Exhibit A: Shorter College (a university in name only), the Georgia Baptist Convention controlled debacle in Rome that is being made into the image of some fundamentalist Baptist preachers.
Their method: The big “Christian principles” lie.
Here how it works: You come up with some rules that you like — in this case, don’t drink wine with dinner or treat gay and lesbian persons too kindly. Then you label adherence to such silly rules as an affirmation of “Christian principles.”
NEXT STEP: Anyone who disagrees with you is, what? — that’s right — disagreeing with Jesus!
Then Shorter President Don Dowless, brought in as the Baptist preachers’ operative, puts it in historical perspective. Imposing this new narrow set of rules (though unrelated to the life and teachings of Jesus) is cast as “regaining an authentic Christian identity” and “reclaiming our Christian roots.”
There is no concern at all that such statements trash all the Christian students, alumni, faculty and staff who’ve actually invested in the college during those apparently “non-Christian” years. Unfortunately, they just didn’t have the benefit of real Christian leaders like Dowless, and the GBC powerbrokers who pull his strings, to straighten them out.
HOW SAD. All of those wasted years at Shorter — thinking you were providing/getting a good education in a Christian context. Now you learn that the school was teetering on the brinks of Hell, waiting to be rescued by outsiders whose “Christian principles” relate more to power than people.
And their defense: Anyone who disagrees with these heavy-handed shenanigans is not rejecting their abuse of power and people, but rather rejecting “Christian principles.”
What a big, fat lie.
John D. Pierce of Macon is executive editor of Baptists Today. Pierce is a Ringgold native and a graduate of Berry College.
If you look at the blog of Nelson Price you will see that Price is not far from David Barton in his vision for America.
Barton's vision is second rate and his history is suspect. The Nelson Price ideology is poison for Shorter, NW Georgia and America.
Marilynne Robinson--see review of her book When I was Young, I Read; Christian Century--is grand antidote to Barton and Price
Multiple sources have reported Dr. Craig Shull stepped down abruptly as Provost at the end of last month, but the official organization chart still shows him in that position as does the Provost's web page:
http://www.shorter.edu/about/organizational_chart.pdf
http://www.shorter.edu/academics/provost/provost_message.htm
Is he still in that job? There's been nothing in the Rome News-Tribune about any change.
The new organizational chart does not show the new Executive Vice President, Dr. Donald Martin. How does he fit in?
Shorter's Board of Trustees page was blanked out shortly after the comments about Mayor Evie McNiece being on the Board. Is there a current list of board members anywhere?
http://www.shorter.edu/about/board_of_trustees.html
Thanks!
Step Two: You come up with some rules that you like--in this case don't profess faith too loudly in public and don't treat conservative Christians too kindly. Then you label your adherence to such silly rules as an affirmation of "[real] Christian principles."
Step Three: Anyone who disagrees with you is, what?--that's right--a small-minded bigot who could not have possibly examined his of her beliefs in the unfathomable ways that you have.
Step Four: Print your enlightened thoughts in this shining beacon of journalism so that all who are benighted may see the light!
Any chance the RN-T can find the answers on the current Shorter leadership? It's important news for Rome -- seems pretty basic that the newspaper should cover this.
I know the text of the SoF says "adultery" and "homosexuality", not adulterers and homosexuals -- but the idea appears to be that if a Shorter employee runs into someone who says they are gay, the employee's response is supposed to be "Well, that's unacceptable." I don't hear Jesus in that response.
Rejecting others is not professing faith, or not the faith Jesus would recognize based on what he is reported to have said in the Gospels. It's more what the Pharisees would have done. Just sayin'
Didn't Jesus reject the woman's adulterous practices as unacceptable in that passage?
I don't think Jesus was concerned that the Pharisee regarded her behavioral as sinful...after all, he did as well. Rather, his concern seemed to be their desire to paint the sidewalk with her cranial matter. Perhaps we've gravely misinterpreted this passage to mean that believers cannot make any moral discernments, lest they be guilty of the same kind of "condemnation" of the Pharisee. Perhaps this passage has more to do with teaching us how (or how NOT) to judge a sinning brother or sister. Other passages in Scripture seem to affirm the appropriateness of Christians "judging" those within the Church (1 Cor. 5:12).