With everything else going on, we almost missed that Mark Dever, reformed pastor of Capitol Hill Baptist Church, and head of 9 Marks Ministries, has confirmed that he would allow his name to be put forward as a candidate for 1VP in Greensboro.
I’ll edit this tomorrow with all of the pertinent info, but you can read the story here:
Calvinist pastor, Georgia evangelist likely to square off as 1st VP nomination.
[edit]
The following is pertinent church info from the article.
“Dever said his church had about $1.9 million in undesignated receipts in 2005 and forwarded $150,500, or 7.5 percent of that total, to the Southern Baptist Convention. The church stopped contributing to the national denomination through the District of Columbia Baptist Convention after the SBC’s North American Mission Board de-funded the convention in 2002. According to multiple DCBC sources, Capitol Hill was one of two member churches whose leaders raised concerns with SBC officials about alleged liberalism in the small regional convention.”
While the CP giving of CHBC is about average for most SBC churches, it is below the 10% called for by the Executive Committee.
Though Dr. Dever’s name has been floated for some time, he has been reticent to accept the nomination until now. Dever seems to be well respected by all in the convention, having spoken in chapel at Southwestern as well as being held in great respect by many within the Younger Leader movement.
Speaking of the Younger Leader movement, some YL’s are what the ABP article is calling “neo-Calvinists.” the definition of this term is posted by “K.B.H.” (Kevin Hash) in the comment section of this article. It had been speculated that many within this group were ambivalent toward the Convention in Greensboro as both presidential nominees had taken swipes at Calvinism publicly. As Kevin reveals in the comments, Dever may have just mobilized the “Calvinist Contingent.” Who they vote for as President, though, may be a choice between two theological opponents, in their eyes. To win their vote, one would probably have to seem more sympathetic than the other, though it may be hard for either of them to go too far from previous statements. What will happen remains to be seen.
One other thing. It has been noticed that BP is not the unbiased news source it once was. While it ran a story about the nomination of Keith Fordham, it has yet to say a peep about the nomination of Mark Dever for the same position.
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CB Scott
on May 26th, 2006
@ 12:05 am:
….and the beat goes on…
cb
tim rogers
on May 26th, 2006
@ 7:32 am:
Brother Art,
I am an illiterate son of our Heavenly Father and I always desire to become literate. However, for the life of my I do not know what a “Neo-Calvinist” would be. Does that mean that Dr. Dever is not a Calvinist and is merely drafting new meanings to TULIP?
K.B.H.
on May 26th, 2006
@ 7:41 am:
Tim,
You beat me to it. Neo?
I A M T H R I L L E D A B O U T D E V E R B E I N G I N !
Woo hoo!
I just told my wife that our position on coming to Greensboro just got shifted a tad.
Does Page even know who Dever is? Just curious.
K.B.H.
on May 26th, 2006
@ 7:48 am:
I just emailed the writer of the story to inquire about the NEO.
I’ll keep you posted.
K.B.H.
on May 26th, 2006
@ 8:14 am:
Below is the rational for the NEO Calvinist reference by the writer of the ABP story. He replied very quickly.
I appreciate your inquiry. I thought seriously about using that term before I employed it in my story, but I think it’s descriptive because of the nature of many of the SBC’s new Calvinists. Those who hold to five-point Calvinism in the SBC are often people who have grown up in SBC churches with a more modified Calvinist/Arminian-friendly (for lack of a more succinct term for that) kind of belief regarding soteriology, but claim to be reclaiming a belief that was held to by many more Southern Baptists historically. Their rhetoric often reflects the belief that they are reclaiming something that had been largely lost in Southern Baptist life until recent decades (e.g., the use of the term “Founders” in the name of the largest fellowship of SBC Calvinists).
In order for readers to understand a little better that this was a renewal or reclamation movement in the eyes of its advocates, I used the prefix “neo” before “Calvinists” in one reference.
Jeff Richard Young
on May 26th, 2006
@ 1:11 pm:
Dear Art and Hash,
Wow! A reporter who has done his research and portrayed Baptist Calvinists accurately! Wow! I’m thankful for that, truly.
Love in Christ,
art rogers
on May 26th, 2006
@ 1:45 pm:
Jeff,
Been missing you, brother. I thought the article was very balanced as well.
BP still hasn’t mentioned it.
Anonymous
on May 29th, 2006
@ 6:54 pm:
Are you kidding?? Where have you been??? The BP hasn’t been a journalistic endeavor since pre-takeover days. It was immediately turned into the PR arm of the SBC powerbrokers. They don’t have a single journalist working for them. They are the rhetoric mouthpiece of the SBC and write only what is advantageous to the powers that be. It’s been that way for years …
art rogers
on May 29th, 2006
@ 6:58 pm:
Anon,
While it is absolutely accurate to say that the role of BP now is promotional, and any hard hitting journalism “pro” Power Structure position, it is not fair to say there are NO journalists there.
art rogers
on May 29th, 2006
@ 7:05 pm:
BTW,
I was making the point that BP was functioning as a promotional arm of the PS.
Ever heard of subtlety?
From your post, it doesn’t seem so…
Also, strong words are fine, but we like you to sign your name to them. If you don’t want to, then you might want to moderate your tone a little.
If you are new, this is an ongoing thing here, and you can read the rules for comments by clicking the red button on the top left of the page.
This applies to all, no matter what your opinion is. In this case, except for the one line I have already pointed out, we are in agreement.