans more left than right” … but I’m not sure at this point who the good/bad guys are in either direction.

    I give my dad a narrative on this stuff. He was with me on the SEBTS tour, so he knows who Patterson is, but he’s never been a Southern Baptist, so he’s pretty confused on the rest. He keeps trying to get me to explain what I mean by the conservatives, but I tell him that’s just what they call themselves and so what most people call them.

    My dad, when I say “Paige Patterson”, always says, “That’s the guy with all the giant dead animal heads, right?”

  197. Seeing a bunch of CBN people on Twitter claiming their churches will be leaving the SBC and creating their own denomination. Of course, they won’t be taking the $$ of the entities, which is what they hoped to gain from Stone’s win…

  198. Feeling a little better as a SBC member, will see what happens, if a split comes, goodbye and good riddance to the conservatives, whose leaders don’t seem to care about sexual abuse and confronting racism. Also maybe Calvinism will take a hit too. Need to pray for President Litton tonight for courage and strength.

  199. ishy: Seeing a bunch of CBN people on Twitter claiming their churches will be leaving the SBC and creating their own denomination. Of course, they won’t be taking the $$ of the entities, which is what they hoped to gain from Stone’s win…

    Millions of mainline Southern Baptists would lean more CBN than NeoCal in belief and practice … more Stone, than Mohler or even Litton. But while the giant slept, the new reformers stole all their stuff – they now control all SBC entities and a growing number of churches.

    SBC is famous for splits. The last big split was during the Conservative (aka Calvinist) Resurgence resulting in the formation of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship. The same thing is likely to happen with CBN, but they will leave with no seminaries, no international mission agency, no home mission agency, no publishing house, no ERLC. It’s not clear to me where the Founders Ministries (Ascol) now fits in all this. How could God bless such a mess?!

  200. Chuck P: Also maybe Calvinism will take a hit too. Need to pray for President Litton tonight for courage and strength.

    I still don’t know where Mr. Litton leans in regard to Calvinism. He was essentially endorsed by SBCVoices, the “Pravda” of New Calvinism for years. But recently, the voices on SBCVoices have been coming across as more progressive, female-friendly, supportive of victims of abuse, racially in tune. Litton supporters would identify more closely with Mohler, than Stone or Ascol, I think. I don’t see anything happening during Litton’s tenure as SBC President to reverse the Calvinization of SBC.

  201. Max,

    What are the odds on a 3-way split.

    And, do you think Russell Moore had a good sense of who the two front runners would be, and knew that neither side would have him?

  202. Max: SBC is famous for splits. The last big split was during the Conservative (aka Calvinist) Resurgence resulting in the formation of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship.

    The theoretical ultimate end state of Protestantism:
    MILLIONS of One True Churches, each with only ONE member, each denounding all the others as Heretics and Apostates.

  203. ishy: He keeps trying to get me to explain what I mean by the conservatives

    It does get confusing. Patterson & Stone call themselves conservative, Mohler says he is a conservative, thousands of SBC churches would say they are conservative, millions of Southern Baptists are conservatives. But there is a wide gulf in what all of them really mean by that. Somehow it all ends up in what a religious person defines for himself about Bible inerrancy, politics, and morality. Meanwhile, the Kingdom of God goes forward without missing a beat … while the children of God beat each other up. Do you have to be a “Conservative” to make it to Heaven?

  204. Nancy2(aka Kevlar): What are the odds on a 3-way split.

    There already is; they just haven’t formalized it yet: Mohlerites vs. Pattersonites vs. Ascolites =
    New-Calvinists vs. Non-Calvinists vs. Old-Calvinists

    And perhaps a 4th new boy on the block: Littonites (Progressive Sorta-Calvinists)

  205. Max,

    lol…Im a Debbie downer about it all as well.

    I look at Twitter but am not a Tweeter. Some of the people being listed and praised as helping a well known abuse victim are part of churches that are problematic and part of the abuse problem. I know one of the churches one of them represents has enabled domestic abuse on two occasions and has a lot of other problems. And yet…One of the other people being praised is the son of a prominent SBC pastor who is accused of covering up sexual abuse in his church. I don’t know. Maybe go talk to your dad who you’re still chill with and got all your opportunities from and call that and him out first?

    I just don’t know if people are aware of the hypocrisy that is really going on. Twitter doesn’t tell the real stories and obscures, DARVOS as much as it unveils and connects. It is very distorting to see all the time.

  206. “One EC officer not reelected was Rod Martin, chairman of the EC’s Convention Events and Strategic Planning Committee”

    https://www.baptistpress.com/resource-library/news/ec-declines-sex-abuse-motion-elects-officers/

    Oh boy … Founders Ministries (Tom Ascol) ain’t going to be happy about Martin’s exit from the EC.

    In regard to EC declining a motion for an expanded investigation on sex abuse in the SBC, I don’t know what to say. There goes the transparency and accountability they hoped to convey.

  207. CM:
    ishy,

    I knew someone who named their dog “Dam*it”

    So he could say “Come here Dam*it!” and the dog would come over.

    OK, I laughed out loud. 😀

  208. Ava Aaronson,

    I agree.

    Saying you’re against abuse now doesn’t really help anyone or heal victims. It may seem okay for a day or two. But It doesn’t restore the years of pain, nor resolve the PTSD/c-PTSD victims endure from all the institutional and relational betrayal that followed their abuse.

    When we’re talking about abuse and crimes high standards are the only option. The SBC has fallen severely short of those high standards. They have failed quite epically. From the Patterson camp to the Mohler camp to the Moore camp to the whoever else camp. It is a system wide issue that all branches back to the SBC founding in the 1800’s. But they are all at least branches back to Pressler and Patterson and carry the same roots and DNA as much as they want to pretend they’re all different. They are all in their own ways part of the failure. When is that going to be considered and addressed?

  209. Max,

    “…conservative….But there is a wide gulf in what all of them really mean by that. Somehow it all ends up in what a religious person defines for himself about Bible inerrancy, politics, and morality. Meanwhile, the Kingdom of God goes forward without missing a beat … while the children of God beat each other up.

    Do you have to be a “Conservative” to make it to Heaven?””
    +++++++++++++++++

    it’s all so full of ship.

    how many acts of cruelty, destruction, dishonesty, lying, self-dealing, exploiting, manipulating, scheming…

    tricking evangelicals and confusing them to equate the word gospel with the word “conservative”, all in a game of conquest based on who is the best conservative and the most conservative.

    a cult that believes, “if you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is a republican,” and believe in your heart that God is also a republican, you will be saved.

    so full of ship

  210. emily honey: of those high standards. They have failed quite epically. From the Patterson camp to the Mohler camp to the Moore camp to the whoever else camp. It is a system wide issue that all branches back to the SBC founding in the 1800’s. But they are all at least branches back to Pressler and Patterson and carry the same roots and DNA as much as they want to pretend they’re all different. They are all in their own ways part of the failure. When is that going to be considered and addressed?

    And probably the worst thing we’ve learned in the past two weeks is that there’s still a lot of male leaders in the SBC who think the victims are at fault and if people would just go back to hiding abuse, everything would be fine. Including people like Mike Stone.

    Stone confronted one of the survivors yesterday, Hannah-Kate, and told her she was “doing harm” to the denomination. It was witnessed by several people, including a conservative reporter for the Washington Post (Johnathan Krohn). Stone left her crying and walked away. There’s a photo of that (I saw it). Stone posted a statement that he never did this and so his camp is flaming them on Twitter. Of course, we’ve heard Stone say similar things in the recorded meeting with Moore’s camp, so I dunno why people believed him.

    I’m so glad he lost and good riddance to CBN and Stone and Patterson. They can go run their tiny denomination into the ground.

  211. Interesting article about the election of Litton. It is good that Greear is warning against mixing church affairs and partisan politics, but hooboy, this turn of phrase is cringeworthy:

    In his speech, outgoing president Greear warned against getting too closely aligned with partisan politics.

    “God hasn’t called us primarily to save America politically; he’s called us to make the gospel known to all,” Greear said. “Whenever the church gets in bed with politics, it gets pregnant. And the offspring does not look like our Father in heaven.”

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/religion/2021/06/15/southern-baptists-elect-president/

  212. Friend: Greear is warning against mixing church affairs and partisan politics, but hooboy, this turn of phrase is cringeworthy

    Many of the New Calvinists (of the YRR sort) are known for off-color phrases in their preaching. They took their cue from the famous potty-mouth preacher from Seattle, Mark Driscoll. During the height of the NeoCal movement, Greear and Driscoll were dudebros – Driscoll was a friend and example to Greear … so you will still hear some cringeworthy stuff from Greear; once that sorta talking gets in your spirit, it’s hard to shake.

  213. On Mohler’s loss, I wonder if a lot of members of New Calvinist churches have walked away because they don’t want to be ruled like peasants? They went so hard on authoritarianism that it was bound to blow up on them eventually. Just like the New Cal leaders, most people want control over their lives and their own decisions, however bad they might be.

    The New Cals also have a really bad habit of stealing members from other New Calvinist churches (which is happening where I live). That might leave the former church with a more traditional base and convention votes. Just planting more churches doesn’t necessarily bring in a lot of new Christians, especially if the church goes hard right away on “We own you now”, which some do.

  214. ishy: Stone confronted one of the survivors yesterday, Hannah-Kate, and told her she was “doing harm” to the denomination. It was witnessed by several people, including a conservative reporter for the Washington Post (Johnathan Krohn). Stone left her crying and walked away. There’s a photo of that (I saw it) … I’m so glad he lost and good riddance to CBN and Stone and Patterson. They can go run their tiny denomination into the ground.

    As I’ve said before, there was a lot wrong with the SBC long before the New Calvinists showed up to complete running it into the ground. The ole boys can be a mean-spirited bunch.

    Stuck between the ole boy Non-Calvinists and the new boy New-Calvinist, are millions of good, Jesus-loving, whosoever-will-may-come grassroots Southern Baptists. Too bad they don’t have any national leaders to carry the torch for them. The SBC is done; it just hasn’t quit yet.

  215. ishy: Just planting more churches doesn’t necessarily bring in a lot of new Christians

    SBC’s church planting program is primarily reformed theology planting. New Calvinists do not “bring in” new Christians; they “borrow” them from other churches. They are not evangelistic; their gospel is another gospel which is not the Gospel at all … they don’t produce Christ-followers; they produce Calvin-followers.

  216. emily honey: carry the same roots and DNA as much as they want to pretend they’re all different. They are all in their own ways part of the failure. When is that going to be considered and addressed?

    Southern Baptists once again flailed at the branches in Nashville. They never take an axe to the root of the tree. Perhaps some bold soul will step forward in the future and call out Southern Baptists to humble themselves, pray, repent of ‘their’ wicked ways, and seek God’s face … that didn’t happen in Nashville, so the beat goes on.

  217. Max: Too bad they don’t have any national leaders to carry the torch for them. The SBC is done; it just hasn’t quit yet.

    That’s who Litton is, from what I understand. But nobody thought he would be able to win because of the strength of the two sides.

  218. Max: Southern Baptists once again flailed at the branches in Nashville. They never take an axe to the root of the tree. Perhaps some bold soul will step forward in the future and call out Southern Baptists to humble themselves, pray, repent of ‘their’ wicked ways, and seek God’s face … that didn’t happen in Nashville, so the beat goes on.

    Max, nothing changed, they just kicked the cans down the road and the people in the pews could care less what they did at the convention.

  219. Tom Parker: the people in the pews could care less

    Which is exactly why the SBC is in the mess it’s in. They don’t care, but send their money blindly to support bad boys, bad policies, and bad theology. The average Southern Baptist is more concerned about this month’s fellowship dinner than who is in charge of SBC, what theological flavor they are, and what they think about race, class, gender … and abuse. SBC-Nashville conducted business as usual, because millions of pew-sitters across the denomination do the same. In the meantime, the Gospel (the real one) and the Great Commission fall in the street. Jesus has little to no authority and influence in the SBC these days. The SBC has forfeited it’s denominational gifting of evangelism. It’s so sad for me (an ex-Southern Baptist of 70 years) to witness … I knew a better day for the once-great denomination.

  220. ishy: That’s who Litton is, from what I understand.

    I’m not convinced yet that Litton would be a mainstream Southern Baptist, a champion of the grassroots. We’ll see if he is able to steer Southern Baptists back to themselves (pre-New Calvinism). Mohler & the New Calvinists did such a fine job stripping the SBC from its identity, I’m not even sure that the mainstream millions know who they are these days? What is a Southern Baptist supposed to believe in the 21st century? How are they to express that belief? Who determines that?

  221. Max: It’s so sad for me (an ex-Southern Baptist of 70 years) to witness … I knew a better day for the once-great denomination.

    I am sure you remember BOLD MISSION THRUST. When the TAKEOVER started this emphasis dropped to the weigh side.

  222. ishy: But nobody thought he would be able to win because of the strength of the two sides.

    Litton benefited from four candidates running and the diluted vote which neutralized the strength of the two big boys. It may have been a totally different outcome if he had run only against Mohler. Would the “progressives” have had enough votes on their own to take out Mohler? The Mohlerite-block is pretty powerful and will probably still rule in the background – I suspect the Mohlerites reluctantly cast their votes for Litton in the runoff only to keep Stone off the throne.

  223. ishy: And I’ve learned 80 different ways to evangelize in college and seminary and missions training, but none of them mean squat in front of someone who I’ve treated badly.

    And most of us can sense the “you just want to talk to me to try and convert me to your cause / be another notch in your belt” whether that be from the Mormon, JW, or Evangelical coming our way.

  224. Max: Litton benefited from four candidates running and the diluted vote which neutralized the strength of the two big boys. It may have been a totally different outcome if he had run only against Mohler. Would the “progressives” have had enough votes on their own to take out Mohler? The Mohlerite-block is pretty powerful and will probably still rule in the background – I suspect the Mohlerites reluctantly cast their votes for Litton in the runoff only to keep Stone off the throne.

    (Reply & quote selected tex

    Mohler and his dudes will come back next year and win. They will be better prepared.

  225. NC Now,

    thanks for sharing your thoughts

    people can try to run from the past but it’s little hard for me as my grandmother was born in a house that survived a Civil War skirmish, where a sniper was shot in an upper stairs bedroom, staggered down the main staircase and died in the hallway. His blood stained the wooden floors and the stain could not be removed

    where do we go to get away from the DNA we carry from our forebears, some of whom owned slaves and fostered children of another race who are now our long-lost cousins?

    I carry my family’s history around in my own genetics, God help me.

    This is the house my Ausbon grandmother was born in:
    https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=56977

  226. Tom Parker: BOLD MISSION THRUST. When the TAKEOVER started this emphasis dropped

    Tom, I’m so old that I remember whosoever-will-may-come Gospel preaching, altar calls, folks agonizing in prayer over lost souls, sinners praying to receive Jesus as Savior, evangelistic outreach and missions around the world. Yep, I’m old school. There’s no room for dinosaurs like me in the SBC … so I’ll just fossilize in the years I have left.

  227. Max: Tom, I’m so old that I remember whosoever-will-may-come Gospel preaching, altar calls, folks agonizing in prayer over lost souls, sinners praying to receive Jesus as Savior, evangelistic outreach and missions around the world.Yep, I’m old school.There’s no room for dinosaurs like me in the SBC … so I’ll just fossilize in the years I have left.

    My 40 years in the SBC has made me an old man. I became a Christian in 1974 and only got to enjoy 5 years of the old SBC. Why I stayed after I saw the old SBC was gone I will never understand. I have lots of regrets for staying.

  228. Tom Parker: Mohler and his dudes will come back next year and win. They will be better prepared.

    If the New Calvinists (Mohlerites) and the Old Calvinists (Ascolites) patch their differences, you won’t be able to stop them next time. Afterall, they have a common mission … to Calvinize the SBC even if they disagree a bit on man, method and message to achieve that.

  229. Max: If the New Calvinists (Mohlerites) and the Old Calvinists (Ascolites) patch their differences, you won’t be able to stop them next time. Afterall, they have a common mission … to Calvinize the SBC even if they disagree a bit on man, method and message to achieve that.

    But some are rejoicing today that a “Moderate” was elected. I’m inclined to believe these people have been smoking something.

  230. Max: I’m not convinced yet that Litton would be a mainstream Southern Baptist, a champion of the grassroots. We’ll see if he is able to steer Southern Baptists back to themselves (pre-New Calvinism).

    I don’t really care if they go back to the traditionalists. I care more if they focus a lot less upon themselves and money and more on God. Both sides are lying when they say they are all about the gospel.

  231. So a CBN guy gets elected 1st VP of the SBC. They are definitely playing the long game.

  232. Burwell Stark: So a CBN guy gets elected 1st VP of the SBC. They are definitely playing the long game.

    There were a lot of people on Twitter saying they were leaving the SBC because Stone didn’t get elected. But I have noticed since way back at SEBTS that group is not very good at coordinated plans. That’s how they got outsmarted by the New Calvinists after the 2000 takeover.

  233. re: the “investigation”, there is a very recent item at SBCVoices about (what I think is) a resolution to have ERLC be responsible for oversight of an “audit”

    https://sbcvoices.com/why-the-referral-of-the-sexual-abuse-audit-to-the-erlc-is-a-good-thing-explaining-the-process-and-the-rationale

    As written, it sounds like a clever move to get some oversight into the hands of a less conflicted entity. I have no visibility into the convention and no familiarity with the procedures. Could readers with more knowledge comment?

  234. Samuel Conner: Could readers with more knowledge comment?

    It’s a dare, a bluff. It was not a resolution – just a motion. The motion was not and will not be voted on……. but the dare was made public before the messengers, with high hopes that it will trigger the appropriate reaction/action.

  235. Nancy2(aka Kevlar): Today’s “moderate” = yesterday’s “conservative”

    They’re moderates in terms of SBC groups. As I told my father, it doesn’t really correlate in political terms.

  236. ishy: I have noticed since way back at SEBTS that group is not very good at coordinated plans. That’s how they got outsmarted by the New Calvinists after the 2000 takeover.

    I agree. Patterson is good for one thing only – bludgeoning the opposition. However, some of his disciples associates may be a bit more even-tempered, at least in the short run. I think they recognized they are within striking distance, humanly speaking and no pun intended, and are going to work on their ground game before the next cycle. This is exactly what political parties do, so there is a template. Expect a CBN-centered GOTV campaign before the next voting annual meeting.

  237. https://www.baptistpress.com/resource-library/news/messengers-overwhelmingly-affirm-resolutions-targeting-racial-reconciliation-hyde-amendment-equality-act/
    Snippets from the article:

    ***Finally, in strongly opposing the Equality Act, messengers approved language that described the proposal as “one of the greatest threats to religious liberty in our nation’s history. ***………….
    ***It also would threaten the Hyde Amendment and erode civil rights protections for women and girls, according to the resolution.***

    This means the SBC, as a whole, has voted to reserve the right to discriminate.

    “erode civil rights protections for women and girls”…..

    This means that the SBC, as a whole, believes that protecting females includes:
    1.) subjugating us, because of our gender
    2.) relegating us second-class citizenship in the Kingdom of God, because of our gender
    3.) throwing our job applications in the trash, because of our gender
    2.) not giving us equal pay for equal work, because of our gender

    I don’t call that protection.
    It looks more like the white males protecting themselves, and their positions.

  238. Nancy2(aka Kevlar),

    Look at it this way:
    As the old guard dies off and newer and newer blood takes the reins, the SBC will become harder and harder pressed to maintain the old gender order.
    It will die out just as surely as slavery died out in Southern culture.

  239. Muff Potter,

    But, unfortunately, Muff the die off isn’t finished. Slavery ended but the hatred and discrimination of ‘other’ has been passed on in many families from generation to generation.

  240. Muff Potter: As the old guard dies off and newer and newer blood takes the reins, the SBC will become harder and harder pressed to maintain the old gender order.

    Yea, the ole boys were rough on wimmenfolk in some places … but remember, it is the new blood (New Calvinists) who subordinate women through the “beauty of complementarity.” The new bunch ain’t much better than the old in that regard. At least the “moderates” or “progressives” or whatever we will end up calling them who put Litton on the throne for a couple years seem to at least respect women.

  241. Max: new blood (New Calvinists) who subordinate women through the “beauty of complementarity.”

    If we could simply reverse the “roles”, I would have a grand ole time experiencing “the beauty of complementarity”.

  242. Max,

    “At least the “moderates” or “progressives” or whatever we will end up calling them who put Litton on the throne for a couple years seem to at least respect women.”
    +++++++++++++

    i suppose that’s tepid good news.

    i’d like to hear how they define “respect for women”. is it a belief in a statement? is it a feeling?

    i’ve been around similar people…

    there’s some disconnect between the words “respect for women”, and the receiving end experience for the object of their respect. i don’t think patronizing and dehumanizing are what “respect” feels like.

    perhaps a basic lack of awareness of cause & effect.

  243. Bridget: But, unfortunately, Muff the die off isn’t finished. Slavery ended but the hatred and discrimination of ‘other’ has been passed on in many families from generation to generation.

    No, it’s not finished, it will take time.
    I think one would be hard pressed to find young Southern folks even today, who still adhere to everything their grandfathers and great-grandfathers believed and practiced.

  244. elastigirl: there’s some disconnect between the words “respect for women”, and the receiving end experience for the object of their respect. i don’t think patronizing and dehumanizing are what “respect” feels like.

    Aretha Franklin put it this way:

    R-E-S-P-E-C-T
    Find out what it means to me!

    Until these guys put themselves into a woman’s shoes, they will never really find out what respect means, and they’ll continue to issue the same old empty platitudes and bromides allegedly drawn from Scripture.

  245. Muff Potter,

    “R-E-S-P-E-C-T
    Find out what it means to me!”
    +++++++++++++++++++

    but of course!

    it’s sort of like giving someone a birthday gift — thinking about what they might like and giving them that, rather than giving them what you want to give them for whatever reason.

    or, heaven help us, giving them the birthday gift that you think God wants you to give them.

    whence saith the Lord, “for crying out loud, find out what she wants and give her that, you dodo” (‘he sure needs some help… you can thank me for Eve’, the Almighty muttereth)

  246. Nancy2(aka Kevlar): If we could simply reverse the “roles”, I would have a grand ole time experiencing “the beauty of complementarity”.

    But no man wants to be treated like that! God wouldn’t make men do things they don’t want to do! So it must be women that God made like that! /s

  247. elastigirl: i’d like to hear how they define “respect for women”. is it a belief in a statement? is it a feeling?

    Ed Litton provides his views on church women:

    “Women were an essential part of Jesus’ ministry and were present at key moments. Our inerrant, infallible, all-sufficient word of God says that God created male and female, both in his image. A church that emphasizes or only equips half the church disobeys the authority of God’s Word. If our sisters are gifted to serve the church then we ought to encourage them to use all God has given them to serve the mission of the gospel, and we should honor women and their contributions …”

    “Do you believe that the Bible allows for both men and women to serve in the office of “pastor”? … No, I believe that the office of pastor is limited to men …”

    His respect for female believers holds the party line on the “beauty of complementarity.”

  248. ishy,

    Max,

    “The beauty of complementarity” ……. that’s wheretraditionalist and calvinists converge ……… men have free-will to make their own decisions, while women are predestined to have decisions made for us.

  249. Nancy2(aka Kevlar): “The beauty of complementarity” ……. that’s where traditionalist and calvinists converge ……… men have free-will to make their own decisions, while women are predestined to have decisions made for us.

    Matt Chandler says “our girls” understand that and don’t have a problem with it. I “preach to men” he says. In the following link, check out his interview with John Piper on “Calvinism and Sexual Complementarity.” IMO, this is in the heart of all New Calvinists who have taken over the SBC (even if they claim to be “moderate”). Make no mistake about it, the NeoCals want to keep “our girls” walking the narrow line on gender roles (it’s Biblical, you now).

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gKEpVzHnUw0&t=10s

  250. Max: Do you believe that the Bible allows for both men and women to serve in the office of “pastor”? … No, I believe that the office of pastor is limited to men

    What he said is just a bunch of word salad. Nothing has changed in the SBC. Why are the current members so blind and especially the women. These SBC leaders are never going to treat you any different because they believe you are a second class citizen and worst of all in eternity.

  251. Tom Parker: These SBC leaders are never going to treat you any different because they believe you are a second class citizen and worst of all in eternity.

    There are to be no distinctions in race, class or gender in the Body of Christ (Galatians 3:28).

  252. Max: There are to be no distinctions in race, class or gender in the Body of Christ (Galatians 3:28).

    They do not preach on that verse in SBC churches.

  253. Quick thoughts: many people in many varied denominations do not hold to the complementarian world view and yet do not ordain women. Missouri Synod Lutherans and Roman Catholics come to mind here. IF you believe in the priesthood of the believer, we should not try to force those denominations, SBC included, to ordain women. Those that adhere to no women pastors can attend them, those that do not are free to attend elsewhere.

    When it comes to CRT, the SBC stands with other conservative denominations such as the Missouri Synod in rejecting systemic racism as sinful, but also rejecting CRT since it roots systemic racism not in sin, but in skin color, which is actually quite racist if you think about it.

    But priesthood of the believer does mean if you disagree with a denom, you are free to find one you agree with.

  254. Max,

    “…we should honor women and their contributions …”
    +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

    well, sure, who wouldn’t want to be honored. but this is so darn patronizing. it’s like they have to be reminded that we are valid, and then deign to actually express it.

    what an experience…. to be condescended to with honor.
    ————

    “…No, I believe that the office of pastor is limited to men …”
    ++++++++++++++++

    i understand that all SBC leaders are required to say this as job security. (which totally sucks for them & everyone)

    but i posit that this belief, let alone even merely making the statement (regardless of whether one truly believes it), colors, shapes, and influences one’s attitude and behavior toward women, and one’s entire concept of ‘female’.

  255. Tom Parker: They do not preach on that verse in SBC churches.

    There’s a lot of the Bible they seem to avoid like the plague while claiming they are more biblical than everyone else. Like everything in the Gospels…

  256. elastigirl: well, sure, who wouldn’t want to be honored. but this is so darn patronizing. it’s like they have to be reminded that we are valid, and then deign to actually express it.

    Police/drug dogs are honored and get medals, but their handlers still keep them on leashes.

  257. Nancy2(aka Kevlar),

    “Police/drug dogs are honored and get medals, but their handlers still keep them on leashes.”
    ++++++++++++++++

    whoa, what a crystal-clear analogy & mental picture.

  258. linda: Quick thoughts: many people in many varied denominations do not hold to the complementarian world view and yet do not ordain women. Missouri Synod Lutherans and Roman Catholics come to mind here. IF you believe in the priesthood of the believer, we should not try to force those denominations, SBC included, to ordain women. Those that adhere to no women pastors can attend them, those that do not are free to attend elsewhere.

    Who is trying to force the SBC to ordain women? Key word is force.

  259. Jerome: The award for distinguished service presented by the SBC Ministers’ Wives’ organization is named after a woman preacher!

    The Willie Turner Dawson Award was given out occasionally in the last century, but has been presented annually since 2001. A number of wives of SBC Presidents have accepted the honor: Dorothy Patterson, Joyce Rogers, Donna Gaines, Carol Ann Draper, Janet Hunt, Jeannie Eliff, Jeana Floyd. Other recipients: Rhonda Kelley, Susie Hawkins, Kathy Litton, Ann Iorg, Barbara O’Chester.

    And this year, who accepted this award named after a woman preacher? None other than Lynette Ezell, wife of North American Mission Board President Kevin Ezell!

  260. Jerome: And this year, who accepted this award named after a woman preacher? None other than Lynette Ezell, wife of North American Mission Board President Kevin Ezell!

    And the irony is lost on the SBC leaders and SBC members.

  261. Jerome: And this year, who accepted this award named after a woman preacher? None other than Lynette Ezell, wife of North American Mission Board President Kevin Ezell!

    Ugh.

  262. SBC messengers approved the 2000 Baptist Faith & Message with the understanding that it was NOT to be a binding or governing document on Southern Baptist churches and their members.

    The SBC’s Baptist Press reported at the time:

    “In answer to debate coming from the floor, members of the study committee repeatedly defended the preamble, as well as the entire document, as a statement of belief and not as a binding or governing document on Southern Baptist churches and their members.”

    “Committee members cautioned…against misunderstanding…noting that the convention’s vote is not binding on local churches. ‘We don’t have the right, the authority or the power’.”

    BF&M revision committee chairman Adrian Rogers assured that ‘It is not a creed. It is a statement of what most of us believe’.”

    Ditto, on the SBC website:

    https://www.sbc.net/about/what-we-do/faq/

    FAQ • Can women be pastors or deacons in the SBC?”

    “The BF&M statement says…’the office of pastor is limited to men as qualified by Scripture’… The Southern Baptist Convention also passed a resolution in the early 1980s…However, the BF&M and resolutions are not binding upon local churches. Each church is responsible to prayerfully search the Scriptures and establish its own policy’.”

  263. elastigirl: Nancy2(aka Kevlar),

    “Police/drug dogs are honored and get medals, but their handlers still keep them on leashes.”
    ++++++++++++++++

    whoa, what a crystal-clear analogy & mental picture.

    That.

  264. Jerome: The award for distinguished service presented by the SBC Ministers’ Wives’ organization is named after a woman preacher! … All they say now is that Willie Turner Dawson was a “pastor’s wife”, a “teacher and lecturer” …

    Back in the good ole days (pre-Mohler), Southern Baptists knew a preacher when they heard one! Willie Turner Dawson was a pastor’s wife, teacher, lecturer … and PREACHER!!

  265. Jerome: And this year, who accepted this award named after a woman preacher? None other than Lynette Ezell, wife of North American Mission Board President Kevin Ezell!

    Yes, after an exhausting nationwide search of 47,000 SBC churches and 15 million members, Ms. Ezell was the only one worthy of such honor. There are both good ole boys and good ole girls within SBC (but the latter must be a wife of the former).

  266. elastigirl: “…we should honor women and their contributions …” … i understand that all SBC leaders are required to say this as job security …

    Yes, that’s why so many eventually bite their tongues off.

  267. Tom Parker: (Galatians 3:28)

    They do not preach on that verse in SBC churches

    Nor a lot of other verses which don’t support the beauty of complementarity.

  268. Jerome: SBC messengers approved the 2000 Baptist Faith & Message with the understanding that it was NOT to be a binding or governing document on Southern Baptist churches and their members.

    I was working for an entity that year and was in Orlando during that convention. That was an angry debate. However, it did become binding on entities (and used thusly to fire thousands of missionaries).

    We also know now that it was absolutely used to Calvinize the seminaries and therefore reform the churches with the removal of “the priesthood of the believer” and “soul competency”.

    I wonder if churches even thought of it being used those ways?

  269. linda: if you disagree with a denom, you are free to find one you agree with.

    What is wrong with trying to improve an organization from the inside? The SBC is a highly flawed and ever-changing group, so folks might as well speak up.

    I have left a church or two, and I have tried to change a church or two. I have also decided to accept some things I disagree with, because the church is precious to me despite what I consider a flaw. Several different approaches are just fine, in my view.

    Also, please remember: there are choices about attending a church with ordained women ONLY because some churches and denominations decided to try something new.

  270. ishy: We also know now that it (Baptist Faith & Message, 2000 revision) was absolutely used to Calvinize the seminaries and therefore reform the churches with the removal of “the priesthood of the believer” and “soul competency”.

    I wonder if churches even thought of it being used those ways?

    No. Southern Baptists have been so open-minded that their brains have fallen out. Most (who are still non-Calvinist) still don’t know that the denomination has been Calvinized in all entities that they support with their giving (seminaries, mission agencies, publishing house, church planting program, etc.). And no one brings the “C” word up at SBC annual meetings. It’s the darnedest thing I’ve ever seen!

  271. Max: Southern Baptists have been so open-minded that their brains have fallen out.

    It seems to me that SBC is has an open mind only to the closing of the mind.

  272. Jerome: SBC messengers approved the 2000 Baptist Faith & Message with the understanding that it was NOT to be a binding or governing document on Southern Baptist churches and their members.

    How can this be as several churches have been kicked out over calling a Woman Pastor, one in my neck of the woods. SBC leaders sure do not mind lying.

  273. Friend: What is wrong with trying to improve an organization from the inside? The SBC is a highly flawed and ever-changing group, so folks might as well speak up.

    I have left a church or two, and I have tried to change a church or two. I have also decided to accept some things I disagree with, because the church is precious to me despite what I consider a flaw. Several different approaches are just fine, in my view.

    Also, please remember: there are choices about attending a church with ordained women ONLY because some churches and denominations decided to try something new.

    The 2000 BF&M was crammed down the messengers throat at the Convention. My understanding is many had not read what was in it before the messengers were expected to vote. The leaders at this convention knew what they were doing.

  274. Tom Parker,

    “The leaders at this convention knew what they were doing.”
    +++++++++++++

    duplicitous d|psh|ts.

    (moving from lightning bug- towards the lightning bolt-right word, but i think we still have a ways to go)

  275. Tom Parker: The 2000 BF&M was crammed down the messengers throat at the Convention. My understanding is many had not read what was in it before the messengers were expected to vote. The leaders at this convention knew what they were doing.

    The days are over when you can blindly trust SBC leaders. Think about it, Mohler was on the BFM2000 revision committee … the rest is history.

  276. Tom Parker,

    The text was available. It’s very possible it just didn’t get to everyone, as social media was not as organized as it is now and a lot of the older crowd didn’t use the internet anyway. Even the Washington Post evaluated it before the convention: https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/local/2000/06/10/i-suffer-not-a-woman-to-teach/315da2aa-1d1c-4fb9-8c8c-2b9c262b7a5f/

    But even being available, much of the takeover was staged due to the agreement between the conservative resurgence and the New Calvinists. The Patterson conservatives thought they had the SBC in their clutches, though, and had no idea the New Calvinists had planted people in positions all over the entities, pretending to be conservatives and ready to take over. They had been setting that up for over 20 years.

    I and other women above the position of secretary were fired from the entity I worked at, on contrived charges, and replaced with unexperienced graduates from SBTS. I didn’t realize until years later that lying is how they accomplished a lot of the takeover and they do the same to local churches.

  277. ishy: the takeover was staged due to the agreement between the conservative resurgence and the New Calvinists. The Patterson conservatives thought they had the SBC in their clutches, though, and had no idea the New Calvinists had planted people in positions all over the entities, pretending to be conservatives and ready to take over. They had been setting that up for over 20 years.

    It’s amazing to me that 20 years later, the average Southern Baptist doesn’t know this! They (millions of non-Calvinist members) have been blindly supporting the New Calvinist takeover of their denomination, thinking the “Conservatives” are in control. Conservative Resurgence = Calvinist Resurgence … and the pew ain’t got a clue.

  278. ishy: lying is how they accomplished a lot of the takeover and they do the same to local churches

    Stealth and deception are modus operandi of the New Calvinists. Ask thousands of Southern Baptists who lost their churches to the movement to tell you about their experience with liars in the ministry.

  279. OK…so I’m WAY behind on my reading….and I haven’t caught up on all the comments and any links the comments might contain…and I haven’t yet read the Wednesday post….and I need to go for a walk because I need to get some fresh air (wearing a mask, of course, because where I live we are still under COVID restrictions)….and I’m typing way to fast to proofread properly.

    Something that struck me this morning as I was starting to read through the series of articles In Their Own Words: SBC Candidate Forum on Complementarianism….

    So many of the complementarians babble on and on about “inerrancy” and “authority” blah blah blah about Scripture and / or the Bible (no offence to anyone intended)….rarely do I hear anything about the fact the Bible and Scripture are INSPIRED BY GOD!

    And how often do people remember that God was INSPIRING HUMAN BEINGS….and that human beings will use different words (etc.) depending when the words (and circumstances, etc.) were written down (because much started by being orally spoken and passed down)….and how many remember that punctuation and headings in the Bible were added later on….

    (Perhaps it would have helped if Lynne Truss’ book Eats, Shoots and Leaves had existed way back when….or if people remembered that some of us use Oxford commas and other people don’t….)

  280. ishy: I and other women above the position of secretary were fired from the entity I worked at, on contrived charges, and replaced with unexperienced graduates from SBTS. I didn’t realize until years later that lying is how they accomplished a lot of the takeover and they do the same to local churches.

    They’ve loaded their Karma, and when the crows come home to roost, they’ll get a dose of their own medicine.

  281. ishy,

    “I and other women above the position of secretary were fired from the entity I worked at, on contrived charges, and replaced with unexperienced graduates from SBTS. I didn’t realize until years later that lying is how they accomplished a lot of the takeover and they do the same to local churches.”
    ++++++++++++++++

    well, that just sucks. very sorry.

    can you share what entity? and what the contrived charges were? how many women were fired?

    i assume you were replaced with all men?

    **to clarify, men are great. the issue is character & the intolerable unjust indignity of discrimination under the guise of “ordained by God”.

  282. researcher: And how often do people remember that God was INSPIRING HUMAN BEINGS….and that human beings will use different words (etc.) depending when the words (and circumstances, etc.) were written down (because much started by being orally spoken and passed down)….and how many remember that punctuation and headings in the Bible were added later on….

    Excellent insights, thank you. Many folks do forget that Christianity began with oral tradition. We should not be afraid to admit that, especially as confidence in that tradition can also help us understand different versions of a story (e.g., death of Judas), and different viewpoints of writers.

    Our current-day sages, though, present the whole Bible as a single block of text. They take this a step further by publishing and endorsing specific versions.

  283. Friend: Our current-day sages, though, present the whole Bible as a single block of text. They take this a step further by publishing and endorsing specific versions.

    And then they have the nerve to call those published and endorsed versions inerrant and authoritative….

  284. Jerome: SBC messengers approved the 2000 Baptist Faith & Message with the understanding that it was NOT to be a binding or governing document on Southern Baptist churches and their members.

    There are traditional (non-Calvinist) SBC churches in my area which never adopted the BFM2000 revision. They affirm BFM1963 as their statement of faith. The don’t have membership contracts and they don’t require members to sign on the dotted line that they ‘worship’ any BFM … that would be creedal, and Baptists have historically rejected creeds of that sort. They just use BFM1963 as their statement of belief and practice for those who are interested to know where they stand. I figure the BFM1963-only folks had wise church leaders in 2000 who could see through Mohler’s smoke and mirrors to use the document to Calvinize the denomination. These are also churches which firmly believe in soul competency and priesthood of the believer … long-standing Baptist doctrines that the New Calvinists have diminished during their reign of terror.

  285. elastigirl: can you share what entity? and what the contrived charges were? how many women were fired?

    I assume you were replaced with all men?

    I only know about my department. It was already mostly male, but there was a woman above me and a few of equal standing. They made a charge up that someone was supposed to get some email and blamed her and she, not knowing they were planning to fire all of us, blamed me. The other women were not under her, but similar things happened to them. When I looked at the website later, the entire department was male, and several of the new peoplehad graduated from SBTS, but did not have backgrounds in the job positions, which was fairly technical.

  286. ishy,

    The thing they made up seemed such a minor issue, but apparently they had a meltdown over it to her and read her the riot act like it was the worst thing that could ever happen. But I’m pretty sure our only crime was being the wrong gender.

  287. ishy: I’m pretty sure our only crime was being the wrong gender.

    The scarlet letter in SBC is “W” … (woman).

  288. The thing they made up seemed such a minor issue, but apparently they had a meltdown over it to her and read her the riot act like it was the worst thing that could ever happen.

    When the only thing that qualifies you to Hold the Whip (in your own mind) is what’s hanging between you’re legs, that’s still enough.

  289. Friend: Many folks do forget that Christianity began with oral tradition. We should not be afraid to admit that, especially as confidence in that tradition can also help us understand different versions of a story (e.g., death of Judas), and different viewpoints of writers.

    Judaism not only acknowledges this, they encourage it. Rabbi Aleph says this about a certain passage from his POV, Rabbi Beth says this from his POV, Rabbi Gimel says this from his POV, each one seeing a different insight like the fable of the blind men and the elephant. And then the Rabbis hash it out over time; sometimes their insights can never be resolved into a single easy answer.

    But Bible-Believing Christians(TM) take the Islamic Approach – Inerrant SCRIPTURE(TM) dictated word-for-word from the lips of God, except in Kynge Jaymes Englyshe instead of Classical Meccan Arabic. Single Easy Answer after Single Easy Answer, QUOTE! QUOTE! QUOTE!

  290. researcher: So many of the complementarians babble on and on about “inerrancy” and “authority” blah blah blah about Scripture and / or the Bible (no offence to anyone intended)….

    And they’re perfectly willing to kill each other (and especially you) over it.

    To the tune of “Dueling Banjos”:
    QUOTE! QUOTE! QUOTE! QUOTE! QUOTE!
    QUOTE! QUOTE! QUOTE! QUOTE! QUOTE! QUOTE! QUOTE! QUOTE! QUOTE!
    QUOTE! QUOTE! QUOTE! QUOTE! QUOTE! QUOTE! QUOTE! QUOTE! QUOTE!
    QUOTE! QUOTE! QUOTE! QUOTE! QUOTE! QUOTE! QUOTE!
    QUOTE! QUOTE! QUOTE! QUOTE! QUOTE! QUOTE!
    (banjo riff, all the MenaGAWD stop Quoting and go at each other with fingernails and teeth)

  291. Max: Stealth and deception are modus operandi of the New Calvinists.

    A Righteous Enough Cause justifies Any Means Whatsoever to bring it to Triumph.

    Just ask Citizen Robespierre and/or Comrade Pol Pot.

  292. Max: It’s amazing to me that 20 years later, the average Southern Baptist doesn’t know this!

    As long as nobody touches the church potlucks and gossip sessions.