ABC News’ 20/20 is set to air a program tonight featuring fundamentalist baptist pastors who do loony things like advise parents to spank two week old babies and who suggest that if there’s no bruising, there’s been no spanking…
To which I say… why? Why can’t the fringe loony nutbags be Lutherans? Or Presbyterians? Or Methodists? I actually know why- because those denominations require their clergy to have an education and Baptists don’t. As a consequence, there are imbeciles in Baptist pulpits in astounding numbers saying the most inane and insane things in the name of the Bible and Christianity.
Of course that doesn’t mean educated people don’t do stupid things. Just look around at colleges and universities and you see more than enough stupidity. But it does mean that an uneducated clergy is a dangerous clergy.
In other words, there are too many dilettantes in Baptist pulpits and it’s because of the anti-intellectualism which fundamentalists love so much. And fundamentalism breeds ignorance just as much as ignorance breeds fundamentalism.
And it will continue to be this way until Baptist churches demand that their clergy be educated. Until that day, Baptists will continue, sadly, to be featured in the news for saying stupid and unbiblical things. After all, you can’t expect any better from people who don’t know any better.
Zwinglius Redivivus 
Sad but true.
I once heard a man say while in the pulpit, “I’m ignorant and proud of it!”
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oh i know more than my share of pastors (i’m the Moderator of our Association) who have nothing more than a high school diploma and they wear it like a badge of honor.
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I only have 15 hours of college (looooooong story), but I have sought diligently to apply myself. The last three years have been very productive years for my learning. It’s not appreciated very much, sometimes, however.
I know of very few here who have any theological education.
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theres a MASSIVE difference between people who see the value of always learning and the dimwittery of thinking that ‘larnin’ is evil and that the less informed you are the better a preacher. its preposterous and idiotic. they ignore the passage which commands pastors to ‘study to show themselves approved workers who can rightly interpret the word of truth’.
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Well, Jim, uneducated pastors are a Baptist tradition, after all.
But Al Mohler thanks you for your support.
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Many years ago my late husband and I compiled a quiz for a Baptist Group Social event here in the UK. The contestants were hopeless at Church history, current affairs etc but did very well on film, pop music and TV soap operas. Admittedly they weren’t ministers or pastors but many of them were in positions of responsibility as Sunday School teachers, deacons, youth leaders etc.
My elder daughter, who attended an International Baptist Church in Germany for several years , was appalled by several of the US members limited views and lack of understanding of non-American cultures. Some of the American families for example, who had been sent to Europe as evangelical missionaries, were appalled to find that homeschooling is illegal in Germany and were suddenly “called” back to live in the States!! The US Baptists were all very concerned about abortion, homosexuality and what they called “liberal socialism” but not very interested in social justice, human rights, fair-trade or enviromental issues. Needless to say most of them were Republicans and anti-Obama.
(Fortunately the International Baptist Church had an excellent well educated and biblically sound Texan Pastor who had a lot more common sense than some of his congregation).
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I can think of a couple of well known Baptist preachers/wrtiters that were not literally theologically educated, but who read much in their day, and were simply self-educated: Charles Spurgeon and A.W. Pink. Both just happen to be English/Brits.
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Agreed, though I wish I had earned a few letters behind my name, also.
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Patricia,
There are a few of us British conservatives left, who close in with some of the American conservative ideas. Though we are both thinning with the great apostasy! As the old American Harold Lindsell said, the Battle is over the Bible!
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Although I am no fan of baptist fundamentalism, education does not always mean better people in church leadership (e.g. well-educated-child-molesting Catholic priests)
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