Posted on 06/19/2018 7:48:22 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Ross Douthat published a column late last May with the imperious title "The Baptist Apocalypse." Rather than prophetic piece, this seems to have served as a guidebook. Following Douthat's column, a new coterie swept into power in the Southern Baptist Convention during its annual meeting in Dallas (June 12-13).
The apocalypse Douthat predicted did not lead to the coming of a lord and savior. What the Baptists got was a changing of the guard. The old guard was white, male, conservative, Southern, and charming. The new guard is white, male, conservative, Southern, and cold. I have interacted with both groups. The main difference between them is that I trusted the old guard on issues like LGBT challenges to religious liberty, and the old guard returned my calls. I can say no such thing about the new guard.
Therein lies quite a tale. Sit back and enjoy.
What went into the Douthat column?
A lot of scandals, firings, social media wars, and social-justice campaigning prompted Douthat's article. He tells New York Times readers that these public controversies formed a righteous storm of reform pointing to the promise of change. This prefaced public statements by J.D. Greear, the North Carolina pastor who campaigned to become the next SBC president by claiming he would bring reform to the SBC. He was elected by nearly 70% of the messengers' votes.
Like so many people in Douthat's circle of intellectuals, the name of Russell Moore pops up as a harbinger of hope – well, at least, according to the Douthat wing of American politics. Here is a quote from Douthat's article:
[The old guard] represent[s] – again, to generalize – the more pro-Trump old guard in the Baptist world, with a strong inclination toward various forms of chauvinism and Christian nationalism.
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
One wonders, where do those guys worship and better yet, to whom do those guys worship, other than themselves?
Has the SBC leadership went full on liberal on most of the issues we, as Christians, are facing? I am independent Baptist but do fellowship with many SBCers. What will this do as Christians see their tithe money going to Revoice type activities?
Concerning, but I have faith in the SBC rank and file.
ping
So many though just don’t keep up with denominational politics; so they are blindsided by liberal moves of the SBC.
I am a Southern Baptist. We need to make it perfectly clear to anyone who is interested that we not only believe in God, but we believe God. God has made it clear what we are to believe in his Holy Word known as the Bible. If we succeed in expressing to the world that we believe God, then there will be no need for articles such as this post is dealing with. Our positions will be unified and crystal clear.
How do we as Southern Baptists let the world know—from the pulpits of our churches. Too few pastors are preaching against the power of the organized evil that we are confronted with today. My pastor is as guilty as one can be. He refuses to preach against abortion, homosexuality, same sex marriage, porno and other sins happening all around us. This leads to a confused fellowship. We must be different from the world by being more like Jesus Christ.
For later
Are you referring to the Lopez article, the Douthat article, or both?
Definitely time to push your Deacons & elders to remove this person, no matter how much money his apostate sermons are bringing in.
I can assure you, that won’t last for long as little by little, people will lose heart and either find another vibrant bible-preaching church to attend, or worse yet, step away and find another thing to do on Sunday morning!
I’m attaching a site for my church where you can hear our pastor clearly divide The Word.
https://lenexabaptist.com/watch-sermons-2/
Apparently, the Southern Baptist churches can adopt the issues that the SBC promulgates and toss the others. It’s a pretty loose confederation with a lot of leeway. I’m interested in finding out how much power they have over each individual church.
That was as clear as mud. I meant “can adopt some (selected) issues....”
It’s a hit piece posted as a hit piece about a hit piece
Christian Nationalism is code speak for bigotry and sharp uniforms and marching in formation with stiff salutes
It’s a flak shot from you know who.....nope not Joooos
The idea that Baptists can form a “denomination” seems strange to me. Even some independent Baptist churches have started to quasi-organize, usually along a Bible school.
If you dig deeper, you may find that the pastor is saying what the women of the congregation want to hear, or at least avoiding those things they don't want to hear. It's the wives who currently have the most say about whether a church gets their tithe or not.
I’ve left two churches that were dominated by a bunch of gray, short-haired gals who decide amongst themselves what both scripture actually says and whether or not “feminist” guidelines are followed.
The first thing I do when visiting a church (for any reason, marriage, funeral,etc.) is to open up their hymnal.
Immediately I look for historical hymns (of the past, I’ll admit) to see if the hymn, “Faith of our Fathers,” for example, is present and the words are intact.
Feminist run denominations and many others, immediately scrub hymns for “gender neutral” hymns, then they move to actual scriptures to make them “inclusive,” so as not to “offend” the flock by such things as “Father, Son and Holy Spirit!
I do believe most United Methodist churches (as are most other mainline denominations) do follow their national hierarchy in being “feminist” directed.
I do state that radical feminism has pretty much destroyed most mainline denominations and being a woman of faith, I find that tragic but accept that God has permitted it to “divide the wheat from the chaff,” or correctly define “the sheep from the goats!”
I’m interested in finding out how much power they have over each individual church.
“The first thing I do when visiting a church (for any reason, marriage, funeral,etc.) is to open up their hymnal.”
When we relocate and are looking for a new church, I call the pastor and ask two questions: (1) Do you use KJV? (2) What hymnal do you use? Depending on the answers we’ll visit — or not.
You can tell a lot by the hymnal. I don’t mean words projected on a screen.
The Baptist church has a long association with the Democrat Party. This undermines their superficial conservatism, which is often merely traditionalism.
I have never been a Baptist, but I was educated in a non-denominational school that was functionally Anabaptist, and which significantly chose Baptist preachers almost exclusively for our weekly Chapels.
Once I got past the legalistic no-dancing, no-smoking, et cetera, routine, I found them to be quite “liberal”; in fact, some of my fellow students went on to become flaming Marxists - and some of those attended SBC seminary.
The Frankfurt School runs most seminaries now, anyway, in my opinion.
Agreed. I do the same.
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