NBC: 5 Southern Baptist churches in Alabama set afire. More to come...

MSNBC ^ | February 3, 2006

[precedence]

More to come....

[mnehring]

Thank you.. all the race speculation is useless..

[commish]

PEr WBRC Birmingham - the fire in the New Harmony Church in Fairview was apparently caused by construction workers yesterday afternoon and is no longer considered to be connected to the other 5 fires which happened after midnight and do appear to be related.

[Aquinasfan]

More importantly, I heard that a cartoon ran in a European newspaper that was insensitive to Mohammedans. (/s)

[hummingbird]

It is curious that they are all Southern Baptist churches. No Methodists, no Church of God, no independent Baptists, no Presbyterians. We have a lot of Southern Baptist churches here, but if you pick five churches at random, they aren't likely to all be SBC.

I hope this doesn't sound glib, but church burnings seem passe - I hate to use the word passe, but I can't think of the word I really mean and I don't take these events lightly.

What I'm thinking is that churches seem to get caught up more in courtrooms with their adversaries. Curious, indeed.

[Mamzelle]

And Jimmy Carter broke off from the Southern Baptists.

[OB1kNOb]

The anabaptist movement, of which the SBC are theological descendants, was indeed a Protestant movement.

Not so. Baptists and Anabaptists are just a couple of the many names given to us down through the last 2000 years by those who persecuted us for not renouncing our scriptural beliefs.

Anabaptists simply means "re-baptizers" and was given us as a label for our doctrinal belief that a professing saved believer was required to be scripturally baptized before they could become a member of our church. We would not accept another faith's baptism to allow that person to become a member of our church. Hence, we re-baptized them according to scripture.

Before being labeled as Anabaptists and later Baptists, we were labeled by many names down through history after Jesus' Ascension, i.e. Montanists, Paulicians, Waldenses, Albegenses, Donatists, Paterines, Petro-Brussians, Arnoldists, Henricians, and many other names depending on the century and location of where we were persecuted.

For a better understanding of where we've been and where we've come from over the past 20 centuries one can read an historical perspective located at Trail of Blood - Baptist History.

It is not what we are called nor what we are labeled that defines who we are. It's what we believe and who we trust in. I hope this helps.

[hummingbird]

Ge, do ya think?!

**snort**

It would have been so much better if they had just left that sentence out! Silly media.

[OKIEDOC]

You hit the nail on the head.

[penelopesire]

"PEr WBRC Birmingham - the fire in the New Harmony Church in Fairview was apparently caused by construction workers yesterday afternoon and is no longer considered to be connected to the other 5 fires which happened after midnight and do appear to be related."

Not sure I buy it. In some of the reports over the wires it is being reported that: 'they are not sure it is arson related'...lol..or 'connected'. (rolling eyes)

[wideawake]

And Jimmy Carter broke off from the Southern Baptists.

And sanity. And America. And any shred of a legacy he had left.

[mnehring]

One DUer just speculated that the arsonist is a Southern Baptist, basically because they are racist and they heard of one case..

[NH Liberty]

"We are NOY a protestant denomination! Never were we a part of the Catholic Church."

True, but neither have most "PROTEST-ants" over the past 500 years. The label was originally given to those individuals who PROTESTED from within the Roman system after it was so widely-exposed in the 1500s.

It is true that the label "Protestant" continues to be used to describe Christians ["originalist" "fundamentalist" or "evangelical"] since that time but, since most professors of History are non-Christians and "educate" people accordingly, their ignorance has continued to permeate the minds of all who pass through academia. Even Christians are sometimes forced into using the "Protestant" label in discussions with non-Christians in order to help facilitate certain points of conversation. Further, some even use the "PROTEST-ant" term willingly, presumably to ensure that everyone understands that they are Bible-based believers, when the term "Christian" would be the most simple and accurate term to describe anyone who worships according to the Word of God alone.

Having said all that, however, it is true that Baptist organizations were never formed by those PROTEST-ants who came out from the Roman organization after it was exposed.

God Bless.

[penelopesire]

"Fox News "confirmed" not long ago that the churches were predominately white congregations. Which explains why all the networks but Fox are no longer on the story."

well..Ireland is on the story now and it won't be long until the foreign press starts running with this story. the American media will have a hard time 'tapping this out' (pardon the pun)

http://breakingnews.iol.ie/news/story.asp?j=73398382&p=73398684

[wardaddy]

no kidding...if it were mosques or AMEs or temples..they'd be on it like blanc en arroz

[thehumanlynx]

Still, one has to wonder about the SotU and the link between the fight against AIDS as put out by Bush and his direct linking of AIDS to black churches. At least, such things make this one wonder anyway.

From someone at DU,
Anyone care to enlighten me about what this is referring to? I had to take a stupid test and missed the first 30mins of SOTU.. Thanks

[marty60]

Will they determine it is anti-Christian HATE crime......Un-friggin-likely.

[mnehring]

Anyone care to enlighten me about what this is referring to? I had to take a stupid test and missed the first 30mins of SOTU.. Thanks

President Bush is working with the association of black churches (I cannot remember the exact name) to help provide Aids relief to Africa through their missions. He was referring to a specific program, however, he was kind of vague and I can see where the average DUmbass would assume some racist connotation if that is what they expect.

[marty60]

Really, and CHRISTIANS will all sit around fogiving the misguided, rather than demanding a FULL investigation into WHO committed these HATE crimes. My guess is Islamofascist or the insane lefties of the Dum Party of Death.

[MEG33]

Let's get a new "saying"..That one is worn out.

[wideawake]

Montanists, Paulicians, Waldenses, Albegenses, Donatists, Paterines, Petro-Brussians, Arnoldists, Henricians, and many other names depending on the century and location of where we were persecuted.

This is a fantasy unsupported by any historical facts.

The groups you describe all held doctrines radically different from those held by the historical Anabaptists and modern-day Baptists.

The Montanists believed that two different women in Phrygia were incarnations of God the Holy Spirit.

The Paulicians believed that the God of the book of Genesis and the God referred to in the New testament were two different entities.

The Patarenes rejected the doctrine of the Trinity.

The Waldenses (until the Reformation, when they altered their church order and doctrines) maintained the sacramentality of the Lord's Supper and the intercession of saints.

The Albigenses denied the divinity of Christ and taught that suicide was moral.

The Donatists taught that one could lose one's salvation unless one performed certain good works.

The Petrobrusians taught that only the Gospels are Scriptural in the New Testament and that the Epistles are of lesser authority.

The Arnoldists taught that salvation only comes by renouncing ownership and use of earthly goods.

The Henricians beleived in a whole slew of Roman Catholic disntinctives, including transubstantiation and the sinlessness of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

These groups have almost nothing in common and all believed in doctrines completely at odds with any Baptist confession.

There was no anabaptist "underground" prior to the teaching of the great Anabaptist theologians of the 1520s. We're talking reality, not Da Vinci Code fiction.