This Neither Breaks my Leg nor Picks My Pocket

"The error seems not sufficiently eradicated, that the operations of the mind, as well as the acts of the body are subjects to the coercion of the laws.  But our rulers can have authority over such natural rights as only we have submitted to them.  The rights of conscience we never submitted, we could not submit.  We are answerable for them to our God.  The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others.  But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no god.  It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.  Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia, 1782 

History teaches us that the two most prolific influences on the development and writing of the Constitution of the United States were James Madison and Thomas Jefferson.  Madison was the key developer of the amendments, designed for the purpose of getting the constitution ratified by the states.  Already certain that the constitution sufficiently limited the powers of government, Madison developed these ten amendments to be added as a guarantee of securing individual freedom.  

Both Madison and Jefferson had witnessed the struggle of American colonists to combine religious expression with governance.  Madison noted in Virginia that the enforcement of the Anglican church's doctrine and rules by the legislative body led to the persecution of those who had determined, by conscience and conviction, not to be part of the Anglican church.  Many of those were Baptists, followers of Roger Williams who believed that any government involvement in the church would corrupt it.  Jefferson affirmed Williams' conviction in his letter to the Danbury Baptist Association in 1802, when he assured its leaders that a "wall of separation," a term originating with Williams, existed in the Constitution between the church and state, in the first amendment. 

The Moral Authority for the Law

It has been pretty common in American History classes for school children to be taught that the basis for the Constitution, and for most laws in the United States, is the Bible, because that's what the founding fathers used to write the Constitution.  No doubt, among the delegates at that first constitutional convention were men who were Christians, who belonged to churches and studied the Bible and believed in the Christian gospel.  James Madison would have been one of those.  Thomas Jefferson, on the other hand, writing to Madison to express his views because he was not at the convention. primarily with regard to a Bill of Rights, was not.  Madison had a theological education, Jefferson was an Enlightenement disciple. Yet these two agreed on the establishment clause, the separating of church from state and the freedom of conscience of all Americans with no religious test applied.  

So while there are moral influences in constitutional law derived from the Ten Commandments, or the Beatitudes, or the Sermon on the Mount, or the works of Paul the Apostle, it is clear that constitutional law is not based on the Bible, and that the intention of the founding fathers was to make laws which protected people from "acts which are injurious to others," whether those are physical or ideological, but primarily physical, but did not enforce any kind of religious principle, spirituality or belief.  

Over time, as the establishment clause has been run over by the predominant Christian expression in the United States, all as a "good cause," the courts have been left to interpret and determine to what extend laws violate individual conscience in the realm of morality and virtue, and to protect the rights of Americans who do not belong to any church, who profess a religion that is not Christianity, or who do not profess any religion at all.  

For example, there was once a time when "blue laws" were everywhere, and were particularly restrictive in states with higher percentages of church goers.  Stores could not be open on Sunday at all, in some areas, in others, the sale of products like alcoholic beverages or cigarettes could not take place on a Sunday.  This was clearly a law that "established" Christianity, because Christians worship primarily on Sunday.  But ultimately, courts determined that such laws were more "injurious" to those who did not practice Christianity, including those of other religions like Judaism, by protecting the Christian day of worship instead of the Jewish sabbath, or Muslim salah, or an atheists ability to use time on Sunday for their own purposes, including shopping or eating out or entertainment.  

A 21st Century Assault on the Establishment Clause 

In spite of all of the claims to the contrary, the United States was not established as a "Christian nation."  Clearly it has been heavily influenced by Christianity, more specifically by Protestant Christianity, in its 247 years of existence.  And over that period of time, its branches of government have had to grow in their understanding of how the Constitution works in limiting the power of government and protecting individual rights, including the fact that laws which are rooted in one religious faith, specifically the Christian faith, can be injurious to millions of other Americans who practice other faiths or who do not have a conscience govered by religions principles, but by some humanistic philosophy.  

Christians have to realize that, while their right to religious freedom is protected, the rights of others are equally protected.  That includes Muslims who worship in a mosque on Friday, Jews who worship in a Synagogue on Saturday, Hindus who worship by a meditation walk through a temple, or Native Americans who worship by smoking a dried plant that leads to an alteration of their mind.  It also means that the rights of people who are gay, lesbian, or transgender are protected equally as well.  It does no injury to anyone for a person to live their life according to the dictates of their own consicence.  

Christians may believe that gender identity and sexual preference issues are sinful.  They are certainly within their rights to make their point and work to bring about a conversion experience through which these individuals would be "saved," according to whatever Christian tradition was involved.  They are free to do this in any way that would not be considered an infringement on the rights of those they are trying to convert, or that would be injurious to them, to use Jefferson's term.  Christians may believe that these people are condemned to spiritual death, but there is no law that makes their lifestyle criminal with the death penalty attached.  Nor is there any Christian teaching, in correct interpretation of the scripture, that calls for the execution of persons who live in a manner that the church teaches is sinful.  

Indeed, God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.  John 3:17, NRSV.  

And this is his commandment, that we should believe in the name of his son, Jesus Christ and love one another just as he has commanded us.  I John 3:23 NRSV

The case has been made in the courts, that the kinds of laws which restrict the involvement of persons who consider themselves gay, lesbian or transgender in society are a violation of their conscience, which is protected by the first amendment.  Those laws do not force any private social institution or group, including churches, to accept any involvement of those individuals with whom they disagree regarding their lifestyle.  I don't think it enhances the image of a Christian church which is attempting to evangelize its neighborhood and win converts to the Christian gospel to take such an exclusive, restrictive posture toward many of those they are trying to reach, and to their credit, there are many Christian churches who don't.  But unless they are engaging in some kind of business that is considered within the public domain, which is prevented from discrimination, they do not have to accept anything that is opposed to their beliefs and convictions.  

I head the complaint frequently, specifically among the more conservative Christians I know, that all of the LGBTQ agenda stuff is "being forced down our throats."  Of course, the public acknowledgement of holidays like Christmas, Thanksgiving and Easter, which is pervasive over the entire culture, does not constitute Christianity being "forced down anyone's throat," does it?  Everyone in this country who doesn't celebrate Christmas holidays is subject to a succession of advertisements, public decorations, displays in stores, radio stations playing nothing but Christmas music from Thanksgiving until New Year's Day, but a few scattered displays and acknowledgements of Pride Month is "forcing the LGBTQ agenda down our throats?"  

Is Hannukah, or Passover, or Ramadan made into a national holiday?  We just got Juneteenth, and listen to all the caterwauling and crying from conservatives over that.  Madison would say that making Christian holidays into national holidays is a violation of the establishment clause, and so would Jefferson.

And let's talk about "cancel culture," shall we?  Who boycotts a store because it plays Christmas music, displays decorations and has sales to coerce customers into buying more than they can afford, and putting it on the credit card (which is a sin in some Christian sects)?  Boycotting businesses because of Pride Month displays is as much cancel culture as anything that happens in reverse.   

And Where's the Tyranny? 

It makes me nauseated, and I disengage from conversations which go in the direction of wailing and whining about the way that conservative Christians are "persecuted" in this country.  Let me make this abundantly clear.  There is no government oppression, suppression or restriction on the churches of this nation, anywhere for anything.  While Christians may face some kinds of persecution from others, as has been the case ever since there was a Christianity, the churches in the United States are as free from government control or coercion as any churches anywhere else on the face of the earth.  No Christian leaders are being arrested and jailed because of their preaching or teaching, churches are free from having their income taxed, and there are no laws which restrict worship practices except those which, once again, have been determined to be "injurious" to others.  

And all that whining about being persecuted during COVID?  The fact of the matter is that those restrictions were not exclusively placed on the church, but everyone had to endure them, the restaurant and tourist oriented businesses bore the brunt of it.  If only churches had been shut down, then there might be a case for some persecution, but the shutdown included churches, synagogues, mosques, temples, schools, places of business, weight watchers meetings, city council meetings, etc., etc, etc.  The church in America was not persecuted by the government, and it is as free to operate as it chooses to do, more so than in any other country on the face of the earth.  

So where does it "break the leg" or "picks the pocket" of American Christians when gay people or lesbian people or transgendered persons also excercise their constitutional rights?  Yes, this is a rhetorical question because the answer is that their exercise of rights doesn't do this.  And no, there is no support anywhere in the scripture for Christians to claim that because there are people in this country who do not live in obedience to what Christians define as "God's law," he will withhold his blessings from America.  "America" is a nation, and even in the Judaeo-Christian tradition, the only "nation" that was offered a covenant relationship with God was ancient Israel before Jesus.  No nation has been offered a covenant by God.  

Show Me How Anyone's Pocket is Picked or Leg is Broken by Our Nation's Diversity 

There is always a danger, in a free society where consicence and speech are constitutionally protected values, that aberrant, destructive political, religious and social ideology will gain enough of a following to change the operation of the government and tilt it in favor of one perspective or another.  And while America was not founded as a Christian nation, the influence of Christianity throughout its history has been pervasive, and sometimes imposing.  It has, in some cases, drowned out the protests of the minority, to the point where it has, in effect, infringed damage upon their rights of free expression and in the process, created resentment and hatred of that infringement.  

No American Christian would stand for being required to send a small rug to school with their child on Friday, because all students in the school would be required to go to the cafeteria, place the rug on the floor and get into a prostrate position to pray to Allah.  But that is exactly the feeling parents who are not Christians had when, at the beginning of every school day, or every class in some cases, students were required to participate in prayer, or required to take a class in Bible instruction as part of the school curriculum.  That's the kind of infringement that Americans need to recognize, and instead of wanting to impose their own will because they are the dominant religion or race, be considerate of the fact that the constitution guarantees these rights to everyone equally.  

And it is those feelings of superiority, of being better than others because we tend to think that our own cultural practices and institutions are better than those of others who are different.  That's a flaw in the human soul that dominates all of the history of humanity on this planet.  It's when we see the culture of others as a threat to the existence of our own that we react in ways which feed the tendency toward violence that comes from a destructive, hate-filled political or religious ideology.  

America hasn't been paradise for diversity, in spite of its history.  This was not "white Christian Europe given another chance by God on a virgin continent rich in resources."  Most of America's colonial history was about the domination and subjugation of people who were not like the predominant group.  It proved to be catastrophically disastrous for the native population living here who were at a technical disadvantage when it came to weaponry necessary for their own defense, and whose civilization did not mirror what the European intruders thought it should.  But it also mirrored the European prejudices and rivalries and hatreds of ethnic nationalities, with those of British descent eventually coming to dominate the others, largely because they got a head start on the Enlightenment, their settlers were more numerous and the crown was willing to invest more in military support.  

And in spite of some bright spots and flashes of hope, and the occasional visionary leader, we've never come to what Jefferson and Madison, and the other founding fathers, envisioned as the American ideal.  Our idealism is undermined by an ignorance caused by a lack of quality public education, by unequal influences over government and society produced by the concentration of wealth in the hands of very few individuals, by religious zealots who equate God's blessings with financial prosperity, and by outside enemies who seize on the ability to influence through the media because the first amendment allows such a degree of freedom that there is no mechanism in our government for shutting it down.  The advances in communication technology, which were thought to be solutions to these problems, have only made them worse.  

The ability of Americans to isolate themselves in a bubble, clap their hands over their ears and shut out anything they find disagreeable, or not like themselves, or a threat to their own habits and lifestyle, is exactly why we are unable to find a way to understand each other, recognize our differences, live with our faults and preserve our nation.  The answer isn't "If only everyone else would see it our way."  The answer is developing a view of the sanctity and value of human existence that respects the individual identity that I believe God gave to each person, and that others simply see as the unique characteristic of humanity.  

We have leaders, in men like Jefferson and Madison, who showed us glimpses of an idealism that they believed could one day characterize this nation.  So let's look to their wisdom and lose our selfish ambition.  

The Southern Baptist Convention Made a Mistake in Interpreting the Bible About Racism in 1845 and it's Making a Similar Mistake About Women in 2023

The Southern Baptist Convention was formed in 1845 in Augusta, Georgia, sixteen years before the outbreak of the Civil War, when representatives of Baptist churches across the South, met to form their own denomination of sorts, leaving the Triennial Baptist Convention based in Philadelphia.  Secular politics was at the root of their disagreement with the Baptists of the Triennial Convention, who tended to be abolitionist in their views of slavery.  At the heart of the disagreement was a prohibition against slaveowners being appointed to serve as missionaries.  

Baptist denominations are much different than those of other Protestant Christians.  They are not connectional when it comes to any kind of church authority, since each Baptist church is independent and autonomous in its polity, doctrine and theology.  Even though Baptists came to America with the English Separatists in Massachusetts in 1620, their insistence that churches be independent of both the ecclesiastical authority of other churches, as well as the political authority of the magistrates, led to their expulsion from the colony in 1638.  So they followed Roger Williams to Rhode Island, establishing the town of Providence, and the first Baptist church in America, that same year.  

It was not until during the Second Great Awakening that Baptists in America gave much thought to forming what could be defined as a "denomination."  They organized the Triennial Convention in 1815 for the purpose of supporting the sending of missionaries.  It was a loose confederation of churches in voluntary cooperation, as many Baptist churches didn't join it.  As the politics of slavery rolled toward the Civil War, many of the Baptist churches in the North and Midwest became abolitionist in their perspective on slavery, and based their arguments on the Bible.  The Triennial Convention determined that slaveowners were not qualified to serve as missionaries and enacting this restriction led many of the churches in the slave states to withdraw and form the Southern Baptist Convention. 

A White Supremacy Supported by Uneducated, Untrained Pastors and Church Leaders

Although most Baptists were very conservative in their view of the Bible as the authoritative, written word of God, the cultural influences that were separating Americans on the issue of slavery were separating Baptists, too.  The Southern Baptist Convention's established parameters for fellowship and cooperation included shared beliefs that black people were enslaved because of their inferiority as a race, something that they claimed to support with scripture.  

They were in error with regard to the Bible's teachings.  Baptists in the south were far from the few educational institutions in the United States that were established by Baptists for training ministers, and tended to mistrust ministers who had a theological education.  And so, when it came to racism and slavery, they depended on an interpretation of the Bible that suited what they practiced, and which was controlled by and therefore also limited by the culture in which they existed.  

This kind of uninformed, uneducated preaching was quite common in the United States during and after the Second Great Awakening.  Without any colleges or theological schools of their own, the Southern Baptist Convention rooted itself in the doctrine of white supremacy from blatant mis-interpretations of the Bible on this issue.  And in the aftermath of the Civil War, especially during Reconstruction, with the government of the Confederacy disbanded, its ideology and culture was preserved by the various state and associational groupings of churches affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention.  There were still thousands of SBC churches in the 70's that, in their bylaws and policy, did not permit blacks to be baptized or become members of the church and it would not be until the 1990's that the convention would finally approve a resolution condemning slavery and apologizing for its racist past. 

With Women, the SBC is Making a Similar Mistake 

It would be difficult to count the number of sermons that were preached over more than a hundred years of SBC history which took a racist cultural interpretation and codified it into church theology and doctrine.  In justifying their position on racism and slavery, they used exactly the same interpretive standards, the "hermeneutical principles," if you will, of studying and interpreting the Bible, that they now claim to use in arriving at the conclusion that women can't be pastors.  The literal approach to interpretation, which often ignores and doesn't take into consideration the circumstances that the individual writers were addressing, requires separating verses from their historical context and from the social conditions present when the passages were written.  And so, while they have changed the way they see racism and slavery, at least they say that they have changed their view, they make the same error in interpreting the Apostle Paul's statements about women as universal for all churches for all time, when clearly, that is not what he intended them to be. 

No Bible writer clearly makes the statement that "women are not qualified for the office of pastor, or the "Episkopos," the Bishop, of a local church.  Those who take this perspective, called "complimentarianism," or the idea that women and men have complimentary, but not the same, roles in church order, rely on I Timothy 3, where the qualifications of this office of bishop, include the statement, "the husband of one wife."  They then also correlate this list of requirements with 2:11-15, where, exercising his own authority as an apostle, Paul says "I permit no woman to teach or have authority over a man, she is to keep silent."  

There is one other place in the New Testament, I Corinthians 14:34 where Paul uses similar language in saying that women must be silent, not allowed to speak, and connects this prohibition with Eve's temptation in the garden of Eden.  It is on a very literal application of these verses that the Southern Baptist Convention has rested its argument that women cannot be designated to serve as "pastors" in churches today, in the 21st century.  Paul does not cite Jesus in support of his statement "I do not permit a woman", which indicates that he was addressing a specific issue in a specific church, or specific churches, since he doesn't mention this prohibition anywhere else, at least, not in any of his writings that made it into the scripture.  

But it is very clear that he limits the extent of these statements to his own authority as an apostle.  It's certainly open for debate regarding the extent of that authority in making polity for church governance and operation for all time, but I would agree with the context that places this restriction within the cultural framework of the day, for the protection of the churches.  Paul wrote many other words instructing churches that he makes clear are standard doctrine corroborated with the words of Christ himself.  Jesus' words and actions regarding women would suggest that what Paul wrote to Timothy and to the church at Corinth is for those places and seasons of time.  His other words about women, as well as those of the other apostles, would indicate this to be the case.

There are multiple arguments against this position that require no departure from the Baptist doctrine of Biblical authority, which includes recognition of the scripture as "truth without any mixture of error for its matter."  There are volumes of books written which do not draw this conclusion and which take the same high view of scripture as Southern Baptists claim.  I would recommend going to the Christians for Biblical Equality website for resources and information and for the whole scope of doctrinal support for women serving in any capacity in the church to which they feel called and gifted, including as a pastor of any kind.  

Southern Baptists got out of the rut of Biblical support for white supremacy and slavery by coming to the conclusion that, while the New Testament was written in a time when slavery was a way of life, the Bible's writers recognized its existence, but did not approve it or endorse it as a way of life, and in fact, in their own way, actually opposed it.  The scriptures in the New Testament in particular that were once used to justify slavery are part of the cultural fabric of the day in which they were written, according to current doctrine.  The fact that there are Biblical instructions for the manner in which slaves should address their masters isn't an endorsement of the practice.  

Likewise, women were seen as being inferior to men in the culture in which the Bible was written.  They were treated like property, as financial assets, and the idea that they were equal to men would have been considered ridiculous.  But there are several passages of scripture which teach that women are equal to men, and that there is no gender hierarchy in the Kingdom of God, in spite of what existed in the culture of the time.  Again, the Bible's writers recognize that the unequal treatment of women was a cultural reality, but, in fact, they actually emphasize the equality of women and men under God and in the gospel of Jesus Christ.  Even the Apostle Paul does this. 

In that renewal there is no longer Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave and free, but Christ is all and is in all.  Colossians 3:11

There is no longer Jew or Greek; there is no longer slave or free; there is no longer male or female for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.  Galatians 3:28.  

But Southern Baptists aren't applying the same principle of interpretation to scripture that bring women into equality with men as they now do to scripture dealing with slavery.  

  

Dr. Al Mohler, President of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, took exactly the same "doctrine and order" path that his predecessors did in 1845 when they justified slavery and claimed that the Bible taught white supremacy. So the mistake Southern Baptists made with slavery, a literal interpretation of the words of scripture without considering the context in which they were written, is the same mistake they are now making in prohibiting women from serving in ministry as a bishop, pastor, elder.  

But I'd be willing to bet that Dr. Mohler, and other literalist "doctrine and order" Southern Baptists still eat pulled pork sandwiches, cheeseburgers, wear clothes made of mixed fabric and I doubt any of them has executed any of their disobedient children, or torn down their house because they found mold in the bathroom.  I don't think you could have a pot-luck dinner in a Southern Baptist church without chicken fried steak and sawmill gravy.  And a lot of women attending the SBC in New Orleans were wearing jewelry and make-up, had cut and styled their hair, and some were even wearing pants.  

And while I have met many Baptist pastors with children who were rebellious, rejecting their parent's faith, and openly disobedient, I don't see this literal qualification for pastors being enforced by the convention in the same way they are enforcing the restrictions on women.  And that's not joking, people.  That's sheer hypocrisy and evidence of a grievous theological and doctrinal error along the exact same lines as the one they made with racism and slavery when the denomination was founded in 1845.

Claiming to Believe in "Inerrancy" and Being "Conservative" Doesn't Prevent Theological or Doctrinal Error

Although the SBC operates six theological seminaries, and its regional convention bodies support 50 colleges and universities, most of which provide majors and minors in theology and ministry studies, there is a mistrust of higher education in theology among many of the church members who are uneducated themselves.  As one who attended a university that was, at the time I was a student there, affiliated with a state Baptist convention, the contrast between what I learned in the required Biblical studies courses and what I had been taught in my small, Southern Baptist church by Sunday School teachers who didn't even graduate from high school and bi-vocational pastors who had no theological training, was quite different.  

After a guest preacher's sermon one Sunday, when I was in high school, I can recall several members of the church, including the Sunday School teacher I had when I was in elementary school, talking about how he used all of that "Greek mumbo-jumbo" that he got at seminary.  Southern Baptists have always been suspicious of creeping liberalism, a "slippery slope" mentality, in their seminaries and universities and that led to what is known as the "Conservative Resurgence" gaining control of the governing boards of all six seminaries directly operated by the SBC, starting in 1979.  

Since there are multiple books that have been written on the "Conservative Resurgence" and its effect on how theology and doctrine were taught in SBC seminaries, it would be impossible to go into all of the nuances of that here.  But, the claim of conservatives who organized the political movement that gained control of the boards was that the professors did not believe in the inerrancy and infallibility of the Bible, and that this creeping liberalism was opening the door to social issues like feminism.  And traditional Baptist view of the interpretation of the Bible, which was to consider the historical context in which it was written before determining the principle or objective that was being made, avoiding interpretations related directly to the cultural and social structure of the day in which it was written in applying the principles to the practice of the gospel of Jesus Christ, was replaced with a literal, verse by verse, approach to intepretation in which errors, like the approval of slavery, or the restrictions against women being seen in church, were made.  

Something is Definitely Wrong in the Denomination, But the 2023 Annual Meeting Was Silent About the Cause

For over a decade now, three of the main indicators of denominational health on which Southern Baptists, and in particular the leaders of the Conservative Resurgence, have often staked claims supporting the rightness of their theology and doctrine, have been in decline.  Several prominent leaders of the convention once proudly declared that church growth and increasing membership was a sign of God's blessing on the rightness of their way of preaching and teaching, while those "liberal" mainline denominations were breaking down in decline and membership loss, a sign of God's disfavor.  

You don't hear that in the Southern Baptist Convention any more.  What you do hear, from some of its current leaders, is an array of convoluted excuses and explanations for a decline in membership and attendance in the churches of just over 20% since 2006, when membership peaked at just over 16 million.  In the past three years, the denomination's leadership has basically ignored the loss of more than 1.2 million members.  They can blame the decrease in attendance on COVID, though in the year prior to the pandemic, the figure they reported for weekly worship attendance was just under 2 million fewer than it had been at its peak just a decade before.  But church membership is a different matter.  

It took the Episcopal Church in the U.S. two decades to lose 20% of its membership from its peak in the early 1960's, and the now fracturing and fragmenting United Methodists almost three decades to lose 20% of its membership prior to the current situation it faces.  Conservatives argue that those denominations and their turn to liberal theology was responsible for the losses.  But with the Southern Baptist Convention now seeing even more steep and rapid declines, you can hear the crickets chirping as conservatives who got themselves out on a limb with their proud boasts can't explain what's going on.  

The "messengers" to this year's Southern Baptist Convention, which is what they call those who attend the convention who represent their local churches, chose to elevate the expulsion of two churches with female pastors to being the central issue of this year's convention.  This in spite of an ongoing clergy sexual abuse scandal which is one of several issues that I believe can be considered as primary problems driving the steep decline in membership.  They chose to be identified with an issue that isn't behind the problems the SBC is experiencing, making it look like an intentional distraction from their real problems.  Only a small handful of Southern Baptist Churches have female staff members designated as a "pastor," but over a thousand churches have contributed statistically to the sexual abuse scandal.  

But the misogyny in some of the rhetoric that has been flying around on social media from conservatives in the denomination might be one of the root causes.  Attacks on women's rights and the role of women in society are now running in the parallel MAGA universe, along with book banning, attacks on Jews, on virtually any ethnic or social minority group, on anything that isn't part of what some extremists think is their own culture.  Twisting the tenents of the Christian faith to support this kind of creeping fascism is one way of gaining legitimacy and support.  

The depth of the influence of this attack on women is reflected in this commentary from Jewish Rabbi Jeffrey Salkin, published in Religion News:  Southern Baptists Don't Like Women Pastors? That Means Trouble for us All.

The Southern Baptist Convention was founded on an erroneous interpretation and application of the scripture text of the Protestant Bible.  It is capable of making similar errors in interpretation and application of the Biblical text, and it is making one now, contradicting the written word of God regarding the spiritual equality and worth of women as a core principle of the gospel, with prohibitions based on the ancient cultural and social context of the time in which the Bible was written.  It has violated one of the core foundational principles that created the Baptist expression of the Christian gospel with an ecclesiastical intrusion into the independence, autonomy and spiritual authority of the local church.  And that's why they are facing decay and decline, and are not experiencing revival.  

Wake Up, Floridians! This is What Your Politicians Have Done While You Didn't Vote

Woman Charged with Fatally Shooting a Single Mother of Four in Ocala, Florida 

What's it going to take to wake people up in Florida?  

A single mother of four was shot through the door of a home where she had gone to talk to the owner about incidents involving her children.  I don't know any of the circumstances involved that led to the shooting, the issues that had occurred between the shooter and children in the neighborhood which allegedly let up to this incident.  According to the news reports, the woman who committed the shooting had been engaged in a long-standing neighborhood feud with neighbors over children playing in a nearby vacant lot. But in the information from the media, and from The View today, where the victim's family was invited to speak, the incident was motivated by the shooter's familiarity withFlorida's "Stand your ground" law.  

Laws like that are why this neighborhood scuffle between an adult and some children, escalated to the point where someone felt justified in using a weapon to get the result they wanted.  Apparently, according to the information that was provided, the shooter made her decision based on her interpretation of the "stand your ground" law, rather than engage the mother who was knocking at her door, asking to speak with her about what she had said and done to her child.  

And once again, as has been the case in so many shootings like this one, racism was a motivating factor.  The woman who fired the fatal shot was white, the single, mother of four who was killed was black.  Witnesses claim that the shooter had used racist language and name-calling in prior dealings with the children who played near her home.  As a result, there was no arrest made for two days, and when there was, the charge was not murder, but manslaughter with a firearm, serious enough, but apparently not an accurate description of the events which occurred.  

The very dangerous combination of virtually no restrictions or responsibility for ownership of firearms, concealed carry without a permit, and a law that says if a shooter feels their life is in danger, they can shoot on their property and that's a consequence for the victim.  Put that together with racial volatility that appears to be getting worse, and that's where Florida is now, and that's exactly why this young mother tragically lost her life, in front of two of her children, whom she was attempting to protect.  

Laws like this pander to the fears and ignorance of people.  And that's why politicians support and pass them.  Making people think that they are in danger, and they need a gun to protect themselves is good business for a lot of millionaires and billionaires who give a lot of money to politicians.  And when people give up, and stay at home on election day, because they believe the media and don't think their vote will make a difference, then the doom and gloom side wins out.  

Thomas Frank wrote What's the Matter With Kansas back in 2004, pointing out how conservatives managed to stoke people's fears to win control of state legislatures, governorships and even the federal government.  I would suggest that the same thing has happened to Florida, a state which has racial, ethnic and social constituencies that should heavily favor the Democratic party.  Their presence is there, they are more visible than their opponents.  But lookiing at this past year, and the actions of Florida's Republican Governor, who is destroying democracy in the state because he wants to run for President and he thinks everyone thinks that way, the question should also be, What's the Matter With Florida? 

Ajike Owens is the name of the single mother of four who lost her life because of this ridiculous law.  In her memory and in her honor, Floridians need to commit to beat a pathway to the ballot box and vote against anyone who supports these draconian, conspiracy-driven laws.  

Still Winning on the Economy, President Biden's Achievements are Buried Under the Daily Trump Report

It's been the only thing on cable news for the past few days.  Even in the process of being indicted for serious crimes, the name Donald Trump keeps coming up in the news cycle, and coming up, and coming up again, and coming up and it's exhausting and ridiculous.  

During the month of May, inflation dropped to 4%, lowest in over a year and a sign of a continuing strong economy.  It has been recently noted that more American jobs bave been created under the Biden administration than the last three Republican Presidencies, which recorded a net loss of jobs between them.  More than 14 million jobs have been created during the Biden Administation, the vast majority of them in the private sector.  

But we are subjected to news about crimes committed by the former President.  

Yeah, I know  He's a former President, this is historic, it's news, yadda, yadda, yadda.  It has so covered up everything else in the news cycle that a Newsweek poll, showing support among Republican voters for Trump has dropped as the news about the investigation turned to news about a pending indictment, and then into an indictment itself.  So mention it and move on.  Tell us that polling data is quite favorable when it comes to President Biden's negotiations with the Republican-led Congress on the debt ceiling, and that this was a win for the President, which is also being reflected in polling data.  

The coverage outside the Federal Courthouse in Miami, showing a few flag waving Maga supporters over and over and over, may have made the point that the loudmouth threats made by Trump, and a few of his hard line Republican friends didn't materialize.  Did we have to watch these same people for an hour and a half or more in some cases?  Kudos to the lady, whoever she was, who thrust a hand-lettered sign reading "Lock him up" in the middle of a cluster of Trump flags and banners.  It was not an impressive turnout, whatever the reason for it.  I think the same reason no one really came to Manhattan, either, is because the movement was gutted of its leadership because of January 6th.  It's the same reason that they're not showing up in anywhere near the 2016 numbers he got at rallies.  

With all the Republican rhetoric about "weaponizing the Department of Justice," the rhetoric about Hunter Biden's laptop has died down.  Well, keeping that up makes them look like blabbering hypocrites.  They weaponized the FBI, and the DOJ searching for anything they could find, anything, to pin on Hillary.  And don't you know, with all of Trump's lies about President Obama that he spent four years obsessively looking for their stuff.  They don't even have enough suspicion to start the kind of investigations they claimed would be all over the place if they got elected, much less credible evidence.  

That's the difference here, by the way.  The weaponized justice department, under the leadership of Bill Barr, turned the emails in Hillary's computers, phones and server into a nothingburger.  And don't you know if there had been a piece of evidence the size of half a toothpick, they'd have exploited it to their advantage.  

So it's time for the mainstream media to have a "celebrate the achievements of our great President" week, or month, our great President being Joe Biden, of course.  There's something good to report every single day, something happening that benefits the American people.  I'm so tired and fatigued of hearing of all things Trump, speculation about him being the GOP nominee, which will have grave consequences for their party, I believe.  I know the indictments backward and forward already.  Let's start talking about how successful the Biden Adminstration has been in restoring our democratic principles and protecting our country.  Let's talk about success in controlling inflation, managing the economy and creating jobs.  

And let the crickets keep chirping when the discussion shifts to "her emails," or "his laptop." 

How Christian Supremacy and Islamic Supremacy are Similar, and Related to the Trump Mar-a-Lago Document Scandal

Baptist News Global: This is a story about the gods of the oil industry, capitalistic greed, religious fundamentalism, Islamic terrorism, Christian supremacy, Islamophobia and a federal investigation of Donald Trump

Who has seen the documents related to America's national security, that of our allies, our weaknesses and our nuclear arsenal?  

The week before the indictment of Trump was announced, the records of the ties between the Trump Organization and LIV golf, were subpoenaed.  I'm of the opinion that anything Trump is involved in will be crooked and corrupt, and aimed at gathering profits for his bank account, but this connection seems to indicate something going on in that relationship that made investigators under special counsel Jack Smith suspicious.  

This is an excellent piece, exactly what can be expected from Baptist News Global, and this particular writer, Rick Pidcock.  

Christian Supremacy vs. Islamic Supremacy 

I was captivated by the whole piece, but the conclusion by Pidcock really captured my attention and resonated with much of what I've read, and written, about Christian Nationalism within Evangelical and Fundamentalist American Christianity over the past several decades.  His comparison of the similarities between Christian supremacy and Islamic supremacy, which are almost mirror images of each other, also confirms for me that Christian supremacists, along the lines of most conservative, Evangelicals of the Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell mold, have abandoned their belief in the power of God in favor of belief in political power.  So have the politicians and monarchists of the Islamic world.  

So Pidcock codifies the similarities in the violent, radicalized elements of the two major world religions.  And in light of what is now happening in the case involving the Trump documents, that is a significant observation.  

The Southern Baptist Convention Meets Tuesday and Wednesday in New Orleans: What Their Meeting Tells us About the State of Evangelical Christianity in 2023

On Tuesday, the banging of a gavel will open the annual convention of Southern Baptists in the Ernest Morial Convention Center in New Orleans.  This will be the second meeting of the SBC in post-Katrina New Orleans, in a convention center named for Ernest N. Morial, the first black mayor of New Orleans.  The last time the SBC met in New Orleans, in 2012, the 7,100 messengers gathered there elected local pastor Fred Luter as President of the Southern Baptist Convention.  Luter, pastor of Franklin Avenue Baptist Church in New Orleans, was the first black president of the SBC.  

But it was not until 2021 that then SBC president J. D. Greear, a North Carolina pastor, determined to retire the gavel that was used to open SBC meetings since 1872, donated by John A. Broadus, a founding professor of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, who also believed in white supremacy and was a slave owner himself.  Though the denomination had made resolutions repudiating its racist past--it was founded as a withdrawal from the Trienial Baptist Convention because of restrictions on appointing slave owners as missionaries--for some reason it did not completely follow through by retiring the gavel, and renaming buildings on the Louisville campus named after slave owners.  

That's typical of the way Southern Baptists do things.  They try to be a reflection of the Christian gospel, their existence as a denomination is primarily based on cooperation of churches to support two mission boards that send out missionaries, and six seminaries that train pastors and missionaries.  There is no hierarchy or authority at the denominational level over its 47,000 independent, autonomous, affiliated churches.  But there have been multiple attempts, over the past 30+ years since a fundamentalist movement known as the "Conservative Resurgence," a Falwellian-influenced blend of right wing politics with fundamentalist, literalist, legalistic doctrine, began controlling the seminaries, mission boards and the executive committee.  

So figuring out what the messengers, who are delegates elected by each local church and sent to the convention, will do each year is not always predictable or easy.  And the issues that come up have been a reflection of the size of the denomination, and an increasing diversity among the member congregations, deviating from the traditional, deep-south, Baptist resistance to change.  

Membership Losses Over the Past Decade are Staggering 

The total membership of the Southern Baptist Convention, which is the largest non-Catholic denomination in the United States, peaked at just over 16 million in 2006, after more than a decade of increases of less than 1% each year, and steadily declining numbers of baptisms, which is the way new members are welcomed into the church.  Other "vital signs" of denominational health had been in decline prior to 2006, such as enrollment at the seminaries, number of new churches started or joining each year, enrollment and attendance of people under 40 in the weekly Sunday School program, and a widening gap between total membership and actual weekly worship attendance.  

Membership, as reported for 2022, was 13,223,132, a drop of 457,371 in just one year, slightly more than 1.2 million in the past three years, and more than 3 million since the 2006 peak.  Attendance, which was difficult to measure during the pandemic years, has bounced back from a low point due to COVID, to just under 4 million, including almost a million reported on-line views of worship services of churches, but that is well below the 7 million attending the churches in 1980, or the 5.5 million in 2006.  

Other than some tongue-clicking, and attempts to explain away the numbers, the convention annual meeting does not appear to be preparing to address any possible reason for such a drastic decline in attendance and membership.  The bulk of the decline is seen in membership totals submitted by state bodies in 14 southern states, where thousands of traditional churches are aging and dying out and not being replaced by new churches, or by the minimal growth that is occurring in fringe areas, and among fringe groups.  

Leadership at the denominational level, which has been in transition and flux for quite some time, resulting from resignations over moral failures, or over controversies created by scandals currently plaguing the denomination, has taken a toll.  The CEO of the Executive Committee and about 19 of its 70 some odd members resigned after a convention gathering two years ago over-ruled the chair and demanded that the committee waive legal privilege to get at the bottom of a clergy abuse scandal that rivals that of the Catholic church in proportion to the size of the SBC.  The president of its Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, an outspoken never-Trumper, resigned over political influences and underhanded, unethical attempts to remove him from his post.  Financial troubles, and more sexual abuse allegations, led to two presidents of one of the SBC's seminaries, Southwestern in Ft. Worth, resigning or being fired in the past three years.  But you will find little commentary connecting all of this to the staggering drop in membership, or to any other issue that might be part of the cause behind it. 

What Will Come up in New Orleans This Week 

You'd think that, with this bad news about people, and in many cases whole congregations, taking the exit ramp from the denomination that kicking out its' largest, and one of its most evangelistic churches, Saddleback Valley Church in Mission Viejo, California, in an area where Southern Baptists have had minimal success planting churches or reaching people by evangelism, would be the last thing they would want to do.  But no, they're willing to let the church, with a weekly attendance of 30,000, and which baptizes as many people each year as some of the state affiliates of the SBC do, be dismissed because it has ordained three women as pastors, and has put the current pastor's wife in a position as a "teaching pastor."  

The executive committee dismissed the church from the denomination several months ago, but its retired pastor, Rick Warren, the author of the book, The Purpose Driven Life, a massive best-seller, is appealing the decision in New Orleans.  The convention, for the most part, is made up of churches which take a "complimentarian" view of women in church leadership, that is, they cannot serve in positions of authority over men, including teaching or preaching.  That will come up, and the way it is handled will say a lot about whether the SBC will have any growth in its future, or not.  

An amendment proposal, made by Mike Law, pastor of Arlington Baptist Church in Virginia, would restrict membership in the SBC to churches that don't permit women to be pastors, in any capacity.  Not that there are a lot of Southern Baptist churches that have women in pastoral roles, though there are close to a thousand churches in the denomination that use the term "pastor" in reference to a female staff member in the church's ministry staff, Law's proposed amendment would codify the complimentarian perspective into the denomination's bylaws.  It would be the first time that a specific theological interpretation would be codified by the SBC, a wholly un-Baptist approach to denominational cooperation.  

That's not likely to arrest the precipitous membership decline in the SBC.  On the contrary, there are enough churches in the SBC who hold to an egalitarian approach to women in church leadership to increase the percentage and size of the already ongoing membership decline, especially if they will be required to change the title of the jobs they have given to women in their church in order to stay in the SBC.  A lot of churches will just quietly stop supporting the denomination with their missions giving, and drop out.  

The task force formed to handle the issues surrounding the denomination's long-delayed response to a sexual abuse by clergy scandal exposed several years ago by two Texas daily newspapers, is slated to present its report on how the SBC will handle this scandal from here on out.  This has predictably been divisive, with those opposed to the denomination doing anything about it, claiming "local church autonomy" as their shield, and a smaller minority saying that this is an attack of the devil on Christian manhood and an attempt to advance creeping feminism in the churches.  Believe it or not, there have been people among the more extreme, conservative elements of the SBC, who have come right out in public and said so. 

The two opposing groups representing denominational politics will both be fielding candidates for the office of President.  Neither group is liberal, and neither group is moderate.  One is very conservative, the other is fundamentalist in their conservativism.  Both want to run the denomination.  Bart Barber, the current President, a Texas pastor who is the first small-church leader elected in decades, by messengers from a denomination where 90% of the churches have an attendance of 100 or fewer on any given Sunday, is the conservative.  A pastor from Georgia, Mike Stone, who ran and lost two years ago, is the fundamentalist candidate.  Stone's church is among a group of like-minded fundamentalists who have threatened to leave if they don't get their way.  The membership is likely to continue to drop like a stone in the well regardless of which man wins.  But regardless, the denomination does not have the power, nor the means, to stop this hemmorhage of members.  

What Should Come up in New Orleans This Week 

1. The messengers should affirm their preference to elect Willie McLauren, the current interim CEO of the Executive Committee, to the permanent position of CEO of the Executive Committee.  He's proven he can do the job and it would end the denomination's streak of never having employed a person of color in any executive leadership position in spite of the fact that 25% of the membership is either Latino or African American.  

2.  The messengers should commit their full support to the proposals of the task force setting up means to deal with the clergy sex abuse scandal that many Southern Baptists want to sweep under the rug.  

3.  The independence and autonomy of each local church should be affirmed by a commitment to leave secondary and tertiary doctrinal and theological issues up to them, instead of require adherence at a denominational level.  Forcing churches to a specific interpretation of the Bible is an ecclesiastical authority that the SBC has never claimed, and as Baptists, never should claim.  Otherwise, they become a denominational authority that is not authorized or even mentioned in the Bible as having grounds for existence.  Egalitarian or Complimentarian, Charismatic or Reformed or Fundamentalist, Baptist churches have the inherent right, according to their interpretation of scripture, to their own convictions as a matter of conscience.  

It will take a whole lot more than that to reverse the decline in membership that has now reached a level where it exceeds that in mainline Protestant churches and denominations.  But that will be a start.  A resolution on free political conscience, and against support for political candidates whose worldview and lifestyle is not consistent with Biblical faith and practice would also be in order.   

So What Does this Tell Us? 

The disconnection that is widening between churches desiring to remain committed to their mission and purpose, rooted in the Christian gospel, is based on the infiltration and influence of secular politics into the affairs and business of the church.  When the political affiliation of a pastor translates over into his preaching and pushes out the gospel, it causes people to reconsider their commitment to the church.  That's not what they thought the church in which they had invested themselves, should be doing.  And while there are a lot of conservative Christians who can't distinguish between the gospel message and the rambling grievances against the world of an aging politician, there are many who see this for what it is, as the Apostle Jude referred to it in his epistle, an ungodly intrusion of licentiousness.  

Southern Baptists are at the core of American Evangelicalism.  In spite of efforts to get out of their traditional past, their literalist approach to Biblical interpretation, which leads to turning the Bible and the Christian faith into a legalistic system of works aimed at pleasing an angry God, and their skewed interpretation of eschatology, or "end times prophecy," leads to an approach to Christianity that requires controlling behavior of people, whether they are Christians or not.  And that has led down the path of embracing politics and politicians who do not reflect their values or beliefs.  Hence, people are leaving, in large numbers, looking for a place where the sincere practice of their Christian faith is safe and protected. 

We'll see what happens in New Orleans, who they elect as president, whether they take a reasonable and effective path toward resolving the manner in which sexual abuse is handled in the denomination's churches and whether they will recognize a perspective of women in ministry that is consistent with everything Jesus said about redemption and ministry in the Christian gospel.  

The Real Face of Evangelicalism is Exposed

Paul Fidalgo: Pat Robertson and the End of Fake Compassion 

The linked article from Free Inquiry is as honest an evaluation of both Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell as exists anywhere.  The writer, Paul Fidalgo, is the editor of Free Inquiry and is the executive director of the Council for Secular Humanism.  So of course, his perspective of Robertson would be biased from a humanist point of view.  But this outsider's perspective, outsider being one who is not influenced by the nuances of Robertson's brand of Charismatic Christianity, is right on target.  Within the circles where Robertson was known and admired, namely the far religious right, there won't be an honest evaluation of Robertson because he was one of them and they won't be honest or critical.  

I honestly don't believe that Jerry Falwell or Pat Robertson believed in the power of God, because they never really relied on it to achieve their ends.  They compromised their faith with political power because they didn't believe God would follow their agenda their way.  They wanted to see specific things happen, and equated their own will with the will of God.  Everything was calculated to bring about their desired ends, and generate the necessary cash flow to support their lavish lifestyle.  

Their own view of Christian faith, or at least, the public view that they preached and wanted people to follow, was an uncompromising brand of fundamentalism, a system whereby individuals who were "saved" by grace through faith in Christ demonstrated their sincerity through obedience to the Bible as they interpreted it to teach a Christian lifestyle.  Both included adherence and loyalty to a right wing, Republican political perspective as part of that lifestyle.  And that was an indication of their lack of trust in God to do what they wanted.  

As Fidalgo, a secular humanist observer, points out, Robertson was particularly keen on natural disasters in places with high percentages of "pagan" populations, and focused on God's use of these events, or outbreaks of disease, as his judgment for sin, a belief that is contradictory to the Christian gospel, which provides spiritual redemption from sin, but never promises to spare believers, or countries which have more of them than others, from natural disasters, disease, or even war.  His equating financial prosperity with the blessing of God's spirit was heresy.  

The real failure of Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, and other Evangelical leaders of their ilk to recognize and submit to the power of God's Holy Spirit, which they preached from their pulpits, proclaimed on their television broadcasts and taught in the classrooms of their universities, can be seen in their establishment of institutional alignment with right wing politics.  With Falwell, it was the "Moral Majority."  With Robertson, it was the "Christian Coalition."  The intention of both was to reverse the dependence of Evangelical churches on spiritual power, and place it in the ballot box to move politicans, whether they were Christians or not, to do their bidding.  

The willingness of Robertson, and the extreme religious right, to embrace politicians who did not share the convictions of their particular brand of faith, betrays their motives and their lack of trust in God.  Out of one side of their mouth, they were virulently anti-Catholic, attacked the liberalism of mainline Protestants and blasted Mormonism as a cult.  But they embraced Ronald Reagan, whose vague religious background was liberal Presbyterian, but who had no noticeable practice of it, including church attendance.  They embraced Bush, Sr., an Episcopalian who favored most aspects of church life that Evangelicals abhor, like ordaining women and LGBTQ clergy, and who was equivocal at best on abortion rights.  They embraced Dubya, a member of a United Methodist church who believed that all religions were a path to God, including Islam and Judaism, an Evangelical no-no, and who regularly attended St. John's Episcopal Church in Washington, across from the White House, when Eugene Robinson, the first gay Episcopal bishop, was a guest in the pulpit.  

When Mitt Romney was nominated by the GOP as their presidential candidate in 2012, Robertson and the Christian Coalition's embrace of his candidacy included dropping all media references to the Evangelical belief that Mormonism is a dangerous, godless cult.  Falwell went so far as to invite Glenn Beck, a Mormon media talk show pundit, to speak at commencement exercises at Liberty University.  

But the embrace of Donald Trump, by Robertson and the extreme religious right, has been the clincher.  Trump's lifestyle is diametrically the opposite of what Evangelical preaching and teaching claims as a "spirit filled, abundant, Christian life."  It is that, in fact, in every way, including Trump's open and verbal denial that he has ever done anything that requires God to forgive him.  The god that Trump has created in his mind, and claims to worship, is one in the image of his spiritual advisor, Paula White, a prosperity gospel cultist who is as far out of the mainstream of Evangelical theology as one can get.  Trump worships money and the power that it provides.  

So did Pat Robertson.  

And the fact that a secular humanist journalist sees this, and points out the inconsistency, confirms the hypocrisy and deceit that was involved.