Carter's New Peace Mission

[Steve Wilcox]

Interesting approach, treat both sides as mortal enemies and get them to sign an accord and then they don't live up to it.

The version I read in our local paper was cut short, they left out all the juicy stuff, like...

"Since then, the Southern Baptist Convention has become increasingly narrow in its definition of who is welcome,"

"They now have decided that women can't teach men, and that women can't be deacons, and women can't be pastors, and women can't be missionaries, and so forth."

I am not sure where he is getting his info but I have been to many SBC churches and women can teach men and women can be missionaries.

The biblical stance on deacons and pastors is pretty solid, IMHO. I know many of you disagree, but I can live with disagreement.

And Carter seems to agree with me in reverse, "Which -- I'm not criticizing them. That's their prerogative."

Personally, I am not going to refuse to worship with someone that thinks women should be ordained, or if the earth is not 6000 years old.

I guess he agrees with me on this too, "But I don't see why those beliefs should separate you from me, if both of us believe in Christ and believe in furthering God's kingdom."

Here is the link to the article...

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld ... 5549.story

[Mark]

[Steve Wilcox]

Yeah, I guess it does, IF YOU DON'T READ THE ARTICLE!

Here is a snippet to put my first sentence in context...

In 1997 and 1998, Carter called conservative and liberal Baptists to the Carter Center, the nonprofit located next to his presidential library in Atlanta. Participants recall he treated them like any warring parties from abroad.

"Just like the Palestinians and Israelis," Leonard said.

Tensions were high. Carter met first with a group largely made up of liberals and moderates, then with a conservative faction. It was an echo of his work at Camp David two decades earlier, when he shuttled between the cabins of the mistrustful rulers of Israel and Egypt.

The leaders of the two groups signed an accord promising to work together. But the goodwill did not last.

[Stephen Fox]

Ben Cole and Adrian Rogers son David I have to believe are open to the courtship of Carter Baptist emissary David Gushee.
I am trying to conflate it all at my blog and the thread here about David Rogers.
Explore at http://www.foxofbama.blogspot.com

I have invited Randall Balmer to lurk there.

May all come to squish, but least I tried.

Thanks for the LA Times article.

[Mark]

[Norm]

In terms of Carter's attempt at reconciling those in and surrounding SBC, the process is rather generic and is used in many conflict-laden situations, whether they be country to country, organization to organization, group to group, person to person. Necesarily, dynamics will differ according to level, but the basic process is the same. No issue here.

From the article we have this from Patterson: ... the current split boiled down to "an epistemological question: How do you know what you know you say is true?"

It is an interesting, important, and telling statement, and it is one that distances people like Patterson from the position of those of the Radical Reformation, of which is the background from which our baptist forebearers were socialized. Roughly speaking both Luther and Calvin placed their emphases on truth being a bit more objective and centered in scripture; that is, their doctrine of revelation was highly, highly centered in scripture. The radical reformers, however, while not rejecting either Luther or Calvin, went further and held that truth also had (more of) a subjective element and that revelation did not end with the scriptural witness, thus through God's Spirit, the individual, him- or herself could receive revelation from God. Baptist have for years sang this doctrine in the hymn, "He Lives." In this respect people like Patterson are closer to Reformation theology than that of the Radical Reformation, from which baptists trace their roots. Being American, we are mostly pragamatic and ecletic in the way we approach most things, thus of all people that are Christian, we should be able to plant seeds in the ground that is between these positions in order to build relationships and fashion greater Christian unity. It is not about rejecting truth as objective or subjective, even if for some it is a matter of emphasis, for surely it is both if we are honest with our theological reflections, and both are important for the development of our understandings of the multidimensional character of truth.

[Mark]

[jerryl]