A rogue Baptist blogger who moth-balled his website in the wake of scandal has started writing again. Although laughed at and scorned by many, Peter Lumpkins has overtaken the “woke” SBC Voices blog in short order. The feat should not go unnoticed, as people are fed-up with SBC talking points and are hungry for original thoughts and a non-institutional view on denominational news.
Peter Lumpkins had a few rough years. Starting out as a blogger who regularly stuck up for Arminians and the Paige Patterson wing of the SBC, Lumpkins was promoted to an institutional position by Ergun Caner, who he defended vociferously in spite of the evidence against him. Lumpkins hitched his wagon to the wrong star, unfortunately, and Ergun soon resigned from Brewton Parker College under the haze of a sexting and racism scandal. Lumpkins was forced to high-tail it out of Georgia and take refuge with his son-in-law who offered him a church staff position.
After years of relative silence on his once nominally-read blog, Peter Lumpkins is back in all of his blogging glory. He is an old-school blogger and writes in an old-school fashion. With nearly every post TLTR (too long to read) and with meticulously detailed facts (rightly oriented or not), Lumpkins’ writing is a hat-tip to an age of blogging-gone-by. Blogging is now full of shorter, punchier articles that declare victory by quantity (Pulpit & Pen pioneered this style, which has largely overtaken the blogging world and has been duplicated by most currently-successful religion blogs).
In spite of his old-dog, no-new-trick antiquated style, Lumpkins recently came out of nowhere (actually, he is at the institution ran by Ergun Caner’s brother, Truett-McConnell Seminary…and Lumpkins was so far off our radar we didn’t know he ever made it back to Georgia). The folks at SBC Voices, the de facto blog for “regular” SBC pastors, mocked the man from Waco, Georgia.
A lot has changed since Lumpkins left the blogosphere. Patterson’s head was placed on a platter by leftists. Connect316, the “traditionalist” Arminian resistance to Mohler’s takeover self-destructed in panic. The only shadow of that movement left at all is Leighton Flowers, who seems so content to talk about Calvinism he doesn’t have time for any other issue that’s pressing upon the SBC. The Neo-Calvinists have taken over every institution.
The thought from SBC Voices is that Lumpkins would fail to launch, given the environment in the SBC institution. But nothing is further from the truth.
In fact, it appears that SBC Voices, which always provides a pro-institutional SBC viewpoint, is darn-near dead. Although Dave Miller claims the blog had a “record-breaking” year last year, Pulpit & Pen pays careful attention to website analytical tools and has observed SBC Voices in a readership nosedive ever since getting “woke.” The more they write, the fewer readers they have. Dave Miller, who runs the blog, recently wrote an article tossing around the idea of giving it up altogether.
Last week, an SBC Voices contributor ran an article about Peter Lumpkins’ return to blogging and he was subsequently rebuked by other contributors for daring to mention his name. Apparently Peter Lumpkins, like Pulpit & Pen, is Voldemort.
Well, the analytics just came in. In a few short weeks of blogging, Peter Lumpkins has overtaken SBC Voices in readership in U.S. readership (the global rank is slower to catch up).
In the clearest of terms, it’s embarrassing for SBC Voices. Peter Lumpkins’ website, SBC Tomorrow, ranked zero on Alexa web-rank service only weeks ago. It has since zoomed past SBC Voices like it was standing still.
Of course, the likelihood of SBC Tomorrow surpassing Pulpit & Pen (which just surpassed Roman Catholic mega-site, Lifesite News) or Reformation Charlotte (9692) or Capstone Report (28,179) any time soon is slim. But it has some significance that blogs that only reiterate institutional points of view have almost zero viability in the marketplace of ideas.
We do not have to rehash old disagreements with Peter Lumpkins or relive past feuds, as they are all still fresh in the memory. But let it suffice to say that in a day and time of self-censorship, we are happy that alternative voices have any kind of voice at all.
It’s not like the Baptist Press will give them one.
