For those of you new to my blog, you may be wondering how I chose the name “fromlaw2grace.”\u00a0 As it happens, I studied political science at George Washington University and then went to law school at Florida State University where I\u00a0graduated with my Juris Doctorate degree in 1991.\u00a0 After practicing law for three years, God changed my life, calling me out of\u00a0MY lifelong dream of being an attorney, to following HIS\u00a0plan for my life, that of\u00a0pastor and preacher.<\/p>\n
Although\u00a0I no longer practice law and though I\u00a0believe the Gospel — not government or politics — is the\u00a0true power of God unto salvation (i.e., the only\u00a0real hope and change), I have never regretted\u00a0attending law school or practicing law.\u00a0 In my role as a pastor, I have found that my past experiences with law and politics have given me a different\u00a0perspective that most other pastors simply do not have.<\/p>\n
Those experiences — for good, bad, and indifferent — shape who I am today.\u00a0 These same experiences also provide me with my own unique view of Southern Baptist life, both at the local church level where I serve as a pastor, but also at the state and national levels of SBC life.\u00a0 While some may not agree with my opinions or perspectives, I will continue to call them like I see them, especially with regards to the politics of the Great Commission Resurgence.<\/p>\n
And, if you do not believe that there\u00a0are politics involved in what has\u00a0happened in the past year and what continues to play itself out in today’s\u00a0SBC world, then you have not been paying attention.\u00a0 Regardless of which side of the language divide you find yourself on, you must pay attention to what is happening today\u00a0because it will affect the\u00a0tomorrows of our Convention and how we\u00a0partner together to carry out the Great Commission through our churches, associations, state conventions, and the national SBC.<\/p>\n
In what must come as a shock to\u00a0those who led the Conservative Resurgence\u00a0over the course of 30 years\u00a0beginning in 1979, there are actually pastors and lay folks, state convention executives and national leaders, who\u00a0are on the same page when it comes to questions and opposition to the GCR Task Force Recommendations (not the Great Commission itself)\u00a0that were “overwhelmingly” approved in Orlando this past June.\u00a0 Who knew that there would be people who believed and thought that the SBC\u00a0was headed down the wrong path\u00a0who would begin to ask the same questions and even\u00a0to network with one another?\u00a0 I know.\u00a0 This kind of thing happening within the SBC is just mind-boggling!<\/p>\n
In what should not come as a surprise to anyone who dares question the wisdom of the GCR\u00a0Recommendations, the pushback against the pushback has begun.\u00a0 The arguments being advanced\u00a0against those of us who question the establishment’s plan for the SBC are no doubt designed to brush back the opposition.\u00a0 One recent commenter at SBCVoices, in response to my post, The SBC & CP:\u00a0 What Language Do You Speak<\/a>, said the following:<\/p>\n I have it on good authority that \u201cSomeone in the SBC\u201d, who shall for now go unnamed, is organizing bloggers to write negative articles (Hit Pieces) attacking the general direction of the SBC as outlined by the GCR task force, and the new leadership of our agencies. I can\u2019t begin to express to you how \u201cUtterly Disgusting\u201d this sort of behavior is to me!<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n How horrible!\u00a0 Political organizing in the\u00a0SBC.\u00a0 Someone, quick, please go\u00a0tell Paige Patterson and Judge Pressler and the other CR leaders\u00a0that this sort of thing is now frowned upon in the Convention, at least according to this commentator from Voices:<\/p>\n I, also, believe that you are right about the efforts of some who blog. If that effort is coordinated, that\u2019s a pity. But there is nothing to do about that.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Now, let me ask a few questions to those who are conservative inerrantists who believed that the CR was a good and necessary action.\u00a0 Was it utterly disgusting to organize fellow Southern Baptists, who believed that the Convention was headed in the wrong direction, so that the Convention could be turned back to its conservative roots?\u00a0 Was it a pity that conservatives back in the late 1970s and early 1980s were coordinating their efforts to implement a conservative resurgence within the SBC?<\/p>\n If there would have been no organization or coordinated effort by certain leaders, then there never would have been a CR!\u00a0 Just because we have blogs and the internet and text messaging (oops!\u00a0 I wasn’t supposed to mention that one) today does not mean that any organized or coordinated efforts by those who question or oppose the GCR is somehow wrong or “utterly disgusting.”<\/p>\n I cannot speak for any other blogger or pastor or leader within the SBC.\u00a0 But, what I can tell you is that, as of my writing this post, there has been no effort to coordinate or organize the opposition\u00a0to the GCR.\u00a0 That, my friends, is happening naturally, all across the Southern Baptist Convention.\u00a0 Can anyone in Nashville or Alpharetta or Richmond say TEA PARTY!<\/p>\n That does not mean that there will be no organized or coordinated efforts to oppose some of the elements of the GCR in the future.\u00a0 However, when I can be on the same page with folks like Peter Lumpkins <\/a>and Tim Rogers <\/a>and Les Puryear and David Hankins and David Crosby<\/a>\u00a0and a whole host of people that I have never met before and some of whom I may not have even agreed with on some issues before, then I think that speaks volumes about\u00a0a grassroots movement within the SBC that is building naturally, from the bottom up.<\/p>\n Those within the SBC establishment, including those who support the establishment, can certainly dismiss out of hand those who criticize or question the GCR.\u00a0 They can chalk it up to nothing more than a bunch of sore losers complaining about a lost vote in Orlando.\u00a0 They can feign shock at grassroots Southern Baptists talking amongst themselves about the direction of the Convention.\u00a0 They can do any and all of the above.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 But, just like liberals did with the election of President Obama, they may seriously overestimate their mandate<\/a>!And, just like liberals did with President George W. Bush, they may seriously misunderestimate their opposition!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" For those of you new to my blog, you may be wondering how I chose the name “fromlaw2grace.”\u00a0 As it happens, I studied political science at George Washington University and then went to law school at Florida State University where I\u00a0graduated with my Juris Doctorate degree in 1991.\u00a0 After practicing law for three years, God…<\/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":[10,24,37],"tags":[249,3372,433,434,3392,878,3393],"class_list":["post-921","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cooperative-program","category-great-commission-resurgence","category-southern-baptist-convention","tag-conservative-resurgence","tag-cooperative-program","tag-gcr","tag-gcrtf","tag-religion","tag-sbcvoices","tag-southern-baptist-convention"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1LP7G-eR","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/921","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=921"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/921\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=921"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=921"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=921"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n