Here Come Those Boozin' [young, cool, and hip] Baptists: A Problem for Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary? by Peter Lumpkins

I'll never forget Baptist Historian, Walter Shurden's little volume on Baptist history--the first history of Baptists I ever laid eyes on and required to actually read--Not a Silent People (link for 2nd edition, not the original edition). In the volume he used the catchy refrain "Here come those battlin' Baptists!" while dealing with several controversies which have shaped Baptists--particularly Southern Baptists--throughout history.

Over the past couple of days, Between the Times, the official blog of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, has posted on the subject of abstinence from alcohol. Yesterday, a piece entitled "The Case for Abstinence" by President Akin was up, and a fine paper at that.  Dr. Akin expresses--as does Richard Land--the best case for what I call in my book, "The Wisdom View" that's available today (for those of you are familiar with my view, I follow a different map than does Akin-Land but end up in the same place--abstinence).

What I found curious about yesterday's piece, however, does not concern its content...well, content so far as abstinence is concerned.  Rather, this little paragraph had me reading it again and again to see if I was reading it correctly:

This year at our Convention we again passed a resolution calling for abstinence from alcohol.  The resolution passed overwhelmingly, but it did generate significant debate both during and after the Convention.

Uh? 

I stopped and thought--"did we deal with alcohol abstinence in Orlando? Did I miss this?  Was our focus on the GCRTF so pronounced it completely over-shadowed the resolution on alcohol?"  The last resolution was 2006 which did, as Dr. Akin described, produce much discussion.  Well, come to find out, this piece was written in 2006.  Why Between the Times did not place an editorial remark explaining the occasion of this piece (like they did with the piece today) I cannot tell.  It would save old timers like me from thinking they're more senile than they are. But, of course, that's just a personal quirk, I suppose.  Perhaps more curious, however, it looks like the piece was hurriedly put up.

Anyway...

Today's piece again is on alcohol. "Danny Akin on the Emerging Church and Ethical Choices"  is actually, as the editorial comment makes clear, a spotlight on a chapter in the book Evangelicals Engaging Emergent: A Discussion of the Emergent Church Movement (Broadman, 2009) entitled, “The Emerging Church and Ethical Choices: The Corinthian Matrix.” Permission was happily granted to post the entire chapter online.  The reader will want to read this piece and forget yesterday's post altogether, for yesterday's post "The Case for Abstinence" is but a repeat of pages 9-11 in the book chapter, under the section entitled, "Alcohol Abstinence: a Test Case."

I think the focus on alcohol is great myself.  That's why I took the time to research and write a book about the subject. As Brett McCracken writes in his recent book, "hipster Christianity":

“Over the years, I’ve come to see [post-church activities] as one of the clearest distinguishing features of Christian hipster subculture. They usually do something as a group after church, and it frequently involves alcohol” (p. 95, emphasis added).

What I find both puzzling and unsettling is, why it is that Southern Baptists were and still are lectured to endlessly by many on Southeastern's faculty, GCRTF advocates, and others about blowing the horn on drinking intoxicating beverages for pleasurable purposes...

about being hung up on legalistic issues which are not gospel-centered issues...

about being open to people who have different views,

about leaving third tier issues--tertiary issues--alone, instead focusing on what makes for unity...

I'm wondering why...

if someone like Jerry Vines preaches a sermon against alcohol, taking a pro-abstinence stance, and others express their doubts that it is healthy for a seminary to invite I-drink-and-you-can-stick-abstinence-in-your-ear-and-smoke-it-for-all-I-care pastors to preach at conferences and even in chapel services, holding them up as models to mimic, models of excellence, models under which to be mentored, models to follow...

I'm wondering why, when the above is the case, those of us in the SBC who are strongly abstinence-oriented, we get labelled as Pharisaical legalists, traditionalists, who care nothing for the Word of God, who accept the traditions of men rather than Scripture, people who are not gospel-centered, but stuck in the fifties mentality? I'm wondering why?

I'm also wondering why, Southeastern finds it necessary to bring this issue up. It's not the fundamentalists who's banging on the gong. Heck, I probably hold the most radical, "pharisaical" position on the market, nevertheless, I've barely mentioned alcohol since my book debuted in June, 2009. Yet SEBTS sounds the alarm. It leaves its gospel-centered, missional-minded, GCR-saturated message to deal with what can only be, at least according to them, a third-tier issue.  I'm wondering why.

Could it be...

Could it possibly be...

Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary is facing a crisis...perhaps a crisis where students are, shall we say, a bit more corinthianistic than they would like?...

Is this possible? After all, when one of the faculty members rhetorically asks, over the cyberways, "Is alcohol a good thing? Sure! If it is taken in moderation,"  would it be surprising if a crisis were brewing amongst the student-body?  Not from my side of the creek.

Could it be, similar to Shurden's, catchy phrase above, Southeastern is sounding the alarm: "Here come those boozin' Baptists!"?

I don't know.

I do know this.

When one makes the consumption of intoxicants for pleasurable purposes, a consumption of which is widely accepted within our culture, into a mere unimportant, insignificant third-tier, non-gospel-centered, libertarian, amoral issue, what under the blue sky do you think is going to happen?

I'm reminded of C.S. Lewis' repsonse on an entirely other matter: they cut out the organ but expect the function.

With that, I am...

Peter 

Comments

[peter]

Aubry,

Thanks. To the contrary, Aubry, I did not choose to create controversy. I listed a litany of controversial decisions SEBTS unfortunately chose to pursue--speakers, faculty (with loose lips and teaching moderation of alcohol usage while blasting abstinence), etc--which leaves many of us seeing an imminent inevitable disaster. So, while my reasoned piece may have provoked some like yourself to suspect I "created" a perception, I beg to differ.

Now as for Lewis' words, unless you can show how I twisted them--that is, made Lewis into a teetotaler when he evidently was not--to fit a point never intended, I do not agree with your admiration toward me.

No, you are not censored. I'm only censoring jerks* on this site from this day forward. You, my brother, do not sound to me like a jerk.

Hoping for a good day...
With that, I am...
Peter

*for my purposes here, a jerk is someone who wants to make me or another out to be an evil--and even at times--unsaved person rather than actually focusing on the words people write

[Aubry]

I was not at all stating or implying that you twisted Lewis' words, but was simply humored by the injection of Lewis into this conversation.

I'm not even completely sure what the quote was intended to imply. Maybe those who eliminate so-called third tier argument from their rightful place of importance are cutting out an organ and expecting to function?

So it seems that you are implying that Lewis would be advocating non-functionality by his own clearly stated position on the consumption of alcohol.

To me that's akin to quoting Nixon in positive support of political ethics.

[peter]

Aubry,

"I'm not even completely sure what the quote was intended to imply...

So it seems that you are implying that Lewis would be advocating non-functionality by his own clearly stated position on the consumption of alcohol."

You would have been closer to the implication intended had you stopped with, "I'm not even completely sure..."

Thanks.

With that, I am...
Peter

[Aubry]

I apologize for my tone in the earlier posts. I was not being charitable with you and posted based upon emotion.

My sincere apologies.

[peter]

Aubry,

No problem, my brother. I honestly don't feel you crossed any line; but since you do, I receive your gracious words with humility.

Lord bless and have a good afternoon.
With that, I am...
Peter