In a story that's been largely overlooked (who reads Baptist news during the holidays?), Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary unveiled several shipping crates purported to contain remnants of Lottie Moon's rented house from P'ingtu City, China, along with personal possessions and other 19th century antiques from the area.Seminary president Paige Patterson displayed open crates reported to contain "some of Moon's furniture, such as chairs and a stove, as well as shingles, bricks and other remains from her house in P'ingtu, China," according to the article, which offered no information about how the items were authenticated as being Moon's.
Since Moon is known to have lived exceedingly frugally in a tiny dirt-floored house, the 35,000 pounds of materials reportedly contained in the shipment must have included many tons of bricks and clay shingles, as well as a lot of stuff that never belonged to Moon.
As expected, Patterson used the occasion to praise Moon as a champion of biblical inerrancy, something I've heard him do since the old "School of the Prophets" days at Criswell Bible College back in the 1970s. According to the article, Patterson prefaced his dedicatory prayer over the artifacts with a talk that "explained why Lottie Moon is so significant to Southwestern Seminary and the Southern Baptist Convention 'in the aftermath of the conservative renaissance of the convention.'"
Patterson repeated a timeworn story of how Moon was once engaged to Southern Seminary professor Crawford H. Toy, but broke off the engagement because Toy had "imbibed historical-critical thinking" and developed a skeptical attitude toward biblical inerrancy. While there is evidence for a broken engagement, I've seen nothing to substantiate the motives Patterson attributes to Moon.
The article led me to imbibe in thinking along two tracks. The first was to note that the acquisition of Lottie Moon's effects from China, if indeed they are authentic, appears to have completely bypassed Woman's Missionary Union, whose history is closely intertwined with Lottie Moon, and which has raised untold millions of dollars for international missions through its trademaked "Lottie Moon Christmas Offering." Southern Baptist leaders have sought during the past decade to gain ownership of the Lottie Moon trademark as well as to control WMU by making it an agency of the SBC, but both efforts have been (thankfully) unsuccessful. The plan to build a public shrine to Lottie Moon at SWBTS may be well-intentioned, but it could also be used to reframe the mission pioneer's role as a defender of conservative Southern Baptist orthodoxy while diminishing her historic connections with WMU (there is no mention of WMU in the article). One could hope that WMU will be invited to partner with SWBTS in developing the display, but given that the ultra-conservative Southern Baptist Convention of Texas is raising funds for the project, exclusion is a more likely scenario.
The article also inspired me to reflect on the life of Moon's spurned suitor, Crawford H. Toy, a brilliant scholar and a man of great piety who was loved by colleagues and students, but who felt forced to resign his post at Southern Seminary rather than surrender his integrity. He later had an illustrious career at Harvard, but was lost to Baptists. A quick search of the web led me to this enlightening biographical sketch of Toy by Dan Gentry Kent, a former professor at SWBTS (now deceased, according to a comment below), and it's well worth a few minutes of your time.
I have admired Lottie Moon from childhood, when devoted WMU ladies taught me about her willingness to suffer deprivation because of her devotion to Christ and to missions.
Increasingly, I have also come to admire Crawford Toy, who was no less devoted to Christ, and who was willing to suffer rejection by Southern Baptists rather than surrender to the narrow-minded demand that he forgo scholarship and limit his teaching to popularly accepted notions.
There's more than one way to be a hero.
[Top photo from Baptist Press, image of Lottie Moon from the WMU website, image of Toy from Harvard Divinity School.]
27 comments:
There is another Crawford Toy story in Baptist history, lesser known I think you may find quite intriguing.
Furman proff John Shelley did an excellent job on the life of late 30's Furman proff Herbert Gezork in a 2003 Furman Magazine article; Gezork, who came from Berlin as a Youth Pastor in the Confessing Church Resistance of Bonhoeffer.
AT Furman he was met with influential detractors who dismissed him over shibboleths of biblical criticism.
From Furman Gezork went on to be President of Andover Newton; and he marched with John Lewis, Martin Luther King, Jr and History over the Selma Bridge in 1965.
For me, knowledge of Gezork adds even more substance to what I consider a Gettysburg stature statement of Mr. Sayyid praising the Baptist witness in America in January 2009 at Andover Newton.
The video clip from ethicsdaily.com's masterful www.differentbookscommonword.com is linked at that site.
From the documentary in addition to BWA's Roy Medley, I gather Wake Forest's Charles Kimball, Parham, and T. Thomas and Bruce Prescott were also in the room, a glorious witness and the spirit of Herbert Gezork in the room
Tony, you may not have heard that Dan Kent is now deceased. He died of a heart attack in the summer of 2008.
Kevin Peacock
Tony,
That was a very informative and interesting article. Mr. Kent said,
"He [Toy] remained a Baptist for several years but later associated himself with the Unitarians."
Which calls to mind the words of John, the Lord's apostle:
"They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us: but they went out, that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us."
The article also confirms that Southern Seminary was, from its inception, a seedbed of theological modernism. It seems the only thing that repressed that modernism for a time was the desire of the school to get money out of Bible believing Baptist people.
Mark Osgatharp
Wynne, Arkansas
"It is almost inconceivable to think of what it would have been like in the late 1800s for a single woman to move into an incredibly patriarchal society -- patriarchal not in its good sense, but in its exponentially wicked sense -- where women didn't really count," Patterson said. Despite severe challenges, Lottie Moon immersed herself in the Chinese culture and succeeded in winning the respect of the Chinese people."
I quoted the above statement from the original article. What an amazing statement from someone who was an architect of the movement that has done everything in its power to keep women in subjection in Baptist life. And now he's praising Lottie Moon for bucking the patriarchal system of her day! Incredible hypocrisy.
And, by the way, what is the difference between "patriarchal in the good sense" and "patriarchal in its exponentially wicked sense?"
Paige Patterson, who sees the edge approaching to the cliff over which he will soon leap into the abyss of "historical figure" cannot help himself when the opportunity arises to remind people of the "conservative resurgence" of a generation ago in which he had a hand. But his notes of triumphalism have such a harsh clang they do not attract anyone to a continuing cause. http://www.biblicalrecorder.org/post/2008/10/15/Comments-insult-Southeasterne28099s-past.aspx
One of the most unsettling features of a study of James Madison that I completed a few months ago was Madison's reservations concerning pure democracy. He believed pure democracy is its own form of tyranny as strict majority rule imperils the fundamental rights of those in the minority. This concern led Madison, the Father of the United States Constitution, to successfully advocate for a republican form of government. You can read Madison's views on democracy in Federalist 10 which is proabably available somewhere online.
Ironically it was likely the persecution of Baptists, one of the most purely democratic societies, that shaped Madison's desire for representative government. He, as a young man, was disgusted by the mistreatment of Baptists at the hands of the Anglican majority in his home state and, in Federalist 10, he alludes to that experience as an example of an "overbearing majority" trampling on the basic rights of a minority.
I bring all this up because I read Kent's article on Crawford Toy. I noticed that it was mentioned numerous times that Toy was dismissed from his position in a Baptist seminary because of concern for the majority view of Baptists. It would happen again just a few years after the Toy controversy when William Whitsitt (also mentioned in Kent's article) was forced to resign from Southern Seminary because of what is now the commonly accepted view of Baptist origins, but it was the minority view in the 1890's. Since Toy and Whitsitt the list of Baptist scholars forced out of Baptist life for holding a minority view has grown longer and longer.
The Baptist decision-making process is not quite a pure democracy but it is fairly close. Down through the years we have to some extent proved Madison right in his concern by marginalizing those among us with minority views. I have long been a firm supporter of Baptist democratic methods. Lately, however, Madison has helped me to see more clearly the potential for despotism within pure democracy.
RE: Stratton's excellent post. Was it Adrian Rogers who said that if the majority of Baptists said the Holy Spirit was a pickle, then that's how seminary professors ought to teach it? That's a horrible paraphrase, but I don't have time to look it up precisely. The point is that for a period -- maybe a period we still are in -- majority view is considered the "right" view. I see this in an increasing reluctance to speak up at Baptist meetings unless it is to affirm the majority view.
While a student at Southern in the mid 80s, some friends and I lamented the loss of Toy to Harvard on several "levels", but one of the levels was simply from a humorous standpoint. I can't remember the name of Southern's gymnasium, but it was a square-shaped building, and we knew if Toy would have stayed, the building would have been named the "Toy Box"
Tony:
Al Mohler has gotten into this conversation and upped the ante a little.
Following is a quote from William Thornton and a post in the SBC forum of www.baptistlife.com/forumsCrawford Toy a "heretic" not a hero - Mohler
by William Thornton » Wed Jan 13, 2010 5:14 pm
Heresy is Not Heroic — Is Crawford Howell Toy a Baptist Hero?
Something deeply disturbing recently appeared at EthicsDaily.com, the Web site for the Baptist Center for Ethics. Tony Cartledge, Associate Professor of Old Testament at Campbell University Divinity School and former editor of the Biblical Recorder, recently contributed an article that makes the astounding claim that both Lottie Moon and Crawford H. Toy should be considered “Baptist heroes.”
The article is breathtaking in its argument — that a man who abandoned the Christian faith was “no less devoted to Christ” than Southern Baptists’ most famous missionary.
In other words, Toy became what Christians throughout all the centuries of church history and in all the major traditions of the Christian Church would rightly identify as a heretic. He abandoned faith in the deity of Christ and abandoned the Christian faith. Yet, moderates in the SBC controversy often celebrated Crawford Toy as a hero and as a theological martyr for academic scholarship. Tony Cartledge continues this tradition by expressing his admiration for Crawford Toy, going so far as to claim that he “was no less devoted to Christ” than Lottie Moon. “There’s more than one way to be a hero,” Cartledge concluded.
While I enjoy some of Tony Cartledge's blog articles, he missed the mark badly on this one. If he was knowledgable about Toy and really believes what he wrote, the only explanation I can find for his calling Toy a hero is that it is useful to do so as a slap against the Conservative Resurgence and Paige Patterson. That is, you are a hero to the mod/libs if you buck the conservative powers-that-be even if you deny the faith. A Harvard Unitarians is worth more than an orthodox Baptist. Brilliant scholar? Sure. Hero? No.
As I said in Stephen's topic below on the same subject, I don't see how to rehabilitate Toy's reputation in light of the fact that he turned first Unitarian and then nothing. Cartledge likes to dig around and do archaeology pieces. Maybe he has dug up something new on Toy and Lottie Moon that makes him a hero.
End of Quote
I head Kat Allen herself, the biographer of Lottie Moon, say she doubted Moon would recognize let alone approve what is done in her name now with the Lottie Moon offering.
We know Carolyn Crumpler was of a similar attitude. Maybe the question is should WMU disassociate from Lottie Moon offereing if SBC Leaders like Mohler and Patterson are gonna abuse it in this manner.
Is the ball now in WMU's court to address Patterson and Mohler and get to their truth about Toy and Lottie.
Can't we at a minimum expect WMU leadership to say either you, Cartledge are confused; or Paige and Al are abusive of the legacy of Lottie Moon?
Stephen notes that Albert Mohler saw a reprint of my blog on EthicsDaily.com and took issue with me in his blog (albertmohler.com) on a number of points, mainly my suggestion that Toy could be considered a Baptist hero.
I noted in the blog that Toy went on to Harvard and had a brilliant career, but was lost to Baptists. Some would argue that he was lost to Christendom altogether.
In any case, let me clarify that my comments were not intended as a commentary on or approval of Toy's later beliefs (or lack of them). I was really speaking from the perspective of Toy's departure from Southern, and to express appreciation for his integrity. Who knows, if he had felt welcome to stay at Southern -- or had made it to the mission field as he had desired -- instead of spending the rest of his career at Harvard, his beliefs may have gone in a different direction.
I see that you are backtracking now, but why, then, did you use the term "Baptist hero" to describe Toy and say that he was “no less devoted to Christ” than Moon?
Hi Ed,
Glad you're reading.
Clarifying and backtracking are two different things. I wrote from the perspective of Toy's departure from Southern. Given the pressure he was under I believe the integrity he displayed was admirable. I also suspect that, had he been allowed to remain at Southern, the future course of his thought may well have been different, and Baptists could have profited more from his scholarship.
Tony, it is fine to speculate about what might have been; he might also have led many seminarians astray had he remained. (There seems to be an assumption that he was constantly being shaped by his environment, despite his strong character, and that had he stayed at Southern rather than gone to Harvard would not have become a Unitarian.) I agree that Toy demonstrated a certain integrity in not pretending to be someone he was not, unlike so many professors at conservative schools who feel no compunction about undermining the faith of the students entrusted to them. Finally, though, I see this article of yours as an ill-conceived effort to continue the partisan bickering that has been going on for so long in the SBC and has become so tiresome and counterproductive to the gospel mission. What is more important, loyalty to our Lord Jesus or to some notion of academic freedom? Anyway, I think you could have chosen a better hero.
The words "Baptist" and "hero" do not appear side-by-side anywhere in your piece.
So it seems abundantly clear (IMHO) that with regard to Crawford Toy, you are talking about his integrity more than about his identification with Baptists.
That may be what attracted Al Mohler's fire.
Mohler seems to me to suggest as much when he tries (and fails) to make short shrift of you concerns about the words Patterson put in Lottie Moon's mouth.
It is plain from your post that if Patterson falsely imputed motives to Lottie Moon, then he lacks the intellectual integrity which Crawford Toy displayed.
Whether you meant to imply that or not, it's there to be discerned and IMHO hard to ignore.
As a result, I was not in the least surprised to see Mohler take up the cudgels against your well-made argument.
Patterson and the conservatives in general have to be defended now in their time of burnishing the image of what they have done.
Who better to do it than Mohler.
Only the pseudo-Catholicism of Mohler's conclusion surprised me.
BaptistPlanet, you missed the title: http://www.ethicsdaily.com/news.php?viewStory=15446
You apparently misread my sentence, Ed Fisher.
"Anywhere in your piece" is correct and does not refer to whatever Ethics Daily (or anyone else other than Tony) did with a headline.
I find it confusing that Al Mohler, you or anyone else would conflate a third-party headline with the author's work.
Having served a couple of decades in the daily newspaper business, it seems perhaps overly obvious to me that content authors almost never write their own headlines and that it is illegitimate to call content authors to account for those headlines.
This issue is, in large part, conjecture. To my knowledge we have no significant comment by Lottie, herself, as to why she moved away from Crawford Toy.
I worked with Katherine Allen supplying pictures and information about Lottie's time being a school marm for a Plantation Owner at Bishopville, SC. Had there been significant written material on Crawford Toy, I am sure the WMU would be supplying it by now.
Patterson is the master of manipulation. I have quizzed one of his faculty members as to whether they have any intent to honor WMU with artifacts they supposedly have.
He assures me Paige's mother was active in WMU and he respects them. Time will tell. Also Patterson has yet to present any evidence from the materials they are perusing as we speak, to uphold his theological conjecture. If it were there, you can bet it is his top priority.
The more I read about Toy, he was a highly intelligent and attractive gentleman who had become convinced the Bible was more complicated than us old dirt-digging-farmer-Baptists thought from our un-educated Preachers yelling and screaming in that day.
Remember, it was the beginning of an educated clergy among Baptists. Sadly, what is happening in Seminaries these days is more indoctrination than education, in my opinion.
Tony:
A first time poster at bl.com has this interesting take on Toy up in the past few days.
Offers another interesting trail on Toy and I thought it deserved as wide a viewing as possible and wanted to share it here with you.
Quoting Greg Willis of Lagrange, KY.:
Greg Wills » Sun Jan 31, 2010 9:45 pm
Toy's story is fascinating for many reasons, and the story has not all been told.
The faculty and trustees did not charge Toy with heresy. They moved to dismiss him because they believed that his view of the Bible was unsound, which rendered him unfit as a teacher in a theological seminary. They held that an erroneous view of inspiration was among the most dangerous of errors. They held also that to retain Toy would betray the trust of Southern Baptists who had given money to the seminary upon its pledge of orthodoxy, and it would undermine their trust and support in the future.
By 1880 Toy recognized that his new view of the Bible had disturbing ramifications for traditional views of New Testament interpretation. It meant that the New Testament writers interpreted the Old Testament badly when they sought to establish a basis for Jesus' message and ministry in the Old Testament. He held that they repeatedly misconceived and miscontrued the meaning of the passages they cited.
The faculty believed also that Toy's view of inspiration would lead him to embrace other serious errors. They were right. Toy finally concluded, as he told William James in 1907, that persons create their own "truth" and that his own faith was utilitarian and hedonistic.Greg Wills
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Joined: Tue Jan 19, 2010 9:49 am
Location: LaGrange, Kentucky
"Toy finally concluded, as he told William James in 1907, that persons create their own 'truth' and that his own faith was utilitarian and hedonistic."
As I read this comment, it seems to describe some of the redaction going on with the Conservative Resurgence group. Some of them are:
* We are Calvinists in theology.
* State Conventions and the SBC are Autonomous and may evict any church they choose.
* All Moderates were "liberal."
* The SBC was on a road to hell before 1979.
* Baptist Colleges are corrupting their students.
* BF&M 2000 is not a Creed
All things are personal when it comes to Faith since, by its definition "faith" cannot be proved to the point of "fact." When it becomes a "fact" it is no longer "faith," again by definition of the position!
Anyone who is insightful about himself or life in general knows we all want to be right and superior. There are many Ego Defense Mechanisms we employ to make sure our mind believes us to be "right."
In my opinion, the CR group has proven "might makes right." Adrian Rogers put it simply: "If we vote that pickles are...,then you must teach it that way."
My speculation, should we find more Lottie Moon writings it will further confirm that she majored on Missions and minored on Theology--just as we did pre-1979. Our Founding Fathers made a consciouse decision to lay aside theological differences in favor of banding together to cooperate in sharing the Gospel with the world.
I commend Scarborough for his artful boomerang to Willis on the uses of utilitarianism.
Another insight into the parable of Toy and Moon is pregnant report Toy said Moon as his student showed the greatest mastery of the English Language of any female he had encountered.
God as my witness I cannot imagine Lottie in our time signing up with Paige Patterson and the Texas Regulars and the President they in concert with Richard Land and Karl Rove gave us, George W. Bush; if mastery of the English Language was at the heart of their warp and woof.
I hope many of the folks who continue to follow this discussion here--Scarborough is active this morning with emails to a host of revenants, bringing this blog and comment line to their attention, including avenues to Cat Allen herself--will cross pollinate with the discussion at baptistlife.com where Willis has engaged Mercer scholar Bruce Gourley and Baylor Truett bio reviewer Aaron Weaver.
I have another angle there I hope will become part of this wider discussion, a speculation about Crawford Toy and the current literary critic James Wood.
I have a challenge there for a panel above my pay grade to pursue.
The notable Evangelist E.J. Daniels provided a quote from the biog. on Toy written by a prof. of Harvard who stated that the breaking of the engagement was over the issue of Toy's views on Scripture. Ms. Moon was a clearly concerned about the issue of higher criticism. After all, the pastor who bapized her was very much opposed to Toy's view, too (I refer to Dr. John A. Broadus who in a debate with Dr. William Rainey Harper, Pres. of the U. of Chicago over Mosaic authorship walked out of the hall saying loudly for all to hear, "Jesus said, He wrote of me! Jesus said, He wrote of me! Jesus said, He wrote of me!"). However, as to Paige's being enamoured with Ms. Moon, I would not worry. He will soon run into her views on Sovereign Grace and her loose views on women in ministry: "I was never ordained, but I was foreordained." Horrors! Both views are expressed in her statement. It will give folks with a problem in those areas some real issues with indigestion. Ain't life fun?
The flurry of activity has reached a near whiteout on this topic in the SBC forum of www.baptistlife.com
Seriously many of you will want to monitor that discussion for a few more days as there is indeed a fascinating ongoing exchange there between Mercer scholar Bruce Gourley and Greg Willis of Kentucky.
Catherine Allen has just sent an email to me in response to my conjecture on the Lottie Moon / Toy relationship. She has submitted a response to Baptists Today which she hopes will be published soon.
To give you a "heads up," she knows of NO COMMENTS by Miss Moon along theological lines. Just as I predicted, Lottie was far more concerned with sharing the Gospel than splitting theological hairs.
Although she had to be a woman of great courage and "foreordained" to minister, I would be surprised that she ever backed off from any man trying to tell her what to do. This has been true through the history of dedicated Baptist women. When men were so concerned with local church buildings and numbers, wonderful women cared about the souls of mankind--no matter what the race or color.
Hence, our first Home Mission efforts were toward the Indians--when white men just wanted to take their land and sentence them to reservations and loss of culture / heritage.
At the time of Lottie Moon the Chinese were considered a low rung of world society. No one cared to admit they had a culture and heritage which actually precursed that of the "civilized" Western world.
Why is it we always seem to want to rise on the backs and necks of others?????
Catherine's letter is scheduled to be in the March issue of BT. I haven't mentioned it previously, not wanting to steal her thunder.
I can't help it. . . I have to post a comment. Believe it or not, I am one of Lottie Moon's descendants. My Mom who is still living (will be 80 this week). My mom shared with me the original book which was copy-right written in 1924. She has this original book. . .but than that. . . my Mom's father maintained exacting detailed information about Lottie Moon (who was his Great Aunt). During her last year of life it was most devastating over in China. Apparently, as it is told to me and as I read the original book, she had written and begged for help . . . starving as well as other Missionaries over there in China were as well in bad shape. Apparently had written the Baptist Missions Board (whatever this consisted of back then). . . but there was no help - - - Lottie in desperation wrote her William Luther Andrews (this was the son of Oriana Moon - Lottie's older sister) . . . He ended up apparently sending money and as well speaking in her behalf over here in the States. Not sure but when the Baptist Missions finally realize what dire straits Lottie was in. . . then they decided to provide passage fare to get her back to Virginia where she was from. . . unfortunately she died in route in the harbor of Kobe, Japan on Christmas Eve December 24, 1912. Now can you imagine for her family in Virginia who were anticipating her return to then receive an urn with ashes (as that was the law of Japan) the requirement to cremate. . . She is buried (well the Urn of Ashes I guess) is buried in Crewe, Virginia.
My thought here is why wasn't any of Lottie Moon's descendants contacted for this "Unveiling" and my Mom who is end the second stage of Alzheimer's - - - well when I told her of what the Southwestern Seminary had done - - - she couldn't understand why they would do this - - - - how could it be that they can authenticate this? My mom has several artifacts that may demonstrate (too. . .did any photos survive - - - because one thing is my mom would be able to recognize family members). . . .
Lottie Moon was a woman who was ahead of her time. . . she had to have been a really tough as nails woman to have had the nerve to do what she did. . . Her sister actually went before her (Edmonia) but she fell ill and had to return to Virginia and never went back. Thank you for reviewing my comments here. Linda Moore (Lottie Moon was my Great - Great - Great Aunt)
Tony, I’m curious about why you removed my comments. Besides the jarring effect of reading a series of one-sided responses to unknown remarks, this does not seem to be in keeping with the spirit of free inquiry that you admire so much in your hero.
Hi Ed,
Frankly, I don't remember why I deleted the comments, other than I hurriedly approved them at first and later thought they were over the top for some reason. I don't remember the reason. Feel free to email me at cartledge@baptiststoday.org, remind me what the comments were, and we can discuss further if you like.
Tony
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