SBC News : So Long Resurgence Legacy, Corruption, Denhollander, Women Abortion Victims?

Conversations That Matter

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Welcome to the Conversations That Matter podcast. I'm your host, John Harris. We're gonna talk about some Southern Baptist convention news, kind of a news roundup day for those in the audience.

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There's many of you who are Southern Baptists, or were, as the case may be. I know there's many who want me to talk about probably more general things.

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You're not a Southern Baptist, and so I will open just by saying I did not watch the State of the Union Address.

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I didn't, and I don't really plan to. I was thinking about it. I saw some clips online. It sounds like, from what

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I've heard, Biden was trying to strike a unifying message, unifying note, by appealing to some general, vague abstractions that are supposed to unite

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Americans. Democracy, United States is an idea. Hit and a miss.

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That's what it looked like to me from what I read, and I'm going off of secondhand here. Now, I did watch most of Sarah Huckabee Sanders' response, because it was much shorter, and there were some lines in it

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I thought were really good. It might be one of the better responses I've ever heard. Well, I shouldn't say responses, but speeches

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I've ever heard that are given after the State of the Union from the Republicans, when there's a Democrat president, and she had some lines.

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One was, it's not right versus left. It's normal versus crazy, and I know many of you feel that way, and I thought that was a great line, and it resonates,

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I think, with a lot of Americans, and I think the reason for it, though, is missed a little bit. The reason for it is because we are coming out of a

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Christian context. We once valued biblical principles.

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We wanted to conform our lives to the created order. We knew that boys were boys, girls were girls, and now we're shedding all of that, and it's just not normal, right?

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And so, it's good versus evil, really, is what it is. It's not crazy versus normal so much as it is good versus evil, and she probably didn't want, or the speech writers didn't want to go that far to say, it's not a right versus left.

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It's a good versus the evil. That would have been seen as divisive, too divisive,

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I mean, it's already seen as divisive, what she said, but that's what she's getting at, though, I think, when she says that, because what's the crazy part?

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The crazy part are they're all examples of very evil things that people want to do, so I thought that was pretty good, showed some guts, showed that she's actually following in the footsteps of her dad to some extent.

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She's got a folksy demeanor about all those things she said that stuck out to me in contrast to,

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I guess, a line Biden had made, typically, you hear this all over the place, but he just said that America's an idea.

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She made a statement that, something to the effect of the veterans who gave their lives for our freedoms, that's what binds us together, something along those lines.

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Well, I think that's actually a very good line, because it points to something that actually does unite, not something fake or something general and just universal.

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It's actually something that we have a shared experience if we're Americans, and this is a generational thing, too.

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This is beyond just our current generation, those in previous generations who shed blood.

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Those kinds of things are what unites us. Family attachment, and it defended what?

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General freedom for everyone, no freedom for us. There was a time, there were times in our history when men had to come together to make great sacrifices so that we could enjoy the lives we enjoy today, and that is the kind of thing that unites

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Americans, and that's one of the things, I think, the right has more and more gone along with this generalized, it's all equality, it's an idea, that's what

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America is, but they still have, they tip the hat to things that actually do unite us, and Sarah Huckabee Sanders, I thought, did a great job in contrast to what

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Joe Biden was saying there. All right, well, that's it for general stuff. A lot more could be said, but we gotta get into Southern Baptist stuff, and I've been putting this off and I don't wanna put it off any longer.

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So for all you Southern Baptists, I hope this is helpful for you.

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We got a bunch of stuff to get to here. I wanna start here, this is just consistent in my mind with what's happening throughout the rest of the country.

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Christy Thornton, who's a member of J .D. Greer's church, she's an assistant professor of Christian thought at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, she's in the

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Southeastern Society, which, when I was there, was very pro -Francis

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Schaeffer, as I remember. It was the, I would say the more traditional folks were,

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I think, attracted to the Southeastern Society to some extent. I don't know what it's like now. But Christy Thornton says, today

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I'm especially proud to teach at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. Well, why is that,

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Christy? And to work in the newly named Carson Hall. One day, I wanna be an old servant of Christ, just like him.

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So they had a dedication, and now there's two photos of this gentleman,

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Dr. Carson, and Ralph Logan Carson is his name.

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Here's the pictures for everyone so you can see it. And Carson was, if memory serves me here,

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I did an article, I read an article like this a while back. He was the first graduate, or maybe it was a

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PhD, graduate who was African American, black, and also,

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Carson happened to be blind. Now, I asked around a little bit. I said, what, you know, because this is, for those who don't know, this is

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Page Patterson Hall. This is where, Page Patterson's name was on the front of the building, and you walked in and you saw where these pictures are now,

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Page Patterson's picture. It changed, I think, a little bit. It was him and his wife, or his wife was across the hall, and it was him and his dog.

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There was a picture of his dog, because that was iconic for Page Patterson. He would drive around the seminary with his dog and his pickup truck, and that's just the kind of guy he was.

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And then I think it changed. They took the dog down, and it was just Page Patterson and his wife. And then they took it all down together, the whole thing, it was just, this happens in stages.

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Then the pictures were just taken down, and a map was put there. And this happened right after,

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I think, I left, so we're talking like 2020 -ish, 2019. And now it's totally renamed, and they have new pictures.

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And so I asked around, I said, well, what's the significant contribution? So here's the thing. This is the principle in general that we've practiced for the most part in our country.

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When we have buildings, monuments, public spaces dedicated to honoring or recognizing an individual or their achievements, we don't bulldoze over them when someone with bigger achievements come.

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We just erect a new monument. We have a new space to put up. And it's not really a problem when you have expanding suburbs, especially.

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There's plenty of places that you can put new monuments. In fact, that's one of the problems, I think, in suburban life, is we are bereft of any character or transcendent meaning of any kind,

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I mean, past the utility of today. It'd be really nice in some of these neighborhoods to have some, not just beautiful trees, but some monuments, and just something that recognizes that there's life beyond our generation, and there are people who are role models, especially positive monuments.

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Anyway, that's just my thought. But if you are going to take down something, you need to at least be thinking about,

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I'm just saying in general, what are we gonna replace it with? And so I asked around, I said to one person who's very familiar with this situation,

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I said, what are the accomplishments of Ralph Logan Carson, as far as, like compared to Paige Patterson, I'm not saying,

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I mean, I'm sure there's accomplishments there, and I'm sure there's meaning there, but Paige Patterson really led him and Adrian Rogers, the conservative resurgence in the

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Southern Baptist Convention. Monumental achievements, and now he's been me too'd, and so, you know, so long

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Paige Patterson. But he contests the claims that were made against him, and the joke he made that was a little off color, and I've said before,

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I think that was a generational thing to some extent, but he apologized. So what's the big problem here?

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Why is Paige Patterson so far down on the list of people to respect? Why is it so easy to take him out, and then insert someone though who does not have these credentials, does not have the significance, we'll say, to the

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Southern Baptist Convention that Paige Patterson did at all? I mean, this is, I think a, you could even probably make the argument, this is the end of the conservative resurgence in the

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Southern Baptist Convention. Stuff like this, you know? I think they did something similar at Southwestern, right?

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They took down those stained glass panels of different people that were significant to the conservative resurgence, as I remember.

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Well, the conservative resurgence, for those who aren't Southern Baptists, I mean, that was the time, in the 1980s especially, when there was a battle for,

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I mean, this came off the heels of the Missouri Synod's battle for their Bible, and it was a very similar battle. It was against the modernists, against the liberals, and the conservatives won the convention, and that started a process of reforming these institutions.

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Paige Patterson reformed Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, and it was bad before. If you talk to the students who were there before,

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I mean, there was horrible things. I've heard horrible stories. Pornography in the library. There was people who were teaching who blatantly denied, and they were honest about it, not like today's woke social justice type professors who try to hide beneath a veneer of orthodoxy, and you can't pin them to a wall, the jello to a wall, but they then will contradict their very orthodox statements.

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No, back then, it was, yeah, I deny the virgin birth, right? And some of these things were being said in class, and so Paige Patterson came.

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He cleaned house. I mean, he is probably the most significant person in the last maybe even 100 years of the history of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary to ever go there, to implement changes, for even the denomination, not just Southeastern, and he's replaced with someone, and so here's what

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I was told, someone who can put in the comments if there's more to it, but that Ralph Logan Carson, he was black, and he was blind, and he was a preacher, and there's really not a whole lot more to it than that as far as significant achievement, and those are barriers to overcome.

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I'm not saying they're not. I'm not taking anything away from Ralph Logan Carson. Praise God for that, but you just ripped down Paige Patterson and his monumental achievements to replace him with Ralph Logan Carson.

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Why not put up another, I don't know, a fountain, a monument, another building, something that's not named, you know, a bench, but to take a whole hall where classes are taught, a beautiful hall, by the way, and it just, that's what,

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I think the only reason I bring this up is to say what's happening in the country as far as ripping down our founding, ripping down war heroes, all that kind of thing, it's happening at Southeastern as well.

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It's happening in the Southern Baptist Convention. It's happening in evangelical Christianity. It's the same stuff, and it's just a sign of the times,

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I suppose, when the world or the church looks an awful lot like the world in that respect.

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Now, I wanna shift gears a little bit and talk about, this is a story from Capstone Report.

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WokeSBCElites plan to make your church pay for abuse at other churches. Now, the reason I'm pulling this up is because the tweets have since then been deleted, but I wanna read for you some quotes here, and I'm gonna read for you a little bit of the article here as well.

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We're gonna talk about the Me Too stuff. We're gonna talk about Rachel Denhollander. We're gonna talk about that whole issue in the Southern Baptist Convention because it is coming to a head.

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Your tiny autonomous Baptist church just might be on the hook for some pervert working at a mega church if a push by WokeSBCElites comes to fruition.

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As the Southern Baptist Convention grapples with this response to sex abuse at autonomous churches, some involved in the process are floating the idea that every

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Southern Baptist cooperating church is responsible for abuse. So this is one of the issues that we've talked about so many times, that the

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Southern Baptist Convention's polity is supposed to be a, well, really, it's supposed to be churches only coming together for a few days a year at the general meeting, and that's when the

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Southern Baptist Convention pops into existence, and it pops out of existence after the meeting's done. That's what some have called it.

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But obviously, missions and the funding for schools and all of that happen all year, and so we can say,

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I think, that there is, obviously, a Southern Baptist Convention out there, but that convention is supposed to be accountable to the churches, and these are autonomous churches.

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It doesn't have any authority over those churches. The only thing the Credentials Committee can do is kick out churches from cooperation who decide to, they're not in good standing because they contradict the doctrine of the convention, you know, the agreed -upon terms.

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Well, now, there is a call for an oversight, and Todd Bancart, who is part of the

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Abuse Reform Implementation Task Force, by the way, Todd Bancart, wasn't he the guy, wasn't he the guy in that call with Tom Buck, now we're talking a little over, maybe a year ago or so,

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I suppose now, wasn't he the guy that got kind of chewed out, he got caught with his hand in the cookie jar, and he didn't want to tell

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Tom Buck where this draft of his wife's, that talked about her abusive past, had been leaked from.

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Where did it come from? How did you get ahold of it? And he didn't want to answer the question. I think that's the same Todd Bancart, isn't it?

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Anyway, finally, someone who really cares about, you know, abuse. Finally, and here,

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I think it is where I will get the most pushback, he says. There is at least some responsibility for us as a denomination toward abuse, and that happens in any of our churches.

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Another quote from the same tweet thread, I believe. Now the extent of our collective responsibility and what amends looks like denominationally is something

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I think we need to seriously consider, but I don't think that as a convention we can say that the responsibility to make things right lies entirely elsewhere.

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So this is someone from that task force who wants to, is signaling that the convention itself needs to be more accountable, culpable, responsible for abuse that may be taking place at a church that, let's say, disregards basic precautions.

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So you become the person who has to pay for legal fees and the church that has to pay for, you know, whatever curriculum needs to be implemented to help that church, whatever it is.

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You know, there's, this could open the floodgates for your church being responsible when you shouldn't have to be.

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That church is an autonomous church, and they did some, they made unwise choices, let's say, in the scenario

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I'm talking about, and now you, as a responsible church, are needing to cover for them to some extent, and you're tied to them in ways that you shouldn't be, and you never were in any other time in the history of the

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Southern Baptist Convention. This is new, this is innovative. We used to have a process for this.

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It was called calling the police, and now we need something more. We need oversight from the convention over the churches.

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Now, I had not, so this is consistent with something from 2021, a story from 2022, actually, a story

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I hadn't seen before, or if I did, I forgot. I didn't realize Bart Barber had done this.

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I wanna read for you something. This is in the same vein as what we talked about. Southern Baptist leaders hope a 2019

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Texas law passed with bipartisan support may become a model for other states in helping churches pass information among themselves about potential perpetrators of clergy sexual abuse.

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The legislation, and initially written by Texas pastor and current SBC president Bart Barber, protects charitable organizations, their volunteers, and independent contractors from liability when disclosing credible allegations to prospective employers.

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It passed in the Texas Senate and House without opposition, and it became model for resolution in the

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Anaheim meeting in California. And so here's a quote.

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The sexual predators are going to think hard and long and creatively about how to get into our churches and prey upon vulnerable people who attend our churches, said

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Barber, the pastor of First Baptist Church at Farmersville. We have to think creatively and long and hard about what our vulnerabilities are and how to close those doors.

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And so passing this law in your state would be great. All right, well, this is interesting because you may wonder what's the significance of this?

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Well, the significance is there's already a process, right? There's supposed to be at least. You call the police, you file a report.

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Now, churches, charitable organizations in the state of Texas, and Barber wants this to be universal, will be able to share information about potential sexual predators with other churches or organizations.

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And there is no legal, there's nothing that can happen to them as far as someone suing them for defamation or that kind of thing, right?

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So they have a sanction. They have legal sanction to do what the

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Southern Baptist Convention wants to do. Come up with a list of potential abusers, share that list.

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And you might be wondering, well, what's to keep someone innocent from getting on this list if there's no disincentive for putting someone's name on it?

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And that would be a fair question. Now, there is language to, if I can find it,

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I'll do a keyword search here. Credible, yes. There is language here that it needs to be credible.

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We need to disclose credible accusations. What does that mean, though? Barber says, you recognize how a similar situation might cause churches to hesitate to share credible accusations of sexual abuse with other churches.

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A lawyer's job, Barber notes, is to advise his or her client that sharing credible information about sexual abuse can increase the legal risk.

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But a pastor's responsibility is not to, it's like they just put the word credible on this to give it some kind of validity.

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Well, this is an extra layer that, you have to ask the question, what's the purpose for it? What's the reason for it?

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If you have a list, let's say, and you wanna share information to people that are predators, and you have actual police reports, you have, there's evidence, there's court documents, that's already something that you could've done pre -this law, right?

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You could've shared that, and there would be no consequences if you got it wrong and you falsely accused someone.

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Now there's a haven to share, but it's hanging on what? Just the word credible.

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Credible according to who? According to what? This is obviously a different standard or a higher standard than,

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I mean, obviously, this'd have to be a different standard, otherwise there's no point to having this protection for churches.

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If they're doing something that already should not cause them any kind of grief legally, then why even pass the law in the first place?

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It's obvious because there's an attempt to create an extra barrier, or extra layer of validation, an extra layer of validation for what is considered credible.

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So if the church or the institution or the nomination decides it's credible, it becomes credible. And that's where we're going.

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So it's looser, it actually cheapens credibility here. And now someone, this is what

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I fear, someone could easily get on this list, and they could do what they did to Paige Patterson, to be quite frank, it could, something that's contested, something from years ago, something that it's very hard to make heads or tails of, something that's maybe even false comes along, and well, that sounds credible, let's put it in.

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Let's cancel that person. We've seen them do it with others, so why not do it on a mass scale? Why not have a whole mechanism and legal protection for doing it?

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That's what we're talking about here. So that's, we're gonna get, we're gonna jump right back into the

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Me Too stuff. In fact, maybe I should continue doing that. Let's see.

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Yeah, let's save the abortion stuff for the end if we can.

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Yeah, we'll do that, and we'll keep on this Me Too stuff, sexual abuse stuff. So in that vein, we have an article on January 6th, so this is about a month ago, it was written by Krista Brown.

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SBC Sexual Abuse Hotline Raises Ethical Concerns. Krista Brown's been, I guess, platform, for lack of a better word.

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She's been, the Caring Well people, we'll put it that way, in the

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Southern Baptist Convention have used Krista Brown and her story to advocate for their cause.

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She writes an article in the Baptist News Global, which is a very left -leaning publication.

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Calling, callers to the Southern Baptist Convention, it says, sexual abuse hotline are often routed to a person who also serves the

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SBC's Abuse Reform Implementation Task Force. Do you know this? I'm betting most of you didn't.

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It's information about the hotline that has not been widely disseminated, and that's troubling. All right, so back up here. There's a sexual abuse hotline, so you can call in, and that's for what we were just talking about.

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You can report something, and the Southern Baptist Convention now has a responsibility to do something about this, and whether that's even just keeping records or disfellowshipping churches or whatever.

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So there's this hotline, and they're routed to a person who also, she says, serves the SBC Abuse Reform Implementation Task Force.

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In other words, this board or this task force that Todd Banker sits on, that person is serving them, is in their employment or under their guidance, or there's a connection there.

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And if you, so the very people who are calling in to complain about the Southern Baptist Convention, let's say, are routed to a person who's working for the

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Southern Baptist Convention. It's a conflict of interest. It's a conflict of interest. And so she writes a whole article about this, and it's about Rachel Denhollander.

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And so anyway, I'm not gonna read through the whole thing, but it's interesting because this is someone who has been platformed by people like Rachel Denhollander as she's a sexual abuse victim, and now she's saying, there's a problem here.

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The person who's being paid or is in league with the Southern Baptist Convention is also the same person who's supposed to be representing people against the

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Southern Baptist Convention if there's an abuse problem. How does that work exactly? You may be wondering the same thing.

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So she was called out on it, and so she decided, I'm gonna just publish this text message, and it's from Rachel Denhollander.

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And it says this, hey all, if you have questions about the tip line, please feel free to ask. I'm an advocate.

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They will refer survivors to. And so I can help them evaluate press and legal options with a truly solid legal team.

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I do this part a lot quietly. The executive committee will be empowering GP, oh,

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Guidepost. Okay, that's the firm that the Southern Baptist Convention, it gets confusing, I know. They brought in to advise them on how do we deal with sexual abuse?

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The same firm that's celebrating Pride Month and all that. So the executive committee will be empowering Guidepost to investigate the allegations related to them, and so has the

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North American Mission Board and the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. I do think the other entities will come alongside the

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CC, that's the Credentials Committee. Credentials Committee, remember, is they kick churches out of the convention.

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They're the ones that handle these disputes. The Credentials Committee is getting help already from Guidepost when it comes to pastors and churches.

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Everything is held in strict confidence, but I will be available and the reports aren't just sitting there. This is so disturbing to me that you have someone who's saying, look,

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I'm an advocate, and legally, that I'm going to, that's what a lawyer does. I advocate for you, and he says,

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I have a legal team here. And we're gonna represent you if you call into this tip line.

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That's what I do. Yet, this is the same person that is working also for the

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Southern Baptist Convention. She's advising. So she's advising this, how does this work, right?

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That's, so Krista Brown proves her point. Now, this reminds me of other things. This reminds me of the whole

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Hannah Kate situation. For those who don't know, in 2021, Hannah Kate was at the

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Southern Baptist Convention and I believe it was, oh, goodness, who's the pastor at that big church in Memphis where Adrian Rogers used to be?

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Now I'm blanking on his name. It'll come to me in a minute, probably. Anyway, she's with this pastor and they're advocating for sexual abuse reform from the floor of the convention.

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And so, Hannah Kate was crying and people held her up as someone who was abused.

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And in fact, it might've cost Mike Stone, who was the more conservative one running for president of the convention that year, the election, because there was a story that went out there that she had an altercation with him and he was very insensitive to her and this became a big thing, right?

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As the convention was happening, the narrative set and conservative Baptist network couldn't really do much about it.

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So, Hannah Kate, that person, says, you guys were right. And this is from August of 2021.

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Grant and Ronnie, oh, Grant, yes, okay. So that was the pastor, I believe.

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And then Ronnie Floyd, see what they're talking about there, I believe. So Ronnie Floyd, who was the president of the executive committee for the

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Southern Baptist Convention, were using me, or the chairman, I guess, were using me as a prop. He's saying that the Southern Baptist leaders,

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Grant Gaines, that's who it was. Grant Gaines was the pastor who was with her on the convention floor. They were using me as a prop.

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I didn't realize it then, but now I see it. It was not my intention to be used that way, but I was, so much for church.

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It's true, Krista Brown's the one that's replying down here. All right, well,

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Hannah Kate has since then, I believe, deleted this tweet, but this is what went out there and it made waves in 2021.

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And it just, it reminds me of what Rachel Denhollander's doing here, to some extent.

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What are you doing advising the Southern Baptist Convention on how do you handle abuse well, and then representing clients against them?

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Is this just a money -making thing? What is this? Are these, what do you actually think of the victims? That's the question.

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And supposedly victims, too. Who knows, in some cases, whether these are even credible.

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But I'm sure there are some true victims at some churches that are thrown into this. And what purpose do they serve?

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Is it really about them, or is it about making money? Or is it about gaining political power over the more conservative -minded ones in the denomination?

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Here's Chelsea Andrews, another confirmation of this. May 2021, I went public about my sexual assault at Liberty University.

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Everyone I knew pushed me to speak to Rachel Denhollander. She told me it would be an uphill battle, then ghosted me after looking at sensitive information.

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Then she offered Liberty University paid services, the SBC and Liberty University.

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Now, why bring this up? Well, let me just read this. Someone responded, oh, that's despicable.

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I'm proud of you for your courage to come forward. And she says, thank you. So this is the issue with this though, in my mind, is what's

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Rachel Denhollander's role in this? She's getting sensitive information from someone, and then she's giving it to Liberty University.

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That's the whole issue here. So I'm gonna share this sensitive information with you, and then you're gonna notify the very people that maybe

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I would be taking legal action against. You're in bed with both parties.

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You're saying you're the abuse advocate here, right? But you're also an advocate for Liberty University.

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You're also an advocate for the Southern Baptist Convention. It's like you're being paid by both sides. You're a go -between here.

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What's the deal, right? That's why Chelsea Andrews brings this up. This is from 2023, it's January 6th.

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So this is a trend, and this is bad, guys. This is really bad for the Southern Baptist Convention.

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I'm debating how much to say about this, and I can't say as much as I think I would, I want to, but I'll put it this way, and I'll keep it very general.

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I won't get specific, but Rachel Denhollander holds a lot, and this is my opinion, okay, so we'll put it that way.

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People can be litigious. Rachel Denhollander strikes the fear in the heart of many upper elites in the

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Southern Baptist Convention. All right, and I'll leave it there. I won't say anything more, but you can take my word for it, or you can just say, ah, you didn't provide the evidence, and that's fine.

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But I would advise you to take my word for it, because what else makes sense of these crazy moves that the convention's making?

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She's the one that they're not allowed to question, and it shows, to me, it shows the lack of spine, the lack of masculinity in the convention at the upper levels.

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Who's actually running the convention? Is it Bart Barber? Is it the seminary presidents?

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Is it Rachel Denhollander? That's the question that I wanna ask. All right, now what happens, here's a question, when someone who's not

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Paige Patterson, so we don't scrub his name off of stuff, let's say, who's not someone we wanna take out politically, because he's on our side, gets caught in a sexual indiscretion of some kind?

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Well, we just saw an example of it from February 3rd, a letter from the Baptist Convention of Maryland in Delaware.

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Michael Crawford, resignation executive board for the Baptist Convention of Maryland, Delaware, and here's what it says.

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This morning we received word from brother Michael Crawford that he is resigning his position as the executive director of the

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Baptist Convention of Maryland, Delaware. Effective immediately, the reason for his resignation is due to moral failure involving marital indiscretions, which disqualifies him.

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We understand this news brings great sorrow. Did they ever, did they do this with Paige Patterson? We understand this brings great sorrow.

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The officers, staff, volunteers, and churches are committed to praying for brother Michael, brother Michael, right, it's not, never brother

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Paige, brother Michael, though, his family, and providing them with spiritual and emotional support in the coming days.

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Is it brother Johnny Hunt, too? No. We also call upon Maryland and Delaware Baptists and our extended

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Southern Baptist family to pray for everyone involved. Our convention is committed to serving in the name of Jesus. So, and it just keeps going on and on about how we ask for prayer, and God's gonna heal the brokenhearted and bind up their wounds,

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Psalm 147 .3. This is so interesting to me how this person is treated versus someone like a

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Johnny Hunt or a Paige Patterson or even Ronnie Floyd or people that were on the executive committee for the

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SBC when attorney -client privilege was waived. So here's another, Baptist News Global, and they, now they are outside the

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SBC, and I would say far left. If you're looking at a spectrum in Baptist life, they'd be far left.

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And so they are, to some extent, mocking this. They say, you know, it's a moral failure.

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What is a moral failure? It is not clear, let's see, here's why

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I brought this up. What is not clear is Crawford's employment status with the Southern Baptist Convention's North American Mission Board, where he also has been employed as vice president of strategy and development.

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That position was announced last October. Given the unusual nature of an executive being simultaneously employed in two full -time jobs by two

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Baptist entities, Baptist News Global asked Crawford in October if he was, in fact, being employed by both the

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Baptist Convention of Maryland -Delaware and the North American Mission Board. He replied, I don't have to tell you that, but yes, I do receive a salary for my role with NAMM.

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Ooh, boy. So you got Rachel Denhollander working both sides.

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And now we find out that, this is so typical, though. I've heard from people who are higher up.

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Will McCraney actually talks a lot about this, too. He has a lot of information on this kind of thing, that there's so much double -dipping. There's so much, we'll give you money from North American Mission Board if you're a big pastor for supporting us here, and you can be on this board, and you can be serving for Lifeway, and you draw all this money from all these different places.

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And it's conflict of interest stuff. It's not ethical stuff. And so here's

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Baptist News Global calling out Michael Crawford for this. So, yeah, anyway, it's just, it shows the corruption that exists, and it shows the decay and just the downfall.

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The Southern Baptist Convention is spiraling out of control, guys. Spiraling out of control. It's not if it's going to fall.

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It is falling. It's falling hard and fast. And it's corruption, it's unequal weights and measures.

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If they're our political buddy, then we get to treat them differently than if they're someone who's not. It's all kinds of things.

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It's all kinds of things. Well, let's go to the next story. This is also Baptist News Global. It's interesting to me.

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This is another, I think, lack of proportion example. Example of lack of proportion,

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I should say, in the Southern Baptist Convention. SBC executive committee member once again criticized for sexually crude posts on social media.

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So someone on the SBC executive committee, Guy Frederick, responded to a post on Twitter asking conservative men, honest question, is

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AOC hot? Now, some of you, if you have young children, you might not want them to be in the car for this. I just, some of you don't, wouldn't mind, but some of you would, so I just wanna put that out there before I say this.

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Guy Frederick, who's on the executive committee, said, like boob sweat hot or like sexually desirable hot?

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Now, not defending him using that language, but from what I understand, Guy Frederick, someone told me he was a trucker or something or had a background like that,

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I don't know. But he made a post on Facebook, I guess, in October, and he said, why is it that your boss says, have sex with me or you're fired?

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It's considered coercion, but your boss says, take the shot or you're fired, and it's not coercion. They both wanna stick something in you that you don't want.

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And he justified it by saying, I'm from a different generation, and we understood humor back then, and that's what this is.

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And in this particular post, though, he apologizes.

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He says it was wrong and talks about he didn't value women being made in the image of God, and this doesn't reflect his 50 -year marriage with his wife, who he loves dearly, and Valentine's Day is coming up.

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And I mean, he had to just, he really had to do the tenets. Because guys like this, this is

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Krista Brown getting, but guys like this, Jared Wellam says, there is never a proper context to objectify another person, this is especially true for the

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Christian who knows, by God's word that people are made in God's image, and he goes on and on, or he doesn't, but other people do go on and on about this.

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This is, so here's what I guess I wanted to point out with all this. To me, all right, and I think to most of us, eh, probably wouldn't have said that, but you know, this is like small stuff, like really small stuff, like I wouldn't be calling his marriage into question because of this.

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Maybe some of you would, but I don't, I've happened to know, there's one guy I'm thinking of, I won't give away who it is, but very high up, or made it to the upper ranks of academia and Christianity, so forth, respected man, and on a personal level, this is what he talks like.

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This is the kind of thing he would say. He'll even say things that are even maybe more off -color to some of you, and it's a proportion thing.

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This is a guy who's helped many men overcome addiction to pornography, and it's obvious he loves his wife, but there's a way of talking about these things that doesn't necessarily have to be sexual, and that's the point

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I think I want to make, is there's a generation that existed at one time where these things did not have to be sexual.

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These things, this same thing with Paige Patterson, that video they uncovered 20 years later, and they're like, oh my goodness, Paige Patterson, how could

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Paige Patterson have said that? He talked about boys being attracted to girls, and that it was a good thing, and they should notice girls, and it's like, oh my goodness,

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Paige, well, in the time he said it, in the context he said it, in a more traditional place, which is probably somewhere in the rural

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South, or suburban South, something like that, 20 years ago, it was a little different than in, let's say,

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Los Angeles today, or Washington, D .C., because not everything was sexualized. You could talk about that, you could even say a younger woman's attractive, and it wasn't creepy or weird, because there were sexual boundaries in place, and not everything was sexual.

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Things, it didn't reflect, in other words, in your own spirit, some kind of a desire, that you had an affection along those lines, or a desire for sexual fulfillment in the younger woman you're complimenting, or something.

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And so, I mean, the joke that this individual is trying to make is a rather simple one.

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It's just basically saying, look, are you, hey, laugh out loud, is she actually hot in temperature, or is she actually attractive?

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Because if you have to ask the question, it means she's not attractive, that's what he's saying. She's not attractive. So, I mean, this is just,

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I mean, immediately, this is like so horrible, because she's questioning someone made in the image of God.

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That's what I'm talking about is weird to me. It's like saying it's crass, or saying you shouldn't be treating, you shouldn't be talking about that part of a woman's body in such a cavalier fashion on Twitter, but to say, oh, you're objectifying another person who's made in the image of God, as if it's an attack on the

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Imago Dei, that's the weird thing to me. Like, that's full -on, let's attack that.

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And, you know, Jared Wellum, by the way, I think, isn't he a professor? He's a professor of apologetics, it says.

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Serves on, serve Southern Baptists on their executive committee, so he sits on the executive committee with this guy.

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It's, oh, man, for that to be like, you know, we gotta really stamp that one out, but we have these corruption issues that no one can seem to call out in the

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Southern Baptist Convention. It takes Baptist News Global, you know, to go after some of this stuff. It takes

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Capstone Report to report on it, but the people in the convention, they can't see the corruption, the drawing salaries from two different entities, the

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Rachel Denhollander is doing, let's represent people against the convention while I'm advising them. They can't see the issues with that, or they can't at least call them out.

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Something's preventing them from saying anything, but yet, oh my goodness, a little bit of an off -color tweet on Twitter.

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We gotta call this guy's, his spirituality into question here. All right, let's move to,

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I think, the last thing I wanted to talk, or second to last. Daniel Darling, Daniel Darling, let's see.

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He's at the Land Center, and he was, I thought he was still, I think he's an ERLC Fellow, Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission Center Fellow for the

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Southern Baptist Convention, and he puts out there, he's really glad to see that the Virginia Attorney General under Glenn Youngkin opposes prosecuting women seeking abortions.

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Now, I'm not gonna get into the Virginia politics. There was actually a really good article the other day about Glenn Youngkin and how he is not conservative and basically

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MAGA folks fell for him and it's been bad, and I agree. But what Daniel Darling is trying to say is that this is really good because women, what's the assumption behind it?

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Women shouldn't be prosecuted for seeking an abortion. If they want an abortion, it's not, they're not culpable for that.

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It's only the doctors, not the women. So if you pay someone or you seek someone's help in murdering your child, you're not culpable for it.

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We wouldn't apply this anywhere else, but we do for some reason in the situation of abortion.

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And here's the tweet for those who wanna see it, Daniel Darling. Well, interestingly enough, just recently, the

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ERLC put out a publication and it was Bart Barber, the president of the convention, wrote his whole thing about ending abortion.

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One of the things he said in it, he said, are women who get abortion victims? He goes, of course they are.

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Southern Baptists have said so consistently for decades. I agree with the preacher who said in a sermon, women are pressured by men who impregnate them to get abortions.

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Women are pressured by their families to get abortions. They are pressured by the stigma. There are all these things pressuring them, so therefore they are victims.

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Now, I just wanna say this. I'm not saying that the pressures aren't real, but would we apply this in any other situation, any other situation?

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Those Nazi guards, let's say, who carried out orders. I mean, that's the typical one that's used today.

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Maybe I'm overusing that analogy. I don't wanna overuse it. Maybe we should use a different analogy, right?

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The soldiers under Mao Zedong, who went and, or Pol Pot, and they carried out the orders to create what's called the killing fields today.

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Were they just pressured? I mean, hey, if they didn't do it, they were gonna be in trouble. So they need to murder those people because they don't wanna get in trouble.

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And is that the world we live in now, where applying pressure,

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I mean, I mean, what about the person who maybe raped that woman?

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Is he under pressure? Did he have a bad upbringing? Did his parents not love him enough, and so he sought it through evil means?

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Does that mean somehow that he's also a victim? I mean, everyone's, I guess, to some extent, a victim and a culprit of sin, right?

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Maybe you could make that argument with almost everything, that someone sinned against me, and therefore, but what did

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Jesus say? Evil comes from within. You're the one culpable for your sin, even if other people pressure you, and that's understandable, and they're on the hook too.

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If one of them, someone causes a little one to stumble, better if a millstone was around their neck, all right?

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So, but you're still culpable for your sin. And that's what

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I think Southern Baptists are having a very hard time with here. And it's gonna come to an abortion showdown with, and I'd say the most organized and loud faction on the right, if you wanna call them that, in the

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Southern Baptists Convention, are the abortion abolitionists, and this is probably gonna come up again at the convention, and it's gonna, this is gonna become one of the big front and center issues, because they're doubling down on this.

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All right, last but not least, I wanted to leave you off with some good SBC news to some extent.

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The NAM president, Kevin Ezell, let's see, trustees to sit for depositions in civil suit.

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This is the Will McCraney case. We've talked about it before. And it says in the article from Capstone Reports, the president of the

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North American Mission Board is scheduled to sit down for a deposition in a civil suit against NAM. The lawsuit involves allegations that Ezell used

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NAM in a personal vendetta to destroy Will McCraney, which is, this is something that I've heard a lot of from other

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Southern Baptists, this happens a lot. Will Kevin Ezell be asked about any attempted collusion between himself and his buddy

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Russell Moore? Other depositions looming for NAM include current and former trustees, including Danny D.

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Armaz, and it talks about him. And so there's a, this case keeps progressing.

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And it's slow, but I know people are impatient with it. But it keeps progressing, and closer and closer to exposing and finding out through exploration what's happening at NAM.

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And the hope is that eventually the books will get open. But this is, I think, a positive development for shining a light on what

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I would say is a fairly dark, unfortunately, area of the Southern Baptist Convention. Well, that's it for Southern Baptist news.

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Aren't you happy now? There's all sorts of other things that I wanna talk about, and we will talk about,

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Lord willing, later in the week. But today, I'll just give you a little personal news on my own end. I am doing something, I don't ever go to New York City.

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I never do this, except to pick up people from the airport or something. Well, I'm going down today, and it's for something special.

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My wife likes Lord of the Rings a lot, and so we're gonna go down and see the Lord of the Rings in concert. And it's,

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I guess, the whole movie. We get to watch the Fellowship of the Ring, and there's an orchestra there with a choir, and so that's what

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I'm doing later today. I know, I know. This is, it is so, I'm trying to think.

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I've only gone down to New York City for a concert. It was the Gettys once in my life. I've never seen a

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Broadway play. I know, I live so close. I need to probably, if I could find a clean Broadway play, do some of this stuff.

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But we are doing that later today, so I actually need to wrap up the episode to get ready for that. But anyway, just figured

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I'd let you in on a little thing I'm excited about. Hopefully, you have things in your life you're excited about. By the way, one last thing

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I wanted to say. I forgot to mention this. There's some of you who knew I was preaching on Sunday, and thank you for those who prayed for me.

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And the, as far as I know, the sermon is not posted. I don't know why.

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I know that I did not want to use the lapel mic. I wanted to use the choir mic, or not choir mic, but the pulpit mic, and I don't know if that had something to do with it.

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But I'm gonna check in to find out why that is. But I did give a message on Sunday about having peace.

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And it's something I think I needed and a lot of us need right now in the midst of all the circumstances of life. So hopefully, that will be posted in not too long.