The Christian Advocate

Concerns About Nashville Tennessean Article From a Former NAMB Trustee

2009-01-30T16:34:00.002-05:00

The following letter was written to answer concerns about an article published in THE NASHVILLE TENNESSEAN in December. Our computer suffered an untimely death and thus the delay for publishing this letter. I have had some health problems, not unusual for a 76 year old, but am feeling much better now. The reports by some of my demise are premature.

RMT

Editor

The Nashville Tennessean

1100 Broadway

Nashville, Tennessee 37203

Dear Mr. Editor,

The article of December 18, 2008 by Bob Smietana under the heading "SOUTHERN BAPTIST GROWTH PLAN TEETERS" was astoundingly erroneous in many ways. Here's hoping that your readers can know the opinion of one who was there when it happened!

The most appalling thing was the fact that he just could not leave Dr. Robert Reccord alone. He apparently gleaned his material from the latest hit article carried in the CHRISTIAN INDEX written by Editor Gerald Harris and Joe Westbury. The most despicable person in this whole affair is Gerald Harris. He has handled the whole matter in a very inept manner and obviously doesn't bother to get all the facts. Many of us doubt that he could understand the facts if he had them. I was privileged to serve as a Trustee of the North American Mission Board for 6 years during Dr. Reccord's administration and for 2 years after he left. I was there when he resigned. Mr. Smietana is wrong! Dr. Reccord did not clash with the Board over the direction of the agency. He clashed with some ill qualified and inept officers of the Board who had operated a crass political campaign to get themselves into position. They have bungled about everything that they have touched since they have been serving as officers of the Trustee Board. Barry Holcomb was Chairman of the Trustees when Dr. Reccord resigned. He was such a bungler that he left an Executive Session of the Board which dealt with personnel matters and went directly to the Press to tell them what had happened in the Executive Session. It was Holcomb, Bill Curtis and Tim Patterson who caused the problem. Barry Holcomb rotated off three years ago and Bill Curtis rotates off this year so at least we will be rid of them at last. It is hard to escape the conclusion that Curtis wants the job as President of the Board for himself even though he is totally unqualified. All three of that troika are like the proverbial "Bull in a China Closet".

So now they are worried about a "National Advertising" Campaign. The irony of it all is that Dr. Reccord had cultivated relationships with the media and kept lines of communication open to them. Southern Baptists often made the evening news in their Disaster Relief efforts but Dr. Reccord was criticized for these relationships. Two minutes on the evening news is worth a million dollars in paid advertising. I heard one of his critics refer to him as "Hollywood Bob", a very derogatory remark if there ever was one!

The INDEX criticized the Board because they "lost money" on some programs. That is how out of touch Harris and Westbury are. All the programs of the Board are ministries. The TENNESSEAN is absolutely wrong in the suggestion that many of the Board's programs have "fizzled". The Board presides over ministries. It is not a profit and loss operation. As a life long Southern Baptist I cannot remember a program that did not do some good for the Kingdom of God. When a Church conducts a service and no one joins, is that service considered a failure? Did it "fizzle"? Years ago an evangelist in Clay County, North Carolina conducted a revival and was depressed because only one young lad had responded to the invitation. But, that lad was George W. Truett one of the most beloved and effective pastors that the twentieth century ever knew. He pastored the First Baptist Church of Dallas for more than 45 years. He is the one who delivered the famous sermon on the Capital steps about church and state issues. Did Paul's sermon on Mars Hill "fizzle" because only a few responded? The whole idea is ridiculous.

Tim Patterson probably put his finger on the crux of the problem with Geoff Hammond when he said, "He listens to us". If he is listening to the likes of Patterson and his ilk he is doomed to fail! Trustees are there to set policy and call for accountability. They are not there to micromanage the Board. The Officers of the Trustee Board seem to be busying themselves trying to convince Southern Baptists that they did the right thing in destroying the ministry of Bob Reccord at the Board but it isn't working! Many exciting things were going on under the Reccord administration. We could mention the Strategic Cities campaigns. I was privileged to attend a Trustee Meeting in Las Vegas. It is a city in which a third of the economy is connected to the gaming industry and yet we have Southern Baptist churches in that city now ranging from 700 to 1,400 in attendance and there are a number of them. The North American Mission Board assisted most of those churches in their establishment and the building of their facilities! We could mention the tremendous work of the North American Mission Board during the 9/11 disaster. We could mention the tremendous help of the Church Loans Department of the Board in assisting churches with their building programs. There were many exciting things going on during the Reccord Administration but most of it was trashed after he left and the organizational structure of the Board can be described now only as a "terrible mess". If Geoff Hammond is to succeed he will need to quit listening to the Tim Patterson's of the world and discern the will of God through prayer and the seeking of God's guidance

It is a given that Geoff Hammond apparently doesn't have the gift of administration. It does not mean that he is not a good man. He has tremendous skills in the area of Church Planting. It is not the purpose of the President of the Board to "micromanage" the affairs of the Board. He has executive staff to take care of those day to day operations and they are accountable to the President. It is the job of the President to be out there among Southern Baptists representing the work of the Board to them and to the people of the Nation. It was under Dr. Reccord's leadership that the Board gained national recognition as the second largest disaster relief organization in America. Even the Red Cross depends heavily upon the North American Mission Board. When this Nation suffered two seasons of hurricane destruction that were "off the charts", it was Bob Reccord and the North American Mission Board that coordinated Southern Baptist efforts in that area and some volunteers are still working to help with reconstruction in the wake of the devastation left by Hurricane Katrina. Southern Baptists served 14.5 million hot meals, paid for by NAMB. They provided 103,000 hot showers. Approximately 8,000 children were kept in child care. 16,000 debris sites were cleared. Disaster relief contributions to NAMB during that period increased from 3.5 million dollars to almost 26 million dollars and that was through the efforts of Dr. Bob Reccord. No, that's not what I call a "fizzle". After Katrina hit, Bob Reccord was down there on the site working with the volunteers.

I noted the statement by Chuck Kelly that working with Southern Baptists is like trying to "herd cats". I have news for him; cats can't be herded but they can always be led. They will show up every time at the feeding dish if they are fed.

Since Dr. Reccord left the Board (NAMB) his ministry has been very, very successful and he has been instrumental in leading multiplied thousands of men to faith in Jesus Christ. Here's hoping that, perhaps, you are interested in hearing the "rest of the story".

Sincerely,

Willo'deane F. Tenery

NOTE: I realize that this letter has too many words to be used as a "Letter To The Editor" but it is impossible to address errors that are presented in such a long article with only 250 words. Perhaps, in all fairness to Dr. Reccord and the ministry of the North American Mission Board, you could use this as an "OP-Ed" piece to tell the "rest of the story". WFT

Let's Get Real About WMU

2007-09-10T16:28:00.000-05:00

The most important ingredient now in dealing with the WMU of North Carolina is reality. They are leaving us. They want to get as much money from us as they can and carry as many churches as possible with them. The question for the Convention is whether or not we are going to accommodate them in their schismatic effort because they are not just leaving us they are going as rapidly as they can to the CBF. They have expressed their desire to "partner" with the CBF. When you see that term "partner" you will know that it is a CBF term. They also want to "partner" with other Baptist groups.

This is a part of a much larger picture. It is all a part of a mad dash by several declining Baptist bodies to a meeting of the so-called "New Baptist Covenant" in Atlanta on January 30 to February 1 of 2008. It is being referred to by CBF leaders as a "new paradigm for the 21st Century". The meeting is being called together by Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton. Carter's anti-American rhetoric as he travels over the world is right up there with Hugo Chavez of Venezuela and Bin Laden the cave dweller. Apparently, Carter has never forgiven the conservatives in the South for his ouster from the White House and the end of his meaningless presidency. Bill Clinton who is a co-sponsor of the meeting is best known for his sexual affair with a young intern at the White House and his lying under oath while he was President. Neither of these men know enough Biblical theology to fill a thimble. At least, Carter is a Sunday School teacher. We don't know what possible role Bill Clinton will play. Maybe he can give a demonstration on how to remove a stain from a dress. Southern Baptists have been practically ignored in the program. One Republican Presidential Candidate was invited but he withdrew. It is obviously an attempt to pull together a large liberal Baptist voting bloc. The Democrat Party was shocked that Evangelical Christians were so turned off by them in the last election. Now they are "getting religion" in the hopes of gleaning a larger vote from Christians in the South. The Atlanta Meeting is viewed largely as a political move to garner votes for Hillary Clinton in the 2008 Presidential Election.

Make no mistake about it, the National WMU organization is deeply involved. They have copyrighted the names of Lottie Moon and Annie Armstrong and the Southern Baptist Convention now has to pay for the use of those names. The national body has refused to become an agency of the Convention and even refused to take over the Royal Ambassadors. It is obvious that the WMU organization, while it has little support in the local churches, is going to try to pull support from Baptist Women to the leftward positions of the Atlanta group.

The issue facing North Carolina Baptists is whether or not we are going to give them the money to make the move and re-establish themselves with the liberal group or whether we are going to have the good sense to terminate the relationship with the organization and begin communicating with the women in the local churches in the promotion of missions for which we don't need the organizational structure of the WMU. Some of the best supporters of missions do not use the WMU in promotion of missions and the WMU has, for years, claimed much more credit for the success in Southern Baptist Missions than they deserve. In many instances, they have become pressure groups on the Pastor which has been widely resented. The North Carolina Convention should make a quick and clean separation from them and here's hoping that someone looks into the legality of giving money at the Convention level to any Baptist entity that unilaterally changes their constitutional relationship with the Convention without the consent of the Convention. The Convention has much more important work to do than to dilly dally with the WMU organization. Most women in local Baptist Churches have no idea as to who the President of the Organization is anyway.

A REPLY TO THE CHARGE OF GNOSTICISM IN THE SBC ADVANCED BY ALAN CROSS ON THE SBC OUTPOST BLOG

2007-08-02T22:01:00.000-05:00

Al Mohler is right and you are wrong. I say that kindly but it must be said. The Baptist Faith and Message has always been a minimal statement of Southern Baptist Theology. It was first adopted in 1925 at the Convention in Memphis. It was presented by a Committee composed of E.Y. Mullins, L.R. Scarborough, C.P. Stealey, W.G. McGlothlin, S.M. Brown, E.C. Dargan, and R.H. Pitt. The statement represented an enlargement of the Statement of Principles of 1919 and based largely on the the New Hampshire Confession with 10 additions, 2 deletions (articles 12 & 16) and 3 redactions. The Committee made it clear that it was a general expression of the faith of Southern Baptists and that it was not authoritative nor binding on local churches. When the statement was re-issued in 1963 by a Committee of State Convention Presidents chaired by Southern Baptist Convention President Herschel Hobbs, they made it clear that the statement constituted a consensus of opinion and that they were not to add anything to the simple conditions of salvation revealed in the new Testament. They also made it clear that the statement did not represent a complete statement of our faith nor did they have any quality of finality or infallibility. They also expressed the belief that "Baptists should hold themselves free to revise their statements of faith as seemed to them wise and expedient at any time". They asserted that the sole authority for faith and practice among Baptists is the Scriptures of the Old and new Testament and that confessions are only guides and interpretation. It has been said over and over again that the Baptist Faith and Message is not a creed that is binding upon the churches. We wonder how many times that has to be said before everyone gets it. Indeed, there were slight revisions and additions to the statement in the year 2000. Every Southern Baptist Church, being autonomous, can either accept the statement or reject it. They may issue their own statement or do nothing about it. The Convention has instructed all Southern Baptist entities to teach and carry out their program assignments "in accordance with and not contrary to" that statement. But, that statement does not hold the Baptist Faith and Message to be an exhaustive statement. Realizing that, Southern Baptist entities have always gone beyond that statement in carrying out their various program assignments. Some seminaries operate according to a statement that they refer to as "Abstract of Principles" but those statements are not contrary to the Baptist Faith and Message. For instance, there have been times when persons employed by Southern Baptist entities have had to be dismissed for reasons of moral turpitude. Sometimes there have been dismissals for lack of performance but there are also times when there have been dismissals because employees of agencies or institutions of the Southern Baptist Convention have taught contrary to the Baptist Faith and Message which is a clear violation of the instructions given by the Convention itself.

AUTONOMY

The liberals are making much of the term "autonomy of the local church". The thing that must be honestly remembered, however, is that Associations, State Conventions and the Southern Baptist Convention are all autonomous each of the other. That is the reason we send Messengers instead of Delegates to the Convention. That is because the churches cannot tell the rest of the Convention what they must do and the actions of the Convention cannot be forced on any local church.

Accordingly, some Associations have found it necessary to withdraw from churches as will be discussed later. That action was taken by the Tarrant Baptist Association of Ft. Worth, Texas when J. Frank Norris was Pastor of the First Baptist Church of that city. He and his Church were excluded. A large church in a Southern City was denied membership in an Association because a Minister of Music on the Committee decided that they "didn't sing Southern Baptist music" even though their hymn books were published by the Baptist Sunday School Board. There have been churches that were excluded because they didn't send in an Associational Letter or didn't contribute to the Association. Some have been excluded because they recognized Homosexual Marriages. I have known of churches who were excluded because they had "independent leanings". We may agree or disagree with the Association's reason for excluding them but what cannot be contested is the right of the Association to do so. State Conventions and the Southern Baptist Convention have done the same thing. If autonomy is important to us (and it is) then let's respect it at all levels.

TRUSTEE SYSTEM

Technically the Southern Baptist Convention owns and operates its various entities through Boards of Trustees. The Boards of Trustees, in fact, own those various entities and they are responsible to the Convention. When the Sunday School Board was sued, the suit was not filed against the President but the Trustees. The Trustees can never take away any agency or institution of the Convention because of the "sole membership" amendment recently adopted by the various entities which was a very intelligent move on the part of the Convention.

GLOSSOLALIA

This controversy is being fueled by the issues of glossolalia and Calvinism at the present time. These issues are the occasion of the controversy but not the cause. The cause is something else. Read on!! Glossolalia is a heresy that dates back to the Corinthian Church. Through the centuries there have been efforts to reproduce Pentecost. Today there are denominations that are referred to as "Pentecostal" denominations. Dr. Criswell was right, there will never be another Pentecost just as there will never be another Calvary. The Church was born on the day of Pentecost and it will never be unborn. The Gates of Hell will never prevail against it. God doesn't have to redo Pentecost. Moreover, Baptists need to understand that God isn't sitting on His throne saying, "You can talk to me if you can figure out this prayer language". The instruction of Jesus concerning Prayer in the Sermon on the Mount still stands and it doesn't include any kind of glossolalia. Not only did He teach us to pray in Matthew 6 but He went over it again in the 7th chapter when He said, "Ask and it shall be given you; seek and ye shall find; knock and it shall be opened unto you". His help is ours for the asking! Jesus comes across it again in Luke 11: 9-10. In the great passage of John 14 Jesus makes it clear again when He said, "Whatsoever ye ask in my name, that will I do that the Father may be glorified in the son". How many times does Jesus have to say it before we accept it?

The Corinthian Church was carrying on a kind of unintelligible gibberish in their Worship Services. Paul's concern was their witness to unbelievers. His question was, "Will they not say that you are mad?". Glossolalia is such a terrible heresy because it tends to erect a barrier between man and God - a barrier that is not there and we should not try to erect one. We can go to God any time and speak to God in the simplest of language and He will hear us. That is His promise and we can tie to it.

CALVINISM

For a Calvinist to say that he is evangelistic is an oxymoron. Calvin said some good and correct things but his soteriology was a confused mess. It is indisputable that he wrote in The Institutes that "We assert that by an eternal and immutable council God hath once for all determined both whom He would admit to salvation and whom He would admit to destruction. We confirm that this council, as concerns the elect, is founded on His gratuitous merit totally irrespective of human merit; but that to those whom He devotes to condemnation the Gate of Life is closed by a just an irreprehensible judgment". When once a person embraces this kind of limited atonement he might as well strike out the "whosoever" form those great passages like John 3:16, Romans 10:13 and Revelation 22:17. I have known a few preachers who thought they were Calvinists until they compared his teachings to the Scriptures and then they decided they were not Calvinists. All Baptists need to get back to the Scriptures and quit exalting a 16th Century theologian as though his writings were equal to or above the Scripture. The soteriology of the Bible is clear. No one is excluded from Salvation except as he rejects God's provision for salvation. The false idea of limited atonement (one of the five points from the Synod of Dort - 1619) always hinders evangelism because it is contrary to the clear teachings of the Scriptures.

Calvin condemned and fought against the ana-Baptists who insisted on the right of private interpretation of Scripture and denied ecclesiastical authority. Calvin wrote, "There is no other means of entering life unless she (the church) conceive us in the womb and give us birth, unless she nourishes us at the heart, and watch over us with her protection and guidance ... outside her bosom no forgiveness of sins, no salvation can be hoped for" (an idea absolutely foreign to Baptists). Calvin became the defacto ruler of Geneva. Calvin obviously believed in establishing authority through the church because he did not believe that Scripture was devoid of error. He makes a strange bedfellow for Southern Baptists who believe in the Baptist Faith and Message. His doctrine of predestination was the most unpalatable of all his teachings because it represented such a misunderstanding of the clear teaching of Scripture. He believed that Salvation was controlled by the Church. He didn't believe that the Bible was free of error and some want Baptists to swallow his teaching???

The proof texts that Calvinists use for the teaching of predestination is Romans 8:29 and Ephesians 1:5. While other texts are often used these are the primary texts that Calvinists cling to. The Romans passage says: "For whom he did foreknow, he did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his son, that he might be the first born among many brethren". So, who did God foreknow? The answer to that is everyone. If God foreknew everyone then everyone was predestined, or would have the opportunity of being conformed to the image of His Son. Thus, the thing that was predestined was the Plan of Salvation proffered to us through Jesus Christ, the Divine Son of god. It does not mean that God has decreed that some would be eternally lost and others would be saved unto eternal life. This is confirmed in II Peter 3:9 where he said, "The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is long suffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish but that ALL should come to repentance." As Dr. Huber Drumwright once said: "Predestination applies only to Christians."

The same Paul who penned Ephesians 1:5 also penned Ephesians 2:8 under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit where he tells us: "For by grace are ye saved through faith, and that not of yourselves it is the gift of God". What is the gift of God? The subject of that sentence is salvation (ye are saved). It is by our faith that we appropriate the Gift of God. By His grace God has extended salvation to us through Jesus Christ and any man who is willing to subject his will to Jesus Christ by faith will receive that salvation. That is the reason that the Revelation says, "Whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely". When we do that, we not only appropriate God's salvation so graciously proffered through the shed blood of Jesus Christ at Calvary, but we come under the Lordship of Jesus Christ for eternity.

Some Calvinists seem to believe that predestination elevates the omniscience of God. That is not true. Man never has the power to elevate the omniscience of God because that cannot be done; neither can man diminish the omniscience of God because he doesn't have that power either no matter who he may be. God knows all He chooses to know and He can forget what He chooses to forget. In fact, it is Jeremiah who reminds us that when men know God He will "forgive their iniquity", and "will remember their sin no more". Old time preachers often used an interpolation based on Psalm 103:12, Micah 7:19 and Jeremiah 31:34 to say that God places our sins in "the sea of forgetfulness and remembers them against us no more".

CALVIN'S MORALITY

This Southern Baptist has a lot of problems with John Calvin. To be sure, I am not his judge but he was ruthless and relentless in dealing with all who disagreed with him. Castellio, a school master in Geneva was banished because he disagreed with Calvin's interpretation of the Apostles' Creed. Bolsec was imprisoned and later banished because he opposed Calvin's ideas on predestination. Things came to a head when Michael Servetus disagreed with Calvin about the Trinity. He was arrested and brought to trial on a charge of heresy which was later changed to one accusing him of subverting religion and society. Calvin was the accuser and prosecutor. Servetus was sentenced to a particularly agonizing death on October 27, 1553. This illustrates the unholy amalgamation of Church and State in Calvin's Geneva.

In Calvin's Geneva, there were very strict moral standards. Adultery was punished by drowning (of women) and by beheading (of men). Calvinists adopted an austere attitude toward immoderate extravagance in dress and entertainment. It was fanatical Calvinists in Massachusetts who supported Samuel Parris and Cotton Mather in the execution of 19 people who were accused of practicing witchcraft in Salem. Being a Harvard graduate, Mather had his defenders but he was in it up to his neck and his Father, Increase Mather, was President of Harvard. Defenders of Calvin contended that strict and often inhumane treatment of those who were determined to be sinners was necessary to improve the morals of a society that was steeped in debauchery coming out of the Renaissance. Certainly, we would not defend adultery but Jesus dealt with a woman taken in adultery and His command to her was, "go and sin no more". He didn't put her to death. Thank God for the Scriptures! As a lifetime Southern Baptist, I find a lot in Calvinism that troubles me but I find nothing in the teachings of Jesus and the Apostles that troubles me. We Baptists need to get back to where we belong. We are a people of the Book. If anyone wants to know what Calvinism will do, take a look at the Primitive Baptists. No one can "out Calvin" those people. The handbook of Denominations estimates that there are only 72,000 of them left. They are concentrated mostly in Western North Carolina, West Virginia, East Tennessee, and Eastern Kentucky.

AGENDA

It is time for Southern Baptists to ask the piercing question, "What is fueling this debate among the Bloggers who seem to find something wrong with the Southern Baptist Convention?" Why do we see them using such derogatory language about our leaders? This Southern Baptist is persuaded that many of those who are pushing the envelope on glossolalia do not believe in it nor practice it. Calvinism is attractive to some Pastors because it takes away the urgency of evangelism. They simply become caretakers of the churches where they serve. Their baptisms are usually very few. It is much more important to be Johanine, Pauline, Petrine or Lucan than to be a Calvinist.

Again, I am noticing the term "Fundamentalist" being tossed about on some Blogs. In Southern Baptist life, that is a pejorative term. Fundamentalism didn't start among Baptists. It started among the Presbyterians at Princeton University in 1910 when certain faculty members led the General Conference of the Presbyterian Church to adopt the Five Fundamentals. Southern Baptists had no quarrel with them, but we disagreed with them on other matters not relating to the Five Fundamentals. Southern Baptists did not accept their ideas relating to church government or baptism among other things. Many Southern Baptists saw the Five Fundamentals as a very inadequate statement of faith or confession. That led to the Baptist Faith and Message in 1925 which was much more comprehensive. Only a very, very small handful of Southern Baptists joined the movement. The most notable was J. Frank Norris of Fort Worth. Norris was expelled from the Tarrant Association in 1922 and again in 1924. He was expelled from the Texas Convention in 1923 and 1924. While Norris continued to criticize the Southern Baptist Convention until his death in 1952, he was never able to gain much traction because the Southern Baptist people were so conservative at that time. The term "Fundamentalist" is often used by Liberals among us today as a way of insulting us.

The conclusion seems inescapable that some in the Blogosphere, who are liberals, are trying to push the parameters of Southern Baptist tehology to the point that we can accept all kinds of heresies and, perhaps, allow Liberals to worm their way back into our Seminary Classrooms where they can spew their Wellhausen poison into the stream of Southern Baptist theology. A Liberal is one who has embraced the Documentary Hypothesis in any of its forms. Southern Baptists need to make no mistake about it, Liberalism is not dead. They are still among us. When they were not longer able to control our Convention machinery and our Seminaries, they pulled away and formed their own denomination. They have established little dinky divinity schools that do a very poor job of preparing young men for the pastorate but their aim is not so much the pulpits of our churches as it is the classrooms where our young people study. That is the reason their point of attack at present is our Seminary Presidents. Our Seminaries are under good leadership. The scholars teaching in our seminary classrooms are as good as or better than we have ever had. They are well prepared. None have claimed to be living in sinless perfection but they are good people and fully committed to the mission of Southern Baptists. They all have feet of clay and they know it. I note, however, that the critics of our Seminaries never raise a question about the little dinky divinity schools that the Liberals have established. That speaks volumes!! Does that give no one pause? It is time for Southern Baptists to be as wise as serpents and harmless as doves. A lot of good things are happening in the Convention. There are no deep dark secrets that we need to be concerned about but there are millions of lost souls that we need to reach. It is time to quit looking for a "Fundamentalist" under every rock and look unto the fields that are white unto harvest.

BAPTISTS AND POLITICS

2007-07-03T09:18:00.000-05:00

There is a brazen, concerted effort afoot in our Country at the present time to persuade Southern Baptists who happen to be Republican to switch their allegiance to the Democrat Party or either stay away from the polls in '08. To that end, a hodge-podge of small, left leaning Baptist groups just concluded a joint convocation in Washington, D.C. on June 29. It was the usual anti-Southern Baptist clap trap that we have come to expect from liberals. Rachel Zoll of the Associated Press billed them as a group "trying to escape the shadow of Southern Baptists". The major participants included the American Baptists and the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship. According to the AP release, American Baptist USA Churches have about 1.2 million members and about 5,500 congregations nation-wide. They are mostly located in northern states. This compares to more than 16 million Southern Baptists in more than 42,000 churches with more than 10,000 foreign and domestic missionaries. This group was once known as the Northern Baptist Convention and was a live and vibrant denomination but liberalism won the day among Northern Baptists and the denomination is only a skeleton of its' former self. The most recent flight of churches from this group came about over differences concerning the nature of the Bible and homosexuality. They have trimmed their national staff and plan to sell their national office in Pennsylvania. The Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, based in Atlanta, was formed in 1991 by "moderate and liberal Southern Baptists who opposed the conservative Southern Baptist leadership". While they claim about 1,900 congregations as supportive, no one really knows. They adopted a small budget of $16,481,000 which was more than a half million dollars below their current budget. The budget, still to be approved by the General Assembly, cuts funding for most of their ministry areas including Global Missions. The two groups currently are jointly sponsoring two missionary couples who will represent both groups (Wow what an impact!). They are organizing a national Islamic/Baptist dialogue to improve relations with Muslims.

ALLEN PROMOTION

Jimmy Allen, former President of the Southern Baptist Convention who became President of the Radio/Television Commission (which he all but destroyed), was present to promote the Atlanta Convocation scheduled for January 30 - February 1, 2008 in Atlanta where a so-called "New Baptist Covenant" is to be launched.. That meeting is jointly hosted by Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton and is generally viewed as a political move to garner votes for Hilary. Jimmy Carter has repeatedly angered Americans with his repeated diatribes against the American Government while on foreign soil. His cozying up to dictators like Fidel Castro and terrorists like Yasser Arafat has left many in America disenchanted with him. His latest insult came on June 19 in Dublin, Ireland when he castigated the United States and the European Union because they have refused to give money to the terrorist organization, Hamas. Carter declared that Hamas had "won free and fair elections in 2006" (so did Hitler), and that the United States refusal to give them money was characterised as a "criminal" act. According to the Council on Foreign Relations, Hamas has slaughtered over 500 people and they have just taken over the Gaza Strip in a bloody battle. In remarks at Mansfield College in Oxford, England, Carter declared that Israel will never find peace with the Palestinians as long as Israel occupies its' neighbors' land. In his abysmal ignorance, Carter apparently doesn't understand that the land doesn't belong to the Palestinians. The land has belonged to the Jews since the time of Abraham. In fact, the Mosque of Omar is built on the ancient Jewish Temple site over the place on Mount Moriah where Abraham offered his son, Isaac but his son, Isaac, was spared when God provided a substitute (a picture of Calvary). In fact, the first of the Crusades launched by Urban II in 1095 was for the liberation of Jerusalem from Muslim control. The Muslims had taken the territory from the Jews through a bloody and butchery invasion that left thousands of Jews dead. A third Crusade to free the Holy City was launched by Gregory VIII after Saladin had overrun the field army of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem at the Battle of Hittin (July 1187) in his subsequent capture of the Holy City itself (October 1187). This campaign was led by Frederich I, Barbarossa, Phillip II of France and Richard the Lionhearted. Barbarossa perished by drowning in the river Cydnus in Anatolia before arriving in the Holy City. The Jews were finally driven out and left without a homeland for centuries. Now, they have returned to claim what is rightfully theirs. All of these assertions that Israel is an occupier have no basis in history.

THE USUAL SWILL

The participants in the meeting were fed the usual swill about the dangers of the "Religious Right". People like Richard Land, James Dobson, Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson were demonized for their so-called attempts to "co-op Christianity for the Republican Party". A film to that affect, at one point, displayed a quote from Richard Land that drew laughter from the audience. The film, prepared by the so-called "Baptist Center for Ethics" (no connection to the Southern Baptist Convention), featured interviews from members of the Democrat Party who were claiming to be Christians. They described the Christian Right as "defining too narrowly the issues that should be important to believers". Most of the people interviewed in the film were critical of Conservative Evangelicals. Guess what? All the politicians who appeared in the film were Democrats. They included Harold Ford Jr., a former Congressman from Tennessee, and Lincoln Davis, current Representative from Tennessee's Fourth Congressional District. One minister in the film called the War in Iraq as "immoral as a War can be". When an attendee questioned why the film contained no Republican voices, Robert Parham, Director of the so-called "Baptist Center for Ethics", whimpered that an effort was made to include a "prominent moderate Republican" but that he had declined. In a wild, senseless rant, Parham lashed out at the Republican Party by "challenging" a "prevailing 25 year myth, which is that GOP stands for God's Own Party". He asserted that they were trying to "introduce a new story into our culture". As a life long Southern Baptist and a life long Republican, I resent that kind of thing and I am offended by it. I have had about much contact with conservative Christians and Republicans as anyone and that is the first time I have ever heard that kind of acronym for GOP. That is something from Parham's own sick imagination. No, Southern Baptists are not just concerned about "two or three issues". Yes, the majority of us are opposed to abortion which we see as the taking of an innocent human life. We are opposed to creating human life in order to destroy it in the name of "stem cell research". Of course, stem cell research goes on all the time. It is not illegal. The big issue is whether or not the Government would fund the creation of stem cells in order to destroy them in research. That kind of stem cell research has not yielded any kind of advantages in medical research while adult stem cell research has. We support the First Amendment as strongly as anyone. That is the reason that most conservatives are opposed to the so-called "Fairness Doctrine" that is now being touted by liberals who want to shut down Talk Radio. We also support the Second Amendment whose constitutionality was recently affirmed by the US Supreme Court.

DECEIT

One truthful outcome of the Joint Assembly was that Baptist Press finally exposed the deceitfulness of the CBF reporting system. A Ruston, Louisiana Pastor of the 3,500 member Temple Baptist Church with a 2,8 million dollar budget was incensed that the CBF claimed his church as a supporting church because two families from his church desired to send some money to the CBF and designate it through the church. The Church has adopted By-laws stating its' affiliation with the Southern Baptists Convention only. The Church's Deacons were also described as "adamant" that the Church would use Southern Baptist literature only in their Sunday School. Yet, because the money from the two families was sent on a church check the church was counted as a supporter of the CBF when, in fact, it is not. The Pastor's response was that it would be "an absolute fabrication" according to the Baptist Press release. One can wonder if lying and deceitfulness are as repulsive to the CBF as Republican Christians.

PRECURSOR

The entire Joint Assembly was obviously a precursor to a Convocation scheduled from January 30 - February 1, 2008 and hosted by Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton. That meeting will include the National Baptist Convention USA Inc. and the Progressive Baptist Convention, both of whom are predominately Black. The vast majority of their members will likely vote Democrat. Southern Baptists have not been invited to participate in that Convocation. The speakers announced so far include a long list of liberal politicians. Former Governor Mike Huckabee of Arkansas had declined. Most Southern Baptists are completely convinced that it is a shameless, brazen and sleazy attempt to convince Baptist people that there is something wrong with them if they are Republican. Some of those same people who pretend to be so shocked about conservative Christians being involved in politics are not nearly so shocked if those Christians are willing to vote for the Democrats instead of the Republicans. It is a boorish attempt to put a Democrat face on the Baptists of America. That, my friends, is the bottom line of their entire effort!!

THE EMERGENT CHURCH AND THE SOUTHERN BAPTIST CONVENTION

2007-06-24T11:40:00.000-05:00

The Church emerged on the day of Pentecost and it doesn't need to emerge again. The emergence of the Church took place when the Disciples were all in one accord. It was accompanied by a sound from Heaven as of a mighty rushing wind and it filled all the house where they were sitting. Cloven tongues of fire set upon each of them. They were filled with Holy Spirit and they began to speak with other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance. There was a miracle of translation. There were people in Jerusalem out of every Nation under Heaven. What was happening was immediately noised abroad. It was a perfect time to birth the Church and it would go out to every Nation under Heaven. The multitude was amazed and they marveled because they knew that these people were Galileans and yet they said: "Are not all these which speak Galileans? And how hear we every man in our own tongue wherein we were born?" The Disciples were speaking in the native tongues of the people gathered there "the wonderful works of God". It was not gibberish. There were, however, some who mocked and said, "these men are full of new wine". When Peter rose to preach, it was not a soothing message. He reminded the people there that they had "by wicked hands" crucified the Lord of Glory and that He had been raised from the dead. Those Disciples there that day were witnesses of the Resurrection. The same Jesus they had crucified had been made both Lord and Christ. The question on the lips of the people was, "What shall we do?" Peter's answer to them was that they should repent and then be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of their sins. About 3,000 were saved that day. The church was powerful because they "continued steadfastly in the Apostle's Doctrine and fellowship and in breaking of bread and in prayers."

SOLOMON'S PORCH

A few days later, Peter preached on Solomon's Porch after he and John had affected the healing of a lame man by calling on the name of Jesus. As the crowd gathered around them Peter reminded them that it was not by their own power or holiness that the man was made to walk. He also reminded them that they had denied the Holy One and accepted a murderer in His place while they killed the Prince of Life who had now been raised from the dead. He made it clear that it was by "HIS NAME; THROUGH FAITH IN HIS NAME" that the man now standing before them was strong and whole. He charged that it was by ignorance that they did it and his message to them was the same. They should repent and be converted so that their sins could be blotted out. It wasn't exactly a soothing message but about 5,000 were saved on Solomon's Porch. In just a period of afew days, 8,000 people were saved, not because of some new evangelism strategy that Peter had developed but through obedience to the command of Jesus and it all happened in Jesus' name. No wonder Peter said, "Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved" (Acts 4: 12). When they saw the lame man at the Gate Beautiful, they didn't take up a collection because they realized that silver and gold would not help him out of his condition. They didn't form a "Support Group" nor did they find a counselor to help him "cope" with his condition. They called on the name of Jesus. The man needed to be delivered from his condition and Jesus was the only one who could do it. He never leaves anyone in the same condition. He is the only one who can take away the devastating effects of sin in our lives.

SOUTHERN BAPTISTS

Jesus came to "seek and to save". That is what evangelism is all about. That is the main purpose of the Church. Southern Baptists are struggling at this point right now but our failures in evangelism will not be corrected by Pastors who think that shaving their head and growing a goatee is going to help. There is nothing wrong with that but it will not promote evangelism nor will donning blue jeans and a T-shirt behind a plexiglass pulpit with a stool get the job done. There is nothing wrong with that if that is what you want to do but it will not necessarily accomplish evangelism. Borrowing the term "missional" from the CBF won't accomplish the task either. It certainly hasn't done much for them. Southern Baptists are spending too much time trying to develop "new strategies" for evangelism when the real need is to get back to the New Testament on evangelism. When Bob Reccord was President of NAMB he led in the development of the Acts 1:8 challenge. It was a good program because if was Biblical. It still works.

MAINLINE

The most difficult thing under the sun is to keep Southern Baptists on the mainline because there are always some who want to lead us off onto side tracks. In the early 60's , glossolalia burst on the scene. It is an old heresy. Since the day of Pentecost, some Christians have been trying to duplicate it. It happened in the Corinthian Church. Paul's question was, "Will not the world think you are mad?" Some churches decided to get off on the side track of the charismatics. Many Associations had to deal with that. Now we have the issue of "prayer language" which is simply just another form of glossolalia. Our two Mission Boards have decided not to appoint missionaries who delve into any kind of glossolalia. It was a perfectly good and sound decision because that sort of thing has never been a characteristic of Southern Baptists. We should have no problem with those who want to practice it but let them join a Denomination where that sort of thing is acceptable. All these efforts to reproduce Pentecost are futile. Dr. Criswell was right. There will never be another Pentecost just as there will never be another Calvary. The Church was founded on that day and the gates of Hell will not prevail against it. It has continued to march through history for more than 2,000 years and it will continue until Jesus comes again.

MUSIC

Again, Southern Baptists have been on the side track of music. At the recent Southern Baptist Convention the older people were asked if they were willing to accept contemporary music in order to win young people to Christ. It is a non-issue. It has not been a problem. There are some Southern Baptists who are a bit skeptical of taking acid rock music and putting religious words to it. They don't really see the need of having Worship Leaders who gyrate like Brittany Spears but contemporary music that is well done and in good taste is perfectly acceptable. They will applaud involving young people with out of the ordinary instruments but when their ear drums ache from 75 or 80 decibel sound levels, it becomes a problem. They have no problem with singing choruses and special arrangements. In fact, they applaud it. I recently heard one of Dr. Jerry Falwell's last messages. The service opened with an arousing arrangement of "Leaning On the Everlasting Arms". The place was packed with multiplied thousands of young people and adults alike. The music leader led them in some contemporary choruses. There was a quartet number and Dr. Falwell brought a solidly Biblical message on "The Indestructibility of the Servant of God". The same thing happens week by week at places like First Baptist, Jacksonville, Bellevue, Memphis, Cornerstone, San Antonio and other churches across the Nation. Many older people love traditional hymns because they carry a message. Songs like "All Hail the Power of Jesus' Name" have a great message. Hymns like "There Is a Fountain Filled With Blood" or "Wonderful Words of Life" have great messages. These hymns are precious to us and speak to our hearts so let's not forget that there are some older people in the church also. In fact, a Preacher in Eastern North Carolina called me recently and said that if his church lost the giving of the older people he couldn't open the doors of the church because they still believe in tithing. This is to say that there need not be a cleavage between the young and the old in a Southern Baptist Church. Older people rejoice when young people come and the imagined cleavage there is in the minds of a few Pastors but it is not actual.

EMERGENT CHURCH

The latest side track that Southern Baptists are dealing with is the so-called "Emergent Church". It is very much like quicksilver. It's hard to get a grip on and it will go in a thousand different directions. Many such churches are characterized by a steady diet of loud, hard rock music with religious words and many have taken a hard turn toward liberalism. Drinking is no problem to them. Some Denominational leaders feel constrained to endorse them. Some have been invited to speak at some of our Seminaries. It looks like it may be a wild and woolly ride before we get off this side track.

According to the New York Times, which never misses an opportunity to discredit Conservatives, a Minnesota Pastor became "fed up" with Church Members who wanted to do things like place an American Flag in the Sanctuary and who were vocally opposed to things like abortion and gay lifestyles. He also disdained the idea of referring to America as a Christian Nation. He is the son of a Father who was referred to as a "leftist Union Organizer and a life long Agnostic" who eventually embraced Christianity. One of his members, who is a UPS Driver, claims to have been "torn between the Republican expectations of Faith and Family and the Democrat expectations of his Union" found a series of the Pastor's Sermons on "The Cross and the Sword" to be "liberating". In that series of messages the Pastor said that the church should "steer clear of politics, give up moralizing on sexual issues, stop claiming the United States as a 'Christian Nation' and stop glorifying American military campaigns". It seems that he was just sure that most of those folks who held to beliefs that irritated him just had to be Republican. The result was that 1,000 of the strongest supporters of the 5,000 member evangelical church promptly left. A 7 million dollar fund raising campaign was almost cut in half. Staff had to be laid off. The Pastor, "who preaches in blue jeans and rumpled plaid shirts" said that he never "intended his sermons to be taken as merely a critique of the Republican Party or the Religious Right". He moved to a predominantly Black section of the city and is now engaged in attracting minorities to his church.

MINORITIES

There is nothing wrong and everything right about having minorities in his church but why was it necessary to drive away 1,000 church members who, according to the article, tended to be "white, middle class suburbanites". I have been a lifelong Republican, having voted for Dwight D. Eisenhower the first time I ever went to the Polls but I have never made any mention of it in the Pulpit. Frankly, I have never heard such comments as were attributed to those who left the Minnesota Church. Makes one wonder. There may be those who could figure out that I was a Republican but it was never a test of faith. I pastored a church that, apparently, was largely Republican because the Precinct in which the church was located always went very heavily Republican. I was never conflicted about placing the American Flag in the Church Auditorium or using it in Vacation Bible School. I never found it offensive to pray for our Troops whether they were in Vietnam or elsewhere because I have lived long enough to understand that we enjoy religious freedom in America and have the opportunity to preach the Gospel unfettered and without being beheaded because American Troops have fought despotic regimes who sought to take them away such as Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, or Imperial Japan. When I was in Seminary, I worked at an aircraft factory where we built American bombers and I was in no way conflicted about it. The moral issues that the Minnesota Pastor said he was offended by were, "buttons that Jesus never pushed". Really? One can only wonder if the good Pastor remembers the Sermon On The Mount where Jesus called upon his followers to be salt and light. He had a great deal to say about adultery and divorce. In fact, he raised the level of adultery and warned that looking to lust is tantamount to adultery. One can also wonder if the Book of Romans somehow got torn from the Pastor's Bible. He graduated from Yale Divinity School and Princeton Theological Seminary and taught in a College for a time but one can wonder whether he was educated or mis-educated. We can rejoice that he is interested in reaching minorities (Wonder how they vote?) but there is no cleavage between reaching minorities and reaching middle-class white people. Church after church has demonstrated that they can all be in the same evangelical mix without conflict. It is not a matter of either or but both and. After reading the New York Times article, this reader could hardly escape the conclusion that the Pastor had decided to take a hard turn to the Left and he blames Republican Christians for the problems he had in taking that turn. Do conservative Christians have no responsibility to vote and participate in the election process?? Does Proverbs 29: 2 not apply anymore?? Is it not true anymore that righteousness exals a Nation (Proverbs 14: 34)??

UNIONS

Most Southern Baptists are not anti-union. Many belong to a Union but they would be shocked by the statement of the UPS Driver. I once belonged to the Machinist's Union myself but I never allowed Union propaganda to turn my head away from free enterprise and the American way of life. I didn't feel that I had to hate the Company I was working for because I belonged to the Union. Many of us have lived long enough to realize that while some Unions are clean and do a good job, the Union Movement has been fraught with unbelievable corruption and worker's dues have often been taken to support political candidates whom the workers did not support. Many of us remember when Henry Wallace, former Vice-President of the United States, ran for the Presidency of the United States on a Third Party Platform that was basically Communist and was supported by a paper called "The Daily Worker" a Communist organ which supported Wallace in his campaign. Of course, the Minnesota Pastor declared that he was "no liberal" but some of us have dealt with the "I'm conservative but ..." brand of theology for many years. That kind of claim always raises a few red flags for us. This is what we are dealing with in the so-called "Emergent Church" movement. In many cases they are nothing more than liberals in sheep's clothing.

EXPECT MORE

We are discussing this issue now because we may expect a lot more of this sort of thing in the coming months. The New York Times article quoted a psychotherapist in the Minnesota Church as saying, "Most of my friends are believers and they think that if you are a believer you will vote for Bush. And it is scary to go against that." It is doubtful that there is any truth to that statement. The article gave favorable mention to Randall Balmer and his book called "Thy Kingdom Come: How the Religious Right Distorts the Faith and Threatens America - An Evangelicals' Lament". She also quotes Bryan D. McLaren who is billed as a leader in the "Emerging Church Movement" who said, "There is a lot of discontent brewing." It is the belief of this Southern Baptist that this is a part of a grand scheme by the Clinton Machine to garner evangelical votes for Hilary in her bid for the White House. It goes hand in glove with the Jimmy Carter/Bill Clinton Convocation scheduled for next January in Atlanta in which they are going to present the so-called "New Baptist Covenant For A New Century". Strangely enough Southern Baptist Leaders were not invited to participate in that Convocation even though the Southern Baptist Convention is the largest evangelical denomination in America. It is being sponsored by a hodge-podge of left leaning Baptist groups who have little to do with the mainstream of Baptist thought in America. Speaking of "Mainstream" we may be sure that the "Mainstream Media" will be in Atlanta with bells on. They will be looking for "personal interest" stories just as we have discussed here and we may expect glowing reports out of Atlanta concerning the "great achievements" of that gathering. Now, I did vote for President Bush both times he ran as did many other evangelical Christians. That doesn't mean that we have agreed with him about everything. In fact, evangelical Christians are probably as upset with the President over his immigration policy as anyone in the Country but we do rejoice that he openly confesses that he is a committed Christian. At least, he has not carried on sexual encounters with interns in the White House as did his predecessor (and he was a Southern Baptist). Many Christians voted for Bush simply because they felt that he was the best candidate for the office. Unlike what the leftys would have you believe, conservative Christians do not walk in lock step on all issues but there are some very defining issues that we agree upon. It is true that many Evangelicl Christians have become Republicans because the Democrat Party became so hostile to things they care about, but they have a perfect right to do so!!

WHITHER SOUTHERN BAPTISTS?

Where do Southern Baptists go from here? We don't need to stand by wringing our hands over the Emerging Church and whatever heresy that movement may espouse although we should not be silent about heresy. We simply need to stay on the main track and that means getting back to the basic command. The command is not: "As ye go, sing". The command is: "As ye go preach" (Matthew 10: 7). The question was not: "How shall they hear without a Worship Leader?" or "How shall they hear without an interpretative dancer?", or "How shall they hear without a dramatist?", or "How shall they hear without a rock band?". The question is "How shall they hear without a preacher?" (Romans 10:14). Let's keep things in perspective. The person who loses perspective loses everything. These things are helpful. I love music and used it generously in our Worship Services. It helps prepare the hearts of the people for the message. I love Christian drama but the main thing is the preaching of the Gospel.

Among the final words of Jesus recorded in Mark 16:15 was "Preach the Gospel to every creature". In Jesus' appearance at the synagogue in Nazareth he quoted from Isaiah 61, a Messianic passage, which said, "He hath annointed me to preach the Gospel ... " (Luke 4: 18). Under the persecution of Saul the pronouncement of the church was, "They that were scattered abroad went everywhere preaching the word" (Acts 8: 4).

REVIVAL LEADERS

When we think of the great revivals of history, we think of men like Jerome Savonarola, Belthasar Hubmaier, Jonathan Edwards, Charles G. Finney, D.L. Moody, George Whitfield, Billy Sunday and Billy Graham. When William Randolph Hearst heard something in the message of Billy Graham he thought was good for the country, he sent a note to the Hearst Newspapers that was very simple and brief. He didn't say, "Puff Cliff Barrows". He didn't say, "Puff George Beverly Shea". He said, " Puff Billy". We all loved Cliff Barrows. We love to hear George Beverly Shea. A man by the name of Homer Rodheaver helped a number of evangelists. There were men like Mordecai Ham and Gypsy Smith who were so prevalent in the Southeast but not many people will remember Mr. Rodeheaver, although he had a great impact on the ministry of many evangelists. The main thing is to remember that Jesus came "to seek and to save that which was lost" and the tides of history have always been turned by the passionate Biblical preaching of God's called out servants.

For instance, slavery was not ended by Abraham Lincoln. The Civil War was half over before he issued the Emancipation Proclamation and the main purpose of that was to keep France out of the War on the side of the South. Slavery was ended by brave men in the pulpit like Henry Ward Beecher whose sister, Harriet Beecher Stowe, wrote Uncle Tom's Cabin when she lived in Maysville, Kentucky. The pulpit is the most powerful instrument in the world to turn this Nation back to God and if it happens again that is the way it will happen. The World may not love you for it but God will and that's what counts.

Robert M. Tenery

THE COOPERATIVE PROGRAM

2007-06-09T09:29:00.000-05:00

When the Cooperative Program was adopted by the Southern Baptist Convention in 1925, it was a creation of the Southern Baptist Convention, not the State Conventions. The State Conventions were designated as collecting agencies for the Southern Baptist Cooperative Program. Churches were asked to send their Cooperative Program gifts to the various State Conventions and the State Conventions after taking what they actually needed to carry on the work within the States would send the balance to the Southern Baptist Convention. The Cooperative Program not only saved the institutions and agencies of the Southern Baptist Convention from bankruptcy but it also prevented the closing of State Institutions. It not only was a lifeline to the Southern Baptist Convention but was also a much vitally needed lifeline for the State Conventions. The need for the CP grew out of a period between World Wars I and II that were very harsh and chaotic in many ways.

Dr. Robert A. Baker, Distinguished Professor of Church History at Southwestern Seminary for many years, stated that "the principle of events characterizing the history of the Convention between the Wars were the struggle to carry on the ministry despite the severe and continuing financial crisis, the impact of the attacks of Liberals, the attempts to revise the structure of the Convention in order to provide an effective vehicle for the work of the Denomination, the response of Southern Baptists to ecumenical efforts, and the substantial growth effected in the midst of a complex and evolving culture". It was also a time when the nonsense of evolution set forth by little Charlie Darwin in 1859 with the publication of his ridiculous work called "The Origin of Species". Karl Marx, who had joined the Communist Party in 1847, immediately embraced Darwin's work because he had rejected Christianity and it enabled him to explain the origin of man without God. These events were followed in 1878 by Julius Wellhausen who published the infamous Documentary Hypothesis which denied the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch and, of course, the validity of the Genesis account of Creation, among other heresies.

All of this nonsense made its' way into Southern Baptist life through a Professor at Southern Seminary by the name of Crawford Toy. While James P. Boyce insisted that he himself did not believe in the Evolutionary theory he allowed Toy to teach at the Seminary for ten years before the Trustees finally insisted that he dismiss Toy. During that time, Toy influenced many young students who became the leaders of the Convention in the early Twentieth Century since Southern Seminary was the only Seminary that Southern Baptists had at the time.

When the Cooperative Program was adopted in 1925, it was a pivotal year in Southern Baptist life. It was also the year that the Baptist Faith and Message was adopted over some strenuous opposition led by the Liberals. Immediately, the Evolutionary controversy reared its' ugly head. While Dr. E.Y. Mullins in both 1922 and 1923 had decried the use of psychology, biology and geology to attack the supernatural element of Scripture, this was not enough to assure the vast majority of Southern Baptists; so, in 1926 President George W. McDaniel headed off what he felt would be a nasty and schismatic debate declared in his Presidential Address that "the Convention accepts Genesis as teaching that man was the special creation of God, and rejects every theory, evolution or other, which teaches that man originated, or came by way of a lower animal ancestry". After his Address, a motion was made and passed that declared this statement to be an expression of Southern Baptist sentiment concerning the matter and that there be no further debate about the issue of Evolution. On the fourth day of the Convention, a Messenger by the name of S.C. Tull, introduced a Resolution insisting that all the Convention's Institutions, Boards and Missionary representatives should embrace the McDaniel Motion. The Resolution was adopted.

Here is where the Cooperative Program became involved. On November 10, 1926 the Baptist General Convention of Oklahoma voted to withhold Cooperative Program funds from any Southern Baptist Institution or Seminary whose faculty refused to sign the McDaniel Statement. This brought a crisis of relationships between the Southern Baptist Convention and State Bodies. The Executive Committee brought back a report in 1928 giving a detailed Policy Statement regarding the relationship between the Southern Baptist Convention and State Bodies. That, according to Dr. Baker, "has become the basis of their relations". The Policy Statement declared that the Convention "is not an ecclesiastical body composed of churches, nor a federal body composed of State Conventions". While the Southern Baptist Convention disclaimed any authority over State Conventions, it laid out four guiding principles for relationships between State Conventions and the National body.

First, State Conventions are collecting agencies for southwide, as well as state funds. The Report made it clear that such a relationship is just a matter of convenience and economy and may be changed at any time.

Secondly, while State Conventions are responsible for the collecting of funds, the Southern Baptist Convention retains as "inalienable and inherent" not only the right to change the relationship but to appeal directly to the churches for funds and that the Southern Baptist Convention will retain complete control of its' own affairs, set forth its' own program objectives and determine the amount of money that it will allocate to various missionary enterprises.

Third, the authority to appoint all members of Boards and Committees of the Convention resides in the Convention itself, even though the Convention may consult with State Convention personnel in the matter.

Fourth, the Southern Baptist Convention nor any State Convention may impose its' will upon the other in any matter or degree at any time.

The Document further states that the Southern Baptist Convention "has no authority to allocate funds or to divert funds from any object included in a State Budget. In like manner no State body has any authority to allocate funds or to divert them from any object included in the southwide Budget".

WHERE ARE WE TODAY?

The above mentioned agreement was a good agreement. It served Baptists well for many decades. But now, Convention Liberals are tampering with this very clear policy concerning the relationship between the National Body and State Bodies. For many years, any local congregation that desired to designate Cooperative Program Funds were allowed to do so but the funds would not be counted as Cooperative Program Funds. Now, some State Conventions are allowing churches to designate Cooperative Program Funds and still call them Cooperative Program. That is a blatant violation of the agreement that was in place for many decades. Why? It is being done because some Liberals object to the leadership of the Southern Baptist Convention who have been actively leading the Convention back to its' historical roots as Southern Baptists. A few states are starting their own mission programs, often in competition with programs sponsored by the Southern Baptist Convention. For many years, Conservative Churches who were offended by the fact that Liberals seemed to run everything in the Convention, continued to support the Cooperative Program as it was set up. Now, since Liberals are no longer in charge of everything, they have developed splinter organizations to give voice to their pet peeves or support their own favorite projects. They have refused to accept the very clear voice of the Southern Baptist Convention Messengers. They scoff at Baptist Democracy. Some were formed to create jobs for Liberals who could not be happy with the return of the Convention to its' historical roots.

There's a new monster on the scene. It is called the "Emerging Church" which is steeped in Post-modernism. Some are advocating that drinking beverage alcohol is acceptable. Some are involved with Jimmy carter and Bill Clinton in the phony programcalled "A New Baptist Covenant for a New Century". It is a very thinly veiled political move to garner support for the election of Hillary Clinton to the White House. Baptists already have a New Covenant that serves us very well, thank you!! It begins with the Gospel of Matthew and concludes with the Book of Revelation. Since when are Carter and Clinton theologians!! These people are nothing more than Liberals in sheep's clothing. When they write or speak, they never find themselves able to say much good about Southern Baptist Leaders. It remains to be seen whether or not rank and file Southern Baptists will be duped by this new and latest nonsense on the theological horizon. We can only pray that Southern Baptists in the local churches will see this cancer upon our Convention for what it is.

Robert Tenery

Answer to Greg Warner ABP Release 3-27-2007

2007-04-02T10:13:00.000-05:00

Dear Editor Warner,

I have just read your scurrilous muck raking Press Release of March 27, 2007 in which you attempted to sully the name of Dr. Robert Reccord. It brought yellow journalism to a new low but, of course, the article is the kind of sleazy thing that I might have expected from you. You use words of negative association.innuendo, half truth and outright lies in your effort to destroy a man who never did anything to you and who has never done anything but good for Southern Baptists. I am a member of the Calvary Baptist Church of Salisbury, NC and by setting your dateline as Salisbury is phony because it implies that you were here and you were not here. No, that is not the way professional journalists work and what we gave to Bob Reccord as a love offering was none of your business. Intelligent people understand that Bob Reccord has to move on with his life and ministry. Your ilk has always talked much about the "autonomy of the church" but yet you don't respect it when you delve into the affairs of a local church and even trick an elderly person by feeding phony information in order to secure a negative response. A minister in South Georgia read your article and told me that it was "of the devil". I agree and every honest Christian I have talked to who has read the release feels about the same way. You attempt to cover your wickedness by using terms like "allegations of financial mismanagement and conflicts of interest". You talk about an "estimated" $250,000 annual salary and six figure severance deal which could mean anything from $100,000 to $999,999. But your purpose was to imply something evil or wicked. That was obvious. you talk about his "Heyday" when he flew around the world ins a "private plane". That was a lie and I think that you knew it was a life. It was just another attempt to muck rake when there was no muck to rake. Bob is to be commended because he is willing to proclaim the Gospel of Christ in any venue whether it be a stadium of 10,000 people or a small church. There is precedent for this in the ministry of Jesus who would declare His Gospel to the multitudes or an individual at a well in Sychar, a rich young ruler, or a tax collector up a tree in Jericho. Of course, you probably wouldn't understand that.

Anyone who knows anything about me knows that I would never lift a finger to support a person in wrong doing but I certainly have no patience for sleaze merchants who try to hurt people individually and hide behind the tag of "journalism" to justify what they are doing. You see, I know that you were just across the street when the Sunday School Board gave Lloyd Elder a $1.3 million severance package and that didn't seem to interest you in the least.

Let me tell you what Bob Reccord really did. He and Cheryl came by our home to visit with my wife who had just come out of the hospital where she had just had surgery for Breast Cancer. In the days leading up to her surgery he and Cheryl called repeatedly to assure her of their prayers and prayed with her over the telephone. My daughter and her husband have just completed their new home and moved in next door. My son-in-law heard Dr. Reccord on Friday Night and asked if he could fix one of his special Lexington style Barbeques for his lunch the next day. After visiting with my wife and I for awhile we walked next door where we enjoyed a great time of fellowship with my daughter and her husband in their new home over a meal of barbeque. Bob proclaimed the Gospel with power in our Church and many have said that it is the greatest Revival we have ever experienced. Cheryl did a Coffee with the ladies in our Church on Saturday Morning which was hosted by our Pastor's Wife. In all that time they never spoke a bitter word but bore tremendous and powerful witness to the grace of God. That kind of ministry should spark admiration in you but I doubt that it will.

The biggest bundle of sinister nonsense in the entire Press Release was your contention that Bob's "extravagant spending and self-aggrandizing earned him the nickname 'Hollywood Bob' at NAMB". My wife is a Trustee at NAMB and she is well aware that the term was introduced by a single Trustee who was one of Bob's critics and, no, it was not earned. Neither did Bob resign under pressure. In fact, my wife and many other Trustees pleaded with him not to resign. The so-called "investigation" was done by a handful of officers but the full Board never voted on any motion or resolution accusing Bob Reccord of anything. The whole article was crude, uncouth, vituperative, vitriolic, coarse and boorish. Those are about its strongest points.

I dare not believe that you are interested in the truth but just in case I am sharing some excerpts of a letter that I sent to Gerald Harris at the CHRISTIAN INDEX which explains the truth of the matter.

NOTE: These excerpts are published elsewhere on the Christian Advocate Blog.

It is time for liberals to realize that the Southern Baptist Convention has returned to hits historical roots, which is a very good thing, and it will never be controlled by liberals again, no matter how much trash you write about us. You owe Bob Reccord and our Church an apology but I doubt that you have enough grace or class to issue one.

Sincerely,

Robert Tenery

WAS THE MAYFLOWER A BAPTIST SHIP?

2007-02-20T17:07:00.000-05:00

Since the mid Fifteenth Century when Johann Gutenberg invented printing by movable type (1456) Bibles had fallen into the hands of the common people there was a proliferation of Christian bodies springing up across Europe and in England which were outside the Catholic Church and the Church of England. The King James translation had no small part in the explosion of Baptists in England, across Europe and in America. We Baptists have a spiritual kinship with many of these groups. The people we know as Baptists have not always been called Baptists. They have sometimes been called Dissenters. They have been called Non-conformists. They have been called Separatists. Sometimes they were identified by some religious leader who shared their views such as the Mennonites (followers of Menno Simons) or Waldensians (followers of Peter Waldo). A common term in Europe was the term Anabaptists, "Radical Reformers". The founder of the Anabaptists in Zurich was Conrad Grebel who was born about 1490 and a follower of Zwingli. However, a serious break with Zwingli occurred in 1525 when the Zurich Council issued a mandate restraining Grebel and Felix Manz from holding "Bible study" or "Bible schools". Finally, Zwingli was unable to justify infant baptism from the Scriptures and he broke with his Anabaptist supporters in 1525. The most outstanding of the German Anabaptists was Balthasar Hubmaier. He was a devout Roman Catholic who was baptized by Wilheim Reublin who was an Anabaptists refugeee from Zurich. When Hubmaier fled from Waldshut where troops had been sent to arrest him, he went to Zurich. There he was imprisoned for a time and later banished to Augsburg and later to Nikolsburg in Moravia where he witnessed more than 6,000 conversions in a single year. These groups all held certain civil authority over the Church. They rejected the Divine right of Kings. They insisted on a personal experience of salvation by grace through faith. They insisted on baptism of believers only. They insisted on a regenerate Church membership. They believed that the Church should be governed by the teaching of Scripture. They believed in high moral standards of the Church membership. They insisted on the congregational form of Church government. They felt that the Church had two ordinances: baptism and the Lord's Supper. They insisted that baptism was testimonial and that the Lord's Supper was a memorial and that neither conveyed grace. They also believed in religious liberty for all.

ENGLAND

In 1534/35 Henry VIII declared himself to be the Head of the Church in England. He had become infatuated with Anne Boleyn. He wanted to divorce his wife, Catherine of Spain, to marry Anne but Rome refused. He then declared himself to be Head of the English Church, divorced Catherine and married Anne Boleyn anyway. This marked the split of the Church of England with Papal authority. Catherine bore a daughter who became known as Queen Mary (Bloody Mary). Bloody Mary took the English back into the Roman Catholic fold for five years. Then her half sister, Queen Elizabeth, overthrew Papal authority again and from that time on (1558) the Crown headed the Church in England.

In 1600 John Smyth was preaching at the Church in Lincoln. He had received the Master of Arts degree in 1593 from Christ College where had had been a student of Francis Johnson. He was elected "Lecturer" or "Preacher" of that city on September 27 by a City Council vote of 8 to 7. In 1602 the Council settled on a stipend of 40 pounds a year plus house house rent for life. That was done on August 1st but the action was annulled by October 13 when he was abruptly deposed because he had "approved himself a factious man in this city by personal preaching and that untruly against divers men of good place". He obviously had criticized some of the leading citizens because of the way they lived their lives and he was deemed to be "non-conformist" in his views. When he was dismissed he was a sick man. He made his way to Broxtowe Hall to the happy home of his prosperous friends, Thomas and Jane Helwys. They took him in, made him welcome and gave him the best room and the best care. While they nursed him back to health, they spent a great deal of t9ime sitting by the fire and talking of the Scriptures. These two men are generally considered the first of the English Baptists.

KING JAMES

In 1603 the year that Roger Williams was born, King James ascended to the Throne of England. While he did some good things he was very intolerant of Dissenters and vowed that they would either conform or that he would "harrie them out of the Land". While Smyth and Helwys were both members of the Church of England, they were both very questioning of the dogma and authority of the Church. They wondered about its structure and meaning and were searching the Scriptures to find satisfaction for their doubts. They had real problems with the idea that the conscience of the people rested on the whim of a King. John Smyth made his way to his home town of Gainsborough. He was not yet a Separatists but was passing through a time of soul searching in his own life. In that town was a Congregational Church which had been organized about 1602. The Church grew rapidly and to avoid the notice of authorities, they thought it unwise to continue to meet together for English law forbad such "conventicles". When the group divided some remained at Gainsborough under the pastoral leadership of Smyth and the remnant removed to Scrooby Manor under the leadership of Richard Clyfton who led the Church for a short while and this is the Church that became the famous Pilgrim Church led by John Robinson, William Bradford and William Brewster.

THE PILGRIM CHURCH

The Gainsborough Church led by John Smyth and Thomas Helwys finally fled England under the severe persecution of King James. The group from that Church who had split away because of the size of it and moved to Scrooby Manor also fled England because of the persecution. Both groups arrived in Amsterdam about the same time in 1608. Both groups became Anabaptists by rejecting infant baptism. For a time they were apparently in fellowship with the Ancient Church pastored by Francis Johnson. They soon learned of the seemingly unending controversy between Johnson and the Congregation. Johnson was a very domineering figure and much of his criticism came from the members concerning his own family. He had married a wealthy widow, Thomasine Boyse, who was beautiful but quite frivolous. Some described her as a "bouncy girle". They felt that she had a taste for extravagant and many times immodest dress including several gold rings. She had money from her first husband to provide these things. One particularly ornate gown had become the topic of Church Discipline as well as an ornate hat. The gown was said to be too daring. The Church demanded that it be brought to the congregation for their judgment as to whether or not a Minister's wife should wear it. Johnson's own brother, George, leveled charges that Thomasine often lay in bed until 9:00 AM, even on the Lord's Day. The group from Gainsborough and Scrooby Manor did not care for the confusion in the church and withdrew. They formed the Pilgrim Church. This Church was made up, almost totally, of people who had been a part of the Gainsborough Church.

The Robinson Group ultimately moved to Leiden (also spelled Leyden) where they remained for a few years. There they experienced much difficulty. Although there was no persecution they suffered economic loss and were grieved to see their children leaving the English language and marrying into Dutch families. Finally, 37 of them journeyed to Scrooby to board the Mayflower for America. Pastor John Robinson went with them to see them off. While Pastor Robinson intended to join them in America, he never did as he died in 1625. These people would forever be known as Pilgrims.

THE JOURNEY

Other Separatist had joined the Pilgrims on the Mayflower and counting passengers and crew there were 102 on Board. While most of them were humble Christians there were some very wayward and lawless people on Board among the passengers and among the crew. Some of the Pilgrim Fathers became concerned about what kind of Government they would live under when they landed. When they arrived at Plymouth, before disembarking, they all adopted the Mayflower Compact. This document was lost during the first year in Plymouth and we can never know exactly what it said. We only know what some who were present remembered about it. The scant information that is known about it simply reveals that it was a document agreeing to live under law and be governed by law because some feared that once in the New World there would be anarchy among the group.

In Amsterdam, both Smyth and Helwys became Anabaptists but they finally went their separate ways over the issue of se-baptism. Helwys returned to England where he founded a Baptist Church in Spitafields just outside the Wall of London. He prepared a little booklet addressed to the King. The basic theme of the Booklet was that in civil matters Christians should submit to the authority of the King but in spiritual matters they should submit only to the authority of Christ. In the Inscription of the Book Helwys said, "The King is a mortal man and not God, therefore hath no power over ye immortall souls of his subjects to make lawes and ordinances for them and to set spiritual lords over them". lHelwys made the delivery personally and was never heard from again after 1612.

COMPROMISE

In America, the Pilgrims began to meet with some Puritan Separatists and they formed the Congregational Church which eventually became the established Church. Therefore, the Pilgrims and their early descendants did the very thing in America from which they had fled in England but there is little doubt that there was a very heavy Baptists influence on the Mayflower. THE DICTIONARY OF CHRISTIANITY IN AMERICA says, "Today, reference to 'the Pilgrims' is to these pious Christians who brought to the new world the first seeds of what would become the United States."

THE MEMPHIS DECLARATION AND OTHER POST-MODERN NONSENSE

2007-02-10T09:46:00.001-05:00

Today I reviewed the Memphis Declaration again. It is cynical nonsense. It is hard to say that because of my high respect for some of the signatories. Some of them are good people who, I believe, have been deceived. Others should know better. Some have been bouncing around the Convention for a long time. One has a very serious criminal conviction in his past. I pray that he has repented and I would never dare underestimate the power of the grace of God to forgive and reclaim his life. If he is reconciled to God I would welcome him with open arms but there's also a time to "let a man prove himself". I will never mention his name but he certainly knows who he is and others know too.

Some of the signatories have gone through great crises in their personal ministries and they probably feel that their brothers in the Convention didn't do enough to help them in reclaiming their ministry. That is probably true because they are very committed Christians for whom I have great love and respect. I would only caution that getting involved with a group of schismatics who are parading as unifiers is not the answer.

The Declaration is a very cleverly worded, self-righteous statement that finds little good in the Southern Baptist Convention. It was obviously prepared by a group of self styled watchdogs of the Convention. They have repented of all the sins of our Convention (shades of some church members I have known). In fact, in reading the Statement you would have a hard time concluding that Southern Baptists are anything more than a group of hypocritical rascals and charlatans. They have repented for everything from our "triumphalism" to "arrogance" to a lack of love for those "without Christ" to a lack of "reason" and for our "wickedness". According to the statement, we have misplaced priorities, disrespect for the sovereign grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and have been inattentive to the governance of our Convention. The Statement is basically anti-convention and anti-resurgence. If they want to repent of their own sins, that is their own business but to "repent" for other Baptists is beyond the pale. We don't need any priests. Jesus is our Mediator and High Priest.

The tenor of the whole document is that we should invite the liberals who left us to come back and assume the reigns of our Denomination. Of course, they left of their own accord and the various organizations that they formed are not prospering very well. The graduates of their dinky divinity schools that they have formed are not in great demand. It is like a shrill, distant vituperative chatter that pronounces doom upon the Southern Baptist Convention from those who are just sure that they can run the Convention better than those who have been elected to do so. It is all a part of the crazy quilt of post-modern theology that is more anti-denominational than anything else. It always elevates "love" above truth.

POLITICS

Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton are attempting to capitalize on this Post-Modern thought to drag more Baptists into the Democratic party. They have announced the "Celebration of a New Baptist Covenant" for January 30 - February 1, 2008 in Atlanta. At the news conference they were flanked by liberal Baptists from various liberal groups in the U.S., Canada and Mexico. Bill Underwood of Mercer University said they would attempt to draw attention away from "the Baptists who have the microphone" meaning conservative Southern Baptists. He said: "North America desperately needs a true Baptists witness." Strangely, no Southern Baptists leaders were invited. The group worries that the Southern Baptist Convention has been "negative" and "exclusionary". This in spite of a Zogby Poll that shows that Southern Baptists have a favorable rating equal to that of other denominations. Of course Bill Clinton's wife, Hilary, happens to be running for President. What a coincidence!!

A KINDRED SENTIMENT

In a February 7 Baptist Press Release, Douglas Baker voiced a kindred sentiment when he said, "It is not enough to trot out the usual statements about the importance of inerrancy and expository preaching". Well, whoever said it was? I have never heard anyone in Southern Baptist life say that. Inerrancy describes our view of Scripture and expository preaching describes a kind of Biblical preaching that is strong in Biblical content and application to the hearers' daily lives. It is the most effective preaching that great Pastors have used for years in the building of great churches. Baptists who have heard that kind of preaching over the years are not easily confused by every wind of doctrine. Baker goes on to declare that "much of what is commonly called the Southern Baptist Convention may well not survive this century". He contends that "theological dust ups" between religious factions are so akin to political conventions that they "rightly dismiss denominations as simply playgrounds for wannabe politicians". The group think of post-modern theology was expressed by Paul Cain of the Vineyard movement back in 1989 when he warned the post-modern generation that they must beware of "old order brethren". At the Vineyard Prophetic Conference Cain said, "You can become the Word". Most Southern Baptists would agree with the prologue of John that Jesus is the Word.

CONFESSION

These people have no time for such things as Confessions of Faith. The Baptist Faith and Message, since 1925 has declared that the Bible is "truth without any mixture of error". That Statement was based on the New Hampshire Confession of 1833. It is not exactly a new concept. The Baptist Faith and Message of 1925 was adopted in the wake of the fundamentalist tidal wave that was unleashed by the Presbyterians at Princeton University in 1910 when faculty members at Princeton lead the General Conference of the Presbyterian Church to adopt the Five Fundamentals. Baptists were never excited about them even though they had no quarrel with them. They saw it as a very limited confession. They disagreed with the Fundamentalists over other things such as baptism and church government. Liberalism had also made its way to America and was undermining many American Churches and Institutions. Southern Baptists felt a need to make our position clear concerning our Baptist Faith. It has never been binding on any local church but it was guide for the institutions and agencies of our Convention. It has been slightly amended but it still serves that purpose.

ORTHODOXY

The Memphis Group condemns us for not reasoning with those who disagree with our Articles of Faith that are "not essential" to Christian Orthodoxy. Who decides what is essential and what is not essential to Christian Orthodoxy? Those who think that we are narrow are as intolerant as anyone with those who disagree with their views. Kenneth Sublet put it this way, "If one of the bits of 'human material' (communicants) decides to disseminate some truth totally based upon the Bible, they are divisive, counterproductive and must be eliminated. Those who would try to do it emotionally are no less violent than those who would burn your body in an oven".

The Memphis Declaration leads off by the condemnation of something they call "triumphalism". What kind of a thing is that? I have been as deeply involved in the conservative resurgence as anybody but I have never witnessed anything like that. We all recognize that we only triumph in Christ. Are we to cast aside II Corinthians 2: 14? Are we to ignore Colossians 2: 15?

The tenor of the entire document was hostile to the Southern Baptist Convention. I would like to suggest to the authors of the document that we may have some problems here and there but there is plenty in the Southern Baptist Convention that gives us cause to rejoice.

BAPTISTS WILL BE BAPTISTS

Yes, we Baptists sometimes have disputes. They can take place in a Sunday School Class, in a Local Church, in an Association or a Convention. We are very individualistic. It is not uncommon for individual Baptists to have an opinion. Someone has facetiously said that "wherever there are two or three Baptists gathered together there are four opinions". It is because we have a congregational form of Church Government. We are not hierarchical. We are not presbyterial. Because of our congregational form of government we are a democracy whose head is Jesus Christ and we look unto Him who is the author and finisher of our faith. Every Church, Association, State Convention as well as the national Convention are all autonomous one of the other. Each Baptist entity has the right to decide what their basis of cooperation will be. The Southern Baptist Convention operates its agencies and institutions in accord with the Baptist Faith and Message of 2000 and we have a right to do that.

WORTH DYING FOR

Southern Baptists today embody the same principles for which Baptists of yesteryear have been willing to die. In 1603, the year that Roger Williams was born, King James ascended to the Throne of England. He didn't like the Baptists. He referred to them as "dissenters" and "non-comformists". He vowed that they would conform or he would "harrie them out of the land". The Baptists didn't conform and he harried them out of the country. A group was meeting at Gainsborough under the leadership of John Smyth and Thomas Helwys who are considered the Fathers of Baptist beginnings in England. They rejected papal authority. They rejected the divine right of kings (for which Helwys died). They insisted on believers' baptism and a regenerate church membership. They insisted on the congregational form of government and Scriptural authority in all matters of religion. They insisted that baptism was a testimonial and that the Lord's Supper was a memorial. They believed in religious liberty for all. The group at Gainsborough had divided because of their size (since their meetings were unlawful in England) and some had begun meeting at Scrooby Manor. Both groups migrated to Amsterdam where they worshipped with the Ancient Church for a time. But, that Church was embroiled in a controversy over the daring dresses that the Pastor's wife wore. So they moved to a small place out from Amsterdam called Leiden (also spelled Leyden) where they founded the Pilgrim Church under the pastoral leadership of John Robinson. This group also contained two laymen who would become famous in America. They were William Bradford and William Brewster. After a time they became discouraged because of financial reverses and the fact that their children were marrying into the Dutch and leaving the English language. Finally, 37 of them journeyed back to Scrooby where they boarded a small ship called the Mayflower. Pastor Robinson went to see them off and he intended to join them later but he never joined them because he died in 1625. This group on the Mayflower were called Pilgrims. Some on the Mayflower joined their group on the way over and before they landed they formed the Mayflower Compact. No one knows exactly what was in the Compact since it was lost soon after they landed at Plymouth but those who remembered generally agreed that the document provided that they would be ruled by law and not by men. Those same principles that inspired and motivated the earliest of Baptists in England are still important to Southern Baptists today.

Yes, there is room for diversity of worship in the Southern Baptist Convention but there are still some basic tenets of the faith that are not negotiable among Southern Baptists and they are embodied in the Baptist Faith and Message of 2000. That is what the resurgence was all about. Many of us paid a high price for the things that we stood for and we have little time for those who constantly want to trash us for what we did - especially those who don't even remember where we came from.

Mary Branson's Book

2007-01-29T15:23:00.000-05:00

I have read a number of Blogs concerning Mary Branson's book which purported to expose bad management and reckless spending by leadership in the Southern Baptist Convention, primarily at the North American Mission Board. In my opinion it is a vengeful, vindictive and vituperative piece of trash that belongs in the City Dump rather than on book shelves. It is designed to do nothing but hurt. It is obvious to this Southern Baptist that the primary objective was to sully the name of Dr. Robert Reccord. It is a combination of wild, reckless and irresponsible accusations coming mostly from disgruntled former employees who had an ax to grind. Many of the "Bloggers'" statements have been ill informed, uninformed or misinformed. No, "Bloggers" will never be a "force to reckon with" in the Southern Baptist Convention until they get their facts right and so much of what has been said about NAMB was not factual.

Most of what was written was vicious and designed to hurt and the "lead attack hound" was Joe Westbury of the CHRISTIAN INDEX who at one time worked for NAMB and who gives new meaning to yellow journalism. The situation at NAMB was unbelievably bungled by the Officers of the Trustees some of whom, in my opinion, have their own agendas. It is time for trash to be challenged and the truth needs to be told. That is the reason that I have posted the main body of a letter that I wrote to the Editor of the CHRISTIAN INDEX on my Blog (The Christian Advocate). The CHRISTIAN INDEX is the chief offender in this situation.

By the way, NAMB did not bear all the expenses of Bob's trip to England. Food and lodging were covered by a friend of NAMB and NAMB only covered travel. Bob had been working with Outreach Incorporated of San Diego in developing a strategy to help churches in using The Chronicles of Narnia evangelistically. He had given input on the making of a film concerning the life of William Wilberforce called AMAZING GRACE. He was one of the evangelical leaders invited to view and assess the finished product. It was a very, very good thing and I am delighted that the world of film making was seeking input from a Southern Baptist Leader. I only wish Hollywood did the same.

So, some have problems with a "media campaign"? That is what the RTVC was all about. It was to introduce Southern Baptists and our message of salvation through Jesus Christ to the Nation and the World. Any pastor who doesn't understand the need for promoting the work of the Kingdom needs to go back to school. It doesn't matter how good your program is if it is not promoted and no one knows about it, it is going to fail. I even heard of some who complained of "limousine services" that were used by Bob Reccord. Of course, people who travel know that hotels and airlines often furnish limousine service for passengers to the airport or from the airport to the hotel (many of these "limousines" are vans or buses with Limousine written on the side of the vehicle). As a pastor I used them many times but the accusation insinuated something else that was totally false. That is the kind of garbage that needs to stop. Yes, some agency heads in the Southern Baptist Convention have to rent large rooms and suites at the annual meetings of the Convention because they have to have room for important meetings while they are there. It is not a luxury.

Before the "Bloggers" complain too much about the lack of "transparency", you need to check Article 14 of the Business and Financial Plan of the Southern Baptist Convention which provides that any member of a cooperating Southern Baptist Church can receive any financial information concerning the operation of any agency or institution in the Convention. I know it works because I have received such information from every entity in the Southern Baptist Convention. The truth is that the Southern Baptist Convention is more "transparent" and accountable than any denomination on the face of the earth and, while we are not perfect, a lot of these petty criticisms can do nothing but hurt a great Convention that is doing a great job in the kingdom of our Saviour.

Excerpt from letter to CHRISTIAN INDEX

2007-01-26T17:12:00.000-05:00

For instance, Westbury's April 27 article about Bob Reccord's resignation asserted that there had been "repeated use of a corporate jet" and that it had been "documented". That was totally false. There is no corporate jet at the North American Mission Board. The Board had leased some "air shares" on a small, single engine, four place Cirrus plane so that staff members could reach their engagements in remote areas of the Convention that did not have adequate airline service and get back in a timely manner. In the wake of 9/11 air travel was very time consuming. There had already been discussion about cancelling that contract because of safety concerns. To compound the deception, Westbury quoted a source as saying that it had been "documented" when you knew that it had not been. Then there were ridiculous spin-off articles that also took pains to sully the name of Dr. Reccord such as two that appeared in the November issue of Baptists Today by Hannah Elliot and Mike Ebert. This is a magazine that is supported by the CBF. Strange bed fellows!

The truth is that Bob Reccord did a fantastic job. He was given the responsibility of amalgamating three Baptist entities: the Home Mission Board, the Radio and Television Commission and the Brotherhood Commission. It is well known that the RTVC and the Brotherhood Commission were heavily in debt and facing bankruptcy. The North American Mission Board had to absorb that debt. Then, in 1999 the Stock Market began to slide and in 2000 the Country began to go into a recession. The return on the Board's Reserve Funds went down. Many of the State Conventions could not participate in some of the Board's programs because they themselves were in financial straits and most State Conventions had to terminate workers. In the midst of the recession came the 9/11 attacks on our Country. NAMB was on the job there but it was expensive. No matter, NAMB was doing what it should have done and it received wide praise for its response. When the Country was beginning to get back on its feet financially, we had two hurricane seasons that were off the charts. This Country had never seen such disasters before. NAMB was there in Florida nad in New Orleans. Those huge disaster relief efforts were all coordinated by the North American Mission Board and they were costly. Intelligent people understand that but the Index chose to chasten Bob Reccord because Reserve Funds were somewhat depleted but they were being rapidly rebuilt at the time of Bob's resignation.

By the way, we wonder when Joe Westbury is going to disclose how much money he was paid by NAMB for "contract writing". Some people know that figure but Joe is the one who should disclose it in the name of fairness and integrity. Of course, he is no longer doing contract writing for NAMB but about everything that he has written about the Board lately smacks of a vendetta. Many folks feel that Westbury is angry because he did not get a job at the Board that he wanted. So why not be open and honest about it? The Index has worried about the integrity at the Board; what about your own integrity? Moreover, why was Bob Reccord himself never interviewed?

Your February 16, 2006 article made much of the fact that the Goal of 2,500 Church Plants was not met but I would suggest to you that 1,636 Church Plants is not to be sneezed at. Since when has it become a sin to miss a Goal? That happens quite often in Southern Baptist life. The 75 Million Campaign of the 20's did not reach its Goal but historians, with one accord, credit that Campaign with saving the Southern Baptist Convention and its institutions from bankruptcy. I remember well the Campaign of "A MILLION MORE IN '54". We didn't reach that Goal but it was still one of the greatest advances in Southern Baptist history. The fact is that Church Plants at NAMB have averaged 277 more per year than during the last 8 years of the Home Mission Board's existence. Again, your articles represent a lot of nit picking, second guessing and repetition of gossip.

The Index was totally irrational concerning the Elevate Conferences. Bob Reccord knew what many Denominational workers know and what thousands of Southern Baptist pastors know. The contributions of churches to the Cooperative Program have fallen from 11% in the 1980's to 6% today. The younger generation does not have the same commitment to Cooperative Program giving that the older generation that is moving off the scene had. Dr. Reccord realized that we must do something to bring our younger professionals into the support of our mission causes. That was what Elevate was all about. It targeted young professionals from 18 to 30. The purpose of the Conference was to teach young professionals how to be an effective witness for Christ in their work environment. There were 3,850 young adults who attended those Conferences. I read accounts of the Conferences in such publications as the Florida Baptist Witness, Crosswalk, and other publications. The Conferences featured such outstanding Christian leaders as Governor Mike Huckabee of Arkansas, former President of the Arkansas Baptist Convention; Peggy Waymire, Josh McDowell, Janet Parshall, Kurt Cameron, and many other outstanding Christian leaders who have impacted their workplace with the Message of Jesus Christ. I have read numerous comments from people who attended the Conferences and there was nothing but glowing reports concerning the impact of the Conferences on the lives of young professionals. Yet, the take of the Index was that the Conferences "lost money". Since when do we expect to make money on ministries? NAMB is not a "for profit" institution.

Sure, the one in Oklahoma was very poorly attended because that was the week that Katrina hit. The next one was cancelled. The Nation had never seen a disaster like Katrina. After that, it was "all hands on deck" for Disaster Relief. Our Disaster Relief efforts were hailed all over the Nation. They were all coordinated by the North American Mission Board and yet, Joe Westbury had to find a way to criticize that. He contended that we didn't "capitalize" on it. We weren't supposed to be "capitalizing" on Disaster Relief. We were ministering in the Name of Jesus to people who were hurting. The states came forth with their Disaster Relief Units and the Mission Board purchased millions of dollars in supplies. Southern Baptists served 14.5 million hot meals primarily paid for by NAMB. They provided 103,000 hot showers. Approximately 8,000 children were kept in child care. 16,000 debris sites were cleared. But, that seems to account for nothing as far as the Index is concerned. Disaster Relief contributions to NAMB increased from 3,5 million dollars to almost 26 million dollars and that was through the efforts of Bob Reccord. Intelligent people thought that even Joe Westbury would understand that but apparently we hoped in vain.

When Westbury talked about the decrease in Reserves, he didn't tell the whole story plus the fact that he used the wrong figures. Not only, had NAMB merged two entities that were heavily indebted with the Home Mission Board but they had gone through a Market downturn that cost them revenue on their Reserves. There was also a huge 91% increase in the cost of Health Benefits for employees. The Retirement Fund was not actuarial. That had to be adjusted and it was expensive. There was also a great deal of expenditure trying to do something with Family Net (the old RTVC) but in his effort to discredit Bob Reccord, Joe Westbury chose to use the figures that would best serve his purposes rather than to tell the whole truth. No, figures don't lie but liars do figure. So, why does Bob Reccord get blamed for fixing that which others had messed up? A very good deal to purchase Family Net fell through because of the Index article. It cost the Board millions. This is just a small part of the wreckage that the Index has caused.

Sure, some positions had to be cut. That was the purpose of the merger. When you have two entities facing bankruptcy something has to be done. No one is ever happy when lay-offs occur but sometimes it can't be helped.

What we have seen is a vicious effort by some former employees who were angry because their positions had to be cut who were putting pressures on their Pastors and on the Christian Index to go after Bob Reccord. One thing needs to be understood very clearly. The North American Mission Board does not belong to the employees. It doesn't belong to area pastors around Atlanta. It doesn't even belong to the Georgia Convention. It doesn't belong to the Christian Index. It belongs to the Southern Baptist Convention and the Atlanta area has no more claim on it than any other area in the Southern Baptist Convention.

The Communications Budget has dropped from 9 million dollars to 3 million dollars, a saving of 6 million dollars. Yet, you criticized Dr. Reccord for "out sourcing" even though the "in house" employees could not do what was needed. The overhead of the three merged agencies has been reduced from 25% to 12%. When Bob Reccord was called to the White House to discuss Disaster Relief because of the tremendous job that Southern Baptists were doing in that area, he met Dr. James Dobson and was interviewed by Dobson on his radio program. As a result of that interview, 200,000 more dollars came into NAMB for Disaster Relief and yet he was castigated for it. He was also attacked for speaking to groups that are not "Southern Baptist". Well, how in the world are we ever going to reach this Nation for Christ if we don't do anything but speak to other Southern Baptists" but Bob Reccord never compromised his message in the least. This year, over 7,300 recorded decisions have been made at Promise Keepers when Bob Reccord has spoken and given an invitation and yet he is accused of not believing in evangelism. He was blamed because churches are not baptizing more people but the programs have been out there. The encouragement has been there. The Nehemiah Church Planting strategies have been funded on our six seminary campuses plus one in Canada to the tune of 7 million 300 thousand dollars by NAMB. Finally, however, the baptisms of our Convention depend on what local pastors and local churches do and Bob Reccord cannot be blamed for that.

You didn't explain that the number of career missionaries declined because many of them took early retirement because of a change in and restructuring of benefits. Many of the state conventions were having to lay off personnel so they could not fund their part of the missionaries' salaries. Bob Reccord can't be blamed for that. Since 1997, NAMB has increased State Cooperative Budgets by more than 12 million dollars and yet he is criticized because the States were not able to furnish their part of the funding.

Any intelligent person who has the facts in hand and looks at the overview of what NAMB has done could hardly come to any conclusion but that Bob Reccord is a genius in what he was able to put together and accomplish. He thinks outside the box. He is an innovator. He is willing to try new things to accomplish the mission of the Board.

In the late 90's we were all delighted that the re-organization had taken place and that an unapologetically conservative President was at the helm of the North American Mission Board. He was a man who understood, believed in and had a heart for evangelism. But all of that meant nothing to the "hounds" who were thirsty for blood. Unless the general body of Trustees take things in hand and correct some terrible things that have gone wrong, the ministry of the Board may well crash. Dr. Roy Fish is a good man but he should realize that he has been named simply to give some kind of credibility to a little wrecking crew that has bungled everything at the Board. He did not even attend the last meeting of the Trustees and I doubt that he has the slightest clue as to what has gone on at the Board.

There is much more than I can cover in one letter that needs to be said to Southern Baptists but this is one Southern Baptist who is going to do everything possible to see that Southern Baptists understand what has happened.

Sincerely,
Robert Tenery (signed)