Do I hate the Southern Baptist Convention?
By David Flick
Moderator BaptistLife.Com Discussion Forums

Baptist Internet discussion forums draw a variety of participants who have a multitude of differing opinions.

The BaptistLife.Com Discussion Forum is no exception. About six months ago, one participant from the fundamentalist camp dubbed BaptistLife.Com to be “Ihatethesbc.Com.” Somehow he believes those who defend the moderate Baptist views are SBC-haters.

In a recent thread on the BaptistLife.Com Discussion Forum, one participant posed the question: “Does anyone here really hate the SBC? I ask because I know that some folks who post on the forum have good reason to feel anger, bitterness, resentment, and perhaps even hatred. ... Are we a board full of cyber-haters?”

My response was that I don’t hate the SBC. How could I? I was born into this denomination. I do, however, hate a number of things that have occurred in the SBC over the past quarter century. In no particular order, here are some things that I hate.

• I hate the fact that fundamentalism has seeped into the denomination of my birth.

• I hate the fact that a generation of arrogant SBC leaders has risen up to control the heart and soul of the denomination.

• I hate the evil that has crept into the denomination.

• I hate what the fundamentalist SBC leadership has done with all the boards and agencies.

• I hate the fact that multitudes of good and godly Southern Baptists were mistreated, demeaned, fired, and excluded.

• I hate what my Executive Director did to me.

• I hate being essentially fired for publicly expressing my convictions about 2000 Baptist Faith and Message.

• I hate those anonymous letters that were written to key people in my association and state, —anonymous letters that ultimately caused me to lose my job as a Director of Missions.

• I hate the inerrancy of the Bible argument.

• I hate the unchristian attitude that Paige Patterson and other Southern Baptists have toward women. • I hate what happened to Russell Dilday.

• I hate that all six of the SBC seminaries have become little more than indoctrination factories.

• I hate losing the freedom that traditional Baptists knew before the takeover of 1979. • I hate the attitude that the fundamentalists have toward moderate Baptists.

• I hate that the fundamentalists refuse to allow moderate Baptists to have a voice in the operation and direction of the denomination.

• I hate the paranoia of the fundamentalist SBC leadership.

• I hate the way the fundamentalists perpetuated myths about a “liberal takeover” of the denomination, especially liberalism in the seminaries.

• I hate what the SBC, primarily Paul Pressler, did to Ralph Elliott.

• I hate what Jerry Johnson did to Roy Honeycutt.

• I hate what Al Mohler did to Paul Debusman.

• I hate what the fundamentalist trustees of Midwestern did to Milton Ferguson.

• I hate what Jerry Rankin did to the missionaries who refused to sign the 2000 Baptist Faith and Message. • I hate the attitude of zero tolerance for diversity of beliefs on the minor tenets of the faith within the denomination.

• I hate what the SBC is doing to the Baptist World Alliance.

• I hate what the North American Mission Board did to the Washington DC Baptist Convention.

• I hate the way the Baptist Press reports news about the denomination.

• I hate what Roger Moran did to the Missouri Baptist Convention.

• I hate the way Paul Pressler and friends introduced secular politics into the denominational structure.

• I hate the idea that some SBC leaders compare the Jews to “cancer.”

• I hate the SBC Executive Committees’ hypocrisy of deciding not to recognize the new moderate convention in Missouri when they do recognize the moderate conventions in Texas and Virginia.

• I hate when SBC leaders declare that moderates “don’t believe the Bible” when they hold different views than the fundamentalists.

• I hate being told that I wasn’t saved at age nine because I didn’t understand the virgin birth of Christ, the deity of Christ, and/or the resurrection of Christ.

• I hate the constant revision of Southern Baptist history by the fundamentalists.

• I hate a hundred other things that have transpired over the past quarter century.

I don’t hate the SBC itself. I just hate what has happened to the denomination. The denomination of my birth and choice is nothing like it was when I was born into it some 62 years ago.

October 2003