This busy Easter season, Ben Mandrell wants evangelicals to see him as a valid source of advice for learning to evangelize without losing one’s friends. But he has no idea how to do it himself.
The reason evangelicals invented complementarianism was to win a denominational slapfight. That’s it. The architects of it just wanted to demolish feminism. So they simply did not care how complementarianism would play out in the everyday lives of their increasingly-authoritarian flocks.
In the spring a Gen X blogger’s fancy lightly turns to this year’s Annual Meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC). In election years, these meetings get extra-exciting for observers of this embattled denomination. And this year’s election is going to be extra-dextra-exciting, because it occurs during one of the SBC’s schisms. This year, the Old Guard and Pretend Progressives will clash for temporary ownership of the SBC. Winner takes all. Today, let’s meet the two candidates offered up by the Old Guard.
This apology and settlement represent some of the very most definitive actions the SBC has ever taken regarding any sexual abuse claim since journalists first exposed their mega-scandal, “Abuse of Faith,” three years ago. I don’t think the timing of this action is accidental. Today, let me show you why.
If people have a stated morality that they’re not actually living, then they’re being inauthentic. Inauthenticity is not a symptom of sin nature. It’s just being human. For such people, the real morals by which they live can be found elsewhere. Whatever they’re living day-to-day, that is their moral code — not what comes out of their mouths.
Mike Stone, in ignoring his own preaching — not to mention his own god’s express command to Christians — reveals the truth about his religion. It’s just window-dressing for his ambitions and desires — as well as the easiest way for him to achieve his dreams.
Ronnie Floyd tried his darndest, bless his li’l cotton socks, to pretend that the EC totally cared about the literal hundreds of victims that we knew about so far, thanks to secular journalists’ refusal to let the story die.
SBC-lings like to imagine that their denomination is a loose federation of churches that govern the denomination from the bottom up. Yep, they’re all just big ol’ Jesus-ers who Jesus together — and, coincidentally, pool material resources to convert and control the whole world. The opposite is actually the case, as the EC demonstrated in spades that week.
Today, let’s check out the SBC’s success claims regarding this most recent Baptism Sunday — and see what might be going on there in reality.
Yesterday, we talked about how strange Ronnie Floyd’s VISION 2025 initiative seems. He wants the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) to put into place all this expanded room for more members, but doesn’t include any specific plans to get more members. I theorized at the time that maybe he planned to poach regressive evangelicals from other, more sensible denominations during this pandemic. Well, today we’ll see that this does indeed appear to be exactly what the SBC’s top leaders are counting on. They’re deliberately sowing division to bring vaccine denialists and QAnon- and Trump-addled Christians to their very regressive banner.