PROSPECTS FOR FUTURE HONORS AT SBTS....

Recently I blogged about the outrageous expenditure of $$$ for extravagant buildings, etc, at "Christian" colleges and seminaries, with an additional remark or two regarding the SBTS honor afforded Bible-denier and former seminary president Duke McCall. That was prompted by the arrival of that month's issue of the SBTS magazine.

Yesterday, my current issue arrived. Apparently it is designed as fodder for my rants....because this current issue celebrates the 15th anniversary of the "Billy Graham School of Missions and Evangelism" there on the Louisville campus. Billy Graham!....ain't that wonderful?

Yes, that naming did take place 15+ years ago, but.....even then, I had a pretty good idea where Billy Graham was coming from, so it's hard to believe that Al Mohler, Thom Rainer, et al, were duped like the large majority of churchdom which still views Graham as a reincarnation of the Apostle Paul.

So, two issues, two great bits of man-worship: one guy who as a theologian was a great politician, and one man who made decisional regeneration and ecumenism the American Standard. (I might excuse Mohler and the teaching staff at SBTS somewhat because I know they do not make these decisions. This is the stuff decided by dollars; whoever pays the piper calls the tune. What I rebuke them for is not standing against these "honors" publicly)

Anyway, in the spirit of the moment, I am privileged to announce some future plans for Honors at SBTS. Several other such events are in the works; I am privy to the "inside dope" and am going to give you a peek at these exciting developments right here, and now!

The next three events will honor some well-known public figures who are also Southern Baptist deacons and leaders. Here are the names and the Honor which is forthcoming:

BILL CLINTON: He will have a chair endowed in his honor: The William Jefferson Clinton Chair for Ethical Studies.

AL GORE: SBTS is adding a wing onto the Science Building to be named in Al's honor: The Gore Global Warming Wing.

JIMMY CARTER: Another endowed chair--this one The Jimmy Carter Chair for Studies in International Diplomacy and Terrorist Appeasement

I'm sure you will all agree that those 3 Southern Baptist gentlemen are every bit as deserving as the two previously discussed.

The Powers That Be have also decided, in the spirit of ecumenism, to honor someone from outside the SBC camp. The first recipient of such an honor will be:

ORAL ROBERTS. This pioneer in televangelism and mass-marketing of religion will be honored with a new building on campus:

The Oral Roberts Student Medical Center

(actually, this will not be a large building.....more of a kiosk or gazebo-type structure which contains a portrait of Roberts and an icon or relic, perhaps one of his sweat-stained hankies. Students who are ill can come into the kiosk, into the presence of the portrait, touch the relic, and be healed!)

I'm sure all of you are excited by these prospects as I am....and I'm sure there will be more such Honors down the road--just so the $$$ keep rolling in to support this Kingdom Work.

OSTENTATIOUS DISPLAY OF WEALTH BY THE "CHURCH"

Those of you who have previously written me off as an ascetic and a crank can just skip this post...nothing new here folks, move along!

Recently I saw a blog post which included a comment about being entertained by Paige Patterson and Mrs Patterson at "Pecan Manor." That's the mansion provided for the President of South Western Baptist Theological Seminary in Ft Worth.

That picture of the house was taken by Dr Al Mohler, President of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary at Louisville. He also took this picture of the mansion he lives in there....(on the right).

So, I'm wondering why it is necessary for the "Church" to provide luxurious living like this for its leadership? These guys are not President of General Motors (ooops, bad example.....showing my age)...these are servants of Christ's church.

Financial data on such situations is hard to come by. I'm good at "finding stuff" by searching the internet....I can find your phone number, address, maybe a picture of your house or at least the street you live on; I can find out how much the President of AIG makes.....but I sure can't find out what these two fellows are paid. It's even tough to find out what some Big Name pastors are paid....their salary is lumped into large budget categories, thus obscured, like "Preaching Ministry" $1,000,000. That could include 3 or 4 salaries, for example.

I'm trying to keep this short. I'd like some discussion. And I'm not picking on Al Mohler or Paige Patterson.....they were just in the room when the thought hit me. They are not the problem; they are just in a problem-fraught system.

Thinking about the book of Amos. "Come to Bethel and transgress" In chapter 4, Beth-El "the place of God" had become representative of corrupted religion.

"Hear, and testify against the house of Jacob," declares the Lord GOD, the God of hosts, "that on the day I punish Israel for his transgressions, I will punish the altars of Bethel, and the horns of the altar shall be cut off and fall to the ground. I will strike the winter house along with the summer house, and the houses of ivory shall perish, and the great houses shall come to an end," declares the LORD.
(Amos 3:13-15)

In this world populated with lost souls and impoverished men, it is incomprehensible to me how the "Church" can possibly justify corporate-level salaries and aristocratic mansions for the leadship...leadership which according to Biblical example is humble and self-sacrificing....in a Church where those who "had" were willing to sell all and give to those who "had not"

We've come a long way.......
We've come to Bethel.

SBC, REGENERATE CHURCH MEMBERS, JOHNNY HUNT

It strikes me that the hurricane-force winds which accompanied all the activity in Indianapolis last week have quickly subsided into occasional breezes.

The blogosphere which last year was credited with such power and influence seems miserably impotent today.

There was a brief period of rejoicing over the manner in which the "church membership" resolution which came out of committee emasculated by the non-rockers of the boat was infused with virility from the floor through efforts by Tom Ascol and Malcolm Yarnell...then passed by a solid majority (some say 2/3) of the delegates.

To a cynic like me, this "victory" seems rather of the Pyrrhic sort. Kinda like, we hold a referendum nation-wide on say, the Second Amendment to the US Constitution, and it is approved......by a 2/3 vote! Is that a "victory"?

When 1/3 or more of the delegates to the Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting vote "No" to the question of whether local church membership should be based on evidence of spiritual regeneration........can we cheer?

A fellow cynic stated elsewhere (Timmy Brister's blog, perhaps) that purging inflated church membership rolls would not happen because of "pride". What will happen, he asks, when the membership of the SBC drops from 16.7 million to 10 million, or to 7 million, a more realistic number based on actual church attendance? How will we bear the shame? It's quite one thing to pontificate about our sin in our meetings together, but to go public? After all these years of hearing the news media say: The Southern Baptist Convention, the world's largest Protestant organization, etc.??? What will people say?

This same Resolutions Committee did not report out at all but File 13'd an even more telling resolution which would have affirmed the absolute foundational need of correct (Biblical) doctrine in all evangelistic efforts. Delegates never saw it.....irrelevant, I guess.

In hindsight, no one (except me) confesses to being surprised by the election of Johnny Hunt as President of the SBC. Two years ago when his name was bandied about as a probable candidate, there was such an uproar, at least in the blogosphere, that in the end, he let it be known that he would not have his name put forward. Last week, he was elected without a fight, first ballot, all opposition reduced to "token" status.

Some random thoughts:

One wonders what would have happened had Al Mohler's illness not forced him to give up the thought of running. Me? I think that was Providential and kept Mohler from making a mis-step.

Johnny Hunt is not simply a non-calvinist. We've had lots of "non-calvinist" presidents in the past 50 years and done very nicely so far as that goes. Johnny Hunt is the personification of the rabid anti-calvinist mentality seen in one corner of the SBC--the straw-man builders, the demonstrably ignorant (or worse) who cannot or will not differentiate between the various forms of Biblical theology called "calvinism" and the unBiblical heresy called "hyper-calvinism".

He is portrayed by his supporters as a "uniter". I think he's a politician. I think he has one stand before this group, and another stand when speaking at another group. His church is the locale for a meeting this fall which includes speakers like Paul Washer, Kirk Cameron, and Todd Friel. These men are not members of the "everyone is elect" club. First, I was surprised, then I learned that Woodstock was just the venue, not the sponsor. OK.....then, another surprise: Hunt is one of the speakers! His topic is the sufficiency of the Scriptures. The question is: Will he speak to the topic or use his "bully pulpit" to "correct" the calvinists who speak ahead of him? Should be interesting..........

BOTTOM LINE: The actions of the resolutions committee, the casual election of Johnny Hunt, etc, all demonstrate the establishment mentality that "business as usual" is the intention--despite the resolution on church membership. That will probably turn out to be merely lip service. I predict that SBC membership will still be 16+million two years from now; churches will still report 5000 members and have 954 in attendance Sunday morning.

The chasm will widen between calvinists and non-calvinists in the convention. There may be a reverse resurgence in which the non-cals make an effort to "clean up the seminaries" (one in particular).

This does not have a happy ending.

"BUILDING BRIDGES"--Calvinism in the Southern Baptist Convention

Our pastor spoke today in the Lifeway conference called "Building Bridges" intended to smooth over some of the conflicts between calvinists and non-calvinists in the Southern Baptist Convention. Sunday I got the idea he was a bit apprehensive about it--for one, he thought he might be in "over his head" among all the big shots like Al Mohler, Tom Nettles, and assorted Doctors and Professors. Also, he had well-founded misgivings about just where we were building bridges to, and whether we really wanted to bridge some gaps.

I just listened to the message he delivered there and think he did a great job, to the Glory of God! He dealt with the dichotomy between the inerrancy of scripture and the sufficiency of scripture in modern church practice, and spoke plainly about the "straw-man" arguments that calvinism is anti-missions, anti-evangelism, etc.

Here's a link to that sermon:

http://lifeway.edgeboss.net/download/lifeway/corp/noblit_calvinism_a_cause_for_rejoicing_and_concern_lo.mp3

Here's a link to other messages (from both sides) from the conference. I haven't listened to any others but did read the text file of the fellow who presented the "other side" versus Pastor Noblit, Dr Yarnell.

http://timmybrister.com/

Speaking of Timmy Brister, he has on the same blog as those links, a great video by Paul Washer on "Cowardly Calvinists" I say "great" by inference since I can't view video on my slow internet connection, but have read all the commentary about it, including the snide attack by iMonk.