Another reason why I am an independent Baptist! https://open.substack.com/pub/thedissenter/p/sbc-pastor-who-writes-for-wapo-suggests-597?r=pbjs4&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
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1Timothy 6:10 For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.
‘In the past, The Alpha Conference has been hosted by two ecumenical organizations — Major Change, a charismatic Evangelical organization, and Stone to Flesh, a charismatic Roman Catholic ecumenical organization. The two organizations have practically merged into one big ecumenical mess. And in the past, we’ve lambasted Hillsong Church for hosting the conference on their facilities.
But now that Hillsong Church is practically dead from its endless sex scandals among its leadership, Alpha seems to have found a new home—in the Southern Baptist Convention.
First Baptist Church in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, a Southern Baptist congregation according to both the Southern Baptist Convention’s church search engine as well as the church’s website, will be hosting the ecumenical conference this January 2023.’https://disntr.com/2023/01/02/major-southern-baptist-church-to-hold-ecumenical-conference-with-roman-catholic-speakers/
‘A blistering report on the Southern Baptist Convention’s mishandling of sex abuse allegations is raising the prospect that the denomination, for the first time, will create a publicly accessible database of pastors and other church personnel known to be abusers.
The creation of an “Offender Information System” was one of the key recommendations in a report released Sunday by Guidepost Solutions, an independent firm contracted by the SBC’s Executive Committee after delegates to last year’s national meeting pressed for an investigation by outsiders.
The proposed database is expected to be one of several recommendations presented to thousands of delegates attending this year’s national meeting, scheduled for June 14-15 in Anaheim, California.’https://www.al.com/news/2022/05/will-southern-baptist-convention-start-warning-churches-about-pastors-known-to-be-sex-abusers.html
The “blistering report” may be read at https://whatyareckon.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/522da-guidepostsolutionsindependentinvestigationreport.pdf
History has shown that Denominationalism leads to liberalism! That’s exactly where the Southern Baptist Convention finds itself again! History has also shown that when liberalism gets a foot hold in a denomination the only thing to do is SEPARATE! However, the not so woke in the SBC say ‘We, concerned Southern Baptists of differing geographical, theological and vocational perspectives, in one voice nominate Pastor Tom Ascol for President of the Southern Baptist Convention, and SBC Missionary Voddie Baucham for President of the SBC Pastors’ Conference.
The Southern Baptist Convention plays a vital role in global Christianity, with the world’s largest missionary force and 11% of America’s churches. But perhaps even more importantly, through our six seminaries, we educate one third of America’s seminary students. Our institutions affect vastly more than just ourselves.
But the Southern Baptist Convention badly needs a change of direction. While baptisms and evangelism continue their freefall, a small group of leaders steers our institutions ever closer to the culture, from radical feminism masked as “soft complementarianism” to the false gospel of Critical Theory and Intersectionality. In Christ there is no Jew or Greek, there is no slave or free, we are all made one in Him. But this “Race Marxism” divides everyone by their most superficial features, in a never-ending cycle of recrimination and hate.
We reject these worldly dogmas. We stand together on the Baptist Faith and Message. We proclaim the sufficiency of Scripture. And we know the vast majority of Southern Baptists do too.
At this critical juncture, we need men to serve who can unite our convention around the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We believe there are no two better men to lead us in this vital task than Tom Ascol and Voddie Baucham.
For many years, Tom Ascol has been a faithful conservative voice in the SBC. The grandson of a Syrian Muslim immigrant who was murdered in the South in the 1920s, Tom Ascol has seen the grace of God at work in his family, and savingly in his own life. He believes the Gospel is the sole answer to the challenges we currently face as Southern Baptists.
Likewise, Voddie Baucham is one of the most faithful expositors of our day, a day in which sound preaching is more important than ever. He will give the exact kind of leadership needed for the SBC Pastors’ Conference, an event which in recent years has shifted radically from one of the high points of the entire year into what many have termed “Woke Fest”. The importance of restoring that pivotal event cannot be overstated.
We’ve been told “the world is watching”, and so it is, demanding that the church conform. But we believe that God is watching, that He alone defines our terms and sets our agenda.
And God is not Woke.’https://founders.org/2022/03/22/statement-from-southern-baptists-nominating-tom-ascol-and-voddie-baucham/
Other than the Scriptures this is just another reason why I am an independent Baptist!
‘In what is shaping up to be a historic annual meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention in Nashville, Tennessee, this month, the denomination’s Resolution 9 acknowledging critical race theory as a useful tool to explain how race has and continues to function in society is the target of multiple resolutions seeking to strip it of its power.
Denny Burk, professor of biblical studies at Boyce College, the undergraduate school of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, revealed in a blog post Friday that he was aware of nearly 60 resolutions being submitted to the Resolutions Committee asking SBC messengers to condemn critical race theory.
“I am aware that a number of people have submitted resolutions relating to CRT. I know of at least three that are opposed to CRT (here, here, and here) and one that is in favor of CRT (here). As I write this, it looks like there are about 57 people submitting the exact same resolution as Mike Stone’s proposed resolution,” Burk wrote.
Mike Stone, the pastor of Emmanuel Baptist Church in Blackshear, Georgia, and one of three nominees vying to become the next president of the nation’s largest Protestant denomination, recently proposed a resolution asking the denomination to condemn the theory.
The proposed resolution also seeks to affirm the controversial portion of the November 2020 statement from the Council of Seminary Presidents that states, “affirmation of Critical Race Theory, Intersectionality and any version of Critical Theory is incompatible with the Baptist Faith & Message.”
“And these are just the ones I know about because they’ve been publicized on the internet,” Burk added.
“I have heard through the grapevine that there are other proposals that haven’t been publicized and that we won’t know about until the Resolutions Committee reports on them at the convention. This means that the committee is not going to be able to please all sides and likely won’t try to. It also means that they have their work cut out for them.”
Regardless of what happens, Burk expressed confidence that SBC messengers “won’t leave Nashville without a strong resolution against critical race theory.”
“I have heard of at least one effort to rescind 2019’s Resolution 9. If that came to the floor of the convention, I would support it, but I’m not sure if it’s possible under the rules (someone else who knows more about Robert’s Rules can weigh-in),” he wrote.
“But I’m also not sure that it’s even necessary. If the convention passes a strong resolution against CRT, it would serve as a de facto rescinding of Resolution 9 (sort of like subsequent resolutions became a de facto repudiation of the SBC’s infamous pro-choice resolution of 1971). For me, the priority is getting a strong statement against CRT. That is the main thing.”
The professor expressed support for a resolution proposed by Stephen Feinstein, a pastor at Sovereign Way Christian Church in Hesperia, California, and a chaplain in the United States Army Reserve.
“What I like about this is that it defines ‘institutional racism’ not as CRT does, but in terms of willful discrimination,” Burk explained.
“In CRT, no human agency is required at all for racism to be present in a given institution or system (as I have written about here). CRT says that racism is everywhere all the time and that all white people are racists whether they choose to be or not. Any racially disparate outcome is racism even if no one willfully discriminated against anyone.”
Burk argues that such an argument is “completely incompatible with what scripture teaches about sin and judgment, but this resolution fixes that.”
“It recognizes that sinful partiality can affect institutions and systems while not alleging that all institutions and systems are racist by default (as in CRT),” he wrote.
Any member of a cooperating Southern Baptist church can propose a resolution for adoption by the SBC.
However, the SBC Committee on Resolutions may decline to recommend properly submitted resolutions to the convention for adoption.
Prominent Southern Baptist Pastor Dwight McKissic, who founded and leads Cornerstone Baptist Church in Arlington, Texas, warned earlier this year that if Resolution 9 is rescinded, he would leave the SBC.
His threat came after he quit the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention after leaders adopted a “strongly worded, anti-CRT policy that denounces all aspects of critical race theory.”
McKissic’s declaration also came amid an exodus of prominent black Southern Baptist pastors, such as Ralph West and Charlie Dates, over the Council of Seminary Presidents’ renouncing critical race theory and intersectionality.
The 2021 annual gathering of the Southern Baptist Convention is set to take place in Nashville, Tennessee, on June 15 and June 16. More than 13,000 messengers have pre-registered for the event, according to Ronnie Floyd, president of the SBC Executive Committee.
Only four other conventions have attracted at least 10,000 messengers since 2000, he said.
“This could be one of our largest gatherings since 1995 in Atlanta, when we had 20,654 messengers,” he recently noted.’https://www.christianpost.com/news/critical-race-theory-sparks-flurry-of-resolutions-for-sbc-meeting.html?uid=d3769f0ce2&utm_source=The+Christian+Post+List&utm_campaign=CP-Newsletter&utm_medium=email
As most of my readers know I am an independent Baptist for the New Testament knows of no other type of churches. However, I found this video from Founders Ministries which is composed of Southern Baptist men interesting as they speak about the issues within the Southern Baptist Convention.
‘Today on The Sword and The Trowel, Tom Ascol and Jared Longshore welcome Mike Stone, Georgia pastor and 2021 Southern Baptist Convention presidential nominee, on to the show. They discuss the current state of the SBC, the vision for the days ahead and the need for biblical resolve in SBC churches and entities.’https://founders.org/interviews/tstt-pastor-mike-stone-biblical-inerrancy-women-pastors-resolve-in-the-sbc/
If only half of what is detailed in the following article is true it is too much!
‘A key court ruling last week will allow a sexual abuse lawsuit to proceed against Paul Pressler, a high-profile Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) conservative leader.
Pressler, who helped lead the “conservative resurgence” within the SBC and was the SBC’s first vice president, now stands accused of raping and repeatedly sexually abusing a Houston man.
The alleged victim, Duane Rollins Jr., claims the abuse began when he was 14 years old, and continued for 24 years.
Pressler, 90, has denied any wrongdoing.
Previously, a lower court had ruled that Rollins’ case exceeded the statute of limitations. However, on Friday, a Texas appellate court reversed the lower court ruling, stating that Rollins was unable to report the abuse sooner due to suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder.
An affidavit signed by Rollins’ psychologist testifies that Rollins was so psychologically manipulated by Pressler that he did not understand he had been abused until 2015.
The lawsuit by Rollins not only names Pressler, but also Paige Patterson, former president of the Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary (SWBTS) and architect of the conservative resurgence. Also named are SWBTS, the SBC, a lawyer, and two Texas Baptist churches.
“(The abuse) was all done while Pressler and this seminary professor Paige Patterson were working on this ‘conservative resurgence,’” said Rollins’ lawyer Daniel Shea in an interview with The Roys Report. “A lot of meetings at Pressler’s home when Rollins was there. They should have had some reason to believe that something funny was going on.”
Rollins worked for Pressler at his home office as a “special office assistant,” according to the lawsuit.
As a former SBC executive, the SBC must answer for Pressler’s actions, Shea added. “[There’s] a legal theory that says you’re responsible for the acts of [your employee.] That’s why all these other defendants are involved.”
The SBC, however, denies responsibility for Pressler’s alleged abuse.
“The convention was not involved or connected in any way with the harms that Mr. Rollins alleges,” SBC attorney James Guenther said. “Additionally, the convention did not have control over or any duty to control Mr. Pressler or any of the other defendants. So, none of the facts necessary to assert any valid claim against the convention is present. The convention is simply not responsible if another defendant in this case engaged in any wrongdoing. In any event, we continue to monitor the developments in the case.”
Rollins’ addictions to alcohol and other drugs resulted in several prison sentences. Between these and other jobs, Rollins worked for Pressler as an assistant over a period of 24 years, the lawsuit said. Rollins also attended Pressler’s church.
Pressler agreed to pay Rollins $1,500 a month for 25 years to settle another lawsuit with Rollins. That lawsuit stemmed from an altercation in a hotel room in 2003, where Pressler allegedly assaulted Rollins. According to court documents, Pressler paid Rollins so Rollins wouldn’t disclose the cause of the fight.
The lawsuit alleges that Rollins didn’t realize Pressler had abused him until Rollins received psychological counseling in prison and was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder. Lawsuit documents said that Pressler used Scripture and claims that he was in contact with God to manipulate Rollins. Pressler reportedly told Rollins that his sexual abuse was “our secret freedom, no one but God would understand.”
“A psychologist at the Texas Department of Criminal Justice […] intervened on Rollins and brought him to the realization for the first time that his relationship with Pressler was neither ‘God approved’ nor some kind of ‘Divine Plan,’” the lawsuit states.
In a letter to Rollins included in court documents, Pressler claimed he knew that God would bless Rollins.
Other men have also accused Pressler of sexual abuse. These include musician Toby Twining and lawyer Brooks Schott.
Pressler and Patterson were once among SBC leaders commemorated in a series of stained-glass windows at SWBTS. Those windows were removed after Patterson was fired for covering up a rape allegation and saying he would “break down” the victim of another rape.’https://julieroys.com/sex-abuse-lawsuit-pressler/?mc_cid=299d0cc645&mc_eid=b13d34ad49
I am an independent “rebellious’ Baptist but I found this article by aspiring SBC President Pastor Mike Stone very interesting. ‘There is renewed interest in the question of ethnic interpretations of the Holy Scriptures. Fueled in part by more general conversation on issues of race, the subject has reemerged in recent days within our Southern Baptist Convention.
A noted professor in one of our seminaries told his class, ““If you don’t know it yet, if all you have is males reading the Scriptures you have a very, very misinterpreted Bible. I need sisters within the body of Christ who can help to read the Scripture in ways in which my maleness is preventing me from reading it.” He went on to say the same thing about being white, being an American, and being a graduate of a certain institution.
In the summer of 2020, in an internet conference about race issues in the SBC, one guest said he was hopeful for a day in the SBC “It will not be black faces with white voices. Or black faces with predominately white theology.”
In early December, one our seminary presidents rightly tweeted that Christians would be wise to “study the Bible in community.” He correctly stated that we can “learn from one another, share insights and gain a fuller understanding of the text as a family.”
One of his Twitter followers replied, “Amen. And we as white men, need more exegetical community with our African American brothers and sisters (and other POC and minorities) to gain an even deeper understanding of the text as a whole family.”
The examples of this kind of thinking are numerous. Some suggest the argument is based in critical race theory and intersectionality. Others label it as standpoint hermeneutics or eisegesis. Those are needful conversations to have. But Christians should primarily ask, “Is that what the Bible teaches?”
The implications of this question are profound.
If the Bible teaches that a group of Christian men cannot rightly interpret the Scripture without women present, then every men’s Bible study has, by definition, taught error. Or at the very least it has been limited in its ability to fully convey the word of God.
If the Bible teaches that a mono-ethnic group of believers cannot gain a full understanding of the text of Scripture, then no body of believers has ever understood the Bible unless that group was ethnically diverse.
If the Bible teaches that melanin content creates a hermeneutical barrier that can only be overcome by learning from or listening to others with different skin tone, then no assembly of God’s people can ever have a sure word from God unless that congregation reflects the full ethnic diversity of God’s creation. Further, if individual cultures have unique insights that add to the meaning of the text, then no believer has ever had access to the whole counsel of God. For there are still unreached people groups that have yet to add their ethnic voice to the work of Bible interpretation.
Did the Lord Jesus, our Master Teacher, ever say anything on this subject that would be more helpful and authoritative than the latest theory or analytical tool? Indeed, He did.
The Lord taught us in John 16:13 that the Holy Spirit, the ultimate author of the text, would guide believers into all truth. He, the Holy Spirit, comes into the life of every believer at salvation and He is well able to interpret the very text that He Himself inspired. The promise of the Holy Spirit means, among other things, that any believer living in any place, in any culture, and in any time period can get a sure word from God.
Of course, this does not mean that believers cannot learn from one another. There would be no need for the gift of teachers if that were so. And there would be no reason for the multitude of Biblical commands dealing with accurately teaching the Word or of correcting fellow believers in matters of doctrine. It simply means that such correction and insight are based on the Biblical text, not the gender, skin tone, or identity of the fellow believer.
As I asked in a message I preached at the 2019 Pastor’s Conference of the North Carolina State Baptist Convention, “If being a white American male presumes exegetical error…and I reach out to an olive-skinned Greek sister…and she has a different interpretation…how would we know that it’s my white American maleness that has led to the error and not her Greek olive-skinned femininity? We would have to judge that by going back to the inspired text. She would owe no particular hearing to me because of my gender, skin tone, culture or experiences. Nor would I to her.
If our gender, ethnicity, or personal experiences cause us to see something different in the text, then those biases lead to eisegesis and should be rejected, not embraced in the studied search for Biblical truth. We are indeed called to “rightly divide” or “accurately handle” the word of truth.” But that exegetical work will separate theological propositions into categories of right and wrong, truth and error, and sound doctrine and false doctrine. The divisions of sound exegesis are not male truth versus female truth, black theology versus white theology, or American doctrine versus Asian doctrine.
I agree with the seminary president’s original tweet. It is wise to study the Bible in community.
We can and should benefit from the community of faith around us. We each have biases and blind spots that should motivate us to study the Word together, learning as “iron sharpens iron.” But in Matthew 22:29 Jesus told His critics, “You do err, not knowing the scriptures.” He did not say, “You do err, being all first-century Jewish males.”‘ https://pastormikestone.com/are-there-ethnic-interpretations-of-the-bible/
God established the local church and man has added thereto. Now, ‘In a long-awaited report released Monday, a task force commissioned to study the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC) calls the convention’s public policy arm a “significant distraction from the Great Commission work of Southern Baptists.”
Blaming the ERLC for the loss of more than a million dollars in constituent church donations to the denomination, the task force, led by Georgia pastor Mike Stone, quotes the leader of a state Baptist convention as saying, “The ERLC has been a stumbling block not worth the mission dollar investment.” (Stone is one of four candidates vying to be the next president of the Southern Baptist Convention or SBC.)
But there seems to be as much politics as economics in the report’s conclusions. It notes that in recent years, the fear of a “liberal” drift in the denomination has led some churches to leave the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) or to withhold giving. Part of that dissatisfaction is aimed at the ERLC, and particularly at the Rev. Russell Moore, who has led the ERLC since 2013.
Though a staunch opponent of abortion and same-sex marriage, two of the issues most important to politically conservative evangelicals, Moore’s views on other issues over the course of the Trump administration—most significantly on immigration, race, and Donald Trump himself—have landed Moore in hot water.
The report does not call for Moore’s ouster, but it does recommend that the ERLC no longer make public comments about any political candidate and only address issues that the SBC has already issued resolutions on.’
‘The report also list a series of direct complaints. These include Moore’s opposition to Trump; claims that the ERLC receives funding linked to progressive philanthropist George Soros; the ERLC’s stance on cooperating with COVID-19 restrictions; and the agency’s support for immigration reforms.
More recently, it claims, the ERLC was critical of protesters who stormed the U.S. Capitol but not of Black Lives Matter protests.
The report also cites what it calls “disrespectful and condescending responses” to questions raised by messengers—the SBC’s terms for church delegates to its annual meeting. As one example, the report mentions the response to Arkansas pastor John Wofford at the 2016 meeting.
Wofford asked Moore why the ERLC would support the rights of Muslims to build mosques. Moore replied that Baptists had always supported religious liberty and that if a government could ban mosques it could also ban Baptist churches, a response that earned a standing ovation.
Moore is not the first head of the ERLC to be met with disapproval. Two of his predecessors left office because of controversy.
In 2011, longtime ERLC President Richard Land was criticized for his support of a mosque in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, and for joining an interfaith coalition that defended the rights of Muslims to build houses of worship. Criticism from other Southern Baptists eventually forced Land to leave the coalition. Land, a longtime Republican activist, left office after a scandal over plagiarism and comments on race.
Land’s predecessor, N. Larry Baker, lasted just 16 months in the role in the 1980s, where his views on “abortion, capital punishment, and the role of women in the church” were considered controversial, according to Baptist Press. Baker was part of the moderate wing of the SBC that was ousted by a conservative movement in the denomination.
David Gushee, professor of ethics at Mercer University, said that the head of the ERLC has always been in a precarious position. Tasked with bringing Christian ethics to bear on social issues, the ERLC’s president often has to navigate clashes between Christian ethics and popular political positions.’ https://julieroys.com/sbc-report-moore-distraction/?mc_cid=82f74619a9&mc_eid=b13d34ad49
whatyareckon 