Voddie Baucham

who knew? he seemed so normal. So passionate about the gospel. wow. Just can’t ever tell about some people.

Here let him tell you himself:

However, neither of these constituted fatal infractions. I co-sponsored an education in 2004, but preached at the SBC in 2005. I stood against Y[outh]M[inistry] for years and while many were uncomfortable, I was still part of the gang. That is, until I came out of the closet. No… I’m not gay. It’s far worse than that. I’m a Calvinist! That’s right, I’m a fire-breathing, TULIP believing, five-point Calvinist. That, my friends, is the unpardonable sin in contemporary Southern Baptist life (unless your name is Al Mohler and you’ve been President of the flagship Southern Baptist Theological Seminary since you were in your early thirties and happen to be the most intelligent, articulate, winsome public face the Convention has).

I was ‘outed’ in 2006 when I preached at the Desiring God National Conference. Prior to that I had preached at Alistair Begg’s conferences, but Desiring God was the fatal blow. After that the questions began to swirl. After preaching a message in a Pastor’s conference in 2006 a dear friend approached me (he is a well-known Calvinist whose name I won’t mention… TOM ASCOL …and I was going to be preaching in his church the next day). He was laughing about a debate he overheard between two pastors. The issue? Whether or not I believed regeneration precedes faith! These brothers had begun to put two and two together but they just knew it couldn’t be four. It was as though I had contracted AIDS. These guys were actually mourning! “I had him in my church!” one of them lamented. I could have done a lot of things and been just fine. However, the dreaded “C” word has become a death sentence in “mainstream” Southern Baptist life.

Timmy Brister adds:

Here is yet another leading voice of the past decade of the younger generation of Southern Baptists that has been marginalized by the anti-Calvinist agenda of the SBC. Perhaps someone should warn Matt Chandler who is scheduled next year to speak both at the 2009 FBC JAX Conference (Feb. 6-10) as well as the 2009 Desiring God Pastor’s Conference (Feb. 2-4). In any case, one should take note that the anti-Calvinist leadership of the SBC–from the Executive Committee to the John 3:16 Conference–is unplugging the microphones of the voices attracting younger Southern Baptists today.

you have to believe that the Southern Baptists are in serious [demographic] trouble going into the future. why in the world they would want to go out of their way to antagonize passionate and serious young Bible students in the convention is not immediately obvious.

I was a late arrival to the SBC (following law school at around age 26) and I left early this year (age 40) because of my belief that too many people in the Convention are unwilling or unable to take the Bible as it is rather than as they wish it to be. It appears to me that there is far too much attention and reverence paid to the traditions of men rather than the word of God.

Just my opinion. But reading about the recent John 3:16 conference. Reading Steve Lemke’s paper and Timmy Brister’s rebuttal. Listening to messages against Calvinism by the likes of Dr. John Compton and the rebuttal thereto by John Mark.

and comparing all of the free willers and their arguments to those of John Piper from the text of scripture I am left to wonder if there is a principled scriptural argument to make against Calvinism. I sure haven’t heard it and I have been looking pretty hard.

from the free willers I hear a lot of human logic. I hear a lot of versions of this type of argument “believing that would mean ______ and therefore, the Bible can’t really mean what it appears to say.” I also never hear a coherent and cogent response to the question about how salvation actually occurs in the free will context. In other words, if we are dead in our trespasses and sins like Paul says we were in Ephesians 2, then how do we become alive and responsive? Do free willers think that dead doesn’t mean dead? does it instead mean “mostly dead”. Do free willers accept that God makes us alive before we accept Him? Why not? Based on what scripture? Do free willers believe that Christ’s penal substitutionary atonement on the cross was effective for everyone’s salvation? then why isn’t everyone saved?

if it depends on human choice in the last instance, then why did charlie say yes and sammy say no? is charlie smarter than sammy? Is charlie just luckier? If charlie starts thinking he was smarter and made a smarter choice, wouldn’t that be a “work” about which he could “boast” even though Paul makes it clear that regeneration, grace, and faith for salvation are all from God and that we have nothing whatsoever to boast about? Ephesians 2:1-10

Why not just believe what Paul said and accept whatever consequences derive from that? why work so hard to explain it away?

Why would any group of churches and pastors run off passionate Bible believing younger people because they dared to accept the Bible’s teaching on these points for what they are?

I really don’t understand the thinking here.