What makes this really interesting is that Brad Whitt is actually a Southern Baptist. I keep being told that Southern Baptists are thoughtful and kind and completely different from the legalists in the Indy-Fundy camps.
I’ll confess that I often have my doubts.
I wonder if that pastor isn’t too much of a “yeller-bellied coward” to preach the funerals of people in his church dying of heart attacks, diabetes-related illnesses, and cancer?
Sorry about multiple posts. Kept getting an error screen.
As a recovering Southern Baptist, I can tell you that alcohol is a big no-no. As for broader statements about Southern Baptists, I can only say that the church I grew up in was friendly, although fundamentalist–and consequently on the legalistic side–but I never heard the kind of preaching this site has exposed me to from IFC preachers. Usually the guest preacher for revival loved to tell hellfire and brimstone stories, but on a regular basis, my pastor didn’t focus on such things and was not ego-centric at all. (I’m sure that’s not true across the board.) I had an evening sunday school teacher rail on Amy Grant for going “secular,” but that’s one of the few things I recall. I myself gave up “secular” music for a while, but contemporary Christian was perfectly acceptable in my church, and often the youth choir would sing an Amy Grant or Michael W Smith type of song. Dress codes and strict gender roles (outside of the occasional wife submit to your husband thing, which let me tell you my mom -never- practiced) did not exist. I thought we had it pretty straight and narrow until I discovered the IFC world on this site. Still, I know plenty of good folks who have struggled with the SBC, and the SBC Convention is just horrible.
Southern Baptists are notorious “Drys”.
Which is why you always invite two of them on a fishing trip. Invite only one and he’ll guzzle all your beer before you even leave the dock.