Civil Commotion

We are so screwed. Thanks!, Values Voters!

Once again: Original Sin is not a clunky metaphorical way of saying we could all stand some improvement; Original Sin says it is an objective fact of reality that we are all born foul, putrid with guilt, unfit to live, deserving eternal punishment — and that is degrading, crippling, nonsense. Christianity can thrive only where men are sick.

A motion has been introduced to fire the Executive Committee that fired Paige Patterson.

W-h-e-e-e!!

Meantime, there’s another group unhappy with the SBC’s increasing movement toward Calvinism.

Calvinism is even crazier than plain-vanilla Christianity. Seriously, read Calvin’s magnum opus, The Institutes of the Christian Religion; he says it’s a species of adultery to enjoy sex with your spouse too much because you aren’t focusing during that time upon being perfect for Jesus. So the SBC is looking backward even as they decline. This is a time-honored historical pattern, of course, but it still is kind of startling to see a major social institution make such a blunder in modern times.

Or … maybe not. It’s not as if the talking-snake crowd reads a lot of sound history.

To their credit, many Messengers recognize that the close identification of evangelicals with the squalor of the Trump administration is politically harmful to them. They aren’t a majority, though, else Pence would never have got the invite in the first place.

If you have the time and means, track the Twitter #SBC18 stream for a while. The thing that really shines out of it is how psychologically burdensome, how downright damaging, it is to be a serious-minded Southern Baptist. The cultural Christians left church a long time ago, and there’s nobody left but the hard-corp — and a tremendous number of them are badly screwed-up people. Worse, they are incapable of stepping-outside the bubble of their little club and seeing how ridiculous and doomed they actually are, because for most of them their sense of self, and self-worth, is linked to the well-being of the club.

They are The Donald’s most stalwart supporters, and they must be defeated and pushed aside, but most of them have such a small, shoebox-sized view of the world that they have no idea what they have done to their families or their country. A part of me, in spite of myself, feels sorry for them.

As the Southern Baptist Convention meets amid decline and a welter of theological conflicts, its executive committee cleared the way for a Wednesday address by V.P. Mike Pence.

The announcement of Pence’s 11 a.m. address to messengers and invited guests at the June 12-13 annual meeting in Dallas was made by SBC President Steve Gaines and Grant Ethridge, chairman of the convention’s Committee on Order of Business, in a joint press release today (June 11).

“We are excited to announce Vice President Mike Pence will be attending this year’s SBC annual meeting to express appreciation to Southern Baptists for the contributions we make to the moral fabric of our nation,” Gaines said.

Ho-hum. More gaslighting.

Paul Pressler is facing multiple charges of pederasty, Paige Patterson was just fired for overlooking multiple instances of abusive treatment of women, including rape, and dozens of pastors across the country are facing criminal charges for raping children — so Put on a Happy Face, because there is never any unpleasantness in BaptistLand.