When Criswell sent Newman back the letter Newman had written him in 68 about the race baiting speech in 56 to the South Carolina Pastor's conference and I paraphrase,: I don't quite get what you are saying William, but if you mean well, then God Bless you.
That said, a couple bullet points William should know by now.
1.My Momma walked out on Charles Stanley's Convention sermon in Atlanta in 86 and I'm gald she did.
1B: See Bob Allens' review of Ex Gens at Abpnews.com; also George Mason of Wilshire Baptists has a different appreciation of Ex Gens than William and for that matter Big daddy Weave
2. Thornton was a member of Adrian Roger's Bellevue Baptist in 79 and I think a scholar at Mid America when the Takeover started so that explains a lot right there.
3. If you look at any given page of Big Daddy's bio of James Dunn, you are likely to see as many names as I have on any given page of my 8 page pilgrimage.
4. I was a very active member of Collinsville Baptist for 8 years before the poop hit the fan, in many factes from the choir, to bus ministry, to volleyball ministry which was a carnival at times, to several youth trips to Jekyll Island and some ministries at 2 am mostly with the preacher's sons then in High school and their friends exploring the back road of DeeKalb county unauthorized.
5William must do the background education, read some stories and have an awareness of of Singleton's Half Mammals of Dixie and see the Movie and have post viewing chat with Jerry Vines of the White Ribbon to get full effect of my story.
6. I will let others read my eight pages. I talk about myself some to define how my expectations of what it was to be a baptist might me a little different from the one deacon who said about MLKing near his birthday in 88: "I say we dig.....[vulgar word deleted] and Shoot him again, and another deacon who cussed me loudly to my face cause I question his public derogaroty remakrs in a City Council meeting about Hispanics.
So there was a lot the two deacons the three to five women sicced on me overlooked when they mighta had better prospects for a churchin.
And six, those two deacons, Jackie Myers, former Elementary School principal whose sharp daughter went on an Emmaus Walk; and his brother Donnie, a former Asst School supe both told me they voted for me in the vote of May 28.
7. I was on the way to have lunch with Dr. Thornton himself the week preceeding the May 28 vote when I had car trouble outside Iva, South Carolina. So Thornton is part of the story too, but his name is not in the index of Exiled Generations cause I didn't mention him. But I'm about to blog about him and Jerry Vines, the Bircher
s and that whole cauldron.