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?

Blocked/ignored/slammed for asking questions about or of Southern Baptist leaders?

It is an American axiom that timely questions often help the nation, its organizations and its people make better decisions. Tough questions, like those like those currently being asked of Ergun Caner, writes Wade Burleson, are "legitimate queries of a Christian brother to ensure accountability and integrity of Christian ministry."

Yet Southern Baptist leaders are apparently often prey to an allergy to questions. Ordinary twitter users who seek clarification from key leaders like SBC President @johnnymhunt, researchers like President of LifeWay Research @edstetzer or sometimes even from a publication like the @westernrecorder (just to name a few) learn this quickly enough.

Genuflection via retweeting is the default SBC twitter response to leadership tweets. That's why resounding silence is likely to greet even the best-phrased, best-intentioned, most germane of queries.

Violations of the genuflection rule are punished. Curious twitter users may find themselves blocked (forbidden to follow a user's tweet stream) for asking a pointed question. Even more often twitter-blocked is anyone who somehow receives and asks additional questions about an answer. Much less disagrees. Thus making inappropriate and disruptive use of the "block" function to suppress ordinary debate and commonplace journalistic inquiry.

Because so many of the SBC chickens do barricade themselves in their pulpits, SBC twitterworld offers satiric accounts, like @fakebp, directed at gently smoking them out with humor. Similarly, there are satiric twitter hashtags, like #fakeGCR.

Together those help reveal how often clarity of statement and transparency of intention are disdained.

But accountability, Pastor Burleson?

Srsly. For the time being, not absent the application of a hammer or like device.

Headline of the day nominee

Teams report movement from Native American revivals: What does it mean?

Edward George Bulwer-Lytton editorial nominee

'Twas a dark and stormy editorial:

Despite the appearance of diversity, the interviewees were glaringly homogeneous in their religious pluralism. As a result, a significant portion of religious adherents, namely, those believing in some sort of exclusive religious claims, were cut-off from the conversation. A more fruitful discussion would have included religious practitioners that do not presuppose that there are a number of valid paths (Buddhism, Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Sikhism, etc.) to the divine.

For deliberate fun, go here.

Are you a Christian hipster?

Brett McCracken says Christian hipsters don' like:

. . . megachurches, altar calls, and door-to-door evangelism. They don’t really like John Eldredge’s Wild at Heart or youth pastors who talk too much about Braveheart. In general, they tend not to like Mel Gibson and have come to really dislike The Passion for being overly bloody and maybe a little sadistic. They don’t like people like Pat Robertson, who on The 700 Club famously said that America should “take Hugo Chavez out”; and they don’t particularly like The 700 Club either, except to make fun of it. They don’t like evangelical leaders who get too involved in politics, such as James Dobson or Jerry Falwell, who once said of terrorists that America should “blow them all away in the name of the Lord.” They don’t like TBN, PAX, or Joel Osteen. They do have a wry fondness for Benny Hinn, however.

There's a lot more.

[Thanks to dotCommonweal for this. ]