Devil in a Baptist Press?

For almost a week, I could not access Baptist Press online.  I am still trying to decide if it is better having BP online or offline. 

Yesterday, Baptist Press ran one of the best articles I have read in a long time entitled “The Wall Is the Castle” written by Doug Baker.  What was surprising to me was that they actually allowed some self-critique of the SBC to be printed in their “First Person” or opinion column. 

Or so I thought. 

In less than 24 hours, Baptist Press took Baker’s article off their website, though it just so happened that Ergun Caner’s opinion piece remained online.  Now what do you think was the cause or rationale for removing Baker’s article?  One would imagine that any journalistic ethics would require sufficient warrant for the removal of an article that was published–namely that of either plagiarism or factual inaccuracies that result in a retraction or correction by the author.  However, neither have been proven true in Baker’s case.  Indeed, not even The New York Times or The Washington Post would have pulled such a tactical breach of journalistic integrity. 

So what then?  Are we to conclude, as others have, that Baker’s article was not politically correct enough to last twenty four hours before calls came in to take it down?  Are we to agree that Baptist Press has become nothing short of the public relations arm of the controlling elites of the Southern Baptist Convention?  Or is it that a devil has gotten into the Baptist Press and caused all this?  Or all of the above?

Now, on the same day, Ergun Caner says the following statement:

For the past few years, I have become increasingly frustrated as I have watched young preachers turn on our elders. I mourn when I hear of another young minister demand a “seat at the table,” as if leadership was our birthright. I shudder when I read blogs of men who have never grown a single church, or accomplished anything to deserve to have an opinion, criticize those who have toiled the fields of souls, sweat through all-night prayer meetings, and bled on the battlefields of spiritual warfare.

Jeremy Green and others in the short-lived “Joshua Convergence” were saying the same thing last summer.  Who are they talking about?  Can this charge be substantiated?  Perhaps the editors of Baptist Press pulled the wrong editorial piece.  Rather than looking for a seat at the table, most young ministers I know are looking for the exit sign, and I can substantiate that.  But I suppose Caner was saying things that resonated with the particular audience which approves of such sentiment; therefore, it stands.  Isn’t that what has become of the political arena of the SBC?

When a people come to the place that they cannot handle self-critique, they cannot handle the truth.  The war-torn SBC has raised a generation of ministers who are weary of political agendas and always looking for a new fight.  Nathan Finn rightly asserted that we cannot replace one bureaucracy with another bureaucracy, and if we don’t realize that the Conservative Resurgence is over and our churches are desperately in need of renewal, the next generation will look back at the ruins and wonder what became of the Southern Baptist Convention.  Inerrancy isn’t enough (if I may cite one of Baker’s articles that still exists on Baptist Press), and we cannot keep living like it is 1988 lest we find ourselves looking for skunks rather than devils. 

In his article Baker said,

“Some predict the inevitable loss of the denomination, and if history is a guide, they are correct.  The effects of the Fall seldom enable people, even Christians, to work together for very long.  Pride rears its ugly head and personal agendas quickly choke the life out of good efforts and sanctified innovation.”

He concludes with a word of optimism, explaining that we are at a turning point, and encouraging Southern Baptists to write the history that unifies us under the gospel of Jesus Christ not buries us under the ash heap of political agendas.  When such an article as Baker’s cannot be allowed to be read on Baptist Press, one has to wonder whether we are erecting a new wall that finds Jesus outside the camp.