POWERPLAY

THE POWER BUTTON

A couple of decades back I remember reading what someone wrote about the perils of dating. A suggestion came that if one wanted to pinpoint the age range of someone sitting across that restaurant table from you, merely steer the conversation to critical news events of the past. "Oh that's what I felt when JFK was assassinated. You know, I can remember exactly where I was when I heard the news," one would say. If that statement did not illicit a like response from your evening's intended or perhaps a nod toward the salad with silence, then your next move should be to hail the waiter with "CHECK!"
The above scenario can also be applied to those who went through the experience of the Southern Baptist purge of the 70's and 80's. Unless you went through it, you're just not sitting at the same table with those who did. They can remember how they felt and exactly where they were when it happened.

From our book The Life of Meaning this week we get the interview of Richard Land, the commentator on all things religious and social, from the Southern Baptist's Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission.

While the conservative takeover was said to be essentially about the authority of the Bible, another synonym for authority might be more instructive: power. Religious power, social power and it's close corollary, political power. No war occurs in a vacuum. Neither did the SBC purge which reflected the larger landscape upon which the campaign was fought to see who would control the "power button."
Below are some of Land's comments:

"The whole controversy was about one issue--one doctrine and one doctrine alone--and that was the infallibility and authority of the word of God."

We have different interpretations about what the Bible says...but not what it is. It is the inerrant, infallible word of God."

"Our manual of faith is the entire New Testament."

"The only thing that a Christian can bring to his salvation is the sin from which he needs to be saved."

"Soul liberty...means that we respect everyone's right to believe whatever they want to believe."

"I think Southern Baptist's increasingly understand that they are living in a culture that discriminates against evangelical Christians."

Regarding relations with Jews:
"God made promises to the Jewish people and that God does not make conditional covenants."

"In a very real sense, the Bible belt is Israel's safety belt."

Walter Morton for Terra Incognita