It’s NOT censorship. At least, that’s what I was thinking until I read the Wikipedia definition of the word. You can click on “censorship” right here and read all about it.
My understanding was that censorship was someone outlawing a particular thought or idea in ANY & ALL venues. My paraphrase of Wikipedia is that censorship is the suppression of ideas, usually by a controlling agency, in an effort to stabilize culture by guiding it toward the agency’s ideal. I was especially drawn to this phrase: “Furthermore, discussion of censorship often includes less formal means of controlling perceptions by excluding various ideas from mass communication.” Well, that pretty much fits what happened to Rev. Dwight McKissic yesterday.
On the other hand, just because you have the right to an idea, and a right to express it, does not mean that you have the right to require someone else to promote it. Back to the first hand, though, McKissic was invited to speak by SWBTS, not the other way around.
We have the responsibility to execute the burdens of our offices. If SWBTS really disagrees with the content of a chapel speaker’s sermon, then they have the right to say so. The even have the right not to broadcast it on the web, if they feel it is their burden.
But let’s just say it out loud, shall we? I don’t believe them. I just don’t. I don’t feel that they are afraid of wounding some poor soul with bad theology. I believe they refused to post it on their website because it put them in the position of hosting someone who is undercutting the expressed views of Dr. Patterson and others concerning the issues now under discussion at the IMB. They now find themselves in a worse position, having to suffer the accusation of censorship.
It shows a lack of confidence in one’s own position when you have to shut down all other talk. It shows extreme confidence in one’s position to host an opponent and provide them the opportunity to oppose you in your own house.
We know that Dr. Patterson is not a Calvinist. Yet this year he has already hosted Drs. Mark Dever and Al Mohler. It was reported to me that he said from the platform that he was happy to say that he had now had his two favorite Calvinists speak in chapel. This exudes confidence in one’s position.
When McKissic speaks, however, the opposite reaction occurs. Rather than pride in the opposing viewpoint being hosted in one’s own house, we see the public opposition and tacit undercutting of Rev. McKissic.
I seriously doubt that Dr. Patterson, or anyone else at SWBTS, lacks confidence in their theological convictions in this area. So what about the situation rattles them?
I don’t think it has anything to do with theology. Theology is the whip used on Dr. Rankin and the IMB. Support for Dr. Rankin and the IMB rattles them all.
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Micah
on Aug 30th, 2006
@ 12:06 pm:
Art, you are right on here man. Particularly in reference to hosting the Calvinists (God love ‘em) and silencing McKissic. Good stuff!
Anonymous
on Aug 30th, 2006
@ 1:02 pm:
This post has been removed by a blog administrator.
Alan Cross
on Aug 30th, 2006
@ 1:37 pm:
Well, we’ve got anonymous missionaries writing in about IMB stuff and anonymous students writing in about SWBTS stuff. Don’t you just love the fellowship in the SBC? People can’t even publicly speak their mind on the BIBLE without fear of reprisal. And we’ve been worrying about persecution from the government! When I was at Golden Gate I argued with professors at length when I disagreed with them. Other students did as well. It was encouraged and it made us all stronger. I can’t imagine a theological institution where you can’t question.
Dr. Patterson has de facto made the IMB policy on tongues the official theological position of Southwestern Seminary. Instead of providing theological guidance through this issue for all of us who look to SWBTS to continue to do that sort of thing, we are just told what they believe. Dissent seems to be silenced.
This is happening a great deal like judicial activism in the courts. Our constitution is the BF&M. Since they can’t gain any credence for this view from the BF&M and it would be too difficult to change it outright over this issue, they are establishing case law and precedent. The IMB policies forbid missionaries who speak in tongues. Now Southwestern forbids even a discussion on the topic. They are preparing the ground for this to be placed in the BF&M, I feel. At any rate, it will become precedent all over the SBC and have the same effect in denominational life, whether it makes it to the BF&M or not.
This is a very dangerous tactic and it literally puts all power in the hands of a few. It is the exact same thing that liberals have done with our court system. I am amazed that people who would be strict constructionists constitutionally, would use the same tactics of liberal judicial activists to get their way. Like I’ve said before, this group of “leadership” is more relativistic and postmodern than any young pastor I know.
Just a thought, but the parallels are really interesting. Art, didn’t I tell you months ago that they were going after Charismatics in the SBC?
art rogers
on Aug 30th, 2006
@ 1:55 pm:
SWBTS student (comment #2),
I am sorry, but I had to pull down your comment. Everything but the last line was great, but I am afraid that your anonymity combined with how you phrased your final sentence violated at least rule #1 in my rules for comments.
Please rephrase and repost. I think what you have to say in the rest of your post was insightful and helpful.
Thanks,
Art
Light Horse
on Aug 30th, 2006
@ 4:11 pm:
Just a couple of ideas here.
1. It seems like Pastor McKissic went to spit in Dr. Patterson’s eye. I can’t judge the man’s heart, but it seems like it was done to get some attention, which he now has.
2. I’m not comfortable with calling the BFM of any year our constitution. I thought those things weren’t the supreme law of baptists. If we start treating BFM’s as law, then we might as well start electing popes. It doesn’t seem like the Baptist way to me.
3. Alan, I don’t understand the judicial activism analogy (maybe because I have trouble with the history on making it just a liberal thing, conservatives used in in slavery and labor law a long time ago). For example, the little church I grew up in would never hire a preacher who didn’t preach Revelation as a premillenialist, even though the BFM allowed for other views. If the seminary doesn’t want to invite certain views into chapel services (which I guess are supposed to be like church services?) then isn’t that OK?
4. The seminary should have just posted the sermon. If for no other reason than to keep peace.
5. Pastor Rogers, this might be too off topic. As a layperson, I’m having a really hard time knowing what a Baptist is these days. I always thought Baptists didn’t speak in tongues, believed Jesus died for everybody, and wanted to telling everybody everywhere about the Lord. Have I missed a memo on what Baptists believe somewhere?
CB Scott
on Aug 30th, 2006
@ 4:34 pm:
Alan,
What you say is true, but it goes beyond dissent. There are some things things that are just plain cover ups. This latest fiasco at SWBTS is just a symtom of a greater systemic problem in the SBC.
I think that maybe it is time for an excerpt from Ben Cole’s future publication. I say this especially in light of an email that he knows I recieved last week and now this new development at SWBTS.
Maybe we should just bust them all and let the Devil take the hindmost.
cb
Jonathan K.
on Aug 30th, 2006
@ 4:48 pm:
I’ve already responded to this in a few other blogs, but after reading Dr. McKissic’s letter, I would like to add a few comments here.
I share Dr. McKissic’s concern that future African-American Baptists might be alienated by decisions such as this. I have a minister friend, who has just moved to the East Coast to become a youth pastor at a Black baptist church who desires to become a senior pastor one day. I don’t know whether he would attend SWBTS, but he and others are the kind of person who would be alienated by these kinds of decisions.
Another, although related, issue that I believe is being overlooked here is the fact, as illustrated by Dr. McKissic’s letter, that speaking in tounges within black baptist churches is part of a certain “faith tradition” and “culture,” and therefore, I would recommend an engagement, rather than a disregard of that.
Alan Cross
on Aug 30th, 2006
@ 10:12 pm:
Lighthorse,
I understand my analogy might be a bit vague. I used the liberal aspect to speak of current issues, but I agree with you about how others used that approach in the past. I was speaking of the present.
Your example of a local church is not in my line of thinking. A local church should be autonomous to a greater degree than an SBC entity, I would think. While SBC entities are autonomous to a point, they should still be governed by the BFM. The BFM is our basis for cooperation and the agencies/entities/associations/state conventions are the arenas in which we cooperate. If you do an end run around the BFM, then on what basis can we agree to cooperate? It all comes down to power plays and language games after that.
That is what judicial activists have done with the courts as they have circumvented the Constitution and separation of powers. We seem to be doing the same thing by enacting separate policies for each agency as that agency sees fit beyond the guidance of the BFM. To me, it basically means that rank and file Baptists are not represented and decision making ability shifts to the few.
Anyway, that probably didn’t help much. It makes sense to me, but I might not be communicating it well. Sorry.
Anonymous
on Aug 31st, 2006
@ 10:34 am:
I am a current SWBTS student and was in chapel on Tuesday. I loved Rev. McKissic’s sermon and agree with everything he said. Please know there are still many of us who do not go along with many (or most)of the decisions at the school. I’m probably one of the few students on campus who has great respect for Dr. Dilday (who I met this January in Ft. Worth)and less respect for the administration. Please don’t disqualify all SWBTS students when we graduate.
John Fariss
on Aug 31st, 2006
@ 2:44 pm:
Alan Cross:
You are right on target. I was at SEBTS (horrors!) 1984-87, and it was the same way there. We were not only NOT required to agree with anything our professors said, but were encouraged to disagree. The only requirement was that we were to articulate and intelligently defend what we claimed to believe. I was considered a conservative student there, and I consistently got high marks from professors considered to be liberal–not because of what I said, but because I backed up what I said. (There were other students, some more conservative than me, others more liberal, who got poor marks, and blamed it on the professors. In actuality it was because they believed what they believed simply because they believed it, and expected professors to accept it simply because they said it, while offering little or no rational, Biblical, or scholarly defense.) The purpose of higher education–especially at the master’s degree level and above–is to develop the ability to think critically. That does not happen without interacting with different ideas and concepts. You will run into those in the world, and even in the pews; it’s better to be prepared than to stand around saying, “It ain’t so because I say it ain’t so.” Christians and the unsaved alike recognize the weakness of that argument.
Lighthorse:
I enjoyed your comments–very well thought out!
#1: Like you, I cannot judge what in any person’s heart. Have you heard or read the transcript? It didn’t come across to me like “spitting in anyone’s eye.” But that perception will vary depending on the listener/reader, and the preconceptions they bring with them.
#2: Baptist “confessions of faith” were generally written as statements of identity, a “this is who we are by what we believe” sort of thing. This was formalized by the language calling these documents “a consensus of beliefs.” However, the 2000 BF&M introduces the phrase, “instrument of doctrinal accountability,” which at least moves it in the direction of a formal creed, or “constitution.” And I agree with you completely: it is not a very Baptist way. Episcopal, yes, Catholic, yes, Presbyterian, yes, Lutheran, yes; but not Baptist.
#3: I’m not sure the local church-seminary chapel analogy works. However, if it does, doesn’t it presuppose that there would be clear rules (like in the church you grew up in), on the order of, “You can say so-and-so, you must approach subjects from these and only these perspectives, and you must not speak on such-and-such.” SWBTS’s explanation says they have no such rules.
#5: There is a lot of confusion about what makes one “Baptist.” A lot of people I know, not a few whom I pastor, would say it is baptism by immersion; yet the earliest Baptists did not baptize by immersion, and today at least, several other denominations do baptize by immersion. Many would say that the so-called charismatic gifts (tongues, healings, etc.) are a dividing line. I don’t speak in tongues (publicly or privately), but there are well respected Baptists who defend the practice, and I consider it secondary and thus debatable even with the Baptist family. And I think every pastor can say that he has prayed for people who have gotten well in spite of medical opinions to the contrary, which comes quite close to a gift of healing. Historically speaking, it is the emphasis of three doctrines that make Baptists distinctive from other Christians. One is the priesthood of the believer; another is soul competency; and the last is freedom of religion. These are in the preface to the 1963 BF&M, before the specific articles, which is what we generally give attention to. I would add a fourth, the concept or doctrine of the gathered church.