First many thanks for your steady courage and candor. Second: I'll just throw in a point of view that perhaps is not often considered from where you stand.
It concerns the deplorable endorsement that the Presbyterians gave to BDS, which is the main practical instrument for delegitimizing the State of Israel. (Of course, once it’s agreed that one state on the planet lacks even the bare right to exist, then the steps needed to obliterate it acquire legitimacy. The BDS-ers will shake their heads as the ashes cool and say, “It’s too bad, but of course they had it coming!”)
A philosopher/theologian friend of mine, the late Michael Wyschogrod, was involved in the negotiations that led to the Presbyterians renouncing their doctrine of Deicide. That’s the doctrine that assigned perpetual, collective responsibility to the Jewish people for the death of Jesus. I suppose, in the aftermath of the Shoah, it became easier to notice how false and deadly that doctrine had been. Happily, Michael Wyschogrod did not live to see the doctrine's revival in the guise of Presbyterians' endorsement of BDS.
In general, of late, the Baptists have been better about this. They don’t seem to feel diminished by saying to the Jewish people, the only thing that needs saying: “thanks, guys.” Thanks for living out the pathbreaking relation with God in real time -- and for remembering and recording that history, with all its warts and transcendent accomplishments. Thanks for staying the course, and remaining the empirical warrant for the historicity of the Bible. Thanks for taking the brief post-World War II lull in the world's seemingly irrepressible Jew-hatred -- not to whine and get embittered but to restore the nation of Israel. It was restored in the land it had made holy to the whole world, speaking the very language it had spoken anciently, and becoming a font of agricultural, medical, and other kinds of creativity with the potential to transform the region.
Just "thanks, guys." No need to writhe around in remorse or moral agony. Just please say “thanks” and (the real sign of remorse) just don’t do it again!
All the best to you,
Abigail L. Rosenthal
Professor of Philosophy Emerita, Brooklyn College of The City University of New York
Erick: as you know, I'm Southern Baptist. I cannot tell you how much I appreciate your insight to this and your assessment. We both understand Mohler the same way and for the same reasons--as you know, there are always detractors. Throughout this, you made me laugh! Two highlights:
"Now, the politicians are more civil in their discourse than the pastors." Unfortunately, you are painfully correct. Because I am a pastor, I am more critical of pastors. Yet it is refreshing to see someone else verify this with clarity!
Oh yes, and this regarding those who choose to swim in the cesspool of Twitter:
Godly men might should spend less energy debating pastoral and church affairs on a platform created by the demons bored and in need of a hobby after leaving the drowned pigs."
All this talk of Southern Baptists reminds me of those folks denouncing Mitt Romney, calling The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (Mormon) a cult. Definitions of cults center on unusual beliefs and the size of the group. Unusual beliefs are in the eye of the beholder and in a democracy we tend to believe the majority establishes what is "normal" and "abnormal". When I checked on the sizes of different religions, the Southern Baptist Convention was about one-fifth the size of the Mormon church. Which made me wonder, which is actually a cult.
Nineteen years ago I entered a PCUSA seminary (one of the more conservative PCUSA seminaries before the PCUSA went completely off the rails). I completed a summer course and the following semester before I withdrew, never to look back. Pastoral ministry wasn’t for me. Erick’s examples are a case in points.
Like Teresa Parham Lane, I am a Catholic convert. The Catholic Church is not without its issues either, but just as Teresa said, we have the Eucharist. Something seemingly ordinary that is wonderfully extraordinary.
Through all the reading, praying, conversing, contemplating I did/continue to do, here is where I stand: Luther had some very valid criticisms. But the baby was thrown out with the bath water.
My faith influenced politics does not like either party. I definitely lean conservative, but I try to be objective. It is hard to take anyone seriously who claims injustice while holding a $6 cup of coffee. The world has far more egregious issues about which we should channel our indignant ethos and pathos.
And I do think Mark Malcolm is right about destroying Christianity.
I have to agree . A friend i went to High School with is a Baptist Preacher. He is a fine man . His FB page is now full of some of the most hateful commentary by other Baptists I have ever seen. It is sad.
Erick, I am a Methodist. The Methodists are a little further down the path on this one. Let me give you some hindsight based on what I have seen in our denomination over the last twenty years.
This is not about the Gospel for the Left. It is about destroying Christianity. As examples I give you how they moved forward with gay marriage, and how the Methodist leadership (all left-leaning) moved forward once the Traditionalists within the denomination had had enough.
Gay marriage was never about "same protections under the law" as touted by the Left. After they got that, they began forcing churches to hold their services. In the Methodist denomination our Book of Discipline was routinely reinforced by the majority of the world-wide church membership at general conference, which is the only place where decisions for the denomination are made that are SUPPOSED TO BE binding. The Progressive wing of the Methodists never once adhered to the decisions made by vote at general conference. Not once.
Three plans were ultimately proposed to reconcile and resolve these issues within the denomination. The Progressives put forth the One Church plan while the Traditionalists put together an alternative. All of the church leadership backed the One Church plan, and it failed. Twice. And, when it failed the last time the Traditionalists put forth an ultimatum: Follow the rules or leave the denomination to retain your integrity. The Progressives refused to do either.
When the Traditionalists finally came up with a plan to leave the church, take all their assets and liabilities split equitably the Progressives began to remove pastors from heavy voting-block churches likely to support the Separation Through Grace so that it wouldn't gain support. When they saw this wouldn't succeed, they used the pandemic to delay the vote not once, but twice now. The Weslyan Covenant Association is standing up the Global Methodist Church now because everyone has had enough. The events at Mt. Bethel UMC and other Methodist churches in the US and abroad have gone through similar situations.
All that is to say that the SBC is going to go down this same road because it isn't about the Gospel for the Left. It is about you telling them they are right, or you being forced to follow their ways, which they see as the same thing. As you would put it, you will be forced to care. God bless you Erick. Keep doing what you're doing, and don't ever change.
I was brought up in the Southern Baptist Church. Non-denominational now. To me it's pretty simple. If you believe that Christ died for your sins, if you have acknowledged Jesus Christ as your Savior, if you have asked for forgiveness of your sins and believe in the Holy Trinity - then you are a Christian and provided you live a life of where you do your best to be a good Christian, then your making it into Heaven. Which 'branch' of the Christian faith you happen to be part of should help make you and your family stronger in the faith.
One other quick thought. I have found that if both sides with different goals/opinions of a group that you are part of are angry with you - then you are usually doing something right. :)
I grew up Southern Baptist. My grandfather was a Southern Baptist preacher for 50 years and way ahead of his time. He was awake before there was woke. I converted to Catholicism in 2012. No regrets. Catholics have Central Command in the Pope. The Church of Peter. I have the Eucharist. I always come back to the Eucharist. When all else fails, it’s the Eucharist, stupid.
Wow - I sure appreciated your article. No need to vilify each other as we sort this thing out!
First many thanks for your steady courage and candor. Second: I'll just throw in a point of view that perhaps is not often considered from where you stand.
It concerns the deplorable endorsement that the Presbyterians gave to BDS, which is the main practical instrument for delegitimizing the State of Israel. (Of course, once it’s agreed that one state on the planet lacks even the bare right to exist, then the steps needed to obliterate it acquire legitimacy. The BDS-ers will shake their heads as the ashes cool and say, “It’s too bad, but of course they had it coming!”)
A philosopher/theologian friend of mine, the late Michael Wyschogrod, was involved in the negotiations that led to the Presbyterians renouncing their doctrine of Deicide. That’s the doctrine that assigned perpetual, collective responsibility to the Jewish people for the death of Jesus. I suppose, in the aftermath of the Shoah, it became easier to notice how false and deadly that doctrine had been. Happily, Michael Wyschogrod did not live to see the doctrine's revival in the guise of Presbyterians' endorsement of BDS.
In general, of late, the Baptists have been better about this. They don’t seem to feel diminished by saying to the Jewish people, the only thing that needs saying: “thanks, guys.” Thanks for living out the pathbreaking relation with God in real time -- and for remembering and recording that history, with all its warts and transcendent accomplishments. Thanks for staying the course, and remaining the empirical warrant for the historicity of the Bible. Thanks for taking the brief post-World War II lull in the world's seemingly irrepressible Jew-hatred -- not to whine and get embittered but to restore the nation of Israel. It was restored in the land it had made holy to the whole world, speaking the very language it had spoken anciently, and becoming a font of agricultural, medical, and other kinds of creativity with the potential to transform the region.
Just "thanks, guys." No need to writhe around in remorse or moral agony. Just please say “thanks” and (the real sign of remorse) just don’t do it again!
All the best to you,
Abigail L. Rosenthal
Professor of Philosophy Emerita, Brooklyn College of The City University of New York
Erick: as you know, I'm Southern Baptist. I cannot tell you how much I appreciate your insight to this and your assessment. We both understand Mohler the same way and for the same reasons--as you know, there are always detractors. Throughout this, you made me laugh! Two highlights:
"Now, the politicians are more civil in their discourse than the pastors." Unfortunately, you are painfully correct. Because I am a pastor, I am more critical of pastors. Yet it is refreshing to see someone else verify this with clarity!
Oh yes, and this regarding those who choose to swim in the cesspool of Twitter:
Godly men might should spend less energy debating pastoral and church affairs on a platform created by the demons bored and in need of a hobby after leaving the drowned pigs."
Just.....thank you brother!
I try to adhere to this statement: "In essentials, unity; in non-essentials, liberty; and in all things, charity."
Unfortunately this is the kind of thing that turns church goers into non-church goers, along with the deification of a sleazebag like Donald Trump.
All this talk of Southern Baptists reminds me of those folks denouncing Mitt Romney, calling The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (Mormon) a cult. Definitions of cults center on unusual beliefs and the size of the group. Unusual beliefs are in the eye of the beholder and in a democracy we tend to believe the majority establishes what is "normal" and "abnormal". When I checked on the sizes of different religions, the Southern Baptist Convention was about one-fifth the size of the Mormon church. Which made me wonder, which is actually a cult.
I hope you aren't saying that not being racist equals woke, or that women pastoring equals heresy. There is a path in the middle.
Nineteen years ago I entered a PCUSA seminary (one of the more conservative PCUSA seminaries before the PCUSA went completely off the rails). I completed a summer course and the following semester before I withdrew, never to look back. Pastoral ministry wasn’t for me. Erick’s examples are a case in points.
Like Teresa Parham Lane, I am a Catholic convert. The Catholic Church is not without its issues either, but just as Teresa said, we have the Eucharist. Something seemingly ordinary that is wonderfully extraordinary.
Through all the reading, praying, conversing, contemplating I did/continue to do, here is where I stand: Luther had some very valid criticisms. But the baby was thrown out with the bath water.
My faith influenced politics does not like either party. I definitely lean conservative, but I try to be objective. It is hard to take anyone seriously who claims injustice while holding a $6 cup of coffee. The world has far more egregious issues about which we should channel our indignant ethos and pathos.
And I do think Mark Malcolm is right about destroying Christianity.
I have to agree . A friend i went to High School with is a Baptist Preacher. He is a fine man . His FB page is now full of some of the most hateful commentary by other Baptists I have ever seen. It is sad.
Erick, I am a Methodist. The Methodists are a little further down the path on this one. Let me give you some hindsight based on what I have seen in our denomination over the last twenty years.
This is not about the Gospel for the Left. It is about destroying Christianity. As examples I give you how they moved forward with gay marriage, and how the Methodist leadership (all left-leaning) moved forward once the Traditionalists within the denomination had had enough.
Gay marriage was never about "same protections under the law" as touted by the Left. After they got that, they began forcing churches to hold their services. In the Methodist denomination our Book of Discipline was routinely reinforced by the majority of the world-wide church membership at general conference, which is the only place where decisions for the denomination are made that are SUPPOSED TO BE binding. The Progressive wing of the Methodists never once adhered to the decisions made by vote at general conference. Not once.
Three plans were ultimately proposed to reconcile and resolve these issues within the denomination. The Progressives put forth the One Church plan while the Traditionalists put together an alternative. All of the church leadership backed the One Church plan, and it failed. Twice. And, when it failed the last time the Traditionalists put forth an ultimatum: Follow the rules or leave the denomination to retain your integrity. The Progressives refused to do either.
When the Traditionalists finally came up with a plan to leave the church, take all their assets and liabilities split equitably the Progressives began to remove pastors from heavy voting-block churches likely to support the Separation Through Grace so that it wouldn't gain support. When they saw this wouldn't succeed, they used the pandemic to delay the vote not once, but twice now. The Weslyan Covenant Association is standing up the Global Methodist Church now because everyone has had enough. The events at Mt. Bethel UMC and other Methodist churches in the US and abroad have gone through similar situations.
All that is to say that the SBC is going to go down this same road because it isn't about the Gospel for the Left. It is about you telling them they are right, or you being forced to follow their ways, which they see as the same thing. As you would put it, you will be forced to care. God bless you Erick. Keep doing what you're doing, and don't ever change.
I was brought up in the Southern Baptist Church. Non-denominational now. To me it's pretty simple. If you believe that Christ died for your sins, if you have acknowledged Jesus Christ as your Savior, if you have asked for forgiveness of your sins and believe in the Holy Trinity - then you are a Christian and provided you live a life of where you do your best to be a good Christian, then your making it into Heaven. Which 'branch' of the Christian faith you happen to be part of should help make you and your family stronger in the faith.
One other quick thought. I have found that if both sides with different goals/opinions of a group that you are part of are angry with you - then you are usually doing something right. :)
I grew up Southern Baptist. My grandfather was a Southern Baptist preacher for 50 years and way ahead of his time. He was awake before there was woke. I converted to Catholicism in 2012. No regrets. Catholics have Central Command in the Pope. The Church of Peter. I have the Eucharist. I always come back to the Eucharist. When all else fails, it’s the Eucharist, stupid.