That’s one thing I admire about Jimmy Carter. He was born and reared Southern Baptist and as a born again Christian his faith was extremely important to him, but he had the courage of his convictions and left the SB when he could no longer tolerate their increasing conservatism and politicism. The whole “most ______ aren’t (adjective), only the current leadership” thing just doesn’t wash whether it’s Baptist, Catholic, branches of Islam or anything else. It’s the same as saying “I’m not a racist, the organization that I belong to voluntarily and support with my presence and my money is”.
Since I’ve never seen a photo of Jack T. Chick, I would have to use the John Watersesque Bob of Tract fame. Could it get any more disturbing?
But you chose to share that image with the rest of us. So we must condemn you.
Send me the leftovers, if there are any.
This is my major bitch with anything you have to “join” to be a part of. Which is why I’m not a joiner. If you’re a joiner, by association you adopt the thoughts and ways of the spokespersons for that group as your own. You wanna have faith? Have at it. But don’t come crying to me trying to separate yourself from those you *willingly * choose to identify with. If you wear the label, you have to wear the whole label…not just the parts you find palatable.
I don’t have links handy, but there are first-hand reports & drawings of JTC being a tall, stocky, white-haired man, very friendly, and one which said the closest celebrity he could describe JTC as resembling was Slim Pickens.
No, I don’t. I look at the organization as a whole and see if it still accomplishes the purposes for which I joined. If so, then I can remain in the organization and work for change from within while at the same time working on the good I saw there in the first place. I firmly believe that a group of people can accomplish much, much more than an individual. With that advantage, however, comes the reallity that not everyone in any group seees things exactly the same. IMHO, the advantage of getting more done often (not always) outweighs the disadvantage of dealing with a few dipsticks. Even vocal dipsticks.
I’m not a sheep. I don’t have to “adopt the thoughts and ways” of anyone else, yet still be an efective team member. Organizations that don’t allow differences of opinion among their members are the ones that scare me. As do people who assume that because a spokesman vomits, the whole group is sick.
Let me re-phrase…you don’t have to adopt the thoughts and behaviors. But you do get labeled as though you have. You don’t have control over perceptions other people have of the group. You either have to speak loud enough to drown out the Bad Guys and change that perception, or you will be labeled the same as those Bad Guys, because that’s the representation the group has to wear…like it or not.
If all people who attend Southern Baptist Churches are going to be painted with the same brush, don’t you think this thread should be moved to Great Debates?
They’re choosing to be painted with the same brush by calling themselves the same thing. I’m certainly not going to assume a Southern Baptist shares the same religious beliefs a Muslim does. Of course they’re not all alike. But how do you know until you get to know a given SB that he doesn’t ascribe to the same “christian” doctrine that a gay-bashing SB does, if the only public personna they ever show is gay-bashing? GET LOUD AND PROUD, PEOPLE! Don’t let the assholes represent you to the rest of the world. Kick the bad guys out of the club! Get some air time of your own! Take their SB cards away!!Don’t let them speak louder for you than you do. Otherwise, you get the label.
[Joke Hijack]
Jews don’t don’t recognize Jesus as the messiah. Protestant don’t recognize the Pope as head of the Christian faith. Baptists don’t recognize each other in the liquor store. 
[/Joke Hijack]
Regallag wins!
No, in all cases the “painter” does the choosing. Will you chose to paint with a wide brush today, or a smaller one so you can get the details right?
How enlightened! I’ll take it a step farther - I don’t believe that all Muslims are suicide bombers, even though some of their spokesmen loudly say that type of martyrdom is an instant ticket to paradise. Wow, vocal fringe elements in a group! In “leadership” even! Who’da thunk it?
If you’re really interested, do some research. Read the source documents in full. Put quoted material into context. Otherwise, keep getting all your info from narrow, what’s-gonna-sell-advertising media soundbites.
Some of us are more interested in helping others than fighting your perceptions. Although I’ll grant that we will have to focus more energy on perceptions if it begins to impede the mission.
I’ll also grant that using the phrase “get loud and proud” in that context is quite humorous!
Not only that Sampiro; if you look at the history of the article it appears that there wasn’t even an article on Latham in Wikipedia before his arrest.
From the official website of the Southern Baptist Convention:
(bolding mine)
Okay…since this is the official stand of Southern Baptists, I have to assume you are a homophobe. If you’re not, then you aren’t really a Southern Baptist. You may embrace some of the qualities (the ones that aren’t in direct conflict with the spirit of love, mind you), but if you don’t oppose homosexuality, you should not wear the SB label. To claim to be an SB is to oppose homosexuality. I don’t see anything here that says you can cherry pick what doctrine you will embrace. If there is a clause in there that says you can, I’d like to see it.
Ok Kalhoun, I don’t know how much I want to get into this because I agree with the basic point you are making. However, I think it is important to point out that the quote you have included above is from the 2000 Baptist Faith & Message statement. It isn’t really accurate to call this the official stand of Southern Baptists since they historically reject the idea of a creed. There are some churches that still prefer the 1963 BF&M which makes no mention of homosexuality. Baptists have also always subscribed to the idea of sola sciptura which basically says that the individuals understanding of scripture is paramount.
Having said that, the Southern Baptists have in recent years seemingly gotten further away from the historic ideals of what it means to be Baptist. Or at least they have in the opinion of this gay man who was raised in the church.
Well, if this isn’t the SBC’s official stand, they ought to take the creator of the site to court, because they claim it IS the official stand of the SBC.
The site also mentioned that they really didn’t have these issues back in the 1925(?) and 1963 versions. It’s become an issue because homosexuality is out of the closet and the conversation is on the table.
From the published positions:
This is their published position. It basically invalidates gays perpetuates the silly notion that it’s a lifestyle as opposed to something their god created. Sorry…the fact that they’ll “forgive” the “sin” of homosexuality (hey…thanks for the bone!) is insulting. Anyone who aligns with this way of thinking is not only wrong, but dangerous.
Kal, in case you didn’t get it before, the Southern Baptist Convention isn’t a denomination in the sense that the United Methodist Church or the United Church of Christ is. And that’s more than a nitpick.
If you’re a baptist, you’re a member of a local church. Period. The individual churches join together in state conventions for things like supporting missions, charitable aid, and so on. And the state conventions in turn belong to the SBC, which has a rather arcane cursus honorum for its leading offices.
But there are less than 500 people in the U.S. who “belong to the SBC,” and most of them only because they’re delegates or officials.
There are 13,000,000 people who belong to local churches affiliated with the SBC. And that’s what the membership claim is based on.
But the point is that the SBC has historically been a very conservative church in terms of theology and moral teaching, but with this important point: it was the individual’s moral responsibility to make his own moral choices.
That changed in the '80s when Paige Patterson and a few others engineered a coup by slowly maneuvering themselves and their own supporters into the top, policy-making offices. Then they in 2000 revised the Baptist Faith and Message, the closest thing the SBC has to a doctrinal statement, to incorporate inerrantism, homophobia, etc. into what had been a statement of doctrine and individual moral responsibility.
Some churches and individuals withdrew from the SBC and their state conventions. Most of them stayed in, some because they supported Patterson et al., some because they frankly didn’t care, and some because they wanted to reclaim the SBC to what it had been when it was growing to be the largest Protestant denomination in the country.
Now the point to this all is: your quote is flat-out the product of the Patterson faction that has control of the central operation. It’s no more binding on the individual Baptist in the local church than what the Coptic Patriarch of Alexandria has to say matters to me as an Episcopalian. He may be dead-set opposed to the Patterson clique, and determined to reclaim the church he’s belonged to all his life from them.
As usual, an excrescence of the Moral Majority proves to be neither.
I get what you’re saying. I understand that not everyone who claims to be a southern baptist embraces this crap. My point is that these are the most vocal SBs, and therefore, the ones who set the tone that outsiders hear. If the majority of baptist churches don’t believe this position, why don’t they reclaim their faith?
It sounds as though you’re telling me that most baptists now support total equality for homosexuals, both here on earth (marriage, adoption, etc.) and in their hereafter. You said yourself that Patterson has control of the central operation. To me, that means it is at best an official stand that is ignored much the way catholics ignore birth control. But it’s still an official stand, i.e., gays cannot marry in the baptist church, for instance. At worst, it’s exclusive, contradictory to christ’s teachings, and an organization I’d do my damnedest to distance myself from.
I’m not going to pretend I keep abreast of the inside workings of various churches the way you do. I don’t think I have to in order to know that most SBs are against homosexuality. If that’s not how they feel, they’re not speaking loudly enough against those ideas. If they “own” the church (as they should), we wouldn’t be having this conversation. If the church is too strong to break, then they should break from it.
Incidently, this is also from the site (bolding mine):
Is there a site that supports your statement that there are only 500 people truly affiliated with the SBC? How would a person who wants to learn about the true numbers 1) find that information, and 2) determine which statement was true? Again, this public picture may not reflect the inner feelings of SBs, but this is the site that’s getting the attention. If it is erroneous, The Other Baptists ™ need to make that known.
Also, of the few local churches I looked at on the Google list, nearly every one of them linked directly to the SBC Official site with respect to homosexuality.
This seems like a good time to mention the Onion’s news brief from a few months ago: