Southern Baptist Pastor Wade Burleson of Enid, Oklahoma (who formerly served on the International Missions Board for the SBC) took a sabbatical from blogging, but he's back at it and going strong. I've enjoyed nearly every one of them lately. Though I am not a Baptist, the same concerns I bear for the Church now currently also challenge (plague?!) the Southern Baptist Convention.
Basically, Wade Burleson (whose name is never uttered above a whisper on the campuses of selected seminaries) blogs to counter the propagation of Baptist Identity Movement within the SBC. The SBC, the loosely affiliated group of congregational churches (joined by the general Baptist Faith and Message Statement -BF&M), initially organized in order to pool money for missionaries and religious education. The Baptist Identity movement strategizes to transform the SBC into a group of churches that are ruled by authoriarian style leaders and more narrowly defined creeds. The Denomination first organized in 1845, but the original BF&M was not adopted until 1925 and was revised by a large, open committee in the general convention in 1963. In 2000, a small group of reportedly hand-selected and politically motivated individuals revised the statement under closed session. That's my understanding of events... In the revision of the BF&M in 2000, this group of Baptist Identity affiliated leaders sought to remove certain terminology so as to redefine the "priesthood of all believers," and they were also motivated by concerns about women in church ministry as well as issues related to the modern embrace of things charismatic.
Among the many trenchant (every post for the past month), I recommend these as they are not to be missed:
Dr. Curtis Freeman of Duke Divinity School on Eternal Subordinationism -- Semi-Arianism Masquerading as Othodoxy: A Baptist Scholar on the Trinity Weighs in On "Eternal Subordination"
A Review of the Spread of Eternal Subordinationism in the SBC -- Growing Semi-Arianism in the SBC and the Consequences for Women If Left Unchallenged
Paige Patterson's Commentary on Wife Beating -- The Only True Authority that Comes from God Is a Result of Service, Not Gender
Repenting of Feminism and Unconditional Submission to Men -- My Prayer For Miss Courtney Tarter: "That One Day, by God's Grace, You May Recover from Your Recovery"
- ETC...
