Jared Moore

Here are some Baptist Identity guys that I have read or interacted with:

1. Peter Lumpkins – a talented fella.  I must admit, however, that his rhetoric gets under my skin.  I imagine my rhetoric does the same for others?

2. Howell Scott – a talented fella… but, he’s a former lawyer; and everyone knows that the only good lawyer is a lawyer who is at the bottom of the ocean.

3. William Thornton – a talented writer.  I think he’s been a pastor longer than I’ve been alive as well.  Pretty cool!

4. Rick Patrick – seems like a passionate pastor who loves God and His church.

5. Les Puryear – this guy makes me scratch my head.  One day he’s apologizing, and the next day, he seems to dislike all Calvinists in the SBC.  I’ve emailed him before to question one of the comments he made about me on a blog, and he was very kind.  I’m still scratching my head.

6. Brad Whitt – I’ve had the least interaction with Brad.  Based on what everyone else says about him though, he’s a godly pastor that loves the sbc, and wants to reach the nations with the gospel.

7. Bob Hadley – seems like the extreme to this group.  I don’t know him very well.

I often hear the bemoaning of Baptist Identity guys concerning the false statistic that 90% of Southern Baptists don’t affirm Calvinism; therefore, Calvinists in the SBC shouldn’t have as much influence as they do.  Here are several things that they haven’t told you yet though…

1. The 90% statistic only applies to 5-point Calvinists in the SBC, not Calvinists in general.  I’m a type of Calvinist, a 4-pointer; which is what many Southern Baptist seminary professors affirm, and many Southern Baptist pastors affirm.  I’ve yet to meet a 4-pointer that feared 5-point Calvinism.  I imagine they’re out there though.  My point is that assuming 90% of the SBC agrees with non-Calvinism is a huge stretch of this statistic, a stretch that cannot be justified.

2. Five Point Calvinists do not violate the Baptist Faith and Message.  This means necessarily that the Baptist Identity guys are trying to protect something that is beyond our Confession of Faith.  In other words, they do not have the vote of the convention behind what they’re trying to protect.  Nevertheless, they act as if they represent “Grassroot Southern Baptists.”  Until Grassroot Southern Baptists agree with the Baptist Identity guys with their vote, they cannot claim they speak for “Grassroot Southern Baptists.”  This fact, however, doesn’t keep them from acting as if they speak on behalf of “Grassroot Southern Baptists.”

3. Their personal experience or the personal experiences of others is the only proof they have that they represent “Grassroot Southern Baptists.”  The problem with personal experience in the SBC is even if I grant that these men have talked with 10,000 Southern Baptists who agree with them, there are 6,000,000 Southern Baptists attending our churches on a weekly basis.  Thus, these Baptist Identity guys have only talked with 0.1666666% of Southern Baptists.  Moreover, even if I grant them that they’ve been in 100 SBC churches, the problem is there are over 42,000 Southern Baptist Churches.  Thus, these Baptist Identity guys have only been in 0.2380952% of Southern Baptist churches.  In other words, even though they seem to think they accurately represent “Grassroot Southern Baptists,” they really only represent .167% or .238% of Southern Baptists… at least, as far as they know (and these stats assume the people who they’ve talked with months or years ago haven’t changed their beliefs any).

4. They cannot agree on what “Baptist Identity” is.  I’ve asked them before in a blog comment, and depending on who you ask, will depend on the answer you get.  One of them the other day said that salvation was synergistic.  Is this really a B.I. statement?  Nope, not with several of them.  I would love to see a Baptist Identity Confession of Faith.  Good luck trying to get them to agree on one.  Right now, they only seem to know what they’re against.

5. Part of what they’re trying to protect is Nostalgia.  They seem to hate that the SBC is changing.  Even though giving to the cooperative program has been decreasing for over three decades, they want to do things the way we’ve always done them.  I’ve also seen some of them include choir specials, casseroles, poundings, praying “hedges of protection” over people, etc. in “Southern Baptist Identity.”  It’s ridiculous to me to fight for nostalgia; especially since your nostalgia is probably different from your grandparent’s nostalgia, and other Southern Baptists’ nostalgia in other parts of the United States or world.  Are we really prepared to encourage division in the SBC because we love our nostalgia?

6. These men and women, the B.I. folks, if they get their way, and “aggressive Calvinism” is eradicated from the SBC, then this group will turn on one another.  My point is simply that these men and women cannot agree on what “Baptist Identity” really is.  I think the fact they haven’t defined what Baptist Identity is up to this point, proves my point.

7. The “new Calvinism” in the sbc hasn’t affected our baptisms one red cent.  In other words, it’s a fact that Calvinists in the SBC baptize as many people per year as non-Calvinists.  Thus, why the uproar against Calvinism, if it doesn’t violate the BF&M 2000 and it doesn’t hinder evangelism?  

8. The brand of Calvinism that these men are against, I’m against as well.  All the Calvinists I know are against splitting churches, being deceptive, elder rule, hyper-Calvinism, etc.  We’re fighting against the same things.  The problem is that these Baptist Identity guys largely stereotype all young Calvinists into the same boat; which is inaccurate and a blatant denial of the facts.

So, I offer a challenge to the Southern Baptist Identity guys: We know you’re against “new Calvinism” or “aggressive Calvinism” in the sbc; but, what are you fighting for?  What is “Southern Baptist Identity?”  Define what Southern Baptist Identity is so we can actually know what you stand for.  Forge a “Southern Baptist Identity” document that all of you can sign.  Currently, we only know what you’re against… and I’m against some of the same things.  Maybe I’m a “Southern Baptist Identity” guy?!

Sincerely,

Jared Moore

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