Over the course of the past three years I have written a few times about The Council for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood (CBMW). Southern Baptists, including Dorothy Patterson, Al Mohler, Danny Akin and others, serve on the Board of Directors of the Council. Randy Stinson, Dean of Church Ministries at Southern Seminary, has served at times as either the Executive Director or President of the CBMW. I have written about CBMW teaching various forms of patriarchy, calling Irving Bible Church elders' decision to allow a woman to teach the Bible "a grave moral concern" (comparable to homosexuality), advocating the eternal subordination of women to men, encouraging abused women to merely "pray for their husbands," and stating that opposing "male authority" is the same as opposing Christ's authority.The CBMW website is now down. For the past ten years donations to CBMW have averaged between $315,000 to $340,000. In 2004, the payroll for CBMW was $57,000, with the President of CBMW (Dr. Bruce Ware) receiving no salary and Executive Director Stinson receiving $57,000. By 2008 the payroll for CBMW was $245,000 with then President Randy Stinson receiving $30,000 yearly and Executive Director David Kotter earning $70,000. In 2008, CBMW was in the financial red by $36,000. In years past, CBMW provided some wonderful expositions of Scripture from scholars who hold to a complementarian viewpoint. In recent years, CBMW moved more toward a uniform advocacy of eternal male authority and eternal female subordination. CBMW began "Gender Blogs"--men writing to men/women and women writing to women--lest men actually, and immorally, learn something of Scriptural truth from a woman. One wonders if the financial decline is directly related to the changes at CBMW over the past few years. John Starke, a former staff CBMW blogger, has left CBMW and is now writing for the Gospel Coalition as a book reviewer. There have been questions on his Twitter account, from friends and acquaintances, asking John about leaving Southern/CBMW. The Council for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood also has a Facebook site. It, too, has not been updated for several weeks. Staffers usually manned the Facebook account. If now understaffed, updates on Facebook would be one of the first things to end. The CBMW official website was down for a couple of weeks this month before an "under construction" logo appeared. The Internet service provider for CBMW has also been changed, with CBMW moving to a cheaper provider, but the website continues to remain down. Again, one can't help but wonder if finances have necessitated a downsizing of staff and a change of service providers.
Regardless, CBMW's website more than likely will come back in some form or another. Hopefully, it will be an improved site. That will happen if there is a reversion to the old practice of providing scholarly exegesis on the site and a greater restraint in placing papers on the site that open the Southern Baptist Convention to patriarchal charicaturization by the conservative evangelical world at large.
20 comments:
Caution: You are about to enter the no spin zone!
Umm, Wade? Hello? You there?
You promised us a new Emmanuel Web Site in January, 2010. It will be March in a few days and all you have succeeded in doing is adding a cumbersome splash page with slow loading graphics. And all it really does is give a link "to the old site." (Which I think I have given my opinions of before.)
Is your church's giving down or have too many people been dipping into the offering plate to pay for Sunday lunch???
What you need is some really tough sermons on tithing man!!! *beats fist on desk.*
:)
Kevin,
Don't get me started on our "new" website. From our former staff member who couldn't get it done, to our $10,000 outside company who botched it completely, to our current in house multiple staff effort, we are really struggling.
I honestly hope CBMW has better success than we have.
We will, however, get there. When is another story.
Smiling,
Wade
Well Wade, there is Grace and Truth in Contrition.
L's,
We Baptists are giving up Web Sites for Lent. But oh, do them KoC here in Sullivan, MO fry up some mean Cod and Basa!!! I will be salivating all day tomorrow in great anticipation.
Thank the Lord for Roman Catholics!! (during Lent that is)
:)
Meanwhile, if I may jump to the actual topic of Wade's post at least temporarily, I have to wonder if the anger will run out as plainly as the cash appears to have at CMBW? That would indeed be a change we could all believe in.
My Dear Kevin,
Forget the 'giving up' and see if you can HELP Wade with his new site.
Now THAT would be in the spirit of Lent !
And pray the LENTEN PSALMS !!!! And read and study the Lenten Scriptures !
And, oh well, let me think about this, but I just might be able to come up with some meaningful ways for a Southern Baptist to 'stand the vigil before the Dawn of Easter Morning'. :)
Much love,
L's
It seems we have decided to hide some CR crazy for a while. The whole submission thing is nothing but PP pratter when "Miss Dorothy" quickly tells him what to do with the dog!
The down side to such pratter is clearly exposed by Waneta Dawn who is Mennonite and received her marital abuse from such thinking in her church.
Check it out:
http://wanetadawn.com/
Angry websites can't last forever (although Rush seems to be doing ok so far). Besides we all know that women cannot teach men. Even though it's not in Scripture, I sure Timothy was chastised by Paul for letting his mother and grandmother teach him the faith rather than waiting for Paul to show up.
From the CBMW website (now back on line):
CBMW Website
Jared Jenkins
February 26, 2010
Thank you for your prayers and patience
Dear friends of CBMW,
Approximately three weeks ago, it appears that someone hacked into our server and severely damaged the CBMW website. Not only did this prohibit use of the site but is also kept us from even being able to send out a mass email to even explain the challenge we were facing to some of you.
We have been working around the clock to fix the problem. In addition to this, we moved our entire site to a different server that will give us access to more technical help in the future and will save us quite a bit of money as well. I am deeply grateful for the people who helped us rectify the situation and enable us to once again serve you with material that will help your home and church.
I am also thankful for the many of you who were praying for us. It looks like no information was lost in the process. God bless you as you live out God’s glorious design for men and women and thank you for your support of this critical work.
Blessings,
Randy Stinson
President
As much as I enjoy reading blogs that play to the base ( how is yours any different thatn CBMW), perhaps its my ignorance on this subject but isn't it just possible that they are redoing it? A website isn't that expensive in and of itself?
Second, stereotyping complimentarians is hardly Christian (I say to commentators). No one who believes in the Biblical foundations for manhood and womanhood (like how I threw that line?) would have nothing but extremely positive things to say about Roger Nicole and they would be eternally grateful for his life and ministry.
Our biggest problem is the egalitarian argument is that it always is defended by going 2 routes: either a honest denial off biblical and infallibility (as in the cases of the PCUSA, ELCA, the Episcopal Church, many corners of the United Methodist Church, and the innerancy other mainline institutions. Or, they redefine and infallibility to something either Bartian or in such away as it would not be understood by the Church down through the ages.
Ministries come, and ministries fall but the true doctrine never is gone. Also it needs to be said that CBMW has moved increasing to the point where give out almost everything of theirs free (books, etc...)
Grigs,
Respectfully, your conclusion is completely false.
There are many Christ-honoring, Bible believing inerrantists who neither take the Bart approach nor the other approach you mention.
Blessings,
Wade
Thanks, Tom,
Glad to see they are back.
Grigs said...
Our biggest problem is the egalitarian argument is that it always is defended by going 2 routes: either a honest denial off biblical and infallibility (as in the cases of the PCUSA, ELCA, the Episcopal Church, many corners of the United Methodist Church, and the innerancy other mainline institutions. Or, they redefine and infallibility to something either Bartian or in such away as it would not be understood by the Church down through the ages.
It sounds like you've read more of what complementarians & patriarchalists have said about egalitarianism than what was written by actual egalitarians.
Most egalitarians that I have read hold to a very high view of Scripture and also follow a very rigorous historical-grammatical hermeneutical approach. They simply believe, by virtue of detailed study and exegesis, that the Bible is teaching something different from what complementarians say it teaches.
It is neither a denial of the truth of Scripture nor a redefining of biblical infallibility that I have seen in the writings of conservative evangelical egalitarians, rather just a different interpretation of certain easily misunderstood passages.
1. Thank you for your kind responses. I never said that all egalatarians were bartians. But as for my second argument about redefining innerancy, I have never met an egaltarian who believes that in the 21st century women ought to wear head-couverings, thats its forbidden for them to teach a man, and for women to ask their husbands if there is a question after the meeting. The usual response is that these were rare historical situations that paul was dealing with and they are not meant to be understood as universal principles. That is what I mean by redefining innerancy.
But, I certainly have egalatarian friends (one of whom is a woman preparing for ordination) and I used to be a member in the UCC and was confirmed under the discipleship of a woman Minister. I know the egaltarian arguments. But in the same of ''historical context'' they use that as an excuse to ignore Paul's commandments (at least that is my opinion of their arguments). Anyways, thanks for the kind attitude and God Bless,
JPG2
Grigs,
Send me your address and we'll send you a new copy of Jon Zens book on I Timothy 2:12.
Wade,
I don't want to break my perfect record of pointing out your mistakes, so I should remind you that it is:
BARTH
Also, with The Rapper T Kelley's comment reposting Dr. Stinson's announcement, it appears the entire premise upon which your OP was based crashes like a houses of cards...folds up like a cheap suit...
But sightly in your defense, if the CBMW site went down, why did not Al Mohler, or Dr. Moore or one of the other twits (even Dr. Stinson himself) not Twitter this (illegal?) action?
Why are we only now hearing about this right after you bring it to light???
I'm just sayin'...
Kevin,
BARTH -- you are correct.
I apologithe.
:)
Kevin,
By the way, you wrote:
Why are we only now hearing about this right after you bring it to light?
I wondered the same thing.
Why are we only now hearing about this right after you bring it to light???
I'm just sayin'...
Fri Feb 26, 06:10:00 PM 2010
Me too!
Until I got to Tom Kelley I was in a dreamland. I thought that perhaps the Mormonistic teaching of CBMW was finally offline. But I knew better. They would lay off more fathers with children and stay at home moms before they would close that site down.
As someone who grew up in a tradition with this mindset (although never to the extremes that it apparently takes), I have to say that reading this now makes me shriek. While I guess the concept of "Biblical Manhood and Womanhood" (ie, you have to do these things because Paul's epistles are the Law that replaced the Old Covenant), that gender has ever been a universal, biological construct makes me shriek.
Looking at cultures over time reveal that there has been divergence for a long time about how things are to be done based on male and female roles. Certain indigenous peoples had transpeople that were highly regarded in the tribe. "Masculine" and "feminine" have been in constant flux for centuries. My problem with Wild at Hear, bad theology aside, is the bad history.
I see a difference between saying "This is what we should be emulating because Paul told us to" (which I reject on premise, but certainly can hear the mindset) and "This is how it 'always was' but now we've strayed from that and are just forgetting everything that ever was" (which is what a lot of people who write about gender stuff. I have major objections to fabricating history to suit your own worldview. See Michael Kimmel's (outstanding, well-documented, easy to read) Manhood in America for the evolution of masculinity in the United States' short history.
And then you wind up with sermons like this
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