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The SBC and the Nicene Creed Featuring Malcolm Yarnell & Steve McKinion along with Matt Emerson and Luke Stamps: A Brief Response

Four Baptist scholar-historians (two seminary professors and two university professors) plan to move at the 2024 Southern Baptist Convention that The 2000 Baptist Faith and Message be amended to include a brand new article of faith—Article XIX: The Creed. Many have wondered why now, and why this Creed. In the minds of those wondering why now, they undoubtedly are thinking about the confessional history of Southern Baptists themselves. For Southern Baptists, there appears to have always been a significant issue even if not very troubling issue that ultimately called for... Read more →

The ERLC, Donald Trump, and Inciting Insurrection

After the regrettable “storming of Capitol Hill” on January 8, 2021, and the subsequent condemnation of President Donald Trump for inciting insurrection claimed by social media platform, Twitter, the giant media platform permanently banned the president from his Twitter accounts. In an article by Jason Thacker, who serves as chair of research in technology ethics and creative director at ERLC, a public arm of the Southern Baptist Convention, wrote an article entitled, “Understanding Twitter suspensions and the need for consistent policies.” By design, Thacker speaks for the ERLC, that in... Read more →

The Alleged Sex Abuse Crisis and What’s Next for the Southern Baptist Convention

The working assumption that a systemic sex abuse crisis exists in the 47,000+- churches affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) is now officially unchallengable received dogma. Question the claim or evidence from which the claim is inferred, and the unwary enquirer will quickly be on the receiving end of the Southern Baptist internet mob. After raising questions concerning the accuracy of data driving the claim of a SBC sex abuse crisis on Twitter recently, one responder tweeted suggesting I personally cared more about statistical numbers than I did about... Read more →

A. H. Newman on Calvinism and religious liberty

pic source The year 2017 marks the 500th year since the Protestant Reformation was launched by Martin Luther's legendary nailing of his 95 theses to the Castle Church door in Wittenberg, Germany in 1517. And while John Calvin was only 8 years old when Luther began the protestant religious revolution, Calvin's theology became the standard expression of Reformed theology. Some attribute to Calvin and Calvinism the development of our broad American liberties including "anti-statism, the belief in transcendent principles of law as the foundation of an ethical legal system, free... Read more →

Janet Mefferd on Russell Moore and the Conservative backlash: "This isn't just about Trump"

Talk-radio host, Janet Mefferd, writes a convincing account of the issues many Conservatives have raised concerning Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC) president, Russell Moore. Writing as a non-Southern Baptist, Mefferd claims many in the media falsely assume Conservatives' problems with Moore began with his criticism of then presidential candidate, Donald Trump. She demonstrates Moore's excessive and over-the-top criticism of the President-elect, including Moore's unreasonable and misguided criticism of evangelicals who voted for the President-elect, was but one of several issues many Conservatives have raised since Moore became president of... Read more →

What’s at Stake in the Southern Baptist Convention for the backlash against Russell Moore? A Response

Jake Raabe is a student at Baylor University's George W. Truett Theological Seminary in Waco, Texas and columnist for The Baptist Standard, the news service affiliated with the Baptist General Convention of Texas. Raabe recently wrote an opinion column entitled "Voices: What's at stake for the SBC in backlash against Russell Moore?" arguing that it is a mistake for Southern Baptists to either silence or dismiss the views of the president of the Ethics and Religious Life Commission (ERLC) of the Southern Baptist Convention, Russell Moore. It would be naive... Read more →

New Orleans Baptist Association calls for censorship of Baptist state paper

On July 12, a group of eight Baptist leaders from the New Orleans Baptist Association (NOBA) who were apparently fed up with what they called "buzzard politics" from The Baptist Message, wrote, signed, and posted an open complaint on the NOBA website. Entitled "Which Way Forward: Unity or Division?" the eight men noted specifically, "We are troubled by the critical editorials in our state Baptist paper against SBC agency heads David Platt and Russell Moore." Making the complaints into a call for unity, the associational article indicated what appears to... Read more →

Zwingli on the fate of Baptists--"Drown the dippers!"

source Melancthon smiled when Servetus was put to death by Calvin. When the magistrates of Zurich consulted Zuinglius on the fate of some poor Baptists, " Drown the dippers" —said the Reformer. --"Historical Sketch of the Baptist Denomination" Midland Association, England, 1832 Save Save Read more →

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 →

Religious Liberty, Islamic Terrorism, and Balthasar Hubmaier

Gerald Harris, Editor of Georgia's Christian Index, recently published an editorial which proved to be quite provocative. Entitled "Do Muslims Really Qualify for Religious Liberty Benefits?" Harris questioned whether modern terrorist Islam is more a "geo-political movement" engaged in a violent aggressive goal to invade American borders and kill American infidels rather than a peaceful religion protected by first amendment rights. Harris was clear he was not questioning the historic Baptist notion of universal religious liberty—that is, religious liberty is not limited to Christian believers, but religious liberty is inclusive... Read more →

Gregory A. Wills: "Arminianism did not prosper in the Netherlands"

Gregory A. Wills summarily writes about the Synod of Dort's response to the Remonstrants, followers of Jacob Arminius. 'The Arminian Remonstrants summed up their doubts [i.e. concerning the purported teachings of John Calvin by Theodore Beza, et al] in five points. The Dutch church hosted the Synod of Dort, a gathering of the leaders of Europe's Reformed churches, which answered each point…These became known as the "five points of Calvinism."'1 Wills then writes, "Arminianism did not prosper in the Netherlands but attracted many followers in England and America." So far... Read more →

Alternate Presidential Candidate for #NeverTrump supporters Denny Burk, Russell Moore, and the ERLC

It's no secret that some high-profile Southern Baptists are pushing evangelicals toward a #NeverTrump position. Among the more aggressive top-tier influencers (especially among younger evangelicals) stand Denny Burk and Russell Moore, both Southern Baptists, both #NeverTrump members, both employees at entities owned by the Southern Baptist Convention--The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and The Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission respectively. Many Southern Baptists think their posturing toward #NeverTrump to be either misguided or unstudied. Below is one response to the third-party, write-in candidacy both Burk and Moore have recently promoted. First,... Read more →

Is it time for Southern Baptists to get new leadership in Washington?

A new president of the greatest nation on earth will be sworn into public office in just over eight months. It's time. Eight years of Barack Obama's butchered policies and broken promises have choked to death the American spirit. He promised he'd unite us both racially and politically. However, only the most obtuse observer could deny that racially and politically, the United States of America has perhaps become more hostilely divided than in any known era of American history. Why Washington's Oval Office needs a new leader The President's latest... Read more →

God bless the United States of America

James White and Historical Hooey (Part 2)

Below I've embedded the video entitled "Calvin and Servetus: Dan Barker Twists History" uploaded and posted by Alpha & Omega Ministries. Calvinist apologist, James White, makes a series of historical assertions concerning the circumstances surrounding John Calvin and Michael Servetus in response to atheist, Dan Barker, implicating Barker in twisting history. About 4 minutes and 10 seconds into the video, White begins his criticism mainly as a series of rhetorical questions raised against Barker's commentary on the legendary trial of Servetus at Geneva in 1553, commentary played from an audio... Read more →

James White and Historical Hooey: Interlude

In the first part of "James White and Historical Hooey," I showed two visible flaws in James White's argumentation methods. First, I demonstrated White's egregious habit of making his arguments into scornful contempt for his opponent rather than serious critique of the ideas under consideration. I put it this way: "I've never, in my sixty years on this earth, encountered another human being so coldly, consistently, and belligerently set on verbally and morally assaulting other people as liars, deceivers, frauds, imbeciles, idiots, and overall nincompoops as James White." White routinely... Read more →

President of Southern Baptists' ERLC on suspending Duck Dynasty's patriarchal leader

Phil Robertson (pic source) Dr. Russell Moore offered commentary on the recent A&E suspension of Phil Robertson, Duck Dynasty's patriarchal figure. Moore described the network television decision "censorious cultural fundamentalism" that is neither “progressive” nor “pluralistic.” The ERLC president went on to conclude: "Let’s have genuine diversity, meaning let’s talk honestly with one another about what we believe and why. Muting one another isn’t what debate is for in a free society. It’s what remote controls are for." Read the entire statement-- "Duck Dynasty?" on the president's blog, Moore to... Read more →

The Anabaptists—“being puritan before puritanism was cool” by Peter Lumpkins

"The Anabaptists.—It should be here stated that the first martyrs for religious liberty during the reign of Elizabeth are found, not among the Brownists, but among the hated, maligned, and much-suffering Anabaptist. The history of that remarkable sect has yet to be written, and when justice has been done to them a memorable and heroic chapter will have been added to the history of the world. The Anabaptists were Puritans before Puritanism had sprung into recognized existence, and held substantially all that the Puritans afterwards contended for…"1 1Puritanism in the... Read more →