Jim Smyrl, the Executive Pastor of Education at FBC Jacksonville (
http://www.fbcjax.com), has called on the SBC to sever ties to Lifeway unless they ban books that don't meet his theological approval. Jim says the average baptist church member does not have training in "critical thinking" and thus is not capable of "filtering bad theology", and thus should not be reading books like "The Shack", and thus Lifeway should not be selling them.
Unfortunately his latest blog post at the FBC Jax website was removed this morning from the church website. But in the article Smyrl writes about how last year before the SBC convention he and a colleague had obtained a committment from the head of Lifeway to pull the book "The Shack" from Lifeway shelves in exchange for Smyrl not bringing a motion to the floor of the convention calling into question a number of offerings made by LIfeway that don't agree with the Baptist Faith and Message.
According to Jim, the head of Lifeway, after the convention was over, went back on his committment and did not pull the book as was promised. Jim claims this was SBC politics, to fool him into not bringing the motion. Jim asserts that by offering "The Shack" (which by the way is sold by Lifeway with a caution to "read with discernment") that Lifeway is spreading "poison" and says Lifeway has "contaminated shelves" and is harming pastors' ability to grow godly believers - and Jim throws in the accusation that Lifeway is doing all of these evil deeds for financial gain.
This is not surprising, as Smyrl is the same guy who last fall called Catholic priests "cult leaders" on the FBC Jax blogs, and who last week in the pulpit took words out of context to mischaracterize FBC Dallas' new video manifesto as "blasphemous self-promotion".