Nothing-neither of them has a clue.
Republicans in congress want to continue the totally failed policies of the totally failed presidency of gw and the Georgia baptists want to continue the totally failed policy of discriminating against those who refuse to discriminate. I won't say much more about the repubs in this post. That will come later as the story plays out. The short-sighted mysogyny of Georgia baptists (who are generally representative of southern baptists as a whole, but sometimes slightly less regressive than their Alabama neighbors) have waged a full-scale battle against First Baptist Church-Decatur for the last two years. The church's sin was to call a woman as pastor. They called Julie Pennington-Russell in 2007. That, of course, is a clear violation of the Baptist Faith & Message (2000 perversion) which states: “the office of pastor is limited to men as qualified by Scripture.” Do the Bible study. How many times does the NT talk about the “office of pastor?” How many times does the word "pastor" even show up in the NT?The modern model of pastor as CEO is not biblical. Look at the older versions of the BF&M. They are much more true to scripture than the modern perversion.
Ms. Pennington-Russell had been serving at a baptist church in that hot-bed of denominational rebellion known as "Jerusalem on the Brazos." For the uninitiated, that's Waco, TX. I have commented on the lack of biblical support for the sbc's position in other posts and on other blogs and will not repeat it here unless someone is interested.
The sbc elite pride themselves on taking a stand against the demands of culture. One pastor, Bobby Braswell Jr. of Guyton, Ga., wrote that the convention's action is "not a popular position in today's cultural climate, but we are following the dictates of Scripture, not culture." What is abundantly clear is that rather than taking a stand against culture in their objection to women in church leadership positions, the sbc is actually supporting the same culture that brought us racism and slavery.
If you have not followed this story, I have provided a series of links to Associated Baptist Press stories.
18 June 2007
2 February 2008
13 November 2008
14 November 2008
27 January 2009
