On Praying Somewhere Else

I started to write a comment about the meeting in Arlington, Texas of 150 Southern Baptist pastors who opposed the SBC's mandate against private prayer languages, but Bruce Gourley at the Mainstream Baptists group weblog beat me to it.

Here's a quote from Gourley:

The SBC now polices who can pray and how. The message: "You can't talk to God unless we say you can, and then only if we approve your words and thoughts." Until recent years, Baptists would have considered this to be a violation of the priesthood of all believers. Yet just as they have tossed aside the Baptist heritage of separation of church and state, Southern Baptist leaders have jettisoned belief in the priesthood of all believers and muscled themselves in between God and His people.