Great Commission Resurgence

A new effort to revitalize and unite Southern Baptists is underway called The Great Commission Resurgence. It is being spearheaded by several Southern Baptist leaders, including SBC President Johnny Hunt and Daniel Akin, President of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary.

This effort has now launched a website with a declaration that is available for electronic signing. I like this effort and support the principles outlined in the declaration including biblical inerrancy, convention reform, and perhaps most intriguing, "A Commitment to Methodological Diversity that is Biblically Informed." If you are a Southern Baptist who wants to see the SBC revitalized as an efficient, Gospel-centered, mission-minded denomination, check this website out.

Southeastern and Baptist Press

Following Southeastern Seminary's 20/20 Conference, which featured Mark Driscoll among others, Baptist Press (BP) released a one-sided article resurrecting old controversies and blindsiding interviewees who didn't know they were going to be quoted in this piece. Southeastern responded to the BP article with a statement on their blog:

"One of the speakers, Mark Driscoll, has received significant criticism from some Southern Baptists in recent days. At first the criticism was limited to ill-informed bloggers, but yesterday Baptist Press entered the fray...We were very disappointed in the BP piece, which we believe was inaccurate in content and harsh in tone."

Ed Stetzer, Director of LifeWay Research, also responded on his blog by saying he was disappointed in BP and noting that one of the interviewees were unaware that they were being interviewed for this story.

Finally, I wrote a response to the article in an op-ed entitled, Unfair, Unbalanced, and Unacceptable, with the Biblical Recorder, the Baptist newpaper for North Carolina. This article outlines how the BP article is simply part of a larger trend toward biased journalism that is discrediting Baptist Press among many.

If you are plugged into the crazy Baptist world, leave your thoughts. For everyone else, we will return to regularly scheduled programming shortly.

Southeastern Receives $126,500 Creation Care Grant

An article has been released from Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, which outlines a grant we were able to secure in the amount of $126,500 to develop and advance creation care stewardship among Southern Baptists. This will serve many purposes over the next 12 months from a campus-wide recycling program to a creation care conference to be hosted by Southeastern in 2009. While the launch of the Southern Baptist Environment and Climate Initiative was significant from a messaging standpoint, this grant will move the theoretical to the tangible as Southern Baptists begin to engage the most critical issues of our day.