A Wind-up Jesus

[Sandy]

https://baptistnews.com/article/a-wind- ... GZ9IE0iyP_

I think this needs a little more attention that it is going to get where it is currently buried.

[Stephen Fox]

Glad you liked it but over time it woulda gotten proper oxygen where I first put it in the History section. I think it is great history and poignant at many terms one of which is how a mainstreamer owned his poor cracker Baptist community roots after career aspirations at Wake Forest; and I think another proper interpretation how Will Campbell challenged at every turn the pervasive racism of the founders of the fundamentalist takeover of the SBC, notably Pressler, Helms and Albert Lee Smith.

I am well aware Bill Leonard does not name those folks in this article, but he has in other places.

Campbell recognizing a character like Trump could be what political fundamentalism was leading to, this article is a strong one indeed.

[William Thornton]

Red meat for the theological liberals who are nursing their wounds (or therapeutically modeling play doh) from Hillary's stunning and inexcusable loss to the most flawed presidential candidate in my lifetime. Evangelicals voted for Trump in large numbers for much the same reasons that beer drinking downsized former factory workers did. Hil didn't attempt to persuade these voters.

That said, i agree with Leonard to some degree but Theological mod/libs don't have a corner on the non-wind up Jesus and many come near to eschewing Jesus as anything but a prop for political and policy goals if not altogether.

One thing looks certain: we've buried the preference for the candidate who models family values. Maybe we can get around to a preference for our constitution.

[Sandy]

[Stephen Fox]

I hope William cares enough about the Constitution to find the Conservative Norm Ornstein on Constitutional extremism in his most significant book on the current malaise--its not Obama and Hillary, its the tea Party--Its Worse than it Looks.

[William Thornton]

[Dave Roberts]

[Jim]

[Tim Bonney]

[Sandy]

It's hard to get away from the political element of a discussion like this.

Yeah, Jim, there are a lot of things about Bill Leonard that leave him open to criticism, though in your unrelated and disconnected rant, you didn't point to anything specific regarding Leonard, aside from the fact that your entire rant is a fantasy without a single credible, supportable fact.

It's hard for Christian leaders to admit they've failed. I know many of the moderate Baptist leaders like Leonard are very frustrated with the way things turned out, not only in the SBC, but with their own initiatives that have struggled to survive and gather resources. Leonard did an excellent job of analyzing the SBC during and after the conservative resurgence in God's Last and Only Hope, but like most Moderate Baptist leaders, they over-estimated the inclination of Baptists to look at principle, and underestimated the influence of conservative evangelical media personalities who weren't Southern Baptists on the thinking of the people in the pews. Once there was a clear separation, they leaned a little too far to the left theologically and socially, and got caught between positions on social issues.

Leonard nailed this.

There's going to be a lot of fallout from the complete abandonment of values and principles required for the level of Evangelical support for Trump. It's already happening. People are going to seek a real church instead of a political action committee, or a collection plate for already fabulously rich "preachers" and "leaders." This could be an opportunity, for both moderate Baptists, and for declining mainline denominations, if they want it. If you took the name of the author off of this piece, and eliminated the pre-disposed bias like Jim's post characterizes, you'd find few Christians who would disagree with Leonard's thesis.

BTW, the Mormons are already positioning themselves to avoid fallout from support for Trump. At least one of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir members resigned rather than participate in the inauguration, and there's a petition that thousands of church members are signing to ask church authorities to cancel the choir's appearance.

[Stephen Fox]

Ive had friendly chat with the two year missionaries of LDS male and female whove come through NE Bama over the last 15 years. They know how savvy most Hispanics which is a big target of their outreach; know how savvy they are about immigration reform and now Trump. I have the sense that like Russell Moore they wince at the reverberations of this Trump disaster.

In Bama, Trump has the Rick and Bubba and Yellowhammer News Babbdists, but lot of the 86 percent are lukewarm at best re Trump "values". So its fluid for sure. Even the local boy who did good in DC staffing Alliance Defending Freedom was a Never trumper though he probably voted "against" Hillary who he considers a baby killer Nov 8, as did the local preacher and his wife.

[Dave Roberts]

[Jim]

[Haruo]

Yeah, I'll mostly side with Jim on this one, though I think WWII probably doesn't belong there. Not that the number is wrong, but I can't quite picture how a GOP administration would have handled the situation without similar results.

[KeithE]

[Haruo]

The United States has done so much, in our role as successor to imperial Rome, of the sort of stuff (only more lethally) that the Russians appear to have just done to us, i.e. manipulating or imposing "democratic outcomes" in the regime change business, that I've sort of lost count. The second in command here among usa Seattle Esperantists is a guy from Chile. One thing I've learned from him is the date on which we overthrew their elected government. September 11. Different perspective. And no, they do not look back fondly on our imposition of Pinochet's fascism.

[KeithE]

[Jim]

[KeithE]