Will Progressive Baptists make a difference in the Ga runoff

   There are a lot of Baptists in Georgia with degrees of literacy and insight into Scripture running the gamut. And in the last 30 years in reaction to the fundamentalist takeover of the Southern Baptist Convention there have been many progressive Initiatives that should have some effect on the political equilibrium of the region. It appears it hasnt come to much in the voting booth.

     The groups Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, Alliance of Baptists, President Carters 2007 New Baptist Covenant--I was there for the inaugural in Atlanta with Bill Clinton, John Grisham, Carter, Notable Black pastors, Chuck Grassley--all backlashed these last years with Trump and his Base.

   In the last weeks I have engaged conversations with Bruce Gourley on facebook, Alan Bean and others, a former president of Carson Newman college, activist Baptist friends in Birmingham about the conundrum of fear there is no outrage in Georgia re the upcoming election of Warnock and Ossoff versus the evil doers Perdue and Loeffler under the shadowy guidance of Karl Rove, already playing McCarthyism with Black Liberation Theology against Warnock.

     Some have taken up the cause in good fashion at Goodfaithmedia.org and Baptist News Global, John Pierce and Steve Harmon respectively speaking directly against this tactic out of the Lee Atwater Playbook. But what about the rank and file and their local pastors.

    What is going on at FBC Dalton, Rome, Gainesville, Athens, Americus, Macon, Vidalia, Ellijay, Clarksville Vidalia, Savannah, Albany. Are folks in the pew reading Harmon and Pierce and talking to their neighbors, or are the so called better people worried about their status in the country club and the PTA and not wanting to rock the boat.

    Sadly the consensus in Bama was 75 percent or more of the parishioners at FBC Ft Payne, Huntsville, Cullman, Guntersville, Jacksonville Auburn (maybe not Auburn) voted for Tuberville and Trump in the last election. I don't understand it.

    Religion Dispatches has a good piece here that talks about the underbelly of fundamentalism in the Trump base. But the folks at the churches I name above should know better.

   Here is the link that explains a lot and concerns Bruce Gourley, the PHD historian of Baptists during the Civil War:  

      https://religiondispatches.org/its-not-about-facts-or-fear-what-many-liberals-get-wrong-about-religious-conservatives/

     And following a comment I left recently at the Atlantic re Andy Stanley. Also concerning is a facebook conference yesterday with Krista Tibbett of NPR, Russ Moore of the SBC so called ethics organization, a peculiar fellow a specific case of his own, and the Episcopalian priest that got international fame conducting the Recent Royal Wedding. All in all a wasted opportunity quagmired in civility when there needed to be a prophetic word about Georgia.

And this comment about the recent Andy Stanley piece of Browns Bridge Church in Forsyth Co Georgia as featured in the Atlantic magazine:

Good article but overlooked a major historical story. Browns Bridge Church is in Forsyth County Ga where major lynchings of early 20th Century created a black diaspora for a hundred years. See Patrick Phillips Blood at the Root

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Stanley and Browns Bridge toyed with having Phillips come to the congregation but it didn't materialize, But Oprah was in the county in the early 80s with Coretta Scott King, which Phillips covers in the book. Forrsyth is squeezed in between the Hometowns of Deshaun Watson and Trevor Lawrence two of the biggest names in NFL both of whom are against Trump, especially his twitter dustup with Drew Brees. Trevor told me himself June 13 at BLM march in Clemson SC

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Good Faith Media column by Georgia's Colin Harris on the need for a New Narrative can help Andy Stanley if he will engage the conversation and not be too proud to say President Carter was right with his New Baptist Covenant and Andy Stanley father Charles wrong in the fundamentalist takeover of the SBC

  end quote. Have conference by Dec 15 at Browns Bridge with Patrick Phillips, Oprah, John Pierce, Joe Crespino, Andy Stanley, Warnock, Perdue......some mix of them. Live streaming honoring Covid Protocols. Hell have a CNN Town Hall that really matters and lets get to the heart of the Baptist witness in one state that really matters.