Mess with my friends, you mess with me. I have always been like that. I will not allow people I admire to be falsely accused.  I will not tolerate character assassination and that is what the SBC leaders have done to Foy Valentine and James Dunn.

I am referring to two articles in the January, 1999, issue of SBC Life, the official publication of the SBC Executive Committee, and paid for by your Cooperative Program contributions.

AI think it is true that the liberal antinomianism represented by James Dunn, Glenn Hinson, and Foy Valentine is partially responsible for producing people with the tragically flawed moral compass of a Bill Clinton, Richard Land said in an article entitled Groundwork for Immorality.  Land is the current president of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, formerly the SBC Christian Life Commission.

Antinomianism is a type of theological doctrine which says that by faith and God=s grace a Christian is freed from all laws including the moral standards of the culture.

Bill Clinton=s actions, which I find appalling, cannot be blamed on some climate of  liberal antinomianism created by  Dunn, Hinson and Valentine or some nonsense about an overemphasis on grace.    There is no such thing as an overemphasis on grace, because the Gospel is grace, pure 100 percent grace.  It is grace that saves us all. That=s Bible, not liberal!

I do not know Glenn Hinson well, but I know Dunn and Valentine and their personal ethics are outstanding, and they would never condone Clinton=s personal actions.  To blame President Clinton=s immoral actions on the beliefs of Valentine and Dunn, is as ludicrous as blaming the bombing of abortion clinics and the murder of the young homosexual man in Wyoming on the strong statements against abortion and homosexuality that Land and other SBC leaders have made.  Do their words create an atmosphere for hate crimes to happen?

I do not blame Land and other SBC leaders for hate crimes caused by people taking their beliefs too far.  Nor is it fair to blame Asexual immortality on Valentine and Dunn who have spent their lives standing up for Biblical morality.

Valentine has been a giant among men in standing up for racial justice, compassion for the poor and healthy families.  He has stood against pornography, gambling and many other biblical social concerns.

Dunn, who the magazine article says has been a champion of a radical vision of church-state separation has been a shining light on a hill for the traditional Baptist position of church-state separation totally consistent with Roger Williams, John Leland, George Truett, and many others.

The only radical vision of church-state separation being pushed today is that of the SBC leadership who wants, according to the article, government money (vouchers) for religious schools, which is historically as non-Baptist a position as a Baptist could possibly hold.

The article goes on to justify the fundamentalist takeover of the SBC saying that the theological recovery of the last two decades started with the issue of biblical authority and inerrancy, but quickly spread to the recovery of biblical positions on ethical and moral issues as well.

Is character assassination ethical as a frequently used method for taking over the SBC?  I know of no Biblical ethic that justifies the firing of Russell Dilday, Dan Martin, Al Shackleford, or the lies told about Keith Parks, Dan Vestal, Richard Jackson, and Winfred Moore. 

I cannot find in Scripture anything that justifies the lies told in recent years about the BGCT and its leaders.  If the last twenty years is an example of the recovery of biblical ethics, then God help us.

Land goes on to say that  to me Foy Valentine was a radical liberal undermining Southern Baptist beliefs.  For me, Richard Land, Al Mohler, Paige Patterson and other SBC leaders would do well to aspire to the kind of character, courage, and personal and public morals which make Dunn and Valentine outstanding.   After watching twenty-years of exaggeration, lies and guilt by association which continues unabated, I have little use for that kind of ethics.

April 1999