Five years ago, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary president, Al Mohler, put up a short piece on his blog entitled “A Call for Theological Triage and Christian Maturity,” a piece he probably did not realize at the time would become a hermeneutical shibboleth for some in Southern Baptist circles >>>
A couple of months ago at a pastor's conference, a man approached me and said, "You're Peter Lumpkins aren't you." Affirming I was he told me he'd worn my book out teaching many parts of it to his congregation on the significance of abstinence. In addition, he mentioned he used numerous arguments from the book trying to keep "liquor by the drink" out of his county. "It worked," he said. He mentioned his church was the only church who took a stand on the issue and the referendum was defeated at the polls.
Earlier this year, hyper-Calvinist James White tried everything in his rhetorical arsenal to discredit Dr. Norman Geisler as one of conservatism's leading Christian apologists. He failed. Definitively. Geisler continues to remain at the forefront of apologetics while White loses teaching opportunities in respectable institutions. Now after a long vacation from his unbecoming focus on other apologists (e.g. Ergun Caner, Josh McDowell, Wm. Craig) he's back on Geisler.
My last piece focused on concerns raised by a large representative group of Alabama Baptists who believe the GCRTF agenda has, through implementation, begun to divide Southern Baptists over missions methodology, an incredible and sad irony since cooperative missions has been the glue which held us together through doctrinal thick and thin.
GCR advocates drove away from Orlando, FL last June believing they received a mandate from the Southern Baptist Convention—"We’re ready to move forward with the GCR agenda!" The then president of the pastor’s conference and now president of NAMB expressed regret for his “disengagement” from SBC life promising to create a vision so compelling, all Southern Baptists would begin to give till it hurts. Even those churches on the present periphery of Cooperative Program giving would rush, as Ezell now has, to hop aboard the CP choo-choo >>>
Baptist Press executive editor, Will Hall, published a worthy summary of The Barna Group's study on Calvinism's impact within American Protestantism. Hall's very title--Barna study shows apparent divide between SBC, other denominations on Calvinism--reflects what Ed Stetzer, author of the study of Calvinism within the SBC, apparently did not perceive--the gargantuan gulf between what's Calvinistically happening* in Protestantism overall (including the Southern Baptist Convention) and what Stetzer's research allegedly revealed is Calvinistically happening in the SBC exclusively.
Yale University senior, Eve Binder, in an interesting article entitled “Fat Studies Goes to College” writes, “A handful of colleges now offer classes entirely devoted to the overweight and obese.” George Washington University, University of California, Oregon State, and Rutgers are among schools getting in on America’s obesity problem by offering students academic opportunities to study the world’s largest population of fatsos >>>
Beginning in the last quarter of the 20th century, evangelicals rode their white horses to religious stardom. As Liberal and mainline denominational colleges and seminaries shrunk, evangelical student bodies swelled fat and prosperous. Fame was short-lived, however. While Newsweek proclaimed 1976 as “the year of the evangelical,” church historian Martin E. Marty predicted rough days ahead for evangelicals as early as 1989. Indeed, some theologians now question whether the term “evangelical” has not expended itself completely. For example, >>>
Presently, I'm in the process of scoping out the terrain on my soon-to-be-published book on Calvinism in the Southern Baptist Convention. I tripped over this essay I published in 2006. Our Founders brothers often lament the lost unanimity of Calvinism among Southern Baptists during the latter half of the 19th century. However, as Cody's essay demonstrates, at the turn of the 20th century, strict Calvinism was conspicuously absent. And, if during Cody's time it was scarce, that means we must press the clock backwards--significantly backwards, well before the turn of the century--to see the vanishing influence of Princetonion Calvinism among Southern Baptists in full blossom.
In some contemporary worship philosophies, observing the Lord’s Supper has become, as it were, an old-fashioned hindrance to meaningful interaction with the Lord. I mean, indicative of the Supper, are reflection, contemplation, and memorial elements which simply cannot be expunged. But such be-still-and-know-that-I-am-God qualities do not mix so well with flashing lights, fog machines, dramatic videos, jumping, hollering, loud guitars, and percussion beats which remind one of the ZZ Top’s golden years
Dr. Franklin Howard Kerfoot (1847-1901) though not a name widely recognized in Baptist circles today was, during the latter quarter of the 19th century, a formidable leader among Southern Baptists. He served as pastor, denominational leader and seminary professor.
One of the first statements I recall made by our and NAMB's new president, Kevin Ezell, was to wait a spell before changes were made. If I recall the "spell" was several months. Well, it shrunk.*
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