Principled Objection or Situational Objection?

Around the Internet and elsewhere various people have objected to the nomination of Dr. Albert Mohler for election as President of the Southern Baptist Convention. Among the reasons for objection have been the claim that Dr. Mohler's election would represent a conflict of interest, since he presides over the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky. Nobody has been able to offer any specific credible suggestion as to how a seminary president might advance his personal interests or the interests of the seminary as SBC President. Furthermore, the SBC has elected so many entity heads as SBC President in the past as to make the phenomenon not even noteworthy any longer. Yet still some people will persist in this objection. Why?

I make this observation: I have yet to encounter anyone who raises the conflict of interest objection who has absolutely no other objections to Dr. Mohler's election. In other words, the "conflict of interest" objection seems not to have strong enough legs to stand on its own. People who have other reasons to object to Dr. Mohler's election, according to my theory, latch upon the "conflict of interest" objection to buttress their real reasons for objecting to his election.

As evidence, I encourage you to do a little blog searching regarding this scenario. The office of First Vice President has the sole responsibilities of consulting with the President regarding appointments, presiding over portions of the annual meeting, and stepping into the presidency upon the inability of the President to fulfill his responsibilities. The only qualification for being First Vice President is to be able to be the President if required. If a person is unfit to be President, that person is necessarily also unfit to be First Vice President.

Last year, International Mission Board employee David Rogers was nominated for the office of First Vice President. His nominator suggested that a missionary—an employee of the SBC—was precisely who we "should have…leading us." I do not recall anyone from any point of view suggesting last year that it would be a conflict of interest for an employee of the IMB possibly to be in a position to influence the selection of trustees for the IMB (consulting with the President to make appointments, and possibly winding up as President himself to make the appointments).

If you can locate for me anyone who both objected to David Rogers's nomination last year on the basis of "conflict of interest" and is objecting to Dr. Mohler's nomination this year on the basis of "conflict of interest," then we will have located someone who is demonstrably operating out of a personal conviction (however misguided it may be) about conflict of interest.

A Recipe for Republican Defeat

It's simple math, really. The GOP selects its nominee by a delegate system. Through the current state primaries and caucuses, the various candidates are accumulating delegates. Whoever has the majority of delegates at the time of the party convention this Summer will be the GOP nominee.

However, a great many of those delegates come from states that simply will not, under any reasonable forecast, yield any electors for the Republican nominee in November. Thus, although New York's 101 delegates, New Jersey's 52 delegates and Connecticut's 27 delegates will help to select the GOP nominee, those states will not do a thing to help that nominee get elected this Fall.

Many people tout John McCain's "electability." Of course, "electability" contests seem always to feature McCain-Clinton or McCain-Obama matchups in national popular-vote polls. The popular vote, my friends, does not secure you the Presidency. Ask Al Gore. To win, you have to win the Electoral College. One simple fact remains clear, reinforced by today's results in Kansas—John McCain cannot win in the South. With the low GOP turnout a McCain ticket is certain to produce in the South, the Dems may have a better chance of picking off some Southern states than they have had in my lifetime. McCain does a great job winning Republican primaries in the Northeast, but he cannot win there in November. He is not a wise selection for Republicans.

Let the argument begin, but I'll be taking names for "I told you so"s in November. [grin]

Thank God for Calvinists

Thank you, Lord, for the Calvinists who have contributed so much to the kingdom.

Thank you for William Kiffin, that untiring and unflinching defender of believer's baptism. Thank you for his quick wit and sharp tongue. Thank you for his steadfast continuation in an erstwhile unpopular and minority view that has since, by Your grace and power, come to be the cherished belief of millions.

Thank you for Kiffin's nemesis, that unlettered tinker of Bedford, John Bunyan. His Calvinism, perhaps, contributed to his ongoing flirtation with the sprinkling of infants and kept him from ever fully being a Baptist, yet I thank you for his twelve principled years in Bedford Jail and the great heavenly beauty that flowed from his pen.

Lord, I thank you for Andrew Fuller, the midwife of Baptist evangelism and missions. Reawaken in your children, dear Father, an appreciation for the worthiness of the gospel and a commitment to share it with the world. Thank you for giving him a vision of your kingdom beyond his environs, and thank you for the generosity of the church at Kettering to allow their pastor to wander from the fens of Northamptonshire to the moors of Scotland to encourage missionary faithfulness among the Baptist brethren.

I thank you, Lord, for William Carey, the plodding soldier of the cross who sacrificed so much and yet endured in his witness. Thank you for moving his supervisors and supporters not to cut him off after seven seemingly fruitless years without any converts gained or churches planted. Thank you for the teeming masses that You brought into the gospel through Carey's faithfulness. Grant him the joy of your glory, dear Lord, now that the sorrows of his family life here on earth are no more.

Thank you, Father, for Boyce and Broadus and Manley. Thank you for their dream that Southern Baptists could raise up a legion of pastors—men with training to match their passion and calling—to carry the gospel into the burgeoning communities of North America and beyond. Thank you for the riches and comforts that they laid upon the altar in their quest.

And I thank you, O Lord, for a new generation of students with an appetite for the passionate writings of the sixteenth, seventeeth, and eighteenth centuries. I do not think it a coincidence that the century which contributed McDonalds and microwave dinners to cuisine also contributed Barth and Elliot to Christian thought and practice. I know that today there are some who claim the mantle of Calvin who have drunk freely at the well of evangelical ecumenism (and consequently, have drunk a great deal more than that!), but for the great heritage of so many other Calvinists, I thank you, O Lord.

I do not thank you for their Calvinism, dear Father. I think it a way of thinking often inclined to impose philosophy above the sacred text (and sometimes violently so). Sometimes I pray that You would protect us from the extremes of Calvinism. Yet for all of these men, whatever failures or weaknesses they embodied, their commitment to You was so evidently greater than their allegiance to any system devised by men. Without the men listed above, we Baptists would never have found evangelism and missions in the first place to ever be in danger of losing them. They have been among the first and most faithful to point us to the Great Commission. It is for this, their allegiance to the cross and their tireless labors for the kingdom, that I say to You, thank You, O Eternal Father, for these our Calvinist forebears and brethren.

Frank Cox's Hat Is in the Ring

Baptist Press is reporting that Georgia pastor Frank Cox is seeking the presidency of the SBC in 2008. I don't know that much about Pastor Cox but am anxious to learn more. I remain persuaded to vote for Dr. Albert Mohler. The next few months will be interesting.

Fighting for Will

Our cultural landscape in the United States of America is sometimes bewildering. Are we in good shape or is America going to Hell in a handbasket? The question is so vast and the data so variegated as to make daunting the task of giving a simple answer.

Nowhere is our culture's complexity more pronounced in my mind than as it regards the health of religious liberty in the United States of America. On the one hand, our multicultural society fares much better than its predecessors in handling some forms of religious liberty. A Mormon is receiving serious consideration as a candidate for the highest elected office in the land! A Muslim congressman was sworn in on the Qur'an. Significant conflict still ripples out from the government's invasion and occupation of the realm of education, but otherwise we've made great strides in providing equal access to our nation's liberties for people of all faiths.

On the other hand, an alarming intolerance for biblical Christianity rears its ugly head every in our government every so often…just enough to raise some serious concerns.

Jim and Linda Dawkins came to First Baptist Church of Farmersville not too long ago. Gregarious and passionate about their faith, these two quickly engaged themselves into the fabric of our congregation. Jim is Linda's second husband—her first husband, Gene Vallow, ended their marriage after he renounced his former profession of faith in Jesus Christ, departing orthodox Christianity. He had been very faithful and active in church throughout his courtship and engagement with Linda. His repudiation of our Lord was a complete shock for her.

Having previously been a very active Christian, Linda's ex knew all of the intricate doctrines of the Christian faith, and he determined to try to use them against her in the battle for the custody of their son, Will. He alleged that a Christian upbringing would turn Will against him because it would teach that Gene is destined for Hell. A Dallas-area court agreed, awarding sole custody to Gene simply because Linda believes the Bible and wants the freedom to teach it to her son.

Linda has a website and a blog. I hope that you'll visit Fighting for Will (and the Fighting for Will blog here) and offer her your encouragement. Her religious liberty has been violated at the hands of the state, and not over some trivial matter, but by abducting her son from her. I'm praying that God will raise up some modern day Williams or Leland to right this injustice.

How to Blog in 2008

I have resolved the following with regard to my own blogging in 2008:

1. I'm going to take even more time between posts and attempt to write more substantively.
2. I'm going to give even less attention to bickering within comment streams.
3. I'm going to comment even less on other blogs.
4. I'm going to blog even more about what I want to write and react even less to other people's posts.

I don't know that this will last forever, but I'm genuinely trying to find the right balance between my pastoral responsibilities, my family responsibilities, my spiritual responsibilities, and my blogging activities. At some times in the past, I've let blogging take too much time from other pursuits. I've done much better lately, but I've done so without letting my readers have any idea what was going on. I'm thinking about establishing a more careful discipline that you can count on…maybe posting something every Thursday, for example.

Same Song...Second Verse

SBC Outpost seems to have launched with renewed spite a series of attacks upon SWBTS and Dr. Patterson (for lack of anything else to post right now?). I react thusly: