Bill Harrell has served as Pastor of Abilene Baptist Church in Martinez, Georgia, for over 30 years. He also is active in the Augusta Baptist Association, Georgia Baptist Convention, and SBC, including having serving as the Vice-President of the Georgia Baptist Convention and as Chairman of the SBC Executive Committee.

In the short span of time of about five years, those of us who are observers of activities within the Southern Baptist Convention have witnessed not only changes but mega-shifts in our convention. It would take a large volume for someone to treat all the various subjects at hand but I want to address just a few that are very subtle in some ways but very overt in others.

Most of our Southern Baptist people are just tending to the business of the Kingdom in their part of the world unaware of the forces that are in play and what those forces are trying to achieve and indeed are achieving with much success.

Two things have come to our attention in recent days that bear watching. First, our agency for missions within the US, NAMB, has been using some of the Cooperative Program funds to help establish “Acts 29” churches. These churches must, by their own charter, be organized as five-point-Calvinist churches. There are those who have it as their goal to change the SBC into a Reformed convention more akin to a Presbyterian church that a Baptist church. I cannot, in these few words, get into a broad examination of what is going on, but any informed member of the SBC understands that this is happening.

The driving force behind the Acts 29 churches has been Mark Driscoll; and I do not need to elucidate how controversial he is. He has become, to the younger people, somewhat of a folk hero who they are willing to follow no matter what he says or does. Chapter 10 of his recent book, Real Marriage, is nothing but pornography. It encourages people to think that it normal to do sexually what the Bible condemns. Yet, it is Southern Baptist people who suddenly seem willing to accept the things that the people of our convention rejected outright as sinful until recently. In recent days the leadership of Acts 29 has shifted to someone else, at least in the public eye. Driscoll is the founder of this emergent church, Calvinistic organization; and many believe he will still be the “behind the scenes” leader. Being the founder, he is not going to “ride off into the sunset” too easily or too far.

Let me suggest why the younger generation finds it so easy to accept the kind of things Driscoll mentions in his book. This is the generation that was raised on the internet and all that it offers including pornography. I believe that this young generation is willing to accept and actually applaud the activities that are suggested as acceptable sex in chapter 10 of Driscoll’s book. I believe that many, though certainly not all of the younger generation that is currently pushing for such radical changes in the SBC are not alarmed by the content of chapter 10 because they have been exposed all of their lives, through the internet, to the grossest of pornographic videos and images. Many have exposed themselves to this internet trash and it has imprinted their minds. They think it is okay to do such because they have been dealing with it for years. They are part of the video generation who had the ability to go to their rooms at night and spend hours looking at pornography while their parents thought they were asleep. So, no wonder they don’t blink an eye at what Driscoll refers to in chapter 10. In fact, they wonder why we old “fuddy-duddies” are so worked up about it all. Only people who are accustomed to consuming pornography would gravitate toward such filth and endorse it. Some have noted what a good book he has written, especially in the first chapters. One must realize that it was the same mind that wrote those chapters as the one that wrote chapter 10 and encouraged people to do such things even to the point of providing web sites to help people know where to find aids that would heighten the sexual experience. Because human nature is what it is, things will get worse before they get better. How far will such people as Driscoll have to go before we become convicted and turn away in disgust? We are far removed from the purity that was expected of the New Testament Christians.

The people of the SBC in annual meetings have made it clear that they want nothing to do with Driscoll or Acts 29, yet some of our leaders continue to thumb their noses at what they know has been said on the issue at the convention. They don’t care what we think because these leaders of this new wave of thought are convinced that they are in control so they will do as they wish no matter what we think.

NAMB has been helping to start churches in the St. Louis area that are Acts 29 affiliated. The leaders at NAMB were confronted several months ago about this and we were assured that they were not funding Acts 29 churches with SBC monies. This all died down for a few months, and now we find that they have continued to do this. I don’t know about other people in the SBC, but I do not plan to fund such activity. I also believe that if the masses of the SBC people were to find out what is going on they would not fund it either. The real problem is that those good people are not informed about the current direction of the SBC. They trust their leaders and agencies never realizing that such is happening. The very people they trust are relying on them to continue to give because that is what they have always done and, at the same time, they are going in directions the good people of the SBC would never go.

There is a growing emphasis on church planting and missions. Let me offer a suggestion as to why. The young Calvinists, who are being turned out in numbers from Southern and Southeastern in particular, are finding it difficult to get a job in a Southern Baptist church because 90+ % of our churches reject five point Calvinism. The leaders of these seminaries know they cannot tell a young person that “we are going to educate you in Calvinism, but we want you to know that it will be difficult for you to get a job in a Southern Baptist church when you graduate.” Now suppose they told them that. How long do you think they would attract students in number? So, they are pushing church planting and missions to give these people an outlet for ministry opportunities. They can’t afford to warn the young student about the reality of job hunting in the SBC as a five point Calvinist. They just make them a part of their little group, which I describe as an “intellectual, spiritual groupie thing.” They have their gurus who they follow almost unquestionably. The same is true of those attached to the Acts 29 group. As churches get more familiar with the situation, they are starting to ask directly if a candidate is sympathetic to or is a part of the Acts 29 network. When the average Southern Baptist church finds out that they are connected to or sympathetic to Acts 29, they turn from them and seek another candidate. So, this new emphasis on church planting is being largely driven by the fact that five-point-Calvinist students and Acts 29 adherents need a place to go preach and minister because churches do not want their theology (in the case of the Calvinists) or their organization (in the case of the Acts 29 group).

These church starts in the St. Louis area are very revealing and bear watching. Lifeway, which is in the process of being changed into a Reformed agency, has just released a series of Sunday School lessons on the gospel of which all authors are Calvinists except maybe one person. Now, let me ask a question: With 90+% of the SBC people rejecting Calvinism, how did our educational agency happen to product a Sunday School series on the gospel that is authored almost exclusively by Calvinists? I think it was by design. It was intentional and done because, as stated previously, they think they are in control of the convention enough at this point that they can do as they please.

I believe that it has always been a dream of the President of Southern Seminary to use that institution of higher learning as the home base for making the SBC a Reformed convention. Even Christianity Today saw this. When Al Mohler arrived at Southern in 1993, he began firing the liberals who did not hold to inerrancy. We all watched and said, “Praise God, Brother Al is getting rid of those liberals.” We just didn’t notice that as he fired the liberals, he replaced them with inerrantists who happened to be Calvinists. Some were not even Baptist; they were Presbyterian. The Southern Baptist people were so overjoyed at the way Southern was being brought back into the inerrancy camp that we were totally unaware of the direction in which it was being taken. Now we see. Southern and now Southeastern are both turning out numbers of the young, restless Calvinists with Southern having been doing it for years. We have a large number of them seeking to pastor our churches. Many churches that are not Calvinistic in their theology have been ruptured by these young preachers who accept a call to a church but fail to tell them that they are five point Calvinists. The church is usually split and damaged before they find out the truth. One will be loudly condemned for stating this truth but as my Grandmother used to say . . . ”the proof is in the pudding.”

While I believe that there has been a long term plan to take the convention to the Reformed position, I also think that the number of our agency heads and leadership positions held by Calvinists or those sympathetic to that theological model prove the point. Where did Thom Rainer come from? Southern Seminary. Where did Ed Stetzer make his trek to Lifeway from? Southern. Where did Trevin Wax, a new writer and editor for Lifeway get his Masters degree? Southern. Where did Kevil Ezell come from? He was Al Mohler and Danny Akin’s pastor in Louisville. Where did Clark Logan, now at NAMB come from? Did you guess Southern? You are right. Even Danny Akin went to Southeastern from Southern. A “family tree” kind of graph, showing where the current leadership of some of our most influential agencies came from and who has been involved in their hiring, might be very interesting.

All of this points to why Lifeway would be so bold as to issue a Sunday School series on the gospel authored primarily by Calvinists. Dr. Mohler, along with The Founders group and others know that it would take five lifetimes to take the SBC back to a Reformed position church by church but he is also smart enough to know that it could be accomplished in only a couple of decades through the educational system: Lifeway. The good people of the SBC are not theologians. They simply trust their agencies and are unaware of the plan. They could be manipulated into the Reformed tradition through the educational process and never know what hit them. Also, less blood will be shed this way.

In connection with this, let me point out another thing that bears watching. With this gospel Sunday School series, they are subtly trying to change the definition of the word “gospel.” Even now, when those who hold to Reformed doctrine refer to preaching the “gospel,” they are meaning that one is preaching Calvinism. When one of the Calvinists says “preach the gospel brother,” he is really saying “preach that Reformed doctrine brother.” NonCalvinists are saying “preach the whosoever will gospel brother.” There is a vast difference. And, I believe that the goal is to re-educate the people of the SBC to understand that Reformed doctrine is the “gospel” and that the “gospel” is Reformed doctrine. Once that is accepted by the people after a couple of decades, the leaders of the Reformed resurgence can say, “we have done it; the SBC is now a Reformed convention.” And, they will have used the same basic approach to accomplish their goal as they use in the local churches: slow indoctrination that “sneaks up on the blind side.”

Let me pose this question: “Why, in the midst of all the other things that are transpiring that would totally transform the SBC, do we have this effort to change the name of our convention?” Let me offer this assessment. The effort is to “rebrand” the SBC. Call it something else and change the image of the convention in the minds of the people. At the same time the goal is to insert Calvinism as the identifiable theological bent of the convention. It would be easier to do it that way since the name “SBC” would not easily carry the designation as a Reformed convention. Rebrand it; rename it; insert Calvinism; educate the people that this is where the new convention is theologically. It would be much easier to call a newly named convention a Reformed convention than it would be to identify the SBC as a Reformed group. I realize that not all the people on the name change committee are Calvinists and had no concept of this. But, I believe others did. Those who are not Calvinists probably went along with the “nickname” approach because that is far better than totally changing the name, in their view.

Such name changing and rebranding was tried in 1995-96 when a committee studied changing some things so that we “could operate in a smoother way and more effectively reach the world for Jesus.” This committee renamed the Home Mission Board, NAMB. They renamed the Foreign Mission Board, the IMB. They eliminated some minor agencies. They thought that rebranding and renaming some of our key agencies would make things work better. Worked real well didn’t it? The whole process was a waste of time and money and at least one of the people involved with that process is involved in the current one. So, now they have come up with the brilliant idea of a “nickname”, Great Commission Baptists. Those who want to use this new moniker can do so in place of the Southern Baptist Convention name. This is only going to produce confusion in the eyes of those very people we want to reach. Now, some will have to say ”we are a GCB church”. Then comes the question: “I thought you were Southern Baptist.” “Well we are, but we are choosing to use Great Commission Baptists as our identifying name.” Now one would say, “so, there are two conventions?” “Well no, there is one but it now has two accepted names.” Is it just me or do others think that this is creating confusion? Let me tell you what I think will happen. I think that the GCB will become the “Calvinistic arm” of the SBC. The perception of the young, restless Calvinists is that their heroes are the ones behind this renaming approach, and they will run to be a part of whatever Brother So-and-so helped form and endorses. Soon it will be obvious that this “division” of the SBC is the Calvinistic “arm” of the SBC. Money will flow there in order to support whatever their leaders “suggest” is a good thing to support. So we will wind up with the CBF on one side, the SBC in the middle and the GCB (Calvinistic arm) on the other side. They will do the same as the CBF has done and stay in our convention and churches. More fracturing and confusion will be the result.

When people look at the different facets of the current happenings in the SBC, they can begin to get an idea of what is actually taking place and where it is all headed. Of course, this assumes that they have enough background. If current trends continue we will not recognize the SBC in a very few years. Which begs the question: “Is there NOTHING right about the SBC?” Is everything wrong and in need of radical surgery? I think not! These people are doing with the convention what many of them have done in churches: radically change the makeup of the church while making those who might oppose them out to be one who really doesn’t desire to be obedient to God or fulfill the great commission.

Things are changing in our Southern Baptist Zion and they are not for the good. If things continue on the present course, I predict that in only a few years we will not have thirty-five state and pioneer conventions but about twenty-five. Some will cease to operate. Some will combine with a more stable convention in order to survive. Additionally, I predict that the Executive Committee will cease to be the entity that has guided us so well in the past because fewer conventions will reduce the number of committee members. As it grows smaller someone will ask: “why have an Executive Committee? It is now much smaller and we don’t need to waste that mission money on having a meeting since we have the internet with the ability for each person to stay home and participate in a video conference.” There will be a movement to let the officers of the committee meet about twice a year, set up a video meeting and hold an Executive Committee meeting in such a manner. Next will come the bright idea . . . “Since we don’t have all those people meeting twice a year and since so much has changed, why don’t we sell the Baptist Building? We could take that money and start some more churches and send some more missionaries.” I mean, who in the world could be against such good things?

One might say I am being an alarmist, but I believe that the fragmentation of the SBC is already taking place and it will proceed in that direction until we are no longer the monolithic spiritual body that has influence in the nation and world. We will be like any other denominational body. We will not be the leader among denominations as we have been, but we will be classed with those that the world doesn’t care if they exist or not because they are no threat to the sinful directions of society.

I know that what I have said will be decried as harsh, but we are dealing with harsh realities in the SBC. If things follow a normal course, it will be the young theologues who have little or no experience who will be the harshest in their criticism of my thoughts. They are still “wet behind the ears” and don’t have the experience or background to say very much at all. In general they have no respect for those who have had a ministry of forty or more years. I really don’t care who says what. My observations are built on the foundation of sixteen years on the Executive Committee and thirty eight years of pastoring Southern Baptist churches.

The things I have mentioned are some of the things that bear watching. Time will prove if I am right or not. I think I am.

By Dr. Randy Stone, Associate Professor of Christian Education and Director of the Doctor of Educational Ministry Program at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary

The following list was assembled not as a detailed research project, nor was it the product of a survey of the largest churches in America. This list is merely the simple observations of a single staff person. Through conversations with colleagues, countless conventions, and tireless training events, I have surmised that the following are true. You be the real judge. I welcome your opinion.

1. Church Size and Type. Churches are making decisions concerning what type of church they want to be . . . Supersize or Boutique.[1] Churches are mimicking business models. Just as businesses are choosing to specialize only in selected merchandise, a number of churches are directing their focus so that they may be good or the best at a few things.[2] Once refined, they often “franchise” to additional locations. Other churches are choosing “to be all things to all people.” This model requires massive staff, organization, facilities, and of course, money. Both approaches seem to work. Big and small churches are healthy and growing, while at the same time, midsize and neighborhood congregations are disappearing. Incidentally, reports are that . . . 80 percent of Southern Baptists attend churches with more than 1000 in worship each Sunday, about 7 percent of the 45,727 congregations in our denomination.[3]

2. Institutional Internalization. The mission of the church has been lost. For a vast majority of churches, the overwhelming goal of the local congregations seems to be “preservation of the institution,” rather than the “pursuit of the mission.” The energy and resources of the churches have been increasingly directed to staying alive or preserving status quo. In the last 50 years the number of churches has increased by 50 percent while the number of baptisms has plateaued or declined.[4] Church splits and starts seemed to have weakened congregations as the evangelistic zeal has faded.

3. Crisis in the Clergy. There are three sub-trends in most clergy issues.

A. Moral and Ethical Failures. The integrity of pastors, staff, and denominational leaders has eroded with each new scandal in the local or national news. People desire to trust and believe their pastors, but it becomes a challenge with the growing number of moral and ethical failures.

B. Theologians vs. Leaders. I see a growing desire for pastors to be strong theologians rather than strong leaders. I have discovered that you can educate a leader, but you cannot always develop a leader from an educated person. Our Seminaries are producing a great number of excellent theologians who unfortunately do not understand how to direct a local congregation toward spiritual health and vitality.

C. Competence vs. Expectations. Local congregations want pastors like Adrian Rogers, who can evangelize like Billy Graham, who are on call 24 hours a day, and are able to lead the church into dynamic health without changing anything. Pastors can not realistically achieve what most churches believe they want.

4. Dropout, Disillusioned, and Disengaged Christians. I personally know hundreds of people who have withdrawn from the church. Their reasons vary from change, fatigue, irrelevance of sermons, worship wars, group life issues, and spiritual complacency to name a few. Whatever the reason, I see a growing number of people who profess to be committed Christians, but find their church life increasingly unfulfilled. They want to follow Christ personally, but have chosen other options like staying home, starting house churches, and church hopping.

5. Search for the Supernatural. Libraries, book stores, and the internet are experiencing phenomenal growth in topics about the spiritual and supernatural. People are searching to discover meaning and purpose. They desire to find a life that transcends the ordinary ones they live, but rather than engaging a culture and society that is hungry for truth and spiritual realities, the Church is absent and silent. Now is the time to speak to the metaphysical and epistemological vacuum that is evident.

The next five trends will be listed in a forthcoming article .…

In a recent post on his “The Big Daddy Weave” blog site, Aaron Weaver questioned the nomination by SEBTS President Danny Akin of Fred Luter to First Vice President of the SBC this year, and the affirmation by SBTS Dean of Theology Russ Moore that Luter should be elected President of the SBC next year at the convention meeting in New Orleans.  Furthermore, Weaver discounted the set of recommendations coming from the SBC Executive Committee to the Phoenix convention to make “the convention’s leadership positions more reflective of the growing ethnic diversity in its churches” as an attempt at what Weaver labeled “Affirmative Action.” Weaver’s apparent rejection of these initiatives in the SBC to engage a broader ethnic/racial diversity in the SBC cause me concern at several levels. Let me respectfully voice several of these concerns, starting with some that are less important and moving toward the more important. My primary purpose is to endorse the candidacy of Fred Luter for significant positions of leadership in the SBC, and to affirm the recommendations about greater racial diversity being brought forward at this year’s SBC convention in Phoenix.

The Elder Brother?

To be clear, Weaver is not questioning these moves because he is opposed to greater racial diversity.  It doesn’t take long perusing his website (the pictures of Jimmy Carter, Walter Rauschenbusch, and Barbara Jordan among his heroes on the banner to the website might be a clue) that Weaver advocates essentially a liberal Democrat agenda.  It does appear clear, however, that his raising the Affirmative Action issue is something of a smokescreen or red herring to bash SBC leadership. Weaver has hosted the website for years, but through these hundreds of posts he does not have a single prior post specifically defending or addressing Affirmative Action.  There are, however, dozens of articles critical of SBC leadership. So let’s just be honest and acknowledge that the issue is not Affirmative Action in the first place, but Weaver using it as a pretense to demean SBC leaders.  At best, Weaver exemplifies the attitude of the elder brother when the prodigal came back home.  If the SBC has been slow to address adequately this issue of greater racial diversity, and Weaver has been further ahead on this issue, at the very least he “has an attitude” about us prodigals coming to ourselves, rather than entering into the joy of the Father for this step of progress.

Affirmative Action?
The major case that Weaver attempts to make is that by “making the convention’s leadership positions more reflective of the growing ethnic diversity in its churches,” the SBC is practicing Affirmative Action, despite the fact that many convention leaders (he cited ERLC President Richard Land) have voiced concerns about the continued practice of Affirmative Action in American society.  However, Weaver uses the word “Affirmative Action” rather ambiguously or disingenuously at points in his article. Weaver cited the Merriam-Webster definition of Affirmative Action, “an active effort to improve the employment or educational opportunities of members of minority groups and women,” or “a similar effort to promote the rights or progress of other disadvantaged persons.” Weaver also speaks later in his article about Affirmative Action in the SBC regarding “the race/ethnicity of a potential employee.” Since the first three paragraphs of Weaver’s article focused on Fred Luter’s nomination to office, accompanied by a large photograph of Luter, the obvious application of his worries about Affirmative Action relate to Fred Luter’s candidacy for office in the SBC.  However, the President of the SBC is not an employee of the SBC. It is an elective position. Fred Luter would continue his current position as Pastor of Franklin Avenue Baptist Church. He would not be an employee, would not be receiving educational opportunities, and is not disadvantaged.  Therefore, none of the criteria related to Weaver’s own chosen definition of Affirmative Action apply to Fred Luter’s candidacy for elective office in the SBC.  Likewise, the recommendations from the Executive Committee about “making the convention’s leadership positions more reflective of the growing ethnic diversity in its churches” may pertain primarily to nominated and elective positions as much or more than full-time employment.

However, one who thinks that Southern Baptists seeking racial reconciliation and greater ethnic/racial representation is a new thing is sadly misinformed. We have been working on this for years.  No less than eleven prior SBC conventions have passed resolutions favoring racial reconciliation and greater inclusiveness of racial/ethnic groups within the SBC. This very set of recommendations from the Executive Committee did not originate within that group itself, but was a response to a motion from the floor at a recent SBC convention. As I’ll note in the next section, ERLC President Richard Land has been working toward this for a couple of decades.

However, we have not initiated these efforts to be doing Affirmative Action, but rather (as the article referred to by Weaver states), to be representative of who Southern Baptists are (i.e., “making the convention’s leadership positions more reflective of the growing ethnic diversity in its churches.” The SBC is dramatically more diverse than it was a few decades ago.  In all, nearly 10,000 of the 45,000 SBC churches (nearly a fourth) are primarily focused on an ethnic or racial group.  We have over 3,000 African American congregations, over 3,000 Hispanic congregations, and over 1,000 Korean congregations, just to list a few. (By the way, despite all their rhetoric, do the statistics show that the CBF as ethnically and racially as diverse as the SBC?).

Regarding African Americans in SBC life , for example, there are now over 4,000 churches in the SBC that are primarily African American (almost 10 percent of the churches in the SBC), and many others attend racially mixed congregations. Over a million church members in the SBC have African heritage. At least 19 African Americans have been elected President of their state Baptist conventions, two have served as Executive Director of a state Baptist Convention, and others have served as Director of Missions for several associations.  African Americans have served as Vice President of several convention entities and of the SBC itself. Likewise, not only are about 1,000 Korean churches in the SBC, but the largest SBC church in the Maryland/Delaware Baptist convention is Korean. These diverse groups contribute to the Cooperative Program, and so not having representatives on boards would be “taxation without representation.”  That would not be just.

However, that this most recent SBC initiative was not Affirmative Action is obvious from the fact that the Executive Committee affirmed past processes in which “the concept of ‘quotas’ was resisted, choosing instead to support the selection of Southern Baptists ‘who are well qualified, without regard to any of the unalterable personal characteristics which God has bestowed upon them.’” Note that in the following recommendations being presented to the SBC, none require Affirmative Action quotas:

– entities annually submit a descriptive report of participation of ethnic churches and church leaders in the life and ministry of each entity.

– the SBC President’s Notebook given to each newly elected president encourage him to “give special attention to appointing individuals who represent the diversity within the convention, and particularly ethnic diversity” among his appointees to various committees.

– the SBC president report the total number of appointees that represent the ethnic diversity when names for committees are released to Baptist Press.

– the SBC President’s Notebook encourage the president to encourage the selection of annual meeting program personalities that represent the ethnic diversity within the convention.

– the Committee on Order of Business consider the ethnic identity of program personalities for annual meetings.

– the Committee on Nominations form be amended to provide a place where a nominee may indicate his or her ethnic identity.

– the Committee on Nominations include in its annual report the number of individuals among its nominees that represent the ethnic diversity within SBC life.

– entities give due consideration to the recruitment and employment of qualified individuals who reflect well the ethnic diversity within SBC life.

– the Executive Committee, through its various publications and news outlets, continue to provide news coverage of interest to individuals of all ethnic interests and to highlight what God is accomplishing through Baptists of “every tribe and tongue and people and nation.”

– the Executive Committee receive a report from EC staff each year during its February meeting concerning the participation of ethnic churches and ethnic church leaders in SBC life.

I know that all the seminaries have been trying to nurture students who are African American, Korean, Hispanic, and other minority groups to complete PhDs so they can be elected to our faculties, and to design programs to provide theological education for every ethnicity. At NOBTS we have focused programs for the African-American church, Hispanics, French Haitians, Koreans, and several others in international settings. I can also say that two of our Anglo faculty members experienced forced terminations in churches in the South primarily because they took a stand for the inclusion of African Americans in the life of the church. Since I have been Provost at NOBTS, we have elected our first three African-American faculty members, two Hispanic faculty members, two Korean faculty members, and several others who were born in other countries.  This pattern is true at all the other SBC seminaries as well.  Indeed, we all need and desire many more minority faculty members who have achieved the credentialing to serve in this way. If you think we would consider faculty members who do not have adequate credentials, you are sadly mistaken. We aren’t doing this for Affirmative Action reasons. We are doing it so our seminary faculties reflect the racial diversity of our churches, and to secure their help in training the next generation of leaders. They teach us much about being sensitive to different traditions, and the way we say things, and our presuppositions. We need them more than they need us.

Land on Racial Reconciliation

Fourth, I believe that Weaver (perhaps unintentionally) misrepresented Dr. Richard Land’s position (and those of other SBC leaders) about race relations in an important way. The quote that was lifted from an interview of Land interview by a Nashville newspaper omitted some important material about the WHY of his concern about Affirmative Action, that answer quoted in full here:

“I believe affirmative action has run its course in American society and that it is now counterproductive to that which it seeks to achieve. Affirmative action exacerbates racism and prejudice when people (whites) are discriminated against in promotion and admission practices because of the past racial sins of their fathers and grandfathers — sins for which they are not responsible. When people are discriminated against because they are white, it exacerbates racial tensions. The controversy over the recent New Hampshire firefighters case (Ricci v. DeStefano) illustrates this point vividly.
Second, affirmative action largely neutralizes the most effective weapons against prejudice, which is performance and excellence. When African-Americans and other minorities are promoted or admitted to prestigious schools in the wake of affirmative action, it is all too often assumed they are admitted or promoted under different and lower standards than the majority-white community. They may, and often do, have the best test scores or the best performance reviews, but in the wake of affirmative action, it is too often assumed that race was a contributing factor to their promotion or admission. This vitiates performance and excellence as weapons against prejudice. As Chief Justice John Roberts so succinctly and eloquently stated last year in a Supreme Court case, ‘The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.’ If the goal is a truly, post-racial, multi-racial society, then we have to at some point, as a society, declare that discrimination is always wrong.”
(Readers can see the full interview here).

Weaver probably disagrees with Dr. Land on many issues, but I don’t believe that is the case on the race issue. In the interview noted above, Land mentions his fight for racial equality and justice as a college student, and it was among the first issues he confronted when he came to the ERLC. His parents confronted a racist Sunday School teacher in his church in Houston as a boy. As he tells in the link, as a college student he was stopped by policemen in the racially charged 1960s while bringing some of his African American friends home to Houston from Princeton.

When he came to the ERLC, one of the first things he did was to sponsor a listening session in which Anglos listened to key African American pastors to hear their hearts. The 1995 “Resolution on Racial Reconciliation apologizing for the SBC’s racism arose out of this meeting, penned and pushed by Dr. Land.  He also formed a Racial Reconciliation Task Force (on which I served) to give further attention to this issue. Land led a pilgrimage to key civil rights sites in Atlanta and Birmingham after this convention. Dr. Land has been criticized and received threats at times because of his stance, but he has not wavered. I have had Dr. Land in my classes a couple of dozen times through the years at SWBTS and NOBTS, and without exception he has made a strong case for Baptists addressing racism. Indeed, his concern about Affirmative Action is simply and specifically that it would further racism, as he illustrates was the actual result of Affirmative Action in the New Hampshire fire fighter case. So, I don’t think Dr. Land’s views on racial equity and racial reconciliation were accurately depicted by Weaver.

Fred Luter for SBC President.

Fifth, and most importantly, Fred Luter deserves to be elected President of the SBC because he is one of the best preachers and leaders in the SBC, not because of Affirmative Action. First of all, he would be elected, not hired (the same would be true of other ethnic minority representatives elected to boards of various agencies). Affirmative Action carries the connotation of receiving a job or scholarship despite not meeting the normal standards and credentials for the job, or even over more qualified Anglos. This is not the case with Fred Luter, and it is not the case with any other minority person I know of in Southern Baptist life. Fred Luter is Pastor of the largest Southern Baptist Church in New Orleans and one of the largest churches in the Louisiana Baptist Convention, with nearly 4,000 people in attendance each week (only three or four churches in New Orleans have more than 400 in church on Sunday). He started that church with a handful of people, and with God’s help has built a great church. Katrina destroyed their church building and scattered their congregation, but now the church has rebuilt and has almost reached their pre-Katrina numbers. He has preached at virtually every Pastor’s Conference and Evangelism Conference in the country. He’s a regular favorite here in chapel at New Orleans Seminary. He has accomplished what few ministers have in the SBC. Electing him would not be Affirmative Action. It would be recognizing a great Baptist pastor and leader.  Fred Luter has demonstrated that he has the leadership and vision to serve as President of the SBC.

By the way, although I am not a shaker or mover in Southern Baptist life, I am an early endorser of Fred Luter as President of the SBC.  Two years ago, in my “Editorial Introduction” to the Fall 2009 issue of the Journal for Baptist Theology and Ministry (an issue which featured one of Brother Fred’s sermons), I expressed the hope that someday “he will be elected President of the SBC. (And there is no time better than when the SBC meets in New Orleans in 2012).”  I have endorsed Luter’s candidacy to many individuals, and I have encouraged Brother Fred in our personal conversations to allow his name to be presented as a candidate for the SBC Presidency.

Every minority member that I know of any SBC board is likewise well-deserving. We have two African Americans on our NOBTS Trustee Board. One is a very successful man who serves in a position of significance (and is a member of Franklin Avenue Baptist Church), and the other was a Vice President for Business Affairs at Howard University. To be very frank, I find the notion offensive that it would take unqualified ethnic persons to find positions of leadership for minorities in the SBC. Hopefully, Weaver was not suggesting that.

A Plea to Join Hands

Weaver is no fan of the SBC, and that’s fine. But hopefully he will not allow his personal agenda to overshadow some very positive developments toward racial reconciliation in the SBC.  This issue is important enough that we should rise above the fray and be of one mind, regardless of whether we are CBF or SBC. I hope we will all try to be more inclusive with regard to ethnicity and race so that Sunday morning is no longer the most racially segregated day in America. Let’s work together toward that goal.

——————–

Much of this material was originally posted as a response to Weaver’s article on his blog, but at the encouragement of other SBC Today editorial board members, it has been reformatted for this purpose.

Listen to the podcast by using the player below, or subscribe in iTunes by clicking the image in this post or the link in the sidebar. We’d love to hear your ideas on how we can improve the podcast, and we’d also appreciate a review or a rating on our iTunes page. Thanks for listening.

Links to some of the items discussed:

• A Reply to Tom Nettles’ Review of William A. Dembski’s The End of Christianity: Finding a Good God in an Evil World
• Les Puryear’s original “storehouse tithing” post

• Caring for the people
• Reaching the population
• Equipping pastors
• Encouraging participation
• Kneeling in prayer

This ministry supports a seminary, medical clinic, and orphanage in the southeast African country of Malawi. In our discussion today, Greg shares how this ministry began and what they do to support seminary students in a country that has a desperate need for trained pastors to lead churches. The seminary is presently facing a financial shortfall that threatens its continued existence, and Greg shares the details of that crisis in the podcast as well. If you or your church would like to help meet this need, the best way to do it is to send a check to the Baptist General Convention of Oklahoma. Make the check payable to “BGCO,” and write “Malawi Seminary” on the memo line, then send it to:

Cindi Robinson

BGCO

3800 N. May Ave.

Oklahoma City, Oklahoma 73112

You can also send support directly to the CREEK Ministry. Make your check payable to “CREEK Ministry,” and send it to:

First Baptist Church

Creek Ministry

P.O. Box 656

Cleveland, Oklahoma 74020

You can listen to the podcast using the player below, or you can subscribe in iTunes by clicking the image in this post, or the podcast link in the sidebar. Please leave a comment here if you have a suggestion for how we can improve the podcast, and while you’re on our iTunes page, give us a review or just click on some stars (the more, the better) to give us a rating. Thanks for listening.

Dr. Patterson was in Hugo, Oklahoma for the Frisco Baptist Association‘s annual evangelism conference, and I was able to talk to him briefly after the conference had ended. We talked about issues ranging from ecclesiology to ecumenism, the characteristic passion for missions that has always defined Southwestern, to the future legacy of the seminary as envisioned by the school’s eighth president. We even talked a little about some of the silly rumors generated by recent tabloid blogging.

You can listen to the interview right here in the post, or you can pack it onto your iPod for later use. Just click on the iTunes button in the sidebar under “Podcast.”

I want you to read the argument below and tell me what would happen within the SBC if this argument prevails. The argument is one set forth by Dr. Klouda’s high profile, big money, team of lawyers. In “Klouda’s Brief,” on document page 11, you will find the following argument.

c. Patterson’s Alleged Belief Should Not Be Attributed To Southwestern

From the evidence, it is also questionable whether Defendant Patterson’s alleged “religious” beliefs are held by Defendant Southwestern. Even if Defendant Patterson was genuine in his beliefs, he certainly differed in his interpretation from his predecessor and the Board of Trustees, who, although of the same faith, found Dr. Klouda worthy of election to faculty and a tenure-track position. Dr. Patterson acknowledges that there is a view opposite to his that is held within the Southern Baptist Convention.

I believe that if this lawsuit is settled in favor of Dr. Klouda, then we will have allowed a secular court to effectively turn back the Conservative Resurgence. This argument gives the ability for every pre-Conservative Resurgence professor to sue the SBC because the trustees changed the president and the president did not hold the same interpretation of scripture as the former president. Some may want to argue that the Conservative Resurgence was about changing trustees and Dr. Patterson came into a board of trustees that had already hired Dr. Klouda. There is one problem with that argument: Dr. Patterson claims, and his claim is supported by Dr. Craig Blaising, that a number of trustees approached Dr. Patterson with their concerns. Notice how the above argument effectively separates the president from the entity. When a president is called to an entity that entire board of trustees knows what they are getting and how the president’s views will either align, or not align, with the entity.

Whether or not you believe a woman can teach theology to a man isn’t my concern in this post. My concern is that this one argument, which has nothing to do with gender inequity, has the potential to decimate the SBC. You have my concern. What are yours?

Dr. Patterson talks about the New Baptist Covenant Celebration, the lawsuit brought against the seminary by former professor Dr. Sherri Klouda, and his vision for the future of Southwestern Seminary.

The interview runs about 20 minutes. You can listen to the interview directly from this page, you can download it by following the instructions below, or you can access it along with all of our other interviews by visiting our “Interviews” resource page. Check back later in the week for more interviews from the conference.

Monday, Wes Kenney and I had the opportunity to sit down with President Danny Akin of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. After the interview, Dr. Akin told us about his website, dannyakin.com, which is packed full of free resources, from sermon audio to complete publications. It is an outstanding source for pastors and anyone else interested in studying the Bible with the help of one of the leading theologians of our day.

During the interview, we talked about a variety of topics, from confessions of faith to expository preaching to the emerging church. Recently Dr. Akin led Southeastern in sponsoring a conference that focused on the emerging church. One of the main speakers was Mark Driscoll from Mars Hill Church in Seattle. Dr. Akin had the opportunity to talk about why he helped in sponsoring the conference and he gave some of his thoughts on Mark Driscoll and the ministry Driscoll has in Seattle.

Thanks to Micah Fries (pronounced “freeze”) for his blog that led me to a great site, sponsored by Driscoll’s Mars Hill Church in Seattle, for helping pastors, laypeople, and students with their New Testament Greek. Re: Greek is a site that will be a major help in studying your Greek Bible, especially for all you seminary students who don’t have major bucks to drop on a Greek parsing program. That’s because Re:Greek gives you the parsing. Of course, to keep us out of hot water with our former Greek professors, we add the disclaimer that all New Testament Greek students should strive to memorize and apply all those parsing charts and use programs like this only as a back up. I would like to thank those who put this program together.

The audio from the interview is available below. Enjoy the Greek tool, Dr. Akin’s resources, and the interview.