New Head of the Southern Baptists Found a Way to Avoid Dissention

 


JD Greear is the new head of the Southern Baptist Convention. He has a large church somewhere in the South and mucks around in SBC politics. SBC has been dealing with sex abuse, falling membership and extreme positions on abortion. Greear says it should stop talking about these divisions and just pray.

This is the clever technique used throughout Christianity, to divert attention from the problem at hand by claiming to pray. This practice of mental fantasy is so common it is used by politicians and preachers alike. President Ford claimed he prayed before he pardoned President Nixon. He could claim it was God not himself who did the dirty deed.  

It seems difficult to imagine one talking to something or someone when the truth its not real hangs over his/her head. I would think one's mind would drift to the grocery list or what's-for-dinner. JD Greear admits this. He says his mind wonders so he writes some que cards before hand to help remind himself the make believe exercise has rules. It would be easy to just switch to another god like Zeus. If you didn't tell anyone no one would ever know the difference and you could test to see if you got better results.

I remember back in the '80's there was a conference of many faiths centered around liberal things like women's rights. There was hope it would lead to unifying many denominations of Christianity as well as religions across the globe. There was so much optimism denominations like Presbyterians which I belonged to at the time gave money to fund the conference.

After the conference opened there was discussion about prayer. For some reason the thinking was if it was religious there needed to be some praying. I don't understand why they thought this but they did.

With many religions present prayers could not be to God nor to any other god worshipped by attendees. Finally, it was agreed the prayer would be to "Sophie." 

When news got out Christian denominations like Presbyterians had paid money to put on a conference worshipping "Sophie" the roof blew off. There was passionate discussion by radio and TV preachers and columnists. It was talked about everywhere. 

I suppose the conference leaders thought the same way as JD Geear. "Praying papers over passionate disagreements so let's get some praying in the program to cool down disagreements." Geear does not have to worry about the god Sophie. Spending good Christian dollars to pray to some other god is a way to set off the loud mouths. That, even though it is absolutely harmless.

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