Guess you better get that gay marriage policy change done

If Drudge carries the story for several days and if AP distributes the story, then it might be news enough for pastors and churches to pay attention.

Churches changing bylaws after gay marriage ruling 

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) -- Worried they could be sued by gay couples, some churches are changing their bylaws to reflect their view that the Bible allows only marriage between one man and one woman.

To the credit of Baptist Press, they wrote most of this story last month. Notice the AP by-line, Nashville.

The issue has to do with churches being sued because they refuse to allow their facilities to be used to perform a same sex marriage. I daresay that very, very few churches, relying on thousands of years of civilization, actually specify that marriage is between a man and a woman.

"I thought marriage was always between one man and one woman, but the Supreme Court in a 5-4 decision said no," said Gregory S. Erwin, an attorney for the Louisiana Baptist Convention, an association of Southern Baptist churches and one several groups advising churches to change their bylaws. "I think it's better to be prepared because the law is changing. America is changing."

Indeed. We have lost this major battle of the culture war. It's time for some strategic preparation.

It is noted in the story that there have been no churches so sued, although some in the wedding industry have been. Check this story of a wedding photographer successfully sued for denying services to a lesbian couple. It is a fairly large jump from a private citizen to a church, clergy, or church facilities. But, let's be prudent here and recognize that there is some degree of handwriting on the wall.

My church was open to weddings of couples outside the church family. The sanctuary and church was attractive and numerous couples inquired about using it. We had a several page policy with requirements including, as I recall, $500-$1,000 in fees. The fees chased most of the business away and I never have been asked to preside over or allow the church to be used for any same sex marriage.

And pastor, if you allow such events at your church, be sure and do your due diligence. You have an application to use the church for a wedding of Taylor and Karen, or Fred and Jesse. Uh, don't assume. Surely you require some face-to-face counseling? Please do. It would be rather messy to have Fred and his boyfriend, Jesse, show up on wedding day.

You greybeards do recall the gender neutral name trick that was foisted on the Southern Baptist Convention by one of the moderates, back in the 1980s I think. A nomination from the floor was made that Hastings Sehested be the convention preacher. Moderates were numerous in those days and any reasonable alternative, Rev. Donald Duck, was preferable to the conservative nominated. But there was quick thinking of no nonsense moderator Adrian Rogers (himself with a gender neutral given name) who said, "Nancy Hastings Sehested has been nominated." But I digress.

And you thought your decisions about marrying divorced people was your only wedding issue?

It's a new day, brethren.Get it down in writing and adopted by the church.

Percentage-philes: Put up or shut up

I'm smiling when I say this, but it's time for those who believe that the percentage of undesignated receipts that a church gives to the Cooperative Program is important to put up or shut up, and in these ways:

• Stop electing those whose churches give low percentages to the CP to high SBC office.
• Stop nominating and putting these people on our entity trustee boards.
• Stop hiring to high denominational office those who as pastor led their churches to give low percentages.
• Ignore Great Commission Giving for elections and appointments 

How hard is it to do all of these things?

Actually, rather difficult, based on past experiences.

Stop electing those whose churches give low percentages to the CP to high SBC office

SBC messengers have almost never rejected high profile megapastors with low CP percentages for SBC president. The last example of this was Bryant Wright whose church gave in the 3% range. If the thinking is that megachurches and high profile leaders should set examples for average SBC pastors and churches to follow relative to the CP, then it is counterproductive to put these men in the highest elective office of the SBC.

But we have been doing this since the 1970s with only a stray occasion or two where a man whose church gave above the average percentage to the CP was elected and a pastor who gave in the low single digits to the CP was rejected. 

One can understand that during the years when the convention was being redirected in a more conservative mode through presidential elections, it was reasonable to set aside consideration of CP percentages to elect folks like Adrian Rogers, Charles Stanley, and others. Now that the theological direction of the convention is more to our liking, there is no reason to elect leaders from low percentage churches, unless we think the CP is not of major importance to our work. 

Stop nominating and putting these people on our entity trustee boards. 

While it stands to reason that a seminary which receives large donations directly from a given church would not be too concerned about that church's CP percentage and would happily choose that church's pastor or layperson as a trustee, such doesn't help the overall thrust of the CP as our chief funding plan. Fred Luter said that he would be checking CP giving records in his nominations. I'm not sure how that came out. Someone who keeps score can check it and let me know.

Stop hiring to high denominational office those who as pastor led their churches to give low percentages.

Sound so simple, right? Two words: Kevin Ezell. He was offered NAMB for reasons other than his CP record and has done well which makes setting an arbitrary percentage threshold for entity heads difficult. 

Ignore Great Commission Giving for elections and appointments 

When the Great Commission Resurgence Task Force recommended and the convention subsequently adopted a new giving metric, Great Commission Giving, the idea was presented as a recognition that it is valuable to acknowledge that churches are giving directly to more SBC causes that in the past. GCG offers a simple way to measure this. Thus far, I haven't seen this figure reported widely. In reporting the giving of each Georgia Baptist church my own state paper ignores this and sticks with three categories: Cooperative Program gifts, Other Mission Gifts, and Total Mission Gifts. The latter two may include whatever an individual church wishes to report, SBC or not SBC.

Periodically, the SBC has had national-level CP study committees. In 2006 there was such a group, called the Ad Hoc Cooperative Program Committee. That committee made a number of recommendations, including these two:

• Challenge every Southern Baptist church to give no less than 10 percent of undesignated receipts through the Cooperative Program.
• That we encourage the election of state and national convention officers whose churches give at least 10 percent of their undesignated receipts through the Cooperative Program. 

Care to speculate what happened to those specific recommendations?

Some megapastors complained and the Executive Committee overruled the Ad Hoc committee and deep-sixed those two specific parameters, removing mention of "10 percent" and also any mention that election of state and national officers be from churches that give at least the 10 percent. 

While ten percent may be unrealistic, the average church hasn't given that percentage to the CP for decades, some percentage minimum is realistic, unless we wish for the CP to no longer be our chief denominational funding plan.

When surveyed about the CP, SBC pastors overwhelmingly profess their appreciation of and satisfaction with it. When it comes to electing and hiring SBC leaders, we don't seem to be too concerned about CP giving records. 

It may be time for some of the higher profile SBC leaders to toss out a CP percentage threshold, say five percent, and see it they can make it stick in elections, trustee appointments, and hiring.

I'm not optimistic.

Dollars pay bills, not percentages

How hard is this?

Take your wife out to the finest restaurant in town. Run up a three-figure tab, sans alcohol of course. When the server presents the bill, just say,

"I'm paying this with my percentage."

"Huh?" 

"Yeah, I'd like to pay by percentage."

"We prefer dollars, please."

Ah, brother, you are embarrassing your wife in public with your behavior. You lose credit for the expensive meal you just bought her.

I first heard the title phrase from Adrian Rogers back in the 1980s. Moderates were criticizing him for his church's low Cooperative Program giving percentage. Moderates often sported a lapel button that said "10%" as a way of promoting that percentage of undesignated church receipts to be given to the CP. Bellevue, Adrian's church, was under 4%. When the issue was raised, Adrian said, "Dollar pay bills, not percentages." Bellevue paid a lot of SBC and Tennessee state convention bills with their CP giving.

Since then the axiomatic phrase is always good for a discussion. While I understand the point of those who focus on the percentages, it is one measure of the importance of our denominational funding plan to that church and pastor, I think the logic behind the dollars/percentages statement is unassailable.

No one ever paid a bill with a percentage.

Why does it matter?

It matters to many because they see megachurches giving very low percentages to the CP, yet megachurch pastors are almost never rejected for denominational office because of that (Check my article, SBC presidents and the CP, for a rundown of this).

With CP percentages sliding downward, now under six percent for the average church, some point to megachurches as the cause. Perhaps in a small way they are. We operate on the star system in the SBC and megapastors are the stars. Lowly average church pastors imitate them in many ways.

In my local association the CP average is in the five to six percent range, about the same as the convention as a whole. There are five churches that give over ten percent. Their gifts total around $100k. The single leading CP church in dollars gives a much lower percentage but more than doubles the number of dollars.

Which total would you rather have to pay your bills? The five churches who give over 10% or the one church that gives far less than 10%?

Duh.

Churches of any and all sizes exercise their autonomy in giving to the CP and pointing fingers at a church's "low" percentage may make some feel good but I doubt many churches will be shamed into increasing their CP percentage. Neither do I think that we will ever get back to anywhere near a 10% average CP percentage convention-wide.

There is, however, an area where I think percentages should be considered. I'll write of that in a few days.

For now, I'm headed to my favorite Third Place to drink tea and read the paper and I'm taking some dollars along to pay the bills.

Great Commission vs Cooperative Program Giving

When the SBC approved the new giving category, Great Commission Giving, an aggregate category that includes giving to the Cooperative Program, state convention, local association, plus any direct gifts to any SBC entity, great weeping and gnashing of teeth ensued in some quarters. Dire predictions of negative effects on the Cooperative Program were made.

2011 was the first reporting year for GCG but I don't know that much can be learned by it, since nothing can be viewed comparatively; nonetheless, here are some figures for the top giving churches in the Georgia Baptist Convention:

First Woodstock (Johnny Hunt's megachurch):
Total gifts   $1,194,200
Total CP            866,170
Total GCG      3,144,120   

Woodstock is the top Cooperative Program giving church in the GBC. Their CP gifts were 27.5% of their total Great Commission Giving meaning that they gave a lot more directly to SBC causes than to the CP.

Hebron, Dacula (formerly Larry Wynn's megachurch):
Total gifts    $902,640
Total CP         840,905
Total GCG      944,882

Only Woodstock gave more to the CP than Hebron last year. Hebron's CP gifts were 93.1% of their total Great Commission Giving indicating that their main channel for SBC giving was the CP.

Johnson Ferry (Bryant Wright's megachurch):
Total gifts     $566,079
Total CP          566,079
Total GCG       793,315

Johnson Ferry's CP gifts were 71.4% of their total Great Commission Giving.

Clearly, Woodstock and Hebron have different giving philosophies.

Local church autonomy at work.

I haven't asked but it looks like Johnson Ferry chooses to report differently than the other two. Fact is, the Great Commission Giving total for any church would be a voluntarily reported figure supplied by the church that is comprised of components that could not be easily checked. I'm not alleging anything here about JFBC, just saying that a simple comparison of GCG statistics may not be valid.


I first heard Adrian Rogers make the statement that "Dollars pay the bills, not percentages," an assertion made to counter the complaint of megachurches giving smaller percentages to the Cooperative Program than other churches. Of course he was right and that assertion is manifestly true.

Here in Georgia, Woodstock First is the top CP giving church in total gifts - $866,170. That amount is over six times larger than the aggregate Cooperative Program giving of the top five churches in the GBC in percentage Cooperative Program giving (and who average giving 39% of their total undesignated giving to the CP).

All deserve praise for their support of missions through the Cooperative Program. None deserve criticism.

My view has been that the new Great Commission Giving category will merely reflect the reality on the ground rather than generate any new giving trends. While it may be useful for comparison of candidates for SBC offices, it is beginning to look like it may be a fuzzier figure than originally thought.

But, for SBCers who are numbers junkies, here's something to chew on.

The SBC: Always the best show in town

I don't think our grand denominationcould stand something like the SBC annual meeting more than a couple of days each year.

A few observations:


Election of Fred Luter was an authentic, unadulterated, genuine moment. We SBCers deserve one of those occasionally.

The name change debate was a curiosity (I watched it live, in my basement of course). The SBC has always been a convention full of  parliamentarians. Barry McCarty is worth the big bucks we pay him.

Face time is always important to some obscure SBCers but we are all equal at the annual meeting and if you can grab a mic you have as much right to display your nonsense as anyone else.

The name non-change vote will be forthcoming but I suppose it will have passed comfortably but not overwhelmingly. Then 90% of us can forget about that and those who have been all exercised about it can find something else to get apoplectic about.

Bryant Wright has always seemed to hit the proper notes. He is easily the best presiding officer since Adrian Rogers.

We will see what Frank Page has in mind on a Calvinist/Traditionalist "panel." There are some traditionalists who are rather militant. I'm not sure where this is going.

While we are at it, I like Wright's gentle admonition of the Calvinists: To our Calvinist friends: A bit of humility would be most welcome. Wonder where he got the idea that such was lacking?

To be fair, Wright's admonition of Traditionalists: It is time to show some respect for those of differing views when it comes to election and when it comes to salvation." 

It will be interesting to see how many votes blogger Dave Miller can pull this morning. He is well known among the blogging tribe and not known as a heavily partisan figure, nor a bomb thrower or troublemaker. If I were present he would have my vote. I like him. He has a sense of humor and he needs encouraging after his beloved Yankees got beaten by the Atlanta Braves last night.

Beth Moore: Southern Baptists most valuable brand?

I like Beth Moore, our Southern Baptist female Christian rock star. In fact, I like her preaching better than many of the men I hear and I'd guess that my church has bought and used every product she has marketed.

IRS Form 990s, available online for charitable organizations, are sometimes interesting reading and her organization, Living Proof Ministries, reports the following on its 2009 Form 990:

Her reported compensation is modest, $207,000 for 2009.

The organization’s cash and temporary cash investments on hand are substantial, $5,483,538. I suppose that would be called sitting on a big pile of cash.

The organizations total assets (mainly cash on hand plus real estate) are $10,877,258.

Revenues, product sales and honoraria was $4,370,613 in 2009.

I’m a greedy capitalist pig and have no problem with Beth Moore or Charles Stanley or Adrian Rogers’s estate marketing their sermons (uh, 'talks' rather than sermons in Moore's case), books, or whatever but if one doesn't understand that this is big business on this level, well, that would be naïve.

People like to speak of personalities in terms of ‘brands’ (Robert Reccord, former NAMB head famously told Mary Branson, one of his employees and author of "Spending God's Money" an expose of NAMB under Reccord, that her job was to “brand him”)and I’d speculate that Beth Moore might be Southern Baptist’s most valuable brand these days.

And what would LifeWay's balance sheet look like without her?

Alas! Alliteration.

Sermonic alliteration.

Why?

Ah, such wonders of homiletics:
Disillusionment to Be Dispelled…Distractions to Be Defeated...Doubt to Be Destroyed.

Some go with simple, single words:
Reject…Renew…Recognize…Repent…Request…Relay

OK, but…I don't recall the rationale (sorry!) for the homiletic hemhorraging (ouch!) put forth in the following (excuse me!).

I. HE IS SUPERIOR IN HIS STATION
A. His Superior Identity
B. His Superior Importance
C. His Superior Influence

II. HE IS SUPERIOR IN HIS SOVEREIGNTY
A. Sovereign Over His Creation
B. Sovereign Over His Creatures
C. Sovereign Over His Church

III. HE IS SUPERIOR IN HIS SALVATION
A. Price Of His Salvation
B. Power Of His Salvation
1.Provides Restoration
2. Provides Redemption
3. Provides Reconciliation
C. Proof Of His Salvation (Huh? What happened to the “S” theme?)

Sigh.

I don’t mind a catchy title... Five fabulous facts for families

…but how about something a little more riveting: Five Festering Factoids of Failed Feminism

Having a plethora of “Ps” (pardon!) seem to be a big favorite of the brethren:
Provision, Passion, Peace, Possession, Persecution, Prayer, Presence, Preeminence, Particular, Propitiate, Paradigm.

Not too shabby, but Plodder is pleased to proffer possibilities (ow!) to append here:
Pickle, Pachyderm, Parsnip, Palpitate, Percolate, and especially Pretentious. I mean, why limit oneself to the usual? Be creative.

Now if you’re Adrian Rogers, prince of preachers (oops!) you get a pass. If you’re a plodding pastor (sorry!) whose pulpit personality (ouch!) is presently patchy (egad!) you might try just explaining and applying the Bible without such aids.

And when will SBC pastors disenthrall themselves of this artificial homiletical silliness?

Probably never.

Seventeen reasons the Cooperative Program has been dropping like a rock - Part One

My humble conjectures about the decline of the once mighty Cooperative Program. Every Southern Baptist is a denominational pundit. Plodder's punditry, not in order of magnitude or importance:

1. It’s the moderates’ fault. Sure, SBC moderates were generally very strong givers to the cooperative program and were incessant promoters of it, so much so that they were willing to overlook almost anything so long as the CP was revered. Moderates made the CP into an end unto itself, rather than to means to the end. What pastor who wants to see souls saved, churches planted, and believers growing in Christ wants to subsume all this to support of a denominational giving plan?

Two words: Sacred Cow, only once the mods lost control of the cow, it suddenly became profane and they quickly deserted it. The dollars they once gave to the CP went elsewhere. Once it wasn’t their Sacred Cow, they acted like conservatives and eschewed it.

2. It’s the conservatives’ fault. This one is quite simple. Most of the high profile conservative, megachurch pastors gave only token support to the Cooperative Program and were not willing to give their money to SBC moderates who were in control of the convention’s machinery. Well, we fixed the latter but without fixing the former. Over three decades later, the SBC CP average is headed towards the giving pattern of those early Conservative Resurgence mega-pastors. Conservatives never got on board of the CP.

It’s also the conservatives fault in that there is no reward for very high CP givers anymore. Give 15% and get waxed in an election by a pastor of a church who gives less than 4%. Want to be a trustee? Don’t worry about giving 10% or more, just give 5%, maybe less, and you’ll be OK.

3. It’s the megachurch pastors’ fault. Megachurches are a denomination unto themselves, so, they think, ‘Why give much to a state convention, seminaries, and mission boards through the CP when we can do it all alone?’ Too many micro-pastors think the megas walk on water and should be emulated; hence, lower CP percentages. Good enough for Rogers, Stanley, Smith, et al…good enough for Joe Schmoe pastor of Crossroads MicroBaptist Church.

4. It’s the boomers, baby busters, Xers, and millenials fault. Less denominational loyalty, more personal debt. Not impressed with big institutions. More hands-on, etc. General demographic trends...stuff we've been fed by the experts for years. I’d speculate that this factor, which has nothing to do with SBC politics, should be heavily weighted in this list.

5. It’s the fault of various parachurches. AWANA, independent mission sending organizations, et al sucked up local church dollars and diluted the SBC brand in a church.

6. It’s the fault of Bold Mission Thrust. Huh? I mean by this that a component BMT was volunteer missions and that was one of the few goals of BMT that was far exceeded. Churches felt like if they had their own people who needed help in going overseas, why give to nameless, faceless missionaries through the CP?

7. It’s the fault of the denominational culture of secrecy and opaqueness. Want to see one of NAMB’s Cooperative Agreements with your state convention? Sorry, you can’t. Want to know how much CP funds were paid in severance to a leader forced to resign? Sorry, it may be your money but you don’t get to see this. If CP spending is hidden, SBCers are less likely to want to keep shoveling money into that dark hole. “Trust the Lord and tell the people” we used to say. Now it is “Take the money and tell the people to shut up.”

8. NAMB's recent history of magnificent debacles. No further explanation needed for this one.


Almost every Southern Baptist who reads this, pastor or layperson, will be in a church whose CP percentage has dropped over the past 30 years. I would be curious as to which of these (or others that I haven’t thought about) would you say is the cause.

Part Two tomorrow.

Since we pay for the SBC Pastor's Conference, how about an accounting of it?

My fellow Georgian, blogger friend Peter Lumpkins of SBCTomorrow blogs about something of which I was not aware - not a difficult thing to do.

SBC Pastors' Conference: Who Pays and How? by Peter Lumpkins

His article (above) of 3/14 is about the funding for the Southern Baptist Pastor’s Conference, the pre-convention affair that showcases people the SBC elite want to be elected to office. Back in the day (I attend the SBC annual meeting about once in every three years or so and haven’t been to a Pastor’s Conference in many years) the PC was helpful in the Conservative Resurgence, Adrian Rogers always having a prominent preaching slot. I enjoyed it then.

I thought that the PC was funded by the offering received from attendees, plus some sponsorships from LifeWay or other businesses that wanted some exposure to a large gathering of SBC pastors.

Peter reports that the PC receives substantial funding from the SBC Executive Committee, $150,000 annually with the PC reimbursing $50,000 of that – net funding of $100,000.

Since ordinary SBCers are paying for a good chunk of the PC through the Cooperative Program, how about a little transparency on it? Frank Page, XComm CEO, thinks the same way and the XComm, according to Peter has “this year…passed a motion which requested the Pastors' Conference reimburse a larger amount of money to the EC including a detailed accounting of the gifts and expenditures for the Pastors' Conference.”

Peter’s understanding is that “no record to date has been given to the EC for monies received/dispersed at the Pastors' Conference.”

Huh? I can think of 100,000 reasons that the Pastor’s Conference treasurer ought to send, post haste, a full accounting of their revenues and expenses, line-by-line.

If Plodder may be presumptuous enough to offer Frank Page some assistance here, how about the following:

Memo to the SBC Pastor’s Conference:

Brethren, please send me a complete accounting of revenues and expenses of the 2010 Pastor's Conference and a proposed budget for the 2011 Pastor's Conference. If I do not receive this within seven days, you get no check from the Executive Committee.

Love in Christ,
Frank Page, President
SBC Executive Committee

SBC presidents and the Cooperative Program

What shall we say about SBC leadership and their support, or lack thereof, for our grand Cooperative Program?

Here is a summary of the past SBC presidents and their Cooperative Program support over the past 32 years:
Less than 4%: Rogers, Smith, Stanley, Vines, Young, Elliff, Merritt, Graham, Hunt, Wright.
Above the contemporary average: Draper (7%), Chapman (11%), Henry (10%), Welch (15%), Page (12%).

Between 1979 and 1992, the year the Conservative Resurgence was effectively over, seven men were elected president. Only two of those were significant CP supporters, Draper and Chapman, and only Chapman’s church gave greater than what was held out as the standard at the time, 10%. I don’t recall either of them being elected on a platform of cooperation or CP giving, but rather on a platform of continuing the conservative takeover. For the entire period up to 2010, sixteen presidents have served. Only six of those gave average or above to the CP.

Since 1992, the convention has happily elected leaders who are not known for their outstanding CP support. Only Henry, Welch, and Page were above average, while Merritt, Graham, and Hunt were down in the 2% range. I don’t think you can find a greater contrast than in the election of last year where Bryant Wright, in the 3% range, defeated a candidate who was in excess of 10%.

Since the convention elected people whose CP levels were very, very low (Bailey Smith, 1% or so, Ed young the same, Stanley, Vines, Merritt 2% or so), one has to say that the Cooperative Program was clearly not an important factor for the Conservative Resurgence. Even in the years since the CR was completed, the convention has been quite comfortable in electing leaders whose CP levels are way below average.

I summarize these things because I keep seeing people who are dissatisfied with the giving of current leadership incorrectly interpret the SBC’s history of the past three decades. I think an honest view of the past would lead to the conclusion that the CR was not a boon to the concept of cooperation and to support of the Cooperative Program. The most salient of CP statistics, that churches give less and less of undesignated giving through the CP, is partly the result of the success of megachurch pastors like Rogers, Stanley, and Young in being elected to the SBC presidency in spite of low CP giving percentages.

For my part, a presidential candidate who shows strong support for NAMB, the IMB, and whose CP percentage is above the threshold of 3-4 percent is fine by me. In my book Bryant Wright is a very strong supporter of our cooperative work as Southern Baptists even though he may not meet the CP litmus tests of some. If we dismiss pastors like him and churches like his we will be a much weaker convention.

A future question to be considered: Why has the average church CP percentage been dropping for decades when almost all SBC pastors (87% in a 2007 survey) report that they are generally satisfied with the CP?

Another reason to thank God for the Conservative Resurgence…

…as if any were needed a quarter century after the battle was concluded. But, why not remind some of our younger, thirtysomething, goateed, spike-haired, shirttail brethren about the kind of Southern Baptist Convention they would have if not for Adrian Rogers, Paige Patterson, Paul Pressler, and the vast host of lesser brethren who showed up in the 1980s to vote. A reminder once a quarter would be enough, I think.

If there were no Conservative Resurgence, Robert Parham would probably be the leading denominational ethics schoolmarm. Read his piece, Uncut Tax Movement Is Morally Righteous

Parham, unsurprisingly, heartily endorses a British tax increase program commended below by a leader of a mirror movement in the US:

"The message is simple – before you sacrifice hard-working public sector employee's [sic] jobs and necessary public programs, why not first make the richest of the rich pay their fair share in taxes?" Gibson told The Guardian about the motives of US Uncut.

Parham adds, and don't fail to note the abundance of snarl and scare words, that:

…unless we – the people – insist on corporations paying for the right to live in and benefit from good societies, then good societies will be at risk for dirty water, unclean air, unregulated food, substandard public education, predatory financial institutions, health care only for the those who can afford it, collapsing infrastructures like roads and bridges, cutbacks in fire and police protection.

Were there to have been no CR, we would in the SBC be paying to receive a steady diet of the wonderful Christian doctrine of government control of private businesses for the purpose of wealth redistribution.

To be fair, tax policy and Christian ethics is a legitimate issue. The devil is in the details and in the degree of taxation and government regulation but when religious liberals start talking about a “fair share” of taxes, one would be wise to reach for their pocketbook – someone’s after their hard-earned money. When religious liberals think of helping the poor, saving jobs, and providing citizens with health care, their default position is to compel the government to use coercion to take, by force, the earnings of ordinary working citizens so that they can assuage their own consciences.

I recommend that Parham take what he has earned himself and give to those he feels needs it more than he does. I will do the same.

I’m just glad we aren’t paying to hear this stuff with our offering plate dollars.

Addendum: In contrast to Parham, I believe that Brent Walker of the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty, makes a much better case for religious liberty than does what we SBCers do pay for. Sample of Walker's clear defense of religious liberty.