I hope this is not typical

[Joseph Patrick]

From Gerry Milligan ...aka Joseph Patrick

I hope that this article is not typical of Southern Baptist churches, but I am doubtful. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/nat ... rm=.819c1f

[Haruo]

I think it's the same article Sandy and I are already discussing in .

[JE Pettibone]

[Sandy]

[William Thornton]

Hit piece or masterpiece?
https://www.getreligion.org/getreligion ... -for-trump

[Joseph Patrick]

From Gerry Milligan ...aka Joseph Patrick
The author of the "Get Religion" does not cite any person in opposition to the article while citing Stetzer (spelling?) who agreed with the article in WAPO. Not a good nor relevant article in "Get Religion." After a wee bit of checking I have one question: How far right is "Get Religion?"

[Sandy]

I have to admit, reading the story, I had similar thoughts to those of the author of the "Get Religion" piece. The largest SBC congregation in the city of Washington, DC is Capitol Hill Baptist Church, where Mark Dever is pastor. It's about 15 blocks from the Post's main building. If you want to get some Southern Baptist perspective on this, why not just hop on the metro and go over there? Except that at Capitol Hill Baptist, it might be much more difficult to find Trump supporters, and it might also be much more difficult to find people who hang on to the myths and misconceptions that are perpetrated, about both Trump and Clinton. So you pick a small town in the south, and it could have been any of several hundred towns where the First Baptist Church is the most prominent edifice in the community, and you go get the interviews.

I'd disagree with the contention that the Post writers did any manipulation of the perspective though. Really, they didn't. They put the circumstances in the context that they found them, and they got quotes. There's no statement from the Post reporters that evaluates any statement, or manipulates the perspective, and they actually did a very good job expressing the way a Baptist church calls a pastor, and what that role means to the people in a small town First Baptist church. The SBC is a diverse denomination, culturally, economically, theologically, racially and politically. And that's really the "essence" or flavor of Southern Baptists. But the congregation of the First Baptist Church of Luverne, Alabama, while not representative of the denomination as a whole, is more than likely a good perceptive slice of what is a declining constituency, but still the predominant one among Southern Baptists.

So when one of the members says that they want their pastor to "believe like we do," that says, at least to me, there's not going to be much in the way of education or change taking place. So things which are true, but which don't fit with their perspective, don't matter.