<snort!>
kalhoun, I just love your devotion.
The SBC is about five miles down the road from me. You are female, aren’t you? Let’s get manicures and pedicures across the street, picket the SBC for a couple of hours and then have lunch.
I think Polycarp is right about the organization of the church and there seems to be a sort of wrestling for control. There is also a liberal faction that is working very hard. I have bought some thinner brushes lately myself. 
Rev. Latham was arrested for “Offering To Engage In An Act of Lewdness.” The evidence in support of this charge was the allegation that he he asked the undercover officer to join him in his hotel room for oral sex.
In light of Lawrence v. Texas, is that a crime?
Should that be a crime?
You’re on, sistah! Though I’d hate to mess up a new manicure marching around with a picket sign. We’ll need to find a Manicure Cafe and kill two birds with one stone! 
I’m sure they’re wrangling for control. But from everything I’ve been able to scrape up (other than that which is on the bottom of my shoe with regard to SBs), it appears the VAST majority of the individual churches embrace the “homosexuality as a lifestyle” and “people who engage in homosexual sex are bad” mindset. All I’m saying is that if I were trying to change public perception, I’d be doing something the public could actually see to change that perception. Their numbers are either much too small (in which case they should break from the SBC) or they’re not trying hard enough.
I have no idea what Lawrence v. Texas is, but the act of soliciting sex should not be a crime. This guy’s crime is hypocrisy and hate mongering. Far worse, considering his position.
My parents are Baptists. There is a schism among Baptists between the followers of the Southern Baptist Convention and those who have broken allegiance to it.
Historically, I think they were decentralized, with local authority to pick their own pastors, etc; the SBC has been trying, with fair success, to impose a top-down structure with litmus tests and kicking clergy out of the system if they don’t sign on for “official Baptist beliefs”, including the homophobia and the literal verbatim Bible as Word of God stuff and the anti-evolution stuff and so on.
I think the schismatic rebel group is called Southern Baptist Fellowship. At any rate, apparently individual congregations are breaking loose and telling the SBC (in Baptist-appropriate language, I assume) to fuck off. It’s most likely going to result in a formal split as the SBC continues to coalesce centralized authority.
I must say I enjoy seeing my stodgy Dad, who embraced the likes of Strom Thurmond and Jesse Helms, siding with the rebels and doing rolleyes at the SBC.
I’m clear on the difference between Baptist and Southern Baptist. But everything I’ve Googled on Southern Baptist Fellowship appears to be as hard-core as the SBC. Some sites actually link to the original SBC website I spoke of earlier. They don’t sound like a toned-down version of SB to me. The VAST majority is unwaveringly against homosexuality.
Oh. And by the way…the Regular Ol’ Baptist Church (official site) also states that homosexuality is incompatible with christian teaching. That’s all they say. No caveats, no contingencies. Sorry…they’re as anti-gay as the Southern Baptists, just not as vocal about it.
Agreed. The most liberal of Baptist groups is still frighteningly conservative. The difference appears to lie more with the right (or lack thereof) to continue to be a Baptist preacher if you don’t hold and teach these opinions. The SBF preacher might preach a sermon contradicting Baptist condemnation of homosexuality. The SBC preacher deciding to do so could get defrocked. Or whatever they call it. Booted for heresy is what it amounts to.
In practice, it apepars there are far more Baptist congregations & preachers that do not wish to take the Bible as the literal Word of God (4000-some-odd years since creation, literal giants in dem days, and all that) and/or don’t see a conflict between religion and evolution and don’t want to be told they must preach otherwise, than there are defenders of the non-wrongness of being gay, which doesn’t seem to be much of a celebrated cause on the rebellious side of this schism.
There are also flavors of Baptists who aren’t Southern Baptist of either variety — I think one such denomination is called “Primitive Baptist”, no kiddin’. Somehow I don’t expect they’d be in the forefront of social permissiveness either (I’m not sure but I think they disapprove of the playing of musical instruments in church, make of that what you will).
But it’s the SBC that is overtly political, nationally organized, trying to divest the church of infidels and miscreants, and responsible for heavy involvement in elections and endorsements.
Primitive Baptists and Old Regular Baptists are a bit of a different breed than mainstream Baptists – they split off from the mainstream Baptists in the early 19th century, and are primarily a rural Appalachian phenomenon. They’ve changed little since then; most of the changes in American Protestantism – abandoning of belief in predestination, instrumental and harmonized music, the temperance movement, professional clergy – never occurred in these Baptists groups. The Old Regular Baptists are most notable for preserving lined-out monophonic hymnody, which was once common to most Anglo- and Scots-descended Protestant churches but has since died out everywhere else (though I believe a very few Primitive Baptists congregations still hold on to the tradition).
It is the US Supreme Court case which strikes down as unconstitutional state sodomy bans. Bricker’s home state of Virginia has continued to prosecute men for soliciting sodomy, and at least one ridiculously bad appellate decision has affirmed the constitutionality of the solicitation statute. Absent some grave nuisance or harassment aspect, how exactly the solicitation of a legal act can itself be illegal is something beyond my power to comprehend.
Thanks, Otto. Yeah…the mind boggles, don’t it?
I wondered that too. I can only assume he must have offered the officer money or perhaps they were in what was legally considered a public place or some such. His reputation is irreparably damaged, of course, but with a decent lawyer I think Latham will get off (i.e. acquitted) and possibly even be able to file a defamation countersuit.
Haw! Haw!
Presumably for the same reason that it’s illegal to sell something that it’s perfectly legal to give away for free…
Sorry, but that statement is absolutely wrong. No person, committee or organization of any kind outside the individual church has any say what-so-ever in hiring or firing of any personnel (head pastor through janitor) within the that church. Period. End of story. No exceptions. All Baptist churches, including those affiliated with the SBC, are completely autonomous.
As for the rest of the issues, Polycarp covered it extremely well. The leadership pendulum at he SBC has swung way right, no argument there. It will swing back. This is how real world organizations work. In the mean time, we (the rank and file at the individual churches) will continue to pool our resources to carry out the good that we all believe in.
Completely autonomous, huh?
University Baptist Church, Austin, TX Disfellowshipped - University Baptist Church was Disfellowshipped February 24, 1998, by the General Baptist Convention of Texas for its affirmation and inclusion of lesbian and gay Christians.
Georgia Southern Baptists Expel Two Churches - Oakhurst Baptist Church in Decatur and Virginia-Highlands Baptist Church in Atlanta were ousted from the Georgia Baptist Convention because they are inclusive of gay and lesbian members.
Given the context - it appears to have been in the course of a police operation aimed at complaints of prostitution at the site of the arrest - it looks like this is the local variation on solicitation (don’t know the exact language of the statute, of course). In that case, it’s still a crime under Lawrence.
IMO, prostitution and solicitation should not be crimes.
Sua
Um, yeah, and what you posted actually proves the point. The state conventions have no power to remove pastors, dictate who the church allows as members, or regulate the use of the name “Baptist”. All of the churches involved are still Baptist churches. All still admit gay members. All still had the same staff members. The only thing the state convention can do is stop accepting money from these churches. That is the sum total meaning of “expelled”. Support is strictly one way, from the local church to the various conventions. What does it mean to the churches involved? They no longer send funds to that convention for missions, etc. There are other Baptist associations they can support, or they can keep those funds to run their own missions. They can put all their money in the bank until they have more than Bill Gates, if thats what they feel called to do. No outside agency can dictate the way they operate. That is autonomy.
Where’s the sequential thread titles threads when you need one:
(until I post) we have
Butter my arse:
Southern Baptist executive caught in gay sex scandal