Power of blogs: Call the guy out!

[William Thornton]

One pastor didn't like what he read from a SBC seminary prof. He noted some of the prof's teaching he felt was errant and publicly resolved to do something about it. What he did was to send a private email to the guy's seminary supervisor, a letter in which, not once but twice, the man's job was mentioned. The letter was clearly meant to intimidate and to threaten the man's job for teaching things that the pastor thought outrageous and wrong.

A few people are privvy to the email. One of them sends it to the SBCs most widely read blogger, Wade Burleson. WB, properly, calls the pastor and is told that he did not want to get the profs fired. Well and good. Then, word of the denial trickles back to Burleson's source and it is found that the denial is disingenuous at best, a lie at worst. (Read the email yourself and decide. It's linked in the other thread.)

Soooo, Burleson publishes relevant exerpts from the email and we're off and running.

The pastor is exposed and the SBC blog public gets to see a guy who wants a prof fired for not teaching his view of storehouse tithing.

Burleson is reviled for the ethical breach of publishing exerpts of a private email.

The pastor, Les Puryear, hunkers down, doubles down...but in the end backs down, though maintaining indignancy over his email being published.

What to make of all this?

1. When an issue is put before the great body of Baptists, it may be ugly, but likely gets a better result.

2. If a prominent pastor (Les may be small church, but he is self-designated Mr. Small SBC Church, and has wide visibility) attempts to put pressure on adminstrators over the job of an sbc employee based on some particular non-BFM2K teaching, let them do it publicly. Have a debate. If they try to swing weight privately, let them be exposed and take credit of blame for that they want done.

3. If SBCers are more wary about firing off that email because it may be made public, that is a good thing. If you don't want to receive scrutiny over the views that you want to impose on our common employees, then keep quiet.

Were I an SBC employee, I would feel better today than I did a week ago, knowing that there is some mechanism to combat the wild-eyed fundies who may not be satisfied that their views are prevailing. Let's be plain here. This was about what the Bible teaches on tithing, not inerrancy, not the virgin birth, not the deity of Christ.

No doubt, Danny Akin would have handled his end of this properly and protected the prof. Still, let those who think it proper to intimidate and threaten bear the weight of intense scrutiny for what they do.

I'm not sure how much more open the SBC is now with the internet and blogging that it was in previous times. Certainly some. I cannot see how more openness and transparency will harm the work that we do together, even if it unfolds the way this thing did last week..

[Wade Burleson]

William,

I offer the highest praise possible for your post.

You get it. May your tribe increase.

Wade

[Stephen Fox]

1)There would be no BFM 2000 if the Thornton guidelines had been in effect in the mid 80's cause Thornton and Wade Burleson would have never put up with Jerry Vines use of the Peace Committee visits to SEBTS to stage secret off campus witch hunts against Randall Lolley and and his faculty and administration.

2)I am convinced the ethical design set up by Thornton and Burleson, the code they have adopted by experience with SBC fundamentalism would have aborted the fundamentalist takeover of the Southern Baptist Convention in the 80's.

3)I cannot understand why Burleson and Thornton don't call for ....I'm still working on Number 3 and considering a Four, Five Six and Seven

[William Thornton]

Uh oh...I've been given the kiss of death by Darth Burleson...no SBC office in my future.

Maybe I can be Mr. Small Church Guy...oh, that's already taken.

[Wade Burleson]

[Sandy]

[David Montoya]

William,

Having no future in the SBC is not that bad, in fact, I have a feeling that it will be seen as a thing of honor in heaven. Yes, it is interesting the impact Wade can have when he wants too, but even he is limited.

[Wade Burleson]

[Sandy]

I can think of a whole lot of better things to do with my time and energy than to be some kind of influential big shot in the SBC. There was a time when I thought I might work toward the eventual possibility of ministry service through one of the mission boards, or perhaps even teaching in a Baptist college or seminary, but in spite of the rules, and the trustee system, there always seem to be those individuals who know someone who can help them get around the rules, and either help themselves or one of their friends, or, as in this particular case, agitate to get rid of someone on the basis of an obscure, nit-picky difference of opinion.

And if those in the moderate camp smugly think they're immune to this kind of cliquish provincialism, they need to check their own institutions and their own system of operation, especially those in the "former SBC" or CBF category. I've seen the same thing there to an even greater extent. After all, many of those leaders were the entrenched bureaucrats of the pre-conservative resurgence SBC, and they had this kind of thing down to a fine art.

[Stephen Fox]

Maybe Bruce Gourley will enter this discussion and help me frame the question.

I think this thread would be a great time for Montoya and Burleson to between themselves publicly discuss any new insight they may have about BFM 2000 and the Conservative Resurgence.
I think Burleson not long ago said it was a mistake. Correct me if I'm wrong.
And Montoya has been part of a lot of drama since 88 when he dissented from the Ronnie Floyd, Atkison, Pressler machine in Arkansas and spoke against the Committee on Committees report, orthe Nominating Committee, best I remember.

Where are you two fellows now.
Human beings have flaws but does the CBF have more integrity than the SBC in your opinion and how do you address such a question.
Sandy on this board has looked at it and come down with the SBC.

Was Inerrancy in retrospect a proper tool, an adequate tool in your minds to begin the crusade that ended in the fundamentalist takeover?

Like to hear any new thoughts, revised thoughts either of you have if you think it worth your time to here address it.

Thanks

Sfox

[Wade Burleson]

Sfox,

You ask some excellent questions. I historically have had no problem saying I believe in the "inerrancy" of Scripture because I thought "inerrancy" spoke to the authority, reliability and infallibility of the sacred text.

I am becoming to understand now that many "inerrantists" in the SBC have the attitude "My interpretation of the sacred text is TRUTH. If you disagree with my INTERPRETATION you are a liberal that denies the authority of the Bible."

This saddens me deeply.

Wade

[peter_lumpkins]

William,

With as much respect as I can state, my brother, your concern in outing those you feel are secretly--not to mention cowardly--pressuring, behind the scenes, SBC administrators to deal with employees whom they feel are not living up to "their" standards solicits some sympathy for your motive. Protecting academic freedom is laudable. Nonetheless, to encourage in any degree whatsoever Burleson's share-all, trashy, tabloid technique has got to rate as the worst possible remedy my mind presently imagines. This is classic 101 textbook example where the alleged remedy is as bad or even worse than the desired cure. An army of one side's Moles exposing an army of the other side's Moles (in this case, Wade's 'undercover' info-sharers exposing another 'under-cover' info seeker)? This is supposed to make things more healthy for the SBC?

Suppose I had real problems with Mark Driscoll going to SEBTS (I do). And suppose I wrote a very strong letter to a couple of SEBTS trustees--as strong as Les' to the administrators (I did not). Are you saying it's a perfectly healthy solution for SBC conflict to make my private letters to these trustees public? If not, please say so because that's precisely what I think Burleson's share-all, trashy, tabloid technique is not only suggesting but he's actually doing (the only difference this time the letter was to an administrator).

From my side of Atlanta, my brother William, better to french kiss a copperhead than to drink that moral poison. Not only would academic freedom be protected alright, it would also establish good top soil for genuine heresy to flourish. Moreover, if we think there is no trust now, imagine how distrust would readily be compounded in a culture where everyone should suspect everyone else of being a mole for the other side.

Nor would such moral non-sense as Wade perpetuates when he pops off about having sources all over the SBC who feeds him information--information he very much intends on making public--make for less tension concerning SBC conflict. Les Puryear has been castigated for attempting to get his way through intimidation. Yet Wade Burlseon's share-all, trashy, tabloid technique is every bit as much and even more an attempt to get his way through intimidation. After all, if one thinks a letter he or she sends as a complaint to trustees may very well wind up on the internet at any moment, it's unlikely he or she will risk his or her words being first filtered through a warped prism like Wade's has so many times been demonstrated to possess. And, even if the letter was a letter of praise, the last thing I'd want is for a tabloid to offer my letter's public debut. Would you? No thank you, please.

Hence, if Les' intimidation technique morally sucks. Then I'd like to know why Burleson's share-all, trashy tabloid intimidation technique does not suck even more.

With that, I am...
Peter

[Stephen Fox]

Pressler's plants at Baylor and the seminaries, the nefarious methods he used to flame suspicions about the seminaries; how were they so morally sublime that the means justified the ends.

The whole modus operandi of the fundamentalist takeover of the SBC stank to High Heaven and now Danny Akins and Mohler are virgins whose virtue is beyond reproach?

Baloney.

Tell me again about Jim Deloach and Jerry Vines and their virtue at the heart of the Takeover.

[Wade Burleson]

[peter_lumpkins]

[peter_lumpkins]

Dear Wade

I am scared.

With that, I am...
Peter

[Wade Burleson]

[Sandy]

[Wade Burleson]

[William Thornton]

Peter, you and Stephen Fox are the only one among the people discussing this thing that with whom I have had personal, face-to-face contact. You have my respect and appreciation for a keen mind and carefully considered opinions.

I've got so many posts here that I feel I may need to get a real life, but from those you would find me agreeing and disagreeing with WB. I agree with him in this.

I see a difference in one who expresses an opinion about something one of our entites does (SEBTS/Driscoll, as you mentioned) and one who publicly blogged that he was going to do something about profs with unacceptable views on minor theological matters, who then did something - put the guy's job up for discussion. That was wrongheaded, but hey, we baptist pastors can be wrongheaded about things. But let him be transparent in doing so and the rest of us who have an interest in our institutions can join him or not.

You ask if the cure (exposing people for things like this) is worse than the disease. I think not. The email was outrageous and the explanation was even worse. He should have been called on it.

WB is never far from certain characteristics that annoy me but then, as an irascible curmudgeon, lots of people and things annoy me. I think he was right on this.

[peter_lumpkins]

[Mark]

[William Thornton]

[Tom Parker]

No, Mr. Lumpkins thankfully you are the only one that I know that uses such a messianic signature. I've never liked it.

[William Thornton]