William Thornton

Jonathan Whitehead is unlikely to win a popularity vote among SBCV people but his words on the current controversy over a brief filed by lawyers for the SBC, SBCEC, Lifeway, and SBTS regarding a Kentucky case should be read. I've always found his writing to be incisive and well informed. Excerpts from his American Reformer article: Many Baptists have understood the SBC abuse reform effort in terms of brochures, websites, and trainings about how churches can prevent grooming and abuse.  But the brief brouhaha highlights the area of “caring well” or “responding to abuse victims,” which can … [Read more...] about Sober view on the amici controversy

Jared Wellman and the SBC Cooperation Group is doing a survey. Lifeway Research is collaborating in this and all SBC churches with an email address receive the survey. [As an aside, I get a malware notice from my security software on Windows but not on my iPad.] Here is the survey and how I would have answered as pastor of the church from which I retired. The survey asks for answers on a scale from "strongly disagree" to "don't know". I'm not a survey expert and don't know why the choice was negatives first followed by the positives. _____ The Cooperative Program supports SBC … [Read more...] about The Cooperation Group/Lifeway survey on the Cooperative Program: Anything of value to come from it?

It's stunningly stupid that in the 21st century any church or individual would not recognize that white people using black theatrical makeup to portray any African American is highly offensive. But, one Oklahoma church pastor did (8 years ago, when Obama was president) just that. The mostly dysfunctional SBC Executive Committee recently expelled the church. Here's what I don't like about that: It looks like a case of a stubborn pastor, not a racist church. The pastor should have said about the 2015 incident, "Yeah. That was dumb. I apologize for it." He doubled down instead. So, a … [Read more...] about Blackface and expelling the lowly offensive church

If you like turmoil, rancor, disasters, and train wrecks...you should be enjoying SBC life right now. But...a glimmer of optimism appears. Is the Cooperation Group too little, too late? Cooperation Group named by Barber. Our president, Texas cattle baron and beleaguered Cardinal fan, Bart Barber said: “These declarations that churches are not in friendly cooperation and these appeals in response to those declarations represent a change in the fundamental processes by which we cooperate with one another,”   “Within our Convention exists a widespread sentiment that the terms of the … [Read more...] about Have “the terms of our [cooperative] agreement changed?”…and other important SBC questions.

Now the overseer is to be above reproach, faithful to his wife, temperate, self-controlled, respectable... He must also have a good reputation with outsiders, That would be the universe of our Grand Convention, proudly Southern Baptists, and doggone the critics we will slog onward whatever the insanity. I cannot provide the mindset of Southern Baptist women, since my pronouns are "he," "him," and occasionally "jerk," but I'm taking a risk that our recent experiences with amending the SBC constitution to target any woman who fills a job with the title of "pastor/elder/overseer" has set the … [Read more...] about In what universe do immoral pastors get standing ovations and faithful women staff pastors are “sisters living in disobedience”?

Take the biblical approach to this: when you hear about SBC transparency,  see that ye be not troubled. It's not going to happen. But allow me to sally forth and tilt once again against the non-transparency windmill: I commend herewith respected pastor Andrew Hebert, whose Baptist Press article included this point: If our cooperative work if going to succeed, we need a new commitment to integrity in our leadership and transparency about our leadership. We need to make sure the windows are open and the light is shining into how we do our business. Transparency builds trust. The old … [Read more...] about Transparency and rumors of transparency

Our Grand Convention has the attention span of a toddler. We lurch from one topic/crisis/scandal/issue du jour to another at breathtaking speed, "forgetting what lies behind" and boldly, sometimes recklessly, turning our attention and energies to the next one. Witness the ease with which sex abuse reform was displaced in favor of policing job title vocabulary in local churches. Egad. What lies ahead is a task force on cooperation, one that has considerable possibilities for actual results. I predict that unless the abuse implementation task force moves into something very controversial, … [Read more...] about Doubts about SBC abuse reform at the national level

If a church has multiple pastors, who is the pastor and how does the congregation express this? Is the fresh-faced nineteen year old summer student pastor the same as his ultimate supervisor? The SBC spent decades with a pastor/deacon model. Those decades were the greatest in our growth. Why is that model so easily discarded? How much of our ecclesiology can be traced to American affluence and liberty? If churches didn't have buildings and budgets would church governance look different? Is it fair to say that Southern Baptists, once megachurches and their celebrity pastors moved … [Read more...] about Thirty questions on our ecclesiology

That is the question. Here's a church: The church has always been SBC, at every level, association, state convention, and national convention. The church supports each of those "levels" of SBC life through contributions. The church is doctrinally orthodox and closely identifies with the BFM although it has not been formally adopted as the church's statement of faith. The lead pastor has two degrees from one of the six SBC seminaries. The lead pastor is ordained by an SBC church, has never been anything other than a Southern Baptist. The lead pastor has started several … [Read more...] about Could you cooperate with this church?

I apologize in advance to any actual rodeo clowns who might read this. They risk life and limb in an entertaining way whereas their equivalents in our Grand Old Convention risk nothing and failure merely means you get your sinecure a little earlier than expected. Here is some of the-stuff-that-you-cannot-make-up about the SBC. Remember when IMB had a funding shortfall of $210 million, somewhere around $30m per year and that led to over 1,000 missionaries retiring? That was bad. How could they? (easy, just coast along and think magical thoughts about a turnaround). Well, SWBTS had only a … [Read more...] about When it comes to train wrecks and rodeo clown acts, the SBC never disappoints