In the Beginning, The Gospel: Al Mohler vs. Andy Stanley

Scot McKnight on Jesus and orthodox faith in the 21st century

Source: In the Beginning, The Gospel: Al Mohler vs. Andy Stanley

There is trouble, again, in Southern Baptist ‘paradise’. Fundamentalist bully Al Mohler chastises Andy Stanley for putting Jesus before Scripture, and thus, undermining Mohler’s obsession, the dubious and confusing concept of innerancy. Well done, Andy!

Roger Olson Asks CBF Liberals to Drop ‘Moderate’ Label

An article by Bob Allen, from Baptist News Global.

A quarter century after forming to resist fundamentalism in the Southern Baptist Convention, theology professor Roger Olson says the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship is increasingly polarizing over liberal views gaining ground in the originally moderate group.

A professor at a moderate Baptist seminary says some individuals within the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship are starting to sound more liberal than moderate, prompting others to worry the quasi-denomination is drifting leftward and away from its evangelical roots.

Roger Olson, professor of theology and Christian ethics at Baylor’s George W. Truett Theological Seminary, said in a Patheos blog Feb. 22 that a division is developing in the 1,800-church network founded in 1990.

On one hand, he said, there are those who want to elevate the Baptist concept of “soul competency” to question traditional orthodoxy. Others “want to hold to basic Christian orthodox and evangelical commitments while avoiding rigid, narrow dogmatism over secondary matters.”

Olson said Cecil Sherman, the founding coordinator of the CBF who died in 2010, was by all accounts the figurehead leader of the moderate Baptist party that left the Southern Baptist Convention to establish a truly moderate — neither liberal nor fundamentalist — Baptist group in the South.

Scot McKnight on Heretics vs Hypocrites

Recently, Scot McKnight commented on Owen Strachan, the new ‘hawk’ in the Southern Baptist army, accusing Rachel Held Evans of ‘heresy’, because of her egalitarian stance.  In doing this, Strachan used a typical fundamentalist tactic: extending the borders of the Gospel, in order to include in them their favourite non-essentials.

This time, Scot discusses the fact that, in the gospels,  Jesus was much more interested in matters of religious hypocrisy than in matters of doctrinal accuracy, a topic on which my Southern Baptist friends should do well to meditate seriously. And look in the mirror, from time to time.

Here is what Scot write on this topic:

Southern Baptist Leader Paige Patterson Confuses Matters, Again

According to ABP News, in a recent seminary chapel sermon, Paige Patterson, President of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Kansas, declared that ‘there’s no room in the church for whistleblowers’.

According to the Baptist leader, the biblical principle (in 1 Cor. 6) according to which Christians should not sort out their differences in court, but resolve them in church means “we don’t take matters before unbelievers”, and, according to him, this also applies to the media: ‘What goes on in the church of God doesn’t go to the press’. I wonder if he also means the religious or denominational media. He did not seem to have thought that much about it, especially as it stands in the context of the internet.

What Patterson seems to long for is a sort of inquisitorial context, in which church leaders can play with impunity their pathetic power games, without any possibility for the ‘little people’ they pretend to serve to react in any way. Those who are familiar with the highly dubious political means through which fundamentalists took over leadership and eliminate not only liberals, but also moderates from the Southern Baptist denomination know very well what Patterson means.

Russell Moore vs Pope Francis – On Who’s A ‘Theological Wrack’

According to Wikipedia, ‘Russell D. Moore is an American evangelical theologian, ethicist, preacher, and President of the Southern Baptist Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission (Baptist Press). He previously served at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, the flagship seminary of the Southern Baptist Convention, as Dean of the School of Theology, Senior Vice President for Academic Administration, and as Professor of Christian Theology and Ethics.’

His name appeared previously on this blog (HERE and HERE) in relation to his rigid ‘complementarian’ (or, rather, patriarchal) views on gender issues (he is also board chairman of the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood).

In a recent article on his blog he discusses the pope’s latest interview in La Repubblica, calling it nothing less than a ‘theological wreck’. One wonders what could make a pretty average, be it audacious, Southern Baptist theologian make such a bold critical statement about the head of the Catholic Church. Let us see.

Ergun Caner admits he “became an idiot”

(Source: HERE)

The president of Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary has apologized for calling the head of the Southern Baptist Convention’s International Mission Board a liar, saying he got carried away in an interview while criticizing a mission strategy used to evangelize Muslims.

In a Feb. 24 podcast on the SBC Today website, Ergun Caner, a former Muslim turned Southern Baptist who has written extensively labeling Islam a false religion, defended earlier statements critical of a strategy called the Camel Method.

International adoptions as proselytism – UPDATE

I have read tonight one of the most distressing things in years. It seems that for some Southern Baptists international adoptions (you have heard of the recent scandal in Haiti) have become the latest form of proselytism. Please read and decide for yourselves:

A Southern Baptist seminary professor says the arrests of a group of Baptists from the United States accused of trying to remove children from earthquake-stricken Haiti without proper documentation could give a black eye to a budding movement of evangelicals who view adoption as a means of spreading the gospel.

Emergentii ii sperie pe baptistii din sud

Una dintre inclinatiile funciare si irezistibile ale fundamentalistilor este aceea de cauta cu asiduitate dusmani cu care sa se lupte. Si, vorba Scripturii, ‘cine cauta, gaseste’. Iar atunci cind ii gaseste, orice fel de arme si de stratageme sunt permise in confruntarea care urmeaza. Caci, nu-i asa, fara razboi nu se poate. Si, vorba lui Machiavelli, ‘scopul scuza mijloacele’.