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When Southern Baptists get together for their annual meeting June 12 in Dallas, J.D. Greear and Ken Hemphill are on the ballot to become the denomination’s next president. But now a third name is being floated—Beth Moore. Dwight McKissic, pastor of Cornerstone Baptist Church in Arlington, Texas, suggested on Saturday that electing a woman to the presidency would send a well-needed message to Southern Baptist women. (SEE: https://churchleaders.com/news/326893-could-beth-moore-heal-the-sbc-as-president.html)
SBC LEADERS FLOAT IDEA OF BETH MOORE AS NEXT DENOMINATION PRESIDENT
Beth Moore, who is best known as Lifeway’s Cash Cow of Bashan, the extremely popular women’s teacher whose increasingly wild-eyed prophetic visions have gained prominence in a wide berth of evangelicalism well outside the SBC (especially in charismatic circles, as she coalesces with other egalitarian prophetesses like Anne Voskamp, Joyce Meyer, and Christine Caine), may very well be promoted as the next president of the SBC after the upcoming term of JD Greear.
Beth Moore – Lifeway’s Cashcow of Bashan
Greear, who is seen as the favorite for the 2018 SBC election, holds to a modified Complementarian position that is, for all intents and purposes, Egalitarian. Also a Continuationist and a #woke Social Justice Warrior, the megachurch satellite campus pastor is well departed from Southern Baptist historic orthodoxy on a number of points. This will unlikely stop the young, popular and charismatic mega-pastor for winning the June election handily, as the SBC reels in shock from the firing of perhaps the oldest and most prominent standard-bearer of SBC conservativism, Paige Patterson, in a cultural bleed-over of the #metoo movement into the denomination in what is an increasingly speculative and questionable decision of the Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary Executive Board. Greear has presented himself as a fully “woke” and politically savvy public relations specialist, who along with certain other leaders in the SBC (like Russell Moore, Albert Mohler, Danny Akin, Matt Chandler and other New Calvinists), are intent on rebranding the denomination in the name of saving it. One such overture to “saving the denomination” in recent days has been talk of electing a female president, which has received no shortage of support in social media. The name for such a female leader of the country’s largest Protestant denomination that has risen to the top of discussion is none other than the recently woke prophetess, Beth Moore.
Following on the heels of a conference that should have been seen as spitting in the face of the #MeToo Movement, MLK50 – a conference venerating a man who literally trafficked in female prostitutes – many SBC leaders began to vocalize the need for leadership chosen not by the content of their character, but the color of their skin. In true Marxist Intersectionality fashion, these same leaders started to include women in the long list of underrepresented minorities who had to be placed at the top tiers of leadership if the SBC was to survive the impending tide of cultural opinion. JD Greear, on May 25, posted a video in which he called on the SBC to place women at the highest levels of leadership. He stated:
Our failure to listen to and honor women and racial minorities and our failure to include them in proportionate measures at top leadership roles have hindered our ability to see sin and injustice and call it out.
The politically correct virtue signaling of Greear did not go unnoticed. Soon, names began to surface of women who could take the top leadership spot in the SBC. In the last several days, one name, in particular, seemed to echo throughout social media. That name is Beth Moore.
Dwight Marxissic
Dwight McKissic – or Marxissic, as he is known among the discernment community – is the African American race-baiting pastor who supported Hillary Clinton and leftist-progressives, and who most notably designed a resolution at the 2017 SBC meeting to condemn the so-called “alt-right,” simultaneously orchestrating mainstream media outrage at SBC messengers who originally balked at the politically motivated propaganda. SBC leaders, eager to avoid any negative media attention, scrambled to pass an amended form of the resolution, pleading with messengers to consider how it would look in the press. Currently, Marxissic is planning a resolution with Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary President, Danny Akin, which will yet again focus on racial reconciliation. Akin, who founded an Affirmative Action department at SEBTS called “The Department of Kingdom Diversity” and hosted a “Malcolm X Read-In” for seminary students this year, has joined Marxissic to denounce “White racism” and demand social justice, which eerily seems like something out of the 1970s United Methodist playbook or that of any of the mainstream liberal denominations that have experienced severe, anti-Gospel mission drift in the latter 20th Century. It was McKissic himself who similarly floated the idea of nominating Moore as president of the SBC.
McKissic wrote:
If I thought Beth Moore would accept the nomination or be agreeable to being nominated, because of her qualifications and the current context the SBC finds herself in…I would nominate her for SBC President.
Of course, the SBC has never considered a female president of the SBC because it has always fallen to the role of pastor, and eldership is limited to male leaders. The position also requires a good deal of preaching, which has always been seen by the denomination as a job for men, in light of the prohibition against women teaching in the church. With the promotion of so many female preachers by SBC’s retailer, Lifeway, one could have guessed it would only have been a matter of time before the Convention as a whole would see little problem with that gross and profane departure from orthodoxy.
McKissic went on to explain his reasoning:
The SBC is a parachurch organization—not a church. Therefore, there is absolutely not one Bible verse, or SBC constitutional bylaws prohibitions, nor any BF&M 2000 prohibitions against a woman serving as SBC President. Tradition, sexism, fear and other non-biblical factors would probably prevent any woman, including Deborah, Mary the Mother of Jesus, Lydia, Junia or Priscilla, or Lottie Moon from being elected President of the SBC; but, I repeat…there is not one Bible verse or SBC constitutional prohibition.
Therefore, I could vote for a qualified woman with a clear conscience for President of the SBC. The I Timothy 2:12 passage is reference to local church leadership, not parachurch leadership. The statement on gender roles in the BF&M 2000 does not prohibit female leadership in the SBC Convention or entity life. To impose I Timothy 2:12 as a prohibition on a female SBC President would be tantamount to imposing Genesis 9:25-27, as a prohibition for a Black, Asian, or Hispanic SBC President. Neither Scripture is addressing prohibitions in parachurch offices. Historically, though, they have been used or misused to draw such erroneous conclusions.
The problem with Marxissic’s theory, other than his use of Deborah – an Old Testament political judge who served as God’s judgment upon a leadership-weak nation – and New Testament Saints (who were NOT appointed to spiritual ecclesiastical authority, even by the Lord Himself), thus demonstrating massive hermeneutical failure and tragic inability to reason, is that the issue of Complementarianism vs Egalitarianism is one of ecclesiastical authority and not one only of eldership within the local church.
There is another problem with Marxissic’s theory; the SBC, although not a local church, is ecclesiastical. How do we know this? The SBC – officially, legally, and on-the-record – calls itself an ecclesiastical authority.
For example, just this year the SBC’s North American Mission Board (NAMB) argued in court that a lawsuit against it should not proceed because of a “ministerial exemption” due to the “ecclesiastical abstention doctrine” (source link). In other words, the SBC entity claimed to be ecclesiastical. Regarding the lawsuit of Will McRaney, NAMB attorneys argued according to the Baptist Message:
On the matter of the “ecclesiastical abstention doctrine” (which prevents a court from interfering in decidedly church issues such as theology), [the judge] affirmed the U.S. Supreme Court position that churches have the “power to decide for themselves, free from state interference, matters of church government as well as those of faith and doctrine.” However, regarding NAMB’s claim that “adjudicating McRaney’s defamation claim would require the Court to decide matters of internal church governance,” he said he “disagrees.”
Furthermore, all local SBC churches needing proof of tax exemption as a religious institution fall under the “umbrella 501(c)3” of the Southern Baptist Convention, meaning that the only recognition many churches have with the federal government as a house of worship is their legal identity with the SBC, which is recognized as a “church.” Baptist autonomy aside (and the attitude of Greear and McKissic seem to be “to hell with Baptist polity” anyway), like it or not, the SBC is ecclesiastical.
On top of these inconvenient truths, the fact is the presidency of the SBC is, in nature, pastoral. These are men who – like all SBC entity heads – make doctrinal decisions (like IMB President, David Platt, approving tongue-speakers to serve as missionaries or former SBC President, Ronnie Floyd, deciding to partner in prayer with IHOP). The office itself is one of the highest authority, and one prohibited to women. Welcome to complementarianism.
Many of the SBC blogger-class seconded the notion of McKissic that the office should not be limited to men, and that Beth Moore would be a suitable candidate for the position, including bloggers at SBC Voices, Dave Miller, Brent Hobbs, and AlanCross.
We are witnessing nothing short of a full-on gospel crisis in American Evangelicalism today. Just as the homosexual movement has rapidly deteriorated into the full-blown confusion we see around the psychological disorder and delusion of gender dysphoria; we are witnessing the exponential demise of what was once a clear, focused, gospel-centered movement. When everything in evangelicalism is a gospel issue, nothing is. And this is precisely what is happening in modern evangelical Christianity. A few examples are presented in this post and then a plea for some sanctified common sense follows. Social justice is all the rage these days. Even within the reformed camp, the balance between social concerns and the gospel is shifting much more quickly than one would have previously imagined. Social justice has, for all intents and purposes, eclipsed the pure gospel of historic Christianity so much so that we no longer know where the gospel story concludes, and its impact on me as a new person in Christ, in my culture, begins. We can see this in a variety of movements that have and are competing for the attention and the money and the time of Christians, week in and week out. Abolish Human Abortion argues that the church isn’t being the church unless it works to feverishly put a stop to the murder of unborn babies. The unborn babies are your neighbor, says AHA, and you are commanded to love your neighbor and protect the defenseless. If you are not picketing abortion clinics and opposing abortion in just the right way, then you are not loving your neighbor. For AHA, ending abortion is a gospel issue. The Gospel Coalition is cranking out one social issue after another and they are all gospel issues. From Tim Keller’s highly controversial and questionable philosophies outlined in his Generous Justice to the most recent pet, outlawing American Football, TGC has turned every social concern into a gospel issue. Many prominent Southern Baptists leaders, a denomination of which I happen to be a part, has its political arm, the Ethics and Religious Liberty Committee, devoted almost exclusively to social issues. From its website we read the following: The ERLC is dedicated to engaging the culture with the gospel of Jesus Christ and speaking to issues in the public square for the protection of religious liberty and human flourishing. And of course, these issues, ranging from social justice to racial reconciliation, from sex trafficking to immigration, are all gospel issues. The ERLC, TGC, and AHA all want your attention, your time, and your money in order to carry out their agenda. But there is more.
Many of these movements, if not all of them, contain varying degrees of components associated with liberation theology and are incredibly confused about the nature of Christianity, personal holiness, and the mission of the church. This is especially the case as it relates to the relationship of the church and the world, not to mention, the content of the gospel. Now, in case you are skeptical of my thesis (and healthy skepticism is encouraged) that what you are witnessing in Evangelicalism is in fact, liberation theology sporting a fresh coat of paint, note this comment from J. Daniel Salinas concerning the book, An Inquiry into the Possibility of an Evangelical-Liberationist theology: Chaves, the Brazilian professor at the Baptist University of the Americas, argues that later developments in both North American evangelicalism (NAE) and Latin American Liberation Theologies (LALT) have drawn them theologically closer than ever before.[1]
The matter of liberation theology is itself indelibly linked to hermeneutics. This can be seen in how groups such as AHA, TGC, the ERLC, and Racial Reconciliation interpret the biblical text. Peruvian theologian Gustavo Gutierrez wrote: “The theology of liberation offers us not so much a new theme for reflection as a new way to do theology. Theology as critical reflection on historical praxis.” As Samuel Escobar points out, “This critical reflection was the result of a new political alignment (praxis) of some Christians in Latin America during the 1960s and their critical way of reading the history of the church in that region.” Liberation then offers up a new way to do theology and along with it, a new hermeneutic, a modified gospel, an alternative mission of the church, and it defines the relationship between the church and the world. The old adage comes to mind: if it is new, it is not true and if it is true, it is not new. Is it too much to suggest that what we see taking place right now in evangelicalism, among the new Calvinists, some in the reformed branch, and especially in the Southern Baptists is a new way to do theology? Social concerns are informing how theology gets done rather than theology informing how the church gets things done. Liberation theology begins with the marginalized, the poor, the oppressed, and their concerns, and it shapes theology by insisting that exegesis submit to those concerns above all others. And this is how you end up with the proverbial tail wagging the dog problem. Don’t forget, Liberation theology fills those words with new meaning so that even the most orthodox of doctrines, such as male leadership in the church, is now viewed as complicit in the oppression and marginalization of women. Critical thinking is indispensable and the church neglects it to its own peril.
Returning to the Southern Baptists political arm, the ERLC, in reading the mission statement of this committee, one has to wonder if it should even exist in the first place: The Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission exists to assist the churches by helping them understand the moral demands of the gospel, apply Christian principles to moral and social problems and questions of public policy, and to promote religious liberty in cooperation with the churches and other Southern Baptist entities.
First, it is the local elders’ duty to help their communities understand the moral demands of the gospel. That is accomplished through preaching, teaching, and discipleship. The same is true for applying Christian principles to moral problems. The statement reveals its overtly political agenda when it turns to “social problems,” “questions of public policy,” and “to promote religious liberty.” In order to defend this mission statement, biblically anyway, one has to change the mission of the church so that it includes culture shaping, involvement in politics, and one has to believe that the church must work for religious liberty. But when one reads the New Testament Scriptures, writings that took place in a largely oppressive and intolerant setting, they do not find anything like these objectives there. More about this below when the subject of pure religion is addressed.
One of the most recent and highly visible areas of focus for these leaders is the topic of racial reconciliation. These men are operating on the basic premise that there is a rift between Christians of different racial classes in society. They begin by uncritically accepting melanin as a legitimate way to classify race and from there they carry their message forward with great enthusiasm and passion. Now, because racism is all the rage in the culture, and because no one wants to be called a racist or seen as doing anything whatsoever that any minority group could use to accuse one of racism, these leaders want to appear to be on board fully and completely. So, they are walking the politically correct line. With this in mind, they are working tirelessly to convince the church that they have a problem that needs to be addressed. The solution to this problem includes everything from the SBC repenting for past racism on an annual basis now for several years, to convincing white Christians that they are the bad guy, having been raised in a predominantly white culture and having unwittingly adopted racists attitudes of which they are naively ignorant and incapable of recognizing. Some are even going so far as to advocate for affirmative action in pastoral staffs, and even extend that point of view to the recommendation of books and conference speakers. “There should be people in those positions who look like me,” they argue. The argument is not based on biblical exegesis, but instead, on principles directly coming from black liberation theology. In fact, recently an article appeared over at Core Christianity that was, for all intents and purposes, denying the sufficiency of Scripture on the issue of racism. I don’t measure a man’s ears when I decide to read his book or attend a conference or submit to his leadership as an elder. I am not going to pay attention to his skin tone either. It is that ridiculous and the sooner we start seeing that truth and looking at the issue that way, the better off we will be in my opinion.
Coming back to the article over at Core Christianity, the title of the article was a sure attention-getter: “Good Doctrine isn’t the Answer to Racism.” The racial reconciliation argument continues to lose exegetical debates, making it necessary to retreat and come up with new strategies. The article begins with the claim, “Just because doctrine is right, good, and true does not mean it is healthy.” Andrew Menkis argues that doctrine, in order to healthy, must be lived. Menkis, in his own attempt to jump on board the racial reconciliation train and project just the right appearance and perhaps “make his contribution,” confuses Christian doctrine with Christian praxis. The word doctrine is derived from the Greek didaskalia. It simply means, teaching, instruction, that which is taught. Doctrine is a teaching. For example, the idea that doctrine should be lived out is implied in the teaching itself. When Menkis makes the claim that he makes, that just because the doctrine is right, good, and true does not mean it’s healthy, he is making a false statement on the one hand and a very basic category error on the other. If it is true that doctrine must be lived in order to be healthy doctrine, then Menkis’ doctrine is in the same boat as all other doctrines. That means that Menkis’ own doctrine about doctrine being lived is itself not a healthy doctrine. A question for Menkis might be, “If good, right, and true doctrine isn’t healthy, what is it?” If something is not healthy, then that means, logically speaking, that it is unhealthy. This means that good, right, and true doctrines can be unhealthy. This reasoning is specious. Living doctrine isn’t doctrine. The actual application of doctrine to daily life is not doctrine. Christian doctrine, in many, many cases is meant to be lived but not always. For example, the doctrine that all those in the body of Christ are in fellowship with one another is not a doctrine itself that can be practiced. It is a doctrine that describes our new status in Christ. We call it the doctrine of reconciliation. Jews and Gentiles have been reconciled to God through Christ in one body by the blood of Christ. I cannot live that. I cannot live the doctrine of justification. I cannot live the doctrine of regeneration. Menkis, in his attempt to project the appearance that he is on board and in his ambition to “make a contribution” to the topic, has made himself look rather silly in my opinion. This is the kind of foolishness that you end up with when you abandon sound hermeneutical principles in preference for methods that begin with the core values and principles of pagan society.
Pure religion begins with the gospel of Christ which is itself the power of God to save and regenerate the human heart. To Nicodemus, Jesus said, you must be born afresh, anew, from above, all over again. According to James, religion that is pure, that is undefiled, is religion that includes ministry to widows and orphans and to keep oneself pure from worldly influence. This hearkens back to 1:22 where James says be doers of the word and not hearers only. But my “not doing the word” does not make the word itself unhealthy nor does it mean that the word itself does not have the cure to my problem. The word is always intended to be applied or lived where there is application to be made. The proof that God has invaded my life can be seen in my care for others, especially widows and orphans and in my refusal to pattern my life after worldly principles derived from society. The church must have a vigorous ministry in place to care for widows and orphans. In some cases, this means providing food for care, medical needs where appropriate, etc. The same is true for orphans. It could mean financial support for orphanages, investing time in visiting the children living in these arrangements, or, in some cases, it could mean adoption. God directs the heart. James tells us to look after people in need during their time of affliction. But Paul also reminds us of the practical aspects of this ministry. Paul gives us criteria with qualifications before placing a widow on the list in 1 Timothy 5. That we care for widows and orphans with some qualifications is undeniable. But how we do that will vary from person to person or church to church.
The mission of the church is to preach the gospel, baptize converts, and to make disciples. The gospel is that Christ came and died to save helpless sinners from their hopeless condition. To baptize converts is to practice the public confession that one has indeed bound himself to Christ as Lord and Savior. To make disciples is to make students of the commandments of God. Disciple-making entails teaching men to observe everything that Christ has commanded. This is the mission of the church. Nowhere in Christ’s commandments are we told that we must fight for religious freedom, shape the culture in which we find ourselves, or influence civil government to adopt Christian principles. It is through the use of a hermeneutic of liberation that such nonsense finds its way into the mainstream. The source is not Scripture, but instead, the personal ideologies of men who have gained a platform of influence. They need to be corrected by other godly, strong leaders or removed from that platform.
The relationship of the church with the world is the last component of the three basic elements that make up pure religion. The gospel is first, the mission is second, and the relationship of the church with the world is the third component of pure religion. In Romans 13 and in 1 Peter 2, the church has her instructions for how she is to relate to the civil government. Whatever philosophy you might have on this topic, you would be well-served to make sure it is grounded in these passages of Scripture. What are these instructions? First, every person is to be in subjection to the governing authorities. That is pretty clear. Why? Because every authority is from God. Every civil government is established by God according to Paul. And to that government, we must submit. Whoever resists the authority opposes the ordinance of God. Of course, taken in the context of Scripture as a whole, when the civil law contradicts the divine law, divine law is the greater of the two. Peter’s instructions are identical to Paul’s instructions. Peter says that we must submit ourselves to every human institution for the Lord’s sake. This applies to a king or to someone the king might send. Peter commands us to honor the king. This is not an option. It is a commandment. The word honor, from the Greek timaō means to show high regard for, to revere. Yet, many of the social causes and issues that the church and these leaders specifically find themselves obsessed with are issues that fly in the face of these instructions. This means that Christians should avoid vilifying our government leaders, president and all, publicly. We must submit to, honor, and respect our government leaders. The objection is sure to come that our leaders are godless men who support all sorts of immoral legislation and policy. This is true. But it is not any truer than it was for the government under which Paul and Peter and the rest of the early church operated. In fact, modern American government is morally superior to Rome from a this-world perspective. If you doubt that, then perhaps you should do some reading on the practices of ancient Rome. What is puzzling is that most of the leaders involved in these movements are also involved in completely ignoring the clear NT mandate regarding how the church ought to relate to the secular authority. In fact, their agenda seems to require a certain rebellion against the secular authority. Such insurrection is not the fruit of Christian living we see in the first-century church.
The evangelical church, to include its reformed branch, is in a full-on crisis today. That crisis is due in large part to elements of a hermeneutic of liberation theology finding its way into the community. Men have gained access to the celebrity platform and ascended to a place of influence who do not hold to the historic positions handed down by the reformers. Movements like liberation theology, black liberation theology, the seeker movement, and the emergent church have all worked in varying degrees to weaken the hermeneutic of the conservative Protestant churches. The intensity of the war for truth has increased exponentially just within the last 5 years and more so even within the last year. Christian leaders must do a better job of examining the foundational teachings of men before enabling their influence. It is not evil to examine these claims to make sure they reflect the teachings of Scripture. Nor is it evil, when those claims are lacking in biblical support, are incredibly weak, or outright contrary to Scripture, to correct these men. If we continue to embrace worldly practices, such as obsessing over offending one another, then truth will truly suffer as a result. We should always remember that God is an ever-present witness in what we do and why we do it.
In closing, we should remember some of the very last words of one of the greatest Christian soldiers to have fought in this War, the Apostle Paul:
I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith; in the future there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day; and not only to me, but also to all who have loved His appearing. (2 Tim. 4:7-8)
[1] J. Daniel Salinas, “Review of Evangelicals and Liberation Revisited: An Inquiry into the Possibility of an Evangelical-Liberationist Theology by João B. Chaves,” Themelios 39, no. 1 (2014): 142.
There is no science to support the view that SSA cannot be changed even by the conscious efforts of the individual.
SSA attraction is a perversion of the fall. It is not physical or biological. It is a component of the human person and as such is not morally neutral.
Opposite sex attraction is very good according to Gen. 1:31. It’s opposite is very bad.
Col. 3:5 clearly teaches that there are evil desires as do many other passages in the NT. Desire is not morally neutral.
Romans 1:24-28 describe homosexual desire as a degrading, shameful, disgraceful passion that leads to unnatural sexual activity.
1 Cor. 6:9-11 denies the idea that homosexuals should still identify themselves as homosexuals after conversion. They should see their homosexuality in the past tense and identify themselves as washed, sanctified, and justified.
SSA is difficult to change because people do not desire to change it. The only thing that can change any human desire is for a competing desire to present itself as more desirable.
People only stop being same-sex attracted when another desire that conflicts with it takes over. In this case, a desire to please God, to glorify God is sufficient to kill same-sex attraction.
If your desire to please God is not enough to cause you to hate same-sex attraction, then you either do not desire to please God or the Bible is false, and Christianity is a lie.
If the gospel of Christ, applied by God the Holy Spirit to the human person is not enough to deliver one from the sin of SSA, then again, the Bible is false and Christianity should be abandoned.
My conclusion is that the SSA proponents are American Liberal and Evangelical Christians with a very low view of God, of sin, of the power of the gospel, and a very high view of man.
republished below in full unedited for informational, educational and research purposes:
Leave the presence of a fool, for there you do not meet the words of knowledge. –Proverbs 14:7
On July 26, 2018, the Revoice Conference convenes at Memorial Presbyterian Church in St. Louis, Missouri. The loud and clear call of this conference is ‘the Church must change to accommodate the inclusion of the “gay Christian.” On the surface, the intended outcome resides in the conference’s stated purpose:
“Supporting, encouraging, and empowering gay, lesbian, same-sex attracted, and other LGBT Christians so they can flourish while observing the historic, Christian doctrine of marriage and sexuality.”
While in reality, the underlying goal is to repurpose the Church by adapting it for a use exponentially differently than has been orthodox Christianity for 2,000 years.
First of all, some pertinent background information will widen the scope of what’s lurking behind it. Secondly, a closer look at one of the scheduled presenters will shed some light on “who” will be speaking at the conference. And finally, the calamitous connection with Russell Moore.
The Man behind “Revoice” – Dr.Nate Collins
Dr. Nate Collins is the founder of Revoice. He “has served as an instructor of New Testament Interpretation at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary” (where he received his Ph.D.). In September 2017, Collins author the book All But Invisible: Exploring Identity Questions at the Intersection of Faith, Gender, and Sexuality.: (source)
On his blog, allbutinvisible, he addresses the meaning of the phrase “Gay Christian:”
First, the way the word “gay” is most commonly used today is to refer to an orientation identity, and not to a specific pattern of behavior that Christians would think of as sinful. In other words, when most people hear the word “gay”, they don’t think of actual behavior, but instead a pattern of desire. I would say that these desires are inevitably experienced at some point as fallen desires, but that the sanctifying work of Christ can redeem some of them (the nonsexual ones). By analogy, nonstraight orientations are like a disability… in other words, the phrase “gay Christian” is more like the phrase “blind Christian” than “prideful Christian.”
After thirteen years of marriage and three children, Collins’ still self-identifies as “Same-Sex Attracted” (SSA).
Revoice Presenter – Branden Polk
Branden Polk, per his Twitter account, describes himself as a “Reader, writer, musician, lover of Jesus, poet, philosopher, and friend” (do note the order of importance). Additionally, Polk is the CEO and Founder of Arrowhead Advising. Arrowhead Advising Servus include both coaching and counseling to individuals and businesses with strategic means in “making a difference in the world.”
Allow me to introduce you to one of his good friends, Todrick Hall. Todrick Hall is a singer, dancer, director, and…wait for it…DRAG QUEEN. Hall is an activist for LGBTQ rights and inclusivism. Branden Polk has strong emotions and highly regards his friend, Todrick, from the moment he met him, and is a regular visitor to Hall’s “shows.”
Todrick Hall isn’t just your “ordinary” drag queen, he is connected…to RuPaul and his show “RuPaul’s Drag Race.” Hall has appeared on RuPaul’s show as early 2009 and as recent as May 10, 2018.
None of this should surprise anyone that Revoice has included Branden Polk as a presenter at the conference in July. What should surprise us is the relationship Branden Polk has with the President of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC), Russell Moore.
The calamitous connection to Russell Moore
Arrowhead Advising LLC has performed contractual work for the ERLC strategically advising Russel Moore on both the 2017 Christ Centered Parenting Conference and the April 2018 MLK/50 Conference.
Russell Moore continues to be advised by Arrowhead Advising LLC on the ERLC’s Prison Reform Bill promotion.
It would be highly suspicious for Moore to claim that he’s unfamiliar with the facts and that he’s not working hand in hand with sex perverts knowing the background of Revoice and the friendship of Branden Polk and Todrick Hall. Why do Southern Baptists continue to send money to this progressive entity who partners with people like this who have an obvious agenda?
Nate Collins (PhD, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary) has served as an instructor of New Testament Interpretation at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and currently is a partner associate at The Sight Ministry, a Christian organization based in Nashville, Tennessee, that provides resources and support for individuals, families, and churches regarding LGBT issues. Nate is also the author of All But Invisible: Exploring Identity Questions at the Intersection of Faith, Gender, and Sexuality (Zondervan, 2017). Speaking from his own unique experience as a married, same-sex-attracted/gay man who is a husband, father, and follower of Christ, he is a vocal proponent of extending and receiving community with LGBT individuals both inside and outside the Church. He has been married to his wife, Sara, for thirteen years, and they have three young sons.
Nate Collins (PhD, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary) has served as an instructor of New Testament Interpretation at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and currently is a partner-associate at The Sight Ministry, a Christian organization based in Nashville, Tennessee, that provides resources and support for individuals, families, and churches regarding LGBT issues. Nate is also the author of All But Invisible: Exploring Identity Questions at the Intersection of Faith, Gender, and Sexuality (Zondervan, 2017). Speaking from his own unique experience as a married, same-sex-attracted/gay man who is a husband, father, and follower of Christ, he is a vocal proponent of extending and receiving community with LGBT individuals both inside and outside the Church. He has been married to his wife, Sara, for thirteen years, and they have three young sons.
Wilshire Baptist Church in East Dallas will be hosting a Ramadan Feastfor their Muslim friends. The idea was sparked by the Dialogue Institute of Dallas, a pro-Muslim group that seeks to proselytize other religions by getting them to engage in religious “dialogues.” Several Jewish synagogues and Mormon churches will also be hosting Ramadan events, with over 20 planned by the Dialogue Institute in the Dallas area alone. This evening, the Wilshire Baptist Church will host the meal commemorating the opening feast of Ramadan.
George Mason, pastor of Wilshire Baptist Church since 1989
George Mason, the pastor of the Baptist Church, cluelessly explained to the congregation the advertised motive of the Dialogue Institute, saying, “The Dialogue Institute of the Southwest is a group of moderate Muslim immigrants, primarily from Turkey, inspired by the work of Fetullah Gülen, who believes in peace through education and understanding.”
Of course, the goal of such Muslim-sponsored events is not “peace” in a nation like the United States where violence between religious groups is almost unheard of and statistically non-existent. The goal is what is known to Islamicists as “Da’wah,” the strategy to convert non-Muslims through dialogue, and it is propaganda and deceptive by nature. Those who host or promote such dialogues, such as Fetullah Gülen – mentioned by Pastor Mason above as the founder of the Dialogue Institute – are known as dā‘ī, and are considered missionaries of the Islamic faith. What is happening at the Wilshire Baptist Church is a missionary enterprise of Islam, hosted by a Baptist church and perpetrated upon Baptists.
Ramadan is a month-long celebration that begins with a meal called an Iftar, and is followed by a month of daytime fasting. The pastor wants the church to practice “food diplomacy,” a trendy term used by ecumenists to describe trying to reach common ground with Islamic refugees by inviting them to dinner and following the dietary and food preparatory guidelines set forth by Islamic tradition. The meal at Wilshire Baptist Church will include only that which is Halal, or approved by Islam.
Mason said, ”If we want to be respected by others, we have to respect others. If we want religious liberty for ourselves, we have to defend religious liberty for others, too,“ sounding as though he were parroting the words of SBC Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission Director, Russell Moore.”
“If we want Muslims not to judge Christianity by its worst, most fringe and extreme role models,” Mason said, “but instead by those who seek to represent the spirit of Jesus in a generous way, then we have to be engaged with them personally. Likewise, they want us to know their faith and to judge it by those who are tolerant and peace-loving.“
According to the church website, “[They are] Christian by conviction, Baptist by tradition and ecumenical in spirit.”
Wilshire Baptist Church affirms the 1963 Southern Baptist Faith and Message. For the definition of “website orthodoxy,” click here.
The following article is the first of a two part testimony about my experience with the cult of Freemasonry at my former church, Rowland Spring Baptist Church. Rowland Springs Baptist Church is a Southern Baptist Church in Cartersville, Georgia and is a part of the Georgia Baptist Convention and Bartow Baptist Association.
Joe Ringwalt has been pastor of RSBC for over 20 years and is a former Georgia Baptist Convention Committee Member.
Pastor Joe Ringwalt stood up before the congregation of Rowland Springs Baptist Church as Sunday morning services came to a close. My wife and I were standing next to him. “It really says something about our church,” he said, “that people of this caliber are joining.” I was a little embarrassed by Joe’s very public compliment of our “caliber” but I was certainly happy, despite my wife’s reservations, to be joining Rowland Springs. I had been kicking the tires of the church for about six months. The preaching was mostly expository, the music was a mix of (mostly) biblical hymns and contemporary songs, the student minister was a Calvinist from the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, and the Sunday School class we had been attending was edifying and full of lovely Christian people. It felt like a Baptist Church and not a Baptist Church that was trying to be something else. The very week that I joined Rowland Springs I was assigned to be the temporary teacher of the “What Christians Believe” Sunday School Class. At the next Church Conference, I was elected by the congregation to become the official teacher of the class. The Sunday School class I looked forward to attending every week became the class I looked forward to teaching. As someone who had been in seminary for nearly a decade, I was excited to finally begin teaching God’s word to others in the local church. Things seemed to have fallen into place quite nicely. A few months later, however, I was meeting with the pastor, the youth minister, and two deacons in the church basement. I was quietly and involuntarily removed as a Sunday School teacher. My class dissolved. I was encouraged to leave the church altogether. This meeting took place in the wake of my discovery that several members of Rowland Springs Baptist Church were officers of Cartersville Masonic Lodge No. 63. Unbeknownst to me when I joined, Rowland Springs Baptist Church was a stronghold of the demonic cult of Freemasonry. When I stood for the holiness of Christ’s church and against the cult of Freemasonry, Rowland Springs Baptist Church stood for the Freemasons. Joe Ringwalt advertises Rowland Springs as “a warm and loving church” and a “fellowship that wants to love you, provide a place of service for you, and challenge you to allow Christ to live his life through you.” On the surface, it is. However, when I scratched the surface of Rowland Springs Baptist Church, the surface scratched back.
2014 to 2016: A Failed Expedition
I walked into Expedition Church on a Sunday at about 11:45 AM. I was late, again. Getting to church, anywhere really, on-time with three young children was no easy task. The music was already over and the sermon-time had begun began. Star Wars Episode III:Revenge of the Sith was playing on the projector. The congregation watched, during the church service, as Mace Windu and two hapless Jedi Masters fought Darth Sidious to a stalemate.
The stalemate was broken when Anakin Skywalker betrayed the Jedi order and attacked Mace Windu. Darth Vader was born. I was aghast, and it was not because Anakin Skywalker had turned to the Dark Side. My wife and I could have watched Star Wars at home. We came to church. After Mace Windu fell to his death, Pastor Tim Samples began a sermon about power. Darth Vader’s traitorous act served as a sermon illustration of seeking power the wrong way. My wife saw Tim’s increasing use of videos and movie clips as an attempt to fill time. I agreed. It was clear to us both that Tim was phoning in his sermons. Some were basically book reports of whatever he happened to have been reading lately. One was nearly a word-for-word plagiarism of a Ravi Zacharias podcast. Another was an 18-minute YouTube video advertisement for the movie Woodlawn. He set aside one Sunday morning to have a Pentecostal named Ray to come up and talk about the importance of tithing; Ray’s talk included the exact amount he gave each month and a testimony of how God miraculously reactivated his broken computer when he began tithing. The Pentecostal presence at the church was growing. Tim also occasionally filled the pulpit with quasi-missionaries who gave live infomercials for their ministries which were thinly disguised as their testimonies. One of the presenters was a lawyer named Joel Thornton who had a side business selling identify theft insurance. Another was Robert Rogers, a practicing Roman Catholic.
As Tim’s effort into teaching the congregation at Expedition Church waned, my wife and I grew more and more frustrated. As we left each week, my exasperated wife would ask questions like “What was Tim talking about?” I didn’t have a good answer for her. I recognized that there was a big problem but I wanted to stick with Tim. Tim had for years, as we Christians say, “poured into me”. He gave me the privilege of helping teach the youth group at his church on Wednesday nights. He supervised my seminary work in evangelism, leadership, and preaching. He introduced me around the county Baptist association. He opened his pulpit for me to preach when my preaching practicum class required it. He met with me weekly for lunch. He did his best to mentor and disciple me. He pastored me. At Expedition he sought to equip and encourage the whole body for ministry. He rejected the “invest and invite” model of so many Georgia Baptist churches, where church members are charged with giving money to build facilities and inviting their friends and neighbors to hear a professional preacher evangelize them. Tim understood that the church was a body, not a building, a group of people who were tasked with evangelizing their community themselves, with or without an official church program directing them. Having been stung by the “invest and invite” culture myself, I knew Tim was on the right track with what he was trying to do at Expedition Church.
Tim grew up at Roswell Street Baptist Church in Marietta, Georgia under the smooth preaching of Dr. Nelson Price. Price is a venerated man in Southern Baptist culture. In fact, a dormitory at my seminary bears his name. To my knowledge, even in his retirement, Price still bears the title of “Pastor Emeritus” of Roswell Street Baptist Church. Under Price’s preaching, Roswell Street grew and expanded its campus. However, after his retirement, Roswell Street’s properties and attendance levels began to deteriorate. The “invest and invite” model proved not to be a viable long-term solution for Roswell Street. Its large campus became hard to maintain. Tim’s ministry at Expedition is on a much smaller scale. The church property consists of rented office and warehouse space off of Highway 41 in Cartersville. The average attendance is (or, was, at the time I attended) around fifty on a big day. Quite frankly, Tim is no Nelson Price and his preaching wouldn’t fill a big building even if he had one. I used to tell Tim, “You aren’t the best preacher in town, but you’re the best pastor.” Tim was anything but a distant vision caster who didn’t know his flock. He was personally connected to his people. He knew them well. I was once given a personality profile as a part of corporate training. When I told Tim about taking the test he guessed my results almost before I could finish my sentence. I liked having him as a pastor. I liked being a part of the body that was Expedition Church. There were no strangers there and the entire church felt like one, close, multi-generational Sunday School class.
Tim planted Expedition Church himself after being released from the staff of Oak Leaf Church in Cartersville (which is now known as CrossPoint City Church). Tim was the self-described “relationship man” at Oak Leaf. The pastor there claimed not to be a people person and was only interested in preaching from the pulpit, not dealing with people. That became Tim’s role. Unfortunately, one of the people the pastor did deal with was his secretary. After admitting to an affair with her, that pastor left the church in a state of disarray. Tim’s job was a casualty of the reshuffling that followed. Oak Leaf was not the first church in Cartersville at which Tim had been on staff. He had come to Oak Leaf after leaving First Baptist Church where he had served as the youth pastor. In his capacity there, starting in the late nineties, Tim was instructed by church leadership to make inroads with the most popular kids. Doing so, he was told, would make other kids want to come to church. This did not sit right with Tim. Sensing God’s leading, Tim eventually left First Baptist, a bigger more established church, for the upstart Oak Leaf. Tim wasn’t the kind of man who would put the popular kids first, even in the face of steady paycheck from an established church. Tim was a man of integrity.
Unfortunately, there is often a cost to having integrity. Expedition Church was a relatively poor church. As its Senior Pastor, Tim’s salary was not any more than that of his Youth Pastor salary at First Baptist. He had effectively worked for years without a raise. To make matters worse, Expedition’s offering revenue consistently fell behind budget. The point came when Tim had to take a second job as a hospice chaplain to support his family. He became a bi-vocational preacher. I am convinced that, with his people skills and compassion, that there is not a finer hospice chaplain in all of Georgia. I am equally convinced that the demands Tim’s new job placed on his time significantly decreased the time he had to prepare sermons and manage Expedition Church. The pulpit suffered. To make matters worse, the office of deacon was unfilled at the church and the other elders did not seem equipped to take turns filling the pulpit. Tim was running himself ragged trying to take care of things with which others in the church should have been helping. When Tim put a Roman Catholic, Robert Rogers, in the pulpit, I could no longer ignore the growing problems at Expedition. Bad sermons were one thing. Handing the pulpit to a member of another religion is another.
I approached two elders with my concern that something incredibly inappropriate had taken place in our church. Someone from an apostate church, someone who Galatians 1:8 demands be anathematized, had filled our pulpit. One of the elders was a personal friend of Rogers. He rebuked me for bringing up the matter. The other elder didn’t seem to understand why a Roman Catholic should not fill the pulpit of a Baptist church. The remaining elders were Tim’s father-in-law and a Bapticostal music minister who fed the church a steady diet of Hillsong. Tim could provide me no assurances that a Roman Catholic would never fill the pulpit again. I thought about bringing the matter before the church but quickly realized that it would do no good. There was no official membership roll. A church vote could accomplish nothing and, without a membership roll, was not feasible. Even if a vote had been feasible, I had little confidence in the theological maturity of the congregation. Tim intentionally kept his preaching at a sixth-grade level and Baptist distinctive were not a point of emphasis. Could a congregation who had had no objection to movie clips and infomercials during sermon time really understand what the problem was? Additionally, there was the sensitively of causing controversy in such a small church. I did not think Expedition could financially afford even a small number of families leaving. A couple of families had already left for First Baptist. I loved Tim and I didn’t want him to suffer anymore financial hardship. When I finally saw the church sitting contentedly through a lightsaber fight during the church service, it became clear to me that bringing the matter of the Roman Catholic preacher up would be fruitless. A dog that can’t smell birds won’t hunt. After the Star Wars sermon I walked out of Expedition Church and never went back. I had come to the sad conclusion that the elders of Expedition Church simply were not qualified for their offices. (I have since learned that a few other families had become disillusioned and left as well; each of them went to CrossPoint City Church.) I haven’t talked to Tim in years. I miss my friend.
Visiting Churches
Having determined to leave Expedition Church, I set out to find my family a new church home. I grew up in Chattanooga attending Woodland Park Baptist Church and listening to Wayne Barber preach. My parents were married there and had been members since before I was born. My family had gone to Woodland Park my whole life until we moved to Cartersville when I was fifteen. I wanted to provide that kind of long-term stability for my family. I could ill afford to make another bad choice. My girls were getting old enough to understand what was going on at church and to make friends in their various circles. Church certainly isn’t a venue intended for small children, most of whom are lost, to make friends. Still, the sermons I heard Wayne Barber preach at age six stick with me until this day and I still listen to them on his podcast archive. I also didn’t want to move my wife again. Family stability, whether in the nuclear family or the church family, is important. She had not been getting fed from the pulpit at Expedition and had patiently endured my faith in Tim for two years. I wanted our family to be in a place where the Bible was proclaimed verse-by-verse on Sunday Morning. So, I made a spreadsheet of every church in the Bartow Baptist Association and began a category by category analysis.
The first church I visited was Pine Grove Baptist. It is a small church directly across the street from Dellinger Park and in close proximity to our home. Upon sitting down in the pew, I was hopeful. The congregation and choir were singing from hymnals; there were no 7-11 songs and I could tell Pine Grove wasn’t the kind of place that would sing them. There would be no Hillsong-style rock concert there. When the pastor entered the pulpit, I took hold of one of the large KJV pew Bibles to follow along. He then turned in his own Bible to the story of the prodigal son and informed the congregation that “God had given him” five principles from this story. My countenance fell. He then proceeded to turn the story of the Prodigal Son into a systematic treatise on free will and a Semi-Pelagian rejection of predestination. His thinly veiled polemic against predestination included no less than three invitations, each more elaborate than the last. Recognizing that I must have been the only new person in the small congregation, I was tempted to go forward and “get saved” all over again so that we could all go home. I ultimately decided that it would be bad form and resolved to visit somewhere new on the next Sunday. Somewhere new was Rowland Springs Baptist Church.
A church website can be a useful tool for learning about a prospective church. Beyond a simple statement of faith, many church websites include sermon archives, biographical information about the pastoral staff, and a recommended reading list. Knowledgeable Christians can use this data to save themselves from visiting a church they would never want to join in the first place. For example, if a church’s recommended reading list includes books by Andy Stanley or Rick Warren, then there is good reason not to view that church as a viable body. The recommending reading list at Rowland Springs includes books by Voddie Baucham, RC Sproul, John MacArthur, and Charles Spurgeon. To contrast, the recommended reading list at Expedition church included books by Rick Warren, Greg Laurie, Brian McLaren, Jim Cymbala, and Andy Stanley. Sometimes who is not on the list says a lot more than who is. When I perused the Rowland Springs reading list, I did not see any red flag authors. Another indicator of soundness at Rowland Springs was the bio of the Adam Burrell, the Minister of Students and Families. Adam’s website bio indicates that he has an MDiv from the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and includes a picture of him in a bow-tie that would make Albert Mohler proud. I know a Calvinist when I see one and, sure enough, that’s what Adam is. Even though I am not a five-point Calvinist myself, that Rowland Springs had hired one to teach youth indicated to me that the kind of rank Charles-Finney-style decisionism which was present at Pine Grove and which runs rampant in some Georgia Baptist churches was not present in Rowland Springs. That the church youth minister was seminary-educated family man indicated to me that the church was serious about teaching its youth doctrine and not merely attracting them with fun activities for the sake of winning their parents. In hindsight, I think it may be the case that the church body is so insensitive to matters of doctrine that neither Calvinism nor Finneyism gives them any degree of concern. That the church body has abided extensive Masonic membership indicates that the church’s standards for right belief and living are severely lacking. Unfortunately, the Masonic membership at Rowland Springs was not something of which I was aware at the time. After listening to the Rowland Springs Baptist sermon archives and exchanging emails with Adam, I decided Rowland Springs was worth a visit.
Prospects
I first visited Rowland Springs on my own. My wife stayed behind that Sunday to take care of a sick child. I arrived well before the Sunday School hour started. Kelly Branton, a woman from the praise team, directed me to the Sunday School class for my age group. I wouldn’t have known where to go had I not found her rehearsing in the sanctuary with the rest of the praise team. I took note that Rowland Springs did not have greeters ready to meet visitors and walk them to the proper classroom. Larger churches tend to have an entire team dedicated to doing this. I actually found it favorable that Rowland Springs didn’t. To me, it indicated that the church wasn’t seeker sensitive or McChurch corporate. Not long after Kelly sat me down in the classroom designated for young marrieds, Adam Burrell walked in and directed me upstairs to a Sunday School class that he thought was more fitting for me. It was a class entitled What Christians Believe. It was taught by a Deacon named Doug Blankenship and it was based upon the Defenderscurriculum that William Lane Craig teaches at Johnson Ferry Baptist Church. I enjoyed the class very much. The next week my family attended with me. My wife insisted that we try out the young married class in order to connect with people our age and in our phase of life. That class was team-taught by deacons named Grant McDurmond and Chris McSwain, both of whom are professional school teachers.
The man pictured here in the green shirt is Dale Hibbard, Chris McSwain’s Father-In-Law. Dale and many members of his extended family are members of RSBC. This photo was taken at a Masonic Golf Tournament in 2016 by local Masonic Lodge officer, Tony Ross.
Grant and Chris used LifeWay material to teach their class. It took one week for my wife and I decide to move back to the class upstairs. Doug was a good teacher. He was teaching systematic theology and apologetics; class discussion was meaningful. We both enjoyed the class over the next few weeks. It had been over a year since we were a part of a Sunday School class. We became a regular part of the class and met some really nice people. It wasn’t long after we first started visiting Rowland Springs that my wife experienced serious problems with a pregnancy. I sent Doug an email from the hospital asking for prayer. We got much more than that. The entire class descended upon our house with meals and domestic assistance even though we weren’t church members and had only been visiting for a few weeks. I felt like a part of the group.
Still, I had trepidation about joining a new church after what we had experienced as members of First Baptist Church of Woodstock and Expedition Church. I really wanted to kick the tires at RSBC. The tires seemed pretty sturdy. We had a great Sunday School class with great people. The music was nearly devoid of Hillsong and featured both hymns and contemporary songs. Joe Ringwalt was no Spurgeon but he preached fairly biblical sermons. I noticed that he was far from a “CEO-Vision Caster” pastor. He made his rounds each Sunday and checked on the various Sunday School rooms. It was his church to pastor and he acted like it. Both he and Adam took an interest in talking to me and learning about my background. Adam even took me to lunch one day. It was a good time. There was an even a friendly old man who always found us in the sanctuary to shake hands and talk before the service began. His name was Jim Moore. As nice as he was, there was something about him that made me uneasy. “I wonder if he is a Mason,” I thought to myself when I first met him. There was just something about him that made me think that.
After a couple of months, Joe and Adam began to contact me to ask about coming to my house for a visit. We were “prospects.” They were interested in us joining the church. My wife had reservations about the church in general and Joe specifically and expressed her hesitancy to join the church to me. I considered her reservations but it had been a good few months, especially in Sunday School. One night Joe and Adam finally came over to talk to us about membership. All parties did their due diligence. Adam and Joe asked about our salvation experiences and church backgrounds. I asked, and apologized for having to do so, if Joe would ever let a Roman Catholic fill the pulpit. His answer was a resounding “no.” He was incredulous that Tim Samples had allowed one to preach at Expedition and expressed that Roman Catholics have a “whole different theology”. I also asked about Freemasonry in the church. I was told that none were in leadership. Both Joe and Adam had trouble thinking of any masons outside of a Deacon who was no longer active. Joe expressed his derision for the Masonic craft saying that he didn’t need a “worshipful master.” He was clear that he did not support Freemasonry. I was strongly leaning towards joining Rowland Springs. One thing that held me back was discovering, through perusing the Cartersville Lodge website, that Jim Moore was indeed a Freemason. The website displayed a picture of Jim proudly receiving his fifty year Mason award. I showed Adam the picture and asked him if he knew of anymore Masons. He said he did not. Adam had been at the church for years and was the Minister of Families. I figured he was knowledgeable enough. I wasn’t going to let one Mason stop me from joining what seemed like a very good church. Besides, the pastor had strongly communicated to me that he did not support Freemasonry. Unfortunately, as I came to find out later, Jim was not alone.
The 2018 Officers of the Cartersville Masonic Lodge include Jim Moore, Freddie Gunn, and Frankie James. All are members of RSBC.
A Short Treatise on Southern Baptist Sunday School
Adult Sunday School classes at Southern Baptist Churches almost universally make use of the LifeWay Explore the BibleSunday School quarterly. Explore the Bible is produced and sold by the Southern Baptist Convention’s publishing arm, LifeWay Christian Resources. One needn’t be particularly conversant in Biblical theology and history to “teach” canned lessons from the LifeWay Sunday School material. Lessons include prefabricated, open-ended questions for the “teacher” to read to his class. In effect many Southern Baptist Sunday School teachers are essentially lesson facilitators who serve in a quasi-pastoral role. Age and marital-status-based Sunday School groups effectively become little churches within a larger church. The Sunday School teacher is expected to lead his “little church” into growing the “big church” through reaching out to his particular demographic. In return for his service, the Sunday School teacher garners influence in the community. Actual learning may or may not occur; some teachers are better than others.
A former Sunday School teacher of mine personifies the quintessential Southern Baptist Sunday School “facilitator.” His name is Matthew Gambill. Matthew “taught” the young marrieds class at Tabernacle Baptist Church in Cartersville when my wife and I were members there many years ago. Matthew was a Methodist Republican politician who married a Baptist Republican politician and ended up teaching Sunday School in a Baptist church. Matthew is a well-educated, service-minded, nice person who seems generally devoid of a systematic understanding of the Scriptures. When I was in his class, he basically read LifeWay at us for half an hour each Sunday morning. If he was asked a question about the material, he struggled to find the answer. He was once unable to explain to a class member what a “heavenly host” was. Worse yet, he seemed completely indifferent about the ordinance of baptism. I remember vividly being a part of a conversation about Baptism with Matthew and another class member at a Sunday School party. The class member was from Europe and had a reformed, paedobaptist background. He was lamenting the fact that he had to “re-baptized” by immersion in order to join Tabernacle with his wife. Matthew sympathized and told him that he had to do the same thing. Instead of explaining the importance of believer’s Baptism to the class member, Matthew merely pointed out the pragmatism of not arguing about the requirement. It dawned upon me that the Methodists in our town tend to be Democrats. Matthew is running for the State Congress this year. I suppose I’ll vote for him.
Rowland Springs: Joining and Teaching
It is very unusual to join a new church and be appointed as a Sunday School teacher the very same week. Yet, this unique occurrence is exactly what happened when I joined Rowland Springs Baptist Church. The What Christians Believe Sunday School class was somewhat unique itself. The What Christians Believe Sunday School class at Rowland Springs was not age-stratified or based on Lifeway material. It was a multi-generational class. Ages ranged from middle-school aged to middle-aged. There were teenagers who came with their parents, women with unchurched husbands (a notoriously difficult to place Sunday School demographic), and married couples. The class curriculum was a survey of Systematic Theology. When I first arrived at RSBC, the class was taught by a deacon named Doug Blankenship. Doug, an accountant by trade, had a formal theological education. Doug was not a local politician or small-business owner. In addition to being a well-educated, service-minded, nice person, Doug was a true teacher who understood the class material. When I first came to Rowland Springs, I had been out of Sunday School for two years. I very much enjoyed being a part of Doug’s class. It was worth waking up to get to it on time. Doug took a job in Texas as I was in the process of joining the church. Even though I was a new member of the church, I was a long-time member of the class. Like Doug, I was formally theologically educated. My fellow class members recommended to the pastor that I be given teaching responsibilities. I was more than happy to accept them. My short time teaching the What Christians Believe was a rewarding one. I loved preparing the lesson every week. I was very happy to be serving in Rowland Springs Baptist Church body. There was just one small matter that nagged at me. There was a church member in a cult and no one, including the pastor, seemed to have a problem with it. This was a grave matter indeed. I struggled with how to approach it. Quite frankly I didn’t want to. I was quite content teaching my little class, an oasis of learning and biblical discussion in a LifeWay world. Saying something to Jim Moore about being a Freemason would no doubt be uncomfortable. I continued to research Freemasonry and even published a few blog articles about it. I knew it was a cult and a scourge but I still didn’t say anything to Jim.
Fred Gunn Jr and the Newspaper
It was December of 2016. I arrived home from work and there, at the end of my driveway, was a newspaper that I hadn’t ordered. The previous resident of my home was an older gentleman and I was still receiving his newspaper subscription. Being a child of the digital age, I don’t usually peruse printed newspapers. When I receive a newspaper at my house, I walk to the recycling bin, slide the paper out of its plastic sleeve, remove the Arby’s coupons, and trash the rest. On this particular day, I broke with my normal habit and decided to flip through the pages of the paper. Within I found the obituary of Fred Gunn, Jr. He had died at age 85. I had never met him before but I had heard his name at church and knew that he had been sick.
In this photo from the Cartersville Masonic Lodge, RSBC church member (since deceased) Fred Gunn Jr (father of Freddie Gunn) receives a 60 Year Mason Award.
Fred’s obituary noted the following:
“He was a veteran of the National Guard, a member of the Cartersville Masonic Lodge #63 F&M for sixty years, and a member of Rowland Springs Baptist Church…Internment will be private. The Bartow County Sheriff’s Department will serve as Honor Guard and the Cartersville Lodge will be in charge of Masonic Rites.”
“Masonic Rites,” I read the words alongside the name of my own church with embarrassment. My own church was burying a member who chose to go into the ground in front of his friends and family with pagan funeral rites. Jim Moore was an old man and a fifty-year Mason. He could very soon meet his Maker, unrepentant of his paganism. To my shame, I had said nothing to him about Freemasonry. Here I was writing blog articles and making Facebook posts about Freemasonry being a cult while not exhibiting the resolve to speak up in my own church. Fred Gunn’s obituary marked the last day I would ignore Freemasonry at Rowland Springs Baptist Church. I knew that as long as there was one Freemason in my church that it was unholy. I had to take action, scripture demanded as much. I threw away the newspaper as Ephesians 5:11burned in my mind. The Holy Spirit was convicting me.
In this photo, RSBC Church member Jim Moore is named “Honorable Past Master”. With him are RSBC members Frankie James and Alton Kay (now a former member). Kay, an ordained deacon of RSBC was the Worshipful Master of the Lodge in 2017.
Part Two of this article is forthcoming…
[Contributed by: Seth Dunn]
*Please note that the preceding is my personal opinion. It is not necessarily the opinion of any entity by which I am employed, any church at which I am a member, any church which I attend, or the educational institution at which I am enrolled. Any copyrighted material displayed or referenced is done under the doctrine of fair use.
The fallout from Trump’s devastating tariff renegotiations at the G7 summit has come crashing down around the feet of Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
Amazon has given in to demands from Muslim employees who requested various perks and work changes during Ramadan.
These demands for special accommodation of Islamic religious practice are causing upheaval at Amazon in terms of productivity and morale, as Ramadan coincides with Amazon’s biggest sale of the year: Amazon Prime Day. This is a time of extreme pressure:
Amazon warehouse employees have reportedly resorted to urinating in bottles to avoid punishment for taking a restroom break.
The Muslim employees “chanted in Somali” and slapped management with a list of special Ramadan demands. Their behavior has, not surprisingly, created “tension” with other employees.
Amazon.com Inc. employs more than 1,000 East African Muslim immigrants at four warehouses.
Amazon has unwisely chosen to concede to these demands out of fear of being branded “Islamophobic” by supremacist thugs. The company’s management needs to pay attention to the unraveling in Europe as a result of kowtowing to supremacist Muslims before company morale and productivity decline further.
“Amazon Gives In to Muslim Employee Ramadan Demands,” Charlie Nash, Breitbart, June 7, 2018:
Amazon has given in to demands from Muslim employees who requested various perks and work changes during Ramadan, which also coincides with Amazon’s biggest sale of the year.
According to Bloomberg, the fact that Ramadan was at the same time as Amazon Prime Day this year was “creating tension” among employees in “Minnesota’s Twin Cities region, where activists say Amazon.com Inc. employs more than 1,000 East African Muslim immigrants at four warehouses.”
Employees and other activists protested at the Eagan, Minnesota, delivery center, where they chanted in Somali and handed Amazon management a list of demands for Ramadan, which reportedly included a “call to curb their heavy workloads while they’re fasting and to let them take time off without penalty for Eid, the festival that ends Ramadan.”
Amazon announced that they would provide prayer rooms for employees at work and “would ease up on employees’ quotas for the duration of the fast.”…..
How wonderfully generous, tolerant, ecumenical, and all that. A few questions: why are Christian services never, ever held in mosques? Why is the “outreach” only one way? Or is it just a matter of the circumstances, so if a Christian screaming “Jesus is Lord” had committed a massacre in London, would a mosque host a Christian service and stress how we are all united as communities?
“UK Cathedral Celebrates Ramadan on Anniversary of ISIS London Bridge Attack,” by Tyler O’Neil, PJ Media, June 3, 2018:
London’s Southwark Cathedral hosted its second annual “Grand Iftar Service” on Sunday evening, marking the anniversary of the London Bridge terror attack last year. In addition to the 11 a.m. Eucharist service, the church also held a 3 p.m. Service of Commemoration for the attack, and an 8 p.m. service to celebrate the Muslim service….
“We stand united as communities, as Londoners, as people that want to celebrate our diversity,” Harun Khan, secretary general of the Muslim Council of Britain, said at the Iftar service.
In a statement, the cathedral announced it would “host its second Grand Iftar which, this year, will also mark the anniversary of the London Bridge attacks and will bring all communities together to celebrate Ramadan, to promote resilience and to share the common values of hope, peace and unity and celebrate the diversity of those who live and work in the Bankside area [of London].”
On June 3, 2017, three terrorists inspired by and claimed by the Islamic State (ISIS) drove a van into pedestrians on London Bridge. When the van crashed, the terrorists ran to the nearby Borough Market area and began stabbing people in and around restaurants and bars. These terrorists killed eight people and injured 48 others, including four unarmed police officers….
