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Must answers from the platform to questions from the floor of the Southern Baptist Convention be ostentatious?

pic source UPDATE: Arkansas Baptist News published a letter to the editor from John Wofford, pastor of Armorel Baptist Church in Blytheville, Arkansas, the messenger who questioned ERLC's president, Russell Moore, at the 2016 Southern Baptist Convention (video below). I appreciate my brother Arkansan's explanation and thank him for offering further context to his question. I also agree with Pastor Wofford that Dr. Moore failed to answer exactly the question he posed. Platform respondents are notorious for bloviating rather than speaking to direct questions. Indeed many times I've observed them... Read more →

Calvinism: Essential or Non-essential?

Aaron Menikoff is presently senior pastor of Mt. Vernon Baptist Church in Sandy Springs, Georgia (metropolitan Atlanta). Menikoff holds a PhD from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and is author of Politics and Piety (Pickwick. 2014). He also served as an aide to United States Senator, Mark O. Hatfield, and occasionally blogs at The Gospel Coalition. Menikoff's latest piece entitled "When Grace Hurts the Church" addresses churches that find themselves possessing different theologies among the members and how they might navigate successfully through the often treacherous waters. Menikoff profiles his own... Read more →

Southern Baptist Convention presidential candidate J.D. Greear refuses interview with Louisiana Baptist state paper

What's up with Southern Baptist Convention presidential hopeful, J.D. Greear, refusing an interview with Will Hall, Editor of Louisiana's Baptist Message? According to Hall Despite making an appointment for a phone interview and after a substantive conversation, J.D. Greear declined to participate in a live question and answer session with the Louisiana Baptist Message about his run for the presidency of the Southern Baptist Convention. James David "J.D." Greear is lead pastor of The Summit Church, a mega-church in the Raleigh-Durham area of North Carolina. Greear also is Visiting Fletcher... Read more →

Seminary president indicts Southern Baptists for funding shortfalls at International Mission Board

Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary president, Jeff Iorg, joins the chorus of high profile Southern Baptists (see here and here) who are publicly insisting the reason for the recent announcement of budgetary problems at the nation's largest and most prestigious missionary-sending agency in the United States, The International Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention (IMB), is that rank-and-file1 Southern Baptists are "robbing God." In a short but pungent piece on the seminary president's blog entitled "Missionaries Are Coming Home," Dr. Iorg was anything but vague. "The basic problem causing... Read more →

More dismissing fiduciary obligation of IMB administration and trustees

I recently expressed my lament over the recent announcement of the International Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention (IMB). Not only is it hard to accept that at least since 2010, our missions-sending agency has outspent its predictable income by close to a quarter of a billion dollars, it also remains gut-wrenching to know IMB both sold off tens of millions of dollars of real estate and properties and depleted its cash reserves just to keep the doors open. Adding insult to injury, IMB officials announced it expects seasoned... Read more →

Lessons on leadership from a guy with no shirt

The following video offers excellent lessons on leadership from Derek Severs as to how a so-called movement gets started. Check it out. You'll enjoy: Read more →