CBF-NC Foundational Document Revisions

Apparently the Baptist blogosphere has been a-buzz about the proposed revisions of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship of North Carolina's “foundational statements." Bruce Prescott weighs in:

Cooperative Baptists in North Carolina are revising their “foundational statements” to delete traditional references to liberty of conscience and “soul competency” and assert the priority and authority of the community in matters of faith. Like the fundamentalists in the Southern Baptist Convention, communitarians within the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship are determined to effect change within Baptist churches by redefining the traditional Baptist understanding of the “priesthood of the believer.”

Fundamentalists redefined “priesthood of the believer” to mean “submission to pastoral authority.” Communitarians are redefining “priesthood of the believer” to mean “submission to the authority of your church.”

Both are weary of the conflict of interpretations that are inevitable when finite and fallible human beings are passionate about reading scripture and living faithfully in accord with a revelation whose meaning is inexhaustible.

Both believe they are authorized to replace the Holy Spirit in the mind and heart of the believer. Fundamentalists replace the Holy Spirit with the authority of the pastor. Communitarians replace the Holy Spirit with the authority of the community. Either the pastor or your community serves to legitimate or delegitimate interpretations of scripture.

Neither fundamentalists nor communitarians make allowances for human imperfections. In the real world, both pastors and church communities often oppose valid interpretations of scripture and legitimate movements of God’s Spirit. That is why Baptists, historically, have been the Christian faith’s staunchest advocates for “liberty of conscience” or “soul competency.” Baptists, at their best, have always left room for the “prophets” – those who seem to be born out of due time because they are responding to a divine summons to serve the community in ways that challenge its consensus.

Read the full post: Here.

I Return

So I didn't finish my Easter posts as I was spending time with family and friends. I was working my way up to the Resurrection but got sidetracked. I've been spending my time elsewhere online.

Maybe I'll finish some of my unfinished post series eventually whenever I'm motivated enough to return to them. I have to Blog some on CBF's 20th annual General Assembly as well.

Anyways here's a link to an interesting post by Bruce Prescott: How Albert Mohler Became the Baptist Pope.

Romans 13 And Civil Religion

I'll return to the main points of my Romans 13 series soon which I hope to cap off with Romans 13 In Baptist Thought: A Call for Separation of Church and State which is what all these posts lead up to. The past 2 posts on Thomas Jefferson that I posted are related to issues with Romans 13 in some sense. I have a few other short posts dealing with issues with Romans 13 and other things before returning to my Post Series Proper. Thanks to a tip from Dr. McGrath, I'll post next in my Post Series Proper on Romans 13 and The Communists in Romania before posting on Romans 13 and the Religious Right and Left and then finally ending the series off with Romans 13 In Baptist Thought: A Call for Separation of Church and State.

Anyways here's a quote from Bruce Prescott's latest post on Civil Religion---Mainstream Baptist: Make Up Your Mind Al Mohler (revised):

Al Mohler has posted a blog praising the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals for affirming the constitutionality of using the phrase "under God" in the pledge of allegiance and "In God We Trust" on our coinage. He writes,

This decision is good news, and comes as something of a relief -- especially considering the fact that the Ninth Circuit is involved. There is no substance to the claim that these two phrases violate the Constitution. Furthermore, they represent only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to such questions. This kind of language pervades official discourse - extending even to the phrase "the year of our Lord" in the dating of many government documents.

Mohler then notes that the court determined that the phrases have "no theological significance:"

The court has ruled, in effect, that the language of these contested phrases represents what is rightly called "civil religion." In essence, civil religion is the mass religion that serves the purposes of the state and the culture as a unifying force -- a rather bland and diffused religiosity -- an innocuous theology with little specificity.

Christians must never confuse civil religion with the real thing. When our fellow citizens recite the pledge, it is not to be taken as a statement of personal faith in God. In that sense, Christians are rightly concerned that we make clear what authentic faith in God requires and means. Confusing civil religion with Christianity is deadly dangerous.

On the other hand, Christians are well aware of the constant danger of idolatry, and no entity rivals a powerful government in terms of the idolatrous temptation. In that sense, it is healthy and good that we employ language that relativizes the power and authority of the state. It is both important and healthy that our motto places trust in God, and not in the state. And the knowledge that the nation exists "under God" is no small matter.

Mohler is obviously obfuscating here. Civil religion is deadly and dangerous. Civil religion fashions a god that is subservient to the State and uses religion to bolster an idolatrous form of nationalism. Mohler clearly perceives that this is what the Supreme Court has done in this ruling, yet he praises it as "good news."

This decision is not good news, it is bad news for people of genuine faith and conviction. It makes Christians not only complicit but active promoters of a sin for which God warns he will not hold us guiltless.

Only a false prophet eager to accomodate the itching ears of an idolatrous people could find anthing commendable in news that one of the highest courts in the land has officially declared that the name of God has no theological meaning.

The 9th Circuit, following the U.S. Supreme Court, has legalized what the third command of the Ten Commandments expressly prohibits: "Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain."

This relates to Romans 13 as Romans 13 is often used to support Civil Religion.

Mainstream Baptist: On Heros and Heretics

More on Al Mohler and Tony Cartledge: Mainstream Baptist: On Heros and Heretics.

Russell King On Christ And Christmas

Mainstream Baptist: How to put Christ back in Christmas:

*When we insist that others join in our customs, use the words we like to use and participate in our celebration, we are violating the life and lessons of Jesus and ripping Christ from the heart of Christmas. When we force non-Christians to utter the name of Christ when they do not believe in Him, we are making mockery of the Christ in Christmas. When we take offense when others celebrate the season in ways that are meaningful to them, and are different from our ways -- especially when we pretend that respecting others' celebrations constitutes a "war on Christmas" -- we are ignoring the spirit of Christ. When we insist that our government join in our religious celebration, we are acting exactly like those who opposed Christ. When we insist that the tax dollars of non-Christians be used to celebrate our Christian holiday, we are ignoring Christ's teaching (Matthew 22:21) and tearing Him out of Christmas. When we put more emphasis on the word "Christ" than on the message of Christ, we are making a mockery of Christmas and the one whose birth we celebrate (we don't do salvation by syllables). When we make a fuss over "Xmas," we show that we don't know much about our own religion's history: In Greek, the letter Χ (chi), is the first letter of Christ, and it, or the similar Roman letter X, has been used as an abbreviation for Christ since the mid-16th century. Xmas has been used for Christmas, by Christians, for centuries.

The Errancy Of Inerrancy: A Dialogue

Big Daddy Weave recently posted on Bart Barber's critique of Jim Denison's critical paper on inerrancy---here is a snippet of that:

The Errancy of Inerrancy: Bart Barber’s Critique of Jim Denison
OCTOBER 27, 2009
Southern Baptist Texas pastor Bart Barber has written a lengthy response to a self-published paper titled “The Errancy of Inerrancy” authored by Jim Denison who is the Baptist General Convention of Texas’ Theologian-in-Residence and President of the Center for Informed Faith. Barber’s post, An Errant Bible: The Gateway Heresy, has received much attention across the blogosphere. Russell Moore, Dean of the School of Theology at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, featured Barber’s critique of Denison on his blog. Nathan Finn, Assistant Professor of Church History at Southeastern College, also featured Barber’s critique of Denison on the popular blog Between the Times. Between the Times is sponsored by Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary and included among its contributors are Daniel Akin, President of Southeastern Seminary, and Ed Stetzer of Lifeway Research. Outside of the Baptist Blogosphere, popular evangelical blogger Justin Taylor highlighted Barber’s critique of Denison.

From Barber's post---here are the major points of Denison's paper:

Those main arguments are six in number:

Denison argues that the word “inerrancy” has been defined and qualified in too many different and highly technical ways to be of any theological use; therefore, we ought to prefer to speak of the “trustworthiness” or “authority” of the Bible.

Denison argues that the concept of inerrancy, since it is applied exclusively to the original Bible manuscripts, actually undermines the faith of believers in their own copies of the Bible.

Denison argues that inerrancy is a recent doctrinal innovation not shared by those in Christian history whom we ought to emulate—that it is not among our theological “roots.”

Denison argues that rather than the denial of inerrancy's leading to other heresies, the affirmation of inerrancy leads to unwarranted divisiveness.

Denison argues that inerrancy is a philosophical position not supported by the statements of the Bible itself.

Denison argues that the Bible actually is not inerrant; therefore, to apply the test of inerrancy to the Bible is to set the Bible up to fail at a test that it does not and would not apply to itself, and thereby to undermine one’s belief in the “trustworthiness” of the Bible.

Barber's main point is summed up in the beginning of his post:

An Errant Bible: The Gateway Heresy

One of the things I most appreciated about Dr. Danny Akin's sermon about the Axioms of a Great Commission Resurgence was his bold statement that there is no room in the Southern Baptist Convention for people who do not agree regarding the inerrancy of the Bible. It is an utterly unenforceable concept, but nonetheless a welcome clarification of what it means to be a Southern Baptist.

Inerrancy-fatigue has meant that there has not been much discussion in the blog world about the nature of the Bible. Indeed, inerrancy-fatigue may mean very little response to this blog post. Nevertheless, I have decided to reproduce a paper that I wrote some time ago on the topic of inerrancy. The paper amounts to an attempt to interact with the thoughts of James Denison, the official theologian of the Baptist General Convention of Texas, and his attack upon inerrancy in a self-published paper entitled, "The Errancy of Inerrancy." It is longer than my standard post, so if such things bore you, I won't be offended if you just don't bother. Otherwise, enjoy.

So what are your thoughts on all of this? I believe Bruce Prescott says it best.

Al Mohler, Tim Keller, Idolatry And Conscience

Recently Dr. Prescott posted this:

Al Mohler on Conscience

Al Mohler, President of Southern Seminary and architect of the heretical 2000 Baptist Faith and Message statement, has taken up writing about conscience lately. Today, he writes about "The Idolatrous Religion of Conscience" and concludes with a quote from Martin Luther:

"It is the nature of all hypocrites and false prophets to create a conscience where there is none, and to cause conscience to disappear where it does exist."

I find it ironic that Mohler is now demonstrating such concern about forms of idolatry. Particularly when the article on "Scriptures" that he wrote for the 2000 Baptist Faith and Message demoted Jesus and elevated the Bible to such and extent that his statement is the clearest expression of Bible idolatry ever approved by a Baptist convention.

For the record, I too believe that conscience can be elevated to idolatrous levels. No one should trust a conscience that is not informed by both scripture and by the Holy Spirit (Mohler also turns a deaf ear to God's Spirit).

I also find it ironic that Mohler cites Martin Luther so approvingly. I'm not sure where the quote he cites is to be found in Luther's corpus, but I'm certain that you can find quotes similar to this in Luther's denunciations of the Anabaptists whose conscience prohibited them from baptizing infants. Instead, they insisted on baptizing believers.

Interestingly enough it is not just the bible that has been made into an idol by the SBC and fundamentalists in general but also doctrines themselves specifically those doctrines that are deemed right and correct by fundamentalist leaders. Here is a quote from Tim Keller which demonstrates the doxolatry/orthodoxolatry of fundamentalists:

Tim Keller on The Idol of Right Doctrine
Posted on October 21st, 2009 by peteenns

“An idol is something you rely on instead of God for your salvation. One of the religious idols is your moral record: “God accepts me because I’m living a good life.” I’m a Presbyterian, so I’m all for right doctrine. But you can start to feel very superior to everyone else and think, God is pleased with me because I’m so true to the right doctrine. The right doctrine and one’s moral record are forms of power. Another is ministry success, similar to the idol of achievement. There are religious versions of sex, money, and power, and they are pretty subtle.”

Rev. Tim Keller, author of Counterfeit Gods: The Empty Promises of Money, Sex and Power, and the Only Hope that Matters, from an interview with Christianity Today.

We should beware of all forms of idolatry, false doctrines and false forms of conscience.

Bruce Prescott On Reforming Baptist Identity

These are some good thoughts from Bruce Prescott's latest post---Mainstream Baptist: Reforming Baptist Identity:

Jesus revealed that the meaning of election is not about privilege but about service. Everyone who is chosen by God is chosen for service. Jesus also revealed the meaning of service to God. Jesus set aside his power and privileges and submitted himself to death on a cross in the service of God. That is what he was chosen to do. When he died, the veil in the temple was rent from top to bottom. God himself tore down all the barriers that had been erected to keep people at a distance from his blessings.

Everyone who responds to the call of God has been chosen for service. Service to God always involves sacrifice. We have been commanded to take up our own cross when we follow Jesus. At the very least that means that we must be willing to share the blessings that God has given us with others.

Too many Baptists in America resemble the ancient Jews more than Jesus. They are more concerned about preserving the privileges of their nationality than with sharing the blessings of the good news about God’s love for all people.

Too many Baptists are among the armed vigilantes standing guard at our borders.

Too many Baptists are among the placarded protestors at tea parties blocking the entrance to our medical clinics.

Too many Baptists think God called them for pampering and privilege rather than for sacrificial service.

Blessings can quickly turn into curses when we insist on hoarding them all for ourselves rather than sharing them freely with others.

And here are my thoughts related to the post: Indeed God's call is a radical call to loving and self-sacrificial service to others---it is a lifelong activity as Karl Barth says:

“God so loved'—not the Christian, but—'the world'. 'I am the light of the world', says the Lord, and by His own self-giving He passes the light on to His disciples: 'Ye are the light of the world!' It is the duty of the real Church to tell and show the world what it does not yet know. This does not mean that the real Church's mission is to take the whole or even half the world to task. It would be the servant of quite a different Master if it were to set itself up as the accuser of its brethren. Its mission is not to say 'No', but to say 'Yes'; a strong 'Yes' to the God who, because there are 'godless' men, has not thought and does not think of becoming a 'manless' God—and a strong 'Yes' to man, for whom, with no exception, Jesus Christ died and rose again. How extraordinary the Church's preaching, teaching, ministry, theology, political guardianship and missions would be, how it would convict itself of unbelief in what it says, if it did not proclaim to all men that God is not against man but for man. It need not concern itself with the 'No' that must be said to human presumption and human sloth. This 'No' will be quite audible enough when as the real Church it concerns itself with the washing of feet and nothing else. This is the obedience which it owes to its Lord in this world.”

—Karl Barth, "The Real Church," Against the Stream: Shorter Post-War Writings 1946-52 (London: SCM Press, 1954), 73.

Also:

To stand in the unconditional loving service of God and others, the church must first stop acting as if it or bible translations are the Holy Spirit---as if any human, human cultural biases or human institution can restrict and regulate, whom the Holy Spirit wills to call to ministry or in general---for a lot of people (mainly Fundamentalists and bible literalists) actually believe that they can usurp the authority of the Holy Spirit from willing, whom the Holy Spirit wills to call to the ministry or in general and/or that it is their task to determine whom can and can’t be called to the ministry or in general instead of the Holy Spirit alone---and in so telling the Holy Spirit what to do, they not only commit idolatry (ecclesiolatry as well as bibliolatry and poimenolatry/clericalism), but also worse than that it grieves the Holy Spirit (the only unforgivable sin). As Christ is the True pillar of the church for us and in giving the Great Commission, Christ excluded no one from ministering the Gospel, serving and being served including gays, lesbians, bisexuals, transgenders and both women and men of every culture, climate, race, type and personality. Secondly, in the Bible, the unfolding of God’s will and self-disclosure of God’s self-revelation, in the Person and work of Christ---we find that God was most fully revealed as being Love itself---for Christ is Love---as Robinson (influenced by Paul Tillich) wrote: "For it is in making himself nothing, in his utter self-surrender to others in love, that [Jesus] discloses and lays bare the Ground of man's being as Love" (ibid., p. 75, italics added). He also wrote: "For assertions about God are in the last analysis assertions about Love" (ibid., p. 105)--- (Honest To God --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_A.T._Robinson). When we divinely encounter Christ as Love for us, in the advent of the proclamation of scripture---we see all of Christian ethics is contingent upon the moral axioms of the Higher Law of Righteousness, Love, Grace, Mercy and Forgiveness---the Golden Rule and to love God completely and to love one’s neighbor as one’s self. If the sum and substance of Christian morality and ethics then is this---then why should we read Christian morality out of a vacuum with no insight, inquiry and reference to the Higher Law, on which the line of all Christian morality is drawn? For what profits one to have morality without love? For all of Christianity is rooted in loving service---just as Brennan Manning says*---quoting from Barbara Doherty: "Love is service. ‘There is no point in getting into an argument about this question of loving. It is what Christianity is all about---take it or leave it. Christianity is not about ritual or moral living except insofar as these two express the love that causes both of them. We must at least pray for the grace to become love.’" (*-pg. 29 of A Glimpse Of Jesus: The Stranger To Self-Hatred)

Liberty Of Conscience: More On Bill Leonard And Baptists

See: Mainstream Baptist: Reasserting, Reinterpreting, and Reforming Baptist Identity: "At the CBF General Assembly"

Highlights from the above post:

I wholeheartedly agree with Leonard's concerns about the Baptist movement, but I was too busy preparing for the Norman New Baptist Covenant meeting to respond at that time. Now, in a series of blogs, I plan to offer my suggestions for Baptist Identity in the 21st Century.

I would begin by reasserting the Baptist emphasis on liberty of conscience. Baptists began by dissenting from the established church and asserting their right to a free conscience on matters of religion. Our appeals for liberty of conscience were made on behalf of all people and not for ourselves alone. 78 years before the enlightenment philosopher John Locke wrote his first Letter Concerning Toleration, Thomas Helwys was writing:

Men's religion to God is between God and themselves; the king shall not answer for it, neither may the king judge between God and man. Let them be heretics, Turks, Jews or whatsoever, it appertains not to the earthly power to punish them in the least measure.

45 years before Locke said it was "necessary above all to distinguish between the business of civil government and that of religion, and to mark the true bounds between the church and the commonwealth," Roger Williams warned that whenever "a gap" was opened "in the hedge or wall of separation between the garden of the church and the wilderness of the world, God hath ever broke down the wall itself . . . and made his garden a wilderness."

While John Locke could never bring himself to extend religious toleration to Catholics and atheists, revolutionary era Baptist evangelist John Leland boldly asserted:

Let every man speak freely without fear, maintain the principles that he believes, worship according to his own faith, either one God, three gods, no god, or twenty gods, and let government protect him in so doing

.

SBC Leadership Increases Abortion Rates While Gay Marriage Drops Divorce Rates In MA

Mainstream Baptist: Southern Baptist Leadership Causing Increase in Abortions---excerpt:

A story today from Baptist Press, the propaganda arm of the Southern Baptist Convention's Executive Board, features the headline "Rep.: Health care plan would lead to abortion increase." The article is part of an ongoing campaign against health care reform by the fundamentalist leadership of the Southern Baptist Convention. Central to that campaign was the delivery of more than a million signatures to congress opposing health-care reform. The petitions were delivered by Richard Land, head of the SBC's wed-to-the-hip-of-the-GOP, tax exempt, political action arm. Undoubtedly, many of those signatures were a knee-jerk reaction to false information about "death panels" and abortions.

The sad truth is that the fundamentalist leadership of the Southern Baptist Convention bears much responsibility for about 97% of the abortions that have occured over the past 30 years. They have long been at the forefront of the uncompromising pro-life people that caused former surgeon general C. Everett Koop to withdraw from the abortion controversy.

More than anyone else, C. Everett Koop, along with the late Francis Schaeffer raised awareness about the issue of abortion among evangelical Christians. Bill Martin, in his book With God on Our Side, quotes Koop's explanation for why he dropped out of the controversy:

If the pro-life people in the late 1960's and the early 1970's had been willing to compromise with the pro-choice people, we could have had an abortion law that provided for abortion only for the life of the mother, incest, rape, and defective child; that would have cut the abortions down to three percent of what they are today. But they had an all-or-nothing mentality. They wanted it all and they got nothing.

Before the fundamentalist takeover of the Southern Baptist Convention, the position of denominational leadership, like the position of the majority of Baptists today, was that we support abortion when necessary to protect the life and health of the mother, in cases of rape and incest, and when the fetus is known to have severe physical deformities such as anencephaly.

Had the moderate position prevailed, abortions could have easily been reduced by 97%. Instead, for 30 years the SBC fundamentalist "all-or-nothing mentality" has swollen the ranks of those who are uncompromising on this issue.

Interesting news and just another way Fundamentalist corruption destroyed the SBC. One Southern Baptist adds this to the issue though:

If we are going to lower the abortion rate it should come because loving SBC members are in the lives of teens and single moms. It's personal, it's relational, it's not meant to be public. Our convention should support the local church and unleash it to do good for the kingdom.

---so at least there is hope within the SBC itself. And I might add that I agree with the above statement.

On the other side of things, Massachusetts seems to be enjoying a decrease in divorce rates since legalizing same-sex marriage. Massachusetts Enjoying Decreasing Divorce Rate Because of Gay Marriage?:

We're not quite ready to say that same-sex marriage is "saving" straight marriage in Massachusetts, but when you put together two pieces of data, you might be able to reach that conclusion. As Rachel Maddow did. As she points out, when gay marriage was legalized there, the divorce rate stood at 2.2 people per 1,000. Now, it's down to 2.0, giving the state one of the lowest divorce rates in the country. Meanwhile, as we've previously noted, the state of Florida currently bans same-sex marriage; Florida also enjoys one of the highest divorce rates in the country.

Here is an excerpt from a Huffington Post article on this fact:

Opponents of same-sex marriage reject it on religious and moral grounds but also on practical ones. If we let homosexuals marry, they believe, a parade of horribles will follow -- the weakening of marriage as an institution, children at increased risk of broken homes, the eventual legalization of polygamy and who knows what all.

Well, guess what? We're about to find out if they're right. Unlike most public policy debates, this one is the subject of a gigantic experiment, which should definitively answer whether same-sex marriage will have a broad, destructive social impact.

Massachusetts, Connecticut, Iowa, Vermont, Maine and New Hampshire have all decided to let gays wed.

Actually, the "experiment" has been running in Massachusetts for fully 1/2 decade now. Over three years ago I wrote a story, "Christian Right Wrong on Gay Marriage", summing up the apparent non-impact of the then-2 year "experiment". Now, we have 4 consecutive years of data. According to the most recent data from the National Center For Vital Statistics, Massachusetts retains the national title as the lowest divorce rate state, and the MA divorce rate is about where the US divorce rate was in 1940, prior to the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor that triggered the US entrance into World War Two.

Provisional data from 2008 indicates that the Massachusetts divorce rate has dropped from 2.3 per thousand in 2007 down to about 2.0 per thousand for 2008. What does that mean ? To get a sense of perspective consider that the last time the US national divorce rate was 2.0 per thousand (people) was 1940. You read that correctly. The Massachusetts divorce rate is now at about where the US divorce rate was the year before the United States entered World War Two.

News And Views About Fundamentalists

First of note is a post from That Baptist Ain't Right: That Baptist Ain't Right: GA Baptists Applaud Indoctrination at Baptist College---here is an excerpt from that:

Shock. Absolute shock. A GA Baptist College is establishing a Creation Research Center at its campus.

That's right: science is no longer an academic subject at Truett McConnell College. Instead, a rigid, narrow theological view decides what is genuine science & what is not. According to the GA Baptist newspaper, The Christian Index, the college is establishing the creation research center with the view that the earth is only 6000 years old.

Good heavens. GA Baptist students will be cheated on an education & the school will be laughed at by all schools with any academics.

I knew this was coming. I even blogged about it last year when the editor of the Index bragged on the school's Biblical Worldview. Poppycock. Telling students to reject science & adopt a spiritual textbook as a scientific text is to shortchange our students. And when these bright young minds start examining the evidence --- overwhelming that the earth is not 6000 years old & there was not a spontaneous creation in 6 literal days --- these students will start to question the validity of all matters of faith.

The Godslingers have taken over the GA Baptist Convention & are now trying to indoctrinate our students to not only a certain, narrow theological slant, but also a political view & an anti-intellectualism.

Here's another link to That Baptist Ain't Right---That Baptist Ain't Right: Leaving Fundamentalism---in which you can catch up to Dr. Bruce Prescott's excellent post series about leaving Fundamentalism.

Finally, here is the latest post in Dr. Prescott's post series: Mainstream Baptist: Stepping Away From Fundamentalism, Step Seven and a good one at that---here is a snippet of that post:

Premillenial dispensationalism was the only kind of "end times" theology that I knew. Supposedly, only "liberals" believed anything else. I needed some help trying to make sense of eschatology, so I turned to my Southern Baptist pastor and future father-in-law, Dr. Doyle Winters, for assistance.

Dr. Winters was a conservative New Testament Greek scholar with a Th.D. from Southwestern Seminary. He advised me that he did not hold to the dispensational premillenial view of the end times. That theology was invented in the late nineteenth century and has been promulgated mostly through the Schofield Reference Bible, he said. It is not the way that eschatology has traditionally been understood throughout the history of the church. As he spoke, I finally realized why he was so unimpressed with the white leather Schofield Reference Bible that I gave his daughter years before on the first Christmas we were dating.

Dr. Winters' understanding of the end times was best summarized by Dr. Ray Summers, a Southern Baptist Greek scholar, who wrote a commentary on the book of Revelation entitled Worthy is the Lamb. He loaned me his copy. I read it and biblical eschatology finally began to make sense to me.

The Church Of Guns

scott... diagonally parked in a parallel universe

Church Welcomes Guns at July 4 Bash
By DYLAN T. LOVAN, AP
posted: 1 HOUR 50 MINUTES AGOcomments: 329filed under: National NewsPrintShareText SizeAAA

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (June 5) - A Kentucky pastor is inviting his flock to bring guns to church to celebrate the Fourth of July and the Second Amendment.
New Bethel Church is welcoming "responsible handgun owners" to wear their firearms inside the church June 27, a Saturday. An ad says there will be a handgun raffle, patriotic music and information on gun safety.
"We're just going to celebrate the upcoming theme of the birth of our nation," said pastor Ken Pagano. "And we're not ashamed to say that there was a strong belief in God and firearms — without that this country wouldn't be here."
The guns must be unloaded and private security will check visitors at the door, Pagano said.
He said recent church shootings, including the killing Sunday of a late-term abortion provider in Kansas, which he condemned, highlight the need to promote safe gun ownership. The New Bethel Church event was planned months before Dr. George Tiller was shot to death in a Wichita church.
Kentucky allows residents to openly carry guns in public with some restrictions. Gun owners carrying concealed weapons must have state-issued permits and can't take them to schools, jails or bars, among other exceptions.
Pagano's Protestant church, which attracts up to 150 people to Sunday services, is a member of the Assemblies of God. The former Marine and handgun instructor said he expected some backlash, but has heard only a "little bit" of criticism of the gun event.
John Phillips, an Arkansas pastor who was shot twice while leading a service at his former church in 1986, said a house of worship is no place for firearms.
"A church is designated as a safe haven, it's a place of worship," said Phillips, who was shot by a church member's relative for an unknown reason and still has a bullet lodged in his spine. "It is unconscionable to me to think that a church would be a place that you would even want to bring a weapon."
Phillips spoke out against a bill before the Arkansas General Assembly that would have permitted the carrying of guns in that state's churches. The bill failed in February.
Pagano, 50, said some members of his church were concerned that President Obama's administration could restrict gun ownership, and they supported the plan for the event when Pagano asked their opinion.
Marian McClure Taylor, executive director of the Kentucky Council of Churches, an umbrella organization for 11 Christian denominations in Kentucky, said Christian churches are promoters of peace, but "most allow for arms to be taken up under certain conditions."
Taylor said Pagano assured her the event would focus on promoting responsible gun ownership and any proceeds would go to charity.
"Those two commitments are consistent with the high value the Assemblies of God churches place on human life," she said in an e-mail message.
Pagano is encouraging church members to bring a canned good and a friend to the event. He said guns must be unloaded for insurance purposes and safety reasons.
He said the point was not to mix worship with guns, though he may reference some passages from the Bible.
"Firearms can be evil and they can be useful," he said. "We're just trying to promote responsible gun ownership and gun safety."

Copyright 2009 The Associated Press. The information contained in the AP news report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press. Active hyperlinks have been inserted by AOL.
2009-06-04 21:53:44

Yeah, yeah, I know I already covered this story on a recent post but I thought I'd offer my own response. What's next bring your grenades or rocket launchers to church day or how about land your F-14 on the roof of the church day? However that said---I'm all for gun ownership and I agree with Pagano in this: "Firearms can be evil and they can be useful." I believe Dr. Prescott said it best though---Mainstream Baptist: On God and Guns at Church:

I've never carried my gun to church. Not even when I was a police officer and required to keep my gun with me at all times. I left it in my car when I went to church when I was a police officer.

In my mind, if there is one place to take the command to put up your sword (John 18:11) and turn the other cheek (Matthew 5:38-39) literally it is at church.

The Bible issues no command to promote gun ownership and gun safety. It has a lot to say about giving a faithful witness.

See also: Who Would Jesus Shoot? UPDATED after Virginia Tech Shooting, A Stupid Move by a Church and Bring Your Guns To Church, Boys.

Fundamentalists Never Cease To Be Laughable

Here is a post from Bruce Prescott: on the subject: Mainstream Baptist: Mohler Contemptuous of Islam:

Thursday, May 14, 2009
Mohler Contemptuous of Islam

While the Pope makes a visit to the Middle East trying to defuse conflict between Christians and Muslims, Southern Seminary President Al Mohler fans the flames of conflict with a religiously arrogant and contemptous blog that denounces extending any respect to Islam.

After the arrogant and contemptuous way Mohler and other fundamentalist takeover leaders treated the Mainstream and moderate Baptists in their own denomination, I have exceedingly low expectations for civility from any of them. But, lives are at stake in the Middle East and around the world when people like Mohler persist in fomenting a clash of civilizations.

Mohler would not consider it respectful to him as a person if an Imam had said:

"We can respect Christian people for their contributions to human welfare, scholarship, and culture. We can respect the brilliance of Christian scholarship in the Roman era and the wonders of Christian art and architecture. But we cannot respect a belief system that denies that Mohammad was a prophet, insists that he was a demon-possessed pedophile, and encourages soldiers to evangelize millions in occupied lands." (Note: This is a hypothetical quotation, not an actual quotation)

Why would he think that any Muslim feels respected when he says:

We can respect Muslim people for their contributions to human welfare, scholarship, and culture. We can respect the brilliance of Muslim scholarship in the medieval era and the wonders of Islamic art and architecture. But we cannot respect a belief system that denies the truth of the gospel, insists that Jesus was not God's Son, and takes millions of souls captive. (Note: This is an actual quotation)

Frankly, in my experience, I find Muslims more respectful of Christianity than I find Evangelical Christians respectful of Islam. When will Evangelicals learn that it is possible to respectfully disagree?

Posted by Dr. Bruce Prescott at 10:20 AM

I have to agree with Tauratinzwe's comment:

Tauratinzwe said...
What do you expect of Mohler? He's contemptuous of committed christians also if they don't bow down to him.

I must add too that Mohler must also be jealous of Islam's hold on the Middle East via fear and theocracies in certain countries---after all that is Mohler and his cronies' goal to Christianize America by fear and establishing a Calvinazi theocracy here in America. No thanks, I'll pass on a theocratic police state---for we saw how well it worked out in Geneva especially for the Anabaptists and in the Puritan colonies. I'd rather keep America a secular nation where we have the freedom to choose our religious expressions or non-religious expressions without fear of being put to death. I'm not sure if it would get that bad if Mohler and the Religious Right did succeed in establishing a fundamentalist theocracy but some of their statements scarily allude to it especially in their defense of Calvin's atrocities such as:

Calvin’s Persecution

I think the scariest thing Todd says is this about Calvin’s role in the execution of Michael Servetus:

Now, putting the execution aside, which of us has it right, and which of us has it wrong here? Whose attitude — forget the execution — whose attitude is more biblical and more correct? … one is tolerant, the other one is intolerant of heresy. Period. It’s that black and white. So were they wrong or are we wrong?

This is like saying, “Except for the part that is wrong, who is right or wrong?” The issue at point is not whether we should hate heresy. It is whether people should be killed for it. You can’t put that aside. It’s not rational only to discuss the attitude about heresy, since people on both sides are against it. Same with the abortion issue — all of us know that some babies are unwanted, and they’re expensive — but the issue isn’t the reasons for it, it’s the murder part!

Todd also says:

… the government was designed and put in place to make sure that people kept in line. And according to the Bible in Romans 13, God puts governments in place to protect people and to make sure that people follow the rules. So if the government happens to be so closely linked with the church, like it was in Geneva — if one of the rules was blasphemy or correct theology on the Trinity, they must have understood that crime in a much deeper way than we do to have somebody executed for not understanding the Trinity (or for theology).

So time and culture determine what is right and wrong. This is a slippery point to make in this argument. Todd is unwilling to view our current culture through this lens, and especially unwilling to look at the Islamic states this way. If he’s going to defend the Reformers’ persecutions by saying it’s the government’s responsibility to enforce the rules, then I have a new rule for Todd. You’re not allowed to play the Paul Washer clip about the young boy who was shot by the Muslims for refusing to deny Jesus. You can’t have that both ways — either religious persecution is right or it’s wrong. It’s that black and white.

See also: WOTM Transcription 2008-08-22, Hour 1, Defense of Reformers and listen to the clip of Al Mohler's disciple, Todd Friel: here. Imagine the arrogance if this came about today.

Interesting Quotes

Brian McLaren on Christian Nationalism:

When people tell me that we are or have been a Christian nation, I want to ask, "When?" Was it in the colonial era or during westward expansion, when we began stealing the lands of the Native Americans, making and breaking treaties, killing wantonly, and justifying our actions by the Bible? Was it in the era of slavery or segregation, when again, we used the Bible to justify the unjustifiable? Was it in more recent history, when we dropped the first nuclear bomb and killed hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians, when we overthrew democratically elected governments in the Cold War era, when we plundered the environment without concern for the birds of the air or flowers of the field, or when we sanctioned or turned a blind eye to torture earlier this decade? Was it earlier this week, when I turned on the TV or radio and heard people scapegoating immigrants and gay people and Muslims?

---thanks to Mainstream Baptist: Brian McLaren on Christian Nationalism.


Oscar Romero On Pluralism In The Church:

A healthy pluralism is needed. We don't want to force everything into the same mold. Uniformity is different from unity. Unity means pluralism, with everyone respecting how others think, and among all of us, creating a unity that is greater than just my way of thinking.---May 29, 1977.

You, with your charismatic movement; you, with your Cursillo movement of Christianity; you, with your community studying catechism; you, with your traditional thoughts; you, with your progressive thoughts, why do you do this? Do you defend what you do because it is comfortable? Then you are going the wrong way. This is not the right thing to do. Do you do it to serve God sincerely? Well do it this way and try to understand others who are doing what they are doing for God. This is true pluralism in the church.---September 17, 1978.

---pgs. 3 and 68 of Through The Year With Oscar Romero: Daily Meditations .

See also: “A bishop will die,…”.

Pro Tongue And Cheek Article On CBF

Squandered Missions
JOURNAL EDITORIAL STAFF
Published: November 16, 2008

Those darned moderates. Just when the conservatives at the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina must have thought they'd routed them all, the moderates came tiptoeing back last week. At the convention's annual meeting in Greensboro, the moderates mounted serious opposition to a motion to remove the progressive Cooperative Baptist Fellowship as a giving option for member churches, and tried to reinstate funding for the Woman's Missionary Union of North Carolina, which has had the gall to assert more autonomy over its operations.

The moderates ultimately lost out, and more of the last holdouts will almost surely now leave the convention. But the convention is the real loser, because it could reach a lot more people through missions with the CBF and the Woman's Missionary Union. Yes, the convention does a lot of good missions work, but it could do so much more.

As it is now, churches that like CBF and the Woman's Missionary Union and are unhappy with the state convention may well support those groups instead of the convention.

Some conservatives in the convention probably voted to keep up the CBF option, realizing that they would lose moderate churches if they didn't. But, true to form, most of the conservatives in the convention left no room for compromise. After all, the CBF is willing to work with churches that put gay Christians into leadership positions. And the organization doesn't require a belief in biblical inerrancy. "If we don't take a stand, this is tolerance," Eric Page of Victory Baptist Church in Columbus said at the meeting, according to the News & Record of Greensboro.

Heaven forbid that a Christian organization would show tolerance.

Draw the line in the sand instead, even if that means losing the opportunity to maximize mission-work opportunities -- and even if it means declining attendance at the annual meetings of the convention. Attendance last week was down an estimated 1,000 delegates from the last couple of years.

"Don't ever forget a Baptist will only do one thing because you tell him to, and that's to stay home," Vic Ramsey of Moyock Baptist Church in Currituck County said at the meeting. "Looking at these seats, a lot of us have taken the hint. To be that broad convention, we need lots of people."

Nah. All they need is a relatively small group of committed conservatives, even if the convention has strayed from the key historical Baptist principles of autonomy of local churches and the right of all believers to interpret and follow Scriptures as they see fit, not as they're told to do. That's moderate talk, anyway.

After last week, more of the last remaining moderates will probably give up on the convention and give their money to other Baptist organizations. So be it. Why would the convention want to preach to the masses when it can preach to the choir?

See more on the SBC here: Is This the Future of the BSCNC? and here: MAINSTREAM BAPTIST: Second Wave or Last Gasp.

Thanks For Stopping By Dr. Prescott

As I'm beginning my Blogging career---these first few posts have been mainly overlap from my Facebook notes so I can get use to all the Blogging tools. I'm a quick learner so I hope to get better at posting as time goes by.

My first post:http://theopoet4camp.blogspot.com/2008/09/theological-declaration-and-95-theses.html was my version of the 95 theses, which I shared with several of my pastors, Dr. Mike Queen, Dr. Jim Everrette, Dr. Jayne Davis and Dr. Frank Hawkins of FBC-Wilmington, NC. I also had the privelege to share it with the renowned Baptist Scholar "Buddy" Shurden, when he visited our church.

My second post: http://theopoet4camp.blogspot.com/2008/09/why-homosexuality-isnt-sin-of-sodom-and.html was a correction of someone in my Sunday School class's eisegesis of the Soodom and Gomorrah narrative.

My third post: http://theopoet4camp.blogspot.com/2008/09/sacrifice-and-atonement-in-christian.html was some musings for my Sunday School class at Easter.

My fourth and sixth posts: http://theopoet4camp.blogspot.com/2008/09/sermon-on-mount-john-macarthur-style.html and http://theopoet4camp.blogspot.com/2008/09/how-to-poop-in-biblically-correct-way.html were just blowing off steam. I know, I know they are bad, but sometimes humor helps.

I pulled http://theopoet4camp.blogspot.com/2008/09/pope-and-rabbi.html from http://www.genesimmons.com/fanstories/letters11/index1004.html ---I thought it was funny.

The 9-11 notes are where my Facebook and new Blog meet.