SBC controversy in Local congregation; case study

Click on this link for great article from the Baptist History and Heritage Society about how SBC tragedy played out in a local congregation, 2nd Ponce De Leon in Atlanta Georgia.

Robert Marsh points out how it played out in his own family with a son who went to UVA and Harvard and the grief he took for having a smart boy.
Marsh addressed he deacons on a Monday night in June of 1990, making many of the same points I tried to make here in North Alabama 15 years later and got voted out of the church and off the property for.
His presentation was gutwrenching in many places.

Makes wonder how it would play out in the conscience of a pastor with more than one smart child.

Marsh's son, Charles Marsh--google up Damon Linker review of Wayward Christian Soldiers--will give the Baptist Joint Committee lecture next April at Samford in Bham.

Baptist of conviction, especially those who still believe in academic freedom, Libraries, intellectual curiousity and the pursuit of truth will want to make a point to be there for this rare occasion.

Link to full article
by Stephen Fox » Wed Jul 29, 2009 4:20 pm

Methodist Preacher discovers Ron Rash

And is a better person for it

http://kenatprovidence.blogspot.com/2009/07/why-preachers-need-to-listen-to-writers.html

Good link; thought I'd pass it along.

Pulitzer winner Alice McDermott had a noon lecture about an hour away this morning at Sewanee where Jon Meacham went. I wanted very much to go, but did not make it; though I did hear James Wood there couple years ago.

Rash is to read and have conversation in Boone in the next few days if I'm not mistaken. Hope the Good Charlotte Reverend can make that event as well, and get the Word on Rash To Bishop Willimon soon.

Newcomers to this blog will want to take a simple search at this blog for Rash's poem Sunday 1959. It is supernal.

And as I have noted several times here, Rash's thoughts on Baptism in the Columbia State feature several years ago are magnificent as well, easily googled and linked at his site at russoff agency links.

Sfox

A troubling 10 days or so

The deaths of Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson captured CNN and Fox News the last several days.
Meanwhile my hometown of Gaffney, SC got national and international attention with serial killer Patrick Tracy Burris; a troubled soul indeed.
Online I saw pictures of two classmates from GHS 71, Sheriff Billy Dean Blanton and Cherokee Avenue pastor Clyde Thomas; Blanton crying uncontrollably on the steps of CABC Wedsnesday at the funeral of the final victims Stephen Tyler and his daughter.
Other Gaffney friends were pallbearers. Gina Linder Parker, the fourth victim, was a classmate of my brother, 1977.
It is not often you read about folks you know in USA Today, for me Monday, in the issue where Federer was cover story at Wimbledon.
I am proud of both Billy Dean and Clyde. On my best day I doubt I coulda handled myself with the simple grace Sheriff Blanton did with Dianne Sawyer on GMA Monday.

Robert McNamara died Monday which woulda been my Mother's 86th birthday. I left a eulogy of sorts in comment section of my friend Randall Balmer's thread at religion dispatches.
Here is what I said there:


Hebrews 11:13
Posted by Stephen Fox posting on July 9, 2009 at 2:36 PM
Says we must confess we are pilgrims and strangers on the earth; that even after we see things afar off, are persuaded of them and confess them.On July 4th this year, two days before my Mother's birthday and the passing day of Robert S. McNamara, I attended a Fasola Sacred Harp Singing at the Liberty Baptist Church in Henagar, Alabama.Folks were there from Boston, London, even Luc Sante's Bard College on the Hudson.There I spoke to my friend Bud Oliver, an acquaintance of Robert McNamara from Vietnam.McNamara knew Oliver by name as Bud saved him close to 900,000 dollars on a project in Vietnam on the Plane of Reeds.First time Oliver told me the story I thought he was saying plainer reeds.To approach any further value of this anecdote, one would have to join in the singing of one of these occasions.The last paragraph of Roger Kimball's review of Marilyn Robinson's The Death of Adam in the NY Times several years ago strikes me as apropo here, after reading my friend Balmer's thoughts here and the NY Times six page online story.Gravity pulls us all back down to the earth where some rise again.

A Vet from Georgia read it and said simply "Wow".

Here in NE Alabama Balmer has two other disciples; Matthew Morgan, whom Balmer taught as visiting proff at Yale; and Cherilynn Crowe of Ft. Payne with a Masters from Vanderbilt who wrote Balmer up for the Baptist Joint Committee on the occasion of his church state lectures at Mercer in Georgia back in April.

Next week looks to be pretty stout as well.

Maybe I can lighten up a little the 20th or so.