Is Baptist Press News credible ?

If we read BPNews without suspicion of an agenda from the ensconced SBC leadership we do ourselves a disservice.

Some of their articles are great representations of the wonderful work SBCers throughout the world are conducting. Some of the article give us a glimpse of the power of the Gospel. Too many of their articles are biased political pieces that have no business near a church, pulpit, or church agency.

We in the SBC have sold our birthright for a mess of pottage in supporting a political agenda. We cannot change people for the good of the Gospel by simply legislating...we must be involved with them for the glory of God and share the only thing that will truly change them.

Notice the coverage of the New Baptist Covenant...nothing good has been said by them yet many good things happened there. It is sad that this is the case. BPNews is a poor example of journalism.

 

I'm confused about this thread, Rev seems to be debating himself???

 

Baptist Press is the public relations arm of the executive board of the SBC, nothing is said there that would be in any sort of opposition to the powers that be. You will not see an investigative report on the seminaries, or their presidents, or accurate reports on thier true health. You will see fluff pieces, and semiary faculties running around in cowboy hats however! BP would have never broken the story on the NAMB, it took the florida paper to do that (and I imagine there was some consternation in nashville when that all went down)

I advocate reading BP, but also reading Associated Baptist Press and local papers to attempt to get some balance to what BP is putting out

 

While I am no fan of the theology put forth in The Message of Genesis by Dr. Ralph Elliott, by any stretch, You did, I believe, ask about perspective.

If anything, the controversy with Ralph Elliott and The Message of Genesis, and Elliott's subsequent firing by the Midwestern Seminary Trustees for insubordination in 1961, for refusing to withdraw the book from publication, was the spark that kindled the fire that 'smoldered along' with the occasional sparks appearing during the SBC presidencies of Drs. Herschel Hobbs, K. Owen White, W. A. Criswell, and Jaroy Weber (all of whom were personally strong believers in 'inerrancy', BTW). Among other influences were the BF&M of 1963, and the book that was the effective 'counterpoint' of that of Elliott, namely that of Dr. W. A. Criswell titled Why I Preach that the Bible is Literally True, and, finally, the gasoline tossed onto these embers, The Battle for the Bible by Dr. Harold Lindsell, and the fanning of the flames with "The Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy" by the non-sectarian International Council on Biblical Inerrancy, which led to the full blown inferno of the so-called "Conservative resurgence", that would manifest itself in a much greater way, beginning about 1980.

Basically, I wrote this, for I felt your statement here was unclear, as to timing and order, not so much that I disagreed.

From my perspective -

Ed

 

==I am glad you explained that. I was getting a bit confused. As for BaptistPress, I have never found them to be unreliable. However many times I think their "top news stories" are not all that relevant. Which is of course a matter of pure opinion.

 

The chronology.

The timeline.

The order of events.

"the timing and order".

Surely, you understand the meanings of the above phrases.

Your post implies that Dr. Ralph Elliott was axed because of "the resurgence", basically as though his firing had happened fairly recently, and as a result of "the resurgence", like in, say, the last 25 years.

Not so. Dr. Elliott was fired in 1961, by Midwestern. That is more than 46 years ago.

Dr. Paige Patterson (SWBTS) was still a teenager, at that time.
Dr. Richard Land was 13, years old, or a year older than I was at 12, at that time.
Dr. Chuck Kelley (NOBTS) was in the third grade.
Dr. Al Mohler (SBTS) was literally "in diapers", at the ripe old age of 1.
Judge Paul Pressler was all of 27.

I suspect this was long before either you or I were even aware of any such controversy, and although I've been on the lines of the 'battle for the Bible', as a layman for about 40 years, I suspect you were yet "still in diapers", if "even dry behind the ears", at that time. (Were you even born yet?)

Am I wrong, here? I seriously doubt it.

FTR, when visiting Southern Baptist Seminary in the fall of 1968, as a college student at the University of KY, I did manage to get Joseph M. Smith, a fellow poster on the Baptist Board, and the college pastor of the BSU at that time, to be asked not to ever bring me back to Southern, by Dr. Peter Rhea Jones, after I openly challenged him in his classroom, after his own invitation to the guests to join in on the discussions, no less, when he denied the Pauline authorship of Ephesians. I took an exception to the view he was espousing. BTW, you can find reference to this view, and Dr. Jones, presented in The Battle for the Bible.

Is any of this clearer, now?

Ed

 

Sorry, I do not get the impression from reading this post, as written, that -

regardless of whether that was your intent. I did not say you attempted to set up any 'timeline', merely that there was such a 'timeline', and that the post seems to miss it, for the surface reading of it would seem to have Ralph Elliott fired, as a result of the 'resurgence'.

BTW, I normally read every post in a thread up to the point at which I post, before posting, and this thread was no exception.

Ed

 

More journalists work there now. I believe it is more credible than it was twenty or thirty years ago when it was a propoganda machine.

 

When it "was" a propoganda machine, it still is a propoganda machine, just more of the SBC leadership agrees with the propoganda, so really no problem.