Southern Baptist Convention Escalates the Liberal Hate

As a reformed / recovering Baptist, I make it a point to keep tabs on the SBC to keep abreast of the hate and intolerance they're spreading.

Today I learned that the SBC is removing itself from the Baptist World Alliance because of the latter's inclusion of a more-liberal group, the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, which the SBC has accused of taking an "anti-Amerkun tone."

Full article: http://apnews1.iwon.com/article/20040615/D837H5K00.html

More below the fold...

The paragraphs that jumped out at me were the following:

The December report complained that some in the alliance had questioned "the truthfulness of Holy Scripture," refused to affirm the necessity of conscious faith in Jesus Christ for salvation, promoted women preachers, criticized the SBC and its foreign mission board and adopted an "anti-American" tone.

The last straw came in 2003, when the alliance accepted as a member the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, a rival group to the SBC formed by moderates who oppose denominational leaders' conservative policies.

Prior to Tuesday's vote, Paige Patterson, president of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas, said the SBC should not give money or endorsement to an organization that includes liberals.

He also complained that the American Baptist Churches, a U.S. denomination, includes "gay-friendly congregations," and that other members of the world alliance call the inerrancy of Scripture into question.

It never ceases to amaze me, for a group that considers themselves the be-all, end-all of Christianity, the level of hatred, bigotry, misogyny, and all that they display. I remember a few years ago reading that the SBC had made a top priority out of converting Jews to Christianity. The mind just boggles.

•  Heh...

  As a fellow recovering Southern Baptist, I remember that whole tussle starting vis a vis the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship. Some members of my congregation back home got an item added to offering envelopes so you could specify whether you wanted the Cooperative Program portion of your offerings to go to the SBC or the CBF. The congregation was more moderate than a lot of the Baptist churches in town, possibly because it was the "society" (old money) congregation - full of doctors and other well-educated professionals and fifth-generation Texas Baptists.

  That congregation was and is a member of the SBC. I don't think the option is still on the envelope, and I've seen this sad right-ward turn of the membership since I've gone off to college.

  Didn't know it'd turned this ugly, though.

  by A Texan in Maryland on Tue Jun 15, 2004 at 10:43:35 AM PDT

•  I could care less

  The more the SBC and other groups act like asshats, the more people will realize that they have nothing to offer except the key to the bathroom door.

  by maxomai on Tue Jun 15, 2004 at 10:46:39 AM PDT

•  Oh, and

  I believe that God has sent Paige Patterson to test my capacity for Christian love. As far as I'm concerned, he is one of the people most responsible for starting the Southern Baptist Convention on the road to being the Southern Baptist Church. I do not like us as a hierarchal church. As shown by the last few years, we do not affect the world for the better as a large institutional church. Fundamentalism + hierarchal re-enforcement = ugly (see: Crusades, Inquisitions)

  by A Texan in Maryland on Tue Jun 15, 2004 at 10:48:05 AM PDT

•  Not only the Baptists are bigoted

  My mother attended a Luthern Church, Missouri Synod, mostly because she had some friends there.  In her mid-Alzheimer's phase, you enjoyed all the noise and standing and shouting out.  I sat there and rolled my eyes.  We poor people amongst the rollex watches, mercedes and Lincoln cars in the parking lot.

  Anyway, I still receive mail from them in my mother's name and they recently advised that this singular church, 1,500 people strong, no longer felt obliged to the Lutheran Church, Missouri Synod, and their questionable stands of tolerance.  They, in all their bushlike wisdom, would will go their own way.  This means to the RIGHT OF THE LUTHERAN CHURCH.  Any further to the right and they would, I am sure, fall of the world.

  P.s.  I think I messed the format up a bit.  Sorry.  Typing too fast.  

  by GrandmaJ on Tue Jun 15, 2004 at 10:50:55 AM PDT

•  Maybe we need to learn some...

  good snake handling skills. I'd bet we could win them over with some good tent revivals and lots of snakes.

  Prior to Tuesday's vote, Paige Patterson, president of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas, said the SBC should not give money or endorsement to an organization that includes liberals.

  by fly on Tue Jun 15, 2004 at 11:06:49 AM PDT

•  Y'know, I couldn't deal with the SB's

  when I was a little kid, before they became so ridiculously political-- back then I just had to hide my natural distaste for public testimony & keep my mouth shut when ridiculous assumptions about Catholics & Jews were being spouted (thank God-- and I'm not being facetious-- for my mom's preemptive lessons on the older faiths to which the Baptists owe their existence).  They used to be church-state separatists, believe it or not, because at one time they felt that the state would corrupt the church... and then they tasted political power.  Now I can barely stomach them.

  A good friend of mine is very involved with a mega-church in the SBC; it's distressing, but so far it hasn't swayed her votes, although I did have one lively disagreement with her on capital punishment since then.  I'll see her before the election, and if she has decided to support GWB I'm afraid it'll get unpleasant.

  by latts on Tue Jun 15, 2004 at 11:25:32 AM PDT

•  I feel the love of Jeeeezus!

  And he's sayin', "Smite those faggot-lovin, commie-huggin' mother-f*ckin' liberals!"

  Praizzzze Jeeezus!

  by Bob Johnson on Tue Jun 15, 2004 at 11:45:03 AM PDT