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William Thornton

The strange journey of our venerable CP and mission offerings

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Just the facts, brethren. These measures are up, considerably up. CP giving above budget by $10.4 million through July As of July 31, gifts received by the EC for distribution through the CP Allocation Budget total $168,760,690.32. This is $6,714,403.20 or 4.14 percent more than last year’s budget contribution of $162,046,287.12. The amount given is […]

Interview with a pirate about the SBC and women pastors

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William: “You there with the ear ring, the cutlass, and your hair on fire; you’ve got problem with women pastors in the Southern Baptist Convention? Pirate: “Aaaargh! Dadgum straight I’ve got a problem with it. It’s a big problem.” W: “Yeah, a big problem? How many women are there in the SBC who lead churches […]

Can these average sized and below SBC churches survive?

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Dave Miller’s insightful article about his and his church’s recent travails was excellent. It was also paradigmatic of thousands of SBC churches. Dave’s church was not a small or average-sized church and I’m thinking here of the average-sized SBC church, somewhere around 125, and the median sized SBC churches, somewhere around 70. Generally, these are […]

I am liberating myself from my redneck pick-up truck

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Here in Georgia there are pick-up trucks and there are redneck pick-up trucks. I have driven one of the latter for a decade or so. You can drive a sparkling new Ford King Ranch, maybe $80-90,000 truck and turn it into a redneck truck if you fly a Confederate Flag. If you spend that much […]

SCOTUS decision

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Baptist Press general article ERLC: How to talk to your church about the SC decision ERCL explainers: Here, here, here Faith leaders divided… (includes quotes from Brent Leatherwood, ERLC) __________________      

Are SBC state conventions doomed and just surviving is the goal?

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Well, I suppose I voted for the thing a couple of decades ago. The “thing” is the last remaining monument to the foolhardy faith of SBCers in an endlessly upward trend line; that is, we just expected more churches to give more money to the Cooperative Program year-after-year. Millions of new people were moving to […]

Overlooked: SATF “challenges” for state conventions

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Try not to yawn. This isn’t as controversial and contentious as the database or survivor fund (delayed until next year) but may be more helpful in addressing the sex abuse issue. The Sex Abuse Task Force issued five “challenges” to state conventions. State conventions are in a better position to handle many issues with churches because […]

Guidepost’s recommendation of a “Survivor Compensation Fund”

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As I have followed and read about abuse in SBC churches, the subject of “the SBC” funding some level of compensation for survivors has often been discussed. The Guidepost report calls this a “Survivor Compensation Fund Program” and has a recommendation in this regard, page 268: Establish a Survivor Compensation Fund Program: We recommend a […]

Our 86 member Executive Committee and sex abuse in the Convention

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I join my colleagues here in expressing sorrow and lament for so many victims of horrible abuse in churches and entities of our convention. We may differ on some aspects of recommended changes but not on that.   _____________________ Last year after some disastrous Zoom meetings many were calling for the SBC Executive Committee to revert […]