SBC on the precipice: reckoning coming on covered up sexual abuse

#127
#127
McDad said:
From a freedom standpoint, what they are doing is ok. Here's where I have to draw a line, my faith puts restrictions on me. My faith doesn't put restrictions on someone else.
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What's the point of faith if you cant lord it over someone else and tell others how much better you are?
 
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#132
#132
OrangeTsar said:
Never have read those myself. Have been reading LOTR to my son at bedtime and we are almost at the end of it. So will be looking for new material. I have joked about doing War and Peace 😂
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If you want the entire household to be put to sleep, read Dr. Zhivago out loud.
 
#137
#137
AshG said:
When most people talk about "Old Time Religion", they're referring to the Second Great Awakening. That's yet another scar on America's storied religious past.

The Second Great Awakening | Tabletalk
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The most amazing thing about that article….seeing Oberlin, Princeton, and Yale mentioned as centers of Bible study and discussion 😳
Those are among the three most woke and spiritually dead places on the continent today.
Was a fascinating article though. Would like to find the book. The hardest lesson for me to learn in my Christian walk was exactly the fact that all of the emphasis that I heard growing up about “making a decision for Christ” did indeed almost become a sort of salvation by works instead of grace. It put me in the central role and sort of made me the central actor in Salvation more so then God. It was a subtle but distinct difference. Of course, man must respond to God’s Grace but it becomes so easy to focus on the “work” of decision to the exclusion of Gods preceding Grace.
But there you are getting into a debate that goes back to he first century of the Church, free will vs predestination. Only a very brave or a very foolish person will knowingly open THAT particular can of worms. When someone asks me if I believe in free will or predestination, my standard reply is simply “yes” 😂
 
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#138
#138
OrangeTsar said:
The most amazing thing about that article….seeing Oberlin, Princeton, and Yale mentioned as centers of Bible study and discussion 😳
Those are among the three most woke and spiritually dead places on the continent today.
Was a fascinating article though. Would like to find the book. The hardest lesson for me to learn in my Christian walk was exactly the fact that all of the emphasis that I heard growing up about “making a decision for Christ” did indeed almost become a sort of salvation by works instead of grace. It put me in the central role and sort of made me the central actor in Salvation more so then God. It was a subtle but distinct difference. Of course, man must respond to God’s Grace but it becomes so easy to focus on the “work” of decision to the exclusion of Gods preceding Grace.
But there you are getting into a debate that goes back to he first century of the Church, free will vs predestination. Only a very brave or a very foolish person will knowingly open THAT particular can of worms. When someone asks me if I believe in free will or predestination, my standard reply is simply “yes” 😂
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Wonderful reply! And yes, I avoid Calvinism vs Arminianism discussions at all costs. Nothing good has ever come from those, except for the laugh track from our Catholic and Orthodox brethren with a millennia and a half more understanding.

What I bolded... One of the issues I had with some evangelical churches growing up - and still have today - is the "Scare'em to the altar" approach. Put a tween or teen in a Judgment House and hit every emotional and psychological button you can until they're begging the Almighty for mercy? That's not witnessing, that's creating an emotional episode. Straight out of the Anxious Bench tradition. There's little follow up other than an attempt to get them dunked, then good luck and best wishes! Two or three weeks later those kids are twice the sons of hell that they were before they were spooked into "belief".

But, I digress. I enjoy your viewpoint on this.
 
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#139
#139
AshG said:
Wonderful reply! And yes, I avoid Calvinism vs Arminianism discussions at all costs. Nothing good has ever come from those, except for the laugh track from our Catholic and Orthodox brethren with a millennia and a half more understanding.

What I bolded... One of the issues I had with some evangelical churches growing up - and still have today - is the "Scare'em to the altar" approach. Put a tween or teen in a Judgment House and hit every emotional and psychological button you can until they're begging the Almighty for mercy? That's not witnessing, that's creating an emotional episode. Straight out of the Anxious Bench tradition. There's little follow up other than an attempt to get them dunked, then good luck and best wishes! Two or three weeks later those kids are twice the sons of hell that they were before they were spooked into "belief".

But, I digress. I enjoy your viewpoint on this.
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Yep… somewhere along the line, some churches stopped caring whether they were getting a profession of faith or a sigh of relief as long as they get to click the dunk counter.
 
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#140
#140
AshG said:
Wonderful reply! And yes, I avoid Calvinism vs Arminianism discussions at all costs. Nothing good has ever come from those, except for the laugh track from our Catholic and Orthodox brethren with a millennia and a half more understanding.

What I bolded... One of the issues I had with some evangelical churches growing up - and still have today - is the "Scare'em to the altar" approach. Put a tween or teen in a Judgment House and hit every emotional and psychological button you can until they're begging the Almighty for mercy? That's not witnessing, that's creating an emotional episode. Straight out of the Anxious Bench tradition. There's little follow up other than an attempt to get them dunked, then good luck and best wishes! Two or three weeks later those kids are twice the sons of hell that they were before they were spooked into "belief".

But, I digress. I enjoy your viewpoint on this.
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Beings that exist in time see a conflict between freewill and predestination that I believe is meaningless to God, existing as He does simultaneously across all eternity. It is like a two dimensional being trying to envision a cube. No sense in arguing it. I assume that both can be true from God’s elevated point of view.
I “made my decision” for Christ after one of those scary alter calls and I do believe it was genuine at the time. The message was scriptural and answered a lot of questions about my own nature and inability to always be “good” as a preteen. But it led to a lot of doubts well into my late 20s about if I had actually been under conviction at the time, if I had heard an authentic call from God, if I knew what I was doing, if i had prayed the correct prayer, if I had truly surrendered 100% to God, etc. i spent two decades worrying about if I had done everything correctly instead of trusting God to meet me where I was nd so do all the work Himself.
 
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#142
#142
AshG said:
Wonderful reply! And yes, I avoid Calvinism vs Arminianism discussions at all costs. Nothing good has ever come from those, except for the laugh track from our Catholic and Orthodox brethren with a millennia and a half more understanding.

What I bolded... One of the issues I had with some evangelical churches growing up - and still have today - is the "Scare'em to the altar" approach. Put a tween or teen in a Judgment House and hit every emotional and psychological button you can until they're begging the Almighty for mercy? That's not witnessing, that's creating an emotional episode. Straight out of the Anxious Bench tradition. There's little follow up other than an attempt to get them dunked, then good luck and best wishes! Two or three weeks later those kids are twice the sons of hell that they were before they were spooked into "belief".

But, I digress. I enjoy your viewpoint on this.
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Now now, I must say I do enjoy and learn from listening to the expository wonders of RC Sproul on reformed theology and compare to Barth and Bonhoeffer and against the Magisterium but will concede that such pleasures of mind would border on cruel and unusual torment to the young, though perhaps preferable to the Johnathan Edwards tradition.
 
#144
#144
OrangeTsar said:
Nope. But that has always bothered me when liberals complain when a pastor in an SBC church preaches against abortion but a Democrat politician can basically hold a fundraising rally from the pulpit of a black church and all we hear are crickets
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You've never been to a black church but you profess to know what they do in their churches.

This while most SBC churches pass out voting guides. (I was raised in SBC church so I have been to them many times.)
 
#147
#147
AshG said:
What about the political chants some churches have done? That's definitely Christlike.
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I had a minister I was friends with about my age (mid-thirties) who was head pastor of a large congregation. He shared with me that some in the congregation put an inordinate amount of pressure on him to entwine politics with the message. I told him that I would never attend a church that brought the sewer that is politics into the church. (Not that my opinion mattered as I was only 1 unwealthy person). He ended up abruptly resigning and taking a position about 10 rungs down. (Not because of what I said but because of who he was). My point being is that to keep politics out of the church is a heavy cross to bear.
 
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#148
#148
AshG said:
What about the political chants some churches have done? That's definitely Christlike.
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Some people fail to realize that the Gospel of Christ has nothing to do with politics. God doesn’t care about political affiliation. He is more concerned about where we are going in life and the decisions we make.
 
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#149
#149
AshG said:
There's something about authoritarian religious organizations that allows this type of thing to happen. Has Southern Baptist leadership been taking notes from the Vatican?

This Is the Southern Baptist Apocalypse

"For years, leaders in the Executive Committee said a database—to prevent sexual predators from quietly moving from one church to another, to a new set of victims—had been thoroughly investigated and found to be legally impossible, given Baptist church autonomy. My mouth fell open when I read documented proof in the report that these very people not only knew how to have a database, they already had one.

Allegations of sexual violence and assault were placed, the report concludes, in a secret file in the SBC Nashville headquarters. It held over 700 cases. Not only was nothing done to stop these predators from continuing their hellish crimes, staff members were reportedly told not to even engage those asking about how to stop their child from being sexually violated by a minister. Rather than a database to protect sexual abuse victims, the report reveals that these leaders had a database to protect themselves."
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The second has become very liberal, so ypu should start defending them. AUTHORITARIAN? Dumb.... just dumb...
 
#150
#150
WBO said:
You've never been to a black church but you profess to know what they do in their churches.

This while most SBC churches pass out voting guides. (I was raised in SBC church so I have been to them many times.)
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Without too much effort you can find videos taken of politicians speaking in black churches just as I described. Some of them aren’t even disguised as sermons but are outright political rallies.
And regarding voter guides, they are voluntary question and answer sheets provided to all candidates of all parties. A candidate can choose to take part or not, there is no discrimination and the guides make no endorsements
 
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