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The speakers for this event at the home church of Billy Graham and US Tea Party and Fox News Darling Trey Gowdy are pretty much a roll call for the Apologists of the religious right regularly paraded on ?Fox News; the discredited children of Francis Schaeffer--see Molly Worthen. It is sponsored by North Greenville College which was the emplate for Nelson Price's takeover of Shorter College in Rome, Ga.

More later

It's deceptive to associate this event with Trey Gowdy, who isn't involved in it. In fact, most everyone on the program is a noted Christian apologist, and some of them are from mainline denominations, not necessarily conservative, right wingers. Todd Starnes, of Fox News, whom I've met, is hosting a lunch, and he, along with Barton and Tim Wildmon might be considered to have right wing political connections. Ben Carson is being pushed by the Tea idiots as a potential Presidential candidate, though he doesn't seem to be interested, and on occasion, smacks them down with an intelligent, thoughtful statement or two.

This is clearly an apologetics event, and it's only being held at FBC Spartanburg, which, I would guess, is getting a fee for the use of its building. And though I would guess, and hope, that the church wouldn't host an event that would be hostile to its mission and purpose, their involvement with this doesn't imply the connection that you are implying that it does. The sponsor is North Greenville University. I guess Christian apologetics, which is clearly on the same intellectual level as the little cabal of patronizing liberals that you constantly mention in relation to, well, just about everything, rankles your hide because it provides evidence that you don't have to be liberal to be a Christian intellectual.

And the fact of the matter is that most of these people, especially Carson, Metaxas, Josh and Sean McDowell, and Gary Habermas, are more respected and followed than your little cabal of Balmer, Worthen, et al.

But I doubt I could convince him of such.

I am hoping this gets the unpacking it deserves. I am doing my best to sound the alarm.

Collinsville, Alabama is not that far from Spartanburg. Instead of beefing about it, speculating, and making connections that don't exist, why not pay the fee and go check it out. Then you'll have the facts, albeit interpreted your own way, but you would at least have some standing to discuss the event in a reasonable manner, instead of overlaying it with your bias, and drawing a completely and totally irrelevant, unrelated conclusion weighted down by your pseudo-intellectual cabal.

I doubt that Balmer, Worthen or Frady would bother with this. Pseudo-intellectual liberals tend to avoid Christian apologetics since they are not abstract, and they undergird and affirm more conservative interpretations of scripture.

As Fox News hosts Mike Huckabee twice on the weekend and the Life and Liberty Seminar is practically a roll call of the darlings of Fox News as they play the religion card, this interview and book calls into question the discernment, the integrity of FBC Spartanburg's witness in the public square

http://www.npr.org/2014/01/16/263063731 ... ews-empire

Roger Ailes has nothing to do with FBC Spartanburg. It's just another irrelevant, off topic hit and run by Stephen.

The roll call for the FBC Seminar folks routinely appear on Fox News to spread half mindedness and demagoguery under the banner of fair and balanced reporting. That is what the interview I linked above is about. and that is why this seminar is so sinister with analogies to the mindset Bonhoeffer resisted in Germany in the 30's. See my blog at http://www.foxofbama.blogspot.com on the Politics or Stupidity as described by Bonhoeffer. It's what you get when you turn the SBC over to Jesse Helms and Criswell and Paul Pressler.

For certain here is another topic these "Christian" Baptists will not entertain in Spartanburg early September. If they do watch them disappear on Fox News:

The elephant in the Tea Party room at FBC Spartanburg:

http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2014- ... inequality

One subject that would be appropriate at the FBC Sburg seminar would be immigration reform. About six months ago Trey Gowdy had an opportunity to move things forward but he got deep into the politics of Benghazi for Fox News and Tea Party Points.

Now we have this mess in Honduras.

Chic Fil A is one of the sponsors of the SBurg events. CFA CEO Dan Cathy's bro in law is a former VP of the SBC IMB. Cahty's sister and said husband were missionaries to Brazil.

Let's hear their take on Honduras as informed by the testimony this morning of Ms. Nazario to the Senate Foreign Relations committee

Google and listen to her testimony online yesterday from NPR's Here and Now.

Wow, what a connection! How does being Dan Cathey's brother in law connect to a conference that is only in part sponsored by Chic-Fil-A? And why would immigration reform be a considered topic at an apologetics conference? I think immigration reform would be an excellent topic, in an appropriate place and time, especially for Baptists. I'd be curious as to what would develop out of that.

Ed, in the fall of 72 I borrowed my frend Tom Gais ten speed Schwinn and bked all the way from Furman to Gaffney through Spartanburg one Sunday aftenoon on old US HWY 29, a distance of some 50 odd miles. Took me four hours.

Some thieves stole my bike in Alabama about four years ago and my health has suffered on account of it.

I have relatives in the Upstate and hope to get on the Swamp Rabbit trail and do the 7 miles from TR past Furman to downtown Greenville within the next two years but a trip from Bama to Soartanburg now is out of the question for me.

By car with good travel time around Atlanta I could get to Spartanburg in 4:45 if I don't stop at any cracker Barrels.

In 2003 or so I was able to drive up one morning in time to get to Idell Petty's funeral on the other side of Gaffney for the 3pm service. Her husband was the fire chief and she cut my Dad's hair in a shop near our church there; sometimes mine. They were part of the family. They used to come over with her sister and bro in law to the Helton Reunion, Dad's Momma's people the 4th Sunday in August.

Dad preached to George mcGovern there in 1983

It's fair to point out that there is absolutely no connection between the conference at FBC Spartanburg, and anything Stephen cites in his last three posts. There is less there than there is between FBC Spartanburg and the conference.

is not the right Bonhoeffer. Would be interesting to have FBC Sburg Staff examine the legacy of Bonhoeffer in light of the discussion about how their Conference leader Metaxas has skewed Bonhoeffer for the Tea Party.

http://www.readthespirit.com/explore/th ... nge-glory/

And Bonhoeffer Hijacked

http://www.christiancentury.org/reviews ... bonhoeffer

See next post on Amazing Grace and Honduras. Where does FBC Sburg come down?

FBC Sburg is home of Trey Gowdy, a key Tea party in the US House who can move the Dream Act and an immigration bill forward worthy of the best legacy of the SBC IMB to which FBC Sburg has many connections from Chic Fil A whose sister of Dan Cathy is married to recent VP of the IMB, to www.ginnybrant.com, a recent Trustee.

Eric Metaxas, if not a producer a key figure in the popular movie of a few years ago of William Wilberforce from which the song amazing grace sprang. Ironically Congressman Lois Lerner Benghazi Gowdy seems unawares of the implications of the William Wilberforce bill and the implications for the integrity of Baptist witness in Latin America

In light of this opinion piece

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/ ... ng-borders

Maybe a breakout session on Honduras and America's border is called for at the Life and Liberty Conference at FBC Spartanburg South Carolina in September.

Colin Haris was a friend of my Dad since 1962 when my Father came down from Truett Memorial Baptist Church in Hayesville, NC to be summer camp Chaplain for Druid Hills BC in Atlanta through his friend from SEBTS, David Bookout.

Randall Balmer is my friend.

I am proud to be among such company and this light on the Tea Party of FBC Spartanburg

Harris son teaches Math at Furman

http://ethicsdaily.com/how-to-hijack-a- ... -cms-22010

I've been talking almost daily to staff and interns by phone in the D.C. offices of these two Southern Baptist Congressman about the implications for the SBC IMB, WMU, even Chic Fil A. This morn I talked to Tom Ellif's son in law Lankford's chief of staff, Michelle.

http://blogs.rollcall.com/218/ted-cruz- ... esty/?dcz=

Cruz a product of Ed Young's and Jim Deloach's 2nd Houston "Christian" Academy. What and how much influence was Judge Paul Pressler there.

Goehmert is from Judge Pressler's Fireside Chat friend of Tyler Texas

It's North Greenville University's conference, not FBC Spartanburg. Nothing you've posted has anything to do with either the conference itself, or FBC Spartanburg. Or North Greenville University for that matter.

I'll bet that Fox News doesn't even mention the conference, the church, the university, Pressler, Gowdy or Billy Graham in a single related news item.