Follow-Up On Recent Broadway Baptist Controversy

Please see my original post on the latest controversy at Broadway Baptist Church here.

Below is a follow-up to that post.

Around 220 members have released a Response to the newly formed "Friends for the Future of Broadway" which I discussed in my previous blog.

Here's the letter posted from J.C. Baker's website:

We are deeply saddened about the letter mailed this week by a group calling themselves “Friends for the Future of Broadway.” Saddened because we fundamentally disagree with this course of action, but equally saddened because the letter sent by Robert Saul is replete with inaccuracies and things about our church and about our pastor that are just not true.

We believe the primary question is:

What type of church do we believe God wants Broadway to be?

There is room for discussion on this issue. There should be debate about this critically important question. There is not room, however, for actions that lead to mistrust and miscommunication in that discussion. This must cease. There is room for grace and love within our diversity. This must increase.

We are committed to the path of peace and harmony and goodwill. We ask you to join us in those high principles. We must not give up on a Broadway that reflects these values and principles.

On another note, I'd like to make a comment about one of the criticisms hurled at Broadway pastor Brett Younger.

Below is one reason given by the Friends group to "Vacate the Pulpit"

(d) Invitation to preach extended to a very controversial theologian
The Pastor extended an invitation to preach from the pulpit to a very controversial theologian, Dr. Marcus J. Borg, whose published theological views are well outside Broadway's own historical moderate Baptist heritage based on timeless core foundational doctrines of the Christian faith. While Broadway has always appreciated diverse theological perspectives, the pulpit has been considered the source of Christian proclamation. This invitation was extended while the members were still struggling with the church directory crisis created by the Pastor. The Pastor withdrew the invitation to preach from the pulpit, but only upon the strong objections of several church members.

According to a blogger who is a member at Broadway, the invitation to Marcus Borg to speak at Broadway Baptist was scheduled well over one year in advance and not during the church directory controversy as the Friends group claims.

The same blogger who took the latest episode of the Broadway controversy to the blogosphere had this to say about Borg:

First of all, I believe that outside of various primitive tribal enclaves, Dr. Borg's controversial theological views could now be classified as "Mainstream Protestant". Second, I don't believe that there's any such thing as a "historical moderate Baptist heritage". When Broadway and several other churches split off from the Southern Baptists, all sorts of jokes were made about "Moderate Baptist" being a contradiction in terms. (My Baptist heritage includes a lot of people healing cripples in the gospel tents of Mississippi.) Our "historic moderate Baptist heritage" is whatever we made up about twenty years ago. It's still a work in progress.

Outside of various primitive tribal enclaves? This guy is off his rocker but we'll let that go.

I read Marcus Borg regularly over at ON FAITH. Borg is an excellent writer and an incredible communicator. With that said, all will tell you that Broadway is a diverse church with multiple constituencies. It's not everyday that you find a CBF/Texas Baptist church with SBC seminary employees and gay couples as members!

However, Marcus Borg's theology is well outside of Broadway's moderate Baptist heritage. I don't see how a church that affirmed the 1963 version of the Baptist Faith & Message only 8 years ago could argue that Borg's theology is compatible with their own? How much in common could a church and its members share with liberal theologian Marcus Borg if they can't even figure out whether to allow gay couples to pose together and smile pretty for Olan Mills???

Borg is a well respected theologian. But he is a well respected liberal theologian who does not believe that Jesus Christ was bodily raised from the dead. Last time I checked, a denial of the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ was not a position held by any "moderate Baptist."

Inviting Marcus Borg to fill the pulpit during the Easter season seems in poor taste.

But that's just the opinion of a young "moderate" Baptist who actually does take the Bible seriously but not always literally.