never an attack -- just the truth

Read this.

OK: now, let's get a few things straight. The first is that the Baptist Press is a denominational organ for a certain faction of a denomination which is, frankly, suffering because of that faction. No question. For the record I am considering leaving that denomination for pragmatic and not political reasons (the church I'm likely to join in my new city is not SBC).

But the next coupla-few things are just objections to high-handed fundamentalism. The claim in that blog post that the writer has never "never written a blog that attacks another person or organization" is a flat-out lie which is only hidden by the individual's history of deleting post what he later thought better of -- historical revisionism being a sin of the hard-shell fundies. I'd respect him more if he'd stick to his guns. But that said, what qualifies as an "attack"? Does saying something publicly that was rebuffed or ignored privately constitute and "attack"? Doesn't villifying those who have something against you qualify as an "attach" -- or is it, like the old fundamentalist way, just "speaking the truth"?

And lastly, what if there wasn't and us-vs.-them mentality? You know: the SBC sticks in the mud who want to throw out Acts29 because of Mark Driscoll are self-parodying mopes who can't learn to judge men by what they do instead of by the color of their Christian flag. Acts29 is filled with totally reputable guys who are, frankly, not amused by the things I have said I'm not amused by -- but that's their problem. I am sure they will eventually deal with it.

But when the Acts29 guys start worrying that their shared constituency in the SBC are reading the Baptist Press' ginned up "journalism" and start blogging about it because they're afraid they might lose some guys who want to be connected to a dying breed of baptist brawlers, eh. It looks like they don't really know what they want. Refuting the BP is like refuting the Weekly World News -- it's easy, but why bother?

Why not deal with real issues and let the kooks retreat to their bunkers with their tin-foil hats"