Honeycutt's holy war

[Jon Estes]

[Dave Roberts]

Jon, I believe the best commentary on scripture is scripture itself. I am convinced that inerrancy puts scripture into an a priori straight jacket that assumes everything fits neatly and harmonizes. As far back (documentable) as Augustine, the church recognized two creation accounts in Genesis and accepted conflicts between the Books of Kings and the Books of Chronicles. We have insisted SBC literature never tell them that fact. Likewise, we have tried to harmonize the gospels rather than recognizing the common threads and uniqueness directions of them and that the Fourth Gospel presents Jesus in a far different way from the three synoptics. Likewise, those who present a unified and systematized version of the Parousia have to put their set assumptions onto passages to fit all this together. I believe we should tell lay people the full story. Do I believe the Bible is riddled with errors--ABSOLUTELY NOT! Do I believe the Bible should be studied carefully and especially that scripture should be used to interpret scripture without a straitjacket system--ABSOLUTELY!

[Sandy]

[Tim Bonney]

[David Flick]

[Sandy]

[Tim Bonney]

Sandy, you keep forgetting you are talking to eye witnesses of the tactics and not persons giving "arguments."

I witnessed voter fraud where a man voted with his, his wife's and his small children's messenger ballets for the fundy candidate. I saw the microphones of moderates cut off or left off to prevent argument. In church the ends do not justify the means. You cannot use unholy tactics for a supposed holy purpose and claim that people just got what they had a right to.

One of the reasons people like the members of this forum don't back down, even years later, on what went on is that we were there. You can peddle this to newbies and young SBCers who weren't there to see it. Make all the claims you want. I saw the tactics with my own eyes.

I was actually at the convention with a pastor who theologically was a near fundamentalist. But he couldn't stand the tactics or the attitudes of the takeover crowd so he consistently voted for people more liberal than himself. We were both shocked at the behavior we saw.

[Sandy]

I was there, too. From 1978, I missed only 87 and 88, and then was at all of them until 99.

How did you know the guy was voting for the "fundy" candidate? Could have been a moderate. For a long time, and it may still be the case, there was no age requirement to serve as a messenger. I know moderates who registered their children and took their ballots. It balances out.

The conservatives were perhaps a bit more tactless in cutting off debate, though the convention rules specify the chair has the right to recognize those who wish to debate motions. Jaroy Weber and Jimmy Allen, both good ole boy Texas guys, were known for just saying they had to move the convention program along, and "since we're all in agreement, we don't really need discussion on that," while microphones were flashing all over the hall. And though it wasn't in the SBC, but the moderate controlled BGCT, I will never forget convention president Michael Bell, the first African American to preside over the BGCT, rudely cutting off David Montoya, who was trying to get at the bottom of a massive mis-appropriation of church planting funds, essentially shouting him down until he quit and walked out, and was told that the executive board handled that, it wasn't a matter for convention discussion. Oops.

Here's the obvious conclusion. You didn't like what happened, it didn't agree with your perspective, so they can't be right, and you think your perspective is justified by your rightness, while theirs is dismissed by their "tactics". What really happened was that a different group of leaders from the personal friends and inner circles that ran the SBC prior to 1979 came along, turned the convention back to its traditional, conservative, historic roots, and in order to do that, had to bust up the good ole boy groups. When the good ole boys decided, "We're getting out," and issued the invitation to follow, they managed to attract some of the people whom their favor granting and wagon hitching had benefitted, but not enough to even make a dent in the numbers. Some of your seminary buds and faves got caught up in that, so you don't like it, and you're willing to help blacken the facts to suit your perspective.

[Dave Roberts]

Another Texas example that has nothing to do with moderates in the SBC. I'm glad I never lived in nor served in Texas. There must be oil in the water down there.

[Sandy]

Jaroy and Jimmie were both SBC Presidents, both associated intimiately with moderate Baptists. They have everything to do with the SBC, and with the perspective that Southern Baptists had of their pre-1979 leadership.

The BGCT leadership has been so intertwined with SBC moderates, that it is difficult to separate the leadership, in fact, many of them are the leadership. Every CBF coordinator has been a Texas Baptist, the current one gets the perk of an airline commute back and forth from Austin. Timothy was asserting that conservatives only won because of dirty tactics, and that moderates would never do those things. I just shared an example to burst that bubble. The moderates were masters of manipulation of power and influence, and that was one reason they had trouble getting the support from people in the pews.

[William Thornton]

Timothy, the SBC records secretary said that voting irregularities were not an issue in the SBC CR. We all have our anecdotes. Mods didn't lose every single contested election because of some fundy children's crusade.

[Tim Bonney]

[Sandy]

Microphones are cut off after a person who has been recognized by the chair has had three minutes to speak. It's hard to remember back that far, but I don't recall anyone's mic being cut off except those who exceeded the three minute time limit. I do remember a couple of incidents where self-proclaimed prominent moderates were ruled out of order at microphones, because they were. Of course, the former Lords of the manor didn't appreciate chairpersons who didn't recognize their royal status and made them follow the same rules as everyone else.

It didn't go your way. It wasn't going to. And attempts to try to explain it away, or rewrite the history just sound like sour grapes. Baptists have confessed their belief in the accuracy and integrity of the transmission of the scripture since their beginnings, and the SBC collectively reversed a trend toward liberalism beginning in 1979. From the outset, the resurgence had the support of enough churches and leaders to sustain the necessary changes in leadership. Since then, they've had virtually no opposition, few people left, or split or splintered. The SBC will, like every other denomination, have to face a period of post-denominational change, but they will do it as a solidly conservative denomination. A showdown with the Calvinists is just drama talk from those who are wishful in their thinking that the SBC will unravel. Not gonna happen.

[Tim Bonney]

[Ed Pettibone]

[David Flick]

[Jon Estes]

[Sandy]

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.

[Dave Roberts]

Sandy, who noted the anniversary? I didn't know William was a moderate.

[Ed Pettibone]

Ed: Sandy when you write "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 agree with your assessment of "A Hill on which to die" but In what way do you compare it to Leonard's "God's Last and Only Hope"? I assume that is Leonard's book you are talking about, he has written several more, not so limited to the controversy.

BTW You haven't answered my question about why you once embraced the CBF.

[William Thornton]

Put the Birch stuff elsewhere, Stephen, and don't try and hijack every topic here to ride your Molly hobby horse.

[Stephen Fox]

William and Dave and Haruo. Please bring my comment here to Bruce Gourley's attention.

It is Sandy who continues to engage my references to Molly Worthen and I remind him of two specific pages in her book that refute his conclusions.

We have have discussed this matter many times and I say almost every time the BX 6400s shelf on Baptist takeover studies are replete with conclusions I remind this page on the hardwiring of the fundamentalist takeover of the SBC to the right wing of the Republican party.

I am tired of William Thornton erasing my remarks and my participation in this aspect of the conversation; my sentiments that my best reading of Gourley tells me he agrees with me on almost every point.

And I continue to proudly and unashamedly assert this who conversation that comes up about every 3 years on this board would be advanced considerably if more folks beside me and Sandy did a thorough reading of Worthen.

Here I stand, I can do No Other.

Thank-you

[Stephen Fox]

[William Thornton]

Stephen, i'm not interested in turning every conversation here to Birchers and Worthen. Deal with it. Start a topic "Molly Worthen unlimited" and put it all there.

[Tim Bonney]