An illustration of a clarifying conversation … Oh, for more of the same …

My previous post noted my response to my friend, J.D. Greear. I note friend to highlight the following e-mail exchange regarding my previous post,

Todd, canâ??Ã?ôt seem to sign in again to your blog. Iâ??Ã?ôm sure it is a user error on my part. [text with j.d.’s personal e-mail omitted]

Perhaps it was vindictive for some of the personalities involved. It certainly wasnâ??Ã?ôt for me, and I donâ??Ã?ôt believe it was for you (since you didnâ??Ã?ôt agree anyway!) The only way your apology seems to apply is if there was a common motivation in every representative that voted. Otherwise, you are simply apologizing for sins you did not commit. Or, you are implying that the Convention as a whole had the motivation of which you apologized. Iâ??Ã?ôm not offended, but you seem to implicate me in your response, and though God alone knows my heart, I do not believe that was my motivation.

I know there are certain things which conscientious Christians cannot link arms with. I cannot join hands with a CBF brother knowing that on his other hand is a soteriological pluralist who advocates homosexuality. And I donâ??Ã?ôt believe that is hyperbole; a CBF pastor less than 3 miles from my church is an activist on both accounts. I cannot give any money that would go to that guy to promote

For this reason, I believe we had to pull out of the BWA. I voted my conscience. If one day I become convinced I am wrong, I will apologize for it. But I do believe I voted my conscience.

Anyway, hope to see you in Greensboro. There are, of course, no hard feelings about this, I just wanted to be clear.

Feel free to post this, I just couldnâ??Ã?ôt do it from my home computer.

Hello J.D.,

Glad for your response. I certainly wish I did not have to use a login for my blog but comment spam can be quite tasteless.

I will update my response with a clear separation of the quotes noted as not being yours. I apologize if anyone may have inferred from the post that you were the source. I have no doubt you did not vote to dissociate from the BWA for vindictive reasons. I do feel very strongly things were set in motion long before you came on the General Council that would eventually lead to the decision. My series of posts that precipitated the one to which you replied located the reason for my apology by virtue of my association as a Southern Baptist. I thought long and hard about just how I fit into the whole scheme of things and consider myself, whether I like it or not, an extension of the decisions the Convention makes. I could have easily apologized for the boycott of Disney, and maybe it would have been less sensitive an issue.

Many have had a difficult time with the idea of apologizing for sins not committed. When the Southern Baptist Convention apologized for its racial positions of the past, many who voted for that resolution (I was one of those) did not participate in those sins. Yet, with a resounding voice we apologized for the â??Ã?úsins of our fathers.â??Ã?ù When I read that just today Matthew 18 “may have been“(changed from the original to reflect that i was not at the meeting but also read here) flaunted by the Chairman of the IMB Board of Trustees â??Ã?ì one who claims to stand on inerrant, infallible Scriptures, I believe I must apologize to Wade Burleson. I did not sin against Wade, but that is the action of the IMB which receives our support.

I understand your conviction regarding the CBF pastor down the road. I do not think this representative of the CBF any more than I believe every Southern Baptist is vindictive. My caution comes when I am willing to pitch the whole out for one of its parts. Adopting that approach, I would on occasion have to pitch the SBC. If poor theology is the measure for cooperation rest assured there is plenty of bad theology within the SBC; and I am not excluding what you describe in the CBF pastor. Not sure how you will read that last sentence. I am suggesting there is likely at least one pastor in the SBC who fits what you describe in your CBF pastor illustration.

Let me reiterate my past sentiments regarding you and your wife. You two share a genuine understanding of hospitality. I experienced this first hand in Spain. Our brief time getting to know one another gave me a great sense of you integrity and character. I believe you voted your conscience and am glad you did. I am glad you were not offended for that was not my intent to offend you. Dialogue is the only way forward and I am glad to share in the work of the Kingdom with you and come to differing conclusions on this issue. I desperately hope this kind of camaraderie around the Gospel increases among our younger leaders like yourself. Otherwise I do feel a continued â??Ã?úMcCarthyâ??Ã?ù styled hunt by those who desire uniformity rather than unity.

I too hope to see you in Greensboro.

Blessings.

Todd

About the Author
Husband to Patty. Daddy to Kimberly and Tommie. Grandpa Doc to Cohen, Max, Fox, and Marlee. Pastor to Snow Hill Baptist Church. Graduate of Oklahoma Baptist University and Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. Reading. Photography. Golf. Colorado. Jeeping. Friend. The views and opinions expressed here are my own and should not be construed as representing the corporate views of the church I pastor.

11 comments on “An illustration of a clarifying conversation … Oh, for more of the same …

  1. says:

    Todd, i figured out how to post. Today is a good day.

    In the case of apologizing for the SBC actions on slavery, we were apologizing for an actual action. But here you are apologizing for a motivation. The motivations of some are not reflective of the motivations of all. Some people will vote for Frank Page simply out as a diabolical, power hungry stab back at the “establishment” Ronnie Floyd represents. Are we then responsible to apologize to Ronnie Floyd on behalf of all people who voted against him for the wrong motivation? Such surely goes beyond the scope of what God expects. Perhaps to say to the BWA, “I am sorry that some in the SBC treated you badly” would be more appropriate. But to say that you are apologizing for the SBC as a whole because of all their motivations seems a stretch. Maybe i’m splitting hairs.

    Regarding the CBF, i don’t think we are comparing apples to apples in comparing their open embrace of soteriological pluralists and moral deviants to the bad attitudes of SBC pastors. But nowhere in our charter are the bad attitudes endorsed. In fact, SBC statements repudiate them. The whole issue with the CBF is not that they have sinners among them, for we all have that, as you point out, but that they see no reason to separate themselves from sinners.

    The argument you made, if followed to its conclusions, would completely do away with any type of church discipline, in any context. And, it would undo all the good things that have happened in our convention in the last 30 years. The whole point has been, “Do we as Christians have a responsibility to separate ourselves from those who repudiate our cherished doctrines and willfully flout the authority of God?” Do we have the right, rather, the responsiblity, to define ourselves?

    For this reason, we cannot stand with the CBF, or the Baptist Gay and Lesbian Coalition, or etc.

  2. Anonymous says:

    OK, maybe my multiple posts indicate i haven’t gotten this figured out. perhaps you can delete the first one.

    hope to see you in Greensboro. thanks for the great blogsite.

    i’d be interested in your response to the answers to questions about the SBC posted to me. a copy is on our website, http://www.summitchurch.cc/templates/cussummitchurch2/details.asp?id=29456&PID=354051

  3. says:

    I hate to interject randomly, but I was reading about a guy the other day who refused to seperate himself from sinners and it ended very badly for him. In fact, he was killed for it. His name was Jesus.

  4. Anonymous says:

    J.D., these things can be a nightmare. glad you got it figured out and i appreciate your comment.

    I understand the need to distinguish between action and motivation. I am actually apologizing for the action that resulted from, in my opinion, a faulty motivation. Again, I am not implicating you. But, I do suggest a long running feud fueled the decision that was less about doctrine and theological position and more about a way to spite another baptist group.

    Treating Ronnie Floyd badly is as un-Christian as voting as a way to “stab back” at another group. I want to interject, though it is not your contention but one that will be made by others, a vote against Ronnie Floyd cannot be summarily categorized as a “stab back.” If a person must perceive the vote as a “stab back”, then the over the top letter Johnny Hunt wrote suggesting a supernatural drafting coming from his phone call to Floyd carries more weight with you than me. (I recently read where a fellow in Florida announced the next Governor because Jesus told him so.)

    Pragmatic ethics cannot rule the day – for any group. And, for too long some on both sides have thought this “a” way forward.

    You may well be right to question the connection between relational support of certain groups with bad attitudes. My exception would be the nature of a vindictive spirit runs perilously close, if not congruent with, Jesus’ words on anger in Matthew 5. A vindicitve spirit represents contempt for another person which denies said person the reality of his humanity and questions the imago dei. So, in that particular context, embracing “soteriological pluralists and moral deviants” and abiding vindictive leaders may indeed be in the apple family as they both are morally challenging to the ethical vision of Jesus.

    You know I am always up for a bit of provocation. Our history with homosexuals is very poor. Is there any point where we could take up the banner of justice when it comes to homosexuals? And if there is no place where we can issue a call for justice, are we willing to assume the same posture for the lengthy list Paul offers in Romans one?

    We see the implications for church discipline a bit differently. I would suggest we would extend the understanding of church discipline to move beyond simply hot button, highly visible issues and get to what well may be as disastrous relational sins that dominate the church landscape – and show up in very public ways.

    You address an important issue with which I am wrestling. The framers of the questions set the agenda. What happens when the questions needed to be asked are really different than the underlying agenda? Jesus said to leave the wheat and the tares growing side by side lest you get the one when attempting to eradicate the other. We do need orthodox parameters. The question becomes have we not set those in the BFM statements? Or, is it necessary to tighten the borders? And if so, when there is a call to preserve “baptist distinctives” when is it okay to flaunt those historic distinctives? Definitions by nature eventually become exclusive. When our orthodoxy narrows, broad cooperation is in peril. Will we make second order issues matters of faith and practice?

  5. says:

    Shawn, hey, I hope this doesnt’ come across as terse but you’re actually proving the point i was trying to make. That line of logic leads you to say that Christians should never separate from anyone for any reason whatsoever, which is what you seemed to imply. what do you with Paul’s clear instructions to “remove from your midst” the immoral brother? Or to “mark those who cause divisions and separate yourselves from them?” or that anyone who preaches a different gospel is to be seen as “accursed”? when Paul told the Galatians to reject the Judaizers and not to tolerate their abominable teaching, was he being “unChristlike?” was the early chruch being “unChristlike” for condemning the teachings of Arius or Appollinarius? was Jesus being unChristlike when he told his disciples to beware the leaven of teh Pharisees, because a little leaven leavens the whole lump?

    Ultimately it was not Jesus’ inclusivity that got him killed, but his exclusivity of the Pharisees.

    Love and humility cannot be used to mask a weakness in the perspicuity and assurance of truth. the Bible speaks of a need for both in different contexts.

  6. says:

    Different contexts is right. Does Paul’s specific instruction to a specific church on how to handle specific situations apply universally to how all Christians are supposed to handle all sinners (which we all are, by the way) in the same way every time. Of course not, there has to be some discretion, but I am now curious as to what you do with the constant actions of Jesus, where he did not seperate himself from sinners and in fact hung out with tax collectors, prostitutes and the like regularly. What do you do with the beattitudes where Jesus announces that the Kingdom is available to all, even those that were looked upon as too bad and sinful. When we start trying to seperate from anyone with known sin or even differing perspectives we sound very much like the Pharisees of the first century. Did Jesus not come to tell us that purging sinners from our sight was not the way that the Kingdom would come? How can we show others the way of Jesus, if we are not even willing to associate with them and who are we to declare others as unworthy to associate with anyway? Something about planks and splinters comes to mind. I am not trying to discredit Paul, but for the Kingdom’s sake let’s not just forget about Jesus because it better supports our agenda.

  7. says:

    Shawn,

    You asked, “but I am now curious as to what you do with the constant actions of Jesus, where he did not seperate himself from sinners and in fact hung out with tax collectors, prostitutes and the like regularly.” Fortunately Paul answers that for us, fairly clearly, in 1 Cor 5:9-11, “I told youu not to associate with sexually immoral people–not at all meaning the sexually immoral of the word, because then you would need to actually leave the world! But i am telling you not to associate with anyone who calls himself a brother and is practicing sin.”

    Paul is saying that we, like Jesus, should be the friends of sinners. But when other Christians openly flout God’s authority, then we must remove ourselves from them. I am quite sure, based on this passage, that if Paul were here, he would be friends with homosexuals in inner-city Durham, but he would not be linked up with the CBF, some of whose churches embrace the things Paul discusses in 1 Cor 5:9-11.

    These are hard questions. But i do not think you are wise to pit Paul vs. Jesus. They are saying the same thing. Jesus loved prostitutes but warned us to stay far away from the leaven of the religious compromise. This is the same thing paul is saying. wouldn’t you agree?

  8. says:

    J.D.,
    I don’t mean to pit Paul against Jesus. It just seems as if we all too often try to interpret Jesus using Paul as a prooftext, when I really think it should be the other way around. However, if we are going to be serious about removing ourselves from those we know to be “practicing sin”, shouldn’t we also seperate from the obese, those who repetitively mishandle money, etc… I know that homosexuality is a hot button issue, but it seems to me that God would be just as concerned with heterosexuals who take up the title Christian without ever intending to actually follow Jesus and do the things he did.

  9. says:

    Shawn, that is a valid comment. If we are agreed that a brother embraces open, flagrant sin, that we should separate from them, then we must determine what constitutes an open, flagrant sin.

    If there is a brother who advocates the abuse of the body (a la obesity) or the extortion of money then we should indeed take steps to separate ourselves from them. The same with brothers who are caustic or less than gracious in their webposts, i believe. I do think we must distinguish between trappings of the flesh (which are still sin) and open, flagrant sin. if we must censure for the former, none of us could be in the church, of course. maybe this is what you’ve been saying all along.

  10. says:

    J.D.,
    That is the general point that I was trying to make. I hope you were not referring to me as caustic and ungracious in my comments. If so, I apologize. That was not my intent. Sometimes people are hard to “read” on paper, if you know what I mean.

  11. says:

    On a side note, which is actually back on the wubject which started this series of posts, could it be that the apologies Todd and others extended for the past sins of the SBC are as much or more to convey compassion for those whom the sins in question were committed against? Could this not be just as important or perhaps more so than the repentance factor? I certainly can’t speak for those who signed the letter, but it seems to me like an important reason to apologize.

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