Baptists From The United States

"I've been told by Kevin McCarthy ... of course I'll get committee assignments back"

"Yesterday’s unprecedented leak is an attempt to severely damage the Supreme Court. This clearly coordinated campaign to intimidate and obstruct the Justices of the United States Supreme Court, and its independence in our political system, from upholding the Constitution must immediately be investigated by the court."

"There are two different types of leader. A person can either be like a thermometer or a thermostat. A thermometer will tell you what the temperature is. A thermostat will not only tell you what the temperature is, but it'll move you to the temperature you need to get to."

"Let me be very clear to you and I have been very clear to the President. He bears responsibility for his words and actions. No if, ands or buts … I asked him personally today, does he hold responsibility for what happened? Does he feel bad about what happened? He told me he does have some responsibility for what happened. And he needs to acknowledge that."

"House Republicans are committed to upholding the sanctity of life, and we will continue to fight to be a voice for the truly voiceless. There is nothing more special, extraordinary, and worth fighting for than the miracle of life"

"When you wake up tomorrow, we will be in the majority and Nancy Pelosi will be in the minority"

"I had it with this guy. What he did is unacceptable. Nobody can defend that, and nobody should defend it."

"I've earned this Goddamn job!"

"The President bears responsibility for Wednesday’s attack on Congress by mob rioters. He should have immediately denounced the mob when he saw what was unfolding. These facts require immediate action by President Trump, accept his share of responsibility, quell the brewing unrest and ensure President elect Biden is able to successfully begin his term. The President’s immediate action also deserves congressional action, which is why I think a fact finding commission and a censure resolution would be prudent. Unfortunately, that is not where we are today. Truly, this past week was one of the most difficult for Congress and our nation. Of all the days here, last Wednesday was the worst day I’ve ever seen in Congress. Our country is deeply hurt. So where do we go from here? After all the violence and chaos of the last week, it is important to remember that we’re still here to deliver a better future for all Americans. It does not matter if you are liberal, moderate, or conservative. All of us must resist the temptation of further polarization. Instead, we must unite once again as Americans. I understand for some this call for unity may ring hollow, but times like these are when we must remember who we are as Americans and what we as a nation stand for. And as history shows, unity is not an option. It’s a necessity. It is as necessary today as it was at the start of our country."

"Yesterday, a man sharing that member’s rhetoric tried to assassinate the Speaker and her spouse. What has @GOPLeader said? Nothing. This is who he is"

"We cannot just sweep this under the rug. We need to know why it happened, who did it, and people need to be held accountable for it. And I'm committed to make sure that happens."

"Do you think he’s actually running his caucus or do you think someone else is?” Jen Psaki asked. “He’s not. I think you’ve got Marjorie Taylor Greene running the caucus, and she makes very common public statements to that effect. Every time something irks her, she communicates that McCarthy is doing her bidding. And I think that this is something that is quite clear...I think that speaker McCarthy is stuck between having to please the most racist and heinous elements of his party with having to maintain a majority, and he is choosing to side with the extremists,”"

"I do not look for or expect a time in history as we know it when the whole professing church will believe either in inerrancy or the major doctrines of the Christian faith. There will always be wheat and tares growing together until the angels begin their task of reaping the harvest at the end of the age. Truth shall forever be the scaffold, and wrong forever on the throne as long as time shall last. But whatever the cost, whatever the sacrifice, God calls His people to faithful service based on unsullied adherence to His Word with the firm conviction that not one jot or tittle shall pass away till all has been fulfilled. When Jesus Christ comes, faith shall turn into sight and what we do not know now we shall know then. And when all of the mysteries of Scripture have been unlocked, we shall see what we have always believed- that the written Word of God is free from all error, and all parts of it in some fashion or another bear witness to the incarnate Word of God, Jesus Christ the righteous Branch, who is King of Kings and Lord of Lords."

"Although in hundreds of cases criticisms of Scripture have been shown to be unfounded, those who refuse to believe in inerrancy never seem to be satisfied. Why is this so? Does it not constitute a frame of mind that wants to disbelieve? Does it reflect a viewpoint that says in effect, "I will not believe what the Scripture teaches about itself until every objection has been answered to my satisfaction"? Does this not tell us something about the nature of man who, though he may be regenerated, yet retains strong characteristics of the old nature so that unbelief crops up again and again? May not the real difficulty be a want of biblical faith rather than a want of evidence?"

"HAROLD LINDSELL, Ph.D., D.D., has served as vice-president and professor of Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena and professor at Columbia Bible College in Columbia, S.C., and at Northern Baptist Seminary in Chicago. He is the editor of Christianity Today."

"This is a controversial book. It has to be. But I have tried to represent matters fairly and objectively. It should be understood and reacted to in the light of the facts. We are all responsible for what we say and write. I hope that I have not misquoted or misinterpreted anyone whose words appear in this book. There is a sufficient material available that makes it unnecessary to do this. In my professional life I have been involved in a number of theological controversies regarding the question of miracles. I have repeatedly stated that the supernatural is taught in Scripture. When anti-supernaturalists try to persuade me that I am mistaken I reply that I did not write the Bible. I only try to reflect what the Bible says. No one can make a case against the supernatural from the data of Scripture. The same idea is true with regard to the people I quote in this volume. Anyone who doesn't like what he says should not blame me for surfacing his opinions. I didn't say those things. The people I quote said them. And anything people, including myself, write is subject to those who read what they write."

"I have tried to tell it as it is. My responsibility ends at that point, except in those places where my own relationships give me the opportunity to carry through on my own commitment to inerrancy. Every reader of this book has a similar responsibility to do his thing in the place or places where he or she has the same opportunity."

"Inspiration involved infallibility from start to finish. God the Holy Spirit by nature cannot lie or be the author of untruth. If the Scripture is inspired at all it must be infallible. If any part of it is not infallible, then that part cannot be inspired. If inspiration allows for the possibility of error then inspiration ceases to be inspiration. Now no one will assert that the human authors of scripture were infallible men. But believers in infallibility do say that fallible men were kept from error by the Holy Spirit."

"A journey of a thousand miles must come to an end. Even the rain water returns to the ocean from which it came. So the hour has come to draw some conclusions and let the reader make his own decision. I have presented an apologetic for biblical inerrancy. It is based on a legitimate concern. Simply stated, the concern is that evangelical Christianity is engaged in the greatest battle in its history. The central issue at stake is epistemological: it has to do with the basis of our religious knowledge. Does that knowledge come from reason, the church, or from the Bible?"

"The very nature of inspiration renders the Bible infallible, which means that it cannot deceive us. It is inerrant in that it is not false, mistaken, or defective. Inspiration extends to all parts of the written Word of God and it includes the guiding hand of the Holy Spirit even in the selection of the words of Scripture. Moreover, the Bible was written by human and divine agencies; that is, it was the product of God and chosen men. The authors of scripture retained their own styles of writing and the Holy Spirit, operating within this human context, so superintended the writing of the Word of God that the end product was God's. Just as Jesus had a human and a divine nature, one of which was truly human and the other truly divine, so the written word of God is a product that bears the marks of what is truly human and truly divine."

"I do not doubt that if evangelicals in concert with each other would stand firm and tall for biblical inerrancy and the cardinal doctrines of the Christian faith, a new day would dawn and the blessing of God would follow. I can foresee, in that event, a new surge of spiritual power, a new advance in the task of evangelizing the world, and the establishment of churches around the world where Christ is honored, the true gospel is preached, and the kingdom of God manifested in holy power before the eyes of unconverted men. May the Lord speed that day!"

"I regard the subject of this book, biblical inerrancy, to be the most important theological topic of this age. A great battle rages about it among people called evangelicals. I did not start the battle and wish it were not essential to discuss it. The only way to avoid it would be to remain silent. And silence on this matter would be a grave sin. I have written this book largely for evangelical lay people in their pews who may not be aware of the central issue that faces them, their denominations, and their institutions. Because of this I have sought to write simply, avoiding technical language wherever possible. The book itself could be expanded almost indefinitely, for there is no end to the available material. The data I have used comprise only a small part of what I have personally collected for ten years."

"...love is not enough... truth is also important... Good feelings cannot deliver the homosexual from the judgement of God. If he does not repent, he is doomed, but he is not alone. So are all other unrepentant sinners. God is no respecter of persons; He is also no respecter of one's sexual appetites. Hell will be partially populated by 'caring, honest, whole persons' who are proud they are gay."

"Dr. Lindsell mentions that acceptance of inerrancy is the watershed of modern theological controversy. He is right in declaring that the attitude we have toward the trustworthiness of Scripture determines our later position, not only on faith, but also on practice. The evidence that those who surrender the doctrine of inerrancy inevitably move away from orthodoxy is indisputable. It is apparent that those who give up an authoritative, dependable, authentic, trustworthy, and infallible Scripture must ultimately yield the right to the use of the name "evangelical." Dr. Lindsell has done the church, and especially the evangelical cause, a great service in writing this book."

"I want to succeed in baseball, but it doesn’t mean anything if I'm not ultimately doing something greater than myself. Our lives should be about bringing faith, hope and love to those needing a brighter day in their darkest hour of need."

"My main purpose is not about football or baseball, or anything like that. It's about helping others. It's about finding the people who need hope."

"We believe that everybody has value, everybody has meaning. God loves every single person. They were created in love, by love, and for love and God loves them just the way they are."

"I think that when you have an 80 percent issue, you probably need to be on the side of that one with your constituents back home."

"Verlene Warnock spent her summers picking cotton and tobacco as a teen in Waycross, Georgia, in the 1950s before becoming a pastor. "Because this is America, the 82-year-old hands that used to pick somebody else's cotton went to the polls and picked her youngest son to be a United States senator," [Raphael] Warnock said... Her story was not uncommon. In the Jim Crow South, many poor Black people built savings by working in the fields because it was almost impossible for them to own land... At 82, Verlene Warnock still preaches at Bible and Prayer Ministries, her church in Savannah. And her son, the 11th of 12 children, is going to Congress."

"Senator-elect Warnock has actually been a part of the same movement that has helped to catapult him to the U.S. Senate as the prior board chair for the New Georgia Project, through work that he’s done through the Ebenezer Baptist Church around public health or through ending mass incarceration back in June of 2019. He was a part of a group of multifaith leaders who held an ending mass incarceration conference at Ebenezer Baptist Church. And so, we saw imams, we saw Jewish faith leaders, we saw rabbis, we saw preachers and pastors from across the South and across the country, come together to address these very critical issues. So, that’s the type of convener he’s already been. And that’s what has resonated with folks on the ground who are doing the work, because they’ve worked alongside him."

"Georgia voters sent the pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church to the U.S. Senate. The Rev. Raphael Warnock, senior shepherd of the same congregation once led by Martin Luther King Jr., will become the first elected Black Democratic senator – not just from Georgia, but from the entire South. Without stepping outside his campaign headquarters, Warnock this morning was making the rounds on morning news shows."

"I need my neighbor's children to be okay so that my children will be okay. I need all of my neighbor's children to be okay; poor, inner-city children in Atlanta and poor children of Appalachia; I need the poor children of Israel and the poor children of Gaza, I need Israelis and Palestinians, I need those in the Congo, those in Haiti, those in Ukraine, I need American children on both sides of the track to be okay! Because we are all God's children! And so let's stand together, let's work together, let's organize together, let's pray together, let's stand together, let's heal the land! God bless you! Keep the faith!"

"I want to say thank you. And I want to say thank you to my mother, who is here tonight. You’ll see her in a little while. But she grew up in the 1950s, in Waycross, Georgia, picking somebody else’s cotton and somebody else’s tobacco. But tonight she helped pick her youngest son to be a United States senator."

"Doorknock for Warnock vote your Ossoff"

"Raphael Warnock’s victory Tuesday night is historic, heralding a litany of firsts. In a Senate that remains almost solely the province of white men, he'll be the first Black Democrat from Georgia, the first Black Democrat from the South, the first Black pastor and only the second Black senator ever elected from a state below the Mason-Dixon line since Reconstruction... Warnock’s win... negates the longstanding, quietly kept idea that Black candidates don’t stand a chance running for the Senate in the South... Just seven African Americans have ever been elected to the Senate. Warnock will be the eighth. And though it was the New South that propelled Warnock into office, he preaches — and campaigns — from the old school, prophetic tradition, which criticizes America’s greatest societal ills. On the campaign trail, it was hard to separate the preacher from the politician. His stump speeches mirrored his sermons, interspersing calls for Medicaid expansion and criminal justice reform with allusions to scripture. Like Barack Obama, Warnock downplayed race on the campaign trail, running on a platform that appealed to a wide swath of the electorate. In addition to Black voters, Asian Americans and Latinos supported him and Jon Ossoff in droves during both the November and January elections. And he made a concerted effort to target rural and first-time voters, having already engaged the groups extensively as chair of the New Georgia Project, a position he held from 2017 until 2020."

"Because this is America, the 82-year-old hands that used to pick somebody else's cotton went to the polls and picked her youngest son to be a United States senator."

"I talked about how I intend to represent them, and my opponent was focused on how she would represent her own interest. And I think the folks heard that loud and clear. We’re dealing with folks that are facing eviction. People have been waiting for months for relief, and they saw politicians play the same old games last week. We should have already passed this $2,000 stimulus check, and I can’t wait to get to work."

"We were told that we couldn’t win this election, but tonight we proved that with hope, hard work and the people by our side, anything is possible. May my story be an inspiration to some young person who is trying to grasp and grab hold of the American dream. And so, Georgia, I am honored by the faith that you have shown in me. And I promise you this tonight: I am going to the Senate to work for all of Georgia, no matter who you cast your vote for in this election."

"My friend John Lewis is surely smiling down on his beloved Georgia this morning, as people across the state carried forward the baton that he and so many others passed down to them. I want to congratulate Reverend Raphael Warnock on his election as Georgia’s next U.S. Senator — and while we're still waiting on final results in the other runoff, is clear that last night’s showing... is a testament to the power of the tireless and often unheralded work of grassroots organizing..."

"In this moment in American history, Washington has a choice to make. In fact, all of us have a choice to make. Will we continue to divide, distract and dishonor one another, or will we love our neighbors as we love ourselves? Will we play political games while real people suffer, or will we win righteous fights together, standing shoulder to shoulder, for the good of Georgia, for the good of our country? Will we seek to destroy one another as enemies or heed the call towards the common good, building together what Dr. King called the “beloved community”? And so, to everyone out there struggling today, whether you voted for me or not, know this: I hear you. I see you. And every day I’m in the United States Senate, I will fight for you. I will fight for your family."

"Truculent and lawless, regarding all Eastern peoples as legitimate prey, they were little if any better than . . . pirates."

"`The Church', as Latourette has pointed out, `had become a partner in Western imperialism.'"

"The idea of thinking about raising taxes to pay for one of those Obama-style stimulus packages — that has little to do with roads — is obscene, it’s just a spending project."

"It is the long game that we have to worry about, but as farmers you know we’re obviously worried about whatever happens in the short term, we’ve got a crop coming up, we don’t know if it’s a bumper crop or not, if it’s a bumper crop it’s going to depress prices but the fact of the matter is commodities are very volatile. In this case the tariffs are going to push it down, they’ll make money on the way down, it will go back up and come back down and come back up, that’s what commodity prices do, it’s just better when they’re a lot higher particularly for farmers who are trying to make farm payments."

"The number-one cause that prevents , that promotes , that protects police lawlessness, is a culprit called the Fraternal Order of Police. They're the organized guardians of continuous police lawlessness, of police murder and police brutality. The Chicago Fraternal Order of Police is the most rabid, racist body of criminal lawlessness by police in the land. It stands shoulder to shoulder with the Ku Klux Klan then and the Ku Klux Klan now."

"It was very obvious that Vice President Biden cared, as he extended to Jacob Jr. a sense of humanity, treating him as a person worthy of consideration and prayer"

"Jacob Jr. told Sen. Harris that he was proud of her, and the senator told Jacob that she was also proud of him and how he is working through his pain. Jacob Jr. assured her that he was not going to give up on life for the sake of his children."

"Our churches have tended to become conditioned more by our culture than by our Christ. So often our churches merely reflect the standards, the folkways, and the mores of the community, rather than the ethical standards of Christianity. But Baptists have made progress in race relations and I am proud to be a Baptist at this point. ... Our Christian Life Commission has taken the lead in many instances with reference to race relations. This Convention approved, in 1947, a statement of principles in race relations, which has been published in a pamphlet ... This is the most forthright and solid statement of the Christian way in race relations that I know anything about. . . . In 1954 this Convention approved a resolution which stated that we believe that the Supreme Court’s decision to desegregate the public schools was in harmony with the principles of the Constitution of the United States and with the Christian principles of conduct. All of this is wonderful. ... But we must never be satisfied with making mere pronouncements. We must translate these principles into daily living. ... Pronouncements are insufficient. We must go beyond pronouncements to practice."

"First and foremost, he needs to be fairly treated. To have the truth [told] about him, the whole truth if practicable, but at all events to nothing but the truth; to have fair opportunities to labor, and to get honest pay for [it, to] have a chance to become educated and to develop whatever there is [in] him, in good and noble directions, in short to have a fair field.Next, and mainly, our colored brethren need the gospel.I shall not draw any terrible picture of their deplorable state, with a good deal of red in the brush, for two reasons—first, they would not be true; and second, there is no need of them. There is enough to rouse any thoughtful man to action in the fact that here in our midst is to be found a nation with in a nation, twice as great in number today as the whole American people were one hundred years ago, when our independence was achieved. They are said to number now not less than seven millions..."

"The only way then to deal with the black man whom we find in America—is to give him his rights, cordially, frankly, fully.The freedman is a man, neither more nor less. And it is not so much as a freedman that we are concerned about him. It is rather as a freeman. Whatever he was, this thing is certain—he is now a freeman, by the highest organic law of our government, by the constitution of the United States, by the separate action of the respective states. His past condition of servitude is not unimportant, as affecting his present state and our present responsibilities. But the momentous question is not what he was, but what he is, and especially what he is going to be. And with that question we have something to do.He is not a babe, to be fondled and petted. He is not a brute, to be trampled and despised. He is not a fiend or a savage to be shunned and dreaded, nor an angel to be admired and flattered. He is simply a man, with the capabilities and duties of any other man, so far as he is competent to discharge them, liable to the same temptations and frailties, heir of the same immortality, and redeemed by the same precious blood..."