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July 02, 2009
Where do Southern Baptists Go From Here?
I have been reading the David Dockery Book on Southern Baptist identity and the future. The essays by Timothy George and Russ Moore were exceptionally interesting and provocative.
Posted by Hunter Baker at 10:11 AM | Permalink
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Hunter Baker: "This is the great question and one that interests me intensely."
Send your question to Albert Mohler, Russell Moore, or Denny Burk and ask for their thoughts.
Posted by: Truth Unites... and Divides | Jul 2, 2009 11:47:46 AM
I'd sure like to see a body, one of whose identifiers is not doing the megachurch thing. On a trip last month, I visited a medium-sized church whose statement of faith seemed sound. When I got there, I thought their faith was in "age-group ministry" over and above (or rather than) in the stuff they so meticulously spell out in their SOF. Age-group ministry is just some "hip" new way of herding people around. But churches sure put their faith in it. It never occurs to them that I, 26yo, might actually like to be around some grandpas. Anyway, that's one identifier I'd vote for...
Posted by: Clifford Simon | Jul 2, 2009 2:30:50 PM
"Age group" ministry flows naturally out of the youth group ministry idea, which itself is a product of the modern culture in which children are taught to be alienated from their parents and have their own "youth" culture. Therefore, trained professionals must be hired who can "relate" to the kids and teach them the Gospel which the parents can't be bothered to do.
Posted by: Christopher Hathaway | Jul 2, 2009 2:43:43 PM
Hunter Baker: "... what part of that is really distinctive today?"
Well, there is one SBC distinctive that prevents it from joining together with other churches who practice otherwise:
Women's Ordination to the office of Elder or Pastor.
(I don't know whether CMA or EFCA ordains women to the Elder/Pastor office. I hope they don't.)
Posted by: Truth Unites... and Divides | Jul 2, 2009 5:44:24 PM
Where do Southern Baptists Go From Here?
Only God knows for sure. But at least they're not a Laodicean church when it comes to the issue of same-sex sin.
"The Southern Baptist Convention's Executive Committee recommended in a unanimous vote Monday afternoon that the denomination cease its relationship with Broadway Baptist Church, a Fort Worth, Texas, congregation that has been the source of controversy over its stance on homosexuality.
At issue is whether the church is in violation of Article III of the SBC Constitution, which states that churches "which act to affirm, approve, or endorse homosexual behavior" are not in friendly cooperation. Broadway Baptist has approximately five open homosexual members, including two male couples, according to church leaders. Some of the homosexuals serve on church committees.
The issue with Broadway Baptist, though, is over a church allowing members who are homosexual and unrepentant.
"If churches are ministering to homosexuals, they are doing nothing more than what our own convention's task force has asked us to do," Wilson told Baptist Press. "But in Broadway's case … the church was in effect saying that it was OK to have members who are open homosexuals."
But Wilson said the church's actions ran counter to what it claimed in the letter.
"[I]t was more from what they were actually doing in practice where the conflict was," Wilson said. "While they didn't officially endorse it, they were allowing members and also people in leadership that were homosexual."
Excerpted from: Southern Baptist EC recommends ceasing relationship with church over homosexuality.
Posted by: Truth Unites... and Divides | Jul 2, 2009 6:14:10 PM
I grew up Southern Baptist and remained an active member of a Southern Baptist church until about ten years, age 40-ish. I am now a member of an Evangelical Free Church.
As far as I can tell, nothing separates these two denominations doctrinally, but there is much separation organizationally and culturally. The E-Free church I attend is more comfortable with the "Bible church" movement and mildly antagonistic toward the SBC, I think mostly because SBC churches still dominate the evangelical landscape here in Houston/Texas. I don't know what it would take to mesh the two organizations, but it would be difficult. And most people from both sides would say, "Why?" "Why are we going to all this effort?" "What are we gaining by becoming one group?"
That said, I wish it could happen. I miss being Southern Baptist, culturally speaking. I miss Lottie Moon and committees that run the church and Vacation Bible School and Glorieta and the Brotherhood Commission (is the last still a going concern?). However, we are enmeshed in our E-free local church family and would not want to leave unless the Lord called loudly and clearly.
Posted by: Sherry Early | Jul 4, 2009 3:03:19 PM
watered down church into which basically everyone is baptized as an infant in favor of a regenerate church model
I fear my last attempt to take issue with this statement may have been misunderstood as calling into question the Christianity of those who withhold baptism from their children. Of course, the key word was "deliberately", by which I meant to underline that for traditional Chritianity, baptism plays a fundamantal regenerative role.
I regard the loss of this understanding as a degeneration and would strongly recommend rethinking this approach.
Posted by: bonobo | Jul 5, 2009 5:01:32 AM
As an example, it is hard for me to understand what would separate Southern Baptists and the Christian & Missionary Alliance from being one body. What would separate those two from a variety of other evangelical denominations (like perhaps the Evangelical Free Church)?
Having come to faith in a Conservative Baptist church (which at the time actually WAS conservative and thus indistinguishable from an SB church), and having spent the majority of the last 12 years in a C&MA church, I too have asked the same question: And in 2006, I entered the Roman Catholic Church.
But this still doesn't keep me from being concerned for true Christian Unity, nor praying daily that all who name Christ as Lord would be one and under one visible head. I was, after all, a Touchstone subscriber long before I was Catholic, tho' it may have played a small role in pushing me across the threshold...
At any rate, I think, Hunter, in order to answer this question, viz., why are various Low Church Evangelical (my term for various fellowships sharing democratic polity, conservative Zwinglian theology, and more or less a-liturgical "worship services") denominations distinct organizations, you have to ask (and answer): What are the Signs of unity? I.e., what would be true, according to Scripture, of a Church that is simultaneously one, holy, catholic, and apostolic?
The Catholic view of Unity rests on communion (inter-communion) and agreement with the Bishop of Rome, which, in this view, are near synonyms. Unity, of course, is more than that, but it is also at least that. And by this merest of measures? Well, AFAIK, SBC-ers , C&MAers, and EFCers (your examples) have open communion and would neither forbid their members from receiving it from one of the other extra-denominational fellowships, nor refuse it to a visitor therefrom. And on the agreement front, whilst they surely fall short of agreement with the Bishop of Rome, they agree almost entirely with each other on essential matters; agreement, in fact, that exceeds the typical AMCatholic priest's agreement with the Bishop of Rome. So by these measures, such unity is already present. Mission accomplished. Do not pass go... do not collect $200...
But clearly Hunter is asking for more, and rightly so. Mere inter-communion plus mere general agreement doesn't pass the smell test: if that's the unity for which Christ prayed, a Oneness like unto that shared by He and the Father, then why'd they bother recording that in John's gospel; and why moreover, have so many for so long, believed it to be so much more? I think the question is really: Why not "institutional" unity? Or for those who consider "institutional" an epithet, what about "organic" unity?
I was and remain skeptical of any progress on this front chiefly because of Low Church Evangelicaldom's own low ecclesiology: Organic unity among the various Low Church seems, to me, not to be taken seriously. "Institutional" is more often than not an actual epithet, and the unity and catholicity professed the creed is really more a mental exercise: that the Church of Christ is one, but only invisibly... and there's no way, I think, to get hence to actual unity (however imperfectly expressed) in the here and now.
And this leads me to my final point: the Church as Sacrament. The hypothetical United Low Polity Evangelical Church ought reflect, however imperfectly, but in time-space actuality the image of that escatological unity they profess. That the Catholic Church is one, despite doubts, dissents, and outright treason among various of her members, is usually taken for granted by Catholics. It is simply the sea in which they swim, and it is often a convert who notices, as it were, a fish who notices he's wet.
So where do Southern Baptists go from here? It remains to be seen whether I'll be proven wrong about their seriousness in resolving genuine unity and catholicity (which they, AFAIK, profess to believe) with their present organizational separation from others who name Christ. Failing that, the unity for which many rightly long may be found in the Church who awaits your return, and suffers every minute you stay away.
Posted by: Steve Nicoloso | Jul 7, 2009 12:54:19 PM
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