Who Is Being Represented?

Today in my area there is an election.  Our ballot will be rather brief - there will be a couple of questions regarding our local fire district, and then an election for two members of a seven-person school board.

What should the main criteria be for voting for one person over another?  Of course, in any given election that will depend on many things - what the office is, what the current issues are, etc.  I actually ran for school board a couple of times, many years ago (I lost, by the way, but that’s a different story).  One of the things that was important for me as a candidate, and is still important to me today in evaluating candidates, is the idea that the parents are ultimately responsible for a child’s education.  That may mean that the parents choose to homeschool the child, but it doesn’t have to.  Being responsible for something doesn’t mean one has to do it all.  There are other options, such as private school, and of course, public school.  But whichever option is chosen, the parents are not giving up their responsibility, but instead are choosing the most appropriate tools to carry out their responsibility.  Whichever choice is made, the parents should still be very aware of what is being taught and learned, should know the child’s strengths and weaknesses, should be ready to advocate for the child.  Too many parents abdicate much of their responsibility in their child’s life.

We choose school board members to represent us in making the major decisions of running a school district.  But who is the “us” they should represent?  Should they represent the children?  Many people think so.  And their opinion is seemingly confirmed by the amount of child neglect and child abuse at the hands of their parents.  Teachers are often frustrated by the unresponsiveness they get when trying to reach out to many children’s parents.  Someone has to advocate for the children.

Others say school board members should represent the community, or perhaps more specifically, the voters.  In both this option and the previous one, you run into the issue of having elected officials who think that they know what is best for the children, over and above the parents.  And we have been seeing that play out.  There have been schools that have distributed contraceptives to students and facilitated abortions for students.  The concern that some schools are indoctrinating students in regard to sexual orientation and gender identity issues has recently led Florida to pass a law that seeks to protect parental rights by prohibiting the teaching of these concepts to young children.

For Christians, the Bible instructs parents that they have a primary duty to teach their children.  These instructions are mostly concerned about teaching them about God and following Him.  But the overall implication of Scripture is that the parents are the assigned stewards of one (or more) of God’s children.  God does not give that assignment to anyone else.  It is not the village’s responsibility, not government’s, only the parents’.

Parents, understand your responsibility in the life of your child, and be involved.  And choose school board members who will best represent your position as steward of your child.

Not Everything Some Would Have It Be

 There is conflict within the Southern Baptist Convention.  For many who are likely to read this, this is probably not new information.  If that statement does come as a surprise to you, you may not be interested enough to read the rest of this.

There are undeniably (at least) two groups within the tent of the Southern Baptist Convention.  Defining these groups, however, seems to be complicated.  Some see it as conservatives versus those drifting toward liberalism.  Others see it as conservatives versus fundamentalists, or at least those who are “more” conservative.  Some say that conservative and liberal are too political to use as terms, while others say that politics is exactly what this is about.

Those who are in the category that some would label “liberal” deny that there is liberalism within the Southern Baptist Convention.  Their contention is that the Baptist Faith and Message, the document that binds Southern Baptists together, does not allow for liberalism, that everyone who adheres to it as their statement of faith is necessarily conservative.  Let me give reasons why I don’t believe that to be true.

The BF&M is not comprehensive in regard to all sins.  In June of 2021, Ed Litton was elected president of the SBC.  Shortly thereafter, it was noticed that many of his sermons were word-for-word copies of other preachers’ sermons.  The discussion of this would occupy another post.  But nothing was ever really done about this.  And one of the reasons offered up as to why nothing was done was that he had not done anything that violated the BF&M.  That seems to be true, but there are multiple things that are not listed within the BF&M.  What if the SBC president were violent? Or a slanderer?  What if he knew about an accusation of sexual impropriety by a staff member and did nothing about it?  Would we really do nothing about any of these things that could be shown to violate Scripture, simply because they weren’t on a list in the BF&M?

The BF&M is not comprehensive in regard to the times.  When the BF&M 1963 came out, the seismic Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision permitting abortion was still ten years down the road.  When the BF&M was updated in 2000, one of the changes made was the inclusion of defending the unborn.  Any edition of the BF&M will be doing good to cover those issues that we have seen in the past or are dealing with in the present, but will generally not be able to keep up with the twists of the future.  In 2000, it would not have been imaginable that same-sex marriage would be legal, but within 15 years it was.  And now, just six or seven years after that, we are dealing with ethical issues we couldn’t have guessed then.  If one believed that sexual identity and gender identity were two completely different things, and that a person could biologically be a male, but “really” be a woman, they could potentially still affirm the BF&M.

The Bible is easy to twist.  One can sincerely affirm the BF&M, swearing a belief that the Bible is inerrant and infallible, but then point to a Scripture text and say, “That doesn’t mean what you think it means” or “That was for the cultural situation during which it was written, it doesn’t apply to us now.”

The BF&M is easy to twist.  During the Conservative Resurgence, it became evident that the BF&M from 1963 needed to be revised.  One of the main reasons for that was that the way it was worded allowed those who didn’t believe the Bible was the inerrant, infallible Word of God to understand the words of the statement in a way different than most Southern Baptists and affirm the BF&M without alarming their conscience.  So the SBC sought to make it more clear.  But just as Scripture itself can be warped to say what God would never convey, the BF&M is perhaps even more easily manipulated.

The BF&M is easy to ignore.  As an example of this, the BF&M 2000 clearly states “the office of pastor is limited to men as qualified by Scripture.”  Yet we have churches in our convention where one or more women are listed with a title that includes the word “pastor.”  Some try to twist the BF&M by saying that the statement comes from a time when having multiple pastors was more unusual, and that it is specifically referring to the head pastor/teacher of a church.  The problem with that is that while one could make a good Biblical case for having multiple pastors for a single congregation, one couldn’t make a case that the requirements for some pastors were different than others.  They are all pastors, so they all must conform to I Timothy 3.  Meanwhile, nothing has been done about many of these churches with a female pastor on staff.  The issue is just being ignored.

I think the Baptist Faith and Message is a good document, a well-crafted statement of faith.  But it clearly cannot be the only keeper of the gate for who or what should be considered conservative, because it is simply too easy to maneuver around.  An update is likely in order, but even that will not clip all the deviations from Scripture that people will find a way to grasp while still affirming the revision.

When God Gives the Order

I recently watched the movie 1917.  The storyline runs somewhat similar to Saving Private Ryan, to which it has been compared favorably.  It’s a different war with different uniforms and different accents, but the setting is the same continent and the dangers are similar.  I think it’s a good movie, worth watching at least once.  I’m going to describe a particular climactic scene late in the movie, so if you haven’t watched the movie yet, and think you might want to, I would suggest you stop reading this and come back after you’ve had the chance to watch it.

I don’t want to give away all of the story, so those who have seen the movie will notice that I am leaving lots of things out.  The scene I want to talk about is when the young British lance corporal (and you will have to forgive me, I know virtually nothing about military rank except that Sergeant Carter was higher in rank than Private Pyle and also that Sergeant Carter was lower in rank than Colonel Hogan) finally arrived at the destination of his mission.  He was to deliver a vital message to the commander of the 2nd battalion, a Colonel Mackenzie.  Colonel Mackenzie is only on for this one short scene, and as soon as I saw him, I thought, “Is that Benedict Cumberbatch?” and kept staring at him until I assured myself it was.  Anyway, Mackenzie was leading the 2nd battalion on an advance against the enemy, and Lance Corporal Schofield’s message was that they should stop the advance and pull back because the Germans had been luring them into this as a trap.

Mackenzie responds to Schofield first by questioning who he was.  Schofield didn’t outrank him.  What right did he have to even be standing there with them, let alone trying to tell them they were wrong?  His second response was that he has tried following the commands from higher-up before, many times, and has never seen any progress.  With his plan, they are beginning to see progress, unlike previous attempts where they have got started only to be called back.  But finally, he agrees to read the letter sent from the general, and the authority of the message and its sender are enough to force Mackenzie to relent.

So, what is it about this scene that has prompted me to write?  Immediately after watching it, the thought occurred to me - that’s how I do, that’s how we all do, when God interrupts our plans.  We make our plans, and some of those plans are rotten, tainted by sin, and will lead to disaster for us.  So God sends someone to try to talk us out of those plans, and we respond by saying, “Who are you?  You can’t judge me!”  Maybe that someone is our own conscience that we push away.  But God keeps trying.  And we tell God, “I’ve tried it Your way, and that doesn’t work.”  We look at the progress we’ve made with our plans, and think that is more of an indicator of future success than God’s old, timid plans.  And sometimes, we will finally see what God’s Word has to say about it.

So when God pushes back on your plans, how do you respond?  Are you really going to tell God that you’re smarter than Him?  Instead, see what God has to say about it in His Word.  Common sayings like “God wants me to be happy” or “I really feel God is calling me to this” or “Love is love” have no validity at all if they contradict with Scripture.  What they become at that point is a means of allowing you to directly disobey God.  That is what all sin is - directly disobeying our commander, an act of treason.

SBC 2021 (Part 3): Moore or Less

 A few weeks ago, I got sucked in to watching the current reboot of the old game show “To Tell the Truth.”  In one round, one of the three panelists trying to persuade the celebrities that he was the person being described told in the reveal that he used to work as an undercover law enforcement operative.  It had been a matter of life and death for him to know who was lying and who was telling the truth.  Then they went to the next round, but after the celebrities made their guesses, they brought back the undercover guy to get his guess and what clues gave away the imposters.  I was fascinated as he was right on the money.

Dr. Russell Moore has been the head of the Southern Baptist Convention’s (SBC) Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC) since 2013.  Dr. Moore tends to be a polarizing figure in SBC life - many people are fans and many others are definitely not.  Last month, he announced that he would be resigning from the ERLC.  Within days of this announcement and within only a couple of weeks of the SBC’s annual meeting, two letters written by Moore were “leaked.”  These letters were both highly critical of some other SBC leaders, one of which is a current candidate for the SBC presidency.  Those that Moore is accusing in his letters, primarily Mike Stone, have responded with flat denials.  Others have come along to corroborate Moore’s version.  This was then followed by those who expressed affirmation of Stone’s narrative as well as his character.

So who is telling the truth?  Honestly, I have no idea.  I wish I had the skills of the law enforcement operative.

There are those that have pointed out that the accusatory letter puts Moore in a precarious spot.  Moore makes allegations that Stone and others are actively working to cover up sexual abuse within the SBC.  If his accusations are true, then besides what he may have said internally within the ERLC, he would effectively be complicit in the cover-up.  In the months that this has supposedly been an issue, rather than standing up against evil deeds or making the issue publicly known, he sat on it and looked for his next job.  And if the accusations are not true, well, obviously that’s not an ethical position either.

So why was the letter released, then?  If you ignore the conundrum it puts Moore in, it actually carries a couple of big benefits for Moore.  First, for those inclined to be fans, he looks like a hero, championing the cause of the sexually abused.  This is a great way for him to enter into his next position, writing for Christianity Today.  And second, he gets to stick it to his political enemies on his way out the door.

SBC 2021 (Part 2): Race to Win

 The history of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) includes many accomplishments for the Kingdom of God.  But it also contains several things which stand in stark contrast to those accomplishments.  Chief among those stains on the SBC is the issue of racism.  Founded in a split over the question of slavery in the mid 1800’s, the SBC has time and again wrestled with the issue of race.  The SBC has officially apologized for its history with slavery and racism, yet forms of racism continue to rise up within the convention.

The SBC in general is anxious to shake off any hint of racism.  This is why, I believe, Resolution 9 was adopted at the annual meeting in 2019.  Resolution 9 was entitled “On Critical Race Theory and Intersectionality,” concepts that most of the people in attendance had very likely never heard of.  But they saw that this resolution seemed to have to do with fighting against racism, so it would be wrong to vote against it.  In the time since then, CRT has exploded, not just in Southern Baptist discussions, but in various avenues of public policy.  And many see the concepts of CRT to be anti-Biblical, and the wrong way to address racism.

However, there are those that see pushing back against CRT as a form of racism, an attempt to shut down what might be a useful tool in the fight against racism.

Dealing with Resolution 9 and with CRT in general will be delicate matters.  One wrong move can be all the impetus some need to leave the SBC, as intentions will be assumed instead of understood.

SBC 2021 (Part 1): Gender Again

The annual meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) is taking place this week in Nashville, and it looks to be a very active business meeting.  COVID prevented last year’s meeting, so we have two years’ worth of concerns, much of which has been unproductively battered around on social media, to try to settle in one way or another.  And the stakes may be high, as the votes may send one group or another out from under the SBC tent.

So what are the issues that loom darkly over the SBC?  There are several, and I’ll try to give some thoughts on the big ones.

Back in the late 1970’s, the SBC went through something called the Conservative Resurgence.  Recognizing that some leaders were moving the convention in a more liberal theological direction, an effort was begun and eventually accomplished to move things back to the right.  One of the liberal positions pushed back by the Conservative Resurgence was the idea of ordination of women.  In 2000, the SBC adopted a revision to its statement of beliefs known as the Baptist Faith & Message (BF&M), and one of the changes to that document was the statement that “the office of pastor is limited to men as qualified by Scripture.”  This statement is based on multiple passages, such as I Timothy 3:2 and I Timothy 2:12.  While the BF&M doesn’t specifically mention it, the latter text would also disqualify women from preaching or teaching to an audience that included men, such as a Sunday morning service.

Since the last annual meeting, it has been observed that there are multiple church plants that were invested in by the North American Mission Board (NAMB) that have women listed on their websites with a title of “pastor” or “co-pastor.”  Is NAMB not paying attention to the churches they are helping to start, or do they know and not care, or worse, desire to see this despite its contradiction to the BF&M?

One of the most prominent women teachers in Southern Baptist life has been Beth Moore.  Her beginnings are noble - a woman digging into Scripture to teach God’s truth to other women.  Along the way, some significant issues came up, and one of those was that she began to allow her audiences to include both male and female.  There were even times when she was asked to speak for the Sunday morning worship time.  While not technically violating the BF&M, it violated the underlying Scripture.  Just a few months ago, she had heard enough of people telling her she shouldn’t do that and took herself out of the SBC.

A little over a month ago, a megachurch within the SBC had what they called an “historic night” by ordaining three women as pastors.  The chuch is Saddleback Church in California, and its lead pastor is Rick Warren.

How the convention will respond to this issue is crucial - it will either be stopped or it will expand markedly.  There is no chance that it will stay at only what we see today.  This is a battle that we have already fought.  It seems strange to need to be fighting it again.

After Easter

 After Jesus was resurrected, hundreds of people saw firsthand evidence of it, and thousands more heard sufficient evidence of it, and believed in Jesus.  But many, many people did not believe, despite the evidence being available if they wanted to pursue it.  They chose not to pursue the evidence, and some immediately devised a story to contradict the evidence, claiming that the disciples had stolen the body.  Why would they do that?  Because they didn’t want anything to do with Jesus, even if He did exactly what He said He was going to do and even if He was exactly who He said He was.

Besides being a preacher, I am also an apologist.  And as an apologist, I see that the argument for Jesus’ resurrection is incredibly strong.  It is tempting to think, “If I keep presenting this information, with more evidence and more passionately, people will see the truth of it and come to Christ.”  But as I’ve been thinking about it, the issue isn’t apologetics.  It would change nothing to build a stronger case or present it more urgently.  People aren’t rejecting the truth of the argument.  Like the Pharisees on the day after Jesus was resurrected, they are rejecting Jesus.  The truth is irrelevant.  The cost of accepting the truth is the issue.

Jesus (of course) understood this.  He was a terrible salesman.  He urged people to count the cost, and made sure everyone understood there was no riding the fence.

It’s the day after Easter.  What will you do with Jesus?