Mainstream Baptist: On Heros and Heretics

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

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.

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.