Southern Baptist problems and their seminaries

In It Is Not Just the Southern Baptist Convention That’s At Stake. Here’s What You Can Do, Rod Martin makes a plea for his fellow Southern Baptists to “show up” for the annual convention. He says, “In an average year, only 7.2% of SBC churches are represented.” He wants conservatives to come make a difference.

This probably will fall on many deaf ears in the SBC. Moreover, it certainly does not mean much to those of us who are not in the Convention, who cannot, will not, and have no interest in sending messengers. However, there is one little bit that caught my eye, and is interesting in its effect (or possible effect) on preachers and churches outside the SBC.

“Southern Baptists make up 11% of America’s churches. But what you probably don’t realize is that the six SBC seminaries educate roughly one-third of America’s seminary students. That’s a lot more than just Southern Baptists.

“If those six seminaries go bad, all of evangelical Christendom is infected…”

Many students who are not Southern Baptist attend Southern Baptist seminaries. Therefore, these institutions, who they hire, what they teach, what they stand for, etc., can have a profound effect on others. Not sure what we outsiders can do about it, but we can be aware.

Leaked “Queer Inclusive” Presentation

Leaked “Queer Inclusive” Presentation EXPOSES What Kids Are Being Taught in Schools

Matt Walsh: “Leaked audio from a ‘queer inclusive’ presentation at a major education conference reveals exactly what our kids are being subjected to at school.”

The material referenced by Walsh is from a National Association of Independent Schools (NAIS) conference. (Note, independent schools as opposed to public schools.) Listen at your own risk of hearing some vile stuff that many teachers are being trained to do in private schools. Here are at least three takeaways.

1. With this mayhem and madness being foisted on children beginning in preschool, it is no wonder how much gender dysphoria children are now experiencing. “Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.”

2. Don’t think the problem is solved simply by putting children in private and/or religious schools. Many of those teachers are trained in the same places as the public-school teachers. “know them which labour among you”

3. Don’t believe that bills such as the Florida “Parental Rights in Education” bill are not needed just because there are some people who claim this is not happening in our schools. It is happening. This shows it is. “ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”

“A time is coming when men will go mad, and when they see someone who is not mad, they will attack him, saying, ‘You are mad; you are not like us.’”

Your trope is what I say it is

…and it means what I say it means.

At times, it appears that Baptist News Global would have us believe that they stand for religion and rise above politics. However, the latter certainly is not true – they just oppose a popular political trend of evangelical Christian politics.[i] With the article, Why is there a boom in enrollment at private Christian schools? Here’s one critical theory: Race., there comes a far-left professor (referencing a New York Times article) to trash the popularity – that is, the supposed reason for the popularity – of private Christian schools. [Humorously, were it not a serious issue, this “Baptist” site chides CBMW for mentioning mentioning a specific small church with a gender inclusive statement, but does not blink an eye when this author mentions specific small evangelical schools to illustrate his point. What’s up with that? All’s fair in war, I suppose, when it is your war and you make the rules. Consistency might be a jewel were it not for the swine’s snout.]

The author, Rodney W. Kennedy, is an interim pastor of Emmanuel Freidens Federated Church and an instructor at Palmer Theological Seminary. He self-describes as a “Catholic Baptist” (whatever that means) and is one who despises evangelical Christian influence in American politics and education. He is author of The Immaculate Mistake: How Evangelicals Gave Birth to Donald Trump.

On the general subject of parental involvement in public education, Kennedy quickly quotes a professor with a PhD who says that he is not qualified to tell schools how to teach his own kids. That may be true of him, but that does not mean the average parent should think he or she is not qualified. Parents are guardians, mentors, educators, spiritual guides, and many other things to their children. God made it so. (e.g. Deut. 6:6-8; Deut. 11:18-20; Prov. 22:6; Eph. 6:4; 1 Tim. 5:14) Let us not settle for less.

Kennedy creates a narrative that identifies conservative evangelicalism with American populism – which he denominates racist – and he then marches forward painting the Christian school boom with the same tainted brush. He looks in the heart (where you may have previously assumed only God could look), and finds that evangelicals at heart have a race problem. It cannot be otherwise, for regardless of what anyone says, he knows what he hears. They cannot mean anything else, for he has already determined what they mean.

Though his thesis is that racism is the engine driving the Christian school boom, and Critical Race Theory the fuel, Kennedy throws the terminology around while carefully avoiding defining it. To be fair, Critical Race Theory is a moving target that can take pages upon pages to define and discuss.[ii] It is something that means different things to different people. Yet he takes advantage of this defect, trotting out the words for effect.

Bottom line from what I read – and I’ll take Kennedy’s tactic, that what he says means what I say he says – white people are racists. All of them. Without exception. If they are doing something – including private Christian schooling – then that something is racist. Of course, pay no attention to the man behind the curtain, lest we find that some African-Americans also attend private Christian schools. Evangelical ones at that. Or myriad other issues that belie his premise. Maybe it would be better to have an honest discussion in which each listen to the other.

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[i] In One Faith No Longer, George Yancey and Ashlee Quosigk suggest that this is because progressives believe they can bring about social change through political action more than through religious commitment.
[ii] The core of Critical Race Theory is that racism is inherent in everything American – law, society, education, religion, etc. Ultimately, all these must be overthrown to correct the course, at least according to this theory. This helps explain why they can believe that just teaching math and grammar can be racist. In turn, many deny the allegations that this is being taught! For just one example, the White House and the National School Boards Association interacted before the NSBA sent a letter to the Biden administration likening concerned parents to domestic terrorists – a letter from which the White House and Attorney General, after backlash, tried to extricate themselves. See also Yes, Virginia, critical race theory is in K-12 schools. Here are 20 examples.

Learning what we believe and why

In the realm of higher education, we are told that colleges and universities foster intellectual inquiry and critical thinking. They teach students to think, or how to think, rather than what to think. I question how successful – or even sincere – that they are in achieving this goal. They turn out multitudes of “assembly-line” students whose thinking reflects that of their professors!

In this same vein, religious seminaries supposedly want to teach you to think about what you believe and why, rather than teaching you what to believe. It may be that they are more generally successful than secular institutions?

What does the Bible say?

On one hand, it tells us to examine ourselves; for example,

• whether we be in the faith (2 Corinthians 13:5)
• to think, and examine our thinking (Matthew 17:25; Matthew 18:12; Matthew 21:28; Matthew 22:17, 42, et al.).
• our motives in taking the Lord ’s Supper (1 Corinthians 11:28)

On the other hand, it teaches us not to be tossed about; for example,

• we have a delivered body of faith for which we should contend (Jude 3)
• our foundation is the teachings of Jesus, the apostles, and the prophets (Ephesians 2:20) in which we should firmly stand (2 Thessalonians 2:15)
• we are to teach disciples to observe all things that Jesus commanded (Matthew 28:20)
• the faith should be committed to faithful persons who pass it on to others (2 Timothy 2:2)
• there is only one gospel, from which we cannot diverge (Galatians 1:8-9)

So, what is the “happy medium”?

Note: my conclusion in general is that Jesus Christ places pastors and teachers in the churches, and it is to the churches we should resort to learn of the meek and lowly One and his doctrine rather than to the ivory towers of higher education.

Parental Authority in Education

Some want to make a black Michigan teenager the new face of systemic racism. The case involves A Teenager Didn’t Do Her Online Schoolwork. So a Judge Sent Her to Juvenile Detention. “Because of the confidentiality of juvenile court cases, it’s impossible to determine how unusual Grace’s situation is. But attorneys and advocates in Michigan and elsewhere say they are unaware of any other case involving the detention of a child for failing to meet academic requirements after schools closed to help stop the spread of COVID-19.” The case is a little more involved than just that. The fact that the teenager was already on probation is also involved. A judge ruled that her not completing her schoolwork violated her terms of probation. Recently the Judge denied release of teen girl who was jailed after not doing homework. Whether it is an actual case of racism is open to question. Everything that happens to a person who is black does not mean it happened because he or she is black.

All that said, that this should happen is a result of the liberal Left mentality that the state rather than the parent has the authority in and is responsible for a child’s education. This should not have happened, but, in my opinion, this is an outgrowth of the educational philosophy of the very people who are decrying it. For example, political commentator Melissa Harris-Perry says, “We have to break through our kind of private idea that kids belong to their parents or kids belong to their families and recognize that kids belong to whole communities.” On the other hand, some philosphies view parents as having authority “because they have special obligations to their children.” New Testament Christians understand parental authority to rear and educate their children as a special obligation entrusted to them by God. “Children, obey your parents in all things: for this is well pleasing unto the Lord.” Colossians 3:20

Worst Colleges in America

The 20 Worst Colleges in America in 2019

Not sure how accurate this is, but it is interesting. Looks like a lot of weight is placed on the graduation rate and cost. In other cases, though, the weight was given to quelling free speech. The two different standards make it a sort of mixed bag of comparison.

At it again

Early this month the Student Government Association of Trinity University recommended in a resolution that Chick-fil-A be removed from the campus. Similar to the rhetoric of the city council, Trinity’s SGA emphasizes “Trinity is a university that emphasizes its commitment to diversity and inclusion.” Chick-fil-A supports such heinous organizations as the Salvation Army and the Fellowship of Christian Athletes! The SGA hopes you will not notice their dirty little secret. Their diversity excludes those who are too diverse for their adamantine attitude, and their inclusion only includes those whom they approve.

How diverse is that?

Wayland to Boyce: “a Fair Opportunity of Doing Well”

[I prepared this transcription of a letter by Francis Wayland with a few introductory comments for the SBC Heritage web site in 2012, and am now posting it here. Francis Wayland was a long-time president of Brown University in Providence, RI. According to Al Mohler, he was “… one of the most significant educators in antebellum America…”[1]  He was a mentor to James Petigru Boyce (founder and first president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary). By letter Wayland responded to the ideas set forth by Boyce in his Inaugural Address at Furman University – Three Changes in Theological Institutions – delivered before the Board of Trustees, July 31, 1856.[2]  Wayland, who was both a Baptist minister and an experienced educator, saw a tendency in the institutions themselves that contributed to their decline. He thought he saw hope in Boyce's plan of organization to blunt that tendency. See also Boyce’s Two Founding Principles for Southern Seminary.]

Providence, January 26, 1857

My dear Professor Boyce,--I have read with great interest your Inaugural Address. It is the first common sense discourse on theological education I have yet seen. I like it for several reasons. In the first place, it does not take it for granted that the Theological Seminary is a stereotyped institution from which nothing is to be taken and to which nothing is to be added in all coming time; in the next place, it takes it for granted that a seminary is made for the church and not that the church was created by Christ for the seminary and especially for professors; and then it recognizes the fact that there is a Baptist church now existing, as a matter distinct from other churches, which has been in fact almost ignored, that Baptists are capable of understanding what they want and of devising the means for supplying it; and again, that educating the Baptist ministry does not mean educating a little band who shall form a clique separate from their brethren, of whom they may speak in public as almost interlopers; and finally, that that is not the best education for us which by its own necessity reduces the number of those who receive advantages to the lowest possible number.
Whether seminaries and theological schools are the proper places to educate the ministry, I know not. It is a matter of experiment in our day, and time alone can decide it. Their tendency is to raise intellectual above spiritual qualifications, and such it has thus far proven. Of old, they have I think proved to be, after a generation or two, schools of heresy. In this country, from the errors I have intimated, they have not had a fair chance. Your plan is the only plan I have seen which gives them a fair opportunity of doing well. You embrace the whole ministry, you mingle them all together and treat them all as brethren equally honored and honorable if God has called them to the ministry, and you give them an opportunity to learn something of pastoral duties before they enter upon them.
I wish you every success. I hope you will be well sustained, and that Baptists, as they have done before, may show other Christians how the church of Christ is to be built up by following more closely the steps of the Master. I am yours truly,

F. Wayland

Footnotes

[1]  To Train the Minister Whom God Has Called: James Petigru Boyce and Southern Baptist Theological Education by R. Albert Mohler, Jr.

[2]  Printed in the Religious Herald (VA), 11 January 1872

Hurrah for Common Core (not)

* Common Core Teaches Kids New Way To Add 9 + 6 That Takes 54 Seconds

"Perhaps the best example of Common Core’s sharp focus on “why” in math came last summer when The Daily Caller exposed a video showing a curriculum coordinator in suburban Chicago perkily explaining that Common Core allows students to be totally right if they say 3 x 4 = 11 as long as they spout something about the necessarily faulty reasoning they used to get to that wrong answer.

"Earlier this month, Canada’s National Post reported that a group of neuroscientists has issued a study finding that rote memorization of discrete math facts plays a critical role in mathematical development in young children.

"In short, the study found, memorizing multiplication tables and answers to basic arithmetic problems is cognitively vital because, without such memorization, children will have a much harder time later on with complex math problems."

More D. D.

“Education has ruined preachers. Doctors of divinity abound in our day, but we have no prophets. I know that saying this gets me in trouble with the religious elite, but it must be said clearly and loudly. I am of the old school, not the new. And I have the fondest memory of an uneducated preacher here in north Georgia, Brother Rance Cain, whom I was blessed to hear in the 1960s. He could preach circles around any educated preacher of his day or ours. He spit out a little tobacco on you when he preached, but who cared! He was uncouth and country, but how he could declare God’s Word in power, truly confounding the educated!” -- From The Sheepherder of Tekoa by Brother W. F. Bell of Canton, GA

“For you see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many noble, are called: But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty; and base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yes, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are: That no flesh should glory in his presence.” -- 1 Corinthians 1:26-29

Readings on "parents vs. society"

The posting of web links does not constitute an endorsement of the sites linked, and not necessarily even agreement with viewpoint of the posts linked.

Domestic Threats to Parental Rights
Faith healing and the law
Lawyers ask court to rule in prayer death
Sick girl removed from hospital
The Injustice of Helpful Parents — Yet More Insanity

College for all

As you finish high school and get ready for college:

"The notion that a four-year degree is essential for real success is being challenged by a growing number of economists, policy analysts and academics. They say more Americans should consider other options such as technical training or two-year schools, which have been embraced in Europe for decades.

"As evidence, experts cite rising student debt, stagnant graduation rates and a struggling job market flooded with overqualified degree-holders. They pose a fundamental question: Do too many students go to college?" -- From College for all? Experts say not necessarily by Alan Scher Zagier

On degrees

"To-day, one cannot pastor a church of 25 members without at least a ThD. You will also notice that these degrees are broadly advertised as well.

"Perhaps if we went back to the simple men of old along with the book of old and the gospel of old we might again experience the Holy Spirit of old enacting in all our hearts and lives anew and burst out in triumph in our society." -- Jim on The Baptist Board 12/29/2008

And this, too?

Yesterday contained a link to a story about a community college; today, a student’s right to perform a religious song at a high school.

A student at Spanish Fort High School in Baldwin County, Alabama entered a talent competition, which was was open to all students. The school placed no requirements about what types of songs students could sing. But after the student submitted two songs that he had written, the school decided the songs were too religious.

According to an Alliance Defense Fund attorney, "In this case, students were invited to perform an act of their choosing. It was a violation of our client's constitutional rights to tell him what he could or could not sing simply because it was religious in nature."

Read more at The Clanton Advertiser and the ADF web site

A common practice?

In Prof to student: Keep the faith, lose the grade on World Net Daily, we read the story of Gina DeLuca and a professor at the Suffolk County Community College in New York. Professors requiring students to believe what the professor believes is probably a much more common occurrence that we might think.

Boys and girls education

According to a "Point of View" radio program guest, "For too long, policymakers and the public has accepted the idea that girls are short-changed” by our public school system. The facts tell a different story." Krista Kafer spoke to this issue. According to Krista, girls are actually outperforming boys in most academic measures. (7 May 2007)

Some things I heard her say on "Point of View":
Women are awarded 77% of the degrees in education
"Equal opportunity does not mean equal outcome"
There is no literacy gap between homeschooled boys and homeschooled girls

Girl Power: Why Girls Don't Need the Women's Educational Equity Act