David Currie Arrested for DWI

[T. D. Webb]

[Sandy]

[David Montoya]

Ed and Wacky, now there is a combo. What a tag team.
I am sure Currie is excited about having such a prestigious cyber defenders.

There is no justification for driving drunk.

[Tim Bonney]

[Big Daddy Weaver]

[William Thornton]

[Tim Bonney]

[Sandy]

[William Thornton]

Does anyone here think that a similar incident involving Paige Patterson, Paul Pressler or other prominent SBC leaders would not receive some mention? Let us not be too pious from the heights of Methodism, bro.

[I am serious in saying that Timothy Bonney is My Favorite Methodist and I am delighted that he has found a place where he can serve the Lord with satisfaction and enjoyment...of course, that doesn't remove him from being tweaked now and then. ]

[Tim Bonney]

[Big Daddy Weaver]

[Sandy]

Timothy, I'm not sure any of the posturing, manipulating, and game playing that goes on in denominational politics is good either for the church or for the cause of Christ. The fact that an individual, never actually elected to a BGCT office, formed an organization to raise money to buy influence to call the shots in the convention related to its leadership and its business and "protect" it from a feared "fundamentalist takeover" is, in and of itself, not a good thing. It makes Texas Baptists look embarassingly provincial and backward, and lacking any kind of real dependence on the Holy Spirit's power or the principles of scripture. Along with the Valleygate scandal, it caused a lot of people in a lot of churches to wonder who's running the show, who else might have tapped into the CP stream, and whether or not there is any level of accountability with the money that's been given. So the giving has dropped like a stone in a dry well.

The SBC exhibits the same kind of provincial backwardness on a larger scale. A small, tight group, mostly pastors with no other real executive leadership skills or experience, clustered in gossipy little groups around a couple of individuals who call the shots and consider themselves accountable to no one because they've packed the supervisory trustee boards with their own friends and individuals who sucked up to them, flit here and there in pursuit of high dollar denominational jobs in comfy office suites with big salaries. Reality has only infrequently invaded their dream world, and they've had to deviate from their plans to put their friends in all the cushy high paying jobs in which to retire on a few occasions, such as when it became clear that it would take someone with business acumen and experience to actually run a multi-million dollar publishing arm successfully.

None of the prominence, prestige, jockeying for power and manipulation is Biblical. None of it has helped in any way. It's all bad in that regard, even if it is newsworthy.

[Tim Bonney]

[Jim]

[Tim Bonney]

[Stephen Fox]

None of us are perfect, but by Sandy's calculus Martin Luther King, Jr. flawwed as he was, was no better than the 60's George Wallace, nor had any cause for a prophetic voice; no more righteous than the Baptist deacons in Alabama who were either silent, or supported Wallace and his demagoguery.
There is a difference between the Texas Regulars and Birch Society that Shaped Judge Pressler and the Takeover Agitators, and the politics of Bill Moyers, Jimmy Allen, James Dunn and the Texas Christian Life Commission.

Carlyle Marney and Will Campbell had a leg up on Billy Graham in the 60's. That is why folks go to college and study the humanities, to get some notion of how to distinguish in these matters.

Articulate as they are, in that aspect of this discussion both Sandy and Timothy for whom I have great admiration on most notions, have disappointed me in this mediocre comparison, false dichotomy.

Currie and John Baugh and Cecil Sherman were right to counter the mendacity and shenanigans, the lesser vision of Pressler, Criswell, Patterson, Vines and their misguided passions.

[Jim]

[Stephen Fox]

I like Billy Graham. He was a spiritual leader for my Grandfather and part of the origins of my faith pilgrimage. I went to see him in 66 in Greenville S.C.

But Jesus never said when I became older I could not read what marshall Frady and Steven Miller had to say about him.

I have been having email conversation of late with the daughter of two of his crusade chairs, who worked with Graham during some of his caginess on behalf of Nixon. Ruth was not happy with the Limo ride Nixon provided for the Grahams after they rode to the airport in Knoxville after the crusade there in 1970 couple weeks after Kent State.

Al Gore's father was not invited and it might have shaded the vote a little in his Senate race that year.

That is part of the Graham legacy as well as my friend Randall Balmer among others has pointed out.

So I stand by what I say above about the calculus of these matters.

But don't say I have a vendetta against Billy Graham. I'm just trying to understand him and saying Campbell and Marney carried more light in his era than he did.

[Stephen Fox]

http://hnn.us/articles/25521.html

Maybe this will help and inhibit you from your automatic reaction every time I broach Graham's name as less than synonomous with Jehovah Gira.

[Jim]

[Tim Dahl]

When did we (those living in TX) get an 80mph speed limit?! I want to find that road. Is it curvy? Is it a straight away? Is it hilly? I can just imagine how much fun it would be in the right vehicle. Can someone tell me where this road is? All I've ever seen is 70mph on the major highways.

Tim

[Big Daddy Weaver]

[rick davis]

Ed,

Of course, I said nothing about any relationship with Montoya. Since you brought it up, however, he is a person of twice you intellect and thrice your integrity.

What I did do was call you an enabling sycophant. I stand by this opinion, as strengthened by your subsequent comments in this space.

RD

[Tim Bonney]

[KeithE]

Currie's DWI and Ed Young Jr.'s lavish lifestyle are both news events worthy of mention. They are public figures who direct usage of funds for Christian causes and should be a role model for their cause (in that special place called Texas ). They are in a position of trust. If such news items are buired, ACCOUNTABILITY is threatened.

We can (and should) forgive but judgment has to made on an individual basis as to the continuation of such position of trust. Integral to that decision should be whether Currie had repeated offenses (both caught and uncaught), whether his offense violated that position of trust (or was some unrelated matter), and the state of repentence he exhibits. But since he has quit, that is OBE.