In this open letter, Adam W. Greenway, President of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, addresses recent controversy surrounding a recent statement from the Council of Seminary Presidents.
Category: Methodology
Aaron Ren has released an episode of his podcast, The Masculinist, with critical insights for those interested in learning lessons for today from church history. The focus of the episode is the battle for conservative theology within the Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod.
The quote in the title of this post can be found around the 12:41 mark in the episode. You can listen to it on your podcast app or stream it here.
In this article from Ronnie Floyd’s Advancing the Vision series, Floyd writes, “The future is not in having cultural conversations apart from the Bible. This will always lead to division. Southern Baptist pastors, leaders, and churches need to be having biblical conversations about cultural matters.”
For all our talk of war we often miss the battlefield. The apostle Paul, in the sixth chapter of his epistle to the Ephesians, speaks of putting on the whole armor of God that the soldier of God might stand against the devil.
10 Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. 11 Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. 12 For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. 13 Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand firm.
We note here that our ultimate enemies are not human beings, but spiritual forces. The way we fight spiritual forces differs from how we face physical, fleshly beings.
Detractors from the overall program of ensuring that the Southern Baptist Convention does not forsake the principles regained during the Conservative Resurgence often note the absurdity of believing that Southern Baptists believe in anything less than the authority and infallibility of the Bible. In doing so, they miss the current point of contention. The concern is not, and has never been for the past twenty years or so, whether or not Southern Baptists are giving up on their stated belief in the inerrancy of the Bible. Nor is the worry over whether or not we have left behind the fundamentals of the faith, like the virgin birth and penal substitutionary atonement of Christ. Rather, the problem is something like this: we say we believe them while failing to apply them to all areas of life.
In this post, Tom Ascol writes, “To put it bluntly, the Southern Baptist Convention needs to be led by pastors. Granted, there are some pastors who are eager to be enablers of or fellow travelers with wayward bureaucrats. I am not talking about those guys.”
A video in which presidential candidate Joe Biden answers a question regarding transgendered children recently made its rounds on social media. The video reminded me of something Christians sometimes do, or are tempted to do, and should not do. Here’s the video:
In this post, non-SBC author Timon Cline comments on the nature and content of a recent exchange he had with Jonathan Leeman of 9Marks on Critical Race Theory and Intersectionality.
Categories
Moody Men
The story is told of how famed evangelist D. L. Moody was approached by someone complaining about how he did evangelism. In response, Moody asked how this individual did evangelism, and the reply was something to the effect of, “I don’t.” Moody then said, “I like my way of doing it better than your way of not doing it.” We need far more men to be like Moody when it comes to offering a defense of conservative theology.
Some pastors have noted parallels between the politics of the Southern Baptist Convention and the politics of the local church. One idea along these lines is that you don’t want to be that church member as you work for reform in the SBC. Yeah, you know the one. Sure, you’ll love that church member anyway, but you’ll also wonder if you’re required to like him or her. Don’t be that kind of convention member.