The NXR Podcast - THE INTERVIEW - The SBC ｜ Is This A “Fight By Flight” Situation？with William Wolfe

00:00:00.000 All right, welcome back to another episode of Theology Applied.

00:00:02.560 I'm your host, Pastor Joel Webbin with Right Response Ministries.

00:00:05.540 And in this episode, I am talking with my friend William Wolfe about the SBC, about

00:00:10.340 the upcoming convention, the law amendment that's on the books to vote for male pastors

00:00:15.720 upholding biblical fidelity, 1 Timothy 3, Titus chapter 1, what the Bible teaches and

00:00:20.720 what the church has held for centuries and centuries and centuries until 15 minutes ago.

00:00:25.780 And I'm holding my book up right now if you're watching the video.

00:00:28.920 the book that I wrote a little while back, Fight by Flight. And the reason why I wanted to mention

00:00:35.360 this right at the very front is because I'm the guy who left California. I'm the guy who literally

00:00:41.220 wrote a book. I mean, let's be honest, it's a glorified blog, but a pamphlet, whatever you

00:00:46.560 want to call it. But I wrote something, published something about the idea of not just staying and

00:00:51.520 fighting the good fight, but there is actually a way to leave without your leaving being just a

00:00:56.520 retreat, without it being just a surrender. However, there are some strong distinctions

00:01:02.100 that William and I, you know, we flesh out in this episode where leaving a blue state like

00:01:07.180 California and where you geographically live as a Christian is not a one-to-one ratio for leaving

00:01:14.120 the SBC as a local church. It's not the same thing. The fight-by-flight principle does not

00:01:20.500 necessarily apply. Some ways it does with the SBC, some ways it doesn't. And that's what we get

00:01:26.180 into in this conversation. Should you stay? Should you go? What do you do if you're in the SBC? Is

00:01:31.520 it actually still winnable? Is there actually still hope? That's the episode I think you'll

00:01:36.500 enjoy. Tune in now. Applying God's word to every aspect of life. This is Theology Applied.

00:01:49.000 All right, welcome back to another episode of Theology Applied. I am your host, Pastor Joel

00:01:53.280 Webman with Right Response Ministries. And in this episode, I'm privileged to welcome back to

00:01:57.000 the show, William Wolfe. William, thanks for coming. Joel, it's good to be back. It's been a

00:02:01.940 while. It has. It has been a while. And you have been kind of running like a chicken with his head

00:02:06.940 cut off, doing all kinds of different tasks because something important is coming up. What is it?

00:02:13.260 It is the annual meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention next month, June 11th to 12th in

00:02:19.240 indianapolis indiana and the organization that i've had the privilege to launch here over the

00:02:24.680 last few months the center for baptist leadership is dedicated to helping reform the southern

00:02:29.500 baptist convention and hopefully secure some big wins for the conservatives who are still fighting

00:02:34.360 in the institution of the sbc right why does it matter i think there's you know lots of people

00:02:40.440 today that would just say you know sbc whatever who cares let it go uh why why is it worth fighting

00:02:47.460 for? Yeah, well, I think that when you look back over American history in general, or even sort of

00:02:54.280 American Christian evangelical history throughout the last hundred years or so, we see that

00:03:00.720 conservatives build things, liberals infiltrate and subvert them, and then conservatives pack

00:03:08.920 their bags and go and start something else, leaving behind buildings, you know, institutional

00:03:15.120 credibility, massive endowments, and other things like that. I mean, you can look at Jay Gresham

00:03:20.480 Machen as a great example. I mean, he ultimately, he had to leave Princeton and go start something

00:03:26.640 else, right? And look, what he started was a good thing, but it's not the same thing as Princeton.

00:03:31.280 I mean, you go all the way back to the beginning of America, like Harvard, Princeton, Yale, these

00:03:36.520 were theological training grounds that are now completely captured by the radical Marxists. So

00:03:43.160 So in the long scope of things, it's important for people to remember that institutions are valuable and they're worth fighting for.

00:03:50.540 And the Southern Baptist Convention, as a critical Christian institution in the United States of America, has six of the 10 largest seminaries in our country.

00:03:59.060 It's got the largest international mission sending agency in the world.

00:04:03.300 It's got a massive domestic church planting and church revitalization arm in NAM and the SEND network.

00:04:10.660 And it really is sort of the center of what you could call the lone bulwark of the political conservatism in our country that's holding back the darkness and the madness.

00:04:22.400 And so all that to say, Joel, it's a critical institution.

00:04:25.120 And what's been very interesting for me to realize is that the left values the Southern Baptist Convention as a target to subvert and infiltrate.

00:04:34.760 It seems more than even some of the conservatives within the SBC value it as something worth defending and saving.

00:04:42.000 So we're trying to wake people up to that and get them back in the fight.

00:04:45.840 Right. Yeah. So I wrote a book called Fight by Flight.

00:04:50.540 And the principle that I was arguing is, you know, sometimes you stay and you stand your ground and sometimes you flee. 0.51

00:04:57.980 And there are categories in the Christian life where fleeing, it falls well beneath the banner of something.

00:05:04.760 other than simply retreatism, that it's not surrender. It's not giving up. It's not quitting.

00:05:10.400 It's, you know, it's attacking to the rear. It's, you know, continuing the fight, but from a more

00:05:16.640 strategic placement, a more strategic standpoint. And that by fleeing, there's actually a voting

00:05:22.880 with your feet. You're actually crippling, whether it be a state or an institution or whatever it

00:05:27.860 might be, by cutting off their line of support. And so, you know, we know that we have biblical

00:05:33.200 categories for this. Jesus says, if a town doesn't receive you, shake the dust off your feet. And so

00:05:37.600 that is a biblical principle. Um, but it's not, uh, it's a principle that I think we have to be

00:05:43.180 careful not to, uh, not to give it a universal application. So, so I tried to apply it primarily

00:05:49.480 for where Christians live, not what denomination they're a part of. Um, I think the principle can

00:05:55.140 apply, but it's not a situation where it must apply. So I was primarily using my story of why

00:06:00.540 I left California. Um, but the Christian living in California who may be called to leave to fight 0.99

00:06:06.480 by flight, um, that's a different scenario than the, you know, the SBC local church that's in,

00:06:13.920 you know, in the Southern Baptist convention. Uh, what, what would you, I've got some ideas,

00:06:18.540 but I'll let you go first. What do you think some of the differences are between a Christian

00:06:22.100 leaving a blue state versus why, why isn't just a one size fits fits all one to one ratio of

00:06:28.220 leave California, leave SBC? What would you see the differences as?

00:06:33.480 Well, I think that one of the main differences is one of those differences that so many people

00:06:39.080 greatly confuse in the Christian nationalism conversation, which one is the realm of the

00:06:46.400 natural world. So, you know, and one is the realm of sort of the ecclesiological world, right? And

00:06:52.640 those are two different realms, you know, in an important way. So when it comes to what state

00:06:58.080 you live in, that's a matter of wisdom and prudence and prudential political application

00:07:05.200 for, you know, looking for caring for your family, how your taxes are being spent, you know, what are

00:07:10.480 your children going to be taught in schools? Can you even afford to buy a house in the state?

00:07:15.980 How's homelessness? How's crime? You know, how's the indoctrination, right? Those are all questions

00:07:22.020 of life in the political, natural world, whereas what's going on within the Southern Baptist

00:07:28.760 Convention is really a question of how are Christians associating together according to

00:07:34.800 agreed-upon theological standards, a confession of faith, and working together to advance the

00:07:40.480 gospel. So they really are, in some ways, Joel, they're sort of night-and-day considerations,

00:07:45.660 and really the idea of sort of getting out of a blue state and getting to a red state,

00:07:49.900 that you're still in America. Now, some of the ways the principles can apply is in the Southern

00:07:54.420 Baptist convention, you can redirect some of your money away from some things and towards others.

00:07:59.500 But if you leave the SBC, you know, you're not even in it anymore, no more influence at all.

00:08:06.160 Right. Yeah. So I think that's well put. I was thinking through it a little bit preparing for

00:08:12.000 this conversation today. And I was thinking, you know, if you're in California, so

00:08:15.880 think of like the state being like the SBC, the whole convention and think of like your town or

00:08:22.360 your county, you know, in California being like your individual local church and the SBC. And so

00:08:27.520 I could see somebody to play the devil's advocate. I could see them saying, well, you know, I'm in

00:08:32.500 California and but I live in Bakersfield or Modesto or, you know, an area that's smaller. It's much

00:08:39.880 more conservative. So I'm in a red dot, you know, in a blue ocean. And what I would say is

00:08:45.700 well, praise God in your town, there is far less crime. In your town, there's far less degeneracy

00:08:52.060 and perversion. And maybe the school system is better than your town. Although I would argue

00:08:56.340 as a Christian, please don't use the public school system. But those kinds of things are 0.95

00:09:00.380 improved in your town. But by virtue of your town being in the larger state, you don't get to opt

00:09:06.800 out of taxes. You're still going to pay, especially in a state like California. Texas doesn't have a

00:09:11.220 state tax, but California does. And those state taxes, no matter how red your individual town in

00:09:17.460 California might be, you're still paying the state taxes for a deep blue state. And a portion of those

00:09:24.080 taxes, not just a portion, but the lion's share are going to go towards overt wickedness. Whereas

00:09:30.100 in the SBC, to now go to the other side of the coin, you could be in an individual local church

00:09:35.260 where your pastor is as biblically faithful as you could possibly imagine. At the local level,

00:09:40.540 you are with salt of the earth, seasoned saints that love the Lord, love the scripture, love you

00:09:46.480 and your family, all the things that you're looking for in a local church. And then your

00:09:52.260 church is in the SBC, but there's no such thing as, well, I live in Bakersfield. I'm going to opt

00:09:57.300 out of state taxes in California. Whereas you can say as an SBC church, we're an SBC church,

00:10:03.440 but we are not going to support X, Y, and Z. Am I right about that? That's how I've been informed.

00:10:08.980 What are some of the things that a local pastor and his elders could decide, no, as a congregation, we are not going to give our giving dollars to these subcategories of the SBC?

00:10:22.980 Is that true?

00:10:23.840 And what are some of those things they could opt out of?

00:10:26.800 Well, yeah, that is true.

00:10:28.500 And that's where it is.

00:10:29.980 I think it is sometimes discouraging or disheartening to see conservative churches getting out of the SBC.

00:10:36.780 And I understand their frustration.

00:10:38.980 I really do. And a lot of 1689 churches in particular are leaving the Southern Baptist Convention, to which I say, you know, we're losing our best fighters.

00:10:48.860 Come on back, boys. We need you. And so but what I would encourage a church to do instead of getting out of the Southern Baptist Convention is continuing to give, you know, in order to make sure that you have a vote to help change things.

00:11:03.360 but just specifically direct your giving to the entity within the Southern Baptist Convention that you trust the most.

00:11:11.580 Maybe that's the International Missions Board.

00:11:13.720 So you can give as a church directly to the International Missions Board and not give to the general pot, which is called the cooperative program.

00:11:23.740 You can make sure to because if you give to the cooperative program, that money could go anywhere.

00:11:28.560 So it's a pass through.

00:11:29.420 So if you just give money to the Southern Baptist Convention Cooperative Program, that money might go to the ERLC.

00:11:36.080 And many people, many conservative churches don't want their money going to the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission.

00:11:42.320 But by specifically allocating your Southern Baptist Convention dollars to something like the IMB, you can ensure that you still get a vote.

00:11:51.160 you still have a say in the future of the convention and its direction. And then you

00:11:55.620 can make sure that your money is not going to fund any of the entities that you don't currently

00:12:00.580 approve of their activities. But see, this is where, Joel, I have so many conservatives who say

00:12:06.360 shut down the ERLC, defund the ERLC, salt the earth on which it stands. And again, I can

00:12:13.500 understand their frustration. And maybe we get to that point, but I would rather see over a period

00:12:20.160 time, we elect conservative president after conservative president in the Southern Baptist

00:12:24.480 Convention. We reconstitute the trustee board of the ERLC, you know, and then they pick some,

00:12:33.120 you know, some incredibly based, hardcore conservative fighter to lead it. And then

00:12:38.760 that's our institution, you know, instead of just getting rid of it. So that's what I'm aiming for.

00:12:44.500 Smart. Yeah, that's very helpful and very practical. What, uh, another question to just

00:12:50.420 get again, practical, what is the minimum percentage that a local SBC church has to

00:12:56.300 give? So you're saying you could take the whole thing and direct it towards, you know, whatever

00:13:00.400 you feel the best about. Um, but what is that number? Is it 2%? What is it? Well, the total,

00:13:08.020 the total number of giving that you have in order to send messengers. That's what I'm thinking. So

00:13:13.440 you want to keep the vote. I want to be able to send the max amount of messengers to the convention

00:13:19.960 to vote for, you know, the law amendment and, you know, all the things we'll talk about here in just

00:13:25.180 a moment. So what is that minimum amount threshold financially that our church has to give in order

00:13:31.080 to accomplish that? Yeah, that's a great question, Joel. And it actually, the formula works in favor

00:13:37.480 of the smaller churches. And it gives the churches power. I was recently talking with

00:13:44.800 Chase Davis about his exit out of Acts 29 and his effort to join the SBC. And he said Acts 29 was

00:13:52.780 essentially ruled by fiat, whereas the SBC is a beautiful, messy Baptist democracy. And it is, 1.00

00:13:59.120 right? We have the chance to make real changes and have your voice heard. So the way it works is

00:14:04.120 by joining the Southern Baptist Convention, sort of a one-time thing, and giving, I think it's $250

00:14:11.980 upon joining, then that sort of secures for you your baseline of two messengers per church. So

00:14:21.580 every, the smallest church gets two, and then there's a formula that's used to calculate how

00:14:27.080 many more you get on top of that with a maximum of 12. And that formula, the formula that's most

00:14:35.160 friendly, there are two formulas, but the one that's most friendly to smaller churches,

00:14:40.000 it's that for every 1% of your church's undesignated receipts that you give to any

00:14:49.560 Southern Baptist entity, you know, program or effort, you get another additional messenger

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00:18:06.240 Yeah.

00:18:06.680 So, you know, it's not hard actually at all for a church of maybe 100 to 120 people to

00:18:13.140 get something like seven messengers to the convention.

00:18:16.700 And that would require that they give 7% of their total budget for the church. But that full 7%, like you already stated previously, they could specifically designate towards, you know, not the cooperative, you know, slush fund that might go towards, you know, Brent Leatherwood or whatever, but they could specifically designate that towards the arena that they feel best about in the SBC.

00:18:42.120 So they give a 7% the full amount going to something that they actually believe in or at least hate the least, and they could send seven messengers.

00:18:51.400 Is that right?

00:18:53.060 Yeah, I believe.

00:18:53.860 And be a church of 60 people?

00:18:55.440 Yeah, that's right.

00:18:56.280 Or actually, I think now I don't have the formula right in front of me, but I actually think the way it works is that you would actually only have to give 5% because you get that two baseline.

00:19:06.600 You join, you get these two baseline votes, and then it's for every 1% that you give, you get an additional vote.

00:19:15.500 So by giving 5%, actually, you would get seven votes, which is incredible.

00:19:21.560 I mean, again, like I said, I talked to a brother, a pastor in Missouri.

00:19:26.180 He has a church of less than 100 people.

00:19:29.040 They get 12 messengers.

00:19:30.460 But here's the problem, Joel, is that church of 100 people cannot find 12 people within it to take the time to come to our annual meeting, which that's part of this effort that I'm doing here, brother, is I'm trying to get out, spread the word and tell people it's so important for you to come and show up and really hold out to Christians in America who feel, I feel like downtrodden and maybe disenfranchised and powerless, you know, particularly to our Southern Baptist brother and sister saying like,

00:19:59.400 you have a chance to change something you can win if you show up if we show up we can take this

00:20:06.320 thing back and make it something that as conservative bible believing christians we can be

00:20:10.340 proud of amen so um with that you know like a church could have 12 messengers uh but only three

00:20:19.320 are able um for practical reasons to attend are you guys doing anything to try to uh help sponsor

00:20:27.720 you know paying for flights or hotels because lord knows and you know uh that nam has been

00:20:34.360 notorious for doing that in the past taking all their wokest of the woke church planters and

00:20:39.240 you know and using a portion of their budget to fund you know their flights and hotels so that

00:20:45.020 they can all show up and vote for liberal you know you know liberal whatever in the sbc so

00:20:51.740 do you guys have you know on the other side of the equation some kind of conservative equivalence of

00:20:56.540 that like here's this little church they could send 12 messengers they only got three that are

00:21:01.380 able to get off of work you know or could afford a plane ticket but we're going to try to help you

00:21:05.860 know get three more you know do you have some kind of sponsorship yeah that's we that's a great

00:21:12.100 question and we absolutely do i know of a variety of people who are um working on this and a variety

00:21:18.320 of organizations sort of on the conservative side of things but i would say most simply is that um

00:21:23.900 Center for Baptist Leadership is looking to help connect people with those who are willing

00:21:29.400 to help provide travel stipends and scholarships.

00:21:33.200 And so you can reach out directly to me at wwolf at centerforbaptistleadership.org.

00:21:41.020 That's Wolf with an E, so W-W-O-L-F-E at centerforbaptistleadership.org.

00:21:47.040 Or you can email us at info at centerforbaptistleadership.org.

00:21:50.880 I'll check both of those either way.

00:21:52.940 And if you are listening to this and you are a Southern Baptist who wants to come to Indianapolis but thinks that you would have a difficult time to do so because of the finances required, we also have please reach out and we will help close that gap for you.

00:22:07.800 We also have a list of housing that's being provided in the Indianapolis area that's free.

00:22:13.020 And so the first thing we can do is help connect you with somebody and help you avail yourself of free housing.

00:22:18.720 And then we can also help provide a stipend for the ticket as well.

00:22:22.360 And we're on crunch time for that.

00:22:24.080 And so if you are thinking, I might not come, I may come, depending on finances, don't let

00:22:30.060 that be the burden, reach out to us and we'll help you out.

00:22:34.480 Awesome.

00:22:35.240 So in comparing these apples and oranges with, you know, the whole flight, you know, fight

00:22:40.200 by flight mentality, comparing it to, you know, a state and your geographic region that 0.71

00:22:45.300 a Christian lives in, in the United States versus the, you know, the convention, you

00:22:50.100 you know, the SBC and local churches, you know, one of the distinctions that we already drew is,

00:22:54.660 you know, if I live in California, no matter how conservative my individual town is, I'm going to

00:22:58.880 be paying state taxes. And I don't get to say with my state taxes, hey, I would like to opt out of

00:23:04.300 any portion of my state taxes that might fund Planned Parenthood. I don't have that option.

00:23:08.980 I'm going to be funding things that I detest, more importantly, things that God detest. But

00:23:14.160 one distinction between that, living in a certain state versus being a local church in the SBC is

00:23:19.420 you can you can say brent leatherwood doesn't get a dime you know you can do that as a local church

00:23:24.780 in the sbc another distinction that i think is worth bringing up is you know part of you know

00:23:29.480 what i mapped out in the book that i wrote was you know for me i was very convicted we moved in

00:23:34.000 december of 2020 that's when we you know came finally to the conclusion that it was time to go

00:23:38.740 and all these kinds of things um but you know december 2020 as you know was um one month too

00:23:45.080 late for something significant that happened in November, 2020, which is I, along with 6 million

00:23:51.680 other conservatives, took my vote for Donald Trump and flushed it down the toilet.

00:23:59.460 6 million people in California voted for Donald Trump, but it wasn't even close. It wasn't like,

00:24:05.840 hey, Trump got 6 million and Biden got 6.5 or 7. I believe Biden got 12 million votes. So it's

00:24:12.100 six million votes. But then when you look at the electoral college and you look at not the state

00:24:15.940 of California, but you look at some of these swing states that were highly contested, you know,

00:24:20.160 and we'll never know how the fairest, you know, most legitimate election of all time. But let's

00:24:25.700 just, you know, run with a narrative, you know, hypothetically for a moment and say that the votes

00:24:29.440 were counted perfectly fairly and all these things went, well, these are still small, very small

00:24:34.560 margins. When you think of Arizona, you think of Pennsylvania, you think of Michigan, you think,

00:24:38.720 You know, there were four, you know, four to seven states that were highly contested,

00:24:42.700 four in particular, and I might be wrong on my numbers here.

00:24:45.540 I'm trying to work off memory, but I believe there were four of the seven swing states

00:24:49.880 that ultimately went for Biden, that four of those seven combined that were the thinnest

00:24:56.180 margins between Biden and Trump, four of those states collectively, their electoral vote

00:25:02.100 would have made Trump the president in 2020.

00:25:04.500 And those four states, the amount, the margin that they lost, that Trump lost by collectively

00:25:11.640 all combined was, I believe, 48,000 votes.

00:25:15.720 So think about that.

00:25:16.720 Six million votes for Trump in California.

00:25:19.300 If this would be less than 1%, because 600,000 would be 10%, 60,000 is 1%, 48,000, less than

00:25:27.660 1%, if less than 1%, myself included, I bear responsibility for this.

00:25:32.180 I got out too late.

00:25:32.960 But if less than 1% of those 6 million Trump voters in California had moved to these four

00:25:38.000 states respectively that I'm talking about and voted for Donald J. Trump, he would have

00:25:46.220 been the president of the United States.

00:25:48.500 And that makes it, you talk about loving your neighbor and things like that.

00:25:52.140 I'm not saying that he's a saint and that he's perfect, but the point is that he would

00:25:56.380 have been a lot better than Biden.

00:25:57.820 I think of 13 service members in Afghanistan.

00:26:00.320 I think there are multiple things with people. There are certain people that would be alive that are dead. I mean, people lost their lives because of a presidential election. And so all that being said, my point is this. It's an apple to oranges comparison. Like you said earlier, night and day, apples, oranges, because with the SBC, if your local church loses the SBC, and you correct me if I'm wrong here, if I move out of California, I still get to vote in a national election.

00:26:26.640 I still live in America. If I leave the SBC, that would not be likened to leaving California to move

00:26:32.520 to Michigan. That would be likened to leaving California and the US of A and moving to El

00:26:38.340 Salvador, which would be fantastic probably. But you get my point. So again, that's another

00:26:44.280 state tax in California. You don't get to decide where it goes. You're giving the SBC, you do.

00:26:50.480 Leave California, you still get to vote in a national election and your vote probably is

00:26:54.580 going to count a lot more if you're conservative you leave the sbc it's like leaving the country

00:26:59.220 you don't get a vote at all i think those are two and i'm trying to be helpful here and win some

00:27:04.140 people to your cause because i think it's a noble cause but i think those are two significant

00:27:08.140 differences what do you think look i i agree entirely look if history is written by the victors

00:27:14.960 victory belongs to those who show up right and and it's so important for conservatives to show up

00:27:22.600 and vote, obviously, in presidential elections to show up where it matters to. I mean, everything

00:27:27.160 you're talking about in terms of the statistical allocations of votes from California versus

00:27:33.980 these close swing states is absolutely right. I believe that in general, in political terms,

00:27:40.640 it'd be a very smart strategy for all patriotic, biology-respecting, reality-loving

00:27:49.560 christian americans to really kind of try to make red states absolutely inhospitable to the left

00:27:58.320 that's what we should be doing which i believe you know governor de santis has done a good job

00:28:02.980 of that in florida but but really the first red state governor that says my project is i'm going

00:28:09.560 to make this state allergic to the insanity of the left and not a single leftist is going to

00:28:15.420 want to come live here or, quite frankly, feel welcome here. I mean, that would be an amazing

00:28:21.020 political project to watch. So that's fun. That's a conversation for another day. I love that

00:28:25.420 political theory. But you're right. With the Southern Baptist Convention, Joel, the votes

00:28:30.060 belong in the hands of the people. And this is what happened during the conservative resurgence

00:28:34.960 of old. I mean, we had conventions where there were 35,000, 40,000, 45,000 Southern Baptists

00:28:43.060 showing up to vote to keep the Southern Baptist Convention from falling into the hands of the

00:28:48.800 old school theological liberals, the people who denied the inerrancy of scripture, who denied the

00:28:54.820 validity of the authors of scripture, who denied the validity of the miracles of Jesus, questioned

00:29:01.160 the very resurrection. It was German higher criticism that was infiltrating the Southern

00:29:06.560 Baptist Convention, and as W.A. Criswell outlined in his famous sermon, the pattern of death for 0.78

00:29:13.940 a denomination, whether we live or die was really the title of it. Whether we live or die, he said,

00:29:20.180 if we allow this higher criticism to come into the SBC, it will kill our institutions, it will

00:29:26.100 kill our denomination, and quite frankly, it will kill our very own personal Christian faith.

00:29:31.060 Well, what's happening right now in the Southern Baptist Convention, Joel, is that it's not

00:29:34.500 higher criticism. It's critical theory. It's a new form of liberalism that's choking out the

00:29:41.600 one true gospel handed down to the saints that were called to defend. As Galatians 5.9 says,

00:29:47.960 a little leaven leavens the whole lump. And we've got more than a little leaven in the SBC lump

00:29:52.960 right now. But all that to bring it back around to what you were saying is that in order to turn

00:29:58.660 this thing around and to take it back. We just need conservatives to show up and bring their

00:30:04.680 vote to Indianapolis this year and next year and wherever, you know, next year it's in Dallas. And

00:30:10.400 then I think it's maybe in Orlando the year after that, but they need to sort of wake up. You and

00:30:15.840 I've talked before about the dangers of pietism and quietism and retreatism. Well, Southern

00:30:21.580 Baptists need to sort of wake up and come and show up and stop just ignoring things but believing

00:30:29.480 they can have an impact and a change. Amen. Yeah, I think, you know, part of it,

00:30:35.040 institutional credibility and the, you know, the overall American public's trust in institutions

00:30:42.580 is currently at an all-time low. And, you know, I've never spent a day in my life in the SBC.

00:30:50.740 So I think for me, that's part of it is, um, I, you know, I, I think some of these guys

00:30:56.800 it's like, you were raised on the pews of an SBC church.

00:31:00.740 Like this is your heritage.

00:31:02.040 This is your background.

00:31:03.240 This is, um, yeah, it's the SBC is yours and you should fight for it.

00:31:09.660 Um, I care about what happens to the SBC because I care about the evangelical church as a whole

00:31:14.480 in America.

00:31:15.040 And if you think that the SBC going woke is not going to affect evangelicalism as a whole,

00:31:22.100 then, you know, I've got oceanfront property in Kansas, you might be interested in buying.

00:31:26.860 So like, of course, it matters for all of us, SBC or not, regardless of your upbringing

00:31:32.120 and whether or not you have that tradition and childhood, you know, lifelong SBCer.

00:31:37.840 I don't, many do, but even for those who don't, it still matters.

00:31:41.460 And I guess what I'm saying is this, I, I've never really been an institutional man.

00:31:45.860 I'm not a company man, uh, companies, uh, I'm too much of a liability.

00:31:50.160 They're not going to touch me.

00:31:51.280 So, um, I, I don't have, uh, the right letters, the right papers.

00:31:56.460 Um, you know, I, I haven't gone to the right institutions.

00:31:59.660 That's just, you know, in, in God's providence, that's just not me.

00:32:03.000 However, even for me as a guy who, you know, is a part of an independent church that currently

00:32:08.320 belongs to no denomination and is not really chomping at the bit to change that anytime soon

00:32:13.740 because everything right now seems like it's in massive flux and I don't know when the cement's

00:32:18.200 going to dry and what the final result will be. All those things being said, as a guy who's not

00:32:23.200 a company man, we're not a part of a larger denomination with our local church, Covenant

00:32:27.520 Bible Church in Central Texas, I still recognize that the American public as a whole and Christians, 0.98

00:32:35.820 more specifically, life without any institutions is not a positive. I think there's a lot of guys

00:32:43.540 right now because of COVID and BLM and just one massive event after another these last three and

00:32:49.820 a half years. And we're like, who needs it? I need it. You need it. We need, a general public

00:32:57.180 needs institutions. It does. Absolutely. And it takes time if you're just going to abandon the

00:33:04.640 institutions we already have, it takes a lot of time to build new institutions and build public

00:33:09.380 trust and build up coffers and resources and, you know, to literally build cathedrals and buildings

00:33:15.060 and seminaries and all these different things. I don't have the time in the day. Part of the

00:33:20.000 strength of, you know, of modern Western civilization is this specialization of labor that,

00:33:26.040 yes, we need generalists, but we also need experts. It is not wise or prudent for me

00:33:34.060 as a father to make every single medical decision for my family by going on WebMD and never seeing

00:33:42.500 a doctor. I don't have the time of the day to have the equivalent of an MCAT. I need someone

00:33:51.100 to know medicine. And right now, I don't trust many people, but that makes it all the more

00:33:56.800 pertinent and valuable to have good, trustworthy Christian doctors and to have good, trustworthy

00:34:03.280 Christian denominations, to have good, trustworthy Christians in media. Right now, we can't trust 0.99

00:34:09.440 news, academia, the church, sadly, medicine, government, all of our major areas of social

00:34:17.620 life and all of the major institutions within those arenas of social life have shot themselves

00:34:24.140 in both feet, have been utterly discredited. And I think as an American, there's an American

00:34:32.080 spirit with this and as a baptist right local autonomy that you know the autonomy of the local

00:34:36.800 church as an american as an evangelical as a protestant as a baptist all these things there's

00:34:41.980 something in me that kind of looks at all the institutions discrediting themselves and says

00:34:46.840 good riddance but when i pause and think about that a little bit more clearly and a little less

00:34:52.820 emotionally i realize no that's a nightmare that is a nightmare a perfectly atomistic

00:34:59.520 autonomous individualistic no like god works through cooperation he works through organizations

00:35:06.520 he works through collectives he works through covenants he works these things are um paramount

00:35:13.480 they're vital for society to thrive and uh and and it's not just that sbc is the biggest and it is

00:35:21.000 the biggest um but i think what i want the listeners to know is it's not only the biggest

00:35:26.340 but it's also the closest. It's the most winnable. There are other denominations that are

00:35:32.420 far smaller and far more woke and liberal. The SBC, not only does it matter because it's the

00:35:39.660 biggest, it also is the least far gone. That's not to minimize any of the problems. There are

00:35:45.180 serious problems, but the SBC is both the biggest and the most winnable. I think of Jim Wilson,

00:35:50.360 his, you know, decisive point, you know, the strategic point, you know, bookie, you know,

00:35:55.480 tactics of warfare, you know, and he said, you want to look for something that is both

00:36:00.580 winnable and significant, right?

00:36:02.880 We could win the proverbial Timbuktu with a population of 247 people in a fortnight and

00:36:08.440 Timbuktu, you know, belongs to King Jesus.

00:36:10.580 And, you know, praise God for those 247 citizens of Timbuktu, but it doesn't necessarily, that

00:36:16.040 doesn't push us over the edge to win the world.

00:36:18.400 you know, Manhattan on the other hand, it would be significant, but, uh, Tim Keller is a good

00:36:23.520 proof that, you know, um, New York discipled him a little bit more than Tim Keller discipled New

00:36:29.900 York. So all that being, and of course there are caveats and exceptions. If you live in New York

00:36:33.800 and you know, there, there are different, you know, but in general, speaking in generalities,

00:36:37.180 there are things that are significant, but at least in the short run, they're not going to be

00:36:42.220 won. They're not winnable. And there are things that are winnable, but they're relatively in the

00:36:47.300 big scheme of things insignificant, but the SBC seems to be the prime example. I can hardly think

00:36:54.060 of another that would be better of most winnable, most significant. What do you think? Are you a

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00:37:56.280 I think that's exactly right, Joel.

00:37:59.900 The Southern Baptist Convention sits at the intersection of strategic and achievable when

00:38:07.300 it comes to the institutional battle that's raging across our country right now. And we have to

00:38:14.560 credit our opponents, our enemies, for the audacity of forecasting their plans when the

00:38:22.240 cultural Marxists said they were going to embark on a long march through the institutions of

00:38:28.160 American life. And that is exactly what they did. They've captured the universities. They've

00:38:34.420 captured the public schools. They've captured the mainline Protestant denominations. Look at 0.94

00:38:41.260 what happened to the United Methodist Church today. I mean, United Methodist Church just last

00:38:47.260 week as they adopted a full-on pro-LGBT position. And it's fascinating, Joel, how the sexual 0.99

00:38:55.620 revolution really functions as a new article of faith. It's a new piece of orthodoxy that has to

00:39:04.060 ultimately be accepted by these progressive churches i mean look at what happened to the

00:39:08.860 boy scouts i'm sorry scouting america now right and all the new eagle scout tricks or whatever

00:39:16.300 they're going to be right and so it's like does this i feel like god is giving these incredible

00:39:22.940 warning signs to the southern baptist convention look at the methodists look at the boy scouts

00:39:29.000 look at your future. Are you going to hold the line and defend biblical doctrine and the true

00:39:35.900 gospel of Jesus Christ and all that it entails? Are you going to compromise with the spirit of

00:39:40.820 the age and go the way of these other apostate organizations? But all that to say the Southern 0.94

00:39:46.940 Baptist Convention is winnable because it has our people in it. We just need our people to wake up

00:39:55.080 and show up well said so um here at the end of the episode i just i would be remiss i know that

00:40:02.520 you've got a lot that you've been working on i'd be remiss if i did not give you any and every

00:40:08.200 opportunity to get anything out that you can think of so um i you know i've got plenty of sbc guys

00:40:14.100 who listen to this podcast what you know just leave it all in the field william what do you got

00:40:19.440 all right let me let me tick through the major issues that are on the docket for the southern

00:40:24.680 Baptist convention meeting this summer. And then I'll just make a brief point about sort of the

00:40:31.660 timing, the date, the location again. And then I'll close with sort of, you know, one last little

00:40:37.020 rallying cry. Does that sound good? Sounds great. Okay. So the major issues facing Southern Baptist

00:40:42.460 this year and why we need you to show up are first and foremost, an effort called the law amendment.

00:40:48.240 The law amendment is an amendment to the Southern Baptist constitution that simply reaffirms our

00:40:54.420 commitment to male-only pastors. It's being offered by a man, Mike Law, that's where the name comes

00:41:01.020 from, out of Arlington, Virginia. He's a faithful Southern Baptist pastor who looked up one day and

00:41:07.100 realized that within a five-mile radius of him, there were five Southern Baptist churches with

00:41:12.400 female pastors. He sought to get clarification from the bureaucracy of the Southern Baptist

00:41:17.900 Convention because this was clearly in contradiction to our statement of faith, which says that a

00:41:23.560 pastor, elder, or overseer is a qualified male or biblically qualified male. He was given the

00:41:30.080 runaround by people like Jonathan Howe and others in the Southern Baptist Convention,

00:41:35.160 Bart Barber, et cetera. They would not give him answers. They would not clarify

00:41:38.640 why they hadn't kicked these churches out. And at the same time, Saddleback was becoming under

00:41:44.540 increasing consideration for being openly egalitarian as Rick Warren went to appoint a

00:41:50.600 female and male co-pastor combination to take over the church for him. And so we had Saddleback

00:41:56.900 on the West Coast and Mike Law on the East Coast driving this issue of egalitarianism versus

00:42:02.200 complementarianism in the Southern Baptist Convention. Mike ultimately went through the

00:42:06.920 constitutional amendment route, and a constitutional amendment has to pass two years in a row on a

00:42:12.820 two-thirds majority vote. He secured, surprisingly, and by God's great grace, the first passage of

00:42:19.600 his amendment last year in new orleans by what appeared to be about an 80 to 20 vote in the

00:42:25.140 convention room praise god now it has to pass again here in indianapolis and the liberals and

00:42:32.040 the elites and the platform boys in the southern baptist convention are coming after it guns a

00:42:37.220 blazing joel it's interesting you and i actually talked about this perhaps in my last appearance on

00:42:41.800 this maybe eight months ago where we were talking about how the shift in evangelicalism is going to

00:42:47.400 be towards pro-egalitarianism and anti-fundamentalism. They're trying to make

00:42:54.260 complementarianism fundamentalism. And you and I have issues with how weak complementarianism is,

00:43:00.340 and they're trying to make it some tenet of fundamentalism. So that's what the big tent

00:43:04.440 Baptist boys want. So we have to pass the Mike Law Amendment. If Southern Baptist Convention 1.00

00:43:09.160 can't hold the line on male-only pastors, I'm not sure what our future looks like. I'm not saying we

00:43:15.480 quit then, but we'll see what goes on. So come to pass the Mike Law Amendment. Come to help a

00:43:21.000 brother secure, increase financial transparency. We're simply asking for a vote to get more

00:43:26.520 financial transparency from the entities provided to the churches. This is an amendment offered by

00:43:31.840 Rhett Burns from South Carolina. It's the Burns Amendment. And we're asking the Southern Baptist

00:43:35.920 Convention's Executive Committee to just put that on the floor for a vote. That's not a decision for

00:43:40.500 them to make. It's a decision for us as the messengers to make on whether or not we want

00:43:44.800 more financial transparency in the Southern Baptist Convention. Third, come and vote for

00:43:49.040 a conservative president. We have not had a solid conservative president in the Southern Baptist

00:43:53.520 Convention for the last six years now, and we are paying for it because the president appoints

00:43:59.640 critical appointments to trustee positions, to committees, to boards, and that all trickles

00:44:06.140 down. It leavens the lump of the Southern Baptist Convention. Come and vote for an unapologetic

00:44:11.760 a conservative president who supports the law amendment, supports financial transparency,

00:44:15.880 is going to make conservative appointments. And this is a really important one. If you're

00:44:20.180 thinking through who to vote for, for the Southern Baptist convention presidency this year,

00:44:24.220 we've got six options is do they recognize that wokeness has been an issue in the Southern

00:44:28.500 Baptist convention or not? If one of the candidates is saying, well, I don't really

00:44:32.020 think we have an issue with wokeness. That tells me they don't know what time it is.

00:44:35.640 And that means I don't think that they deserve your vote. So I think that there are two really

00:44:40.000 good candidates out there, and Jared Moore and David Allen. And then there are other candidates

00:44:45.180 as well. And so those would be the three most important things to consider as you're coming to

00:44:49.760 the convention this year, passing the law amendment, passing financial transparency,

00:44:54.260 voting for a conservative president. And again, the timing is June 11th to 12th in Indianapolis,

00:45:00.620 Indiana. If you are a Southern Baptist listening to Right Response Ministries, Theology Applied

00:45:06.560 with joel webin and william wolf you need to plan to come now june 11th to 12th in indianapolis

00:45:12.480 and if you need help if you need uh travel assistance please reach out to me you can find

00:45:18.420 me on x at william underscore e dot underscore wolf you can find us at baptist leaders and you

00:45:24.560 can email us at info at center for baptist leadership.org thanks for all that joel i

00:45:29.500 appreciate it absolutely wonderful well said um i don't typically do this because i don't want to

00:45:34.780 And certainly don't want to ever pray to the Lord publicly for people to watch in a way

00:45:40.160 that would be just pious and trying to garnish, you know, the approval of man.

00:45:45.280 But with all sincerity and seeking to honor God and him first, I think, you know, this

00:45:51.080 seems like one of those episodes where it would be nice to maybe conclude it with a

00:45:55.680 word of prayer.

00:45:56.760 Would you mind just praying that God in his providence and in his mercy, if it be his

00:46:02.700 will that he would preserve the SBC as a beacon of biblical fidelity? Absolutely, Joel. Thank you

00:46:08.380 so much. Yeah. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you for the opportunity to have this

00:46:14.300 conversation as brothers in Christ and as those who want to see your gospel spread to the ends

00:46:21.120 of the earth and for your kingdom to come, Lord, on earth as it is in heaven. Lord, we thank you

00:46:27.300 for the way that you have used the Southern Baptist Convention for many decades now to spread

00:46:32.940 the gospel of Jesus Christ, to make disciples and to save sinners and to build churches as the

00:46:39.840 gospel has gone forth and you have received glory for people bending the knee to King Jesus and

00:46:46.340 repenting of their sins. And Lord, we recognize now that we live in difficult times in which there

00:46:52.040 are worldly ideologies and even demonic, dark spiritual influences seeking to destroy the

00:46:59.280 witness and the purity of the Southern Baptist Convention. And Lord, we pray and trust that they

00:47:03.920 would not prevail. We ask that you would show grace and favor to the Southern Baptist Convention

00:47:08.800 even this year. Lord, I pray that you would rally your people to show up in Indianapolis to fight

00:47:16.420 and to contend for the faith once for all delivered to the saints

00:47:20.420 and as stewarded and guarded by Southern Baptists in this country.

00:47:25.140 Lord, I pray that you would fill that convention with those who want to stand on your word,

00:47:30.260 Lord, and defend the sanctity of your pulpit in your church

00:47:33.960 and to proclaim that the role of pastor is for a biblically qualified male

00:47:40.080 according to your wisdom and your creation order, God.

00:47:43.860 I pray that the Southern Baptist Convention would do this.

00:47:47.400 And Lord, we know the watching world will not like it, but God, we pray that you would

00:47:52.160 be glorified by it.

00:47:53.700 And we ask this in your name.

00:47:55.040 Amen.

00:47:55.840 Amen.

00:47:56.660 Well, thank you to all our Right Response listeners for tuning in.

00:47:59.960 And a special thanks to you, William Wolfe, for coming on the show.

00:48:03.620 Joel, thank you so much for having me, brother.

00:48:05.440 Great conversation.

00:48:06.560 You're welcome.

00:48:13.860 Thank you.

The NXR Podcast - May 20, 2024

THE INTERVIEW - The SBC ｜ Is This A “Fight By Flight” Situation？with William Wolfe

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