An Open Letter to My Southern Baptist Friends

Last night and this morning, I have been hurting for my Southern Baptist friends who were on the right – and losing – side at yesterday’s Convention.  I felt I should say something, and, after reflection, I’ve decided a tweet or even a tweet thread won’t do.

First, I am indeed hurting and praying for you.  And I am sad for the church as a whole.  For most of my life, the Southern Baptist Convention has been a bulwark of orthodoxy.  For that bulwark to be so weakened and compromised diminishes the whole church.

Second, I advise that you do mourn.  I also advise that you wait awhile before making a decision about your future relationship with the SBC.  Early on after a bad event, both upset and denial can cloud your judgement.  So wait on the Lord, pray, and at least recover a bit first before deciding.

I cannot make that decision for you.  I can see a case for staying and fighting, and I can see a case for moving on.  Know that if you remain faithful, you have my respect along with my prayers.

Also know something that I am hesitant to say for fear of appearing to poach.  Know that IF you decide to leave, there is a place for you in the Anglican Church of North America (ACNA) and especially in my jurisdiction, the Reformed Episcopal Church (REC – which has a large degree of independence but is within ACNA – it’s complicated).

You will have to get used to babies being baptized.  You will have to get used to real live bishops with those funny mitres even. You will have to get used to a wide range of orthodoxy under one roof.  We have people who are more catholic than the Pope and people who are more Protestant than Luther.  Our breadth is both glorious and annoying – like the whole faithful church.

But ACNA and the REC are committed to the authority of scripture and to the basics of the Faith as reflected in the Creeds.  AND both the Archbishop of ACNA and the Presiding Bishop of the REC have just made strong statements opposing Critical Race Theory.

We are not perfect.  There are a few dioceses in ACNA I cannot recommend.  And wokeness has infiltrated us as it has the SBC.  (Where has it not infiltrated?)  But unlike the SBC, our two highest bishops along with many other bishops are opposing it.  And it has not and will not gain a stronghold in the REC.

If you do wish to check out an Anglican church or two, feel free to message me for guidance.  You can contact me in the comments (And I will not post your comment unless it’s clear that you want it public.  I moderate comments.) Or you can message me on twitter.

I would prefer Baptist faithful stay in the SBC and take back their denomination from the woke cabal.  I want a faithful thriving SBC.  But if you become convinced that is not your path, you are welcome to help us remain faithful in ACNA.  Let me know if I can help you.

Presiding Bishop Ray Sutton’s Exhortation to the REC General Council

Yesterday began the General Council of the Reformed Episcopal Church.  It is held on Zoom this year because when it was being planned back when COVID was more of an issue than now, many did not want to travel to a large meeting.

The highlight was and will surely always be Presiding Bishop Ray Sutton’s formal exhortation or “Report” which you may find here beginning on page 4.  In spite of internet connection issues that were at times amusing, his address was very well received.  Even I greatly rejoiced in it.  I recommend reading the whole address.

The part that is likely of most interest to readers addressed issues relating to sexual identity, race, and social justice ideologies and the infiltration of these ideologies into the church.  He exhorts us to resist being overly influenced by these ideologies.  He instead puts forth a robustly Biblical view on these issues. 

I will excerpt only some of this. Again, I recommend reading the whole address.

All too often when the church attempts to be, “all things to all people that by all means we might save some,” she allows culture to seduce her into introducing secular thinking and concepts that insidiously confuse, confound and even violate foundational Biblical commitments (1 Corinthians 9:22, ESV). Far too often St. Paul’s statement about becoming all things to win some by finding common ground with the world, fails to heed the apostle’s other statement, “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect” (Romans 12:2). For St. Paul, the will of God is clear in how we are to interface with the culture to win some to Christ. Whatever common ground with the world that St. Paul suggests in one passage, should not be interpreted to mean conformity to the world’s, secular thought. Rather, St. Paul calls for transformation to a “Christian mind,” in the words of the Anglican scholar, Harry Blamires, who wrote a book by this title.  Elizabeth Elliot, popular Anglican Christian author, refers to conformity to the world as capitulation. She grew up in the Reformed Episcopal Church and became the wife of Jim Elliot, one of the seven Wheaton graduates and missionaries in the 1950s, who were martyred by the Auca Indians in South America while attempting to spread the Gospel to these lost people. She once observed about the will of God: “The will of God is not something you add to your life. It’s a course you choose. You either line yourself up with the Son of God...or you capitulate to the principle which governs the rest of the world.” ….

He then dealt with issues of sexual identity and explained the statement by the ACNA College of Bishops on this area.  Then he proceeded to issues concerning race:

A second cultural concern where we must not be conformed to the world but be transformed in Christ concerns the church’s response to the sins of racial prejudice, hatred, and violence in our society. In recent months we have seen tragic, unjust, and unacceptable use of force in racially oriented crimes. These situations have included “the bad cop,” as well as retaliatory groups answering hate with hate and equal prejudice. Although not everyone is a racist, nor do these kinds of tragedy mean that all police are racist, Christians must speak the truth in love and peace with the standard of the Word of God. This calls for the application of a Biblical world view to provide not only the Scriptural understanding of race, but to avoid being conformed to the world by secular racial theories. While models such as Critical Race Theory may at some points offer useful information, they are not necessarily Biblical nor Christian in their premises, principles, and practices. They can even at times become explicitly anti-Christian displaying another kind of religious prejudice. And since they are only theories, they can offer misinformation or exclude key information. Moreover, these secular racial theories in the hands of some biased researchers unfortunately succumb to atheistic totalitarian, Marxist ideologies. 

Strong but truth-telling language!

Christians therefore must be extremely careful not to rely on secular theories and worldviews regarding any subject such as race and racism. Non-Christian viewpoints entering the Kingdom of God can confuse, mislead, and conform God’s people to the world instead of transforming their minds to the will of God. When this happens, our answers then become no different from a fallen, sinful mind, failing to offer true Scriptural solutions to cultural problems. I know some believe that if we concede to secular viewpoints where we can, some might be won to the Biblical view. Unfortunately, the opposite has proven to be the case throughout Christian history….

 

Scripture teaches that all of humanity represented by Adam and Eve fell into sin (Romans 5:12). The apostle concludes, “All have sinned and fall short of God’s glory” (Romans 3:23). Everyone in every race is a sinner. No one person or race is exempt from the effects of sin. However, although humanity became totally depraved this does not mean that every person has become utterly depraved. There’s a big difference between totally and utterly. Total depravity means that humans in every aspect of their person – mind, emotion, and will – became tainted and enslaved by sin. This is not the same as utter depravity. The phrase utter depravity suggests that every sinner commits every sin. This goes beyond the Scriptural teaching of the effect of the fall. By God’s restraining common grace every human does not become so utterly depraved that he/she commits every sin. Just as not every individual is a murderer, or robs a bank, not every person participates in the sin of racism. On this point, secular racial theories like CRT actually exceed the Biblical doctrine of sin by effectively accusing all humans of certain races of the sin of racism. They say things like, “all white people are racists.” This kind of generalization is not accurate according to Scripture or experience, any more than it would be to say that every human is a murderer. It’s reducing individuals of a race to utter and not just total depravity. It is more Scripturally precise to say all races have racists but not everyone in a given race is a racist.…

Thus he nicely but directly contradicts Critical Race Theory.  He also contradicted the woke crowd’s incessant accusations against the church by reminding us how Christianity and the church have greatly assisted progress in racial justice, such as . . .

…the remarkable story of overcoming slavery and racism in England by courageous Anglican Evangelicals like William Wilberforce and John Newton who authored the great hymn, Amazing Grace. What some don’t mention is John Newton’s own testimony of how he was changed from being a slave trader, by the grace of God through faith in Jesus Christ, to become a champion for the very people whom he had hated and enslaved. 

Though Christians are sinners saved by grace and not perfect in this life, the prevailing Gospel story regarding race is overwhelmingly constructive. One of the most powerful stories of Christian restoration is the first African Bishop, Samuel Ajayi Crowther (1809-1891). When only twelve years old, his family was captured by Muslim slave traders in Western Africa. Traveling in the captors’ slave ship, a British Royal Navy Squadron of Ships enforcing the ban on slave trade intercepted the vessel. Crowther converted to Christianity through English missionaries. Eventually called into the ministry, the English Church Missionary Society provided for his education at Oxford University where he earned a doctoral degree. Upon returning to Nigeria with the CMS, he became the first Anglican African Bishop. During the same period, Henry Townsend, was a 19th century Anglican missionary to the West Coast of Africa in the area of Abeokuta, Nigeria. He encountered slave markets. On a certain day he attended one, bought a slave, and right in front of everyone after he had purchased the man, unshackled his chains, and set him free. That act became a powerful Christian witness for the man and his culture. Both men worked together to spread the Gospel and stop the evil slave trade. 

There is also our own history in the Reformed Episcopal Church. It is a classic example of how Jesus Christ changes people from being racist. The first Reformed Episcopal bishop in South Carolina was Peter Fassyoux Stephens. He was the white Commandant of the Citadel in Charleston and fought for the South in the Civil War. After the war was over, Christ moved in his life. He took up the cause of freed African American slaves. He worked to reform the educational system in South Carolina so that African Americans could receive an education. And when the Episcopal Church would not ordain African American Christian men called into Holy Orders, he ordained them after they had left the Episcopal Church. He, together with these faithful lay and clergy African Americans, began a grand work for Christ. It continues to this day as a key witness in and from the Reformed Episcopal Church in the Diocese of the Southeast.

For those unaware, the REC Diocese of the Southeast consists mostly of Black brethren. He then counseled against complacency and for standing with those suffering wrongly.

… in these challenging times of racial turmoil, I exhort us to renew our stand with our African American brothers and sisters, especially our fellow Reformed Episcopalians. I believe we can strengthen our work together first by weeping with those who weep. My/our hearts go out especially for our African American brothers and sisters who have lived once again through a painful period and witnessed racially oriented crimes. We are all grieved and concerned. But for our African American brothers and sisters, old wounds have been reopened from the recent abuses in our culture. Although not all in our society are racist, it has pointed out the need for reform among some our law enforcement agencies. We should realize the effects of these tragic events on our brothers and sisters, hurt with them, uphold them, pray for them, and weep with those who weep. At the same time in our stand together to proclaim Christ, particularly those of us in the Anglican Church in North America and in the Reformed Episcopal Church, let us not lose sight of the difference between faithful, Biblical and believing Gospel churches and the unbelieving culture. I don’t know of any lay or clergy in the ACNA or the REC who are racist. Some may be confused and frustrated, but the word racist does not apply to our fellow Biblical Anglicans. I ask us not to be confused with the confusion in our society to the extent that we forget the distinction between lost sinner without the grace of God and saved sinners by grace in Biblical churches. I know we have so much more in which we must be sanctified. I realize that in our increasingly diverse society, we in a Biblical church must reach all diversities with the Gospel. In calling us to stand with our fellow African American Reformed Episcopalians, I ask that they minister to us and help us better to fulfill the Great Commission to all ethnicities of the world and in our ministries together. 

Yes, it was a moving address and dealt with much more than racial issues.  I’ve attended several REC General Councils, and I cannot recall a better address in such trying times, nor one that has been more appreciated.  I really cannot do it justice here.  I do hope it serves as a template for the ACNA College of Bishops as they address race and Critical Theory.  

Again, read it, especially if you are in the Anglican Church in North America.

The Lid May Be Coming Off Georgia Election Fraud

This could be big.

A Democrat donor judge is concerned enough about evidence of massive 2020 election fraud in Fulton County Georgia (Atlanta) that he has ordered the 147,000 mail-in ballots to be unsealed and inspected.

Among the evidence is sworn testimony of hundreds of duplicate ballots voting for Biden.  The following is particularly damning and far from alone:

Suzi Voyles, a veteran Fulton poll manager who audited the Nov. 14 recount at Georgia World Congress Center, testified she examined several stacks of ballots of about 100 ballots each from a cardboard box marked “Box No. 5 — Absentee — Batch Numbers 28-36.” She said these ballots “came from the ballot [drop] boxes that had been placed throughout Fulton County.”

“Most of the ballots had already been handled; they had been written on by people, and the edges were worn. They showed obvious use,” she wrote in her Nov. 17 affidavit. "However, one batch stood out. It was pristine. There was a difference in the texture of the paper,” and these mail-in ballots hadn’t been folded even though they ostensibly had been removed from envelopes.

All but three of the 110 ballots in the bundle — which had been labeled “State Farm Arena” — were marked for Biden and appeared to be “identical ballots."

The most “alarming peculiarity” was the identically marked ovals next to Biden’s name. In every ballot, “The bubble next to ‘Joseph R. Biden’ had a slight white eclipse in the bubble,” she said, leading her to believe that the batch of 107 Biden ballots had been “copied" from a single ballot.

Voyles speculated that “additional absentee ballots had been added [for Biden] in a fraudulent manner” at the State Farm Arena in Atlanta on election night.

The void she and other auditors witnessed in the exact same spot of the oval filled in on 107 ballots for Biden “was alarming to us,” Voyles said in an RCI interview. “Every single bubble was precisely alike. I had never seen that before in 20 years” of election monitoring.

But when she and other recount workers raised concerns with county election officials, “we were told not to worry about it,” she said. “They seemed uninterested in the [integrity of the] ballots.”

After Voyles later blew the whistle in affidavits and state election hearings, she was fired as a poll manager by the Fulton County Department of Elections. “I got the boot for speaking the truth,” she told RCI.

At least three others have similar testimony of seeing mail-in ballots for Biden that appeared to be duplicates.

Biden “won” Georgia by less than 12,000 votes.  From what is sworn already, the fraud from Fulton Co. is likely well into the thousands.  One estimate is 10 to 20 thousand.

Now the mail-in ballots will be inspected unless the Democrats can stop that somehow.

Again, this could be big.  Watch Fulton County, Georgia.

(And, no, I am not among the naïve who think the election will be overturned with Trump taking the White House before 2024 or even this year.  That is just not how the Constitution works.  But if the election is proven beyond a reasonable doubt in a public forum to be stolen in one or more states, that will surely have consequences nonetheless.  At the very least, the credibility of the Biden regime will be diminished and the determination of Americans to be rid of it increased.)

Scot McKnight, C4SO, and the Authority of Scripture

Right at the start I should say I completely understand there are faithful, scholarly people who have a robust view on the authority of Scripture but who do not think “inerrancy” is the best way to describe the authority of Scripture.  I respect such people although I hold to inerrancy myself.

With that out of the way, I was annoyed, then disturbed when I read Canon (in the Diocese of Churches for the Sake of Others – C4SO) Scot McKnight’s post on inerrancy, really a smear of inerrancy.  His straw men and poor reasoning, such as conflating inerrancy with wooden literal interpretations of Scripture annoyed me.  Quibbling over inerrancy applying to the original texts also annoyed me.  He fusses about that, but nobody holds to the inerrancy of translators or of ancient copiers although we now know through the Dead Sea scrolls and more that we have remarkably reliable copies.  As for translations, I am only half-joking when I recommend NIV Bibles for doorstops.

Then he picked at some poor reasoning from the inerrancy camp.  To which I say, so what?  We hold to the inerrancy of Scripture, not the inerrancy of inerrancists. 

If the whole piece were only quibbling and straw men and the like, I would have just been annoyed, shook my head, then moved on.  As I said at the turn of the year, I have to be more selective in posting here.

But then came this:

I know some who think inerrant means Moses wrote the Pentateuch, theistic evolution is wrong, Isaiah wrote Isaiah, Jesus was denied by Peter six times (Lindsell), and that Paul wrote all the letters ascribed to him – and while we’re at it, so did Peter.

Back to authority. NT Wright said often that he believes not in the authority of Scripture but in the authority of God who speaks to us in Scripture (Surprised by Scripture). 

At this point, I got disturbed, agitated even.  I don’t care if St. N. T. Wright said that, that statement is the sort of swill I have heard from LibChurchers for years.  I still remember four decades ago a guest preacher at my evangelical Presbyterian Church, saying from the pulpit this or something very close: “We don’t believe the Bible but the Christ behind the Bible.” (Yes, I informed her after the service that we believe the Bible at that church.)  Such are old weasel words that claim to be faithful to the Lord while tossing his written word aside when it’s just too inconvenient. It’s a cowardly way of appearing to hold to the authority of Scripture without actually holding to the authority of Scripture.

Well, clergy cannot get away with that.  Or at least they shouldn’t get away with that.  If you believe God, you believe his word.  You don’t get to sit as a judge over his word; his word judges you.

Or was Jesus mistaken when he said:

For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.  Matt. 5:18

“Oh we believe Jesus, but we know so much more about Scripture than he did.”*

Yeah, try telling that to his face in the Judgement.

McKnight gives a big hint in how far gone he is in denying the authority of Scripture when comes right to the edge of denying “Isaiah wrote Isaiah, . . . Paul wrote all the letters ascribed to him – and while we’re at it, so did Peter.”  He even seems to ridicule those views by lumping them together with a strange interpretation that has Peter denying Christ six times.

Now if he has elsewhere clearly denied or questioned the authorship of Isaiah or of Peter's and Paul’s letters, I am not aware.  But if not, then his bishop should flat out ask him if he believes the Bible when it says “Isaiah wrote Isaiah, . . . Paul wrote all the letters ascribed to him – and while we’re at it, so did Peter.”  If McKnight cannot answer in the affirmative, he should be dismissed as Canon with further discipline under consideration.  After all, ACNA is supposed to be an orthodox Anglican church, not a liberal seminary.

Oh.  Right.  His bishop is Todd Hunter of the Diocese of Churches for the Sake of Others. 

Yes, holding to the authority of Scripture may eventually call for discipline in the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA) beyond just dealing with Scot McKnight.

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*No that is not a direct quote of any Libchurcher.  It’s a translation.