SBC President: Who to Vote For

Conversations That Matter

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Welcome to Conversations That Matter podcast. My name is John Harris. We are gonna get to the question on most

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Southern Baptist minds, and that is who to vote for for the Southern Baptist Convention president next week on Tuesday afternoon.

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Convention, I believe, starts Monday. There's a lot of activity surrounding it, so I was hoping maybe on your drive there to be able to talk to you about some of the issues that I perceive and give you some context and maybe perspective on them, or maybe you're already there and on your morning walk or something.

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I don't know what all of your circumstances are, but I would really love to have an opportunity to share with you a few thoughts, and I wanted this to be encouraging, too.

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I think one of the things, it can be dismal if you study history at all, and if you know the situation the

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Southern Baptists are in right now, it may feel hopeless in some ways, and the big thing

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I wanna stress is that the Southern Baptist Convention and any parachurch ministry, any denomination, any association, any entity, these are things that are not technically the church.

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They exist to further the mission of the church, to help the church, to assist, and I understand there being a lot of emotional connections to the convention,

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Christmas offerings, and other traditions that people have grown up with, legacies going back generations.

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I think I am the first one in my own family on my father's side, at least, to not have been raised in a

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Southern Baptist church. It was more of a non -denominational Bible church, but that's because my dad, during the time before the resurgence,

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I guess, had kind of broken with the Southern Baptists. He grew up in Southern Baptist churches. My grandfather grew up in Southern Baptists.

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Great -grandfather would have been a Southern Baptist. I'm not even sure how far back. I think great -great -grandfather. So probably back towards the time of the founding of the convention itself in 1845, my family was there.

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So I may not understand as much as some of you about all that, since I didn't grow up in it, technically.

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There was actually a time that I was a member at one time. I did go to a Southern Baptist school, and even before that,

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I had done NAM missions training. I had also taught a college career group at a

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Southern Baptist church for, I wanna say, at least probably almost two years, and had a lot of a good relationship with a pastor who was a

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Southern Baptist. So I did have some interaction, and I get it to some extent. I just wanted to let you know that.

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I'm not trying to say that if the convention goes downhill, then all is well because it's not the church.

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I'm not trying to say that, but I am trying to bring about an internal perspective here. We do need to look at this from, just like we do with our country, we need to look at it from an internal perspective also.

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That doesn't mean we don't mourn. That doesn't mean we aren't serious about trying to enact change. It doesn't mean this doesn't affect our kids and our grandkids.

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Even my children are gonna be affected by the Southern Baptist Convention going downhill, and if it further goes downhill, they're gonna be affected by that because it's just kind of a bellwether and evangelicalism.

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It affects a lot more than just itself. And so I'm gonna play through some scenarios with you.

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I'm gonna give you some information. Mainly, we're gonna talk about the candidates that are running for president and kind of what they're running on, that kind of thing.

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Well, I need to be very transparent with you from the beginning. There's two candidates,

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I think, that are unacceptable, and I'm just gonna give you basically the reasons I think they're unacceptable. So I'm not really giving you a lot of the positives, which

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I'm sure there probably are some you could think of, but I'm just gonna give you, here's the reasons, I just don't even put them in the running.

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Then I'm gonna talk to you about the two candidates I think are acceptable and you should at least consider.

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And so that's what we're gonna do. And then we'll circle back to some of that internal perspective stuff and also playing out some of the scenarios that could happen.

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I'll just talk to you about what are the possibilities and what does it mean for the future, depending on what possibility takes place.

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Okay, so we'll start with this. We're gonna,

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I'm kind of trying to start with the one that I think is the most obviously probably on the more woke side.

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In other words, more of an advocate of social justice. That's Ed Litton. And here's a little montage that I made.

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You're gonna see Ed Litton talking about, and it's better if you watch it, because there's a bunch of quotes and tweets that I put in this.

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But I'll explain it for those listening after I play it. But we're gonna go through the issue of women preaching, complementarianism, as they call it, at least now in the

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Southern Baptist Convention. And then we're gonna talk about, then it's gonna be Ed Litton talking about social justice issues.

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This is not exhaustive, but it's enough. And I'll put it that way. And since we have limited time, then this is what we're gonna have.

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So I hope this is helpful for you. In this series that we've been doing for five weeks, this is our last sermon. Thank you,

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Jesus, okay? So we've been talking about how to transfer a vibrant faith from your children to your children's children.

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So this morning, this last message we're doing together is going to be on four qualities of a transferable faith.

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Our resolutions on race led nobody to weep over four girls who were bombed and killed at 16th

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Avenue Baptist Church blocks away from here. It's led none that I know of that have wept over 3 ,446

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African Americans lynched since 1886. It's led none of us to really change anything except we resolve to say something.

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That is not repentance. Thank you, every one of you.

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I can count all of you, but just listen to me. But you say, preacher, I'm not a racist.

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Are you indifferent? Because there is a sin worse.

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The opposite of love is not hate. The opposite of love is indifference. And there is a sin of being indifferent about what our

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African American brothers and sisters are experiencing in this country, what they have. And there is an opportunity for us.

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Vindication, he says, how they saw themselves. They also saw themselves with indignation.

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He said, not only what vindication, but what indignation. The Greek word here means anger that leads to action.

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The Corinthians finally dealt with this sinning man in a proper biblical way, but watch this. Their anger wasn't at him, it was at themselves for not taking sin seriously.

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How can we continue to be passive about sexual abuse in our churches? How can we look the other way, providing more comfort for abusers than for the abused?

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And I need to dive into one other thing, and that is this. Most recent flashpoint are attacks against two people that I frankly love,

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Beth Moore and David Platt. I know you're free to write whatever you want, but I thought under Christ you may not be free to just say anything, that we are free to love one another.

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We are free to encourage one another, to help one another. You say, well, I'm here to correct everybody. God help you. We're being played by Satan for the cause of division that will strangle the gospel from taking this world for the glory of God.

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And I warn all of us in Galatians 5 .15, it says, if you bite and devour each other, watch out, or you too will be destroyed by each other.

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We are now reflecting the political culture of our nation, more than the culture transformed by the love of Jesus Christ.

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And we need to check ourselves. We need to grieve over this, and we need to mourn over this and repent of this.

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So without spending too much time, for those who already kind of understand the social justice issue and how it works,

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Ed Litton is not really an option. Not only did he say, yeah, we don't have women preaching at our church, and then, well, there's a clip of his wife preaching.

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Not only is he defending some of the worst abusers of social justice teaching, bringing it in, in the

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Southern Baptist Convention, David Platt and Beth Moore, not only is he calling for, this is one of the things to, not to go on a huge tangent, but this whole, we need more than resolutions.

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We need more than, that's one of the things I pointed out with the social justice movement. It's the hamster wheel. You never, ever get to the point of, we've done enough.

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We've, there's forgiveness that's been dispelled and given. There's never a point where you, it's all, it's never enough.

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I mean, he's, you know, we should mourn, he says. We should mourn over, you know, church bombing. We should, okay, but when people mourn, when they, okay, we're gonna have a session where everyone visibly cries about something.

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Then what is he gonna say, right? We should do more than mourn. We need to, that's how it all works.

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That it's never enough. It's solely to put certain demographic of people or certain organizations into the position of feeling guilty without really any hope of redemption from that guilt.

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There's nothing of grace. There's nothing, I mean, this is people who, I'm assuming the people who bombed the church he's talking about aren't even in that room.

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So it's, anyway, I've talked about those issues so much. For those who aren't familiar, this is the first video you're watching of mine.

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That's why I'm not gonna go into detail about everything he said because we've talked about it so many times. But what you're seeing there is that guilt -driven social justice angle coming into it.

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And there were a number of tweets. For those listening, I'll just read some of them for you that I put up on the screen as he was saying it.

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So my generation of Southern Baptists has identified all social justice with liberalism, forgetting or ignoring that God cares about justice.

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It is not too late to walk in a balance of truth and love. Hmm. That gives you a little insight.

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That means social justice to Ed Litton is not going and helping with Hurricane Katrina. It's not the charitable endeavors the

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Southern Baptist Convention does because he says, well, his generation thinks that all of that is liberalism and they wouldn't engage in liberalism.

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So not charity. It's something different to Ed Litton. It is not charity. And of course, social justice really isn't that.

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But some of them who try to put a positive spin on social justice will try to recategorize it.

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Ed Litton knows something about social justice. He knows it's not charity. And he still thinks it's right.

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And he's shaming those of his generation who were at least opposing those who disagree with him on that.

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He says, pray for Naples. Now, this is an interesting one to me. Pray for Naples. Our polity exposes our hearts.

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Racism is a sin in this situation, but not the only sin. Please pray for our sister church and our leaders for the sake of the gospel in South Florida.

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This is kind of disgusting to me. This is the situation that I was kind of picking up the pieces of in the aftermath.

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If you saw the FBC Naples documentary online. And by the way,

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I should say that Naples, FBC Naples is now saying that they got everything right. There's been repentance or reconciliation with Hayes Wicker.

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I think it was. Okay, their former pastor, they've reconciled in at least that's what they're saying.

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What about the people that were all called racist who weren't racists? Or is it a critical race theory definition of racism?

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Anyone who opposes social justice is racist. And that's what they were operating by. That's what people were, well, not to go back into that whole situation, but they were discriminated against very severely for.

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Ed Litton is taking the side of, I'm sorry, the abusers in this case. And it's a known fact.

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This is not something that's up for debate. The people who made the accusation smeared the character of a number of people at that church at FBC Naples.

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They are the ones that are controlling the narrative and Ed Litton is helping them. And he says, racism is a sin.

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And in this situation, in this situation, but not the only sin. So racism is, really, where is it?

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Where's the sin? Where's the racist sin? The only thing you can point to is you had some members who opposed the social justice teachings of a pastor who or a pastor they wanted to hire.

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They didn't because of the courageous people who stood up named Marcus Hayes, who was retweeting

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Kamala Harris. And wanted to bring in the principles of woke church. That guy who thought that having homosexual orientation, having those desires was not a sin.

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That's why they opposed him and for a number of other reasons. But so Ed Litton is totally wrong on this.

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He also says those who suggest that biblical reconciliation among races is linked to critical race theory may have never seen or attempted to be reconciled with another for the glory of God and the sake of the gospel.

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You gotta listen to the harshness of this. He's accusing those who suggest that biblical reconciliation among the races is linked to CRT, which

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Jarvis Williams and even to some extent other, Jarvis Williams is just the most obvious example, but it's pretty much in the water.

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But literally uses every principle of critical race theory. I've demonstrated it, go watch my video,

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Jarvis Williams' Gospel. Every principle of critical race theory is employed into and infused into what he calls biblical reconciliation.

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Every ethical and metaphysical assumption pretty much of critical race theory is at least significant aspects of those principles are in what he calls racial reconciliation.

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So this is, is Ed Litton not aware of that? It doesn't sound like it. Or he just buys the

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Kool -Aid like Jarvis Williams does and says, well, this is reconciliation. But then the accusation is anyone who doesn't think that, that, who thinks that biblical reconciliation like Jarvis Williams' version,

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I guess, would be linked to critical race theory. Well, they've just never been attempted to be reconciled. This is, this is arrogant.

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This is just, it's an arrogant thing to say. Ed Litton, again, it looks to me like the IMB and Dr.

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Paul Chitwood are pursuing biblical reconciliation, not critical race theory. And this is in the context of the whole implicit bias training that the

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IMB wanted to do. Yeah, that's biblical reconciliation right there, that implicit bias training.

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Because you find that all over the Bible, right? This is, this is the man who's running, guys, on the left.

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And he's pretty much, I think, he's the NAM guy. Probably the Southeastern guy too.

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I know someone was sending me some stuff, at least one of the provosts pretty much has endorsed him.

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Here's some other tweets. Here's a tweet he liked from Dwight McKissick. The people of the SBC who reject critical race theory, including the presidents, have never ever experienced systemic and economic racism.

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Really? This discussion is merely academic. Theoretical to them, those of us who oppose the

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CSP position have experienced it and watched parents, I think he means CSP, okay.

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Have experienced it and watched parents' congregates victimized. Ed Linden likes this. Total smear.

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Southern Baptist, he says, and the scandal of the sexual abuse. It's just a retweet of a Russell Moore article on the

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Caringwell stuff. He takes the Russell Moore position on this. Again, Karen Swallow Pryor says,

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I read Jesus and John Wayne, but haven't read, okay, so she's saying, I read this book. This really, okay, so I'm gonna tell you,

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I tried to start to read this. I poked around it. I read like two pages and I was pretty shocked at, number one, this is passing for scholarship is kind of shocking.

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It's smearing. It's just not well done, but it's being praised all over the place.

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I probably should read it and do a review at some point, but it's so twisted towards the left.

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The assumptions are so biased. It just, it doesn't quite even qualify to me as scholarship anymore, but that's what's going out there.

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And Ed Linden says, I am reading it now. Let me say, it is not pleasant when someone tells you to sober up, especially when you do not think you were drunk.

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That's what that book's doing. Okay, Ed Linden is woke, guys. Ed Linden is progressive.

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Ed Linden is going to turn the volume up on all the social justice stuff in the

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SBC. So if you want that, if you want more of it, if J .D. Greer, who was too tame for you, vote for Ed Linden.

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But if you'd like the Southern Baptist Convention to remain biblically orthodox, then

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I would say you're gonna have to steer clear of Ed Linden because if you want more standpoint theory, if you want more conflict along social lines, then that's what

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Ed Linden brings to the table. Now, Al Mohler, right? Some think that's, this is the alternative is Al Mohler.

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Now I'm gonna play for you. Here's a very short montage. Again, all things

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Al Mohler said, Al Mohler in his own words and I'll make a few comments. So here we go.

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I felt it quite necessary in order to make clear the gospel to deny anything like a sexual orientation and speaking at an event for the

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National Association of Evangelicals 20 something years ago, I made that point. I repent of that. I believe that a biblical theological understanding, a robust biblical theology would point to us that human sexual affective profiles and who we are sexually is far more deeply rooted than just the will, if that were so easy.

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But Genesis three explains that. Helps us to understand that this complex of same sex challenges coming to us is something that is deeply rooted in the biblical story itself and something that we need to take with far greater seriousness than we've taken in the past, understanding that that requires a far more robust gospel response than anything the church has come up with.

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It's gonna take everything we've got in the gospel and in the scriptures to escape the trap of history, but we can't just draw a line.

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We're gonna have to deal it. We're gonna have to confront it. We're gonna have to recognize the word stain is exactly the right word.

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It's a stain that we're gonna carry as a denomination forever till Jesus comes.

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I can't associate with any assertion that we do not have a massive problem in the society and in the church with claims of racial superiority and with historic patterns of claims of white racial superiority.

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There are ongoing manifestations of this same racism, which is the great stain against the

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American nation and the great stain against much of American Christianity. I love the people, respect the people who brought the resolution.

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I would not have brought the resolution if it were me. And there's just some language in it that some of it's so good, but some of it, it's so easily taken.

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Well, it's just confusing. So I just, I'll try to say that. But behind it, behind the resolution,

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I'm convinced was an effort to try to speak to the real problem of the sin of racism in the

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United States and in every structure in the United States. Now, I know for some people, this is a hard pill to swallow, especially if you've thought of Al Mohler as Mr.

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Conservative for so many years, or if you're Reformed, he's been Mr. Calvinist and you've really wanted him to forward his soteriology in the convention, and that's been very important to you.

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10 years ago, the fight was over Calvinism, Arminianism, and more. And Al Mohler, as far as I can tell, is probably the most overtly

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Calvinist of the group. I've looked into Mike Stone a little bit. I've tried to find sermons and stuff.

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I can't really find much that's explicit about it. It seems to me he probably leans a little more

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Arminian. I could be wrong about that. That's what it seems like from what I did find. Randy Adams, from my conversations with him,

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I think he seems to lean a little more Arminian. Al Mohler seems like he's unapologetically Calvinist in these respects.

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My take on that though is that this is such a backseat issue at this point, not that it's not important, it's just that there's a basic battle for biblical orthodoxy and the survival of the denomination that has stage four cancer with a pagan religion from the world, political religion, coming in.

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That is a way bigger issue, and someone who can deal with those issues of corruption and social justice are gonna be much better equipped than someone who has maybe the right soteriology in some of your minds, but has caved on some of these issues.

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And so I wanna show you some of the things that lead me to believe that Al Mohler has caved and will continue to.

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He's defended the 2019 resolutions committee that gave us resolution nine by basically accepting their non -retraction.

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They issued a statement that was basically a replay of resolution nine. It did not retract anything, and Al Mohler accepted it basically.

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And I understand he didn't oppose resolution nine when it was coming up, two days afterward or something.

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He got on his program and said he disagreed with it. But then if you're in the presidency, there's gotta be some kind of, there has to be accountability.

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You have to be able to tell people they need to retract and not accept it if they don't.

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I mean, parents, to take a very small example of this, if you're a parent and you have a kid who you're supposed to clean his room and doesn't do it, and then comes back and gives you all the reasons that they didn't do the right thing, and you just kind of accept it as these are pure motives or something, that wouldn't be good for your kid, it wouldn't be good for your household.

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And it's not good for the Southern Baptist Convention when you just accept non -retractions and try to get along and have unity with people that aren't admitting the damage or the wrong that they've created in the convention.

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That's just, it's not gonna work. You have to be able to have actual apologies. You have to be able to bring things to the light of day and to have really honest conversations.

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Al Mohler constantly talks about how he wants to have an honest conversation. It really doesn't ever happen though. And that's a big issue.

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He hired Curtis Woods after he submitted a dissertation at SBTS specifically using CRT as an analytical tool.

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This is true. Go look up Curtis Woods' dissertation at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.

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He specifically says in the abstract, he used critical race theory as an analytical tool in the dissertation and yet he's hired as a professor.

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By Al Mohler, he defended Curtis Woods, Jarvis Williams, Matthew Hall, Danny Akin, Adam Greenway while attacking

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Tom Askell, Conservative Baptist Network and staying silent on the controversy involving John MacArthur with the go home thing.

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That to me is the biggest sign. If you really wanna know, okay, where are Al Mohler's alliances and allegiances?

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It's with the woke people. It's not with those who are more leaning conservative.

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He publicly approves of Russell Moore and I know some people have tried to downplay this but the reality is that Al Mohler for the full time,

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Russell Moore was doing his damage, destroying the denomination and its reputation. Al Mohler not once publicly lifted a finger to oppose

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Russell Moore. Now I have heard that in private sometimes he has said things.

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He has never done it publicly. In fact, whatever he has said publicly has always been approval and that is a problem.

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His character is challenged by Tom Rush and Russell Fuller, a trustee and a seminary professor.

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Pretty serious stuff, go watch those videos. He interprets police shootings often, historical symbols and institutions in a way consistent with critical race theory.

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And there are many examples of that. And I would say, and this is a strong charge

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I realize if you have quibbles with any of this, including this one, I would say go watch the video

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I did, What Happened to Al Mohler? And I explain why I say this. He is unclear about the gospel.

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And this is the charge, it's the most generous charge I can give. This is what Paul said to Peter. I have quotes from him where he talks about people who harbored some kind of racism, basically not really, they didn't have a full gospel, they didn't understand it, that kind of thing.

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And then turning around and saying, well, those who were racist in Southern Baptist history who helped form the

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Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, they actually, they did have the same gospel we have.

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Which is it? And you can go and see the chapter and verse, go watch the video

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I did, What Happened to Al Mohler? And I provide all the documentation and everything you need for that. These are the reasons though I say, this is not the guy to run the

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Southern Baptist Convention. Far from it. There's a principle in scripture, right? Being faithful in little things so that you can be faithful in much.

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Has Al Mohler been faithful in the little things, in his piece of the pie there in Louisville?

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And if not, then why would you want him running the entire ship? So that is my thought on Al Mohler. Let's talk about the issues facing the

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SBC before I get to the two candidates that I think are more acceptable. Decline in baptisms, unaccounted for funds, social justice subverting most, if not all entities.

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This is a big one that I probably should have focused on more but local versus centralized control. Big issue in our government, big issue in the

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Southern Baptist Convention. More centralization happening and less localism. A true conservative wants to return to the local.

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Intimidation, fear, and the 11th commandment. That's a big problem. Increasing egalitarianism, so women preaching, et cetera.

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This is just starting, but it is starting. The beginnings of homosexual normalization in some entities.

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The ERLC being one, some of the schools, like even Southeastern. There are some things

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I can point to in talks that have been given that seem to indicate this. And religious persecution from the government.

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That's gonna be an issue over the next few years. What kind of standards is the government going to try to make schools meet?

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Here are the two candidates that I would say you could vote for and have somewhat, hopefully, have a clear conscience.

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Maybe not all of you can say that, but in my mind, these are the only two options you have.

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And so I will do some comparison, but ultimately, you are gonna have to make the decision which one you wanna vote for.

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I think, here are the standards that I think you should be looking for, okay? You need someone who's very brave. They're gonna have to stand down.

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You're gonna have to face the federal government. They're going to have to face their own convention and pretty much all the entities.

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The swamp, and it is a swamp in the convention, is going to be opposed to them. Who can be brave in the midst of that?

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Number two, someone who's principled. Someone who is not going to bend on certain core issues.

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They're not going to negotiate on them. They're going to use their bully pulpit like Ronald Reagan did, or even

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Donald Trump to some extent. They're going to take the issue to the people when the shady stuff is happening.

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You need someone who's wise. Someone who isn't naive or foolish.

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And by that especially, I mean, you don't want someone who is going to, like Al Mohler, just believe the good intentions of the resolutions committee when they don't apologize and they don't retract.

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You need someone who understands human nature enough, who has worked in an area where they've had to be in management of some kind, who is wise towards people, who is shrewd, who understands that people can say one thing and do another.

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This whole 11th commandment, never assume anything bad, never say anything bad about a

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Southern Baptist, you can't have someone with that. No one from the good old boys network should be elected. They have to be probably willing to be more of an outsider, at least if they're not now, they have to be an outsider once they get there.

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Communicative, they have to be able, when they need to use that bully pulpit, to take it to the people of the convention, to say even things as drastic as, withhold your cooperative program giving.

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And I'm serious about that. If you really think the SBC has got stage four cancer, that's gotta be on the table. Withhold your cooperative program giving until we audit

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NAM or until we drive out social justice teaching from SCBTS, that's gotta be the attitude.

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And in order to do that, you gotta be articulate, communicative, you need to be able to talk to people in a way that they understand exactly what you mean.

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You gotta also be diplomatic. So this is, so being wise towards people, right, in principle, but also diplomatic.

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Where you can praise something, where you can give credit, where you can get people who don't always agree with you to work with you, you gotta be able to do it.

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And then also to be humble. I would say diplomatic's actually probably towards the bottom of the list.

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I think I probably subconsciously made this list in order, great principle, wise, communicative, diplomatic, and humble.

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Humble's also very, it's very important, definitely. You need someone, and the reason I say that though is you need someone who's gonna listen to others, not someone who monologues and thinks that they, they have all the answers, or their group has all the answers, or their friends have all the answers, but somebody who is willing to listen to outside voices, whose whistleblowers are gonna be a big part of this.

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Someone's gotta be humble enough to listen to them. All right, so that's, those are character qualities. And I didn't just pull these out of a hat.

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I did spend some time looking at this. This is the elder qualifications in 1 Timothy 3, Titus 1. I don't know that,

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I mean, this is for the office of an elder. This, the president of the SBC is different than that, although I think a pastor would be good, and both

32:13

Randy Adams and Mike Stone are elders, which is the office of a pastor. So I think they match up.

32:20

I mean, Ed Litton's also a pastor. So, I mean, J .D. Greer was a pastor. So it's not like you get a pastor, you get something good.

32:27

But I did at least look at these, and that's where I kind of distilled these qualities and applied them to the situation.

32:35

Brave, principled, wise, communicative, diplomatic, humble. Understands social justice, government overreach and corruption.

32:43

If they don't have an understanding of those issues, they're disqualified, in my mind. They gotta understand those issues. 1

32:49

Chronicles 12 .32 talks about the sons of Issachar, men who understood the times with knowledge of what

32:55

Israel should do. That's what you need. They understand the times with knowledge of what the Southern Baptist Convention should do.

33:02

And my last thought on this for qualifications, what to look for in an SBC president, they need to be a wartime leader.

33:09

There's a difference between a wartime leader and a peacetime leader. We don't need a Neville Chamberlain. We need, you know, who just calls for peace.

33:16

If you're just calling for unity and peace, and you don't have a plan for what if it doesn't happen, and there's an invasion in the entity, there's a blitzkrieg, and it's already happened, then you're gonna be taken for a ride.

33:30

No Chamberlains, we need a Churchill, okay? Wartime leader, willing to take unpopular action, and often drastic action, but necessary action.

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So I'm gonna repeat this for you all. Brave, principled, wise, communicative, diplomatic, and humble, understand social justice, government overreach, and corruption, and a wartime leader willing to take unpopular and often drastic, but necessary action.

33:53

That's what you need, I think, from my perspective, those who care about my opinion. So we have

33:59

Randy Adams, we have Mike Stone, and here's my impression for you, okay? I'm gonna give you what

34:05

I think are strengths in both of these candidates, and what I perceive to be their basic, if you wanna call them platforms, you know, the emphases that they have.

34:18

On social justice, which I know this audience cares about, Adams is the only candidate to sign the

34:24

Dallas Statement on Social Justice and the Gospel of the four candidates running. Now, I'm gonna say this about Adams.

34:29

Adams also signed, back during the George Floyd thing, a statement that was put out by the

34:37

Southwestern Baptist, or no, New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, which seemed to tie what happened to racism.

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Adams has been very explicitly clear since then that he does not believe that that was tied to racism.

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Stone is jointly submitting a resolution against social justice. Now, I have read the resolution.

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It's okay, I think it's good in many ways, but it has a weakness in that it uses the statement the seminary presidents made last year as sort of authorization for, you know, being, it sort of interprets that as this was against critical race theory.

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And that seems to be naive in my mind. I know Stone probably is not the one that crafted this.

35:28

Overall, though, it's a good resolution. So this is what I'm gonna say about both these candidates, Adams and Stone.

35:33

Adams being the only one to sign the Dallas statement, Stone being the one to submit this resolution against social justice, or critical race theory, really.

35:41

Both of them are taking a stand against this, all right? The other two are not.

35:48

Of course, yeah, they're not. I think if you read this submission that's being made, though, it gives the impression

35:55

Al Mulder is, and I don't buy that. So you have Adams, you have Stone, both taking shots against that.

36:02

That's a very good thing. Emphasis. Here's a difference for you, a big one, I think. Adams stresses accountability and transparency.

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That's pretty much been his, the drum he's been beating for I don't even know how many years. Since I've even been involved in this,

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Adams, Randy Adams has always been there talking about accountability and transparency. So no surprises with Randy.

36:24

Always been something he's tracking. Always been something he cares about. I think that's a huge problem in the

36:30

Southern Baptist Convention. And it's one that has really only recently been on my radar. It may be, it's probably bigger than the social justice stuff in a way.

36:38

Because it's what has allowed for the social justice stuff to creep in. And it's also, here's a thought for you as well.

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This is the way I think the Southern Baptist Convention, and the bad actors, right? Everyone wants the bad actors taken care of.

36:53

This is the way it's gonna happen. More likely, it's gonna be scandal. Financial scandal, sexual indiscretion.

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These are the things that take people out. More than, oh look, they're preaching a false gospel.

37:07

I hate to say it that way. I do. If you remember not too long ago, the governor of New York basically enacting a policy that was killing people in nursing homes.

37:18

But what really took the wind out of his sails? It was a sexual scandal. For whatever reason, in our culture today, and the

37:26

Southern Baptist Convention, I don't think is an exception to this. Those are the kind of things that take people out. It should be that forwarding a false gospel takes you out.

37:37

Even the slightest infraction could, the eternal consequences that has, that should take you out.

37:45

It doesn't in this environment. There's so much charity put on that. But there's hardly any charity given to someone who is engaged in financial indiscretion, scandal, or sexual scandal.

37:57

So I think there's a pragmatic thing here as well. Adams hasn't said this.

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I'm saying it. But if you focus on accountability and transparency, you're gonna find out some of the worst social justice abusers, those enabling it, are also at the very least involved in financial issues.

38:15

Stone is focused more on wave revivals and stressing points of unity. That's the best I can figure out from what

38:22

I've read and listened to from Mike Stone. He wants to do these kind of old style revivals that Southern Baptists could all kind of focus on.

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And then Southern Baptist Convention can stress, they can kind of come together. They're gonna have unity because kind of like, look, we all have the gospel.

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We have these core things we believe in. Now, that sounds like a good thing,

38:47

I think. And I would support that, that there needs to be an emphasis more on evangelism in coming back to the core message of the gospel.

38:56

I think the issue over the last few years is that you have people that are confusing social justice with the gospel.

39:03

And if you have a church, let's say, that is, or an entity, which it's plaguing most of them now, that thinks social justice is part of the gospel, right?

39:12

Send Network is gonna be part of this and the church is affiliated with it. SEBTS, et cetera.

39:18

If you have those guys coming together to do revivals, what's that revival gonna look like? And even if you put parameters on it and you say, well, you need to stress just the gospel itself and you put language in it, resolution that, whatever, some kind of directive that has language that says no social justice talk.

39:41

Do you really want people that have a false gospel? Do you really wanna be making them go in or promoting them to inspiring them to give the true version of the gospel as a representative of the

39:57

Southern Baptist Convention? I see yes and no in that answer.

40:05

I kind of would rather just expose the false gospel and cut the cancer out, right?

40:11

That's kind of my take on that. So I, and I'm not saying Mike Stone is saying that woke churches should all do this, but I'm not sure what would keep them from being part of these wave revivals.

40:24

And I don't know how that would get them back on track when it comes to the mission.

40:29

I think there's, there might, there could be, I don't know, there could be an assumption behind this that a lot of these people are just very well -meaning and they're not actually promoting a false gospel or false teaching.

40:41

And that's true for some, that some have been caught up in confusion like Peter was. There's a bunch though, and I'm convinced of this beyond a shadow of a doubt.

40:48

There's a whole bunch, especially at the seminaries. They're not Peter. They're the false brethren who have crept in unaware and they are enemies of the church.

41:01

Paul's words, not mine. And so those are the kind of people, I just wouldn't wanna give them cover. I wouldn't want them, I wouldn't wanna be associated with them in any kind of revival.

41:09

But the idea that Stone has here of getting back to revivals, getting back to a core evangelism is a good one.

41:17

And we need that. I just don't know quite how you get there without doing stage four chemo.

41:22

Something drastic would need to happen, I would think. Adams, his diagnosis, corruption.

41:29

That's the problem with the SBC. It's corruption, it's character flaw, it's money, it's motivating a lot of this.

41:39

Centralization, big part of that corruption. He's a localist, which I think is a core conservative tenant.

41:45

He wants more accountability, more of the power put back into local associations, local churches, not the central authority itself in the convention.

41:57

So that's his diagnosis. Stone, I think from what my impression is, his diagnosis is more mission drift.

42:05

And again, I've only talked on the phone with Stone twice, and then I have articles and stuff that I've read of his, interviews, et cetera.

42:13

That's the impression I get, though. It's a mission drift kind of thing. That because they've gotten off track, which is true, that the

42:22

Southern Baptist Convention needs to come back to just the core elements of the gospel and stop swimming around waters that they don't belong in the social justice world, et cetera.

42:34

Randy's position seems to be more of an outsider. He's the Northwest Baptist Association president.

42:42

So he would not be someone who's coming from within the Southern Baptist Convention itself as high up in one of the entities or on...

42:55

He's certainly also geographically in the Northwest, so he's not hanging out with people in the South where the core of the

43:02

Southern Baptist power seems to be. Mike Stone seems to be more of an insider. He's the executive committee head.

43:08

He's endorsed by the Conservative Baptist Network as well. I know he was, I think he was the head, if I'm not, or the chairman, if I'm not mistaken, or he was at least involved quite significantly in the

43:18

Georgia convention there. But being the executive committee head, very high up position.

43:24

That may be, honestly, that's probably the second highest position, I would say. You got the president and you got the executive committee chairman might be the second highest position there.

43:34

But there's strengths and weaknesses that come with both of these things. If you're an insider, you know the corruption of how the sausage is made.

43:42

You see it. You see all the terrible things. And so you've been in those backdoor meetings that no one knows about, so you know who the bad guys are, in a way.

43:54

If you're coming from the outside, you haven't been in those backdoor meetings. So there's a strength to that, in a sense.

44:02

There's also a strength, though, to coming from the outside, in that you don't have any personal allegiances.

44:09

You don't owe anyone any favors or that impression isn't there at all. You are totally a new face.

44:15

And you can kind of, without emotionally attaching yourself, take the scalpel to the corruption.

44:22

So strengths and weaknesses to both. As far as personality, Adam strikes me as attentive.

44:29

He's a good listener. He's direct when he speaks. And he's very decisive. In fact, the way he rattles off facts is extremely impressive to me.

44:40

He's got a plan, very clear plan. No one really has to ask what his plan is. So very direct with what he wants to do.

44:47

Good at communicating it, but it is direct. But he also listens. So I say the awesome stuff there.

44:53

Stone, very eloquent in his delivery. Very careful and strategic.

45:00

He seems like the guy that is thinking three, four steps ahead. He's looking at all, what's this gonna do here and how will that affect this.

45:11

Very careful with what he says. With how he presents himself publicly.

45:18

He's, I mean, these are really good strengths for someone in a political position. So you have some good things here.

45:26

These are just my impressions. Again, there's probably a lot more that can be said here. But this is what

45:32

I think as I compare Mike Stone and Randy Adams. You got a lot of good strengths with both of them.

45:39

They're just different. And depending on, I think if you lean more towards the accountability and transparency and stage four chemo stuff, you're probably gonna go with Adams.

45:50

If you're the kind of person that's kind of like, burn it all down, if they're gonna keep going down this track, it's probably more of an

45:59

Adams thing. If you are someone who probably is more, we can salvage this ship by bringing it back.

46:09

It's off course, we're gonna. So if you don't wanna burn the ship, and get the lifeboats out and start building another ship, if you want to just change the direction of the ship, because it's going in the wrong direction, and get back to evangelism and revivals and that kind of thing,

46:24

Stone's probably gonna be more your guy. That's the best I can come up with with trying to kind of compare the two.

46:30

And again, there's things to be said for both of those strategies and outlooks.

46:36

I hope that's helpful for you. Let's see here, big picture, big picture. This is where I wanna maybe bring some encouragement.

46:43

Dangers, let me give you the dangers that I perceive. This is the, and I told some of the other day, this is the biggest one

46:49

I have, a false hope given to conservatives who keep giving money thinking they won.

46:55

That is my biggest fear for the Southern Baptist Convention. If a conservative wins, supposedly, and they do not stop the direction, or they just slow it down, it keeps going in the same direction.

47:10

And conservatives stay in, they keep giving money to this huge beast, thinking they won, when in reality, their goals are never realized and they fund the destruction of what they believe.

47:21

That is my biggest fear. And I can't,

47:26

I mean, all I can say is that is a fear. I can't tell you, like, there's no solution that I know of.

47:34

You have to trust that one of these two candidates is gonna help bring about, make a huge difference, make a dent.

47:41

But my fear is that, is it even possible at this point? Is that something they can do?

47:46

Or, and is that something they're really willing to do? Are they willing to apply the stage for chemo that's maybe necessary?

47:56

Are they able to steer the ship in a new direction and take the steering wheel back from those who, there's 100 people trying to secure that steering wheel so you can't get to it.

48:09

That's, so you're gonna need someone with a lot of guts who's willing to burn some relationships, I think, in order to actually bring about change.

48:17

That is my impression. Number two danger, conservative, a conservative split would be, could be bad.

48:27

So if the conservatives split between Randy Adams and Mike Stone, and the corruption and the social justice compromise will just continue.

48:35

Now, I wanna say something else, a silver lining in all this. If a conservative does not make it, if it's

48:40

Ed Litton versus Al Mohler, a conservative doesn't make it to that second round, which I don't think will happen. I think a conservative will.

48:45

There's so many people showing up and I think they're angry conservatives primarily. But if a conservative doesn't make it, doesn't win, that could also, there's a silver lining in that, in that conservatives will probably lose hope and leave the convention and stop funding their own destruction.

49:02

That's not a solution we want, necessarily. We'd rather have the convention go, you'd rather have all the leftists leave.

49:09

But I'm gonna say this, one side will leave. The split is inevitable.

49:14

No matter what happens, one side will leave, but the swamp will remain. That's always how, that's how it is in the federal government, right?

49:22

Trump wins, swamp's still there. It will, it's there because the money's there and it will keep funding.

49:30

There's people that are pulling strings on the social justice stuff and a lot of corruption's happening and they're not gonna leave just because a conservative president gets elected.

49:41

You may have the Beth Moores of the convention leaving, she's already left, making very public stinks about it.

49:48

They're the ones that change, not the convention. But the swamp will always be there unless someone takes a scalpel to it and drains it.

49:58

So I think the split is inevitable either way. But the question is, are conservatives gonna be, are they gonna be able to take back this convention?

50:07

Are they going to fund their own destruction if they are not able to take it back but they're giving the impression that they've taken it back?

50:16

And then if they split the vote, is it just gonna be, are they gonna have to leave anyway? Here's a big picture thing though.

50:23

We live in a post -institutional world, I think, more and more and more. What do

50:28

I mean by that? I mean that the voluntary associations, bowling clubs,

50:36

Boy Scouts, all the civic clubs that used to exist that people would be part of, if you've noticed, those have been going the way of the dodo bird for some time.

50:47

And I think the Southern Baptist Convention is not gonna be an exception to that in every way. The people that are my age and younger, they're more individualistic as far as where they put their time, what they do with their time.

51:05

I think, I don't know where I put my phone. I was gonna hold it up. I think the phone has, and technology, has caused a lot of this.

51:17

I think it's inevitable that we're moving in a direction though where there's gonna be less and less cooperation and more and more independent gatherings in general.

51:28

People doing their own thing. The consolidation's happening in the political realm, for sure, but as,

51:36

I think it's actually also, that's another reason, as there's more consolidation at the top, you actually get less voluntary associations.

51:43

As needs are met, supposedly, from the top down, you don't need them as much.

51:50

So this is just, I'm thinking like 50 years, right? This is gonna be the trend.

51:56

I think the Southern Baptist Convention's going to, unless they really give a lot of benefits to the churches that join them, it's really a good organization to be part of,

52:03

I think the trend is gonna continue, that they're gonna be bleeding churches. That's just my opinion. So where's the encouragement in all this?

52:11

The encouragement is that the Southern Baptist Convention is not the church. There is an institution that will remain, and that's the one that God has ordained, and that is the church.

52:22

And so as you go to the convention, thinking about these serious things, I would encourage you not to overthink it too much.

52:30

It's just the convention. I know, it's important. I get it, but it's just a convention.

52:36

It's not the church. The missions, the evangelism, all those things, they're gonna still be done.

52:44

God's gonna still do those things through Christians, through churches. It may not be the same kind of cooperations.

52:50

New cooperations may form. That's not a bad thing. And so trying to save the

52:56

Southern Baptist Convention is not the same as trying to save Christianity. And I think we all need to be reminded about that.

53:04

Have a good time. Talk to people while you're at the convention. Get to know people from other areas.

53:09

You're gonna see people from all over the world. Talk to people who have been sharing and spreading the gospel as your

53:15

Christian brothers and sisters, not as just fellow Southern Baptists. That is a secondary, a very secondary identity compared to we're

53:26

Christians first. One thing I appreciate about what Randy Adams said, I'm still thinking about it in our interview earlier this week, is that God's gonna use a missions force of some kind and he's gonna use the church.

53:41

He's gonna do what he's gonna do. And it may not be the Southern Baptist Convention. He'd like it to be, but it may not be.

53:49

And he's open to that. And I think we all need to be open to that. Have a good time while you're in Nashville.

53:56

Go to the Grand Ole Opry. Go see things that maybe you won't get a chance to see again if you have the time.

54:04

Fight as hard as you possibly can on the floor when there's a political thing that comes up and then don't let it get to you.

54:10

Go home and continue to do what God has called you to do. This is all about investing your time and your talents, your abilities for him during this small period of time.

54:24

And it's not even, a presidential election, we gotta live with the results of that or not the results of that as the case may be, the fudge results.

54:36

You have to live with what happens after a presidential election, right? Because you live within the geographical boundaries.

54:42

It's not the same with the Southern Baptists. You don't have to associate with them. You have to live with the effects of evangelicalism going down the hill.

54:48

But it's going to be the spirit of God ultimately that's gonna save evangelicalism. And it cannot be, human efforts are their means

54:58

God uses, but ultimately you could try everything and if God is not going to allow it to be saved, it's not gonna be saved.

55:05

If the ship's burning and God wants the ship to go down and he's got another ship, you're not gonna be able to put that fire out.

55:13

So don't make that the standard of whether it's successful or not. Don't let it stress you. Fight when you can on the floor and then get to know some people.

55:26

Go home, have a good time in Nashville. And that's my advice. So I hope that's helpful to you all.

55:32

I hope that's somewhat insightful. I hope it helps you at least narrow down a little bit who you'd vote for for president in the convention.

55:40

Again, you got, in my opinion, two options. You got Mike Stone and you got Randy Adams and either one has some significant strengths.

55:50

And so I hope that that helps you out. And we'll talk more as the convention unfolds,