{"id":1004,"date":"2010-10-26T05:00:59","date_gmt":"2010-10-26T11:00:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/?p=1004"},"modified":"2010-10-26T05:00:59","modified_gmt":"2010-10-26T11:00:59","slug":"dissenting-voices-in-nc-and-beyond","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/?p=1004","title":{"rendered":"Dissenting Voices in NC and Beyond!"},"content":{"rendered":"

What do Norman Jameson, soon-to-be-former editor of the Biblical Recorder<\/em>, and Juan Williams, recently fired analyst for NPR, have in common?\u00a0 They both learned\u00a0that dissenting from the party line will, sooner or later,\u00a0mean\u00a0that you are out of a job.<\/p>\n

What does it mean to dissent?\u00a0 To dissent is to disagree.\u00a0 However, if we say that someone is “dissenting,” it sounds much more ominous than to merely say that someone is disagreeing with us.\u00a0 Call it whatever you want, but dissenting voices — from Juan Williams to Norman Jameson — are being marginalized or silenced because those voices sometimes dare to speak out against the prevailing “wisdom” of the ruling establishment.<\/p>\n

At the same time that\u00a0Williams, a ten-year employee of National Public Radio, was fired\u00a0because of his allegedly insensitive\u00a0remarks about flying on a plane with Muslims, Norman Jameson, the three-year editor of\u00a0North Carolina Baptists’ state newspaper,\u00a0resigned under threat of defunding of the Biblical Recorder<\/em><\/a>.\u00a0 A\u00a0group of conservative pastors, led by Sandy Beck,\u00a0charged that Jameson had been insensitive to the prevailing conservative mindset within the churches of the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina.\u00a0 Although no one asked him to resign, Jameson said his resignation was “not required, but necessary.”<\/p>\n

As someone who is not a North Carolina Baptist, I will refrain from commenting on the merits of the charges leveled against Jameson.\u00a0 I will also not second-guess Norman Jameson’s decision to stand down and offer his resignation.\u00a0 Others have already\u00a0offered\u00a0their insightful\u00a0analysis of this situation.<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n

However, I believe that the circumstances surrounding the resignation of Jameson can be instructive to other Southern Baptists when wrestling with the issues of power and control within the Southern Baptist Convention and the various Baptist State Conventions.\u00a0 It reminds me of\u00a0 Jerry Seinfeld’s nemesis, Newman, on the popular television sitcom, who once\u00a0said:<\/p>\n

\u00a0“When you control the mail, you control information.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

There are apparently\u00a0some Southern Baptists today\u00a0who think like Newman.\u00a0 They believe\u00a0that if they control the institutions\u00a0of Baptist life, including the press, that they will control information.\u00a0 And, if they control the information, then dissent will be eliminated.\u00a0 There’s only one problem with that line of thinking.\u00a0 Such a heavy-handed approach will not only have the opposite effect, but will also result in unintended consequences.<\/p>\n

Why would that be the case?\u00a0 Because the local church, like the local Baptist associations, each Baptist State Convention, and the Southern Baptist Convention itself, is autonomous.\u00a0 That’s why North Carolina Baptists can do whatever they want with the Biblical Recorder<\/em>, but that doesn’t affect my state’s Baptist New Mexican<\/em>.\u00a0 Florida can\u00a0recommend a 50-50 split of Cooperative\u00a0Program funds, but\u00a0New Mexico (or Louisiana) does not have to follow suit.<\/p>\n

What are the unintended consequences that result from this heavy-handed approach of the ruling establishment?\u00a0 Instead of unity, we get dissension.\u00a0 Instead of coming together, we are being torn asunder.\u00a0 And all the while, those who voice any disagreement with the leadership are accused of sowing discord among the brethren.\u00a0 None of the ruling elites ever\u00a0sees, much less believes, that anything that they do contributes to the disunity and discord.<\/p>\n

I do not know what will happen\u00a0among North Carolina Baptists after Jameson leaves office.\u00a0 But, my guess is that the way this whole issue with Jameson was handled, not only by Beck, but by the Biblical Recorder’s <\/em>Board of Directors, will\u00a0have\u00a0consequences — both short-term and long-term — that\u00a0no one would have ever imagined.\u00a0 And all those consequences will probably not be positive.<\/p>\n

I do not know what\u00a0will happen in the Southern Baptist Convention when\u00a0some (or\u00a0all) of the GCRTF recommendations are implemented.\u00a0\u00a0But, I believe that we are already seeing the unintended consequences that have resulted from the GCR process itself.\u00a0 And, not all of these consequences are positive.\u00a0<\/p>\n

As circumstances continue to change, I will continue to speak out on issues affecting the Southern Baptist Convention.\u00a0 I will add my voice to the other voices who have the freedom and courage to disagree with decisions that we believe will be detrimental to the mission and ministry of the SBC.\u00a0 I therefore reserve my right to dissent!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What do Norman Jameson, soon-to-be-former editor of the Biblical Recorder, and Juan Williams, recently fired analyst for NPR, have in common?\u00a0 They both learned\u00a0that dissenting from the party line will, sooner or later,\u00a0mean\u00a0that you are out of a job. What does it mean to dissent?\u00a0 To dissent is to disagree.\u00a0 However, if we say that…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[19,37],"tags":[119,123,146,184,3380,572,726,731,3392,3393],"class_list":["post-1004","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-freedom-of-speech","category-southern-baptist-convention","tag-baptist-new-mexican","tag-baptist-state-convention-of-north-carolina","tag-biblical-recorder","tag-bscnc","tag-freedom-of-speech","tag-juan-williams","tag-norman-jameson","tag-npr","tag-religion","tag-southern-baptist-convention"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1LP7G-gc","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1004","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1004"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1004\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1004"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1004"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1004"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}