Dr. Danny Akin prophetically, positively, and profoundly addressed the race issue in his signature message in chapel at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, concerning the Great Commission Resurgence. Rarely, do we hear of this type of statesmanship and leadership on this issue from anyone in SBC life. Much respect to you, Dr. Akin. I wish the GCR report to the annual meeting in Orlando would include Dr. Akin’s initial remarks on this subject.

For years I’ve asked many of my Black Baptists and evangelical Pastor friends, who would not question one word of the B, F, and M, 2000, why won’t you join the SBC? Their response would be, because it is “southern and racial”. Note: not racist, but “racial”- meaning, the DNA of the SBC is White, and geographically and culturally southern oriented. Therefore, it cannot comfortably or willingly accommodate or assimilate as equals, African American Baptists input, involvement and influence. For years I’ve disagreed with my friends’ analysis. But I’ve since reached the conclusion, they are right.

The entire post can be read here.

Did foolish purchases by low income adherents of “prosperity theology” play a role in the real estate market collapse in the US? The Atlantic Monthly seems to think so. A Hanna Rosin article in the December 2009 edition (read it here) posits that prosperity gospel proponents encouraged church members, many of whom were poor Latino immigrants, to claim the blessings that God had for them, including the blessing of getting loans through sub-prime lending.

Read the rest here.

I would venture a guess that most who have used the word never read the book by Guder titled, The Missional Church. Even fewer will have read his book, The Continuing Conversion of the Church. In the best sense of semper reformanda, Guder contends that the church in every context and age must experience conversion from the barnacles it attracts as it passes through culture. He never suggests there is a pristinated version of church but opens the reader up to understand that when the church becomes complacent in its self-criticism it eventually loses its voice as it takes on the worst characteristics of the culture in which it finds itself.

Yes, Ed Stetzer regularly tweets in love and favor of the church. What he does not do is suggest it is perfect, just not worth bashing.

Monday I spent the day at a conference hosted by our contributor John Elam and the Northwestern Baptist Association in Woodward, OK. That’s right one of the smallest associations in the SBC hosts a conference titled, For the World. (Oh that our larger associations would consider these kinds of regular events.) Applying the best sense of the word missional the conference sought to encourage pastors to lead their congregations to live out the mission of God “for the world.”

SEBTS professors Nathan Finn and Alvin Reid offered two sessions each. Dr. Anthony Jordan, Exec. Director of the BGCO was featured for another session. The three combined with John Elam for a panel discussion moderated by Douglas Baker, new Executive Editor of The Baptist Messenger.

The point of this piece is not to offer a review or necessary critique. I would suggest you listen to the sessions. The discerning ear will hear some surprises. For instance, what would it mean if we really grasped Finn’s description of Baptists as an “ecclesiological reform movement?” Let that sink in a bit you who want desperately for Baptists to be a “theological reform movement.” Finn does not suggest an a/theological move for Baptists, instead he outlines historically what it means when we talk about the “five Baptist distinctives.” One must confess they are all ecclesiological in their affirmations.

Maybe you would find Reid’s attention to the 120 in the early Acts narrative compelling. Regularly we pay attention to the extraordinary “move of the Spirit” in Peter’s preaching. But, would we concede that contextually the 120 likely had as much going on in that fast movement of Gospel embrace? Or with all the bantering about “contextualization” would you be willing to accept the methodological adaptations evident in the growing story of the church?

There is little doubt a firestorm could swirl around Dr. Jordan’s contention that we make second order or tertiary confessional commitments matters of collegial cooperation. Recent moves to attach secondary issues to first order matters in an event to tighten the circle for cooperation would surely resist that the BFM article on the family does not rise to the level of the deity of Jesus. What’s more, will we ever concede unity does not of necessity mean uniformity? And, can that apply to more than our preferred music or governing polity?

Take some time to listen to the sessions. Come back and engage a conversation.

“Before 1859 it would have seemed natural to agree with the Reverend William Paley, in “Natural Theology,” that the creation of life was God’s greatest work. Especially (vanity might add) human life. Today we’d amend the statement: Evolution is the universe’s greatest work. Evolution is the creator of life, and life is arguably the most surprising and most beautiful production that the laws of physics have ever generated. Evolution, to quote a T-shirt sent me by an anonymous well-wisher, is the greatest show on earth, the only game in town.

Indeed, evolution is probably the greatest show in the entire universe. Most scientists’ hunch is that there are independently evolved life forms dotted around planetary islands throughout the universe—though sadly too thinly scattered to encounter one another. And if there is life elsewhere, it is something stronger than a hunch to say that it will turn out to be Darwinian life. The argument in favor of alien life’s existing at all is weaker than the argument that—if it exists at all—it will be Darwinian life. But it is also possible that we really are alone in the universe, in which case Earth, with its greatest show, is the most remarkable planet in the universe.”

[...]

“Where does that leave God? The kindest thing to say is that it leaves him with nothing to do, and no achievements that might attract our praise, our worship or our fear. Evolution is God’s redundancy notice, his pink slip. But we have to go further. A complex creative intelligence with nothing to do is not just redundant. A divine designer is all but ruled out by the consideration that he must at least as complex as the entities he was wheeled out to explain. God is not dead. He was never alive in the first place.”

The rest of this article may be found at The Wall Street Journal.

————————————————————————–

From a Facebook response written by Beth Duren Lancaster:

“The first question that comes to my mind is, What if evolution was God’s idea? Would there then be no use for God after evolution was set into place? If God invented evolution, then God would be the author/designer/creator/sculptor of evolution. Would we say that since we have the completed works of Shakespeare, we’ve no need for the Bard himself? We have lightbulbs (“greener” and far better than the original), so no need for Edison? The Mona Lisa hangs on display, so da Vinci is useless to us? Now, I can’t stress enough my awareness that these are far from perfect comparisons (I don’t know of any Edison disbelievers), but I’m not at all trying to offer any sort of proof for the existence of God so perhaps it doesn’t matter. Why would an invention or creation (maybe too charged a word for Dawkins) render the inventor or creator useless?

Dawkins works from the premise that God does not exist and has never existed. So that certainly aids in his conclusion that evolution renders God useless, but it’s definitely no disproof of God. Perhaps that isn’t Dawkins’ intent, but then what would be the point of the article? (And when is that ever NOT Dawkins’ intent?) Dawkins’ is supposedly highly skilled in his own scientific field, but has always appeared to me to be a real lightweight in fields out of his specialty. In other words, he’s a pretty lousy philosopher and seems nearly devoid of any sort of grasp of theology.

I do completely agree with the ending of his article. Either God exists scientifically or God doesn’t exist at all. There’s no ‘true for you, not true for me’ when it comes to God’s existence. Be a devout believer, a seeking agnostic, or a solid atheist, but good grief don’t think you’re doing anyone any favors by being everything to all. If you take a stand for nothing out of fear of offending someone, you give up all chances of ever challenging anyone. If our motivation is to challenge another person by sharing beliefs and discussing differences in effort to build relationships and better both parties, then we shouldn’t have to fear offending people. Believers and non-believers can both challenge each other, but too often our motivation is to convert just to prove ourselves right, and that’s simply a picture of the inward fears of humanity. Sometimes stepping on each others toes can actually be a good thing, but we shouldn’t feel the need to put on combat boots before we do it.”

As President Obama gives a national speech today to school children, there are some in the United States who continue to pray for God to kill him. Citing the "imprecatory Psalms," at least two local church pastors have made it clear that they regularly and actively are praying for the death of the President of the United States.

Wiley Drake, pastor of the First Southern Baptist Church of Buena Park, California, may have been the first to get national attention for his stance. Drake, who announced on "The Alan Colmes Show" that he was "asking God to enforce imprecatory prayers" against the president, is widely known in Southern Baptist circles for submitting the resolution that led to the widely questioned "Disney boycott" a number of years ago. Unofficially dubbed "Mr. Resolution" by convention messengers, Drake’s pattern each year has been to offer numerous resolutions to the convention, most of which are rejected or never make it out of committee. So well known is he for this annual ritual that when he was elected as Second Vice-President of the SBC in 2006 comic joy was expressed from the dais that "Wiley won’t get to offer resolutions next year."

Drake, upon his election, immediately added, "2nd Vice-President of the Southern Baptist Convention," to all his correspondence and when his 1-year, non-renewable term was over, changed it to, "2nd Vice-President of the Southern Baptist Convention, 2004-2005." He caused a minor stir when he flew to Nashville for the fall meeting of the Executive Committee with the expectation that Southern Baptists should foot the bill, a privilege normally extended only to the sitting President. Eventually there was reimbursement, but a clarification also issued that Drake was not qualified for travel expenses.

The SBC gadfly is also a "birther," that is one who does not believe that Barack Obama is a natural born citizen of the U.S. and, therefore, not a legitimate president. He is even named on a lawsuit to that effect. Drake, also a member of the "Minutemen" organization and a vice-presidential candidate on the 2008 American Independent Party ticket in California, is now recognized by most Southern Baptists as being so far to the right that he’s not even on the wing. Said Art Rogers, pastor of Skelly Drive Baptist Church in Tulsa, Oklahoma, "I’m to the right of center on the American political spectrum. Wiley is on another planet."

Continue reading at Southern Baptist Examiner.