Several well-known Southern Baptist leaders have rescinded their previous endorsements of a controversial blog that provides news and opinion related to the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC).
Jerry Rankin, David Dockery, Thom Rainer and Frank Page all initially offered enthusiastic endorsements of SBCOutpost (www.sbcoutpost.com) after it was launched in June. The site is a collaborative effort by several reform-minded Southern Baptist pastors, theologians and laypeople.
At the time, Rankin, president of the SBC’s International Mission Board, called the blog a “significant channel of communication (that) can serve Southern Baptists.”
But each of those Baptist leaders has subsequently withdrawn his approval. As of Aug. 28, Morris Chapman, the SBC Executive Committee president and another early endorser of the site, had yet to make a public statement about his endorsement, although it was removed from SBCOutpost by site editors along with the others.
Page, the SBC’s current president, said the blog “degenerated quickly into a place of personal attack against denominational leaders.” Such Internet-based attacks are part of a trend of church Web sites detailing allegations, accusations and complaints against leaders, he said.
“Lost people are seeing the deep division and sometimes hatred that is flowing forth among churches and among those who are involved in convention discussions,” Page wrote in a Baptist Press (BP) column. “For Christ’s sake, stop!”
Rankin said the blog “has not fulfilled its intended purpose.”
“This had the potential of being a forum for an objective interchange of ideas and opinions that would contribute in a constructive way to the Southern Baptist Convention,” Rankin wrote in a similar column. “While I continue to endorse and advocate the value of open communication and understanding that comes from a free exchange of ideas, I am retracting my endorsement of SBCOutpost as the place for that to happen.”
Rainer, president of SBC publisher LifeWay Christian Resources, said in an Aug. 17 BP story that he had gladly endorsed the blog as an opportunity to focus the denomination on missions and evangelism. That didn’t happen, he said.
“My words, instead, were construed by some to be an endorsement of every article that followed, particularly those articles that were critical of other entity presidents,” Rainer said. “That was unacceptable. I was wrong.” (ABP)
Share with others: