Repeal of DADT led one chaplain out of the Southern Baptist Convention (into the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship)

Repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell did affect the religious freedom of chaplains, thanks to Southern Baptists:

Remember the dire warnings from religious right groups that the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell would destroy military chaplains’ freedom of religion and right to follow their conscience on matters regarding same-sex relationships? Turns out they were right, but the threat isn’t from gay couples or the military hierarchy—it’s from the Southern Baptist Convention. Timothy Kincaid at Box Turtle Bulletin recounts the tale of Air Force Col. Timothy Wagoner, who was present at—not even officiating—a union ceremony between two men at the chapel he oversees. “I wouldn’t miss it,” Wagoner told Army Times, “I don’t feel I’m compromising my beliefs… I’m supporting the community.”

That was enough to get Wagoner hauled before the SBC’s North American Mission Board, which emailed a letter to all Southern Baptist military chaplains reaffirming the church’s position on same-sex unions. More is planned, including a videoconference for senior chaplains.

Wagoner is still a chaplain, as The Christian Post reports:

Col. Timothy Wagoner, who serves at an Air Force base in New Jersey, left the Southern Baptist Convention and joined the more progressive Cooperative Baptist Fellowship. The long-time chaplain confirmed his switch to The Associated Press on Friday.

"I find very little that is more important and nothing that is more exhilarating than providing for the religious freedoms and spiritual care of all service members and their families – and will joyfully continue to do so," Wagoner, senior chaplain at Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, said to AP.

[H/T Religion Dispatches]

Southern Baptist minister, elders guilty of not reporting abuse

Failing to report child abuse is a crime for which there is no justifiable church exemption. And as Christa Brown brought to our attention, the consequences of failure to report fell on the heads of a New Hampshire Southern Baptist pastor and two elders last week.

She wrote:

In New Hampshire, [at Valley Christian Church] Southern Baptist pastor Timothy Dillmuth and two church elders, Richard Eland and Robert Gagnon, were found guilty of failing to report child sex abuse. ... According to the judge’s written ruling, pastor Dillmuth “had met with the parents of a child who had been molested by a member of the church, which he later confirmed after talking to the child.

“The information was shared with other members of the board of elders in September 2009,” and was discussed at some meetings of the church board.

A month later, when another member of the church urged the child’s parents to report the matter to authorities, pastor Dillmuth talked to the concerned church member and told him to “keep his mouth shut.”

They sought a religious exception to the law, the Union leader reported:

The three men, [District Court of Northern Carroll County Judge Pamela Albee] wrote, sought to have immunity from criminal liability in failing to report the case of suspected child abuse, "arguing that they acted in good faith in persuading the parents and the perpetrator to make report of abuse." The men were arrested in early February by Conway police and charged that they had reason to suspect a girl had been sexually abused but did not report it as required by state law.

Suppression of the sort they sought punishes the victim, is shameful and deserves legal action.

Southern Baptist Sharron Angle (& others)

Southern Baptist Sharron Angle misjudged the electorate in Nevada, and lost.

Amanda Marcotte makes a coherent argument that Angle's Mama Grizzly racism is to some conservatives an unbearable contradiction of her femininity. A deal breaker:

This contradiction exposed why it's so critical to the fundamentalist worldview that women stay at home and abandon ambition. In this world, women are supposed to be the light, the caretakers, the homemakers, those who smooth feathers and wipe brows. Aggression, meanness, ambition, and even lustiness are considered more masculine traits, even by the public at large. As Dave Weigel reports, the Republicans are beginning to feel that Sharron Angle, at least, spent too much time in the public eye. The longer the public stares at a Mama Grizzly, the more painful the contradiction between her ideals of femininity and her actual behavior.

Mark Silk makes the only slightly related argument that Angle and Christine O'Donnell would have done better if neither had been so much the culture warrior:

I would submit that Angle and O'Donnell lost not because of radical Tea Partyism but because they smelled too much of the unwanted social conservatism of yesteryear.

Who represents that social conservatism better than Angle's fellow Southern Baptist, SBC ethics czar Richard Land? His post-election analysis was first an echo of aging rightist Richard Viguerie (one more chance for the Republicans). Then, almost as though we held national referenda in this country, Land asserted a rejection of "Obamacare," a repudiation of judicial decisions with which he disagrees, a rejection of same-sex marriage and so on.

More about which, later.

Associate pastor barred from church pending resolution of sexual misconduct charges

Emerald Baptist Church Associate Pastor and Minister of Music Norman Henley Keesee has been barred from church activities and the church grounds pending resolution of charges of sexual misconduct and lewd acts.

Keesee, a Southern Baptist, was arrested by Greenwood, S.C., police after "the mother of a 13 year old girl and attendee of Emerald Baptist Church met with authorities to alert them to allegations made by her daughter."

According to GWD Today:

The victim stated that during private keyboard lessons conducted in the victims bedroom, Keesee would touch areas of her body that were not conducive with the lesson. The victim said that she would pull away from Keesee but that he would continue his actions during the lesson. According to the mother, Keesee had given her daughter keyboard lessons from February to July of this year. The victim had told her mother at the end of July that she no longer wanted to play the keyboard, which according to the mother was very strange at the time. The victim also gave a second child's name with which Keesee had given keyboard lessons.

Associated Baptist Press reports that Pastor Curtis Eidson said:

As the pastor of the church, I am not here tonight to defend anyone's innocence nor to declare anyone's guilt. It's not my place. I am here to say tonight, though, that with all that is going on Norman is still my brother in the Lord and the victim is still my sister in the Lord. Nothing, absolutely nothing, will change that.

North Carolina youth minister arrested

Thomas L. Elliott, who is a youth minister at Autryville Baptist Church in North Carolina, was arrested in an undercover internet sex sting by the Guilford County Sheriff’s Office Thursday evening, the Sampson Independent reported.

Elliot was a volunteer youth minister at Evergreen Baptist Church before being hired at Autryville Baptist.

[Cross posted at BaptistPlanet.wordpress.com]

What N.C. Southern Baptist fundamentalists want in an editor?

About the abrupt resignation of North Carolina Biblical Recorder Editor Norman Jameson John D. Pierce of Baptists Today writes

In 2000, Herb Hollinger retired from the helm of Baptist Press — the Southern Baptist Executive Committee public relations arm that masquerades as a legitimate news service. In a meeting shortly afterward, longtime editor of Louisiana's Baptist Message, Lynn Clayton, asked then-SBC Executive Committee President Morris Chapman what kind of person would be chosen to lead BP.

Without hesitation, Chapman responded: “Someone loyal to me and the conservative cause.” While he expanded on that response, there was no mention of competence or experience, just loyalty to those looking for help in carrying out their Fundamentalist agenda. Chapman found such a person in Will Hall. North Carolina will find one too.

Did NAMB president give short shrift to the welfare of his church's children?

Refuse to testify and fail to warn your church's members about a sexual predator in their midst.

That was newly elected Southern Baptist North American Mission Board President Kevin Ezell's reaction when in 2004 as pastor of Highview Baptist Church in Louisville, Kentucky, he learned that a volunteer at his church who had also taught at a school operated by his church [see addendum] was accused of sex crimes. And Ezell was himself subpoenaed to testify before a grand jury.

Christa Brown at Stop Baptist Predators writes:

When prosecutors subpoenaed pastor Ezell to testify before the grand jury, Ezell invoked the clergy-penitent privilege. In other words, Ezell claimed that he couldn’t be required to testify under oath (i.e., under penalty of perjury) because he claimed that, as pastor, he was entitled to keep secret whatever Bill Maggard had told him.

...

Furthermore, as reported in the Courier-Journal, “Ezell said he did not expect the church would announce Maggard's arrest to the congregation.”

In many states, Ezell would not have had recourse to clergy-penitent privilege and could have had difficulties himself if found to have failed to report "known or suspected instances of child abuse or neglect." The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Child Welfare Information Gateway explains:

In approximately 18 States and Puerto Rico, any person who suspects child abuse or neglect is required to report.3 This inclusive language appears to include clergy but may be interpreted otherwise.

...

As a doctrine of some faiths, clergy must maintain the confidentiality of pastoral communications. Mandatory reporting statutes in some States specify the circumstances under which a communication is "privileged" or allowed to remain confidential. Privileged communications may be exempt from the requirement to report suspected abuse or neglect. The privilege of maintaining this confidentiality under State law must be provided by statute. Most States do provide the privilege, typically in rules of evidence or civil procedure.4 If the issue of privilege is not addressed in the reporting laws, it does not mean that privilege is not granted; it may be granted in other parts of State statutes.

This privilege, however, is not absolute. While clergy-penitent privilege is frequently recognized within the reporting laws, it is typically interpreted narrowly in the context of child abuse or neglect. The circumstances under which it is allowed vary from State to State, and in some States it is denied altogether. For example, among the States that list clergy as mandated reporters, New Hampshire and West Virginia deny the clergy-penitent privilege in cases of child abuse or neglect. Four of the States that enumerate "any person" as a mandated reporter (North Carolina, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, and Texas) also deny clergy-penitent privilege in child abuse cases.

States which require reporting without regard to clergy-penitent privilege simply place the welfare of vulnerable children first.

Ezell could have put the children first but, judging from available accounts, simply did not do that.

Addendum:

On March 19, 2004, the Associated Press reported:

Maggard, 56, was indicted in December on two counts of first-degree sexual abuse. He is accused of molesting seven boys between 1973 and 1975, when he was a fifth-grade teacher at Schaffner Elementary School.

The new indictment says Maggard molested the boys either at school or at his home.

Maggard was initially indicted Dec. 17. He pleaded not guilty at his Dec. 22 arraignment and later posted a $5,000 bond.

Maggard taught 13 years in Jefferson County Public Schools and later worked at a school operated by Highview Baptist Church, where he also volunteered in Sunday school and choir programs until recently.

The 6,000-member church is one of the state's largest Southern Baptist congregations.

On August 3, 2004, WLKY.com reported:

A former teacher pleaded guilty to sexually abusing seven boys in the 1970s and early 1980s.

The deal calls for Bill Maggard Jr., 57, to spend up to 10 years in prison, WLKY NewsChannel 32 reported Tuesday.

. . .

Maggard taught for 13 years in Jefferson County Public Schools, and later worked at a school operated by Highview Baptist Church.

The church has said it has no claims of abuse

At sentencing time, Maggard made the kind of plea for clemency that is eerily predictable for church-going predators. On October 01, 2004, Jason Riley of the Louisville Courier-Journal wrote:

"I'm sorry for my actions many years ago," he said during his sentencing hearing in Jefferson Circuit Court, adding that he sought treatment in the early 1980s and would be willing to do so again. "I faced my sin, sought forgiveness, sought help and God kept His promise."

What of his victims? The burden of warning them appears to have fallen to the press and an alert member of Ezell's congregation. As Christa explains:

And thank God for a member of Ezell’s congregation who saw what was happening in her church and worried about the safety of the kids. As reported in the Courier-Journal, a member of Highview knew about prior allegations of abuse by Maggard, and she was concerned about his being in contact with children in the church. So, she contacted the victims and encouraged them to go to police.

Did Maggard seek out his victims and provide treatment to them?

Were those seeking clemency for Maggard at least similarly concerned about finding and helping all of his victims? You know: The suffering children.

How 'forgiveness' becomes cover-up for church sexual predators

Christa Brown calls our attention to a story of a Southern Baptist church's negligence in dealing with a preacher's sexual abuse of his adopted children. She quotes from the Anchorage Daily News:

Church officials knew the oldest daughter, Renee, was being abused long before Diana did. One of them, according to Renee's sworn testimony, told her to forgive her father and not tell anyone what he had done. It was three years before Renee got the courage to speak up again. By then, her father had started in on her two little sisters.

You see in that horror why sexual predators regard churches as attractive environments.

For example, one predator told a researcher [.pdf]:

I considered church people easy to fool...they have a trust that comes from being Christians...They tend to be better folks all around. And they seem to want to believe in the good that exists in all people ... I think they want to believe in people. And because of that, you can easily convince, with or without convincing words.

Thus forgiveness becomes cover-up, with hellish results for victims.

Oops? Again? In the case of FBC Jax Watchdog

Oops is in a way how FBC Jax Watchdog was robbed of his anonymity.

Formerly anonymous blogger Thomas A. Rich's identity was made public after an unnecessary investigation whose details are still being unearthed in court.

Although some evidence pertaining to the involvement of Florida State Attorney Angela Corey was somehow inadvertently destroyed.

Really, and that destruction is cited as part of an argument against deposing Corey as part of the proceedings.

"Oops!" indeed.

Another injustice.

McKissic's racism motion referred to committee

Texas pastor Dwight McKissic's much-anticipated motion to disfellowship churches which condone racism was referred to the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) Executive Committee.

Such referrals standard process, the Arkansas Baptist news reported:

Committee on Order of Business Chairman Jonathan Whitehead of Missouri, expressed agreement for the intent of the motion, but suggested the need to refer it to the SBC Executive Committee.

“We do not disagree with the spirit behind your motion at all,” Whitehead said. “Whenever we go amending our legal documents we should probably follow the process of letting the proper entities deal with the appropriate legal processes.”

What IMB message did the SBC messengers stay away from in droves on Wednesday?

Jerry Rankin, president of the International Mission Board, told the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) on June 15:

...there are 11,000-plus distinct, ethnic people groups in the world, and more than 6,400 of those are still unreached with less than 2 percent of them who have heard the gospel. ... [and] after sending out more than 900 new missionaries in 2008 and reaching a record level of 5,624 missionary personnel overseas, the IMB is having to cut back to no more than 5,000 missionaries by the end of 2010 due to budget restrictions.

Read the complete account by Lonnie Wilkey of the Tennessee Baptist and Reflector [here].

More of the SBC same on clerical sexual predators

Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) heavies who gracelessly dragged their feet on acknowledging Frank Page's selection as president of the SBC Executive Committee seem unlikely to have been concerned about his castigation of the victims of Southern Baptist clergy sex abuse.

It is after all the SBC which rejected a proposal to create a central database of staff and clergy who have been either convicted of or indicted on charges of molesting minors.

Christa reviewed today Page's record in that regard. If there is cause in it for hope that Southern Baptist children will be better protected under Page's administration, we cannot find it. Take a look. Thoughts?

Send records of the Great Commission Resurgence Task Force deliberations to WikiLeaks

Controversy over the decision to seal for 15 years the record of deliberations by the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) Great Commission Resurgence Task Force is easily stilled. One person with access need only provide the complete record to WikiLeaks.

Before the SBC meets in Orlando, Fla.

Thereafter, assuming WikiLeaks can be prompted to republish with suitable dispatch, everyone who is so inclined can contemplate the deliberations at his or her leisure.

Although those who wish to cast thoroughly well-informed votes on related decisions in Orlando may have to set aside more time for reading/listening and less for sleep, they're responsible people and can be relied upon to make the necessary sacrifice. If they're afforded that opportunity.

WWJD for a declining denomination?

A Southern Baptist researcher asks the right questions, but not enough of them.

Ed Stetzer, president of LifeWay Research, looks at the "ongoing decline" in Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) membership. He says a loss of 68,350 members in 2009 and statistics from other recent years shows that SBC membership has peaked, and suggests that Southern Baptists react with questions like the one posed in Charles Sheldon's novel "In His Steps:"

"What Would Jesus Do?"

Stetzer, who previously showed the downward trend of SBC membership, says, "We are a denomination in decline. Some don’t like to admit it.  But, the decline of SBC membership is not a matter of debate.  It is a matter of math."

Worse, Southern Baptists already face a shrinking demographic pool from which to draw. Furthermore, the SBC's membership numbers are clearly inflated.

Stetzer rhetorically suggests four ways the SBC can fail to handle the decline:

• Option #1: Act as if nothing negative is really happening.
• Option #2: Acknowledge that the decline is real and blame some “other” segment of the convention for the decline. “It’s those contemporary pastors who have colluded with worldliness.” Or “It’s those old dusty pastors who have confused tradition with the power of the gospel.”
• Option #3: Blame lost people for being lost. Perhaps complaining about the state of the country will make lost people want to be saved.
• Option #4: Wish for something else. We can dream of a different future or pine away for a preferred past but without action in the present context of our churches, nothing with change.

Then Stetzer suggests a fifth option, which he says is the only way to impact the world: "a serious self-examination as to whether how we make disciples is rooted in Scripture and delivering the gospel effectively to our mission field. We can scarcely hope to impact the world if we do not approach the gospel and kingdom of God in the same way that Christ did."

Stetzer goes on to list four questions Southern Baptists should ask themselves.

• Do we value the kingdom as He did?
• Do we love sinners as He loved them?
• Do we serve as He served?
• Do we remind our neighbors of Jesus and tell them of His gospel?

Good questions, to which well-known SBC realities suggest that we add:

• What would Jesus do about pastors who use titles they haven't earned?
• What would Jesus do about a large majority of trustees coming from a small minority of churches?
• What would Jesus do about actions toward women that "fall short of biblical standards"?
• What would Jesus do about a former convention officer praying for the deaths of the president and members of Congress?
• What would Jesus do about executives who won't reveal their salaries?
• What would Jesus do about inflated mission numbers?
• What would Jesus do about a denomination closely aligning itself with a political party?
• What would Jesus do about church autonomy protecting predators?
• What would Jesus do about Batholics and Cathists?

To reverse the slide, the SBC must broadly consider what ails it. Not frame WWJD narrowly in an attempt to reduce the number of hard questions.

Former Southern Baptist youth pastor gets 17 years for assault

The former Southern Baptist youth pastor at Seaford Baptist Church, Jeremy "Jack" Duffer, 40, was sentenced to 17 years in prison for sexually assaulting two girls. The Virginia Gazette reported:

The charges stem from incidents in 2008 and 2009 involving two 15-year-old girls. Duffer was arrested last August after the parents of one of the girls contacted the Sheriff's Office after discovering an inappropriate text message from Duffer to their teenage daughter.

In February, when the conviction was handed down and the March 13 sentencing date set, the York County, Va., Daily Press, wrote:

Jeremy "Jack" Ryan Duffer, a 40-year-old former youth pastor at Seaford Baptist Church, pleaded guilty in York-Poquoson Circuit Court to eight charges of aggravated sexual battery with a child between the ages of 13 and 17 and a single count of taking indecent liberties with a child. In return, nine additional charges of aggravated sexual battery were dropped by the prosecution.

The Southern Baptist Convention of 'liars and embellishers'

Wade Burleson writes in blistering assessment of Southern Baptist Convention pastors' fake doctorates. The key passage:

Southern Baptist pastors seem infatuated with the title "Dr," even to the extent of asking others to use it of them before they've earned it. Take a gander at the Pastors' Conference line-up. Does every single speaker really have an earned doctorate? It would be inappropriate for some to single out one man for questioning without the rest of us demanding that all be held accountable.

Silsby to be tried; charges dropped agains the other 9: Updated

Southern Baptist Laura Silsby faces up to three years in Haitian prison if convicted of the remaining charge of "organization of irregular trips" under a 1980 statute. That charge was brought to bear against her in mid-March.

Other charges against her and all charges against the remaining nine Baptists have been dropped by Judge Bernard Saint-Vil, according to the Associated Press.

According to MSNBC, Judge Saint-Vil concluded that Silsby "knew she had no right to take the 33 children out of earthquake-ravaged Haiti" and she deceived the other nine by telling them she had the documents required to take the children out of Haiti.

The initial charges resulted from their attempt to take 33 children out of Haiti after the Jan. 12 earthquake. Silsby faces trial as a result of evidence of a Jan. 26 attempt by her to bus child earthquake survivors to the Dominican Republic.

As we reported earlier, Silsby was warned repeatedly prior to the arrests that her plan was illegal and would be regarded as child trafficking.

The Haitian law under which Silsby is charged restricts travel out of Haiti and was signed in 1980 by then-dictator Jean-Claude Duvalier. It carries a penalty of 3-6 years.

Oh no, Rubio! From outLandish to uh-oh

Promoted by SBC ethics czar Richard Land as a credible 2012 Republican presidential nominee, Mario Rubio is under Internal Revenue Service investigation.

The Miami Herald reports that Rubio is one of three former Florida Republican Party credit card holders being scrutinized for their alleged use of party credit cards to pay personal expenses.

Whether a full-fledged criminal investigation is merited has not been decided, and Rubio adviser Todd Harris told the Miami Herland, "There is absolutely nothing to this."

The principal effect, as Talking Points Memo suggests, is likely to be on the dynamics of Rubio's fight with Florida Gov. Charlie Crist for the Republican senatorial nomination, without which Rubio becomes another Land loser.

Is Rubio for president outLandish?

After making a scandal of himself in opposition to health reform, Southern Baptist Convention ethics czar Richard Land has in an interview with Politico promoted former Florida House Speaker Marco Rubio as a credible 2012 Republican presidential nominee who has "more experience than Obama had."

The gimlet-eyed journalists at PolitiFact poured that outLandish claim through their fact-filter and emerged with a "barely true." Even that conclusion is a stretch. It assumes, for example, Rubio is elected to the U.S. Senate and serves two years -- although he has yet to win the Aug. 24 Fla. Republican primary.

Sarah Palin benefitted from Land's dubious blessings. In 2008 he sang her praises as a potential vice presidential nominee in an interview with Brian Goldsmith of CBS, mentioning Southern Baptist Mike Huckabee only as an afterthought.

Republican presidential nominee John McCain chose Palin as his vice presidential nominee and after a brief popularity bubble, she helped sink his candidacy. Then, Palin the public servant went home to abandon the governorship of Alaska.

Palin's former prospective son-in-law Levi Johnson said at the time that she left in pursuit of cash. The dollar figures have since born Johnson out. Matthew Mosk of ABC News reported:

Since leaving office at the end of July 2009, the 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee has brought in at least 100 times her old salary – a haul now estimated at more than $12 million -- through television and book deals and a heavy schedule of speaking appearances worth five and six figures.

Along the way health reform, in which Land and Palin both invested so much vilifying energy and who contributed to the "death panels" howler which copped a "lie of the year" award, passed.

When Land comes to anoint you, candidate Rubio, if you're really interested in public service, then for heaven's sake outrun him.

Court allows FBC Jax Watchdog case against Assistant State Attorney to proceed

A Florida federal district court refused this week to dismiss the claim by blogger Tom Rich (FBC Jax Watchdog) that Assistant Fla. State Attorney Stephen Siegel violated Rich's right to speak anonymously, and trampled on the Establishment Clause because defendants had no secular purpose for their actions.

The lawsuit alleges Siegel issued subpoenas that helped Jacksonville police officer Robert Hinson -- who was a member of First Baptist Church of Jacksonvilla, Fla. -- identify Rich when there was no evidence of criminal activity.

Dismissed in the same action were civil claims against State Attorney Angela Corey for her office’s role.

Rich’s claims against the police officer and against First Baptist were unaffected because they weren’t involved in this motion to dismiss.

Emerging standards for unmasking anonymous bloggers were certainly not met in Rich's case.

To prevail in this instance, Rich must now prove the violations he alleges. But even at this juncture, the case is a caution for those who would twist legal authority to unmask an anonymous blogger without compelling legal justification. Abuse of power has a price.

[H/T: Religion Clause]

Woes of the SBC Pharisees

Enid, Ok., pastor Wade Burleson is conducting more than a personal homiletic exercise when he flogs the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) through Matthew 23. His whip of the "Woes of the Pharisees" does burn, and rankles some SBCers.

Burleson cuts immediately to the bone with his (2) "pastors and self-proclaimed leaders of the SBC have seated themselves in positions of authority" who even demand (6) "that they be called "Dr." by those who know them."

No, prez Johnny Hunt isn't the only SBCer with with a fake Phd. on his resume. Nor does Burleson gloss his excoriation with footnotes. Whether he has Hunt in mind is from the text unknowable.

Likewise, readers may find any number of SBC controversies among Burleson's other broad hints.

Or choose to read his short-form allegorical satire - not quite Dante's Divine Comedy - as straightforward experimental sermon.

It's surely a stretch (unless perhaps you're from Missouri, Georgia, New Mexico, Washington, Oregon and northern Idaho, and others on a growing list) to read (23) & (24) as somehow in part commentaries on the Great Commission Resurgence Task force recommendations. He writes:

(23) Woe to you, SBC pastors and self-proclaimed SBC leaders, hypocrites! For you emphasize giving, giving, and giving, but you neglect the weightier things: justice and mercy and faithfulness. Don't neglect these things while you seek the dollar! (24) In your blind greed you are straining gnats and swallowing camels.

Whereas it is hard not to read (29) through (33) as criticisms of what David Flick in a different context usefully calls the "conservative insurgence." Burleson writes:

(29) Woe to you, SBC pastors and self-proclaimed SBC leaders, hypocrites! For you exalt other pastors and you build monuments to their legacy, (30) saying, ‘If we had lived in the liberal days of our forefathers, we would have helped them them in turning around our convention.’ (31) Thus you witness against yourselves that you are sons of those who murdered your brothers. (32) Fill up, then, the measure of your fathers. (33) You serpents, you brood of vipers, how are you to escape being sentenced to judgment yourselves?

Tim Dahl found it useful to ignore SBC political implications and read himself into the text. As did this writer.

If Burleson's whip stings, is it because your back needs it?