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Nine less than stellar moments in the SBC in 2017

January 3, 2018 by William Thornton

SBC blog touts lawsuits against SBC entities. It’s one thing for someone who believes they have been aggrevied to sue some SBC entity. People do that. It’s one thing to report that someone is suing us. It’s newsworthy. But it is an entirely different thing to tout the lawsuits and plaintiffs publicly and uncritically. For shame!

Annual meeting hijacked by alt-right resolution fiasco. I don’t know how to fix this. Alt-right miscreants dominated the twitter feed for the SBC annual meeting app. A resolution against the alt-right was not returned by our Resolutions Committee. The two together looked bad. Sure, this was corrected but the damage done.

Arkansas Baptists canonize an interpretive statement. “Without mixture of error…” We are coming close to adding to the Bible. This was a Baptist blunder. Let’s be more careful.

Alabama Baptists fail to address the Roy Moore teen scandal. To the credit of Alabama Baptists they did have a generic letter against “sexual abuse, assault, harrassment, and exploitation of women” that a few dozen pastors signed. No mention of Roy Moore was in it. In context, this was an exercise in pastoral pusillanimity. It was positive, however, that a reporter from a publication popular with east coast liberals said he couldn’t find any SBC leaders who publicly supported Moore. Sometimes silence is damaging and naming names is necessary.

SBC president appoints personal evangelism task force sans females. I’m not calling it nefarious or underhanded but this happens all the time and shouldn’t. It’s as if we think there are two separate Christian universes, one for females and one for males and these never touch one another. There are issues involved but we’re foolish not to give this more thought. It’s as if women in the SBC are invisible except for when there are books to be sold or conferences to be held. And, there are more women in the US that need to be evangelized than men.

Megachurch pastor holds SBC hostage. Give Jack Graham credit. Without spending a cent he jerked the SBC around like a rag puppet. There has to be a way to counter this type of power grab. Sure, any autonomous church can do this. We don’t have to reward the behavior, though.

Some SBCers toady up to Trump. I understand supporting a candidate who doesn’t embody all of our values. When does such look like toadying? In the eye of the beholder, I suppose.

Pugnacious protesters pursue Platt over church pastor position. Sometimes trustee oversight is the best solution to a potential problem. I understand the optics of the situation but it is counterproductive for outsiders, non-trustees, ignore the plain statements of trustees, lambaste them, while offering rank speculation about the matter. It looks like just another agenda-driven attack against someone perceived to be a theological opponent. Not the best way.

Alliteration makes a comeback. And does so in the blogs, no less. I can live with alliteration, as long as it stays out of sermons.

_______

Strictly my own personal opinions, of course, and some I’m giving the most provocative reading and interpretation. I would add that none of these are fatal or terribly damaging.

There are a number of reasons to think that 2018 will be a great year in the SBC chief of which is the the Lord will be with us.

 

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About William Thornton

William Thornton is a lifelong Southern Baptist and semi-retired pastor who served churches in South Carolina and Georgia. He is a graduate of the University of Georgia. You may find him occasionally on Twitter @wmgthornton.

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