A MATTER OF PERSPECTIVE:
Chunking Rocks
By David R. Currie,
Coordinator

Recently my family worshiped in my home church, First Baptist in Paint Rock. The excellent young pastor there, Tony Gruben, preached a moving message on the John 8 passage regarding the woman caught in the act of adultery.

As Tony preached I became engaged with the story, which I believe is a trait of good preaching—to get your audience to interact with the Scripture passage—and wondered what if the story had turned out differently?

What if Jesus had written on the ground and said let him who is without sin cast the first stone and they had started chunking rocks? What would Jesus have done—stood there and watched? I doubt it.

My guess is Jesus would have put Himself between the woman and rock throwers and we would be celebrating a stoning and a resurrection rather than a crucifixion and a resurrection. The Jesus I read about in the Bible would not have stood there, washed His hands of the situation or looked away.

Then I thought of something else. We have a had a group chunking rocks for over 20 years and they are still throwing. Nationally they started throwing at seminary professors Keith Parks, Foy Valentine, Russell Dilday, Roy Honeycutt, Randall Lolley, the WMU, and on and on. They finally brought down Parks, Valentine, et al., from Southern Baptist life but they are still chunking at the WMU, CBF, women called to preach, Walt Disney, homosexuals, moderate Democrats and Republicans and anybody else who does not agree with them.

In Texas, they are chunking rocks as well. They throw at Bill Pinson, Phil Strickland, Joy Fenner, Dick Maples, university presidents, many university professors and many pastors, even their own pastors. Where they get all the rocks, I don’t know. And why do they throw the rocks? For some, it is their nature. Others throw the rocks for the same reasons the pharisees were going to stone the woman—they have a sense of moral superiority.

You see, many fundamentalists deep down believe he or she is better than you or me. They think that they believe the Bible more than you and that makes them superior to you. Scratch many fundamentalists deep enough and you find a strong sense of moral superiority. In their perception, they are right on Biblical interpretation, secular politics, social issues and everything else and being right makes them superior.

The problem you and I have in standing up to fundamentalism is that it is against our nature! A healthy traditional Baptist knows he or she is not better than anybody. We know we are saved by 100 percent pure grace. We are not better than homosexuals, adulterers, materialists, the lazy or anyone else, including a fundamentalist. We know we are all sinners saved by grace. That is why deep down we all think this denominational fighting is tremendously stupid and wish it would go away. And yet the rocks are still flying and we have to ask, “What would Jesus do?”

Would Jesus put Himself between the Pharisees and the woman? If yes, then do you think Jesus wants us as traditional Baptists to put ourselves between the Pharisees of our day and the leaders, agencies and institutions of the BGCT?

Rock throwing is harmful. If you are going to throw at my friends and at an organization (the BGCT) that God is using mightily to help build His Kingdom, then I and several thousand of my friends who believe as I do, are going to get in your way and ultimately try to stop you. That may be a good definition of who TBC is, a large group of Texas Baptists who have decided to try to be a shield between the BGCT and those chunking rocks at our state convention.

Now some of you are thinking “Doesn’t TBC throw a lot of rocks back at those they consider to be chunking rocks?” No, I do not think so. I hope we never throw rocks back. We do report the truth as we understand it and some equate that as throwing rocks back which is not our desire.

Our desire is to have the same effect Jesus had with the Pharisees. Evidently something He wrote or drew on the ground shamed or embarrassed the Pharisees into realizing they did not have any moral superiority over the woman and they walked away. We do expose the hypocrisy (years of meager support to cooperative missions) and misinformation (our BGCT universities are full of liberals) of those chunking rocks at the BGCT and who threw the rocks at the SBC leaders before they came into power. Our goal is not to be mean, but to force them to reevaluate their rock throwing.

We also try to explain to bystanders (the average Texas Baptist) who the rock throwers are and how they act in hopes of encouraging more Texas Baptists to not support the rock throwers financially and to encourage more Texas Baptists to stand up against the rock throwers. Our hope is that if enough people stand up to them they will eventually lay down their rocks and go away.

Let me summarize. Rock throwing at anybody on the basis of moral superiority is not valid. Yet rocks are being thrown at the leaders, agencies and institutions of the BGCT.

Are you going to pretend it isn’t happening, say it’s not your concern, hope unrealistically that the rocks won’t actually hurt anybody or any program or institution, or will you become a part of the shield of protection for the BGCT?

My prayer is you will get involved, join TBC, educate others in your church, stop funding the rock throwers with God’s money and be in Austin, Nov. 10-11, to protect what God is doing through Texas Baptists.

September 1997