I hear the world is coming to an end this afternoon. Something about an eclipse? During my life, there have been a series of prognostications of impending apocalyptic events, none of which have, to this point, panned out. The most disappointing to me was the failure of Ed Whisenant’s book “88 Reasons Why the Rapture Will Be in 1988.” He set the date for my birthday (September 13) that year. It came and went and no trumpets sounded. Harold Camping set dates and any number of false prophets have arisen. There have been Red Heifers in Israel, blood moons, and myriad “signs of the times” that we ..read more

Our 83 member Executive Committee has not served us well recently. While the EC individuals may all be stellar people, clearly the organization as a whole is an embarrassment to the SBC. Perhaps if the new CEO has success he can rectify this situation. One hopes and prays. A question: Who appointed this beleaguered group to rule on individual pastors as being “biblically disqualified?” No one. Yet, they have done just that and it may be demanded of them that they do so regularly, if the Law amendment passes. Recent EC church expulsions included West Hendersonville Baptist Church for “acting i ..read more

Adrian Rogers used to illustrate two parallel values in SBC life: doctrine and cooperation. He would take two hymnals and stand one on its edge vertically with the other lying flat. “No train can run on these tracks,” he would state, meaning that the SBC has to have both doctrinal matters and cooperative matters working together or the Grand SBC Train runs off the tracks. Michael Clary is an announced candidate for SBC First Vice President and is running on the Credo Alliance ticket along with SBC presidential candidate, Jared Moore. Moore used to write for SBC Voices. He had over two hundred ..read more

In John 1:46, Nathaniel asked, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” I want to ask a similar question: “Can anything clear come out of confusion?” One of the consistent arguments for the Law Amendment has been that, if approved, it will bring much-needed clarity to the SBC. Here’s how sbcamendment.org puts it: This is why the amendment is so important. Amending the constitution—which carries a greater binding authority than the Baptist Faith & Message (2000)—would clearly define who is and is not part of the SBC. Such an amendment could add stability to our convention for decades, an ..read more

We are several years into abuse reform in the SBC and we can point to near unanimous messenger votes, two grand task forces, extensive and expensive reports, millions of dollars spent, millions of words…and no database of abusers. Why is this? The convention voted to implement this database to include four categories of offenders. From the first sex abuse task force: Confession in a non-privileged setting Conviction in a court of law Civil judgment rendered Determination by an independent third party according to a preponderance of evidence We have now had the latest task force, the Ab ..read more

This week’s SBC Executive Committee meeting was dominated by the difficult, some would say disastrous, rollout of the Abuse Reform Implementation Task Force’s goal of creating a private nonprofit to handle the database. No further comment by me on that here, but I’m interested in the EC’s vote to exclude four churches. Baptist Press story here. The four churches are: Immanuel Baptist Church in Paducah, Ky., New Hope Baptist Church in Gastonia, N.C., West Hendersonville Baptist Church in Hendersonville, N.C., and Grove Road Baptist Church in Greenville, S.C. These churches are officially out ..read more

For those unaware, Southern Seminary president Al Mohler was recently seated at a panel hosted by the Kenwood Institute. The topics covered contentious issues in SBC life, including the abuse and financial crises, along with the issue of women serving in ministry and how it relates to the proposed “Law Amendment.” When asked by discussion moderators and CBMW members Colin Smothers and Denny Burk about the role of women pastors in SBC churches, Mohler would suggest, “The idea that you would have the word ‘pastor’ applied to a woman in the Southern Baptist Convention—to the vast majority of Sou ..read more

Henry Blackaby died on February 10th, following a long illness. I felt sad that he had passed, but his death prompted me to reflect on his influence on me and my family. Of course, Henry Blackaby became famous in the SBC through his devotional workbook, Experiencing God. My wife taught this at the church we pastored many times. I encouraged all our members to take the course. I taught it once at Bellevue Baptist Church in Memphis. Blackaby’s famous phrase, “watch to see where God is working and join Him,” caught my attention and affected my thinking. Beyond his Experiencing God course, God us ..read more

It seems fitting to have an old fashioned blog article on Henry Blackaby. After all, his famous study Experiencing God was first published pre-blog in 1990  but with its soaring popularity on in the late 20th century was easily a subject for the early blogosphere. I never met Henry although he was a featured speaker at a few events I attended. I used his study a few times with small groups in my church. It was unique at the time and very helpful in discipleship in the church. Once the study was a big hit and sales skyrocketed, Lifeway (naturally) expanded the product line to maximize sal ..read more

This is important as the amendment zealots well know. To wit: The SBC constitution specifies what churches must do or not do to be considered “in friendly cooperation”, or, an SBC church. The Convention will only deem a church to be in friendly cooperation with the Convention, and sympathetic with its purposes and work (i.e., a “cooperating” church as that term is used in the Convention’s governing documents)… This is followed by five sub-paragraphs that enumerate things like the Cooperative Program, sex abuse, racial discrimination. The Amendment adds a sixth sub-paragraph. The Baptist Fait ..read more