Dr. Russell Moore took over as president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s (SBC) Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC) in June of 2013. By April of 2014 his new direction on homosexuality was already visible. From the NPR story Southern Baptist Leaders Seek Softer Approach To Homosexuality
The Southern Baptist Convention held a gathering of pastors at its Nashville headquarters in April. For an organization that has previously used opposition to gay marriage as a rallying point, statements here from church leaders, like Kevin Smith of Kentucky, shocked the auditorium of pastors into silence.
“If you spent 20 years and you’ve never said anything about divorce in the church culture, then shut up about gay marriage,” Smith said.
Pastor Jimmy Scroggins warned Southern Baptist pastors that the culture war was over, and mocking gay marriage was “redneck theology” and no longer acceptable:
“We’re all in agreement that the cultural war is over when it comes to homosexuality, especially when it comes to gay marriage…
“Let’s stop telling Adam and Steve jokes and let’s be compassionate, because these are people that are in our community,” he said at the convention. “These are people that are in our churches.”
NPR contrasts Moore’s progressive stance on homosexuality to that of Richard Land, Moore’s predecessor as president of the ERLC:
[Land] can still be heard from time to time on Christian talk radio saying things like this:
“I know that the dirty little secret that nobody wants to talk about is that a high percentage of adult male homosexuals in America were sexually molested when they were children.”
…
The man chosen to replace Land, Russell Moore, is trying to rein in the flame-throwing.
“When I hear people who are simply screaming in outrage right now, let me tell you what I hear,” he says, “I hear losers.”
I have been out of the evangelical world for 18 years, but still find this shocking and depressing. Great work Dalrock.
This is depressing. In a way – he’s right – the progressives have won the culture war.
Too many christians bowed to being called homophobic.
I’m tired of being insulted and told to shut up. Marriage is about children. Stable, 2 biological parent families are the best for children. We need to stop pretending otherwise.
The PCA and OPC are in no better shape. Where is there left to go? The only independent fundamentalist Church I know in Miami is KJV only, which to me is ridiculous, and their women also do not cover their heads as Scripture teaches. Is there anywhere left to go in Miami?
When thinking of the situation within American churches today, I often recall this scene from Captain America: Winter Soldier.
Am I the only one who sees the acronym ERLC and sees Elric?
Anyway, when the Southern Baptists go gay what’s left?
Moore says he hears losers? No, what he hears is the sound of empty pews and churchian churches drying up to blow away in the wind.
Russell Moore: “When I hear people who are simply screaming in outrage right now, let me tell you what I hear,” he says, “I hear losers.”
We should thank him for that statement of the simple truth. The Left is winning everywhere in America. Nothing will change until that is recognized.
Mockery by losers does not bother winners.
Though it must be said that this bit by Kevin Smith (never heard of him before)
is damning.
Just as Larry Kummer says we should thank Moore for the statement that we are losers, with the same “thankfulness” we ought to take up Smith’s challenge to address divorce in the church. And that means taking up the challenge of teaching and enforcing the submission of women in the church.
God help us!
Rich irony that an “Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission” is essentially trying to shut down religious liberty in the Southern Baptist Convention. I am not a Baptist but have worked with some, and at least the older WWII generation and some Boomers were of the opinion that any Convention such as the SBC was merely a convenience. A way to buy instructional materials, music, etc. in quantity, and to produce instructional materials with denominational focus. Not a top-down denomination like the Methodists, Episcopalians, Roman Catholics, etc. One man was quite blunt in a very mild mannered way; “You see, we have shepherds who answer to God and the sheep, we won’t have any Popes ordering us around”. [This is not intended at all to start the usual food fight, so please let’s all control ourselves. It illustrates a cultural mindset that used to exist, and likely still does to some extent. Nothing more is intended.].
Standing, permanent committees like this ERLC have been the entry point in other denominations for the sickness of organized feminism and organized leftism. Because it’s always so handy in the short term to have a group of unpaid or lowpaid volunteers who are willing to work year round on important issues, and then report to the yearly denominational meeting. Since such committees soon become self-perpetuating and soon select their own new members they become a little insiders club that answers to no one.
When the irresistible force of “progressives” meets the immovable object of “grassroots”, one likely outcome is a denominational split. The confrontational, “Our way or the highway” approach that appears to be common among the ERLC should bring that split sooner rather than later.
Jesus wasn’t PC either.
Mark 7:26 Now the woman was a Gentile, of the Syrophoenician race. And she kept asking Him to cast the demon out of her daughter. 27 And He was saying to her, “Let the children be satisfied first, for it is not good to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.” 28 But she answered and *said to Him, “Yes, Lord, but even the dogs under the table feed on the children’s crumbs.” 29 And He said to her, “Because of this answer go; the demon has gone out of your daughter.”
Independent churches who profess similar creeds
The linked articles are from 2014, I wonder what has changed in the last 4 years. Given the way Rachel Held Evans has become prominent in the SBC, I’m not optimistic.
If we are losers, as Moore so eloquently states, what does that make him as a leader of that group? That would make him an absolute failure of a leader and a fellow loser to boot.
@Gage
The role of men like Moore is to keep the churches neutered, emasculated, and docile against the destruction that is occurring to their institutions and faith.
Moore is not a failure. On the contrary, he is carrying out his prescribed role wonderfully. He is only a failure if you think he is on our side and not the enemy of God. By their fruits you shall know them.
Watch the Christian Overton window keep moving in the wrong direction … didn’t stop with divorce, didn’t stop with gay marriage, now not going to stop with the unmarried gays, what’s next?
Catholics are not immune to the shifting window either.
“If you spent 20 years and you’ve never said anything about divorce in the church culture, then shut up about gay marriage,” Smith said.
Because you made one mistake, you’ve got to keep making mistakes, or I’ll call you a hypocrite.
Why not say, you should resolutely condemn faggotry, and start condemning divorce too?
Smith is claiming to be the chief looser. I’ve been condemning divorce and fags since I was a child.
@Random Angeleno
Exactly. What is next is a mix of:
1) Out/proud/sexually active gays (and trans) as unofficial but maximally visible members of the congregation and
2) Official gay members with a publicly recognized lifetime “Spiritual Friend” roommate (so long as they assure everyone they aren’t having sex and everyone pretends it isn’t playing marriage).
Once the latter is accepted the push will be for gay pastors to have their own live in special friend. That may be where the Complementarians end up, because it gives gays everything they want (in practice) while maintaining a fiction of orthodoxy. Just like complementarians inverted headship and submission in practice instead of being honest and publicly rejecting them like the liberal churches did.
@Dalrock
Agreed. In the previous post I asked BJ if he is in Texas because I agree with him that those of us who are firmly decided to remain outside the current view from the Overton Window should band together.
https://dalrock.wordpress.com/2018/12/12/must-a-father-teach-his-son-to-fix-things/#comment-294963
He has not net responded. I can also be reached at cane(dot)caldo(at)gmail(dot)com. I believe Dalrock, Scott, Empathologism, Oscar, Moose Norseman, Chad, GKChesterton, and several others can vouch for my ability to maintain OpSec if that is in question.
Tragically what Land said is exactly correct. No one talks about it and everyone’s willing to accept the idea that you can be “straight” for the wrong reason (the idea being that you’re secretly gay but acting straight), but being gay for the wrong reason is somehow impossible.
People are bleeding out spiritually and we just want them to be cool with it.
Jesus was a loser, worldly defined. Spent most of His time with losers, telling them how to really get rich. They mocked, tortured, and murdered him. When the Almighty People were polled concerning His innocence and freedom, they screamed for his death. All those wonderful winners. Guess they couldn’t find a jury of peers.
Now comes another Fake Pastor, assuring me that he and his fellow homophilic are winners, and dissenters are losers. That’s what being a pastor in America is about now, is it Russ? About being a Winner and mocking those — however faithful to God — who fail to obey the Word of Russell.
I’m lookin at the list over here Mr. Russell Moore, your name isn’t on it. Gonna be a short win for you, and a long lose.
Most people who experience homosexual attraction were mentally, physically or sexually abused; and have a bad relationship with one or both of their parents.
The truth enrages evil. That’s why they react the way they do when someone speaks it.
“The man chosen to replace Land, Russell Moore, is trying to rein in the flame-throwing”
Flame throwing or Flamer throwing?
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He’s a dude who makes B movies, and a cultural Catholic who lapsed into atheism.
If you spent 20 years and you’ve never said anything about divorce in the church culture,
They knew he was right; they were silent. He correctly shamed them.
However the consequence he draws is of course highly manipulative and wrong: “if you do not condemn one sin, don’t dare to condemn another sin”
“If you spent 20 years and you’ve never said anything about divorce in the church culture, then shut up about gay marriage,” – Or another option is to start speaking up about divorce in the church?
The Bible repeatedly warns us about men like Moore. I’m not sure if he is just deeply misguided, a coward, or an actual enemy of the Lord Jesus Christ. I lean toward regarding him as a coward and pragmatist.
Either way, it seems clear that he isn’t faithful. Such a trajectory leads to the lake of fire.
I attend a SBC church and recently had a rather unpleasant discussion with our youth minister (who is also a student at Southern Seminary) about the fact that men like Moore, Tim Kellar, and even Albert Mohler seem to be compromised with social justice/Marxist ideology. It helps that John MacArthur is taking a stand against SJWs. MacArthur is pretty highly regarded around my church.
I didn’t discuss the problems with complementarians in general, or the issues with men like John Piper and Wayne Grudem. That would make people’s heads explode.
Okay, conservative Christians have lost the Culture War. Run up the white flag.
We now, I take it. concede that our enemies had it right and we wrong all along.
Do we now accept premarital, extramarital and promiscuous sex, divorce and homosexuality, wholeheartedly?
Where will we draw the line? Open marriage? Polyamory? Pedophilia? Bestiality? Where is the line? Our leaders seem strangely silent.
I for one won’t be. That’s the cost od being a disciple.
Jeremiah preached repentance
To those who were going to hell
But his critics all gave him such bad reviews,
The threw him down the bottom of a well
Kept on talking anyway,
As the people got put into chains
There weren’t anyone wishing them “bon Voyage”
Or shatter any bottles of champagne
-Bob Dylan, “Yonder Comes Sin”
@Cane Caldo
I was off the grid for a while and just now got a chance to read up. Apologies for the delay. I will be back off the grid for the next couple days, too.
I am in Ohio, not Texas.
Privacy is definitely on my mind (former military crypto-linguist), so I will email later.
@Spike
Do we now accept premarital, extramarital and promiscuous sex, divorce and homosexuality, wholeheartedly?
Not wholeheartedly Spike. Of course not wholeheartedly. That would be wrong (to openly state publicly), for now. We now accept these things with reservation, though we remain vexed by them, like Lot. We accept them halfheartedly.
We will continue to be uneasy about these things until sufficient time has passed so that they can be thought of as normal. While we’re waiting some celebrity pastors can work on being “attracted to” some fresh understandings that will help speed things along as the OP demonstrates.
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The Bible repeatedly warns us about men like Moore. I’m not sure if he is just deeply misguided, a coward, or an actual enemy of the Lord Jesus Christ.
If Moore knows anything at all about George Soros and yet still accepts funding or direction from him, then he’s firmly in the category of “enemy of the Lord Jesus Christ,” which the militant atheist Soros most definitely is. Moore has no excuse for not knowing this.
Okay, conservative Christians have lost the Culture War. Run up the white flag.
We now, I take it. concede that our enemies had it right and we wrong all along.
Do we now accept …
Taking “we” as a rhetorical generic pronoun in this case, I don’t see how the answer to your rhetorical question could be anything other than “yes.”
Conceding defeat means surrender which means ceasing to stand up for your cause which means admitting that everything you’ve fought for is a wasted effort, a”sunk cost.”
In this case “conservative Christians” (who showed themselves clearly to be neither in reality) threw in the towel because 1) they never had any genuine faith in God or His Scriptures, 2) they actually DESPISED God’s commandments for how to live in accordance with His will, 3) the flip side of 2, they loved and feared Man and worldly things more than God, and 4) God saw them for the heathen frauds that were and gave them over to the vices that will soon completely destroy them.
As others here have pointed out, the faithful remnant will remain and carry on, but it will be MUCH smaller than anyone imagines and it will be mercilessly persecuted by the frauds like Moore, et al. who wear the skin suit of what was once the western church (on behalf of their New World Order puppeteers).
@Lost Patrol, @feeriker
Why is it that it is never the laity but always the clergy that lacks a centre on moral matters? And the further ensconced in schooling the clergy is, the greater they end up in error?
Theologians come up with stupid ideas instead of looking at plain history. A woman demands to preach in church and instead of telling her, “No, because it is unbiblical”, there is a wringing of hands (which I loathe and despise), calling of meetings, a torturing of the Greek /Hebrew, a distilling of history. There is prayer, all of which is conservative. Finally the pastor says, “I think we can change the policy to allow women…to allow gays …to allow…”
When I became a Christian, I had to leave behind the things I wanted to do the most: Live my life on my terms. When it came to matters sexual, I had to leave out-of-marriage sex behind. I had to do so because the biblical teaching on this was that it was wrong. It was strict. For example, Matthew 19 1-8, where even Jesus’ disciples consider what He said as harsh.
My decisions, difficult as they were, were made easier by the reality of God’s promises: He exists as real in the world that we can’t see but is real nonetheless, and He is going to judge us for our actions. When that context is understood, it is easier to NOT be concerned about man’s approval. It is easier to be laughed at. It is easier to be unashamed. It is easier to not care about the disapproval of men (or women, who are far harsher judges).
I think you got it in one ferrier, with the point that if we are going to reject progressivism, we will a remnant. There will always be 7000 who never bow the knee to Baal.
There’s a gay romcom called Adam and Steve (2005), in which feces is a key plot device. I saw it long ago, because it has Parker Posey.
Adam is Posey’s “gay best friend.” Adam is a nerdy, romantic gay seeking love. He picks up Steve, who performs a striptease in Adam’s apartment, defecates on Adam’s carpet, then runs away.
Adam is stunned. He thought Steve might be “the one.” We eventually learn that Adam really liked Steve — and Steve really liked Adam. Steve only defecated because … I forget. I think he used some sort of drug with a laxative effect? And now Steve is too embarrassed to seek out Adam. That’s the “funny, quirky” romcom device that keeps them apart for much of the film.
Adam and Steve asks the romcom question: How do you express your love to someone after shitting on his carpet?
This is not a joke or satire. I think this is supposed to be warmly funny.
The trailer leaves out the feces part, though it’s a key story device:
Adam and Steve is boring and unfunny. It tries to portray gays as more normal than straights. Posey (and Steve’s straight best friend, who’s male) are portrayed as more neurotic than the gays, though they too find love in the end.
Adam has quirky neurotic Jewish parents. Steve has uptight WASP parents. (As I recall.) Just a normal couple, with the usual nervous meeting with the parents — who are weirder than their kids.
In the end, Adam and Steve get married. The minister is a woman, who performs some New Agey ceremony mixing religious traditions.
Yeah, I know. Shitty film (pun intended). What can I say? I’m a Parker Posey fan.
I think the whole setting and layout in Christian churches is wrong these days. You walk in, sit and keep your mouth shut. Then the preacher orates to (you) the subjects. He dictates. There’s no back and forth debate during a sermon and no CALLING OUT of the preacher should he be an infidel.
Back in Christ’s day an infidel mouthpiece would be called out on the spot. Contrast with modern churches where you just have to sit quietly and wince as the room pressurizes with unbearable levels of cuckery. And finally you have to make sure the stick in the mud church sheep witness you donating money. Their wives are watching too. Those rows of mascara glob faced mortuary biddies must see your hand flashing bills into the collection plate.
Sitting in a cuck church is overwhelming. It is suffocating to the senses and you likely couldn’t cut through the choking atmosphere of homoglobo cuckery with a brand new Christmas ginsu knife. You just want to blast a big ripping FART in that church to slice through the mass zombosys and bring a final pastel hush over the wall to wall infectious sheeposys afflicting everybody in there. Collection plate baaah! I’d have a mind to shove a roll of quarters up the nose of the nearest bobble head.
What’s worse is having a female pastor which you all to often see in old flyover country micro churches. Dwindling heartland congregations are already on life support and then some obnoxious town hen mother steps up to the podium and begins flapping her feathers. And here we see local men, farmers and parishioners sit like potted plants – – and they never call out that a female is hosing them down with her ‘pipeline’ to God message. She doesn’t even have a pipe much less a ‘pipeline’ for Pete’s sake. Come on, she’s got no pipe at all but rather a PIT between her loins and she’s a VIPER and these crusty old boomers and millennials caroon and sing psalms as the congregation throws ashes over the foregone progeny of their tribe. They clap to the sterility and to the whole PC sermon that espouses the genetic dead end and DEATH of their tribe. I just want to PUKE and throw them all out. I must have a bit of REAL JESUS in me to want to do that. The real Jesus did turn tables and throw infidels about the room like rag dolls.
The real Jesus called out the sodomites and money changers in the temple.
The real Jesus knew the proper place of women too – and it wasn’t as a figurehead HEN mother preaching and pecking her theosophy into the heads of the village men. How could you go to sleep at night with the PC words of some crowing priestess or snivelling mangina reverberating and echoing in your head?
Are you a man? Is GOD your head? Or is THIS your head??
Have ye not the head of a HEN . . . or is HE the Lord not ye true head??
The Lord instructed his son to THROW THEM OUT. CALL THEM OUT. PUT THEM OUT of the temple. Sodomites, children of Lot – THROW THEM OUT!!
Where in the Bible do I find denominations? Anyone. Anyone?
Maybe it’s time to just do bible and forget about attending a denominational church….
I wrote you in my letter not to associate with immoral people; I did not at all mean with the immoral people of this world, or with the covetous and swindlers, or with idolaters, for then you would have to go out of the world. But actually, I wrote to you not to associate with any so-called brother if he is an immoral person, or covetous, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or a swindler — not even to eat with such a one.
(1 Cor. 5:9–11 NAS95)
Take a look at this. So much good… but somehow manage to completely miss the point. Man Up and all will be well!
https://selfwire.org/article/evangelical-culture-beta-culture?fbclid=IwAR0kDg7g-n6r957ZsE3IUJRRQoalRXavUJttm1-hFkrpuIHJOxYaGZbZzS0
Why is it that it is never the laity but always the clergy that lacks a centre on moral matters? And the further ensconced in schooling the clergy is, the greater they end up in error?
Theologians come up with stupid ideas instead of looking at plain history.
They’re academics, Spike. Their entire purpose and drive in life is intellectual masturbation, which leads them to infinitely question, analyze, and dissect everything. I would argue that this makes them unfit to be teachers of God’s word, which is, despite their attempts to pervert it with their pseudo-intellectual drivel, usually very straightforward and clear in its meaning and message.
These clowns have been very fortunate to have lazy biblical illiterates as their unquestioning followers.
MCG00 says:
December 15, 2018 at 4:06 am
As more than a few of us here have asserted at various times, Jesus and His Apostles would be thrown out of today’s western churches for being “mean,” “judgmental,” and ” disruptive.”
I’ve read Moore for a while and he seems to be a person who’s always “carefully wrong.”
What’s sad is how these leaders act as if the church isn’t authoritative on moral truth.
The church doesn’t loose. We have God’s truth and we judge the world, not the other way around.
@feeriker I would argue that this makes [academic theologians] unfit to be teachers of God’s word
Most, if not all, preachers of God’s Word have been academic theologians. Being a theologian itself does not make one fit to teach, but being NOT a theologian is most certainly not a guarantee that people ARE fit to be teachers of God’s Word.
What counts first if people truly are born-again and follow Christ, and believe in His resurrection, and are guided by the Holy Spirit. It will certainly help if they through study have been properly trained. Remember St. Paul was picked by God to be the main teacher of the Church, and by our current standards he would classify as an academic theologian.
Wow, I’ve been doing the opposite and enjoying people’s reactions when I use the term sodomite. When people object I just point out that since they sodomize then sodomite is the correct term. It’s really funny when churchians react in horror. Try it sometime, it just rolls off the tongue, sodomites.
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