Keep sharing good news without ads.
No description available
Welcome to Conversations with a Calvinist. This podcast is dedicated to helping believers better understand scripture, defend truth, and engage culture. Get your Bible ready and prepare to engage today's topic.
Here's your host, Pastor Keith Foskey.
Welcome back to Conversations with a Calvinist. My name is Keith Foskey and I am a Calvinist. The votes are in and Al Mohler is not the president of the Southern Baptist Convention. And that came as somewhat of a surprise to me.
I thought Al Mohler would have won, but apparently he has not. And instead, Ed Litton has been nominated and voted as the president of the Southern Baptist Convention. Now, I want to talk a little bit about why this matters to me and why I think it should matter to us as Christians and I want to start by sort of giving you a little bit of a history about myself.
For those of you who don't know me or maybe who have only been at our church for a little while, my background is I grew up in the church that I'm in, but it wasn't always the church that it is now. We used to be a different church, different name.
In fact, we were really a different theology at that time. But God has been gracious to bring us through a period of revival, and I believe it was genuine revival. And I've talked about that before on the program, so I won't relay all that information.
But I do want to talk about today my experience in seminary. I attended Jacksonville Baptist Theological Seminary. Now, Jacksonville Baptist Theological Seminary is a Southern Baptist seminary. It is thoroughly Southern Baptist.
In fact, I remember one of my classes in school, I don't remember the whole context of the situation, but one of the classes that I took, I had to take a test, and on the test it asked the question, what one group has been most faithful to scripture throughout its history, and the answer was the Southern Baptist Convention.
And so that's how thoroughly Southern Baptist the Jacksonville Baptist Theological Seminary was. They were committed to Baptist principles and Baptist teaching. And that's who they are. That's what they have stated, and they're not ashamed of it, and they shouldn't be, because that's who they are.
So that's what I was steeped in in school. I didn't grow up as a Southern Baptist. I've never been a member of a Southern Baptist church. But when I wanted to go to school, when I wanted to learn the Bible, when I wanted to become a pastor and I felt God calling me into ministry, I said, you know what, there's a school in town.
I know they believe the Bible. I know they trust the word of God. I know they're committed to that, and so I want to go there. And I met the men there, and the men there were godly men, even though I would say they were not reformed.
Three of the men who spoke into my life most during that time were Dr. Stanford Cruz, who was an elderly man even then, and this was 15, 17 years ago, and has only recently gone to be with the Lord. But Dr. Cruz was a godly man.
Dr. Vernon Johns, who was the president, and then Dr. Jerry Powers, who was closest to me. I was very close with Dr. Powers, and he was the president after Dr. Johns died. All of these men committed Southern Baptists, were all pastors in Southern Baptist churches.
And so, as I said, I felt, I feel a connection to the SBC. I was offered a job from a local Southern Baptist church when I was 24 years old to come on as an associate pastor of youth, and I ended up turning it down because of my desire to be here.
I had a desire to be at this church. I had grown up here, and I wanted to see this church go through revival, and I prayed to God that he would use me in that, and so far, he has been faithful in doing that, and I pray that he'll continue to do so.
So looking at the history of our church, looking at the history of my background with Southern Baptists, you can see why I would be somewhat interested in the goings-on of the SBC. And again, not being Southern Baptist and never having been a member of a Southern Baptist, I kind of get to look at it from the outside and can sort of make some observations, not necessarily complete evaluations because I'm not an insider, even though I do have friends who are SBC.
I have friends who are at the convention today, and I'm praying for them because I want them to, you know, I want them to, I want the convention to go in the right direction. My fear is that it's not, and this is a fear that I share with many, that the convention is going in the wrong direction, but like I said, just telling you a little bit of my background so you know why, because some of you might say, well, you're not a SBC pastor.
You don't have a dog in this hunt. Why do you have anything to say? Well, because I feel like this matters to the overall evangelical community because the Southern Baptist Convention is the largest collection of churches that would identify themselves as Protestant, as non-Catholic churches.
And you know, some people say the largest Protestant denomination, but some in the SBC would say, well, SBC is not a denomination, it's a convention, and there's some debate as to how that works and the language and such.
So we don't want to get into that today. But what I do want to address is after Al Mohler, who I have always had an affection for, I've always appreciated a lot of what Al Mohler does as a teacher, he's certainly a brilliant man.
Even though there are some things I would disagree with him on, and I know some of you as listeners have things that you would disagree with Al Mohler on, especially recently, last few years, there have been issues of, you know, questions of what he allows to happen at his seminary and some things that he has said politically, and you know, nobody is going to dot every I and cross every T, but for the most part I have appreciated a lot of what Al has said, or Dr. Mohler rather, I'm not on a first name basis with him at all, so Dr. Mohler.
And you know, for a long time I was a listener to the briefing, I listened to the briefing almost every day for a long time, because it was a good way to keep in touch with what was going on in the Supreme Court, what was going on in local communities regarding things that dealt with Scripture, and you know, a daily analysis of news and events from a Christian worldview.
And so this morning I fired up my podcast app on my phone, because it was the first time in a while that I had listened to the briefing, but I wanted to see if he addressed the presidency, the fact that he did not win yesterday, and unfortunately he didn't say a word.
Now it could be that this was a previously recorded podcast, and he didn't know, you know, and because he's busy this week, he's at the convention, and this morning's program was a good program, he addressed some very important issues, but didn't mention anything except for he said he was in Nashville, and he said that at the very last maybe ten seconds of the program.
And it made me think, well maybe he prerecorded this, didn't know what was going to happen with the presidency election, maybe that's how he addressed it, but maybe at the same time, maybe he just doesn't want to say anything at this point.
Maybe he is sort of reeling from a loss, and nobody likes to lose, even if he wasn't necessarily, you know, even if he didn't think he was going to win, even if he thought there was a chance he might lose, nobody likes the feeling that they didn't get the votes.
Nobody likes the feeling that they didn't get the, you know, get into the seat that they were, that they were, you know, candidating for. So, you know, you kind of, so you wonder, did he not say anything on the program because of that, or did he not say anything because it was prerecorded?
I don't know. I don't know him personally, so I can't ask him. But it was interesting, I was hoping to maybe get some insight from him this morning as to what he thought about his not gaining the presidency, and perhaps that will come up.
I don't know. Maybe he'll say that in the days ahead. But what really caught my attention, and what made me decide to do this program today, was an article that came out almost immediately after the events of yesterday unfolded, and we found out that Ed Litton was going to be the president.
And this is from the New York Times. So it shows the massive amount of influence that this particular issue has, that even the New York Times would have an interest in who wins the presidency of the Southern Baptist Convention.
And this is what it says. This is the headline of the article. I'm going to read a lot of the article to you because I just think this is so important. Southern Baptists narrowly head off ultra-conservative takeover.
Now, there were three men who were going for the presidency. Al Mohler, who is the president of Southern Seminary, who I've been talking about. Ed Litton, who I'd never heard of, again, not a Southern Baptist, so had not ever heard of Ed Litton.
And Mike Stone, who I also have not heard of, but I do understand that Ed Litton is more on the liberal side when it comes to things like critical race theory, being woke, things like that. I understand him to be more on the liberal side and Mike Stone to be more on the conservative side.
And this article affirms that. Again, that's what I've heard. I don't know these men, so I'm going off of the kind of things that I've heard. But the article sort of confirms what I have heard. And this is what the article says.
It says, Ed Litton, a moderate pastor from Alabama, won a high-stakes presidential election with the potential to reshape the future of the country's largest Protestant denomination. And now this article, if you want to read the whole article, it's newyorktimes .com.
It was written by Ruth Graham and it's got a picture of Ed Litton on the headline at Southern Baptists Narrowly Head Off Ultra-Conservative Takeover. Now listen to what it says. In a dramatic showdown on Tuesday, Southern Baptists elected a moderate pastor from Alabama as their next president, narrowly heading off an attempted takeover by the denomination's insurgent right wing.
Heavy language there to refer. Insurgent, that's almost military-like language. Right wing is a derogatory, typically derogatory, identification of those who are ultra-conservative and that term was already used, in fact it was used in the headline.
And it goes on. It says, the election of the pastor, Ed Litton, was the result of what was effectively a three-way standoff for the leadership of the nation's largest Protestant denomination. In the first round of voting on Tuesday afternoon, Southern Baptists rejected a prominent mainstream candidate and one-time favorite for the presidency, Al Mohler Jr., who received 26 of some 14 ,000 votes.
That amazed me, that Mohler only received 26%. Now I know it's a three-way election, so it would be surprising if he got more than 50%, but that's what some expected. I mean, I had spoken to some friends of mine who were there and they thought Mohler was a shoo-in.
They thought he was going to be the one, but it goes on. The race then headed for an immediate runoff vote that pitted an ultra-conservative pastor from Georgia. Again, listen to the terms. Litton is moderate, but Stone, as they're going to say, is ultra-conservative.
That is language that is intended to inspire a sense of division. That language is intended to point fingers and say, look at this guy, he's ultra-conservative. He's uber-conservative. He is so far out of the mainstream, but then we've got this moderate guy, oh, he knows how to ride the fence.
Oh, he sits so well with one foot in one pastor, one foot in the other pastor. This guy is so on the fence. They wouldn't dare say Litton is liberal, even though, as was noted almost immediately last night, that very recently, he and his wife co-preached a sermon.
They were both at the pulpit and his wife took the pulpit with him, and you might say, oh, well, what's wrong with that? Scripture is wrong with that. The Bible tells us that the preaching of the word is to be within the congregation, men only, and if that offends you, if you've never heard me say that, I'm sorry if I gave you any indication that I would hold any position otherwise.
I've held that position as long as I've been able to read the scriptures. The scriptures are very clear that women are not to teach or exercise authority over men in the assembly, that they are to remain silent in regard to teaching and authority.
And so, you know, this is not something new. This is not something that should come across as surprising. But if it does, now you know. But yeah, so Mr. Litton, you know, they're identifying, oh, he's the moderate.
You know, he's the good guy because moderates are good people. But the ultra-conservative, you know, Stone, he is the, you know, he's the bad guy. At least that's, and maybe I'm reading too much into it, but it certainly seems to come off that way.
So it says the ultra-conservative pastor from Georgia, Mike Stone, against Mr. Litton, who has largely avoided the culture wars. When officials announced the results from the stage, Mr. Litton bested Mr. Stone by just 556 votes or four percentage points.
The floor erupted in a mixture of cheers and boos. I'll tell you what it doesn't mention, at least I don't think it mentions it. I've read it. I don't remember it saying it. A bunch of people left. It wasn't just cheers and boos.
A lot of people stood up and walked out. So this was a big deal. And it was recognized as such. Goes on, at a news conference after his victory, the soft-spoken Mr. Litton emphasized the need for healing.
We are a family, Mr. Litton said. At time, it seems we're incredibly dysfunctional, but we love each other, end quote. And this is the part that I really want to address. This is the part that really got my attention.
He said, going forward, quote, my goal is to build bridges and not walls, end quote. I need to address this because understand the idea that we always need to be building bridges. We never need to be erecting walls.
We always need to be finding unity, never finding division. That sounds so good. That sounds so loving and so right. Until you get down to the fact that there are times when you have to erect walls. There are times when you have to draw a line and say, we will go this far and we will not go any further.
You see, that's the problem. That's the whole problem. Is that the lines keep being moved and the goalposts keep being moved. And when it comes to holding to the foundational truths of scripture, those foundational truths keep getting smaller and smaller and smaller to the point where it's, you know, people say, well, we need to just come around and we need to just all agree on the gospel, come around the gospel.
That was said over and over and over. J .D. Greer said that. Other people said that. We need to find our centrality in the gospel. The problem is, you got a lot of people can't define the gospel or a lot of people who would define the gospel without the essentials of the gospel.
And if you try to bring up the essentials of the gospel, they would say, those are walls you should not erect. Oh, how different the attitude is now than it was, say, during the time of the Reformation.
When men were willing to stand for truth and they weren't always talking about reaching across the aisle. Nobody was saying, let's reach across the aisle and join hands with the Pope during the Reformation.
They were saying the Pope is Antichrist and we need to stand. If that's not building a wall, that is absolutely building a wall. If he said the Pope is Antichrist. We cannot support the Pope. We cannot support Popery in any of its ways.
And we must stand against that. The very confessions that came out of the Protestant Reformation identified the Pope as Antichrist. Where have our guts gone? We don't have guts anymore. Everybody wants a soft-spoken, moderate voice.
Nobody wants the voices of Martin Luther, of John Calvin, of Aurelius Augustine, of the Apostle Paul, or even Jesus anymore. Nobody wants a strong voice. We celebrate the moderates. In fact, we celebrate weakness.
We don't celebrate those who are willing to stand up and we say, well, we don't need walls, we need bridges. Here's the problem. Sometimes those bridges lead to destruction. Sometimes those bridges are dangerous bridges.
And you don't take down a fence until you know why it was put up. I've said that for years because people always talk about the dangers of tradition. I say, you know what, tradition can be dangerous, but let me tell you what tradition does.
Tradition tells you there was once a wall erected, there was once a fence put up. And we need to know why that fence was put up before we take it down. Now, if we find out that fence was put up for a bad reason, if we find out that it's an inappropriate tradition, then we don't need to simply obey tradition for tradition's sake.
The Bible tells us that, you know, never replace the word of God with the traditions of men, certainly. But there are times when we need to recognize that walls can be good. That sometimes we need to recognize that there are times where division is necessary when you're dividing from that which is wrong.
There are men at the convention who are fighting for things that are good and wholesome and true. But many people are not listening to them because they're not politically expedient, because they are not moderate in their language.
And unfortunately, that is the danger that I think is facing the Southern Baptist Convention. It is a danger that honestly crept into so many other denominations in the past. If you go to the internet and you look up the, I think it's called the Seven Sisters of Protestantism, it's the primary liberal Protestant denominations.
You have the PCUSA, the United Methodist Church, the Disciples of Christ, and several others that are in and of themselves are very liberal. And that's mainline Protestantism. And you know what's happening in mainline Protestantism and has been happening for decades is they are dwindling down to nothing.
They have giant cathedrals that are seating no people or very few people. The reason why they're seating very few people is because they're not preaching the gospel. They're not preaching the truth and they're not preaching the hard, difficult things that the Bible teaches.
Their women pastors are wearing rainbow-colored robes and they're preaching, can't we all just get along? And no, we can't. I can love you, but I can also stand up and say that this is wrong and we're not going to stand for it.
And for such a long time, that's what the Southern Baptist Convention has been. It has stood for truth. Back in the 70s, when men like Adrian Rogers, who was not reformed, by the way, but men like Adrian Rogers, who even though I would have disagreed with him on some theological issues, at least we're championing the scriptures and championing the inerrancy of scripture.
And you know what? Those voices seem to be gone, unfortunately. Or they're being silenced in the attempt to find moderate voices. Now again, I want to close by saying this. I don't know Ed Litton. I only know what I've read and what I've heard.
So I can't say anything of him personally. I do know a man who preaches behind the pulpit with his wife, I think has some views I could not agree with. So I can be fair enough to say that. And I know that everyone calling him a moderate, that to me reeks of the potential for more liberal than certainly I would think would be good.
But it shows the direction of the convention. And it leads me to the question, will this create a division? Will we come out of this seeing a direction of two Southern Baptist conventions, or rather a divide where neither one of them hold the name Southern Baptist?
In fact, that's another part of the argument, is that those on one side are saying we should drop Southern altogether because of the problematic history of the Southern part of the Southern Baptist Convention.
Some people have, I think the statement that was made was Great Commission Baptist Convention was one of the things being put forward to change the name. I hope that doesn't happen. But it may. So here's my final thought, maybe leave you with a question.
Do you think that the convention is going to stay together, stay strong, move forward? Or do you think that the convention is going to divide into several smaller conventions or denominations or whatever you want to call it?
And if so, if that does happen, if you think that the denomination is going to stay together, do you think that's good or bad? And if it's going to divide, do you think that that's good or bad? And if you want to answer this, I encourage you, if you're listening to this on Facebook, leave a comment below.
If you'd like to send me an email, you can do so at calvinistpodcast at gmail .com, calvinistpodcast at gmail .com. I'll be happy to read your responses on an upcoming program if you write in something that would be good and you have a question that I might be able to respond to or a comment that you might like to be shared.
So again, thank you for being with me today. And thank you for continuing to listen to Conversations with a Calvinist. My name is Keith Vosky, and I've been your Calvinist. May God bless you.
Thank you for listening to Conversations with a Calvinist. If you enjoyed the program, please take a moment to subscribe. And if you have a question you would like us to discuss on a future program, please email us at calvinistpodcast at gmail .com.
As you go about your day, remember this, Jesus Christ came to save sinners. All who come to Him in repentance and faith will find Him to be a perfect Savior. He is the way, the truth, and the life, and no one comes to the Father except through Him.
May God be with you.