Presiding at a funeral last week, I followed the usual protocol of leading a short procession from the hearse to the gravesite. The hearse parked close to a tent that had been erected. The body had been cremated and there was no stand for a casket nor a big pile of dirt thoughtfully covered by […]
Conservative Baptist Network to the six SBC seminaries: Drop dead!
I’ve been waiting since 1975 to find a good use for this headline in SBC life. Thank you, Conservative Baptist Network for the opportunity. Before they even went public with their mysterious new group, the CBN arranged a partnership with my old and beloved alma mater, Mid-America Baptist Theological Seminary in Memphis, TN. MABTS is […]
Bob Allen, top reporter on abuse in Baptist churches leaves Baptist New Global
Before the Houston Chronicle did their series on sex abuse, long before the metoo movement, before Christa Brown, Dee Parsons, or any of the others started writing on the subject, and way back when neither Baptist Press nor any of the state Southern Baptist newspapers and news would report on abuse in SBC churches, reporter […]
I’m at the point of dropping out, I’m afraid.
Sometimes you get fed up. Sometimes you get bored. Sometimes you just feel that it’s time to move on. Sometimes you recognize that this just isn’t the place for you. I’m not talking about the SBC, about blogging, about Voices, or about my current church but I’d guess that there are many parallels in the […]
One good thing about Randy Adams’ SBC presidential candidacy: No use of Non-disclosure agreements
We are less than one hundred days out from the SBC Annual Meeting in Orlando and from a contested presidential election between Al Mohler and Randy Adams. Mohler is ubiquitous in SBC life from his position as president of our oldest seminary, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. Adams is CEO of the Northwest Baptist Convention which […]
The bad idea that keeps coming back: remote voting for the SBC Annual Meeting
Attendance at the SBC Annual Meeting in my active SBC lifetime has ranged from under five thousand to over forty-five thousand. We can expect less then the convention is outside of the traditional southern cities that regularly host the meeting (Dallas, Houston, New Orleans, Atlanta, Orlando, St. Louis, Kansas City, San Antonio; more recently Louisville, […]
Baptisms are down. Woe is us. Can this be explained?
Doesn’t really need an explanation. The numbers of baptisms by churches affiliated with the SBC is a decent measure of what’s going on in evangelism in our churches and the number of dunks is in a long term, persistent, consistent slide downward. The last reporting year, 2018, showed 246,442 baptisms. Reporters who are fond of […]
The Southern Baptist Convention is in a pretty sorry state…
…or is it? Depends on whose describing it and what they look at. I have grave reservations about these parts of SBC life: The long running decline in baptisms. This is a trend that precedes any current controversy, wasn’t caused by Cals, Trads, Cons, the secret CBN, NAMB, the ERLC, or anything else along these […]
The Executive Committee’s investigation of the ERLC should be scrutinized
The Pastor’s Conference has been a slow-motion train wreck from the start. One would expect the Executive Committee to exert control over what happens at the venue identified as the Southern Baptist Convention in annual session. I still have gripes about who gets display space in the exhibit hall for the SBCAM even though the […]
Count me in on Vision 2025
Baptist Press reports on Executive Committee CEO Ronnie Floyd’s report to the EC yesterday: Floyd issue Vision 2025 call to reach every person with the Gospel Five “strategic actions”: Increase the total number of full-time, fully funded missionaries by a net gain of 500, giving the SBC 4,200 full-time, fully funded missionaries through the International […]
I don’t think I’ll join Brad Jurkovich’s secret group with undisclosed funding
People sometimes declare themselves to be 4 point Calvinists, or 3 1/2 point Calvinists. I’ll describe myself as a 4 point Jurkovichist. That is, I’ll fully take three of Jurkovich’s five points listed under “our purpose” and half of two others making me a four-pointer. Shoot, I’d join the group but you have to give […]
Perhaps this is why abuse victims and their advocates always seem to be spittin’ mad at the SBC
Those of us who follow these things have probably thought that abuse victims and their advocates are in a perpetual state of anger at “the SBC.” Two abuse victims wrote here that “There is a tipping point, though, at which genuine advocacy slips into routine outrage…” I thought that to be a cogent statement at […]