NEW YORK (ABP) — Several well-known Southern Baptist leaders have rescinded their previous endorsements of a controversial blog that provides news and opinion related to the Southern Baptist Convention.
Jerry Rankin, David Dockery, Thom Rainer and Frank Page all initially offered enthusiastic endorsements of SBC Outpost (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But each of those Baptist leaders has subsequently withdrawn his approval.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 SBC Outpost removed by site editors along with the others.
Page, the SBC's current president, said in an Aug. 22 column run by the SBC news service that he retracted his endorsement because the blog “degenerated quickly into a place of personal attack against denominational leaders.” Such Internet-based attacks are part of a trend of church websites 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 the Baptist Press column. “For Christ's sake, stop!”
Rankin said in a similar column that 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. “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 SBC Outpost 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.”
Other widely-read Baptist bloggers, such Geoff Baggett, have removed links to SBC Outpost from their personal sites. They've done it because, “rather than being our SBC blog edition of Newsweek, it comes off as a bit more like National Enquirer,” Baggett, a Kentucky pastor, said.
Action and reaction from blog contributors has been mixed. In fact, former SBC Outpost host Micah Fries announced Aug. 17 that he was backing away from the blog as well.
The St. Joseph, Mo., pastor said his level of passion for denominational politics led him to be “too involved” with the blog and had reduced the time he spent on local-church ministry. But Fries also seemed to express some dissatisfaction with the SBC Outpost itself.
“I envisioned this site to be a place where substantive dialogue could happen in a Christ-like manner,” Fries wrote. “That has happened in tremendous ways at times. Unfortunately, however, I have also been disappointed to watch folks on both sides of these divides who simply don't play well with others.”
On the other hand, the remaining editors posted a response to the removals that said united fronts among Baptists will not be regained as long as the “issues raised by bloggers are dismissed because of the tone occasionally adopted by them.”
“Blogging has merely shouted from the housetops what has often been whispered in secret,” the Aug. 25 response said. “To publicly rebuke bloggers for having addressed directly and passionately the questionable actions of some convention leaders, and to refuse to rebuke those same leaders whose actions have precipitated the blogging dissent, is unbalanced.”
“Respected leaders” like Page should unite voices and influence to address the “shameful actions of some who lead the convention from the highest levels of institutional office,” the post continued.
The site continues to boast robust numbers. On Aug. 10, site editors said they had received almost 8,000 page views that day and had published more than 120 articles that month.
Benjamin Cole, soon-to-be associate pastor at Emmanuel Baptist Church in Enid, Okla., has addressed concerns posted on the site about “the prudence of denominational statesmen having publicly identified, albeit tacitly, with the individual opinions expressed by our authors.”
In an Aug. 2 reply, Cole said the blog operates best if contributors are free to disagree with convention policies and question administrators. Outpost editors have said convention leaders have a higher priority to represent all Southern Baptists than to “affirm” any one forum, he said.
“We will not deny ourselves any occasion to speak our minds as honestly, forcefully, and even controversially as we deem necessary,” Cole wrote. “Ultimately, our freedom to dissent is of much greater value to our Baptist identity than is our need for magisterial affirmation.”
Another major contributor to the blog, Marty Duren, said it is just as well that the so-called celebrity endorsements were removed. In an Aug. 27 comment to blog readers, the Georgia pastor said that although he initially sought the original endorsements, they actually restricted the blog editors from writing freely.
“The endorsements … would make it difficult for us to be completely free to report or comment on activity or statements potentially made by one of those who provided endorsements,” Duren wrote. “At the worst, we would be accused of treating them with kid gloves if they were not hammered as others have been.”
According to the blog, the editors have no plans to publish several additional endorsements that were scheduled for later release.
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Read more:
Collaborative blog wins endorsements from top Southern Baptist leaders (7/24/07)
Bloggers consolidate efforts to create ‘premier site' for discussion of SBC (7/17/2007)