Shorter College chills the Air

[Haruo]

[Stephen Fox]

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.

[Abel]

[Stephen Fox]

I believe in the Old and the New and NOW testament, the one my Momma and Dad and Martin Luther King lived by Faith.
I asked Billy Bob Thornton of Slingblade about it in person in Florence Alabama in March of 2008. He believes in it too.

Hebrews 11:13

Nelson Price's 66 books to my knowledge never gave him insight into the bad way for our country of Larry McDonald or the second generation in his neighborhood in Marietta that lynched Leo Frank; Price never got the light revealed to Stewart Newman or Randall Lolley; he lived by the dim bulb of WA Criswell. That is the problem at Shorter.
Nelson Price has never read Steve Oney's And the Dead Shall Rise; rather I would be surprised if he has and can give an account of how maybe he, Price, shoulda lived his Public Square witness differently.
Price is most likely ignorant of what Dan Williams and Darren Dochuk have to share with him about the 7th Congressional District of Georgia and the US Congress.
That is what troubles me about his role as special counselor to the President of Shorter College when two Presidents back was Rob Nash, and before that, Larry McSwain.

[Stephen Fox]

Recent letter in Rome News Tribune

http://www.romenews-tribune.com/view/fu ... ght_column

[Stephen Fox]

Had Paige Patterson on Campus for the Inking of Inerrancy

http://www.bpnews.net/BPnews.asp?ID=36449

And if you scroll to the bottom you can see the BP version of recent news at Shorter and a link to the full lifestyle statement.

How long before Paige Patterson comes to Shorter to Affirm Nelson Price as the Martin Luther Here I Stand Fundamentalist of NW Georgia.
I say no later than Valentines Day 2012

[Stephen Fox]

http://georgiamountainsandbeyond.blogsp ... ntion.html

[Chris]

[Stephen Fox]

http://www.romenews-tribune.com/view/fu ... st_popular

[Abel]

[Tim Bonney]

[RyanHale]

As a Shorter grad ('87) and after having encouraged many students to go there, I'm now having to rethink the whole thing. Shorter needs to be a vibrant, challenging and critical thinking liberal arts school. The last thing GA Baptists need is another Tennessee Temple, Bob Jones or Truett McConnell and its Creation Research Center, i.e., where Fred Flintstone and Dino only left us 6000 years ago.

I question the whole "marriage" thing anyway: does it mean the legal contract or the religious ceremony? Or both? What about an employee that had a legal contract but never a religious ceremony for God to "bless" the union? Why do the Shorter trustees demand a legal contract between two people: is their commitment before God and witnesses in a religious ceremony not enough? Just asking ...

Oh! Does that statement include abandoning the Nyquil?

[Haruo]

[Chris]

[Chris]

[Abel]

[Abel]

[Dave Roberts]

As I read through this thread about Shorter, the one thing that seems to be up in the air is the question of the proper role of denominational bodies to set and demand certain parameters within their educational institutions. In one sense, it seems that Adrian Rogers was right when he said that if the majority believe that pickles have souls, then that is what must be taught. On a second level, the BFM2K is not in keeping with historic Baptist principles. Baptists have always been confessional, not creedal people, but the BFM2K is clearly creedal as an instrument of doctrinal accountability. Confessions admit their specific nature as representing the adopters. Creeds are demanded of signatories. In Shorter's choices, the clear historical Baptist way that preached "No book but the Bible, no creed but Christ" has clearly been abandoned.

Faculty and staff members ought to be chosen first on their excellence to teach a subject and then on the basis of their faith, outside those departments charged with directly teaching the Christian faith. I am a graduate of a Baptist college, but there were Methodists and Presbyterians on our faculty as well as Baptists. There was not a solely Baptist slant on every issue, but a faith atmosphere permeated much of the campus life. I would have been cheated if there had only been those on the faculty who were signatories of a creedal document of Southern Baptists.

[Chris]

[Abel]

[Abel]

[Gene Scarborough]

We now have 2 points of discussion: Shorter / personal theology.

May I suggest we stick to the topic of Shorter?

Anyone wanting to debate personal theology would do well to start a new thread.

[KeithE]

[Gene Scarborough]

Dave---

I think you have made the corrective observation that gets us back on the nature of an Institute of Higher Learning. Shorter is supposed to be such. Our Seminaries are supposed to be such as well.

My problem with college-bashing over the years is the general fear of learning among traditional and rural Baptists. Why is it always some red-faced and angry pastor who rises to bring to the floor of the convention meeting some motion to stop dancing / drinking / certain matters of education / BF&M 2000 control of that which ideally is supposed to broaden the mind and widen understanding?

I think fear has taken over and is in a battle against reason.

I am a graduate of Emory, which is Methodist. I am not aware of "Emory bashing" going on at any anual Methodist Conference meeting. I used to attend those at Fayetteville each year representing Ministers Life Insurance Company. It was a congenial meeting. The new appointees were talking sincerely in their corners with their predicessors at that assignment. They were trying to help one another over bashing Duke!

Meanwhile, the Baptists were taking sides and lining up their political moves for Conservatives to take over the NCBSC while Moderates were doing the same. It was all about "who backs whom" for President. It was large and far from pleasant. I found myself enjoying the fellowship of friends----and seeing little chat groups evil-eyeing one another. Many of my friends were distracted having to take care of their "miximum number of delegates" instead of just being there alone or with their spouse or children.

The Shorter and Truett-McConnel thing in Georgia is just more media monkey tree climbing to prove Baptists are scared of Darwin / Democrats / liberals / science / academic freedom and --- the evil of the century = homo--sex--uals. Us southerners drawl it out in syllables of contempt.

I faIl to see how it does anything other than show what hateful people we are---while talking out the other side of our mouths about love and compassion for the lost!

[Tim Bonney]