Happened moments ago...

http://www.bpnews.net/BPnews.asp?ID=28228

Not good.

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Ivan R. Schoen, B.A., M.A., M.L.I.S.
Pastor of Maranatha Baptist Church (SBC)
Poplar Grove, IL, USA
http://maranatha-sbc.org

Johnny Hunt, pastor of First Baptist Church Woodstock GA, was elected President of the Southern Baptist Convention.

Southern Baptists pick Woodstock's Johnny Hunt as leader

I attended that church for a couple of years before I was enlightened to the Doctrines of Grace.

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For the sake of the Name,

John Hill
Faith Community - Woodstock, Ga
Adopted. Husband for 13 years. Father of 5 children.
http://faithcommunitychurch.org- My home church
Rocky Top, you'll always be, home sweet home to me.

From the possible nomination of Al Mohler to Johnny Hunt. Sad indeed.

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Devin Brian
1689er
Attending Trinity Baptist Church in Shreveport, LA.
Vivian, Louisiana, USA

"...If you are not firm in faith,you will not be firm at all." - Isaiah 7:9
"The fall of man is written in too legible characters not to be understood: Those that deny it, by their denying, prove it." - George Whitefield

Could some one flesh out why Johny Hunt will be bad for the SBC? Since I'm not in an SBC church anymore, and because Baptist politics are incredibly difficult for us outsiders to fully grasp, this is interesting, but confusing to interpret.

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Jacob
Sovereign Grace Ministries
Covenant Fellowship Church
WTS M.A.R. in Theology student
West Chester, PA

"Grace renews nature; glory perfects grace." ~ John Owen
"Grace tried is better than grace, and more than grace. It is glory in its infancy." ~ John Flavel
Blog - The Strasbourg Inn

They think it is bad because Hunt is considered "anti-Calvinist" and has made some straw man statements attacking it over the years. But the outgoing president, Frank Page, had previously published a book against Calvinism and most seem to think that he did a good job. At least one prominent SBC Calvinist, Nathan Finn, publicly endorsed Hunt. The SBC President is sort of the public face of the convention and his power is largely through appointments he can make to various denominational entities.

The one Calvinistic man who ran was problematic on a number of issues, in my view, and I would not have voted for him.

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Christian
One Pilgrims Progress

So is the SBC president like R.C. Sproul is in Presbyterianism?

(kidding!)

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Andrew DeShazo
Husband of Kathryn
Father of Phillip-Giles B. DeShazo
Deacon
Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church, Memphis, TN
"From out of the depth of unbroken Infinfity arose the Question, "Who am I?" And to that Question there is the answer, "I am God!" -Meher Baba, died 1969.

"I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." Christ, died 33 AD, ressurected three days later.

I'm really not sure how much influence the President actually has in the direction of the Convention, with church autonomy and all. That's why it was hard for me to get too excited about the prospect of Mohler being nominated.

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Rae W. | Elder @ Grace Central Presbyterian Church | Columbus, OH
Online presence: blog | twitter | facebook

If I gave 3.3 million to the Cooperative Program (which is another thread in itself), I could be president of the SBC...

It is a sad day though..

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Trey Etheridge
Pastor
Grace Church
Searcy, AR

Johnny Hunt is a member of this Board, if I am not mistaken.

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Daniel Ritchie
Saintfield, Northern Ireland - Queen's University, Belfast:History/Politics
Member of Dromara Reformed Presbyterian Church of Ireland (Covenanter)

What you SBC'er are missing is that a move like this can galvanize the Founders Movement. The SBC will never be changed from the top down. Al Mohler knew this.

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Bill Brown
Elder
Reformed Baptist
Maryland

Click to get: Board Rules -- Signature Requirements -- Suggestions?
Visit my BLOG Theology for the Rest of Us

Maybe this will boost the Founders to jettison the SBC that, for the most part, collective treats them like the red-headed stepchild. And, per Rae above, it really doesn't matter who's president. Nor do "resolutions" at the Convention matter. Why? Because they're just suggestions.

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Josh Hicks, Chloë's Dad
Christ Covenant Reformed Presbyterian Church, RPCGA
Facebook - The Calvinist Vent
Board Rules - Signature Rules - Suggestion Box

It is God that multiplies our sorrows.... God, as a righteous Judge, does it, which ought to silence us under all our sorrows; as many as they are, we have deserved them all, and more: nay, God, as a tender Father, does it for our necessary correction, that we may be humbled for sin, and weaned from the world by all our sorrows; and the good we get by them, with the comfort we have under them, will abundantly balance our sorrows, how greatly soever they are multiplied. - Matthew Henry

I should've said "power" rather than "influence" in my post above, now that I think about it . . . because a Convention President likely does have a lot of influence in the denomination, at least among the larger churches. For instance, if he sets a convention-wide goal for baptism numbers, it's likely that quite a few churches will try to hit those goals, just because he said so.

Right. But what I meant was the fact that everything is non-binding.

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Benjamin P. Glaser, M. Div, Licentiate, Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church
Member Fairmount ARP Church
Pittsburgh, PA

Deo Vindice

Can the SBC be changed and still remain the SBC (given it's organization)? IMO, Founders will eventually have to compromise for the sake of "unity" or be encouraged to look elsewhere for fellowship.

Me thinks so too, Pastor Trey.

Unity? Among Baptists?

Founders churches can be a vocal minority within the SBC. Will there be an exodus of Founders churches from the SBC? I'm not sure. Being a Founders church doesn't equate to being a Reformed Baptist. Most of the Founders churches are still quite dispensational, ala Capital Hill Baptist.

Is this any worse than when the SBC said they didn't want their pastors drinking alcohol (never mind this would have prevented Jesus from pastoring in the SBC)?

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J. B. Atken
John Knox PCA
Layman, M.A. student at Louisiana College

Cap Hill?? Really??

SBC Founders churches (some are not SBC) will not be affected one iota by the election of Johnny Hunt. SBC Founders churches seek to be an influence in the SBC. Some may leave the SBC, but I highly doubt it will have anything to do with Hunt. Most will stay and seek to continue to be an influence.

Ivan, I should qualify my statement. Based on the information I have received the pretribulational/premillennial position is advocated at Capital Hill.

And includes the teaching on the Rapture.....

I'm not SBC either, so some of this is pretty tentative. Still,

Hunt has a reputation for being an establishment conservative. That means that the SBC will not likely begin drifting left under his watch. It also means that he is probably somewhat less likely to encourage the Tom Ascol's in the Founder's movement. However, I have never heard that he is an enemy of Calvinism, merely an "establishment" conservative who probably does not want to rock the boat.

As long as the flagship (SBTS) keeps churning out Calvinists in the numbers they have been lately, there is still hope for the denomination. Still, if you associate colonial America with Calvinism, pre-Civil War with Arminianism, and the modern period with liberalism, I'm not sure that the Founder's folks have a great shot at turning the SBC back to its roots.

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Dennis E. McFadden, Ex Mainline Baptist (in Remission)
Atherton Baptist Homes, CEO
First Baptist Church of Alhambra, Member, Transformation Ministries (CA)

Click to get: Board Rules -- Signature Requirements -- Suggestions?

It does make a difference who the president is, although of course no president is going to turn the SBC Calvinistic overnight or kick the Calvinists out if that is what people are wondering. The Conservative Resurgence that started in 1979 with the election of Adrian Rogers as president is what has turned the Southern Baptist seminaries as well as the convention as a whole away from liberalism. The plan was to elect a succession of conservative presidents so that they could appoint conservatives to the boards of trustees of the seminaries and other denominational agencies and thus reclaim the convention from the so called "moderates" that had the SBC on a trajectory very similar to mainline churches like the PCUSA or UMC, and that's what happened. They were so successful that "moderates" of the Jimmy Carter mindset essentially withdrew from denominational life in the early 1990's and founded their own seminaries and other entities like the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship.

SBTS is not the only seminary that is graduating Calvinistic and Calvinistic leaning men, but it gets the most notice since Mohler is the president, it is the flagship seminary and it has the more prominent faculty.

Your historical associations are probably accurate when it comes to the evangelical scene in general in the USA, but from what I understand (and admittedly I haven't done much in depth research of SBC history) the SBC was more or less Calvinistic until the early decades of the 20th Century.

YES!!!!!!!!!!!

I am the president of the SBC!!!!!!!!

At last...

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Jonathan Hunt

Elder holding forth the word of life at:
Cheltenham Evangelical Free Church (Confessionally Based)
Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, United Kingdom

Logic is a systematic method of coming to the wrong conclusion with confidence.
-- Thomas Elsworth

If only it were you.

My church was started by a group of families that left FBCW (Johnny's church) to begin a elder led church that taught the DoG.

As I know you, Jonathan, I would praise God if you were president of the SBC!!

I wouldn't!

I understand! I don't want the position either!!

I could be wrong, but I have attended CHBC several times, have one friend who was an intern there, and have another friend who church planted in D.C. with their support. I believe they told me Dever is A-Mill. His NT overview book Promises Kept would probably say definitively.

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Charlie Johnson
Downtown Presbyterian Church (PCA)
Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary, student

Advocated by the elders including Dever?

Charlie, I pray I'm wrong. I had to amend my post to say that this is what I've heard. If anyone can provide clarification I would be appreciative.

I would say that the "Founders churches" tend to be all over the map on eschatology. The more "Reformed" ones in the sense of subscribing to the 1689 will tend to be amil. Others may be dispensational while others may be historic premil. It's possible that a handful of pastors may even be postmil, although this position is quite rare among Baptists today.

Remember that all that is required to be listed in the Founders directory is a desire to be listed and someone submitting the information. Subscription to the 1689 is not required on the part of individuals or churches. In some cases the pastor and his immediate family may be the only ones who know about the listing and who know about the pastor being a "Calvinist" etc. I'm pretty sure that's how it was with a church that was about 25 miles from where I used to live.

As someone on the outside looking in on this,

realizing the Southern Baptist denomination plays a large and important part in the body of Christ,

Can someone clarify whether the new president will set a tone:

1) more or less in the direction of Scripture
2) more or less in the direction of the (Reformed) doctrines
3) more or less in the direction of evangelism

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Scott
PCA
North Carolina


"Let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering; (for he is faithful that promised)"
Hebrews 10:23

From the Capitol Hill Baptist core seminar on eschatology:

1) less, due to the whole "we changed the method but not the message" approach. The method should be scriptural as well as the message.

2) less, Johnny Hunt is not a fan of Calvinists

3) more emphasis, but only in regards to numbers. SBC numbers are way down.

Actually, to be listed with the Founders a church has to have, at a minimum, a pastor who agrees with one of 4 historic confessions listed there.

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Mike Shingler
Louisville, KY

That's true. They are the 1st and 2nd London Baptist Confessions, the New Hampshire Confession and the Abstract of Principles.