There is a Higher Aim than that of Mere Office

On March 6, 1857, exactly 152 years ago today, the United States Supreme Court, led by Chief Justice Roger B. Taney, declared that all blacks, both slave and free, were not - and could never be - United States' citizens. The edict, now known as The Dred Scott Decision, declared the 1820 Missouri Compromise unconstitutional, and permitted slavery in all western territories of the United States. Chief Justice Taney, knowing that some would challenge the ruling by pointing to the language within The Declaration of Independence that specifically declares, "all men are created equal," defended the Court's decision by writing:

"(I)t is too clear for dispute, that the enslaved African race were not intended to be included, and formed no part of the people who framed and adopted this declaration. . . ."

In Illinois, a local Springfield lawyer who had sworn off future involvement in poltics after serving a disappointing term as a U.S. Representative, was so disillusioned by the Dred Scott decision, he decided to run for 1858 Illinois U.S. Senate seat on an anti-slavery platform. Abraham Lincoln lost his Senate race to Stephen Douglas, but two years later he was astonishingly and unexpectedly elected President of a divided United States - running on the same anti-slavery platform. The majority of other Presidential candidates, including Stephen Douglas, were ambivolent on the issue of slavery. Lincoln, who had long admired the herculean efforts of English politician William Wilberforce to rid England of slavery, could not understand these "don't care" politicans who pretended indifference. Lincoln reminded his "do-nothing" political contemporaries:

In the Republican cause there is a higher aim than that of mere office.

Using even harsher, and possibly self-prophetic language, Lincoln wrote in a July 1858 letter that such do nothing politicians remind him of Wilberforce's opponents who "blazed," "flickered," and "died," whereas the memory of Wilberforce endured.

On this anniversary of the Dred Scott decision, we pastors, men with a cause even greater than that of the Republic, would do well to remember the words of Lincoln when we are tempted to clutch to the recognition that comes with an "office" and avoid the work necessary to see to it that those things which are good, and right, and true, and just are done through our ministries.

In His Grace,

Wade Burleson

P.S. The photograph is from Lincoln's swearing in ceremony at his first inauguration in 1861. Chief Justice Roger B. Taney, author of the Dred Scott Decision, swore Lincoln into office. Nothing evil in God's world survives forever.

On Blacks and Women the SBC Is Not Innocent

There have been a few attempts by Southern Baptists to propose Judge McBryde's granting of Southwestern's motion to dismiss the Klouda lawsuit was a ruling of innocence on Southwestern's part. Anyone who attempts to cast such conclusions reveals a lack of understanding of the legal system or an inherent bias. For instance, one such writer concludes:

And, now, even after our legal system has definitively weighed in the balance of justice Professor Klouda’s case against Dr. Patterson and our esteemed institution, finding them innocent . . .

Whether this writer is an expert on the legal system and offering a consistent expert opinion or is infected with an inherent bias against Sheri Klouda and those who have sought to protect her can be discerned in the nouns the writer uses to describe myself and other supporters of Dr. Klouda (i.e. "jesters," "clowns," "a foot shy of moral antinoniasm,"producers of political porn"). I learned a long time ago that calling people names is bad, but not being able handle being called names is worse. I welcome the verbal abuse if it is thrown my way because of my assistance of the Sheri Klouda family.

But the point of this post is to correct the wrong conclusions of innocence on Southwestern's part. The judge simply ruled that discrimination based upon gender is protected by the First Amendment which separates church and state. In other words, a church can discriminate against women because of 'religious beliefs' and the courts cannot, according to the judge's interpretation of the United States Constitution, punish the church. That is the judge's ruling and I accept it. I don't, however, accept that discrimination against women is acceptable in the Southern Baptist Convention, nor is it a part of our belief system. The courts said they WOULD NOT intervene. That ruling simply stokes the fire for those of us who see that change is needed. We are Southern Baptists and we must do even more to change things. Let me show you what I mean.

A few years ago a pulpit committee in Mississippi expressed a desire to visit with me about being their pastor. I called a previous pastor of that church and asked him to tell me a little about the church. The pastor said the people are great and the church has huge potential, but there was something that bothered him. While he was pastor, there was discussion about bringing a black man on staff. A couple of deacons in the church came to the pastor and said, "We don't need a n____ on staff." The prejudice against blacks is not an official position of the Southern Baptist Convention - now. But as I have shown you before, Southern Baptists argued for a very long time that blacks were inferior to the white race and they had no business being considered equals. It took activists continually working toward reform to bring not only the Southern Baptist Convention, but eventually the United States Constitution, to recognize the equality of blacks.

The same, archaic view of women seems to be prevalent within the Southern Baptist Convention. It is a view that relegates women to an inferior status to men. People do not like to hear the issue stated so bluntly as in the sentence above, and will do everything within their power to shape the argument to something other than 'inferiority' - just as Southern Baptists did in decades past regarding blacks. For instance, it is argued that the physical differences with women are obvious, and as a result, they are different but equal. I am reminded that Southern Baptists used to point to the skin color of black men 150 years ago and used it as the basis for the 'different and UNEQUAL' view of blacks. In other words, 'different but equal' is at times nothing but a euphemism for 'different and unequal.' When TREATMENT of a person differs from that of a white man in the same position, then you have a 'different but unequal' mentality. Ask yourself a question: What two groups of people have been discriminated against in the Southern Baptist Convention solely because of who they are? Blacks and women. Adulterers, homosexuals, child molestors, etc . . . are rightfully discriminated against because of WHAT THEY DO.

Someone shouts, "Object!" We are not discriminating against women because of who they are. We discriminate against them in terms of what they can and cannot do! We are saying women can't teach men, women can't be in a position of authority over a man, women can't lead men, women can't teach men Hebrew, women can't be Vice-President of the IMB, women can't be . . . . Why not? Some will say, "Because the Bible says so." I say emphatically, categorically, unequivocably, and passionately - IT DOES NOT. Now, let us debate the issue - but recognize the implications for those of you who wish to relegate women to a 'position of inferiority to men.' You will be discriminating against women. Period. No matter how you spin it, you are discriminatory on the basis of gender.

The United States government, through the courts of the land, says that a church can discriminate against a woman because of its religious beliefs. They will not interfere. The United State's Constitution forbids interference. But the courts, unlike blog writers who pontificate differently, did not declare Southwestern INNOCENT of discrimination. It simply said 'churches' can discriminate on the basis of gender. The solution to skirting the laws of discrimination in this land is to somehow figure out how to get your institution or business to be recognized as a church and then terminate any competent person on the basis that she is a female. You will NOT be innocent of discrimination. You will be free from the long reach of federal laws that prevent it.

Blessings,

Wade

The Egalitarianism of Abolitionist John Brown

I have been researching the life of John Brown, the white abolitionist who led twenty one men - sixteen whites and five slaves - to overtake the U.S. Armory at Harper's Ferry, Virginia on October 16, 1859. Brown desired to obtain weapons in order to arm Southern slaves and lead them in a war to end the institution of slavery. Brown's attack on the Harper's Ferry ended after two days when Robert E. Lee led a group of United States Marines in a counter-assault which resulted in the deaths of ten of Brown's men (including two of his own sons), and his eventual trial and hanging in Charles Town, Virginia (now Charleston, West Virginia). Most of my life I have considered John Brown a 'fanatic' simply because of the few, brief blurbs about his life that I read in histories of the Civil War.

Recently, however, I have come across literature that portrays John Brown as an evangelical, Calvinistic Christian gentleman who believed in the inspiration and infallibility of the Holy Scriptures. Brown is presented as one who believed that he was 'an instrument of divine Providence' and it was his divine mission to end the sinful practice of slavery. It should seem obvious that many African-Americans consider John Brown a hero. Men like Frederick Douglas, Du Bois, and Booker T. Washington hail John Brown as a man of principle and conviction. But the author who has caught my attention is a modern white man, the Rev. Louis A Decaro, Jr., who has written Fire from the Midst of You: A Religious Life of John Brown. Rev. Decaro writes the following about John Brown:

If Brown is misunderstood by modern scholars and writers, it is (also) because of his strong religious beliefs. However different their political and social views, even his nineteenth-century opponents had a better understanding of his religious world view than do many biographers and scholars today. That (Brown) considered himself "an instrument of Providence" smacks of delusion and fanaticism in modern and postmodern perceptions. That he likewise believed that all of the Christian scriptures reflect the same God at work in the history of redeption is likewise indigestible to most people in a post-Christian society. All the more reason, then, for a religiously oriented portrayal of the famous abolitionist. Indeed, such an approach suits him, as he might have put it, "midling well."

Brown was a man of faith, and well read in the Bible and the Christian literature. Like many Christians, he was converted as a youth, and he grew up in a theologically conservative, evangelical and Calvinist home. Though his early intention to study for the ministry did not work out, Brown was a founding church member, Bible teacher, and a devoted layman throughout his life. Even after he committed himself full time to the abolitionist struggle, he remained a church attender and faithful Bible student. Furthermore, he and his family represente a unique strand of the abolitionist movement. A devotedly Christian people who believed the Bible to be the inspired and infallible word of God, they were also biblical egalitarians - radical dissenters from the racialist beliefs of many white Christians. The Browns applied the biblical docrine of humanity the image of God to the frontier as well as the slave market, and were thus righteously indignant at the social, political and ecclesiastical realities of a society steeped in white supremacy. Like many Christian abolitionists, the Browns understood the Golden Rule as a mandate to fight slavery by undermining it in overt and covert political acts, such as anti-slavery groups, participation in underground railroad, and support of candidates who held similar opinions regarding slavery. John Brown's war on slavery was undoubtedly an extension of the Christian legacy of his family.

It is remarkable to me that you are hardpressed today to find any evangelical Christian who would advocate slavery, yet in John Brown's day, his egalitarianism - in terms of race - was definitely a minority viewpoint among evanglicals, not to mention all United States citizens. I wonder if a century from now the concept of the equality of women, seemingly a minority viewpoint of modern evangelicals, might be considered as 'normal,' 'Christian' and 'biblical' as we now view the equality of races?

In His Grace,


Wade Burleson

A Call for Intellectual Honesty and Consistency

Emily Hunter McGowan recently wrote a post over at SBCOutpost entitled Who Shall Have Authority Over a Man? In the comment section I wrote the following:

In our church, we have women who chair committees, serve as trustees, teach men in Sunday School classes and have had women teach from the pulpit. We do not have women "pastors" or "elders" at our church - for we have chosen to abide by the BFM 2000 confessionally - but unlike others, our church would have never chosen to make that issue a test of Southern Baptist fellowship and cooperation. Though I personally would not lead our church to hire female pastors or elders, we believe in giving freedom in this area to other churches because we see the possibility of interpretive differences regarding I Timothy 3 and we feel deeply that it is ultimately a local church decision.

I have said publicly that I would not personally lead my church to hire a female pastor, would not be a member of a church where the senior pastor was female, and I have no problem personally with the BFM 2000* on this issue. However, I am honest enough to say that my discomfort is personal and cultural — and not Biblical.

Yesterday a Texas Southern Baptist pastor challenged me regarding my comment. Pastor R.L Vaughn's tone was gracious as he wrote in his blog . . .

I certainly respect your feelings of personal and cultural discomfort. I have some things that make me personally uncomfortable as well. But, that being said, if we realize it is just that personal discomfort, don’t we have some obligation to change our comfort zone? Some have made comparisons of the female pastor issue to both slavery and segregation. What if we inserted those into the statement — 'My discomfort (with ending slavery) is personal and cultural — and not Biblical' or 'My discomfort (with integration) is personal and cultural — and not Biblical

Vaughn continues in his post - switching to the third person . . .

Burleson is representative of what some people think on the issue. Others believe that having or not having female pastors is a Biblical rather than a personal & cultural issue. In several blogs I've read online, folks have compared the female pastor issue with past issues like slavery and segregation. Wade Burleson himself made the comparison in the thread from which I am quoting. My point is that one can't have it both ways. If you want to compare keeping women from being pastors to keeping slaves, then perhaps you should react the same way to both. Wouldn't that be consistent? (emphasis mine)

Mr. Vaughn asks a great question. In fact, he goes to the very heart of the issue.

Has there ever been a time that Southern Baptists spoke forcefully, eloquently and passionately in support of the institution of slavery? Have Southern Baptists ever defended slavery from a perspective of trust in, and standing upon, the inerrant and infallible Word of God? Mr. Vaughn acts like this has never happened in the SBC. He implies that anyone who supported slavery -- just as anyone who supported "women pastors" - is doing so based upon "cultural" biases or preferences and is ignoring the clear teaching of God's Word. Pastor Vaughan acts as if any argument supporting slavery would have to be both ludicrous and incredible.

Enter Basil Manley.

This 19th century Southern Baptist pastor, President, author, and theologian preached a message at First Baptist Church, Charleston, South Carolina in April of 1837 entitled Duties of Masters and Servants. Shawn Ritenour presented a scholarly paper at the Austrian Scholars Conference at Auburn, Alabama in March, 2002. Dr. Ritenour writes of Basil Manley's message:

Manly’s arguments justifying the institution of slavery (were based) on the Scriptures.

In the sermon 'Duties of Masters and Servants' Manly first presents a Biblical justification for the existence of the institution of slavery and then exposits on the regulations God places on both masters and servants. In doing so, Manly uses as his primary text, Ephesians 6:5-9 which exhorts, “Servants, be obedient to them that are your masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in singleness of your heart, as unto Christ; Not with eyeservice, as menpleasers; but as the servants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart; With good will doing service, as to the Lord and not to men: Knowing that whatsoever good thing any man doeth, the same
shall he receive of the Lord, whether he be bond or free. And, ye masters, do the same things unto them, forbearing threatening: knowing that your Master also is in heaven; neither is there respect of persons with him.” He additionally draws upon an impressive set of passages taken from the entire breadth of Scripture, including verses out of Genesis, Joshua, Leviticus, Deuteronomy, Job, the Psalms, Proverbs, Malachi, Matthew, Luke, I Corinthians, Galatians, I Timothy, Titus, James, I Peter, and Philemon.

In defending the institution of slavery by appealing to Scripture, Manly aligned himself with the bulk of Southern Christian thinkers. Many of the arguments put forth by Southern clergy, including Baptists, were rooted in the doctrine of the infallibility of Scripture.

Allow me now to issue a call for intellectual honesty and consistency among Southern Baptists . . .

(1). Some Southern Baptists in the 1800's used the infallibility of Scripture to justify the institution of slavery and accused anyone who disagreed as liberal.
(2). Some Southern Baptists today use the infallibility of Scripture to justify prohibiting women from teaching men or holding a position of authority over men and accuse anyone who disagrees as "liberal."

Anyone see the consistency?

(1). Some Southern Baptists in the 1800's were not convinced the Scriptures supported the insitution of slavery, but personally supported slavery for personal and cultural reasons and did not harbor animosity toward those on the other side.
(2). Some Southern Baptists today are not convinced the Scripture prohibits women from teaching men or holding positions of "authority" over men, but personally support the prohibition of women pastors for personal, cultural and "confessional" (BFM 2000) reasons, but do not harbor animosity toward those on the other side.

Anyone see the consistency?

I agree with Mr. Vaughn's call for consistency.

What is needed is an intellectual honesty of where we Southern Baptists have been, where we are now, and where we may be in the future. To say we have erred does not compromise one's belief in the sufficiency and infallibility of the Word of God.

We Southern Baptists are people who believe in the inerrant Book - with a history of seemingly errant interpretations.

That is both honest and consistent. And when we have that attitude we won't be quite as smug and uncooperative as we would be without it.

In His Grace,


Wade