Top ten attention getters....

[William Thornton]

This list is what got the most attention on my humble blog this year. Some of these I posted here on BaptistLife, most I did not.
One can see that a few topics get attention. Calvinism, a doctrine made for internet squabbles, accounted for three of the top ten. Clergy sex abuse, a matter that gets too little attention in the SBC, and the minister's housing allowance, where I get shot at by both sides, accounted for two each.

1.
That would be young SBC males who refuse to hear God's calling to overseas service through our misnamed Journeyman program allowing the program to be dominated by females who do answer the call. Danny Akin, SEBTS president, tweeted my blog on this and thereby jacked up the page views to the top of my list. There is some red meat for my mod/lib friends in this article. Read it.

2. The HQ blog of anti-calvinism in the SBC, SBC Today, breathlessly touted that more Georgia pastors signed the "Statement of the Traditional Southern Baptist Understanding of God’s Plan of Salvation” than pastors from any other state. How many? Oh, about three dozen, proving that if you are going to tout something it would be helpful to find something significant before doing so. Odd that Traditionalist HQ would be Cleveland, GA.

3. I called this story touted by Fox News for what it was, phony, and cautioned readers not to be taken in by it. The better title would be "Stubborn pastor jailed for lawlessness." SBC pastors are suckers for stories like this and ought to be set straight.

4. Truett-McConnell College, one of the Georgia Baptist Convention's schools bought the website SBC Today which formerly had connections to New Orleans seminary. Clearly, the site is dedicated to promoting "traditionalist" SBC doctrine and to combating Calvinism in the SBC.

5.
9.
Whenever I write on clergy sex abuse, some of the people who have an interest in seeing children safer in SBC churches pick it up. Two such posts made the top ten. First, when a church in Missourt affiliated with a Southern Baptist association, state convention, and national SBC kept as their pastor a man who has credible accusations and pending charges for child sex crimes it was news here and elsewhere. Nothing has changed. The man is still the pastor...and no one can do anything about it but the church. That's local church autonomy. Second, a jury in Florida found a local Baptist association and the Florida Baptist Convention liable for damages in a church's sex abuse case. It is being appealed but you can bet that SBCers are paying attention to this.

6.
8.
The minister's housing allowance, our sacred government tax break, always gets some attention both from my fellow pastors who think that by writing about it your humble, plodding blogger may trigger a repeal of it and by those who read about housing allowance abuses by a few pastors and would like to see the laws changed to eliminate abuse. The former need not worry too much and the latter have a good point. I am accustomed to being shot at from both sides.

7. We lost. They won. I'm not going to spend four years whining and complaining about it. Associated Baptist Press picked this blog up for their guest commentary and thereby completely dashed all my ambition to be SBC president. I'm trying to cope, brethren.

10.
Calvinists and Calvinism are guaranteed attention getters. Toss in a provocative title like "Secret Calvinist meeting" and folks want to know more. The meeting was of Frank Page's Calvinist study group, the one he appointed after the convention back in June and which group is meeting on background. Let me get this straight: the subject that about everyone in the SBC discusses publicly (Page wrote a book on it for crying out loud) has to meet privately so people can speak freely? Ridiculous.

[William Thornton]

Fox if you plan to comment, you are going to have to reproduce at least one quote from whatever one or ones you choose, just to show that you read it. Merry Christmas.

[Tim Bonney]

Interesting set of blog posts William! And I can said that I have previously read most of them.

[Stephen Fox]

[Stephen Fox]

As Thornton's list differs in places here are his event in distinction to his getters.

I was number 2 to comment, hope not ominous for the coming year as I so badly wanted to Number One Spot in the Response list

http://sbcplodder.blogspot.com/2012/12/ ... -2012.html