An Inside Job
To steal a term from Matt Walsh, who famously asked the question, “What is a Woman?” which turned into a best-selling book and movie documentary, I’m asking the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC), “What is a Pastor?” given the SBC’s recent rejection of an amendment aimed at defining the word and its uses, as originally understood when the Baptism Faith and Message (BFM) was adopted in 2000.
The godless Left in this country lacks the one thing they desire the most—total control and power. But they have an obstacle: the unified (but weakening) evangelical Christian voting bloc.
So, what has been the Left’s strategy to deal with this obstacle? How could they get around that? It has been no secret that for the last several decades, the Left has plotted to infiltrate and divide the Christian bloc, much the same as they have done with society in general via racial racketeering and intersectionality.
Their problem was how to implement the division of Christians from the outside. Well, they couldn’t. It was going to have to be an inside job. As it has been said many times, this country could never be defeated from the outside but only from within, and the Leftist ideology is doing just that with the term “pastor.”
Like the snake in the garden who said, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?” (Genesis 3:1), the Left’s tactic is to get you to put established fact up for debate. You never do that, as the moment you do, you have lost the argument.
As Goes the Church, So Goes the Nation
From a political standpoint—and particularly from one in conservative leadership—the SBC’s failed amendment stands out as a familiar pattern: we keep fighting the same fight over and over again, and each time, we lose a little more real estate—whether it be in relation to Christian doctrine or conservative principles. Consequently, the conservative bloc continues hitting its head up against the proverbial brick wall. I’ve realized this very thing. In my own fight for religious freedoms, I’ve witnessed churches turning out socialists and predisposing their memberships to Leftist ideologies.
As goes the church, so goes the nation. Therefore, I was not going to cure the cancer with an aspirin. It was going to take the scalpel of truth to heal our country from that which prevented all good governance and order. With no God, there is no order, and without order, there is no freedom. Remember, the United States government is one only fitting for a moral people, and why is that? Because a moral people is self-governing. Otherwise, to control a populace our size, you end up with a dictatorial government.
Wolves Dressed As Shepherds
Having laid the predicate, I want to turn to what happened at the Southern Baptist Convention in Indianapolis in early June. While many there attempted to do the right thing, Leftist ideologies and mindsets infiltrated the convention. Characteristic of that mindset is lacking deductive reasoning. The SBC messengers are playing checkers while their enemies are playing chess, and in this instance, the Left is slowly accomplishing its goal within the church, and we are seeing the disastrous effects in the decline of the country.
The Left accomplished their mission with the Presbyterians and the Methodists, which have now divided. Now their focus is on the SBC, and the key talking point from some of the cognitively dissonant at the SBC was, “Oh, don’t worry, be happy, an amendment is not needed.”
We have reason to be wary of this very point, for there are many wolves dressed as shepherds today, or should I say, pastors. Many are not even aware they are wolves. I guess, in more contemporary terms, they are the useful and woefully uninformed agents that the Marxists refer to in their march through the institutions as they take over a nation. They deceive and get those who lack deductive and sound reasoning to go along with their well-designed plan. When the naive finally wake up, if at all, they are already in checkmate. How sad.
A Really Good Laxative
I have a visceral disgust for stupidity and little compassion for ignorance. We are in a world spiraling into totalitarianism and atheism. The Left’s number one target is Christians. In fact, 80 percent of all religious persecution from around the world is against Christians, yet there are pastors so inept that one wonders if they even know the fundamentals of the faith they preach. Well, clearly, enough of them at the recent SBC in Indianapolis did not.
This is not a complex issue, folks. Moreover, why would you want a church within your convention that is not faithful to the doctrines of Scripture? It is only a matter of time before those who do not obey the Scriptures are purged from the church by God, like the winnowing of the wheat from the chaff. We don’t want a split to emerge within the SBC as in other denominations of late.
There is a toxic tolerance in church leadership that wants to appear nice, reasonable, understanding, and accepting of those who have strayed from doctrinal fidelity. Ahh, and here we have it: the Left has accomplished exactly what it set out to do, to divide Christians, and they did it from within. What sound churches need and what the SBC and seminaries need is a really good laxative.
Masters Over the Glossary
The biggest issue before the convention, as I have been told and to the extent I have observed and made inquiry of those at the convention, was the Law Amendment. This amendment dealt with the issue of women serving as pastors and the definition of “pastor.” Again, established fact should never be put up for debate, as the moment you have done so, you have lost the argument. Given enough time on this slippery slope, you will soon be debating, “Is God really God?” I truly hope for Christ’s return well before then to exact His judgment and rid us of weak men.
Scripture is unquestionably clear: only men are permitted to take to the pulpit and preach. Now, one would think that the articles of the SBC made it clear that only men can be pastors. Yet here is where the naivety comes in. The Left, in their attempt to divide and destroy, have become masters over the glossary. They practice linguistic appropriation. They twist the meaning of words or redefine them just as they are doing now with the term “democracy.” It does not have the same meaning to the Left. They know exactly the meaning you attribute to it, but they want none of that, particularly if you think it means life, liberty, happiness and your inalienable rights.
And guess what? In their definition of democracy, there will be a day when they put to a vote whether the people think that Christianity is a dangerous religion. This is already being discussed as a new cause of action called “religious trauma,” which I discuss in my book America’s Systemic Psychosis.
The Church Will Lose
So, what did so many get wrong at the SBC, and why is that so important to me? Well, as stated, as a conservative, God-fearing and honoring politician, I see how the nation is being destroyed, and much of it is coming from a decaying church. Block by block, the temple is metaphorically being removed, and mostly by the naivety of a minority of messengers and prominent leaders in the SBC. They do not see what I see in the political world.
The paranoia of some members at the SBC, whom I call the weaker brother, which Dr. R.C. Sproul once referred to as the tyranny of the weaker brother—they should never be allowed in the role of legislation. That is to say, there exists a small minority of messengers within the SBC who reflexively misinterpret or liberalize doctrine to suit their own personal agenda and to accommodate their own weaknesses.
The division that exists in the SBC on this matter may be explained away by the metaphorical mixing of the sheep and the goats. You commingled with those who were not devoted to sound doctrine. Oh, many will say, “So what?” But from my 37,000-foot vantage point, politically, the church will lose.
The weaker brothers who have bought into erroneous doctrine will be elevated by the Leftists in government and be given supreme authority over church governance. The Left sows seeds of discord in the convention, and many do not even recognize how they are being manipulated and sifted by the devil himself. Folks, the enemy within is distracting you while the larger enemy is coming for you and the church from without.
Why Clarity Is Needed
The SBC had an opportunity to clarify and eliminate any ambiguity regarding what and who a pastor is, that women are not allowed to be pastors. To be fair, 61 percent of the convention saw the light and voted correctly. Good for them. That is encouraging, but something is rotten in the state of Denmark, as the famous line in Hamlet goes. Now this is not convention-wide, but there is a sickness in the leadership. It’s like a cancer. You cannot co-exist with it.
The reason clarity is needed, particularly with regard to the term pastor, should be clear. We are now debating in this country what a woman is, and given that stark reality, is it not wise to not define your terms? Not even the newest Supreme Court justice, Ketanji Brown Jackson, could define what a woman was in her confirmation hearings. So, this is no minor issue, yet a minority within the convention saw a bogeyman, had paranoid delusions or maybe had a dishonest agenda.
They Need To Go
Now, if they voted it down because, overtly or covertly, they want women in the pastorate, then they need to go. They need to be purged from the convention. The Catholics have already given the issue of women priests a hard no! It is no longer up for discussion or debate. Again, the Christians in this country, and particularly the SBC, are playing checkers while the Left is playing chess.
Leftwing ideology will return again and again until it wins, that is, unless the convention makes it no longer a matter upon which any motion can be brought or ever again debated. If an SBC church does not believe in the fundamental doctrine of complementarianism, then that church should leave the convention. And if the church doesn’t leave, then the SBC should move to disfellowship from them.
The convention had the opportunity to give rock-solid clarity but failed. Now, again, to be nice, 61 percent voted for clarification, but not enough to pass the amendment. I would never attend a church pastored by that 39 percent because they are not Gideons, nor wise, given the state of the world today, and it would be impossible for me ever to trust those within that group. They are blind to the enemy coming over the horizon to destroy the church. Their role is that of a shepherd. Sheep live with their heads down and don’t see what’s coming over the horizon. From my vantage point—a politically informed perspective—I see what’s coming over the horizon, hence my writing of this article.
As for those churches that have female pastors, let’s get right to the point: they are walking in blatant disobedience, as they are in direct violation of a prohibition in Scripture, so why delay their removal?
Jack L. Richardson, IV