CC, SBC--Beth Moore announcement

[rebcoola]

@ kbutton, our church is definitely having issues this year but they haven't been really leadership.  Our drinking is definitely not don't ask don't tell we our Friday night community group goes through at least a bottle of wine per family.  The big draw at the yearly fundraiser for the private school is the wine pull.   We didn't come looking for a Baptist church and have never been in one before.   We were part of an Acts 29 house church that ended up merging with this church.   Its interesting to hear all of this stuff about SBC.  I should ask around because a lot of the churches here are SBC so maybe others are having more issues.  One of our pastors did go to an SBC seminary but the other didn't so maybe that tempers things to?  

[Lale]

Agreeing with the above poster that it isn't all churches and all people. We are currently visiting an SBC church that seems strangely disconnected from the SBC political squabbles which is so nice. It does seem to have a Christian nationalist bent, at least as I have encountered among some of the people that attend, but I think that is becoming harder and harder to avoid, especially in the south. I think that I am ultra cognizant of what goes on in the greater SBC world because of our family's professional connection to it. 

I post so infrequently so I don't know how to quote, but someone mentioned the Evangelical Industrial Complex piggybacking off of the Military Industrial Complex. Du Mez's book talks specifically about this connection and lays the historical timeline in how it came to be.  

[kbutton]

9 minutes ago, Lale said:

Agreeing with the above poster that it isn't all churches and all people. We are currently visiting an SBC church that seems strangely disconnected from the SBC political squabbles which is so nice. It does seem to have a Christian nationalist bent, at least as I have encountered among some of the people that attend, but I think that is becoming harder and harder to avoid, especially in the south.

Because of where we live, I am concerned that we'll jump out of the SBC fire and into another church that is very nationalistic. 

[lauraw4321]

5 hours ago, MercyA said:

This to me is unspeakably tragic. How completely and utterly unnecessary of them to emphasize such a thing. 

Wow, thank you. I've never experienced someone offering sympathy to me because of this before, and it means a lot because I feel understood. My spouse did not grow up in the SBC or even an evangelical church and so he really can't understand/relate to my struggles around this. 

I remember being so uncomfortable around Easter because often the pastor would spend some time trying to explain how there could be "an angel" and "two angels" in the same story and both be true and neither contradictory.

My first Easter after my re-introduction to Jesus, the pastor talked about how marvelous it was that the first people to exclaim the Gospel were women. It was like I had been struck by lightening. How had I never noticed? And the discrepancy in the story? The pastor said, if people were going to make up a lie, they would make sure that everyone's story was the same. Discrepancies heighten the evidence of fact. I wept most of the service. I could love and believe in Jesus and not "believe" things that my mind just wouldn't believe.

[Lale]

8 minutes ago, kbutton said:

Because of where we live, I am concerned that we'll jump out of the SBC fire and into another church that is very nationalistic. 

We are in the same boat, but I am trying to convince my Baptist-from-birth husband to try something else. He is coming around.

We have a young, single woman in our lives who is also tied professionally to an SBC entity, and the news of Beth Moore leaving and the response she is seeing on social media from local pastor's and other leaders is really discouraging her. She is asking hard questions and trying to find where she fits in ministry. This makes her wonder if she has a place in a SBC church. 

[kbutton]

3 minutes ago, Lale said:

We are in the same boat, but I am trying to convince my Baptist-from-birth husband to try something else. He is coming around.

We have a young, single woman in our lives who is also tied professionally to an SBC entity, and the news of Beth Moore leaving and the response she is seeing on social media from local pastor's and other leaders is really discouraging her. She is asking hard questions and trying to find where she fits in ministry. This makes her wonder if she has a place in a SBC church. 

I am not hearing a reaction so far, and that actually has me kind of freaked out. I expected one. It could mean that they are live and let live with SBC control, which is good, but it might just be there tendency to avoid anything unpleasant/divisive except if it involves nationalism or the pandemic, lol! 

[73349]

1 hour ago, rebcoola said:

We are on their search list but their is nothing on our site that says anything about being a member. 

I believe sending SBC money would be a line item in last year's budget, and that's how you'd be on the list. Churches (and other institutions, I'm sure) have details buried in budgets that are not in their outward-facing materials. If my church were listed as an affiliate, I'd be interested to know what we were spending on that.

[rebcoola]

43 minutes ago, Carolina Wren said:

I believe sending SBC money would be a line item in last year's budget, and that's how you'd be on the list. Churches (and other institutions, I'm sure) have details buried in budgets that are not in their outward-facing materials. If my church were listed as an affiliate, I'd be interested to know what we were spending on that.

I'm curious what we really get out of in regular times.  When we had no pastor and looked like we might be closing. They sent a team to help and talk through options of replanting and such.  They also help when we need to hire someone though I'm not sure how much.  I know our newest pastor was not found through them though other candidates were.  I'm assuming their is more the pastors get out of it but never really asked for details of what included for the small fee.  I will probably ask at our next business meeting.  

[HSmomof2]

21 hours ago, Seasider too said:

Well this guy recently made rounds through national social media and he isn’t Deep South. Not SBC either, but even though this clip of preaching is extreme, I’m sure there are pockets of this thinking all over the country. 
 

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/ncna1259998

(this links to an article but you can Google up the video easily)

 

This is one of the most disgusting things I’ve read.....even more so when I looked up the pastor. 

[mom2scouts]

4 hours ago, Carolina Wren said:

To see SBC churches near you: https://churches.sbc.net/ There are 51,000 SBC congregations. (My church is not one of them, having been kicked out for being nice to gay people.) They are big and vocal, and they are what most Americans think of when thinking of Baptists.

American Baptist Churches is a bit smaller and more to the center: https://www.abc-usa.org/find-a-church/

Alliance of Baptists (typically progressive) is quite small: https://allianceofbaptists.org/partners/congregational-partners

There are other Baptist denominations as well--over a dozen.

Nope, no SBC churches in my city, but I did find one very small one in the neighboring city and one each in two other nearby cities. 

I remeber doing a Beth Moore study about 12 years ago and her studies were very popular then. I haven't seen one offered in years, so maybe they're already out of favor?

Edited March 11, 2021 by mom2scouts

[AbcdeDooDah]

7 minutes ago, kand said:

I had heard some of the video last week when my dh started playing a news story about it, and it was so gross. He didn’t listen to the whole thing though (because, gross), and I see from the linked article that it just got worse and worse. I know not a thing about this pastor, but I can’t be the only one that thinks these sound like the words of an adulterous man 😳 (not saying he is, just how it comes across to me). Ugh, what a disgusting way to think of your wife. Just an arm piece/sex toy 🤮. 

I watched the whole thing because even though the sound bites sounded bad enough, I wanted to see for myself. Yep. It’s bad and only gets worse. He’s a disgusting pig. Comparing a woman who came to him for help to a sumo wrestler.  His wife sounds toxic, too.

[historically accurate]

1 hour ago, kand said:

I had heard some of the video last week when my dh started playing a news story about it, and it was so gross. He didn’t listen to the whole thing though (because, gross), and I see from the linked article that it just got worse and worse. I know not a thing about this pastor, but I can’t be the only one that thinks these sound like the words of an adulterous man 😳 (not saying he is, just how it comes across to me). Ugh, what a disgusting way to think of your wife. Just an arm piece/sex toy 🤮. 

There was a big thing a couple years ago where pastors would introduce their wives as "my smokin'-hot wife, [Name]". I always thought it gross. I'd bean DH over the head if he ever tried to introduce me as reduced to my looks. 

[Wheres Toto]

13 minutes ago, historically accurate said:

There was a big thing a couple years ago where pastors would introduce their wives as "my smokin'-hot wife, [Name]". I always thought it gross. I'd bean DH over the head if he ever tried to introduce me as reduced to my looks. 

I've been following this thread just out of curiosity.  We have a few SBC from the link but most seem to be either Spanish-speaking or Korean in my area. 

But, that really is gross.  Why would anyone, much less a pastor, much less a pastor in a conservative, modesty-preaching denomination, think that was appropriate?  Yuck.

[historically accurate]

4 minutes ago, Wheres Toto said:

I've been following this thread just out of curiosity.  We have a few SBC from the link but most seem to be either Spanish-speaking or Korean in my area. 

But, that really is gross.  Why would anyone, much less a pastor, much less a pastor in a conservative, modesty-preaching denomination, think that was appropriate?  Yuck.

Doing some googling, it apparently started at a Nascar race in 2011. I didn't find any instances prior to that. He was a Baptist (I don't know what conference of Baptist though). It's really some sort of prayer - lots of sponsorships LOL. All the way to this article in 2018 telling pastors to knock it off. https://churchleaders.com/pastors/pastor-articles/169133-jeff-fisher-wife-might-be-smokin-hot-but.html I know I heard it a couple times when a visiting pastor would come to church. 

 

[KungFuPanda]

6 hours ago, Thatboyofmine said:

Oh Jesus would never be allowed!  Are you kidding me??  Not only did he drink, he actually turned water into a whole barrel of wine! 😱 A barrel!!    He befriended whores, and don't even get me started about modesty.  What about when he stripped down to his skivvies to wash His disciples feet?   Nope.  He's be thrown out in a heartbeat.   

He was also a liberal, hippie Jew.  He's not getting in the door!  I did NOT need to even open this thread.  I've been listening to the Leaving Eden podcast about the cults and scandals within some Independent Fundamentalist Baptist churches.  It's giving me flashbacks to rural Sunday schools and some of the stuff we were told.  There is a documentary called Jesus Camp and I'm afraid to watch it.  Who knows what I'd remember and I'm not up to the ribbing I'd get from my family because none of them grew up in a rural, conservative place.  

My cousin was upset today because she listened to a preacher go on and on about how it's the wife's responsibility to look good all the time.  Apparently if she doesn't, and her husband strays, it's HER fault????

Edited March 12, 2021 by KungFuPanda

[KungFuPanda]

6 hours ago, Indigo Blue said:

 

Stop it!

[KungFuPanda]

5 hours ago, rebcoola said:

None of what you guys are saying sounds like our church at all.  Though I guess we might be an undercover southern baptist church.  It was planted by SBC 40 yrs ago. We are on their search list but their is nothing on our site that says anything about being a member.  We dance, drink, are open handed about creation and the majority do not believe in a literal 7 day earth.   I'm not even really sure how the churches are connected I know they provided help finding a new pastor when we needed one.  But we write our own Statement of faith our own membership covenant and operating procedures.  The convention wasn't involved when we made the move to go from a member led church to elder led.  Maybe it's regional how tightly they all band together?  We have a bunch of other SBC churches here and they really aren't that similar to us or each other or do much together.

Ummmm . . . do you live on one of the evil, Godless coasts? 

[HS Mom in NC]

I found Immoral Majority a good read on the topic of Evangelicalism whoring itself for political power. https://www.amazon.com/Immoral-Majority-Good-Christians-Leaders-ebook/dp/B075WW678P/ref=sr_1_2?crid=3GQGUF72G7TDK&dchild=1&keywords=immoral+majority&qid=1615510022&sprefix=Immoral+Majori%2Caps%2C278&sr=8-2

[rebcoola]

2 hours ago, KungFuPanda said:

Ummmm . . . do you live on one of the evil, Godless coasts? 

Yes! Though in one of the more conservative areas.

  

[MercyA]

15 hours ago, KungFuPanda said:

He was also a liberal, hippie Jew. 

Depends on your definition of liberal. 😉 

ETA: But, yes, following some of His teachings could get you called a commie these days!

Edited March 12, 2021 by MercyA

[kbutton]

12 hours ago, Ordinary Shoes said:

WRT to the Southern Baptists, didn't it come about over the defense of slavery? 

Yes, I think more specifically over being willing to fund missionaries from churches that espoused slavery (or some variation of espousing/ignoring/not condemning slavery or members being slave holders).