SBC Update (Fuller Was Right)

Hey everyone, welcome to the Conversations That Matter podcast. I am obviously in a car right now, in actually a beautiful fall day right now in upstate New York. It could not be better weather for October.

In fact, I probably don't even need a long-sleeve shirt. It's like summer weather but fall color, so you don't get any better than that. And driving through the Catskills, so it's a little windy and the sun is going to be shining in all different directions as we go on these roads.

But this is the time I have, so I figured why not record a podcast now. I have my brother driving, there he is, and we actually just did an interview with Kirkpatrick Sale who wrote, I didn't realize this actually, how influential his book was before we went, but it was a book on Columbus that helped kind of change the way Columbus is perceived, Christopher Columbus that is.

And what was the name of it again? I haven't read it. Christopher Columbus and the Discovery of Paradise. Yeah, or no, that wasn't the Discovery of Paradise. It was really good. We really have it together.

Christopher Columbus and the Conquest of Paradise is the name of the book. Anyway, he wrote that in 1990, or published it in 1990, and he went to a hundred different universities and colleges speaking about Christopher Columbus and it was all pretty much directed at negative stuff.

Like Columbus came and brought with him European values that didn't, really didn't value the land like the Native Americans did and exploited it and kind of from a little more of an environmentalist perspective.

And so he would often speak and then they might have like a Native American speaker come up afterward and talk about, you know, how terrible it is that Europeans came over and what they brought with them and all the negative things.

And there were some negative things, there's no doubt about it. But here's the interesting part of it. This is why we interviewed him. He hasn't necessarily changed his mind completely on Columbus. He doesn't care for Columbus necessarily, but he is totally against taking down Columbus monuments.

And it was an interesting interview because he thought that, you know, what Columbus did in exploring, in exploration, the amazing feat it was to come across the ocean and expose the new world to the old world and bring a to bring a, about a change, a civilizational change that affected the entire world up until now.

It's just, it's monumental. It's one of the biggest things that's happened in world history. And to take a monument to someone who did that down is to forget everything about that event and that person and what they did, good and bad.

So it was an interesting interview. And I think, you know, I haven't delved into Christopher Columbus that deeply, but I need to read more on that particular topic. But I probably haven't read quite enough on exploration and the conquistadors and all of that.

It does interest me and I have read some, but you know, as much as you'd expect for someone with a degree in American history, it's actually, unless you're specializing in it, you don't necessarily know a lot.

So it's kind of expanded my knowledge and made me consider more questions and I want to look into it more. But my assessment yesterday of Christopher Columbus, really my assessment from 11 years ago, may be a little bit optimistic.

So I want to look into that more. Still definitely though agree with Kirkpatrick's sale. We shouldn't be taking these things down. This is a bad sign. And there still are many things to admire about someone who did something as monumental and as, you know, really as brave as Christopher Columbus did.

And certainly an event that has affected everyone. So just giving you a little update. That's why I'm in the car. That's why I'm driving. We're coming back from that. And it was about a four hour drive one way to do that interview for the documentary American Monument.

So I should probably plug that real quick. If you do want to contribute, because we haven't raised all the money we want to raise for this, to be able to get it out there, you can go to givecengo .com forward slash American Monument.

That's givecengo forward slash American Monument. And I'll try to remember to put the link in the info section for it. Anyway, the point of this though is I want to just give you a little bit of an SBC update, Southern Baptist Convention.

Attorney-Client Privilege and the SBC Legal Firm Withdrawal

So let's see if I can hold this camera while I do this. I'm going to try to juggle two things, holding this camera while looking at my phone, if that is possible. So interestingly enough, for those who don't know, the legal representation the Southern Baptist Convention has used for quite some time, the legal firm, is dropping the Southern Baptist Convention.

And I have the brief in my hand. I figured I'd read a little bit of it. It's directed at Dr. Ronnie Floyd, who is the President and CEO of the Southern Baptist Convention, the executive committee I should say, of the Southern Baptist Convention.

And it has a little bit of history. It says in 1966, Dr. Porter Ruth, and let me blow this up so I can see better. It says, Dr. Porter Ruth, your predecessor, four times removed, with the asset of the Board of Directors of the Executive Committee of the Southern Baptist Convention retained Jim, I think it's Gainther, to serve as General Counsel to the Executive Committee and the Convention.

That role has devolved and is now filled by the firm Gainther, Jordan, and Price, if I'm pronouncing that correctly. We have been very mindful of the trust you and your predecessors have in us. We recognize that trust has been an expression of the Executive Committee and Convention's confidence in us.

We have worked hard to justify that trust and confidence. We are grateful for the kind expression of appreciation we have received from the Executive Committee and the Convention and their officers, directors, and employees, and from Southern Baptist over these years.

We have been privileged to work with some good people who have served Southern Baptist admirably. We have endeavored every day to faithfully serve the Executive Committee and the Convention with integrity, competence, and professionalism consistently throughout these 56 years.

56 years, that's quite a while. The Executive Committee's attorney-client privilege without knowing the communications affected by the waiver and without knowing the effect it will have on the Executive Committee, the Convention, and those who have served as members or employees of the Executive Committee.

We recognize that the trustees have the sole responsibility to weigh the compelling interests and be the ultimate arbiters of their legal and ecclesiastical duties to the Executive Committee and the Convention.

Be that as it may, this vote fundamentally changed the understanding that has always existed regarding communications between our firm and the Executive Committee or the Convention. There has always been an exception of privacy in these communications.

We relied on that understanding and we advised the Executive Committee and its officers, employees, and committee members that they could also safely rely on that expectation. Because the attorney-client privilege existed, these persons have on occasion shared with us sensitive information which we needed in order to competently represent the Executive Committee.

Until now, a decision by the Board to waive attorney-client privilege was not reasonably foreseeable. However, going forward, we can no longer assure Executive Committee and Convention personnel with whom we work that the privacy of their communications with their lawyers will be secure.

The attorney-client privilege has been portrayed by some as an evil device by which misconduct is somehow allowed to be secreted so wrongdoing can escape justice and defeat the legal rights of others.

That could not be further from the truth. In fact, the attorney-client privilege has been for centuries a pillar of this country's jurisprudence and rules of evidence. The concept is rooted in a principle of judicial fairness and the belief that our nation of laws is best served if persons and entities can communicate with their legal counsel freely and confidentially.

There is nothing sinister about it. It does not corrupt justice. It creates the space for justice. Sadly, we understand the Executive Committee's decision to convey a negative attitude about the attorney-client privilege which it and the Convention enjoy.

The decision causes us to carefully consider the prospect of moving forward as we try to represent the Executive Committee and the Convention in an alien environment. We simply do not know how to advise a client and otherwise represent a client with the quality of advice and representation the client must have.

In keeping with the standard practice our firm tries to uphold when the client has indicated a willingness to forego this universally accepted principle of confidentiality. For these reasons, we believe our commitment to a certain standard of professional conduct leaves us no choice but to advise that we are withdrawing from our role as General Counselor to the SBC and Executive Committee of the SBC.

We do not want our decision to harm the EC and the Convention. We understand that securing new General Counsel and getting that counsel up to speed may take time. We are willing. If it is your desire to continue providing legal counsel during transition in a limited and specifically defined role going forward, we will offer you a separate engagement letter for your consideration addressing those matters.

It has been a privilege to honor and honor to represent the Convention of the Executive Committee during six decades. Thank you for your support in that journey. Okay, so what we see there is the firm that represents the Executive Committee for the Southern Baptist Convention dropping them.

It's too big of a risk for the firm if they're going to waive attorney-client privilege to continue representing the Convention. This is something that Dr. Fuller, last week, when we had him on our podcast, the video where Dr. Fuller predicts the end of the Southern Baptist Convention, this is kind of what he's talking about.

He's basically said that the Me Too movement is designed to overturn justice. Essentially, that's what it's doing. He may have had some legitimate things to begin with in the movement, but now, as it stands in the Southern Baptist Convention, it's dismantling legal precedents that have been there for years.

The attorney-client privilege is certainly one of those things. Now, the SBC is put in a bad spot. They're going to have to find new legal representation if they have not already. People are telling me that there's some kind of shady firm or something.

It's a firm that is not in line with Christian values that is representing them or something. Either way, whether they have representation or they have to find some, they are in a tough spot now. The Southern Baptist Convention doesn't do this for free.

They're not a money-making business. They rely on donations from churches. Donations that they're giving for evangelism and the work of the ministry is going to be going to lawyers' fees. A relationship that was cultivated over six decades with a trusted firm is gone.

That's very sad. This is the beginning of the end. Well, I don't know. Maybe we're midway through, but this is pretty significant. I think Russell Fuller was spot on in his analysis. The idea that women who claim to be abused should just be believed, which by the way, the CaringWell material, if you get my book, Social Justice—I was almost plugging my last book, Christianity and Social Justice, Religions and Conflict, Christianityandsocialjustice .com.

I talk about this CaringWell initiative and how in their material they support the whole believe women mantra. If someone claims to be abused, then you have to believe them because that's what we're required to do.

Love believes all things. So, they take this verse out of context and then appropriate it for their agenda. It's very sad. It's destroying the SBC and it disregards the actual legal precedent of two or three witnesses.

And then furthermore, Russell Fuller also said, and I think he's right about this, is some acts that could have been adultery are now being reconstituted, recategorized as abuse. And that's not necessarily right either.

So, it's a mishandling of justice. It's the overturning of justice. And that's what we're seeing. And the waiving of attorney-client privilege is certainly that. And so, it's looking more and more like this is the blank check.

When a legal firm like this, who has represented this entity for six decades, is not willing to take the risk anymore, you know that this is a very bad development and it's going to be a very expensive one.

And so, anyway, I wanted to bring that to your attention just to further support what Russell Moore said. Russell Moore, Russell Fuller, not Russell Moore. Russell Moore is the one that I think is engineering a lot of this, probably from behind the scenes.

But what Russell Fuller said, he's absolutely correct about the waiving of attorney-client privilege being a problem. And here we're already starting to see the effects of it. Now, I wanted, on that note, to show you something, if I can here.

James Merritt, Critical Race Theory, and the SBC's Double Standard

So, two screenshots that I have. I'm probably giving these guys more limelight here than they really need because hardly anyone's looking at these tweets. But I just, it's just an illustration, one of many.

James Merritt, right? James Merritt, the pastor in the Southern Baptist Convention. I've never had any interaction with James Merritt. I will say this, I've had people from his church reach out in even a year and a half ago and say things like, you know, James Merritt's not woke.

He's not on that social justice train. You know, I just think he's a little confused. He's friends with some of these guys. He just doesn't know. Trust me, James Merritt knows. He knows enough. And he is, well, let me read for you this.

This is what he tweeted out. If the Southern Baptist Convention was filled with people like this, meaning Russell Fuller and myself, it would definitely come to an end and deserve at least so. And I would be the first one to leave.

To accuse our seminaries of teaching heresy and liberalism is simply laughable, right? It's so funny that anyone would accuse the seminaries of teaching heresy or liberalism. Of course, this is all documented and that's the problem.

And you get to a point when it's been a couple of years now, I remember people used to say this about Danny Akin, they'd say, is he dumb? I mean, he seems smart. How can he not see what's going on at his own institution?

He sees it, guys. They see it. This is political maneuvering. That's what it is. And you have to see it that way. I know you don't want to see it that way. Well, think back to the Southern Baptist Convention in June and James Merritt getting on stage and ranting to the audience about if people cared about critical race theory and were concerned as much about that as they were about preaching the gospel, this world would be saved.

And he really handed it to people who wanted to have a resolution against critical race theory. They couldn't have one because James Merritt basically created a situation in his mind in which if you wanted to oppose critical race theory, you must be somehow against evangelism or something, or you're so obsessed with it that you don't want to evangelize the world.

We wouldn't do this with Islam, with Mormonism, with any other false teaching just about, but we'll do it with this one. We'll protect, this is the protected false teaching. And it is a false teaching.

There's no doubt about it. And I go through this in the book. You're talking about the destruction of revelation itself into subjectivity. You can't just read the Bible and know what it means. You can't just study the approved workman.

Being a Berean, that's not the main thing. That's important. But what you really got to do is get these oppressed perspectives. As soon as you start going down that path, you have destroyed the idea of revelation.

It is not accessible. There's a Gnosticism in it. The idea that there needs to be egalitarian equality, not equality before the law, turn that on its head. That's biblical justice. Egalitarian equality, redistribution of power and privilege and money and resources, all these things, that is against biblical justice.

And of course, once you start tampering with justice, you start tampering with the gospel. You start tampering with forgiveness and repentance, which the social justice gospel does. There's really never any real forgiveness.

I mean, there's just so many things. They're metaphysic. The way they look at reality, it's not looking at reality the way God looks at reality. It's looking at reality through the prism of ideology and cramming and flattening everything into this mold of everything's a power relationship.

So I could go on and on and on, but yeah, there's false teaching involved with the social justice stuff. But it's not just that. Russell Fuller has documented at Southern Seminary the higher criticism.

He's documented the postmodernism. You can go to enemieswithinthechurch .com, go to the news or articles section, and the documentation's all there for those who actually are interested in looking at it.

So this isn't that Russell Fuller's not out there just making irresponsible statements. He taught at the institution for decades. He examined the teachings that were going on with fine tooth and comb, and this is the conclusion he's come to.

And look, Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary is no better. In fact, it's probably a lot worse. Go look at, you could probably search Scott Crawford and then SCBTS on Facebook. You could probably search it on YouTube.

And there's a whole montage of all the things, the liberation theology, the critical race theory being taught and promoted at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. This isn't happening in a closet.

But you have James Merritt, who was the chairman of the resolutions committee for the Southern Baptist Convention back in June, making an irresponsible statement like this. And I would hasten to say, for those who are so concerned about being inclusive and diverse and all these things, they have no, absolutely no tolerance for people who are orthodox and conservative in their theology.

They just don't have it. Can you imagine James Merritt saying this about his son, Jonathan Merritt? Can you imagine James Merritt saying this about any person who experiences same-sex attraction and justifies it and says this is a fine thing?

Can you imagine James Merritt saying this about, I don't know, almost, you know, think about the sins, go through the sins. Which ones would James Merritt say this about? But he has no problem saying this about someone like Dr. Fuller, Russell Fuller, who was very respected up until five minutes ago when he decided to whistleblow on what was happening at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.

So James Merritt extending much grace to the social justice false teachers, extending much grace to the people that are actually destroying the convention. He'll never say this about Russell Moore, even when Russell Moore was in the SBC.

He never said it about Beth Moore, but Walter Strickland, you name, you know, go through the list. But he will say this about Dr. Russell Fuller. Now I have one more. Keith Whitfield, who is the provost at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, retweeted it and said, thank you Dr. Merritt.

I would leave too if our convention was made of people like this and would leave if what they, what he is saying is accurate about our seminaries. But thankfully neither are true. This is the kind of thing that you get and it creates all kinds of confusion because there's no actual, they never answer any of the actual objections.

All it is is a denial. Just, hey, no, the people who say this, they're lying. How are they lying? There's no answer to that. They cannot get into specifics. As soon as they do that, they lose. Dr. Fuller's, you know, he's basically said he'll debate.

He said that with me in our interviews. I'll debate anyone who has any questions about this publicly from the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. They will not do it. What are they afraid of? Why won't they do it?

It would be giving him legitimacy. And the interesting thing about a people probably liked it and probably 30 saw it, but now all of you know about it. But the thing about it is when they're in a kind of a tough spot, if they acknowledge what Russell Fuller said, then they're giving him some legitimacy.

If they don't acknowledge it, then they have to answer it. And it's being texted to them. Trust me, they would not be posting this if it did not bother them. And if it wasn't actually making waves, it is.

It is making a difference. What Dr. Fuller said makes a huge difference. And they know it. And that's why they have to say what they said. And it's not doing anything. It's not working. They don't have the platform of the audience anymore.

But it can in the, in these, those elite circles in the SBC, they can at least kind of pat each other on the back and they can sort of justify it among themselves. But there's nothing to this. This is, this is all smoke and mirrors.

And once again, I can't help but point out the hypocrisy, diversity, inclusion for everyone except Dr. Russell Fuller. Dr. Russell Fuller doesn't get that benefit. He bucked the trend. He whistle blew.

He wasn't an institutionalist. He didn't protect the brand. Therefore, he is not to be included. He is to be expunged into the outer darkness. I mean, that's kind of the attitude. And I'm not being too dramatic about this.

When Russell Fuller first came out, I remember a professor, a prominent professor at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, York, coming out and saying, hey, you know, on Twitter and saying, hey, there's, there's, you know, the voice of God.

And then there's the voice of the accuser. And we knew who he was talking about, the context in which he was talking about it. This is the way that they view Dr. Fuller. And it's very sad. This is a colleague of theirs.

So, or was. So anyway, I wanted to give you that little update. Dr. Fuller is completely justified. Everything he said is coming to fruition. It's not even taking that long. And those who are saying peace, peace when there is no peace, they have a rude awakening ahead of them, unfortunately.

Prayer, Documentation, and Resources for the SBC Crisis

So what do we do with this? Well, pray for the SBC. Pray for the faithful Christians. The faithful church is still in the SBC. Pray that God would crush and humble those who are promoting evil, especially in the seminaries or looking the other way, allowing evil to be promulgated there.

And look, I've created a resource. It wasn't easy for me to put this all together, but I've named the names. I've documented what Dr. Fuller was talking about. Go to Christianityandsocialjustice .com, order the book, Christianity and Social Justice, Religions and Conflict.

And I named the names in the SBC. I show you why it's false teaching, what they're promoting. And all the specifics are there. It's tight, guys. It's irrefutable stuff. So check it out. You can also go to Amazon.

If you go, please remember to leave a review. I hope this is helpful for you. Just a little SBC update on a beautiful day. And looking forward to getting the documentary out there as well, American Monument.

If you want to support us in our endeavor to put that out, hopefully by the end of this month, beginning of next month, give send go forward slash American Monument. And I'll try to remember to put the, like I said, the links in the info section for this video.

More coming later this week. God bless. Bye now.