Motion Made To Boot Broadway Baptist from SBC

The Annual Meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention held in Indianapolis is underway this afternoon and a couple more "conservative" motions were made.

Bill Sanderson from North Carolina moved that Broadway Baptist Church of Ft. Worth would not be in friendly cooperation with the SBC.

AND

A motion was made to require educational institutions receiving Cooperative Program funds to teach creation science as the correct understanding of the origin of life.

In other news, Johnny Hunt of FBC Woodstock, Georgia was elected President of the SBC on the first ballot with 52.94.

FBC Woodstock was named the 30th most influential church in America by the Church Report in 2007. According to one blog, Hunt endorsed Republican Presidential candidate Mike Huckabee from the pulpit of FBC Woodstock on the Sunday before the Georgia Presidential Primary. You can read about that here.

UPDATED: The motion to boot Broadway was approved for consideration for report back to the 2009 annual meeting. See Baptist Press.

SBC Pastor On War & Torture - And Makes Sense!

Over at the new SBCOutpost.com, Southern Baptist pastor Benjamin S. Cole writes....

We are, to be sure, one of the greatest conglomerate of American warhawks in this century and the last. We haven’t found a Republican military offensive for which we will not provide some degree of affirmation and apologetic. Whether advancing the torture of Guantanamo detainees, as in the case of Daniel Heimbach at SEBTS, or rallying to the cause of “preemptive strikes,” as has been done by Richard Land, we are inexcusably defiant of basic principles of Christian ethics. That we do so under the illusion of advancing Christ’s Kingdom and preserving a “Clear Baptist Identity” is both shameful and egregious.

At least one Southern Baptist gets it....I hope there are more.

The Re-Sectarianization of the SBC - Calvinism Attacked

Ah, the Southern Baptist infighting may have just reached a new level in Florida...

From the Associated Baptist Press...

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. (ABP) -- Some Baptists in this state say the Florida Baptist Convention is intimidating and demonizing churches that believe in Calvinism -- and doing it with the churches' own money.

Convention executive director John Sullivan last week sent recordings of sermons by Sullivan's former pastor Jerry Vines to every church in the state, apparently at convention expense, that identify Calvinism as a threat to Baptist life.

A week earlier, Sullivan sent one of his associates to a rural Panhandle county to confront local pastors about alleged "conflict" created by Calvinists in the Holmes Baptist Association. Sullivan's emissary, Cecil Seagle, was at times "angry and mean-spirited" and tried to intimidate the pastors, according to the pastors' detailed notes from the meeting, warning that Calvinism "is dividing the Florida Convention and a split is almost inevitable."...........

Tom Ascol, the most prominent Calvinist in the 1 million-member state convention, blasted Sullivan's tactics in his blog. (www.founders.org/blog)

"This much is clear: The mailing of Dr. Vines' sermon on Calvinism is a clear indication that the executive director of the Florida Baptist Convention has an agenda to demonize the ministers and churches in our state who believe what the founders of the Southern Baptist Convention believed regarding the grace of God in salvation," wrote Ascol, pastor of Grace Baptist Church in Cape Coral and executive director of Founders Ministries, which promotes Calvinist or Reformed theology.

"This is a serious matter," he said. "Very serious."

In his sermon, Vines said Calvinism "kills" churches because it neglects evangelism by teaching that salvation is only for those whom God "elects," not for everyone. He said Calvinistic pastors tend to be divisive, dishonest and prone to "intellectual pride."

Read more from the SBC's Chief Calvinist Tom Ascol HERE.

Another outspoken Calvinist, Southern Seminary student Timmy Brister, reports on efforts by John Connell - a Savannah megachurch pastor - to remove all Calvinists from God's Country, er Georgia.

Who didn't see this fight brewing? Well, Bill Leonard did...

Back in 1993, Bill Leonard wrote:

Bringing Reformed theology back into mainstream SBC life may be a battle which will make the fundamentalist-moderate confrontation seem like a minor skirmish. A great many very conservative Southern Baptists are shocked when they learn that the founders believed that only an elect group of sinners, chosen before the foundation of the world will be saved.

Southern Baptists are beginning to reap what they have sown....

The Re-Sectarianization of the Southern Baptist Convention.

Militant Fundamentalists vs. Moderate Fundamentalists.

Maybe - just maybe - fundamentalists will finally realize that the source of "cooperative unity" in the SBC has never been doctrine and doctrine alone....

They're Booing Herschel Hobbs!!!

Yes. It's that time of year. Time for the Annual Meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention.

This time it's in San Antonio - not too far away from the "hotbed of Baptist liberalism" where I reside.

Ben Cole has summed up SBC Life over the past 12 months with a concise 47-point timeline.

And here's his #45:

Julie-Pennington Russell becomes the first woman to pastor the First Baptist Church of Decatur, GA, further evidencing the “vast feminist conspiracy” of the Baptist left.

In more news, the SBC recently announced the creation of the Ministry to Homosexuals Task Force. The director of this Task Force, Rev. Bob Stith of Carroll Baptist Church in Southlake, Texas, will "speak the truth about homosexuality being a sin, while reaching out in redemptive ways to those who struggle with same-sex temptation."

Why Stith?

According to, James T. Draper Jr., immediate past president of LifeWay, said it was extremely important for the person selected to direct the ministry to have a pastoral background.

"As a pastor he dealt with this issue, ministered effectively in this area, and confronted critics," Draper said of Stith.

However, in an interview with the Fort-Worth Star Telegram, Stith admitted that no one in his church or family had "struggled with homosexuality."

Stith is indeed the man for the job. Ah, I digress.

Back to the Annual Meeting.

The days of messengers booing elder statesmen like Hobbs are long gone. Just last year, messengers cheered and celebrated the death of one of God's Creations.

So here's to tacky!

Perhaps even William I. Gay Jr. (NC) will reintroduce last year's motion to "refrain from using the word 'gay' when referring to homosexuals in sermons, publications and in the media."

One can't make this stuff up...



-"They're booing Herschel Hobbs. Am I at the Southern Baptist Convention?...They're booing Herschel Hobbs. What is happening to us??" - Marse Granted, editor Biblical Recorder, 1980.

The patriarch of the 1963 Baptist Faith & Message was booed at the 1980 Annual Meeting held in St. Louis after warning the crowd to "beware the lures of creeping creedalism."

Frank Page Takes The Gloves Off

Brian Kaylor addresses Frank Page's lash out at the New Baptist Covenant. First, read what Page wrote:

I will not be a part of any smokescreen leftwing liberal agenda that seeks to deny the greatest need in our world, that being that the lost be shown the way to eternal life through Jesus Christ, our Lord.

I'm glad Brian took the time to respond.

Admittedly, Frank Page hasn't made many inflammatory remarks in the past year.

But irenic my butt. His latest BP op-ed sounds like the old Frank Page. The fightin' fundy Frank that I heard speak to a sleepy group of mediocre college students about 7 years ago. The guy that gave the Calvinists a 70-page whoopin in The Trouble With The Tulip (which by the way, I sold my signed copy for $35!). That Frank Page.

Well Frank, thanks for playing nice....for a while.

Read Wade Burleson: Is It a Rebuke or a Response?

Southern Baptist Covention - God, Guts, & Guns

Check out this article from the Baptist Center for Ethics.

A snippet below...

The Air Force denied it was a sponsor of a Memorial Day weekend festival at Stone Mountain, Ga., honoring the military and featuring introduction of a new paperback Bible designed for military personnel published by the Southern Baptist Convention.

Holman Bible Outreach International, a division of LifeWay Christian Resources, announced plans to give away 3,000 copies of its new Holman CSB Military Bible, "designed to meet the specific needs of military personnel and was created a format that is easy to carry," at the May 26-28 event honoring active duty and veteran U.S. troops and their families.

Featured speakers at the three-day event, expected to draw 100,000 people, included former SBC President Bobby Welch, a decorated Vietnam War veteran and author of You, The Warrior Leader.

LifeWay said it was sponsoring the event with the United States Air Force, Task Force Patriot USA, General Motors and others. The advance press release described the Task Force Patriot Salute to the Troops as "an official U.S. Air Force 60th anniversary event." At least one military publication, from Robins Air Force Base in Georgia, called it an official Air Force event.

Let's forget (for a moment) about the church-state issues that surround this event.

What the heck is a CSB Military Bible?

From the article...

"For these perilous times, for the men and women who serve the cause of freedom around the world, Holman Bible Publishers is pleased to provide the entire Bible in a format that is easy to carry, and that is designed to meet the specific needs of those who serve in the most difficult of situations," said a product description on LifeWay's online store.

LifeWay has for some time carried the New Testament and Psalms customized with the particular seal of the Army, Navy, Air Force or Marines and containing hymns including the "Star Spangled Banner," "America the Beautiful," "Battle Hymn of the Republic" and "Onward Christian Soldier."

Other special features in all editions, according to one on-line vendor, include the Pledge of Allegiance, plan of salvation, prayers of General George S. Patton and President George Washington and quotes from current Commander in Chief President George W. Bush.

Talk about some God and Country! The publisher of the Southern Baptist Covention is selling a Bible that contains quotes from George W. Bush! What to say?

I thought I'd heard it all. Seriously. Wow. Folks, this is Civil Religion at its finest. This is just one of many examples that prove that the misguided focus of the SBC on the notion of a Christian America has resulted in an insiduous form of civil religion. Civil Religion is simply the mixing of traditional religion with national life until the two become indistinguishable. That's precisely what we have here - the Holy Bible combined with a heavy dose of American Nationalism. For what purpose? To serve whose militaristic desires? As one wise Baptist said years ago - "This idolatrous religion depends upon patriotic fervor to be its Holy Spirit and Adam Smith its prophet...When the largest Baptist body in the nation, historic champions of religious freedom, officially and blatantly turns to accommodation rather than separation, and CIVIL RELIGION rather than prophetic witness, it is ALARMING."

UPDATE:

For more on the SBC's own military B-I-B-L-E

Levellers - Idolatrous Nationalism From SBC Publishing House

For God's Sake Shut Up! - Militaristic Christianity

Also, take a minute and contact Lifeway with your displeasure. I am.