by Sandy » Thu Oct 02, 2014 8:08 am
You're exactly right, Jon, its perspective and David's loaded reading list represents the perspective of those Baptists whose good buddies lost their influence peddling system and their prestige and prominence in the personal kingdom they'd made out of the SBC. The other side uses much the same language, and has written just about as many books from their perspective. I've read both of Cauthen's books, Leonard's, and Shurden's. Cauthen is probably the most accurate when it comes to documentation of facts, though he does allow his perspective to form his interpretation. Leonard editorializes considerably. Shurden does a good job with Baptist Identity. The rest of the works cited there generally copycat and echo the same themes, over and over, as if repetition will make it true.
On the other side, Jerry Sutton's Baptist Reformation contains much of the same documentation that Cauthen uses, and if I were teaching a class, I'd want students to read both in a relatively close time frame, especially the places where they cite the same sources. David Dockery has a book out called Southern Baptist Identity: An Evangelical Denomination Faces the Future, which, while it doesn't really deal directly with the "controversy," does a great job of characterizing the SBC, and that points out why the pre-1979 moderate leadership lost. While Pressler's book, A Hill on Which to Die does contain documentation, it is much more self-serving and apologetic in terms of his own role, and has little value in establishing parameters of discussion of this issue, in much the same way as Bill Leonard's book.
I've been hearing, now, for thirty years, that moderates are "moving on," that being ex-SBC isn't relevant to them anymore, and that they're out of the box, pioneering "new ways to be Baptist." Baloney cheese. Toasted. Not only have they kept record of every offense, and put it on the calendar to celebrate, but when one of these anniversary dates around one of the battling heroes comes out, the same ground gets covered again and again and again....
Essentially, the controversy ended in 1989-90, when the trustee boards were all in conservative hands, and the moderates more or less went their own way. Running a moderate candidate every year since wouldn't have changed the direction the SBC has gone under their leadership. I would suggest that instead of trying to seek significance in continuing to celebrate holy war anniversaries, that those energies be invested in evangelism and missions. And on a more practical note, I'd suggest that they get over their aversion to all things Texan, and as it seems they have an affinity for Texas Baptist leadership, move CBF's offices to Austin. It would sure save some missions money on plane commutes and condo leases.