D.A. Carson, Harmful To Southern Baptist Churches

Don Carson has been at TEDS since 1978.  It’s safe to say he should go ahead and throw away his employment application to Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary.  Carson may be the Mick Jagger of evangelical theologians but this tune don’t play in the SBC, Don.

Purple Denominational Politics

I put little faith in Southern Baptist denominational politics.  I’m hopelessly hopeless.  It has been over a year now since the IMB instituted the new policies restricting missionary candidates.  NAMB actually beat them to the punch with similar policies.  It just went unnoticed.  And yet I continue to hear stories of those who have been called to missions, who are members in good standing in our Southern Baptist churches, yet who are prohibited from missionary service because, though they were immersed as believers, it was in another denomination that has been deemed unacceptable theologically.

Here’s the deal.  I want to support those folks.  I’m certain our church does as well.  I believe there are other SBC churches that want to, too.  I’m not in to starting some new denomination or joining some other one.  Baptists actually cooperate voluntarily and are free to form new voluntary associations when they feel it necessary.  Is it possible to form an association of churches who have a desire to support those the established channels no longer support?

I was hopeful that the roundtable meeting in Arlington next week might be open to that sort of discussion, but after speaking with one of the organizers and reading the comments of another attender I am no longer hopeful that such a notion will gain any traction.  I’ve been encouraged to bring it up if I feel led to do so, but have also been assured that all we need is to tweak the current system.  My problem is that tweaking the system seem like little more than rearranging deck chairs on the titanic.

I believe the system is broken.  I also know that I’m probably one of the few who feel that way.  I’m  searching for a third way.

The Bible and ETS [Updated]

I’m pushing this back up to the top because of this observation by TheBlueRaja.  This, in my opinion, is the best observation of all of them.

Baptist Press has reported on the Evangelical Theological Society’s (ETS) adoption of the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy (CSBI).  There are a number of interesting observations about this, notably by Michael Bird (see the last paragraph), Denny Burk, Jim West (note the interesting discussion in comments here and here), and Chris Tilling (interesting comments there as well).

If you are interested in the background of why many believed this was necessary, the thrust of this paper should pretty well explain it.

For those of you uninterested in this debate, here is Scott Adams’ version of what took place:

Ups and Downs

That’s the story of the last several days.

Up or Down, depending on your perspective:
First of all, I ate waaaaayy too much for Thanksgiving. Of course, I blame the parents and the in-laws. We have to make it to both on Thanksgiving day and it would be downright inhospitable to thrown down a couple of green beans and a spoon full of Granny’s addictive dressing. I told her she was going to put me into a 12 step rehab program with that stuff.

Down:
Friday morning the wife hit Best Buy at about 4 A.M. to get an insane deal on a desktop computer ($190), but when she got there the line was already around the entire building. Very disappointed as that was going to be a gift for the kids. Now we’ll all continue to share the laptop.

Up:
That same day Texas A&M gave Oklahoma a nice Thanksgiving gift by knocking the Longhorns off. It was a nice gift for their coach, Dennis Franchione as well. It’s always a good day in Oklahoma when Texas loses.

Up:
OU beat the Oklahoma aggies in Stoolwater to win the Big XII South. Now we get to play our old Big 8 rival Nebraska for the Big XII championship and a BCS bowl birth. Way cool.

Down:
I’ve come down with the crud. I’m blaming Kevin Stilley. I probably got it reading his blog. In addition, Vera is gone to OKC to be with a friend who’s mother is having surgery today which means I can’t mope around the house and complain about how bad I feel because there won’t be anyone around to listen.

Southern Baptist Politics

Being & Doing

Yesterday I made a point in my message at church about who we are, what we do and the relationship between the two.  What strikes me is this: Jews have been Jews culturally for thousands and thousands of years.  To be a Jew is just that - to be a Jew.  Being a Jew isn’t primarily about what one does, but about who one is.

It’s really pretty amazing to me that Jews have maintained their ethnic identity despite spending the vast majority of their history with no settled national identity.  Yes, in Biblical times being Jewish meant being tied to the land.  But the Israelites lived in Egypt for 400 years having no ties to the land, and then lived for 40 years in the wilderness with no ties to the land.  After the Babylonian exile they had no official tie to the land clear up until 1948.  They may have lived in the land prior to that, but they still believed they were suffering from exile as the land was actually "owned" by the Medes or Persians or Greeks or Romans or whoever.  And yet they maintained their identity.

Even as vassals to that Roman empire Paul could write to the Romans Christians that the covenants, the promises, the patriarchs, etc. belonged to Israel.  And to this day that Jewish identity lives on, because it isn’t about what they do as much as it is about who they are.  They are the children of the promise, the heirs of the covenants, the seed of the patriarchs.  And so to be a Jew means something.  It has implications.  To live outside of what it means to be a Jew is to live against your very being.

American Christianity, on the other hand, tends to be more about what you do, or don’t do, than about who you are, it seems to me, anyway.  Of course, I grew up in a context where we were given a steady dose of "don’t drink, don’t smoke, don’t chew, don’t play cards/dominoes, don’t go to the movies, etc."  To this day on the campus of my college alma mater students are prohibited from dancing.  You won’t find any university sanctioned moon or 42 tournaments, either.

Throughout Romans Paul sometimes implies and sometimes explicitly states that the things such as the covenants, promises, blessings, etc. that had uniquely belonged to the Jews now belong to all those who have faith in the one true Jew, the Messiah, Jesus.  Thus, Christianity is now primarily about who we are, not just about what we do.  Then, as Jesus so often emphasized, what we do will flow out of who we are.  If we are the people of God, the heirs of the promises, the recipients of the covenant, the true children of Abraham, those who are being renewed day by day, then what we do will flow out of who we are.

That’s why Jesus emphasized the condition of the heart over all those other things.  Make the heart right and the lifestyle will follow.  Out of the abundance of the heart flow blessings and cursings.  Thus, instead of focusing on behavior we should focus on the kind of people we are.  As we become the kind of people God intends to make of us we will begin to naturally do the kind of things that reflect his life in us.  We don’t neglect goodness, or uprightness.  We just put it on the back end, rather than the front end, of our emphasis.  It becomes a result rather than a cause.

Say What?

It’s been a while since I posted a quote of the week, so here are a few I liked enough to share:

In honor of the BGCT and most of their messengers this year I offer the following from Thomas Fuller:
"Many would be cowards if they had the courage enough."
And this Czech Proverb:
"The big thieves hang the little ones."

In honor of my confession on Thursday, this from Dorothy Nevill:
"The real art of conversation is not only to say the right thing at the right place but to leave unsaid the wrong thing at the tempting moment."

And some random others:
"Whenever I dwell for any length of time on my own shortcomings, they gradually begin to seem mild, harmless, rather engaging little things, not at all like the staring defects in other people’s characters."
Margaret Halsey

"The price of freedom of religion, or of speech, or of the press,  is that we  must put up with a good deal of rubbish."
Robert Jackson

"Think twice before you speak, and then you may be able to say something  more insulting than if you spoke right out at once."
Evan Esar

A Thousand Words

You can find more of my photos at my Flickr site and on my photoblog.

Twice As Heretical

I think I mentioned before that I got a signed copy of Spencer Burke and Barry Taylor’s Heretics Guide To Eternity while at the Emergent Gathering.  Today I got a second copy in the mail - thanks to the good people at Josey Bass who wanted to send me a free copy.  I love me some free books.  I’ve been slow-playing this one a little, but I plan on writing a little review - something a little different from the reviews I’ve read so far.  I want to finish the book and haven’t had a chance to do that yet.  When I do the review will be out pretty quick.

I know you wait with baited breath!

The Confessional

I’m thankful that God has a sense of humor as well as the means to keep me from doing some really stupid stuff.

This blog is a challenge for me, sometimes.  I like humor, but occasionally my humor can be biting (funny…I don’t consider yesterday’s post to be an example of that).  I have a friend who calls me a denominational cynic.  And he’s right.  I’m a cynic….and I’m often sarcastic about it.  I can also have a tendency to say what I think and let the chips fall where they may.  That’s not always a good practice as words can be powerful, both in the blessing and in the cursing.  I want to do more of the former and less of the latter.  It’s a struggle of mine.

You’ll be glad (or perhaps aghast) to know that often I compose a post that doesn’t make it onto the on-ramp of the internet superhighway for a variety of reasons - often because something has happened to my internet connection at home, or because Typepad is having problems, or because I am leaving a comment on someone else’s blog who uses Blogger and Blogger does what Blogger so often does.  Often, in those moments, I can hear the voice of God saying, "Shut your gaping pie hole!"

I don’t often post with any regrets.  I often reconsider the wisdom of many of those that never see the light of day.  I’ve learned to use the "Draft" mode more often so that I can sit on a thought a while.

Thank God for Providence.

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