Back in the day, The Age of Blogs, there were a handful of sites that were SBC go-to blogs: SBC Today in its first or second iteration, SBC Outpost, SBC Voices, a few personal sites. If you read a dozen you probably had all the SBC news worth reading, and from different points of view.
Then came the SBC celebrity sites and Twitter with snippets, factoids, puffery, and excruciatingly tedious strings of Tweets. Blogs took a back seat. Not quite under the bus yet but definitely diminished.
I suppose Facebook figures in all this but I have my own scruples and FB doesn’t get a lot of attention from me, not even cute cat pictures.
Consider this an old dude, hacker and plodder blogger in the SBC hinterlands giving his non-techno, sub-social media savvy opinions.
So, I notice that my old Georgia colleague, guy with the best hair in the SBC, and pretty good blogger, the little “g” great “I am” Peter…Lumpkins is off the bench and back in action.
Peter and I agree on some things and disagree on some things. He’s a very smart guy and highly connected. I’m glad he is back to blogging and has a couple of items on those pesky discernment blogs. Check his table showing the various rankings including Mohler, himself, P & P, Capstone, Voices and others. (Easily found)
He concludes: “Get used to it. “Discernment blogs” are here to stay–at least for now.” No debate from me. SBC leadership, whatever their motives (and I assume they are proper) would love to have the field to themselves. That would be a disaster, unrestrained, unchecked, unaccountable denominational power. Better to have imperfect checks on that than an SBC world absent any platform for little guys to point fingers, ask questions, and bring to light misbehavior.
Why is this an article? It’s typically our policy not to draw attention to such sites.
Reality beckons, Mike.
No one here had anything to do with this but me. Peter makes folks mad but is fact-based, data driven most of the time.
Sure. But it’s been our policy not to push traffic to such sites. Why are we highlighting or even celebrating this?
No link provided. I agree with Lumpkins’ opinion on this. I also appreciated the table of rankings. Readers can decide for themselves.
Lumpkins spent all of his credibility by promoting one of the biggest frauds in modern SBC history, and by attacking anyone who told the truth about him. He showed he lacked any integrity and he has never apologized for lying to the SBC to protect a fraud.
So, frankly, I don’t pay any attention to anything Peter Lumpkins says.
100% agreed.
Honestly, I forgot what that was?
What did he promote?
With an article like this, I’ll be paying less attention to what William Thornton says.
William Thornton, thanks for bringing this issue up, as I feel it is needed. Personally I look for those who are different than I in opinions and viewpoints. I find it harder than it should be to find someone to have a reasonable conversation with that has an opposing view than I. Every blog , every article , I guess life is a discernment issue. There old political saying “people vote with their feet” was true of communism and it is true of internet blogs. I come to SBC Voices not for validation of my point of view but sometimes to challenge my point of view. There are many sites I can go to that I totally agree with but what is the value of that? To use a political communication example, I force myself to watch 30 minutes (morning and night) of CNN news, MSNBC News and Fox News. My favorite guy is Lou Dobbs on Fox Business but I know he is preaching to the choir I am in, however I find his discernment sound on issues. I believe you are a honest broker of sharing information and I value your comments , so your bones as the gangster say are made with me. I will defend your right to disagree with me (and be wrong) to your death. Thank you for sharing this. I went to P. Lumpkins site and read his two current pieces, as of now I have no firm opinion . It seems he is reasonable and worth consideration. The First Amendment is the First Amendment for a reason. Otherwise we have Pravda, which means listen, Truth in Russian , the only paper you could get in Communist Russia., I will take discernment blogs any day.
Rather harsh remark based on one article you don’t agree with.. I don’t particularly like Lumpkins either nor do I agree with the articles conclusion but I will still listen to William Thornton. He is allowed to be wrong occasionally without being listened to less.
Mr Plodder,
As a fellow Georgian, let me lend my moral support to my beleagured elder brother in Christ. Pay no attention to these nay-sayers. I am certainly not one who scours the internet for everything SBC, but Peter is connected, and any person pursuing points of view regarding the current milieu of all things SBC will certainly cross paths with Mr Lumpkins. If you happen to make it to Orlando, would love to visit with you. I think it may be an interesting convention!
Not planning to go this year. Thanks for the kind words.
I was hoping you and I could take a day and hit Disney together, William.
You buy, I’ll go. May hit fantasyland and see if we can find some Cals.
“You buy, I’ll go. May hit fantasyland and see if we can find some Cals.”
This solidified my continued readership/lurkership. Haha.
For the record, William is a contributor at Voices. He has the freedom to speak his mind. SBC Voices is about different viewpoints. William ran this post by me (us) before he posted it. I made one suggestion which he honored. But he says what he thinks. If you follow this site, William and I have sometimes posted articles in contradiction to posts the other has published.
I would pretty much NEVER post an article referencing something Peter Lumpkins says because I believe his past lies in defense of Ergun Caner have disqualified him as a voice in the SBC. That is my opinion.
William is free to post as he pleases. It is seldom that we ask one of our contributors not to post. It is a privilege of being a regular contributor.
Oh, that deal. Yes I remember that.
William and Dave,
I agree with your approach and respectfully disagree with the urge to not mention certain people so they don’t get notoriety.
I believe the other approach is a mistake.
You can always tell the blogs that do that. They have the feel of vested commercial interests. Guy 1 says something out of line. Let’s cancel him.
This appeals a lot to younger people today both outside and inside the Christian Community. I’m not sure why.
The de-platforming of people who step out of line has a very authoritarian feel to it. People recognize it. It affects perception IMO.
Cudos to you for having more confidence in your opinions.
The Age of Blogs was incredibly disillusioning to me. As a new-ish Baptist, I voraciously read Baptist publications and blogs. And so often it struck me as … petty. That is, (1) political, all sides getting in condescending digs at other Baptist factions; (2) opinion, speculation, suspicion and hasty reaction; (3) little fact-checking; and (4) almost no corrections, retractions or apologies for errors/misinformation. Fact-checking is so easy! People would post all kinds of stuff that 5 minutes of googling showed me was unfounded or flat wrong (e.g. whether a given Senator voted for or against a bill; whether so-and-so said something-or-other). I lost respect for the whole enterprise.
I ended up reading here because SBC Voices apparently has some standards. I appreciate that.
We came to a decision in the middle of last year. We were given a bunch of “stories” which were incendiary and could have driven our numbers through the roof. One story would have ruined a well-known SBC leader. We realized:
1. We are not journalists and do not understand the ins and outs of fact-checking and such. We have tried to verify every story we’ve ever run but we just don’t understand the whole journalistic system. We are preachers, not investigative journalists.
2. We realized we did not want to be that blog – the ones who broke stories and such.
So, we decided to opine on stories AFTER others broke them. It has, in fact, hurt our stats considerably, but I think we are all satisfied with the decision.
Most journalists these days don’t understand the ins and outs of fact checking. Wise decision
I love this approach. I’d much rather read reasoned responses than “breaking news” that has no real information and a lot of speculation.
Well said, Karen. I joined an SBC church at age 22 after baptism following a lifetime of attendance and involvement that began with cradle roll, and worked in Christian educational institutions related to the SBC or Southern Baptist churches until 2010. I guess I got used to all the verbal jousting, jockeying for position, influence peddling, badmouthing people whose doctrine didn’t line up straight with theirs and all that jabber that goes on endlessly in the SBC (and happened both before and after the resurgence). In 2010 I accepted a great opportunity as lead administrator of a Christian educational institution that belonged to another denomination and was shocked at the peace and tranquility that I encountered among them. There wasn’t any of what seems to be par for the course among Southern Baptists, no jockeying to get the “prominent” positions, influence peddling to get on trustee boards or in prominent leadership positions, no children of prominent pastors in positions where they don’t belong and absolutely no badmouthing, gossip or open verbal criticism of anyone else in ministry. My eight years there were not without disagreement or discussion of different perspectives on issues that arose, but taking to social media to push for “public opinion” for your side was unthinkable because of the commitment to Biblical values. I’ve been in a similar position in a non-denominational institution for almost two years and they had some major conflict prior to my coming here, handled by the same rules. Issues are resolved peacefully, respectfully and prayerfully with no declaring of a victory and no pressing of a defeat. In both cases, I work with people who have a broader range of interpretation of scripture than in the SBC because Bible studies aren’t one-sided lectures that start out with the “now we all know…” assumption. There’s no jumping to the conclusion that if someone seems to have come to a different conclusion, it means they are a sinner bound for hell.
Many of the Southern Baptists I’ve encountered from personal experience, relationships, friendships and thirty years of vocational ministry, convey the attitude that they are the top of the conservative, Evangelical, Bible interpretation ladder and that what other Christians say or believe really doesn’t matter because they’ve settled it. I’ve looked at several of those “discernment blogs” and I’m shocked at how far out of bounds they go and the way they berate people they don’t agree with. I can’t judge what’s in someone else’s soul and spirit, but I can sure recognize the difference between the taste of salt water and fresh water to tell what’s coming out of the spring.
Yikes! I’m sorry that was your experience. Just to clarify, I was finding those issues from all sides and factions in the Baptist blogging spectrum — not at all exclusive to SBC. Unfortunately, I was a new believer, a new Baptist and new to Texas around 2000. Allll those waters were hot and stirred up. Suspicion was high. Frequent blogging fodder was how each faction thought the other was wrong, had done wrong, needed to apologize, would regret their actions, were driving people away from Christ and the church, and were headed to failure. Lots more were partisan opinions on law & politics, which didn’t seem to be well researched or linked to any evidence or example. It was a rare “irenic spirit” who could remain reliably gentle, patient and humble in tone and content. (I had to look up “irenic” bc it’s definition was not self-evident!)
I can’t imagine what it takes to maintain a blog. There are probably small town pastors all over who do well at it. Again, I appreciate SBC Voices’ decisions. Thank you.
Wanted to know what the hub-bub was all about on discernment blogs that I was seeing on Facebook so I came here to get informed. Thanks for remembering what was near and dear to my heart, SBCToday. Kind of sad it is gone, I think there is room for a SBCToday again with the focus us original guys had, but no way would I ever get back into that fray again.
I’ve said the same thing. Too bad sbct is defunct.
In spite of some of the criticism I’ve read on a few of those “discernment blogs,” this site’s authors, for the most part, address controversy without the vitriol that I’ve seen elsewhere. Personally, I think I Peter 3:15 and the passage on either side of it is a good context for the way opposition and controversy should be addressed. Those Christians to whom Peter was writing were being persecuted by things far worse than some of the attacks made on some of these blogs yet were instructed to respond based on the hope they had with gentleness and respect. For the most part, I observe that being practiced here by the blogs authors.
Admittedly, it is difficult to formulate a response in writing on an electronic screen where facial expressions and voice inflection are not part of the message being sent. An articulate response which expresses disagreement can convey a terse, judgmental attitude when all you may be trying to do is communicate facts and how you interpret them in a clear, sensible manner. I taught civics, history, grammar and composition to high school students for decades, and over time, as I write, I see the sentence diagrams fall into place. I have to remind myself that I’m writing to discuss opinions, not to prove the thesis of a research paper. In the context of a theological discussion or more commonly a conversation about denominational politics and leadership, it is easy, and tempting, to bear down and that can convey a lack of both gentleness and respect.
I’ve read some statements about SBC leaders on a few of those blogs that use language which calls their salvation into question and attacks their character. The difference between that and a secular political conversation is specifically that it is not a secular conversation and that the individuals being discussed are men and women who have given testimony of a salvation experience and a ministry calling and are, therefore, united with their critics in Jesus. To win the argument by questioning their salvation and maligning their character is to call your own salvation and character into legitimate question. I’m all for a level of accountability and trust that comes from good, old fashioned accountability and you can make your point with gentleness and respect.