Associated Baptist Press reports that "Controversies born from blogs promise stormiest SBC since 1991." Those years include some stormy controversies -- the confessional addition that wives should "graciously submit" to their husbands (1998), the revision of the Baptist Faith and Message statement elevating the Bible above Jesus (2000), the termination of scores of career missionaries for refusing to sign the 2000 BF&M (2002), and the severing of ties with the Baptist World Alliance (2004) have all come in those fifteen years.
What's different is not that this time it is conservatives against conservatives. Winfred Moore and Richard Jackson were ever bit as theologically conservative as Wade Burleson is today.
The difference between 1991-2004 and today is that the technology of weblogs has made it possible for individuals to speak to a worldwide audience, be heard, engage in dialogue with others, pool resources, and quickly organize across long distances for collective action. That is unprecedented in human history and it spells trouble for authoritarian leaders who depend on manipulating public opinion by controlling the flow of information.
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