Two Kinds of Baptists, Same Kind of Problem

[Joanne98]

Christa Brown
Posted: Thursday, December 30, 2010 6:30 am



Southern Baptists share the same problem as independent Baptists. They lack any effective system for clergy accountability, Brown writes.

In Atlanta, law enforcement authorities are investigating a controversial mortgage scheme that allegedly preyed on financially troubled homeowners. Two Baptist mega-church pastors are linked to the scheme.



As reported by CBS Atlanta News, a company called Matrix Capital promised to lower people's mortgages if they paid a $1,500 upfront fee. Police say "thousands of homeowners paid Matrix Capital the money," but rather than getting their mortgages lowered, "most of them ended up in bankruptcy and losing their homes." Just before Christmas, some started asking whether their own pastors were the ones who had let the wolf in the door.



Southern Baptist pastor Gary Hawkins was "the face of the company's promotional video," and he "vouched" for the man behind the company, Fred Lee, even though Lee already had a "questionable history." Now Lee is "accused of stealing" from members of Hawkins' Southern Baptist Convention-affiliated church, Voices of Faith in Stone Mountain, Ga. With 11,000 members, Voices of Faith is one of the Georgia Baptist Convention's fastest growing churches.

http://www.ethicsdaily.com/two-kinds-of-baptists-same-kind-of-problem-cms-17227-printer

[Rabrrrrrr]

1. I have many critiques of them and the non-denominationals, and a big one is no clergy accountability

no clergy training, and no individual congregation accountability.

(though the Southern Baptists do have the clergy training, and even some of the non-denominationals have pastors that have gone to seminary, or whatever shithole ignorant podunk fuckass school they call a 'seminary', usually something fucking ignorant like a 'Bible College')

That's the problem with most mega-churches - they tend to have clergy who are basically self-ordained and who have no structure whatsoever of accountability, whether morally, ethically, theologically, Biblically, pastorally, or anything else. Most of the "preachers" on TV are just as equally untrained and basically self-ordained.

Rick Warren's "accountability group" is his wife and a couple other members of his "church". Haggard's was basically the same. Swaggart had some accountability within the Assembly of God, but even then they really had no power over him.

Makes me sick.

Not to say that bad ones don't squeak through, but it's a pretty good bet that if someone is serving a mainline church as pastor, they've been well-trained AND vetted quite well through the process.

I think of the many years and great debtload that legitimate ministers go through for college and seminary and all the time spent with whatever their ministry commission is that oversees ordination, the psychological testing as well as theological testing, internships, field ed, clinical pastoral work, and other things that they have to do before becoming ordained and allowed to serve a church - and then I watch these fuckstain assholes come basically out of nowhere, call themselves a minister, do whatever the fuck they want with basically no training or theological or academic grounding, and then when national TV needs a "Christian expert" to comment on something, these are the assjammers that get the phone call.

Pisses me off.

And the untrained, non-academic dickwagons tend toward tea-bag theology as well: fundamentalist, ignorant, non-critical, politically conservative that can't tell the Bible from the US Constitution, and have an equally empty understanding of either.

[DonCoquixote]

2. True, but

Sadly, the churches that do vet people and do have degrees are running into their own problems, such as the Catholics.

[Rabrrrrrr]

4. As I said, bad ones still get through - and the Catholics have their own problem

not just with a bunch of bad ones, but a bunch of bad ones in the group that's supposed to holding the rest accountable.

Not much you can do when the accountability group is itself corrupted.

[immoderate]

3. That's how god rolls.

Churches are god's franchise to collect money from people.

--imm

[LuvNewcastle]

5. Baptists have a doctrine called

"the priesthood of the believer." It generally means that an individual needs no one to intercede between himself and God or needs anyone to interpret the Bible for him. It sounds good to those who don't like dogma handed down to them from some church hierarchy and those who like a more free-spirited approach to religion. The down side is that you get semi-literate people expounding on passages of the Bible and making it mean anything they want. This approach to the Bible is popular with many because a creative preacher can always come up with some new and exciting way to interpret scripture and, unlike catechism, hardly ever gets boring; but it also helps heresies to flourish.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

6. All Protestants have the doctrine of the priesthood of believers, and

it was partly a reaction during the Reformation against the Roman Catholic practice of treating priests as some sort of better breed of cat. As Luther said, "All honest work is pleasing to God."

As Rabrrrrr notes above, the problem is the notion that anyone can start their own church with no oversight. In the mainline Protestant churches, you have to jump through a lot of hoops before you can be ordained.

In the Episcopal church, the steps are as follows: 1) Discuss your aspirations with your parish priest, 2) Form a discernment committee of eight people, including equal numbers of men and women and at least one person from outside the parish. Meet with this committee once a month for twelve months so that they can tear your life apart and examine your motivations under a microscope. (I've been on two such committees, one of which enthusiastically endorsed "the seeker" and the other of which said, "not now, maybe later.") 3) The next step is approval by the diocesan committee. 4) Now you're ready for three years of seminary, 5) Upon finishing seminary, spend a year as a "transitional deacon," a sort of intern. 6) Hope that some parish is willing to hire you as either its only priest (rector) or associate priest (sometimes called a curate). 7) OK, get ordained by the bishop.

You can see how this process would tend to discourage anyone who wants to make a quick buck.

Once you're in a parish, you get a salary and benefits established by the diocese on the basis of the size of the parish. Period. The parish's finances are managed by a lay treasurer (most of whom are CPAs, in my experience) and vetted by a board (vestry) elected by the congregation for three-year terms. You cannot spend parish money, aside from a small discretionary fund that is supposed to be used for ad hoc charitable purposes, without the permission of the vestry.

It's a far cry from the megachurch scenario.