Gary North (in MB's previous "Reprise" article) seems most interested in where and when the money caught fire.

I can see no way, or almost no way, that the conservatives could expect to go out and capture an institution where the support -- the financial support would be coming from people who don't like conservative ideas.

What possible fuels were lying around in the SBC kitchen that fed the heretic spark into full flame?

I'm maybe confusing dominionism with "reconstruction" (topic of Mainstream's previous story), but there North compares the takeover of a democratically-based religious organization (SBC) with techniques of success in other types of dominionist overthrow operations (i.e. Texas or Ohio state GOP, etc.)

How significant was the monetary or funding dynamic in the SBC coup?  Pressler paints the picture of a majority movement, and if his claim is true, that might equate to a financial hegemony as well.

But Pressler also claims his majority was frustrated with the lack of a conservative direction in the denominational platform or stance on social issues.  So ideology was in the drivers seat, and money was along for the ride?  

I will never again take the word of a conservative when he claims a "majority," in this case less so, since the SBC coup fingerprint bears the mark of a leadership elite.  When the thing came down, Adrian Rogers was dealing the cards to only one side of the table, it seems to me, and Pressler admits it.  I say, reality check on the substance to their "majority" claim.

Note also the way North explains away the sovereignty of the "opponent" in this kind of gamesmanship:

if we can find those institutions that are financially supported by people who are in essential agreement with us about the way the world works, . . . it is still possible to go in and take the institutional power away from our opponents who have very quietly and very successfully gained the seats of power in those organizations -- despite the fact that the money and the support is coming from people who share our views.

North likes to bill the target institution as mysteriously under the thumb of sneaky elites before his operation moves in to rescue the financial supporters from voiceless sterility.

Mainstream, in the SBC case, were the incumbents more representative than the Rogers clique turned out to be?  Or is it like Pressler says - the incumbents were leading the flock into unwilling support for women's rights and other unsavory social aims? : )

God bless the whole world - - No Exceptions
by John Anngeister on Thu Mar 15, 2007 at 03:19:33 PM EST
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Only a few days ago I was taking a close look at Carl McIntire and his harsh little post-Machen schism in Presbyterianism, and didn't make the connection, but I believe he may be an important component in the geneology of your problem (wasn't he the one who edited the earlier Christian Economics?.

Did the brotherhood of Christian hate get together at some point and decide to quit using the "John Birch" moniker because it was too "hot?"  Or was JBS a secular group?  We certainly hear less of it since - when, the 70s?  But clearly the membership went on to bigger things.

Thanks again for writing, Chip.

God bless the whole world - - No Exceptions
by John Anngeister on Fri Mar 16, 2007 at 12:44:20 PM EST
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I was a little slow to come around, but I had been (and still am) happy reading a variety of  theology and philosophy that has nothing to do with the conservative mindset (except in its loyalty to the divine Son).  I guess I naively hoped the system would straighten itself out when Bush tried for re-election.

So after my "Ash Wednesday," I found you and Frederick and Chip and others almost immediately, and with your help took the measure of  the extremist opposition while lurking here and at Theocracy Watch.

But my "positive" response still lay in the direction most natural for me - a "reprise" of our religion's more progressive theologies, and an analysis of their failure to withstand the rising tide of conservative deaf-dumbness.

So I stopped short of getting to "crisis mode" with respect to political confrontation with the religious right.  Lately, though, I am more willing to budget a few precious hours of study time back in that direction.

Thanks again, and please don't take any of my comments as "snippy."  Grandstanding, maybe, but only by way of finding my own "voice" among these issues and debates.

-I will, however, expect us to be honest about what may have been "wrong" with Baptist theology and ideology in the first place - by way of explaining its apparent vulnerability to this present evil.  Surely it took more than just a minor "tweak" to screw things up.  I'll be following you closely, MB.  Thanks for being here.

God bless the whole world - - No Exceptions
by John Anngeister on Fri Mar 16, 2007 at 12:30:51 PM EST
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