by Stephen Fox » Thu Nov 03, 2011 2:03 pm
First, Abel I want to commend your testimony and your call, even affirm it. My Dad was a Baptist preacher and you are the kind of fellow in the 60's early 70's he woulda had come be a guest in his pulpit for evangelistic emphasis, even a Revival.
That said he woulda probably had lot of conversations with you about the way Jesse Helms and Pressler took, some say stole, his Beloved Southeastern Baptist Seminary in 1987.
I heard Brad Pitt, raised Southern Baptist, say on NPR month ago he honors the faith witness of the Christian Baptist Community that shaped him. He is uncomfortable with the exclusivism of where fundamentalists in the SBC are now. I don't put myself in Brad Pitt's camp, but I wanted to spotlight that sentiment.
Conversations among some in the extended Shorter Community this morning revealed former Shorter administrator Rob Nash, now with the CBF, is in the Hopper to have a letter to the Editor Published in the Sunday Rome News Tribune.
We will all want to be looking for that.
I may submit a letter after I see his.
Coincidental to the Shorter news, I have been reading deep the last two days into Wayne Flynt's--see thread in Faith and Practice here at this site--new book Keeping the Faith. If I send a letter I plan to spotlight Flynt's page 156 and following on how his Baptist Christian pilgrimage shaped his public reform witness in Alabama and the Southeast.
Big gagp between Flynt and that of Nelson Price's Eagle Forum. BirchSociety inflected religious political persona.
Flynt and his Baptist company show a better way.
In one of several nutshells, that is what is lost as Shorter goes over to the fundy camp, to fundamentalist control.
Informed word is Nelson Price at end of November can never serve as a Shorter Trustee again, But Price, who once chaired the SBC HMB as the fundies gained control, and ran for SBC President, will become special counselor to Shorter President for life, as I understand it. So this man whose ministry for the most part was in the shadows of the tree on which Leo Frank was lynched in 1915 will now bring the Helms/Pressler/Allied Defense Fund/Eagle Forum view of the world to Shorter in full throttle for the rest of his days.
"I'm the only sane {person} in here." Doyle Hargraves, Slingblade
"Midget, Broom; Helluva campaign". Political consultant, "Oh, Brother..."http://www.foxofbama.blogspot.com or google asfoxseesit