BaptistLife.Com Forums.

Sheila,

You all have my sympathy. I cannot speak for the others here but I have asked that the plug be pulled on my friend Stephen's Collinsville saga. IMO, this isn't the place for his manufactured soap opera with names named and all that; however, I wouldn't worry too much if I were you, hardly anyone here knows any of you but we do know Fox and understand...

Stephen...can't you pour your energies and creativity in another direction? How about tackling the olympics or Cheney or anything?

I have been deeply moved by these words of tribute and support for Fox. Especially from Lamar, who expressed the core of my sentiments. And from Wilkey who, like Pastor Morgan in Collinsville, has been serving, preaching to, enduring, loving, and being endured / loved by , a single small-town congregation for more than 25 years. That's remarkable to THIS preacher's kid named Mark, and a tribute to both pastor and people, along with their families.

Joshua, likewise, is right on target in this case. I share his bafflement that good people will, every Sunday, cough up 10% of their hard-earned money for the work of God and their local church, only to have anywhere from 5 to 25% of that weekly "tithe" be earmarked for state and national denominational bureaucracies they'd prefer not to be bothered having to learn about, or to even know if it's the same organization they once supported.

Later in the day, many of these same good people will quibble over whether or not they've overtipped a minimum wage-earning restaurant sever by twenty cents.

More to the point: As evidenced over the past two days at BL.Com, I sometimes get as frustrated as anyone with our friend Mr. Fox. I'm not even among those folks in Collinsville who live around him every day. (Which must surely be anything except dull. ) In no way do I want that point to be forgotten or minimized.

But I also know, as Lamar stated so perfectly, those who have been given a gift of prophecy are often - no, usually - abrasive. Impatient. Controversial. Unconventional. Brilliant. Crazy. Obsessed with justice and fairness. John the Baptist. Amos. Cecil Sherman. These, I'm absolutely convinced, were/are prophets of God.

Are there others around here... Fox, Jane-the-pain, Wilkey, J.Villines... who have the gift of prophecy? I don't know for sure. Sometimes it seems they do. Having these folks around here sometimes makes life frustrating and complicated; but more often I've been blessed, enriched, and provoked to live a Christian life that reflects greater service and integrity.

Bottom line: What happens at Collinsville Baptist Church, or what it does or decides, is none of my business. But if you're willing to consider one outsider's observation: I suspect Collinsville would have had, and would still have, a 75% quieter S.Fox (okay... 50% is probably more realistic) to the extent equal consideration, equal freedom is/was extended to those who prefer options and alterntives in financing Baptist mission work and in choosing the best literature to help Baptists study the Bible. In such an environment, no one has to feel "second class" or ignored.

To the best of my knowledge, Fox has been asking his church for no extra privleges beyond that currently granted to members of First Baptist Huntsville (Alabama's oldest congregation); or in nearby Georgia, First Baptist Athens (where your own Jon Appleton was pastor), and First Baptist Augusta (birthplace of the SBC).

With malice toward none, I extend my prayers and best wishes to all involved.

What can one say? The insanitygrows...Wilkey sounds like Fox. Heaven help us. I'm glad we have the one Fox but one is all we need or can stand at any given moment.

One more opinion --

I have read (and, at times, endured) Fox's post on the forum. At the back of my mind has been the vague impression that his name was familiar to me.

I finally got verification of the source from one of Fox's referenced op-ed pieces.

In the early days of "Baptists Today," issues often carried stories by Fox. They were well-researched, rather brief, to-the-point, and crying out for the rest of us to be aware of serious basic problems facing us all with the "resurgence." I admired the evaluations offered, the blame assigned, and the calls to action therein.

I don't know if participants in the forum were aware of Fox's contributions from those earlier days, but I don't recall it having been mentioned. If his writing has become more belligerent, pugnacious, and limited to a smaller arena, it may well be due to his despair at seeing his beloved Baptist beginnings subjected to un-caring, benighted, clueless adherence to a run-away cadre of implacable leaders.

Assign his current methodology to psychological evaluation, if you will; just don't neglect genuine passion in commitment to truth as the underlying source of Fox's compulsion.

We shoulda paid attention earlier . . .

Yesterday in his sermon I heard Pastor Morgan say Jesus in the criterion for which the Bible is to be interpretted.
If I heard him correctly, I cannot see in light of the way most folks on this board and progressive Baptist life in general see the way BFM 2000 has been implemented with missionaries, that a Pastor with that view could call himself a Southern Baptist.
Maybe he could join me and Wayne Flynt and call himself a Baptist that lives in the South, but not a Southern Baptist.
I think Harold Bloom was right about that in American Religion. And from my correspondence with Ellen Rosenberg I think she agrees, at some point Words must have meaning and a community must have some consensus on that. And if that community has integrity seems to me they would send their money to folks whose language and their guiding documents mean the same thing or has some normative construct to it; otherwise you got something similar to 80,000 dollars worth of building on a 150,000 dollar outlay.
And mY Appeal to the manufacturers of this board, especially my friend Gourley and everything sacred about Mainstream Baptist Life in Alabama.
Let This Thread Play!!!!!!!!!!!1
Sheila has engaged the discussion and I am hoping mutual friends of Molly Marshall will come out of the shadows and engage their sisters in Collinsvillle.
Lot of the movers and shakers in the town and vicinity are lurking here. We have an outreach opportunity for Bl.com, getting to the grassroots, which I thought was the whole point to begin with.
Let is play. Let's take it to the people. While here, who knows they may take a look at what some consider more Noble and Virtuous Threads.
I HOPE SO!!!!!!!!!!!!1

I have done what I can to bring US Senator Shelby and his staff to the thread on Hispanic Justice Issues.
No time to Wimp out Now.

May be small time to others, but it is a Freedom Moment, even a Baptist moment in Collinsville.
Help me get back in my Momma's church and the Local Library

http://www.postpaper.com/foxoped.htm
Great link for some of you firstimers including church members I enlisted yesterday of the progeny of John Bulow Appleton and his great Baptist great grandson Jon of FBC Emeritus AThens Georgia.

Linking this thread to him shortly.

LET THE LIGHT SHINE is my Plea