SOUTHERN BAPTISTS AND THE SOCIAL JUSTICE VOTER:

THE DREADFULLY RACIAL ANNUAL SBC MEETINGS COMING TO BIRMINGHAM ALABAMA IN 2019

 

Pictured above is Albert Mohler at the SBC Dallas 2018 panel discussion on “Removing the Stain of Racism from the SBC.”

Mohler’s glaring racial hypocrisy will be shown in the article below.

(As this article is being released my home town Birmingham Alabama is suffering the national spot light as a mall shooting during the holiday shopping season is being turned into a stage for Black Lives Matter and the National media circus. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/24/us/alabama-mall-shooting.html   The dread of watching a repeat performance of the horrific racial TGC and ERLC event in Memphis being repeated among our residence of all races- creeds and ethnic origin is too much to remain silent over. Birmingham, Alabama needs the Gospel- Al Mohler and Russell Moore – NOT   a racial movement in our churches driven by hypocritical Baptist professors of Theology and progressive politics. Please- NO MORE)

 

Rev Thomas Littleton                                                                                                                   11/27/2018

Race and Racism in our culture are hotbed issues in the political arena and in the daily news. It is reported that some $85 million and counting have gone into Black Lives Matter to fuel that organization’s racial narrative alone. There is always power and advantage to be gained by those who promote racial division, who are determined to distort issues and manipulate people along racial divides.  In the church, sad to say, there are many with the same motive and willingness to use these same tools of the trade. Instead of slavery, some Evangelical leaders want to promote an endless “reconciliation” as a means of enslaving of the Church to their racial narrative and forcing them to maintain ownership of it.

This writer grew up in the deep South and in the 1960s. By the mid-70s things were changing and, by the 80s, racial discrimination was greatly reduced. Many people on both sides of a once racially divided city and region have seen great progress in moving beyond race and racial divides especially in the church. In 2018 we have a generation that do live in a largely post racial generation and who look at the politized narratives of today and wonder what is behind them. In the Church we can and should be far removed from racial identity politics. It is not sinful to be white or black or Hispanic or Asian or to value our respective cultures and ethnic diversity. My own family is comprised of 5 ethnic groups and 6 nationalities. It is not so easy to conflict such genetic diversity and this is true of more Americans than not. There really are such distinctions that have no trace of racism whatsoever. In the Church we celebrate a higher identity –

Ephesians 2:14-16 Christ our Peace

¹⁴ For He Himself is our peace, who has made both one, and has broken down the middle wall of separation, ¹⁵ having abolished in His flesh the enmity, that is, the law of commandments contained in ordinances, so as to create in Himself one new man from the two, thus making peace, ¹⁶ and that He might reconcile them both to God in one body through the cross, thereby putting to death the enmity.

This writer was also part of a church body in the ethnically diverse and often racially charged New York City for over a decade. In that body of believers over 100 nationalities worshipped the King of Kings side by side under one roof in five services each week and then went forth as yoke fellows to minister in our diverse neighborhoods daily with virtually no focus on race or the many ethnic differences represented. Race was a non-issue because of Christ and the great common ground our mutual faith provided. It is possible for true Christians to live and worship and serve together in such an atmosphere. The great common bond is the shared joy and life of redemption by which means our sins have been forgiven and we no longer identify by them. What remains a mystery is how the constant drum beat of selective remembrance of the racial histories of others can serve the Southern Baptist leaders who are hounding the church about reconciliation.

SBC SEMINARY HEAD, ALBERT MOHLER, SITS ATOP A RACIST CHAIR WHILE POINTING THE FINGER OF RACIAL ACCUSATION.

In November of 2018 the Baptist Press announced that Albert Mohler was elected Vice President of the Evangelical Theological Society. In that article, a brief bio of Mohler noted that “Mohler, now in his 25th year as president of Southern Seminary, has been at the forefront of public theological dialogue in evangelicalism. In addition to his responsibilities at Southern, Mohler also is the seminary’s Joseph Emerson Brown Professor of Christian Theology.”

The SBTS archives and special collections reveal the pivotal role played by Joseph Emerson Brown in the history of SBTS.  After the Civil War, the seminary faced closure. “The seminary community faced other challenges. The faculty carried out constant fundraising efforts in the 1880s and traveled extensively to solicit donations. Notable successes included fifty thousand dollars from U.S. Senator Joseph E. Brown of Georgia and twenty-five thousand dollars from prominent Baptist oilman J. D. Rockefeller.”

While Mohler is being admired for his more than 3 decades of involvement at ETS and 25 years as President of SBTS, a careful look at the Joseph Emerson Brown Chair he has proudly occupied for 13 years reveals a very disturbing fact:

Joseph E. Brown

“Joseph E. Brown made a fortune in the growth of the Railroad industry after his term as Governor of Georgia, during the lead up to and the duration of the Civil War. He was Georgia  Governor and served 2 terms after which he went on to be elected senator and serve on the supreme court of Georgia. According to his biography Brown was ‘A former Whig, and a firm believer in slavery and Southern states’ rights, he defied the Confederate government’s wartime policies…. He denounced Confederate President Jefferson Davis as an incipient tyrant, and challenged Confederate impressment of animals and goods to supply the troops, and slaves to work in military encampments and on the lines. Several other governors followed his lead.”

According to Douglas Blackmon’s Slavery by Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II (2008), p. 347, Joseph E. Brown owned slave mines of the cruelest sort:

“The most powerful politician in Georgia from the 1860s until his death in 1894, Brown, still contemptuous of the Emancipation Proclamation, filled his mines with scores of black men forced into the shafts against their will. A legislative committee visiting the sites the same year [Brown sold] them said the prisoners were ‘in the very worst condition…actually being starved and not having sufficient clothing…treated with great cruelty.’”

Albert Mohler has held the position of Joseph E Brown Professor at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary since 2005.

Southern trustees elect Mohler to storied chair of theology

“LOUISVILLE, Ky. (BP)–Southern Baptist Theological Seminary’s board of trustees has elected President R. Albert Mohler Jr. to the Joseph Emerson Brown Chair of Christian Theology.

“The chair has been held by other giants on the landscape of Southern Seminary’s history such as founding President James Pettigru Boyce and E.Y. Mullins, seminary president from 1899 to 1928. Mohler was elected the seminary’s ninth president in 1993.”

Fellow Southern Baptist Race Baiter, Russell Moore, now head of the Ethics and Religious Liberties Commission, had the greatest of praise for Mohler’s ascent to the esteemed position in 2005:

“It is an historic chair in systematic theology and we believe an historic president like Dr. Mohler deserves to be teaching from this chair,” said Russell D. Moore, Dean of the School of Theology and Senior Vice President for Academic Administration, after the Seminary Trustee action on April 26. “This will be a great and momentous act in Southern Seminary history.”

“The chair is named in honor of Joseph Emerson Brown, who served two terms as governor of Georgia during the Civil War and played a critical role in keeping Southern Seminary from closing on two separate occasions.

“The first came during Reconstruction in the 1870s. The seminary, then located in Greenville, S.C., emerged from the Civil War financially destitute and faced closure. Brown, a seminary trustee, donated $50,000 which kept seminary doors open and left the institution in sound fiscal health for many years.

“In the 1870s, $50,000 was worth what is now several million dollars in constant cash,” Mohler said. “It answered the question as to whether the seminary would survive. It actually allowed the seminary to go from a question of survival to the reality of thriving.”

Mohler was equally proud of the honor bestowed on him as he assumed the staunch advocate of slavery SBTS chair:

“This means more than I can say,” Mohler said of the trustee action.

“Especially with Dr. Boyce and Dr. Mullins holding that chair during their presidencies, it is an historical connection that speaks to my heart and to the sense of calling.

“It also is a reminder that the Lord has used significant individuals [such as Brown] to make this institution what it is. Some of these names are inscribed on buildings, some are memorialized in scholarship and professorships, and it is easy for us to forget what they meant and who they were.”

FLAUNTING RACIAL HYPOCRISY WHILE POINTING FINGERS

What Mohler did not say about his Chair is disturbing. Joseph E. Brown boasted, “One thing every white man knows, regardless of how low his estate, he is the better of every black man.”  As it is recounted, “He saved The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary financially in the 1870s.^[1] There is now an endowed chair, the Joseph Emerson Brown Chair of Christian Theology at the institution.^[2]

Dr. Mohler, you have been sitting atop the “Stain of Racism” in the SBC. Yet you castigate all Christians as “racists” knowing full well that the Joseph Emerson Brown whom you praised in 2005 as “a significant individual” “that the Lord has used…to make this institution what it is” was a white supremacist who bred the racial hatred which fueled slavery and led to the carnage of the Civil War. In your September 2018 Q&A below, after you acknowledge Joseph E. Brown’s true character, your feigned sympathy for victims of oppression rings hollow:

Albert Mohler – Ask Anything Live (Episode 8)

The low view of Joseph E. Brown you expressed in your September 2018 Q&A utterly contradicts the high praise you and Russell Moore lavished on Brown in the 2005 Baptist Press article. One would think that, as President of SBTS, you would be zealous to repudiate that professorial chair and retire it immediately.  Instead, the rhetoric of critical race theory in the SBC continues unabated, dividing the black and white races in unison with the secular culture which seems to be fomenting the next American Civil War.

The Atlanta Journal Constitution points to the ironies of Brown’s legacy still being celebrated in Georgia.

“Case in point, Atlanta’s Brown Middle School. Located in the city’s West End neighborhood, it has a mural in its auditorium of black leaders such as Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and Harriet Tubman.  It is an interesting juxtaposition for a school named after the Georgia governor who opposed the abolition of slavery and pushed the state into the Civil War.

“Like many who were Confederates for four years, Joseph Emerson Brown shows the complex and multi-layered history that is the South. He reentered American society after the war and served in key positions. He helped start the Atlanta public school system and served on its board for 25 years until his death in 1894.”

While it is debatable that removing confederate statues and legacies from public view in the South will change or ease the modern day politized racial tensions that drive them, the stark irony of Mohler’s hypocrisy in “Removing the Stain of Racism in the SBC” while holding the Professorship endowed by Joseph Emerson Brown is beyond disgusting. Russell Moore loves riding the nerve of fellow Southern Baptists over racism but has only praise for its legacy upon which his mentor, Mohler, sits enthroned while teaching future generations of pastors and missionaries. Mohler is quick to recount the “fortune” that $50,000 represented in the post-Civil War era so it appears the money speaks louder than the racial heritage its donor represents to the sensitive Drs of theology, Mohler and Moore.

THEOLOGICAL MASK OF TGC/ ERLC HAS SLIPPED – BREEDING SOCIAL JUSTICE VOTERS

During the lead up to the 2018 midterms, The Gospel Coalition and the Ethics and Religious Liberties Commission of the SBC outed themselves and the masquerade is OVER. The efforts of these organizations to use issues like Race, Immigration, Refugees and Sexual and Gender minorities as essential values driving Evangelical voters, thus producing a Social Justice Christian Voter block, is now undeniable.  No longer can the Genie of progressive political change be hidden or forced safely back into the bottle of neo Calvinist theology. No effort needs to be wasted in denying the retooling, re-thinking or re-messaging operation. Tim Keller and Russell Moore ARE political tools of the progressive political left and no thinking Christian need ever mistake them as anything else. By now it is clear they are bringing all their resources to bear upon unhinging the Evangelical vote from the conservative wing of the Republican Party, its family values platform and even from the “single issue voting” of pro-life convictions.

Advancing the insane narrative of the radical Left may be working for some but a growing number of evangelicals have seen the light and an alarm has gone off in the collective Evangelical mind. How can our leadership from TGC/ ERLC be operating on Biblical conviction or principle while at the same time attempting to redefine family and weaken the pro-life base among evangelical voters by broadening pro-life to embody progressive policies like refugee resettlement, racial identity politics and the global goals of the United Nations?

THE THRILL IS GONE

For years parachurch ministries like TGC and their denominational affiliates have enjoyed unquestioned influence in Reformed circles as they touted the resurgence of theology among the Young Restless and Reformed. With a massive internal media machine, huge funding and inroads into our seminaries, the talking points of evangelical media has been changing rapidly. Some few smelled the distinct odor of progressive politics and compromise, but the turning point came in April 2018 with the ERLC/ TGC co-sponsored event called MLK/ 50. The rush to shame white evangelicals, deify racial reconciliation, vilify Southern Baptists as worshipping Jim Crow and alienating African Americans by voting for President Trump, and swimming in a swamp of white privilege – just did not thrill the souls or resonate with believers both black and white who live far beyond the realm of the rhetoric of CNN or TGC. By the end of MLK/50, social media in the SBC and PCA circles were lighting up and the bluesy sound of the “Thrill is Gone” filled the air. The TGC/ ERLC star was and is fading.

By the time June rolled around and the Southern Baptist Convention held its annual meeting in Dallas TX, the reconciliation mantra was full bore. Messengers were being told to “Check your privilege” at the door. Every sermon and most of the reports from the platform contained the obligatory nod to Racial Reconciliation and even one messenger attempted to force an amendment to one resolution up for vote to include a demand that Vice President Pence make a similar statement in his upcoming address to the Convention. In the press room, a host of years old racially packed ERLC materials and books were left out for members of the press like dead animals at a cat owners’ doorstep. One of these was a 2015 collection of essays titled “Removing the Sin a Racism from the Southern Baptist Convention.”

ALBERT MOHLER AND THE STAIN OF PROGRESSIVISM AND LGBTQ+ FLOURISHING IN THE SBC

Albert Mohler’s SBTS incubated the development and growth of the most radical pro LGBTQ+ movement Evangelicals have seen to date. Three weeks before the SBC Dallas meetings the story broke of the radical LGBTQ+ Revoice conference with deep ties to Al Mohler’s Seminary SBTS and to the ERLC. One of the most controversial parts of Revoice prior to the late July conference was its boast of the Treasures of Queer Theory and Queer Culture for the Church and the New Jerusalem.” At the annual meeting, this author personally interviewed Dr. Mohler about his concerns over Revoice. Dr. Mohler expressed agreement with the problematic language on Queer Theory but left the interview and headed to the CP Stage for panel discussion on the retreaded 2015 book and topic of “Removing the Stain of Racism from the SBC.”   Mohler contributed a chapter to the book and sat down with his other contributors, most if not all SBTS affiliates, and the compiler of the article, author Kevin Jones. In the panel discussion, Critical Race Theory was mentioned, highlighting the irony that Dr. Mohler had just agreed that Queer Theory being touted by his recent New Testament Instructor and Revoice Founder, Nate Collins, was using in the LGBTQ+ Christianity conference was problematic. Mohler at minute 3 asserted that the SBC was “born in racism and Jim Crow.” He further asserted that the “stain of Racism will never be completely removed from the denomination this side of eternity and therefore we must always work to do what we can to address it.” Mohler continued at minute 5 to say, “racism is a stain we will always be dealing with in the SBC but if handled rightly ….” Here we are given the clear message that this effort to drive the wedge of race will be ongoing in the SBC.

REMOVING THE STAIN AUTHORS TAKE SBC MEN TO RACIST ZIMBABWE

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-132504/Zimbabwe-white-farmers-fight-flee.html.

Near the end of the panel discussion in Dallas on Removing the Stain of Racism there is a discussion about how to start dealing with the stain – the books co- compiler Kevin Jones boast the contribution of new-ager Dallas Willard to his own personal journey and advocates the infusion of, in his view, a racially balanced selection of books into homeschool, Christian School or public schools curriculum. He asserts that other higher educational faculty do the same integration of their “approved” racial reconciliation books. This is no different than what public schools are doing in designing curriculum to “confront white privilege . The panel discussion also revealed that some of its members are working with NAMB to take White pastors to Zimbabwe and use their book Removing the Stain as curriculum for some type of “SBC Spiritual Race Journey “  to free participants of their own stains. All this while the nation of Zimbabwe is undertaking a government appointed landgrab and potential genocide in white farmers in their country President Robert Mugabe demands that 3000 of the nations 4500 white owned farms be given over to black occupation even after 112 years of ownership. It seems

RESOLUTIONS COMMITTEE

Mohler and Moore are positioning their team to keep their racial spin front and center in the SBC. Fellow Mohler panelist and SBTS guy, Curtis Woods, was selected to serve on the resolutions committee which decides which submissions for official positioning on key current issues will come each year before the Baptist Messengers in the annual Convention meetings. Mohler and Moore appear to have “leveraged their privilege as Curtis suggest to make this strategic placement  on the Committee .This is little more than Critical Race Theory and Racial Identity Politics SBTS style but this strategy will keep the racial issues, as Mohler and Moore want then seen, front and center.

KBC’s Woods named to SBC’s Committee on Resolution

Published April 3, 2018

 

DALLAS—The Kentucky Baptist Convention’s associate director for convention relations, Curtis Woods, has been selected to serve on the Southern Baptist Convention’s Committee on Resolutions during its Annual Meeting in Dallas on June 12-13.

“I am absolutely humbled by the invitation to serve our messengers, and a watching world, on this committee. God has providentially selected a diverse group of thinkers who will help each resolution reflect a clear voice in chaotic times,” Woods said.

Curtis Woods, Associate Executive Director for Convention Relations

“Woods, a contributing author to “Removing the Stain of Racism from the Southern Baptist Convention,” is a member of Watson Memorial Baptist Church in Louisville.”

NAMB/ ERLC / IMB RACIAL POLITICS AND AFFIRMATIVE ACTION IN SBC MISSIONS?

D.A. Horton, a Hispanic minister in the SBC who works with NAMB and pastors a church in Long Beach, explained in 2016 how the advance of minorities in the SBC was launched through an affirmative action approach.

1. “Ministry leadership at; the ERLC, NAMB and IMB – Dr. Russell Moore, Kevin Ezell and David Platt have been game changers regarding the rebranding process of the SBC in the eyes of ethnic minorities. Not only have initiatives been created to recruit, train and send qualified minorities on the field for service, key leadership positions with influence and decision-making capacities have been extended to competent and qualified emerging minority leaders.”

The sad reality is that Southern Baptist efforts to deal with the race issue in our culture and in our churches have little to do with reality. The real time progress in racial relations is virtually ignored. The glaring self-exemption among leaders like Albert Mohler and Russell Moore are nauseating and reek of the worst kind of hypocrisy.  Young black men in the SBC are being used and exploited to drive, not true reconciliation, but the worst sort of racial division – the sort that profits those who enslave us all in their false narrative. Kingdom goals and Gospel causes are not served in the least, and using white guilt or black anger has zero redemptive drive and will produce no peaceable fruit of righteousness.

MORE OF THE RACIAL RECONCILIATION DRIVE IN THE TGC/ ERLC / SBTS AND PCA .

Here are just a few of the many prongs of the racial division in the TGC ,SBC and PCA circles . It is an honest question to ask where is redemption and forgiveness and unity – in fact where is the Gospel in any of this so-called Gospel Issue movement?

Red Yellow Black or White- just stop when you have had enough:

The TGC / ERLC hard sell – you must buy this book

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1433643340/?tag=thegospcoal-20

Race baiting in the Chapel at Covenant College by Jamar Tisby  of RAAN/ Witness  a Black Christian Collective –“The Long History of Racism in Reformed Theology “

https://www.covenant.edu/calendar/all/2018/10/29-0

The TGC/ ERLC handbook for the Racial Narrative

https://erlc.com/resource-library/book-reviews/book-review-divided-by-faith

TGC celebration of WOKE Church – keeping white privilege on the ropes and checked at the door. https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/thabiti-anyabwile/woke-is/

And the turning point for many Christians who have had enough of the Social Justice narrative in the SBC and PCA came with this horrific Critical Race Theory Extravaganza in Memphis by TGC and ERLC in which Russell Moore accused white Christian in the South of worshipping Jim Crow as Jesus and Thabiti Anyabwile – who still uses his black Muslim identity / name knocked the conversation out of the actual Gospel  ball park .

http://mlk50conference.com/   ( warning Sane individuals or people with high blood pressure  should not attempt to watch more than one of these videos in a 24 hour period.

Part of ERLCs ongoing legacy from the MLK/50 race-fest was for political operative and former TN Republican Party Executive Directer Brent Leatherwood to announce the establishment of a MLK Scholarship endowed at the announcement with $1,5 million dollars from Lord only knows where . SBTS ,SEBTS TEDS (TGC headquarters) Wheaton are named among the 20 schools participating in the Scholarship . It is fair to say the Dream Forward MLK Scholarship Initiative will serve to honor MLK/ 50 and its sponsors ERLC and TGC more than it will honor the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King. http://mlk50conference.com/memphis/

https://www.christianitytoday.com/news/2018/april/mlk50-christian-schools-memphis-minority-scholarships.html

 

SBC PAINTING THE TOWN BLACK IN BIRMINGHAM ALABAMA IN 2019

While touting the racial divide the SBC leadership are furthering it, if anyone is paying attention. When we consider that the core message of the Gospel is forgiveness, how can the endless remembrance of past sins – in many cases the sins of fathers or grandfathers over the generations – represent the true Gospel message? When is forgiveness truly embraced and who grants absolution? Only God can forgive sin and transform a human heart. Where is the past sin of Christians deposited? It is cast into the depths of the sea and remembered no more. Micah 7:19.

Birmingham Alabama does not need more of the SBC leadership driving the racial divide in the name of racial reconciliation. All of it in light of TGC and ERLCs midterm rhetoric appears to little more than progressives in the SBC attempting to further their drive to creat a Christian Socila Jutice Voter in our denoiminations. Our painful history does not need to be dredged up and exploited to provide a canvas for Albert Mohler or Russell Moore to spread their politicized racial messages while they sit on theological chairs celebrating the racist heritages of those who endowed them, like the white supremacist, Joseph E Brown.

Birmingham and cities across the nation and the world and the Southern Baptist Convention need the Good News that God was in Christ reconciling the World unto Himself and has committed to us the Ministry of Reconciliation.  2 Corinthians 5:11-21.  We have a higher calling and a greater task and need better leadership than those who want to exploit race in the Church for their own gain.  Stop the Madness or don’t bring it to our town.

MARK DEVER AND 9MARKS JONATHAN LEEMAN DISCUSS POLITICS & LEEMAN’S FABIAN SOCIALIST EDUCATION AT LONDON SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS

By Thomas Littleton                                                                                                               11/15/18

In an event at the 2018 Southern Baptist Convention, Mark Dever, the founder of 9MARKS and pastor of Capitol Hill Baptist Church in Washington DC, took on the topic of politics with pastors. The subject was addressed by featuring a book, How the Nations Rage: Rethinking Faith and Politics for a Divided Age; and the event itself was titled “Nations Raging Church Unchanging.”

https://www.9marks.org/message/nations-raging-church-unchanging-9marks-at-9-event-sbc-2018/

The guest on the two-man panel was 9MARKS editor, Jonathan Leeman. Free copies of the book were provided for all who attended. Leeman’s bio at The Gospel Coalition reads:

“Jonathan Leeman is an elder at Cheverly Baptist Church in suburban Washington, DC, editorial director for 9Marks, and the author of How the Nations Rage: Rethinking Faith and Politics for a Divided Age (Thomas Nelson). You can follow him on Twitter at @JonathanLeeman.”

“RETHINKING” – THE LANGUAGE OF CHANGE AGENTS

(Biblical warning against philosophical arguments :Colossians 2:6-10

⁶ As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him, ⁷ rooted and built up in Him and established in the faith, as you have been taught, abounding ^[d]in it with thanksgiving.

⁸ Beware lest anyone ^[e]cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the basic principles of the world, and not according to Christ. ⁹ For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead ^[f]bodily; ¹⁰ and you are complete in Him, who is the head of all ^[g]principality and power.)

Dever began the discussion by asking the pastors a question: “If you have found the last two years more challenging in ministry because of politics then please stand. I would be standing with you.” Ironically, only one person of those in view of the camera stood up. The event appeared to be addressing a problem that does not exist among those in the audience.  Undeterred by the weak response, the event moved forward. Dever and Leeman appear to have planned the event as their contribution to the rhetorical chorus of Russell Moore and his underlings at the Ethics and Religious Liberties Commission, who have been exhorting Southern Baptists to unhinge themselves from the Republican Party and allow themselves to think outside the conservative political box. The menacing word “Rethink” was employed to persuade the attendees that it’s time to reconsider their politics “for the sake of the Gospel.”  The stage for further discussion was set by a nasty inhouse tweet from 9MARKS leadership concerning the appearance of Vice President Mike Pence at the Convention. Overlapping his editorial work for The Gospel Coalition, Leeman tweeted:

The Gospel Coalition

June 13 ·

“I’m sitting here at the Southern Baptist Convention. Earlier today Vice President Mike Pence addressed the convention. We were told he initiated the offer to speak. I wish we had not accepted.”

 

In a follow-up article, perhaps to explain away his rude tweet, Leeman presented four points for publication by the Gospel Coalition titled “Truth, Power and Pence at The SBC.”  Though he asserts he remains neutral about Pence, it is hard to imagine Leeman’s tone would have been the same were he not breathing the air of the “Never Trump” culture of progressives in the SBC leadership. Leeman’s article suggests that politicians should not be in the pulpit but in the pew. The presence of Pence on the platform at the SBC “undermines the evangelistic and prophetic witness, tempts us to misconstrue our mission, subverts the gospel purposes to the purpose of that political party, and hurts the unity of Christ body.”  Leeman does not, however, have a problem with a political science major and economics editor, like himself, expressing his political views to SBC ministers on the 9MARKS stage.

Another 9MARKS affiliated pastor, Dever disciple and ERLC Council member, Garrett Kell, had proposed an amendment to one of the resolutions coming to a vote on the floor—an amendment to have the Vice President disinvited the day before he was to speak.  The coordinated anti-Trump, anti-GOP tone revealed a desire to influence SBC messengers and pastors on the subject of politics and a brazen intent to alter political sentiments away from their standard conservative social and moral moorings toward Social Justice progressivism.  More on that in a moment.

Little information about Leeman was published in his official 9MARKS bio, only that prior to coming to 9MARKS he worked as editor for an unnamed economic magazine in Washington D.C.  However, 11 minutes into the video Mark Dever made a startling revelation: “Jonathan has a Masters in Political Philosophy from the London School of Economics. It’s very dangerous for him to answer a question (from the audience). You’re going to get bored really fast.…”  As Dever tried to laugh off and preempt the likelihood of a lengthy answer he, in fact, made a startling revelation. The 9MARKS editor’s book is not simply a gospel look at politics and voting patterns in the SBC. Indeed, Devers friend and editor is a skilled marksman in political philosophy. There is more behind the talking points than 9MARKS’ Reformed Theology.

ROOTS OF LONDON SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS AND GOALS OF ITS POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY

Leeman does have theological degrees but his Masters level degree and education at the London School of Economics calls for a closer look into the shaping and source of his politics and political rhetoric. The famed London School of Economics is a Fabian Socialist institution, according to the Fabian Society archives held at the LSE which was founded by the radical Fabian Socialists in 1895.

The London School of Economics & the New Statesman

 

“Two other abiding contributions of the Sydney Webbs that persist until the present day are the New Statesman magazine and the London School of Economics.

 

“Today, the society and the LSE continue to work closely together. The London School of Economics holds the Fabian Society archives including extensive correspondence and early photographs of Fabian Society events. It is also home to the Fabian window, a stained-glass image of early Fabians, designed by George Bernard Shaw.”

The Fabian Society coat of arms in the window of the LSE is a wolf in sheep’s clothing.  Its stated mission: “The Fabian Society is a British socialist organisation whose purpose is to advance the principles of democratic socialism via gradualist and reformist effort in democracies, rather than by revolutionary overthrow.

According to its website, “The London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) is a world class centre for its concentration of teaching and research across the full range of the social, political and economic sciences. Founded in 1895 by Beatrice and Sidney Webb, LSE has an outstanding reputation for academic excellence”

More information on LSE / Fabian Society is available in these sources:

https://oll.libertyfund.org/pages/george-bernard-shaw-1856-1950-and-the-fabian-society ß Libertarian org co-sponsored by Acton Institute

See: https://oll.libertyfund.org/pages/co-sponsored-program

https://www.amazon.com/Third-Way-Politics-Century-Pamphlets/dp/0716305887  — author is Tony Blair

 

WORKING THE CROWD

Leeman’s response to Dever and a question about the Augustinian two parallel Kingdoms was to assert that he sees all things in black and white terms – those who love and serve God and those who love and serve themselves.  Somehow, Leeman intended to blend the Third Way Rhetoric of his Fabian Socialist education into this SBC discussion of politics without anyone noticing.  For the remainder of the meeting, Dever and Leeman took questions from the audience of Pastors and ping ponged the discussion between themselves, covering topics like “how to pray for the government,” “Voter guides,”  “community service,” “racism,”— all pointing the pastors to a Social Justice position as a sort of Third Way middle ground that is “biblical.” Leeman then brought up the issues that “polarize Right and Left Christians.”

“SINGLE ISSUE VOTING/VOTERS” REFERS TO THOSE POOR BELIEVERS THAT CLING TO FIGHTING ABORTION

At minute 48, Dever asked the Golden Ticket question into progressive voting patterns for their followers in the SBC: “What about single issues voting.” By this Dever was echoing his fellow change agents in the ERLC and TGC.  Among evangelicals, Pro- Life Voters are their single biggest obstacle to social change in the Church. Dever therefore asserted that one issue voting is the root of the racial divide he proports to exist among white and black Christians.

“African American Christian voters realized a long time ago that there are going to be a bunch of different issues affecting us.  So I can support a candidate I don’t agree with on some issues, which nothing may get done about anyway, because I do agree on other issues where they can help do something.  Can we, even if we don’t accept the position ourselves, can we make room for that in our church as a morally legitimate argument and option?”

Dever added, “Many white Christians act like that [single issue voting] is the only morally legitimate way of voting … I would certainly like to question that.”

Of course, if you have not figured out that the one issue Dever is talking around is the fight to end Abortion, the puzzlement is about to end.

HOW A THIRD WAY SOCIALIST SOUNDS TRYING TO TALK CHRISTIANS OUT OF VOTING PRO-LIFE

Leeman made his pitch by asserting that “one of Satan’s greatest successes is dividing majority /minority Christians politically through that particular issue.” He finally named – or nearly named “that issue” as being the pro-life problem. The dance around the issue was exhausting as Leeman made his case for a Third Way compromise:

“Satan is psyched over the issue [having achieved the divide]. He sees division in the church and that we don’t trust each other. You’re voting for them? [pro-choice] You must not care about justice. I don’t even know if you love Jesus, right? I question your Christianity, and just rank division in the church. [Leeman indicated the conflict is like fist to fist combat. Again, Leeman asserted,] “This is where we have to allow for Christian freedom. Remember Romans 14 and differently calibrated consciences and that we are united around the gospel and not around how I make my decision on who or who not to vote for.

”So I can understand how a person might, and I might not agree with it, but I can understand how a person might decide, ‘Well, look I’m not pro-life but there have been Republican pro-life quote/unquote candidates in the White House for the last number of decades and the laws haven’t been overturned and, meanwhile, I think that, let’s just say, hypothetically, that the welfare policies of these candidates actually decreased the number of abortions in such an such a state and actually brought the number of abortions down and so, although they are pro-choice, I think they have actually helped the abortion issues as apposed to your Republican candidates. I might not personally agree with that argument. I might say that is wrong for reasons x, y and z. Nonetheless, I can understand how a Christian can in good conscience make that argument. Therefore, I am going to leave space for that particular option for Christians.  Unlike, and now it’s possible we get to an issue of ‘I’m going to vote for a pro -Nazi or a pro Klu Klux Klan candidate, a Communist Party candidate in China, well I’m going to restrict a bit more. There are parties, there are candidates that I think are beyond the pale… but we are still in a place in America where we are in a two-party system where Christians in good conscience can make two different kinds of arguments and we need to leave space for that. …If we don’t, we risk subverting Christianity and the Gospel to Party identity—and how’s that going for us? Not very good I don’t think.”

Dever closes with his opinion that one of the “glorious opportunities” the pastors in the audience have is to follow Jonathan Leeman’s Third Way compromise on abortion for the sake of church unity. “…you can build the kind of love and unity that the unbelieving world around you does not understand. And I think that in an increasingly fractured society, and I think there are economic motives behind that, and that they learn how to sell the base either direction, and they milk it, and they get money, they sell data.  I think there are a lot of powerful forces pulling us apart.  And I think the local church is on the very front lines of displaying a unity in Christ that transcends those decisions. So, brother pastor, of all people, you must learn how to communicate with people who disagree with you on secondary and tertiary matters and part of that is deciding what those issues are you have to agree on and what you disagree about and THAT is where having a plurality of elders will help your local church. Have a plurality of elders in that single site, single service church that meets on the Lord’s day… do that and that plurality of elders will help you be discerning about what issues you should or should not allow liberty in.”

POLITICS IN 9MARKS SWEET SPOT

Dever and Leeman have just taken an hour with several hundred pastors at the SBC Dallas conference and moved them away from conservative Christian values – accused them of racism for voting conservatively, increased their suspicion of conservative candidates and warped the narrative of moral issues to the point of embracing the genocide perpetrated by the pro-abortion lobby that the last pro-choice president funded with half a billion dollars per year of taxpayer $$$.  Clever Dever and his London School of Economics Fabian Socialist-trained editor have just nuanced these pastors (perhaps your pastor was among them) toward the Third Way Sweet Spot of false social justice progressivism.

Putting this in to non-nuanced terms, Leeman and Dever are saying that to be a staunch pro-life supporter / voter means we are playing into Satan’s hands to bring about racial division. You are causing the racial divide and enabling the cause of Satan in the church. Being pro-life means you are a divider. Dever then wraps up the squeeze play by asserting that it is the calling of pastors to decide these issues for their flocks and with the help of a “plurality of elders” they can decide what to allow, and not to allow, their congregations to carry convictional stands on.  Clearly, in the Dever-Leeman world, pro-life is not allowed to be such a conviction for Christian Voters.  Welfare, Healthcare, Racial Reconciliation – these are the real issues for believers or the ones they will allow you to have.

WHO GOT PLAYED?

In the close of Leeman’s anti-Pence article for TGC he asked the question, “To my Southern Baptist brothers and sisters, whom I love: how would you say we’ve been doing lately at speaking up against the powers that be? Or here’s another question: is it possible we just got played?”

Given what happened in SBC Dallas 2018 Convention on the 9MARKS stage with a leading SBC pastor and his Fabian Socialist-trained political philosopher, it is far more likely the SBC itself was being played, and whose pastors are being led like sheep to the recruiting offices of the agents of social change.

The Fabian Society was founded by members of the British Eugenics Society whose socialist agenda involved population control for “race betterment.”  A co-founder of the Fabian Society, Havelock Ellis, was also president of the Eugenics Education Society and the mentor of Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood Federation of America.

Recommended sources on the collaboration of the Fabian Society, LSE, Eugenics Society and Planned Parenthood:

“The Socialist-Capitalist Alliance: the Fabian Society, the Frankfurt School, and Big Business,” Part I, by Clare Ellis

“Part of the strategy of the Fabian Society for gaining power gradually was infiltration and replacement. It sought allies in the universities, Churches, and newspapers, trained speakers, writers, and politicians, and indoctrinated young scholars who would eventually infiltrate educational institutions, government agencies, and political parties to promote Fabian socialism. For example, Henry Hutchinson, a Derby Fabian, left a generous sum of money (£20,000) to the Society for ‘propaganda and other purposes,’ which was ‘used by the Webbs, Graham Wallas and [George Bernard] Shaw to found a research institute to provide proof positive of the collectivist ideal.’

“In 1895 the Webbs, Shaw, and Wallas set up this institute as a branch of the University of London, called the ‘London School of Economics and Political Science’ (LSE). According to Kerry Bolton it ‘provides an influential means by which Big Business can foster its [Fabian Society] aims’ … According to the UK Fabian Society’s own website, ‘[t]oday, the Fabian Society and the LSE continue to work closely together.’…

“According to Bolton, a friend of Ernest Cassel (1852-1921), Lord Haldane, said: ‘Our object is to make this institution a place to raise and train the bureaucracy of the future Socialist state’ (Bolton, p. 102)”

Havelock Ellis, Little Essays on Love and Virtue (1922)

“Socialism also brings us up against a hard rock of eugenic fact which, if we neglect it, will dash our most beautiful construction to fragments.” (p. 150)

“Still, whether we like it or not, the task of speeding up the decrease of the human population becomes increasingly urgent.” (p. 176)

Havelock Ellis (Wikipedia)

“Havelock Ellis (1859- 1939), was an English physician, writer, progressive intellectual and social reformer who studied human sexuality. He was co-author of the first medical textbook in English on homosexuality in 1897, and also published works on a variety of sexual practices and inclinations, as well as transgender psychology. He is credited with introducing the notions of narcissism and autoeroticism, later adopted by psychoanalysis. Like many intellectuals of his era, he supported eugenics and he served as president of the Eugenics Society…

“He joined The Fellowship of the New Life in 1883, meeting other social reformers Eleanor Marx, Edward Carpenter and George Bernard Shaw…

“Ellis was a supporter of eugenics, in line with many others of that era. He served as vice-president to the Eugenics Education Society and wrote on the subject, among others, in The Task of Social Hygiene:

“Eventually, it seems evident, a general system, whether private or public, whereby all personal facts, biological and mental, normal and morbid, are duly and systematically registered, must become inevitable if we are to have a real guide as to those persons who are most fit, or most unfit to carry on the race.

“The superficially sympathetic man flings a coin to the beggar; the more deeply sympathetic man builds an almshouse for him so he need no longer beg; but perhaps the most radically sympathetic of all is the man who arranges that the beggar shall not be born.”

The British Eugenics Society Tree: The American Eugenics Society

“The American Eugenics Society (AES) was established in 1922, as a result of the Second International Conference on Eugenics that took place in New York in 1921. … Prominent members and sponsors include J.P. Morgan, Jr., Mrs. Mary Duke Biddle, Margaret Sanger, and John H. Kellogg… After Roe v. Wade in 1972, the society was reformatted as ‘The Society for the Study of Social Biology’…”

Margaret_Sanger  (Wikipedia)

“While researching information on contraception, Sanger read treatises on sexuality including The Psychology of Sex by the English psychologist Havelock Ellis and was heavily influenced by it. While traveling in Europe in 1914, Sanger met Ellis. Influenced by Ellis, Sanger adopted his view of sexuality as a powerful, liberating force. This view provided another argument in favor of birth control, as it would enable women to fully enjoy sexual relations without fear of unwanted pregnancy. Sanger also believed that sexuality, along with birth control, should be discussed with more candor, and praised Ellis for his efforts in this direction. She also blamed Christianity for the suppression of such discussion.”

“In 1929, Sanger formed the National Committee on Federal Legislation for Birth Control… In 1937, Sanger became chairman of the newly formed Birth Control Council of America… In 1948, Sanger helped found the International Committee on Planned Parenthood, which evolved into the International Planned Parenthood Federation in 1952, and soon became the world’s largest non-governmental international women’s health, family planning and birth control organization. Sanger was the organization’s first president and served in that role until she was 80 years old.”

1 Kings 22 : 16-23

¹⁶ So the king said to him, “How many times shall I make you swear that you tell me nothing but the truth in the name of the Lord?”

¹⁷ Then he said, “I saw all Israel scattered on the mountains, as sheep that have no shepherd. And the Lord said, ‘These have no master. Let each return to his house in peace.’ ”

¹⁸ And the king of Israel said to Jehoshaphat, “Did I not tell you he would not prophesy good concerning me, but evil?”

¹⁹ Then Micaiah said, “Therefore hear the word of the Lord: I saw the Lord sitting on His throne, and all the host of heaven standing by, on His right hand and on His left. ²⁰ And the Lord said, ‘Who will persuade Ahab to go up, that he may fall at Ramoth Gilead?’ So one spoke in this manner, and another spoke in that manner. ²¹ Then a spirit came forward and stood before the Lord, and said, ‘I will persuade him.’ ²² The Lordsaid to him, ‘In what way?’ So he said, ‘I will go out and be a lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets.’ And the Lord said, ‘You shall persuade him, and also prevail. Go out and do so.’ ²³ Therefore look! The Lord has put a lying spirit in the mouth of all these prophets of yours, and the Lord has declared disaster against you.”