SOUTHERN BAPTIST CONVENTION
SLIDING INTO OBLIVION
BY DON BOYS
The Southern Baptist Convention (SBC), after more than a hundred years of standing for biblical truth, has taken a left turn and is sliding into oblivion. Panic has set in since the denomination has lost over a million members since 2003! Something must be done—and in my opinion, that something, will destroy them.
The SBC has been plagued for decades with accelerating dangers that all denominations have faced. Local independent Baptist churches are having similar problems but not as pressing because they have no organizational structure. Thousands of churches have departed the convention over the years for what is perceived as a falling away from its original theological positions.
Some of the major SBC problems are female pastors, wine-bibbing clergy, Calvinism, Pentecostalism, post millennialism, unbelief in their pulpits, colleges, and seminaries, the sex scandal and sacking of Frank Page, president of the SBC Executive Committee, etc.
But the crux of the matter is a weakening of biblical inerrancy. With the younger generation of clergy, it does not seem to matter what the Bible says. They are determined to take the SBC in a “new direction” even if it means the group is totally transformed into their loose, modern image. Some of the changes are an improvement such as more Hispanics (as long as they are not tokens) and more females in their organizational structure; however, that does not justify the radical departure including female pastors. Their position on sexual matters would delight the political leaders in Sodom in yesteryears.
Older, traditional SBC members are aghast, angry, and anxious as they watch the denomination that highly dedicated, educated, and selfless leaders built being destroyed by the “Young Turks.”
The next major issue that will face the SBC is the leadership of women in their bureaucracy adding to the problem of female pastors. At present time, there are about 30 SBC churches that have a female pastor. The argument is since the SBC is not a local church the usual arguments would not be germane to females in major denominational positions. Look for a female SBC president by 2020. Following that will be the acceptance of female pastors. Following that, the SBC will simply be another mainline liberal denomination.
I predict that this issue will split the SBC like an overly ripe watermelon.
Dr. Dwight McKissic, black senior pastor of Cornerstone Baptist Church in Arlington, Texas, admits to speaking in tongues during devotional times and is pushing very hard for Blacks and women in places of leadership in the SBC. He is campaigning to bring more women into SBC leadership and declared, “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 itself in, I would nominate her for SBC president.” Sure, that’s all the struggling denomination needs—a woman whom God speaks to directly!
Beth’s website boasts, “God recently took me into seclusion for a week and placed these instructions before me…I feel I have never been given a more serious assignment for a single night gathering in my ministry…He [God] instructed me to listen carefully as I have ever listened and He would tell me the Scriptures and the sequence to place on the screens…Our deepest desire here is that God would grace us with His presence.”
I will be very surprised if Moore does not become a major SBC leader in the next few years. After all, she’s a better preacher than many SBC and independent Baptist pastors I’ve heard! However, ability is not the criteria. The Scripture is and that’s why the convention has all these problems—a low view of the Word of God by many leaders.
Not to be dismissed is the problems that follow Dr. Russell Moore, leader of the SBC’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC). It seems Moore habitually rises each morning planning to poke a sharp stick in the eye of every Conservative in the convention. Moore is soft on homosexuality, immigration (supporting Soros-financed groups), and was an early “Never Trumper.”
The SBC’s new president, North Carolina megachurch pastor J. D. Greear, represents a definite rejection of the much touted “conservative takeover” started in 1979 by Judge Paul Pressler and Dr. Paige Patterson, former president of the SBC. The SBC overwhelmingly (almost 70%) chose Greear who is soft on homosexuality and almost everything else. He was chosen over an older Ken Hemphill, former president at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary.
Greear’s North Carolina church gives $500,000 per year to the SBC Cooperative Program! He is the new face of Southern Baptists replacing Page Patterson, Judge Pressler, and Company. The old hardliners are out and the “Young Turks” are in.
Patterson was fired as President of Southwestern Baptist Seminary and was dumped as the SBC keynote speaker in Dallas recently. He has not reacted toward women the way his leftist brethren wanted him to do. Pressler has been accused of molesting or raping at least three boys followed by a cover-up by Patterson.
The Pressler accusations go back decades so I don’t know if he is a pervert or not. If the charges turn out to be true, then there should be a double hanging. Pressler and Bill Clinton should hang from the same tree.
As to Patterson’s guilt, it seems the charges against him are contrived or overblown or maybe totally false. The main accusation against him seems to be the advice he has given to abused women. He suggested they go slow about leaving their husband. I do to. Is the abuse physical abuse or is it yelling at her and putting her down? I would tell my daughters, leave him immediately if he gets physical.
But all these machinations seem to be normal if not very religious but all is fair in love and denominational politics. And make no mistake, this was payback against the conservatives who took over the seminaries and convention decades ago.
Greear ridiculed Dr. Robert Jeffress of First Baptist in Dallas who had Roman Catholic Sean Hannity of Fox News as a guest in a Sunday morning service. Greear said, “I think very quickly after I had grown a little disillusioned with the SBC, I found out that every other network I started to get in, there was like: They have crazy uncles in here too.”
Robert Jeffress, a crazy uncle! I am not Southern Baptist (but some of my best friends are) and I would not have invited Hannity for a church service but that is Jeffress’ business and the business of First Baptist. No one else. And nothing Jeffress has done even remotely qualifies him being called a crazy uncle.
In a message delivered in 2014, the youthful Greear said we have to “love our gay neighbor more than we love our position on sexual morality” which means you must surrender what the Bible teaches to appear loving and compassionate to the homosexual crowd. He added more gas to the fire by adding, “I cannot compromise, but I love you more than I love being right.” He is clearly saying that in a choice between loving (or more correctly, appearing to love) a homosexual and the Bible truth on the issue, he will reject the Bible truth and go with his feel-good position on perversion.
There is mass confusion about love that is destroying not only churches but homosexuals! One cannot have true love without truth. It is not love to permit a homosexual to believe that God looks upon his sin as benign or innocent. Like fornication and gluttony, perversion is wicked. For a minister of the Gospel to tell a homosexual that his perversion is not sinful is itself a perversion of truth.
The new President of the SBC may not qualify as a crazy uncle but he might as a crazy nephew!
The Apostle Paul commands us to “speak the truth in love.” Preachers who speak of “love” without truth are not lovers. One must know the truth and abide in the truth as Paul wrote in John 8:31 “If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed; And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”
However, the SBC is not abiding in the truth. It has been skirting the truth for more than 50 years. While there are thousands of good, dedicated pastors in the convention, they have lost their viability, if not their voice and vote. I’m afraid in my lifetime the great SBC will be a dinosaur. Members and former members will longingly speak of the “old days” when there was excitement, enjoyment, expectation, and faithful exegesis in their church services. Now, there is a lot of noise in many churches.
The Southern Baptist Convention has cut loose its anchor and will continue to keep drifting out to sea with little hope of returning to solid ground. It will soon lose sight of land.
The demise of the SBC is one of the worst tragedies to befall America. Very sad.
Boys’ new book Muslim Invasion: The Fuse is Burning! was published recently by Barbwire Books; to get your copy, click here. An eBook edition is also available.
______________________________________________________________
“LIFEWAY WOMEN” PROMOTE HILLSONG PROPHETESS, CHRISTINE CAINE
Lifeway Christian Resources is the retail and publishing arm of the Southern Baptist Convention, known easily as the world’s largest retailer of heresy in the United States, if not the world. As we have thoroughly documented on this news site, Lifeway sells books by Anti-Trinitarians, Word-Faith and Prosperity teachers, New Age gurus, gay activists, mystics, Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholics. In fact, the vast majority of what the Southern Baptist retailer sells is contrary to the denomination’s statement of faith, the Southern Baptist Faith and Message, and much of their selection contains troubling theology that Southern Baptist pastors have to regularly teach against. Lifeway has a blog and podcast for women, from their Lifeway Women division, called (accurately), “Marked.” Yesterday, they promoted the wildly unorthodox and charismatic Hillsong prophetess, Christine Caine.
Marked is hosted by Mary Margaret West and Elizabeth Hyndman. West posted the podcast on the Lifeway site, and her bio says that she is a former “girls minister,” is a “Girls Ministry Specialist” for Lifeway and got her seminary degree from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. Apparently, it’s possible to serve in those ministry positions and have a degree in ministry without ever having covered the basics of Christian theology. Had West been educated like any run-of-the-mill Baptist or Protestant should have been, she would know that Christine Caine is the theological equivalent of an infectious disease. If West loved girls, she wouldn’t expose them to Christine Caine.
West gave Caine’s bio on the podcast’s blog page:
Christine Caine is an Australian born, Greek blooded, lover of Jesus, activist, author and international speaker. She and her husband, Nick, founded the global anti-human trafficking organization, The A21 Campaign. They also founded Propel Women, an organization designed to activate women to fulfill their God-given passion, purpose, and potential. Christine is the author of six books including Unashamed. Her next book, Unexpected: Leave Fear Behind, Move Forward in Faith, Embrace the Adventure, released in May 2018.
We’ll provide a different bio for Caine.
Christine Caine got her start at Hillsong Church Australia, the seeker-friendly and worldwide mega cult founded by Word of Faith and Prosperity Gospel teacher, Brian Houston, who helped to cover up his father’s pedophilia. Hillsong might best be known for the music, attracting millions of young people to their catchy jingles who then get sucked into their heresies (this is called the “Arian Snare,” and is a millennia-old tactic of using seemingly innocuous music for nefarious purposes). In reality, Hillsong music is dangerous for the church. Caine, propelled by the Hillsong global campaign, dropped her pants with Hillsong founder, Bobby Houston (left), apparently demonstrating their familiarity and closeness. In reality, Caine is a product of the dangerous Hillsong church.
Hillsong, by the way, is known for its promotion of LGBT worship leaders, its promotion of queer theology like that held to by Jen Hatmaker, naked cowboys dancing on stage at their women’s events (the naked cowboy was a Hillsong pastor), a sleazy burlesque Christmas program (multiple ones, in fact), and its generalized worldliness. Hillsong is a lascivious, devious, and ungodly plague of locusts crossing land and sea making converts twice the sons of hell. Hillsong is not known for raising up godly young men and women or theologians who are committed to the inerrancy and sufficiency of the Word of God. Hillsong is known for raising up false converts like Justin Beiber and other celebrities who dig the music, lights, and laser shows but who bear no more fruit in keeping with repentance than before they ever began traveling with the Australian band of religious gypsies.
Nowhere on the planet do Hillsong followers have the reputation of being theologically serious, doctrinally sincere, or Biblically astute. They have the reputation for being among the most immature, Scripturally ignorant, and carnal people in the history of the world to ever call themselves Christians.
Caine considers Joyce Meyer one of her best friends, chief mentor, and “spiritual mother.” Together, they hold to the “little god theology” and Word-Faith heresies, that – like God – you can create destinies and demand temporal blessings simply by decreeing and declaring them into existence. They hold that Jesus died on the cross to give you possessions, wealth and health, there for the taking if you have enough faith and confess it positively. The heresy began (as best we can tell) with E.W. Kenyon, but has been most popularized by Joyce Meyer, Joel Osteen, and the branch of prosperity evangelists you will see on the Trinity Broadcasting Network. Lately, Caine has taken for herself the title of “activist,” fully promoting egalitarianism and Social Justice warrioring, meaning that she specializes in two deviations from the Gospel – both Social Gospel and Prosperity Gospel – an impressive feat, indeed.
On top of these issues, Caine regularly recalls precise words that she says God has spoken to her, putting herself into the Biblical class of prophet, having supposedly heard direct, divine revelation from God. She is, in every sense of the word, a prophetess.
Now, the question to answer is why Thom Rainer, CEO of Lifeway, Mary Margaret West of Lifeway Women, or the four million Southern Baptists who actually exist (the other reported ten million are entirely MIA) think that Southern Baptist women and girls need to be exposed to Christine Caine.
Questions:
- Is Lifeway Women promoting Christine Caine because they think she has valuable things to say? If so, what are those valuable things?
- Is Lifeway Women promoting Christine Caine because of the seriousness or soundness of her doctrine? If not, then for what other reason would they promote her?
This is perhaps some of the best practical evidence for why men – and not women – should be leading women. I genuinely don’t think the vast majority of Christian men would look at Christine Caine, study her for more than a few moments, and consider her much more than chaff. Women, it seems, are particularly susceptible to precisely what the Bible says they are susceptible, and that is false teaching that appeals to their senses and passions, invading households and capturing weak women (2 Timothy 3:6).
In the meantime, the name of Lifeway Women’s podcast, “Marked,” is apropos…
Now I beseech you, brethren, mark them which cause divisions and offenses contrary to the doctrine which ye have learned; and avoid them. – Romans 16:17
________________________________________
Even Catholics Notice Southern Baptists
Compromise on LGBT
LifeSite News is a Roman Catholic press outlet, and the following article was written by Brian Camenker and posted there first.
July 13, 2018 (Mass Resistance) – In April 2017, Rev. Tom Littleton of Alabama gave a chilling talk on “How the LGBT movement is infiltrating conservative churches” at the MassResistance Citizen Action Conference in Austin, TX. For over a decade, he pointed out, the national LGBT movement has been funding a multi-million-dollar under-the-radar subversive campaign in Southern states to push the homosexual movement into conservative Christian churches. And they’ve been shockingly successful.
But an even bigger goal has been to infiltrate and subvert the overall Southern Baptist Convention (SBC), the largest Christian denomination in the South and the second largest in North America (after the Catholic Church). This year that goal has become frighteningly closer to reality. The events surrounding the 2018 Southern Baptist Convention’s annual meeting, held June 12-13 in Dallas, shocked many conservatives.
At the 2018 Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting in Dallas. Over 10,000 people attended. (Photo: SBC.)
Events surrounding the 2018 SBC annual meeting
Purging of Dr. Paige Patterson. A few weeks before the SBC annual meeting, the de facto conservative leader of the Southern Baptist movement, Dr. Paige Patterson, was abruptly fired from his position as president of the Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary by its board. He was subsequently removed from all influence in the denomination, including his keynote speech at the annual meeting. This followed a hysteria-driven, well-orchestrated effort over several months to discredit him for alleged misconduct decades ago. It’s hard to know if the charges were legitimate. He was not given a hearing, nor was his side of the story even sought before judgment was made. Over two dozen major donors to the Seminary sent this well-documented, strongly worded letter expressing their disgust at the corrupt and illegal way that Dr. Patterson was treated. But the board refused to reconsider their actions.
SBC elects new leader who is “accommodating” to homosexuality. At the annual meeting, the SBC overwhelmingly elected J.D. Greear, a moderate pastor who caters to millennials, to be the new president of the denomination. As Bryan Fischer of American Family Radio points out, Greear often goes out of his way to be accommodating to homosexuality in his messages. Greear has told his congregation to “love our gay neighbor more than we love our position on sexual morality” – which seems to many to be completely un-Biblical.
Powerful resolution on LGBT issues submitted at Convention.Dr. Robert Oscar Lopez is the leader of Texas MassResistance and a professor at the Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Ft. Worth. As the Convention began,Dr. Lopez and a group of other Baptist Texas MassResistance activists submitted a powerful resolution on LGBT issues titled On Ministry and Counseling to Lead People from Homosexuality to Heterosexuality.
The resolution basically reiterated fairly standard Christian teaching on homosexuality: Among other things: No one is “born gay” and “cannot change”; To say “I am gay” is a rejection of God’s design. It states: “RESOLVED, the Southern Baptist Convention rejects as heresy any claims that God makes people homosexual…” It went on to say that reparative therapy and similar efforts to free a person from the grip of homosexuality should be supported by the SBC.
Resolution quashed by Convention leadership. Some “moderate” SBC leaders have been on record as opposing any kind of reparative therapy. The Convention adopted over a dozen left-leaning and Social Justice-type resolutions (on gun control, immigration, etc.). Lopez’s resolution was the only one submitted which addressed the LGBT movement’s push against orthodox Christianity. The Resolutions Committee refused to allow it to go to the floor for a vote, claiming that it needed “more clarification.” However, on the last day one of the Texas MassResistance activists was able to come to the podium to speak. He began to call for this resolution to be voted on, but the Chairman interrupted him and announced that the Convention time was over and adjourned the meeting!
Troubling “Revoice” Conference – ties to SBC? Another dangerous component of the LGBT movement’s war on Christianity is the upcoming “Revoice Conference”taking place in St. Louis on July 26-28. It is a slick, well-funded effort targeting Evangelical Christians, to encourage them to accept and embrace homosexuality into their religious life. The stated goal is: “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.” In other words, it is three days of expert training to equip LGBT activists and their allies to infiltrate Evangelical churches to normalize homosexuality and subvert the teachings of the Gospel. (In addition to all this, the organizers of “Revoice” have a similar conference in October targeting youth pastors to bring the LGBT agenda to church youth.)
On the first day, June 12, Rev. Littleton caught up with two major SBC leaders, Russell Moore and Al Mohler. Moore denied any knowledge of Revoice (after being informed of it the previous day), and Mohler allowed him to ask some questions — but then their handlers quickly shooed him away. The following day, just before Moore’s question-and-answer session at the podium, Rev. Littleton was suddenly thrown out of the building by the police. Why is there so much secrecy around this issue? This is very disturbing to many conservatives in the church.
Michelle Malkin
