SBCOutpost

This note is a simple, friendly yet firm reminder that the posts that are published on SBCOutpost are intended to foster dialogue about the subject of the post. Often times, as Baptists are known to do, the comment sections of these posts take off in a thousand directions (chasing rabbits, if you will) and many of these side trips are neither profitable nor necessary. As such we are writing this short reminder to encourage all who comment to remain committed to discussing the substance of the post. You are encouraged to agree, or disagree, as long as you deal with the content of the post. If, however, you cannot stay on point you will receive a friendly, public reminder and if you persist in commenting in this manner your comments will be removed and we will exclude you from commenting for a period of time. This site, no doubt, makes strong claims and offers posts on what are often controversial topics. We recognize that these conjure up strong passions which can lead us to run away and deal with a variety of issues. In fact, we invite strong discussion related to this issues at hand, as the fostering of substantive dialogue is a goal of this site. However, in light of rogue commenting, please consider this your clarion call to stay focused on the post at hand.

Thanks for your understanding.

Yet another reason the SBC should reject resolutions on gluttony.

We at SBCOutpost are grateful for the support that we continue to receive. We are thankful for the establishment of a forum where voices can be heard and judged based on merit and not position. You have obviously responded with great passion. Our readership continues to rise. In fact, sometime in the next hour or so, we will eclipse 100,000 hits which is phenomenal considering it has occurred in just under a month. We cannot tell you how grateful we are for your encouragement.

Along those lines we are grateful to share with you the newest endorsement that we have recieved. Dr. Frank Page, current President of the SBC and Pastor of First Baptist Church, Taylors, South Carolina, has offered his words. You can read them by going to the “Endorsements” page or by clicking here.

Michael Erard’s recent article in the Texas Observer highlighted the SBC Annual meeting in San Antonio. Linked here at SBCOutpost, the article received some notice and a little discussion.

One thing that caught my attention and that of two others in the thread concerned Dr. Paige Patterson’s response about questions he received following the BF&M vote. “Baptipalooza,” in comment #10, said,

Did you catch the whopper of a fib in Dr. Patterson’s quote in that story about the SBC convention vote followed by his assessment that decisions about Baptist Theology are best practiced in private by the hand-picked few?

“What happened there was, the motion adopted by the convention lacked clarity. It was kind of unfortunate in that regard,” Dr. Patterson said. I HAD 500 OR 600 PEOPLE SAY TO ME, ‘WOULD YOU TELL ME WHAT WE JUST DID?’ THEY’RE ANOTHER CASUALTY OF THE OPEN TOWN MEETING.” (emphasis Baptipalooza)

Another, Joshua Peterson in comment #11, wrote,

Its no surprise that Southern Baptists are liars when talking about the membership of the convention. Paige Patterson must be doing the counting. Does anybody have any clue how long it would take to answer questions from 500 or 600 people?

I wonder if Dr. Patterson is as honest about his relationship with Ben Cole as the number of people who asked him about the vote.

What a liar.

In case you wondered, to speak with 600 people for one minute each would take 10 hours. Read the rest of this entry »

(In today’s guest column, Leslie Puryear, pastor of Lewisville Baptist Church in Lewisville, NC, examines the history of Christian responses to the theater. Puryear’s own experience as a screen actor, and his ongoing efforts to shine the light of the Gospel in the film community, offer a worthy and unique perspective for SBCOutpost readers. More than any other medium, movies continue to exert an inestimable influence on our culture. Puryear relates the great need for Christian engagement of the arts, and his column serves as a helpful primer for pastors and laymen.)

All people, whether they admit it or not, have been influenced by the arts. Few will question this assertion, though Christians have maintained a diversity of opinion about the degree to which the Church should utilize the media and engage the artistic community. For many years, I have followed God’s call to minister to the filmmaking community through my occasional forays into acting. Since the art of filmmaking in general, and the art of acting specifically, are my areas of more immediate experience, I will approach this topic focusing on theatre, film, and acting.

The theatre has existed since the earliest days of recorded history. Asian theatre can be traced back to 3000 BC. In India, theatre can be found in the religious rituals of the Vedic Aryans as early as the first and second millennia BC. The earliest appearance of Western theatre is somewhat obscure, however many historians point out that the oldest surviving plays come from ancient Greece and thus, point to Greece as a major influence in Western theatre.

The theatre in ancient Rome was influenced tremendously by Greek theatre. While Greek theatre was heavily influenced by the Grecian religions, the Roman tradition relied much less on their polytheistic pantheon for theatrical plots. Roman theatre was more inclined to portray the life of the Roman leader or citizen in everyday surroundings without allusions to religious themes. After the fall of the Roman Empire, Europe’s agrarian societies saw the decline in the arts as the continent descended into feudalism. Before long, the theater was largely forgotten. After several hundred years, cities began to re-emerge, and theatre was once again popular. Read the rest of this entry »

…if he should gain the whole world, but forfeit his own soul? J. Lee Grady, editor of Charisma Magazine, raises this timeless question in a recent post on his blog. Writing about the exorbitant lifestyles and cultic behavior of celebrity ministers, Grady provides an incontrovertible diagnosis of what ails American Christianity: we’re stuck on ourselves; we’re too fat to care that people are starving; and we’re too rich to walk the way of the cross.

The money quote:

What has become of the American church? What is this sickness spreading in the body of Christ? I don’t know whom to blame more for it: The narcissistic minister who craves the attention, or the spiritually naive crowds who place these arrogant people on their shaky pedestals. All I know is that God is grieved by all of this shameful carnality.

How far we have fallen from authentic New Testament faith. Paul, who carried the anointing of an apostle but often described himself as a bond slave, told the Thessalonians, “Having so fond an affection for you, we were well-pleased to impart to you not only the gospel of God but also our own lives” (1 Thess. 2:8).

New Testament Christianity is humble, selfless and authentic. And those who carry the truth don’t preach for selfish gain or to meet an emotional need for attention. May God help us root out the false apostles and false teachers who are making the American church sick with their man-centered, money-focused heresies.

Permalink here. Hat-tip here. Completely unrelated news here, and here, and here.

In my earlier post, I gave the background for the sole membership debate that captured the convention’s attention for two consecutive annual sessions. The vote ended with New Orleans Seminary president Chuck Kelley and the seminary board beating a retreat back to Gentilly.

The point I want to highlight is that a difference, both substantive and determinative for the convention’s interests, developed between convention leaders and their respective boards. With no governing authority between annual sessions to mediate the dispute concerning the Executive Committee’s push for sole membership and the New Orleans board’s fight against it, the only proper course of action was the one that both trustee boards took. They requested that the Southern Baptist Convention give direction and definitive voice to settle the matter.

Without going into the particulars — and they are many — suffice it to say that until the 2004 Indianapolis convention, the New Orleans Seminary administration had been resistant to a charter amendment that would make the SBC the sole member of the institution’s corporation. The Executive Committee, seeing that no end was in sight, brought the matter to the convention floor, and the messengers voted to “request” that the NOBTS board insert sole membership language into the seminary charter. Having sworn all along that the seminary would abide by the convention’s wishes, Chuck Kelley made a last minute plea for the convention to hold off for one more year so that the seminary could present an “alternative” to sole membership at the next year’s annual meeting in Nashville.

The convention voted to request that the seminary take action on sole membership anyway, and the following year Chuck Kelley spoke against amending the charter. Rather than offering an “alternative,” as he had originally hoped, Kelley spent approximately twelve minutes expressing his frustration with the Executive Committee, the convention attorney, and Baptist Press editor Will Hall. Kelley suggested that “other convention leaders” had expressed regret over adopting sole membership, and attempted to explain the intricacies of Louisiana law to the messengers.

Read the rest of this entry »

We at SBCOutpost.com are excited to unveil the newest feature of our site. One of our goals is to promote the work of missions around the globe. We are privileged to take advantage of every opportunity to encourage our missionaries on the field to continue in their faithfulness, and to encourage those of us back home to support their work. Accordingly, today we unveil a new subsite that features Southern Baptist missions work from a visual perspective. Although you should not expect written commentary of substance to accompany this site, as a visual society we are proud to feature the pictures of missions work from around the world. We begin with two pictures of what God has recently done in Kazakhstan. You can subscribe to the new ‘Missions Photos’ subsite’s rss feed just like you do this site. We encourage you to keep up with the contributions, if you are a missions supporter, and to offer contributions if you are a missionary - either International of North American. You can submit photos (no more than 2 at a time) to photos@sbcoutpost.com

To view the new site you may either click here, or you can simply use the menu tab at the top of the page.

Readers of SBCOutpost.com, due to the significant number of requests that we have received regarding the automatic check box for comment subscriptions, we have reconfigured the check box so that you have to manually subscribe by checking the box if you want to receive the comment updates. For those who want to receive the updates, this will require a small effort on your behalf part but will keep those who don’t want to receive them from being inundated with unwanted messages.