Recently I opened a blogpost for the discussion of sports. It has been a great diversion – I love sports, probably too much. But that post has served two purposes. It gave us a chance to talk about sports while also keeping the sports trash-talk (something I consider a moral imperative) off the other posts. If you want to post about the Hawkeyes, the Yankees, or any of the lesser teams out there, you have a place to go.
There is a small group of bloggers who seem to come by Voices for no purpose other than to talk about the Conservative Resurgence that restored the SBC to its conservative roots after a few decades of theological drift. There are a half-dozen or so regular commenters who make everything about the CR. Whatever we write about, they tie it to the CR. There is no topic on which we can write that does not give evidence to them of the evils of the CR. I have repeatedly asked people to address the topic and ignore the CR, but no one seems to want to do that.
So, here it is – a moderate’s playground. I am going to give my view of the CR, then you can have at it. Whatever you want to say (within reason) about the CR and how evil and destructive it was is fine and dandy. Have your say without fear of my moderating (strangely appropriate word) interference.
The other side of this is simple. Since there is a CR playground out there, you will have the freedom to vent as you please, ON THIS POST. Unless it is germane to the intent of the author of the other post, or in a natural line with the discussion, I will expect you to keep your CR rants on this thread. We now have a playground on which to toss this ball. Let’s keep the game on this playground and not interfere with other discussions about other things.
The Cast
Not everyone will agree with my (admittedly simplistic) categorization here. But for the sake of my discussion here, I want to define my use of terms.
Conservatives: those who believe in the inerrancy of the Bible and ascribe to the fundamental doctrines of the Christian faith.
Conservatives believe that God exists eternally in three persons, that Jesus was God incarnate, that the Bible is truth without any mixture of error, that human nature is sinful and in rebellion against God, that Jesus died as the atoning sacrifice for our sins, that only those who repent of their sins and believe in Jesus will have any hope of having eternal life and that one day Jesus will return to earth in victory and judge the living and the dead.
Not only do we believe these doctrines, we believe that denominational employees and seminary professors should believe these doctrines.
Liberals: This is a tricky term, because it is such a pejorative term – one that has been used as an insult repeatedly and sometimes unfairly. In the greater scholarly world, SBC “liberals” will generally be considered conservatives. But in this discussion, I am using the term liberal to describe anyone who does not subscribe to the fundamental doctrines I enumerated above.
A liberal believes that the Bible may have historical, scientific or factual errors. A liberal may believe that there is hope for salvation in other religions, or that all people will eventually be saved. A liberal may balk at the concept of substitutionary atonement.
In short (and I know that this is a specific use of this word that does not fit the general use of the word) a liberal in the SBC is someone who does not ascribe to inerrancy or to one or more of the bedrock doctrines of the faith.
Moderates: Like the word liberal, this word has a variety of usages. I use it specifically in this way: a moderate was someone who, while believing in the fundamental doctrines of the faith (pretty much identical to the conservative in doctrine), did not support the conservative movement in the SBC, did not see the reality of existence of liberalism in the SBC, or did not believe that it was crucial to get the liberals out of the SBC.
In other words, moderates are conservatives in doctrine who did not see the need for the CR or did not support the means used to accomplish the CR. Dan Vestal, Winfred Moore and Richard Jackson were solid inerrantists. They did not agree with the conservative movement, but they were theological conservatives.
If you wish to quarrel with my definition, fine. There is no fixed or established definition of any of these terms. Just know that in this post, that is how I am using the terms.
The Drama
The conflict in the SBC during the CR years focused on two key issues.
- Does the SBC have a heritage as an inerrantist denomination or is the inerrancy movement a new issue?
The SBC has always championed the priesthood of believers and soul competency and has refused to subscribe to a formal creed. Moderates say this means that we were not a theologically-fixed denomination and that people have the freedom to believe a wide-range of doctrines and still be Baptist.
I disagree. Certainly, the term inerrancy was not used until more recently in the debate, but there is ample evidence that our Baptist forefathers regarded the Word of God as inerrant. Originally, the term “inspired” (a biblical term) was used to describe the Bible. But liberals changed the meaning of the term. Then the term “infallible” arose to describe a high view of Scripture. That term, too, was co-opted. So, inerrancy was coined – a term that is simple and direct. “No errors.” No wiggle-room there. Either you believe the Bible is 100% true or you don’t.
Nettles and Bush’s book “Baptists and the Bible” demonstrates the high view of scripture that was part and parcel of Baptist life for all of its existence. Hefley’s books give quotes that buttress that argument. Baptists have always had a certain theological foundation that we shared – a commitment to Scriptures as “truth without mixture of error” and a recognition of the final authority of Scripture on all matters.
Since that foundation was shared by all Baptists, it was not emphasized as much. But, when the foundation began to be washed away (the Toy controversy, the Elliott book serve as examples), Baptists felt the need to define our doctrinal foundation more carefully. The CR was the result of that.
In one sense, it can be maintained that the CR was a shift in the pattern of Baptist life. But it was one necessitated by growing liberalism’s attack at the theological roots of our denomination.
- Was there really a problem with liberalism?
I have had lengthy discussions with one person who simply denies that the SBC ever had liberals. Of course, that depends on your definition of liberal. Let me reword the question to take away the debate over the term.
“Were there people in our seminaries and denominational structures who did not believe the fundamental doctrines of the faith?”
I say there were.
I saw it firsthand. I attended a Baptist college and every one of my professors was a doctoral graduate from an SBC seminary. One of them (the most liberal of all) left our school and became a professor at Midwestern. Another became a leader in the CBF movement and eventually served as president of the Baptist Seminary that formed in Richmond. All of them went on to teach at other schools.
- They denied (and often ridiculed) every one of the major doctrines I mentioned above.
- One OT prof told us that there was no doubt that the author of Genesis clearly intended to teach a recent 6-day creation, but was simply wrong. He scoffed at the idea that God revealed the plans for the tabernacle and temple, as the scriptures state.
- Another OT prof started class by making it clear that there was no such thing as predictive prophecy. If any scripture purported to make a prophecy, it was written after the event and falsely attributed to a prior time.
- This same professor made this statement in Hebrew class. “Let’s face it, men. Jesus, Buddha, Mohammed, they are all just different flags under which God flies his name.”
- He also told me I needed to watch the move “Oh God” to get my theology straightened out.
- My NT professor disdained the doctrine of substitutionary atonement and ridiculed the idea that Satan was a real being.
- I can remember one professor, red-faced with both hands on my desk, shouting in my face (my girlfriend heard it in the financial aid office) “You mean you actually believe that?” That was pretty much the attitude toward us cursed fundamentalists. Openness to all beliefs seldom extends to conservative beliefs.
We also had a speaker come for “Spiritual Emphasis Week” – a well-known professor from Southern Seminary. I sat dumbfounded as he told us that Jesus did not intend to die. Jesus did not come to earth with the purpose of dying on the cross for our sins. He was the victim of political forces and some choices he made. His death was a tragic accident, not the eternal purpose of God.
I make the following assertions:
1) Liberalism existed in the SBC.
2) While not every seminary professor in every school was liberal (a more wild assertion I have heard made by some in my camp) there was a real theological problem in the SBC.
A Serious Problem!
I will say one more thing. It was a problem that needed to be dealt with. One of the common fictions I see in comments is that the SBC was healthy and thriving until the evil fundies took over and destroyed everything. But liberalism is a cancer that destroys religious organizations. There has yet be a denomination that has drifted into liberalism and prospered. The denial of the fundamental doctrines of the faith is a real problem that had to be dealt with. The SBC had a real and growing problem with liberalism and that problem had to be dealt with or we would follow the path of other mainline denominations into spiritual oblivion.
It can hardly be argued that the SBC is thriving today. But I believe we are way better off than we would be if the cancer of liberalism had been left to fester. The surgery may have been painful, but it was necessary.
The Play
The facts can hardly be denied. Starting in 1979, conservatives organized to elect presidents who shared our convictions and would appoint committees who shared those convictions. For 32 consecutive conventions, we have elected inerrantists as SBC President and all our entities now have conservative Boards of Trustees. There came a tipping point in the late 1980’s when the Boards of our entities had conservative majorities. Obviously, there was a lot of disruption and conflict at that point. The leadership of every one of our entities changed.
Them’s the facts, folks. Interpretation of those facts is obviously less clear. I would make the following points. I think the moderates operate in the realm of fantasy related to the SBC and the CR. There are also some false ideas that some conservatives seem to believe.
- It was not about theology, it was just a power play.
Obviously, it is undeniable that the CR was a “power play.” Since the Elliott book brought the creeping liberalism to the forefront, conservatives wanted to do something, but their concerns were ignored. Patterson studied the workings of the SBC and figured out a way to make a change. If we elected a president, he could make nominations to the Committee on Committees and they would make nominations to the convention. It was clearly a political situation.
But folks, the SBC is a political organization. We do not sit around and pray until God reveals his will. We take votes. Pressler and Patterson figured how to give conservatives the opportunity to register our concerns. Then, conservatives showed up in majorities to every convention for 32 straight years.
So, yes, the CR was a political power move. The majority of the SBC asserted its will over the minority. We said we want to be a denomination that prizes and enforces inerrancy in our entities.
So, here are the facts. Of course the CR was political. It had to be. But the motivation was a deep sense of concern for the theological future of our denomination. Were there power-hungry jerks within the conservative movement? Of course there were. As there were among the moderates. But the motivation for the movement was theological. The method was political but the motive was theological.
- The CR introduced politics into the SBC.
Nonsense. The idea that the smoke-filled back rooms (metaphorically at least) did not exist prior to 1979 is simply a fiction. The SBC was a large human institution and politics existed. The idea that prior to 1979 we eschewed politics and simply were led by God is an understandable but nonsensical fiction.
- The fundamentalists were mean.
I lived through the CR. There were mean conservatives, mean liberals and mean moderates Nasty words abounded. This is a common tactic. Democrats engage in dirty politics then complain about Republicans dirty politics. Republicans engage in dirty politics then compain about Democrats dirty politics
The idea that the moderates were kindly spoken in response to the wild attacks of the fundies is fiction Both sides engaged in extreme, mean, even ungodly conversation
- All’s fair in war
Again, nonsense. In the kingdom of God, the means to the end are as important as the end itself. Here is where I think many of my conservative friends err.
I support the aims of the CR and I am glad it took place. I do not support many of the actions that took place in the pursuit of the CR.
Political subterfuge is wrong even if it advances a worthy cause. I know that some of this took place (on both sides) but I think that some conservatives were blinded by what they saw as a righteous cause and justified actions on that basis.
- If you are not with us, you are against us.
I believe that the leaders of the SBC conservative movement made a serious (if understandable) mistake. After the election of Morris Chapman as SBC President (was that 1990?) it was clear that the battle was over. When WWII ended, we reached out to the nations we had defeated. We made friends of Germany and Japan.
I believe we should have reached out to some of the moderates and let them know that while they did not support our movement, there is a place in the SBC for them. “If you believe in the inerrancy of scriptures, there is a place in the SBC for you even if you did not support our political cause.”
Instead, we continued to ostracize those who had chosen the wrong horse in the race. I have no desire to open the doors of the SBC to those who deny the inerrancy of Scriptures or who undermine the fundamental doctrines of the faith. But I think we should reach out to people who disagreed with the CR but are theologically conservative.
What Say You?
Well, that’s where I stand. ON THIS COMMENT STREAM, you can have your say about the CR and its blessings or its evils. But, since I have provided this forum for the CR, please keep the discussions on this comment stream.
Unless a comment is vulgar or makes wild, offensive accusations, this is a wide-open forum for comments about the CR. But from this point on, comments about the CR and its leaders will be referred to this forum and will not populate other posts that are not about the CR.
Fair is fair guys.
Wait… So this post isnt to talk about sports?
That is absolutely the best and most accurate description of the CR that I have ever read. You are to be commended on your fair and honest rendition. I’m sure the liberals/moderates won’t like it but then they haven’t liked anything since Adrian Rogers was elected President.
Keep up the good work!
I believe we should have reached out to some of the moderates and let them know that while they did not support our movement, there is a place in the SBC for them.
I respectfully disagree. If someone really believes in inerrancy, they won’t be able to tolerate someone who doesn’t. The moderates who believed in inerrancy not only tolerated those who didn’t but would still be more than willing to cooperate with them in ministry. I’m not just talking about the whack jobs in the CBF, I mean there are folks who are still in the SBC who would be more than willing to work with those who hold to religious pluarlism and reject inerrancy. Anyone like that is not a real conservative.
That will be my last comment on this stream.
On this, we will have to disagree. I think there were people who genuinely loved the Lord and loved the Word who didn’t see the need for the CR. I disagree with them, but I think we should have made it clear that our concern was with doctrine, not conformity to a political movement.
Through the years and a lot of reflection, I have also come to this same position Dave about some people. Also the CR was never intended to become an auxiliary to GOP.
Why would I be surpised????
At the least, you are being more nice than usual—and I give you an “A” for “niceness.”
Thanks, Joe!!!!
Joe is always a teddy-bear.
Is it that they reject inerrancy or how inerrancy looks in our implementation?
I believe that the Bible is God’s inerrant word but I’ve come to disagree with how people have chosen to implement it through policies and doctrinal stances.
Dave,
You are a genius for coming up with this perpetual categorical post idea. Truly a Christian gentleman. Maybe you can start a singles playground post next. 🙂
It worked for sports. We are able to yak about the (sorry for using bad language) Crimson Tide and the Yankees as we please while not infecting every other post.
See if it works here.
Dave–
You have just made about the best description of what is going on as I can imagine.
In response I would classify myself as a “Moderate.”
I attended SEBTS 1967-70. I had just come from Emory University where Thomas J.J. Altizer had hit the cover of Time Magazine with his “God Is Dead” theology. Now that was truely “liberal.”
I was told SEBTS was “liberal.” I found it actually to be nothing more than “middle-of-the-road.” The reason I say this is that it was composed of a variety of Professors. Anyone calling Leo Green a “liberal” is a total liar!! Anyone calling Max Rogers a “liberal” is equally a distorter of truth. We had a variety of Professors with a variety of outlooks whose primary purpose was to expose us to “all things theological.” I think they did a good job.
My real exposure to theological education was in Bible 101 at Emory. I did a paper on II Isaiah and the Suffering Servant. In it I used my father’s great library and did extensive research to get a “C”! I was royally demon possessed with the grader until I read his comment on the paper: “You did an excellent job of showing why Jesus qualified as the Suffering Servant / you did nothing to show the alternative view that his description was a current view assuming he was the Suffering Servant.”
That comment made me keenly aware that a good theological education considers both sides of a given issue / shows a compitent knowledge of each / is able to explain what makes sense to the student.
On the other hand, indoctrination dictates to the student what is “proper” and “improper.” Either the student complies with what is dictated or he gets flunked / kicked out. Few student have the courage to stand up to any professor or perceived propriety.
What I experineced and observed with CR was a “lock step conformity” which required the use of the word “inerrant.” Now we are seeing current professors saying what mine did—“inspired” is accurate / “inerrant” cannot stand the test of intelligence.
The other thing I noted was that we had a paucity of current research material for graduate level research. There were plenty of books on a given subject in the library, but to read current periodicals relative to any given theological issue, we had little or nothing. At Emory I could go to the Candler School of Theology library for religious stuff or to the Medical School Library, or to the general library. Irregardless, there was plenty of research material of a current nature.
So, this is my observation: as far a theological education goes, we were–and still are–at a college level rather than a true graduate level. There is too much fear that anyone might think for themself. There is far too much control dictating a person adopt a “Conservative” position.
In real theology “conservative” or “liberal” are only labels which may or may not be accurately descriptive. In my experience, the education and exposure I received was nothing more than “middle-of-the-road.” It was minimal as to true graduate qualification. It was adequate to address the needs of a local Baptist church.
I think the CR assertions that the Seminaries needed a change were “fulla-bulla!!!!”
Gene said, “So, this is my observation: as far a theological education goes, we were–and still are–at a college level rather than a true graduate level. There is too much fear that anyone might think for themself.”
I found this to be the case. I attended Dallas Seminary and then transferred to SWBTS (in 1980). The difference in academic standards was amazing. I carried 20 hours one semester at SWBTS and still had time to train for my first marathon. I had two three-hour classes at DTS that were far more demanding than the entire 20 hours at SWBTS. By the way, that was prior to any of the effects of the CR taking hold at SWBTS.
I actually think that perhaps some of the academics at some of our seminaries have been increased in the last few years.
No Gene,
You are not a moderate. You are far to the left of people like Dilday, Vestal, Moore and Jackson.
You rank right up there with Ole John I Durham. You are a liberal.
Yep, its getting hot in here.
What are we supposed to do when it gets hot?
It ain’t hot Matt, But Hot’s comin’
Gene,
About the lack of education in our seminaries today; Who was it that did not know what Modalism was? You, right? Who was it that described the Trinity in about the same manner as would someone in the Oneness Pentecostal Movement? You right?
The seminaries, especially SEBTS needed drastic change. You are what would be known to lawyers as “Best Evidence” for that argument.
cb–
I note how fast you go into attack mode on me. You want to place me in your category to define me as a “blazing liberal.” You want to call me an idiot because I don’t know the names of all the heresies.
I could care less about a name for every heresy. Most are made up by argumentative men who want to sit all day and argue rather than get out and reach somebody for Christ—starting by acting like Christ in love and caring!!! Theological argument tends to be hot and never ending because those arguing can’t prove anything absolutely one way or the other except who got the last word / last punch / won the vote / etc.
Theological argument = joust over ego and control!!!!
David has given us a forum to state our position. I did just that without any arrogance or criticism of CR beyond “we could do better for a balanced education.”
Immediately you attack–David notes it’s getting hot—-from hot heads who only want to yell and scream to prove their point. People are reading this blog and figuring out what is going on.
cb—you are climbing a monkey tree and now you are above my head!! Remember: “The higher the monkey climbs the tree—the more you see what?????”
Gene,
I have never put you into the “Blazing Liberal” category. That one is reserved for sharp intellectuals who deny “all” things Christian.
In addition, Gene, you are the one who used the descriptive word “idiot” relating to yourself, not I.
If I remember correctly, you hold a degree in Psychology. Therefore, you might understand that your use of the word “idiot” in reference to yourself might be interpreted as a parapraxis (Freudian Slip) by the casual observer.
Of course, one who has observed you closely over a period of time, might be inclined to agree to the use of the word “idiot” as not a parapraxis, but rather, a truthful confession. I guess it depends on how closely one has observed you over the months you have been posting comments in Blogtown, as to how your use of “idiot” in reference to yourself would be interpreted, would it not, Gene?
Lastly, Gene your constant story of “a monkey in a tree” is a clue to your intellectual construct. You are the one who tells us how often you go “among the trees” to spend the day.
Another thing about the monkey in a tree story, if I remember correctly, is that your Grandfather used to tell you that story often. Gene, why is it that he was always telling “you” the “monkey in a tree” story?
cb—
Good swing, but a miss = “Strike 2!!!”
1) My Pshchology degree taught me about the ability of the human mind to use “defense mechanisms” to protect one from self-knowledge as well as allow them to “always be right.” You are full of too many “defense mechanisms”–the most used of which is “rationalization.” You appraoch “Reaction-Formation Psychosis.” Look um up if you don’t understand!!!
2) My quote from my Grandfather came from a wise man and excellent farmer in upstate SC. He was a dedicated Baptist and Church Treasurer until someone accused him of not being honest with the church’s money. At that point he chose not to go to church although his children did go every Sunday.
Instead of going with “monkeys climbing trees” he would shave and dress in his suit and sit on his front porch meditating with God in a time not polluted with monkey talk and activities. Actually when he didn’t shave in the winter he could have been mistaken for Robert E. Lee = quiet dignity / figuring out ways to win against the rigors of farming / turning gullied red clay hillsides into perfectly terraced productive fields of cotton and corn / cows and pigs.
He was tough when he needed to be and kind and gentle otherwise. He got through the Depression without loosing his farm. He was the first County Agent in Pickens County SC and practiced what he preached with soil conservation.
“Poor Cousin Andrew’s” 280-acre farm took 7 children through the Depression and each one was a productive citizen. None of his grandchildren has turned into a drug addict or criminal. Most of us are active in a church somewhere. The 3rd and 4th generations are also model citizens. He and grandmomma were able to stay in the big white frame farmhouse of their dreams until each one drew their last breath.
“Poor Cousin Andrew’s” old farm brought just under a Million dollars and is now turned into 15-acre mini-farms with the beautiful breezes and view of the Blue Ridge Mountains as a backdrop!
“Poor Cousin Andrew” wasn’t so poor after all!!!! He well-knew what monkeys climbing trees was all about–and it wan’t any of his children or grandchildren laughing and playing on those beautiful woods and fields. My mother played with the black tenant farmer’s children and refused to let any of her children use the “N” word.
Shame on you for such destructive criticism!!!
“You are what would be known to lawyers as “Best Evidence” for that argument.”
I see someone has been watching The Good Wife.
Darby,
I have a “good wife” and I have been watching her for many years. I have learned much from her and she has kept me out of a lot of trouble, I can assure you.
Yet, I must admit, I have spent a lot of time with lawyers (mostly prosecutors) and law enforcement types in a past life.
In the case of Gene and “best evidence” that he is a liberal, one only has to review his comments (writings) over any period of time in the last 14 months in Blogtown and one will have the original (best) evidence that Gene is no moderate by a long shot. The guy is a card carrying Emory+SEBTS pre-Drummond-era type liberal.
Ain’t no doubt about it. 🙂
Gene:
I did not know you went to Emory. My uncle went there. My dad went to Emory at Oxford after the war and then art school.
My grandparents lived on Superior Avenue in Decatur, and were long time members at First United Methodist Decatur. Did you ever run into Bev Jones, who was a minister there and later a Bishop in the United Methodist Church?
Louis–
I was actually President of the BSU the year Thomas J.J. Altizer did his “God Is Dead” stuff.
I lived on Sagewood Circle off E. Ponce de Leon between Clarkston and Stone Mountain. That was in the day you could ride a bicycle safely down the roads! Atlanta had just reached its first Million residents and well on the way to 2M.
I was involved in a small church on Memorial Drive called Memorial Heights. I graduated Clarkston High School in 1963 with 63 seniors. It now graduates about 400 each year.
I attended Decatur First Baptist while at Emory, but didn’t run into your Minister, although I know her name. Methodists seem to be less agonized over small stuff like female ministers. I like their caution in ordaining people. No one gets in without a thorough personality check using the MMPI, nor without a decent education.
In my day we had several good Methodists at SEBTS and some of my friends went on to become Methodist ministers. One who was divorced found a good place among Methodists. In the towns where I served, I was usually better friends with my fellow Methodist minister than some of the Baptists. I just like their down-to-earth approach to ministry in general.
When I represented Ministers Life I attended the Eastern NC annual meeting each year. Instead of lying about the last church the ministers were getting together with the newly placed minister to advise them on the quirky people they might encounter. On the other hand, as a Baptist, I was told a church was “normal” when it was full of people waiting to take my new head off. Baptist ministers will lie to make themselves look good!
Baptist ministers evil, Methodist ministers good, blah blah blah, so incredibly transparent and prejudicial.
Just the way I saw and experienced it, my brother!!!
The stories that I heard from my friends who attended seminary in the 1980s told me stories of how contentious of an atmosphere that the seminary took on because of the Conservative Resurgence.
One friend relayed how professors began to ban tape recorders in their classrooms because students had stopped using them to take notes and began using them to use the professor’s own words against them as they reported them to ranking officials of the day. He told me that some students took aspects that would remind you of the Gestapo in their fervent desire to be the one to knock off another professor. My friend replied that it was almost sick because some (note: not all) students were looking to ingratiate themselves with the powers that be rather than further their own education.
My question is how did this affect the learning culture and environment of the seminaries? Also, how did this affect the climate for open discussion and debate in the classroom amongst not only the professors, but other students? Did this in anyway also contribute to instances of academic misconduct? Is it possible that students with a favorable stance also received higher grades and/or recommendations for further study and advanced degrees?
To me, these are some real questions to ask, even though it’s very possible that it’s also something with no real concrete answers.
I doubt that anything nefarious or insidious went down along the lines of grade changing and easing the standards for advanced degrees among certain groups of people. My questions mainly piggy back on the environment that has been described to me.
Bill–
You have accurately described it and I share your view of how awful it was.
At the time I was representing Ministers Life Insurance Company and went to SEBTS every 3 months to talk with students about our cheap student entry level plan. I never revealed or brought up theology. Students were hair triggers on theology and I was there to ask health questions / fill out apps / get on down the road to a preacher with a church and income. I made $15 for a student policy–not enough to buy gas for the drive from Rocky Mount!
However, I did listen carefully. I asked what church or part of the country they came from. In the library I picked up the Atlanta paper and just listened from afar. Here is what I found:
(1) Few were from a regular SBC church
(2) Many were from Jerry Falwell’s corner of religion or his school.
(3) Most were arrogant and judgemental
(4) Some were quietly talking about who got the best recording that day.
No judging / no lies about SEBTS / just simple facts I witnssed.
Gene,
Truth just simply has a way of evading intersecting with your mind and proceeding out of your mouth during your waking hours when SEBTS is the subject matter, don’t it there Ole Buddy?
Let me ask you a question, if I may? Does truth pass through your mind when you dream about SEBTS during sleep or does it escape you there also?
cb–
Bite me!!!
You tell it like you saw it—but give me the courtesy to tell it like I saw it. I won’t insult your integrity as you have mine.
OK??????
Gene,
The problem with your request of me to “give you the courtesy to tell it like you saw it” is a simple, but most serious problem.
You see Gene, I know you are not telling the truth. That is the problem with the way you “tell it like you saw it.” You know it. I know it. God knows it. You are not telling the truth.
Bill,
My position will be different than that of Gene or several other fellows.
The level of theological education greatly improved at SEBTS, SBTS, and the other four SBC seminaries after a liberal faculty left their positions there and were replaced by a biblically and theologically sound group of men and women whose desire was to teach God called pastors, missionaries and ministry staff folks the Truth of God’s Word.
CB,
Forgive me for asking this because I’m sure you’ve stated it earlier, but at what point were you in seminary? How was your time there?
cb–
Kindly cite your time frame at SEBTS and SBTS. Did you attend both to validate your statement OR are you just going on the words of distorters of what was really going on???
bill and Gene,
I have attended three SBC seminaries and one non-SBC seminary. I also worked at one SBC seminary for a pretty good while.
My best experience in receiving theological education came from a SBC Bible College. Had it not been for that experience, I may have become a liberal like Gene, but with far better grades. 🙂
CB,
Did you witness or experience any of the things that I have had friends of mine mention while in Seminary during the 1980s? My intent wasn’t to impugn, I sincerely wanted to know when and where you attended seminary. I have no basis beyond what has been relayed to me because I left the ministry and decided against going on into seminary.
Thanks.
cb—
Why in the world did you attend so many???
You make a broad statement that education greatly improved under the CR mandate. Please tell me what is the basis of your “unbiased judgement???”
As far as I can tell SEBTS underwent probation after Dr. Lolley’s forced resignation due to serious violations of their standards. During that time (Drummond became President) the enrollment dropped drastically beacaus no student could be assured of graduating from a recognized school.
My experience when Patterson became president was that most students were there to worship Paige Patterson as much or more than God, Himself. I have never seen a more ego-driven time at my school than the Patterson years!
Many would state without being asked that “I came here from Liberty / Bob Jones / etc. because this is a safe school for conservatives.”
Graduate eduction should never be “safe” in my opinion. It should be a time of working with colleagues in theology who challenge every presuppostion you have so that your thinking is deepened beyond your earlier Sunday School religion! You are required to read and research among the latest and most recognized theologians. That was how it was in 1967-70 when I was there.
Exposure to all things theological should be the goal of a good school like Harvard / Duke / Emory / Vanderbilt / etc. They still have a decent reputation among recognized schools of theology. To the best of my knowledge SEBTS has no real respect among peers. It is viewed as a Liberty University / Bob Jones / Heritage College aftermath for fundies to increase their joy in fundamentalism.
It is a very restricted world of far right wing religion rather than a published group of respected Professors who challenge the depth and width of every student they teach.
Sorry, but in this I tell a truth which can absolutely be validated!
I’m currently attending an SBC seminary, NOBTS. I don’t know what it was like then, during the CR, but the seminary environment is changing again. Now the extensive use of extension centers, the inter-conservative competition of recruiting from other seminaries, the rapid development of technology, and a growing distrust of the SBC by young leaders is dramaticly changing seminary from what has been described in the past.
My wife graduated from UNO’s ,top twenty in the nation graduate schoo, while I attended NOBTS. She use to laugh at my syllabi and tease about the strange academic work habits of my classes. The SBC definitly needs another James Boyce moment where we have a new discussion about what the church desires from the seminay and how the seminaries should function.
In direct response to the CR. I think it was good, but short-sighted. The SBC needs to continously think about how Christ would have us move forward, and the leaders of the CR seem to be stuck in the rut of yester-year.
“growing distrust of the SBC by young leaders”
Boy, that’s for sure. Thanks for logging in.
I was at SWBTS at the very beginning of the CR so none of that was going on there at the time.
But there is no doubt that it was a contentious time. Who was doing what depends largely on whether you are talking to conservatives about the actions of moderate/liberals or to moderate/liberals about the actions of conservatives.
It all depends on your loosely used designation as “conservative or liberal.”
In my observations and knowledge we had, on a scale of 1-10—a 7 on “liberal” and a 10 on “conservative”–as one fellow pointed out, “if we get more conservative we will have to add about 10′ to the conservative end of the bench!!!!
I attended SWBTS from 1990 – 1994. I had a professor who cursed in class and who also told inappropriate jokes. My philosophy professor told us about his sermon titled, “God Our Mother.” Both of these professors were gradually and gently led out the door after Dr. Hemphill came.
That philosophy professor was probably inspired by St. Matthew’s Gospel:
“37 “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how many times I yearned to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her young under her wings, but you were unwilling!”
The ‘motherliness’ of this description is a lyrical reference to God’s protectiveness, which we also find spoken about in the Psalms.
Strange how the beauty of Biblical language confuses some.
L’s,
No, that is not what “inspired” those guys. Had that been what had “inspired” them, that would have been easily understood and not brought about the grassroots rebellion that birthed the CR.
You see L’s, conservative scholars have never been confused about “biblical languages.”
What inspired those guys was Higher German Criticism that crept into the seminaries just before WWII.
So Spinoza is not your cup of tea.
I tend to be ‘interested’ in different approaches to Scripture scholarship, but I am more trusting in the traditional ways of the Church’s scripture scholarship, particularly concerning canon formation.
If the ‘higher German criticism’ had been around at the time of the Nicene Council, who knows what would have ended up in the canon. As it was, the Church chose that which had been in use widely throughout the early centers of the Church, particularly what had been read in ‘the Service of the Word’ portion of worship. There were other considerations as well, but in the end, there was a strong ‘consensus’ about the make-up of the canon.
I think it was St. Ignatius who first used the term ‘it is written’ when referring to a document eventually destined for inclusion in the canon. That term, ‘it is written’ , was always used in reference to the sacred inspired writings of the OT. So his use of it was a ‘sign’ that the early Church fathers had already acknowledged its authenticity as ‘inspired’.
How do you feel about ‘redaction’ in Scripture scholarship ? Probably don’t like it much, is my guess.
“If the ‘higher German criticism’ had been around at the time of the Nicene Council, who knows what would have ended up in the canon.”
Nothing much L’s. Nothing much. It would have been a Paperback novel at best. 🙂
Again, I have some insights from my Ministers Life days as my clients included some SEBTS Administrators and Professors. I am not aware of any who used profanity or told dirty stories in classes when I was a student at that “corrupt” school.
I know several had Blood Pressure issues from the stress they were under. Anything more remains confidential—except the conservative student who had V.D. from his time in Viet Nam.
To hear the professors talk about dirty tricks was heart breaking. They had worked hard for a PhD and just wanted to use it. They were informed on all sides of the theological equation, yet had little spy students who would report any non-inerrant statement as if it were the only thing taught.
I have no doubt some things were said as a mental anguish reaction like = “OK Paige, lets see if this “dirty joke” gets back in the same way I’m fixing to tell it = “The white horse fell in a mud puddle.”
Gene,
Some of those “spy students” were not so “little.” I knew a couple of them who were pretty good sized fellows. And if I remember correctly, their assessments were pretty accurate as to what was being taught in the classrooms of SEBTS, our most liberal seminary, at the time.
cb–
I played football and basketball with some of them in my time at SEBTS.
Strangely, the more conservative they were, the more often they would clip you or elbow you in the face to win!!! Our saying was “watch out for the sneaky rats and don’t let them get behind you!!!”
Gene,
I played some football with seminary guys. They were all a rough bunch, as it should have been. We were playing “football.” It is a contact sport.
As far as basketball is concerned, I would not know. I never joined in when the girls were playing their sport. 🙂
Oh Puleeze, CB. The Hegalian dialectic is all over evangelical circles. Even reformed! Most recently, a good example of it was with the recent Desiring God conference, if you were paying attention.
Oops, spelled Hegel wrong. The “Hegelian” Hegel. As in Georg Wilhelm Fredrich Hegel.
I’d like to know how my evangelical foundations are “Hegelian.” It is easy to through around names of philosophers, but having studied Hegel, I’m not sure how his atheistic, socialist views are “all over my theology.”
Please enlighten me.
A couple of thoughts about the academic rigor of SBC seminaries:
(1) SBC seminaries have usually had very lenient admissions policies. Usually anybody with a 2.0 in college who feels called to ministry can get in. There is no GRE requirement. So there is a wide variety of students in terms of both aptitude and self-discipline.
(2) Unlike many other graduate schools, SBC seminaries don’t require a particular undergraduate major or demonstration of mastery of a body of knowledge. Some SBC seminary students majored in religion in their undergraduate school and already know much of the seminary curriculum. Others have no such background.
(3) SBC seminaries have often wanted students to be involved in ministry while in seminary. Therefore, they have tried not to make the curriculum too difficult or time-consuming. I was pastor of a church during seminary, and had to drive 140 miles one-way to my church each week, prepare two sermons, and visit people. When I was doing this, I was glad that seminary wasn’t too hard.
Jeff, I’m not sure where you went to seminary, but not all seminary degrees were as lenient as what you speak about. My degree at SWBTS was quite rigorous and demanding and someone coming in with a 2.0 would not have finished (in fact, I knew a few who did not).
Though we graduated from the same school, SSBN, I’m guessing we did so in different eras. Academic standards were not that high at the SWBTS I attended – at least not in comparison to the rigorous academics at Dallas.
Dave, I graduated in 1997 (I went to seminary the second time after GGBTS).
If you are talking about the regular M.Div. without Biblical Languages, or the MACE, you are probably right. But, these are professional degrees and the purpose is to train “general practicioners” not theologians.
However, the M.Div. with Biblical Languages gets a bit harder, especially depending on what professors you took — like Dr. Tolar, or Earl Ellis, for example. Then, the rigor was a bit more academically challenging.
I was a M.A. in theology student and had a different tract altogether. I also had to maintain a B average in every class (though I actually graduated with a A+ average). I also had to write a major paper for every class, as well as a major thesis reviewed by three professors.
Of all the students I went to school with, 99 per cent could have graduated from any seminary you could name, including Dallas. In fact, several of my classmates went on to finish Ph.D. and now teach at SWBTS.
I’m afraid that criticizing the curriculum somehow demeans the quality of the students. In my experience, my peers were some of the sharpest crayons in the box.
One for example had three master’s degrees BEFORE he came to seminary.
I was a M.A. in theology student and had a different tract altogether.
Well, there’s your problem…we used the Bible not tracts! 😉
Jeff–
I had extra respect for the men who had had a career / felt their call / forsook all to come to school / had a family to support as well as try to study. Some had 3-6 children, but sacrificed to fulfill their calling they had run from for many years.
I came right after college and was amazed how old the student body was! It is more proof that too many run from God until they run out of breath and give in. “The Hound of Heaven” poem comes to mind.
“I’d like to know how my evangelical foundations are “Hegelian.” It is easy to through around names of philosophers, but having studied Hegel, I’m not sure how his atheistic, socialist views are “all over my theology.”
Please enlighten me.”
It is about behavior WITHIN the theological views.
The dialectic brings us such incorrect thinking as:
Klouda’s firing was the right thing to do to be doctrinally sound.
In other words, we had to sin to be theologically sound but the dialectic is used to make it appear to be Holy and not a sin. So, the horrible treatment of a sister in Christ was not sin but necessary to be a Christian.
Get it?
Piper and Warren are engaging in a similar dance with doctrine and the dialectic.
In the Intro is mentioned that we had never had/used an official Creed. Around 1950 in a rather large Baptist church they did recite the Apostles Creed – often enough that I have some memorised. I’ve googled it and seen reference to many religions and a different use for me of the word “catholic”. Also had a Doxology, ” Praise God from whom all blessings flow —” sung by all as well as the term “Holy Ghost” which has been eliminated. These changes in practice is one reason I’m agreeable to the “enerincy of Scripture” in hopes that with all the versions of the Bible etc we have accepted we won’t change to where we won’t recognise ourselves after a couple generations. Catholic Church’s catachism is good in that respect. You can delete this rambling but not many awake at 2 a.m.
Jack–sleepy, but correct!!!
Anything Catholics were, Baptists wanted not to be. Most of us could tell you far more about what we weren’t than what we were! We were and still are “tied up in NOTS!”
We diverse worship-wise from high church formality with the Apostles Creed and other liturgy—to holy rolling with snakes being handled. Some churches had split chancels and knew what a Narthax was while others knew the way to the out house out back. That’s a very wide range—enough to fairly call us “ecumenical—yet drawn together to suppost Missions.”
Dave, I see some problems with this post:
1) As a young person who was born at the height of the CR I can’t really say where I fit in your categories since I didn’t participate in it or have first hand experience in the gossip and propaganda of the times. I’ve read a few books on the CR and written a short paper on it for a seminary class and I’ve got some personal experiences that I think allow me some insight into what happened. I’ve got opinions and would like to discuss them or flesh them out more thoroughly but the categories seem set for a particular set of people who had a more direct experience with the issues than what I could claim.
2) You’re devoting one whole thread to a topic that has been the subject of many books. It may seem generous to throw the moderates a bone, but the CR is far too complex for this thread to mean anything or go anywhere. If you want to do a kindness for those that disagree and engage honestly with them and allow them the opportunity to do the same with you then try tackling the CR in smaller more manageable chunks. I can’t imagine this being done fairly in less than 15 posts.
3) The attitude of providing the thread does not instill great confidence in its usefulness. The language you use about what you expect people to do in the comments suggests that this is meant to be the litter box for all the comments you don’t want to deal with or seriously engage. Your invitation to the conversation undercuts its possibilities for authentic fostering of understanding.
Those are the issues that come most immediately to mind. The scope of this may be too much for what a blog (read blog not thread) can handle effectively. A forum would be a better tool although those don’t get the traffic blogs do. I appreciate the sentiment to try and give a place to discuss but the result is so inadequate I can’t see the benefit of this over not having it.
Blake, thanks for dropping by. I am genuine about my beliefs concerning the CR. But you are right about this post. I am tired of every single post on this blog being steered toward recycling the same arguments and bitternesses. I recently asked people to stop bringing the CR up so much and got a lot of flak. So, I thought I would open this up.
IN the future, when people log in comments about the CR on other posts, I will send them way.
I do not have the hubris to think that my six pages of text will in any way solve the situation. I’m just trying to both provide for and isolate the discussion.
I sympathize with you on not wanting to deal with this kind of trolling and I sense you’re honest in your desire to do the issue justice and not push it off out of contempt. Do you think you would be interested some time in participating in a regulated selectively invited group to discuss specific issues of the CR some time? I understand if not. Thanks.
I would be interested.
Dave–
I bet you had a good night’s rest hoping the CR flame throwers would all land here. It’s a great idea and—so far I like what I see = mostly civil discussion.
I think Blake is expecting some kind of difinitive work from this blog which it never is. I know what he is saying about books on the subject. I have read most of them–including Pressler’s “Hill To Die On.” As I understand it, this is simply a landing place so CR discussion is minimized on your other worthy subjects.
That is a golden dream as us modern Baptirews wander in the desert making plans for a new golden idol hidden in the corner!
This theological debate is part and parcel of any religious journey. Abraham / Moses / Isiah / David / Solomon / Jesus all came to a special knowledge of God (actually He brought it to them through devine revelation), but it wasn’t long until the restless “Baptirews” were griping and complaining over it not being to their satisfaction.
The great uproar over an Idol vs. Decalogue was “Thou shalt have no other gods before me.” Our human frailty has been idols like coveting / lusting after another man’s wife / getting to eat off the “tithe table.”
With CR, there were good goals of a high view of Scripture. Alongside were selfish goals on both sides of “who runs the show.” The honest view of it all is that Baptirews have tended to have more a “glorified social club” than a definitive following or Christ.
It is like the stranger who was purported to have come to my first town of pastoring, Bishopville, SC. He asked an old codger whittling at the service station where he could find a godly church.
“Well, mister,” said the tobacco chewing whittler, “The Methodist church over there belongs to Mr. McClain / the Baptist church over there belongs to Mr. Alston / the Presbyterian church over there belongs to Mr. McCracken. I ain’t real sure God has a church in this town!!!”
I think we have a lot of old codgers who are saying the same of the SBC these days, and that’s not good. What started as a purge of modernism quickly turned into ownership battles on all sides.
It is a real problem in every part of society today–especially as we are within a few days of another election. Conservatives say they want to “return America to its Christian heritage.” Liberals say we want to allow all things like gay marriage / abortion / no more Bible reading. I say, “We just have a non-cooperating mess of a playground fight where its my gang vs. your gang vs. all the other gangs which have their corner of this playground!”
Gang warfare throwing rocks only gets the Emergency Room overcrowded. If you want to kill somebody, join the Military and go fight Afghanistanies or whoever the heck is over there in the Middle East. Corporate America makes big bucks off military production. The price of fuel is just going up and we have to keep driving and paying out of fewer dollars of income in a failed economy.
Have you noticed we a spending $10 for every $1 taken in by the IRS and have you noticed Mission Giving is plateaued while money is still coming in, but Administrators are making triple-digit incomes in government and religion?????
Somebody needs to solve something or we all go down. Constant warfare only diverts money and interest from the real personal issued of life / liberty / and the pursuit of happiness!!! Nobody seems very happy these days. Confusion reigns and tempers flare. Rush hour traffic finds few willing to motion the other driver in. It’s all about “me / myself / and I.”
“In the kingdom of God, the means to the end are as important as the end itself. ”
BRAVO, DAVID
You know the teaching of the Book of Romans 3:8 . . . .
The Royal Law of Christ prevents the use of evil by Christian people in their actions towards anyone, for any purpose.
Unless, of course, they’re in the womb. Then you can slice them up into little bitty pieces so that they can be extracted from their mother more easily.
Bravo Joe and well done.
For how can anyone say the “Royal Law of Christ prevents the use of evil by Christian people in their actions towards anyone, for any purpose,” yet support abortion for any reason?
It is a moral contradiction, is it not?
Hi C.B.
There is an exception. Do you know what it is ?
I didn’t know you advocated abortion, JOE.
When did you change your mind? Seems to me, I recall that you opposed it in the past, at least since the time it became a politically-savy thing for SOME non-Catholic Christians to do that.
Unless, of course . . . you were speaking facetiously. ?
I was mocking your claim that it is wrong to cause harm while AGRESSIVELY maintaining the right of a woman to have an abortion. So it wasn’t so much speaking facetiously as it was making fun of you and your beliefs.
Christiane, he is being sarcastic/ironic. I’d wager my spleen that Joe is not a supporter of abortion rights. (Just for the record, I don’t actually gamble – I’m a good, Baptist boy).
You know how I worry about him, David.
Dave,
I will gamble on a “sure shot” if its me holding the rifle. 🙂
Gene:
Did you see my reply above regarding Emory and Decatur?
Just got back in from the funeral of Dr. Thomas Bland today in Raleigh. Answer is above.
For those who do not know him, Dr. Bland was an example of the kind of Professor I had at SEBTS. Well educated / able to spot pretension when he saw it / gave himself not only to the school and students, but was totally active in his local church.
Until his obituary I had no idea how many new church starts he generated. When a new mission church was being planned, he was the “go to” person to come in for the first 2 years and give it a solid start.
Another distinction observed today was the fact that when the church became strong enough to call its first full time pastor, he graciously backed away and held a position that “I will help only when asked and I will never interfere.”
Dr. Bland always reminded me of my father. He was quiet and unassuming, but with a razor sharp mind. He asked all the right questions so you had to think to give a good answer. Even if you gave a fake answer, you were still inspired to think a little deeper until you soul is satisfied you have a proper answer.
The greatest compliment was that both his son and daughter with earned doctorates shared their personal remembrances of a father who lived what he preached and taught. At any future meeting when we met, he always remembered my name and spoke words of encouragement in my ministry. We were more than just students, we all became fellow ministers in sharing the Gospel.
He held Urban Studies special summer courses in large cities. In those he insisted his students visit other kinds of churches–especially ethnic ones. He wanted us to become acquainted personally with what other faith groups were saying and teaching. In my local Raleigh early seminar, we were divided up into groups which went and interviewed the Independent Baptist Church toward Raleigh from Wake Forest as well as new groups like Jehovah’s Witnesses and Mormons. It was not enough to just read “about” them. It was required to become personally acquainted enough to write a paper on their core beliefs and church polity.
He was as conservative as the day is long and would never serve as an example of “liberal” at SEBTS. More than that he was an authentic believer and inspiration for open minded approaches to any who had a different way to God.
Can anyone accurately speak on the two Baptist Press employees who were fired? From what I understand they took a big hit both personally and financially for attempting to be accurate in the reporting of the CR. True or false?
Debbie,
I know they hounded me at the BSSB when I presented the Sanctity of Human Life motion.
One thing I know for sure is that they were very much against my motion and my position against abortion on demand. That much I know.
It is also my opinion, based upon personal experience with them as a BSSB trustee that “accurate reporting” was not always their goal.
Of course, that is just one opinion. There were and are many.
From what I’ve read from accounts on both sides of the aisle, I’ve come to the conclusion of this:
The Southern Baptist Convention decided it was time to change the leadership and direction of the Baptist Press. However, the methods to enable and facilitate this change was done in about the worst way that it could possibly be done. What should have just been a simple “we’ll help you out the door” became the great sensational story of legend.
I’m not saying it was right or wrong, I’m saying that it was handled poorly.
Then again, it would seem that having a journalistic entity report on a movement within the larger entity that OWNS the smaller entity leaves questions of conflict of interest and retribution. Were the two men fired for being dishonest and lacking journalistic integrity or were they fired for being vocal dissidents who also happen to have sway over the news coming out of the Southern Baptist Convention?
Both sides make their claim and I cannot find records from that meeting prior to the firings. Can someone point me to those records or were they even kept for that meeting?
Al Shakleford was one. I forget the other. Both editors were heading Baptist Press when CR took over. They refused politely to do other than free press reporting of Baptist news and events just like we had always wanted pre-1979.
The CR boys wanted a propaganda piece and clearly got it with a vengeance and no regard to giving the adequate time for a smooth transition. As I recall they got a 1 month separation package after an executive session behind closed doors “in the spirit of Christian love and compassion.”
They found other work and started new things at a “new thing shoestring” income. I saw little or no compassion when CR wants its way with people they don’t like.
They forced our N. Roanoke Association DOM into early retirement by holding back their Associational giving.
Interesting thing though–after he left, they never started giving again. It seems like they had too many local expenses trying to build their mega churches!!!!
Also Bill Moyer did a report on the CR with interviews with Presley, Dilday and others. How accurate was this report? It is no longer available on line unfortunately.
There is no question that the spin in Moyer’s article was against the CR. I don’t know if any of the facts were wrong, but his interpretation of them leaned left.
TOTALLY!!!!
It is Moyers with an “s”. He works with PBS. He is headquartered in NY and we have had several interesting adventures together.
He was a primary adviser to the LBJ administration since they were both from Texas. He was their religious liaison and consultant on ethics and morality issues.
My dad was a friend of his at SWBTS. Said he was very conservative. Seems like politics corrupted him!
Elmer Towns describes the Conservative Resurgence:
In the last twenty-five years Southern Baptists have fought the battle of perceived liberalism within its ranks and bureaucracy, and most would agree that the fundamentalists have won that battle. Beginning with the election of Adrian Rogers in 1979, one self-identified fundamentalist after another has become president of the Southern Baptist Convention, and in turn they have controlled the nomination and election process of the various boards and seminaries. In due time, boards mandated that liberal-leaning individuals were not nominated to positions, and fundamentalists turned the various boards and committees toward fundamentalism.
http://blog.founders.org/2008/05/elmer-towns-on-conservative-resurgence.html
Debbie, I didn’t check, but did you change email or something. You got caught in the moderation net and I did not put you there. Not sure why your comments landed in moderation, unless you changed something.
First time commenters always land in moderation – something in the programming. But you are hardly a newbie around here.
Not sure what the deal is.
Oh yes. I have two emails and the wrong one got on there. Thank you. I changed it.
I’ve made it a rule to not really trust anything coming out of Liberty University.
Just a personal opinion.
One with which I strongly disagree, Bill. Liberty is a great Christian school for young people.
If your criticism relates to a certain person who opened a “Caner” worms there, he is no longer in charge, and is not even teaching classes. Love him or hate him, he is not really a representative of Liberty anymore.
Actually, I just was never a fan of Jerry Falwell. Again, this is just a personal opinion and it really doesn’t jive with this thread. You can delete my comment stream since it isn’t germane to the thread.
Totally accurate.
The definition of “conservative” went beyond any classical definition to include only those who toed the mark / had proven themselves by doing any dirty deed dispatched to them / having their credentials from Criswell Bible College.
Paige Patterson could sit with his righteous look while minions of “murderers of reputation” did his really dirty work for him. It reminds me of Al Capone going to church and weddings in very public places while machine guns blazed on the back streets of Chicago. “He knew nothing aboudit!!”
Under Section: “The fundamentalists were mean”, there is this quote:
“Both sides engaged in extreme, mean, even ungodly conversation.”
David, there was at least one woman who suffered profound injustice. Her words about her feelings in the following site do NOT express any ungodly-ness in my opinion:
http://kerussocharis.blogspot.com/2008/03/email-from-dr-klouda-revealing-her.html
Something to think about for the future:
“But folks, the SBC is a political organization. We do not sit around and pray until God reveals his will. ”
Perhaps people should have prayed and then waited upon the Lord.
If the SBC WAS just a political organization, the courts should have been notified of that. at the time of the Klouda case, for the sake of justice.
I think that the court’s ruling in the Klouda case might have been influenced in another direction, if the court had realized simply this: ‘But folks, the SBC is a political organization. ‘
I am sympathetic to the arguments of the need FOR the CR in the context of what was going on at SBC entities, but with this reservation:
We can’t serve ‘two masters’.
Perhaps the down-side of the CR was a result of placing politics above the Laws of Christ.
Letting ‘right be done’ cannot then happen when those Laws are over-ridden, in pursuit of ‘other priorities’.
And in the end, Dr. Klouda herself said what we all know to be true:
“I have to believe the Scriptures that tell us that “all things work together for good, for those who love God.” ”
Something about Dr. Klouda’s Christian graciousness reminds me of these words from Theresa of Avila:
“”Let nothing disturb thee;
Let nothing dismay thee;
All thing pass;
God never changes
Patience attains All that it strives for.
He who has God finds he lacks nothing:
God alone suffices.”
Thank you DAVID, for allowing a discussion. I hope it brings some understanding. And from that understanding, perhaps a chance for Christ’s healing to everyone who was involved in any way.
The only link between Klouda and the CR is the presence of Paige Patterson in both. Paige was the man who figured out the way that conservatives could change the convention’s direction. He was certainly a prominent figure in the CR.
But to blame the CR for Paige Patterson’s actions with Klouda would be like blaming the whole Catholic church for the actions of one priest.
Many of us who strongly supported the CR thought the Klouda action was ill-advised. So, the attempt to link the two, as if the Klouda matter represented the intent of the CR is simply not fair.
Thing is, my whole Church IS penitent, as a unified Church,
about what some priests have done, mainly because there were people who dropped the ball and didn’t hold those priests accountable, and WORSE, allowed them to transfer to new positions, where abuse continued. The suffering that resulted is a matter of great sadness for all the members of my Church together. When these people suffer, we all suffer.
Many of us felt sorry for Klouda. Of course, differing convictions on the application of biblical teachings on women in ministry are not quite the same as molestation.
I think when they sit down to write Paige Patterson’s legacy, we’re going to find that he was just in too many places where decisions needed to be made and he either was the only one to make them because no one else would or he sought out the opportunities to make them because they would create a legacy.
I think that whether or not you like Paige Patterson, and I’m not a real big fan, you are going to have to admit that he did do a lot for the Southern Baptist Convention.
Only God and Paige know whether his motives were for power or for Kingdom glory…
Remember: Judge Pressler was a highly influential Federal Judge and they do have meetings bringing together judges from across the country.
Never tell me “Lady Justice is blind.” It sounds good and inspirational, but we all know the power of the court. If they don’t want to deal with justice in religious organizations, they just cite “separation of church and state” to stay out of it.
In the Klouda case—not reviewing = letting Paige Patterson win.
Gene,
Are you accusing Judge Pressler of misconduct in the Klouda case?
If so, maybe you need to back up and take a deep breath. Such an accusation can carry serious consequences. Friendly word of advice there. You need to take it.
Judge Pressler was Pressler = very opinionated / not an SBC Baptist / a conservative of all conservatives.
Beyond that, I commented and was moderated for good reason.
In years to come more truth will come out. Until then, I leave it as I stated above.
Dave,
Great idea for a post!
Kinda funny how there isn’t much CR talk when it’s set up… Like you said, it seems like people would rather steer non-CR posts toward it!
People will no longer be allowed to steer non-CR posts in this direction. Ain’t happening!
I have no desire to discuss the CR, because the name implies something that did not happen. Now put up a post for discussing the Fundamentalist Takeover and I would be glad to partake.
This is the only post that is going up on this subject, Robert.
Robert, really?
You don’t want to discuss the CR unless the person who starts the discussion agrees with your feelings about it in advance?
Dave started an interesting forum.
Does it make sense for you to come on here to announce that you are not playing because of the way the post was written?
I hope you will reconsider. I bet we all could learn something from listening to you.
I do not wish to discuss it because it did not exist, at least in the incarnation that many in here discuss. It does not involve a matter of my feelings or Dave’s feelings. It involves looknig at a situation and disregarding very pertinent facts to make something look like you want it to.
I do not disagree that there were some of the issues that the CR group believes created the need for this movement, although nowhere near the frequency with which they say. That being said, I choose to look at other facts in evidence (lot’s of evidence) and that leads me to call it the Fundamentalist Takeover.
For me it comes down to the definition of two words- Resurgence and Takeover. Did a large group of people start the ball rolling by putting forth an impassioned plea to the members of the convention that liberalism was running amuck? Did the majority of the convention agree with this group and make a concentrated effort to educate the entire convention and begin to discuss ways to solve this problem and move the convention in the direction they believed God called it to go?
–or–
Did two people meet at a local restaurant conspire to take over the convention by manipulating the office of president of the convention in a way that would not be noticed until it was too late to do anything about it?
Either way–it happened and it happened because there were people, a lot of people, who were unfaithful to the word of God and had no business making a living off the tithes and offereings of people who were faithful to God’s word. Their arrogance to say among themselves “God’s word contains errors” and then to go pat Joe Pew-Sitter on the head and say “Oh we beleive what you believe” was sufficient reason for them to be drummed out of the SBC. Then you had those that disagreed with them but were willing to allow them to stay in the SBC–well let’s just say they got what was coming to them as well.
Anyone who didn’t want to get hurt in the CR could have chosen to support the work that God was doing to cleanse the SBC. When they chose to oppose said work, and it was a work of God, they chose to accept whatever consequenses came as a result.
Ahhh, the old “The end justifies the means” argument. As long as we have decided in our own mind that we are more righteous than anyone else, God will bless our efforts however sinful they may be. And for the record, I would wholeheartedly agree that anyone that says God’s word is full of errors needs to be removed from any organization that I am part of. So whata ya say Joe? Grab your rifle and meet me at the church. I hear there are some people there that don’t believe in a literal vigin birth. Blowing a hole in their skull seems a little excessive, but hey they’re liberals right? And the ends do justify the means.
“”Blowing a hole in their skull””
I look for this thread to become a sewer very quickly. I guess Robert believes that the parts of the Bible that talk about wholesome speech are the “errant” parts and can be disregarded along with all the other admonitions moderates don’t like.
It does once again remind me why there needed to be a “house cleaning.”
I just know this. I have a nephew that graduated from SBTS and my youth pastor came from there. Had they gone to that school in the 1960’s or 70’s, the outcome might have been very different. They are both passionate, theologically-grounded young Christian leaders.
I am thankful for the CR if for no other reason than that it changed the theological nature of SBTS, SEBTS and MWBTS.
SWBTS wasn’t completely without its problems, but it was perhaps not as severe.
Our SBC leadership are masters at making murder just seem like an “accident.”
Actually W.A. Criswell was the coach who was unable to bring about drastic change due to the Committee on Committees not becoming his lap dogs. In the process he discovered the Achilles Heel of SBC parlance. He then went back home and began to plan and conspire. It took some 20 years of lead up conspiring to bring it off. Patterson and Pressler were all over the place in Texas and surrounding states to scatter seeds of discord among naive church members who wanted to hurt somebody since they couldn’t kill LBJ for helping blacks!!
It was all about focusing hatred and bending trusting minds like many students who now attend our seminaries with no real SBC background—Fundamentalist, yes / SBC, NO.
I’m sure his cheering section will tell you of his visit to SC during integration with an invitation to speak to the Legislature. He started a segregationist speech worthy of George Wallace. The more they nodded, the more he preached hatred of blacks.
It was so bad and reported so widely, his deacon chairman met in at the airport and had a straight up talk with him about how he had embarrassed them. There was never an apology from Criswell. He just went into his corner and stayed quiet for a while on the race issue.
Was he speaking the truth of his heart as he ventured outside Texas–or just playing racist white supremacist??? You be the judge!
Reading this post convinces me that you are delusional, Gene. Hatred has rotted your soul which is a shame, because in some of your more lucid moments, you are someone I could possibly even learn to enjoy hearing from.
Talking about “murder” and “conspiracy” makes you look like a fool.
Also, you have such a disdain for people who didn’t and don’t see things your way. You think they are naive or worse. A person couldn’t possibly be a conservative because they believe it is a position that most honors God and lines up with the truth.
You are the “Oh So Wise One” at whom us lowly, naive, Bible believers should bow. It is sad.
Gene,
I missed this statement last night from you while sifting through your skewered commentary on all things CR.
“Patterson and Pressler were all over the place in Texas and surrounding states to scatter seeds of discord among naive church members who wanted to hurt somebody since they couldn’t kill LBJ for helping blacks!!”
Gene, this statement is not only is not only false; It is just plain stupid. Not only is it stupid, it is the perfect revelation that within you lives a putrid heart.
This is the kind of statement that after becoming fully aware, in the presence of Holy God, that you, as a child of God, actually made it, should place you on your knees in tearful repentance.
Clean this up, my brother. Time is just too short to carry this kind of weight.
“Did two people meet at a local restaurant conspire to take over the convention by manipulating the office of president of the convention in a way that would not be noticed until it was too late to do anything about it?”
No. That is really not what happened. That is the legend. That is the perception of many as to what happened. But it is really not what happened.
Cb,
It is not legend, it is recorded fact. Even Pressler and Patterson recount the meeting in their writings, although they don’t admit to what went on wholeheartedly. It was planned manipulation plain and simple.
SSBN,
Please read and understand comments before you reply. In the post to Joe I admit that I support inerrancy. My remark about blowing a hole in someones head was a sarcastic way to show that the fundamentalist belief that the ends justify the means is ridiculous.
Robert,
Long before there was a meeting at a cafe in New Orleans, there were men who saw the problem, spoke of the problem and began to address the problem with like-minded Southern Baptists.
Read more. Read older.
Robert,
Never did a CR personality say “the ends justify the means.” Never was any strategy developed with such a concept as its justification. That never happened.
Did CR personalities commit wrongful acts during the years in question? Of course. Every CR personality was plagued with the same inherent nature as is within you. All were sinful men, who for whatever reason, at times fell to the sinful nature within them.
Nonetheless, I was never in a meeting wherein anyone stood up and said anything resembling, “Our goal justifies any action necessary to achieve it.”
That kind of thing just did not happen. Did CR personalities struggle and strive with one another in meetings as to what was a right action and what would be a wrong or sinful action? Of course. Men will always struggle with such things in any honest endeavor such as was the CR. And it was most certainly an honest and very needful endeavor.
CB,
I see your points. And the “ends justify the means” is more pointed to my recourse with Joe. I don’t think anyone stood up in the beginning and decided to do un Godly things to reach a goal. Did some things happen. Yes. And I think I know you enough to say that you would concede that when given evidence. Joe just always seems to jump in and say that it doesn’t matter how it was done, just that it was done. There are many times when my pastor and I have looked back and said, ” Boy, that sure needed to be done, but maybe we didn’t do it in the best way”. If observations like that are not made no organization will survive.
I am still stuck on they way it was handled. Would there have been a need to “devise” a way to take over the presidency if a majority of Southern Baptists agreed that there was really a serious liberal problem? If the problem existed as many say it did, there was definitely a better way to handle the situation.
Robert,
I would be the lsat person to say there were not sinful things done “in the name of the CR.” That would be gross hypocrisy on my part.
BTW, “taking over the presidency” was only the introductory step. The goal was to replace liberal or “company man” trustees with conservative men and women. That is the basic reason the CR took so long.
One thing that always amazed me though, was the number of guys who claimed to be conservative guys who would stand and when they actually became trustees, they crawfished. It would surprise you to know the names of some of the guys who did that very thing.
They would die before they admitted it today. But they sold out nonetheless. Some of those guys got some pretty good jobs in the end. There was profit in being a crawfish, I reckon.
CB,
That couldn’t have happened. Why I can’t think of anyone, especially not at the IMB (completely hypothetical), who would claim to be conservative and after having been apponted as a trustee show their true colors to be a left wing nut job. 😉
I think your ending statement is right on target!!!
Well Robert,
JUst go ahead and call it the Fundamentalists Takeover and fire away. You will not be the first to call it such. Nor, I am positive, will you be the last.
Robert—
You are just being plain spoken and honest. The word-smiths want to soften it.
Has anyone noticed how Criswell was on Falwell’s Board and vice versus–along with Pat Robertson–along with Bob Jones–etc.?
Any wider coalition can only be seen in some of my photos of pictures on the walls of Paige Patterson’s office at SEBTS—George H.W. Bush was there along with Ronald Reagan. Why was Francis Schaffer’s and others names on a plaque there honoring brother Patterson???
We sure don’t mix politics and religion in a country which withholds court cases on “separation of church and state”–do we???
A Takeover is what it was / it didn’t stop with the SBC / it was and is planed in every major Protestant Denomination / it was just easier with Baptists because of our polity and the naive people who boarded buses to elect Adrian Rogers.
Can anyone subpoena phone records from that era??? I don’t really need any more evidence = it happened and still is!!!
Christiane:
The decision of SWBTS not to give Dr. Klouda tenure as a Hebrew professor or not to renew her contract to teach Hebrew was not part of the CR.
That was an individual employment decision that occurred in 2006 (or thereabouts), 15 years after the CR ended.
And Dr. Klouda is supportive of the concept of a confessional theological institution, which the moderates did not agree with. She was not “anti-CR” or a concern or target of the CR.
I know that SWBTS’s decision not to grant Dr. Klouda tenure or to extend her contract as a professor of Hebrew has bothered you, but Dave is talking about the CR.
Not actions done 15 years later to someone who was actually sympathetic with the goals of the CR.
Good point.
Louis,
Sheri Klouda’s situation bothered me also. Nonetheless, you are right. The action/ actions taken relating to her were not during the CR.
Actually, I personally do not believe it would have been possible for what happened to her to have happened during the CR years. Of course, that again, is just my opinion.
CB, The CR is not over by a long shot. They just gave it a new name to rally the troops again.
Lydia,
See my comment to Bill.
Let me add, The reason I do not believe that the Klouda termination would have happened during the days of the CR is because there were some very strong personalities involved back then who would have “bucked” on it greatly. Of course, we will never really know for sure, but for sure there would have been some very strong opposition. And in all probability, it would have been strong enough to have stopped it.
However, the Conservative Resurgence put the players in place to make these judgment calls. This is my point that I initially tried to relay to Dave, that the Conservative Resurgence paints much of what we are seeing done today.
Another case in point: BFM2K and the actions taken after the passing of this…
Bill,
I think it might be that “new players” (or maybe some “old players” with new “paint” in their buckets) paint much of what we are seeing today. I think we are in a whole new ball game now. Maybe we just don’t have a “nickname” for it yet. Maybe the references to the CR for what is taking place today will not stand up to strong scrutiny any longer.
CB,
I see your point but the point I’m trying to make is that people making decisions, i.e. in this case with Sheri Klouda, were people either directly involved in the Conservative Resurgence or were direct “heir apparents” to the leaders of the Conservative Resurgence.
Again, the Conservative Resurgence is still having a ripple effect fifteen, twenty years later is my overarching point that I tried to relay to Dave.
By the way, hope you’re having a good day.
Bill,
Thanks for wishing me to have a good day. I trust you to have the same.
“The decision of SWBTS not to give Dr. Klouda tenure as a Hebrew professor or not to renew her contract to teach Hebrew was not part of the CR.”
No? It was the logical result of the CR mindset… 15 years later. And that is the problem.
The CR was not about inerrancy but about power. Inerrancy was the marketing slogan. You don’t level the forest because a few trees are diseased.
And from what we have seen is that power corrupts. The young folks are right not to trust the SBC. If the CR had been seriously about inerrancy, we would see very humble, lowly servants as our leaders. Because they would actually believe what the scriptures teach and live it out in life.
Lydia,
We did not level the “forest.” The “forest” removed some trees that did not bear “like fruit.”
The cow manure is getting might deep here, cb!!
“If the CR had been seriously about inerrancy, we would see very humble, lowly servants as our leaders. Because they would actually believe what the scriptures teach and live it out in life.”
Lydia,
You may be painting with a very broad brush there. I would certainly not number myself among them, but I know there are many “humble servants” leading local Southern Baptist churches out here among the rank and file.
And their “leadership” is just as important in real SBC life as that of any agency head and probably more so.
No. I know several people who were CR supporters who did not agree with that action.
In fact, the CR steered clear of the women’s issue altogether, intentionally.
I think that most CR supporters, but not all, do not believe in ordaining women, but that was not an issue in the CR.
The CR leaders worked hard to make the CR about the nature of Scripture.
This is not historically acccurate. During the peak of the CR, in 1984, the SBC passed a resolution against women pastors.
http://www.sbc.net/resolutions/amResolution.asp?ID=1088
Louis,
Jeff beat me to it, the PC of 1984 was a pretty big deal in the CR in relation to women in the pastorate.
Good job, guys. I had forgotten that completely. But I do not remember Pressler, Patterson or any of the CR candidates mentioning the women’s issue. Pressler, in fact, specifically said, when asked about that that the issue in the SBC was not about women but the nature of scripture.
I do agree that the there is a relationship, obviously as shown by the resolution, but it was not a key component.
Flimsy EXCUSE = they NEVER STOP!!!
It reminds me of a 3-5 year old always wanting to bluff his parents to get his way. The only solution is a serious paddling of the back side. A nerve runs directly from the behind to the middle of the brain. When properly tickled to bring real tears to real hateful eyes, a good father’s job is done—
BUT, just wait until a month from now and see if it is not needed again.
I’m glad people ‘were bothered’.
That gives me a lot of hope for the future.
I’m SURE that there was a connection to a new emphasis on women’s roles in the Church that had something to do with the decision that caused so much harm.
IF the CR was a move to enforce ‘conservative’ doctrines, and that new emphasis was a PART of those doctrines, then you have a connection.
That is how I see it.
L’s,
By that reasoning, it could be argued that the present Roman Catholic Church has a connectional mind-set still in force from the days of the Inquisition.
The CR was a move to have doctrines to begin with.
Moderates have formed their own fellowship, the CBF.
The CBF has no doctrinal confession.
That’s the difference between the conservatives and the moderates. It’s not always whether they believed in doctrine (they often agreed), but whether doctrine was going to be the tie the bound the convention together or Baptist history and programming.
The moderates were for rallying around Baptist history and programming, and the conservatives were for rallying around a common theological confession.
“The moderates were for rallying around Baptist history and programming, and the conservatives were for rallying around a common theological confession.”
That is an interesting comment, Louis.
But were there treasured Baptist traditional historical distinctives that had to be set aside in order to ‘rally around’ a creed?
Autonomy, baby, AUTONOMY!!!! Blood was literally shed over it by the forefathers of this country as well as our democratically-based form of being Baptist Christians.
Gene,
I always thought the basis for autonomy was from Scripture.
No Baptist distinctive had to be set aside to follow the theology that has been generally agreed upon by Southern Baptists since 1845.
What Baptists had to do was set aside some moderate denominational leadership, not Baptist distinctives.
The moderates did not want to require that seminary professors and other denominational employees agree with the theological confession that had already been adopted by the Convention.
Again, if you want to see the difference, look at the fellowship founded by the moderates. It has no theological confession at all. That is by design, not be accident.
Louis, then what do you call Richard Land’s Values Campaign in 2004 that went straight to Ronnie Floyd’s church when it left Nashville, supported by CP dollars dancin around loopholes in the TAX Code to support the reelection of President Bush.
I guess my question is: Is Karl Rove a Baptist Distinctive???
The mantra of “we shall have no confessional / creedal statement, but rally around our missionaries is the true heart of SBC history.”
Boys, it’s all about missions and CR made it all about theology.
Can any of you tell me what happened to Bold Mission Thrust immediately after the CR Fundamentalist Takeover?????
You are right Gene. It was all about theology.
Man–I’m all excited that you agree with me on SOMETHING!!
Well, considering that it was your side who would have been spreading their false gospel though the Bold Mission Thrust, I am VERY glad that it failed. Rather than preach the gospel as found in scripture, moderates teach:
*that people from other religions can be saved by Jesus Christ without them realizing that He is the one saving them.
*that the idea that sex is only sanctioned by God between one man and one woman in the bonds of marriage is outdated and prejudicial.
*that the Bible “contains” the word of God rather that it IS the word of God.
Since there is no biblical support for any of the above but it IS what moderates would have used the BMT to spread, they would have been spreading a false gospel. Furthermore, no real Christian believes any of the above bulleted statements.
Joe–once again, your record is stuck and getting old!!!
I seldom comment on the CR because it was not on my radar when it happened, and I have no firsthand knowledge of it. So really all I know about it is from following the SBC blogosphere. I know it is hotly contested on both sides. My overall impression is that people I trust have told me that despite the abuses during the CR, and some bad directions of the SBC since the CR, that it really was necessary (or that something had to be done). My other impression is that many on both sides just can’t leave it alone. Dissenters want to make every problem in the SBC about the evils of the CR, and advocates want to live in the past glories (as they see them) of the CR, and can’t seem to move to the present. Everything and everyone (especially new leaders) are measured against the CR and the heroes (or villains) of the CR.
For myself, I’m not sure how I would have fared in the CR. I frankly don’t like the term inerrancy. I don’t think it is as descriptive or accurate as the terms we used to use. It requires just as much qualification as inspired or authoritative or infallible, and has really become a kind of shibboleth in SBC life. I don’t think it achieves what we (or they) wanted it to achieve. I don’t think the bible is errant, but I think the term inerrant is errant. 😉
I really don’t think you can tie the Klouda situation to the CR because it is clear that many people who supported the CR did not support her firing. It is true that for many, Patterson can do no wrong, but that doesn’t include everyone.
“I really don’t think you can tie the Klouda situation to the CR because it is clear that many people who supported the CR did not support her firing. ”
Is it ‘clear’ because they spoke up at the time?
I think we saw a little metamorphosis with some people during the Klouda affair. At first, she was a sympathetic figure, with many. Then, when she decided to sue, she became the enemy. Then (and this really bugged me) when she lost, many who vilified her became sympathetic again. It was rather sickening.
To answer your question, I don’t know who spoke for her at the time. I know Wade Burleson championed her cause, which no doubt caused many to take the opposite side. I remember CB saying Patterson was wrong to remove her. Most of those whom we call the BI folks were against her.
All that to say this, it is very simple to tie the Klouda affair to the CR, but reality is seldom that simple. Patterson will have to answer for what was done to her.
“The higher the monkey climbs the tree—the more you see his tail!”
She was not fired.
It is important to speak accurately about that.
Louis, was her position as a Hebrew professor taken away from her?
No.
Her 1 year contract expired (ran out) and was not renewed. She was not recommended for or granted tenure by the institution.
She was offered another job at the school, but she declined to take that, and she looked for and found a job at Taylor University teaching Hebrew, which is a very fine school.
Louis: The position offered to her was a token position. She was fired. The position offered to her was to make it look as if she quit, the position was well below her expertise and the salary was much lower, but she was indeed fired. Let’s be honest here.
Debbie was there Louis, duh. 😉
Brandon: As a matter of fact I followed this story from the beginning to end and had in my hands the official court transcript so yes in a way you could say I was there.
Louis,
I disagree with the decision to not grant her tenure. However, no one with any sense who has actually looked at the evidence (i.e. something other than blogs) would claim that she was, as Mr. Slate used to tell Fred Flintstone, F-R-I-E-D Fired!!!
I am simply going by the court record. Nowhere in her Complaint does it say, and the court did not recognize that she was fired.
Debbie, I know that the position she was offered was different and not appealing. But that is not the same as “firing”.
The point that people want to make about Dr. Klouda can still be made without saying she was “fired.”
Technically true. She was not fired in the same sense that Ergun Caner was not fired as Dean of Liberty, and the same sense that no one is ever fired from the White House, and in the same sense that Pres. Clinton did not have relations with Monica Lewinsky.
Exactly, Bill Mac.
It would be like Louis Not being “fired” when he is relieved of his position and sent to the clerical pool instead. He was not fired. After all, Christian seminaries always go by the legal language and letter of the law, right?
Perhaps we could call it a gentler but more deceptive way of being fired.
Many did L’s. Many did.
I want to share this with the group.
In discussions with my friends, I’ve come across three different ideas about the ending of the Conservative Resurgence.
One group says it ended with the Convention circa 1990 or 1991.
Some more of my friends believe that it ended with the passing of the BFM2K.
And a couple of people I know state that it’s still going on for reasons which aren’t important to this thread and where it’s going now…
Bill:
I see it like the Civil War, in a sense. It ended with Lee’s surrender at Appomatox. We still live with the consequences of that victory/defeat, but we aren’t still fighting.
So shall it be with the CR. We have the consequences of the CR that are still with us.
But there are lots of internal struggles that are not CR related (Calvinist/non-Calvinist battles; PPL and Baptism issues at the IMB; NAMB issues; CP vs. Great Commission giving; the Shack, Mark Driscoll etc.)
Getting the CR mixed up in all that gives the CR no contours. In that way, it has no beginning (does one go all the way back to Dr. Toy) and it has no end.
The CR ended when the moderates announced that they were ceasing political activity. That happened after Chapman’s defeat of Vestal in New Orleans.
I stopped trying to rally people to attend the SBC at that time. We did not need as many votes.
The moderates started the CBF. Then they started funding seminaries that were not SBC, and started their own missions agency and other shadow agencies.
Bill, if you ever what to see what the SBC would be had the CR been unsuccessful, go to seminary at Richmond, Mercer, Duke, TCU etc., attend some CBF gatherings, read the contributions to Associated Baptist Press (they have some good stories and some really loopy stuff, too) and read Ethics Daily. A person who likes those offerings should be in the CBF.
The BFM2K is an interesting issue. In a sense, it is far more restrained than one would expect from a CR inspired document. It does not, for example, forbid alcohol, deaconesses, or old earth creationism. It does not even use the word inerrant.
It’s still a CREED–the heart of being Baptist is to express oneself as an individual rather than to recite something created by man to ultimately become the God of your thinking mind.
Gene:
If it is a creed, it is the most unsuccessful creed in history. No one recites the BFM. I would suspect that most Southern Baptists have never even read it. No SBC churches are required to affirm it. I suspect that no one can produce from memory what it says, even those SBC employees who are required to affirm it. If it is a creed, it is a very, very bad one.
Bill Mac,
You are right. If its a creed, it is the worst in Christian History. 🙂
I totally agree that it is a “bad creed.”
If you apply for employment at any SBC Agency or Institution see if you won’t be grilled as to your TOTAL AGREEMENT to it!!!
Debbie:
I saw your questions above, and I’ll give you my take.
Dan Martin and Al Shackleford (sp?) were the Baptist Press employees who were terminated for insubordination. They were big time moderate supporters and succeeded Dr. Fields, who had been at Baptist Press forever.
I believe that Shackleford had been at the Baptist and Reflector (the Tennessee state paper) before coming to Baptist Press.
They were both on staff when the Executive Committee membership became a majority of identified conservatives.
Martin and Shackleford wrote several stories that were unflattering toward the CR and conservatives. Many peole thought that Baptist Press favored the moderates, which is probably true, inasmuch as the entire denominational structure was predominantly moderate. The Executive Committee did not like their performance and told them so, and gave them some instructions.
Martin and Shackleford said that they were writing and acting as if they were an “independent” press corps. Finally, the Executive Committee had had enough and fired them.
The moderates, having lost allies in the Baptist Press office, started Associated Baptist Press. I do not know if they hired Martin or Shackleford.
Bill Moyers threatened to come to Nashville and disrupt the EC meeting which was going to decide Martin’s and Shackleford’s fate.
Other local moderates threatened to disrupt the meeting, as well.
As a result, the EC hired extra security, off duty policemen, to keep order and they closed the meeting.
So, with the plan of distrupting the meeting having failed, the moderates complained about the “extra security” and especially the fact that they were armed. But off duty officers hired for security in Metro Nashville are required to carry their side arm. So there was nothing to that, but it makes for great lore.
If the extra security had not been hired, we may have actually had fist fight between a high profile conservative, let’s pick one, say, John Wallace from East Tennessee, and a moderate supporter like Bill Sherman from Nashville.
The extra security and closed meeting kept the peace. But as I said, created a legend.
Very accurate accounting, Louis–thanks for a job well done!!
We still don’t understand the armed guards in the picture—totally un-called for–especially before the meeting even started.
Brute force equal to other coups in foreign countries and other times (I didn’t say Nazi or Pharisee).
Debbie:
Your other question was about Moyers.
Moyers was raised in Texas as a Southern Baptist. He went to Southwestern.
He worked for the Johnson administration. His claim to fame was working on the commercial that showed a nuclear bomb detonating with a little girl picking flowers, which I think ran once, but was pulled because it was so incendiary and unfair.
Moyers, interestingly, has recently been revealed to have been involved in “outing” homosexuals as part of his job during the Johnson years in Texas. I saw an article on that in National Review over the last couple of years.
Moyers left the Baptist faith and may have left the faith altogether for all I know. The last time I heard (20 years ago), he might have attended the liberal arm of the Disciples of Christ.
He has really gone off the deep end, in my opinion. He is now on the Tydes (sp?) Foundation, which is a really well funded left wing organization.
He did a program on the SBC in the mid 80s. With his background and agenda, it was obviously slanted.
It was on PBS, funded with public money, and ran on air the week before the convention in Dallas (I think). It may have been a different year, however. Conservatives complained about the use of public money to fund and air a show designed at influencing proceedings in religious denomination. But it all came to naught in the end. Probably because there was no “there, there” as has been said.
I do not know why it is no longer on Youtube. I believe that its presence was actually helpful to conservatives, and wish it had remained on the web.
At any rate, Moyers does interview Criswell, Russell Dilday, Judge Pressler and others. It is clearly slanted, just the way Moyers does his pieces today for PBS.
In the Pressler interview, Moyers leaves the topic of Scripture, the nature and Scripture and such that was the issue in the SBC and like Joe McCarthy, starts leveling accusatory questions at Pressler regarding a political (not Baptist) group that he was a member of. Pressler told him something like, “Now, Bill, I am a member of many groups and have a life outside of the Southern Baptist Convention. My participation in the group has nothing to do with the nature of scripture and the issues before the SBC. I am glad to visit with you about the SBC and what we are doing there, but it is unfortunate that you are trying to link together things that are unrelated.” Moyers got nowhere after a couple of attempts. The interview was short, but just showed how determined Moyers was to try and confuse the issue. I think it may have been because Moyers really could not understand that people would actually be concerned about the nature of scripture, and that it must have been about something dear to Moyers heart and life – politics.
In my opinion, it was a classic case of projection.
As I said, it is ashamed it’s not on the net now.
Not exactly about Moyers. I think you can google several article at Christian Ethics Today that come closer to the Truth about the wider context.
It goes deep to leaders in the CR reservations about Carlyle Marney at FBC Austin, and how a dissenting view from the White Citizens Council got ossified in the fog of inerrancy and the social issues agenda of the CR.
For Instance Mark Newman in his Getting Right with God explains a lot about the character of many Southern Baptists who weren’t happy with LBJ and Moyers, Jimmy Allen, James Dunn, Foy Valentine and others and their relative progressive stance on race.
Interesting analogy Newman develops with the term backsliders for folks who would crowd local congregations when key votes came up on Race in that time.
Many are convinced similar tactics were used to corral CR votes to a series of State Conventions.
Louis desrcribes things as if they occurred in a vaccuum. I know many folks who were in the room that day when Martin and Shackelford were shown the door.
Louis version of things is very inadequate; lacks context.
Maybe Aaron Weaver who has posted on this board on occasion will bring his credentials from study of these matters at Baylor to shed some light on Louis cloudy version of things.
Tom:
My take is exactly that.
I would welcome any information that you want to throw into the pot about Martin and Shackleford. I feel the same about BDW.
I do not agree with your bringing up the race issue again. I was heavily involved in the CR, as much as I could be for my age (I was 18 in 1979). I attended lots of conservative meetings. I know personally many conservatives.
I never heard at any meeting, not one time, the issue of race even mentioned. I never knew any of these men to be racist.
I have never read about any debate in the SBC at that time, or any of the press coverage where race was an issue in the CR.
In my home church where I attended at the time, we had the most racially diverse large Baptist church in town, and we were the most conservative.
I will definitely agree that there are probably some CR supporters and leaders who were not on the early lines of racial progressive thought. But as I have said, the SBC is not a racially progressive place.
Also, I would challenge you to find one thing in the CR, from 1979 through 1992, where Conservatives tried to use the race issue in SBC life in any way.
The civil rights act passed in 1964. That was 15 years before the CR. Fortunately, there had been a lot of racial progress by the time Rogers was elected.
Rogers, by the way, helped break the color line in Memphis on one of his first Sundays at Bellevue.
Billy Graham was a CR supporter, and I do not believe he would have supported a bunch of racists who were trying to rule the SBC to impose racism on the Baptist Church.
If you have any hard facts and information (not from someone’s grandfather in 1948), I would be glad to hear about it.
Tom:
I also should tell you that I think Dr. Valentine did a good job on race, as did the Sunday School Board. The Board really had some hard days.
The SBC constituency was not racially progressive, by and large, and I give a significant thumbs up to the men who were – in that regard.
But the CR was about theological confession. And that’s what it was concerned with.
Louis,
I haven’t had time to read all the comments, but I’ve read several of yours. You have made some excellent comments about the SBC Conservative Resurgence. Hope everyone is reading them.
David R. Brumbelow
It’s NOT about race—It’s about change!!!
The human psyche does not care so much about specifics if there is so much change it cannot tolerate it.
The self-knowing informed psyche is able to say, “I’ve just had too many things too fast, now let me figure this out as to what is real and what is imagined.”
Racial change — social change — world change = Conservatives are “our contemporary ancestors!!!”
Moyers is just as political as Pressler or Patterson. Only left not right.
Most reporters or analysts are called that, Louis—even on FOX News!!!
Ah–the good name calling is working its way in so the fist fight is getting on!!!
To me the question of what conditions are causing the SBC to lose money is what to fix. Did the CBF people leave with their money ? Or has the SBC alienated Huge, say again Huge catagories of people who were once our congregants who have been insulted – or a combination thereof ? Public School Employees is one group with Teachers, subs, building maintainence, auto & bus mechanics, food service for cafeterias, bus drivers and management personnel and the bigge – all their families spouses and children. I personally checked with my school administration to confirm the feelings so I;m not guessing. There’s other groups. We shoot ourselves in the foot over and over as if it was meant to destroy us instead of build our image up!
Jack:
You and I agree 100% on this point.
Some left because they went with the CBF. But that was not a lot.
Some left because of the constant fighting. That still goes on today. There is so much fighting among Baptist people, it is unbelievable.
Some left, or don’t come because they do not catch the “vision” of doing things denominationally. That is a bigger one than we care to admit. The spirit of the age has changed. Many people do not want to be involved in denominational Christianity.
Look at and think of all the effort and money that goes into nondenominational work. It’s huge.
The SBC has really faired better than other denominations. But the curve is getting us, too.
That’s why I tend to be on the more flexible side when it comes to denominational giving, programs, history etc. People do where they feel the spirit moving. If we cannot be flexible, then we will become keepers of Baptist history (however grand that is), old programs, historic buildings etc.
Finally, people have left because of poor leadership.
We definitely can change and get better.
Dave Miller:
I am doing my best to get you some comments!
Well done, sir!
I left out other groups but a third catagory of course is poor money management. If McDonalds opens up a restaurant it usually does very well for a variety of reasons but that is my answer that people don’t want a denomination. I know Baptists aren’t putting Baptist on the front of some new churchs but that disaccociates them with what we’ve identified. New church planting it seems to me is a huge plus as some old churchs that have been around 150 years and have 150 members will never change as they run like a club with a small group who will not allow change and they argue and argue and throw new educated pastors out when changes become evident.
Jack:
You are nailing it again!
Nothing will destroy confidence in an organization like poor money management. The NAMB was a bad deal. I have heard some criticism about the IMB for that, too.
And you are right about churches. Our culture is fast moving. Churches and church movements that don’t move die. Churches that take risks and do what it takes to reach new people grow.
McDonald’s is good in that regard, too. Compare their menu to day from 1970. If they insisted on the 1970 menu they would have a much smaller (perhaps loyal) following. But they would not be the presence they are today.
I love Baptist history. It should be preserved – in its place. When it dominates or becomes too prominent, it can kill ministry. Because most people are not historians and don’t want to be.
Emphasizing the denomination, denominational politics, denominational history is a quick ride to the graveyard.
That doesn’t mean we have to be schmaltzy. But we can’t be culturally deaf either.
“Her 1 year contract expired (ran out) and was not renewed. She was not recommended for or granted tenure by the institution.”
So she was in the job teaching Hebrew until her contract expired?
“She was offered another job at the school, but she declined to take that, and she looked for and found a job at Taylor University teaching Hebrew, which is a very fine
”
She was offerered a permanent job?
No note to readers here, I would check every word Louis writes. He tends to spin facts. Search Wade’s blog for more accurate understanding of what was done to her. He was in contact with her.
Of course we know that women cannot get it right because they are easily deceived. Whereas men sin with their eyes wide open. :o)
LOL
I love ya L’s!!!!
Lydia:
I thought about this while out with my family. I am not certain it was a one year contract. But the point was she was not tenured, and thus, her employment had a term.
No one in academia has a “permanent” job unless they are tenured.
I don’t remember all the details on the job she was offered. I think it was in research, the library or something.
One fact I do know – Dr. Klouda was not fired.
The heck you say!!!!
If it looks like a firing / feels like a firing = it IS a firing!!!!
Louis,
This is where we will disagree. I think it is really hard to see what happened to Sheri Klouda as anything else but being fired. I understand what you are saying about tenure. Nonetheless, she had employment, she was told her employment was over. In the seminary I worked in, that meant you were fired.
To have a job and then be told you do not have a job means you have been fired.
CB:
I hear what you and the others are saying, but it is much better to have a conversation with things being clear.
I read the opinion issued by the court in the case. I don’t believe at any time the court analyzed her firing or termination or that she complained of that.
She complained that she had been promised a tenure position at some future date, that Patterson came in and told her not to worry, and that ultimately Patterson and the Trustees did not offer her tenure, and did not renew her contract.
I guess, as Lydia notes, my lawyering is coming in here.
When a Civil Rights case is filed and termination is the issue, that is the issue. That was not the issue in the Klouda case.
She claimed that she had been illegally discriminated against because she was not considered for or given tenure to teach Hebrew because she was a woman.
It was not a case involving a firing. There are lots of cases that involve that, but this was not one of them.
We can still speak about the case and analyze it, but we will always be better off if we use the correct words and concepts.
That is my only point.
Louis,
I am not a lawyer so I do not have your expertise in that area. As do you not have the same expertise as do I in other areas. My point in saying that is, we are both well educated and neither of us is stupid.
Therefore let me say, I also read every word of the opinion issued by the court.
I realize the documents do not present Sheri Klouda as being fired. Nonetheless, we both know she was told she would no longer have employment at SWBTS. That is why they went to court in the first place.
I also know the court document allowed SWBTS to be recognized as a church. Nonetheless, we both know SWBTS is not a church by any definition in Southern Baptist life, historically or in the present.
Lastly: You are a lawyer, and have much experience with being in court. I am not a lawyer, but due to my various “expertise” have spent a lot of time in court also. (Not as much as you, but enough).
Therefore, we both know that what happens in court does not always reflect the realities of life outside the courtroom.
Thus, the fact remains, Sheri Klouda went to work one morning with a job. Later in the day, she went home without one. And that was not of her choosing.
Most folks call that “getting fired” and that is what made her name a household word among Southern Baptists and has earned her a place in Southern Baptist history.
Classic “lawyer-speak” = Bill Cinton = “It depends on what the definition of “is” is!!!”
Question: “What is 10 lawyers, each chained to an engine block and thrown in the middle of the Pamlico River.”
Answer: “A darned good start!!!”
My father attended a law class at Mercer University thinking he might help people by being such. The Professor came in the first day with his formula for being a successful lawyer:
(1) Get your retainer.
(2) Get your retainer.
(3) Same as 1 & 2
My father, a man of integrity, cashed in his law books for those in theology–there was where he felt it was more about truth and integrity than just money.
As every generation comes in, lawers are the bane of the American idea of “truth and justice for all.” Now, it all depends on how much money you spend / who you know / wheather you are the child of certain wealthy and prominent citizens of a given community.
It was the reason our ancestors hopped on little wooden ships and sailed to a land of freedom and justice—there was little going on in England and Europe at the time.
I live next door to one of the leading criminal defense lawyers in eastern NC. He is so good he represented one of the students in the Duke Lacross case a few years back. The kid’s parents had money / the kid was stupid for a “Dukie” / my neighbor bought his $400K house, a new expensive boat, personal watercraft, and all the toys like a hot tub anyone could want.
So much for lawyers telling the truth / whole truth / nothing but the truth! As a “ward of the court” you should hear his excuses for representing clients who are crooked as snakes because, according to him, “If I didn’t actually see my client’s pot smoking on the upper deck of his yacht, I could represent him honestly that his divorce-wanting wife was lying when she said part of the reason was for drug abuse!”
PLEASE—GIVE ME A BREAK!!!!
So Gene,
Are you saying that all lawyers are moral degenerates and are never to be trusted?
Let me see if I have this straight: All Southern Baptists who came to leadership after 1979 are evil, self-serving Interlopers. (KInda like Vandals and Visigoths at the Gate) And all lawyers are morally corrupt, money grubbing shysters. Is that about it, Gene?
As Ronald Reagan famously said, “There you go again, trying to put words into my mouth!!!!”
Negative!!!
What I am saying is that lawyers have 3 basic purposes:
1) To make good money
2) To represent their client with utmost discreation and confidentiality
3) To win at all costs
Where I have my trouble with lawyers is when they push the edges of integrity and ethics. It is the same with Preachers / Insurance Representatives / Licensced Securities Advisors / Tree Surgeons–since I have been all 4—-“tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth–so help you God!!!”
Now, quote me on what I am saying and not what you want me to be saying so you can tear it down in straw dog fashion.
Louis, You would make a good lawyer parsing words and actions…
BTW: I think the tenure thing worried Patterson. She was on the tenure track. The “tenure” thing is a red herring. She was nastily jerked around after being told her job was NOT in jeporady. It was not even done with courage and class. We had “young informants” telling Patterson she was “teaching” men and they did not like it…etc., etc.
BTW: I believe Klouda over Patterson or his “people” at SWBTS anyday of the week.
But since the seminary is a “church” they can do pretty much whatever they want labor wise. Even AFTER they awarded her a PhD to do what she was doing in the first place. The SBC entity certainly did not mind taking her money.
Most every year in every seminary, liberal, moderate, or conservative, people who would love to teach there are denied that opportunity.
They do not have openings for everyone. And yes, the president and others have a say in who teaches and who doesn’t. Just as a pastor should have a say in who is on staff and who isn’t. That is just a fact of life.
David R. Brumbelow
“Just as a pastor should have a say in who is on staff and who isn’t. ”
Yikes. Never mind those inconvenient people who pay the pastor and what they think….
Lydia,
To “have a say” is not to ignore what the rest of the body “thinks”. Why do you say this?
To ‘have a say’ in the context he presents it, sounds more like a nice way to say ‘decide’.
But then, I do not think the man made traditional “role” of pastor is what scripture describes as how the Body operates. So, it really is a moot point. We could just as easily be discussing any for profit or non profit legal entity because that is the model for our churches.
I’m a congregant here but I’ve been told in a “club church” that, ” I grew up with “them” and I don’t have to go to church with”them”” To which I replied, “What Bible are you planning on using?” This old church will pump out bad vibes that effect all our growth. I’m done.
From a historical standpoint, the CR should be divided into four phases:
(1) 1962-1978 – Because of Ralph Elliott’s commentary on Genesis, SBC conservatives became concerned about what was being taught in SBC seminaries. Conservatives also did not like the more liberal views of the Christian Life Commission and the Baptist Joint Committee on Public Affairs. Some conservative presidents were elected during these years, but they had no plan of action and thus accomplished nothing. In 1967, Judge Paul Pressler met seminary doctoral student Paige Patterson and had a long conversation at the Cafe Du Monde in New Orleans. Conservatives began to organize and adopt a strategy.
(2) 1979-1990 – Conservatives won 12 straight presidential elections. Moderates (originally and ironically referred to as “denominational loyalists”) were slow to organize, but they did make an all-out effort to win the presidency in 1985 and failed. Conservatives began to control trustee boards and implemented major changes at the Christian Life Commission, Southeastern Seminary, and Baptist Press and defunded the Baptist Joint Commitee on Public Affairs.
(3) 1991-2004 – Moderates gave up on winning the SBC presidency and formed the CBF and started their own seminaries (usually divinity schools at Baptist colleges). Conservatives consolidated their control of the SBC, implementing major changes at Southern and Southwestern seminaries. Conservatives added the Family article to the Baptist Faith & Message in 1998 and made a major revision in 2000. All seminary faculty and missionaries were required to sign the BF&M 2000. Conservatives led the SBC to leave the Baptist World Alliance in 2004. Most state conventions supported the Conservative Resurgence, but the Baptist General Convention of Texas was notable for its opposition.
(4) 2005 – present – moderates and conservatives rarely interact with each other and have their own mission boards and seminaries. Without a common enemy, conservatives in the SBC have formed factions over various issues, with the internet accelerating the pace of controversies. Moderates in the CBF move further to the left, but factions form over how far to the left they should move, and issues like homosexuality threaten future division.
The only change I would make is in number (4), because it is very obvious based on a reading of certain nameless blogs that there is a small but VERY vocal (read-whiney) minority of moderates in the SBC that would love to undo the good work that the CR did and move the SBC back toward a middle of the road/leftward leaning theological position with a doctrinal statement that could fit on a postage stamp. It would read “Faith trumps belief”.
Boo Hoo, Joe–boo hoo!!!
Gene,
I know what a God-loving man you are, and it is always regrettable when you come on here over CR issues and act exactly the opposite.
Jesus took a whip to moneychangers on the Temple steps.
His words to the Pharasees in Matthew 23 were far less than nice.”
I’m just a follower of Jesus in such matters of integrity and practicing what you preach. Nothing more / nothing less!
Joe: That is simply not true. But you are not even SBC so why would it concern you enough to spread untrue tales? To destroy for the sake of destroying. Yes. I believe so. Hopefully people can see right through you. I know I can.
Pot calling the kettle black, Debbie. Let’s keep it clean and fair.
An example Brandon would be appreciated. I have kept it more than clean and fair. I have also been honest.
By the way Brandon you are young, so I’ll take your comment as from youth, but if you think I destroy just to destroy you would be sadly mistaken. I do believe in living what we say the Bible teaches. For some, maybe like yourself, that is destroying. That’s why we are in the shape we are in now.
Without a common enemy, conservatives in the SBC have formed factions over various issues, with the internet accelerating the pace of controversies
Jeff, good point but like I said above there is an obvious stain on the SBC that I think you could include in your number 4–the moderates who have hung on in the SBC who profess to be conservatives but are more than willing to cooperate with moderates and even hail some moderates as people they really respect. Further evidence–no real Christian would participate in the New Baptist Covenant much less support it.
No one with sense would deny the fact thatt these people are still part of the SBC and want to shift it very leftward after a quick glance at certain nameless blogs.
Thanks a lot, Jeff.
Joe,
If you are referring to Wade Burleson, other than some leanings towards egalitarianism, on what other issue is Wade Burleson a theological moderate? Burleson is a 5 point Calvinist. You don’t find many of those among moderates. Also, Burleson was known for his strident opposition to the CBF in the 1990s.
I haven’t mentioned any names. 🙂
You don’t have to bro!!!
We well know how you are and continue to be–ad nauseum!!!
Jeff:
Pretty good summary.
Conservatives and non-conservatives had battled in the convention since really the 1920s and before. Keeping SBC academia in check (especially at Southern) had been a constant battle and concern for the seminary administration for some time.
Things really changed in late 70s when Pressler (primarily) put things in motion by forming a small group to start the move.
By 1990, they had accomplished what they set out to do – change the composition of the Board of Trustees of the institutions.
I think I can agree with much of Dave’s original posting. He was honest and I do agree something had to be done as there were Liberal teachings going on. I know I had a conversation with one of those who was attempting to take over the SBC and did not believe Genesis to be true, but a book of stories not fact. Of course that is not true. But my problem is so many innocents were also hurt in the CR. Tactics taken were done in a underhanded way and lives were destroyed that shouldn’t have been.
What could have been done differently? I particularly agree with Dave saying who we should have reached out to. I just wonder what could have been done differently while maintaining the purity of scripture?
Debbie:
I hear you on that and do not disagree.
We should keep things in perspective, but we should not make excuses for poor behavior, even if people have correct theology.
Simple: “it’s not how high you jump, but how straight you walk with you hit the ground.”
If you walk with Jesus you have love / understanding / patience / peace / etc.
If you walk with the Pharisees, you have plotting / conniving / lying / calling Jesus “the devil’s son” rather than God’s—that was the basis of the “unforgivible sin of grieving the Holy Spirit.”
Dangerous ground—if you come before God a righteous fanatic, as was Paul, and he blinds you on the road to kill followers of Christ who differ with your zealot Jewish beliefs!
“”I just wonder what could have been done differently while maintaining the purity of scripture?””
Debbie, I admire your desire for an outcome that would have been more harmonious, seamless and left moderates in the camp. I admire your desire, but I have to say that could never have been the case.
The CR was an out and out battle. It was a fight for the survival of a biblically-based, God-honoring denomination — though obviously very flawed as it is made up of humans. There could be no “meeting of the minds.” The moderates would not go peacefully into the night to establish what they obviously wanted.
There had to be surgery and that is always messy and painful. Now, we have the best of all possible worlds — the CBF that is happy to have the freedom of a flexible gospel, and the SBC that is happy to have the restraints of an inerrant, totally trustworthy Bible.
The problem as evident on this thread is: some moderates have the mistaken notion of a fourth quarter comeback. That will never happen and leave the SBC intact as it is now.
There has been a divorce — and ugly divorce. It is time to part ways and be done with it. But, I don’t see that happening either as long as we still can generate as many pro/con posts as this thread.
The CR was the battle, no the war. The war, as Jude tells us, must still be waged to keep the church pure.
So, I’m settling in for a long, drawn-out debate.
One thing is absolutely clear. After 30 years, we have lost all interest in discussing the SBC Conservative Resurgence, haven’t we?
Norm (AKA bapticus hereticus): A few thoughts on the CR blog post; I only have time for three.
1) Offered were three group definitions, which may be jettisoned without a significant loss in interpretability, given the denominational controversy largely centered on inerrancy, those for and those against; however, to be fair to the writer, but instead of focusing on discrete theological categories, which were hardly orthogonal, as one moved more to the right (from the right), in general, one found greater support for inerrancy, and as one moved more to the left, not from the center, but from the right, a greater concentration of rejection was the case (however, given Ammerman’s research, it appears that supporters of inerrancy were more disproportionately represented at annual meetings [which is a credit to their excellent organizing skills]). Interestingly, a conservative critique of BFM63 was ambiguity associated with the Jesus criterion clause, but to date, conservatives have left the term inerrancy, currently implicit and ambiguously defined at best, out of BFM. Even among SBC scholars, there is probably not much desire to re-open the inerrancy debate for fear of being perceived outside narrowing doctrinal parameters. Appealing to original autographs might be perceived by some to be a safe strategy, but if the discussion moves to defining that which constitutes an original autograph, fault lines might emerge. But as the conversation is received today (i.e., an original is without error, and if an autograph is with error it cannot be considered an original), theory defines the validity of data rather than data providing a test for the validity of theory, which is very problematic for those wishing broad acceptance for inerrancy among Christians as viable, useful doctrine. In time, most conservative-scholars, -ministers, and –(educated) laity will likely come to this understanding and place little importance on the doctrine, certainly not allowing it to divide Christians from fellowshipping and worshipping with one another and engaging in joint governance and ministry. I am approaching retirement age, but this will likely happen in my lifetime, to share with you its probable and relative immanence.
2) Inspired = infallible or inspired = inerrancy. Inspired is the biblical term from which systematic arguments are built to arrive at infallibility or inerrancy. Inspired requires neither, however, but liberals such as myself don’t object to those wishing to build said arguments. Whereas conservatives and liberals will not always arrive at the same conclusions, based largely on differing assumptions, in many cases we do arrive at the same conclusions even with differing starting assumptions. And lest one think that theological differences due to varying presuppositions are sufficient for justifying polarization and marginalization, how often has it been the case in one’s experience that even with the same presuppositions, conclusions among Christians still differ. One cannot dismiss the importance of one’s experience and all that goes into influencing it when it comes to biblical interpretation. Common among human beings is that the same stimuli are experienced differently. Yet in spite of (likely not) or in celebration of (likely so) diversity, God can and does use these differences to fashion a people into a royal priesthood that possesses a tremendous about of equifinality. Inspiring, indeed.
3) SBC is a political organization and it is a theological organization, thus both motives were at play with the denominational controversy. It did not begin having a political character with the emergence of an activist conservative cohort nor has it ceased having such, nor should it. There is nothing inherently wrong with organizations having a political character (political here is not defined as having as its focus the political platforms of the national political parties, such as Democrats and Republicans, rather it is loosely defined as processes and outcomes in which various groups seek to influence the direction of the organization, but not in such a manner that less powerful coalitions are marginalized), for God is able to work through said processes, too, and especially so when there is broad and meaningful participation. The body needs to be careful, however, that it does not confuse political wins as something that must be, although it could be, equated with the will of God, and, God forbid, then manage as if 51 = 100 and 49 = 0 (note that such may be efficient in terms of making decisions and consolidating power, but generally the cost of such becomes painfully apparent at implementation, which unfortunately the people in SBC subsequently experienced). The writer stated that the majority asserted itself over the minority, perhaps as an apparent proof that God’s will was achieved. If that, however, is the standard, then the validity of a thing is contingent on something other than itself. I would rather that not be the standard for determining, as we are able, God’s will. This apparent assumption coupled with “we did not sit around and pray until God [revealed] his will” seems to indicate that God’s will is conditioned by one’s ability to garner sufficient support for one’s beliefs. Put differently, the problem with this perspective is that God’s will is in the first instance contingent upon an influence rather than being the influence of an outcome. It is one thing to take comfort and assurance in the importance that God affords us (Psalm 8), but quite another to choose creation over the Creator (Romans 1).
Beloved Heretic,
Much of what you state here is true. Nonetheless, by your own admission, you are at “retirement age.”
Therefore, let me admonish you once again; Repent and believe the biblical gospel before it is everlastingly too late for you.
My friend, the CR is absolutely meaningless to you in your present, spiritual condition.
Amen!!! The gospel is not some wad of Silly Putty that you can shape however you want and still call it the gospel. There’s the gospel that bh believes and there’s the gospel as revealed in scipture. The two are not equivilant.
BH said, “SBC is a political organization and it is a theological organization, thus both motives were at play with the denominational controversy. It did not begin having a political character with the emergence of an activist conservative cohort nor has it ceased having such, nor should it. There is nothing inherently wrong with organizations having a political character.”
That is the point that I was trying to make in the post, BH. Well stated.
My objection is to the idea that the fact that the CR was political means that it was ONLY motivated by a desire for power.
The CR was genuinely motivated by doctrinal issues. It was a political means to achieve a theological motive.
Some politics got nasty, of course, and I regret that. I wish that every word and action done by conservatives had been pure and holy. Ends do not justify means.
But my point is that the political nature of the CR does not negate the theological root of the movement.
BH:
Good to hear from you. I agree with much of what you write.
I don’t think that the word “inerrancy” was added to the BFM for the simple reason that if it had been, it might have been an admission that the document did not already state a case for inerrancy. I was not on the committee that worked on these issues, but that is what I suspect happened. The committee was pleased with what the BFM said about the nature of the Bible, and did not feel a need to address it.
Also, “inerrancy”, is quite technical, as is just about any other defined position on the nature of scripture. And you are correct. If you push a thing too hard or keep going deeper, you will find disagreement. We all disagree about something. It’s a question of how much we can disagree about things and keep working together.
I do believe that there were sufficient theolgoical differences in the SBC that there needed to be a separation. You are right 50 does not equal 100. But enough of the 49 decided that if they could not control the machinery, they would leave. I have never understood that action, but I admire it, in a sense. If one cannot follow the vision and direction of an organization, one should leave. I also think that the departure was the morally and practically correct thing to do.
I believe that there are significant differences between what many moderates would be willing to tolerate in theological divergence in the body, and what conservatives would be willing to tolerate. That is illustrated so clearly by the moderates refusal to have a confession of faith.
So, I think it was getting very difficult for these 2 groups to cooperate in ministry in light of their theological differences. I am glad they are separated now. We may see the same thing happening now in the U.S. Episcopal Church. The issues and personalities are different, but it’s really the same issue.
Finally, I have never heard you describe yourself as a “liberal”, as you did in this post. What do you mean by that?
A word to the anti-CR-folks here. If this thread gives you an opportunity to vent, great. But what is done cannot be undone, whether good or bad. As I said, I’m not qualified to speak about the CR, but let me share something.
I was not a supporter of President Clinton. So when the Lewinsky scandal broke, I was all over it. I had a TV in my office, so I watched coverage of the whole sorry affair almost round the clock. I didn’t like Bill Clinton. I wanted him to fall, and fall hard. I wanted him humiliated. I wanted him to suffer. As the affair proceeded, I grew angry and frustrated because he wasn’t getting the treatment I wanted. I was full of righteous anger and indignation. I was consumed by it.
One day I said to myself, what is happening to me? My desire to see the president destroyed was destroying me. I could rationalize with myself that I wanted justice. That I was justifiably angry over his moral failings. But in reality I was just becoming plain bitter, angry, and cruel.
The CR happened. Some mourn and some gloat. Many fall in between. But what is done cannot be undone. If it has made you angry and bitter, let it go. If it has made you proud and self-righteous, repent. If there are lessons to be learned, let’s learn them, but don’t let the reality of the CR turn you into something you shouldn’t be.
Just looking for a litte truth, Bill Mac, in a great chasm of ignorance about matters folks profess to know the truth about.
As I have said often, least name a cursory reading of the BX 6400’s on the matter before you go pontificating.
I am footnoted in at least three of those volumes, and my Dad confronted one time SBC Prez Contender Fred Wolfe about things he said in a Convention Sermon when the BAMA SBC met in 89 in Huntsville, before the tornado came through.
I’m not saying the tornadoe came because Wolfe misreprsented my Statement to the Body; I’m just saying my Dad called him out.
My Point is this, Cecil Sherman once confronted Adrian Rogers with the quote and I trust Gene Scarborough to get it exact; and I paraphrase, has it ever occurred to you by all things sacred that you could be Wrong?
I have gotten to know online, Adrian’s son David online at SBCImpact.
But I’m sorry History will judge Adrian Rogers, Jerry Vines, Charles Pickering, Helms, Pressler, Patterson, Mohler and the whole cabal: Wrong.
Do watch with me the finale of God in America tonight on PBS. May not be as stout and direct as Moyers interview with Pressler in 87 nationally on PBS, but promises to be pretty stout.
I will only tell stories of which I have personal knowledge.
This Adrian story is from his Professor at NOBTS, Dr. Strange, whose sister attends my church. Adrian and his wife were both students and she got a “C” on a paper she submitted to Dr. Strange.
I can’t believe it but Rogers stormed into Dr. Strange’s office demanding he change the grade because his wife had never made a “C” before. For any student to do such in my era would be unthinkable!
Dr. Strange looked him in the eye and with gentle authority of the teacher said, “Well she has now! I won’t change it. She got what she earned and I checked my grader’s evaluation of each one.”
End of story!!!! And, cb, that one is another hand on the Bible telling of truth without error!!
Another Adrian story I am told he, himself told:
Dr. R.G. Lee preceeded him and was famous all over the SBC and Baptist World Alliance. In a conversation with Dr. Lee, Adrian was observing as to how a computer can download information with ease.
He told Dr. Lee how much he wished he could download his brain into himself.
To which Dr. Lee responded: “Adrian, that would be like trying to put a grand piano into a closet!!!!”
Great words, for me and everyone. Thanks Bill Mac.
I will second Louis with an A-Men. Thanks Bill Mac.
I think it’s interesting that most here on the Resurgence side have characterized the Controversy as being simply a Battle for the Bible (largely over inerrancy).
You can’t separate the SBC Controversy from the larger context of American history in which significant cultural changes were taking place, specifically landmark Supreme Court decisions beginning with Brown v. BOE. It’s no coincidence that the Controversy really picked up steam as Reagan began to lead his revolution and with the rise of the Moral Majority and return of fundamentalists to the national political stage. Cultural instability certainly played a role.
BDW:
No doubt.
At the time I heard some conservatives saying that the reason the culture was in such bad shape was that the church had not been true to proclaim God’s word. And if our seminaries were turning out people who did not believe God’s word, it would only get worse. So, there was definitely a relationship there.
That gives the CR a distinctly “Baptist” feel. I am certain that most of the conservatives I know would still be willing to protest over the theology alone, but being Baptists, there had to be some broader evangelical angle. And the cultural changes, in many ways, had a symbiotic relatioship.
Still, these questions of the nature of the Bible in the SBC predated the cultural changes you mention. They really do stretch back as far as Crawford Toy. E.Y. Mullins was in the thick of it too when the first BFM was drafted in 1925, again, prior to the cultural changes that you mention.
Here is a bit of analysis that I agree with that responds to your point:
“Recent fundamentalist-moderate conflicts are symptoms of a broader and more complex fragmentation in the organizational and cultural context of the SBC. In many respects the SBC has always lived on the edge of division over doctrine and practice. Indeed, the convention itself formed a denominational unity based less on rigid doctrinal synthesis than on denominational and regional identity. Such unity was grounded in a Grand Compromise in which ideologues on the right or the left were not allowed to control the center. Southern identity, denominational loyalty and a sense of universal mission combined to create an institutions built on compromise and motivated by the rhetoric of pietistic populist triumphalism. Theology was defined narrowly enough to establish common Baptist identity but broadly enough to include a variety of historical interpretations relating to faith and practice. Efforts to narrow doctrine and practice – efforts that might exclude segments of the constituency from the great missionary endeavor were avoided whenever possible. The Grand Compromise was thus protected by the same cultural and denominational myths it promoted. ”
Political scientist Oran Smith analysis would seem to support the Grand Compromise thesis. He writes about “one-party” moderation reigning in the SBC from the 1920s to 1950s, with a “militant moderate” political offensive from convention elite in the 1960s opening the door to politics for the first time and consequently produced an equally militant conservative counteroffensive. He sees “A Statement Concerning the Crisis in Our Nation” in 1968 as the beginnings of a “moderate political awakening”
FTR; Oran Smith is currently an activist with offshoot of Focus on the Family. His work with Carroll Campbell, at one time Bush 41 leading candidate to Be a VP choice given connections through Lee Atwater; Campbell has a well known history playing the Race Card, Freedom of Choice Anti Bussing stance; and defeated a much more Progressive Candidate for US Congress in 78, former Mayor of Greenville, SC who happened to be a Jew.
http://www.palmettofamily.org/execstaff.asp
Atwater made a death bed confession of sorts about his race card politics in that race, including a ploy from the Jesse Helms Playbook, Vote for One of Us.
That does not stamp Oran as a racist, nor invalidate his insight in the quote BDW uses above.
Just if you look where all these guys come from, from Helms to Pressler to Criswell; and trace back their lineage to the 60’s; well the Inerrancy party didn’t come from Prophetic genetics. Like George Wallace after a while or Stonewall Jackson’s grandchildren after the Civil War, some of them sooner or later said, I’ll be darn, I was mistaken.
The point is if you look at Al Mohler, you see a lot of Doug Hudgins in him. And if you have the wits about you to follow Mark Noll’s notions on Inerrancy and what Whitman, Lincoln and Emily Dickinson learned about Literal reading of Scripture from the Civil War; then maybe you can come to the place to see what Marney and Rice University were talking about when they talk about the stew from which Helms and Pressler got mobilized and their designs with the SBC.
Former Chancellor of UNC understood it and told Cecil Sherman. Maybe some day some of you will as well.
BDW–
If I understand you correctly, the SBC and who controlled it has more to do with the social aspects of SBC leadership than any central theology.
Personally, from my father’s experience of attempted ostricism (he graduated Andover-Newton rather then Southern) is a clear proof of behind-the-scenes manipulation by the “moderates.” In that time and context, they were casting doubts that a northern education didn’t make a man safe to be trusted by a big FBC which was considering him as pastor.
I saw this in reverse as CR pastors worked tirelessly to get “their man” into every major large church pulpit in the Atlanta area from the late 50’s on. As Assistant DOM of the Atlanta Baptist Association, my father got “interesting input” from Pulpit Committee Chairmen who strangely got the same candidate personally recommended by phone call from W.A. Criswell / Adrian Rogers / Jerry Vines / etc. 3-5 calls recommending the “same godly man” made them think God’s Spirit was at work for such to happen.
My father quickly smelled manipulation of the Pulpit Committee because such had never taken place in previous years. Letters of recommendation came in (never for the same person) / the Commmittee went out and looked at any number of candidates to make up its own mind as to which prospective pastor best met their needs—far and beyond being just “God’s man for your church.”
He encouraged each church to look beyond phone calls and do their own prayerful interviews with a clear picture of who and what their church needed to lead them forward. Each church had its unique flavor of being Baptist because Autonomy was the iron clad mantra for being a cooperating SBC church.
There might be some truth to that. But I heard a lot of talk in my younger years of concern about the growing liberalism in schools. There may have been a general unrest from cultural machinations, as you suggest.
But the people that I knew (admittedly, not the key leaders) were motivated mostly by a concern about theological drift at our seminaries (and primarily at SEBTS, SBTS and MWBTS).
BDW: I think it’s interesting that most here on the Resurgence side have characterized the Controversy as being simply a Battle for the Bible (largely over inerrancy).
Norm: For many of us here, BDW, it was a lived event, not something that is mostly studied from afar or lived through another, which ‘the afar’ is exactly what is now needed to help those in the trenches at the controversy’s apex gain a wider perspective on the experience. From a micro perspective, one cannot ignore the vehicle (i.e., inerrancy) in which change was fueled. When one is admist a bunch of alligators, one doesn’t typically think why so many alligators are present; one works with the situation at hand. There will be, hopefully, a time for reflection and (macro) contextualization. I think we are just now able to tell the story, not only the what, but more importantly the why and how it has changed us, and we need the tools and insights of historians to shape plausible narratives. Until we have these formal, rigorous, academic writings, we only know very little about an event that has consumed much of the time on earth of many people.
Maybe BDW can answer this question.
Has anyone done a more objective history of the CR? I have read much of Hefley’s works. Obviously, I agree with much of his perspective. His facts seem in order, but he certainly has a pony in the race.
Many of the other histories have been written by moderates who were dislodged from positions due to the movement.
In short, it seems that all the history so far in being written by people who have a dog in the hunt, and all are open to the accusation of being slanted.
I don’t know what “objective history” is. I know that Barry Hankins is an outsider to the Controversy and certainly capable of critiquing moderate Baptists. His books on J. Frank Norris and Francis Schaeffer have been praised by many conservative evangelicals. His book Uneasy in Babylon is quite fair and provides insightful analysis of Southern Baptist conservatives.
Nancy Ammerman’s Baptist Battles shouldn’t be dismissed. It’s hard to argue with her statistical findings. Players from both sides including Paige Patterson have found much to praise in her book.
Bill Leonard’s analysis of the Controversy might get dismissed by some because he was an active participant. Although, it’s worth noting that Leonard is a widely respected historian of American religious history and Southern Baptist historians do not disregard his other contributions to Baptist history.
I can’t include Hefley in a conversation with scholars like Leonard and Hankins. Just compare his books to the Leonard’s. Hefley’s books read like entertainment journalism. He doesn’t use the tools of an historian in his writings. There are other current Southern Baptist historians (Greg Wills) who deserve a wider reading and more respect than Hefley’s works.
I think Hefley’s books were more like news reports, being largely contemporaneous to the events.
I think he was a journalist, not a (an?) historian.
I was prayin for a good dose of BDW and the Baylor Center for Baptist Studies on this one.
He has a well networked and trafficked blog. I hope he brings attention to this morass to date, and the floodgates open, the Light Shines, the Truth comes down the Sluice, the Miners See the Light of Day; and the World Made Straight Again.
You can google the wiki page for the fundamentalist takeover of the SBC. Long list of books there. Aaron has read most of them and what he hasn’t his Dad who knows the pilgrimage of several folks who made in these matters does.
So Have at it Big Daddy Aaron Weaver. Call John Lewis Congressional Office and tell him opportunity to get the Third Testament right about WA Criswell, Paul Pressler and the Race History of Inerrantists in the SBC.
As Paige Patterson once said about abortion, amazed at the traction he and Pressler were gettin in his SBC Takeover crusade: “This oughta go over as good as the Inerrancy Thing!!!!!”
The books mentioned by BDW are good and I have read most of them. But they all, to more or a less degree, lean in favor of the moderates.
Good books on the history of the SBC Conservative Resurgence from a conservative view would include those not only by Hefley, but those by Paul Pressler, Paige Patterson, and Sutton. Jerry Sutton’s book is probably the most comprehensive in a single volume. Hope everyone gets it.
David R. Brumbelow
I’ve always thought Morgan’s The New Crusades, The New Holy Land is about as balanced and fair as has been done yet. He showed appreciation for the pickle the Fundamentalists found themselves in and still managed to fairly analyze the strengths and failures of both sides. That’s my opinion anyway.
‘One day I said to myself, what is happening to me? My desire to see the president destroyed was destroying me. I could rationalize with myself that I wanted justice. That I was justifiably angry over his moral failings. But in reality I was just becoming plain bitter, angry, and cruel.’
Bill, Could it be that you were amazed that more people in power were not outraged by his behavior…instead they defended it, obfuscated the truth and attacked the messengers? It did tell us a lot about ourselves.
Their guy was in power and they were going to protect him at all costs. It was that simple.
The only problem is that our SBC leadership is no different when it comes to ignoring huge problems. He is our guy and we are going to protect him no matter what. Look at the speaking gigs Gaines got after the pedophile minister scandal broke. Gaines was being protected and promoted by SBC leadership even though he protected a pedophile minister of prayer on his staff.
How are we different? We are just like the world.
Lydia—
You are asking too many questions and getting too close to the core of CR—-careful there girl!!!!
Gene,
You admitted to the very same thing of which Gaines was accused. When questioned about it, you defended your position as taking the spiritual high ground.
Gene, your hypocrisy simply knows no bounds, does it?
cb—
I have NO IDEA what you are talking about. This gigantic stream of comments has you meaning hidden from me.
Say it plain and simple. You have to do far more than throwing your epithet of “liar” at me. Whenever you do such, I clearly know your logical ability to debate me just evaporated!!!
Read Lydia’s comment Gene. Her reference about Gaines protecting a pedophile is exactly the same thing you admitted to (actually bragged about) in more than one comment thread.
I challenged you about it and so did Lydia.
Now here you saying to Lydia that she is getting “too close to the core of the CR relating to her comment about Gaines.
It is for that reason I say your hypocrisy knows no bounds.
Oh, CB, he’s bragged about his compassion in that instance on more than one blog and in more than one comment thread. I remember how he bragged that he showed that pervert “less Paul, more Jesus” or something to that effect.
cb, old boy–
You certainly streatched to get that one in. Since so many are participating in this conversation who probably did not read what you reference—IN NO WAY DO I TURN MY HEAD ON CLERGY SEXUAL ABUSE.
I took a bullet at Noonday Baptist Church when I led to the termination of a staff member who was well-liked and charming, but was like a bird dog pointing at every teen girl wanting attention and every woman in a troubled marriage. Further, I gave him a negative reference when he applied as a Chaplain to the HMB and called with follow up. They didn’t take it serious / hired him / he took a woman he was counseling along with her daughter into his bed some 2 years later. I don’t recommend a known molester anywhere–no matter who he is!!!
The situation you reference was actually a teenage girl going after a 40ish man in a small rural church. In that case it was the girl far more than the foolish man who responded. We took care of it “in house” rather than bring further grief by calling the cops.
Anyone wanting further details may contact me at Gscrbr@redscable.com.
Great try at distortion / overstatement / mistatement. The CR should make you their next chief “manipulator of truth!”
Joe– “bite me!!!!!”
Pilots and flight attendents; Doctors and nurses; men in authority taking advantage of underlings which is what clinton did and Trade Unions deal with every day. Nobody can afford to get caught up emotionally or bad things happen. How does the CR need to be modified to fit a better program and the President of the SBC along with the Leads of the Entities need to be on the same page and it is OUR responsibility to make enough “joyful noise” to let them know we’ve had enough and lets get moving on a cordinated effort. I got now a good contractor that has spent all the insurance money from a flood I had and he has run out of money and not gotten a handle on the heating & cooling. No matter how mad I am it won’t find more money. A mistake was made. We’re going to find some mistakes made and some other not so nice problems. Lets DEAL WITH It and rock and roll and turn things around. The grass root level like this blog and the information flow will allow the “cream to come to the top” I really want to see it happen.
I cannot speak to the “character” of the SBC or those leading it prior to 1979 because I became a Christian about then. I can say that my very conservative cousin (John W. Smith) who was DOM of the Bessemer Baptist Association at the time thought the charges were overblown. By 1981 or ’82, I was “up to speed” on the local church, but had no dealings with anyone “higher up” until I went to SEBTS in 1984. Of all the professors I had, I never heard a single one of them deny the virgin birth, the trinity, or any other orthodox doctrine. I remember one saying that they were “progressive conservatives not fundamentalists,” and another –probably the most liberal professor I had–saying he was unsure that there was ever a single unified text of the Old Testament books (I think it is important to remember that the context was OT, not New), and that in the course of its transmission, copies became even more divergent. The only one I had who was reputed to be an inerrantist was Dr. Delos Miles, evangelism professor, but I never heard him address the subject. Other I know accepted Biblical criticism to a degree, but never to the extent that the “Jesus Seminar” did. I never heard any of them make a Fosdickian comment like, “Saying that Paul was wrong about _____ was liberating.” I don’t remember any of them who thought that 16th Century theology was cutting-edge stuff (i.e., Cavinism and Arminianism), although we learned of it in Church History and even in Systematic Theology. What I did hear and see repeatedly was a group of men (and a woman or two) who had a continuing commitment to Jesus Christ in their classrooms and in their lives. They honed our critical thinking skills, and made us aware of the full spectrum of issues and arguments, with the goal that we students could use the brains God gave us to arrive at answers and positions we could honestly call our own. And I believe it was once a month that Dr. Randall Lolley came before the students and fielded any question they asked (as long as it was asked in a civil and Christian manner and tone). And I saw many of them stressed out because of what was going on in the “CR” and was directed to them personally. Actually my biggest disappointment was when Charles Stanley came to speak at chapel and various other formats. I attended every public forum offered, and in them all, I remember only one comment that was rude, and it was more the tone the questioner put forth than the actual words (don’t ask me exactly what it was, it was too long ago)–and that person was asked to leave by the administration. And yet in the published interview, Dr. Stanley spoke of how badly he was treated at SEBTS. I didn’t see it.
As BDW reminds us, there was a lot going on culturally at the time, and that cannot be separated from what was going on in the SBC. I would also point out an old generalization, nontheless true at times. “You generally find what you are looking for.” If you go looking for mistakes, you will find them. If spend your time listening for misstatements, you will hear them. If you seek heresies, you will inevitably find something heretical. And if you go to get an education, you will get educated.
The “CR”? IMHO, it was a war over an issue we cannot settle this side of heaven since no autograph copies of any Biblical book are extant, over which we have yet to agree on definitions and implications, and which produced pain, suffering, and casualities among brothers and sisters which were justified on nebulous grounds of “liberalism” and “heresy.” But when I put on my counselor’s hat and talk to people about emotional issues, I usually note that when someone gets angry all out of proportion to the “issue” at hand, there is inevitably something else, something unspoken, or some transference of anger going on. I think this applies to the “CR” as well.
John
“”The “CR”? IMHO, it was a war over an issue we cannot settle this side of heaven””
Wrong. It has been settled. People who believe the Bible we have now is “errant” are OUT, and people who believe the Bible is not errant (in-errant) are IN.
What’s not settled?
What’s not settled? The reality of whether or not the Bible is inerrant, and whose definition of “inerrant” we will go by the decide, that’s what. Votes taken at the SBC do not settle matters in eternity.
Besides, I am not convinced that the opposite of “inerrant” is “errant,” as you seem to imply.
John
I think the CR is much like what happened with Joe McCarthy and the Committee on UnAmerican Activities except we did not get rid of our McCarthy’s.
In the early days, McCarthy was exactly right. There WERE a ton of communists at all levels of government. (The declassifying of Venona proved this to be correct, you libs! And the reason is that the USSR did not want just want “spys” but to infiltrate levels of our government to influence policy with left leaning Americans. And they did a very good job of it)
If anyone knew this to be correct it was Whittaker Chambers because he originally told Adolph Berle about his ‘cell” in DC which included Alger Hiss.
Yet later, in the 50’s, Chamberrs was extremely uncomfortable with McCarthy and counseled young Bill Buckly not to support him. Buckly ignored that advice and wrote a book in support of McCarthy.
McCarthy went on to become ridiculous pushing to find “communists” under every rock. It went from the card carrier to fellow travellors to ‘you once attended a meeting with Henry Wallace’ sort of guilt by association.
This is exactly the situation with the history of CR. It never stopped and the parameters for what constituted a “liberal” Christian became narrower and narrower.
The CR allowed the situation with Klouda with NO OTHER entity president speaking out that it was not right or just. In fact, that it was cruel considering the situation with her sick husband. No other leaders speaking out about Gaines or any of the other serious problems with leaders, what happened to Paul Debusman and many other bodies thrown under the CR buses for daring to simply disagree with the ‘anointed authority’. The legacy of CR is what makes guys like Ezell not think what his words to bloggers might reflect a problem heart condition. The list is long with really bad stuff and some minor things that prove BIG points.
That is the legacy of the CR. Sin is redefined according to CR standards and institutionalized. Pretty soon, very few can see the sin.
I knew this fellow once to whom Buckley Dedicated one of his books just after the title page.
Lydia, nice try, but you got it wrong. It is more like it was McCarthyism from the get go with the scurrillous charges of liberalism from the get go.
Pressler and Jesse Helms and the shadow of Criswell’s association with the Birch Society worldview of the Dallas Hunt Brothers was all over Paige Patterson and their implementation of the Takeover. In Memphis Ed McAteer was whispering in Adrian Rogers ear at every turn.
Pressler’s family had a deep history in Texas in Flirtations with White Citizens Council and Texas Regulars. Go to Rice University and Ask around. Ask the children of John Baugh. Explore the wider world of Ed Young, Harry Dent and James Deloach.
Ask Aaron Weaver and the professional historians at Baylor. The Takeover leaders were up to their ears in McCarthyism.
Correction; Knew the son. Talked to the Dad once who got the Dedication.
Lydia:
Great history on the Chambers/Hiss matter.
I don’t disagree that the CR has spawned some people who are less than charitable. The moderates had them as well.
And I think that your analogy is so apt. There are still people who deny that Hiss was a spy, or that there ever were communists in the State Department. He was. There were.
Some people who opposed the CR are like those who opposed Chambers and other anti-communists. They just refused to see or couldn’t see the obvious problems.
Some were actually in league with what Hiss was doing.
Some were friends of those who were hurt (that applies to Edward R. Murrow, who was friends with the State Department employee who jumped out of a window of a New York hotel after being questionned by the FBI, and knew that his affiliations would be discovered. Murrow decided to go on a personal crusade at that point).
Nice spin, Louis. But we should not compare what our side did in the CR to how the other side acted. We are responsible for what we supported and funded. After all, WE claimed to be “biblical” and they weren’t. The standard then was for our side to be more honest, transparent and compassionate toward others.
We are still hunting “liberals” today. But not the kind that denied the virgin birth but those who disagree on tertiary issues. And of course Klouda, where does she fit into these categories? Liberal? Moderate? Conservative?
BTW: And many people were hurt by our side who did not deserve it.
Louis, you said, “I don’t disagree that the CR has spawned some people who are less than charitable. The moderates had them as well.”
That may be true, although I never experienced it. And I have heard the same thing from various supporters of the CR. Let’s assume it is true: does that make it OK? Do two wrongs make a right?
John
“I knew this fellow once to whom Buckley Dedicated one of his books just after the title page.”
Which book?
“Lydia, nice try, but you got it wrong. It is more like it was McCarthyism from the get go with the scurrillous charges of liberalism from the get go.”
No, there really were a few profs denying the virgin birth and some other bizarre things. But it was NOTHING like it was made out to be. But the propaganda sure has worked…but then the victors get to write the official history.
The METHODS of the CR were wrong wrong wrong and went way too far to this day. Had the CR really been about inerrancy, we would have humble lowly servants today who represent us to the world. Instead we have guys like Patterson living large and firing female professors with very sick husbands.
The Patterson’s, Land’s and Mohlers of the SBC wanted to be famous and influential in the world and now they are. Yet, we have Obama as our president. Interesting, huh?
BALONEY
Spam
On this round I’ll take Lydia’s Spam over SSBN’s Baloney
EZELL could still be replaced. The SBC President could be replaced. Nothing is set in stone . Focus on the Fix . Lee Iacocca said it best. Lead, Follow or move over and get out of the way. I hope that’s what he said. Attrition won’t work here – so sayeth the blogger !
Jack, Iaccoa also said he would not fire one single secretary when he took over Chrysler. He said they ran the place. VP’s and managers, he could do without. SBC could learn from that, too.
He was “sucking up” to the secretaries and I would have warned each and every one !
Guys:
While I have acknowledged BDW’s initial thoughts about the confluence of cultural issues on the CR, some of you, in my opinion, continue this tactic of daisy chaining issues and personalities to include things in the CR that were not part of it.
Race was not a part of the CR.
Yet, I see here again, the attempt to create some impression that race was a part of the CR. It is one thing to fight, but it is another thing to be silly. I know that someone’s grandfather has been mentioned before and a 1948 Senate Race in Texas. And someone mentions Jesse Helms again. I never saw Jesse Helms at any SBC meeting.
I understand that John Baugh used to fantasize about Paul Pressler trying to take over the U.S government and such.
Please stay real.
John Fariss:
Thanks for your thoughts and reflection on your experience.
As I recall, Cecil Sherman, a moderate leader and North Carolinian, once said that he did not think that a person who had been led by the scripture to conclude that Jesus was not born of a virgin, would be disqualified from serving as a professor at an SBC or serving as an SBC employee.
Do you agree that Dr. Sherman’s boundaries, or lack thereof, for denominational service or leadership as expressed in that statement are correct?
Do you believe that there should be doctrinal parameters for denominations? If so, what should they be?
Your reference to SEBTS (North Carolina) made me think of Dr. Sherman.
Also, what do you think of SEBTS now? Do you think that Dr. Aiken is doing a good job? Do you like the faculty there now.
I would be really interested in your thoughts, as one having graduated from SEBTS in the mid 1980s.
Louis,
I did not know Cecil Sherman during seminary, but met him only once, and that was after I graduated from seminary. He spoke at something or another I attended, and I found him to be articulate and well grounded. I do recall him saying that he accepted the fact of the virgin birth, but he did not emphasize it because the Gospels themselves do not seem to emphasize it, that after all, it is mentioned in only one of the four. Seems like his reasoning was that we live in an age in which sexuality is emphasized far beyond that of the 1st Century, and consequently “modern” conservative American Christianity has overemphasized the importance of the passage. If he went further and said a professor should not be disqualified from teaching at an SBC seminary because he denies it on “Scriptural grounds,” I am not comfortable. Yes, there are and must be parameters or boundaries for any institution (or individual) to be healthy. I do not like those boundaries being placed at the 2KBF&M, especially with an emphasis on “inerrancy” which is not even named in the document, but boundaries are needed. I think I would be comfortable with those being defined at some of the classical definitions (i.e., the Apostle’s Creed), or at what scholars have discerned as the early Christian kerygma, maybe even the ’63 BF&M or one of the earlier Baptist confessions (personally, I think the first 1643/1646 Baptist confession is superior to any that have followed).
I have no first-hand knowledge of where SEBTS is at now, or where Dr. Aiken has taken it. Back in 1992-2000 I served a church in southside Virginia, and it was not uncommon for us to have professors from SEBTS speak at minister’s meetings. My perception was that they were neither more nor less intellectual, neither more nor less passionate, and neither more nor less “Christian” that the professors I had at SEBTS. One thing did bother me about them, and that was that inevitably they began their talks with something like, “NOW, Southeastern is a good school,” or a “decent school,” or a “rigorous school,” when the real difference–as I could tell–was entirely subjective. Maybe my feelings were just too close to the surface, but it seemed as though they were dissing the SEBTS I attended. They could easily have emphasized what they were doing without finding it necessary to suggest the “old” SEBTS was bad, lazy, etc. If I go a step beyond my firsthand knowledge, I would say that IF what I am told is correct, SEBTS (and other SBC seminaries) approach teaching matters from the standpoint of “THIS is correct,” almost an issue of indoctrination. I once read, I think in the SEBTS newsletter, that Paige Patterson said “We teach liberation theology, but then we teach why that dog won’t hunt,” and named of several other systems of theology with the same addage, “we teach why that dog won’t hunt.” If that is correct, it is an educational perspective different from the prevailing one when I attended. Then, the professors taught what these different systems were, but aimed at providing the student with the tools to make the decisions about “what dog won’t hunt” themselves. Again–if that is correct–I prefer to trust that the Holy Spirit will lead the Christian to the “correct” answers rather than the school or teacher having to build a “hedge around the law.” And I think it is healthier, as it gives ownership to whatever theology the student has, something that the “indoctrination system” (I will call it for lack of a better descriptive term) does not do well.
John
My Dad was a classmate of Randall Lolley and Bill Self at SEBTS in the 50’s. Stewart Newman who has an Atticus Finch like role in Curtis Freeman’s essay on The Fiery Sermon was one of their proffs and heroes.
When you understand the cultural underpinnings of The CR as Baylor’s Aaron Weaver is sharing, and as Weaver’s father unpacked in his history of 2nd Ponce and Robert Marsh, then you will begin to understand what was at stake for the Nation with the CR.
The God in America PBS series gets at it very well. The Transcripts of the entire 6 hours are already online.
In the meantime my friend Ellen Rosenberg does a grand job on race, Politics and the SBC in her SB Subculture in Transition work.
The Truth is out there.
In the Panel discussion at PBS GIA site, one lady testifies growing up in Baptist world of the South Intellectual curiousity was not encouraged.
Stewart Newman had a mission in his Days at SEBTS to rectify that as best he could and Bill Self and Randall Lolley carried on with their best wits under the Leadership of the Holy Spirit.
That is what I know in My Heart. If you know something else, then continue to have at it.
John–
You have described SEBTS as accurately as I perceived it in 1967-70.
I came from Emory and Altizer doing his “God Is Dead” stuff that hit the front cover of Time Magazine 1967. Now that was truely “liberal.”
I was told SEBTS was a “liberal seminary” even at that time. When I arrived and attended classes and did the reading I found it to be a place of spiritual and intellectual growth. I was past the stage of wanting everything to confirm my Baptist Sunday School religion. Those lessons, before the Life and Work Series became available only taught traditional stuff with little attention to true biblical scholarship. They certainly never touched on racial equality nor female equality. It was Old South traditional religion.
When CR took over it was complete even to the publications coming out of Nashville. Life and Work and every other SS book came with BF&M stamped on the first page. The Broadman Bible Commentary had one of its already published books pulled and replaced.
It is what truely is called REDACTION! The Egyptians and Romans practiced it with a vengence. Any statues and images of the deposed Pharoe or Emperor were taken down or defaced. History tried to erase the losers and present the current “truth” as accurate. Digging by archaeologist daily shows us cultural stuff in many places where history needs to be made more accurate and not REDACTED.
Truth always emerges eventually to confront us with our hidden secrets. Even George Washington had a mistress as well as Thomas Jefferson. That was truth known at the time, but attempted to be covered up. Strom Thurmond, the great southern white supremicist, had a black mistress. Thank God my SC Democrat Farmer grandfather was dead when that on came out! He revered Strom to a fault and absolute trust.
BH:
Are you still there? Why do you describe yourself as a liberal? What do you mean by that? I am truly interested.
Hey all:
I have seen portions of “God in America” on PBS over the last 2 nights.
It is interesting. I don’t care for the weird, clamly looking people they are using as actors. It makes all religious people look like nuts.
The colonial history portion was good. It serves as a real reminder as to how much mythology there is on First Amendment issues, often from the adherents to the strict separation theory.
God and Caesar was the final episode. That is where Adrian Rogers and Paige Patterson came on the stage.
I thought the point was well made about how MLKing, Jr. kept prophetic distance from Power, while The Religious Right of which the SBC CR was key constituency embraced it for all the glory of this world they could get.
First hour last night was some of the best exploration of Francis Schaeffer I have seen to date on PBS.
In online conversations the last three days, key folks associated with the Project explain their thinking about what got discussed and what had to be laid aside for narrative Aesthetic.
I thought the Anne Hutchinson portions the first night and the Scopes trial the 2nd were captivating; and as you can imagine I saw revenances of Mohler and Molly Marshall in Winthrop and Hutchinson.
All transcripts are online at the God in America Website.
The Conservative Resurgence was about the inerrancy of the Bible. To the ones voting on the conservative side, they were primarily voting on this major issue. They were in favor of inerrancy and for our Southern Baptist professors, missionaries, denominational leaders believing in inerrancy.
Sure, there are many other issues. One thing to consider is that among those Baptists whose major issue is the inerrancy of the Bible, most of them also believe only a man should occupy the office of pastor. Most believe a husband should be the loving leader in the home. Most are pro-life on the issue of abortion. Most believe in believer’s baptism by immersion. Most believe in abstaining from beverage alcohol. Most believe in heterosexual, rather than homosexual marriage.
The CR was not primarily about women pastors, pro-life, etc. But most conservatives also believe these other things. So naturally, they are going to eventually vote on these issues as well.
David R. Brumbelow
Great thoughts, David.
But there were many others hurt who also believed in inerrancy David. What it boiled down to in the end was the leaders interpretation of the Bible, not inerrancy. It might have begun that way, but the end tells a much different story I think.
Debbie,
The Conservative Resurgence was about the inerrancy of the Bible. I know, I was there. Other issues will always arise. But the primary reason of the CR was inerrancy. I heard Pressler, Patterson, Adrian Rogers, Jerry Vines, Jimmy Draper, and other conservative leaders in the early days and throughout the CR. They were unwavering in the central issue of inerrancy. In the early days of the CR Pressler gave copies of pages in books showing liberal statements by Southern Baptist professors. That was the point of the entire movement.
The CR was not even about Pressler and Patterson. We were not voting for them. We were voting to bring the SBC back to its historic belief in inerrancy. We believed countless eternal destinies were at stake because if we lost our view of inerrancy we would also stop believing in an eternal Hell and that Jesus is the only way of Salvation. Check the other denominations that have lost their belief in inerrancy and you see they have declined. The Bible is the divinely inspired inerrant Word of the Living God, and we wanted the world to know it.
You can also trace this very issue over inerrancy back to the Elliot Controversy and the Broadman Bible Commentary Controversy. Baptists have historically believed in inerrancy (see Baptists & the Bible by Bush & Nettles), and that belief was under serious attack by the very people we employed with our mission money. Praise God that is no longer the case.
David R. Brumbelow
This is why both sides should write history. I was “there”, too albeit young but my whole extended family were HUGE supporters of the CR. Some of those same people who believed strongly in inerrancy had to leave the mission field eventually because they refused to sign the BFM 2000. I would not have signed it either because my yes is yes and my no is no. I do not sign man made so called ‘spiritual’ documents.
In hindsight, It is easy to see that inerrancy was the marketing slogan to rally the troops. But one can believe in inerrancy and NOT practice what the Bible teaches. Satan,for example.
Besides, they eventually expanded “inerrancy” to tertiary issues and part of inerrancy marketing slogan as time went on.
Let’s face it. It is hard to admit. It was about power and position. And some of these guys have had quite the good life with fame and influence thanks to the SBC. Patterson has been one step ahead of the firing ax for years and always lands on his feet, no matter what he does.
And we see the same names today or their protege’ on committee’s, being groomed for leadership, etc. While the young people do not trust the SBC, the power brokers are not about to hand them any power unless they have proven to be good little sycophants. Mohler has a ton of them who hang on his every word.
David—
“Inerrant” was their magic word to distract people who had no real clue what it really meant = every thing said has to agree with whatever science may have discovered not to be true. The classic example that “inerrant” is a poor word is the fact the Bible literally viewed the earth as flat with 4 corners and the sky above and water beneath.
A truely “inerrant believer” would NEVER fly on an airplane nor take a ship overseas because he would go off the edge. Yet people who fly and travel by ship will preach inerrancy from the pulpit with no thought as to how that single fact of later discovery absolutely disproves what the Bible said.
The average Baptist has the greatest respect for the Bible and wants to trust it completely. Us “moderates” have that same trust and respect!
Just as with the Elliott controversy, J.D. Grey wanted for years to be President of the SBC. He was to the far right in his theology and “middle of the road” leadership as well as messengers did not want such a person who could not be fair to the whole spectrum of Baptists.
My father knew him and the fact he had an earned PhD in Theology. What Elliott was doing in his book was to describe the Genesis accounts with the word, “Myth.” What that means to one of educated religion is “a story which conveys basic truths in story form.” What the average person thought was “a fairy tale.”
What dr. Grey (small letters for Dr.) did was–not to educate fellow Baptists as to what Dr. Elliott was really saying. Instead, he inflamed them with that word just like “inerrant” was a flame word to imply Dr. Elliott did not believe the Bible to be true, therefore, he was an “infadel disguised in holy clothing.”
It worked and he won—with a lesson to all Conservatives as to how to win by distracting and inflaming uninformed church members into a riot. It is noting short of mob violence tantamount to lynching blacks who had no trial. That was far too common a practice in the Old South.
Emory had a “black-and-white famous photos of lynchings” display some years ago. Those who went through said you could hear a pen drop in the room. Some viewers were weeping at the “can’t deny it” nature of the pictures.
Sadly, you only realize how much you ignored injustice and destruction of fellow humans after the fact. It was true of Germans after WWII. The average citizen knew it was happening but was led to believe that “it was necessary” to cleanse Germany of “undesirable” mentally ill / Gypsies / Jews / homosexuals. Bonhoeffer raised his voice in protest and met his fate by being hung for it.
Doing the wrong thing for the “right” reasons is always—WRONG!!!! God will use that measure as we all stand before Him on day–and Jesus’ grace is not sufficient to overcome purposeful demonic actions–especially doing it from a pulpit of CR leadership. It is the “unpardonable sin” of which the Bible clearly speaks.
Gene, you have the right to your opinion about inerrancy. You do not have the right to misrepresent and twist the doctrine of inerrancy.
Nothing you said about inerrancy is accurate. It would be proper to gain an understanding of that which you argue against.
If you go to sbcIMPACT and look at the bottom of the page, the most commented article is one on inerrancy. that might be a good place to start. Or, google the Chicago Statement.
Your comments about inerrancy demonstrate a significant lack of understanding about our beliefs.
Dave–
I love ya, man—but you have sucked up to some current stuff without consideration to the human egos involved in the fight from way back when. It has almost been constant with the SBC from before its founding.
My father viewed it personally and reported it to me. I continue the Oral Tradition which used to be far more respected than any Written Tradition—subject to redaction.
Thanks again, for being fair to let me and others speak to the issue as best we personally know as do I.
I always get a good chuckle out of people who poke out their bottom lip and whine about ‘Oh, the poor innocents got hurt. Oh, bless their hearts.” You know what the funny part is? Here’s the funny part. The “innocents” who got hurt either (a) agreed with the liberals about core doctrinal issues (they believed the bible had errors, they rejected the resurrection of Christ, etc) and didn’t have the guts to come out and say it or (b) while they disagreed with liberals on these issues, they were willing to agree to disagree and continue to fellowship with them and cooperate in ministry.
In either case (a) or (b) they were not innocent. Therefore, what they got they asked for. The only REAL problem with the CR is it didn’t go NEARLY far enough.
Another great Joe Blackmon overstatement/mistatement!!!
Keep it consistent cave man Joe–keep it consistent!!!!
“Most believe….”
Translation: “I believe, therefore you must believe as well.”
Redaction: “We never really believed in individual nor church AUTONOMY. What the preacher told you or husband told you was to be followed without ANY QUESTIONS OR COMMENT!”
And, please tell me, in a day of surveys—who ever surveyed “most Baptists” on anything???? I am not aware of a single bit of documentation outside an Airport meeting of Mega Church Potentates which disclosed “most Baptists” on anything prior to 1979—and certainly not after!!!!
Dr. Brumbelow, I am afraid you are mistaken. Scroll down to the neighborhood of comment 397 to see how M. O. Owens came from a different place than sole concern with Inerrancy.
Lot of baggage came along. Baptists in the pew were fairly settled about Scripture till folks who had the Birch Society and other shadowy concerns whispering in their ear, full of resentment and other issues, came along.
Well, Stev, err, I mean tom (sorry about that little typo), it’s a good thing we have you around to properly educate us. Otherwise, we’d end up crazy like a fox.
Another scratchy rendition from Joe’s broken 45 rpm record—entitled—,b>”Believe What I Say–and Not What I Do”
Brumbelow: How does your inerrancy fog react to this finding about the History of Genesis, from Page 51 of Diarmand MacCulloch on Christianity:
It is also striking that certain incidents in the stories of the Patriarchs mirror incidents that took place in a more definitely “historical” context six centuries after 1800 BC. Obvious lurid examples are the duplicated threats of gang rape in a city (with dire consequences for the perpetrators), to be found in both Genesis 19 and Judges 19. Similarly the children of Israel with a carelessness that Lady Bracknell would have deplored, twice put to the sword the unfortunate city of Shechem, once in Genesis 34 and again in Judges 9. Another problem: the patriarchal narratives contain one or two references to Philistines, who come from a later period of history,and there are many more to a people who are close relatives to the Patriarchs, called Aramaeans–Abraham is very precisely given a kinship to the Aramaeans in one family tree. The settlement of Aramaeans in areas reasonably close to the land of Caanan/Israel/Palestine was a gradual process, but other historical evidence shows that it cannot have begun any earlier than 1200 BCE, and that was a very different era from the supposed time of the Patriarchs; their arrival was in a time which followed a further great upheaval in the story of the Children of Israel. Altogether, the chronology of the Book of Genesis simply does not add up as a historical narrative when it is placed in a reliably historical wider context
Louis – When Paige Patterson was at SEBTS and Jesse Helms was a racist Senator as well as a 33rd degree Mason, there was a picture of Paige Patterson with his arm around him. Racism was alive then and it is alive right now. Other illustrations available. Not that you do, but I don’t like it, don’t run from it and have stood up when I knew I was right.
“”there was a picture of Paige Patterson with his arm around him [Jesse Helms].””
Jerry Falwell and Ted Kennedy became very close friends. Using your ill-logic, that would make Jerry Falwell a democrat.
I once gave money to a prostitute who had been stabbed and needed a plane ticket to a safe destination after she got out of the hospital.
By your ill-logic, giving her money made me a “trick.” When some of you connect dots, not only are they not on the same piece of paper, they aren’t even in the same galaxy.
SSBN–
When you and others of CR connect dots they always make the same picture = we won / ha ha / you lied / and we really are not failing these days—it all the fault of the “liberal” media and Democrats whom we hate!!!!
jack, you guys had Robert Byrd. A KKK member. And Algore who had a mammy and whose SBC dad voted AGAINST the civil rights movement….So, do you really want to go there?
I really didn’t know you posted as I have been waTching the screen Have to eave shortly. All those things you mention may be true but Louis mentioned The CR and that Jesse Helms didn;t got to any SBC meetings. He put both together in the same reply. I answered to show that Helms didn’t have to go, that he had a friend already there. No amount of bad things that we all no about or some just I know about keeps me from talking about it but that is not this blog and I get credit for trying. I don’t understand ,”Do I want to go there?” Why would I not?
The only reason moderate christians try to tie the CR to race is because they are so ashamed of their infidelity to God’s inerrant word and what it teaches. And isn’t it funny how the same people** who belly ache about the CR are the same ones who vote for candidates who fully intend on keeping legalized infanticide legal and campaign for gay rights? In contrast, Christians support the CR, candidates who will overturn Roe v. Wade, and recognize that homoesexuals are not being denied any civil rights.
**with the exception of the one group of Christians who are theologically conservative but who vote for the political left. This group does not include the majority of people or the majority of Christians.
Actually, the group you mention have been fooled by politicians racing to be the first to claim they’re pro-life and then do absolutely nothing about it.
Evangelists have turned into nothing more than a consistent GOP voting base because the GOP know that as long as the Pro-Life plank is at least present every four years, then Evangelicals will vote there regardless of other policies.
By the way, you sure are posting alot for someone who said they were done posting in this thread.
Shall I start linking your other posts excoriating other people who have done the same thing in the past? Or are you just exempt from your own railings on integrity and honesty?
I changed my mind. Suck it up and deal with it.
Fact–Christians do not vote for baby murderers. On the other hand, moderates almost always do.
Joe—
You 45 rpm record is still getting worn out and your balsa wood cave man’s club is far too light for serious duty taking place here!!!!
Nah, I’m used to you applying standards to others that you clearly don’t hold yourself too. I would have been shocked had you actually kept your word.
Fact – Christians oppose abortion. I do too.
However, I believe that it’s time to hold ALL, repeat ALL leaders and politicians to put actions to their words and begin making strides into overturning Roe v. Wade and eliminating abortion as a viable method of birth control in this nation. The fact that evangelicals can be counted on to vote simply on abortion means that we’re nothing more than the Republican counter to low income/poorly educated minorities typically voting Democratic every election.
Amazingly enough, most every theologically moderate that I know also openly opposes abortion and 99% vote for the candidate that opposes abortion. Then again, facts aren’t usually your strong point.
Now, back to discussing the Conservative Resurgence and how you’d rather throw every Christian under the bus rather than finding common ground to work together.
No, most theological moderates want to reduce the number of abotions but hold to the cherrished “Baptist distinctive” of “seprations of church and state” and say “Oh, we can’t legislate morality”. However, that all goes out the window when it come to the government redistributing wealth by the means of entitlement programs–then those are acts of Christian mercy.
Second of all, nobody appointed you the Blog Police and you sure as heck don’t decide what is acceptable to be posted in the comments.
Third of all, Christians cooperate with other Christians. Since moderates are not real Christians, of course Christians can’t cooperate with them. Duh. That’s why the CR was needed. It was the SBC’s toilet paper.
First, no that’s simply not true. There’s a difference in legislating morality and trying to establish a theocracy. It’s a shame you can’t distinguish the two. I’m all for ending abortion, I’m just tired of evangelicals mindlessly voting for anything that begins with “R-” because most conservative candidates have done zero, with the exception of stating “I’m pro-life” on the campaign trail, to even curtail or limit, let alone rollback, the use of abortion. What does that say when evangelical Christians are regarded as a voting bloc instead of a force to be reckoned with? I haven’t voted outside of the GOP in two elections, but where I’m living, I have some strong “D-” options that are staunch pro-life because of their actions rather than their words. I’ve also got a Tea Party candidate that I’m leaning towards as well.
Quit projecting your political stances onto other people’s theological stances, you’re going to look stupid every time.
Second, you seem to have no problem treading all over people with your schtick. I will continue to call you out on your actions since you’re were once calling for civility and dialogue way back in 2008. Somewhere you have decided open hatred toward those who disagree with you is somehow okay. All you prove is that there is just as much unrelenting hatred coming from the conservative side as there is coming from the liberal/moderate side that you love to attack without abandon.
Third, who made you the judge of men’s hearts? I don’t happen to agree with some theological stances on minor doctrinal stances. Your statement Christians OUGHT to cooperate with other Christians. It’s just that we live in a country where we have to have winners and losers. I’m sorry, but I’d still be willing to work with conservatives and/or moderates if we’re working together for the cause of Christ.
It’s a shame that you’ve put caveats on the Great Commission. I’d certainly take a long hard look at myself before I question someone’s “Christianity” if I were you. I’ll go to bed thanking God that I’m not.
I may not agree with everything that people like David Miller or CB Scott say, but I would dang sure clear out my schedule if they needed an extra pair of hands to advance the Kingdom.
….most conservative candidates have done zero, with the exception of stating “I’m pro-life” on the campaign trail….
Oh, and so the logical solution is to vote for candidates who guarentee that they’ll do everything in their power to make sure infanticide stays legal? Yeah, that’ll end abortion for sure.
No Christians vote for baby murderer’s–most moderates want to reduce the number of abortions but are oppposed to making abortion illegal.
Thank you for proving once again, though, that the CR was needed. I smile everytime I think about the people who were hurt (i.e. got what they deserved). One thing I can promise you, they got WAY better than they’d have gotten if I’d been able to do anything–you can bet on that.
“There’s a difference in legislating morality and trying to establish a theocracy. It’s a shame you can’t distinguish the two.”
Bill, I hate to be obvious but we have legislated morality since day one. That is what civil laws are…legislating morality. It is immoral to kill someone so we make it a crime. It is immoral to steal so we make it a crime.
And as to establishing a theocracy, I want to mention an old friend of mine, an athiest quality technology professor, who thinks abortion is “heinous”, as he termed it, and would vote to make it a crime.
Ya never know….
Bill,
Lydia is right. Any and all legislation has a moral character within its content. It will be wither morally good or morally bad. Legislation is never an “inanimate object.”
Lydia,
It is immoral to “murder” someone. To “kill” someone is not always immoral. Sometimes it is Immoral not to, in my opinion.
To steal is always immoral as you say. Except in the case of the Rangers stealing against the Yankees. That is never immoral. 🙂
That should be “either” not wither.
Joe, you are a prime example of reading comprehension FAIL.
You go ahead and keep mindlessly pulling that lever for anyone with an “R-” in front of their name. I’m advocating, and I’ve typed this several times now so I’ll put this in Caps, THAT WE HOLD THESE POLITICIANS ACCOUNTABLE for their lack of action in curtailing and/or ending abortions. How is that being moderate? Oh wait, accountability. That’s clearly something you rankle at when people try to apply that concept to you.
As far as legislating morality, I believe that concept is applied to laws which typically carry the weight of a societal debate, i.e. abortion, stem cell research, welfare, etc. I consider certain laws as legislating morality though not every law. Setting the national speed limit to 70 on US Interstate is not considered legislating morality in my opinion. I know that there are people who will immediately disagree with this stance, that’s fine, but this stance is the premise that I stand on. I understand the need for legislating morality, however there are realms for which laws need not go. You do not win converts through quashing groups that disagree with you, you win converts by changing hearts and minds in the arena of ideas. That is one of my gripes about the Conservative Resurgence. They didn’t seek opportunities to change minds in the arena of ideas, they sought to, as clearly evident by Joe Blackmon’s own words of hatred, crush any and all opposition.
Joe, you exemplify the problem that I keep referring to with abortion and voting. We stop at abortion as soon as someone says they’re Pro-Life. You prove my point that evangelical Christians are nothing more than a voting bloc for the GOP or TEA party rather than a group of people who could be an educated group that could really affect change within this political climate. Can you imagine what would happen if the estimated 20 million, yes million, evangelicals actually stood up and said, “Enough. Put actions to your words.”?
I find it amazing that you take a part of my comment, spin it out of context, and then think you’ve won the argument. You also prove that you have a warped sense of Christianity in how you brag about how you’d do more to hurt fellow believers in Christ. Your own words, not mine.
To Lydia and CB, I do hope that you’re reading my comments. I’m staunchly opposed to abortion and my comments do reveal that I’m a theological moderate though I’m very much a political conservative. I warned Joe not to project his political views onto my theological views because he’s immediately wrong.
I’m advocating, and I’ve typed this several times now so I’ll put this in Caps, THAT WE HOLD THESE POLITICIANS ACCOUNTABLE for their lack of action in curtailing and/or ending abortions
And who said I’m not? If I vote for someone that says they’re prolife, I have a chance that they’re just saying that to get elected. So there’s a possibility that they’ll do nothing and I’ll remember that next time. If I vote for someone who claims they’ll “protect a woman’s right to choose” then I know for a FACT what they’re going to do. Ergo, when the choice was the Obamassiah and McCain Christians were suppsosed to vote for McCain. No one** who voted for Obama has any right to call themselves Christian.
Oh, and I didn’t say I would have hurt fellow believers in Christ. I said I would hurt those who opposed the Conservative Resurrgence.
**There is one group of people who are legitimate theologically conservative Christians that gets a pass on voting for Obama.
“Oh, and I didn’t say I would have hurt fellow believers in Christ. I said I would hurt those who opposed the Conservative Resurrgence.”
I rest my case.
Shall I quote your statement back in 2008 now?
You can quote anything you like just don’t hold your breath waiting for me to show paitence or compassion to those that affirm pluralism, errancy of scripture, or any other cherished moderate theological positions. Also, don’t hold your breath waiting for me to show an ounce of civility to anyone who calls themselves a conservative who would cooperate with someone who held those beliefs.
On second thought, please, go ahead and hold your breath waiting for that. Just kidding.
“To Lydia and CB, I do hope that you’re reading my comments. I’m staunchly opposed to abortion and my comments do reveal that I’m a theological moderate though I’m very much a political conservative.”
I am reading. Funny thing for me is that I see huge problems in both the SBC and the CBF. I am like a woman with no country. Perhaps I can be Switzerland but then I consider their historical stance, amoral. (Thank goodness for those alps and every home required to be armed or they would have been invaded by the Germans, too!)
The SBC has been predictable as all movements go…it goes too far and burns down the forest when a few trees are diseased. The problem of man getting too much power and not being able to stop himself when ferreting out “liberals”. Now me, an orthodox believer,who happens to be egal is a liberal with my salvation in jeporady because I agree with what happened at Pentecost is for the church age!
However, there is NO WAY on earth I could deal with the CBF. I could not sit through a Clinton speech at a gathering of Baptists. Sheesh! Seriously? And they are not even a tiny bit embarassed? I think Jim Wallis is as bad as Land. A “green” bible? (We are not much better…Russell Moore is going green as is the Merrit boy who got some biggies to sign his green covenant thingie). Oh, I could go on and one about the CBF but everyone here already knows.
But I can remember the good old days in the SBC when the Priesthood was taken seriously as was soul competency. We did not need Mohler to tell us what or how to think. We were encouraged to study and understood as believers we had the indwelling Holy Spirit. Now, that has been replaced with our authoritarian leaders.
But then, some think that freedom in Christ is what allowed the few heretics claiming there was no virgin birth to operate freely. I happen to disagree with that stance. And I also think some really bad stuff is coming out of our seminary’s today like ESS which lessens the deity of our Savior.
Joe—
Just send in the storm troopers and nuke ’em all!!!!
Right Joe and how’s that working for you? Abortion is still law and has been since Roe vs. Wade. How long ago has that been now? Insanity is doing the same thing and expecting different results.
As for holding the breath, I doubt anyone is. As for who you say is Christian or not? I doubt that holds much weight with thinking Christians. In fact if truth be told I doubt the Christianity of those who wish to “hurt” people. Christianity in the Bible, true Christianity is just the opposite. They don’t want to hurt anyone. But then when has all the Bible ever stopped you from spouting anything?
I don’t agree with everything the pro-life movement has done. Some of the extreme things have hurt more than they have helped.
But, while Roe v Wade is still in force, most studies show that the pro-life movement is slowly growing, that more people describe themselves as pro-life than in past years. So, it is not all gloom and doom
Joe–
Your wisdom continues to under-whelm me for some reason!!!
Jack:
You have said some good things on this blog, but citing a picture of Jesse Helms with his arm around Paige Patterson as support for the proposition that the CR was at least in part about racism is not one of them.
Again, I never, ever heard race brought up as an issue in the CR. Neither I (nor Dave, I’m sure) went to the SBC meetings to vote on race issues.
Plus, the SBC has made great gains in racial issues since the CR. The SBC apology came as a result of the CR. I was there and voted for it, and most of us in the hall were conservatives. The SBC has had elected leadership that were African American.
I have not seen the SBC promote any racist issues or programs since the CR.
I think that the racism charge is brought up to deflect from the theological issues, frankly.
Thanks, also, to Lydia for pointing out the racism of the other side, too.
Have you forgotten about Curtis Caine of the Christian Life Commission? That “incident” was rather embarrassing for the SBC and especially ticked off quite a few African-American SBCers.
Foy Valentine and T.B. Maston weren’t exactly embraced by conservatives for their viewpoints concerning race. As I noted earlier, “A Statement Concerning the Crisis in our Nation” has been described as the beginning of a “moderate political awakening” in 1968. That statement had a thing or two to do with race and wasn’t wholeheartedly welcomed by SBC messengers.
If you acknowledge that cultural instability had a thing or two to do with the Controversy, you can’t outright dismiss the race issue. Legislation and Decisions concerning race most certainly contributed to the polarization of society and the vast cultural changes that took place. I’m not going to argue that the Controversy was largely about race but race was a factor. It might not have been a factor to all who contributed. But differences over racial issues definitely helped set this thing in motion.
Also, I don’t know what Robert Byrd has to do with this conversation. He was never a Southern Baptist.
BDW:
Conceding that culture played a role does not mean that all cultural issues were in play, nor does it concede that culture was a major factor.
If race or some other cultural issue played a role, a person asserting that needs to prove how the CR appealed to and used race. Using connections from 1948, or arguing that in 1968 someone said something to someone else doesn’t get it.
The CR was a movement of many Southern Baptists. If race was moving them to vote as they did, the proponents of an argument need to show when, where and how.
If race had been discussed as part of the CR, part of the platform, and part of the solution, I would readily concede. However, it wasn’t.
Paul Pressler wrote letters to all CR supporters for a period of about 12 years urging them to come to the convention. Each of those letters states why – theology and the nature of scripture.
The fact that some leaders of the CR held political positions on issues that were not as progressive as Valentine and Maston, is not relevant if those issues were not part of the appeal of the CR.
If you can find where Pressler, Patterson and anyone of the Presidents ever made race an issue in the CR, I would be glad to look at it. I went to a lot of meetings, heard a lot of speeches and attended a lot of conventions. I never heard the issue raised by the CR leadership or rank and file.
The first chance that conservatives got to install someone at the CLC (now ERLC) was Land. I have not found that Land is bad at all on the race issue. Have you? Has Land urged that the SBC take some racially regressive position?
Have conservatives in the convention done so?
I don’t know about your church, but I can say in the circles that I run in, which includes conservative SBC churches, I have seen and continue to seen great racial progress. Interracial adoptions of African and African American children are quite common among my conservative SBC friends.
I am having a hard time figuring out where you guys are coming from, except for vague references decades before the CR.
As I have said before, Crawford Toy was an ardent Confederate supporter, but that has nothing to do with his issue on scripture or why he was forced to leave Southern.
Racial issues kickstarted the cultural instability that provided the fertile soil for a Resurgence/Takeover.
I don’t know of any observer who would argue that the relationship between Southern Baptists and southern culture (and larger American culture) did not have anything to do with the Controversy. Culture played a meaningful role. Patterson himself has acknowledge that point. If culture mattered, how can we ignore the most significant cultural changes of the last 50 years? Bottom line, Southern Baptist history can simply not be completely severed from racial issues.
I’m not arguing that racial issues were part of Pressler’s explicit agenda. Although, Pressler and other conservatives certainly voiced strong opposition to then proposed civil rights legislation in the late 1980s. And the Curtis Caine incident which you side-stepped happened AFTER the conservatives/fundamentalists had secured control of the CLC’s trustee board.
The appeal you speak of was not simply inerrancy. Patterson and Pressler appealed to cultural issues. They pointed to the relationships of moderates with progressive political organizations to depict them as the “Other” as “out of touch” with Southern Baptist values. Fundamentalist leaders often appealed to a broad array of cultural changes without specifically identifying a single issue. That allowed the individual to respond to whatever issue got under their skin the most. That key moderate leaders stood opposed to Southern Democrats-turned-Republicans on a host of social issues was quite frustrating to the average messenger of a more conservative bent.
I’d love to hear someone explain when Southern Baptist conservatives found themselves on the “right” side of race issues. For many years, Valentine was considered to be on the wrong side. Now he’s acknowledged as having been correct all along on race. When did the light switch get flipped and presto Southern Baptist conservatives climbed aboard? I don’t think history is that simple. Race was a significant issue in the late 1960s. The issue had not disappeared in the 1970s.
To say that race had nothing to do with the SBC Controversy is kinda like those who say that race had nothing to do with the rise of the Religious Right. A number of historians have persuasively argued that the origins of the Religious Right should be found as much in the Bob Jones Supreme Court decision as in the Roe v. Wade decision. Fundamentalists viewed that decision as federal overreach and began to organize once again and crank up their level of public engagement with a culture they perceived to be very hostile to conservative Christianity.
Big Daddy,
The entire nation can not severe itself from racial issues. Yet, it is not true that the CR was fueled by racial issues.
Who was in charge of the SBC when the Convention made an apology related to racial sin?
I didn’t say “fueled”
I acknowledge race as a factor.
As to the apology, pretty sure the principal author of that was David Gushee!
Big Daddy,
Don’t be evasive. I don’t care if Jimmy Carter and James Dunn wrote the apology. Who was in charge of the SBC when the apology was made?
“”To say that race had nothing to do with the SBC Controversy is kinda like those who say that race had nothing to do with the rise of the Religious Right.””
I can’t think of a dumber statement I’ve read in a very long time. It seems the moderate approach to anything is to make stuff up and hope people buy into it.
Race is such an easy card to play, but it rarely does anything more than promote racism.
I find who authored the apology to be of particular interest CB.
To SSBN:
“I can’t think of a dumber statement I’ve read in a very long time. ”
I read dumber statements on a regular basis from you, Mr. Submarine Man.
CB,
Who was in charge? Richard Land with an assist from theologian Gushee (now prominent voice in CBF)?
Again, the apology was a positive for the SBC. Quite a few National Baptist pastors decided to dually-align their congregations with the SBC as a result of the apology and leadership of Emmanuel McCall (former CBF moderator).
It would be curious to find out how those African-American pastors would reflect on that apology 15 years later. Would they share the rather damning criticisms (really not criticisms but honest observations) that Dwight McKissic has repeatedly offered over the last few years?
By the way, my understanding is that the 95 apology was largely the baby of Richard Land who does seem to have the right motivations on race issues.
Unfortunately for Richard Land, he’s had to issue a public apology to his Jewish friends at the Anti-Defamation League twice in the past couple of years for racially offensive statements. Those incidents have blemished his otherwise very progressive track record on race issues.
Louis,
On a somewhat related note, let me add that I couldn’t disagree more with your observations about Baylor that you posted at Grace and Truth.
And the BGCT still provides 25% of Baylor’s Regents. So Baylor isn’t completely independent.
BDW, I won’t challenge your memory about the apology, but my memory is a little different. There was a prominent black pastor who was president of a state convention (Ohio?) and I think was elected 1st VP or 2nd VP of the SBC. I am thinking his name might have been Gary Frost.
It was my recollection that he was one of the driving forces, or at least advising forces on this. It was also during the time of the Promisekeepers rallies and corporate repentance was a hot item.
I was at that convention and enthusiastically voted for the motion and stood to repent on behalf of the institutional racism in the SBC over the years.
BDW…wondering. As a young gal growing up in a Southern Baptist church in the 50’s and early 60’s, I don’t recall a single black person being baptized in that church. Ever asked your grandfather if he baptized blacks in the church in Triangle back then? Just wondering about his thoughts on this subject. selahV
Debbie and BIg Daddy,
My point about the apology (Big Daddy, I know you know what the point is.) is that the apology was made by the SBC in a time when the Convention is populated by CR supporters.
It was CR supporters who voted to approve the motion to make the apology.
Why did the SBC when controlled by liberal/moderates not apologize?
It was conservative Southern Baptists who voted to do the right thing. This argument that racism fueled the CR is very faulty.
Frankly Big Daddy, I would have thought that you would have refuted the idea. Obviously, I was wrong.
BTW, if Gushee and Land wrote it, it was a job well done and none too early in my opinion.
Dave,
I think it’s fair to say that the idea of an apolog originated with Frost.
Frost approached Land. Land then put together a committee that drafted the resolution. Gushee was on the committee, and very active with ERLC from 1993-1996.
I’m pretty sure that Barry Hankins details this in his book, Uneasy in Babylon.
I don’t know my grandfather’s thoughts since he’s been dead since 1983 and I have no memory of him.
His church in downtown Richmond, Virginia included several black members, most notably Horace the neighborhood drunk who was baptized at that church and helped carry my grandfather’s casket. I only know this because Horace is the subject of one of my favorite sermons (preached by my dad).
Again, I didn’t say that racism fueled the CR, CB.
Not sure what point you are trying to make. I understand that the apology was passed largely by those who supported the Resurgence.
Passing that resolution in 1995 did not boost conservatives to some moral high ground over the moderates on race issues. I think resolutions are fine and dandy. They serve a purpose. But, if I recall correctly, it was moderate leaders who first integrated the boards of SBC agencies and encouraged local churches to change their membership policies.
Clearly groups like the WMU, T.B. Maston and his *boys* (Valentine, Dunn, Allen, etc.) and *some* state Baptist editors deserve credit for their progressive positions on racial issues over the years. When Valentine passed away, conservatives gave credit where credit was due – before they proceeded to wack him on every other issue he took (some of which I don’t agree with, namely abortion).
You are forgetting Patterson’s mentoring, promotion and protection of Darryl Gilyard.
The point I am making is that your crediting the CR’s origin in any degree to racism among the ranks of those grassroots people who actually made the CR a reality is without merit and below what one should be able to expect from you.
Big Daddy and all,
It does not matter who wrote the motion for the apology. What matters is that the Convention voted for it to pass.
The very people who you are calling racists passed the motion.
In addition, had the “leadership” of the Convention been racists and not wanted that motion to pass, it would have never come out of committee and anyone who knows anything about how the SBC works knows that.
You crediting the origins of the CR to racism in any way is wrong andy you know it.
Again, I’m not calling anyone a racist.
Go back and read what I wrote. Whenever the issue of race gets brought up, words often get twisted. For that reason, it’s pretty hard to have a productive conversation about race and why race matters in history and culture.
I gotta wrap things up – will be teaching about Luther tomorrow, gotta prepare. Will leave folks here, if so inclined, to check out these words of wisdom about race discussions from Jay Smooth:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0Ti-gkJiXc
Moderates—
Let’s give CR ONE BREAK—they were in charge when the racial apology was adopted.
What is that???
1 thing right / 100 things done with “anger and death to all enemies” in mind.
Two pictures bother Me that I have. One is of a few “breaker boys”, children about 8 or 9 sitting next to a coal chute picking shale out of the mess and the overseer throwing a piece of coal at them to make them work harder. The other is a mother and daughter both black hanging from a bridge over a small creek. I got it out so now I’ll sleep whether it’s deleted or not. It’s not Christian.
Louis the picture was of Patterson with his arm around Helms. If I mis- spoke then this is correct. I don;t know about the CR – nothing hardly. I also don’t need or want your approval and I do have to leave.
I have a friend who shot someone–went to prison for it, in fact. There’s a picture of me and him in the yearbook our senior year with him patting me on the back. Guess that means I need to go to jail, too. (/sarcasm)
Don’t lob softballs like that into the air, Joe.
Some of the brethren may want to take a close look, explore and consider the revelation of comment Circa 223 about the influence of Race Baggage on Inerrancy and the CR
Well, Jack, as long as they don’t have their arms around each other, then you have my approval.
I had my picture taken with an Indian out west one time. Guess I had better apologize to someone?
Louis,
I had my picture taken with Jimmy Carter. So I guess that makes me a liberal and a peanut farmer.
Yikes. I’m in at least two pictures with Hilary Clinton.
I wouldn’t brag about that on this board!
This advice from a Yankees fan?
Man, you better back off, dude. The ALCS starts Friday and I will get cranky with the haters.
This more than taking pictures. This is hardwired placement on SBC boards and agencies and it is no secret and Cecil Sherman knew it and his friend Bill Friday knew it and now you can know it too if you want to be honest with the Unflinching Truth In Joe Ferguson’s Hard Right, the Rise of Jesse Helms; the chapter the Red White and Blue Bible that list names like Barry mcCarty, Sam Currin, Joe Knott and others, all operatives in some fashion for Helms and Pressler in the fundamentalist takeover of the SBC.
Tom-Steve,
Did Joe Knott work for Helms for a short period of time? Yes. Does that mean he was a racist? No.
Do you know Joe Knott? I do. He is a personal friend. So was his father. He is not a racist.
“”Helms and Pressler in the fundamentalist takeover of the SBC””
Tell me again, at which convention Jesse Helms was in charge. I’ve followed them all for the last 32 years, but I missed that one.
Or, is this an urban myth?
It was never about race. It was about theology.
Were there racists in the movement? I am certain there were.
Were there theological liberals who were also racists holding SBC positions prior to the CR? No doubt about it.
Yet, those of you who would say race fueled the CR are simply wrong. of course, some of you may be wrong by willful intent. In that case, you are simply guilty of willful sinfulness.
Race did not fuel the CR.
“A number of historians have persuasively argued that the origins of the Religious Right should be found as much in the Bob Jones Supreme Court decision as in the Roe v. Wade decision. ”
Big Daddy,
A number of scientists also say evolution is reality. I had always hoped you would break free of the mold which gave us such a “number of historians” as those you seem to now reflect.
I will admit that the driving force behind the “Religious Right” was political in nature.
But the SBC Conservative Resurgence was about theology, specifically the Doctrine of the Bible.
As I said earlier, there were bigots among CR advocates. At the same time, there were bigots in the leadership of the SBC long before Patterson let Pressler buy him a cup of coffee.
“”A number of historians””
History is what was written, not necessarily what happened.
In my opinion, the problem with saying a “number of historians,” indicates that we have too many historians among our number 🙂
Too many “historians”—and too many lawyers and parlimentarians zealous to bring about the bidding of the plotters and planners!!!
What if you win the big prize / it is a gigantic and beautiful box / you unwrap it to find a smaller box / finally reach the smallest box and with glee discover it to be a piece of coal?????
“”discover it to be a piece of coal????””
I’m from West Virginia. We are kinda partial to coal 🙂
I know—but the rest of the world considers coal a “boobie prize.”
It’s kind of like pig farmers say the smell is that of money–they are right in their world, but the rest of us riding down the highway behind a pig transport truck still think those “little bundles of money” stink!!!
I tend to think we have too many grown men who enjoy taking potshots while remaining anonymous.
In a perfect world, I would require that everyone use their real name in blogging, or at least give the moderator (me in this case) a legitimate explanation as to why they do not use their real name. I know there are some missionaries who comment and feel its necessary. Also, we have a few denominational servants who feel it necessary to hide their identities.
In general, though, I agree. I’m not sure if that comment was directed specifically at any one person. But in general, I agree.
I’ll explain myself being annonymous once again for BDW: everytime I use my real name or my email that is linked to my name a “hacker” that has been stalking me for over five years makes my life miserable until I change my email.
I’m tired of changing my email. I say to BDW, if he wants to put his face on the blog because he enjoys the notoriety, I have no problem with that. I’ve only commented on his “statements,” and have made no perjorative remarks about him as a person.
When the moderators decide to change the rules — I’ll simply stop blogging on SBC Voices. It’s that simple. Right now, the rules allow for annonymous posts, and I’ll keep doing it that way.
I’m not as sensitive as BDW and others who cannot seem to take a challenge. BDW took his shot back with no problem, and I have no problem accepting the fact he disagrees with me and believes that “racism is what kickstarted the CR.” This means of course that the entire movement and all participants are “tainted with racism.”
I said I thought this was “dumb” statement to make — I know it is an absolutely incorrect statement to make that cannot be supported by the facts — at least not in my case.
I’ve heard that story before. It’s a little odd to say the least. I could say my name is Frank Larry and no hacker can do anything with that info. No one is asking you to offer your e-mail address. You’ve offered enough personal details here that someone who actually knows you would probably be able to figure out who you are. Kinda like CB outing Tom earlier.
And by the way, I didn’t say that “racism is what kickstarted the CR”
Why did you put quotes around that? Those weren’t my words but you were clearly trying to pass them off as my words. Here is what I did write:
“Racial issues kickstarted the cultural instability that provided the fertile soil for a Resurgence/Takeover.”
Next time, if you’re going to use quotation marks, at least make a stab at getting the quote correct. Your statement definitely means something different than my statement.
I’ll check the quotes but I’m pretty sure you connected the CR and racism in a previous post. If you say you did not, normally I would accept that, but in this case would say, “not true.”
The point is: you painted the CR with the broad brush of racism. I’m not sure you have ever experienced racism from anything more than an academic level. Feel free to respond.
What you prefer to do is get into a “spitting match” with someone you don’t even know. That’s deflection. Why not deal with the substance of your post: you painted the CR with the broad brush of racism and I am calling you on it saying that is an unfair, unwise, and incorrect implication.
If it makes you feel better, call me Frank Larry.
Please don’t attach any “personal” issue to my posts. I’m sure you are a very nice young man who will make a fine academic. I went down that route and decided I prefer working closer to the battle on the front lines. So, we come at the issue from different perspectives.
Mine is right and yours is wrong 🙂 (Please note smiley face. It is very sincere).
As an academic, ask yourself: am I surprised that the mention of “racism” in regard to conservatives might rub someone the wrong way who has dealt with racism and lived in a racially charged environment? If you are fair, I think you will see where I am coming from.
Again, I’ll climb the almost eternal ladder to find what words you actually used, but I still have confidnence it will support my thesis that YOU painted the CR with the brush of racism.
“”I read dumber statements on a regular basis from you, Mr. Submarine Man.””
I’m sure you believe that being a “legend in your own mind.”
I hope BDW doesn’t mean me as jack is my real name and I have been threatened by enough to expect a driveby if they figured out the address. But my concern is for my son who is entitled to stir his own pot and I might add has done so admirably. I’m not thrilled with Richard Land’s position on Federal Hate Crime Laws when they were being written and he opposed them. We are the best Country in the world based on the observance of Law and we keep getting better. Church is for Church to me.
My comment was to SSBN who loves to take shots, get a little snarky and talk about who he knows and who he’s friends with but then hides behind an internet handle.
BDW: I’d like for you to point out one post in which I mentioned the name of one of my friends. I do happen to be an acquaintance of Dr. Patteson, but his name is in the public sphere.
I am very careful not to mention the name of any of my friends without their permission.
And, for the record, only one of my friends was a major player in the CR. For the most part, I never got deeply involved and I still am not your typical card-carrying CR guy.
I tend to be independent in my thinking. Sometimes I even disagree with myself.
Signed, Frank and Larry
PSS–Also, just so you know: you don’t have to give out your email to have someone hack it. If you lived in the Silicon Valley or ever had contact with top engineers like those that work at Google or other tecknology companies, you would know that the internet is full of holes and any well-trained geek can get any information with your name.
And, it is illegal but you will never catch them.
David–
My goodness–have you opened Pandora’s Box or what!!!
This subject has been up a short time and already 300+ comments.
Congratulations on the hit with a subject few of us want to miss the opportunity to discuss!!!
Above Wade Burleson is is cited with mixed feelings: Calvinist / trator in criticism / person who spoke up / etc.
Today Brother Wade has posted an interesting CR observation dealing with splinter groups in Texas–of all places!!! Why would anyone in Texas want to bar fight???
Here it is and I would think folks would enjoy a look:
http://kerussocharis.blogspot.com/2010/10/as-fan-of-christian-unity-when-will-sbt.html
I was busy today taking down a large oak tree requiring a 4′ bar on the saw to reach through. It was somewhat exciting—especially when I put a marker out in front and hit it dead center!!! The truck driver from Illinois talked of why he didn’t got to church. It seems a Preacher at his Conservative little church got on his case about a minor issues and his mother invited the Preacher to leave when he tried to bring it to the house. He stands as another example of why “sick religion” destroys one’s interst in church participation = too much judgementalism / too much narrow control / too much of being obnoxious in one’s religion!!!
We had a great private conversation and I think he is willing to give a church a chance because of it. Who knows, but he definitely met one preacher who knows how to laugh and ask questions which allowed him to vent his anger and disappointment in the church–as well as disclose why he is on his third marriage in an un-directed life. He has my card and I suspect he will be back in touch with me.
How many did this crowd of commentators reach out to today in a spirit of Christ-like concern????
Gene,
If “reaching out” as you have termed it were your regular lifestyle, as it is with some of us on this thread, you would just be doing it daily and not being boastful and filled with pride about it to the point you post it in a comment thread in an effort to make yourself appear to be spiritual. Or, on the other hand, trying to hide the fact that you are not…spiritual.
In the spirit of Christian love: ////BITE ME!!!
Keep Reading Gene. There is more. 🙂
BDW 282 That’s a good story as you already know. He must have designated him before his death. Maybe a blog of “Stories” would not only be fun to write but better to read – all types.
Here’s how misleading (perhaps downright lying) the idea of connecting the CR to racism (and trying to hide behind parsing words like “kickstarted vs. fueled.”
One of the first new hires after Patterson came to SWBTS was a great black ethicist who was a classmate and good friend of mine.
Moderate “historians” like to recount the firing of women and claim it is sexist, but ignore the obvious NON-racist actions and still connect Patterson with “racism.”
I thought it was just a “dumb” statement to make, but I think I was wrong.
Also, I have real life experience living with people of many different cultures including living in the heart of Oakland, CA. To use the “race card” as flippantly as those who have no clue as to what real racism (black to white as well as white to black) is like, really gets under my skin.
BDW:
I think that is accurate and charitable of you to mention Land’s progressive track record on race. I have talked to him about it before, and I think the issue truly resonates with him.
On the race issue that you brought up, the summary of all that you have said is, “well race is part of Southern culture, the SBC is in the South – voila! The CR was in part about race.”
I would sincerely be interested in reading anything that any of you might find actually showing that the CR was based in part on the issue of race. Until then, it is suspicion based on supposition.
I will read up on the Curtis Caine issue. I don’t even know who he is/was. I am pretty knowledgeable about this stuff, but certainly fallible.
BDW, that was not MY prediction about Baylor. That was a well placed conservative’s belief about the matter. I have never even been to Baylor. I really don’t have a dog in the hunt, so to speak. My daughter has applied to school there, but Auburn is her first choice, and she has been accepted there, so I am not sure we’ll be going to Waco. My father in law and mother in law (rip) are Baylor grads, and loved the school. I am not emotionally invested one way or the other. But my friend did tell me that was his opinion about Baylor, and he is well placed and his analysis of Baptist politics has historically been pretty good. I do believe my other friend, however, who said that getting hold of the faculty hiring process is the key, so until there are moves to do that, it is meaningless.
This has been a lively and good post.
Louis,
Auburn??
“”I’m not going to argue that the Controversy was largely about race but race was a factor.””
BDW, here is just one such reference you made. To say race was a factor because it was problem in society is like saying GM is culpable in a drunk driving accident because they made the car. The two facts are too distant to have causality.
By the way . . . I apologize for using the word “dumb.” I should have found a better way to express the idea. I did not at the time connect dumb with being disparaging to you as a person, but I see that it was, so I apologize.
Signed, Frank and Larry
Yes, CB.
Why that is, I do not know.
But Auburn has become a very popular school for kids at many of the private prep schools here in town. Why? I don’t know.
I have dear friend from high school who teaches International Relations at Alabama, and she asked if my daughter was interested in seeing the school. I can’t get her to go. Can you believe that?
Kids are strange.
They just don’t listen to their elders.
We need to meet sometime. There are a lot of people in blogville that I would like to meet.
Will you be at the convention in Phoenix next year?
Louis,
I will tell you something if you keep it just between us. Auburn is making strong efforts to get our youngest son. He is beginning to show interest in their offers. We are almost to the point of kicking him down stairs on game day with a small B/W TV so he can watch Auburn and come to his senses.
You are right. Kids are strange.
Karen and I had planned to be in Phoenix and bring the girls to see “the sights” afterward. Due to Karen’s accident after Orlando, that may not be possible.
I would enjoy buying you lunch. If you get to Birmingham, give me a call. Actually, I ate dinner with a famous blogger last evening. He is a friend to Dave Miller. I certainly enjoyed our time together.
Okay, I’m dying to know who you had dinner with last night.
cb–
I’m sorry to hear of your daughter’s accident.
Are there prayer needs here on her behalf???
Wait. This thread is about racism now?
What the what?!?
Its a playground. This one gets to go wherever it goes – no moderation!
Are you really serious = NO MODERATION????
I’m looking for this one to go 1000 or more comments! We just can’t stop talking about the CR.
Actually, the overall debate so far has been better than I expected. There’s been some substantive debate on here.
I agree and thank you for the courage!!!
This is the original SBC spirit of Autonomy!!! No Executive Committee makes decisions we must rubber stamp.
In this case we are not taking a vote on who the SBC President will be nor what words go into BF&M 2000. We are talking about, after 40 years, Conservative Resurgence—for better or worse!
The numbers of comments and many who have not often commentated indicates there is a critical need to discuss this issue and try to figure it out.
It is interesting how the race factor has been cited as part of CR. I totally agree.
If we back our camera out to the time frame of 1960-1980, I think a prime mover in our American culture has been such rapid change the average person is almost overwhelmed. Let me cite a few:
1) Kennedy was shot in full view–yet we are still debating conspiracy or lone nut gunman.
2) The precursor of that assasination was a late 50’s turmoil–James Dean type rebellion / racial unrest / Korean War undertainty / Joe McCarthy witch hunt for “Communists in every corner” / Eisenhower Republicanism vs. Kennedy Democrats / growth in southern cities like Atlanta, Dallas, Nashville, Birmingham / movement of many “outsiders” into our “southern culture” / cold war and space exploration.
After the Kennedy assasination (Viet Nam and race at the core) LBJ spent wildly in Viet Nam and War on Poverty (Welfare culture starts) / pubic education went from local community schools to busing for racial balance / radicals invade my baby boomer generation and gather at Woodtock and San Francisco / drugs like LSD and marijuana explode / we start mistrusting our government over Viet Nam and Watergate / religious fundamentalism explodes with Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, Moral Majority / lines of separation of church and state are erased / Supreme Court decisions force integration, abortion, taking the Bible our of schools / multitudes of new technology in computers, medicine, color TV all compete for our dollars / everyone has several cars and TV’s and AC becomes a must have item / gas prices soar / Corporate America has more than an influence on politics / people are making money by the busloads / affluence becomes black with forced equality in the workplace / poverty and welfare deepen / all parts of society becomes more extreme and splintered / CR takes over the largest Protestant Denomination / homosexuality becomes a major issue (again over equal rights) / TV programing becomes more and more Rosanne as against My Three Sons and Leave It To Beaver / child rearing and school discipline becomes “time out” vs. the belt / women join the workplace (more equality) / working mothers generate a major growth in child care Kindergartens and school over home care / etc.
3) The major theme of everything become focused on self-interest over cooperation and joint endeavors to find a higher quality of life.
4) Fast food and instant gratification are the goal of most people.
5) Everything speeds up and local news become CNN (more satellite new technology).
6) Entertainment is another obsession–professional sports / auto racing / professional wrestling / dramatic car chases on live TV and constant coverage of the Texas Tower sharpshooter killing in front of the TV camera / Kent State killings of protesting students / Karen Tate murders and Charles Manson / OJ Simpson trial—the news and media is all about “ratings” which translates to money spent by advertisers to sell us more stuff.
7) Scientific discoveries in medicine create a “medicine as miracle” mentality where people expect to live forever.
8) DNA forensics shows many are convicted who are innocent–yet can’t prove in court that OJ killed his wife and her lover.
9) Frustration pervades our lives–the basic psychological reaction to frustration is a “fight or flight” response. We either hit and hurt or cower into a corner of life and just “don’t make waves” so the next promotion/raise requires conformity to “company policy” over telling it like it is.
10) Ethics becomes “who wins” over “who is ethical and takes the moral high ground”—in other words, he who dies with the most toys wins vs. a Saviour on a Cross because he told the absolute truth.
I am citing above just the tip of the iceburg of what might be best describes as a “confused society” with little or no sense of integrity. In the face of this confusion the average person longs for certainty. If the “certainty”–real or imagined–in politics or religion is promised, masses of people lust for it / stop asking questions / get in line / follow the leader whether he is really right or wrong. As long as it “feels good” and “looks pretty” we want it and will pay whatever the price for it—after all the payments are only $299 a month!!! Whip out the cridit card and buy it. You need it to keep up with your neighbors!
Law Enforcement becomes a thing of the past. Any good lawyer can get you off and your kid won’t have to get convicted of drug abuse / speeding / bullying / all crime becomes a “product of a bad social environment.” Nobody takes responsibility for their own decisions = “the devil made me do it.” I knew better, but I just made a mistake. Let me off, but I didn’t learn any lesson for my mistake and I do it again and again. After all I just robbed those houses because I was hooked on drugs and couldn’t help myself!
This has become a treatise on change and loss of morality, but I think it is at the core of our “being lost in the wilderness” of modern living.
CR offered certainty in an uncertain world, but–after 40 years of it–things have not really changed. We still hate / hold decision making “behind closed doors” / open ourselves to being manipulated by certain people pretending to be perfect and capable of telling us what to do.
If its Mega, it must be right!!!
Yeah—-Mega Corporations lie, cheat, and steal to get you to invest. Mutual funds managed by financial wizards just make the managers rich. Mega Churches never pay the preacher less than other corporate CEO’s. You get rich quick and gain your control position by any means necessary = “The means justifies the end.”
Gene:
You agree that race is a factor, and cite an interesting littany of things unrelated to race. (It was fun reading).
I am just asking for someone to produce something that would show that.
I know a lot of people who believe in UFOs. I can’t convince them not to believe in that because it is a sincerely held opinion.
But if they want ME to believe in UFOs, I will need some evidence.
We all have feelings, biases and prejudices that cause us to see and believe things.
When it comes to the “race” allegation, I am interested in seeing any facts to support that.
Nothing is proved simply on the basis of societal trends and the biases or suspicions of persons looking at those trends.
Gene, did you see my earlier posts about relatives in Decatur, GA?
Louis–
I did and commented. This string is so long it might have been hard to detect.
Glad you enjoyed the diatribe. In the early morning hours my mind is much sharper than at 11:20 at night.
There is such a thing as “corporate personality.” Carl Jung based much of his theory on that.
In other words, people who have racial hatred are usually having a sense of personal inferiority. Instad of facing it, they have to put others and prejudicial rung below them on the ladder of society.
It is amazing how much better you feel when you can look down your nose at another human. Interestingly, I have found “brilliant” people with wrenches in their hand mechanicing / some working as janitors / others picking up garbage.
Nowadays those with common repair sense can make more money than so-called “highly trained professionals.” Such highly trained people in corporate America got an early retirement so a machine or computer could replace them—not wise!! It was a total insult and over the last 20 years of demotions it has engendered hatred to those who canned them or replaced them for half the pay (and more than half the efficiency).
Gene,
Did you edit the comment above?
I”m not sure what you mean by “did you edit?”
Gene,
I was wrong. You did not edit the comment. I apologize for causing you any confusion, for you are confused enough as you are.
Nice try at striking the ball—but that’s strike 3 = you’re out!!!
Be careful when you face a left-handed pitcher = me!!!
Keep Reading Gene. You will get there in time.
I meant to say: “The end justifies the means to it.”
Is that what you mean, cb????
Sometimes my fingers act as Independent Contractors doing as my mind doesn’t dictate. Ah well, I am a true Baptist!!!
The simpleton’s who belly-ache about race as being a factor in the CR just throw that against the wall to see if it sticks because, in the end, they can’t bring themselves to admit the heresy that drips from their theological positions. For instance, would the following describe a CR supporter or someone who opposed the CR (generally speaking):
*They vote for left wingers who guarentee they will work to keep infanticide legal and support “gay rights”.
*They deny the virgin birth, the miracles, the historicity of Genesis, and the resurrection of Jesus.
*They claim that homosexuality is not a sin.
*They claim that God saves people through Jesus Christ without them realizing that it is Jesus in whom they are saved (i.e. muslims pray to Allah but won’t realize that Christ saved them til they get to heaven).
The above positions are clearly those taken by anti-CR types. Pretty easy to tell, then, who the real Christians are—and it ain’t moderates.
Joe–
Do you have any other broken record to play besides this one taking up space over-and-over-and-over=and-over-and……???
For the last time, and I do mean the last time, as far as I know no one believes this either CR or anti.
It’s not that they don’t realize that Christ saved them. That’s rubbish and a total misrepresentation of what was said by anyone that I know of. I do believe that God can reach down and save anyone. Muslim, atheist whoever. The Bible is clear that the Gospel must be heard. Paul said how can they know unless they hear and how can they hear without a preacher. The Bible says faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. They will also know beyond a shadow of a doubt that Christ saved them, but they don’t have to walk down an aisle, say a special prayer, to be saved. They hear, they believe. We know because we will be able to see the changes either radical or subtle but there will be a change in that person. I am so tired of this broken record that I want to puke.
My point was and is that they won’t necessarily be strong enough in knowledge of scripture to leave their church. Christ saves people where they are. They grow where they are. He doesn’t leave them where they are, but it’s always in his time, his way, not our time not our way and they aren’t necessarily going to be Baptists. They are still born again Christians.
The attitude people have towards those from other faiths needs to be filled with compassionate Christian caring. Too often, some Christians have come off as being obnoxious know-it-alls, with little humility, and less reverence towards the Holy One.
My own faith recognizes in other religions that search, ‘among shadows and images, for the God who is unknown yet near ‘
since He gives life and breath and all things and wants all men to be saved.
My own faith considers all goodness and truth found in these religions as “a preparation for the Gospel and given by him who enlightens all men that they may at length have life.”
There is a Christian virtue called ‘hope’.
There are many Christians who need to have hope that Our Lord will come to find the lost ones: those who may not yet know His Holy Name, but already respond to His Voice as the One who asks them to love.
I don’t expect many here to understand this now.
But, in time, I hope they will come to understand it better.
I have always had a lot of hope.
Desiringgod Blog quoted Martin Luther in “Freedom For Christians”:
Although the Christian is thus free from all works, he ought in this liberty to empty himself, take upon himself the form of a servant, be made in the likeness of men, be found in human form, and to serve, help, and in every way deal with his neighbor as he sees that God through Christ has dealt and still deals with him. This he should do freely, having regard for nothing but divine approval.
He ought to think: “Although I am an unworthy and condemned man, my God has given me in Christ all the riches of righteousness and salvation without any merit on my part, out of pure, free mercy, so that from now on I need nothing except faith which believes that this is true. Why should I not therefore freely, joyfully, with all my heart, and with an eager will do all things which I know are pleasing and acceptable to such a Father who has overwhelmed me with his inestimable riches? I will therefore give myself as a Christ to my neighbor, just as Christ offered himself to me; I will do nothing in this life except what I see is necessary, profitable, and salutary to my neighbor, since through faith I have an abundance of all good things in Christ.”
Debbie,
I’m in total agreement on this one. In Baptist land we used to consider ourselves Christians first, and Baptists working together for support of Missions next.
Then along comes CR with judgementalism and the epithet of “liberal.” David defined it somewhat well, but it is the extreme definition of the term.
On a scale of 1-10 with “liberal at 1 and 10 a conservative, I have observed that CR folks run about 10.5-20 on such a scale. Anyone less that 10.5 seems to be worthless in the eyes of their God to them!!!
Have they forgotten Rachael the Harlot / the woman at the well / the sinner praying alongside the Publican / etc.??? God doesn’t give up on anybody—and we can safely leave soul judging to Him, in my opinion.
I grew up in the 1950’s when we tended to be haughty toward other Christians because we were “growing fastest / giving more / had a bigger church and organ than the Methodists and Presbyterians in the town—heck we didn’t even have Catholics in most southern towns. They amounted to those “idol-worshiping misguided northerners.” We just didn’t notice our building and organ were our idol far too often!
There was still a deep divide at the Mason-Dixon line. Us southerners viewed the Civil War as “The war of Northern agression!” Even Baptists up north were viewed as cold and non-evangelistic. We didn’t have electridity and paved roads until after WWII in the majority of places. I remember outhouses at many country homes along with a hand pump for water in the little well beneath the back porch.
Only deeply defeated or self-despising humans use agrandizement to offset their feelings of inferiority. If it becomes an obsession, it borders on Psychosis. It is certainly Neurosis which means you are good enough to be out on the streets, but your sure aren’t safe to do business with!!!
Joe is my prime piece of evidence that searching and lost people will grab and tenaciously hold to anything that floats!
Remember what floats in the toilet will float in the ocean, Joe!!!
Be careful what you grab and hold until it gets waterlogged–then you have to learn how to swim fast or drown!!!
Joe–
Here is a good one for your “inerrant Bible” theory:
It is also striking that certain incidents in the stories of the Patriarchs mirror incidents that took place in a more definitely “historical” context six centuries after 1800 BC. Obvious lurid examples are the duplicated threats of gang rape in a city (with dire consequences for the perpetrators), to be found in both Genesis 19 and Judges 19. Similarly the children of Israel with a carelessness that Lady Bracknell would have deplored, twice put to the sword the unfortunate city of Shechem, once in Genesis 34 and again in Judges 9. Another problem: the patriarchal narratives contain one or two references to Philistines, who come from a later period of history,and there are many more to a people who are close relatives to the Patriarchs, called Aramaeans–Abraham is very precisely given a kinship to the Aramaeans in one family tree. The settlement of Aramaeans in areas reasonably close to the land of Caanan/Israel/Palestine was a gradual process, but other historical evidence shows that it cannot have begun any earlier than 1200 BCE, and that was a very different era from the supposed time of the Patriarchs; their arrival was in a time which followed a further great upheaval in the story of the Children of Israel. Altogether, the chronology of the Book of Genesis simply does not add up as a historical narrative when it is placed in a reliably historical wider context.
Louis: I don’t think that the word “inerrancy” was added to the BFM for the simple reason that if it had been, it might have been an admission that the document did not already state a case for inerrancy. I was not on the committee that worked on these issues, but that is what I suspect happened.
Norm (AKA bapticus hereticus): The role of inerrancy in the controversy is interesting. Given that we are both speculating, I have another take on it. If a thing is said to be the reason that some are to be considered legitimate and other not, then prudence dictates that it be considered in all its dimensions (which inerrancy has not, given that questions of what it means to assert ‘autograph’ and ‘original’ have largely not attracted much attention and at the time of the controversy were not even considered) and that statements used for it be as unambiguous as humanly possible. But that assumes rationality is, that is, rationality as is humanly possible and affordable, foundational to decision making.
“Truth without mixture of error” does not assume or even require inerrancy, but some saw the statement as a means to persuade the less informed to accept their leadership and call for removing those standing in the way of their greater denominational influence, and as it came to be after parity was reached, control. Inerrancy was both a political and theological motive for seeking control of SBC narratives. Political in that seminary-trained ministers and their professors, being both more and less conservative, knew that once qualifications were made about the doctrine in order for it to be intellectually supported (but knowing that such could not be reasonably held as a means for separating a people of faith), people in the pews would be highly confused, thus the doctrine would not be a very good wedge issue. But, to use several other doctrinal issues (which were the real concerns) would confuse the conservative message with complexity, and for the most part, people in churches of all baptist stripes were used to and accepting of theological diversity and (because they assumed, and for good reason, that the beliefs of individuals stemmed from their understanding of scripture, thus) paid little attention to diversity, especially given missions was a stronger tie among churches than theology.
The people, then, needed an organizing theme to which the other doctrines could be used for support of the theme, regardless of the legitimacy of doing so, and regardless of the legitimacy of the theme, itself. If people in the first instance did not believe in the truthfulness of scripture, anything in the second instance must be wrong. It was hoped that the previous fellowship, at times strained, with more progressive Christians would be seen for what it was, an unequally yoked relationship. To gain power, there had first to be the destruction of fellowship and the perception of the other as a child of God.
As a theological issue, inerrancy was, then, presented as the end-all of biblical belief. Thus, if one did not come to believe in inerrancy, one need not consider any other doctrine, because if one gets it wrong here, one will necessarily and by definition, get it wrong elsewhere and one’s spiritual condition was questionable at best. As a strategy for engaging more conservative, less educated, but well-meaning and deeply Christian baptists that wanted to be found acceptable by God, it was a remarkable strategy. It was, however, intellectually dishonest, which is why it is not surprising that it is not specially mentioned in the current BFM. The ones with the power and theological training to influence its inclusion don’t desire it to be there for intellectual reasons, and besides, the doctrine has already served its purpose. Nothing can be gained by it now, but much can be lost by opening up the debate.
A Creed is a Creed—plain and simple.
We used not to believe in them and speak absolutely against creedalism. That is what made us Baptists rather than a hierarchical church society.
Now we have a Creed to whip people into submission—but by beating our horses of Missions and Autonomy to death, we no longer have them to pull the wagon. In fact, we shot them in the head with a .45 in a BF&M revolver!
That was real smart: It wasn’t broke so we broke it to try and fix it. Meanwhile, people die every not having had the opportunity to hear of Christ.
Those who have heard it from Baptists hear also the stories of constant bickering and character assault and say:
“If this is what being Christian is all about, I’ll find my fellow Christians elsewhere!!!”
I agree with the last part of what you wrote, for sure.
Thanks, BH.
On another matter –
I heard Duke McCall say (about 3-4 years ago) that once the issue in the SBC became which group believed the Bible more that was a debate conservatives would win. He was very fearful that strategy would result in conservatives controlling the convention. McCall did not want that issue to be the debate, but he and others could not throw the conservatives off on to some other track.
I was surprised to hear that Bill Hull writes that McCall wanted to take Southern out of the SBC but that he could not convince the trustees to do it. That really shocked me.
McCall credited Pressler more than any other person with keeping the focus on the truth of Scripture and not varying from that in the CR.
I believe McCall’s observations, coming from the moderate camp, are accurate.
I even believe that today when the CR is discussed conservatives tend to emphasize the truth of scripture and the doctrinal essentials of the Christian faith. Moderates often argue about other matters. In blogging for the last 2-3 years on SBC issues I have yet to see a moderate really engage on doctrinal matters.
I do not think that is dishonest on their part. I just believe it’s the way they are wired.
Louis:
Testing to see if you are online now. May have some exchanges with you over the next few half hours or so
For one have you read Bill Hull’s book on McCall and Honeycutt or just heard about it?
From Ellen Rosenberg to recent online piece about Marney’s days in Austin in the 50’s story is clear about where the folks who rose to Play the Inerrancy card were in the 60’s and the things that irritated them into action.
Jack Harwell, former editor of the Ga Christian Index, and one book in particular about M.O Owens of Gastonia, NC and Bill Powell atFBC Atlanta; don’t try to convince folks they were progressive folks on Civil Rights; they weren’t and that is the water the Inerrancy part swam in and from whence they evolved.
And here is something from the First of October this year.
If M. O. Owens kicked in with Bill Powell about 1964, shouldn’t be hard to find out what Owens was thinking about Civil Rights about 30 miles away from Marney in Charlotte.
http://www.biblicalrecorder.org/post/MO-Owens-started-e28098conservative-resurgencee28099.aspx
And Robert Tenery, in North Carolina almost certainly a devotee of Jesse Helms; shouldn’t be too hard to reconstruct that as well.
Surely UNC Chancellor Friday didn’t imagine his concerns out of Thin Air from experience with Frank Porter Graham the progressive Governor that infuriated Later to Be Senator Helms.
So in context, Louis, in historical framework, let’s encourage the magnifying glass on Inerrancy and Race as you seem very resistant to reading Rosenberg, David Morgan, and others who assert for all practical purposes BDW, Christian Ethics Today and Moyers, not to mention Chandler Davidson of Rice are more knowledgable, credible and prudent judge of this aspect of the CR than you have convinced Gene and BDW at this point here in this discussion.
Milum Oswell Owens, Jr. Never knew what the initials stood for till reading this article from October 1.
It reveals he was a 1933 graduate of Furman, which means he woulda preceeded Yates Frady’s son Marshall, by exactly 30 years.
Needless to say, those two Furman graduates saw the Baptist CR much differently.
One was considered the greatest Social Justice Journalist of the last half of the 20th Century, praised by Pulitzer winner David Halberstam; and the other a predecessor to Patterson and Pressler and the SBC CR.
Guess which one wrote a sterling biography of Martin Luther King, Jr.; and was confidante of Will Campbell, the only White Baptist minister I know photographed at the Lorraine Hotel in Memphis the day MLKing was assassinated; and which one lay groundwork for Jesse Helms to become Senator in 1972.
Now it doesn’t take rocket science to figure that out.
CB Scott can call his great friend Paige Patterson and have him Call Chandler Davidson at Rice; and if anybody is really interested in the truth of this matter, maybe we could all know with better certification by the End of February 2011; not to long away.
History is made everyday. Have Patterson pick up the phone and make the call.
You forget—winners never have to explain ANYTHING!!!
Norman Jamison, Biblical Recorder editor, was most kind to M.O. Owens who was, indeed, a precursor of CR in NC. You might expect that from one who likely was reacting against what he was taught at Furman in the Religion Department.
Every one of my classmates at SEBTS 1967-70 who claimed it was “liberal” was one who came wanting only to have his SS religion validated. How can anyone want to receive a graduate degree at a Masters level and never consider anything new?
I think most CR bound students only wanted a credential to enter a SBC church. In their mind, education should be indoctrination with no questions asked.
I read and was lectured on Higher Criticism / Form Criticism / etc. but as a thinker I concluded an attempt to put the Bible under a microscope when it is a book of faith could only do so much. It could expose that which was redacted, but never inspire people from the pulpit to follow its ways and declare Jesus is the Christ so salvation might be theirs. That was always my goal as a Pastor.
It was instantly obvious to me as a Preacher’s Kid / President of the Emory BSU at “God Is Dead” time there / Director of Juvenile Rehabilitation under the HMB and Chaplain to the Wake County Juvenile Court that there were more important things of the Faith than abstract “Bullgeshicta.” However, it was most helpful when a doubting teen could not figure out how Genesis and Evolutionary Theory could exist side-by-side without having to choose one or the other!!!
Between my Psychology Degree from Emory 1967 and a good theological degree from SEBTS 1970, I think I helped many with questions get some authentic answers far more meaningful then BF&M 2000 or its predecessor in existence when I graduated into the real ministry world at FBC Easley (SC) / Hartsville (SC) / Bisopville (SC) / Noonday Baptist Church (GA) / Loris FBC (SC). I have served some 10 churches totally between full time 1970-86 and part time to the present.
Now that I own a Tree Surgery Company I actually have more honest discussions on faith with people than I ever did while perceived as “the Preacher.” People tend to pretend before the Preacher while they see the skills and trust involved in taking a dangerous tree out from over their house without hitting anything. I told them the truth about their tree and now they want to talk a little more about the threats in their personal life!
My analysis of how to beat that tree when each one is unique is identical to how I analyse and take apart the CR movement. The saddest thing is that the presence of the current SEBTS putting out “knights in shining armor” to take over churches in NC has resulted in the elimination of Autonomy in the NCBSC and put a Financial Policy in its place to decide who can give and particiapte and who is kicked out.
When CR “owns” our graduate school and “owns” SBC literature and publications, they thought they could control everything. Fortunately, we have quite a few reliable NC Baptist Colleges which have separated from the NCBSC / Baptist Women have done the same / BTSR is just across the border at Richmond—the reliable way of being thinking Autonomous Baptists still strongly exists and NCCBF is more than growing stronger with the changes in NCBSC.
Tom-Steve,
I don’t think Paige will take my calls anymore. But I believe he would take your call.
Of course, you can always call me, tell me who you are and we can go from there.
Gene,
You make a statement like this:
“Doing the wrong thing for the “right” reasons is always—WRONG!!!! God will use that measure as we all stand before Him on day–and Jesus’ grace is not sufficient to overcome purposeful demonic actions–especially doing it from a pulpit of CR leadership. It is the “unpardonable sin” of which the Bible clearly speaks.”
Then you say:
“I think most CR bound students only wanted a credential to enter a SBC church. In their mind, education should be indoctrination with no questions asked.”
Gene,
Your theological and biblical understanding is less than that of Cubbie in AWANA, yet you talk about the lack of education CR students received?
Your concept of the “unpardonable sin” is absolute buffoonery. Your revelations of Baptist History must originate from mushrooms you are eating while you are in the woods cutting those trees so “expertly,” because it is all a hallucination.
Gene,
You need to stay in the trees and NC Baptists need to be thankful you are no longer in a local church pastorate there. Whomever those deacons were who ran you out of your last church did all Baptist churches a favor.
You really are crazy. It is not an act with you is it?
I think we can well leave the judgement of “who is crazy” to the readers of the debate.
My concept of “unpardonable sin” came from years of wondering what it really was. If you go to it you will find this surrounding situation:
The Pharisees could not deny the miracles and power of Jesus. Instead, they simply said his power was “of the devil.”
Kindalike–“All our professors don’t believe in the Bible” = We know them all, but they are “of the devil” and you have to follow us in getting rid of the “liberals” (same as “devil” to the average trusting SBC church member).
If you want to risk the “unpardonable sin” then you better darn well know what it is!!!
Just read your Bible, brother, read your Canon for it is a “measuring stick” of truth—with some mixture of factual errors based on the view of the world when it was written—BUT not one error in how God is trying to get His message of love and peace across to us warring pretend followers!!
If Truth without Mixture of Error really is at the Heart of What Paige Patterson and Judge Pressler are about; then while they still have what faculties they had during the resurgence, seems to me they would want to drive to Houston to the James Baker Center for Public Policy and call on Chandler Davidson.
Honesty and Integrity would compel such a conversation on the Record it would seem to me. CB has taken a Pass. Maybe Ed Young can pick up the phone.
Harry Dent Confessed.
Lee Atwater Confessed.
Why not Paige Patterson and Paul Pressler for the historical record in regard Marney, Hardy Clemons, Jimmy Allen, LBJ, the backlash to Carter; the role of Helms, Karl Rove, Gary North, the Birch Society and Texas Regulars.
Chandler Davidson and James Baker can help walk them through the process for the sake of better understanding for succeeding Generations.
Steven Miller did a grand job with Billy Graham and Nixon in the Marshall Frady tradition. Now it is time for Chandler Davidson of Race and Class in Texas Politics to add another chapter with Paige and Paul so we can better understand the full effect of the Inerrancy of Scripture, the First Eleven Chapters of Genesis, and what was really in Paul Pressler’s mind when he took the drive from Houston to Waco to talk to Jack Flanders about Higher Criticism.
Maybe Norman Jameson can get back to Milus Oswell Owens for a few more questions.
Gene,
You may be a pretender. I know I am not.
I also know you have very little theological or biblical understanding considering you do have a seminary degree.
Gene, you are a prime example as to why the CR was absolutely necessary and in some ways about twenty years too late. It is obvious your years at SEBTS were wasted. I don’t think you are really stupid Gene, but you are beyond the pale ignorant theologically and biblically.
And there is no question whatsoever that you are guilty of breaking the law of NC relating to a forty something year old man in the church you served when he became sexually involved with a teenaged female. You freely admitted it. You actually bragged about on Wade’s blog and others, thinking you were being a mature spiritual leader in how you handled it. How stupid!
I challenged it. Big Daddy challenged it. Lydia challenged it.
Even in that, you are an example as to what is currently and has been a problem in the SBC for a long time. For the life of me, I cannot understand why other people who read these comment threads regularly did not take a stand about your confessed wrongful conduct in the situation between the adult male and the teenage girl.
Also, your comment about the leadership of the CR committing the unpardonable sin was just stupid. Nonetheless, even though many people who frequent these comment threads who have advanced theological degrees, it seems to me that there is a strange silence about your theological ignorance and wrongful accusations.
Why you are not bombarded with corrective comments from others on this thread for your obvious skewered theological rantings is beyond me.
I think the unwillingness to stand for truth is one reason the SBC has been and still is, in trouble. And that problem is on both sides of the CR question, but I think conservative are far more guilty because we say we stand on the Word of God. Well, sometimes I fear we only stand when it is convenient or when we are getting paid for it or receiving atta-boys from our Buddies. And that is just wrong.
Lastly Gene, (and I have been deleted from three comment threads for this, but I don’t care.) you were simply lying about the office renovations at SEBTS during the Patterson tenure there. There was no two inch wool carpet installed in the President’s Office.
You told that lie without ever dreaming that the very person responsible for that renovation was reading your comments as you wrote them.
Gene, I bought the carpet for the Patterson Office at Manor House Carpets in Wake Forest, NC. It was a good grade of carpet, but I bought it at a reduction in price because we bought all of our carpet there for every building and apartment there during my tenure there. It certainly was not “two inch wool” carpet as you stated on more than one occasion. I also ate breakfast with the two guys who installed the carpet the morning they did it at the now famous, Border Cafe in Wake Forest the morning they installed it. A HVAC guy named Fred Kemp who was with me, paid for the meal.
Seminary students who worked for me painted the office. They did it with paint I bought at reduced prices. The drapes in that office came from Target. When the office renovation was finished, students who worked for me hung all the trophy mounts back on the wall. One student worker who is now a Ph.D and serving well in a local church almost ruined one of the heads. I fixed it. I thought the young man was going to have a heart attack. I told him that Paige Patterson loved him far more than a dead animal and for him not to worry about it. I told him that if there was a problem, I would handle it. There was no problem. The head is now at SWBTS and I guess there is still no problem.
Gene, there is proof that you can verify yourself for everything I have said here about the renovation of the President’s Office at SEBTS. I would be an absolute fool if there was not.
You lied about the President’s Office at SEBTS Gene. And frankly, I believe you have lied about several other things there also.
You need to stop this stuff Gene. Your hatred for Southern Baptist conservatives has caused you to say shameful things that are simply untrue. It is high time you cleaned it up.
cb–
Is it necessary to name call when we could just “agree to disagree???”
I still am glad for you to view the pictures I took of Patterson’s office at SEBTS. Ornate, man, ornate!!!
I congratulate you for making it look CEO ornate on a cheap budget. You must have champaign tastes and a beer budget just like me!!!
Irregardless, a renovated office for Lolley at private foundation expense vs a renovation for Drummond as well a extensive changes to the President’s home with a wife who got 2-3 redo’s because she couldn’t make up her mind and giving office stuff it to him + another renovation for Patterson–both on CP money given primarily for missions–seems a little wasteful to me!!!
Sorry, but I am not and have never been a liar!!!
When the Pharisees could not deny the truth of Jesus, they simply said “He did it from the devil.” = Unpardonable sin of “grieving the Holy Spirit.”
Be careful, cb—very careful here!!!!
Gene,
You said you stood on “two inch wool carpet.” That was a lie. It was an intentional lie. You also lie when you say:
“Sorry, but I am not and have never been a liar!!!”
Gene, you were a born liar. You have always lied. In all probably, you will continue to do so.
We renovated the President’s Office because there was a need to do so. Otherwise we would not have done it. And it was not done on a “cheap budget” as you say. It was done on by a person careful of the budget provided him to fulfill his assignment.
It was not a “waste” of CP money. I was always rather protective of the money I used to carry out my assignments. I knew the people who gave that money held us in a sacred trust. As a matter of fact, it is pretty much a public record that I was protective of seminary money and property during my tenure there. Some might argue that I was over protective at times.
The bottom line is, you lied about the renovations during the Patterson years Gene. You know it. I know it. God knows it.
What else have you lied about in this comment thread Gene?
cb–
I think you are on moderation ground here. You insist on calling me a liar and—“methinks thou doest protest too much.”
I honor your caution with mission money. I take you at your word about your thrift. I just don’t see the reason for each new president to get a complete newly decorated office when the old one hardly had the paint dry.
As I pointed out—Lolley got a renovation out of a private grant used to to renovate the Administration Building which had gone some 20 years without touching. Many of the Professors had offices there too. They never complained about the cracks in plaster and blackening walls from years of tight budgets.
Within 5 years Drummond got a new office as Lolley was forced to resign. He stayed less than 10 and here comes the almighty Patterson where things are ripped out to the walls and replaced. Even if you saved so much, it was still mission money used to renovate an office which should have been good for 20 years at the shot. All 3 renovations looked “first class” compared to what Dr. Binkley had—just paint / no carpet / professor’s plain oak desk just like the classroom ones.
I look forward to your apology.
I am praying for your child’s health recovery.
By the way, what’s the deal with Patterson won’t take your calls anymore mentioned a couple days ago???
Gene,
It is you who should apologize to the readers of this blog. You lied. You know you lied.
As to your praying, let me preach you a mini-sermon.
There are two very important “Concepts” involved in answered prayer: “Content” and “Character.”
Since this is a mini-sermon, I will focus on only one concept at the moment. Besides, you don’t abide by the Scripture so the “Concept” of “Content” would be beyond the scope of a blog thread comment anyway.
Gene, the “Character” of a person praying is essential to answered prayer. And you have a character problem. You refuse to admit you lied when it is evident that you did.
My brother, you get your character in line through repentance before God. That needs to be focus of your prayer right now. Once you do that, I will be most appreciative of your prayers on my family’s behalf.
Gene,
To answer your question in regard to Dr. Patterson, I must say it is complicated. But, long-story-short, I treated him poorly. I treated him in a manner far less than appropriate for one Brother to treat another Brother. I can’t blame him for loosing respect for me.
cb–
If you can’t treat your model of theology and takeover nice enough to still be his friend—-is there any “lesson in niceness” to be learned?????
Gene,
You are talking “apples and oranges.”
I was talking about my personal sin.
I have repented of mine.
You need to repent of yours. You lied about SEBTS. You lied by willful intent. Repent and be done with it.
Lastly, I am not a disciple of the “gospel of nice.” I am a sinner saved by grace.
If you are a disciple of the gospel of nice, your real problem may be that you need to become a disciple of Christ.
cb–
Sorry I did not understand from you comment that is was your personal sin which precipitated the break. If you re-read what you said, I think you might make the same conclusion I drew.
I’ll ignore the rest of your personal insult and wish you both the best in Christian brotherhood–just wish I could get a little of it from you, cb.
Gene
In order for you to receive Christian brotherhood from CB, you would have to be a Christian. Since you have said, publicly on more than one blog, that you beleive Mormons are real Christians and have said at least once in a blog comment thread that muslims worship the same God that Christians worship, you have no idea what the biblical gospel is and therefore could not have believed it. As a result, you are not saved.
We’re up to 380 comments and David should be smiling—
Again, thanks Dave for the opportunity to “speak the truth [in love(?)]”
At some point above I can’t locate right now, DMiller makes the point consensus is being reached on Roe. I don’t think that is the case. When the 2nd and 3rd questions are asked, and people understand what’s at stake as put to them for instance in South Dakota in 08 referendum, they are about where Foy Valentine was in the 80’s. Timothy George’s 93 ERLC abortion point is ludicrous.
Karen Gormley’s several articles in the genre of Parsing the Politics of Abortion places Richard Land, the ERLC and the Southern Baptists who agree with him as uninformed and great bit to the Right of the Mainstream of American consensus in South Dakota among the great portion of the rest of the country.
Tom—
Your use of the English bespeaks great intellect. I’m glad you are analysing CR as many of us are.
This blog, like you say, is getting quite complex. However, it is drawing the most interesting comments with great insight attached.
Sadly, we still have Joe and cb doing what they have always done = trying to club any opposition to death rather than looking in the mirror and, like Pogo, realizing “The enemy is us!!!”
Tom Henry,
I know who you are and I am surprised at you. In the past, you have owned your own words.
Clean this mess up. You should be ashamed of yourself.
Moving this Takeover conversation along…
Perhaps we could start by naming all of the prominent participants in the Controversy who later went on to spend some time in the pokey. I’ll start with Sam Currin.
I’m sure you meant “resurgence” – right?
I’m hoping you’re being a little facetious here.
Honestly, are you maintaining that no one who voted moderate ever went to jail?
I think BDW, sadly, makes a most valid point:
No matter what your political / religious position—“It’s not how high you jump, but how straight you walk with you hit the ground” which really counts.
Nobody is “perfect,” but when the “perfect ones” go down over sexual matters / financial abuse / overstepping the bounds of separation of church and state—-despite the courts not wanting to intervene in religious matters, they can’t help but enforce our laws regarding honesty in this society.
Jerry Falwell just might have abandoned the Moral Majority because he got a warning from some law enforcement friends that he was overstepping the Constitutional boundry of church / state separation and about to receive his day in court as well!!!
Never ignore Jerry’s participation in all this CR mess—in every major Protestant denomination in America. This thing goes beyond SBC bounderies. We were just “easier to take over” because of our loose hierarchy and people willing to do what it took to consistently elect a CR President with his Committee on Committees apointive powers.
Any case involving the church—and church leaders—has to be so clear and egregious that the courts aren’t accused of over-stepping the church / state separation issues.
Conservatives in religion can thank God they got far more passes than they have deserved. The SBC/CR refusal to deal with Child Preditors has us on the moral laxity target just like Roman Catholics. The public in America will take only so much refusal to deal with moral matters hurting children!!!
I think we might have 1 example of “American concensus” when they are hard to find in a pluralistic society like ours.
Big Daddy,
I knew Sam. I once worked with him and Albert Lee Smith on a motion to present to the SBC. 🙂
I guess you will mention Russ next, right?
After we talk about those who went to jail from the CR side, let’s talk about some from before 1979 and some that should have. What do you say? This will be interesting.
Russ…you mean Patterson’s brother in law? The one who was a TRUSTEE while he was being investigated for his crime.
That is the one. But my point is, he would not be the only one and many of them were before 1979.
Lydia, I have great respect for you and I would not talk down to you for love nor money, but might I remind you that Christians are sinners.
We can do some pretty sinful things at times. And our political or theological leanings don’t hinder us a bit sometimes in our being sinful either.
Oh, I agree CB. The problem is two fold:
How some redefine sin to excuse our leaders who willfully and continually sin with pride, arrogance, greed, etc.
Truth is that Born Again believers do not consistently and willfully sin knowing truth. See Hebrews 10:26-31 and ALL of 1 John.
(True Christian “leaders” would look more like Matthew 5 than the CEO of a Fortune 500)
Where is growing in Holiness?
What does being a “new creature” mean. Is living a sinful life of wanting power and being greedy really normal for a believer? This could not be because the indwelling Holy Spirit convicts us of our sins and we have godly sorrow. When we are born again we start to love what God loves and hate what God hates. We cannot help it! Of course we fight it but HE WHO IS IN ME IS STRONGER THAN HE WHO IS IN THE WORLD!
We simply could not live in continual willful sin for long periods of time.
Why is it no one believes that anymore? Where is the Holy Spirit? We have replaced the Holy Spirit with authoritarian leaders and ‘husbands’.
If we can live in consistent willful sin for a long time then we should be scared to death. But please do not call it Christian. And no title or work can change that fact. Not even living on the mission field and sacrificing can change it.
I get a bit sick of hearing how normal it is for Christians to sin. What on earth is the point of being Born Again? Am I speaking of sinless perfection? Of course not. But I know even our thoughts are sinful and that Jesus raised the bar from murder being a sin to hate in our heart being the same as murder. So when we know even our thoughts are sinful then how much worse are we mired in sin when our ACTIONS are too!
Take Russ for example. Why didn’t he insist on stepping down as a trustee when being investigated? How could he stand being a fake? How can Patterson stand being so cruel and living the high life off others? And the consistent hypocrisy and power mongering among SBC leaders is nothing but pure sin. You can put lipstick on it, spin it as clever business but it is sin.
You know, you mentioned that Gene lied about Patterons’s office redo and I am sure you know what you are talking about. But what about all those stuffed heads? Didn’t Ben Cole show proof that the seminary paid the taxidermy bill for them?
I cannot defend Gene or the CBF. Nor can I defend our SBC leaders. Nor can I be Switzerland. :o) But I can defend what the Word teaches!
Lydia,
I cannot answer all of your questions because I simply do not know the answer.
I can say that I was personally involved is some of what you ask and state, and I must agree that I was sinful in my actions. For that I have repented. (In no lighthearted manner, If I may say so.)
I must also say that the answer to some of what you ask is complicated and brings about a prejudicial atmosphere beyond what I am willing to talk about in a comment thread.
Nonetheless, I must agree with you that we excuse sin far too easily as “just being normal” and we especially do that in relation to our own sin. Such an attitude “births” hypocrites. Never does it “grow” mature Believers.
I also agree with you in stating:
“If we can live in consistent willful sin for a long time then we should be scared to death. But please do not call it Christian. And no title or work can change that fact. Not even living on the mission field and sacrificing can change it.”
cb–
It is somewhere above in your discussion with Lydia (I think). I saw it fresh this morning. I didn’t bring him up, but his name is in this blog.
I don’t know him nor have anything to speak +/-. It was just a comment as to how Patterson’ brother-in-law got into some kind of legal trouble which Patterson ignored.
cb–
Can you tell me why you not only rant, but get so righteously right over people telling lies when I clearly said I had mistaken the identity??? If I had a nickel for every lie and distortion told by CR and those still told about SEBTS pre-1979—I would be a rich man right now!!!
Your rightness is so right you believe “the end justifies the means to it”—even if it destroyed 10 moderate professors for every mistaken thing I unintentionally said assuming I was being told of Russ Bush.
Take a break / got to a football game / freeze you monkey tail off / come back without a nauseating self-righteousness with offends me 10 times more than I just offended you—PLEASE—this is too rotten to read after enjoying a good supper on a peaceful Friday night!!!!
“Can you tell me why you not only rant, but get so righteously right over people telling lies….”
Gene,
What exactly do you want me to do? Do you want me to be happy when you tell lies about people?
Do you want me to say, “Atta-boy Gene. Tell those lies. Rock ’em. Sock ’em. Kick ’em in the Head!!”
Is that what you want me to do Gene? I’ll tell you what Gene. Its a strange world you live in. A strange world indeed.
Your rightness is so right you believe “the end justifies the means to it”—even if it destroyed 10 moderate professors
I’m sorry, I missed the part where moderates being hurt or destroyed is a bad thing.
Lydia–
If we use the basic concept of “harmartia” from the Greek, it means “separation.” Anyone who is separated from God / himself / truth / love / other believers / etc. is in a state of “sin.”
I think we all are in that state from time to time–even after we have been “saved.” The question there is “saved to what?”
I see any non-stop destructon of another human, much less a fellow believer, a one of the worst kinds of sin.
As long as we can castigate homosexuals / ordained women / moderates / dissenters as “being sinful” we don’t have to face our own individual sinfulness. I see cb as one of the worst in this area. You are totally right in your question about Russ Bush. I think he is deferring your question too much and knows more than he admits.
It all bespeaks a focus on fellow “Knights marching together” rather than requiring those Knights to be honest and caring to qualify as true Knights. That is why the “Knights of the KKK” is one of the most rediculous covers for white supremicists who have taken that, once honorable, association to the depths of depravity—and have lost their respectibility in the public eye.
Gene,
No one mentioned Russ Bush.
Gene, You have the tongue of a viper and your heart is as an open grave releasing the smell of the rotting dead.
I am going to give you a piece of advice. Don’t speak evil of Russ Bush. He was a nobel and honorable man who devoted his life to the advancement of God’s Kingdom.
He was a man of character far beyond the both of us.
You ain’t fit to carry guts to feed a circus bear Gene. Leave a man like Russ Bush out of this discussion.
Comment 453 should be here. With all the additions, the numbers change.
The name of Russ Bush in in 451!! Lldia was that person.
I just double-checked and I could be mistaken. The single name of Russ was given. Bush is the only one I know associated with CR with that name.
If I assumed too much, I certainly apologize for the error.
I do know how to, at least APOLOGIZE!
Gene, they are talking about a different Russ, not Russ Bush. Two different men with the same first name.
Russell Kammerling, another brother-in-law of Patterson, was a trustee with the International Mission Board. If I remember correctly, he was convicted of fraud and investigated while a Trustee and eventually convicted and served time. He did not step down while being investigated.
“I can say that I was personally involved is some of what you ask and state, and I must agree that I was sinful in my actions. For that I have repented. (In no lighthearted manner, If I may say so.)”
Praise the Lord! but the question remains why you defend Patterson so much when he obviously has not repented for such things and even continues in such shenanigans with donor money. Why continue to “enable” sin within the SBC leadership with the constant defending?
Is it a sort of Caner redux?
Gene,
Dave is right. No one mentioned Russ Bush.
Nonetheless, you state Lydia used his name:
“The name of Russ Bush in in 451!! Lldia was that person.”
Therein, is another example of the serious problem you have in all of these dialogues.
Gene, anybody who actually had the experience during the CR that you claim for yourself would know that Lydia was not in reference to Dr. Russ Bush.
Anyone who has the knowledge of SEBTS that you claim for yourself would know Russ Bush never went to jail.
Anyone who has the knowledge of the CR, Paige Patterson, SEBTS and Russ Bush that you claim for yourself would certainly know that Russ Bush was not a brother-in-law to Paige Patterson.
Beyond that, anyone with the moral character you claim for yourself would not make this statement:
“I don’t know him nor have anything to speak +/-. It was just a comment as to how Patterson’ brother-in-law got into some kind of legal trouble which Patterson ignored.”
You have no idea whatsoever of what you speak, but you declare that Paige Patterson’s “brother-in-law got into some kind of legal trouble which Patterson ignored.”
And you assumed you knew that brother-in-law was Dr. Russ Bush.
The truth is Gene, that the more you say, the more it is evident that you know little to nothing of the CR, SEBTS or past and present SBC leadership and what they did or did not do.
You make this stuff as you go Gene. That means that you simply come on a blog comment thread and make up lies, declare them as truth, get angered when you are called on it and castigate the person/persons who challenge you in your sin.
Gene, I appreciate the fact that you have apologized about your statement about Russ Bush. That is a good thing.
Yet, it is only a good start. Gene, the people you make things up about are “real” people. They have lives, families and jobs. They have feelings. They can be hurt.
You need to think about that seriously before you disengage your brain and moral integrity again and go off on another person, you know little or nothing about, saying things as fact, when actually what you are saying is only a fabrication of your own making.
I tell you what Gene. You go over on the “Sports thread” and tell all the lies you want to about UNC. I will come over and join you and tell even greater lies about ALABAMA. We will have a good time. But you need to cease fabricating stories about real people and telling those stories for truth.
Lydia,
If you will remember, I have defended Paige Patterson when I knew he was not guilty of what he was being accused.
You might also remember that I have stated my differences with him when I knew he was wrong.
Relating to some things, I simply don’t know the answer and I have confessed that when such was the case.
cb–
Your rant is noted. The one thing you didn’t notice in your tyrade is that I corrected and apologized for assuming the Russ mentioned by Lydia did have Bush behind it. I corrected myself—which you never do.
I was not at SEBTS during their days, therefore I know few deatails. I visited a number of times and found Patterson worshipers everywhere.
Why don’t you just get off you soap box. You have now proved how high the monkey can climb the soap box instead of the tree this time!!
Thanks for the wasted rant!!!
Gene,
It was there. You just missed it
“Gene, I appreciate the fact that you have apologized about your statement about Russ Bush. That is a good thing.”
Plain as day Gene.
And you are right. You were not there. You know few details.
Is that another apology?
Edited for commenting violation.
My apologies for the Typo, a Real book by a real daughter of a real fundamentalist in a Real Town, in the Real World where an SSBN would use a real name and not be subject to moderation; a guise for stifling dissent.
How can you spell Baptist without Dissent.
If any of these guys who went to jail had a tatoo and sung a little country, I would have put my arm around them AND allowed my picture !
We could use a little good humor, Jack—this discussion is now getting very serious and very focused!!!!
Thanks again, Dave, for opening the lid of Pandora’s Box on this.
Are you a man of your word on “no moderation?” For real????
“”Jerry Falwell just might have abandoned the Moral Majority because he got a warning from some law enforcement friends that he was overstepping the Constitutional boundry of church / state separation and about to receive his day in court as well!!!””
There is ABSOLUTELY no foundation for this statement and both Jerry Falwell, and later, his wife give the reason why Jerry backed off from the greatest life-saving move of God in our modern day.
Here we have a statement by a self-proclaimed moderate that is typical of how moderates deal with truth — JUST IGNORE IT OR START A RUMOR AND HOPE IT STICKS.
No truth. No shame. No sense.
There is always a given “reason”—and then there is the “reason behind the reason.”
If you want to consider it rumor, go right ahead. If I am right we just might get a more of the truth as this blog is offering.
It is NO RUMOR that Jerry participated in many of the CR leadership’s Board of Visitors / Directors. There is a wider connectionalism between CR and other organized conservative efforts than meets the eye—this you can, with certainty, believe and research.
I have an “interesting list of interconnections” in my files from a meeting I attended several years ago in Atlanta. It was done by a serious researcher of such.
What’s new? Jerry Falwell believed the Word of God to be true. He became friends with others who did the same. How is that wrong? He was a good man. He was good to many people. Did he make mistakes? Of course he did. He was a sinner saved by grace.
And Gene, you would not know Jerry Falwell if he came back from Heaven tonight and slapped you in your lyin’ mouth.
It’s not wrong is they are “just good friends.”
It is very wrong if they get funds for being on each other’s boards in addition to their income for serving Southern Baptists at CP expense!
It is more wrong if they conspire to take over every Protestant Denomination in the US + use their influence with all their congregants to manipulate the vote for George Bush and other Conservative Republicans wooing the religious right wing.
Now, we are talking about violating the Constitution of the United States when it comes to separation of church and state. A tax-exempt non-profit status for religious organizations is totally dependent on separation of church and state at all times!
I would recognize Jerry Falwell’s jowls in any crowd—and what makes you assume he came back from Heaven????
He was such a distorter of truth and hater of SBC pre-1979 he might be wearing an asbestos suit if the Bible speaks the truth about those who “grieve the Holy Spirit.”
My own brother-in-law told me (as a businessman who supplied goods for his church / college) of how he told 4 different asphault contractors how he had gifts from 3 others to do his parking lot and would they consider being the 4th to contribute. When the contractors all arrived and chatted—they had all been told the same story so they had clearly been “taken for a ride” on contributing. However, they were men of their word and did what they promised—for the first and last time!!!
You do the math on that one—and that is not rumor, but a valid accounting from my brother-in-law with no ax to grind, but no respect now for Jerry Falwell!
“”they conspire to take over every Protestant denomination””
Is this the most outrageous accusation of the decade? I give it my vote.
This person probably believes the moon landing was a conspiracy also and we were only in Arizona.
Wow! This is an unbelievable exercise of the imagination!
“”My own brother-in-law told me (as a businessman who supplied goods for his church / college) of how he told 4 different asphault contractors how he had gifts from 3 others to do his parking lot and would they consider being the 4th to contribute. When the contractors all arrived and chatted—they had all been told the same story so they had clearly been “taken for a ride” on contributing. However, they were men of their word and did what they promised—for the first and last time!!!””
Two word rebuttal: Prove it!
So this thing is true because a brother-in-law told a brother-in law who actually does have an ax to grind and we know for sure he will lie to grind his ax at the drop of a hat and that brother-in-law just happens to be you Gene?
Moon Landing and Asphalt companies and the depth of Carpet.
Why not look at the First Eleven Chapters of Genesis and Chandler Davidson’s evaluaton of Criswell in Race and Class in Texas Politics.
“”Jerry Falwell just might have abandoned the Moral Majority because he got a warning from some law enforcement friends that he was overstepping the Constitutional boundry of church / state separation and about to receive his day in court as well!!!””
So Gene,would he get his day in court along with Jesse Jackson for the same accusation?
Probably–if the court were not so hesitant to take on church folks for abuses!
It has to be so clear and undeniable as to overcome any allegation that government cannot abuse churches–and that is a hard on to obtain.
What do Jesse Jackson and Billy Graham have in common?
The answer was on PBS Wednesday night if you were paying attention.
Well, it did not take long for the moderate gloves to come off, huh?
We have now moved from talking about the CR, theology, the racism, and to out and out slander by some (not all).
I hear so many posts about how the conservatives were mean and people got hurt, with the implication being that the moderate supporters would never stoop to such low tactics. And then we are treated to this?
Again, not all of the comments are bad and out of line, but a few are and I think they should be removed and at least one person banned until an apology is issued.
But that’s just my feeling.
Louis, I deleted the most offensive comment. Folks, I promised a free, open and unhindered debate/discussion/free-for-all here. I intend to follow through on that.
But there is a limit. You cannot make unfounded, unproven, undocumented accusations against men’s character. Disagree with their actions – fine. challenge their beliefs – go for it. But do not lodge character-based accusations against people.
Tom Henry, your comments are going on moderation until you contact me. I’m dumb, but I’m not stupid. I allow people to log in under pseudonyms, but not under false names to hide their identity.
If I’m wrong, I will apologize publicly. You can contact me at my email at pastordave@cableone.net.
So as we’re discussing the seminaries and such, I think you all may find this interesting.
A local pastor from the Assembly of God church in Haughton, LA, the church that just built a 200 ft. cross because God told him to do so, has been decrying the AG seminaries as a cesspool of out of touch theologians who have lost the anointing. He fears that the seminaries are no longer the place to send people to get trained in the ministry because of their (the seminaries) theology.
Does any of this sound familiar?
With the articles he posted, it would seem that we could probably get a ringside seat for something akin to the CR happening within the ranks of the Assemblies of God churches.
Such is being attempted with all denominations for years. The SBC was just “easy pickings” because of our non-hierarchy and the trusting nature of the average SBC church member.
My own mother, trained at Carver School of Missions (destroyed by Mohler at Southern) / active in WMU / believer in the rights of women to comment / dedicated life-long Southern Baptist—attends a church with a CR pastor.
She gives her tithe to that church and doesn’t want to discuss it with me. If daddy were still alive it would be different, but she is trusting—-far too trusting without caring to keep up with things going on since 1979.
It has taken 40 years for such trusting Baptists to see some light. Still they don’t want to believe it of “good men in leadership.”
I think the most influential factor in the “plateauing of giving and growing” has more to do with mega churches proliferating while the local smaller autonomous and cooperating churches are being passed over in today’s SBC world.
Tom Henry:
I have not read Bill Hull’s book, but would like to when I find the time.
I read what I thought was a pretty good review of the book, I believe in ABP or some other outlet. It was not a hostile review.
On the race thing, I see that you again are going back decades before CR to prove that the leaders and supporters of the CR were not as progressive as the people who opposed the CR.
Again, let me suggest that what you are missing is anything that connects the CR to racism. That’s called a “nexus” in legal terms.
I would be glad to read and consider anything that you can find in that regard, but the name association game is really weak.
Since there is a short lapse in discussion I would like to apologise to Louise for the verbal Donnybrook that took place, and while I did not contribute a post I did read it over and over having much more fun than any one person should have. Maybe if that occurres again Louise you could have a code phrase to alert the Moderator like; “Mr. Miller, Mr. Miller he said a bad thing” and we’ll all come running.
cb 426 – I think you mean that.
Jack,
I did. It happened. If Jesus tarries, it will happen again. It is my prayer that it does not happen to me. For I am a sinner, who can get in trouble in a New York Minute.
We are all sinners and any of us could land in jail. Actually, going to jail is not the issue to me. The issue to me is always; Is he guilty?
Jack:
Thanks for the apology. I certainly wasn’t talking about you.
I do not think that slander is a good thing. I am glad Dave removed the comment. The person who made it obviously got really angry and carried away.
It was good for the commenter (I’m sure he regrets what he said now), it was good for this blog site (If the blog moderator knows something to be slanderous and continues to provide a forum for it I don’t know but that there could be liability for the blog host), and it’s good for us.
So we can keep the discussion on a higher plane.
Take care.
Good night John boy / good night Mary Ellen / good night—it’s 12:05 and the witches will be coming out this close to Halloween.
I live by the Pamlico where Blackbeard’s ship passed going to Bath, the oldest town in the state. I think I see a silloette in the moonlight and there is a lantern swinging over the water. Let me tuck myself in quick or the ghosts of Indians might get me too!
What fool blogs after midnight?????
Frank and Larry = SSBN by his own admission!!!
Seems a little schizophrenic to me!
BDW feels more confident with Frank and/or Larry rather than SSBN.
I aim to please so I am using them both to help keep BDW’s blood pressure at a manageable (sp?) level.
I don’t want him to have a heart attack and lose 4 days of blogging 🙂
Still seems a little schizophrenic to me—and what about wanting to give BDW a heart attack = “in the spirit of Christain love”—should be added!
Curtis Freeman is head of the Baptist House of Studies at Duke University. He has published a lecture in which he traces fundamentalism and modernism (liberalism) historically. As we start our day of discussion, I think it is a good basis of discussion going back before many of the thing BDW has cited:
http://search.mywebsearch.com/mywebsearch/redirect.jhtml?qid=773a082bd3d6e4d8b0c24f39b5ee04b6&searchfor=curtis+freeman+marney+and+race&action=pick&pn=1&si=iac1&n=77ce7e83&ptb=Pk2WFWxE3IMh9tiJW5X51Q&ptnrS=ZJxdm398YYUS&ss=&st=bar&cb=ZJ&pg=GGmain&ord=0&tpr=&redirect=mPWsrdz9heamc8iHEhldEc9aOqTyWnbXgJZnIpqCyX3a47eL7RFnueRv%2Ftx3%2BOrK14WBn8xAXQB7VNoAx1MS1G6nZ8dwy0P%2FvVF7SSdSqHBs0WIcQe2aJ7sK%2BVRz0Jvp&ct=AR
I tried to copy and past the actual article, but my reader won’t allow it–sorry.
Page 277 of the Freeman lecture will save you some wasted time.
I am sure Christiane will delight in this article where Roman Catholicism is a distinct part!
Gene:
Thank you for posting the article by Curtis Freeman. I found it interesting. The most interesting part to me was the analysis of history. The predictions or advice for the future was not as strong.
The most interesting quote for me was from p. 293, that is is a “Mistake to write off the twentieth century theological conflicts among Baptists simply as a power play by mean people.”
He says it was the “inevitable consequence of interaction between these two (moderate/conservative) rival visions of theology…”
For me, that confirms the necessity of the SBC Baptist family dividing up. The way it happened, the players, the timing etc. are not the relevant points for Freeman. It’s the fact that it needed to be done.
I believe it is a mistake for moderates and conservatives, with their rival theological visions, to try and run theological seminaries and missions together. They were bound together by history, but as time moved on their rival visions became something that could not coexist.
That’s why it is good that moderates have the CBF and the other institutions to express their theological vision.