Hammer photo uploaded to Wikimedia Commons by Malene Thyssen
Each Friday, Mark Wingfield, editor of Baptist News Global, sends a Friday roundup by email to those on the BNC mailing list. There's not an online link to this weekly roundup, so I can't offer you a link. I would, however, like to share some of Mark Wingfield's commentary from this week's roundup email (boldfacing emphasis is in original):
"What kind of Christian posts a meme on social media that mocks Paul Pelosi after he was violently attacked by an intruder with a hammer? Is this what passes as Twitter humor?
Except this isn’t funny at all. It is sick and twisted and mean and tells us far more about Rod Martin than Paul Pelosi. What’s more, I know some very conservative (Trump-supporting) people in the SBC who tried to get Rod to rethink his post and he responded by doubling down. His twisted humor is just fine, he said, and doesn’t violate any biblical norms.
What Bible is he reading? What kind of mean person does such a thing, even if they despise the victim and his wife?
This is the kind of person the Conservative Baptist Network has been trying to install as leaders in the SBC. Until recently, Rod Martin was an outspoken officer of the SBC Executive Committee and led the charge to block the independent investigation into mishandling of sexual abuse in the SBC. And he has a lot of people following him and hanging on his every rotten word.
Yet here’s the worse thing: I am not aware of a single SBC leader who has publicly denounced Rod for his hate speech. Not one. His actions have been so despicable that every elected leader in the SBC should have challenged him publicly.
I want to quickly add that Rod Martin does not speak for the majority of the people in the SBC. But he does speak for that faction working hard to turn the denomination into a dystopian Gilead. Hatred for Democrats, for women, for liberals, for the underprivileged drives this side of the SBC just as Donald Trump’s lies drive the Republican Party today. As we’ve heard about Trump’s policies, 'the cruelty is the point.'
This is why our columnist Andrew Manis wrote this week to refute the conservative evangelical line — as espoused by Al Mohler and others — that Christians who are faithful to God must always and only vote Republican. Andrew thinks we should flip the script on that and ask how any God-fearing Christian could vote for the lies and bigotry and meanness of the Trump Party today.
We find ourselves today in the awful position where for too many people, lying has become a virtue. This is the post-truth world of Trumpism lamented and explained by Rodney Kennedy."
