Thornton, Toy and Moon and the Starvation Myth

[Stephen Fox]

Thornton tackles it straight away.

I made a comment and offered a challenge at his blog.
I'm sure Paige Patterson and Mohler will pick up on this one as well and the dogma will kick in soon.

http://sbcplodder.blogspot.com/2011/07/ ... lf-to.html

[Gene Scarborough]

This reference is "sketchy," at best. Here is the actual LSU site on the new book:



I have several concerns which have been expressed in the last year:

1) SWBTS somehow got the ramains of her mission itself and articles of whatever they now house and claim to be perusing.
2) It seems the more logical place for these to be would be WMU Headquarters.
3) The story about her relationship with Toy could be full of redacdtions as Patterson contends he was a Liberal of his day and Lottie could not continue the relationship with his theology---who really knows!
4) Catherine Allen did an extensive biography and my contact with her indicates nothing appeared in her findings.

This I know for sure. I pastored the FBC of Bishopville, SC, in the 70's. Two elderly women told me how Lottie served as a teacher for a plantation owner just north of town. The house and little outlying building used for the children's education still stood at the time. I photographed the exterior of the house and shared how Lottie was supposed to occupy the SW corner bedroom on the second floor before she landed in Rome, GA. The exterior and cluttered interior of the outbuilding were sent to Ms. Allen for inclusion in her book for later editions. I don't know if a historic marker has been placed on the site, but the house was abandoned and in poor repair in the 70's.

I was next at the Noonday Baptist Church just south of Woodstock, GA---and some 40 minutes via I-95 from Rome. My church had its minutes dating to the early 1800's bound and laminated so I could peruse them. I decided to go back to the time of Lottie's first letter back to Rome requesting a special offering and see if it might have filtered to Noonday.

The minutes showed nothing, but there was an interesting record at the time of a lady who was a member at Noonday who was accused of "deserting the faith." Lottie, as you may remember, got her idea for an offering request from fellow Methodist missionaries. She made her request at Christmas time thinking people would be more open to giving then than the mid-summer time used by the Methodists.

Anyway, back to Noonday where they sent 3 men to talk with the lady deserting her faith. They reported back to the next church conference in a month. The minutes read: "Sister ____________ has, indeed, deserted the faith---She has become a Methodist!!!!!" They promptly kicked her out!

Back then, like now, if you weren't "exactly committed" to the Baptist church, you were bound for Hell. The other religions of the day were incorrect and Baptists at Noonday were having none of it.

Curtis Freeman at Duke's Baptist House of Studies loved it and asked for a copy of the story. We are fraught with mythes these days and the current CR bunch is doing their best to "prove" they are right and anyone seeing things differently is dead wrong. This particularly applies to Mohler / Patterson / and a new Professor of Baptist History at SEBTS, Nathan Finn.

Beware the redactors and let's hope we get at the truth indicated for the new book!

[William Thornton]

I'm not sure what you are calling 'sketchy' Gene.

There are not a few legitimate, honest researchers who have no reservations about Moon rejecting Toy for his liberalism, but I can see why some would want to redact that little item in Lottie's life.

On Moon/Toy, this discussion from last year contains links that are relevant:

[Sandy]

Gene,
If it is simply a matter of "redactors" being the conservatives, and those who are pursuing the truth being the moderates, you should realize that most of what has been written, taught, and known about Lottie Moon, her relationship with Toy, and the story of her starvation was confirmed and at least in the common conversation of Southern Baptists prior to the 1979 conservative resurgence. Certainly her life is quite a testimony to the fact that God has called and used Southern Baptist women according to their gifts and abilities without their having to take on men's roles and be ordained as elders or clergy. I would think that the redactors would be more likely to be moderates who want to reinterpret her service into something that would advocate for their desires to see women ordained and serving as pastors. In spite of rhetoric to the contrary, it appears that, in the SBC, women can aspire to whatever God calls them to do, and be gifted and committed to successful service.

[Ed Pettibone]

Ed: Sandy, I think it would have been more accurate to say " in the SBC, women can aspire to whatever God calls them to do, but that does not mean they will ever have such aspirations come to fruition."

[Gene Scarborough]

Redact: To force a meaning on a subject which a valid research on it will not support.

Many things are out on Lottie Moon. The Toy / Moon relationship is just the most current speculation. It's too early for me to assess who is right or wrong or----partly right / partly wrong. Some things you can argue till the cows come home without a totally accurate picture.

One thing is sure: from her picture, Lottie was not the most attractive women of her day. She had a strongly protruded jaw---same as me at her age. I know it affected my persoanal view of myself as somewhat "deformed." Instead of letting this defeat her, she sought a place of service on the China Mission Field. She had a more than strong will and would likely NOT have been appointed to our present IMB because she thought for herself--and hardly considered women--inferior to men nor subserviant to them.

Go Lottie----and God bless our going to share the Gospel in word and deed!!!

[William Thornton]

[Gene Scarborough]

Gentlemen---

I apologize if I implied in any way that ONLY the Conservatives "redact." It is common to mankind to "spin" stories so our over-all presuppositions are supported by such. Part of my education process has been to look at my own self more honestly and try to separate fact from fantasy. I know it has to do with simple "to thine own self be true" as Shakespeare put it.

What I am trying to express above is that some stories about Lottie could have been emotionalized to touch our hearts to give for the Foreign Missionaries. Who is not touched by the thought of dear Lottie giving away her own food for the staving in China to the point she died of malnutrition.

That thought, by itself, is worth me giving $100 more than I would have! As the preacher, if I could get emotional and a tear run down my cheek with my voice breaking---make that $200 more! People respond to heart-felt emotion and that's why certain missionaries could raise far more than others even when the ministry of the non-emotional one might be 100 times more effective. That's the value of regular missionary support with regular offerings over them coming home every other year to raise their own funds.

Redaction is another matter altogether! What I see in the current SEBTS approach by Dr. Nathan Finn is a telling of the story with such an eye on CR pre-conceptions that he distorts the truth to favor the "we were right" position! He has an earned PhD from a conservative institution, but having a degree does not make up for tellling truth as best you know it. I have confronted him and gotten nothing but stonewalling and rationalizations from him.

What I am specifically referring to is his telling of the events surrounding N. Rocky Mount Baptist Church which made the "Encyclopedia of Southern Baptists" in the late 50's over their refusal to let a Bob Jones-educated fundamentalist steal their church property with all kinds of chuck-and-jive tricks of an Elmer Gantry. The man was winsome / seduced a 51% majority into voting to leave the SBC / his "win" deprived church property from the real congregation which had supported missions and built that church! It has to do with who really gave their money for what.

Finn's "take" is that the NCBSC connived along with the dissenting members to "take the church back" in violation of Autonomy of the local congregation where 51% voted to leave the SBC / NCBSC / and N. Roanoke Association. I was the pastor. I was able to look at the precedent-setting case transcript (supported to the State Supreme Court of NC) which was trying to determine "who is the real Southern Baptist congregation which deserves to have the property since the original deed stated it would revert to the donor, should it ever cease to be a SBC church."

That single case focused on a definition of "Southern Baptist Church in NC." It brought out the deception---and the Nash County Judge who heard it and made the determination did so based on facts and not fantasy.

In the case of Toy and Lottie, I smell a rat! I don't think she was much into theology. I think she had a heart for missions and winning people to Christ over worrying about an "Inerrant Bible." Patterson et al have won their battle and now are working hard to prove, with Mohler's help, that we were Calvinistic and we worshiped an "inerrant Bible" from day 1.

Time will tell, but, even more, honesty is required if the story is to be told accurately. I was blessed with an totally honest father who came out of a rural and fundamentalist little Baptist church near Athens, Ga. He was told by the little old ladies that he would be ruined if he went to Mercer. Further, he went against the grain of Southern Seminary's influence on larger churches because he chose Andover-Newton (posited by them to be "liberal") simply because he wanted the best education he could find in his day. That story deals with intelligent and superior education vs. political influence alongside a good education. Another way of putting it is "well-rounded" vs. "skewed toward conservative" education.

I don't think we have considered the differences significantly in recent years.

[William Thornton]

[Stephen Fox]

My point for Thornton and fundamentalist seekers like him is in the discussion, the post I have made about Mohler and Robinson.

If somebody as intelligient as my Thornton and our friend David Rogers and Ginny Brant, will couch this discussion in the larger testament, the truths Pulitzer's Marilynne Robinson shares in her novels Home and Gilead and her recent collection from Yale; then the Lottie Moon legend takes on a greater truth no matter what the facts, esoterics of her courtship with Toy turn out to be.

The UNC writer on Moon has already done us a great service.

Now David Rogers, Mohler and Thornton should begin a courtship with the thought of Marilynne Robinson. Grand place to start is listening to the Diane Rehm discussions of Home and Gilead, easily googled up. Great panels with strong contingent from Mississippi

[Gene Scarborough]

William---

I have taken much time to read both articles you linked. It see in them the same old crap of today: Do we make the contributors to the institution happy or do we let Toy float away? Obviously, SBTS let him float on.

I also see a man, in Toy, who was in constant transition in his faith. I do not find that very appealing when he was supposed to be a theologian at the school and a professor of languages. In a professor I want a man with something to "profess" after many years of perparation and study. If such a man in such a position is simply able to say, "I will let you know on next Friday what I believe based on what I read between now and then"---I don't see much maturity there.

If Lottie was looking for a man with his head centered in Christ and missions where he needs to declare his faith clearly, then she didn't have a match. To say, as has Mohler, that she was right and he was wrong and therefore they didn't make a match is a gross overstatement!

Frankly, I think we have a major attempt to use history to "prove" Mohler and CR were right and us (more open thinkers) are "wrong." All this history proves is that Toy couldn't quite make up his mind and Lottie had made up hers. LIke most women seeking a mate, she wanted security while Toy enjoyed insecurity in his faith and future.

What stands out most to me is the willingness of an institution to secure funds over backing an intellectual "seeker" after truth---whatever that is. In a truely seeking academic environment, I would welcome Toy---BUT be wary of his uncertainty and danger to the financial backers who are simpletons wanting to give money to "certainty" in an uncertain "intellectual pursuit of truth."

My great and wise father advised me thus: "The people in the pews are interested in what you can say with a fair certainty is truth. All preachers have their doubts, but these should be discussed privately with your peers. From the pulpit, tell folks what you believe and don't change it with every new book your read!"

[Stephen Fox]

Mistakes an institution of higher learning for a church.

SBTS and SEBTS are different from FBC Pickens, S.C. and they should be.

However, I imagine Gene S great Friend Randall Lolley would disagree with him about the virtue of Crawford Toy.

And Gene and Thornton both could add depth to their nuances with a careful hearing of the panels on NPR Diane Rehm show on Robinson's Gilead and Home.

About that I am certain.

[Gene Scarborough]

Steven---

When you have pastored a church, you have a right to speak intelligently---until then you might be wise to keep it to yourself.

There is a vast difference between church ministry and theological education. Too many of those who hold professorships would be total failures in the pulpit of a local church. The pulpit is not the place for "the latest in theological thinking from Germany--or Calvin!" It is a place of normal people coming together to get enough inspiration to get through the week. Doubts expressed don't cut it there!!!

Now, with respect to Randall Lolly---he brought to the presidency of SEBTS a practical mind trying to minister to students and prepare them for the real world. I was a product of SEBTS (1970) pre-Lolley when it was more academics and gave little help with the practical matters of ordering SS literature for my church.

I came out when the SS Board had started offering 3 lines of literature. I was totally confused---until I went to SS Week at Ridgecrest. There I met the people who produced the "crap!" While fundies wanted to call it such, there was a rationale to their thinking as they played "local church needs" with everything they produced. Once I understood the thinking, literature ordering made sense and I was able to help my church make wiser selections for their needs.

In that time (1970-80's) we had great options and much real education for the average church member. After 1979 it went to "everything must comply with BF&M whatever." It returned to the same presuppostions supporting social crap it had been during the 50-60's!!! Now a person can learn far more real biblical substance from the History / Discover Channels than any publication of the SS Board.

Once again, it's the matter of soliciting money over providing intelligent background material which helps people grow in their understanding of the Bible. Intelligent approaches to the Bible are not easy on those who want it to only support Southern Society with its quirks. Now it is Conservative Republican Southern Society with even more audacious quirks!!!

Jesus was not a white American and "God bless America" is total bull. Real religion challenges our presuppostions and calls us to greater levels of compassion than we now are seeing!

God help all of us to be servants with great compassion for living the Gospel of Jesus---which ain't easy!!!

[Stephen Fox]

http://www.bentoncourier.com/content/fo ... ottie-moon

Is she from Walmart hdqrtrs in Benton Arkansas?

Went to Ouachita so almost certainly raised Southern Baptist.

Maybe as interesting story as the woman raised in Jerry Vines Home church in Rome, Ga who wrote the book about her Mother's Sunday School class; this woman apparently from Ronnie Floyd's backyard.

[William Thornton]

I really don't think anyone wants to have a ringside seat for any spitting contest between Gene and Stephen, so I deleted a string of posts by both and Ed's who was, thankfully, attempting to restore order. I regret that this very interesting subject of Toy/Moon and the new book on Moon was sidetracked.

I apologize to Ed for his posts being caught in the deleting frenzy but I hated to see the offending quotes.

If anyone would like to restart the discussion, do it in a new topic. I locked this one.

I apologize to all. This forum has done well moderatorless for almost one year now, although my mod brethren have allowed me to interject myself if there is cause to do so.