Reading Time: 6 minutes Whenever things go hideously wrong in any evangelical group, evangelicals tend to think that The Big Problem Here was a lack of accountability. Had proper accountability existed in their group, nothing bad would have happened because nothing bad could have happened without someone noticing it and addressing it. Scandals, in particular, happen because whoever caused that scandal drifted away from their accountabilibuddies.
Conservative Resurgence
Posted inGeneral
Mark Lanier, Paige Patterson’s Attorney, Seeks to Sway SBC Now
Reading Time: 6 minutes Mark Lanier knows very well what’s at stake right now in the SBC’s megascandal.
Posted inReligion
Why SBC Leaders Lied for Jesus About the 2021 Annual Report
Reading Time: 7 minutes Hi and welcome back! Yesterday, we took our first sneak peek at various statistics that will be formally released in the 2021 Annual Report of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) (archive link here). And oh boy, their numbers were not good. Not at all, nope. But then, various SBC leaders tried their darndest, bless their li’l cotton socks, […]
Posted inReligion
Back When Al Mohler Supported Women Pastors
Reading Time: 9 minutes Yesterday, I showed you the re-eruption of a decades-old slapfight going on in evangelicalism: whether or not evangelicals should allow women to be pastors. This archaic-sounding squabble represents a central issue to the usual gaggle of Christian Right bigots-for-Jesus. And very few of them despise the notion of women pastors quite like Al Mohler. He fights against the idea with all the radicalized passion of a convert — because that is precisely what he is. Today, let me show you a very different Al Mohler: one who fully supported women pastors, and then, I’ll show you the force that brought him up short one fateful day.
Posted inPolitics, Religion
Exactly Why Evangelicals Keep Arguing About Women Pastors
Reading Time: 7 minutes There’s an extremely good reason why evangelicals are so stuck on this one question. It’s not a reason that flatters them or does anything good for their plummeting credibility, alas. But it at least explains why their opposing sides can’t ever find any common ground here. So today, I’ll show you exactly why evangelicals keep arguing about women pastors.
Posted inReligion
How Calvinists Cemented Their Victory Over the SBC: The Seduction of the Innocent
Reading Time: 8 minutes Calvinists’ takeover of the SBC’s future took longer than their takeover of the SBC itself, and it ran along the exact same lines as the Conservative Resurgence that they ignited. Today, let me show you why the future of the SBC will be Calvinist — and really, already is.
Posted inReligion
How Calvinists created the SBC’s fixation on inerrancy
Reading Time: 9 minutes It surprised me to notice that most of the people behind the Conservative Resurgence (the Old Guard, I call them and their sympathizers) weren’t Calvinists themselves, for the most part. But they got a huge amount of support from Calvinists all the same. Calvinists spoke their language — and then turned it against them. These Calvinists took brutal advantage of one concept in particular: Southern Baptists’ newfound affection for a doctrinal stance called inerrancy. Today, let me show you what inerrancy is and why this belief opened the door for Calvinists to wrest control of the SBC away from the Old Guard.
Posted inReligion
Calvinism and Arminianism in the New SBC Power Squabble
Reading Time: 9 minutes As we examine Calvinism’s tie-ins with Robert Aaron Long’s beliefs and how he lived them out, I thought it might be useful to talk about Calvinism and its counterpart and describe how they factor into the SBC’s power squabbles.
Posted inReligion
Racism Might Become the SBC’s Next Schism Flashpoint
Reading Time: 7 minutes It’s starting to look like racism might end up being the next schism flashpoint for this already-ailing group. Today, let me show you the situation. No matter what the SBC’s leaders do, this was the worst fight any of them could possibly have picked — but perhaps it was also the most inevitable.
Posted inReligion
Stewardship: The Christianese Sinking Molly T. Marshall’s Ship
Reading Time: 5 minutes I want to show you a common Christianese word, stewardship. It’s an extremely useful word to know in that lexicon. In fact, this word relates to the recent downfall of a minor Christian leader, Molly T. Marshall, and even to the way that today’s fundagelicals seem so hostile toward environmental protection. So today, I’ll show you what stewardship is all about!