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Born May 18, 1953; got saved at Truett Memorial BC in Hayesville, NC 1959. On rigged ballot which I did not rig got Most Intellectual class of 71, Gaffney High School. Furman Grad, Sociology major but it was little tougher than Auburn football players had Had three dates with beautiful women the summer of 1978. Did not marry any of em. Never married anybody cause what was available was undesirable and what was desirable was unaffordable. Unlucky in love as they say and even still it is sometimes heartbreaking. Had a Pakistani Jr. Davis Cupper on the Ropes the summer of 84, City Courts, Rome Georgia I've a baby sitter, watched peoples homes while they were away on Vacation. Freelance writer, local consultant, screenwriter, and the best damn substitute teacher of Floyd County Georgia in mid 80's according to an anonymous kid passed me on main street a few years later when I went back to get a sandwich at Schroeders. Had some good moments in Collinsville as well. Ask Casey Mattox at www.clsnet.org if he will be honest about it. I try my best to make it to Bridges BBQ in Shelby NC at least four times a year.

Monday, July 31, 2006

Historic OKlahoma meeting High Noon 8-3-06;FU Pastors School

Update Sat afternoon 7:42 Aug 5:
Great link with references to lynchings at Moores' Ford near William and Willie Earle and the 1990 Conference at Furman about it all. In the link you will see the name Schaefer Kendrick. His daughter Beth was alumni director in fall of 73 when I was co emcee of Furman Homecoming Follies. Beth married an attorney and moved to Gaffney where our paths crossed again. Schaefer and AV Huff are great men, truth tellers.
www.creighton.edu/JRS/2001/2001-6.html
In that same link are discussions of Tim Tyson and his book to be discussed by Furman's 750 incoming Freshman this fall, or so the buzz is on campus.

Update Midnight Aug 4: on the historic High Noon in Oklahoma with a cross reference report with attribution to this blog's understanding of the significance of the Meal. I was prophetic indeed, and Happy it went well. Two great lunches in Baptist world today. I could feel the karma as I was downing my hot and sour soup in Traveler's Rest. Do check out the pix in the link, even the Milk and Honey sign in Minca Oklahoma.'
Webb, you got the presence of a Will Rogers poet for sure. My Great Uncle was a doctor in Dewey, want you and Flick to know, a Vanzant.
www.baptistlife.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=3075


Update August 3, A Thursday, 9:10 pm
Had a great lunch with an icon, an iconin the making and a third party, most likely the finest Christian at the table. How do I know? He picked up the check. Icon in making however is doing good works in the area and I gave him some fundraising leads and tips, so I am a good person as well.
Furman proff, Helen Lee Turner came out for David Jasper's final lecture. Helen Lee is in the Fox Lambs Book of Life for her contribution to Ammermans SBaps Observed. Great Essay on how Criswell, Adrian and other end time preacher's demagogged a false construct in the SBC Pastor's conference of the 70's to create havoc in the 80's and 90's, taking advantage of the "mazeway breakdown."
Great ending to the session tonight when the great Gardner Taylor asked the Scot David Jasper which was the stronger signifier, the spoken word or the written word. David said the Spoken to which the Catholic scholar whose name Ratzinger the Pope knows, said Amen in so many words and Gardner agreed. I was there at the end when Chaplain Tipton was asking Jasper about the book on the end of words, and Taylor asked Jasper about a certain NT proff in Glasgow, was he still there. I broached the name of the poet Mary Oliver to Jasper and will follow up with an email singing the praises of the great Arkansas preacher Stephen Hyde whose brother councils Clinton in Lil Rock, a spiritual guide and advisor, if I am not mistaken.
Here is what is likely to happen if I have not overextended my welcome with my sister this week. In about six weeks I hope to come back up this way with a former assistant to the President of Samford U, where we will meet Echol Nix and a Furman Student at the CBarrel on Woodruff Road, and Jesse Jackson's Mother's State Legislator, the Honorable Fletcher Smith, Gaffney HS 1970, Class of Johnny Dawkins and Lynn Mabry; where we will go to Wofford for the academic year inaugural convocation address to hear Bush Staffer Eric Motley recently profiled on front page of the Washington Post.
Oh, buzz on campus is the 750 incoming freshmen are reading Tim Tyson's Blood Done Sign My Name; and Tyson will be on campus in October. I may come up to be visiting adjunct professor and assistant to the character and Remembrance of the University cause good things are happening at same time there is a little trouble in the wings.
Became better acquainted with a Bamian this week, whose last name is same as a month of year. His wife is a lovely person. He ought to bring her out in public more often.
Edgar Mcknight is one of Furman's treasures, a Baptist natural resource, in the Stewart Newman vein of authenticity and capacity.
Selah

Sfox; some of you may want to see my comment on Burleson's blog today.

Update, evening of August 2. News about Cardinal Ratzinger, now the Pope emerges tonight in the corridors of the Furman Pastors school. Will Campbell, Marney, Willimon, BBTaylor, Ammerman, James Dunn, Stan Hastey, the rich tradition perseveres. Tomorrow Gardner Taylor then it is on the Chicago and a big win there.


August 2: Want to update couple things and provide a link. First, historical note, it was 7 years ago today, August 2, 1999 when my Dad, the Reverend Billy Dan Fox, died. I gave a eulogy on the 5th, my nephew Chad's Birthday. Chad will be 21 on the fifth, has him a fine woman, I'm talking mighty fine, and is on his on pilgrimage. He has a little bit of Uncle Fremont's sense of humor, instincts, and that is a grace note.
I think my Dad got his picture in the Baptist Courier in 1975 or 77 for attending the Furman Pastor's school. Those were the Halycon days, but we press on in that legacy. My Dad was not a scholar, but he had good instinct for where the truth was, could maybe smell it better than he could understand or translate it; at least knowing the wheat from the chaff in his day, the former being Truett, LD Johnson, Stewart Newman, Randall Lolley and Bill Self; as opposed to WA Criswell, Jim DeLoach, Bob JOnes, Falwell, and J Frank Norris. Raised a fundamentalist with Wilbert Welch at Calvary BC, he pilgrimmed out following his higher nature, always however honoring what truth in love his very conservative roots shaped him.
Now here we are with the news of yesterday. Ben Witherington did a stellar job filleting the mish mash of Mohler and Paige and Page on women at the Furman pastors school. I hope an audiotape of his last remarks, especially my public exchange with him about Page only 7 miles away at TAylors, FBC gets in the hands of the local media.
Ben was in Greensboro for the SBC, though I think he is UMC. He lectures internationally, giving us some anecdotes last night about a recent event in Russia.
Gonna be good stuff tomorrow night with Brandon Scott and David Jasper Back to Back: Paul on the Resurrection, Faith of or Faith In; and Jasper on the legacy of the Sacred text in literature.
But here is the lesser thinking.
www.bpnews.org/bpnews.asp?id=23710


Two topics on one post that I will come back to as the week develops. First just in case I get lurkers here who don't frequent www.baptistlife.com/forums ; do want to take you straight to a history making event. A friend and former SBC DOM-- see the oldest man in my profile picture--David Flick is breaking bread High Noon in Enid Oklahoma, Enid with the young icon IMB buck Wade Burleson who broke new ground today according to his cohort Marty Duren at www.sbcoutpost.com . Flick-- www.davidflick.blogspot.com --about five entries down has a review of Carl Kell's Exiled. Flick himself, like me, has been ousted, thrown out of fellowship by wrong headed Baptist community, or a group some of whom are otherwise good people, who have been led astray by a Council of Shadows.
But Flick is gonna sit down at the table of fellowship with one of the most notorious SBCers on the scence now and our mutual good friend David Webb, Poet, also a fundamentalist; they are sitting down for a meal Thursday. I hope they invited Bruce Prescott.
www.baptistlife.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=3014&start=25 online page two of that thread you will see the arrangements.


And speaking of there is a blogger around every corner, here in Furman library had fleeting chat with Ed Babinski, editor of little known collection of testimonials of former fundamentalists including my Dad and Uncle Prentice good friend from Carson Newman in the early 50's, Joe Barnhart, David Montoya, and Billy Graham's Golddust Twins partner Charles Templeton. See if Barry Hankins can find that one in the Baylor Library, Leaving the Fold. Babinski is gonna check on Montoya's Samurai blog and of course, Babinski has one two. Maybe we can all get together with Chuck Morton, husband of Frank Page's secretary just down the road and have a sweet time in Jesus, maybe coordinate it with the Flick/Webb/Burleson event and see what karma comes out of it.
Revenants of the Uprisin of 34 in the air here on Furman campus as well.
That was pretty jumbled, so forgive me but I will come back to it.
Meanwhile, encountered a phenomenal mind here at the Furman Pastors school tonight in the personage of David Jasper, Scott, art and film iconoclast. He wasn't familiar with James Wood, but I will not hold that against him. Has a nice wife and two attractive daughters. A group viewing of the Oscar South African film Tsotsi in the Furman Library is a possibility as the week unfolds. I think I'm going to send him home later in the week with a copy of the Ron Rash novel One Foot in Eden, and an original script a friend and I have collaborated on other sophisticates have found 1) "brilliant, wonderful, I loved it" 2) "pandemoniously picaresque."
Jasper's interest is piqued. Looking forward to further conversations the likes Of which are rare in Collinsville except with my friend James on the bench at the Pig--I do not say thay facetiously, he is a great man--and our mutual friend Don, the knife man at Trade Day.
More later as I strive to compartmentalize it all distinct from the throwdown with Bonnie Payne.

Friday, July 28, 2006

Bama Reform Tom Corts: Will it spill Over to the Alsbom of the SBC??

Tom Corts has been making front page above the fold news in Alabama last couple days; and today the Bham News gave him a glowing editorial. He may be the reincarnation of Judge Frank Johnson with silvery white hair for all we can tell here in the Moment.
Corts, right out of retirement and the end of a glorious Presidency of Samford--minus a short lived wooing by Baylor where they showed their backwoods Hiney; is there a little Criswell in Herb Reynolds?--is back in the fray to a little chagrin of his wife, gonna sweep this state clean at the Governor's Request, sprucing up a corrupt statewide Two-year College System, nepotism all around. Great article back in May about Corts tenure at Samford, got picked up on website of both Baptists Today and karl Rove's Baptist Press.
Getting back on the White Horse, Corts said I'm an honest man, the state needs me and I can git R Done.
Corts is a good man. He and my Dad had a mutual friend from his Days at Wingate, A Dr. Everett Chapman, who came through Gaffney in early 70's and now around Lake Lure. Uncle Prentice was spellbound the one time he heard Chapman preach. I shook hands with Corts back in April, right after his Samford Retirement Banquet when Bush Administration's Eric Motley, among others flew down to sing his praises. Samford has produced Eric Motley and Leigh Ann Metzger. Not sure what it means.
Corts once suspected I planted a story in the Wall Street Journal. Wish I had that much influence. Woulda love to have had, but I didn't. It was the one about the schizophrenia in the institution with Timothy George on one hand and Bill Leonard on the other one. Wrong man left; George shoulda bailed, a blemish on an otherwise stellar administration.
Corts was handsomely paid, around three and a quarter a year; but I'm okay with that. I feel certain he turns more back into good causes than Paige Patterson and Ronnie Floyd do.

The Bob Riley appointment has political implications. Riley in this campaign year has to catch some of the Lone Ranger Glow of this Upright capable man. I think Riley is counting on the virtue by association of Corts and Drayton Nabers, though Riley himself may be more in the mold of another Nabers, Jim Nabors.
The questions is, full plate and thicketed at that Corts has embraced, will he have the energy and time to address a more pressing and complicated question always near at hand. Will he have time and presence of mine to articulate the nuances folks like Jim Evans, Wayne Flynt, Lenora Pate, Deidre Downs (former Miss America and Samford grad of a Kate Campbell political bent) Sara Shelton, Rabbi Jonathan Miller and myself would want to press Gov Riley on; and that is the dark, dense Karl Rove underbelly of the religious right in the state most prevalent in the political calculations of Republicans like Mike Rogers, Robert Aderholt, and Senator Jeff Session.
For sure Roy Moore was defeated soundly. But the questions raised by Kevin Phillips, Michelle Goldberg and Bill Moyers remain. Can Corts bear witness to Riley and lead him away from the mediocrity of the likes of Mississippi Judge Pickering on SBC Peace Committee toward the greatness of Judge Frank Johnson and Hugo Black; or will Corts get caught in the thicket in his noble intent.
The reading list is out there. Alabama is nationally known to be a petri dish for the ongoing calculations of Rove, Land; Floyd and Scarborough www.visionamerica.us
It will take a certain sound, and it must be sounded from the outset.
A folk church like the SBC cannot be whitewashed, Rick Lance and Bob Terry must not be allowed to Up With People it Away.
Corts has led the charge on Constitutional Reform. He has joined the fray again.
He also has endorsed the Pastorate of Sara Shelton, so he clearly is outside BFM 2000.
He has left his successor a latent cancer at Samford, Timothy George--see Carl Kell's Exiled and the testimony of Paul Simmons.
Let's Hope Corts is up to the Thicket, the Rams Horns are Long, and his glorious legacy refines.

Stephen Fox
Collinsville, Alabama, last Friday of July, 2006
PS New Yorker has a seminal story on Religious Right and how it is playing this round in Ohio. Should be easy to google up. I hope Corts reads it this weekend, as well as the staff of Bob Riley and Lenora's Pates Dawson Church. FBC Auburn can not save the state by itself.
Look for Revisions and updates of this post in the next ten days.
Look for the stories and today's editorial on Corts at www.al.com then click on Bham News.

Wednesday, July 26, 2006

SBC: "The carpet too is moving Under You"

Gonna update this one to July 28, a Thursday or so. See the new link at the bottom

That's a line from Bob Dylan's Great It's all over now Baby Blue.
Carpet is moving under lot in the Baptist spectrum these days.
Gonna cross reference here and see if any of your are interested in pursuing the randomness.
Made several phone calls today, including messages left for the editor of the Alabama Baptist and ALSBOM Ex Dir Rick Lance. Also had great **not_allowed** with religion writer for major national newspaper, almost all of them know me, you know. Well some of em, no kiddin.
Anyway--don'twant to give that Nazi Uguessedit, the commenter more fodder--the ground is soft, everywhere from the BGCT, to Revelations on Montoya's blog about the diseases of fundamentalist, to the pregnant conversation Burleson has engaged at Mercer's and Baps Today's www.baptistlife.com/forums to my input at Marty Duren's www.sbcoutpost.com blog
Conversations are criscrossing; and if Hankins phd student Ben Cole links www.ethicsdaily.com on his blog, then watch out Paige, Mohler and Pressler: Here Comes Paris Trout
If I can get some of you to engage the crossreferencing going on out there, context it all in Bruce Prescott's daily thoughts at www.mainstreambaptists.org . Bruce is getting lost in all this **not_allowed**, and for me, more days than not he sets the standard, along with ED.com at recognizing and separating the wheat from the chaff and making a difference.
Some of these young boys, Wade, Marty and Cole, are young colts, full of themselves and their notoriety. They aren't very deep, have not exhausted the requesite reading list. Who knows how bright they are, but right now they are just bucking around in the stall, not quite ready for the real deal. I don't see any Marneys or Truett's or Mark Noll's in the lot; just a lot of Bible College moxie and testosterone.
But hey, let's see where it goes.
My friend Tom Webb puts a lot of stock sees a lot of promise in Burleson in particular. There are signs conversations, even face to face dialogue is a possibility this fall in Oklahoma. Some of us are talking to John Killian here in Bama.
I hope all of you are not to proud to consider James Ault's Spirit and Flesh. His concluding chapters are the best guidelines I have seen to date for some substantive conversation.
Fire Richard Land; no compromise on that. And cut out all money to the Cooperative Program save the IMB that things get settled out. There may be ways to cooperate in several state conventions excluding TExas and Virginia, maybe Georgia and South Carolina. Go from there.
Interesting multiethnic church outside Houston, a pastor Woo, averages about 600 in Sunday worship, but soft affiliation with the BGCT.
Carpet too is moving under you. WE could indeed be on the front end of some major realignments, anothe round of reconfiguration.

Sfox, July 25, NACC

Thursday, Gadsden's new library, post salsa and then some CFA nuggets.

Marty Duren's www.sbcoutpost.com/2006/07/27/what-would-happen blog and comment is hopping today. Duren has been on fire lately while Burleson is smouldering down into dense discussion about missional ideologies, concepts and strategies.
Sent strong Email to friends, Webb, Gourley and Flick; appreciative to Flick for visiting my blog here and commenting; Webb as well for the Library endorsement
Had good conversation today with my friend David Montoya, and the Shooger Booger. Very direct and frank with candor; maybe more kindness with Montoya than with the once beloved Boogershoog. Sent the CFA coupon on to Copey anyway as it was constructed without malice before the short conversation....FTR
Oh, and DanielS, you fiend, if you prowl here and comment, tell the world who you are and guessedit is. Jesus is tenderly calling you out, luminous and demanding as he always is, a thousand times more frightening than the Killer Sea. with a little help from Mary Oliver

George Wallace, Jr.: Marsha Duel, and John Killian

Gonna be brief on this one and come back to it, so all of you who take an interest on first reading, come back and see how it develops.
Called a neighbor this morning and let her know I may start something on the subject, so did not want to disappoint her.
I voted for G Jr. in the Lt. Gov GOP Primary runoff last Tuesday. He got beat, could be the final nail on the coffin of a dynasty here in Alabama. My fundamentalist friend John Killian of Maytown Alabama endorsed Wallace, Jr and I was encouraged to hear George was for Constitutional Reform. I probably woulda voted for Folsom in the General this fall against Jr. had he won, and I for sure will now against Strange.
What I want my neighbor Duel, who was raised bout half mile from my house and married well and went to Mtn Brook; and Killian distant kin of former mayor of Collinsville, Boston Killian (love that name though he probably opposed my grandfather Jordan's politics in his day, nineteen teens), what I want them to do is read the 20 odd pages on the Southern Baptist Convention as the state church of the Ex Confederacy, read the footnotes and recommended readings in the book, and see if they don't see a novel of some sort in themselves and their fascination with the Wallaces. And for sure they both should have already read Dan Carter's definitive bio of the Dad, the Governor.
Go from there and maybe next time Marsha is up, if she gives me advanced notice, Killian can drive up as well and we can chat at the China House. Valerie you are welcome, but the less you say, the more substantive the conversation will be.
Oh, in my picture on this blog, one of the other folks is kin to a former member of the Wallace Administration. See if you can guess that person.
sfox

Friday, July 21, 2006

Remedial reading list for the MDuren network/great reference

I have been having lot of fun for the better part of the day scrounging around over at www.sbcoutpost.com making new friends, Marty, Amy, Sarah and Dorcas. Like Jonathan at Baptistlife.com, BobK of Scottsboro Alabama--Bob, almost smoked you out today talking to some women at Calvary church who were on expedition and stopped at the CBarrel--fundies, the good citizens they are, honest tithers etc;--just don't have the time or inclination to read much. However that doesn't stop the pontificatin in cyberspace anymore than it stops it on the Mainstreet of Collinsville Alabama where lot of stir craziness can get you a street named for yourself.
But here, for the reference for folks who should know already, as well as for the throngs of seculars and unitiated that are gonna be storming this blog (LOL) over the next few years to get a context on Frank Page is the scoop.
Really it is no big secret. Just go to any half assed library even in Alabama and check the BX 6400 line. You should have about 12 books there on SBC politics culture, anthropology and Karl Rove and Richard Land.
I got footnoted in two of them, make that three so they deserve top billing
Barry Hankins Uneasy in Babylon
David Morgan The New Crusaders
Oran Smith: The Rise of Baptist Republicanism
Michelle Goldberg's Kingdom Coming. She don't footnote me but we've had some email exchanges me and half her stuff Don Wilkey and I been hawking for about 15 years; she acknowledges Wilkey's help

And here recently Kevin Phillips puts a lot of it in perspective in his 20 odd pages in two different sections of his American Theocracy; including lot of insight he doesn't know where he got and that being Herryman's Southern Cross.
Keep going with Harold Bloom's American Religion; especially before you get too excited about Mitt Romney and the expose in today's Boston Globe about the trouble he is gonna face in the SC Primary
And before that was Nancy Ammerman who witnessed my exchange with Judge Pressler in San Antonio in 88 and before Stewart Newman and before him George Truett in whose namesake church I got saved.

How many folks from Durenland can honestly say they know who Marshall Frady is? I doubt more than two, unless it is the Duren himself; cause I got to give it to his friend up the road, William Thornton, who knew Yates.
Yall are nice people. I give you everything James Ault gives you, cause pretty much you are all I know anyway. Even so it is interesting to see ourselves in some perspective, and Phillips is a good place to start.
If you can't make it to Barnes and Noble tonight, then google up Bill MOyers great "A Time For Heresy" and Randall Balmer's Jesus is Not a Republican; the latest of which I have linked at Marty's active sight, andhere in Wade's world on this blog.
More books as I come to them; but for the most part they are all there, in the BX 6400's.
Look for Nelson Price to have a fire sale on em as soon as he clears Rob Nash out later this summer at Shorter.

CFA,Produce market and new picture in the Profile

Had a wonderful morning in Gadsden Alabama. Got up at the crack of dawn, before the crack even, had to shine my lights going down HWY 11 to be at Chic Fil A at 6:30, turned out to be six to get 52 coupons, one a week for the next year for the first 100 that showed up. I was 89
Miss Lou, an 88 year old woman was 90. She almost broke in front of me and started a brouhaha, but we became fast friends before it was over. She was there a year ago when it opened, hence the 1st anniversary today. Cake at 2 this afternoon.
Got a picture there with the chicken, #'1 and 2 and number 100 and me and Miss Lou to boot, but it didn't get to my inbox and beside I can only do one pic anyway. Look at it in my profile with just a click.
Mix and match. among the six you got me and a deacon, a CBF missionary who moonlighted as a Librarian, a novelist and an Indian worker in Oklahoma. Among the six, four have been ousted from a baptist church, or had family members victim in that way.
One is a performance artist, and another went to JSU where another one's great Uncle is now a trustee.
If you comment and are not one of the pictured, I will give you one of my chick fil Coupons.
That is it for now, I may edit later, but I have already alerted Butler road so they may be looking.
Was there anything in the Greenville News this Morning, or the Americus paper???
Oh, when I get the CFA picture up, look for counsel on how the Library can get done, as in I can get r done with a little help from my friends, and some resignations and etc.

Thursday, July 20, 2006

Ten Good things about Collinsville

Folks say I only put the town down, never say anything nice. That is not true; but if you read Kevin Phillips in American Theocracy on Alabama and the Dixie Cup; well it is a tough Hoe.

But here are ten good things I have observed in my make it twenty years Dec 14 2006 in Bama

10There for a while I could go outside and point my bicycle toward town and it was downhill all the way for the 2 dollar lunch at school
9The Wit of Thomas Barksdale; the truth telling of Herman Kerley.
9b) The Way Bell Hamituh said " Lookout Street."
8 I got a shade tree in the front yard and a ridge line and can hear the train going down the track, same track that bore Tallulah Bankhead's Dad's body away down from DC where it was viewed the day before by the President whose name escapes me at the moment.
7There was a sharp bunch of kids come through the school in the early 90's went to Duke and Virginia and Auburn, Bham Southern and the Baptist school in Bham and one of even went to Vanderbilt grad school, another to Yale Div. One now, by the grace of God and His Magnificence now shows promise as a collaborative and sole screenwriter.
6 Pretty girls, among them the Roberts sisters both of who made Homecoming queen, Pam Blackwell, Faviola and Alexa and Yulianna, Two of Bo's sisters and Tara George. Seems like there was one other pretty girl/woman around here but I can't place her at the moment
5 Peggy Weaver is as decent a woman I have met anywhere, though not quite the saint My Mother was. My Momma could play the Alabama Jubilee; on the other hand Coplin/Weaver reputedly scored perfect on Math portion of the ACT in 1965
4 Solomon, and Lawrence Williams had a good run on the basketball court in the mid 90's.
3 LD Dobbins and Brother Atkins
2 The library project once showed great promise but has pretty much floundered due to, in my opinion, the politics of the Librarian and the fear she has struck in City Hall, the Mayor in particular who streetnames for folks only been here 6 years. It will probably take outside counsel now, and renewed and prudent energy from its key original visionaries, John and Susan Weaver Morgan to salvage it now and take it home. I have some ideas, but the board and City council seem recalcitrant and self satisfied with the kangaroo court of January 24.
1 My Momma was born here, and her Dad ran for County School Supe early 20th Century. With a little imaginative stretch Ron Rash World Made Straight is as true for here, as the Shelton Laurel Massacre of Madison County, N.C.

Tuesday, July 18, 2006

Cross referencing Theocracy with BL.Com and Wade and Frank's World

Dear Loved Ones of Cyberspace:

I have come across a fascinating conversation between Dr. Bruce Gourley of www.baptistlife.com and a frequent poster there, Jonathan of Indiana.
Jonathan likes to play the semantic differential to nothingness, make that know nothingness, but Gourley has the upper hand on him on this one and it is interesting.
Gourley has read Kevin Phillips, is into Michelle Goldberg; and to my knowledge Jonathan has not and it is showing.
The fog machine is not working for Jonathan this time. His faux erudition is coming to the warm spit of Charles Pickering; though James Ault does make a case for warm spit, as much as one can be made for such in his Spirit and Flesh.
Meaning, in the Ault context , for better or worse the remedials, the busybodies who man the Rotary Club and Chamber of Commerce and fund the great engine of Baptistdom and UMC and other civic and religious infrastructure of America; we have to be patient with them or else we do become the meritocracy they so fear, and then what would we do with Larry the Cable Guy or all the characters of George Singleton's Half Mammals of Dixie we all go to church with or have loved ones who do cause we were born into it and that is what we are.
But I digress.
Here is the realpolitik for you lurkers, William and others who can do something about it.
Call Aunt Mary at Eastside BC in Marietta. Ask her if she voted for Ralph Reed or the other guy in the primary today. NYTimes not only messin with the War Eagle, they messin with Aunt Mary as well, doing major feature on Cobb County and the lock Reed has on in it in an AP story that got picked up in among other venues, the Sunday gadsden Times where Gloria coulda read it if Butch thought it wouldn't hurt her little dainty eyes; or if she had time to take her eyes off the prayer concerns where she seems obsessed with me instead of having some reconciliatiion conversations that do not resemble a kangaroo court.
Ain't no theocracy in America? Come to Collinsville Alabama and I will show you Victim Exhibit A: My Own Damn Self as some of AFrican American friends and a few crackers who pick up euphemisms like that are want to say.

Roger Millken. 1999 New Republic by Ryan Lizza said he told Goldwater to run in 64. Jim Guth, noted Furman poli sci proff told me he tried to plant Recon Gary North on Furman faculty in early 70's. Pat Anderson of the CBF is a Furman grad, about same time as Marshall Frady.
Have Pat Anderson or Gus Niebuhr or some other Furman grads look into that story. Could be as big as the Gezork scandal of the 40's that made the Alum mag couple years ago.
Talk to Baxter Wynn on staff at FBC Greenville. Heck, have Willimon look into it for the Christian Century.
And whatever Aunt Mary did at the booth today, check out Chick Fil A Truett Cathy's history with the John Birch Society. My Papa had a short stint in the Klan as did Hugo Black; but he pilgrimmed on.
What bearing does Cathy's prior political predispositions have for Ralph Reed and what happened in Georgia today. What does it mean for Karl Rove and Richard Land and where Dawson Memorial and FBC Riverdale and Montgomery send their Cooperative Program dollars.
These are the explorations GQ or John Grisham's Oxford American should take as a sequel to current story on Reed.
And here is something to put it in larger context from my friend Randall Balmer, twice Dotson Nelson lecturer at Samford, most recently October 2002. Got to spend an hour with him that day talking film, and greased the way to gettin him on statewide public tv. Was proud of myself.
Balmer spoke at National Mstrm Convo in Nashville Feb 04. Was there for that as well.
Here is Balmer's latest stellar thoughts. www.chronicle.com/free/v52/i42/42b00601.htm
and another for the Friday update. Check www.baptiststoday.org for the Boston Globe link to Mitt Romney's Mormon problems shaping up for the SC primary.
Irony is what Frank Page and a multitude of other good baptists in the state, I imagine Chip Campsen chief among them, was the ugly, the godawful mess Richard land of the ERLC was complicitous in in the SC Primary of 2000. Rove and George W were the Antichrists in that contest and Bill Rauch spells it out in his book Politikin, the chapter Principles.
As Harold Bloom points out in american Religion, in Realpolitik there ain't a dimes worth of difference in the average member of Frank Page's FBC Taylors church, and a Mormon. It is not about doctrine or orthodoxy as some would have, but whether or not a candidate acts out the fruits of the Spirit. for that see the New Testament and Randall Balmer above. Richard Land and Mitt Romney, Romney is probably a better Christian; but Tom Daschle's politics are more Christlike for this country, more than the both of them.

Jonathan your fundy hiney is showing at Bl.com. You have not done the requisite reading, fundy bro.
Let's all stay in touch.
On the way to Wade's board now to bring his attention to this as Cathy's son in law is former VP for the IMB and we simply cannot export any nuance of Gary North to foreign fields.
Let Wofford do what it must. Baptists must be about something else.
Love Yall

Stephen Fox
July 18, 2006, a Tuesday, the day I voted for George Jr. cause it was in my heart and the unwitting closet Recon, My Friend, John Killian, asked me to.

And here is an update with the explosive revelations about Frank Page and Women's ordination, with asides about Mohler and how Frank came to Dilday's defense when the fundies got him in the 90's.
www.baptistlife.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=3009
And any Greenville, SC lurkers, keep your eyes on the local papers with this explosive story for the Upstate, Furman and Bob Jones and Morton and Staton's stompin grounds on the WestSide.
Also raised the question, had the hack from Eastside BC Marietta Georgia who slimed Winfred Moore and Jackson been around to do damage to Frank Page pre Gboro, would Frank assumed the Presidency?
Was was that goons name? I saw him once at Jerry Vines old Church in Rome Georgia.
Day later, something Roberts, of Eastside Marietta, was him, I thank

Thursday, July 13, 2006

A first

Seeing if in fact I just did what I think I did and created my own blog. If so, here is what I want all who see this to read so you can be up on things and worthy of discourse with the Magnificent Stevie himself.
If this goes well, will tell you more about the breaks of the game as they have come my way as we pilgrim on, obblongotta etc.