I'm an Idiot or Why Did I Think Baptist Press Would Do The Right Thing

When I first posted the entry about Stan Grenz's passing with a link to the Baptist Press article, I assumed BP had done a straight news piece. My apologies for being so daft. Never let it be said that the Southern Baptist News Service passed up a chance for a judgmental sermon. Apparently, Mr. Dockery, the author of the article, took issue with Grenz's theological direction of late, which is to say he didn't like Renewing the Center or Beyond Foundationalism. I'm shocked! Couldn't they have just played it straight and done a eulogy? Or, couldn't they just mention that he had died and would be missed by many and that his work was important? Or, couldn't they just say nothing? What motivates people to write this sort of stuff as soon as the guy dies? What are these people thinking? By what criteria do they call themselves Christian? It can't have anything to do with how they treat others. Oh wait. They've been washed in the blood of the Lamb; Christ has taken their sins upon himself; they have been washed whiter than snow; Jesus was the propitiation for their sins (please ignore the clause following in that verse); their sins have been cast into the sea of forgetfulness; etc., ad nauseam. I believe I mentioned that a commitment to the current evangelical understanding of substitutionary atonement led to people acting like gits. This just proves my theory.

Comments

[lee eddy]

i already said this in the comments section to your original post, but i was shocked to read through the whole piece that dockery wrote. i thought i might have still been reeling from the news of prof grenz' death, but then my wife concurred with, "even the pagans know that you're not supposed to do that" -- that being: take the opportunity of a good man's death and write about how he was increasingly becoming more and more wrong and leading people astray.

i'm real frosted about dockery and the baptist news for this one; i may even write them a spicy email.

in christian love, of course.

lee

[Caleb]

I was surprised by the article too. This was basically a case of dancing on a grave.

[Caleb]

Actually, though, I'm more convinced than ever that I want to read Grenz's books.

[Paul]

I was commenting on Dockery's shocking insensitivity to a friend on Tuesday after reading his piece from your link. Dockery was a major jerk to write something like that as a response to Grenz's death.

[greg]

Paul,

A couple of us have sent emails to dockery expressing our concerns. He has sent back a form response that I will post later.