@albertmohler is a coward. What absolute crap. The man has something to say about EVERY FREAKING THING, but suddenly hides behind the lawyers HIS entity has hired. Shameful. This goes against the will of the messengers and the ones who pay his salary. @SBTS
So Southern, LifeWay, and the SBC are all duty-bound to take the side of a child sex abuser in a case they weren’t named in, and now their hands are tied? It’s something for the lawyers (their own lawyers, whom they pay) to work out? No. No. No.
Here's the thing: if you're in a megachurch like this, you may think the services and amenities are really great, but you're actually missing out on the depth that the church is meant to offer. Church is meant to be relational, and this is a really sad substitute for that.
"The whole thing was a reckless hoax." No. Here's what's reckless: In the face of many hundreds of documented cases of kids who were raped & abused by Southern Baptist pastors, the Southern Baptist Convention still refuses the most basic of common-sense safeguards. #ThisistheSBC
@MichelleDLesley “tattles” on me to the IMB but blocks me so that I can’t respond. If you don’t interpret secondary issues the way she does, she questions your salvation, gets all judgey, tells you to repent. We can disagree on nonessentials. I’m not questioning her salvation!
@MichelleDLesley The God I serve is the God you serve. And you can quit deciding what I should repent of. If you question the salvation of all who disagree with your interpretation on nonessentials, that’s a sad place to be in.
@MichelleDLesley Because I have a different view/interpretation of something does not mean I am not a follower of Christ. If this is your take on all who disagree with you on the non-essentials, heaven is going to be a real bummer for you.
@ThigpenTiffany@Wade_Burleson@MichelleDLesley Love that when someone disagrees with your position you jump right to questioning their salvation. My eternity is secured. No doubt about that! I love Jesus and have spent my life sharing Him with others.
@ThigpenTiffany@Wade_Burleson@MichelleDLesley 1000%!!! As a former IMB missionary, many times I had the privilege to stand up in a village church and teach a Bible story. If Michelle has issue with that, then she has issue with Lottie Moon. And those types I tune out.
I’ve never pastored a church. Couldn’t pay me a jillion dollars to. Never been ordained. Have no desire to. The only paid staff position I’ve ever held in a church was as an aerobics teacher in our church gym. But how in heaven’s name a woman discussing a sermon on a podcast could be objectionable to some is beyond me and what I believe to be beyond scripture. If you have no idea what I’m talking about, good. Stay sane. If you do, I’ve lived a long time and this has been my observation:
Extremism, whether in conservatism or liberalism, whether in politics or religion, is never satisfied. It will always inch a little bit further. It’s a constant test of the purists.
The day the BFM2000 was revised:
"We would never presume to tell another church whom they may call as a pastor..." --Al Mohler
"We don’t have the right, the authority or the power to limit anybody... It is a statement of what most of us believe." -- Adrian Rogers
Dear reasonable Baptists who don't hate women and love diversity:
The #SBC is really trying to make it clear that you aren't welcome. There is no reason for you to stay. The #SBC has always been about baptizing bigotry.
This is the former worship pastor at LP who left less than a year ago, Mary Kuti. It is not just me, not just Amanda, not just Angela. The truth is coming out. (This is about Josh Howerton, by the way)
Lottie is the patron saint of the SBC…yet they want to rid the SBC of women just like her. If they want to be honest in carrying out this foolishness, rename the dang offering. She deserves better than the likes of Mohler & Co. using her name for money.
I hope someone in the SBC will have the consistency to make a motion to strike the name "Lottie Moon" from any and all official SBC organizations and offerings.
You know, since women instructing men in theological matters is "acting in the office of a pastor" and thus anathema.
I share this post in earnest and (what may prove a naive) hope that a few people caught in the situation I’m about to describe will hear instead of rushing to the usual tropes, criticisms and caricatures. For what it’s worth, I offer this in good faith.
Between 2016 and 2022, I faced a test of the genuineness of my faith so large and consequential, I’m almost at a loss to think of the right adjectives to describe it. It might not have been so big to someone else but it involved so much of my Christian identity, it was all but existential. Well more than that. It was a dying.
It is this test that helps me understand why people who seem deeply devoted to the Lord Jesus and hold the scriptures in highest esteem also hold to a system, institution or leader no matter what they do and defend a side or individual to a degree that is baffling.
I can tell you why because I had to face every bit of it. Identity, community, camaraderie, what we’ve known and loved, what part of it we still love, the people we loved, the people we still love, reputation, what people will think, how you will be judged and condemned and thrown over to the other side who doesn’t want you either. And to whom you also do not align and would not belong. Friendships. How you will be misunderstood and misrepresented. How adrift and alone you will feel. How disliked.
And then there’s this and it would be a mistake to minimize it: your JOB. Your source of income. Your vocation.
This is the part of the crisis I most write these words to convey because I think they are most in play for many right now, whether in media, ministry or politics.
Let me try to put this in the words that were constantly resonant in my spirit in those years. And to this day.
Though you have no other place to go, Beth, and no place to fit and it not only MAY have financial repercussions but WILL have financial repercussions to the ministry and to your family and will also make them targets and none of it will ever look the same or be the same, will you choose what you believe to be right and put everything else in your vocational life at risk?
This is what is at risk for many people whose professional reputations and positions are tied up with leaders, institutions and political parties. Mine was, too. The cost is enormous and the options are often untenable. And so there we are.
Having to cast ourselves on the mercy of God. Not for a third way. But as THE ONLY WAY. The only truth. The only life.
I’ve made multiple errors in judgment. Jumped too quickly to condemn. Spoken wrongly. Remained silent wrongly and confusingly. I never get it completely together.
But what I will tell you is that I believe we are meant first and foremost to call out our own house, our own side, and our own identity group for its mind-boggling hypocrisy. These were my people. Evangelicals. Conservatives.
Claim what you will but I know who I am:
I am pro life from conception to casket.
I am pro small government.
I am pro godliness and the pursuit of a holy life.
I am pro marriage and family and pro-those God calls to remain single and sanctified and I’m deeply thankful for them.
I am pro traditional sexual ethics.
I am pro love of God and love of neighbor and the dignity of every person as an image bearer of Christ.
I am pro love all.
I am pro church. I believe in the community of the saints.
I am pro Bible study to the death and believe the aim of all discipleship is to know and love and follow and emulate Jesus Christ.
I am pro gospel. Dear God in heaven, I am pro gospel. I believe there is one name by whom we must be saved. Jesus.
What I am not is pro Trump.
Wasn’t pro Clinton. Wasn’t pro Biden. But those were not the candidates many in the world that I loved so much were cheering on.
I accept that Donald Trump is my president. I pray for him on a regular basis. I’m a law abiding citizen and pay my taxes. But I believe Trump fosters something in people that makes them lose their way.