Just found a jewel on the Inerrancy Conference

[Stephen Fox]

Give the 118 pages time to download. Irreconcilable differences they were indeed


https://libres.uncg.edu/ir/asu/f/Parson ... Thesis.pdf

[Rvaughn]

Thanks, Stephen. That looks very interesting indeed.

[David Flick]

Give the 118 pages time to download. Irreconcilable differences they were indeed

https://libres.uncg.edu/ir/asu/f/Parson ... Thesis.pdf

Fox, I commend you for posting that link. Excellent! And accurate as well...

[KeithE]

Give the 118 pages time to download. Irreconcilable differences they were indeed

https://libres.uncg.edu/ir/asu/f/Parson ... Thesis.pdf

Fox, I commend you for posting that link. Excellent! And accurate as well...

Ditto. Good find Stephen.

[William Thornton]

The topic title ought to be "Just found a jewel on the Conservative Resurgence" since "Inerrance Conference" doesn't convey.

I'll read the whole thing in time but appreciate having it. There's some tendentious language in the parts I've read thus far. It is more balanced that most of the mod/lib efforts at this. The guy clearly conveys the mods' political activity in trying to control the convention prior to 1978. Good for him.

[William Thornton]

I perused the whole doc and it's pretty good in the sense of pulling together in one paper the main primary and secondary works.

A couple of comments on it:
1. The author repeatedly refers to the pre-CR (not his phrase) SBC as being controlled by the agency heads.
2. I have a minor quibble with a little of the terminology used of the conseravtives. They are a "coterie" of pastors and the inerrantists have an "entourage" whereas mods have what I see as more neutral labels. The moderate group that met in Gatlinburg, Sherman's crowd, is called the "Gatlinburg group." I always saw them referred to as the "Gatlinburg gang." Not a big deal. I'm sure the author used terms he found in the mod accounts of it.

I'd appreciate Stephen's topic more if he would pick a few things he liked or disliked about the 118 page paper. As it is, I don't think he read it. I read the whole thing.

[Stephen Fox]

For reading the whole thing.

I came across it by happenstance as I was leaving a lyberry Friday and went ahead and posted. I am only online twice a week given Jennifer Wilkins control of the Collinsvile Public lyberry and my history with the local Babdist church as a result of the conference on inerrancy.

Rest Assured I will be examining this article thoroughly in the coming months especially now with the cloud around Carson Newman, Marney and My Dad's alma mater.

I wonder if Molly Worthen saw this before she published. For me she will emerge unscathed from this dissertation as the authority on these matters, the larger perspective.

What I remember about Ridgecrest in 87 is the fundies got their inerrant hiney's kicked and by the third day Adrian Rogers was humiliated and fell back on demagoguery and left the building.

[William Thornton]

Let's discuss this paper not your silly recollections.

[Rvaughn]

The addition of the clause “the criterion by which the Bible is to be interpreted is Jesus Christ” has always intrigued me.

I. The Scriptures (1925)
We believe that the Holy Bible was written by men divinely inspired, and is a perfect treasure of heavenly instruction; that it has God for its author, salvation for its end, and truth, without any mixture of error, for its matter; that it reveals the principles by which God will judge us; and therefore is, and will remain to the end of the world, the true center of Christian union, and the supreme standard by which all human conduct, creeds and religious opinions should be tried.

I. The Scriptures (1963)
The Holy Bible was written by men divinely inspired and is the record of God's revelation of Himself to man. It is a perfect treasure of divine instruction. It has God for its author, salvation for its end, and truth, without any mixture of error, for its matter. It reveals the principles by which God judges us; and therefore is, and will remain to the end of the world, the true center of Christian union, and the supreme standard by which all human conduct, creeds, and religious opinions should be tried. The criterion by which the Bible is to be interpreted is Jesus Christ.

Here is what Parsons writes about it:

Another novel clause presented itself in the same section: “the criterion by which the Bible is to be interpreted is Jesus Christ.” This seemingly cryptic phrase suggested that the committee either favored progressive hermeneutics over biblical inerrancy, or explicitly favored doctrinal liberty. While the education clause placated inerrantists, the Scriptures clause legitimated progressive theology, representing, as James Hefley suggested, a “tip of the hat” to professors. (p. 29)

The author seems to think both the major addition to the article on the Scriptures was something many conservatives wouldn't object to but that would satisfy progressives. I tend to agree.

[Note: I haven't read through the entire piece, but scanned through the jewel looking for jewels.]

[Stephen Fox]

I got to page seven and Shurden's 1972 stint at Carson Newman and then His Not a Silent People on Presslerites as antithesis to traditional Southern Baptists. I think Harold Bloom was more precise in The American Religion where he compared the Presslerites to the Know Nothings.

Hillary Clinton's great Friend Sidney Blumenthal is great in a new book on Lincoln and the Know Nothings of the 1850s and how Abe navigated those troubled times in the Republican Party.

I almost got on the phone with Blumenthal in 1984 in a call from my Grandmother's house in Rome Ga to the Washington Post. Talked to Tom Edsall instead.

Blumenthal had just written a scathing piece for the New Republic about the presslerites and the religious right. He was prophetic. Couple years later I was talking to Edall, my Dad and Bill Self at the Atlanta SBC. That's when Edsall said the way your Dad was talkin as you were comin down the Escalator, I thought it was Moses or something. Ha but David Flick needs to know. LOLOL

[William Thornton]

Glad to see you got all the way to page 7.

[Sandy]

Let's discuss this paper not your silly recollections.

Amen to that.

The paper relies heavily on "moderate" Baptist sources, particularly Grady Cothen. Not that Cothen is a bad source, in fact, even though he writes from a moderate perspective, he gets most of the facts right. He acknowledges the political activity of moderates, as well as their inability to grasp the fact that they really didn't have much of a constituency in the SBC beyond those churches that were already active in the convention itself. He references controversies that set the stage for what happened in 1979. Perhaps secular politics had the kind of influence he alludes to, though not many moderate Baptists are Democrats, either.

I don't really see anything new here.

[Stephen Fox]

https://baptistnews.com/article/30-year ... dPzhYWcEdU

Mohler shows no sign of engaging Molly Worthen. Like Tucker Carlson uses the most expedient framework available to justify himself and his ill gotten influence. I have more respect for Gray Allison than I do for Mohler and that aint a whole lot.

As for Grady Cothen, at Jack Harwell's recommendation, Cothen stopped my house for a couple mid afternoon hours in early 90s. I remember going in the Collinsville Baptist Church and the shock of the local pastor, a former student at Southern Seminary seeing Cothen there as my guest to use the copy machine for some papers I had Cothen found valuable. The Pastor was quite gracious that day. Cothen told me he a few weeks earlier had told the Director of the Sunday School board Pressler and Helms were getting rid of to usher in the age of Trump, to take everything he could get out of the charlatans, Lloyd Elder.

Cothen is a good fellow, but like others he missed the point, the one that registered with Harold Bloom and North Carolina's Bill Friday and Cecil Sherman, to wit the whole shenanigan was a Know Nothing poltical movement masquerading as religion conviction.

Read Molly Worthen Closely. She gets it. And what she doesn't spell out for the feeble minded, Wuthnow in Rough Country drives home for all but the most incorrigible illiterate.