Should SBC profs be fired for not teaching strhse tithing?

[William Thornton]

[Tim Dahl]

How bad is it that I really don't care about it?

SWBTS has been heading, train wreck style, to the far right for years now. If anything, this will make them more consistent with their radical right leanings. Les, et al, are all cut from the same cloth. He's just the newer version of Patterson/Pressler. Currently, SWBTS has little to no affect upon my life and church. They've given up on the smaller established churches, which meas that they ignore churches like the one I pastor. I find this puts our church in a very favorable position. Now, if only the SBTC would leave us alone. No matter how many times I ask to be taken off their mailing list, I still get loads of junk mail from them. I've asked to be removed from their propaganda publication, and yet we still get the Texan like clockwork. It's been seven years, and still it comes.

No, I'm tired of the extremists in TX, especially those that are in my town.

Tim

[Dave Roberts]

What does the BFM2K say about stewardship? Isn't it the duty of seminary administrators to be certain faculty sign it, teach it, and follow it? That should settle the discussion.

[Big Daddy Weaver]

[William Thornton]

People are complaining that all Les did was ask a question. Well, the question was: "4) "… do you think it is helpful to the SBC to keep this professor on the faculty of (school name)?"

If there is any context that would make this a simple question, Les should release the full text but I don't believe that it question can be finessed. If someone asks the chair of deacons in my church "… do you think it is helpful to our church to keep our pastor?" who would think that is an innocent question?

[Dave Roberts]

[lespuryear]

William,

So you have no problem with Wade publishing a private email without permission from the author?
No matter what was in my email, no one has the right to publish private correspondence of another
without permission.

Les

[Haruo]

[Wade Burleson]

[lespuryear]

Mr. Burleson,

This will be my last contact with you.

Where my private correspondence is concerned you have no rights. Thus, you can reserve your rights all you wish, that does not give you the right to infringe on my personal correspondence. What you have done in printing my private correspondence is at best unethical and possibly, at worst, illegal.

Do not call me. Do not write me. Do not endeavor to have any contact with me whatsoever. Your conduct in this matter is unacceptable.

Les Puryear

[Tim Dahl]

Actually, email is the ownership of the receiver, not the sender. Once you press send, you've no rights over it; whatsoever. If someone gives a copy of their email to WB, then he can do whatever he wants with it.

Tim

[William Thornton]

[Big Daddy Weaver]

[Wade Burleson]

[Stephen Fox]

Theological and Historical Jesus


http://www.christiancentury.org/article.lasso?id=8164

Wade I have a lot of admiration for you,wish you would bring the brothers at SBCimpact.net; David Rogers and his friends into your discussion about your fears for unbridled fundamentalism latest round in the SBC seminaries.

Still, in all due respect you are playing a fool's game.

Lot of grand Baptist Christian within the believing and academic framework of the Century link above that you place outside the borders cause of faulty games over inerrancy.

Even so ain't it entertaining.

Saw where Cindy of much grace joined the 156 and counting remarks on the storehouse blog of yours and thought I would bring her concerns here.

[scottaerwin]

[Big Daddy Weaver]

[Stephen Fox]

http://www.religiondispatches.org/blog/ ... tithing._/

Evander will beat the Wordagod into em better than Paige Patterson

[scottaerwin]

[peter_lumpkins]

I'm reluctant to post but will offer a few thoughts...

BDW wrote "A good rule of thumb is simply not to publish an email which is presumed to be private." From my standpoint, that should rule the way we handle issues like this when we are recipients of emails presumed to be private. The tit/tat about being careful to write only those things which, were it printed as a morning paper headline, we would not fret cannot be taken seriously. Not a person on this thread writes emails with that type of generic content--emails which are presumed to be private.

I emailed a friend just yesterday which, were it posted in the morning paper, I'd be really embarrassed. Not because of something I wrote about somebody else; to the contrary, it was about me. It wasn't some dark secret I have. Nonetheless, I would feel terrible if the email I presumed to be private was made public. We may yak all we want about being careful what we say but all of us have circles where we are much more direct and open about matters presuming confidence is in tact. And, I really have little believability about a person who insists he or she never says to anyone in a conversation presumed to be private what he or she would not say precisely in the same way in an open forum. Some tators may fry in that pan but many times they do not. And, if any here insists to the contrary, well, be my guest.

In light of the BDW's worthy 'rule of thumb' I have to say it is the precise rule I attempt to go by. I don't know I've been perfect at it but I do try to honor it. Burleson appears to boast about his army of moles deeply embedded all over the SBC feeding him info, info he's fairly well demonstrated he has no intention of observing the worthy 'rule of thumb'--presumed to be private. Indeed if one has kept up with his blog over the last three years or so, I think any fair-minded person would conclude WB thrives on revealing those things presumed to be private. The unspoken but embolden irony is, Burleson fishes in the same pond of secrecy to gather his information in which he fearlessly indicts others. Oh, he has an excuse, alright. He's the ever-present Protector and Defender of all things Baptist. Why people all over the SBC--professors afraid of losing their job, missionaries on the field, top execs, you-name-it--why they turn to Wade Burleson to make things right...At least that's the sense one gets from reading what the old boy posts publicly.

Poor Les can't claim that, however. Though he thinks the belief some professors hold concerning tithing is unhealthy for Southern Baptists, that doesn't make him a Protector & Defender of Southern Baptists like Wade is. Oh, no. Instead, that makes him a lousy, no-good, legalistic, Liberal-like, raving Fundamentalist. There's no room for two Defenders and Protectors over Southern Baptists in Wade's world. What is concern to Les makes Les a nutty-butty Fundy according to Wade. But none of Wade's concerns could never be considered nutty-butty. He just wants to protect Southern Baptists from an unhealthy direction.

Why, Burleson accused SB professors of heresy not so long ago. They were teaching this strange new doctrine of Eternal Subordination. Wade to the rescue! Come to find out--though too late for Wade to take back--if ES is a strange new doctrine, somebody should have told, Boyce, Dagg, and even Mullins about it for they taught heresy too. And, Wade wanted to protect Southern Baptists. But then again, is that not what Les wanted to do? The difference is, Les wrote an email presumed to be private about his concerns. Wade plastered his concerns all over the internet--"heresy! heresy!"--and, now he's plastered an email to an administrator, an email presumed to be private.

The fact is, I think I'd be mad as you know what too if an email I presumed to be private ended up splashed on a blog. Truth be told, I'd really wonder about someone who claims they wouldn't.

So Les, here's to you: we've surely had our hot exchanges both on and off the blogs. But you have my sympathy, my brother. There is no way around it: it was a dirty, rotten low-down thing to do in posting an email presumed to be private on the internet. How anyone could think they were morally obligated to follow through with such a juvenile action not even a trained psychiatrist could explore. Again, I'm with you...

On the other hand, consider William's point a necessary evil. Once one's skirt is up, people done got their eyes full. They know. They saw. No use thinking they didn't see. Nope. They saw all. The good thing is, it really is not that bad. Burleson's notable niche for flamboyance and stretching things all out of whack to "get cha" hardly plays in his favor. The question you asked about the professors does not necessarily lend itself to your desiring satisfaction in the form of "firing." Perhaps you did not intend it that way even if it could be implied from your words. Who of us has not written words with implications which could be both positive and negative, or not too good on the one hand, and absolutely despicable on the other?

I'm reminded that while the mass media had a good point about the emails of the Environmental group being hacked, the question the activist scientists had to face from the public was, what the heck does all this conspiratorial stuff mean? Granted the emails may or may not be presumed to be private because of the nature of the organization. This was a group paid for with public money. Hence, it is a little different. Nonetheless, their skirt got lifted too, and from my standpoint, they owed the public an explanation for their actions. Instead we got from the activists, "Why aren't you angry at the meanies who lifted our skirt?"

O.K. I'm done. Sorry William for going on so long.
With that, I am...
Peter

[William Thornton]

Peter is always more reflective and thorough than I am and I appreciate his contribution here.

All Les had to do was to admit that his words, the ones that clearly called into question the employment of profs who teach contrary to his view of tithing, were hastily written and ill suited to the situation. That would likely have ended the thing with everyone, and privately at that.

Instead, in his explanation he doubled down on the thing by dragging in abortion, homosexuality, and yea, a deficient view of Scripture as being the underlying principle of any who would disagree with his view. He was caught twice; first with the unwise email made public, and second by trying to finess what he said and being caught in some disingenuity. One would think that integrity would demand he push a matter he feels so strongly about but no, he has a last word and hibernates. I am unsympathetic with his indgination for those reasons.

Burleson is a mixed bag. I agree with some of his stuff and disagree with others. I think he was right here. It is absolutely absurd to call a prof's employment into question over his view of storehouse tithing. I haven't been too interested in the recent revival of storehouse tithing legalism that has swept around the blogs here lately. To push it to the point Les did was unwise and wrong.

No, I would not appreciate a private email being made public, not that I haven't been stung on that.

The question of how far to go doctrinally was always expected to be a prickly one for SBCers. No doubt we will deal with it again.

[Tom Parker]

I am not one bit surprised that Mr. Lumpkins comes here and defends Les. Even though Les is not allowing comments on his blog about this issue does not mean he is avoiding this issue that he started.

[Tom Parker]

Mr. Lumpkins for you to say that Les was not trying to get these two professors fired, that it might be implied but no he really did not mean it that way is incredible to say the least.

[Big Daddy Weaver]

Well said, Peter.

And, Tom, I'll defend Les here - a defense from Les' Left.

First, let me state, more than a few Southern Baptists (generally parents of Baptist students) have called the Prez or Provost to complain about my Professor Dad during his tenure as Chair of the Religion Department at Brewton-Parker College. Weaver doesn't believe this, Weaver doesn't believe that, bla bla bla. College Administrators get calls and e-mails like that all the time. Les' complaint here revealed his fundamentalism.

But the dude did not start anything. He sent an e-mail, presumed to be private, to a college administrator. He didn't broadcast anything on his blog. He sent a single e-mail to two different administrators at two different institutions. Fine.

It was Burleson who published without permission someone else's e-mail. That's a pretty crappy thing to do and I'm not convinced that situation ethics really justify that in light of one e-mail to two administrators. Overreaction? Counterproductive? These are legitimate questions being raised at Burleson's blog.

Glad to see though that victory has been won. Mission Accomplished! Let the Hero Worship begin...

[Wade Burleson]