Southern Baptist Convention

What was it that I was just saying about the fact that Religious Right groups seem to do nothing but duplicate the work of other Religious Right groups and that every new organization or event or program seems to have the same mission as every other one?

Well, in addition to the Pray and ACT 40 days of pre-election prayer and fasting, and Cindy Jacobs' 40 days of pre-election prayer and fasting, and the National Religious Broadcasters' 40 days of pre-election prayer, we can now also add the Southern Baptist Convention's 40 days of pre-election prayer:

The 40/40 Prayer Vigil is designed for people to pray for 40 days, between Sept. 20 and the morning of Oct. 29, and then pray for 40 hours between 4 p.m. on Oct. 29 and 8 a.m. on Oct. 31. A downloadable prayer guide and more information is available at www.4040prayer.com. The 40/40 prayer guide is written so that it can be used by an individual, a small group or the focus of an entire church body.

The vigil focuses on personal and church revival and national renewal, [Richard] Land said, noting participants are encouraged to heed the truths of 1 Timothy 2 and pray for those in positions of authority in the government.

A pitched spiritual battle rages across the country and around the world, Land said. "Such warfare must be met first of all with spiritual weapons," he said. "We must pray for a great outpouring of God's Spirit on our homes, our churches and ourselves that our moral foundation might be recovered."

I guess that it if the BP oil spill in the Gulf is due to God's anger over President Obama's treatment of Israel, then it only stands to reason that the best way to end the crisis is prayer.

And that is exactly the solution that four Southern Republican governors appear to be banking on:

Four Gulf Coast governors are calling on residents to set aside Sunday as a Day of Prayer to pray for a solution to the oil spill and for citizens impacted by the disaster.

Alabama's Bob Riley, Louisiana's Bobby Jindal, Mississippi's Haley Barbour and Texas' Rick Perry all issued proclamations calling on prayer for the spill, which entered its 66th day Thursday.

"Throughout our history, Alabamians have humbly turned to God to ask for His blessings and to hold us steady during times of struggle. This is certainly one of those times," Riley said in a statement.

Riley's proclamation reads in part, "Citizens of Alabama are urged to pray for the well-being of our fellow citizens and our State, to pray for all those in other states who are hurt by this disaster, to pray for those who are working to respond to this crisis, and to pray that a solution that stops the oil leak is completed soon."

Perry's proclamation says it "seems right and fitting that the people of Texas should join with their fellow Gulf Coast residents" and others across the country and around the world "to thank God, seek his wisdom for ourselves and our leaders, and ask him for his merciful intervention and healing in this time of crisis."

Barbour's notes that the spill threatens the "livelihoods of our fellow citizens, the environmental beauty of our coast, and our quality of life." Jindals's says "Louisianians all across the world are united in hope for an end to this catastrophic event and pray for" the coast's recovery.

Jindal, in fact, participated in a prayer vigil earlier this week where, according to the Louisiana Famly Forum (Tony Perkins old haunt,) "intercessors" laid hands upon him:

Pastors Dino Rizzo, Apostle Lloyd Benson, Bishop Ricky Sinclair, Bishop Raymond Johnson, and Pastor Dennis Blackwell led in prayers for the bereaved families, for our government officials, for the environment, for the people and businesses of the Gulf Coast, and for solutions to this economic and environmental crisis.

And they were not alone, as Southern Baptist Convention is calling on churches and Christians "to pray for the end of this catastrophe and for the homes, lives, cultures, and livelihoods of those in the Gulf Coast region" while John Stemberger of the Florida Family Policy Council "is working on a coordinated effort, and is asking believers and churches across America to unite in prayer for the Gulf this Sunday" and even Wallbuilders is "urging everyone across the nation to join with these states, asking for God's hand to be on all the decision-makers and lawmakers, that He would give them discernment and guidance, and that a solution would be forthcoming."

Interestingly, Wallbuilders' David Barton "drafted the prayer day proclamations for the governors to adapt."

Back during the last presidential election, questions were raised about the Southern Baptist Convention's position that women are subservient to men, especially as it related to Mike Huckabee and his support for the belief that "a wife is to submit herself graciously to the servant leadership of her husband even as the church willingly submits to the headship of Christ."

The issue came up again when John McCain named Sarah Palin as his running mate, with people like Tony Perkins and Richard Land saying it was perfectly acceptable for Palin to possible be VP, but not okay for a woman to serve in a leadership position within the church.

Well, the issue is coming up once more, as the Georgia Baptist Convention is considering cutting ties with a local church where a husaband and wife team have been serving as co-pastors:

A more than 95-year-old church in Atlanta may be ousted from the Southern Baptist Convention over a woman pastor.

The Rev. Mimi Walker has been serving as co-pastor at Druid Hills Baptist Church with her husband, the Rev. Graham Walker, since 2003. But earlier this month, leaders of the Georgia Baptist Convention recommended cutting ties with the local congregation.

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Dr. Richard Land, president of The Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, said the Baptist Faith and Message does not state that "women are to be subservient to men." They are of equal worth before God, he stated earlier.

And though women are gifted for service in the church, Land says the New Testament teaches that "a woman is not to usurp authority over the man" and thus women are not to serve as pastors.

It was just last year that Al Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, warned that the SBC risked dying out if it did not find a way to stop losing members. 

Of course, that was said just weeks after the SBC had kicked out a church due to the fact that it was insufficiently hostile to gays.

It should also be noted that this would be the second time in a year that the Georgia Baptist Convention has severed ties with a local church over a female pastor.

Today, the Wake Forest University Divinity School’s Center for Religion and Public Affairs released a document entitled "Religious Expression in American Public Life: A Joint Statement of Current Law."

The document's drafting committee included everyone from former staff members of the ACLU and People for the American Way to Richard Land of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention and representatives from Pat Robertson's American Center for Law and Justice.  The document seeks to explain church-state law as it stands today:

The drafters’ purpose in crafting this statement is to help foster an accurate understanding of current law and improve our national dialogue on these issues. While there is disagreement among the drafters about the merits of some of the court decisions and laws mentioned in the document, the drafters agree that current law protects the rights of people to express their religious convictions and practice their faiths on government property and in public life as described in the statement. In other words, while this diverse group often disagrees about how the law should address issues regarding the intersection of religion and government, it agrees in many cases on what the law is today. More broadly, the drafters also agree that religious liberty, or freedom of conscience, is a fundamental, inalienable right for all people, religious and nonreligious, and that there is a need to correct misunderstandings about this right. The joint statement, which is formatted in a Q and A style, seeks to provide accessible and useful information for Americans about this area of law.

The document itself can be found here [PDF].  And here is the press release announcing the statement:

As the role of religion in public life continues to spark intense political debate and high-profile court cases, a group of diverse leaders from religious and secular organizations has issued the most comprehensive joint statement of current law to date on legal issues dividing church and state. Muslim, Jewish, Sikh and Christian leaders from the evangelical, mainline and Catholic traditions joined with civil liberties leaders to draft Religious Expression in American Public Life: A Joint Statement of Current Law, released Tuesday at the Brookings Institution in Washington D.C.

Are persons elected or nominated to serve as government officials required to place their hands on the Bible when making oaths or affirmations? May elected officials reference religious ideas and discuss their personal religious beliefs while operating in their official capacities? Are individuals and groups permitted to use government property for religious activities and events? Must secular nongovernmental employers accommodate employees’ religious practices? These are just a few of the questions that the diverse group of leaders sought to answer in the 32-page document.

“The role of religion in public life has long been a source of controversy and litigation,” said Melissa Rogers, director of Wake Forest University Divinity School’s Center for Religion and Public Affairs, which produced the document. “We have brought together a diverse group of experts on law and religion to clarify what current law has to say about some of these matters.”

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The 35 questions and answers that comprise the joint statement address religion and politics; religious gatherings on governmental property; religious expression in the workplace; and chaplains in legislative bodies, prisons and the military; and other issues.

Every once in a while, Religious Right leaders take a break from railing against abortion and gays and czars and death panels and whatever to weigh in on foreign policy issues, like back in 2007 when a group of them released a statement demanding that the US remain in Iraq, or last year when another group demanded a meeting with Barack Obama to discuss their ideas on how to defeat terrorism.

Now a similar group is back with a new letter demanding sanctions on Iran:

In a remarkable ecumenical and bipartisan display of unity, Christian leaders representing over 28 million evangelicals, Roman Catholics, and other Christians have sent a letter to Congress today and other key world leaders calling for urgent action to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. The letter urges a total arms embargo and a cut off of exports of refined petroleum products, including gasoline, as a firm yet peaceful measure against the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism.

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The leaders include Pat Robertson of Christian Broadcasting Network, Southern Baptist Convention chairman and pastor Johnny Hunt of First Baptist Church of Woodstock, Charles Colson of the Prison Fellowship Ministries, Richard Land of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, Tom Minnery of Focus on the Family, Bill Donohue of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, , Dr. Michael Youssef of Leading the Way, Dr. James Merritt of Cross Pointe Church, Wendy Wright of Concerned Women for America, Gary Bauer of American Values, and Dr. John Hagee of the Conerstone Church in San Antonio.

I'm not sure what is so "bipartisan" about this, since just about every person who signed their name to this appears to be a right-wing activist.  

But there was one interesting revelation among the signatories: 

Manuel Miranda, President, The Iraq Society

Presumably, that is this Manuel Miranda.

So Miranda is not only an expert on judges and immigration, but also on Iraq now?  Who knew?

• Think Progress: Former President Jimmy Carter, who in 2000 officially severed ties with the Southern Baptist Convention after the SBC declared its opposition to female pastors and reiterated its calls “for wives to be submissive to their husbands,” condemned the mistreatment of women by religious leaders, writing that “the words of God do not justify cruelty to women.”
• RH Reality Check's Lindsay Beyerstein asks if George Tiller's assassin should be charged as a domestic terrorist.
• Good As You takes a look at the latest from the Maine Family Policy Council and reminds us: "This group is not some separate entity from the larger marriage fight. They are connected with Focus on the Family/Family Research Council. In fact, it was just this past February that FRC head Tony Perkins spoke at the groups' banquet. So it's not like this is a fringe story that's detached form Maine's "people's veto." THIS is the fight. THESE are the people. THIS is how they think of us: As innately immoral beings who are linked by unsavoriness."
• Joe My God points to The Lost Ogle catching the Baptist Messenger photoshopping Oklahoma Governor Brad Henry’s signature on to Rep. Sally Kern's “Proclamation for Morality" and placing the text of proclamation onto Executive Department letterhead while forging the signature of Secretary of State M. Susan Savage next to the state seal of Oklahoma in order to make it appear legitimate.
• Finally, Steve Benen asks just what House Minority Whip Eric Cantor's proposed "Judeo-Christian" foreign policy would look like.

Last week I wrote a couple of posts about the fact Southern Baptist Convention recently decided to kick Broadway Baptist Church out of the SBC due to the fact that the church was insufficiently hostile to gays.

But instead of taking my word for it, let's let Broadway's interim pastor Charlie Johnson explain it (via Box Turtle Bulletin):

We explained before the Committee that Broadway has never entertained any formal order of business before the congregational body that constitutes an endorsement of homosexual behavior. We further explained that church membership and congregational service in no way denotes ratification of the behavior of the individual holding that membership and performing that service.

Discussions were candid and thorough. More conservative voices on the Executive Committee wanted Broadway to do something clearly not required by the SBC Constitution: take formal congregational action to condemn homosexual behavior. This extraordinary measure has not been required of any other SBC church. It would be unprecedented and unauthorized. Such requirement repeatedly surfaced in our deliberations, and each time the Executive Committee backed off it.

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The breakdown came when those advocating the more rigorous constitutional test won the day. It became clear several weeks ago from the Executive Committee that Broadway would have to implement measures to identify, isolate, and distinguish our gay and lesbian members from the rest of the congregation in order to be found in friendly cooperation. Of course, conscience, congregational autonomy, and common decency prohibit us from doing so.

Now, it appears that the constitutional language as presently stated in Article III is not sufficient. It is not enough for cooperating Southern Baptist churches simply to take no action to affirm homosexual behavior. They must now take formal action explicitly to disapprove such behavior.

Every Southern Baptist church of any size has homosexual members. These friends pray with us, sing with us, give with us, serve with us, and take the Body and Blood of Christ at the table of the Lord with us. Will the test imposed upon Broadway by the denomination now be required of all the churches?

The recommendation to disfellowship Broadway was unanimously passed in the Executive Committee. It was approved by the Convention without discussion. Not even one lone solitary dissenting voice. Such uniformity of thought and silence of conscience means that the SBC remains Baptist in name only.

The moral legalism inherent in the Southern Baptist Convention's decision indicates the spiritual disease infecting and destroying our Baptist body today. Instead of focusing our energies of love on a lonely and hurting world, we are obsessed with endlessly parsing out arcane legalities designed to assert our own moral purity and superiority.

It is a sound and fury signifying nothing.

Yesterday I wrote a post noting that as Southern Baptist Convention gathered for its annual meeting where it would, among other things, try to figure out how to reverse its declining membership, it was simultaneously considering a recommendation to kick Broadway Baptist Church out of the SBC due to the fact that the church was too welcoming of gays.

Well, the vote has been taken and Broadway has been given the boot:

With no discussion, Southern Baptist Convention messengers Tuesday approved a recommendation to cease the denomination's relationship with Broadway Baptist Church, a Fort Worth, Texas, congregation that has been the source of controversy over its stance on homosexuality.

The recommendation from the Executive Committee passed on the floor nearly unanimously, capping a focus on the church that began last year when a messenger made a motion asking that the convention declare Broadway Baptist as not "in friendly cooperation" with the denomination.

At issue was whether the church was in violation of Article III of the SBC constitution, which states that churches "which act to affirm, approve, or endorse homosexual behavior" are not in friendly cooperation. Broadway Baptist has approximately five open homosexual members, including two male couples, according to church members. Some of the homosexuals serve on church committees.

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Stephen, Wilson, a member of the Executive Committee and vice president for academic affairs at Mid-Continent University, emphasized to Baptist Press that the denomination encourages churches to reach out to people struggling with homosexuality. The issue with Broadway Baptist, though, is over a church allowing members who are homosexual and unrepentant, he said.

Over the last few days, former second vice president of the Southern Baptist Convention has declared both that the murder of Dr. George Tiller was an answer to prayer and that he was likewise praying for the death of President Obama.

Today, the Southern Baptist Convention, not surprisingly, distanced itself from Drake's rantings:

A Southern Baptist Convention spokesman said June 4 that a former official who is praying for the death of President Obama is out of the denomination's mainstream.

Roger "Sing" Oldham, vice president for convention relations with the SBC Executive Committee, said he believes most Southern Baptists are committed to praying for the well-being of the president as instructed in Scripture.

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Oldham told Associated Baptist Press that Drake is not a spokesman for the Southern Baptist Convention and his comments do not reflect the actions, resolutions or positions of the denomination.

"I think it is a fair statement to say that the vast majority of Southern Baptists are committed to praying for the well-being of the president in accordance with the specific instruction given in 1 Timothy 2:1-3," Oldham said, quoting: "First of all, then, I urge that petitions, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for everyone, for kings and all those who are in authority, so that we may lead a tranquil and quiet life in all godliness and dignity. This is good, and it pleases God our Savior.'"

In semi-related news:

A black Southern Baptist pastor is asking his denomination to acknowledge the historic first of President Barack Obama's election, despite their policy differences.

The Rev. Dwight McKissic of Texas wants the resolution put to a vote at the annual Southern Baptist Convention. The meeting starts June 23 in Kentucky.

This is especially interesting considering that McKissic is himself a right-winger who, back in 2006, told the audience at the Family Research Council's Values Voter Summit that the Anti-Christ would be gay:

The civil rights movement, he said, was grounded in moral authority, truth and righteousness, the impetus to freedom, constitutional authority, and the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. In contrast, he said, the gay rights movement was inspired “from the pit of hell itself,” and has a “satanic anointment.” The gay rights movement was birthed and inspired by the anti-Christ. He suggested that the anti-Christ is himself gay, citing a verse from the book of Daniel saying the anti-Christ will have no desire for a woman.

“I don’t think there is any issue more important than how we are going to define the family,” said McKissic. Television shows portraying homosexuality in a positive light have put us “on the road to Sodom and Gomorrah,” and “God’s got another match…He didn’t run out of matches.”