Southern Baptist Myopia Reflected in Our Response to the Great Commission Resurgence?

A myopia is a condition of nearsightedness where you can see clearly the things that are right in front of you, but things at a distance are blurry. Southern Baptists struggle with this in regard to our spiritual future and I believe that some of this could be reflected in the response to the new document, the Great Commission Resurgence (GCR).

We tend to look backwards well enough, and we also find ways to look at the present critically, but looking forward seems to be a struggle. While the GCR is good and I signed it as a supporter, it seems that Southern Baptists are failing to address the cultural realities that we find ourselves entering and how those realities are presently affecting us now and in the future.

In 2001, I wrote an extensive training manual for small group leadership for our church. It took about two months to write it and it was really good, or so I thought. It had a lot of helpful information and tips and techniques for leading small groups. I set up a training time and took all of our small group leaders through the material. The response was a collective groan. The leaders were thankful for it, but they were not motivated to engage the material or pass it on to others. My mistake was that I did not develop training to equip our leaders for the church that we needed to become, but rather, I developed training for the church that we already were. Our small group leaders knew that they were supposed to do all of the things that I had elaborated on in the manual.  They had already decided if they were going to do these things or not. Nothing that I wrote addressed the issues that they had not already made a decision on and I did not prepare them for the church that we needed to one day become. So, even though it was really good on many levels, the training itself was a failure.

Could that be the future of the GCR? Could the GCR be a good, sound document that is widely agreed upon but ultimately fails in its hoped for goal of reforming the SBC? Is it addressing where Southern Baptists are currently with a nod toward issues that are being bandied about in SBC academia while simultaneously ignoring the implications of the issues that we will be facing in 10 years? Or, even the issues that we are facing now? That could be the case. 

One example is on the issue of racial diversity and multicultural ministry. This is a huge issue in SBC life and one that the vast majority of our churches have no clue how to handle. So, we ignore it. The fact that we were a denomination founded in racism and that we have poorly dealt with social, racial, and economic diversity historically, places us in a difficult position to address these issues in the future. What are we doing to learn how to minister in a multicultural context? How are we repositioning our churches to break down barriers of race, ethnicity, and culture in our evangelism, discipleship, and church experience? As America becomes less and less white (we'll be over 50% minority population by 2040), how are Southern Baptists preparing for this multiethnic future?  

Thankfully, the GCR points out this problem in Article III on loving God and people. It says,

Loving God and loving others means our churches must become more diverse. Southern Baptists were born, in part, out of a racist context and for over a century embraced systemic racism. For far too much of our history we failed to love our neighbors as ourselves, and that will forever be to our shame. By God’s grace and the Spirit’s conviction, we publically repented of this in 1995 on our 150th anniversary, but there is still much work to be done. Until our churches better reflect the diversity we look forward to in heaven, we must labor at gospel-centered racial reconciliation.

I agree with this statement 100%. Anyone reading this blog post could easily say, "Alan, what are you talking about? The GCR addressed racial diversity and our racism right there in Article III. How could the GCR reflect spiritual myopia in this area when it clearly addresses it?"  Good question. Admittedly, the problem is not with what is said. What is said is good and I sincerely hope that this issue is addressed thoroughly. But, for those paying attention, how much discussion have you heard over this issue? Will this be debated in Louisville at the upcoming convention? How many blog posts are being written asking how to address this? Maybe it is considered a given and everyone agrees. I don't think so. I think that we have come to the point where we say these things because we have to and we know that they are true, but we have compartmentalized them in our minds and actions so that we never really do anything about them. Even though the statement has been made and it is accurate, is there a seriousness on the part of the SBC to address this issue? Or, is it just a statement?  I've seen plenty of handwringing asking for specifics as to how we plan to carry out denominational restructuring in Article IX, but zero comment on how to carry out the racial healing implied in Article III. Could it be that we care more about the denominational machinery than we do about holistically living out and proclaiming the true gospel? Should I even ask such a question?

I am not trying to be cynical or distrusting. I believe that intentions are good. I just don't know if we are serious about addressing this issue. Perhaps that is the whole point of the GCR and a lack of focus in addressing these issues is why we are in the mess that we are in. I hope that every point will have an action plan to carry it out and we will not just focus on restructuring the denomination and funneling more money to the denominational structure so that the SBC can survive.

Here is an alarming reality:

In 1971, there were 1,434,892 children ages 6 to 11 in Southern Baptist Sunday schools. By 2007, the last year for which statistics are available, that number had dropped by about 455,000 to 979,429. At the same time, the U.S. population grew by 46 percent (Bob Smietana • THE TENNESSEAN • January 19, 2009).

In other words, the number of Southern Baptist children in Sunday School aged 6 to 11 declined by 32% while the U.S. population grew by 46%. How much of that growth was in an ethnic group other than Caucasian, which makes up the vast majority of Southern Baptist churches? How do our churches desegregate when we don't even know how to talk about the issues that keep us segregated?

Maybe the problem is not with the GCR but the general lack of real discussion and will to address the divisions in our hearts. The GCR points out our lack of diversity as an issue, but if we do not develop real solutions and engage in real repentance (which means real change), then it will just be words on a page that will be harder and harder to see as time goes by, thus resulting in spiritual myopia.

 

Comments

[michael]

Good and necessary post. I was thinking about this other day in regards to the SBC leadership. Until we see multicultural diversity in leadership, we will be spinning our wheels. And I think multicultural will need to include a variety of subcultures as well.

Ultimately, however, when the issue is that we all agree that these things are right, but don't do them. That points to a different issue: disobedience. But I agree that looking forward might help us address issues more freshly, and skip the passive nodding of agreement with little action.

[Bob Cleveland]

Score another one for the guy from Montgomery.

The GCRD is a swell document but as I said on Bart Barber's blog, if the ideas are good then let the various entities involved DO SOMETHING about it. The danger in swell documents is that everyone says "AMEN" and then we think we've actually done something neat. And nothing changes.

Louisville will be interesting. If this thing is brought up to be voted on, and to have a committee appointed to study it, I'm speaking AGAINST it. We've already had enough talk (can you say "Regenerate Church Membership?), particularly in the form of written resolutions.

[Alan Cross]

Good to hear from you, Michael. I hope that you are doing well.

Bob, you too. Hope to see you sometime soon.

Both of you are right. This is a good document, and it constitutes a good start. But, the areas of primary discussion and calls for clarity have been over suggestions that the state conventions and NAMB restructure. On issues like this, which are MUCH more important, there has been dead silence. The GCR statement has even been rewritten a couple of times to address the concerns of the powers-that-be over Article IX while the implications of Article III are passed by without comment.

Telling. Even if everyone just agrees with it, we have agreed with such things for some time now with very little happening in our churches. It is time for action, not just agreement.

[Grady Bauer]

I don't see anything changing because of this document. Let's look at the racial diversity issue. If you look at the church staffs of the SBC leadership...will you see racial diversity. Unless it's a guy pastoring a Spanish church in the fellowship hall on Tuesday night...probably not.

I can only imagine if we walk through issue by issue most of the SBC leader's churches would not be modeling the solutions...only talking about them.

Article VI speaks of missions. Last week the IMB announced a freeze on sending new 2 year personnel. Are the mega churches outraged? Do we see Pastors willing to go without pay so we can keep sending? Do we hear offers of pay cuts....special offerings...increasing giving to make up the difference? We do hear guys looking for alternative ways of funding? No....why?....because we care more about ourselves and our kingdoms then we do about Him and His Kingdom. Until our priorities changes this document will do little more than ease the conscience as we continue to decline.

[John Alexander]

The document fails to address our primary issue: Fundamentalism SBC-style always needs an enemy. Until someone finally realizes the necessity of unity and civil conversation over our differences, people will continue to leave the Convention, and those outside will see no reason to join it.

Someone asked my opinion about the goings-on, and like any hopeless academic, I wrote him a response.

http://web.mac.com/johnalex1/Johns_Start_Page/Response_to_SBC.html

As for the reallocation of Cooperative Program funds, I agree with Dr. Lance. You can find his response at http://www.ricklance.com/; read the May 7 entry, "To Sign or Not to Sign: That Is the Question."

JA