Southern Baptist and Evangelical Leaders Have Launched Concerted Attack on Conservatives

Those who tend to lack the sophistication of intellectual discourse tend to be well-versed in personal attacks and insults. This truth is couldn't be made more clear than in today's Evangelical environment. The leftward leadership of the Evangelical Church, particularly the Southern Baptist Convention, have abandoned all logic and reason and launched an outright tirade against conservatism.

The primary weapons of this attack are the denunciation of conservatives with false allegations of such slurs as "misogynist" or "racist." The words themselves have lost all meaning in the battle but carry enough clout to arouse a large and growing segment of the "woke" within the Evangelical Church into an active attack, leaving, for the most part, the conservative no other option but to retreat.

Three of the latest examples of this are recent attacks on conservative resurgence leader, Paige Patterson, Reformed apologist James White, and the highly regarded pastor, author, and theologian, John MacArthur.

John MacArthur is the most notable of these. MacArthur was recently under fire for comments he made at a conference whereby he was asked his thoughts on Beth Moore, to which he gave a simple answer -- "go home!" MacArthur, who went on to explain the historic orthodox conservative position of the Church for the last two thousand years that women are not called to preach nor is there any biblical case to be made for such a thing, was subsequently attacked by Southern Baptist leaders across the country.

He was mocked by Southern Baptist president, JD Greear, who then said that Beth Moore would be welcome at his home anytime. Another leftist and ex-lesbian Egalitarian, Jackie Hill Perry, asserted MacArthur only believes this because of his "ego." And, of course, the Southern Baptist darling herself, Beth Moore, outright calls MacArthur a "misogynist." There is simply no biblical case that can be made against MacArthur's words or position other than that he is a conservative who actually believes the Bible and stands on it as the authority.

Another recent example is an attack by Southern Baptist pastor and author of the book "Woke Church" -- a book that calls on the Church to abandon all historic orthodox beliefs about God, sin, and the work of the cross in favor of a man-centered ideology rooted in secular Marxism known as Critical Race Theory -- on Reformed apologist, James White.

Critical Race Theory (CRT) emerged as an offshoot of Critical Theory, a neo-Marxist philosophy that has its roots in the Frankfurt School and its methods are drawn from Karl Marx and Sigmund Freud. CRT teaches that institutional racism exists within every structure of society and that these structures are intrinsically designed in such a manner as to protect and preserve “white supremacy” in our culture. Further, CRT does not rely on factual statistics or objective evidence to support the theory, rather it relies on anecdotal evidence and personal experience.

Recently, White was attacked by Mason and a concerted attack was launched against him labeling him a racist after Mason dug up an old episode of White's Dividing Line podcast where White made the assertion that while anti-intellectualism exists all over the spectrum, it is especially prominent in black churches and there are very few churches that are theologically sound. I don't agree with White on everything, but one thing James White is not is a "racist." The argument White made was, of course, exactly true and accurate -- yet, Mason grabbed this clip out of context and made it sound like James White was launching a racist attack against the "black Church."

One last example is the former conservative resurgence leader, Paige Patterson. Now, it goes without saying that Paige Patterson has certainly mishandled to some extent certain cases regarding sex abuse allegations under his watch, but absolutely not to the degree that the leftists are making it out to be. But that's a case for another post. The bottom line is that the leftist leadership in the Southern Baptist Convention did not go after Paige Patterson because of his alleged mishandling of sex abuse cases -- they went after him because he refused to join the bandwagon of "wokeness" and social justice that has taken over the denomination.

Recently, woke Marxist charismatic race-bating Southern Baptist pastor, Dwight McKissic dug up an old letter that Paige Patterson -- former president of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary -- wrote in response to the election of the first black president of the Southern Baptist Convention, Fred Luter. In the letter, Patterson points out some obvious challenges that face any black president of the denomination.

To summarize the letter below, Patterson explains that because of the culture we live in, and because Fred Luter is black, it's going to be expected of him to appoint other black people to prominent positions in the denomination. That's not a racist comment, it's a factual observation. It's also a factual observation, as Patterson points out in the letter and as James White stated above, that there are very few within the black Church who actually hold to conservative orthodox biblical beliefs.

Now, let's point out some obvious observations here -- Dwight McKissic -- a black pastor who holds to seriously flawed and even heretical beliefs -- is a prime example of who Patteson would be referring to here. In fact, there are very few conservative black pastors in the entire Southern Baptist Convention. That is not a racist -- it is an observational fact.

But, to the woke, leftist progressives who are trying to -- as Patterson points out -- take the denomination back to where it was before the conservative resurgence, they are using this letter to denounce Patterson and all other conservatives as racists. Here are some examples from Southern Baptist leaders.

What is the bias? In Patterson's letter it is clearly not against "ethnic minorities," it is against progressivism. And Patterson rightly pointed out his concern that it would be difficult to appoint a large number of ethnic minorities -- as Luter would be expected to do -- without compromising biblical conservatism. Period. Paragraph. End of discussion.

If it bothers you that Paige Patterson said this, it should. Because the problem isn't that ethnic minorities are being denied positions based on the color of their skin, but because of the content of their theological positions. Instead of complaining about racism in the Church when it doesn't exist, try actually doing something about the racial disparity by calling on progressive black Churches to repent of their liberalism and embrace biblical orthodoxy. The biggest obstacle to racial reconciliation in the Church isn't white supremacy. It isn't racism. It isn't prejudice. It's heresy and liberalism.