All in all the Georgia Baptist Convention was pretty uneventful. That's mostly a good thing. Eventful is often a sign of strife and disharmony. Bucky Kennedy, our first vice-president, and pastor of First Baptist Church of Vidalia, was elected as our president for the new year. I don't know Bucky well, but we did go to college together in the early eighties at Brewton Parker. I liked what I knew then. He has a fine record since then as a pastor and a servant of Georgia Baptist. I have no doubt he will serve us and the Lord well.
The only piece of business that produced any debate was a resolution on blogging. I honestly wasn't sure what precipitated this resolution, and was a little uneasy about supporting it. The resolution simply stated that Georgia Baptist should not use blogs to be critical or divisive toward others in our convention. On the surface that sounds fine. The only area of "critical blogging" I was aware of related to Wade Burleson of Enid, Oklahoma, who was recently censured and suspended from four meetings of the trustees of the International Mission Board for comments on his blog. I wasn't aware of this being an issue within the Georgia Baptist Convention.
The resolution passed, and perhaps it should have. Georgia Baptists should refrain from personal attacks and open criticism of one another. But two things concern me about the resolution.
- Lack of Context. I'm admittedly not an insider, but several other pastor friends I talked with said they did not know what had precipitated this resolution either. It would be nice to know who is doing this blogging and exactly what they said and who was "attacked." I certainly think there is room for dissent for Georgia Baptist bloggers, as long as that dissent is offered respectfully and civily. I'd hate to think we approved a resolution that the "insiders" know was directed toward a particular blogger, who was simply daring to dissent over some issue and not actually making any "personal attacks."
- Lack of Scope. If personal attacks are in fact being made, the resolution should have focused on all personal attacks and not only those being made on blogs. Fellow Southern Baptist pastor Rick Warren was openly criticized on the floor of the convention for hosting Jewish leaders at his church who want to learn how Saddleback draws such a crowd. The implication was that Warren or his church weren't sharing Jesus with Jews in the community if they were teaching Jewish leaders how to reach a crowd. I don't know, but I wonder if Warren might be building bridges with the Jewish community in order to earn a hearing to share the gospel. Warren was also tied to Bill Hybels, who admitted that he and his church had "made a mistake" by sacrificing doctrine to reach large numbers. The implication was that since Warren teaches "seeker sensitivity" that he had done the same thing. Anyone who has read Warren's books or followed his ministry knows that he teaches sound doctrine and is seeking to lead his people to become mature followers of Christ. Personal attacks don't become more acceptable just because they are illustrations for a doctrinal sermon.
