Molly Worthen on SBC Takeover, Francis Schaeffer, etc

[Sandy]

[William Thornton]

Aha, another CR book, breathlessly promoted. What new wrinkle will be offered? What new anecdote will be given? What newly found, profound lesson will be made?

Probably none.

Stephen, there is a shrinking market for old SBC controversy stuff and the target group are old dudes who are dying off daily. We are almost 35 years from the start of the Conservative Resurgence and over 20 years from when moderates left the field. Those who are twentyish, thirtyish don't much care and get tired of hearing it.

But here on BL we have half a dozen stalwart CR warriors who never tire of the disucssions.

[Ed Pettibone]

[Tim Bonney]

[William Thornton]

[Tim Bonney]

[Ed Pettibone]

[Tim Bonney]

I actually believe William I only have one book in my library about the SBC Takeover. I think I have that, the history of Indiana American Baptists, and the History of the Missouri Baptist Convention and that is all the remaining Baptist resources I have. I gave my Baptist book collection to a young ABC colleague when I left Baptist ministry. Those I kept were gifts or were signed.

[Sandy]

It's been a while since I've actually opened and read anything from them, and occasionally they get dusted off, but I have just about everything that's been written on both sides. I have Cothen's two volumes, Bill Leonard's "Last and Only Hope" and an autographed copy of John Baugh's self-published volume, which isn't very well written or well organized, and misses documenting a lot of assertions. And I have Jerry Sutton's The Baptist Reformation, and Pressler's A Hill on Which to Die.
I don't think there's much new that could be written that would be relevant.

This particular author, from the excerpt cited by Stephen, does seem to offer a neutral perspective in some ways. Though it appears decidedly biased against the conservative Christian perspective, it does offer a view from the "outside," so to speak. However, it's a "who cares?" perspective in that at this point, what's the point?

[Ed Pettibone]

[Stephen Fox]

Lot of conversations to follow on this new spark. I hope to talk to her. Jesse Helms and Pressler. Those two just don't get together by hannpenstance. More than search for authentic traditions, much more than she pereives in this interview.

http://religionandpolitics.org/2013/12/ ... y-worthen/

[Sandy]

Lots of contentions in that interview, Stephen, that fly in the face of the assertions that you, and other moderate Baptists on this board, have been making for years. If she had written a book exclusively on the topic of the conservative resurgence in the SBC, I think the terms "Conservative Resurgence" would be exactly the terms she would choose. Whether it was Paige Patterson and Paul Pressler, or whether there would have been others who would have stepped up at some other point, the SBC was inevitably heading toward a shift in leadership that would have changed the theological parameters of cooperation, particularly around the nature of, and interpretation of the Bible. She's not the first author I've seen who ties what happened in the SBC together with what has transpired, to a greater or lesser degree, in many other Protestant denominations, and in the substantial move toward post-denominationalism with the rapid growth and development of non-denominational churches. I really like the way she defines the movement, by the main questions they ask, not necessarily by specific doctrinal positions. I think that's a very accurate way of defining the term "Evangelical Christian."

I believe, in the excerpt you posted from her book, that she made note of the fact that the pre-1979 leadership in the SBC was loathe to admit that they had a little oligarchy going on, but in her view, that was a contributing factor to the success of the movement that began in 1979.

I don't really expect much discussion of Worthen's book, or this interview. For one thing, it's an old subject. For another, even though she clearly holds a non-evangelical, non-conservative bias, she's not steeped in the culture of moderate Baptists either, and so is refreshingly honest about the faults and inadequacies of their position. Third, her conclusion is that "Conservative Evangelicalism" as a movement has become the dominant perspective of Protestant Christianity in America, and will only continue to grow, contributing to denominational controversy and the growth of post-denominational churches. That's not welcome news to those on this board who are advocates of women pastors and acceptance of homosexual behavior as normal.

[Stephen Fox]

I appreciate it. Make some good points, however I still contend an analysis of the fundamentalist takeover of the SBC which doesn't give due notice to the Far right affiliations of the fundy leadership is most inadequate.

I was planning to email Dr. Worthen (Yale PHD) anyway and now intend to quote Sandy's remarks here. Will share the email with Randall Balmer and some others. Could be April before I'm satisfied with the response, but could be interesting.

My first reaction remains she has done the subject a service 15 years out with some distance to look at it all again.

FTR the Lutheran Missouri synod was subject of at least one credible analysis that laid lot of the blame on the nastiness and severity of that split to a fellow much like Pressler who came from a cauldron of Right wing Birch Society infected network much like Ed McAteer, Helms and Albert Lee Smith that was the driving force in that mess. More than anecdotal I'm convinced Ellen Rosenberg, Balmer, Tom Edsall and Randall Balmer, even Billy Graham analyst have stronger take than Worthen where she engages or dismisses, fails to emphasize that aspect. At same time this interview does make clear that Fear of Communism, the Cold War had a lot of inflections in the 50s and 60s and mainstream SBC or what past for it was not entirely immune to some of the poison that gave a Billy Budd Character like Billy Graham a worse case of the illness.

[William Thornton]

Fox, I'm counting on you for a RELEVANT comment on my notable deaths topic.

[Ed Pettibone]

[William Thornton]

[Mrs Haruo]

This discussion is bringing back memories of where I was when the big War of Personalities occurred. I was not even a part of the Baptist Church, I was Mennonite Brethren. I was in a car-pool with 2 women, all of us had children the same age who went to the same school, and the other women each went to different Baptist churches in town. We often had play dates with our children at a park in town, and the conversation often turned to the turmoil that was tearing their churches apart. From the outside, and an occasional visitor when their kids had special programs they invited our family to, the frequent, bitter bickering over doctrine and practice of some of the people I met turned me off to any place with "Baptist" on the sign for a long time if I moved and had to go "church shopping" No wonder a lot of churches hid behind a "Community Church" or other non-committal name on the sign out front! And like the Civil War, it should be studied in the schools and read about in history books, but I think it is high time to bury the poor dead horse and walk on.

[Ed Pettibone]

[Stephen Fox]

I read the flaps and the last chapter this afternoon. This book is most substantive for the conversations to come; as I figured, Dochuk and Noll trump any reservations William Thornton and Lee Saunders may have about the reverberations of this book. I am most interested in the likes of Bill Leonard, Buddy Shurden and Randall Balmer placing the SBC struggle in further refinement in the context of the boundaries and insights of this key analysis of where things are now. Doesn't address the likes of Rachel Held Evans and Giberson and Stephens as exhaustively as I'd hoped but some good conversation beyond this board to come. I hope Johnny Pierce has a good piece by February.

First chapter is on The Errand. Great framework Dochuk used in his book advanced by Worthen. I hope Saunders and Thornton and Saunders get off their high horse and get deep into this book asap. Seminal newly refined conversations on the horizon. Now if only the likes of Mike Hubbard would engage the honest conversation, but Worthen knows the demagogues still run amok though she gives honest fundamentalism the benefit of the doubt in places. Hubbard is not an honest fundamentalist. He's a Kochian, a disciple of the worst of Atwater, Helms and the Birch Society!

[William Thornton]

I'd like to read it. So far, no one has said anything new.

[Sandy]

There's really nothing new that can be said. Worthen does write from the perspective of not being a member of either side, though ultimately, her objectivity wanes for some reason, I'd say the natural bias that academics have when approaching the subject of Christianity. She is refreshingly honest in pointing out that the SBC leadership had a little elitist oligarchy going on prior to 1979, and that they thought they could change the denomination from the top down. She does a good job of research, confirming that the conservative movement was popularly supported, which allowed the leadership change to take place through the various levels of the denominational apparatus over a long, extended period of time. She connects what happened in the SBC to a general trend toward conservative, Biblically centered theology that has splintered and split dozens of other denominations. But since the SBC is not her main topic, aside from her own observations, which I find interesting, but not necessarily insightful, there isn't anything new here. I do plan to get and read the whole book, to get beyond the excerpt.

[Stephen Fox]

http://www.christiancentury.org/blogs/a ... gelicalism I am hoping Randall Balmer can help her refine her thoughts a little by May

[Stephen Fox]

My blog on this conversation

http://foxofbama.blogspot.com/2014/01/m ... kabee.html

[Sandy]

[Haruo]