Demise of the "Big Six?"

During the so-called conservative resurgence of the Eighties, from 49%-40% of messengers voted each year against the conservative-anointed candidate for SBC president.

 

You really DO have it bad, don't you.

Lots of things I'd like to say, but you're doing such a good job all by yourself that I'll just let you continue. :tonofbricks:

 

Amen... I placed the links up that suggest other than what a couple of guys are saying here. Disrespect women? Hardly... Follow the Scriptures as to their "role"? Absolutely. Role is different from position, which is different from suggesting that women are second class citizens.

I believe God spoke well when He included this:

Gen 1:27 So God created man in his [own] image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.

We also know that He set up man as the "head" and woman as the "helpmate." But those, again, are roles, not positions, nor do they suggest in any form or fashion that women are not co-equal with men in God's eyes. Shame on him for even suggesting such a vile thing!

But, his language gives away the fact that the person who he thinks was so wronged by the SBC was also, in all probability, a woman... He has an ax to grind. Just wish he wouldn't be blowing all the grinding dust all over the board.

 

Nope wrong again, but nice try, sorta.

I graduated in 2003, started back when we were told nobody is going to make anyone sign anything. That didn't last long now did it?

What the SBC has come to stand for these days is fundamentalism, legalism and it is not Baptist in it's practice.

Unlike you I think the SBC leadership are nincompoops, if you want to be pooped on, it's all yours

 

There was a resurgence, no doubt. While I was not at any election in the 1980's and have avoided the convention when I was a Pastor, I am interested in knowing where you go that statistic.

Yet, by the end of the era, most of the conservative candidates now receive the vast majority of votes. When Paige ran in the '90's, it was a landslide.

 

I think he is simply pointing out the results of the votes for the election of the Convention president each year. The votes were usually fairly close. When I was at the Convention in 1988, the "Resurgence" candidate (Jerry Vines) barely won over the "moderate/conservative" candidate (Richard Jackson).

That's because most of the "moderate/conservative" voters stopped going to the annual Convention for various reasons, including the fact that a number of them left the Convention.

The last time I went to a Convention was 1997 when the Convention voted to elect a committee to change the 1963 BF&M to defend against homosexual influences and the Convention decided to boycott Disney. Regarding the former, I was seated with a good friend of mine (a seminary doctoral student) and when the vote was called for changing of the BF&M, they chair required that those who vote stand and raise their ballots. When the two of us voted against the resolution (both of us were and continue to be against homosexual acts), we found ourselves (two males) standing together amidst a number of people who were seated. More than a few people speculated out loud that we were gay. (Hey, there's a nice expression of Christian love and civility... The only possible reason why we might be opposed to a sudden rewrite of the BF&M in the politically-charged, emotionally-manipulative and vicious environment of the SBC in those days.) As as example of this, regarding the Disney boycott, there was discussion of the boycott which ended in a call to vote. The last thing that was said in the discussion was a woman who said, "When I was 8..." (or some age like that, I don't recall the exact age), "...I met Mickey Mouse and I was thrilled. When I was 12, I met Jesus Christ and he changed my life. [Cue excessive and manipulative tears] Choose Jesus over Mickey Mouse!"

After that, I was through with the annual Conventions.

After the 2000 BF&M vote and the massive dishonesty with the way it was reported, I was through with the SBC.

 

There is much here I agree with. First, the Disney Boycott... that was stupid. My standard response is, "Don't find companies to boycott, find companies to support." I love supporting solid companies with solid ethics and while there are companies I do not like, I do not boycott them but if I had an equal choice between two companies, I choose the one that I prefer.

I would have voted to revise the BF&M. How some twisted the "contains" phrase and distorted it through the years warranted a revision.

Yet, i agree with the politics in the SBC. I have seen both sides... the liberal who black-balled and undermined any conservative Pastor who entered his association or the conservative who was all fire and was militant. I had people lie about Roy Honeycut on both sides, those who refused to recognize his tolerance for people who attacked the idea that Jesus was God of very God and the incarnate Messiah and those who went after his character and persona.

True story, one time I was going into a meeting of mostly liberal pastors and I knew they would ask me where I attended Seminary. I told them my credentials at Liberty and when one asked, "Is that Jerry Falwell's School", I responded, "Oh, yes, but don't compare me to him. He and I disagree on so many issues." I gave a pregnant pause then continued, "He is way too liberal for me."

They had nothing to do with me since then And to be honest, I was not disappointed.

What I do not like about most in the SBC, is they only recognize the sins of the other side as an excuse for their bad behavior. I think many of the liberals are heretics... but I also do not think the conservatives did everything right. I also do not think the liberals understand the nature of the theological debate. They make it about politics but it went much deeper than that. Until they can recognize the deep passion for the Word of God, they will always play that they are the abused kids in this fight. For that reason, I have little sympathy with the crying of the liberals.

 

Are you speaking about the Abstract of Principles at SBTS?

If so, you are once again barking up the wrong tree.

The AoP was put in place by the founding president of Southern Seminary, James Petigru Boyce.

Note that that rule was never once rescinded during the years that "moderates" controlled the seminary, and yes, every full professor (not visiting or assistant, etc.) signed that document. I've seen the book and all the names within it. They're all there... But a whole bunch failed to be truthful in their teaching in accordance with where they placed their oath.

Moreover, Mohler, in his first sermon delivered at his installation as President of SBTS had this to say:

I highly recommend that you read Mohler's entire sermon. It is worth a read. He has much to say that is corrective of your own flawed view of history!

Southeastern ALSO has the same Abstract of Principles in force since 1950 -- well before any moderate take-over of the seminaries of the SBC.

http://www.sebts.edu/about/what-we-believe/default.aspx

 

I’m pleased to be able to say the same.

I agree completely.

We disagree on this point to some degree. I think the 1963 BF&M could stand some revision, but the spirit of the Convention meetings and leadership at the time made me believe it was a bad idea for that era. After they made the 1998 change (in my opinion, the whole point of the 1998 revision was to test the waters to see if the SBC would tolerate a change to the BF&M) they revised most of the document from Paige Patterson’s hand-picked committee (which included several family members and very close associates) resulting in the 2000 BF&M.

You might be surprised how much I agree with you. The fight was ugly, dirty, unchristian, and destroyed many people’s reputations. I unintentionally found myself in backroom meetings on both sides of the fight and have seen many documents (from both sides) that have yet to be publicly revealed which show extreme hypocrisy and hard-ball politicking that has nothing to do with truth or morals. Much of the fight (again, on both sides) was for power and not for theology.

I agree. I also happen to think a number of the “conservatives” were theologically-unsound, as well as dupes of the leadership’s party line. I also happen to know a fair number of people who decided that the “conservatives” were going to win the fight, so they suddenly jumped on board the “resurgence” in order to secure a more profitable (financially and power) future. I happen to personally know some of the well-known leadership, and a few of them have privately confessed that to me.

It was both political and theological. There were definitely some theological problems in some of the SBC seminaries in the 1960s and 1970s, but the movement to change that went too far, took down many innocent people, undermined the cooperative spirit of the SBC and created new theological problems of its own.

Well some of the “liberals” were abused. And then a lot of “moderates” and true conservatives (who did not bow to Pressler/Patterson) were vilified as “liberals” and mercilessly attacked and abused as well.

Abuse is still abuse, even if we completely disagree with the person being abused. Furthermore, we are called to love our enemies and to do good to those who harm us. While there were people who needed to go (and many more who didn’t), they were often not treated with even common human decency, much less Christian love.

 

Comments like these are always troubling. They are extremely easy to make because of the anonimoty of a board where no evidence is available. It is sad and unChristian itself.

 

Sure, it's easy to make this statement. But the nature of a back-room meeting is that there is little to no evidence to share. However, the fact that I'm freely admitting that both sides participated in this sort of thing (as opposed to just the side I happen to most disagree with) should lend credibility to my claim.

I've found myself in two "conservative resurgence" type of backroom meetings, both of which featured some very well-known names in the current SBC. I've been in three backroom meetings on the "moderate" side, one of which I sort of knew what I was getting into, but I wanted to positively influence (didn't work) and two that I found myself in when spending time with people who were trying to resist the "resurgence" in the SBC.

However, you don't have to take my word for it to discover the truth.

Over the years I have seen a number of sensitive documents, many of which are not publicly available, although I've discovered that a fair number of copies (some expurgated, some not) are part of the Texas Baptist Historical Collection archives.

A large number of the documents lay bare the political mechanisms driving the firing of Dr. Dilday from Southwestern Seminary are available there because it took place when the Texas Baptist Historical Collection was housed on the Southwestern Seminary campus. It was very easy for documents to quickly find their way to the archives for safekeeping in the midst of all of the faxes generated and the careless disposal of damning documents amongst seminary employees who did not like what they were seeing played out before their eyes and misrepresented in Baptist Press. (There was an enormous difference between reality and reporting in that instance.) Among those documents you will see communications between the trustees of SWBTS and the "conservative resurgence" leadership complaining that the trustees did exactly what the leadership told them to do about Dilday, but the leadership had suddenly backed off from supporting them because of the massive backlash among rank-and-file Baptists. There's also examples of two different press releases and letters to the faculty, all the revisions of reasons why Dilday was fired (they couldn't seem to make up their mind), as well as evidence of other PR miscalculations.

There's also a galley proof of Leon McBeth's history of the SBC's Sunday School Board that a few Sunday School Board trustees decided was not as laudatory of the "conservative resurgence" as it should have been and so they had all copies of the manuscript, but one, shredded. The surviving copy was place in their vault for safekeeping. Yet they forgot about the galley proofs. I have review much of it and actually didn't find anything terribly negative about the "conservative resurgence" in there... in fact, it was barely mentioned. And everything that was said is taken as common knowledge among those involved in the "conservative resurgence," so I am mystified at the overreaction.

In any case, the evidence is out there, although a little bit more difficult to find than it would be if it all played out today in the age of the internet.

 

Yes.

Mohler's tack back in 1990, when a moderate was elected president of the Georgia Convention:

"That non-aligned center of the denomination is increasingly traumatized by divisiveness caused by either party," said Dr. R. Albert Mohler Jr., editor of the Christian Index, the Georgia Baptist newspaper." —Atlanta Constitution, Nov. 17, 1990

 

Then that is where it should be left if it even happened.

 

Why?

Seriously, I would like to understand your reasoning.

 

I already explained that. And your response only confirmed my position. You can only make claims that are accusatory and unsubstantiated. Do you think that represents Christ?

 

So I'm not allowed to testify about what I have seen, heard and experienced unless I can somehow provide very specific evidence that you can examine over the internet?

(1) You asked for confirmation and I gave you information on how you can see some of the documents yourself. The Texas Baptist Collection has quite a few. So I have given you a means to confirm what I say.

(2) Regarding backroom meetings, you are holding me to a standard higher than anyone else here. I noticed you have not called out Ruiz for his similar comments. Perhaps it has something to do with you wanting to believe the "conservative resurgence" was conducted with complete holiness, love, and purity of thought and action. It is common knowledge for years that there were back room meetings on both sides of the conflict that began in the late 1970s all the way through the 1990s. That I (a formerly denominationally-involved young student and young pastor who was very well-connected among some of the big names) would have found myself in some of them shouldn't be considered a far-fetched concept. In fact, one of my good friends in college regularly met with Paige Patterson while he was president of Criswell College to report on his college professors.

I have been very consistent over the years in the things I cannot as easily substantiate:

I detail one of the back room meetings in 2003

That there are documents in the Texas Baptist Collection that reveal the mechanisms of the firing of Dr. Dilday. And of course, you can check this out for yourself.

That I know people who went along with the "Conservative Resurgence" for purposes other than personal conviction of the truth of the movement.

Whether or not you choose to believe I am lying is your issue, not mine.

I've been called a liar many times in religious life, only to be vindicated later.

Yes. Telling the truth in an appropriate way honors Christ.

 

Well then I will leave you to your conscience. God Bless

 

The Texas Baptist Convention. What is the Texas Baptist Convention? Are they aligned with the SBC or are they group that broke away?

 

We've seen in this thread alone how one person can take the words of another and spin them for personal advantage.

In particular, you have fired off some heavy shots at the SBC that have been countered with actual facts at every turn. The one about Seminary Wives Institute was perhaps the clearest example of you having things utterly wrong -- to the point where I wondered if I were in fact debating the devil instead of one who claims to be a brother in Christ seeking the best good for all...

That is why so-called "back room documents" and the impressions of this or that person are ALWAYS suspect. Especially when one cannot see the entire debate and fact check in context.

 

I'm not sure what you're referencing. Are you referencing the Texas Baptist Historical Collection (which I identified in one place as the "Texas Baptist Collection" (sic)? If so, it is a department of the Baptist General Convention of Texas (BGCT).

If I somewhere referred to the "Texas Baptist Convention," then I am probably referring to the BGCT. The other SBC-affiliated state Baptist convention is "Southern Baptists of Texas" (SBT)

Both the BGCT and SBT are aligned with the SBC. The SBT broke away from the BGCT during the BGCT Convention in Houston in 1998 (I was an eyewitness to the walkout of the convention hall -- although I can't easily prove it mandym :tongue3: ).

Neither group has "broken away" from the SBC, although it is certainly fair to say that the SBT convention is much more sympathetic to the current mainstream flow of Southern Baptist life.