Adding to the Fact File on Les Puryear

A minor dust-up has taken place in SBC blogging life regarding Les Puryear. Les has been blogging recently on the topic of Antinomianism (see here, here, here, and here), at which topic he arrived by way of a discussion of tithing.

Now Les has come under the sort of mean-spirited personal attack that has far too often characterized Southern Baptist blogging since I began reading SBC blogs in 2006. Les's personal correspondence has been re-routed and misused by people with no honor. The use of this material has occurred in a manner calculated to malign Les. Les has now given a full explanation of what REALLY happened. People will challenge the veracity of Les's account, you can count on that.

I have one piece of information to offer as corroboration of what Les has written. Before anyone else published anything about what Les was doing, Les telephoned me to ask me if I would be interested in authoring a scholarly rebuttal of Köstenberger's paper. Les and I don't speak by telephone often (maybe three or four times ever in our lives), so it is easy to recall the details. I declined to write the paper and directed him to other people who might be interested or might already have been working on similar projects (because this kind of subject matter is important to them). The facts of our telephone conversation line up perfectly with Les's explanation of what was happening in his interaction with Dr. Daniel Akin at SEBTS, in which he mentioned the scholarly rebuttal as something that grew out of his subsequent interaction with Dr. Akin.

Oh, and before you come to the conclusion that I'm just sticking up for a blogging-buddy, I would like to point out that my relationship with Les Puryear has been tense—very tense—rather than warm and cuddly. You might consider this post, which I took as an attack piece upon myself personally and which misrepresented my personal beliefs and practices (an action which I'm willing to regard as a mistake on Les's part). Look at the comment thread on that one and see how warm it got. And then, not long afterwards, I prematurely outed Les's 2008 bid for the SBC Presidency and then flatly opposed his election (see here and here).

In my original post outing Les's candidacy, I wondered out loud whether Les was an Antinomian (you'll find that little tidbit if you read the post). I'd say that question has been answered! I apologize, Les, for misunderstanding you. And I think now you see why I was on the lookout for Antinomians in our midst back then. You don't have to look very far.

I imagine that Les Puryear and I will disagree on many more things in the future, but I've always tried to be honest about him and to be honest with him. Les is not a part of my "camp" or anything, but I count him as a brother and I'm hopeful that he is someone independent who has come to see a difference between the way our "camp" operates and the way that others conduct business in the SBC.

Was Les trying to get Köstenberger fired? I don't think that Les wrote that letter to get Köstenberger fired any more than people who tint windows for a living are trying to extinguish the Sun. People who tint windows for a living see the detrimental effect of too much sunshine, but they know that extinguishing the Sun is not within their power. Likewise, I don't think that Les ever seriously thought for a moment that he had the juice to get a professor fired. Goodness gracious! I'm a TRUSTEE at an SBC seminary and I don't think that I have the clout to get walking papers drawn up for a professor just because I disagree with something that a professor writes or says. Anybody who thinks that Les has the ability to get Andreas Köstenberger fired—anybody who thinks that Les thinks that Les has the ability to get Köstenberger fired—is certifiably out of touch with reality.

I think that Les disagreed with Köstenberger's position, that Köstenberger's paper perhaps seemed to Les to be unduly dismissive of Les's own viewpoint, that Les worried that Köstenberger's reasoning might indicate not only a troublesome conclusion on a particular doctrine but also a troublesome understanding of the nature of Old Testament scripture, and that (here's the crux of the matter) Les wanted to lodge a complaint. Does lodging a complaint mean that Les, if he were hiring new professors for some hypothetical seminary of his own, might not have Andreas Köstenberger at the top of his list? I think it probably means at least that. Does it mean that Les thought he could get Köstenberger fired and had determined to do so? No.

Does it mean that Les was questioning whether Köstenberger belonged at SEBTS? Clearly it did, but it also appears just as clearly that Les was perfectly willing to listen to good answers to his questions. I'll bet that you freely opine as to who ought to be pitching for your favorite baseball team or whether the coach of your favorite football team ought to be fired before next season. Maybe you've even called in to an ESPN radio show or written a Letter to the Editor on the topic. Most people, if and when they gain the actual authority to be able to make hiring and firing decisions, are more judicious, circumspect, and cautious when taking irreversible actions than they are when they are expressing an opinion. Les was just expressing an opinion and asking a question (albeit a definitely pregnant one). He disagreed with Köstenberger's opinion and with Köstenberger's rationale for getting there, and Les was expressing his disagreement.

The real irony here is that the side of Southern Baptist life that styles itself in its promotional material as being the champions of free dissent and transparency in the SBC just dropped a piano on a guy for his choice of words in the mere action of his exercising his freedom to dissent and to lodge a complaint with an SBC entity.

The Bell Has Rung on the Final Round

If you have recently longed for the ugliness of earlier epochs in Baptist blogging, take courage. The newest post-Olympic sport seems to be Synchronized Slander. Within the past few hours, both Wade Burleson and Les Puryear have published attacks upon people who champion the biblical principles of Baptist Identity, each directed not at what we say, but at what they say that they are sure that we must mean by what we say (great mind-readers that they are).

But apart from this post, I'll not be taking the bait. I've found in the recent hiatus that I have plenty to enjoy in blogging without a brouhaha. I enjoy fellowship with my friends over at SBC Today, the production of "SBC Perspective" with them for that site, blogging on items that interest me, and pursuing the Lord's work in my church and the SBC. I have interacted with some bloggers in the past as I have believed that their movement posed some danger to the Lord's work in the SBC. I no longer see much of a movement, and I no longer can justify such an intense investment of the fleeting days that the Lord has allotted to me.

If there has been any contest between me and Wade or Les, I declare that the bell has rung on the final round, so far as I am concerned. At times I wrongly went out of my way to make personal what was theological. Theology is personal if it is real, but the harshest of my writing spoke more to my lingering and dogged immaturities as a believer than to the many weaknesses in my erstwhile opponents' positions.

In the future, I will be just as immature, I do fear, but I plan at least to make it less obvious to the world. And in doing so, I hope that the many weaknesses in these other positions will become the focus of attention rather than the heat that our discourse has sometimes generated.

Les Puryear Follow Up

C. B. Scott, Kevin Bussey, Rob Ayers, and a whole host of people have opined that my post before last about Les Puryear was out-of-bounds. These are all good Christian gentlemen, and I'm praying over the matter. Allow me to state the following ad interim:

1. It is pretty obvious at this point that Les is going to run. C. B. indicated in a comment on the earlier post that he had confirmed independently that Les plans to run. I think that's great (so long as he doesn't win). Go for it, Les. Anybody who wishes to do so ought to be able to run for SBC office. But when you run, you place upon Southern Baptists the obligation to figure out who you are and evaluate you as a candidate. That's what I've been trying to do. If I were not extremely confident that Les is going to run, I would not have posted this stuff.
2. Les and I obviously have our theological differences, and I have a reservation or two about Les as the leader of the SBC. I'll be voting contrariwise. I was pretty candid in stating that, but no more candid than people have been about Ronnie Floyd or Al Mohler. My objections to Les as the leader of the SBC do not equate to reservations about Les as a person, Christian, or pastor. In fact, among our candidates running right now, Les would be my #2 choice.
3. I think that politics is a good thing. When Southern Baptists abandon politics, the bureaucracy takes over. Just like when Southern Baptist churches abandon the "politics" of business meetings, the staff takes over. I think that much of what people took as insulting in the previous post was merely my pointing out that Les is working politically. I don't consider that to be an insult. I'm working politically. I work politically a lot. I believe that it is important to do so. I believe that we have an obligation and a duty to do so. I concede that this point makes me something of an odd duck among Southern Baptists. Everyone else seems to love to be political while pretending that they are not. I think that's duplicitous, and needlessly so. The SCLC was clearly political (not solely political, but politics played a role), but that doesn't make it a bad thing.
4. Given what seems to be the blogging consensus that I've said too much about the Puryear candidacy, I make this pledge: I'll not publish any more posts about Les's candidacy for SBC President between now and Indianapolis.

So, Les can have his announcement without further comment from moi. If I have misrepresented Les, he can clear the air however he sees fit. Differences aside, I believe him to be a good and honorable man. I just don't think he would make a good presiding officer over the SBC. But then neither would I.

Another SBC Presidential Candidate? Les Puryear's Possible Bid

As a follower of things political in the SBC, I have been watching with significant interest the preliminaries to the 2008 SBC Presidential Election in Indianapolis:

1. The indomitable Wiley Drake became the first announced candidate on Aug 13, 2007, when Robert Bosworth, who attends Drake's church, made public his intention to nominate Drake in Indianapolis. (HT: ABP) We've heard very little about Drake's candidacy since then, and it is possible that things have changed. But until a formal withdrawal from "the race" takes place, we'll consider Bro. Wiley to be in the running.
2. Speaking of "the race," Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary faculty member Bill Wagner has engaged the campaign for the presidency in as formal a race-oriented way as any candidate in convention history. Wagner has a campaign staff, a campaign website, and his own Gingrichesque contract with the SBC. Wagner's campaign faces an uphill climb much more significant than the physical journey across the Rockies that he'll need to make in order to reach Indiana from California, but he's in the running.
3. I had found my candidate when, on January 2, 2008, Dr. Albert Mohler, President of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and among the SBC's leading statesmen, announced that Dr. Robert Jeffress would nominate him for the office. (HT: SBC Today, where you can find excellent interviews with all of the confirmed SBC Presidential candidates) After he had suffered the slings and arrows of many on the leftward periphery of the convention, Dr. Mohler's campaign was brought to an abrupt end by a cancer scare (see here).
4. Dr. Frank Cox of Lawrenceville, GA, announced on February 7, 2008, that famed evangelist Junior Hill would nominate him for the presidency. Cox gave a very encouraging interview to SBC Today and is clearly the frontrunner at this point. His nominator is unparalleled. He is a Cooperative Program champion. He has a devotion to God's Word and a gracious personality that resonates with Southern Baptists across the convention. With Dr. Mohler's withdrawal, Frank Cox has become the man to beat.

Will those be the only candidates? I think not. None of these are acceptable candidates for the Burleson Coalition (although I satirically suggested that Bill Wagner would make a good candidate for them, but I doubt that they will cast their vote for Dr. Wagner). Sources close to Burleson and sympathetic to his movement have been reporting in local associations in diverse locations across the country for several months that another candidate would be coming—a small-church pastor with high-profile endorsements. I now believe that I know who that person will be: Les Puryear.

If Puryear runs, it will be among the most fortuitous positions from which to seek the office in recent memory. Historically, potential candidates have used the Pastors Conference as a forum from which to gain press coverage, name recognition, and a forum for identifying with a platform. Puryear himself inquired about the possibility of advancing "a small church pastor" to lead the Pastors Conference until he learned about the exorbitant cost that the president of the conference incurs each year. Besides, format changes in the Pastors Conference have made it not nearly as effective as a political pre-meeting for the convention.

But Puryear won't need the help of a Pastors Conference—he has gained press coverage, name recognition, and a forum for identifying with a platform by creating his own conference. Rather than having to pony up cash for it, he has managed to obtain sponsorship from unwitting CP entities for the meeting.

At Puryear's conference, the current President of the SBC as much as endorsed Puryear. According to the North Carolina Biblical Recorder:

"It's time to have a small church pastor as president of the SBC," said Page, just two months from concluding his second one-year term as president. He encouraged participants to "nominate someone in this room."

Now, just today, Puryear has cryptically declined to sponsor a motion in Indianapolis, saying:

You say that you're looking for someone to present your motion as you will not be able to do so. I am not the one to do it as will become more clear next week.

From all of this evidence, it seems clear to me that Les Puryear is going to announce for SBC President next week. Now, a bit of political analysis:

1. Who will nominate Puryear? That is the $64,000 question. Has the presiding officer of the convention ever attempted to nominate his successor? I suppose that I ought to know, but I do not. Junior Hill will be a difficult nominator to beat, but if Puryear can line up enough support—maybe make certain that sympathetic platform personalities mention his conference from time to time during the convention meeting—then the cumulative effect just might be formidable.
2. Will Burleson, Cole, and the SBC Outpost gang endorse Puryear publicly, or will they work from behind the scenes? Clearly he's the best candidate for their movement among the announced options so far. Puryear has made careful and public efforts to distance himself from Burleson in the immediate past, and with Burleson's polarizing persona, that's probably the wisest move at this point. But count on this: Les Puryear's committee appointments would be precisely the kind of appointments that Wade Burleson would make.
3. Is it really possible for a blogger to get anywhere in public office-seeking in the SBC today? When I started blogging, I just presumed that it would be impossible ever to run for anything and very difficult ever to move to another church because of blogging. That works fine for me, because I'm at the best church in the SBC. Less information on the wire about you is generally better, as is less involvement in controversy. For example, how will the convention respond to Puryear's assertion that no true Christian can ever be in unrepentant sin? Is Puryear an Antinomian? If he were not a blogger, it is doubtful that anyone would even know about his more peculiar views, but there's all sorts of information on the wire about Puryear and all of the rest of us who blog. I'm not sure that any of us bloggers will ever be elected to anything for that reason. Better to keep one's head low and one's mouth shut if one aspires to office.
4. I think that future SBC Presidential candidates may be less likely to give interviews to blogs because of this. Puryear has solicited and received interviews from the other candidates as a blogger, not as a challenger to the election. If much more of this happens, candidates may prove to be skittish about dealing with bloggers as though they were professional journalists who, even if biased in their questioning, are certain not to be running themselves in elections. If Puryear had been forthright with these men about his intentions to run, would they have granted the interviews? I'm not suggesting that Les broke any rules—the blogging rules haven't been written yet. I'm just suggesting that circumstances like this will be the kinds of conflict of interest that will lead bloggers to try to establish some sort of an ethical code to cover advocacy blogging.

Part of me hopes that Puryear is running. It would make me feel a lot better about something that has been bothering me. Over at SBC Impact a couple of days ago, Les posted an attack piece against me just out of the blue. It referenced a post that was ancient by blogging standards and twisted my words in bizarre ways. When I confronted Les with the misrepresentations, he wouldn't even discuss the specifics. As the tone of my comments surely revealed (I'm not that good at hiding such things), I was a little hurt by the whole event. Even though we've disagreed on some things, I thought that Les and I had a decent online relationship, and I couldn't understand why he would take a gratuitous slap at me and then refuse even to discuss the matter.

It didn't make sense for a friendly acquaintance and blogger to do that, but for a politician to do it? With that post Les tried to style himself as "middle of the road" (until Peter Lumpkins made him regret that wording) and then avoided saying anything substantive in the follow up that could come back to bite him later. That's one strategy that a candidate for the SBC presidency might follow…a business decision. "It's not personal; it's business." And I feel better about that. Because the business of elections will be over soon enough, and all will be back to what it was before.

I'm still not going to make an endorsement. I don't know for certain that Les will run—these are just my suspicions 99% confirmed by Les's statement on his blog today. Also, I don't know that Les will be the last candidate if he does run. I'll make an endorsement before we get to Indianapolis, but for now I'm keeping my options open.

But since "Joining God in His Work" has made it a point to interview all of the SBC candidates, I'll really be interested in reading Les's interview of himself. :-)