Dr. Mohler is a Calvinist. Yet, he is part of the SBC leadership? How can Dr. Mohler rid himself from the Convention?

Yesterday I read of a pastor in India who was attacked by a mob of Hindu extremists. As he was being beaten he screamed out in agony, yet at the same time he prayed for their forgiveness. He has received threats stating that if he returns to his home that he and his family will be killed and his house and church building will be destroyed. So, what are we SBCers, with our prosperity and freedom, doing to help this brother? Nothing, we’re too busy “protecting the denomination from liberalism.”

Further you indicate that the wording was the strongest wording within the Executive Committee’s scope of authority “to get it across to the trustee boards.” I am assuming, and I think correctly so, that it would have been within the authority of the 2007 assembled messengers to use stronger (and clearer) language to spell out the message intended to be sent to the trustees. What reason did the submitters/movers have to not change the wording to match the intent?

“”One reporter asked Page if he was saying that “when the BF&M is silent on a subject” that an entity “should not take action in any way that goes beyond the BF&M.”"No, that’s not what I said,” Page said. “I said in doctrinal parameters I think they need to be very careful in moving past them. We do respect the trustee system and if they do, they do have that right. I simply said I urge them not to go beyond doctrinal parameters. There are multitudes of issues that trustees have to deal with as regarding personnel, regarding issues of all kinds that may not be directly doctrinal at all.”

Thus the motion does nothing!

I never thought for a moment that you implied that the motion was either moderate or conservative but stating the prevailing thought of the day for clarification. Thanks for doing that.

My point in bringing up the fired “M’s” is to demonstrate that the BF&M has teeth and stands for doctrinal accountability in some cases but not in others, in minimum but not maximum.

Here’s the problem, and I’m not sure how to fix it:
We are told the BF&M is broad enough for many to come under one tent. What is meant is we can accept CP $ from many different churches because they can sign the BF&M. We are told latter that those same churches can give big bucks but their members cannot serve with one of the agencies. The same standard to be Southern Baptist should be the same standard to serve in Southern Baptist institutions or agencies. It’s like being kissed when you give your money but stabbed in the back when you want to serve.

I want to be confident that when my son or daughter surrenders to missions they will have an opportunity to serve as a SBC Missionary without being rejected because some group of trustees determines a 5-pointer or a A-miller or a post-tribber or someone not baptized in the “right kind” of waters just doesn’t have what it takes. I want to know that if criteria’s change over major doctrines, the convention has a say. Should we just set back and let trustees rule and make decisions without some type of accountability? If Dr. Patterson taught me anything it was to run as fast as you can from anyone who says “Baptist should just trust Baptist”.

Let me know now what changes will be made by backroom subcommittees. Let me know what theological mood NAMB or LifeWay will be in in 35 years. I would rather the entire SBC approved new criteria than a small minority trying to guess what the millions desire or just wanting to implement pet doctrines.

I want Doctrinal Accountability that starts and stops with the convention. I’m not sure how to get it, but I know we have demanded the question. The xcom report is very simple. The motion by Garner is simple and easy to understand. The implications are extremely and terribly difficult.

The real issue gets real simple for me: If our members who can sign the BF&M can’t serve with or for SBC agencies or institutions then our CP $ will go somewhere else. Since I have been the pastor of FBC Fairfield we have given over a million to missions. Don’t take our money if we can’t serve. Simple enough for me..

Please know I’m not speaking directly to you Denny or anyone else, I’m just venting. Thanks for the opportunity.

mack roller

(And greetings to Steve Hayes! Long time, no see!)

In brief answer to your scenario: I don’t think the motion itself could do any more than instruct the entity trustees that, in Xcomm’s carefully considered opinion (since this was the XComm conclusion in February, which was reported out, then turned into a motion by Rick Garner), it is a VERY, VERY BAD IDEA for trustees to be adding anything that has the force of doctrine to BFM2000 on the sly/through the side door by calling it a “guideline” or a “policy,” when it is clearly a doctrinal addition with practical ramifications.

Now, for anyone who was actually present (and awake or listening) when Morris Chapman was giving his courageous “Leading by Example” address, Morris laid out two ways XComm thinks things should be handled. (But, first, I’m going to explain what XComm received from me in my 2006 resolution as how to handle that sort of things): 1) If an entity BoT passes a guideline/policy outside the pale of BFM2000, then it would go automatically to the SBC the next June for a vote up or down (and, if it’s voted down, it would be removed as an entity guideline or policy). This is what I championed in my resolution in Greensboro, which led to the motion in S.A.; 2) If the trustees actually were to choose to exercise restraint (Wow! What a concept!), they would isolate the key doctrinal issue outside BFM2000 and ask the SBC to debate and vote on it the next year in the form of a proposed amendment to BFM2000; or 3) After they passed it, they would submit it to the SBC for debate and a vote the next June before they ever put it on their books. That would show great respect for the SBC at large. In my reading of his message, #2 appears to be the approach that Morris Chapman (and, presumably, the bulk of XComm) favors.

For whatever it’s worth,
Boyd

PS- Denny et al, regretfully, I just don’t have the time to be doing this. I’ve come back on here twice just because I was told by somebody who read the blogging comments that I should. But, I would respectfully request that anyone who cares to ask me a question or say “Hi” just email me (boydluter@yahoo.com) or call me (830-515-3701). I do hope, though, that, as a directly involved source on some of what happened in both Greensboro and S.A., I have been able to provide some insight.

Once again, I am just repeating what you have said on this comment thread.

You said that the motion you put forward implied the following points:

“First, that agencies, entities, and institutions cannot go beyond the BF&M in defining what it and is not a Baptist. Second, narrowing parameters must meet the litmus test of the BF&M.”

You then said, when I asked you to submit the above wording as a motion…that you could not do so. The reason you gave was this:

“I cannot do that because I am a Baptist. That would make the BF&M2000 a creed.”

Therefore, according to your OWN WORDS…the implications you are trying to give your motion makes the BFM2000 a creed.

It is very clear what you have said. Either we are to accept your stated implications…or reject your stated implications.

Which one is it?

We said it is “sufficient in its current form to GUIDE trustees….”

Rick