Backsliding Southern Baptists

[Recusant]

This development and others indicate to me that American society is moving away from the regressive ideology that brought it to the disgraceful absurdity of elevating Trump to the presidency. There is hope.   

"Southern Baptists Call Off the Culture War" | The Atlantic

It was immediately clear that change was afoot in Dallas. I’ve attended the annual gatherings of the Southern Baptist Convention dozens of times, but walking around the convention center this week, I was struck by how unfamiliar it all felt. When I was a child, the convention hall was a sea of silver combovers and smelled of denture paste. While the older, more traditionalist crowd was still present in Dallas, the younger, fresh-faced attendees now predominated.

“The generational shift happening in the SBC has thrust the group into the middle of an identity crisis,” says Barry Hankins, chair of the department of history at Baylor University and co-author of Baptists in America: A History. “The younger generation thinks differently than the old guard Christian right about culture and politics, and they are demanding change.”

To enact this change, young Baptists nominated 45-year old pastor J.D. Greear from North Carolina to be president of the denomination. In a campaign video, Greear called for “a new culture and a new posture in the Southern Baptist Convention.”

Refusing to cede power without a fight, fundamentalist Baptists nominated Ken Hemphill as an opposition candidate. But Greear won with nearly 70 percent of the vote, becoming the youngest SBC president in 37 years.

Greear has promised to lead the denomination down a different path, which, he has said, must include efforts both to repent of a “failure to listen to and honor women and racial minorities” and “to include them in proportionate measures in top leadership roles.” If the meeting in Dallas is any indication, his vision is resonating with a large number of the next wave of Baptist leaders.

* * *

In 1967, at New Orleans’s historic Café du Monde, a young seminary student named Paige Patterson and Texas Judge Paul Pressler met over a plate of beignets to hatch a plan to unite conservative Southern Baptists and take over America’s largest Protestant denomination.

The two men successfully executed their strategy in the subsequent decades, a movement they labeled the “Conservative Resurgence” and their opponents dubbed the “Fundamentalist Takeover.” Whatever one calls it, the result was a purging of moderates from among denominational ranks, the codifying of literal interpretations of the Bible, and the transformation of the Southern Baptist Convention into a powerful ally of the Republican Party.

For years, the two men were revered by many of the roughly 15 million members of the SBC as paragons of virtue. When the Southern Baptist Convention met last week in Dallas, however, public scandals kept both leaders away.

A lawsuit filed against Pressler alleging decades of sexual molestation, beginning while the plaintiff was just 14, included two additional affidavits from individuals alleging that Pressler had committed sexual misconduct against them while they were young men. And Patterson has drawn criticism for encouraging abused women to submit to their violent husbands. He was dismissed from his post as president of Southwestern Seminary after being accused of failing to properly report at least two allegations of rape. More than 3,000 Southern Baptist women signed a petition calling for his resignation.

“When Southwestern’s executive committee terminated Paige Patterson as president, Southern Baptists closed the book on the Patterson-Pressler era,” said Keith Harper, a Baptist historian and co-author of SBC FAQs: A Ready Reference. “It signaled an opportunity for something new—new leadership, new direction, and a new emphasis on engaging our culture.”

In a blink, the paragons became personae non grata among their brethren. And their ignominious departures created a power vacuum that primed the denomination for revolution.

[Continues . . .]

[Arturo]

Cool 

[Dave]

American church politics is as mad as the congressional and presidential varieties.

[Tank]

That looks potentially positive.

[Davin]

It would be nice to see Christians getting back to Christian values.

[Tom62]

It would be nice to see Christians getting back to Christian values.

Like burning witches ?

[Davin]

It would be nice to see Christians getting back to Christian values.

Like burning witches ?

I don't remember Jesus doing that.

[Dave]

It would be nice to see Christians getting back to Christian values.

Like burning witches ?

I don't remember Jesus doing that.

I think we will reach the End of the Universe before humans as a species comply with true Christian values.

[Icarus]

Dave;"True christian values" are all over the map. Which ones are you referring to?

[Sandra Craft]

Dave;"True christian values" are all over the map. Which ones are you referring to?

I would consider them those that follow Christ's teachings -- not all of which I think are good, but still a lot better than what the religious Right have created out of whole cloth.

[Dave]

Dave;"True christian values" are all over the map. Which ones are you referring to?

Perhaps the original set that did not seem to involve burning people for being different, persecuting or even killing LGBT+ people and all the other immoral, unethical and downright illegal things christians have done and still do. Often looks like they "take the name of their lord in vain" more than atheists do!

[Arturo]

I think vanity in God's name is the last thing an Atheist would do.

[Dave]

I think vanity in God's name is the last thing an Atheist would do.

Gee, geez, blimey, cor blimey, strewth and a few others are all "indirect" blasphemies on the lips of non-Christians - according to Christians.

"OMG" gets a bit closer.

Jesus, Jesus Christ, Jesus H Christ, Christ (though that word stems from other words that predate the NT and have potentially nothing to do with holiness or Jesus, like "Bible" simply means "book", the Christians just, selfishly, grabbed the word for themselves), God, Lord etc are more directly "taking the lord's name in vain," even if used by a Christian other than as a prayer.

I have seen all of these used by atheists and humanists when they are, basically, meaningless swear words.

[Arturo]

Those usually aren't use in vanity. Those are usually when something horrible happens and shouted out in exclamation. Maybe you might scream it out during sex depending who you are but most people I know aren't like that.

To clear up what I meant I'll try to describe what vanity is and how Atheists use the God's name and compare that with how Christians use it. Vanity is like the Evil Queen from Snow White asking the Mirror who is the fairest of them all and thinking of herself as she is saying it. In fact I'll just give the definition I pulled off of bing-

"excessive pride in or admiration of one's own appearance or achievements."

And well I think you'll get the picture now. None of us Atheists would do that. But Christians are the first to go and say "x" happened "because God" and "be thankful for the lord" ect ect.

[Dave]

Arturo, "to use in vain" has nothing to do with "vanity" in this context.

To do something "in vain" means it is pointless, has no gain.

To use "the lord's nane in vain" comes from Exodus 20:7 which reads: "Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain; for the LORD will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain." (KJV). It was a mortal sin once but produced euphemisms like "gadzooks" and"odds bodikins" in the Middle Ages to allow "coded" swearing using god's name. "Gee(willikers/whiz/pers)" are, along with those mentioned before, modern examples of displacing the blasphemy. Oh, and add "golly" and "gosh" to the list.

But for an athiest to say, "Oh, God" is like both above, pointless except as an expletive to express feeling and be offensive to theists. Of course, the atheist might just have a sloppy language habit or be wishing to provoke, or just be casually nasty, to theists.